THE INVASION INSIDE FAMILIAR PLACES
Dominaria: Lives Under Siege
Phyrexian infiltration reaches a family estate, a school, a goblin kingdom and the Weatherlight. Other defenders must also decide whom their supposed safety excludes.
Why this story matters
The route in brief
Dominaria's defenders do not meet Phyrexia only in open battle. The enemy can arrive through a respected teacher, a trusted adviser or a vessel that has carried generations of heroes. Recognising it does not guarantee that the familiar place can be recovered.
These accounts sit alongside the Dominaria United campaign rather than replacing its larger chronology. Liliana confronts the use of her own past, Ulf discovers what his school is hiding, Squee renegotiates his future, and the Weatherlight's crew faces a loss more concrete than any nightmare.
Niambi's work offers another kind of defence. Fear of infiltration can become an excuse to abandon people outside a city's walls. Preserving a community requires deciding whose lives belong within its protection.
Read in order or choose a turning point
Story Chapters
-
Liliana returns to a history trying to claim her
Discovering the Raven Man's identity brings Liliana to a Phyrexian excavation beneath her family's ruined estate.
In Arcavios, Liliana found a history that gave the Raven Man a name outside her own mind: Lim-Dûl. Returning to the Vess estate did not produce a clean opportunity to destroy him. Elas il-Kor's Phyrexians were excavating the object anchoring his power.
Liliana refused both their offer of freedom and the buried ring's promise of strength through surrender. In the fight she glimpsed a long chain of necromantic possession, with herself intended as another vessel. She drew on her family's dead and the surrounding land instead of accepting that identity.
She drove Elas away, reanimated the defeated attackers temporarily and commanded the dead to bury the relic deeper before returning to Arcavios. This denied Phyrexia an immediate prize, not the Raven Man every advantage. From the shadows, he still regarded her protection of the ring as a successful manipulation.
Open dedicated chapter -
A neglected student sees the danger inside his school
Ulf's research leads to a book and a pursuit that exposes trusted academics as enemies or collaborators.
Ulf's place at Lat-Nam did not rest on impressive spellcasting. Research gave him knowledge his teachers underestimated, including clues to the identity of Jared Carthalion. A discovered book drew the attention of people who were no longer what they appeared to be.
Silas Brotten revealed a Phyrexian body and pursued him through the academy. A viashino intervened and died; Jared then helped Ulf escape. During their confrontation with Brotten, Ulf's warning about a concealed blade helped Jared survive.
Jared sent the book toward Corondor while returning to save people still inside. The enemy's plan had not simply ended with Brotten's defeat. The archmage's final transformation revealed Dihada, and the apparent route to safety was itself being anticipated. Ulf's useful knowledge mattered without making him all-knowing.
Open dedicated chapter -
Squee refuses to remain only his immortality
Compleation and a catastrophic accident lead Squee to choose a mortal future rather than endless restoration or final rest.
Squee recognised the corruption of his goblin followers too late. Spurna attacked him, and Ertai hid behind Bulp's appearance before turning Squee himself into a Phyrexian. The Salvation Sphere was installed in the body that now seemed delighted by its transformation.
An accidental chain of destruction crushed that body and detonated the mountain's mana lamps. Beyond death, the force within the sphere explained how its protection of his soul had interacted with Yawgmoth's restoration spell, then offered either renewed immortality or passage into death.
Squee asked for another possibility: return once, free of Phyrexian meddling, and live a life whose risks could matter again. He reunited with the real Bulp, who had survived outside the mountain. Losing his people was not undone, but his remaining future no longer had to be defined by an accidental gift.
Open dedicated chapter -
Niambi challenges the fear that closes Femeref
The threat of sleepers is used to deny the Efravan refuge until Niambi brings the magistrate to meet them.
Niambi sought protection for the Efravan while councillors portrayed the cat people as a danger to Femeref. Zar and Pallar could not wait indefinitely for a frightened government to become generous, especially with a child being born and Phyrexian machinery approaching.
Niambi's dream-reading and healing warmth helped her reach Magistrate Teshunda, but reassurance alone was not the solution. She and her family made practical shelter possible and brought him to the mine where the refugees' lives could be seen rather than imagined through rumours.
Teshunda recognised Zar Ojanen's ancestry, met the newborn Lark and chose to welcome the Efravan as allies. That decision did not certify the city as free of infiltration. It rejected the claim that uncertainty justified refusing innocent people the right to survive.
Open dedicated chapter -
The Weatherlight's crew wakes into a worse disaster
Defeating a fragment of Braids provides salvage but does not prevent the skyship's transformation into an enemy.
Shanna, Raff and Tiana needed parts to get the Weatherlight flying. Braids offered access to a Phyrexian wreck inside a nightmare barrier, on condition that they help her reclaim a splinter of herself. The apparitions inside were threats, not reports that Sisay had returned or the crew had already suffered every imagined death.
The companions helped defeat the shard, and Braids consumed it. They recovered parts, but reached the ship too late: it had been corrupted and now attacked them. Tiana's warnings had concerned changes already developing while the crew searched elsewhere.
Shanna and Tiana boarded, ended the torment of transformed crewmates, freed the still-uncorrupted powerstone and escaped with Slimefoot. The Weatherlight flew away in its altered state. Their survival preserved people and a resource, not the ship or everyone who had trusted its captain.
Open dedicated chapter
Keep exploring