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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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The Karag Dum Expedition, Part 19: The Great Steppes
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    [*] The Frozen Sea

    "I do not like the idea of trying to squeeze all five steam-wagons past that corner," you say, tapping the ascent on the map. "I think it would be best to take our chances with the original route." There's a series of nods in agreement to that, as you expected there would be. One known, implacable, and unavoidable danger can be more threatening than any number of unknown ones, and it seems that the others agree with you that it would be preferable for the Expedition to take its chances with the unknown and hopefully find only dangers that can be met with cannon and crossbow, and axe and sword.

    "Right," Snorri says. "First leg is the return to relative normality, rather than this barren plain of ruins and giant mushrooms. We get the cows as bargained from the Dolgan, or we steal as many as we can find if they decide not to stick to the deal, then we head west, skirting between mountains and Chaos Wastes as best we can until we reach a navigable descent from the steppe plateau."

    "Do we know what beasts we might encounter in the mountains?" Sir Joerg asks.

    "Scouting was entirely by gyrocopter," Snorri replies, "so it was mostly limited to confirming that there were navigable routes to find. It could be beasts from the mountains we know, or from the Mountains of Mourn, or some combination of the two. Or something entirely different."

    "We'll keep on guard, either way," Sir Ruprecht says, to further nods.

    ---

    As the Expedition's morale is likely to be somewhat shaky from Borek's abandonment of it, the apparent loss of Karag Dum, and the lack of any solid answers, you decide your time is best spent getting them out of the Chaos Wastes and back to relative normality as soon as possible. A couple of days of Rite of Way-smoothed travel later, you reach the abrupt transition from waste to steppe as you emerge from Yusak lands into Dolgan. There seems to be a watcher on every hill, and you hope that's a sign that they're eagerly looking forward to their honestly-earned silver, rather than watching for any sign of weakness. If that's what they are looking for they apparently don't find it, as the first morning out of the Chaos Wastes sees you greeted by the Ghur Shaman and a massive herd of cattle.

    "I trust you will accept cows in place of tea, Shadowed Shaman of the Mountain Ring Clans," he says, and you nod to him. He's quite different to the Amber Wizards you're used to, but then the Kurgan live much closer to nature than the citizens of Altdorf, so perhaps they see little need to distance themselves from the mannerisms of their people.

    "We will be happy to, Untamed Shaman of the Dolgan Tribes," you say as you climb down from the Alriksson. Behind you the Winter Wolves are doing their best to sort out the davits and hoists to unload the silver - cumbersome, but preferable to showing a crew of Dwarves to the Dolgan and raising questions about whether you're really the Norscans they've assumed you are.

    "How did the Blessed Lands receive you?" he asks politely.

    "Our leader was accepted by the Dum, and we last saw him entering the forest."

    "Truly?" the Shaman asks, his eyebrows raised. "A great honour for his Clan, and an admirable showing in the face of hardship." You raise an eyebrow at this, and he smiles. "The Iron Wolves are crowing to all that will listen how their Old One defeated a metal titan, and that its bones will arm their tribe for generations to come."

    You scowl. "Vultures pretending to be eagles. The road from the Zorn Uzkul is all that deserves credit for that kill."

    "We had thought as much, especially since you have returned intact. The Iron Wolves are the type to find the meekest lamb in a herd to vent their aggression upon, boasting all the while that they pave the way for their long-absent master." He smiles as the first of the silver reaches the ground. "Slaaksho Irnik will be well pleased. Much of this silver will become ornamentation that he is confident will be pleasing to Slaaneth. Our rewards will be grand. Slaakshami, Q'tlahs'itsu'aksho consorts, Q'qha'thashi'i mounts... who knows, perhaps even a favour from a Q'tlahsi'issho'akshami?" You conceal your wince at the terrible syllables of the Dark Tongue being spoken openly, and resolve not to mention this to the Dwarves.

    "Do you know anything of the mountains to the west of here?" you ask casually as the Shaman examines a bar of the silver.

    "You would know more than I from your earlier travels," he says with a shrug. "The only places where one can access them on horseback are in lands that have been controlled by the Kul since the last Great Crusade."

    Well, it was worth a try. As the Dolgan load up their silver onto a wagon that was almost certainly taken from a merchant travelling along the Road of Skulls, you and the other Wizards get to work seeing to the cattle, as first Sleep and then Mockery of Death is cast upon each in turn. Though the spell is one you have known for quite some time and is far from the most complicated piece of magic you know, casting it so many times in a row remains chancy. Familiarity leads to repetition, repetition leads to inattention, inattention leads to miscasts. For the rest of the trip you can space it out enough that it shouldn't be a problem, but with the Dolgan delivering the entire herd at once there's nothing for it but to grit your teeth and hope for the best.

    [Constant casting: Learning, 88+28=116.]
    [Rolling]

    You must admit that your attention did wander, but wandering attention is preferable to zoning out completely. You'd gone back to your promotion to Lady Magister, which is certainly a pleasant memory but also your formal introduction to the pocket dimension that the Grey College is entirely ensconced within, which also provides the mechanism for some of the more esoteric spells of Ulgu. Substance of Shadow is the one you know, and somewhere along the way of trying to mentally examine the spell itself for how it might link in to that border plane, some of the syllables of that spell slipped into Mockery of Death. And instead of exploding in your face as the spell had every right to do, the result was something more unusual.

    "Um, Mathilde?" Max asks, passing his hand through the solid-looking cow.

    "Paper," you say, and Max only hesitates for a second before fishing a notepad out of his pockets and passing it to you with a quill. With haste you jot down the shorthand for the syllabic jumble you'd inadvertently said before it drifts from your mind completely, and take a number of notes on the part where you'd inadvertently blended two syllables together in a way that didn't really translate to letters. "Okay, I think I know what happened there. Pass me the rope." Max does so, and you're able to loop it around the beast's torso without trouble. You hand the rope to Max, and he gives it an experimental tug and it remains in place, even as his hand once more passes through the cow's torso.

    "That's an interesting effect," he says diplomatically.

    "Still affected by gravity," you say thoughtfully, "and not dispelled by light. So not a straightforward blend of the two spells. And it doesn't appear to be suffocating. Max, can you feel its exhalations?" He waves his hand in front of the cow's nostrils, and nods. "So it's still able to interact with the air. Odd. And not terribly useful here and now. But in the future, perhaps." You jot down a few more notes, then return to the task at hand.

    [Mastery obtained - Mockery of Substance: When affected by Mockery of Death, the subject is also intangible to anything except the caster and objects under the control of the caster. They are still affected by gravity, and will still require food and water. They are still able to breathe normally. The caster can end the intangibility at a touch without interrupting the main effect of the spell.]

    ---

    The first few days of the next week will be spent skirting along the border of the mountains and the lands of the Kul, and then the rest of the week spent amongst those mountains descending to the Frozen Sea. It's not known what type of creatures of beings might call these mountains home, but the ground is likely to be unreliable as it would be the result of gravity and time rather than deliberate artifice. This is also the most natural time for you to fulfil your side of the bargain with the Ice Witches if you want to do it with Ljiljana's assistance - though if you're willing to do so completely solo or with only the assistance of Johann and Hubert, you could do it while the Expedition is crossing the ice, as the three of you are much more able to cover ground than the others.


    The four with the most votes will be chosen.

    Spend time getting to know...
    [ ] Head Ranger Snorri Farstrider
    [ ] Preceptor Joerg von Zavstra
    [ ] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart the Younger
    [ ] Asarnil the Dragonlord
    [ ] Deathfang
    [ ] Ice Crone Ljiljana
    [ ] Magister Egrimm van Horstmann
    [ ] Citharus, Barbitus, and Timpania
    [ ] Magister Michel Solmann
    [ ] Journeyman Cyrston von Danling
    [ ] Journeywoman Alexandra Kohler

    Become involved with:
    [ ] Ranging far ahead of the convoy
    - With the Knights of Taal's Fury
    [ ] Scouting near the convoy
    - With the Winter Wolves

    Other:
    [ ] Use Rite of Way for the worst patches of rough terrain
    [ ] Use Rite of Way for the moderately difficult ground
    [ ] Use Rite of Way nearly constantly
    - For these, vote cumulatively. For example, if you want to use two of Mathilde's four choices on it, vote for both the 'rough terrain' and 'moderately difficult ground' options.
    [ ] Attempt to make contact with the Kul
    - These are the most infamous of Kurgan tribes, who gave rise to Asavar Kul. They are said to live to the west of Karag Dum.
    [ ] Attempt to make contact with the Iron Wolves
    [ ] Attempt to steal the Chaos artefact
    [ ] Explore these mountains for any exotic animals, plants, or phenomena

    If Heist wins:
    [ ] [HEIST] Alone
    [ ] [HEIST] Ljiljana
    [ ] [HEIST] Write in
    At this point, anyone can join it. If left until next week, it will only be Mathilde, Hubert, and Johann that have the mobility to do so. You can vote for who should be on the heist without voting to go on the heist.



    - There will be a one hour moratorium.
    - I didn't give an option for what to do for the Karag Dum - Dolgan land stretch since they decided to play nice and it would have resulted in three very short updates in a row. The action you would have gotten for that stretch is available here instead.
    - The end of this set of actions will see you at the edge of the Frozen Sea.
     
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    • Well now I have a idea for Mathilde violently killing her enemies by making one intangible than waiting till another enemy walks into them before she releases the spell. I think the results would have significant psychological horror to make enemy run away
     
    [ ] Attempt to steal the Chaos artefact with Ljiljana
    [ ] Preceptor Joerg von Zavstra
    [ ] Journeywoman Alexandra Kohler

    These are the three I'll vote for.
     
    Nurgle said:
    Well now I have a idea for Mathilde violently killing her enemies by making one intangible than waiting till another enemy walks into them before she releases the spell. I think the results would have significant psychological horror to make enemy run away
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    Same issue with our sword. Bad things happen when something materializes inside another. Boney used the Sundering as an example.
     
    The way I see it, 2x RoW and the theft are locks for this turn - we need to fulfil our end of the bargain, and RoW will reduce wear on the wagons and let us get more distance from pursuit.

    So the real question is what to pick for our last free slot.
     
    Remember when we were talking about Frostpunk's Land Dreadnoughts to get a point of reference for the steam-wagons?


    Now that we're going to be crossing the Frozen Sea we can pretend we're cosplaying as five of them.
     
    It makes it a very good spell for extracting someone from an area. So of value in infiltration. As for the choices I say the two rite of ways and the ice witch and cup.
     
    The real upside to this, I think, is that the target is functionally Etheral for the duration of the spell--and thus, immune to environmental hazards and conventional weapons. Can you say "Escort Missions and retrieval missions just became trivialized?"
     
    That's interesting, I guess. The lunatics in here will figure out something to do with that.

    It's going to be a real bad day at the office for those guys if/when Slaanesh notices that they've been doing business with us.
     
    I definitely think this turn we help the Ice Witch steal the Chaos artifact since denying any weapon of chaos is only a boon for us.
     
    Added:
    [ ] Attempt to steal the Chaos artefact with [...]
    - Replace the [...] with whoever your preferred adventuring party is. At this point, anyone can join it. If left until next week, it will only be Mathilde, Asarnil and Deathfang, Hubert, and Johann that have the mobility to do so.

    Mopman43 said:
    So it would have been 3 actions otherwise?
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    It would have been four for the entire Karag Dum to Dolgan to mountains, but that would have been awkward because the meeting with the Dolgan needed to happen partway through, so you get four for the Dolgan to mountains instead.
     
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    OK, one thing we should consider for social actions is if there are any people that are going to be important going forward that we want to mash the boost relationship buttons with. Joerg commands the most chaos-specific military force we have right now, so he might be an option. Ljiljana social now so we get a better sense of her before the theft. Though there could be long-term benefits if we manage to get her to like - or at least respect - us, as a contact with Kislev's Ice Witches could be useful down the line, so depending on how things go we might want to hit this more than once. Kohler is the only mage we haven't talked to yet, so there might be benefit there, or it might just be the urge to pokemon our wizards and we're better off doing something else.


    Asarnil would be an option if we don't think we need anything in the short term. A relationship boost there probably won't benefit us during the expedition, but could be useful in the long term. Probably not something to do now, but maybe later in the expedition when we're less likely to run into enemies.
     
    Ok, I am thinking that two ice witch is good too, because getting to know her better before the theft probably be useful for her trusting us
     
    And I say we take Magister what's his name(guy that fell to chaos in canon) with us in stealing the Cup good chance to see what he's made of and it may be overkill but we should do our utmost to make sure we retrieve said artifact.
     
    BoneyM said:
    "Still effected by gravity," you say thoughtfully,
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    This would be *affected here.

    I'm inclined to put two actions on RoW, do the theft now, and spend the last action on getting to know Ljiljana in order to have a better handle on the person we'll be conducting a Chaos Artifact Heist with.
     
    Kohler's whole thing with this expedition was going on it for the recognition. If we talk to every wizard except her it'll push her buttons real hard.

    I don't think it's necessarily urgent enough that it has to be done now now, but I do plan on pushing for it next turn if it doesn't happen this turn.
     
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