Octavius Faust

"Once the first step into the darkness has been made, what more holds you back from another?"

Origin
“The Price of freedom can be as little as one’s mind or as much as one’s soul.”

A World for Warriors
In the shade of the Red Temple the people of Accelleros toiled in the harsh landscapes, with the majority living in the tropical jungles around the equator as most of the land mass is concentrated along the tropics with only sparse archipelagos and lone islands dotted across the violent oceans that make up the temperate and polar zones. At some point during the Dark Age of Technology the local plant and animal life underwent extensive experimentation, with the introduction of bacteria size nanomachines designed to form symbiotic relationships with native life forms, replacing parts of their immune and repair systems. After extensive study by the Adeptus Mechanicus it was determined that these machines formed early prototyping for the Autosanguine systems employed by the Tech-priests of Mars and also their ability to spread themselves had been shut down, limited only to new-borns of the species that now rely on this technology. Deeming the machines inferior to their own systems, the Mechanicus acquiesced to requests to allow a Space Marine chapter to be raised with Accelleros as its homeworld: the death worlds' nanite augmented flora and fauna made life very difficult for the local human population, and would provide ample training for the ranks of Adeptus Astartes.

The Red Temple itself, from which the Chapter draws its name, is an ancient place of worship to long dead gods that was repurposed and consecrated for use by the Red Templars on their founding. The Temple is built from a strange burgundy rock native to the planet which has the unusual ability to absorb large amounts of shock and as such is very effective for resisting shelling and bombardment, and it is this stone that gives the fortress its name. The Temple itself rests at the peak of a lone mountain that is also formed from the red rock, with a vast network of tunnels and catacombs carved deep into it and reinforced with void shields and adamantium bulkheads to create a nigh impenetrable bastion of the Imperium on the planet.

It was in the jungles that surrounded the Red Mountain that Octavius Faust was born.

In the Shadow of Angels
Born in a relatively large mining camp to the north of the mighty Red Mountain in 911.M41, Faust was orphaned by a cave-in that killed both his parents soon after he entered his 6th year. The collapse was caused by a Tyrannodon, a massive native reptilian creature, falling through a mine shift into the tunnels and bringing the whole network down using its gargantuan size to crush the support structures and break through the different levels of the mine. The tragedy also took the lives of dozens of other mine workers and crippled the local community for many years, with several families departing to seek other work and aid in the larger settlements to the south and west. It was in one of the wagons of the fleeing people that Faust sequestered himself, deciding to get as far away from his parents death as he could, and with one eye always on the indomitable Fortress-atop-the-Mountain on his journey, he dreamed of joining the warrior-monks that dwelt further away from the jungles than anyone he knew could.

The family he stowed away with soon arrived at their destination, a fishing settlement of near 8’000 that rested at the apex of a bend in the monstrous river that bisected the continent and almost a stone’s throw from the Red Mountain itself, the eternal shadow cast by the peak lending the people below a cooler clime than most, and lending the town the name Shaded Bank. But to call it a luxurious spot would be to misunderstand what fishing means on Accelleros. The river sits at 24km wide during the dry season but swells to over 100km during the wet season, flooding vast swathes of the surrounding land and opening itself up to the massive, deadly beasts that dwell in the ocean to the north. These creatures enter the waters at the base of the Mountain to conduct their mating rituals, and also provides the local humans opportunity to acquire the most lucrative raw materials to fisherman; hundreds of tonnes of meat, bone, blubber and many derivative substances extractable from just one of the leviathans. Those creatures that live in the river all year round, while smaller, are still vicious in their own right, with fangs, claws and horns enough to gore entire crews and mass enough to topple all but the largest fishing boats, which the ocean monsters are fully cabable of capsizing when they enter the riverways. With little else to hunt near the Mountain, and no vacant land to farm the people of Shaded Bank have become experts at the killing of these lethal aquatic animals, though death and boat loss is still frequent.

While the largest profession, not all in Shaded Bank make their living as fishermen; some serve the community as boat builders, others as blacksmiths for harpoon heads and nails for the wrights; soldiers to defend women and children from the dangers of the jungle, potion makers that turn the oils harvested from the leviathans into healing salves, and many other roles that need filled to create a functioning community, if not a thriving one. To many across Accelleros Shaded Bank was a beacon of human triumph over nature, with an overwhelming majority of the population simply struggling to survive in the jungles, as well as the closest the death world had come to an Imperial City, but to Octavius Faust it was a place he could survive and perhaps learn how to ascend to the lofty peak above.

There was little for a young child to do in such place though, and Faust soon had to turn to thievery to survive, stealing fish and fruits from market stalls. However he wasn’t exactly built for such work, having been the son of a miner, and after a run in with an angry shop keep Faust’s flight from custody led him to be saved from justice by a small group of fellow urchins who distracted his pursuer long enough for him to escape. Taking him in, the young orphans shared their skills with Faust until he regained his strength and proved that while he himself was not a great thief, he could ­­co-ordinate with almost military precision and the efficacy of the urchins ploys increased immensely, and during the next five years Faust asserted complete dominance over the group of thieves, even over the older children of the gang.

This remarkable expression of leadership must have caught the eye of someone, as when the Angels descended to find new recruits a black, skull-clad titan beat down the cellar door below which Faust was hunkered and dragged him out, kicking and biting at the steel skin of the mighty warrior.

Ascension­
Brought in a crimson chariot to the summit of the Red Mountain Faust’s elation at finally achieving his dream was soon replaced by spinning and confusion, as when the doors of the Thunderhawk opened the air was ripped from his lungs and he struggled to draw breath in the thin atmosphere on the peak. Many of the children around him died from suffocation as they were herded forward on the trek up the Mountain. Others began to experience hallucinations from oxygen deprivation, frostbite from the cold, or blindness from the glare of the sun against the snow. Only those whose force of will and strength of body pushed them the last few hundred meters reached the monumental gates of the Red Temple, and only those who survived without permanent damage were deemed to have completed the first of the Aspirant Trials: The March of Ice and Sky. Those that fail and die are returned to their families, if any. Those that survive but whose minds are lost to the starvation of air are handed over to the Techmarines to be remade into servitors, and those that lose their eyes to the sun or extremities to the cold have their minds wiped and serve out their lives as chapter serfs, after having what was lost replaced. Faust watched all this happen: bodies being carried away, mewling children having hands and toes broken off, and he simply drew a deep breath of the pressurised air inside the Temple and wrote off the failures as mere weaklings. He had won. And he would continue to win.

After the first trial the rest continued as one would expect of most Space Marine Chapters: duels, glorified obstacle courses etc, but the first trial is always the one that Aspirants remember. Over time the number of Aspirants was whittled down through the gruelling physical and mental demands placed on them, until a mere handful of the few hundred that began the tests remained. These were the true Neophytes, and the implantation process had begun.

Upon induction into the Red Templars and his completion of his tour in the 10th company, Faust excelled at command and heavy weapons, eventually finding a place as sergeant of 2nd Devastator Squad 3rd Company, guiding younger Brothers through their training before they move on to the Assault squads. For nearly 60 years he served his chapter well, honing the skills of new Brothers and forming bonds of fellowship with many of his peers, even training those who would become Sergeants themselves. Faust fought on countless worlds in hundreds of battles, killing thousands of enemies of the Imperium from screaming cultists on the Chaos world of Volanx to Ork hordes on the Hive World of Allas and the Tyranid fleets on the twin planets of Karkand and Zarkand. His service in the Red Templars took him to all corners of the galaxy, claiming victory after victory, earning glory in the name of the Emperor. Until he met Czegor Dvorak.

Reap What Is Sown
In 989.M41 the Night Reapers Chapter was declared Excommunicate Traitoris after their wanton destruction of a Rogue Trader fleet was discovered. A four company strong force of Avenging Sons was deployed to hunt down the renegades, but it was the loyalists who ended up the hunted; a devastating ambush by the Reapers crippled the Avenging Sons and forced the High Lords of Terra to directly task with the destruction of the renegade Night Reapers two full chapters of Space Marines, the Red Templars and the Minotaurs, as well as considerable local fleet support. For three years the Harrowing of the Night Reapers continued, running battles across dozens of star-systems. The strange xeno-warp technologies the traitors used and the pacts made with the Archenemy gave them the strength to resist the Imperial onslaught, until the bulk of the Night Reaper survivors were cornered onboard a vast, pre-human void construct known as the Perun Cross as they attempted to mine some unknown but no doubt blasphemously potent weapon from its core. Events as they transpired at the bitter point of the siege remain shrouded in confusion, but what is known is that at the height of the Minotaurs' attack, the Grey Knights Strike Cruiser Equinox Blade and a force of Grey Knights, under the command of Brother-Captain Danicus, arrived in orbit around the Perun Cross.

Entering the fire zone, they ordered the Imperial forces to concede to their authority and pull back from the assault; the Minotaurs, however, were not included to this course. The retreat of the Loyalist forces paved the way for Danicus to conduct a teleport assault into the depths of the Perun Cross as the battle raged on. What then transpired remains unknown but sometime shortly afterwards the Perun Cross' structure broke up into burning fragments after being riven by a series of gigaton-level explosions. The demise of the Perun Cross led to the complete loss of the Grey Knights' force and a substantial, but undefined, number of Minotaur Space Marines, along with heavy damage to the Equinox Blade and the death of all those left on board. It was assumed that the Night Reapers Chapter was no more, though Imperial forces stationed along the Laanah Rift remain vigilant for signs that any of the fallen brethren survived the Perun Cross incident. And survive they did.

Wheat from the Chaff
Octavius Faust was on board the Perun Cross when the general call of retreat was sounded. But he was not able to leave, a massive support girder embedded in his chest and pinning him to the ground. His armour broken and helmet lost to bolt shells, Faust bled on the steel and watched the bright crimson trickle down the grooves, a solemn resignation in his mind. Flames licked his feet, using the corpses of the fallen as fuel, human and Astartes alike. He turned his head, feeling the muscles in his chest tear and burn but paying no heed, to look at the broken bodies of his squad. Young Marines, freshly gifted with their Black Carapace and power armour, dead in service to the Emperor. And he could not even bring himself to weep. He closed his eyes and waited for death.

Only in Death…
Faust opened them again and found himself locked in a cage made of what appeared to be bone, though more sturdy than any simple human skeletal system. He sat upright, feeling the burning in his chest where the wound had sealed itself; a mass of twisted scar tissue had erupted over where his secondary heart lay. Realising he was bereft of his arms and armour he took in his surroundings fully, wary of his sudden change of location. He appeared to be in the cargo hold of a voidship. He was alone, save for several corpses scattered haphazardly amongst the variety of crates and containers: bodies bearing the sigils of the Red Templars, the Minotaurs, and the Night Reapers lay in congealed pools of slowly darkening blood. Skulls and chests were cracked open, limbs missing or sitting detached next to its former owner. He sat on the cot laid for him, contemplating the meaning of his current situation.

Many hours passed, and utter silence pervaded the ship, save for the dull rumble of the engines and the low hum of the power coursing through the ships veins. The dearth of sound hardly unsettled Faust, long days and weeks spent in the void to and from battles had taught him to value the quiet of space before the cacophony of war. After some fruitless attempts to break out of his cage he confined himself to quiet meditation, quickly concluding that the likely outcome of his captivity was death and once again accepted that fate. As the sixth hour passed, by Faust’s internal clock, he felt the familiar sinking in his stomach as the ship entered into the warp. Soon after, the door to the cargo hold opened to reveal a figure clad in the dark grey of the Night Reapers standing in the corridor. It paused for a moment before stepping in to the dimly lit bay and approached the cage. The armour it wore had been profaned, dark symbols of Chaos etched in to the ceramite and the aquilas that once adorned the chest and forehead rent and twisted in a foul mockery. The armoured figure spoke as it stopped in front of the captive Faust, introducing itself as Czegor Dvorak, Head Apothecary of the Night Reapers Chapter. Or what was left of it at any rate. Dvorak’s voice was like a serpent speaking with honey dripping from each of its teeth, but Faust resisted the urge to listen to the heretic in front of him, while the Reaper began to regale the tale of the great defeat at Perun Cross; how at the cost of only a few of his Marines Dvorak had managed to cripple huge elements of the Minotaurs and destroy an entire detachment of Grey Knights, a chapter Faust had neither heard of nor cared to know. The Apothecary spoke to Faust at great length that night but did not elicit a response from his captive beyond slow steady breathing. The Reaper left, quite abruptly in fact, though in a polite manner. Or as polite as one can muster when the other participant in the conversation is behind bars. When Dvorak left there was a small moment, just a flash, where Octavius felt like he almost wanted him to come back and continue his stories. But this sentiment was quickly squashed by his mind as nonsense.

And so the nightly visits continued. For over 5 years, from Faust’s reckoning, the Apothecary showed up in the cargo cell in which the captive was held, a prisoner of what quickly became apparent was a Chaos worshipping cult. Dvorak would speak of many things on a wide range of subjects, but Faust never answered, refusing to give this traitor in front of him the satisfaction, but it never dissuaded the talks. The sermon-like proselytising advocating the abandonment of Imperial values, discussing future plans for the Reapers, even regaling him with tales of his younger days, the Apothecary spoke to Faust almost like an old friend. He would have almost felt sorrow for how far the Night Reaper had fallen, had the Chapter not signed their own death warrants by declaring against the Emperor and his Imperium. In all that time Faust had also experienced everything the void and the warp had to offer to a ship this size, from Gellar field breaches (if these Chaos vessels even used Gellar fields) to void combat conducted at distances of thousands of kilometres. After the first few months of his captivity he began to be taken to fighting pits on board Chaos aligned space stations across the galaxy, to wrestle and kill beasts, xenos and occasionally humans. His inherent Space Marine melee training kept him alive, but he was never a great close quarter’s combatant and more often than not he left the ring in only a marginally better shape than his opponent. The mewling crowd of twisted cultists, mutated beastmen and the occasional Traitor and Renegade Marine took great pleasure in seeing the once mighty hero of the Imperium laid low. And soon, the only respites he had from the life-threatening combats and humiliation at the hands of the hordes of the Archenemy was when he awoke in his cell, aching from the recently resealed wounds from one monster or another, to find the Apothecary had tended his wounds and was waiting for Faust to return to consciousness. The face of the traitor’s helmet became almost a comfort to Faust in those long years, the bone white painting of a skull on top of the dark grey colour of his armour stood in stark outline in the dim lighting of the prison. The Apothecary had told him that he wished to release him from this cage, but he was still bound by the orders of his commander, and something led Faust to believe him in that assurance, even in his current state. But it would soon come to pass that Faust would have his own opportunity to escape captivity, and regardless of everything Dvorak had told him, he was going to take it. And it would reveal the true tragedy that had befallen the once fierce Red Templar.

… Does Duty End
A Reclamator fleet of the renegade Night Reapers Chapter was cornered by Inquisitor Celaeno of the Ordo Malleus in the bleak expanse of the Caligulan Nebula, near the Maelstrom Zone in the Ultima Segmentum, sometime in 999.M41. With a full company of the Red Hunters Chapter at his command, spearheaded by the ancient Fellblade Tellum Veritatis, Celaeno forced a confrontation on one of the many barren worlds found in the nebula and was met by the warp-tainted armoured vehicles of the Night Reapers. As the Tellum Veritatis dueled with the Daemon-touched Typhon Heavy Siege Tank Nidhoggr amid a plain strewn with the broken remains of battle tanks, Celaeno was slammed by an errant shell and the Red Hunters retreated, carving oaths of vengeance into the armoured flanks of Tellum Veritatis. While the battle on the ground was a resounding success for the Reapers, the conflict in the void had a Pyrrhic edge to it, with many ships of the Renegades fleet damaged beyond immediate repair, including the vessel which held Czegor Dvorak’s prize captive. The damage the ship sustained had broken open the cage in which the Red Templar was held, but he chose not to take the opportunity, instead hid the damage and remained in place, continuing to listen to the Apothecary’s stories when he returned from battle. As had become common Dvorak told Faust of the nature of the fight, as well as where they were headed next: a small Chaos aligned space station on the edge of the Maelstrom, and that he had an ally there who would help the ship refit and repair, in exchange for Faust’s services in his fighting pits. And so Faust formed the plan in his mind to facilitate his escape.

The days melted away until finally the ship left the warp and arrived at the station, docking and preparing to be swarmed inside and out by the horde of servitors and slaves that would repair the ship. The majority of the crew not eternally bound to the lower decks would disembark to haggle for supplies, aid in the repairs, relax and do whatever else renegades engage in, and so for a short while the decks would be empty. As Faust made ready to break out, the worst possible thing happened: the doors opened and three figures entered. The white skulled helmet of the Apothecary, a Marine clad in black and gold with a symbol he recognised as that of the Warmaster of Chaos himself, and a small human woman. It soon became apparent that this Traitor was the friend Dvorak had spoken of, as he seemed delighted to accept a Loyalist into his arena. The Mark IV armour the creature wore was fresh, mostly unspoilt by Chaos, with the minimum of dedication to the Dark Gods, though Faust suspected that would have changed in time. A recent trophy from another Loyal Space Marine perhaps. It made no difference. Faust had no time, he must take the opportunity now, or forever be trapped aboard this accused vessel. The Black Legionnaire had stopped right in front of the cage to examine his merchandise, before turning to leave the prison with Dvorak. The Apothecary still stood several metres away, and had turned to say something to the human. Faust took this moment to strike. Bursting through the broken gate, he leapt up behind the Legionnaire, and in the surprise of his escape, Faust drew the combat knife of the Black One and rammed it through the weak point in the armours neck, piercing it in a burst of adrenaline fuelled strength. As the marine bled and twitched on his knife, Faust used his other hand to draw the bolt pistol and train it on Dvorak. The Night Reaper had already turned and moved to draw his plasma pistol, but froze as he saw the Templar with the corpse of his friend as a shield. For a moment they stood, staring at one another, before Faust spoke the first and last words he would ever say to Czegor Dvorak:

“I’m Sorry.”

And the bolt pistol barked in his hand.

Two loud thuds rang out in the cargo hold as the body of Dvorak slumped to the ground, headless, and the corpse of the Black Legionnaire followed. Faust felt a pang of emotion as he watched the Apothecary twitch in his death throes before falling still. But his military training took over and shunted everything but one concept out of his mind: Escape. He turned to finally regard the human. The terrified face of a woman stared back at the blood soaked goliath in front of her. Faust realised this human was the slave that had tended to him over the years, bringing him meals and bowls of water to clean himself. He had never taken heed of the human before, focused entirely on his own meditations or the words of her former master. At this moment however he needed her help.

“Help me into this armour and I’ll get you out alive.”

His words were meant as reassuring but the flash of fear in her face surprised him. He turned to look at the window, and saw what she saw. The sunken, dark eyes. The dull red and black hue. He stepped over. He placed his hand on the glass, and the faintest of frost began to build around his fingers. And now for the first time he finally felt the taint that had taken root in his heart. He turned to see the human had already begun to strip off the armour from the Black Legionnaire. Appreciating her obedience, Faust stepped over and was clad in the armour of his first kill in his new life. He took the plasma pistol from the Apothecary. Disguised as a Traitor, he took the slave and left the ship, finding someone to repaint his armour, albeit poorly, and using the valuable piece of equipment to barter for transport off the station. And so Octavius Faust, no longer able to return to his brothers with his soul so tainted, set out to carve his own path in the galaxy, with his new companion Elaine, and the Reaper forever looming behind him.

Allies
Elaine