Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Though you can see both the point and the flaws in Codrin's planned purge of his command, you eventually decide to leave the matter be and focus on your own concerns and responsibilities instead of meddling in his.

One of those responsibilities is to what you're more and more thinking of as your Journeymanlings, and specifically to Maximilian's ambitions to learn from Dwarven smiths. You'll not spend some of your hard-won goodwill to buy him the education he seeks, but you can use it to make an introduction or two and help smooth the way for him to earn it himself. You have a word with Skaroki Grimbrow, who has a word with his miners, who have words with the more open-minded and knowledgeable amongst them. Most Dwarven miners focus solely on the seeking and extraction of ore, but there are artisans among them who seek the purity of not just crafting something out of metal, but of also being the one to have extracted it from the ground and smelted it from ore; these are the ones least likely to be bound by guild secrecy and most likely to be open-minded, since the search for untapped ore veins takes them far from the heartlands of Dwarven power. Maximilian has thus far only dealt with the smiths among the baggage train and artillery crews, and seems to have overlooked the ones within the ranks of the miners.

[Maximilian's diplomacy roll: 50]

You make a series of introductions over a few days, and Maximilian puts his best foot forward; there's a few missteps and rocky starts, but common ground is found in matching obsessions with metals. Maximilian's education apparently focused entirely on the use of already-pure metal ingots, and overlooked the processes that got them there, and an entirely new avenue of research opens up to the young Journeyman as the dwarves expound on pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy, and rumours of an entirely new field called electrometallurgy. None of them outright agree to teach him, but they're willing to expound on their favourite topic while he listens, and it's certainly a useful start to what could turn out to be some very educational friendships.

---

While Maximilian talks to the miners, you get to know Thane Skaroki Grimbrow, de jure leader of the Karak Izor detachment and de facto leader of the dwarven adventure- and glory-seekers that answered Belegar's call to arms. An impression that has started to grow within you is that the Dwarven Empire is split in two, between what you think of as the Old Holds in the World's Edge Mountains that suffered through the Time of Woes that brought the Dwarven Empire to its knees and have never recovered, and the Young Holds in the Black and Grey Mountains that were minor strongholds or not even founded during those dark times and have grown in prominence since. Of the latter group, Karak Izor is the most prominent. Originally a mining outpost exploiting a copper vein (hence the name Karak Izor, which means copper mountain), many clans from fallen dwarfholds retreated there to start anew in the incredibly defensible Vaults, the snarl of icy peaks, deep chasms and secluded valleys where the Black and Grey Mountains meet.

As you speak to Skaroki, you realize that it's hard to define the relationship between the Young and the Old. The Old Holds have the deepest mines, the tallest peaks, the wisest of elders and the cleverest of inventors. All of which are enviable, if it weren't for the one thing the Young Holds have that the Old Holds don't.

Hope.

Every Old Hold has a falling population, as attrition and duty and the weight of ancient grudges claim more lives each year than are born. Each year chambers that were once filled with dwarven families are no longer needed and are sealed, perhaps never to be reopened. Each year the memories of the Dwarven Empire at its height grow a little more faded, as history becomes legend and legend becomes myth. And each year, the Young Holds grow in wealth and prestige and above all in population.

There's a cocktail of emotions in Skaroki's voice as he ruminates on all of this. Guilt and duty, sympathy and envy, despair and relief.

The silence stretches between the two of you, and you can almost feel the weight of the Dwarven Empire upon your shoulders. But, being a dwarf, Skaroki knows the cure for encroaching despair, and he bustles off to see to the extermination of greenskins.

---

You, Esbern and Seija are the only humans among the force that advances carefully through the near-pitch darkness of the Underway towards the snotling hive; the force is made up almost entirely of dwarven miners, to whom underground darkness is second nature. You, too, are in your element; your charges, however, are far from it. The Amber Wind does not blow here, and Esbern is already breathing hard from the effort of summoning enough energy for his combat magics, but now he stands ready with razor-tipped fingers and skin tougher than the rock around him. Seija possesses no such magic, but she does have a spear and the muscles to use it, and you know better by now than to try to separate her from Esbern.

[Snotling detection roll: 31]

If the snotlings were sensible enough to place sentries, they would have detected your approach. If their city was any quieter, they would have heard the hundreds of footfalls of advancing dwarves. But their city is a constant anarchic din, and your approach goes unnoticed as the rim of the great pit sprouts a semi-circle of dwarven heads, like a new constellation in the sky that foretells only doom. You nod to Esbern and Seija, Skaroki nods to one of the dwarves, and the din of the pathetic attempt at civilization below is drowned out by the sounding of a horn so low-pitched you feel it more in your stomach than your ears.

[Surprise attack! 79 vs 25-(a lot)=(no).]

The result is as devastating as you'd expect when one side reaches knee height on the other. The dwarves don't even swing weapons - they trample the scattered and panicking snotlings underfoot as they charge clean through the city, and then turn their weapons not on the bewildered enemy, but on the passages carved into the stone leading out from the central pit, caving them in one by one. You follow in their wake feeling almost lost, spitting the occassional snotling on your greatsword more to show willing than because it's at all necessary. Esbern and Seija obediently stick to you as you advance into the devastated miniature city.

[Snotling reinforcements: 75]

And the reason why you advised them to do that, no matter how devastating the victory may seem, makes itself known. A spherical ball of teeth and hunger propels itself from a tunnel barely wide enough to fit it, followed by dozens more. Either deliberately or by accident, the squigs have been loosed, and now there's an actual opponent on the field.

[Dwarven reaction: 21]
[Squig reaction: 51]
[Your reaction: 44]
[1d10: 3]

There was no way to predict where the threat would have come from, so fortune alone was responsible for whether the dwarves were in the right spot to respond to the threat, and as it turns out, they weren't. The squigs scatter in all directions, some breaking for freedom and some charging their former captors, but enough to be a threat focus on your forces, and three bear down on you specifically.

[Stand and Shoot: 43+19=62 vs 82]
[You vs Squig: 31+19=50 vs 73]
[Esbern vs Squig: 36+15 vs 37]
[Seija vs Squig: 67+10=77 vs 48]

Revolver in hand, you fire a few shots at the hopping menaces as they charge but they miss entirely, the chaotic movement of the damnable fungi proving too difficult to predict in the heartbeat you had to aim. Then they're on you, one for each of you, and teeth close around your arm and grind against the mystical armour you'd summoned earlier that stands between razor-sharp edges and your skin; to your left Esbern meets his in mid-air, claws sinking deep into fungal flesh, and to your right the squig's charge takes it right into the point of Seija's spear and almost all the way down its length to her hands before the fight bleeds out of the creature.

[You vs Squig: 58+18=77 vs 9]

The creature is gnawing fruitlessly on your sword hand, which is just plain unfortunate for him. You jab the barrel of the revolver into the thing's eye, and its shriek of pain reverberates through your arm for a moment before you fire; and again, and a third time before its bites lose their strength and it falls from your arm.

[You, Esbern and Seija contribute elsewhere: 85+15=100]

Freed up from your opponents, the three of you dart through the chaotic melee with speed and efficiency, spitting a squig here, scattering a knot of resistance from Snotlings there, and generally having a grand old time as you tip the odds of a score of individual battles and douse any hope the snotlings have. By the end of it, you're panting with effort and have emptied your revolver and bloodied your greatsword, Esbern's arms are coated in greenskin blood to the shoulder, and Seija's bare limbs glisten with sweat in the faint phosphorescent light of the ruined hive. The only snotlings not struck down are those that fled into the tunnels that the miners collapsed behind them. All in all, a good day's work, and Skaroki gives you a satisfied nod.

Then you and your Journeymanlings make yourself scarce. There's still a significant amount of work to be done, but it's all of the pick and shovel variety, rather than magically-enhanced death.

---

[Rolling...]

Two days later, you finally emerge from the Underway at the head of the Expedition into Death Pass; your Shadowhorse is a logistical miracle, but it has its limits, and one of those is that galloping down a pitch-black underground tunnel is a fantastic way to run face-first into a stalactite, so for once you had to join the rest of the Expedition on foot - thankfully, the rest of the march through the Underway was uneventful. All around you are towering peaks, none more so than the one directly opposite the exit of the Underway. Belegar is nearby, and stares up at the peak, and you're surprised to see tears running down his face, carving tracks through the dirt and dust of two days of underground marching. "Karagril," he says in awe, and you recognize the name: in Reikspiel, it would be Silverhorn, and it is one of the Eight Peaks that give the Karak its name.

The end is literally in sight, but that does not mean you're anywhere near done with marching: the East Gate will be your entrance to the dwarfhold, and you're directly north. One last week of marching east, past Karag Lhune and Karag Nar, and the Expedition will finally be at the final approach to the peak you'll be entering through: Kvinn-Wyr.

Death Pass is absolutely enemy territory - for three thousand years it has been the domain of orcs, goblins and skaven, with all but the largest and most heavily armed of caravans preferring either Silver or Mad Dog Pass to the north. The only known obstacle between you and the East Gate is the watchtower of Und-Uzgar, but attack from any given direction is likely, verging on certain.



The THREE of the following with the most votes will be performed:

Contributing to the Campaign:
[ ] Join the assault on Und-Uzgar
- [ ] Bring Esbern and Seija
- [ ] Bring Panoramia
- [ ] Bring Maximilian
- [ ] Bring nobody
[ ] Stand ready in the Vanguard, in case any try to block the advance of the Expedition.
[ ] Stand ready in the Rearguard, in case Black Crag launches an assault on the rear of the Expedition.

Spend time with the Council of War:
[ ] Master Engineer Durin Wutokri
[ ] Grand Master Sigwald Kriegersen
[ ] Grand Master Ruprecht Wulfhart
[ ] Marshal Titus Muggins

Other Preparations:
[ ] You've heard that greatswords and greataxes are near identical in the way they're used, and you happen to be surrounded by experts in the art of the axe. Learn how to use one.


- A dwarf favour tally will come when (if?) the Expedition has secured at least a staging ground in Karak Eight Peaks.
- Vanguard and Rearguard are mutually exclusive.