
ch 1.eventually years had passed through my exile here, on this shithole planet in the backwaters of the galaxy. the locals were not only superstitious but mostly cannibalistic as well, so i largely kept to the desert wild lands outside the city of gren. i lived off the hardy desert life, and became as hardy myself, hard as a rock in mind body and spirit. only occasionaly would i wander into town to trade some scrap or gem for ammunition, oil, salt and whatever i wanted. it was that last sojurn into that place where humanity feasted upon itself on the hard plains of drahmihn when fate would turn me again and twist my life to it's whims. that's when i met carllk. that dirt sunnuva botch treasure hunter was just what you would expect from someone who worked for the rich and was shunned by the accredited academics of his contemporary practice. the pay was good tho, and talkign to someone that didn't eat his or her third child and reproduce solely for the pleasure of that feast would be a pleasant break from teh isolated solitude of the andless buttes and sands which had become my utopia since my exile began. or so i thought.
he paid the expenses, and i bought lavishly, or at least what passed for lavish in my tenure as demon guardian of the wastes. my role was guide, but he led the way as if pulled by a lodestone.i merely kept watch for the nasty things which made their home there, which waited quietly for the meagerest morsel to stumble into their maws. and my employer was something mroe than a meagre morsel. we spoke little if at all, and made our way with haste deeper into that vast exapnse than i had dared range myself. and on the fifth day we cam upon it. a stone pillar reaching hundreds of metres into the sky liek some phallic proclamation. i had to laugh despite my long abandonment of humour even before i had been left on this world to serve penances for crimes logn forgotten. my employer only kept on forward to a portal carved smoothly into it's based, seemingly unaffected and unobstracted despite the great dunes here.
the inside was like nothing i had ever seen. i cannot describe what i say, only that everythign was covered in designs wether of some language or of decorative value. he seemed very excited then and began talking excitedly to himself in what sounded liek teh language of the Dregs. not wanting to hear that foul tongue, i conteted myself to set up camp as near the entrance as possible, and then suddenyl from teh obselisk int eh centre of the chamber grew bright and dark at the same time, and it seemed as if a great battle... as if.. it cannot be described, but it was then that everythign swam and i must assume i blacked out.
how long after i awoke i do not know. my employer was gone, the obselisk strewn across the chamber in large chunks and shards. my skull ached as if from outside and at least a hundred times more intense than the worst hangover i had ever experienced. althought maybe it was distance of time that made that sensation fresh. i cursed, and set out to return to my own territory. but return i did not. instead, as though i had no freewill of my own and with only my speat in hand with my other weapons strapped to me previously, i strove fruther into that great desert, away from the poor excuse for civilization this emperor forsaken planet held. how many days passed or how i was sustained i do not know, only that eventually i reached a place which seemed a great bowl carved into the plateau. and in that bowl held a city. or what had once been a city. if the local superstition held this place in it's memory, i do not know. their foul religion was among the most unsettling things i had come across, despite 15 years in the emperor's service. and if i spent any time there, i can not say, for it seems all bright lights and blurry images and a headache if i linger too long on it's memory. i know only that the next thing i can remember clearly was not expected at all.
Chapter 2
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