Rylanor - Second Death of Isstvan III: After the final orbital bombardment of the planetary capital of Isstvan III, the Choral City, the Venerable Dreadnought took himself off into the depths of the Precentor's Palace, never to be seen again.It was not like Rylanor to run from a fight, though the Traitor Lucius, who initially fought on the side of the Loyalists before turning against them to reclaim his position in the IIIrd Legion, had overheard Captain Saul Tarvitz mention something about the honoured Ancient guarding something, though he did not know what it was.Rumour was that he had found some kind of underground hangar, but if that were the case, the Renegade Imperial Planetary Governor Vardus Praal had not utilised it to escape when the Legions arrived. Rylanor's fate ultimately did not matter to his traitorous former kin, for whatever Rylanor's purpose, they believed that it was doomed to failure, and that he had been buried beneath thousands of tonnes of radioactive slag like all the other Loyalists on Isstvan III.Thousands of Terran years after the events that occurred during the Horus Heresy, a trio of Heretic Astartes from the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion, Murshid and Akhtar, led by the Chaos Sorcerer Malin Vistario, were despatched by their Daemon Primarch Magnus the Red from Sortiarius, the so-called Planet of the Sorcerers, to investigate a distress signal that came from a long-dead world. The message repeated itself over and over, with a simple phrase, ambiguous, yet portentous: "The Ancient awaits."The investigating Thousand Sons arrived on the Dead World and traversed a series of subterranean catacombs until they reached a hangar, with a small spacecraft located at the centre of it that had been destroyed by tonnes of fallen masonry.Beside the craft, Vistario spotted the shattered outline of an ancient Contemptor Dreadnought. Dust and ash lay thick on its adamantium sarcophagus, the colour of its armour all but obscured. One leg had been sheared from its body, and its left side buckled inwards so deeply that the flesh within was surely dead. Its weapon arms, a Kheres Pattern Assault Cannon and a splay-clawed Power Fist, were aimed skywards, as if this ancient hero of the Space Marine Legions had sought to vent his fury towards the heavens with the last of his existence.The Dreadnought lay upon something half-buried in the rock of the cavern floor, its surface burned and unrecognisable. More cables snaked from the small, wrecked spacecraft and were hooked into the object's underside as well as to the war machine. A strange device was connected to the Dreadnought. It appeared to be a monstrous hybrid of musical instrument and an apparatus of excruciation designed by a sadistic lunatic. Its colours were faded, but once it had been vividly painted and elaborately ornamented, and it still thrummed with energy.As Vistario drew closer and sought for a way to disconnect the device, which was the source of the distress beacon the Thousand Sons had received, the ancient and not-so-dead Dreadnought awakened and wrapped its massive Power Fist around the body of Brother Murshid. The Dreadnought also aimed its mighty Assault Cannon at Vistario before pausing and declaring that they were not the ones the Dreadnought sought.Unaware of the wider events that had occurred during the Horus Heresy, the Dreadnought did not know of the XVth Legion's fall to Chaos. Realising this, Vistario quickly played along and told the Dreadnought that their Legion still endured. But the Dreadnought, though barely clinging to life, knew evasion when he heard it. The sorcerer then explained that he would not like the truth.When Vistrio inquired as to the identity of the Dreadnought, the ancient explained that he was, "..he who remembers. I am the Ancient of Rites." Like a thunderbolt, a sudden flash of prescience swept through Vistario as he came to the startling realisation that the war-wracked Dead World above them was none other than Isstvan III -- the site where the Warmaster Horus had cut the Loyalist chaff from his Traitor Legions and first revealed his allegiance to Chaos. The Dreadnought was none other than Ancient Rylanor of the Emperor's Children.Vistario knew the name. The only mention of the Dreadnought's fate came from that most unreliable of narrators, Lucius the Swordsman, who claimed Saul Tarvitz spoke of an underground hangar the Dreadnought was rumoured to have found.When Vistorio asked Rylanor why he had not escaped, the Dreadnought explained that he had attempted to do so, but the shockwave of Isstvan III's death went deeper and lasted longer than any could have foreseen. The roof of the cavern collapsed, destroying the spacecraft in the hangar, trapping him there.Vistario glanced at the strange device hooked to the interior of the wrecked starship and inquired as to the device's purpose. Rylanor explained it was a Sonic Weapon of some kind. A handful of his former brothers among the Emperor's Chidren had found the hangar and sought to kill him. They failed, but the power of their weapons crippled him and left him mortally wounded. Vistario deduced that Rylanor had managed to reshape the Sonic Weapon into a distress beacon of some kind. But the Dreadnought chuckled at the ignorance of Vistario's observation, for the device was no mere distress beacon, it was a lure.When Vistario asked what the device was intended to lure, a silken voice answered, "For me. Isn't that right Rylanor?" The device had been modified to draw the Daemon Primarch Fulgrim back to Isstvan III. And it had worked.Without warning, Fulgrim -- now a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh -- suddenly appeared from the shadows. Rylanor was horrified and disgusted by his former gene-sire's appearance. The primarch was an abomination, even by the standards of warriors who had seen their own gene-father hideously changed by the transformative energies of the Warp.The Daemon Primarch mocked the Ancient's damaged appearance. Fulgrim asked the Ancient of Rites why he had summoned him to this long-dead place. The Dreadnought managed to push his carapace upright into a sitting position, revealing the object that had lain beneath it for millennia. Humming power cables ran from Rylanor's sarcophagus to an opened control panel. Vistario felt his blood chill as he finally understood what it was.Rylanor asked Fulgrim whether it had been millennia since the events of the Isstvan III Atrocity. The Daemon Primarch replied that indeed it had, and mocked Rylanor for all the time that had been wasted and all the glory unearned, all the victories denied, had he still served within the ranks of the IIIrd Legion. Rylanor gave another grating bark of laughter in response.Rylanor explained that if millennia had passed since the Isstvan III Atrocity, then he had had millennia to perfect his weapon. It was at that moment that the Daemon Primarch realised the true nature of the object that the Dreadnought's body had obscured, as Rylanor sent an activating pulse of energy to the armed warhead of an unexploded Virus Bomb.Brother Akhtar utilised his Raptora cult powers and summoned forth a psychic kine shield in order to contain the explosion, though his ability to maintain such a barrier was tested to its limits. Enraged, Fulgrim attacked Rylanor. Enhanced by his Slaanesh-gifted powers, fast as quicksilver, the Daemon Primarch crushed the Dreadnought's Assault Cannon and effortlessly ripped the arm from the Dreadnought's body.Fulgrim used one of his alien blades and cut into the outer case of the Dreadnought's carapace. Reaching within, he breached Rylanor's sarcophagus and ripped out what was left of the Legionary's mortally-wounded form.Fulgrim offered Rylanor the opportunity to return to the Emperor's Children Legion and accept the gifts of the Dark Prince and walk at his side, clad once again in flesh. He could be anything, as the Daemon Primarch had the power to sculpt him into any form he desired. Vistorio could sense Rylanor's horror at this last violation. An inescapable destiny where he would become that which he hated most.The Dreadnought did not care whether he lived or died, only that Fulgrim went with him. Rylanor roared his defiance, "Never! All we have left between us is that we will die together! I am Rylanor of the Emperor's Children. Ancient of Rites, Venerable of the Palatine Host, and proud servant of the Emperor of Mankind, beloved by all. I reject you now and always!"The Thousand Sons were at a loss as to what they should do -- to let matters come to a head or to intervene on Rylanor's behalf. Vistario felt Fulgrim's infinite malice, his cruel enjoyment of Rylanor's anguish and the helplessness of the Thousand Sons. The primarch of the Emperor's Children revelled in his overweening pride, a trait Magnus the Red had more than once told Vistario had been present long before his fall to Chaos.But more than anything, stronger even than Fulgrim's spite, Vistario felt Rylanor's pride and honour, the unbending core of greatness that had set him against his brothers and seen him descend into obsessive madness trapped beneath the surface of a Dead World. Vistario took the measure of Fulgrim, seeing nothing worthy in him. His fellow warriors felt the moment his decision was made.Vistorio raised his bolter and fired a mass-reactive shell into the back of Brother Akhtar's skull. The Raptora's head exploded and with his death, the psychic force holding back the warhead's detonation ended. Once more, all life was burned away on Isstvan III, first by the organic decay wrought by the Life Eater virus and then by the planetary conflagration that followed as all of that organic matter ignited.It took much less time for the Life Eater virus to burn out on Isstvan III's second death. Yet, not long after, a shadow emerged from the undercity, a serpentine outline of cinders, held together by a web of daemonic energy.Not even the viral toxins wrought by ancient Imperial science could unmake that which the darkest powers of the Warp had raised up. The Phoenician's form was already weaving itself anew, but his soul was broken. For no pain, no hurt and no injury could wound such a being as much as the denial of its own imagined magnificence. That simple truth was Ancient Rylanor's final victory.