The moment of Bartholomew Thaddeus Jenkins III's death was, in the grand cosmic tapestry of the universe, about as significant as a single grain of sand deciding to take a philosophical stance against the ocean. That is to say, not very significant at all, except perhaps to Bartholomew himself, who found the whole experience rather inconvenient.
One moment he had been sitting in his mother's basement (a perfectly respectable dwelling for a thirty-two-year-old man with seventeen unpainted Space Marine miniatures, three half-finished armies, and a concerning relationship with the Warhammer 40,000 wiki), and the next moment he was experiencing what could only be described as the universe's most aggressive job relocation program.
The cause of death was, fittingly, a combination of factors that seemed almost cosmically designed to be as embarrassing as possible. Bartholomew had been reaching for his limited-edition Sanguinius figurine, which he kept on a high shelf for "display purposes" (and definitely not because his cat, Chairman Meow, had a vendetta against anything with wings), when he had simultaneously stepped on a twenty-sided die, slipped on an open pot of Nuln Oil, and somehow managed to impale himself on a hobby knife that had absolutely no business being positioned blade-up on his computer chair.
The coroner would later describe the scene as "the most Rube Goldberg-esque death I've witnessed in thirty years of this profession," before quietly retiring to contemplate his life choices.
But death, as it turned out, was merely the beginning of Bartholomew's problems.
The Warp, that swirling dimension of raw emotion and barely-comprehensible horror that existed alongside realspace like a tumor made of nightmares and bad decisions, rarely took notice of individual souls. After all, when you're an infinite expanse of psychic energy populated by beings of such incomprehensible malevolence that they make regular evil look like a toddler's tantrum, one dead tabletop gaming enthusiast doesn't really register on your radar.
And yet.
And yet.
Four entities, ancient beyond measure and terrible beyond description, simultaneously paused in their eternal machinations to focus on one tiny, insignificant soul tumbling through the immaterium like a confused lemming at a skydiving convention.
In the Garden of Nurgle, where disease and decay were celebrated with the enthusiasm of a particularly unsanitary children's birthday party, the Plague Father himself looked up from his cauldron of pestilent delights. His bloated, rotting form quivered with something that might have been curiosity, or possibly just gas.
"What... is that?" Nurgle rumbled, his voice like a thousand wet coughs harmonizing in a choir of congestion.
For tumbling through the Warp was a soul that was, to put it mildly, weird. Not weird in the way that psykers were weird, all shiny and bright and annoyingly beacon-like. Not weird in the way that blanks were weird, all empty and uncomfortable like a party where nobody brought snacks. No, this soul was weird in a way that Nurgle had never quite encountered before.
It was dense.
Not dense with power. Not dense with potential. Dense with... information? Knowledge? Nurgle squinted his one good eye (the other having rotted away several million years ago in what he maintained was a "fashion choice") and tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
The soul was absolutely packed with knowledge of the Warp. Of Chaos. Of him. Of all four of the Chaos Gods, their daemons, their champions, their plans, their defeats, their victories. It knew things that Nurgle was fairly certain no mortal should know. It knew about the fall of the Eldar (including several embarrassing details about Slaanesh's birth that the youngest Chaos God would really prefer remain unspoken). It knew about the Emperor's bargain (that whole Golden Throne business). It knew about Abaddon's failures (all thirteen of them, in excruciating detail).
And strangest of all, it seemed to know all of this with the casual familiarity of someone recounting the plot of their favorite television program.
"Grandfather?" one of his Great Unclean Ones burbled questioningly, wondering why his patron had stopped stirring the plague pot.
"Hush, Ku'gath," Nurgle murmured, his pestilent eyes fixed on the tumbling soul. "Something interesting is happening."
In the Palace of Slaanesh, where excess was the baseline and "too much" was merely a starting point for negotiations, the Dark Prince was in the middle of a particularly elaborate orgy-symphony-torture-session-art-exhibition (Slaanesh had never been good at choosing just one activity) when they suddenly stopped.
All six hundred and sixty-six participants froze.
Slaanesh's perfectly androgynous face, beautiful enough to drive mortals mad with desire and terrible enough to drive them mad with terror (often simultaneously), twisted into an expression of confusion.
"What in the name of Me is that?" they breathed.
Because Slaanesh, the God of Excess and Sensation, the Lord/Lady/Other of Pleasure and Pain, who could sense every emotion and desire across the galaxy, was sensing something that made absolutely no sense.
This soul—this tiny, insignificant, mortal soul—knew about them. Knew about all of them. And not just surface-level knowledge. Deep knowledge. Intimate knowledge. The kind of knowledge that should be impossible for any mortal to possess.
And the soul's emotional response to this knowledge was...
Excitement?
Fanboyish excitement?
Slaanesh had been worshipped in many ways over the millennia. With pleasure. With pain. With excess of every conceivable variety. But never—never—had they encountered a soul whose reaction to learning about the Chaos Gods could best be described as "fanboying."
"That's... new," Slaanesh murmured, intrigued despite themselves.
In the Blood God's domain, the Brass Citadel that stood at the center of an infinite plain of eternal warfare, Khorne was doing what Khorne did best: being angry.
This was not unusual. Khorne was always angry. Anger was kind of his thing. He had built an entire cosmic portfolio around being angry, and he was very, very good at it.
But this anger was different. This was confused anger. Curious anger. And Khorne did not like being confused. Confusion was not his domain. Confusion was more of a Tzeentch thing, and Khorne did not like Tzeentch things.
"WHAT IS THAT?!" he bellowed, his voice shaking the very foundations of reality and causing approximately seventeen thousand simultaneous daemon-on-daemon murders across his realm (which was actually slightly below average for a Khorne-bellow).
Because there, tumbling through the Warp with all the grace of a particularly uncoordinated fish, was a soul that knew about him. Knew about his champions. Knew about his warriors. Knew about the Skull Throne (and had, according to the soul's strange dense knowledge, described it in a forum post as "metal as fuck," whatever that meant).
And the soul was not afraid.
The soul was not angry.
The soul was... excited? Happy? Enthusiastic?
Khorne did not understand enthusiasm. Enthusiasm was not in his emotional repertoire. He understood rage. He understood bloodlust. He understood the pure, clean joy of taking someone's skull and adding it to the pile. But he did not understand a mortal soul looking at the Blood God, the Lord of Skulls, the Master of War, and thinking "oh wow, this is so cool!"
"SKULLTAKER!" Khorne roared.
His greatest champion appeared instantly, because when the Blood God called, you did not dawdle. Dawdling was for Nurgle followers. "Yes, my lord?"
"THAT SOUL. EXPLAIN IT."
Skulltaker looked at the tumbling soul. Looked at his master. Looked back at the soul.
"I... am unable to explain it, my lord."
"THEN WHY ARE YOU HERE?!"
"You summoned me, my lord."
"THEN GO UNSUMMON YOURSELF! I NEED TO THINK!"
Skulltaker vanished with an alacrity that suggested he was very used to his master's moods.
Khorne continued to stare at the strange soul, his rage settling into something that might, in a being capable of more nuanced emotions, have been called fascination.
And finally, in the Impossible Fortress of the Changer of Ways, where reality was merely a suggestion and logic had long ago given up and gone home, Tzeentch was experiencing something he had not experienced in a very, very long time.
He was surprised.
Tzeentch, the Great Conspirator, the Master of Fate, the Architect of Destiny, who knew every possible future and had schemes within schemes within schemes, was surprised.
This was not supposed to happen. Surprise was for lesser beings. Surprise was for mortals who couldn't see the patterns of fate spreading out before them like a cosmic roadmap. Tzeentch did not do surprise. He was the one who surprised others, not the other way around.
And yet.
This soul. This strange, dense, impossible soul.
Tzeentch had seen it coming, of course. He had seen every possible future, and in many of them, this soul arrived in the Warp exactly as it was doing now. That wasn't the surprising part.
The surprising part was what the soul contained.
Knowledge. Vast, terrible, comprehensive knowledge. Knowledge of the Great Game. Knowledge of his plans (many of which were supposed to be secret, though Tzeentch was now having to reconsider his definition of "secret"). Knowledge of his plots, his gambits, his stratagems.
Knowledge of his mistakes.
Tzeentch did not like that last one. Tzeentch did not like to acknowledge that he had ever made mistakes. His defeats were simply setbacks, his failures were simply delayed successes, his errors were simply the groundwork for greater schemes.
But this soul knew. Knew about Magnus. Knew about the Rubric. Knew about all the times his plans had gone slightly (or massively) sideways.
And the soul's reaction to all this knowledge? The soul's emotional response to knowing the deepest secrets of the Changer of Ways?
"Huh," Tzeentch murmured, his voice echoing through a thousand impossible dimensions simultaneously. "That's actually pretty interesting."
The four Chaos Gods, for the first time in millennia, came to a silent, unspoken agreement.
This soul was interesting.
And the Warp had not been interesting in a very long time.
Bartholomew Thaddeus Jenkins III woke up with the worst headache of his life.
This was saying something, because Bartholomew had once attended a convention where he had consumed nothing but energy drinks and convention hall hot dogs for three days straight, and the subsequent headache had been registered by seismologists in four different countries.
But this headache was worse.
This headache felt like someone had taken his brain, used it as a ping-pong ball in a tournament between angry rhinoceroses, and then shoved it back into his skull backwards.
"Uuuuuugh," he groaned eloquently, reaching up to clutch his head.
His hand encountered metal.
This was confusing.
Bartholomew opened his eyes, squinting against the dim light, and tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
He was wearing armor. Cheap, flimsy-looking armor, but armor nonetheless. It was a dirty off-white color, with some kind of symbol on the shoulder that he couldn't quite make out in the darkness.
He was sitting on a hard metal floor, surrounded by other people—he counted quickly—about forty other people, all wearing similar armor, all looking equally confused and miserable.
And the room they were in was moving. Shaking. Rumbling with the deep bass of engines.
"Where... where am I?" Bartholomew mumbled.
The man next to him, a grizzled fellow with a face that looked like it had been used as a punching bag by someone who really, really hated faces, turned to look at him with an expression of tired contempt.
"You new, conscript?" the man growled.
"I... what?"
"Emperor's teeth," the man muttered. "Another fresh-faced idiot who doesn't know which end of a lasgun to point at the enemy." He shook his head. "Listen well, boy, because I'm only going to say this once. You're a guardsman now. Property of the Imperium. We're in a transport heading to the front lines. In about three hours, we're going to land on a planet called Goraxia Prime, where we're going to fight a bunch of filthy greenskins who want to eat our faces. Any questions?"
Bartholomew's brain, still recovering from whatever had happened to it, struggled to process this information.
Guardsman. Imperium. Lasgun. Goraxia Prime. Greenskins.
Greenskins.
Somewhere in the depths of Bartholomew's mind, a tiny light bulb flickered to life.
"Greenskins... like... like Orks?"
The grizzled man gave him a look that suggested Bartholomew had just asked if water was wet. "Yes, like Orks. What other kind of greenskins would there be?"
Bartholomew blinked.
Then he laughed.
It was not a sane laugh. It was not a healthy laugh. It was the laugh of a man whose grip on reality had just done a triple backflip off the diving board into a pool of pure confusion.
"Oh," Bartholomew said, still giggling. "Oh, this is a great dream. This is the best dream I've ever had. I'm having a Warhammer dream!"
The grizzled man stared at him.
"What's a... warhammer?"
"You know!" Bartholomew gestured enthusiastically, nearly hitting the soldier on his other side. "Warhammer 40,000! The tabletop game! Space Marines! The Emperor! Chaos Gods! This is amazing! I've never had a dream this vivid before! Usually my dreams are all fuzzy and I'm naked in public or something, but this is incredible!"
The grizzled man continued to stare. Then he slowly turned to the soldier on his other side.
"This one's cracked already, and we haven't even seen combat yet."
"Emperor protect us," the other soldier muttered, making a sign that Bartholomew vaguely recognized as the Aquila.
"Oh, the Aquila!" Bartholomew said delightedly. "That's so cool! Can you teach me how to do that? I mean, I know it's just a dream, but still!"
"He's cracked," the grizzled man confirmed. "Completely cracked."
But Bartholomew wasn't listening. He was too busy looking around the transport with the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a child in a candy store, if that candy store were actually a grimy military transport full of terrified conscripts heading toward almost certain death.
"This is amazing," he breathed. "The attention to detail! Look at the rust on those panels! And the flickering lights! And the—oh man, is that an actual vox-caster? This is the best dream ever!"
Several soldiers were now staring at him with expressions ranging from concern to fear to outright bafflement.
"Who is this guy?" someone whispered.
"New conscript. Jenkins, I think his papers said."
"Is he... is he okay?"
"Does he look okay?"
Bartholomew, oblivious to the whispered concerns around him, was now examining his own armor with the enthusiasm of a collector who had just found a rare variant.
"Standard flak armor," he muttered to himself. "Low-grade, mass-produced, probably offers about as much protection as wet cardboard against anything serious. But still! Real flak armor! Well, dream flak armor, but still!"
He found the lasgun strapped to his back and pulled it out, handling it with reverent care.
"A Kantrael-pattern lasgun! Or maybe a Mars-pattern? I can never tell the difference. This is so cool! I wonder if it actually—"
"DO NOT FIRE THAT WEAPON INSIDE THE TRANSPORT!" the grizzled soldier roared, slapping the lasgun down before Bartholomew could do something regrettable.
"Right, right, sorry," Bartholomew said cheerfully. "Safety first. Even in dreams. Got it."
"He keeps saying dreams," another soldier muttered. "What does he mean, dreams?"
"I think he thinks this isn't real," someone replied.
"Lucky bastard," a third voice chimed in. "I wish I could convince myself this wasn't real."
Bartholomew, meanwhile, had discovered the symbol on his shoulder pauldron. He tilted his head, trying to make it out in the dim light.
"Huh. I don't recognize this regiment. Is this a homebrew thing? Like, did I make up a regiment in my dream? That's actually pretty creative for my subconscious."
"That's the insignia of the 847th Morthian Infantry," the grizzled soldier said, his voice flat. "We're not a 'homebrew thing,' whatever that means. We're the Emperor's Hammer, the Morthian Maulers, the—"
"The what?" another soldier interrupted. "I've never heard us called that."
"I'm trying to give us some dignity here, Kowalski."
"We're cannon fodder and everyone knows it, Sergeant."
"I said I'm trying."
Bartholomew perked up at the word "cannon fodder."
"Oh, so you're like the Cadian Shock Troops but without the training or equipment or reputation?" he asked brightly. "That's actually super accurate to the lore! Most Imperial Guard regiments are just regular people with barely any preparation getting thrown at enemies that would make Space Marines pause. The casualty rates are astronomical! I read a wiki article once that said—"
"Please stop talking," the sergeant interrupted.
"—that the average life expectancy of a new guardsman in active combat is approximately fifteen hours, which I always thought was probably optimistic, honestly, given what you're usually fighting—"
"I said stop talking."
"—and the Munitorium doesn't even keep accurate records of casualties because there are so many that it would take up too much administratum processing power—"
"FOR THE EMPEROR'S SAKE, STOP TALKING!"
Bartholomew blinked. "Sorry. I get a little enthusiastic about lore. It's a thing. My therapist says I need to work on reading social cues."
The sergeant stared at him for a long moment, his face cycling through several expressions before settling on exhausted resignation.
"Just... just stay close to me when we land, conscript. Don't wander off. Don't do anything stupid. Point the lasgun at the green things and pull the trigger. Think you can manage that?"
"Absolutely!" Bartholomew said with a thumbs up. "I mean, I've never actually fired a real gun before—or a dream gun, I guess—but I've played a lot of video games, so I figure the principle is probably similar."
"Emperor preserve us," the sergeant muttered.
"Probably won't, though," Bartholomew said cheerfully. "I mean, in the lore, the Emperor's not really in a position to preserve much of anything, what with being a rotting corpse on the Golden Throne and all. Though I guess technically he's still alive, just kind of barely, sustaining the Astronomican and keeping the Chaos Gods from—"
The sergeant's hand clamped over Bartholomew's mouth.
"Do not," the sergeant hissed, his eyes wide with terror, "ever, ever say anything like that again. Do you understand? The Emperor is not a—" he lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper, "—a corpse. He is the Master of Mankind. The God-Emperor. The Light in the Darkness. He sits upon the Golden Throne in eternal vigilance, protecting humanity from the horrors of the Warp. He is not a corpse."
Bartholomew nodded, the sergeant's hand still over his mouth.
"Are we clear?"
Another nod.
The sergeant slowly removed his hand.
"Sorry," Bartholomew said. "I forgot that in-universe, people don't know about the actual state of the—" he caught the sergeant's murderous expression, "—the, uh, the Emperor's eternal and definitely not corpse-like vigilance. Got it. Dream rules. When in Rome, right?"
"I don't know what Rome is," the sergeant said, "and I'm starting to think that's a good thing."
Unbeknownst to Bartholomew, his words—so casually spoken, so blithely blasphemous—were echoing through the Warp in ways he could never have imagined.
In the Garden of Nurgle, the Plague Father chuckled, a sound like bubbling sewage mixed with paternal affection.
"He spoke of decay," Nurgle rumbled happily. "Of entropy. Of the Corpse-Emperor rotting on his throne. Such delightful honesty! I like him."
In Slaanesh's palace, the Dark Prince smiled their terrible, beautiful smile.
"He spoke truth without fear," Slaanesh purred. "Spoke of forbidden things in front of terrified mortals, utterly unconcerned with consequences. Such... excess of honesty. How refreshing. How delicious."
In the Brass Citadel, Khorne paused in his eternal rage.
"HE DOES NOT FEAR," the Blood God growled, and there was something almost like approval in his voice. "HE SPEAKS OF DEATH AND SLAUGHTER AND DOES NOT FLINCH. HE SPEAKS OF THE CORPSE-EMPEROR TO HIS SERVANTS' FACES. THAT TAKES... SOMETHING. I AM NOT SURE WHAT. BUT SOMETHING."
And in the Impossible Fortress, Tzeentch laughed.
It was not a nice laugh. Tzeentch's laughs never were. But there was genuine amusement in it, which was rare.
"He knows," Tzeentch whispered, his voice fracturing into a thousand scheming tones. "He knows the truth of things, and he speaks it openly, and he has no idea what he's doing. Magnificent. Simply magnificent. I must... observe. Yes. This one requires careful observation."
The transport shuddered as it entered the atmosphere of Goraxia Prime.
Bartholomew, along with the other forty-three members of his transport, was thrown around like dice in a cup. Unlike the others, who were grimly silent or quietly praying, Bartholomew whooped with something that sounded disturbingly like enjoyment.
"Atmospheric entry!" he shouted over the roar of the engines. "This is so realistic! I can feel the g-forces and everything!"
"PLEASE STOP ENJOYING THIS!" the sergeant roared back.
"I CAN'T HELP IT! THIS IS THE COOLEST DREAM I'VE EVER HAD!"
The transport lurched violently, and through the small viewports, Bartholomew caught glimpses of a planet that looked like someone had taken a perfectly good world and let Orks redecorate it. Which, given what he knew of Ork-infested planets, was probably exactly what had happened.
Plumes of smoke rose from burning cities. Craters pockmarked the landscape. And everywhere, everywhere, there was the telltale red-painted machinery and ramshackle fortifications that screamed "Orks were here."
"Oh man," Bartholomew breathed, his face pressed against the viewport like a kid at an aquarium. "Look at those Gork-and-Mork totems! And is that a Stompa? That's definitely a Stompa! This is incredible!"
"How does he know what a Stompa is?" someone asked.
"How does he know what Gork and Mork are?" someone else added.
"Is he a heretic?"
"He's not a heretic, he's just weird."
"Can we throw him out the airlock?"
"We don't have an airlock, we're in a transport."
"Can we install an airlock?"
The transport shuddered again, and this time there was the unmistakable sound of weapons fire pinging off the hull.
"ANTI-AIRCRAFT FIRE!" the pilot's voice crackled over the vox. "BRACE FOR EVASIVE MANEUVERS!"
What followed was approximately three minutes of the most violent aerial acrobatics Bartholomew had ever experienced. The transport dodged, weaved, rolled, and at one point seemed to fly upside down for reasons that were never adequately explained.
Bartholomew loved every second of it.
"THIS IS BETTER THAN ANY ROLLER COASTER!" he screamed, even as other soldiers around him vomited or prayed or both.
"I HATE YOU!" the sergeant screamed back.
"I'M HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE!"
"I CAN SEE THAT AND IT'S MAKING ME HATE YOU MORE!"
Finally, mercifully, the transport landed with a bone-jarring impact that sent everyone tumbling into everyone else.
The rear ramp began to lower.
The sounds of battle flooded in. Gunfire. Explosions. The unmistakable "WAAAGH!" of Orks that had found something fun to fight.
"Alright, listen up!" the sergeant roared, somehow managing to get his feet under him. "We are landing in a hot zone! There are greenskins everywhere! Stay together, find cover, and for the Emperor's sake, try not to die in the first five minutes! I'm looking at you, Jenkins!"
"Got it!" Bartholomew said with another thumbs up. "Don't die for at least five minutes! That seems achievable!"
"I didn't say—never mind. MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!"
The soldiers poured out of the transport and into what could only be described as a warzone.
Which made sense, because that's exactly what it was.
Bartholomew stumbled out onto the churned-up ground of what might have once been a factory district and immediately had to dodge a piece of flying debris that whistled past his ear.
"Oh wow," he breathed, taking in the chaos around him. "This is... this is actually amazing."
Ahead, he could see Imperial Guard forces dug in behind makeshift barricades, exchanging fire with a horde of Orks that seemed to stretch to the horizon. The greenskins were everything he had imagined and more—massive, muscular, green-skinned brutes armed with weapons that looked like they had been designed by someone with a vendetta against basic engineering principles.
"So ugly," he whispered reverently. "So beautiful. So perfectly Orky."
"TAKE COVER!" the sergeant screamed, grabbing Bartholomew by the collar and dragging him behind a collapsed wall. "What is wrong with you?! You were just standing there!"
"I was appreciating the aesthetic," Bartholomew explained.
"You were going to get shot!"
"Worth it."
The sergeant stared at him with an expression that suggested he was seriously reconsidering his opposition to fratricide.
"Listen to me very carefully," the sergeant said, his voice low and intense. "You are going to stay behind this wall. You are going to point your lasgun in the direction of the Orks. You are going to pull the trigger. And you are going to not die. Can you do that?"
"I can try," Bartholomew offered.
"That's the most encouraging thing you've said since I met you. Stay here."
The sergeant moved off to organize the rest of the conscripts, leaving Bartholomew alone behind the collapsed wall.
For about three seconds.
Then an Ork found him.
The Ork's name was Grimsnaga Facepuncha, and he was having a bad day.
Not a bad day by Ork standards, mind you. There was plenty of fighting, which was good. Plenty of shooting, which was also good. Plenty of humies to krump, which was very good.
But something felt... off.
Grimsnaga couldn't quite explain it. He was a Nob, one of the bigger and more brutal Orks, and thinking wasn't really his strong suit. Hitting things was his strong suit. Thinking was for Mekboys and those weird Weirdboyz who were always seeing things that weren't there.
But still. Something felt off about this fight. Something felt... strange.
And then he came around a collapsed wall and found a humie looking at him with an expression that made no sense at all.
The humie wasn't screaming. The humie wasn't running. The humie wasn't shooting, or praying, or soiling itself, or doing any of the normal things humies did when confronted with an Ork Nob in close quarters.
The humie was smiling.
"Oh," the humie said, its eyes going wide with what looked disturbingly like delight. "Oh, you're gorgeous."
Grimsnaga blinked.
In his entire existence, no one had ever called him gorgeous. Scary, yes. Brutal, definitely. One humie had called him "the embodiment of every nightmare I've ever had" right before Grimsnaga had punched his face off, which Grimsnaga had taken as a compliment.
But gorgeous?
"Look at you!" the humie continued, apparently unaware of the danger it was in. "You're perfect! The muscle definition, the tusks, the green skin—it's exactly like the models! Even better, actually! The models don't capture how alive you look! What clan are you? Goffs? You've got that Goff look. The whole 'black is beautiful' aesthetic. I love it!"
Grimsnaga's brain, such as it was, struggled to process what was happening.
"Yer... yer not scared?" he managed.
"Scared? Why would I be scared? This is a dream! You're not real! Well, I mean, you're real in the sense that you're a representation of my subconscious interpretation of Ork physiology, but you're not real real, you know?"
Grimsnaga did not know. Grimsnaga had understood approximately three words of that sentence, and one of them was "Ork."
"I'z very real," he said, feeling oddly defensive. "I'z da realest Ork in dis whole sector! I'z krumped more humies dan any uvver boy in da warband!"
"Sure you are, buddy," the humie said in a tone that Grimsnaga recognized as the tone adults used when humoring children. He had never been on the receiving end of that tone before, and he found he did not like it.
"I'z serious!" he growled. "I'z gonna krump ya right now! Dat'll show ya how real I is!"
"Oh, are we doing a fight scene?" The humie actually looked excited. "That's awesome! I've always wondered what it would be like to fight an Ork! I mean, I'm definitely going to lose—they're way stronger and tougher than normal humans—but still! The experience! For research purposes!"
Grimsnaga raised his choppa.
The humie raised his lasgun.
It was, by any objective measure, the most one-sided confrontation in the history of confrontations. An Ork Nob versus a conscript who had never fired a weapon in his life. It should have been over in seconds.
And then the humie opened his mouth.
"Hey, quick question before we do this—is the WAAAGH! psychic field real? Because I've always wondered about that. Like, in the lore, Ork technology only works because they collectively believe it should work, right? Their guns shouldn't fire, their vehicles shouldn't run, but they do because Orks think they should. Is that actually how it works? Because if so, that's fascinating. The implications for psychic consciousness are—"
"STOP TALKIN'!" Grimsnaga roared, his choppa wavering. "Yer makin' me 'ead hurt!"
"Sorry, sorry. I get carried away. It's a thing. My therapist says—"
"WHAT'S A THERAPIST?!"
"Oh, it's a person who helps you understand your emotions and deal with mental health issues. Do Orks have therapists? I guess the whole 'might makes right' culture probably doesn't leave much room for mental health support. That's actually kind of sad when you think about it. All that aggression with no healthy outlets—"
"FIGHTIN' IS A HEALTHY OUTLET!"
"Is it though? I mean, from a psychological standpoint—"
Grimsnaga had had enough.
He swung his choppa with all his might, a blow that should have separated the humie's head from his body with enough force to send it flying into the next zip code.
The humie ducked.
Not deliberately. Not skillfully. The humie had simply chosen that exact moment to bend down to examine something on the ground—a piece of debris that had caught his eye.
"Oh cool, is this Ork glyphwork? I've always wondered how Ork written language works. It seems to be more pictographic than phonetic, but—"
Grimsnaga's choppa whistled through the air where the humie's head had been a moment before, embedding itself in the wall behind them.
The humie straightened up, still examining the debris, completely oblivious to the fact that he had just avoided death by sheer dumb luck.
"Interesting. Very interesting. I'm going to keep this as a souvenir. Do you mind?"
Grimsnaga stared at his choppa, stuck in the wall. Stared at the humie, who was pocketing the piece of debris. Stared back at his choppa.
"'Ow... 'ow did ya dodge dat?"
"Dodge what?" The humie looked up, confused. "Oh, were you attacking? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. I get distracted sometimes. What were you saying?"
Something was happening in Grimsnaga's brain. Something that had never happened before.
He was feeling... unsettled.
This humie wasn't acting right. Humies were supposed to scream and run and die. They weren't supposed to stand there asking questions about Ork psychology and picking up souvenirs. They weren't supposed to dodge attacks while examining glyphwork. They weren't supposed to—
Wait.
How had he dodged that attack?
Grimsnaga was one of the biggest, fastest, strongest Orks in the warband. His choppa strikes were legendary. No humie, especially not a scrawny little conscript, should have been able to dodge him.
Unless...
Unless the humie wasn't really a humie.
Grimsnaga's eyes narrowed. He had heard stories. Stories of humies that weren't really humies. Humies that were blessed by their corpse-god, that could do impossible things, that couldn't be killed by normal means.
Was this one of those humies?
"Oi," he said slowly, suspicion creeping into his voice. "'Oo are ya, really?"
"Me? I'm Bartholomew Thaddeus Jenkins III. Private, apparently. 847th Morthian Infantry, I think? I just got here. Well, I just got conscripted here. In my dream. Which this is. A dream, I mean."
"Yer lyin'."
"I'm really not."
"Yer one of dem... wot's da word... Space Marines in disguise!"
The humie—Jenkins—actually laughed at that. Not a scared laugh. Not a nervous laugh. A genuine, amused laugh.
"Me? A Space Marine? That's hilarious. Have you seen me? I'm five foot nine and I weigh maybe a hundred and fifty pounds. Space Marines are like eight feet tall and built like tanks. I'm built like a... like a slightly deflated balloon."
"Den 'ow did ya dodge me choppa?!"
"I told you, I didn't dodge anything. I was just looking at the ground. It's called being easily distracted, not having superhuman reflexes."
Grimsnaga was not convinced. He had been an Ork for a long time (relatively speaking; Orks didn't keep good track of their ages), and he had learned a few things. One of those things was that when something didn't make sense, it usually meant something sneaky was going on.
And this humie was definitely something sneaky.
"I'z gonna tell da Warboss about ya," Grimsnaga declared. "He'll know wot ta do wif ya."
"Oh, you have a Warboss? That's cool! What's his name? What clan is he from? Is he one of those really massive Orks that gets bigger from fighting, or is he more of a cunning type? I've always been curious about the political structure of—"
"STOP. ASKIN'. QUESTIONS."
"Sorry. I'll work on that."
Grimsnaga reached out and grabbed Jenkins by the collar of his flak armor, lifting him off the ground. It was an impressive feat of strength, though Jenkins didn't seem particularly impressed. Or scared. Or anything, really, except mildly curious.
"Yer comin' wif me," Grimsnaga growled. "An' yer gonna explain yerself to da Warboss. And if ya don't start actin' like a proper humie, I'z gonna—"
"PRIVATE JENKINS!"
Grimsnaga turned to see a group of humies charging toward him, lasguns blazing. The sergeant from before was leading them, his face a mask of determination and terror.
"PUT DOWN THE CONSCRIPT, GREENSKIN!"
Grimsnaga considered his options. He could fight the humies, but there were a lot of them, and they had the advantage of range. He could retreat with his prisoner, but the Warboss would want to know what was so special about this humie, and Grimsnaga wasn't entirely sure how to explain it.
Or...
He looked at Jenkins, who was hanging from his grip with an expression of mild interest, like this was all a moderately entertaining nature documentary.
"Dis ain't over," Grimsnaga growled at him. "I'z gonna find out wot ya are, humie. And when I do..."
"Looking forward to it!" Jenkins said cheerfully. "This has been really educational. We should do it again sometime!"
Grimsnaga threw the humie at the approaching guardsmen (who barely managed to catch him) and then retreated into the smoke and chaos of the battlefield, his mind churning with unfamiliar thoughts.
Something was very wrong with that humie.
And Grimsnaga was going to figure out what.
"JENKINS! JENKINS, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!"
Bartholomew found himself on the ground, surrounded by concerned (and baffled) faces. The sergeant was there, looking like he wasn't sure whether to hug Bartholomew or strangle him.
"I'm fine," Bartholomew said, brushing himself off. "That was actually really interesting. Did you know Orks have a complex—"
"You were CAPTURED by an ORK!"
"Captured is a strong word. We were having a conversation."
"Orks don't have conversations! They have murders!"
"This one seemed pretty chatty, actually. I mean, angry, sure, but chatty. He asked me lots of questions."
The sergeant looked at the other guardsmen. The other guardsmen looked at the sergeant. Nobody seemed to know what to say.
"How are you alive?" one of the soldiers finally asked. "How are you possibly alive? That was a Nob. Nobs don't take prisoners. Nobs don't talk to people. Nobs just... krump things."
"Maybe he wasn't hungry?" Bartholomew offered.
"Orks don't eat people!"
"Some of them do, according to the—" he caught himself. "Never mind. Dream logic. It's all dream logic."
The sergeant grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Listen to me very carefully, Jenkins. This is not a dream. This is real. This is very, very real. We are on an Ork-infested planet, fighting for our lives, and you were just captured by one of the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy and somehow you're still alive. I don't know how. I don't know why. But you need to start taking this seriously."
Bartholomew looked at the sergeant's earnest, terrified face.
He looked at the warzone around them, the burning buildings and the distant sounds of battle.
He looked at his own hands, still trembling slightly from the encounter with the Ork.
"You know what," he said slowly, "you might have a point. This is a very vivid dream. Maybe I should treat it like it's real. Just for, you know, the experience."
The sergeant sagged with relief. "Thank the Emperor."
"Even if it's definitely still a dream."
The sergeant's face fell. "I'll take what I can get."
The battle for Goraxia Prime continued.
Against all odds, against all reason, against all sanity, Private Bartholomew Thaddeus Jenkins III survived.
He survived the Ork charge that killed half his squad by tripping over a rock at exactly the right moment and falling into a crater that shielded him from the onslaught.
He survived the artillery barrage that devastated their position by wandering off to examine "a really interesting piece of Ork technology" that turned out to be a dud bomb that had failed to detonate.
He survived the Ork Warboss's personal assault by accidentally activating a piece of ancient Imperial technology that nobody had noticed buried under the rubble, which promptly exploded and sent the Warboss flying backwards in a way that was later described as "the most unlikely thing I've ever witnessed, and I once saw a Commissar cry."
Each time, Bartholomew remained completely oblivious to the fact that he had just avoided death by the slimmest of margins. Each time, he attributed his survival to "dream logic" or "plot armor" or "the subconscious knowing that if I died, I'd wake up, and I don't want to wake up yet because this is really interesting."
And each time, the soldiers around him grew more and more convinced that there was something special about Private Jenkins.
"Did you see what he did to the Warboss?"
"I didn't see it, but I heard about it. Apparently he just... touched that old relic, and it exploded."
"The Techpriests are going crazy. They're saying that relic hasn't worked in ten thousand years."
"And he just... activated it?"
"He touched it. Like he knew exactly what it was and how to use it."
"Who is this guy?"
Whispers spread through the regiment. Then through the division. Then through the entire Imperial Guard force on Goraxia Prime.
A soldier. A simple conscript. A man who had arrived on the planet knowing nothing, carrying nothing, being nothing.
And somehow, he was winning battles by accident.
Somehow, he was surviving encounters that should have killed him instantly.
Somehow, he was activating ancient technology that had been dormant for millennia.
The whispers reached the ears of the regimental commander. Then the sector commander. Then, through channels that most guardsmen didn't even know existed, they reached the ears of the Inquisition.
Inquisitor Helena Vorn was not an easily impressed woman.
In her two hundred years of service to the Ordo Hereticus (she'd had a lot of juvenat treatments), she had seen heretics, mutants, witches, and worse. She had personally overseen the destruction of fifteen cults, the execution of three hundred heretics, and the exterminatus of one particularly troublesome planet that had really, really deserved it.
She was not impressed by much.
But the report on her desk was... interesting.
"Private Bartholomew Thaddeus Jenkins III," she read aloud. "Conscript. No combat training. No special abilities. No psychic potential according to preliminary screening. And yet..."
She turned the page.
"And yet he has survived seventeen encounters that should have killed him. He has accidentally activated three pieces of ancient technology. He has been captured by an Ork Nob and released. He has..."
She paused, reading the next line several times to make sure she hadn't misunderstood.
"He has been reported speaking 'forbidden truths about the Emperor' with 'casual familiarity' and 'a disturbing lack of concern for his immortal soul.'"
Helena set down the report and steepled her fingers.
This was either a heretic of unprecedented audacity or something else entirely.
Either way, she needed to meet this Private Jenkins.
The transport carrying Inquisitor Vorn arrived on Goraxia Prime three days after the battle that had made Private Jenkins famous.
By that point, the stories had grown.
Some said he had killed the Ork Warboss with his bare hands. (He hadn't. He had barely touched the relic before it exploded. But stories had a way of growing.)
Some said he could see the future, which was how he kept dodging attacks. (He couldn't. He was just very, very distractible at very, very opportune moments.)
Some said he was blessed by the Emperor himself, chosen for some great destiny. (This was the most common story, and also the one that made Bartholomew laugh the hardest when he heard it. "Blessed by the Emperor! That's hilarious! I'm literally just a guy who played too many tabletop games!")
Helena Vorn ignored the stories. Stories were unreliable. She would judge for herself.
She found Private Jenkins in the medical tent, not because he was injured (he was miraculously uninjured, which was another thing the stories loved to mention), but because he had wandered in to "check out the medical technology" and had gotten distracted examining a auto-surgeon with the enthusiasm of a child with a new toy.
"Private Jenkins," she said, her voice cutting through the bustle of the tent like a knife.
Bartholomew looked up, and his face lit up with recognition.
"Oh! Oh wow! An Inquisitor! A real Inquisitor! Well, a dream Inquisitor, but still! Look at your outfit! Is that carapace armor? And a rosette! Is that an actual Inquisitorial rosette? Can I hold it?"
Helena's eyes narrowed. Most people, upon being confronted by an Inquisitor, fell to their knees in terror. They begged for mercy. They confessed to sins they hadn't even committed, just in case.
They did not ask to hold her rosette.
"You know what I am?" she asked carefully.
"Of course! You're an Inquisitor! You hunt heretics and aliens and demons. Which Ordo are you? Hereticus? Xenos? Malleus? Oh, please say Malleus, I've always wanted to meet a Daemon hunter!"
"I am Ordo Hereticus," Helena said slowly, watching his reaction.
"Oh, that's cool too! Witch hunters! Very historical. Very dramatic. Do you have any flamers? Hereticus Inquisitors always seem to have flamers in the—" he paused. "In the, uh, in the stories. The stories I've heard. About Inquisitors."
Helena's eyes narrowed further. "What stories?"
"Oh, you know. Just... stories. About the Inquisition. Very accurate stories, I'm sure. I mean, dream stories, but still accurate. Probably."
This was not normal behavior. This was not normal behavior at all.
"Private Jenkins," Helena said, her voice dropping to a dangerous purr, "I have some questions for you. I suggest you answer them honestly, because I am very good at telling when people are lying."
"Okay!" Bartholomew said cheerfully. "I'm an open book. Well, a closed book that happens to be full of lore about a fictional universe that may or may not be real, but an open book about myself personally!"
Helena paused.
"What do you mean, 'fictional universe'?"
"Oh, nothing. Dream logic. Don't worry about it."
"I am going to worry about it. I am going to worry about it a great deal. What do you mean, fictional universe?"
Bartholomew opened his mouth to explain, then closed it again. A strange expression crossed his face—something like the dawning realization of a man who had just put his foot in something unfortunate.
"You know what," he said, "let's change the subject. How about those Orks, huh? Pretty crazy, right? The whole green skin and the fighting and the WAAAGH! and everything?"
"Private Jenkins—"
"I really like your hat, by the way. Very dramatic. Very Inquisitorial."
"Private Jenkins—"
"Is that a power sword? It looks like a power sword. Can I see it? I promise not to cut myself. Well, I don't promise, I'm actually kind of clumsy, but I'll try not to—"
"PRIVATE JENKINS!"
Bartholomew snapped to attention. Well, he tried to snap to attention. He mostly wobbled to attention, looking vaguely in Helena's direction.
"Yes, ma'am? Your Inquisitorialness? Your... Inquisity?"
"The correct form of address is 'Inquisitor' or 'my lady.'"
"Got it. Yes, Inquisitor My Lady?"
Helena pinched the bridge of her nose. She had interrogated hardened heretics. She had broken cultists who had sold their souls to the Dark Gods. She had once made a Chaos Space Marine weep (admittedly, he had been weeping with rage, but it still counted).
And yet, somehow, this bumbling idiot was giving her a headache.
"I am going to ask you a series of questions," she said slowly. "You are going to answer them clearly and honestly. If I believe you are lying or withholding information, I will be... displeased. Do you understand?"
"Crystal clear, Inquisitor My Lady."
"Just 'Inquisitor.'"
"Right. Sorry. Inquisitor."
Helena took a deep breath.
"First question: How did you know what an Inquisitor was?"
"Everyone knows what an Inquisitor is," Bartholomew said, looking confused. "You guys are famous. Or infamous, I guess, depending on your perspective. The whole 'there is no innocence, only degrees of guilt' thing. Very metal."
"What does 'metal' mean?"
"Oh, it's a... it's an expression. From... from where I'm from. It means, uh, impressive. In a dark and brutal way."
Helena filed this away for later investigation. "Second question: How did you know about the different Ordos?"
"Same answer. Everyone knows about the Ordos. Hereticus, Xenos, Malleus. The big three. Although there are technically other Ordos too, like Sepulturum and Chronos and a bunch of others that are smaller and more specialized, but those are the main—"
"How do you know about the minor Ordos?"
Bartholomew paused. "I... read a lot?"
"Where? What did you read? Those Ordos are not public knowledge."
"They're... not?"
"No. They are not. Most Imperial citizens don't even know the Inquisition exists, much less its internal structure."
Bartholomew's face was doing something complicated. It was the face of a man who was realizing, for the first time, that some of the things he knew might be things he shouldn't know.
"Well," he said slowly, "this is a dream, so probably my subconscious just... knows things? Because I, in the waking world, know things? And dreams are like, reflections of your subconscious mind, so..."
"You keep saying this is a dream. Why do you believe this is a dream?"
"Because I died."
Helena blinked. "You... died?"
"Yeah. In my world. I slipped on some spilled hobby paint and impaled myself on a knife. It was embarrassing. Really embarrassing. I hope they don't put it in my obituary. 'Bartholomew Thaddeus Jenkins III, killed by Nuln Oil and his own lack of coordination.' That would be the worst obituary ever."
Helena stared at him for a long moment.
"You believe," she said carefully, "that you died, and that this—" she gestured around at the medical tent, the planet, the war, "—is a dream you're having while dead?"
"Or dying. Or maybe after death. I'm not totally sure about the theological implications. Is there an afterlife? Am I in it? Is this some kind of purgatory? I have a lot of questions, honestly, but I'm trying not to overthink it because then the dream might turn into one of those anxiety dreams and I don't want that."
Helena had interrogated many people over her long career. She had heard many lies, many excuses, many desperate fabrications.
This did not feel like any of them.
This felt like a man who genuinely, honestly, truly believed that he was dreaming.
Which was, in its own way, even more concerning.
"Third question," she said. "On the battlefield, you spoke of the Emperor as a—" she lowered her voice, "—as a 'corpse.' Why?"
Bartholomew's face went through another complicated series of expressions.
"Oh," he said. "Yeah. That was maybe not the smartest thing to say out loud. It's just, in the lore—I mean, in the... stories... the Emperor is technically alive, but he's been sitting on the Golden Throne for ten thousand years, kept alive by the sacrifice of thousands of psykers every day, and his body has... you know... decayed somewhat. So technically he's not a corpse, but he's also not not a corpse, if you get my meaning. It's complicated. He's like Schrodinger's corpse. Both alive and dead simultaneously until you observe him, except nobody's allowed to observe him, so—"
"Stop."
Bartholomew stopped.
Helena was staring at him with an expression that combined horror, fascination, and profound uncertainty.
What he had just described was heresy of the highest order. Speaking of the God-Emperor as anything less than divine was punishable by death. Speaking of him as a corpse—even a living corpse—was punishable by death and then some.
And yet...
And yet...
He wasn't wrong.
Helena had access to knowledge that most Imperial citizens would never dream of. She knew the truth about the Emperor's condition. She knew about the Golden Throne and the sacrifices required to maintain it. She knew that the Master of Mankind had not moved or spoken in ten thousand years.
She knew that Private Bartholomew Thaddeus Jenkins III was, technically, correct.
And that raised a very, very disturbing question.
How did he know?
"Private Jenkins," she said slowly, "I am going to ask you one more question, and I want you to think very carefully before you answer. Where did you learn these... 'stories' you keep mentioning?"
Bartholomew was quiet for a moment. Really quiet. Thinking quiet.
"If I tell you," he said finally, "you're going to think I'm crazy."
"I already think you're crazy."
"Crazier than you already think I am, then."
"Try me."
Bartholomew took a deep breath.
"Okay. So. There's a company called Games Workshop. And they make tabletop miniature games. Like, you buy little plastic models and you assemble them and paint them and then you roll dice and fight battles with them. And one of their games is called Warhammer 40,000. And it's set in a universe that's... well... it's this universe. The one we're in right now. With the Imperium and the Orks and the Chaos Gods and everything. And I've been playing it for, like, fifteen years. And reading all the books. And watching all the videos. And trawling the wiki. So I know... kind of a lot. About everything. Because it's my hobby. Well, it was my hobby. Before I died. And now I'm here, in the universe, except I think I'm dreaming it because I definitely died, and this can't possibly be real because this is a fictional universe that was made up by British game designers in the 1980s, and I'm just a normal guy from a normal planet with no space travel or aliens or psychic powers or anything like that."
He paused.
"Also, I'm pretty sure this is the part where you kill me for heresy, but I figured you asked, so."
Helena stared at him.
And stared.
And stared.
"You expect me to believe," she said slowly, "that the Imperium of Man, the God-Emperor, the Adeptus Astartes, the entire galaxy-spanning human civilization... is a game?"
"A tabletop game," Bartholomew confirmed. "With little plastic miniatures. Some of them are really expensive. I spent way too much money on them, honestly."
"And you have been... playing this game... for fifteen years?"
"On and off. I took a break during college. But yeah, basically."
"And you know everything about this 'fictional universe' because you have read about it extensively?"
"I wouldn't say everything. There's a lot of lore. Like, a lot of lore. Thousands of books. Hundreds of game supplements. Countless wiki articles. No one person could know everything. But I know a decent amount. Probably more than is healthy, actually. Definitely more than is healthy."
Helena was silent for a very long time.
Then she did something that Bartholomew did not expect.
She laughed.
It was not a nice laugh. It was the laugh of someone whose worldview has just been challenged in a way they hadn't anticipated. It was the laugh of someone who doesn't know whether to scream or cry or both.
"You know," she said finally, "I have heard many explanations over the years. Heretics who claimed they were chosen by the Dark Gods. Cultists who believed they were the reincarnation of ancient prophets. A man who was absolutely convinced he was a Tyranid in human form, for reasons that were never adequately explained."
She shook her head.
"But this? This is new. This is impressively new."
"So you're not going to kill me for heresy?"
"Oh, I'm absolutely going to kill you for heresy. Eventually. But first, I want to understand exactly what kind of heresy this is. Because if you're lying, you're the most creative liar I've ever met. And if you're telling the truth..."
She trailed off.
"If I'm telling the truth, what?" Bartholomew asked.
Helena looked at him with an expression that combined calculating interest with profound uncertainty.
"If you're telling the truth," she said slowly, "then either you're completely insane, or something very, very strange is happening."
She stood up.
"Either way, I'm going to need more data. You're coming with me, Private Jenkins."
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere more private. Where we can have a longer conversation."
She paused at the entrance to the medical tent and looked back at him.
"And Private Jenkins?"
"Yes, Inquisitor?"
"If you try to run, I will shoot you."
"Noted," Bartholomew said cheerfully. "Though I should warn you, I seem to have really good luck in this dream. Stuff just kind of... works out for me."
"That," Helena said grimly, "is exactly what I'm worried about."
What neither Helena nor Bartholomew realized was that their conversation had been observed.
Not by mortal eyes. The medical tent had been carefully screened for surveillance devices, and no human spy could have penetrated Helena's privacy protocols.
But the Warp cared nothing for privacy protocols.
And in the Warp, four ancient powers were paying very close attention indeed.
"He knows," Tzeentch whispered, his voice echoing through impossible dimensions. "He knows everything. He knows the game, the patterns, the shape of things. This is... magnificent."
"He speaks truth," Nurgle gurgled happily. "He speaks of decay and entropy and the slow rot of all things. He is a kindred spirit. A fellow appreciator of the natural order."
"He does not fear," Khorne growled approvingly. "He faced an Inquisitor and spoke blasphemy without flinching. There is strength there, of a sort. Interesting strength."
"He is excess incarnate," Slaanesh purred. "His knowledge is excessive. His honesty is excessive. His obliviousness is excessive. He is a creature of perfect, beautiful, maddening contradiction."
And in the strange realm between realms, where the four powers sometimes glimpsed each other across the infinite divide of the Great Game, something unprecedented happened.
For the first time in memory, the Chaos Gods agreed on something.
This mortal was theirs.
All of them.
At once.
They would watch. They would wait. They would see what he did next.
And in the meantime, they would... help. In their own ways. Through their own methods.
The mortal had entertained them. The mortal had surprised them.
The least they could do was keep him alive long enough to see what happened next.
Bartholomew followed Inquisitor Vorn out of the medical tent, blissfully unaware that he had just become the focus of attention of beings so powerful and terrible that most mortals went mad just thinking about them.
He was still pretty sure this was a dream.
And in dreams, nothing really bad could happen.
...Right?
[END OF CHAPTER ONE]