Editing Quest:The Long Night:Sparks at Midnight

=Sparks at Midnight=

You start preparing as much as possible for the coming wars. The economy, by now, is strong enough that all the PDF can be given Power Armour. You train the forces, fortify the Hives, surround them with moats of molten silver...

And are fully aware how little that will mean against the full fury of one of the Five.

The rest of Avernus isn't idle either. Old weapons are dug up, cooperation is taken a few levels up, fortifications and plans everywhere.

Ridcully says that Nurgle will strike twenty-one year after the Heist of Isha.

He also divines Abaddon's action. The good news is: the Despoiler is too busy to lead a distant campaign on the scale required. Don't celebrate just yet though. Instead, he sends one of his chief vassals/rivals, generously gifting him all the area within a thousand light years of Avernus. Of course, if said rival fails against what is effectively a one-sector polity, Abaddon cannot be considered at fault here, right?

Who is the guy, you might ask? One of the sanest and most powerful servants of Chaos in the galaxy. Primarch [[Perturabo]].

At the High Council meeting, the others aren't too pleased at the Trust's cover being blown without everyone's approval. Nothing can be done about it, however, so instead, we mostly discuss preparations.

About half of the Eldar's favours are spent. First, of course, they are used for bringing forces to help with the Incursion, its aftermath, but mostly against the Iron Warriors. Second, we ask for Isha and her daughter to help with vaccines and antidotes as payment for those years aiding the Eldar as a general. Third, some of the weaker Sane polities are evacuated by the Eldar into the Trust.

The Vestri League is too big to evacuate, but we do send them some of the ships and weapons from the evacuated planets, along with allowing them to settle a world inside the Trust (in case they get wiped out). Finally, you ask the Eldar to work with Tranth on improving the human Warp Drives, and bring some of the more dangerous galactic wildlife to Avernus for the Planet Mind to incorporate.

After the meeting, there is another Grand Conclave. The composition is somewhat different this time; Vulkan doesn't have Corax with him, Imperium Secundus is represented by Guilliman (now out of his Dreadnaught, thanks to Isha), there are representatives from the Krork, Tau, and some other Sane forces. The meeting starts with Eldrad summarizing the state of the galaxy.

About as one would expect. Apocalyptic threats all over, the only thing saving the galaxy being them fighting each other. The Chaos and the Orks are constantly being directed against each other, although the Eldar aren't certain how much they can keep this up.

Three C'tan are active. The Dragon had finally broken out of the Solar System, with Eldar now having to all but directly assist Abaddon in holding them back (effectively to the same extent they assisted the Old Imperium). The Destroyer is pushing back the now united Imperium Secundus and Tau and is expected to destroy them in a few centuries without some major game-changer (Guilliman returning isn't enough). The Deceiver is currently manipulating some major Sane power, but no divination had managed to tell you which one yet.

The Silent King is biding his time.

Overall, Abaddon and his vassals hold about half the galaxy. The rest is other Chaos forces, plenty of Orks, and countless other horrors common for Warhammer. The Sane powers are only holding about five percent of the galaxy. Still, they are holding.

To your surprise, during the tech sharing, you do manage to keep up with the bigger players with the amounts provided. Some of it is medical knowledge, which you start incorporating as soon as you're back home.

The preparations for war continue. You manage to outfit all the PDF with basic Power Armour, and about half the Helguard with advanced variants; you put everyone through training in preparation, establish better coordination with natives, etc. Offworld Avernites in the Trust Guard are recalled, the children and the weaker fighters are evacuated, and help is brought in from other worlds.

Fortunately, it seems not only do the natives prepare for the Incursion, but so does the planet itself. No rogue Psyker had caused any damage lately; every single one was killed by Blink Spiders before they could make a spark.

==The Green Skies==

The three times seven years pass. Finally, on the seventh second of the seventh minute of the seventh hour of the seventh day of the seventh month, the polar rifts are torn open, and the plague tide is unleashed.

One of the two Exalted leading the charge, Sevenfold Scujon, walks into the World Serpent's breath and flashes aside with some wounds. The other, Qogbeth the Gatherer, is locked into a temporary prison by an entire kingdom of the Penguin Guardians of the polar rifts, and is flung up in hope the orbital defenses will slice it up. Qogbeth manages to break out in time, but doesn't manage to dodge the Serpent's breath. With both Exalted weakened, it takes the Incursion a whole day to bring down the fortress walls of the Penguin Kingdoms; twice what was expected.

As the horde marches south, your fleet rains fire upon it. So does the world, by conjuring up some runed asteroids. It also provides your ships with millimeter-accurate targeting data. Of course, with the amount of power Nurgle burns through, every square kilometer of the horde is revived as soon as you burn it, but wasted power is wasted power. Herds of beasts billions in size trample and blast through the legions. The force passes about fifty kilometers away from your closest cities, far enough to only do minor damage. At the end of the fourth day, it reaches the sea to start crossing onto the Lizardmen continent. Of course, both the land and sea wildlife do everything they can, with the World Serpent, in particular, taking on Slogoth Poxbelly, the mightiest of the Exalted.

By the middle of the sixth day, the first enemies make it across the sea. The are attacked by local wildlife (reanimated to fight them again once slain), blasted with spells, have mountains raised in their way...

None of it is enough against the full fury of Nurgle. Two hours short of a week into the incursion, the Siege of Itza begins. In the meantime, your cities are under pressure, but holding.

The Siege of Itza goes as expected at first. Then, portals open, and two additional foes arrive. Primarch [[Mortarion]], with the best of his Legion, and [[Be'lakor]], the First Daemon Prince.

The First Prince goes to engage The Ancient One, his old pal (no exaggeration here: after sixty million years of duels, they have a lot of mutual respect for each other). Areatha, meanwhile, taps into the Geomantic Web (the planetary ley lines energy network, and casts two prepared rituals. The first one wipes out the Death Guard and the siege gear they brought (Mortarion is wounded but not too much). The second brings to Itza the Fortress Trees of Avernus (giant plants that grow around the polar region and do exactly what you would expect), along with making the space between them an area where The Good Always Wins in the End. 

Another Great One, Mother of Death (think Hela from the Norse myths), working alongside He-Who-Walks-Obliquely, manages to banish Mortarion, now missing a few limbs and a good portion of his strength. The fight between the two Time Abysses is evenly matched for now.

In the meantime, your cities are holding with acceptable casualties. A few walls are chipped, but none are breached. Would have been very different if not for your Eldar allies (and if Ridcully was here instead of Itza). The leaders of the enemies attacking you are known as the Court of Bloat and Flies; seven Honoured good at working together to great effect.

Not so much this time. The Eldar manage to clear the path to one. The guy, one Festirstrol Bilgefinger, looks confident about the odds, but right as he's playing Loves me, Loves me not with an Eldar Titan's limbs, Jane shows him this is no time for romance. Permanently.

The Ancient One manages to banish Be'lakor. On the other hand, the daemons manage to wipe out the Trees. The siege of Itza continues to press on. Your cities are hard pressed as well. Nynye are being hit very hard. HWWO takes Mineyev to help them. This time, the guy, after days of fighting, sets off a Vortex Grenade while ''inside'' an Honoured Daemon's mouth.

Poor bastard still fails to die.

As it all happens, Tzeentch, followed by the other three gods watching the show, decides this is the perfect time to chip off a few pieces off Nurgle's domain. And so, eighteen days after the incursion began, the forces of Plague are forced to go home.

The casualties among your forces are heavy, but tolerable. Only two Generals dead. And, most importantly, not a single city was breached.

The next four years are a full-on war against the cults and plagues. A quarter of the population present at the incursion is lost, along with more military. Once again, would have been worse without Eldar help.

==The Galaxy goes on==
Ridcully is now busy on two main fronts with his divinations. The first one is Asdrubael Vect, who is trying to drive his sane brothers out of the Webway. The second is [[Ahzek Ahriman]].

What's the deal with that one, you might ask?

According to Rids' divinations, Tzeentch is a god who ascended from a mortal. Or rather, will ascend. There doesn't seem to be a way to prevent it, but the details, like the time and the mortal's identity, are as undetermined as anything about the guy. Ahzek is the main runner for the Bird's throne right now. While you don't care much for whether it will be him or someone else, newborn gods do tend to receive a major temporary power boost, so you would rather delay it until the galaxy is a bit less of a clusterfuck.

Rids is trying to track him, Areatha aids the Eldar with the hunting, and you have your own problems.

Perturabo's vanguard had arrived in the area to take over the local Chaos polities. The Eldar did their best to wreck the infrastructure, and are now raiding the Iron Legion forces.

You are expected to deploy your forces in twenty years, and decide to use the opportunity to fiddle with the army composition a bit.

The four trillion refugees start settling in the Trust. Issues are minor so far, except for the Vestri League people. They accuse one of the newcomer Marine Chapters of raiding their worlds.

Areatha tries to destroy Ahzek as he tries to gain a level by killing [[Iskandar Khayon]]. Unfortunately, Khayon summons an Exalted he had a pact with, but fails to contain it. While Ahriman is forced to flee with the Exalted pursuing, Areatha barely survives, with wounds Isha will have trouble healing.

The Avernus Army starts its reorganization. According to the plan, your militia and PDF are to focus on urban fighting and not to be deployed offworld unless really needed. The higher tiers now have better training and gear at the expense of quantity. Helltroopers are mainly assault units, while the Helguard has specialized formations for all kind of tasks. Also, you create a new top tier called the Heljaegers. These are bodyguards, Titan Hunters and Astartes Hunters. However, most recruits of that quality go into the Psyker Hunter forces.

Perturabo arrives in the region, and Ridcully starts divining his plans. In a few years, that makes the Primarch take enough casualties to start reviewing his tactics. The raids on the Vestri clans are divined as well... yes, you might have guessed it. The [[Space Sharks]] are making resupply runs in they regular polite manner. Oh, and they want to join the Trust.

Then you go to another High Council meeting. This one, naturally, is mostly about the war. The Trust is generally capable of holding its worlds, though a few regions can't spare anything for counterattacks. For now, that's fine with you. After all, with a significant portion of the Iron Realm's 180-sector military in your vicinity, attacking a fortification expert like Perturabo appears... unwise.

With the Sharks, you propose the following idea. Most of the Chapter goes to protect the Vestri League as compensation for the raids. You keep a few Marines in your territory to bring up the Chapter's numbers. Hopefully, you'll manage to restore them into a form more appropriate for Sanity forces.

Also, you are elected to be in charge of the Trust's military. At least you manage to convince the rest to let you decide how hard to cling to each planet: it's not good being predictable when fighting a Primarch.

Ridcully divines [[Fabius Bile]]. It appears the guy is splicing Tyranid and Marine DNA, along with Primarch samples. The Eldar tip off the Silent King about his plans and location, confident that after all his struggles to exterminate the bugs, he'll take it personally enough to handle the problem.

As for Avernus matters, you contact the Troll Remnant Kingdom.

It appears the tribes we've encountered earlier are but some scouts sent by a larger realm. Good thing we've started negotiating when we did, because these guys were just about growing concerned with their recon groups' fate, and might have interfered. And these guys aren't stone age savages; they still retain a certain amount of the legacy of their ancestors; the True Trolls, some of the mightiest War in Heaven warriors. The Remnant people had spent sixty million years attempting to reproduce the power of the True Trolls, and while they did fail (the procedure was ''extremely'' Unobtanium-dependent), even the failure left them masters in advanced material and technology production. Great. You can trade now.

The Iron War divinations go smoothly, both for attacks and infiltration. However, it seems Perturabo is soon going to be annoyed enough for a general assault.

You face two major probes. Each one in numbering in the tens of thousands of ships. The Eldar take most of the ships out, but enough enemies land. One force is routed quickly, the other takes two years of siege.

Meanwhile, Vect is trying to drive the Empire of Ashes out of the Webway. For all of theirs and Ridcully's efforts, he is worryingly successful. Seeing the Eldar distracted, Perturabo brings up his schedule up a bit more.

Fortunately (or not so much), a new player enters the field. Normally, the Dark Eldar forces have to deal with a large Ork Waaagh! directed at them by the Empire of Ashes. However, lately, Vect had managed to shatter it, leaving him free for his assault. Fortunately, it seems Khorne doesn't like a servant of Slaanesh doing so well, and decides his favourite toy could use a change of scenery. [[Tuska Daemon-Killa]] leaves the Eye of Terror to take charge of the leaderless Boyz.

==The Iron War==
You've been preparing a lot for this. Fleets training, armies training, Psykers training, factories working overtime... and now, the hour has come.

Perturabo has decided to make the main strike at the Trust's shipbuilding capacity. While there are sizable secondary attacks, the main assault is headed for the shipyards of Vanaheim.

The Primarch's fleet comes out of the Warp. To think of the time when a dozen ships on each side were a war...

The main force consists of over three hundred thousand ships. Forty thousand of these are capitals. Proudly leading the fleets are thirty [[Gloriana-class Battleship|Glorianas]]. Yet all that is dwarfed by Primarch Perturabo's trophy flagship.

[[The Phalanx]].

What Perturabo sees before him is about what he expected. About a hundred thousand Trust ships, a hopelessly minor force for him. Around them, the much larger forces of Eldar. And in the midst of those, brought to combat the Phalanx, is the Craftworld of [[Biel-Tan]].

Once he approaches, however, two huge surprises are revealed. First, all those Trust factories working overtime were producing Dark Matter and Vortex weapons, making your ships a killer against Pert's heavies. Second, the Eldar did a bit of cultural exchange lately. Biel-Tan is there, all right, but the rest of the fleets are Krork. Different tactics needed, and the Iron Warriors aren't prepared.

The advantage is exploited to its fullest. Before you know it, the Phalanx loses all its escorts and weapons, along with the emergency Warp-Out system. Furious, Perturabo orders the forces outside Vanaheim to wreck all the shipyards they can, and the forces inside to cover the Phalanx as he tries to limp out of the system, your Gravatic Array ship doing its best to drag it down.

While fighting tooth and nail, the Iron Warriors' fleet dwindles rapidly. However, Perturabo is almost in position for regular Warp jump now. But then he sees...

Six Eldar Wraithships are on a collision course with the Phalanx.

Realizing what it means, Perturabo calls upon his powers to destroy the ships. The Phalanx has no weapons left, but the abilities of a Daemon Primarch are sufficient. Two ships are crushed out of the Void. The other four reach their target.

And so do the Cyclonic Warheads onboard.

The wrecked Phalanx stops. Perturabo escapes into the Warp, knowing his now weakened realm will need a lot of personal attention. You are left with a heavily infested moon-sized station and a lot of war damage to repair.

In Vanaheim system, the shipyards are untouched, but the six secondary targets are modtly badly mauled. One attacking force was destroyed by Biel-Tan arriving ([[Honsou]] was the one in charge, now he's dead), two more by defenders and regular reinforcements, the rest managed to withdraw or flee with heavy casualties.

So, in total, Perturabo lost over a quarter of his forces, including the irreplaceable flagship, one of his best and sanest commanders, a lot of reputation and sanity, and is now facing a lot of greedy neighbours, along with a Waaagh! the Eldar have directed at him. For the next century at least, he won't be in any position to attack.

Now that you have the Phalanx, it is decided that you are to clear out and purify it (with Eldar aid), and then sell it to Imperium Quartus in return for replacement shipyards. Hopefully, Vulkan will think up some proper upgrades for the ship. And, now that the surrounding Chaos is largely leaderless, the Trust launches an expansion campaign.

Cleaning up the Phalanx cost the Trust a hundred billion soldiers. Hopefully, it was worth it.

As a minor sidenote, during the battle, survivors from the [[Iron Knights]] Chapter have arrived in your system. They were forced into an exodus due to the Black Imperium , and now, after centuries, are hoping they found a place to settle in. Well, who are you to deny them?

==Back to Avernus==

With the losses of the war, it seems feasible now to reform both the Trust Army and the Trust Navy, as well as work on some new ship designs. With the Avernus Navy, however, you come up with a more radical decision. You are simply going to turn it over to the Trust, leaving for yourself only the Orbital Defences and Monitors.

Aria, meanwhile, while researching ways to break down Warp effects, has discovered something interested. The [[Winds of Magic]]. While you did know already about the Skink Priests using them, this shows humans might be able to as well. And the Skinks are willing to teach you. It seems that ever since the Slann died, Areatha was the only person to learn High Magic.

The Eldar come to Avernus with the last Avatar of Khaine. In a desperate move, they use the accumulated faith of the surviving Siren church to revive it back into a full god. It works, although of course the reborn Khaine is not nearly as powerful as before. On a less bloodthirsty note, Isha managed to restore her husband, [[Kurnous]]. Soon afterwards, she arrives at Avernus in order to revive the Slann.

It is estimated she will need eighty years to a century. At least fifty years will pass before Chaos notices. Gives you some time to bunker up.

Psykers have been on a rise lately. Over a hundred Betas every year, and Alphas creeping up to a dozen. Enough to strain the Hunters. Now, you learn the reason. The world has bred a trainable Alpha Plus. A boy named Stephen Irwin, who currently spends as much time as possible close to Saint Lin's tomb.

Remember Ridcully divining how to build some ancient gear? This time, he finally managed (after a dozen attempts) to divine how to fix one very ancient piece. A broken [[Blackstone Fortress]] the Eldar have. Should be a big help against the Destroyer and other C'tan. And speaking of C'tan, he also manages to thwart a major effort by them. An attempt to use a pawn in order to breach Abaddon's containment on the Void Dragon, allowing it to omnicide the galaxy.

Who this (sadly dead now) pawn was, you might ask? Turns out it was [[Omegon]]. Yet another poor Primarch dead...

Tuska is doing well against Vect. So well, in fact, that in a few years, the regular Eldar start worrying. Thankfully, with Ridcully's aid, they manage to arrange all the mess into a nice little showdown. Tuska's WAAAAGH! manages to cripple Vect's empire, but then the Eldar assassins manage to kill the Greenskin, and the horde is shattered once again.

On Avernus, you are sparing no expenses on preparing. The militia are getting Power Armour, the ones on Avernus do, at least (the moons have three times the population by now, but you can't afford equipping them). Combat augments are being upgraded. Already your elite forces would have been enough to take out all of the Old Imperium's Astartes. Layers of fortresses are being built around your Hives. The Hives themselves are being fitted with Psychic Cannons. In the upcoming incursion, you can only hope no significant force will be headed your way.

Twenty years after Isha's arrival, Ridcully states you have fifty years. That means ten to thirty years of incursion until the first Slann wakes up. On the bright side, The Silent King had finally exterminated the last Tyranid ship along with Bile onboard. You are also notified about an upcoming Ceremony of Remembrance, a once-a-millennium event where the Avernites recollect the history of the galaxy. You should probably visit it. First, however, you should go to some other, more peaceful places; the workload lately has been enough to make you faint.

Ridcully manages to divine a couple more things. First, a long-time suspicion of yours is confirmed. The polity manipulated by [[the Deceiver]] is the Tau. Second, he divines the Men of Iron rebellion. Turns out Be'lakor was the one responsible. The motives are unknown. He also manages to help Stephen pass. Barely; for all of the World's efforts, the power of an Alpha Plus is still straining human ability to control.

Speaking of Be'lakor, the guy has recently grown tired of all the squabbling and pointlessness of the Chaos Gods. He decided to leave their service – as much as it is possible for a Daemon Prince, at least. The resignation was handed to them in a matter befitting a fifty-seven-million years old manipulative bastard.

During a duel meant to empower Ahriman by arranging for [[Kairos Fateweaver|Kairos]] to defeat [[Skarbrand]], he interfered. Kairos was slain. Skarbrand was badly wounded, but Be'lakor cured him of both the wounds and the madness Khorne gave him after the assassination attempt.

At the cost of his Daemonhood.

The now mortal Skarbrand was sent away, and Be'lakor, while still retaining the Blessings of all Chaos Gods, cannot be commanded by them unless all five agree on the order. A rare occurrence, but the upcoming incursion might just be critical enough for that to happen.

==Trades==
You have been trading with a few groups on Avernus lately. Prices are high, it's a good thing that now, after the Mechanicus rebellion was crushed, you can trade technology properly.

Some groups can trade you little more than ingredients and construction teams. Others are... more interesting. A group of Cavern-dwelling Sirens, for example, trades away the services of some mercenaries to combat rogue Psykers. Another group of Sirens you contact gives you some Dark Age tech they managed to keep.

The Remnant Kingdom trades a lot of technology and Psyker techniques. Some is improved material production, some is for better armour servos, guns, but there are also better materials, like multilayered alloys, better Ceramite analogue, stronger Adamantium, and, most powerful of all, Orichalcum, a material derived from the study of The Eternal, a not-entirely-successful Great One.
The last group is the Penguins, the Guardians of the poles. Their price is you building some Psychic Cannons for them, as well as the Grey Knigghts teaching them some of their skills. The latter part would normally be outside your authority, but the late Klovis-Ultan got the Knights to agree to that a few centuries ago. In return, the Penguins give you their own Daemon-fighting knowledge, but also a supply of a certain fish living in their region. A three-eyed fish. According to data found on the Moons, its genes were used to create the first [[Navigator]]s, and now, with the fishies in your hands, you can finally create new lineages to freshen up the inbred decayed dregs the Imperium and you had to work with.

Speaking of Navigators, study of the Winds shows Azyr can be used to enhance their abilities. They learn the basics easily enough, although it will probably take them decades to work out the proper techniques.

==The Ceremony of Remembrance==
The first seven years you have spent at the Ceremony of Remembrance at Itza have covered the early existence of the Old Ones, including their first encounter with xenos and the creation of the Lizardmen, as well as their early attempts to shepherd younger races, to varying levels of success. These tales have covered the first ten billion years of the Old Ones existence, and you haven't seen a single reference to events that you have heard of. Its hard to picture just how old the Old Ones truly were, and how long their civilisation lasted. You thought that the Ancient One was old, but the Old Ones usually reached a billion or more years before moving on.
The final five years of the Ceremony of Remembrance is where you started seeing parts of history that you recognised. That part started eleven billion years after the Old Ones left their world, when an intergalactic army of robots invaded the galaxy aiming to wipe out all life. At first the Old Ones, never having needed to wage war before, were on the backfoot, but within a few decades they turned their powers to war, holding the line even as the First Spawning of Saurus Warriors was spawned. It is here that the Ancient One, silent until now, starts speaking. He speaks about how he and his kin were armed with weaponry devised by the Old Ones and Slann, and sent into battle, and how they at first held the line and then started pushing back the robotic hordes. In many ways, it sounds like fighting a robotic version of the Tyranids, with them retaining the same ability to rebuild from near-total losses if they had raw materials. The Ancient One goes into how as the war went on he and his brothers learned more of the ways of war, and their weaponry and tactics became more and more effective, allowing them to push back the foe. A thousand years after the war had begun, the last invader was destroyed, and the Old Ones set to work on healing the galaxy of the damage inflicted. While the galaxy seemed to have returned to normal, there was a new addition, with the Saurus Warriors joining the Kroxigor Builders, the Skink Administrators and the Slann Mage-Priests among the servants of the Old Ones.

Eighty million years later a new race rose to prominence, the Necrontyr. This barbaric race was ruled by a hereditary noble caste that constantly warred among each other for more wealth and power, and was short-lived due to inbuilt genetic issues making cancers common. These rulers noticed the immortality of the Old Ones and their servants, and desired it for themselves. The Old Ones refused to pass on the secrets of immortality to the rulers of the Necrontyr, worried about making an immortal ruler caste and instead offered a cure for the Necrontyr's cancer which would allow for the entire population to reach a decent age, not just the ruling caste who could afford the treatments that the Necrontyr could make themselves. The Necrontyr refused, and shortly thereafter declared war on the Old Ones as part of a political ploy to stop various rebellions and attempts at secession, a war that the Old Ones quickly won. After winning the Old Ones drove the Necrontyr back to their core worlds in the Halo Stars, and exiled them there until they can more peacefully interact with the galactic community that the Old Ones had set up. The Old Ones hoped that the Necrontyr's defeat and humiliation would break the dominance of their ruling caste, and allow them to form a more stable, and less aggressive, form of government. As unrest started to tear down the Necrontyr's social order it looked like the Old One's plans would come to fruition, and then another force was brought into the equation. The Necrons managed to attract the attention of the C'Tan, the star grazers an ancient race older than the galaxy itself which feasted on the lifeforce of stars. It is unknown exactly how the short-lived Necrontyr attracted the attention of these beings, but the result was clear. With the guidance of the Star Gods the Necrontyr pushed their already advanced technologies ahead by leaps and bounds, and the various insurgents were put down for a time. Soon enough the C'Tan offered the Necrons as a whole the immortality the Old One's once denied their ruling caste, in the form of bio-transference. With the acceptance of this offering by the Silent King the immortality, and unity, of the Necrons was assured, as was their eternal service to the C'Tan, who had drunk their life force as they were transferred in a great betrayal that still haunts the Necrons to this day.

With that, the War in Heaven started in earnest, with the Legions of the Necrons spearheaded by the C'Tan pushing back the Old Ones and their Saraus Warriors on all fronts. Soon enough the Old Ones started to seek the aid of those species that they had uplifted in the past, and further uplift them to boost their ability to aid. With this, the Necrons rapid push slowed to a crawl, with them slowly pushing back the forces of the Old Ones and their allies. In response, the Old Ones started making entirely new races to wage war against the Necrons, with the Krork being the most prominent. This slowed the war into a stalemate, with ever more advanced weapons being deployed on both sides. Soon enough weapons of such power that they could not be used in the galaxy without destroying it started to be deployed and then pulled back, creating the very real risk that nothing would survive the War in Heaven. This forced the war to drag on evermore, as no longer did the sides need to simply defeat their foe, but they now needed to also devise counters to all of their foes superweapons. None remember exactly how long the War in Heaven lasted, and none can as time itself was but another weapon in that war.

''The tales of the War in Heaven lasted four years in total, and included tales of such heroism and grief that you wept at them.''

Eventually the C'Tan and their Necron slaves stood ascendant, and crushed all but a handful of scattered remnants of the Old Ones forces, who were getting ever more desperate in their efforts to avoid defeat. It was at this point that the last Slann of Avernus, and probably of the galaxy attempted to create a weapon that can easily slay even C'Tan, and brought the End of All into the galaxy. While they managed to seal what they had brought forth into the shape of a blade and bind it with thirteen seals the aftereffects of their actions brought their end, and brought Chaos into existence. At this point the Necrons turned on their C'Tan masters, shattering all of them in one of the greatest feats in the history of the galaxy. This was not without cost however, as the C'Tan took the vast majority of the Necrons fleets and legions with them, leaving those few that remained in a bad positions to deal with the scattered remnants of the Old Ones forces and the various apocalyptic forces unleashed by both sides over the course of the war. As such the Necrons withdrew to hidden Tomb Worlds, and entered into the Great Sleep while their automated systems rebuilt their forces.

This left a handful of scattered races of the Old Ones allies and servants as all that remained in the galaxy, along with dozens of apocalyptic forces, including the newly risen Orks that rose out of the grave of the Krork, the Enslaver Plague, the Time-lost, the Primal forces of Chaos, and many other forces out of nightmare. Three million years after the Necrons entered the great sleep the Aeldari emerged victorious, being the only forces left in the galaxy with any real strength. Thus began the era of the Aeldari Dominion.

For fifty-seven million years the Aeldari Dominion dominated the galaxy, despite the occasional rise of the Orks, the K'Nib or other ancient foes. In this time Avernus, the last remaining outpost of the Lizardmen and through them the Old Ones continued its ancient tasks, waiting for the Old Enemy or the Folly to return to haunt them. Then came the Fall.

''The last six months of the Ceremony of Remembrance covered the Fall and events since then, events that you were already familiar with. It was amazing to see yourself and those you know in the final stages though, and to know that as long as Avernus existed your deeds and struggles would not be forgotten.''

==Back to Work==

So, now you know. That blade that you've been using to cut off daemon heads, and some big lizard was using as a toothpick, is actually a weapon which was intended to kill Star Gods, and instead almost doomed everything (and still might).

Aria had finished a project studying Blanks. Interestingly, it seems their force isn't actually the opposite of Warp. Instead, it is something that repels Warp effects. It's not quite clear what the force is; for now you call it life energy, although stars also seem to have a lot of it.

Tamia finishes a thirty year long course studying rituals under a local master. For starters, she designs one for driving daemons away from breaches long enough for repairs.

In the wider galaxy, one major problem rises. Gork and Mork seem to feel they are running low on the energy stores they are feeding into the Green Awakening. So, before they run out, they seem to be powering up as many Level 4's as possible (last gamble... sounds so unorky). The Eldar beat down as many as they can, at a heavy cost (their population actually falls despite Isha's blessings). One or two still remain in position to join the Eternal Conflagration surrounding the Krork.

And as if that wasn't enough, Ridcully makes a divination to check some rumours drifting around Pacificus. The rumours are confirmed. The [[Slaugth]] are back.
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