The first thing Mara notices is the bread.

Not the candles.

Not the hidden symbols.

Bread.

Warm.

Fresh.

Someone has broken it into pieces and put it in the middle of the table.

MARA:

“I thought Chaos cults had skulls.”

Chibi picks up a piece.

MARA:

“Don’t eat cult bread.”

He puts it back.

CHIBI:

“That is an excellent general rule.”

The room doesn’t look like a cult.

That’s what bothers Mara.

There are rugs on the metal floor.

Flowers.

Old chairs.

A little stove.

Children’s drawings.

People eat together.

Laugh.

Play cards.

Repair broken things.

A woman with a mechanical hand helps a boy fix a toy.

Someone remembers everyone’s name.

A young factory worker enters.

Thin.

Tired.

Nervous.

A woman looks up.

“Elias.”

His shoulders relax.

Someone remembered.

They give him stew.

Bread.

A chair.

No one asks for money.

Someone asks about his sick sister.

Someone remembers his overseer has been making his life miserable.

Mara looks at Chibi.

MARA:

“They seem nice.”

CHIBI:

“They probably are.”

“You aren’t supposed to say that.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re a Chaos cult.”

Chibi looks around.

CHIBI:

“Do you think being kind stops working when someone joins one?”

Mara doesn’t like that answer.

Neither do we.

—

After the meal, they sing.

Nothing dark.

Nothing obviously forbidden.

A rhythm begins.

One.

Two.

Pause.

One.

Two.

Pause.

Elias doesn’t know the song.

At first he only listens.

Then mouths a line.

Then another.

By the end he is singing with everyone else.

He smiles.

The room applauds.

Later, people talk about what they carried through the week.

Money.

Illness.

Conscription.

Fear.

Family.

Elias finally speaks about his father.

A man who left when his mother became sick.

Who came back after she died.

Who now says:

“Family is family.”

The older woman beside Elias answers:

“Blood is not the same thing as love.”

The room agrees.

“Family is who stands beside you.”

Mara whispers:

“That sounds good.”

Chibi nods.

“It can be.”

Mara glares at him.

“Stop making everything complicated.”

CHIBI:

“I’m not doing it.”

—

Weeks pass.

Elias stops sitting near the door.

Someone saves his chair.

He brings bread now.

He knows the songs.

He knows the jokes.

Then one evening, the older woman gives him a small metal token.

A circle.

A line through it.

Nothing obviously monstrous.

“You’ve earned this.”

Elias stares.

“What does it mean?”

“That you’re not alone.”

The room repeats softly:

“Not alone.”

Elias almost cries.

Mara’s expression changes.

MARA:

“That’s unfair.”

CHIBI:

“What is?”

“He needed that.”

“Yes.”

The token comes with one request.

“Don’t show it at work.”

Elias nods.

Small line.

Later:

“Don’t mention names.”

Another.

“Don’t bring outsiders.”

Another.

“If someone asks where you spend your evenings, tell them you’re drinking.”

Another.

Mara starts counting.

MARA:

“That’s four.”

CHIBI:

“Four what?”

“Lines.”

Chibi looks at Elias.

“Does he think they’re lines?”

Mara stops counting.

—

One night the room is darker.

The music softer.

The familiar symbol appears again.

But now Mara can finally see the whole thing.

Eight points.

Chaos.

Elias goes pale.

MARA:

“He knows.”

CHIBI:

“Now he knows more.”

The older woman doesn’t lie to him.

“They call this corruption.”

“They call us traitors.”

“Some of them are right.”

Elias stares.

“Then why use it?”

“Because a symbol does not belong only to those who fear it.”

Chibi whispers:

“Clever.”

Mara frowns.

“True?”

“Parts of it.”

“That isn’t helpful.”

“That’s why it’s clever.”

The door is open.

No one blocks it.

The older woman asks:

“Do you want to leave?”

Elias looks at the door.

Then at the room.

At the people who brought medicine for his sister.

The woman who remembers his father’s name.

The old man he plays cards with.

His chair.

His cup.

His bread.

His song.

ELIAS:

“No.”

Mara stares.

MARA:

“He knows it’s a cult.”

“Yes.”

“He’s scared.”

“Yes.”

“He could leave.”

“Yes.”

“Then why doesn’t he?”

Chibi looks at the room.

CHIBI:

“Where would he go?”

—

Weeks later, there are only twelve of them.

No cards.

No children.

No jokes.

Still bread.

Still candles.

But now a knife lies on the table.

The older woman stands before Elias.

“You’ve eaten with us.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve hidden us.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve lied for us.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve worked for us.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve protected us.”

A pause.

“Yes.”

Then she offers him the knife.

“You do not have to take it.”

Elias stares.

“If I leave?”

“We don’t stop you.”

Nobody threatens him.

Nobody touches him.

Nobody locks the door.

That should make the choice easier.

It doesn’t.

Because the room contains months of meals.

Help.

Secrets.

Songs.

Favours.

Confessions.

Every time someone said his name.

Every time someone told him:

You belong here.

The knife weighs almost nothing compared with that.

Elias takes it.

Mara whispers:

“No.”

Then they bring out a prisoner.

Supervisor Krail.

The man who harassed Elias.

The man who reported cult members to the Arbites.

Elias knows him.

MARA:

“He doesn’t want to do it.”

CHIBI:

“No.”

“Then why is he holding the knife?”

Chibi looks around the circle.

CHIBI:

“Because dropping it may feel like dropping all of them.”

A familiar rhythm starts.

One.

Two.

Pause.

The same rhythm from the meals.

The songs.

The first night when nobody asked Elias for anything.

Now his body knows it.

His breathing follows.

People touch his shoulder.

Not shouting.

Whispering.

“One of us.”

Another.

“One of us.”

Another.

Elias cries.

The knife shakes.

Mara grabs Chibi’s sleeve.

MARA:

“He can still stop.”

“Yes.”

The older woman looks at him.

“You may still leave.”

A pause.

“But if you stay, stay knowing what you choose.”

No trance.

No possession.

No hand of Chaos forcing his.

A choice.

And that makes it worse.

Elias crosses the line.

We don’t need to see more.

—

Afterwards he sits on the floor beneath a blanket.

He is shaking.

Someone gives him water.

Someone holds his hand.

He says:

“I thought I’d feel different.”

The older woman asks:

“How do you feel?”

“Sick.”

She nods.

“Good.”

Mara looks horrified.

MARA:

“Good?”

CHIBI says nothing.

The woman continues:

“If you felt nothing, I would be worried.”

ELIAS:

“What happens now?”

“Now you live with it.”

—

Mara is furious.

MARA:

“They made him do it.”

Chibi looks at her.

CHIBI:

“Did they?”

“Of course.”

“Did anyone force his hand?”

“No, but—”

“Threaten him?”

“No.”

“Lock the door?”

“No.”

“Drug him?”

“Not that we saw.”

Mara turns on him.

“So you’re saying it was his fault?”

“No.”

“Then what are you saying?”

Chibi looks at Elias.

CHIBI:

“That responsibility and manipulation can exist in the same room.”

—

At the next gathering there is bread again.

Music.

Cards.

Someone asks about Elias’s sister.

He answers.

The room laughs.

Nothing visible says what happened.

Mara watches him.

MARA:

“So now he’s in the cult.”

CHIBI:

“When did that happen?”

“Last night.”

“Why?”

“The knife.”

Chibi looks at her.

“Wasn’t he in it when he lied for them?”

Mara hesitates.

“When he took the symbol?”

Another pause.

“When he started calling them family?”

Mara looks down.

Then Chibi asks:

“When they helped his sister?”

Mara looks up sharply.

“That doesn’t count.”

“Why not?”

“Because helping somebody is good.”

“Yes.”

“So that can’t be the beginning of something bad.”

Chibi looks at her.

CHIBI:

“Why not?”

—

Mara watches Elias sing with the others.

The same people who carried him across the line may actually love him.

Perhaps they were carried there themselves.

One promise at a time.

One secret.

One justified exception.

One small line.

MARA:

“So the cult didn’t start with the knife.”

CHIBI:

“No.”

“The knife was just…”

She thinks.

“…the first thing everyone else would notice.”

Chibi nods.

Mara looks towards us.

MARA:

“If someone asks you to cross one terrible line, you can probably see it.”

A pause.

“But what if nobody asks for the terrible thing first?”

“What if they give you dinner?”

“Learn your name?”

“Help when you’re frightened?”

“Make you feel like you’ve finally found your people?”

Another pause.

Mara looks back at Elias.

Then at us.

“How many small lines could you cross with people you love before the big one stopped looking very far away?”

Chibi has no joke this time.

Because the most dangerous initiation may not begin when someone asks you to kneel before Chaos.

It may begin much earlier—

when leaving the room starts to feel more frightening than whatever the room might eventually ask you to do.

Game: Warhammer 40,000
System: Wrath & Glory / Imperium Maledictum
Campaign: Mythveil Chronicles
Theme: Bacchanalia — Beyond the Last Line

PLAY EPIC. FEEL THE STORY.

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Research, philosophy and the living worlds of Mythveil Chronicles:
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