Strange goings on at Naegleria

For many of the explorator fleets heading into the Hadron Expanse, a strange signal from the world simply marked as Naegleria on maps began calling out to them from the void. The crusade, loyalists, orks and necrons all heard the call, and each one became convinced they had found one of their own worlds, cut off by the warpscar but now ready for rescue.

To cartographers, astropaths, weirdboyz and even the Necron overlords, the system appeared to be sitting on the edge of the Cicatrix, but untainted by it, and many of the factions of the sector sent forces to investigate. The eldar, and by their communication the tau, were not taken in, and the eldar warned their allies to stay away at all costs.

Naegleria was a trick. The world was in fact completely under the control of the chaos gods, and to advance their own interests Tzeentch and Nurgle had entered into an unlikely alliance and set up a trap, designed to lure the mortal races to their doom.

Naegleria was simply a daemonworld, infested by billions of accursed poxwalkers. Originally a human settlement, the planet had been in the midst of a war with local ork warbands at the time of the great rift, and both human and ork had been transfigured by nurgle into a pustulent morasse of rotting flesh, Now, the machinations of Tzeentch transported the leaders of the investigating forces to the centre of the former capital of the world, right into the heart of the zombie plague.

Part grand strategem and part entertainment for the gods, the leaders of Crusade. loyalist, Necron, Ork and even an unpopular member of the Emerald Serpent were thrown together, forced to cooperate or die at the hand of the legions of nurgle. Together the leaders somewhat cooperated, putting aside their hatred of one another to defeat the common cause and escape the daemonworld. However, at a crucial moment the loyalist faction betrayed the Grey Knights commander, obeying the plans of Inquisitor Hathek and removing a significant member of the Crusade hierarchy.

The ork and necron commanders, unwilling to cooperate, were also slain, allowing the loyalist members to band together, repair a discovered abandoned Rhino and escape the accursed city. From here they were able to reach a place where the loyalist fleet, now in orbit under Commodore Craddock, were able to transport them to safety. Meanwhile, the champion of Tzeentch passed his test, and similarly escaped the hell world.

The overall effect of the Naegleria distraction was to decapitate any meaningful Necron intervention in the Hadron Expanse, at least for the inital stages of exploration, while the Crusade suffered a heavy blow. The loyalists were able to extricate themselves from the situation and continue on, but the Naegleria excursion had caused significant delays. The system was declared Perdita on 2504.018M42, while Tzeentch and Nurgle laughed boisterously from the warp.