Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Boney]

Spoiler: Voting results

[*] Plan: SQUEAK, Panoramia variant
-[*] MAX: Have him scour all the reference materials at his disposal for any other Dhar-radiating explosive, as well as how difficult it might be for non-Skaven to replicate their blackpowder. (NEW)
-[*] JOHANN: Have him investigate the metal evidence taken from the Skull River ambush. (NEW)
-[*] DUCK: Work with Panoramia to try to implement the Waaaghsoak Mushrooms as an aid to spellcasting.
-[*] EIC: Have the Hochlander investigate how feasible it would be for a non-Skaven to acquire warpstone-enhanced blackpowder. (NEW)
-[*] Attempt to complete your 'Fog Path' spell (NEW-ish)
-- [*] Use overwork if necessary
-[*] Join the Karag Dum Expedition in Praag, rather than at High Pass.
-[*] PENTHOUSE: Add security measures to your Penthouse to prevent forcible entry.
-[*] The Protector

Max and Johann are pulled from their own preparations for the upcoming Expedition to aid you with your investigation into the attack on the Okral. Max is sent to investigate the possibly too-easy answer of 'Skaven did it' while Johann is turned loose on the metal fragments recovered from the ambush site: the fragments of barrel hooping and a single metal slug extracted from the ship's upper deck. Modest evidence, but hopefully enough for him to be able to pull information from. Barak Varr and Karaz-a-Karak are both performing their own investigations, including the former hiring a Jade Wizard to interrogate the river and trees, so hopefully between the three different avenues of investigation the truth of the matter can be uncovered.

It's actually something of a relief that those parallel investigations preclude you from performing your own. The Fog Path spell is tantalizingly close to being completed and you very much want that arrow in your quiver before joining the Expedition. You have the individual Skywalks, you have the mechanism for identifying where they're needed. All that's left is the overarching delivery mechanism to go from you to the path to be travelled.

You spend some time considering a shadow-based delivery mechanism, since you've found so much success with Burning Shadows and Substance of Shadows, and after all 'Fog Path' is just a working title. But for something intended to be used on the move, having to control local light levels to properly use it would be too big a handicap. So you instead turn your attention to Universal Confusion, which hasn't seen any real use since you learned it almost five years ago but did manifest quite promisingly as a billowing cloud from its interaction with your Mantle of Mist Arcane Mark. That has quite a pleasing mental image to it - a rolling carpet of fog emanating from your person and covering the landscape ahead. You dig out your notes from when you learned it and get to work.

[Fog Path delivery mechanism: Learning, 2+28+5(Library: Ulgu)=35.]

It does not go well.

You'd thought it would serve perfectly well as a delivery mechanism. It covers the ground in a near-uniform carpet of opaque fog and hides obstacles from the eyes, so why not hide obstacles from the legs too? But though it's trivial for you to billow out fog, controlling its flow and weaving a spell into it proves to be as frustrating as... well, as frustrating as trying to herd fog would be to someone who isn't a Grey Wizard.

[Attempt to work around it: Learning, 69+28+5(Library: Ulgu)=102.]

A more dramatic person would have dramatically crossed out all the accumulated notes on your chalkboard. You are more sensible and simply move to the next one, as you might still need to refer to those notes later. But you have been looking at it all wrong. You've gotten hung up on using fog as a mechanism. No wonder you're getting nowhere. Fog isn't a mechanism, it's a medium.

(Okay, you're compelled to admit that fog might still be used as a mechanism, but you've hit a wall on that front so for now you're disregarding the possibility altogether.)

So step one, emit and corral the fog to where it needs to be, step two, have the delivery mechanism flow through it. Doing two moderately difficult things versus doing one slightly more difficult thing... probably isn't a great trade-off, but it's better than failing entirely. Days turn to weeks as you map out this alternate path, and eventually you're left with all your notes properly transcribed into a notebook and with nothing left to do but to take it for a ride and see what happens.

[New delivery mechanism: Learning, 45+28+5(Library: Ulgu)=78.]
[Putting it all together: Learning, 19+28+20(Grey Tower)+5(Library: Ulgu)=72.
[First cast: Req 50, Learning, 31+28+20(Grey Tower)-20(first time)=59.]

The inside of your Room of Dawn and Dusk isn't typical casting conditions, but you're glad you opted to do it there rather than anywhere else. As roiling fog fills the room and the identifier flows unsteadily through it, looking in vain for any interruptions in the smooth floor below you, you exhale shakily and let the spell dissipate. If you had done it in less ideal conditions, or if you didn't have your Staff to make channeling the fog that much easier, that spell would definitely have ripped itself out of your control. You now know the final few pieces to make it more reliable, and over the coming days you test it in a variety of conditions.

It's... not bad. Not great, but not bad. If you stuck to the few hours around dawn and dusk, you could probably maintain the spell for three or four hours a day without pushing yourself, as many as six if the weather cooperates. That's certainly a lot better than nothing, but is it enough? You know you're capable of better, but as you eye the calendar, you're not certain if you can do better before it's time to leave. And it would mean a lot of late nights and early mornings to even try.

[ ] Push on and try to improve the spell
Use overwork to spend another action to try to create a better delivery mechanism for the spell.
[ ] It's good enough for now
It will be possible to try to improve the spell further after returning from the Expedition.

---

Johann has been buried in maps and frequently absent as he tries to nail down specifics. Tale of Metal is a very useful spell, but as he frequently complains, people are rarely considerate enough to mention their name and precise location while crafting. The barrel hoops prove especially frustrating as the cooper neglected to even open a window in his workshop, leaving Johann to spend fruitless weeks trying to narrow down a location based off the colour of the wood and trying to identify an accent in the cooper's mutterings. In desperation he turned away from the cooper and towards the steel itself, and though he remains tight-lipped about this stage of the investigation, he comes out of it claiming with complete confidence that the steel was smelted in Morlenfurt, a Reikland town on the foothills of the Grey Mountains. He also gives you the dimensions of the barrel in question which matches that of a hogshead.

The lead ball that was shot at the ship takes him on an equally frustrating journey. Cheap shot of questionable quality is still made with molten lead poured into moulds of metal or sand, but the modern method is to use shot towers, where precise amounts of molten lead are allowed to fall a great height and naturally form a round drop before plunging into water and being near-instantly quenched. While a triumph of modern engineering, this also means that the 'creation' process lasts only a few seconds and is contained within a featureless tower, though thankfully there are enough windows for ventilation that he is able to get the lay of the land around it, one glimpse at a time. There's only so many shot towers in the Empire and each is known to its administrative apparatus so that if necessary they can be pressed into service of the Empire's military, so while the task is a tedious one, it's also a finite one. He eventually finds the shot tower that matches the one that he saw: Kreutzhofen of southwest Wissenland, the crossroads of the Vaults, which stands at the intersection of passes leading to Tilea, Bretonnia, and the Border Princes.

For his part, Max has spent weeks buried in your library surrounded by ramparts of books on engineering, chemistry, and warpstone. He complains at length that it would have been a matter of minutes instead of weeks if you had Skaven-authored books on chemistry, but does concede that the Skaven-authored books you do have are all that makes it possible to reach an answer without flagrant breaches of the Articles. "It's a matter of conditions," he says, leafing through his notes. "You know the Colleges, 'assume a perfectly spherical ball of Chamon in a magically inert plain' and all that. Skaven engineering doesn't work that way, at least not the stuff that ends up widely used. They assume that their equipment is going to be poorly maintained and stored in the damp by incompetents before it's dragged onto a battlefield, and often intersperse their notes with extended rants on the subject. That's what the warpstone is for. When used with a warplock trigger mechanism it makes for a much more reliable means of ignition than a snaphance or a flintlock, and even with mundane mechanisms, finely-ground warpstone is ignitable, and detonates hard. So if the blackpowder is damp it still works as long as any of it is dry enough to ignite, because that sets off the warpstone which forces even wet powder to ignite, and makes it go off all at once instead of in a wave. So for a relatively small amount of warpstone, you get a more reliable ignition and a more efficient explosion than blackpowder on its own."

"How easy is it to create?"

"Depends how much you care about others. The Skaven have a process to make it much less radiant and therefore more efficient as well as safer to handle and use, but if you don't care about that you can just use the raw stuff. Grinding and mixing it would do terrible things to whoever does it, and you wouldn't want to be downwind of it when it ignites, but it could be done. The only tricky bit would be getting the warpstone in the first place."

You grimace. "Any way to tell if the explosion used refined warpstone or raw?"

"Not unless you were there to see it."

"Damn. You turn up any other type of explosive that would radiate Dhar?"

He shrugs. "Nothing solid. There's accounts of various Chaos Dwarf weapons that would radiate all kinds of malign energies, but they tend to have more exotic effects than just exploding. The Zombie Pirates of the Vampire Coast are said to use some sort of altered gunpowder, and I could easily see it having some sort of necromantic component that would radiate Dhar. Cathay are said to use both Dark Magic and blackpowder."

"The list of possible suspects is long enough without venturing outside the Old World. Johann says the barrel was a hogshead, does that fit the results?"

He drums his fingers. "It's all variables. I have a decent idea about what sort of steel the monitor would have been made out of, but not the thickness or the design. How tight was the barrel bound? How much pressure did the depth of the water exert? How close was the barrel to the hull when it exploded? But with all that said... yes. It would fit."

"It matches logistically too. It'd be unwieldy to carry, but easy enough to move around with a rowboat or a cart or even a wheelbarrow. Good work, Max."

He smiles and goes about clearing up his work area.

The final stop on this tour is with the Hochlander's reports. Warpstone, or wyrdstone as it is known to the ignorant, is highly illegal to trade in but very profitable to those willing to take the risk, as the gullible believe it to have all sorts of mystical properties, and those that know more than they should can use it to power all sorts of forbidden magics. The Hochlander's first step was confirming that that's just as true as ever and indeed it is, and he leaves a trail of burning pyres as his Witch Hunter contacts follow in his wake. The second step is to investigate the cottage industries of the Empire, where second-rate blackpowder is made to a thousand different recipes which often owe more to guesswork and superstition than chemistry. He comes out of it with a frankly terrifying list of additives that might grace the weapon of anyone who cheaps out on blackpowder, and though some are of dubious legality and one or two result in still more pyres, none seem to have hit on ground wyrdstone as an additive.

The third step is the most dubious and requires reading the Hochlander in on the Conspiracy of Silence: see if any can be acquired more directly. There's ample evidence that some humans are in league with the Skaven as Cults worshipping the Horned Rat crop up from time to time and need to be burned out. Considering the ambition and duplicity that Skaven are capable of, and, admittedly, the ambition and duplicity that humans are capable of, it's not all that outrageous to think that there might be some crossover between the black markets of the Empire and the black markets of the Under-Empire.

This comes up bust, though the Hochlander does make some new friends among Witch Hunters, Excisemen, and one of Algard's Hands from encounters where both tried to bait the other into admitting something incriminating - good thing you made sure he has all the right documentation to prove that he really is acting on official orders. Either the theoretical black market crossover is even better hidden than you thought or it doesn't exist. But he does find something in parts of Reikland - blackpowder circulating among criminal organizations, said to be more reliable and produce a harder-hitting shot than regular blackpowder. His investigation is unable to find exactly who the ultimate supplier is, but all the trails seem to point in the direction of Ubersreik, where the Skaven undercity was recently exterminated. Not quite collusion with the Under-Empire, then. Just ordinary corruption. You make sure to pass the information on to where it needs to go to begin a formal investigation and sit back to collate your information.

So. One hogshead of what was very likely warpstone-infused gunpowder. Its source could be Ubersreik, or it could be made by someone with knowledge enough of the Skaven to replicate their gunpowder and the contacts and wealth to acquire wyrdstone enough for a hogshead worth. The barrel was hooped with Morlenfurt steel, which is just north of Ubersreik, and the bullets of the ambushers came from Kreutzhofen. Probably not Skaven, then. Someone of a mind to suspect Marienburg could draw a line directly south from Marienburg to Ubersreik for the powder, to Kreutzhofen for the equipment, to the Border Princes for the lackeys, and then to the Skull River for the ambush. Someone of a mind to clear Marienburg could quite reasonably point out that anyone in or around the Empire with money and contacts could have made this happen. You look over your notes one last time, and consider what you're going to tell Belegar, and what he will go on to tell King Byrrnoth and High King Thorgrim.

[ ] The evidence points to Skaven
Warpstone-infused gunpowder. It's open and shut. The Karaz Ankor doesn't need new enemies.
[ ] The evidence does not point to Skaven
The Dwarves could easily overlook the actual culprit if they're too caught up on their ancestral foe.
[ ] The evidence points to Marienburg
It could be true, and the Empire could benefit if it becomes believed that Marienburg is committing murder with dark magic.
[ ] The evidence points to a framejob
Somebody is trying to drive the Dwarves into war with Marienburg. Nobody wins when the forces of Order fight amongst themselves.
[ ] The evidence is inconclusive
It could be anyone. It could even still be the Skaven. Nothing you've learned rules out anyone.


- There will be a two hour moratorium.
- There were rolls for the investigations, but they were hidden because Mathilde doesn't know for sure whether these results are all there is to find or not.
- It is valid to vote based on the result you want your words to have, rather than what you think the evidence reflects.
- The volume of the barrel in question is about 54 imperial gallons, 65 US gallons, or 250 liters.
- You have not yet used any overwork this turn. This vote is for the second box of overwork, which will give a -10 penalty to actions next turn.
- Reminder: penalties from taking overwork now will not kick in until after the Expedition.

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Voting results

[*] Push on and try to improve the spell
[*] The evidence points to a framejob

With the date to set out drawing closer and closer, you return to the drawing board - metaphorically speaking, since you're neither a barbarian nor an artist, you use a proper drafting machine - and begin to work longer into the nights to refine the delivery mechanism for Fog Path. What you've created so far is certainly functional, but it's also exhausting and would be highly reliant on spikes of ambient Ulgu at dawn and dusk to function for extended periods. There are parts of the initial attempt that can be salvaged, but it's going to take some creativity.

[Fog Path delivery mechanism, round two: Learning, 91+28+10(learning from mistakes)+5(Library: Ulgu)=134.]

The problem is simple: you're being too literal. You're allowing the spell to billow out from you and then dissipate, which is certainly thematic but hugely wasteful. Even in the roughest terrain, there'll be individual instances of Skywalk that are unnecessary, and allowing them to disappear and take the energy with them is pure folly. You need a way to draw back and reuse them. And rather than reinventing the wheel, you'll draw from nature. Specifically, the motion of waves on a beach.

Granted, you've never actually been to a beach - the closest you've been to the ocean is Barak Varr, which is all forbidding cliffs - but a close search of your library uncovers a number of Dwarf-written books that describe the formation and motion of waves, albeit in the way that one describes the habits of a dangerous and implacable foe, as you suppose saltwater in eternal motion must represent to a number of Dwarven endeavours. You consider and discard the ubiquitous undertow, as it would create too much turbulence at ground level where the individual spells are supposed to be activating. What you need is a rip current: a central column of returning energy that can then be sent out again, over and over until each part of it reaches a place where it is needed. This means that the only constant draw on the caster will be to provide enough motion to keep the spell going.

This could come with its own challenges, as instead of a constant and steady outpouring of new Skywalk instances, the caster needs to provide more only as they are needed. But instead of getting caught up in the design of a feedback mechanism you decide to take what you have now into a field experiment. It's entirely possible that the spell as it exists now would have cues for a watchful Wizard to spot when it's running low, and implementing something separate would be wasted effort. So you go over your notes one more time and then adjourn to the Grey Tower for testing.

[First cast: Req 50, Learning, 29+28+20(Grey Tower)-20(first time)=57.]

Once more you're surrounded in a cloud of turbulent fog as you barely manage to finish the spell, and once more you consider yourself quite lucky to have both a staff and a testing chamber perfectly suited for this activity. The first time casting a new spell is always troublesome, but it sure beats the Elven method where a spell candidate is meditated on for decades to study it for any possible flaw. You make the requisite corrections to your casting notes, perform the spell a few more times in perfect conditions to be sure, then you move onto stage two of testing.

---

"Go!"

Under the staring eyes of a still-growing crowd of Halflings, Johann begins to push the wheelbarrow with its cargo of Grey Wizard, his golden muscles allowing him to quickly accelerate through the billowing fog. The field in question is the most broken terrain anywhere in the Eastern Valley, having been harvested, ploughed in, left fallow, frozen, snowed on, thawed, and had the snowmelt carve furrows across it. Panoramia told you it's about to be ploughed once more so even if the spell fails you'll not be doing any lasting damage, but your confidence is rewarded as the wheel of the barrow glides over pits, rifts, and furrows. As your chanting continues - a simple mnemonic for the components of the modified Skywalk, but it sounds nice and mystical - Johann reaches a speed comparable to a galloping horse over terrain that it would be difficult to walk through. That's as good a confirmation as you're going to get, and you bang the side of the wheelbarrow to signal Johann to slow.

Your audience doesn't know what to make of what they just saw, but they do know they were entertained by it, and to their polite applause you dismount your wheelbarrow and turn to look over the field. If there was no trace of your path that would be a sign that you were wasting power, but on the few flat stretches you can see the wheel marks and footprints you left in your wake, showing that the spell only activated when needed. And you could feel the spell thinning out as the amount of Skywalk instances circulating lessened, serving as a suitable indicator of when more needed to be added. You thank one Halfling for the use of her field, another for the use of his wheelbarrow, and Johann for the use of his muscles.

This version of the spell is still too energy-intensive to be anything but Battle Magic, but the sustained energy requirements are reduced based on the terrain it encounters. If you're trying to drive over quicksand or something equally ill-advised you'd still be limited to a few hours at dawn and dusk, but for any more sensible terrain you should be able to manage it through the daylight hours and still be fresh enough that a good night's sleep will have you ready to begin again the next day. There's only one remaining component of the spell that requires work - its name.

[ ] Spell name - write in

---

You normally come to Belegar when you've got news to report, but with how sensitive the matter could turn out being, he comes to you - which allows you to set up a proper display of the evidence, including indications on a map where each piece was acquired and the relevant books on hand if he wants to drill deeper into any one component. "Steel from Reikland, ammunition from Wissenland, powder from Ancestors-know-where," he summarizes once you're done laying it out. "What do you read into it?"

"My initial thought was that it indicates Marienburg. If you draw a line from Marienburg to Winter's Teeth Pass, you pass almost directly through sources for all three. If you're already primed to think of them - as anyone would be for an attack on the Skull River - it's a very easy conclusion to reach. But Marienburg isn't a continental power like the Empire or the Karaz Ankor, they're a maritime one. Their idea of a direct line circles around the Old World and drops agents off somewhere on the Black Gulf or the Lagoon of Tears, and there'd be an Estalian barrel and Tilean shot or something like that."

"You think someone wants us to think of Marienburg?"

"I don't think it's the Empire, and I don't think it's just my own allegiances talking. The Empire might hypothetically want to retake Westerland at some point, but not now, not when Stirland's occupied with Vampires, Wissenland is still licking its wounds after the attack on Under-Nuln, Ostland is dealing with Yhetees, and things between Middenland and Nordland are still tense. All they want now is for the blockade to be lifted.

"If they wanted to force the issue, they've got the First Fleet in Altdorf and the Second Fleet in Nordland, they'd start attacking Norscan ships with the Second Fleet and make hue and cry to Kislev and Bretonnia when Marienburg refuses to lift the blockade and keeps the First Fleet from the battle." You phrase this as a hypothetical instead of the Chamberlain of the Seal's explicit idea, which makes it slightly less of a breaking of confidence. And besides, it's for the best of causes. "Marienburg has to be suffering from the blockade already, if they start losing business overseas as well they'd have to cave."

"Who, then? Back to Skaven?"

"It's certainly possible. Eshin were probably able to claim the credit for Mors being wiped out here, and this sort of thing would be within their usual practices. It could also be Naggaroth, they'd benefit more than anyone if the Karaz Ankor and Ulthuan go to war once more, and we know they've got contacts of some sort with the Skaven. And Chaos Cults are always a possibility. On top of that, if we consider that it might be an attempt to frame the Empire for attempting to frame Marienburg, that really opens up the suspect pool. Lahmian Vampires trying to take pressure off the Sylvanian holdouts, Chaos Dwarves trying to split the Karaz Ankor from its oldest ally, it could even be Marienburg - war between the Empire and the Karaz Ankor would definitely spike the canal project."

Belegar sighs. "So you're telling me it could be anyone."

"I'm telling you that I think someone's playing games. I think if the culprits get tracked down, they'll claim to have been put up to it by either Jan Jansen who wore silks and smelled of fish, or Max Mustermann who was munching on a sausage and had three feathers in his hat."

Belegar frowns, stepping closer to run his fingers along the map of the Empire. "This all makes someone suspect either Marienburg or the Empire," he says slowly. "But if it was Marienburg, they wouldn't have sourced the materials like that - even if they wanted to frame the Empire, they'd find it much easier to get Empire-made materials from somewhere on a coast or a major river, not that far up obscure tributaries. And if it was the Empire, they would have used Marienburg shot and barrels."

"That's my read."

"So it was either an incompetent plotter - and while nobody is short of incompetent plotters, they wouldn't be used for something so important, so if it was it must have been an independent actor who thinks they're smarter than they are - or it's someone that wants the Karaz Ankor to be weakened by war." He sighs. "Sometimes I miss the days when the enemies were right on the other side of a barricade. Thank you for taking the time to look into this."

You smile and give a short bow. "Of course."

---

Your return to the matter of the Waaaghsoak Mushrooms is a perfect opportunity to show off your Green Tower to Panoramia, who nods along as you explain the different components of it but is obviously itching to be unleashed upon the planters you set up, which occupies her for the next several days. It's certainly pleasant to have her nearby while you work on other things, but once she considers herself satisfied with the conditions that your fruit-bearing saplings are growing in (which are now significantly larger and noticeably lusher) it's time to return to the matter at hand. The central planters are set up in such a way that they can be magically isolated from each other and magical energy can be channelled in from elsewhere in your growing cluster of towers. You set up five groups of growing fungi: Ghyran, Ulgu, Aqshy, Azyr, and a magically-neutral control group.

Though Panoramia can't use magic to directly accelerate their growth, she's quickly able to identify near-ideal growing conditions and it only takes a few days for the first harvest. Careful examination within your White Tower confirms that they each possess only the Wind they were soaked in while growing, and careful experimentation reveals that once plucked their ability to absorb Winds decreases, making the danger of accidental contamination and creation of Dhar negligible if properly stored. With all that confirmed, there's nothing for it but to move on to actual testing of how useful a gutful of mushroom is.

[Casting with fungal assistance: Learning, 78+28=106.]

Yep, just as unpleasant to eat as you remembered. You grimace your way through chewing on it and wait for the odd sensation of magic being 'digested' - technically the mushroom being digested and the magic flowing into you as it becomes no longer able to cling to the substance of the mushroom. You run through a few spells and notice that you do have slightly less need to draw on ambient magical energy than normal, but it's far from a surge of power, and a surge of power is the sort of thing that the Goblins who originally grew these mushrooms would have been looking for. Panoramia tries reducing the mushroom to a powder to be mixed with water and drunk, but the drying of an Ulgu-rich mushroom causes the Ulgu to escape. The same proves true for the Aqshy and Ghyran mushrooms, but the Azyr ones retain their energy. You consider turning testing over to Hubert, but even if he hadn't already left with the Winter Wolves it probably wouldn't be a great idea.

It's common knowledge that cooked mushrooms sit easier in the stomach than raw ones, so your hope is that the magic inside would be more easily unleashed as well. So you and Panoramia take advantage of an often underappreciated resource: the cooking skills of the Halflings, who turn out to know of more ways to prepare and preserve mushrooms than you could have begun to guess. Hluodwica appears to take the mushrooms as a personal challenge, and when unleashed upon the control group manage to find ways to perform the impossible: making the mushrooms not only palatable, but actually tasty.

You turn the techniques that Hluodwica has created onto the Wind-rich mushrooms and are able to find ones that work for each of them: smoking for Aqshy, pickling for Ghyran, and for Ulgu, mincing, spicing, lightly cooking in butter, and being reduced to a paste that is placed inside a bite-sized pie. Careful study confirms that it still contains the magical energies, and further study confirms that it is delicious. The magic inside flows into you much faster, and while it's not really enough to tip the scales for someone at your level of spellcasting ability, it could make a significant difference to those not yet able to easily draw on large amounts of ambient Winds - which could be a very useful resource for Journeymen. You prepare a significant amount of the Azyr specimens for Hubert to use on the Expedition.

[New papers available: Windsoak Mushrooms - Ulgu, Aqshy, Ghyran, Azyr.]



Thus concludes the work Mathilde performed these past months, but not every waking moment was filled with work. With whom did she spend her free time? The three with the most votes will be chosen, not counting those locked in.

[+] Panoramia (locked in)

Expedition
[ ] Greet and get to know the Wizards joining the Expedition as they arrive at Praag.
[ ] Join Hubert and the Winter Wolves for the final leg of their journey to Praag.
[ ] Join Esbern, Seija, and the Knights of Taal's Fury for the final leg of their journey to Praag.

Fellow Wizards
[ ] Gretel, who's apparently spending her newly-earned wealth to make herself at home.
[ ] Adela, to see how her gradual nepotistic takeover of the Karag Nar Gunnery School is going.

Karak Eight Peaks Notables
[ ] Francesco Caravello, proud Viceroy of the Undumgi.
[ ] Spend some time exploring the Karak now that everyone has spread out into their hopefully permanent Clan Halls.

Foreign Relations
[ ] Stirland, to see for yourself how the war against Sylvania is progressing.

Friends Abroad
[ ] Julia, to see what she has gotten up to as Stirland's most experienced spy master.
[ ] The Dolgan, to get to know the people of the western Steppes who will hopefully be feeding the Expedition.

Following Up
[ ] The Amber College, to check in on the salamanders.
[ ] The Gold College, to see what's become of their research into Skaven technology.
[ ] Follow up on your donation of the Skaven organ-vat, and see what has been made of it.
[ ] Pay a visit to your fief, to see if anything has changed. It probably hasn't.


- There will be a two hour moratorium.
- Panoramia is a lock-in for this turn only. You're about to go voyaging into hell's front yard, if she wasn't a lock-in she'd be coming for your Initiated By Someone Else slot that would be there instead.
- There'll be a run-down of all the practice and advancement people have made in their preparations for the Expedition separate to the social turn.
- Other suggestions for social actions are welcome.
- My current plan for the Expedition is that I'll be switching to a Karak Kadrin avatar for the duration of it, as they're the primary sponsors of it and as far as I'm aware there's no canonical Karag Dum flag or insignia. If anyone's feeling creative, a fan-created Karag Dum flag or insignia would fit much better.

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Voting results

[*] Spell name - Rite of Way

[*] Greet and get to know the Wizards joining the Expedition as they arrive at Praag.
[*] Adela, to see how her gradual nepotistic takeover of the Karag Nar Gunnery School is going.
[*] Spend some time exploring the Karak now that everyone has spread out into their hopefully permanent Clan Halls.

Since you're about to take your first prolonged absence from Karak Eight Peaks since it was retaken, you've decided to spend some time walking its halls and valleys and taking it in with fresh eyes. It's evolved quite significantly from the time when fungus was being hacked and burned out of ancient tunnels, most of it far from your view. Karag Nar you're quite familiar with, a large and prosperous town in its own right with a charming Tilean-Imperial cultural blend with heavy Dwarven influences. And the Eastern Valley is turning more and more into a slice of the Moot each year, providing the Karak with food and you with a breathtakingly idyllic view that remakes itself each season. But what of the other Karags? The Citadel? The Under-Karak? To satisfy your curiosity, and perhaps a little to wallow in self-congratulation for your part in retaking the Karak, you set aside some time to explore these, once more assisted greatly by the fact that wandering around and being nosy is entirely within the job description of a Loremaster.

Karag Lhune was originally the home of all of the Karak's odds and ends, such as the airship port, the orphanage, and various temples and vaults. As it was the first Karak to be retaken, it was until this year the home of most of the Karak's Dwarves. Now it's only home to two Clans - Angrund, Belegar's kinfolk, and the second incarnation of Clan Stonebeard, which is being refounded by Prince Gotri. It's a clear symbol that Belegar does not intend to cleave too closely to the Karak's past, as the now-rebuilt Hall of the Moon is to serve permanently as the new Throne Room. In place of the jewelled constellations that were looted millennia ago is a collage of coats of arms of all who contributed to the original Expedition, both Dwarven and otherwise. It takes a while to find your own - three Knightly Orders means there was a lot of Coats of Arms to be carved - but you eventually find it nestled close to that of Angrund right above the throne, among the banners of Gotri's and Edda's and Kazrik's Clans.

The Chiselwards has changed roles a number of times throughout history. As its name suggests, it was originally a home and school for Dwarves whose Clans were unable to provide those, and for the children of Clanless. During the Time of Woes it became home to refugees from other Holds - first Ekrund on the far side of the Badlands, then those from nearby holds when the southern Holds came under collective siege from the greenskins and the Skaven. It was assumed that Karak Eight Peaks would be the safest of them all, and tragically it was the first of the southern Holds to fall. During greenskin occupation it was a mushroom farm, and until recently part of it was home to the We. When Karag Lhune was retaken, the mushroom farms were burned, the We allied with, and the Chiselwards became home to all the Dwarves of Karak Eight Peaks. Now only two Clans remain, and a massive reconstruction effort is underway to convert the Chiselwards from sprawling communal barracks to proper Clan Halls for them.

The hangars atop Karag Lhune are even more filled with activity than ever as miners and masons begin plans for expanding the honeycomb of hangars. Prince Gotri's vision is that every flightworthy gyrocopter will be launched at short notice and as one when needed, and as was demonstrated when the Okral came under attack, it's one that works quite well. Each launch bay has heavy doors on both sides set up so that only one can open at a time - an external set so that the gyrocopter is not vulnerable to surprise attack, and an internal set so that an open launch bay cannot serve as an entry point to the Karag. The Okral's engineers claimed Guild secrets and refused to contribute to expanding the air corps directly, but they did overhaul the repair bay and install elevators that will make the expansion without them much easier.

The Temple of Grimnir is the other major landmark of the Karag, and it's very different to the one you've visited in Karak Kadrin, as it is not a Slayer Shrine dedicated to Grimnir the Slayer, but instead a Hall of Oaths dedicated to Grimnir the Oathkeeper. It was sealed by mighty Runes as the Karak fell and remained untouched until Kragg unsealed it seven years ago, and it's impossible to begin to estimate the tally those Runes must have taken from ambitious Goblins and Skaven in those three thousand years. Carved on the walls inside are the names of every Dwarf to ever fall in the Karak's defence, and in sealed adjoining rooms are the remains of those that fell in the reconquest. The only alteration that has been made since your last visit is the addition of fresh names. It's hard to take in the scale of the vast walls covered in neat chiselmarks, the amount of time and death that the innumerable lines represent. It's harder still to comprehend that the earliest entries were the names of Dwarves that marched and fought alongside the Ancestor Gods.

---

The Citadel was once the ceremonial heart of the Karak, but after it was the front line of the Karak's reconquest for three years it was repurposed to be the home of Clan Huzkul and the muster point for the Karak's defenders. If the cliff between the Eastern Valley and the Caldera below wasn't enough of a divide, the former is filled with lush fields and Halfling cottages while the latter has only just begun to sprout scraggly grasses in the wake of millennia of greenskin occupation and the magical onslaught that defeated Waaagh Birdmuncha. Atop its battlements is the great signal horn to sound the alert for all the Karak at once, and the flag flying alongside it tells everyone at a glance who is the highest-ranking member of the Karak's military hierarchy present there. Part of you still feels a little nervous every time it's not Dreng or Belegar. The only thing detracting from the Citadel's image as quintessentially Dwarven is that flying atop one of the two tallest towers is the flag of the Amethyst Order.

Below the Citadel is the former Throne Room that has been turned over to Clan Huzkul and transformed into their Clan Hall, the walls of which are covered with banners and weapons taken as trophies by the Karak's youngest Clan, as if to remind visitors, or possibly themselves, that they have earned their place here. Below that is the Hall of Pillared Iron, carved out of a natural cavern and filled with metal pillars to support the weight of the Citadel above millennia ago and now home to the Karak's strangest ally, the We. With the sixty-four pillars as supports the spider-hive has been growing year by year, the labyrinth of silken corridors expanding to swallow up more and more of the room. From your study of them you know the sprawling complex exists not just to disorient and entangle attackers - the walls are filled with hibernating spiders who are able to serve as reinforcements, replacements, or rations as needed. In the deepest part of the Hall are the six current Egg-Layers, each the size of a house and caring for a separate cluster of eggs.

A braided rope of silk extends from the hive to the entrance and down an adjoining tunnel. This is the guide-thread for the We's Hunters to guide them to where they should hunt without having to use up too much of the limited amount of memory they have to fall back on when outside the guidance of the We. Following this takes you underneath Karagril to the Karak's final actively hostile frontier: the entrance to the Underway to Karak Drazh. Though the greenskins would be quite capable of learning that charging into a solid wall of ballistas, grapecannon and handguns won't get them anywhere, they've instead elected to use it as a sort of population control, and on a regular basis the losers of the Red Fang tribe's internal politics are forced to charge down the underground gauntlet. It's quite clever if you follow the internal logic of the greenskins: their fungal ecology means there'll be a constant stream of new Goblins and Orcs whether there's room for them or not, so by forcing their rivals to charge down the gauntlet at regular intervals the tribe becomes no weaker, the position of the winning individuals becomes stronger, and the Dwarves are forced to pay a constant tax in ammunition, gunpowder, and attention. Unbeknownst to them, the predations of the We alter the economics of the situation, as once Karag Nar's weavers figure out how to convert the We's silk into bolts and garments, the presence of neighbouring greenskins will more than pay for the defences that must be arrayed against them.

Which you hear will happen any day now. Which you've been hearing for years. It's a source of much grumbling to you and Gretel, and a source of much smugness to Johann, who stole his silk sheets from a Naggarothi Elf.

Above the gauntlet is Karagril, the northernmost peak, home of the Karak's miners and masons and the hub of its mining operations. Like the rest of the Karags the useful minerals inside it were exhausted generations ago and it is now only home to Clan Halls and to a temple to Grungni the Miner. The actual mining operations and quarries can be found on the far side of Death Pass, and you gather it has taken a great deal of work to clear them of anything that had taken residence in them and make sure that the shafts and tunnels have remained structurally sound. The Okral were a great help in that, and in clearing and in many places remaking the tunnels and roads to allow the fruits of Dwarven labour to be returned to the Karak and sent on to where it can be used. Now iron and silver ores flow in a constant stream to Karagril and onwards to Karag Mhonar to be smelted, and the Karak is producing truly new materials and goods instead of merely scavenging the wealth of the past.

The Temple of Grungni makes you wonder. He is the principal deity of the Dwarven pantheon, and is usually celebrated by Dwarves in a huge and central temple to Grungni the Father. But here the Temple is dedicated to the Miner, and is tucked away in the least-populated corner of the Karak. You haven't raised any questions about this because you're worried that this is due to the rift between Belegar and Thorgrim, the latest heir to Grungni's throne, and the way to deal with that sort of problem in Dwarven culture is to never bring it up and hope it goes away. But you suppose it might owe more to ancient history than modern. Karaz-a-Karak is where Grungni built his throne, but Karak Eight Peaks is where Grungni first mined gromril. Given those circumstances, perhaps it's only natural that Karak Eight Peaks pays more deference to Grungni the Miner than Grungni the Father.

---

Following the ore tunnels takes you to the most recently refounded Karags. Karag Rhyn and Karag Mhonar lie at the southern edge of the Karak and are the twin peaks of the titular eight, as the two are connected at their base instead of being spaced out like the others. It is into them that the Okral poured most of their effort and into them that most of the Karak's Clans have now moved.

Karag Rhyn is the more populated of the two and its Clan Halls are built around a great temple to Valaya the Mother, and is also home to the Karak's sprawling breweries run by Clan Dourback. It's unquestionably dominated by the Grimbrow settlers from Karak Izor, as most of the other Clans that call it home are significantly smaller in number and prestige. It's not uncommon for a Karak to have multiple Royal Clans, but normally all but the native are royalty in exile from a fallen Hold. Perhaps if Princess Edda had been successful in wooing King Belegar they might have merged with Angrund, but since she got a position on the Council instead and has been quite involved with Prince Kazrik for some time, that seems to be out of the picture. Perhaps it might cause trouble down the line, but for now everyone gets along well enough that it's not a problem. The only other Clan capable of challenging Grimbrow's dominance is Clan Helhein, an ancient and celebrated Warrior Clan from Karak Norn, who are renowned for their ability with crossbows and guard the nearby approaches to the Karak. The terrain nearby isn't quite daunting enough to completely rule out an overland approach, so the ancient fortification of Morzund's Wall stretches west between Karags Rhyn and Yar, and the watchtowers known as the Sentinels run in a chain from Karag Rhyn to Karag Mhonar to Kvinn-Wyr, and then north to the Citadel.

Like Karag Nar, Karag Rhyn is dotted with small establishments dedicated to just about every craft and service imaginable, either from individuals straying from their Clan's profession or from ambitious individuals who have immigrated in the hopes of being able to establish themselves on this new frontier. A large hall is dedicated to transient traders and though only Khazalid is spoken, it's not just Dwarves that have stalls there, as traders from Tilea and the Empire have noticed and marked a developing new market on the edge of the map. Traders heading east have started loading their wagons with trade goods instead of food and supplies for the first leg of the voyage so that they can sell the goods and load up on supplies at the Karak and make a profit doing so, and on the way back they drop in to see if some of the famous wealth of Karak Eight Peaks can be extracted in exchange for spices or silks or other luxurious and exotic goods. The EIC has a regular stall here for importing the few human-made goods that the Dwarves can be persuaded to purchase, and there's plenty of Halflings selling fruits, vegetables, and baked goods.

Karag Mhonar has been dedicated to Smednir, the son of Grungni and Valaya and Ancestor God of Smelting and Smithing. It's to here that all the ore from Karagril flows to be transformed into ingots and then into useful goods, and it's here that the Karak's mint has been established. Clan Ironfinger holds sway here, who were originally metalsmiths in Karak Eight Peaks that dedicated themselves to smelting when they fled to Karak Azul, supposedly because they wished to assist instead of competing with the Clans of the Hold that had granted them refuge. They grew large and successful enough in doing so that it took a fair bit of negotiating for the Clan to split and send half their number back to their ancestral home, and part of that had been the Okral focussing a great deal of their effort on building facilities worthy of their skills. Belegar's hope is this will be the first domino in a chain as the promise of high-quality metal will convince other Clans to return to Karak Eight Peaks.

Somewhere inside it, under the watchful eyes of Clan Angrund and with everyone involved sworn to silence, the vaults of the Grand Urbaz are being melted down, further purified through various metallurgical and chemical techniques that are closely-held secrets, cast into ingots, and minted into fresh coins bearing Belegar's face and name. The other recovered vaults and the loot taken during the reconquest represent a great deal of wealth on their own, but Belegar is a big believer in spending gold instead of blood and is constantly on the look-out for more opportunities to do so. It might not be too many years until that gold is needed.

---

Three Karags remain largely empty. Karag Zilfin is the tallest and westernmost peak of the eight and was once the home of the Karak's considerable industry and most prominent Clans, but currently the only part of it that doesn't stink of chemicals is occupied by Cython. It's faded to the point that it's merely unpleasant instead of actively harmful, but it still has a long way to go until anyone would willingly call it home. This is something Belegar's done nothing to dissuade as it makes it that much easier to empty the Grand Urbaz vaults without witnesses.

Karag Yar lies to the south of Karag Zilfin and to the west of Karag Rhyn, and it is occupied by the dead. A few individual Clans had tombs that were scattered throughout the Karak, most of which were breached and looted at some point during the long occupation, but the rest sent their dead to rest in the great Ancestral Tombs in Karag Yar, and have since the Ancestor Gods ruled the Karaz Ankor. In the deepest levels are the remains of the founders of each of the Karak's original Clans, figures who are worshipped as Ancestor Gods in their own right by their descendents. When it became clear that Karak Eight Peaks would fall, King Lunn and a team of Runesmiths fought their way through the invaders until they reached the Tomb and King Lunn held the entrance until the Runesmiths could seal it, saving the Tombs from being looted but also sealing themselves inside. Kragg, Thorek, and the Okral's experts spent years unravelling the defences that those Runesmiths erected in haste and desperation, and now Gunnars and his underlings have interred King Lunn and the Runesmiths among their ancestors and are engaged in a long and thorough sweep of every level to ensure that every individual tomb remains sealed. Built into the complex is an ancient temple to Gazul, Lord of the Underearth, and you'd be surprised if Gunnars hadn't also established one to Gazul of the Flame somewhere.

Kvinn-Wyr is the final of the eight, and as the name 'White Lady' attests, it was once dedicated to Valaya the Protector. Of the three empty Karags it's the only one without a significant reason for it to remain so, and you wonder if Belegar has any plans for it. So far he seems to be dedicating a mountain to each Ancestor God, which leaves Morgrim and Thungni, patrons of Engineers and Runesmiths respectively. You're sure Belegar would like very much to lure more engineers to the Karak, but the original Engineer Clan of the Karak, Clan Stonebeard, dedicated themselves to a more direct form of warfare after fleeing to Karak Drazh and then being forced to flee again to Karak Azul. Now they name themselves Clan Sternbeard in recognition that they've strayed from the path of their ancestors, and even if Belegar could entice them to return to Karak Eight Peaks, what little knowledge they retain of their craft is from an era predating gunpowder. So he's left with trying to convince an existing Clan to split off a founding population, which is a difficult task at the best of times, as Engineers are very aware of their value, as are the Dwarfholds they belong to. The only other options are recruiting Dwarves into Gotri's refounding and training them up pretty much from scratch, or having an Engineers Guild with no associated Clan, which in Dwarven minds makes for a small and unstable Guild. The same problem applies to an even greater degree to the Runesmiths, since the very few surviving Runesmiths from Karak Eight Peaks were reabsorbed into the Karaz-a-Karak Runesmith Clan. In any case, currently the only activity in Kvinn-Wyr is the masons trying to repurify and restore its cisterns after millennia of being lived in by trolls, which is no mean feat.

---

All in all, the Karak seems to be in a good state. Still room for improvement, and a lot of room to expand into, but it's come a long way from when the Expedition first arrived at the East Gates and it's finally growing. Though part of you misses the excitement and high stakes of the Karak's early years, you're definitely proud of being a part of making all of this possible.


- The length of this one kind of got away from me. Remainder of the social turn to come.

 

[Boney]

The Imperial Gunnery School's branch in Karag Nar is an odd phenomenon. It exists in large part due to Prince Kazrik taking advantage of institutional ego, and if any human polity had bought the same amount of guns they would simply have sent along instructors to teach the proper firing and maintenance techniques. But 'sold cannons to a Dwarfhold' is something they're going to be boasting about for decades, and given the chance to double down on that, they happily took it, and if all they get out of it is the chance to casually say 'our branch in Karak Eight Peaks' at every opportunity they'd consider themselves to have done quite well out of the deal. Under normal circumstances, it would be fated to being an overly-dramatic label for the Undumgi arsenal and training facilities.

But these are not normal circumstances, and Belegar is no normal Dwarven King.

With the Okral returned to Karaz-a-Karak, plans are unfolding to expand the branch into a proper foundry, and Rangers are surveying nearby mountainsides for suitable locations for redoubts along the eastern half of Death Pass. Currently, the artillery of the Undumgi covers the length of Death Pass required for the path to Ulrikadrin and Barak Varr to remain open, and Belegar intends to extend that to cover the path from Karak Eight Peaks to the Dark Lands - both to ensure the Karak remains part of the safest route of the Silk Road, and so that anything unfriendly that comes from the east will be well mauled before it even sets sights upon the Eight Peaks. To do so with human-forged artillery would surely rankle the traditionalists, but it does mean that it could be established within years, rather than decades.

So gold flows to Nuln and back comes a steady stream of carefully-selected candidates. The Imperial Gunnery School wants this to go off without a hitch, so they need to ensure that they send just the right people. This is no task for a mad inventor in the tradition of Volker von Meinkopt who would reinforce everything Dwarves believe about human craftsmanship - this calls for more of a Josef Bazalgette, stolid, dependable sorts who would be content to simply create a large number of high-quality guns to proven designs without getting creative, as well as the supporting staff thereof. And as it turns out, that selection criteria has just so happened to include three candidates with the surname Burgstaller, and all indications are they won't be the last.

Authority is a funny thing. It is vitally important to the structure of society, but it does not tangibly exist, so it is very easy to claim one holds it even if they do not. That's why doing so leads to very nasty consequences from those who actually do hold it. But there's a grey area you've dipped into a time or two yourself - act as though you have that authority and people will often assume you do, and you never need to actually explicitly claim it. Even if you do get caught red-handed, its deniability is beautifully plausible, and nobody can ever really be sure whether it was intended, or whether it was simply a very fortuitous misunderstanding. For example, if someone is not technically in the employ of the Loremaster but is under their authority and has worked alongside them in the past, it can be very easy for someone to reach the conclusion that they are doing so once more when they start asking curious questions about, say, the selection criteria for the branch's latest round of recruitment. Did they take advantage of a misunderstanding of the authority they held? Or did they simply ask questions of someone who gave answers too freely?

The tricky thing is that even Adela might not know for sure. Self-deception is by no means an uncommon ability, and it could be that she convinced herself she was merely innocently asking questions when part of her knew the possibility for misunderstood authority existed. Adela is quite loyal to her family, and people have convinced themselves to do worse for lesser reasons.

Or you might be seeing skulduggery where none exists, and Adela was simply able to barter a position for her relatives in exchange for services to the Gunnery School. Either by lending it her own fledgling engineering expertise, or leveraging her contacts amongst the Dwarven engineers to make a few useful introductions, or simply by lending her abilities with fire. Quality charcoal is quite expensive and coked peat even more so, and many an unambitious Bright Wizard has paid their way through life by stoking forges with Aqshy.

Is this a problem? Well, that depends. In a perfect world, the procedure that would have chosen the branch's staff would pick those ideal for the job, and Adela's intervention has prevented that. But in the world that is, it's much more likely that if Adela hadn't put her thumb on the scale, someone else would have. And this way you have a set of levers inside the branch that you can access through Adela, should it ever prove necessary. So you simply confirm that they have the qualifications required for the positions they're filling, make a few slightly pointed comments to Adela to make sure that she knows that you know, and leave the matter at that.

---

With yourself about to be absent from the Karak for a few months, you've made the decision to upgrade the security of your quarters even further. When Dwarves are involved and they have as much of a vested interest as the Karak does in keeping the area secure, there's really no limit to how much security they'd be willing to apply, but even they have to grudgingly admit that there's a point of diminishing returns here. All that's really needed is to make the entryway sturdy enough that any forcible entry would need to be loud enough that it would alert the entire Karag, and lengthy enough for them to still be on the outside when the Undumgi reached them.

The process of making this happen is a rather noisy one, and one that involves rather a lot of Dwarves coming in and out of the upper levels of your home, which in turn supplies ample reason to spend your time elsewhere for the duration, which only compounds the more obvious one. Going away on a multi-month trip is the sort of thing one precedes by spending an ample amount of time with their paramour, especially if that trip is off the edge of the map. This course of action turns out to be quite sound indeed. Panoramia is pleasant company even when not being weighed against a troop of Dwarven masons, and on top of the obvious benefits of spending a lot of time with her, trailing curiously in her wake as she goes about her work proves rather interesting in its own right, and not just for the parts of it where you get to watch her channel enormous amounts of Ghyran and glow quite beautifully to your Magesight.

You'd imagined that her work for the Halflings began and ended at doing magic at fields until food happened, and while that's certainly part of it, there turns out to be much more than that. Part of it is mechanical, as she determines the proper amount of water that a given field requires and works with the Halflings to determine the most reliable way to either add or remove water to reach that point. Part is alchemical, as she applies various chemicals to samples of dirt and from the results reaches conclusions about the makeup of said dirt. Part of it botanical, as she inspects underperforming plants and determines whether the blame can be placed on seed, soil, or on an interloper, and when the last turns out to be the case, she displays an understanding for the selection and deployment of toxins that would be quite terrifying if she ever turned it on something larger than a fingernail.

With her magic alone, she could make a plot of land give a single bountiful harvest no matter what state it was in. But with this full suite of techniques, she has set her sights on making an entire valley give bountiful harvests for the foreseeable future. It's not quite as immediately impressive as a superweapon, but being able to hold a kingdom is of no use if you can't feed it.

As the date of your departure approaches, a lot of the time you spend with Panoramia shifts from the fields to the privacy of her home. Not entirely for torrid purposes, though there is a certain amount of that sort of thing, but mostly for talking. Though you're both Wizards, you're from two very different Orders and had very different upbringings. Panoramia went through her Apprenticeship with her family but no faith, whereas you had faith but no family, and exploring those differences proves just as compelling as the other type of explorations.

But all good things must come to an end, and all too quickly the day comes for you to depart for Praag. And when you board a gyrocarriage with Johann and Max, it's with her smile in your thoughts and her kiss on your lips.

---

Praag is the oldest city in Kislev, and was once a rival to the capital in wealth and culture. Streets and buildings decorated with silver were ringed by vast, spiked walls lined with cannon and strengthened by Dwarven runes. For a time the Fire Spire of Praag was the center of magical research in the Old World. But that time ended with the coming of Asavar Kul and the Great War Against Chaos. Praag held out for months against the invaders and may have saved the Old World in doing so, for it gave Magnus the Pious and High King Alriksson and Teclis time enough to raise a force capable of repelling the forces of Chaos. But by the time it reached Kislev, Praag had fallen. The war was won instead at the walls of the city of Kislev, and the few buildings left standing in Praag were covered in Chaotic sigils, staring eyes, and seeping blood. All of it was torn down and the ruins burned, and some say that should have been the end for Praag.

But the Citadel of Praag never fell, and when the forces of Chaos were pushed back, the survivors that took refuge there refused to abandon their city and instead learned which parts of the rubble were less cursed than the others and rebuilt atop them. It's said that in the aftermath of the Great War, one in two children born in Praag was horribly mutated in some way or another, and that the streets would rearrange themselves each night and had to be rebuilt regularly to prevent them from shaping themselves into sigils of terrible power. The taint of those times has faded somewhat over the decades, but every night the taint of Chaos waxes once more, and black blood bubbles up from below, and the faint screams of those that were sacrificed to Chaos here echo through the darkness. Even in the noon sunlight the streets throb with Chaos taint to your Magesight, as if Morrslieb shone at full strength above.

You take a deep breath, center yourself, and put it out of your mind. You'll undoubtedly experience worse before this adventure is through. Right now the steam-wagons should have crossed into Kislev, and the first of the Wizards that are assembling to join the Expedition have probably already arrived. Your focus right now needs to be on them, not on the scars left on this part of Kislev nearly two centuries ago.

---

Ice Witches spurn Praag due to the presence of the ruined Fire Spire and Ungol Hags refuse to step foot in the city unless they really need to, so there's no resident Wizard or Wizard-equivalent that courtesy demands you make your introductions to, leaving you free to establish yourself and go about business. You manage to secure surprisingly comfortable quarters at a tavern called the Bow and Bard as well as the use of a card table in the back, and then set off to winnow your way through the more reputable inns and taverns to see if any Wizards have arrived yet, as well as spreading some silver around to ensure that innkeepers know to point them your way should they encounter them. Your sweep of the city pays off immediately as you are told by the proprietress of an establishment heavy with curtains and perfumes called The Red Rose that they have a Celestial Magister currently staying with them, though not currently accepting visitors. You pass on a request for him to meet with you at his convenience, and the next morning he presents himself as requested.

"Magister Michel Solmann, at your service," he says with a bow.

You gesture at the seat across from you. "Solmann," you say. "Any relation to Klaus Solmann?"

"A cousin on my father's side," he says as he sits. "With proper attention to the portents, the gift of magic can be encouraged to run in the family."

"Are you yourself portent-inclined?" you ask, hopefully in a neutral tone.

"I'm more attuned to the Elemental side of Azyr."

"Winds and lightning and such?"

"Just so."

You nod. "What led you to join this Expedition?"

He gives you a thoughtful look before answering. "Encouragement from on high," he admits. "The signs, I hear, are murky, but it's hoped that a fistful of lightning will help tilt things towards positive outcomes."

You manage to keep from frowning. "As long as you continue to be this forthright about that sort of thing, we shouldn't have a problem. Magister Matriarch Stossel suggested there was something omenous, and perhaps ominous, about this Expedition. I'd rather that this be kept between you and I - it could cause the wrong kind of concern among the others, once they arrive."

"As you wish, Lady Magister."

"There's another of your Order that will be joining us, Journeyman Hubert Denzel. He is operating in his capacity as King Belegar's delegate to the Winter Wolves, so I'll ask you not to try to exert Collegiate authority over him - but if he's willing, I'd ask that you give him what guidance you can in matters of Azyr."

"As you wish, Lady Magister," he says once more.

---

The second new face to arrive is a Jade Wizard, heavyset and deeply tanned. "Journeyman Cyrston von Danling," he says, shaking your hand with a firm grip. "Pleased to put a face to the name."

"Pleased to put a name to the face," you reply. "Tell me about yourself."

"First generation Wizard from Solland, been on my Journey for eight years now. I have high-to-extreme seasonal attunement, which for the purposes of this expedition will mean that I will grow in power as Summer approaches, and a knack for water magics."

"Geyser?" you ask curiously.

"Still working on that one," he admits.

"Could you learn it within the next month or so?"

He hesitates. "Probably not. But I can water-dowse with some reliability."

You nod. "That could be of great use. What brings you to this Expedition?"

He shrugs. "I've been all over the Old World, but never been east of the World's Edge Mountains. This seems like a fantastic way to change that."

Not the worst motivation you've ever heard. You thank him for his time and dismiss him.

---

Third to arrive is a woman of about forty wielding what looks like a reinforced wall sconce. "Journeywoman Alexandra Kohler," she introduces herself as.

"Kohler by name or occupation?" you ask curiously. Charcoal burners tend to be hardy and careful sorts, as a proper burn takes at least a week, during which the fire must be closely watched.

"Formerly both, in the Nattern Forest. Beastmen attacked, and I discovered I could put fire to a different use."

"A fellow Stirlander. Northern or Southern Nattern?"

"Northern, a ways west of Klam."

A former subject of the Countess of Wolfsbach then, rather than of Anton. "Elemental Aqshy, then?"

"Yes, Lady Magister." You note the hesitation in her voice before using your title. Magic typically develops between the ages of 15 and 25, but outliers in either direction are hardly uncommon - indeed, the founder and first Magister Patriarch of the Bright College was a celebrated Greatsword commander when his own magic developed. Those that develop late in life often find it difficult to defer to Wizards younger in years but higher in rank. "Fire Ball, Fiery Blast, Curtain of Flame, that sort of thing."

"Inextinguishable Flame?"

"Yes. About three weeks."

"If you're willing, you could earn some Dwarven gratitude by putting that to work on their boilers - I know it won't have the full effect on fires that large, but it will save some fuel."

"They'd allow that?" she asks.

"I've earned some goodwill for Wizards among the Dwarves, and this Expedition isn't exactly made up of staunch traditionalists."

She nods. "Very well. Thank you, Lady Magister."

"Why have you joined this Expedition?"

"Recognition and promotion," she says simply.

You nod. "Fair enough. Thank you for your time."

---

The final Wizards arrive as a group - a handsome and well-groomed young Magister that must be Egrimm van Horstmann, and three Journeymen who trail behind him like ducklings of his own. "Lady Magister," he says with an easy smile. "I've heard good things."

"And your former Master vouched for your own abilities. May we both live up to our reputations. Who are your fellows?"

"Journeymen Citharus and Barbitus, and Journeywoman Timpania," he says, indicating them in turn. Citharus is short and heavyset, Barbitus taller and thin, and Timpania slender and shifting from side to side with nervous energy. "I'm not quite a Choirmaster, but I can lead a quartet, and they are some of the most talented harmonists of their generation."

"Are they here with you?"

"I'm happy to take them under my wing and we can accomplish more together than we can apart, but their purposes here is their Journeying, rather than obligation to their College."

"I see. Your capabilities?"

"We wield the scouring light of purity. Shem's Burning Gaze and Pillar of Radiance for if we're lucky, Banish and Daemonbane for if we're not."

You nod, grudgingly impressed. Those are some potent spells. "Very well. I'll leave your juniors under your authority. If we could have a word in private?"

"Of course." He ushers his ducklings out of the room, and closes the door with a click. "What is it you want to talk about?"

"I want to be sure there'll be no misunderstandings about the chain of command here. You are here at the order of your Magister Patriarch, yes, but I am here as the representative of King Belegar. Everyone on this Expedition is under Dwarven authority, and all Wizards of the Colleges on this Expedition are, directly or indirectly, under mine."

He smiles and nods. "I have no problems with that."

"Glad to hear it. Thank you for your time."

---


Wizards Recruited:

Magister Egrimm van Horstmann, with Journeyman Citharus, Journeyman Barbitus, and Journeywoman Timpania, of the Order of Light
Shem's Burning Gaze, Banish, Daemonbane, Ill-bane, Light's Demand, Pillar of Radiance, Radiant Gaze

Magister Michel Solmann of the Celestial College
Lightning Bolt, Clear Sky, Wind Blast, Lightning Storm

Journeyman Cyrston von Danling of the Order of Life
Leaf Fall, Spring Bloom, Summer Heat, Winter Frost, River's Whisper, Ferment

Journeywoman Alexandra Kohler of the Bright Order
Curtain of Flame, Fiery Blast, Fire Ball, Inextinguishable Flame, Ruin and Destruction


- Next update in progress.

 

[Boney]

To the delight of every cattle merchant in Praag, the next few days see two hundred knights arrive in town atop large and hungry carnivores. You'll have ample opportunity to get to know their leaders once the steam-wagons arrive, so you reserve your attention for the Wizards travelling with them - Hubert with the Winter Wolves, and Esbern and Seija with the Knights of Taal's Fury. With all the Wizards you're likely to get arrived, and with some internal grumbling that you're one Wind short of the full spectrum, you round them all up to set the stage and lay some ground rules.

"Karag Dum was cut off from the Karaz Ankor one hundred and eighty-five years ago by the forces of Asavar Kul during the Great War Against Chaos," you say to the assembled Wizards. "Our mission is to travel there to determine the current status of the Dwarfhold. From there, the mission could be simply to return to the Karaz Ankor with that information, or it could be evacuation or salvaging. Different parties have different expectations due to varying levels of optimism and cynicism, so treat the topic with caution if you discuss it with the Dwarves."

"Do you think there could be survivors, after all this time?" Cyrston asks.

"Karak Eight Peaks held out for longer than that before falling." Only three years longer, but still. "The Norse Dwarves were isolated in Norsca for seven thousand years before they fell, and Karak Azul survived three thousand. And Karag Dum's sole purpose was to prepare to withstand the forces of Chaos. So I don't think it's implausible." He nods, so you press on. "Speaking of touchy subjects, Dwarves do not like or trust magic, and that usually extends to those that wield it. That Wizards are allowed to join this Expedition at all is because I've spent the last ten years building up goodwill with parts of Dwarven society. Needless to say, I'm protective of that goodwill, so here's some ground rules. Do not cast magic on any Dwarf unless they'll die otherwise, and not even then for the Slayers. Do not use unnecessary magic within the confines of the steam-wagons, and if at all possible, do the necessary ones outside. Stay away from the mechanics of the steam-wagons, and don't ask the Engineers any questions about them. And tread very lightly around the Slayers. Any questions?"

"How do we tell which is which?" asks Michel.

"Rangers have cloaks and crossbows, Slayers have orange hair, if they don't have either they're probably an Engineer. The Rangers are your best bet if you want to make friends, they tend to be open-minded and most of them would speak Reikspiel. I'll also advise you to keep your distance from the Ice Witch and Asarnil, because if you inadvertently offend either it's likely to go badly for you. And don't bring up religion or politics with the Winter Wolves." You double check your mental notes to make sure you've covered everything before pressing on. "Our route will take us through High Pass, across the Zorn Uzkul, through the Great Steppes, and into the outer reaches of the Chaos Wastes. High Pass should be thawed and is being watched by the Dwarves, so it should be uneventful. Zorn Uzkul is absolutely unfriendly territory, but the local hostiles live underground and will only pick a fight if they're sure they'll win, so I like our chances of getting through without incident. The part of the Great Steppes we'll be travelling through is Kurgan territory, with our route mostly going through Dolgan territory. We've struck a deal with them, but I wouldn't bet my life on them sticking to it. As for the Chaos Wastes, no telling what we'll find there, but we're not going too far in and we shouldn't be there too long.

"The magical landscape is going to shift several times between here and there. You've probably already noticed that the Winds are thicker here than they are further south, and that will continue to be the case until we reach the Steppes. There, they blow hard enough that they mostly stay overhead, and ground level is surprisingly low in ambient energy. Tapping into an airborne current will be hard to control but should give a lot of power. And of course, the Chaos Wastes will be thick with Dhar. From my experiences in Sylvania, it will make spells trickier to control and make them go bad worse than they otherwise would. And remember - don't touch the bad magic. There's no circumstance so bad that Dhar can't make it worse. Questions?"

"Aren't the Kurgan Chaos-worshippers?" Egrimm asks.

"Among other things. We're not looking to marry them, just get through their territory. I hope it doesn't need saying how unpleasant it would be to be harassed by a Kurgan tribe through several hundred kilometers of their own steppe." There's a few winces from the crowd. "This Expedition has support from the highest levels of Dwarven society, and with the Marienburg situation, our alliance with the Dwarves is even more important than normal. There's not going to be any significant blowback for us picking our battles out there."

"What enemies might we encounter in Zorn Uzkul?" asks Alexandra.

"It's Chaos Dwarf territory - oh, and that would be another touchy subject with the Dwarves. If we do have to engage them, the bulk of their fighters will be their greenskin slave-soldiers, and firearms, sorcery, and a sort of muscled Centaur are all possibilities as well. There are also subterranean Beastmen active in the area who are at odds with the Chaos Dwarves." You try to gauge who amongst the Wizards might know what is meant by that, and Egrimm's sudden poker-face and Cyrston's grimace leads you to believe they do. You'll read the others in if it becomes necessary.

That seems to be the end of the questions, so you dismiss the Wizards and move on to checking in, one at a time, with what you suppose would be your inner circle - Johann, Max, Esbern, Seija, and Hubert. They've had a fair while to prepare for this Expedition and you kept your distance to let them get on with it, and you're more than a little curious to see how they've done so.

Johann is the most senior of them and your main concern, so you check in with him first to see how he's been adapting to a world seen only through Magesight. You know for certain that he's able to function as he currently is, but that's a different matter to being able to fight. Thankfully, he's just as aware of this and has been working tirelessly to adapt to the new normal. Apparently he's been splitting his time between Gehenna and the Cult of Grungni to hone both his magical and martial skills, and he moves with such confidence that if it weren't for his eyes being entirely tinted a dull gold it would be easy to assume he had recovered his vision. His ability to cast Searing Doom will be extremely useful if you do have to fight your way through the Chaos Dwarves, and against less-armoured opponents his golden fists will undoubtedly prove just as effective as ever.

Despite sharing an Order, Maximillian drastically differs from Johann. His skills are in scholarship and blacksmithing, and if he hadn't discovered an affinity for Silver Arrows of Arha he'd likely be of little use on the battlefield. But he did, and it's made all the difference - by using his crossbow as a prop, he can fire silver bolts with pinpoint aim and a shocking rate of fire. He's spent much of the past year tinkering with that crossbow, transforming it from a mere prop into something that could be considered a very unusual staff, making it even more suited for channelling the spell through. He's also added the spell Armour of Lead to his repertoire, and if you do have to clash with the Kurgan, you're sure that their lightweight leathers suddenly become crushingly heavy mid-gallop would prove quite a handicap.

If there was ever an opportunity for Hubert to become a more typical Celestial Wizard, it's quite likely that it has passed. The time he's spent with the Winter Wolves has cemented him as a warrior, albeit one with lightning in his off-hand and the ability to fly. That he travelled with the Winter Wolves with no mount of his own makes it clear that he has mastered the spell Wings of Heaven, and it's as common to see him flitting around the sky as it is to see his feet upon the ground. It's possible that he'll never reach the rank of Magister, and it's just as possible that he doesn't care. Their loss is the Expedition's gain, as a flying, lightning-throwing swordsman is the sort of thing that would come in handy in any number of situations.

Though Esbern and Seija had little time to prepare for the Expedition, it's also been quite some time since you worked alongside them, and they've evolved quite a bit since their time with the Karak Eight Peaks Expedition. They're de facto Knights of Taal's Fury now, Demigryphs and all. Esbern retains his bow and quite likely his ability to sprout claws and tear enemies apart, while Seija has a new, much-longer spear that can do double duty as a lance. Ghur means that their affinity with their Demigryphs falls just short of a familiar bond and you're sure they'd be devastating on a battlefield. Seija also mentions a crow-summoning spell, and you have to fight the urge to scrutinize her with your Magesight to see if you can spot any signs of a bound Apparition. Hopefully you'll have a chance to see it in action.

---

The people of Praag have proven surprisingly welcoming to their unusual visitors, and part of the reason why might be that local gossip is already quite aware you're intending to go on a heavily-armed voyage into the territory of those that tore their city asunder during the Great War Against Chaos. Said gossip knows about the approach of the steam-wagons before you do as well, because though they're capable of maintaining quite a pace, they can't outrun the courier networks, and by the time the Expedition is on the horizon everyone in Praag seems to know about it. Between the columns of exhaust appearing on the horizon and the steam-wagons themselves becoming visible, the walls filled with curious onlookers as news spread through the town.

Perhaps 'steam-wagon' does a disservice to the behemoths trundling down the road. They were massive when you saw them in Karak Kadrin, but seeing them fill the entire width of a major road really highlights just how large they are. The four wheels you saw them with back in Karak Kadrin have been replaced with a line of wheels running along the entire length of them, presumably to distribute their weight better, and the dual funnels they had have been replaced with only one. A rumbling roar fills the air as they approach and you take the opportunity to count them. Six, only one more than they had two years ago, but in the center of the column is one wider and taller than the others that you presume to be the newest addition. It lacks the swivel-cannon that the others have but more than makes up for it with the dragon that is perched atop it, watching the terrain crawl past with disdain.

As they near the city and a set of gates that will never accommodate such bulk, they steer off the road and into the dirt field that surrounds the walls, and though the wheels leave deep, wide furrows behind them, they don't sink far enough to become stuck. Their names are painted into the steel - Alriksson, Magnus, Kriestov, Alexis, Volans. The High King, Emperor, Ar-Ulric, Tzar, and Magister Patriarch that won the Great War Against Chaos. The only odd one out is the largest one which is named Urmskaladrak, presumably after the legendary 'Father of Dragons' that was slain by Grimnir. You suspect this was intended to be a warning for their unusual ally, but one that may have missed the mark. From what you've read and heard, Ulthuan Dragons and Wind-aligned Dragons consider themselves entirely different, and the ultimate ancestor of the former is Draugnir, rather than Urmskaladrak. Or it may have just been meant as tribute to Grimnir, but they didn't want to outright call it Grimnir since a dragon would be perched atop it most of the way.

You consider your options as you climb down from the wall to make your way to the gate to greet the Dwarves. Since Karak Kadrin, the leadership of the Expedition has consisted of Borek, Gotrek, and Snorri. That council is about to expand since none of the above are particularly suited to leading non-Dwarven forces, but it's not yet determined how much it will expand. You're the natural choice for leading the Wizards, but it might be best to expand your authority. The Knights had their own representative on the Karak Eight Peaks Expedition's council, but Borek is definitely no Belegar, and it might be better for you to take responsibility for all human forces instead of having someone who you're pretty sure doesn't speak Reikspiel deal with the Knights directly. There's also the question of Asarnil - he represented himself during the Sylvanian campaign, but it might be better if he's one step removed from the Dwarves. Given your reputation amongst the Dwarves, your titles in the Empire, and your relationship with Asarnil, there's likely to be little problem with any of those possibilities, the only question is whether it would be better to limit your focus.

[ ] Lead only the Wizards
[ ] Lead the Wizards and Knightly Orders
[ ] Lead the Wizards and Asarnil
[ ] Lead the Wizards, Knightly Orders, and Asarnil


- There will be a one hour moratorium.
- The Dramatis Personae threadmark has been updated for the Expedition's characters.

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Voting results

[*] Lead the Wizards and Asarnil

Tally

There is no question in your mind that you'll push for being responsible for Asarnil, but the Knightly Orders were a trickier question. You've gone back and forth on it several times, and it breaks down to two separate questions: whether it's better to have more human voices on the council or your own voice be more powerful, and whether it's better to have more overall control over battles or more opportunity to personally intervene. In the end, more voices and more personal freedom won out, but only just.

As you approach, the steam-wagons sprout rope ladders and a steady stream of disembarking Dwarves starts to pour out, some clustering concernedly around the bases of the wagons and others heading determinedly towards the town. As you get closer a head pops up from the former and Gotrek gives you a wave. You take the opportunity to examine the nearest steam-wagon as he approaches. Up close, the scope of the modifications that have been made to the River Monitor designs to build the steam-wagons becomes clear. Eight larger wheels in two clusters seem to provide locomotive force, with large steel rods connecting the rods on the outside, presumably to transfer motion from the boiler. To the fore and aft of each are additional, smaller wheels that presumably are there to further distribute the weight of the behemoths, and from the furrows they left in their wake it seems like there's additional wheels underneath.

"Morgrim weeps," Gotrek says as he reaches you, "but in the service of recovering the last places He saw His father, I hope it can be forgiven. We just couldn't make the four-wheel design work, not if we ever wanted to cross anything but solid stone. Didn't even have enough time to cover up the coupling rods, could feel the eyes of manling tinkerers on them all the way here."

"Any trouble on the way?"

"We mostly stuck to roads built by our ancestors. Only tricky part was crossing rivers, since our bridges are long gone and the manling ones weren't built for anything like this sort of traffic, so to be safe we shut off the engines, caulked them up, and pulled them across by hand. Much easier said than done. But nobody tried to block our path, the beasties and bandits that haunt the roads wanted no part of us and the few Roadwardens with the stones to try to stop us relaxed when they saw beards pop over the parapets. Could have used a test to the weapons, but I'm sure there'll be opportunity aplenty."

You look further up the body of the monitors to another new addition: just about where the waterline would be is a series of large hatches, eight in all. "Those for the shotcannon?"

"He's trouble on two legs, that Gotri, but he knows what he's about. I'd rather have a good broadside of Organ Guns, but nobody's giving those away, are they? We've got eight on each, and we've been working on drills to unmount and remount them in a hurry. When we're just trundling along we'll have two pointing each way and the other hatches will be for firing crossbows and handguns out of, and if we come under sustained attack we'll form a ring around the Urmskaladrak and shift them all onto the outer side."

You turn your eyes to the largest of the steam-wagons. "It's unarmed?"

"Between the added wheels and the gun-decks we lost a lot of storage space compared to the original designs, so we went with one larger mother-ship dedicated to storage to make up the difference. Was going to have a gyrocopter pad on top, but that became a bit redundant with the Drakkelgi so it's where the beast perches and the Elgi has set up that silken tent of his. We've also got all the Slayers aboard it, they've built a Shrine to Grimnir in their level and they rarely venture out so there's no trouble so far."

"The Slayers are sticking to the vessel you're trying to keep from combat?"

"We've got a plan for that," he says with a grin. "But yes, more guns means more gun crews means less room for Slayers on each. Borek's been grumbling that the shotcannon were more trouble than they were worth, but he'll change his tune the first time they see action."

"How tight is storage space, exactly?"

Gotrek shrugs. "Thorek's lads did some amazing work on the boilers, setting up runes to shunt heat out of one compartment into the boilers so we've got a freeze-room for meat and need much less coked peat to keep the boilers going at full steam, but we only broke even trading peat storage for meat storage, and then we needed powder and shot for the cannon. We went heavy on the former at the expense of the latter because if we've got powder but no shot we can still fire gravel or scrap metal or what-have-you. The mother-ship helped, but if we rely only on stores we'll be down to stonebread by halfway."

"You're telling me we've got enough food to get there, but nothing for the return trip?"

"That's one way to put it. I've been trying to convince myself that it just means Borek has faith in this deal you struck with the horsemanlings, and in the ability for these Knights to hunt and gather."

You grimace, but then shake your head. "Whether he does or not, it should work out. Either the Dolgan stick to their side of the bargain and supply food, or they keep their distance and then the Knights are more than capable of rustling a herd or two of cattle, or they decide to attack us, and each of them is sitting atop a lot of meat. Horse isn't exactly tasty, but it'll fill bellies."

"Aye, that's what Snorri has been saying. 'Four horses a day' is what he reckons, and that if we can't take on four Kurgan a day we should all shave our heads and join the lads in the Urmskaladrak."

"I'm hoping none of the events of the next few months lead anyone down that road."

---

Gotrek leads you to the Alriksson, which has become the lead wagon and Borek's seat of power pretty much by default, and you clamber up a rope ladder to join the first prototype meeting of the Expeditionary Council. "Grandmaster," Borek says to you in greeting as you enter, and Snorri gives a nod. "We've been discussing the chain of command for the Expedition. Between your own rank and good name, and the contributions that King Belegar has made, and the..." he pauses just for a moment, "unique capabilities of the Zhufokri, there's no doubt in my mind that you deserve a position of command in this Expedition."

"Thank you, Thane Borek."

He grimaces at the title, but doesn't comment. He's absolutely entitled to it under Dwarven tradition since he's leading this Expedition, but it might rankle that it was given to him by Karak Kadrin, rather than by his home. "To catch you up, the Engineers and gun crews will be under Gotrek, and the Rangers under Snorri. On paper the Slayers will be under Snorri too, but really they'll sort themselves out. The next matter is less clear. The Drakkelgi. I was hoping that since they have replaced the Gyrocopter..."

"Oh no," Gotrek says firmly. "They both fly, but that's where the similarities end. I'd barely know which end of the damn thing to feed, let alone how to command it."

"I can take responsibility for communicating with Asarnil and Volrothrai," you say confidently. "We worked together well during the Sylvanian campaign."

"Then they're yours, with my gratitude. Second, the matter of the Knights." He looks at Snorri hopefully.

"Completely different paradigm. Aye, 'range far, range fast', but not that fast."

"Then we'll have to elevate one of them, I suppose. Which group has seniority?"

You shake your head. "I'd strongly advise against that. The Knights of Taal's Fury are dedicated to Taal, and the Winter Wolves to Ulric. It would be like if you picked one out of Morgrim and Smednir to give superiority over the other." You leave unmentioned the political troubles, since you'd rather not air the Empire's dirty laundry in front of its allies unless you really have to. The Winter Wolves are no longer part of the Empire and the Knights of Taal's Fury very much are. There likely won't be trouble if they're simply fighting against a common enemy, but if one is given command over the other it will get political very quickly. But considering the grimaces on the faces of the three Dwarves, your simile has hit its mark.

"Point taken," Borek says. "Both it is, then. I take it you're familiar with those organizations?"

"Fairly familiar personally, and Masters Esbern and Seija are among the Knights of Taal's Fury, and Journeyman Hubert is King Belegar's Envoy to the Winter Wolves."

"Then I'd appreciate if you could find whoever is in command of them and bring them to this meeting."

---

It doesn't take you long, since the bases of the steam-wagons have become a milling crowd of curious Knights and Wizards, with the Praag locals gawking from a much more cautious distance. It doesn't take you long to find the respective Wizards and get your introductions to the two new Councillors. Of the Knights of Taal's Fury, Preceptor Joerg von Zavstra is a man whose name tells a story, as the formulation is clearly of the Empire but Zavstra is a Kislevite city, albeit one built on the four-way crossroads between Kislev, Ostland, Talabecland and Ostermark. The man himself is as heavily bearded as he is heavily muscled, and rarely talks much except when the topic is combat or animals. His counterpart of the Winter Wolves is Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart the Younger, which is another meaning-laden name. From what you recall, somewhere during the Time of Three Emperors the Cult of Ulric were forced to make vows of celibacy as a condition of their return to Middenheim, and ever since the requirement has been oft ignored by those who feel that petty politics should not bind them. It seems that Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart felt that way at least once in the time before the Winter Wolves left the Cult, and the newfound independence of the Winter Wolves has allowed him to induct his son into the ranks. He's a bit brash but well-liked, and it seems command of the Wolves on this Expedition is his chance to prove that he didn't get in on nepotism alone.

You bring the two Knights back to the meeting and the rest of it is dedicated to matters of logistics. Six Councillors and six steam-wagons leads to the natural conclusion that each should take residence in one. Borek has already claimed the Alriksson and Gotrek claims the Urmskaladrak for logistical reasons, and it's extremely straightforward to give Sir Ruprecht the Kriestov and yourself the Volans. Given the choice between the remaining two Preceptor Joerg takes the Magnus, perhaps because taking the other would raise eyebrows in combination with his Kislevite birthtown, and that leaves Snorri with the Alexis.

"We'll take on supplies here and at Uskovic and Volksgrad," Gotrek says in near-perfect Reikspiel. "So the clock will only really start once we reach the Dukhlys Forest, though I'm hoping we'll be able to hunt and forage and fell trees to stretch that further." Confident nods from Preceptor Joerg and Sir Ruprecht. "We should close out the first week about the time we reach High Pass, where this weather-witch should be waiting."

"She'll ride aboard the Volans," Borek says, his own Reikspiel heavily accented but passable.

"The second week will take us through High Pass, the third across the plateau, the fourth up the Skull Road and skirting along Iron Wolf territory, and the fifth is the final sprint through Dolgan and Yusak territory to Karag Dum, which is also the point where we'll be leaving anything resembling a road."

"Slower than the estimates," you comment.

"If you find an Engineer who can go from blueprint to battlefield without a hiccup, it's Morgrim paying us a visit. We can do higher speeds, but as we learned on the way here, it's hell on the axles if we keep it up long-term. Four miles an hour, ten hours a day. That's what we can do and still have steam-wagons for the trip back."

"That gives us more room to work," Joerg says. "If the steam-wagons were going eighty miles a day, our Demigryphs would not be able to do much more than keep up. But half that? We can range ahead, scout an encampment position, then scout and hunt in the area."

"Our wolves can keep pace with the steam-wagons, keep the flanks secure and be a moving picket around the convoy," Ruprecht says. "Then when camp is made, do our own hunting. The twilight hours belong to wolves."

"I'll set you up with some signal rockets," Gotrek says.

"For communication from the convoy, there are flags and signal drums," Snorri says. "Do you know our flags?" Ruprecht nods, Joerg shakes his head. "I'll assign a Ranger to instruct you in the evenings. The drums are simpler, and if I recall correctly there are common Empire tunes that match most of them. Send a musician each to the Alexis and I'll have our drummers pass them on."

---

Once the Council meeting ends, you make your way over to your own steam-wagon and make yourself familiar with it. You'd only need to give orders if for whatever reason the Volans becomes separated from the rest of the convoy, so for now your command simply means that you get a cabin to yourself while the other Wizards have to decide between bunks or setting up tents each night. Truth be told, you might have trouble filling the days for at least the first couple of weeks, as the journey has little chance to become eventful until you emerge from High Pass into the Zorn Uzkul. The temptation is there to dip into your reading materials and let the days slip by, but though you're only really obligated to start doing things once enemies or problems start appearing, you suppose it would be best to either make yourself useful or get to know those you will be journeying with in the weeks to come.


The four with the most votes will be chosen.

Spend time getting to know:
[ ] Thane Borek Forkbeard
[ ] Head Engineer Gotrek Gurnisson
[ ] Head Ranger Snorri Farstrider
[ ] Preceptor Joerg von Zavstra
[ ] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart the Younger
[ ] Asarnil the Dragonlord
[ ] Deathfang
[ ] 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
[ ] Hunting
- With both the Knights and the Wolves
[ ] Foraging
- With the Rangers


- There will be a one hour moratorium.
- If there's another way you think Mathilde could usefully apply her time, let me know.
- Each of these 'actions' represents at most a couple of days of time, so training or teaching would not yield significant results.
- Extremely rough sketch of the steam-wagons, for visualization purposes:

Spoiler: Steam-Wagon

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Voting results

[*] Asarnil the Dragonlord
[*] Magister Egrimm van Horstmann
[*] Thane Borek Forkbeard
[*] Deathfang

Tally

From atop the Volans, you watch supplies stream out of Praag by the cartload to be winched aboard each of the steam-wagons in what seems like a well-practiced process. You suppose the same must have happened at every town since Karak Kadrin, and it raises your hopes for the coming weeks. The most obvious reason is that that the supply situation is being taken seriously, but also in that Gotrek is in charge of the logistics but the Rangers are the ones performing the actual purchases, which indicates good coordination between him and Snorri. Food is the primary component of the supplies but a surprising amount of firewood is taken aboard as well, which makes sense after you give it some thought. Engineers would certainly prefer to stick to a single supply of fuel, but the coked peat favoured by the Dwarves is effectively irreplaceable this far from the Karaz Ankor, so every day they burn wood instead is a day more of the much lighter, hotter, cleaner-burning fuel to be used in much less friendly territory.

As the single funnel atop the steam-wagons as opposed to the dual funnels of River Monitors attests, water is not thrown away through steam, but instead recaptured and cycled back through the boilers once it has reverted to water. Not only does this greatly reduce the amount of water the Expedition will need to store or source, it also means that the boiled water can be diverted for consumption by the beings of the Expedition, which is a great convenience compared to setting up fires and cauldrons next to every river the Expedition comes across. The Rangers still go to the far side of the city to draw water from the Lynsk upstream of Praag, because even if nobody's going to be directly drinking it, the Engineers are very keen that they don't want various city-produced residues fouling up the Engines.

The next morning, the taverns of Praag are scoured to extract the last handful of hung-over Knights and Dwarves, and with an inexorably building rumble the great engines are restarted. The convoy circles the city with agonizing slowness, leaving deep furrows in the empty fields surrounding the walls, but once it reaches the solid stone of the road on the other side it accelerates to a quick march or a slow jog. The Winter Wolves fan out to scout the flank not covered by the Lynsk, and the Knights of Taal's Fury bound ahead - normally it would be to scout out an encampment position some forty miles ahead, but today they make for Uskovic to make sure that another day's supplies will be ready to be brought aboard when the steam-wagons arrive. The Expedition is underway.

---

As it turns out, transferring between the steam-wagons when they're underway is not a matter of disembarking one and boarding another, presumably by grabbing onto a rope ladder while jogging. A series of ropes are set up between them once they're in the day's formation, and when supplies or people need to travel from one to the other they're pulled taut, the sender is elevated above the receiver and baskets on pulley-wheels are allowed to follow the call of gravity and slide from one to the next. That's the theory, anyway. In practice, the Dwarves of the steam-wagons have attached handles to pulleys and slide back and forth with nothing but their own grip to keep them suspended, a practice that Rangers apparently use to get around mountains quickly. You'd call it pointlessly dangerous, but you suppose it's a matter of perspective as you pull in the rebellious energies spewed from the Warp and force them to translocate you from one point to another in the space between instants.

You make your way to the Alriksson at the head of the convoy, determined to spend some time with the Expedition leader and try to gauge his mental state. It's easy to assume the worst of him based on what you've seen of him, but you suppose it might not be entirely fair to him. The past sixteen years of your life has been in service to two great leaders: Abelhelm van Hal and Belegar Ironhammer. In comparison, very few would do anything but fall short. So you will give him a proper chance to prove himself merely average, rather than dangerously inept.

You find him at the fore of the foremost vessel, gazing over the railing at the road ahead. "Grandmaster," he says as you approach. "Actually, that reminds me. By which of your titles would you prefer to be referred?"

"Loremaster would seem most appropriate, as I am here as Belegar's delegate. But for informal occasions, I would not object to you calling me by name."

"Mathilde Weber," he says thoughtfully. "The battle-mighty weaver. I'd call the name rather on-the-nose, had you not been born with it. The games destiny plays, eh?"

You give a nod, more at acknowledgement at the shot across your bows than the commentary on your name. "Indeed," is all you say, wondering where he found the time to look into your origins while preparing for the Expedition.

"What brings you aboard the Alriksson so soon after your joining us? Everything to your satisfaction?"

Well, if he wants to get right to it. "Truth be told, I am concerned with the food situation," you say. "From what I've been told, we'll have very little left by the time we reach Karag Dum."

He turns to consider you, rubbing the forked beard that gives him his name. "Ah, you've been speaking to Gotrek. He has the soul of an Engineer, he wants everything in place before his device leaves the workshop, and considers everything short of that a failure. Three years ago, we had planned food enough for the entire Expedition to get from Karak Kadrin to Karag Dum and back again and he was happy as can be. Two pounds of flour and salt meat times fifty Dwarves per steam-wagon times two hundred days, that's eminently portable for vehicles of this size. I'm sure you know what changed."

"The Knights."

"And their beasts. Twenty-five pounds of meat per day to keep them in optimal condition. Ten of them would equal the amount of food-weight required by the original Expedition, and we have two hundred. We did what we could with the Urmskaladrak and the cold-rooms, but those Knights increased the food requirements of the Expedition by a factor of about twelve. Then we have the storage space lost to the axle-decks and the gun-decks, so now, yes. Five weeks of food storage. But since you already produced a very welcome solution to part of that problem, I know you do not think that amounts to five weeks of food, as Gotrek tends to imagine."

"Bartering and hunting."

"And stockpiling. Tonight, Uskovic. Tomorrow, Volksgrad. Two nights later, a caravan from Sepukzy. Two nights after that, one from Novchozy. Dotted throughout High Pass, carefully-hidden stockpiles that the Redbeards have been preparing for half a decade. The clock did not begin to tick at Praag, it begins at Zorn Uzkul. Three weeks to Karag Dum, three weeks back, five weeks of stored food. Zorn Uzkul will be barren of supplies, of that I have no doubt, but after that we spend a few days winding through the northernmost expanse of the Mountains of Mourn, which by all accounts - including ones written by gyrocopter scouts this very year - have game to hunt. No Mammoth that far north, but Rhinoxen herds have been confirmed. The Knights should prove capable of preying upon them, and if not, Asarnil's charges for hunting services are preferable to starvation. After that, a few days along the Skull Road through the territory of the Kurgan known as Iron Wolves, who have horses and sheep and goats and cows who should be easy prey for Demigryphs and giant wolves. And then we turn north, and encounter the Dolgan and find out if they are as good as their word. And if they are not, then they too can be preyed upon." He smiles, only visible as a twitch of the beard, which makes Dwarves seem so taciturn to those unfamiliar with them. "Consider it a test of our readiness. If we cannot muster enough might and competence to find a single week of food from hunting, bartering, and rustling cattle, we're certainly not in a position to be delvers of the Chaos Wastes. Does that put your mind at ease?"

"More so than it was," you admit.

"I am glad. Yes, food is a problem. Yes, none of those sources are certain. Yes, it would be far more preferable to be beholden to nothing but our own stores for the entire journey. But as comforting as that notion is, it is nowhere near as comforting as two hundred mounted warriors atop terrible beasts at my side as we ride into the Chaos Wastes. That is why you recruited them, is it not?"

"Something like that."

"Food is a known problem, and one it is easy to fixate upon now. The problems of the Chaos Wastes, and whatever evils will be besieging Karag Dum, we cannot know what they will be and so it is much easier to worry about the food. But I am quite certain that those unknown problems will be more likely to be solved with force than with food." He turns his gaze back to the path ahead. "Making this journey has been my only purpose for five times longer than you have been alive. If I fail, it will not be because I forgot to pack a lunch."

---

The compartment Egrimm shares with his Journeymanlings is in a state of barely-controlled chaos, with half-unpacked crates scattered around and the straw that was cushioning their contents inevitably escaping and finding every available nook and cranny to slip into. The Journeymanlings are apparently elsewhere, and Egrimm sits at a table bolted onto the ground, tinkering with some sort of crystal array. "Lady Magister, come on in" he says, and you duck through the ovular door into the compartment. "What can I do for you?"

"I wanted to get to know you a little better," you say as you cast around the room for something to sit on, eventually settling on one of the already-emptied crates. "Should things get particularly Chaos-y, you and yours will be our best weapon against it."

"Our Wind is particularly suited to banishing the beings of the Aethyr," he says with a smile. "Which is quite interesting, considering it originates there. Some see it as proof of the self-defeating nature of Chaos."

"Do you?" you ask curiously.

"I think it's a dangerous mindset. It might be true on a large enough timescale, but I doubt it comforted Praag that Asavar Kul was knifed by a lieutenant after the Battle at the Gates of Kislev. Personally, I wonder if might be as simple as self-interest. Hysh would stop existing if the world was swallowed by the Aethyr, after all."

"I know a Light Wizard who told me a theory that the Eight directly oppose the Four," you say, nodding. "Which could even go so far as to conclude that the Eights are Gods in their own right. They observed that their own behaviour is as strongly influenced by Hysh as a zealot is by their God."

He looks at you curiously. "Intriguing. What was the name of this Wizard? I've yet to encounter that view among my Order."

"They go by the name 'Cython', they're an associate of Karak Eight Peaks. They're not from the Empire so I suppose it's natural they have a different paradigm."

He nods. "We swim in a dammed lake, I sometimes feel. Tempelwijk being hostile to us over petty politics, Arabyans guarding their own magics as military assets, the Damsels and Ice Witches considering their own knowledge holy secrets... and, of course, we just passed by the charred shell of the Fire Spire. So much hovering just outside our grasp."

You nod at the crystal device. "Is that what this is for?"

He looks down at it and smiles. "The Chaos Wastes are usually a fair bit further than 'just outside our grasp', so with the opportunity knocking we've got quite a backlog of experiments that have been dreamed up over the years. Usually they just get dusted off for however long it takes for an over-enthusiastic researcher to be reminded that Norscans exist." The smile fades a bit. "The foremost of those experiments will be, of course, our own good selves. We underwent extremely thorough examination before we departed, and when we get back we'll do so again, and it'll be compared to our own readings of ambient Dhar levels. That should give us some hard data on whether the 'exterior radiant' or 'ingested taint' camps are correct."

"That's a big sacrifice in the name of knowledge," you say, frowning.

He shrugs. "We all became tainted the first time we gazed upon Morrslieb or lived through Hexensnacht. We'll be monitoring our food and water carefully the whole way, so unless the most alarmist of the 'exterior radiant' camps are correct the actual long-term effect should be negligible."

You remember your own experiences during the Sylvanian campaign, and how you still don't know whether some of the temptations you experienced then were due to the environment or the circumstances. "Well, keep an eye on your thoughts. Dhar taint has a habit of trying to nudge those afflicted into becoming more so."

"Hysh demands a centred mind even when circumstances don't. Don't worry about us, Lady Magister. Personally, my concerns are on Alexandra and Cyrston, and to a lesser extent the Ambers."

"It won't be the first time the Ambers, or the rest of the Knights, have ventured into tainted land. But I agree with you about the other two."

"I'll keep an eye on them when it's not on my three. Being watched from both the light and the shadow should keep them on the right path."

"I'd appreciate your insight." You consider him for a long moment. "Did you choose to come on this Expedition?"

He raises an eyebrow at the sudden change of subject, then shakes his head. "My decision was not whether or not to venture into the Chaos Wastes, or whether or not to assist the Dwarves. My choice was whether to serve my Magister Patriarch and former Master, or not. And I made that decision quite some time ago."

"And now, here you are."

"Here I am."

"What do you think we'll find when we get there?"

He takes a moment to consider that. "The cynical side of me thinks it will share the fate of Karak Vlag, and we'll find an unmarked mountain when we finally get there. But discounting that possibility... I do think the Dwarves are stubborn enough to have survived. But I have my doubts as to whether they're stubborn enough to have remained unchanged."

---

Asarnil's lavish tent is erected atop the Urmskaladrak, and he and Deathfang can usually be seen in various forms of repose as they watch the terrain flow by. There's something of a cat to their natures: the claws are never more than a thought away, but for now they choose to doze in the warmth of the sun. Asarnil looks up as you approach. "Ho, Avaulgu," he says, smiling as you wince at the pun. "It's a good day to get paid for doing nothing."

You try to think of a suitable counter, but all that comes to mind is Horinasarnil which might be a bit much. "Dragonlord. Getting along with the Dwarves?"

"Enough that I decided to ride with them from Ostermark. They leave me alone, I don't have to rebuild my tent each night, everyone's happy."

"Well, don't get too comfortable. I half-expect Clan Moulder to pop out of the ground once they realize there's a Great Dragon rolling through their territory." Deathfang gives a contemptuous snort at that, lifting an eye to look at you. "Deathfang speaks Eltharin?"

Asarnil smiles. "When he chooses to."

"Which is rarely," Deathfang rumbles. "Asarnil is young, and better able to remember the fleeting beings that pay tribute to us in exchange for the violence we have mastered." He blinks, and he lifts his head as his scrutiny becomes intense. "There is a change in your demeanor, Silver Savage. Have you bested one of the rogue wyrmlings?"

"No," you say, and then realize where Deathfang's gaze is. "My staff was carved from one that was slain long ago. But I have spoken to a dragon. An Ice Dragon, by the name of Cython."

"Cython," he says with a snort. "Such a name. A Serpent of Wisdom and Knowledge, given in the tongue of the people it has no right to. What does it know of either? The rebels turn their backs on the heavens to play in the dust, and crow and strut when they build a filthy mound that will be blown away in the wind."

"Not all dragons followed Draugnir when He joined the courts of the Cadai," Asarnil explains. "There's little love lost between those that did and those that did not."

"Their devolved forms are their reward for treachery," Deathfang continues. "They have bound themselves to this world and will die with it. I do not blame the younger races for embracing the Winds, they are no more or less than what they have been made to be. But dragons should know better. They should be better."

"It's a sensitive subject," Asarnil says solemnly.

"Sensitive subject," Deathfang echoes. "Human, have you met any Druchii? Would you like to boast of it to Asarnil?"

"Once, actually," you say, and two heads turn towards you. "I mean, he was only conscious for a few seconds after I met him. Then I put him under Mockery of Death and delivered him to a Nagarythian."

"A proper response," Asarnil says with a grin.

"Would that you did the same to this Cython," Deathfang grumbles.

"Is the Expedition feeding the two of you?" you ask, partly curious after your conversation with Borek and partly to change the subject.

"We procure our own provisions," Asarnil says with a sniff, "and I have enough with me to last the journey. When we arrived in the Old World, we very quickly learned not to rely on our employers for sustenance. I have seen feasts thrown by human kings that would make an Asur pauper weep with shame if they fed them to their beasts."

"If necessary, it will be little hardship to fast from here to there and back," Deathfang says. "But I've found there are very few places on this continent where you cannot find something to kill and eat."

"Fresh meat roasted in dragonfire is one of the world's greatest delicacies," Asarnil says with a nod. "We've discussed the possibility of hunting food for the rest of the Expedition with Borek." He looks ahead musingly. "I might offer a discount if it's in the eastern mountains. It's been quite some time since we fought a Rhinox."

"Have you ever been into the Chaos Wastes?"

Asarnil shakes his head. "I was chasing Yhetees in Troll Country not long ago, and I've fought in Sylvania and Mousillon and Norsca. And I've been to the Blighted Isle, which I understand to be the Chaos Wastes in miniature. But no, not this deep. I'm quite looking forward to a new fight."

"IX, 189. The collapse of the Great Bastion," Deathfang says with a yawn.

"Cathay?" Asarnil says with a frown. "Surely not. The reign of Morvael the Impetuous was spent in war with the Witch King. We played no part in Cathay's affairs."

"Asur played no part," Deathfang corrects, carefully pulling a very large pillow over to him with his huge claws and resting his head on it.

Asarnil shakes his head fondly. "Dragons and their secrets."

You refrain from commenting.

---

As the day draws to an end and the convoy approaches the final encampment position before entering High Pass itself, there's a new figure amongst the normal handful of Knights and Demigryphs standing watch over it and the expected caravan of supplies from Sepukzy. Sitting on a rock in the middle of the clearing is the Ice Witch Ljiljana, the eldest of the four you met in the city of Kislev. When the Alriksson comes to a halt, you're happy to see that Borek has reached the right conclusion and is the first to be disembarking the steam-wagon, and thanks to some quick translocation you're the second.

"Greetings," Borek says as he approaches her. "I am Borek Forkbeard, Thane of this Expedition. This is Loremaster Mathilde Weber of Karak Eight Peaks."

"Dzień dobry. I am Ljiljana of the Hromada Ledyanoy Ved'ma. I have been the one writing to you in letters." She nods to you. "And you, I met in person previously." She waves a hand at the entrance to the mountain pass. "Belyevobota, clear as the Goromadny Prospekt, as promised."

"Indeed. Karag Dum is in your debt."

"Karak Kadrin is in our debt," she replies. "Our agreement?"

"Gyrocopter scouts will be monitoring the pass. The first part of the payment will be sent if it is still open in one week, the second if it is still open in two months."

She nods. "The Krasnoludy are always reliable. Then we go into the Za." She glares up at the nearest steam-wagon.

"You may have your pick of the steam-wagons to travel upon. Loremaster Weber is staying aboard the Volans if you wish to be amongst Wizards."

"With the Bachór Charodei? Nie. I will stay with the," she waves a hand at the nearby Knights, "leshiye towarzysz. Kovnik Joerg is sensible." She nods as if that settles everything and walks away.

"Do widzenia," Borek says to her departing back, and then he turns to give the Pass a thoughtful look.

"There's an odd match," you say as you watch Ljiljana make her way over to the Magnus. "Though I suppose Taal could be seen as a forested equivalent to the Ancient Widow. What was that she called them? Leshi..."

"Leshiye towarzysz." He considers it for a moment. "Forest Knights, sort of."

"She's definitely got seniority, so I suppose it shows that the Ice Witches are taking this seriously."

He shrugs. "It was always Karak Vlag that dealt with them. I can get by in Gospodarinyi, but I don't know their people and culture much. We just focused on staying connected with the Karaz Ankor. Hopefully the Knights can keep her out of trouble."

"Hopefully," you echo.

---

The four with the most votes will be chosen.

Spend time getting to know:
[ ] Thane Borek Forkbeard
[ ] Head Engineer Gotrek Gurnisson
[ ] 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
[ ] Hunting
- With both the Knights and the Wolves
[ ] Foraging
- With the Rangers

Other:
[ ] Visit the former site of Karak Vlag


- There will be a one hour moratorium.
- If there's another way you think Mathilde could usefully apply her time, let me know.
- Extremely rough sketch of the steam-wagons, for visualization purposes:

Spoiler: Steam-Wagon

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Voting results

[*] Ice Crone Ljiljana
[*] Visit the former site of Karak Vlag
[*] Magister Michel Solmann
[*] Head Engineer Gotrek Gurnisson

Tally

The Ice Witch Ljiljana gives every indication that she'll be hard to get along with and even harder to get to know, but considering you're promised to a steppe heist alongside her at some point in the coming weeks, it's at least worth a try. So one evening as the armed steam-wagons circle protectively around the Urmskaladrak and a meal of steamed goat and Ungol-style dumplings is distributed, you make your way over to the part of the clearing dominated by lounging Demigryphs, pausing to give a scratch to the back of the head of Esbern's. Ljiljana sits at the fore of the Magnus, unperturbed by the biting wind that still has some of the nip of winter left in it and munching on a dumpling.

"Mathilde," she finally says as she finishes off the dumpling and takes a swig from a leather flask. "Come to feel the wind in your hair?"

"I was hoping you could tell me more of my obligation for this thawed pass."

"Will tell you what I know, when I know," she says with a wave of her hand. "Must taste the wind, feel the dirt, speak to the stones."

"You don't know who has whatever it is?"

She clicks her tongue. "If I cannot find it, your debt is clear. That is how sure I am that I will know."

"Can you tell me what it is, at least?"

She looks up and down the pass. "The Widow is strong here. Very well. We seek the Za-Goblet."

You frown, thinking. "Can't say I've heard of it."

"Yha, Imperinyi have luxury of not knowing. Kurgan drink from goblet, become stronger, sometimes become daemons. Goblet breaks. Goblet found elsewhere. More Kurgan drink, and on and on. So we take goblet, Ved'ma guard goblet, nobody drinks, never breaks, never found again."

You frown. "Sounds like a dangerous artefact to be transporting."

"My problem. The Ancient Widow may protect, and if not," she shrugs. "I am old. Soon I join the winter."

It's a ruthless point of view, but you can see the sense to it. Taking an endless supply of daemonic transformations from the Kurgan would be worth a lot more than a single life to their future enemies. "Are you getting along with the Knights?"

She grins. "Like those of Ursun, but with better manners and metal skin. And Joerg remembers enough of the proper ways to be welcoming."

That could be a concern. If she manages to get hooks into the leader of the Knights of Taal's Fury, she could influence him in favour of pushing on if matters devolve to the point that the Expedition should be turning around. Still, you've got Esbern and Seija to keep an eye on him, and you've still got the Winter Wolves who will side with you if push comes to shove. And that reminds you: "will you fight alongside the Expedition between here and the Steppes?"

She tuts. "Would rather not. Save as much strength for the Za-Goblet as possible. But if I must, I must. No goblet if Expedition is destroyed." She tilts her head and looks at you thoughtfully. "A question for you, since you have so many for me. You serve the Trickster, yha?"

Apparently not very well if she already knows that. "I do."

"A message, then. Tell Him that the Widow may be willing to forgive, and that He should send a representative to discuss."

You feel a sliver of wary attention turn your way. "I take it He'll know how to go about that?"

"Yha. Friends in common, you could say."

"I'll pass it along." No need to tell her that He already heard.

You've received answers to the most pressing questions you had, and you get the impression you're unlikely to make much further headway with her, so you thank her for your time and make your way back to the Volans before the dumplings get cold.

---

You find Magister Michel playing card games with the trio of Light Journeymanlings, and lurk nearby until the game concludes. Michel jumps quite gratifyingly as you slide into the chair opposite him, almost dropping the cards he had been regathering. "Good evening, Magister Solmann."

"Good evening, Lady Magister," he says, rallying. "Care to join me for a hand or two?"

"Gamble against a Celestial?" you say dubiously.

"Yes, that's the usual reaction," he says with a sigh. "Haven't had a good game of Trionfi or Reversin in months. What can I do for you?"

"For starters, keep the stakes low with the others. I don't want bad blood amongst the Wizards of this Expedition."

"Won't go beyond coppers."

"I also wanted to know if you could shed any more light on what Magister Matriarch Stossel is concerned about."

He shrugs. "Even if I knew anything more - and I don't - I probably wouldn't be able to tell you. The future isn't set in stone, so if you get a glimpse of it and act too dramatically to try to alter it, you could change the future too much for the glimpse you got to be any help to you. You can stack the deck," he says with a smile as he ruffles the cards in his hand, "but you can't change the game."

You frown thoughtfully at that. A bit like having a spy inside the enemy camp, you suppose. If you act too obviously on their information, you could give away that you have that information. "That makes sense. I don't like it, but it makes sense."

"And I suppose while I'm putting my cards on the table..."

You sigh. "Must you?"

He grins unrepentantly. "It's hoped that I'll have an opportunity to see the Ice Witch in action. Weather is part of Azyr, but it's underutilized compared to our study of the future and the stars. We're not looking to steal secrets, just to garner a bit of inspiration. It's unlikely any of the inner workings would be directly transferrable, anyway."

"Not quite Arcane, not quite Divine," you say with a nod.

"Closer to Elementalists than anything else, if I had to guess."

"She's said she'll contribute if we come under major attack, so you might have your chance. Is that why it's you that's here, instead of anyone else?"

"If all goes well, I'll have enough goodwill banked that I'll be able to try to develop some new applications for Azyr. I hope to give the Jades some competition for the agrarian sector - they can only bring forth water on a very small scale, whereas an induced storm might be able to water an entire barony's worth of farmland."

"That's a useful ambition," you say with a nod. "Have you had a chance to talk to Hubert?"

"I have. He's... somewhat single-minded, but his skill with Lightning Bolt surpasses my own. I've been giving him a few tips on Wind Blast in the evenings, considering how well he's taken to Wings of Heaven he should be able to wield it quite well by any standard, let alone that of a Journeyman."

"I'm glad. Thank you." You look at Solmann thoughtfully. "What did you do for your journeying?"

"I fought alongside the Drakwald Patrols in Hochland, mostly minor skirmishes with Forest Goblins and Beastmen. Waaagh and Peace was a great help in the last year of my Journeying, by the way. I also assisted with the administration of the College of Sorcery in Hergig."

"Oh? My former Master was up there a few years back, pursuing a Tzaangor through the Middle Mountains."

"Would this be Magister Regimand?" You nod. "I met him a time or two. Never got to fight alongside him personally, but the information he left us when he was done kept us busy for a year."

"Small world," you say with a smile. "I'm glad we were able to talk, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you learned in Hochland." You slide four aces across the table towards him, and he frowns at them and starts rifling through the deck in his hands. When he looks up again, you're gone.

"Greys," you hear him say with a sigh, and you smile as you slip away.

---

As the Expedition approaches the halfway point of High Pass, you join Snorri and a group of his Rangers who are making a detour to check on Karak Vlag - not in the expectation that they'll find anything, but out of the obligation to try anyway while they're here. The road is surprisingly rough for one leading to the former site of a Dwarfhold, and you're told by the Rangers that there had been a proper road that joined the one through High Pass, but it had disappeared with the Hold.

"What about nearby mines?" you ask.

"Gone too," Snorri says grimly. "But we've dug some exploratory shafts. The veins that Karak Vlag mined have not returned, but instead been replaced with solid rock."

"Solid," you echo. "So not simply caved in." He nods. "So that would mean that..."

"Whatever did it isn't playing silly buggers with time, it's playing silly buggers with us," Snorri finishes, to a rumble of anger from the other Rangers.

"Have any Wizards taken a look at it?"

"That Elgi Zhufi and some of his Umgi students, shortly after it disappeared."

You blink. "Teclis?"

"Aye. Said there wasn't a trace of whatever had caused it."

"Ah," you say, somewhat disappointed. You're rather proud of your Magesight and part of you was hoping you'd be able to spot what others had missed, but if Teclis and the founders of the Colleges had given it their scrutiny and found nothing, that's a pretty clear indication that there's nothing to find. Unless... well, when they visited it, the Great War Against Chaos had only just ended. This area would have been saturated in magical energy from the recent expansion of the Chaos Wastes. Almost two centuries later, perhaps things would be clear enough that you could see what even Volans couldn't.

When you finally reach your destination, you can see why the Dwarves would have chosen this place for one of their original Holds. The peaks that frame the approach would have been trivial to carve watchtowers into and the sheer cliff-face that the path terminates at would have been the natural place to carve an entrance and, eventually, to place its famous outer gates, which had been inscribed with scenes of the founding Dwarves exterminating the terrible beasts that made their homes in nearby caves. Instead of that great entrance, there's a single sad excavation barely tall enough to admit a Dwarf that gives up barely a few meters in. You wonder if this was an aborted attempt to start from scratch, or someone desperately hoping that Karak Vlag still existed under an external layer of rock.

Snorri glares at the cliff-face. "It's not right," he says. "No songs to sing of their doomed defence, no occupied hold to retake. Just removed, with nothing left but fading memories."

You put his words out of mind and focus. Stone is an excellent insulator of magic, and normally trying to see magic through this much stone would be a fool's errand, no matter how keen their magical senses. But you're not trying to see a spell or a magical being through stone, you're seeking something much, much larger. You know that the Old Holds of the Karaz Ankor form a Waystone network that funnels magical energy to Karaz-a-Karak, and that includes - or included - Karak Vlag and Karag Dum. If either of those two nodes on the network remain...

You vaguely hear one of the Rangers ask something, only for Snorri to hush him. You let your eyes slide out of focus as you turn all your attention to the magic around you. All you can see at first is Azyr high above. You redouble your concentration. You can see birds of prey flying overhead, faint dots of Ghur among the Azyr. Patches of Ghyran in the hardy shrubs and mosses dotting the stone around you. The extremely faint hint of something alien yet familiar that emanates from Dwarves. Below you is blank, but it's blankness that's deepening as you focus your concentration down, blocking out everything but the stone.

And finally, you see it. Like a faint star you can only see when you're not looking directly at it, a tiny string of energy far below, one end frayed as the magical energy reaches its destination and finds nothing there to redirect it further south, and instead spills into the stone. At the point where those magics are being grounded the ambient energies must be so high that any creature there would be wracked by terrible mutation, but stone is hardier than that, and it simply radiates the energies until they're so diffused that they're harmless by the time they reach anything that could react to it. Stone is an excellent insulator of magic.

You frown, peering at the faint tendril. Sure, stone is an excellent insulator of magic, but-

That's the third time you've thought that exact phrase.

"How does stone interact with magic?" you ask, as if thinking aloud.

"I don't know much about it, but I do know stone is an excellent insulator of magic," Snorri says. "That's why we build our Holds underground."

Dwarves wouldn't normally say that. 'Insulator' puts the focus on the magic, not the stone. Dwarves consider themselves to have the nature of stone, and they'd say stone resists or repels or endures magic. It's a defensive phrase, a weaponized cliche. A tiny fragment of radiated information meant to mislead.

Stone is not that excellent an insulator of magic. After almost two centuries of constant bombardment, even stone would be affected, but it isn't. Ergo that magic isn't being radiated, it's being used. You try to do the mental calculations for what could be done with that amount of power multiplied by one hundred and eighty-five years, and quickly realize that the better question is what couldn't be done, and that's a damn short list. Also short is the list of beings that would be capable of shaping that amount of power, and damn near every entry on it is Chaos-aligned. The word 'portal' comes uncomfortably to mind. And then you realize that whatever original objective this gambit might have had, the Ice Witches going to the trouble of scouring High Pass clean of snow would have announced that some sort of very important target of opportunity would be approaching.

So in summary, someone is doing something with a lot of magic, and the 'someone' is almost certainly Chaos, and the 'something' is almost certainly bad, and the Ancient Widow has announced that there's an excellent target for that badness trundling down the pass this season. You hold your pose of concentration and consider what your next move should be.



[ ] Act normal
- There might be unfriendly eyes on you. Pretend you didn't see anything and return to the Expedition as normal, and decide what to do from there.
[ ] Run like hell
- Every second could count. Return to the Expedition as fast as magic will allow and raise the alarm.
[ ] Stand your ground
- Snorri has a horn, you have Illusion to make the same sound except louder. Asarnil can be here within a couple of minutes, and the Knights soon after that. Stand your ground and if it does anything, you might be able to disrupt it.
[ ] Other (write in)


- There will be a one hour moratorium.
- As this occurred just over halfway along High Pass, Mathilde has not spoken to Gotrek yet.
- The conversation with Ljiljana was originally posted here.

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Voting results

[*] Stand your ground

Tally

For a moment you're torn between bluffing and standing, but in the end you decide against ceding the initiative to whatever it is you're facing. The clearing of the pass announced loud and clear that a juicy target of opportunity would be coming, and right now that target is about a mile away. Either it's winding up to strike, in which case facing it down here and now is preferable to giving it space to work whatever evil it has in store, or it's got another target in mind, in which case it needs careful study so you know who to send a warning to.

"Snorri, call for reinforcements."

To his credit, it only takes him a moment to reach for the horn on his hip and after a moment to inhale, he blows a long, deep note out of it. You listen carefully to the tone, and weave an Illusion to duplicate and amplify the note, until it's loud enough that pebbles on the path below you start to rattle.

"Why do we need them?" he asks as the last echoes of it die away, hefting his war-hammer and looking around warily.

"There's some powerful magic occurring deep in the mountain," you say. "And there's very few possible scenarios I can think of where that's not very bad."

"You think it's targeted at the Expedition?"

"I think it's likely. The Ice Witches rang the dinner bell when they cleared the pass. Whatever's doing it, it knows that something major is happening."

"And we just told it that you know that it knows."

You smile grimly. "We did."

[Rolling...]

You heft your staff warily, trying to watch the entire mountain at once while Snorri barks out quick orders to the Rangers, who spread out to different firing positions, crossbows at the ready. In the back of your mind you're trying to make guesses as to what's going on back at the steam-wagons. How long would it take someone to tell Asarnil the significance of the horn? How long would it take him to don his armour, for Deathfang to get aloft? Seconds pass in silence while you wait for something to happen, either to your fore or your rear.

[Rolling...]
[Observation: Learning, 4+28=32.]

In your defence, stone is an excellent insulator of magic. By the time you spot the delicate flow of energies running down hidden channels they've almost reached the surface, and you barely have time to yell a warning and level your staff before the ripple of changing reality comes into sight. In an instant the bare stone face is gone, replaced with the massive entrance to the dwarfhold of Karak Vlag, only scraps of steel hanging from hinges showing where the great gates once were. You have to catch yourself as the ground beneath you falls away, replaced with Dwarven roadworks several inches lower than the bare rock was, and behind you Rangers shout and swear as the boulders and outcroppings they were taking cover behind move or disappear. You take your eyes away from the open gates for just a moment to glance behind you, and sure enough, the watchtowers carved into the mountaintops have been restored.

[Temptation: Piety, 89+26+10(Avatar)=125.]

Though you almost missed the first wave, the second wave is one you notice immediately, roiling out of the darkness inside the gates. You brace yourself as it crashes over you, and for just a moment a bewildering array of sense-memories leave you reeling. But you know exactly where you are and what you are doing, so you shrug off the sound of a crackling fire and the sensation of cold water on bare skin and focus on the stone beneath your feet, the staff in your hand, and the gates before your eyes. There's movement inside the gate, and as soon as you register the height of the nearest figure and the litheness of its movements you begin to fold Ulgu into familiar patterns. When the first figure emerges it has only a moment in the sunlight before a barrage of Shadow Knives catch it in the chest, but the purple-pink tinge of the humanoid figure's flesh - and there's very little concealing that flesh - tells you all that you need to know. Karak Vlag is in the grip of the Tempter.

[Pistol: Martial, 45+23=68.]
[Magic: Learning, 45+28=73.]
[Rangers: Martial, 10+20=30.]

"Daemons!" you yell as you draw your pistol and form another volley of Shadow Knives, but only a single bolt joins your first shot and though the second Daemonette out of the gates falls, the four alongside her continue advancing on legs with too many joints, screaming in anger and anticipation, raising whips and knives and talons and claws as they charge.

[Mathilde receives charge: Martial, 10+23+10(Master Swordswoman)=43 vs 7+30=37.]
[Snorri receives charge: Martial, 90+20=110 vs 48+30=78.]

The first catches a pistol shot in her chest as she leaps, but the moment it takes to release the gun and summon Branulhune is enough for the second to be on you, your sight filling with her empty eyes and needle teeth as her talons sink into your supernaturally hardened robes before you send her sprawling with a strike from the pommel. Beside you Snorri has already struck down one and is pummeling the reeling figure of another as he shouts orders at his Rangers. But the one you struck is already recovering, a long, sinuous tongue licking at the demonic blood spilling down her chin, and still more are moving inside the Karak.

[Rangers: 46+20-20(entranced)=46.]
[Mathilde countercharge: 93+23+10(Master Swordswoman)=126 vs 67+30=97.]
[Snorri countercharge: 65+20=85 vs 16+30=46.]

The twang of a crossbow indicates that the Rangers are not completely out of the fight, but you don't have time to gauge how much as you're already swinging Branulhune at the recovering Daemonette, and her attempt to catch the blade with her clawed hands does not go as she probably planned, as it passes straight through the hand and then straight through her torso as well, sending two halves and several fragments splattering across the ground. With Snorri beside you you meet the next wave of daemons right at the gates, and in the close confines it should be impossible for them to evade your blade. That proves correct, but only just - the daemons are unnaturally fast and flexible, and one tries to leap over your blade as another bends backwards in a way that shouldn't be possible for any being with a spine. More daemonic blood spills, and for a moment the survivors are pushed back, reassessing their odds against these foes.

You don't like that. You'd much rather they keep mindlessly charging into your blade, instead of thinking and planning and allowing more of their number to emerge from the depths of the lost Karak. But time is much more your ally than theirs, as somewhere behind you there is a thunderous roar and a cry of "Wahnil!"

[Disengage: 46+23+10(Master Swordswoman)=79 vs 24+30=54.]

It takes the daemons a fraction of a second to react when you and Snorri withdraw from the entrance, but it's a fraction of a second too long, because with an earth-shaking crunch of shattering stone, Deathfang lands between the two of you. A dagger bounces off one of the dragon's horns with a soft tink, and then all becomes fire.

---

In the time it takes for the rest of the Expedition's notables to make their way to you, Snorri does a lot of shouting at his Rangers, Asarnil does a lot of pouting that Deathfang didn't even try to save any of them for him, and you do a lot of glaring at the bare cliff-face that has once more replaced the entranceway. You might wonder if it had been some sort of hallucination if it weren't for a couple of things: the road and the watchtowers are still where they're supposed to be, and in the magic-thick aftermath of an entire Karak appearing and disappearing again, the bodies of the Daemonettes remain where they lie, their blood slowly boiling away into free-floating magic.

With several lines of on-edge Knights and a thick firing line of Dwarves watching where the entrance should be like hawks, you confer with the rest of the Council. "Not an assault force," is your conclusion to them. "It took them time to emerge, and they did so in dribs and drabs. Whatever power is in control here, it was trying to swat me after it realized I had seen enough to be suspicious. When it realized the scale of the response, it pulled back again - and hastily too, because the exterior parts of it are still here. I'd bet the mines are restored, too."

"It answers a lot of questions," Snorri says. "Karak Vlag was taken into the realm of daemons."

You nod. "And they retain the power to return it, with whatever cargo they desire. A back door into reality."

Borek nods. "Very well. This changes little. We move with caution and keep all forces close to the steam-wagons, as we planned to in Zorn Uzkul."

"Changes little? A lost Hold is right there!" Snorri says, pointing at the cliff face.

Borek shrugs. "Okay. Go reclaim it."

Snorri looks at it, then to you questioningly. You shake your head. "If I had my equipment, and my books, and a few other Wizard Lords, and preferably Kragg or Thorek, I might be able to try to yank it back out after a few months of study. But with what I have here and now? No."

"And we're too few for a reclamation," Gotrek says. "Same argument as the one we've been having over Karag Dum. If it's been taken by the enemy, we do not have the strength to retake it."

"And for once I agree," Borek says. "We'll send word to Kislev for them to keep a wary eye on High Pass, and a letter to the Dwarven ambassador there to tell Karaz-a-Karak what we have learned. That's all we can do."

"Is there a chance Karak Vlag still holds?" Ruprecht asks. "The gates have fallen, but I know enough of Dwarfholds to know that would not have been the only line of defence."

"What I know of Karak Vlag says aye," Snorri says, "but I know too little of the tainted realm to speculate."

All eyes turn to you, and you consider it. "It's impossible to speculate," you eventually decide. "We know very little of the Aethyr, but what we do know suggests that what we consider to be constants of reality are very variable there. Their defences could have held, or they could have been soft as snow and melted just as easily. It could have been two centuries for them, or two years, or two millennia. They could have all turned to stone as soon as they were drawn into the Aethyr, or their Hold's Runes against Chaos could still be holding."

"Daemonettes are the soldiers of She Who Thirsts," Joerg says thoughtfully. "If they had occupied it, there would be guards at the gate. If they had taken it and exhausted what entertainment they could, it would be empty. They weren't guarding, but they were ready for battle. That could indicate a besieging force surprised by a foe to the rear."

"Or squatters in a fallen Hold, no different than the rats or greenskins," Borek says.

"Is there anything that can be done, here and now?" Ruprecht asks you.


[ ] Waystone Clog
- Deliberately block the next Waystone upstream to prevent the energy from Karag Dum reaching Karak Vlag, hopefully interrupting the effect keeping it in the Warp.
[ ] Waystone Interruption
- Have Cyrston channel as much magic out of the leyline feeding Karak Vlag as possible, hopefully interrupting the effect keeping it in the Warp.
[ ] Light Chorus
- Have the Light Wizards work together to try to reach and interfere with the magic keeping Karak Vlag in the Warp.
[ ] Other (write in)
[ ] No



- There will be a two hour moratorium.
- Yes, you rolled 45 twice in a row, that wasn't an error.
- There is no obvious way to do anything about Karak Vlag here and now, which is why there's no default 'Yes' answer. But I'm open to the thread exploring non-obvious ways.
- Any answer but 'no' will result in the Expedition remaining here until the Karak Vlag situation is resolved.

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Voting results

[*] Waystone Clog

Tally

You give it some thought, and spot another way you could come at it. "There's a lot of magical power being sucked up into where the Karak was," you say, avoiding any explicit mention of the Waystones. "That would be how they're able to move it back and forth. If they'd just swallowed it up they wouldn't be able to do that, but this way they can use it as a backdoor into reality."

"It's the sort of thing they do," Ruprecht says. "The beginning of the Great War Against Chaos was marked by a daemonic assault from within Nuln."

"And a lost Dwarfhold returning as a daemonic stronghold is the sort of sick joke they enjoy," Joerg agrees, to scowls from the Dwarves.

"If I interrupt that power supply," you continue, "it would cut short the effect. I believe that would result in Karak Vlag returning permanently to reality."

"You believe," Borek echoes. "The other possibility being that it is lost permanently?"

"That's possible too," you admit, "but it's the less likely of the possibilities. From what little I understand of the Aethyr, for it to still be able to move back and forth after so long an absence would indicate that the Hold itself is acting as an anchor."

"Even in the worst case scenario, we rob Chaos of a major avenue of attack," Snorri says.

"And any survivors are doomed to Chaos," Gotrek points out.

"They're already lost. I'm sure they'd rather their Hold be snatched back from the realm of daemons than it be lost with them."

"How long would it take to return?" Borek asks.

"Depends on the exact nature of the magic at work. It could be instant, or it could take some time - hours or days. But no longer than that. If they maintained their grip on it with magic from the Aethyr, it would have eroded its ability to return long ago," you reply.

"Can they reverse whatever it is you're doing that would cut off the power?" Joerg asks.

"I'd be doing so at a point to the north, they would need to reverse it at the same place. And with the magic cut off, it would no longer be pointing the way - it would take me months of scouring the mountains to find the correct point if I didn't have it to guide me."

"Once they're returned, any daemons within it would not have long before they begin to decay," Joerg says thoughtfully. "No storm of magic, and the Chaos Wastes are not currently waxing. And there's no population centers nearby for them to capture for sacrifices. Two days, three if Morrslieb is full."

Snorri thinks for a moment. "About a hundred miles to Novchozy, but that's in a direct line over mountains. A hundred and fifty to Sepukzy if they follow the Pass and then cut through the Dukhlys Forest. Two hundred to Volksgrad if they follow the road."

"If unimpeded, they may be able to make it to Volksgrad," Joerg admits. "They'd have enough cunning to know if they follow the road, they'll find people eventually."

"How large a force are we talking about?" Borek asks warily.

Eyes turn to you, and you shrug. "If they are still besieging inhabitants, they could react to what has just happened by redoubling their assault, or they could pull back while they consider what just happened. If it's fully taken and waiting for use as a new access point to reality, there might only be a few daemons standing guard over it, or using it as a home while it's not in use - the forces of the Tempter would be focused on defending it from the other Chaos Gods, the forces for which would be on the outside. If it's the work of a single ambitious Daemon rather than the orders of the Tempter, then they and their followers would likely be calling it home."

"Could we barricade the entrance before it returns?" Ruprecht asks. "Trap them inside and wait for them to decay?"

Snorri shakes his head. "Dwarfholds have many hidden entrances to prevent that tactic from being used against us, and they are not hidden from the inside. The Daemons would be able to find them, and we would not."

"Them spilling out of the main entrance rather than slipping out some hidden exit would be to our advantage," Gotrek says thoughtfully. "We could bring up the steam-wagons and build an enfilade of broadsides."

"We can't risk the steam-wagons," Borek says instantly. "If all goes wrong, they will be our only method of withdrawal. If this is to be done, we can shift the guns to positions around the entrance."

"If they cannot reverse the blockage of magical energies, their only other alternative is to find people to sacrifice," Joerg says. "If we fortify a chokepoint to the west of here, we have almost as advantageous a position as if we besieged the entrance, with the added possibility of them heading east or deeper into the mountains and dissipating harmlessly."

"Could your Knights not harass them to slow them down enough that they cannot reach the people of Kislev?" Borek asks. "It would mean much less risk to the future of the Expedition."

"We could, though there would be a chance that a fraction of them will slip through. If it happens it would be a small enough force that Kislevite authorities would likely be able to deal with it before too much damage is done."

"Any slipping through would be a failure," Ruprecht disagrees. "We would have the blood of their victims on our hands."

"Could Kislev not deal with it?" Borek asks. "Mathilde, you are able to move swiftly when necessary, are you not?"

"I am," you say.

"So we have her take a message west to warn Kislevite authorities, then she goes to perform her magic, then catches up to us partway through the Zorn Uzkul. Is this a possibility?"

You consider it. It would mean having to observe the Karak until the magic dissipates and the Waystone can be safely unclogged, but you're mobile enough on your Shadowsteed to be able to easily catch up after doing so. "It is."

"Hardly the stuff of songs," Ruprecht says.

"Leaving an empty Dwarfhold in our wake does not sit well with me," Snorri says.

"If we can snatch two Dwarfholds instead of one from the forces of Chaos, it is our responsibility to do so," Ruprecht says.

As the debate goes on, it becomes clear that things are split fairly evenly between the different possibilities. Snorri wants to meet the Daemons head-on, Gotrek wants to fight from a fortified position or not at all, Borek wants to minimize risk to the steam-wagons, Joerg is drawn to the more pragmatic ideas, and Ruprecht favours going all-in on wiping out the daemons. Though Borek is in command of the Expedition, you're fairly sure he's too canny to dictate a response that the majority of his council is against. It looks like you're in a position to tip the scales, once you decide which way you want them to tip.


Argue in favour of:

[ ] Fortify the Karak entrance with the steam-wagons.
Ruprecht, Snorri, and Gotrek are in favour of this idea.
[ ] Fortify the Karak entrance, but keep the steam-wagons disengaged.
Joerg, Gotrek and Borek are in favour of this idea.
[ ] Fortify the road to Kislev to keep the Daemons isolated from population centers.
Joerg, Ruprecht, and Snorri are in favour of this idea.
[ ] Harass the Daemons with cavalry to slow them down enough that they cannot reach population centers in time.
Joerg, Gotrek, and Borek are in favour of this idea.
[ ] Send a warning west, clog the Waystone, and move on.
Joerg, Gotrek, and Borek are in favour of this idea.
[ ] Other (write in)


- There will be a one hour moratorium.
- Any of the fortify plans will take about a day to set up.
- Writing in an idea may or may not succeed; consider the positions supported by the other Councillors to decide whether they're likely to be in favour of a new idea.