Nyktas

*"To seek perfection, a blade must know a purpose"*

The Kabal of the Howling Blade,

The Ynnari Alliance

## Life

### Forging

Nyktas' earliest memory is shuddering to life in the cold, tight confines of an amniotic tank, one of the innumerable halfborn manufactured in Commoragh to satiate their profligate death rate. Like so many of her fellow halfborn, Nyktas had no destination assigned to her when she was hatched, instead turned out onto the streets of Lower Commoragh with only a knife and her wits to keep her alive. Having no purpose or ambitions of her own, and knowing only that she needed to fight to survive, Nyktas fought her way into one of the street gangs infesting every corner and shadow of Lower Commoragh.

As the gang grew in fortune, it found itself embroiled in conflicts and dealings with ever larger and more influential rivals, eventually entangling itself in the machinations of the sprawling vice syndicates and paramilitary juntas that controlled vast swathes of the gang infested sprawl. When these powers clashed, they hired mercenaries. These blades for hire were beneath the notice of even the lowliest Kabals, but they were still a rung higher than the gang that had buoyed Nyktas' fortunes. Nyktas traded up in the aftermath of one of the unremarkable street wars her gang participated in and defected to a mercenary company. She was given a solid slug rifle and a flak jacket, refuse from a Kabalite raid on an Imperial world that were discarded and tumbled down into the hands of Lower Commoragh's mercenaries, where they seemed like treasures to Nyktas, proof she'd taken a step up from the grime and back alleys of her 'birth'.

Her new affiliation saw Nyktas' fortunes buoyed once again, at times seeing conflicts amid the powers near the boundary between Lower Commoragh and the spires above. Even the lowliest pauper Kabals huddled at the bottoms of Commoragh's spires awed with their grandeur compared to the necropolis Nyktas had slogged through, and the powers she was now contracted to fight for or against were sometimes those that had dealings with the squalid kings of those pauper Kabals. She also saw, for the first time, a sight that had seemed almost mythical in the suffocating alleys below: Hellions streaking through the air, celebrating their freedom and tormenting those beneath them. Nyktas ached to ascend yet again, to fly among the Hellions and walk among the Kabals.

Her chance would come when her company was contracted to fight in a conflict between weapon forgers courting one of the pauper Kabals. A Hellion gang was hired by the opposing weapon forger, and that gang was bearing down on the position held by Nyktas and her fireteam. A calm washed over Nyktas as she sighted her rifle at a Hellion jinking and weaving towards her at breakneck speed, and put a slug right into the Hellion's kneecap. The shot knocked her off her skyboard and she slammed into the ground before them leaving a lengthy streak of gore. The remaining Hellions eviscerated Nyktas' fireteam in the blink of an eye, but spared her. Two of them grabbed her by the arms and held her aloft while a third measured the length of the gore streak their former comrade had left. "A new record!" the measuring Hellion cheered, and Nyktas' captors set her on the fallen Hellions' skyboard, a member of their gang now.

The freedom offered by that skyboard was more exhilarating than Nyktas could have imagined, allowing her to climb above Lower Commoragh at long last. She yet fell short of the spires of High Commoragh, but she now walked among the lower to middling echelons of the Kabals and Wych Cults. The Hellion gang was contracted in a skirmish between middling Kabals, and Nyktas saw her next rung on the ladder when she spotted a band of Incubi cutting down their foes on the battlefield below. It was clear to her that they were a breed of mercenary head and shoulders above the Hellions she consorted with, not just used by the Kabals and Wych Cults, but courted and respected.

In the wake of that skirmish, Nyktas fought her way into an Incubus Shrine. From the moment she was accepted as a neophyte, the shrine was a whole other world. Outside was a world of grimy back alleys, slipping knives in ribs, and always looking for the next big break. Inside, the weight of tradition hung heavily in the air like the smoke from the flaming brazier at the foot of idol of Khaine. For the first time in her grind to ascend, Nyktas felt like she was a part of something. The brutal training regime and strict discipline were unlike anything she'd experienced in Lower Commoragh, and the pious veneration of the Bloody Handed God was nearly a foreign concept, but she struggled forward day after grueling day. She could feel herself rising above the grime of the back alley she'd been running from hew whole life, not just a soulless scramble up the ladder to escape the gang sprawls, but she could feel herself growing stronger, being perfected, as if Khaine's fire was burning away the grime that no amount of running could leave behind.

Eventually, she learned to wield her Klaive well enough that she was given leave by the Hierarch to begin her hunt to kill an aspect warrior of the weakling Asuryani kin and turn the broken spirit into the final piece of her arsenal, forging herself into a true weapon of Khaine. She stalked a maiden world where Craftworld Ausryani were engaging an ork horde. Watching a team of Striking Scorpions spring an ambush on a mob of boyz reinforcing the battle, Nyktas sprung an ambush of her own, cutting down the last, weakened survivor of the striking scorpions and absconding with their spirit stone back into the webway before retribution could find her. She took her place as one of the shrine's Incubi. There was still a ladder to climb within the shrine, but this ladder felt like it meant something.

### Tempering

As is tradition among Incubi, Nyktas advanced to the rank of Klaivex when she believed she was ready by challenging one of the shrine's Klaivexes to a duel. The duel was held in a ritual arena at the foot of the statue of Khaine, brazier filling the air with the smell of smoke and casting the idol's flickering shadow along the wall, the Hierarch and other Klaivexes gathered in a circle around the arena to bear witness. The dance of death between the two warriors lasted for what felt like an eternity, but Nytas emerged the battered victor. Her opponent's body was burnt as an offering to Khaine in his brazier, she was granted his demiklaives along with his station.

Nyktas set her sights on the next rung up, the Hierarch himself, as had every other Klaivex. During her vigil, a new neophyte created a stir, a former Asuryani named Ishtá Morai-Fen. The former aspect warrior earned admittance to the shrine by offering her own spirit stone as a wager to the neophytes ready to begin their hunt. Two took the bait and were cut down by her Howling Banshee powersword. Other Incubi scoffed at her, even after the Hierarch granted her a Klaive, scorning her weakling kin heritage. Nyktas was more inclined to give her a chance, overcoming her own Lower Commoragh origins had been the drive that led her this far, and as far as Nyktas was concerend, that meant that perfection with a Klaive overcame any shortcoming in heritage. When the upstart concluded her hunt by bringing back an Exarch's spirit stone, many in the shrine rolled their eyes at the apparent showboating, though Nyktas appreciated the brazen gesture.

Eventually, the upstart Ishtá dueled one of Nytkas' rivals and ascended to be her equal. Sharing an equal station with her meant that Nyktas could finally socialize with the Damned Asuryani who'd piqued her curiosity without besmirching her own status. They grew close over time, even becoming lovers, as that concept is expressed in Commoragh. Nyktas shared the story of her own journey to the Shrine and eventually convinced Ishtá to share her story. She was fascinated by Ishtá's description of experienceing the psychic communion of the Exarch from the inside, and Ishtá's experience seeing the history of her Craftworld firsthand through the memories of the souls she was in communion with. Hearing that Ishtá had come to see the weakness of her Asuryani kin after Iyanden's twin near destructions came as little surprise to Nyktas, but when she heard that Ishtá believed the Drukhari were the future of the Aeldari, and that she wanted to find a way to ensure the Dark City's future strength? Nyktas couldn't help but laugh, it seemed the Damned Asuryani hadn't quite outgrown all of her craftworld naivete just yet. Still, Nyktas remembered how people told her she'd never rise above Lower Commoragh, and she'd done so. Perhaps Ishtá would manage to prove similarly surprising if given the first step on a path to her goal, and there was something endearing about watching her insisting on fighting for such a goal in spite of its futility. She introduced Ishtá to Synistrid, a peculiar Haemonculus who'd contracted the shrine before, and who loved to wax poetic about the Aeldari Empire's past and what had been lost in the Fall, figuring the old spider would appreciate the Damned Asuryani's similarly quixotic ideals.

Nyktas couldn't help but feel a little proud of the match she'd made as Synistrid came to hire Ishtá from the shrine to help her obsessive raids on the Crone Worlds more and more. Ishtá, of course, made sure Nyktas got her due as well by making sure she was one of the Incubi brought to assist with the raids, and the two found their fortunes rising in the Shrine off the spoils of their consistent source of raids. Nyktas could see the taste of leadership beginning to change Ishtá, the former exarch growing unsatisfied with a mercenary life as a lieutenant to the Hierarch. Ishtá eventually shared these feelings: her desire to have more autonomy and be more proactive in the Dark City, and to choose the targets of her aggression for herself. Nyktas counseled her that she would not find those things in an Incubus Shrine. Nyktas was not entirely surprised when, on the eve of a challenge by one of her subordinates, Ishtá said her goodbyes, confiding only that she had a plan. Nyktas had spent enough time watching her lover fight to know that when Ishtá lost that duel, she had chosen to throw the fight. As Ishtá's body was ritually sacrificed to Khaine in his flaming brazier and the challenger took her place, Nyktas couldn't believe that Ishtá's plan was just to give up and let herself die, and suspected Ishtá must have made some kind of deal with Synistrid.

She found herself feeling a bit sad about losing Ishtá's company in the days that followed, but quickly pushed such feelings aside, lovers rarely lasted long in Commoragh, and she still had the Hierarch to focus her ambitions on. Synistrid's contact with the shrine for her raids diminished some Ishtá's death, but did not cease, and Nyktas took Ishtá's place as a primary fixture of her contracts. As her fortunes continued to rise with the influx of raid spoils, and her skills continued to sharpen on the daemon ridden Crone Worlds, Nyktas eventually reached the apex of her ambition. She challenged the Hierarch to a duel for his throne. The Klaivexes gathered in a circle around the arena to bear witness as the ritualistic ceremonies preceding the combat were concluded. The two fought as if possessed by the Bloody Handed God himself, and by the time the Hierarch's bloodied body fell to the floor, Nyktas could barely stand on account of her own injuries. But she was victorious, and took her place as the Hierarch of the Shrine.

### Finishing

In time, however, a familiar and unwelcome feeling crept into Nyktas. As Hierarch, she had reached the top of the ladder, and nowhere to focus her ambitions. While Khaine's shrine had given her a sense of meaning, but her old desire to 'climb the ladder' and ascend in status had still directed her sense of purpose, and ladders unfailingly ran out of rungs. With no more ladder to climb, the routine of leading her shrine to war and cutting down challengers to her throne began to feel empty and purposeless. She found her thoughts drifting to her time with Ishtá, and the feelings she had expressed near the end of their time together. Perhaps she had been too quick to dismiss Ishtá's quixotic ideas, if nothing else, she'd clearly found a sense of purpose to work towards that would outlast any ladder or height of status. Nyktas wished to have something like this too, but struggled to find something beyond her own status that she could care so deeply about.

While Nyktas had heard that Ishtá had indeed survived her death at her challenger's hand all those years ago, and gone onto climb a ladder of her own as the Prima Succubus of one of the Wych Cults, Nyktas was still surprised when Ishtá contacted her. It seemed Ishtá had run against the limitations of her own ladder in pursuing her quixotic ambitions, having difficulty mustering the resources and clout needed to conduct realspace raids autonomously in a political arena dominated by Kabals. She wanted to hire Nyktas' shrine to help her solve the problem, using the intelligence networks and warriors of the Shrine to subjugate a Kabal so she control its resources and legitimacy. The payment Ishtá offered was intriguing. Rather than a conventional cut of the spoils, Ishtá offered a long term contract that would install Nyktas as a viceroy ruling over the Kabal in her stead and hire her Shrine to act as enforcers over the Kabal. Nyktas and her shrine would take a cut of everything Kabal earned for as long as they ruled over it, and Nyktas would be free to deploy its resources in autonomously so long as her actions did not conflict with Ishtá's ambitions. Incubi were mercenaries, for an Incubus Hierarch to sit in an Archon's chair and preside over the resources of a Kabal and be able to wield them with some degree of autonomy was unheard of, but appealing to Nyktas. This would give her the means to pursue some sense of purpose more proactively, and partnering her fortunes with Ishtá's may prove helpful in determining what sort of ambition she wished to pursue.

Nyktas accepted the deal, and the rebellious of the Kabal fell in short order after Ishtá murdered their Archon. After conquest came the task of forging the rebellious shards of the Kabal into something that would serve both Ishtá's and her own ambitions. One of the few stipulations Ishtá placed on her restructuring, and one that surprised Nyktas, was the elimination of the privilege Trueborn enjoyed. Ishtá had come to see the manufacture of Halfborn, and the corresponding ability to overcome the Aeldari species' slow replacement time, as a profound strength of the Drukhari, and she didn't wish to see that strength stymied by trueborn egos. Nyktas took a private joy in this task after the slog through the grime and back alleys of Lower Commoragh that her Halfborn heritage had condemned her to. She also used the shake up in leadership this caused as an opportunity to rename the Kabal and transfer as many Kabalites as possible around within the Kabal, ensuring as few Kabalites as possible found themselves working with familiar faces. This broke up as many of the Kabal's social cliques as possible, erasing the old culture of the Kabal as thoroughly as possible and laying a foundation for the new culture Nyktas wished to impose.

## Wargear

Incubus Warsuit

The Shadow of Death