There was a snippet bothering me, and this is the result.
The Second Battle For Karak Eight Peaks That Never Was
Or
Who Gave Anton Loaded Dice?!
Mathilde was a lot of things.
Open minded. Good at thinking on her feet. Flexible, pragmatic, capable and resourceful. Resourceful most of all.
And despite whatever your average Stirlander or Dawi thought, definitely not a miracle-maker.
No, that honor belonged solely to her old friend Anton.
"Let's start this again. Care to enlighten me what are all these… honored gentlemen doing here? How are they here?" Mathilde asked the gregarious Baron, the suprisingly competent former Chancellor of Stirland and a fellow EIC share-holder, feeling torn between gratitude, confusion and a bit of anger at Anton's beaming face.
She did not appreciate things that left her perplexed, both on a personal and professional level.
She was the Dammerlichreiter, Ranald damn it! She should be the one doing the confusing and looking smug doing it, not the other way around!
"Well, Mathilde, remember how you told me that you had some exotic Beastmen problem?" asked Anton Kiesinger, a handsome and earnest man whose customary wide innocent smile now seemed to mock her.
"I do" replied Mathilde grumpily.
Horned Rat had unfortunately declared the ratmen cease-fire sooner than later, before she had managed to manipulate them into wiping each other, or at the very least clan Mors out, and so the reclaimers of Karak Eight Peaks were stuck facing the united Skaven threat.
"And that the greenskins were behaving particularly rowdy?"
Of course, fate didn't consider the innumerable hordes of Skaven dangerous enough, oh no.
Why not add an Orc Waaagh into the mix, and let's have them be led by a particularly sneaky, powerful and deadly Warboss named Gorfang whose death despite her best efforts somehow just wouldn't stick.
You know, just for good measure. She had words with her precious patron for than one.
"Yes, Anton, I remember."
"Oh, and how somebody somehow woke up a really big scaly magical beasty at the same time?"
Yes, let's add a forsaken blingy-blingy Emperor Dragon to Mathilde's chore list, just for good measure.
Did Mathilde perchance mention that she seriously considered converting to Grimnir and declaring a Grudge on Ranald for that one?
No? Well she did. Does. She had yet to decide which.
"YES, ANTON. I REMEMBER." The Grey Wizard said testily, not managing to keep the ire out of her voice.
"Gosh, Mathilde, relax! That can't be good for your heart, magic or not. And stop making that dwarf face at me. You aren't one, and surliness is bad for a magic lady's wrinkles, my aunt said so. And she would know! Anyway, I told you that your ol' pal Anton would handle it, and I did, didn't I?"
Mathilde stopped herself from gnashing her teeth with a supreme effort of will, and with a deep sigh, considered how to make the other human start finally making sense.
"Yes, Anton. You handled it. I am grateful. As are King Belegar, the Council, Clan Angrund, Undumgi, Halflings, Karak Azul and Ulrikandrin. Please, explain how."
"Well, first of all, after I read your message, I decided to sleep on it. The morning after, as I was munching on my morning tost, I remembered reading somewhere somewhen how pretty much all the beastmen in the world were deathly afraid of those quaint elfs down in Bretonnia, and so I asked Asarnil who was, as luck would have it, passing near Blutdorf at the time, if he could maybe introduce me to his estranged cousins.
Oh, and if he would terribly mind flying me there and back, of course.
I wouldn't have bothered the jolly good fellow and his fine companion otherwise, but well, time was somewhat of a factor. He was strangely reluctant at first, but I managed to persuade him in the end."
"Is that why there are a half-a-dozen antlered Dragons, their accompanying Elf Lords and an Avatar of a Savage God roaming all over the Caldera?"
"Mats, I know what you are thinking. Yes, Orion and his friends are a bit rough around the edges. And yes, they and the Dwarfs had some unfortunate misunderstandings in the past. But deep down they are good people! And Ariel makes the best honey-cakes. Oh, and did I mention they had dragons! And you had that little dragon situation, too, so I figured, 'Hey, two birds with one stone!' And the more the dragons, the merrier! At least Asarnil tells me so.
And how was I to know that your beast-men are so peculiar to dislike the woods and prefer tunnels?
Nevertheless, my father didn't raise no slacker for a son, so I put my thinking hat back on and made it work. And it all turned out fine, didn't it?"
"Just terrific. I suppose that answers the question of why there's a giant white bipedal crocodile-lizard leading other, smaller but still quite gigantic, bipedal crocodile-lizards in my, I mean, in Belegar's tunnels?"
"What can I say. You can meet the most interesting people in Barak-Varr. And Nakai may seem tough and scary on the surface, but he's just a teddy bear, really."
"I see... and the four-armed Ind Godling slaughtering the Orc leaders and stealing my Dwarf favor?"
"First of all, Mats. Sharing is Caring. Second of all, his name is Kumara, son of Brahmir."
"Why is he here?!"
"Now, that's a funny story…"
