The moment he transmigrated into the Warhammer 40K universe, his phone's screensaver was still a photo from his daughter's third birthday.
A hairpin, a knife, a boltgun: he discovered he could conjure any weapon out of thin air on a forge world abandoned for ten thousand years. Imperial Inquisitors, Chaos warbands, and Aeldari seers all came calling, eager to buy weapons powerful enough to change the galaxy. But each time he used his ability, it wasn't his strength or magic that dwindled. It was the time he had left before he could go home.
His phone had 44% battery left.
The Emperor sensed him from the Golden Throne: the first variable in ten thousand years to fall outside the threads of fate. The Four Chaos Gods whispered his name from within the Eye of Terror. Perturabo held a black monolith that could open a gateway between dimensions, waiting for someone willing to pay the price on his behalf.
“I'm just a shopkeeper,” he told the Chaos veterans kneeling across the hall. “I sell everything. Weapons, armor, Titans. There's just one rule: pay first, then I'll make it.”
No one knew that the cost of every weapon he made was one more step away from his mother, his daughter, and home. And no one knew that when he asked, “Can I go home?” the Emperor answered with silence.
Some called him a savior. Others called him a demon.
He was just a father who wanted to tie his daughter's hair. He would wager the entire galaxy to find a way home.
---*Lord of the Forge*: a story about going home, sacrifice, and holding on to the last glimmer of humanity in a desperate universe.
It feels like it was written by AI, it just wears a warhammer leather and doesn't smell like a hammer. When you can do something beyond common sense, the Inquisitor is not thinking about how you did it, but he immediately pulls out the bolt gun and kills you. When you choose to be a mixed bag, do you still want to clear your name? There is no such thing as betraying Chaos, only those who betray the Empire. If a Space Marine wants to betray Chaos, he should become a Chaos Egg. You think the Space Marine is a Primarch, with the essence of a sub-god of the warp, and cannot be corrupted as long as you don't think about it at home.
I keep tossing and tossing, but I can't go back anyway.