Editing Ephrael Stern (section)

==Storytime==
Originating in a Warhammer Monthly comic, Daemonifuge, Ephrael Stern was a gifted [[Seraphim Squad|Seraphim]] Superior from the Order of Our Martyred Lady who had shown great promise, achieving her rank in record time (and considering the [[Ecclesiarchy|Ecclesiarchy's]] records go back thousands of years, this is impressive indeed) before experiencing a meteoric fall after she led a team to investigate a lost convent of the Orders Pronatus on the planet Parnis. The Orders Pronatus were a branch of the sisterhood who specialized in the study and care of holy relics, so ensuring their safety was a matter of great import to the Ecclesiarchy. No one knew what happened on that world, but Stern was the sole survivor of the expedition. When Stern returned to Ophelia VII, she was barely cognizant, twitchy, and constantly muttering to herself. The Prioress ordered her to be locked away in a cell until her condition (and whether or not they needed to purge her) could be ascertained. Four years later, and Stern's condition remained unchanged, as she had covered the walls with strange glyphs and markings, all while continuing her mad ravings. Desperate, the Prioress gave the Inquisition a call to get their opinion on the matter. As soon as she got word of this, one of the guards to Stern's cell busted in to [[Blam|BLAM]] her. Dodging the shot, [[Awesome|Stern tackled the errant guard to the ground, punched through her throat, and yanked a daemon of Slaanesh out of her body]].

With the confirmation of Slaaneshi corruption on Ophelia VII, Inquisitor Silas Hand of the Ordo Malleus arrived on the scene. After a brief investigation confirming that the sister killed by Stern had indeed been corrupted by Slaanesh, and that the same corruption had spread to the [[Navis Nobilite]], Hand ran Stern through a series of tests to see if she was corrupted or not. Satisfied of her purity (at least, as much as an Inquisitor can be satisfied with anyone's purity), she was restored to her rank and sent with Hand to Parnis to conduct another investigation of what happened there. After entering orbit, Hand received a message from his agents informing him that the corrupted [[navigator]] was on board with them. Hand, Stern, and some battle sisters went to the navigators quarters to find him [[NSFW|actively copulating with a slaaneshi daemon]]. Suffice to say, his subordinate was quickly [[PROMOTIONS|promoted]]. Satisfied that the ship was secure from the taint of chaos, Hand led Stern and a force of battle sisters to the planet below. Unfortunately, he was wrong, and the ship detonated at the hands of corrupted crewmen shortly after their departure.

After barely surviving a crash landing, Hand was psychically tormented by a daemon of [[Khorne]] whom he had fought in the past, only to be saved by Stern, who entered the warp and fought him off. This was enough to earn Hand's implicit trust. Stern, Hand, and the surviving Sororitas set out for the ruins of the Orders Pronatus monastery. Unfortunately for Stern and her squad, the sisters on Parnis weren't studying relics, but a [[Keeper of Secrets]], by the name of Asteroth ([[Astorath|no relation]]), one of the most powerful daemons the Imperium had ever encountered. The sisters had landed on the planet intending to make it just another outpost when they discovered Asteroth imprisoned in a crystalline stone, and couldn't pass up the chance to study it up close and personal (which is probably what the daemon wanted all along). Even the extreme zealotry and faith of the sisters wasn't enough to stay its corrupting influence, and many fell to chaos in their studies. Eventually, some of the corrupted sisters survived long enough to set it loose, whereupon it captured all the sisters of the order, flayed their skin, and weaved it into a structure called a Screaming Cage. This linked all the sisters, body, mind, and soul, so that any suffering it inflicted on one of them would be shared by all. What it hadn't counted on, however, was that their faith was shared also, which protected them from the Keeper's corrupting influence.

Upon encountering the Screaming Cage, Stern's memories came flooding back to her. Her fellow sisters had been corrupted within moments of making planetfall, turning sister against sister, and leaving Stern the sole survivor (and easy pickings for Asteroth). Despite super-murdering her, the sisters trapped in the Screaming Cage managed to use its combined faith to bring her back from the dead. This also gave her a fragment of their combined knowledge about [[Chaos]] and [[Slaanesh]], hence why she was a [[Warp|little crazy]] when she returned to Ophelia VII. Now that she'd returned, they could finish implanting their combined knowledge and power into her. Once Asteroth realizes this, it attacks in force, so Hand and the surviving battle sisters left tried to hold it off for as long as possible while Stern got super-charged with forbidden knowledge. The knowledge transfer was successful, though Stern was, once again, the sole survivor of the incident, as the other sisters were killed by Asteroth and Hand sacrificed himself to banish it back to the warp.

Stern survived alone on the planet for a indeterminate (but lengthy) amount of time. During this ordeal, she wrote The Stern Codex, which contained all of the information she'd absorbed from the Screaming Cage, though she had to write it in her blood to [[warp|prevent the book from mutating]] due to the vile knowledge it contained. Eventually, she was rescued, though she quickly realized that the [[Ordo Malleus]] had branded her a [[Heretic|witch]] and was actively hunting her, as were the agents of Slaanesh, who were desperately trying to keep her knowledge from falling into the [[Inquisition|wrong]] [[Harlequins|hands]]. Stern lost her Codex to the warp during this hunt, making her position even more precarious. It was during this period that a [[Shadowseer]] took note of Stern, and dispatched a disgraced [[Harlequin|harlequin]], the Pariah, to bring her to the [[Black Library]] for safe-keeping. Stern, meanwhile thought to hide on a pilgrim ship and, in keeping with her [[Lamenters|abysmal luck]], was captured by [[Dark Eldar]] raiders and forced to fight in the arenas of [[Commorragh]].

After surviving for an unspecified amount of time (though long enough to be noticed and sponsored by an [[Archon_(Warhammer_40,000)|Archon]] in the [[Wyches|Wych]]-cult arenas), she was rescued by the Pariah, who explained that they're both hunters of Chaos and that she would be best off in the Black Library. Given her [[Heresy|recent experiences with the Imperium]], Stern was inclined to agree, and they set off into the webway... only to be intercepted by [[Ahriman]]. After the both of them were telepathically violated by him as he rooted through their minds for knowledge pertaining to the Black Library and the warp, the Ordo Malleus intercepted his ship and teleported a massive strike force of [[Grey Knights]] over. Trapped between several parties who wished to use her, and none of them well, Stern elected to kill herself and end the whole debacle.

In the aftermath, the Grey Knights turned her body over to the Adepta Sororitas, having detected no signs of chaos taint on her. Agreeing with this assessment, the Sororitas gave her an honorable funeral at a hospitaller convent combating the diseases of [[Nurgle]]. The Pariah stood watch over her tomb, waiting for the moment when she would be resurrect for the second and final time. Some months later, Inquisitor Hand's old apprentice, Inquisitor Fazael arrived to exhume the body, only to find the tomb empty. Nearby, one of his agents locates a barely-conscious Stern wandering through ruins infested by the taint of Nurgle. The Pariah rescued her and began leading her to the nearest webway gate with Fazael close behind. During this journey, Stern finally began to comprehend her power, and how to use and control it. Armed with this knowledge (and frankly tired of running), Stern turned around to face her pursuers. Unfortunately, Fazael came prepared for such an occurrence and sent in a [[Culexus|Culexus Assassin]] to finish her off once and for all. Just when said assassin was on the verge of consuming her soul [[Wat|she gave him a kiss which blew his body apart]].

Following this, she manifested a webway gate out of thin air and beckoned for the Pariah to come and take her to the Black Library. Turning to Fazael, she pointed out that they're on the same side and his energy would really be better spent fighting Chaos than her. Nevertheless, he vowed to pursue her to the end of days as she and the Pariah departed.

Post Gathering Storm, She and Kyganil went from world to world on the Nihilus side of the rift, fucking over Chaos as they went. By this point, Stern had considerable control over her abilities and was effectively a Super-Saiyan. Her actions created a cordon of worlds on the edge of the rift, but she grew increasingly despairing of what she was meant to do or if the Emperor had abandoned her. Worse, her visions showed her a growing "nothingness" that threatened to destroy everything she'd fought for. Encountering Inquisitor Dagover, who had been searching for what her, sincerely believing that she was what the Imperium truly needed, she used her powers to penetrate the other side of the rift and arrive at the world of Severita, which had just been visited by advance elements of the Indomnitus Crusade. A mission of Sisters of Battle were trapped on the world, assailed by unending hordes of twisted chaos cultists, mutants, and deamon engines.

Despite huge misgivings on all sides, she helped the Sisters of Battle, although some of them started to see her as a Saint, something she very much did not like. She ended up kicking the ass of a very powerful [[Master of Possession]] (who was able to weaponise raw faith), and saving the Sisters, joining them later on their ship. Whilst they left Severita, the ship was hit by the wave of "Nothingness" - likely Necron dickery - that she had sensed before. Every psyker on the ship started going loopy but Stern suddenly found she could somehow still use her powers and that they had become even stronger than before.

The implication of the above is that Stern is, if not an actual living Saint, then certainly juicing off the same powers as one.