Whatever bad blood there once was between Johann and Maximilian must have evaporated, or perhaps the latter is too upset to pass up a shoulder to cry on, as Maximilian bemoans the battle that never was from eastern edge of the caldera, where the gyrocopters have landed to preserve fuel but still be on hand and the siege weapon teams have stood down from full readiness. Your rescue of him comes at Johann's thinly-veiled relief, and as the two of you make your way back into the Citadel, Maximilian turns his woes on the cannoneers, who seem equally disappointed.
Poor Max.
We'll get him a beer.
Johann doesn't have the ability to summon a magical horse, but you're quite shocked to learn that he doesn't need one to keep pace with you. Enchanted gold, it seems, not only makes him stronger and tougher - it also removes his capacity to feel physical fatigue. He's not at all out of breath when you reach Karagril and dismiss your steed, nor, now that you watch closely, is he breathing at all, except when required for speech. "It's one of the most recent things I had done," he says casually as the two of you make your way deeper under the mountain. "I've a gift for the more literal applications of the Wind of Metal, but it's still quite a tricky ritual under the best of circumstances, and trying to convince yourself to inhale molten gold isn't the best of circumstances. But it does mean that I don't need to breathe."
"Useful," you comment, keeping envy out of your voice. It's a fact of life when dealing with members of other Colleges that they'll have access to capabilities that would be astoundingly useful; you can only imagine how infuriating it must be to someone who doesn't have their own suite of magical abilities to comfort themselves.
We suspected but good to have it confirmed. He's tireless and never runs out of physical stamina.
*quietly puts another mark on the Johann love interest perks*
"I've got a number of flasks and bombs to take advantage of it with, but it is restricted to solo adventures. For now, anyway. I hope to find one of those Skryre gas-rats and figure out how their masks work."
It'd be on the menu at some point next year. We'd go on a Jolly Adventure.
I'm kind of curious how their masks even work on warpstone based poison gas, but I'd probably count figuring out a workable gas mask as a necessity before any serious fighting with Skryre. Its like having flamethrowers against trolls.
[Infiltration: 87+21=108.]
[Moulder vs Red Fang: ???]
[Moulder vs Mors: 18+15(relative strength)=33 vs 49.]
It's been some time since you've had to infiltrate somewhere without being able to use Ulgu to cut corners, but blazing a trail for Johann makes it clear your skills are just as keen as ever and you easily slip past the roaring, screeching din of a Skaven-on-Skaven battlefields and on-edge guard posts into the unprotected underbelly of Clan Moulder, normally swarming with activity but practically deserted with most fighting, some hiding, and more than a few having fled. You're also able to gauge the battles you saw while slipping past, and while Moulder does seem to have the advantage in strength it seems that Mors' desperation is enough to tip things in their favour so far, even before Dwarven intervention.
The sweet, sweet sound of your enemies killing each other.
[Looting: Intrigue, 97+21=118. One roll in each category.]
Johann: "I need to go with Mathilde more often, the loot rolls are crazy with her around."
"What in Teclis' name is an elf doing here?" Johann says, standing over the unexpected figure's senseless form.
"Nothing good, I'd wager," you reply, looking past him into the being's quarters. The door was unlocked and the furnishings inside bordered on decadent, so you're pretty sure he's not a prisoner. You reach past Johann and gather Ulgu in your palm, and a touch and a thought plunges the elf into a deathlike torpor. "We'll take him with us and question him later."
"You speak elf?"
"You don't?"
Johann: "Really, when did she find the time to learn to speak elf?"
Instead of responding Johann drags the unconscious figure inside and closes the door, and the two of you begin to search the room, your attention quickly going to the chest on a writing desk, which reveals the gleam of gold when opened.
"Why are they pink?" you wonder aloud, running your fingers through the coins.
"Lustrian gold?" Johann suggests.
"How would they have gotten here?" You see a language you recognize and pick one up. "Port Reaver. Okay, it must be. Are there Skaven in Lustria?"
"No idea," Johann says, picking a coin up and rubbing it between two golden fingers. "Jewellers call it 'rose gold' when they're trying to bilk a noble. Feels about a quarter copper, maybe less."
Gold is nice, but we got lots of gold sources. Not that more would be a problem, but its probably up there on the list of things to trade off if we had something we want more.
Besides, Johann needs the cash more, if he plans to gild more internal organs.
"Maybe our new friend had a previous career as a pirate." You hesitate, thinking of the Bursar, but this definitely falls into the category of fish jumping aboard. Johann gives up on suppressing the sparks from the shock-whip he was examining, and rolls it in the elf's bedsheet as you turn your attention to the axe mounted above the desk. It's definitely Dwarven, so you place it atop the chest.
Bursar: "So...where do you even find Lustrian rose gold while at Eight Peaks?"
Mathilde: "My boat isn't even at sea, some seagulls drop fish on deck anyway."
The shock whip might be an interesting curio. Makes a nice trophy.
...wait, isn't that the Moulder control whip?
What happens if a Moulder Warbeast is confronted with whips on BOTH sides?
A shelf of books attracts your attention, but you quickly realize they aren't reference material, but instead somewhat like your usual recreational reading but with the risque cranked up to the point where it's definitely obscene and possibly blasphemous. Your searches don't reveal anything else of interest, so the two of you move on.
*Checks the library*
Romance +2 - Extensive Imperial / Extensive Druchii
The Dark Elf sure has good reading material.
Maybe we should get Extensive Bretonnian Romance to bring balance to the force with incredibly chaste and pure romances.
"A laboratory," Johann says, his voice thick with disgust.
"I've seen laboratories. I've got a laboratory. This is an abattoir." You grimace at a rack of still-bloody instruments, and with trepidation lean over the wide metal drum splattered with old blood. But instead of a pile of gore and viscera, you see inside a strange, faintly-glowing ooze. You frown at it, and select the cleanest of the implements to give it a poke; it clings onto the tool but relinquishes its grip when you shake it, and you see the gore has been cleaned off it. You uncork a flask of blood and pour it in, and watch as it soaks into the ooze, and then with a set of clamps and a lot of care, you gather up a flaskful of it for future investigation.
Wonder what the ooze does. It LOOKS like its being used as a cleaning agent, but we never know unless we study it.
Anyone think this might be their recycle bin? For rendering down the spare parts back into nutrient sludge for the next project.
You add it to the 'take' pile next to what look like a set of microscopes that Johann's collected, and then you venture into one of the two back rooms.
Microscopes. Nice. Might have better resolution than Imperial options.
You turn from them and instead examine the haphazard pile of books next to a stained dissection table. Most appear to be lab notes, badly-bound and the handwriting barely legible, but tucked into a corner you find a well-bound (in leather, and you try not to imagine the source) tome that when opened displays grisly anatomical charts of Dwarves. Or so you initially thought, but each depiction of their head or skull shows prominent tusks and a few show horns, and as the book continues it starts to depict some sort of Dwarf-centaur. These must be the Chaos Dwarves, that the Dwarves you know are so reticent to speak of.
*Checks Paper ratings*
-Subject: Rare(Multiple rare varieties of enemy faction) +1
-Insight: Revolutionary(Completely new information on Chaos Dwarves,) +2 OR Shattering(New information on dwarf biology) +3
-Delivery: Max can make it Compelling +1
-Familiarity: Exotic(Dark Lands) +1
-Might be Precious(I THINK the dwarf centaurs are secret?) +0 - +1
-Thorough(Skaven put it 'on the slab' literally) +1
-Varied(Skaven very clearly have used a lot of samples) +1
-Tactically Relevant(Enemy of the Empire) +1
...jebus, that is one heck of a paper.
The caged Skaven seemed to grow confident from your lack of threatening moves, and start to chitter what you assume to be Queekish entreaties at you, and with an effort of will you ignore their pleas. But just before you turn to leave, you hear the last thing you expected from a Skaven mouth. "Umgi! Elgramraki anokrit umgi! Orbarazar!" You stare at the Skaven that had spoken, managing to keep shock from showing on your face. With your attention on it you see this one is larger than the others, both taller and more muscular, and the injuries it bears seem deliberate cruelty rather than the casual cruelty of Moulder experimentation. "Orbarazar!" it repeats.
You consider the Skaven. The creatures are known to be untrustworthy, but that their society even exists is proof that intimidation works, and you feel confident that you could sufficiently intimidate a solitary prisoner. Despite the best efforts of a few of the Grey Order, there's yet to be any success in translating the language of the ratmen, but with a common language you might be the one to change that. You make your mind up. "Ip. Afthagit, afuzkul." The Skaven nods rapidly in agreement to your threat, and you gather Ulgu once more and press your hand against the bars. It stares at your hand curiously, and cautiously extends its paw to touch it at a jerk of your head, and then slumps into the torpor of Mockery of Death.
Taller, more muscular, actively tortured.
Somehow speaks Khazalid reasonably fluently.
Somehow trusts a random human wizard who snuck into the Moulder base and kept calm when all the other Skaven are panicking and fear-musking.
I'm PRETTY sure most regular dwarves would literally die before teaching a Skaven anything, much less their language.
Chaos Dwarves might be evil and crazy but they're still no less stubborn.
So,
how?!
The possibilities are fairly slim, its either a captive Skaven Warlord or a 13th Spell victim.
With the stated intent of a punitive raid, the Throngs disengaged just after Clan Moulder started crumpling, and from what they saw Clan Mors barely managed to beat the Red Fang Orcs to the previously-Moulder territory, sparking the first of what is likely to be a constant war of attrition between the two. Without Dwarven intervention it seems the Orcs would have beaten Clan Mors, and would no doubt have swept upwards to seek their lost outpost and then to seek to reconquer it. Those that lost their lives raiding Clan Moulder saved even more lives, as instead of revanchist Orcs, the Karagril front is likely to be a cautious and unspoken detente with the outcast Skaven.
Excellent, working just fine.
As the Throngs march back to the Citadel and construction begins on the Karagril fortifications and the Silver Tarn aqueduct, you and Johann consider your haul.
Aqueduct already going. Bless the dwarves construction speed.
[X] Plan Imperial Intelligence and Skaven Research
This one looks fine
[X] Plan Elf Connections and Skaven Research
-[X] ELF: Extradite him to Ulthuan. (+???)
-[X] SKAVEN: Claim him.
-[X] PUPS: Cede them.
-[X] OOZE: Send it to any College that will take it. (+College favour?)
-[X] AXE: Split it.
-[X] BOOK: Claim it.
-[X] GOLD: Cede it.
And one for Elf door opening. Elven tutors would go a long way to expanding our research once we start hitting walls.
[X] Plan Breaching The Unknowns
-[X] ELF: Extradite him to Ulthuan. (+???)
-[X] SKAVEN: Claim him.
-[X] PUPS: Cede them.
-[X] OOZE: Claim it.
-[X] AXE: Cede it.
-[X] BOOK: Claim it.
-[X] GOLD: Split it.
Tossed one up for claiming the Ooze and having Johann spend one of his job actions Breaching the Unknown on it.
E: this is good too
[X] Plan HUMINT
