Cultor Pestilus: Worship of Plague

[Inquisitor Rosenadel]

Part I: A Plague of Unbelief

It started like any other illness. It first appeared in the ghettoes, where the mutants and the convicted who kept the city lit and functioning lived. But no one cared for this rabble, and their contamination went unnoticed.

But it spread. The overseers who kept the labourers in line went back to their homes and brought their sickness with them. They spread the contagion to their families. Their families spread it to other families, and all those they interacted with. People did not know to avoid them because the infected did not show any outward signed of their illness. And so the disease spread.

When it eventually came to the highest levels of the Imperial authority, to the nobles, and the governor, it was more difficult to take hold. The elite could always afford better protection than those unfortunates in the ghettoes, and so the malady did not immediately take root. But as they came into contact with it day after day, it began to wear on them, and eventually, for all their preventive measures, they, too fell victim to the plague that had infected the entire city.

But where did it all start? Surely this terrible illness did not manifest on its own. No, it did not. As with all such illnesses, it took but one to bring this disease to the city and from him did it spread. He came inconspicuously, a traveller from afar. He wore the wear of a simple man, a ragged brown sackcloth robe that covered his features from the bright sun of Bubonis. Gloves covered his hands, and a dirty white cloth covered his face. He seldom shuffled about outside his dwelling, his distended stomach making it difficult for him to walk. He was not noticed when he did, and moved about without attracting attention.

He spread his plague just as insidiously. He found those who did not cover up their wounds, who left them open for the man to infect with his disease. They, in turn, became carriers of the contagion, and spread it to those who were not vigilant enough to cover their orifices when the carriers tried spreading the malady. Even the nobles and the governor left tiny *****s in their armour, and through these *****s the virus infected them.

This illness was not a physical one. The plague was one of words and thoughts, expressions and ideas. It was a plague of unbelief. The labourers had longed to rise against their masters. The traveller stoked their hatred to new levels, and soon they forsook the Emperor and His empty promises. They learned of a new patron where everyone was treated equally, as children to a loving father. Their overseers also resented their place in society, and worship of the new patron took hold. Other families revelled in the idea of stability, lasting power, and protection. The nobles and governor let their hubris get the best of them, believing the Emperor and the rest of the Imperium had abandoned them to their world, and that they deserved more respect. They felt that this new patron the people spoke of would be fair with them, and give them power deserving of their intellect and capabilities.

The traveller was called upon by the governor and nobles to instruct them on how they should call upon this patron, this loving grandfather who would gift them with so much. He instructed them, and they began to worship the grandfather, and this worship spread quickly throughout the city until they all praised Grandfather Nurgle. They asked for his gifts, his promises of security, stability, and power.

They received what they asked for when the former Imperial cruiser “Cultor Pestilus” arrived in orbit, and the Space Marines formerly of the Emperor’s fifteenth legion, the Death Guard, arrived in the Bubonis capital city of Pandema.

[Lord Commander Erus]

Great piece! I do hope you continue it amongst your 9999999 other bits of writing!

[DeAd_cOmMaNdO]

funky stuff. my kinda writing

[Inquisitor Rosenadel]

Originally Posted by Lord Commander Erus.

Great piece! I do hope you continue it amongst your 9999999 other bits of writing!

I do indeed plan on continuing it. How could I let something about good old Grandfather Nurgle sit there like that!?

Thanks to both of you!

[Inquisitor Rosenadel]

Part II: The Seven Symptoms

When the Cultor Pestilus was spotted in the sky over Pandema, the city erupted in panic. The Arbites were sent out to get all personnel into the bunkers beneath the city. The task was difficult. Some were hysterical, some refused to go, and some fought the Arbites with envenomed weapons and died where they stood.

The governor assembled the PDF in defence of Pandema the other cities around the planet. Defence lasers were activated, Hydra platforms’ ammo hoppers filled to capacity, and the wall turrets manned at all times. The governor knew that Chaos used trickery and lapses in vigilance to gain an advantage over its enemies. What he did not realize was that the lapse in vigilance had already occurred.

Deep below in the dank bunkers in which the citizenry hid, the traveller was accused of bringing damnation upon the people of Bubonis. He denied this claim, stating that he would bring what the citizenry had asked for. The marines above them, if they were let into the city, would peacefully give them the constancy, power, and safety they had asked for. They were a “blessing”. The people would have none of it, and they locked him in a cell normally used for the most dangerous criminals. They gave him neither drink nor nourishment, and he began to whither away. He pleaded that if they would simply listen to him, he would set things right and deliver his promises. But they closed their ears to him, knowing now that it was their open ears that had brought about this terrible chain of events in the first place.

No one came even to talk to the traveller anymore, which was just as well as he could not speak intelligibly anyway, so dry was his throat. After two days, he was discovered dead. The people decided that he deserved to rot in his cell and they left his corpse there.

A week passed, and the Chaos Marines had not attacked. The people were allowed back into their homes until such time as an attack came. Life in the city returned to its previous state, albeit at a higher state of alertness. Despite the fact that no Marines entered the city, the attack had already begun.

In the ghettoes, the workers began to complain of rashes that itched every now and then, but with increasing frequency. Their overseers admonished them, ordering them to cease their complaining and do their work. But the overseers soon began to feel the rashes breaking out on their own skin, as well. Soon the rash had spread throughout the entire city, much in the same manner as the heresy that had spread before it. The people dismissed it as another malady that was a result of the wet season that had recently begun. Illnesses such as these came and went with little trouble.

But in the ghettoes, the rash had already developed into something worse. Within days there were reports of gangly, sickly things attacking people and spreading the devastating contagion. They were almost inhuman, with claws and horns, additional eyes, and even additional limbs. The Arbites were called in to destroy the creatures, but they proved hardier that they looked, and the Arbites lost several men to the abominations before they were able to be dealt with effectively. Doctors in the city were able to identify several stages of the disease.

First there was the rash, where the patches of skin turned blotchy and became itchy. On the heels of the rash came a wheeze and a cough that brought forth a sticky green-grey phlegm. After that, where once there were rashes there bubbled up pustules and boils. In the fourth stage came a violent retching from which the afflicted vomited pus and bile. Next the skin paled and greyed, and the eyes sunk into their sockets. After that, mucus began to pour from not only the nose, but the eyes, mouth, ears, and even through the skin. In the seventh and final step, all manner of hideous mutations emerged and the afflicted were no longer able to identify friends or family and often attacked them for no reason.

During this time the cause of the disease was sought, but to no avail. Then came reports of crops going bad within days. Water became slimy and filmy, and had a horrible odour. It was determined that this fouling came from near the centre of the city. It was tracked to the bunkers, and in the cell the people had left the traveller was a great mount of foul muck. Mucus, pus, blood, and all manner of disgusting oozes flowed out of the mound and into the ground beneath the heart of the city. The traveller had promised great things for the people of Pandema. What the people did not understand was his perspective of “blessing”.

[Inquisitor Rosenadel]

Part III: The Cult of Phthisis

The terrible sickness ravaged the city for a week. Antidotes were found, just enough and with enough time to prevent the majority of the city from falling to the terrible plague. The city labourers that managed to survive the disease were able to pour chemicals into the water to make it safely ingestible to the people. The rot was combated fiercely and there began to appear signs of progress.

But parts of the city still festered. The combat with the true plague has not ceased. Reports came of citizens missing, strange symbols ploughed into the ground, and shadowy groups of strangers speaking in strange tongues.

The Adeptus Arbites reported fights with groups of citizens that were performing bizarre rituals involving the shovelling of earth. The citizens, upon discovery, fought the Arbites with unbridled aggression to protect these sites. While the Arbites were able to put down the attackers wherever they were found, the attackers seemed hardier than normal humans. All had distended stomachs, as well as bloated limbs, and bloated eyes and heads. All manner of roiling maladies were discovered within the bodies of the aggressors. Every effort was taken to cleanse the areas of their foul influences.

After days of enforcement effort, the attack still had not waned. The sites the aggressors were protecting were investigated. It was discovered that the strange shovelling rites were in reality the burying of rotting, decayed corpses. Some bodies had been decapitated, others dismembered, all brutally murdered. When investigators were brought in, and the sites excavated, the bodies were revealed to be arranged in peculiar patterns, no two alike, but all throwing a disconcerting, chilling feeling on those who saw them.

The sites were destroyed, but the chill remained. The sites were sealed off and became the objects of much superstition. Any that wandered too close were never seen again, and it was rumoured that the very ground bubbled and turned to mush where the bodies had been buried. The Arbites forbid entry to the sites on pain of death, but people still went missing.

Even worse, attacks began to target the Arbites specifically. Cultists with foul markings covering their slimy, dirty bodies engaged in fire fights and brutal close-quarters fights. They boiled up from the depths of the city, bogging down the Adeptus Arbites’ efforts to destroy their sites of desecration. The governor worried as, day by day, more and more little pustules of resistance dotted the holo-map of Pandema. Eventually, the PDF were ordered to assist the Arbites in putting down the pockets of resistance.

The things we saw made our eyes run with glutinous tears that burned as they fell down our cheeks. They all had advanced stages of the plague, which had been labelled “The Phthisis”. Their markings indicated that they were all a mess of cults worshipping the Phthisis. That these people would worship such a thing was, at the time, inconceivable to me.

[Inquisitor Rosenadel]

Part IV: The Diseased Machine

As the Phthisis began to develop into the retching stage, the traitor Marines still had not attacked the capital of Pandema. It had been three weeks since the Cultor Pestilus arrived in orbit. The people that lived away from the slums, away from the filth and decay of the city had no notion of the events that were unfolding except for what they heard through rumour. They believed the situation was under control and that the plague was receding.

The people soon began to see otherwise. Until this time, shipments of goods had always come to Pandema. The other cities on the planet were, like Pandema, quite industrious. Food, construction materials, weapons, ammunition and many other supplies arrived daily to prepare Pandema for the apparently imminent attack. The supplies were not absolutely necessary, as the city had its own manufacturing sector and farming centres. But more than bullets were included with the shipments. Hope, confidence, and fighting spirit were instilled with every piece of bread, every ton of plasteel, every lasgun.

But after the third week, the shipments started to wane. Penicalica fruit juice was no longer shipped from Meningus, las-packs no longer received from Teberslis, and fresh ceramite no longer arrived from Fluri. From some routes came great caravans of people, fleeing across the desert to Pandema. With them came stories of woe, of great heaving, hideous armoured men from whom an aura of disease, decay and death permeated. These abominations swept over their defences, bombarding through walls, breaking down barricades, and even dropping from the skies. The gruesome armoured monsters unleashed a storm of blazing death with their guns, mowing down great numbers with their never-ending gunfire. The stories painted an ugly picture for the masses who assumed that all was still well. With them, the refugees brought hopelessness, desperation and despair. The city became sullen and crowded, and supplies were in short supply.

Then the supplies began to become harmful to the citizens. Bread was found mouldy in the containers, plasteel weak and brittle, and lasguns broken and battered. The shipments were burned upon arrival for fear they would spread the phthisis anew. After several dock and gate workers became ill, full environmental suits were required, and eventually, all shipments were not even allowed to enter the city.

This was at first of no concern as the city industry, while it had slowed because of the reduction of labourers, was still booming. Supplies continued to flow from the industrial areas, and the citizens rested, assured in the knowledge that their city had the plague under control. In the fourth week, after the massive smokestacks of the foundries and manufactoria slowly began to belch great plumes of sickly green-gray smoke, covering large parts of the city in a choking smog that smothered the slums and ghettoes of the city. Mucus, bile and pus began to flow from the drain pipes of the great industrial sector into the soil and streets of the city. Dark red blood began to drip from the very walls of the furnaces, pooling in vast quantities on the floors.

Supplies from the industrial sector were no longer safe to consume, and they unleashed a new wave of phthisis on the city. Soon no supplies came at all, and no word came from the factory foremen. Mutants and degenerates began to flow from the beating heart of the rot and oozed into the city. They attacked anyone they saw, dripping with the blood, mucus and smile that poured from the factories they once worked in. The Arbites and PDF were once again called upon to quell the uprising. This resistance was stiffer even that any previous attack or revolt. In some places the horrendous rabble pushed the policing forces back into the city, forcing them to evacuate the citizens as they gave ground. All the while the Cultor Pestilus remained in orbit, silent as the grave.
__________________________________________________ ___________
By the way guys, you are free to post or PM me if you think my writing has deteriorated. I think some of it may have (Pt. III of this story in particular), which is why I say this. Cheers!

[Inquisitor Rosenadel]

Part V: The Spoiled Land

The Phthisis started in the ghettoes, where conditions were the worst, and where the traveller had dwelt. This is where the Arbites went to root out the centre of the corruption. The reports what were sent back were disturbing in the extreme.

They described a desecrated landscape, ripe with decay. The soil turned to sand, and stretched across the ghettoes in a vast plain of pallid desert. Wherever there was vegetation it turned to mush, forming great patches of steaming, bubbling swamp. Even boulders became gelatinous and sank into the bubbling ground.

The Arbites pressed into the ghettoes, but became bogged down in the mire and sand. The heretics that had brought about the land’s terrible transformation then ambushed the enforcers, causing heavy casualties. Some Arbites teams simply were not heard from again, disappearing into the vast marshland. Others became infected with a myriad of diseases, all linked to the Phthisis, all with similar symptoms, but all unique in their biological makeup.

Not only the land decayed. Buildings also began to sag, folding over like slabs of diseased skin on themselves. The great manufactoria that spewed forth the plumes of smog had become great rusted structures. Parts of them had collapsed, and parts of them still collapsed, killing whole squads of Arbites, as if the very structures themselves were deliberately squashing the intruders. Ooze sweated from the walls, seeping out from the great factories.

Inside the Arbites found that the forges and assembly belts were still functioning. However, the furnaces were now boiling pits of pus and bile and the construction areas produced only rusted, smoke-belching version of the machines they once created. The processing plants still processed grains and oats, but instead of bread they were transformed into blackened lumps of charred carbon.

The worst places were those where the cultists had performed their rituals, permanently scarring the land. Sometimes the Arbites came across groups of cultists still alive, ensuring that their land remained in a constant state of rot. They defended the sites viciously, using poisoned weapons and powerful magicks to rot, infect and kill the invaders of their realm. It got so bad in some places that the PDF were once more called in. It was just as well because it wasn’t long after that the cultists’ real purpose was revealed.

[Inquisitor Rosenadel]

Part VI: The Retched

The cultists were never considered to be especially cunning, but I had suspicions all along that they were more then they seemed. Their subtle coordination, their rituals, it all pointed to a more intelligent center. A malign intelligence that was bent on disease, decay and rot.

So when the cultists started planting their feet in the ground and chanting, I knew something was very, very wrong. They were shot to ribbons, but kept on chanting. Froth and bile bubbled up through their lips as they spoke in an unholy tongue. And when we shot them they did not bleed like normal men, but instead pus flowed forth from their wounds in amounts disproportionate to their blood capacity. They swelled, and their chanting reached a peak.

Then, each bloated head exploded in a spray of mucus, which flowed around their feet and started swallowing their bodies. The mucus bubbled and moved, and out of it came little pus-creatures, not larger than a rat, but distended, grubby, and giggling, always giggling. These, I knew, had to be daemons. We shot at them, and tore them up with our bayonets, but they had a high tolerance for pain and they were not even wholly corporeal. Sometimes a las-shot or knife would go straight through them and not affect them at all.

By this point, a member of the Inquisition had finally arrived, and there was now a battle going on in space above. The Inquisitor hand-picked several squads to accompany him into the deepest, foulest depths of the ghettoes. My squad was one of them. He had brought along his own personal compliment of Stormtroopers, of course, and the toy soldiers held themselves aloof, fearless, and focused. It felt like a contest between us, the PDF, and the Glory Boys, both vying for the Inquisitor’s praise. It certainly made us fight harder. But those Stormtroopers did earn their respect from us.

Even with the Inquisitor’s daemon-fighting knowledge, we had a hard time of it getting to the centre of the corruption. When we finally got there, after nearly two days straight of fighting, and having been reduced to less than half our numbers, the PDF and the Inquisitor broke through. What we found reduced us by half again merely on account of men losing their minds.

Words almost fail me when it comes to the description of the place. It was in a former Imperial church, barely recognisable. Weeping sores covered every surface, smile, pus and mucus flowed from every pore, and thick, obscuring gasses made our eyes water and burn. Most broke out in hives immediately. Some men simply rotted away, their grey matter coming out their ears, nose and mouth. Men retched and retched until they vomited their own organs. The Inquisitor kept chanting some prayer, trying to keep himself and the PDF from harm. But out of the muck and ooze rose a great lumped thing, with several mouths scattered over its bloated, swollen body. It held a sword dripping in bile and blood. The Inquisitor charged, and the thing stomped forward. The stormtroopers shot at it, but more things bubbled up from the ground and fought with them and us. After finally hacking apart one of the pus-covered daemons, I looked again to the Inquisitor. He had been impaled upon the daemon’s sword, and was decaying at a rate I thought not possible.

I yelled to the rest of my men to run. We all broke, screaming, running for our lives from the evil, diseased place. But there was nowhere we could hide. When we got back to the city, we found out that the Chaos Space Marines were finally attacking. Little did I know how rewarding and life-changing that battle would be.

does anyone even read this?

[Killermoose]

I do! And well, I've got to hand it to you, it's pretty sick! In a very good way, of course. Great going so far!

[Perturabo]

Man your descriptions are fantastic-you can truely imagine the horror and the sickly decay creeping over everything.

I also like the image of death just hovering over the city doing nothing as the city falls to bits under its gaze!!

[Inquisitor Rosenadel]

Originally Posted by Killermoose

I do! And well, I've got to hand it to you, it's pretty sick! In a very good way, of course. Great going so far!

Sorry, just checking. I never really know unless someone posts. I just write away, in my own little world... well, it's really GW's world, and it's quite large, but I'm still in it... and thanks!

Originally Posted by Perturabo

Man your descriptions are fantastic-you can truely imagine the horror and the sickly decay creeping over everything.

I also like the image of death just hovering over the city doing nothing as the city falls to bits under its gaze!!

I'm glad my imagery is working! Hopefully you're not losing your lunch or anything like that, though. Thanks for the comments!

[Inquisitor Rosenadel]

This is the final bit. If you didn't see that coming, think about Nurgle and what it holds sacred, specifically numbers.

Part VII: Coming Home

I had fought Chaos Space Marines before. I was formerly in the Guard, and my regiment saw action near the Malestrom. We were defending an ammo dump from the 77th Hands of Jet, traitors to the Imperium. Turned out that the Hands were softening us up for the Red Corsairs led by none other than the Tyrant Of Babab himself, Huron Blackheart. Well, we had to fall back a few times, but eventually we fought them off, with the help of a couple squads of Ultramarines. I killed one of the Corsairs, with help from my squadmates, but I had to put nine laspistol shots and two grenades in him before he finally fell over. Even after that, he still tried to shoot at us, so I took Bradley’s plasma gun and melted the thing’s head.

I dreaded the prospect of fighting Chaos Marines again. When the Guard let me go on Bubonis, I thought it would be peaceful. There had been no fighting in the sector as long as anyone could remember. I joined the PDF because fighting was all I knew how to do, but I figured it would be an easy job anyway.

But after we escaped from the hell-hole of a ghetto, I saw the Chaos Marines break down the main gate of the city. They were different from the Corsairs, different than any Space Marine I had ever seen, in person or in the holovids. They had bloated bellies, and their very armour was covered in sores and boils. There were cracks in the armour as well, cracks that were like flesh, red with blood, and which oozed pus, bile, mucus, and all manner of pestilent ooze. There was a miasma about them as well, a plague that infested all that the cloud around them touched. They created the bubbling hell that I had just escaped from hours before as they walked.

The PDF had been whittled down so far from the daemon, cultist, heretic, and even diseased citizens’ attacks that we were utterly unable to effectively defend the city. The lack of supplied compounded the problem, not to mention the deficit of morale. The defence became haphazard running gun fights through the streets of Pandema. But anyone caught in the open at the wrong place would be mercilessly cut down by the Chaos Marines’ murderous bolter fire. These were far different than the pirates the Corsairs were. These were orderly, disciplined soldiers that knew their tactics to a man and held their ground. Aside from worshipping gods that could turn a man’s brain to mush, they were everything we were supposed to be.

I led my squad, running across streets and setting up ambushes. But sometimes even plasma shots seemed to have no effect on the Marines. Their bulk kept them upright and every time we sprang a trap, they would merely turn to face us and let rip with their bolters.

Then, after only half an hour of fighting, my squad ran across the mastermind of the invasion. He was a giant, even among the other seven-foot tall death-machines. He wore huge bulky armour, and had a retinue of six Marines wearing the same type of armour as he. But while they displayed their faces, he had only a skull-mask that obscured his face entirely. He carried a long harvesting scythe, which appeared old and rusted. He and his retinue spotted us just as we were in the middle of the street. They cut down the rest of my squad, as well as a few others that had joined us.

But the leader just kept staring at me as he approached. Now I could see that on his armour were little things, the same tiny, bloated giggling daemons that I had seen in the ghettoes. They jumped off and waddled toward me, snapping their jagged teeth and licking their lips in anticipation. And giggling, always giggling. I could not move, and could think of nothing other than to ask why they giggled. Finally, I looked down to see them slowly chewing their way up my legs, gnawing away flesh and bone. The leader stood before me and stabbed me through the stomach with his scythe. I could now see that it had a slimy sheen to it, and I knew I could not fathom the number of plagues and illnesses on his blade. I suddenly was filled with dread at the prospect of dying.

But then, slowly, came a sensation of peace. A great voice, old, throaty, deep, and warm spoke to me. It welcomed me, and I could feel its loving embrace. I promised to love me as if I were its child if I would only do what I could to honour my father. I hesitated, some part of my former self still thinking about the pain I had endured and was still enduring. But then I remembered the giggles of the tiny daemons, and suddenly I knew why they were giggling. I, too, began to giggle as I fell into the comfort of Papa Nurgle.

[Perturabo]

Man thats top notch stuff there-you submitted any of this to black library or some such?

[Inquisitor Rosenadel]

Originally Posted by Perturabo

Man thats top notch stuff there-you submitted any of this to black library or some such?

You mean the forum, right? I tried submitting "Final Hour", but it never really got noticed with all the other awesome stuff on there. But maybe I'll try again.

And thanks!

[SteveBerenyi]

Great Stuff Rosendell. I love it!

NURGLE FOR EVERYONE.... YAAY!