I'm all for selling to people who can afford to pay for the expensive and valuable thing we've spent a lot of time and money on, but the Ice Witches joined the Project in good faith. It'd undermine the whole Project to start shaking them down now just because they haven't been as helpful as we'd hoped*, and it'd be a real scummy thing to do besides.
*With the caveat that they haven't been deliberately holding back I suppose, but that seems pretty unlikely.
If we want to put Waaaghbane to use, the best place to do that is probably Bretonnia, against the Iron Orcs. Bretonnia already would like some help against them, and it would secure their help in the Waystone Project if we think we need it. At worst, it would just get some significant appreciation from Bretonnia towards the Empire/Colleges and earn us some brownie points with the Damsels and even Fay Enchantress, which could be useful in all sorts of ways.
It would also bolster our reputation as a unifying force and provide further proof about the relatively untapped potential of using the Colleges' talents to make friends abroad for solving problems better than trying to tackle them alone.
I imagine that there could be a lot of potential for having some experienced Magisters tackling odd problems the Karaz Ankor has in exchange for the legendary, quality work of the dwarves being applied towards infrastructure or industrial projects for the Empire. Stuff like another set of Rooms of Calamity in exchange for sending some Lord Magisters to handle some exotic, but substantial problems of the Karaz Ankor could be an appealing trade.
So for a diffrent brand of doomsaying, by the numbers the real weakness seems to be the foundation-transmission connection, so does that mean we have a functional stone that can't hand off the magic it sucks up? Did we make a dhar bomb?
I'm trusting the process, but the first prototype actually turning into a bomb is just sorta funny.
If we want to put Waaaghbane to use, the best place to do that is probably Bretonnia, against the Iron Orcs. Bretonnia already would like some help against them, and it would secure their help in the Waystone Project if we think we need it. At worst, it would just get some significant appreciation from Bretonnia towards the Empire/Colleges and earn us some brownie points with the Damsels and even Fay Enchantress, which could be useful in all sorts of ways.
It would also bolster our reputation as a unifying force and provide further proof about the relatively untapped potential of using the Colleges' talents to make friends abroad for solving problems better than trying to tackle them alone.
I imagine that there could be a lot of potential for having some experienced Magisters tackling odd problems the Karaz Ankor has in exchange for the legendary, quality work of the dwarves being applied towards infrastructure or industrial projects for the Empire. Stuff like another set of Rooms of Calamity in exchange for sending some Lord Magisters to handle some exotic, but substantial problems of the Karaz Ankor could be an appealing trade.
Actually the chaos Orks are probably the worst Orks to use waaghbane on... They don't use the waaagh, they use chaos. So our tricks of disrupting a waaagh are useless.
If Eike is learning Moderately Complicated spells during her Apprenticeship with us then we've fucked up tremendously and need to graduate her right away before she develops a lifelong grudge against us for holding her back.
While I agree that somethings fucked up if Eike is learning spells of that tier, its really hard for me to imagine her developing a grudge like that without other circumstances.
If she's learning spells like that the expected age to learn that complexity of spell, the issue is that the the apprenticeship has gone to long, and that would be the source of the grudge.
If she's learning while she's the expected age to be apprenticed, the issue is that either she accidentally got access to something that was too dangerous for her or that she's massively exceeded expectations in a narrow field and we should probably be giving her a more balanced education. In either of those circumstances way we're not holding her back.
It drains into a river delta. Presumably Castle Alexandronov is built inside the delta rather than just upriver, but it's not shown on the map of Kislev, then we could just have the river spirit drop off the dhar at the end of one of the other distributaries, not the one that the castle is next to. That's one of the advantages of the river spirit, that as the dhar doesn't pass through the points in between, it doesn't have the problem of accidentally feeding into the wrong place as it passes by.
It's the same with the Urskoy, dhar dumped into the river by riverine spirit waystones on that river doesn't flow through Kislev, the spirit can just drop it off where the river joins the Talbec.
And I'd prefer dumping energy into the Sea of Claws rather than have it remain in Kislev.
Edit: that still leaves the issue of the Winds of Magic in the Tobol delta. The best option I see there would be to pay extra the river spirit to teleport the Winds of Magic away from the castle into one of the other distributaries.
I'm all for selling to people who can afford to pay for the expensive and valuable thing we've spent a lot of time and money on, but the Ice Witches joined the Project in good faith. It'd undermine the whole Project to start shaking them down now just because they haven't been as helpful as we'd hoped*, and it'd be a real scummy thing to do besides.
*With the caveat that they haven't been deliberately holding back I suppose, but that seems pretty unlikely.
I don't buy the Ice Witches deliberately holding back for a second. They, more than anyone, desperately want to push back the influence of Chaos. They are also in a particularly bad position from decades of being ostracized and sidelined from the highest levels. And they lack any proper institutions to begin with, so they've probably been in "hunker down and preserve what we can until hopefully things get better" mode for quite a while now. Kislev's state has been sadly similar for a while, too.
It's also worth noting that some of the most obviously lucrative secrets the Ice Witches might have been able to offer were ones that aren't really applicable to most places. Circulating its own magical power throughout its own Waystone network seems lucrative, but it apparently depends on the active efforts of the Ancient Widow to make that work, and no other polity is really set up to do that, outside of maybe Bretonnia, but Bretonnia needs to serve as a key waystation for magic flowing towards the Great Vortex. The Karaz Ankor has its own network and that works because it actually uses all of it and helped build the original network and thus has the rights to do so. Plus, it serves as a key bulwark against Chaos and greenskin incursions from the east and south. Kislev "hogging" its own energy flows is fine because they are literally the first line of defense against Chaos' preferred avenue of invasion, and everyone greatly prefers that Kislev be a strong shield against that rather than getting more magical energy.
Kislev is in serious need of help in these matters. I'd much rather vote for giving Kislev Waystones at a greatly discounted rate even if we don't see a drop of magical energy from those Waystones, because holy shit imagine if the next Everchosen treated Praag as a speedbump and Kislev City was the next to fall, with the decisive battle being in Erengrad. Boris has an enormous task ahead of him as it is; I'd much rather give him fantastic news and a show of solidarity: the Fire Spire may still lie in ruins, but the magical traditions that remain in Kislev and the magical institutions well beyond Kislev have got Kislev's back.
Just to be clear: is this a joke of unrealistic expectations about the Ice Witches being so knowledgeable and having experts to spare after a string of powerful and/or terrible rulers for so long, or is it a joke about the Ice Witches clearly being not so great after failing to deal with Kattarin the Bloody for a century and a half despite their magical power?
It's also worth noting that some of the most obviously lucrative secrets the Ice Witches might have been able to offer were ones that aren't really applicable to most places. Circulating its own magical power throughout its own Waystone network seems lucrative, but it apparently depends on the active efforts of the Ancient Widow to make that work, and no other polity is really set up to do that, outside of maybe Bretonnia, but Bretonnia needs to serve as a key waystation for magic flowing towards the Great Vortex.
I agree with everything else you've said, but I hold out hope that the Kislev network will be helpful to examine even without an actively involved deity. It's their real strong point with regard to Waystones.
Honestly I don't mind that the ice witches haven't contributed much, their (as many said) coming out of their probably deepest low point. I do hope they show a bit of gratitude when it comes time to start plonking waystones all over kislev.
I'd take a "thank you" but will also accept "here's a cool artifact to show our appreciation."
Lord Hatalath's first attempts at the reverse-engineered storage mechanism are, in his own words, as difficult as he expected. Despite the enchantment not being Qhaysh, you and Egrimm had privately mused before that probably the only human enchanter in the history of the Colleges who would be capable of the enchantment the Grey Lords had presented would have been the famed Friedrich von Tarnus, first Patriarch of the Bright College, and a prodigy within the areas of enchantment and staff-turning. But it's one thing to muse that, and another to actually see a millennia-old Elven archmage struggle with it.
You are certain that this reverse-engineered enchantment has more storage capacity than any other option on the table, and you hope that with enough time the enchantment would become easy enough that at least other Collegiate enchanters would be able to reliably make them, but it might take some time before that happens. But you're getting ahead of yourself, since the prototype waystone isn't even done yet. In case it does not work, or in the event you decide to make another prototype, that's not really relevant.
Since Lord Hatalath was busy with the Storage, and Sarvoi needed to handle the Qhaysh-dependent Capstone mechanism alongside some of his students (with Cadaeth supervising), this unfortunately left you and possibly some of the other College wizards with the unenviable task of putting into practice the Foundation component the Grey Lords made, which will allow the magic stored within the waystone to be dropped where it needs to go so it stops being a problem. Working with the original leyline mechanism, this Foundation mechanism needs to orbit two Winds into a stable orbit of Dhar, before dropping the entire package into the leyline below.
Had you chosen a purely riverine transmission mechanism, this would probably be the easiest step of the entire waystone, since you wouldn't need to orbit the Winds at all. The Winds would merely be dropped onto the river, and any Dhar in the bedrock beneath, to follow an identical path. Setting up the waystone itself would be more difficult.
But since you didn't, and chose a hybrid transmission mechanism that may do either, you need to do some adjustments. After consulting with Tochter (who is being aided by Zlata and Niedzwenka and Aksel, for lack of any other part they could truly help with), about how exactly she would place the monolith her Order created within or beneath the river, you return to the workshop, where Egrimm and Elrisse await.
"The most arduous task appears to be yours," says Elrisse. You can't tell whether she's disapproving or perhaps saddened. Either way, she clearly does not like that any Collegiate wizard has to be the one to do this part, even with special dispensation.
You trade glances with Egrimm. He seems a bit resigned. "I could do it by myself-"
"Absolutely not," you say, frowning. "I won't make my subordinate do what I wouldn't. I'll do it."
He gives you a complicated look you're not sure you can decipher. Then he gives a bit of a pained smile, and nods. "As you wish."
Never before have you broken the Articles, not by your interpretation of them. Not when you read a very forbidden book, not when you examined Skaven devices with Johann, and not when you studied the Windfall with Egrimm. You wouldn't say you broke them when you had to seal the liminal realm you first created either, since touching some of Tzeentch's magic briefly is still more ideal than possibly leaving an opening in reality for a Greater Daemon to come through. And you're not doing it now either, given your special dispensation.
But you are still purposely creating Dhar for the first time, albeit via an enchantment. Just a bit, certainly, and you are protected by Kragg's belt from true harm, but the Colleges do not consider any amount of Dhar safe, and this will be viewed as a necessary evil at best.
——
[Foundation, Mathilde: 92+29+20(Room of Dawn and Dusk)+10(Enchanter)+10(Windherder)+10(Dhar Insight)=171]
You stare at your completed works with some concern. Between your tower, your affinity for enchantment, your experience in touching other Winds with Egrimm, and your damnable insight into Dhar, this is perhaps the best enchantment you've ever made. In theory, the enchantment drops the Winds straight into Caledor's leylines, and in case the next waystone is destroyed or turned off, it instead would reroute itself to drop the Winds onto the river nearby and the Jade monolith beneath. You are even starting to get an idea of the logic behind the enchantment, self-recursive though it is.
You've outdone yourself, and for once that's not a good thing.
Egrimm scrutinizes it from all sides, a bit wide-eyed, as though expecting to find some hidden catch or flaw. He opens his mouth, then closes it.
Elrisse keeps her usual neutral expression, but you do feel her eyes linger on you. You are about to say something to weaken the suspicions they are inevitably having in their head, when Egrimm beats you to it. "The Grey Lords sure are something."
You nod, not missing a beat. "Dhar may provide more firepower than the Winds usually have, but if it can be manipulated so easily, anyone would dismiss the idea that it is truly stronger in any sense. It is merely easier, more tempting to the uninitiated."
There's a thousand terrible things Elrisse could be pondering, or respond with, but what comes out of her mouth is simply relieving to you: "And thankfully, House Tindomiel would be first to create Waystones in the Empire. You may well be the only human wizard to ever use that enchantment."
"Hopefully," you say. Ranald willing, connecting the pieces that the rest of the Project members have made will go smoothly.
And perhaps you can put aside the thought that you are the Project's resident Dhar expert.
---
I tried my best to imitate Boney's writing style and also in particular have Egrimm be suspicious in a way that could possibly actually be innocent. It was a lot easier than it should have been.
It might be wishful thinking on my end that Mathilde will be responsible for the Foundation, because I feel like this is a very precise intersection of her skills, liable to get a really high result.
Just to be clear: is this a joke of unrealistic expectations about the Ice Witches being so knowledgeable and having experts to spare after a string of powerful and/or terrible rulers for so long, or is it a joke about the Ice Witches clearly being not so great after failing to deal with Kattarin the Bloody for a century and a half despite their magical power?
It's a humorous attempt to communicate the state of Kislev and how the last time the Ice Witches had a ruler that wasn't outright hostile to them was 2309, which might need to be taken into account when setting expectations.
In fact, thinking about it: what exactly were we hoping for from the Ice Witches, anyway?
Their magic is intrinsically tied to the land of Kislev itself. Maybe a more senior Witch could have piped up in some of the investigatory parts to help with theorising, but would any Ice Magic component even work outside of Kislev?
Their big selling point was always seeing what they've done with the network in Kislev, and we haven't done that yet. It's too early to even reasonably say they've not been able to hold up their half of the implied bargain.
If Eike is learning Moderately Complicated spells during her Apprenticeship with us then we've fucked up tremendously and need to graduate her right away before she develops a lifelong grudge against us for holding her back.
Also I think the odds of Boney giving us a spell for no AP cost is slightly less likely than Mathilde turning out to have been a Lahmian sleeper agent the entire time.
You know, if we ever actually do make a suspiciously good Dhar-based Waystone enchantment, I bet you that there will be a fierce vote between "be mysterious, say you're just that good, if pressed say it's all secrets you can't share" and "downplay your achievement", with "just list all the Dhar study permissions you have" coming a distant third.
We knew that there was soemthing weird going on with the Kislev network, so it wasn't unreasonable to think that they might have sat/sit on some secrets to its function, and as the order faction that sits closest to the chaos waste it is natural to think that they would be motivated to contribute to the project. Though in classic "we are living in the ruins of our great forebearers" fashion they might have no idea how the widow ended up taking over that part of the network. Actually it might be literal divine intervention and the ice witches just rolled with it.
Big problem there is that we have exactly one such permission, which was given for the waystone project... For everything else we didn't ask for permission, or forgiveness...
Also a thought I just had, we probably get more out of the kislev action if we can speak kislevite to directly talk to some more high power witches instead of poor zlata.
I imagine investigating the Network would involve going to Kislev, poking at it, and asking questions. We would want Zlata on the action at minimum to give us some pointers and help us find the people who can tell us about it.
It drains into a river delta. Presumably Castle Alexandronov is built inside the delta rather than just upriver, but it's not shown on the map of Kislev, then we could just have the river spirit drop off the dhar at the end of one of the other distributaries, not the one that the castle is next to. That's one of the advantages of the river spirit, that as the dhar doesn't pass through the points in between, it doesn't have the problem of accidentally feeding into the wrong place as it passes by.
Yes, we can bypass nexuses. That can be done on any river with a nexus at the end. Just don't feed it into the nexus. I was responding to you saying the Tobol is well north of Kislev's network. Me saying that one of its nexuses is on the Tobol runs counter to the idea that the Tobol isn't on their network. It also is not saying that we can't bypass it.
Still, Baba Niedzwenka suggested that it would be feasible to feed the riverine nexuses into Kislev's network. If there is anyone at the table who would know if it was viable, it would be her. She clearly does not care about pissing off the Ice Witches and has an interest in the Network. She didn't even hint about problems doing it.
Obviously it would be best to investigate Kislev's network before doing it, but I don't see why we should be planning to dump it into the ocean when we don't have any indication that we need to.
I've speculated before that Kattarin may herself have been an Ice Witch herself, and may have turned other senior Ice Witches, just as she did the rest of the aristocracy. Worse, some living Ice Witches could have stayed loyal to their vampiric elders when the revolution came.
That means that not only would the surviving Ice Witches probably have been the juniors who rose up to slay their immortal elders, they may have faced significant suspicion from the rest of Kislev which made it even harder to recover. It also means that the surviving Ice Witches would have predominantly been the rural, lower class ones, as the Ice Witch Nobility would have been much more likely to be turned then staked.
Big problem there is that we have exactly one such permission, which was given for the waystone project... For everything else we didn't ask for permission, or forgiveness...
I mean, while the Ice Witches didn't contribute much, Kislev sure did. Boris himself sent Baba Niedzwenka, the infamous Sea Witch of Erengrad, who most notably designed pretty much on her own the tributary model that is already bolstering Stirland's local Network. The Ice Witches might have provided less than expected to the Project, but the Hag Witches more than made up for it.
Big problem there is that we have exactly one such permission, which was given for the waystone project... For everything else we didn't ask for permission, or forgiveness...
"average magister has 3 dhar study permissions a year" factoid actually just a statistical error. average magister has 0 dhar study permissions per year. Mathilde Weber, who lives in tower & studies over 10,000 dhar secrets each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
I kind of wish we had a better idea what a more average hag witch was like. This is like when we got used to the quality of Kragg's work and normal runesmiths started looking really inept.
