Warhammer Fantasy: A Dynasty of Dynamic Alcoholism

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[CANON] Notes of a Ostland Merchant on the Goods Purchased from Kislev - iggyfan
  • Sidestory


    • Notes of a Ostland Merchant on the Goods Purchased from Kislev​



    Bows – Kislevite bows are quite different from those of the Empire. Rather than being made from a single stave of wood they are made from multiple separate materials held together by very strong glue. Wood is one component, but they are also made from horn and sinew. This construction results in a small bow with a range comparable to a full-sized longbow. However, such weapons have little popularity in the Empire for two reasons. First, the glues used by Kislevite bowmakers tend to weaken when exposed to moisture and the bows have been known to break apart in damp conditions, though this far is less frequent than in similar bows from Araby. Second, these bows take much more time and effort to produce, a week to make the bow itself and months for the glue to dry. Still a market for them exists in the form of Taalites who will pay good prices for high quality bows.

    Caviar – The sturgeon found in the lakes and rivers of Kislev produce the finest caviar in the world. The primary purchasers of Kislevite caviar in Ostland are the nobility, though smaller amounts of caviar are bought by wealthy merchants. While most Ostlanders who deal in caviar know that it has experienced a surge in popularity since the Count married his lady wife, the rumors that it is a favorite of Natasha von Hohenzollern remain only rumors.

    Eider Down – Found along the coast of the Northern Oblast, eider down is used for the creation of duvets of wondrous warmth and softness. The down is harvested from the nests of eiders, who use them in their construction. Eiders generally use more down in their nests than is strictly needed allowing for sustainable harvesting of down. As the down is used in the creation of purely luxury products the prices are quite good, with the best able to be obtained in Wulfenburg.

    Furs – Kislev is home to a great many fur bearing beasts and hunting and trapping them is a not insignificant part of the nation's economy. Minks, ermins, red foxes, white foxes, beavers, deerskins and more can be found in nearly any Kislevite market worthy of being called such. Obtaining bear pelts has become much more difficult in recent decades due to the resurgence of the Cult of Ursun.

    Hartshorn – The Ungols possess great herds of oblast elk and thus great quantities of hartshorn. While forming a mercantile relationship with Ungol tribesmen can be difficult at times due to both their nomadic lifestyle and the bizarre hoops one must sometimes jump through to satisfy the hags once one has done so they tend to be reliable suppliers.

    Horses – The horses of Kislev can be broadly divided into three categories: those of the Gospadars, those of the Ungols and those of the reformed Dolgan. The horses of the Gospadars are larger than those of the Ungols and while they are more expensive to maintain and have less endurance than those of the nomads, they are still quality mounts. They among the largest horses to be found in Kislev standing over fifteen hands tall on average, while still being quite hardy and able to survive off little feed. And while they are not as fast as those of the Ungols they are still faster than the typical Imperial warhorse. The horses of the Ungols tend to be rather small, rarely standing taller than fourteen hands, which serves as a large demerit to them as far as most Imperial nobles are concerned. They are very hardy however, capable of traveling for long distances without complaint and able to survive off of grazing alone. Though horses from the reformed Dolgan will find few buyers, those that do exist will pay excellent prices for them. They are even hardier than those of the Ungols, able to survive for weeks off of nothing but half frozen grass and melted snow, though rumor has it that after such a feat of endurance they must be fed a rabbit's worth of meat. Unsurprisingly they are also considered to be the fiercest war horses in all of Kislev. In addition, one must be advised that on occasion the Order of the Silver hammer has… not looked kindly upon those dealing in them.

    Ice – Kislev holds a near monopoly on the ice market. Ice has always been profitable due to the difficulty in obtaining and storing it, but the size of the market has increased since the Count threw the first major party of his reign. Attempting to obtain an Priestess of the Widow as an out of season supplier requires one to petition the Frozen Court for an allowance to be made for such an base use of the Widow's Grace and such petitions are only rarely granted.

    Ivory – Obtained from the snow leopards of the oblast, ivory sourced from Kislev is a rather rare thing due in part to the fact that snow leopards are ferocious beasts that have been known to take down trolls on occasion, and in part due to the fact that their fangs are not particularly large as far as ivory bearing beasts are concerned. Still ivory is ivory, and ivory is profitable.

    Kvas – The archetypical Kislevite drink, kvas is a spirit made from malt, rye, wheat flour and boiling water and although the proportions of these ingredients can vary widely these ingredients remain consistent. While demand for imported kvas in Ostland has fluctuated over the years, especially since the Ostland Ostka Company introduced Miska's Draught, the prices remain quite good.

    Pottery – The city of Erengrad is home to some of the best potters in Kislev. Producing fine blue and white glazed stoneware. Known as spongeware it is named for how the second layer of glaze is motted on with a sponge. The style fetches good prices in our province, though production has declined somewhat in recent decades. First, back in the 2320s the Chaos invasion of Estalian had rather shrunk the number of sponges on the market as many of the divers had been either killed or displaced by the fighting. Second, the general air of mistrust that has taken hold of Kislev in recent years has inhibited trade throughout the country.

    Sabers – A niche good, generally bought by young noblemen who are interested in the exotic. There is a much smaller but still profitable market in the form of officers of Ostland's armies who prefer a saber to an arming sword. The most reliable sources for high quality examples are Erengrad, Praag and Kislev City, though a perennial rumor has it that the very best are produced by an Ungol family of master swordsmiths.

    Vodka – An alcoholic drink with many similarities to Ostlander ostka. Similar to ostka in taste and strength. Like oskta vodka is an unaged spirit made from either a grain or potato mash. Like ostka the quality of Kislevite vodka varies widely from swill liable to make its drinker blind to high quality examples fit for a nobles table. However, it was vodka that was created first, centuries before the reign of Frederick von Hohenzollern. Regardless of which was created first there is strong demand for vodka in Ostland and a cargo of it is sure to make a good profit.
     
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  • Sidestory
    • Merry Christmas and happy holidays, may our days be a little brighter, our lives a little happier. Take not for granted what you hold dear, and take joy where it comes. Bless you all, be good.
     
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    Spikes, Horns, and Stone 13
  • Threadmarks
    • Spikes, Horns, and Stone 13
    ​
    It is not necessarily true, across the history of the Empire, that every single commander in every single major engagement has taken personally to the fore. The opposite, in fact, on the larger scales of battles, whereupon generals and the like with overall strategic responsibility have remained far back from the front lines and distributed orders until it is time for them to personally commit. You yourself have done so before, relying on a carefully nurtured network of messengers, flag-bearers, and music makers to communicate across the breadth and length of an army before, during, and after engaging the enemy directly. This is, however, the first time you can recall doing so with there being almost no chance at all for you to actually face the enemy up close.

    You quite literally cannot unless you decided to commit suicide by the rest of the tower's inhabitants.

    Instead, you must transmit your orders and wishes through the soul bond with your wife and pass messages through a Druchii sorceress.

    Fate is a curious thing.

    But it is later in the day, almost evening as best as you can tell without any windows, and while you managed to slumber through force or otherwise Natasha has been running about for more than a day without sleep before finally allowing herself to rest upon reaching a place of rudimentary safety. Well. Hopefully more than rudimentary given Hultressa's abilities and magical potency. Your mind churns in thought the whole while. It's not like this is the first time that you have slept apart from your wife, and not the first time it's been done in unpleasant conditions. Hundreds and hundreds of times, you've been sleeping in a tent on sodden, muddy earth with rain or sleet lashing down, shivering in the cold while she's been in the castle. Or you've been high in the Middle Mountains, sweating like a pig from the sun beating down in the thinner air chasing down a horde of goblins, while she's been on campaign herself to freeze out a bunch of bandits.

    Still, trapped on a Black Ark storming out of the Sea of Claws, one of you in a ruined tower and the other trapped in the Tor of Dominance, surrounded by the elite and masses of Druchii, is definitely up there.

    "Aquafarms," you decide, looking at Hultressa, who blinks languidly at you before a spark of fire emerges in her eyes as she leans in. "Getting in the pyramids will be harder – more visible and open. Aquafarms are literally subterranean. Overseers are more insular, none of them as highly patronized as some of the pyramids are."

    "Correct," her lips peel back to expose her teeth in a razor-sharp smirk.

    "Arenas will need time to get open, get into, are highly watched and patronized by all sorts."

    "Indeed."

    "There are other locations, but the aquaculture farms are out of sight, valuable, and potentially uniquely suited for destruction by my wife."

    The spark of fire in her eyes becomes a cruel blaze.

    "Yes," she savors the word, clearly luxuriating in the thought of starving Druchii, the chaos it would surely cause.

    You have seen her eyes. But in the flickering purple torchlight of her torture chambers, Hultressa's eyes take on a gleaming obsidian cast that is both alike and distinctly different from the eyes of Gwendolyn or Kerillian.

    "The only matter is getting them into one of said locations. Preferably freshwater, hardest to replace and repair I would imagine," you continue, musing as you drink steadily from your bottles of acquired wine. "Obscuring any connection to them, their identities, between us and them and yourself as well."

    "Naturally," she purrs before leaning back and sipping some of her own wine a good deal more daintily than your rough pulls. "With my focusing on ensuring that – should they prove successful – there are ways for them to escape as unscathed as possible?"

    "Near number one priority, I would hope," you raise an eyebrow at her, saluting with your bottle of wine as she quirks an eyebrow of her own. "I wouldn't ask you to make Gwendolyn less than your number one," you explain, getting a short-lived squint in return that is followed by a curt nod.

    "Indeed. If I had a dozen of your…ice wielders," Hultressa sniffs, "I'd be inclined to utilize them with all swiftness. Seeing as we have just the one-,"

    "My wife," you interject which makes the Druchii's nose flare in annoyance for a brief moment.

    "Your wife," she repeats, "It would be better for them to learn their environment properly. It is a point of fact that each aquafarm has its individual quirks for the deep dweller clans that minister them, but there are certain magnitudes of congruity demanded by their construction and purpose."

    You've downed your third bottle of wine, and blink at finding that you're now just plainly out, hand grasping at nothing when you go to grab another. Instead, you shift so that you're just placing your arms behind you to brace against the top of the slab.

    "I figured," you say, twisting your lips. "Plus, trying to find any others who might be willing to help them. Others who might work with them. 'Assets'," you say the word drily. "Is that likely down there?"

    "Amongst the deep dwellers?" She blinks, eyes flicking up as she thinks. "Unlikely in the extreme. Their only purpose is the maintenance of the farms, and they live in the sludge-like depths of the Ark's sewage systems elsewhere. Malekith himself personally broke the founders of the dweller clans long ago. Amongst the slaves?" She draws out the word sibilantly, tip of her tongue emerging between her lips and held between her teeth for a moment. "Perhaps. It is not forgiving labor, but neither is it pure brute work. But, being in the depths for so long…," she places her wine down to the side and makes a weighing motion with both hands. "It affects the mind. Just look at the dwarfs!"

    Your glare is not lightly heated, but you only get an amused chuckle from Hultressa as she chortles and raises her hands in mocking surrender.

    "My apologies. You are closely associated with their kind, of course," she chuckles again and makes to wipe away a fake tear before taking on a more serious cast. "I mean to say that dwarfs are at least meant for such things since their creation. It is their being, stone and iron and earth. My kind, on the other hand," she places a hand against her chest and tosses her hair, "Are not so naturally inclined to be beneath hundreds of tons of rock and dirt for centuries at a time, let alone our entire lives."

    "Right, you're more meant for open plains and fields and the skies," you snort, jerking a thumb at the walls around you. "Else why would you build your towers so tall?"

    Hultressa exhales sharply through the nose and raises her eyebrows at you while smirking, but she does not deny it.

    "The deep dwellers are born in the darkness of the Black Arks. Are molded by it. They do not see the light of the sun or stars from birth to death, for the most part, chained by oaths of blood and soul by the Witch King," is what she says instead of anything else. "The stone of this place, this massive shard of broken Nagarythe, was suffused in the magic of The Sundering and the thousands of years afterwards by the Dhar crystals, blood sacrifices, and ritual magics which maintain so much of its function. The same stone they live within the depths of," she finishes ominously.

    "…so they're 'off' even by your standards for Druchii," you drawl, getting a nod from the sorceress.

    "If they even are Druchii anymore," she shudders before pausing at your stare. "But they will do nothing to jeopardize the farms willingly or knowingly. The newest slaves, on the other hand, that would be considered worth instruction and allowing to work…," she pauses, thinking again. "They likely have some from Ind, a few from some Arabyan slave barges that were scooped up on their way to the Kislevite port of Erengrad…not the Estalians or Norscans, too openly belligerent…and…yes," she snaps her fingers with a look of 'aha' on her face. "And of course some dozen or so ship's crews taken from Kislev's further ranging fleets."

    It takes a moment to get the haze of burning anger to choke down at the casualness with which she speaks. Not fast enough that Hultressa doesn't catch it, of course, and the slightly tipsy air disappears abruptly as she straightens and sets her shoulders.

    "I, of course, had nothing to do with those capture missions. They would have been performed by the raiding fleets, which appear to have been near annihilated by the forces of Nordland," she says in a clipped voice.

    "Right," your grind out.

    For a moment the two of you are silent, remembering just who you both are.

    "And bomb making supplies, as much as you can reasonably get me without undue suspicion on yourself," you eventually say into the quiet, forcing your voice to keep steady and level.

    "Which would be?" She replies just as blandly.

    She makes a look of disgust at some of the ingredients, but nods curtly at the end of it.

    "Very well," she says as she stands. "This requires planning and thought on my part, things you have no knowledge of or would be able to aid me in. I think it is time I retire for the night, and you as well."

    "Fair enough," you grunt, patting the torture slab you first woke up on. "Guess I should remain out here in case someone does manage to break in or scry through your wards, huh? Be a good victim and all that."

    It isn't hard to see that she finds the idea of that both insulting and frustratingly just possible enough that more than minimal effort must be made towards appearances.

    "I suppose," she sighs, running a hand over the top of her head and through her hair.

    "Should I be naked, then?"

    She pauses, glances back at you, then the doors leading out into the Tor.

    "Perhaps. But keep your sword close at hand, if nothing else," she gestures airily and then heads on her way, the terrors following her out.

    Leaving you all alone again in a place of torture, pain, and dim purple light.

    Well, not entirely alone.

    Though Natasha slumbers, and dreams are always muddled and confusing through the bond, the fact remains that you can still feel her through the bond at all.

    No.

    You are not alone in this.

    =======================================================================​

    "You actually slept naked."

    You blink awake to see Hultressa standing above you, just wielding her staff today, eyebrows previously raised to her forehead slowly drifting downwards again as she scrutinizes you.

    "The chill doesn't bother me much these days," you grunt as you rise and swing your legs out in one smooth motion to begin putting on your gear more fully all over again. "You heading out?"

    "I have a great deal to do and a short time to do it," she nods, narrowing her eyes again as she looks you up and down before twirling on her heel. "Gwendolyn is currently meditating on this day, do not attempt to bother her lest you enjoy the taste of your own blood, high nutrition rations are within the immediate chamber proceeding through those doors," she adds over her shoulder before pausing and pursing her lips at you for a moment. "You are aware that this chamber is considered quite cold by most standards, yes?"

    Pausing in your efforts to slide your gear back on, you glance back at her.

    "I am, yes."

    "…I have questions about that, but they can be answered later," she sniffs before making to leave before you call out to her.

    "What about Eldyra?"

    The Druchii pauses, cocking her head slightly before turning back to look at you with a raised eyebrow.

    "The Asur? What about her?"

    Your deadpan expression does not seem to affect her overmuch.

    "How is she doing, how is her health, how are we going to manage getting her to eat or drink or...," your drawl trails off, betraying the tightening in your chest and throat as you considers those questions yourself.

    "Mmm," Hultressa hums back at first, head bobbing slightly. "In order - she is still technically alive, and though there are methods to ascertain more I would assume that you would prefer I not tear into her mind."

    You jump slightly where you sit, fists tightening to which the sorceress waves her empty hand to brush the idea off.

    "Precisely. Her soul is, if you were worried, still present within her body. Whether it still wishes to be is another question," she shrugs at that, hand going to firm into a fist against her waist as she thinks. "Physically, there is still a tremendous amount of damage. I am parceling out my healings, focusing on the most life threatening first and steadily repairing what else I can without exhausting myself overmuch. I am, you might say, particularly adept at fleshcraft," she quirks her black painted lips at that before schooling her expression given your own. "Nutrition-wise, the same spell we spoke of before as an option for our assets is more than sufficient for her. Better, even, given that in her current state she does not seem liable to drink or eat without extensive work and aid."

    "...right," you growl, knuckling at your forehead. "Anything else?"

    Finally, you see the condescension, the arrogance, filter away for just a brief moment as Hultressa frowns, her chin briefly touching her collarbone before she glances back up.

    "It is not my expertise, nor my vocation. I can only suggest you sit with her, attempt to engage and energize what scraps of her mind she has left, do what you can to help her draw forth from the well of strength that exists deep within all elves. She is, after all," Hultressa raises her chin with an ever so slightly disconnected pride, "Tiranoci, as am I. I can tell you no more than that, for now. I have much to do."

    "I...," you sigh and grunt. "Thank you, Hultressa. Truly."

    The sorceress blinks rapidly at that, face dancing through many emotions, before she clears her throat.

    "Of course. We are allies, after all," she sniffs before conjuring a field of darkness which obscures you from view as the doors slide open and then shut behind her as she leaves the chambers.

    "Sure, sure," you huff, shaking your head as you begin working on the breastplate of the armor.

    She doesn't know that Natasha's brief encounter with the Ancient Widow has changed her so, that her very touch can produce very similar results to the armor you now wear albeit at a slower pace. That you spent many painful days waking up with arm and leg and side blackened and frozen, requiring close healing from the Jade Wizards every single morning. That ever since the soul bond, that your very essences were combined, blended, connected on a level of intimacy and surety that you can scarcely imagine ever existing without, the chill in her soul has come into yours without harm. On the one hand, it's good that the Druchii's intelligence on the two of you is not so developed. On the other, are you actually going to answer her questions about it if she asks? She knows that you are bonded at the soul, but given how the Druchii have clearly abandoned such things as too easy a vector for their treacherous ways, she legitimately might not know all the possibilities that came with it.

    By the Gods, not even Sadrina had known for certain what would happen.

    Speaking of the bond, however, your heart sings as you hear Natasha awaken herself, at least partially because your mind awakening nudged her own towards wakefulness. Immediately, the two of you begin sending almost desperate flurries of thoughts and emotions at one another. A blur of them, sent at the speed of thought and potency of the furthest depths of your souls, bouncing off of one another and feeding back band forth. You do your best to communicate the plan, and she does her best to comprehend. As best as you can tell, she understands for the most part, and will surely understand even more by the time Hultressa gets to her. All that dealt with, however, leaves her with the unenviable task of rousing and readying your two Bretonnian companions without the benefit of the bond and you with the absolutely horrid task of just…sitting there while everyone else faces more dangerous work.

    Apparently not even Gwendolyn is in the cards for active interaction today.

    Given her own struggles, you suspect that her meditations and the seriousness with which Hultressa spoke of it means that they are not something you should casually interrupt. An involuntary shudder escapes you as you wonder at what it might be like to have a god such as Khaine with a grasp on one's soul since birth. Then again, you pause and think, actually you might know someone who could sympathize. Unfortunately, the maid, bodyguard, former and potentially current assassin known as Leah is far from here. Hopefully at the Emperor's side this very moment. She was once the greatest killer of Khaine known to humans in the Old World, which surely means that she is more than capable in a fight. Even if the fighting which is going to be taking place at the Everpeak might be a bit larger in scale than anything she ever dealt with beforehand.

    "…well, might as well go and see what an elf thinks 'rations' are," you mumble, ambling through the doors into the depths of Hultressa's domain. "Ah."

    It's a brick.

    It's three bricks, actually. All placed onto a single black ceramic plate.

    Each of them is a little larger than your fist, each perfectly angular dark brown bricks speckled with unknown gleaming specks here and there. You'd almost call it a loaf of bread, except for how squashed and dense it is. One for a meal, you suspect. It is most definitely a far cry from the meal that was actually cooked by Gwendolyn yesterday. On the one hand, you know that there are no slaves kept in this place anymore. On the other, apparently the child thinks that meals are cooked things and Hultressa considers these rations perfectly adequate for meals. Expediency, or preference? You can't say for certain. The only thing you can say for certain…

    "Huh. Not bad," you cough slightly.

    It's even true. You were expecting something chalky, something like actual bricks, but despite its appearance the texture really is more of that of just a hyper-dense cake loaf. For some reason, you imagined something like stonebread, like what you'd seen the dwarfs eat in Karak Ungor and tasted yourself in Zhufbar. It's not overly sweet, either, not drenched in syrup or the like, but there is some mild sweetness and spice to it. It is, however, exceedingly dense. More than a replacement for a meal, you'd say, and it does manage to make your body signal fullness despite its smallness. Almost too full, actually.

    Maybe you should have eaten it slower.

    Either way, after that…there really isn't that much else to do. You could attempt to explore more of the chambers, but multiple doors are locked with artifice or spellwork that is beyond you.

    That's…probably okay.

    There are only two other paths not leading back out into the torture and workshop chamber. One leads towards Gwendolyn and there is little doubt in your mind that Hultressa was being quite truthful about not disturbing her daughter today. The other leads towards a small room of gleaming black and silver marble. How they got a silvery marble, you don't know. But you do sort of recognize the chamber's purpose, given the shape of things, the hole in the sitting area, the basins of crystal-clear water with faintly glowing green runes in the bottom. A mystery and myth is cleared up for you, in that moment. Elves, apparently, really do actually go to the bathroom at times.

    After that, you thoughts draw you to a certain recliner, where another elf rests.

    You don't even need to work hard to drag one of the chairs over to where Eldyra lays, eyes still shut. Outwardly, you know that Hultressa has healed most if not all of the surface wounds. You know that particularly powerful magic can regenerate limbs, perhaps even revive those who have just taken their first step past the Stone Portal. But from long, long, long experience you know that particularly painful wounds can still sting and ache with great pain after healing. The shock of it all. But none of that seems to have made overmuch difference for Eldyra, who lays where she has been since her rescue. She breathes, you know that much, you can see it in the slightest up and down movement of her chest beneath the blanket that covers her. But she does not wake, she does not react to anything else. If you hadn't felt that slightest squeeze of her hand, that briefest spark of life and will somewhere deep inside, you would have despaired all the greater.

    "So," you begin, pausing after your first word to see if there is even the slightest flutter of eyelids or the like.

    There is none, which brings a sigh from you.

    "We've got a plan, now," you begin again, reaching out to gently hold her hand in both of your own. "Not a great one, but it's better than none. Natasha's alive, and free, and running around out there. So is Roland - I don't know if you know him. Druchii apparently do."

    You speak softly, slowly, but continually, pausing every now and then to check and see if there is any response to your words. But there is still none. Even that is broken up only for a momentary period when Natasha communicates through the bond that Hultressa has arrived at the ruins. With the sorceress actually there, there isn't much for you to do but sit and try not to overstrain the bond too much. Given everything, you'll not be the one to distract her at such a crucial time. So instead, you get to be an observer in the abstract through the bond, feeling your wife's emotions and what few scant images and thoughts she can send your way as she moves. And she is moving, you can tell that much, carefully but steadily away from the Tor.

    (Preparations: 57+Wealth of Ages(20)+Chaos of Retreat(10)+Shuffling Records(5)=92/100)
    (Infiltration: 43+20+10+5+Exceedingly Good Preparations(20)=98/100)
    (Ingredient Acquisition: 50+20+10+5-Unusual Requests(10)-Delivery Address(5)=70/100)

    The images your wife conveys are thus:

    Streets thronged by shadows and darkness. Worry and anxiety spiking even as she forces herself to control her breathing and stress as best she can with decades of practice at portraying total serenity to the outside world. Only instead, she has to falsify her emotions on the outside not for serenity but for worry, fear, a façade of being broken. In other words, a slave that is not necessarily new but is definitely being transferred from one job to another, and doesn't know precisely why. At least, that is what you judge from what Natasha is able to send your way through the bond. All the while, escorted by a coruscating cloud of evil and darkness. Which, you are coming to realize, is one of the only ways that Natasha can even portray Hultressa in her mind. Apparently the sorceress looks horrifying to those with Witch Sight. There are other Druchii there, thronging the streets, but for all their ageless superiority they were just beaten back off, and bloodily at that, and so there is a good amount of confusion, uncertainty, and anger which suffuses the populace. Entirely reasonable, you'd say, given what you know about Druchii. It is more than just your own trio, as well. They are simply amidst a group of other slaves that are being shuffled about, and you have no idea where or how Hultressa apparently acquired such a group.

    But then they are descending, and Natasha's images to you grow fainter as she aligns her focus more and more with what is happening right in front of her. There is a pause, a period where you can feel her presence remaining in place for a long enough period that you start to feel an itch in your palms as your own worry begins to spike, only for that too to pass as she begins moving once again. This time, however, it is into a tunnel that winds down, down, down again. There are guards, obviously, some of which based on the scattered smattering of images that Natasha sends you includes a handful of terrors. Some are humans, of all things, which she is quite confused and horrified by, but there are definitely Druchii overseers.

    All of their movement is furtive, cautious, but ever pushed onwards.

    You have to stifle your immediate fury as Natasha inadvertently informs you that she, Roland, Jaqueline and the rest of the transferring slaves are being subjected to an impromptu search and investigation. At the least, it appears not to have been especially thorough as near as she can tell. Perhaps the general chaos of the Ark has something to do with it, given the way they are swiftly moved downwards once more. Then again, she does manage to count for you that they pass through five separate checkpoints before finally arriving in a relatively large cavern with a massive underwater pool, barely lit by flickering purple torches and Druchii runes carved into the walls and ceiling.

    The images are a whirlwind, of shambling masses, pools and nets, large glass tanks flush with fish of various kinds, and all a manner of snapped orders and demands by human leaders with Druchii overseers watching all the while. At least, you know them to be Druchii. Natasha communicates something altogether, as well as a deep current of unease and disgust to you. Combining all the images together is difficult. It reminds you, uncomfortably, of the rare 'angler' fish which you've only ever heard sailors and the like speak of before. Something with an extruding jawline, strange teeth, large bulbous eyes, and skin that she can only manage to convey as like frost covered glass rather than the pure marble or snowy white skin that many Druchii seem to possess.

    The deep dwellers, then. Accursed by the Witch King for thousands of years to the depths of the eldest Black Arks.

    Thankfully, none of your trio are broken up into separate groups, even getting slotted into the same bunking situation. The slaves are not, it seems, so deeply bunked up that she would risk giving frostbite to anyone sleeping next to her, so that is something at least. After being shown their new quarters, they are then whisked elsewhere to begin learning their new duties. Something that will likely take more than a day. Either way, Natasha does her best to keep you informed without distracting herself too much, which leads to you spending the rest of the day sitting and keeping the bond as open as possible.

    The only breaks you take are for wine to drink and eating the remaining two bricks, after which you decide to let Eldyra rest without your voice droning in her ear for a time you return to the entry chambers.

    Eventually, however, the entrance begins to slide open once more, revealing Hultressa stalking back inside followed by a cart with a cloth atop it with two terrors pushing it along. She is in full terrorizing mode, if you make your guess correctly, given how wide she is keeping her eyes and the crackling nimbus of darkness she uses to halo her form and obscure the hallway from without and the chambers within from one another. Every step is a stalking stomp, her staff thumping into the ground with each step without actually needing to be used to walk. Only once the doors slide shut does she dismiss such theatrics, sighing and rolling her eyes before snapping her fingers for the terrors to begin moving the cart closer towards you.

    "All that you requested, albeit not in the quantities I would have preferred," she grouses as the cloth is whipped off to give you a rather pungent exposure to saltpeter, sulfur, and the rest.

    "Hard day?" You cough slightly, turning away from the cart to look at her.

    "Long one," she sniffs, running a hand through her hair and then tossing said hair again. "But needs must. As I'm sure your…," she shifts uneasily, "Bond has helped inform you, they were successfully inserted into a group of slaves transferred to one of the freshwater aquafarms. From here, it is up to them to do what they can within, I cannot simply venture below daily just for them. And besides, there are other matters to concern myself with."

    "Such as?"

    She turns to face you, brow furrowed, lips twisting.

    "Alyssa has begun making her own moves, just as we have. Unfortunately, we have you, me, and a handful of assets to her…," she flaps her arm back towards the outside.

    "Entire Ark and the rest of the Coven," you finish for her, getting a noise of disgusted agreement from Hultressa.

    "We have less than she has, in a great many respects," she sneers at the ceiling before looking back to you. "She has begun meeting with the commanders and nobility from the forces of our subordinate Ark that retreated onto the Claw of Dominion. While the Fortress is…," she pauses and a look of genuine if distant bewilderment crosses her face, "…lost to us. A great many troops retreated onto our Ark instead of their own due to the positioning on the battlefield. And she is already spinning her webs out to ensnare their loyalties."

    The sorceress snarls, stomping with one foot and whirling away from you in such a way that the flaps of purple and black silk which drape down from her waist go flaring in the air for a moment.

    "While we try to just barely begin infiltrating a single location, she is gathering to her side an entire army, disenfranchised and furious, their home lost to them by humans!" She shouts, hunching ever so slightly while her fists clench and unclench.

    "We knew it wasn't going to be easy," you said calmly, though you can't deny that it is more than a little daunting when it is said like that. "And even she can't fully enrapture every single commander and noble they've got in a single day."

    Hultressa whirls on you again, eyes shining with literal darkness as the Dhar suffusing her seems to swell slightly before she lets out an explosive sigh.

    "No…no she cannot. Not yet. Not that far. Not that fast. Too much favor shown to those of the Eternal Fortress, too quickly, could alienate our own forces and nobility. Too much to our own, and not enough to the others, and they might decide they might take the Ark for themselves. Our own Cult of Khaine is gutted, but they have some Death Hags and the like that survived with them, I believe…," she trails off in her muttering before stopping and shaking her head. "We have time. Less and less, but more than none."

    "I can get to making bombs immediately," you gesture to the cart. "You can't help out more than making sure they have an evacuation route and a way to leave immediately if necessary, right?"

    "I already have some measures in place," she sighs, rubbing at her temples as she takes a seat on one of the torture slabs. "But it is an ongoing process, obviously."

    "Long day," you nod. "Right. And…Gwendolyn? Is she all right?"

    Hultressa turns like a whip crack on you, fingers tightening on the lip of the torture slab.

    "That depends, did you disobey and go interfere with her meditations?"

    "I did not," you say quickly, hands raising up with palms forward.

    "Then she is fine. She would be most distraught if she were to end up cutting you apart," she sniffs and turns away from you, making to rise and enter her inner chambers, then pauses and turns back at the sound of you standing up as violently as you did. "What is it?"

    "What…the hell does that mean?" You ask, voice a bit harsher than you'd initially intended.

    Hultressa give you a thin smile.

    "What do you think is regularly required by one influenced so strongly by Khaine to keep control of one's self?"

    "She's not…," you trail off, your unfinished question more than enough for Hultressa to extrapolate from, going by her widening eyes and flaring nose.

    Perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not, that crackling dark nimbus begins to form around her again.

    "No!" She hisses at you. "No," she repeats, softer this time as the nimbus retreats. "Not…no, save for the direst of times and circumstances. No. She is cutting apart a broken terror, one I can repair later," she grunts and then turns away again. "To your forging of blackfire now, Frederick von Hohenzollern."

    Clearly, it has been a more trying day for just about everyone else than you.

    There is no goodnights or goodbyes from anyone else, and you are left to simply rest once more, a now exhausted Natasha telling you what she can as she too retires from her shifts in the depths.

    =====================================================================
    ​
    (Infiltration: 47+20+10+20-Overseer Scrutiny(10)=87/100)
    (Ingredient Acquisition: 61+20+10+5-10-5=81/100)
    (Hultressa Machinations: 34+20+20-Withered Presence(5)=69/100)

    "But it smells so bad!" Gwendolyn gags slightly as you demonstrate your assembly area, a few feet away on a different torture slab than the one you've been sleeping on. "Is this truly the way you have to make these devices?"

    "Yes, yes it is," you chuckle at her, carefully grinding and mixing with a mortar and pestle that Hultressa had on hand.

    Given the cauldron, let alone the rest of the bevy of alchemical tools that the sorceress has on hand, her having some extra mortar and pestles was not even a little surprising.

    "I never personally saw any engagements with the chaos dwarfs of the east, that was before my time," the young Druchii tells you as she swings her legs back and forth on the torture slab she sits on, "But these are already quite noxious creations. If they truly do mix and add in reagents most unwholesome and corrupt, I can only imagine the smell being all the worse!"

    You roll your eyes at her, which makes her giggle slightly.

    It is not how you want to be talking to her. Not how you want to be treating her. Not today, not now, not after yesterday. When she arrived in the morning, she was hollow-eyed and quiet, and though she had done her best there were the faintest flecks of red underneath her fingernails. You don't know precisely what had to happen yesterday for her to keep herself under control, but you know it wasn't good. Khaine is a God of Murder and that alone is enough. From what you can tell, it truly does seem like the Cult of Khaine in the Old World is but a pale imitation of the true depravities and monstrous actions that the Druchii Cult of Khaine exults. But overt questioning of her curse…no.

    Instead, you engage with Gwendolyn as if you don't even notice how tired she is, how her movements are sluggish and stiff. You joke with the child, slowly, and speak to her quietly and steadily enough that you can watch as life re-enters her eyes and her lips begin to twitch towards a smile. After a few hours, you get even get her to laugh. All the while, Hultressa departs for elsewhere on the Ark, going through the effort required to re-establish herself in a society she has spent more than a decade slowly separating herself and distancing herself from. All towards a final result of distancing herself permanently from them.

    "Do you want to help?" You ask her, wafting some of the mixture towards her with one hand, while with the other you hold up a small jug which will end up serving as a makeshift casing.

    "Ew! No!" Gwendolyn yelps…though you can't help but notice that she keeps looking back over her shoulder as she walks to the other side of the chamber with her arms crossed.

    It takes her another hour to admit she is curious enough to want to know how to make bombs.

    Even if she does continually complain about the smell.

    Meanwhile, you can do little more than hope and pray for your wife, friend, and allies elsewhere on the Ark. As best as you can tell, they've actually found a few allies. Bretonnians, of all things. Or rather, Bretonnians enslaved by Arabyans and then enslaved twice over by the Druchii alongside their former masters. As ever, the bond does not readily translate actual words, only images and emotions, but you get the sense that these folk are of all places from a rather specific Dukedom. One which has Roland reeling, given that they are all from the coastal regions of Mousillon. Citizenry. His citizenry, if he were ever to succeed in his Grail Quest and return to take up the position. It's all quite a to do down there in the depths, once they learned who he was. Bretonnian peasantry are especially good are remaining out of sight and out of mind of their nobility is what Natasha ends up spending a few hours trying to formulate for your understanding. Especially the peasantry of Mousillon, who have had quite the bad spat of masters and rulers for generations.

    Part of you wishes to keep working as long as you can, until you fully exhaust everything that Hultressa brought you, but even you know that occasional breaks are needed to keep the hands steady and let them rest. Especially when it comes to things that could spark and explode if mixed improperly.

    "Hello again, Eldyra," you murmur, sitting once more at your friend's side. "Still alive. So are you. Our allies on the Ark have been doing their best. Things are quite precarious, right now. For the Druchii and us."

    The Asur squire still doesn't stir, her breathing as even as before.

    "So yesterday I talked about the plan. What we were going to do. Well, we're doing it now. Thought of something else to tell you, though."

    You glance at her slack face, so still that you'd fear her a corpse were it not for the breathing, and frown.

    "I'm going to tell you about how many Druchii we killed at Salkalten. Because it was a lot. A hell of a lot."

    A quiet little noise makes you blink and turn, then jump slightly where you sit to see that Gwendolyn has apparently quietly entered the room. The fidgeting of before is gone, replaced with a quiet solemnity.

    "Gwendolyn," you mutter, "I don't...,"

    "A story of carnage is not something I am unused to," the child replies primly but quietly before her eyes flick towards Eldyra again. "And I...I wanted...,"

    You glance between her and Eldyra and sigh again.

    "Come here," you gesture, and Gwendolyn scurries over silently. "You did not do this, do you understand?"

    "My people did," Gwendolyn mutters back at you, faint beginnings of tears in her eyes that she blinks back. "Not just the Druchii. Khaine...worshippers. Dreadbringer. Like what they want me to be."

    "But they're not going to," you whisper urgently, one hand holding Eldyra's and now the other lightly grasping Gwendolyn's shoulder. "They are not."

    "You say that," Gwendolyn shakes her head before clearing her throat. "I just...Lady Eldyra," she says a bit louder. "You...I am sorry about what happened to you. About what they did. And I'm glad that the ones that did it are dead now and I hope you are too."

    A horrifying thing to a child to say, but one that you know Gwendolyn can earnestly mean in full knowledge of her own words. Which, of course, is just as horrifying on a different level.

    "That was, uh, Gwendolyn," you say, coughing slightly. "She...well. She's the child of our ally. The Sorceress who retrieved you. We're helping her, she's helping us, we all want to get off the Ark and away from the Druchii."

    "I think you were very brave to try and kill Dreadbringer," Gwendolyn adds.

    All to an unmoving, barely breathing Eldyra, who still has yet to respond or even open her eyes again.

    "I hope that one day, you can be properly introduced," you sigh.

    =================================================================
    ​
    (Infiltration: 53+20+10+20-10+Gathered Allies(5)=98/100)
    (Ingredient Acquisition: 22+20+10+5-10-5=42/100)
    (Hultressa Machinations: 69+20+20-5=104/100)

    "You look happy," you say as you carefully measure with cups and bowls on the torture slab, glancing over to a smiling and still blood covered Hultressa. "Something else happen besides you getting some of your old contacts and such active again?"

    She's been quietly humming a little tune to herself since she returned from her day's excursion onto the Ark, fingers and hands dripping with blood and a spatter of it on her face. The cart of materials she brought was smaller and lighter in its contents than the previous ones, but she still managed to get some at all. Given that she has to get it all the way up the Tor, you can't precisely complain about how much she's able to get. Besides which, while it isn't the best news for you, you can't think of a time that you've seen her so genuinely contented. Frankly, it's disturbing to see and hear from the deadly Druchii sorceress. Especially with how she's swishing back and forth in her alcove doing who knows what with a variety of even more noxious reagents than what you're dealing with.

    "Hmm," is all she hums back to you, glancing your way with a nod before dribbling a small hissing black liquid into her cauldron.

    A puff of smoke and distant screams escape from the roiling liquid. As in literal screams that came from someone's throat.

    "What is it?" You prompt further, capping off another fist-sized bomb and fitting the wick onto it.

    "There's been a murder. An actual important one compared to the usual lower level treacheries and deaths," she says cheerfully to you, beaming at you with teeth fully bared before reaching up and grabbing a jar with some sort of discolored meat inside of it and dropping it into her cauldron.

    The entire cauldron's mixture changes to a darker green, this time now shot through with crimson swirls.

    "Oh?" You raise an eyebrow, hands continuing to work.

    Hultressa lets loose a gusty, satisfied sigh.

    "A scion of House Cruelbarb is dead, along with all his guards, whilst scouting out the lower gate districts for potential participants in a new round of Questioning," she tells you, one foot popping up slightly behind her in girlish excitement before it lowers back down to the ground.

    "And that's…bad?" You venture, brow furrowing.

    You'd meant it for Alyssa's sake, but Hultressa is clearly so distracted by events that she doesn't catch it.

    "Not at all," she shakes her head, hair swishing and swirling around her. "It may well benefit us. Cruelbarb supports Alyssa, after all. And if her Ark is not safe for them, then it might not need be her Ark, yes?"

    A wild thought strike you, a thunderbolt of thrumming hope that has Natasha in the depths straightening and sending questioning impulses towards you.

    "Do you think-,"

    Hultressa clucks her tongue and holds a hand up your way to interrupt.

    "I highly doubt it is yet another group of survivors from Salkalten, especially near the gate districts. Besides which, the details escape the measures of your warriors, even the ogres," she says the latter with some mild revulsion.

    Frowning at her, you cap off another, smaller bomb and seal it shut. You'd prefer consistency, but that might be more of a warning sign to the Druchii that something is amiss than the wild amalgamation of containers that Hultressa's managed to acquire for you. This isn't the workshops, after all, you don't have an assembly grouping of engineers producing pre-cast and pre-prepared bombs for grenadier packs on hand.

    "What do you mean?" You ask her, pausing as you begin grinding with the mortar and pestle again.

    An airy distracted noise is your first answer.

    "They were slain brutally, but not devoured or even snacked on as an ogre might," she shrugs before summoning forth magic to coat an arm that she then plunges down to her elbow into the cauldron. "As it is, fingers are flying - an escaped beast from House Direblaze's stocks? A maddened Witch Elf seeking redemption for failure through murder most high? None know for now," she grunts with effort before pulling her arm back out, a sticky translucent purple film peeling off of her arm as she goes, leaving the film in the cauldron to start dissolving.

    Then she turns and sends a truly wicked smile your way, one fit for describing not in stories told to children but from massacre survivors to investigators.

    "That's…,"

    She shrugs again and turns to face you fully, hands going to her waist as the cauldrons bubble.

    "It may well even be a stray daemon," she briefly lifts her eyebrows in amusement before making illustrative gestures in the air. "It seems the sort of thing they might do. The scion, a princeling, had the majority of his skeletal structure pulled out and pressed into a wall to make a curious pattern. Like the horns of a beast, utilizing the ribcage and spine."

    You frown at her.

    "...horns?"

    She pauses in her gestures, tilting her head at you.

    "Hmm. I wouldn't know for certain. Why?"

    "I set an Avatar of Kurnous' genitals on fire and performed some other acts that some devotees of your God of the Hunt might find blasphemous," you cough. "And also helped kill an Avatar of a certain Savage Huntress."

    Hultressa's arms slowly lower, eyes wide and mouth opening and closing in silence.

    "Are you sure it was horns?" You ask her, "Not something else?"

    "It…could have been," she says slowly, blinking rapidly. "It was pressed against the wall, not crushed into it so thickly that the bones were forced in, simply pressed against it and stuck with the blood drying."

    "Then again," you pause in your own work, looking up in thought. "There's also a…Chosen of Khaine or some such from the Old World – a human presumably – who is coming to murder me or something. I don't know how they might have gotten on the Ark, though."

    Now Hultressa's arms are fully lowered, almost hanging limply at her side.

    "You…are…," she trails off. "Hmm."

    "Humans can have Chosen of Khaine?" Gwendolyn pipes up from next to you, having crept up in total silence.

    The child is very lucky you weren't holding anything explosive in your hands at that moment given how violently you jumped.

    "But…how?" She looks at you with incredibly wide, pitch-black orbs unblinking at you. "Are they…were they…,"

    Hultressa has completely abandoned her alchemical work now, and is looking at you just as curiously.

    "Well, obviously, I'm sure from your perspective, what we humans know of Khaine is paltry and maligned," you say slowly, getting an affirmative nod from the sorceress, "But they're not completely untouched by His favor either – if it is the same Khaine. They've got strange blessings, powers, love murder, the works. Only their Cult is heavily suppressed and illegal, compared to," you pause to gesture at all of Druchii society. "Well. Anyhow," you lay a hand atop Gwendolyn's head, making her still in her fidgeting but not making her blink. "They have various cells, enjoy murder and chaos and the like. And…their most high are especially accomplished killers, supposedly granted great power and favor from the God of Murder. Having met a former Chosen of Khaine, or First Murderer, or whatever her title was-," you begin saying before pausing at the subtle vibration of Gwendolyn's entire body and the shock on Hultressa's face. "What?"

    "What do you mean former? Former and living?" The sorceress demands, stalking towards you at high speed on spiked heels.

    "You're not lying, right?" Gwendolyn whispers up at you, making you glance down. "You wouldn't lie."

    "Not about this, no," you say softly, then blink rapidly as Hultressa's hands slam down onto the torture slab and nearly send some of your bombs rolling away. "Uh."

    "Explain. Immediately," Hultressa says seriously, just as unblinking as her daughter. "If she truly was blessed by Khaine, but…," she chokes off, demanding answers in her silence.

    "Well," you draw the word out, "Her name is Leah. She is currently – publicly at least – a maid in service to the Emperor…,"

    ==========================================================
    ​
    (Infiltration: 57+20+10+20-10+Gathering Allies(10)= 107/100)
    (Ingredient Acquisition: 49+20+10+5-10-5=69/100)
    (Hultressa Machinations: 62+20+20-5+Reactivated Networking(10)-Eye of High Society(5)=102/100)

    Today, Hultressa approaches you in an outfit you've never seen before. Instead of the two caps over her chest and loincloth you've grown used to her having as her daily wardrobe with minor differences, she is completely covered. From neck to toe, in fact, in a very strange form-fitting thing of gleaming black and silver linings. This close, it is completely apparent that this strange bodyglove is made primarily out of what has to be the scales of some beast or another. Possibly black dragons, you'd wager. Only her face is mostly exposed to you, with even her hair coifed and tightened and pinned so that what would normally flow down to the small of her back is held tight to her head. There is no staff today, but in her left hand and dragging along the ground beside her is a hefty black bag.

    "I need you to move your…assembly," she declares to you, pointing towards all the haphazard materials in front of you.

    "What, why?" You stare at her, looking her up and down. "Back into the rest of your chambers where everything is much more flammable?"

    Hultressa scoffs and shakes her head.

    "Not necessarily, just off the coffins," she points down at the torture slabs.

    Your blood chills in your veins slightly.

    "The…what now?"

    A slender finger tapped emphatically against the torture slabs you'd slept and rested upon, the rest of Hultressa relatively motionless. She offers you a small shrug and thin smile.

    "Everyone is doing their level best to 'return to normal', meaning I have orders coming in. And the incubation period is nearly complete for some of these."

    You swallow at the relatively innocuous tone she's using.

    "Incubation," you repeat.

    "Yes. Now, please, move the...materials...so that I may get to work. As it is, you may wish to move to the other chambers regardless. Lest you find yourself too nauseated to focus properly."

    "Nauseated," you murmur, even as you begin moving your materials to another farther torture slab…or coffin, apparently. "I thought these were just raised torture slab…things. A place for a victim on top. You've got the manacles and chains and the like."

    "They're multi-purpose," she informs you, snapping her fingers for Gwendolyn to help carefully the more volatile materials over and away. "You should not be surprised that pain and more can be actual reagents for certain rituals, if applied and extracted…properly."

    "You know I've been sleeping on these things?" You say dryly, only to get an unamused snort from her in return.

    "They're perfectly safe. They're sealed from measures magical and mundane to allow no seepage when the seals are active, either in or out," she declares with a proud toss of her hair and then nods once she's determined you are far enough away.

    From her bag, she pulls out a very strange looking headpiece, one that is just as form-fitting and skin-tight as the rest of her outfit, save that the face is a strange beak-like shape with two small cylinder protrusions on the side of said beak. Small glowing runes, purple ones that you know from experience if nothing else are representative of Shyish, illuminate the cylinders. A strange hiss escapes from not Hultressa, but the outfit itself as she places the headpiece on, the seam between neck and head sealing up with measures beyond your capacity to fully understand. Black lenses, as if those for glasses or the like, are where her eyes should be, but are so opaque as to block your ability to see those eyes entirely. Which, instead, gives them an altogether strange and alien appearance, gleaming and black in a way distinct from Gwendolyn's eyes.

    "Tell me, Frederick von Hohenzollern," she says, voice with a strange buzzing burr underlaying it now. "What do you think of the terrors?" She gestures at the creatures still standing at the doorways.

    A very, very strange aura seems to surround her now, a type you've not seen from her before. The closest thing to it, that you can try and fit from your memories, are particularly 'off' engineers both human and dwarf. Or, perhaps, even skaven. She is manic, but still, wild but orderly.

    "…strong, I'd bet. Fast. Flexible despite their size. Dangerous," you say slowly, listening to the strange rasping which the mask transforms Hultressa's breathing into.

    "Yes…dangerous," she speaks more sibilantly than before, each 's' drawn out and hissed.

    Gwendolyn huddles against your side, letting you rest a hand on her forehead, but somehow completely unbothered by whatever has taken her mother.

    "That is a word for it. They are swift and deadly, silent and uncompromising, efficient and without minds to break, with loyalty to their orders and masters made unbreakable in blood and soul," she says with that same strange energy. "Do you know how they are made?"

    "I…imagine some measure of fleshcraft," you admit grudgingly. "Some abominable sort of thing like that."

    Hultressa's sharp bark of a laugh seems almost daemonic as she presses a few stones in the…coffin's…side, a few bright flares of magic accompanying it.

    "Abominable! Yes…perhaps you think I take poor slaves, poor humans, and bend and break them into new shapes for the Druchii, hmm?" She asks, but doesn't even seem to be focusing half her attention on you.

    A loud hiss escapes the coffin as the slab on top, the same slab you'd been placing all your bomb making on, the same slab as the rest of the raised biers you've been sitting or sleeping on, begins to crack open and move aside.

    "No…no….no," she shakes her head slowly, letting loose a small cackle as she does it.

    Acrid yellow-green mist pours upwards and outwards from the contents of the coffin, and immediately you hear a horrid gurgle which curdles your blood and twists your stomach on hearing alone. From that mist comes an arm, thick and strongly muscled, something you are able to see quite clearly because there is no skin on it at all. The entire musculature is fully exposed to the open air, red fibers twitching and bulging in spots and blobs unnaturally. Hultressa steps into the coffin instead, and slaps the arm back down, her lower half completely obscured by the coffin and burning mist as well. From her bag, she brings forth a dragonscale tool belt akin to the sorts your daughter wears into battle, and from that belt she pulls forth a razor thin scalpel in one hand.

    "You see…Frederick von Hohenzollern, what is it you hear so much from us elves when we discuss humanity? Why…how slow you are," she says, grasping the arm again and hauling it upright slightly, letting you see that whatever is in the coffin is outright flayed yet still horribly alive. "How weak. How stupid. How…inferior," she spits the word. "So why, oh why," she stabs the scapel down somewhere into the smoke that you cannot see, extracting another pained gurgle in return, and then reaches down with both hands to draw a moaning body by the sides of its head upwards to hold it against her midsection. "Would a superior product use anything…anything at all…but the most superior ingredients and supplies?"

    It's an elf.

    She's holding an elf.

    She's holding up, embracing, a fully flayed and living elf.

    "This…," Hultressa lets loose a truly disturbing giggle before letting the moaning thing drop back into the mist with a wet slap on stone, "Was once one of the best knights on the Ark…until he made a mistake at a party attended by all the noble houses of the Claw. His mother was so embarrassed by him, by his idiocy, his foolishness, and decided – as so many do – that if she cannot have him obey her properly and do only what she says…then she will have someone make it so that he will!"

    The poor bastard gurgles again.

    "Don't worry," the sorceress sniffs through the helmet again. "I shan't allow my work to disturb your own. Much."

    With another gesture, a glowing sphere surrounds her and the coffin as she crouches down into the mist and disappears fully into it and the coffin. All sound within the sphere disappears, all sigh and smells as well as the sphere slowly turns more and more solid in its coloration.

    "That's why Terror-Makers are feared," Gwendolyn pipes up next to you, hopping slightly to get on top of the newest coffin you'd moved everything onto. "I hear that the Asrai have something similar? Like…with their 'Sisters of the Thorn' and…um…what's the one for the…," she mumbles.

    "Wild Riders," you say distantly. "The Wild Riders who follow Orion and Kurnous. Gwendolyn this is nothing like that at all."

    "But…they change them, don't they?" She asks you, cocking her head to side as she begins mixing together a new bomb, as if a truly horrific act isn't being performed just across the chamber. "Alter their bodies and minds?"

    "Those are Gods doing that," you mumble, eye still locked on the sphere. "This is…,"

    "There's lots of prestige and riches in it, but by the very nature of the occupation and task, it distances each of the Terror-Makers from the rest of Druchii society," Gwendolyn says, clearly reciting the words. "They are utilized by the nobility to make examples of each other and of lesser Druchii, to provide a unique creature and servant, but it makes other Druchii, you know," she shrugs. "Disturbed."

    "I can imagine," you grunt, tearing your eyes away for a moment to look back to the bomb making before glancing back now and again at the sphere. "She…seems to really enjoy it."

    "Well…yes?" Gwendolyn cocks her head the other way. "She gets to mutilate as many Druchii as other Druchii are willing to pay for. Which is more than you might think."

    It is the sort of nightmarish thing that necromancers get up to, only using the still-living for it. Something that even Gwendolyn, young as she is, is apparently completely inured to. Even if the one in the coffin, being transformed and altered is a Druchii, you can't help but feel at least some pity for him.

    And yet.

    If it were not Hultressa doing it, some other Druchii would.

    A thousand years of living as a Druchii, a life she was kidnapped into, without any surety of escape.

    As acts of subtle rebellion go, it's definitely one of the most radical you could think of.

    "Gods save my soul," you sigh and turn away.

    Today's talk with Eldyra will not be making any mention of this. Well. Maybe she might enjoy the idea of Druchii being mutilated and tortured. It's something to think about, at least, to try and distract yourself from what you know is now happening a short distance away from you.

    ===================================================================
    ​
    "Hultressa? Are there any…rivalries between the deep dweller clans?"

    "There are, I believe. I have little knowledge of how dangerous clashes between them can actually be, bodies of those who fall are fed to their stock. Why?"

    This morning after witnessing abominable acts of ruination to the flesh and soul, you find yourself sitting down to an actual breakfast cheerfully made by Gwendolyn and shared by Hultressa who seems much calmer now. The meal is one of poultry and potatoes, as well as some small measure of leafy greens and a small baked square with a sweetly tart taste. It's actually quite good, even by your standards. Given that it was Gwendolyn who arrived with the trays, you'd venture so far as to say that it was most definitely not Hultressa who did the cooking. But you're not really able to focus on the food, or the wine, or even what happened yesterday.

    Not with what has been flowing through the bond since you woke up filling your mind.

    "Because Natasha is telling me that there is a meeting coming up between some of the clans," you tell her, the sorceress' head snapping towards you in interest. "Guards are decreasing in number, trailing towards some…part of the cavern, with new arrivals showing up from the tunnels down there. Druchii arrivals, not more slaves. As near as she can tell," you tap your fingers along the table, "They've mapped as much of the cavern as they can. Some of the slaves who have been there longer have helped out with that. They could try to stay longer to recruit more…but…Natasha also thinks that she's going to be able to set off something particularly damaging now. Something to do with not just the waters themselves, but some of the piping itself."

    Apparently Jaqueline, more than Roland or Natasha, has performed actions of this sort personally before.

    "Truly? Then I…hmm…what exit would they prefer? I can try to get them out the main way once the damage begins…but there are other tunnels…," Hultressa mumbles.

    "It depends," you sigh, rubbing at the back of your head. "If we try to pull them out of the farms entirely after Natasha's…whatever it is happens, or if we want them to try and 'evacuate' to one of the other caverns or tunnels in the chaos afterwards to begin the work again."

    Hultressa taps a finger against her lips as Gwendolyn ambles around, picking up dishes and scurrying off once more, knives on her hips clanking as she moves swiftly.

    "I can attempt to accommodate either direction," she tells you, shrugging. "I am not the one performing the act myself."

    You frown, communing with your wife a moment more.

    "She's willing to do either. Apparently," you snort, perusing the images Natasha almost proudly sends you, "She's quite confident that she could ruin the entire cavern for quite some time if allowed to do so. Some of the older slaves there that they've recruited say that those pushed into the depths are occasionally shuffled between the clans and chambers in deals and negotiations…"

    "Then I suppose it's up to you," Hultressa murmurs, fist underneath her chin as she glances at you. "You know your wife better than I. I have little familiarity with the depths there, but if she has support from other slaves…,"

    "Right," you nod, sucking some air through your teeth.

    "Alyssa is not yet done chaining down the rest of the forces from the Eternal Fortress," Hultressa notes. "She is – unfortunately – balancing herself well between the two forces available to her, preparing to mix them into one sworn to her."

    "So it'd be a good time to knock her off balance," you grunt. "Any more news on that murder front, who it was, anything?"

    "None," she shakes her head. "Whoever it was, they are either lying low, or acting quietly with success."

    "Right," you sigh.

    Hultressa looks to you with expectation in her eyes, while Natasha sends another questioning image through the bond.

    Command Decision Point Reached – After a number of days traveling and studying a freshwater aquafarm cavern, and finding allies amongst the slaves already present, Natasha believes that she would be capable of doing…something…considerably damaging to the cavern. Especially now that the guards appear to be drawing elsewhere in preparation for some sort of meeting amongst the deep dweller clans of the Black Ark. A more subtle, less damaging act could be performed, with uncertain results as well. Either way, once Natasha makes her move, another decision must be made as to whether they should attempt to shift themselves towards another aquafarm cavern with other evacuating or transferring slaves – aided by Hultressa if possible - or be pulled out of the caverns entirely to try to attempt something else or at least attempt insertion into another aquafarm from above again in new slave identities.

    Choice:
    Moratorium 3 Hours
    [] Go Big: Natasha is sure that she can cause major destruction to the farm, possibly destroying or at least damaging it significantly. The full breadth of results of this can only be speculated upon, but the chaos to the Ark and surprise of such damage will be undeniable.
    [] Go Quiet: Natasha could cause damage, she is sure of it, at least enough that it will bring great concern to the deep dweller clans and cause notable stoppage to the farm's production for some time. Enough that the slaves would surely be moved elsewhere due to lack of jobs for them to do until repairs are complete.

    THEN

    [] Next Target Over: Specify for Natasha, Roland, Jaqueline, and as many of the farm slave they have made allies of to try and work as a group to evacuate from the damaged cavern towards another aquafarm to begin the process all over again.
    [] Extraction: Have Hultressa work to extract them from the aquafarm outright in the chaotic aftermath of whatever it is that Natasha does. After that, you can try and get them into a different aquafarm entirely, or try and figure out a different target altogether.

    Other Notable Issues On The Ark:
    - Alyssa Voidreaper is currently attempting to gain proper authority and control over the assembled forces from the Eternal Fortress of Torture who evacuated onto the Claw of Dominion. IN PROGRESS
    - A high profile murder has been performed on a Druchii noble scion and their bodyguard, their bodies gruesomely utilized to create a currently uncertain symbol on the walls. House Cruelbarb is currently on high alert as a result of said murder.
    - Arenas are currently closed, but there have been noises about reopening soon to try and distract the Druchii populace with their bloody games.
    - The Cult of Khaine from both Arks are currently attempting to consolidate between themselves to form a more unified power structure after both had their ranks severely depleted.
     
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    • As for what we should do:
    Going big as opening move to make a tensions worse just as the enemies are trying to unify would do nicely, because druchi would likely use it against eachother instead of signal to unify.

    As for transfer I think we should hit at least one more farm before changing tactics.
     
    torroar said:
    The Cult of Khaine from both Arks are currently attempting to consolidate between themselves to form a more unified power structure after both had their ranks severely depleted.
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    A large explosive planted before their fancy meeting would be a hell of a way to sew discord. Not that we could get anyone near it any time soon, but I'm enjoying the image of their shaking hands and suddenly getting reduced to Art Deco wall paint.

    That you for the very merry update Torroar.
     
    I say we go big and then extract Natasha and friends afterwards, hopefully them going loud here will also help disrupt Alyssa's attempt to consolidate power.
     
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