Author notes before story: this is based on the dragon challenge by Orion78, and while I have made changes it is essentially a Warhammer fic with wakfu elements and takes place in a tts like Warhammer au. Thus the Emperor has a text to speech device and has redeemed Magnus. But he brought back the loyalist Primarchs (Lion and Roboute are healed and awakened, those lost in the warp are recovered and Vulkan finally reveals himself, more like canon version and in complete control of his orkiness) and redeemed some of the thousand sons. Karamazov and his radical fraction died in the warp, the imperial creed is refitted to be the imperial truth 2.0, and the fabstodes don't exist. I meant there fighting daemon hordes without armor or weapons, no amount of physical power is gonna let you survive, and there clearly not using their minds.

Now the indominus crusade is fighting the 13th black crusade and retaking the dark imperium, and the emperor has sent a inquisitor on a quest. But first, legend time.

Prologue – the legend of the eliatropes

Inquisitorial observation: this document was recovered from the black library and describes a human like xenos. These eliatropes are to be the first xenos allowed into the Imperium, with the Tau and the Eldar are xenos Independens, essentially allies. The dark eldar are still xenos horrificus, and Vulkan is currently leading a faction of the indominus crusade to wipe out Commorragh.

Thought for the day: All souls cry out for salvation.

Once, long before the war of heaven, before even Sol itself was made from the cosmic dance, there were many races. Indeed, long before the eldar were created there were many empires that existed alongside the old ones. One such race was the Eliatropes, a race very similar to humanity, who possessed a relationship with a race of Dragons. The Eliatropes were protected by the five dragon lords, the first of the Eliatropes who had gained godlike power and immortality by merging with there dragons. For thousands of years the Eliatropes used their power over the strange energy known as Wakfu to create great wonders that spanned their empire. Using wakfu portals they colonized many planets, while the dragons used their mastery over Stasis energy to protect the Eliatrope citizens from the strange beings that were hostile to all life. But all good things must come to an end, and they came into conflict with the Old Ones.

The Old Ones, the first sentient beings in the galaxy and possibly the universe, never entered a war unless there was a threat to them and the galaxy. In the Eliatropes they saw such a threat, for they could see all futures. In all futures where the Eliatrope empire was unbroken a great threat arose, as a new dragon lord arose. Using the mastery of both Stasis and Wakfu, it would take over the empire and wage war against all life in the galaxy. The Old Ones could not allow this, and thus struck first. The war was fast, for despite the might of the Eliatropes and the stasis dragons the Old Ones were much more powerful and had destroyed much more powerful empires, ones who had already become threats. The council of six that lead the empire knew that they would lose the war and began preparations to ensure their race survived. The Dragon Lords created a separate dimension outside of time and space, a timeless place like a stasis field where 23 million children of the Eliatrope people were sent, half of these children male and the other half female. With them were sent 13,000 great experts in the five great fields of knowledge that the Eliatropes possessed, scholars, historians, teachers, soldiers and builders. The key to this dimension was then split in five pieces, and each of the dragon lords absorbed their piece. Only a being with mastery of both Wakfu and Stasis could retrieve the key from within them, and they led the final charge of the Eliatrope empire.

In the aftermath of the final battle, the Old Ones broke the Stasis Dragons, enslaving them and the Dragons would serve loyally until they were wiped out during the War in Heaven. They interrogated the Dragon Lords, demanding they hand over the broken key. The Dragon Lords stayed loyal to their people, and in frustration the Old Ones sealed them away forever.

Or at least it was supposed to be forever.

When the War in Heaven ended, the biggest threat to all of reality was born, the Chaos Gods. These unnatural beings, formed from every emotion and made corrupt by the fear and hatred born of this eternal war, they are timeless and unkillable. Indeed, now that the Emperor is stuck upon the Golden Throne and his Webway project broken by the folly of the Cyclops, there is no way to destroy them. There are many minor gods whose influence has not blighted the galaxy but whose names are still whispered, carving petty kingdoms in the formless wastes, playing the great game that all of chaos plays. But the four great chaos gods, those who have made the galaxy the grim and dark place it is, were instrumental in freeing four of the Dragon Lords.

Each of the four chaos gods was born when a great race destroyed themselves, but once they were born they have paradoxically have always been. But in each case, one of the first actions after consuming the soul's race that birthed them, breaking and damning those few who survived the initial cataclysm, was to free and corrupt one of the Dragon Lords.

The first of the great four chaos gods to be carved from the Warp was Tzeentch, and the people who made him were the beings known as the Xelors. Strange beings resembling mummies that could manipulate time and space, they lived upon the planet of Kalaya. They were determined to truly create time travel, to master all of time and space, and so they built the Xelor's clock. Their power source was a near endless fount of Wakfu, for there home world was the ancient prison of Drew, the Dragon Lord of fire. His prison was the core of a world eternally on fire, never meant to dim. But the best plans of men and gods go astray, and the planet was extinguished by the Eldar, then abandoned for some reason. But when the clock was made it failed (someone forgot to carry the one) and from the Xelor's hope to change the past and future was born Tzeentch. Drew was freed by the Changer of Ways, and became one of his first champions, dedicated to hunt down the remaining Xelor's who fled in their clock ships.

The second god to arise from the warp was Nurgle, and the people who birthed him were the Saidida. These people worshiped plant life in all its forms, possessing a symbiotic relationship with the plants. The center of there kingdom was a mighty tree whose best comparison to a human concept is that of the world tree of Nordic myths. But eventually a disease struck the Saidida, and it rotted the world tree destroying the mighty kingdom. From the diseased and despairing souls was Nurgle born, possessing the love for all things that had defined the Saidida. His first action after gifting his love to those few Saidida who survived, wiping them out as every disease the galaxy would ever know infected them all at once, was to journey to a nearby mountain. This mountain was full of life and was untouched by the plagues, for it was the prison of Brutalis, the Dragon Lord of Earth. Despite his name, he was the kindest of the Dragon Lords, and only used his powers to promote life. The Old Ones imprisoned him in a mountain upon a world where not even a single microbe existed, unable to aid life in any way. But life always finds a way, and his Wakfu eventually gave birth to plants and then the Saidida. The plague had not been his doing, but that of the C'tan. During the War in Heaven they created many lifeforms to fight against the Old Ones and their creations, such as the horrible Slaugh. But they also realized the power of sickness and created many Viruses to sicken all of life. The virus that had ravaged the Saidida was one such virus, and Brutalis was driven to grief at the fact that he had failed to save his people not once but twice. So when Nurgle tainted him and freed him he didn't even try to resist. He quickly was set to work experimenting in Nurgle's garden to find out how the very planets themselves could be made to accept Nurgle's love.

The third of the great chaos gods was Khorne, and the race that birthed him was known as the Iops. A true warrior race, all Iops loved a good scrap. To fight the various creatures upon there homeworld, they created the first Daemon weapons which they called Shushu's. Eventually their home was invaded by a force of Krork. The Krork were even then devolving into the Orks that eternally plague the galaxy, and they were determined to go out in a blaze of glory. This war slaughtered all life upon the nameless world, and from this horror wad Khorne created. His first actions after killing the few Iops who dared live was to head for the ocean that now ran red with blood. In the deepest trench of this world was located the prison of Luna, the Dragon Lord of Water. She was chained here by the waves and surrounded by a typhoon of enormous power. She had tasted the blood of life, and now desired more. It was not long before she swore herself to the blood god.

Unlike the other three, the birth of the chaos goddess Slannesh is well known. One must only look to the Eldar Empire, of there decadence and evil. One must only see Commorragh to know the birth of She-Who-Thirsts was inevitable. But the corruption of her Dragon Lord is less well known. In the first moment of the eye of terror, when Slannesh ruled all the daemon worlds, Slannesh sensed an immense power upon a newly made daemon world. Still hungry after having devouring all but three of the Eldar gods and nine-tenths of the eldar, she reached out and pulled it from a former gas giant. Inside an eternal storm was Skyris, the Dragon Lord of Air. Before she could consume the poor eliatrope however, Slannesh realized that her older brothers all had a Dragon Lord in their service, and if she didn't have one she would gain a disadvantage in the great game. So instead she showed Skyris her true form. Slannesh was more monstrous than her brothers in her form, and the very soul of the Dragon Lord broke, only to be remade in service of Slannesh.

Only Helos is still imprisoned and uncorrupted, and for that the galaxy can be grateful. Helos is the Dragon Lord of the Aether, the most powerful of their number and the one most dedicated to goodness. Helos was chained in the heart of a star that was afflicted with one of the C'tan, and her bounds were weakened enough so her mind could wander the galaxy. She has seen the state of the galaxy, and while she cannot communicate it is believed that once freed she would not fall to Chaos, but instead become dedicated to carving a save haven for the Eliatropes within the galaxy, as well as put down her corrupted family the Dragon Lords. But the way to free Helos was lost long ago, so we may never know.