Xenoarchaeologist Part II Recap

[Farseer Petriel]

Hello Eurobricks again!

It's time to continue the recap of my Warhammer 40000 Xenoarchaeologist series. The second part of this photo story trilogy, The Jungle of Doom, was published in autum 2013 on Russian Fan Forum of LEGO. Only the prequel was published in English on Eurobricks. Because the translation from Russian to English would be a lengthy process, I'm going to present you a brief recap with best photos from the story.

Very much like the first part, the second one is still Johnny Thunder in Warhammer 40000. But while The Pyramid of the Dead has Egyptian motifs like the first wave of Adventurers sets, The Jungle of Doom has (obviously) jungle ones like the second wave.

The style of photos and sets and some characters' minifigures in The Jungle of Doom differ from the ones in The Pyramid of the Dead. This is because the first part was made by me, Illarion and Artlego, and the second and I made the third parts alone.

Warhammer 40000 universe belongs to Games Workshop Ltd. Most of the characters and locations in the story are original.

The recap of the first part, The Pyramid of the Dead, can be found here.

 

WARHAMMER 40000: XENOARCHAEOLOGIST

PART TWO: THE JUNGLE OF DOOM

RECAP

 

Prologue

Three years after the events of The Pyramid of the Dead, an Adeptus Mechanicus cruiser approaches a green planet.

This spaceship is called Zodiac and belongs to Magos Eugenius Nikitus, a high-ranking tech-priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus. As many other tech-priests, Eugenius is more than 500 years old because he replaced most of his body with bionic parts, considering flesh weak and unreliable. He has augmetic lenses instead of his eyes, and grey moustache is one of the few remnants of his humanity. Eugenius is a famed inventor and explorer. He travels the Galaxy in the quest for technology lost during the Age of Strife but also likes to invent something himself, which is seen as heresy by many other tech-priests. In his adventures, Nikitus is accompanied by his apprentice Thorvald Ragnarsson. Thorvald is a short and grumpy tech-priest with white bushy beard.

Eugenius and Thorvald arrive at the planet of Smert. Smert is the Imperial death world which means its environment is very dangerous for humans. The lush and verdant jungles of Smert are filled with extremely poisonous plants and carnivorous animals. But the humans manage to survive within the concrete walls of the cities. One of such cities is Thanos, the capital of Smert. Eugenius and Thorvald go along the streets of Thanos to the governor's palace.

Jean Francois Henri de Vermin, the young and arrogant governor of Smert, meets the tech-priests in his office. He tells him about mysterious alien ruins lying within the jungle. His Imperial Guardsmen tried to secure these ruins but failed because the stones somehow attracted local Orks. De Vermin begs Eugenius to investigate these strange alien objects and Nikitus agrees.

Thorvald offers Eugenius to find a guide among the locals to better understand the jungle. They walk into a bar in Thanos where they find a slender man with handsome but somewhat strange face. He wears a hat like the Inquisitors do and calls himself Donner.

 

The story

A Land Speeder flies above the stormy winter seas of Cadia. Inquisitor Johann Donner arrived on this heavily-guarded fortress world close to domains of Chaos to find heretic Samuel Kruger who escaped Anubis with the Ether Crystal, the deadly Necron weapon. And now, with the help of local Inquisitor Albrect Hammer, he and his retinue, Charles Kilrus and Patricia Red, look for any Kruger's whereabouts.

Donner, Kilrus, Red and Hammer chase Sandy Abnett, one of many Kruger's henchmen, on their Inquisitorial Land Speeder. Though Donner and Hammer are both Inquisitors, they are very different. On one hand, Johann is a xenoarchaeologist from Ordo Xenos and prefers finding alien artifacts rather than hunting heretics. On the other hand, Hammer is a straight-line and bold Inquisitor from Cadia, the world torn by perpetual war, and likes to act first and to think second. He serves at Ordo Malleus, the organization which hunts Chaos daemons, and wields a giant daemonhammer.

With the help of Cadian Imperial Guard, they hit Abnett's flyer down. Sandy crawls from the cockpit on the snowy surface but is quickly stopped by Donner and Hammer. Albrecht insists to burn the heretic but Johann wants to interrogate him first. Sandy tells Johann about some death world in the Terribilis Sector. Then Hammer interrupts the interrogation and burns the heretic with his inferno pistol.

 

After the conversation with Abnett, Donner's Inquisitorial cruiser, The Emperor's Lightning, leaves Cadia.

Johann, Charles and Patricia meet on the bridge and find out that the death world Abnett mentioned is the jungle world of Smert. Captain Harold Kane who bears a remarkable resemblance with Donner, sets the ship's course. Inquisitor Hammer accompanies Johann and brings with him two interrogators, Hieronimus and Gregorius. They are grim-looking and wear black robes.

The Emperor's Lightning moves through warp, the hyperspace-like alternate dimension inhabited by dangerous daemons, and appears above Smert.

Inquisitors Donner and Hammer visit Governor de Vermin and he tells them about the alien ruins. Johann confirms that they are the main reason of his visit, not telling de Vermin about Kruger. He believes that the heretic is interested in the ruins too and wants to find out how.

 

Meanwhile, in the jungle, Eugenius, Thorvald and Donner the Guide move through poisonous grass. Eugenius' and Thorvald's tech-priest power armor and Donner's thick trousers protect them from the venoms, and the guide somehow manages to calm dangerous snakes down. They are accompanied by Golem, the servitor who is basically a lobotomized cyborg with a plasma gun.

The expedition finds the ruins and encounters some Orks near them. On the top of an alien stone stands Da Weirdboy, the leader of the aliens. This psychic Ork wears a cloak and has a peg leg and a large beard made from Hairy Squigs, the hairy leech-like creatures bred by the Orks. He holds a long magical staff with feathers and a large mushroom. It looks like the aliens are performing some kind of ritual, dancing near the ruins and roaring.

Eugenius and his team interrupt the ritual and clash with the Orks. His Adeptus Mechanicus power staff meets Da Weirdboy's wooden but still effective psychic staff, producing lots of lightning in the air. The other Orks try to shoot the humans down but they are bad at shooting.

Finally, the tech-priests overcome the Orks who flee deep into the jungle and reclaim the ruins for the Imperium. The Imperial Guard secure the object. They deploy the Tauros assault vehicles with mounted heavy flamers.

 

Back in Thanos, Donner and Eugenius meet each other. As a tech-priest, Kilrus shows deep respect for Nikitus who is known as the Master of Ideas for his ingeniuty. Donner and Eugenius reveal that the ruins are some sort of psychic beacon, emanating weak but prominent psychic signals. They also find out that there are two other alien stones in the jungle of Smert, and that they are occupied by Da Weirdboy's Orks who use them for their rituals.

Meanwhile, Thorvald and Donner the Guide eat pizza and drink in the bar. Ragnarsson compares his companion with an Eldar, in the negative way. But Donner denies his connection with the Eldar and tells he is human.

Thorvald tells the guide that he is a Squat, a member of the race of dwarf-like mutant humans from high-gravity worlds. Squats lived independently from the Imperium and were excellent engineers. But a Tyranid Hive Fleet destroyed most of the Squats, and the remaining few lost their homeworlds and are scattered across the Galaxy. Thorvald's homeworld of Thrudheim was completely destroyed because an Eldar force refused to defend it against the Tyranids. And Thorvald survived as he was studying on Mars, the main planet of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Donner the Guide is deeply depressed by this story.

 

The following night, unknown bandits attack civilians Tasha and Alex at the streets of Thanos.

Inquisitor Hammer saves them and fights the criminals with his daemonhammer.

In the morning, Hammer gathers the people at the main square and declares about a new heretical cult on Smert.

In the front of many civilians, he executes the captured bandits with his inferno pistol. The crowd, including Alex and Tasha, cheers him.

 

Meanwhile, Donner and Eugenius move to the second ruins. They ride a Valkyrie Assault Carrier, an Imperial VTOL aircraft, with Kilrus, Patricia, Thorvald, Golem and Donner the Guide.

Orkish Deff Koptaz, crude and built from scratch, approach the Valkyrie and try to shoot it down.

The Orks manage to hit one of Valkyrie's engines and it is forced to land within the jungle, luckily near the needed ruins. Donner the Inquisitor, Kilrus, Red, Eugenius, Thorvald, Golem, Donner the Guide and the rest of aircraft's crew come from the vehicle and engage the green-skinned aliens. They tend to defeat the Orkish crowds, though the Greenskins kill the crew of the Valkyrie and Da Weirdboy makes Golem's head explode.

Da Weirdboy, standing atop the alien stone, performs a powerful psychic storm with his staff.

All the heroes are hit by psychic lightning and lie on the grass. Only Donner the Guide stands up and calmly faces Da Weirdboy.

He reveals himself to be the Eldar Farseer in disguise. The same nameless Eldar Farseer Johann Donner met on Anubis, with whom they made some kind of strange inter-racial friendship.

The Farseer battles Da Weirdboy, sending his own psychic lightning to the Ork.

Finally he overpowers Da Weirdboy and blows him away but is confronted by Eugenius and Thorvald. Donner insists that the Farseer is his friend. But Thorvald is stubborn and bitter about his homeworld betrayed by the Eldar. Donner says that not all Eldar are the same and that he is a competent Inquisition operative who decides what to do with the Farseer. Eugenius reminds Johann that he is not the only Inquisitor on Smert and insists to give the Farseer to Inquisitor Hammer.

 

On The Emperor's Lightning, Hammer orders to take the Farseer to the torture room. Donner confronts his Inquisitorial colleague but is captured by him too.

In the torture room aboard The Emperor's Lightning, Hammer chains the Farseer to an electric table and tortures him with electricity. He asks the Eldar about the alien ruins on Smert.

The Farseer recalls how he visited the death world with his sister more than 12000 years ago, long before the Fall of the Eldar. They were talking, sitting on the deadly grass and repelling the poison with their innate psychic powers. The teenage Farseer liked that place because he sometimes wanted to be alone, away from the Eldar society which didn't understand him. But his sister considered such type of leisure boring and told about her friends, Drizzel and Malonil, who knew the meaning of true pleasure. In response, the Farseer thought of them as of silly Eldar.

After the talk, the Farseer and his sister were sleeping near the alien ruins. And the Farseer saw a vision of ruined gardens, dying Eldar and laughing marauders. This was the vision of approaching Fall. The Farseer's sister calmed her brother but he still worried about the future.

The Farseer told about the vision to his teacher, the great Farseer Eldrad Ulthran. Eldrad said that this was not relevant and that the Farseer shouldn't think about this nightmare.

But the Farseer found out that Ulthran secretly gathered a meeting with other Farseers and told them about the approaching catastrophe.

The Eldar returns from his childhood memories, happy and unhappy alike, with pain from Hammer's torture devices. The Inquisitor gloats with hatred, saying that the Eldar were always devious and arrogant aliens who wanted to destroy the humanity.

 

In the mean time, Patricia hacks the ship's cogitators and open the door of Donner's cabin where he is kept by Hammer.

Patricia and Kilrus free Donner from the custody and break into the torture room. Johann demands to free the Farseer but Hammer says him that though this Eldar may be innocent, the entire Eldar race cannot be trusted by the Imperium and the Imperials must not ally with these aliens at all.

In the battle, Donner, Kilrus and Patricia free the Farseer and kill Hammer's interrogators. Johann's power sword meets Albrecht's daemonhammer in deadly combat.

Hammer throws Donner back, preparing to kill him as a traitor of Imperium and humanity who sided with the Eldar. But Patricia takes two inferno pistols lost by the Inquisitors during their fight and burn Hammer in his power armor, very much the same way he killed heretics. Donner and Red understand that they became traitors and criminals from this point and that Hammer managed to send a message to Inquisition before his death. But they still have a work to do with the alien ruins and Kruger who is there somewhere. Eugenius and Thorvald don't agree with Donner and leave The Emperor's Lightning.

 

After the battle with Hammer, the Farseer tells Donner about the ruins in Johann's cabin.

The mysterious stones were built by the Slann, an ancient reptilian race with phenomenal psychic abilities. They intended the ruins to be psychic beacons, emitting the waves across many parsecs around Smert.

The Farseer saw de Vermin's face in his visions and thought he was somehow connected with great danger. The Eldar arrived on Smert riding his jetbike. But he was quickly surrounded by the Orks and needed to abandon his jetbike and blend with local human society.

 

During this talk, the Imperial Guard forces capture the third ruins, wiping out the Orks.

The Farseer thinks that there is some malevolent power behind de Vermin. Donner, Kilrus, Red and the Eldar return to Thanos, to the Governor's palace to find out the truth. Johann takes Hammer's daemonhammer as it can be a powerful weapon, and Patricia takes Albrecht's inferno pistol instead of one of her paired stubbers.

Near the bar they find Eugenius and Thorvald and convince the tech-priests to come with them.

The Farseer mind controls de Vermin's guard with his psychic powers, and the heroes enter the palace.

Johann faces Governor de Vermin, and he tells Donner his true story. He was a weak child and thought it was connected with incest within Imperial noble houses to which he belonged. But the truth was far more awful. When Jean de Vermin became 18 years old, his parents who ruled Smert told him they were a part of a secret Genestealer Cult consisting of human and Tyranid hybrids, and the House of de Vermin was secretly infested by Genestealers long ago. Then Jean killed his parents and tried to kill himself but the voice of Tyranid Hive Mind interrupted him to do this. De Vermin understood that the real purpose of his life was to serve the Tyranids and to bring the will of the Hive Mind to Smert and other worlds. Donner realizes that the bandits executed by Hammer were not Chaos heretics as the Cadian Inquisitor thought but Genestealer cultists who kidnapped people at night to infest them. De Vermin tells that his Genestealer Cult was cut off from other Tyranids when their Hive Fleet was stopped by Space Marines of Ultramarines Chapter.

And then Jean met a man who offered him some help. Samuel Kruger casually walks into de Vermin's office and says that he helped the Governor to connect with the Tyranids in the outer space. He learned about the Slann psychic beacons but didn't know how to activate them. Later Eugenius unknowingly helped de Vermin and Kruger to activate Slann ruins and now the stones are about to work.

 

In the antechamber of de Vermin's palace, the Farseer, Patricia, Charles, Eugenius and Thorvald encounter Genestealer hybrids, horrible mutants expressing both human and Tyranid features. They fight the waves of zombie-like enemies with their close combat and ranged weaponry.

Donner and Kruger start dueling. They fall from the balcony of the palace and land on the main square where de Vermin's guard run to assist the heretic. Kruger tells Donner that he wants to betray de Vermin and to lure Tyranids on Smert to take their psychic energy with a weapon based on the Necron Ether Crystal. The heretics needs billions of souls - but why?

Patricia, the Farseer and others fight the hybrids and de Vermin back in the Governor's office.

Finally, they escape the palace and jump off the balcony to pursue Kruger and his henchmen, the mad scientist Rudolph Steiner, and the cyborg Gunslinger. But the heretics teleport away from Smert.

Meanwhile, the Slann ruins in the jungle activate, emanating beams of light into the sky.

A massive Tyranid Hive Fleet arrives on Smert in their humongous bio-ships.

Lots of deadly alien creatures emerge on the surface of the world, coming from biological drop pods, and the sky is filled by greenish spores. The Tyranids surround Donner at the main square of Thanos, and the heroes fight them back. Remaining Genestealer hybrids emerge from de Vermin's palace, including the Governor himself, and are killed by Donner's people very much like their more alien cousins.

The Imperial Guard forces who remained loyal to the Emperor rather than to de Vermin fight the Tyranids too, shooting them with laser fire.

The civilians of Thanos, including Tasha and Alex, hide in buildings but are quickly found by the Tyranids. The aliens rend them with their claws and eat.

Meanwhile in space, The Emperor's Lightning and The Zodiac battle with Kruger's ship. The spaceships fire at each other with batteries of huge cannons.

The Eldar reinforcements arrive at Thanos. They are led by Autarch Erestril on a jetbike. Murzion, the Farseer's pet Gyrinx, also comes with them and reunites with his master.

Captain Kane reports that Kruger prepared his cannon to fire. Donner realizes that the heretic wants to destroy Smert with the Necron weapon and to take lots of human, Ork and Tyranid souls for his dark goals.

The Farseer tells there is a chance to hide in de Vermin palace and to cast a psychic shield which will defend them from Kruger's all-destroying weapon. Donner moves out but a giant Tyranid Carnifex approaches the main square.

Autarch Erestril sacrifices himself to save his friends from the Carnifex, ignoring the warnings of the Farseer and Howling Banshees Exarch Eyla, his lover. He engages the enormous creature in unequal combat, saying he was wrong about Donner on Anubis.

Erestril's sacrifice gives the heroes some time, and they hide in de Vermin's palace. With the help of Murzion, the Farseer casts the powerful psychic shield which blocks Kruger's deadly wave of energy.

The heretic fires his weapon, and every living soul on the planet, except Donner and his friends, was eliminated.

Then Kruger's ship escapes to the warp.

The heroes walk onto the ruined main square of Thanos, filled with corpses of Tyranids, Genestealer Hybrids, humans and Eldar. They mourn Autarch Erestril who sacrificed his life to save them. The Farseer and Exarch Eyla take Erestril's soul stone, a gem which contains his conscious soul. Donner promises to continue his hunt for Kruger. He departs with the Farseer and Eugenius - only to meet them again later...

 

To be continued in Xenoarchaeologist 3: The Hour of Chaos...

 

Thank you for reading and watching! I hope you found the story interesting and enjoyful.

 

Edited January 30, 2017 by Farseer Petriel