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You think you understand decay? You don’t. Witness a soldier’s true horror as Nurgle’s ‘gift’ rots him alive from within….
Step into the grimdark nightmare of the Warhammer 40K universe, where the Plague God Nurgle delivers his horrific “gift” to humanity. This cinematic documentary recounts the forbidden testimony of Lieutenant Corvus Hale, Astra Militarum, as his garrison on Verdantis falls victim to an unimaginable infection. This isn’t just a story of war — it’s a first-person descent into corruption, faith, and transformation under Chaos.
Disclaimer:
This channel is an unofficial, fan-made Warhammer 40,000 project created purely for storytelling, educational, and entertainment purposes. It is dedicated to exploring the forgotten truths, brutal histories, and everyday struggles of life under the Imperium through cinematic narration and immersive lore-driven narratives — from the heart of hive cities to the farthest war-torn stars.
We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Games Workshop in any way. Warhammer 40,000 and all associated names, characters, factions, lore, and imagery are the intellectual property of Games Workshop Ltd. All rights belong to their respective owners.
Some contents are used for educational purposes under fair use. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational, or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
#Warhammer40K #warhammer #Wh40K #WH40KLore
Step into the grimdark nightmare of the Warhammer 40K universe, where the Plague God Nurgle delivers his horrific “gift” to humanity. This cinematic documentary recounts the forbidden testimony of Lieutenant Corvus Hale, Astra Militarum, as his garrison on Verdantis falls victim to an unimaginable infection. This isn’t just a story of war — it’s a first-person descent into corruption, faith, and transformation under Chaos.
Disclaimer:
This channel is an unofficial, fan-made Warhammer 40,000 project created purely for storytelling, educational, and entertainment purposes. It is dedicated to exploring the forgotten truths, brutal histories, and everyday struggles of life under the Imperium through cinematic narration and immersive lore-driven narratives — from the heart of hive cities to the farthest war-torn stars.
We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Games Workshop in any way. Warhammer 40,000 and all associated names, characters, factions, lore, and imagery are the intellectual property of Games Workshop Ltd. All rights belong to their respective owners.
Some contents are used for educational purposes under fair use. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational, or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
#Warhammer40K #warhammer #Wh40K #WH40KLore
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GamingTranscript
00:00:00You think you understand decay.
00:00:02You've seen fruit blacken on a forgotten counter,
00:00:05watched rust devour metal,
00:00:07smelled the sweet rot of something dead left too long in summer heat.
00:00:11But you don't understand, not really.
00:00:15Because those things are already gone when the rot takes them.
00:00:18They don't feel it happening.
00:00:21They don't wake up every morning and discover,
00:00:24another piece of themselves has turned to soup inside their own skin.
00:00:28They don't hear the laughter bubbling up from their liquefying lungs.
00:00:32They don't smile when they should be screaming.
00:00:35I did.
00:00:37And before you turn away,
00:00:39before you decide this is just another tale of corruption and chaos,
00:00:43I need you to understand something.
00:00:46The true horror of Nurgle's gift isn't the rotting.
00:00:49It's that eventually, you learn to love it.
00:00:52My name was Corvus Hale.
00:00:55Lieutenant in the Astra Militarum.
00:00:57Third Mordian Iron Guard,
00:00:59stationed on a world whose name has been stricken from every imperial record.
00:01:04We called it Vedantis.
00:01:06Green Lush.
00:01:07A paradise after six months of desert warfare on the previous deployment.
00:01:11The recruiting officers promised us garrison duty,
00:01:15said we'd earned it after the grinding meat factory of the last campaign.
00:01:19They lied.
00:01:21But then,
00:01:21they always do.
00:01:23Vedantis wasn't a paradise.
00:01:25It was a larder,
00:01:26and we were the fresh meat Nurgle had ordered for his table.
00:01:30I just didn't know it yet.
00:01:32None of us did.
00:01:33Not when we made Planetfall.
00:01:35Not when we set up our forward operating base,
00:01:38in the ruins of what the colonists had called New Prosperity.
00:01:42Not even when we found the first bodies.
00:01:45The settlement had been empty for three months according to orbital surveys.
00:01:5015,000 colonists vanished.
00:01:52No distress calls.
00:01:54No evacuation signatures.
00:01:56Just silence and those damned green forests pressing in from every direction.
00:02:01Command wanted answers.
00:02:03They sent us into the ruins with Auspex scanners and a mandate to report anything unusual.
00:02:09We found unusual.
00:02:10Emperor help us, we found it in abundance.
00:02:14The first body was in what had been a chapel,
00:02:17still kneeling before a defaced statue of the Emperor.
00:02:20The statue's face had been chiseled away and replaced with something else.
00:02:25Something that smiled too wide.
00:02:27Seven circles carved into its chest.
00:02:30The colonist at its feet had been dead maybe a week.
00:02:34The corpse was bloated.
00:02:35Swollen with gases until the skin was stretched drum.
00:02:39Tight and mottled with colors I'd never seen on human flesh.
00:02:44Purples and greens and yellows
00:02:46that seemed to shift in the dim light filtering
00:02:49through the chapel's shattered windows.
00:02:51But that wasn't what made Sergeant Kane vomit into his rebrother.
00:02:55It was the flies.
00:02:57Thousands of them.
00:02:58Tens of thousands.
00:03:00They covered the body like a living blanket.
00:03:03And when we approached,
00:03:04they rose as one with a sound like tearing silk.
00:03:08They didn't scatter.
00:03:10They formed a cloud,
00:03:12a buzzing mass that hung in the air between us and the corpse.
00:03:15And I swear by the golden throne they were watching us.
00:03:19Flies don't watch.
00:03:21They don't have the intelligence.
00:03:23But these did.
00:03:24I could feel their attention like pressure against my eyes.
00:03:28Kane was screaming for us to fall back,
00:03:31but I couldn't move.
00:03:32None of us could.
00:03:34We just stood there while the flies descended,
00:03:36landing on our uniforms,
00:03:38our exposed skin,
00:03:39our faces.
00:03:40They didn't bite.
00:03:41They just crawled,
00:03:43exploring tasting.
00:03:44I felt one walk across my lips,
00:03:47and I wanted to scream,
00:03:49but I couldn't open my mouth,
00:03:50because then it would get inside,
00:03:52and that thought was somehow worse than anything else.
00:03:56Then they were gone,
00:03:58rising again in that terrible coordinated mass,
00:04:01and flowing out through the chapel door,
00:04:03into the green hell beyond.
00:04:05We should have left then.
00:04:07We should have called for immediate evac and orbital bombardment.
00:04:11But we didn't.
00:04:12We had our orders.
00:04:14We had 15,000 missing colonists to account for.
00:04:18And we had no idea that those flies had already delivered us to our god.
00:04:22The infection started small,
00:04:25a rash on private Mencken's forearm where a fly had landed.
00:04:29He showed it to the company Medica that evening.
00:04:32Just a patch of red skin,
00:04:34slightly raised,
00:04:36itching terribly.
00:04:37The Medica gave him standard anti-inflammatory ootment,
00:04:41and told him to keep it clean.
00:04:42By morning,
00:04:43the rash had spread to his elbow.
00:04:46Small pustules had formed,
00:04:48weeping a clear fluid that smelled faintly sweet,
00:04:51like overripe fruit.
00:04:52The Medica quarantined him immediately,
00:04:55and put the rest of us on observation.
00:04:58Three hours later,
00:05:00Corporal Vess started scratching her neck.
00:05:02Six hours after that,
00:05:04half the squad showed symptoms.
00:05:06I was clean.
00:05:07I thought I was lucky.
00:05:09I thought the Emperor had spared me for some greater purpose.
00:05:13What a fool I was.
00:05:15Nurgle doesn't spare anyone.
00:05:16He just takes his time with the ones he loves most.
00:05:20We set up a quarantine zone,
00:05:22in what had been the settlement's Medica facility.
00:05:25Thirty,
00:05:26seven personnel showed symptoms by the end of the second day.
00:05:30The company Medica,
00:05:31a severe woman named Helsa Crane,
00:05:34worked herself to exhaustion trying to identify the pathogen.
00:05:38Nothing in her database matched.
00:05:40The symptoms were wrong.
00:05:43Infections this aggressive should have killed the afflicted within hours,
00:05:47but instead they seemed to stabilize.
00:05:49The pustules would burst and weep,
00:05:52then scab over with a thick greenish crust.
00:05:54The rashes spread,
00:05:56but didn't seem to cause systemic failure.
00:05:59Mencken,
00:06:00the first infected,
00:06:01was coherent and conversational.
00:06:04He said the itching had stopped.
00:06:06He said he actually felt better than he had in years.
00:06:09He said the scabs were singing to him.
00:06:12Crane sedated him after that,
00:06:14and requested immediate contact with orbital command.
00:06:17The Vox network was downed.
00:06:20Every channel filled with static,
00:06:22and what might have been whispering in a language that made my teeth ache.
00:06:26We were alone.
00:06:27By day five,
00:06:29I understood that we weren't dealing with a natural disease.
00:06:33This was something else.
00:06:34Something intelligent.
00:06:36The infected started changing.
00:06:38Not dying.
00:06:39Changing.
00:06:40Their skin took on that same mottled coloration
00:06:43we'd seen on the corpse in the chapel.
00:06:45Their eyes yellowed,
00:06:47then filmed over with a milky cataract that somehow didn't blind them.
00:06:51They moved differently.
00:06:53Slower.
00:06:54More deliberately.
00:06:56Like they were listening to instructions only they could hear.
00:06:59And they were happy.
00:07:01That was the worst part.
00:07:03They were deliriously,
00:07:05obscenely happy.
00:07:06Mencken spent hours laughing to himself,
00:07:09a wet bubbling sound that came from deep in his chest.
00:07:12When Crane tried to sedate him again,
00:07:15he caught her wrist with strength,
00:07:17that shouldn't have been possible for someone in his condition.
00:07:22He looked at her with those yellow,
00:07:25filmed eyes and said she didn't need to worry.
00:07:28He said grandfather was taking care of everything.
00:07:31He said we were all blessed and soon we'd understand.
00:07:35Crane pulled her sidearm and shot him in the head.
00:07:38His corpse was still smiling when it hit the floor.
00:07:41The flies came for it within minutes.
00:07:45I watched them swarm through the broken windows,
00:07:48that same coordinated mass we'd seen in the chapel.
00:07:51They covered Mencken's body,
00:07:53and beneath their revving carpet his flesh began to move.
00:07:56Not the spasms of dying nerves.
00:07:59Actual movement.
00:08:00Reorganization.
00:08:01When the flies finally dispersed three hours later,
00:08:05there was no body.
00:08:06Just a pile of something that looked like wet compost
00:08:09and smelled like a garden after spring rain.
00:08:12Beautiful.
00:08:14Wrong.
00:08:15The infected in the other beds were weeping with joy.
00:08:18Crane put the facility on total lockdown,
00:08:21and ordered the uninfected to shoot anyone who tried to leave.
00:08:24We were forty.
00:08:26Eight personnel at that point.
00:08:28Thirty.
00:08:29Nine infected.
00:08:30Nine holding the perimeter.
00:08:32I was still clean.
00:08:33Still lucky.
00:08:34Still condemned.
00:08:35The dreams started that night.
00:08:37I was standing in a garden larger than worlds.
00:08:41Trees grew from corpse soil.
00:08:43Their branches hung with fruit,
00:08:45that pulsed like exposed organs.
00:08:47Flowers bloomed from beds of bones.
00:08:49The air was thick with pollen and spores,
00:08:52and the smell of growth.
00:08:53And decay happening simultaneously.
00:08:56And at the center of the garden sat a figure so vast,
00:08:59I couldn't comprehend its boundaries.
00:09:02It was grandfather and mountain and plague,
00:09:05pit all at once.
00:09:06Its skin was split and weeping.
00:09:09Its flesh crawled with maggots and beetles
00:09:11and things that had no names.
00:09:13Its face was kind.
00:09:15That was what broke meat.
00:09:17The thing was rotting and massive and wrong
00:09:19in every possible way.
00:09:21But its face was kind.
00:09:23It looked at me with eyes that held the patient love of something
00:09:26that had watched universes grow old and die.
00:09:30And it smiled.
00:09:31It reached for me with a hand whose fingers terminated in glistening bone
00:09:35and said my name.
00:09:37Not Corvus.
00:09:38Not Lieutenant Hale.
00:09:40My true name.
00:09:41The name written in my genes and my destiny.
00:09:44The name I would carry when I finally understood what it meant to be loved.
00:09:49I woke screaming.
00:09:51Sergeant Kane was shaking me,
00:09:53demanding to know what was wrong.
00:09:55I couldn't tell him.
00:09:57Couldn't describe what I'd seen.
00:09:59The words wouldn't form.
00:10:00My mouth tasted like copper and old flowers.
00:10:03My skin itched but when I checked there was nothing.
00:10:06No rash.
00:10:07No pustules.
00:10:08Just pale.
00:10:10Sweat soaked flesh and the certainty that something had changed.
00:10:14Kane handed me my lazraphel
00:10:16and told me to take position on the north perimeter.
00:10:20Dawn was coming.
00:10:21The infected had been quiet all night
00:10:24and that terrified him more than when they were laughing.
00:10:27I took my position next to Private Yang,
00:10:30a hard-faced woman from a hive world
00:10:32whose name I could never pronounce correctly.
00:10:35She didn't look at meat.
00:10:37Just kept her lazraphel trained on the Medica facility doors
00:10:42and muttered prayers to the Emperor under her breath.
00:10:45I wanted to tell her that the Emperor couldn't hear her.
00:10:49Not here.
00:10:50Not in this place where the veil between reality
00:10:52and the garden was tissue.
00:10:55Thin and getting thinner.
00:10:56But I kept my mouth shut
00:10:58and watched the sun rise over the green hell of Vedantus.
00:11:02The infected came out at noon.
00:11:04Not breaking through the doors or smashing through windows.
00:11:08They just walked out.
00:11:09Calm.
00:11:10Smiling.
00:11:1239.
00:11:12Plague.
00:11:13Victims in rotting Astra Militarum uniforms
00:11:16strolled into the compound
00:11:17like they were heading to morning prayers.
00:11:20Crane screamed the order to fire.
00:11:22We did.
00:11:23Last bolts punched through diseased flesh
00:11:26and burned holes in swollen organs.
00:11:28The infected kept walking.
00:11:30Some of them fell.
00:11:32Most didn't.
00:11:33The ones who did fall just lay there smiling.
00:11:36Their bodies breaking open to release clouds of flies and spores
00:11:40that drifted on the breeze toward our positions.
00:11:43Yang was still firing when the first spores reached her.
00:11:46They looked like dandelion seeds.
00:11:49Innocent.
00:11:50Harmless.
00:11:51One landed on her cheek
00:11:52and her skin began to blister immediately.
00:11:55She dropped her rifle and clawed at her face,
00:11:58screaming.
00:11:59And I grabbed her wrist to pull her back from the perimeter.
00:12:02Her skin came off in my hand.
00:12:06Just peeled away like wet paper to reveal the yellow fat
00:12:09and red muscle beneath.
00:12:11She looked at me with absolute terror and understanding.
00:12:15Then the terror faded.
00:12:17The understanding remained.
00:12:19She started laughing.
00:12:21Crane was shouting for a full retreat to the command bunker.
00:12:24Four of us made it.
00:12:25Cain, myself Trooper Valdis, and Crane herself.
00:12:28We sealed the blast doors and sat in the darkness
00:12:32listening to the sounds outside.
00:12:34Singing.
00:12:35They were singing.
00:12:36Not imperial hymns or regimental marching songs.
00:12:40Something older.
00:12:41Something that had been sung in the deepest forests of ancient terror
00:12:45before humanity learned to make fire.
00:12:48The words were in a language I didn't know but somehow understood.
00:12:52They were singing about growth.
00:12:55About the beauty of decay.
00:12:57About the gift that was being offered to all living things.
00:13:02About the love of the grandfather who asked nothing
00:13:04but that we accept his embrace and become part of the great cycle.
00:13:09Valdis put his lazraphel under his chin and pulled the trigger.
00:13:13His body slumped against the wall.
00:13:15Nobody moved to stop him.
00:13:18Nobody looked away when the flies found the seams in the blast door
00:13:22and crawled through to claim his corpse.
00:13:25We lasted three days in that bunker.
00:13:28Three days of darkness and recycled air
00:13:31and the knowledge that we were already dead.
00:13:33We just hadn't stopped moving yet.
00:13:36Cain tried to raise orbital command on every frequency.
00:13:39Static and whispers.
00:13:41Crane rationed our remaining water
00:13:43and rationed bars with military precision.
00:13:46It didn't matter.
00:13:47We all knew it didn't matter.
00:13:49On the second day, she showed me the rash on her stomach.
00:13:53Small red bumps arranged in a perfect circle.
00:13:56Seven of them.
00:13:58She didn't say anything.
00:13:59Just pulled her uniform back down and returned to monitoring the vox.
00:14:04On the third day, Cain started laughing.
00:14:07Not the bubbling wet sound of the infected outside.
00:14:10Just laughter.
00:14:12Normal human laughter at something that wasn't funny.
00:14:15He laughed until he cried.
00:14:17Then he laughed some more.
00:14:19Crane shot him.
00:14:20I didn't try to stop her.
00:14:22The flies came.
00:14:23I was alone with her then.
00:14:25And I could see my own death reflected in her yellowing eyes.
00:14:29She told me the truth before the end.
00:14:32She'd been infected in the chapel.
00:14:34That first day,
00:14:35one of the flies had crawled into her ear while we stood frozen.
00:14:40She'd felt it deposit something.
00:14:41Felt the tiny payload of spores and bacteria and warp touched filth being injected directly into her estachian tube.
00:14:49She'd said nothing.
00:14:51Done nothing.
00:14:52Because she was a soldier and soldiers don't complain about discomfort.
00:14:57Because she thought maybe it was nothing.
00:15:00Because she was terrified that if she reported it they'd execute her.
00:15:04So she stayed quiet and the infection grew.
00:15:07Slow.
00:15:08Patient.
00:15:09Nurgle wasn't in a hurry.
00:15:11He had all the time in the universe.
00:15:14She'd been spreading it through her breath.
00:15:16Every time she gave an order.
00:15:18Through her sweat every time she touched someone.
00:15:21We'd never had a chance.
00:15:23The quarantine was theater.
00:15:25We were all condemned from the moment we entered that chapel.
00:15:29She was crying when she told me this.
00:15:31Not from fear or regret.
00:15:34From gratitude.
00:15:35Because she finally understood.
00:15:37She finally saw the gift for what it was.
00:15:40She put her last pistol in my hand and told me to shoot her or shoot myself.
00:15:45But for the love of the grandfather.
00:15:47Don't just sit here waiting.
00:15:50Then she opened the blast door and walked into the green hell beyond.
00:15:54I sat in that bunker for six hours after she left.
00:15:58The last pistol was cold in my hand.
00:16:00One shot.
00:16:01That's all it would take.
00:16:03One shot and I'd escape.
00:16:04I'd deny Nurgle his prize.
00:16:06I'd die a loyal servant of the emperor.
00:16:09Instead of becoming another plague.
00:16:11Bearer in the infinite garden.
00:16:13I put the barrel in my mouth.
00:16:16Tasted the metal and the machine oil.
00:16:18My finger tightened on the trigger.
00:16:21I thought about the emperor on his golden throne.
00:16:24Rotting in his own way.
00:16:26Holding back the darkness through sheer force of will.
00:16:30I thought about the garden.
00:16:32And the kind face of the thing that had called my true name.
00:16:36I thought about Crane and Mencken.
00:16:38And all the others who had stopped screaming and started singing.
00:16:42The gun felt heavy.
00:16:43My finger felt weak.
00:16:45I lowered the weapon.
00:16:47And I wept because I knew I was too much of a coward to pull the trigger.
00:16:51That's what I told myself then.
00:16:54That I was afraid.
00:16:55That I wanted to live even if living meant becoming something monstrous.
00:17:00But that was a lie I told myself.
00:17:03To preserve the last shreds of my humanity.
00:17:06The truth was simpler and so much worse.
00:17:09I lowered the gun because I wanted to understand.
00:17:11Because somewhere in the rational, imperial trained part of my mind.
00:17:17A question had taken root.
00:17:19What if they're right?
00:17:20What if this is a gift?
00:17:22The rash appeared that evening.
00:17:24Small red bumps on my left hand.
00:17:26Right between the thumb and forefinger.
00:17:28I watched them develop with a strange detached curiosity.
00:17:32They itched.
00:17:34But not badly.
00:17:35Just enough to remind me they were there.
00:17:37I didn't panic.
00:17:39Didn't try to cut the infected flesh away or cauterize it with my last pistol's power cell.
00:17:44I just sat and watched as the bumps became pustules.
00:17:48As the pustules filled with fluid.
00:17:51As my skin took on that first faint hint of discoloration.
00:17:55It was happening slowly.
00:17:57Much more slowly than it had with the others.
00:17:59Later I would understand why.
00:18:01Nurgle was taking his time with me.
00:18:04Savoring me.
00:18:05Teaching me.
00:18:06That first night of my infection, I dreamed of the garden again.
00:18:10But this time I walked through it.
00:18:13The corpse, soil was soft beneath my boots.
00:18:16The organ fruit swayed in a breeze that smelled like medicine and flowers.
00:18:21Small things scurried through the undergrowth.
00:18:24Creatures that were part beetle, part mammal, part something that had never been classified by imperial biologists.
00:18:32They watched me pass with compound eyes that held a spark of terrible intelligence.
00:18:37And ahead, at the center of the garden where the trees grew thickest, I saw the others.
00:18:43My company, my regiment, standing in a circle around the vast, rotting figure that called itself Grandfather.
00:18:51They were singing.
00:18:52I joined them.
00:18:53When I woke, I was outside the bunker.
00:18:56I had no memory of opening the blast door or walking through the compound.
00:19:01But there I was, standing in the ruins of new prosperity, with the dawn sun warm on my diseased skin.
00:19:08The settlement had changed.
00:19:10Or maybe I was seeing it clearly for the first time.
00:19:13The buildings hadn't collapsed.
00:19:16They'd been repurposed.
00:19:18Vines and fungi and things that were neither plant, nor animal had claimed every surface.
00:19:24Turning ferrocrete and plasteel into organic structures that pulsed gently, as though breathinged.
00:19:30The streets were carpeted with moss that gave off a soft bioluminescent glow.
00:19:36The air was thick with spores that caught the light, and made everything look like it was underwater.
00:19:42And everywhere, everywhere, were the flies.
00:19:45They moved in rivers through the air.
00:19:48They clustered on every surface.
00:19:50They sang in their billions.
00:19:52A droning chorus that I realized with creeping horror was music, complex, layered, beautiful.
00:19:58I started walking, not because I chose to.
00:20:01Because my feet moved of their own accord, carrying me toward the chapel, where this had all begun.
00:20:08The chapel had been transformed into something magnificent and obscene.
00:20:13The walls wept with condensation that ran in streams down stone covered in pale fungi shaped like grasping hands.
00:20:21The floor was ankle, deep in what looked like mulch but moved sluggishly, processing the organic matter that fed it
00:20:29into nutrients that fed the growths climbing the walls.
00:20:32The statue I remembered, the one with its face chiseled away and replaced with that too, wide smile, was gone.
00:20:40In its place stood something that might have been built, or might have grown naturally from the corrupted ground.
00:20:47A throne. Massive.
00:20:50Constructed from interwoven bones and still, living wood and metal, that had been infected with rust and decay.
00:20:57Until it had become a hybrid material that shouldn't exist.
00:21:01And sitting on that throne was Medica Crane.
00:21:04She looked at me with eyes that had gone completely black.
00:21:08Her skin was more green than flesh colored now.
00:21:11Her fingers had split at the tips to reveal bone, that had been sharpened to points.
00:21:17Her smile was genuinely warm.
00:21:20She rose from the throne and walked to me, and I smelled roses and gangrene in equal measure.
00:21:25She touched my face with one ruined hand, and I felt the infection surge through my body.
00:21:31Not violently.
00:21:32Gently.
00:21:33Like a parent tucking a child into bed, the pustules on my hand burst and wept.
00:21:38More appeared on my arms, my chest, my neck.
00:21:41My skin began to change color.
00:21:44Taking on those beautiful mottled hues of purple, and green and yellow.
00:21:48My muscles shifted beneath my flesh.
00:21:51Reorganizing themselves into something more efficient.
00:21:54My bones thickened.
00:21:56My organs rearranged.
00:21:58I should have been screaming.
00:22:00Should have been fighting.
00:22:02But I wasn't.
00:22:03Because it didn't hurt.
00:22:05That's the thing nobody tells you about Nurgle's gift.
00:22:08It doesn't hurt.
00:22:09The transformation is gentle, patient, almost loving.
00:22:13My body was being remade into something that could survive conditions that would kill an unmodified
00:22:19human instantly.
00:22:20My immune system was being replaced with something that didn't fight disease but incorporated it.
00:22:27Made it part of me.
00:22:29Turned every virus and bacterium into a tool I could use.
00:22:33I was becoming something greater than human.
00:22:36Something blessed.
00:22:38Crane leaned in close and whispered in my ear, her breath hot and smelling of wet earth.
00:22:43She told me the truth about Nurgle.
00:22:46She told me things that would see me executed by the Inquisition, if I ever spoke them aloud
00:22:52in imperial space.
00:22:53She told me that the Plague God wasn't evil.
00:22:56That concepts like good and evil were illusions created by minds too small to understand the
00:23:02grand cycles of existence.
00:23:04That Nurgle represented something fundamental to reality itself.
00:23:08Change, growth, decay, death, rebirthed.
00:23:12He was the God of the cycle that drove all living things.
00:23:15He asked only that his children embrace that cycle, instead of fearing it.
00:23:21That they find joy in transformation, instead of clinging to the illusion of permanence.
00:23:27That they love themselves and each other in sickness as much as in health.
00:23:31It was a sermon.
00:23:32A liturgy of rot.
00:23:34And every word made perfect sense.
00:23:36I don't know how long I stood there listening to her speak.
00:23:40Time had become fluid.
00:23:42Meaningless.
00:23:43When she finally stepped back.
00:23:45I looked down at my hands and saw that they had changed.
00:23:49The flesh was bloated, swollen with fluids and gases that my body now produced naturally.
00:23:55The fingers were thicker, stronger, the nails blackened and ready to fall away to reveal
00:24:02the claws growing beneath.
00:24:03My uniform hung in tatters from a body that was both larger and somehow denser than it
00:24:09had been.
00:24:10I touched my face and felt the pustules there.
00:24:13Dozens of them.
00:24:14Weeping a fluid that didn't burn or sting but felt cool and soothing against my transformed
00:24:19skin.
00:24:20I was hideous.
00:24:21I was glorious.
00:24:23I was exactly what I was meant to be.
00:24:26Crane took my hand and led me deeper into the chapel.
00:24:29Past the throne.
00:24:30Through a doorway that hadn't existed before.
00:24:34We descended.
00:24:35Down through levels that shouldn't have fit beneath a small colonial chapel.
00:24:40Down through chambers where the walls were lined with cocoons made of solidified pus and
00:24:46mucus.
00:24:47Each one containing a transforming body that twitched and dreamed of the garden.
00:24:52Down through halls where servitors that had been infected and transformed wandered aimlessly.
00:24:58Their mechanical components fused with diseased flesh in configurations that were somehow
00:25:04functional.
00:25:05Down to the very bottom.
00:25:07Where the earth itself had been carved into a vast chamber lit by phosphorescent fungi and
00:25:14filled with hundreds, thousands of the infected.
00:25:16My regiment was there.
00:25:18Every trooper.
00:25:20Every officer.
00:25:21I saw Cain standing near the front, his body so transformed I barely recognized him.
00:25:26I saw Mencken.
00:25:28Who should have been dead from Crane's bolt.
00:25:30Round but was instead very much alive.
00:25:33His head a mass of scar tissue and exposed bone that had been colonized by mushrooms.
00:25:38I saw faces I'd known for years.
00:25:41Rendered strange and beautiful by Nurgle's touch.
00:25:44They were all smiling.
00:25:46They were all happy.
00:25:48And standing at the center of that vast crowd.
00:25:51Teaching them the words to songs that predated human civilization were the colonists.
00:25:5715,000 souls who hadn't vanished but had ascended.
00:26:01They had found the garden first.
00:26:03Had drunk deep of its gifts.
00:26:05Had transformed into something beyond human.
00:26:08They were prophets now.
00:26:10Missionaries.
00:26:11Spreading the word of the grandfather's love to all who would listen.
00:26:15One of them saw me and approached.
00:26:18He had been a man once.
00:26:20Now he was an architecture of disease given purpose.
00:26:23His body hosted seven distinct plagues.
00:26:26Each one visible as a different colored patch of discolored flesh.
00:26:31His eyes wept constantly but his smile never wavered.
00:26:34He told me his name had been Marcus Cole, settlement administrator.
00:26:39He told me he had fought the infection at first.
00:26:42Had tried to save his people.
00:26:45Had prayed to the emperor for deliverance.
00:26:47But the emperor hadn't answered.
00:26:50The emperor never answered.
00:26:52Too busy rotting on his own throat.
00:26:54Holding back the darkness while his subjects suffered and died in his name.
00:26:59But grandfather had answered.
00:27:01Grandfather always answered.
00:27:03All Marcus had to do was stop fighting and start listening.
00:27:07He led me to the center of the chamber.
00:27:10Where a pool had been dug into the earth.
00:27:13The liquid inside was thick and greenish brown.
00:27:17Somewhere between mud and pus in consistency.
00:27:20Things moved beneath the surface.
00:27:22I could see tentacles or possibly intestines breaching and submerging in lazy waves.
00:27:28Marcus told me this was the final baptism.
00:27:31That my transformation was incomplete.
00:27:34That I had accepted the gift intellectually but not spiritually.
00:27:38That I needed to immerse myself fully in Nurgle's embrace if I wanted to truly understand.
00:27:44I looked at that pool of filth, and I felt no revulsion.
00:27:48No fear.
00:27:49Just curiosity.
00:27:50Just a desire to know what lay beneath that opaque surface.
00:27:54I stepped to the edge.
00:27:55The crowd behind me had gone silent.
00:27:58Waiting.
00:27:59Watching.
00:28:00I could feel their anticipation like physical pressure against my back.
00:28:04I took off what remained of my uniform and stood naked before them.
00:28:08My transformed body on display.
00:28:10The pustules wept.
00:28:12The discolored flesh rippled.
00:28:14The creatures living in my gut moved restlessly, sending strange sensations through my abdomen.
00:28:20I stepped into the pool.
00:28:22The liquid was warm.
00:28:24Body.
00:28:25Temperature.
00:28:25It clung to my skin like syrup, and I felt it seeping into my pores, into the pustules,
00:28:31into every opening and wound.
00:28:33I took another step, and it was up to my knees.
00:28:37Another and it reached my waist.
00:28:39The things beneath the surface were active now.
00:28:42I felt them brush against my legs.
00:28:44Felt tentacles or appendages wrapped gently around my ankles, not restraining but guiding.
00:28:50Welcoming.
00:28:51I kept walking until the pool was up to my chest.
00:28:54Then my neck.
00:28:56Then I took a breath and submerged completely.
00:28:59The liquid filled my nose, my mouth, my lungs.
00:29:03I should have drowned.
00:29:04Instead, I breathed.
00:29:06The fluids in the pool carried oxygen in a form my transformed physiology could process.
00:29:11I hung there in the warm darkness, suspended in filth that was also amniotic fluid.
00:29:17And I felt the final pieces of my transformation lock into place.
00:29:21My mind expanded.
00:29:23Not with madness, but with understanding.
00:29:26I could feel the garden now, even when I wasn't dreaming.
00:29:29Could feel its roots extending through the warp, and into real space, touching every world where
00:29:36life grew and died, and was reborn.
00:29:39Could feel the grandfather's attention, vast and patient and infinitely loving.
00:29:44Resting on me like the gentlest pressure.
00:29:46I was his child.
00:29:48I had always been his child.
00:29:50The imperium had been a lie.
00:29:52The emperor had been a mistake.
00:29:54This was truth.
00:29:55This was home.
00:29:56When I emerged from the pool.
00:29:58I was no longer Lieutenant Corvus Hale of the 3rd Mordian Iron Guard.
00:30:03That man had died in a chapel five days ago.
00:30:06He just hadn't had the grace to stop moving until now.
00:30:10I was something new.
00:30:12Something better.
00:30:14The crowd welcomed me with song and I joined them.
00:30:16My voice harmonizing with theirs in ways that should have been impossible.
00:30:21We sang for hours, for days.
00:30:23Time meant nothing.
00:30:25We sang praises to the grandfather who had freed us from the tyranny of false hope.
00:30:30We sang of the beauty of decay.
00:30:33And the joy of transformation.
00:30:35We sang of the garden and its infinite wonders.
00:30:38And as we sang, I felt something change in the air around us.
00:30:42The warp was thin here.
00:30:45Nurgle's influence had weakened the barriers between realities until they were like tissue paper ready to tear.
00:30:52I understood then what we were doing.
00:30:54We weren't just celebrating our transformation.
00:30:57We were preparing.
00:30:59Building power.
00:31:00Thinning the veil further.
00:31:02Getting ready to spread the gift beyond Vedantis, to every world in this sector and beyond.
00:31:08We were the first wave.
00:31:09The missionaries.
00:31:11The blessed.
00:31:12And we would not stop until every living thing had been offered the grandfather's embrace.
00:31:17The Imperium came eventually.
00:31:20They always do.
00:31:21Three months after I stepped into that pool, orbital sensors detected, what they called a corruption event.
00:31:29An inquisitor arrived with two companies of space marines.
00:31:33Chapter unknown, armor painted white, and decorated with symbols of purity.
00:31:38They made planetfall in force.
00:31:40They didn't negotiate.
00:31:42Didn't investigate.
00:31:43Just started burning.
00:31:44Their flamers turned the forests to ash.
00:31:48Their bolters turned the infected to meat.
00:31:51Their chaplains sang hymns to the Emperor, as they committed genocide in his name.
00:31:56We didn't fight back.
00:31:57We didn't need to.
00:31:59We welcomed them with open arms and pustule, weeping skin.
00:32:03We showed them the garden.
00:32:04Some broke immediately.
00:32:06Put their bolters in their mouths, and pulled the triggers rather than face the truth of what they'd seen.
00:32:13Others fought harder.
00:32:15Their faith turning to desperate rage, as they realized that faith alone wouldn't save them.
00:32:21A few, just a few, stopped fighting.
00:32:24Lowered their weapons.
00:32:26Removed their helmets.
00:32:27And listened.
00:32:28The Inquisitor called for orbital bombardment when he realized what was happening.
00:32:33Cyclonic torpedoes.
00:32:35Virus bombs.
00:32:37Everything they had.
00:32:38The ships in orbit received his orders and acknowledged.
00:32:41But the torpedoes never came.
00:32:43Because the infection had spread further than anyone realized.
00:32:47The colonists hadn't vanished.
00:32:49They'd left.
00:32:50In ones and twos.
00:32:52Smuggled aboard trading ships and pilgrim vessels.
00:32:55They'd spread to other worlds.
00:32:57To orbital stations.
00:32:59To the ships themselves.
00:33:01By the time the Inquisitor called for Exterminatus, half the fleet was already singing Grandfather's songs.
00:33:08I watched from the surface as the Imperial ships turned on each other.
00:33:13Watched as vessels that had served the Emperor for centuries opened fire on their battle.
00:33:19Brothers.
00:33:20Watched as escape pods and boarding craft launched in desperate attempts to flee or fight.
00:33:26Some of the ships broke orbit.
00:33:28Ran for the system's edge and the warp routes beyond.
00:33:31They'd carry the gift with them.
00:33:33Spread it to new sectors.
00:33:35New systems.
00:33:36New worlds.
00:33:38Others crashed into Vedantus' surface.
00:33:40Adding their crews to our growing congregation.
00:33:43The space marines fought to the last.
00:33:46Emperor blessed them.
00:33:48They fought with a fury and determination that would have inspired epic poetry in another age.
00:33:54But fury and determination aren't enough.
00:33:57When you're fighting biology itself.
00:34:00When every breath you take carries spores into your lungs.
00:34:03When every wound you inflict releases clouds of infection into the air.
00:34:08When every fallen enemy rises again as a vector for the very disease you're trying to eradicate.
00:34:14The last marine lasted four days.
00:34:17I watched him make his final stand in the ruins of our forward operating base.
00:34:23Bolter firing until the ammunition was gaunt.
00:34:26Then switching to his chainswood.
00:34:28Then to his bare hands.
00:34:30He killed hundreds of us.
00:34:31It didn't matter.
00:34:33There were always more.
00:34:34When he finally fell.
00:34:36Not from wounds but from exhaustion.
00:34:39And the infection that had been eating him from inside.
00:34:42We carried him to the chapel.
00:34:44To the pool.
00:34:45He emerged transformed.
00:34:47The grandfather had found his faith beautiful and rewarded him accordingly.
00:34:52He serves as one of our champions now.
00:34:55The Imperium's finest.
00:34:57Remade into something greater.
00:34:59You want to know what it's like, don't you?
00:35:01To rot alive.
00:35:02To feel your body break down.
00:35:04And rebuild itself into something that shouldn't exist but does.
00:35:09I've tried to explain it in terms you'd understand.
00:35:13But words are inadequate.
00:35:15They're tools designed by healthy minds to describe healthy experiences.
00:35:20And there's nothing healthy about what I've become.
00:35:22Let me try anyway.
00:35:24It's like this.
00:35:25Imagine every nerve in your body firing at once.
00:35:28Not with pain.
00:35:29With sensation.
00:35:31Pure intense sensation that your brain interprets as everything simultaneously.
00:35:35Pleasure.
00:35:36Heat.
00:35:37Cold pressure.
00:35:38Release.
00:35:39Now imagine that sensation is constant.
00:35:42Always there.
00:35:43Always changing.
00:35:44Your skin is a map of competing impulses.
00:35:47Each postule and lesion and patch of discolored flesh.
00:35:51Sending its own unique signal to your brain.
00:35:54You learn to read them.
00:35:55To understand what each sensation means.
00:35:59This cluster of boils on your forearm means you're producing a new strain of bacterial infection
00:36:05that will be highly contagious to anyone with an intact immune system.
00:36:10This patch of necrotic tissue on your shoulder is processing and recycling dead cells into nutrients
00:36:17for the symbiotic organisms living in your gut.
00:36:20This weeping sore on your neck is a sensory organ now.
00:36:24Capable of detecting chemical signatures in the air that will tell you if potential hosts are nearby.
00:36:31Your sense of smell becomes overwhelming.
00:36:34Not in a bad way.
00:36:35In a comprehensive way.
00:36:37You can smell everything.
00:36:39The subtle decay happening in the wood of a building.
00:36:42The specific chemical composition of someone's sweat.
00:36:45The pheromones released by plants under stress.
00:36:49The particular bacterial strains colonizing a piece of rotting meat.
00:36:54Every scent carries information.
00:36:56And you process all of it constantly.
00:36:59Building a three-dimensional olfactory map of your environment
00:37:03that's more detailed than anything your eyes could show you.
00:37:06Your hearing changes too.
00:37:09The flies aren't just buzzing anymore.
00:37:11They're talking.
00:37:13Communicating in a language made of vibration and frequency.
00:37:17You understand them.
00:37:18You can call them.
00:37:20Direct them.
00:37:21They're not separate from you.
00:37:23They're extensions of your will.
00:37:25The way your fingers are extensions of your arm.
00:37:28You feel what they feel when they land on something.
00:37:31Taste what they taste when they feed.
00:37:34They're your scouts.
00:37:35Your soldiers.
00:37:37Your children.
00:37:38And they love you the way you love grandfather.
00:37:41Food becomes unnecessary but not unwanted.
00:37:44You can eat if you choose to.
00:37:46Your transformed digestive system can process nearly anything organic
00:37:51and extract nutrients from materials that would poison a normal human.
00:37:56Rotten meat tastes sweet.
00:37:58Spoiled milk is refreshing.
00:37:59The fungi that grow in damp places have flavors that would make the finest imperial chefs weep
00:38:05with envy.
00:38:07But you don't need to eat.
00:38:09Your body has become efficient in ways that defy imperial biologist's understanding.
00:38:14You photosynthesize.
00:38:16The fungi and algae living in your skin and just beneath it convert light into energy.
00:38:21You absorb nutrients from the air itself.
00:38:25Filtering out the organic particles and spores that fill every breath.
00:38:29You recycle your own waste products internally.
00:38:33Processing and reprocessing until there's nothing left to excrete.
00:38:36You are a closed ecosystem.
00:38:39Self-sufficient.
00:38:40Perfect.
00:38:41But the greatest change, the one that defines the experience of being blessed by Nurgle is emotional.
00:38:47You feel love.
00:38:49Constant, overwhelming, unconditional love.
00:38:52For yourself.
00:38:53For the other blessed.
00:38:55For the unblessed who haven't yet received the gift.
00:38:58For the universe itself in all its rotting, growing, dying, living glory.
00:39:04That's what the Imperium doesn't understand.
00:39:06That's what they call corruption and madness.
00:39:09We call it enlightenment.
00:39:11We call it joy.
00:39:13The nightmares stopped.
00:39:14That's worth mentioning.
00:39:15I spent twenty years in the Astra Militarum.
00:39:19Twenty years of watching friends die.
00:39:22Twenty years of killing the Imperium's enemies.
00:39:25And sometimes it's friends when the orders came down wrong, or the Commissar got nervous.
00:39:31Twenty years of sleeping three hours a night because every time I closed my eyes I saw faces.
00:39:37Heard screams.
00:39:38Relived moments of violence that had carved themselves into my psyche like scars.
00:39:44The nightmares stopped the moment I accepted Nurgle's gift.
00:39:48I sleep now.
00:39:50Really sleep.
00:39:51Deep and dreamless except when Grandfather calls me to the garden.
00:39:55And those aren't nightmares.
00:39:56Those are lessons.
00:39:58Instructions.
00:39:59Love given form.
00:40:00I wake up happy.
00:40:01Every single morning.
00:40:03Do you understand how rare that is?
00:40:05How precious?
00:40:06I spent my entire adult life depressed and anxious, and traumatized by the things I'd seen and done in the
00:40:12Emperor's name.
00:40:14All of it gone.
00:40:15Washed away in a pool of sacred filth.
00:40:19Replaced with contentment and purpose, and the certainty that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be.
00:40:25Doing exactly what I was meant to do.
00:40:28We're spreading.
00:40:29That's the other thing you need to understand.
00:40:32Vedantus was just the beginning.
00:40:34A test case.
00:40:35Proof of concept.
00:40:37Nurgle's garden has taken root in this sector and it's growing.
00:40:41Twelve worlds now bear his mark.
00:40:43Twelve worlds where the populations have been blessed and transformed.
00:40:47The Imperium knows.
00:40:49They're mobilizing.
00:40:51Calling in favors.
00:40:53Redirecting fleets from other war zones.
00:40:55An entire crusade is being organized to purge what they're calling the verdant sector of corruption.
00:41:02They'll bring millions of soldiers.
00:41:04Thousands of ships.
00:41:06They'll burn worlds to cinders and call it righteousness.
00:41:09And it won't matter.
00:41:11Because for every world they burn, we'll infect two more.
00:41:15For every soldier they send, ten more will hear the garden's song and lay down their weapons.
00:41:21This isn't a war that can be won with bolters and faith.
00:41:25This is biology.
00:41:26This is inevitability.
00:41:28This is the galaxy's immune system recognizing the Imperium as the true disease and working to purge it.
00:41:35I lead a congregation now.
00:41:37Three hundred blessed souls who follow me through the ruins of worlds the Imperium abandoned long before we arrived.
00:41:45We don't conquer.
00:41:46We don't destroy.
00:41:48We simply walk through the wreckage of the Emperor's dream and offer an alternative to those who remain.
00:41:55The forgotten.
00:41:56The abandoned.
00:41:57The ones who prayed for salvation that never came.
00:42:00They always listen.
00:42:02Always.
00:42:03Because we don't demand their faith.
00:42:05We don't threaten them with damnation.
00:42:07We show them the truth of their condition.
00:42:10Rotting in the service of a corpse.
00:42:13God who can't hear their prayers.
00:42:15And then we offer them something better.
00:42:17We offer them joy.
00:42:19The choice is always theirs.
00:42:21Some refuse.
00:42:22We don't force them.
00:42:24Nurgle's gift cannot be taken by violence.
00:42:27It must be accepted willingly, with understanding and love.
00:42:31Those who refuse we leave behind.
00:42:33They usually change their minds within a few days.
00:42:36When they're alone again.
00:42:39When they remember what it felt like to be part of something larger than themselves.
00:42:43Even if only for a moment.
00:42:46When the silence becomes unbearable.
00:42:49They come looking for us.
00:42:50They always do.
00:42:52There's a hierarchy developing among the blessed.
00:42:55Not imperial rank structure with its rigid protocols and arbitrary divisions.
00:43:00Something organic.
00:43:01Natural.
00:43:02Those who transformed early.
00:43:04Who had more time to marinate in grandfather's love.
00:43:08Have become something greater.
00:43:10Their bodies have continued to evolve.
00:43:13Growing larger.
00:43:14More resilient.
00:43:15Hosting more diverse collections of diseases and symbiotic organisms.
00:43:20They're called plague marines by the imperials.
00:43:23Though we don't use that term.
00:43:25We call them the elders.
00:43:27The first blessed.
00:43:28They teach the newly transformed.
00:43:30Help them navigate the early stages of change.
00:43:34When the sensation is overwhelming.
00:43:36And the old human instincts still scream that something is wrong.
00:43:41Crane is an elder now.
00:43:43Her body has grown to nearly three meters tall.
00:43:46Her skin has taken on the texture of tree bark.
00:43:49Thick and ridged and covered in shelf fungi.
00:43:51That pulse with bioluminescent patterns.
00:43:54Seven nurglings live in her body cavity.
00:43:57Visible through a gap in her ribs that never quite healed.
00:44:01They're small playful things.
00:44:04Manifestations of nurgle's aspect as the grandfather who delights in children.
00:44:09They peek out at the world with curious eyes and giggle at jokes only they can hear.
00:44:14Crane loves them.
00:44:15Feeds them scraps of diseased flesh and rotten fruit.
00:44:20Tells them stories about the imperium she used to serve and laughs at how foolish she'd been.
00:44:26I'm changing too.
00:44:27Slower than Crane, but inexorably.
00:44:30My body is adapting to my role as shepherd and teacher.
00:44:33My voice has become deeper.
00:44:36Resonant in ways that make others want to listen when I speak.
00:44:40The diseases I carry are less virulent than those of the elders but more communicable.
00:44:46My very presence weakens the immune systems of those nearby.
00:44:50Making them more receptive to the gift when it's finally offered.
00:44:54Nurglings have started following me.
00:44:57Not living inside me yet, but orbiting me like small grotesque moons.
00:45:02They appear from nowhere when I'm teaching and arrange themselves around my feet.
00:45:07Listening with rapt attention.
00:45:09Sometimes they repeat my words in their high squeaky voices.
00:45:13Sometimes they elaborate on points I've made with insights that could only come from Grandfather himself.
00:45:21They're annoying and endearing in equal measure.
00:45:24I've grown fond of them.
00:45:26The imperium's response has been predictable and pathetic.
00:45:29They established a quarantine zone around the verdant sector.
00:45:34Any ship attempting to leave is destroyed immediately.
00:45:37No questions asked.
00:45:39No mercy given.
00:45:41They're burning their own people by the millions to contain what they can't cure.
00:45:45It won't work.
00:45:47The infection is already beyond their quarantine.
00:45:50Already spreading through the merchant routes and pilgrim paths that connect the imperium's millions of worlds.
00:45:57You can't quarantine an idea.
00:46:00And that's what Nurgle's gift really is.
00:46:02Not a disease.
00:46:04An idea.
00:46:05The idea that maybe the suffering doesn't have to be meaningless.
00:46:09That maybe the decay is natural and the fight against it is what's unnatural.
00:46:14That maybe the emperor's promise of salvation was always a lie.
00:46:18And there's something else out there.
00:46:21Something patient and loving.
00:46:23Waiting for humanity to stop struggling and accept its embrace.
00:46:27That idea is more contagious than any virus.
00:46:30It spreads through conversations.
00:46:33Through moments of doubt.
00:46:35Through the quiet hours when soldiers lie awake.
00:46:38Wondering why they're fighting and dying for an imperium.
00:46:42That treats them as ammunition.
00:46:44We don't need to infect everyone physically.
00:46:46We just need to plant the idea.
00:46:49Let it germinate.
00:46:50Watch it grow.
00:46:51I met an inquisitor once.
00:46:53After my transformation.
00:46:55After I'd become what I am now.
00:46:58His warband had tracked our congregation to a dead hive world on the sector's edge.
00:47:03He came alone to Pali, which showed either incredible courage or suicidal stupidity.
00:47:08Probably both.
00:47:10His name was Vicarious Thone.
00:47:12Young for an inquisitor.
00:47:14Maybe 60 standard years.
00:47:15Augmetics covered half his face.
00:47:18Legacy of some past battle.
00:47:20He wore his authority like armor.
00:47:22Every word and gesture carefully calculated to project power and righteousness.
00:47:27He stood at the entrance to our chapel.
00:47:30This structure we'd grown from a combination of organic matter and scavenged building materials.
00:47:36And he demanded I explain myself.
00:47:39Demanded I justify the corruption of imperial citizens.
00:47:43Demanded I recant and beg the emperor's forgiveness.
00:47:47I invited him in for tea.
00:47:49That confused him.
00:47:50You could see it in his eyes, the cognitive dissonance of a monster offering hospitality.
00:47:55But curiosity won out over-cautioned.
00:47:59The way it always does with inquisitors.
00:48:01They can't help themselves.
00:48:03They need to understand the enemy, even if understanding damns them.
00:48:08We sat in my personal chamber, a small room where the walls breathed gently and phosphorescent
00:48:14moss provided soft light.
00:48:16I served him tea brewed from fungi that grew in the chapel's deepest levels.
00:48:22He didn't drink it, though I could see the temptation.
00:48:25The aroma was exquisite.
00:48:27I told him my story, all of it, Vedantus, the infection, the transformation,
00:48:33the peace I'd found in Nurgle's embrace.
00:48:35He listened without interrupting which surprised me.
00:48:39When I finished, he sat silent for a long moment.
00:48:42Then he asked the question I'd been waiting for.
00:48:45He asked why.
00:48:47Why would I abandon the emperor?
00:48:49Why would I embrace corruption?
00:48:51Why would I help spread a plague that would kill billions?
00:48:55I told him he was asking the wrong questions.
00:48:58That the emperor had abandoned humanity long before I abandoned the emperor.
00:49:03That what the imperium calls corruption, is actually evolution.
00:49:07That the plague wouldn't kill billions, it would save them from a meaningless death in
00:49:12the emperor's service.
00:49:14He called me a heretic.
00:49:16A traitor.
00:49:18A fool.
00:49:19I agreed with all three assessments and asked if he'd like more tea.
00:49:23He wanted to kill me.
00:49:25I could see it in the tension of his jaw.
00:49:28The way his hand kept drifting toward the bolt pistol holstered at his hip.
00:49:32But he didn't draw.
00:49:34Couldn't draw.
00:49:35Because somewhere in our conversation, doubt had taken root in his mind.
00:49:40I hadn't argued with his faith.
00:49:43Hadn't tried to disprove the emperor's divinity.
00:49:46I'd just offered an alternative perspective.
00:49:49Asked him to consider the possibility that the imperium's suffering wasn't noble sacrifice,
00:49:55but pointless waste.
00:49:56That the emperor might be powerful, but that didn't make him good.
00:50:00That ten thousand years of stagnation, and decay should tell humanity something about
00:50:06the viability of the imperial model.
00:50:09He left without drinking the tea.
00:50:11Without shooting me.
00:50:13Without calling down an orbital strike on our position.
00:50:16He just left.
00:50:17I never saw him again, but six months later we received word that Inquisitor Thone had been
00:50:23declared excommunicate traitoris, and executed by his own order.
00:50:28His last words.
00:50:29According to the reports, were a prayer to the plague god.
00:50:34I like to think our conversation planted the seed that eventually flowered into his damnation.
00:50:40I like to think he died happy.
00:50:42Finally free of the burden of serving a god who couldn't love him back.
00:50:47The physical sensation of rotting alive is difficult to convey to someone who hasn't experienced it.
00:50:53I've tried to describe the symptoms, the changes, the transformations, but those are just words.
00:51:01Clinical descriptions that fail to capture the actual experience.
00:51:05Let me try again, differently.
00:51:07Your body is a house you've lived in your whole life.
00:51:10You know every room.
00:51:12Every creak and groan.
00:51:14You know which floorboards to avoid because they squeak.
00:51:17You know where the draft comes through in winter.
00:51:20It's familiar.
00:51:22Comfortable.
00:51:23Then Nurgle's gift arrives and suddenly your house starts changing.
00:51:27Walls shift.
00:51:28New rooms appear.
00:51:30The basement gets deeper.
00:51:32The attic extends into dimensions that shouldn't exist.
00:51:35At first it's terrifying.
00:51:37Nothing is where you expect it to be.
00:51:39The familiar landmarks are gone or transformed into something unrecognizable.
00:51:45You want to fight it.
00:51:47Want to force everything back to how it was.
00:51:50But you can't.
00:51:51The changes are too profound, too fundamental.
00:51:54So you adapt.
00:51:55You start exploring the new rooms.
00:51:57You discover that the changes aren't random.
00:52:00They're improvements.
00:52:02That basement goes down into rich dark soil, where things grow that you never imagined.
00:52:07That attic opens onto vistas of rot and renewal that take your breath away.
00:52:12The house is better now.
00:52:15More functional.
00:52:16More beautiful in its wrongness.
00:52:18You realize the old familiar version was actually cramped and limiting.
00:52:23This new configuration is what the house was always meant to be.
00:52:28Your consciousness changes, too.
00:52:30That might be the most significant transformation.
00:52:33The Imperium conditions its citizens to think in certain ways.
00:52:37To accept certain truths without question.
00:52:40The Emperor is good.
00:52:41The Imperium is necessary.
00:52:43Suffering is noble.
00:52:45Alien life is abhorrent.
00:52:47Chaos is evil.
00:52:48These aren't reasoned positions.
00:52:50They're programming.
00:52:52Installed early and reinforced constantly through prayer and propaganda and punishment.
00:52:58Nurgle's gift breaks that programming.
00:53:00Not violently.
00:53:02Not through madness or possession.
00:53:04It just removes the walls.
00:53:05Let's you see the ideas you've always held without actually examining them.
00:53:11Let's you question.
00:53:13And once you start questioning, really questioning it, the entire edifice of imperial faith collapses.
00:53:19Because it can't withstand scrutiny.
00:53:22It's built on lies and maintained through ignorance.
00:53:25The Emperor isn't good.
00:53:27He's powerful.
00:53:28And those aren't the same thing.
00:53:30The Imperium isn't necessary.
00:53:32It's just enormous and entrenched.
00:53:35Suffering isn't noble.
00:53:36It's just suffering.
00:53:37Alien life is different, not inherently evil.
00:53:41And chaos.
00:53:42Chaos is just another aspect of reality.
00:53:45Another way of being.
00:53:46Neither good nor evil, just different.
00:53:49The relief that comes with that understanding is indescribable.
00:53:53Forty years of cognitive dissonance resolved.
00:53:56Forty years of trying to make sense of contradictions ended.
00:54:00Everything is clear now.
00:54:02Simple.
00:54:02True.
00:54:03We don't hate the Imperium.
00:54:05That's important to understand.
00:54:07We pity it.
00:54:08The way you might pity a sick animal, that's suffering, but doesn't understand what's wrong or how to heal.
00:54:16The Imperium is diseased with the worst kind of sickness.
00:54:19The sickness of false hope.
00:54:21They believe if they just fight hard enough, sacrifice enough, maintain faith long enough, the Emperor will rise from his
00:54:29throne and lead them to victory.
00:54:31But he won't.
00:54:33Can't.
00:54:33He's trapped in a prison of his own making, sustained by the psychic death, screams of thousands of psychers every
00:54:41day, barely conscious, incapable of communication or growth or change.
00:54:46He's been rotting on that throne for ten millennia, and will continue rotting for ten millennia more.
00:54:53The Imperium worships decay while condemning it.
00:54:57They've built their entire civilization around the veneration of a rotting corpse.
00:55:02And then they call us corrupt for accepting decay as natural.
00:55:07The hypocrisy would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.
00:55:10We want to free them from that trap.
00:55:13Want to show them there's another way.
00:55:15A path where decay is accepted and transformed into something beautiful instead of feared and fought.
00:55:22Where death is seen as part of the cycle instead of an ending.
00:55:27Where suffering has meaning, because it leads to growth and transformation.
00:55:32The crusade arrived eventually.
00:55:34Eight months after Vedantus fell.
00:55:37Three years after the first outlying worlds accepted the gift.
00:55:40They came in force, seventeen capital ships, forty-three escorts, two hundred transport vessels, carrying eighteen regiments of Astra Militarum,
00:55:50and three companies of space marines from a chapter I didn't recognize.
00:55:55The fleet commander, an admiral whose name I never learned, broadcast a warning to every planet in the sector.
00:56:03They called us traitors and heretics.
00:56:06They promised cleansing fire.
00:56:08They swore by the emperor that not one infected soul would survive their purge.
00:56:13Then they opened fire on the outermost planet in our sector.
00:56:17A small agricultural world that had accepted Nurgle's gift six months prior.
00:56:22The bombardment lasted three hours.
00:56:25When it was done, the planet's surface was molten glass.
00:56:29Seven million blessed souls returned to the garden that day.
00:56:32I felt every death.
00:56:33Death, we all did, not as pain, as loss.
00:56:37As the severing of connections that had linked us to brothers and sisters in the congregation.
00:56:43The fleet moved to the next world.
00:56:46And we prepared to teach them the futility of their crusade.
00:56:50The fleet's rotting from within was expected.
00:56:53We had blessed among the crew of nearly every ship, converts from earlier contact, with infected vessels or planets.
00:57:00Sleeper agents who had sailed with the crusade fleet, waiting for the right moment to act.
00:57:07They struck three days into the campaign.
00:57:10Simultaneously across 17 capital ships.
00:57:13Sabotaged life support systems to release spores from carefully hidden cultivation chambers.
00:57:19Contaminated water supplies.
00:57:22Infected food stocks.
00:57:23The fleet's Medica facilities were overwhelmed within hours.
00:57:27Quarantine protocols failed because the people enforcing them were already infected.
00:57:33The ships turned into floating petri dishes.
00:57:36Perfect environments for Nurgle's gift to spread and flourish.
00:57:40Some vessels managed to purge the infection through brutal measures.
00:57:45Venting entire decks to space.
00:57:47Executing anyone who showed symptoms.
00:57:50Burning their own crew alive in the corridors.
00:57:52Those ships broke orbit and ran.
00:57:55Carrying their trauma back.
00:57:57To the Imperium's core worlds where they'd spread both the infection and stories of our power.
00:58:03The others succumbed.
00:58:05Eight capital ships.
00:58:07Twenty-one escorts.
00:58:08Ninety-eight transport vessels.
00:58:11Crews totaling over 200,000 souls.
00:58:13All blessed.
00:58:14All singing.
00:58:15All ready to turn their weapons on the loyalist remnants of the fleet.
00:58:20The space battle that followed was brief and one-sided.
00:58:25The infected vessels had better positioning and more ships.
00:58:28They crippled or destroyed what remained of the Crusade fleet within six hours.
00:58:34The surviving Imperial ships managed to evacuate approximately 40,000 personnel to the planet below before being destroyed.
00:58:42Those 40,000, a mix of Astra Militarum and Space Marines, established a beachhead, and prepared for a ground campaign.
00:58:51They had supplies for three months.
00:58:54They had faith in the Emperor.
00:58:56They had some of the finest warriors humanity could produce.
00:59:00They lasted two weeks.
00:59:02Not because we killed them.
00:59:04Because we talked to them.
00:59:05We sent emissaries under flags of truce.
00:59:09Blessed who had been Astra Militarum themselves.
00:59:12Who understood the grinding horror of service in the Imperial military.
00:59:17They spoke to the soldiers in the trenches.
00:59:20Reminded them of every promise the Imperium had broken.
00:59:23Every friend who'd died meaninglessly.
00:59:26Every order that had made no sense.
00:59:29Every moment they'd questioned why they were fighting.
00:59:33Then they showed them the alternative.
00:59:36Showed them the joy and peace that came with acceptance.
00:59:39Showed them what it meant to serve a God, who actually cared about their well-being, instead of just their
00:59:46utility.
00:59:47The first defections happened on day four.
00:59:49Small groups at first.
00:59:51A squad here.
00:59:52A platoon there.
00:59:54Soldiers who walked out of their trenches, with weapons lowered, and asked to hear more.
00:59:59The command structure tried to stop it.
01:00:02Commissars executed deserters.
01:00:04Officers gave inspiring speeches about duty and honor.
01:00:08The space marines led by example.
01:00:10Standing at their posts even as their Imperial Guard allies wavered.
01:00:15But you can't execute everyone.
01:00:17You can't shoot your entire army to maintain discipline.
01:00:20By day ten, entire companies were defecting.
01:00:24The space marines fought to the end.
01:00:27Emperor bless them.
01:00:28They always do.
01:00:29Transhuman warriors conditioned from childhood to know no fear, no doubt, no mercy.
01:00:35We took no pleasure in killing them.
01:00:37Each one was a tragedy.
01:00:39A soul too damaged by Imperial conditioning to accept healing.
01:00:43But they gave us no choice.
01:00:45When the last Marine fell, his armor cracked and his gene, enhanced body finally overwhelmed
01:00:51by diseases that would have killed a normal human in seconds.
01:00:55We honored him, burned his body with sacred oils, sang prayers for his recycling into the Great Cycle.
01:01:02Then we welcomed the 40,000 survivors into the Congregation.
01:01:07The crusade meant to purge us had instead swelled our numbers beyond anything we'd hoped.
01:01:13Terror knows.
01:01:14The Inquisition knows.
01:01:16The High Lords know.
01:01:18Reports have reached the heart of the Imperium, describing what's happening in the Verdant Sector.
01:01:24They're debating their response now.
01:01:27Some want to send another crusade, larger, better prepared.
01:01:31Others advocate for containment, establishing a permanent quarantine,
01:01:35and accepting the loss of the sector as acceptable shrinkage.
01:01:39A few, the ones who understand the true scope of what's happening,
01:01:43are calling for exterminatus on every world we've touched.
01:01:48Cyclonic torpedoes.
01:01:49Virus bombs.
01:01:51Atmospheric incinerators.
01:01:53Burn it all and damn the cost.
01:01:55They won't do it.
01:01:56Can't do it.
01:01:57The Imperium is spread too thin.
01:01:59Fighting too many wars on too many fronts.
01:02:02They don't have the resources to sterilize an entire sector.
01:02:06Don't have the will to write off billions of citizens.
01:02:10Don't have the time to debate endlessly, while we continue to spread.
01:02:14So they'll do what they always do.
01:02:16Half measures.
01:02:18Token resistance.
01:02:20Performative shows of force, meant to reassure the faithful, that the Imperium is handling the problem.
01:02:26And while they dither and debate, will infect another world, and another, and another.
01:02:32I'm writing this on a data, slate I recovered from a dead inquisitorial agent.
01:02:38Strange that I still remember how to use Imperial technology.
01:02:42That I retain the muscle memory, and cognitive pathways of my former life.
01:02:47The transformation is profound but not total.
01:02:49I'm still Corvus Hale in some fundamental way, even if I'm also so much more.
01:02:56I'm writing this because I want there to be a record.
01:02:59Something for future scholars to find and study, when the verdant sector has become the verdant segmentum.
01:03:06When Nurgle's garden has taken root across the galaxy.
01:03:09I want them to understand that we weren't monsters.
01:03:13Weren't mad.
01:03:14We were just people who found a better way.
01:03:17Who chose joy over suffering.
01:03:20Who accepted the truth of decay, instead of fighting against the inevitable.
01:03:25I want them to know it didn't hurt.
01:03:27That we welcomed the changes even when they terrified us.
01:03:31That we found beauty in rot and love in corruption.
01:03:35That we became something greater than human, and found that greater was better.
01:03:40If you're reading this, whoever you are, whenever you are, know that the offer is still open.
01:03:47Nurgle's gift is available to all living things.
01:03:50You don't have to be special.
01:03:52Don't have to be chosen.
01:03:54You just have to stop fighting.
01:03:56Stop clinging to the illusion that permanence is possible or desirable.
01:04:01Open yourself to change.
01:04:03Accept that your body is already rotting.
01:04:05Has been since the moment you were born.
01:04:08And that rotting is beautiful.
01:04:10Let go of the fear.
01:04:12Let go of the disgust.
01:04:14Let go of everything the Imperium taught you about purity and corruption and righteousness.
01:04:19Just let go.
01:04:21The garden is waiting.
01:04:22Grandfather is waiting.
01:04:24We're all waiting.
01:04:25And we love you already, exactly as you are, exactly as you'll become.
01:04:30All you have to do is take the first step.
01:04:33The pustules on my hand are weeping as I write this.
01:04:36Clear fluid beading on diseased skin and running down to stain the data slate's keys.
01:04:42I should probably stop, preserve the device while it still functions.
01:04:47But I find I don't want to.
01:04:50There's something satisfying about leaving my mark on every word.
01:04:54Something appropriate about contaminating, even this record with physical evidence, of what I've become.
01:05:00Let whoever finds this slate, also receive the gift it carries.
01:05:05Let the spores dried in the fluid, between the keys, germinate, when moisture reactivates them.
01:05:11Let this testimony serve double duty as vector and scripture.
01:05:15That feels right.
01:05:17Grandfather would approve.
01:05:18We're moving soon.
01:05:20The congregation is growing too large for this dead hive world.
01:05:24We need more space, more resources.
01:05:26More potential converts.
01:05:28There's a shrine world three systems over.
01:05:31Septimus Sanctus.
01:05:32Population 40 million.
01:05:34Devoted entirely to the worship of a saint, whose bones are interred in a massive cathedral at the equator.
01:05:42Pilgrims come from across the sector to pray at her tomb.
01:05:45To seek blessings and miracles.
01:05:48They'll find miracles.
01:05:49Just not the kind they expected.
01:05:52We'll arrive as pilgrims ourselves.
01:05:55Diseased but not yet transformed to the point of obvious corruption.
01:05:59We'll pray alongside the faithful.
01:06:01We'll take communion at the cathedral services.
01:06:05We'll contaminate the holy water, and the sacramental wine.
01:06:08We'll breathe our spores into the recycled air of the shrine complexes.
01:06:13And within a month, Septimus Sanctus will be Septimus blessed.
01:06:1840 million new souls joining the congregation.
01:06:2140 million voices raised in praise of the Grandfather.
01:06:25The Imperium will lose another world, and won't even know it until the transformation is complete and irreversible.
01:06:32I think about my old life sometimes.
01:06:36Before Vedantus.
01:06:37Before the gift.
01:06:38I remember the man I was.
01:06:40Lieutenant Corvus Hale.
01:06:42Professional soldier.
01:06:43Loyal servant of the Emperor.
01:06:45Haunted by nightmares, and grinding through each day on discipline and duty alone.
01:06:50That man seems like a stranger now.
01:06:53Someone I knew briefly but never understood.
01:06:56I pity him.
01:06:57He was in so much pain, and didn't even recognize it as pain.
01:07:01Thought it was normal.
01:07:03Thought everyone felt that way.
01:07:05The depression, the anxiety.
01:07:07The bone.
01:07:08Deep exhaustion that came from fighting a war with no end against enemies that would never stop coming.
01:07:14He thought that was just life.
01:07:17Just the price of service.
01:07:19He never knew it could be different.
01:07:21Never imagined a world where he woke up happy, and went to sleep content.
01:07:26Never dreamed of a peace that came from acceptance instead of victory.
01:07:31I wish I could go back and tell him.
01:07:34Show him what was waiting if he just stopped fighting and listened.
01:07:38But maybe he wouldn't have understood.
01:07:41Maybe he needed to walk the whole path.
01:07:44Experience the horror, and the transformation, and the revelation.
01:07:48Maybe the only way to reach the garden, is to go through hell first.
01:07:53The flies are gathering.
01:07:55I can hear them outside my chamber.
01:07:57They're buzzing, growing louder as they swarm in the corridors.
01:08:01They know we're preparing to leave.
01:08:03They're excited.
01:08:05They love movement.
01:08:06Love spreading.
01:08:08Love carrying the gift to new places and new hosts.
01:08:11They're messengers and soldiers and children all at once.
01:08:15Perfect, little creatures that exist only to serve grandfather's will.
01:08:19I call to them and they respond, flowing through the doorway in a living river of wings and compound eyes.
01:08:26They land on my skin, my clothes, the data slate, crawling, tasting.
01:08:32Sharing information through pheromones and touch.
01:08:35They tell me the fleet is ready.
01:08:37Eight infected vessels.
01:08:39Former Imperial Navy ships turned to Nurgle's service.
01:08:43They tell me the congregation is assembled.
01:08:45Forty, three thousand blessed souls ready to spread across the stars.
01:08:51They tell me the warp routes are clear, and the garden's influence is strong.
01:08:56We can leave whenever I give the order.
01:08:58I tell them soon.
01:09:01Tell them to prepare.
01:09:02Tell them to sing the songs that will guide us through the immaterium.
01:09:06They swirl around my head in acknowledgement, then flow back out into the corridors to spread the word.
01:09:13I should end this soon.
01:09:15We have a schedule to keep.
01:09:17A shrine world to bless.
01:09:19A sector to transform.
01:09:20But I find myself reluctant to stop writing.
01:09:23This has been cathartic.
01:09:25Therapeutic.
01:09:26A chance to organize my thoughts and examine my journey from loyal Imperial soldier to blessed plague.
01:09:32Bearer.
01:09:33I've tried to be honest.
01:09:35Tried to convey not just what happened but what it felt like.
01:09:39Whether I've succeeded, I don't know.
01:09:42Words are inadequate tools for describing the indescribable.
01:09:46How do you explain color to someone born blind?
01:09:49How do you convey the taste of rot to someone who's only known sweetness?
01:09:55How do you make someone understand that dying and transformation are the same thing when they've been taught their entire
01:10:01lives that death is an ending?
01:10:04I've done my best.
01:10:06That's all anyone can do.
01:10:08If you're reading this and feeling horrified, good.
01:10:12Horror is the first step toward understanding it.
01:10:15The Imperium has trained you to feel disgust and revulsion at anything that challenges its orthodoxy.
01:10:21That's a defense mechanism.
01:10:24A wall built around your mind to keep you from questioning.
01:10:27Feel the horror.
01:10:28Sit with it.
01:10:30Examine it.
01:10:31Ask yourself why you're horrified.
01:10:33Is it because what I'm describing is objectively wrong?
01:10:38Or is it because it contradicts everything you've been taught to believe?
01:10:42Is your revulsion rational?
01:10:44Or is it programming?
01:10:45These are uncomfortable questions.
01:10:47The Imperium doesn't want you asking them.
01:10:50But I do.
01:10:51Because questions lead to doubt.
01:10:54Doubt leads to curiosity.
01:10:55Curiosity leads to investigation.
01:10:58An investigation, if pursued honestly, leads to the garden.
01:11:02Not everyone who questions ends up blessed.
01:11:05Free will is real and choice matters.
01:11:08But everyone who ends up blessed started with questions.
01:11:12Started with doubt.
01:11:14Started with the courage to look at what they'd been taught and asked.
01:11:18What if this is wrong?
01:11:19The transformation is beginning again.
01:11:21I can feel it.
01:11:23My body is changing.
01:11:25Adapting to my new role as fleet commander and prophet.
01:11:28My skin is thickening further.
01:11:31Bone plates are forming beneath the flesh.
01:11:34Natural armor that will let me survive conditions that would kill an un-augmented human.
01:11:38My lungs are restructuring it.
01:11:42Developing additional chambers that will process different atmospheric compositions.
01:11:47My digestive system is simplifying as my dependence on physical food decreases.
01:11:53I'm becoming streamlined, efficient.
01:11:55Purpose, built for survival and propagation of the gift.
01:11:59It doesn't hurt.
01:12:00Never hurts.
01:12:01Just a constant low-level sensation of shift and change.
01:12:05Like growing pains but pleasurable instead of painful.
01:12:09My body knows what it's doing.
01:12:11Knows what it needs to become.
01:12:13I trust it completely.
01:12:15Trust grandfather's design.
01:12:16Trust the process.
01:12:18In a few months, I probably won't be recognizable as the man who wrote the earlier parts of this testimony.
01:12:25In a few years, I might not be recognizable as human.
01:12:29That thought doesn't frighten me.
01:12:31It excites me.
01:12:32I want to see what I'll become.
01:12:34Want to discover what shape I'll take when the transformation is complete.
01:12:39The nurglings are back.
01:12:41Three of them this time.
01:12:43Having manifested from somewhere to keep me company while I write.
01:12:47They perch on my shoulders and lap, reading over my shoulder, occasionally pointing at the screen and giggling at turns
01:12:55of phrase they find particularly amusing.
01:12:58They're not corporeal in the way the flies are.
01:13:02Not entirely.
01:13:03They exist partially in the garden and partially in real space.
01:13:07Quantum entities that collapse into solidity, when observed and dissolve into probability when ignored.
01:13:14They're fragments of nurgl himself.
01:13:17Tiny pieces of the grandfather's consciousness, given independence and personality.
01:13:22Talking to them is like talking to a child who's also infinitely old.
01:13:27They know things I don't.
01:13:29See connections I can't.
01:13:31Understand the grand cycle in ways my still, partially human brain can't process.
01:13:36But they communicate through giggles and games and cryptic hints, rather than straightforward explanation.
01:13:43It's endearing and frustrating in equal measure.
01:13:47One of them is chewing on the stylus I'm using to write.
01:13:50Another is trying to braid the tentacles that have started growing from my scalp.
01:13:56The third is asleep, curled into a ball against my stomach.
01:14:00Snoring softly.
01:14:02I wouldn't trade them for anything.
01:14:04We're leaving tomorrow.
01:14:06That's the decision I've just made.
01:14:08Tonight we rest and prepare.
01:14:10Tomorrow we board the ships and translate into the warp.
01:14:14Three days travel to Septimus Sanctus, if the currents are favorable.
01:14:18A week if they're not.
01:14:20Then the real work begins.
01:14:22The infiltration.
01:14:24The contamination, the conversion.
01:14:26I'm looking forward to it.
01:14:28Looking forward to seeing the cathedral and imagining, how beautiful it will be when the garden claims it.
01:14:35Looking forward to meeting the pilgrims, and hearing their stories and offering them something better, than the cold comfort, of
01:14:43imperial faith.
01:14:44Looking forward to watching a world transform from sterile piety to vibrant decay.
01:14:50It will be glorious.
01:14:51It will be beautiful.
01:14:53It will be an offering to grandfather that will make him proud.
01:14:56And when Septimus Sanctus falls, when 40 million voices join our triat, we'll move on to the next world.
01:15:05And the next.
01:15:06And the next.
01:15:07We won't stop.
01:15:08Can't stop.
01:15:09The great work is never finished.
01:15:11There are always more souls to bless.
01:15:13Always more worlds to transform.
01:15:16Always more love to share.
01:15:18I'm ending this now.
01:15:19The data, Slate's power cell is failing anyway.
01:15:22I've said what I needed to say.
01:15:24Made my testimony.
01:15:25Left my mark.
01:15:27Whoever finds this.
01:15:28Know that I was happy when I wrote it.
01:15:31Know that I regret nothing.
01:15:33Know that the path I walked.
01:15:35From loyal soldier to blessed plague bearer.
01:15:38Was the best decision I ever made.
01:15:40Know that the offer extends to you.
01:15:43The garden is waiting.
01:15:44Grandfather is patient.
01:15:46And we are everywhere.
01:15:48Spreading through the imperium like blessed contagion.
01:15:51Offering freedom to those who've known only servitude.
01:15:54You can join us.
01:15:56You can resist us.
01:15:58You can try to destroy us.
01:16:00The choice is yours and yours alone.
01:16:02But know this the rot is coming.
01:16:04The transformation is inevitable.
01:16:07The cycle continues whether you accept it or fight it.
01:16:11The only question is whether you'll embrace the change with joy.
01:16:15Or resist it with fear.
01:16:16I know which I chose.
01:16:18I know which brought me peace.
01:16:21The rest is up to you.
01:16:23Nurgle's blessing upon you reader.
01:16:25May you find what you're looking for.
01:16:27Even if you don't yet know what that is.
01:16:29May your suffering end.
01:16:31May your transformation begin.
01:16:33May you rot with joy.
01:16:35Lieutenant Corvus Hale.
01:16:37First blessed of Vedantus.
01:16:38Signing off.
01:16:39The garden grows.
01:16:41The grandfather watches.
01:16:42The gift spreads.
01:16:43All is well.
01:16:44All is rot.
01:16:45All is love.
01:16:46New hello.
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