As far as Incarnate Elementals go, I had this post speculating on it a few weeks ago.
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BoineyM: Gradually transforming more and more of their soul into the Wind they are using is a method of spellcasting unique to humans and dragons.
Garlak:
Aha, that's interesting...
... Hm. I wonder what that says about what human souls can become or be used for. About things like undead and elementals and so on. That is, if human souls can be transformed into undead or elementals. Or rather, if human souls can be transformed into interesting and magical things, or aethyric things. Or about things like divine magic, too. Or elemental magic, for that part.
... Huh. Maybe the Create Wind Incarnate spell/ritual/thing the Colleges know does not require a human sacrifice exactly. Maybe the reason it requires a human life, is because... it transforms that human's soul into that Wind entirely? So it's still a sacrifice of a person, yes. But not by killing a person and then calling in an aethyric being from elsewhere, via that connection; no, it would be by turning the person into an Incarnate of that Wind.
Huh. Is it like an aethyric, spiritual, variant of the Dragon Transformation Altar? Except that merely transforms the body only. Whereas this transforms the soul, and that's a wee bit more permanent. Also, they probably lose their physical body too. And become an aethyric being entirely too. Sooo. Yeah. A sacrifice on that person's end of things.
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i.e. Maybe that's how/why Wind Incarnate/Incarnate Elementals things and human sacrifices work; maybe what's happening is that a human's soul is being taken and transformed into a Wind. It's just that, well... if a person sheds their mortal body, that kind of means that they're, well, dead.
So it looks a lot like human sacrifice.
... Also, it means transforming or aligning their soul-stuff to a Wind. Which also kind of changes them. <-- This bit is speculative though; it could be that the human soul is just used to provide a mind and thus a controlling intelligence over the summoned Elemental, rather than the human becoming the Elemental.
I think you are focusing a bit hard on the notion that there is a magic specific to each sort of being. Dhar was arguably Druchi magic, until Nagash a human said I can do that better. The Blood cauldrons of Khaine were also a Druchi means of attaining immorality and then Neferata said 'hold my horribly decadent beverage' and she became the first vampire, doing the immortality game better than them.
Dhar is available to everybody. It's nice and indiscriminate and super-generous like that!
Other than that though... I'm not sure how that really clashes or relates to anything I said.
The point I was making is that, in Divided Loyalties canon, humans -- generally -- do magic via Lores, whether Divine or Secular. ((It might be really interesting to think about a Thousand different Lores in Ind, with its Thousands upon thousands of different Gods... At least, since the topic and country recently came up in another Warhammer quest. Interesting thought.))
Vampires can use multiple Lores of Magic. Because their souls got transformed and stuff. And because they are running on or connected to Dhar. So, in short, because Vampires are no longer human.
Humans can learn and achieve stuff like enchanting, or rituals, or the Mystical Matrix, or familiar creation or familiar binding, or apparition binding, or alchemy. Humans can also work out how to transform into a Daemon Prince. Or a Vampire.
There are other achievements in magic to be made, than 'just' learning a Lore of Magic or a God's Lore, yes. Stuff like alchemy or rituals or how to transform into a Vampire, yes.
As far as Ican find as far as quest goes, is how Humans can achieve high magic, its rather a matter of time/training that humans have problems with. The base training Teclis gave humans were apprentice level exercises for elves, so the base is there but it's veered off into its own thing because Humans don't have multiple millenia to master magic
That's not how that works. If you're talking vampires or tomb kings, undead who retain sapience, memories and a personality in line with their previous life, their soul has been locked into their body so it isn't released into the Aethyr after their body has entered a dead state, the soul itself hasn't been altered.
That's not how that works. If you're talking vampires or tomb kings, undead who retain sapience, memories and a personality in line with their previous life, their soul has been locked into their body so it isn't released into the Aethyr after their body has entered a dead state, the soul itself hasn't been altered.
Weeeelll, I mean... Technically -- technically... ... We don't know, for sure, that there aren't Arcane Marks for Qhaysh...
It's just, well. Good luck becoming a 'mono'-Qhaysh spellcaster. And good luck maintaining being a mono-Qhaysh spellcaster.
Even if you managed it, even if you somehow got a Qhaysh Arcane Mark... All that means is that if you fuck up even minorly, you're eating Dhar backblasts even easier than any other Wizard. Because you can only mainline Qhaysh, now. While having to hold 8 different Winds in order to cast it.
Basically, I think a hypothetical Qhaysh human spellcaster (with a Qhaysh Arcane Mark) would have the complication that if he ever fucked up his spellcasting even slightly it would be like the equivalent of a Gold Magister touching and channeling the Jade Wind. i.e. Instant dhar problems.
Probably just not worth it again, yeah. At least, for daily practice anyway.
It might be academically intriguing or worthwhile, or at least really damn interesting, to see what kind of Spell Masteries he'd come up with for Qhaysh Spells though.
But you can see how it's probably not "the" intended, assumed, or even really desired or most effective or most impressive, "end goal" for 'human spellcasting.' It's the sort of thing where even if you achieved it... well, it's damn impressive. But it's probably an inconvenient pain in the ass to keep it up. Even more perilous than being a single-Wind wizard.
... It's kind of like Dwarf Wizards a bit, actually. ((Except possibly even worse, or even harder, in some way. For starters, Dwarfs have extended lifespan. Secondly, Dwarf souls are such that they turn to stone. Human souls risk getting Dhar. Though, Dwarfs probably also deal with Dhar too, but... Hrm. Anyway.))
Sure, you can pull it off. Sure, maybe you can even be a damn good wizard.
But, uh... You're still, uh. You're still turning yourself to stone, man. It's just not worth it. You have better ways to go about doing things.
... I guess that's an acceptable analogy or comparison to make? High Magic is to humans, what magic in general is to dwarfs? Except the humans would be getting Dhar corruption rather than Petrification. Also, at least Dwarfs even can attempt to learn and practice magic. Humans would probably stall out before that happened, having trouble learning multiple winds.
Actually, that makes me wonder, now.
Is it possible for Dwarfs -- or at least Chaos Dwarfs -- to learn all 8 Winds of Magic, and access High Magic?
That's not how that works. If you're talking vampires or tomb kings, undead who retain sapience, memories and a personality in line with their previous life, their soul has been locked into their body so it isn't released into the Aethyr after their body has entered a dead state, the soul itself hasn't been altered.
While sapient undead haven't had their souls transformed, lesser undead have, or rather, parts of their soul have disintegrated leaving only bits behind that a necromancer can use to animate a soul.
I think wraiths and ghosts are defined by their lack of spiritual transformation. Unlike lesser undead their souls have survived intact enough to retain sapience, but they aren't magically bound to their bodies so can't control them.
Qhasyh isn't a thing. It's a technique for using more than one Wind at the same time safely. That could be mostly one Wind with small touches of a second for improved control, or it could be all eight woven together, or anything in between.
I don't think there's an arcane mark of high magic for the simple reason what Qhaysh contains all that the world's magic is. There is nothing unbalanced about it. nothing that would alter a soul.
I think wraiths and ghosts are defined by their lack of spiritual transformation. Unlike lesser undead their souls have survived intact enough to retain sapience, but they aren't magically bound to their bodies so can't control them.
Sounds like Incarnate Elementals are like... Well, Apparitions are just manifestations, and minor ones, of the Aethyr and superstition and magic and etc. And are not-daemons because they are not aligned to the Dark Gods. Incarnate Elementals are like the 800 pound gorilla versions of those.
They are embodiments of a Wind.
They are not Daemons, because they are not beholden to a Dark God. ... But equally, they are not beholden to any good god either, and so people are not reassured by the fact that this isn't, like, Triton or a Divine Servant(TM) of Myrmidia or Ulric or something.
The Incarnate Elemental of Fire, also known in the Empire as the Charred One, the Black Harvestman and Jack O'Cinders, is an Elemental spirit born from the wind of Aqshy.
[...]
Stories speak of the wrath of the wizards of the Bright College during the brutally fratricidal wars that wracked the Empire in centuries past, where these conjured creatures were used to wantonly destroy entire towns and villages that had provoked the ire of one or other Imperial faction, laying swathes of the land to ash-strewn waste.
Civil wars centuries in the past? Wizards of the Bright College?
Weird, the Bright College didn't exist by that specific name back then, as that seems to be referencing the Time of Three Emperors... Must be referring to the fire elementalist traditions then. And calling them by the Bright College due to convenience.
Well. That gives an idea of the sorts of things the Empire's native magical traditions and native spellcasters were capable of. They were not screwing around, nor were they incompetents or weaklings.
Also, hah -- the Incarnate of Death, being twin curling dragons/snakes? It's an hourglass! Isn't it? The twisting dragon-snakes totally form the shape of an hourglass. That's a neat touch, for the Lore of Shyish or Incarnate of Shyish. Death, the Reaper, holds an hourglass. (And a scythe.)
EDIT: Is Qhaysh just a method of using 8 winds? Or is it an aethyric thing all its own, too?
Could it, perhaps, be the re-fusioning of the 8 Winds back into their pre-entering-the-world form? Into the the raw Potentiality of the Aethyr?
Could that, perhaps, be the reason that High Magic can do anything/can do so much?
Or are there multiple aspects and parts to High Magic; there is the High Magic that is "just" wielding multiple winds, there is the High Magic that is wielding all winds at once... And there is the High Magic that is not merely wielding all 8 winds, but welding the 8 Winds back into their primordial form?
Thus, wielding the now-controlled-by-a-soul potentiality and potential of the Aethyr. Now in the physical, real, world.
Whereas, before, it had been split into 8 Winds by passing through the polar gates.
So yeah. Maybe there's gradients and secrets (or at least, unknowns and uncertainties) to Qhaysh.
Maybe there really is an element/wind-equivalent of Qhaysh; it's just that it's... a lot like the Aethyr again.
Since, well... If the Aethyr can do anything... Maybe that's the reason High Magic is so powerful or with such potential? Because it's wielding a form of True (A)Ether in the physical world?
((All raw speculation and stuff though, mind. It's an interesting theory which I really like the sound of though!))
Civil wars centuries in the past? Wizards of the Bright College?
Weird, the Bright College didn't exist by that specific name back then, as that seems to be referencing the Time of Three Emperors... Must be referring to the fire elementalist traditions then. And calling them by the Bright College due to convenience.
Well. That gives an idea of the sorts of things the Empire's native magical traditions and native spellcasters were capable of. They were not screwing around, nor were they incompetents or weaklings.
Or... they're just stories, and are purely made up by ignorant people in the modern era inserting anachronisms into their legends/camp fire tales without realising, such as King Arrhur's knights wearing renaissance armour.
Or it's distorted references to the Night of a Thousand Arcane duels, or a Bright Battle Wizard got involved in a dispute or rebellion that happens between the quest date and the canon date of the game, similar to how Gelt transmuted the treasury of one Elector Count to lead to prevent him paying his soldiers and so head off a war between him and another province.
Also, hah -- the Incarnate of Death, being twin curling dragons/snakes? It's an hourglass! Isn't it? The twisting dragon-snakes totally form the shape of an hourglass.
Qhaysh is just a method of using more than one wind at once. It is explicitly not a thing on its own. Using two Winds safely in a single spell would be a Qhaysh spell just as much as using eight is.
Recombining the eight Winds back into their primordial Aethyrical essence seems to be what Realms of Sorcery calls True Dhar, and is what Dark Elf sorceresses apparently use.
Or... they're just stories, and are purely made up by ignorant people in the modern era inserting anachronisms into their legends/camp fire tales without realising, such as King Arrhur's knights wearing renaissance armour.
I suppose "Never actually happened; not true at all" could be the case.
But in the case where it's "people inserting anachronisms etc etc" then that falls under my "Huh, so maybe they're just calling this the Bright Order because they're familiar with the Bright Order, rather than the specific name of whatever the hell the fire elementalist guys would have been?"
Or it's distorted references to the Night of a Thousand Arcane duels, or a Bright Battle Wizard got involved in a dispute or rebellion that happens between the quest date and the canon date of the game, similar to how Gelt transmuted the treasury of one Elector Count to lead to prevent him paying his soldiers and so head off a war between him and another province.
It refers to stories of the Empire's fratricidal wars centuries past. ... And to Wizards using them to burn down towns and villages. Not a lot of towns and villages in Altdorf itself, in the middle of the Night of a Thousand Arcane Duels.
I mean, sure, some of the stuff said about Incarnate Elementals might be referring to the Night of a Thousand Arcane duels, but... The parts I quoted and went "Hrm, huh?" at was to do with the discrepancies of names and timings. =/
Qhaysh is just a method of using more than one wind at once. It is explicitly not a thing on its own. Using two Winds safely in a single spell would be a Qhaysh spell just as much as using eight is.
"It is a vision of beauty! Of absolute wonder! It is so bright that it burns my mortal eyes as well as my immaterial ones! It shines like mother-of-pearl lit by a thousand suns, scouring me with absolute brilliance and yet filling me with indescribable elation. How tempting it is to reach out for it, to try to grasp it and weave it as I do the purity of Hysh. And yet I know that were I to try, it would be my end, for even gazing upon it with the unseen eyes of my Gift, I am brought low and must close myself off to its glory after but a fleeting moment. How I long to stand for even the shortest time in the body of our great master and mentor, Loremaster Teclis, and be thus enabled to reach out and touch the radiance that is Qhaysh..."
He speaks of Qhaysh like it's something to be reached out and touched. Like it's a singular or specific thing.
"High Magic, also called True Magic or Qhaysh, is the art of using all of the Winds of Magic in harmony and unison, creating some of the most powerful spells known to mortal-kind"
You know what else could be referred to as "the art of using X"? Gold Magic. Here: "Gold magic is the art of using Chamon to..." There we go, I Qhaysh'd your Mono-Wind.
Maybe at the level where you start using Qhaysh, referring to its constituent parts as "using individual winds together" is inaccurate or too reductionist. It would be like reducing Ulgu into Mystical/Elemental/Cardinal and saying "Oh, Ulgu isn't Ulgu, it's made of the 3 parts; Mystical Ulgu, Cardinal Ulgu, and Elemental Ulgu..."
Recombining the eight Winds back into their primordial Aethyrical essence seems to be what Realms of Sorcery calls True Dhar, and is what Dark Elf sorceresses apparently use.
I mean... ... When the wind energy turns into and powers runes... or when Apparitions or Spirits manifest, or bleed... what are they made of? What are human souls or gods made of? Or, what is the Aethyr made of?
The Winds are what happens to magic when it enters the physical world, right? Before it does that, it's Aethyr.
Sure, if you crush the winds together, you get dhar. That's not the kind of recombination I'm talking about.
If anything, I'd say that crushing Winds together haphazardly --> Dhar
and combining Winds together carefuly --> Qhaysh
Sorta like that...
There's probably more too. Like... Gods and stuff and... Ugh. Getting sleepy by now. Nevermind.
Firstly, Volans is a Light Wizard. The way of thinking his Winds encompasses very much treats concepts as being real things. It can be all very philosophical and metaphorical.
Secondly, imagine an artist seeing truly transcendently good artworks. That's what Qhaysh is, no matter what colours it's painted in. An artist may be well talk in such terms about a master's works
[*] Head Engineer Gotrek Gurnisson
[*] Head Ranger Snorri Farstrider
[*] Visit Uzkulak, the Chaos Dwarf equivalent to Barak Varr
[*] Visit the combes that Qrech told you about
[*] Thane Borek Forkbeard
When you part from the already-moving Expedition to reopen the flow of magic from the Waystone north of Karak Vlag, you feel the eyes of Borek on you as you leave, which isn't unusual - your Shadowsteed has that effect sometimes. But upon your return some time later, they're on you once more. You'd already resolved to find the time to have a talk with him, and this feels like more than window enough, so you ride alongside the Alriksson and clamber up a rope ladder that's thrown down for you.
"Thane," you say as you approach the figure that's rarely to be found away from the bow of the lead steam-wagon.
"Mathilde," he replies, not turning from the horizon. "The flow re-established, then?"
"It has been," you say cautiously.
"I'd believed from the High King's reticence that the flow had stopped. It's hard not to feel hope in that it was redirected at Karak Vlag, rather than ended at Karag Dum. But I am curious how you came to know of it. Did Ulthuan tell your Order, or did King Belegar inherit secrets?"
"Neither," you say after you regain your mental balance. "It was a new discovery."
"You manlings are full of surprises," he says, turning to look at you. "Something my home has been long aware of, but perhaps too used to thinking of as a curse, as the only manlings we see much of are the Marauder tribes."
"I wasn't aware that Karag Dum would know of the network," you venture.
He smiles bleakly. "Karag Dum remembers much that others have forgotten, even when some might prefer we didn't. Even when we might prefer we didn't."
"You're in an unusual mood for someone who's found reason for hope."
"My hope for Karag Dum is undimmed. My attention remains on the road ahead." He turns his head back to the road ahead. "The Knights have already confirmed that the final supply cache has been burned by tainted fire, almost certainly from the Daemons that departed east. Between that and the three days of waiting for Karak Vlag's return, we've lost a week's worth of supplies."
"You seemed confident when last we spoke on the subject of food."
He waves a hand at the Winter Wolves riding ahead of the Alriksson. "I fret because others fret. The beasts consume the bulk of the food, and their riders will not have them starve. Our current schedule has us reaching the Great Steppes with two weeks of food remaining, while being three weeks away from friendly territory. Those are numbers guaranteed to seed doubt in their minds. If we had three weeks of food remaining, as we originally should have, that would have given them at least enough confidence to try their luck at bartering or raiding, at least for a day or two. But now I see things coming to a head at the eastern end of Zorn Uzkul."
"I suppose few would make room in their plans for the recovery of a second Dwarfhold on the way, or a warband of Plotter-daemons able to sniff out a resource cache."
He snorts. "I could predict that something could happen to delay us and cost us supplies. I was just hoping that if it happened, it would be closer to the Steppes."
You consider the matter. "What if there was a source of food closer to hand?"
"That plant Wizard?" You shake your head. "Then- oh." He looks over his shoulder to check for listeners. "I'd considered it long ago, but no Dwarven force would reach it intact - anything small would be enslaved by raiding parties long before they reached the supposed safety of Uzkulak, anything large assumed to be an invasion force and opened fire upon. But I suppose you have both the mobility and the required flexibility."
You nod. "It's not uncommon for my Order to be faced with two evils and forced to choose. We're adept at weighing them up and finding the lesser."
"To be caught between Theralind and a Kharibdyss, as I once heard said. Failure to reach my home will always be the greater evil, and some more riches locked in a Zharr-Naggrund vault does not strike me as being much worse than them being in the hands of whichever Marauder loots my corpse after I try and fail to return alone." With some difficulty, he gradually extracts a small pouch that was hanging around his neck and does not seem to want to part ways with his beard, weighs it in his hand, and then tosses it to you. "Diamonds and Fire Agates. I had a sack as large as my head when I left Karag Dum, and this is all that remains. The least of them is worth enough to feed us from here to Cathay, but I've no doubt that our fallen kin will do their best to rob you."
You nod, weighing the substantial handful of precious stones. The Expedition has a large amount of silver tucked away that had been intended to pay for the purchase of cattle from the Kurgan, and then a fair bit more in case there were any other problems that precious metals could solve. While your reputation is good among the Dwarves that you could definitely draw upon that and have the money reimbursed from your personal vault in Karak Eight Peaks, you've had previous experience in how unwieldy large quantities of silver could be, and were still working on a solution that wouldn't sacrifice your mobility in hostile territory. Borek had just neatly solved that problem. "I'll see what can be done at Uzkulak. Would you prefer I stay vague when I deliver anything I was able to procure?"
He shrugs. "If you think it would be best. It would be hard to say if Dwarves would be more reluctant to eat food sourced from Uzkulak, or to eat food that came from a Wizard riding off into the wastes and returning with it mysteriously, but I suppose the Knights might think differently."
"They've grown accustomed to working with Wizards."
"As are many Dwarves of late." He shakes his head and gives a sad chuckle. "Was a time we were making our own miracles. Now the Karaz Ankor is so fallen that an Umgi who by our standards would be barely old enough to begin an Apprenticeship is doing what we apparently cannot. I'm sure arrivals in the Underearth must be greeted with the overwhelming disappointment of our Ancestors, if we're even considered worthy to be admitted at all."
It's a troubling thought that you consider in the back of your mind as you hold a clear stone up to the sun. Dwarvish ego is very easy to laugh off as a foible of their race, but just like the Elves it's something they take deadly seriously. Of the fifty dead Slayers being watched over in the Urmskaladrak, you've no doubt that at least several shaved their heads over failing to meet an unreasonable standard they had imposed upon themselves. And you're just as sure that should the Expedition turn back, Borek will make good on his implied promise to continue alone and on foot. He would rather die pointlessly than live with failure.
---
With shocking abruptness, High Pass falls away into the plateau of Zorn Uzkul and the landscape turns grey. Though it is largely free from the volcanic ash that dominates much of the Dark Lands south of the plateau, Zorn Uzkul is just as inhospitable, with gritty sand that fills your mouth with the taste of iron every time the wind picks up. And most striking of all are the skeletons that litter the landscape in every direction, ranging from the small humanoid skeletons that you hope were Goblins to the enormous carcasses of massive beasts come down from the mountains to die. With Uzkulak to the north and Clan Moulder below, it's likely that there'll be hostile eyes on you for every step of your journey, watching for any weakness. It's the hope of the Expedition that you'll reach the other side before they spot one.
After an hour or so of covering a map with notes and measurements, you determine that the best time to part ways with the Expedition to minimize return time while weighed down with cargo is still a little away, so the next time you find yourself burdened with spare time you make your way to the Alexis. Snorri Farstrider was the one that argued most passionately and pushed to risk the most for the sake of Karak Vlag, and you're curious why that is, and a little concerned that it means his mind won't be on the road ahead. Like many others - including yourself at times - he's taken to spending a fair bit of time at the foremost part of the deck, but unlike the others he's practical enough to have set up a chair and a sunshade there. You find him gazing to the steam-wagon's right, or possibly starboard, at the vast expanse of emptiness to the south.
"There's lakes out there," he says, waving a hand at the landscape. "Four vast freshwater lakes, linked by rivers, springing up from the ground and then plunging back into it at a ravine on the southern edge of the plateau. Biggest is the size of the Bay of Wrecks, I've heard."
"Oh?" you ask neutrally. You've actually heard of this, or at least the end of them - the waterfall supplying drinking water is what makes Qrech's Seventh-and-Final-Combe such an ideal position for Clan Moulder's forward base. But that's not something to mention too freely.
"The greatest accomplishment of Karak Vlag's Rangers. For millennia the east was considered lost to us because you can't follow the mountains without hitting Uzkulak, and you can't cross the Dark Lands without encountering traitor patrols. But this was the Golden Age and we never gave up back then. Karak Vlag's Rangers eventually managed to chart a path through the Zorn Uzkul from lake to lake and reached the Mountains of Mourn without the traitors ever catching on. The mountains were rich and had never seen a pick, and Karak Vrag, Karak Azorn and Karak Krakaten rivalled the riches of the Old Holds for a time. The range seemed wide enough that we could expand into it for a thousand generations and still have room aplenty. But then the Golden Age came to an end."
"The War of Vengeance?" you prompt.
"That certainly didn't help, but more relevantly in the east, Ogres arrived after having eaten their way through the Giant Lands. The holds of the east held out for a long, long time before falling, but the only contact that was possible with them was by dashing across the Dark Lands, not winding their way through mountains now filled with Ogre tribes to reach Zorn Uzkul. That was the end of Karak Vlag's geopolitical prominence. Even the Silver Age largely passed it by, since there were Norscans and Kurgan between them and the Empire. It wasn't until the founding of Kislev that it began to recover."
"Are you from Karak Vlag?" you ask. He'd been introduced to you as if he was Clanless, but you subsequently learned he was part of Clan Redbeard, who you thought were from Karak Kadrin. Now his apparent familiarity with Karak Vlag has you wondering again.
He barks a humourless laugh. "That's a question I've been asking myself a lot lately. Clan Redbeard of Karak Kadrin watched the mountains to their north, and Clan Grimsteel of Karak Vlag watched them to their south. They saw a lot of each other and had good relations, and three of my eight great-grandparents were from Grimsteel. After Karak Vlag vanished Clan Redbeard scoured the pass for them for years, and then it was decided they were to hold it on behalf of the Karaz Ankor, as Karak Vlag no longer could. But that put us in a tricky spot. A Clan is part of a Karak, a Karak is part of the Karaz Ankor. So in the eyes of many, a Clan that has no Karak is no Clan at all. You'll find many these days that refer to us as the Redbeards, rather than Clan Redbeard. We see Karak Kadrin maybe once a decade, and there's Longbeards twice my age that have never walked Peak Pass. So until everything that happened back there, I would have said that we were more a part of Karak Vlag than we were anywhere else, and I'd have never given it much more thought than that if you'd never plucked it out of the clutches of Chaos."
You nod solemnly. This was just one of many ripples that will be spreading after the events in High Pass. "So it comes down to... does your loyalty lie with the Hold few of you have any real ties to, or does it lie with the Hold that has returned to the Pass that is your home?"
"That about sums it up. Though, would they even want our loyalty? You saw them. Well, heard them. Utterly convinced that this was just the latest daemonic trick."
"I think they would," you reply sincerely. "Once enough time passes that they realize there isn't a barb in the tail waiting to hook them. I think it will be a long, long time before any of them feel comfortable walking under the open sky, and they'll need Rangers now more than ever."
"That's a nice thought," he says, and the quiet - or at least, as close to quiet as it gets with the massive engines thrumming away below you - stretches as he considers that. "Well, whatever the future holds there, it doesn't really matter until after we're done with this Expedition. And it's only going to get more dangerous from here on out."
"You think this is less dangerous than what we'll face in the future?"
"Definitely. The Skaven will think this is a Chaos Dwarf trick, the Chaos Dwarves will think this is a Skaven trick. By the time they stop chasing their own shades and realize we're a third party we'll be halfway to Cathay."
"What if the Plotter-Daemons change the equation for them?" Three is peace, you remember Qrech saying, but four is feed.
"The Chaos Dwarves are straightforward - if there's Daemons roaming around, they'll hunker down or try to capture them. If the Daemons attack the Skaven, they'll watch the Skaven for any weakness to take advantage of. They'll take a guaranteed kick at a distracted enemy over rolling the dice on attacking a heavily-armed convoy. At most they might send a group of Hobgoblins that are out of favour at us to see if our show of strength is genuine, and it very much is."
"What do you think of the food situation?"
He shrugs. "Where there's horses, there's grass. Where there's grass, there's seeds. If all else fails, stonebread will get us there and back. And Borek worries about the Umgi because he doesn't know Umgi, he thinks they're not Rangers so they're Warriors and they need a supply train. But they're both from Cults that are close enough to being Ursenist that I'd put money on us coming out of the Steppes with more food than we went in with."
You nod along to that, resisting the urge to conceal a frown as you contrast that with what Borek said. Maybe all would work out if you left everything alone, but you'd rather not leave things to chance if you don't have to, especially if that just happens to mean you can satisfy your curiosity while doing so. You thank Snorri for his insight and begin to make your way back to the Volans.
---
As the Expedition's steam-wagons circle protectively around the Urmskaladrak, you let your Wizards know you're off to do unspecified Grey Wizard things and slip into the night atop a Shadowsteed. You'd considered travelling incognito, but the only way to get there and back in a timely manner is with you atop a horse of Ulgu so there's not a lot of options for other guises. The Grey Order goes to great lengths to prevent knowledge of Shadowmancy from falling into the wrong hands, so the only non-Grey Wizard possibilities that come to mind are Vampires, Beastmen, and Daemons, none of which you're that confident in coming across as for what could be prolonged interactions. So all you've done is left your hat behind and wrapped your staff in cloth to hopefully make you less distinctive.
It's not hard to find your way to Uzkulak, as there's a great fire at the peak of the mountain it is carved into to guide both travellers and Chaos Dwarf patrols to it. You'd half-expected a giant skull to have been carved into the face of the mountain with the mouth as the entrance, but as you approach you find it difficult to spot anything that would be out of place on the Karaks you've become familiar with. An odd glow flickering around some of the gun emplacements, perhaps, or the empty plinths that you assume once must have bore statues of the ancestors. For whatever reason the Chaos Dwarves haven't decorated their birthplace in the same megalomanic style as the pictures you've seen of Zharr-Naggrund; most sources assumed that the operative parts of the Hold are below the ground level that guests are allowed in, but a few pass on rumours that the lower levels are sealed, and only opened to throw in someone that has particularly annoyed or displeased them. You wonder if it's true, and wonder what it would mean of a people that have such a desire to put distance between them and the place where they found their God.
The gates are closed, but a small door in the base of them is open, and a handful of what must be Hobgoblins shiver and bicker as they crowd around a cooking fire. Physically they look little different from 'normal' Goblins except perhaps a bit taller, but their nature is said to be entirely different, as these are the Goblins that have turned their backs on Gork and Mork, either in favour of Hashut or pure self-interest. East of Kurgan land they're said to control a vast stretch known as the Khanates, and here in the Dark Lands they're possibly the craftiest of those in the service of the Chaos Dwarves. When one spots you it leaps to its feet and starts haranguing the others, distributing kicks and blows like he's just caught them skiving off instead of being one of them a moment ago, and when a figure emerges from the door they fight each other to be the first to speak to it, shouting accusations of inattention in a babble of overlapping not-quite-Khazalid. The figure picks one to backhand and barks orders at the others and before long the Hobgoblins are standing sullenly at attention, one bleeding from a cut lip, and the figure turns his attention to you. At first glance he's a Dwarf, but at second glance the protruding tusks disagree, and at third you notice the tall, pointed hat and the scaled armour extending down to his ankles. This Dwarf is from a culture that diverged from the one you know over six thousand years ago.
He looks at you, snorts, and produces a clipboard from behind his beard. "Name, alias, or pseudonym?" he asks, sounding as bored as any gate guard you've ever met.
You scramble for anything that's not your actual name or 'Grey'. "Gabriella," you land on. "Gabriella von, er, Nachthafen."
"Gabriella von Ernachthafen," he repeats, carefully scrawling runes with a quill. He looks you up and down. "Grey, Black, Thrall, or incognito?"
You blink at him. "Incognito," you say.
"Buying, selling, or both?"
"Buying."
"Have you brought any of the following goods to Uzkulak: bound Daemons, precious stones or metals from Nehekhara, any seed, bud, fruit, or cutting from Athel Loren, unshielded warpstone, spherical devices made of brass, Vampire body parts, any item created or possessed by the Skaven Clan Pestilens, gilded skulls made of black bone, anything from the Temple-City of Zlatlan, any mummified bodies of large, frog-like beings, unshielded wyrdstone, any kind of projectile capable of moving on its own, any of Kadon's Scrolls of Binding, golden whistles, instruments stringed with unicorn hair, keys made of crystal, or any sort of stone that glows with a green light?"
"No."
"Have you brought any slaves with you with any of the following qualities," he looks up at you, "well, do you have any slaves at all?"
"No."
The Dwarf scans down the page to the next section, and sighs before looking back up. "Gabriella von Ernachthafen from no organization in particular, welcome to Uzkulak," he says, his tone droning and his gaze boring into yours and making it clear he resents you very much for being here and making him do this. "This place is a place of trade and profit. As long as you follow our rules, you may trade and you may profit. Rule One: All exchanges are to be witnessed by an Officiant, and a percentage of the price is to be paid to the Officiant. The percentages for each type of goods can be found on display in the Trade Hall. Rule Two: Do not attack other visitors within Uzkulak, nor within sight of the flames of Uzkulak, under any circumstances. Rule Three: If you stay for more than one day and night, you must rent accommodation. The list of available accommodations is available in the Trade Hall. Breach of any of these rules will result in your death or enslavement, and the forfeiture of all your property. Do you understand these rules?"
"Yes," is all you can say.
"You have entered at night. Dusk tomorrow is the limit of your stay without renting accommodation. When you exit Uzkulak, ensure that you are recorded by the attendant at that exit, or you may be incorrectly marked for death. Glory to Hashut."
"Glory to Hashut," echo the Hobgoblins.
You're not sure what to say to that, as you're not going to repeat the glory thing and you're pretty sure thanking him wouldn't be appropriate, so you simply nod and step through the door. A long, wide, and well-lit stone corridor extends deeper into the mountain. Your footsteps echo down the long corridor and you're watching carefully through your magical senses for any sign this might be an extremely long con on you in particular. But as you approach the end of the corridor a growing babble of voices indicates that it might not be a trick, and you step through a final set of doors into what must be the Trade Hall.
By noise alone, the hubbub of traders and merchants and mercenaries plying their trade is quite familiar, and the only immediately noticeable difference is that the Khazalid is deeper and more guttural. But with your eyes open it's a series of shocks, one after another. The Marauders you expected, the Ogres and Hobgoblins you theorized. Mutants and zombies, Skaven and Goblins, the Vampire and the group of Dark Elves each capture your attention for a time. But what really surprises you is that a lot of the crowd are people you would not look at twice if you passed them in Barak Varr. Tileans and Estalians, Kislevites and Imperials, even what looks like a group of Bretonnian yeomen squabbling with an unimpressed-looking Dwarf about an axe made of jade. Stalls extend in all directions, many occupied and many not, and it seems like all one needs to do is pick an empty one and unload their goods onto a table to begin trying to convince someone to buy them. Every stall has a bell on one corner, and every so often the ring of a bell sounds and the crowd parts for what must be an Officiant with an abacus and a sack.
You weave your way through the crowd, slightly unnerved at how little attention you're getting. Actually, how much everyone goes out of their way to avoid paying too much attention to you, or to anyone else. Everyone seems to pretend not to notice anything about anyone else, their eyes carefully fixed just above or below eye-level unless they have a reason to interact with someone. This isn't the easy comfort of a functioning society, you realize. This is deadly enemies at arm's length and unable to do anything about it under threat of death. The more you look at the crowd, the more you spot the signs - the groups of similar-looking raiders who very carefully circle around each other, the Skaven with scraps of cloths tied around their identifying insignia, the Vampire openly grinning at a band of angry Tileans who are trying their best not to look in his direction. This room is perpetually moments away from violence, and no place here is far from a set of double-doors that you're sure are perpetually ready to spill forth a band of Chaos Dwarf warriors, or perhaps something more exotic, to beat down the offenders and claim their riches and lives. The Chaos Dwarves may always get their percentage, but they're watching for any opportunity to claim the entirety without threatening Uzkulak's reputation of neutrality, and faded bloodstains here and there on the floors and table tell of when they found those opportunities.
You also spot signs and doorways leading to ancillary halls dedicated to specialty goods that, for various reasons, aren't suitable for sale in the trade hall. There's a Hall of Livestock, which you visit very briefly as you find an empty room that will likely smell of dung for the rest of time; an extremely weary-seeming Officiant tells you there's nothing currently in, as an Ogre tribe pushed out of their hunting grounds bought everything there was. There's a Hall of Slaves, which you spend some time looking at with a churning gut. Slavery in the abstract is a detestable practice, but actually seeing slaves, chained and suffering and waiting to be bought, is something you're not sure you can witness up close without breaking the restrictions you're currently under. Sure, maybe it would be all greenskins or Chaos Marauders enslaved and sold by their rivals, but it's very possible that they'd be innocents taken in raids on the Old World's coastlines and sailed to Uzkulak to be sold. What do you do then? Beggar the Expedition and then burden it with a swarm of hungry noncombatants? Do something drastic and bold that gets you killed for nothing? Try to match your skills at thievery and deception against the greed and paranoia of the worshippers of Hashut, who have spent millennia at Uzkulak honing and practicing their skills and procedures to prevent that exact occurrence?
You turn away, at least for now, putting the matter out of your mind with the discipline that the Grey Order taught you. There's still another chance for your stated goal here to find success: the Hall of Bulk Goods. Not every ship taken at sea carries gold and jewels, not every caravan carries ivory and silks. Sometimes the sort of cargo that's heavier than it is valuable is burned or sunk, but the more disciplined, or more desperate, of raiders takes those goods here to try to find a buyer, because Zharr-Naggrund always hungers for raw materials.
You make your way through the hall where a handful of bored Officiants sit behind tables covered with samples; apparently the goods are left in the care of the Officiants for a fee, and if the goods remain here for long enough and the fee consumes enough of the value of the goods, Zharr-Naggrund buys them. There's little that won't be taken if the price gets low enough, because there's little that can't be burned, smelted, or fed to slaves. You find ingots, furniture, bolts of various cloths, weapons, armour, wooden boards, even chunks of ore, most of low quality and much of it water-damaged. Finally you find what you're looking for in a corner stacked high with ropes and sails: a slimy chunk of brined meat that has long since oozed out its moisture into a growing stain on the table. You ask the price, and it'd be slightly high if the barrel had just been sealed, let alone for something that was shipped for an unknown time, stolen in an unknown location, shipped an unknown distance to Uzkulak, and has been sitting in storage for an unknown period. But it's meat, and the quantity the Officiant says is available would feed the Expedition for about one and a half weeks, leaving you slightly better off than the original schedule.
After making your decision about the meat, you return to the main hall and do another circuit, this time with an eye for the goods rather than the crowd. There's a huge array of weaponry, including some extremely fine pieces made and sold by Chaos Dwarves, from the traditional swords, axes and maces, to exotic weapons from distant countries you couldn't put a name to, to firearms of every type, including a tarnished bronze cannon with barnacles growing over one side. These are the goods that get the most attention from the crowd. But you're not here to trade your stolen goods for a better weapon to steal even more goods, you're here, at least partially, in the hopes of finding something unexpected and exotic. So you turn away from the crowds and delve into the odd little corners, looking for the esoteric, the unusual, the unique.
What you mostly find is the counterfeit.
There are 'power stones' that are clearly sea-polished rocks. There's a gaudy scimitar said to be made from Ithilmar, but you can leave a mark in the metal with your fingernail. There's books of magic aplenty, including a 'Book of Nagash' that has a very intimidating skull on the cover, but radiates so little taint you doubt it's seen Morrslieb, let alone the hand of the Great Necromancer. 'Dragon eggs' that contain not the barest flicker of life, a 'magic scroll from the fabled land of Albion' that is plainly in Eltharin and consists of a complaint about an apparently insufficient set of repairs made to the writer's roof, a map to 'Elven treasure' that would, if your memories of geography are correct, land the treasure-seeker near the foot of the Dragon Spine Mountains, which you're sure Caledorians would disapprove of quite strongly and almost certainly violently.
But it's not all fake. Or at the very least, some of it is faked well enough to fool even your scrutiny.
The first piece that causes your eyebrows to rise is a four-fingered arm made of solid gold and covered in sigils you don't recognize. You can sense dormant power within it, and a lot of it - but too tightly contained to tell what sort, except that it's not Dhar. The fingers are razor-sharp talons and the palm has a raised circle you're sure is where that power you sense is output. But though the Norscan selling it does not seem to know anything about its magical properties, he does know solid gold when he sees it, and that puts a solid floor on the price. Eight hundred gold coins is a shockingly exorbitant price for a complete mystery and it's not like you're short of strange things to prod at, but you suppose if all else fails you could resell it for melt value.
The second is from a Naggarothi Corsair that won't stop smirking at you, and among the goods scattered haphazardly across the table is some sort of nut that glows so brightly with Ghyran that it gives you a headache in your soul to focus on it. Your questions uncover that the Corsair got it from 'somewhere', where it belonged to 'someone', and was stolen 'a while ago'. You're starting to understand why the Ulthuani don't get along with these people. The price is a jaw-dropping one thousand gold coins, and your shock and outrage at that only seems to make the Corsair more delighted, which leads you to suspect that's why they gave you that price. But you must admit you've never seen so much magic concentrated in so small a form.
The third and final curiosity is a set of books and papers apparently taken from an Ulthuani explorer who ventured into Lustria and the Southlands to investigate the strange lizard-folk that are said to reside there. That she took rubbings and sketches instead of the golden plaques themselves might be why she survived so long while engaged in such a dangerous endeavour, but it was no protection from the other hazards of the world, and apparently a Chaos Dwarf ship caught her vessel off the Shifting Mangrove Coastline on the eastern side of the Southlands. Her fate is unknown and probably tragic, but her rather extensive writings have been sent here to see if they can find a buyer. If they don't, they're likely destined to feed a forge somewhere.
---
Does Mathilde visit the Hall of Slaves?
[ ] HALL: Yes
[ ] HALL: No
Does Mathilde buy the barrels of salted meat using Borek's money?
[ ] MEAT: Yes
[ ] MEAT: No
Does Mathilde purchase the golden arm for 800 gold coins?
[ ] ARM: Yes
[ ] ARM: No
Does Mathilde purchase the Ghyran nut for 1000 gold coins?
[ ] NUT: Yes
[ ] NUT: No
Does Mathilde purchase the explorer's writings for 200 gold coins?
[ ] PAPERS: Yes
[ ] PAPERS: No
- There will be a two hour moratorium.
- For reference, Mathilde's current wealth weighs in at about 2800 gold coins. That is not the money the Expedition has, that is the money she has back at K8P and so can reimburse the Expedition with upon their return.
- The phrase 'no harm in looking' should be avoided when debating the Hall of Slaves. Mathilde is a strongly moral person in her own way, and she follows the God of freedom from tyranny. What she sees could leave her unbalanced for some time. It could leave a permanent mark on her. It could put her in a position where she has to choose between choosing to do something risky and/or expensive and/or strategically unsound, or being unable to look at herself in a mirror.
- The remaining interaction and exploration will continue after business here is concluded.
- If bought, transporting the food will not be a problem - it would only take a few gold coins to hire some of the visiting traders to haul the cargo a few hours southwards.
Oh my god the Chaos Dwarves are worse then I could possibly imagine. They're Ancaps. Anyways let's not visit the slave markets. Also just going on the quality of other merchandise I don't trust that meat.
"I'll see what can be done at Uzkular. Would you prefer I stay vague when I deliver anything I was able to procure?"
He shrugs. "If you think it would be best. It would be hard to say if Dwarves would be more reluctant to eat food sourced from Uzkular, or to eat food that came from a Wizard riding off into the wastes and returning with it mysteriously, but I suppose the Knights might think differently."
Was a time we were making our own miracles. Now the Karaz Ankor is so fallen that an Umgi who by our standards would be barely old enough to begin an Apprenticeship is doing what we apparently cannot. I'm sure arrivals in the Underearth must be greeted with the overwhelming disappointment of our Ancestors, if we're even considered worthy to be admitted at all."
[ ] HALL: No
[ ] MEAT: Yes
[ ] ARM: No
[ ] NUT: Yes
[ ] PAPERS: No
I don't want to deal with the slaves if there's nothing we can do about them. More supplies seems like a straightforwardly good idea. The arm and papers seem like things that would take time and energy we don't really have, but the nut is something we have a greenhouse and a girlfriend to work with on.
EDIT: Actually, I'm coming around on the papers, insofar as they're relatively cheap and we could probably write something cool about them after we get back. Paper-writing is a low-stakes thing to spend AP on when we're eating the -10 during the second half of this year.
Despite the awfulness of the slave market, I can kind of admire the bureaucracy of the place. They're neutral so they have to be orderly to a fault. Everything has to be handled by routine, and if they break that routine even slightly then everyone else is going to claim favoritism and that precious neutrality has disappeared like a shadow at night.
Now, if we pull off some good old-fashioned Protecting, not only will everybody know we did it selflessly, everbody will also know that it was done by the Incognito Wizard Gabriel von Ernachhafen!
... Also, yes, I very much want that seed. Is it worth 1000 gold? Definitely not, but paying overprice for souviniers is a time honoured tradition and Panpan deserves something nice.
Most of the other things we could drag home from Hell's doorstep would probably be a lot less appreciated.
