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Mercenary Mage Quest: Asur Dogs of War in Warhammer Fantasy

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Middle Mountains Campaign Part 8 New
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    • [] Go alone, you can slip in and out invisible and soundless with minimal risk.

    "I will investigate this matter personally. The rest of you will remain here."

    "Loremaster, I must object," Tinuthal cuts in, her voice sharp. "Guarding you is our duty, and we cannot fulfill it while away from you."

    She does not voice it, but the word again is voiced by its own absence. The last time you sent the Swordmasters away, you returned wounded.

    "Your objection is noted, but I must go alone. I can cloak myself with Ulgu, I cannot do so for a company of soldiers. Instead I entrust you with protecting the Ylvathoi until I return."

    You can tell that she is not happy about it, but the Avelornian acquiesces with a curt nod. You raise your hand and snap your fingers to catch the attention of van de Rijder, the portly Westerlander making his way over to you.

    "I am leaving to investigate a potential threat. In my absence Swordmaster Tinuthal will be in command. Follow her orders as though they came from my lips."

    "Understood," he says, his expression saying that he is not pleased by the sudden change of plan, but knows better than to object. His dwarf bodyguard has no such compunctions, scoffing under his beard about the unreliability of elgi.

    "How shall we proceed if you are not back by the time we are finished?"

    "That shall be Tinuthal's decision to make, based on the information you have at the time."

    -----

    The forest is dark and gloomy, further reinforcing your impression that it seems to somehow suck in light.

    The air feels stale and heavy, thick with cobwebs and mosquitoes. The trees are packed so closely together that in many places their branches overlap, to the point that even with Ulgu shielding you from sight, an astute enough of an observer might still track you simply from the branches that seem to bend and snap of their own volition, just because there is physically no room to fit your statuesque frame through without touching anything.

    Moss blankets the ground in a thick layer that gives way underfoot, itself covered with a coating of fallen needles and small, dry pieces of branch that would crunch loudly were you not muffling the sound with Ulgu. Here and there it is broken up by lichen-covered rock and boulders, and more than once you spot a viper slithering in the cracks between them.

    Traversing the terrain without leaving an obvious trail is tough work, forced as you are to watch the placement of every step. The trees do grow less dense the deeper in you go, as though the outer layers were a barrier to protect that which lies within, though the atmosphere is no more welcoming.

    The trees are bigger and older here, massive roots snaking over the forest floor, like grasping hands that seem to want to snag on to your feet at every turn, even though you are certain they haven't actually moved. Indistinct whispers and noises play at the edge of your hearing, like fragments of conversations just beyond your ability to make out what they are saying.

    Despite it being the middle of the day, under the canopy it might as well be night, shadows crawling over the roots like snakes. Moss and lichen hang from tree branches like pale shrouds, brushing against the back of your neck, draping over your armour as you move through them.

    It is perhaps half an hour since you left the others behind when you catch your first glimpse of your foe.

    There, at the foot of a crooked tree, a humanoid form leans against the trunk, a crude bow in its hands and a quiver of arrows slung across its back. At a distance, in the darkness, it might be possible to mistake it for a human, at least until it moves.

    As it idly shuffles in place and shifts its footing, you can see that the creature's lower legs bend backwards and then forwards- before ending in small hooves. Small, nublike horns jut from its distorted but still visibly human-like skull, tufts of shaggy fur covering its shoulders and upper chest, alongside its legs.

    A Child of Chaos.

    Malavorithoi.

    A Beastman.

    Ungor.

    Its presence alone would be enough to bring back to the Count, but they are not what drew you here.

    [71+25(Fanriel Intrigue)+20(Shroud of Invisibility)+20(Hush)=136/100]

    You slip past the Ungor sentries with trivial ease, cloaked by the Grey Wind as you simply pass by them, walking on the roots to avoid leaving even impressions on the moss.

    Once you are past the initial perimeter you see a lot more of the Malavorithoi, clustered in small groups around campfires or slumped against tree trunks, eating, sleeping, conversing and arguing in the Dark Tongue, preparing their weapons, and of course butting heads and contending with one another for position in the ruthless hierarchy of the tribe. At first you see only more Ungors, but as you pass deeper you start to see increasing numbers of Gors, what some would call the true Beastmen.

    Where their lesser brethren still retain some semblance of humanity, Gors are fully given over to the Beast, their heads reminiscent of monstrous goats, crowned by two, four or even six curved horns. But where goats have flat teeth for chewing on grass, shrubs and leaves, the mouths of Gors are lined with fangs as sharp as those of a wolf, for rending and tearing into flesh.

    Compared to the Ungors they are hulking creatures, only scarcely shorter than you are while being far larger in overall build, with thick, powerfully-built bodies and muscular limbs the match for an Orc. Shaggy, matted fur covers them from head to toe, infested with fleas and ticks, stained with blood, grease and other fluids you care not guess the origin of. Most of them clutch crude cleavers and axes, but wear little in the way of armour or clothing, save for the bones threaded into their fur, most of which you recognize as being of human origin.

    But for all of their fearsomeness, their beady red eyes look right through you as you walk among them without making a sound, concealed under your spellcraft.

    [57+21-20(Extended Sustainment)=58/100]
    -Fanriel does not gain a level of exhaustion for now.

    There have to be hundreds of Beastmen here, and those are just the ones you can see. Yet still the silver needle of the compass guides you ever deeper.

    You are starting to have an understanding of what you might be dealing with, and you do not enjoy the thought.

    Then, at last, you reach the epicenter. You do not need the compass to tell you so, nor even your Magesight, you can feel the magic coursing through this place, like a physical force against your skin.

    You emerge into a vast, circular glade hundreds of meters across, the endlessly thick canopy extending to enclose it from above. Immediately, your soul recognizes that you have crossed a boundary, even if your mind has not caught up yet.

    Behind you, you can still hear the braying and bleating of the Beastmen. You know each step you took to reach here, and could retrace them with your eyes closed, if you so desired.

    But even so, standing there, you cannot help but feel that you are hopelessly lost, a leaf upon the wind. Like the world around you was shifting, even as you stand still with your feet planted in the earth.

    And as you gaze across the clearing to the other side, you know this for an instinctive fact deep in your soul:

    That is not the forest that you entered through.

    You gaze left and right, tracing the treeline, and immediately you feel your head start to swim trying to comprehend what was not meant to be comprehended.

    Space, the constants of the three dimensions, the ironclad chains of distance and relative position are bent here, twisted into a knot. Your position is not fixed, but tied to your own perspective.

    Behind you is the same forest through which you came. But if you were to walk across the clearing and through the other side, you would emerge somewhere else entirely, or perhaps be lost forever in the endless forest.

    You cannot tell where one ends and the other begins: it is like looking at a circle and trying to find where the angle is.

    Even in your long centuries you have only heard tales of these places: Beast-Paths, the places where the Beastmen have eroded the boundaries and constants of space and distance, linking distant forests together such as that their Warherds might move from one to another without passing through the lands between.

    But such obscenities cannot simply be made wherever one pleases. The Beastmen are not builders, they are not makers. They are defilers, corruptors, desecrators.

    At the center of the clearing, you see a small copse of twisted, truly ancient trees, their bark withered and gnarled with the passing of countless ages, their roots coiled around time-worn rock, lichen that almost seems to glow hanging off their branches.

    This is the source of the magic that drew you here.

    This was once a sacred place, a site of mystical confluence, where the primordial spirits of nature dwell. A Spirit-Court, Yennlaithvan, the likes of which you have beheld in the deepest, most sacrosanct depths of the wilderness of Ulthuan and Ind.

    The last, pathetic remnant of what must have once been an ancient and wondrous forest.

    And the Beastmen have violated it in ways and levels that you have not the words to describe.

    Ropes that look to have been made from human intestines are strung across the grove, looped around the trunks and the thickest of the branches, caging monsters. They resemble lumps of flesh with little discernible overarching anatomy or bodybuild, just undulating, ever-shifting masses of tissue and bone. Hands and lamprey maws and tortured faces emerge from the twisting, churning flesh, grasping out for anything they can reach, straining against their bindings.

    These are among the foulest of the creatures of chaos: Spawn. Reward and punishment both at once, the ultimate conclusion to the mutations the Four heap upon their followers.

    Black-furred Gors stand guard around the copse, these ones clad in crude metal armour and wielding heavy two-handed maces and axes, the elite of the Beastmen Warherds. Under their watchful eyes, a small group of Ungors crowd around the Spawn, using crude butcher's blades to carve out bloody chunks of meat from their flesh, many of them still wriggling and shifting as they are picked up and hauled away.

    As you watch, more than one hapless Ungor is devoured by teeth-filled maws that suddenly sprout in front of them, or by grasping pseudopods or fanged tongues that distend without warning to pull them in, but the watching Gors care little, even giving out gruff laughs at their misfortune.

    The bloody chunks of meat and viscera are dragged over to the roots of the primordial heart-trees, and wrung out like wet rags, watering the roots with the black, befouled blood of the Chaos Spawn. The dark, viscous fluid seems to almost be alive, writhing as it pools around the base of the rocks, forming tiny needle-fanged mouths and tendrils. It bubbles and boils as it seeps deeper into the cracks and crevices, where the roots reach and drink deep.

    The bark of the ancient trees is dark red, like the colour of dry blood, cracked open in numerous places to make room for fleshy, sac-like tumours to push their way out of the trunks, pulsing as though in rhythm to an unseen heartbeat.

    All but unbidden, your feet have carried you closer, focusing your eyes upon the pulsating growths.

    Inside each of them glows a spark of dark light, malignant and foreboding. Something that should have been wondrous and beautiful, now tainted and twisted. Shapes writhe within the sacs, claws and faces and hungry mouths.

    Your heart sinks into your stomach. At last, you understand the depths of the sacrilege committed by the Beastmen..

    This wasn't a Spirit-Court. It still is.

    When the Beastmen defiled this place, the spirits that called it home were still bound to it. With its corruption, they too fell to the taint of Chaos.

    A greater blasphemy against Isha and Kurnous is difficult to imagine.

    This entire place must be levelled to the ground and scoured with flame.

    You must inform the Elector-Count at once. Luckily the Beastmen seem to think you don't know about this place, or else they would have a larger force guarding it, or attacked before your foraging party could stray so close to it.

    In fact, that is likely their plan. If the Army of Ostland continues to push up the valley, the Beastmen could move a Warherd through the Beast-Paths behind them, cutting off their supply lines.

    But now, the Ostlanders could launch a pre-emptive attack, destroying the entrance while the Beastmen only have a small force that could remain hidden from the army's scouts guarding it.

    And it would all be thanks to-

    Help me!

    The words do not come as vibrations of air, but concepts expressed through the flow of magic. You stagger backwards as they enter your mind, expressed in the form of a child-like, faint voice that seems to echo through your head.

    Walker in the shadows, I see you.

    Instinctively, your hand drops to Lightfang's hilt, but the Beastmen continue their debasement of the ancient grove unabated, just as ignorant of your presence as they were moments ago.

    The Horned Ones brought the poison.

    It claimed the others.

    It will soon claim me.

    It is… one of the spirits. The words pierce into your consciousness like arrows, but as you clutch your head, you are able to trace the trail of magic to one of the cancerous growths that cage the spirits to this place. Within, you feel the pulsating soul of a nature spirit, Ghyran and Ghur and others intertwined.

    But that blade you carry can free me.

    You must help me!

    Your head is swimming.

    It is certainly true that Lightfang could cleave through these bonds, the Rune of Purity burning away the taint of Chaos.

    The spirit claims to not yet be taken over by the taint, but you have no way of verifying that. It could be a trick, meant to draw you out of hiding.

    And if you do, the element of surprise is lost. The Beastmen will know they've been discovered. They might even attack the logging crew you left behind at the edge of the forest.

    But if you don't, if it is telling the truth…

    You would be abandoning the spirit to be corrupted into the service of the Archenemy, its immortal soul lost forever to the clutches of the Four.

    Please.

    -Decide what you will do.
    -12 hours Moratorium.

    [] Cut the spirit free.
    -This will alert the Beastmen to your presence, possibly endangering the logging operation and almost certainly causing increased difficulty when you return to cleanse this place.

    [] You can't afford to reveal yourself.
    -This will allow the spirit to be corrupted by Chaos, condemning an innocent soul to a fate worse than death.
     
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    • [] Cut the spirit free.

    I do think this is the right thing to do and I can bear messing up the logging operation with great fortitude, it is only the danger to Fanriel herself that's a concern to me and I think she can make it.
     
    [] Cut the spirit free.

    Money is important, but I do not want to deal with a chaos corrupted forest spirit, especially one with a grudge against us, not to mention that letting it fall to chaos is pure evil.
     
    [] You can't afford to reveal yourself.

    We're in the middle of hundreds of beastmen, and there's more at stakes than one soul. If we fail to stop those beastmen, it puts thousands of other souls in danger.
     
    Blackout said:
    [] Cut the spirit free.
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    So ironically, the Wood Elves would be able to vouch for us that this decision has tactical and spiritual value. Nobody wants their land corrupted and most rulers are very much alright with sending more troops into the grinder to solve such a problem.

    Keeping a spirit or something similar from falling to Chaos? It depends a bit on the Elector Count, but this is Ostland, home of the Silver Hammer. The guy must know the repercussions. Or he can at least grasp the consequences.

    So yes, there's some actual strategic value to this. We don't know what they are turning these spirits into or using them for. Furthermore religious reasons. It might be Isha and Kurnous for us and the Asrai, but the Empire has equivalents in Taal.

    That has metaphysical importance.

    Edit:
    [X] Cut the spirit free.
     
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    Czes said:
    So ironically, the Wood Elves would be able to vouch for us that this decision has tactical and spiritual value. Nobody wants their land corrupted and most rulers are very much alright with sending more troops into the grinder to solve such a problem.

    Keeping a spirit or something similar from fallimg to Chaos? It depends a bit on the Elector Count, but this is Ostland, home of the Silver Hammer. The guy must know the repercussions.

    So yes, there's some actual strategic value to this. Wed don't know what they are turning these spirits into or uaing for. Furthermore religious reasons. It might be Isha and Kurnous for us and the Asrai, but the Empire has equivalents in Taal.

    That has metaphysical importance.
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    The other thing to consider is that this spirit is connected to the forest. Right now, the enemy does not have 100% full control, the corruption is incomplete.

    If we let the spirit be corrupted, then our attack will be entering a corrupted forest.
    And well, these spirits can actually see through cloaks, so if they fully fall for chaos, we're not getting a suprise attack anyway. The forest would just warn the beastmen of the approaching enemy.
     
    [] You can't afford to reveal yourself.

    Mercy for one can not come at the cost the lives of many others. However...

    Czes said:
    So ironically, the Wood Elves would be able to vouch for us that this decision has tactical and spiritual value. Nobody wants their land corrupted and most rulers are very much alright with sending more troops into the grinder to solve such a problem.

    Keeping a spirit or something similar from falling to Chaos? It depends a bit on the Elector Count, but this is Ostland, home of the Silver Hammer. The guy must know the repercussions. Or he can at least grasp the consequences.

    So yes, there's some actual strategic value to this. We don't know what they are turning these spirits into or uaing for. Furthermore religious reasons. It might be Isha and Kurnous for us and the Asrai, but the Empire has equivalents in Taal.

    That has metaphysical importance.
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    This is a good argument. I will give some more thought before the vote opens.
     
    10ebbor10 said:
    The other thing to consider is that this spirit is connected to the forest. Right now, the enemy does not have 100% full control, the corruption is incomplete.

    If we let the spirit be corrupted, then our attack will be entering a corrupted forest.
    And well, these spirits can actually see through cloaks, so if they fully fall for chaos, we're not getting a suprise attack anyway. The forest would just warn the beastmen of the approaching enemy.
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    It's a single spirit, the rest are already corrupted.

    Or this one is corrupted too, and it's a trick.

    Either way, I don't think we'll be getting any dramatic strategic advantages from cutting it free.

    I think this is a fairly straightfoward vote- what do you value greater, potentially saving this spirit or the tactical advantages that we'll lose if we cut it free?

    Ideally I'd love if we could free it and not alert the Beastmen, but I don't think there's a way to do it subtly enough.
     
    I'm definitely leaning toward cutting the spirit free. Sure, it makes the mission that much more difficult, but I feel like Chaos thrives of those small "for the greater good" compromises that people tell themselves to justify taking the path of least resistance. So, yeah, tactically unsound, but certainly better for Fanriel as a person.

    Now, the only thing that makes me hesitate is that it could be a trap. But if it is, the surprise effect is already wasted anyway.
     
    If a pure spirit can refound the spirit court after this place has been purged, then I think I'm in. Otherwise I think we need to move quickly and hope we get back fast enough to save it.
     
    Adrian XXIV said:
    Interesting Thought: Did saving that Forest Spirit will mean that we get Dryad as additional member of Lightfangs?
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    I think Dryads have to have a tree they're bound to.

    Not exactly the most mobile of companions if you don't have access to the World Roots. And this one is in a forest the Beastmen are attempting to corrupt.

    Given that cutting it free is presumably removing it's connection to the forest, otherwise there wouldn't be any point in freeing it, if we get a new companion out of this I think it'll be a spirit of a different form.
     
    So the question becomes: do you think Fanriel can fight/sneak her way out of this encampment? Because cutting that spirit free will set off allllll the alarms the beastmen have at the heart of their operation, regardless of if the spirit is truthful or not.

    @Blackout , will cutting the spirit free end our current Invisibility and Hush effects?
     
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    Ultimately, I think we leave the spirit.

    This is a situation where Fanriel can choose between helping the strange magical being, at the cost of getting many innocent people killed by increasing the difficulty of the clean up operation. The benefits here are admittedly a lot more immediate and direct than the lizard tablet--but the consequences are also more immediate and certain.

    Given how Fanriel's dark curiosity has driven her to go to this location, and how we have no way of knowing if the spirit isn't a trick (a lower percentage chance, but not zero by any means) and it becomes even clearer to me that we shouldn't be repeating that mistake from Fanriel's past.

    Setting aside the character specific reasons not to, I'm less than optimistic about our chances of making it though this easily on our own. We've started rolling for exhaustion and it isn't just Ungors/spawn here. There are also plenty of regular Gors, who I would assume are at least broadly comparable to the various marked marauders we faced; below Fanriel still, but starting to get into the realm of broadly superior to normal humans and something not to be taken lightly. It'd be pretty unfortunate for us to prove our bodyguards right in their concerns.
     
    I hate to be That Guy in this situation, but if you're a malicious trickster, like the Fay spirits are, and you just got new marching orders from the Dark Gods... what's the entry level way to manipulate someone you know has a deep, compromising drive to fight Chaos?

    Pretend to be a victim, and tell them the thing you need done is going to prevent Chaos from winning.
     
    [] Cut the spirit free.
    -This will alert the Beastmen to your presence, possibly endangering the logging operation and almost certainly causing increased difficulty when you return to cleanse this place.

    The spirit can fix this place right?
    MAybe it can start a new spirit court somewhere else?
     
    Always Late said:
    I hate to be That Guy in this situation, but if you're a malicious trickster, like the Fay spirits are, and you just got new marching orders from the Dark Gods... what's the entry level way to manipulate someone you know has a deep, compromising drive to fight Chaos?

    Pretend to be a victim, and tell them the thing you need done is going to prevent Chaos from winning.
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    If, however, you were a chaos spirit, and you just saw someone sneak into the clearing surrounded by enemies, why would you even bother with a trick?

    Just direct some beastman to cut off the escape route, and then reveal the intruder.
     
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