Orphean War - The Bloody Hundred: Given the allegoric nature inherent to astropathic communication, even with the alarm raised, the true nature and identity of the enemy remained unknown. The messages sent to the outlying worlds were seemingly swallowed by the darkness, and even those messenger ships despatched to carry forth the warning vanished. Following a scimitar-like curve stretching from the world of Tlaloc to Epirus, an impenetrable dark veil had fallen upon the Orpheus Sector.This fact alone greatly put the Imperium's Orphean Command on edge, but the total absence of contact with Libethra nearly caused the sector's Imperial Commander Calibron Laan to panic. Libethra was the homeworld of the Angels Revenant Space Marines Chapter, the most stalwart and powerful of the Orpheus Sector's defenders. More than any other factor it was the silence of Libethra that saw Orphean Command throw themselves into hasty and panicked preparations rather than striking out in blind aggression. First, squadrons of the Battlefleet Orpheus were despatched on picket duty around the worlds of Midwinter -- which harboured the Battlefleet's own orbital shipyards -- and Drucilla Majoris, planets once deemed safe but now threatened by the rapid advance of the enemy.With a mounting sense of dread, long-range Auspex systems, aetheric surveyors and even ancient optical scopes were all trained on those worlds having gone dark, but none of them could perceive the veil that had fallen on the Emperor's domains. With the sector's capital world directly threatened, the ever-more paranoid Sector Governor Calibron Laan issued several edicts by dictatorial command to bolster Amarah Prime's own defences, stripping the Arcantis Cluster of both armies and materiel to ensure that his world was safe.Warships and merchant-vessels alike were brought together during a great muster at Battlefleet Orpheus' principal fleet anchorage at the edge of the Amarah System. With the Imperial military power gathered at Amarah growing day by solar day with still no sign of the enemy, tension grew within the Imperial command. The dire warning of Apollyon had spurred the sector into action, but as the solar weeks turned to months, impatience grew to the point that Laan's own nobles and military commanders pressed the Sector Governor to act and not merely wait for the enemy's next blow to land.Orphean Command and Battlefleet Orpheus tacticians and commanding officers had drawn plans ranging from fleet-scale reconnaissance missions conducted by the Imperial fleet alone to a fully-fledged counterattack. Those generals of the Chemarium taskforce reasoned that with the resources available to Battlegroup Salvation, an attempt could be made to strike out for Libethra, where the Angels Revenant would surely still be fighting the enemy.Sector Governor Laan would have none of it. Backed by the esteemed Inquisitor Lord Hiram Ntshona, a veteran of the Ordo Malleus and now the sole surviving member of the Inquisition's Chamber Apollyon, Laan dismissed every option laid before him. He was adamant that the Imperial forces needed to secure even more men and warships for the defence of Amarah. This was the sole task the increasingly unstable and desperate Laan showed any interest in.To Ntshona, who strongly believed this attack to be the work of the Ruinous Powers, the build-up of Imperial power on Amarah was the only right course of action. As soon as the warning had been heard, Lord Inquisitor Ntshona had secured access to the most powerful Astropath on Amarah to contact his superiors within the Ordo and their Chamber Militant, the Grey Knights.Who else but the gods of Chaos could calm the Warp before their marching armies, yet hinder their opponents through Warp Storms? Who else could engulf entire star systems in shadows and thus shield the battlefields from the inquisitive glance of the Imperium? This reasoning would prove a tragic mistake that would claim a bloody return later in the campaign.From what has since been gathered from Lord Inquisitor Hiram Ntshona's personal records -- released post-mortem to the Conclave of Eurydice -- it appears that almost at the same time that the Necrons attacked the Orpheus Sector, the Sector Governor began a slow descent into madness. Being a close advisor and confidant to Calibron Laan, Lord Inquisitor Ntshona was privy to sensitive information regarding the health of the Governor.Laan was plagued by a series of repeating and ever more vivid nightmares in which he found himself seated at a great feasting table, surrounded by terrifying figures Laan himself described as "deathly" and "masked in bone and gilded steel...clad in the golden and darkly jewelled raiment of barbarous and alien kings and princes." The table upon which they were seated bore plates of grey dust, glowing cinders and raw meat, so fresh it still dripped with blood.From this last dish, a sole figure draped in raw skin was the only one to seemingly enjoy the feast, grasping the raw meat, smearing bloody chunks of flesh into its twisted mask, unable to chew the meal it craved and unable to drink the flagons of steaming blood.The rest of the assembly silently watched Laan, seated before a terrible enthroned figure upon which Laan never dared to look. Silently, one of the figures bid Laan to taste the strange meal, all eyes fixed malevolently upon him. Screaming to be let go, a hooded and shrouded figure would manifest itself out of thin air behind him and whisper in his ear:"These are worlds that were once ours, the worlds that you trespassed upon and are now ours again. The worlds on which we have risen have already been cleansed. The worlds where we once walked we shall now walk upon again. As the rites demand, you are given a cycle of the pale stars to prepare yourself for extermination. Maynarkh comes and the banquet shall be served again."Dismissed as daemon-induced lies, Ntshona saw Laan's dreams as an act of psychological warfare designed to sow panic within the Imperial forces and mislead them on when the Archenemy would strike. It is unknown what measure the venerable Lord Inquisitor took to preserve the Sector Governor from these nightmares. Laan's "dream" must in fact have been reality, the Maynarkh Dynasty in some way bypassing all the security measures protecting the Sector Governor to take him to an undisclosed location and provide him with a warning of their coming.Had Ntshona not misinterpreted the signs, or had he been a member of the Ordo Xenos, he would have recognised that the vast concentration of Imperial armies on Amarah played right into the hands of the Maynarkh Dynasty. The concentration of Imperial force represented a challenge to the Necrons that they would never be able to refuse.