Chronicle, entry number seventy.
The Primarch Fulgrim received me aboard his ship wearing a purple silk tunic that cost more than my home planet.
He looked me up and down.
He looked me over again.
Then he snapped his fingers and three servants surrounded me with measuring tapes.
Half an hour later, I was wearing a gold-embroidered dress suit with a handkerchief in the pocket.
“Now then,” said Fulgrim.
“Now you may bear witness to beauty.” I kept the suit.
I have never been so comfortable or so frightened.
I.
A Kingdom and a Skeleton
The Re-Estize Kingdom was a place of golden fields, picturesque villages and corrupt nobles.
Its king, Ramposa III, was a kind, worn-out old man who had spent years trying to hold together a country that was falling apart.
But Re-Estize was not the problem.
The problem lay a few hundred kilometers to the east, in an underground tomb called Nazarick.
A skeleton lived there.
His name was Ainz Ooal Gown.
He had once been an ordinary human, a Japanese office worker who played an online role-playing game.
When the game’s servers shut down, he stayed inside.
He woke up in a real world in the body of his character: an undead king, a supreme sorcerer, master of a fortress full of monsters who worshipped him as a god.
And, since he didn’t know what else to do, he had decided to conquer the world.
Fulgrim studied the reports on Ainz for three days.
At the end, he set the data-slate down on the table with a gesture of profound distaste.
“Have you seen the decor in his tomb?” he asked his captains.
“Golden skeletons. Red velvet. Candelabras everywhere. It’s as if a teenage vampire had inherited a fortune.”
“My lord,” said Palatine Shael Velcron, his most trusted captain, “is that your main objection?”
“It is the first,” Fulgrim replied.
“Not the main one. The main one is that he treats humans like cattle. But the decor counts too.”
II.
The Broadcast
Fulgrim did not arrive with ships in the sky.
He arrived with a broadcast.
One morning, in every city of Re-Estize, in every square, in every market, a gigantic image appeared in the sky.
A beautiful face, with high cheekbones, white hair and violet eyes.
“People of Re-Estize,” said the image.
“I am Fulgrim, Primarch of the III Legion, the Emperor’s Phoenix. I have come to free you from a threat you do not yet fully comprehend.”
In his palace, King Ramposa III dropped his teacup.
“And, while I’m at it,” Fulgrim added, “to do something about this kingdom’s aesthetics. Those curtains in the royal palace are a crime.”
* * *
In the Great Tomb of Nazarick, Ainz Ooal Gown saw the broadcast too.
He remained seated on his throne of bone for a long while, his jaw hanging open.
Inside his head, the Japanese office worker he had once been was screaming in panic.
“This wasn’t in the game. This wasn’t in the game. What is that? Is it an event? Is it an update? Nobody told me about any update!”
Outwardly, the Sorcerer King kept his composure.
“Interesting,” he said in a deep voice.
“It seems we have visitors.”
Demiurge, his strategist, an elegant demon with glasses and a tail, bowed with a smile.
“As always, Ainz-sama, you had already foreseen this possibility, had you not?”
“No! I had not foreseen it! I have no idea what’s going on!”
“Of course,” said Ainz.
“Your wisdom is infinite, Ainz-sama.”
“My wisdom is a badly made Excel spreadsheet”.
III.
Gazef
The first battle took place on the border of Re-Estize, where Warrior-Captain Gazef Stronoff, the strongest man in the kingdom, confronted the vanguard of the Emperor’s Children.
Gazef was a good man.
Loyal, honest, brave.
He had sworn to protect his king with his life.
When he saw the purple-armored Astartes descending from their Thunderhawks, he drew his sword and planted himself in the road.
“You shall not pass!”
Shael Velcron walked up to him.
He looked him up and down.
“You have good posture,” he said.
“Your sword is well balanced. But you hold your guard too high. It leaves your flank exposed.”
Gazef attacked.
Velcron blocked the blow with his sword, turned his wrist and disarmed him in a single elegant motion.
“See? The flank.”
Gazef stood there, disarmed, waiting for the final blow.
It did not come.
“I have not come to kill you,” said Velcron.
“My Primarch has given clear orders: the honorable warriors of this kingdom are to live. He believes the beauty of a fight lies in knowing when to end it.”
“And what’s going to happen to my king?”
“Nothing bad. He’ll just be changing his curtains.”
IV.
The Great Tomb
The assault on Nazarick was the most spectacular military event of the campaign.
Fulgrim staged it like a play in five acts, with choreography, lighting changes and background music.
His captains were used to it.
The enemy was not.
The guardians of Nazarick were terrible monsters, created to be the final boss for any party of players.
In that world, no one could stop them.
The Emperor’s Children were not players.
Cocytus, the guardian of the fifth floor, a giant ice insect with four arms and a sword in each, faced the Dreadnought Venerable Brother Rylanor at the entrance to his frozen floor.
It was a long and honorable fight.
Cocytus was an admirable warrior, and Rylanor acknowledged as much aloud while breaking his four swords one after another.
“You fight with honor,” said the Dreadnought.
“I will remember you.”
“And… so… will I…” Cocytus replied, before falling.
Fulgrim, from the far end of the corridor, applauded with tears in his eyes.
“Magnificent! What composition! The ice, the metal, the tragedy! Someone paint this!”
A servitor brought out a canvas.
* * *
Aura and Mare, the twin guardians of the sixth floor—two dark elves who looked like children, although they were seventy-six years old—were captured with energy nets while arguing with each other over whose fault it was that they had let themselves be caught off guard.
Fulgrim regarded them with interest.
“What beautiful creatures,” he said.
“What proportions. What symmetry.”
“Are you going to kill us?” Mare asked, trembling. This story is hosted at g.com.
“Kill you?” Fulgrim pressed a hand to his chest, offended.
“Destroy a work of art? Never. You shall be my pages.”
“What’s a page?” Aura asked.
“Someone who carries my cape and tells me I look handsome.”
The twins looked at each other.
“That’s it?”
“And holds my mirror.”
V.
The Sorcerer King
Ainz Ooal Gown awaited the Primarch in his throne room, surrounded by what was left of his guardians.
Albedo, his Overseer, a succubus of supernatural beauty with black wings, stood at his right with an axe in her hands.
Demiurge and Shalltear, the vampire, stood at his left.
Fulgrim entered the room walking slowly.
He looked at the ceiling.
He looked at the walls.
He looked at the throne of bone.
“By the Emperor,” he said.
“It’s worse in person.”
“Who are you,” said Ainz in a cavernous voice, “to challenge the Sorcerer King?”
“Someone with taste,” Fulgrim replied.
“Something you lack. But it isn’t only that.” His voice hardened.
“I have seen what you have done to this kingdom. I have seen the villages. I have seen the humans your subjects use as toys. You think you are a god because you play in a world that does not know you. But you are not a god. You are a player who got stuck inside the game.”
Ainz went very still.
Inside his head, the Japanese office worker stopped screaming.
“He knows,” he thought.
“How does he know?”
He raised his hand and cast his most powerful spell.
The one he had been saving for an emergency.
A top-tier instant-death spell, capable of ending any living creature.
Fulgrim took it full in the chest.
He coughed a little.
“Was that all?”
Ainz cast another.
And another.
And another.
Spells of fire, of ice, of lightning, of curses.
The throne room lit up like a fireworks display.
When he was done, Fulgrim was standing in the same spot, his armor slightly scorched and a look of annoyance on his face.
“You scratched my breastplate,” he said.
And he drew his sword.
* * *
It was a single stroke.
Clean.
Elegant.
The kind of stroke Fulgrim had spent centuries perfecting.
The skull of Ainz Ooal Gown rolled down the steps of the throne and came to rest at Albedo’s feet.
In the final instant, before the light in his sockets went out, the Japanese office worker who had been Ainz had one brief and surprisingly calm thought:
“Well… at least I don’t have to go to work on Monday”.
VI.
Albedo, Demiurge and Shalltear
Albedo let out a scream that was heard on every floor of Nazarick.
She hurled herself at Fulgrim with her axe, weeping with rage.
He dodged her once, twice, three times.
On the fourth, he disarmed her with a twist of his wrist and took her by the chin.
He looked into her eyes for a long moment.
“Such perfect beauty,” he said.
“You would make the perfect wife.”
“I’d rather die,” Albedo spat.
“I know. That is why you would.”
Albedo was captured.
Today she is locked in a cell aboard Fulgrim’s flagship, decorated in very good taste.
She has not stopped screaming since she arrived.
Fulgrim visits her every day to leave her flowers.
She throws them out the porthole.
He comes back the next day with more.
* * *
Demiurge and Shalltear were not captured.
While Albedo fought, the demon strategist grabbed the vampire by the arm and dragged her toward a secret passage behind the throne.
Shalltear wanted to fight.
Demiurge wouldn’t let her.
“Let go of me! Ainz-sama is—!”
“Ainz-sama is gone,” said Demiurge, in a voice that did not tremble in the slightest.
“And if we die now, no one will avenge him.”
They made their way through tunnels that not even the maps of Nazarick showed.
When the Emperor’s Children reached the exit, hours later, all they found was a note written in an elegant hand on a sheet of parchment:
“We shall meet again, Phoenix. And next time, the decor will be ours”.
Fulgrim read the note.
Then he folded it carefully and tucked it into a pocket of his tunic.
“What lovely calligraphy,” he said.
“What a pity.”
Chronicle, entry number seventy-one.
King Ramposa III has signed the treaty of annexation.
His only condition was that Gazef Stronoff remain his guardian.
Fulgrim accepted with a smile and gave the king a set of new curtains.
The king says they are the most beautiful curtains he has ever seen in his life.
Gazef says he now keeps his guard covering his flank.
The twins Aura and Mare carry the Primarch’s cape at every official function.
Aura complains that it is very heavy.
Mare complains that Aura complains.
Fulgrim says they are “a perfect comic double act” and that he may write them a play.
VII.
The Worst Show in the World
Three months later, Fulgrim found a world that caused him an even greater artistic offense.
On that world, every Sunday, in a gigantic arena before an enormous audience, the heroes of the Sentai Dragon Keepers—five color-coded warriors in shiny suits—fought an army of monsters called Dusters.
The Dusters always lost.
It was all broadcast live.
Children bought the action figures.
They had been doing it for thirteen years.
Fulgrim watched the recording of an entire Sunday battle, seated on his throne with a glass of wine in his hand.
When it was over, he set the glass down on the table so hard it shattered.
“This is not a war,” he said.
“It is a dance. A badly performed dance. The blows land late. The falls are fake. The villain always dies in the same pose. They have been repeating the same choreography for thirteen years!”
“My lord,” said Velcron, “the Mechanicus has confirmed your suspicions. The battles are scripted. The Dusters are not real enemies: they are slaves. Creatures forced to lose every week so the Dragon Keepers can keep their fame. Those who refuse to take part disappear.”
Fulgrim was silent for a moment.
“In other words,” he said at last, “it is not merely a bad show. It is a bad show propped up by the suffering of its actors.”
“Just so, my lord.”
The Primarch rose.
He adjusted his cape.
He looked at himself in the mirror Mare was holding up for him.
“Then we shall go as critics.”
VIII.
The Review
The following Sunday, the arena was packed.
A hundred thousand spectators.
Millions more in front of their televisions.
The five Dragon Keepers appeared at center stage amid fireworks, striking poses.
“Dragon Keepers, ready for battle!”
The Dusters came out of their cages, as they did every week, to lose.
And then Fulgrim landed in the middle of the arena.
In his purple silk tunic, sword at his hip and the twins carrying his cape, he walked among the Dusters, who shrank back in fear, and stopped in front of the five colorful heroes.
“Good afternoon,” he said with a charming smile.
“I have come to offer some constructive criticism.”
The audience fell silent.
The Dragon Keepers looked at each other.
“And who are you?” asked Red Keeper.
“A new actor?”
“I am the critic,” said Fulgrim.
“And your show is pitiful.”
* * *
Red Keeper gave a signal.
Armed guards poured out of the stands.
Drones descended from the sky.
The five heroes took up attack positions.
Behind Fulgrim, a landing ramp hissed open.
Out of it came the Dreadnought Rylanor, the same one who had defeated Cocytus.
“Venerable brother,” said Fulgrim without turning around.
“If you would be so kind.”
The five Dragon Keepers attacked at once.
Rylanor welcomed them with open arms.
He defeated them one by one, without killing a single one, but with such humiliating efficiency that the audience began to laugh.
Blue Keeper ended up hanging from the scoreboard.
Yellow Keeper, buried up to the waist in the arena turf.
Green Keeper, sitting on the Dreadnought’s lap like a child on Santa Claus’s.
Only Red Keeper was left.
He backed up to the center of the stage and activated his ultimate weapon: the finisher cannon, an enormous gun that was only ever used in special episodes.
He aimed it at the Dreadnought.
But behind the Dreadnought was a stand full of children.
Pink Keeper saw it.
“Red! There are civilians! You can’t—!”
Red Keeper shoved her aside.
“Get out of the way! You’re just the team’s pretty face!”
Fulgrim moved.
No one saw him move.
They only saw him arrive.
One instant he was in the middle of the arena and the next he was beside Red Keeper, his sword drawn.
The finisher cannon fell to the ground, cut into two perfectly symmetrical halves.
“That,” said Fulgrim, “is the worst line of dialogue I have ever heard in my life.”
IX.
The New Cast
The audience did not applaud.
The audience did something better: they began throwing their Dragon Keepers action figures into the arena.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
A rain of plastic dolls fell on the five defeated heroes.
The Dusters, from their cages, watched the scene wide-eyed.
One of them, a small monster who went by D, approached the Primarch cautiously.
“What… what’s going to happen to us?”
Fulgrim looked at him with a smile.
“You are free.” He turned toward the Dragon Keepers, buried under their own figures.
“And they, from today on, may take the role that suits them best.”
“Which one?”
“The victims.”
The Dusters swore loyalty to the Imperium that very afternoon.
D, who had dreamed all his life of defeating the Dragon Keepers, was given permission to train with the Emperor’s Children.
Pink Keeper asked for asylum.
Fulgrim granted it, and gave her a piece of advice:
“Never let anyone tell you that you are just a pretty face. A pretty face can be a weapon. Believe me. I speak from experience.”
* * *
Chronicle, entry number seventy-two.
The Sunday show continues on that world.
But now it is different.
The Dusters and the former Dragon Keepers stage plays directed by a director sent by the Primarch Fulgrim.
The first is titled “The Fall of the Red Hero.” It has had excellent reviews.
The lead actor is the former Red Keeper, who plays an arrogant villain.
They say the role comes naturally to him.
Tomorrow I leave with the XVI Legion.
Horus has written to me: “Tobías, we have a world with a nuclear bomb, a terrorist and a mustachioed British captain who smokes cigars. Bring your fancy suit. But also a helmet.” I don’t know whether to laugh or write my will.
I’m a novice writer with many stories still left to tell and a great passion for Warhammer.
I love imagining dark worlds, epic battles, and imperfect characters.
I write to learn.