Warhammer 40,000 · Month 10 · Spooky October
Week III — The Dark Path · Sean & Eljara
Are you willing to follow a dark path to do good?
When loyalty becomes obedience, who has the right to challenge authority—and what happens when rebellion demands the same obedience it once opposed? Explore law, power and consequences in NO APPEAL: Adeptus Arbites in a Living Hive, our Wrath & Glory campaign.
The Imperial eagle has been removed from the warrior’s armour.
Not painted over.
Not scratched away.
Removed.
Only a pale outline remains on the black breastplate.
Sean studies the mark.
SEAN:
“Ye could’ve left it there.”
The enormous warrior looks down at him.
VAREK:
“I did. For a very long time.”
ELJARA:
“And then?”
“Then I stopped believing it stood for what I had sworn to protect.”
The warrior calls himself Varek.
His armour bears the colours of the Black Legion.
On the table between them lies an old Imperial campaign badge.
Sean picks it up.
SEAN:
“So ye were loyal once.”
VAREK:
“We all were.”
Varek opens a small metal case.
Inside is a blackened fragment of power armour.
VAREK:
“We believed the Great Crusade would end. That there would be peace when the fighting was finished.”
ELJARA:
“Peace for whom?”
“For humanity.”
“And the worlds that refused the Emperor?”
Varek looks at her.
“We brought them into compliance.”
SEAN:
“By asking nicely?”
“By whatever was necessary.”
Sean places the badge back on the table.
SEAN:
“Then perhaps there was something worth questioning.”
Varek nods.
VAREK:
“Horus believed so.”
ELJARA:
“Horus also believed things Erebus wanted him to believe.”
The warrior’s expression hardens.
VAREK:
“The Emperor kept secrets.”
ELJARA:
“He did. That doesn’t make everyone who revealed them trustworthy.”
For a moment, Varek says nothing.
VAREK:
“Tell me, Eljara. When a ruler demands obedience, destroys those who refuse him and conceals the truth, when does rebellion become justified?”
ELJARA:
“It can be justified.”
Varek seems surprised.
ELJARA:
“But that doesn’t justify everything done in its name.”
VAREK:
“Revolutions aren’t won without blood.”
SEAN:
“No. But blood doesn’t make an argument right.”
Varek places the blackened armour fragment beside the old badge.
VAREK:
“Isstvan III.”
Eljara looks at it.
ELJARA:
“You killed your own brothers there.”
“They would have stopped us.”
“Because they remained loyal.”
“Because they would fight.”
SEAN:
“Both can be true.”
He looks at Varek.
SEAN:
“Ye can have a good reason to resist someone and still do something terrible.”
Varek lowers his eyes.
VAREK:
“I knew some of them.”
ELJARA:
“Would you have let them refuse to join you?”
The warrior doesn’t answer.
A symbol of Chaos is carved into the chapel wall.
Varek touches it.
VAREK:
“You call this corruption.”
ELJARA:
“I call it a symbol under which atrocities have been committed.”
“And the Imperial eagle?”
“Under that too.”
Varek turns towards her.
VAREK:
“Then why is one loyalty and the other heresy?”
ELJARA:
“Because those are the names the opposing powers use.”
Sean folds his arms.
SEAN:
“Doesn’t mean either name tells us who’s right.”
VAREK:
“Then you understand.”
ELJARA:
“I understand why someone might rebel. That doesn’t mean I approve of everyone who does.”
Varek looks back at the eight-pointed star.
SEAN:
“Ye wanted freedom from the Emperor. So why follow Chaos?”
VAREK:
“Because it gave us the power to fight him.”
SEAN:
“And what does it ask in return?”
The warrior remains silent.
SEAN:
“I’m wondering whether ye escaped one master only to find another.”
Eljara picks up the old Imperial badge.
ELJARA:
“Suppose Horus had won.”
Varek looks at her.
ELJARA:
“The Emperor falls. The rebellion succeeds. What happens next?”
VAREK:
“Humanity would be free.”
“Free to choose its own future?”
“Yes.”
“Under whose authority?”
“The Warmaster’s.”
Eljara sets down the badge.
ELJARA:
“And if a world refused him?”
Varek doesn’t answer.
ELJARA:
“If a Legion disagreed? If people wanted neither Horus nor the Emperor?”
VAREK:
“We would have decided after the war.”
SEAN:
“That’s a dangerous thing to leave until afterwards.”
VAREK:
“So is losing a war while arguing about how to govern the peace.”
Eljara nods slowly.
ELJARA:
“That’s true.”
She looks at the blackened armour.
ELJARA:
“But if nobody can refuse the people who promise freedom, what kind of freedom have they won?”
The ship’s engines rumble beneath their feet.
Varek closes the case.
VAREK:
“You came expecting a monster.”
SEAN:
“I came expecting someone who’d made choices.”
“Is there a difference?”
“There ought to be.”
Varek looks at the pale outline on his armour.
VAREK:
“Would you have remained loyal to the Emperor?”
Sean takes a moment.
SEAN:
“I don’t know.”
Varek looks surprised.
SEAN:
“I can understand why ye questioned him.”
“And yet you condemn us.”
SEAN:
“I condemn some of what ye did.”
He glances at the armour fragment.
SEAN:
“That’s not the same thing.”
Eljara moves towards the door.
ELJARA:
“Would you still rebel, knowing what you know now?”
Varek looks at her.
VAREK:
“Yes.”
ELJARA:
“Would you still follow Horus?”
His eyes return to the fragment from Isstvan III.
A long silence follows.
VAREK:
“I don’t know.”
Sean studies him.
SEAN:
“Then perhaps those were two different decisions.”
Varek closes the case.
VAREK:
“They were.”
At the doorway, Sean looks back.
SEAN:
“Ye know, I still haven’t decided whether ye’re a traitor.”
Varek almost smiles.
VAREK:
“The Imperium has.”
SEAN:
“Aye. But it isn’t the Imperium I’m asking.”
Eljara stands beside him.
ELJARA:
“Sometimes refusing loyalty is the beginning of doing what you believe is right.”
She looks at the old badge.
ELJARA:
“And sometimes the people who promise freedom become the ones who take it away.”
The chapel door opens.
Sean turns towards us.
SEAN:
“If ye believed the Imperium needed to be opposed, would ye have joined the rebellion?”
Eljara looks at the fragment of armour.
ELJARA:
“And if the rebellion began demanding the same obedience it condemned—would you continue?”
The door closes.
Neither question has been answered.
A law can protect people—or become the instrument of those who control it. In NO APPEAL · Wrath & Glory, every investigation forces you to decide what justice means inside an inhuman empire.
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