Okay I know this is really late, and someone may have already brought it up. But I've only just caught up to this part, and since this revolves around my favorite character in Warhammer I feel the need to make this comment.
Basically from what I can find Skarsnik is almost certainly around by the time of Belegar's expedition. From the lore I can find in Sixth, Belegar doesn't exist (I can't find any mention of him in either army book) and Skarsnik just gets a couple of sentences so I ignored them. In the seventh edition it just says that Skarsnik defeats a dwarven throng hoping to aid the trapped Belegar in 2498 (which is 20 and a bit years away by both this quests and canons timeline). Additionally from sevenths lore and factoring in a reasonable time period for the events surrounding Skarsniks rise to power, he's at the very least a boss or a young gobbo looking for his place in the world. In eighth (Definitely the books with the most amount of lore on the matter) Skarsnik is the warlord of the Crooked Moons and is responsible for trapping Belegar in Eight Peaks (though he might not have been warlord at the start)
This is not taking into account the Skarsniks novel/play despite its status as a 'true and compleat history'.
Do with this information as you will, ignore it, don't ignore it I don't care. I just had to get it off my chest.
Skarsnik was absolutely the one who just got murked, the Prophet though
probably wasn't a named character.
Specifically because Skarsnik probably killed him in the original story, and we just accidentally usurped his legend (And thus his plot armor shut off and he got shanked like a goblin runt should have).
Now, as for what these choices are... Let's begin by deciding what we should
not do.
We should
Not simply try to hunker down and survive the storm, because that's the act of an extra--not a Hero. We're already too noteworthy to just be
ignored when the shit hits the fan. Pass.
We should
Not try to mantle Mork here, because the Gods of the Greenskins are the Gods of the Greenskins, obeying them is a sucker choice. Pass.
And as sad is at sounds, we should
Not put our faith in Kragg's belt here. Dwarf Runes do
specific things, the very point of them is they reliably work according to their function. And the only thing that would apply here is the Rune of Spelleating, which turns an attack spell
into soulfire and attacks the one who hit you with that magic in the first place. Since aiming it at an honest to goodness God is one of those terminally fatal ideas (And also, unlikely to do anything), the only remaining target is the Mountain, and we
really don't want this place to become Karak Seven Peaks.
Not until we've gotten the loot.
So, what's left?
The Magister Choice is... It's the choice I
want to make... But let's be clear here, Teclis did
not train the Colleges to deal with this kind of situation. He--in fact--went
out of his way to encourage human Wizards to have
nothing at all to do with divine magic in the slightest. To be fair, this isn't necessarily a bad idea--Chaos often loves getting their hooks in by pretending to be other gods, and by simply remaining purely Secular, the Colleges close that point of vulnerability. However,
if it did work. The most likely outcome (In the event of a success anyway), is... Mathilde eats a shitton of Arcane Marks (Again, not necessarily bad, though the Ulgu ones tend to be cancer for the purposes of having a fun character, we've been lucky so far to have ones that don't really impact Mathilde's characterization but luck always runs out)--but it reaches the underway and probably accidentallies the Skaven there.
As fun as that sounds... It's like trying to use a copper rod to ground out a lightning bolt--with you as the lightning attractor. It probably doesn't end well even if you succeed.
In the end though, the Empire was forged with three great strengths.
Courage, which Mathilde has in spades
Steel, which she has learned in her journeys.
And Faith, which she had from the beginning.
In the end, there's only one narratively suitable choice here. When powers beyond man are screaming down at you, you put your faith in the righteous gods and do your best to turn the tables.
[X] You are a faithful of Ranald, being in the right place at the right time to unbalance the scales. Try to steal the energies.
