Have you ever seen a dwarf, a slayer mind, tossed? Flying through the air as if shot out by a great cannon of Nuln make. Would you believe me if I told you the woman who did it lived to tell the tale or that the dwarf was thrown at his request? A steep arc his flight was, of great power and accuracy to make even the sharpest artillerists weep. The poor window to Countess Emmanuelle's palace stood defenceless against the Gotrek-shaped projectile. It was astonishing, really, that amidst all the misery and death, a light smile graced my wounded lips at the time. The sheer preposterousness of the sight was not lost on me despite the very lethal ordeal of a Skaven invasion.
We had met this woman before, the one who threw Gotrek, in our travels. Our first meeting was a rather tense one. I had first caught sight of her on the edge of the Drakwald, deep in the bowels of Middenland. There was a string of burnt beastman bodies leading us deeper, inviting Gotrek with the hopes of a great doom. I had seen the "fear of missing out" possess merchants into a frenzy of questionable decisions; such a thing affected dwarfs, it seemed. Gotrek ran with such a speed that one would mistake him for fearing for his life. Imagine his disappointment then; as the number of corpses grew, we found a clearing with a mountain of bodies and no doom to be found.
There was a woman at the centre of the clearing. She was caked in viscera and all manner of wounds too horrible to describe. Underneath darkening blotches of red were patches of pallid skin. She was vampirically pale and garbed in dark plate armour, no doubt infused by fell magics. Her eyes, a bright yellow, stared at us. She was the very image of a chaos warrior, I had thought then. Gotrek seemed to have agreed as he hefted his axe to end her. It turned out she had much more fight still left in her broken body. My hand shakes as I recall the aftermath.
Our next meeting was more civil—ironic, considering the circumstances. It was after we repaired the abandoned fort for the von Diehls and during the goblin siege. She had arrived on the second day, apparently wandering, and flanked the wolf riders from behind. It was a brutal melee, I have been told, proven by the mounds of burnt bodies that littered the yard. Black spears jutted out from the ground, impaling goblins whose corpses would stay impaled till they rotted. She had incidentally saved Gotrek during the goblin attack, and we were placed in the unenvious position of being under mercy.
It was then that she struck up a strange conversation with us, clearly curious about our adventures. With nothing to do but recover from our wounds, we answered every question. It was when she learned of why we travelled that she requested to join us.
--- Unpublished draft from My Travels with Gotrek and Jeanne Vol I, by Herr Felix Jaegar (unknown date)
"No." Gotrek rejected, his voice hoarse from a day-long battle; his axe had tasted a river's worth of goblin blood. He had lost his eye during the melee, to a gobbo no less, and may have lost more had the woman before them had arrived a second too late. "I will not have my doom sullied by chaos filth. I either kill or die to Kazaki'dum rather than suffer their assistance."
The pale woman, Jeanne, rolled her eyes, "Imbécile, I'm not chaos corrupted—"
Gotrek rose with as much strength as he could gather, having woken up after days of recovery, "You could take my good eye out, and I would still smell the stench of Chaos from your pale, rotten hide." He was breathing heavily; the wounds on his chest had yet to fully heal. "Leave, begone, or suffer my axe on your neck." A brave thing to say while wounded, but it was a threat Felix seriously believed Gotrek would make good on.
The woman groaned, a hand on her temple. Felix Jaeger could say many things. He could ask why the woman would want to join their grim band in the first place or why she looked the way she was. But he cared little of such facts. He had just buried Kirsten and was gradually accepting his death as an inevitability. Little by little, pieces of his boyhood were chipped away. Such was the life of a slayer's remembrancer. A piece of him wanted to accept her help, if only so the people around him wouldn't die. She was impossibly strong, a peculiar mix of a bright wizard and a steam tank. But he knew better than simply accepting help from anyone he might meet, let alone someone of Jeanne's visage. He thought back to Mannfred, who murdered Kirsten. Was it not the same suspicion of chaos blood that drove him to madness? Where was the line between Gotrek's single-minded desire to murder Jeanne and Mannfred's mad rampage? He was too numb to think; only instinct drove him, and his heart preached reckless compassion. So, what if she would betray them, he'd welcome it. The words that left his mouth were a more moderate distortion of his thoughts, "She did save us; it wouldn't hurt to consider an extra hand."
"I have considered it." Gotrek replied brusquely, "She's lucky I've yet to recover."
"She's really considering what you'd look like burnt," Jeanne replied. There was a sharp edge to her tone, equal parts girlish and commanding. She looked to be somewhat younger than Felix but was able to imbue some semblance of authority in her voice. A noble, perhaps? "You think I've come to a slayer and his limp-wristed, blonde minet for diabolical….shit!" It took Jeanne a second to settle for the right word. "If I were some KaZakI DuM" she repeated Gotrek's khazalid in a shrill voice, "I'd've taken your head by now and paraded it on my lance."
Gotrek coughed, his wall of a chest seemingly caving in on itself, "then why haven't you."
Jeanne loomed menacingly over Gotrek, "Don't tempt me, stuntie." The air around them grew cold, and the slayer's eyes took on a dangerous gleam.
Felix found himself in a panic to change the subject; he had seen enough killing today, but if the two needled the other further, it would've led to a bloody end for all involved. "Why us exactly?" Felix asked, "We're not exactly rich."
"You think you were my first choice?" Jeanne replied, a subtle, embarrassed blush on her cheeks, "You think I want to keep wandering on my lonesome? I saved a town near Bechafen, and as thanks, a witch hunter shot me. I go south into Stirland, and villagers try to lynch me. Some nuns who worshipped Shalaya or whatever the fuck were kind enough to take me in right until they tried converting me. Then I get these thoughts, these urges that I could only drown out by killing beasts." Felix noticed a strange, heightened pitch to her voice. Her last sentence sounded less like an accepted truth and more of a lie to convince herself with—a wilful delusion. "See how your little arrangement fits with mine? You hunt around, I help you, I kill. And I don't get perpetually chased for it." She ended with a scoff.
"See manling?" Gotrek said, "The madness of the blood god."
Felix heavily winced at the mention of one of the dark gods, "Or perhaps she has some Norscan berserker's blood in her." He added with a touch of sensitivity. Felix didn't want to add fuel to the fire of Gotrek's damning accusation.
"I'm not a berserker!" She corrected, "I still have my sanity, at least."
Felix wisely chose not to comment and promptly moved on. "We cannot provide for you, so if you were to join—"
"No," Gotrek interrupted, his severe tone brooking no argument. "She stole my doom and had the gall to call herself saviour. Corrupted or not, her presence is intolerable."
Jeanne's hand was wreathed with a dull blue flame, taking the shape of her lance. She gripped it tightly and leaned forward, and the two shared an intense stare. "So is yours, you prick. But I've got ways of making you tolerable."
"Do it then." Gotrek goaded, "And see if I don't shove my fist down your gullet first. Or will you run as you did before?" He clenched his arms, providing a show of his densely coiled muscles. Felix wanted to back away, but a part of him was obligated to prevent this battle.
But for reasons he knew not, Felix only witnessed them continue their stare. Jeanne's face was a war of emotions, unlike Gotrek's unyielding will. There was hate that was clear to see; Felix was almost convinced that she wanted to kill him. But it didn't last; she'd blink and look away. The tug between emotion, instinct, and higher thought was clear on her face as she struggled to keep her dangerous expression. She was not one to enjoy killing, Felix thought, but she seemed to have grown very used to it. Perhaps she was reaching for a higher reason to kill Gotrek beyond his disagreeableness and failed; it might explain why she was the one who broke first in this battle of wills.
"Fuck this! I don't need to deal with this!" Jeanne rose up and started to walk away. "I'll find some other adventurer to kill my time with. It'll be better than you fucks!"
Felix let out a relieved breath and sat beside the wounded dwarf. He wanted to give that damn fool an earful, shouting a variety of names followed by equally colourful expressions. But he knew better. He wouldn't see Jeanne for a long while after that. But, as if fate was toying with his life, he would then have a third encounter with Jeanne. This time it was under worse circumstances compared to their first meeting. For Jeanne had found herself working for a Chaos Warband led by a champion named Justine.
Next to a herdstone deep in the Drakwald, beastman tribes watched as two champions circled the other in a grassy arena. A chaos champion of Khorne was building an army to kill her noble abuser. This gathering was due to a deal struck between her and a warherd chieftain. The two realised that subjugating the other by killing most of their number was inefficient; they wanted to grow their respective warbands after all. Thus, it was to be that leadership of the tribe fell to who possessed the strongest champion. Fortunately, Justine had a loyal companion in the form of Jeanne.
The Dragon Witch eyed the ten-foot-tall minotaur with contempt. She had commanded dragons and burnt a kingdom. And since arriving in this world, she had destroyed multiple warherds herself. The crowd around them let out vulgar shouts with their cow-like mouths. The horse-faced cowards love a good battle. But Jeanne was not interested in a proper fight, for the outcome had been decided. Death was not the only fate the minotaur before her would suffer, but humiliation, too. She needed to get the point across to exalt Justine's name. For Justine had a cause worth fighting for. This is how Jeanne decided to live out her second chance at an impossible life—fighting to right terrible wrongs. This was how she could rub off the stain of Orleans from her soul. This was what it meant to have personhood, to make her own choices. And what a beautiful choice it was!
Jeanne stabbed her flag into the dirt, tucked her chin, and raised her fists. The crowd ceased their incessant mouth-noises to stare dumbly at her. They were sentient enough to recognise a mistake. For this twig-built woman to throw away her weapon in the face of a minotaur was tantamount to suicide. Was this woman really the equal to a chaos champion of Khorne?
The bull-headed beast charged. Its own arms were double Jeanne's entire width. The being was one of the most physically dangerous breeds of any warherd, and it had set its bloodthirsty eyes on Jeanne. The minotaur used the momentum to heft its great axe to bisect her. Jeanne saw it coming, feeding off the naked bloodlust emitted by the beastman. Resentment fuelled her, and hate made all things possible. Jeanne turned her entire body and broke the metal with her fist. Without letting the bullgor recover, she swiftly climbed up to its head and rammed her forehead with its own. It wasn't lethal, but the beast felt its nose erupt with pain and a deluge of blood. By the time it recovered, Jeanne had already landed neatly on the ground. This was how she'd fulfil her duty as a heroic servant without a master. One wrong at a time. She put the beast's massive forearms in a death grip and lifted. Jeanne screamed, putting in immense effort to lift it high. The beastman tribes watched in awe, while some turned into Khar's converts from the sight of it alone. She was blessed and had to be blessed to pull off this insane feat.
"Heave," Jeanne held her breath as she hefted its flailing body up and threw, "Ho!"
When the bullgor landed on the edge of the arena, the ground shook. All the while, Justine watched on with pride. Jeanne was her instrument of justice. With this, the noble's death was all but guaranteed.
The minotaur rose up slowly and clumsily. It limped towards Jeanne to strike and whiffed. Jeanne dodged effortlessly, sending a metal boot to its stomach. The bullgor's abdomen reddened with internal bleeding, and it fell to its knees. Jeanne walked right up to its oversized head, the predator before the prey. Her haunting yellow eyes gazed at the crowd before her as if staring deep into their soul. Were the beastmen Skaven, they would have secreted the musk of fear. But in that fear came newfound respect. Justine's warband would swell by day's end.
Jeanne placed a foot on the minotaur's head, forcing it to kiss the dirt. This was how she'd become a true heroic spirit—a person, not a shadow. With some added pressure, Jeanne painted the ground red with the bull's brain. It was good that she had conserved some energy, for there was a castle to storm soon—a noble to kill and vengeance to fulfil.
I've been addicted to Total Warhammer 3 since Thrones of Decay was released. I've been listening to the Gotrek and Felix books, too. And since I've had the idea of Jeanne exploring the Old World for a while now, this fic came about pretty naturally in my head. Yet another plot bunny that's caught me in its rabbit hole. I've always liked Jeanne. She was one of the first characters I tried writing/keep writing. Mokou too, actually. I'm starting to sense a pattern...
This is a great idea, and having Felix write it as part of his chronicles fits really well.
Avenger Jeanne is going to have all kinds of interesting interactions with the folks of the old world, at least she and Gotrek should be on the same page about righting wrongs.
Content Warning: This chapter and the next few will include:
- Allusions to and allegories of Sexual Assault (No explicit scenes)
- Gore and violence typical to the Warhammer Fantasy setting.
- Emotionally abusive rhetoric (i.e victim blaming)
The author does not agree with the opinions presented in this fic.
There was a corpse on Justine's table. A human corpse this time. His eyes had frozen into a still image of horror, his maw agape with a silent scream from the grave. It lay there, that corpse, red blood dripping down the table's wooden leg as the dirt below drank whatever meagre bounty it held. Jeanne stared at it. Her metal gauntlet held a delicate parchment as if it were a plush bear. There were clear signs of torture on him, more than what was needed to dig out information. Jeanne's mind echoed with something resembling regret, and she felt a sort of return to form—a repeat of the scenes she witnessed when she razed France to the ground. Doubt began to creep in, but she pushed it down. Lecherous men and the minions under them deserved their fates. But Jeanne knew the logical conclusion of Justine's vengeful crusade because she had walked the same steps. Defeat had given her the luxury of sobriety and reflection. Recalling feelings of pleasure, agony, and vindication in her rampage all over France. Every needless death tallied up and chucked onto a pile of self-loathing, every charred ruin burnt to memory. It didn't matter that the consequences of her actions were wiped from a restored history; it was still something she had done. Personhood came with ownership, no matter what. Jeanne vowed to give Justine what she wanted, but none of the regrets that came with it. The woman deserved that after all she had endured.
"Jeanne," Justine's ill-fittingly soft voice broke Jeanne from her reverie. The Avenger-class servant turned to her, seeing a massive woman in bulky daemon-forged armour. It glowed red amidst the dim candlelight of the tent. Only her head remained uncovered, which was a rare sight outside of Justine's tent for she always wore her unholy panoply of war no matter the occasion. It was a rare day to find an unarmoured chaos warrior, even in their tents. A fact Jeanne learned after killing a multitude of them during her first weeks in this malformed singularity.
"The map, Jeanne," Jeanne approached Justine, handing over the parchment to her heavily armoured fingers.
"Here you go, Kleindorf and everything near it." The Dragon Witch crossed her arms, silently anticipating some praise to go her way. It took some effort to push her expectant smile down.
With great dexterity, Justine's gauntleted fingers unfurled Jeanne's black and white map across an empty table. The Chaos champion wiped a white streak of hair off her eyes and squinted. Her hellfire irises dimmed as the still image began to move at the speed of memory. It was a perfect depiction of Kleindorf in its entirety by Jeanne: the keep and the village. She could almost hear the figures in her drawing speak in their usual southern drawl. The walls were meticulously rendered, with each cobblestone block textured and shaded. The main keep, the seat of Count Klein and his son Hugo, seemed to be pulled from Justine's past life, now processed by her sharpened mind. Her thoughts ran with the calculus of war, spotting possible sightlines and vectors of attack. The pathways she once used in her girlhood would now funnel death in beastmen form. Then, Justine felt an echo of texture in her burnt fingers, the touch of soft dough, of hard crusts. Those phantom sensations were pushed down and murdered; all that mattered was seeing her tormentor burnt and flayed.
"There." Justine smiled, baring her protruding fangs, "The old tower they've yet to repair. This is where we strike. We'll send the chaff ahead to screen for the bullgors." She remembered rumours of the tower being haunted by the ghosts of Count Klein's ancestors. She was deathly afraid of it, taking long circuitous routes merely to avoid it when she was a servant. Justine was weak then but no more. The chaos champion noticed a slight change in Jeanne's expression but ignored it.
Many armies of the dark gods had broken under range fire before even reaching the walls of civilisation. Hellforged plate did not make one invulnerable to arsenal rain, as many chaos lords had learned. She won't repeat their mistake. It was a blessing that Count Klein merely had his archers and some pistoliers. Even so, Justine still brought with her a daemonic cannon from the Chaos Wastes.
"Why bother with an army?" Jeanne asked. Were it anyone else questioning Justine, their flayed body would be used as a banner. But this was Jeanne; she was neither subordinate nor rival but a companion. Many brayherd chieftains under Justine were brought to the fold through subjugation or prophetic words. Jeanne was a true believer. That fact warmed the only sane part of Justine's psyche. "Say the word, and I'll bring that Hugo cunt on a spit myself." Her eyes were alight with an unholy glow, a dull flame that burnt a sickly yellow.
"My fate is set in stone. I have been given all that I wanted by playing my part in a prophecy that sees Hugo dead. To deviate risks his survival." Justine beheld the hellblade on her waist, the daemonic armour burnt into her skin, her blessed mutations. She grew out of the weak chrysalis of her original form and moulded into a lethal warrior by her daemonic patron. To deviate would also risk his wrath.
"Fuck fate." Jeanne retorted casually, a defiant grin on her lips. "If we can do it ourselves, why not? It's just Hugo we want, right?" Justine sent a stern look, a small crinkling of her eyes. She possessed a hellish visage beyond the ken of mortal man, yet Jeanne kept going. "I mean, personally, I wouldn't let some prophecy-"
"-Jeanne", Justine's voice grew colder than a kislevite winter, "I enjoy you, but do not test me." She wondered if Jeanne was a fool or deliberately insistent.
The woman paused at Justine's tone before rolling her eyes. Jeanne was more embarrassed than she was scared, "fine, fine. You're the one running the show." She walked up to Justine to look over the map, her cape gliding over the bloodstained dirt. "So when are we going to storm the castle?"
"Not in some time. The Black Altar first. There has been a rebellion." Justine informed. Her eyes squinted at Jeanne, studying her reaction.
"Huh, seriously?" Jeanne asked, wondering what happened when she was away. "Which suicidal asshole started it? Shouldn't they be afraid of us?"
Justine stared long and hard, searching for any hint of treason. She did not spend seven years a slave to darkness to be infected by naivete. More so now that she nears the culmination of her journey. She found none. "That is precisely the issue. Their fear of you is equalled by their respect, and it has made me a lightning rod for discontent. There have been whispers that you should be at the head of our army, not I."
Jeanne narrowed her eyes, determined, "So, who needs to die?" Lean down, set your jaw—yeahh, Jeanne thought, feeling a semblance of pride. The Avenger reckoned she looked really cool.
Justine was nearly taken aback. True loyalty was rare, doubly so for her kind. It was almost too good to be true. "Grind, the old shaman. He's seduced by a new prophecy—yours. And a score of my beastman have flocked under him, thousands more if his lie is allowed to live."
"See what I mean about prophecies? Telling you what to do, it's almost like—" Justine's raised eyebrow compelled Jeanne to stop, "Okay, okay. You don't need to tell me twice."
"I have just told you twice," Justine simply said.
"Facial expressions don't count!"
Justine studied Jeanne again, searching for ghosts, "Does his prophecy not interest you?"
Jeanne shrugged. The metal plates of her armour clinked and clanked as she did so. "You already know what I think. What matters to me is that Grind's rebellion distracts us from Hugo. That rapist gets to live another day cause of idiots like him. I'll barbeque him for that." A vicious smile streaked across the Avenger's face, cold and cruel—the last sight many of the Drakwald dead had seen since her arrival.
A ripple of tension coursed throughout Justine's body as her eyes narrowed. Jeanne had so brashly reminded her of that still-living monument to her weakness. She felt ashamed. She felt rage. Justine wanted to kill her to quench her growing fury; if there had been an audience to their discussion, it would have been guaranteed. But harming Jeanne risked costing Justine her greatest ally. Her bloodlust did not explode, but it did dwell. An act of great restraint. "Good." Justine said with gritted teeth, "that's good. Go, find my warriors and muster the ungors. We sally out at dawn."
Jeanne raised her eyebrow in askance. Justine nearly choked Jeanne for the act. "Just them, not the bullgors too?" Jeanne asked.
"This farce is beneath them; they will be left wanting and enraged. We are enough. The rest are fodder." Justine half-lied. Her soul sang in anticipation of the blood she would personally spill soon.
Jeanne nodded, "merveilleux," she spoke in Bretonnian, producing a low chuckle. "It'll be a red day tomorrow." Moonlight spilled into the tent as Jeanne exited through the flaps made of ungor skin. She had left Justine alone with her thoughts. And her patron.
"Beloved," a voice broke through the film separating the Chaos Realms from reality as it suffused its daemonic sound throughout the tent. Its origin was undiscernible, its presence overwhelming, speaking words unbounded by space and time. The candles went out, leaving only dark. Justine felt a tightening on her neck; the protective shell of her armour began to strangle her. He was here, and she felt rage bleed from his invisible gaze.
Amidst the dark, her eyes caught sight of the corpse she interrogated had stared at her. Two blazing orbs had burnt its ocular cavity, charring the reddening flesh around it. It was the most beautiful thing Justine had ever seen. The body was disintegrating, unable to contain but a sliver of Justine's patron, Kazakital. He spoke again. Each syllable further ruined an already ruined corpse.
"You have given weakness a foothold. Come to the Black Altar and bring a vessel. You shall explain yourself then. Take care that companion does not become competitor." Justine felt the air leave her body as impressions of the daemon prince's rage filtered into her mind. Years of fighting chaos champions in the wastes did not prepare her for Kazakital's anger, and it took a nearly insurmountable effort not to kneel in fear. He was awe-inspiring. This was what awaited her should she be able to transcend into daemonhood. With enough accumulated deeds, she too will be like him and find herself amongst Khorne's chosen. With his blessing comes immortality, casting away her mortal coil to become a deathless spirit of war. And the name Justine will be seared into the Throne of Khorne with Kazakital's gracious assistance. She will do his bidding, and she will do so with zeal.
After a few breaths, the body burned away, and the daemon's presence left just as quickly as it arrived. The world had corrected this aberration to physical law. The hulking chaos champion took on her helmet, feeling its hot metal burn into her skin. With her hellblade in hand, she walked out of her tent. It was time for war.
To command a warherd was to fight entropy itself. The nature of beastman makes constant infighting and random acts of violence a common sight. Every marching order, ritual, or even gathering will always be plagued by needless attrition. An ungor forgets its place and challenges a bestigor, an argument regarding meat or loot turns lethal, or a leader loses their authority thus creating a vacuum. To corral beastman into a coherent whole is to continually show unrelenting strength of arms. It is to kill the leader of a warherd and take their place, massacring any would-be challenger. It is to be the fittest among the fit, embodying the apex of violent evolution. Before Jeanne, Justine had maimed and slaughtered her way to the top of their hierarchy zealously and with ease. And though it was her strength which made her beastlord, it was Kazakital's prophecy that kept many from outright deserting. Being commanded by a human female was an unacceptable pill to swallow. Through Kazakital, Justine was seen as a chosen champion of Khorne who would bring the civilised world to their knees. That, and the ageing bray-shaman Grind's support added an element of divine right to her rule, marrying religion with violence as tools to cow them into obedience. But even then, several lieutenants and members of her own personal council sought to test Justine's authority and undermine it. Even with a prophecy backing her, it was simply the nature of beastmen. Violence and ambition were in their blood. Jeanne's arrival and the subsequent multiplying of Justine's army because of the Avenger further enflamed their innate desires to the point of nearly splintering the warherd. The larger a force was, the harder it was to be its centre of gravity. Grind's sudden betrayal would be the lethal kick into the grave for Justine's army if it were not answered decisively.
The ground shook as a mass of ungors looked behind to see Justine's towering form march amongst them. They parted to give way, allowing her a clear path to the front. Beside her was an entourage of chaos warriors marked by Khorne. Their matte red armour, coloured by smearing dried blood, stuck them out like a sore thumb amongst the Great Forest's drab surroundings. They held red axes that glistened with gold finishes, skulls dangling at their armoured waists. Jeanne was already ahead, standing at the front of their small raiding force facing Grind's more elite army of gors and bulky bestigors, contrasting the unhorned and slimmer forms of Justine's ungors. The weaker composition of her army was set up for a multitude of reasons. Equal parts a warning of the futility of resistance –because she was certain of victory– and to impress her patron through great acts of personal violence. Her eyes fell on Jeanne, who barely surpassed her elbow. This battle would also prove that Jeanne would be no usurper but an accomplice to any who would watch. And there were many eyes.
Even as the light shafts of the morning sun spilt through the canopy, it was clear that the coniferous trees and the overgrown shrubbery were inhabited by spectating beastmen. Knowing their kind, Justine reckoned some were Grind's, others were hers, while a significant part would be from wandering warherds she had yet to subjugate. Winning this battle would further swell her numbers at the cost of ungor lives—a low price for glorious victory.
The air was tense, with both armies stomping and shaking with coiled anger, ready to spring brutality on the other. Their bellowing and bleating drowned out the sounds of the forest. Even their formations could barely be called that. A loose, unorganised gathering was a more accurate descriptor. They were dogs waiting to be free of their masters' leashes.
"They got a blue bestigor with a beak leading them, but no Grind," Jeanne commented. Ahead of them, the blue beast stood at the centre of a clearing, screaming a birdlike song. It held a shield with several mutilated eyes stuck to it and a blue khopesh, the air shimmering around them. Jeanne was certain it was a type of caster. It let out a high-pitched screech that lulled Grind's army into a hypnotic state, a far cry to the open bloodlust Justine's ungors exhibited.
"A tzaangor. He has forsaken Khorne for Tzeentch." Justine proclaimed, her hand pulling her blade from her scabbard as it burned red-hot with flames. The warriors accompanying her screamed all manner of insults in the dark tongue, spittle flying into their helmets as they could barely contain their blood rage.
"That's the magic one, right?" Jeanne asked.
"Yes. No doubt Grind is in the Black Altar itself, casting whatever cowardly magic his new patron has taught him."
A lance whose tip was wrapped by a flag appeared at Jeanne's hand. "Better make this quick, then."
"Make it brutal," Justine commanded, "we are being watched. What foul sorcery he may cast is no match for us. There is no rush."
Jeanne smiled, "I can do that."
In a blink, Jeanne blurred, moving faster than Justine's eyes could track. Wait! Justine nearly said, but the act was aborted as she realised Jeanne was already gone. The Tzaangor yelped in surprise as it saw the black-armoured woman cross dozens of meters in a burst of speed. Jeanne fell upon it mercilessly, impaling her lance right into its stomach, blue blood squelching out of the wound. Then she lifted her lance, bringing it up high for all to see. She breathed into life a pillar of dragon fire. Its unholy flame was intentionally weakened to keep the body intact. The army the tzaangor led was too slow to react. By the time they could, the fire had petered out, revealing a blackened corpse reaching towards the forest canopy. A few fled at the sight, but the rest piled on to Jeanne. The battle had begun.
Ungors and chaos warriors alike screamed themselves into a frenzy and charged. The muddy ground deformed under the weight of hooves and metal boots. They charged of their own volition, taking Jeanne's attack as a signal. In that instant, Justine had lost control of her army. Beastmen, for all the martial bluster of their race, tended not to wait in the open for someone else to strike them. It was not their way. They were brutal hunters, preying and stalking until it was the right time to strike. Jeanne had fallen for their bait, bringing everyone else with her. But these considerations were not why Justine fell into a frenzy of her own. It was the momentary loss of control. There was a pit in her stomach, and out of it crawled old feelings of helplessness, its spindly fingers pulling its incomprehensible form out into the surface.
With a sudden force, Justine's jaw unhinged, burning eyes blazed a blood red, and a deafening roar rang out. She charged along, equally loving and despising the battle she sprang herself into. She entered the melee, a dreaded force multiplier among an army of grunts. With an easy swing, she cleaved a horned bestigor in half. Such a beast, with its human torso and goatlike hooves, must have spent its life honing its skills as a predator. However, it was nothing compared to the gifts Justine earned over seven years. A river of blood would be spilt this day, enough to earn the gaze of her patron. Perhaps then she may be welcomed back into his good graces, who would then grant her more of his gifts. But such an endeavour seemed futile. Her rising star risked being eclipsed by Jeanne's sun.
The servant stood alone, far from any ally. Although Jeanne was surrounded by enemies, such a target-rich environment was perfect for someone like her. The ground was seared by the scars wrought by her strength. Very few were able to reach her, for she was a walking castle with several layers of defences. Passing the outermost layer meant surviving a rain of spears she conjured up. Past that was a layer of jagged spikes that would suddenly jut out of the ground, impaling any unfortunate soul. Then came the occasional pillars of unmitigated dragon fire before one could finally reach her person. Despite the massive expenditure of magical energy, Jeanne was able to be as dangerous as the trials it took to reach her. The lucky and exceedingly competent who crossed blades with her died in mere seconds to her strength and speed. Dozens upon dozens of elite beastman charged at her; only twelve were able to make it. Two bestigors got lucky hits in, their crude implements of war slashing into her, but only one drew blood. A weapon that was an amalgamation of several looted great axes crashed into her face in full force. Jeanne's head whipped to the side before her yellow eyes snapped back to her attacker. A thin red line formed on her cheek, too shallow to be called a wound.
"Bitch!" Jeanne yelled, sending a fist into the bestigor's chest, crumpling its sternum into dust. The force of her attack sent it flying into a pillar of fire. She halted her flurry of spears and flame to conserve magical energy. Her core regenerated her strength, sipping from the ambient magic native to this world and the extreme emotions wrought by this battle. In seconds, a sliver of the energy spent returned to her; in several days, it would passively regenerate fully. It was time to fight more personally. The surviving beastman next to her held their weapons tightly. They were breaking; Jeanne was going to give them a little push.
"Aye, forest's been too quiet. Less beastman raids, but lotsa hooves around a' treeline. Makes me and mine itchy. Better ta see 'em raidin' than not at all, ya hear?"
Felix Jaeger nodded while Gotrek listened intently. They had found themselves in a rather well-guarded inn alongside the Nuln Road. One of the forest patrols had taken time off to drink, to which Gotrek bluntly harassed him for details of any beasts to die too. So far, this line of inquiry had proven disappointing for the slayer. Not so for Felix, who muttered a silent, grateful prayer to Sigmar.
"Dont be actin' all giddy now m'lad." The forest patrol told Felix, easily sensing the feelings of relief coursing through him. "Tis a bad thing. Means they're consolidatin'. Got every son and his mother holed up in their castles. No more caravans on these here roads. Too scared." He shook his head, showing the scar that stretched to the back of his head.
"Which means a powerful beastlord has started gathering those savages. This is good, manling. I've something truly dangerous to kill." Gotrek said, tired of the bandits and goblins that inhabited the Stirland half of the Great Forest.
Felix took his prayers back and hoped the man was simply very drunk. "Are we to march into the Nattern Forest then? Duel this beastlord to the death?" He asked Gotrek.
Gotrek eyed Felix with an air of blunt condescension, "Nonsense, it would be a fool's doom. Forester--"
"I've a name, master dwarf."
"--Which of your shoddy settlements would be the first to fall during a beastmen incursion?"
Frustration flashed in the man's face before it bled away into a more tired expression. The patrolman leaned back to think, letting out a slow breath. "I 'unno, it depends on which part of a' forest they come from, no? You never know with 'em." He took a swig of his Stirlandian swill before his eyes lit up, "If ya take the detour east to Herzogestrasse, ya'll find towns deep in the Nattern. Snake deeper north and ya'll find yerself at Kleindorf. Should Taal abandon us, the villages surroundin' em will be the first ta' go."
And so it was that Gotrek and Felix hiked up towards Kleindorf, walking to what may be certain doom. With rumours of a large beastmen build up in a nearby forest, Felix held his hilt tighter, eyes narrower. He was fidgety, paranoid. He'd rather fight goblins than he would a beastmen. Those children of darkness tended to feast on their foes or kill them in all manner of brutal ways. Goblins fought for the sake of fighting, while a bestigor would sooner gore him and leave him to die bleeding if he's lucky. An unpleasant lot, those beasts.
Felix felt the jolt of a gruesome memory flash in his mind. The woman, Jeanne, he'd seen her on a pile of beastman bodies of her own make. She had offered to join them earlier. Oh how badly he desired her assistance. He hoped to see her soon, hoping she would save them from a beastman raid like she did with the goblins.
"I wonder what happened to her," Felix muttered.
"I don't keep track of your conquests, manling," Gotrek answered, surprising his rememberer. Felix didn't know he could hear. With an awkward silence reigning between them, he sought to fill it.
"Jeanne. That woman we saw when we were with the Von Diehl-"
"Don't insult me with your assistance," Gotrek interrupted. "I've a memory the equivalent of several of your lifetimes. Get to the point."
"Well, was she truly tainted? She had seemed sane for someone of her visage." Felix remarked. He wondered if the adventurers that assisted the two in Karak Eight Peaks would have been alive now if she had come with them. She was quite formidable.
"That's the tragedy of your race," Gotrek began, his gruff voice taking on a gravel-like quality, "falling so easily to the tricks of the Four. Even if she wasn't tainted, magical beings like her tend to align with the schemes of the Dark Gods, intentional or not. Magic is innately borne of chaos, doubly so for one made up of it. She is an aberration."
"Magical?!" Felix asked in surprise. He had known Jeanne to be capable of magic; that was clear, but for her to be a being of magic boggled the mind. In his head, magical beings were daemons, apparitions, or even familiars. Jeanne was simply too human-like to be classed as such.
"Course you didn't notice. Come now, you didn't believe she was entirely human?"
"Even so," Felix ventured, "if she had joined us, perhaps we could have helped make her an enemy to chaos."
Gotrek scoffed harshly, "Should anyone dip their toes into corruption, they're beyond redemption. Saving those who have fallen into chaos is a fool's errand. Best to do them a service and kill them."
"But-"
"The next time we see her," Gotrek began, his hand fiddling with the hilt of his massive axe, "it will be a battle to the death."
Felix Jaeger groaned inwardly. He threw his hopes of Jeanne's assistance away. With the way Gotrek is, her joining them was an impossibility. He prayed to Sigmar that he would never cross blades with her.
Handling the SA elements of the story as delicately as I could (research, getting second/third/fourth opinions, etc). Hopefully, the necessity of it becomes clear in the later chapters.
This story's a vague continuation of The Black Witch of Ostermark, and initially, I wanted to write an arc where Jeanne tries to save a "witch" in the Empire. Adding Gotrek and Felix led to Justine being the witch, as well as everything that came with it. I wanted the Gotrek, Jeanne, and Felix team-up to happen much earlier so that Jeanne would meet the Bretonnian knight during the Eight Peaks adventure, but it never seemed to gel right. So, I've settled with this gradual rivalry between Servant and Slayer before any real team-up occurs.
I know most depictions of Khorne chaos warriors give them a certain sheen to them (it is plate armour); I went with matte for this chapter because that's the colour of the models I got. Also, other than her NP, I don't think Jeanne Alter is depicted summoning spikes from the ground (correct me if I'm wrong) so using it as an attack she casts freely might seem weird. Honestly, I added it cause I thought it was cool and want to implement more of it in the future (which is probably how Jalter would feel about it, too. This is the same person who named her Berserker NP as Genocide Firedragon or something like it.)
A Chaos Warrior cleaved through a bloody path with his dual axes. He was a whirlwind of steel and blood, screaming his exaltation of Khorne. Chop, slash, chop, chop. Beastman bodies became the canvas for his bloody art, as he made sure to separate their heads from their shoulders. He stood upon a pile of fresh corpses, barely tired from the endeavour. Wounds littered his body, the result of lucky strikes that had stacked up over the course of the battle. Suddenly, pain erupted in his ribs as he turned to see a spear impaled into him by a gor. He swung his axe only for it to duck supernaturally fast. The gor kept the spear in the warrior's body and looted a blade from the ground before its face met the warrior's boots. It died instantly, and with a deep breath, the warrior yelled—
Shhk!
A metal great-axe penetrated his skull, but the cut was too shallow. The force of it pushed one of his eyes out, yet it did not kill him. Enraged, the Chaos Warrior glanced at the corner of his good eye to see a four-legged beastman with a horse's body and a man's torso—a centigor. The beast tried to pry its weapon from his head to land another blow, but the warrior threw one of his own axes away and grabbed hold of it, screaming. He willed his other arm to hack the centigor to death but found it unresponsive. Before a contest of strength between man and beast could begin, Justine came to assist, cutting through the centigor with her enormous blade.
This is the trap, Justine thought as she spotted more centigors spilling out of the trees. Their charge was hardly organised, with groups coming earlier than the others. Perhaps the battle had deteriorated faster than they thought, or the lack of the tzaangor leader blunted their ability to react. A stronger, more disciplined army would easily exploit such a flaw. But Justine commanded several herds ungors. A veritable tide crashed on her army, sending many beastmen flying. Most of her Chaos Warriors survived. They battled the horrors of the Chaos Wastes and lived; this was nothing. The risk of death was minimal since Jeanne had broken the anvil to the centigor's hammer.
The main enemy force had routed from Jeanne's personal assault, leaving the centigors alone to deal with the full attention of Justine's army. It was the perfect scenario to conduct a slaughter worthy of Khorne's name. Scores of ungors were trampled into a red jelly, but those who survived peppered the larger beastmen with a thousand cuts. Justine could hear the thunks and whiffs of arrows from the recently created backline as the surviving ungors switched to their bows. A clang of metal sounded out behind her, and as she turned, she found Jeanne's corporeal form holding a centigor's axe at bay. It had aimed for Justine's neck.
"I got you," Jeanne yelled. The words rang sharply in Justine's ears, who largely ignored the din of battle. She did not forget her feelings of helplessness stemming from Jeanne's charge, and the rage that came from it had not boiled away. In fact, all the killing she'd done had only inflamed it. No matter the blood spilt or how many skulls she served to Khorne, it did little to wash away old wounds. So deep was she in battle lust that Justine gritted her teeth and swung her greatsword at her companion. The woman disappeared, leaving the centigor to tank the Chaos Champion's attack. She cut open its stomach, spilling its visceral contents. Justine jerked to the side to find Jeanne, only to see her impaling another centigor that was gunning towards her.
We have good synergy, Jeanne thought happily to herself. Without any words spared, Justine had taken care of the centigor Jeanne was holding back, allowing the servant to deal a fatal blow to another. The Chaos Champion had let out a quick slash, and though her sword nearly cleaved Jeanne in twain, together, they had dispatched the enemy efficiently. She would never admit it, but Jeanne was quite impressed. It was as if they fought as one, a dynamic rarely found even between a master and their heroic spirit. The thought of making a contract with Justine came unbidden. Where did that come from? She shook her head as she parried a great club away. No, she liked her freedom as a stray heroic spirit, even when the world tried to erase her for it. Having a magical core like hers helped Jeanne avoid needing a master. She established her own existence by herself and will continue to do so again in this new world. Whether through loopholes as she had once done through the original Jeanne's dream or simple force of will, nothing was out of the question. Nothing except for servitude.
However, if she was ever put into such dire straits as to need a master, she wouldn't mind it if it was Justine. She reckoned they would have compatible personalities. A heroic spirit of her class worked best with someone who would move mountains to right a wrong because Avengers avenged. It's in the name, and it was Jeanne's nature.
Meanwhile, Justine was near frothing with rage. Jeanne was on the other edge of the battlefield now, jumping and twirling like some black-armoured daemonette. Justine's need to regain control fed her violent desires, and every centigor that got between her and Jeanne faced gory deaths. If only there was some way to make Jeanne do her bidding so Justine would be secure in her patron's good graces and so that she wouldn't be outshined. Jeanne could talk for hours about how Justine should run the army or complain that the effort needed to command was too much trouble, but these sentiments weren't enough. It wasn't enough that Jeanne truly believed in Justine's revenge quest against Hugo or sensed an inkling of commonality between her. The Chaos Champion simply could not stomach the idea of someone stronger than her who might steal her patron's gaze. For the first time in years, she felt the seed of fear sprout in her ravaged mind. She needed to dominate Jeanne if not outright kill her.
Justine jolted in realisation. This was what Kazakital meant about allowing weakness a foothold. She had been growing complacent, relying on Jeanne to help subjugate more and more warherds. Soon, she became the hammer for every nail that popped up in her journey as a beastlord. Wherever Justine went, Jeanne had followed, dispensing death all around her. From there, many knew more of Jeanne's power than that of Justine's prophecy. It was then inevitable that the beastman would respect the hammer more than the wielder. And now, in a moment of what should have been her triumph, came a competitor. It disturbed her how her soldiers followed her lead. It made her regret approaching her on that fateful day at the forest's edge. She had seemed a purposeless stray, outcasted by society. Justine believed recruiting her would mean, at most, another Chaos Warrior in her ranks. She could not have predicted the carnage this "recruit" could bring. Someway somehow, she will need to find some method of enforcing her will upon Jeanne, perhaps binding her. But such an act required a skilled daemonsmith, which she lacked. More reason to commune with Kazakital.
The last centigor fell to Jeanne's flame. She had impaled it with her lance and used its tip as a focus to spew dragon fire inside its body. The servant took a deep breath after the battle, which had been somewhat taxing, but her reserves were still sizeable. Still, it was a lethal habit to be so reckless. Low reserves meant that a butter knife with some magic to it could reasonably kill her. That will not do, not in this second chance at life. She saw Justine mauling a near-dead centigor and smiled. Jeanne had spent her first months here a wanderer. She wanted to make something of herself, carve an identity that felt truly hers. Jeanne was no Caster; the Dragon Witch could not force the trees to grow, make healing salves for wounded soldiers, or create whole towns with a waving of hands. She couldn't lead armies to crusade against the dark like a Rider or a Saber could; she lacked the temperament, and the superstitious populace of this world would not accept her, not even the wizards. Where, then, could Jeanne fit neatly into this world's puzzle? Justine did not give her the answer, but Jeanne felt that she had given her the path to one.
The Black Altar lay at the centre of a cairn deep in the Nattern forest. Around it were pillars of stone set up for various reasons. One past shaman explained the arrangement as a way to pool together the ambient winds of magic so as to weaken the barrier between this world and the next. Some would call it an arcane focus to commune with the gods; others believed its shape pleased the Ruinous Powers and simply stopped there. Fools, all of them, Grind had thought. It was typical of mortals to place these useless conceptual barriers to divide what is truly whole. Meaningless categorisation was a weak crutch for those who cannot comprehend the easily comprehensible. It diminished the great interconnected oneness of reality, like painting over a rainbow with a single colour. He likened those shamans to blind men marking out the parts of an elephant as different animals. The Black Altar was Tzeeneth's chimera; every reason for its existence was equally true and false; one only needs to see it through a kaleidoscope of perspectives on a case-by-case basis. They are the amalgamation of a thousand planned natural occurrences and the manipulation of the changing seasons. Such was the magnificence of the Changer of Ways. Through him, the world's mysteries would bear their answers to him
But the answers Grind seeks proved elusive. For now. Before the altar was a summoning circle to conjure beings similar to Jeanne. Through Tzeeneth's gift of divination, the Great Seer seared sights unseen into the shaman's mind, and Grind saw daemons of a particular variety. The daemons of the Four were shaped by the feelings and imagination of every species that possessed thought. But these "man-daemons" were beings exclusive to mankind's consciousness, stored in a realm akin to the Warp. And unlike mankind's pathetic gods, these daemons could easily be bound to a sorcerer of sufficient prowess. The being known as Jeanne was that sort of daemon. She fascinated him; her spiritual composition and the raw power she held were a sight to see. Even more impressive was her magical core, seemingly self-sustaining; it supped at its surroundings and, unlike that of a daemon, was able to sustain itself. He saw the wind of Aqshy bow before her like obedient dogs and witnessed the emanations of hate bleeding from the brayherd be subsumed into her. Then came the dreams of her ascension, an army undivided under her beck and call. He knew not the specific arrangement of her core that made it self-sustaining, but the power it gave Jeanne was brutally understood. Replicating such a feat would be a boon, one priceless enough that he sought Tzeeneth for answers. Should he be able to improve upon Jeanne's magical core and cast it into Tzeeneth's daemons, it would bypass the need for cultists or any mortal follower of Chaos. The Neverborn could roam the world freely without fearing the lack of magical energies forcing them out, nullifying that damnable vortex in Ulthuan. But there were still pieces of the puzzle that he could not see, missing details and a bevvy of unanswered questions. But with his new patron's help, these answers will come soon. Patience was what he needed. He lived his long years a patient shaman, what was another few years till his great ascension to daemonhood. He could almost see his name marked in the ruined stonework of all civilisations. Grind, the Herald of the End Times. He would spend a century on this conundrum if he had to. Kazakital's prophecy promised a ruined empire, but Jeanne's truth promised a world.
He chanted the summoning incantation in the dark tongue, carefully monitoring the levels of magical energy in each section of the circle. Too much would lead to a disastrous miscast, or worse, bring the eye of the "Observatory" upon him, as his dreams had whispered. Too little, and he would only summon mere apparitions. No, it needed to be perfect. Only then can he summon the vanguard of a new order. And though he felt some assistance from his Tzeentchian patron, working on the trappings of the circle and making the impossible possible, Grind had to pull his weight.
A crash, he spots the mangled corpse of a bullgor flying through the trees. It landed on the summoning circle, ruining its composition. A part of him panicked, and soon Grind could feel the winds of magic grow into a dangerous tempest. He put his all in taming it, a lifetime of experience helping him rein it in, but though he reduced the potency of his miscast, he didn't prevent it. The circle exploded into light as mutative energies coated the bullgor's corpse. It rose, its limbs snapping and cracking into a specific shape. Its flesh burned and remade itself. A white mane grew from his head, and an iron bull mask covered its face while thick horns jut out of the forehead. A name entered Grind's mind. This was it. His minotour. The lieutenant to Jeanne's future army, with Grind as her right hand, as his prophecies foretold. With this, the order of humanity will give way to an age of beasts.
But the transformation didn't stop. Its perfect beastmen-esque form bloated as mutative energies curled into its core and expanded. A red explosion came soon after, heralded by a fleshy squelch. Entrails soon flew onto Grind's body, coating him with red. Like sharkmen sensing blood in the water, Jeanne and Justine soon emerged from the treeline together. He fell to his knees, defeated, fatigue wearing him down. Where did it all go wrong? He did not expect Jeanne to be so loyal to Justine; such an act flew in the face of all that he knew. That the strong rule over the weak. Why, then, would she debase herself to following Justine's command? His dreams had shown him the real Jeanne, the dragon in the form of a witch. The one who burned a nation. He knew that if she was given Tzeentch's gifts, given the magical energy of a thousand Grails, she would have been beautiful.
"I saw you every night when my eyes shut deep. My soul plucked into eternity." Grind began to say abruptly. The words rolled awkwardly off his tongue as he voiced human words with his cow-shaped mouth. There was a distinct echo to his voice, wrought by a magic he barely understood. Half-mad from impossible knowledge and half-desperate. He hoped he could convey his feelings to this man-daemon and make her understand.
Jeanne cringed in disgust and looked to Justine, "fuck is he on about?"
"The servants of the Changer are quite fond of riddles," Justine said with a slight shrug. " A naked attempt at misdirection. It is a desperate move."
They approached him as Grind measured his last moments in mere footsteps. His mouth began to move independently, his form twitching from an intrusion. The aged shaman felt like a spectator to his own body, and he soon realised that something was trying to possess him. His patron? No, this was some other being, something older, more sinister. "You sat atop a throne of dragon scales. Flanked by a vampire and a fallen knight."
"Was this the prophecy you were trying to tell me about?" Jeanne asked, almost casually.
"No," Justine answered severely, deathly cautious. "This is new."
They were on top of him now, nearly arm's length. "You were beautiful then. You could have been beautiful now." He continued, tears falling from his eyes. Grind was deeply saddened at the possibilities that now eluded him. He felt his dreams flee from his grasp, the laughter of dark gods behind him. Soon, Grind came to realise the fate of all beastmen was to be a pawn. They were the neglected children of Chaos, and his experiments here will be continued by someone more favoured than he. The dream may have been possible, but it wasn't his to fulfil. As he continued to speak words that were not his, denying him the privilege of speech, the shaman realised he would never see the fruits of his efforts. He tried to resist, half-succeeding, making the words come out mangled and ineligible. But his possessor soon reasserted itself, cutting his speech short to convey the most crucial detail. "A prince wreathed in shadow crowned—"
Thunk!
His body crumpled into the ground, a deep dent on his head courtesy of the blunt end of Jeanne's lance. Justine glared at her companion, "You didn't let him finish."
Jeanne blushed in embarrassment and lifted her shoulders up defensively, "I thought we came here to kill him? Besides, you never know with casters. He could've been incanting in his head while he talked or whatever." She looked away, not being able to stand Justine's piercing gaze.
The Chaos Champion raised her sword instinctively, "you should have let him finish."
Jeanne narrowed her eyes and returned Justine's stare, "Fine! The next wizard we meet, I'll just stand there twirling my hair as he does his whole speech. Let him summon his minions while we're at it. Maybe I'll give him time to escape with a smoke bomb incantation." Justine took a step closer to Jeanne, but the servant continued, the sharpness of Jeanne's narrowed eyes withered, giving way to sincerity, "Look, the shit that could've come out of his mouth wouldn't mean anything. I'm working for you, aren't I? His other prophecy said otherwise."
Justine lowered her sword. She was glad her helm obscured her widened eyes. A wave of shame hit her, regretting the rage she felt against Jeanne. No, she was an ally; how could she not be? Other Chaos Warriors in her position would have killed Justine long ago or made her their puppet. Nothing about Jeanne indicated any outright malice. "No, you're right," Justine said, now sobered from her blood rage. She wanted to add an apology afterwards, but the thought disgusted her. Even with no one around to see, it felt too great a show of weakness. "You've a habit of proving prophecies wrong?"
Jeanne paused to look at Justine curiously. Then a cocky smile stretched her lips, " I'm not fated to be or do a lot of things. Hasn't stopped me from being or doing them." Jeanne wished she had a notepad to save these lines. She wanted to draw some kind of illustration embodying those words. Maybe have a character say it, too.
Justine felt her lips twitch upwards, a sudden, involuntary loss of control. She schooled her features, "Well, pray that you don't prove mine wrong."
Understanding flashed in the spirit's eyes, "Course not. I'd be a hypocrite to get in your way."
Justine quashed her developing feelings of curiosity and nodded, feeling her chest piece dig into her neck as she did so. "Good, for we assault Kleindorf tomorrow. Leave the body; I have need of it." Justine saw the Grind's fresh corpse and observed the chaotic energies that still lingered on it. A perfect vessel for her bloody patron.
"You're going to summon him?" Jeanne asked, the tenseness in her eyes returned.
"Later," Justine said, "Some of my inner council still doubt me. I will wait for them so he can cow them into obedience."
Despite the severity of the situation, Jeanne tried to stop herself from chuckling. The smile that nearly broke out turned into an ugly smirk. Cow the cowmen, ha! The heroic spirit resolved to tell Justine a similar joke later.
"What is the matter?" Justine asked, sensing a change in the spirit's disposition.
Jeanne schooled her features in time. "No, it's nothing. Look, I want to be there with you when you summon him," she asked.
"You have your own ritual to take part in."
"My reserves can wait. I can regenerate on my own anyway. Even if I didn't, Kleindorf's garrison is pathetic. Even our army is overkill, don't you think?" She wanted to avoid the ritual, for the blood of beastmen tasted like shit.
Justine shook her head, "I will not take any chances, not when we're so close." we're? Justine immediately reflected. Where did "we're" come from?
Jeanne opened her mouth to retort, but she saw Justine's beastmen begin to emerge from the treeline. She held her tongue, not wanting to show open defiance in front of her army.
"Alright," Jeanne conceded, "But one more thing. What happens after Hugo?"
Justine stared but didn't answer. The heroic spirit found her silence to be distressing.
3k words in barely a week is lightning fast for me. How the hell did that happen? I usually write 3k in two months. I'm being possessed, I swear.
Next chapter will be ugly.
Now, then, why focus on Jeanne's Self-replenishment trait when her materials say it regenerates a minuscule amount of energy? I get the miniscule part is from a gameplay sense and even if that trait is a higher grade, It's not like it's a roided-up independent action or even independent manifestation (that'd contradict her character, too!). Also, there's no mention of a grail so far; how can the summoning and Jeanne's actions be possible? The shaman didn't sense any grail shenanigans regarding Jeanne's continued existence, but that can't be right.
To the questions above, I say [REDACTED]. Truthfully, I'll answer them when it's convenient since I have some idea of how to do so, especially since her specific abilities became a plot-relevant thing. My attitude with this story has always been, "Here's Jalter as I understand her at X point in the FGO timeline, plucked into the Gotrek and Felix story. It will touch on x and y themes, etc etc." Rather than the specific mechanics of how Fate and Warhammer Fantasy systems interact with each other. Not that I'm completely disinterested; I wouldn't put the shaman scene if I didn't; rather, it's more that I won't dedicate a massive part of a chapter justifying how x and y mechanics melds together.
Also, am not interested in adding other servants to this story. Mainly focused on Jeanne unless I start really loving Nobu again. Even then, that'll be like a chapter 100 affair vaguely involving Cathay. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
