The insidious Hand 1925

Army Group Westen, 1st Bataillon, 2nd Kompanie “Wiesel”, stationed in the region of Serbija, helping the local Oster-Magyar garrison keep order within the turbulent region. Recent Ruka activity has led to an extremely unstable situation in the region necessitating the Rhine to intervene in it. 

The Serb was dragged into the small room, he was already black and blue from the beatings that the Oster-Magyar Police had given him before they handed him over to the Rhine. He was suspected to be involved in a recent attack on a local politician that ended in the deaths of said political figure and 20 bystanders, a deplorable planted improvised explosive was set off by the Ruka. Astrid looked down at him, she could smell the telltale stench of a coward. She looked at his left hand, Ruka members tended to mutilate their own hands as a sign of devotion to their cause, initiates cut their fingers, leaving noticeable scars, truly devoted fanatics cut fingers off wholesale. They were all bent and broken, undoubtedly the work of Oster-Magyar processing, but there it was, a deliberate scar across the middle section of the ring finger, he had tried to hide it underneath a ring perhaps.

He looked at her and he struggled backwards pushing his broken body away from Astrid and her evil eyes, it was superstition from the more backwards and less enlightened peoples of Europa. A Warwitch and her red eyes are said to be able to steal the soul out of a person if that Warwitch has evil intent, perhaps it was somewhat true, although her intent was justice not malice, this Serb would end up hanging from a noose regardless of what is learned. Astrid looked at the guards, “Has he been stripped and searched for any oddities within his flesh?” One of the guards stepped forward, “He has, the Magyars made thorough work of him, nothing was left to chance, he had no oddities, aside of numerous tattoos with ties to Ruka rhetoric and iconography.” She looked at him, he was clearly a low level pawn, if he had any ties to the attack they would most likely be incidental, there was no reason to even suspect he could provide any useful information.

The Oster-Magyar wanted to let out their outrage, it just so happened that this pawn was stupid enough to get caught up in the raids, especially with such incriminating tattoos and scaring. Whatever bravado he had was gone with his manhood by the time the Magyars were done with him. She motioned to the guards, they picked him up and held him up, forcing him to look at Astrid, they opened his eyes as he struggled. Astrid focused in on him, uttering a Rune under her breath, Tiwaz-Kaunaz, as his pupils began to dilate, he was falling into her crimson eyes, his mind becoming clay for her to work with, she implanted a suggestion into it. A name, who told him of the Ruka? Just a name is all they need, a lead to follow. 

It was never a certainty, as the Rune of Tiwaz-Kenaz preyed on targets that had weak convictions and shallow resolve, this Serb would certainly fit that description. She looked at him and closed her eyes, he had gone silent, he was perfectly calm, as his head bulged and erupted. This was not supposed to happen. 

Parasite 1925

Transportation had been arranged for Astrid and her men, they would be moving out of Bleda and over to the city of Vindobona. As she looked outside the police station, they had just finished hanging over a dozen men and women, all of them marked with a banner that read Ruka. Some of them were still flailing and struggling, the retaliation from both sides was growing more and more brutal with each passing atrocity. She didn't feel anything for them, the Ruka, the Serbs, they had done this to themselves, they killed their own in their suicide bombings. Yet she also did not care for the Oster-Magyar, it was through their own failures that this had happened and escalated. It was now in the hands of the Rhine to deal with their self destructive tendencies. She lowered the brim of her hat and fell asleep.

The world was collapsing in on itself, as above it loomed something that had the facsimile of the Moon, it was not the Moon, it was a Star that Hates. The birds flew ahead only to be erupted from within, the skin on her body began to be flayed, apart as she lost herself in the red light. The world was doomed, all of humanity would be under the spell of the Utopian Dream, they would never awaken again. “But I do not believe this is the end of mankind, I do not believe this is the end.” Astrid murmured as she held her head, she had been sleeping deeply, her men looked at her with concern. “Are you okay Astrid?” Her second in command asked her. She nodded and gave him a thumbs up.

The armored vehicle came to a stop, the gunner at top scanned the surrounding woods, a fallen tree in front of the convoy bringing it to a halt. Astrid put down her pen, as she looked over at her men, they nodded and grabbed their rifles. “We have to move the tree, stay on high alert, this doesn't read right.” the convoy leader said over the radio. The world was silent outside, it was dark only illuminated by the search lights of the vehicles as they scanned the area. From the front two of the passengers of the first vehicle started to push the tree aside, three more men went to help them. Astrid looked around, she could feel something in her bones. 

The men working on moving the tree yelled out as one of them was impaled by a rod through the chest, they scattered back to the safety of the convoy, as a low hum began to emit from all around them.

The drawn out low hum began to speed up as it grew in pitch, from the tree line figures dashed quickly, as the gunners began to fire into the darkness. 

“Elk-Sowelo” Astrid raised her hands, she had removed her gloves and revealed the channeling marks tattooed to her flesh, a perfect circle of fire erupted between the convoy and the trees, providing illumination and a short reprieve as the grotesque ambushers stumbled back. The mounted guns began to make short work of the Ruka, the bullet ripping through their hardened flesh and strange appendages. “The situation is under control, these wretched thugs are nothing to us.” Astrid helped one of the wounded back up to his feet, she looked down at the broken body of the Serbijan rebel, his back flayed open and strange machinery snaking in and out of it, Widerling augmentations, her face twitched with disgust. She helped the man back into the armored vehicle, the battle was dying down as the flames slowly crept into the trees, any shadow gone. She looked back into the treeline, a figure stood apart far off in the distance, its eyes a deep red that stood apart from the orange glow of the flames. Something turned inside her stomach, she felt a great and hateful intent within the glow of the figure's eyes. The world stood still as she raised her right hand and ignited the Rune of Tiwaz-Kaunaz-Ansuz, a powerful and violent explosion of fire scourged in the direction of the figure, the light of it briefly illuminating all of the surroundings. Her ears began to ring as the noise returned to the world around her, her men asking her what she had seen. She looked out into the distance, a perfectly burned path ahead of them and nothing at the end. “A straggler, it is dealt with now… take the heads from the bodies of the attackers, we might be able to identify with some assistance from the Osterlanders.” 

She climbed into the vehicle as her men went out, knives in hand.

“The processing was crude in some areas, but the actual surgical work was extremely impressive, the Widerling machinery did not bother with preserving any semblance of aesthetic, it was only concerned with maintaining the head and by extension body functional.” The coroner Laszlo wrote down more notes.

“Be careful, your work and inspection of the enemies designs is starting to border on some form of admiration. That is a dangerous path you might be walking into.” Astrid looked over the remains. “Any ideas where they are from? You are an expert on the peoples of the Empire..” 

“Ah, of course that is the purpose of this investigation. They are Serbs, that is obvious enough, I do dabble in Phrenology, the shapes of the skulls would point to them being of the southern reaches of the Serbijan region. Now that is an informed guess you could say, but I have something much more interesting for you, Warwitch. I was able to match a dental record for one of them, here.” He handed her a file, it had a missing persons picture on it and alongside it the dental records. This Ruka was not just some low life urchin, he was the son of a wealthy family in the southern reaches of the Oster-Magyar Empire. From a small town called Trojika, the family would appear to be rather well connected to the local trade of textiles, the Stojanovic family's son had gone missing at the start of the year. She looked at the head on the table, the flesh peeled away and the eyes replaced by wires and tubes, that is what became of their son.

“Thank you Coroner.” She placed the file in her satchel. “Stay vigilant and if you find anything else, let us know first and foremost.” She lowered the brim of her hat and excused herself. 

The trip was largely uneventful, a small mercy, news from across the world however had not taken a break. The Americans had pushed further into the Kiber-Tvar territory following their successful campaign in Kamchatka, the recent fighting appears to correlate with the Kiber-Tvar push westwards again. She looked out the window of the train, the rural landscape was bleak and grey. The further away she got from the Rhine, the more cold the world got. Perhaps her head just felt naked without her hat, or maybe she felt more exposed with her face fully visible, the large scar across her right cheek fully exposed to the world. She was going alone to investigate, she had worked alone for most of her professional career, this was no different. 

Our Hands 1925

Astrid slipped the blade between their ribs, it slid in effortlessly as her victim gasped one last breath, she twisted the knife and destroyed the heart. She let the guard’s body down gently, there was no need for a sudden thud to give away her position. She slipped into the old factory, she could see forty if not fifty men all gathered, waiting for someone to appear from the catwalk on top. She moved carefully, trying to stay in the shadows. “There is no need to hide Warwitch. You have come to learn of the leader of the Ruka in this small town, you have found him.

No one moved, they all stood still. Astrid scanned the room, the catwalk, the broken ceiling glass. “I will step out first, as a show of goodwill. You have nothing to worry about, they are all asleep. Yet I don't believe they would have been any threat to you either way.” He appeared on the catwalk covered by a great coat that obscured him completely. Astrid walked out from her hiding spot, keeping an eye on her surroundings, she could recognize some of the faces gathered here, many of them were men from the town. 

“You are just an outsider, I must confess that the locals did a good job at being hospitable to a Rhinelan Witch. Not all of them are wired yet, so it was not by my hand that they played their part so well. The Sandman looked out to the town of Trojika. “It is a haunting prospect, the dream promised by Utopianism. The rotten flesh and broken bodies, it is a crude method to defend itself from the ignorant aggression of the individualistic backwards mind of mankind. You see the Ruka want to give their people what is best, we can provide that to them.”

“I fail to see what you mean, the Ruka are Serbijan rebels, they want independence.” Astrid kept her distance from the still catatonic crowd of Ruka, while keeping her focus on the enigmatic Sandman. 

“They want what is best for their people. This is true, but it is not a contradiction or a paradoxical position. The Utopian Dream also wants that, what is best for the collective whole of humanity. This can be achieved by implanting the machinanisms of change into a society, the old order would never willingly accept the Utopian Dream. They are too comfortable in the world they exist in already, they have no need to dream.”

Astrid saw something glimmer up above, a red light far away in the night sky. It was something full of hate and contempt for all of mankind. There was no reasoning with this thing, it had already spread its evil throughout the small town of Trojika and God knows how many others, the enemy was already infesting these lands. The wonder medicine, the new construction machines, the Kratts, all of it was tainted by the Star that Hates. The new hospital in the town, it was a front. She felt something twist in her stomach as she thought of the ease in which the Ruka had allowed this thing to infect their people. 

“In the end you will struggle, you will not accept the gift of the Utopian Dream, but even if we are stalled and ground down to a standstill across the various frontlines you erect. Your children, your grandchildren will eventually accept the gift of the Utopian Dream. You can not win.”

“Kaunaz-Ansuz.” Astrid said the words, as the building instantly erupted into a violent fireball that illuminated the night sky, the fires consumed the Ruka, as it swirled around Astrid, she would rip out the infection with her own two hands. She would burn it all away in a storm of Witch Fire. 

As the flames began to settle she could see his red eyes glowing back at her, the same ones she saw during the ambush. His coat had been burnt off, revealing what was hidden beneath. A widerling construct of rotten flesh, wires, and machinery, in its gaze the shine of the Star that Hates. He drew from his back two sickles and moved through the burning rubble to strike at Astrid, who responded by drawing her sword and knife and igniting them. The Witch Fire and Sandman clashed in the burning ruins. 

Army Group Ost, 2nd Bataillon, 4th Kompanie “Roter Fels”, stationed on the far northern end of the Rügen Defensive Line, the furthest point held against the Kiber-Tvar, following the NADC push across the Ural in 1913. 

Unteroffizier Oskar Bestei- Journal 

The wind chilled to the bone, it had a bite to it that the winter back home in Alemani did not have. It could and it would eat away at your fingers and toes, at your nose and ears, you could end up looking like a walking corpse even before the widerlings got you. The world had gone dark now as the sun only came up for a few hours here in the frozen ends of the world, even the widerlings seemed less committed up here, we would spot the occasional drones and harvesters floating high above in the sky, they were probably also keeping their eyes on us. The officers had given the order to not fire upon them, as it was a waste of ammunition and it could attract more aggressive widerlings to our position, truth was no one really wanted to poke their head out of the nice and warm trenchlines, just to miss a few shots and get hit by a cold gust of wind.

The unlucky ones, we have a system, a rotation of the patrol, it is the most miserable assignment. Even being in charge of waste disposal is preferable to being sent out to patrol, not because of the danger of the Kiber-Tvar, no the widerlings were a rare sight, and to the men stationed there a welcomed change of pace to the mundanity of their post. Granted it is not to say that encountering the enemy for the first time isn't terrifying, it is, and no one makes any scene out of it, no shame in it, we have all been there as the rotten stench and the grinding of the gears are followed by pained screams. It isn't pretty, but eventually you get used to it, it's morbid, but I am grateful to not be shooting other men, instead I shoot at monsters. Less of a burden on the soul. Regardless, I still rather be inside the trenches or bunkers, damn going out there in the cold and dark, at least waste disposal gets to be close to a burning pit.

The chaplain had sent off two of our men. I didn't know them well, but I'm sure they were decent men of passing moral character and value. We didn't bury bodies, nothing good came of that as the widerlings liked to dig up graves and steal bodies, all to desecrate them and add another number to their wave of dying flesh. We burned them, cremated them, we all knew this, no bodies ever returned back to their homes from the frontline against the Kiber-Tvar. God is here, he is with us anyone that has seen the horrors of the Kiber-Tvar, knows that there is true evil in this world and by extension there is true good out there too, I hope that when my time comes I will be able to give a good account of myself to Saint Peter.

We drew the short straw, a forward position had gone dark, no routine check in, it's a couple miles away from here. No one is happy to go out and check, but unfortunately it isn't really up for debate. My men, my squad, we all knew this was grim. They wrote letters just in case, some took some parting gifts, liquor. We followed the line all the way to the small shack that had been built, around it the expertly constructed fortifications that us Alemani prided ourselves on and the telltale signs that something had gone terribly wrong. 

Hyperborea 1925

The spent shell flew out of the Anti-Tank gun, another was loaded in, it fired off again. The initial shot had struck the reused plating of the crawler crusher , this wretched widerling had made its home in the remains of one of the Rhine's Panzer IV, the damage was not substantial; it kept rushing forwards on its many legs. The second shot exploded the false head of the aberrant beast, it stumbled for an amount, buying the heavy weapons team time to load again. From the rear several more crawler crushers were spotted, lesser ones housed in the remains of the now obsolete predecessors to the panzer IV. 

Anti-armor specialists moved in to support the position, the heavy recoilless rifle ready, as the crawler crusher  was hit again by the main gun, the explosive tip of the shell brought the monstrosity to a dead stop, showering the defenders in gore. Behind it the horde of lesser crawler crushers were rapidly covering ground. The weapon teams fired, picking off widerlings, but the horde would still make it at this rate, even one of them breaching the lines would be a fatal problem. The anti-tank gun loaded, it failed to fire, it had jammed, the wretched remains of the crawler crusher  had jammed the loading mechanism. 

The ozone crackled as the overwhelming smell of copper began to sweep across the shaken defenders, the horror was washed away as from behind them an overwhelming presence moved with an unshakable will. Towering above them a champion of the Rhine, a Panzermensch. He stood above the trench line, planted his feet firm, as his clear lenses began to glow blue. The crawler crushers had entered his effective range, as he laid waste to them in a hail of overwhelming bolts of lightning, which melted and incinerated the hulls and the necrotic flesh within.

The Panzermensch surveyed the battlefield, Hyperborea would not fall today. 

One Million Deaths 1925

“Hold your ground, dig deep and prepare for contact with the enemy, they will drown us in their blood, but we will ride the crushing waves, we will not give them any ground. The wave will crash against the rock, the bodies will shatter against our strength, they will know death! A million deaths, a million broken shapes will litter the battlefield.” Konrad saw through the haze as the world returned to him, his senses gone for a second yet it felt like hours as he held his ears, the explosion caused by a Vacuum Bomb had sent him tumbling, his super human physiology and heavy Panzermensch armor undoubtedly saving him from total obliteration. It was unfortunately more than he could say for his fellow soldiers, around him countless bodies laid dead, both Rhine and Kiber-Tvar.  

The cold front of Hyperborea was illuminated by another explosion, the failsafe had gone off, they were about to lose the frontline against the Widerlings, that was not something that could ever be allowed. From the storm of dust and ash a large figure emerged, as Konrad struggled to get up. His form towered over Konrad, its arms two massive metal pulverizers, its flesh rotten and riveted, it was a Slaughtermensch. It was scanning the area, seemingly also lost and disoriented from the rapid succession of explosions, its machinery grinded and screeching as it unclogged the rotational joints in its arms.

It noticed him, and began its charge at him. Konrad's head was ringing, his eyes felt like they were being crushed, his bones ached, as he focused his mind on the hulking abomination. A blue arc of Cognition Lightning fired off from his eyes, ripping through the arms of the Slaughtermensch, and erupting its body in a bloody mist. Konrad fell over, his body had reached its limits as he looked up to the sky, a massive serpentine like form hovered far above hidden behind the night clouds, its smile was full of hatred for the world, for humanity.

Konrad woke up, the world was cold as he struggled to see, his helmet's visors covered in ash and snow. He tried to move his arms, but something stopped him, he felt multiple fingers tighten around his arms the more he tried to move. He pushed as hard as he could, finally breaking free, he stumbled and fell down a slope. Still unable to see, the slope felt soft and wet, he removed his helmet and the smell hit him before his eyes adjusted to what was around him. Death, the stench of rot and decay, as he was surrounded by bodies, countless bodies, stacked up like mountains. Kiber-Tvar, Rhine, and many more he couldn't recognize. He looked up, as several Corpse Snatchers floated past him carrying and dropping piles of bodies, he could see massive brutalistic structures towering over the mountains of corpses. He had been taken as one of the dead, he had been taken to be recycled by the Widerlings, he began to dry heave, only to puke as he struggled to move. The smell was vile and overpowering, he cleaned his mouth with his wrist and put the helmet back on, wiping the visor clean. The filters kept the smell at bay.

“Panzer, Konrad, you are going to be a real Panzer, can you believe it? You, my son, a glorious hero, a Panzermensch, my son a champion of the Rhine!.” Konrad held the toy Panzermensch in his hands, his father had bought it for him during one of his many business trips to the capital. He still remembered it all, his first round of Ichor injections, how it made his skin sizzle, he felt so sick and tired, he thought he was going to die, but he knew even if he did die, he couldn't show fear. It would dishonor his father, his homeland, his people, he was not a child, he was a Panzermensch in the making.

Dark Lands 1925

“Can you understand me? Don't panic, this trial is over, you have taken your first step into the path of the champion, a warrior of the Rhine.” Konrad stood up, his knees still weak, his mind had been wandering back to his youth, to somewhere familiar, somewhere different from the dark reality of his current situation. “You winced, I'll make sure to note that down for the doctor and your superiors, bad form for a Panzer. No, I don't joke around Konrad.” Anastasia, that young nurse that was in charge of taking care of him and his cadre of brothers, he should have asked her out, sure she was older than him, his thoughts were cut off as he heard something move underneath the bodies. 

The corpses began to be swallowed up in a vortex, a vortex that would take him down too if he didn't start running. His knees would have to cooperate now, not later. Konrad moved stomping firmly on the weak ground beneath him, every few steps he would hear something burst or crack underneath him. As he made it to a fixed platform the vortex stopped, had it had its fill? He had a better view from his new position, from horizon to horizon all he could see was massive brutalistic structures that were obscured by a thick dark fog. How did they build these places? “America, I've never been there, but I know, well I have seen pictures of their cities, the big one. What was it called Nouveau York, it has massive towers and it is packed with people. Have you ever heard of this thing they eat over there? What was it called, I had a slice of it, ah yes Pizza.” This place was nothing like what his Cadre brother described, it was only the towers and the massive amounts of bodies that unearthed that thought, undoubtedly that pizza doesn't smell of death.

Konrad kept moving; he could see more body snatchers floating by with more containers, as he ascended the structure, the air was chilling even with his gear still mostly intact, he could feel it. “This is our burden, this is our duty, this is our pride, we are the sword that will lead the way. We will be the first to climb the wall, we will be the first to engage the enemy. We are the champions of the Alemani, we are the sons of the river, we will break our enemies bodies. By God's will, we will render his wrath and his hatred to the aberrant, to the enemy. This is our honor.” Commander Werner, no doubt the old man was still at the academy, giving that same speech. He was right, Konrad thought as he climbed up the structure, he was in a sense the first to climb the wall, he would also have to render destruction to this wretched place in some way, may God be with him now.

Konrad reached what appeared to be an entry way, it was a dark, pitch black. He could stay outside or he could go inside, into whatever was ahead. There wasn't really anywhere he could go from there outside, either direction was sprawling death and decay. 

Machinery, twisting and turning within the flesh, the machines made their way into the blood stream. A collection of red bones, the Master Mind nor its Kair could yet figure out how to utilize Cognition, for now these individuals needed to be exterminated. Vera looked at her sanctuary, it was a mausoleum of what she once was. She was an outlier, a wretched thing, she overlooked the development of the new Blood Lab projects. Kair Chetyre the subdivision machine mind of the sector was prone to making slight mistakes in its processing calculations, it preferred the manufacturing of amalgamations that deviated far too much from the Master Minds presets. This was only a concern if the set quotas were not met on schedule. Chetyre was curious to know of the work done at the Blood Labs, Vera found it annoying. 

The machines spliced the flesh into various sections, the many manipulators worked the wires and tools into place. The bodies that were deemed to be far too damaged were pulped and crushed, in large vats, biofuel for the constructs of the Kiber-Tvar. Konrad made his way through what seemed to be endless chambers, all of them dedicated to the defilement of the human body. Horror after horror, bodies cut open in strange ways, machines working on them, strange forms being grown and placed into husks, it was a nightmare. How many bodies did they have here, how was this even possible? They must have been bodies from everywhere, but how? 

Wodyn had been completed, but the Artificial Deity needed to prove its worth to the cause of the Schwarzwald. It needed to bring down the enemies of the Aesir, the wretched things in the sky that looked down upon mankind with seething contempt and jealousy. The first trial, hunting the war machines of the Vanir, so called enlightened forward minds that wished to spread their weak values to the Aesir people. Wodyn engaged a Lance of Fighting Falcons, their weapons and technology was no match for the divine power of the herald of the Black Sun. The undead monstrosity were not the true architects of their inhuman dream, it was something much more insidious, Jötnar, great serpents that weave in the skies above, invisible to the naked eye, only manifesting when they want. Wodyn ascended, piercing the clouds and finding one of these Engels. The Cognition Spike readings were unprecedented, as the Artificial Deity forced this entity to flee, nearly slaughtered by the creation of mankind, inspired by the true god of the Aesir, a black spot on the sun. 

Wodyn would be given to the fools in Kolin to play with, the Schwarzwald would improve on these results and endeavor to create a new deity, Woten the War Deity.