In the inky black of the quarantined Segmentum Obscurus, a ship was marooned at the edge of a foreboding asteroid belt. This wasn’t any ship, but the imposing Black Ship, unwittingly transformed into a dwelling place of an unpredictable force so unholy it was best left forgotten.
The ship was haunted by a single Space Marine, his armor as dark as blood under a moonless sky, standing in silent vigil over the scattered corpses on the captain’s bridge. His bolter, secured by a magnetic clasp, lay dormant at his side. In the eerie glow of LOM lights, the golden inscriptions of his armor glowed like a specter’s eyes, and long oath-ribbons fluttered, whispering secrets to the silent air.
Beside him, another figure, an Inquisitor, glanced at the warrior’s ritual charms, marked with the cryptic symbols of hexag grammaton. A chilling conversation unfolded between the two, a tale of a ship besieged by the Word Bearers, a faction of traitors within their ranks, and a desperate jump into the warp that left them in this desolate region.
The Space Marine, a figure of skepticism and veiled threats, questioned the Inquisitor’s tale, pointing accusingly at the latter’s augmented arm. Their exchange was cut short by an alarm, a chilling indication of incoming teleportation signals. The silence that followed was shattered by violence – the Space Marine’s head exploding into fragments as the Inquisitor nonchalantly holstered his bolt pistol.
From the darkness of the corridor emerged a figure, clad in red power armor adorned with golden inscriptions, and a chest plate bearing a symbol of an open book with a flaming, screaming demon head. The visitor was a Word Bearer, a traitor who had abandoned the Emperor’s light for the corrupting influence of Chaos.
The Inquisitor, under the stern gaze of the Word Bearer, began to narrate the tale of a world hidden in a forbidden zone, a planet of perpetual twilight and poisonous swamps. This unassuming world was the homeworld of the Exorcists, a unique chapter of Space Marines who preferred the shadows to the spotlight.
The primitive human tribes, descendants of stranded laborers turned feral, were their source of recruitment. But the real intrigue of the Exorcists lay deep underground, in the Fortress Monastery known as Basilica Malfix. There, amidst the acidic marshes, lay the strategic hub, armory, and training halls common to most Adeptus Astartes homeworlds.
The Fortress Monastery housed the gene-seed stores, the apothecarium, and vast archives filled with occult tomes and scrolls. At its heart was the enormous Gallery of Scars, a solemn tribute to their fallen brothers. The grandest portal led to the Librarium, where the Exorcists documented their encounters, particularly those involving demonic foes, and their methods of defeating them.
Fully aware of the dangerous knowledge they possessed, the Librarians protected the dim vaults containing dangerous texts with hexagrammatic wards. The Exorcists, in their pursuit of understanding their enemies, had delved into the occult, a path many other chapters would consider heretical.
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