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His lips still mouthing the Benediction of Hatred, Brother Captain Garron forced himself to raise his head as the rough pull of the cruel blades against his flesh finally abated. He doubted that his reprieve would last long. As his head raised, his muscles screamed from days of hanging with his arms chained cruciform. The robed forms of his four ever present tormentors blurred into focus. They had retreated a few steps from him, bloody daggers still in hand. By now he'd grown used to the pale, waxy scar tissue that were their sole facial features.

“Your prayers fall upon indifferent ears,” said a deep, silky voice as the hulking form of the arch-traitor flowed from the shadows. The faceless humans fell to one knee at his presence, their ruined faces pressed to the stone floor, the giant paying no heed to them as he passed. Garron felt his blood turn hot with anger at the sight, his body subconsciously straining against the cruel chains that bound him. The fallen Astartes stopped in front of him and gently lifted Garron’s chin with thumb and forefinger, the sleeve of his black robe slipping back to reveal pallid skin stretched over gene-forged muscle. He leaned in close to Garron. His face was hidden behind a pristine white mask shaped in the visage of a delicate human face, a single black tear drop molded below the right eye. “Don’t worry,” he continued, softer now. “Soon you will have a captivated audience for all of your devotionals, Brother Captain.”

Garron spat, the crimson spittle bright against the ivory of the mask. “You are no brother of mine,” Garron growled, his weary voice sounding pitiful in its dryness. “You left that title with the tattered remains of your broken oaths.” He forced a defiant grin. “And if you think that a few cuts are going to break mine, you are sadly mistaken. I must thank you, in fact. It has been a while since my last proper devotional.”

A low chuckle came from beneath the mask as the hand was retracted, letting Garron’s chin drop to his chest. “It is always a pleasure to have a Son of Dorn. Without a gag, I get to hear all of the empty threats and false piety. Your Gene-Father’s stubbornness is just an added benefit.” One of the faceless thralls wheeled a stained steel table between Garron and the masked traitor. “Not that it will help you in the end,” he paused, laying several blunt instruments upon the table, before adding, “my brother.”

The masked heretic met Garron’s gaze, then slowly produced a small object from within his robes and began rolling it between his fingers. Garron’s wounds began to throb and itch. For the first time, his gaze to fell upon the mosaic of cuts and brands that marred his skin. Seeing that each one formed a profane symbol that intertwined into a blasphemous web of sigils filled him with revulsion, his vision swimming at the sight.

“What—" The words caught in this throat a moment as throbbing agony built in his wounds. He caught his breath and choked them out. "What have you done to me?"

“I was Brother Undariel, Captain of the Blood Angels Fifth Company,” the traitor said, his focus still on the object twirling in his fingers. “Glory and duty came easy. My skill was unmatched. Veldo the Blood Scourge, Warboss Eadsnappa, The Herald of the True Faith, The Hunter of Ruin, all met their end at the edge of my blade.” Undariel turned his attention back to Garron and with a slow, deliberate movement, placed the small object onto the table. He removed his hand from the table, revealing a single service stud. When Garron’s eyes met the small metal spike, the itching, burning, throbbing cacophony of sensation reached a crescendo, and he struggled just to draw breath. Carved into the embossed Aquila on the head of the spike was an intricate symbol of obscene beauty, inlaid with gold and silver. Garron tore his gaze from the garish sigil and met the mask’s empty gaze.

Above the roar of the sensory overload, only one thing was clear. “Pathetic,” Garron said. How dare this scum bother him with such insignificant deeds, “bragging of the empty deeds of a heretic. They mean nothing to me. Give me a blade so that you may witness a true skill and be sent to the Emperor to be judged for your desecration.”

“I was Sanguinius,” Undariel continued, producing a second service stud from the folds of his robes and placing it on the table beside the first. The symbol on this one crude, as if made with a chisel.

“Do not ignore me you traitorous coward,” Garron snarled, his choler suddenly rising at the slight. He pulled at his bindings, his scabbed over wounds splitting and running anew with fresh blood. “Face me!”

“I fell to the curse of my geneseed, imprisoned in the death throes of my long dead father. Cursed with unbridled rage for a death that was not mine and forced to make it my own.”

Garron could feel the hot blood pouring down his arms from where the chains bit into his arms, the pain of these new wounds joining the chorus of agony, but he didn’t care. He had to get free. He had to kill this traitor. His breath was coming heavy now, seething past lips dripping with pink saliva. He flailed against the chains, he had to get free. He had to kill.

His body slumped against the unyielding chains, fatigue winning out over his anger. Temporarily defeated, Garron’s eyes discovered that a third stud had been placed with the other two. This spike looked to be ancient and tarnished, three rusty rings hammered into the Aquila. Garron realized suddenly that the sensations in his skin had changed. Without losing their intensity, they had also gotten duller, as if they had always been there. He looked down at the wounds and saw the skin around them blackening, translucent yellow pus beginning to mix with the blood. He smiled, for in that moment he knew that his revenge would be inevitable.

“I was forsaken,” Undariel said upon seeing Garron’s rage ebb. “My father abandoned us, cursing us even in death. The corpse Emperor abandoned us to obtain godhood, condemning us to serve a bureaucracy that repays our sacrifices only with suspicion and enslavement. Even my brothers forsook me, sentencing me to death for the crimes of our father.”

A fourth stud was placed on the table. A serpentine symbol twisted and writhed on the Aquila, pulsing with unseen power. That power called to Garron. With it, he knew he could restore the galaxy to the Emperor’s vision and strike down those who wish to destroy humanity. Part of him knew the truth in this lie and railed against it, but its screams of hatred were no match for the glorious torment that drowned them out. Garron reveled in the sensation as his skin knit back together, the necrotic furrows replaced with pale pink scar tissue. The fatigue in his muscles faded away, replaced by this raw power. His scars sang with glorious sensation, every twin pulsebeat of his hearts sent strength through his veins. And in his mind, he reveled in the inevitability of all things.

“I was reborn, released from the shackles of the Imperium, my mind free from the failure of the Angel. My fate freed to find my own death.

Garron felt Undariel lift his chin again, breaking the siren hold of the four studs. The skin of his face tingled as the mask slid into place. Inside of his mind, something screamed and thrashed, trying to fight through his clouded mind and regain control.

“I am nothing,” said his forsaken Brother. “I am faceless.” Garron was vaguely aware of Undariel picking something off the table as he said, “I am eternal.”

With a hammer blow, the sound of a service stud punching through the ceramite mask and into the flesh and bone of his skull filled Garron’s rapturous ears and the screaming abruptly stopped, to be replaced by beautiful whispers.

Zark the Damned posted:

Note that your Oath can only be considered complete once everything's done, including any additions. Please make sure to put all of your completed stuff in one post when it's all done!

Also that Prince is badass.

jadebullet posted:

Zark the Damned posted:

Maybe swap it with May so dragons can do double duty with Monster May-hem?

Monoliths posted:

A FEBRUARY OF JUDGEMENT


Technical/theme point - Jadebullet

Good work getting both the technical and theme elements in there! The caked-up blood is wonderful. He’s clearly been hacking all day and night, and totally didn’t even clean it off on a fern frond or anything. I also really like the high-contrast mask and cool swampy base.