Early 36th Millennium, dawn of the Plague of Unbelief
Orbit over Abalus
Onboard the Hecate, voidship of the League of Black Ships
Cell 1376, Null Bay Zone
Her eyes opened, filled with shock. I can feel it again, she said to herself. The Warp, it is almost within my grasp. Tears of joy streamed down her face, but fear had dug deep into her subconscious. It is only a trick, her mind countered. They just want to torment me more. A fire grew in her heart and mind. Burn them. Burn them all, she said. Her focus was immediately broken, shattered by a sound.
The sound of the locking mechanism to her cell door disengaging.
She struggled to her feet as the door opened, a scrawny and dirty figure in a tattered robe. Too emaciated for her age to even be apparent. She leaned against the bulkhead and made her way to the door. Cautious, fear filling her mind, she glanced outside. Nothing. It has to be a trap. She reached for the Warp…and it was there. A smile lit her face as strength filled her body and she walked through the door.
The passage was well-lit but the deck just to her right was occupied. Occupied by the motionless form of a woman in dark medieval armour lying on the deck in a pool of blood. One of the Sisters? Hatred and anger filled her mind. In the next moment, the corpse of the dead Sister of Silence immolated. A moment later, it was but ash and a dark scorched spot on the deck. She screamed in ecstasy and righteous fulfillment, then she felt it and glanced around. Countless others had stepped out of their cells too and were looking about…and they held the Warp in their mind's grasp like she did. But they were not what she felt.
Something pulled at her and she followed it.
Her mind, crushed for so long by despair, knew Hope. She began walking down the corridor, passing the others who had left their cells and were standing, as she had a moment before, while others were already walking ahead of her. Thoughts danced through her head. Thoughts of the men…and women she had seen and dreamed of being with, touching their flesh like lovers in a story. Thoughts of simply toying with the Warp and doing whatever she wanted with it, experimenting. She wanted to destroy all those who had a part in her imprisonment. Toss them off cliffs. Rip out their hearts. Watch them suffer. And other, darker, things crept into her mind too. Random acts of cruelty and violence against people she had no quarrel with. Against children. Fear. Fear of being helpless again. Helpless and at the mercy of some disease rather than a Black Ship or a Psychic Null. Fear of death.
And all those thoughts continued changing in and out with each other as she continued on down the corridor, shoulder to shoulder with all the other freed psykers. No longer an individual, but a gestalt mass. A growing mass, thousands strong, all drawn in the same direction. All drawn toward the Astropathic Choir Chambers of the Hecate by something they couldn't comprehend. In her drunken stupor of dreams and thoughts, she didn't even see the dead she passed. Didn't notice that she lent her might to destroy the still living Tech-Priests the throng passed. Didn't even notice some of the psykers floating right past her. Psykers too weak to even partly resist the pull toward the Choir Chambers. Too weak to resist having their souls pulled from their body by the pull.
All of them were too weak to resist the Ritual drawing them onward.