//------------------------------//
// Chapter Four - Garden 
// Story: PONYHAMMER 40,000. The Warp Incursion. 
// by Duskrunner 
//------------------------------//

THE WARP
THE GARDEN OF NURGLE


Twilight and her company pushed their way through a distortion, uncertain what kind of universe awaited them on the other side. So far everything was very different from Equestrian magic: Passing through Discord's wormholes was as effortless as stepping through a door, blinking through reality via Twilight's teleportation was as easy as closing your eyes and opening them again in a new room. Pony magic left you feeling like yourself, if perhaps a little queasy for the experience.
Pushing through to the Warp felt like squeezing through gelatin and nopony wanted to think about how they were breathing; more than one pony had to hold Pinkie's mouth shut to keep her from tasting the stuff.

Twilight saw a light and figured they had almost made their way out. 
The world that awaited them could be literally anything so Twilight was understandably surprised and a little disappointed when they came out and found themselves within -what appeared to be- an completely ordinary forest. Cramped, tight, barely enough space to fit two ponies side by side, but a forest all the same.

That impression lasted all of three seconds.

The trees, leaves, mushrooms- the slough on the earth that was supposed to pass as grass- everything was diseased.
Heads turned up and more than one voice quivered at the sights overhead: whatever portion of the air above them wasn't choked with flies was thick with streams of noxious gas that flowed like aery silk. The overhanging canopies of leaves and the overabundance of vegetation made them feel like they were within a living creature.
Pockets of light in different colors broke through the cover at strange angles; nothing resembling a sun shone overhead.
Rainbow Dash hovered up a few ponies' height but stopped herself.
"You guys, does it feel like maybe we might be... I dunno, underground to you? I don't get a vibe like there's a sky at all past these... trees?"

Applejack looked about sharing her friend's concern: "I'm not sure what's wrong with 'em, all I know is these can't be fruit trees."

Carrot Top dragged her hoof on the soil. As the soil broke the earth leaked fluid and began to make sucking noises like mud. All of this despite its solid appearance.

Roseluck got close to a set of dangling vines that were dotted with folded leaves or petals. There were many kinds of rare and strange flora in Equestria, why wouldn't an alien world have its own sense when it came to foliage?
One vine began inching towards her and Rose couldn't help but notice how strong it looked despite its sickly colors. The petals unraveled and expanded into the mouth of a giant flytrap, exposing insides lined with tongue-like tendrils and rows of needle-shaped teeth.

Rose yelped and leapt back, barely escaping the creature as it bit into the air. Any questions were cut short as the rest of the environment began to come alive around them. Roots and stems crept or grew at an accelerated rate and began overtaking the open spaces.
The cloud of flies that flew overhead thickened and began to fall over them like a blanket of fog. Even the mud beneath them began to bubble up, molehills with gaps that began to resemble the shapes of living faces.

The ponies turned about desperately, looking for shelter.

Applejack saw something, brief bars of light like the patterns of windows. They flickered like candlelight. The light caught of glint of rusted metal.
"Over there! That's a door. Rotten or not if somepony lives there it's got to be better than out here," Applejack hollered.
The group stampeded in that direction immediately.

As they closed in they found that what AJ had mistaken for a house was far larger than they thought, if it indeed was a single building that the glow of lights came from. Twilight hesitated at the door, accidentally preventing her friends from getting in first. She tried to take it all in. She saw not a house but a mansion, with walls so large they would be considered battlements. They dwarfed the entirety of Canterlot and even as her friends were pressuring her to move Twilight couldn't help but marvel that trees, especially trees as blighted as these, could grow so tall as to serve as lumber for such a palace.

Something else fed her apprehension more than rotten timbers. The gaps between the trees and earth were plugged by crumbling walls. Stonework had to have had living builders; if a ghost town was the sign of a local calamity then decayed walls with overgrown vegetation were the signs of a civilization that had once existed and since moved on. 
The mansion might indeed have served as a bastion once but there was no reason to believe anypony still lived within - and there was no reason to believe there would be anything within the ruins that would provide them with help.
All the same she led them inside: she had the problem of a ravenous forest trying to devour them to solve.

They entered.
They expected an entry-room for a fortress hidden away in the wild, what they found instead was a vast undecorated expanse of empty space.

Twilight had her doubts: the forest or jungle or whatever it was was dark and deep. She might have misjudged the exterior due to the claustrophobic setting. In the thickness of the jungle it was easy to imagine a space as bigger or smaller than it really was, and that was without bringing magic into the equation.
On the other hoof, standing there where she was with over a dozen ponies beside her, there was no way to confuse the size of the cavern the doorway had opened to. Only the rusted metal floor convinced them that it was a building and not a cave. Even inside the fog of rot was so thick the walls faded out mere paces away.
Everything felt eerie, eerie because it was endless and eerie because it was empty but something beyond that gnawed at their fears.

They walked along, beginning to lose their sense of time until they reached an edge.
There was a roundness to the floor, one that made them believe the mansion itself was just a cover for this chasm. Using her magic Twilight tore off a section and used the jagged metal to scrape the pattern of her cutie mark on the floor.

"That should help. If we keep going and this does turn out to be a circle we'll run into this marker again. Let's move on. We're here for a reason and we're bound to find a clue what to do."

They moved along, cautious to stay away from the edge after hitting a rusted section that broke off under their hooves. "Whoa! Careful guys, unstable floor here. Looks like some kind of pit. I wonder how far it goes..."

 "I don't think that would be quite the best idea at the moment, Rainbow Dash." 
Rarity said, trying to talk her out of it. The fog was thick and the fumes outside had been vile. Nopony knew if she might get turned around once she was out of sight or if the air wasn't merely rotten but also poisonous.

One thing they did know: the sections of floor that broke off under their hooves and fell off the side barely made a sound. 
In her boredom Dash sent a sizable portion flying. Seconds later a weak splashing sound marked its journey's end. Whatever was in the pit it was liquid, and the pit was deep.

They walked along until the path began to change.The ring of metal gave way to more of the muddy earth. 
It was putrid but as far as they could tell it was inert. The fog began to thin and they found the wall again. Rotten wood through and through, small gusts of air pushed in and then rushed back out with the regularity of a pair of lungs.
Soon after the outline of another wall faded in with each step.
The walls closed into a corner and they found themselves staring into a gate. Something within moved in the shadows.

Twilight sparked a light globe on her horn to peer through.
"Oh my..."

It wasn't a gate, it was a cage. Its occupant was a giant, easily as tall as Twilight's library home. Tall, fully wrapped in strange garb that illuminated now that Twilight was watching them. it walked on two legs with a pair of arms dangling at its sides.
There was a swell around the upper half of her torso. It's head was small with pointed ears that rose well above it's crown, flowing with long hair. Twilight thought that perhaps this was a female, of whatever species of animal she might be.
She was lithe, her svelte figure suggested great poise and her legs and arms flowed as she moved.
Alone of all the things surrounding them, she was beautiful to behold. Flawless even.

Hesitantly Twilight asked: "Are you the... mistress of this mansion? My... greetings. I am Princess Twilight Sparkle... can you understand me?" 
 Wow that sounds stupid. Who ever heard of a mistress in a cage? Then again this isn't our world and maybe that's what rooms look like. Yeah, that's totally likely. On the other hand if somepony can stay in a cage to observe sharks why wouldn't they settle for living in a cage if it's the only safe place around? The forest out there certainly isn't any less dangerous!

The prisoner returned to her rest ignoring them entirely. Her posture reminded Fluttershy of a caged Hawk, prim and regal. She occupied her cage with complete disdain for everything outside it.

She was Isha, and she was the last surviving goddess of the Eldar.

She ignored them as they spoke and moved about her like a herd of cattle. A curiosity to be sure, in the timelessness since her imprisonment isha had seen many strange sights but this was different for reasons that had no logical sense even on a daemon world. Ultimately the migration of a herd of equine, even semi-intelligent vocal equine, failed to show enough novelty to pique her interest for longer than it had taken her to give them all a glance.
They asked, they pleaded, making a thousand inane questions. They reminded her terribly of the mon keigh except... 
Isha's heart opened to them. They were like the common curse to the galaxy that called itself 'humanity' in every way except she felt nothing of the all-consuming lusts within them, none of the corrupting passions that had led her children, her brothers, her gestalt being to their fall.

Her ears pricked. Something one of them said had triggered a reaction.
Anger, pride, mirth; she had just been insulted.
One of these equine had actually put to words the question of whether anything they could do would help her.
Her! In this place, at that time, under those circumstances.

The goddess of the Eldar turned upon these quaint quadrupeds and spoke with a voice that reminded them of Celestia's in tone and quality even if it was world's apart in content.

"You, limited mortal creatures, believe you have anything to offer that could aid me?!
Do you know anything? Do you know to whom you speak? Do you know where you are? Do you know who is the master, not of this mansion, but of this entire warp-accursed realm?
I know from your questions: You. Do. Not!"

Twilight looked the goddess eye to eye. She gulped loudly.
Ok, skip formal introductions for now. This isn't her home so she probably isn't here by choice and being in this place for a while would make anybody cranky. Try to be... accomodating.
"You're right, we don't know. We don't have much but we offer what we can and if this place is as horrible to you as it is to us, if that cage keeps you in more than it keeps everything else out, then you've got nothing to lose. Let us help you."

Imperceptibly, Isha sighed. Such naive creatures. She found they reminded her too much of a time before memory when the Warp was a place filled with kind, whimsical creatures.
Perhaps they could break one lock, perhaps they could pass a message or artifact to someone beyond the garden, perhaps...

"You are travelers from beyond this galaxy? Or are you newborn, your race barely shed of its birthing membranes to find itself in a world it has only begun to understand?"

"The former. Our civilization has existed for thousands of years-"

"Young and adrift convinced of your superiority. You have nothing."

"We have each other, and we stand against the dangers of your Warp."

Isha shook her head and in her frustration at the naive creature the goddess began the first words of a lecture she believed would gave them what she considered a valuable lesson.
"it is not my warp, it is the all-pervasive aetherium. it exists everywhere, permeates everything, and no mortal creatures can fight it. You are it, form a part of it. Even the lowest of the low races, even the newest of the new, all are present in it. Your race's emerging consciousness is a child; and it's character is irremediably perverted by the bullying of the Chaos Gods."

"No. It's not."

Isha's tongue was ready to meet the defiance when the equine reacted to her comment in a way she hadn't expected: It had rested its hoof on her body. 
No forcing, no violence. Just touch.
Isha looked into the alien face, judging its expression and found nothing of the arrogance, denial, or anger she would expect from a child that refused to accept a terrible truth. Such guileless sincerity made her hesitate.

The goddess turned her eyes to the sky, searching the Warp even as she felt the... comfort the mortal meant to give her. Searching the multi-dimensional realm she felt it, an unfamiliar tingle and homed in on the equestrian consciousness she knew must be forming. Forming, even now, with every breath they took and every thought they had.
She found it, a tiny essence, tinier than even the smallest spec that had been formed by every other sentient race she had ever known.
The essence was growing but it was alive; except it hadn't been expanded by the soul of a single pony that had lived and died within its lifespan. That fact left Isha confused because, unless their race had been born with an innate knowledge of Soulstones, it was impossible for any civilization even only a few hundred years old to have escaped imprinting the character of its dead into the Warp. Had they been deliberately engineered so that their souls couldn't be absorbed by the Warp? Questions about the strange aliens began to flood her mind.

I AM RETURNED MY PRECIOUS TREASURE
HOW MY EYES HAVE ACHED TO BEHOLD YOU ANEW
SHOW ME YOUR KINDNESS, FOR YOUR LORD AND MASTER IS RETURNED TO HIS HOME
AND IS ANXIOUS IN HIS AMORATION

Twilight and every pony pressed their hooves to their ears, trying in vain to block out a sound that had burst not through the air, but through their minds. 
"What in the name of Equestria was THAT?!"

Isha's face turned pale.
"He is returned, you must flee at once. You are tiny, and I feel nothing of your presence. You are new, but that will not save you for at the mere mention of his name all of creation withers and dies."

"He? What kind of monster's coming?"

"He is not a monster, ignorant mortal. He is a God."

The walls came alive and the fog rushed from the room as the air vented out from a billion cracks by force of a vile wind. Moments later the gaps were plugged just as quickly as the air had cleared and every pony became frightened in the darkness.

A flickering light effect began, all across the ceiling lights danced.
Behind Isha's cage the first rays of light appeared as cracks and burrows and gaps birthed light, intermittently between the passage of monsters.

They were tiny, very tiny. The smallest were perhaps no larger than a tooth and the largest could still fit underhoof. 
Their bodies were strange and cared nothing for the laws of anatomy. Every example they saw was more slime than beast. 
Some walked, some rolled, some dragged themselves along through hands, teeth or claws.
They were every sickly shade of brown, green and yellow and they gibbered as they chanted:
"Papa Nurgleth!"

The nurglings passed by them, ignoring the ponies completely. One with five eyes and a mouth that was nothing more than three gaps in the mucus pooling from what should've been an upper lip waddled along, burping at them without a shred of self-consciousness.

Rarity and Flitter both grit their teeth at the sight of such disgusting creatures.
Blueblood had climbed on top of Big Mac's back.
The red stallion shook hard once and the unicorn feel on his rump.

The uncountable swarm continued its migration from the outer walls to the inner walkway, stopping at the edge. The chanting of 'Papa Nurgle' continued loudly even as a new noise echoed in the chamber. It was the sound of vomiting. 
The nurglings had arrived and deposited their tribute into what the ponies now realized was an immense cauldron.

The daemons continued their parade, moving away from the edge and hopping, singing aloud, dancing and making pyramid stacks of themselves almost a dozen nurglings tall. Under another guise their behavior might be considered cute- but they were far too grotesque, too gross to cause any sense of endearment. Fluttershy remarked:
"They act like parasprites."

Rarity replied:
"Fluttershy dear, I remember the absolutely disgusting appearance of parasprites when they spawn. Believe me, this is infinitely worse."

With the exit of the fog Twilight tried to make sense of the room's dimensions, with nothing to guide except the assumption that each nurgling pyramid could reach roughly the same height. She wished she had had the foresight to prepare a binocular spell before they left.
"I can see the far wall, but this is insane! That cauldron looks big enough to house all of Equestria."

"Your vision serves you well even as your mind struggles to grasp the enormity of what you see, mortal, and I attest to the volume and contents of that vile container firsthand. The god of decay prepares his pestilence within ... and the recipient to test the effectiveness of the resulting foulness is inevitably my person." Isha did not turn, she had seen the sight often enough. "The incidental fumes alone would exterminate all mortal life upon this realm." She added as an afterthought.

She had Twilight's sympathy.
"That's horrible."

"Wait. What'll that do to us?" Rainbow asked.

"Do you really need to ask?" Applejack shot back.

"Is there anything we can do?" Rose asked, turning not to her friends but to the goddess.

"The power of this entire realm keeps me in bondage, there is no way for me to escape... but for you perhaps there is a chance.
When Grandfather Nurgle is eventually satisfied by the new disease he has created he will always leave to spread it among creation. Ordinarily that is the time when I use what remains of my power to guide my children.
You have no power, no sorcery, no presence in the Warp. And yet I sense great magic in you.
It is possible for you and you alone to escape this daemon realm with my assistance.
In return, I place one condition on you and every one of your species."

"Anything."

"Begone and away from my children! There is no good that can come from your interference. Ruin to yourselves and the younger races as you see fit; but bring harm to the least of the Eldar and I will whisper to my children that you will feel the grasp of Kaela Mensha Khaine upon your throats. Your mouths will fill and choke from what flows from the palms of the bloody-handed-God before he sears your very souls in fire and vengeance."

Twilight and the others were taken aback. This goddess, this poor wretched pitiable goddess of infinite beauty, elegance and grace... her words and her being were to them irreconcilable.
They felt the force of the Eldar goddess' curse upon their very souls.

What manner of world had they come to?

Twilight Sparkle regained her senses and replied.
"In my name, by my authority as princess, I swear it will be so."

The Goddess began to whisper in her cage, her voice spread out as if in a dream. Her eyes misted as her words echoed the ache for her dying children and Twilight felt the pattern, the echo she needed to attune her magic.
With a flash of her horn she made herself and her friends disappear from that realm unnoticed, leaving behind the sorrowed mother of the Eldar to her tortures.