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

The Sacrament of Purification and Sanctification

The Psygistrion: The first test, usually nonfatal, but dooms the fate of many. A trial of the mind, where aspirants are subjected to a two-week ordeal of drug-fueled neurological and psychological torment, its goal to break the will and spirit, whispers of abyssal temptations testing their conviction. Those who withstand are blessed with enhanced mental fortitude and will, their faith sealed against corruption.

The Sanctuary of Sacred Aspiration stood ready under Zanaya's blooming light. Its ancient stone walls were etched with the sigils of the Holy Trinity and painted glass scenes, each a mute witness to the legions of souls who had entered its hallowed depths, only to be forged anew or broken by the Grim Ordeals within.

Angar stood among the ninety or so aspirants, their faces a grim mosaic of steel-eyed resolve, trembling fear, and fragile hope.

The chamber thrummed with a palpable tension, a weight that pressed against the aspirants almost from the building itself, as if the very stones exhaled the anguish of those who had come before.

The Sanctuary remained sealed tight, its corridors purged of the unholy by the stern vigilance of the Eyes of Providence.

Now, under lockdown, it was time for the first ordeal. Venerable Sister Tzedaka ascended the dais in the shadowed hall as her frayed habit swayed like a shroud.

As a scythe, her voice sliced through the murmurs, ending them. "God and Empire, aspirants. I regret your families cannot stand with you today. I will not speak of the Eyes' presence. Never in my long years has my faith been questioned, nor my loyalty…"

She faltered, then cleared her throat with a rasp. "Enough of that. You stout few made it this far. Let's see if you have the stuff needed to walk the Glorious Path. You now stand at the threshold of the Grim Ordeals.

"The Psygistrion awaits, a trial of mind and spirit. For two weeks, you will endure torments crafted to shatter your will, your faith, and your resolve. May the Three watch over you, but it is your own strength that must prevail. Many will falter. Only the worthy will last."

Angar's cybernetic arm whirred softly as he discreetly traced the sign of the trey on his forehead and shoulders, the new Vitalulum harness warm against his skin.

He'd faced Hellspawn, the towering Phasorax, and the soul-crushing venom of a Harmongulan.

Even so, the nervous energy radiating from the aspirants was affecting him. He'd slept poorly, his nerves frayed. He was tired, and the promise of two sleepless weeks weighed on him.

Two weeks of not sleeping, but also not having consciousness and awareness, locked in a true nightmare, one that broke most attempting to endure it.

His body ached. Bruises throbbed beneath his flesh, stitches itched under healing patches, wounds leaked blood under cracked scabs, broken teeth grated with every clenched jaw, a broken nose prevented normal breathing, and nerves kept him on edge.

He forced the unease down, burying it beneath the weight of his victories.

The aspirants were herded into a vast chamber, the ceiling lost to an abyss of shadow. Rows upon rows of ancient metal pods lined the walls and floor, their rusted surfaces drinking in the flickering torchlight like blackened coal.

Some ninety souls, some hundreds and hundreds of coffins.

"Enter a pod," Sister Tzedaka commanded in an unforgiving tone. "Once in, prepare yourselves, get comfortable, and take the cord within. Pull it to begin the process. Time will stretch. Two weeks will feel like an eternity.

"If you succumb, you'll be removed. If it becomes too much for you, yank the cord twice or press the button on it. It will end your suffering, and your aspirations."

Angar strode to a distant pod. The door hissed open with a plume of stale air, showing an interior of padded walls etched with runes pulsing a sickly green.

He stepped inside, set his hammer down, and turned to settle against the cold embrace of the pod. His fingers closed around a dangling cord, finding the smooth button, placing it under his thumb.

He pulled the cord. The door groaned shut, sealing him in darkness and silence as other gears snarled to life, fastening his head and neck in place.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Panels snapped open along the pod's walls, and a segmented apparatus descended with mechanical precision.

A trio of metal plates slid forth, one from the front, one from the left, another from the right, each piece bristling with many glinting needles with tips weeping faint beads of viscous fluid.

They converged over his head, clicking together with a hollow clang to form a helmet that encased his skull.

The needles plunged into his face and scalp, sinking deep into flesh and bone with a chorus of squelching punctures. Pain flared as new spines anchored his body in place.

Two jagged eyeholes sat in front of his eyes. From their edges, thin pincers snapped out like insect mandibles, seizing his lids and wrenching them wide, locking his eyes open and unblinking.

A flood of sick warmth surged through his veins as the injected drugs igniting his blood.

His vision swam as the darkness of the coffin pulsed like a living heartbeat, and shadows coiled and writhed at the edges of his sight.

His stomach lurched with a wave of nausea clawing up his throat. Hallucinogens, neurotoxins, and infernal-spawned elixirs flooding his system. Then the torment began in earnest as these drugs took hold.

His pulse pounded, each beat erratic and wild, like a sledgehammer against his ribs. Cold and clammy sweat poured from his skin as feverish heat clashed with icy dread.

His muscles twitched uncontrollably. His limbs jerked against the restraints. He heaved, and bile filled his mouth, burned his tongue. He swallowed, but a metallic and foul taste lingered.

Dark whispers slithered into his mind. Ancient, sibilant voices teetering on the edge of comprehension, screeching a maddening chorus, feeling around, seeking purchase.

The profane claws burrowed deep, raking into his sanity, promising power, corruption, and ecstasy.

Unholy images and visions erupted before his pinned eyes, a writhing tableau of hellish temptation, all the images real in his drug-addled mind.

Lithe, shadowy figures danced in the gloom, both girls and women, indistinct and impossibly alluring, their flesh glistening with an oily sheen, their eyes glowing like insatiable embers.

They beckoned with crooked fingers. With voices dripping honeyed venom, they purred, "Take us," their forms splitting open to reveal fanged maws and coiling tendrils, "and we'll give you dominion over all."

Scenes flashed of himself enthroned in a cathedral of bone, drenched in blood, wielding a whip of living shadow, women chained at his feet, their screams his symphony.

The whispers grew louder, more seductive and viler, promising to sate every buried urge, to twist his faith into a crown of thorns and lust.

"You're so young," the beauties hissed, "so hungry. Yield to us, and taste what the Three deny you."

A woman loomed close with a face morphing into a grotesque parody of beauty, the lips parting to offer a kiss that reeked of brimstone and rot, her tongue a wriggling serpent.

The air thrummed with electric energy, filled with twisted scents, the stench of decay and desire, a suffocating miasma of unholy corruption.

As Angar resisted temptation after temptation, his body twisted more and more in agony, inflicted with torment, his limbs snapping, his flesh burning, and other soul-searing torture, a lash against his will, telling him he must either succumb or break.

But he had faced worse. Far worse.

He'd stood before a gateway to the abyss as screams of ancient evils drowned his mind.

He'd endured the Harmongulan's venom, centuries of dilated torment breaking him only to break him anew, endlessly.

These whispers, these tortures, were just shadows, pale imitations of the horrors he'd already conquered.

As the trial unfolded, he felt more and more detached, as if peering through a cracked viewport at a fading storm.

Two weeks of this stood ahead of him.

He settled in his coffin the best he could.

In a room of flickering lights and rune-etched mechanical banks, the Psygistrion control center, two clergymen of the Ordo Aeterna Veritas stood hunched over a pulsing control board.

The Adepti Rituums, also known as Adepts of Circuits, Brother Sampatti and Brother Reichtum wore the heavy robes of their station, gaunt faces showing beneath cowls stitched with silver threads of sanctity.

Sweat beaded on their brows, not from the chamber's stifling heat, but from the weight of scrutiny bearing down on them.

A Knight loomed in the corner in faintly humming power armor. Two soldiers of the Eyes of Providence flanked the door, their blasters held at the ready, and their visors glinting with cold suspicion.

Brother Sampatti, or Patti, as he preferred, shifted uneasily, his fingers moving over the diodes of a control panel. "Can you believe Brother Sul was a Heretic?" he muttered in a low voice, nearly a whisper. "I had no idea. He seemed so normal."

"He wasn't," Reichtum replied bitterly. "He was one of the dupes. A Deceived, they called them. You remember that sister who kept sauntering past the scryers? Always slipping into the control section, playing dumb like she didn't know it was forbidden?"

Patti's eyes narrowed. "Yeah. Sister Gwini, right?"

"Huang-guan," Reichtum corrected, "but that's what she went by. She was a real Heretic. A Servant, or at least that's what I heard. I bet she's the one who got Brother Sul to smuggle that Infernal Artifact in here. He wasn't the sharpest blade in the armory, and I'd catch him staring at her through the scryers like a slack-jawed teenager."

"By the Three," Patti breathed, shaking his head. "What a fool. I can't believe he'd…oh my. Blessed Mother! Do you see this?"

"What?" Reichtum leaned closer, his augmented eye whirring as it focused on the board.

"Look!" Patti jabbed a finger at a glowing rune-display. "The aspirant in that pod! He's sleeping!"

"Impossible," Reichtum scoffed, shoving Patti aside to check the readings himself. His face slackened in amazement. "Holy Theosis! You're right! Which one is that?"

Patti tapped a sequence into the slate, pulling up a grainy scry-feed of the pod's occupant. "It's the one who's already a Crusader. The one with the Hellsign. Sir Angar."

Reichtum's voice cracked with disbelief as he asked, "Crusader or not, how in the Three's name is he sleeping?"

The Knight shifted as his helm tilted slightly toward them, but he said nothing. The Eyes soldiers exchanged a glance but stayed at the door.

In the silence that followed, the control room's hum seemed to deepen, as if the machinery itself pondered the impossibility.