You sit in your war-room, waiting patiently. The room has been done up quite nicely now that you're in charge. The head seat at the table is a black, marble throne, with Magos' Cern's skull and Chapter Master Taj's head hanging from the red banner behind you, the banner emblazoned with the stark, spiky symbol vaguely shaped like the spear that once represented the Uwais tribe. You lieutenants are around you, Fay sitting directly to your right in an ornate red chair, with the upper half of the humanoid robot that Primus uses as his "face" to talk to to your left. Cain sits in a massive chair, a massive cooked carcass in his hands that he devours. Across from him sits Captain Hayes, who you've situated near the air vent to avoid choking on the ever-present smoke that emanates from the ever-present lho-stick clenched in his teeth. Olive and Castus are at the end, across from each other, which leads to an endless amount of bickering between the intelligent, pragmatic Olive and carefree, happy, impulsive Castus. You're all set up entirely to scare and intimidate John the Hermit when he enters. The Staine Siblings are off to the side with Meliodas, with Durge chewing on a rat carcass, Elizabeth reading, Elios waiting impatiently and Meliodas pacing the room. Hopefully, it'll work.


"By will of the people, I ascend to the chamber of the Gods! I will beseech them as a poor, twisted food, by will of the people!" a voice cries, as the door is pushed open. 


Two Kasrkin soldiers stand next to John the Hermit. The mutant prophet is a horrible, wretched creature. His spine is twisted, making him a hunchbacked creature. The ring and pinky finger of his left hand is fused together, as is his middle and index finger, giving it a crab claw-like appearance. His other hand is different, a literal engorged crab claw, covered in a thick chitin, looking able to crush a man in half. His face is twisted and mismatched, with only a few oversized teeth in his mouth, one eye much larger than the other and a squashed nose that looks akin to it having been badly and repeatedly broken. His back is misshapen, covered with a thick chitin like that of a crab's being more akin to a shell than a human's back. 


"With my own two eyes! With my own two eyes I see the supposed gods!" he says, walking forward with a strange look on his face that you can't decipher thanks to his deformities. 


"Are you the man known known as John the Hermit?" you ask.


"The man? No, no, not at all. I am the beasts, a simple creature twisted by your inaction," John the Hermit says bitterly.


"My inaction?" you ask.


"Have you seen what freaks we've become? Nuclear waste from reactors aren't cleared off, even though we haven't used nuclear reactors for millennia! Malnutrition! Lack of medical attention! There used to be slaves who were constantly tortured and brutally forced to work, and we envied them!"


"What is it that you want exactly?" Primus asks.


"Who is it that runs this vessel?" John the Hermit asks.


"I do," you reply, looking briefly at Primus and the others for any signs of dissent.


"By what right do you claim to be leader? By will of the people, by democracy's gentle guiding hand, I am the rightful leader!" 


"By right of force," you reply.


"Ha! I'd wager my army of malformed brothers against yours any day! We have the numbers, we have the will, we have the power to take this ship!" 


"Did you come here to make threats and promise me you'll take over?" you ask, as your fists set alight.


"I came here to offer you a deal. John the Hermit is no leader. John the Hermit is a simple man. I just want a boost in our standards of living. Running water, good food, actual bedrooms, human rights!" he says.


"Primus, how much would that cost us?"


"If we were to raise the mutant standard of living to those described by John the Hermit, it would cost, and this is a rough, fluctuating estimate, twenty million thrones."


"That's doable, is it not? A few million Thrones to ensure your one at the head of this vessel? It's good, yes? I also want a place at your table, as an advisor, so I can continue speaking for my mutants. With this, we'll stay your humble servants."

You agree

"Fine. A place at my table, and a rise in conditions. Is that acceptable?"


"Yes, most certainly, captain. The chalice of the gods has been spilt, and mine are happy to lap up what drips out. Most certainly," the mutant grins.


"Thank fuck! Now, are we finished with all these mindless fucking issues?" you ask. "Primus, I need some rest. You're in charge of the ship, Primus."


"Good to know I'm in charge of myself. I was having a free will crisis up until that order," Primus says, in what you assume could be a joke.


With that, you walk out of the stress-filled shit-hole, to take relax.

You relax

You find yourself in Kyros' extravagant chambers, filling a large stone bath. You quickly get undressed, lowering yourself in the water as you feel heat run through you, and the aching pain hits you briefly.


"Fuck," you grunt.


You've been doing too much physical activity. You forget you're a skinny kid devoid of muscles sometimes, besides a powerful destroyer of worlds. You take a deep breath, before briefly submerging yourself in the water. You lift your head out, feeling your long hair grow heavy with water. You grab a long knife from the edge of the bath, and quickly begin to hack away at your hair neat and tight. 


"You OK, Karth?" a voice calls.


You stare out, spotting Fay entering the room.


"Yeah, I'm OK," you reply, running your wet hands over your scalp.


"You cut your hair?" she asks.


"Yeah, it was getting long. I hadn't noticed, but Kyros didn't exactly keep us well groomed. I guess you don't get bothered by the smell of teen spirit if you were always dealing with rotting corpses, mutants shit themselves and the smell of your ideals slowly rotting."


"I suppose so. I've not cut my hair either. I just have one of the Tribals braid it. So, do you want company for your little bath?"


"Isn't that the only reason I keep you around?" you smile.


Fay gives you the finger, before she unclasps the tunic-type thing she'd been wearing, letting it fall away. You sit in the warm water staring at her for a minute, admiring her strong, muscled form, her gorgeous, ample... 


"Hey shaman, lift your jaw, you seem to have dropped it," Fay laughs, dropping into the water with a loud splash.


"We stuck in a spaceship without windows drifting through the endless void known as space. You can't blame me for admiring a view when I have the chance."


Fay laughs, smiling.


"It's not like you haven't seen it before. In fact, if I recall correctly I was naked the very first time we met."


"Oh yeah. Nearly forgot about the fact that I have a filthy Azajaja leading my Uwais boys."


"Hey, I've hunted with the Uwais, fought alongside the Uwais, killed for the Uwais. You spent your time just sitting on a pillow, except when I was around to carry you."


"I enjoyed the former way more than the latter," you say with a smirk.


"Are you saying you don't want me here?" Fay says, fake-pouting.


"No. I need to relax, and I'm sure bathing with you will prove... relaxing."


Fay gently leans over to you, lying on your lap.


"Was bathing all you were planning?" she smiles.


Admittedly, the rest of the night is quite the stress-reliever.

The Next Day

You watch as a group of Tribals spar. One of them, a bare-chested man in a gas mask, smashes one in the head, before grabbing one and flinging him against the ground.


"Now, kill! Break! Obliterate!" Smiley yells.


"Why does he wear a gas mask?" you ask one of the training supervisors.


"Who, Opie? Dude's in charge of explosives for his squad. Has a penchant for gas attacks."


"He's impressive."


A dull, monotone voice comes out of the speaker, drawing your attention.


"Karth, there's a meeting in the war room," Primus says.


You sigh, and head to the war room. Five minutes later, you find yourself in the war room. Hayes, Elizabeth, your girlfriend Fay, Castus, Olive and John the Hermit are there.


"Where's everyone else?" you ask.


"I'm here," Primus says. "I just didn't bring in my "body" because I won't be participating in this conversation much," Primus says, referring to the robotic upper body that Primus uses to help people know where to focus when talking to him.


"Why not? Why are we even here?"


"We're here to regulate, or not regulate, drug usage among the population. That doesn't exactly effect Primus. Durge's Nurglites don't do them, the Goliaths don't do them, and who the fuck knows where Meliodas is? That leaves us," Elizabeth says.


"What about Elios?" you ask.


"Elios threatened to... "stab me in the throat and fuck that stab hole" if I tried prohibiting his "freedom"."


"Yes! I like this man! Follow  his example!" Fucky says.


"Alright, let's get it done, shall we?" you ask.

You begin

"What's first, then?" you ask. 


Elizabeth grabs a metal, torso-shaped rig covered in syringes and medical equipment onto the table.


"This is called a chem rig. Pioneered by the Morallians in the Eastern Fringe, picked up by various mercenaries, and now heavily used on this ship. The rig is outfitted with several syringes filled with either medicines or light drugs such as the adrenaline-based Pulse, the sedative Sacred and a few other things. It's not been researched to any degree, but there appear to be no short term effects. Still, it could be dangerous long term. Soldiers buy these to increase their combat efficiency, so it can be of help to us."


"The gladiators use it. It's effective," Olive says.


"I've seen my Tribals use it as well. It helps, but it does tend to lead to the start of heavy drug usage that can go downhill."

You ban

"Ban it," you say.


"Alright then," Elizabeth says, looking down at her notes. She fumbles through her pockets, pulling out two packets. One of a white, granular powder, the other is a brown one, looking like grinded up dirt. "Here we have Zap and Dirt. Zap can be snorted, eaten or drank with alcohol to perk up energy levels and increase reaction time, while Dust is inhaled to improve your senses. These drugs DO have a few negative effects. Mood swings and some minor mental problems with the former, respiratory issues with the latter. There's not very popular, but only as it's fairly new and we haven't stopped at ports recently."


"Thoughts?" you ask.


"I don't have enough research to formulate an opinion," Elizabeth admits.


"Allow Zap! That shit's good!" Castus says, finally paying attention, before getting distraction by a smudge of... something on the table.


"Perhaps its effect on mental health are really serious. I mean, look at Castus," Olive says.

You ban

"Ban," you say. "What else we have?"


Elizabeth fumbles through her bag once more, pulling out a small, black vial. She places it on the table.


"Reaper," she says. "It's just arriving from the Black Aces War Band."


"What's it do?" you ask.


"It gives users a huge confidence boost and immunity to pain, faster reflexes, a faster heart rate and adrenaline for a small period of time. It's very dangerous, though, only used in bad situations. It has a 10% fatality rate, but it's VERY effective in battle."


"That stuff leads to serious health issues," Fay points out.


"Very effective, though. Shockingly so," Castus says.

You ban

"Ban it," you say.

You continue

Your mass banning of the combat drugs prevent morale from falling due to any issues with that, although it does lead to a sharp drop in combat efficiency of your troops. Still, that's life. At least your men are safe.

You continue

"Next are the more recreational drugs. The first is a familiar vice: alcohol. Although the light beers and wines are too invaluable for the ship to ban, as since the crew drinks them, they're boiling the water before they're used in brewing these drinks, hence stopping disease from spreading due to the very unsanitary water in many parts of the ship. Still, harder liquors, like the spirits, the harder beers and the venom shit that that's so common on the vessel are simply bad for your health and disruptive. If you were to ban these, you'd be able to increase the productivity and general levels of health on the ship. It is common on the vessel, due to how easy it is to produce, and how commonplace. Due to its radiance across the cultures of at the very least the humans on the ship, be it from the wines and rums enjoyed by the raiders and bandits, the hard liquors mercenaries pour down their throat, the wines and strange bears enjoyed by pre-industrial recruits and the simple, mass-produced moonshine and liquor that can be found on any hive world in existence."

You ban

The ban goes miserably. As soon as it goes into place, there's uproar and even strikes organized by the workers, but these are easily quelled by a few experienced Goliaths knocking some heads together. Still, everyone begins to brew their own, from bathtub gins created by the shitty metal wash basins that you barely deign to qualify as bath tubs, to massive operations creating a variety of drinks, taking up whole forgotten floors on the ship. Still, the problems caused by the worse quality liquors given to the mercenaries and the general unhappiness caused by having to pay exorbent amounts just to get something that'll get you drunk and isn't mostly Promethium and weak acid has worsened morale, though not all the alcohol that can be found is pathetic. From what Castus and Fay say, the pricier drinks are actually of better quality than what you were unimportant. No doubt they had sampled it only to verify that the brewers were making alcohol before destroying every drop of it. You ignore the rumors that they're these industries' biggest customers.

You continue

Well, on to the next group of recreational drugs. Whilst alcohol technically falls under this category, it's not usually what people refer to. No, the main ones, as you see when Elizabeth puts them on the table, are less traditional

Elizabeth puts a large, brown cigar, a glass vial containing blue liquid, a small patch of green tablets and quite a few other drugs


"These are known collectively as the Eyes, due to all of them having a fairly noticeably effect on your eyes. It's really a catch all term commonly used on the ship, and in the sector. They're… for lack of a better word, light drugs. From the smokeable Sun Scales designed to get you in a trance or give you some hallucinations, the Blood Root that has the effect of making the user feel happier and more mellow, the Slug juice, absorbed through the skin, that helps relieve pain and puts the user into a deep, peaceful sleep, the Bright Gas that improves the user's mood, the Castins that when smoked increase confidence… I can go on forever. These drugs have some negative effects, but realistically, no serious ones when taking into account their expected lifespans and the sheer amount of risks they're already facing. Anything the drugs do is neglible. The only possible risk is that their productivity worsens because they're as high as a kite."


"So, do we ban or allow?" you ask. 


"Well, those aren't necessarily the only options, in this instance. Due to the nature of these drugs, we have five options. The first two, as you'll know, involve either blanket banning or fully allowing these and letting the winds of free market spread them out among the crew. The third involves allowing them, but to a limited degree. Everyone has a limited amount they're allowed to buy, only the least dangerous are brought in, that kind of thing."


"Go on," you say.


"The fourth possibility is that we become proactive with our usage of the drugs. We're forcing our men to face horrors beyond comprehension and risk their lives. We could, for a small amount, begin purchasing and producing these drugs on-ship, rationing them out to raise the morale of the crew. Plus, this would give us the ability to actually begin selling drugs on the open market if we find a better group of cooks and a supplier. Lastly, we could just go all out. Buy a huge quantity of the drugs and start manufacturing them on ship, and just start pumping them out to the crew. Pump the gaseous drugs into the air, put all the soluble drugs into the water supply and crush up everything else to put in the food. This would amplify morale tenfold, although could lead to a serious drop in productivity, seeing as you literally couldn't breath without getting insanely high."

You allow

You allow it. Fuck it, it would just flood in anyway. Other than that, pretty much nothing changes.

You finish up with decisions for the day

You've done enough work. You've done a lot for the ship. Time to head to bed.

The Next Day...

As the shuttle touches down on the planet, you sigh a breath of relief. You walk out of the shuttle, into the clearing you've landed in, staring at the dozens of black trees that surround you. All your lieutenants are with you, excluding Durge and Meliodas, both of who are happier to stay on the ship. 


Although the planet, whose name you can't even remember, is for the most part two extremes of frozen, forever dark wastelands, and burning, forever insanely bright wastelands. So wastelands, mainly. Still, a strip exists around the equator in a sweet zone, which act as bountiful, fertile zones. It's this zone that you'll be taking advantage of on your little planet side excursion. You watch as dozens of shuttles land and hordes of mutants break free of the shuttle to gather resources. Hell, this'll probably raise morale for the mutants, seeing as this'll be the first time they've seen natural sunlight.


"So, do we have any tasks for today?" you ask Elizabeth.


"No, we've nothing to do but relax. I've put few loyal men in charge, as well as John the Hermit. They'll do what's expected of them."


"Perfect, so we have free time," Fay says. "Anything on this planet worth hunting?"


"There's a species known as Behemoths, incredibly hardy creatures that can survive in either extreme environment, occasionally raiding the fertile zone to feast," Elizabeth says.


"Are they sentient?" Fay asks.


"No."


"Are they near extinction?" Fay asks.


"Again, no," Elizabeth says.


"Alright, perfect. I'll grab a few of my Tribals and go on the hunt," FAY says.


"Yeah, I'll come," Castus says.


"I'll go as well," Fay says.


"Smells funny here. I'm going to sleep," Cain says, walking over to a tree and slumping against it as he closes his eyes.


"You want to come hunt, Elios?" Fay asks. 


"Please, do I seem like the type to go hunting? I'm going to bathe by the river," Elios says, sauntering off.


"Elizabeth?" Olive asks."Are you coming hunting?" 


"This is a peaceful, relaxing environment. I want to practice on my psychic abilities," Elizabeth says again.


"Hayes? You coming?" Fay asks.


"Yeah, I'll come," Hayes says, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. 


Well then, you've a few choices on what to spend your day doing.

You go hunting

"I'll hunt with you guys," you say.


"Terrific," Fay says.


"I'll get you a gun," Olive says.


You set a tree alight with a flick of your wrist, as the Warpfire quickly runs up, multicolored flames licking the sky as the tree is quickly burnt down to ash.


"Do you think I need one?" you ask.


"Fair point," Olive says.


"Let's get going!" Castus says, twirling his sword. "I wanna stab something!"


Elizabeth transfers over a short amount of data onto Olive's datapad about the Behemoths. Then, the group moves forward through the wilderness, as Olive begins to flick through the information.


"So Hayes, you were a Guardsman, then?" Olive asks. "From what I heard, they give you a flashlight and a t-shirt and send you to fight serious foes."


Hayes sucks on his cigarette, thinking.


"Yeah, all command gave us was jack and shit. I remember my first deployment. We were in the jungle, and I mean a serious fucking jungle. Seemed like the whole jungle was sentient and wanted to fucking kill us. Snare vines strangled every single one of us. The ground would just give way. You'd be on patrol, and the mud would suck up an entire tank. You'd blink and it'd be gone. Then there was the greenskins. You'd give 'em a few sticks with the bayonet, and they'd laugh and call you a grot."


"Greenskins. They used to be the biggest threats back home. When I was a kid, they took out my tribe. I remember being surrounded by a green tide, roaring, screaming and terrifying me. By the moon, I think I ended up pissing myself," Fay says.


"How the hell did it kill your tribe? Who are the Tribals, then?" Castus says. 


"I ended up getting rescued by the Uwais tribe. They adopted me."


"Really? Was it the tribe that saved your ass and blew up a bunch of heads?" you say.


"Fine, Karth saved me with his weird Shaman powers," Fay says.


"So, I'll just come out and ask. Olive, there's a rumor going around that you and your brother are fucking."


"Holy shit!" Olive says, as Castus breaks into laughter. "No! No! Just no!"


"You fight Orks, gladiators?" you say, quickly changing to a less incest-related topic.


"Occasionally they got Orks in, but it was rare," Olive says. "Usually we fought each other, or mutants."


"Mutants were easy. You just had to kill them," Castus says. "Other gladiators were hard. You had to hit them in just the right place. It needed to be bloody, but you couldn't kill a fellow gladiator, you know? Sometimes in the heat of battle, you took a bad swing, slashed open a throat, did something else. Those were the bad days."


Castus goes quiet, seemingly deep in thought.


"Yeah," Olive says, finally. "We fought Orks sometimes."


You walk on in silence, before Fay stops, dropping low. Massive footprints cut directly across the trail. Fay traces the footprint with her pinky, pressing her hand against the mud.


"It's relatively fresh. Tracks break away in undergrowth. Could've gone along the river. Could've gone straight along the underbrush, or twisted off through the trees."


"I'll go along the river," Castus says.


"I'll take the underbrush, then," Fay says.


"Trees," Olive says, simply.


Captain Hayes looks at you, raising an eyebrow.


"I'll give you first pick, Karth," he says.

You take the river with Castus

"I'll go with Castus," you say.


"Kickass," Castus says. 


You quickly towards the river. You walk along the banks, while Castus happily wades up to his knees. He dunks his head under water, slicking back his wet hair.


"Uh, that feels good!" Castus laughs, before diving into the river. 


"We're supposed to be hunting!" you exclaim, hovering into the air, staring for any signs of the creature.


"What the fuck would I care?" Castus cries. Come on, motherfucker. Get in the water."


You hover over Castus, the soles of your boots just touching the water. Castus rolls his eyes, grabbing you by the boot and in one swift movement pulling you in. The water's cold, but in the hot weather of today, quite refreshing. You float in the water, drifting along the river slowly.


"Fuck hunting, this is all I want," Castus says.

You drift peacefully along

You say nothing, continuing to float along the water. You close your eyes, taking a deep breath.


Your peaceful relaxation is interrupted as the comm bursts to life.


"Got a sight on it! Fuck, it's a big one!" Olive says over the comms.


"Shit," Castus says. "Well, we need to go deal with that."


Castus climbs out of the water, quickly hurrying along towards Olive's path.

You head towards the Behemoth

You hurry through the forests, levitating over streams and fallen trees. With your speed, it's less than a minute before you arrive, seeing the beast.


It stands twice the height of even a space marine, and easily six times as wide, on four clawed legs. It's skin is grey, seemingly covered in scales that remind you more of the stones themselves rather than the hide of a beast. Its head is like that of a spider's, hissing at you as it raises its massive, stony clawed arms to swipe at you. You hover back, feeling electricity coarse through you as you prepare for a fight.

You smash it telekinetically with a tree trunk

You grab a tree with your mind, lifting it through the air, as gunfire erupts from your companions. Even the powerful bolter fails to break through its thick, rock-like exterior. You swing the tree with incredible strength, smashing into the creature and sending splinters around the place. The creature doesn't even step back, instead charging ahead towards you. You float to the side, as Hayes quickly arrives, raising his rifle and firing. As expected, the las beam has no effect.


"Ha! It's good to be killing again!" Castus yells.


"Fuck, we're not getting through this. Maybe we up the armament?" Fay says.


"Go for the eyes and the inside of the mouth!" Hayes yells, firing his gun.


Well, that didn't work. Time for something else.

You take it to some psychic-amplified melee

You fly forward, smashing a fist into the Behemoth's head, squashing out one of its eyes as your fist flies straight into its head. It howls as it smashes its claws as you, but you simply drop underneath the swings and continue smashing your fist into its chest. The Behemoth smashes its head forward, shattering your shoulders and sending you hurtling towards the ground as you smash into the soft mud. The Behemoth steps forward, crushing its claw into your chest and shattering your bones crushing your chest. You're killed on impact.