"You. Will. Not. Have. The. Last. Pleasure. Of. Hurting. Me. You. Ugly. Piece. Of. Khornate. Meat!" Viator muttered as, after tearing his rusty sword from the dead man's slack grip, began to mutilate his advesary's body until nothing remained of his torso but a slab of ruined flesh.

Seemingly done with venting his frustration, he turned around and spoke to two strongest looking individuals near him. "Turns out our hosts have escaped in quite quick fashion. I suggest we do the same and get the hell out of here, starting with this corridor. What do you say?"

@Redthirst @Virgil_Corbec

@Virgil_Corbec @Grall_Stonefist @Deran_Vendar

"Well, that was a bust," mutters Silim as he massages his aching temples, "Looks like we may have to finagle more conventional means of escape. Let's move."

Motioning to the others, he begins to make his way towards the broken gates.

"Agreed, I am Viator and a fellow traveler upon the path of pleasure, and I'm...eh," he stopped as Nemeritus proceeded into consuming the nearest dead lunatic, "Makes sense. Only the foolish do important work on an empty stomach," he chuckled and waited for his new acquaintance to finish with his feast before moving backward, towards where the Khornate cultists arrived from and in the opposite direction of where the last Word Bearer was going.

@Redthirst

<Beyond the Halls>
The last of the stragglers were finally making it into the central hub where they all stood and moved in the infernal orange light that pressed itself through the multitude of tall, narrow windows. Arnok, Kaleidos and Garrick were about halfway to the grand doors ahead when familiar faces and a new terror erupted into the crossroads ahead where all four major paths met. From the right a heavily depleted force of sorcerers and scorned of Tzeentch made a panicked mix of loping and limping steps out into the central area, behind them were screams of horror. Soon a stream of warp flame chased the lot of them from the realm of the living, bodies rendered into ash with astonishing ease even for the unholy fires of the hellish realm. Its source soon appeared and every step could be felt vibrating through the floors. A Hellbrute of all things. One of the tormented acting as final guard to the other sufferers. By now Viator, Mordethac, Alpharius, Silim, Aphael, Nemeritus and the nameless Thousand Son had gathered loosely in the hall with other survivors from the Temple of Deprivation and their small band was left staring at the lumbering brute as it began to half turn toward them. In the core of the corrupted Dreadnought a face with both its eyes stitched closed and mouth gagged by rusty, poor quality sensory units regarded them for only a moment before body twisted back towards the left path. Several chain weapons were heard.

Kharn and his trailing mob of Khornate sycophants fell upon the Hellbrute like a swarm of ants taking to a carcass. A daemonic claw caught and snapped one warrior in half and Kharn pounced onto the limb, in his hold was Gorechild. Ancient chain axe lashed and bit at the heavy armor and what mutant flesh had carpeted itself upon metal limbs. The flamer unit that dominated left arm whipped itself about wildly incinerating half a dozen more of those following the champion's steps. Those who were new here and had yet to wither away dodged the discolored flames and fell upon walker with the best of the loot. Chainswords, bolters, a power sword and even the horned helm of a Word Bearer that was now worn like a caestus upon a bloody hand were turned upon the Hellbrute. Thrashing around as Kharn had begun to gut the pilot encased in a cocoon of wires and flesh leading it to stampede down the hall and crash through the doors. In an instant fresh air flooded in from the world of Sicarus and the promise of freedom snared every heart and the halls began to empty.

Despite what many would expect Sicarus wasn't immediately hostile to life. Millennia ago it had been named a sanctuary by Kor Phaeron and this was not without good reason. Of course what signs of pleasantry were present were just as tainted as the planet's owners. The winds came in frequent gentle, cooling waves as if they were the breathing of some great fiend. The sky was locked in an eternal morning that cast an orange glow across the whole sky and the horizons, enough light to see clearly by without it glaring back. Stare too long though and it seemed to promise that flame was just out of sight and perhaps crawling closer. Threaded through the heavens were lesions of actual flame, some seemed to carry beings at their core and others seemed to simply be conflagrations that existed where on any sane world they would not . Beneath all this was the expansion and civilization of the Word Bearers. An endless maze of streets littered with profane architecture and art erected in honor of those whom ruled Chaos itself. Clustered together far and wide were hundreds of chapels, cathedrals and other places of worship. Streets were cluttered with rushing tides of cultists and worshipers. They gathered upon the roof tops too and in many places barbed spires rose into the sky and held impaled offerings and sacrifices that writhed where death had not taken hold. Many more cranes and areas of scaffolding clung to these buildings and smoke climbed high into the skies from fuel usage and burning debris as new buildings were always being erected above the old.

The Halls of the Damned were located upon a plateau that afforded them a scant amount of distance from the other buildings that had grown up like weeds around the base of the rise. The escapees and their unintentional liberator in the Hellbrute now stood in a wide courtyard fenced in by a low iron fence that was more decorative than anything. A circle of smooth stones had been planted into the ground within the fence and equidistant to one another at different points on this ring were basalt statues of glaring daemonic figures. There was a hound with bulls horns and in his clawed hands were cracked skulls. To his left was a screaming man being consumed by bloating stomach maw of a Nurglite fiend that frowned with disappointment on its actual head. To its left then was a bird with head turned and a leering eye turned in toward the courtyard, depictions of flame made of stone sat in talon like hands. Finally there was an androgynous figure sneering with disgusts and pointing a chitinous pinion down toward the center of the stone circle.

The Hellbrute toppled over as Kharn pulled the pilot from the corrupted suit's chest and threw him to the ground. Legs and arms had atrophied to the point they no longer existed and the limbless marine was quickly fallen upon and torn to pieces. The dust kicked up by the walker's descent hadn't even settled and Kharn was already on the move, and with him went those warriors that sought redemption in the Blood God's eyes. For the rest they were either standing by, following slowly or lost in the sensation of fresh air and open sky. No matter what any of them did though, there was only a single broad path out of here and it lead right down into the temple city of Sicarus.

@Draconion @Colapse @Keidivh @Virgil_Corbec @Redthirst @Vulpas @matt23 @Uriel1339 @Grall_Stonefist

"Ah, I love the smell of beautiful corruption in the morning," Viator grinned as he finally exited the Halls of the Damned after so many years, the foul stench of Sicarus feeling as good as the best narcotic. "This place is seeding in unholy as any other, perhaps even more so, which is yet another reason to proceed into the maze of the temples and gather our strength there because feeding upon such a rich environment ought to give us the necessary sustenance to exact our revenge, or whatever else you had in mind. But those statues down there do not look appealing," he raised his one good arm and pointed with the edge of his rusty sword down towards the courtyard.

"Perhaps the last line of the defense? A ring of stony guardians who would come alive just when the lucky escapee thought he fled at last?"

Arnok heard this unknown, to him, speak and replied with a face that did not show any sign of hope, "I would not expect such blessings to be found here. Do not forget where we are. This is the home of Lorgar and his sons, the ones who introduced the galaxy to chaos. They are the favored and therefore they have the upper hand on us. What you are assuming is that one of the Dark Gods will find more favor in us than the ones who have -not- failed them and continue to delight in their favor. So, pray to them through your action and maybe, just maybe, we shall escape this place with our lives. Because if we are killed here, our souls shall suffer an inescapable fate."

As he finally stepped out, looking out over the *homeplanet* of the wordbeares, he found he could be slightly thankfull, though the journey was far from over, he would either need to regrow enough strength to travel through the warp himself, a deed that seemed allmost ompossible at this moment, and had also sent him here in the first place, for hte lord of fate was no longer on his side.
As he heard some others speak, he saw no reason to not just join in for now, no one was getting off this planet alone, and given he wasent a blood crazed berzerker, he couldent just attempt to keep in the heels of Khârn, and being too close to that mad man could also affect his mental health.
"We have only completed the easiest part of this journey as of now, the challenge will be getting off this rock."