Emerlyn

A God of Assassins​

Gutelruss, a hive world within the Imperial Remnant known as the Renman Alliance, held out against Chaos and xenos threats for many centuries after the death of the Emperor, but it did eventually fall. The Renman Alliance had been at war with a nearby Abomination empire for many decades. One day, the Abomination empire created a hole in the Alliance's lines and burst through it. While the offensive was eventually halted by the Renmans, the PDF of Gutelruss, along with those of several other planets, were defeated.

Of course, when it comes to hive worlds, defeating a planet's PDF does not mean you've conquered the planet, at least not in any true sense. Hive worlds are very large, and require a very high amount of troops and attention to be fully pacified in anything resembling a reasonable time. The Abomination empire was still at war and could not afford to spend the troops and resources to ensure a quick pacification. Pacification, incorporation, and indoctrination would likely take a century to complete, assuming the expected amount of dissent and rebellion. The newly-installed Planetary Governor was expected to achieve those goals in that expected timeframe, but his most important duty was ensuring the planet's tithes were met to facilitate the war effort.

Opposing her were a rather large number of organisations. Freedom fighters, surviving PDF regiments, criminal cartels, noble houses, an Adeptus Administratum that now strictly followed ALL its own rules and regulations, and more proved themselves a perpetual thorn in the side of the Planetary Governor. Her most dangerous and effective opponent however was an ancient, organised order of assassins known as the Silver Wolves, led by a woman of mysterious origin named Ulrica. Extremely competent, highly motivated, and grounded in a philosophy that gave them resistance to Chaos' pull, the Silver Wolves' operatives wreaked havoc on the Abominites.

The war lasted many years. As the Abominites entrenched themselves ever further into the planet, the many resistance groups began uniting and organising. They too entrenched themselves with each group opposing the other in their actions. The war also escalated over time, with the resistance as the slowly winning faction. As the Abominites receiving every more reinforcements in both quantity and quality, the resistance groups secured ever more resources, turned ever more people to their side (as opposed to staying neutral), and grew ever more in veterancy. In particular, the Silver Wolves, with their success rate and their leader's charisma, drew in many recruits and produced operatives of extremely high quality. Foremost among them was a woman named Emerlyn.

Born into the order, Emerlyn was a natural prodigy, diligent, and strong-willed. She was also arrogant and dismissive of the order's philosophy, only coming into accepting it after many years, maturing and learning from her fellows, the people she helped, and in some cases even her enemies. All the while she grew immensely in the breadth and depth of her skill in assassination and sabotage. Under Ulrica's personal direction, she disrupted many of the Abominites' operations, saw the deaths of slews of their enforcers and soldiers, and killed many high-ranking members of the planetary government, including every single one of the Planetary Governor's inner circle, a near impossible feat. To the Abominites she was seen as an avatar of death, and to the people of Gutelruss...she was also seen as an avatar of death, but a good one. To those who knew her personally, she was a wise, driven friend who was simultaneously supremely confident in her aptitude as an assassin while surprisingly humble in other aspects of life.

The conclusion of the war saw both sides going all in. The resistance was mobilising all its troops, sending in all of its assassins, and engaging in mass open warfare with the occupying forces. To restore order, the Abomination empire sent in one of its most potent assets: Space Marines. A full three companies were deployed alongside millions of elite Space Marine chapter serfs, with the Force Commander executing the Planetary Governor for incompetence and taking full control over the planet's assets. The battle was gruelling, but was effectively ended after the Abominites' leadership was killed; Ulrica personally killing one of the Captains and Emerlyn assassinating both the other Captain and the Force Commander, proving herself to be a true paragon of assassination. With their leaders dead, the Abominites were defeated and Gutelruss was at least free from their tyranny. Unfortunately, the planet's troubles had yet to abate.

While Emerlyn's opinion of Ulrica was always positive, Ulrica's opinion of her younger was not. She'd taken notice of the young woman because of her skill and quick climb through the ranks, but was annoyed by her cavalier disregard for the finer aspects of the order's teachings, though did see great potential in her. Despite Emerlyn maturing and growing into the Silver Wolves' philosophy, Ulrica's opinion of the woman only grew worse, but for a far more sinister reason than not liking her attitude. Ulrica's high position in the resistance, her power, and her own growing arrogance from the success of her organisation soured and corrupted her. She became jealous of the popularity Emerlyn earned both within the order and without for her feats, and feared her quickly growing power. It eventually came to be that the missions she assigned the young prodigy were as much to hopefully get her killed as to actually aid in the war effort. In the final battle, she did not intend Emerlyn to survive her mission, but merely to die after greatly wounding her targets (maybe killing the Captain), after which she and her inner circle would move in and clean up, getting the lion's share of the glory.

Following the defeat of the Abomination forces, Emerlyn was falsely accused of having fallen to Chaos by Ulrica and was branded by Ulrica as an enemy of Gutelruss. Many of those who would've supported Emerlyn died during the fighting, sent on the most difficult assignments during the final stage of the war, while Ulrica's own supporters were both highly-placed within the order and much more preserved. To the public, it seemed as if the majority of the order had sided against Emerlyn with only those close to Emerlyn herself defending her. Additionally, over the course of the war, Ulrica had entrenched herself firmly in the planet's various factions and commanded a hefty amount of covert political power, power which she leveraged into forcing them to support her in her ruling.

Emerlyn and those of her supporters that survived the admittedly scattered and ineffective purge went into hiding after that. For all that Emerlyn dearly wanted to kill Ulrica, it would only serve to prove her guilt and reignite discord and chaos on the planet, something that would doom it to death given the planet's external enemies. Consumed by hatred but impotent to do anything about it by her own convictions, Emerlyn slipped into a depression wherein she did little more than kill and steal from criminals to survive. After several years, time and self-reflection healed her wounds, and after regaining herself began to deeply study not only her own order's philosophy, but the philosophy of others, hoping to close the weaknesses in the Silver Wolves' code that allowed a woman like Ulrica to turn into what she became. As she did so, she began recognising not only the weaknesses she held, but the many points in her past where if things had been just a little different, if circumstances were shifted one way or the other or she learned the wrong lesson at the wrong time, she herself may have long ago become something like Ulrica, or even fallen to Chaos.

As Emerlyn expanded her wisdom and strengthened her mind and soul, Gutelruss at once rebuilt itself and deteriorated. While the greater inter-system situation had shifted such that the Abomination empire couldn't reasonably retake Gutelruss, warp storms had prevented the planet from rejoining with the Remnans, potentially making it vulnerable to pirates, minor Chaos warbands, and orks. The planet's focus was firmly rebuilding its capacity to resist external threats, leaving internal issues aside. While Ulrica could never gain overt control over the planet, she still retained much political power and influence. This was bad for the planet, as the woman wasn't really any good at much besides being the head of an order of assassins and making power plays. Everything she touched visibly deteriorated and it was easy to see it was because of her. It became more and more obvious what drove her accusations of Emerlyn those years ago, and knowledge that the accusations were false became an open secret within the Silver Wolves.

Armed with great wisdom and with the Silver Wolves vulnerable, Emerlyn began her bid to take over the organisation. She reconnected with old allies and acquaintances, uncovered incriminating evidence against Ulrica's supporters outside the order, and subverted those assassins still in the order who remained true to the Silver Wolves' codes and ideals. When Emerlyn made her way to the order's headquarters, she had all but won. As she made her way towards the inner sanctum of the fortress, the corrupt Silver Wolves were either neutralised by Emerlyn's agents or fled at the approach of the legendary assassin. In the end, all that was left was Ulrica and her inner circle. Paralysed by fear, Ulrica's hesitated, and in a rage at her subordinates' cowardice Ulrica charged Emerlyn herself. In the end there was no climactic final battle, just the single shot of a gun putting an end to an old, bitter woman corrupted by power.

Thereafter began the process of purging the order of its corrupt members, updating the Silver Wolves' codes, philosophies, and methods of murder with Emerlyn's insights, retraining the order's agents and recruiting new ones. She also decisively severed the order from politics and restructured it to become more decentralised and secretive, to better distance it from the public and ensure its operatives could operate more effectively. Eventually, the reconstruction was finished and the order flourished. Experiencing true peace for the first time and realising that her great work was complete, Emerlyn went to sleep happier than she had ever been. It was in her dreams that she first met her god.

It looked like a younger version of her, but different, like it was her sister, but she spoke with Emerlyn's voice. It introduced itself as the God of the Silver Wolves. It was not formed in the traditional way through worship, but rather manifested as the embodiment of the order's beliefs and actions over the uncounted years of its existence. As the embodiment of what the order was, the inborn instincts of its embryonic state, as well as a hefty amount of luck, allowed it to hide from and evade hostile warp predators despite not yet gaining sapience. The war against the Abominites served as the catalystic for its final birth phase. Through the order's struggles, experiences, and victories, the divine embryo was given the strength and skill to survive the daemon-infested Warp space over the planet, until at last the order defeated the Abominites, with the resulting echoes in the Warp giving the budding deity enough strength to ensure its own survival, at least for a time. Unfortunately, Ulrica's actions had delayed its birth, her actions and beliefs halting its development and threatening its existence once more. By casting Ulrica down and restoring the order to what it should've been, the god's gestation resumed, but that wasn't all. By refining and perfecting the order as she did, she gave the god the last final push it needed to be born in truth, and be born better than it otherwise would've been.

The god was now newborn, flush with power thanks to its birth, and for just a single instance - the instance in which the god and Emerlyn found themselves in - nameless. The god was the embodiment of all that the order was, but only in the Warp. Emerlyn was the *living* embodiment of the order, the ideal Silver Wolf, the beating heart and soul of the organisation. The god gave Emerlyn three choices. First, the god's preferred choice: fuse with the god. If she did so, then the God of the Silver Wolf would be far more stable and difficult for its followers to forcibly change. There would be no sacrifice of either of the two's existence, but rather the addition of each other's to themselves.Second, Emerlyn could become her first and greatest divine servant, a being who would carry out the god's will in the Materium when times were most dire. The third choice was blank, for Emerlyn to decide and take as she saw fit. The blank cheque was given out of gratitude, but also because the leader of the Order of the Silver Wolves was the Grandmaster of the order. The god was a Silver Wolf, but it was Emerlyn who was the Grandmaster.