Deus in Machina (a Warhammer 40K-setting inspired LitRPG)

Angar hadn't expected to return from Erim unscathed. The shadowed streets of the city were alive with its usual danger, but no Heretic attacked, nor had Duke Maximillian.

At Saint Krakus, Venerable Sister Kenson stood waiting for him. As soon as he and Simo walked in, her rage fell like a storm breaking over the rectory.

"You defy me?" she spat out as her eyes blazed beneath her cowl. "Leaving campus like a fool and interrupting my schedule with this insolence! I was in the middle of important business! I've been very kind to you! And far too lenient!"

She stepped closer, waving a finger in his face, and her voice dropped to a hiss. "By the Three, you'll regret this disobedience!"

She spun and left, then made a big show of carrying in her fasces, a bundle of wooden rods bound together with leather thongs, an ax-head poking out of it, symbolizing her authority to administer both corporal and capital punishment.

The rods to lash, and the ax to execute.

She grabbed him by the ear and dragged him to the chapel. Since Angar was barred from being around other students, his punishment couldn't take place in the Poenae Fori, where lashings and executions demanded a public audience.

Only the Three and Simo would witness this.

He bared his back, she raised a rod, and the lashes came. Forty of them, the maximum a student could receive, and Kenson laid into each crack with a burst of fury.

Angar's mother had given him truly terrible switchings as part of his training regimen, and that was when he was a level 0 pre-ascendant. These rods stung a little. He doubted blood even welled.

This was his first taste of the rod at the Cloisteranage. The tawse and extra physical training had always been his punishment before.

Wiping sweat from her brow, Kenson leaned in, hissing in his ear, "We're not done yet, Child. I'll craft your finals myself. They'll be a personal crucible before that of the Grim Ordeals."

Angar stared at the chapel's stained glass, the Trey glaring down, and felt a flicker of anticipation. He hoped that was true.

The next day dawned heavily with the weight of those finals. Most students just graduated the month they turned sixteen, having long been deemed unworthy or unfit to be aspirants, denied a chance at Holy Knighthood and the Grim Ordeals.

His last quarterly trial had absolutely crushed the scores of every other student in physical and combat training, even with marksmanship, as his auto-blaster barked death, and his lancer pierced distant steel targets.

It was unfair and expected, but it still allowed him to forgo some physical testing the other aspirants had to endure.

And he was already a Crusader, something everyone kept seeming to forget. This was all just formality. He didn't need to pass tests, graduate, or anything else.

He was already the thing the remaining aspirants aspired to become.

The Holy Empire had simply stashed him in the Cloisteranage until he turned sixteen. Old enough, by Imperial Law, to face the Grim Ordeals and claim the power, rites, and implants they'd grant him.

Whether the Grim Ordeals killed him or not, he was glad his time at Saint Krakus was coming to an end. Even kept apart from the main student body, he saw these places for what they were.

Just as the Holy Empire used debt as a means of control, he saw Cloisteranages as a way to snuff out spirit.

Through ceaseless repetition, strict hierarchies, hypno-indoctrination, and the breaking of individual will, children were reshaped into obedient servants and factory workers, their creativity and defiance ground to dust, churning out docile cogs bent to the needs of the imperial industrial machine. Or fodder to throw at all its unholy enemies.

What it did well was separate those with true grit, capability, and a warrior's heart from the rest of the chaff, and focus its resources on those it dubbed worthy, the same as it did with those intelligent few.

He would never say this out loud. He enjoyed escaping suspicion of dark influence. He wouldn't ruin that by voicing his opinions. He saw speaking as a waste of breath anyway.

But Kenson's fury made it seem his finals wouldn't be as easy as he had thought they'd be. He truly prayed that was true.

As Simo left to talk to and plan with the Eyes of Providence, Kenson led Angar to a cavernous chamber beneath Saint Krakus where rune-etched walls pulsed with strange light, and heavy incense thickened the air.

Five stations stood, each a trial for his finals. One for Catechism and Dogma, Foundational Skills, Imperial History and Structure, Heretical Identification Techniques, and Combat Dogma with Tactics and Leadership.

Cold-faced elderly sisters in black robes flanked each station as small drones whirring overhead. They were trying to look intimidating. He wasn't sure what the drones were for.

The first trial tested Catechism and Dogma. A sister forced him into a steel chair. Restraints snapped shut around his waist, wrists, and ankles with a clank.

"Recite the Seven Edicts," she sternly ordered as bright runes flared, and lights of blinding reds and golds seared his eyes.

Other students' finals would be taken by scanning barcodes. Kenson knew how much combat he'd seen, all the blood he'd spilt. She couldn't believe chains and lights would rattle him. He couldn't understand what she was thinking. This was just silly.

"The Empire is sanctioned by God…," he recited it all perfectly as the sister paced back and forth slapping a tawse on her palm, staring at him, her face grimacing, trying her best to look extra stern.

"Recite the 'Litany of the Soon Martyred,'" she demanded, her eyes daring him to falter.

"'O Holy Three,"' said Angar, "'we faithful stand on cursed soil, surrounded by enemies. Grant us the fire to burn them, and the fury to crush them, as we fall. Our flesh is but dust, our lives a fleeting spark, our blood offered upon Thy alter. The screams of the unholy shall rise in terror as we loose our unending hate upon them, reaping death until we are martyred to the last.'

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"The refrain is, 'I swear before You, O Lord, to not cower, to not flinch from duty, for this day, I shall stand before Heaven's gate. Amen.'"

The test continued, and he answered every question on the Holy Trinity, dogma, gospel, sins, litany, hymn, prayer, and everything else without error.

As the restraints were released, he tried thinking of a way to remind these sisters that their tests meant nothing, as he was already a Crusader.

He couldn't think of anything that wouldn't anger Kenson more, and his size was plenty enough evidence of the estate he belonged to.

Next up was Foundational Skills. He figured this had to be a System exam, but a desk restrained him, a sister handed him a slate to take the test on, and said she'd use a tawse on his knuckles if he dawdled or struggled with an answer.

If he weren't level 33 with a high Body Attribute and Toughness Stat, the resilience of his monstrous hands ensured he'd hardly feel the tawse, even if he held them out and asked the sister to do her worst. He was starting to feel embarrassed for Kenson.

Foundational skills were reading, writing, and arithmetic. He blew through the test, the tawse unused.

The third station, Imperial History and Structure, was a verbal exam given by a sister after he was restrained in a new chair, different lights searing his eyes for some reason.

"Detail the Holy Joining," the sister commanded as drones projected images of Nexus' machines battling Mammon.

Angar answered, moving on to important battles, the times the Holy Empire teetered close to oblivion, reviewing Hellspawn and Demon Lords, Hellworlds and why they weren't destroyed, the Ilarix Accords, the Genesis Apostasy, various factions and groups within the known galaxy, important Seraph, Saints, Hierarchs, and Paragons, and what seemed like a million other questions.

The Heretical Identification Techniques trial began with a cold-eyed sister standing menacingly over him, her black robes swallowing his vision.

She leaned forward, barking out, "Define Maleficia!"

Angar met her gaze, unflinching. "Acts of witchcraft or sorcery, often bound to pacts with powerful creatures of Hell."

She didn't pause as her eyes narrowed to slits. "Demoniacs!"

"Those possessed by Underworld entities, usually demons for high-ranking souls," he said. "Their bodies twist into fiendish and warped forms when fully given over to the entity, though some rare instances prove this isn't always true."

"Example!" she snapped, her tawse slapping her palm with a sharp crack.

"The Episcopus of Zanaya and her entourage."

The sister's lips twitched, a grudging hrmph escaping her throat. She paced a step before asking, "Diabolics?"

Angar shifted in the steel chair, causing the restraints to creak. "Those who serve Underworld beings willingly, usually through a dark pact, retaining full agency, trading loyalty for fell power. Their changes often manifest visibly but can be masked by various means."

"Name one!" she barked, holding her tawse threateningly.

"Horridus the Mortifer." That was an extreme example, as he was a Seraph when he fell, becoming a Nofelim, the most powerful type of Fallen. Usually, only Seraphs held pacts with Demon Lords.

She leaned closer again. "Abominations?"

"Heretics twisted and deformed by the fell powers of Hell," Angar replied, "regardless of how or why, pact and pactless, twisted by dark whispers or any other means."

The sister straightened, her tawse still gripped tight. "Proceed to the next test," she muttered.

The second part of this test took place in a chamber projecting images of various people and aliens he had to inspect to determine which were Heretics.

A man carried a pile of books, the bindings facing out, one being the Unholy Bible. A woman had an obvious Hellsign on her neck. A Reptiloid flinched from the Trey as if the sight of it burned him, while others knelt before it in awed reverence, and so forth.

Everything was so on-the-nose that he was certain it had to be a trick. He scoured the images for clues, trying to piece together a puzzle that wasn't there.

There were no tricks. It was just the easiest test ever conceived, at least for adults. He hoped the barcode test for this subject was harder, and the sister who put this projection together was just lazy or pressed for time.

The final trial, Combat Dogma with Tactics and Leadership, was also usually a System exam given by barcode. This one wasn't. It unleashed chaos, and he loved it.

He had heard of these but had never seen one. A holo-arena. Other students could use these if they did well in classes, but since he only entered the Scholarium building for hypno-indoctrination pods under escort while the building was empty, he never got to use one.

Kenson had gone completely mad if she thought this was a punishment.

Two scenarios awaited completion, and he excitedly got to it.

For the first event, Angar could pick from among an assortment of pistols, blasters, and lancers. He picked Simo's preferred weapon - the Pyreclaw plasma auto-blaster.

The arena snapped into a crimson maze of volcanic rock walls. A roar split the gloom as scuttlers spawned, clawed monsters with eyes like molten slag.

Angar charged, his boots pounding the rock as he ran, the Pyreclaw's plasma rounds bursting blue-white, shredding the first wave into sizzling heaps, and the thrill of this event thundered in his veins.

A three-armed scuttler lunged with fangs chomping. He dodged and its claw raked stone, then fired, sending it guts splashing against the walls.

Up a ramp, he snatched a lancer, sniping a scuttler atop a lava spout. Its skull popped in a spray of gore. Drones tallied his kills as he racked them up, plasma scorching his hands, the maze a blur of death.

After killing everything else, a giant scuttler appeared with a bellow shaking the maze. Grinning, Angar unloaded for long moments as he dove around avoiding its acidic spit.

He nearly cried out in pain as its ichor burned into his leg, but the fight still ended with its chest erupting in an explosion of viscera.

The arena dimmed, and the drones following him chimed, "Level cleared."

He spat out ash, wishing real Hellspawn could be killed with one or two shots as he was sent to the second level, making it to the nineteenth before dying, hoping he did well.

Then the second scenario began with a scry-capture. Outside a Cloisteranage, a minor gateway tore open. Hellspawn poured out, hulking, scaled fiends with massive claws dragging by their sides as they slaughtered all the staff.

A thousand students, their faces grim but fierce, raided the armory, grabbing auto-blasters and lancers, ending the scry-capture.

"Form ranks. Blasters rear kneeling, lancers front and prone!" Angar roared.

He had seen how Dragon Company F fought an invasion, so knew the real strategy and tactics employed by actual Crusaders with Abilities, but students were pre-ascendants and had none. He stuck to the combat dogma taught by the clergy.

The first wave hit with hundreds of fiends lumbering forth. Auto-blasters thundered, lancers cracked, the discharge of both punching holes in Hellspawn.

Most fiends fell after four or five hits from an auto-blaster, or one hit from a lancer, their blood pooling black beneath their corpses.

"Hold the line!" Angar bellowed, yelling one of three choices he was allowed to every minute or so, each giving the students a different buff.

In total, three invasions surged, one right after the other, each releasing thousands of fiends. The students sometimes faltered, their screams rising as claws tore into their flesh.

Once the initial tactics were set, Angar yelled one of the three buffing-commands he could every minute or so, and redirected student placement, having gaps filled and such.

After the third invasion was slaughtered, the Gatekeeper exited. This fiend loomed ten meters tall, with horns curling, its maw aflame.

"Focus fire!" Angar ordered, a new choice he could yell out, appearing along with the Gatekeeper.

Lancers blinded its eyes, auto-blasters hammered its chest. It sent out waves of flame, burning dozens and dozens of students.

He redirected student placement and yelled his new line until the Gatekeeper crashed down dead, the gateway winking shut.

Silence fell, then the surviving students erupted in cheers as the drones chimed out, "Victory. Gate sealed."

The fun ebbed as reality crept in, and Kenson's glare pierced the fading arena.

"You've passed. By the Three's grace, I hope you've learned your lesson!" she snapped out.

He met her stare and nodded respectfully.

But he had learned nothing. Well, he learned the holo-arena was a lot of fun, but nothing beside that.

"No leaving campus!" ordered Kenson. He nodded again. Then the elderly sister smiled and winked at him, leaving him even more confused. He had no idea what that was about.

He had only to wait until Thursday, when most of February's graduates would depart Saint Krakus.

The Grim Ordeals of Sanctified Knighthood awaited, and unlike the finals, they'd be a true test of his mettle.