Chapter Summaries

Dominic investigated Bishop Venka’s accusation that the Plague Cleansing Cult had infiltrated the recruits, sending Sergeant Major Hoffman to gather information without force. Hoffman learned that the sect had sheltered plague survivors and worshipped the God-Emperor, but its hidden leader and headquarters remained unknown.

• Dominic told Venka he would investigate the cult but warned him not to disrupt the Tithe handover.
• Dominic ordered Hoffman to question recruits informally and find out the cult’s origins, leadership, practices, and god.
• Hoffman befriended recruits in their rest area with cigarettes and watered-down ale, then asked about their experiences during the plague.
• The recruits said masked cult members provided food and water, identified infected people, and persuaded them to enter the fire rather than spread the plague.
• The recruits said survivors joined the cult for shelter and protection, worshipped the God-Emperor, and knew its leader only as the Priest.
• Hoffman left the recruits cigarettes and departed without learning the cult’s headquarters or the Priest’s identity.

Dominic investigated the rapidly expanding Plague Cleansing Cult and received a secret letter claiming it had ties to Brevis’s upper-city power structure. Suspicious of both the cult and the letter, he suspended his intelligence teams’ operation and decided to verify the claims himself.

• Dominic ordered an intelligence squad to investigate the Plague Cleansing Cult’s leaders, headquarters, and ability to identify infected people.
• A guard delivered Dominic a sealed letter from someone using the name Elton Voss, who warned that the cult had deep roots in the upper city and urged Dominic to investigate alone.
• Dominic dismissed the letter and ordered three intelligence squads to infiltrate the western lower city discreetly.
• After reconsidering the cult’s unusual growth and the sapphire ring’s strange chill, Dominic told Karen to suspend the teams’ operation while he verified the claims himself.

Dominic verified that the mysterious ring was a harmless psychic-shielding device and wore it before secretly entering Brevis’s undercity in disguise. Meanwhile, Lynn realized Luna was using the Plague Cleansing Cult to force him into a choice that could expose his ties to the Genestealers or ruin his governorship.

• Bishop Venka purified the ring, and the Tech-Priest identified it as a xenos-made psychic shielding device with no harmful features.
• Dominic put on the ring, which made psychic perceptions and scans slide past him.
• Dominic disguised himself as a lieutenant colonel and traveled with two Sisters of Silence toward the undercity of Brevis.
• Butcher told Lynn that Bishop Carven’s men had arrested over a hundred recruits suspected of cult ties and that rumors linked the cult to the governor’s office.
• Lynn identified Luna as the source of the rumors and recognized that her scheme could expose his Genestealer connection or prevent him from meeting the Imperial Tithe.

Lynn countered Luna’s trap by making Paul Serra the apparent link between the Plague Cleansing Cult and recruitment, while Dominic investigated the cult’s monastery in the lower city. Dominic uncovered signs of corrupted doctrine and watched the cult sort civilians into quarantine and incineration routes.

• Lynn told Butcher to frame Paul Serra as a man who colluded with the Plague Cleansing Cult to meet his recruitment quota, and routed contact with the governor’s office through Paul.
• Lynn ordered Rena to restrict the core Genestealers’ movements and reduce the apostles’ activity, accepting slower screening for now.
• Dominic and two Sisters of Silence used the sapphire ring to evade psychic detection and enter the No. 331 Plague Cleansing Monastery through a ventilation duct.
• Dominic noticed distorted Imperial Aquila reliefs and heard an apostle twist familiar Ecclesiarchy teachings into praise of purification by fire.
• Dominic watched apostles screen civilians and send those deemed clean toward quarantine while directing the infected through a door leading to an incineration chamber.

Dominic investigated Monastery No. 331 and discovered that the Plague Cleansing Cult rigorously screened and disposed of infected people, while his holy relic detected traces of Nurgle’s corruption. After secretly collecting a skin sample from an apostle, he and the two Sisters of Silence moved on to the cult’s frontline triage camp in a severely infected district.

• Dominic observed the monastery’s strict screening procedures and saw infected people swiftly taken to the incineration chamber.
• Dominic’s holy relic pendant burned when infected people arrived, consuming one layer of its sacred parchment and confirming traces of Warp corruption.
• Dominic estimated that about half the people screened were infected and stole a flake of skin from an apostle before withdrawing with the two Sisters of Silence.
• Dominic sealed the unusual gray-purple skin flake in a sampling tube and set out for another location.
• Dominic reached the Plague Cleansing Cult’s frontline camp, where apostles screened survivors behind a defensive line and rejected those who failed.

Dominic learned that Brevis Vanguard troops were cooperating with the Plague Cleansing Cult on the orders of a credit-seeking lieutenant general, but he could not determine whether Kerry or Kerry Von was involved. Meanwhile, Luna watched her plan to steer Dominic toward a conclusion about Kerry Von falter and resolved to regain control.

• Dominic overheard Vanguard soldiers say their forces were cooperating with the Plague Cleansing Cult on a lieutenant general’s orders, and that the cult might be discarded after its recruitment work was done.
• Dominic questioned whether Kerry knew of the arrangement and whether the mysterious letter was meant to implicate or clear him, then withdrew with the two Sisters of Silence.
• Luna watched Dominic’s movements through a crystal ball and saw that events were straying from her plan to make him blame Kerry Von.
• The crystal ball’s images went dark, and Luna worried that her effort to drag Lynn into the abyss was slipping out of control before insisting that she still controlled the game.

Dominic and the Sisters of Silence discovered that Brevis’s supposedly safe resettlement zone was a guarded enclosure holding thousands of traumatized refugees. A powerful psyker began reshaping the refugees’ perceptions with a sermon, and Dominic realized the crowd was under psychic influence.

• Dominic followed the secret letter’s third set of coordinates to a Level One Safe Resettlement Zone beneath the lower city.
• He found thousands of plague survivors surrounded by armed apostles in master-crafted Power Armour.
• A bald woman in purple-and-gold armour entered the plaza and used her presence to silence the refugees.
• The woman called the plague and its horrors the God-Emperor’s trial, and told the survivors they were chosen as pure seeds.
• Dominic recognized the woman’s words as psychic influence that was reshaping the refugees’ perceptions.

Dominic discovered that the Plague Cleansing Cult’s effective plague response and recruitment drive were led by Genestealers using Psychic Power. He left Brevis questioning the Imperium’s absolute rejection of Xenos, despite recognizing the danger of cooperating with them.

• A woman used Psychic Power to turn plague survivors into believers who volunteered to serve as Tithe recruits, and Dominic watched the crowd kneel in devotion.
• Dominic asked the Tech-Priest to analyze skin flakes recovered from the convent.
• The Tech-Priest identified the sample as belonging to a fourth-generation Genestealer hybrid, likely a guard protecting higher-ranking cult members.
• Dominic realized the Genestealers had contained the plague, reassured victims, and provided the Imperium with recruits.
• Dominic struggled with whether the Imperium should use or cooperate with the Genestealers, but feared they would eventually betray Brevis.

Dominic wrestled with whether to expose Lynn’s Xenos allies, while Lynn sensed Luna was maneuvering to turn Dominic against him and prepared to act. With Toothy’s Orks and Rena’s Tyranid swarm growing stronger through their controlled war, Lynn considered them his safeguard as Leo St. Garus arrived.

• Dominic weighed launching an investigation against preserving Brevis’s fragile stability and had not made his decision.
• Lynn noticed increased Ecclesiarchy scrutiny, missing Tithe Fleet intelligence detachments, and Dominic postponing meetings, and suspected Luna was directing suspicion toward him.
• Rena reported that Toothy’s Orks had multiplied, occupied the western desert, and developed flesh-based technology while fighting her swarm.
• Rena said the controlled war was strengthening both forces, and Lynn recognized them as protection against Dominic or the Inquisition.
• Lynn decided to stop waiting and eliminate the source of the conspiracy as Leo St. Garus knocked at his door.

Lynn and Leo planned a strike to kill Luna, whom they believed threatened the St. Garus Family with Chaos. Leo’s forces raided Saint Garus Castle, but the assault team found eerie runes and unsettling whispers beyond the second-level blast doors.

• Lynn told Leo that Luna’s activity around the underground laboratory had increased, and Leo confirmed she was staying in a secret chamber on the third underground level.
• Lynn devised a plan for Leo’s troops to surround the castle and reach Luna through an old western passage; Leo named the operation “Duel of two kings.”
• Leo’s private troops sealed the castle’s entrances and escape routes while the assault team advanced underground.
• The assault team silently cleared the first underground level and blew open the blast doors leading to the second.
• The team found ghostly blue runes covering the passage walls, a strange fragrance in the air, and whispers that unsettled their minds.

Lynn’s assault on Luna’s secret chamber stalled against waves of Tzeentchian cultists and daemons, while Luna prepared further defenses. With the Vanguard taking casualties and the Plague-cleansing Apostles nearing exhaustion, Lynn ordered reinforcements released to end the fight quickly.

• The captain ordered internal circulation as mutant cultists and Pink Horrors emerged, forcing the assault squad to halt and fight.
• Luna learned that Leo had sided with Lynn and summoned more demonic forces, vowing to oppose her nephew.
• Four two-faced sorcerers transformed mutant cultists into Chaos Spawn and unleashed more daemons against the squad.
• The Armiger Knight and Vanguard veterans held their positions as the attackers faced mounting pressure and casualties.
• Rena reported the squad’s losses and the Apostles’ dwindling psychic power to Lynn, who ordered the reinforcements released.

Rena ordered the Plague Cleansing Assault Squad to attack, and Rena Guyu led the Genestealers in a devastating assault through the passage. After destroying much of the Chaos force, the squad pursued the fleeing Tzeentch Sorcerers toward the secret chamber.

• Rena sent the order through the swarm network, bringing the Genestealer assault force out of hiding.
• Aberrants, acolytes, and Purestrain Genestealers joined the battle, stabilizing the defensive line and attacking the daemons and cultists.
• The three Genestealer magi reinforced the squad with psychic barriers as Rena Guyu advanced with them.
• Guyu used psychic threads to slice apart cultists, Chaos Spawn, Flamers, and other monsters, clearing nearly half the enemy force.
• The two-faced Tzeentch Sorcerers fled toward the secret chamber, and Guyu ordered the 88 Genestealers to pursue.

Guyu and the assault force entered the Warp-distorted labyrinth where Luna’s secret chamber lay, while Dominic responded to the halted recruitment handover by openly ordering an investigation of Lynn’s work. Dominic remained uncertain whether Lynn had been deceived or was collaborating with xenos, but resolved to kill him if necessary.

• The Plague Cleansing Assault Squad cut through Tzeentch’s forces and reached the entrance to the third underground level.
• The Vanguard captain warned Guyu that the level was a shifting Warp labyrinth called the Land Without Extension, but Guyu led the force inside.
• Luna’s chanting rose in the labyrinth as the stone door closed behind Guyu and the assault force.
• Dominic learned that the transfer of recruits had stopped and suspected Kerry had halted it because he knew about the investigation.
• Dominic ordered the Third Reconnaissance Squad to enter the lower city openly in naval military police uniforms and investigate the recruitment process.
• Dominic weighed whether Lynn had colluded with xenos and resolved to eliminate him if he had.

Dominic suspected Governor Kerry was hiding higher-level involvement in the Plague Cleansing Cult, but he waited to see what Lynn would do. Lynn visited Dominic, confirmed the first recruits were safe, and accepted responsibility for the undercity recruitment scandal without naming Paul Serra.

• An intelligence officer reported that the Brevis Vanguard had seized cult strongholds, arrested peripheral members, and that the governor's office had quarantined the remaining recruits for faith reviews.
• Dominic doubted that Lieutenant General Paul Serra could have supported the cult without approval from higher authorities, and suspected Lynn might be staging a purge to conceal his own involvement.
• Dominic told his adjutant not to investigate further and decided to wait for Lynn's next move.
• Lynn arrived the next morning looking exhausted and asked whether the first six hundred million recruits had passed quarantine checks.
• After Dominic said the checks had found no abnormalities, Lynn admitted responsibility for the undercity recruitment failures and asked Dominic to punish him, without mentioning Paul Serra.

Lynn Kerry admitted that he had allowed the Plague Cleansing Cult to help control the plague and screen recruits, and Dominic agreed to overlook his actions under strict conditions. They planned to eradicate the cult after Brevis delivered all three billion recruits, with Dominic eager to join the purge.

• Lynn Kerry confessed that he had permitted the Plague Cleansing Cult to assist with the plague and recruitment, accepting full responsibility for its spread.
• Dominic reassured Lynn that the first batch of recruits had passed Ecclesiarchy and Adeptus Mechanicus screenings, and Lynn promised to screen the remaining three hundred million.
• Lynn warned that the unauthorized cult still threatened the Ecclesiarchy's authority, and Dominic agreed to tolerate its use temporarily for the war effort.
• Dominic ordered Lynn to avoid deeper collusion with the cult and to eradicate it completely after all three billion recruits had been handed over.
• Lynn invited Dominic to oversee the purge of the cult's undercity strongholds, and Dominic enthusiastically agreed to bring naval marines.

Dominic received another anonymous letter while Lynn left the Gemstone and learned that Rena’s force had entered the Land Without Extension. Guyu’s squad advanced through the labyrinth under their Shadow in the Warp, but wounded veterans at the rear suddenly triggered melta bombs.

• Adjutant Karen delivered Dominic a second anonymous confidential letter bearing the same seal as the first, and Dominic hesitated before opening it.
• Lynn told Rena that matters with Dominic were settled and asked about the assault squad’s progress on the third underground level.
• Guyu led the Plague Cleansing Assault Squad and the Decapitation Squad through the Land Without Extension, where their combined Shadow in the Warp suppressed the labyrinth’s distortions and whispers.
• The force followed biological and psychic signals toward Luna’s central chamber, overcoming minor daemons and spatial folds along the way.
• As the squad crossed a downward spiral staircase, three wounded veterans at the rear suddenly stopped and detonated melta bombs.

A Tzeentch-corrupted attack broke the column’s domain of non-contact and sent everyone tumbling through a violently distorted spiral staircase. Lynn recognized that the survivors needed a physical anchor, and Guyu ordered Peter to brake against the stairwell wall as they continued to fall.

• Three corrupted Vanguard veterans detonated Melta Bombs, killing several soldiers and wounding the rear bishop, which opened a breach in the domain.
• Warp energy surged through the breach, flipping and stretching the staircase while daemons attacked the falling column and casualties mounted.
• Lynn linked to a Genestealer’s senses and saw Guyu and the survivors clinging to the Armiger Knight as they fell.
• Lynn realized the column needed a physical point of support to stop its descent through the Warp-distorted stairs.
• Guyu landed on the Armiger’s shoulder and told Peter to stop firing and brake against the sidewall.

Peter and Guyu stopped the survivors’ first fall through the warped stairway, but a daemon attack sent them plunging again. Guyu caught the group with a psychic net supported by three sacrificial aberrants, leaving the survivors alive above the abyss.

• Peter drove the Armiger Knight mech’s Chainsword into the stairway wall while Guyu and the two bishops focused the untouchable field, stopping the group’s fall.
• A four-legged, armored monster charged from the darkness and broke off the mech’s Chainsword arm, sending the survivors into another fall.
• Guyu recognized that the distorted gravity relied on Warp energy and commanded three third-generation aberrants to release their grips.
• Guyu wove a psychic net beneath the falling group, and the three aberrants caught it with their bodies.
• The mech and the survivors crashed onto the net, crushing the three aberrants but surviving the fall.

Guyu and the others escaped the warped staircase, only to face two Helbrutes and the Heldrake that had attacked them before. As the group fought to survive, the Heldrake avoided Guyu’s psychic thread and prepared to strike again.

• Guyu froze the warped staircase, allowing everyone to descend safely into an underground hall.
• Two Helbrutes charged the group, and Peter used his Armiger Knight’s Ion Shield to hold one back.
• The captain ordered the veterans to scatter while the acolytes and Purestrain Genestealers attacked the other Helbrute.
• Guyu sensed the Heldrake above and dodged its flame attack as it dove toward her.
• Guyu stretched a psychic thread across the Heldrake’s path, but it twisted aside and evaded the attack.

Guyu and the others destroyed three Daemon Engines, but Luna arrived with sorcerers and trapped them in a ward that disrupted Guyu’s psychic link to her main body. Nine Chaos Knight Drop Pods then landed inside the ward, releasing twisted Knight walkers.

• Guyu severed the Heldrake’s wing with a psychic thread, and four Purestrain Genestealers tore it apart after it crashed.
• Guyu attacked both Helbrutes with psychic whips while Peter and the acolytes helped bring them down.
• Luna arrived aboard a larger Heldrake and mocked the wounded survivors.
• Nine two-faced sorcerers formed a ward that blocked Guyu’s mental connection to her main body and weakened her psychic power.
• Nine Chaos Knight Drop Pods struck the ward’s corners, and twisted Knight walkers emerged from them.