Rest Eterna - Prologue
What started as a routine patrol quickly becomes a slaughter. Something foul as shown its hand in the quiet forests of Eterna.
The forest was quiet, save from the patrol of Novitiates moving through the undergrowth. The path of the patrol took them past a squat set of ruins. What they had once been had been lost to time, an administrative building perhaps. Or perhaps it was the collapsed shell of a mausoleum that had once held some warrior or dignitary of note. Whatever it had been, it was now simply a waypoint on a route through the forests.
The patrol was a few paces past the ruins when they heard it, a scream from a small clearing. As one they advanced into the clearing, weapons at the ready, to find an Administarum Adept hunched over the bloodied corpses of two others.
“He cannot have them!” the deranged Adept screams before pressing a stub pistol under their chin. Before the Novitiates can react, the Adept pulls the trigger. The instant that their head explodes in a shower of wet gore the ground beneath the Novitiates’ feet heaves and something claws itself from the earth.
The undead have risen!
The thing that has pulled itself free used to be Corporal Mikal Doman of the 8th Ballmori PDF who was killed in the Valom Uprising four centuries previously. It is now a mockery of life, rotten and diseased flesh hangs from its shambling frame as it takes jerking unsteady steps towards the Novitiates. It does not get far before Novitiate Superior Palmora’s plasma pistol speaks with the fury of a newborn star. The resultant plasma bolt strikes the shambling horror just below the left eye, discharging its superheated payload in an expanding sphere that melts flesh and bone with equal ease. The horror’s head is instantly vaporised and much of the upper torso blisters and bubbles under the extreme heat. The walking corpse becomes a corpse again and collapses in the grass. On its chest the Astrid Star, awarded to Corporal Doman for acts of bravery against Valomi insurgents cools from a dull red, its depiction of Saint Astrid twisted and deformed by the heat.
None of the Notiviates pay this any mind of course. The fire team with their autoguns surge forwards to meet a group of walking horror shambling out from behind a small copse of trees. They unleash a barrage of fire that blasts one of the horrors from its feet. Notiviate Reliquarius Freya and Novitiate Preceptor Alicia move with the fire team, adding to the barrage with their autopistols and killing another walking corpse.
The sounds of gunfire echo throughout the forest drawing in more of the reanimated dead.
More corpses shuffle out of the trees.
Not wanting to get mobbed by the encroaching horde, the fire teams back up slightly, putting space between them and the walking dead. That gives them time to unleash disciplined bursts of gunfire, dropping three more zombies. Novitiates Alicia and Freya keep with the fire team, using their autopistols to fell another of the horrors.
The more they kill, the more of them seem to crawl out of the tree line.
The fire team of Novitiates redouble their efforts, laying down a withering hail of fire that fells two of the three remaining undead horrors. The remaining corpse stumbles onwards, seemingly oblivious to the gunfire. Palmora’s plasma pistol removes an arm at the shoulder. Alicia and Freya’s pinpoint shots blow chunks out of the thing’s skull. But onwards it comes. Almost in a panic the fire team holds down the triggers on their autogun, emptying magazines in a storm of bullets. The weight of fire shreds the walking horror down to the bone and it finally crumples into a disgusting heap of mangled flesh.
Behind the Sisters the ground churns and shifts, although no more zombies claw themselves free, it will not be long before they do. And with more bearing down on them from the tree line, their options grow thin by the second. Palmora orders her squad to the ruins, it’s crumbling walls are at least marginally more defensible than the surrounding forest.
The Novitiate Superior leads the charge, firing her pistol as she advances. Two more zombies fall to well placed plasma shots. The rest of her team follows suit as the enemy hordes begin to close in. The fire team and Freya felling two more horrors between them while Alicia scouts the ruins for threats.
The enemy close in from three sides…
Looking about, Superior Palmora can see the hopelessness of their situation; the undead are closing in from three sides and there are more coming through the trees. She will be a martyr someday, but it is not this day. She calls Freya to cover her while begins to key frequencies into her vox unit. The Reliquarius plants her icon and loads a fresh clip into her autopistol, taking potshots at the horrors closing in around them. One even manages to get close enough to grab at her, but she is able to kick it back a few paces. The Novitiates fire team also moves up to cover Palmora, their autoguns blazing and felling another three zombies.
Within the ruins Alicia is about to join her fellow Novitiates when she spots an ancient control terminal in the corner. She takes a moment to inspect it and realises that it’s an old music box, a simple device with prerecorded prayers and devotions that play on a loop. A common enough sight in smaller churches and mausoleums across Eterna. Alicia hits the activator rune and sure enough, through tinny speakers comes the sound of the Psalm of Remembrance.
The effect on the undead is both unexpected and immediate, the holy words momentarily freezing them in place. The Novitiates aim to capitalise on sudden initiative; Alicia unhooks her mace and clicks the igniter rune. In its hollow head, a spark lights a bundle of holy incense sticks. Fragrant smoke billows from the mace as Alicia brings it up in an overhead smash into the skull of a walking horror.
The Sisters prepare to make their last stand.
With prayers on her lips and the icon of Saint Mercurius held high, Freya blasts another fetid horror from its feet with a bark from her autopistol. The fire team likewise lend their voices to the Psalm of Remembrance and their autoguns speak their piece. But even frozen by holy words the horrors are formidable constructs, and the hail of bullets fail to fell any of them. Meanwhile Superior Palmora shouts into her vox unit in the hope of raising the alarm.
The old music emits a sudden shower of sparks, and its sound abruptly cuts out. With that the rapidly growing horde of undead lurch back into motion. One lunges at Alicia, but she easily dispatches it. Palmora begins shouting into the vox with increased urgency as the fire team and Freya unleashes a torrent of fire power into the undead horde, killing just one for their trouble.
Onwards they come, in a seemingly unending tide of undead flesh and claws. Alicia smashes her mace into a horror, and it drops in a crumpled heap of bones and skin. Another grabs at her and gouges her armour, as she fights back with zealous fury. Freya continues to recite the Psalm of Remembrance at the top of her lungs as her autopistol drops two more shambling horrors. The fire team continue to pump firepower into the encroaching horde, but the soft undead flesh absorbs bullets with little to no effect.
Novitiate Superior Palmora calls for evac!
Meanwhile, the vox crackles and finally a voice comes through. Superior Palmora quickly relays their co-ordinates and calls for aerial extraction. Tense moments pass before the request is acknowledged and authorised.
Before long the scream of jets fills the air, drowning out even the sound of gunfire and crunching bone as the Novitiates fight back-to-back. With no space to set down the transport hovers overhead and drops Extraction Long Lines. Palmora orders the fire team up first who give one last burst of fire before clipping themselves to the line. As soon as the last member is attached the cables retract and the fire team are hoisted out of danger.
It will take a few moments for the fire team to extract themselves from the ropes and drop them back down. Before they can do so the zombie horde, no longer kept at bay by gunfire, lurches forward and crashes into the Novitiate Superior. Palmora’s power sword lashes out, slicing the head from one of the horrors and keeping the rest at bay. Another undead swipes clumsily at Freya and without leverage her armour easily turns it aside. In response she puts a burst of bullets through its skull that sends it crashing backwards. For Alicia however, the sudden change in tempo catches her by surprise allowing one walking horror to get inside her guard. Empowered by warp magicks it tears through the armour over her midriff and into the flesh below. The Novitiate Preceptor screams as she is near disembowelled and collapses in a fountain of blood, the Extraction Long Lines dropping back down just a second too late.
Palmora and Freya desperately hold out for evacuation.
Palmora roars in anguish as her charge falls. She blasts two more undead with her plasma pistol and turns to Alicia, who to her credit is attempting to rise even as blood pours from her side. The Superior isn’t sure that Alicia will survive the extraction, let alone the journey to a medicae station, but she clips her prone form into a Long Line anyway. Then she does Freya and finally herself.
The last thing that Alicia sees as the ground drops away from her and the darkness closes in is the endless horde of undead that carpet the forest like a rotting blanket.