"Race? Litanies? XP? What the actual fuck is happening right now." I thought as I looked around the room. The first thing that sprang out was the pragmatic approach to home decoration. Besides useful tools, odds and ends, the only decoration was an Imperial Aquila adorning the walls. A piece of paper was framed on the wall above the door.
It looked old. A wax seal at the bottom with the laurel encrusted, double-headed eagle hanging over a human skull. The ideology was clear as day. The skull at the bottom represents humanity. The laurel crown represents the purity of the human species and the double-headed eagle represents the Imperium of Man.
"One does not fanboy over 40k without learning a myriad of random things, including basic heraldry." rang through my head as a thousand thoughts all tried to get to the front of the line. I looked down at my own body and was stupefied.
I was not looking at my original body. It felt like it, and in many ways, it looked like it. But it was not the same body. This body was lean, toned, pale as ice, and covered in small and medium-sized scars. My hands were rough and hard, callus almost everywhere, the legs muscular without being obscene.
Getting up from the simple bed I had been sleeping in, I stumbled over to the wall where a mirror was hanging.
"At least my face looks the same," I thought with relief as I looked in the mirror. That's when I noticed the ease with which I moved. Silent steps on confident feet. I moved like a predator on the prowl, fast and deadly.
"Finally awake, eh? The Emperor protects!" A gruff voice rang out and broke my train of thought, I turned around and saw an older man walking towards me from a different room, which I presumed to be a living room, on account of the large table and chair set in the middle. The man walked with confidence, a soldier's walk. There was no fear in him. He was holding a bowl of what was best described as goop with an ever so slightly green tinge.
"I figured you were hungry and there is always plenty of Soylens Viridians* to go around." He said to me as he handed me the bowl and a spoon. Feeling my stomach respond to me holding food, I tentatively took a spoonful of the goop.
If bland was a taste, this was the source. Never had I tasted something so... full-blown bland before. but it was filling and soon the bowl was empty.
"Good, you need to regain your strength. That crash was a nasty one." The older man continued. "
"Crash? I don't remember any crash..." I said as I slowly rose from the bed.
"You did hit your head phenomenally hard, I'm surprised your skull didn't crack open like an egg. What is your name?"
"Björk," I said. I sensed it would not be a good idea to reveal my true identity just yet. "But that is all I remember. I have no memory before waking up in this bed.
"I am Nela. Welcome to my humble abode." Nela sarcastically gestured to the, honestly speaking, miserable living conditions surrounding us. Bare walls of what looked like concrete, but with too smooth a finish, the bed barely more than a slab of wood with some stuffing in a lowering in the middle and a cheap blanket on top.
The view outside the small window in the wall showed a city, larger than I had ever seen or imagined before. What worried me was the insane amount of gun emplacements on the walls. Where the fuck did I end up? I scoured my memory. The voice had said something about the planet Karrik. Searching my memory, all that came up was *Ork infested, almost ice world."
"Figures. I get my one true wish fulfilled and I end up on a half-frozen ball of screaming death in the form of freezing winds and orks." I thought to myself as reality hit me. I had been granted the one thing I wanted. A life of excitement. The only problem was, as much as I loved the Warhammer setting, whenever people asked if I wanted to live in it, my immediate answer would always be "No thanks, I choose life!"
The Warhammer setting was great for imagining yourself as a mighty space marine. Being thrust into the world as a baseline human?? His choices were basically what he would like to kill him. He could join the Imperial guard. Have an expected lifespan of around 15 seconds in open battle. He could join a gang and increase that life expectancy to around 2 years before a rival gang would wipe them out or the Arbites would roll through and mount his corpse on a pike as a warning to the rest of the gangs around.
He could, of course, take regular work. Let 16-hour shifts slowly break down his body and will until all that was left was an empty husk, ready to be processed into corpse starch. The only truly sensible option would be to get a hold of a gun and blow his brains out. Then again, he had never been that sensible a person
Life was indeed grim-dark in the 40k universe, but he needed to try and make the best of it.
"Get some rest, you are still zoning out. Next time you wake up, we will talk more." Nela said and left the room.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
I laid down on the bed, but sleep was the last thing on my mind. There was some sort of system in place, judging from the voice in my head earlier, and I was determined to find out how it worked.
"Show options," I thought to myself. Nothing happened.
"Umm... Open character info"
The same screen from yesterday filled my vision.
HUMAN. LEVEL 1.
STAT POINTS REMAINING: 5
ALIGNMENT: PURE IN THE EYES OF THE EMPEROR.
LITANIES: 1
AUGMENTATIONS: NONE
LEVEL: 0/600
STRENGTH: 5
AGILITY: 5
PERCEPTION: 5
WILL: 5
LUCK: 15
"Hmm. Living on a world like this, I would benefit more from agility and perception than raw strength..." I thought to myself. After a bit of internal deliberation, I dumped all 5 points in perception. Seeing the danger coming was better than being able to outrun an ambush you never saw coming. A small box popped up, confirming my selection, and I felt a slight tingle wash over my body.
The difference was almost imperceptible, but it was there. I didn't only notice more details as I looked around again, but I also made mental connections I had not been able to make before. For example, it occurred to me, from the confident walk in his steps and the Imperial Aquila dotted around the small home, to the indifference with which he mentioned Soylens Viridians always being plentiful, indicating that he was either used to or at least knew of, better quality food, that he was most like either a member of the Imperial Guard or a former, retired member. He did look like he was quite a bit older than my mid-thirties.
The small light was blinking in the corner of my vision again, and I focused my mind on it. A new screen filled my vision.
CONGRATULATIONS. YOU HAVE EARNED AN ACHIEVEMENT.
FOR PUTTING ALL YOUR INITIAL STAT POINTS INTO A SINGLE STAT, YOU HAVE EARNED THE ACHIEVEMENT *One-trick pony*
ACHIEVEMENT REWARD: 1 STAT POINT.
"Huh... So I guess achievements are a thing as well. Not bad for someone that never played the game before." I thought to myself, happy with the small boon. Compared to my already 40 collective stat points, it was a drop in the water. But every advantage counts and I took this one with glee, putting the point into Luck. It only seemed fair, since it was my luck that got me the stat point.
Afterward, my character looked as follows.
HUMAN. LEVEL 1.
STAT POINTS REMAINING: 0
ALIGNMENT: PURE IN THE EYES OF THE EMPEROR.
LITANIES: 1
AUGMENTATIONS: NONE
LEVEL: 0/600
STRENGTH: 5
AGILITY: 5
PERCEPTION: 10
WILL: 5
LUCK: 16
"That was fairly easy," I thought to myself, "I wonder what litanies are. *Show litanies*"
LITANIES: 1
PRAYER OF ADULATION TO THE EMPEROR.
"I wonder how that works." I continued my train of thought. Without thinking, I started speaking the words, as I was laying on the bed.
"O Immortal Emperor: have mercy upon us, miserable unworthies that we are.
O Master of the Galaxy: Protect your flock from the alien.
O Keeper of the Light: Guide our darkened path with Your radiance
We are your warriors and we are servants to Thee,
We stand free from blindness of heart,
Free from hypocrisy, vainglory, and deceits,
But captive to hatred, malice, and anger,
To the filth, the alien, the heretic.
By Thy agony and bloody sweat; by The Golden Throne and Thy Death,
By the destruction and re-emergence as the god of men,
Keep and strengthen us, we who fight for Thee."
The last 3 lines of the prayer were echoed from the adjoining room as Nela came back through the door.
"I see you have not forgotten everything." He said to me with a small smile on his lips. "For a moment I was worried I might have picked up a heretic in the making and would have to register you for re-education." The hard look in his eyes contradicted his smile and pleasant voice. I had no doubt he would have killed me off soon, had I not exhibited the behavior of an Imperial citizen.
"Re-education," I thought to myself. "That's a good one. More like indoctrination with mandatory lobotomy for anyone deemed a failure in re-education." I thought, but simply smiled at the Nela and said, "The glory of the Emperor's light can never be extinguished."
Nela's smile grew and the hard look in his eyes disappeared. "Spoken like a true imperial citizen. I am now certain you were not the saboteur."
"Saboteur, wait, what?" I asked confused. "Please elaborate!"
"Right, memory loss." Nela reminded himself. "I recovered you from a downed Arvus lighter Transport shuttle. The damage was extensive and had all the signs of an ork missile attack from the surface. Except for the precision damage of the explosions. Only the engine and hull were damaged, but they were so badly damaged it's a wonder the shuttle didn't tear itself apart." Nela took a deep breath to continue, but the sound of a kettle starting to boil interrupted him and he hurried out. Moments later he returned with 2 steaming cups.
"Recaf**?" He asked me as he held out one of the cups.
'Yes, thank you." I said and took it. I took a deep inhale of the fumes coming off of the surface of the fluid in the cup. It smelled like coffee from back home, even though it looked like tea. A sip confirmed that it was indeed a tea-colored coffee.
"Since you cannot remember anything from before, I guess the most sensible thing would be to figure out what you want to do. I could not find any identification papers on you so I'm guessing they must have got lost in the crash. So first, we get you to the local Administorum office, get your identity papers in order, and then we find your function." Nela said slowly as if he was thinking over the issue as he spoke.
"What would be my options?" I asked of him, curious as to what place in society I could fill out.
"There are not many choices for you on Karrik, I'm afraid. Work in the mines, Work in the warehouses, join the PDF***, or join one of the gangs in the underhive. (See link in post-chapter notes) Those are your choices, really." Nela explained before smiling and adding, "But hey, at least we are not living on a death world****!"
He chuckled a bit at his own words and it gave me time to focus my thoughts on the blinking at the edge of my vision that had started to become familiar at this point.
QUEST RECEIVED
QUEST TASK: CHOOSE CAREER PATH.
REWARD(S): 50 XP, ACCESS TO SKILLS.
TIMELIMIT: INFINITE