Xerxes Jones

Xerxes Jones was a member of the Void Engineers and the Orphic Circle. His experiment with a relic nuclear weapon in the Labyrinth in 1999 triggered the Sixth Great Maelstrom.

Overview
Jones was recruited into the Orphic Circle, apparently for his research was related to the Tempest and its patterns. He regularly fed intelligence back to the Void Engineers to help them deal with Haunts and Shroud-crossings. He claimed to have accurately identified a regular pattern to Tempest activity which the Orphic Circle could use to time their millenial rituals for eradicating the Shroud entirely.

In 1997 Jones finally persuaded the Ebon Bench of the Circle to help him acquire a relic nuclear weapon; having seen that conventional explosives had no effect on the Tempest, he wanted to determine what effect relic explosives would have. The Bench assigned him two kinighi to help him obtain the weapon, on the condition that he did not pass information about the experiment on to the Engineers, and that he detonate the weapon from within the Labyrinth. A frightened Jones contacted some of his Void Engineer colleagues about the plan, hoping to secure their assistance, but they were rightly dubious about entering the Labyrinth.

Ultimately Jones went into the Labyrinth alone, with his relic weapon. His vessel was scant miles from the Well of the Void when the Smiling Lord detonated his own relic nuclear device over Enoch; the shockwave propagated through the Labyrinth and caused Jones' device to detonate early, destroying him and triggering the Sixth Great Maelstrom.