Ornsworld, the homeworld of the Ratling abhumans, was no stranger to invasion. It had been besieged by the forces of Chaos multiple times, once enduring a slaughter so absolute that over ninety percent of its population was put to the sword, nearly consigning the race to extinction.
In the present era, Ornsworld served merely as a recruitment world for the Astra Militarum, providing the Imperium with its most renowned snipers. None, however, suspected that a nascent Chaos God had fixed its gaze upon them, drawn by nothing more than the name "Ratling" itself.
"The Rat-men have but one god, and that god is the Great Horned Rat!"
Lucius muttered this to himself as he looked down upon the tiny planet. In the currents of the Warp, he could hear the bored yawns of the other Ruinous Powers, who found his direct intervention in the affairs of a single world tedious and beneath a god's dignity.
Only Nurgle rumbled a wet, phlegmatic protest: "Everyone has a first time. We should offer the lad encouragement."
Lucius cared little for their boredom or their mockery. With a gesture of his divine will, he whipped the warp-routes surrounding Ornsworld into a localized tempest of screaming energy, severing the link between the world and the nearby Astra Militarum fortress-stations.
"What is happening? Why is there another warp storm of this magnitude?"
Panic seized the Imperial commanders at the nearby outposts. Since the birth of the Great Rift, the stability of warp travel and astropathic communication had plummeted; another catastrophic surge was more than they could endure. The Lord General ordered his Astropaths and Navigators to find the perimeter of the storm immediately. It was their sacred duty to protect Ornsworld, for the planet was the primary source of Ratling snipers for armies across the galaxy.
However, the psykers and Navigators soon made a chilling discovery: while the warp remained navigable in every other direction, the path to Ornsworld was utterly choked, sealed by an impossible barrier.
If the Warp was normally a turbulent sea, this was a targeted hurricane, a vortex of empyrean malice designed to isolate Ornsworld from the rest of existence. An ill omen settled in the Lord General's heart, but he could do nothing but transmit word of the anomaly back to the wider Imperium. Without warp travel, it would take four hundred years to reach the Ornsworld system at sub-light speeds.
Meanwhile, the idyllic, Shire-like beauty of Ornsworld began to undergo a hideous transformation.
The azure sky bled into a bruised, sickly grey. The sun, once a piercing white, rotted into a baleful shade of viridian green, hanging in the firmament like a massive, filth-encrusted crystal that cast a terrifying filter over the entire world.
Then came the acid rain.
Crops in the fields began to wither and liquefy into grey sludge. In the darkness of the sewers, vermin began to gather in unprecedented numbers, swarming into the Ratlings' vital granaries. The Ratlings reacted with fury and terror, desperately broadcasting astropathic pleas for Imperial salvation, but every cry vanished into the void, unanswered.
Driven to desperation, the Ratlings barricaded their remaining stores, hoping to outlast the warp storm. It was futile. The rats multiplied exponentially, devouring everything in their path. The green sun seemed to accelerate the decay of all organic matter. Soon, weakened by famine and fear, the Ratlings watched in horror as rats the size of housecats began to hunt in packs, dragging pedestrians into the shadows to be devoured alive.
In the Warp, Lucius manipulated the unfolding catastrophe like an artist touching up a canvas.
"Hmm... a touch more fear here. And here... we shall wait. Terror must be cultivated. They need more despair before they realize that only a true god can deliver them."
Sitting cross-legged, Lucius used his divine power to reshape the system, hovering over the image of Ornsworld like a gloating demiurge. He felt no remorse for the suffering he wrought; he was already accustomed to it. On the world of Zavka, within the ruins of the Skaven capital, he had manifested in the flesh to witness the rise of the rat-kin, learning the cruelty, ferocity, and cunning of those who dwelt in the under-hives.
"Hehehe... do not worry. Fall into the embrace of the Great Horned Rat. I am far more attentive to my flock than that Golden Corpse on Terra," Lucius whispered as he choked the world with famine and dread.
As the grain stores vanished, the lush fields of Ornsworld turned into stinking, bottomless bogs. The Ratlings prayed to the Emperor, but the "Yellow-Skinned One" was far too busy to heed the cries of abhumans. Consequently, their natural penchant for thievery shifted from a quirk of personality into a desperate survival instinct.
Ratlings began to steal food, weapons, and tools from their neighbors. The crime rate soared until the world resembled a Skaven burrow, and social order collapsed into total anarchy and cannibalism.
Now, Lucius could feel it… the potent psychic resonance of treachery, rebellion, chaos, and distortion flowing into him. He was elated. This meant he was transcending his status as a mere racial deity of the Skaven and becoming a god of emotion, much like the Great Four.
"It is time for my entrance."
Lucius nodded. His towering form of the Great Horned Rat shifted, shrinking into the guise of a black-robed Vermin Herder. Feeding on the planetary despair, he manifested within the heart of Ornsworld.
Countless Ratlings watched in awe and suspicion as a black-robed figure, leaning on an ancient staff capped with rotting rat-hide, appeared in the center of the Hoopstanler Stronghold, the planet's largest and most formidable fortress.
He walked down the wide, deserted avenues of the citadel. Surviving Ratlings peered through the cracks of boarded-up doors and windows, waiting with malicious glee for the rats to rush from the corners and drag the stranger down.
But it did not happen. The normally rampant vermin vanished. Not a single rat appeared to disturb the stranger's path.
Driven by their innate curiosity, a few trembling Ratlings ventured outside to follow him. To their shock, they were not attacked; even the nauseating sound of scratching and chittering had ceased. Convinced the stranger was a being of power, the crowd behind him grew.
Eventually, the stranger reached the gates of the Planetary Governor's palace and came to a halt.
Exhausted and emaciated, the Ratling guards leveled their lasguns at him. "Back off, beggar!" one croaked. "There is nothing here for you to scavenge. Although, you have more meat on your bones than most, perhaps we'll have you for dinner!"
The stranger in black showed no fear. He did not even look at the barrels of the guns. "I have come to provide the master of this place with a solution to this crisis," he said, his voice calm and resonant. "Let me see your lord."
Though the guards intended to drive him away, a strange power compelled them to believe him. After a moment of hesitation, they nodded and led him inside to meet the Planetary Governor.
The palace was opulent but reeked of decay. Inside the grand hall, a bloated, obscenely fat Ratling was gorging himself on a blackened, rotting feast. The Governor looked up, wiping his mouth to reveal sharpened incisors. His beady black eyes locked onto the stranger.
"Hic... who are you? Do you have a way? If you are lying, you're the next course!"
The Governor had not always been this way, but since the disaster began, he had fallen into a state of insatiable gluttony, eventually turning to rotted meat and even his own kind to satisfy his hunger.
"Yes," the stranger replied calmly, his voice carrying an irresistible authority. "I guarantee that if you follow my instructions, this disaster will pass."
"Speak! What must be done?"
"You must build a spire atop the highest point of this world, according to my designs. At the summit, there shall be a great bell. When the bell tolls thirteen times, the catastrophe will end... and the True God shall save all."
The stranger produced a roll of ancient parchment and handed it to the Governor. It contained the blueprints for the spire and the Great Bell. The Governor glanced at it, knowing he had no other choice.
"Fine. But the rats are everywhere. If my workers go out, they will be eaten. What then?"
"Haha, have no fear," the stranger laughed softly. "Those base pests cannot stop the advent of the True God. They shall not harm those who labor upon the Spire."
"Very well... let it be so!" the Governor cried. He no longer cared for logic; he feared the monster he was becoming. In his heart, he hoped this was a Saint sent by the Emperor to save them, after all, surely the Imperium owed them something after years of faithful service?
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