Editing Quest:The Long Night:Volume One:Life in the Storm (section)

=Pink Skies= 

Some might remember that the Imperium had chosen the safest spot on the planet to settle. What wasn't said, one of the more dangerous locations is the poles. A snowy wasteland full of Warp Rifts. Daemons come out of them all the time, to be eaten by predatory seals, blasted apart by armies of Epsilon level penguins, dissolved by giant Blank bears...

Not today. Apparently, The Hungry Bitch felt a bit bored, so suddenly, without the slightest warning, the Rifts swell, and the planet is flooded with Slaaneshi daemons. The sky turns pink.

There is an earthquake right at the start of the incursion. That means you're cut off from the rest of Avernus, and can't organize the defences outside Dis, the capital. You do manage to use that Black Crystal Sword to slay the Keeper of Secrets who breached the walls, but for the rest of Avernus, you can do nothing but wait for the reports. Three weeks pass before the daemons are gone.

Entire garrisons gone completely, buying time for the rest. Psykers going Chaotic, including one Beta who wiped out an entire city. Slaaneshi cults popping up like mushrooms all over. In total, half the military is gone. Along with twenty percent of the population.

The wildlife... seems to be experienced in fighting daemons. Those island-sized turtles? Were seen spitting psionic nukes at them. Those city-eating Cthulhus were seen active as well. Some huge lion species which seems to be related to the Phase-Tigers, slicing daemons with their claws from a kilometre away. And, as a final surprise, a huge kilometre-thick serpent which seems to stretch as far as your sensors can scan. You never saw what its head is like, but presumably, the daemons who did were not pleased.

Henry is gone, killed during the assault of the new Psyker city being constructed (Xavier, in his grief, completely obliterated the leader of the attackers – not banished; obliterated). General Drago was killed by a rogue Psyker. Britton is likewise dead, saving a [[Warlord Titan]] from irreparable damage. And troubles are far from over. After all...

...Daemons mean cults. And daemons everywhere mean cults everywhere. Time for another 110% effort crackdown. At least the wildlife seems to be licking their wounds, otherwise the battered walls would have been a real trouble.

Half a dozen ongoing projects suspended due to shifting priorities. Military deployed everywhere, with cities becoming literal battlegrounds. Inquisition forces brought in to assist, along with tens of millions of Trust Guard soldiers. Lin preaching day and night to the people (with you putting in a few speeches of your own as well).

It's not enough.

You take out over a hundred million Cultists, but many more are at large. The next year is expected to be worse.

You request help from other planets (at the cost of a lot of reputation), you tighten the restrictions to no person leaving their house without a good reason...

This time, it works. More or less. You kill almost half a billion Cultists, and the remainder is largely confined to three cities. The next year, you look over the situation there, and decide they're not worth the bother. To put it plainly, you evacuate what loyal citizens remain, and slag the cities from orbit.

As a sidenote, remember those soul-eating mermaids? Well, the proper term is Sirens. Very good singers, capable of channelling their psionic power through song. One of your senior Psykers (and a good singer, of course), a Beta named Tamia Jameson, had figured the trick out during the incursion.

Losing Henry, meanwhile, hits hard. Not just in a personal friend, with him being the last person to remember you from before Avernus. He was the one in charge of the infrastructure, and while city expansion, hospital construction and fortification upgrades don't make for the most exciting summaries, that doesn't make them any less important. After some deliberation, you promote your personal assistant, Caroline, to take his place. Drago, meanwhile, was replaced by Leopold Schwarz, an experienced general who had almost died alongside him, but did survive, albeit with prosthetics Vader would envy. As for Britton, he was replaced by a protégé of his, Marian Scott, a nice young Magos. Her youth, on one hand, appeases the Conservatives, who consider her less of a threat. On the other hand, any project requiring radical research and modifications is to be shelved for the time being, due to her lacking the authority to push those through without risking a civil war.