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Eye of Night

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Targetdrone.gif This article is about the Artefact; for the Audio Drama, see Eye of Night (Audio Drama).

The Eye of Night was an ancient artefact connected to the Hand of Darkness located in the Gothic Sector world of Ornsworld[1]. In appearance it is a multifaceted obsidian crystal of unknown origin and can emit an ebon beam, that causes machines to suffer massive power failure or catastrophic internal damage.[2]

History

The Eye of Night once was once located inside of the eye of a statue, on the Ratling Imperium world Ornsworld, where it was worshipped by them as a god in pre-Imperial times. However, Ornsworld was later invaded by Chaos Space Marines attempting to secure the eye and they proceeded to blockade and siege its inhabitants until they retrieved it. The Chaos Space Marines' initial attack was pushed back by an Imperial Guard recruiting force, but a month later the Chaos blockade was erected and a full invasion began. The Ratlings could not stand against such a force and the death toll was in the millions as they fled into the hills. Lieutenant Comton-Hawkins of the recruitment force, recorded some of the atrocities caused by the Chaos forces, such as wiping out the small settlement of Esmerelda's Dale and bringing the side of the Great Belly mountain down, sweeping away seven towns and 82,000 ratlings.[1]

Inquisitor Thadus Valconet Horst attempted to recover the artefact, but it was seized by the forces of Chaos,[1] Abaddon the Despoiler having learned of its location from the seer Moriana.[3b] Abaddon used the Eye of Night and the Hand of Darkness during the Gothic War to take control of the Blackstone Fortresses[2] and attacked the Cardinal World Savaven with the Planet Killer to destroy the secret Inquisitorial Fortress beneath which Horst had kept his records of the artefacts.[3a]

Horst later found the Eye of Night with the aid of Moriana, promising in exchange to kill the daemon that possessed it for failing to fulfil its own bargain with the seer. He was defeated, his body possessed, and so Horst projected his soul into the body of the Grey Knight Paladin Belacus and teleported through the warp to a psychic beacon in the ruined fortress on Savaven.[3c]

Centuries later, he was discovered by Inquisitor Katarinya Greyfax and a squad of Grey Knights sent by Roboute Guilliman to recover the Eye of Night. The two inquisitors entered the Eye of Terror, bartering for the location of the Eye of Night from Moriana as Horst was suffering from amnesia.[3b] Greyfax killed the daemon, and Horst in the process, and recovered the Eye of Night from within its body.[3c]

Sources