Battle of Biel-Tan - The Coming of Elder Souls: Upon Craftworld Biel-Tan, the air thrummed with aggression. Every soul upon the continent-sized starship had a rising need to kill. The craftworld's Avatar of Khaine was stirring, and the Biel-Tani felt his awakening within their veins. Meliniel's message, delivered via the psychic link he shared with his Farseer sister Lathriel, had put into motion a chain of events that had galvanised the entire craftworld.Somewhere in the Webway that led from the craftworld was a host of Slaaneshi daemons. Biel-Tan could be mere moments from invasion, not only from the Great Enemy, but also the Blood God Khorne's minions, a baying host of killers hungry for war.Though there was only one swift pathway to Ursulia, dozens of small offshoots led from the mazes of the Webway to portals upon Biel-Tan. Should any one of these gates be destroyed or corrupted, it could buckle the fabric of the world-ship itself, damning the entire structure to a slow metaphysical death. Though it seemed drastic beyond measure, and though many expressed concerns, Lathriel and the Biel-Tani Seer Council reacted to Meliniel's warning by runically sealing every Webway gate upon the craftworld, save the giant portal that glowed in the darkness of space at the craftworld's stern.That vast arterial gateway, the vector through which Biel-Tan launched its mightiest invasions, was left under heavy guard; a full third of the craftworld's armada stood ready to destroy the gate, along with any daemonic force that used it as a route of ingress. Better to cauterise a gangrenous limb, said the Seers, than risk losing the body entire.When the Masque's attack came, it was far more insidious than a straightforward invasion. A band of Rangers in a sleek outrigger ship, sent through the Webway by Autarch Meliniel with orders to monitor the daemonic incursion's progress at a distance, ﬂickered into being through the stern portal and drifted down to the craftworld's docks. It made port through the irising roof of the gateway dome below.Unbeknownst to the Eldar, the Masque herself clung to the underside -- daemons need no air to breathe, nor do they feel the cold of the interstellar void, and with the Empyrean raging strong with Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade nigh, she could exist in realspace for some time before being called back into the Warp. Once past the port's armed cordon, the daemonic herald dropped from the underside of the message-ship and drifted gracefully down like a pearl diver in search of undersea treasure.Before long, the Masque had found her way inside the craftworld. Any who set eyes upon her found their darkest obsessions consuming them. Like some baleful hypnotist she bound one warrior after another into her wake. As her dance went on, the troubled expressions of those in her thrall began to twitch, then to turn to rictuses of horrid glee.The Masque caressed them with her claws, crooning an infernal ritualistic summons. One by one the captured Eldar were possessed by the Daemonettes that answered the Masque's call through the Immaterium, ﬂesh transmuting, painfully, ecstatically, to become that of the daemon queen's own handmaidens.On the eighth shattering impact, the Ursulian Runegate of Biel-Tan gave way in a roaring backdraught of psychic flame. The explosion was so loud it shook Farseer Lathriel to her core. With a tremendous crash, a heavily scarred Bloodthirster leapt from the billowing blue fires and stamped down onto the craftworld's mosaic ﬂoor. Psychoplastic shattered for half a mile in every direction. Skarbrand the Exiled One had broken through, a hundred red-skinned daemons at his heels.Farseer Lathriel felt her blood grow hot, but forced her anger to subside under her practiced calm. ++Now++, she sent telepathically, and at her psychic signal six shrines of Aspect Warriors darted from concealed positions amongst a forest of tall pillars. The leading edge of the daemon host discorporated explosively as lasers, shuriken volleys and Melta beams blasted into it. The raging daemonic giant was struck a dozen times, but the impacts only seemed to make it grow larger. It waded into the Striking Scorpions that spat death from their Mandiblasters, its axes hewing them as if they were kindling.Chiming impacts rang out from behind Lathriel like the clanging of a bell. Lathriel turned to see Biel-Tan's Avatar running towards the daemonic monstrosity, cinders trailing in its wake. It hurled its spear-like Suin Daellae -- the Wailing Doom -- with killing force. Simultaneously, Lathriel psychokinetically sent a bolt of mind-killing force at the daemon. Her attack did little more than distract the beast; the Bloodthirster turned and roared, the psychic force of its anger and contempt knocking the Farseer from her feet.At that same moment, it was hit full in the chest by the Wailing Doom. Daemon ﬂesh sizzled as the Eldar relic weapon's tip sank deep. Any creature of ﬂesh and blood, no matter how monstrous, would have been slain in an instant, but the Bloodthirster kept fighting, axes hacking down the Howling Banshees and Striking Scorpions fighting the daemon horde. The Avatar of Khaine ran in close, palming aside an axe blow to deliver a thunderous uppercut from its blood-drizzling gauntlet. The living statue then moved in close, ducked a wild axe swing and, grasping the embedded spear, hefted the Bloodthirster bodily from the craftworld's ﬂoor.The Greater Daemon's own weight drove it down the Suin Daellae’s haft, impaling it through. Still the Bloodthirster fought on, hacking at the Avatar's metallic body with its ﬂaming axes. Each blow caused a grievous wound, but it did not fall. Flames of pure rage roared around the duelling giants. The conﬂagration grew so fierce it consumed them completely. The Lesser Daemons rallying for a last stand around their leader were burned away to nothing, and those Aspect Warriors that did not scramble clear were turned to ashen corpses.Lathriel ran, faster than she had ever run before, into the fight. Fighting against the heat, she hurled three psychic runes of warding at the shattered gate to the daemon-haunted Webway beyond. The protective psychic symbols were pulled into place as if by hidden magnets, sealing the tunnel from further invasion. Before beginning the arduous and soul-draining work of sealing the gate in earnest, Lathriel glanced back, hoping against hope to see the Avatar standing triumphant. She saw only ﬂames, and a pool of molten metal.Elsewhere, slowly, but unstoppably, the Masque's enrapturing dance took her to the very heart of the craftworld. None were able to resist her lure, for all Eldar have within them a seed of the obsessive spirit that led to Slaanesh's birth so long ago. Unhindered, she reached the iron chamber where the Avatar slumbered when the craftworld was not at war -- the throne at its heart was empty, for the titanic living statue was elsewhere, already locked in battle with Skarbrand. The Masque chuckled to herself, skipped over to the great iron throne, and sat, legsfolded like those of a prim maiden, to summon more of her kind.A shrine of Howling Banshees came upon the parasitic impostor at the heart of the craftworld. Led by the Farseer H'daei after her rune-casting revealed the gruesome truth, the Aspect Warriors charged screaming into the open throne room, blades raised. The first few Howling Banshees to charge the Masque and her daemon cohort made the mistake of meeting her gaze -- and fell to her hypnotic swaying dance immediately, stumbling to their knees in supplication. H'daei found her protective Ghosthelm burning so hot with clashing psychic energies she was forced to take it off -- one glance from the Masque, and she too fell under the daemon's spell.The Avatar's chamber was suddenly split by a deafening shriek. It was not the mocking cry of a daemon, but a clear and piercing scream that grew to mind-numbing volume. A towering warrior charged into the fray, long-hafted blade whipping left and right to decapitate a Daemonette with every stride. The Masque, finding her spell ineffectual on the newcomer, jumped high with claws outstretched. Up came the polearm of the newcomer, fast as thought, impaling the daemon against the iron ceiling of the throne room.The Phoenix Lord of the Howling Banshees, Jain Zar, sent to intercept the Masque by her Harlequin allies, had come at the last.Her intervention was too late. By digging her rune-inscribed claws into the wraithbone roots of the Avatar's throne room, the Masque had already psychically breached the sanctity of Biel-Tan's Infinity Circuit, infecting it from within. Her Daemonette handmaidens had followed suit, leaving their physical forms behind to pass their psychic essences into the Infinity Circuit in such numbers its innate defences could not repel them. Biel-Tan had been taken to the brink of disaster.