Curze's Curse

A night upon distant stars

Terra. Terra was the cradle world of humanity, a bastion of the imperium, where its governance was dictated from. In the vast peaks of the Himalazia, there stood a structure whose vastness and glory was unique in the galaxy. spreading the vastness of the mountain range was the Emperor's own Palace filed with archways built of gold, domes of silver, halls of the purest of marbles, and with highest that towered even upon the ancient mountain range, it was a mighty symbol of humanity' s lost glory.

Modoled by the Praetorian of Terra and fortified at the start of the great betrayal, the Imperial Palace was the most well guarded location in the entire Imperium, or even the material galaxy, with guards drawn upon the Lucifer Blacks, the most elite of all guard regiments, and the famed Adeptus Custodes, the genetically trans-human soldiers crafted individually by hand with gene-craft genius of the Emperor himself. Mightier than Astartes, the Custodes have been known among the elite space marines as their check, for they kill Space Marines as effortlessly as Astartes mow down mortal hordes.

Yet, for all the security and might the Palace employed, it was not safe from the basest of human nature. Corruption. Not that of chaos, or Xenos trickery, but governmental stagnation and ineffeciency.

Something as understandable as the inability to administer a galaxy spanning realm still permeated in these golden halls even with the millions of clerks the bureaucratic nightmare of the Administratium employed, it was a wonder the Imperium worked at all. A wonder of a simple yet undeniable sigh of the Emperor's first and only regent's genius. For not once in the ten millenia did the nightmare of clerks and servitors truly stop in their quest for direct governance from Terra

Yet, it could not stand. Not in this age of unending warfare, with threats whose might was unheard since the Emperor walked the very halls of the palace ten millennia ago.


It was this, bureaucratic entanglement that would make any mortal go mad trying to understand that the Lord of Ultramar had been trying to unentagle, trying to make the Imperium's cogs turn faster and efficiently, and he was accomplishing it, whenever he was not on the battlefield.

Yet he rarely was not needed in the field of battle. Most recently he had pushed back a great incursion by the black fleet in the Segmentum Obscurus, or at least the remnants in Imperium Sanctus, for the Aegis Ocularis had been stabilised by the fortunate return of Admiral Spire, one of the legends of the Gothic War.

This had allowed him to meet, the one of, if not the most competent void warfare officer in the Imperium's service. Something notable, as Primarch and Astartes were in that list, yet his skill, considering the reports of all actions he had undertaken, were impressive, even matching some of his more careless brothers when considering the finess needed for such type of warfare.


Yet, today, Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the 13th Legion, could not be in the golden hallways of the Imperial Palace, nor the Imperial Senate, he was in the Bhab Station. The ancient command post used by Rogal Dorn when Horus Lupercal had rebelled against their father was once more in use by a Primarch.

He saw the vastness of the Imperium, projected in the greatest of Strategium tables, the holographic portrayal of the galaxy spanning realm portrayed to the minute detail.

He gazed upon it, alone in that chamber and he dreaded to truly see what it showed, not because it was a vivid demonstration of the sheer impossibility of his task of rebuilding the rotten carcass that the Imperium was, but because it showed the failure of all loyal brothers. Fighting wars that should have been won ten thousand years ago

There was light in that room, shrouded by shadows, yet it did nothing to remove the sense of dread from the Imperial Regent.

"Why do I still live" He told to himself, as he did a thousand times before, when he was alone.

"Out of all of us, why did it have to be me... To pick the broken and scattered pieces and putting it back together...alone. We build this together, as brothers... Why do I have to save it alone?"

It did not matter that in the last half decade, the battle fleets and armies Guilliman had entrusted to Spire, alongside the responsibility of the entirety of the western segmentum had retaken nearly a 5th of it. It did not matter in all fronts progress was being made as the Imperium's cogs started to turn.

For Roboute's greatest fear at this moment was not the stagnation of his progress, but the loneliness he felt. Alone, his brothers gone or turned, trying to save a dream they had once all believed.