Spikes, Horns, and Stone 40
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Spikes, Horns, and Stone 40
You, Frederick von Hohenzollern, can only smile at the beautiful sight of your wife as she falls against you and interlaces her freezing cold fingers with yours. You are tired, hungry, and dehydrated more than you've been in a long while, but none of that matters. Her hands in yours, her body against you as she outright gets onto the table to press herself against you is the greatest of nourishment that you could ever need. Her hair is matted tight against her scalp and neck, pressed there with cold sweat that did not quite freeze, not like the frozen plinking of her tears rattling against your chest. Your bloody, partially flayed open chest. They did not do you the courtesy of healing their latest tortures upon you, after all. But by the Gods does none of that matter. None of it, as Tanrala unveils the whole of the Living Library, the secret interrogation chamber by which Mellis Screamtaker had spent five centuries tearing the magical knowledge out of anyone she could.
Because you can see her. Hear her. Touch her, even if your arms are still locked in soul-tearing spiked chains. Her eyes are terribly bloodshot, both of them, and to make that evident in the burning crimson glare of the Frostfiend that is her left eye requires a lot to manage. The right eye almost looks like it has had some burst blood in it. Deep bags have come into being beneath her eyes, lines of stress and anger carving their way across her face and far too gaunt cheeks making her Gospodarin cheekbones stand out all the more. Blood has managed to make its way past the vertical grille of her helm, splattering across her face, only to freeze up upon contact and be scraped off like rust. The iron nails of her left hand have grown into claws at some point, something that occurs without regular time at the grindstone. She smells of too much blood, too many tears, sweat, grime, rage, and of frost and biting cold and the faint smells of scavenged wine and stolen food stock.
She is the most beautiful and wonderful woman in the world.
"Love you," you rasp out as your hands squeeze against each other, your throat tight and voice a scraping rough thing.
"Love you," she murmurs back fiercely.
"If you give me a moment, I should be able to remove the chains," Tanrala interrupts with a light cough.
You and your wife blink, look at each other in the eye, and then turn to the sorceress as she stands there, staff in one hand, sword floating in the air, and a bottle of wine in her other hand.
"My apologies, but I suspect we should be attempting to make our leave as quickly as possible," she adds.
"You couldn't have given us a moment?" Natasha asks, eyes hooded and teeth bared.
"The faster I get it done, the sooner he can move his arms more than a few inches and be able to actually wrap an arm around you."
Your wife is off the table in less than a heartbeat, arms crossed over her breastplate. In the meantime, you're able to see Tanrala, looking down at you with a kind of exhausted calm you're quite familiar with.
"Hello Tanrala of Tiranoc," you greet her with a smile, "My name is Frederick von Hohenzollern. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Hello Frederick von Hohenzollern," she says with a bemused smirk and raised eyebrow. "I owe you a debt, and have come to fulfil it. Do not move – these are designs to tear soul as much as flesh."
With a loud snap, metal shears away from your arms and legs, chain links falling across the ground. The manacles and enchanted spikes within them that have pierced wrist and ankle entirely for many days now are released, leaving tracks of dried blood all over you. But that's nothing new. With a groan, Natasha helps drag you upright into a sitting position before dragging over your armor. Predictably, anything but the Ledstali is gone, destroyed in a fit of pique if you had to guess. Which means you'll be putting on forged stable and solid magical ice armor on without anything between your skin and it. Unfortunate, but you've got a pretty large number of children and grandchildren at this point, to your last knowledge.
"Here," she says, offering you the wine, having uncorked it already. "From Alyssa's personal stores."
It is accompanied by a gesture of that now freed hand as Ghyran slams into you, resheathing much of your exposed innards and musculature in skin and flesh, and incidentally re-manning you in the process.
"Gods bless you, oh mighty sorceress," you salute her with the bottle and gratefully guzzle down the only liquid you've had more than two days. "My thanks."
"It seemed the least I could do," she demurs before turning over to Eldyra, who has not responded nearly so vibrantly as you, even as Natasha and you embrace once more and kiss.
"This should never happen again," your love growls against you, lips biting at your lips and chin.
"It might," you sigh in between kissing her back.
"I know," she sighs before pulling back, looking eyes with you one last time before you have to break the gazes.
Though she keeps her hands on you, helping you put your armor on, both of you are well enough practiced at this point to manage it while you are looking at the unfortunate squire before you. As you've come to learn quite intimately, the Druchii seem to very much love specifically disfiguring Asur over anyone else. For you, the torture was to maximize pain. Something they very much well managed. Even now, your mind reels slightly at trying to reconcile the times when your mind felt as if it were being stretched like taffy, those fucking daemonic poisons drawn between Slaanesh and Nurgle drawing out your sense of time. Here, now, you know thanks to Natasha that it truly has not been too long since your capture. A week, perhaps, perhaps a day longer or shorter. But to your mind, and to your body, to your senses, it has been many, many months. Under the effects of those poisons…things lingered.
A single draw of a dagger along the length of your side was not a simple cut.
With that poison magnifying everything, it felt like hot magma was being poured into you, like you were being flayed from the tiniest cut, and it went on forever and ever and ever. The same sensation, escalating endlessly, drawn out an eternity every single time. The effort of opening your lips to breath was near impossible, or so it felt at times. Like trying to lift the gates of a castle with all your might, save only using your lips. Every blink of your eyelids, when you hadn't had them torn off that day, felt like a mountain falling down. The merest scrape of stone or pinprick of the spikes on the manacles was being impaled with a force and power akin to being gored by a tuskgor or boar spear. Even now you can remember the horrid sensation of becoming hyperaware of the blood in your veins, every single individual thump of your heart feeling like a contained boom of thunder right inside your chest. When your fingernails were torn off, it was a tearing of entire cliff faces. When you were gutted, the tearing of an organ out of your torso was the viscera equivalent of excavating the entire crater surrounding Talabheim with a one-handed trowel.
If it weren't for Natasha…
If it weren't for your wife and the soulbond letting you reach out across what felt like the gulf of time and space to a single tangible island of sanity and stability…
"But you didn't," she murmurs to you, bumping a shoulder against you as you fit the gauntlets of your armor back on. "You didn't."
"I would have," you tell her with utter certainty. "I would have broken. I know it. You know it."
"But you didn't," she growls lightly before turning to look at Eldyra. "You had something she didn't."
Eldyra is not well. They severed her fingers entirely, leaving her with useless stumps, smashed her feet apart and did not heal them, merely kept them from festering and rotting. Her eyes shut days ago, but her chest still falls and rises faintly. She's been scalped entirely, exposed meat a few layers shy of exposing skull, her ears clipped and tagged like livestock. But that is all, a pittance of work compared to what they did to you, what you made them keep doing to you with insults and goading. You made the mistake, you faltered, that first day, by showing how badly it affected you seeing her tortured to that extent already. You didn't make it again, but the damage was done, however comparatively minor it was. All you could do was keep them from turning to her ever again for the rest of the time between then and now, even if you suffered all the more for it.
"Well?" Natasha asks, glancing up at Tanrala who is already healing the physical damage.
"She will survive, physically. But between what Dreadbringer managed, the short amount of time between then and now…," the sorceress clucks her tongue. "The mind is resilient, at times. Fragile at others."
Natasha helps you stand, the weakness in your body technically gone thanks to the magic of Tanrala, not to mention the comforting warmth of the Light of Summer around your neck, Bokdrungni on your arm, and the hilt of Brain Wounder at home in your hand, but you're happy to have as much contact with her as you can. You have been away from her for many months before whilst out on campaign, but nothing has compared to this, how starved you feel of her touch. Her sound. Her taste. Her presence. The soulbond has helped, immeasurably so, yet there is something to be said for the physical realm as well. But for now, she knows what you intend, and releases you so that you can stand next to a once more very technically pristine looking Eldyra in gentle repose. Frowning, you reach down and press a hand to her forehead briefly, before the Ledstali can start to do more than slightly redden her skin. She does not react regardless.
"Can we at least get her some clothes?" You sigh, bowing your head for a moment before setting your shoulders. "We need to leave this accursed place."
"On that we are agreed," Tanrala nods fervently before turning at the sound of deliberately loud footsteps that would otherwise have been completely silent.
There, standing before you, is a shy-looking Gwendolyn, hair mussed and streaks of blood on her face and body, a bundle of clothes in her hands. She looks up at you nervously, then to her mother for support before back to you again.
"Gwendolyn," you say with a smile, "Good to see you as well."
"S-she held them off," the child says, looking at Eldyra. "She saved me, kept them back long enough for mother to retrieve me. I…I thought she was dead…but she isn't!"
"No, no she isn't," your smile broadens as she gathers her courage and scurries over, quickly aided by her mother in clothing Eldyra.
Though it dies as Gwendolyn is busying herself, you and Natasha not even needing to glance at each other anymore. In the meantime, you get to look about the Living Library in full lighting for the first time.
"Sigmar above," you mutter.
"I don't think the Heldenhammer had a damn thing to do with this place," Johanna speaks up for the first time, having wandered around the room quietly until now.
There they are, laid bare, hanging from chains and slumped forward, your one-time conversation partners. There are more posts and manacles than are filled, but those that are, you are able to pick out rather immediately. The grey-furred skaven with gnarled horns sprouting from the top of their head is the smallest amongst them, naked as the day it was spawned, much to your displeasure. All of them are, which rapidly proceeds from disturbing at seeing a man-rat to most of the others. Kkha'rdluk'li'fe is a skink, a Lizardman, reptilian and strange, but that alone is not particularly grotesque. The same cannot be said of the vampire who identified herself as Kakhe, who is a rather horrid looking creature that Johanna is closely examining at the moment. Bald and twisted, gnarled with skin gone dark greyish and green, ears pointed and extended like that of a bat. Even with the chains, the Necrarch's back is twisted with a hump into a permanent hunch. She, too, is naked, and despite her mutations there is enough to show the feminine aspect. Even if you wish there wasn't. On the other hand, compared to that, Valdir is only somewhat better. Here then is a worshipper of Tzeentch, or Tchar, or whatever the hell the Changer of Ways wants to call itself. His legs are bent backwards like that of a bird, and feathered like one as well. His arms are discolored and malformed, one transformed into a furred three-clawed affair, while the other has nine fingers that have scorpion stings rather than fingernails. There is also a lot of tattoos across his body, some of which shimmer and twist in the light to the point of looking like they're trying to move but are being kept from doing so. For all you know, that's actually true. Soya, the Liche Priest, is quite frankly awful. Old, undead, you aren't even entirely sure if there is a distinction for him. He's been stripped as well, skin sagging in some places and bone-tight in others, most of the teeth in his mouth gone and nose either fallen off or worn away. A literal bag of bones, just one that might happen to be able to walk. Maybe.
"What happened to that one?" Natasha asks, staring up at the hideous form of Grunk of the Manglefists.
"Starvation," you shrug, looking at the slumped figure of the Slaughtermaster.
His stomach has inverted, is the first thing you notice about the ogre. Instead of a bulging hillock protruding outwards, he has a crater that is lined at the top by his ribs and at the bottom by his pelvic bones. It's horrific to look at, frankly, knowing what you do about ogres. Fat has winnowed away entirely, leaving voluminous folds of sagging skin that make him look like a half-melted wax figure. Rather more disturbing is that it seems like the very skin and flesh beneath have retracted from his fingers, exposing the bone within and lengthening them into the beginnings of claws. You have no idea if the same is true of the legs and feet, given how all the sagging skin folds have formed a ballroom dress around his lower half. Also disgusting is how the jaw has distended and seemingly dislocated, opening wider and wider like that of a snake but never retracting, to the point that the open hole that is the throat is fully exposed to the world at all times while the lower jaw is against the pectoral muscles. The upper jaw, on the other hand, is almost fused to the nose, somehow, said nose having flattened to that of a pig. Some ogres are able to grow some hair, some beards, but Grunk is entirely bare of it any of it.
"Perhaps more than just the physical type," you mutter, mind on past conversations with Urgdug about the inhuman and constant hunger that tugs at his kind so often.
Your eyes happily drift away from him though towards Sadrina, who at the moment is half-bent over with her hands on the sack of dragon eggs that your wife discovered in the magical trophy room. Not quite claiming it, your wife was rather openly doing so beforehand, but also not willing to just let them be haphazardly left on the ground. The Handmaiden sees you, sees you seeing her, and grimaces before very gently placing the sack down and closing it up again and walking over whilst at least three dozen Asur behind form an impromptu guard around them. Her gaze widens, narrows, and then finally softens as she glances around the subjects of the Living Library and then down at Eldyra.
"She came to aid us," you say aloud, leaning against the slab. "She came to help. She rallied up her fellow Tiranoci, and sailed to aid us, and if they'd been a day slower or faster, we would have fought together at Salkalten."
"Brave, brave falcon of Tiranoc, is she," Sadrina murmurs softly, placing a hand against he side of the princess' face. "Be at ease, young one. For the darkness has been beaten back. Let Isha's warm embrace find you once more," she intones kindly.
Though the Handmaiden's eyes are shut, you can palpably feel the literal warmth that exudes from her in that moment. Enough so that you can feel Natasha unconsciously recoil ever so slightly in her armor. The false serenity that the squire fell into by retreating into herself, that mask of utter lifelessness, fades away as you watch in wonder. Though that changes to worry as you see Eldyra's face shift into shuddering, choking discomfort and fear, animal pain whimpering escaping her as she is dragged back up towards consciousness. Which, it seems momentarily involves passing by the layers of nightmares she has been subjected to. When Eldyra awakens, it is with a terrified and pained gasp, hyperventilating the entire time, springing upwards but falling back down as she clutches at herself and goes into fetal position. It is a good thing that Tanrala already disabled the chains, you think, as Eldyra lets out a few choking gasps for air, eyes wide and bolting about her. Otherwise she might have torn herself apart there.
"W-wha – n-no, no! Not again, NOT AGAIN!" Eldyra makes to scream before you put your cold hand on hers, making her glance towards you and jerking away slightly before looking at all the others, pupils shrinking down as she stares at Tanrala.
The sorceress sighs and steps back out of sight, though Gwendolyn stays behind.
"Welcome back," you say to her, watching as she keeps twitching. "Alyssa's dead."
"We tore our way up the Tor of Dominance. Ark's on fire, we got a civil war going, after this, we're heading for some boats," Natasha adds.
"You live, young Asur. You survived, your enemies did not," Sadrina says gently.
"Also, someone here has something they'd like to say to you," you gesture, and Eldyra's fast breathing slows slightly as she sees Gwendolyn pop her head up over the edge of the slab.
"Y-you…," Eldyra trails off, still looking around, flinching at sights and sounds and more before refocusing on the child.
Natasha doesn't need to tap your shoulder to get your attention, her intent and desires plainly clear through the soulbond, but she does it anyway simply to savor the contact with you once more. A sensation that you treasure just as much. Neither do either of you need to speak, at this point when you can just speak, but there is little to keep you from looking into each other's eyes again. Because both of you know that, sympathy and empathy for Eldyra aside, you simply cannot stay here forever. Something is happening out there on the rest of the Ark, and since it involves the Tor of Dominance repeatedly shaking, staying here is out of the question. For all you know, the battle has expanded out there between the Cult of Atharti and Cult of Pleasure, or the Cult of Mathlann has decided to abandon its neutrality at the most opportune moment. Or anything else.
Either way, the simple fact is clear in both of your minds, both tactically and strategically.
You need off this Ark.
Not tomorrow.
Today.
Now.
"Is there any armor that will fit Eldyra?" You ask, glancing at Tanrala, who cups her chin and shrugs.
"We could strip one of the freed folk, but for now…," she raises a hand, and you notice how Eldyra recoils like a beaten dog before she stiffens up slightly. "There."
Ordinarily you wouldn't have much of a clue of what happened, but you now have definitive proof that something of the soulbond is affecting you somewhat physically – you could literally see the Chamon settling against the clothes and altering them. How exactly, you don't know, but Natasha does, and through her the realization comes completely and swiftly. Though it does help that you can see the clothes, fit for a noblewoman going on an outing, leather and silk and cloth with freedom of movement, changing and shifting. Settling in place, not shifting like they should as Eldyra momentarily writhes. Instead it sits like what it is now – hardened to something more like steel. It isn't as thick as plate or the like, but it is far more protective than mere cloth now.
"It'll have to do," you nod before moving back to the Asur. "Eldyra, I'm sorry about this – all of it. But we can't stay here."
She swallows, trembling, looking up at you, then her eyes darting to Sadrina, to Gwendolyn, to Natasha, and then bouncing on and away from Tanrala to land on you again.
(Marshalling the Mind: 25+Squire of Tyrion(10)+Stubborn(10)+Got Out Once(10)+Saved The Child(10)+Warmth of Isha(10)-Tortures of Tullaris(25)-Captured Twice(15)-Abuses of Alyssa(10)=25/100)
What follows is a shattered young woman trying to act like she isn't.
Eldyra's every movement is either as tentative as a scared newborn deer or done with too much force and overcorrected attempts at precision. She doesn't try to stand so much as she hops off and slides awkwardly onto the ground, and it is likely only her inborne elven grace and dexterity that keeps her from falling down outright. Still, she is standing, and that is better than nothing. When Death Thorn is offered to her, she grasps it, but only years of experience and familiarity make sure that she doesn't hold it like it's the very first time she'd held a weapon. This, you see before you, is not a squire. Not a warrior or soldier. Just a young woman who has been hurt, and did not have enough time to recover as well or as long as she deserved before being hurt again. Trained by Tyrion, who you are given to understand might well be the greatest knight and warrior that the Asur might have right now, you're relatively certain that none of that training quite prepared her for any of this. Her nod is a gangly bobble rather than the curt and secure gesture it could have been.
"Then…let us go then," she says shakily.
A shake that is only worsened by a truly titanic shake and rumble in the Tor, one that eclipses all of those before it from either your or Natasha's experience. Eldyra yelps as she falls against the slab, Sadrina cries out as the sack of dragon eggs shifts badly, and many of those throughout the Supreme Sorceress' quarters are not so lucky. A few bonk against walls, others falling over entirely, some having to catch each other. At the very, very edges of your hearing, you would swear you hear something exploding in the distance. It wasn't like the warband your wife assembled bothered closing any doors they smashed open on their ascent up the tower. Not to mention, the ever-burning torches and braziers, all of them fitted with small loops of Aqshy or Dhar to burn eternally, all interconnected with the greater magical weaves born throughout the entire Tor flicker. Some of them even go out entirely.
"We need to leave now," you say aloud, grip on Brain Wounder tighter as you look around the Living Library.
"Are we releasing any of these souls?" Sadrina asks, glancing at some of them. "In any sense of the word?"
"I would not recommend it, they may be unhappy to see one of the Druchii party to their capture," Tanrala drawls, but there is no force behind it.
"Are they protected from harm, or just kept in slumber?" You ask her, walking over to one of the prisoners.
"Any harm that comes to them within this chamber was always intended," is the swift answer.
"Good to know," you say, before pushing Brain Wounder straight through the Grey Seer's forehead and down their body, waggling it back and forth to ensure death.
There is not even a twitch.
"The vampire spoke politely, but she's a Necrarch. Likely insane," you add, walking over to Valdir and ending the devotee of Tzeentch's life in a single stroke. "Devotees of Dhar and necromancy."
"Dangerous to their enemies, definitely. Love to experiment, test the boundaries. My sire informed me to generally keep away from them," Johanna notes clinically.
"She had a staff but it is broken," Natasha speaks up, shaking her head. "In the trophy room, I mean."
"Meanwhile, Grunk is…," you frown, looking at the monstrosity. "If we freed him, there is little chance he would be restrained from trying to eat us immediately.
"Fair is fair on that," Johanna notes as her wings unfurl, letting her hop up the height required with her guandao at the ready. "Any objections?"
There are none, and the unfortunate Slaughtermaster dies, ending the Manglefist Tribe for good.
"Can you wake any of them, do we break the chains or…?" You trail off as Tanrala moves over to the side of the skink priest.
In the entrance, as if summoned by that movement alone, the rest of the surviving Lizardmen have arrived as a silent scaled mass. There are only a single platoon's worth of saurus left at this point, bulking larger than anyone else, but the skinks are all on average the size of men. With a bit more strength than the average soldier besides, you'd judge. All of them watch without blinking, their slit eyes focused intently on Tanrala as she moves to the side of the imprisoned priest. You know very, very little of their religion, but you've seen too much, experienced too much, to dismiss whatever they might worship easily. Kkha'rdluk'li'fe is certainly distinct in coloration from the rest, and slightly taller too.
"The spell is a relatively simple one to dispel, if you know how to do so," Tanrala murmurs before there is a tiny buzz in the air followed by the skink's closed eyes opening immediately.
Before it can begin to hiss angrily, Tanrala is already moving backwards, gesturing from Kkha to the rest of the Lizardmen. She doesn't speak to him or them, however, and though you thought that a cold-blooded creature might not be so emotional, there is clear recognition and what is definitely anger in the skink priest's eyes for a moment as it looks Tanrala up and down, then scans about the rest of the chamber before falling on the rest of the Lizardmen. After that is a short amount of hissing and clicking back and forth in their strange language while the sorceress arrives at the side of the Liche Priest. A look from her to you, and you to Natasha, has you thinking.
"As you can see," Natasha speaks up in the meantime to the remaining Lizardmen. "It is just as I said. A skink priest lives. Kkha'rdluk'li'fe," she says flawlessly despite only hearing you say it in her mind a few times. "Welcome to your rescue. We are getting off of this Ark, and propose an alliance of ourselves to do so."
The priest's bulbous eyes lock onto your wife.
"Terms acceptable," he chitters, "Cooperation acceptable. Darkling elf…," it trails off, glaring at Tanrala.
"Changing sides," Tanrala interrupts. "Your previous captors are all dead or isolated, especially Screamtaker and Voidreaper."
"Liar," it hisses angrily, the other Lizardmen turning towards Tanrala in eerie unison. "Temple defiler, relic thief. Captor," it finishes pointedly looking her up and down. "Alive."
"And so do you, now saved," she fires back. "Look around you. Asur, humans, freed members of your kind, working together."
For a brief moment, you sigh and prepare yourself to kill Lizardmen for the first time in your life – hopefully the last – before the priest glances around again and nods.
"Alliance acceptable."
Just like that, all hostility from the Lizardmen disappears.
What in the hell are these creatures?
"Good," Tanrala notes coldly before she manipulates the Winds of Magic in the room very slightly and has the chains and manacles pop off and fall away to leave the skink priest toppling forward without support.
Before Khha's hands can actually make contact with the floor, however, two other skinks have rushed forwards to gather them up, chittering at them in what you are quite certain is concern.
"Your staff is back in the trophy room," Natasha gestures with her head, and without a thank you or by your leave, the priest is off.
"And this bag of bones?" Johanna speaks up, having returned to look the ancient Liche Priest up and down once more.
"Mmm, possible," Tanrala murmurs before waving her hand in front of the ancient man's face, making old, rheumy milk-white eyes open up and focus on her. "Hello, Soya."
Immediately the chains strain with surprising strength despite the apparent frailty of the Nehekharan as he growls. Or tries to growl. It comes out more like the wispy straining of an old man quite possibly passing his fatally final bowel movement.
"You knife-eared Mortis spawned whore of Usirian's spoor!"
That one does make you blink for a moment.
"Creative," you say, making him blink and glance about, eyes widening in fragile sockets and stretching sand-paper thin skin as he sees the tails of the skinks and saurus as they leave the chamber, and everyone else inside of it. "Hello again, Soya," you wave at him.
"You are free…," he murmurs, eyes narrowing, inhaling deeply in a way that is frankly unsettling to see how his chest expands weirdly, "I see much power in this woman as well," he says while glancing at your wife. "And…pfaugh!" He spits without liquid or moisture in the direction of Johanna. "One of Neferata's get, of course. I would have the luck for that," he grump, rolling eyes without eyebrows.
"Fuck Neferata with a rusty pike," Johanna declares immediately, drawing the Liche Priest up short. "Neither I, nor my sire, would piss on her if she was on fire."
"…interesting," he finally says, eyes locking onto Tanrala again. "And you stand, where your sister does not. Well," he sighs, shaking his head. "As ever, blood can turn on blood for power."
He sounds incredibly familiar with just that, to the point of despite everything else that has happened to him sounding bored by it.
"Freedom, in this case, old one," you inform him, making him blink those ancient eyes again. "Not power. We're aiming to get off of this Ark. All of us. She's helping."
"And you believed her?" He asks, baffled. "The ears might change, the lifespans a tad longer, but highest blood is highest blood. First and second sons, first and second daughters, it hardly matters what's in the robes compared to the ambition of the heart."
"Believe us or not, Soya, we are all aiming to get off of the Ark," Tanrala says cooly, Gwendolyn having gone to her side at some point, her head pressed against the sorceress' thigh and hand on the top of her head. "Would you rather attempt to make your way alone?"
"We've got Asur, Druchii, an Eonir, lizardmen, a vampire, myself, and a bunch of other freedmen," you add. "As far as I'm told, you still live, if in a vague sense. Undead in general have nothing but my disgust and hatred, but I'm open to being surprised now and again. Still, if you want to gain eternal rest, we can accommodate that too. We're leaving, with or without you."
Soya open's his mouth, closes it, and snorts.
"Oh, how this poor son of Numas has fallen to negotiate and barter with a barbarian of the north for his life. How my father and mother would be horrified to see me now," he clucks his tongue. "Very well then. I too, find myself disgusted and dismayed by many of those I see around me, but there is little other recourse I see which will allow me to continue living."
He pauses at your expression.
"And I am alive, barbarian," he says sourly. "Blind and uneducated as you are, you behold the power of the Mortuary Cult in enshrining my soul within my body for eternity!" He says with pride, puffing his papery chest out as far as it can go – which is not far.
"That sounds like necromancy to me," you note, and he sighs and rolls his eyes again.
"Absolutely not," he growls stubbornly. "I have seen the disgusting and pathetic excuses for copying our ancient and noble arts by the unworthy many a time, that is necromancy. Born of the traitor Nagash, the First Necromancer, fouling honest worship of the Gods with their foolishness, bah!"
Frederick. We need to get moving.
I know, love.
"Fine," you sigh and nod to Tanrala, who cautiously releases the chains but gathers some of the Winds around herself for protection just in case.
No one saves the Liche Priest from falling onto the ground, his brittle bones clicking and clattering loudly as he lets out a loud oof.
"How…pedestrian," he rasps before remaining where he is for longer than you expected. "I am very old, you know," he finally says while still on all fours, craning his head up to glare around at everyone. "My body is preserved, but-,"
"Oh for goodness sake," Johanna sighs before reaching down and hauling him upright in a single movement in a frankly embarrassing bridal carry.
"Do not touch me, vampire!" He cries out, flailing at her ineffectually with one withered arm.
"I can let go and you can fall down again if you want," she informs him tonelessly. "Pick your indignity."
"…you could have just killed me rather than make me choose," he sighs, but does not demand to be released once more.
Eyes all turn to the Necrarch, then.
"I see you've killed the rest, a good showing, skaven are eminently untrustworthy, and the servant of the Dark Gods ought to have died long ago," Soya decides to ramble on, uncaring of everyone's focus. "And the ogre…my but he has grown hideous. And dead as well! A good thing indeed, yes. You, girl, are at least not as hideous as the get of W'soran. I would not recommend her freedom, however."
"Oh you don't, do you?" You ask, glancing at him.
"She is insane!" He answers immediately, flopping a boney arm at her. "She was a lesser librarian in Zandri before her transformation, and now makes a mockery of the Vulture God with her tendencies!"
You glance between Grunk and Valdir, then between the vampire and Soya. There were broken implements of greenskin shamans in the trophy room that your wife saw, and some empty manacles as well here. Quite likely, you think, that there were some greenskins in combat with the Grey Seer.
"They caught you when you were fighting, weren't you. You and her."
Soya lets out a very particular sort of disgruntled sigh, the kind that functionaries, secretaries, and subordinates in general over thousands of years regardless have sighed at one time or another regarding certain superiors.
"I clearly informed Prince Ahmose that the portents were not favorable for the day, but he insisted," he grumbles. "More fool I, that he could retreat as he liked. Regardless, she is powerful, but styles herself a 'Princess of Blood and Darkness', even if the only noble blood in her exists solely in her belly. Believe me, she had to source many of her unfortunate servants from the tribals that call themselves Sultans or whatever it is these days, I stopped bothering keeping track long ago. She also went through the effort of raising a number of those stunted…ah, dwarfs," he snaps his finger in remembrance. "Made for a dangerous flanking force of fighters, despite their height."
(Pride and Prejudice: 38+Desperate Times(10)+Proof of Genevieve(20)+Proof of Johanna(15)-Racial Hatred of Undead(25)-Desecration of Dwarfs(15)-Desecration of Arabyans(10)=33/100)
"You know what, fine. We need to move anyway. You and the other had better make up for it," you growl before ending the vampire's unlife with Brain Wounder. "Let's go, no more waiting!"
"His staff is in the trophy room as well," Natasha gestures, and Johanna carries the Liche Priest out even as he begins rambling again.
"She did not even bother retaining my steed, did she? I would suspect not! Even if it was the bones of a noble equine with the finest pedigree in all of Nehekhara! Why-," his voice fades away as Johanna keeps moving.
"Let's get out of here, please," you say, and thankfully, blessedly, everyone begins to move out of the now sundered Living Library, Tanrala and her daughter rather quickly moving for the larger non-living library.
"WARK!"
Your ears are rendered just shy of bleeding by the full-throated screech of your gryphon as she squares up in front of you. Everyone else freezes or jumps, the elves seeming to be especially badly affected, but you just smile and reach up to carefully – and briefly due to the Ledstali – stroke the side of Oskana's face. Her head tilts this way and that, as it ever does when she wants to make sure that she gets a full view of you with each of her enormous eyes. From the ruffling of her feathers and bristling of her fur, you would know that her customary state of constant irritation at the world is all the greater before it stills as she continues to examine you. The rune upon her breastplate glows a bit brighter as she openly nuzzles you, tucking her large head across your shoulder so that her beak clacks upon your back. A comparatively quiet trilling emerges from her throat next as she rubs her neck against you before stepping back and then bumping her beak against your helmet a few times. Her meaning is communicated quite clearly indeed, and you take the helm off for a brief moment, going still as others around you gasp in shock as she darts her beak forward and latches on that which cracks through boulders and steel alike around your ear. Unlike her time as a hatchling however, she displays the absolute control and precision that a fully mature mother gryphon can possess, and doesn't even draw a single drop of blood.
She could, and she is letting you know that, before finally releasing your ear and one last time bopping you on the top of your head with her beak before you can put your helmet on.
"I didn't really intend for any of it to go like this," you say placidly, only for Oskana to rap your helmet a bit harder with her beak.
As in with enough force to crack it open slightly, approximately enough to have otherwise potentially hurt your skull, and definitely enough to force the Ledstali to start regenerating itself.
"Wark," she informs you before suddenly and violently turning around so that she can bump you with her enormous mountain lion haunches so that you have to stumble and catch yourself before hitting the floor.
"Yeah, yeah, love you too," you snort as you straighten back up.
Menawhile, Natasha strides to the fore, and you can't help but smile inside your helm as she captures the attention of all present including the now reassembled Lizardmen with Kkha atop the shoulder of one of the few saurus with staff in hand. Oskana lets out a loud screech from where she has been laying and cleaning herself, eyes unwavering on you, while the rather depressed looking Pegasus munches on some of the carpet for lack of anything better to do. With you imprisoned all this time, she has taken on the burden of leadership, and she bore it well. As befitting a Princess of Kislev, a blood descendant of Miska the Slaughterer, and most importantly, your wife. A war leader, a priestess of the Widow, and so much more, she has been effective and swift in her irregular campaign against the Ark's masters, and most all here know it. Sadrina could possibly have done it, you recognize, as a leader and warrior with many centuries of experience, but she instead focused largely on shoring up the Asur contingent's spirits and keeping them from diverging too greatly from what your wife decided on. Something that you think has been quite valuable indeed.
"Your captors are all dead or dying now!" She calls out, and gets a ragged, tired cheer from the warband. "Now it's time we get off this accursed rock. We have fought, we have killed, and not all of us made it the whole way," she continues, growing more solemn towards the end.
Many heads bow at that.
"Let us honor the dead with our deeds," she says, raising a fist upright. "By taking that freedom they fought for! I don't know about the rest of you," she lets loose a rusty laugh. "But I've had enough of this place. How about you?"
A louder, much more energized cheer greets her this time, added to by the lizardmen joining in with hisses and clicks.
"Damn right," she nods. "Now let's go!"
She turns then, while you grab up the sack of eggs she decided to grab with Bokdrungni rather than just Ledstali lest that harm the sack or eggs, and starts heading for the stairs. All of you do, falling in behind your beautiful wife with the rest of the warband doing the same. Tanrala is the one who ends up gathering up at the rear once more, saluting you lazily as she keeps from bothering the other two additions to your wife's warband – a hefty wooden chest in black lacquer levitating in the air behind her. The Liche Priest has his staff now, but apparently there was some sort of discussion had between himself and Johanna about his ability to be mobile even with it, as he is once more being held in her arms with his own crossed across his chest. Even on a face as ancient as his, you can see the disgruntlement there. As for Kkha, with mental flexibility that admittedly is a bit unnerving he now marches along behind your wife, chittering at the other Lizardmen and they at him. Either way, despite all she has done so far to help, you know there are few in the warband who would thank Tanrala. Them not trying to stab her is about the best that can be managed right now. The same for the slinking skinny Druchii youths that are assembled around Kerillian, who's outburst beforehand that you saw through Natasha's eyes clearly disturbed many.
Hell, it disturbed you to see her lost in the throes of Khaine's bloodlust.
You also get to see the last battlefield with your own eyes, the massive channeling chamber just below the apartments set aside for the Supreme Sorceress position, and a single moment is spared towards the dead once more. You can see the dissolved chunk of earth where Alyssa was removed from the face of the world in the most direct sense by the will of Tanrala. You can see the many, many dead. In a better world, everyone who came onto the Ark and opposed the Druchii would have lived through this. But it seems that fate decided that it would not be so kind and accommodating. Figures. Jaqueline and her two Whitewings deserved better than to simply be lost in the corpses in the fight, but it was all that Roland could do to drag them out and aside when he retrieved their helms. You saw the blood on the inside of those things, and knew what that implied.
"I worry for what we will see when we get out of here," Sadrina speaks up, her brow furrowed even as her eyes keep darting back and back again repeatedly to the egg sack. "The Tor of Dominance of a Black Ark is one of the most magically reinforced structures known to me, strengthened and stabilized by vastly powerful magics. Yet this one is suffering damage, somehow, being shaken."
"Either that or it's the Ark proper," you mutter, making her frown deepen. "We still don't know what caused the last damage, from before. Some kind of sabotage from the Deep Dwellers? Someone else? A disgruntled daemon, for all we know?"
The world elects to answer your question with an explosion.
On the far side of the chamber that saw Alyssa's death, and the deaths of so many more, the walls of the Tor that should be some of the toughest and strongest of all of them, break inwards with fire and smoke accompanying them. The warband freezes in its tracks to orient on the new threat as another explosion occurs up above where you just were. There is a third somewhere down below. Red and orange flames that tear at the eyes just to look at lingers upon the black stone of the shattered wall of the Tor, lingering there, melting it even from sheer heat, but there is more to it than that. Not just fire. Hellfire. You can see it, through the Winds, not just through Natasha's eyes through the soulbond but now with your own, the burning power of Aqshy mixed with a very specific sort of tainting power. Something daemonic, almost. Accompanying it is a good deal of yelling and shouting in a language that you only vaguely recognize but makes Johanna straighten up.
"What the shit," the Talabeclander mumbles as the smoke is sucked back out of the hole blown in the wall by the wind outside.
Correction.
By the maelstrom outside.
The storm that your wife saw beforehand has finally made its descent, no longer content with looming ominously above the Ark any longer. Thick sheets of rain are scouring the air, while gusts of wind tearing through and past making the rain sometimes outright go sideways. Dark clouds are literally visible from where you are, from how low the storm has gotten, but that doesn't matter nearly so much to you right now as the cause of the explosion. The storm winds have torn the smoke back out, alternatively sending streams of freezing cold wind and rain back through to splatter across much of the chamber, while several bolts of lightning illuminate many fires burning down below on the Ark. More than were there before Natasha entered the Tor. Dozens of infernally glowing red meat hooks and spikes fly forward to latch over the edge of the hole and into the ground, hissing and spitting sparks as they melt the stone they strike to anchor into place. There, with the rain backing them, and hellfire illuminating them, are warriors dressed in armor of a type you've never seen before. All of them bear helms with monstrous visages for the face, while one of them bears a back banner with a pole made of spinal segments and the banners itself a thick if tattered vellum. The symbol is that of a black shattered blade within a black circle upon pure blood red.
The single dozen or so men from the Far East in the warband let out screams of terror as that banners are illuminated.
But worked into their armor, either the breastplates, the knee guards, or on the tops of their gauntlets, is a symbol that you do recognize.
The symbol of the Blood God.
The symbol of Khorne.
"Shit," you curse as more of the invaders clamber over the edge and into the innards of the Tor, and can't help but turn and glare at Tanrala who's eyes are wide as she stares at them, then moves to you with a genuinely apologetic look on her face.
In a very, very wan defense, you know she had no idea your wife would rally and do as she had.
It does not help you much in the moment to acknowledge that, just as you did when she chose to rescue Gwendolyn over anything or anyone else after the Auction.
"Khorne no eikō no tame ni!" Bellows the one with the back banner, unsheathing a strange sort of sword not like any you've seen in the Old World, glowing with hellish light and inscribed with runes of Chaos.
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