Great Forest of Caliban II

Lion El'Jonson stood within a boundless forest.

Moments earlier, he had been meditating in the austere chamber of the Rock fortress, filled with the scent of metal and engine oil.

He had been trying to sort through his tangled thoughts and further acclimate himself to this body that had awakened after ten thousand years of slumber.

Yet, at the very moment his mind was most relaxed and his consciousness sank deep into introspection, the reality around him seemed to be violently twisted and torn apart by an invisible giant hand.

There had been no warning, no transition.

In the next instant, the cold, hard deck beneath his feet had been replaced by soft, damp humus.

The low hum of the air circulation system was drowned out by the rustling of wind through the leaves and the faint calls of birds in the distance.

He recognized the place at once.

That deep, inexhaustible green.

That familiar yet distant scent in the air, a mixture of damp soil, rotting branches and leaves, and some distinctive vegetation.

Those gnarled roots of ancient towering trees that would take several men to encircle.

Everything was identical to the Great Forest of Caliban lodged in the deepest recesses of his memory.

He had grown up in this forest, received knightly training here, and learned the arts of hunting and tracking.

This was his homeland, long reduced to the dust of history alongside his destroyed homeworld.

But reason told him that this could not be real.

Caliban had long since become a belt of debris orbiting its star in the tragedy of ten thousand years ago.

The scene before him could only be the product of some powerful force acting upon his consciousness.

Was it an illusion? Sorcery? Or some deeper scheme of the Warp?

The Lion