The first shift began before dawn.

It always did.
Long before the pale light of Orthex IX reached across the eastern ridges, Kharveth was already awake.
Warning sirens echoed between refinery towers, floodlights burned above loading yards kilometers across.
Ore haulers crawled from the extraction pits in endless lines, each carrying enough stone to bury a hab-block.
Beyond the city, the mines scarred the earth.

Some were open wounds kilometers wide, descending in terraces toward depths hidden beneath smoke and dust.
Others disappeared underground through reinforced gates large enough to swallow entire convoys. Everywhere, machinery moved.
Kharveth did not sleep.

Kharveth worked. From the upper gallery of administrative Spire Three, Tavian Ors watched another ore train leave the loading district.
One hundred and twelve wagons. He counted them without meaning to. Below, thousands of workers moved between furnaces,
sorting facilities and freight yards. Even through the armored glass he could see the glow of the smelteries reflected against the low clouds.
Behind him, a door opened. “You are late.”

“I know.” Councillor Deren Holt entered carrying a data-slate beneath one arm.
Ors continued watching the train. “How much?” Holt didn’t need to ask what he meant.
“Three point eight.”
Ors turned. “Again?”

“Again.”
“Last quarter was three point two.”
“Apparently Cinerax has developed a greater appetite.” Ors held out his hand. Holt gave him the slate. The document was short.
Documents from Cinerax usually were. There were figures, production projections, delivery schedules, references to planetary obligations
and revised extraction requirements.
At the bottom sat the seal of the Governor’s administration. Ors read it twice. Then handed it back. “No.”
Holt almost smiled. “That’s what I said.”
“No. You swore for seven minutes and threatened to throw the courier into Furnace Twelve.”
“That was before I said no.” Ors looked back through the window. The ore train had reached the western gate, beyond it lay the Veyr Expanse.

Days of dust, rock and empty horizon separated Kharveth from Cinerax. Convoys had crossed that wilderness for centuries.
Ore travelled east, everything else travelled west. At least, that was how Cinerax preferred to describe it. Ors knew better.
“How many shafts are below target?”
“Seven.”
“Maintenance?”
“Behind.”
“Smelteries?”
“Six is still running hot.”
“Casualties?” Holt hesitated. That told Ors enough.

“How many?”
“Twenty-eight this cycle.”
Ors closed his eyes. “Twenty-eight dead?”
“Eleven dead. Seventeen unable to return to shift.”
“And they want another three point eight percent.”
“Yes.” Ors looked toward the western horizon. Somewhere beyond it stood Cinerax.

He had spent enough time there to know exactly what would be said if he protested. Planetary necessity, Shared obligation, Temporary adjustment.
Cinerax possessed an extraordinary vocabulary for taking something and calling it cooperation.
“Call the Council.”
Holt raised an eyebrow. “All of them?”
“All of them.”
“What should I tell them?”
Ors looked once more at the departing ore train. “Tell them Cinerax wants more.”

---

The five members of the Kharveth Council rarely agreed on anything, that was intentional. The institution had grown from the boards that once governed the extraction complex centuries before Kharveth became a city. Mining interests fought with smeltery masters,
transport factors fought with both, administrators argued about quotas while labour representatives reminded everyone that quotas required
people alive enough to fulfil them. Somehow, it worked.

Most of the time, today was not one of those times. “We cannot refuse a planetary production order.” Councillor Selka Rhun had said it three times.
Each time louder. Across the table, Holt leaned back in his chair. “Then perhaps a fourth repetition will make the mines produce more ore.”
Rhun ignored him. “This isn’t a trade negotiation. The order bears the Governor’s seal.”
“It bears an administrative seal,” Holt replied.
“Governor Vhalor didn’t crawl out of his bed this morning and personally demand another three point eight percent.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know Cassian Vhalor has probably never crawled anywhere in his life.”
“Holt!”

The room fell quiet. Ors hadn’t raised his voice, he rarely needed to. Holt shrugged, Ors looked around the table.
Five seats, five interestsf, five different versions of what was best for Kharveth.
“What happens if we comply?” Nobody answered immediately. Finally, Councillor Maelin Vorr activated the display embedded in the table.
Numbers appeared. “To meet the revised quota without reducing refined output, we reopen Shafts Twenty-One and Twenty-Four.”
“Twenty-One was closed because of structural instability,” Rhun said.
“Correct.”
“And Twenty-Four?”
“Gas.” Silence… Vorr continued.

“We can increase shifts in the northern pits instead, but heavy crawler maintenance is already three weeks behind.
We’d be gambling on equipment failure rather than shaft failure.”
“Additional workers?” Ors asked.
“From where?”
“Kharveth has four hundred thousand people.”
“Kharveth has four hundred thousand mouths,” Holt said. “Not four hundred thousand miners.”

Rhun glared at him. He was right, Ors knew it, they all did. Vorr changed the display.
Another set of figures appeared. “If we comply for one quarter, perhaps.”
“And next quarter?” Ors asked. Vorr didn’t answer… Ors leaned back, that was the problem. It had always been one more quarter, one more increase,
one more emergency allocation, one more sacrifice because Cinerax needed it. Kharveth had been founded to feed the industries of the Hive.

Centuries later, Cinerax still behaved as though nothing had changed. But Kharveth had changed. Children had been born here whose ancestors
for eight generations had never seen Cinerax. Families had built fortunes here, others had buried generations beneath its mines.
Kharveth had its own laws, traditions, industries and dead. Yet whenever Cinerax needed ore, the old language returned.
Extraction settlement. Production district. Peripheral industrial zone.
Never city, never equal. Ors placed both hands on the table. “We reject it.”
Rhun stared at him. “What?”
“The revised quota.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“I am.”
“The Governor…”
“Is Governor of Orthex IX.”
“Exactly.”
“And I have no intention of disputing that.”
Ors stood. “We will fulfil Kharveth’s existing obligations. Every tonne previously agreed upon will leave this city on schedule.”
He looked around the table. “But we will not reopen unsafe shafts, we will not postpone essential maintenance and I will not send workers underground
knowing that the ceiling above them may collapse because an administrator in Cinerax requires a better number on his quarterly report.”
Rhun rose as well. “You understand how this will be interpreted?”
“Yes.”
“As defiance.”
“No.”
Ors looked directly at her. “As a negotiation.”

---

The message left Kharveth at 14:22.
It crossed the Veyr Expanse through relay towers, buried transmission lines and vox stations whose crews barely noticed another packet
of administrative traffic passing through their systems. At Dustwatch, it remained in the communications buffer for less than a second.
Nobody read it, nobody stopped it. It continued east, toward Cinerax.

---

Cassian Vhalor was eating when Kharveth refused him.
Breakfast had been served beneath a vaulted ceiling painted with a representation of Orthex IX as it had supposedly appeared before
the first industrial settlements. Blue oceans, green continents, white clouds. Vhalor had always doubted the painting’s accuracy.
Nobody who claimed to have seen the original survey records had ever been able to produce them.
His aide approached silently and placed a data-slate beside his plate.
Vhalor continued eating. “What is it?”
“Kharveth, my Lord.” That made him stop. He wiped his mouth and picked up the slate. He read Tavian Ors’s response.
Then read it again, his aide waited. “Who else has seen this?”
“Your administrative secretary. Two clerks. Myself.”
“The Council?”
“Not yet.”
“Good.”

Vhalor placed the slate beside his plate. The response was carefully written, respectful, loyal.
It affirmed Kharveth’s obligations to Orthex IX, it affirmed its loyalty to the Imperium. It promised that every previously agreed shipment
would be honoured.
And then, in language so polite it almost concealed what it was doing, it rejected the Governor’s revised production demand.
Vhalor smiled faintly. “Very clever.”
“My Lord?”
“Tavian.”

The aide said nothing. Vhalor stood and walked toward the window, Cinerax stretched beneath him.
From this height the industrial haze looked almost beautiful. Towers pierced through layers of cloud while aircraft moved silently between them.
Somewhere far below were millions of people who would never know Kharveth had refused anything. For now.
“Shall I prepare an enforcement order?”
Vhalor turned. “No.”
The answer surprised his aide. “My Lord?”
“Commissioner Ors has not refused the planetary tithe. He has not withheld an agreed shipment. He has not challenged Imperial authority.”
“He rejected your order.”
“Yes.”
Vhalor looked back at the slate. “Very carefully.”
He knew Tavian Ors. They had sat across tables from one another dozens of times. Ors did not shout, he did not threaten,
he did not make mistakes merely because he was angry.
That was precisely why this mattered. “Send him a reply.”
“Terms?”
“No terms.”
The aide waited.
Vhalor returned to his chair. “Invite the First Commissioner to Cinerax.”
“Personally?”
“Personally.”
“When?”
Vhalor considered the question. “Immediately.”
The aide bowed and left, Vhalor picked up the slate again. For several moments he studied the name at the bottom, Tavian Ors.
Years ago, Vhalor had considered the man one of the most useful administrators on Orthex IX.
Perhaps he still was, that might be the problem.

---

In Kharveth, the second shift began, the furnaces continued burning.
The mines remained open. Another convoy departed for Cinerax carrying exactly the amount of ore that had been agreed upon.
Not a tonne more. At 18:43, Tavian Ors received the Governor’s invitation. He read it alone.
Then he walked to the same window from which he had watched the morning convoy leave.
Far beyond Kharveth, the last light of day burned red across the Veyr Expanse. Somewhere beyond that horizon waited Cinerax.
Ors folded his hands behind his back. For centuries, Kharveth had answered whenever Cinerax called.
This time, Cinerax was asking him to come. It was a small difference.
But on Orthex IX, mountains were dismantled one stone at a time.

---

WELCOME TO ORTHEX IX

A Necromunda Campaign World

Orthex IX is an old Imperial mining world.
For millennia, its mountains have been broken, its earth excavated and its resources consumed in service of the Imperium.
What remains is a world dominated by dust, industry and endless horizons.

Across much of the planet stretches the Veyr Expanse, a vast wilderness of sand, ash and exposed rock crossed by ancient transport routes,
pipelines and the remnants of forgotten industrial projects.
At one end of this wasteland stands Hive Cinerax.

Once the centre of Orthex IX’s mining industry, Cinerax has grown into an immense Hive and the seat of planetary power.
Millions live within its towers and industrial depths, while Lord Governor Cassian Vhalor rules Orthex IX from high above its poisoned lower levels.
But the mines that once made Cinerax powerful are no longer what they were.

Far across the Veyr lies Kharveth.
What began centuries ago as a remote extraction complex has grown into a vast industrial mining city.
Its mines now provide an increasingly important share of the resources upon which Cinerax and Orthex IX itself, depends.

Kharveth has not forgotten that fact.
Under First Commissioner Tavian Ors, the city has begun demanding greater recognition and control over its own production.
Kharveth remains loyal to Orthex IX, Orthex IX remains loyal to the Imperium. But between Cinerax and Kharveth,
old certainties are beginning to fracture.

Between them lies the Veyr.
And somewhere within that wilderness stands Dustwatch – Long-Range Auspex and Vox Relay OX-17.
For generations, Dustwatch has watched the convoys crossing the wastes.
Recently, it detected something else.
Nobody knows what.

---

Meanwhile, beneath Cinerax, the earth has opened.
The Cinerax Breach exposed structures far below the known Underhive, districts that should not exist and appear to have remained sealed
for centuries. Scavengers entered, some returned with riches, others never returned at all.

The people of Cinerax have given the place a name: The Underscar.
The authorities have forbidden entry, the gangs are going anyway.

---

You are now part of Orthex IX.
Before the campaign begins, decide three things:

Where does your gang come from?
Perhaps you belong to the endless levels of Cinerax. Perhaps your people work the industries of Kharveth.
Perhaps you operate from somewhere in the Veyr, a settlement that does not yet exist on our maps.

Why are you fighting?
Credits, Territory, Power, Knowledge, Loyalty, Survival? Or something known only to your gang?

And finally:
What does your gang want to achieve?
You do not need to choose between Cinerax and Kharveth, You do not need to understand what happened beneath Cinerax.
You don’t need to know what Dustwatch detected… You only need a reason to fight.

Because from this point onward, the history of Orthex IX is no longer written in advance.
Territories will change hands, gangers will rise and fall. Settlements may be founded, alliances may be made.
Old rivalries may become wars and the stories told around our tables may become part of the world itself.

Perhaps one day someone will discover what lies beneath the Underscar. Maybe someone will learn what crossed the Veyr.
Will Kharveth and Cinerax reconcile?

Those answers do not exist yet.

You will create them.

The world has been built. Its history begins now.