Rusted Cogs and Lost Souls

by voiddragon

Chamethrower (1)

Rusted Cogs and Lost Souls.
By Voiddragon
CHAPTER 1
"Chamethrower"

__________Thomas______________

I just sat there as I watched an ebony griffin attack a diamond dog. That griffin, I think he was my best friend. Looking down I saw that I had no hands. At my hooves was a red robe with a very familiar amulet - an anima. It looks like a half skull half machine, in a gear. This was the emblem of the Adeptus Mechanicus the tech-priest of Mars. I could feel a heavy weight on my back. It felt like three pieces of a heavy material. At that moment I heard a cry of pain, it sounds like my friend I see him grabbing a sword in his claw. It was using this move that, brought him time to use his other claw to stab the diamond dogs chest, and ripping out, to my horror, its heart.

“Dude... you... killed it.” I said this to Gareit, as he shook off the blood.

“It tried to kill me, so I killed it first. Wasn't like I wanted, to we could have gotten valuable information. Well at least I got this fine cavalry saber good weight no way in hell it made this.” He said this at first with a tone of irritation but then softened up when he started talking about his "newly acquired" sword.

“Dude wasn't this room you, know pitch black before you killed the diamond dog.” I tried to hold back the disgust from my voice. At that moment Gareit cut a piece of cloth of the body and searched and pulled out a bottle. “Uhhh what are you gonna do with that.” He just ignored me opened the bottle and sniffed. What I think is a smile appeared on his face.

“perfect” He then poured the liquid on the cloth and began to wrap up his cut claw with it.

“What just happened?” I ask.

“Bandaging my wound with cloth, and alcohol, you know first aid.” He said this, while waving his claw in the air as if pointing out the obvious. “Now go over there and bring me the torch." He told me.

I walked over to him like it was nothing you see while he practice his skill in fencing for the tournaments. I would practice, and condition my self for parkour. One of the exercises was quadrilaterals which is walking on all four limbs needless to say it made this easy.

“Now what are you doing?” I ask him, while he is searching through the body.

“Scavenging.” Gareit calmly states.

“WHY?” I respond in a loud voice.

“Remember the acronym S.T.A.L.K.E.R., What does S stand for?” he says this in the worst Russian accent, I have ever heard.

“S stands for scavenger. But that’s just a game.” I respond trying to make him see reason.

“Well he is dead, so he won’t need any of this, WE are alive, and might need this.” Gereit responds coldly. I hate it when he get’s like this.

“Alright, how do you feel about being a Griffin?” I ask trying to change the subject as he goes through each pocket pulling out a small change bag.

“Not focusing on that trying to keep calm, and not freak out. We got work to do, first we have to get out of here, no matter the cost.” He says with a spoken amount of temporal fury.

“What do you mean by that?” I ask

“I mean we will get out of here even if we have to butcher every person in this place. I will not be imprisoned, and enslaved by these barbarians. Hey this might end up like that one D&D campaign You know the one, where I ended up as a super rich dungeon explorer.” He says.

“Only because YOUR standing philosophy is loot, and stab anything that moves even if you weren't suppose to.” I counter.

“It worked didn't it, I mean we stopped the deamonic horde.” Gereit’s counter.

“Only because the GM had the deamon lord steal your “hard. earned. loot”” My response.

“Hey killing everything in a dungeon by your self is hard, it’s not my fault that you're too much of a pussy to not play a “pacifist” and not kill living things.” He started to smile again -- good, he’s defrosting.

“Hey I killed demons, devils, and the undead.” My response.

“O those don’t count, they are irredeemably evil anyway.” His counter.

“Hey aren't you the one who said not all undead are evil, hypocrite” we now both have large smiles. By this time we were sitting down having this discussion like nothing happened.

“Ya, well I was talking about intelligent undead like, lyches, vampires, and some ghouls. The undead we killed were evil, or controlled by an EVIL necromancer so they don’t count.” He states.

“what about the elven village??” I ask, with extra emphasis.

“That place deserved to be burnt to the ground, and as many of those pointy eared bastards deserved to be stabbed to death.” He says this while pounding his talon into his claw.

“Right??? What about those you ate?” I point out one of those more obvious evil things he did.

“Have you not played dwarf fortress?? How about how many “tree killers” they ate hmmm?” He points out his reasoning.

“The elves we met were not at all like dwarf fortress elves.” I in return point out.

“How do we know they weren't like dwarf fortress elves hmm?” His half hearted counter.

“BECAUSE THE GM SAID SO!” I might have been a bit too loud.

Gareit just sat there with what I think was a smug grin, and he said.

“Problem.” Looking much like a snake.

At that moment I gave him a good punch to the shoulder, with my right mechandrite.

“Dude you got metal tentacles coming out of you back... cool alright, any other tricks cogboy?” He responds.

“Cogboy?... Cogboy, like a tech-priest, I got a tech-priest outfit back there.” With that remark, I remember the robe I was near.

“Well go back there, and put it on man. You might as well be a tech-priest, with your mad skills in metalworking. Remember the chain mail and old style blunderbuss you made me?” He reminds me of one of the many things I have made.

So at that I walked back, and put my robes on with some difficulty. While I was doing this a second amulet was dropped, this one I knew who it belonged to, it was The Grim Reaper holding two syths away from itself. “Dude I got your favorite necklace.” With that I pick it up in my mouth.

“My reaper one?” Gereit asked.

“yes” I respond.

“Give it here now.” He says, while making the hand motion.

At that moment I gave him it, he then quickly put it on, with some difficulty.

“Awww feels good to have this thing back on I missed it. But damn this beak it makes everything harder before we go home I want to become human again, Just so I can be at my best.” He mumbles to himself.

While he was admiring his necklace, I was messing around with my mechadendrites and found a few new features. Like one that breaks down into a fingered hand thing, another is a laser cutter, and finally a blow torch.

“Thom what’s with the weird tentacle hand thing?” Gereit asks.

“It’s a manipulation mechandrite, it allows me to manipulate objects no matter how hot they are, or in this case multiple objects.” I respond with my best guess.

“Cooool I think. Let’s go we have been here long enough, and no one else has shown up.” Gereit states.

So began the boring walk down tunnels that all look the same, along the way we came to realize that these tunnels were abandoned.

“So what do you think happened?” asked Gereit.

“No idea, but it appears that we are heading upwards so that seems good. So what’s the plan with getting out of here?” I ask.

“Not sure depends, if there are a lot of slaves then I am thinking starting a massive slave revolt, if not well we could try to tunnel are way out. Or die fighting are way out it all depends.” He states with a dark look in his eyes.

“I’d rather not die thank you very much.” My response.

“Oh calm down that’s the last resort. I’d rather die free than live as a slave.” He makes this statement, while making a patriotic stance.

“All right all right lets... hey is that another light up ahead?” I ask.

“O shit, ok stay here I will go check this out.” He says this, then starts to sneak up towards the light making no noise at all.

So I sat there while my ebony friend walked up with his sword at the ready. As he slowly went around the corner I heard the now familiar sound metal piercing flesh, and the sound of a slashed windpipe, for those not in the know it sounds like a dieing flute. Soon I saw him walking back dragging two obviously dead diamond dogs, and I could hear the sound of coins banging around in his recently acquired coin bag.

“The tunnel break’s off into 3 directions. Which way do you want to go?” Gereit asks, while I hide my irritation at his more murderous means of getting freedom.

“I’d say center. How about you?” I give up on his methods... mostly anyway, and focus on the task.

“Center sounds good.” His response. At that he tossed me the bag of coins, and said this.

“Keep an eye on these for me they make too much noise.”

And so off we went towards the unknown with only luck on our side, or more specifically on Gereits side. Not so much on mine. For you see the path we took was long, and dark he blends in to it perfectly with his ebony feathers, and strangely very dark almost black blue fur. while I stuck out like a sore thumb in my crimson robes, and the coins kept making a jingling sound. Which attracted the other denizens of this place. For you see there are things worse than diamond dogs, and I screamed come eat me.

For after an half hour of walking with no sign of life, we heard a thing screaming.
“BLOOD FOR THE, BLOOD GOD SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!!!!”

“Well that does not sound good.” States Gereit.

After that a deamon of khorne, better known as a bloodletter came running towards us from behind, and straight at me.

“Aw you gotta be fuckin kidding me” I state.

“BLOOD!!!!!!!!! KHORNE WILL HAVE HIS FILL!!” The deamon screams at me.

Now for those of you who do not know, what a bloodletter looks like well its a deamon around 6 feet tall wielding a sword made of warp fire, and has thousands of razor sharp teeth, and burning red eyes the same color as it’s skin, or better put its hide. It is terror incarnated, and grown men pissing themselves at the sight of one carries no shame.

So I ran like hell. screaming “RUN.” While I did this, I heard Gereit scream.

“AWESOME NOW, FOR A REAL CHALLENGE!” He did this with the biggest smile I have ever seen, And with that it prompts me to pick him up with my mechandrite, and put him on my back, while still running like hell. His response.

“PUT ME DOWN THERE’S A REAL ENEMY NOW.”

Mine was pretty predictable “YOU’RE GONNA GET US ALL KILLED!”

After that I heard in my head a mechanical voice say. ‘Chosen in danger initializing weapons systems. Recommend use of chamethrawer, activating, chamethrawer. BURN WARP SPAWN.’ The thing in my head screamed. After that a flamethrower, with an undermounted chainsaw bursted out of one of my mechadrites, and toasted the deamon that was quickly catching up with us.

“Dude you stole my kill, and that was totally METAL.” Complained Gereit, while he complemented me. “When did you figure that out?” He asked this, while he got down. The deamon was gone, banished to the warp.

“I don’t know but our trip has gotten even more interesting than before.” I respond.