So I just caught up. And by the gods, is it glorious time to be reading this.
Also, I imagine Anna just talking that statisticly her dad survived and beaten imposible odds 5 times, so it is likely that he will return in glory with friends while the Black Arc burns in the background, with a suprise or 2
@Profilozof
Welcome fellow quester. Good to have you, I hope you continue to enjoy it.
A friendly gesture if you have only been reading the story-stuff, see those tags at the top? Some of which are outright orders? Try and follow them, the GM appreciates it.
And as you've read through the quest you no doubt have an inkling that this world is big and complex, so we don't see everything happening, 99.99% of the time Torroar has reasoning behind what he writes, so try and understand his perspective or ask to help understand, rather than immediately assume something is wrong, either in terms of logic or as treatment from GM to questors. Do that, and try and be a decent person following the Golden Rule and you'll have a good time. Welcome aboard!
So I just caught up. And by the gods, is it glorious time to be reading this.
Also, I imagine Anna just talking that statisticly her dad survived and beaten imposible odds 5 times, so it is likely that he will return in glory with friends while the Black Arc burns in the background, with a suprise or 2
Hey, welcome to the quest! If you're interested in more, there's Sidestory stuff and some Informational stuff to look at too, some of which is quester-contributed.
Also, not going to lie, you gave me a good laugh when I imagined that scene. I'm not gonna say that Anna would be saying that, specifically, but you did give me a smile in a bad time.
So I just caught up. And by the gods, is it glorious time to be reading this.
Also, I imagine Anna just talking that statisticly her dad survived and beaten imposible odds 5 times, so it is likely that he will return in glory with friends while the Black Arc burns in the background, with a suprise or 2
I very much do enjoy the quest but also I pray to sigmar that our merry fellowship returns before Alexandera and amethyst twins become aware of what had happened because their hearts will shatter.
Same for dwarfs because they could not help the greatest dwarf-friend baring maybe sigmar himself as much as possible.
I'm thinking of them being 5-6k at their peak with most splintering off as the civil unrest began, with only the elite core remaining. That way, i think l can do most of the stuff i originally envisioned still, without them being a "to big to remain neutral" force in the civil war.
If you decide they remain neutral and escape. After the chapters are done, what ends up with the band is after all totally up to you, torroar
Man. Disappointing Halloween. Mostly older young adults without costumes or makeup or anything, just a backpack they open up at me in dead silence. Only a few kids dressed up actually saying Trick or Treat with smiles and costumes. And when I tried to be generous because it was getting late and said they could actually take a few handfuls, the older kids nearly ripped the bowl out of my hands and straight up emptied it, and then one looked me straight in the eye and said 'You got anymore candy?'. Not a lot of Happy Halloweens or thank yous from a good chunk of the older trick or treaters, either.
Just kinda disheartening. Not in a bad mood, just...kinda melancholic, I guess.
Man. Disappointing Halloween. Mostly older young adults without costumes or makeup or anything, just a backpack they open up at me in dead silence. Only a few kids dressed up actually saying Trick or Treat with smiles and costumes. And when I tried to be generous because it was getting late and said they could actually take a few handfuls, the older kids nearly ripped the bowl out of my hands and straight up emptied it, and then one looked me straight in the eye and said 'You got anymore candy?'. Not a lot of Happy Halloweens or thank yous from a good chunk of the older trick or treaters, either.
Just kinda disheartening. Not in a bad mood, just...kinda melancholic, I guess.
Better than the story my mum has. Being from England trick or treating is less of a thing here, and this story is from before I was born. She had no idea what trick or treating was, so when some kids showed up one day, she said "oh, show us a trick then" which apparently got some confused stares. Next morning, they had broken apart the fence. Since then, she hates the concept, thinking it's essentially "give us stuff or we'll do something nasty".
Hmm. I dunno, not feeling particularly jokey. Just sorta sad. Weird mental state, thinking about age and youth and childhood, the way the world is doing, other IRL things. In less than two weeks, I'll be hitting another full decade of life, so it just seems to have put me in a bit of a mood. Not sure what I can do about it other than ride it out. Thanks for trying though.
Hmm. I dunno, not feeling particularly jokey. Just sorta sad. Weird mental state, thinking about age and youth and childhood, the way the world is doing, other IRL things. In less than two weeks, I'll be hitting another full decade of life, so it just seems to have put me in a bit of a mood. Not sure what I can do about it other than ride it out. Thanks for trying though.
Yeah. Melancholy when thinking about the current state of the world is understandable and not uncommon. Suppose that's why there's a demand for escapism. Just try not to let it prevent you from being able to do things. Because in my experience that just makes it worse.
Hmm. I dunno, not feeling particularly jokey. Just sorta sad. Weird mental state, thinking about age and youth and childhood, the way the world is doing, other IRL things. In less than two weeks, I'll be hitting another full decade of life, so it just seems to have put me in a bit of a mood. Not sure what I can do about it other than ride it out. Thanks for trying though.
Uglinchinin let out a howl of laughter as his ax bit through the wrist of a gor, blood and marrow bursting out of the wound that caused the mutant to scream in pain, right before a shaft bash send him right in the side of a minotaur, whose crude ax would have killed one of the boys Khapilov had with him on the spot.
The distraction was enough for the minotaur to miss, his weapon digging into earth and snow instead of flesh. The fool creature quickly crushed the skull of the bleaking gor between it´s monstrous paws, giving him the time to pull the lad up from the ground where a kick had sent him, before pushing him back.
"Stefan, stay with your friends and WITNESS TOR'S RIGHTEOUSNESS!" The last part he bellowed as he sent a mental prayer to Tor to smite the beast before him, much like he had smitten this herd´s shaman and his raiding group whom they had come across before he had come here.
Only, there wasn´t the grandiose roar of lightning now like back then, so the man simply shrugged.
"Tor desires for me to face this monster on my own and So! I! Will!" Letting out a warcry to match the nasty noise the beast was making, he charged, his ax falling from the sky in a raging berserker's strike, meeting the slab of metal and wood that was the Minotaurs excuse of a weapon.
Fanatic faith and substance driven frenzy met the nigh demonic strength of the beastman and found itself stalemated.
The priest could only smile as the Minotaur´s eyes widened and his muscles bulged, for this was surely the first time in it´s dark life that a mere human had matched his strength. Of course, he was smarter than to wrestle the beastman down in a contest of strength. Tor demanded that his followers knew how to use their heads after all!
The headbutt was delivered with enough force to send a sharp flare of pain even through the haze that was Tor´s blessing, but it was enough for the idiotic minotaur´s attention to break and to distract him, enough for his ax to slip past his guard.
He felt a tiny flash of what was sure electricity as the weapon made contact with the monster's skull, driving straight through horn and bone alike, even as his muscles burned from the effort.
At one point he screamed again as his ax made it only halfway through the massive bulk of the beastman, his ax remaining stuck somewhere in it´s chest, only for him to throw his mass and muscle behind it, pressing it down further all the way to the crotch. With a fresh howl he caused both halves to fall either side, showering him an offal rain of blood and gore, as he closed his eyes for but a second, pointing them to the skies.
Opening them again, he saw a whole bunch of ungors, gors and other fell creatures of the wild that stared at him with what surely an expression of fear at such devotion.
Not willing to let them recover, he threw three smaller axes in quick succession, catching two in the face, though a third managed to raise a wooden shield in time, only for the thrown weapon to hew through both.
Laughing even wilder he swung his ax left and right, the silver carvings in the metal of the axhead blistering with lightning as he cuts his way through the mess of a force before him, Tor showing his pleasure at the act.
His head was hurting, blood that had nothing of the beast's foulness running down from his forehead, yet Uglinchinin easily discarded it.
The injury was nothing compared to the time Tor had seen it fit to test him with one of his very own axblows.
He had stood in prayer in the storm for three days and nights until his god had seen it fit to show himself. To show him that with his body, though it´s still held blackened scars from the event all these years ago, withstood his power that he was meant for more. That he was chosen for a great mission.
He remembered seeing flashes from that mission, when the local priestess of Salyak fed him a particular drink made of various mushrooms and, oh Tor, had he ever searched for more of it. The latest cup of kvas, mixed with a special red shroom he had found in a grove inside a dead tree not too long ago, had him at last shown what he was to do in these lands.
Namely act as Tor did and strike out against the evil that infested the great land of Kislev.
Specifically find and destroy a herdstone of a group of beastmen who were collecting many a poor fellow for some dread ritual.
An arrow flew past his head and pierced a bestigor's eye, who would have cut into his side. Appreciatively, he rose his ax towards the man, Kulin, while choking a Gor to death with his other, swinging it´s body around as a sort of living shield against it´s fellows.
Kulin was an experienced hunter, in his thirties, and even now - together with a dozen or so of the other boys - were sending arrow after arrow into the pile of beastmen, who´s formation was again and again broken up by him and Khapilov.
In that he was significantly different then the 42 others, mostly boys who didn´t look like they´d make it past even their 4th jug of Kvass! Bah! Milkbeards who had mostly spent their time listening in awe whenever he told them tales of Tor´s glory, who had gotten their asses handed to them whenever Khapilov had trained them.
Speaking of the man, he was in the business of dueling the beastlord of this herd, though he was hardly fit to called more than a bestigor, from what he saw from him.
Not that Uglinchinin was too surprised.
This herd had been made up of barely a hundred beastmen and they had caught a good thirty of them and their bray-shaman on a raid. Now, they had managed to fall onto the beastman camp without being detected, most likely because they had been busy preparing the sacrifices and the ritual.
Still, he saw more than a few of the lads in the ground, unmoving, pierced by the spears of the ungors and a few torn to pieces when the gors and brays had managed to pull them out of their formation.
Speaking of the ritual, he saw more than a dozen men in various states of being, though they all were still alive, though he could see how a couple brays shied away from the ever more deteriorating battle, malice burning in their eyes as they turned towards the helpless men.
"OH NO YOU DON`T!" With a great roar, he threw his battle axe, ripping straight through a two of them. That was his last ax, but Tor didn't want his followers to be helpless.
While the beastmen were still lurching, even as their comrades hit the ground in bloody messes, Uglinchinin fell on them. Shouts that even he couldn't make sense of were his battlecry, starting with punching the first bray in the belly, while it gasped in pain it doubled over right into his uppercut, lurching the whole beast back.
Uglinchinin was brutal and efficient. He could have dealt with these brays in a showy manner, but those captives were right there. Thus he laid into the brays with a storm of fists, the next roaring monster getting slugged in its nose, flung aside so he could grab a dirty spear from the next bray, snapping it in half while it held the weapon. A headbutt laid out the whining creature, he whirled around and used the broken weapon to impale another bray who tried stabbing him in the back.
The next he punched it in the nose, cracking its skull in a gush of blood. Before it fell he quickly grabbed its chest to throw against the next one, the dumb animal hacked away at its comrade instead of catching his lunge, getting punched repeatedly before he grabbed its skull, twisting it to the side with all his strength while it swatted him with its feces encrusted paw, hearing a sharp crack that cut through the haze.
Okay, maybe a little showy.
Uglinchinin didn't waste time, lunging to punch the next in the gut then cracking its skull. Then another, and another, and another. His fists were aching like mad, he was tearing up his knuckles with how many brays he was beating to a pulp. Luckily for his poor hands once he brought both his fists down on a bray's skull, one he kicked its knees in while it tried to swing a big club at him, sending the beast to its knees so he could crush what little brains it had, he panted for breath.
Looking around, Uglinchinin realized that the brays were dead. Or close enough not to matter. Around him the rest of the warband was mopping up, finishing their brawls then killing the remaining beastmen. To his pleasure not one monster had escaped, for being a bunch of milkbeards they had been thorough.
Huffing once more, Uglinchinin smiled. He sauntered over to the captives, stomping on a bray's throat to get a gurgle, then went for the first man. He was an emaciated fool, shivering uncontrollably without a shirt. Uglinchinin whistled for a lad who wasn't busy, although the boy was heaving and using a spear to support his weight he staggered over.
"I'll do it." He tugged the boy around, tearing open his pack for the cot roll within. He covered the fool then pushed him to the regrouping men, minus several faces and showing no small amount of injuries.
Bah, scars were lessons.
Uglinchinin freed the captives quickly, getting them out of the area first thing. He snapped the crude bindings, getting them out of their prison then shoving them to the awaiting men, who wrapped them up as best as they could. The hardest cases he just slung over his shoulder, carrying them to the most fit men instead, handing them off to be cared for. These men needed alcohol and warm stew, followed by rest in a safe place.
Not bad for a day's work, Tor bless these lads. Maybe some had potential.
AN:
Happy Geheimnisnacht, @torroar !
Saw your post about you having a halloween that kinda sucked, so I decided to give you a little treat myself! Wrote this in the last two hours and it´s my gift towards you!
Hope you like it and if things don´t work, tell me! May this brighten your day a little!
Man. Disappointing Halloween. Mostly older young adults without costumes or makeup or anything, just a backpack they open up at me in dead silence. Only a few kids dressed up actually saying Trick or Treat with smiles and costumes. And when I tried to be generous because it was getting late and said they could actually take a few handfuls, the older kids nearly ripped the bowl out of my hands and straight up emptied it, and then one looked me straight in the eye and said 'You got anymore candy?'. Not a lot of Happy Halloweens or thank yous from a good chunk of the older trick or treaters, either.
Just kinda disheartening. Not in a bad mood, just...kinda melancholic, I guess.
Man, that is depressing and sorry you had to deal with that.
If it means anything my family got no trick or treaters are all despite living in an apartment complex with lots of young kids. I guess the idea of trick or treating in an apartment complex wasn't appealing at all.
Sorry your own neighborhood didn't seem to have the spirit and hope next year is better.
Not sure. Remember, at the time, she was not the heiress, she had a brother, Reinhardt. If she had gotten married, Reinhardt may have been recalled from Nordland before he got plagued, so you would have had a much worse Nordland due to lacking the warning, but Ortrud would have been there from the start to help out. May have lead to the current merc system being employed earlier, getting better contracts, knightly order detachments, etc.
It was one thing to behold the great gates of Karaz-a-Karak, more than four hundred feet tall, and try to spy the faint smudges of figures and war machines stationed at its very height. It was another to be granted a privileged position in the previously hidden firing floors worked seamlessly into the stone of the mountain itself. But it was yet another still to be standing atop those walls at the highest level, that which point there were always dwarfs stationed every hour of every day, exposed to the outside world unlike the previously hidden defensive points. So high up that only the best possible engineers were stationed to fire their cannons, their bolt throwers, their grudge throwers, and so on, for to aim amidst such heights and mountainous winds was a grueling task of intuition and calculation both. At least, that was the normal issue, for to the dwarfs, inaccuracy was often quite the grave sin. On the other hand, very rarely had the Everpeak been so assailed, to the point where there was genuinely no point in aiming at all at the green tide. Every single shot would hit multiple greenskins. The great stockpiles of powder and ammunition that the High King had so wisely ordered built up were already being dug into, and by the reckoning of the poets of the battle enough black powder had been utilized and enough cannons fired that a false storm rose up above the mountain and valley and paths. A storm of noxious black and grey smoke, belched by the firing of so many handguns and cannons on a consistent basis. Yet those same winds and thin air which so challenged the engineers and lungs of those who walked the walls also ensured that the clouds moved on swiftly elsewhere in the World's Edge Mountains.
"By all the Gods, they just keep coming," Magnus shook his head, gazing down at it all.
"Aye, they do," Thorgrim grumbled, hands held behind his back as the two of them walked the walls, their respective bodyguards trailing just behind them. "For years, they have been building their strength, drawing from more places than just the Old World."
"In Sigmar's time, they expunged the greenskins from much of the Empire, but this...," Magnus felt his grip on Ghal Maraz tighten.
The holiest of hammers felt light as a feather in his grip, yet simultaneously as heavy as the Everpeak itself as he gazed upon the oncoming horde.
"Our rangers have tracked them as best they could as they came. Save for the lowest of the dregs, the lands of the Empire and Bretonnia are as free of greenskins as they ever have been," Thorgrim nodded as they walked on, listening as hundreds of lives were snuffed out with every moment while the greenskins continued to charge for the walls, churning the earth apart as the last of the boomdiscs were utilized. "The Grey and Black Mountains, the Vaults, the Border Princes, the Bonelands, and beyond - from the Dark Lands and further east and the Southlands drawn north."
"To here. To now," Magnus murmured.
"Aye," Thorgrim paused to spit over the walls down towards the green tide. "In the distant past, Urgluk Bloodfang fought against High King Ironbeard and your Sigmar. But he did not draw from all that these have."
Magnus had faced daemon princes and ancient horrors, and an Everchosen besides. But there was still something within him, the Sigmarite, who recoiled from and reviled especially the greenskins. Another quieter and more foolish voice, that of the irrational man he'd long since put aside, decided to protest the idea that there could be any greater greenskin than the foe that Sigmar had faced down in the First Battle of Blackfire Pass. But the rest of him easily silenced that voice. He had no time or energy to allocate to such foolishness, not when he had the facts and the reality that was before him. It was that same refusal to fall to denial which filled the High King as well, he could tell. Magnus considered himself a fair hand at judgement and insight into the character of most, but one did not have to be to feel the sheer determination that bubbled from Thorgrim Grudgebearer's very being.
"If we are lucky, and if the world was kind, the defenses will hold them off. They shall find themselves stymied, and shall break upon finding us inviolable."
"If we are lucky, and if the world was kind," Magnus echoed.
It did not need to be said that they were not, and that the world had never been kind.
That Thorgrim had invited the humans of the Empire within the Everpeak, breaking an entrenched tradition that had existed for many centuries, said enough. That he had gone against the traditionalists in such force and strength, said enough. That he had, even as so many dwarf lords, thanes, longbeards, and beardlings besides had continually been boasting of the Everpeak's defensive capabilities to all who would listen, invited them in. That he had built up his stockpiles as he had, said enough. Magnus knew, without Thorgrim needing to say it, though he was relatively sure that he would if genuinely asked, a conversation between an Emperor and High King. He knew that the Grudgebearer did not fear that it would all not be enough, that something within him already suspected that it would not be enough already. Not out of fatalism, but a terrible acknowledgement of the sheer threat they faced.
"High King, High King!" A messenger, a dwarf sprinting at remarkable speed, shouted as he rushed up and out of one of the staircases leading back into the mountain.
"Speak your words, messenger," Thorgrim stated, frowning as he turned away from the horde.
"T-they reached the walls! The boomdiscs have exhausted themselves, but the greenskins just marched over the dead and turned them to pulp! They're beginning to bring forth ladders and siege towers to try and reach the lowest tier of the firing floors!"
Even though he had known it was likely to happen, Magnus still felt a faint bit of dread that the greenskins had indeed managed it.
"...very well," Thorgrim nodded, showing only that same granite hard determination. "Close the lowest tier and seal the stone with rune and lock. If they wish to climb the Everpeak?" He glared back out at the horde, "Then let them try."
Mag and Thraka squinted through two spy glasses each, both looking practically tiny in each hand, as hundreds of tons of stone quickly and silently rose up and slid closed once more, the lowest of the firing floors sealing itself just as the first ladders had begun to be slapped against the walls. The second tier, above them, had apparently been properly prepared for exactly that eventuality, and began dribbling huge quantities of burning oil, sand, and gravel right out and down into the greenskins. Neither of them particularly cared overmuch that so many orcs were suddenly being melted alive, several dying outright from the sheer heat. Or when the dwarfs managed to heft some of their precious flame cannons so that they could fire almost directly downwards onto the orcs and goblins as they attempted to ascend. Hundreds had died, hundreds more would die. But unlike any of the other lesser races of the world, it was made worth it for everyone else including the dying that they had died fighting.
Because there really wasn't anything better in existence than a good fight.
"Right, dere they go. Distracted with the climbers," Ghazghka grunted, hands on his hips as he nodded approvingly. "Right on schegagul. Schech...on time," he shrugged at the word, then glanced back at Mag and Thraka. "Either of you two see Kull yet, he report back in?"
The two orcs glanced around the mountainside again with their spy glasses.
"Hmmmgh, no. I don't see 'em," Mag said after a moment. "Thraka?"
"Nah, but guess that's the whole point. Sneaky git, 'e is."
Both paused, looked at each other, and then grunted in unison.
"I can already hear da question in yer brains, ask," Ghazghka growled, the red glow of his eyes within his helm disappearing briefly as he rolled them.
A brief silent dialogue ensued between Mag and Thraka, which was only sort of silent as they punched each other hard enough to rattle their thickly layered plate armor. It was not quite possible to understand the method by which one or lost said debate, only that one had.
"Don't get why 'is boyz are called the Shinies. Er, Shiny Boyz," Mag finally said, shaking his head. "Cuz, yer boys are the shiny boyz? We heard 'e was-,"
"Ah, I geddit. Well, boyz, it's quite easy to explain," Ghazghka chuffed and chuckled. "My boyz are the shiniest, and we love our shine, but Kull and his are shin-y, geddit? And you knowz why, uv course."
It was hard to tell beneath all the armor, but there seemed to be genuine bafflement as two shakes of the head were given instead of nods.
"What, really? It's dead simple. Humies uv got this word fer when dey get whalloped," Ghazghka slammed a humongous fist into his own open hand, making a sound like two anvils making love under a solid metal bedsheet. "Speci...spekicf...for when dey get hit in da eye, and someone comes along and nicks dere stuff, loots em, what not. Cause dere eyes, see," he pointed rather pointlessly at his helmet's own face, "Dey gets all purply annnnnd...," he drew the word out, "Shiny. So dem humies call 'em shinies. And dat's why you ain't neva seen Kull propa-like. Besides, I knew ya wouldn't be able to see 'em, not yet. But you'll know when he goes to work, hurr hurr hurr. Now den. Call up da flya boyz! It'z time for da next step of da plan!"
As had been proven consistently with the march of the WAAAAGH!! on its way to the Everpeak, the most effective party stymying their progress and doing their best to sabotage and kill as many greenskins had been of course the rangers. The second most effective party had been, just as rightly, the prestigious Air Corps of the Everpeak. Flying out in some of the most incredible machines ever invented, those brave dawi pilots had struck again and again at the greenskins, firing their weapons and dropping their bomb payloads until both were fully exhausted and they had to return only to be resupplied and get right back at it again. Squadrons had been making runs again and again, endlessly, exhausting the pilots to the point of passing out the moment they were ordered out of their cockpits, leaving beardlings to pick up the slack and gain as much flying time and experience as was possible in as rapid a time as possible.
For a time, they had flown largely unopposed against the enemy, only having to avoid literal hundreds of arrows and haphazardly launched rocks as well as the occasional goblin with leather wings on. Even as the greenskins began raising higher and larger ladders and siege towers, pushing them forward and rebuilding them as they came. The first tier had closed itself, and they had bombed and shot from the skies. Then the second tier was sealed, and they not only redoubled but tripled their efforts, grossly exceeding safety limits with the amount of bombs that they latched onto their bays so that they could kill just that many more greenskins. And already, the greenskins were trying, scrabbling, desperately working to close the distance between them and the third tier, desperate to reach an entrance into the mountain. Yet in all that time, they had continued their flights unopposed and unworried by the enemy compared to the other defenders.
But Master Engineer Dwali Cloudhammer knew something was wrong the moment he came from his latest run. Not because he had a keen eye, though he did. Not because he was four hundred and ten years old and had honed his awareness and instincts from flying in the most dangerous environments, though he was and had. He didn't need any of these things, whatsoever. A beardling could have come to the same conclusion. A blind and mute beardling could have done it, because the fires that were currently pouring out of the hangar bay of the esteemed Everpeak Air Corps were roaring high and wide enough to leave a faint heat wash in the air that struck his gyrobomber and buffeted it as he came in with the rest of his flight. Though a blind beardling might have had trouble seeing the writhing mass of white that he could only from this close realize were cloaked and concealed figures that had made the impossible journey up the mountain to get here.
Then, to his absolute surprise, there was a coughing boom and suddenly one of the gyrocopters accompanying him was dropping out of the sky. Just like that, his fellow pilot and friend Angad Stormshield was gone, his gyrocopter crashing into an exploding heap further down the mountainside.
"Morgrim's Beard!" He cursed, pulling up tight on the controls and ascending as quickly as he could, the rest of the squadron doing the same without any hesitation. "They've taken the bloody cannons and the hangar!"
Then every fiber of his being became consumed with avoiding the defensive guns and bolt throwers that the dwarfs themselves had installed long ago, not another iota of energy able to spare even cursing or trying to figure where they would be able to land and resupply now.
Thorgrim and Magnus, along with many others, began sprinting the moment the lifts came to a stop, revealing a sprawling brawl of hundreds of combatants. Mighty veteran Ironbreakers fought alongside Master Engineers, accompanied by younger dwarf warriors and engineering apprentices. The air was filled with the crashing of metal and flesh, the boom of guns and twanging of crossbows, the thunder of heavy weapons on heavy armor. There was no time for speeches, only further war cries as Emperor and High King arrived as one to fight the incursion. Already there were too many dwarf bodies strewn across the ground where they had fallen, all the while the greenskins continued to pour in. Upon the ground, he found a great many blackened cloaks that had clearly once been white, and further many of the greenskins still wore them. Cloaks of white furs, still wet with steadily melting snows and ice, large enough in size to conceal even the largest of the greenskins. Infiltrators, then. Concealed climbers, even, despite how absurd that was supposed to be. But what truly disturbed Magnus, more than anything, was how quiet they all were, even when he hefted Ghal Maraz and began to beat his way into their oncoming tide. It wasn't to say that they were not making any noise at all, the orcs and goblins, but rather that they were restraining themselves to yelling and snarling. There was, he realized, none of the stark bravado and guffawing, the riotous laughter and energy that he had grown accustomed to finding amongst greenskins in combat.
No.
Instead, they were all terribly, terribly...focused, for lack of a better word.
"I have scarcely ever seen greenskins do such things before!" The vampire Genevieve noted casually as she passed by him in the fighting, slicing apart an orc with her strange black blade, "How particularly clever!"
"Would that they had not conceived of it at all!" He called back.
A great clashing of metal drew both of their attention once they had successfully cleared a small space around them, looking back towards the flaming entrance into the Air Corps hangar bay. An entire gyrocopter was being forced through the entrance, while goblins crawled all around it tinkering. A repeated shuddering rippled across the battered machine, stolen out of its moorings by green hands, a dead dwarf pilot being casually hauled out of it and thrown to the side. Then, much to the horror of the dwarfs and men, they managed to start its engine up again once more, its whirling blades no longer used to lift it through the air but to try and churn against the defenders of the Everpeak. Immediately, the dwarfs began to try and retreat from it as the copter was pushed forward by orcs, the newly arrived humans also pulling back.
"OUT OF THE WAAAAY!"
There was another loud sound of screeching metal and twanging of metal cording, and Magnus whipped his head around just in time to see a dwarf stamp down on a surprisingly slapdash looking catapult-esque device which launched something that was altogether un-dwarf like in the extreme. Which, to be fair, it was. The Doomsphere was after all of purely Ostlander and human design, albeit by students taught by a dwarf engineer. The enormous spinning, whirring, rotating ball struck the bastardized gyrocopter headon and subsequently exploded , sending out enough shrapnel to strike dozens of greenskins and send them to the floor.
"TASTE THE DOOMSPHERE, URKS, SO SAYS SVEN! HASSELFRESIEN!"
But even as the engineer and others cheered, the tide seeming to have stopped temporarily, the doors of the hangar were scraping open further, widening the gap and allowing more orcs and goblins in. Including, coming through the flames, an absolutely enormous group of black orcs, their heavy armor painted white. Before them, all the other orcs that had managed to get through the hangar seemed small, and where they stepped a wave of increased frenzy fell upon the greenskins. Out of fear, out of some esoteric connection to the strange energies of the WAAAAGH!! or some combination or further thing, Magnus did not know. But then even those thoughts drifted away as a voice cut through the cacophony of the fighting. It was not some booming sound, some titanic gust of wind that deafened and broke the ear drums. But it cut through all the same, for all that it was garbled and scraping, as if spoken through a broken jaw. And in an accent that Magnus didn't quite understand.
"Yer know, persogally, I fang th' ideg ub ag impegetrable defeb...offensig. Cag foigt ib deg aig no wag ta geb ag eag obber."
The white-armored black orcs, continued inwards revealing more and more of their numbers, before splitting away to reveal not another orc, but a goblin walking behind them twirling two long daggers in its hands.
No.
Not a goblin.
A hobgoblin, the largest example of its kind that Magnus had ever seen, practically on par with some orcs in height at least.
It was dressed in a purple garb that finally connected the garbled words and accent in Magnus' mind. It was not merely speaking Reikspiel, but Reikspel with an accent of the Far East. Of Cathay. The armor it wore was metal, but fluted and shaped akin to those of the guards that had accompanied ambassadors from Cathay. More disturbingly, atop its head was a metal slightly conical hat akin to the one worn by Genevieve, whilst its words spewed from a truly awful mouth. The lower jaw was not merely concealed by a metal guard like so many greenskins preferred. In truth, it had been visibly bolted and screwed into the lower half of the greenskin's face, likely into and through the bone itself, replacing the lower jaw outright. Even its green skin was painted purple and black.
"Das whag I wug lig ta thag youg stuntigs," it continued, rolling its neck, "Ferg puttig ig sug a big nibes 'ole ferg us ta clamb itoog."
"....huh," Genevieve muttered before the greenskins broke into a charge.
1. You know, personally, I find the idea of an impenetrable defense...offensive. Can't fight if dere aint' no way to get at each other.
2. That's why I would like to thank you stunties, for putting in such a nice big hole for us to climb into.
"You know, personally, I find the idea of an impregnable defense, offensive. Can't fight if there aint no way to get at each other"
"That's what I like about those young stunties"
"For putting in some big [something] all for us to climb into"
I think, at least.
