Warhammer Fantasy: A Dynasty of Dynamic Alcoholism

[torroar]

Spikes, Horns, and Stone 32​

"I'll do it," Magnus announced, silencing the discussion, all of the knights turning to look at him.

An approving full-toothed grin was the first response of Captain Mia while the High Guardian folded his arms over his chest, the High Seeker visibly frowning. Commander Argyle seemed somewhat relieved, surprisingly to some, though Magnus knew that it had more to do with his care for his fellow knights of the North Star than anything as demeaning as cowardice. All the while, the beastmen continued to chant and cheer their precious leader, who once more slammed his crude but deadly weapons together to create a dissonant screech audible through the thunder and rain. It was undoubtably quite unsettling to the exhausted and wounded Talabeclanders, but the knights that Magnus had brought with him were as of yet made of sterner stuff.

"However, knowing of beastmen and their love for ambushes, cunning, and total lack of honor," Magnus continued, "I want as many of you mounted up as possible and ready to ride the moment they attempt treachery."

"At once, my prince!" The High Seeker slammed his fist to his chest, nodding and turning to leave immediately to his troops.

"They may well take that as provocation," Grand Master Kaiser cautioned, though Magnus could see the battle lust and honest revulsion at the existence of the beastmen in his eyes.

"Perhaps," Magnus said while cupping his chin for a moment, "But the wargor has already brought his warherd out into the open. It may well be that the moment I leave our defenses, they'll start to charge themselves regardless."

"Fair enough, my lord," Kaiser saluted, and turned to start marshalling the Bull Warriors once more.

"May the Gods be with you," Commander Argyle saluted before rushing off himself.

Which only left Captain Mia of the White Wolves at their makeshift council, the woman herself coming over to bump shoulder to shoulder with Magnus as he reached for his helmet.

"I'd be wary, prince," she said to him simply, the humor dropping from her face.

"I am, my lady, this I swear," Magnus said wryly as his helmet slid over his head, though unfortunately his hair was already thoroughly soaked by that point.

"Oh I know," she snorted before shaking her head, the thick fur cape of her armor so sodden with the rain that it was practically stuck to her body. "Ulric be with you, Hohenzollern."

Magnus nodded before he began to stalk out from the camp, taking out Stonebreaker and letting it rest upon one of his shoulders. There was little point in carrying his brace of pistols, not in this weather. Finest of the matchlocks possible that they were, the wind and rain were superior to their capacity to fire in any regard whatsoever. That did not, however, mean that he gave up either his knives or the masterwork that his sister Alexandra had crafted for him. For all that the saber was not his primary weapon, he had always been as diligent as possible in practicing with every one of his weapons. Its edge was more than keen, and it had already been the death of many a beastman, goblin, and bandits besides.

"ORTHRAK!" Came the bestial chorus once more.

"MAGNUS!" Replied a new howling cry, one that seemed to surprise some of the beastmen given how their heads swiveled to and fro.

Its source was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Captain Mia, who had raised her cavalry hammer high in the air, and was followed by the rest of her White Wolves.

"MAGNUS!" The Wolves of Ulric boomed once more, now joined by the Knights of the North Star.

Incensed, the beastmen snarled and stamped their hooves, some of them pointing and shouting as Magnus walked between the stakes and wagons, the runes of Stonebreaker glowing through the rain and gloom. At the edge of the warherd, Orthrak waited. The symbol of Chaos glimmered unnaturally upon the no doubt human-skin banner stretched between the two poles tied to the wargor's back, shining with a brightness and light that no natural dye would create. It burned at the eyes just to look at, making them water even in the rain, forcing the eye away to stop the effect. If that was meant to intimidate, or frighten, it did not work on Magnus. Instead he simply found that old rage at the impure and the unclean rising up in him, that which the priests of a great many Gods, not just Sigmar, spoke out against. Though, in this case, in this place and time, he was certainly heartened to fight the beastmen as Sigmar Himself might once have – though Stonebreaker was of course no Ghal Maraz, it was a hammer of dwarf artifice nonetheless.

"ORTHRAK!" Was the roar, now as much a contest as praise for their leader.

"MAGNUS!" Bellowed the Imperials right back, joined further by the Bull Warriors and the Knights Raven.

The Black Guard of Morr had been forced to leave behind the majority of their forces, those being their unmounted foot knights, but those that had come south to Talabecland still made an intimidating sight despite their silence and lesser numbers. Now they emerged into the torchlight, the flickering flames dancing across their shining black armor and the barding of their warhorses. They formed up with the others, and though it had been harried and swift, many of the knights awoken from their desperately needed slumber, they were knights nonetheless and so had leapt into action to mount up with admirable speed. It was entirely possible that the inhuman eyes of the beastmen were capable of seeing just what they had roused better than Magnus could.

"ORTHRAK!"

"MAGNUS!"

Magnus raised his hammer high.

"ORTHRAAAAAAK!" He roared, and the call and response ceased, save for the hard breathing and snorting from beastmen and horses alike.

It took a considerable amount of strength, but that was something Magnus had a goodly apportionment of by the grace of the Gods, and so he levered Stonebreaker down and forward until it was perpendicular and pointing directly at the wargor, who's bloodshot square-pupiled eyes narrowed. Perhaps more could have been said, some kind of loud boast, perhaps a denouncement of the Dark Gods, or any other sort of thing. But Magnus said nothing and did nothing more than retract his grip so that both hands were on the haft of his hammer in a ready stance. He didn't need to do more than that. The wargor was tall and broad, larger than any of the bestigors near him, and frankly larger than many a wargor that Magnus had seen in the past. This close, the young Hohenzollern could see glimmers of fetid darkness clinging ever so faintly to the weapons that the beastman wielded.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Orthrak roared and charged, leaving the rest of his bestigors behind.

"Come on, then," Magnus said before inhaling sharply and as fully as he could before setting his feet and moving to countercharge.

(A Duel In The Rain: 61+Magnus Martial(17)-Orthrak the Wargor(14)+/-[1d2=2]=+Sucking Mud(10)=74/100)

There was very little pleasant about fighting in the muddy ground just off the main road, especially when it was the kind of muddy ground created after what might well have been multiple days of unrelenting downpour. It could seep into the smallest gaps of the armor, becoming a disgusting chilly slime that stuck to the sweaty skin and hair. It could dip and drift, making even those with the surest steps skid around inside of it with every movement, latching around the legs like a drowning man to driftwood. In this case, however, Magnus was pleased enough to have it as the wargor's left hoof come down and simply not rise up as quickly as it had intended. All things considered, it was not a fatal misstep, though it could have been. In the end, all it did was provide a spare half-second of jittered movement, one mostly disguised beneath a pair of huge arms swinging gigantic weapons with disturbing speed. The maul slammed down next to where Magnus' knee might have been, and instead only scraped badly against the armor there while sending up a small plume of freezing wet mud to splash upon them both. The prince of Ostland swung Stonebreaker up to trust that its construction was doughty enough to stand up to a hacking slash that could have possibly cut straight through his body, and instead there was a loud screech as the blade struck the shaft and was stopped cold. Even as Orthrak tried to drag the blade downwards to cut off Magnus fingers, he readjusted his grip to choke the head of the hammer and in a flash drew one of his knives with his suddenly free hand and drove it to the hilt – and then some – into one of the exposed parts of the wargor's torso, the clattered metal plates strapped to the body not covering everything.

Disgustingly, the matted fur, so clotted with blood and debris and unholy nature aside, was so thick that it was difficult to tell precisely where it ended and skin and flesh began.

But that border was crossed, somewhere, as black blood squirted out and around Magnus' armored fingers while a short roar of pain emerged from the wargor's mouth.

(A Duel In The Rain: 64+17-Minor Wounded Orthrak(12)+/-[1d2=1]=-10=59/100)

Followed shortly by hunching forward so fast that Magnus didn't quite understand it was a headbutt until that thorny forest of horns had slammed into his armor so hard he felt it in his bones, a brief starburst of whiteness flaring in his vision from the concussive force. His legs slid underneath him, nearly sending him backwards into the mud entirely, unable to set himself in time to either deflect or try and block the blow outright. Instead, he let out a quiet shout of pain himself as some of the horns managed to punch deep holes into his plate armor, small fragments of metal falling and disappearing into the churning mud to mix with his own blood as well. His blood's emergence into the air were like candles of heat pressed against his own body, emerging from his chest, thankfully on the wrong side of his heart. As near as Magnus could tell, his lung hadn't gotten punctured, but little more than that he could be sure of.

As it was?

He'd suffered far worse at the hands of his own family during sparring.

At times, during practice, he'd been allowed the soothing touch of The Light of Summer, but more often than not he'd learned to not rely on it at all.

(A Duel In The Rain: 75+17-12+/-[1d2=2]=+10=90/100)

There was, perhaps, a note of confusion amidst the bloodlust and bestial ferocity in Orthrak's eyes as Magnus grit his teeth and plainly ignored the blood coming from his chest to take his choked grip around Stonebreaker and drive the head of the hammer right into the lightly armored throat of the wargor. This time, he was able to find his footing, somehow reaching a single spot of solid ground beneath the mud around their ankles, and turned his hip and whole body into the act. Metal shattered again, and the wargor's roaring became a gagged bleat that transformed into a squeal of pain through bloody teeth, the latter was evidently caused by biting its own tongue given the wriggling hunk of muscle that came flopping out behind its lips. Magnus snarled himself, and in a maneuver he'd practiced time and again until it was as fast as his father's drawing of Brain Wounder, slid the saber his sister had forged free of its sheathe and carved a ruinous red line along the wargor's stomach and chest, reversed his grip on the rain-slick hilt, and stabbed the saber deep like a fishhook.

Orthrak stumbled back in pain, and Magnus could hear a lot more yelling around him, the roars and cajoling of the other beastmen for their leader getting louder and louder, notes of outrage and fury unmistakable amidst what had before been fear and pride. There were also cheers and shouts of approval from the knights, Captain Mia perhaps the loudest of them all. Magnus dearly hoped that everyone with a horse was properly roused and ready at this point. There wouldn't be nearly as much space to build up a lot of speed, but it would have to do. Hopefully. In the meantime, he was too busy to split his focus elsewhere for too long.

"Come now, where is your beastly pride, Orthrak?!" He called out to the wargor who let out another pained roar while trying to pull the saber free, burning eyes turning towards him and narrowing in an all-too-human glare. "Are you not supposed to be some champion of the Dark Gods?!"

"Eath…your…hearth!" Orthrak growled in broken Reikspiel with a half-bitten off tongue.

"Try it!" Magnus swept Stonebreaker out and to the side, spreading his arms out in challenge.

(A Duel In The Rain: 58+17-Badly Wounded Orthrak(8) +/-[1d2=2]=+10=77/100)

Beastmen were not human.

It was moments like this that fully reminded one of it, beyond their vile misshapen forms, beyond the dark inhuman malice and hatred in their eyes, or the grotesqueness of their deeds. A creature who's fur could become so matted with blood and dirt and offal that it hardened like armor, with some of the greater examples of their kind that Magnus had witnessed in the past practically seemed as protected as plate armor might have on a man with their hides alone. Who wielded weapons in one hand that many men would struggle to lift with two, not even considering the oily black aura that had infused the assuredly and most literally damned things. For despite the saber plunged into his stomach, the fact that Orthrak was still struggling to breath through a badly crushed throat, a tongue half-bitten off, and a dagger in the side, the wargor came on with a rattling raspy roar. Magnus raised Stonebreaker, and attacked, yet even in that found himself having to cut off more than a few swings and jabs to block and parry or outright dodge back from the insane and seemingly tireless ferocity that his enemy brought to bear.

It could not last forever, thank Sigmar, but damned if Orthrak didn't make Magnus work for it.

His right pauldron was nearly dented inwards to reverse itself from an glancing maul strike that could have split his helm open instead had it not been nearly as wild a swing. A powerful desperate sword swing carved a heavy rent into his breastplate and the layers beneath, and Magnus had to grit his teeth at the burning sensation as his skin was opened up in a deceptively shallow cut. Despite just barely parting the skin, it burned far more than a purely mundane weapon ought to have left him, a sensation that began to spread outwards from where the blow was struck. Some sort of poison, perhaps, or the blasphemous blessings laid upon the blade. Another pounding blow of the maul splashed deep into the mud, the spray of wet earth splashing upon them both to the point, coating them in it. Not enough, however, to mute the burning runes of Stonebreaker as Magnus thrust out with the hammer to catch around one of the wargor's knees and drag the bastard off balance with the head, only to sweep the hammer back upwards to crack a solid strike against his jaw, sending shattered teeth flying everywhere.

Even then, still, the wargor did not fall, assuredly some kind of horrid blessing of the Dark Gods empowering the damned creature's toughness and constitution.

No, that only came when Orthrak stumbled back from the blow, trying to shake their head to regain their bearings, and thus was not able to stop Magnus from finally being able to swing his hammer in a full and heavy arc, straight downwards onto the wargor's head.

Which subsequently shattered like an overripe melon in all directions.

"SIGMAAAAAAAAR!" Magnus roared in triumph before, during, and after the blow fell.

(Beastmen Treachery: 50+Slain Wargor(15)+Inspired Troops(10)-Treacherous Preparations(10)-Bestial Bravery(10)+Significant Numerical Superiority(10)+Gryphon Slam(5)+Multiple Knightly Orders(20)=90/100)

Immediately following that, the son of Frederick von Hohenzollern spun his hammer in his grip and slammed it into the chest of a gor that had immediately begun to charge him, caving in their chest so powerfully that portions of the spine were blasted backwards out of the body. With another step, he withdrew the saber from the dead wargor's body and slashed out at a pair of ungors that had tried to approach with crude swords and shields, beheading one and striking through the collarbone of the other. At which point he let it remain in the ungor as they fell to their knees, dying, and swung Stonebreaker about again to begin laying about him at all the gors and ungors that were trying to take vengeance upon him. An act which saw at least five more dead and many more crippled before the thundering of the world ceased to be purely that of the storm above or the hooves of the rampaging beastmen but the crashing wave of steel, horseflesh, and courage that was multiple knightly orders came slamming down into them. Enraged as the beastmen had been, outraged as they had been, the spears they might have set against a cavalry charge were turned the wrong direction. Then a gryphon appeared from the sky, a short stretch into the air enough for Octaine to crash down like a meteor to fight alongside his rider.

A few minutes later, the beastmen dead or fled, Magnus found himself sitting down heavily upon a soaked bedroll once more, leaning himself against a gryphon's flank with Captain Mia's naked hand against his bare chest, his largely ruined breastplate hauled off and her gauntlet tugged free. She was not the only woman present, either, as a stern-faced matron of Shallya who had long accompanied the Bull Warriors on campaign and quest both was present and pressing a calloused liver-spotted hand against Magnus' forehead. Two of the warrior priests of Morr seconded to the Black Knights and the Knights Raven respectively had also presented themselves, though they were stood back and chanting with rosary beads in their hands and heads bowed. All of which was because of the rapidly puckering and discolored skin and flesh across Magnus' front, the pain of which had gotten worse and worse with every heartbeat until it felt like he was being pressed to a smoking pan as a cut of meat. Not the worst burns he'd suffered, but still incredibly unpleasant.

"Away, away with you, bastard," Captain Mia growled under her breath, as a flickering silvery white fire briefly sparked to life around her hand.

(Banishing Curses And Poisons: 42+Captain Mia Piety(14)+Matron Gertrude Piety(14)+Warrior Priests of Morr(15)+Survivor of Fatal Poisons(20)=105/100)

Magnus slowly unclenched his teeth as the pain faded, and his wound began to heal, letting out a relieved sigh. The priests of Morr ceased their chanting and bowed to him before immediately turning and removing themselves, for as members of the Order of the Garden, they had taken it upon themselves to at least try and corral the corrupted dead bodies of the slain beastmen to keep their taint from being nearly so spread out. That, and likely see to the casualties that had been suffered before the priestesses of Shallya could save them. Speaking of the latter, Matron Gertrude inclined her head and patted Magnus' cheek before withdrawing from somewhere on her person a hard but vaguely sweet piece of dried meat and practically shoving it into his mouth.

"You need meat to keep your strength up. And rest," she lectured before bowing to him. "By your leave, my prince?"

"Of course, priestess, my thanks," Magnus said to her gratefully, chewing methodically at the meat and swallowing as she turned to leave.

Then he looked down, and then back up to Captain Mia who had not in fact yet removed her hand.

"Captain Mia?

"Mmm?" She said languidly, looking him in the eyes with a small smile on her face.

"I'm healed. The curse from the blades has been banished," he informed her.

"Indeed, Prince," she said, the smile widening.

"And now, I'd like to get some sleep," he said, before grabbing her wrist gently, watching her smile grow further still and something flicker in her eyes before carefully removing it from his chest. "And dream of my wife, whom I love," he added.

Captain Mia's lips abruptly thinned, her head cocking as she found herself pushed back slightly onto her haunches.

"Indeed? Indeed," she said, half to herself as she stood up, sighing. "Well, I wish you well on that front then, Prince Hohenzollern," she grunted more officiously than he could remember her since they'd first met. "Well fought," she declared over her shoulder as she walked away.

It was only then that Octaine craned his neck around so that his enormous eye was level with Magnus' face.

"Wark," the son of Oskana squawked flatly.

"I don't know," Magnus shrugged.

"Waaark."

"Fine, if I had to speculate," Magnus grunted as he nestled himself against the fur and not the feathers, grabbing his blanket, "Some people like a winner. And fighting. Or something, look," he sighed in exasperation, "There are over a thousand men here, if she needs someone, she'll find someone. Now if you'll excuse me, I wasn't lying, I want to see Sabine the best way I can right now."

Benefitting from years of experience, the Prince of Ostland entered the realms overseen by Morr within a few seconds of closing his eyes.

It was also those same years of experience that had his eyes fly open and his body roused to wakefulness in a near instant when he heard his name being called once more.

"Oh, thank Taal and Manann," he grunted as he felt the rays of the open sun on his face, the skies blue and barely touched by wisping tendrils of clouds.

"Prince Magnus!" Grand Master Kaiser called, and Magnus rose to answer it, shaking out the aches and pains that remained and doing his best to absorb as much sunlight as possible onto his still admittedly damp body.

To his surprise, the Grand Master of the Bull Warriors was accompanied by more than just the other commanding knights of the various orders. Striding just behind the Ostlander were a pair that could not possibly be mistaken for anything but wizards. One was a completely hairless Imperial woman dressed in ornate blue and silver robes decorated with a series of silver brooches in the different phases of Mannslieb, carrying a staff that was topped by a carefully chiseled white crystal sphere within which clouds appeared to move, as well as a series of thunderbolts down the length of her copper staff. Her eyes glowed a faint blue, though not so brightly or intensely that her brown eyes were completely obscured. The other wizard was dressed in dark grey robes that seemed remarkably drab compared to the Celestial Wizard, a wide brimmed and conical hat that drooped on one side atop their head which cast considerable shadow upon the rest of their person. A thick grey scarf had been wrapped around the neck and face, obscuring everything below the nose, while repeatedly patched leather gloves covered their hands. For that matter, what Magnus could only presume to be a graduate of the Grey College didn't even seem to have a staff, but instead had a sword on one hip, a bandolier of knives across their chest, a hand-axe on the other hip, and a crossbow in their arms instead. For all of that might have implied otherwise, Magnus did not miss that they literally did not cast a shadow despite the bright sun shining down on them all.

"Grand Master Kaiser," Magnus greeted before glancing towards the wizards. "It seems we have some new arrivals?"

"Sharp as a rapier, this one," the Celestial Wizard cracked, a wry smile on her face, the expression odd given the lack of eyebrows or makeup of any sort to denote certain facial expressions. "And yes, Prince Hohenzollern," she said much more politely, performing a sweeping bow. "I am Magister Gisela of the Celestial College, with me is my friend and companion Magister Wim, of the Grey College."

The Grey Wizard nodded, but said nothing.

"I see," Magnus said, raising an eyebrow. "Nevertheless, I find myself compelled to ask as to your presence here, for all that I would be grateful to it should our enemies present themselves once more."

Magister Gisela clucked her tongue, leaning heavily on her staff.

"Well, as it happens, my lord, the two of us were contractually employed by the Elector Count Fuerbach up until approximately…a week and a half ago," she said, eyes flicking up and to the side as she recounted the time. "Give or take a few hours, I believe."

Magnus blinked rapidly.

"Is that so?"

"Indeed. A good few years, as it happens, we have served at his pleasure," Gisela said, her lips briefly pressed together. "Though of course, in the past year or so things have become less…sanguine."

Magister Wim tilted their head to look at Gisela, eyes lost beneath the hat's shadow.

"Yes, yes, I'm getting to it," Gisela flapped her hand at Wim. "It so happens that he deigned to restrain us to Talabheim rather than venture out in aid of the forces under his son, the Duke Krugar," she said with no small amount of annoyance. "Son and father…disagreed, especially when it was overheard that the forces of Ostland had been invited to enter the province in strength. Though, alas, it was unavoidable once so many of your troops started landing at Taalagad and then began to march out to the southeast – as you designated prior in discussions with the Duke I am given to understand."

Magnus squeezed his eyes shut for a moment in thought.

"I should feel heartened that the rest of the Army of Ostland is now present and available, and yet…," he trailed off, sighing.

Uncle Urgdug and the rest of the ogres could move with terrifying speed for their size, he had little doubt that they would reach the second detachment in the southeast long before Magnus could reach Taalagad and then head there himself.

"And yet, yes," Magister Gisela nodded. "There was an…argument. Friction…sparked. And alas," she raised her free hand, rotating it carelessly through the air. "My input was not welcomed as it has been in the past."

Wim rolled their shoulders beneath their robes.

"We were not fired," Gisela ground out, glaring daggers at her companion. "Our patron simply no longer desired our services, and we were encouraged kindly to seek employment elsewhere."

Wim lifted their chin, their hat waggling slightly.

"Elsewhere by that measure meaning employers not of Talabecland," Gisela allowed, then flashed a bright smile at Magnus. "How fortuitous that the Duke informed us of potential noble clientele that were not of Talabecland in nearness to us!"

Finally, Wim switched their hands so that the crossbow was only held in one hand, and pushed a hand somewhere inside their robes before withdrawing a pair of scrolls and holding them out to Magnus.

"I…see," Magnus murmured as he unrolled the scrolls and found two separate contracts within, one for each wizard. "Only provisional?"

"A learning opportunity for the both of us, to see if we can provide proper services to aid you to be worth signing on," Gisela said with another dazzling smile, "Our first month of employment to be offered free of charge for most actions beyond consigning ourselves to death in especially risky action, thanks to the departure bonuses allayed to us by the good Duke."

Wim waggled their free hand in the air before taking up their crossbow with both once more.

"Yes, yes, your Vow of Poverty," Gisela rolled her eyes before straightening and smoothing out her robes. "Prince Hohenzollern, it could not be said that I am particularly as skilled with the reading of the stars and fates as some of my compatriots in the Celestial College, yet in turn my talents lie upon the battlefield in far excess of other directions. Including, on occasion, manipulation of the weather."

"The storm," Grand Master Kaiser proclaimed in awe, "That was you?"

Many of the knights turned to her now with a bit more admiration than the studious neutrality of before.

"Summoning something like that? No," Gisela demurred, "But did I…push it?" She gestured in an easterly direction. "Somewhat, yes. It helps that it was already headed that way in the first place, I just nudged it from a walk to a trot, for lack of a better word."

"Hells, I'll take it," the High Guardian grumped, his arms folded across his chest. "It is one thing to withstand the storms sent by the Gods for weeks on end while guarding the tombs, another to run about in them."

Gisela inclined her head to him before looking back at Magnus, who had once again squeezed his eyes shut, inhaled sharply, and exhaled slowly as he opened his eyes.

"I can't see anything we would lose by your joining us," he declared while rolling the scrolls back up. "Though I do intend for us to remain as mobile as possible as we escort these cannons and guns back to the Duke."

Gisela clasped one hand to her chest as she bowed deeply, an act that was mirrored by Wim.

"Of course. Worry not, my lord, for we arrived on mine own transportation," she said before half-turning and pointing, the knights shifting aside for Magnus to see an honest to Taal brilliant white Pegasus currently standing proud and aside from everyone else.

"…well then," Magnus blinked and then glanced down, remembering himself. "First I shall be needing a shirt, and some new armor, but then we'll be marching out."

At the very least, so far, it was a very good start to the day.

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

(Outer Realms of Pain: 12+Frederick Trait[The Undaunted](25)+Natasha Trait[Unyielding](15)+Frederick Trait[Sigmar's Mein](10)+Natasha Trait[Tri-Scarred](15)+Frederick Trait[Robust Soul(20)+Natasha Trait[ By The Widow's Cruel But Motherly Embrace](15)+Deepest Soulbond(10)+Trained Tolerance(15)-Inhuman Expertise(15)-The Heights of Ecstatic Pain(35)-Endless Excruciation(15)-Daemonic Depravities(15)-Uncorked And Unleashed(15)=42/100)

When you wake up, you do so coughing up blood as your body is wracked with such pain that you feel like it is about to tear apart on the inside and out. Your back is arched to the point that it is more your armor keeping your spine from breaking itself than anything else. The tips of your fingers are bruised from how hard you've clenched your fists together, every part of you from toe to the tips of your hair is screaming out in phantom pain that comes from a source far and away from you. A scream threatens to escape you, but the coughing manages to keep it from fully manifesting as you tear your helmet from your head. Blood slowly fills the inside of your mouth, a horrid but oddly pedestrian pain providing something for you to focus on, and as you continue to cough out a few ivory slivers from your mouth, you realize that you've cracked some of your teeth from clenching your jaw so tightly in psychosomatic connection to what is now being done to your husband.

There is a sound, an echoing laugh that rises and falls in femininity and masculinity before resolving into something that is multi-layered to the point of becoming something choral despite coming from seemingly one source, that you catch the ghostly edge of slithering through the soulbond. Like shadows cast upon a wall from a torch, you do not suffer what is being done directly outright, but what you are suffering is horrendous, nonetheless. Images and sensations flicker through you, confused and muddled things invoked by your husband, stretched and lengthened, like screaming into a cavern and getting an echo back after longer than it should have been. His emotions are raw and strange to you, communicated in this fashion, as if the painting that is his existence was being smeared. Suffering as you are, eyes watering and forming icy crusts around your eyes, you pick yourself up off the floor you've evidently been writhing around on, and try to get to your feet, only to stagger to the side, your shoulder colliding with the wall hard enough that if you weren't wearing your armor it might have cracked something else. But instead you simply hit it, and try to steady your feet from bouncing off outright.

"Nightmare? No," Johanna speaks up from just behind you before inhaling deeply. "Fresh blood…yeah," she sounds entirely too hungry as she says that before there is a small shuffling sound from her bending at the waist and pressing her fingers to the ground. "Teeth. Hmm."

"Do you need something?" You hiss out quietly.

"I can hear your heartbeats, Natasha," the vampire murmurs softly. "The pulsing, hear the rushing of the currents of your blood as it runs up and down your body. And I could hear," you feel her tap a knuckle against your back over where your heart is even now still beating wildly. "When this started to speed up, all jerky and stuttered. Plus," she pushes her hand into your field of vision as you clutch at yourself, revealing a glove stained with your own blood and the slivers of one of your molars. "Heard that crackle pop in your mouth, too."

Only then does Johanna slowly slide into view from behind you, leaning up against the wall casually, eyes dark and hooded, the posture all too human for what she is.

For the hunger you can sense practically wafting off of her as much as she keeps the Winds tightly bound around her.

"Before you get all weird about it, remember I don't sleep much anymore. I was keeping watch," she gestured vaguely out into the slave passage intersection. "Seeing what was what with the rest. Didn't have much else to do since you told Kerillian to sit and stay put."

Something she'd done with only some mild protest, after which point she'd proceeded to act the part of a damned gargoyle perched on some stacked crates full of rope over the small huddle of stolen Druchii.

"Okay," you manage to rasp out through a bloody mouth, spitting a few more slivers of broken bloody tooth onto the ground. "Anything interesting to report?"

Johanna's eyes are gone from your face, now zeroed in rather openly at the frozen red droplets that clink onto the ground.

"We got a goodly batch of freedom fighters to us now. Better than I feared, worse than I'd hoped. The rest got scared and scattered, not wanting to be near us when 'the masters' came calling," she said quickly, eyes still locked onto your frozen blood before blinking and glancing back up at you. "Others, maybe we could still reach, but for now they're hiding out, waiting to see if we last another day."

On the one hand, perhaps that is understandable. They've been abused, tortured, stripped of practically ever freedom possible on a mobile island, isolating them all the more from the rest of the world.

On the other hand? Perhaps it is the pain that you can still feel your love suffering, the pain you are suffering now, but you can't help but feel a good bit of acidic contempt for the cowards.

"Well, we'll see," you say, tongue working around inside your mouth for a moment to discover that you've definitely ruined two molars on the left side. "One second," you grouse before sticking two fingers in your mouth and then with a scant of the Widow's Grace you form hard, frozen blocks to both freeze the blood flow and temporarily replace the teeth.

It's not like you'll get frostbite from it, after all.

"Okay," you grunt, working your jaw to make sure the new ice teeth don't cause further pain when they tap against each other or anything else. "I'm up early, but the others still need their rest for what's to come."

"Going after the food, always a good idea in a siege situation, at least if you're the attacker," Johanna grins wickedly before it fades into a more serious look. "Risky, though. Others will surely be thinking about the same."

"Everything, even just sitting here, is risky," you grunt back, finally managing to push off from the wall and hold yourself relatively steady.

Gods be good, every single wave of pain that crashes against your mind is of such magnitude and length that it's near impossible to tell where each one ends and the next begins. Like dragging a blade across a mile of flesh without ever pausing or crossing over past territory. You can feel it, then, the moment that thought strikes you, a weird and disjointed thing, an impulse communicated as if by single syllables at a time. The sheer strain and diehard relentless focus to manage even that much, given the pain, both sets your heart aflutter out of love and rage in unison. Especially because of what Frederick tries to offer you, a bedridden man trying to slide onto the floor to offer you the mattress instead. This is something akin to familiarity in him, resonated and sent forth to be reversed and rebounded back into himself, to something of what Alyssa is doing to him now. But there is more as well, the source of that laughter, the source of that soul-deep pain carved by something else. Not simply inhuman. Something beyond any mortal race, whether human or elf or otherwise. Something daemonic.

"Ab…so…lutely…not…," you hiss, as much to yourself as to him, gathering up all that you are and have ever been and throwing it right back through the bond as a meteoric impact. "Don't…you…dare…close it…," you grind out, ignoring the studiously neutral expression on Johanna's face.

"They've escalated on him?" She asks you, burning green of her eyes seeming to grow luminescent for a brief moment.

"Idiot wants to try and close the bond, spare me," you gasp out, gathering ice around your hand before placing your palm against your breastplate, forcibly infusing your body with the chill, slowing your heart so that it cannot beat itself to pieces inside your chest. "Felt my pain, from his pain," you pause, breathing hard. "Felt it snap back around, like an echo, a thunder and avalanche…,"

"If it's affecting you that badly," Johanna begins before you hiss and straighten, a layer of frost forming across your face and skin as you chill yourself further.

"I'll handle it," you growl, and grab for your helmet and jam it on your head once more.

Johanna tilts her head from side to side like a bird, watching you go as still as a statue.

"All right. You want me to come back when the morning properly arrives?" She asks, sketching a half-bow as she steps backwards from you.

"Works. For. Me," you inform her as you clench your fists tight and begin to literally numb yourself from the pain that is trying to overwhelm you.

However many hours later it is, when Johanna returns, it is largely only because you can see the Winds and faint tendrils of Dhar, Aqshy, and Ulgu that swirl around her, because you've inadvertently entombed yourself in a few solid inches of ice in every direction. So intense was your focus inward up until that point that it takes seeing those Winds independent of you swirling within your Witch Sight to blink and realize it. Another moment or two and you've divested yourself of the embarrassing amount of ice to smash to pieces on the ground around you, making a number of freshly freed and armed slaves jump as you emerge from…evidently enough a statue of yourself with your vague features that had grown around you. Though the face on the ice sculpture cocoon is certainly not your own. The teeth are as needles, for one thing, and the jaw stretched inhumanly wide. You also can't help but notice that both hands, even as they melt, display nails more like your left hand rather than your right. Claws, rather than nails.

Something to think about later, maybe.

"Are we ready?" You say gruffly, ignoring the lingering discomfort and slowness from much less sleep than you'd hoped for.

Johanna is joined by Roland, Sadrina, Kerillian, and Jaqueline, their own assembled groups behind them.

"We are," Sadrina says, frowning at the sight of the melting head of the statue shell before shaking her head. "We have spoken amongst the freed, and those who would speak with us before fleeing elsewhere."

"The pyramid named…," Roland's face twists in disgust. "The southernmost pyramid," he decides to say instead of the Glorious Fields of Pain, "That is our best possible target. With the Temple of Atharti still resisting the dominion of the Cult of Pleasure, less of Alyssa's forces can stretch towards the pyramid to retain control of it."

"Something's going on at the arenas, not sure if it's fighting or joining, or both," Jaqueline grunts, still glaring daggers at your stolen Witch Elves. "Slaves weren't sure, no one wanted to get close, obviously."

"We also heard from a few who'd skittered up out of the aquafarms and lower levels," Johanna adds. "There's flooding after the damage from…apparently, one of the Dhar Anchorstone complexes going tits up."

Sadrina clucks her tongue.

"Such a thing is not easily done. For good reason, such places are amongst the most well-defended on the entire Ark. They are responsible for allowing an Ark to repel the laws of nature, not merely floating atop, but managing movement at all," she says, gesturing with her hands vigorously. "Acceleration, deceleration, turning, all of it."

"Suffice to say," you say dryly, "It might not go well for us should the rest go down, then?"

"Unless you can craft a glacier to carry us all quite rapidly, then no," she says with a serious nod.

A small platform of ice, sure. For everyone you've gathered at this point?

"Point taken. Though if we can come close to taking one, it might drive the bitch out of her tower to come say hello," you point out.

"Perhaps," Sadrina nods. "Perhaps we would drown beneath a tide of redirected daemons instead."

Sure, destroy your dreams, why doesn't she?

"Wouldn't be the worst way to go," Jaqueline mutters, her remaining Whitewings nodding in agreement.

"Perhaps," Roland rumbles, "Yet I would not subject those newly freed to such a fate if we can avoid it."

That has you glance at those who've joined up, new and old, and frown within your helmet at the mixtures of determination and fear on their faces.

No.

Still too fragile, for now.

"Doesn't matter, not where we're going today," you point out. "We're headed to the pyramid this time around. Now come on!"

For now, they still follow you as you start pushing south through the tunnels, relying on the word of other slaves that have spent years or even decades scurrying about in them. Some slaves you see scream at the sight of you, and run the other way. Others shout, cheer, but do not dare join you for the fear that still rules them. Others still remain entirely silent as they carry out meaningless tasks, carrying goods from one location to another, and back again. Those you find you pity the most, for they are so broken that even with freedom literally right in front of them, they see no point. There is not even a flicker of light in their eyes, so shattered for so long that the very concept is not merely foreign, it is incomprehensible. At one point, you even have to deal with a trio of older men with straggly beards and weeping scabs around their necks from their collars who see you all bearing weapons and start screaming for the masters to come punish you. When they sight some of the Witch Elves following Kerillian, and the blade that the Asrai herself carries, they throw themselves at their feet and point accusing fingers and beg for their benevolence in murdering the rest of you.

You cannot let them leave to inform other Druchii as to your presence and direction, not when Roland and Sadrina both fail to make them see reason.

Perhaps it is a mercy that Kerillian removes them as problems with a single swift blow, though you thought some of your forces might not see it that way. Less than they might otherwise have, though, given the insults and threatening for daring to go against the masters. To your surprise, however, there is painful but understanding sympathy on some faces, and anger and righteousness on most others. Something that makes sense the more you think about it as you rush through the tunnels anew. How many times had men like that pointed out some deficiency or failure on the part of their fellow slaves? How many times had their accusing fingers resulted in screams? Too many, more likely than not. Too many by far. That is no doubt why you see so many of the freedmen, though none of the Asur, spit on the bodies of the slain and give nods to Kerillian despite those she commands. Eventually, though, you finally do reach the proper staircase, this one also located at a tunnel nexus. Which only makes sense if the slaves are expected to take the harvests and spread deliver them elsewhere when not allowed to use the streets with wagons and carts. No, those, you think, are likely only allowed to be helmed by Druchii themselves, even if slaves help load and unload them.

That it is the slaves fate to pound the stone with their feet and nothing more makes perfect sense as a thought by a race as depraved and cruel as the Druchii.

"Ready?" You ask, glancing over your warband, sword in one hand, cold power glowing in the other, then start ascending the stairs. "Then follow me!"

(Vengeful Emergence: 39+Band of Heroes(35)+Anger of the Asur(20)+Bravery of Bretonnia(15)+Whetted Witch Elves(10)+Fervent Freedmen(10)+Distant Pleasures(10)-Fractious Fellowship(10)-Phantom Pain(5)-Outermost Patrols(15)-Dominated District(20)=89/100)

When you burst through the doors this time out into what appears to have been some kind of warehouse, you do not find desperate slaves trying to beat their way through the barred entrance like before. It's been a bloody day and no doubt bloody night since then, and anyone who couldn't get into the tunnels beforehand is liable to have gone elsewhere, willingly or otherwise. What you do find instead – aside from a group of unmoving and unfilled wagons – are a group of Druchii patrolling the streets, dreadspears and bleakswords by the look of them. For the briefest moment, you consider whether or not to kill them in case they might belong to some resisting noble lord to Alyssa's rule, but the choice is swiftly taken from you by your newest recruits. Beaten and abused for so long, the chance for payback is too great to ignore, and they shout and scream as they fire their crossbows and charge, meaning that everyone else has to join in as well. Not that you're particularly cross about it, you're more than happy to work out some of your continuing pain out on them. It's undeniable that it's slowing you, distracting you, forcing you to rely far more on your daughter's masterwork armor than before to shield you from a number of blows. Flecks of Ledstali litters the ground as your armor works to regenerate itself during and after the fight.

"That'd be the pyramid then," you say sardonically, tilting your head towards the imposing structure in the distance with buildings and towers sprouting up from the grounds.

"My lady!" One of the Whitewings calls out, drawing many eyes, the Bretonnian woman pointing at a particularly ravaged Druchii who's been well torn apart.

Or, rather more pointedly, at the symbol of Slaanesh that is still recognizable on his tattered skin.

"Right," you exhale sharply. "We figured this would happen."

"Would have been nice if more of them would put up a fight," Kerillian says idly, leaning the flat of the First Draich against her shoulder, the blood soaking the blade drenching her cloak.

She never does seem to clean the thing as much as you would think it needs to be.

"It'll get worse the closer we get to the Glorious Fields of Pain," Sadrina shakes her head. "You shall have your fill of fight by then, I assure you, Kerillian."

"We'll shall see, Handmaiden," Kerillian scoffs, but says no more.

It's not a bad bounty if you could spare the time to strip the bodies of their weapons and armor, but you can't. Not if you want to make sure to avoid the truly tainted parts, an issue that might well get worse the longer things go on and the stronger grip that the Dark Prince gets on this Ark. Not if you want to use the wagons for their intended purpose. Besides which, that's not your goal for the day. Your true target awaits you. This isn't the time to get sidetracked by lesser concerns. Luckily, you've got a bit of help in remaining focused thanks to the constant agonizing shadows of pain slamming through you. Cold doesn't affect you anymore, not really, but you are not ignorant as to how it can be wielded by those without your blessings. In the opposite direction of the Roppsmen-created sauna, many are those who speak to the benefits of plunging into the cold to shock them awake if it does not numb them so swiftly that they die from it. Besides which, while there are those who's minds are irreparably scarred, flagellation and mortification of the flesh to cast out doubt and distraction have been a part of the faiths of the Old World since before the Gospodars, before the Roppsmen, before the Ungols, before the man-god Sigmar.

"You are not well," Johanna says to you, a few wisps of Ulgu from her ensuring that only you hear her words, and no one else.

"How kind of you to notice," you huff back, clenching and unclenching your fists.

"Hard not to," she says, stretching her back and forth with her guandao slung over her shoulders. "Stiffer, slower, taking you longer to draw and cast your spells, orders coming curt and short."

"I'm handling it," you grind out, ignoring how the ice blocks in your teeth click from the action.

"Not saying you aren't," she shakes her head. "But 'handling' pain and not being affected by it are different things."

"Enough!"

The vampire raises her hands in surrender and distances herself from you, blessedly. Letting you focus on drawing on the pain, letting it burn you, scald you, envelop and entwine itself with you utterly before you proceed to order your body to follow your orders once more despite it.

"Let's get moving!" You bark, raising your sword once more.

(Pyramid Priorities: 43+35+20+15+10+10+10-5-5-Outer Patrols(20)-20=93/100)

You crash through the streets of the Claw of Dominion like an oncoming snowstorm on the steppes, pulling the wagons behind you the whole way. There are twitches and flickers in the curtains of some of the buildings, but scouting on the part of Johanna and Kerillian prove them to be nothing more than terrified Druchii civilians. A strange thing to consider, but there it is. A baker with a wife and son, who only own a single household slave, barricading themselves in the backrooms of their place of business. Another family here and there. Arrogant, skilled, dexterous, but not every Druchii is or can be a soldier or raider. There must be those who handle more purely menial tasks that cannot be fully trusted to be purely overseen by slaves. Those who know are apparently content to try and wait out the ongoing conflict, liable to swear their new allegiances once the fighting is truly decided but not before it is actually fully done.

These, you ignore.

You are far more focused on the cackling, giggling daemonettes that are availing themselves upon the dead and dying of a group of Druchii that found the courage in their dark hearts to try and resist the Cult of Pleasure.

The patrol of dreadspears, cold and disciplined, with darkshards behind them, that you assault from an intersection as they are march on patrol.

And, finally, the proud, laughing, audacious bleakswords that have evidently grown bored for lack of sport and rather than actually patrolling the surroundings of the pyramid properly have taken to dueling each other.

These you kill. These you tear apart. These you cast down and stomp beneath your boots and tear apart with blade, fist, claw, and spell. The Asur under the Handmaiden are focused yet energized, almost joyous at the act of killing not just Druchii but worshippers and creatures of Slaanesh as well. The mobs of Bretonnians following after Roland are still nearly uncontrollable in their violent fervor, not helped in that lack of discipline appears to be showing more and more in the Whitewings. There are other citizens of the Old World amongst them, and even from beyond, but they are just as subject to their rage and anger after their own abuses at the hands of their former masters. Kerillian spills blood in the name of Khaine again and again, followed by her coterie who look upon their new master with admiration and fear, while Johanna makes of herself a spearpoint and bulwark in equal measure depending on what the battle calls for.

But you are not done. Not yet.

(Pyramid Pushing: 47+35+20+15+10+10+10-5-5-Patrols of Importance(25)-20=92/100)

The closer you get to the pyramid, the wider the streets become, and the larger the buildings. Not as places of business, but of storage, of temporary stoppage points and distribution. There are broken open houses that look utterly ransacked sandwiched between completely intact ones. All to accommodate their disgusting little edifice, where the slaves work to death and never leave alive, bones and corpses becoming mulch and fertilizer for their food. Every single fruit, every tuber, all of it, is fed upon the blood and deaths of the innocent. Disgusting in its depravity, abhorrent in its cruelty, and today? Today it is going to burn. By now, the Druchii have figured out that someone is forcing an incursion into their territory. Perhaps it was the daemonettes dying so violently that was a clue to the enemy, to those connected to the summoned creatures. An idea that gains all the more credence in your mind when you do not find another distracted or bored patrol to assault but are in fact confronted yourself by an organized block of Druchii marching in your direction.

At the head of which is a quartet of visibly mutated Druchii, something that you thought was especially meant to be rare amongst their kind. They are not daemons, not yet, but they certainly look like they are on their way to becoming such. Their mouths are not yet fully distended, but you can see the flashing needle teeth in their maws. Their swords are starting to melt into their hands, and in the case of their leader, outright has. What had perhaps never even been purely mundane metals have begun to warp and twist under the influence of their Dark God, taking on an organic and veiny cast. The hilt of one of the blades appears to have become a group of wrestling tongues that have tightly wrapped themselves around the hand of the blade's wielder. It is that one, a group of glinting piercings placed into the symbol of Slaanesh over their stomach that points your group out as they rush into view.

"There! The blasphemers that ended the troupe! Kill them in the name of the Prince of Perfection!"

"Cut them down!" You roar, and a hailstorm of recently acquired repeating crossbows thrums into them.

Many bolts are cut out of the air or dodged by the four, some of the other Druchii managing the same, but not all of them. Dreadspears bring their shields up, before Johanna lobs her spear overhead in a tremendous javelin throw with the spearhead surrounded by a globe of Aqshy. Slipping just over the upraised shields through a small gap, the Aqshy erupts in a wild explosion before the spear whips back through the air towards Johanna, forcing an opening in the formation. An opening that is quickly taken advantage of by yourself and the rest of your forces. Roland is an unshakable goliath on the field, not so great as an ogre such as Urgdug, but still extremely effective. Kerillian's acquired blade almost seems to hungrily seek out the Druchii that have betrayed Khaine, while Jaqueline and her two Whitewings show all the skill of knights if with less restraint. These higher cultists of Slaanesh are skilled, they assuredly already where when they were just regular Druchii, but the blessings and gifts of Slaanesh make them that much more difficult to deal with. A strange fragrance keeps clogging your nose, something that seems to almost intoxicate some of the Whitewings given how sloppy and slow they become. One of the formerly enslaved Imperials passes out entirely onto the ground after a large enough inhale. Yet it does nothing to the stoic and dedicated Roland. It is not so soporific that it can stifle your rage and your pain. Perhaps it affects the skin as well as the air, but regardless, Johanna does not need to breathe if she does not wish to. More than a few blows cut deep scores into your armor, but the Ledstali regenerates. A vicious assault gets past Roland's bladework, but finds no purchase against his gromril. One cultist lets out a victorious shout as they manage to deeply cut Johanna's throat before the vampire angrily breaks their skull open with a headbutt while her flesh bubbles disgustingly to knit back together.

Then you are upon the rest of the Druchii, and within a handful of minutes more, past them.

"They definitely know we're coming now! Good! Means we'll kill them all the faster!" You shout, and get a ragged furious cheer in response.

The pyramid looms, ever larger, as you get closer to it.

(Pushing Inwards: 55+35+20+15+10+10+10-5-5-Inner Defenses(30)-20=95/100)

Before, you were witness to an area that was clearly being contested against Alyssa. Here, now, you get to see what it looks like when those loyal to her are given free reign. A low pink and purple mist clings to the stones underfoot, and there are entire streets blocked off by glowing magical barriers kept in place by floating sigils and fleshy moaning icons. Not quite altars, but totems perhaps, of power that manifest and maintain such defenses, including the cloying mist which forms certain barriers so strong that from a distance some of your warband finds themselves passing out again, or, worse, invigorated in all the wrong ways that is distracting and incredibly uncomfortable to them. Thankfully, none of them are so affected that they lose their minds entirely, because you get to find evidence of what happens to those who falter too greatly, covered up by the mist.

Said evidence is what you discover when your boot hits something fleshy rather than stony, and upon wrenching cold winds to your grasp and momentarily blowing the mists aside, you find yourself about to walk over a carpet of dead slaves and Druchii that look to have all fallen while in the midst of running away. From what? You don't know. All you do know is that they're all on the ground, all of them in one direction, and that no matter what you do, you cannot wake them. Some appear to have already died from wounds that never received treatment. Others died drowned in pleasure or peace, going by the expressions. Disgusting, disturbing, and a distraction you don't need, so you let the mists reclaim the bodies and take another street and continue heading towards the pyramid.

It is almost a relief when you hear the giggles and laughter as daemonettes spring from the buildings, the alleyways, the mists, screaming out lurid and depraved offers and demands before charging in with claws or blade arms snapping and flashing. Ambushing Druchii follow them, brave bleakswords with their own weapons flashing, eagerly pointing out the Asur of your forces as prime targets to take and ravage as they will. They boast of it, in fact, only enraging the Asur all the more, and transforming the careful focus on Sadrina's face into something furious and severe like nothing else. They practically ignore all of the Bretonnians, the Imperials, the Tileans, the Estalians, and that is their mistake. That, and the fact that after what everyone saw a street over has fully stripped any hesitation and created only angry focus in return.

They cannot stop you.

They cannot stop your warband.

"Return to your accursed master's side in failure," Kerillian hisses gleefully as she bisects a daemonette in half.

"In Isha's name, I cast your soul to oblivion," Sadrina intones as she disembowels and then beheads a Druchii bleaksword.

"I am The Lady of the Lake's sworn sword, foul daemon, now begone!" Roland shouts as he cleaves through a group of swarming daemonettes that sought to try and overwhelm him.

All this and more is shouted out.

Defiance against the Dark Prince.

Defiance against Alyssa.

The totems barring the way, either forming the solid barriers of solidified lust and agony or the mists spreading through the streets, are destroyed one after another. Either from your own blows and magic, the monstrous strength of Johanna, the stoic power of Roland, or the bloody swings of Kerillian.

Your pace is ravenous, and soon enough, you reach the entrance.

It is large, unsurprisingly, given what is meant to enter and leave it on a regular basis. Able to comfortably allow four wagons lengthwise to stack in front of it, a solid rectangular and cavernous opening. Instead of Isha, the Goddess of many things for the elves including the harvest, there are statues of Hekarti, the Goddess of Dark Magic, the one that the Druchii attribute to their mastery over magic. Magic such as that which is required to force productivity and fertility, through dark bargain and sacrifice. There are also barricades present, which you are quite sure did not exist until recently, made of intensely bright poles and slabs of metal that are grossly melded and supported by pulsating pink flesh. Tongues, tentacles, otherwise formless amalgamations of the stuff, all mixed together to create platforms that Druchii can stand upon and fire down from, and anchored and angled tentacles forming stakes in the gaps between most of the barricades. The only one not barred in such a manner is the main pathway leading straight to the entrance. There are daemonettes milling about, pleasuring and paining each other but quickly assemble upon your arrival with eager drool splashing out of their mouths at the sight of new potential playthings.

"…the statues are still there. Why are they still there?" You ask, turning your head to Sadrina, many others of the warband doing the same.

"…if I had to speculate?" Sadrina says, her own face screwed up in contemplation. "From what I was able to hear before, Alyssa does not necessarily intend to fully drive out all the Cytharai, simply…install the Prince of Excess as the superior upon this Ark. It is Khaine and Atharti which both oppose this the most – the former has ever opposed being the lesser of any God, whether Cytharai or Cadai, not even including historical conflicts and hatreds."

"Atharti, on the other hand, is a direct rival in scope and dominion," you finish, getting a nod from the Handmaiden.

"Well, good for them," you grunt, clapping your hands awkwardly with one still holding your sword. "Too bad it isn't going to matter by the time we're done."

"Well said, ylvathoi," one of the freed Asur declares with a mixture of confused approval and condescension, only to blink in surprise as Sadrina rounds on him with disapproval on her face.

"What the fuck did he just call me?" You growl. "No, doesn't matter, as long as he shuts up and does as he told I don't care," you huff. "They're waiting for us, anyway!"

As if to prove your point, a Druchii appears in the main road, barricades to his sides and daemonettes surrounding him. You suppose that some might call him handsome, but how much of it was just standard elven features stacked against human ones, and how much of it is an unnatural allure granted to him by Slaanesh, who knows. Slivers of metal appear to have been literally branded, fused, into his skin, each of them etched with blasphemous symbols of power, and he wields a pair of swords of undeniably incredible construction. Thin, but razor sharp, with hooks on chains leading form the hilt to dig into his wrists. His head has been shaved completely, letting further tattoos be visible on his scalp, strange eldritch text seeming to actively writhe there. The Winds scream near him, swirling and casting about like a storm's gale, and a palpable aura of power exudes from him that is literally staining the stones of the street beneath him with it.

A priest, then. Or a champion.

Or both.

"Interlopers! Welcome!" He bows deeply, but keeps his head up and focused upon all of you with a mouth full of purple stained teeth. "You have chosen an opportune time to join the dance! I see that the steps of the Dance of Dreaming could not entice you…I agree! It is an amusing thing, but does not deserve to hold primacy of the arts!"

"Crossbows, keep their own ranged troops harried, shields, block off any flanking attacks, let them come down the center," you command, making the Druchii tilt his head as he rises from the bow.

His smile annoys you, for all that you swear you hear some stuttered gasps and sighs from somewhere behind you.

"Yes…yes, why deny ourselves the gratification? Let us dance the Rhan'k'adanra! I am Prince Omarin of House Brulanth, and its lord and master," he introduces himself even as he rolls his shoulder and sets his feet.

Kerillian's stolen Witch Elves gasp in betrayal, presumably because they know why the hell that should matter.

"Good for you," you snort as you start drawing the Winds close.

"You are very impolite!" He notes in affront, nose wrinkling before he shakes his head. "I shall have to teach you better manners beneath me, once I've collared you properly."

Oh choices, choices.

Do you kill him as violently as possible, or do you try and make it a lingering death?

"Larhathalumalav," Kerillian's voice is as cold as winter. "May I have him?"

"If you get to him first, sure," you snarl. "What matters is that he dies."

"Agreed," she nods.

(Breaking In The Doors: 53+35+20+15+10+10+10-5-5-Final Defenses(35)-20=88/100)

"For the Lady, for the living, for the free!" Roland cries out in righteous fury, joined by a great many others.

You don't quite make out what Sadrina says, it's too fast and your skill over Eltharin is as of yet lesser than your husband's, but whatever it is seems to inspire the Asur with her as well.

"Let blood be spilled!" Kerillian sneers, followed by her Witch Elves.

As for yourself?

You say nothing, only a wordless shriek as you thrust forth your hand and craft enormous blocks of ice to start falling down as a deadly hailstorm upon the enemy to shatter their formation from behind. Only then do you charge, letting the ice blocks fall, intent on getting to grips with the enemy. Those of the Druchii that try to fire their crossbows regardless find the bolts whisked away with a gale of cold winds that buffets them at the same time. Are such expenditures purely wise? No, but you are in so much pain that a little bit more isn't going to bother you that much, much like how a razor blade dragged down the thigh cannot be that much worse than the bones within already being broken. So you ignore the trickle of blood that starts to trace down your face from your left eye, quickly freezing into a swooping and curving line, focused far more on blocking a blow from a daemonette and backhanding another to leave ice flash-freezing and then shattering to pieces taking much of the head with it.

Somewhere in the fighting, you spy a few of the Bretonnians go down, some of the Asur falling back gasping at bleeding wounds, but it is far fewer than it otherwise could have been.

"Ah, there you are!" Omarin declares cheerily as he slashes an Asur's chest open and kicks them back. "Tell me, would you prefer ruby or sapphire for the inner spikes of your collar?"

Growling, you throw yourself against him, only to find yourself immediately on the defensive despite your anger and all your wrath. He is faster than you, that becomes rapidly apparent, and afterimages shimmer behind him regularly, afterimages that are far more solid than they should be given the damage your armor is taking. Stronger than you, too, which is especially annoying, but not fatal or unexpected. You've prepared for fighting stronger opponents before, and this bastard is nothing compared to Magnus or Frederick, let alone Urgdug of all people. But the waves of pain afflicting you, transmitted to you, are slowing you, are jittering instinctive reactions that should be smooth and uninterrupted. Most of all, this infuriating Champion of Slaanesh won't stop grinning, babbling, talking, endlessly talking.

Also, something you're quite sure of as a bit of blood splashes across his face, you are quite sure that at some point he had his eyelids removed.

For some reason.

However, his newfound obsessive focus on you does not stop his preternatural skills and instincts from working, and so he performs a frankly ridiculous pirouette to block an incoming blow from Kerillian from the side, and then bends so that a stab from Roland does not hit him. Yet with both of them there, and yourself, his grin begins to flicker slightly as you push him back and back and back again. With more barricades destroyed behind him from your spell, the weaving of the Winds finally exhausting itself, the other Druchii start to join the fray to keep your forces back. Other daemonettes are arriving, and joining in, but your progress is absolutely undeniable, to the point that you are in fact finding yourself fighting atop the ruins of the barricades and rapidly dissolving blocks of ice. All the while, it is now Kerillian keeping up a low and constant stream of insults in Fan-Eltharin, the content of which is so swiftly and sharply delivered that you can see a growing fury in his eyes and swear you hear a rough bark of laughter from at least one Asur throat in the scrum.

(Final Threshold: 67+35+20+15+10+10+10-5-5-35-20-Desperation(5)=97/100)

"Hold him in place!" You shout and step backwards, letting Kerillian and Roland corral him.

For the briefest of moments, you are free of distraction, a shell of defenders all around you made up of elves and humans both.

It is enough.

Clapping your hands together, screaming in anger and pain, you drag the Winds to your command from all around you. It does not matter that the Aethyric Net of this entire damned Ark strains and resists you, that the Winds are filtered and keyed for inhuman minds, to deny any other than of elven superiority to grasp them easily. It does not matter that your husband is being tortured beyond mortal ken, and that you refuse to let him to foolishly try to close off the soulbond out of love and concern for you. What matters is that you are here, at the pyramid, one of the greatest main food production sites for the entire Ark, and you will not be stopped. Not by daemons, not by cultists, not by a Champion of Slaanesh! So you wrench the Winds forth, and when you scream, it is an exhalation of freezing cold winds so strong and powerful that ice forms upon the armor of everyone in front of you, making Kerillian and Roland pull away, just so that it can strike the Omarin head-on, and then drop to the ground and start freezing the ankles of daemon and Druchii alike in place. Your allies are chilled, perhaps shivering a bit, but they can move as they wish where the enemy cannot. The ice creeps upwards upon suddenly panicking Druchii and furious daemons, but they cannot free themselves in time to stop what ceases to be battle and becomes a very rapid series of executions. The whiteout reaches your gaze, reaches your senses, and for a brief moment you are incapable of perceiving anything but your own pain, the bond, and your husband.

Until you blink, and realize you're on your hands and knees, vomiting chips of bloody ice into your helmet.

"Natasha?" Johanna asks, forced ease in her voice.

"M'fine," you rasp out before pushing yourself to a standing position, letting the frozen blood rattle down your neck into your breastplate.

The fight is over, and the Champion of Slaanesh that held the pyramid for Alyssa is dead, frozen in place as it happens.

"Didn't want to risk him asking for help and actually getting it," Kerillian informs you with a nod. "Went bottom up, though," she gestures, explaining why one half of the Prince is flopped to the right, the other to the left, and a steaming pile of organs and cut bone between his now fully separated halves.

"Appreciated," you inform her, shaking your head to clear it a little bit more before raising your fist. "Congratulations, all of you! One step closer to freedom, one more measure of revenge, won by you all! The pyramid and the warehouses outside…are ours!" You declare with a victorious shout, and end up having to wait as cheers answer you, a few of the freed slaves getting in a few extra stabs on the dead Druchii.

Already, the unnatural stability of the Chaos-spawned flesh and tissue is fading away, the favor and presence of Slaanesh in this place fading with the destruction of its worshippers and totems.

"Now…we take what we came for, as much as we can, and we burn the rest!" You declare, and get even more cheers in response.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jaqueline knows a good deal about ransacking, the Whitewings having needed to do just that while working as mercenaries to maintain their equipment and mounts. Roland, as befitting his adventures and travels, has participated in a few sieges in his time, and knows something of the matter as well. Johanna especially, however, has most recently participated in such things, or so she claims, something about a war in Cathay and Nippon. The Asur enter as well, to utilize their greater knowledge of what crops and produce might be within to aid the cause. Which, in the end, leaves Kerillian and her killers to watch the entrance, as well as a group of other freedmen and women. As for yourself, you sit at the foot of Hekarti's statues, looking upwards at the masterful masonry and metalwork that went into producing it. She looks as befitting a Goddess of the elves, a cruel smirk and dominating posture as she holds a representation of raw magic in one hand and a dagger in the other. So you don't actually sit straight on one of her bare toes, just next to them, and ignore the quiet whispers you can't understand that seem to keep appearing on the far edges of your hearing.

"…I do not think I can aid you in stoppering your pain," Kerillian murmurs to you as she comes and takes a seat herself, running a whetstone she's gotten from somewhere along the First Draich.

"Killing Druchii, and bastards like that Prince, helps," you grunt, finally taking your helmet off to start scraping off the red frost off of your mouth, chin, and neck. "But no. Nothing really stops it."

You stare at the frozen blood in your hands, your frozen blood, and snort before letting it fall to the ground to be ground down under your boot.

"Nothing except killing Alyssa, and freeing my husband, is going to do that," you snort and glare to the north, to the Tor of Dominance.

The view is somewhat blocked off by the gigantic statue of Khaine sprouting out of the temple, but these days that statue is looking less and less like Khaine and more and more like another God altogether, but that still can't stop your ire from being directed to the Tor proper.

"So she's got to come out, come out and die," you declare while continuing to scrape yourself clean of your blood, "And until she does, I'm going to keep setting fires. Killing her best and brightest. Sink this whole Ark if I have to if that's what it takes to get her to come out."

"…might well end up killing all the other slaves too, you know?" She says neutrally, continuing to run the whetstone along her blade. "Sinking it, I mean. If that's even something we could do."

"Maybe," you admit. "But death has got to be better for them than…this," you gesture out at the whole of the Ark. "Freedom in its own way, too."

"Aye, you might be right about that," she whispers, something dark and ugly in her voice. "I find myself misliking chains and cells and the like more than I ever thought possible."

"You might be right about that," you echo her with a huff, shaking your head slightly. "…if I live through this, sane, I mean, I think I'm going to need to have a talk with my sister."

Penal labor is one thing, a sometimes-suitable fate for prisoners and criminals. But a good portion of what she's done, what she's been doing, needs to stop.

(Ransacking: 59+Brutally Bountiful(10)+Abusive Agriculture(20)+Historical Efficiencies(10)+Peasant Expertise(10)-Alyssan Distributions(15)-Inexpert Ex-Slaves(10)=84/100)

As far as you can tell, the harvesting goes well, for all that everyone is hurrying as much as possible in case of incoming reprisal forces.

Gold is pointless right now, meaningless to the extent that you think poor little Sabine would have a heart attack, and so a fortune is left behind in the form of candelabras, cups, plates, and jewelry. Only the food matters. Preserved is best for your purposes, but you'll take fresh just as well. Some of the food has already been sent out, presumably to other forces under Alyssa, but this place is a combination of farm and granary for the entire Ark along with the other pyramids. Which means that there is still quite a bit left. In a darkly amusing way, the enslaved Bretonnians are all peasants, most of them former farmers, and so they know quite a bit about rapidly gathering up crops when there is danger of a greenskin raiding party just over the horizon. The Asur put their best efforts forth as well under Sadrina, which seems to be enough to help counterbalance those ex-slaves who know absolutely nothing about farming. The cattle within, which surprised you with their very existence, are put down, and a good deal of kindling is gathered up in multiple locations throughout the pyramid. There are runic arrays that are meant to prevent exactly what you're planning on doing, and it is those that you find yourself invited in to help to destroy and damage. What you're planning won't outright melt the stone, Johanna is the only one with the literal fire for that sort of thing, and you don't have the time for her to methodically do just that.

But you can burn the insides, and leave this place a hollowed out smoking carcass while burning out all of the storage warehouses surrounding it.

"Can you do it?" You find yourself asking the vampire as everyone else gets ready to haul the wagons now groaning with foodstuffs and barrels of water away.

"…yeah," she nods slowly. "I never really…," she murmurs while holding up a hand. "Never really thought about fire, other than as a tool, back before. Something to stay warm with. Never really thought about the deeper parts of it."

Embers of flame start to flicker into existence around her, while her mane of crimson hair starts to glow.

"But uh…yeah. Me and fire…I've found I've got a bit of an affinity for it, now," she chuckles, and this time, you see what looks like smoke escaping her mouth. "For lack of a better word."

She slams her guandao against the ground, and that too begins to be enveloped in fire.

"It'll burn. I'll catch up. You need to get moving as quickly as possible back to the tunnels," she says before she becomes utterly enveloped in flame and walks inside the entrance of the pyramid.

"You heard her!" You command loudly. "Move out!"

All the shadows of the pyramid retreat from the fire that comes for them, and you find yourself looking back to watch as the tip of the guandao drags itself along the walls, leaving behind glowing red lines and sparks.

"We killed one of the Cult's champions, and the head of a noble house," Sadrina says with a slow impressed whistle as the warband marches out. "The Cult will not be able to ignore this. Whether or not it will be enough to force Alyssa's attention? Difficult to say."

"Head of a noble house?" You ask quizzically.

"Kerillian," Sadrina shifts uncomfortably, "Informed me that her…followers…knew of him. Evidently enough, the previous ruling Prince of Brulanth, his father, is no longer in control. It is the only reason that Prince Omarin would have identified himself as such."

"Hnrh. Important, then. Not like one of the biggest ones, but important," you decide.

"Indeed. The path is difficult, but we walk it regardless."

It's around then that you smell the smoke, and hear the murmurs of the warband, yourself and many others turning about to watch as great plumes of it rise into the sky. It was not as violent and loud as a series of explosions, but perhaps that is even better. The fires will burn longer that way, without such immediate attention-grabbing sounds. Not to mention how large the pyramid is. It's a satisfying thing to see, that growing black column stretching towards the sky, but you don't let yourself grow complacent. Or rather, you simply can't, not with the pain wracking you, the exhaustion garnered from lack of sleep. You can function, you can fight, but it is not an easy thing to rush back. At least this time around, you aren't trying to fight anyone in your way. Sadrina suspects that the majority of the area's immediate defenders pulled back after your incursion was thoroughly underway and were subsequently overrun at the foot of the pyramid by the time you reached it.

Given the lack of reprisal attacks, you're inclined to believe her on this.

"All right, bring it all down, quickly," you order as you reach the entrance to the slave tunnels, and hear a distant and rather displeased squawk from a certain gryphon and a whinny from a far more polite Pegasus the moment the doors are opened.

Close to the end of the loading, listening to the cheers, the weeping, the thanks of the other slaves down there who are liable to be more inclined to join you now, you hear someone deliberately walking loudly upon the stone. When you turn, along with a few of the others, it is to find a slightly singed but satisfied Johanna. Her costumed attire that she was granted by your husband's previous captor is well past burnt up at this point it seems, and she's replaced it with some salvaged and hastily put on Druchii armor and clothing. She nods to you, a lazy smirk on her face as she wipes her mouth of a bit of blood, and joins you in helping the last of the crates and barrels down from the wagons. The wagons themselves will have to be put aside after this, or put somewhere else. Any Druchii trying to track you down can't be given too easy of a set of tracks to follow, after all.

"So, things went well, then?" You ask her.

"I'd say so," she snorts, folding her arms over her chest while leaving her guandao standing stock still vertically. "Had to work a bit harder to get out than I hoped, though."

"Oh?" Kerillian asks, walking over.

"Reinforcements were definitely on their way. Coming hard and fast, and angry," she snorts. "Looked like a priestess, was pissed. They should have sent a sorceress, might have actually had a chance to do something about the fire."

"…why didn't they?" You ask, eyes narrowing. "She has more, I know she does."

"Ah, interesting thing about that," Johanna raises a finger, briefly flickering to your senses as she lets Ulgu wrap around her for a moment. "The things you hear when people are trying to put out a lot of big fires," she chuckles before straightening. "They were going to. They lost the one they were going to send."

"How," a number of women ask at the same time.

"Well," Johanna spread her hands wide, a bemused look on her face. "It seems that someone managed to take her out. Along with her guards. Took out some of their force, too. Some kind of fight, tore down a few of the buildings around her, too. Was quick, too, in and out with just the one target."

The vampire inhales deeply before sticking out her tongue and dragging a finger along it, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together afterwards.

"I'll tell you one thing," she says, looking at her fingers. "Tasted a lot of Dhar in the air. Must have coated the area, the survivors I mean, after the fight. They think they know, but aren't sure who did it."

She looks up at you, then at Kerillian, then at Sadrina.

"So she showed back up," you manage through gritted teeth.

"Maybe," Johanna shrugs. "Could be another sorceress in the Coven decided to only pretend to wave the flag until they could scrabble into the shadows to hide, strike out from there."

"If it is her," Sadrina says, brow furrowed, "I cannot fault her for killing one of the Coven."

"Oh I can fault her fucking plenty for whatever I want," your snarl, fists clenching so tight that the Ledstali squeaks and pops. "My – she – Frederick is…," you gasp out, drowning in your fury before you plunge your mind and soul into the cold once more. "…she's not here," you finally growl. "If it is her. It doesn't matter right now. What matters is getting out of sight, and figuring out what we're going to do next."

You purposefully ignore a great many exchanged glances as you stride down into the depths once more.

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

Two hours later, you've discovered that, as ever, victory excuses many things.

Previous cowardice, fear, denial, it fades away after you return with a bounty of food and water. The slaves throughout the tunnels have their own little storage areas, with the leanest and least of such things for their own usage. Those with more spirit have smuggled small amounts now and again to build up their own stashes. But such things will not last forever. They cannot, no matter what some of their most broken minds believe. Besides which, it is not just what you have gained, it is what you have denied the enemy. It is that, once again, you were victorious. You killed more of the masters, and that inspires the enslaved, no matter how fearsome your demeanor or armor. Especially with the quiet and steady clarion call of Roland, the empathetic fury of the Whitewings, the impressive charisma and diplomatic capabilities of Sadrina, the cajoling and carousing Johanna. All of it, good. Very good. You've outpaced what you could salvage from the dead, now, to equip those who wish to join you. You will not have your newest recruits dressed in nothing but chains and collars and manacles atop their rags. You will not have them wielding crude cudgels and chair legs.

"We need to hit an armory, otherwise, they're just lambs to the slaughter," you say over a dinner of salted meat and raw vegetables to what are effectively your commanders. "They have to have some of those, right?"

"So they say," Kerillian says, glancing at her Druchii as they huddle over a small little cobbled together altar to Khaine, albeit one created by the Asrai and not the Druchii themselves.

Evidently enough it is recognizable enough to have the other slave avoid it, but not so similar that it doesn't confuse them at the sight of it. You've even seen some of the Asur tilt their heads at it.

"There are certain armories, yes, but some of them would be in the Tor of Dominance, which we cannot break into easily or swiftly," Sadrina begins, brow furrowed in thought again. "But there should also be some near the docks, to rapidly equip corsairs as they set out on raids. Not as protective as a knight's regalia, but then, many of our newer recruits have not the training or constitutions for such."

"There are the arenas as well," Roland says, fist curled under his chin. "They must have quite a quantity of assorted weaponry."

"Might be a bit risky to try that, though," Johanna says, hands folded in her lap for lack of a bowl or plate or anything else to hold food she does not require. "If we hit an arena, then a lot of that would probably have to go to the gladiators, that I'm assuming we'd free."

"The arenas have been locked down, besides," Jaqueline grouses. "I heard from some of the slaves from others in the northern tunnels. Cruelbarb is dead, apparently a number of sorceresses slew him outright, took control of his arena. Direblaze already fell in line before all of this happened. The last one, the…," she flaps her hand, "Whatever House rules that one finished sorting out their choice of leadership amongst themselves. Apparently its Princess whatever now, who killed Princess whatever, and her father Lord or Prince whatever," she gnaws on a piece of dried meat angrily. "Swore loyalty to Alyssa."

"Harder targets tomorrow than they would have been today," you mutter.

"Harder does not mean impossible," Kerillian points out, "More blood'll spill one way or another."

"Anything else from the grapevine?" You ask, glancing around at everyone.

"That flooding I heard about is getting worse. The Deep Dwellers are trying to seal things off, keep things contained, but some people heard a lot of screeching and hissing going on before they ran."

"Loathe as I am to say it, we could leave those who cannot be properly equipped behind, and gather up arms for them from those we slay," Sadrina notes. "I do not enjoy the thought of equipping them with such tainted arms in such number, though perhaps we could attempt some forms of cleansing."

"That's more time," you grunt. "More time trying to do that. Could try and poke at the siege at the Temple of Atharti, but that's the same problem. Tainted arms. Not good in the long run."

"Could hit a noble's tor," Kerillian pipes up, cupping her chin with one hand. "If that one we just killed today was in command, might be easier to break in there. Or could ask them for other nobles, find their homes, take what they'd use to help bulk up their household guard and what not."

"Choices, choices," Johanna chuckles without humor.

"Most of them are commoners, but two of them are sisters," the Asrai continues smoothly. "Noble sisters. Or at least, used to be. Loyal to Khaine, their family was. House Kathruil. Didn't have a Tor, but a manor, and an armory in it."

"They were doubtless one of the Houses struck by the Alyssans," Sadrina says, to which Kerillian shrugs.

"Just mentioning that it is an option," she mutters.

"I'll announce my decision tomorrow," you decide, standing up and putting your empty bowl aside. "The rest of you, do your best to get some sleep."

"You going to be alright doing that yourself?" Johanna asks after you, making you pause as that horrid stretched and snapping burn of drawn out agony echoes through the bond once more.

(Divine Realms of Pain: 76+25+15+10+15+20+15+10+15-15-35-15-15-15=106/100)

A slow exhale escapes you as you straighten, and finally after an entire day, manage to take all the pain and entomb it in the glacial depths of your soul where it becomes nothing more than a frozen part of the greater structure.

"...of course," you say over your shoulder as you walk - steadily - to your corner to steal some rest. "Who in the hells do you think I am?"

Your sleep is dreamless that night.

And without interruption before you rise at the proper time.

Natasha's Choices:
Voting Moratorium 3 Hours

Having gained a significant influx of recruits of inspired slaves to join up after bringing in a significant quantity of foodstuffs and striking a blow against the masters, you now have significantly more troops than you can even meagerly equip. They are willing to fight, but would be unarmored, practically unarmed, and as the days pass, the bodies are beginning to disappear from the streets more and more to elsewhere.

[]Arming The Helpless [Taking this option will alter circumstances, presences, at targets, for better or worse as you reach them later in the day]
-[] Strike the Corsair Armories: Located in the docklands, with relatively light armor but effective swords and hand crossbows, possibly also causing damage to the docklands themselves, the Cult of Mathlann, and Alyssan forces.
-[] Strike the Dead Prince's Tor: Irritating bastard that he was, the death of the ruler of a noble house means a house in disarray. Druchii nobility are expected to equip their troops as best as possible out of rivalry and superiority power games. Higher quality, heavier grade, but likely heavily defended by Alyssans.
-[] Strike A Noble's Manor: A family liable to resist Alyssa, liable to have either died or fled to other points of resistance. Might mean a manor held by Alyssans, or one that is empty allowing you to get in an out quickly. Technically a possibly, yes.
-[] Strike A Major Armory: Kerillian's little killers know about some of the major armories meant to equip the invading forces of the Ark when they land at a target, one of the larger foundries meant to equip a variety of troops. Which definitely means a harder target than any of the others, as it was assuredly a priority target for Alyssa before to keep and to hold. Depending on how things go there, it might be all you can manage tomorrow, but you'd be able to equip everyone properly, and then some for future recruits.
-[] Strike None: The time you spend heading to one of these places, fighting over them, returning, and equipping all the new recruits is pointless. Let them remain or serve as chaff, picking up what they can on the way to true targets. Cold, but can you afford to do otherwise? New Significant Warband Additions will have no armor or arms save what can be scavenged on the battlefield, high casualties assured.

AND

[] Targets for Destruction [Circumstances, one way or another, will change over time, depending on the results/choice in the above category]
- [] Strike the Siege: The Temple of Atharti is one of the greatest known resistance points against the Cult of Pleasure, seeing as Atharti is literally a rival Cytharai to much of what Slaanesh is. The longer it lasts, the more focus it will require from the Cult of Pleasure. It follows that killing the Druchii and banishing the daemonettes assaulting it will, in turn, harm the Cult of Pleasure all the more. They will not hold out forever, you don't think, but you can extend the length of time they resist.
- [] Attack An Arena: The Arenas are full of slaves literally trained and built and fed properly to be satisfactory combatants. You have a much larger warband now, but why not swell it all the further? Traverse the slave tunnels, emerge, and shatter more cages, break more chains, and become an even greater threat to the machinations of Alyssa. Hells, maybe you'll even get her to come out of the tower that way all the quicker. They might belong to Alyssa now, but that just means it's that much more important to break her toys.
- [] Fire and Food: There are other food production sites, silos, storage. It's time that some of them cease to exist. Ransack them to feed your own warband, and deny their contents and production to the enemy. The daemons might not need food or water, but the Druchii damned well do, and without the latter, they cannot sustain the presence of the former. You've destroyed one pyramid, you can destroy others. They'll be more defended, assuredly after the last one, but you can still hopefully manage it.
[] Take The Tor: The Tor of Dominance is right there! Kill her, kill her NOW! FREEZE HER BREAK HER KILL HER KILL HER HOW DARE SHE

 

[torroar]

By The Ancestors​

The throng and the armies milled about as was the wont of such masses of bodies. Some manned the barricades, others patrolled, and others sat and waited, or lay upon their bedrolls and slept the sleep of soldiers who know that they may never get another chance. By now, the occasional shaking was almost comforting in its familiarity, if it weren't something indicative of the enemy gathering greater and greater strength which which to try and batter the Three Gates of the Ancestors down. Given dwarf masonry and runework, the gates shouldn't have even been moving at all. But then, neither should the Great Gate of Karaz-a-Karak have ever trembled from any blow, yet in that regard the foot of Gork - or Mork - himself had torn the proud mein of many a longbeard. Even without the wizards of the Magic Colleges providing their ways, the dwarfs were not blind to the enemy outside. Through clever construction and ancient ways, sound and even sight could be funneled with precisely crafted miniscule tunnels and perfectly made mirrors that allowed those behind the gates to peer and listen to what was occuring on the other side. In any case, the defenders of the Everpeak saw that the greenskins had once more begun marshalling their shamans, though many of them still hobbled about, the lingering wounds to their feet seemingly remaining despite most of the other orcs and goblins recovering by now. Trolls battered at the gates day and night with clubs that glowed with ugly green WAAAAGH!! energies, with the occasional swinging thump from one of the titanic metal clubs held by the slave giants. Despite everything, all the promises, all the glories, all the trust in the works of the Ancestors, it was impossible to mistake the fact that dents were starting to be made.

This time around, the dwarfs would not simply wait around for the damned urks to once more blaspheme upon their great works and earn a great many new Grudges in the Dammaz Kron. There had been whispers aplenty, amongst the commanders, and therefore a storm of conspiracy and speculation amongst the soldiers, about what was to be done.

When the answer came, it came loudly, and boldly.

"OH!"

It came from the depths, the eldest halls and greatest vaults, and with an expanding wave of silent awe and joy amongst the dwarfs.

"HO!"

It came with belching steam, and cranking gears, and crackling rope that had been alchemically treated thousands of years ago for optimal tensile strength and durability.

"HO!"

It came with thunderous, steady steps of plodding stone carved from quarries mined out before Sigmar breathed his first breath. Of gromril so finely wrought that there was no unpleasant clang or clank as it moved forward.

"HO!"

It came as a blend of ancient masteries, with purely of runecraft, and others from ancient pacts and exchanges with those who carried on the legacy of Morgrim himself.

It was an answer that scarcely could ever have been believed to be breathed into reality by the dwarfs. For so long, had they fallen back, ever backwards, into shrinking populations into fewer and fewer holds. Their greatest creations gone silent for lack of the power and knowledge to reclaim them. Their greatest works never to be replicated, for none could match the Ancestors of the past, Ancestor God or otherwise. This was known. Shamefully, this was the truth that a great many of the dwarf people had learned to accept, that they were destined to decline ere there were nothing but their crumbling creations to be remembered by in the world. A truth turned lie, by the wondrous and stalwart leadership of Thorgrim Grudgebearer, who had through his deeds and words reignited the guttering flame of defiance and kindled the light of hope in the darkening hearts of his people. Yet even those great efforts had seemed to falter with the siege of the Everpeak, the loss of the Great Gate, and incursion of the greenskins.

No longer.

It had been spoken of in the tales of Karak Ungor, and in the impeccably done chronicles of the Rememberer Evangeline Hertwig, but even then, so many more had not quite believed in their hearts.

They did now.

With mouths open, and some of the longbeards even shedding tears at a sight they never thought to see themselves, the dwarfs watched alongside the mystified humans of the Empire.

They watched as gronti-duraz walked once more.

Not the greatest of their kind, no, not yet, but that any walked at all was a marvel. They walked, runes blazing to life upon their bodies, accompanied and technically outnumbered by their admittedly somewhat lesser but nevertheless effective descendant creations in the gronti-jiffaz. Mixtures of runecraft and engineering, crafted in the Time of Woes, awoken to fight once more. At the head of the procession was none other than Kragg the Grim himself, expression as severe as it had ever been, yet he walked with great dignity and presence befitting the one who had once more struck the Rune of Awakening, and had instructed others that it not be lost again amongst other Runelords. Runelords and Runesmiths that walked at the sides and rear of the formation as well, keeping an eye on things. Though he had dared not wake the greatest of the gronti-duraz within the Everpeak's vaults, for he was determined not to suffer the fate of Silverthumb, what he had awoken was a legion of stone, gromril, and truesteel that would serve quite ably indeed.

Though, perhaps, the severity of his expression had something to do with the gliding woman of gold and silver who strode along with him at the head of the legion, her laughter pointed and loud to draw all the greater attention towards what now marched.

"Have I not proven my sincerity? My worth?" She said with shocking quiet, the many bangles on her wrist and voluminousness of her sleeve covering her mouth.

Kragg's frown did not deepen, such a thing was simply not possible given the geographical depth and severity it had long engraved into his face, but his eyes did narrow ever so slightly.

"Your aid was...acceptable," he finally grumped out, keeping his head high and not even looking towards her, instead his glare was quite locked onto the Gate of Grungni they were now approaching. "Unnecessary, however. I knew what needed to be done."

"Of course, of course," she nodded deeply, transforming it into a twisting half-spin and skip forward, forever dancing when good simple walking would have done. "And yet, to draw the magic forth in amounts enough to wake those runes...,"

"I have already considered your request," Kragg ground out.

For a single second, the Matriarch of the Gold College was still. Only a single second, but notable for that alone.

"Perhaps," he concluded with a deep nod.

"Excellent!" She smiled broadly, each barefoot step a heavy thump against the stone. "Excellent."

"I said perhaps," he repeated, to which the irritating human just smiled again.

The Gate of Grungni awaited them, and if Kragg was lucky, quite a few urks for him to work out his frustrations on.

As they walked forwards, the Matriarch of the Gold College reached into one of her sleeves and withdrew from it several thin bars of steel that were linked together with single links of chain. It might have looked a strange necklace to some, were it looped around someone's throat, but its purpose was something else entirely. Instead, to the grumpy annoyance of the dwarfs, the woman unabashedly reached out and grasped for Chamon. The metal began to glow, brightly, like in the heart of forge, and then shockingly began to seemingly melt. Not to the point of becoming a molten pool upon the ground, but rather taking a strange taffy-like texture as she began to twitch and weave her fingers about with the material. To the amazement of a great many of the Imperials watching, who had been stunned by grand works of the Wizards time and again during the march and siege, the woman known as Gehenna quite literally began to crochet a sword together with her bare hands. Individual strands of burning hot metal that should have scorched flesh from bone were woven and interlaced and layered again and again.

By the time they reached the Gate of Grungni, the sword was complete with hilt sitting comfortably in Gehenna's hand as she idly swung it back and forth.

"Runelord," the Thane commanding the ironbreakers and irondrakes that formed the most immediate line of defense should the gate have ever been broken open bowed deeply at the waist before the venerable elder.

"Matriarch," the Reiksmarshal of the Empire, Aloysis Fuerbach, saluted Gehenna, the heavily armed soldiers of the Imperial Foot that also held the gate doing the same in a clattering of steel.

"We have arrived to perform our duty, and to mete out vengeance," Kragg ground out.

The Thane, for all that his beard was white, long, and looped several times around his belt, grinned like an eager youth at the terrible rage in the Runelord's voice, and nodded multiple times.

"Right away, Runelord!" The Thane spun about on his armored heel and held up a fist.

Two Runesmiths and two Master Engineers were required to open any of the Three Gates of the Ancestor Gods after they had been sealed, and it was just such a team that got to work now. By all rights, such massive edifices of stone and metal should never move swiftly. Sheer weight alone should have demanded such given all natural laws. But the mechanical masteries of the Engineer's Guild were often beyond such things, and yet even then with all the precision of Morgrim Himself in weights and counterweights, levers and pulleys, it would not have been enough. Such momentous movement would surely have allowed the greenskins to be prepared, to have readied themselves, to have noticed, and marshalled themselves. Or, more likely, eagerly plunged towards a rapidly forming gap as the gate opened. But that was what the runes were fore. Flaring bright, gleaming where they had been laid in the time before even Kragg the Grim was born, the runes and ancient magic stored within them went to work. So it was that something which could have required a hundred and more men to even begin to shift seemed to slide open with no discernable friction at shocking speeds.

Of course, it was the nature of greenskins to act with absurdity and so more than three dozen goblins squeezed forwards cackling and laughing with glee as they brandished their weapons.

"GRONTI!" Kragg boomed, raising his staff and slamming it upon the ground heavily, the sounds of distant avalanches ringing in the ears. "Rikkazenha," he growled darkly.

On the other side of the rapidly opening gate was a sea of green in various shades clad in metal and leather, shock and delight and bloodlust equally represented across their bodies with shouts already going up. There were goblins and orcs aplenty, dumb and idiotic troll faces lolling open at the chance at new meals, and squeaking squalling squigs bouncing and frothing at a chance to slake their own animalistic urges. Black orcs in even heavier layers of metal narrowed their eyes, joyful at the sight of enemies and a real fight but intelligent enough to know that the dwarfs would not have opened the gates without reason. Less careful were the mobs of naked savage orcs, slathered with scat and glowing war paint while wielding their weapons of crudely shaped bone and stone. A pair of giants stared down at the creatures before them, covered in bright green and dark black paint in fearsome scrawls across their sagging bellies and slack jaws, froth from fungus bear spilled across their faces. Of the terrifying mutated giants that had helped break open the Everpeak, there was no sign, not yet, but what was there was enough to shatter lesser throngs entirely, a fact realized by every dwarf present down to the beardlings.

But Kragg the Grim had not brought a lesser throng.

The Master Runelord of Karaz-a-Karak had brought gronti.

The size of trolls and ogres, the ancient masterworks did not simply leap into action. But neither were they slow. In fact, in the same disturbing manner as trolls and ogres both, they presented a terrifying aspect of speed and movement that something that large ought to have never possessed. Yet possess it they did. Humongous axes and hammers blazed to life with burning runes, some surrounded in ethereal blazing fire, others crackling with lightning, and even some beginning to flicker and waver in and out of sight as if displaced in reality itself. Shields bearing the grim faces of the three greatest of the Ancestor Gods the size of wagon wheels and larger were brought to the fore as they charged forward in eerie near silence. At least until the elder gronti-duraz, not the Rune Guardians of the Time of Woes, got within sufficient distance of the enemy and their jaws slid open to vent the fury of the Ancestor Gods outwards in great spewing plumes of flames washed over the greenskins and their auxiliary creatures.

"Well come on then, don't be shy!" Gehenna demanded, and with her many of the Gold College strode forth as well to melt the plentiful arms and armor of the orcs.

Next came lightning, as the Celestial College made itself known abruptly and without warning.

"Strike them down, as we foresaw!" Their Patriarch called, reed-thin yet speaking as if he were Taal himself heralding a storm.

Arrows, arching crossbow bolts, bolts thrown from artillery pieces, angled cannons, and more began to join in as the gronti-duraz waded in. Magic was cast in great flurries, and the cheering and shouting and battle cries were enough to deafen. But none of them, none at all, matched the sheer carnage that the awoken creations of Thungni's line wrought. Mighty black orcs, empowered by the spells of their shamans, swelled with emerald might and charged forward with a whole armory of enchanted weaponry, only to find themselves shattering against the gronti-duraz. Axes clove through whole ranks of orcs at the same time, while humongous stone boots squashed squigs and goblins alike. Poisoned weapons found no purchase, scraping clean off of the gronti-duraz with as much effectiveness as air against a cliff-face. When a shaman glared and bolts of green pure brute force flew outwards with enough strength that it could have pulped an ironbreaker inside their armor, it simply fizzled out to nothing against the sneering face of Valaya upon the shield of one of the golems that appeared to have been made in effigy of the Ancestor Goddess Herself. Before the shaman could do more than gape, the golem spun about, intricately made stone braids with metal spiked ringlets flying about as flails that caught and slew three different orc Big 'Uns charging from behind, and outright threw its tree sized hammer through the air. A battering ram of a hammer flew across the battlefield, shattering all before it, before landing squarely upon the shaman even as the orc tried to summon forth some kind of shield.

It was there, if you had the eye to see it.

A split second.

Stone and metal quirked into a pleased sneer, blazing runelight pouring forth from the gronti-duraz's eyes. With such articulation and smoothness that it could have been flesh, skin, and bone, the matronly golem then raised its fingers and snapped them as boulder crashing together. A rune carved at the base of the humongous hammer's haft burst to life, and the entire hammer ripped itself right back out of the small crater it had made and flew back into its wielders hand whereupon it was swung overhand backwards to bludgeon a troll right down the middle to bisect it. Before the troll could begin to regenerate, as it surely would, the golem opened its mouth and exhaled forth a cone of fire that scorched the meat black and dead within seconds.

Elsewhere, one of the giants, panicking at the sudden strange arrival of the not-so-small enemies that were flooding outwards and killing so many, fell back upon one of its most primal instincts.

It roared, and swung its club downwards in a great half-circle arc downwards upon one of the closest ones. Only to stare, shocked, as the club boomed against the floor, not the gronti-duraz, which had sidestepped the blow with remarkable dexterity. Burning red runelight glared back upwards at the giant from beneath particularly beetled brows, while a huge stone mohawk painted a shocking orange-red crowned its head where most other gronti-duraz possessed molded helms to their bodies. This golem held no shield, had been carved and forged without the outwards layers of armor, for all that such distinctions started to fade away with sufficiently powerful runes and stone forms. Instead, it bore two rune-axes, the first of which it slammed down into the club, and to the giant's shock, dragged the weapon halfway out of its grip. Stumbling, drunk, and already naturally clumsy after too many generations of inbreeding, the giant almost fell from the sudden loss in the surprise test of strength. Almost, but not quite. Alas for the dumb brute, that was enough, for the gronti-duraz had already rushed forwards, bowling over and smashing through dozens of greenskins on its way, before with two mighty heaving swings parted a pair of feet from a pair of ankles.

Then the giant fell, screaming, though that too was soon silenced as the silent grinning leer of the gronti-advanced along its fallen body from the pelvis to the head, axes tirelessly swinging the entire time.

Truly, for many of the beardlings watching, fighting, it was as if the Ancestor Gods had returned once more.

All the while, Kragg the Grim smote many a greenskin, hammer and staff acting in tandem. His rage was mighty, but his mind was greater, and he knew that even for all their power and effectiveness, it was possible for the gronti-duraz to be felled. He knew the histories perfectly well, after all, and was no mere beardling to get lost in delusions. The elves had proven such. The servants of the Dark Gods had proven such. And now, as he watched one of the gronti-duraz start to find itself splashed again and again with troll acid that was beginning to etch away at it, as another was flung through the air by a shaman to be dogpiled by more black orcs wielding WAAAAGH!!! empowered weaponry, he knew it to be true yet again. With a blistering glare, he watched the battlefield, and saw the worth of the sally they had made, the sally that would inevitably have to once more retreat behind the Gate of Grungni before they were properly overwhelmed by incoming reinforcements.

None saw it but the Gods.

There was the slightest of approving nods at the carnage that the gronti-duraz had enacted.

It would not save the Everpeak, not yet.

But it had certainly shifted the odds in their favor.

 

[torroar]

Oh, also, my humblest apologies to all for the delay after the big post. But the issues have been cleared up, and as of now, the Patreon is currently open. I'm still trying to figure things out there, but it is now technically open. So far it's just got the 'welcome' and the most recent post, but I hope that in time I will be able to fill it with all sorts of other things. I would humbly appreciate any support you feel comfortable offering as I try to muddle my way through to a living as a writer of sorts.

www.patreon.com/torroar

 

[torroar]

Spikes, Horns, and Stone 33​

Dreams were a curious thing.

One of the two realms of Morr, and yet one that seemed at times as oft invaded and desecrated as the other. For all that there were necromancers, liches, vampires, and more that would rip those in gentle repose and rest into horrid unlife, there were just as many threats to dreamers. Not as consciously acknowledged, it was true, but those cursed – or blessed – with senses beyond that of most other mortals, knew the truth. Other wielders of the Winds of Magic could manipulate the mind, send forth foul visions and dreams to disquiet and threaten the soul of the dreamer. Or, if sufficiently powerful enough, the body as well. Daemons could invade one's dreams, they could alter them, could do worse to a mind unprepared. The Gods, too, for better or worse, could do the same if they were so inclined.

Something that you learned in your training out in the Oblast, gasping down air so cold it was like blades in your lungs as a cackling ancient hag of an Ice Witch watched over you, it that it is sometimes a rare prize to be able to sleep without dreams.

Then there are the other times…

"Just find them, that's all that is required, what is so difficult about that!?"

You blink, and you do not blink. Pain, so much pain, floods through every part of your being and beyond that, and yet at the same time you know you rest in relative peace in a stone corner. You see, and you do not, as a seething Alyssa Voidreaper snarls at a pair of sorceresses with heads bowed and shoulders hunched. It is not to the point of cowering, not even close, but they are most definitely not standing proudly. They do not miss their Supreme Sorceress in the eye, their staffs held low with the tops swung towards the ground, the glamours on their bodies still functioning enough to hide any hint of bruise or cut or otherwise. But there is still soot on some of their clothing, some of the metal, and there is uncleaned blood from the blade of one sheathed blade. But you see, you see so much more than that.

"The Cult of Mathlann still holds to the accord you made with them, but the Deep Dwellers are still riotous after the loss of a number of their habitats to the damage. We will find the cause of the damage, I swear it," one sorceress says quickly, "But the Dhar contamination caused by the Anchorstone's destruction is still severe-," she pauses at a glare from Alyssa and swallows. "But I shall invest within a ritual to produce strong enough shielding post haste. I require more power, however."

"You shall have it," Alyssa flicks a hand, "See to Direblaze, he can provide sufficient sacrifices. As for you," she turns her glare on the other sorceress while the first ducks out of the room. "Finish off the remaining belligerents of the other Cults. I have given you strength, I have given you power, you command many of your sisters, the Khainites are dead, and yet," she gnashes her teeth, dark eyes actively flashing with Dhar, "Defiance remains. Stomp. It. Out."

"At once, mistress," the sorceress bows before beating a hasty retreat.

You try to follow them, to track them, but your eyes won't move. Can't, perhaps. It is akin to sleep paralysis, awareness but without the capacity to act upon it. You see shadowed figures, one of them far larger than the others, chained to the walls, but the torchlight is absent in those places to leave you bereft of any finer details. Then your eyes, that you are coming to realize are not your own, flicks elsewhere, and your stomach comes close to churning itself so badly that you vomit in your strange, doubled state. The gore there, the filth, the offal, all of it has been spread across the stone slab you are attached to with metal stakes through your joints and limbs. Scratchy, burning pain scrapes across your throat where a collar with inward facing spikes has been latched, and there are faint discolored trickles of liquids beyond blood that are just faintly visible on the edges of peripheral vision. Poison, you think. A great many poisons perhaps.

And, of course, how could you forget the fact two thirds of your body had been flayed open?

Or that you are not in your own body, a realization that had already been well on its way to crystallizing before you hear a sound that paradoxically provides a relief you had scarcely thought to possess anytime soon.

"Finding leadership everything you wanted?" Frederick von Hohenzollern's voice emerges from your own lips, raspy, dulled by pain and wound and exhaustion, but with will and strength still within it.

Salyak save your heart as it tries to beat out of your chest.

"You will be silent, you wretch!" Alyssa shrieks, glaring over at him, her pupils shrunk to pinpricks. "As soon as I have ripped the location and defenses of the Fulcrum from you, every shred of your soul shall be given over to be made into instruments by the Court of Sighs!"

One hand raises, fingers snap, and a dozen small black flames erupt upon your/Frederick's exposed flesh beneath the skin, and you feel yourself/your husband grunt and grit his/your teeth in defiance to keep from screaming.

"It's what you deserve for resisting her, you know."

You would blink, if you had any control over what you were seeing, as you see…yourself emerge from the shadows? No, not you, but it certainly is a Natasha von Hohenzollern, speaking in a voice of such cold cruelty and disgust towards your husband that ought never to have been spoken. Your own anger starts to rise in you at the sight of her, dressed in slightly disheveled silks and overly tousled hair. It does not take genius to see what is implied of her, by this false imagery, the touches and marks placed carelessly across her body. Recklessly. Save that you know that they were most assuredly placed there with purpose. How dare they. How dare they! Torture of the mind and soul along with the body, is it?! Of course it is, what else could you have imagined for the depravities of a sorceress that has aligned herself with the damned Prince of Darkness!?

Don't believe it, you try to howl through the soulbond, DON'T!

Then you receive a second shock, yet one that is an even greater balm and comfort than the first time you'd heard him speak defiance to the bitch.

I don't. I never did, not since they started.

Though you know it not, the rictus of rage and grief on your face mid-slumber has smoothed away into something of wistful wonder. It is for something else entirely that frozen droplets of tears gather within your helmet to rest against your lips and cheeks. The increasingly large spread of ice beneath your place of rest, growing thick and gnarled spiked roots and edges to reflect your state of mind and soul ceases to expand, and instead starts to ease into something more akin to a small snowdrift around you. All of it, all of the pain and anger and drowning fury and desperate grit slips from your grasp as you feel it, you feel the hand that wraps around yours, despite the distance and torture and everything else. All from hearing him. Not with your base, mortal ears, but with something altogether more powerful.

I…Frederick?

Yeah.

How?!

I don't know. She started giving me poisons yesterday, delivered by daemonic claw and pincer, things made by the stuff of the Cytharai, I think, plus Chaos.

Every word is like a warm summer's breeze, or perhaps a cooling autumnal gust that jostles the leaves along the ground. It is fresh baked warm bread, the sizzling scent of hot metal in the forge, the rustling of a blanket against bare skin in a comfortable bed. You are being refreshed from a parched state that you had not even quite realized you had been in. This goes beyond mere symbols and imagery and vague intentions, beyond the pulse of emotion and thought of before. Of what had ever even been promised by the ritual that Yhanna Sunweaver had brought to you, from the eldest lore of the elves. But you can't find it within yourself to question it overmuch, because you feel him like never before. You hear him. It is as if you are running ghostly fingers across his body, but even that is so much more than you could do before. If you truly have been projected so far, so powerfully, you feel yourself starting to strain to pull upon the Winds to put a spike of ice through Alyssa's eye, and yet cannot.

"You know," Frederick croaks out, to the false Natasha and Alyssa and the rest of their audience. "When I was a younger man, I helped my daughters play around with some of their mother's makeup."

The false Natasha tilts her head, while Alyssa's left eye begins to twitch.

"And even then, I was better at using that stuff than you are," he continues with a low wet chuckle, blood splattering from his lips to land against his own mutilated pectoral musculature exposed to the open air. "Would you like some tips?"

"I am-," it begins in what even you have to admit is an actually perfect rendition of your own voice in every aspect save for the awfulness in it aimed towards your husband.

"A bad copy by a bad actress," he interrupts…you…and spits to the side. "Now I know where she must have pulled you out of, probably one of the troupes out on the far outskirts of your precious Prince's little shitheap of a realm, huh? What did they call you, the Dregs of Disguise or something?"

Your own pale skin begins to split and then flake off as a daemonette glowers from beneath that outer layer.

"How dare you," it hisses as it stomps forward on feet that become hooves, and drives a clawed arm into his stomach, swirling about to mutilate his organs.

"GRAH!" Frederick roars in pain, and you scream with him, at the sight of it, at the rage you feel from it.

But you hold tight to him, you hold tight to your love, and despite the pain, he holds tight to you as well.

Tightly, do the two of you hold to each other's souls, and minds, and body in turn, and so Frederick actually manages to still himself despite the pain.

"I've had goblins hurt me worse than you. My own children, even," he growls bloody defiance at the daemonette. "And before, yesterday? I never got to tell you, you were too busy ripping out my teeth…but I knew then, too."

It takes a nearly godly effort for Frederick to try and arch upwards a bit, just to strain that far alone against the collar and spikes in him, but you feel yourself straining as well, odd phantom pangs starting to appear in your own body as you help him upright somehow that you don't even rightly understand.

"If you really were my wife, you'd know how to choke someone better, instead of like a child playing pretend. Maybe you should have spent another few thousand years in a trainee daemon brothel," he says with a curt laugh.

"INSOLENT MORTAL!" The daemonette shrieks, but you would swear you can hear actual outrage and offense in its voice.

Frederick…laughs.

And laughs.

And laughs.

(Excesses of Pain: 59+Frederick Trait[The Undaunted](25)+Natasha Trait[Unyielding](15)+Frederick Trait[Sigmar's Mein](10)+Natasha Trait[Tri-Scarred](15)+Frederick Trait[Robust Soul(20)+Natasha Trait[ By The Widow's Cruel But Motherly Embrace](15)+Unfathomable Soulbond(30)+Trained Tolerance(15)-Inhuman Expertise(15)-The Heights of Ecstatic Pain(35)-Endless Excruciation(15)-Daemonic Depravities(15)-Uncorked And Unleashed(15)= 109/100)

"Natasha?" Johanna's voice breaks through, and you blink, and suddenly you realize where you are.

Where you really are, that is. You are deep within the slave tunnels, surrounded by a rapidly receding patch of ice and snow. The vampire looks you up and down, an uncertain look on her face. Which is entirely understandable given that you are smiling. A wide smile is on your face, and given everything up until now, everything she's seen, and the situation in general, it is no doubt a bit disturbing for her to see it on your face as you empty your helmet of joyous frozen tears. Around you, in the distance, you can see others starting to form up in loose mobs as Roland, the Whitewings, Sadrina, Kerillian, and all the others are already up. Is it better to wake up after many of the others rather than waking hours earlier and being exhausted? Difficult to say. Either way, you can't help the buzzing energy in your body, the joy, tempered as it is by the pain being suffered by your love. Because you can feel it like never before, but so can he feel you.

Are you okay? You can't help but ask the desperate question, wondering if the exhaustion and stress has broken something vital in you.

Strictly speaking the answer is no. The sensation of his voice in your soul makes you shiver happily, even if the tone could be a bit less dry and strained.

"I'm okay," you inform Johanna. "Better than fine, in fact."

The vampire's eyebrows creep towards her forehead before she nods slowly.

"…all right, sure," she says. "Got it. Are you ready?"

A wolfish smile appears on your lips.

"Absolutely," you say before reaching out a hand for her to help you stand, the vampire falling in behind you to your left as you approach your milling about warband.

"Lady Natasha," you are greeted in stuttered fashion from some, 'Lady Hohenzollern' by others, a mixture between the various Old Worlders who had been part of the band already and those who have more recently joined up.

Kerillian, on the other hand, inclines her head to you and murmurs the name by which the Asrai and Eonir know you.

"Today, our goal is two-fold," you raise one hand high, the other gripped tightly around the hilt of your sword in its sheathe. "First, of our newest arrivals, I would not have them be as mere unarmed chaff. So it's time we arm them. How lucky for us that the Druchii have produced so much equipment for us to plunder from them in turn."

A few tentative hoots and cheers answer you, while others are more grim in their nods.

"Second, we strike a blow straight into the Druchii's chest, and tear them apart as they mill about one of the arenas. Might as well see what gladiators there might still be there to aid us," you add.

That gets a more positive reaction from many. After all, if there's any slave on the Ark that should be best at fighting, it would be the ones who have to do just that simply to survive rather than act as simple labor.

"And if there aren't any left…then we'll avenge them just the same," you add, which gets a louder ring of cheers from most.

The Asur look particularly enlivened by the prospect of killing the Druchii in particular, a darkly ironic fact given that Kerillian's stolen Witch Elves share this with them, both of which groups contrast notably from those who have readily formed up behind Roland and the Whitewings that seem eager to free others and add to your numbers. As long as they're willing to fight, and willing to go and kill where you order them, you don't particularly care. Though, for the first time since such sorts of thoughts have percolated through your mind, you can feel a slight bit of distracted surprise from your husband, who has never before now heard your thoughts in as crystal-clear clarity. But before you can begin offering hasty but honest justification that hesitation and weakness cannot possibly exist here, you can practically see him shaking his head and a smile that surely does not exist on his lips as some kind of sensitivity boosting oil is being slathered over a thousand separate cuts being inflicted on his body.

In a time and place like this, ruthlessness is nothing to be ashamed of. All my love, forever.

It's a good thing you've slid your helm closed now as you begin to march out through the tunnels, or the sudden arrival of tears so hot it takes them a second to freeze properly would likely not communicate the right image for your leadership to the warband. Of course he understands. The stress of the situation is clearly getting to you that you would for a second think he wouldn't.

Forever.

The call and response burns in your heart, a cold flame that feels brighter and stronger than Ulric's in Middenheim, and you straighten as you march, listening to the reports of the slaves as scouts and conversation ripple across the warband as you move. Much of your information comes from slaves that have not joined up in a militant manner, those who have spent decades on the Ark and cannot quite believe that things won't go back to normal eventually but are brave enough to speak as to what they've seen. Other reports come from Johanna, who as befitting her nature ventured out in the night to see what she could see, and hear what she could hear, all without actually leaving the depths of the slave tunnels entirely. Because as expected, there are quite a few entrances leading up towards the docklands of the Ark, all to help facilitate all the hard physical labor that slaves would be needed for, warehouses and the like.

Or, as some slaves mutter angrily, practice for corsairs to test themselves on before setting out for their pillaging trips.

Your armor of Ledstali is more than welcome as you move, layers of additional ice creeping over it to disguise the minute twitches you have now that you know so much more intimately what is happening to Frederick.

Luckily, the morning is just barely breaking, and there will be plenty of Druchii for you to exercise yourself against by now.

(Blood And Salt: 42+Band of Heroes(35)+Anger of the Asur(20)+Bravery of Bretonnia(15)+Whetted Witch Elves(10)+Fervent Freedmen(10)+Invigorated Soul(5)-Fractious Fellowship(5)-Vulnerable Volunteers(10)-Docklands Outer Patrols(15)-Dominated District(20)=87/100)

"Must be fucking maddening to live down here, in these areas especially," Johanna mutters as you march.

"How's that?" You ask without turning your head.

"Smell of the brine, crash of the waves in their ears, sights and sounds of freedom beckoning just a short way away," she answers curtly, clucking her tongue. "And instead, it's where all the new slaves are dropped off at, where the raiders leave from."

You don't quite understand what she means until a minute or two later, when you do indeed once more begin to smell the sea. Though you never spent that much time in Erengrad compared to the capital of Kislev, and Wulfenburg may have a river, you've been in Salkalten now and again over the years. But here, in the depths, you see far more slaves than you've seen in other areas, burlier than others even as likely enough because of the labor required of them. But at the same time there is a paradoxical look of absolute helplessness in their eyes. Something learned over long, hard years. Some animal instinct, some unconscious urge, must keep them here, in this place, just waiting for the call of a master that might draw them up into the open air along the dockyards. The mind, the soul, appears to have outright given up, but it is the body that urges them to huddle in great crowds in the slave tunnels. Hands over their knees, slumped against the walls, some of them clearly dehydrated and starving without regularly doled out supplies from the Druchii who are so distracted with their own matters. Unlike in other locations, your presence and that of the warband does not result in the usual two reactions of cheering and furtive acknowledgement nor the screaming and fleeing at those who invite punishment from their enslavers.

They simply watch you, blinking dully, as you pass.

Ah…there's the old rage you'd felt just a few hours before, burning back up inside you again.

Though it finds itself soothed, ever so slightly, as Frederick speaks to you again, perhaps as one more way to keep himself from focusing upon the sheer immense pain the torture is inflicting upon him.

Poor bastards. What's your plan here? He is trying, trying so hard, to sound casual, but it still reaches the ears of your soul with gritted teeth and strain.

See if we can inspire some of them, failing that, we can't save them all. We're here to arm those who have found the spirit to join us already. You send back, rolling your shoulders as you reach the stairs and ascend them.

When you shove the doors open this time, there is a momentary halt to all as you pause, staring at Druchii who are currently already walking past. Some of them are dressed in the armor of the corsairs, others more appropriate to dreadspears and bleakswords, but there is a surprising number that look far less well armed and armored. Instead, they wear clothing that is at once still clearly of the high quality of elven craftsmanship yet is also meant for actual labor and working. Toolbelts hang from their waists, where peg and hammer and nail and so much more rest. Iron talismans and markers bearing the symbol of the Cytharai Mathlann are on their necks. They spin about to face your group as you open the doors, and for a brief moment there is stunned silence and shock on both sides.

It lasts less than a second, as there are too many on each side who react with inhuman speeds and monstrous aggression. A cold barrier of wind blocks the first shots of their repeating crossbows, yet accelerates the bolts of your own weaponry. The guandao of Johanna flashes forward like a shot from a bolt thrower once more, Aqshy erupting upon fiery concussive impact. By the time that the Druchii are already recovering, Kerillian is amongst them, swinging about the First Draich to behead and bisect in bloody blurs. Roland crashes into them as a boulder, overrunning several of the Druchii by the time that everyone else catches up, yourself included. How many decades, how many centuries, are cut short in this single instant? More than Kislev as it is now has ever existed, surely, and yet you find only cold satisfaction in their deaths.

"Gather up their equipment," you order, glancing back at the eager but nervous looking mob of freedmen and freedwomen that are still dressed in little more than their rags.

Protecting them, keeping them back, especially those who look just about crazy enough to qualify as flagellants if given the opportunity, is not going to be the easiest thing. But neither would be trying to drag back an entire armory all the way through the docklands and tunnels to reach them again.

"Alas, it seems that even were we to try and steal away on a ship, it would be difficult indeed to reach them," Sadrina speaks up, but you can tell in an instant she's not really talking to you.

Instead, there are a number of the Asur with consternation on their faces as she points out the obvious with one slender finger. She's not wrong, of course, but you get the feeling that she wishes to conclude an argument that has been ongoing without your participation for some time. The docklands are vast, they stretch across practically the whole length of the Ark from one end to the other. But there are not ships everywhere for you to see as there no doubt normally would be. There are more than a hundred individual berths that are completely and utterly empty of the ships that would be serviced there. Instead, you can see clear across the slightly churning waters to the high walls that form the outer rim of the Black Ark, as well as what looks like a pair of gargantuan gates though any finer detail requires greater visual acuity than you can possess. To the eastern side, there is something that looks distinctly crumbled, however, and repaired at speed, the difference nonetheless discernable even from here. That, then, is assuredly how the ships led by the Matriarch and that mad Slayer Pirate got through. What it must have taken them to pull that off, you don't know. Must have been quite a show, given you can see the cracks from here even with masterful elven craft trying to patch it up.

Most importantly, though, is that you while you can see ships, they are all within what looks like a fortified miniature port settlement within the docklands. Heavily fortified walls, bolt throwers all over it, and of course, as befitting every other major temple you've seen on this damned Ark, a humongous statue of who you presume to be Mathlann standing tall and triumphant facing the open water rather than the rest of the Claw of Dominion. Similar to the Temple of Atharti, save that this one is quite clearly not being besieged. Because of the bond…changing, or mutating, or whatever has happened to it, you also know why. The Cult of Mathlann decided to switch sides without fighting to better focus on themselves and their own efforts. Good for them. It just means that when your warband grows stronger, and Alyssa is dead, and Frederick freed, you'll have to break the gates of the temple open to get to the ships to escape on.

"Good thing we're not here for that, not this time," you call out, rather pointedly turning your head to look towards your actual destination, a series of buildings nestled amongst the warehouses and stockyards that are of a particularly military bent.

"Indeed," Sadrina agrees without looking at the few belligerent Asur behind her who eventually grit their teeth and start following once more.

You can feel something sarcastic coming from Frederick but before he can actually formulate the proper thought, you stutter-step as you walk as you feel him become violently unmanned with monstrous brutality.

Frederick!

We have multiple grandchildren, it's…fine! The voice in your head is a half-strangled scream.

"I can hear your heart starting to speed up, smell the anger spicing your blood," Johanna says casually as she strides along with you. "Something…gone wrong?"

"The bond I have with Frederick," you growl back at her, waving your freehand through the air leaving a trail of frost in the air. "They're…hurting him."

"Ah," she says, and politely, speaks no more than that.

"Let's find some Druchii to fucking kill," you snarl.

(Blood And Salt: 61+35+20+15+10+10+10+5-5-10-Docklands Patrols(20)-20=101/100)

You meet two more Druchii on your way to the armories, the place that the slaves have spoken of seeing time and again seeing Druchii enter in regular clothing and leave covered in arms and armor befitting true corsairs. The first group is a mixture of daemonettes and Slaaneshi troops, who still maintain some semblance of the equipment they were afforded when pretending to be regular Druchii, but there are some obvious changes here and there. For one, a steadily increasing amount of fleshy growths and connections between their weaponry and their arms, a few fusing together outright, while their armor has begun to shift shape and color and even texture. Elves are not nearly as prone to mutation as humanity, you know that for certain, but it seems that when it comes time for accepting 'gifts' from Slaanesh the rules are liable to change. For all of that, however, it does not save them from your warband as you freeze many of their feet in the ground, fill many full of crossbow bolts, and simply hack down the rest. Some of your freed slave allies look ready to take up some of their gear before you forbid it – these ones are far too tainted for you to trust that some beaten down ex-slave would be possessed of the will enough to wield them without being tainted in turn.

The second group is potentially far more dangerous than the first, given that these are cold one knights, still bearing a noble banner that is identified to you by some of the slaves as that of House Direblaze, one of the first to bend the knee. They come rushing out of the streets and alleys that make up the dockyards, presumably responding to the loss of the first two patrolling groups, and against a regular assembly of regular infantry that would have spelled almost certain doom given the speed they're going. Unfortunately for them, you had a vampire and several elves with particularly good hearing, and so have set up for them by the time they charge out towards you. What could have been a devastating ambush is turned against them as you use up scavenged nets meant for use on the ships, ice walls, spikes, volleys of crossbow bolts, and a bit of countercharging on behalf of Johanna. These, you strip happily and eagerly, heavier armor and weaponry a great boon for the burlier members of your freedmen. Part of you contemplates butchering the cold ones, but only for a moment. They smell too awful to even possibly be palatable. Or not poisonous.

(Blood And Salt: 50+35+20+15+10+10+10+5-5-10-Armory Guards(25)-20=75/100)

As expected, the armories for the corsairs are still protected. It doesn't matter that most of the corsairs are, as far as you know, dead after being deployed to Nordland and Salkalten and not returning. It is still a place of strategic importance, and whatever else Alyssa is, she isn't so far gone as to neglect everything entirely. Or, in this case, those swearing allegiance to her are not so forgetful as to leave a place like this completely unguarded. Given the docklands are the purview of the Cult of Mathlann, it seems that Alyssa is relying upon them to keep such defenses up, or at least the bulk of it. You see no daemonettes strutting back and forth as you approach the armory, no disgustingly tantalizing scents and repugnant sounds brought forth from the Realm of Chaos. Instead, it is Druchii that are ready for war, and have clearly some inkling of your coming. They are relatively lightly equipped, all things considered, at least compared to the knights, but that hardly matters to you. All that matters is that they die, and die they do.

This time, Kerillian outright disappears, as does Johanna, only for both to reappear after what had to have been some daring feats of scaling to get over the short walls and start the carnage early. Distracted as they are by the two murderous killers, they cannot stop the rest of you from advancing, least of all when you make sure to form a ramp of ice and crunching frost that provides sufficient traction for your warband to get over the walls quickly. Blades flash, and there is even a little bit of cries out to Khaine from the Witch Elves and Asuryan or Isha from the Asur. For many of the others, they call out to various gods of the Old World, and you do not miss how there are quite a few whispering for Ranald to keep favoring them as they fight. If anything, however, you have to end up spending more effort protecting the mob of those less fortunately equipped, often having to pause and create short half-domes of cold winds to keep them from dying to crossbow bolts, or in one case a wall to stop a few charging Druchii from slaughtering them. Some fall regardless, even then, and you see some of the Bretonnians fall to the murderous prowess of the foe as well.

You do not have the privilege of claiming to have killed the captain in charge of the defense, instead that goes to Sadrina, who confronted the Mathlann cultist and swiftly brought him down in close combat.

Still.

For all that you've killed, and killed well, you have lost more time than blood, and yet you almost find yourself wishing to switch that exchange. Especially because what comes next, after unlocking the gates, is the hastiest heist you've participated in yet. Just as you all suspected, and the Asur alluded to, just because the corsairs sailed out doesn't mean that the armory would be empty. After all, they would need replacement gear in case of damage or loss for one reason or another to equipment. It is not the same as something bursting at the seams, but it is more than enough to equip your freedmen with new gear. Yes, none of them are nearly as practiced or skilled with the deadly blades of a Black Ark Corsair, but a blade that cuts is a blade that cuts, and more importantly they're wearing more than just rags now. Corsair armor is lighter than that of knights, but even light elven armor is a substantial upgrade. Plus, when it comes to repeating hand crossbows, it's really not that hard to figure out how to reload and pull the trigger. The latter which is why you end up dragging whole barrels of replacement bolts with you as you turn about to leave, cursing at the movement of the sun in the sky.

Your warband's strength is magnified by this new equipment for your swollen numbers despite the casualties, and yet time's passage is its own cost that you will have to discover.

"Which arena should we strike?" Kerillian asks, bobbing in place slightly, eyes slightly manic after all the bloodshed and the feeding of the First Draich which bounces on her shoulder.

"The Ring of Gore is far too far away for us to strike, not to mention it's closeness to one of the pyramids and the tower," Roland says, frowning.

"Just means more targets," Kerillian snorts, but you shake your head.

"No, Sir Roland is correct, we'd also have to try and hope that reinforcements would not arrive from the denser areas of the Ark, not to mention the Tor of Dominance," you point out, rubbing at your jaw, reviewing what you know and the whispers that Frederick is able to send you admidst his torture. "The Path of Glory is somewhat closer, but as to the prisoners it might actually possess…,"

"Questions of Pain are for connoisseurs, but not the masses," Sadrina says, whole beautiful face twisted with sheer disgust, a look shared by many of those Asur who appear to be in the know. "I have little doubt there would be some prisoners for us to rescue, but as to their state..,"

"On the other hand, the Crimson Thorn has a lot of beasts, and some Lizardmen, maybe. But it's also that much more locked down by Alyssan loyalists," Johanna shrugs. "Either one will have people to free."

"It's not just about freeing people, it's about killing Druchii," Jaqueline angrily adds in, bloodshot eyes darting about. "Let's just go to the closer arena, kill the Druchii there, save who we can. Better than trying to trek all the way west or south, get caught up by nonsense in the meantime."

(Arena Choice: 1d3=3)

You glance around the rest of your warband's leadership, but you can see that the decision has largely been made with that statement alone. It's not one you find yourself disagreeing with overmuch either. Yes, it's not possibly the absolute best place to rescue the most capable of slaves, but killing more Alyssan loyalists is valuable plenty in its own way too. Plus, if you really think about it, the entire concept the arena is that much crueler and more monstrous in its own personal way, and the thought of damaging it and its masters appeals to you. To be fair, of course, killing every single Druchii on this Ark appeals to you, but this will have to do.

"Then let's get moving. Time to test your new weapons!" You call out to the newly equipped ex-slaves, and now that they aren't covered in rags and wielding a broken plank of wood for every three of them, they are far more excited and cheer loudly at your words.

Good.

I hope she sees this place burning from up there.

She seems…a bit…distracted…sorry…

Damn it.

Don't worry, love…it's…the thought…that counts…

Back through the docklands and into the tunnels you all go. Your warband is stronger now, but not so strong that you can leisurely waltz across the entire surface of the Ark just to get to your target.

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

It was a beautiful day in Wulfenburg, the cold drafts of a lingering winter finally departing with an almost cheerful and certainly invigorating breeze for many. So it was that Natasha von Hohenzollern, though most often known simply as Tasha, found her mother Anna von Hohenzollern along the battlements, reading a book while leaning against the crenelations. The Master Engineer's mohawk did not move in the breeze, so stiffened as it was with pig grease and other unguents, a clear contrast to Tasha's own blonde hair whipping about as she walked along. A short unfeeling flick of the eyes sighted her and then returned to the thick book; a few clawed anchor weights of custom design latched around the binding to keep it from flying away even in the wind. Out beyond them, the city bustled about its business, but there was a furtive tightness to it all. The threaded lines of movement were swifter than usual. The gleaming metal of the militia was visible as they patrolled the walls and streets that much more carefully and openly. It was difficult to miss the shifting of a number of cannons and shot being hauled up the steps as well.

"Daughter," came the flat statement and question both.

"Mother," Tasha curtsied politely. "The rest of the council is preparing to meet; you asked for me to remind you so that you can take up your position properly when they were almost ready."

"Ah," Anna declared aloud, unblinking as she continued reading. "My thanks, daughter."

Tasha nodded and remained as perfectly still as her mother, so many years spent in replication and mirroring resulting in both of them looking like statues save for the slightest of breaths. This went on for another minute or so before finally Anna closed the book and turned to face her daughter, not a hint of love or hate in her eyes. Only cold apathy, that with which she gazed out upon all the world no matter the subject. Yet for all of that, Tasha could see, older and wiser now with a whole decade of life under her belt, the clicking calculations there. Like an abacus sliding back and forth, the gears within a mechanism turning, the flipping of pages through a tome, she watched her mother select a mental model for their interaction. Though Tasha was young yet, she could not help but thank the Gods that Anna von Hohenzollern had lived life so vivaciously and fully while she could, and knew love and kindness even if she had to refer back to as instructions rather than anything she could feel herself.

"Are you well? Have you eaten?" She asked, walking along with mechanical precision, Tasha falling in behind her.

"I am nominal, and have eaten a lighter breakfast," Tasha answered, attention glancing around before centering upon the enormous tree in the courtyard. "May I inquire as to what you were reading with such intent?"

"A history, one as stripped of bias as possible by a Verenan scholar, who was later murdered for said insistence on objectivity by some of the subjects of his writings," Anna said, holding up the book and offering it to Tasha to take. "In this case, of the razing of Hochland by Gorthor the Cruel, and the defense of it by the Count Ludenhof at the time."

Tasha did not answer immediately, instead running her hand along the fine leather binding.

"I do not know much about that, but I've heard some whispers and stories," Tasha said, feeling the sheer heft of the book. "…should I be concerned?"

"Not yet. It is a precaution," Anna shrugged as they walked. "That is all. With Arthur remaining in Salkalten and Magnus along with Uncle Urgdug in Talabecland, the defense of the south and west of the province remains my duty."

Duty.

Delivered with as much cold calculation as her mother performed engineering, as her mother instructed.

As her mother killed.

"Duty," Tasha echoed quietly.

==========================================================


​

If Sabine could see the Path of Glory she would no doubt feel terribly infantilized with regards to her fighting league and the pits they've been constructing across the province. Whereas even the greatest of the fighting pits that she has been able to construct is a madhouse of violence and gambling, compared to one of the vast arenas of the Druchii it looks like a child's dollhouse. The sheer scope of the thing is gigantic, larger than a castle several times over, for all that the center of it is nominally hollow and empty. A temple estate all its own, save that it serves no one God in particular amongst the Cytharai. Not even Khaine. There are statues of all the Cytharai along the outer edges of the black stone and metal, though you can see that at least two of them have been purposefully torn down. There are the beginnings of new stonework coming to replace it, and you now exactly what God is meant to be represented upon completion. Humongous banners representing Alyssa's personal sigil, as well as others, have been strewn about the place.

"…yeah we're not burning that down, not without flame cannons, warpfire throwers, or a lot more time and power than I've got over Aqshy," Johanna grunts as your warband stares the edifice down as you emerge from the slave tunnels once more in the streets near one of the entrances.

She's not wrong.

You'd probably need a vast multitude of Bright College Magisters to set this place alight in any respect, too much of it metal and stone otherwise.

"We'll have to do what we can, then," you mutter, scrutinizing the place with your Witch Sight. "A lot of magic was used here, recently."

Pretty much all of it Dhar, and that tainted with the particularly disgusting hues of magic cast through the lens of Slaanesh, too.

"Sorceresses?" Sadrina asks sharply, already scanning the arena's outer defenses.

"Probably at least one or two, or failing that, some extra summoned daemons, maybe a priest or priestess," you grunt. "Are we all up for that?"

"Guess we'll find out," Jaqueline mutters. "We have many more troops than before, if we can take off pressure for you and the vampire, give you a better chance to fight undistracted?"

"Sounds good to me," you nod, running your tongue over your teeth for a moment as you think.

Careful, love…

You send a kiss back through the bond that you know Frederick feels quite clearly despite his lips currently having been burned off.

"Kerillian?" You ask, and from the shadows, the murderous Asrai emerges, what bared skin she has paler than it was yesterday, darker shadows under and within her eyes.

The outer edge of the Asrai's body flickers and fuzzes over, out of focus despite you staring straight at her. You know not what spell was cast upon her by Johanna, something of Cathayan origin apparently, but it seems to have some mild effect at least.

It's strange, seeing her now. Frederick's thoughts come through pained, but clear all the same.

Did we not send her off to the Far East with the hope that she would be more than just another monster? You reply, thought-fast even as the Asrai begins to open her mouth.

We did. I also thought that being a vampire meant she would look the same.

Which, admittedly, she does not.

You really do need to learn what she has been up to since you last saw her properly, but that is for a later time.

(Scouting Attempt: 44+Centuries Old Waywatcher(15)+God of Murder's Favor(10)+Cathayan Shadow Arts(5)=74/100)

"Better than I feared," Kerillian says with a sniff, a few trickles of fresh blood evident on the First Draich that rests on her shoulder, slathering a bit of red into the already dark fabric. "Worse than I hoped. Got close enough to pick off some sentries, but nothing to really sabotage or destroy, no superb distractions possible."

Some, she says. If you didn't know what she was starting to consider a good number of kills in a fight that might have made you concerned. What she really means by 'some' is enough dead that it would empty an entire tavern at a minimum.

"And entry points?" You press her, glaring past at the arena itself.

"One sizable one," she snorts, "Big enough for all the crowds to mill through when the arena's active. Also, the most heavily guarded, got plenty of defenses, and at least one bolt thrower fit for firing into crowds. Did find a few smaller ways though, enough to let a few in at a time, might make things easier for us to get in at least."

"Their leadership?"

At that, Kerillian grins, or at least you think she does behind the mask covering most of her face.

"Heard a few things," she says as she leans in, one eyebrow quirking. "Lot of sorceresses came to this place, earlier, apparently tore out a few 'special prizes' out of the pits and used them as sacrifices to help open up a new portal."

Curses blurt out all around you in a variety of languages, only some of them you speak.

"Then they left, mostly," Kerillian speaks louder, quieting the crowding warband. "They left one behind, though, to keep an eye on things, at least for now. Portal's still less stable, less powerful than the big one."

"Priestesses, devotees?" You ask quickly, and Kerillian just give you a look.

"What do you think, Larhathalumalav?" She asks, one eyebrow raising high.

"Fair enough," you sigh, shaking your head. "We'll have to chance it. Can't let them open up a second way to draw in reinforcements. Let's get moving."

There's no way you'd throw your warband straight into the grinder outright if there's a more favorable path, that'd be stupid and wasteful besides. Thank goodness you don't have to, because you've got an Asrai too curious for her own good and the stealth of centuries of experience on her side. Or at least one. It's hard to tell with elves, let alone ones who wander around in sentient forests where time doesn't have the good sense to work properly. It's possible that Johanna could have done the job as well, but for better or for worse the vampire seems to want to stick closer to your side. Personally, you hope it's definitely just the old friendship she established once upon a time with Frederick and yourself in the decades long past, and not because she seems particularly curious about your blood or anything so crude.

Either way, this time around, you all end up following Kerillian and the Witch Elves as they guide you around towards another entrance rather than the front. It's not the rear, not technically, given that the damned thing is a big spike covered circle, but it's clear that this is a far less used and far less guarded passage. The Druchii present are definitely on the alert, not relaxing in the slightest which you had somewhat hoped for given Slaaneshi inclinations on intoxicants and the like, but then, these don't actually appear to be Slaaneshi. The sigils they bear are unfamiliar to you, but Verena knows how many different powerful families of Druchii there are on this Ark. Cruelbarb is dead, torn apart by Alyssan forces, and there's no sign of his family anywhere either. New owners of the arena, or just loaned troops working under their new chosen master?

In the end, it doesn't really matter.

They're Druchii, and they've made their choice.

(Big Warband, Small Passage: 36+Band of Heroes(35)+Anger of the Asur(20)+Bravery of Bretonnia(15)+Whetted Witch Elves(10)+Fervent Ferocious Freedmen(25)+Invigorated Soul(5)+Good Scouting(10)-Fractious Fellowship(5)-Disciplined Druchii(10)-Dominated District(20)=121/100)

They are disciplined, well equipped, on the alert, and no doubt have decades to centuries of experience under their belts across the whole of the world ravaging this or that coastline and nation.

They are also outnumbered horrendously, and face foes that are able to confound their senses with Ulgu, burn them with Aqshy, cleave them apart with either the gargantuan gromril sword Durandal or the First Draich itself, and are frozen in place by the legs and kept from screaming with their lips sealed shut with ice before they can begin to scream. The sheer amount of violence unleashed on them by the freedmen newly equipped from the corsair armories is extensive, and in less than sixty seconds, every single one of the Druchii guarding the passage into the arena are dead. Despite their armor, finely made enough as it is, it simply couldn't stand up to that many people swarming over them with weapons of equal or greater quality. You are through the doors just as quickly, and happen to run into a second group of Druchii on the other side who had just begun to ready themselves to charge through given the sound of fighting, some form of second shift or the like. They are fallen upon just like the first group, and quite simply torn apart, rolled over and crushed beneath your boots just as those standing in front of a vapor tank would suffer.

The last Druchii, trying to warn someone, anyone, fails to get more than ten feet away before Johanna leaps upon him like an animal and rips his throat out, blood coating her front as she drinks him to death.

"What?" She asks as a good deal of the warband stares at her. "You still need to eat and drink too, don't you? Didn't see any of you volunteering to feed me," she says with a low, guttural growl.

Out of everyone, only the Witch Elves seem even somewhat approving.

"Handmaiden," you hear one Asur whisper to Sadrina before they lower their volume past your ability to hear.

"Stealth helped us get this far, but there's no chance we get to the portal before they notice. They probably heard all of this besides," you call out, drawing attention off of the vampire. "Let's go ruin the day of one of the Dark Gods and some Druchii as well!"

"I agree. Let us bring some small measure of justice and good to this place by cleansing it of evil!" Roland says, raising his blade, and with that you are off once more.

And not a moment too soon, as you can hear a few distant shouts and the sounds of boots on stone.

"Aye, back to the killing," Kerillian murmurs as she shifts her stance. "And remember," she says to one of the Witch Elves, "If you were lying to us about the layout of this place, I'll kill you slow."

"I did not lie, Chosen, I swear to you," the Witch Elf says fervently, a frankly surprising amount of devotion in her eyes as she bows low at the waist. "I cannot speak as to the depths where the prisoners are stored, but we ventured upper levels aplenty in my youth."

You are not blind to the fact that the training habits of the Hohenzollerns are not even somewhat normal by most people's standards. But you do think there is something to be said about the fact that you did not bring your children or grandchildren to exhibition matches constantly ending in executions and mutilations of enslaved innocents as they were growing up. Something you become only all the more certain of as you begin to run through the backrooms of this place, even more so as you burst out into the actual main hallways meant for the arena attendees to utilize. There are apparently even some spaces meant to provide food and drink at cost, much as can be provided at the opera and the like, though these kitchens go unstaffed right now. An aspect that Sabine's league shares in her own pits, miniscule as they might seem in comparison. In the end, that is not what draws your attention the most, but rather something else altogether. There is statuary, plinths and the like, as well as carvings glorifying the carnage and pain of others throughout this place, set on plinths, mosaics made of what you hope is only stone and paint, and more. Scenes of death. Scenes of pain. All show off Druchii cruelty and superiority in a variety of situations over the other races of the world.

More than one involves children, where one alone would be too many.

It is horrifying and disgusting.

Almost overwhelmingly so.

Frederick doesn't even bother with words, you can feel your love's disgust and rage battling for dominance, each of them stronger still than the pain the torture is inflicting upon him.

"Don't you dare look away now," you hiss out, seeing some of the warband ducking their gazes, disgust and distaste on their faces. "Don't you dare! This, this is what we have come to destroy, to desecrate! Don't give them the satisfaction!"

"Look upon that which lies around us, and know in your heart that what we do is righteous," Sadrina adds, her voice tight but melodious all the same.

"Too long has this foul place gone without the touch of justice, let it no longer be so, as we act now in the name of the innocent and of justice!" Roland intones darkly.

"Let's make some new artwork out of their dead," Kerillian sneers.

(Furious Inspiration: 54+35+Fury of the Freed(10)-Dread and Disgust(10)=89/100)
(Within The Arena: 72+35+20+15+10+25+5+5+Highly Emboldened By Leadership(10)-5-Arena Occupiers(15)-20=157/100)

A group of Druchii accompanied by daemonettes bursts through a set of doors ahead of you and without hesitation orient upon your warband. Without hesitation, they begin their charge with battle cries that are met with a wild screaming rebuttal so powerful it seems to shock even the daemons.

They do not last even a handful of minutes against your warband.

Not even one minute.

Roland is a vapor tank of a human being, and in his bloody wake come the furious and the vengeful. Kerillian's usage of the First Draich acts more like a reaper over grain than a mere fight, killing so quickly and savagely that the Asrai seems to disappear beneath the layers of blood. Johanna is much the same, but the sweeps of her guandao are as much sheer bludgeoning force as they are cutting with the blade, shattering bones like twigs beneath her inhuman power. Sadrina is a supreme combatant even amongst all her fellow Asur, tearing through the Druchii without a single iota of waste in any movement. You, yourself, are as vicious as a Frostfiend, a transformation that you could actually perform if you had the inclination for it, but your sword and the Grace of the Widow proves more than enough whilst accompanied by everyone else. It does not matter that these are Druchii and that there are daemons, inhumanly skilled, strong, and dangerous.

They cannot withstand you.

Not them, nor the next group you run into as you start to descend from merely the hallways meant for the attendees of the arena to walk and further towards the actual grounds of the arena proper. It is possible that the newly created portal could have been created in the lower depths, where the remaining prisoners and gladiators must be. It is surely stained by despair and evil down there. But the arena grounds themselves, where the exhibitions and matches are done, would be the best grounds given the death which has happened there for so long. Indeed, the Winds are clearly being drawn in that direction from all around you, something you must contest whenever you draw upon them as well as others in your warband. Not to mention, you can see the stains of Slaaneshi corruption already beginning to set in as you descend through the myriad passageways and down staircases back into areas that are clearly meant for the Druchii staff and guards of the arena and not the audience. The black stone beginning to take on newer coloration, tendrils of pink-purple and other strange hues spreading like a fungus across wood.

So fast is your pace, so absolute the violence you inflict, that only a few scattered patrols are even able to move to intercept you and of those that do they die swiftly.

"They think to stop us! They cannot!" Roland booms out.

"Just a bit further!" Sadrina cajoles with anger blazing in her eyes.

Finally, you emerge back out into the open air once more, your attention unerringly brought to bear upon a scintillating portal into the Realm of Chaos itself which sits in the center of the gigantic arena floor. Here, in the stands where thousands upon thousands of Druchii could fill, and have in the past, you can see it fully. They couldn't summon it forth in a place of such immense spiritual significance to be arrested and stolen away like the Temple of Khaine, but they've certainly done their best here to make up for that with those they sacrificed to bring it into being. Such is the burning anger amongst the whole of your troops that you do not hear a single retching cough, nor a fearful murmur. Only anger, only fury, at what has been done even in the face of a tear into a place of utter monstrous madness, guarded by hosts of daemonettes of which more are arriving through the portal even as you look upon it. A number of especially devoted elven cultists are present as well, wielding weapons of daemonic flesh and tainted metal with glowing tattoos and brands filled with the blessings of Slaanesh, including one that is clearly a priestess of some sort. Standing at the forefront, staff raised, disdain across an undeniably beautiful face, is a sorceress surrounded by a shield of Chaos energies as she works to keep the portal stable.

A portal built upon desecration and violation.

Six ogres of prodigious size have been disemboweled, the highly compressed innards of their guts spooled outwards and woven back together to create standing totems of Slaanesh to form the outer points of the portal's anchoring into the material realm. Visible cables of Chaos energies flow from each of the totems to the unmoored circles of flesh and skin that float in the center to form the actual 'portal' itself, while a literal carpet of bodies made up of different beings covers the ground between each dead ogre. Some are elves, some halflings, some human, some beastmen, some dwarfs, some even reptilian yet bipedal, all flayed with their skin melted together to form the aforementioned carpet whilst their bones and innards rest beneath as a foundation. Some kind of twisted and now shattered machine lays at the direct center, forming what almost looks like a cradle for the now floating rings of the portal above. Despite its clear destruction, you would almost swear it looks like a bull, if it were mechanical and tainted by Chaos. The sorceress herself channels while atop what you realize is a still living group of human beings – or at least, they somewhat appear to be. They are mutated, terribly, with three heads sticking out of one overbroad torso with multiple limbs sprouting in all directions, the body mass enough to form a makeshift palanquin, but the heads themselves have expressions only of agony.

"There you are…," you growl. "Kill them all!"

"Blasphemous little miscreants, begone from this place!" One of the daemonettes screeches as your warband continues to emerge behind you.

That they had some inkling of your coming is obvious by the spread of their forces.

They could not have known you would get here so quickly, and it shows in their lack of major defenses and the tenuousness of the portal's stability in the first place. Oh, it's functioning well enough at the moment, but you can see the way the Winds tremble and shiver as they are swallowed and bound into the ritual working. All the way across the Ark, no matter where you are, you can see as how the Winds are definitively being drawn towards different points such as the Anchorstones, the Tor of Dominance, the overtaken Temple of Khaine, the resisting Temple of Atharti, and more. Steady, continuous, a connection with the Aethyric Net of the Claw of Dominion that this portal does not yet fully possess. Without the active attention of the sorceress and the presence of the cultists it would collapse.

Something you intend to ensure comes to pass.

"Let's go!" You cry out before with a wave of your hand create a slope of textured ice and snow so that you can descend from the stands to the floor without having to just leap and potentially break your legs.

(The Path of Glory: 28+35+20+15+10+25+5+5+10-5-Unprepared Portal Defenders(20)-20-Exalted Defenders(10)=98/100)

Calls go up as your warband storms down to the arena floor and the daemons and Druchii move to stop them. Some beseech the Lady of the Lake to watch over them. Others to Sigmar. To Ulric. To Ranald. To Taal. To Rhya of all Goddesses, from Johanna's mouth. To even some Gods you do not know at all, spoken of by those from beyond the Old World. Asuryan and Isha feature highest amongst the Asur, but there are some who call out to other Cadai. Some roar only of the Empire, and need nothing more than that place which they called home. Few are as loud as Kerillian herself, screaming Khaine's name as she rushes forward, the murderous red glow surrounding the First Draich seeming to extend and surround her as well until she is fully enveloped in it. But of course, before all of it, the crossbows fire. Untrained as they might be, clumsy and sweaty in their hands, the sheer volume launched by the freedmen is a rapid moving cloud of death that reaches out to touch the enemy multiple times before impact.

Then you are slamming right into the daemonettes, elbowing one of them hard enough to break needle teeth and driving your blade into the chest of another and pinning it to the ground so you can stomp its horned head inwards before leaping forward onto the next.

(The Path of Glory: 19+35+20+15+10+25+5+5+10-5-20-20-10-Enemy Reinforcements(5)=84/100)

"Stop them!" The sorceress orders, voice shrill and piercing even through the carnage all around you.

"Such delicious despair and anger, let me ease your pain!" A daemonette moans as it throws itself towards you, tongue lolling about wildly as it swings bladed arms towards you.

"You will," you inform it before you deflect its arms with your sword and form a short lance over your left arm, spinning the piercing point until it becomes like that of a drill which you drive through the daemonette's stomach and impales the next two daemons behind it. "By dying!"

But of course, there are more. The daemonettes pirouette, leap, dance, and dive into the fighting, more of them arriving through the portal the entire time. Distantly, you hear other doors slamming open, as a few trickles of other Druchii from elsewhere in the arena come running to the defense of their comrades. After clearing out a small space before you with a burst of ice, you shout orders for some to turn and face the new arrivals, and are heartened to see those with crossbows doing just that, bolts flying out of your view as more daemonettes try to get at you and the rest. Asur and Druchii seem almost predisposed to seek each other out, even amidst the swirling morass of daemons and humans all around them, while the Bretonnians seem to have formed an unyielding block that follows behind Roland and the Whitewings as they keep pushing through. Dressed as they are in stolen gear of Druchii knights and dreadspears, high shields and spears, they are almost akin to an obsidian hedgehog. They are attempting to cut a path to the sorceress herself, but that is not the only path to victory, only the most obvious and direct.

The totems, then? Frederick asks in your ear, tense and terse as he is subject to watching you be the one in harm's way without a chance to intervene or aid as he might wish.

This time, with greater clarity than ever before.

Yes. Each helps maintain the integrity of the portal, if they are damaged or destroyed, then the strain increases on the sorceress. She is strong, but the portal requires much of her even now.

There is agreement, pain, and a curious thread of awe and wonder despite both.

What is it?

I think…I think I can see it as well.

That nearly stops you dead as you fight, throwing up a shell of ice around you for a brief moment in shock.

What? You ask, but you are connected with him stronger than before, you know what he means without him even needing to say it.

I think…the Winds…

You saw through his eyes.

He can see through yours.

Frederick von Hohenzollern can see through your sight, which means for the first time perhaps ever he is granted the full clarity of true Witch Sight instead of the best imagery you've been able to communicate up until now. It's always been like trying to describe color to the blind, music to the deaf. You can certainly say that one of the Winds is a particular color, but nothing you were ever able to send to him through the bond previously was anything more than a washed-out image cast through a smokey mirror. You cannot understand truly perceiving the Winds of Magic without actually perceiving them, witnessing them in their forms beyond when they become visible to the naked eye through weaving and casting. If one of Frederick's eyes wasn't being slit open, they'd both be wide in wonder, you think. To be fair, you are in just the same state, as this final aspect of your existence which has remained disconnected and distinct from him that you could never fully share suddenly is. No doubt this was true before this, but this is the first time Frederick was able to muster more of his attention on it, despite what Alyssa is trying to do to him to extract information on both her sister in Hultressa or on Ostland.

Is this what it's like all the time?

Alas that you cannot share this moment any longer, but duty and purpose demand your attention.

No, usually there isn't a ripped up hole in reality twisting things around and spewing out filth.

(The Path of Glory: 63+35+20+15+10+25+5+5+10-5-20-20-10-Enemy Reinforcements(10)=123/100)

It does not matter that more and more Druchii and daemonettes are starting to pour into the arena, either from entrances to the arena floor proper where gladiators would normally have been prodded forth, or from the same passages that the audience would utilize. They are rushing in from all directions, but in packets and pieces here and there. They were wise enough to spread out to maximize coverage across the whole of the arena, to occupy the grand structure utterly, but in doing so, they spread themselves too thin to deal with a concentrated strike of so many moving so quickly and with such strength. As they come, they are cut down with repeating volleys from hand crossbows, exploding balls of flame from Johanna, or from hailstorms of cutting ice that slash and tear into them. Part of you is dismayed that you cannot do more than that, but keeping the reinforcements from truly becoming a problem is important and one of the tasks that a limited number of your group can do while others take on the portal and its defenders.

"Kerillian!" You call out, ensuring your voice carries across the battlefield with the gusting winds of the Oblast. "The totems! Cut them down, destabilize the portal!"

"The same will happen if I can kill the sorceress!"

"The one constantly summoning more daemons to protect herself?!"

Angry elven curses you can't translate answers you at first before there is a sudden onset of Khainite violence, limbs and body parts flying like a butcher in their shop gone mad, and then suddenly Kerillian reappears. So much blood has been splashed upon her at this point that she is practically swathed in black and crimson, but the First Draich is glowing brighter and more powerfully than ever. The nearest totem is before her, and she hauls back with wild abandon before hacking at it like a drunken lumberjack. One that hits the target, at least. Despite the melded and melted innards taking on a calcified exterior, hardened and toughened with eldritch means, the murderous anger of Khaine appears to win out here against the blessings of Slaanesh. In a single blow, the totem is severed into pieces, the entire arena floor seeming to shake slightly as the deed is done. The sorceress lets out a scream of strain and pain as the portal is weakened, and before your very eyes a dozen daemonettes halfway done materializing let out wails of dismay as they dissolve back into the Realm of Chaos.

"See?!" You shout at her, arms wide at your sides before you call down another flurry of ice shards into a group of Druchii darkshards trying to set up behind their shields and crossbows.

Kerillian does not answer you verbally, but you'd swear it is the loudest eye roll in the world given how exaggerated the motion is, her back bending slightly under the force of it, before she disappears into the fighting once more.

(The Path of Glory: 31+35+20+15+10+25+5+5+10-5-20-20-10-Enemy Reinforcements(15)=86/100)

Johanna is starting to resemble a bit of a pincushion at this point after blocking one of the entrances bodily and taking the blows from the Druchii trying to get through. Her monstrous toughness and disgusting regeneration appears to be picking up the slack, but it doesn't mean it's not disturbing to see her pull a spear from out of her back and chest or tear free crossbow bolts from her stomach. There are so many now that she appears to largely be giving up on removing them all. Yes, you have seen such wounds before on your own family, even inflicted some of them yourself, but there is something far cleaner and comforting about the soothing energies of Ghyran than the dark power nestled within the vampire's frame. For now, that same strength and durability is being put to effective use, her leathery wings letting her leap from entrance to entrance as the Druchii try to push through, though they are starting to get wise to the fact you've been cutting them down as they enter the fight, and are starting to try and concentrate themselves before pushing in rather than coming in a few at a time. A full third of the warband is having to turn to defend the remaining two thirds at this point from the reinforcements, but thankfully Roland and the rest are still making good progress for all that there are bodies upon the ground from your side.

Better they die here, die fighting, die free, than to do so in the chains that that the Druchii so love.

"Stop her…STOP HER!" The sorceress cries more frantically as Kerillian destroys another totem, her words turning to another pained scream as the portal wavers further, the Winds beginning to flutter and waver, some of them drawn elsewhere on the Ark now, the stream of daemonettes slowing further.

(The Path of Glory: 70+35+20+15+10+25+5+5+10-5-20-20-10-Enemy Reinforcements(20)=120/100)

"What idiocy is this?!" A coldly furious voice echoes through the arena as a Druchii nobleman arrives through one of the arena entrances, his personal retinue of knights on foot at his back. "That you cannot deal with a few rebellious…," his angry words trail off as he sees the full scope of your warband and the carnage that as become the entire arena floor.

Before he can say another word or bark another order Johanna drops out of the sky atop him as a blazing fireball that explodes upon impact.

Your attention turns from that as Kerillian cuts down another totem, and the portal starts to not simply waver, but let loose dissonant shrieks as the energy flow is so badly disrupted again. The sorceress' shield is weakening as well, the Winds slipping from her grasp as her focus and attention is all the more required to keep the portal from collapsing entirely. Even so, the Druchii is a powerful sorceress indeed, with centuries under her belt, and so she manages to keep the portal functioning. Daemonettes are still arriving through it, but rather than the endless tide of before, it has been reduced to a raging river that is still decreasing. Worse for her, Roland reaches the totem closest to her, and swings Durandal right through it with the dwarf runes upon it blazing with power. That, finally, has the sorceress drop to one knee, a faintly visible trickle of blood from her nose hitting the ground. The remaining two totems are under strain as well, even without being directly attacking by anyone, starting to vibrate badly in place, cracks appearing on them. Cracks which worsen as a few particularly brave freedmen begin attacking them with their more mundane weapons.

By now, you are outright fully overwhelming the defenders of the portal, the Druchii all dead and less and less daemonettes on the battlefield.

(Path of Glory: 57+35+20+15+10+25+5+5+10-5-20-20-Shattered Defenders(5)-Disorganized Reinforcements(10)=122/100)

Kerillian doesn't want to wait anymore, it seems.

The enemy still has plenty of troops left, but you appear to have killed the more experienced, the more intelligent, or at least those with the best leadership and initiative. The solidified and more organized blocks are no longer present, and they are once more randomly entering but in smaller disorganized numbers. Numbers and expertise enough to threaten, ordinarily, but never given enough time to utilize them. Not between you, the freedmen, or Johanna for all that she's missing half of her face at the moment. The last fight clearly took a lot out of her, she's staggering about as she fights, at least until she manages to latch her jaws around another Druchii's throat, unhinging her maw to an inhuman extent before clamping down. As she practically inhales the blood, her body bubbles like overheated wax to start expanding back over her wounds. Disgusting to look at, and you gladly turn away to see as Kerillian rather openly and visibly tears her way through the faltering daemonettes. They especially don't seem to like being struck with the First Draich. But the Asrai appears to have only one target left in mind, though whether she notices or not, it is the freedmen that manage to finally bring down the remaining totems.

Backlash from the collapsing ritual is immediate, the sorceress starting what may well be an endless scream as her body starts to smoke and shake, the flames of Chaos sparking to life in every bead of sweat that is pouring down her body. Perhaps she could withstand it. Perhaps the sorceress could reverse the effects and maintain the portal on her own, or utilize the now mostly unleashed energies in a final desperate measure to cause ruination upon your warband as a final act of revenge. Unfortunately for her, she does not get the chance as Kerillian finally reaches her and flawlessly beheads her in a single stroke, the First Draich now seemingly so invigorated by all the killing that it and its wielder have become engulfed in an aura you have seen only once before. Specifically, atop the Tor of Dominance, as shone by Tullaris Dreadbringer.

It seems that the desecration of his temple has truly enraged the Bloody-Handed God, enough so that he is more than happy to use Kerillian as his instrument of revenge.

With the sorceress' death, the portal's collapse ceases to be possible, but becomes utterly imminent.

"Everyone pull back, get away from the portal!" You cast your voice across the whole arena floor with magic, but Kerillian does not listen.

Instead, she pushes forward, the Chaotic energies spewing forth from the destabilizing tear in the world washing over her the whole while. It should be tearing her apart, and certainly does so to the body of the sorceress who is shredded to wet pieces of meat that then burn and then start to transmute into too many things to count per fragment. The ogre corpses utilized in the totem construction are assailed by a dozen different transformations and conditions, burning and freezing and electrifying being the simplest of them. The freedmen, the Asur, the Bretonnians, they all listen quite readily, and frantically rush backwards towards the stands and up the ramp you've provided, but Kerillian simply rears back once more before plunging the First Draich directly into the heart of the mad nexus.

It's hard to describe what happened next, because the explosion throws you to the ground, a deafening screaming cacophony echoing in your ears and soul, accompanied by vicious – and victorious - laughter.

When you are able to open your eyes again, you see Kerillian standing in the center, swaying like a blackout drunk, the aura of the First Draich so seemingly spent that it almost appears to be a purely mundane weapon in her loose grip. Of the portal, there is no more sign. Of the ritual site, something like a cleansing flame appears to have washed over it, leaving only crumbling charcoal and ash in its wake. Before she can collapse, however, some of her Witch Elves reach her, catching her before she falls over. Even from here, you can see the Asrai is barely conscious. How much of what just happened was her, and how much was Khaine, you suspect was a far more troubling ratio than you'd like. The deed is done, however, the portal gone, the effort that Alyssa's loyalists went through to create it amounting to failure.

Gods be good. Frederick whispers in your mind.

I will not offer Khaine any praise for this. You growl stubbornly through the bond.

You will find no argument in me on that front. He answers immediately. I don't know how long it will take for news of what you've done to reach Alyssa, but it likely won't take too long. They'll know their portal was destroyed.

Right. We must move swiftly. You reply before glancing to Johanna.

"Do you hear any more of them coming?" You ask the vampire, who cocks her head to the side, one hand reaching up to force her jawbone back into place. "Or you, Sadrina, do the senses of the Asur detect any nearby Druchii?"

Both are quiet for a moment before shaking their heads.

"I suspect that any remainder will have retreated to regroup, or at least find someone of higher authority to make decisions for them," the Handmaiden says, "Especially with the destruction and death we have wrought here."

"Lots of blood in the air," Johanna sniffs, "Inside and outside of bodies. But that tang…less of it by the second," she shakes her head and rolls her head around a bit. "No, we killed the ones that were going to come in."

"Very well," you nod, sheathing your sword and raising one hand high. "VICTORY!"

The cry is easily taken up, dozens of your warband marveling at what they have just accomplished, and rightly so.

"They are not invincible! They are not immortal! They are not infallible!" You continue before lowering your fist. "But our job here is not yet done! Now we move to the chambers below, to free who we can, to continue the fight!"

Momentum is with you, and soon enough you are smashing down the doors to the lower depths of the arena, to find what is practically an entire underground prison awaiting you. Just as you were warned, this arena was likely the least populated in terms of actual gladiators to recruit, or monsters to unleash. But when you come upon the first cell which has nothing but terrified children in it, you cannot find it within yourself to wish you had gone elsewhere. Something that quickly spreads amongst the rest of the warband as the news spreads. Children. Children! What fun, the Druchii have, what superior beings they are, to be willing to harm and ruin children for an audience of thousands! What wisdom and knowledge they possess to do such things, to glorify them! For all that Khaine might have aided Kerillian in destroying the portal, the sight of the children reminds you that just a scant few months ago and for many thousands of years what has been done in this arena was done with that God's approval and favor.

"This…," Kerillian murmurs, having regained some energy in the meantime, her dark eyes wide and unblinking as the children are ushered into the arms of some of the kinder-faced freedmen.

The shudder that passes through her is unmistakable for anything but revulsion.

"I have heard tell that the Asrai are not forgiving to those who pass the borders into Athel Loren," you say as more cells are opened, these ones with actual able-bodied men and women within them. "Does that not include children?"

The silence is her answer.

"The worship of Khaine must truly be different amongst the Asrai, compared to this," you continue, and when her black eyes flick to you, you can see the glowing red center to them.

Once it was the size of a pinhead, the red glow is now just shy the size of a normal pupil.

"It must," you insist.

"It is," she says, grip once again tight upon the First Draich. "The Asur wish to keep Him at too great a distance, whilst the Druchii embrace that which they prefer most of Him over all other aspects."

"I wish to continue trusting you, Kerillian," you turn to face her fully while the rest of the warband continues throughout the prison. "Can I continue trusting you, as you wield that blade?"

Kerillian inhales sharply, and lifts her chin to meet your gaze.

"My path is bloodier than it once was, but I hear more than the call of but one of the Gods," she says, and to your surprise and relief, holds out the First Draich and then flips it about so that it can rest leaning against the wall.

Then she removes her hand from the hilt, another shudder going through her body, but not enough of one to stop her. Though it is impossible to miss the trailing wisps of bloody red energies that almost seem to tug at her fingers as she does so. It is, you think, the first time you've seen her let go of the thing since she first picked it up, and it shows almost the instant afterwards as she slumps forwards and you have to hold her up for a brief moment. The chilling cold of Ledstali is assuredly less welcome to Asrai and Eonir alike than it would be to Asur or Druchii, and yet she holds onto you long enough that some of her skin starts to redden from the cold, but her shakes are from more than that. Eventually, however, she straightens, and holds herself upright on her own power, one arm pressing against the wall while breathing hard. The naked exhaustion in her gasping breaths is utterly unlike the raucous frenzied energy she's been possessed of day and night.

"…see?" She huffs. "Like…I said…,"

"If it drains you like this just to let go of the damned thing," you say, brows furrowed.

"Not…like that…," she shakes her head, trying to speak more before huffing a few more times.

It's not a drain to her. Frederick adds, tone studiously neutral as he looks upon her through your eyes. She simply hasn't rested, hasn't needed to. When's the last time she slept since she picked that sword up? That she felt the need to?

"Kerillian," is as far as you get before she holds up a hand.

"I knew the danger before I picked it up," she says, working hard to make sure each word is delivered crisply in her accented Reikspiel. "I know it better now. But it's a burden worth carrying, for now," she continues. "Certainly helped upstairs, didn't it?"

"True. But the cost to you seems…,"

Kerillian straightens fully and looks you straight in the eye.

"Worth it," she finishes for you before reaching out and wrapping her hand around the First Draich again.

The moment she does so, she stiffens in place. A quiet groan escapes her as she squeezes her eyes shut for a brief moment.

"Worth it," she repeats in a rasp, and when her eyes open again, the red glow is back in the center of her eyes again and the exhaustion that had so coated her frame is gone. "We'll get off this Ark, one way or another, aye, Larhathalumalav?"

One way or another, she's made her choice.

For now, she remains sane enough to be on our side.

For now, my love. For now.

"Aye, Kerillian. One way or another."

(Path Of Glory Rescue: 76-Choicest Sacrifices(20)-Arena Nature(10)+Lingering Arena Inactivity(15)+Heroic Blitzkrieg(15)=76/100)

In the final accounting, it is impossible to deny that you did lose people in that fight. Against Druchii, against daemons, such a thing is not even slightly uncommon. You won, speedily and viciously, and the dead shall be remembered. These, you gave the best rest you could. While you couldn't properly treat them in the strictures of Morr as befits their noble deeds and glorious deaths, you can try to prevent them from being abused further. Burned to ash, released to the open air, perhaps the Gods will be kind and guide their mortal remains home while their souls journey beyond. The Druchii on the other hand you leave where they have fallen, scour what equipment you can from those allied to Alyssa without falling to Slaaneshi corruption. Yet again, if you return to that grim matter of pure numbers, you have won out in this act. Yes, there were children and elderly amongst the prisoners, far more than would have been found at the other two arenas. But there were still those who could, and would fight. Those abused by the Druchii, forced to fight, who lingered on whether through skill, luck, strength, or any combination of the three. Some of the prisoners are dwarfs, who mightily distrust the Asur and especially those Druchii following Kerillian, but remain amongst the Old Worlders that make up the majority of your warband. Some of the prisoners were Asur, some who joyfully recognize the others you've rescued, and some who have been here longer. Elves of the Kingdom of Chrace, forced to fight some captured and alchemically maddened creatures of their homeland. These are particularly grim, but surprisingly burly for elves, and swear to follow Sadrina the moment she reveals her existence to them.

There were others that you might have found here, the ogres who were all brothers apparently, a group of so-called champions of the Deva of Ind, and so on, but these were either transferred elsewhere or killed in the ritual sacrifice to create the portal in the first place.

Your numbers have grown once more, and that of the enemy have been reduced further.

A messenger managed to bang on the doors long enough for Alyssa to go…I think she's just found out. Frederick says to you frantically.

Well, you can't say that's unexpected. Nevertheless, the movements of the warband are a bit more frantic as you rush into the slave tunnels once more. They still serve well enough as a place of shelter, and the supplies you stole enough to keep them fed and watered, but you can't deny that your numbers have now swollen enough that you are forced to spread out slightly within the tunnels. You overflow from the nexus, organizing guard rotations with the aid of your commanders, the unsleeping Johanna remaining especially vigilant. All the while you listen through Frederick as Alyssa nearly goes mad, thundering about the incompetence of her subordinates, the loss of another sorceress, the destruction of the portal after the effort to bring it into existence in the first place. More importantly, the actual details are uncertain thanks to the sheer destruction you wrought, the dissipation of the portal, and the fact that Sadrina is openly leading the Asur around. Your own presence has gone remarked, of course, at this point survivors and civilians have witnessed your wielding of the Widow's Grace, with some confused mention of Johanna. But, rather amusingly, Sadrina is the one that Alyssa believes is the leader of the warband.

Less amusing is that there are now standing orders to capture you alive to be dragged to Alyssa's feet.

Still, there is more information to be gleaned as Frederick feigns simply being exhausted by his torture, such as the ongoing siege of the Temple of Atharti. A siege which is, unfortunately, progressing. They've apparently made it past the first lines of defense. The Cult continues to hold out, retreating to secondary walls and defenses, but they will not hold out forever. The Deep Dwellers have begun finalizing their own reorganizations around the remaining aquafarms, blocking off the sunken portions of the Ark's innards as best they can, but they are refusing to do anything more than that at the moment. The destruction of one of the pyramids, the loss of the Arena forces, and another sorceress, have also resulted in what appears to be pockets of Druchii resistance as Alyssa's position shows more weakness. Which is around the time a second messenger arrives, saying that some of the Ark's protective wards have been weakened. How, which ones, in what manner, you don't know, and neither does Frederick, as it is finally that which drives her from her constant torture of him for a time to another chamber, long enough to give out direct orders without either of you knowing precisely what they are.

Must be Hultressa, still making a go of it alone. He muses, and you are immediately infuriated with how casually he refers to that bitch.

I can't believe you. You growl at him through the bond. She betrayed you! ABANDONED you! And now look where you are!

I know. And I understand why.

For the first time, your thoughts and his crash into each other, so quick and fast that it should have been bewildering were it not for the clear clarity that remains throughout. You can't say you don't understand what he means, and what he feels, and why he feels it, because you do. You can't not. The same is true in the other direction. Yes, you can understand devotion to her sole child, and why she did what she did, so maybe you won't try to kill her the next time you see her if you ever see her again. But that doesn't erase your anger at her for the pain Frederick is suffering right now, and is liable to suffer again in the future. He hasn't broken, infuriating not just the Supreme Sorceress but the daemonettes she has assisting her now. Which they started with trying to fool him with illusions of you beforehand, something you got to experience only part of.

I knew they weren't you. They could get everything right, but it would still be all wrong. Because I knew where you were, and what you were doing.

It does not take away how violated you feel that they would use your image that way, how furious it makes you, and he knows that as well.

I want to tear those daemonettes apart personally, but I'll settle for them being destroyed by almost anyone at this point. Now tell me, what else have you overheard?

We'll be approaching Norsca soon. She's been pushing the Ark hard because they lost an Anchorstone. They need shallower waters to relieve the strain on the others. Apparently keeping an entire bloody island floating is harder in the deep ocean for some reason.

Do you know how long, precisely?

Hard to say. Less than a week, certainly. This place doesn't rely on the wind or the currents, after all.

Less than a week.

Plenty of time to ruin or escape a floating city-state.

You need rest first.

As much as you'd like to disagree with your husband, it's already late enough in the evening once everyone is settled into the depths of the slave tunnels. You took care to strive as far as you could away from the locations you hit, as you are already hearing from some of the slaves in the depths that some of the Druchii are starting to poke at the entrances, the potent mixture of apathy and self-held superiority over them waning as strain and frustration take hold. Slave are meant to be so broken down, so destroyed, that they practically never send guards or patrols into the depths. But given everything you've done so far, there are only so many places you could be hiding. It might be time for you to try and find another base to hide out in, a manor or Tor that you could try to take over and shift to, just for a night at a time perhaps. Otherwise, once they find greater evidence of you in the slave tunnels, you might face too much force for you to reasonably fend off. At the same time, if you keep moving within them, you could possibly stay ahead of them. There is much of the Ark for the Alyssans to try and keep a grasp on after all.

Even so.

That night, you sleep as comfortably as you ever have, despite everything.

Because despite the distance, you slumber embraced by and embracing your love.

Natasha's Choices:
3 Hour Moratorium

[] Tomorrow's Targets:
- [] Strike the Siege: The Temple of Atharti is one of the greatest known resistance points against the Cult of Pleasure, seeing as Atharti is literally a rival Cytharai to much of what Slaanesh is. The longer it lasts, the more focus it will require from the Cult of Pleasure. It follows that killing the Druchii and banishing the daemonettes assaulting it will, in turn, harm the Cult of Pleasure all the more. They are on the retreat, but not lost, not yet.
- [] Attack An Arena: The Arenas are full of slaves literally trained and built and fed properly to be satisfactory combatants. You have a much larger warband now, but why not swell it all the further? Traverse the slave tunnels, emerge, and shatter more cages, break more chains, and become an even greater threat to the machinations of Alyssa. Hells, maybe you'll even get her to come out of the tower that way all the quicker. You've broken one, two more remain, bastions of power and prestige that can be shattered if you succeed. They'll be more reinforced, however, especially now.
- [] Fire and Food: There are other food production sites, silos, storage. It's time that some of them cease to exist. Ransack them to feed your own warband, and deny their contents and production to the enemy. The daemons might not need food or water, but the Druchii damned well do, and without the latter, they cannot sustain the presence of the former. You've destroyed one pyramid, you can destroy others. They'll be more defended, assuredly after the last one, but you can still hopefully manage it.
-[] Converge On A Complex: The Dhar Anchorstone Complexes are some of the most vital parts of the Ark, and yet, the Druchii can only put so many defenders so many places. Any of these locations will be well defended, and assuredly stationed with at least one or two sorceresses, but each one lost reduces Alyssa's power and capability to respond to you. Actually damaging the Anchorstone might take more time and strength than you possess, especially if you want to escape the resulting fallout of its destruction, but clearing a complex and fleeing will also demand that Alyssa rededicate more forces to staff and control it once more. She literally cannot risk leaving one unattended, not after losing one.

AND

[] After The Killing:
-[] Spread Out Within The Tunnels: The slave tunnels are vast, meant to stretch across the whole of the Ark, so that the Druchii may have their slaves attend them in whatever capacity they may wish no matter where they are. Some are allowed to live in the houses, manors, and Tors of their masters, but many are not. Even if the Druchii are starting to try and investigate them, it's a vast amount of territory to try and clear. Set sentries, be ready to move in the night as necessary, and spread the warband out so that even if some are found, not all will be before the night is over. Another tense night could be survived in this manner.
-[] Target a Tor: Some noble families aligned with Alyssa. Some did not, and suffered for it. There are some that lay either empty, or loosely garrisoned. It will take time to locate one and shift the warband within, but it would be potentially a safer location than the tunnels that the Druchii are now starting to investigate for your presence. It's possible you could be discovered in this new location as well, but what choice is actually correct will be the one proven so after the fact. If it worked out, it would be the most restful place your warband could have.
-[] Retreat To A Roost: One of the least traveled parts of the Ark are the enormous, claw-shaped roosts upon which the vast flocks of harpies that once resided. Filthy, murderous creatures as they are, they were used as scouts and flying chaff by the Ark's forces out on deployment, but at Salkalten they were violently brought to earth. One of the roosts is actually where Johanna resided for a time after barely making it onto the Ark. They would be uncomfortable, yes, but the roosts are apparently rarely ever bothered with because of the stench and refuse, something the Witch Elves confirmed. So it would be safer to reside in for the night than most other options.

Note: Some people read on mobile, where signatures don't always show up, so just as a note, I do now have a Patreon, if you are so inclined to wish to support me as a writer as I muddle my way through life. There is a post as to Why I Have A Patreon Now as well, though if you're reading this you probably saw the posts about it before. Still, you never know, right? It is not a requirement, but it does help me out. Thank you again to everyone who already has joined very, very much, and to everyone who reads my works either way.

 

[torroar]

Spikes, Horns, and Stone 34​

Morning, love.

For the briefest of seconds, you feel like you are finally home. Hearing those roughly spoken words rasped into your ear as if his lips were right there, beard scratching against your cheek. It does not last longer than a heartbeat of imagined warmth and comfort before the ache in your back and rashes of your body and so much more remind you of where you really are. Sleeping in armor, no matter how well-crafted the Ledstali is, is not conducive to particularly comfortable rest. Which is mostly why you've been relying on sheer exhaustion pushing you into the more lively of Morr's two realms up until this point. Which, to be fair, has worked quite well. Nevertheless, it also ignites in you that cold angry fire when the realization comes, delighted affection mixing with it into quite the potent cocktail that takes you from not even opening your eyes to fully awake and sitting up amidst the rest of your forces as they too begin to wake.

Morning, love, you send back just as quickly. How did you know?

How is he? What is going on? Questions you can answer quite swiftly now that you think about it. He's currently still in the chamber from before, but for once, Alyssa is not there nor are her daemonic attendants. There are the still-slumbering forms of the others in the chamber with him, a myriad of beings of whom a few you find quite abominable but others in any other situation you'd be interested in conversing with. The Vitki of Norsca who barked about the Dark Gods needs to die, most certainly. An ogre who has not eaten sufficiently for who knows how long is a different danger, but a danger all the same. At the least, your husband has a single ally in the chamber with him, though her actual worth in that regard is suspect at the moment. Eldyra of Tiranoc has been there the whole time, dragged in early, and yet for better or worse Frederick's stubborn and vocal resistance has kept the Asur from being touched practically at all – aside from having her eyelids removed and forced to watch as Frederick is tortured in front of her.

Which, in turn, just means that Frederick suffers all the more, because you know for a fact thanks to the strengthening of the bond that part of it really is just that. The more they are focused on him, the less they are focused on Eldyra to do even worse to her. For goodness sake, his latest wounds aren't even scabbed over, who knows how much of his blood has been spilled at this point. If there was one positive thing you'd have to say about Hultressa it is that she is clearly a more practiced healer than her sister. Alyssa is not specifically incompetent at healing spells, but there is a clear brute force approach to it that does not equal the intricate completeness of Hultressa's spellwork in that regard. Which you don't find particularly surprising given Alyssa has no doubt bent the bulk of her work and practice towards causing pain rathe than relieving it.

As it turns out, the shift from sleep to not is noticeable. Less to more comprehensible.

You blink at that, frowning, shifting in your armor as you start to gnaw at some raw vegetables from some of your stolen supplies, nodding to some of the passing freedmen who give respectful bows or salutes back to you. Yes, most of them follow Roland, Johanna, or Sadrina in battle as captain equivalents, but none save the arrogant Druchii mistake that you are the one in command. So far, at least, you've managed to free many and kill more of the enemy, which is good for ensuring trust and loyalty amongst the troops. Now that you think about it, you did not experience his dreams yourself, perhaps because you slept sooner. Something that was actually a bit more difficult this past night due to the fact that you were completely aware in a way like never before of all the horrific things they were doing to him. That thought draws you up short for a moment.

Did you not sleep at all?

A low laugh echoes in your ears, though it is undeniably weary.

Didn't really get the chance, no. Put some kind of acid to burn slowly the entire night, to start with.

For a moment you have to remember to refresh the miniature blocks of ice in your mouth you made to replace the teeth you cracked apart by grinding them too hard. No need to tear up your gums even more. Even so you end up having to spit out chips of ice instead for a second before more angrily tearing up some strips of salted meat and swallowing it down after barely chewing it.

At this point I don't even care about how or who does it. She needs to die.

Not going to get any argument from me. What's your plan for today?

Your answer comes in sharp, crisp imagery of those particularly fortified estates you both witnessed as you flew over the Ark when it was still docked at Salkalten. Even back then, you knew what they were. Or rather, you could sense it. Anyone with Witch Sight would be able to see what Dhar Anchorstones were, the sheer amount of concentrated magical energies utilized to allow the Ark to force itself atop the waves and mount the ocean to go wherever it wanted impossible to miss. They were practically a twisted mirror to a major Waystone, except rather than the Winds clean and interweaving before flowing away, they drew and crushed the magics into the Druchii's desired function. You knew a lot more than you did then, thanks to your husband and his conversations with Hultressa, as well as what you've been able to glean from Sadrina's experience in an assault force against one. Obviously well defended, but equally vitally important. Hells, that was how some Asur in the past have defeated a Black Ark, according to the Handmaiden, targeting the Anchorstones exclusively.

Well, unfortunately, we don't have a blade the size of a building on hand blessed by the elven God of the Forge. Still, should work. Even without breaking the Anchorstone properly, she'll have to redirect her troops, plus a sorceress.

That's the idea.

There is the impression of a soft, feathery kiss to your cheek before the doors to the chamber Frederick is stored in opens and Alyssa arrives, eyes burning with fury with a handful of daemonettes behind her.

Then good luck, and kill as many Druchii as you can.

Gritting your teeth you force yourself to focus on your own here and now and stand upright, looking towards one group in particular of your marshalling warband. The Asur look somewhat more unified today, whatever internal struggle that are ongoing with that group are somewhat ameliorated with the presence of more rescued Asur that look upon Sadrina as their savior – and therefore the one to listen to above any of their other peers. Still, given how they're all dressed in Druchii armor now with a mishmash of noble crests and the like belonging to dead Druchii, it's easy to mistake one for the other. You know that Eldyra recruited from her home kingdom and peers, so at least some of them are elven nobility. You'd think that a Handmaiden of the Everqueen would be able to make them all fall in line utterly, but these are assuredly particularly stressful times for them beyond what they might normally be used to.

"Today, we strike a blow even more devastating than the last," you begin with your arms folded behind your back.

Men and women of the Old World and beyond, elves, and dwarfs, look back at you with the blazing fire that only those who have suffered in chains before having them be broken can have. Some amongst them have suffered longer than the others, but the expertise and cruelty of the Druchii honed over thousands of years have ensured that the rage against them is great all the same. The few dwarfs you have saved largely disdained any of the elven arms they could have possessed, and have instead taken up working tools meant for labor but when swung with sufficient force can serve all the same. Everyone else, elf or human, man or woman, look like a monstrous array of knights, corsairs, dreadspears, and bleakswords, if only at first glance. Many of your human freedmen were too broad, or short, for them to be mistaken as elves, and you just didn't have nearly enough freed Asur that could try and pretend to be Druchii given the mishmash of emblems and crests.

Oh well.

"Alyssa's grip over the Ark is slipping, weakening. We're going to pry another one of her fingers free…or even better, cut it off entirely," you continue, to many vicious grins and angry nods.

Not many of them knew Alyssa initially. After all, they were all captured in the time of Mellis Screamtaker's rule. As it turned out, however, all they needed to know was that she was the new Supreme Sorceress and perhaps just as or even worse than that worshipped Slaanesh. The daemons were a very helpful clue to that point. Dwarfs, Asur, and all right-thinking folk of the world knew that the Dark Gods were to be opposed in every possible measure and extent. This was as much about punishing the enslavers as it was to defy those they in turn served. Cytharai or Dark Gods, it was just shy of being all the same to you, and that difference was largely thanks to the fact that at the moment Atharti and Khaine seemed solidly opposed to Slaanesh.

"We already know the target, near to the arena was tore apart earlier. We can expect resistance to be strong, but for patrols to be few, as they focus elsewhere on the Ark. For now," you allow with a grunt.

The Temple of Atharti hasn't fallen – yet – but it might well soon. Especially because, as you know thanks to the bond, the most open symbol of resistance is receiving extra attention from Alyssa and her subordinates today.

"But that doesn't matter. The more of them there are, the more of them we kill!"

Bloodthirsty cheers answer you.

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

"Tell me something, Magister Gisela," Magnus asked as the column readied itself to march once more. "How worried should I be about the Count Fuerbach?"

The Celestial Wizard worked her jaw for a moment before running a hand over her hairless scalp and sighing. He'd caught her just as she was heading for her Pegasus, the noble flying beast faster than Octaine on his best day, though the Prince was still internally debating whether or not it was because that was just the nature of a Pegasus or if the Celestial Wizard was doing anything to manipulate the air itself to improve it. The Grey Wizard, and practical mute, Wim, had glanced up at his arrival and nodded, but otherwise had made no more noise than that. They practically made no noise, ever, now that Magnus thought about it. Despite their multitude of equipment. But then that seemed entirely within expectations for a master of Ulgu.

"I could pretend to say I have no idea what you mean, or that we ought not to speak untoward about prior clients we were contracted to," she finally said before giving a mild scowl towards Wim. "But someone would be in my ear all day about it. So instead I will say this," she proclaimed, raising one slender finger upright. "The man's been alive too long."

Magnus tilted his head, the air starting to fill more and more with the sound of rousing horses, clattering of armor of knights, and squires running back and forth. They'd gained a few more Ostlanders able to reach them quickly with wagons and horses of their own for resupply, the artillery train of Talabeclanders finally on their way home in safer territory, but there was no reason to be complacent in a province so heavily forested like this. A different place it might have been, Magnus had heard more than a few veterans remark that the forests of the central Imperial province felt much more like the Forest of Shadows of old before Zacharias had been defeated. Which was not good for a province meant to be so favored by Taal. At least they had gained some rapidly moving reinforcements on their way to aid another group of Talabeclanders to the south.

"By which, of course," Gisela continued with a shrug and sardonic twist to her lips, "I mean that he's become a solid ball of grudges and anger and spite. No good sense to die in battle like he should have years ago, or just spared his son's the frustration and not woken up one morning. Little more compels him to act, let alone think. Convinced he has enemies in all places, favor dancing in and out like a breeze in the wind during summer."

She spoke breezily, but there was an undeniable undercurrent of genuine anger in her voice as she said it.

"Won't even let Krugar use the Runefang, can you believe that?" She scoffed. "Old wrinkled pit of a peach that he is, can barely walk or see, but will he let his son and heir use the damned thing? No, not a chance."

To their side, helping fit bags onto the Pegasus' sides, Wim glanced at Gisela who snapped her fingers and pointed at the Grey Wizard as if they'd made a good point.

"Exactly!"

Magnus blinked a few times, waiting for an explanation for a few seconds more before realizing it would not be coming.

"Yet it is the Duke Krugar who has called for aid," he said instead, making Gisela nod. "The Count remains in Talabheim at the moment, yet his command over his province and forces…,"

Wim straightened sharply and whirled on Magnus, shaking their head once.

"Yes, yes," Gisela flapped a hand at Wim before reorienting on the Prince. "We are not actually allowed, legally, to disclose the state of another province's military, it's built into the articles and other agreements made with the founding of the Colleges. We, that is," she gestured between herself, Wim, and then made a vague circle in the air, "The Wizards, are not ever to be utilized as assets between civil conflict between the Empire's subjects."

It didn't need to be said how fully enforceable that would likely end up being in the long run.

Or not as the case could end up being.

"Not precisely what I mean," Magnus shook his head. "I more meant whether or not we would have to face issues with the Count trying to eject our troops from the province or the like, or…worse outcomes."

Gisela sucked some air through her teeth at that, and Magnus especially did not care for the fact that instead of an immediate rejection of the idea she looked contemplative.

"Well…," she trailed off as Wim glanced at him and waggled a hand side to side. "Well, yes, Wim. But…no," she shook her head again. "He holds substantial power within his palace. But I wouldn't be too concerned, the good Duke has worked hard at ensuring that the Count's position is respected and known, but that full command of the troops belongs to the one who marches out with them at the moment."

The kind of casual acknowledgement of what some might well consider a bit of a coup was shocking, but one that Magnus was nonetheless thankful for.

"I see. Thank you for informing me. I was not looking forward to the possibility of blood being spilled unnecessarily," he said.

"Of course," Gisela smiled. "It speaks well to your character, Prince Hohenzollern. Krugar was right when he sent us to you."

Magnus did not wish death upon many of his fellow men of the Empire, but there was certainly a distinct sense that he would greatly prefer Krugar as the Count of Talabecland than his father.

Alas.

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

"Hold."

Your order is mostly instantly followed, with only some stuttered movement amongst those newer to combat and amongst the elves, whether Druchii or Asur. After that, you raise your hands and channel the ice in your veins outwards into the air, a cold freezing fog emerging with every heavy exhalation. Some of the freed Imperials of your warband flinch at the open display, but at this point the majority of them do little more than that. Suspicion and superstition might remain strong, but at this point, desperation and the present circumstances are enough that without a priest or witch hunter to whip them up they're more than willing to accept your powers. Frost begins to coat swords and cutlasses as you desire, ensuring that those they cut suffer all the more. You've seen similar things done by Bright Wizards, save with flame rather than ice, but in your experience, both can burn in their own way.

"There. Johanna?"

"It's ready," the vampire grunts as she hefts some of what you took with you from the arena as you fled yesterday.

Unlike most other places on the Ark, the Anchorstone Complexes are places solely meant for the passage of the Druchii in every respect. Not a single slave could ever be allowed in this place, save perhaps as a sacrifice used by a sorceress to do some sort of dread act of magic or another. They are also not meant to be travelled or even be near regular civilian Druchii, due to their sheer importance for the Black Ark's continued existence. Even the temples are neighbored by domiciles and businesses, just like they are back in the Empire, so that the citizenry can flock to them quickly as they desire or at required times. None such are found here, only storehouses and the like with supplies, no people. No Druchii, no slaves. Isolation forms the outward layer of defense here. The complex that raises before you, however, is more like a military outpost than anything else, a fortress estate just like that of the nobility and wealthier Druchii, albeit not to the point of being a full Tor. It has its own walls, gates, a wide cleared space for creating a killing ground, and is staffed with visible defenders stalking the walls and guarding the gates themselves.

Not to mention the thick waves of magic that are in the air before you, visible not simply to your Witch Sight, but to everyone else as well so potent and active are they as they swirl downwards into the center of the complex.

Sprouting from the top, as well, visible even from here even if it is just a sliver of the whole, is a crystal of most malicious darkness bound in place just like the one atop the Tor of Dominance.

"Okay," Johanna grunts, her form visibly bulked and taller than before as she allows some of the monstrous mass of her vampiric body to express itself as she brings the Reaper Bolt Thrower upright over her shoulder.

While the crew of the weapon at the arena had more multi-shot bolts meant for greater suppression of infantry, it appears to be standard practice to carry larger single bolts in at least some capacity no matter what. It is one of the latter that the vampire has loaded into the reaper this time around, a globe of dark magic stored within a sort of contained crystal within a hollow in the metal spiked head proper. Potent in the extreme, you know that much, given how wary the Asur were of it. According to Sadrina, some missiles fired from just such a bolt thrower are sometimes capable of piercing a dragon's hide depending on what the payload proper was. Given that the Claw of Dominion was an Ark long controlled and influenced by Ghrond, Hekarti, and sorcery in general, it is perhaps expected that such valued arms are granted particularly powerful bolts.

Ammo that belongs to you now.

"Unleash!" You shout, and as one, the warband's ranged troops reveal themselves out into the open.

The enemy has already been well on the alert, the Druchii responding immediately by taking cover the second they see how many crossbows you've stolen raising up against them. Whether using the walls themselves or shields, the Druchii move to defend themselves as best they can while your warband begins firing. Some of the Druchii, braver or bolder than the others, rush towards their own bolt throwers and begin wheeling them about. These are the ones that you know some of the more eagle-eyed Asur amongst your forces were waiting for, while Johanna outright leaps into the open, her stolen artillery piece already whirring and cranking. Unlike anyone else, however, she is not focused on attacking the Druchii specifically, weapon crew or otherwise, not even the other bolt throwers.

No.

She is focused on the main gate to the complex right in front of you, a working of dark stone and reinforcing metal.

"Here we go!" Johanna shouts with only a bit of manic glee, fangs gleaming brightly in the morning light.

Or, no, it would be from the gathering tip of Aqshy she's summoning into being on her readied missile in addition to the Druchii-crafted payload.

…that's a lot of Aqshy.

(Open Sesame: 87+Band of Heroes(35)+Anger of the Asur(20)+Bravery of Bretonnia(15)+Whetted Witch Elves(10)+Fervent Ferocious Freedmen(25)+Invigorated Soul(5)+Frost Blades(5)+Reaper Surprise(5)+Atharti Siege Drawdown(10)-Fractious Fellowship(5)-Disciplined Druchii(10)-Anchorstone Defense Force(25)-Defensive Enchantments(10)=167/100)

A lot of Aqshy.

Too much.

Johanna is no masterful magister of magic, she has undeniable strength in it, and some talent, but nowhere near the experience or practice of yourself or others.

Perhaps that is why you can see tendrils of Dhar flickering into it as the sphere of red and now black starts to grow larger than the head of the bolt it's attached to.

"Johanna?!" You call out to her without turning your head, most of your attention on reaching out with the Winds to start blowing the crossbow bolts of the enemy off course while also avoiding doing the same to your own troops.

"KNOCK KNOCK!" The vampire howls and then fires, the level of force of the pulleys and mechanisms plus her spell sending Johanna skidding backwards.

The screaming bolt flies straight towards the gate leading into the Anchorstone Complex, a gate that would have been well suited to guarding any castle in Ostland with its strength. Even as the bolt fires, you can see enormous glyphs of purple and black swirl into existence in the air, defensive enchantments fully activating from the threat. Others are sown into the gate itself, Ghyran and Chamon and more mixed to harden every single separate plank and screw and plate of metal that make it up all the more. None of which appears to matter as Johanna's enhanced missile strikes it dead center, exploding in a globe of Aqshy and Dhar that starts to rapidly expand upon impact. The dread form of crushed Winds interacts catastrophically with the Aqshy already there, mixing up and then overtaking it until that which began as something of crimson and orange turns darker and darker still. The Druchii near the gate are dead instantly, from flash heat cooking them in their armor or from the concussive force and scattering like broken fragile dolls across the ground. Part of the outer walls of the complex shake badly, some of the Druchii atop them falling to the ground.

Meanwhile, the shots of your own warband have found many of their marks. Kerillian, as deadly at range as she is up close, manages to personally shoot down every single member of the crew of Druchii trying to use one of the enemy's bolt throwers against you with a repeating crossbow in one hand, the other still holding the First Draich. Sadrina and the Asur, much as they are disgusted to use the implements of their cruel cousins, are pragmatic enough to use them with skill and precision. The other bolt throwers that the enemy might have used to scythe your warband down do not get a chance to fire, and even as the other Druchii try and inch closer to use them as others fall, those too are struck. The greatest possible weapon against your forces is thus denied from service. Meanwhile, Johanna's struggled back to her feet, laughing a little madly as she sees the absurd destruction she has wrought. The gatehouse is gone, a smoldering sizzling ruin, some of the stone not outright destroyed so well heated that it has melted slightly.

"Don't do that spell again, you barely cast it away from yourself in time before it collapsed!" You shout at her, to which the vampire scoffs.

"It worked, didn't it!?"

"Johanna!"

"Fine," she draws out before reaching into a barrel she'd crudely tied to herself with rope and drawing out another bolt as if it were merely a quiver and her weapon a bow. "You're welcome, by the way."

"Thank you," you hiss before rolling your eyes and drawing your blade to look back at the rest of your troops, most of them eager if some scared by the explosion. "NOW IS THE TIME! CHAAAAAARGE!"

Already you can see movement within the shadows of the complex's innards, the defenders of this vital installation not defeated simply because you broke the door down. Blades and shields glint in the light of the sun as they push to the fore, and your eyes narrow as you see an unnatural wind cast forth to blow the billowing smoke and dust of the destruction out and away. There, standing atop an upraised staircase meant to lead up the walls and now visible to you, a Druchii with a staff that glows with dark power and a furious expression on her face. A silvery frame outlines her face, with an inset dark purple gem inset over her forehead. Just like every other sorceress you've ever seen up until now, she's practically naked. For her, that is true save for a thin chest covering and a girdle that bares nearly all her lower half save for a purple cloth that reaches to knee length on the front and back. A thin nimbus of Dhar and Shyish surrounds her.

However, as your warband begins to charge forward, the Druchii assembling to create a shieldwall with discipline and skill, you can see something you wouldn't normally expect.

A hint of…uncertainty?

"An apprentice!" Sadrina says breathlessly as you charge for the opening in the wall, "Not yet a true sorceress!"

"Weaker?!" You ask her quickly, boots slamming against the ground as the roaring of both sides starts to get louder and louder the closer you get.

"Perhaps, but less skilled, less knowledgeable, certainly!" She answers, firing a repeating crossbow as she moves.

"Kerillian!" You shout next. "The one with the staff!"

"I know!" You hear her accented Reikspiel somewhere amongst the crowd but can't quite precisely point out where.

Said 'one with the staff' is already waving her staff about as she draws not upon Dhar as a whole as you might have expected but upon a single wind – perhaps she's only good enough with the one so far. Either way, you aren't about to let a large-scale casting of Shyish to afflict your warband, and raise your own arms upwards, sword gleaming with the Grace of the Ancient Widow. Johanna, who is still mostly distracted with loading her reaper bolt thrower, will be of no help here. Hopefully, given it's just a neophyte compared to a full sorceress, you won't need the aid she could provide. You can see the fear, the terror, the mental destruction that the spell is preparing for, something to stop the heart in the chest if sufficiently powerful. If she manages to cast the spell successfully, the havoc it could wreak on your troops could be devastating.

"No you don't," you growl.

(Dispelling Attempt: 74+Natasha Piety(13)+Cold Certainty(10)+Vengeance Calling(5)+Invigorated Soul(5)-Ark Aethyric Network Well Weakened(10)-Apprentice Sorceress(10)-Enchanted Supplementation(5)=82/100)
(Ready Or Not: 43+35+20+15+10+25+Boltshock(10)+5+5+5+10-5-10-25-10=133/100)

It is a struggle to dismiss and dispel the magical workings of an elf. Apprentice or not, this one has some strength to her. She's already a considerable threat, but one that you can, at least for now, defeat. This close you can see the outrage on her face as her spell fails to materialize, the Winds slipping from her grasp, which transforms into a flicker of uncertainty and fear as your forces reach hers. Once more, Roland and the Whitewings lead the charge, accompanied by the heaviest equipped freedmen on your side, those wearing the stolen armor of knights and noble guards alike. A rolling, storming boulder of black steel and wicked silvered edges for most, attended to by the gromril bulk of Roland at the tip of the spear. The shieldwall looks strong, held by well-disciplined Druchii, but strong and disciplined do not always win out. If that were always true, no dwarfs would have ever fallen to greenskins in their history, and yet the Goblin Wars and the Time of Woes happened. Nor would Kislev have ever suffered anyone from coming through the High Pass that should not have.

This time, though, it is the furious and the savage and the hateful who have nothing to lose which win out.

Blades flash, bodies crunch, screams ring out both victorious and not. The tang of the hot spilled blood fills your nostrils, a cloying mixture with the sweat and filth of the freedmen and the starker cleanliness of the Druchii. Plates of metal screech and scrape and break, while finely wrought chainmail clinks and clatters as it is scattered across the ground, all mixed with the sound of breaking bones and tearing skin and flesh. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see the sorceress already beginning to draw up a different spell, this one meant to outright rip the life from the bodies of the targets if you judge the casting correctly, but before she can do enough to require your attentions to dispel, a bloody shadow appears from behind her. How Kerillian managed to get there without anyone noticing, you do not know, but her presence is announced as she slices the First Draich right down the apprentice sorceress' head and down to split her through the legs. Before the Druchii even knows she's properly dead, Kerillian is tackling through the body, forcing the halves apart and covering herself in blood and plopping out organ matter as she dives into the rest of the fighting.

For a brief moment you find yourself surrounded solely by allies rather than Druchii, able to take a bare moment to pause and blink and think.

The workings of this place are extensive in the extreme, that is obvious at a glance even if you had the weakest possible Witch Sight at all. Hells, even for someone who did not have it at all, one would be able to see it from the gleaming runes upon arcane architecture throughout the arches of the ceiling and certain columns. Solid bars of black crystal extend outwards like plumbing overhead as well, extending through the walls and outwards. Tainted Dark Magic fills the air, thick like molasses almost, but you dare not draw upon it. Johanna appears to be less concerned about that than you, but you aren't a vampire. The Cold Certainty helps protect and gird you, lets you draw upon the Grace of the Widow with greater strength and ease, especially in the face of this. No doubt a great boon to sorceresses, and vampires perhaps, but not so much for yourself. Like having a constant draft of oily black smoke blown in your face. Either way, the sheer power this place channels is immense, reminding you of the leylines of Kislev, or the Waystone Nexus of Laurelorn, or the like. Save that the Druchii built this awful place, all to draw the Winds in to use them as they wish. All that power, mastered and maintained, all to keep a Black Ark afloat. Though it shames you to admit it, you are unsure if even your sister and the wielders of the Widow's Grace of Kislev or the Magic Colleges of the Empire could ever make something like this.

It would be awe-inspiring if you weren't so disgusted and disturbed by its very existence.

"We are not done!" You shout, shaking your head to clear your thoughts and then push forward to the front, freezing a dreadspear's arms so he cannot maneuver his shield to stop you from stabbing him in the eye. "Keep pushing forward!"

But just as strongly as you push to invade this place, the Druchii are pushing back to keep you out of it.

(Invasion: 27+35+20+15+10+25+5+10-5-10-25-10-5=92/100)

The sound of shattering glass or crystal fills the air as more Druchii arrive, these ones now surrounded by glowing auras of Dhar to empower them. Just behind them you see some kind of broken black glossy material on the ground, ground to powder under their feet. These Druchii are strong enough to outright fling away some of the freedmen as they try to advance on them, shield bashes forcing stumbles or falls, spears and swords flashing about and stabbing enough to force others to surrender. These Druchii are not like those at the Arena who started to flee, whether because of the loss of the portal or their leader. This place is less openly prestigious than the arena but far more important on a functional level for the Ark. The kinds of troops that would be stationed at places like this are going to be of a different sort entirely. You do not see the sort of insane zealous fervor that filled some of the Slaaneshi cultists and the like, but a freezing cold determination that is admittedly familiar to you. Though usually because it has filled your own veins before, and that of your people whether of Kislev or the Empire. It is odd to be on the other end of it, but not even a fraction of enough to stop you from doing what needs to be done. Something that seems true for everyone else as well.

The fine marble floors, the well-crafted columns and ceilings, a place that could have been a temple – might well be in a certain functionality given the fact that you see so many statues of Hekarti present about the place – none of it matters. There are no benches for people to sit, only doorways that appear to lead into barracks and storerooms with supplies for the troops that staff this place. Shelves with books and scrolls lie here and there, but these are disregarded as anything but cover or a weapon by those who now fight through the complex's hallways. Either something to tear down to block your troops or even possibly kill someone with the weight, or to be picked up and used as a shield when crossbow bolts start flying. You can see it, despite all of it. The same sort of otherworldly beautiful aesthetic evident through the homes of the Eonir, of what the Asur crafted with their own compound, only darker and just slightly twisted to make every angle and curve of the architecture uneasy for you to experience.

Strangely, tearing this place apart, tapestries aflame, shelves and chairs and benches shattered and splintered, blood and filth splattered everywhere?

It helps.

Something to examine another time, perhaps. Or perhaps not.

(Inward Push: 55+35+20+15+10+25+5+10-5-10-25-10-Power of Darkness(10)=115/100)

More and more Druchii arrive, organized and swift, with all their deadly skill on full display. These are not the same as any normal dreadspears or bleakswords or darkshards, it's more than evident in how they fight. Normal elves fight with inhuman grace and dexterity already, these all the more so. Their equipment is of even finer make than the norm, the plates thicker and yet more flexibly placed, the inner layers reinforced. Spears gleam and stab so quickly that freedmen are forced to scatter backwards, arms raising to defend themselves while those with stolen shields have to move to the fore to protect your forces from being too badly wounded. Worse, the very complex itself seems to be aiding them, that same growing dark power that you saw before now outright seeming to leech out of the walls of the complex towards them to grant even greater strength and speed. Your progress back in the arena before was at a blistering pace that you simply cannot manage here, the stiffening defense of the enemy is just of a quality and quantity that makes that impossible.

"Come on! Keep…pushing!" You shout, slamming against the shieldwall yourself and sending a chilling blast of ice along the ground to capture and freeze their feet in place.

A few pieces of stone clatter atop your armor from above, the strangeness of it enough to make you at least glance upwards.

There, you see Johanna, the nails on her feet having become extended black claws for her to plant against the ceiling with her leathery wings also being used to hoist and brace herself there upside down. Her teeth are bared and grit hard against each other, muscles bulging beneath her skin even in her neck. A trail of deep claw marks punched into the wall up the ceiling marks her path up to that point, how much her wings aided her not precisely known given that you know that Johanna most definitely does not have the hollow bones of a bird, but then neither do gryphons or Pegasi. Either way, she's managed to bring the reaper bolt thrower up there with her, as well as the chained barrel containing the other bolt ammo for the artillery piece. This time around, however, she appears to have switched out the more limited single target bolt ammo for the clustered shot, the design of which you know would likely be of great interest to your daughter Anna for study purposes. In this case, however, you can forgive the usage of the ammo immediately.

Some of the Druchii notice as well, pointing and shouting, but by that point it is too late.

Because Johanna has already fired and just like that, you learn just why the reaper bolt thrower is such a feared ship deck clearing device, as professed by the Asur.

"Don't just stand there," you shout over the deafening silence of so much metal and meat spewed in near liquified fragments all over the place, "Keep moving!"

But of course the Druchii aren't done.

You barely get a few hallway lengths more before the next wave arrives, this one joined with daemonettes and other Druchii who are even more solidly infused with Dark Magic than the last ones.

(Inward Push: 36+35+20+15+10+25+5+10-5-10-25-10-Daemonic Auxilaries(5)-Power of Darkness(15)=86/100)

"Foul creatures, begone!" Roland booms as he cleaves a daemonette with his blade before elbowing another as it tries to leap atop him.

Another snaps their claw upon your blade, cackling as it tries to force your sword away from you, strength impossible given the lithe and thin frame. It laughs as it raises its other claw, snapping it towards your throat and latching it around the Ledstali protecting your throat. The laughing stops as you inhale deeply and then exhale out a spike of ice through the grille of your helmet straight into its own mouth and out the back of its head. Being a daemon, it doesn't have the courtesy to die immediately, but the strength of the claws slacken enough for you to wrench your sword around and behead the awful creature. The Whitewings are busy triple teaming another Druchii that's been separated from the rest of them, while Kerillian has become visible again as the First Draich reaps a bloody toll against her enemies. There is a loud clattering nearby though, and when you turn to look, it is to find Johanna haphazardly fiddling with the bolt thrower, no longer positioned on the ceiling.

"You want to help out over here?!" You shout to her, pausing to turn and stab another daemonette as it vaults over the Druchii shield wall.

"Hey! These things are crewed by three to six Druchii at a time!" She shouts back, aggrieved, "I am doing my best here!"

"Sadrina!" You shout, the Handmaiden appearing next to you before you finish her name.

"Lady Natasha?" She asks, breathless, turning to fire her crossbow for a moment.

"I need three of your Asur who can figure out that damned bolt thrower to do so, help it reload. We need Johanna up here in the front!"

"I understand," Sadrina nods, eyes bright and fierce as she turns about and starts barking in rapid-fire Eltharin.

When you turn to shout for Johanna to reposition, you find that she apparently already heard you, hacking the chain to separate herself from the ammo barrel and is literally flying low in the hallway to smash into the shieldwall like a slowly launched cannonball. Immediately there are Druchii sent flying up and away, pure physical force smashing apart the formation and allowing others to pour through. The daemons are proving their own effectiveness, however, you can see a duo of ex-slave dwarfs dead on the ground, as well as a handful of Bretonnians dressed in lighter equipment. The corsair-armored freedmen are less well armored, but are fighting well despite that, though you are coming to wish more and more that you had a proper healer on hand. Sadrina can do some healing through her connection to the Everqueen and Isha, but nothing truly extravagant unfortunately. The best you can do with your own magic is numb the pain, the cool and cold helping to also refresh those in danger of overheating in the heavier gear.

"Bloody daemons!" You growl, clapping your hands together around the hilt of your sword to channel more strongly.

Though it had begun to fade, as a new wickedly sharp and deadly ice forms upon the edges of many a blade of your forces. Mundane steel can function against a daemon, it can. But magic does certainly help things.

"There's more coming!" Someone shouts.

You almost trip as you turn to meet them, a twitch almost unavoidable as you hear and feel exactly why Frederick starts to scream again in the Tor of Dominance. His pain is yours, but unlike him you can exercise that shared pain and your own screaming fury on targets right in front of you.

(Inward Push: 51+35+20+15+10+25+5+10+Frost Blades(5)-5-10-25-10-Daemonic Auxilaries(10)-Power of Darkness(15)=101/100)

Not just new daemonettes, but exalted ones. Taller, broader, stronger, faster, without the almost delirious cackling and laughter of the lesser kinds. These are more focused, more practiced, more dangerous. These ones cannot be allowed to reach the more lightly equipped freedmen with the stolen armor and arms from the corsair armory. Something that all of the veterans present recognize, and even without your order you can see the most heavily equipped troops moving to the fore to present a united front. Whether Asur bearing the heavy armor of noble guards, Bretonnians in stolen knight armor, or freedmen in the same, the exalted daemonettes cannot be allowed to go any further. Johanna looks a bloody shredded ruin, at that point, her robes badly ripped, but her guandao still blazes with Aqshy and power as she stabs, slashes, and batters all before her, ignoring wounds that would kill a living creature several times over. Roland and the Whitewings are their own independent bulwark to break the enemy against. Kerillian is nowhere near as well armored as the latter or as outright tough as the former, but the murderous prowess she has coupled with the First Draich seems to be more than enough for the moment.

"Not! One! Step! Back!" You shout, a cry taken up on all sides.

"Forward, forward I say! In the name of the Lady of the Lake, forward!"

"May Isha forgive you, for I shall not!"

"DIE IN THE NAME OF KHAINE!"

"RHYAAAAAAAA!"

You haven't quite found the time or care to ask why Johanna seems to swear so much more to Rhya over Taal nowadays, given what you remember of your interactions prior to her transformation, let alone the province of her birth. But you have to admit, with fangs extended, bleeding from over a dozen wounds spilling brackish red-black blood, hair swept back and smoldering with Aqshy, feet and hands open to the air with claws extended? It certainly makes for a striking scene and sentiment for her to express. You've got no idea what the Goddess or her Cult might think of a vampire bellowing a war cry in Her name. But given that she hasn't done anything to curse or strike her down, you have to hope that She isn't too offended. You really don't need to deal with the consequences of yet another angry God right now. You're more than full up in the current situation.

Instead, you focus on fighting off this latest wave as you burst through another pair of doors, and have to momentarily squeeze your eyes shut as your Witch Sight is nearly overwhelmed by the sheer un-radiant power of the massive Anchorstone in front of you. Straining to focus, you open your eyes again witness the whole of the inner compound of the complex, a place larger than the entire courtyard of Castle Wulfenburg. Here, even larger bars of solid black crystal and intricate stonework with glowing runes sprout outwards as graceful looping patterns and ritual inlays spread throughout the entire massive chamber. Channels and funnels for magic are here in bewildering number and alignment leading in and out of the room. The complexity of the ritual work here is beyond you, that is something you realize the exact instant you see it. You can know generally how it works, but the actual Aethyric mechanisms behind it is beyond your capacity to understand at a glance. Or even more than that, you suspect. It would take you an untold amount of uninterrupted study, possibly beyond your entire mortal lifespan. Good thing you aren't trying to do any of that, at least.

No, your target is something else.

An octuplet of staircases sprout up from the floor with absolute mathematic precision at equidistant points surrounding the building sized crystal of solidified Dhar, but only one of them is occupied at the apex. Unlike the one from before, this one is undeniably a full sorceress. More than that, you can literally see the tendrils of energy connecting her to the crystal, empowering her even more beyond her own regular abilities. A small army awaits you as well, full of flinty-eyed veteran Druchii troops and more exalted daemonettes, assuredly drawn from all across the complex once your goal became clear. There is a contingent of Druchii truly devoted to Slaanesh present alongside the rest, cultists emblazoned with runes and emblems of their chosen God, branded or scarred into their skin and aglow with hideous energies of Chaos to strengthen them. Also present are some of those most monstrous of things, chaos spawn, the original unfortunates that they used to be completely unknowable now from how severe their mutations have been. Personally, you suspect they were either Druchii who resisted the new order or slaves that were used up as much as anything else.

"You have erred in coming to this place, you mewling child of ice," the sorceress proclaims, her voice echoing about the vast inner chamber as she turns to look down upon you all from atop the staircase. "You have come only to find death, doom, and enslavement."

"Two of those sound good to me, actually," you sneer, flicking your blade clean of blood. "It'll just be yours, though."

"I will enjoy watching Voidreaper breaking you," she chuckles at you, "I wonder how long the tender touch of Slaanesh will take for you. A second? Two? Perhaps even an entire minute?"

A deep laugh escapes her at that thought, one echoed with eagerness and cruelty by her troops.

"I don't care who kills her, just that she dies," you inform your troops curtly before cracking your neck from side to side.

"TAKE THEM!" The sorceress bellows.

(The Core of the Complex: 63+35+20+15+10+25+5+10-5-10-25-10-Daemonic Auxilaries(15)-Power of Darkness(20)-Empowered Sorceress(25)=73/100)

Crossbow bolts fly on both sides.

Some charge down the steps, others charge up.

Slavering monstrous creatures meet stern champions meet vicious daemons meet murderous killers.

Magic flies, whether it comes as the Grace of the Widow, the scorching fires of Aqshy, or the devastating darkness of Dhar. Bodies are set aflame or frozen in place or blown backwards. There are freedmen who will never get up again, yet die in the name of that same freedom granted to them. There are Druchii who die after centuries of life cut short in a single instant moment. Enchanted weapons cut and carve and slice, runes blaze bright whether that of the dwarfs upon gromril, of the Druchii upon black iron, or elder Cathayan dragons upon celestial dragon steel. With bone rattling force the defenders of this place and those who attack it crash into each other. Some deaths are instant, others more lingering, screams of pain and shock and outrage nearly deafening the ears. Durandal stabs deep into the tumorous mass of a chaos spawn, whilst Kerillian cuts the flailing tentacles of another off one by one before she can reach the many mouths at the center. A bolt of black death fires from the sorceress and simply disintegrates a number of freedmen even as you clench your fist and bring down a miniature ice storm localized entirely on the devoted Slaaneshi cultists to slow and even kill some of them.

"You shall be burned, you shall be flayed, you shall be subject to acid and poison to wrench the muscle from your bones, and then you shall truly begin to suffer!"

"Shit," you spit as the sorceress raises her staff over her head, the energies of the Anchorstone intensifying as she draws upon it.

(Horror Wrought Real: 54+13+10+5+5-10-20-25=32/100)

It is like trying to hold back an entire hurricane, or perhaps block out the sea. The sheer level of power that the sorceress can draw upon is substantial, magnified further by the Anchorstone. The worst thing about it is, you know that she isn't pulling as much as she otherwise would. You can see it amongst the Winds filling the room, drawn inwards to the great crystal, the pull and drain of it all. Invisible to the naked eye, but visible to Witch Sight, there are cracks up and down the length of it. Fissures where the functionality has suffered, where strain and stress have started to cause damage in spurts here and there. Parts of the edifice of the room are similarly damaged, if you have the Witch Sight to see it, as the Winds leak from the crystal rather than are wholly absorbed into it. The kinds of damage sustained, no doubt, with the complete loss of a peer complex without warning, much like how a soldier used to having two arms would develop more strains and pains if they permanently had to switch to but one without preparation. Even as the sorceress draws upon it, you can see infinitesimal shakes and shivers amongst the Winds within the room. She literally cannot draw further upon it more than she already is, lest she damage the crystal further.

But then, it doesn't feel like she needs to draw more than that.

"Fffuuargh!" Your attempted curse turns into a general scream of pain, something in your eyes bursting and filling your vision with crimson while blood dribbles down out of your nose as frozen droplets that plink against your helmet.

The spell finishes, and from it a hideous door to another realm starts to split open, a tear hacked into reality itself.

You know this spell, you've seen it before, and your heart drops right down to around your stomach as the first tentacles start to reach out with an otherworldly hungry screeching heralding it.

(Jet Sphere Spell Negation Attempt! 1d6=4! Success!)

At least until a sphere, slung so fast it practically seems to have been fired from a handgun flies up towards the casting, and erupts in a cloud of compressed glittering black. To see the effects of it is almost enough to make you vomit as you watch the Winds be so violently and utterly suppressed. It is not the firm and stubborn silencing you've seen at the hands of the Runesmiths, or even their angrier efforts to refute magic. This is more of a killing, if you had to try to describe it. A total removal, and yet, as you scrutinize it further, you can see how it functions. The glittering jet cloud of powder and dust is natural, not the horrid, crushed darkness of Dhar. An absorption, a grounding, one that somehow has taken in the power and magic of the spell into itself, and in doing so, is utterly destroyed. Every single fragment, some as small as a single piece of grain, is literally disintegrating in mid-air from the magic now forcibly suffusing it. To capture the magic and be destroyed in the act of doing so whilst removing the threat simultaneously.

A bloody hand claps onto your shoulder, and you turn to see a creature with inhumanly vibrant green eyes, burning bright, coated in head to toe in blood and gore such that Johanna could be naked and you wouldn't be able to tell. Her jaw is slightly distended before snapping upwards into a more natural human physiological placement, smoke still smoldering off of her red hair which has different hues of flame shooting through it. Where her guandao has gone, you do not see until she holds up a hand and it comes flying out of the fighting to slap into her tight grip.

"You know I only have so many of those things?!" She hisses into your ear, one eye twitching. "Three. I have three, and they don't even always work! And unless you have a way for me to get all the way back to Cathay, then I'm not going to be able to get more anytime soon!"

"Better to have them and use them than not have them and need them," you reply through grit teeth, wrinkling your nose to try and get the blood clear from it.

"Obviously," she drawls, before you can hear an unsettling ripple of bones crackling inside of her body. "I'm just saying. I can only do that so many times, and if we use them all up here, won't have them for later. Something to keep in mind. Speaking of…going to do something maybe stupid here, but we'll see."

"What? Johanna what-," your questions are answered with her actions as her wings erupt out of her back in a slight spray of blood and torn skin as the vampire vaults upwards into the air.

Contrary to expectations, she doesn't come down immediately like a comet upon the rest of the fighting, and instead dives towards another target entirely.

"Fool! The Druchii are not the pathetic cattle your weakling kind feasts upon!" The sorceress lets out a haughty laugh as she draws more magic to the fore as Johanna flies towards her.

(Dispelling Attempt: 28+13+10+5+5-10-20-25+Middling Magics(5)=11/100)
(The Core of the Complex: 76+35+20+15+10+25+5+10-5-10-25-10-15-20-25+Grinding Momentum(5)=91/100)

This time you are driven to your knees from the failed effort to stop the spell's formation, even with Johanna actually attempting to manipulate the winds to do the same. She just isn't trained enough with magic as much as her own physical prowess, or at least not in purely magical combat. For a brief moment, you feel the spell's intent yourself despite not being the target, your heart seizing in your chest and blood feeling like glass inside your own veins. Coughing out a bit more blood, more of it spilling from your nose, and a tiny bit spurting from your ears, you gasp out ragged pained breaths that are nothing compared to the piercing scream of Johanna's pain reaching out across the entire core of the complex. She is not alone in her discomfort, though she is the epicenter of it. The sorceress speaks a single word, and a wave of horrendous wrenching pain sends Johanna crashing to the staircase steps a quarter of the way up, every part of her body from wings to fingers clenching up to the point of near breaking as pain wracks her body. It is a spell you know well, almost intimately in a certain way, given how many times it has been used on Frederick by Alyssa. But it radiates outwards as well, and even some of the Druchii have to fight off grimaces of discomfort with their backs to the spell and its sheer power.

However.

To your shock and that of the sorceress besides, you watch with amazement as despite that pain wracking her body, the vampire stubbornly reaches up to the sides of the staircase and through a face streaming tears of blood starts to laboriously drag herself upwards to stand. Her very spine is practically bent to the breaking point, but she stands, one of her wings so twisted by the spell's effects that it looks almost ripped off of her body, a drumstick spun off the carcass. But the vampire rises all the same, and never before now has she looked more than the undead abomination that her existence is, rising up as an unburied fresh corpse of the battlefield. A wordless bellow makes its way out of Johanna's throat, something between and beyond pain and rage together. One that is echoed, in its own strange ways, by the rest of the fighters on the field. One of the Whitewings is down, you think, but perhaps not dead, their compatriots fighting like daemons to keep them from passing the Stone Gate. Roland has slain another of the chaos spawn, and drives against the enemy despite them swarming him. Kerillian has outright slaughtered the vast majority of the Slaaneshi devotees, the blessings of the Dark God coming up short against one so empowered by the God of Murder and more horrible things besides. Though it is not being done without losses, you are pushing forward, and the enemy is forced to take step after step backwards. You even spy Sadrina, wielding and discarding over a dozen weapons as she kills one Druchii and takes their arms to slay the next, sheathing swords and axes and even spears into the bodies of her enemies before moving on.

Stand, my love! You can do it! Frederick urges in your ear, despite the scream that is escaping his own lips as in a bit of dark irony Alyssa casts the very same spell affecting Johanna upon him again and again.

"I can…and I will…," you say while coughing out a bit more blood before you indeed stand, grit your teeth, and start marching forward before you hear a shout from behind you delivered in strained Eltharin.

"In the name of the Cadai!"

(Core of the Complex: 42+35+20+15+10+25+5+10-5-10-25-10-15-20-25+Grinding Momentum(10)+Reaper Fire(15)=77/100)
(Dispelling Attempt: 53+13+10+5+5-10-20-25+5=36/100)

The reaper fires successfully, but not so greatly as you might have hoped. Both attackers and defenders have become completely entangled at this point, meaning that the impromptu weapon crew could not dare fire too closely. Instead they focused their shot upon the ranged troops of the enemy, taking out the darkshards who have been firing their own crossbows. Even the ones with shields of their own that they could fire from behind the safety of are not enough against a weapon like a bolt thrower. Which helps, but the Druchii are not giving up so easily. If anything, they only grow more determined to fight as you push them. The fighting only grows bloodier and more vicious, and now you see Jaqueline outright quitting the field momentarily to drag her Whitewings away from the front line, one arm each. Roland stands alone, battered back and forth in his gromril armor, yet so far he still refuses to fall. More of the freedmen are not so lucky, even with their Druchii armor, though those more heavily equipped are not so unfortunate. You draw another chilling blast of ice shards to tear apart some of the Druchii, but the fight is nowhere close to over as you feel the magic swell once more in the furious sorceress' hands as Johanna continues to claw her way up the staircase.

"Begone parasite!"

You aren't even really able to begin trying to dispel the working before it is unleashed, a powerful doombolt smashing directly into Johanna sending her tumbling and burning back down the staircase to land in a crumpled burning heap.

This time, the vampire does not rise, and merely smolders.

"Hey!" You shout, turning and waving the Asur manning the bolt thrower. "The sorceress! Hit the sorceress!"

Thankfully, they appear to hear you and even better listen to your orders, wheeling about as they frantically work to reload the weapon.

(Core of the Complex: 69+35+20+15+10+25+5+10-5-10-25-10-15-20-25+Grinding Momentum(15)=94/100)
(Dispelling Attempt: 72+13+10+5+5-10-20-25+5+Reaper Distraction(20)=75/100)

The sorceress can see it, perhaps even better than you can, thanks to her elevated position upon the staircase. The chaos spawn might still writhe and screech, but they are dead or dying. The devoted of Slaanesh have been brought low by one working in the name of the Bloody Handed God. The core of the Druchii troops are being pushed back step by step as a surge of momentum and bloodlust drives your forces onward, stomping atop the dead to reach the living. Johanna twitches, and finally begins to stand up once more, this time just enough to drag one of the dying Darkshards sent flying by the previous bolt thrower shot and biting out their throat to drink their blood and restore herself more swiftly. Your blade and magic start to bring death once more to the Druchii as you reach the front line once more, cutting and slashing and freezing the foe to death. So you are not particularly surprised when you see her more frantically raise up her staff and tear several new holes in reality, these of a different sort than what was cast before. A true portal into the Realm of Chaos itself, miniature versions of the sort you saw in the arena.

Already, you can see new daemonettes starting to materialize.

At least, that is before the bolt thrower fires. With an absolutely undignified yelp, the sorceress is forced to abandon the casting to the dismayed shrieks of the daemonettes not yet fully summoned. A powerful sorcerous shield is thrown up instead, the sorceress ducking down as part of the staircase explodes in a shower of enchanted stone and crystal from the bolts impact, tumbling slightly downwards some of the stairs. It might not have killed her, but the interruption of her spell and summoning was still invaluable in the fight. Enough so that this time around, the mere act of trying to stop her didn't feel like it was going to make your head explode. Enough so that, distracted as she was, she could not stop Johanna, now looking like someone who has been tested by Tor Himself a fair few too many times without dying, staggers up onto her own two feet again, blackened bone exposed to the open air whilst her flesh bubbles and swells disgustingly to start creeping over her wounds. This close, you can now see the fury in the sorceress' eyes as she rises up, glancing back at the destroyed apex of the staircase and then glaring back out at your forces.

There is a chance here, you realize in a bolt of inspiration.

"There is only one slave here," you shout out, eyes burning with the cold power of the Widow Herself. "And it is you. To darkness. To monsters. To evil! But do not worry!" You raise up a fist, motes of ice falling from it. "On my honor as a daughter of Kislev, I have broken the chains of many upon this Ark, and I shall break yours as well!" Then you lift your chin and look down on her despite her literal position being higher than yours. "Unlike them, however, you will not survive the process."

(Goading: 58+Natasha Diplomacy(12)+Strain of Duty(10)+Noticeably Losing(15)+Mainlining True Dhar(10)+Druchii Arrogance(10)-Rational Thought(10)-Intelligent Sorceress(10)-Complex Management(10)=85/100)

"To hell with Voidreaper's decree, I'll kill you myself!" The sorceress shouts back, inhaling deeply, all able to see as the tendrils of dark power from the Anchorstone grow thicker, more numerous, her hair bristling and rising up in the air with greater power.

(Network Overloading: 46+Prior Catastrophic Complex Loss(25)+Hasty Patch Jobs(10)+Aethyric Net Weakening(10)+Fear And Loathing(15)+Maxed Out Draw(10)-Masterful Craftsmanship(25)-Safeties(5)-=86/100)

A terrible rumbling shakes the entire complex as she draws more and more power, a madden laughter starting to bubble up out of her as it happens. The Druchii look murderously heartened, more vigorous, assured of their victory. Except then there is a grinding groan followed by a sound like an especially loud gunshot. Then several more. It comes from no weapon in your possession, but instead from the Anchorstone itself. Cracks, big ones, visible now to the naked eye, appear in it, with a few shards falling free from it to crash into pieces on the floor. The second that happens, the sorceress' laughter cuts out and turns into a pained scream as the power flow ceases to be nearly as well regulated. Instead the tendrils connecting them start to writhe and shift without control, some dissipating entirely. The shaking stops just as quickly as it began, the sorceress' ongoing scream as she tries to reassert control like the sweetest music in your ears.

"Ah, ah, ah!" You cannot help but laugh, waggling a finger as you have so many times as a mother to your children and grandchildren. "Naughty, naughty. What a gluttonous little girl you are. Your spite was bigger than your might."

The sorceress' head whips around at you, pure murder in her eyes now, but the power of darkness so suffusing her is lessened in the extreme, the same for the troops that have been benefiting from it as well. The crystal itself still remains mostly whole, but in her anger she has damaged it. How badly you don't know, let alone how much more would be required to truly shatter it and survive the consequences. But that doesn't matter besides the fact that for one reason or another she did what you wanted. Uncertainty flickers in the eyes of the Druchii facing your warband, but not hers. Oh no, she does not have the capacity for that. There is only hatred and anger and revulsion in her eyes. Good. Just like you have for her and almost all of her kind. With a clenched fist, she summons bands of Aethyric energy around her body as additional armor before leaping over the staircase and summoning a shimmering sword of Shyish and Dhar into her free hand. Screaming wordlessly, she is forced to rely solely on her own power here, or mostly at least.

(Dispelling Attempt: 52+13+10+5+5+5+Severshock(10)-10-Unempowered Sorceress(15)-Power of Darkness(5)=70/100)
(Core of the Complex: 64+35+20+15+10+25+5+10-5-10-25-10-5-15+Grinding Momentum(20)+Reaper Fire(10)=144/100)

It doesn't matter what spell she's trying to cast; the weaving is unstable and clearly she has not yet finished adjusting from lacking the aid of the Anchorstone's empowerment. Before she can begin to manifest it, before anything more than a cloud of Dhar is summoned into being, you are tearing the weaving apart. It is much easier now, at least, which you are thankful for. That crude bludgeoning effort from Johanna aids you in this course as well, preventing the spell from coming to fruition. Though really, while it is just middling in effectiveness for now, you suspect that if Johanna does manage to live long enough, she will become more dangerous. Then again that is true of all vampires, you suppose. The shock on her face is something you will treasure forever. All the ageless superiority is drowned beneath that surprise, that confusion, that utter rejection as her spell simply fails to form. An expression that finally begins to show shades of fear as the reaper bolt thrower fires once more, this time at a better angle, and removes several whole ranks of her troops from the land of the living. As your forces charge, as you charge, right for her.

As you have seen before on the battlefield, as your sister saw while standing atop the walls of Kislev's capital when witnessing Magnus the Pious slay the Everchosen Asavar Kul, as Frederick has ensured time and again on campaign – it happens.

With that final wrench on the lever, the tide does not simply turn, but pours in the other direction.

After the rough fighting simply to get to this point, the comrades lost, the cruelty of their imprisonment, there is no mercy offered to the enemy even if they were to request it. Which, of course, not a single Druchii does. Even as the Druchii are overrun, there is the distinct sense that they cannot accept that they are dying, that those they have abused for so long could ever have the strength to defeat them. Those sworn to Slaanesh die and are trampled underfoot. The hideous chaos spawn are still, their tortured existences finally done though their souls are forfeit to the Dark Gods. But these elite disciplined troops, dedicated to the defense of one of the Anchorstones that keeps the Black Ark from sinking to the depths of Manann's realm, they fight to the end even as they are separated out and outnumbered ten to one. There is something in there, perhaps, that you could respect, though at the moment you plainly don't care to. You can think about that sort of thing once you have your husband back in your arms, and not just spectrally projected through your bonded souls.

When the end comes for the sorceress, it is not a gentle one, which suits you just fine.

She is, frustratingly, able to make up for being less skilled with a blade than you with elven dexterity and speed. But her magic cannot protect her forever. Not from you, and as it turns out not from Kerillian either. The latter of whom seems to have completely abandoned any concept of honorable duels or the like and instead announces her presence in the sorceress' death by hacking one of her legs off in a sweeping pass. Before the sorceress can even begin to process that, you have gutted her not with your sword, but with your hand, coated in razor sharp ice, to push past her wards and glyphs and to her now exposed stomach, pushing your hand in straight through the belly button to grab her by the spine and hold her in place as she screams.

Not for long, of course, because you are holding her so that a wearied and still terribly gruesome Johanna can crawl and stumble forwards to latch onto her from behind in a bloodily intimate embrace.

Whoever the sorceress was, whoever she might have been?

Her life ends with a gurgling whimper as Johanna drains her entirely of blood, two corpses falling backwards onto the ground.

"So," you say to the one of said two that still moves, "Perhaps that wasn't the best idea?"

Johanna only has one eye at the moment, though there is a blob of bubbling organic matter in the other socket which signifies the other will regenerate soon, but you understand the roll of the sole one she currently possesses just fine.

"It distracted her, didn't it?" She rasps out at you, air whistling oddly through the holes in her throat.

"That was your plan, just distracting her?"

"Obviously not," she snorts, throwing the dead sorceress to the side and sticking out a hand for you to help drag her to a sitting position. "The plan was to kill her right off. Had to improvise afterwards."

That's what she calls it? In a horrid way, you suppose you can see perfectly well how this woman might have become your husband's wife in a different world.

"Ursun's teeth you're heavy," you grunt as you strain to do so, "How in the name of the Gods do you fly?"

Johanna laughs, head hanging between her knees for a moment before she looks back up at you, this time with both eyes.

"Spite," she says with teeth still blackened from the flames that ravaged her.

You both share a laugh before you look up and survey the complex grounds and your warband besides.

"VICTORY!" You shout, a cry that is echoed louder and louder by wearied but cheering freedmen.

After that, however, comes the more somber and grim work of cataloguing the dead, separating them out, and trying to grant them some measure of rest compared to the corpses of the Druchii that you leave to rot. That, and seeing to the wounds of your forces. The healing craft of the Asur is beyond anything you can do, not to mention the swells of Isha's power that the Handmaiden can somewhat draw upon. Better than nothing, but besides that there is much needed bandaging, wound stuffing, setting of broken bones, and more to be done. All the while, the pulsating Anchorstone sits in the center of the room, the unclean energies it channels still flowing, albeit less steadily than before. Less contained, as well.

Damn fine job there, Natasha. Frederick speaks in your mind wearily.

Would have been better if you were here. You say back immediately, mulish thoughts circling in your mind. If I were stronger, like my sister, I would have torn that damned Tor down already and gotten you back.

I mean, if I had to pick, I'd prefer you over her. I wouldn't argue though.

Your lips thin to the point of bloodlessness inside of your helmet, exhaling sharply through your nose.

Is this the time for jokes?!

A rusty, blood-flecked laugh is the first answer in your ears.

Sorry. No, I just…wanted to hear your voice instead of my own screams, but I didn't want to distract you while you were fighting.

Sighing, you press a hand to your helmet in the approximate place of your forehead before taking up the soulbond and absolutely flooding it with all your love and affection.

And you think that I'd want to risk dying without hearing you one last time? Idiot. You think to him fondly.

Well…wait, hold on. A messenger's arrived. That's…by the Gods…

Immediately you still, closing your eyes and focusing. The outside world disappears for a moment as your subordinates continue the work needed as you cast your senses to your husband's side. This time, when you open your eyes next, you aren't actually opening them at all. You simply benefit from Frederick doing so, and when your heart beats, it does so in tandem with his, the steady coolness of your own steadying the frantic pumping of his. The room stinks in his nose with too much of his own spilled innards and poisons and the like, mixed with noxious perfumes and scents carried by the daemonettes. More importantly, you can see Alyssa breathing hard and heavily as a sorceress reports to her, the latter actually actively drawing a bit of magic forth as a shield around her. Her fists clench tightly enough you are sure she is drawing blood, but Frederick's eyes can't see for certain.

"No," Alyssa says suddenly, exhaling sharply, eyes burning with dark power.

"My lady, I swear it is the truth."

"No," Alyssa repeats. "She is too weak to do this, do you understand? Too much a coward. I. Know. Her. She couldn't have managed this, not in this time frame."

The sorceress, in an act of spectacular bravery, swallows and then straightens.

"I beg your pardon, mistress, but I came straight from the siege force…,"

Alyssa's hand is suddenly around the other Druchii's throat.

"You mean…the remains of the siege force? My force? My broken siege force?" Her voice rises in pitch as she speaks, until by the end of it she is nearly shrieking beyond the human ear's ability to register.

Then she throws the sorceress to the ground.

"This has gone on long enough," she says through tightly clenched teeth. "I will handle this myself! Hultressa will be on her hands and knees begging me for forgiveness and she shall never have it!"

There is not even a parting shot towards Frederick as she sweeps out of the room in a fury, her daemonette attendants following.

"…you Druchii really know how to pick them, don't you," Frederick speaks up quietly, voice scratchy and sepulchral.

The other sorceress, still on her knees coughing with a hand massaging her neck, turns to look at him.

"Is it everything you wanted? You came to my province. How did that turn out? Turned on Screamtaker. How's that going?" He asks her, laughing slightly as he does it. "You made your choice though, didn't you?"

"Silence, human," the sorceress spits as she gets to her feet, leaning heavily on her staff, wobbling slightly even then. "The power Alyssa commands is beyond your comprehension."

"What, did you sell her your soul? Is that how she's got you all locked down so tight?"

The sorceress swallows before she straightens and juts out her chin.

"Under Alyssa, my power has grown twice-fold from what Screamtaker would ever have allowed."

"Sure. 'Your' power," he snorts, tilting his head to look back up at the ceiling of shadow-obscured stone.

For a moment there is quiet before metal heels clack on the floor.

"What is that supposed to mean?" The sorceress asks, more quietly, more dangerously.

"Contracts, pacts, deals, signed and delivered to her Dark God of choice. Something you really couldn't accomplish with Hekarti? Really?" He asks in a low drawl.

Out of his sight, his vision purposefully on the ceiling, a staff thumps upon the ground.

"I have not forsworn the Goddess!" The sorceress seethes at him. "The balance of power may change, the Cults of Pleasure aligned underneath the command and control of the Hag-Queen, and through her the Witch King, and yet Hekarti remains."

"Sure she does," he nods, the effort dragging the internal hooks and spikes of his collar to split his neck open in a dozen different way, beads of blood mixing with sweat beneath his head. "Sure she does. Doesn't matter that they're already trying to kick Atharti out."

"What a surprise, that a human cannot comprehend the politics and advantages of two rival Cults," the sorceress scoffs.

"You'd be surprised," Frederick answers, and though the sorceress does not know it, you can't help but laugh in your head at their ignorance of humanity. "Besides, look what Hultressa accomplished."

"The lesser favored of the two sisters she might have been, that still put her above any other in the Coven in the eyes of Screamtaker," the sorceress clucks her tongue. "You waste my time. I don't see why she bothers keeping you alive."

"Knowledge, I suppose," Frederick answers easily, hacking up and spitting a gob of blood and phlegm to the side. "About a lot of things…things I guess you aren't meant to know if you're asking."

The gives the sorceress some pause, because it takes her a few seconds longer to speak again.

"What things?"

"I guess that'd be up to the oh so mighty Supreme Sorceress in charge. But…," he makes a mock gasp. "Surely someone in that position wouldn't keep knowledge from you a second time would they?"

A growl, the flicker of magical flame bursting to life, and a heavy knocking on the door that transitions into said doors bursting open.

"My lady, my…w-where is…," a noticeably younger voice echoes out before trailing off.

When Frederick lifts his head to look, you both see a sorceress, yet with your eyes and your husband's, Frederick can see just how weakly the Winds swirl around her compared to Alyssa or the others.

"Apprentice Velandraia, what is it?" The sorceress who had been about to burn your love with dark flame sneers.

"I…my…the…the flow from the Anchorstone that Lady Sethera was stationed at…there were signals that they were under attack, and now-,"

Velandria doesn't get to say anything more before the sorceress bowls the apprentice over in a dead sprint. Bereft of any better idea, the apprentice gets right back up to follow her.

What, precisely, happened that angered her so?

Frederick lets himself grin a toothless smile, every single one pried free today by daemonettes before they put different acids and poisons into each exposed gum.

Hultressa decided to relieve the siege at the Temple of Atharti.

You can feel your eyebrows on your own head raise even as Frederick shuts his eyes to rest them.

By herself?

No. By…

There is some discomfort here, in him, undercurrents of a painful anger that will never quite properly 'heal' in the traditional sense.

She made herself an army. Of the dead.

You recoil despite yourself.

She's a necromancer?!

Not…necessarily. His defense is weak, but you allow him to continue with some mild internal struggle. They were describing it as…she'd done something to pervert the…it's some sort of flesh activation, but not strictly necromantic, I think. Something of Ghyran, I think, if anything. The specific words were unknown to me as they spoke them for the most part, but I caught that one.

You can't raise the dead with Ghyran.

Of course, the moment you think it, you know that is false. You have seen superbly adept Ghyran wielders in the form of Wolfgang, and she managed to take men who were actually fully dead and gone upon the battlefield and wrest them from Morr's realm by restoring them to life. Sure, it had to be done to the very, very recently dead, but it was in fact possible. But to describe them as an army of the dead meant that it couldn't be like that, could it? Surely not. There are a number of mysteries to magic that are beyond your grasp, and will remain so as long as you live. The Grace of the Widow is yours, but while you shape ice and water into it, with some cross-connection with Ghyran, there are certain aspects of the Wind that are not for you to wield. You've heard of it being tried in the past, but even the greatest Ice Witches of old could not do so.

For better or worse, Hultressa has bent centuries of her life tearing people of all races apart and putting them back together in different ways, experimenting without any restriction. If someone could do it, or rather, would do it, I suspect she would be one willing if she felt it necessary. If it's something that those of the Jade College could do, I doubt they'd ever advertise it. It smacks of necromancy to me, and so disgusts me, yet we've both suffered the touch of both sorts of lores, and there is a difference. Perhaps you would be able to tell better than I if you were there to see it, but I most certainly am not. Besides which, they know you hit the Anchorstone. You need to get out of there, and quickly!

That snaps you out of it, sending you to refocusing your senses to solely that of your own body, inhaling sharply as you blink your eyes on your lonesome once more.

Right, of course. All my love, forever.

His answer is as immediate and steadfast as yours.

Forever.

"You return," Sadrina murmurs, having stationed herself next to you. "Are you both well?"

"Surviving," you grunt, cracking the kinks in your neck out. "Apparently, Hultressa has elected to assault the siege trying to take the Temple of Atharti – with an army of the dead…or something like that," you shrug at her mystified and then disgusted expression. "Something about not being quite necromancy, Ghyran, or something akin to that."

She tries to hide it, but you see the flicker.

"You know what I'm talking about," you accuse, eyes wide. "It's real?"

Sadrina shifts uncomfortably, some of the Asur nearby starting to shift closer at her writhing with eyes narrowing on you.

"There…it has been done," she finally says, clearing her throat. "I have never once seen the Everqueen perform it, but once, in the past, a Loremaster who delved deeply into Ghyran proclaimed such possibilities. Of…restoring life to the body, even should the soul have passed on. For a time. He was later discovered to be corrupted, and was slain."

Cupping your chin, you nod.

"Sounds about right. Anyway, for the moment, Alyssa's left the Tor of Dominance to investigate that entire business, but right after she left, messengers arrived about," you make a circling motion in the air, "This. So unless we have some way to destroy or disable this place safely, we need to move. Now."

Alas, those with the Witch Sight to see know that there is no such possibility in any of your arsenals.

Could you destroy or damage the crystal even further, possibly destroying the whole complex?

Yes.

You simply wouldn't survive the tainted explosion of energies as the crystal destabilized and erupted as a result. So instead you run, leaving a copious amount of dead Druchii behind you, stealing some of the equipment from the apprentice and sorceress at the same time. Not to use it for yourself, but to deny it to the enemy should they try to recover it. You do not need the nightmare of a sorceress simply gathering as much powerful enchanted equipment to themselves as possible, especially speaking as a woman who is actively benefiting from a suit of armor which enhances your grasp over magic. Just need to throw it away somewhere, make it harder for them to use. Or, hell, maybe Johanna will be willing to make use of it, for all that none of it would properly fit her. She has some skill with Shyish, for all that she clearly favors Aqshy, and as of yet is not so skilled as to fully filter out Dhar when using extreme effort.

So you rush through the streets and alleys, rushing only temporarily towards the slave tunnels to gather up your supplies, and then emerge elsewhere once again. Even doing so, you heard from other slaves of furious Druchii starting to encroach deeper and deeper into the tunnels after everything that has happened. No doubt after word spreads further of the complex's assault and the damage you managed to goad the sorceress into inflicting, that fury will only grow. It is a mixture of fear and admiration that finally seems to get through to some of the slaves. There are some who might remain as informers to their masters, and in fact Johanna literally sniffs one gibbering man who was going to run to do just that and kills him for it. But others? Others cannot deny that for better or worse things will never be returning to the status quo where they could keep their heads down to just try and survive as long as possible.

Though it does gnaw at you that once again you find yourself relying upon the Witch Elves you stole, you can't deny how useful they've proven time and again. It's almost enough to make you forget what and who they are and what and who they wanted to be.

Almost.

"We were attempting to head towards an allied house that stood against Alyssa, many dedicated to Khaine had come from their bloodline, but the district was swamped by the enemy soon after," one of them is muttering now to a brooding Kerillian as the warband rushes through the streets under a darkening sky. "There are others who would stand up and be silenced for it, others who would rush to fill the gap, and those who would remain aloof in the hopes of surviving the transition intact without fully announcing loyalty."

"And which of those are we heading towards now?" You grunt.

"One that we can hopefully occupy for the night, Larhathalumalav," the…Khainite says with a respectful bow.

(Tor Targeting: 60+Scars of Salkalten(25)+Atrocious Auction Aftermath(15)+Embers of Khaine(5)+Forced Redistributions(15)+Food Frictions(10)-Morathian Foundations(35)-Immediate Loyalists(15)-Daemonic Flow(10)=70/100)

"House Tailanth stood against Alyssa in the name of Khaine and Atharti, last we heard, they were torn out root and stem," she says, "Though some of them might have evacuated to the Temple of Atharti, in the meantime, the Tor should be mostly empty. If there were some guards left behind, there will not be many."

In your opinion, the Tor that stretches up into the sky before you is a mixed blessing. For one, it looks to be stable and largely undamaged in terms of structural integrity. On the other hand, it is farther down the length of the Ark compared to the Tor of Dominance and is in fact closer to those gigantic mobile cliff-faces that they call ramps and utilize as walls when beaching the Ark. There will be much of the Ark between you and your husband, and that itches at you. But it will, you hope, be safer than the tunnels for the moment. For at least one night. Your approach is swift but quiet, and the scouting efforts of Kerillian report crests that the Witch Elves reply are of a house that swore to Alyssa quite swiftly, but was a much weaker house now trying to occupy boots not meant for them. Nor a Tor meant for them. Some household troops are in their possession, but nothing compared to a more powerful or more wealthy family.

"The important thing is for not a single one to escape or get a message out," you order curtly. "No survivors."

When you reach the Tor, there are some Druchii around the entrance, though the many buildings about the area are conspicuously unlit and silent. Those who were nominally in the influence of House Tailanth no doubt, now gone. Either fled or taken, it doesn't matter to you. What matters is that, while this might not be the absolute best Tor you could get, one empty and waiting already, it is better than not having one at all, or spending a night in the tunnels to be caught. Or, potentially worse, spending a night in the utter refuse pit that the harpies used to roost on. Your warband is tired, but vibrant all the same, it is impossible not to be after spilling all the blood you have so far, not to mention the chance of some truly restful sleep is a powerful lure.

(Tor Tailanth: 21+35+20+15+10+25+5+Atharti Siege Shattered(15)-5-10-Warband Exhaustion(10)-Noble Guard of House Kairath(10)=111/100)

They don't see you coming.

In the evening, the night approaching faster and faster, they do not see Johanna approach. Nor do they sense Kerillian and her killers. Disciplined guards they might have been, the pride of the House Kairath, but it does not matter. They die before they know they are under attack, and the doors swing open to allow the rest of your warband to pour inside. There are no priests or priestesses of Slaanesh here to empower or invigorate them. No sorceress to summon forth new allies or bring down devastation or even to send off a message. Johanna, with her own wings, flies to where the Witch Elves declare the general location of chambers to send messages by bird would be, and enters through there. From the top, and from the bottom, the Tor is assaulted with quiet merciless violence. Some of the Druchii, for a wonder, aren't even armed and armored, having actually thought themselves safe for a single night to relax in robes and pajamas finely made enough to beggar many a peasant family for a year. Some of them are older, you think, and some you know are younger. You can hear some of their screams. You know for a fact that Roland and many of the Bretonnians following him would not countenance such deeds as are done in the shadows and fallen candlelight, torches darkened and lights dimmed until the shadows paint everyone in black.

Was it the Asur, merciless as if they were all the blood of Nagarythe, of whom Sadrina spun a chilling tale?

Was it the monster in the night, fangs gleaming and tongue lolling that is a nightmare to so many in the Empire and the Old World?

Was it the killers born and killers made, sworn to a God who had never shirked and even approved of such dark deeds?

Who can say?

But your orders were followed.

No survivors.

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

"To be fair, young wolf, this is not the most traditional of sieges," the older Templar of Ulric declared.

The White Wolf in question had once upon a time had brilliant scarlet hair, but there were deep streaks of grey and white amongst them now. For all of that, Sir Markus Steinhart was still one of the deadliest men in the Empire, as befitting a Company Commander of the White Wolves. He had fought in the name of Ulric against all a manner of foes, and to his name had survived five separate sieges at different points in his career. Twice against greenskins, once against an undead horde led by a necromancer, and once from a warherd of beastmen, and once more against a monstrous horde of rat-like beastmen. The latter was of course said with much exasperated eyerolling by the veterans and confusion by many of the youths. But not all.

"I confess, I have never been in a siege before, traditional or otherwise," Logan shrugged.

He was heartened that, at least amongst the White Wolves, his deeds were proving the better of the annoying rumors that followed him. Fighting as he had had earned him an invitation to drink with some of the White Wolves as they partook in one of the most common parts of warfare that few songs sung of and few poems written – the waiting. In this case, the waiting was partially relieved by drinking, playing games of dice and cards, and simply telling stories. In Logan's case, repeatedly relaying the story of holding the entire Gate of Karaz-a-Karak with naught but himself and a single warrior of Sigmar for a time.

"For one," another White Wolf spoke up, "The dwarfs have stocks for years, and years, so starvation is not nearly a concern. Same for water, stored and with wells to draw from too."

"Don't have to deal with an open sky," one pointed his finger upwards, "Constant bombardments by boulders, catapults, rotting bodies, the like, sort of no point when there's a whole bloody mountain in the way. Plus, despite it all, sheer rock, runes, construction, means that if they're going the sapper's way, it'll be ages before they make problems, if they manage at all."

"Afore the Great Gate went down, most of us," Markus said gruffly as he drank his mug empty, "Thought we'd be waiting for the enemy to exhaust themselves, sally out in the nights, wreak havoc, return inside before they could catch us all. Might even see some sneaks get out there to try and burn their supplies and the like. Like you!" He said, clapping Logan on the back. "Not the bravest thing to do, the first part, but the second? Now that took courage."

Logan frowned but nodded.

"I see."

"The thing about most sieges is, there's usually bits of quiet, waiting, even if it's just because the enemy's working up to doing something else. Peace and violence," Markus rotated a finger in the air. "Cycles until someone comes up with something clever, or one side just breaks."

"Usually," a knight snorted. "Beastmen just keep coming no matter what, near tireless, mad, even greenskins can get bored. If they've got the numbers, the horned bastards will just keep coming. If the gates hold, the greenskins'll eventually turn on each other."

Unless the gates were broken through, like the previous impregnable defense was, and the impassible defense before that.

Of course, Logan didn't need to say that.

It was written on the face of every veteran sitting around the fire, the fire that Logan himself found himself staring into in contemplation.

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

(Cracks and Fractures: 77+Food Supply Friction(15)+Besmirching Glory(20)+Complex Conquered(25)+Siege Shattered(20)+Auction Ruination(30)+Hultressan Attrition(10)+Complex Obliterated(30)+Embers of Khaine(5)+Dissatisfied Cytharai Cultists(10)-Foundational Corruption(35)-Immediate Loyalists(15)-Screamtaker Dissatisfaction(15)-Bribes And Threats(10)-Daemonic Support(15)=152/100)

"Natasha."

To your shame, it actually takes you a full second to spring upwards from the bed you'd been sleeping in. After several days of hard stone floor or piles of vegetables and preserved meat inside crates, the sheer softness even through your armor had been of immeasurable value. All throughout the Tor, the bodies disposed of quickly and put to the side, you knew the same was true for the whole of your warband. The Asur finally slept in quarters that befitted their standards, even if it was all made by Druchii craftsmen, slaves, or was outright stolen from elsewhere in the world. The few Druchii you had nestled themselves as per what they had been used to their entire lives. The freedmen, on the other hand, experienced luxury beyond perhaps what any of them had had access to even prior to their enslavement save for a handful of them. Given all that, the curtains drawn closed and windows and doors all locked, you'd felt almost slightly able to relax.

Something that disappears entirely as you see Johanna looming over you in the darkness of the bedroom, her face half lost in shadow.

"What is it?" You grump at her, clearing your throat and reaching for a pitcher of elven wine to wet your throat.

"You need to see something," she says, keeping her tone and cadence carefully neutral.

She wouldn't have woken you for nothing.

"Have we been found out?" You spring from the bed, blade in hand, already starting to draw some of the Winds to you.

"No, no," she says, stepping close and gently pushing your arm down. "Just…come and see."

You don't have far to go. The bedroom you'd selected was actually within the internal structure of the Tor, without any windows whatsoever. Perfect for a Druchii noble who wished to avoid being too easily assassinated. You leave it swiftly, however, following after a silent Johanna as she pads down the hallway towards a sitting area that once upon a time might have been used for relaxation or idle conversation, though all of the furniture is broken and shattered on the ground with numerous splatters of blood everywhere. You have to admit that it reminds you of how the rooms of a raided settlement could look after a brutal sacking or the like. That's not what matters, however, because Johanna has stepped up to the window which looks out upon the rest of the Ark, and then without waiting for you to ask another question pulls it aside.

"Oh."

You see what she meant rather immediately.

When you had gone to bed you had glanced out the windows of the Tor, and in doing so had seen a dark and hideous urban landscape which stretched far and wide. An entire mobile city-state carried across the waves by dread sorcery. There were glows here and there, speckled throughout, magic lighting up the Tor of Dominion, torches and fires alight at all three arenas though the Path of Glory was far dimmer. From here you could even the Anchorstone Complexes, including the one that is simply gone and replaced with a sunken crater. The Temple of Atharti had a very faint, shimmering glow, even from this far away. You couldn't tell about the Temple of Mathlann, it was just too far away to be sure. According to the Witch Elves, the whole surface of the city should have been lit up in a way that would remind you of the Smokelands of Wulfenburg. Lights in the windows, torches outside businesses. Especially the whole of the pleasure district, though that had already begun to be reduced to a burnt blackened ruin surrounding the Temple of Atharti. When you had glanced out upon it, it had been a largely dark landscape.

Now you see flames.

Many, many flames.

Not candles in the windowsills.

Not lamps lit up to illuminate the roads.

But outright fires.

Now that you're fully awake, and Johanna not even breathing next to you, you can hear it as well.

There is a low, dull roar that can reach your ears from here.

Screaming.

Rage.

Defiance.

"It started about…maybe two hours ago," Johanna murmurs, clucking her tongue. "A few fires, here and there. A few explosions, that way," she points in a direction towards the western end of the Ark. "Think I saw a lot of fires go into one of the pyramids, then some came out. Shouting, some orders, and so on."

"…they're rioting," you say aloud softly, just in case saying the words too loudly would make them false.

"I'd say it's more than that. They're taking up arms. Conscripts or volunteers, they're elves, and they remember their training," Johanna sniffs, whistling as you both watch a distant building start to spew fire from the windows and doorways. "What's your take, Kerillian?"

You don't even jump as the Asrai reveals herself, well familiar with her stealthy nature at this point.

Once again, she has transformed herself. Whatever may have happened to her original wargear, the arms and armor that she carried with her from Athel Loren, are likely gone beyond any reasonable ability to get back. Looking at her now, it would actually be quite easy to mistake her for a Druchii. Or, perhaps, it would be better to say that it is getting harder and harder to tell that she isn't. Somewhere along the way, she has taken up the armor and gear most appropriate to the sorts of Druchii warriors identified to you by Sadrina as a 'Shade'. The outcast savages who live out in the wilderness outside the cold comfort offered by Naggaroth's cities and urban areas. A black and silver cloak, the mask covering the lower half of her face the same shade, her hood shadowing the rest of her face. Two hand crossbows are on her hips, with a heavier two-handed repeating crossbow on her back. The First Draich of course, is similarly sheathed on her back.

"What the Asur oft try to ignore, or so it often seems," she begins in a rasp, "Is that the Gods – all of them – live within and through us. The Druchii are little better in that regard. Both think that they are bettered by trying to carve out Cadai or Cytharai from their hearts."

She raises a hand now covered by a high ranking corsair's claw-tipped gauntlet and points through the window.

"The truth is that Khaine is many things, much of it necessary. He is violence, war, cruelty, blood, destruction, and yes…murder. The kindler of war," she says the last with an audible smirk as another fire starts. "War is necessary to carve out peace, this is a truth that even lumberfoots know well, is it not?" She glances towards you and Johanna. "To protect your home, in defense, or acting proactively, against many a threat?"

Neither of the Imperials in the room, living or undead, have anything to refute that simple truth.

"Perhaps she thought with enough strength, she could cut out Khaine's presence upon the Ark powerfully enough. Perhaps she could have, in time, with the right maneuvering, especially with how white the Cult was bled at Salkalten," she adds, "Perhaps throw them against another foe, let them die shedding blood and killing in His name. But this?" She laughs as the finger retreats into a now curled fist that lowers to Kerillian's side. "She might have had the strength, but did not apply it well enough, and now it is too late. She has failed too many times, moved too quickly, stretched all she had thin…,"

"Until something snapped," Johanna finishes.

"Several somethings," Kerillian corrects with a low chuckle. "Khaine has always been strongest amongst the Druchii, and not so easily guttered out. Alyssa might have shattered the Cult, but she could no more kill Khaine by shattering Him into pieces than she could extinguish the flame of war and burning blood within most every Druchii heart," she snorts and shakes her head. "No matter what other Cytharai they might proclaim highest to their soul."

"And from embers…fire," you nod before glancing at the two of them and tap at your ears. "Forgive my human failings. What do you hear out there? It's all just a distant low roar to me."

"Angry people doing angry things," Johanna answers with a measured sigh.

"War and violence and murder," Kerillian answers with hungry relish before inhaling slowly. "And more than that. I decided to investigate myself."

"Kerillian!" You hiss. "That could have been dangerous!"

"Normally, yes," she nods while holding up her hands in surrender, "We have all watched too many elves die for me to assume my own safety, especially when daemons and elves are my foe in turn. But this…," she flaps a hand towards the window. "With such chaos and anarchy swallowing up the Ark, there would never be a better time where most eyes would be utterly distracted otherwise."

Slowly, methodically, you take off your helmet and freeze it to your hip so that you can directly rub at your temples.

"…I'm too tired to argue, you already went out, report," you grind out.

"Of course, Larhathalumalav," Kerillian sketches a deep bow before straightening. "I think you should be pleased. Order has broken down. Different noble houses are pulling back their troops to protect their own estates. A group of unaffiliated Druchii broke into one of the pyramids to ransack it for themselves, as there were many already concerned about food thanks to the destruction of the aquafarms and other pyramid's burning," she says rapidly, back straight and posture almost something you'd call 'at attention'. "Someone…," she drawls with an audible grin, "Happened to set a few more granaries aflame as well. In the meantime, the forces at the Anchorstone Complexes are remaining in place, and cannot be used for other purposes. The Temple of Atharti has become a major rallying point, and managed to repel Alyssa when she personally came to assault it."

You can feel your heart starting to beat harder, but now in excitement rather than anger.

"There's rioting clear across the Ark, the Cult of Mathlann has proclaimed full neutrality after repeatedly witnessing Alyssa's control slipping – rumor goes that they might be readying themselves to simply up and sail away rather than deal with her. Or," she tilts her head, "Wait for her to die, then take command of the Ark wholly for themselves as the dominant Cult. Deep Dwellers have begun to hoard their own food supplies, aren't transferring any out to anyone, standing their ground to keep what is theirs, theirs. Rampaging attacks against the Slaaneshi cultists in the streets by people finding Khaine in their hearts once more."

"By the Gods," you murmur.

"Some of them, certainly," Johanna says as she folds her arms over her chest.

Sniffing, you think you can finally start to smell the smoke starting to rise in the air.

"We're also getting closer to Norsca, so she has to have sorceresses maintaining control of the Anchorstones so that the Ark can slow itself properly to land, or at least reach shallower waters to reduce strain," Kerillian draws her hands out and waves them through the air for a moment. "If they don't, apparently, the Ark could strike the coastline too hard if not steered or slowed otherwise."

"They didn't seem to need to slow overmuch when they damn near destroyed our coastline," you growl.

"Ah, true, but apparently there's some magic related…," Kerillian shakes her head and shrugs. "I do not know the specifics, but I overheard enough. Something allows the Ark to sail so quickly, and strike so strongly, without causing every Druchii on the Ark to go flying at the same time. Something to do with momentum and…higher magics that the rioters certainly did not know," she sighs. "Regardless, if the Anchorstones are too damaged, not manned, then said safety measure would not be in place. So you tell me, Larhathalumalav," she looks you in the eyes, dark crimson dots for pupils glowing faintly in the dim light of the room. "Do you want to experience what happens on a Black Ark without that if it sailed as quickly as it did at Salkalten?"

"I might live," Johanna raises a hand, "But I can fly. I saw the damage that got dealt, that'd pulp people like being strapped to a wall and hit with a battering ram."

"It would," you agree with a quick nod, frowning, nonetheless. "The good news, I would think, is that the sorceresses at the Anchorstones would wish the same. What else?" You flick your eyes back to Kerillian.

The Asrai leans against the windowsill now, tapping at the glass.

"Too much chaos to be certain, but it seems like the desecrated Temple of Khaine," she growls lowly at that, an echo not her own layered atop her words, "Is starting to be isolated, the daemons that range out from it subject to attack. I would not go so far as to say that the Tor of Dominance itself is under siege…but it certainly seems like no one is entering or leaving at the moment."

Johanna flicks her eyes over to you.

"And how's…Frederick?"

You blink, and realize that this entire time, all you've gotten from Frederick has been somewhat bloody and pained dreams.

"He's…asleep," you mutter before pausing, blinking hard. "He's asleep. They never…they never came back to keep…,"

He's had a blessed night of peace, wounds notwithstanding, because Alyssa literally cannot spare the time or effort anymore even with her anger and obsessions.

"So Alyssa is really distracted," Johanna hums thoughtfully, finger tapping against her lower lip. "Enough that she's forced to focus on defending herself more than anything else. Any idea how hurt she got at the Temple of Atharti?"

"Alas, no," Kerillian grumbles. "The High Priestess came out of a thousand-elf orgy as some sort of ritual to call upon Atharti's power and managed to repel her, as the story goes."

Your mouth opens and then closes before you shudder in revulsion.

"Speaking of that, or at least in part, the story of an army of the dead appears true. Hultressa sent in a bunch of revived Druchii at the siege force. Didn't act like undead as I might know them, but then…," she shrugs and looks at you. "I am no master of magic. Apparently they were all re-killed in the process, but the damage was more than enough well done."

The three of you share a silence after that point, one punctuated by distant screams and burning flames as order completely and utterly breaks down across the Claw of Dominion.

"So what's the plan now, oh glorious leader?" Johanna breaks it, looking at you.

"I…," you trail off. "We're still not strong enough to assault the Tor of Dominance directly, I don't think. That's her highest bastion."

"What about the Slaaneshi portal in the Temple of Khaine?" Kerillian pipes up.

"We can go after it once we have my husband back in hand," you grunt, and you can see her work her jaw behind her mask before nodding slowly.

"We need him back before we either try and steal some boats or go after the portal, either or," you shake your head. "She's had him long enough. She's lost enough, I don't want to wait any longer than necessary before retrieving him."

"So, what, we try and recruit any of the slaves down there who might have finally gotten the message?"

"That, or we go for one of the other two arenas," you muse, rubbing at your chin. "Things being like this? They're going to both be isolated now. Cut off. Easier to go after without worrying about reinforcements or anything like that."

"Maybe," Johanna says before frowning, sniffing again. "Hngh."

Seeing her on edge has you on edge as well.

"What is it?"

The vampire looks towards Kerillian.

"Are you sure you weren't followed back?"

The Asrai's eyes widen and then narrow.

"Very much so, yes I am sure," she growls.

"Uh huh," Johanna nods before sniffing again, more deeply. "I need a second."

Without answering another question or saying another word, she pushes the window open and drops out into the night. Leaving you with a now uncertain looking Kerillian, who starts quietly muttering to herself inaudibly as she starts to pace back and forth. You suspicious look is returned with a vigorous shaking of her head, a finger disappearing behind her mask so she can gnaw at a nail. You so easily believed she went unheard and unseen, why wouldn't you? She is a Waystalker, or whatever it was, she has spent centuries honing her stealth capabilities. Something she has disturbingly grown better at since taking up the First Draich, seeming to sometimes outright disappear from sight even when you are staring right at her. But these are elves too, are they not, damn it all. Maddened as they are, furious, anarchic, but how difficult would it truly be to detect her if one wished to?

When Johanna reappears in the window frame, you blade is out, while two hand crossbows are out from Kerillian.

"We need to go downstairs," she says flatly.

"Wha-,"

"We need. To go. Downstairs," she grinds out.

Sharing a glance with Kerillian, you sigh and then gesture for her to lead on. There are a number of confused third shift freedmen who got to sleep earlier than the rest of their fellows, as even with the Tor taken you weren't about to just not have guards on rotation. Johanna does not sleep, but that does not mean she should try and be the sole guard for your entire force. Not that she or any of them were able to catch Kerillian leaving and returning, now that you think about it. Still, all such thoughts disappear from your head as you reach the gates that were broken through some hours before, or more specifically when Johanna unceremoniously shoves it open.

On the other side is a vortex of Dhar, shot through with Ghyran, Hysh, and Shyish. A monstrous manifestation of energies through your Witch Sight that makes your mouth feel dry and heart pound in animalistic response to danger. A tremendous power that you recognize quite well. One that is greater than the sorceresses you've fought and killed up to now, one that you would reckon might be a far better match for Alyssa than yourself. There is a fluttering exhaustion to the vortex, the nimbus of Dark Magic suffusing her, while the armor they bear is badly battered with some plates stripped and lost entirely. But the staff still holds power, as does the brutal large cleaving saber which floats in the air next to them.

But next to it…next to her…is a child.

A tiny elven child holding her hand, with eyes that are as pitch black as Kerillian's.

With tiny red circles in the center…just like Kerillian.

"Hello Hultressa," you grind out through grit teeth, your best attempt at a smile becoming a rictus grimace.

"Lady Natasha von Hohenzollern," the sorceress who abandoned your husband to ruinous torture and pain nods at you.

Ice creeps over the ground around you, the air chilling as a cool mist emerges with every hard exhale through your nose.

"How," you say flatly.

"For better or worse," Hultressa says, inhaling and exhaling slowly, "Khaine desires his due," she glances towards the First Draich in Kerillian's hands, who shrinks back and sheathes it immediately as her eye flick to…the child.

"You must be Gwendolyn," you say softly, and the child blinks wide eyes up at you. "Frederick has told me a lot about you."

The child's eyes immediately start to well up with tears.

"I…I didn't mean…I'm sorry!" She starts to wail, and Hultressa squeezes her eyes shut for a moment before opening them again to look at you.

"You may rightly blame me for much of the pain your husband has suffered. But could I ask for succor for a night, for myself and my child?"

You want very, very, very badly to refuse them.

But there is a crying child out there who needs a warm bed and a blanket.

"…get in here," you grumble and sweep back into the Tor.

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

"So."

"So."

You face Hultressa across a dining table once used by the family ruling the Tor. On your side are Kerillian, Johanna, and a now awakened Sadrina who's eyes are wide and so far completely unblinking as she shifts her gaze from the sorceress to her child. Said child is now huddled next to a low burning fireplace, sipping quietly from a mug of crystal-clear water and a few cuts of salted meat. You would prefer the child not be present for this, to rest, but you can also completely recognize why Hultressa is absolutely opposed to letting her child out of her sight. At the least, however, she has placed her staff and sword aside, without protesting that you are not doing the same. Or that she is now thoroughly outnumbered. You did grant her some food and water as well, out of threadbare courtesy if nothing else.

"Been a while since you abandoned my husband."

"It has been some time since I rescued my daughter from her attempted abduction, yes."

You tap a few fingers on the table while Hultressa takes a sip of water, dark purple eyes almost seeming to shimmer in the firelight.

"Heard you've been stirring up trouble for Alyssa."

"I have heard the same, though the rumor was initially that it was the Handmaiden leading the effort," she glances at Sadrina as she says it before looking back at you. "Though that has most certainly changed."

It's hard to know for certain if that's better or worse.

"Good to know. Any specifics you'd like to share?"

The sorceress pauses, sips some water, and then runs her finger over the rim of the cup.

"I killed one of my coven sisters, stole many fresh corpses to raise into temporary life," she pauses, looking you in the eye. "Not necromancy as you would understand it. Merely a different application of Ghyran."

"So we've heard," Johanna grunt, arms folded once more over her chest.

"And also shattered a number of wards and weakened the Aethyric Net. Not so greatly as destroying an entire complex, but the effort was…considerable on my part, if less open than yours."

"I see…," you mumble.

All the women in the room are quiet now, listening to the sounds of anarchy in the distance.

"So you found us. Now what?" You eventually ask.

Hultressa sniffs and then looks down into the glass of water before downing it entirely.

"Matters…are in motion. I had no way to know you would be so active, nor so…successful," she says with grudging respect and a few notes of genuine bewilderment.

"You acted with the presumption that you needed to work alone," Sadrina says sadly, and though you can see the anger flash over Hultressa's face she does not give voice to it.

"Precisely, Handmaiden," she says instead with a respectful nod.

"…what did you do," you growl.

The damned sorceress doesn't answer immediately, instead thinking for a moment.

"Your husband may have recalled some of the items and things I had contained and imprisoned in my workshop?" She begins, and you are already rubbing at your temples.

"He mentioned it, yes."

"Mmm," she smirks. "One was a bound Exalted Herald of Slaanesh, who commanded a different Legion than the one currently being invited onto this Ark. Another was a captured daemon of Khorne."

Sadrina inhales sharply.

"When they came for my daughter, the Asur Eldyra of Tiranoc gave her life to help her escape," she says, looking past you all towards the fireplace her daughter is curled up by. "I triggered every contingency and trap I had to punish them, to slow them. I also…sent a message," she glances back to you. "I confess, I was rather angry at the time, and also wounded."

"Not dead, actually," you speak up, making her pause and blink. "Not in pristine condition, no, but she's in the Tor, a slab or two over from my husband, still breathing."

"How could you...ah, that...bond," she says with audible distaste before it ameliorates with relief. "Then that...is all the more reason, then."

Fists slam against the table.

"You have made a pact with Chaos," Sadrina hisses, standing up from her stool, shaking her head. "I truly had thought you might be redeemed before the Everqueen, you had raised my heart high in your hands and now have crushed it beneath your heel, Druchii!" She spits the word, absolutely woebegone. "How could you!"

Hultressa closes her eyes and breathes slowly.

"My redemption is not required, merely the salvation of my daughter," she says, each word slow and shaky. "And surely you would not deny her that, deny the High Priestess of Isha from acting with grace and mercy."

Sadrina's mouth opens and closes without a word.

"And," she continues with a bit more control, "I did no such thing. No pact did I sign, no deal did I make. I simply worked to reveal a place of great magic to those who would hate it, a place where much destruction could be wrought and blood spilled. With," she rolls her hand in the air. "A messenger once bound, then released, to carry said message where it needed to go."

"Rhya's fucking tits, you sent an invitation to the damned Skull Throne," Johanna whispers in a strained wheeze.

"Not an invitation," Hultressa stresses. "Simply information that happened to be passed along in the course of our escape."

You raise one finger.

"One of the Anchorstones was destroyed, the Aethyric Net weakened. Then you weakened it again by targeting the wards protecting the Ark. Then we damaged another Anchorstone slightly."

"The great wards of the Black Arks are such that even the White Tower cannot easily locate them out upon the waters," Sadrina says tonelessly as she slumps back into her chair. "Without it…"

The worse the wards, the easier it is to actually find the damned Ark.

"Hell of a way to get revenge on your sister," you snort, hand across your face.

Hultressa looks at you all and then gives the slightest of nods.

"I…may have…reacted…unwisely," she admits, sucking some air through her teeth. "At the time I was in a particular mental and emotional state. I would still be unable to escape upon one of the ships so long as the Cult of Mathlann hoarded them and were allied with Alyssa, could not take a flying beast to freedom, could not teleport with those particular wards still intact."

Then she places her hands atop the table and slowly clenches her fists, teeth grinding for a moment before she sighs and slumps in her chair.

"And…," she trails off before an exasperated and tired snort escapes her. "I couldn't just leave him."

Like pulling teeth, that.

"Him? My husband? Frederick von Hohenzollern?" You hiss out.

She grinds her teeth for a moment before nodding once.

"Yes. Yes," she says it the second time as a hiss. "The debt I owe him is too great, the…there's…," her grasp over speech appears to disappear for a brief instant. "He was kind to her," she finally says, sagging in her chair, eyes once more on her daughter.

Gods help you; you do not want to see the warmth and love in her eye.

But you do.

The rage tries to burn colder, brighter, and yet you just can't seem to fuel it the way you have been.

"You could escape now, I suspect," Sadrina says, shaking her head slowly in wonderment. "You could, with the wards weakened, the Ark falling in upon itself, and the rest. But you…you won't."

Hultressa rubs at her face with her gauntlet.

"For now," she insists. "Her position is weaker than ever, I doubt she has had a single easy night of rest since this all began, the debts and costs she is incurring both physical and Aethyric considerable."

"You want to help us take her on. What, go straight to the Tor of Dominance tomorrow?" Johanna asks, and that makes Kerillian sit up in greater interest.

"Maybe. Though based on my estimations of your forces, you might want a few more to join you. You could," she glances at Kerillian, "Try and rally some of the citizenry with the most bloodlust in their hearts, enflame Khaine's hold on them. Especially now, as rage overtakes so many. The arenas are holding, for now, but they are no longer places of enrichment, only a millstone about the neck."

A thought strike you then.

"Question," you raise a hand. "How long do we have?"

"In regards to what?" She quirks an eyebrow.

"Norsca, and whether or not anyone is going to respond to your little non-pact message," you drawl. "None of us have driven a Black Ark before, or been part of that kind of operation."

A small 'o' forms with her lips before she nods.

"Ah. Yes. At higher speeds we would have been there already, but we lost that capacity with one of the Anchorstone's being destroyed," she shrugs a single shoulder. "I would estimate two to three days away at our current pace, but given the strain on the Network, I would normally suspect it more likely to slow the Ark and take a halt in the shallower waters than the deep sea within the next day outright, if only to give time to try and actually perform proper repairs and maintenance. Then," she waggles a hand. "Ships go to shore. Or would, under normal circumstances."

Right, no one knows what in the hell the Cult of Mathlann is going to do now. Given how the God is described, the similarities with Manann are impossible to miss. Little comfort when fatal mercurialness features so strongly for both.

"And the second half of the matter?" You ask pointedly.

Hultressa's lips twist as she thinks.

"It is difficult to say. I have not been able to spare the energy or power to cast out my own scrying beyond the Ark, lest I myself be discovered within it," she admits, but your eyes narrow at the leading tone in her voice.

"Hultressa," you sigh.

"It is hard to say!" She exclaims. "I would normally think that the Coven would have detected such a thing by now if it were to happen, but as current events have borne out, such surety cannot be assumed any longer."

"What, no dreams of blood?" Johanna snarks. "No deep voice of a brass-throated daemon proclaiming their favor for your deed?"

"No," Hultressa sniffs.

She almost sounds offended that she didn't.

"Yes, well, some of us haven't had any kinds of dealings with Chaos at all in our lifespans," you groan, "So forgive me for not having centuries to poke about at such blasphemies that ought to cost the mortal soul too dearly to consider."

"It is beside the point. If they come, they come. If they do not, they do not. We must act regardless," Kerillian finally pipes up. "Either to recruit Druchii, recruit slaves, or both, we must decide now."

Well.

It's not like she's wrong.

"After that, the Tor or the portal at the temple," you begin, but Hultressa is already shaking her head.

"With what you have, and even with what we could gain, I do not foresee us possessing the strength to do both, the cost in lives for success would be too great."

"My husband it is, then. Besides, maybe after that we can go after the portal if necessary, unless the whole Ark isn't sinking around our damned ears by that point and we can try to escape afterwards."

No one appears to want to argue against you on that point now.

"We recruit who we can tomorrow, then make for the Tor the day after," you proclaim next. "Don't want to interrupt the Ark slowing down enough for us to survive getting off of it, after all."

You've set the Claw of Dominion aflame, and the Druchii to tearing each other apart.

Time to wind up for the finishing blow.

Black Ark Claw of Dominion Has Fallen Into Civil War!

• Open Anti-Slaaneshi Rioting Has Begun Across Ark!
• Food Crisis Has Escalated Due To Panic, Hoarding Shortages!
• Anchorstone Complexe Garrison Requirements Have Stretched Alyssan Distribution Past Breaking Point
• Cult of Mathlann Has Broken Alyssan Allegiance In Favor Of Neutrality
• Temple of Atharti Siege Broken, Has Become Anti-Alyssan Rallying Point!
• Alyssa Wounded By High Priestess of Atharti, Forced Back To Tor of Dominion!
• Multiple Noble Houses Now Forming Independent Factions!
• Deep Dwellers Have Formed Independent Faction!
• Arena's Grand Re-Openings Have Been Cancelled!
• Hultressa Horrorheart and Gwendolyn (Khaine-Blessed) Have Joined Warband!

The Penultimate Recruiting Drive:
Moratorium 3 Hours

In The Name Of Khaine
[] Send Kerillian Out: It is undeniable that elven expertise and experience could outweigh what a freedman could accomplish much of the time. Perhaps it is time to see what can be gathered to your side in that course. Through murder and destruction and warmaking, all things are permitted so long as Khaine's divine will remains supreme, or so you've heard said repeatedly. If that includes fighting alongside freedmen to attack one who blasphemed against the Bloody Handed God, perhaps that means some might join up.
OR
[] Keep Kerillian Close: The potential fractious damage that bringing in any more Druchii than you've got to the warband which is primarily made up of the freed could be considerable. Too much to countenance if you wish to command effectively and without major issue. In another time, another place, simply following Khaine might be enough to unify elves aplenty, but this is not then. Besides, you'll want Kerillian to help you kill other Druchii in your way tomorrow.

AND

Breaker of Chains [Choose As Many As You Like, But Exhaustion+Attrition+Attention Will Grow As Issues With Each Successive Choice] [Re: Attention - Some Druchii, even if against Alyssa, might still be against freeing slaves]
[]Arenas
-[] The Ring of Gore: Owned by House Spitethorn, and known for its numerous gladiators and combats involving great numbers. How many gladiators remain after all this time, whether taken away for sacrifice to Chaos or otherwise by other Cults of the Cytharai, lost in infighting? You don't know. But some must, and some must be willing to take up the fight for freedom and vengeance. However many you get, you'll also be killing the Druchii controlling the place. Thankfully, given current events, it's not like they'll be getting help from anyone.
-[] The Crimson Thorn: House Direblaze was first to swear to Alyssa, so this would be yet another blow to the power her crumbled faction possesses and could potentially call upon. There may be gladiators here to free as well. Also monstrous beasts that you might be able to unleash to cause rampages and damage, if Hultressa can somewhat command the damn things with Ghur and the like, as well as the strange and mysterious Lizardmen. Whether or not they would be a help or hinderance is unknown at this time.
[] The People
-[] Courage to Cowards: The slaves of the Claw of Dominion are terrified, but many of them are so inured to their state of being that to imagine doing otherwise is immensely difficult for them. With the Druchii so terribly distracted with each other, this is the last chance you'll get, that any of your warband will get, to convince them to do otherwise. Make the effort, even if it draws the attention of some Druchii who's outrage at freed slaves might make them an issue to be dealt with. Give them one last chance to die free.
-[] The Noble Asur: There are more Asur scattered around the Black Ark. For psychologically damaging reasons, the Druchii were happy to inform the Asur of how many of their fellows were enslaved, and where, and what was regularly being done to them. Some were captured in the ill-fated expedition led by Eldyra, others are older than that. The Asur with Sadrina have spoken up. If this really is the last chance, then some effort should be put in, they claim, to try and raid those remaining noble estates that would have them. With the Druchii falling upon themselves across the whole Ark, there will never be a better chance and the Druchii in a weaker position.

 

[torroar]

Spikes, Horns, and Stone 35​

The dawn greets you with fire, smoke, and blood.

"Goooood morning Claw of Dominion," Johanna murmurs in a pleased hiss.

"Beautiful day," Kerillian chuckles darkly as she runs a whetstone over her claimed blade.

"A much more fitting sight to wake to," Jaqueline sneers, her arms folded over her chest, smoldering vindication burning like embers in her eyes.

"This will be a red day," Roland sighs, shaking his head.

He's not wrong, love, but a needed one. Today is the last chance to save who we can. Frederick's voice is sleepy in your mind, and a tad weaker than you'd like.

Just as you suspected, none had come to put water or rations to his lips, neither poisoned and forced in by a daemon or Alyssa or even just by a slave.

Of those who will be saved. Too many upon this Ark are too broken, they will die broken because of it. You grumble back at him, thinking on all those slaves who simply ran time and again or refused to help or join.

I know, I know. But there is only so much we can do for them. His sigh is a pained one, no doubt because of how much Eldyra has retreated into herself once more.

He had done his best to keep up the Princess of Tiranoc's spirits after she had been recaptured by Alyssa, but only so much could be done.

Your warband had woken up in full, extricating themselves carefully and in many cases regretfully from beds and couches and piles of cushions which were a greater luxury than many had experienced in years, they had assembled on the bottom floor with the gates of the Tor opening before you. Many of your forces were more than a little leery of Hultressa's presence, given everything, but by now after killing so many no one is willing to try and break away from the warband just because of her. Though you know there are many an Asur that are especially upset about her, they are more conflicted on the matter of her daughter, only growing more so after Sadrina regaled them all with the tale of the Auction and her aid there. Perhaps befitting her nature as a bard and poet, or her status and influence as a Handmaiden, she twisted the situation to downplay the fact that the sorceress bloody left your husband and the rest. Her crimes are many, her deeds lengthy and loathsome, and yet she stands with you all if somewhat to the side.

Part of you hates her for that, and for the hideousness of what your Witch Sight shows you about her.

Another is grateful for what she did to keep Frederick alive before that point, and for the rescue of Eldyra - who's survival had both surprised and pleased the sorceress when you informed her of that fact.

Yet you can bury both of these things in the ice encasing your heart for one simple reason: you need her.

You have your pride as a mother, as a warrior, as a Countess, a Kislevite, and so much more, but you disregarding anything else, for all the additional strength offered to you by your armor, you were violently shown how weaker you were in a clash of magic against one of the remaining sorceresses of the Coven. Empowered by the Anchorstone, perhaps, but even without it you could sense the strength there. And that one was not the strongest of their kind on the Ark. Somewhat younger she might be than her predecessor, Alyssa is nonetheless a Supreme Sorceress. You remember poignantly how powerful she was when last you faced her, how swiftly she dealt with you, how near she came to outright killing you. It was literally just by the power of the Widow and perhaps the mercy of Salyak that you survived, barely preserved in the most powerful defensive enchantment you were capable of. Others were not so lucky, Mellis Screamtaker and her half of the Coven in particular. According to Sadrina, Roland, and the rest, however, for a brief time sister was the equal of sister. You need that edge.

"Your home burns," Sadrina murmurs with a gentle tone, glancing towards Hultressa who has once more taken up her staff and sword. "Burns and bleeds."

Just about every single elf in the warband regardless of origin looks the sorceress. The Asur with a mixture of fear and hatred and disdain, the Druchii with wary confusion and ingrained respect and fear, the Asrai the only one amongst them all able to keep her expression largely contained. The black mask covering all below her eyes does a significant amount of the work in that regard, whilst her eyes are narrowed just shy of becoming slits. It would be a choking amount of attention and focus to some but Hultressa weathers it easily. Instead of hissing or spitting at being spoken to so softly, with such familiarity, instead the sorceress just cocks her head to one side and then the other while looking down. She inhales slowly, deeply, breathing in the smell of a city gone mad and aflame, the same one that the rest of the warband have been doing since the doors opened with varying levels of satisfaction and relish. Only then does she turn to the Handmaiden and answer her with a short exhale through the nose and miniscule smile.

"This is not my home," Hultressa says calmly, turning back to look out at the Claw of Dominion.

Throughout the night, the rioting and fighting had not stopped. The people that the Witch King Malekith and his mother have built alongside the Cult of Khaine and all the Cytharai are if anything predisposed to this sort of behavior in the long term. A human city set to absolute chaos might have ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys, where the energy runs out and smolders for a time before reigniting. The Druchii? They have their precious Death Nights and numerous other bloody festivals enshrined in their culture. You wake up to find many more buildings as burnt ruins, and even a tor somewhere on the eastern side of the Ark is lit up like a torch even now. Fire spills from windowsills and flickers atop the peak, hungrily eating at all the silks, furniture, rugs, clothing, and everything else within. Smoke rises up from all over the Ark, and it is only the fact that the Ark is still moving at speed that keeps the smoke from becoming a choking miasma. Instead, it lifts up and away and is cast behind in the wake of the Ark's passage, much like if one were to take up the Smokelands and transplant it in the ocean and move it about. Only all of that smoke is not coming from forges and workshops and smelters.

"This was never my home," she continues, tapping the bottom of her staff against the stone lightly as if testing it, many of the Asur stiffening and drawing their weapons as a whirling mixture of the Winds appears around the hand holding her staff.

Slowed only by a few seconds and some confusion, many more of the warband are doing the same, their eyes no longer bloodshot from exhaustion and pain and anger but all the more ferocious for that restored vitality. Instead of treachery, however, you watch with only mild worry and anger as she reaches up with that hand, still holding her staff which gleams with Dark Magic, and taps the knuckles against her temple. The small vortex about her hand dissipates, sinking through her skin and skull and into her brain. Hultressa visibly shudders before stilling and lowering her staff back down to touch against the ground. Her eyes slide shut for a moment.

"No, never my home," she inhales and exhales slowly before a genuine smile that is for once free of the contempt and smirking cruelty that seems carved into her face appears.

The sight of it seems to be almost mystifying for many of the Asur, though Sadrina looks more considering than anything else.

"My home was in the lowlands of the mountains, like many others," Hultressa begins slowly. "I remember venturing to the top of the snowy peaks once, as a child, half-carried there by my father. I could see the Vortex itself, drawing downwards to the heart of Ulthuan."

Still, her eyes are closed, and so she does not see the outrage on the Asur's faces flickering. A whisper of memory jolts you, and Frederick as well, as you recall just where it is that Eldyra hails from. More than that, in fact, where all those she managed to convince to fight alongside her hailed from. Hatred, refusal, confusion, all these and more dance across the Asur as the sorceress speaks to them of their own homeland, their own kingdom. Some of them, the Chracians, those hailing from Ellyrion, newly rescued and longer imprisoned, are less affected but not inviolate to what is being said. Not when they can hear the pain there, the aching wistfulness that manages to draw in even some of the humans amongst the warband on the emotion alone.

"I remember the rocky beach beneath our feet as we ran across them," Hultressa continues, one of her feet actually extending out slightly and dragging through the air in remembrance. "The scent of the trees and mountain air. The shadow of the tor where our lord lived, and within which we served. My father…," the smile grows wider on her face. "He was a carpenter – no," her brow furrows, "More than that. He spoke to the wood, listened to it, saw through it, into its depths. Not so great as to venture to the White Tower itself, or perhaps just never desired to. I don't know."

Then the smile dies.

"He was a chariot-maker. Maybe not the finest in all of Tiranoc, but fine enough. Served his time as a spearman for our lord," a cold and quite literally centuries old fury bubbles in her taut tone, the clenching of her fists around the hilt of her staff and sword. "But that didn't save him when the raiders slipped through. When Mellis Screamtaker came upon us, my sister and I, as we played amongst the tide."

Hultressa slowly turns to face Sadrina, only opening her eyes to lock gazes with the Handmaiden.

"For three centuries, we suffered in the Black Tower of Ghrond," she says in a voice void of anything but a chill worthy of the Ancient Widow. "For two more, we were dragged across the world at the behest of the one who proclaimed herself our true mother," she chews the word through her teeth, a single eye twitching. "For five more, I have been unable to escape this place, not truly, not forever, no matter my acts of rebellion. I even managed to reach the ears of the Shadow King himself with my deeds, to aid his agents when I could," she continues to seethe.

Gasps and whispers go up from the Asur at that claim, but before any can outright call her a liar she rolls on.

"It was only just decades ago, when it was whispered that the Asur had finally managed to slay the Witch King that I was able to manage the release and return of my very soul," she lets go of her sword to let it hover in the air while she thumps at her chest with her now freed hand. "And then…," Hultressa has to pause, literally choking on the anger and grief and shame and blazing loathing that flows through her.

It is so much that the Winds surrounding her swirl, the faint hazy haloing of Dhar starts to solidify further, causing no few ex-slaves to shrink back and back again.

"And then I found I could not leave still," she manages to say, working her jaw slowly. "Or at least, that I could not do so without aid that was refused to me. And yet," her arm snatches out to grasp the hilt of her floating blade again. "I must."

Many, many, many pairs of eyes turn to Gwendolyn, who stands quietly with head bowed as she listens to her mother's pain, long knives on her belt. On the one hand, there were a few of the ex-slaves who found the idea of a child fighting alongside you all absolutely abhorrent, even if she was a Druchii. Others had been servants to noble Druchii children who had whipped and beaten and burned them at equal or younger ages than Gwendolyn appears to be. The Asur don't like her either, though that seems to have just as much or even more to do with her accursed nature than it has to do with her actually being a born Druchii. They are already leery enough about Kerillian and her Witch Elves, the latter of whom came far too close to trying to fawn over one who has literally been blessed by Khaine before Hultressa put her foot down. As for yourself?

She is good. I'd wager she could give any of our children at the same age more than a run for their money. Frederick reminded you.

I am aware of that, my love, but I do this for more than that. You huff at his mind. We are not sparing a single member of this warband to watch over her in safety. We need every blade we can. And whether any of them like it or not, she is capable.

Something you are now viscerally aware of, thanks to the improved clarity of the soulbond letting Frederick show you exactly how dangerous Gwendolyn can be.

"So no, Handmaiden," Hultressa snorts before turning to look upon the burning city-state before you, eyes unblinking so that the fires reflect fully in them. "The Claw of Dominion was never my home. It was my cell."

She stamps her staff harder on the ground this time, enough to crack the polished marble floor of the Tor while a deep and utterly Druchii sneer takes its place on her face.

"Burning and bleeding is not enough. It must be broken."

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

Winter was supposed to have begun to depart from the Old World, and for many places, it had well and truly gone. Not so in Kislev. In Kislev, there was no such thing as a warm winter, nor a short one. Not merely cold but outright freezing winds billowed across the plains, whipping flags so badly that some of them had to be kept in place by stout Kossars wearing thick gloves so that their hands didn't stick to the things. The tent itself was not so badly affected, but that was largely because of the ice that had crept up its supports to anchor it all the more, while more ice had stopped the fabric from even flapping slightly. It had the added effect of chilling the insides of the tent, but that was hardly a problem for most of the women inside of it, only the unfortunate men. A single square block of ice formed a table, at which two were sat. One was dressed in a thick blue-black fur coat, a style and coloration of dress shared by the other four women behind her. Behind them were five men dressed in heavy armor, bundled all the more, with fine weaponry as befitting their status as Druzhina. The other at the table was dressed in a full set of what many considered the Grace of the Widow – once upon a time merely referred to as Ice Magic – made manifest. They were also alone.

It was the one supported by many who spoke first.

"Lady Hohenzollern," the woman began with a heavy swallow as she looked to the sole member of the opposite party, "I tell you again, this does not need to be done. There are greater threats than us, surely."

Across from her, the greatest servant and practically replacement of the Bloody Tzarina lounged back in her chair, Ledstali-clad finger tapping against the table in a slow drumbeat.

"The House you have sworn yourself to is corrupt," the cold voice of the Red Regent rasped out from within her strange and mysterious armor of ice, delivered in an icy mist through the grille of the helmet. "Servants to the undead, patsies of the skaven, slaves to the Dark Gods, heretics to the Gods of Kislev."

Clink.

Clink.

Clink.

"The Bokha have-," the woman began, only to stop as the finger tapping came to a halt, the innards of the tent growing colder. "Have erred!" She finished rapidly. "Have erred, it is true! They proved vulnerable to dark forces, I do not deny it, but surely these foes and forces are our true enemy! Our mutual enemy!"

The raised finger remained upright for longer and longer, the other woman swallowing again as the tension grew thicker.

Clink.

Many breathed out again in relief.

"Mutual enemy," the Red Regent murmured, cadence of the tapping finger returned. "An interesting term. Where are the banners of the Bokha? Upon the battlefield with these foes? Not that I have seen. Not. That. I. Have. Seen," she paused, helmet shifting like a cannon atop a tower. "Here, though, Bokha banners fly. Yet instead of offering battle, you send me a messenger, on their lonesome, knowing full well what I have done."

Yes, they knew very well.

How much blood was needed to keep the pikes wet instead of frozen?

Too much.

"So tell me," the Red Regent continued.

Clink.

Clink.

Clink.

"Why should I not tear you all apart now? Save the Romanov Dynasty from ever suffering the foolishness of the Bokha ever again?"

"B-because," the priestess spoke rapidly, "We have broken from those that have fallen to darkness! The masters that those traitorous Bokha serve have tainted them forevermore!"

The helm tilted to the side.

"The latter is true. The former…?" The Red Regent tilted their head to the other side. "Remains to be seen. And even should it be proven true, the question remains – why spare any Bokha? Should the Dynasty require another of the Romanovs to rise up, as it very well may, why not ensure that the Bokha never become a threat to them ever again?"

Clink.

Clink.

Clink.

"If you do not serve any of them, you serve yourselves, and not the throne. That is rebellion, and the punishment for rebellion remains," she added almost casually.

"Then-,"

"Enough," one of the men spoke, helm and mantled fur cloak concealing his features entirely. "This is getting us nowhere."

The priestess whirled in her chair but by then it was too late. Thick spikes of ice extruded from the ground, the walls of the frozen tent, from the ceiling, and from the table itself. There was visible effort on the part of the other priestesses to banish it, but the one they faced was mightier and better blessed in the Grace of the Widow by far. From one beat of the heart to the next, all the men's lower halves were encased in ice, the Red Regent sweeping up from her chair to walk slowly towards the one who had spoken. She left a trailing finger carving a line in the table as she went, scraping sound deeply penetrating the ears.

"There you are," she almost purred as she reached up almost caress the side of the man's head before her hand switched to a hard clamping grip on the side of his helmet. "Konstantin."

"Lady Hohenzollern," he rumbled as if ice was not creeping over his armor. "It has been some time since the tournament."

One of the greatest exchanges of the blade witnessed, or so many in the audience had said.

"It has," she nodded. "Perhaps you will be able to tell me better – why should I not kill you here and now? Why should I not rid the world of Konstantin Bokha?"

To the man's credit, through his helm, weary dark brown eyes met bloodshot blue.

"Because I can offer you a way to do so without bloodshed of otherwise good soldiers."

Alexandra von Hohenzollern was, for ever so briefly a moment, completely still.

"Audacious, if nothing else," she finally said, a chilly humor in her words. "Such offers have been made to me before."

And none accepted, it did not need to be said.

"I am aware," Konstantin nodded as best he was able with everything below the neck entombed in ice. "It need not be yourself."

Within her mind, the dynastic tree unfurled.

It was already to terribly burnt.

He dared to ask her to cut off another stripling?

"Ivana is young," she muttered.

"The tie would be established, nonetheless," he countered. "We would not need…more than that. With enough time, an ending of any betrothal is not outside of the realm of possibilities."

"But in the meantime…peace," she said flatly. "In some small measure."

"Our forces would be allied," he cleared his throat, voice going raspy as the ice lapped at his throat and chin. "And…together…we could…end…this…war!"

The other priestesses in the tent were breathing hard now, sweat streaming from their bodies, arms twitching and eyes squeezed shut. Time and again they tried to summon their strength, each of them gathering their power and will such that silent auroras started to bloom into existence within the tent before finding themselves unceremoniously snuffed out.

"A war we did not start," Alexandra clucked her tongue before finally, the ice stopped its movement over him. "Acceptable, for now. It remains to be seen if her mother would even accept it. Provisionally, as a show of good faith, your forces will fold in with mine."

"I…,"

"Additionally," she spoke over him, sealing his mouth with ice fully. "You shall take her family name. The blood of the Bokha might survive, but the name and crest shall not rise again. That is my condition. Blink twice if you agree. If you refuse, you'll need not worry over marriage ever again," she said while leaning in close, the grille of her helm almost pressed against his nose. "No Bokha will."

For a moment Konstantin held his eyes wide open, thinking, sweating and freezing at the same time.

Wearied will broke.

A man blinked twice.

A dynasty's death warrant was signed.

"Good. Welcome to the family."

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

There's no other way to say it: it feels damned good to walk through a burning Black Ark. It feels damn good. Even as your warband left the ransacked tor behind, there was a lightness to their steps. Well, most of them. The Witch Elves, or former Witch Elves…the Khainites, at least, are young girls even by their kind's standards, not even in possession of a full century of life. All they knew was the Claw of Dominion, and now they find themselves pressganged into a group of freed slaves, following along like ducklings behind Kerillian so long as she sheds blood so proficiently with the First Draich, their Cult otherwise dead and their grand Temple of Khaine a corrupted ruin. Well, corrupted in a different way, you suppose. In either case, now it burns, and what does not burn is scorched or broken, shattered in spite and rage, the Druchii turning on each other with all the viciousness and violence that has been carefully engrained in their beings over the course of thousands of years. It makes you almost deliriously happy to see so many Druchii dead in the streets, tangled up with each other, to see buildings as scorched skeletons. Instead of birdsong, you hear screaming elves attacking each other, the conflict of a dozen different noble houses vying for new control. Instead of the crash of the waves and whistling of the wind overhead as the Ark sails south, there is the crackle of flame and cracking of stone. There is a persistent black haze above you and a steady red glow around you from the flames everywhere.

You are so very close to just marching the warband straight through the streets and killing any Druchii you find. But not yet. Not just yet. If the Druchii realized there was an entire well-armed and now exceedingly well-rested group of ex-slaves wearing stolen equipment then they might well put their differences aside for a moment. That would be an unmitigated disaster, given that you are at this very moment attempting to actually increase your numbers as much as possible. Constant fighting on your way to your target and back again, no matter how satisfying it would be to do, would be actively detrimental to your goals. For now. Afterwards? That will be another matter entirely. But for now you return to the slave tunnels, not simply because it will help you get to where you need to go, but because it is another showing to the slaves remaining in the tunnels. Some of them remain too broken, but you can see the spark in some of their eyes. It took until the surface started to burn, yes, but better late than never for them. Others, even now, flee from you, like rats. Or, no. Rats would actively seek to leave a burning ship. There are too many on this Ark who are going to simply burn with it because they are incapable of doing otherwise.

Before you actually emerge out of the tunnels, you are met at bottom of the stairs of your chosen entrance by a bloody specter, First Draich on her shoulders.

(Scouting The Arena: 55+Centuries Old Waywatcher(15)+God of Murder's Favor(10)+Cathayan Shadow Arts(5)+Aid of Ulgu(15)=100/100)

"The results are rather obvious, but I feel compelled that I should ask anyway: did the scouting go well?" You ask Kerillian sardonically.

The Asrai gives you what you are sure would be a toothy grin were it not for the mask covering most of her face. The unsettling fell red glow in the center of her too-wide eyes has grown again, but more than that, she is absolutely covered head to toe in blood. The little parts of her skin that are exposed within the hood or on her hands are sticky red crimson, the mask covering her face below her eyes so soaked and sodden it has fully molded itself to the contours of her face. The entire First Draich is caked in blood, flecks of muscle and organ, even a few chips of bone and slivers of metal. The Khainites look positively adoring upon her, though thankfully Hultressa is pointedly keeping Gwendolyn away from the rest of them. She'll fight, but she's not going to be doing so next to the damned blade, that's for sure. You already know that it was taxing upon the child to utilize her unwanted connection to the God of Murder to find you, you are loathe to indulge in that brand upon her soul anymore than necessary.

"Oh, aye Larhathalumalav, it went well. Cleared out more than a few on my way there, and even a few more while I was. Direblaze himself isn't there, I think, last I heard he might be over in the Tor of Dominance, but the arenas are half-mansion estate for the families that own them," she chuckles, an unwholesome snort escaping her that squishes the blood in her mask. "Main entrance was well-fortified, so were the sides."

"Was?" You echo, eyebrow raised.

"Was," she repeats, clucking her tongue as she takes part of her cloak and wipes the First Draich mostly clean, the red sheen of blood remaining on it. "I imagine they'll be starting to try and send more of their forces out to re-establish those positions, but they'll be missing some things."

Then she looks to Johanna.

"I brought you a present, fireblood, what with my wayward cousins taking possession of your old one."

The vampire's face lights up.

"Oh, have you now?" Johanna laughs. "Why thank you, Kerillian!"

"Could only bring the one with me swiftly enough," Kerillian admits, "I had to put the other aside, but nevertheless," she gestures up the stairs, "Your newest favorite death delivery system awaits you. As for us, Larhathalumalav, the path is clear and bloody."

Panicked and savaged enemy defenses, their Reaper Bolt Throwers apparently stolen from them.

A fine job indeed.

"Right, let's get this done," you grunt. "Time to tear some more Druchii apart, and to shatter more chains! For freedom and vengeance!"

"FREEDOM AND VENGEANCE!" The warband roars with you in unison, at least the human portion.

Some of the Asur join in, others shout out something in Eltharin lost amidst the noise.

Hultressa does not cheer at all, pure focus on her face before she slides her helm back down, staff and sword in hand.

(Advancing to the Arena: 44+Band of Heroes(40)+Anger of the Asur(20)+Bravery of Bretonnia(15)+Killmongering Khainites(15)+Fervent Ferocious Freedmen(25)+Invigorated Soul(5)-Fractious Fellowship(20)-Ark Civil War[1d2=2](10)-Disciplined Druchii(10)-Desperate Druchii(10)-Direblaze Elites(10)+Kerillian's Scouting(20)=123/100)

When you emerge into the open air yourself, the noises of rioting and battle are much louder. The tor you'd taken over was in an area well scoured, this place is much livelier. You could make out individual words in Eltharin being screamed, and if you strained your hearing as best as you could, the sounds of open battle taking place were audible as well. You can only imagine what the elves and Johanna were hearing. It is not the first time you've been jealous of their inhuman senses, and it surely won't be the last. For the moment, however, you've got a blade in your hand and your Ledstali armor leaving a cooling mist around you as you move through the hazy heat, the warband with you at the head. The arena is not far, not far at all.

Just as Kerillian said, there is a new, if somewhat dirtied bolt thrower waiting for Johanna to hoist up with her inhuman strength. The last one is now in the hands of the Asur, having proven themselves effective with it already, as well as the others you outright stole from the Anchorstone Complex. It's not the same as being able to have cannons around, especially the numbers that Thunderbringers would be hauling about, but you have to admit that they are the finest bolt throwers you've ever seen save perhaps for dwarf crafted ones. Then again you've never had the chance to directly compare the two kinds. Either way, you have war machines to field, and a new one added to the tally for Johanna's personal usage. The Asur have the expertise to at least mostly-competently work them, while Johanna has the sheer strength to hold one up. A single properly fired multi-bolt could turn a heavily populated street into chum, and now you have four of them.

All of which, plus the apparently especially invigorated Khainites, means that what follows is practically a leisurely walk.

A walk through a path that is marked out with the dead, evidence of Kerillian's merciless passage to and from the arena. By now you're getting rather disturbingly familiar with the particular way that the First Draich separates bodies into different parts, sometimes with gliding ease and at other times done with savage strikes more befitting a drunken ogre with how brutal the damage done. There are some small few encounters, bands of Druchii that are either so blood-crazed that they attack you and are put down without any casualties to your group at all, or those that are as of yet still sane enough to turn away when they see just how many you number. For the most part, through the smoke and haze of the many flames, even your haphazardly applied and worn Druchii armor can look particularly fearsome. Truly, though, Kerillian killed a shocking amount of Druchii, the fresh dead easily picked out amongst those who died before she passed by, usually because the blood is still fresh and in some cases flowing.

When you reach the Crimson Thorn, there are a great number of dead Druchii all over the ground in front of the main entrance. A large number are full of crossbow bolts, and going by the placement of the bodies, she must have been striking them from afar for some time as they tried to seek her out, moving from shadow to shadow. It must have only been after she emptied an entire repeating crossbow into them that she moved in for melee, and there the Druchii appear to have died in mounds. Of course, that is not to say that the forces of House Direblaze are inept or exhausted with her actions. Instead, they have boiled out of the arena like disturbed insects after a hive has been kicked, frantically trying to shore up their ruined defenses as well as find the culprit who killed so many of them on the perimeter. All of which means that whatever prepared patrol routes they might have had, layered defenses prepared, barricades to hide behind, and the rest, they've at least significantly abandoned to surge to the fore. Perhaps they had been prepared to make use of them, assuming a greater incursion was imminent, only for Kerillian to ghost away, and only now in the time it took you to get here did they make this mistake. Or perhaps their commanders are overly paranoid and stressed out due to the ongoing civil war engulfing the Ark.

In the end it doesn't really matter.

You reach forth with the Grace of the Widow, and the darkshards stationed on higher floors out of windows and the looping pathways above the main entrance find panes of ice summoned into existence to block them. The dreadspears react with great discipline and skill, whirling about and instantly forming not defensive blocks, shields at the ready. The bleakswords, on the other hand, showing remarkable discipline for their kind given their normal mentality and culture, do not simply throw themselves at you individually but instead break into graceful charges as a group to try a pincer maneuver. There are even a group of knights atop their cold ones, likely having come down the main entrance as a causeway allowing them to ride their mounts in the first place, who come straight down the center. Their reactions and movements are disciplined, swift, and experienced. In many circumstances, that could be a particularly effective effort at repelling attackers at the arena. Save for the blocked ranged troops above and the stolen war machines, at least.

"Fire!" You bark, and your own crossbows thrum out a steady low beat of thudding bolts and faltering Druchii.

Rather than even allow the cold one knights to reach your warband, readying their own spears and shield wall, you place a lower barrier of ice on the ground just before the hissing creatures. Some of them are dexterous enough to hop over them, you know this perfectly well, but not if the ice forms too quickly for them to avoid. Which is exactly what happens, tripping them badly enough to shatter their momentum and make them all the more vulnerable to more crossbow bolts and shots. Or for Johanna, Roland, the Whitewings, and the heavy-armored Bretonnians to crash into them and start killing them as they try to get back up. As for the Bleakswords, one flank is met with a moving wall of fire produced by Hultressa that sweeps through them, while the other is met with the steadfast Asur in their own shield wall with spears at the ready. The first group screams at they are cooked alive in their armor, and those of them that manage to survive end up staggering forward into a merciless butchering at the hands of the freedmen. The second bounce off of the steely-eyed Asur and are then flanked themselves by the Khainites who held themselves back just long enough to be able to start planting blades in backsides, kidneys, and other vulnerable places. Up above, some of the darkshards manage to finally chip holes in the panes of ice only to suffer from concentrated fire from your own troops. Only a few days before, this level of open carnage would have drawn far too much attention. It's why you assaulted the previous arena as fast as possible towards the rear entrances and then swiftly left.

Now it's just another screaming fit of murder and death amongst so many others.

Not a particularly lengthy one either.

"I am surprised that Lord Direblaze has erred so severely," Hultressa sneers as you step over the corpses of the many dead. "They should have drawn back, fortified, and concentrated their forces while collapsing and sealing most entrances to funnel us into kill zones. He must be truly out of sorts."

Society collapsing all around him and all his ambitions turning to ash? Yes, you suspect that being off-kilter is liable to be the majority state for most Druchii at the moment on this Ark.

"Do you think he's not here?" You ask, glancing up at her as she walks along.

"If I had to guess, given that he was the swiftest to kiss Alyssa's boots upon Screamtaker's removal, he might well have gifted her a core of his best to hold the Tor, but this is his ancestral holding," she muses, gaze going distant as the warband takes the main entrance. "No. There is high likelihood that he's here. We don't need to head for the arena floor, but for the residence within the structure proper. I have been there before in the past as part of my duties."

"Lead on then, my lady," you gesture with your blade, and Hultressa shrugs before lifting her chin and stalking forward.

Unlike the Path of Glory, there is no monstrous portal to draw forth endless daemonic reinforcements, but they are still a noble house that seems to have carefully conserved their strength compared to many of their fellows across the Ark. The defenses you expected, those that the Druchii likely expected to only be temporarily abandoning as they spilled out to form new guard postings and positions and look for Kerillian, await you as you enter. Barricades for darkshards to stand behind, narrowed funnels that would allow fewer dreadspears to have a better chance at holding off enemy forces, murder holes here and there that you absentmindedly seal up with ice just in case, and more. This first layer of defenses are something you pass through, rather than fight through, and on your way upwards and through the hallways, it is only then that the next Druchii arrive, frantic and unplanned, spears and swords flashing with darkshards just behind. Again, to their credit as the elite forces of a powerful Druchii noble house, they reorient swiftly.

"Well come on then!" You roar, blade held high, warband shouting behind you. "Vengeance!!"

(The Crimson Thorn: 38+40+20+15+15+25+5-15-10-10-Direblaze Elites(15)-Vicious Veterans(5)=103/100)

These are not conscripts.

These are professional soldiers who have marched across the world, helping invade and sack and kill as they went. While their house might be one that makes its money and prestige through the arena, you don't doubt that their experience goes far beyond dealing with unruly and rebellious gladiators. It shows in every movement they have, the grim and tightened expressions on their faces as they form their shield wall, as their darkshards move to find advantageous firing positions, the steadiness of their formation as it snaps into being. The first bolts are already flying before your own forces can bring their own crossbows up, while their dreadspears know perfectly well that they can't just wait for you to hit them from the differences in momentum. Instead they already begin to push forward, trying to make up the difference, to try and take advantage of the hesitation and comparative slowness of humans in unfamiliar armor to swift Druchii soldiers.

But your warband is more than that, much more.

Their charge is met with a rapid-pace countercharge by Roland and the Whitewings, a wedge of Bretonnians behind them. A sweeping gesture from Hultressa sets many of the Druchii to screaming as their very life force begins to be ripped from them as a glittering purple mist settles amongst their rear ranks. Johanna momentarily sets aside her bolt thrower in the tight confines to favor her guandao, and with inhuman strength cracks craters into the earth with it as it passes through Druchii bodies to meet the floor or walls on the other side. The Chracians rescued from the Path of Glory have taken up some of the heavier weapons you have, apparently mockingly crude imitations of the ancestral weapons of their kingdom to appear more like that of greenskins, but they certainly cut well enough. Even greater so with the weight behind them. The other Asur, following Sadrina's course, flow around the edge of the fight, almost hugging the walls at times, to begin cracking open the blocks from the side as they try to rotate. An exhalation of freezing cold winds blooms outwards from you, slowing the Druchii down as their very bodies chill and armors freeze up. Then comes Kerillian, hacking and slicing apart any Druchii she can reach with the First Draich.

You even spy Gwendolyn flickering in and out of your sight here and there, skittering up, stabbing or slashing a distracted Druchii, before skittering back away before anyone she targets can turn towards her.

(The Crimson Thorn: 17+40+20+15+15+25+5-15-10-10-15-5-Alyssan Auxilaries(5)=77/100)

Progress is so violent, so swift, that it turns against you as you are ascending the staircases and shattering the heavy doors blocking off the residential area of the arena. A large enough open space, a great audience chamber practically on par with an oversized ballroom, means that when extra doors open to burst out with more Druchii, as well as daemonettes, you cannot easily put your backs to a wall. Surrounded as you are, the fighting is harder, rougher, and you see as a few of the freedmen fall never to rise again. Still, they die bravely, with vengeance and freedom on their blood-flecked lips. Druchii being Druchii, this is surely not the first time that blood has been spilled in this place, but you can see the parties and events that might have been thrown here in the past. The tables, couches, and chairs placed against the walls, gleaming and objectively beautiful crystal chandeliers above, with wide windows that look out upon the arena floor for only the finest guests. Not to mention the spotless marble and mural-work on it depicting any number of glorious events in the history of House Direblaze.

All turned into a charnel house as the Druchii try to stop you.

Curiously, your mind centers upon a single matter as you are beheading a Druchii you'd frozen in place, gutting another afterwards, and then clashing blades with a snarling bleaksword. Your eyes keep catching upon your own sword, or rather, not so much yourself, but rather Frederick through you. Similar to how he was beginning to see the Winds of Magic through your own Witch-Sight, so too can you hear the little wisps of thought from his mind as you fight. He remains as quiet as he can so as not to distract you, but that does not stop certain things from slipping through. There are chips appearing on the blade, here and there. A miniscule misalignment beginning to take place on the angle and binding of the hilt. It's a very fine piece of work, one he could be proud of, but you've admittedly been a fair bit more rapid and punishing with the blade without any downtime for maintenance on it. A masterwork, in your opinion, one made of the finest steel in Ostland. But, you hear your love mutter to himself, only steel. Not enchanted, either.

It's a perfectly wonderful sword, love. You inform him pointedly as you use it to kill another Druchii.

Would that I could make you an even better one. He mumbles back.

Perhaps we can work on one together, then. You say firmly. My magic, your steel, our skills combined. Sounds like a fine evening to spend together.

It takes a bit more than that to make a proper – when is the last time you ever actually permanently enchanted such a blade?

Flushing, you drive a spike of ice into a Druchii's thigh to pin them in place before pushing another through their armpit and out of their neck.

Several evenings, then. Maybe.

A quiet chuckling is in your ears as the battle comes to a close.

"Anyone who wishes to deny themselves healing, speak now," Hultressa says above the heavy breathing and coughing that comes after such violence, "Very well," she continues after less than a second's pause.

Ghyran flows outwards, and you feel even more keenly the need to have such a being present in any future fighting as it wafts over you. Some of those you knew would not have survived their wounds crack open blood-crusted eyes with shock and surprise, some of the Asur hold back grimaces as they too are healed. It does not bring back the dead, the spell, but there are a fair few that would have been crippled without it, others that you would have granted mercy to as you moved on. Something you and plenty of others have done to their fellows over the past few days. Yet she is still a sorceress, and dresses as one, if uncharacteristically armored. You can see the conflict and unsettled feelings on many faces, for one reason or another, regarding Hultressa. The Khainites, especially, no doubt see her as a traitor, but also a savior, a long-standing pillar of stability from their former lives, but one who is actively working to ruin it all, not to mention whatever other mental knots they are tied up in following Kerillian.

"Thank you Hultressa," you say politely, freezing all the blood on your sword and then breaking it to fall off without harming the blade itself. "Everyone else? Let's go."

"I'm first," Johanna grunts, hefting the reaper, ready and loaded. "Hallways look a bit narrower up ahead."

(The Crimson Thorn: 56+40+20+15+15+25+5-15-10-10-15-5-Alyssan Auxilaries(15)+Close Bolt(10)=116/100)

Narrower, and occupied, as the vampire comes to painfully find out.

Flailing, hissing, she tumbles backwards right out of the doorway with more than a dozen crossbow bolts sticking out of her, and many more striking the reaper as she holds the bolt thrower up to defend herself. Lacquer is ripped and scratched, some of the wood splintering, but Johanna manages to keep any of the bolts from hitting her head. Much to the misfortune of the darkshards shooting her as she growls and unfurls the reaper to fire it directly at them. A bolt takes her in the mouth and partially out of the back of her neck, another clipping her left ear, but her return fire is with a bolt thrower at close range. In this case with a bolt made for multi-shot, which creates a screeching whirlwind of scraped stone and shattering wood. Not to mention the actual targets, the Druchii letting out their own horrid screams of pain as they are struck directly, coupled with wailing moans of the dying afterwards.

"Let's put them out of their misery, hmm?" You ask, glancing amongst your warband, murderous intent and vengeful hatred burning in all of their eyes.

"As the ice woman says, you lot, come on!" One of the freedmen shouts, raising his sword, a rousing cheer rising up in many of them.

The hallway has become a ruin thanks to the bolt thrower tearing up the walls and floor, and on the far end are the broken remnants of what used to be a proud and defiant group of Druchii. Some of them crawling, their lower halves removed from them, while another look like crushed up rags. At least one screams, hands clutching the large splinters of wood that have punctured his eyes. A lot of screaming that is swiftly silenced, only to be returned in greater number as more Druchii seek to repel you. By this point, there are almost as many daemonettes as there are Druchii, but the Asur and heavier members of your warband rotate with painfully wrought practice to face them so that the more lightly armored freedmen can pull back and fire their hand crossbows, or lash out with their swords from safer positions. There are tatters of paintings on the walls presumably depicting the Direblaze dynasty and all their glorious history, as well as statues and suits of armor that end up swiftly broken in the fighting.

All around you there is a heady amount of wealth on display, and it seems the sight of it enrages many of the formerly enslaved all the more. The gold and silver alone, not to mention the gemstones encrusting some of the cups and other ornamentation. Candelabras, even the sconces, all of it gleaming and polished to a mirror sheen. A place for relaxation for the master's after a hard day of brutalizing the world for the cruel fun of it. There is no small amount of glee in you to break and ruin as much of it as you can, and not a one of the freedmen bothers looting or the like. Better to break the cups, smash the tables, shred the paintings. Something shared by Frederick, doubling the fun, doubling the rage, at what the Druchii have and how they undoubtably got it. The Udoses and Gospodars were brutal in the old days, and the Ostlanders and Gospodars of the modern day can still be, your sister even patronizing the slave market of the Old World to a greater extent than Romanov for centuries. But so far as you know, your sister is not so gleefully and casually cruel, merely exactingly brutal and demanding.

Even so, it is a despicable practice. Frederick murmurs in your mind.

I do not disagree. After this…no, we must speak to her.

If she lives. Who knows what has happened with Kislev since Salkalten, or even before?

He can sense it, feel it even as you swiftly try to bury it. The unsettling feeling that you've let linger in the distant darkness of your mind without closer examination. The perhaps instinctual connection to your sole sibling in the world. That something, somewhere, has gone terribly wrong. Kattarin was always remote and severe, that was her nature, befitting her greater grasp and connection to the cold magic of your homeland even from birth. Something changed when she met her husband, and something changed again when she lost him. The contents of her letters shifted, becoming more and more perfunctory, when they came at all. The news of what she was doing, the contents of Alexandra's communications, they had been making you uneasy for some time. But Kattarin always seemed strong enough that your own worries were needless.

And there were some of my brothers and sisters that not ought to have died to some damned assassins. Frederick sighs with an old, long-healed pain. Still. A matter for after, I think.

Neither of you even wants to consider the possibility of the other not making it off the Ark.

Either both of you leave, or neither of you does.

"Fucking…ow," Johanna hisses again, her fangs fully extended as she trips one bolt after another out of her body, bracing the reaper with one arm as she does it.

Though she does whirl when Hultressa, now currently the tallest out of your entire warband looms over her from behind.

"Can I help you?" She growls, the sorceress' expression full of a rather disturbing amount of interest.

"Your regenerative capabilities. I noticed them before, but did not have time for closer observation," Hultressa murmurs, tilting her head like a predatory bird. "They are fascinating. You do not retain the physiological aspects of the Strigoi variety of your kind, customarily the sorts I've found have such capabilities."

Johanna's eyes narrow, green eyes glaring brighter while the sclera turns a solid black.

"And what business is it of yours?" She growls, a low animal's basso rumble in her chest.

"A few Blood Dragons on occasion have such, but you…there is something different to you," Hultressa murmurs before blinking a few times, finally remembering herself, and straightens from what turned out to be a slight hunching to reveal her full height once more. "Apologies. I meant no disrespect. Only scholarly interest," she says with a shrug.

"…uh huh," Johanna grunts.

"Ladies," you interrupt, "We have more pressing matters, do we not? Direblaze," you glance at Hultressa. "How much farther, do you think?"

The sorceress exhales sharply through the nose before tossing her hair, walking over to a toppled cabinet that was mostly destroyed as the whirlwind of combat flew through these chambers. Within are a great many shattered wine bottles creating a series of glass shard filled puddles, but at least a few survived the falling over and the fighting, one of which she grabs and with great relish starts to drink.

"Not much farther. He could try to run to the Tor, but there's no guarantee he'd actually make the journey through the streets…no," she shakes her head, "No. Careful and cautious are the Direblazes, it is how they have succeeded thus far. If we move swiftly enough, that caution will be to our benefit – though he will be drawing all his strength to his side in the meantime."

"Good," you inspect your sword one more time before coating it in powerful freezing ice, "Then let's go kill him."

(The Crimson Thorn: 66+40+20+15+15+25+5-15-10-10-Direblaze Elites(20)-5-15-Desperation(10)=101/100)

House Direblaze is a martial family, in that they preside over a place of carnage and death, and according to Hultressa have been on the front lines of the Claw of Dominion's raids since before Screamtaker actually took the position of Supreme Sorceress and controller of the Ark. Not just for the glory, not just for the sharpening of their skills, but to ensure that they could capture the best possible product for their arena. Said capturing was, in its own way, another way to boost prestige. To show off their prowess at capturing beasts and the like without killing them, a sight and experience that most others were not able to provide. The sorceress regals you with the matches she has seen in the past, called in herself to test and examine some of the creatures to ensure their health is optimal for combat, including some of the monstrous creatures of Lustria and beyond.

Many of these elite, steely-eyed professionals died at Salkalten.

More of them died in the aftermath of the auction in the immediacy of Druchii turning on Druchii.

What few are left are either the best they have, or the luckiest. By the time you start smashing through more and more doors, reaching a place that is as much a well defended fallback position as well as a foyer, these are the Druchii you are killing. Dreadspears and bleakswords dressed in far better armor, their shields larger and thicker, a visible enchanted glow about them all to improve them with Chamon and other Winds. Knights, though missing their mounts due to the confines. Exalted daemonettes with curved blade arms and tongues slipping in and out of their triangular maws. A priestess of Slaanesh stands between them, the usual sort of hazy delight you'd expect gone in favor of a rictus grimace of hate. At their front is an especially ornately dressed Druchii, who's conical helm is especially massive and decorated with large sweeping spikes and blades that you'd think would be terribly top heavy. There are no shouts, no battle cries, no witty exchanges of dialogue. The moment you are through the doors, Hultressa is ripping a gathering spell from the priestess into nothing with one hand and throwing a doombolt with the other.

You'd hesitate to describe what happened next as an orgy of violence and slaughter, but that was largely because you mislike the inclusion of Slaaneshi troops in the matter.

All that matters is that you are soon walking over a carpet of bodies, the Druchii with the especially pointy and large helmet on the ground with Hultressa pinning him to the ground with the blade point of her staff stabbed through his stomach. The rest of your warband is spreading out across the entire foyer, smashing open doors to make sure there are no more hidden troops, but as well as look for slaves to free. The Druchii scion writhes and screams in pain, but no one save perhaps Roland and Sadrina cares, especially after Kerillian announces she found out where all the Direblaze slaves had gone – or rather she found the husks of their corpses. Some of whom had been elves.

"Hello, Carathain," Hultressa says calmly to him. "Where is your father?"

"Rot…in the Pale Queen's…cunt…you traitor!" The princeling hisses up at her.

"…brave," Hultressa mutters with a bemused huff before twisting her staff, killing him. "Well, that's one less Direblaze," she shrugs. "And I know where his father is, now."

"Do you?" You ask, following behind her, much of the warband trailing behind.

She points and your eyes narrow at the subject, a wall that only now looks subtly off to your eyes. Or rather, not your eyes, but your Witch Sight. Something that appears to have caught Johanna's attention as well.

"Well, I can't be completely certain," the sorceress acknowledges. "But I have my suspicions."

With a slam of her staff against the ground, marble and stone cracks and fractures in a straight line towards the wall before that to erupts in a spray of rock, mortar, and gilding. There is also, rather pointedly, a sound approaching a yelp but deeply toned enough to still be termed a yell.

"She's here, are you listening to me!? You have to-," a Druchii man's voice is now very audible to you as he shouts, but Hultressa's eyes flare with a bright white light of all things before she seems to blur forwards in a burst of carefully controlled Hysh. "Agh!"

As the dust clears, you find an even more ornately dressed and armored Druchii impaled through the back with Hultressa's massive cleaver-scimitar sword and stabbing directly into a small stone pedestal. There are no other Druchii in the chamber, which looks to be some sort of bolt hole with survival supplies and the like, concealing and defensive magics still clinging to the stones of the wall that the sorceress just casually blasted through. It was enough that you could have potentially missed it, but thankfully Hultressa has spent centuries on this Ark being someone of import enough to have come into this place enough times to locate it. Upon the pedestal proper, however, is a brilliant blue-black orb with some sort of internal swirling energies. More importantly, perhaps, is the flickering projection above it of someone that makes your entire body clench with hate, every muscle tensing and teeth grinding so hard you nearly lose more of them to your fury. The same rage floods everyone else around you, and through the bond you feel Frederick's molten volcanic rage straining at the chains that still bind him.

"Alyssaaaaaaa," a sepulchral hiss emerges from somewhere deep inside Hultressa's chest, something more akin to a distant geographic event than something remotely mortal.

Alyssa Voidreaper glares back down at her sister as that image, some kind of grievous wound visible right off the center of her stomach, the projection blurring and flickering around that specific point. Large, fluted and gilded pauldrons guard her shoulders, while plates of enchanted metal guard her hips, while a large sheet of silk or some other material flows forward down to her knees where metal greaves begin and over her backside in equal length. The staff she bears in one hand glows with enough power that it too seems to be subject to blurring and flickering in the projection. Her gaze flicks up from Hultressa, who remains glaring at her, unblinking as she keeps who you presume to be Lord Direblaze himself impaled and gurgling on his own blood, towards the rest of the warband and spends a second longer on you before going back to her sister. Even with the strange illusory image's issues, you can see the absolute pinpricks that her irises have shrunk to, her eyes wide to their limit.

"Hultressa. So you finally show yourself," Alyssa's voice is taut, every word delivered through gnashing teeth. "And this is what you've been doing? A pathetic little tantrum, leading a bunch of rats around by the nose. What have you promised them, I wonder? Freedom? Peace? Safety? What lies have you spun, little spider?"

Hultressa sneers at her sister, tossing her hair as she does so.

"Why don't you come out of your tower, and I'll tell you in person," Hultressa growls before pushing her sword deeper into Direblaze, making him let out a strangled scream. "Or perhaps I'll just tear the Ark down around you and make you watch."

A completely, utterly, comprehensively insane laugh erupts out of the Supreme Sorceress, one so great that it nearly doubles her over, a hand coming to touch at her stomach before dancing away from whatever was done there.

"You truly are a broken creature," Alyssa says, almost bewildered contempt etching itself across her face before deadly seriousness replaces it. "You even managed to win your soul back from Mellis, and, what, you still you seek vengeance for her, is that it? Truly pathetic," she scoffs into the back of an upraised hand.

"You think I do any of this for her?!" Hultressa almost screams it, almost, barely managing to restrain herself, before ripping her sword up and out of Direblaze before planting it back down into the back of his head instead before he can do more than move an arm a foot towards one of the swords on his belt. "Are you truly so deluded?! I helped you kill her!"

Alyssa swipes her hand through the air.

"And kept my daughter from-,"

"SHE IS NOT YOUR DAUGHTER!" Hultressa thunders, the entire bolt hole chamber shaking with her fury, crackling black lightning wreathing her form temporarily as she stamps one foot down, the sizzling smell of burning metal and scorched flesh invading your nose. "You do not get to claim the mantle of motherhood, simply because you took the choice from me to have her!"

Alyssa spits at the ground, her hair rising with her own magic from wherever she is in the Tor of Dominance.

"You are the deluded one here, Hultressa. You cannot become Supreme Sorceress! You've no apprentices left. The rest of the Coven will never follow, you will never build another, and Morathi would never endorse you. You have no great standing amongst any of the Cults, none that remain alive," Alyssa cackles that frankly disturbing laugh again. "You are nothing – you have always been nothing, you worked every day to be nothing but distant tool! My weaker, lesser sister. I granted you a taste!" She raises up a hand and pinches her thumb and forefinger together, "A taste, of the pleasure you've always denied yourself, and you proved unworthy of even that much! I ensured the impregnation and creation of the perfect champion for the Prince of Perfection; your only practical use and purpose was in ensuring her health up until now! You could have been so much more," she shakes her head, snorting.

The anger that possesses Hultressa at that point is so potent that the Winds themselves seem to scream out in mortal pain in your ears as they are crushed into Dhar with single-minded destructive intent.

"You…," Hultressa whispers before she pauses, as you all do, to finally look away from her bitch of a sister down to where Gwendolyn has quietly approached and slipped her hand into hers.

Over a dozen spheres of what look like solidified Dhar that have formed in the air dissolve in a single slow exhale on the part of the sorceress.

"Are going to die," Hultressa finishes with a quiet and steady calm as she looks back at Alyssa, her body relaxing from head to toe. "Maybe it will be me. Maybe it will be another. But you will die. Choking on your own blood or so fast you will not know it has happened until the claws of daemons tear at your soul as you descend into the Mirai or Realm of Chaos, it doesn't matter."

She reaches down, wrenches her sword out of the dead Lord Direblaze and then flips her grip around as the point presses at the crystal sphere.

"But it will be soon."

Then the sword pierces the sphere, and whatever else Alyssa might have wished to say will go unheard, image disappearing as the sphere shatters into shards. Hultressa is still for a moment, head bowed, hand still held by her daughter's. It is only when you look around and see the confusion on a great many faces of the freedmen, and a truly complicated mixture of emotions on the faces of the Asur, that you realize that they were bellowing in Eltharin the whole time. Or Druhir, more properly. Something you understood largely not because of your own baser knowledge but because of your connection to Frederick. The words of all the dialects of Eltharin are multi-layered in their meanings and purpose depending upon not just the general context but intent of the speaker as well, flipping and changing as you hear or speak them. You know that, but you weren't there for all of his lessons, but you know through him as well now, it seems.

"Well," you speak up, making many of those enthralled by the argument jerk in surprise. "Let's go let out some monsters and slaves."

"Right," Johanna grunts, hefting her reaper to rest on her shoulder. "Sounds good to me."

"His sword and shield are enchanted," Hultressa speaks up, sounding a very particular sort of wrung out. "The sword to cut and burn, leaving lingering hungry flames behind in those it strikes, the shield to release a blast of fire as well as protect the wielder from the flames of others – even a dragon's."

There is some glancing around before one of the Asur sighs and throws aside their currently mundane arms and goes to strip them.

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

The gates of Castle Wulfenburg were open on a surprisingly bright and sunny day with few clouds in the sky, a welcomed bit of fair weather for all. Some might even called it a blessed day, if they were inclined to look out upon all the glorious gifts that the sun brought to the world and think the fine work of a Goddess who's symbol included such. Or a God, if you were Kislevite, and believed in that kind of thing. The important thing was that they were open, that they had been escorted through the streets of the thoroughly bustling capital city of the central member of the three-pronged Northern Trident, and that they were being greeted by if not the one who had forged the agreement then one of his daughters. A daughter that, in all honesty, the priest Ingo found quite an exotic and intriguing sort to even behold. It was one thing for the tales, another to experience it in person. Still, with the rest of the train of laypeople and supplies behind him, the rest of his fellows already heading out to different shrines and potential future temple sites across the province according to the maps and instructions given previously, he had been the one elected to represent them in person at the capital.

"My lady, I must give my most gracious thanks for the invitation of your father, Morr protect him,-," he began with a deep bow, the Knights of the Blazing Sun that had formed his escort saluting.

"You are late," Anna von Hohenzollern interrupted flatly. "Additionally, my father lives."

Ingo paused, raised up to a straightened position, and adjusted his armor with a slight cough.

"A thousand pardons, my lady Hohenzollern," he began more carefully, gesturing towards said armor and that of his knightly guards, "But as you may surmise, our good faithful were waylaid now and again on our journey north from Nuln by the beastmen, and on one occasion, bandits. We elected to travel by river to reach you swifter when the danger became great enough."

This was ordinarily where he would reinforce his regret with compliments and flattery, as had worked many a time before upon the beautiful and handsome as well as those less fortunate in appearance, yet when he moved to speak the first of them he found that it simply would not come out of his mouth as he looked into the Hohenzollern's eyes. More than a dozen thoughts had flickered through his mind upon sighting the beautiful princess, and yet now he rather understood just why the Eagle had been in such good humor when he informed him of his assignment, as all those thoughts were being thoroughly skewered just by looking into her eyes. The grime and grunge of oils and unguents, the well-worn leather of her tool belt, the armor and weapons she carried even in the safety of her ancestral castle in the capital city of the province.

"The reason is acceptable. The delay nevertheless exists," she said, blinking only the once, "Your delay has cost you the capability of aiding the Army of Ostland, as it has deployed to Talabecland, which you have just declared you sailed past. Your remainder will have to be spread between the Army of the Range and the Army of the Forest."

She snapped her fingers and two Greatswords stepped forward, each with a sheaf of papers.

"You will speak with him regarding the Army of the Range and him with the Army of the Forest," she informed Ingo, pointing at one then the other before giving him a single curt nod. "Welcome to Wulfenburg and Ostland."

Before Ingo could said another word she walked over to a very strange-looking contraption, two wheels strung together with metal and wood and what had to have been painstakingly made chain, got on the seat and then began pumping her legs. The wheels spun, strange flanged outer edges catching upon the ground, and within seconds she was gone again, pedaling away into the distance and city. The Greatswords seemed to take it entirely in stride, and so Ingo strove to do the same himself as the three men now stepped forward. Even so, before they could get too deeply into the discussion with the two fellows, both somewhat younger than most Greatswords that Ingo had seen in the south, but no less distinguished for it, he got another shock as there was a muted thump and then abruptly a slender figure in grey robes and concealing hat appeared nearby. Ingo's hand was on the hilt of his blade, an inch of steel revealed, before one of the Greatswords raised their hand.

"Hold, priest," the Greatsword who's name he'd learned was Alvin grunted. "They are known to us."

"Where has she gone now," the wizard spoke, "The school and foundries, then?"

"Aye," Alvin said with commiserating fondness. "Most likely."

"This family is very difficult to keep out of danger," the wizard growled before clapping their hands together a steed of pure shadow billowed up from the ground that the leapt upon and was then speeding away again on.

Ingo blinked.

"You'll get used to it," Alvin shrugged.

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

"By Taal and Rhya," you find yourself whispering as you stare at the creatures in the cages.

The bowels of the arena are separated into two separate sections, as you come to find out once you make your way downwards. Rather fittingly for Druchii designs, the half that is meant for the housing and containment of the various monstrous beasts that they unleash in the arena is actually a far cry better than the other slave quarters you've seen anywhere else on the Ark. Either through your eyes, or through Frederick's. Even amidst all the chaos going on above, Direblaze had continued to have his slaves prioritize the beasts over the gladiators, the far more difficult prizes to acquire and retain perhaps. Either way, there are clean cells wide enough to accommodate creatures large and small, with whole makeshift nests made out of straw and leaves or so on, at least for most of them. Some are not so fortunate, or perhaps so delicate, as to need it. The sight of them all, some of the hissing or roaring from within their cages, others muzzled and thoroughly chained that they can do little more than growl, sets many of the freedmen to fearful wonderment and whispers. Kerillian, on the other hand, you would have expected to be especially loud and angry about seeing the animals in cages, but she is for a wonder silent, though going by the narrowing of her eyes it is not a peaceable one.

(The Beasts: 58+Druchii Expertise(15)+Direblaze Priorities(10)+Holding Pattern(5)-Schedule Breakup(5)-Ark Anarchy(5)=78/100)

Amongst the smaller creatures, the expected cold ones and what looks like a few strange skaven abominations that have died at some point, there are larger creatures as well. One of them is chained up with enchanted manacles and a strange mask placed over its face that exudes the Winds, enforcing a powerful slumber upon the furred creature. A necessary one, apparently, as the moment the mask is off you are informed that the stonehorn would immediately begin trying to batter the entire Ark down. Or eat it. Or both. There is also a pack of red-skinned reptilian creatures that some of the Asur recognize, as does Hultressa as 'salamanders' of Lustria. Fire breathing and incredibly destructive, and also utilized as war creatures by the Lizardmen with the aid of their smaller kind, the 'skinks'. You can hear Frederick cursing up a storm in your head about what the colonies of the New World have been doing, but have to put it aside as you move on from that side. There are other creatures as well, but none so apparently dangerous as the stonehorn or the salamanders. All of whom that Hultressa has great plans for, involving some kind of slowed decay of their bindings through rusting their chains and dissolving the enchantments enforcing obedience and tranquility - all set to completely be removed by the time you are all out of the arena thankfully. Which should make for quite a violent addition to the night for the rest of the Ark.

Aside from them, there is the other side of the arena's depths to consider.

(The Gladiators: 63+Lack of Matches(10)-Direblaze Dismissal(10)+5-5-5-Alyssa Demands(10)=48/100)
(The Lizardmen: 85+10-10+5-5-5-10=70/100)

The majority of the remaining gladiators, of the normal variety at least, are somewhat bedraggled after a level of rather notable neglect that the beasts on the other side of the arena were spared from. Some had died of starvation, others had tried for an uprising in the earlier days since Salkalten and died painfully for it as they were drawn away for usage by Alyssa and the Coven. Still, it is not nothing, though there are no truly impressive members living amongst them now that were once mighty warriors in life. They are from the Old World, most of them, though of the Border Princes, or ships that never reached their destinations while sailing up and down the coasts. Either way, they are grateful that you've broken open their cages and shattered their manacles, though they quickly become terrified when they see Kerillian, Hultressa, or even any of the Asur. Many of them are of a particularly ignorant education on elves, and so there is some confusion for them as to the differences…which is not helped that some of the elves around them are in fact Druchii.

That, however, leads to a secondary cordoned off section of the cells, these populated by no men at all. No dwarfs, either, as well as no other elves. Instead, what lies within those wide cells, many of them simply standing or sitting or laying still, barely react to your arrival. All of them scaled and reptilian, hued in blue for the most part, but rather noticeably lightened where they are heavily scarred. Large frill crests rest atop the heads of the smaller sorts, though that doesn't say much when said smaller sorts are already the size of men. They stand on two feet, have two arms, hands with thumbs, yet their eyes gleam in the darkness of the cells, and there is something distinctly cold to them that is altogether different from the sort that you are used to. More and more of them stir as the elves become visible to them, as well as Hultressa, though there is a fair bit more angry hissing directed towards the latter. There are thick manacles around their wrists, all of them large and small, as well as collars that are burning with many runes that practically stink of potential pain and punishment. When Sadrina begins to speak in a strange hissing and clicking language, you aren't actually too terribly surprised. As Handmaiden of the Everqueen, diplomat, spy, agent, and more for who knows how long across the world, of course she presumably knows their language.

I suspect that Hultressa likely does as well, but I doubt they'd take things as well from her. Frederick murmurs in your mind, something you can't help but concur with.

Still, it does mean that she is currently not otherwise engaged.

"So…the Lizardmen," you mutter as you sidle up next to the sorceress.

"The smaller kind are skinks," she begins immediately, sniffing quietly in the damp confines of the tunnels. "Skirmishers, generally. Quick, remarkably intelligent, communicative," she flaps a hand in the direction of the majority of the Lizardmen in the cells. "Javelins, blow dart pipes, poisons, so on. None of the crimson variety here, so not as valuable in close combat compared to most unfortunately. Actually talk, unlike the Saurus, which…," she squints a bit, "They only have a handful of."

And yet what a few they are, dwarfing the skinks with their monstrous size and surely immense strength. These ones do not chitter back and forth with Sadrina, merely letting loose low growls as they scan with a methodical focus every single member of your warband that they can see. Which includes Sadrina and the Khainites, at which point all of the Saurus decide to keep an eye on said Druchii without blinking at all. A few quiet grunts and gestures is all it takes, a far cry from the wild gesticulating from one of the skinks that appears to be the closest thing to a leader that the skinks have. All of the Lizardmen could easily be dangerous, but the Saurus give off the distinct feeling of being incapable of anything but being dangerous, exuding it even when standing still. With just their bare hands you feel like they should be able to bend open the bars and escape, which points to the collars and manacles all the more as the method of control.

"No Kroxigor, which is disappointing, but even this could be a significant augment to our…your forces," she corrects hastily.

"You said the skinks weren't as good in close combat."

"They're perfectly capable of it," she shrugs. "Whether or not they would fight alongside us is another matter entirely. The Asur and Lizardmen have made common cause with each other before…and yet there have been rumors of them skirmishing with one another as well. The Druchii have fought entire wars against them in the past a well."

"Should we not have brought you nearby to them, then?" You turn to stare at her.

"I know more easily how to disable the enchanted collars meant to incapacitate them long enough to be dragged in and out of the arena," she answers nonchalantly, before glancing at you out of the corner of her eye. "Though at the same time, some of my alchemical concoctions were used to befuddle them, drive them to enough rampaging bloodlust to fight, and so on, though…," she rolls her hand through the air. "I am not alone in that; the Coven as a whole was involved in activities across the Ark."

(The Art of Diplomacy: 71+Sadrina Diplomacy(15)+Historical Connections(10)+Death of Direblaze(15)+Black Ark Civil War(10)+Cold Blooded Logic(10)-Druchii Ally Presence(10)-Tortured Suspicions(10)-Lack of Leaders(5)=106/100)

"Well?" You ask as Sadrina returns to your side, looking between you and Hultressa.

"The Druchii made sure to kill their chiefs and braves, which is…difficult for them," she says breathlessly, "To make decisions. They had a leader, an Oldblood who was a prize sacrifice for the Cult of Khaine a while ago, but they also had a Skink Priest…who…,"

"Ah," Hultressa nods sagely. "I might know that one."

"The priest in the Tor?" You ask her, making her blink for a moment.

"I…how…right," she snaps her fingers.

"Might I be included in this revelation?" Sadrina says earnestly, blinking as she glances between the two of you.

"Alyssa…or perhaps I should say Screamtaker, has a collection up there," you point in the general direction of the Tor of Dominance. "Full of captured…well, wielders of magic. Priests and shamans and the like."

"Her 'Living Library'," Hultressa huffs as she said it. "So that she might peel the secrets of magic from the minds and souls of many, to increase her own knowledge and power as well."

"Frederick's up there, as well as Eldyra," you reminded the Handmaiden. "I told you this, didn't I?"

"Of their presence, yes, though the others you were less…explanatory on," she says gently.

Which is to say, you had been a bit busy with vengeance and hatred and pain for a good while now.

"But their priest might well be up there," you say quickly, "Plus, she can help get them free of the," you gesture at your neck and wrists, something that makes many of the Lizardmen start chittering. "…and who will be leading them, exactly? How will we fight alongside them?"

The Handmaiden grimaces and runs a hand through her hair.

"Their current leader was not…'spawned'," she says the word with a frown, "A brave or chief, but there was some talk about the Old Ones…blessings…or…," she trails off with a sigh and then just points.

A skink that looks mostly like the others, except that the frill atop its head has been torn clean off, perks up at her pointing.

"That one appears to be able to get them to listen to him, and I can relay orders from you," she finishes.

"Right," you tilt your head at the skink, who tilts his head in turn. "His name?"

"B'gos'bin'td."

"…what?"

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

(Courage to Cowards: 67-Druchii Depredations(20)-Generational Abuse(10)+Black Ark Civil War(15)+Warpath Successes(35)+Diplomacy of Heroes(20)-Druchii Attentions(5)-Warband Slowing(5)=97/100)

It starts, as many things do, with a few tentative steps.

Once again, perhaps for the last time, you enter the slave tunnels and as a group begin to speak. Your passage through them has never gone unremarked by the Ark's inhabitants. Sadrina, Handmaiden of the Everqueen, eyes and ears of one of the most powerful women in the entire world. She speaks of hope, of joy, of the sweet taste of air gulped down one breath after another that can only truly be had after the collar around their throats is broken. Roland, knight of Bretonnia and noble hero who has already inspired so many, the tale and presence of whom has drawn Bretonnians from across the Ark who have been enslaved over the years. For some, they are but tales, these knights, told by wearied parents who have for better or worse had children upon the Ark for such is the length of their lives that the elves stole them from the coasts decades ago. A pinnacle of knighthood, here to rescue them, a champion of the Lady of the Lake, who's kind words and rumbling fury over the state of their being despite their enslavement sends many eyes to sparkling and heads to nodding. Roland cares for them, all of them, Bretonnian and not, to the point even the most heartbroken and weary of them all cannot deny it. He makes them feel like they are more than just a mass of flesh to be beaten in one direction or another. All of them are worth more than that.

Then comes you.

You wish you could speak as inspirationally as Sadrina, or show as much gentleness as Roland, but you cannot. You are just too damned angry, all the time right now, to manage that. So you don't even try. As the slaves take their steps out of the shadows of the slave tunnels and towards the nexus points, what they hear from you is that anger. A vicious and painful outrage that you know quite well, have felt it most keenly, but that they have been suppressing in themselves since the whips and spikes and poisons began to be applied to them. Something that the Druchii, for now, cannot do. How many abuses can you suffer before the dog bites back? How cornered and frightened must the rat be before it attacks? How can any of them, any of them, continue to lay down or scurry to hide, when the whole of the Claw of Dominion is burning above them? Perhaps it is a bit uncouth, but you went through the effort of having Johanna drag Lord Direblaze down with you, and you hold up his mutilated corpse to see for all of them. Then his son. Then more Druchii. Angrily, pointedly, you strip some of the Druchii of their weapons to show their naked pale bodies to the slaves, and smash them upon the ground. Offer them up to them in a gruesome display of desecration, offer them blades and bludgeons.

"These are the ones who have enslaved you, beaten you, starved you, tortured you, killed you!" You roar at them, and bring your foot down on a dead Druchii's head. "And now, smoke chokes you when you go out there, because they are burning. Your ears ring with their screams when you go out there, because they are dying."

Then you roll an entire wheelbarrow of dead Druchii down onto the ground in front of eyes of so many, from across the Old World and beyond, who's eyes shine not with the inspired hope of Sadrina or the burgeoning glorious self-worth and care of Roland, but with the spiteful and searing fury of purest hatred and wrath of a woman who is determined to kill anyone in her way to stop herself from becoming a widow. Those who were drawn to the side of the Handmaiden or the Bretonnian Knight are not those who partake in this, those are mobs that themselves are somewhat horrified by what they see, but you can see it in their eyes too. It doesn't burn as brightly, a candle compared to Dazh's chariot, but it is there. Waiting. Seething. For a woman born of Kislev, you know quite well how powerful and how valuable a fire can be, either in the home, or in the heart. You've certainly helped ensure that the former is engulfed in a blaze you hope will go until this place is nothing but a scoured rock in the ocean, but in the latter? The latter you've only just now truly been able to fuel and spark.

"Bastards!" One of them, an older man who's hair has gone white from stress and pain with a body still rich with sinew and strength, grabs up a Druchii shield and brings it down on one of the bodies to start smashing it.

"My son…my son…!" A hissing Estalian woman grabs a sword and starts stabbing one of the Druchii bodies.

"You took everything from me…everything!" An Arabyan fellow snarls as he grabs a spear and drives it right into the mouth of one of the corpses and stomps on the body.

The dam breaks.

The angry people swarm out of the shadows of the tunnels and begin to extract what is just beginning to be their revenge. More and more of them, frenzied, furious, fighters one and all not because of whatever skills they might have had in life, but because of the animal within that is finally rearing back and braying for vengeance. Some of those who have rescued shy away from it all, especially the elves who look upon such barbarity with disdain and disgust. But others, such as Kerillian, seems to approve with dark satisfaction, while Johanna keeps her arms crossed and expression unreadable. The Lizardmen, rather surprisingly – though you know almost nothing about them so of course they're going to be surprising in most things they do – chitter to themselves. Though you would swear you see approval glittering in those reptilian eyes as they discuss what is being done.

"I do hope they won't kill me as we go about our own business next," Hultressa mentions to you after hours of traveling the tunnels and preaching a gospel of retribution and hate.

"We'll be targeting Druchii after this, living ones that they can hit, so I'd assume so," you say with a short, humorless laugh. "Speaking of that, you know where we are going next, right?"

"There are a few in particular that purchased the bulk of the Asur slaves taken most recently and in the past," the sorceress says, appearing uncaring of the fury on the face of the freed Asur at her words. "The Tor is out, as is the Temple of Khaine, but there are others we can target. How many will be there for us to find…that remains to be seen," she admits.

"Lead on, then," you gesture, and she nods before doing just that, stalking down the slave tunnel with purpose.

(The Noble Asur: 73+40+20+15+15+25+5-15+Ark Civil War[1d2=1](10)-Druchii Attentions(10)-Warband Slowing(10)-Marching Across The Claw(20)-Tor of Dominance Hoarding(15)-Temple Hoarding(15)-The Choicest Slaves(10)+Newest Recruits(15)=123/100)

Hultressa was part of the Coven, essentially the highest point of the ruling force across the entire Ark, and has been party to its raids and activities for centuries. She knows perfectly well where most of the Asur go, as even a single one is a choice prize of great prestige and worth. No other being across the whole of their society is as desirable than an Asur, no human or dwarf or Lizardman would ever compare. There is too great a personal hatred and spite held against them for any other to ever be worth the same attention. Yet, at the same time, that value means only the powerful and the wealthy can have them. The powerful are quite busy at the moment, tearing each other apart on the Ark, or are safely ensconced in areas too strong for you to challenge just yet, not with how late in the day it begins to be by the time you are finished.

But that does not mean that you are not without success.

Rather the opposite.

"I…thank you…thank you!"

"A Handmaiden?! Here?! Praise Isha!"

"You have my thanks, humans, but I…by the Cadai!"

The path you take across the Claw of Dominion is a zigzagging line of destruction and razing across the mobile city-state. Cobbled streets, stark and beautiful Druchii homes and businesses, grimy alleyways and slave tunnels, you traverse them all in a remarkably short amount of time based on Hultressa's information. Fastnesses temporarily left behind are turned into charnel houses. Secure positions are assaulted with brazen openness and destruction. Your travel is pointed out and tracked by other Druchii groups of various loyalties, and yet whenever any of them attempt to waylay you or assault you directly, they are thrown back. The Asur you find are varied, albeit not stupendously numerous, each of them particularly shocked by the events going on and by your presence, almost violently outraged by that of Hultressa and the blade that Kerillian carries, but much is ameliorated with Sadrina's aid. The news of Screamtaker's death is taken well by all of them, as well as Caledor's Bane and Tullaris, though between the suddenness of their rescues and the flames across the Ark you are not surprised that they seem a bit confused on some of the details. Such as thinking that Kerillian and Sadrina were the ones to kill all three of said Druchii, and are having trouble understanding that they might have been present but were not the main actors.

It is not that surprising, considering how long some of them appear to have been on the Ark.

There are sailors of Cothique that were caught out at sea while on a trade mission, their ancestral connection to the waters resulting in them being relegated to cleaners of sewage and bodily waste. There are Chracian Asur who were being used as hard labor, Yvressans who's capture was a matter of prowess and skill on the part of the Druchii, and a few from Ellyrion who were being forcibly employed as housebound servants. Admittedly, there are a few Asur you run across as you set fires to homes and mansions who are so broken that there is nothing at all that can be done with them, their minds lost and souls actually stolen out at some point for some awful purpose or another. These are taken care of with great solemnity by Sadrina personally, each time you run into them, but thankfully they are the extreme minority. More importantly, each Asur takes many years of martial training as a matter of course whether as archers or spearmen at a minimum, and though you haven't got many bows laying around, the Druchii have ensured the presence of plenty of spears and shields for them to use. Not to mention equipment taken from other dead Druchii for them to use.

The air is filled with the smell of burning bodies and buildings mixed together, a noxious mixture for the nose and lungs but one that you oddly relish at the same time.

Your ears get to hear a never-ending symphony of screams and pain and rage as the Druchii clash with one another.

Your skin is cooled within your Ledstali, but you can see the sweat pooling from your warband whenever you take a spare moment to rest.

"…I think that's about all we'll be able to get," you murmur, staring at the Tor of Dominance, still standing tall and piercing the pall of smoke and fires. "We need rest, now."

"We have saved more than I even thought possible…or that I would have ever hoped would be trapped and enslaved in a place like this," Sadrina bows her head as she says it.

"There is little else we can do, the longer we wait, the more prepared Alyssa might become," Hultressa adds. "She might also be drawn to other extremes which we would wish to avoid."

Teeth grind in your mouth as the others speak to each other.

Yes, you've saved people. Failed in saving some, but still. Yet for a brief moment all of that leaves you behind as your cold heart pounds in your chest. You find that, between each of those beats, you don't care about any of that. You want your husband. You want to not just feel the ghostly impressions of his hands or his lips against yours. You want your hands to be able to run through and tangle up in his hair, to feel the slide of your body against his as you embrace in bed. His voice is clear as a bell in your mind, but you want it in your ears, in your chest, rumbling, as you talk about anything at all. You are tired of him being in such pains and you not being there to soothe them, or being able to take direct revenge upon the one causing them. Of the anger and pain and outrage and dancing line of grief tracing itself over your soul like a knife. It is the duty of the women of Kislev to raise the next generation, and to know that many a time will a father or son or both leave out to rebuff the dark forces which assail the nation and for them to often not return. But you don't want to be that woman of Kislev. You want to be the woman that you are, of Kislev and Ostland both, and you want your husband back. Not to drink with him, but you do. Not to eat with him, but you do. Not to fight alongside each other, but you do.

You just want to be able to hold his hand, God's damn the Druchii.

Two arenas sacked and burned, prisoners set free and monsters unleashed. Farms destroyed, granaries sabotaged, and countless acts of brutal pillaging and destruction. You have acted not as a Gospodar of the present day, but of the distant past, back when the Gospodars were but one of the largest of the Kurgan tribes. As the Udoses of Ostland did against their enemies, howling with bloodthirsty glee at a shoreline filled with all the men, women, and children of the Norsii that could be slain. Pillaging and raiding and exercising again and again the monstrous angry venom that has taken root in your heart as you face the depravities and monstrous acts and culture of the Druchii. The Cult of Atharti rampages as well, gathering up some, killing others, and you suspect quite well that soon they'll be heading for the Temple of Khaine, or Slaanesh, or whatever the hell – the statue at this point quite solidly looks like a mixture of the two.

But the Tor?

No.

Presumably they think to destroy the herald and portal there and then move on it, make their own demands.

"Ah," Hultressa raises a hand, and though you do not feel any immediate change, the skies above do change.

In their passage at least.

"She's slowing the Ark," the sorceress continues. "We've reached Norscan waters properly then, the shallows – relatively, of course."

"Good to know," you nod grimly, looking down at your hand still clad in Ledstali before clenching it tight.

Soon, my love. You whisper in Frederick's ear.

Soon. He whispers back.

"What is our plan, precisely?" Jaqueline asks waspishly. "Simply charge and hope for the best?"

"She will have deactivated the elevators the moment we make our way inside – tearing the wards and shields apart will take time and effort," Hultressa replies promptly. "So we must charge up the Tor the old-fashioned way."

"She will have fortified as best she can," Sadrina warns.

"Yes," Hultressa says simply.

It doesn't matter.

"It doesn't matter," you echo your thoughts.

"What?" Johanna asks, turning towards you.

"It doesn't matter," you reaffirm. "We go in, we kill anyone trying to stop us, we get my husband, and we leave. There are still ships for us in the docklands. Plenty of space."

The Tor you ransacked before will serve as a resting place one more time.

One last time.

For anyone.

Ever.

"Tomorrow, I am getting my husband back," you say, clenching one fist in front of your face. "We'll remove a blight on the world in Alyssa too, while we're at it."

"I don't suppose you could control the Ark on your own?" Johanna asks blandly, looking at Hultressa.

"…it requires mutual work with the other Anchorstones to be done smoothly, whom I doubt would be receptive if I inserted myself into the control net," she shakes her head. "Could I do it unilaterally? Perhaps, with great effort and time. But only rudimentarily. Not enough to do more."

"If we have the chance, maybe," you grunt. "If not, oh well. For now, we rest. Tomorrow we take the Tor of Dominance."

I'm coming for you. Nothing will stop me.

I know better than to argue with my wife on this. Frederick chuckles in your mind before it smooths out into something more serious. Be safe, Natasha. We leave together.

Or not at all. You finish the thought with a nod.

Once more your voices and minds seem to meld closely, the words coming from both souls simultaneously, yet neither of you fears it.

All my love, forever.

Forever.

Tomorrow would be a bloody day, one way or another.

Claw of Dominion Warpath Choice (Choose One):
1 Hour Moratorium
seemed like a good stopping point, quite tired but update complete nonetheless

[] Straight To Target: Enough of this. No more distractions. No more other causes. You're going to the Tor, and you're getting your fucking husband back.
[] Aiding Atharti: The Temple of Khaine is an open tear into the Realm of Chaos, and the Cult of Atharti is moving on it tomorrow. A small bit of aid, distracting the flanks or rear on the way to the Tor of Dominance could certainly aid them, though it may cost you in some time and effort to do so.

Spoiler: Patreon

Once again thank every single one of you who has chosen to sign up on the Patreon, and aid me in trying to make a livelihood out of being a writer. Thank you so much! If you can spare a bit, I would appreciate it, if you cannot, I understand.

 

[torroar]

Commissioned By Knightperson

A Tale of Two Sisters
​

"What do you see?"

"Um…a bird!"

"Obviously it's a bird, but what kind?"

"…a falcon! What?"

"I saw an eagle."

"Oh."

There was nothing but a quiet silence between the two young elven girls as they lay on the sands staring up at the fluffy white clouds above them. It was the perfect time for a bit of cloud gazing. They'd done all of their chores, and their father was off answering a summons from Lord Suncrest. Which, in turn, meant that they weren't going to be going to the workshop today to work on the chariot. Father was rightfully quite proud of their legacy as carpenters, but to make a chariot accepted by a lord was another thing altogether. There would be many competing now for their creation to become the official ride of a noble after Lord Suncrest's last chariot had been destroyed in battle elsewhere. So they'd gone wandering, as was their wont, to just relax and enjoy the paradise that was Ulthuan, and the stubbornly rebuilt and reclaimed glories of Tiranoc. The vast sandy shores were gone now, drowned beneath the waves, but the rocky, scrabbled shores it possessed now were no less enjoyable for children.

Both were black of hair and slim of body, coltish little waifs in truth, with neither of them more than a hand's length past their first decade of life.

"Either way, it's pretty," one of them, ever so slightly shorter than the other, declared as she sat up, digging her hands into the rocky sands to look out at the ocean beyond and the distant worn tips of towers and stone that poked through. "Falcons are the representative bird of our kingdom, though."

"Oh?" The other sat up as well. "Oh right. Falcons and freedom," she said, a tiny giggle that came from nowhere but childish innocence bubbling out of her. "But eagles are bigger and stronger."

"Yeah well…," the petulant response died a swift death as the youth stared out at the sea once more. "Hey, what's that?"

"Hmm?"

"There, right there," she pointed, tilting her head as some of the waves shifted against the rest of the tide.

"Why is the ocean…,"

Eyes widened as both leapt up from where they'd been sitting, rocky sand spraying out beneath their feet as they ran. It didn't matter what it was, or how it was, anything strange or odd out in the waters was a danger, they'd been drilled on this for their entire lives. The nearest watchtower was not too far, surely, but when they turned for it, eyes were wide in fear and confusion as they saw smoke rising from it, and from far, far beyond, even more smoke deeper inland. Words ceased to be spoken, only hard breaths in tiny chests as they ran, before there was a loud shifting and crunching of timber and metal against the shore.

"There, there!" A cold, cruel voice laughed.

"Don't look back, just keep going!" One sister hissed at the other.

But the other could not help herself, and what she saw chilled her soul. Light unbent and altered, to reveal a small fleet of ships of black-clad elves swinging on ropes and hooks to the shoreline.

"Those two are mine!" Said a louder voice.

At their head was an elven matron, dark power blazing in her eyes and a smile on her lips as she stalked forward with a staff capped with a black crystal.

"Ah!" One of the sisters cried as she tripped, falling forward into the sand and cutting her forehead on some of the stony shore. "No no no, keep going!" She cried out as her sister spun about and ran back for her. "No! Go!"

"How delightful. How loving!" The sorceress sneered before she held up her hand and gathered more magic there. "How stupid."

At twelve and fourteen, the sisters did not have a chance.

They were only the first victims of the Sorceress Mellis' raid upon Tiranoc.

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

The Black Tower of Ghrond was a cold place for newly inducted members, regardless of how or why they had come to be there. There was no point in keeping it well heated, when a sorceress was meant to be able to maintain a constant host of enchantments about her person to allow her to go anywhere in the world regardless of the environment. Which meant that those who had not yet mastered such things were left shivering, cold, and miserable. Elven girls and young women from all over Naggaroth were sequestered in uncomfortable, compressed dormitories, something that many of them having come from noble families had no issues complaining about – to each other, that was. On the first day since two terrified sisters had arrived, one of them had dared to speak up to one of their instructors, a Druchii woman who had no name known them other than 'Mistress'.

The speaker's screams would never be forgotten by either of the two.

"Get off of her!" One sister screamed, leaping onto the back of one of the Druchii, "Leave her alone!"

"Get off of me Asur!" The Druchii girl shouted, flailing as she was hauled off of a bleeding and battered young Asur girl whose face was now swollen and bruised.

Battered as she was, she still managed to rise up and tackle the Druchii, sending all three toppling to the ground. Other young girls laughed, clapped, or watched in glowering silence at the scrapping, until finally the door to the dungeon slammed open and a sorceress stalked inside, a casual gesture causing all three participants to scream in pain as Dark Magic flowed over them.

"Enough!" The Mistress barked. "These two were brought forth by a colleague of mine, it does not matter from whence they came," she hissed, glaring daggers at the Druchii girl. "They are of the Black Tower now, do you understand, girl?"

There was no immediate answer from the bully, too busy gasping for breath with tears in her eyes.

"As for you two…," the Mistress smirked, anger in her eyes. "I owe Mellis enough to not have you put down outright. Little else. Tell me…," she leaned in, "What are your names?"

The two Asur shook where they lay on the ground, eyes squeezing shut.

"My name is – AAAAAHHHH!" One of them screamed, eyes wide as lightning wracked her body.

"I could see the wrong syllable forming on those lips," the Mistress chuckled. "Your names are Alyssa and Hultressa, the daughters of Mellis. Do you understand?"

"I…," the other spoke up before she too began to scream.

"Please, continue to defy me. It pleases me," the Mistress laughed.

All the Druchii laughed, even the one on the floor.

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

Two young elven women faced each other across the battle-scarred arena with magical staves in hand. In the stands watching were dozens of Druchii women of various ages and powers, all of them sorceresses or apprentices. A particularly powerful guest was present today, though her presence was well concealed from the two down below. With discipline literally and liberally beaten into them, they began to conjure Dark Magic with extreme focus and care, lest the Dhar run wild. There was no announcement, no command, only rote routine and the knowledge that they would have to begin sooner rather than later. No salutes, no recognition, though there it was known that they had embraced – secretly, or so they had thought – before they had arrived at the arena together. The duel began swiftly, and yet Mellis Screamtaker only had half an eye on it as she turned to the currently indebted Baela Painbringer, who had two more centuries of instructor duty within the Black Tower before she would be free to do otherwise.

"Well?" She asked impatiently.

"They're strong, both of them are," Baela sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Of course they are, otherwise, I would not have bothered sending them to the Tower," Mellis said snidely. "Nor remanded them to your custody."

"True enough," Baela huffed before narrowing her eyes. "They resisted the first few years, but with the right punishments and rewards, I've broken – adjusted them," she amended as Mellis raised an eyebrow. "Properly enough. Nightmares they could not defend themselves against, a few weeks without sleep, the usual. It did take longer than I expected," she admitted. "For both of them."

"And? Which is better?"

"They're relatively equal, for now. It varies," Baela waggled a hand. "Hultressa is-,"

Both paused as a particularly powerful – relatively, for a stripling – doombolt was thrown through the air, only partially shielded against by the target. A muted boom sent the neophyte sorceress bouncing against the ground to land in a crumpled heap. She gasped out in pain, skin charred black in some places, and stared with open, angry eyes at the one who had struck her so. The standing neophyte's eyes were just as wide, staring in shock before she quickly remembered where she was and took on a more haughty and satisfied expression. Mellis leaned forward, as did many of the others in the stands. Humiliation and failure suffered by another was always a sweetmeat in the Covens, for the Hag-Queen who stood above them all did so enjoy it, and thus so did they.

"Congratulations on your victory," Mellis commanded, rising up in the stands, her voice crossing the arena easily.

The loser and winner both jerked, staring up at her as she tore the veil of Ulgu from herself, and Mellis reveled in the recognition in their eyes.

"My daughter," she continued in a purr.

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

Screams filled the air as the village burned. It had a name, certainly, but not one that any of the corsairs of the Claw of Dominion cared to learn. After all, it was a human village, and the less their filthy primitive tongue had to pass their lips the better. Some of the corsairs gave the humans the false chance to run, if only to make the hunt a little more enjoyable. The leader of the raid had gone off towards the local temple, for reasons known only to herself, while the rest had spread out to follow her orders. Orders which meant that by the time they were done, there would only be ashes to mark their passing. So it was that two young sorceresses stood shoulder to shoulder as they stared at a burning home, listening to the screams of the family within as they tried to escape what they had thought would be their shelter.

"…heh."

One sorceress looked to the other as a wobbly smile started to push its way onto her lips.

"Aheheh…," she continued, the quiet chuckles starting to grow louder as the screams grew quieter.

"Alyssa?"

"Hhhehahahah!" The sorceress shook her head, eyes stretched wide as a hand came up to cover her face. "They…why would they…it was pointless! They could have run, but they thought barring their doors would save them!?"

She laughed, louder, exasperation mixing with her mirth.

"Those wretches in the tower didn't have a chance – but these…they did! And this is what they did with it!" Alyssa laughed louder, a cruel note that did not have to be feigned growing clearer. "They didn't have a chance after all! Hahahahah!"

Hultressa's lips thinned.

"No. I suppose they didn't," she said quietly.

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

"You have failed me, daughter," Mellis Screamtaker sneered before she slammed her staff down, a single whispered word wracking the lesser sorceress before her with agony.

Hultressa screamed.

"But you, child, you have succeeded," she nodded to Alyssa, who nodded curtly, though she did spare a glance towards Hultressa before snapping her eyes back to Mellis.

In Mellis' other hand was a faintly glowing stone box, Eltharin scrawled across its surface. Beyond them, the battered raiding party was resting in the camp, their gear and bodies being seen to by slaves and healers respectively. In the far distance, the old ruins were no longer visible above the tree line, the destruction enacted in the course of retrieving the prize within having reduced what had barely survived the War of the Beard all the more. Within the camp, now waiting to be sorted, was a pile of retrieved arms and armor, as well as other old Asur items. What was of value would be taken, the rest destroyed. But only one thing had really mattered, in the end. The goal of the race in the first place, the race that Hultressa had lost.

"Thank you, mother," Alyssa bowed. "I aim only to excel."

"Hmm, I know you do," Mellis nodded before glancing down at a weakly whimpering Hultressa. "Do better next time, girl."

Then she turned from them and stalked away to begin peeling the secrets of the relic open, leaving the two sorceresses alone. Only after she entered her tent did Hultressa dare to begin healing her wounds, a gimlet glare sent towards Alyssa.

"You…said we would…give it to her together," Hultressa hissed as she gathered herself, struggling to stand and wobbling as she leaned one her staff.

"She wouldn't have shared the grimoire between the two of us," Alyssa shrugged. "One of us ought to have benefited from it."

"I was the one that banished the wraiths protecting it!" Hultressa growled, eye twitching as she straightened fully, her wounds fading from her as Ghyran washed through her body.

"And I broke the enchantments that kept it from being removed," Alyssa shot back.

Dhar thickened in the air between them for a brief moment, an eager light entering Alyssa's eyes as Hultressa bristled, before it abruptly faded away as the younger sister shook her head.

"So be it," she dismissed with wave of her hand. "Are you going to at least share what you learn?"

Alyssa pursed her lips.

"…perhaps once I have mastered it," she allowed, shrugging a single shoulder.

Hultressa tossed her hair and stalked away, leaving Alyssa to snort in dismissal before heading towards the tent of Screamtaker to request her prize.

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

"So. Dies. Cissala. Cinderheart," Mellis Screamtaker announced as the Supreme Sorceress of the Claw of Dominion silently flailed.

The Coven watched as she struggled, clutching at her throat, her magic suppressed beyond her ability to break. So instead this mighty, ancient Druchii could only silently flop about, desperately trying to find the air that would not enter her lungs.

"Do any here dare to challenge my supremacy?!" Mellis cried out, arms wide in invitation.

None spoke.

All kneeled.

Including the two sorceresses that were her greatest apprentice, her two daughters. Daughters who had served Mellis since before she had managed to gain a berth upon the Black Ark for many, many years. Across the world, they had gone, ravaging and ruining as was the wont of the Druchii. They had won acclaim and wealth aplenty, for their years at least, and had been participants in more than a few brutal celebrations across the lands of Naggaroth alongside their mother.

"Then so be it," Mellis laughed, tossing her hair as she stalked towards the vast crystallized Dhar atop the Tor of Dominance. "Then let it be known that the Claw is mine!"

An hour later, in the quarters of the old now in the process of being claimed by the new, found Mellis being approached by her most prized assets.

"Mother," Hultressa and Alyssa murmured in unison.

"Daughters," Mellis smirked to them, raising a glass of wine as she lounged in the throne of the now dead Cinderheart. "You did well, subverting your targets."

Both of the sorceresses bowed their heads.

"Many of them even your seniors," she continued, glancing back and forth between them. "For now. Alyssa," she glanced to one daughter, "The grimoires you requested will be yours. Hultressa," she glanced to the other. "With Cinderheart dead, the Ark is without a Terror-Maker. I have better things to do than split my attentions as she did, which is why she is dead. You may replace her, as you requested."

"Thank you, mother," Alyssa bowed again, before narrowing her eyes at her sister and tilting her head. "You would take on such a task, sister? Truly?"

"I learned enough as an apprentice to her," Hultressa defended herself, tossing her hair as she said it. "It was how we lowered her defenses, lest you forget. And terrors are a potent force on the battlefield regardless, and effective bodyguards."

Alyssa wrinkled her nose as Mellis chuckled.

"You may think that she is weakening herself needlessly, Alyssa, but she recognizes that her position would be a secure one, and one that would bring her much wealth," Mellis lectured, sipping from her wine. "If she devotes herself to it as she should, especially."

"Coward," Alyssa snorted, as Hultressa glared, Dhar springing to life around both sisters as they faced off while Mellis laughed again. "Do you deny it?"

"I do not feel the need to politick and play for power as you do, Alyssa," Hultressa ground out. "I shall forge my own path. Besides, mother believes I have shown great aptitude for fleshcrafting."

"Indeed, and I shall be calling upon that talent very soon," Mellis nodded, making Alyssa stare at her in shock. "Oh don't be so surprised, Alyssa. Hultressa has simply taken a different course from you. One with its own rewards."

Now Alyssa glared at her sister, unveiled jealousy and other, darker things in her eyes.

"Enjoy your grimoires, sister," Hultressa smirked, bowing once more to Mellis, before turning and stalking away.

Neither of the two Druchii who remained behind saw the grimace on the third's face as she departed.

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

"What do you see?"

"A shoreline of desperate, pitiable primitives. And humans."

"Mmm, true enough."

"What do you want, Alyssa?" Hultressa asked coldly as the Claw's ramps fell upon the coast of Lustria to let a mighty army march out. "I did not miss how you engineered our both being assigned here for final landing overwatch."

The cruel smile that had steadily carved its way onto Alyssa Voidreaper's face over four hundred years grew wider.

"How long has it been, sister? Since we last talked? Truly talked."

"A few decades, more or less," Hultressa muttered, arms folded beneath her chest. "Why? I have nothing for you, no grimoires, no scrolls, no power that you do not already possess."

Or did not wish to bother gaining for herself, she did not add. To make a terror was considered a tedious, tiresome task that Alyssa disdained. After all, as she herself had said more than once, she had far more productive, winsome things that she could be doing with her time. Insults, petty and grave, had peppered Hultressa's hide for centuries now, a storm that she'd long grown used to weathering. Did she make use of the terrors herself? Of course. Hultressa Horrorheart was one of the best fleshcrafters known, having spent so much time carefully peeling apart her subjects before putting them back together without magic that it was practically unwholesome by the standards of the Druchii. Aloof. Standoffish. Odd. All these and worse had clung to Hultressa's name, yet she cared little for it, and in truth, little others truly cared when her services were so great and prices so reasonable.

"You do yourself a disservice," Alyssa shook her head, hands folding behind her back. "You are a power I do not possess – a whole, second sorceress."

Hultressa blinked before her gaze narrowed to slits.

"Speak plainly, sister. I-,"

"Tire and care little for wordplay and diction, I know," Alyssa interrupted, "Honestly, you've degraded terribly from the old days. You spent a century worming your way into Cinderheart's good graces perfectly well, but nowadays you spend so much time in your workshops that you speak as bluntly as a beast."

"I can affect diplomacy and intrigue fine enough," Hultressa hissed, eyes burning with a faint trace of Dhar now. "When I need to."

"Of course, of course," Alyssa chuckled dismissively before raising a hand as her sister turned to leave. "I wish to believe you, in this case, I truly do."

"Oh? And why is that?" Hultressa ground out through grit teeth.

"Because I think that Mellis Screamtaker punished us enough over these past thousand years to deserve to be paid back tenfold," Alyssa said with a shrug.

Immediately Hultressa grasped her staff tightly, a dome of Dhar appearing around them to try and locate and destroy any lingering enchantments or scrying attempts, which only made Alyssa laugh.

"Calm down, sister. I made sure before I even arrived here that it would be a private conversation."

Hultressa's grip grew white-knuckled even as she straightened and glared at Alyssa.

"She whines. She wavers. She's going to go try and challenge a Slann again after we caught that skink priest, and be beaten back for it, then it's punishments all around," Alyssa drawled, acidic hate burning to life in her throat and voice. "She has grown weak. Weak enough to take vengeance that we deserve."

"Drakira speaks through you, hmm?" Hultressa mused, her shoulders relaxing only slightly.

"I only offer you a chance to join me, when the time comes," Alyssa held out her hand.

Hultressa stared at the hand, the horizon where Screamtaker had ventured, and then back again.

"Fine," she huffed as she clasped the hand, jerking slightly as Alyssa drew her in for a hug.

The first in over nine hundred years.

"Excellent," Alyssa hissed. "I promise you, it will take time…there is some raid on Ulthuan I have heard rumor of coming up, but we will have our day. All the vengeance and the power she has denied us," she spat angrily, "Will be ours!"

"I…yes," Hultressa said uncertainly as they broke from each other.

Alyssa smiled wide, too wide, and could only laugh as Hultressa gave a curt nod.

"First her," Alyssa glared at the horizon. "Then the world."

Hultressa did not nod. Did not smile. She simply looked at the horizon as well.

There was a cloud shaped like a falcon floating there.