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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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The Karag Dum Expedition, Part 8: The Battle of High Pass
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    • [X] MATHILDE: Fire support
    [X] Plan: Playing to Strengths, Heavy on the Counterspells
    -[X] ASARNIL: Use your best judgement
    -[X] JOHANN: Use your best judgement
    -[X] MAX: Counterspelling
    -[X] AMBERS: With the Knights of Taal's Fury
    -[X] HUBERT: Fighting alongside you
    -[X] LIGHTS: Fire support as a choir
    -[X] CELESTIAL: Counterspelling
    -[X] JADE: Counterspelling
    -[X] BRIGHT: Fire support

    Tally

    Even though you have an exact compass heading to work with, finding the Waystone is still easier said than done. Most Waystones are either Elven monoliths or stone menhirs jutting out of the ground and are therefore very easy to spot even to those that can't see the magical suction siphoning the Winds from the air, but the Dwarven ones aren't quite so obvious to mundane or mystical senses. As far as you can tell they do not absorb Winds themselves, existing only to funnel the Winds absorbed by the great Karak-Waystones towards Karaz-a-Karak, and that power runs deep underground which makes it even harder to spot. It takes you, Johann and Hubert several hours to find your way to the Waystone, much of it spent with you in meditation as you try to catch a glimpse of the river of magical power far below you to confirm that you're still on course.

    At last you come to a small mountain that at first glance seems no different to those surrounding it, but deep below the magical energies break from the perfectly straight line to turn more to the east. Close examination of the mountain itself reveals nothing; it's not until you move away and examine it from afar that the natural-seeming crags, cracks and gullies combine to form a massive Rune you don't recognize. The next step is to make your way to the peak, which would be no mean feat to those not capable of teleportation or flight, where the nature of the stone is somehow altered to allow for energy to pass through it without any loss of clarity or intensity. You place your hands upon it and recall the lessons you were taught of the ways the Colleges know to interact with them, and speak unfamiliar phrases while you form a construct you do not understand in your mind to funnel Ulgu into. When complete, the construct is accepted by the stone and sinks into the mountain, and after a minute a sickening lurch threatens to topple you off the mountain as you instinctively try to adjust for a movement that did not occur in the physical realm. Deep below, energy begins to pool like water behind a dam, except much more dangerous. Everything you know about magic screams at you to undo what you've just done, but better it gather threateningly here than to fuel the ambitions of the Chaos Gods.

    With that done you descend from the mountain to return to Hubert and Johann and make your way back towards where the Expedition has fortified as quickly as possible, fretting over the number of variables in play and hoping everything goes according to plan.

    ---

    [Rolling...]

    Your return to the fortified position finds it just as you left it, except slightly more so because there's no such thing as an idle Dwarf when there are fortifications that can be improved. You check in on the Wizards, who are spread throughout the steam-wagons to prevent them from getting in each others' way when battle begins, make sure that everyone's still ready for battle, and settle down to wait.

    Which lasts for about a couple of hours of nothing happening before you're asking Asarnil and Deathfang to provide overwatch while you pay a visit to the site of the Karak to double-check that power has been cut off. The trip there is uneventful and careful observation reveals that the flow of magical energy has indeed halted, but that's all the conclusion you can draw. Whatever result your actions will have are occurring in the Warp, not here. So you once more return to the fortifications to wait and fret.

    Dusk comes, and night passes, and the next morning still nothing has happened, but there's a tension to the air, something akin to the sense of a thunderstorm about to break. Your Wizards feel it too, as does Asarnil, but the Dwarves don't, confirming this is on the mystical side of things. You pass on the information to the other Councillors, which at least keeps Borek from nudging for the Expedition to resume, and retake your position at the fore of the Volans, staring east along a stubbornly empty road and drumming your fingers on the rail.

    The third day takes a while to register what has changed about it, but finally you notice what it is that's bothering you - the Winds are blowing west to east, instead of north to south. Or to be more exact, they're being drawn slightly south of eastwards. A jaunt on your Shadowsteed confirms that the center of this phenomenon is the site of the Karak, as whatever is controlling the magic tries to draw in enough ambient magic to replace the torrent from Karag Dum. A handful of pages of calculations later reveal that it's an effort destined to fall far short, and you smile in anticipation. The fortifications have grown truly formidable at this point, and you're starting to feel sorry for any daemonic force that tries to head west.

    Finally, in the late morning of the third day, twelve Wizards, an Elf and a dragon wince in unison as a chunk of absent reality tears itself free from the Warp and sends aethyric shockwaves in all directions as it forcibly reasserts itself. Despite the waning throbbing in your temples, you smile. For something to be uncomfortable tens of miles away would have to have been agonizing to anyone with Magesight at the epicenter, and to a being made of Warpstuff... you could only speculate. You pass word along, a flag goes up the Volans' mast, and a steady drumbeat begins to emanate from the Urmskaladrak. The activity below you shifts - not a sudden scrambling to stand ready, as the Dwarves and men are too seasoned for that, but they do start to finish off whatever they are doing, finishing up card games and downing the last of their drinks, and behind you you hear the surprisingly soft noise of a dragon taking flight.

    "It's starting then," Hubert says at your side.

    "Seems that way," you say. "We've stacked the deck as best we can, all there is to do now is see what the daemons decide to do."

    [Rolling...]

    A few minutes later Deathfang returns to sight and beelines towards you, raising your anticipation a notch. You'd worked out a system of signals for Asarnil for the most expected scenarios, so him coming in to deliver something in person indicates something unexpected or complicated. Deathfang alights atop the cockpit, his landing light enough and the steam-wagon sturdy enough that there's barely a creak of protesting metal, and Asarnil clambers down gracefully. "Three factions," he reports, "Khornate, Slaaneshi and Tzeentchian, busily tearing chunks out of each other. There's a Bloodthirster down and being torn apart by Daemonettes, and a Lord of Change leading a troupe of Horrors east."

    You take a moment to digest that. "Okay, then... so we're still facing Slaanesh daemons, if anything. Do they have a Greater Daemon?"

    "Perhaps. Something like an overgrown Fiend. Could be just that, could be a Keeper of Secrets or a Daemon Prince of some sort."

    "Composition?"

    "Almost all Daemonettes, some mounted. Though there's some sort of sorcery at play that could be concealing something, I couldn't count them without the numbers getting jumbled. But by appearance it seems to be in the low hundreds."

    "Thank you. I'll pass that along." He nods and lifts himself back atop Deathfang while you tell Hubert a much more concise version to pass on to the other leaders. As he flits away, your grip tightens on your staff and you smile down the road. Won't be long now.

    ---

    The Daemons make slower progress than you expected, but you first catch sight of them as the sun begins to dip in the sky, an oncoming horde of bared flesh and sharp edges led by something that looks like a giant woman from the waist up and a giant snake from the waist down. But just as Asarnil said, attempting to count them causes your mind to tie in knots. With some reluctance you focus on your Magesight to observe the oncomers; reluctant not because what you'll see would be terrible, but because it won't be. Sure enough the beings under your Magesight are transformed into a shifting tapestry of impressions as they somehow communicate with sight that everything you could wish is as close as acquiescence. Without changing from their physical appearance the beings manage to give impressions of everything that might be found alluring, from certain individuals to giant grimoires overflowing with lost knowledge to pleasures as simple as a warm bath and a hot fire, and as soon as your attention lingers on one for more than a moment it balloons into an all-consuming obsession; the grimoires stack to the ceiling and resist any attempts at ever categorizing the knowledge they might offer, the baths become oceans, the fires spread into your very soul, and the individuals, well, the less said about them, the better.

    [Magesight: Learning, 53+28+10(Windsage)=91.]

    But underneath all that is magic, only some of which is dedicated to the bevy of temptations that bombard you, and it's shockingly familiar. A tapestry of Ulgu dedicated to misdirection and illusion, too much for the only effect to be a difficulty in counting their numbers. You try to focus, unpick the tangled web of familiar magics woven by alien minds, but it's then that the first of the cannon opens fire, shattering your concentration and, a moment later, a Daemonette. From there the constant drum-beat of cannonfire as the cannonballs chase the sinuous figure of the snake-woman as she weaves back and forth makes any close examination impossible, and you put the matter from your mind as you grip your dragonbone staff and prepare to unleash your magics upon the enemy as it closes. This will be the first time you have cast Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma in anger, and you're intent on giving it your all.

    As you start to weave the first Miasma, the being that must be a higher Daemon of some kind begins to do something similar without interrupting its dance, and you choke down the impulse to jump in and combat it directly; your part in this battle is already decided, and all you can do is count on the Wizards around you to play their part. Just as you conclude that thought it's rewarded as three Winds leap forth to bombard, entangle, and engulf the half-formed spell, and the spell scatters across the soon-to-be battlefield as the first crossbow bolts and rifle bullets fly.

    [Casting the Miasma: Req 50, Learning, 6+28=34.]
    [Miscast management: Learning, 91+28=119.]

    Your grand battlefield debut of the Miasma does not go according to plan. Perhaps your own anticipation of it was the chink in your armour, as you find yourself hurrying through the incantation, and by the time you notice there's too much inertia to slow or stop. All you can do is try not to trip over your own tongue as the magic hitches, snarls and tries to tear itself free of your grip. But at that point you're more than happy to be rid of it, so when it thrashes you throw your own impetus behind the motion and the spell flies forward like the crossbow bolts it's amidst, and the ball of rebelling magic strikes the weave of illusion like a cannonball against a palisade, and with much the same effect. Magic shatters and the illusion drops away, and the front line of advancing Daemonettes shimmers and transforms into... Dwarves?

    Not just any Dwarves, Slayers. But with their crests dyed pink rather than red, and with their tattoos dedicated not to Grimnir, but to a different God entirely. For a moment the battlefield seems to fall silent as every Dwarf gawks over the fortifications or through their sights. But the advancing Slaaneshi Slayers have no such compunctions, advancing at a Dwarven run, screaming warbling battlecries as they go. As the echoes of cannonfire fade, a second roar replaces it. Though the Engineers and Rangers stand aghast and the Winter Wolves falter in confusion, the Slayers that joined the Expedition to find their doom scream in outrage at this mockery of them and throw themselves from the fortifications to meet the advancing foe.

    [Casting the Miasma, take two: Req 50, Learning, 50+28=78.]
    [Slayer vs Slaaneshi Slayer: 2+20+20(Enraged)=42 vs 93+30-20(Miasma)=103.]

    This time you're able to control the pace of your spellcasting so that when the two lines of Slayers meet, it is with time eddying unpredictably around the enemy. You'd like to think it makes a difference in the next few seconds, but even through the unnatural burden of rippling time the Slaaneshi Slayers move with more grace and speed than you've ever seen from a Dwarf, their axes slicing through limbs and necks with scornful ease and delivering the death in battle that their counterparts sought. That might have been the beginning of the end as the remaining Slayers throw themselves at the fortifications while the Rangers and Wolves remain paralyzed with shock and confusion, but possibly because of their greater distance from what has been happening, the Engineers have recovered and resumed firing, and bullets and grapeshot alike tear through flesh, splattering much of the Slayers across the advancing Daemonettes.

    With the Slayers dead, the Winter Wolves should be on the fortifications, but as the Daemonettes charge it's the axes of the Rangers that stand ready to meet them. You take a second to turn your attention back to the suspected higher Daemon and find it struggling to take in the swirl of conflicting energies around it and bend it to its will; perhaps it is reeling from the shattering of its illusion, perhaps it's still dazed from its abrupt transition into reality, but in any case it's definitely struggling to take ahold of the energies that you discarded in its direction. It would probably be able to wrestle it into submission in time, but time it definitely does not have, because that's the moment that Deathfang leaps upon it from behind. When you'd told Asarnil to use his own judgement, you'd imagined something quite different to a perfectly-timed airborne ambush, but you suppose one doesn't last long enough to become the Old World's most expensive mercenary by charging into every battle like a Norscan berserker. You turn your attention back to the Daemonettes, confident that their leader is more than occupied between a miscast and a dragon, and envelop them in a fog of temporal instability as they try to leap atop the makeshift parapets, causing many to misjudge their jumps and slam face-first into the stone and one to overshoot the fortifications entirely and land amidst the still-reeling Winter Wolves.

    If there was ever a call-to-arms, it was that, but the spooked Winter Wolves scatter from the surprise impact amidst them, and that might have been the beginning of a rout if Ruprecht didn't step forward to pin the Daemonette to the ground with his sword, hurling abuse at the Ulricans all the while. Finally they seem to be shaken back to reality and begin to climb up the fortifications to stand side-by-side with the Rangers as they lock axes against claws. You turn your attention back up to the higher Daemon, but to your shock it's not being torn asunder, but instead has wrapped itself around Deathfang's neck and is slowly sinking the claws of one hand into a gap between the hard scales and fending off Asarnil's sword with the other. Then the Daemon shrieks in pain and anger as a Silver Bolt lodges in its back, and that moment of distraction settles it for you: it's time to act.

    [Instant reinforcements: Req 50, Learning, 45+28=73.]
    [Swing: Martial, 4+23=27 vs 39+40-30(Unaware)-10(Wounded)=39.]

    You could picture it so perfectly in your mind: you appear standing on Deathfang's neck, sword already mid-swing, and you take the Daemon's head neatly off its shoulders. You save Deathfang, Asarnil pledges eternal friendship, Deathfang shares some juicy dragon secrets, happy ending for everyone but the Tempter. The Daemon has other ideas. In an instant its talons are out of Deathfang's neck and catching Branulhune in mid-air, and though daemonic ichor spills forth, it manages to arrest the swing of the runic blade. It catches your gaze in its own, and in a moment you know that it was capable of offering you any pleasure imaginable and some that weren't, but all it was willing to grant you was pain.

    With one talon clutching Branulhune, a second fending off Asarnil's Ithilmar blade, and its body writhing to avoid Deathfang's massive talons, it somehow manages to spare enough attention to craft a spell. With a scornful glare and a flick of its wrist silvery shards shoot out at you and you're barely able to sway backwards in time to avoid whatever they are, though you manage to wrest Branulhune from its grip as you do so. This gives it the opportunity to turn its full attention on Asarnil and it takes it with savage glee, and an outraged howl echoes across the battlefield as its claws close on nothing but air as Asarnil's silhouette blurs.

    That's when a ball of pure-white energy strikes the Daemon's back right where Max's spell-bolt had struck previously, blowing a massive hole through its torso. The Daemon sways in place for a moment, blinking and frowning in confusion, before melting away into rapidly-evaporating ichor. You lower Branulhune, torn between being impressed, grateful, and upset at the sudden intervention of Hysh, before you remember that the rest of the battle is still ongoing. You turn your attention to the fortifications and see that Ruprecht's exhortations has spurred the Winter Wolves into a full-blown countercharge, and the Daemonettes are falling back from the wall of stone as battlecries and shouted prayers to Ulric rise above the din. Then the Daemons follow their leader's example and begin to dissolve one by one, and in moments all that remains is Dwarven bodies and Daemonic ichor.

    You exhale and dismiss Branulhune with a thought, and step shakily down off Deathfang's neck as he carefully lowers himself to the ground for you to do so. Your first battle against the forces of Chaos is over.

    To be continued.


    - Though only Mathilde's rolls were shown, I was rolling for everyone, and those were possibly the most swing-y dice I've ever encountered. Almost everyone had one roll below 10 and another above 90.
     
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    • Edit: omg those rolls. Y'all definitely summoned Ranald this time around with your careless talk, look at this! RIP slayers dang.

    Also, loved the Slaaneshi slayers, the pink mohawks were a nice touch. Indicates survivors too, I bet, if enough dwarves broke to make ranks of not!slayers given the deathseeking stayed intact. There's got to be a lot to 'recruit' from, right?

    Does kinda make me wonder what a karak that got stuck for like 5,000 years subjective might look like, if the tempter perverted them instead of/more than killing or torturing them, and the society adapted to be slaaneshi in the same way chaos dwarves went Hashut. That could be... Real bad for dwarven moral.

    HeWhoAdds said:
    The ultimate dream is Thorgrim having enough excess power to turn on one of the old Dwarven Megaprojects that got mentioned that one time.
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    Except please not the torrent-gates! We *like* Stirland nice and not flood-scoured.

    storryeater said:
    I honestly wonder whether chaos has anything in its sleeve greater than greater daemons, but keeps it hidden to give its opponents a sporting chance.

    I mean, the Old Ones were more powerful than any Slann, and Kroak, the most powerful Slann, killed thousands of bloodthirsters before getting killed. Why would the Old Ones flee if that was the full extent of chaos's power? It makes sense for humans, dawi, elves, even dragons to fear them, but to the guys that can produce Slann that are a caliber greater than Greater Daemons, chaos should be a joke.
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    I mean, I've posted my theory before: the fact that there was a 'plan' implies that this whole planet re-sculpting thing is something the old ones did multiple times, and my bet is they left when mallus deviated too far to be useful to then any more.
     
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    Bit of a comedy of errors on all sides, but a win's a win, and our rear is now covered and a very nasty bomb defused.

    Nice to see Mathilde's miscast management is just as clutch on herself as it is on others though.

    And yeah, given what we saw "It comes back in the middle of an attack by the other Chaos Gods" wasn't one of them.
     
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    EVA-Saiyajin said:
    Hopefully the results will make up for it. And hopefully Mathilde will take this as the lucky lesson it is.

    Sounds odd. By "what we saw" are you referring to the d6 dice rolls?
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    There being a Mystery Thing.

    ...

    Then again, the 'Caught in a three way' might very well have been the second D6.

    Anyway, that's one desecration and bomb defused! Let's see how many are left. Nice to see the Wizards are already proving themselves a major asset, that was how many potential headaches defused by our fire support and counterspelling?
     
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    Holy that update but most importantly Dwarves have fallen to one of the Chaos Gods!!!

    I means it's not impossible given the Chaos Dwarfs of that Bull thing but still this is shocking!
     
    BoneyM said:
    [Casting the Miasma: Req 50, Learning, 6+28=34.]
    [Miscast management: Learning, 91+28=119.]

    Your grand battlefield debut of the Miasma does not go according to plan. Perhaps your own anticipation of it was the chink in your armour, as you find yourself hurrying through the incantation, and by the time you notice there's too much inertia to slow or stop. All you can do is try not to trip over your own tongue as the magic hitches, snarls and tries to tear itself free of your grip. But at that point you're more than happy to be rid of it, so when it thrashes you throw your own impetus behind the motion and the spell flies forward like the crossbow bolts it's amidst, and the ball of rebelling magic strikes the weave of illusion like a cannonball against a palisade, and with much the same effect. Magic shatters and the illusion drops away, and the front line of advancing Daemonettes shimmers and transforms into... Dwarves?
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    Well we can pretend that we meant to do that.
     
    ConfusedCanuck said:
    Holy that update but most importantly Dwarves have fallen to one of the Chaos Gods!!!

    I means it's not impossible given the Chaos Dwarfs of that Bull thing but still this is shocking!
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    They might not have fallen, but been tricked and addled into thinking they were doing good Dwarven work. Slaaneshi magic is big on playing with the mind, as one example (and there is more to Slaaneshi BS than just "magic")
     
    Yep.
    6 is Slaneesh.
    Slaneeshian slayers.

    It even makes sense! After all, those dwarves are lost to desire of a good death, feeling nothing but pain inside.
     
    Yeah, that Illusion seemed important.

    But yeah, I like how one of Mathilde's major traits as a Wizard is her miscast management. "Fucked it up, decided to make someone else suffer the consequences" is amazingly trickstery.

    I will admit, I'm concerned that we may have picked up another Arcane Mark out of that and haven't realized it yet. Most of the ones left on the table are bad ones.
     
    EVA-Saiyajin said:
    They might not have fallen, but been tricked and addled into thinking they were doing good Dwarven work. Slaaneshi magic is big on playing with the mind, as one example (and there is more to Slaaneshi BS than just "magic")
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    True still this is a major shock to see given dwarfs are in general a lot more immune to magical BS then most. I guess we'll have to find out how this happened later though given we're in the middle of a fight against Chaos after all.
     
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