[Whom Do You Serve?] A Matter of Death - Vander Forrick

[Inquisitor]

He opens the door and begins making his way out. Eventually, a man passes him a light, which he uses to lead you out the rest of the way in the dark. "As far as I am concerned, you are not Verispex any longer. You serve the Inquisition, and shall do so until the day you die. And because of that, you do as I say. If any of your former superiors attempt to say otherwise, you will direct them to me. They would be foolish to cross a member of His Holy Ordos."


Eventually, the two of you breach the surface once more, entering the Precinct Fortress' main hall. People are running to and fro, and you see several members of your former Verispex Division. Two of them approach you. "Oh, there you are, Vander! We thought for sure you were a goner when they dragged you down there. Come on, we've got to get to work. A lot's happened since you went under yesterday."


The Inquisitor glances at you, his eyes narrowing slightly.

 

[Sol1]

For all his long-legged strides and for all the Inquisitor's frozen calm, Vander finds himself having great difficulty in keeping pace with the man as he's led through the dark. His hands sway mechanically at his sides with his vigorous steps, but his fingers wring uselessly at the air all the same, grasping for that conclusion he couldn't quite reach.


Not any longer. No longer a Verispex technician. No longer an Arbitrator. But he supposes there are certain . . . transferable skills, and the Inquisition is not to be denied.


Until the day you die. How soon would that day come? It's almost senseless, really, and he feels like a fool trying to figure out why, but he hadn't felt so alive in years until he'd had a bolt pistol pressed into his face.


The light of the Precinct-Fortress' main hall eventually hits his replacement eyes and stings him blind for a splitsecond, but he kneads them with his knuckles and forces them back open soon enough. He hadn't been able to keep track how long he'd spent down in the dark 'til the Inquisitor told him outright, and emerging into the clamour and the clutter of the hall fills him with the inexplicable need to hurry up and get to work.


But it wasn't his work he was getting to, was it? It would never be his work again. For some reason, that knowledge hit him in the guts as his old colleagues, his coworkers -- his friends -- approached the Inquisitor and him. He'd worked with these men day in and out for months, but before his eyes now they seemed something like strangers. It took him longer than it reasonably should have to reply, studying the Inquisitor for what he made of this situation, and he left them there for a long moment staring expectantly at him. He knew what needed to be done.


"I've been seconded elsewhere," he began slowly, then elaborating: "Orders from up top. I was sought out . . . specifically. It's the Chirurgeon. Something big." He flicks a hand in lazy indication towards the other technicians. He doesn't mention the fact that this man was from the Ordo Hereticus. Daren't mention. Surely if they looked close enough they could see the symbol around his neck? Surely it wasn't something that needed to be announced aloud?


Considering for a moment, he takes the keys to his office out and presses them into the hand of the man closest to him. "All my work, all my notes, use it however you will." A pause, and a glance to the other technician, and the weakest of watery smiles. "You know me well enough to figure out anything useful." They didn't. That was the funny thing. He wonders, vaguely, if the sight of the symbol he'd discovered -- that awful, familiar symbol -- would start the whole process all over again and instigate a witch hunt through a department that no longer holds jurisdiction over him. The thought prompts his smile to widen unexpectedly. The lump in his throat is equally sudden and uninvited, but he coughs into his hand to try and clear it and does his best to continue.


"You're a damn good team. Best I've worked with." The lie didn't quite fee true, but it felt appropriate. "Good luck. Emperor protect you both." Blinking repeatedly, he signs the aquila proudly across his chest before turning back to Tiberius with a firm nod and leaving his team behind.

 

[Inquisitor]

Your former coworkers gape at you, a hint of sadness in their faces. They seem to take a second to want to argue, until they look at the tall figure next to you. They shrink back, unnerved by him, and then lay eyes on the symbol at his neck. They quickly sign the Aquila and muster a quiet, "The Emperor protects," before scurrying off.


He nods at you, continuing to walk toward the massive set of doors leading to the outside. "You've done well to realize that your service to His cause takes you in separate ways than your former friends and coworkers. Your life from here on out belongs to Him and Him alone, and you should take pride in the fact that, even though you will most likely die unknown, the candle that is your soul will keep the darkness at bay while it is still lit." He clears his throat. "Now then, I have your notes on the case at hand already in my care. But first, we have to quell the problems in the city. We cannot track the cult infesting this world if the streets are full of chaos and rampant citizens."


The closer you get to the massive doors, the more you start to notice things you've never really seen before. It occurred to you that the wood carvings adorning the doors' surface were stories of Saint Gregor himself, but what went on was something nobody ever thought to pay attention to. The closest story to you draws your attention: the death of Gregor. How did he die? Fighting to cleanse a world of Chaos. Of Tzeentch.

 

[Sol1]

Vander absorbed the Inquisitor's instructions with quiet solemnity, keeping his thoughts to himself for the time being. For some reason, he found he couldn't keep his gaze up after spying the carvings, and so simply bowed his head in reverence. Despite that, though, he began to feel a distinct, tightening knot in his stomach in what must have been, he knew, to be mounting fury. This world was named for a hero, who had saved this one and countless others, but even after his demise those same foul forces that had conspired against him sought to desecrate his legacy. He balled his fists tightly at his sides.


He didn't know anything about being a candle, but something inside him had been set alight.


. . . full of chaos and rampant citizens . . .





"What's going on out there?" he asked suddenly, sharply, pointing at the doors as they drew near them. "Riots? A full-scale rebellion? Whatever it is, I'm not sure two men can quell it alone. I hope you've brought in a couple of riot squads with that rosette of yours, my lord."


He hesitated, then opened up his coat and indicated the empty holster in the front of his combat vest. "I'll need my gun. It would have been locked down as evidence." He found himself regarding the Inquisitor expectantly at that.

 

[Inquisitor]

He smirks at you. "My last report tells me that we're dealing with large-scale rioting in the streets, with Tzeentchian cultists doing as they please. In a way, it is rebellion, but not in the way you might think. We have to deal with the cult before we can do anything else about the riots, however. And as you might full well know, we cannot do that with many people. I have access to a small number of troops, and I certainly suppose I can gather more from your Precinct-Fortress." He frowns. "Your gun will be in your quarters shortly. You may go retrieve it now, if you wish. I'll get to work on gathering the men that I can."

 

[Sol1]

Vander nods, mostly to himself, feeling strange relief to be able to remove himself from the Inquisitor's presence and his work for a short amount of time. As he spins on his heel and begins to hurry away, he only slowly begins to realise exactly how wired his nerves were in the Inquisitor's presence. Am I ever going to be able to stand the presence of a man like that comfortably?





But comfort, he muses, was yesterday, losing sleep over the maps. Comfort was being trapped in an endlessly black cell without knowing when he was to be released. He doubts he'll ever feel comfortable again, and he supposes that that sensation of staring into the barrel of a gun might recur frequently in the coming days.


Stepping into his spartan quarters when he arrives at them, he has to wonder if he's ever going to see them again. As he closes the door behind him, he realises that the walk there was probably his last real freedom of movement for quite some time. Sure enough, the gun was there on his personal desk, which seemed to have been quite recently disturbed -- perhaps he was just entering in the wake of whoever'd returned it all from the evidence lockers.


He shrugs off his coat, pulls his vest off over his head, tugs at the starched collar of his uniform shirt, and consults the chrono on the wall. Was I down there for that long? Not enough time to change or wash, so he simply grimaces and ignores the smell of a night spent sweating in the cells before he boots open his footlocker and starts armouring up. Form-fitting armaplas plates and strips are slipped and secured into place all over his body.


Every Arbitrator was drilled in the same combat techniques, wearing the same suit of Enforcer-grade light carapace armour, and although he hadn't found himself in a concerted physical struggle recently -- he supposed blowing through a heretic's arm didn't quite count -- donning the gear felt like slipping on a pair of well-worn and . . . exceedingly weighty and uncomfortable hiking boots. He rolls his shoulders to gauge how much the upper arm guards want to rattle today, then nods, satisfied. The tangible mass of the armour weighing down on him gives each movement of his limbs a reassuring feeling of much-needed strength that he didn't notice before.


He hesitates on his way out to glance over his personal effects, but in the end, the only things he takes with him before he locks the room behind him forever are the faulty old holo-locket depicting a young father with child and wife-to-be, and a half-empty pack of lho-sticks.


With grenades and pistol strapped across the front of his vest, shotgun on his shoulder, helmet under one arm and coat trailing behind him, former Verispector Vander Forrick briskly reports to where he left the Inquisitor.

 

[Inquisitor]

You lay eyes on not just the Inquisitor, but two groups of a half-dozen men each. One you recognize as some of the most elite amongst your Precinct's Arbitrators, who you realize are standing a fair distance away from the Inquisitor himself. The other group appears to be some sort of rag-tag, poorly dressed, well-armed group of gruff men who, while are busy laughing it up amongst themselves, are also precariously close to him, at least as far as you're concerned. You wouldn't want to seem like you were having fun that close to a terrifying man like that.


It's too late to turn back now. Hell, it's been too late, but he notices you at long last. "To me, Vander," he mutters. "We have work to do," he says, raising his voice. It takes barely a second for the horseplay to stop, and the half-dozen nearest him to fall in line. Surprisingly, the elite Arbitrators aren't nearly as fast as these other men.


"I'll be frank with you all. We're going to a place we don't know, fighting a force we don't know the size of or how well-armed it is, to stop them from doing Chaos-knows-what. We don't know anything, in other words. But we're going there, we're killing them, and we're doing it, come Hell or high water. Failure is not an option for His Holy Ordos. I lead you all to certain death at the hands of the Archenemy, in a battlefield that is no longer your own. If you are to die today, then let it not be in vain. You will die serving His will, on His world. You cannot ask for a better death than that. But if death is something you do not wish to know this day, then steel yourselves, for we will have a lengthy battle ahead of us. Wish you not to die? Then embrace His will, and we will prevail."


With that, he turns toward the massive set of doors and waves his hand. You hear the enormous slabs of wood-covered plasteel slowly grind open, and Turchetillus leads you forth, and into the city at large.


...


The outside world is nothing like you once remembered it to be. It had only been several days, but it was like a completely different world out there. The streets had been shattered, pavement torn up in places. Some of the nearby buildings have partially collapsed by this point. The screams of the innocent fill your ears. The suffering is immense in the world beyond the Gates. How the hell have you never experienced this before?