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

Angar stumbled from the pod as its rusted door screeched open, his body trembling from whatever fading alchemical concoction still coursed through his veins.

His knees almost buckled, but the cold metal haft of his hammer grounding him against the vertigo clawing at his skull.

Silent sisters in grey habits moved to help him, but he needed none and waved them off.

Around the chamber, other pods groaned open. Sisters grabbed onto and helped aspirants emerge with faces pale as death and slick with sweat, but their eyes gleamed with hard-won triumph.

Most were dragged out, some sobbing raggedly, others with vacant stares, still lost in nightmares.

It didn't matter how they emerged, as all these aspirants emerged victorious.

Of the some ninety who entered, only fourteen had endured the full two weeks.

Unexpectedly, a System message flared before his eyes.

Theosis, the Divine System, the coming and the arrival, speaks.

In the Psygistrion's crucible, aspirants are tested harshly, their minds tempered, their spirits fortified by the Three's grace. Yet you stand at the first Tier's zenith, your soul carved by deeper wounds, the agonies of trials past, dulling the Psygistrion's bite.

Where others shattered, you slept, enduring unbowed, your Stats and Attributes unstrengthened by this ordeal.

To honor fairness, I bestow upon you the average gains of those hardened in the Psygistrion's embrace: +1 Mind, +4 Resilience.

For God and Empire!

The words faded, but reading them helped clear his mind. He truly appreciated that he was granted the gains others generally attained from this ordeal. He silently performed the trey, sending praise and thanks up to Holy Theosis.

Survivors were treated by the attending sisters, given water, time to purge toxins, and space to recover.

Later, Venerable Sister Tzedaka entered the chamber, calling the remaining aspirants to gather around her.

Her voice rang out clearly, and her stern visage softening with rare approval. "You've proved your mettle and endured. Your minds are fortified, your faith further sealed against corruption. Well done. Rest now, for at dawn, the Penitent's Sacrarium awaits."

A silent sister ushered Angar to a rest chamber, locking him within.

His cell had a narrow bed, a small table groaning under a nice spread of food and a jug of water, and a tiled corner bearing a toilet and a showerhead jutting from the wall.

Sleep held no appeal as he'd rested soundly in the Psygistrion.

His stomach roiled from the lingering poison, so he stripped, showered under warm water, relieved himself, then devoured the meal ravenously.

Sated, he knelt, cycling his energy through his channels in a strange, personal prayer of half meditation, half supplication, dreaming of slaughter and glory.

The Penitent's Sacrarium of Sanctified Transfiguration: Its secrets are known only to a select few clergy, its aspirants unremembering of their terrible ordeal, its effects on the survivors profound, granting heightened senses, a minor regeneration effect, enhanced spatial awareness, metabolism, speed, intuition, and reflexes as if blessed by the Messiah herself.

At dawn, Angar joined the thirteen remaining aspirants in a steamy and shadowed hall, sweat dripping off them from the heat.

Two towering machines dominated the space, hulking monstrosities of blackened steel and rune-etched bronze, like monstrous and tortured engines.

Their surfaces were pocked with rivets and studded with jagged exhaust vents belching plumes of bitter steam.

Coils of thick cabling snaked from their bases, throbbing with a sickly green glow, like a heartbeat, while massive pistons jutted from their flanks, hissing rhythmically.

At their cores, circular hatches gaped like maws, rimmed with serrated teeth of metal, and from within came loud buzzing, shaking the ground, vibrating through Angar's bones.

Plates etched with spiraling prayers and crowned with jagged spines gave these machines an air of profane reliquaries, like they were built to break and bless in equal measure.

One by one, aspirants entered one of the machines, each sealed within for long hours.

Screams erupted soon after the hatches slammed shut, raw howls of torment and horror, unrelenting until the doors hissed open again.

None emerged. Angar assumed they were taking out a back door, and sent to recover, as this ordeal was stated to rarely claim a life, but the benefits it bestowed were absolutely necessary to even have a chance of surviving the Baptistry of Igneous Purgation.

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The next aspirant would step forward. Pale and trembling, they'd vanish into the same unknown fate.

Aspirants entered by alphabetical order. As his last name was now Mecia, three aspirants still stood ahead of him.

Kenson had wanted Angar to choose a patronymic surname, as it was his custom to share his lineage, but that wouldn't work.

In the old city-state of Mecia, names carried significance.

In his name, the 'an' signified 'true,' and 'gar' meant 'son of chief,' marking him as 'true son of a chief.'

His father, King Baraga, had six other sons, all born in wedlock, named Ungar, meaning first son of chief; Torgar, second son; Tahgar, third son; Fahgar, fourth son; Firgar, fifth son; and Sargar, sixth son.

Daughters followed a similar naming convention, ending in 'gaw' instead of 'gar,' while a chief's wife appended 'gan' to her name. Had his mother married Baraga, she would've been Lakagan.

Baraga, before his coronation, was simply Bara. After, the 'ga' was added, meaning 'chief.'

As the chief of Mecia also governed all lands of the city-state, the title of king, borrowed from another language, reflected his supreme authority.

Across Mecia and Tormina, every chief of a town or village, their wife, and their children added 'ga," 'gan,' 'gar,' or 'gaw' into their names, making names like Ungar and Ungaw very common.

If he had chosen Angar Baragason as a name, it would've meant 'true son of a chief, son of Bara, who is chief.'

He couldn't accept that redundancy. So, he took Mecia as his last name.

Clad only in a thin robe, his cybernetic arm, hammer, and possessions locked away in his cell, he steeled himself as the line dwindled.

When his turn came, he walked forward, crossing the threshold. The outer hatch clanged shut behind him, sealing him in a narrow antechamber. Before him stood a second door with a surface slick with moisture.

Steam blasted down, scalding his skin, filling his lungs with steam tainted with a strange and metallic tang. Then darkness swallowed him whole.

He awoke sprawled on the bed in his locked cell, his left arm now regrown. He moved it around as he looked at it.

All his prior injuries and bruises were healed, his teeth all back and whole, but pain seared through him, and his body racked with a symphony of both agony and alien sensations.

His nerves sang with a raw and electric intensity, every muscle fiber twitching as if newly forged. His skin prickled for no reason, as if now hypersensitive, catching the faintest touch of air against it, while his ears throbbed with the shower's drip of water magnified to a hammer's clang.

His heartbeat thundered too strong, like a drum driving a metabolism now ravenous and wild.

As he scanned around, the room seemed to shift somehow. Angles were sharper, space clearer, his mind mapping every centimeter instinctively.

His reflexes were snapped taut like a coiled spring begging for release. His intuition flared stronger, what Spirit had said was a sixth sense, a sense of danger, whispering of unseen threats.

It was as if he had been rewired, threading power through meat and bone, the only cost a deep, gnawing ache of a body straining to contain its own transformation.

No message from Theosis greeted him.

He summoned his Annals. As the screens flickered to life, his lips curved in a grim smile he couldn't prevent.

The coveted Adroitness had risen by 1, his Body Attribute and Cognizance Stat by 3 each.

The average gains from the Penitent's Sacrarium were only 2 for Body and Cognizance, 1 for Adroitness. He had exceeded the average.

Groaning, he rose, stretching limbs that felt both foreign and more his own. Somehow.

His regrown arm flexed. The sinew and skin were unmarred, but his monstrous left forearm and hand were back, exactly the same as before the arm had been lost. He'd hoped it'd be normal again, but it was as it was.

He paced the chamber, testing his new limits, marveling at the clarity of his senses, checking his new height.

On the table lay a note scrawled in stark ink. 'You will be retrieved for the Baptistry of Igneous Purgation. Many perish in this ordeal. Pray and make peace. Prepare your soul.'

Baptistry of Igneous Purgation: This trial is often fatal. A baptism by Holy fire in burning liquid where the unworthy perish in anguish. Leaving this bath before the process is finished results in agonizing death. Oftentimes, remaining in the bath results in agonizing death. Those who endure gain protection against the ravages of extreme conditions, their bodies purged of impurities, their skin sanctified against toxin and many forms of damage and harm.

There was no waiting in line for the next ordeal. He was both nervous and excited. If anything in the known galaxy could heal his monstrous hands, this trial was it.

A young sister unlocked Angar's cell with the buzz of a keycard. She thrust a thin, small, rough-spun robe into his hands and softly requested, "Put it on, if you would, Sir Angar."

The door slammed shut as he complied, the fabric of the robe chafing against his newly sensitive skin.

Moments later, she returned. With her face still a mask of solemnity and her gray habit whisking against the stone, she led him through shadowed corridors to the next ordeal.

No machine awaited, nor coffin-like pod.

Instead, they entered a chamber dominated by a sunken pool.

It had a roiling surface like a cauldron of molten light and heat. The liquid churned with a strange luminescence. Shades of amber and crimson swirled together like blood and fire had been distilled into a viscous brew, promising purification or death.

Bubbles erupted in slow and violent bursts, releasing tendrils of an oily and iridescent steam.

The pool's glow throbbed like a living furnace, casting strange shadows across the walls. It reeked of sulfur and sanctified oil, a stench that forced its way down his throat, reminding him a little of home.

Three sisters stood within the chamber wearing white medical aprons streaked with crud and dried brown stains draped over habits.

One approached him. Her eyes were cold beneath the cowl, and she handed him a cord without even looking at his face.

The rope dangled from a rusted pulley system bolted to the ceiling, running along a pitted iron track scarred by heat and time overhead, creaking as it swayed.

The rope was thick and coarse, woven with strands of blackened metal that glistened faintly in the pool's glow. The end was horribly frayed and stained with the sweat and desperation of those who'd gripped it before.

"Submerge yourself fully," the sister stated with a voice devoid of emotion, still yet to look up at Angar's face. "The liquid can be breathed as air, and it must be for the process to complete."

Angar nodded, recalling the Vitaelux Apexium and its breathable green sludge.

"No matter the pain," she continued, "do not emerge early. We will pull you out when it's time."

She bade him shed the robe, and it fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.

A flush of shame burned his cheeks as he stood naked, his enhanced senses amplifying the sensation of these sisters clad in sanctity witnessing his bare flesh. He stood there, his face heating, as the rope was tied under his arms and secured.

He approached the pool's edge, where shallow steps descended into the radiant depths, each one slick with condensation and latent heat.

Of all the Grim Ordeals, only this one worried him. The Knights of the Eyes he'd pressed for details said it was a baptism of unspeakable pain and torture, a crucible that claimed lives with merciless caprice.

Some died by the liquid's wrath, burned to death within its embrace. Others faltered, fleeing the pain only to perish in shrieking agony outside the pool, the purgation unfinished.

He wasn't worried about the pain. He was sure the Harmongulan's venom had given him far worse.

But if the liquid itself deemed him unworthy, no strength could defy it. It couldn't be resisted or fought against.

Death would come, inglorious and absolute.