Finally, the first piece of information goes onto the board: WAAAGH AT WESTERN GATE. You fidget with the lenses to try to adjust your view of said gates, which remains unchanged. WARBOSS GIVING SPEECH TO WESTERN GATE. You snort. Reasonable assumption, you suppose, that the Western Gate would be manned and defended.
Heh. So rude of us, to not even have anyone present for his big speech. I mean, it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing!
You turn your eye to the largest of the Wagons, and your immediate impression is that Warboss Birdmuncha the Really Zoggin' Big matches his name twice over. Despite sitting down he still towers over the Orcs running alongside his Wagon, and attached to leather straps running along his chest, back and arms is the plumage of what must have been an enormous bird, adding more bulk to his already enormous frame. His face is covered by a blank metal mask, and he glowers through the eyeholes at the horde running alongside his Wagon, occasionally gesturing and presumably shouting commands. Weapon racks stand to either side of the stone throne standing atop the Wagon, and in front of him is a Bolt Thrower of Dwarven make, albeit heavily defaced with Orcish glyphs and with the original bowstring replaced with a much thicker and cruder one.
Bolt Thrower? That's a grudging. And yeah, he is pretty Zogging big. Too bad for him Gazul cares not about size.
The Orcs quickly discovered that the Citadel was occupied as the first Orcs to get within range were utterly peppered with arrows and bolts. Overkill, and definitely a missed opportunity compared to holding fire until more had entered range, but the lesson to be hammered home here is that the eastern portion of the Caldera means death, to encourage them to stick to the western portion, where they are vulnerable to the Eye of Gazul. A few hundred Orc archers try their luck and are quickly scythed down, and an armoured Pump Wagon trying to cautiously approach the Citadel is obliterated by three simultaneous cannonballs.
Orcs get within range, and serve as examples. The rest: "Ooh, that's way too much shooty. Ey, Boss! We need a Plan!"
Dwarfs are thinking "Keep them out of the safe zone. The Eye doesn't need ammo, after all."
As the debate amongst the greenskins is temporarily shelved for Birdmuncha to wrestle an underling into obedience, the 2 and 5 flags are taken down and replaced with 3 and 0. Not even a third. You cross your fingers and mutter a prayer to Ranald. Finally, an accord is reached, and the Bosses begin shouting orders in every direction. The Wagons disgorge Snotlings by the hundreds and each Orc evicts their hitchhikers, and tens of thousands of tiny hands set to work digging through the soil of the Caldera. Surely they don't think they could get through the stone and into the Under-Caldera? But with one eye on the Citadel for any order from King Belegar to fire early, you watch them as tunnels begin to take form and worm their haphazard way towards the Citadel, marked by frequently resurfacing Snotlings trying to regain their bearings. Sappers, then.
Only one brawl in the planning session? Birdmuncha has some disciplined subordinates. And the sapper-tunnel plan is not the worst... except that the Eye makes it close to that.
4 and 5. A Big Boss clambers down from his Wagon to try to split up a Snotling brawl from two tunnels colliding.
Heh. Snotlings. What can you do? (Well, squish a few, until the rest start listening again...)
5 and 6? They must only have one flag for 5.
Somebody is getting chewed out for that, I bet. Also, over half the waagh is inside the Gates...
6 and 0. The ditch that marks the furthest volley fire range for the Fieldwardens and Quarrelers.
Within bow range. I suppose hundreds of thousands of snotlings can dig pretty fast.
6 and 5. Some of the Orcs are disappearing into the tunnels now. Are they Overseers? Are they just bored? Or are they beginning to mass for an attack when the saps break the surface? You look to the slate once more. A runner is talking to the Dwarf in charge of it, and that Dwarf scratches his beard, looking at the message still on there. He writes STILL, and draws an arrow to indicate its place between PLAN and UNCHANGED.
Providing oversight to make sure the snotlings are digging a tunnel tall enough for orcs to fit through? Also, I wonder how they are keeping the roof from collapsing without bracing. Probably a "don't think too hard about it and it will work" aspect of the Waaagh.
And I imagine there are a bunch of nervous dwarves there, watching the green tide flow in.
7 and 0. You'd have expected the flow of Orcs to slow as the last stragglers filtered in, but if anything they seem to be coming faster, and you can see fights breaking out and Orcs trampling each other underfoot as they try to squeeze through the bottleneck of the Gates.
7 and 5. A gyrocopter lands by the Citadel, its rotors not even powering down as the pilot clambers out, screams his message at a runner, and then climbs back aboard and flies back to the battle. Your eyes become fixed to the slate. WOLF GOBLINS MAULING WAAAGH. STRAGGLERS PANICKING.
Thank you wolves! And, I suppose, the goblins too. Mathilde does seem to specialize in making the most of "Let's you and him fight" situations.
8 and 0. Another gyrocopter touches down at the Citadel. A runner disappears into the Citadel. A minute later, another emerges, and speaks to the Dwarf on slate duty.
FIRE AT WILL.
80% of enemy forces in the Caldera. Most of them probably in the line of fire.
Poor Will. Always the designated target. Also, I imagine that as an orc, he got bullied a lot.
Edit: Gah, wrong button. Continuing commentary...
You take a deep breath, and the merest thought from you causes the tower to react, and Ulgu begins to seep into the room from the Room of Dawn and Dusk below. The console remains untouched as you reach out with your magic to interface with the various enchantments that have been woven into this tower, and they in turn reach out to you. You feel an entirely new sense blossom, and can feel the sun directly above you, and a thought from you has the Tower poised to change that immutable fact, or at least trick this general area into thinking you have. An itch at the back of your head indicates the Blue Tower and the Red Tower prepared to come to life, but you dismiss them and they return to their slumber. And just on the edge of your perception, you can feel a minute sliver of the attention of an immovable object turn to you. For a moment you have the sense of a sliver of light at the bottom of unfathomable darkness, and then it passes.
That's a fun experience. New sensory modes based on linking to enchanted items... Interesting. And, of course, poking Gazul... never going to be other than unnerving.
All noise vanishes. The sun jerks in the sky. The Caldera is plunged into shadow. And for a single exhilarating, terrifying moment, you feel power you can't begin to comprehend flow through you.
And, activation. "Many things happen, all at once."
Burning Shadows is selective in what it burns, and the criteria used can be incredibly vague or incredibly specific. The dominant theory is that the spell draws information from the caster's mind to differentiate targets from non-targets. Either something else is going on here or there's a significant flaw in that theory. Because for an instant that stretches into what feels like hours, you glimpse one greenskin after another for a fraction of a second each and mentally confirm that, yes, it is an enemy of the Dawi. Apart from some being Orcs and some Snotlings, the only variation is the scarce handful of vultures mixed among them, following hopefully in the Waaagh's wake and likely destined to be very disappointed.
Mathilde probably could write a paper on this experience, even if it only has a destined audience of 4-5 people. (Plus any other Grey Wizards sent to man the Eye, if such ever happens.)
In the instant before a half a million deaths, the Karak suddenly seems very, very small, and you can feel the attention of immense powers upon it. One is as familiar to you as your own soul, and you can feel His amusement and anticipation. Another has just thrummed through your soul, and His attention is already moving on. A third eyes the Karak dubiously, and nudges His brother to go deal with it, who nudges back, no, you go deal with it, and the two fall to bickering.
(one, encompassed within a single body but no less powerful for it, moves through halls of stone long remembered, a pat on a shoulder here, a gruff word of encouragement there)
(one, brooding and angry and indecisive, has a fraction of His attention here, but in the same way that a fraction of your attention might linger on the throb of an old scar)
And, the curtain is drawn back, and the gods are watching. Ranald definitely has popcorn and a mug of ale, Gazul is all business, Mork and Gork don't really want to be the first to poke at Karag Nar again. Not after what happened last time.
Grombrindal is doing White Dwarf things... and him being a deity yet all compressed into one body - I am not sure what the implications of that are, but there have to be some.
Still not sure who the last one is. Might possibly be Sigmar, might be Horned Rat.
But despite all that attention, the only one acting is you. So you act. The world goes dark. The membrane between what you consider reality and the realm of souls and gods ripples as five hundred thousand links between the two are severed at once.
And then you are only Mathilde again, and wince as the room takes on the feel of being slightly too sharp and bright, all the Ulgu that filled it drained away in an instant.
And the moment ends, with what probably has to be a pretty big ripple in the Aether. A sudden transition for the orcs, and for Mathilde, as she is suddenly is a much-less-foggy (mystically speaking) environment.
You want very much to crawl into bed, hug Wolf to you and refuse to come out for at least a day or two. But you have a duty. Three blue Marsh Lights rise into the air, and Karag Lhune disgorges a gyrocarriage. You give Wolf a pat, inform him that he's now in command, and climb down the stairs to meet your transport on the balcony.
Wolf is a Good Boy. But Mathilde has promises to keep, and miles to go, before she gets to nap with him.
