Editing Warhammer High (section)

==A Night in the Dorn's Fortress==


Everything was burning around her, her home, her school, her friends, her family, everything Remilia ever knew was aflame, and everyone she ever loved was burning to death around her. They were laughing at her, laughing at the one who couldn’t save them, laughing at the failure before them. Their howls of laughter became screams of pain and sorrow; their flesh began to melt off of their bones, dripping into the scorched earth around Remilia. All she could do was watch as the people she cherished, turned to ash and pools of melted flesh.

Remilia woke with a start, bolting upright, sweat dripping from her forehead. She moved towards the door of her en suite and tripped over a discarded pair of shoes on the way.

She flicked the light on, moved to the sink, and began to run the cold tap. She splashed water on her face, in an attempt to provide some clarity to the situation. 

She felt the water as it trickled down her arm, when it ceased just below her elbow. She glanced down and noted that the bandages wrapped around her forearm were now soaked with blood in a relatively uniform pattern. She unwrapped her arm, tossed aside the bloodied dressing, cleaned the wound and replaced the bandages.

“I should probably burn these. Don’t want anyone seeing these,” She said aloud to no one in particular. 

She picked up the blood drenched bandages, flicked off the light, and returned to her room. She put on a pair of shorts and her top from the day before. 'Wouldn't want to be walking around in my underwear,’ she thought. 

With an ear to the door, she listened to the footsteps of the patrolling Astartes, waiting for them to pass her room before slipping out. She darted along the corridor, going in the direction the Marines came from. As she approached the stairs, she slowed to a crawling pace and listened out for more patrols inside her father's fortress of an estate. She crept down the stairs, careful to avoid the well worn, creaky steps. She turned a corner and moved through her father's library, towards the basement entrance in the kitchen.

The library was lined with bookshelves, with several more parallel to the walls. She heard the heavy footsteps of two Marines from behind her, she dove headfirst behind a shelf. She lay down to try hide herself from the approaching figures clad in yellow ceramite power armour. 

Remilia glanced at the books on the lower shelves and realised that nearly all of them were strategy guides, for lack of a better term. Most were seemingly written by her father, and her uncles Perturabo and Roboute. Some were ancient, “The Art of War” by Sun Zoo, “The Prince” and another “The Art of War” by Machiavelli and “De Re Militari” by Publius Flavius Vegetus Renatus. Remilia mused, ‘dude, why do you need such a long name? And seriously, why a name that lengthy?’.

However, hidden amongst these tomes of military strategy, a trio of books stood out like three Astartes in a room full of Squats and Ratlings. ‘Men’s Cooking Manual’, with no accredited author. Supposedly penned by one Kyril Sindermann, one was titled 'The People’s Guide To Speechcraft’, Remilia did a double-take before realising that, it was in fact what she thought it was; a book written by the greatest of Iterators, instructing people as to communication. The third, was simply titled ‘Parenting for Idiots’, making it clear that her father wanted to be better at this role. 

'So the great Rogal Dorn, king of the arrogant, actually admits that he’s lacking something and failing elsewhere? Okay, why did no one tell me that the Apocalypse had begun?’ she thought. 

The patrol moved past her chosen hiding place, with little more than a cursory glance above where she lay. She crept along behind them, and followed the hulking figures through to the dining room. The walls were decorated with banners from the many banners and trophies obtained by the Imperial Fists over the course of their existence under her father and that name. Two ornate Adamantium doors, stood opposite each other, in equally ornate, yet defensible door frames. A third, comparatively bland wooden door was ajar, showing two ostentatious chairs and an array of tablecloths, neat stacks of placemats and coasters, and trays of literal silverware. “That could be useful to hide in. Looks like a serf forgot to close it,’ she thought. An over-elaborate oak table ran the length of the room, with eight more equally ostentatious chairs. The room was lit by a set of electronic chandeliers, evenly spaced apart above the dining table. Where the Astartes turned right, out through a room that can only be described as an amalgamation of a conservatory and a military checkpoint, Remilia turned left, into the kitchen.

Pure white, marble work surfaces topped cupboards, (presumably filled with various cooking utensils, baking trays and dried ingredients) lined the walls with a similar work surface stretching down the middle. The outer workstations were occasionally broken up by various different oven styles, some bread ovens, some conventional ovens, and a singular pizza oven at the back. Above the central workstation, racks of pots and pans hung from the ceiling. A small steel hatch to the left of the door led down into the basement. Remilia crept over to the hatch and delved down into the basement. 

The Dorn’s basement was divided into three different sections, attached to a small, dimly lit atrium of sorts. Through one of these doors, lay the wine cellar, with a biometric lock to ensure that no-one could access it, besides her father, mother, the various chapter serfs and servants. ‘So, anyone that is related to the Imperial Fists, but not me,’ she realised this a few months ago, when she tried to access the wine cellar to grab a few bottles for a party. Through another, lay the fortresses armoury, 'locked in a similar fashion,’ Remilia assumed. However, her target lay ahead of her, the far door that lead to the incinerator, ‘because having an industrial grade container for a ball of fire in the basement, is totally safer than traditional disposal services’. Strangely, this was the only door not biometrically locked. She passed through the door, and made her way to the incinerator hatch at the front of the machine. In one swift and smooth motion, Remilia opened the hatch, threw in the bloodied bandages, and closed it, before the room felt more like the core of Nocturne, rather than the core of Terra as it already did. 

She made her way back into the kitchen, ducking down as she got closer to the door so as not to be seen by any of the patrolling Astartes. Listening out for any groups approaching, she turned the corner, diving into the storage cupboard when she heard their loud footsteps. Once they had passed, she made her way back to her room with very little in the way of close encounters, and barely any more patrols. 

“Well, that’s enough for one night,” she said aloud, almost forgetting about the self-help books her father kept amongst his most valued, and valuable, books.