# Messenger of Change



## Zion (May 31, 2011)

_Alright, before we get into this one I feel I should explain it a bit. Forge World recently started looking for a Writer/Rules Dev and part of the application was a writing sample....so I wrote this, had a friend help proof it and sent it in. 

It's likely not perfect but it was my first 40k writing project so I wanted to share it here. Enjoy (or don't)._

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Hastur stepped out of the dark gray cab, the cool evening air chilling the scalp that was hidden under his short head of hair as he handed the man the fare, and adjusted his heavy brown overcoat, slipping his hands into his pockets as he walked away from the cab at a casual pace. As it drove away he watched it, pausing as it rounded a corner some distance away before he began walking in a different direction. 

It hadn't been cheap to have the driver bring him down this far, he had to pay quit a considerable bit extra to take come down into the Underhive, and during it all, wove a tale of looking for a place where he could see some action, maybe gamble some money. While he was sure it'd likely been far faster and cheaper to wield his Rosette like a blade through the local authorities, and come down into the depths of the Hive with a small army of Arbites under his command, but years of experience had led him to believe that things were better handled quietly and with as little fuss as possible.

While murder was not unusual in the depths of a Hive, there was a key fact that had drawn him to the murders: the bodies themselves. Every corpse had a unique symbol torn into their chests, the jagged shapes almost appearing as if someone had created the symbols with their bare hands. Despite each corpse having a different and unique symbol, the nature of how they were done made it easy to see that they were connected, despite being scattered over the entire hive world.

This had drawn the Inquisitor to the hive world of Ingram VI and into the depths of the hives themselves. Days turned into weeks, which had expanded into several months, and he had to run down many dead-ends, but this time, he was confident he'd found the source of the bodies.

Consulting the directions he'd written earlier, he turned down a local alley, and unbuttoned his heavy overcoat. As he walked, he noted that the area seemed unusually empty. There were no signs of life beyond the piles of decaying trash that were strewn about everywhere--not even any sounds, not even in the buildings as he walked past them. With the information he'd dug up, though, the silence didn't surprise him. Much like animals finding shelter from a storm, the locals knew when things had turning bad. There was a feeling in the pit of his stomach, a feeling that anyone who had made the mistake of staying wasn't likely alive. Assured that his information was finally correct, he went deeper into the maze of buildings.

The stench of the rubbish grew continually worse the further he went down the alley. His bearded mouth bent into a tight lipped frown as he made a mental note that he'd need to sterilize his clothes--and himself--when this was over. The thought, however, left his mind almost immediately as he caught the faint iron scent of blood. His mind focused instantly on it as he drew his bolt pistol, the Mauler slipping into a low-ready position as he continued forward.

The scent grew stronger the further he went, following it through intersections and around corners until it led him into an open courtyard nestled between several buildings. As he stepped into the courtyard, he first saw dozens of bodies littered throughout, the familiar looking symbols torn into the chests of many of them.

He moved carefully, stepping over the corpses as he went, turning continually to cover his flank. 

“So, you've finally found me, Inquisitor!” a voice called from a walkway above, deep and loud. Hastur glanced up to see it belonged to a bald man dressed in loose blue robes standing on a walkway above. “If it were not for my master's reassurance, I would have began to think you'd never find me.”

Hastur aimed the pistol at the man, eyes narrowing. “Your words damn you almost as quickly as your actions. What point do these murders even serve?”

“Quite simply, to draw you here. You see, my master wants you to listen like a good dog, but you weren't paying attention, so I was chosen to bring the message to you.” It was impossible to see from where he stood, but Hastur was sure the man was grinning, and it made his blood boil.

“Too bad for your master that I don't want the message.” Hastur fired, rapidly squeezing off several shots, each which hit the man above. The man's body jerked and danced as the explosive rounds tore into his unprotected body. When the Inquisitor stopped firing, the man slumped down, and slid from the catwalk, tumbling down. His body landed hard on the ground, with several cracking sounds, at the Inquistor's feet.

To his amazement, though, the man was still alive and was trying to get up. Despite the bolt pistol being pointed at him, the heretic pushed himself to all fours and began coughing heavily, only stopping when fragments of metal and chunks of flesh came out in a spray of blood. As he wiped the blood from his mouth the man stood, and untied his robe, letting it fall away revealing his pale and naked skin.

Despite the large holes the bolt rounds had torn into the man, the Inquisitor could see that his skin was covered in hundreds of marks, each one a small replica of one of the symbols that had been carved into the bodies. “My master had warned me you'd be resistant to hearing his words. He, of course, was right.”

Hastur kept the Mauler leveled at the man's head, silently praying that a shot to the head would be the thing that would stop the heretic permanently. “And who is your master, heretic?”

“The Great Changer. He has been watching you for sometime, and he is displeased. You've been a persistent thorn in his plans, so I'm here to put you down, like a rabid dog.” The man's mouth continued moving, but the sounds that came out no longer fit the shapes it was making. Thick black smoke began to pour like water from the man's lips and his many wounds as he chanted, the sounds a foul abomination to the Inquisitor's ears.

Hastur fired until the magazine was empty, every round tearing into the heretic, but each new wound hardly shifted the man's body as he stood there, the smoke pouring out of each wound as it was formed. Stowing his pistol in the holster, he drew a small power axe from beneath his coat, and thumbed an activation stud, the blade coming alive with crackling blue energy, its engraved surface, covered in protective wards, began to glow an orange color as the blade encountered the tainted air around him. 

As he approached the heretic, the symbols on the man's body began to glow and the air began to boil around them. This did not slow him though, and he continued forward, bringing the axe above his head, only briefly faltering as the world around them pitched and bucked in waves, but even that would not stop him from ending the heretic's life. The axe arced through the air when he swung, carving a crackling path through the turbulent air that stopped short of its intended target. 

Hastur struggled to free himself from the heretic's iron grip, his wrist trapped by the man’s inhuman strength. The Inquisitor began to repeatedly kick the man, only to have his foot collide with a wall of rapidly expanding flesh that weakened the force of his blows and pushed him off balance for a moment.

Then the heretic's body seemed to explode as pieces of skin flew off of him like bits of rubber that had been stretched too far, the flesh no longer able to contain the monstrous growth his body was performing. Where there had once been standing a tall, bald man now was a massive and unbalanced hunched figure, it's left arm now bloated with thick cords of exposed muscle that rippled as it moved, connecting into the man's twisted and bent body, his back now a massive mound of curved skin that twitched and writhed. The heretic's neck was a long and thin tube of boneless flesh that writhed like a worm from where it jutted forward from there heretic's deformed body, allowing him to bring his face close to the Inquisitor's.

The skin on the creature's face hung loosely, as if there where bones missing in it's face and it waved as it spoke, it's voice no longer the deep baritone but a rasping, grating whisper, “Are these not such splendid gifts? My master has given me the gift of change, and with it the strength I need to crush your body into a fine sacramental wine for him.” Ragged, blood covered clumps of blue feathers quivered in excitement on the beast's body. “It brings me such joy for my master to gift me so. It is because of these gifts that I can show you the true power and majesty of the thing you declare as heresy: Chaos.”

Hastur's lips barely parted as he spoke, his teeth clenched firmly, “Your ‘master’ should have chosen someone smarter to gift those gifts to.” His forehead came down hard on the creature's face, his brow connecting to the soft tissue of what was once the man's nose with a popping sound.

The heretic cried in pain, and with a quick movement, brought the Inquisitor up and snapped his body like a whip. Hastur felt the bones in his arm crack and a feeling of something popping before the sensation that he'd come loose. He slammed into the ground backwards, the impact forcing the air out of him and dazing him. The light headed feeling didn't fade though as he regained his breath and the spinning stopped. As his vision cleared and focused it was quickly evident why.

His hand and wrist that had moments ago been holding the power axe were gone. The ragged, exploded stump that remained throbbed as it spurted blood in regular intervals. Forcing himself to remain calm, he clamped down on the artery in his armpit, squeezing it as tightly as he could manage while trying to crawl further from the creature, stopping between the pained movements to work his belt free.

“Trying to get away, Hastur?” The beast laughed, the rough sound like rocks being ground together, when he saw the Inquisitor froze. “Yes, my master has told me your name. He even told me even more than that. Things like the very heresy that comes with your very name.”

With a hiss of pain, Hastur pulled the belt tight, cinching the blood vessels in his forearm shut. He focused his mind to override the aching pressure that he could feel in his arm, separating it and the tingling in the stump began to go numb with a single thought: the heretic must die here. It was too dangerous to allow him the chance to escape and spread his taint further.

The beast waddled towards the prone man, its massive hunched back and massive arm straining it's unaltered legs at it moved. “Perhaps you don't know this, Inquisitor, but your very name taints your actions with the same heresy you despise. That name you carry with you isn't one of some proud Imperial saint, or even a lowly beggar. It is one of an ancient deity from long ago, a deity that despised it's own name. And it's because of this small truth that everyone who speaks your very name brings that taint of false religion on their souls. You sow the seeds of heresy in your daily life, carrying it with you everywhere you go.”

Hastur tried to crawl further away, to buy a few more moments to form a plan but he was not fast enough to keep ahead of the lumbering beast though, the massive arm snatching him by the ankle and dragging him backwards and then into the air, bringing his face up to eye level with the heretic, the now lifeless black pits staring at the Inquisitor's eyes “How does that make you feel, Inquisitor? To know that every time someone speaks your name, you damn them with the taint of the very heresy you abhor?”

The Inquisitor spat in the beast's face in response, grabbing his pearl-handled folding knife from his inner jacket pocket as the creature wiped the spittle from it's face with its free hand, the thin, unchanged arm looking out of place against its massive body. “The only thing I feel is the Emperor's righteous fury and the never ending hatred of heretics like you.” The knife flashed out and sliced, tearing a deep wound open in the side of the creature's writhing neck. It howled in pain, dropping the man as it tried to protect the injury and it's neck from further attacks. Hastur was ready for the drop though and braced himself, rolling with the impact as he landed, coming to his feet and quickly lashing out with his knife again, this time catching the creature's exposed muscle, severing a thick bundle of muscle fiber in it's wrist, turning it's massive hand useless.

The fury of the Emperor poured through him now, driving him onward as he stabbed in an overhanded motion, thrusting the knife deep into the heretic's shoulder. The creature knocked the man away, trying to wield it's large arm as a club now that it could no longer seize and crush the Inquisitor.

“You only delay the inevitable, Inquisitor!” The creature was wheezing now, the blood foaming as it came out its neck as it shouted, “My master blessed me with his protection, the seals on my skin consecrated with the blood of those who I killed in his name! They heal me from any injury! You cannot hope to beat me with one arm and a pocket knife!”

Hastur pulled himself to his feet from the body he had landed on, and briefly looked around, spotting where his power axe had fallen when he had been forcibly disarmed. “Your skin, heretic? How can you say you’re protected by your master, when his very gifts robbed you of the very skin that protected you?” He circled the beast in a calm and slow manner as it tried to shuffle towards him, the massive arm hanging low now, its elbow the only thing still working to keep the hand from dragging on the corpse-littered ground, the knife having severed the shoulder muscle almost completely. He had wounded the beast badly, now it was time to finish the task.

“You lie, Inquisitor. My master wouldn't betray me so. He still protects me with his blessing.” The beast coughed, blood spraying out of it's mouth and dribbling down it's face at it spoke.

“An Inquisitor never lies, for it is their job to uncover the truth,” he stated as he bent down and seized the axe, thumbing the activation stud. He'd never been as good with his off-hand with the axe, but he was confident that it would be more than enough to finish the creature. “And having heard your confessions of consorting with chaos, conspiring to kill an Inquistor and the sacrifice of your fellow citizens to the ruinous powers, I deem you Heretic and sentence you to death. May your ‘master’ have more mercy on you than I.” Hastur spat the last sentence out as he closed in on the creature, the rage he felt apparent in his eyes. The axe met no resistance this time, cleanly carving through the creature's arm as it swung to block his attack.

Again and again he swung, each blow carving into the beast's flesh. It howled in frustration and pain each time the Inquisitor's warded blade found its way into its body. The beast fell to its knees as its blood vessels violently sprayed blood from its wounds in large spurts, the cry of pain becoming strangled. The Inquisitor did not stop though, and drove his boot squarely into the creature's chest, knocking it onto its misshapen back. The final blow came as the axe found home in the creature's neck, the power field tearing through the flesh, allowing the blade through in a single, bloody swing. 

Panting, he stumbled away from the creature's corpse in short, jerky steps. With the adrenaline wearing off, his body began to complain loudly of the injuries it'd sustained. The fractured bones, the loss of his hand, and the multitudes of bruises all over were all crying out loudly for him to take notice.

But to his mind, these complaints were all as far away as his shower was. Instead, his thoughts were on the creature's words about who its master was as he looked back at the corpse. “The Changer, huh? Well if he wants to attract the attention of the Inquisition, he's done it. If he wants me dead, he'll need to send something better than you.” He spat on the creature's corpse, “May the Warp take you.”

His words received no reply, but he could feel what it was inside of himself anyway. There would be more coming, always more. For Chaos' minions were uncountable, and it had an eternity to work with, while he only had a short mortal life to drive the darkness back. It was that fact that burned inside of him as he walked away from the courtyard.

He did take a small bit of solace in one small fact, though: the Arbites would get the prestigious honor of cleaning up the mess. Despite the pain racking his body, and the weight on his mind, that made him smile, if only a little.


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

I enjoyed it.

The loss of the cultists skin was a good concept.


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## Zion (May 31, 2011)

Dave T Hobbit said:


> I enjoyed it.
> 
> The loss of the cultists skin was a good concept.


I'm glad you did. I liked that idea too. I'm not going to over-explain it (because it ruins things for me when people do that) but yeah, I like how it worked.


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

Well you said to be as detailed as I pleased, so I'll give you my thoughts as I read the story.


Zion said:


> Hastur stepped out of the dark gray cab, the cool evening air chilling the scalp that was hidden under his short head of hair as he handed the man the fare, and adjusted his heavy brown overcoat, slipping his hands into his pockets as he walked away from the cab at a casual pace.


Way too long and complicated of a sentence to start a story. It's a big mouthful, and while the vivid imagery is effective, breaking it up would make it more manageable and attention-grabbing.



Zion said:


> pay quit a considerable bit extra


This seems a bit worded, maybe just "pay considerably extra"

Something I'm seeing pop up is the use of contractions, I know some disagree with me on this but I'm staunchly opposed to using them outside of dialogue, as it makes the writing seem casual.

I'll get less nitpicky and just read now lol.



Zion said:


> he clamped down on the artery in his armpit, squeezing it as tightly as he could manage while trying to crawl further from the creature, stopping between the pained movements to work his belt free.


Ah, I recognize CLS training on pressure points and tourniquets haha, good little detail.

Finished now, and overall thoughts:

There were numerous occasions where there were fairly minor grammatical errors. While on a fanfic forum this is acceptable, FW probably latched onto those errors while reading through it. If you need something professionally submitted in the future, I'd be more than happy to loan you my services (and I've done so for several folks for BL submissions). None of the errors detracted from the story itself, but still, it warranted mentioning.

I found the ongoing transformation of the cultist (until his rather violent end) quite engaging and enjoyable, with effective description that gave a full picture without being overly elaborate. I especially liked the concept of the Inquisitor inadvertently spreading Heresy, whether it was actually the case or simply the cultist's attempts at corrupting him with lies.

All in all, a good read, and significantly shorter than many of your other posts to boot  Thanks for sharing, mate!


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## Zion (May 31, 2011)

Boc said:


> Well you said to be as detailed as I pleased, so I'll give you my thoughts as I read the story.


Completely fair since I asked for it. 



Boc said:


> Way too long and complicated of a sentence to start a story. It's a big mouthful, and while the vivid imagery is effective, breaking it up would make it more manageable and attention-grabbing.


Good point there, I do need to work on keeping my sentences more "bite-sized".



Boc said:


> This seems a bit worded, maybe just "pay considerably extra"


Case in point.



Boc said:


> Something I'm seeing pop up is the use of contractions, I know some disagree with me on this but I'm staunchly opposed to using them outside of dialogue, as it makes the writing seem casual.


Fair enough. I won't fight you on this on as it's a matter of taste, I think avoiding them too much can make the writing too formal and textbookish, but that's just an opinion too.



Boc said:


> I'll get less nitpicky and just read now lol.


Either there was too much to comment about and you gave up, or it was interesting enough for you to skip past it. 



Boc said:


> Ah, I recognize CLS training on pressure points and tourniquets haha, good little detail.


Well general first aid, but yeah, basically the same thing. I was rather proud of that little bit too since I'm actually treating him like a human, not some kind of superhero who magically stops bleeding despite the fact part of his arm just got ripped off.



Boc said:


> Finished now, and overall thoughts:
> 
> There were numerous occasions where there were fairly minor grammatical errors. While on a fanfic forum this is acceptable, FW probably latched onto those errors while reading through it. If you need something professionally submitted in the future, I'd be more than happy to loan you my services (and I've done so for several folks for BL submissions). None of the errors detracted from the story itself, but still, it warranted mentioning.


Fair point, and I appreciate the offer. GW actually eliminated me early on because of my lack of professional experience, but if I'd gotten further the grammar might have done it instead so it's still a fair thing to call me out on.



Boc said:


> I found the ongoing transformation of the cultist (until his rather violent end) quite engaging and enjoyable, with effective description that gave a full picture without being overly elaborate. I especially liked the concept of the Inquisitor inadvertently spreading Heresy, whether it was actually the case or simply the cultist's attempts at corrupting him with lies.


Hastur is actually a Lovecraft reference (speaking his name three times gets him to show up and kill the speaker AND everyone who heard the name. He's kind of sensitive like that), but the god is fictional so you can take that either way. It could even be some Tzeentchian truth-twisting too. 

I'm glad the way the cultist changed and mutated worked so well. To be honest, that was my biggest concern when I wrote this. 



Boc said:


> All in all, a good read, and significantly shorter than many of your other posts to boot  Thanks for sharing, mate!


Glad you enjoyed it!


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