Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

The camp is swarming with soldiers, those that fell in the river when crossing and were judged too soaked to join in the attack and those that crossed later, on the skeleton of the bridge the dwarves are busily building. And it seems like every single one of those soldiers feels the need to peek into the tent at one point or another as rumour tears through the camp like fire through a field. Your nerves, already stretched to breaking point, twang uncomfortably every time some damn fool soldier who thinks he's being sneaky silhouettes himself in the tent opening, then flees at meeting your glare; each time your grip tightened on the hilt of the pistol which was the only physical weapon you had left.

Van Hal might die to infection. He might not. That is out of your hands, and in the hands of fate and chance and the runners sent to seek out Kasmir or the Light Wizard. What is in your hands is whether he dies of anything else. Infiltrators slipped into Eagle Castle in the past, it's perilously likely they'd attempt to penetrate an army camp on their front lawn when the possibility of decapitating their enemy's leadership is on the cards.

Time passes with agonizing slowness; your heart leaps with every set of footsteps that approaches the tent, both possible assassins and returning healers forefront in your mind, and each time they either end in yet another soldier peeking in or they move past and you slump. Then, after what feels like an eternity, one stops and clears his throat before entering. He hesitates, and then addresses you directly. "Ma'am, there's a situation," the man says unsuredly, looking between you and Van Hal. "Normally I'd take it to His Grace, but..."

"Tell me what it is," you say, managing to keep your voice under control.

"There's a group of civilians from the town that were approaching the camp until the sentries stopped them. They say that they've escaped from Drakenhof and they need somewhere to stay until the fighting dies down."

Instantly, you mind goes to the infiltrators that once gave you so much trouble back in Wurtbad, and to the feats of strength and celerity they were capable of due to the noxious magic implanted within them. You look the man up and down, taking in the plumes on his helmet and the neatness of his moustache, and take an educated guess. "Major?"

"Von Tenneck, ma'am."

"Is your cohort in the camp?"

"Yes ma'am, we've just now crossed the river."

"Gather them all, and return to these villagers. Tell them they can wait there until the fighting ends and that food and shelter will be provided if necessary, but they are not to take another step towards the encampment. If they do take another step, kill every last one of them."

The man's eyes narrow, and he glances towards the bed where Van Hal lies; he may not know what you do of the ensorcelled infiltrators, but he understands enough. "Understood, ma'am."

He turns and leaves, and the inexorable wait resumes. You hear nothing further of the matter; whether it ended in a massacre or not, what's important to you is that it didn't end with Dhar-filled assassins bursting into the tent. You turn back to the tent, and eye the Shallyan shrine one of the doctors set up on the end with mixed doubt and desperate hope. You wonder if Ranald's domain of chance could assist, or if it's entirely in the hands of Shallya's domain of health; you suppose if you knew that, you'd know a great deal more about medicine. You say a prayer anyway; it can't hurt, and it at least gives you the impression that you're doing something. Then you resume your interminable waiting.

---

At long, long last, Van Hal stirs, and groans as his wounds protest the movement, and his eyes open a crack to squint upwards. All that stops you from dashing to his side is that you were already there. "Either the afterlife is rather more prosaic than I expected, or..." he turns his head to squint at you, and smile as he makes out your features through the gloom of the tent. "Ah, Mathilde. Are we dead?"

Logically, you know this has no bearing one way or the other - the wound in his stomach could still eventually kill him, conscious or no - but relief floods through you anyway, and you can't stop yourself from returning his smile. "Not quite yet, your Grace."

"If anyone's earned the right to call me Abelhelm, it's you." He frowns, suddenly concerned. "Was my arm wounded? I can't seem to move it." You release your grip on his hand, leaving pale marks from how tight you were holding it, and refuse to reply as Van Hal flexes his newly released hand. "Ah, there we go. What happened?"

"As far as I can tell, the charge was a complete failure, and we were the only ones to penetrate enemy lines."

"Ah." His searching hand finds the bandaged wound on his stomach, and he winces as he presses against it; for a moment his expression freezes, and he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before reopening them. "Ah."

"I've sent runners for Kasmir or the Light Wizard," you say, because you have to say something.

"Knowing Kasmir, he'd be where the fighting's thickest," Van Hal murmurs. "Not knowing the wizard, he could be anywhere." He takes a deep breath and tries to sit up, and groans in pain as he falls back onto the bed. He takes a moment longer to catch his breath before continuing. "This changes nothing; Drakenhof will fall. But should I fall too..." he hesitates for just a moment. "In my travelling gear, which should be around here somewhere if the attendants have been doing their job, there's an iron strongbox. It opens to any key as long as the password is spoken: Senthoi. I've faith you'll know what to do with it." You nod, but his eyes have already drifted shut, and you're quick to check his breathing; he's fallen unconscious, rather than just fallen.

[Finding Kasmir: 94]

You're resigned to another stretch of endless nothing, but it seems like moments later that a figure bursts into the tent, and then recoils from the pistol you level in their face, only to almost drop it in relief at the bald, familiar face. He nods at you in approval at your reaction, then joins you at Van Hal's side.

[Healing Van Hal: 6]

You've seen Kasmir's holy power at work before, but this time it's different. His eyes closed, his lips move in silent prayer, but the expected effects fails to manifest themselves. The serene expression of a priest in prayer is replaced with one of concentration, then of concern, as he continues praying. But still, nothing happens.

At last, his eyes open, his expression bleak. "Sigmar's light does not shine here."

The words hang in the air, and then you respond, furious. "What the hell do you mean? If Sigmar's light doesn't penetrate here, where it is most needed, then what bloody point is he?" His head falls to his chest, his eyes close, and he makes no effort to refute your words. You want to rage at him, strike him, chase him from the tent, but though his god seems to be proving impotent he can still be useful. "The Light Wizard. Jovi Sunscryer. Go find him - magic must do what your faith cannot."

Chastened, Kasmir leaves the tent, and you collapse back on the seat at Van Hal's side. You had been so sure it was over, that Sigmar would make himself useful once more and heal Van Hal, but instead he'd failed you. Van Hal was right to lose faith in Sigmar, you reflect, if this is the thanks he gets after a lifetime of service to Sigmar's empire.

---

[Camp defences: 76]
[Finding Jovi Sunscryer: 1]

At one point, you hear the sound of a skirmish outside; but you're familiar enough with battlefields to know that this isn't one, and there's enough men at hand to handle whatever the threat may be, and soon enough the sounds of combat fade away. In failure, whatever it was has become irrelevant, and it doesn't even bother you that you don't know what the enemy has been trying. The world has shrunk to the tent, Van Hal, and somewhere outside it, one wandering wizard of Hysh who agreed to join this venture into Sylvania for his own reasons. Minutes pass, or possibly hours.

Then fate plays yet another cruel trick upon you, as Kasmir returns to the tent once more, his expression even bleaker. "The Light Wizard is dead," he reports. "Miscast whatever he was trying to do in the city, and tore himself asunder. Now several blocks burn with white fire."

"Then you heal him," you say.

"I already-" he stops, as he observes the pistol pointed at his face. He nods, and kneels once more at Van Hal's bedside.

[Trying again: 25-20(lacks confidence)=5]

Again, the light of Sigmar's intervention you'd grown so familiar with fails to manifest; again, you feel the tiny flicker of hope inside of you be snuffed out. Kasmir remains there for what must be half an hour, muttered prayers filling the tent, but in the end he rises and you don't even have the strength to shoot him for his failure. He looks bleakly down at Van Hal, then looks to you, sorrow and apology on his face, before leaving.

---

[Last, Desperate Attempt: Piety, Req 80, 58+18=76]

You've never exactly prayed to Ranald, not formally. You've talked to him, and quite frequently, to thank or blame him as luck goes one way or another; he's been a constant part of your life, bending the odds to amuse himself and sometimes you. But now, for the first time, you clasp your hands together, bow your head, and speak to the only chance you have left. Your prayer is not a formal series of words that makes up those of more stratified cults, but a single word, repeated over and over: please.

Your prayer is cut abruptly off, as you feel a presence in the room, and the unmistakable feel of a hand on your shoulder. For a moment hope rises in you, but just for a moment. The hand remains on your shoulder, rather than the presence moving to Van Hal, and you can tell it's an attempt at comfort, rather than reassurance. An apology.

The feeling of the hand fades, but the presence remains, your only company as you sob at Van Hal's bedside.

---

[Whether Abelhelm Van Hal lives or dies: 3]

Elector Count Abelhelm Van Hal is dead.

It happened quickly; his face grew paler, his breath short, and a nasty, ugly bruise spread from the site of the wound, and the sawbones that you had yelled for came from the tent of the rest of the wounded and fretted over him, likely more because they knew you would end them if they didn't at least pretend to do something. And then he was gone.

You sit by the side of his corpse like a puppet with the strings cut as people flow into and out of the tent; Kasmir says a prayer for his soul, guilt etched into his face. A stony-faced knight in black performs rites over him, speaking the few words allowed by his vow of silence. The Amethyst Patriarch stares at the corpse for what feels like an eternity, then bows his head and shuffles out. No sign of Markus, which may be just as well, because you might have attempted to kill him.

At some point, night falls, and chill creeps into the tent as visitors trail off. You finally find the strength to start moving, and tear your gaze away from Van Hal's body. His belongings were stacked in one corner of the tent by some attendant, and searching through them you find the strong box he spoke of. Hideously heavy, and obvious why: lead banded with iron, and an enormous lock built into the latch. You rummage through the belongings for a key, and eventually find a small knife that you jam into the keyhole and whisper the Eltharin word into it, and it opens.

If you weren't completely numbed, you'd be shocked to your very soul.

Inside is a simple leather tome, unadorned and battered by years, no different to thousands of others you've seen. But to your senses of magic it is utterly unique. Unlike other, shoddily-made items, it doesn't leak corruption into the atmosphere; it lies there, perfectly contained and utterly stable, the masterpiece of a terrible genius. Unable to stop yourself, you open the cover, and find what you knew you would on the title page.

The Liber Mortis. The original Liber Mortis. Written in the hand of the man that saved and doomed Sylvania, Baron Frederick Van Hal.

You snap the book and then the box shut, and the lock re-engages. Normality returns to the tent; or at least, the horrible version of normality where your Elector Count lies dead mere feet away from you.

As much as you want to sit there numbly until the world crumbles around you, you need to do something.

---

Your Next Act:
[ ] Abelhelm Van Hal is dead; your oath is fulfilled. Leave Sylvania. Leave Stirland.
[ ] The body must be escorted to it's final rest, in either Wurtbad or Altdorf. Remain by Van Hal's side. Whatever happens.
[ ] The vacuum must be filled. Step forward and take command. Fulfil Van Hal's final legacy in the manner that it begun.
[ ] To hell with the campaign; Abelhelm Van Hal was failed. Find the Greatswords, find the officers that were to be leading the fourth wave, find every man that did not stand shoulder to shoulder with Van Hal, and extract answers and then extract justice.

The Book:
[ ] Do nothing with it; your role is to safeguard it.
[ ] This is a religious matter; turn it over to Kasmir.
[ ] This is a religious matter; turn it over to the Black Guard of Morr.
[ ] This is a secular matter; turn it over to the Patriarch of the Amethyst Order.
[ ] The Third Vampire War ended with the Grand Theogonist himself reading a Spell of Unmaking from a mere copy of the Liber Mortis. There can be no stronger precedent.
[ ] Go even further. Wrest control of the dead and turn them against the enemy. Their greatest tool shall be their unmaking.
[ ] A book of necromancy, a newly-dead body. This doesn't need to be the end of Abelhelm. Raise him, and not in the clumsy way of the fumblers you're facing: you can make him a body superior to that of the living.

---