Time was like a Greater Daemon of Khorne-blessed cow; once it started running, there was no stopping it.
A month slowly drifted by since the Primarchs' inspection.
During this month, the players hadn't been idle in the slightest.
The renovation of Kent Hive advanced with terrifying efficiency, while another highly classified operation was proceeding concurrently.
Every few days, a convoy of transport vehicles bearing the Crimson Dawn emblem would carry a payload of special strategic supplies across the scorched ruins, heading directly toward the City of the Holy Anthem.
The manifest read:
[Enhanced Edition - Cigarettes] x 600 Crates
Note: Tobacco blend infused with trace extracts of calming herbs. Tested to effectively mitigate post-combat stress responses in Astartes and improve battlefield focus by 23%.
[Enhanced Edition - Alcohol] x 400 Barrels
Note: Distilled spirit infused with purified botanical essence. Alcohol purity 96%. Every 100ml consumed provides the caloric equivalent of 3.5 standard nutrient pastes.
Upon arriving at the front lines in the City of the Holy Anthem, these supplies instantly became the absolute favorite downtime rations for the warriors of all four Legions, including the Iron Warriors.
But the true cultural export began with a simple deck of playing cards, introduced by a player with a truly bizarre mind: [The Last God of Gamblers of the Imperium of Man].
"Pair of threes."
"Pass."
"Joker Bomb!"
In a makeshift rest area cleared out in the upper hive of the City of the Holy Anthem, three Blood Angels Astartes sat around an ammunition crate.
Their pauldrons were still stained with purplish-blue daemon blood, and their chainswords leaned against their legs. Yet, at this exact moment, three pairs of power-armored hands were delicately pinching thin pieces of cardboard.
The cards were marked with hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs, alongside characters ranging from A to K.
"Captain Marius, didn't you just say a Joker Bomb is the highest hand?" a young warrior asked, staring in sheer confusion at the two cards left in his hand. "Then why, right after I played a pair of threes, did Captain Tobias immediately throw down both Jokers?"
Marius Gage, Captain of the Ultramarines First Company, was squatting nearby, observing the tutorial. He couldn't help but rub his forehead.
"Because the rules state..." he tried to explain.
"Because Captain Tobias is playing blind," an amused voice interjected.
[The Last God of Gamblers of the Imperium of Man], the player with the flamboyant ID, was sitting cross-legged on a chunk of ferrocrete rubble nearby, holding a deck of cards himself.
He wore the grey uniform of a Crimson Dawn technician, the emblem pinned to his chest, and his face was currently contorted in an effort to hold back laughter.
"Listen closely," the God of Gamblers cleared his throat. "The very essence of Fight the Landlord is that you never know what cards your partner is holding. Just like you never know what the hell is going to crawl out of a Warp rift next." (TL/N: Fight the Landlord is an asymmetric, poker-style climbing game where two cooperating "Farmers" must coordinate their hands to outplay a single, advantaged "Landlord" in a race to shed all their cards first using strategic combos, straights, and game-changing "bombs.")
He stood up, walked into the middle of the three Astartes, and began re-explaining the rules.
"Three consecutive pairs. That's a 'sister pair'."
"Three of a kind with an attached single or pair. That's an 'airplane'."
"Four of a kind. That's a 'bomb'."
"Two Jokers. That's a 'Joker Bomb'. It nukes everything, but you have to actually play it at the right time!"
Tobias Fane, Captain of the Blood Angels Second Company, wore a rare look of absolute embarrassment on his usually stern face.
"I just... wanted to see what would happen if I played the Joker Bomb early," he defended himself.
"And then you discovered that you're left holding a handful of threes and fours, while the other side still hasn't played their two regular bombs," the God of Gamblers shook his head. "On the card table, Captain, we call that a suicide bomber."
The surrounding Blood Angels let out suppressed chuckles.
Tobias glared at them, and the laughter instantly died.
But the God of Gamblers wasn't scared.
He was a player. He could respawn. What did he have to fear? (TL/N: Gambler Alright)
"Another round?" the God of Gamblers asked with a grin.
"Deal."
Tobias re-shuffled the deck. His movements had progressed from incredibly clumsy at the start to a point where he could now cut, shuffle, and deal an entire deck in under three seconds.
The superhuman learning capacity of the Astartes was on full display, even when applied to playing cards.
This card-playing tutorial reached its absolute zenith a week later.
On that day, the God of Gamblers was summoned to the temporary command center in the mid-hive of the City of the Holy Anthem.
When he walked into the command post—which had been retrofitted from a half-collapsed noble estate—he saw three figures.
Sanguinius sat in a temporarily acquired high-backed chair, his pristine white wings folded behind him. He held several cards in his hand, his brow slightly furrowed.
Guilliman stood beside him, his ice-blue eyes fixed on the cards scattered across the table, his fingers unconsciously tapping his sword hilt.
Ferrus sat opposite them. His silver-grey power armor glinted coldly under the dim lumens, and his metallic faceplate was currently raised halfway, exposing the lower half of his face. He also held cards, though his gaze kept darting toward a printed rulebook sitting on the table.
"Arceus Tomiriel."
Guilliman looked up at the player who had just walked in. "My sons tell me you are an expert in this... 'poker' game."
The God of Gamblers' heart hammered in his chest.
Holy shit... The Regent of the Second Imperium, Guilliman, is right in front of me.
He forced himself to calm down, pounding his right fist against his left breastplate. "Lord Guilliman, Lord Sanguinius, Lord Ferrus. Yes, I know a thing or two."
"Excellent." Sanguinius offered a warm, flawless smile. "Then please, sit. The three of us were just attempting to comprehend the rules of this game... but there seem to be some discrepancies in the details."
The God of Gamblers sat down on an empty chair, trembling slightly.
He glanced at the game state on the table. Guilliman was holding four twos—an incredible hand. Sanguinius's hand was incredibly well-organized, but lacked any crucial high cards.
Ferrus... Ferrus was holding a pile of completely disjointed garbage, ranging from threes to tens, without a single card higher than an Ace.
It was a hand so catastrophically terrible that the Emperor Himself couldn't have salvaged it.
"Firstly, regarding the definition of a 'straight'," Guilliman began, his voice purely logical. "The rules state that five or more cards of consecutive numbers form a straight. But the problem is this: if I have a three, four, five, six, and seven, that is a straight. Therefore, if I have a three, four, five, six, seven, and eight, that is six consecutive cards. Does that count as one longer straight, or must it be split into two separate straights?"
The God of Gamblers: "..."
Are you treating this like a mathematical thesis?
"It counts as one longer straight, my lord," the God of Gamblers answered. "Furthermore, longer straights are much harder to counter."
"Understood." Guilliman nodded. "Then my second question..."
For the next ten minutes, the God of Gamblers experienced the epically daunting task of explaining the rules of Fight the Landlord to three Primarchs.
Guilliman's questions focused heavily on rule logic and probability calculations.
Sanguinius was far more interested in the psychological warfare and overarching strategy.
Ferrus... Ferrus asked the most pragmatic question of all: "What is the tear resistance threshold of this cardstock material? Is it prone to damage in a battlefield environment?"
The God of Gamblers answered them all, one by one.
Finally, Guilliman said, "Then let us play a live round. Sanguinius and I will be the Peasants." Guilliman looked at Ferrus. "You will be the Landlord."
Ferrus looked silently at the disjointed mess of cards in his hand, and then at the three remaining cards sitting face-down on the table—the "blind."
Those three cards had been revealed to be two Kings and an Ace.
If he picked them up, he could assemble a pair of Kings with an extra single King, plus a single Ace.
The problem was, his current hand didn't even have a single pair.
"...Acceptable." Ferrus finally said, reaching out to take the blind.
Sitting on the sidelines watching the match, the God of Gamblers shook his head helplessly. To take the Landlord role with a trash hand like that...
He watched as Guilliman utilized his terrifying processing power to plan his card sequences. Every single play was like commanding a micro-campaign.
Sanguinius, on the other hand, relied far more on intuition. He would suddenly throw down a seemingly illogical card at key moments, completely disrupting Ferrus's rhythm.
And Ferrus... Ferrus's hand was still absolute garbage even after taking the blind.
Yet, he played with incredible tenacity. Every play was like the defensive doctrines of the Iron Hands Legion, using the absolute minimum resources to stall for the maximum amount of time.
Ultimately, the round ended in victory for Guilliman and Sanguinius.
Ferrus set down his final three cards. They were a three, a six, and a seven.
"I have lost." The Master of the Iron Hands' voice betrayed no emotion.
"But you dragged the game out for fifteen rounds despite a severe resource disadvantage," Guilliman evaluated fairly. "Such resilience is commendable."
And so, under the tutelage of the God of Gamblers, the Primarchs played a few more rounds of Fight the Landlord. The God of Gamblers even had the honor of participating in one of the matches.
Over half an hour later, Sanguinius had fully mastered the rules. He chuckled softly. "A highly amusing game. It requires calculation, intuition... and a touch of luck."
Guilliman nodded. "Regularly playing games such as this will marginally improve the reaction times and cognitive processing capabilities of our sons. Across the scale of an entire Legion, that significance cannot be understated."
He looked at the God of Gamblers. "Arceus, you have done well. As a reward..."
Guilliman unclasped an emblem from his waist. It was a griffon crest carved from Macraggian snow-mountain sapphire, gleaming with a warm luster under the lumens.
"This was a gift bestowed upon me by a Consul," Guilliman handed the emblem to the God of Gamblers. "Now, it belongs to you."
Sanguinius also produced a delicate pendant. It was a winged motif inlaid with Baalite rubies.
"May this pendant bring you luck akin to the angels."
The God of Gamblers accepted them with both hands, his fingers trembling with excitement.
Ferrus remained silent for a moment before fishing a metal plate from a storage compartment on his power armor.
It was a sample of some sort of alloy, its surface etched with complex molecular structures.
"A composite armor sample of the Iron Hands Legion," Ferrus stated briefly. "It may prove useful to your Crimson Dawn's technological research."
"T-Thank you, Lord Ferrus!" The God of Gamblers said.
When he left the command post clutching the three Primarchs' gifts, his feet felt like they were floating.
When [The Last God of Gamblers of the Imperium of Man] returned to Kent Hive and recounted the entire event in the regional chat, the channel instantly detonated.