Neo-vellum, the moon of Vigilus and a former Industrial World now corrupted into a Daemon World, remains under the iron grip of Chaos. Marneus Calgar cannot even deploy Imperial forces into the wastes outside the hives on Vigilus itself, let alone reclaim this nightmare realm.
The Dark Mechanicum presiding here were once disciples of Vashtorr, but they have since pledged their souls to the Great Horned Rat. Now designated as Clan Resilience under the hegemony of the Grey Seer clans, they continue to uphold their pacts with the Black Legion only to avoid a total cessation of labor.
As a clan whose technological prowess rivals even that of Clan Skryre, these Dark Mechanicum masters are formidable, and they have no intention of remaining mere subordinates to the Grey Seers. They have been maneuvering for a more solidified standing, a move that the jealous Skryre engineers, who wish to prevent any rival from growing too large, have consistently sabotaged.
This has bred immense resentment. For these tech-heretics, the worship of the Omnissiah is paramount; whether he resides in the City of Blight or Skavenblight matters little, so long as their status is recognized. Though the Great Horned Rat personally decreed their current hierarchy, it is common knowledge that with sufficient sacrifices, the Rat-God remains indifferent to bureaucratic reshuffling.
"Yes-yes, I promise... a place-position for you in the City of Blight! You shall stand equal-level with Clan Verminus!"
Thus spoke the envoy of Whitesick, the Supreme Klaw-Marshal of Clan Verminus, to the Archmagos of Neo-vellum. While a Skaven's promise is rarely worth the musk it is written in, it is undeniable that Whitesick desperately needs a technocratic clan to anchor the City of Blight, much as Skryre anchors Skavenblight. Seeing the prestige accorded to Clan Ratling, Clan Resilience accepted the alliance.
…
In the Greigan Hollow, declared lost by the Imperium and fully overrun by the Genestealer Cult of the Pauper Princes, a twisted semblance of order had taken root. Here, a xenos community lived in eerie harmony, at least until the arrival of the Tyranid Hive Fleets. Their ancient Patriarch, the Grandsire Wurm, showed no desire to relinquish the power he had cultivated over centuries and had yet to issue the psychic summons to the Great Devourer.
While the Imperium had abandoned the hive, other enemies had not. Greenskin warbands and Chaos warbands relentlessly harried the cultists. Yet, through superior grassroots organization and a fanatical unity that shamed the Imperium, the Pauper Princes had managed to survive the meat-grinder of Vigilus.
But they faced a new, insidious shadow.
The massive, terrifying Patriarch Grandsire Wurm sat upon the throne of his palace-lair, six arms twitching with unease as he received reports from his Purestrain progeny. Following the Warmaster's withdrawal, the Genestealer underground networks had begun falling en masse to upright, rat-like humanoids. This relentless subterranean pressure had forced scores of Genestealers to the surface to escape a brutal war in the tunnels.
"The believers of the Star Children are no match for xenos in the deeps?"
"Yes, Great Grandfather. Those rats possess night vision as keen as ours and bodies even more lithe. They were born for the dark. Every mine shaft, every sewer pipe is crawling with those rat-men."
Grandsire Wurm's malevolent intellect was at a loss. He had even attempted to infect the Skaven with the Genestealer's Kiss. However, any rat-man implanted with the seed was immediately sniffed out by their kin upon returning to the nest, and promptly devoured. Even Clan Warlords and Chieftains were not immune to this fate; there was always a subordinate rat eager to dig up dirt on his superior and dispose of them to climb the hierarchy.
Thus, the Genestealer Cult found itself in a miserable stalemate: Genestealer infection was impossible. Integration into their society was unthinkable. Their signature "human wave" tactics were dwarfed by the Skaven's numbers. Even their expertise in subterranean ambushes seemed amateurish compared to the Skaven.
It was only because Clan Rictus was preoccupied with turning the Warp into a transit hub that they had ignored the cult this long; otherwise, this centuries-old infestation would have been purged by Kratch long ago.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Suddenly, the disciplined silence of Greigan Hollow was shattered by a series of deafening explosions. The palace-lair, forged from unknown alloys, shuddered with a tectonic violence. A dozen pillars of green mushroom clouds billowed into the hive's smog-choked sky!
Panic erupted. Genestealers shrieked, covering the retreat of their "families" while charging forward with weapons to meet the invaders of their home.
"Hee-hee-hee! Bug-things, die-die!"
Countless Skaven, driven by a despicable euphoria, surged like a foul flood from the massive craters blown open by the green explosions. These furred vermin scrambled out in a frenzy, their ragged blades eager to rend and gnaw anything, living or dead, in their path.
In a heartbeat, the vermintide had swallowed dozens of city blocks!
Utilizing tactical "Doom-Bombs" imported from Clan Skryre, they had detonated over a dozen tunnel entrances. This not only obliterated the surface fortifications but also cleared a "highway" for the billions of Skaven waiting in the depths.
In the undercity, hundreds of clans, numbering in the tens of billions, were pouring upward. Their source was the Gnawhole of Clan Rictus. Kratch Doomclaw was raking in "passage fees" at an astronomical rate. Word had spread that the Great Horned Rat had decreed: he who sacrifices Vigilus and Sangua Terra shall attain Daemonhood. This news was no secret. Consequently, it had drawn the eyes of every rat-man in the galaxy.
"For our kin! Do not retreat, believers of the Star Children!" a Genestealer Magus screamed, bolstering the cultists' morale. Leaders and Primus commanders coordinated millions of hybrids in a bloody, inch-by-inch urban war against the emerging Skaven. Relying on their vast numbers and familiarity with the hive's layout, they had previously broken even Chaos Space Marines.
But against the Skaven, these tactics failed utterly.
Slaves and Clanrats instinctively swarmed into every crawlspace and alcove, devouring survivors and looting their remains as trophies. Hybrid Neophytes, clad in stolen Astra Militarum flak-vests, charged fearlessly into the fray. Their lasguns and grenades felled waves of rats, but the tide never thinned.
The Skaven shrieked and chattered, returning fire with rusted pistols and Jezzails. Though the weapons were junk even by Genestealer standards, the sheer volume of green-glowing projectiles created a terrifying wall of lead and warpstone.
"We are being... suppressed by numbers?!" the Genestealer commander cried out, stunned as his forces were pinned down. The Skaven numbers were far more catastrophic than prior reports had suggested.
"Have the Neophyte Acolytes form a rearguard! Pin them down! They must not leave this sector! Contact the Patriarch, request heavy fire to level this entire block!"
A dozen hijacked Leman Russ Battle Tanks and hundreds of Goliath Trucks began to blockade the sector's exits, aiming to grind the vermintide to pulp with superior firepower. However, after a wave of Skavenslaves was mowed down, the Skaven Warlords immediately deployed a phalanx of Doom-Wheels and Doom-Flayers, which came screaming forward to crush everything in their path.
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