Necron quest

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Chapter 1: Scourge of the Old Ones
As the proud leader of a Necrontyr dynasty, you'd never known defeat. Never, until your people met the Old Ones, and dared to attack their star-spanning empire. Your dynasty had been on the frontline when the war with the Old Ones started, and you were some of the first to face their wrath. Your Fringeworlds were scoured and your Coreworlds besieged for generations. When the C'tan called the Messenger -- and now the Deceiver -- promised your people immortality through biotransference into undying machine bodies, you snatched at it greedily. Later, you betrayed him and his kind, shattering them into C'tan shards now used as weapons.

To no avail, sadly. Though your new soulless bodies were nigh-indestructible, even as their empire collapsed the Old Ones encircled your crownworld and used their uncanny powers to trap you within it, driving their warp technology into its surface, binding you to the depths. You retreated to the underground stasis tombs that Szarekh, the Silent King, had ordered constructed, and waited for the final assault -- which never came. Eventually, you slept, awaiting the Silent King's call.

Now, sixty million years have passed and you've awoken into... chaos. Signs of battle between the Old Ones' humanoid creations litter the surface, as do the ancient enemy's traps. These devastated your people upon awakening, leaving a few surviving tombs widely scattered. Through the warp storm, you can hear nothing from your overlord Szarekh. Where are the Old Ones? Who won the war? Is this another trap? Where are your C'tan gods? We must investigate -- cautiously.

Stage 1
Our first task is to quickly wake a cohort, to defend against the Old One's forces.

Objectives

 * Construct a Summoning Core (0/1).
 * Produce Necron Warriors (0/1).
 * Invoke Rapid Rise on Warriors production (0/1).

Rewards

 * 50 Energy.png energy

Stage 2
The living have spread across this world like weeds -- particularly the virulent humans, the Old One's final curse, whose primitive dwellings cover the surface. Enslave them if you can, exterminate them if you cannot.

Objectives

 * Kill scattered units (0/3).

Rewards

 * 50 Influence.png influence

Stage 3
A human leader cursed us as he lay dying, and revealed in his ignorance the location of one of our retreats. We must see if our brethren still live.

Objectives

 * Visit the highlighted tile and secure the perimeter (0/1).

Rewards

 * 50 Research.png research

Ending
Only a Necron could tell that this tomb was breached from the outside and resealed. Who or what waits for us inside?

Chapter 2: Messenger From the Past
One of the tombs holds a Triarch Praetorian called Eystan -- a Necron judge. However, he is not of our dynasty, but instead a traveller who became trapped here, long after our slumber began. He tells us that after we destroyed our C'tan gods at the orders of the Silent King, we were victorious in the War in Heaven, crushing the Old Ones. Afterwards we slept, weakened by battle. In those dying days, Eystan's group had been dispatched into the webway to lead an invasion of Old One homeworlds -- but  he lost his way in the maze and became stranded on our world when the Webway collapsed. He forced his way into the tomb's entrance, but with no way to enter it proper, has spent sixty million years alone, listening to the waking galaxy. This obfuscating warp storm is a new phenomenon -- he believes intended to trap us here.

Stage 1
Eystan thinks he knows a way off the planet, involving the fragmented Webway portals -- but it involves awakening a Cryptek of our dynasty. Fortunately, our records indicate that a chronomancer Cryptek loyal to the dynasty was entombed nearby.

Objectives

 * Research Royal Pyramid (0/1).
 * Construct Royal Pyramid (0/1).
 * Research Cryptek (0/1).
 * Construct Cryptek (0/1).

Rewards

 * 100 Influence.png influence

Stage 2
It will take some time for the Cryptek's delicate mental machinery to recover fully from the long sleep -- but we can accelerate the process by exposure to the world outside, and to battle.

Objectives

 * Accumulate research (0/100).
 * Reach level 3 with Cryptek (0/1).

Rewards

 * Adamantium Weave Vest (Passive)

Ending
The Cryptek, Ptanotek, is fully recovered and as keen as anyone else to discover Eystan's putative Webway escape route. But her instruments show something unusual in a distant tomb -- Necrons who respond to no signals, who are massacring everything they come across, be they beast, man, or Necron...

Chapter 3: Fragments of the Destroyer
When we slew our star-gods, the C'tan, they didn't die easily. After all, they were fundamental parts of the universe who had achieved sentience. They couldn't be truly annihilated, only atomised and trapped, lest they re-coalesce. And those who had time left a curse in their death, like Llandu'gors' Flayer disease that drives so many of our warriors to madness. The Destroyer Cults -- which have sprung up on the peripheries of our cities too -- are another reflection of the C'tan's curse. These nihilists are drawn from the best of us -- Immortals, Lychguard and Lords -- and in their madness, seek only the death of all life. But whilst we can communicate with our local cults, this maddened army is incommunicate and kills isolated Necrons alongside the living. We must stop them, if we can.

The rebel Necrons have formed into an army, led by a formidable Lord. Let us tackle them carefully, when we are ready.

Objectives

 * Destroy the rebel Necron army (0/1).

Rewards

 * 100 Energy.png energy
 * 100 Influence.png influence
 * 100 Ore.png ore

Ending
What a loss -- your people, turned to such mindless horrors. Eystan reports that many such dooms have befallen the Necron people since awakening, for daring to raise their hands against their gods.

Chapter 4: Vaul's Anvil
Ptanotek, the Cryptek, has studied the warp storm and come to a conclusion -- the Old One technology that maintains the storm is embedded in this planet. The machine that built it is surely here too. If we can find it, she's sure that she can reverse-engineer its technology, and perhaps dissipate the Warp Storm. That might be harder than it sounds. For, in the intervening millennia, Eldar, Man, Ork, Jokaero and stranger creatures have left their creations on your Crownworld's surface, and cannibalised the Old One's technology. Gather their artefacts for the Cryptek to study, and we may be able to find the mechanism by which to control the Old One machinery.

These artefacts range from palm-sized devices to floating monoliths taller than a Tomb Stalker, but the Cryptek insists they are all useful."

Ending
If the Cryptek Ptanotek could still drool, she would. Examining the artefacts, she takes an ancient piece from each and rapidly rebuilds a giant Old One artefact, which she asserts could control the storms. Silencing the Cryptek's protests, Eystan volunteers to test it, far from the city -- and you agree.

Chapter 5: A Messenger Revealed
Eystan has been gone only a short time, the mountainous artefact floating behind, when the Cryptek demands an audience. Her Scarabs enter en masse with her, prompting your Lychguard to gather about you defensively. Instead of conflict, though, the Scarabs bring something else. Ptanotek explains her scarabs were exploring a long-destroyed Old One habitat, when they happened on some unusual remains. Before she could personally investigate, her scarabs were driven off by the Psychneuein which had infested the ruin. But they did manage to recover one thing -- she presents you with a Rod of Covenant, a traditional Praetorian weapon. One that absolutely should not have been in an Old One ruin. What is going on?

Stage 1
The Cryptek demands that she investigate the Old One building personally -- and you agree.

Stage 2
Under the building is an Old One vault, with human and Necron tracks leading to its sealed door. The Cryptek can unseal it -- but it will take time.

Ending
You personally attend the vault's opening. Inside the ruin, you discover long-dead remains -- human warriors and a group of Triarch Praetorians, including a mangled corpse that is visibly Eystan's. Yet you saw him right before the Cryptek discovered this vault -- or something that looked like him, at least.

Chapter 6: The Silent King's Secret
Eystan communicates with you -- or, rather, the thing that pretended to be Eystan does. It is a transcendent shard of Mephet'ran, the Messenger, the Deceiver, the same C'tan who doomed your people to these metal bodies with its mellifluous lies. Around it stands a legion of your fellow Necrons, blank-eyed like the Destroyers you defeated before. In Eystan's tortured voice, Mephet'ran gloats that you have handed it the keys to the Old One's technology, and invites you to submit to your ancient masters. You cut off the communication in despair. Your Cryptek has her own secrets, however. From a hidden stasis tomb, a Spyder raises a cherished gift from the Silent King, saved from the days of rebellion -- an Aeonic device explicitly made to kill a C'tan. If we can recover the control device and use the Old One and Silent King's technology side by side, we can crush this hubristic C'tan. And once we've shown the other races of this planet that we can crush even a Star God, surely they will fall in line too.

Stage 1
"Shortly, Doom Scythe scouts report that the arrogant C'tan has left the control device with an army of his soulless Necrons. A lightning raid with your full force should be sufficient to drive them off and reclaim it."

Stage 2
"Rather than dissipate the warp storm, the Cryptek plans to ramp it up, so much so that the atmosphere crackles. This will burn away at everything physical -- with the solely-physical C'tan affected most of all."

Stage 3
"The C'tan too late realises its error and, burning with the Old Ones energies, orders its soulless armies to attack. If you can defeat it, you will cow the slave races by making them witness a god's destruction."

Ending
The Cryptek deploys her Aeonic weapon, and the thing that killed Eystan one moment screams incoherently and the next whimpers incoherently, its incomprehensible intelligence splintered a hundred-fold into Tesseract Vaults under your command.

Knowing now that Eystan was The Messenger, you know that everything he told you was almost certainly a lie -- to think that the Necrons could have defeated the Old Ones without the C'tan is beyond comprehension.

Beyond the warp storm, the Old Ones doubtless still rule -- but here, you shall stay safe inside this defensive tempest they have so kindly created. This shall remain a true planet of the Necrons, with you ruling over these mortal slaves until such day as you are strong enough to challenge the galaxy once again.