So... Let's Get Acquainted With The Functions Of This Place, Everything Seems To Work ... Ahem!

So... Let's get acquainted with the functions of this place, everything seems to work ... Ahem!

Yes, it is small, but the first post (or what is it called here - a record?).

I would like to warn you right away that I don't know much English. Maybe it complicates everything, but I will try to do everything more or less... Although, maybe everything will be fine and I will be understood. I don't know. :D

I will say something else - I am an artist (not strong, but there is something in this), I write some small stories or plots a little, but this is usually when there is someone with whom. True, I can "talk" a lot too much, but this is no longer so fixable, especially since they won't trample me into a puddle here.

Oh, yeah... I will sometimes show some of my work or small sketches here, maybe something big in terms of detail or something like that. I hope those who stumble upon me will be interested to see what happens.

A Dance with Death, a Warhammer Short

Based on the results of the following series of polls

A shadow blitz through the streets of a city. A multicolored blur bouncing from hab block corner to back alley without so much of a stumble or stop for breath. For the odd ganger or beggar on the quiet streets during the dead of this smoggy night, all they witness is a sudden breeze that at most catches them off guard for the nanosecond it blows past their ears. All unaware of the hand of death that just barely graced their pale skin.

The masked figure stifled a cough. He wasn’t used to the dank land that the monkeigh called “Hive Naraka-Beta.” Only such barbaric people would willingly settle a world inhabitable to their very being, and only such a stupid race would call the megacities of the world A, B, C, and so on.

“Almost there, Caerdor.” The assassin whispered to himself, the curved blade of his shrieker cannon cleaning cut a knick into a metal wall as he passed another alley.

A flash of blonde appeared in front of the leaping shadow. The target. With one crack and a quiet chuckle, a woman’s body collapsed to the ground, her head vanishing with a black and pink blur.

Caerdor landed on a nearby rooftop with a grace only an aeldari harlequin could perform. “You Chaos fools always make this simple enough” He sighed, his grinning face hidden by his Agaith false-face.

Gripping the severed head by her hair, he raised the target's dead, red eyes to his mask’s visor. The left side of his mask held the image of a fleshy-pink skull.

After a few seconds of a silent staring contest, Caerdor tossed the head over the edge of the building. “Bloody body doubles.”

High above the crime filled city, two women overlooked a gang shoot out from an air-locked balcony. Both pale, one a brunette, the other blonde.

“I feel so much restraint being forced to watch the violence of my city from here.” The brunette sighed as she twirled a knife between her fingers. Her white dress was bare and boring for someone of her standing, the only decoration being a few dull red stains scattered around the dress.

“Well, Lady Idris Brele, if you help my organization, you can be the one down there.”

“Your little club sounds too good to be true, Vera.”

Vera chuckled. “No salesman would tell a potential buyer the cons of their products out the gate. But I’m not a salesman. I’ll tell you everything you need to know about my organization and our current plans, both the good and the bad. If you don’t like it, I will leave and we can both pretend this meeting never happened. If you are interested, we can continue our discussion at my place. Sounds like a deal?” She stuck out her hand.

Idris took a second to think about it shortly before taking Vera’s hand. “Deal.”

On a rooftop over, a green glint focused on the blond target. “Just one more second.”

“Khiladi.” A familiar voice interrupted the sniper’s work as a gun barrel was placed against her copper skull.

“Caerdor.” She laughed. “How’s my favorite clown doing?”

The titular clown responded by slamming his boot into the back of Khiladi’s head, her still, copper face smashing into the concrete roof with a crack. “Why are you here, deathmark?”

“Same reason you’re here, death jester.” The necron groaned. “Killing a chaos champion.”

Caerdor glanced in the direction Khiladi was aiming her rifle at. “Why didn’t you shoot her then?”

“I was checking to see if she was a body double or not, leaf lover boy. Something you weren’t doing.”

“So what, they’re all chaos followers. And I’m no longer an exodite.”

“It doesn’t matter if you trade out the dragon cloak for a clown mask, your old uniform made your ass look perfect.” Khiladi laughed.

Caerdor's mask hid his blushing.

“As for holding my shot,” she continued, “your mindless slaughtering has only alerted the cult that someone wants the boss dead.”

“Who cares? Only weak cowards use body doubles, I doubt whatever warriors they have will stop me.”

“Unlike you,” Khiladi sat up, “I’ve been paying attention to what these cultists are doing. We’re dealing with the Disciples of the First Prince, mortals and neverborn of all four marks fighting side-by-side in unison. And the target isn’t using body doubles because she’s scared of death. The one they call Bloodfly is everywhere, pulling hundreds of strings all at once. Sure, if you kill enough pale blondes, you’ll get her. But they’ve adapted with every head lost. If anything, thigh highs, the only thing you managed to do is make my job harder!”

“Good!”

“At least you’re hot.”

“By Cegorach, why do I have the only necron with a sex drive following me around?”

“You know you love it.” Khiladi’s still face produced a giggle-like sound.

Caerdor sighed, silently thanking the gods that he was wearing a mask.

“Now, unless you want to have fun right now, please get off me so I can get back to work.” The necron’s one green eye focused on a red glint that sparked on a rooftop behind the clown.

“First tell me how you’re telling these monkeigh apart.”

Khiladi shoved Caerdor off of her. “In a minute!” She shouted before vanishing.

As Caerdor collapsed to the ground, cursing the deathmark’s name, he watched a solid red beam fly pass him.. The beam barely missed, breaking a clean hole through the lip of the building’s roof. He caught his footing, sprinting behind the roof access for cover. Khiladi reappeared right next to him.

“Told you were making a mess of things!”

“By Khaine what was that?”

“It was a human weapon called a lascannon! I knew you were going to attract assassins, but a bloody anti-tank weapon?”

Caerdor poked his head around the wall, before ducking back as another red streak flew past.

Three eyes followed the red blast, the beam streaking past the skyscraper that the body double was in. Khiladi got a ding in her mind, a confirmation that the so-called double wasn’t a double. Her vision zoomed in, right onto the woman’s grinning face.

“I have an idea.”

“What is it?”

“Distract them!”

“Wait what?” Caerdor tried to stop Khiladi, but she was already gone, and he was instead greeted by a third lascannon shot.

A lone astartes adjusted his aim. The large cannon, heavy even by space marine standards, sat awkwardly on his teal shoulder pauldron, the wiring connecting directly into his shadow-black helmet replacing any need for a scope. A husky voice relays through his vox, confirming that the target is still behind the entrance to the building, but that his accomplice has vanished. One eye focused on the auspex, confirming that he was the only one on the rooftop of the tower he stood on. The second adjusted the aim of his lascannon.

The marine silently questioned why he was ordered to use a lascannon specifically. It was a powerful weapon, certainly able to kill an eldar in a single shot, but it’s not an appropriate weapon. The xeno race was fast, never seemingly able to hold still for a second. A single-shot, low fire rate weapon was not a good weapon to take out such a quick bugger.

He caught a glimpse of the clown’s mask as he poked his head around the corner, before ducking back. The xeno was testing, measuring shots to figure out his location. Clever. All he had to do was hold his shot until he could hundred percent confirm a hit. Slaanesh will feed well tonight.

The auspex flashed a dot on the scanner. There was a second being on the roof with the space marine. He turned, and was met with the glowing green of a synaptic disintegrator.

Caerdor jumped as Khiladi reappeared next to him, heaving an ash covered shoulder-mounted cannon.

“Good distraction.”

“What are you doing?”

“Killing our target.”

The coils of the cannon glowed red, before sending a beam of red light straight towards the grinning target, the cannon itself flying out of Khiladi’s hands.

The beam hit on target, the resulting blast sending red hot glass shards and rebar falling to the city below, likely landing on some unlucky plebs.

As the dust settled, the two xeno assassins were able to make out the woman, now missing the right side of her torso and arm, collapse to the floor.

“Mission accomplished.” Khiladi giggled.

“But I didn’t kill her.” Caerdor pouted.

“Dead is dead. You got the kill last time.”

“Why do we always get the same target?”

“Maybe someone above us finds this funny, clown boy toy.”

Caerdor was about to shoot back at the necron, but was interrupted by the sound of cracking and buzzing.

The target was slowly approaching the death jester and deathmark, a pair of crimson insect wings letting her fly over the gap between the skyscrapers. Moss and vines curled over her wounds, slowly stitching her body back together.

“Grandfather Nurgle finds your plight hilarious.” She laughed. “Though Prince Be'lakor finds you two annoying.”

Both assassins opened fire on the flying chaos lord. Shrieker cannon rounds and synaptic disintegrator blasts filled the air of where she was, but for a diseased corpse with wings she was fast.

With a heavy thud, the winged woman landed directly on top of Khiladi. With a clawed talon wrapping around her throat, her head was slammed into the roof, a crack forming in both the concrete and the metal skull.

Caerdor swung the bladed end of his cannon, the lord catching the blade in her hand.

“Thank you for aiding my plans.” She growled, ripping the cannon out of Caerdor’s hand. “There’s a supernatural serial killer in Naraka-Beta, and more and more people are looking for someone to protect them.”

“How many body doubles have you killed?” Khiladi asked.

Caerdor threw a punch, which was caught in the beast’s other talon.

“Since landing on Naraka three days ago, your pointy-eared friend has killed fifty two of my non-mutated kin.” The beast grinned. “Thirty six were female and only seventeen even resembled by disguise.”

Caerdor felt the green orb Khiladi called an eye glare at him. “They’re Chaos cultists.”

“Only twenty-five are tied to my cult.”

“It’s good that you’re hot.” Khiladi groaned, her voice muffled by the clawed foot covering her mouth.

“Oh, so now you care about monkeigh?”

“I just know how to be subtle, and everyone I killed is tied to the cult.”

The necron was silenced by the talon gripping her skull and slamming it into the concrete roof again. Following suit was the aeldari being thrown down next to her, the lord’s free talon quickly wrapping around his throat.

Two pairs of arms tried to fight off the dark wood talons with little success. Caerdor struggled to breath in the iron grip while Khiladi was blinded from the talon pushing into her ocular unit.

“As much as I want to KILL you two right now, and I want to kill you soooo badly~ That! Fucking! Hurt!” She slammed Khiladi’s skull with each word. “Buuuut I have some ideas~ Some lovely, torturous, ideas.”

Caerdor struggled to breath. His sore, oxygen deprived arm collapsed from numbness as vision faded, bumping into the now-still body of the assassin he’s cursed to somehow always run into. Somehow, ever since he was an exodite and into his joining of the Masque of the Reaper’s Mirth, this flirty, Ogdobekh deathmark has followed him, fate always putting them into a position where killing each other is the dumb move. Thousands of orks, space marines, daemons, and tryanids have fallen to their hands in the past centuries, and he would be lying if he said he’s happy to see this member of his race’s eternal rival die.

As his vision faded to black, a memory flooded his mind. A shirtless Caerdor sat hunched over, the corpses of orks surrounding him.

“Ow! Watch it!”

“I lost my skin before your species touched the stars.” Khiladi sighed, her skeletal fingers carefully using a needle to stitch a wound on Caerdor’s back. “I’m doing the best I can.”

“I know.”

The two sat in silence, the only sound between the two being the whirling of Khiladi’s servos and the dripping of Caerdor’s blood.

“Necron.” Caerdor broke the silence.

“Thigh-highs.” Khiladi answered.

“Why did you do this?”

“What? Safing your life or fixing your wounds?”

“Both. You could’ve left me for dead or finished me off, but you helped me.”

Khiladi was silent.

“You don’t know why, do you?”

“My overlord hasn’t ordered your death, so I have no reason to kill you.”

“We’ve been running into each other for centuries, and we’ve always been put into situations where we are fighting the same enemy. Today is the first time where you could easily walk away and just leave me bleeding out with a knife in my back.”

“I wouldn’t call the hunk of metal that was sticking out of your spine a knife.”

“I’m serious!”

“I don’t know. Maybe I just like you.”

“It can’t be that simple!” Caerdor turned to face Khiladi, who just finished stitching the wound.

“It could be!” She defended. “You know how hard it is to have friends as a necron assassin! The only person in my entire species I can talk to is my Overlord! It’s like if the only other eldar you can have a conversation with is that damned clown you call a god!”

“Is that why you helped me? You consider me to be a f-friend?”

Khiladi produced a sighing noise and laid down in the grass. “My flesh, blood, and soul was taken to fight a war that only worsened the galaxy and everyone involved. My sole purpose is to be the unquestioning assassin for a noble who’s sanity is barely holding on by a thread and rules a nation of mindless automata. If having a conversation every once in a while with a thin waist flesh bag like you is the only thing keeping me sane, then I don’t care.”

“So… What would happen if your overlord ordered my death?”

“They're unlikely to put out a hit for a sole death jester, but…”

“There’s nothing you can do?”

Khiladi was quiet. Caerdor knew she would be crying if she physically could.

He laid down next to her. “Let’s make a promise. The only way for one of us to die is by the other’s hand.”

“How is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“If either of us are in danger, the other has to save them. The only way for either of us to die a true death is from the other.”

Khiladi giggled. “Ok. Caerdor of the Masque of the Reaper’s Mirth, by the Nightbringer I will be the one to kill you.”

Caerdor grinned. “Khiladi of the Ogdobekh Dynasty, I swear to Cegorach and Isha that I will be the one to kill you.”

His eyes snapped open, his mind returning to the present. The clawed talons of the winged chaos lord were slowly tearing into his throat. With the last of strength, his fingertips felt something. A rifle. Khiladi’s disintegrator.

Blinded from a lack of oxygen, he grabbed the rifle and fired.

The talon released his throat, the chaos beast collapsing with a screech of pain. Caerdor had shot the leg that gripped Khiladi’s head, the plant limb slowly crumbling to ash, struggling to regrow from the burnt stump.

Lightheaded, Caerdor struggled to his feet. With each heavy step, he fired another synaptic blasting into the mutant, its flesh melting into a pile of ash. With each shot, the creature roared with deafening screeches, pleading to dark powers to save her. A shot to the mouth silenced her, blasting the headless corpse over the edge of the building, only to rain ash on whatever's down there.

“Ni-ce s-shot.” Khiladi stuttered, her necrodermis slowly repairing her damaged skull.

“Thanks.” Caerdor huffed, collapsing to the floor.

“What do you think of my prototype, Lord Iska?” A chitinous creature hissed as she perched on a nearby spire top, a pair of crimson wings buzzing with each word.

“A fine specimen, Mara.” A second creature with crimson wings hissed back, this one wearing a suit of black armor with silver trim, though his shoulder pads bore a teal that matched the color of his partner’s chitin. The glowing green eyes of the tusked helm met with the glowing green of his partner’s horned mask. “Though I am not a fan of her zealotry to Nurglith.”

“It’s difficult to create daemonkin who aren’t zealots. It doesn’t help that we had to stuff a rot fly to where her soul used to be to get functioning wings.”

“It’s a prototype, it’ll take time to perfect it.”

“May I suggest a base creature other than human?”

“Like eldar?”

“There’s one right there.”

“Not yet. I suggest we lie in wait, make the xeno’s thing you’re dead. Once enough time has passed, we strike a loan patrol or maiden world, or barter with the drukari.”

“Prince Be’lakor won’t be happy that we have to leave.”

“Invasion can still happen with or without us, and I think our Master can convince him to look the other way.”