Editing Nobledark Imperium Notable People (section)

=== Edmond Aldsworth ===

Edmond Aldsworth started as many in the besieged Imperium as the child of dead officers, one among billions. Although the Imperium is not flawless by any measure one of the things it does do well is looking after it's own and the child Edmond found a home in the Schola Progenium of Mordia. He was a robust child with broad shoulders, very upright posture and features one might consider handsome in an aloof sort of way. He excelled in his studies in regards to language but mostly what he was good at was the application of violence which he did with a great level of precision. He was a very passable marksman who found the notion of "full-auto spray" upsetting on some level and much preferred to pick his targets carefully so as to conserve ammunition, incoming fire whipping and hissing around him he would stand unflappable carefully lining up a killing shot. He also excelled at knife-fighting and scrumball, or at least he would have excelled at scrumball had he been able to understand that "full contact sport" did not mean impromptu boxing match. Bare Knuckle Boxing being another sport he was proficient at.

In the end it was decided that he was too smart academically to be placed in the Storm Troopers but lacked the temperament for either the Arbiters or the Commissairiant and was destined for the Inquisitorial Soldier Pool.

In this capacity he made somewhat of a reputation for himself, being both smart and capable although his headstrong nature and tendency to be vocal when he believed his superiors in error ensured that he never made it past corporal. From age 18 to his 40s he served well and with some minor distinction bouncing from mission to mission, squad to squad. He was fluent in both the High Tongue of the Beil-Tan Eldar and in the crude tongue of Base Orkish alongside High Gothic and some level of competence in a few low gothics and with the work of the Inquisition being what it is the need for translators at every level of operation is always high.

He achieved notoriety in his mid to late 40s in the events of the 4th War for Armageddon when the local forces of the Inquisition were commandeered/donated for the increased need for the war effort in the emergency. By the time that Corporal Aldsworth and the hastily formed regiments he was part of arrived most of the planet was already serious trouble. His regimental Stormbird landing craft was shot two dozen miles beyond the walls of Hive Infernus and they lost half their number in the crash and the mad dash to relative safety. They met up with the other equally bedraggled Inquisition Regiments and the PDF who looked like they hadn't seen sleep in a week and a decent meal in a month. Half dead and totally exhausted they all fought bravely and with what cornered rat like defiance they still had but the futilely of it was plain. Infernus was lost and as the walls of the last sanctum were breached like rats they were indeed. Overlord von Strab had been for decades and maybe centuries appointing foppish dandy boys of his liking to positions of authority in the PDF and using the officer ranks as a social club for aristocrats with delusions of adequacy. When those wall broke it was a scene Corporal Aldsworth hoped never to see again in his lifetime. Masses of humanity climbing on each others backs to escape, the soldiers without direction as their cowardly masters fled, his own forces being forced to form an orderly retreat to the blessedly empty storm drains and trying in vain to herd the fear maddened few civilians to relative safety.

The day after that there was maybe half a regiment ad hoc of the best of the surviving PDF and elements of the Inquisition's forces exiting the storm drain by the banks of the river miles down-stream under cover of a moonless night. Never had Edmond known such shame to have survived when others had not. The Comms man of the PDF, carrying a back mounted and still miraculously working long range comm unit picked up intermittent transmissions from far off Hades Hive through the static and ork chatter and so with duty and survival on their minds they set off on the long, long march to Hades.

By great good fortune most of the Infernus survivors made it, even managing to absorb a few other survivors along the way and scrag a few ork patrols which did wonders for everyone's spirits in those dark and fearful months. Eventually they reached the hive, and as if divine providence it's gates had been cleared just that morning by Kill Krazii and other tribesmen of the Ashlands, with their ten thousand strong host the few hundred soldiers were unnoticed as they signed in.

The locals were manning the walls, a duty they had grown familiar with by now, and the Ashlanders were not used to warfare that was standing still or confined and so patrolled the highways and roads for orks that by strange contraptions made it over the walls. This left the tunnels beneath the city understaffed, but Edmond was a Mordian and so were many of his fellows, they knew of hives and darkness and tunnels and any sapper or Komando that though they were being kunnin' was going to find something unpleasant waiting for them.

It is unknown what happened to Corporal Edmond Aldsworth in that time. Reports diverge at this point. Some say he went feral, some say he finally broke inside, some say he made a deliberate moral stand and some say he genuinely did not receive the orders. All that is known is that when the war was officially declared over the Inquisition Soldiers were recalled. They knew he was alive mere hours before this order was given because his commanders had spoken to him over the radio but the withdrawal order was never followed and they couldn't wait for him forever, the war was never over somewhere else and local forces could keep a lid on the remnants in the underhives and the sump. But Aldsworth remained in the dark, they wouldn't listen to him. They hadn't seen the level of kunnin' that these greens were showing, uncommon for their kind. They couldn't see what he had seen, his dreams plagued by visions of what they would do if left to gather unobserved and reached the surface in any orderly manner. And so Aldsworth, soldier and renegade, stayed in the dark killing and killing for a very long time.

When he had gone down into the dark he had a necklace with a few ork trigger fingers hanging on it by the time he saw again daylight it was a bone bandolier with the beginnings of another one to cross it. and return to the light he had to. Time had not stood still and years had past, in the dark he was growing old, his hair was greying, his joints were aching more and more and one day he was just slightly too slow and took a knife to the torso for it. He bit that ork's throat out as it laughed and stoved it's head in with a broken manhole cover but the damage had been done, he knew a potentially mortal wound when he saw one and with sucking rasping breath and blood in his throat he lurched to find a way to the surface.

A sight he must have been, in ruined Inquisition armour, dark with grime and muck, stinking with the smell of the underhive and covered in bones and blood. A spectre of some unblessed grave it must have seemed for a moment, some pallid unarresting dead. He only vaguely remembered where the old hospital was from years ago when he still had friends and human contact and by good fortune he found it again now in some upmarket and high rent district.

Despite infections, poor diet, lack of sunlight and the cumulative effects of years of unkind treatment his body recovered although his mind would not heal. There was no possibility of the Inquisition taking him back; impressive as his accomplishments he had disobeyed orders and was never a model soldier to start with. In truth he would not have been able to. Down in the dark he could pretend he was already dead, his trials a time of proving before paradise or rebirth. But here, in the light, in the real world, it all came back to him. He was a person and all that had happened had happened. He could not go back to the war, the war at last had beaten him.

He lay in that bed, his guts held together with polymer thread, healing for no purpose he could see friendless and more alone than he had ever felt. And then a member of the Imperium's diplomatic corps, a branch of the Administratum, came to visit him. Reports on him and the things he had done had filtered up high, anomalous incidents tend to. They had read about what he had done, all that he had done, and knew what limbo he must be in. They told him that there were other ways to serve the Imperium besides the direct war effort. Humanity did not stand alone in the dark, it stood with friends, friends that had to be held on to. They wanted him to be that hand, who else than someone who had seen oblivion like he had done would understand the need of it? Also he spoke the Beil-Tan dialect of the High Tongue, which was advantageous.

And so Edmond Aldsworth, grey haired and full of hard won horrors, entered the service of the Imperiums diplomatic efforts and became the attaché to the ambassador of the Craftworld Beil-Tan, Beil-Tan accepted only veterans as representatives of the Imperium as anything else they found insulting. Having a man like Aldsworth at his right hand would only smooth things further. Also the position came with some rejuvenents, the elder didn't like it when staff changed too soon and his living for a long time would be an advantage.

The rejuvenants regained him some of his lost vitality and some measure of youth, side effect being that most of his remaining hair fell out, and he served the ambassador for many years until the ambassador retired and made way for Ambassador Ciaphas Cain of the Valhallans, Liberator of Perlia, slayer of orks, honorary Fire Warrior of the Tau, unspecified assistant to the Inquisition, frustrator of Chaos and killer of it's followers, exterminator of Tyranids, banisher of deamons and a hundred other accolades from across half the Imperium. Although initially only attached to the craftworld as a temporary measure temporary seems to be ever extending.

Attaché Aldsworth serves him as diligently as he served his old master, smoothing out the diplomatic process, interpreting and translating the more unusual colloquialisms of both languages and accompanying the good Ambassador on various planned and unplanned jaunts across Beil-Tans jurisdiction or at the behest of the Inquisition (who politely don't mention his presence if they can avoid it) and is a source of unflappable reliance and surety.

On the whole he has landed on his feet and he serves the Imperium to the best of his abilities, as he has always done.