"We don't know what the daemons will know," you say, interrupting the circular conversation. "If the intention of whatever power we're opposing here is opportunistic, it's possible they spill out of there with a map, a packed lunch and a chapbook, and will beeline straight for civilization. But if they're still besieging the Dwarves of Karak Vlag, or if the intention was to join the next Everchosen, it could be that they will be completely ignorant of what part of reality they will find themselves in. If we fortify the entrance, that doesn't matter as they'll run into us anyway, but if we fortify a ways to the west, there's a not inconsiderable chance that some or possibly even all will head east, or scatter into the mountains."
"I thought daemons were supposed to be a fragment of the greater power," Ruprecht says doubtfully. "Surely they would not lack for knowledge."
"Connection does not necessarily imply pooled knowledge," you say. "For instance, take my familiar, Wolf, back at the Karak. He is as much a part of me as daemons are a part of their God. But even if he were here, I would not know what he had for breakfast unless I made an effort to find out, and at this distance I have no way of knowing at all. The Dark Gods would be much more able to talk to their servants, but the deciding factor here is whether they would bother. Distraction or whim could have the Tempter's attention elsewhere."
"Not all prayers are answered," Joerg says with a nod.
"It surrenders the initiative," Gotrek says, "and our flanks would be much more exposed than if we kept them bottled up."
"Against the forces of the Violent, I would agree, but the Tempter is much more likely to try alternate methods when the obvious fails. Watching the main gates is no guarantee that they would not seek egress elsewhere."
There's a lull in the conversation as glances begin to go sideways at Borek, who is frowning, lost in his thought. "So many have put so much towards the attempt to reclaim my own home," he says at last, "that I cannot justify not doing the same for Karak Vlag. Karag Dum would rather be lost than inherit the shame I would bring them if I did not try."
"Well said," Snorri says, to nods from around the room. Then a map is unrolled and the Expedition begins to plan the defence of High Pass.
---
"As the rumour mill has probably informed you all by now," you say to the Wizards under your command upon the deck of the Volans, "Karak Vlag made a brief reappearance earlier today, expelling several lesser daemons of the Tempter. Before we go on, does anyone not know what I mean by that?" You get silence in response, thankfully. You'd have very stern words to pass along to their College if any of the Wizards here had not had at least a basic briefing in the Chaos Gods. "This would suggest that the Karak was being kept with ties to both realms to act as a go-between, either for targets of opportunity or to wait for the next Asavar Kul. They saw me having a poke at it, and took a swipe at me without realizing there was a dragon within hornblowing distance. Having seen the mechanism in action, I believe I have a way to interfere with it."
Thoughtful looks appear on the faces of those present, as they should when someone suggests they can put a spoke in the wheel of the Chaos Gods. "Couldn't that result in the Karak being stuck forever in the Aethyr?" Max asks.
"It could, and if that happens, then it's no worse off than it was yesterday and the entire Old World is better off with one less avenue of daemonic reinforcement for the next Great War. But my theory is that it would be anchored here in reality, and the magical energy it's absorbing is maintaining that anchor. Otherwise it would require less passive power, but much, much more power to move it back and forth."
Egrimm nods. "Direct translation from the Aethyr to reality requires either the borders between the two to be extremely thin, or a huge amount of power to be expended. The forces of Chaos greatly prize ways around this. That's why they spend so much effort creating and spreading Cults, to act as relays for their will and anchors for their true servants, and why it's so important for them to be hunted and destroyed."
"So if all goes to plan, tomorrow I will travel to interrupt their power supply-" you see several mouths opening, "-the details of which lie in both College and Dwarven secrets, so don't even ask. If all goes to plan, Karak Vlag will be severed from the Aethyr and return to reality, and the daemons caught in it will spill forth and either dash themselves to pieces upon our defences," you gesture at the already-formidable stone barricades blocking the road below, "or head east and spill out into the Zorn Uzkul. They won't have long before reality erodes them, and their only hope of extending that timer is finding some easy targets to capture and sacrifice, so we'll be keeping them from Kislev."
"And the only targets for that in the Zorn Uzkul are the you-know-whos or, uh, the other you-know-whos," Cyrston says.
"Which is a win for us, as far as I'm concerned. For those of you who can't fill in the second blank, I'll tell you if it becomes important. Now, the tricky part between us and the reclamation of a Dwarfhold is that it means withstanding daemonic assault for up to three days. The Tempter is..." You consider your words for a moment. "Well, each of the Four is horrible in their own special ways, but the Tempter is called that for a reason. If at any time you doubt in your ability to withstand what you might be offered, there will be no dishonour and no censure in withdrawing at the first opportunity. Better to fight only half a battle than to go against the Tempter with a chink in your armour." You can see resolution on the faces of the Wizards to not need to accept this offer, and you can only hope they change their mind if they find themselves tempted. "Has anyone here faced Daemons before?"
Nods from Esbern and Seija, which makes sense - the Knights of Taal's Fury oppose Chaos in all its forms, not just Beastmen. Egrimm nods too, and Citharus and Timpania raise hesitant hands. "Do Apparitions count?" Michel asks.
"That's a complicated question, but for the purposes of this conversation, no," you say. "Very well. The bulk of the enemy forces will be what is usually known as Daemonettes. Physically they appear largely humanoid, with pinkish-purple skin, hooved or taloned feet, and sometimes horns. They're typically armed with short blades, whips, and sometimes have claws instead of hands. They're no more durable than human opponents but they are superhumanly fast, so I wouldn't recommend locking blades with them if you can avoid it. They're also..." you mentally reword the coming sentence a few times, "distracting in appearance, and dressed in little or no clothing. In this context they're more likely to try to kill than lure, but it's still something to be aware of. Even if you don't think you'd be tempted by that sort of being, their nature makes it very easy to overlook what doesn't interest you and focus on what might.
"Some of them may be Seekers, which are Daemonettes mounted on daemonic Steeds that resemble a sort of featherless bird the size of a horse, but are faster than any mortal steed and have a long, whip-like tongue with poisoned saliva. And they may be accompanied by beings known as Fiends, which are said to be akin to a centaur, except they blend Daemonette and Steeds in the same way centaurs do a man and a horse. Their tails have a barb that delivers an extremely powerful sedative, and they're said to release an odour that numbs the body and slows reactions. Finally, there may be one or more Greater Daemons or Daemon Princes on the field. Their forms vary greatly, but they're almost always significantly larger than anything else that would be amongst the opposition. I would recommend extreme caution with these, and where possible, leave them to the big guns. Any questions?"
"Enemy spellcasters?" Michel asks.
"Some Daemonettes may be capable of wielding Chaos magic or Ulgu, as will any Daemon Princes or Greater Daemons. Anything else?" There appears to be nothing, and you nod. "Remember, this is Chaos we're dealing with. There might be unexpected or even previously unrecorded beings amongst them. Be ready and be flexible." And with that last warning, you unroll a copy of the plan the Council eventually reached and begin to explain it and hand out assignments.
The battlefield will be a flat plain about forty meters wide with steep edges to either side. There will be a line of hastily-built stone fortifications which will be held by the Rangers, who will fire at the first wave before falling back behind the Winter Wolves and the Slayers to hold the line behind them. Behind the fortifications will be the steam-wagons, which will be firing platforms for the cannon, shotcannon, Engineers, and Wizards. The Knights of Taal's Fury will be in the mountains to either side, ready to counter any flanking attempts or to flank the attackers if there are none; the Demigryphs are nimble enough to navigate this extremely rough terrain.
Lady Magister Mathilde:
[ ] MATHILDE: Counterspelling
[ ] MATHILDE: Fire support
[ ] MATHILDE: Fighting alongside the Winter Wolves
[ ] MATHILDE: Fighting alongside the Knights of Taal's Fury
[ ] MATHILDE: Seeking to attack the flanks of already-engaged enemies
[ ] MATHILDE: Seeking to physically attack enemy spellcasters and leaders
[ ] MATHILDE: Seeking to physically attack Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes
[ ] MATHILDE: Other (write in)
Asarnil and Deathfang:
[ ] ASARNIL: Use your best judgement
[ ] ASARNIL: Other (write in)
Magister Johann:
[ ] JOHANN: Use your best judgement
[ ] JOHANN: Fire support
[ ] JOHANN: Fighting alongside you
[ ] JOHANN: Other (write in)
Magister Max:
[ ] MAX: Counterspelling
[ ] MAX: Fire support
[ ] MAX: Other (write in)
Magister Esbern and Seija:
[ ] AMBERS: With the Knights of Taal's Fury
[ ] AMBERS: Fighting alongside you
[ ] AMBERS: Other (write in)
Journeyman Hubert:
[ ] HUBERT: With the Winter Wolves
[ ] HUBERT: Fighting alongside you
[ ] HUBERT: Other (write in)
Magister Egrimm and Journeymanlings Citharus, Barbitus, and Timpania:
[ ] LIGHTS: Counterspelling as a choir
[ ] LIGHTS: Counterspelling individually
[ ] LIGHTS: Fire support as a choir
[ ] LIGHTS: Fire support individually
[ ] LIGHTS: Other (write in)
Magister Michel
[ ] CELESTIAL: Counterspelling
[ ] CELESTIAL: Fire support
[ ] CELESTIAL: Other (write in)
Journeyman Cyrston
[ ] JADE: Counterspelling
[ ] JADE: Fire support
[ ] JADE: Other (write in)
Journeywoman Alexandra
[ ] BRIGHT: Counterspelling
[ ] BRIGHT: Fire support
[ ] BRIGHT: Other (write in)
- There will be a three hour moratorium. Voting for the Wizard assignments will be in plan format, while voting for Mathilde's place in the coming battle will not be in plan format. This means most votes will have two parts: the vote for Mathilde's part in the Expedition, and the vote for the plan they support for the rest of the Wizards.
- Assuming that the Karak returns immediately and the Daemons immediately head towards the Expedition at full speed, Mathilde will be returning to the Expedition from blocking the Waystone at about the same time as the Daemons will reach them.
- 'Fire support' means they will seek to do as much damage to the enemy as possible with their spells, while 'counterspelling' means they will try to disrupt enemy magics and attack any identified spellcasters. If no enemy spellcasters are seen to be present, they will default to cautious fire support.
- 'Use your best judgement' is only available to those who have proven their combat skills to Mathilde, or have been sufficiently vouched for. It's not available for Esbern and Seija since it would have the same result as placing them with the Knights of Taal's Fury.
- Only those Wizards who have ways to keep up with Mathilde on a Shadowsteed are able to accompany Mathilde in battle. They will engage in whatever fights Mathilde engages in.
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The Karag Dum Expedition, Part 8: The Battle of High Pass
[X] MATHILDE: Fire support
[X] Plan: Playing to Strengths, Heavy on the Counterspells
-[X] ASARNIL: Use your best judgement
-[X] JOHANN: Use your best judgement
-[X] MAX: Counterspelling
-[X] AMBERS: With the Knights of Taal's Fury
-[X] HUBERT: Fighting alongside you
-[X] LIGHTS: Fire support as a choir
-[X] CELESTIAL: Counterspelling
-[X] JADE: Counterspelling
-[X] BRIGHT: Fire support
Even though you have an exact compass heading to work with, finding the Waystone is still easier said than done. Most Waystones are either Elven monoliths or stone menhirs jutting out of the ground and are therefore very easy to spot even to those that can't see the magical suction siphoning the Winds from the air, but the Dwarven ones aren't quite so obvious to mundane or mystical senses. As far as you can tell they do not absorb Winds themselves, existing only to funnel the Winds absorbed by the great Karak-Waystones towards Karaz-a-Karak, and that power runs deep underground which makes it even harder to spot. It takes you, Johann and Hubert several hours to find your way to the Waystone, much of it spent with you in meditation as you try to catch a glimpse of the river of magical power far below you to confirm that you're still on course.
At last you come to a small mountain that at first glance seems no different to those surrounding it, but deep below the magical energies break from the perfectly straight line to turn more to the east. Close examination of the mountain itself reveals nothing; it's not until you move away and examine it from afar that the natural-seeming crags, cracks and gullies combine to form a massive Rune you don't recognize. The next step is to make your way to the peak, which would be no mean feat to those not capable of teleportation or flight, where the nature of the stone is somehow altered to allow for energy to pass through it without any loss of clarity or intensity. You place your hands upon it and recall the lessons you were taught of the ways the Colleges know to interact with them, and speak unfamiliar phrases while you form a construct you do not understand in your mind to funnel Ulgu into. When complete, the construct is accepted by the stone and sinks into the mountain, and after a minute a sickening lurch threatens to topple you off the mountain as you instinctively try to adjust for a movement that did not occur in the physical realm. Deep below, energy begins to pool like water behind a dam, except much more dangerous. Everything you know about magic screams at you to undo what you've just done, but better it gather threateningly here than to fuel the ambitions of the Chaos Gods.
With that done you descend from the mountain to return to Hubert and Johann and make your way back towards where the Expedition has fortified as quickly as possible, fretting over the number of variables in play and hoping everything goes according to plan.
Your return to the fortified position finds it just as you left it, except slightly more so because there's no such thing as an idle Dwarf when there are fortifications that can be improved. You check in on the Wizards, who are spread throughout the steam-wagons to prevent them from getting in each others' way when battle begins, make sure that everyone's still ready for battle, and settle down to wait.
Which lasts for about a couple of hours of nothing happening before you're asking Asarnil and Deathfang to provide overwatch while you pay a visit to the site of the Karak to double-check that power has been cut off. The trip there is uneventful and careful observation reveals that the flow of magical energy has indeed halted, but that's all the conclusion you can draw. Whatever result your actions will have are occurring in the Warp, not here. So you once more return to the fortifications to wait and fret.
Dusk comes, and night passes, and the next morning still nothing has happened, but there's a tension to the air, something akin to the sense of a thunderstorm about to break. Your Wizards feel it too, as does Asarnil, but the Dwarves don't, confirming this is on the mystical side of things. You pass on the information to the other Councillors, which at least keeps Borek from nudging for the Expedition to resume, and retake your position at the fore of the Volans, staring east along a stubbornly empty road and drumming your fingers on the rail.
The third day takes a while to register what has changed about it, but finally you notice what it is that's bothering you - the Winds are blowing west to east, instead of north to south. Or to be more exact, they're being drawn slightly south of eastwards. A jaunt on your Shadowsteed confirms that the center of this phenomenon is the site of the Karak, as whatever is controlling the magic tries to draw in enough ambient magic to replace the torrent from Karag Dum. A handful of pages of calculations later reveal that it's an effort destined to fall far short, and you smile in anticipation. The fortifications have grown truly formidable at this point, and you're starting to feel sorry for any daemonic force that tries to head west.
Finally, in the late morning of the third day, twelve Wizards, an Elf and a dragon wince in unison as a chunk of absent reality tears itself free from the Warp and sends aethyric shockwaves in all directions as it forcibly reasserts itself. Despite the waning throbbing in your temples, you smile. For something to be uncomfortable tens of miles away would have to have been agonizing to anyone with Magesight at the epicenter, and to a being made of Warpstuff... you could only speculate. You pass word along, a flag goes up the Volans' mast, and a steady drumbeat begins to emanate from the Urmskaladrak. The activity below you shifts - not a sudden scrambling to stand ready, as the Dwarves and men are too seasoned for that, but they do start to finish off whatever they are doing, finishing up card games and downing the last of their drinks, and behind you you hear the surprisingly soft noise of a dragon taking flight.
"It's starting then," Hubert says at your side.
"Seems that way," you say. "We've stacked the deck as best we can, all there is to do now is see what the daemons decide to do."
A few minutes later Deathfang returns to sight and beelines towards you, raising your anticipation a notch. You'd worked out a system of signals for Asarnil for the most expected scenarios, so him coming in to deliver something in person indicates something unexpected or complicated. Deathfang alights atop the cockpit, his landing light enough and the steam-wagon sturdy enough that there's barely a creak of protesting metal, and Asarnil clambers down gracefully. "Three factions," he reports, "Khornate, Slaaneshi and Tzeentchian, busily tearing chunks out of each other. There's a Bloodthirster down and being torn apart by Daemonettes, and a Lord of Change leading a troupe of Horrors east."
You take a moment to digest that. "Okay, then... so we're still facing Slaanesh daemons, if anything. Do they have a Greater Daemon?"
"Perhaps. Something like an overgrown Fiend. Could be just that, could be a Keeper of Secrets or a Daemon Prince of some sort."
"Composition?"
"Almost all Daemonettes, some mounted. Though there's some sort of sorcery at play that could be concealing something, I couldn't count them without the numbers getting jumbled. But by appearance it seems to be in the low hundreds."
"Thank you. I'll pass that along." He nods and lifts himself back atop Deathfang while you tell Hubert a much more concise version to pass on to the other leaders. As he flits away, your grip tightens on your staff and you smile down the road. Won't be long now.
---
The Daemons make slower progress than you expected, but you first catch sight of them as the sun begins to dip in the sky, an oncoming horde of bared flesh and sharp edges led by something that looks like a giant woman from the waist up and a giant snake from the waist down. But just as Asarnil said, attempting to count them causes your mind to tie in knots. With some reluctance you focus on your Magesight to observe the oncomers; reluctant not because what you'll see would be terrible, but because it won't be. Sure enough the beings under your Magesight are transformed into a shifting tapestry of impressions as they somehow communicate with sight that everything you could wish is as close as acquiescence. Without changing from their physical appearance the beings manage to give impressions of everything that might be found alluring, from certain individuals to giant grimoires overflowing with lost knowledge to pleasures as simple as a warm bath and a hot fire, and as soon as your attention lingers on one for more than a moment it balloons into an all-consuming obsession; the grimoires stack to the ceiling and resist any attempts at ever categorizing the knowledge they might offer, the baths become oceans, the fires spread into your very soul, and the individuals, well, the less said about them, the better.
[Magesight: Learning, 53+28+10(Windsage)=91.]
But underneath all that is magic, only some of which is dedicated to the bevy of temptations that bombard you, and it's shockingly familiar. A tapestry of Ulgu dedicated to misdirection and illusion, too much for the only effect to be a difficulty in counting their numbers. You try to focus, unpick the tangled web of familiar magics woven by alien minds, but it's then that the first of the cannon opens fire, shattering your concentration and, a moment later, a Daemonette. From there the constant drum-beat of cannonfire as the cannonballs chase the sinuous figure of the snake-woman as she weaves back and forth makes any close examination impossible, and you put the matter from your mind as you grip your dragonbone staff and prepare to unleash your magics upon the enemy as it closes. This will be the first time you have cast Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma in anger, and you're intent on giving it your all.
As you start to weave the first Miasma, the being that must be a higher Daemon of some kind begins to do something similar without interrupting its dance, and you choke down the impulse to jump in and combat it directly; your part in this battle is already decided, and all you can do is count on the Wizards around you to play their part. Just as you conclude that thought it's rewarded as three Winds leap forth to bombard, entangle, and engulf the half-formed spell, and the spell scatters across the soon-to-be battlefield as the first crossbow bolts and rifle bullets fly.
Your grand battlefield debut of the Miasma does not go according to plan. Perhaps your own anticipation of it was the chink in your armour, as you find yourself hurrying through the incantation, and by the time you notice there's too much inertia to slow or stop. All you can do is try not to trip over your own tongue as the magic hitches, snarls and tries to tear itself free of your grip. But at that point you're more than happy to be rid of it, so when it thrashes you throw your own impetus behind the motion and the spell flies forward like the crossbow bolts it's amidst, and the ball of rebelling magic strikes the weave of illusion like a cannonball against a palisade, and with much the same effect. Magic shatters and the illusion drops away, and the front line of advancing Daemonettes shimmers and transforms into... Dwarves?
Not just any Dwarves, Slayers. But with their crests dyed pink rather than red, and with their tattoos dedicated not to Grimnir, but to a different God entirely. For a moment the battlefield seems to fall silent as every Dwarf gawks over the fortifications or through their sights. But the advancing Slaaneshi Slayers have no such compunctions, advancing at a Dwarven run, screaming warbling battlecries as they go. As the echoes of cannonfire fade, a second roar replaces it. Though the Engineers and Rangers stand aghast and the Winter Wolves falter in confusion, the Slayers that joined the Expedition to find their doom scream in outrage at this mockery of them and throw themselves from the fortifications to meet the advancing foe.
[Casting the Miasma, take two: Req 50, Learning, 50+28=78.]
[Slayer vs Slaaneshi Slayer: 2+20+20(Enraged)=42 vs 93+30-20(Miasma)=103.]
This time you're able to control the pace of your spellcasting so that when the two lines of Slayers meet, it is with time eddying unpredictably around the enemy. You'd like to think it makes a difference in the next few seconds, but even through the unnatural burden of rippling time the Slaaneshi Slayers move with more grace and speed than you've ever seen from a Dwarf, their axes slicing through limbs and necks with scornful ease and delivering the death in battle that their counterparts sought. That might have been the beginning of the end as the remaining Slayers throw themselves at the fortifications while the Rangers and Wolves remain paralyzed with shock and confusion, but possibly because of their greater distance from what has been happening, the Engineers have recovered and resumed firing, and bullets and grapeshot alike tear through flesh, splattering much of the Slayers across the advancing Daemonettes.
With the Slayers dead, the Winter Wolves should be on the fortifications, but as the Daemonettes charge it's the axes of the Rangers that stand ready to meet them. You take a second to turn your attention back to the suspected higher Daemon and find it struggling to take in the swirl of conflicting energies around it and bend it to its will; perhaps it is reeling from the shattering of its illusion, perhaps it's still dazed from its abrupt transition into reality, but in any case it's definitely struggling to take ahold of the energies that you discarded in its direction. It would probably be able to wrestle it into submission in time, but time it definitely does not have, because that's the moment that Deathfang leaps upon it from behind. When you'd told Asarnil to use his own judgement, you'd imagined something quite different to a perfectly-timed airborne ambush, but you suppose one doesn't last long enough to become the Old World's most expensive mercenary by charging into every battle like a Norscan berserker. You turn your attention back to the Daemonettes, confident that their leader is more than occupied between a miscast and a dragon, and envelop them in a fog of temporal instability as they try to leap atop the makeshift parapets, causing many to misjudge their jumps and slam face-first into the stone and one to overshoot the fortifications entirely and land amidst the still-reeling Winter Wolves.
If there was ever a call-to-arms, it was that, but the spooked Winter Wolves scatter from the surprise impact amidst them, and that might have been the beginning of a rout if Ruprecht didn't step forward to pin the Daemonette to the ground with his sword, hurling abuse at the Ulricans all the while. Finally they seem to be shaken back to reality and begin to climb up the fortifications to stand side-by-side with the Rangers as they lock axes against claws. You turn your attention back up to the higher Daemon, but to your shock it's not being torn asunder, but instead has wrapped itself around Deathfang's neck and is slowly sinking the claws of one hand into a gap between the hard scales and fending off Asarnil's sword with the other. Then the Daemon shrieks in pain and anger as a Silver Bolt lodges in its back, and that moment of distraction settles it for you: it's time to act.
You could picture it so perfectly in your mind: you appear standing on Deathfang's neck, sword already mid-swing, and you take the Daemon's head neatly off its shoulders. You save Deathfang, Asarnil pledges eternal friendship, Deathfang shares some juicy dragon secrets, happy ending for everyone but the Tempter. The Daemon has other ideas. In an instant its talons are out of Deathfang's neck and catching Branulhune in mid-air, and though daemonic ichor spills forth, it manages to arrest the swing of the runic blade. It catches your gaze in its own, and in a moment you know that it was capable of offering you any pleasure imaginable and some that weren't, but all it was willing to grant you was pain.
With one talon clutching Branulhune, a second fending off Asarnil's Ithilmar blade, and its body writhing to avoid Deathfang's massive talons, it somehow manages to spare enough attention to craft a spell. With a scornful glare and a flick of its wrist silvery shards shoot out at you and you're barely able to sway backwards in time to avoid whatever they are, though you manage to wrest Branulhune from its grip as you do so. This gives it the opportunity to turn its full attention on Asarnil and it takes it with savage glee, and an outraged howl echoes across the battlefield as its claws close on nothing but air as Asarnil's silhouette blurs.
That's when a ball of pure-white energy strikes the Daemon's back right where Max's spell-bolt had struck previously, blowing a massive hole through its torso. The Daemon sways in place for a moment, blinking and frowning in confusion, before melting away into rapidly-evaporating ichor. You lower Branulhune, torn between being impressed, grateful, and upset at the sudden intervention of Hysh, before you remember that the rest of the battle is still ongoing. You turn your attention to the fortifications and see that Ruprecht's exhortations has spurred the Winter Wolves into a full-blown countercharge, and the Daemonettes are falling back from the wall of stone as battlecries and shouted prayers to Ulric rise above the din. Then the Daemons follow their leader's example and begin to dissolve one by one, and in moments all that remains is Dwarven bodies and Daemonic ichor.
You exhale and dismiss Branulhune with a thought, and step shakily down off Deathfang's neck as he carefully lowers himself to the ground for you to do so. Your first battle against the forces of Chaos is over.
To be continued.
- Though only Mathilde's rolls were shown, I was rolling for everyone, and those were possibly the most swing-y dice I've ever encountered. Almost everyone had one roll below 10 and another above 90.
As the lay-clerics of Gazul amongst the Rangers give the Expedition's Slayers the proper rites and debate what is to be done with those from Karak Vlag, you check in on your Wizards to make sure everyone got through the battle unscathed. Johann and Hubert were by your side right up until you teleported over to Deathfang so you just double-check that they didn't manage to get themselves into strife in the moments between that and the end of the battle. Everyone else, however, requires a bit more time and attention.
You know that Cyrston pulled at least some weight because you saw three shades of magic shoving the higher Daemon's attempt at spellcasting off-kilter, and his own description of the battle lines up with that: he watched it for any attempts at spellcasting and jumped in when it happened, as well as keeping an eye on the Daemonettes in case any of them turned out to have a concealed talent for magic. Perhaps one could criticize and say that he should have had an opportunity or two to deploy Summer Heat or Winter Frost, but it's just as valid to say that his job was to counterspell and he did that, and if he had started slinging magic he might have missed any other enemy spellcasters that could have been present. In any case, he seems in good spirits after this blooding and you leave him to his meditation.
Alexandra is the other unaccompanied Journeymanling and thus your second stop on the circuit, and in contrast to Cyrston's calmness she's very clearly still riding an adrenaline high. As she enthusiastically gives you a blow-by-blow account of the various forms of fire she threw at Daemonettes, you carefully examine her under your Magesight to make sure it's nothing untoward, and you can't see anything but roiling Aqshy. Just high spirits, then, probably reinforced by the influence of her Wind. All in all it's probably a good thing that her first taste for battle made her eager for more instead of the opposite, considering it's very unlikely to be the last time the Expedition encounters hostile forces. You congratulate her and have a quiet word with the Rangers that would have been nearby, and confirm that while her recollections of mowing down waves of Daemonettes with fire don't quite match reality, she definitely accounted for some of them.
Michel isn't immediately visible, but even with so much Daemonic energy in the air it's not hard for you to find a Wizard who isn't actively hiding, and you clamber atop one of the steam-wagons to find him grumbling and massaging his arm, which spasms every few seconds. A backlash from locking magics with the higher Daemon apparently, but while a piece of stray lightning going rogue and rendering an arm useless for a few hours is alarming to your perspective, it's apparently something that's relatively common and usually harmless for Celestial Wizards. While he's not happy, he doesn't seem disturbed or permanently injured, so you thank him for his role in the battle and leave him to his moping.
Max is the third and final of those that were on counterspell duty, and he's just as out-of-sight and subsequently easy to find as Michel, and for much the same reason; he's tucked himself away in his room and at your enquiry says to leave him be unless it's dinner time or another attack is happening. A few soft questions pries out of him that his own participation earned him a splitting headache, though it can't be too bad since it doesn't stop him from describing it at length to you once he gets going. You're quite used to Max and his foibles, and nodding along while he complains is a small price to pay for his able assistance, so you allow him to exhaust his grumbling before you excuse yourself and move on.
The Light Wizard quartet played quite a dramatic role in the battle, one that you'd attempted and failed to claim for yourself. You put aside any bitterness and check in on the Lights, which is a study in contrasts. Egrimm is calm and collected and watching his charges with a concerned eye, and while Citharus and Timpania leap at the chance to tell the story of their part in the battle (much of which flies right past you, and you make a note to read up on Hysh choir-magic), Barbitus remains silent and lost in his own thoughts. Egrimm notices you watching the quiet Journeyman and catches your eye, and you take him aside to have a word away from the others.
"Is it serious?" you ask, noting the worry on Egrimm's face.
"I hope not," he replies, rubbing at his temples. "But it's hard to say. Hysh requires a concentrated introspection, and one downside to that is that when one of our own faces troubles, they turn inwards instead of doing anything that might indicate where their mind is at. It could just be shaken nerves, maybe Barbitus just isn't suited for the battlefield. But Barbitus - all three of them, really - have had cloistered lives since they were little more than children. And the Dark Prince has a great many hooks on its line."
You recall the barrage of temptations that you were met by, each tailored to target a different aspect of who you are. "You think he might have been tempted?"
Egrimm sighs. "Facing the forces of Chaos is the purpose of the Order of Light, and as such we try to prepare our initiates as best we can. But there is always attrition, and those that stare into the eye of the Great Enemy and balk are the least of those. It can be impossible to tell from the outside whether someone has recovered from their encounter with Chaos and are ready to face it again, or whether they have found in themselves a desire to seek it out for the wrong reasons."
You nod soberly. Every Order prefers to deal with such things in-house, but when all else fails it is to the Grey Order that the unenviable task of eliminating so-called Black Magisters falls. You've heard stories of how bad it can get when someone with a full College education decides to misuse it, and few of them ended cleanly. "You'll keep an eye on him?"
He nods. "Of course, and I'll give him what guidance I can. And if some suspicious accident ends my vigil prematurely, I trust you'll do what must be done."
"You have my word."
"Thank you. I don't think it will come to that, but better to be sure in such matters." He claps your arm and heads back towards his charges, and you watch him go thoughtfully. It speaks well of him that his concern over his hopefully demoralized and possibly corrupted Journeyman takes precedence over the pride he must feel from having scored the killing blow on a higher Daemon.
The final Wizards to check up on are Esbern and Seija, and your being done with the others neatly coincides with some of the Knights of Taal's Fury returning to the Expedition. Their vigil over the Expedition's flanks had them clash with the mounted Daemonettes, and over a series of inconclusive skirmishes and cat-and-mouse chases through the mountains the Seekers were thoroughly scattered. Most of the Knights are still out hunting them down one by one, but the threat they pose to the Expedition is likely neutralized, as it would take too long for them to reunite in sufficient numbers to pose a significant threat. They are now reduced to one more lurking threat amongst the dozens that are already assumed to be hiding amongst the mountains, and one that the Expedition is already well guarded against. You have a word with the Knights to check for any news about the Ambers, and you're told that apart from Seija sporting a minor wound that should heal cleanly, they're fine and enthusiastically participating in the hunt.
Your final charges, and ones that would likely not consider themselves such, are Asarnil and Deathfang who have once more made themselves comfortable aboard the Urmskaladrak. Deathfang is grumbling but otherwise lying still as Asarnil tends to the punctures on his neck, rubbing some sort of poultice into them. "Are you okay?" you ask in Eltharin.
"I should be asking you that question," Asarnil says with a laugh. "If that had worked, the poets would be fighting each other for the honour of putting that maneuver of yours into verse."
You grimace. "I'm aware. But my ego will heal."
"As will Deathfang's," he says, slapping the side of the dragon's neck companionably. "That's the Slaaneshi for you, no matter how quick you expect them to be, they'll be quicker. He had her completely by surprise and she was still around his neck in a trice."
"So, what do you think? Greater Daemon? Daemon Prince?"
"That's the other thing about them, you can never tell just by looking. The other three stick to a theme for Greater Daemons, but Slaanesh likes variety. Unless you can work out that one's name and track her history, you might never know whether she was always a part of the whole or an elevated pawn."
"I suppose if I had got the kill, I'd probably never be able to properly categorize it," you say with a smile. "Might be for the best."
"It'd be underappreciated too. Everyone thinks Bloodthirsters are the pinnacle of Daemonic opponent, they don't appreciate how fast a Keeper of Secrets is, or how tough a Great Unclean One is, or how hard it is to get a Lord of Change into actual battle." Asarnil shakes his head. "There's an elegance to getting your appreciation in coins and ingots and gemstones. If someone doesn't pay what you're owed, it's a lot easier to burn their house down and loot the ruins than it is to pin them down and demand accolades."
You laugh, and thank Asarnil for his time and his insight.
---
Once the Expedition has finished licking its wounds and loading the dead and wounded aboard the Urmskaladrak, the next priority is Karak Vlag itself. Every question you have about what Karag Dum might have endured and experienced in the almost two centuries it has been absent applies even more so to Karak Vlag, which was in the actual Aethyr instead of merely the Chaos Wastes. You know the front doors have been blown off their hinges but beyond that you know next to nothing, though it's probably a good sign that the stone is still stone rather than anything more exotic. It could be completely overrun by Daemons, it could be the site of an active siege, its population could have converted to Chaos entirely, or the Karak could still be holding strong just past the entrance. Even the Slaaneshi Slayers are hard to read much out of, because as terrible a blasphemy against Grimnir that they are, there weren't that many of them and could be the result of illusion and trickery, rather than the Karak falling to Chaos entirely.
After a cautious investigation of the path leading into the Karak confirms that it's still there and that nothing remains of the Daemons that fought amongst themselves there but decaying ichor, a quick discussion amongst the Council determines Plan A: yelling into the Karak and seeing if anyone (or anything) answers. What it lacks in style it makes up for in that it risks nothing, but a few noisy minutes later yields nothing but echoes. Plan B it is, then: reconnaissance in force, with a line of shotcannon and rifles in defilade to retreat to. You're the natural choice for such a project, but your recommendation that you go in alone and invisible is rejected for Dwarven reasons. First contact with the lost Hold must be made by a Dwarf, so that they can either be welcomed back properly or the Grudge for whatever has happened to them can be properly witnessed and later recorded. You grumble, but by now know which battles can be won and can't be when it comes to Dwarves, so you simply add Johann. If the group can't have stealth, it should have firepower.
Snorri is almost as natural a pick as you as this is almost as well-suited to Rangers as it is to Grey Wizards. Ruprecht volunteers, and is thanked for doing so but of the many fine qualities of the Winter Wolves, ability to navigate in total darkness is not among them. Snorri fills out the group with the most seasoned and reliable of his Rangers, and to your surprise and grudging respect Borek decides to come along as well, grumbling that he might as well see what the endangerment of the Expedition has been in aid of. You're not happy with so many eggs in one basket, but even in the worst case scenario the Expedition could still continue in fairly good shape should all of you be lost.
"Right," Snorri says, "we go in quiet and we go in dark. If we see anything without a beard," he pauses, "that isn't one of these two, that is, shoot it. And if it's still alive after that, leg it. If you lose track of the path back to the entrance, say so immediately." You have to wonder if that bit is directed at the humans in the party, or at the only non-Ranger Dwarf. "If the Wizards tell you to do something, do it, even if it's weird. Ancestors be with you."
And Ranald, you think.
The descent into Karak Vlag is painfully slow, marked by scouting ahead for any trace of enemies, then backtracking to examine the area with the dimmest of lights and whispered conversation in reasonable confidence that it won't immediately invite an ambush. There's two recurring themes: signs of battle, and what might be described as Slaaneshi decoration. And not always the latter atop the former, telling a story of a long, grinding siege where the defenders gave as good as they got, making the attackers pay for every inch of ground and taking every opportunity to push them back.
"We've seen marks left by rifles and cannon at every step," you say in one murmured conversation after a descent that feels like it lasted forever but according to Snorri has penetrated at most a fifth of the way into the Karak.
"Of course," Borek says. "They weren't lost in the Golden Age, they would have all the modern weapons."
You pass on commenting on the fact that two century old weapons would still be considered modern. "In the Aethyr, constants aren't. For blackpowder to have worked this entire time, chemistry and thermodynamics must have remained unchanged this entire time. That's unlikely, unless it was kept in a sort of 'bubble' of reality."
"Why would that be the case?" Snorri asks.
You consider that. "It might have had to be to maintain the anchor, to keep the Karak bound to this position for it to be able to move back and forth. That would fit the energy drain. Keeping a bubble of reality in the Aethyr would be as energy-intensive as keeping a bubble of unreality here was to the Daemons."
"It'd explain why the Daemons had to fight for every step, instead of the sheer weight of Chaos driving the Dwarves insane or turning them to stone, as it did to our lost cousins," Borek says gravely.
"But the Slayers..." one of the Rangers says doubtfully.
"A few score of them," you reply. "What was Karak Vlag's population?"
"About thirty thousand," Borek says.
"They weren't in a hurry. There's no Everchosen right now, no Storm of Magic. Slain Daemons could be trivially reformed or replaced. They could take it room by room, hall by hall. Take captives. Both to torment them, and to use them to torment those that still hold out."
"It fits," Borek says after a moment's thought. "These ones value entertainment over efficiency. Holding an entire Karak in their domain to be toyed with at a whim is the sort of thing they'd do."
"Like a child's toy soldiers, complete with a model castle," you say with a nod.
"Until a Wizard comes along and yanks it right out of the Aethyr," Johann chuckles.
"That's horrifying," Snorri says, "but here and now, hopeful."
---
It takes several more eternities of painstaking delving until things change. The decoration gives way to bare stone and Dwarven carvings, and the air hangs heavy with magic from still-dissolving ichor, and patches of mundane blood splatters the stone here and there, still sticky to the touch. No bodies, though drag marks leading deeper into the Karak show where they're likely to have gone. Johann also finds shards of metal that seem very much like fragments of shattered weapons that were mostly, but not entirely, retrieved.
"Their energy flow becomes dammed," you theorize when the group next falls back to confer. "Suddenly their toy Karak has a very tight time limit. They strike deals with two other higher Daemons for them to lend their forces to an all-out assault. And then when they're returned to reality so abruptly the forces of the Fighter and the Tempter fall to infighting and those of the Plotter strikes out on their own."
"And leaves our lads still kicking?" Snorri says, hope in his voice.
"More than kicking by the looks of things," Johann says, running his fingers through a chunk smashed out of a wall.
"Well then," he says, and slaps his knee determinedly. The rest of you follow him as he delves back into the depths. "Ahoy!" he shouts, and you're barely able to grab him by the collar and yank him out of the path of an incoming crossbow bolt. "Hold fire, damn it," he bellows, and you sigh and give him another yank as a crossbow bolt tinks off the stone behind where he was. "You're back in the mountains! You're safe!"
"Oh aye?" comes a voice from the darkness. "Well, we'll just let our guard down then, shall we? Parades and feasts and the High King here to shake our hand and tug our beard too, I expect. Wives and gold for everyone. Got that about right?" There's a chorus of chuckles echoing from the darkness.
You can see realization hit Snorri. "But it's real," he says to the darkness, and scornful laughter is all he gets in response. Well, that and a third bolt, but he's already stepping out of the path of that on his own.
A few minutes later at a much safer distance from what appears to be the front lines, Borek is nodding to a crestfallen Snorri. "One of my cousins spent three days camping outside the gates because he forgot the pass-phrases and the Winds were blowing too hard for the Runemasters to confirm his identity," He says. "Daresay these lads have learned even harsher lessons than the Chaos Wastes taught us. Probably had a dozen rescues, and much grander than this one."
"But it's real, they're safe now," Snorri says. "Shouldn't that count for something?"
"Reality is never as convincing as something designed to be convincing," you say. "Could get Thorgrim here and they'd probably think that his beard should be longer and his Throne bigger."
"They'd be expecting Alriksson anyway," Borek says. "Doubt they've heard of Thorgrim."
"Exactly, so-" you pause as you consider that. "That's it."
"What's it?" Snorri asks, but you're already heading back down.
---
"Hi," you say as a Marsh Light illuminates the darkness, and then you step out of the way of the inevitable crossbow bolt. Or at least the Illusion of yourself does. You're bold, but you're not stupid.
"Got sick of the act?" the voice says. "Bit overdressed, aren't you?"
"Oh, I'm not a Daemonette," you say. "Mathilde Weber, Dalmhornzhufokrul."
There's a moment of silence as they consider that. "Night water crafter? You make commodes?"
You're too busy grimacing at the mistranslation to react fast enough, and two crossbow bolts punch through the empty air that your Illusion occupies. "Grey Wizard of the Empire," you say, as voices mutter in the darkness at your apparent intangibility.
"Pull the other one," says the voice after a moment. "Empire's not like Kislev, they burn their Zhufi."
"Not since the Great War Against Chaos," you say. "That's what we call the battle against the forces of Asavar Kul, the Everchosen during the Chaos invasion you lot disappeared in. The Empire legalized Wizards because we joined in the fight against Chaos."
"Well, at least this one's original," says the voice. "Go on, then. The next part is where the High King showed up and saved the day and everyone starts respecting us properly. That last bit is the least believable part of the entire spiel, if you ask me."
"He died," you say. "His sons, too. His nephew Thorgrim's on the Throne of Power now."
"Think I preferred the other ones. What sort of temptation do you call this?"
You shrug, and your Illusion does too. "None at all, it's pretty grim. After the losses were tallied, some Dwarfholds were talking about sealing their entrances and dwindling. But Thorgrim declared that the Silver Age was over, and that the Age of Reckoning has begun. The Karaz Ankor will repay every Grudge before it fades from the world."
Mutters answer that. "This isn't the sort of thing they say," you can just hear someone saying. "Maybe Tudnak's right."
"It will take more than one earthquake only the Rune-pokers can feel before I stick my neck out."
"Here, I think I've got an idea. Budge over." A moment later, a much louder voice asks, "what about the Elgi? They turn up for this Great War of yours?"
You smile. "They sent three people and they still act smug about it."
Silence answers that. "I think it might be real," someone finally says.
"Look, I'm not saying you should strip off your chainmail and come dancing through the mountains with me," you say to the darkness. "Reclaim the hold, and I don't have to tell Dwarves to do it slowly and carefully and properly, but I will anyway because the Daemons are gone but the Grobi and Raki probably won't take long to notice you're back. Start peeking out the front doors once you've properly rehung them. Karak Kadrin's a bit far for a jaunt, but if you're feeling bold Volksgrad is up the road and they've rebuilt Praag. We're about to head off to see what's going on with Karag Dum, but we'll send word south and the High King will send someone to answer your questions."
There's a while before an answer comes. "We'll take that under advisement," the voice says doubtfully, which is probably the best you're going to get.
---
"Let's go," you say to the group as you rejoin them.
"What, all that talk and then you're giving up?" Snorri asks.
"I'm not giving up, I'm changing the engagement. They're not going to trust anything we say. You know how you befriend a paranoid stray? You don't grab it by the scruff of the neck, you just leave some food out and leave it to it. Eventually it realizes that you're not out to hurt it."
"So we leave?"
"We leave. Send word to Praag for them to send word to Karaz-a-Karak, and they'll have a gyrocopter full of Longbeards trying to coax them out by the time we get back. Best we can do. Look, I won't pretend that I know the inside of a Dwarven head better than you, but I do know how to manage paranoia. I grew up in a College dedicated to it."
"She's right," Johann says. "Like long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs, the lot of them."
---
When you return to the surface, you're forced to repeat your argument several more times before everyone reluctantly accepts it, but Snorri brought one of the crossbow bolts up with him and keeps showing it to people who think they'd be able to do better. The mood is mixed as the Expedition prepares to set off once more, as those who want to stay and try their hand are harangued by Borek into submission. The clock is ticking, and there's no hope of getting anything other than munitions from Karak Vlag for the foreseeable future. So you leave in your wake one Hold of thoroughly traumatized Dwarves, which is at least better than the bare mountain where a Hold should be.
You turn your mind to the future, and to Zorn Uzkul: the Great Skull Land, the vast plateau where the Chaos Dwarves were born and the site of an eternal underground battle between them and Clan Moulder. The landscape is as desolate as the rest of the Darklands but at least less bare, as for unknown reasons giant beasts from the Mountains of Mourn travel here to die, leaving their skeletons to be stripped by scavengers and the wind. Every step will likely be watched by at least two sets of eyes, watching for any moment of weakness to attack and turn the Expedition's resources into their own.
But despite how bare it is, this region sees much more traffic than one would expect, as the Road of Skulls is walked by many. Trade convoys from the Old World to Cathay and back, of course, but there's another mark on a trader's map here: Uzkulak, the founding city of the Chaos Dwarves, open to anyone willing to pay the Chaos Dwarves their cut and give them first refusal on any goods or beings sold there. Pirates of every stripe and species make their way through the channels carved through the pack ice of the Frozen Sea to sell and trade their stolen cargoes and captured slaves, as do Kurgan, Hong, and Hobgoblin tribes from the Great Steppes, Ogres from the Mountains of Mourn, Orcs from the World's Edge Mountains, and unscrupulous traders from the Old World.
It's a terrible place, and the world would be far better if it was torn to the ground. But it's also a place where a fistful of gold could turn into just about anything, including ancient tomes, forgotten scrolls, Elven steles, and golden plaques from the New World. The part of you that wants to see it destroyed is matched by another part of you that wants a chance to peruse the treasures from across the world that would be available to purchase there. And it could also answer questions of supply, as even if you don't trust the food farmed and gathered by Chaos Dwarves, food cargoes from piracy and herd animals from the Steppes could also be available for purchase there. The Dwarves wouldn't like it, but they'd probably like starving to death and failing Karag Dum even less.
The five with the most votes will be chosen, as you still have some time before the Expedition emerges into Zorn Uzkul.
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
Other:
[ ] Visit Uzkulak, the Chaos Dwarf equivalent to Barak Varr
[ ] Visit the combes that Qrech told you about
- There will be a two hour moratorium.
- I didn't have a vote for what approach to take with Karak Vlag because none would have achieved better than this, and Mathilde has a lifetime of knowing how to manage paranoia. Any approach that might work would have been tried by Daemonettes under glamours at some point in the past two centuries; that there are still Dwarves here indicates that they didn't believe it then, and so they won't believe it now - at least not in any hurry. The best approach is to leave the Dwarves in peace to glare suspiciously out the front doors for a while.
- Mathilde will restore the flow from the Waystone at the beginning of the next update.
[*] Head Engineer Gotrek Gurnisson
[*] Head Ranger Snorri Farstrider
[*] Visit Uzkulak, the Chaos Dwarf equivalent to Barak Varr
[*] Visit the combes that Qrech told you about
[*] Thane Borek Forkbeard
When you part from the already-moving Expedition to reopen the flow of magic from the Waystone north of Karak Vlag, you feel the eyes of Borek on you as you leave, which isn't unusual - your Shadowsteed has that effect sometimes. But upon your return some time later, they're on you once more. You'd already resolved to find the time to have a talk with him, and this feels like more than window enough, so you ride alongside the Alriksson and clamber up a rope ladder that's thrown down for you.
"Thane," you say as you approach the figure that's rarely to be found away from the bow of the lead steam-wagon.
"Mathilde," he replies, not turning from the horizon. "The flow re-established, then?"
"It has been," you say cautiously.
"I'd believed from the High King's reticence that the flow had stopped. It's hard not to feel hope in that it was redirected at Karak Vlag, rather than ended at Karag Dum. But I am curious how you came to know of it. Did Ulthuan tell your Order, or did King Belegar inherit secrets?"
"Neither," you say after you regain your mental balance. "It was a new discovery."
"You manlings are full of surprises," he says, turning to look at you. "Something my home has been long aware of, but perhaps too used to thinking of as a curse, as the only manlings we see much of are the Marauder tribes."
"I wasn't aware that Karag Dum would know of the network," you venture.
He smiles bleakly. "Karag Dum remembers much that others have forgotten, even when some might prefer we didn't. Even when we might prefer we didn't."
"You're in an unusual mood for someone who's found reason for hope."
"My hope for Karag Dum is undimmed. My attention remains on the road ahead." He turns his head back to the road ahead. "The Knights have already confirmed that the final supply cache has been burned by tainted fire, almost certainly from the Daemons that departed east. Between that and the three days of waiting for Karak Vlag's return, we've lost a week's worth of supplies."
"You seemed confident when last we spoke on the subject of food."
He waves a hand at the Winter Wolves riding ahead of the Alriksson. "I fret because others fret. The beasts consume the bulk of the food, and their riders will not have them starve. Our current schedule has us reaching the Great Steppes with two weeks of food remaining, while being three weeks away from friendly territory. Those are numbers guaranteed to seed doubt in their minds. If we had three weeks of food remaining, as we originally should have, that would have given them at least enough confidence to try their luck at bartering or raiding, at least for a day or two. But now I see things coming to a head at the eastern end of Zorn Uzkul."
"I suppose few would make room in their plans for the recovery of a second Dwarfhold on the way, or a warband of Plotter-daemons able to sniff out a resource cache."
He snorts. "I could predict that something could happen to delay us and cost us supplies. I was just hoping that if it happened, it would be closer to the Steppes."
You consider the matter. "What if there was a source of food closer to hand?"
"That plant Wizard?" You shake your head. "Then- oh." He looks over his shoulder to check for listeners. "I'd considered it long ago, but no Dwarven force would reach it intact - anything small would be enslaved by raiding parties long before they reached the supposed safety of Uzkulak, anything large assumed to be an invasion force and opened fire upon. But I suppose you have both the mobility and the required flexibility."
You nod. "It's not uncommon for my Order to be faced with two evils and forced to choose. We're adept at weighing them up and finding the lesser."
"To be caught between Theralind and a Kharibdyss, as I once heard said. Failure to reach my home will always be the greater evil, and some more riches locked in a Zharr-Naggrund vault does not strike me as being much worse than them being in the hands of whichever Marauder loots my corpse after I try and fail to return alone." With some difficulty, he gradually extracts a small pouch that was hanging around his neck and does not seem to want to part ways with his beard, weighs it in his hand, and then tosses it to you. "Diamonds and Fire Agates. I had a sack as large as my head when I left Karag Dum, and this is all that remains. The least of them is worth enough to feed us from here to Cathay, but I've no doubt that our fallen kin will do their best to rob you."
You nod, weighing the substantial handful of precious stones. The Expedition has a large amount of silver tucked away that had been intended to pay for the purchase of cattle from the Kurgan, and then a fair bit more in case there were any other problems that precious metals could solve. While your reputation is good among the Dwarves that you could definitely draw upon that and have the money reimbursed from your personal vault in Karak Eight Peaks, you've had previous experience in how unwieldy large quantities of silver could be, and were still working on a solution that wouldn't sacrifice your mobility in hostile territory. Borek had just neatly solved that problem. "I'll see what can be done at Uzkulak. Would you prefer I stay vague when I deliver anything I was able to procure?"
He shrugs. "If you think it would be best. It would be hard to say if Dwarves would be more reluctant to eat food sourced from Uzkulak, or to eat food that came from a Wizard riding off into the wastes and returning with it mysteriously, but I suppose the Knights might think differently."
"They've grown accustomed to working with Wizards."
"As are many Dwarves of late." He shakes his head and gives a sad chuckle. "Was a time we were making our own miracles. Now the Karaz Ankor is so fallen that an Umgi who by our standards would be barely old enough to begin an Apprenticeship is doing what we apparently cannot. I'm sure arrivals in the Underearth must be greeted with the overwhelming disappointment of our Ancestors, if we're even considered worthy to be admitted at all."
It's a troubling thought that you consider in the back of your mind as you hold a clear stone up to the sun. Dwarvish ego is very easy to laugh off as a foible of their race, but just like the Elves it's something they take deadly seriously. Of the fifty dead Slayers being watched over in the Urmskaladrak, you've no doubt that at least several shaved their heads over failing to meet an unreasonable standard they had imposed upon themselves. And you're just as sure that should the Expedition turn back, Borek will make good on his implied promise to continue alone and on foot. He would rather die pointlessly than live with failure.
---
With shocking abruptness, High Pass falls away into the plateau of Zorn Uzkul and the landscape turns grey. Though it is largely free from the volcanic ash that dominates much of the Dark Lands south of the plateau, Zorn Uzkul is just as inhospitable, with gritty sand that fills your mouth with the taste of iron every time the wind picks up. And most striking of all are the skeletons that litter the landscape in every direction, ranging from the small humanoid skeletons that you hope were Goblins to the enormous carcasses of massive beasts come down from the mountains to die. With Uzkulak to the north and Clan Moulder below, it's likely that there'll be hostile eyes on you for every step of your journey, watching for any weakness. It's the hope of the Expedition that you'll reach the other side before they spot one.
After an hour or so of covering a map with notes and measurements, you determine that the best time to part ways with the Expedition to minimize return time while weighed down with cargo is still a little away, so the next time you find yourself burdened with spare time you make your way to the Alexis. Snorri Farstrider was the one that argued most passionately and pushed to risk the most for the sake of Karak Vlag, and you're curious why that is, and a little concerned that it means his mind won't be on the road ahead. Like many others - including yourself at times - he's taken to spending a fair bit of time at the foremost part of the deck, but unlike the others he's practical enough to have set up a chair and a sunshade there. You find him gazing to the steam-wagon's right, or possibly starboard, at the vast expanse of emptiness to the south.
"There's lakes out there," he says, waving a hand at the landscape. "Four vast freshwater lakes, linked by rivers, springing up from the ground and then plunging back into it at a ravine on the southern edge of the plateau. Biggest is the size of the Bay of Wrecks, I've heard."
"Oh?" you ask neutrally. You've actually heard of this, or at least the end of them - the waterfall supplying drinking water is what makes Qrech's Seventh-and-Final-Combe such an ideal position for Clan Moulder's forward base. But that's not something to mention too freely.
"The greatest accomplishment of Karak Vlag's Rangers. For millennia the east was considered lost to us because you can't follow the mountains without hitting Uzkulak, and you can't cross the Dark Lands without encountering traitor patrols. But this was the Golden Age and we never gave up back then. Karak Vlag's Rangers eventually managed to chart a path through the Zorn Uzkul from lake to lake and reached the Mountains of Mourn without the traitors ever catching on. The mountains were rich and had never seen a pick, and Karak Vrag, Karak Azorn and Karak Krakaten rivalled the riches of the Old Holds for a time. The range seemed wide enough that we could expand into it for a thousand generations and still have room aplenty. But then the Golden Age came to an end."
"The War of Vengeance?" you prompt.
"That certainly didn't help, but more relevantly in the east, Ogres arrived after having eaten their way through the Giant Lands. The holds of the east held out for a long, long time before falling, but the only contact that was possible with them was by dashing across the Dark Lands, not winding their way through mountains now filled with Ogre tribes to reach Zorn Uzkul. That was the end of Karak Vlag's geopolitical prominence. Even the Silver Age largely passed it by, since there were Norscans and Kurgan between them and the Empire. It wasn't until the founding of Kislev that it began to recover."
"Are you from Karak Vlag?" you ask. He'd been introduced to you as if he was Clanless, but you subsequently learned he was part of Clan Redbeard, who you thought were from Karak Kadrin. Now his apparent familiarity with Karak Vlag has you wondering again.
He barks a humourless laugh. "That's a question I've been asking myself a lot lately. Clan Redbeard of Karak Kadrin watched the mountains to their north, and Clan Grimsteel of Karak Vlag watched them to their south. They saw a lot of each other and had good relations, and three of my eight great-grandparents were from Grimsteel. After Karak Vlag vanished Clan Redbeard scoured the pass for them for years, and then it was decided they were to hold it on behalf of the Karaz Ankor, as Karak Vlag no longer could. But that put us in a tricky spot. A Clan is part of a Karak, a Karak is part of the Karaz Ankor. So in the eyes of many, a Clan that has no Karak is no Clan at all. You'll find many these days that refer to us as the Redbeards, rather than Clan Redbeard. We see Karak Kadrin maybe once a decade, and there's Longbeards twice my age that have never walked Peak Pass. So until everything that happened back there, I would have said that we were more a part of Karak Vlag than we were anywhere else, and I'd have never given it much more thought than that if you'd never plucked it out of the clutches of Chaos."
You nod solemnly. This was just one of many ripples that will be spreading after the events in High Pass. "So it comes down to... does your loyalty lie with the Hold few of you have any real ties to, or does it lie with the Hold that has returned to the Pass that is your home?"
"That about sums it up. Though, would they even want our loyalty? You saw them. Well, heard them. Utterly convinced that this was just the latest daemonic trick."
"I think they would," you reply sincerely. "Once enough time passes that they realize there isn't a barb in the tail waiting to hook them. I think it will be a long, long time before any of them feel comfortable walking under the open sky, and they'll need Rangers now more than ever."
"That's a nice thought," he says, and the quiet - or at least, as close to quiet as it gets with the massive engines thrumming away below you - stretches as he considers that. "Well, whatever the future holds there, it doesn't really matter until after we're done with this Expedition. And it's only going to get more dangerous from here on out."
"You think this is less dangerous than what we'll face in the future?"
"Definitely. The Skaven will think this is a Chaos Dwarf trick, the Chaos Dwarves will think this is a Skaven trick. By the time they stop chasing their own shades and realize we're a third party we'll be halfway to Cathay."
"What if the Plotter-Daemons change the equation for them?" Three is peace, you remember Qrech saying, but four is feed.
"The Chaos Dwarves are straightforward - if there's Daemons roaming around, they'll hunker down or try to capture them. If the Daemons attack the Skaven, they'll watch the Skaven for any weakness to take advantage of. They'll take a guaranteed kick at a distracted enemy over rolling the dice on attacking a heavily-armed convoy. At most they might send a group of Hobgoblins that are out of favour at us to see if our show of strength is genuine, and it very much is."
"What do you think of the food situation?"
He shrugs. "Where there's horses, there's grass. Where there's grass, there's seeds. If all else fails, stonebread will get us there and back. And Borek worries about the Umgi because he doesn't know Umgi, he thinks they're not Rangers so they're Warriors and they need a supply train. But they're both from Cults that are close enough to being Ursenist that I'd put money on us coming out of the Steppes with more food than we went in with."
You nod along to that, resisting the urge to conceal a frown as you contrast that with what Borek said. Maybe all would work out if you left everything alone, but you'd rather not leave things to chance if you don't have to, especially if that just happens to mean you can satisfy your curiosity while doing so. You thank Snorri for his insight and begin to make your way back to the Volans.
---
As the Expedition's steam-wagons circle protectively around the Urmskaladrak, you let your Wizards know you're off to do unspecified Grey Wizard things and slip into the night atop a Shadowsteed. You'd considered travelling incognito, but the only way to get there and back in a timely manner is with you atop a horse of Ulgu so there's not a lot of options for other guises. The Grey Order goes to great lengths to prevent knowledge of Shadowmancy from falling into the wrong hands, so the only non-Grey Wizard possibilities that come to mind are Vampires, Beastmen, and Daemons, none of which you're that confident in coming across as for what could be prolonged interactions. So all you've done is left your hat behind and wrapped your staff in cloth to hopefully make you less distinctive.
It's not hard to find your way to Uzkulak, as there's a great fire at the peak of the mountain it is carved into to guide both travellers and Chaos Dwarf patrols to it. You'd half-expected a giant skull to have been carved into the face of the mountain with the mouth as the entrance, but as you approach you find it difficult to spot anything that would be out of place on the Karaks you've become familiar with. An odd glow flickering around some of the gun emplacements, perhaps, or the empty plinths that you assume once must have bore statues of the ancestors. For whatever reason the Chaos Dwarves haven't decorated their birthplace in the same megalomanic style as the pictures you've seen of Zharr-Naggrund; most sources assumed that the operative parts of the Hold are below the ground level that guests are allowed in, but a few pass on rumours that the lower levels are sealed, and only opened to throw in someone that has particularly annoyed or displeased them. You wonder if it's true, and wonder what it would mean of a people that have such a desire to put distance between them and the place where they found their God.
The gates are closed, but a small door in the base of them is open, and a handful of what must be Hobgoblins shiver and bicker as they crowd around a cooking fire. Physically they look little different from 'normal' Goblins except perhaps a bit taller, but their nature is said to be entirely different, as these are the Goblins that have turned their backs on Gork and Mork, either in favour of Hashut or pure self-interest. East of Kurgan land they're said to control a vast stretch known as the Khanates, and here in the Dark Lands they're possibly the craftiest of those in the service of the Chaos Dwarves. When one spots you it leaps to its feet and starts haranguing the others, distributing kicks and blows like he's just caught them skiving off instead of being one of them a moment ago, and when a figure emerges from the door they fight each other to be the first to speak to it, shouting accusations of inattention in a babble of overlapping not-quite-Khazalid. The figure picks one to backhand and barks orders at the others and before long the Hobgoblins are standing sullenly at attention, one bleeding from a cut lip, and the figure turns his attention to you. At first glance he's a Dwarf, but at second glance the protruding tusks disagree, and at third you notice the tall, pointed hat and the scaled armour extending down to his ankles. This Dwarf is from a culture that diverged from the one you know over six thousand years ago.
He looks at you, snorts, and produces a clipboard from behind his beard. "Name, alias, or pseudonym?" he asks, sounding as bored as any gate guard you've ever met.
You scramble for anything that's not your actual name or 'Grey'. "Gabriella," you land on. "Gabriella von, er, Nachthafen."
"Gabriella von Ernachthafen," he repeats, carefully scrawling runes with a quill. He looks you up and down. "Grey, Black, Thrall, or incognito?"
You blink at him. "Incognito," you say.
"Buying, selling, or both?"
"Buying."
"Have you brought any of the following goods to Uzkulak: bound Daemons, precious stones or metals from Nehekhara, any seed, bud, fruit, or cutting from Athel Loren, unshielded warpstone, spherical devices made of brass, Vampire body parts, any item created or possessed by the Skaven Clan Pestilens, gilded skulls made of black bone, anything from the Temple-City of Zlatlan, any mummified bodies of large, frog-like beings, unshielded wyrdstone, any kind of projectile capable of moving on its own, any of Kadon's Scrolls of Binding, golden whistles, instruments stringed with unicorn hair, keys made of crystal, or any sort of stone that glows with a green light?"
"No."
"Have you brought any slaves with you with any of the following qualities," he looks up at you, "well, do you have any slaves at all?"
"No."
The Dwarf scans down the page to the next section, and sighs before looking back up. "Gabriella von Ernachthafen from no organization in particular, welcome to Uzkulak," he says, his tone droning and his gaze boring into yours and making it clear he resents you very much for being here and making him do this. "This place is a place of trade and profit. As long as you follow our rules, you may trade and you may profit. Rule One: All exchanges are to be witnessed by an Officiant, and a percentage of the price is to be paid to the Officiant. The percentages for each type of goods can be found on display in the Trade Hall. Rule Two: Do not attack other visitors within Uzkulak, nor within sight of the flames of Uzkulak, under any circumstances. Rule Three: If you stay for more than one day and night, you must rent accommodation. The list of available accommodations is available in the Trade Hall. Breach of any of these rules will result in your death or enslavement, and the forfeiture of all your property. Do you understand these rules?"
"Yes," is all you can say.
"You have entered at night. Dusk tomorrow is the limit of your stay without renting accommodation. When you exit Uzkulak, ensure that you are recorded by the attendant at that exit, or you may be incorrectly marked for death. Glory to Hashut."
"Glory to Hashut," echo the Hobgoblins.
You're not sure what to say to that, as you're not going to repeat the glory thing and you're pretty sure thanking him wouldn't be appropriate, so you simply nod and step through the door. A long, wide, and well-lit stone corridor extends deeper into the mountain. Your footsteps echo down the long corridor and you're watching carefully through your magical senses for any sign this might be an extremely long con on you in particular. But as you approach the end of the corridor a growing babble of voices indicates that it might not be a trick, and you step through a final set of doors into what must be the Trade Hall.
By noise alone, the hubbub of traders and merchants and mercenaries plying their trade is quite familiar, and the only immediately noticeable difference is that the Khazalid is deeper and more guttural. But with your eyes open it's a series of shocks, one after another. The Marauders you expected, the Ogres and Hobgoblins you theorized. Mutants and zombies, Skaven and Goblins, the Vampire and the group of Dark Elves each capture your attention for a time. But what really surprises you is that a lot of the crowd are people you would not look at twice if you passed them in Barak Varr. Tileans and Estalians, Kislevites and Imperials, even what looks like a group of Bretonnian yeomen squabbling with an unimpressed-looking Dwarf about an axe made of jade. Stalls extend in all directions, many occupied and many not, and it seems like all one needs to do is pick an empty one and unload their goods onto a table to begin trying to convince someone to buy them. Every stall has a bell on one corner, and every so often the ring of a bell sounds and the crowd parts for what must be an Officiant with an abacus and a sack.
You weave your way through the crowd, slightly unnerved at how little attention you're getting. Actually, how much everyone goes out of their way to avoid paying too much attention to you, or to anyone else. Everyone seems to pretend not to notice anything about anyone else, their eyes carefully fixed just above or below eye-level unless they have a reason to interact with someone. This isn't the easy comfort of a functioning society, you realize. This is deadly enemies at arm's length and unable to do anything about it under threat of death. The more you look at the crowd, the more you spot the signs - the groups of similar-looking raiders who very carefully circle around each other, the Skaven with scraps of cloths tied around their identifying insignia, the Vampire openly grinning at a band of angry Tileans who are trying their best not to look in his direction. This room is perpetually moments away from violence, and no place here is far from a set of double-doors that you're sure are perpetually ready to spill forth a band of Chaos Dwarf warriors, or perhaps something more exotic, to beat down the offenders and claim their riches and lives. The Chaos Dwarves may always get their percentage, but they're watching for any opportunity to claim the entirety without threatening Uzkulak's reputation of neutrality, and faded bloodstains here and there on the floors and table tell of when they found those opportunities.
You also spot signs and doorways leading to ancillary halls dedicated to specialty goods that, for various reasons, aren't suitable for sale in the trade hall. There's a Hall of Livestock, which you visit very briefly as you find an empty room that will likely smell of dung for the rest of time; an extremely weary-seeming Officiant tells you there's nothing currently in, as an Ogre tribe pushed out of their hunting grounds bought everything there was. There's a Hall of Slaves, which you spend some time looking at with a churning gut. Slavery in the abstract is a detestable practice, but actually seeing slaves, chained and suffering and waiting to be bought, is something you're not sure you can witness up close without breaking the restrictions you're currently under. Sure, maybe it would be all greenskins or Chaos Marauders enslaved and sold by their rivals, but it's very possible that they'd be innocents taken in raids on the Old World's coastlines and sailed to Uzkulak to be sold. What do you do then? Beggar the Expedition and then burden it with a swarm of hungry noncombatants? Do something drastic and bold that gets you killed for nothing? Try to match your skills at thievery and deception against the greed and paranoia of the worshippers of Hashut, who have spent millennia at Uzkulak honing and practicing their skills and procedures to prevent that exact occurrence?
You turn away, at least for now, putting the matter out of your mind with the discipline that the Grey Order taught you. There's still another chance for your stated goal here to find success: the Hall of Bulk Goods. Not every ship taken at sea carries gold and jewels, not every caravan carries ivory and silks. Sometimes the sort of cargo that's heavier than it is valuable is burned or sunk, but the more disciplined, or more desperate, of raiders takes those goods here to try to find a buyer, because Zharr-Naggrund always hungers for raw materials.
You make your way through the hall where a handful of bored Officiants sit behind tables covered with samples; apparently the goods are left in the care of the Officiants for a fee, and if the goods remain here for long enough and the fee consumes enough of the value of the goods, Zharr-Naggrund buys them. There's little that won't be taken if the price gets low enough, because there's little that can't be burned, smelted, or fed to slaves. You find ingots, furniture, bolts of various cloths, weapons, armour, wooden boards, even chunks of ore, most of low quality and much of it water-damaged. Finally you find what you're looking for in a corner stacked high with ropes and sails: a slimy chunk of brined meat that has long since oozed out its moisture into a growing stain on the table. You ask the price, and it'd be slightly high if the barrel had just been sealed, let alone for something that was shipped for an unknown time, stolen in an unknown location, shipped an unknown distance to Uzkulak, and has been sitting in storage for an unknown period. But it's meat, and the quantity the Officiant says is available would feed the Expedition for about one and a half weeks, leaving you slightly better off than the original schedule.
After making your decision about the meat, you return to the main hall and do another circuit, this time with an eye for the goods rather than the crowd. There's a huge array of weaponry, including some extremely fine pieces made and sold by Chaos Dwarves, from the traditional swords, axes and maces, to exotic weapons from distant countries you couldn't put a name to, to firearms of every type, including a tarnished bronze cannon with barnacles growing over one side. These are the goods that get the most attention from the crowd. But you're not here to trade your stolen goods for a better weapon to steal even more goods, you're here, at least partially, in the hopes of finding something unexpected and exotic. So you turn away from the crowds and delve into the odd little corners, looking for the esoteric, the unusual, the unique.
What you mostly find is the counterfeit.
There are 'power stones' that are clearly sea-polished rocks. There's a gaudy scimitar said to be made from Ithilmar, but you can leave a mark in the metal with your fingernail. There's books of magic aplenty, including a 'Book of Nagash' that has a very intimidating skull on the cover, but radiates so little taint you doubt it's seen Morrslieb, let alone the hand of the Great Necromancer. 'Dragon eggs' that contain not the barest flicker of life, a 'magic scroll from the fabled land of Albion' that is plainly in Eltharin and consists of a complaint about an apparently insufficient set of repairs made to the writer's roof, a map to 'Elven treasure' that would, if your memories of geography are correct, land the treasure-seeker near the foot of the Dragon Spine Mountains, which you're sure Caledorians would disapprove of quite strongly and almost certainly violently.
But it's not all fake. Or at the very least, some of it is faked well enough to fool even your scrutiny.
The first piece that causes your eyebrows to rise is a four-fingered arm made of solid gold and covered in sigils you don't recognize. You can sense dormant power within it, and a lot of it - but too tightly contained to tell what sort, except that it's not Dhar. The fingers are razor-sharp talons and the palm has a raised circle you're sure is where that power you sense is output. But though the Norscan selling it does not seem to know anything about its magical properties, he does know solid gold when he sees it, and that puts a solid floor on the price. Eight hundred gold coins is a shockingly exorbitant price for a complete mystery and it's not like you're short of strange things to prod at, but you suppose if all else fails you could resell it for melt value.
The second is from a Naggarothi Corsair that won't stop smirking at you, and among the goods scattered haphazardly across the table is some sort of nut that glows so brightly with Ghyran that it gives you a headache in your soul to focus on it. Your questions uncover that the Corsair got it from 'somewhere', where it belonged to 'someone', and was stolen 'a while ago'. You're starting to understand why the Ulthuani don't get along with these people. The price is a jaw-dropping one thousand gold coins, and your shock and outrage at that only seems to make the Corsair more delighted, which leads you to suspect that's why they gave you that price. But you must admit you've never seen so much magic concentrated in so small a form.
The third and final curiosity is a set of books and papers apparently taken from an Ulthuani explorer who ventured into Lustria and the Southlands to investigate the strange lizard-folk that are said to reside there. That she took rubbings and sketches instead of the golden plaques themselves might be why she survived so long while engaged in such a dangerous endeavour, but it was no protection from the other hazards of the world, and apparently a Chaos Dwarf ship caught her vessel off the Shifting Mangrove Coastline on the eastern side of the Southlands. Her fate is unknown and probably tragic, but her rather extensive writings have been sent here to see if they can find a buyer. If they don't, they're likely destined to feed a forge somewhere.
---
Does Mathilde visit the Hall of Slaves?
[ ] HALL: Yes
[ ] HALL: No
Does Mathilde buy the barrels of salted meat using Borek's money?
[ ] MEAT: Yes
[ ] MEAT: No
Does Mathilde purchase the golden arm for 800 gold coins?
[ ] ARM: Yes
[ ] ARM: No
Does Mathilde purchase the Ghyran nut for 1000 gold coins?
[ ] NUT: Yes
[ ] NUT: No
Does Mathilde purchase the explorer's writings for 200 gold coins?
[ ] PAPERS: Yes
[ ] PAPERS: No
- There will be a two hour moratorium.
- For reference, Mathilde's current wealth weighs in at about 2800 gold coins. That is not the money the Expedition has, that is the money she has back at K8P and so can reimburse the Expedition with upon their return.
- The phrase 'no harm in looking' should be avoided when debating the Hall of Slaves. Mathilde is a strongly moral person in her own way, and she follows the God of freedom from tyranny. What she sees could leave her unbalanced for some time. It could leave a permanent mark on her. It could put her in a position where she has to choose between choosing to do something risky and/or expensive and/or strategically unsound, or being unable to look at herself in a mirror.
- The remaining interaction and exploration will continue after business here is concluded.
- If bought, transporting the food will not be a problem - it would only take a few gold coins to hire some of the visiting traders to haul the cargo a few hours southwards.
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The Karag Dum Expedition, Part 11: Seventh-and-Final-Combe
In the end, you turn your gaze away from the Hall of Slaves. There will always be more evils in the world than you are capable of addressing, and a half-baked attempt to fix this one would just make it less likely that you're able to fix the one you've invested years of planning towards. That logic isn't very effective at quelling the part of you calling it cowardice as you literally walk away from the enslaved and the suffering, though.
---
The meat is an easy purchase. It looks horrific to you, but you're accustomed to being able to go for a leisurely ride to an inn, restaurant, or bakery when hunger makes itself known. Those at sea are not so fortunate, and it's largely upon barreled salt meat like this that they feed themselves for months or sometimes even years at a time. Between the Light and Amber magic at the Expedition's disposal there's little harm in testing it on the wolves and Demigryphs, and at worst it won't be any more inedible than the few precious stones you trade it for.
The books and papers are almost as easy, as between their uniqueness, rare subject matter, and their fate if they aren't purchased, it takes very little thought for you to decide to add it to your haul. The golden arm and the Ghyran seed are less convincing, but in the end you decide to purchase both, your curiousity outweighing your financial prudence and your dislike of the Druchii's smirk. Even if you're never able to puzzle out the arm you'll still be able to get a significant amount of the cost back by selling it for its gold content, and even if the seed is some sort of trick, figuring out how that much magic was crammed into so small a container would still have value.
Transporting your purchases is simple enough, as you simply claim a stall, write 'seeking caravan for one-day transportation contract' in the air with Aethyric Projection, give a price that's double the usual rate, and put your feet up for the few minutes it takes for someone to approach you. You wouldn't trust the Tilean in question as far as you could throw him since he's here in Uzkulak, but then he could say the same for you, so you ring the bell, hand over a portion of the fee to an Officiant, and see about getting the barrels and books loaded up into the caravan that you're sure he'll claim has been to Cathay and back when it returns to Kislev. With the golden arm in one of those barrels so none of them have to wrestle with temptation. You make sure to confirm with the watchdwarf that Gabriella von Ernachthafen has departed Uzkulak and travel in the wake of the caravan, keeping enough of an eye on them to keep them from getting any clever ideas.
Shortly after dawn, the Expedition trundling along the Skull Road comes across you sitting atop a stack of barrels in the middle of the empty wasteland as you skim through the books. You project an air of aloof smugness as you ignore the many bewildered questions directed your way, which redouble after someone finds the markings on one of the barrels confirming that they came from a Marienburg trade ship. The Dwarves are familiar enough with their vessels at this point that it only takes them a few moments to swing out the davits and start hoisting the barrels aboard and it doesn't take long before the Expedition is underway once more, and you find a moment away from prying eyes to return the remaining precious stones to Borek, and pass word to him that there's apparently a displaced and hungry Ogre tribe somewhere in the area.
---
Aboard the Urmskaladrak, Gotrek is supervising the efforts to mount a boiling contraption onto the engines so that most of the salt can be boiled out of the meat. "Won't ask how you did it, but I'm glad you did," he says to you.
"You were worried about the food situation?"
"Worried?" He harrumphs. "I've worked with Snorri before, I know Rangers can find food anywhere there's food to be found, and the manling Knights seem poured from the same crucible. But I'm more comfortable the less variables there are. It wouldn't have taken very many delays to start raising questions about whether we can even reach somewhere where food can be foraged."
"Three weeks from Dukhlys to the Steppes," you say with a nod.
"It should have been two at most," he grumbles. "The four-wheel design would have had us halfway back to Karak Kadrin by now, as long as every road on the way was solid and perfectly maintained stone at no more than a three degree incline. I should have pushed back more against the sort of Grandmasters that haven't seen the sun since they were Apprentices, but there was trouble enough with me being appointed Head Engineer and having to relocate the project would have ended it there and then. Even though the only reason it was me and not one of them was because none of them would do it."
"I've heard Karag Dum has a lot of detractors among traditionalists," you prompt.
"Folks are always ready to believe the worst of those they've failed," he says with a shrug. "If Karag Dum wasn't worth protecting, there's no shame in failing to have protected it. And it's not like they're able to level a Grudge in defence of their good name."
You nod silently. It's a reasonable conclusion and possibly even a correct one, and it doesn't require the degree of culpability that Thorek's theory requires. "So, this will get the salt out of the meat?"
"Most of it," he grumbles, but in a less morose tone; a Dwarf grumbling about how much better they could do something with more time or better resources is always a happier Dwarf than a Dwarf grumbling about the decline of the Karaz Ankor. "There are cauldrons and ovens that feed off the heat of the boiler already of course, but we're going to need to boil these a lot to get them edible. At sea they'd steep them first, but that means changing the water every few hours and we don't have an endless supply of water with lower salinity than the meat, so that's out. And we can't just toss it into the main boiler, that's designed to be damn near a closed system, and introducing salt and meat fragments would go wrong very quickly. So we build a secondary boiler and condenser and run them off the firebox, boiling off most of the water and draining off the brine and refilling it from the reclaimed fresh water. Before long we'll be left with boiled and only moderately salted meat and a tub of saturated brine that would be maybe eight times saltier than seawater. We can use that to preserve any new meat that comes in that's in excess of what can be eaten, or if nothing else, sell it to a saltern or a pickler on the way back home."
You nod, impressed at such an efficient solution at such short notice. "Very efficient. Nothing's wasted."
He snorts and folds his arms. "Of course. We aren't making it home if we get in the habit of wasting."
"What do you think we'll find at Karag Dum?"
"I don't. Never been, never met anyone who has apart from Borek, so not enough data. Though it does bother me that Borek is becoming more nervous, rather than less, as we get closer. I wonder if he would prefer them to have been destroyed than to have found an unconventional way of surviving."
"The counterfeit Slayers from Karak Vlag do highlight some ugly possibilities. Speaking of, any thoughts on the return of Karak Vlag?"
"Not really," he says with a shrug. "Don't get me wrong, it was the right thing to do and I'm glad we did it, but the Karaz Ankor and I have parted ways. My Ankor is my family now, and they're no better or worse off than before with a Dwarfhold on the other side of Kislev back in existence."
"Ah."
Gotrek apparently takes this as an unvoiced question. "My wife is Clanless. My Clan wouldn't allow her to join it in marriage, so I left it."
You consider the offer that Gotri said he's willing to extend. "Do you regret it?"
He shakes his head firmly. "I regret that they made it necessary. Never my response."
---
The Expedition has had less than a week away from copiously available snowmelt, so there's no need for water at this time. That doesn't stop Snorri from deciding to send a team to investigate the northernmost of the Zorn Uzkul lakes so you'll know for the return trip whether it can be relied upon as a source of water. It comes as a surprise to you that wholesome water supplies can exist in the middle of Chaos Dwarf territory, but you suppose that even Dwarves would think twice before taking on an aquifer. Either that, or Zharr-Naggrund is reliant on this water downstream.
You travel with them to the lake, more for the company than out of safety concerns, though it's likely that if you asked there'd be a significant disagreement over who's protecting who. Once you arrive, the eldest of the Rangers takes a very cautious sip, swishes it around in his mouth cautiously, then nods and swallows. The Rangers all fill up the waterskins they've brought with them for this purpose, apparently intending to create a type of ale that the Rangers of Karak Vlag would only make from the waters of these lakes. What you know of brewing says that if the Expedition suffers no further delays, it will be about ready to drink by the time you're almost back at High Pass, and you wonder if the plan is to drink it or to leave it for Karak Vlag in the hopes that they'd take it as further evidence they're back in reality. Perhaps both.
You part ways with them as they head back to the Expedition and follow the trickle of an outflow as it carves a deep furrow through the empty landscape, galloping along its winding length for a couple of hours until it and you reach the river flowing from the largest of the four, and then three more hours following that until it reaches the second largest of the lakes, which is large enough that you can't see the opposite shore and it takes you two hours to circle around it until you reach the outflow. From there it's another hour until you reach the unnamed falls that disappear into a ravine carved in the southern edge of the Zorn Uzkul plateau, plummeting downwards in a great waterfall taller than most mountains. Somewhere on the western side of that ravine is Clan Moulder's Sixth-Combe, and somewhere on the eastern is the Seventh-and-Final-Combe. This is Clan Moulder's front line against the Chaos Dwarves, from where they raid and are in turn raided by Zharr-Naggrund to the southeast, which is visible as a great column of smoke on the horizon.
Actually reaching Seventh-and-Final-Combe from up here would be much easier said than done for someone that isn't capable of short-range translocation. You shroud yourself in invisibility and hop from niche to recess to tunnel, searching for the one from which unfortunate Skaven do their best to extend a giant funnel into the enormous flow of water every other day to top up the water supplies of the Skaven base. It's not hard to confirm the correct one when you find it, as the Skaven seem to have an impulse to carve their Runes into the walls of every tunnel they occupy, and you follow the three-sided Rune of the Skaven and the overlapping triple diamond of Clan Moulder into the darkness deep underground. You've braced yourself for the smell of a place teeming with Skaven, but what you actually encounter is the overwhelming smell of blood and brimstone, causing you to redouble your guard.
When the passage finally opens up into a main chamber, you find yourself looking upon a fresh battlefield being picked over by Hobgoblins and watched over by what must be a Bull Centaur, the giant creatures 'blessed' by Hashut with the torso of a Dwarf and the body of a bull. Far from the drunken idiocy of the Centaurs of the Beastmen, this creature stares over the Hobgoblins with eyes alight with cruel intelligence, occasionally barking out an order that leaves them scurrying to obey. Looking over the field, you note that most of what you see are regular Skaven, and most scrawny enough to suggest a low position within the Clan's pecking order. Either the more exotic bodies have already been dragged away, or they were never a part of this conflict to begin with, which leads you to believe that you might have found a clue as to what happened with the Plotter-Daemons.
You can hear Qrech's voice in your memory: two is war, three is peace. The status quo here is war, and it's one that has long since solidified into a stalemate from which both sides can harvest exotic slaves and test subjects. The introduction of the Daemons would normally bring peace, but the Daemons did not arrive somewhere equidistant between Clan Moulder and Zharr-Naggrund, they would have arrived around Second- or Third-Combe, introducing a second set of two. Clan Moulder was beset on a new front and withdrew its strongest troops and most lethal beasts to respond, and though they undoubtedly would have tried to keep up the appearance of strength against the Chaos Dwarves, they managed to see through the deception and attacked while their old foe was weakened. Perhaps the bulk of their forces is further west, carving deeper into the chain of bases until they reach the Plotter-Daemons, or perhaps this is the extent of their ambition and they are already returning home to count the spoils. Considering the Hobgoblins are down to dragging away the bodies for what little meat there is on their bones, you doubt there's much left to find here - but there's no harm in trying. Piecing together a mental map from what Qrech's stories have revealed about his old home, you skirt your way around the gore and deeper into the base.
Your explorations quickly reveal that the base has already been quite thoroughly looted, including the vaults, cells, laboratories and armouries, but there's one place that you're hoping they wouldn't have been able to find yet: the hidden safe in the Warlord's personal quarters that featured prominently in his story of how he replaced the Warlord before him. The room has already been torn apart, with the wall hangings and carpets Qrech described already disappeared and probably destined for either a Chaos Dwarf's own quarters or Uzkulak for resale, and the vast aquarium that takes up one wall has been broken and the gilled rats that called it home are gone. You reach through the broken glass and pull up the tiny sword lodged in the ribcage of an upset-looking model skeleton, and with a few clicks that make their way through the walls, part of the wall swings noiselessly out, revealing a safe dial. 13-13-13 gets you in, because the way to change the code had been lost with Qrech's predecessor when he was entombed alive in this very safe.
Thankfully, Qrech was practical enough to have said predecessor removed after he had cemented his new position instead of leaving him in as a trophy, and there's only a faint whiff of decay as you reach in to pull out several heavy sacks. Inside you find golden Kislevite Ducats, most bearing the face of Tzar Vladimir Bokha on one side and all the Winter Palace on the reverse, likely either stolen in raids on Kislev or from Kislevite traders bound for Cathay. The quality of the minting is very good as Kislev has always sourced its dies from Dwarfholds rather than making their own, but their purity is very slightly less than Imperial coins. Your rough estimation from their weight says that they're not quite enough to make up for your recent purchases, but at least you won't have to tithe any of it. With your newfound wealth you make your way back out of the warren, and just in time too, because the Bull Centaur has apparently called a break and his Hobgoblins are busy building a cookfire that's soon to fill the tunnels with the smell of burning rat-flesh.
---
The few careful tests indicate that though the wolves and Demigryphs aren't exactly enthused by the salt meat, they'll eat it, and after they show no signs of side-effects worse than a certain amount of grouchiness it is distributed to the rest of the beasts and to anyone else willing to try it. You give it a shot yourself, and though it's still hellishly salty, you have to admit you've eaten worse, mostly from Altdorf street vendors. This leaves the Expedition with approximately four weeks of provisions remaining while two weeks away from Karag Dum. That gives a fair bit of wriggle-room should anything go wrong.
The Expedition has reached the eastern end of Zorn Uzkul, and faces what might be the most laborious part: the switchbacking ascent to the Great Steppes. This is the leg of the Expedition where the speed of the steam-wagons will reduce to a crawl and the convoy might be most vulnerable to attack, and the quality of the road is likely to be extremely variable. At the top of the ascent is the land of the Iron Wolves, the Kurgan tribe who are said to serve a Dragon Ogre and who spend much of their time watching and raiding the Skull Road. By the end of the week you should hopefully be at the edge of Dolgan territory, ready to begin your final sprint northwards to Karag Dum.
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
Other:
[ ] Use Rite of Way to ease the ascent - Will only be necessary during the roughest patches
[ ] Scout the lands of the Iron Wolves
[ ] Attempt to make contact with the Iron Wolves
[ ] Investigate the 'Windfall' with the Light Wizards - Where the Winds blowing from the north descend to ground level, which is only know to happen in mountainous terrain: here, the Mountains of Mourne, the Goromadny Mountains, and northern Norsca.
- There will be a two hour moratorium.
- If you have any other ideas for useful ways for Mathilde to spend her time, let me know.
- Mathilde's debt to Borek is to be settled with solid Dwarven coinage after she returns to K8P.
- There were 1,350 ducats in the bags. The Kislevite ducat is worth about 95% of an Imperial crown.
Tally
[*] Use Rite of Way to ease the ascent
[*] Investigate the 'Windfall' with the Light Wizards
[*] Journeyman Cyrston von Danling
[*] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart the Younger
The road winding up from the Zorn Uzkul plateau to the Great Steppes is no more treacherous than anywhere else along the path except for one aspect: the incline. Conventional wagons can manage it more or less fine, albeit sometimes through double-teaming the wagons or having Ogre mercenaries help push, but those strategies aren't really viable for the behemoths that are the steam-wagons. All that can be done mechanically is to stoke the fire up and hope for the best, but the loss of traction from a pothole or fresh gully here could meaningfully slow the steam-wagon down where on level terrain it would simply coast over it. So this is an ideal place to first deploy your Rite of Way: where the terrain is troubling enough that it would help, but not so rough that it's vital. You displace Borek from the prow position on the Alriksson, mentally prepare yourself, and as the wagon begins to climb and the engine redoubles in volume you let Ulgu flow through you into your staff and pour onto the road ahead.
[Casting Rite of Way: Learning, 21+28=49.]
After the first shift, you're glad you decided to get the practice in here. The steam-wagons need to be fairly well spaced out to give each of them time to adjust to any change in speed from the wagon in front of them, and maintaining the trail for the full convoy turns out to be a lot more mentally taxing than you had expected. Until you get into the proper rhythm there's several times where the tailing wagon isn't covered and starts to fall behind and needs to catch up at the next bend, where being able to see the road to make the turn means the spell can't be applied. But there's an unexpected benefit to this in that having the final wagon act as an inadvertent control subject demonstrates the better traction that the hidden path provides, which mollifies concerns and reduces grumbling to background levels.
The wagons themselves turn out to exceed expectations when it comes to managing the slopes, the sixteen driving wheels and twelve carrying wheels turning out to maintain traction much better than the Engineers had expected from their tests with the four-wheel designs. By the second day they've accepted the use of the Rite of Way and are updating their projections to show at least a day saved on the ascent, possibly more. The scouts bring in detailed information on the incline and the condition of the path ahead, and you're able to work out a schedule where you'll be assisting with the trickiest parts without having to completely exhaust yourself by dedicating all your daylight hours to the task.
---
Esbern and Seija had been able to identify an area of Windfall while out scouting with the Knights of Taal's Fury, so on a day when the Winds are blowing and you're not needed for a suitable stretch you and the Light Wizards fill rucksacks with esoteric equipment and a lunch and make your way east-southeast to where the phenomenon was spotted. You might be able to cautiously make your way across this terrain atop a Shadowsteed but you doubt the Light Wizards would be able to, so there's nothing for it but a good long hike with Skywalk to bridge some of the trickier gaps.
"So," Egrimm says curiously as the five of you walk around the mountain in your way. "That spell, the Rite of Way. Is it a ritual?"
"No, despite the name, it's a sustained spell. Low-level Battle Magic."
"Are you consciously controlling the whole thing?"
"No, Ulgu is able to detect breaks in uniformity, so I have individual instances of a stripped-down Skywalk that get placed wherever there's a break in that. I just have to control where the fog is to act as a constraint on the spell and supply a steady stream of new instances."
"I've seen how far you have to extend it to cover the convoy, that must be a difficult visualization."
"Not as much as you might think, when it's a straight road at a relatively low speed. Then the tough part is output and consistency. It would be a different story for something faster moving that could need to change direction suddenly."
"But it would still be possible?"
"In theory. It's yet to be tested on a battlefield."
"It's new?"
"Put the finishing touches on it earlier this year."
There's silence in response to that, and you glance up from the path ahead to see Egrimm looking at you in surprise. "Well," he eventually says, "I suppose that's why I haven't encountered it before. That's an impressive spell to have made from scratch."
You shrug. "It's yet to have a proper field-testing. This stretch is just a warm-up, it's the steppes that will really put it through its paces."
When you finally reach the spot that Esbern and Seija had found, the Light Wizards trailing behind and in various stages of exhaustion, you take a moment to appreciate the sight that would be invisible to anyone without Magesight. This is where seven of the eight Winds blowing from the north descend from overhead to reach ground level and begin to follow the preferences and patterns you're familiar with, and though a waterfall would be the closest comparison, water's descent is extremely straightforward compared to streams of the Winds trying to keep their distance from other Winds and merging with streams of the same Wind in a chaotic twirling descent, and then scattering as they hit ground level and break apart from the sudden impact. The impact point is thick with Dhar from the times when velocity overcame natural repulsion, but the same velocity that causes the Dhar prevents most of the Winds from being drawn into the morass of blended Winds lurking at the bottom of the cliff like a sinkhole of dark magic.
"It's always mountains," Egrimm says as he begins to unpack his rucksack. "All across the upper hemisphere, there's always mountains to interrupt the flow of magic overhead. Here, the Mountains of Mourn, Norsca... I've read that even Naggaroth has a chain of mountains to its north that performs the same function. There's only two exceptions I know of: where the Northern Wastes meet the Great Ocean, and the Great Bastion of Cathay. Neither of which we know much about."
"So are mountains actually required for magic to descend, or is it an accident of geography?" you ask.
"That's the question. Those that believe the world was made with purpose tend towards the former, those that don't often also believe that there's similar Winds coming from the Southern Wastes that don't have a chain of mountains to interrupt them. Needless to say, there's not many expeditions to try to map the geography of the Southern Wastes, though apparently the High Elves have an outpost on a spur near Khuresh." He removes a large crystal wrapped in wire from his pack, and begins to examine it carefully.
"How does your Magesight manifest?" you ask curiously.
"Visual, which is actually not that common in the Light Order - we initiate early so most don't have a chance to develop their own before they're shaped by the Choruses. Citharus has auditory like most, Timpania has olfactory, and Barbitus has... what was it?"
"Visceral, Magister," he says, not looking up from rooting through his rucksack.
"And how is all this manifesting for you?"
Barbitus frowns. "Hard to say, but it's doing a lot of it. I think I'll be skipping lunch."
"Remember to take notes, we don't get many chances to accumulate data on this phenomenon." Egrimm looks downwards at where the plummeting Winds terminate. "And to prove it, that's a much-debated phenomenon we can confirm the existence of. Natural Dhar. There's plenty that argue that it only comes about as a result of unnatural influences or ill intent."
"Why do the Winds fall here, though?" you ask, looking upwards.
"That's the question, isn't it? Everywhere else we know of, it's easy to say that it's the mountains interrupting the flow of magic, and that's the most popular theory. But this peak is below the ground level of the Great Steppes and it's still happening here. Even the Azyr is dipping before splitting off from the other seven to remain higher."
"Something metaphysical, then? The nature of mountains weighing down the Winds?"
"Could be. But that's a problem with the Colleges, they're so centralized in Altdorf that most of the Wizards that weave theories never go further afield than the Grey Mountains, and that's a very tame range, comparatively. So they've never really encountered the real thing."
"Well, let's gather some data for them," you say, frowning as you consider the coloured wax pencils you've brought with you. You're not much of an artist, but trying to turn what you're seeing into words seems a lot more daunting than trying to sketch it out.
A few industrious hours pass as copious notes are taken, esoteric instruments consulted, and one crystal shard is very carefully dipped into a Wind stream with Move cast by the miniature choir. To you the choir was more interesting than the results, as between the three of them they managed to keep two instances of the spell on the crystal while the third took a break, rotating so that every minute each of them had rotated in and out once. Getting them in sync enough for that to work must have been a hellishly difficult process, but it seems like it would be extremely useful in all sorts of ways. But once the observations are taken and the lunches have been eaten it's time to head back once more, with the three junior Light Wizards ranging ahead while you hang back to talk to Egrimm.
"How's Barbitus doing?" you ask him.
"Not well, today isn't the first meal he's missed and I don't think he's sleeping. But it doesn't seem like it's outright festering either. I think as long as the voyage continues to be prosaic, he'll have recovered by the time we arrive at Karag Dum."
"I think if we do come under attack here, it will be by more mundane forces than we saw from Karak Vlag. Do you think he'd have trouble engaging normal horsemen?"
He shakes his head. "Choir discipline runs deep. Once he gets casting with the others, he'll be fine."
You nod thoughtfully, your eyes on Barbitus as he hops from rock to rock. "Glad to hear it."
---
Journeyman Cyrston von Danling is the only Journeymanling who seems unmoved by his taste of combat with the Daemons, and that has drawn your curiosity and perhaps a bit of your suspicion. The paranoid part of you wonders if 'seasonal attunement' is perhaps a very convenient excuse for his spells growing in power as he approaches the Chaos Wastes, though you do know from Panoramia that it is an existing phenomenon. So you put aside some time to approach him as he watches the terrain rolling past.
"Fascinating plateau," he says, staring down at the Zorn Uzkul that is laid out below. "What could it be that motivates the great beasts of the mountains to come here to die?"
"No idea," you say. "I've heard of something similar far to the south for dragons, but that seems more cultural than instinctual, since they stopped doing it after the Coming of Chaos."
"An ancient migratory path that was once survivable, but no longer is? A herding instinct that has them trying to follow the same path as the great caravans, unaware that the caravans carry food and water with them? Some sort of curse or ambient energies?" He shakes his head. "Such a fascinating mystery, and one so dangerous to even reach and look upon."
"There's a lot of those in the world," you say with a nod.
"I hope so. Travelling would get boring if you only ever encountered things you already understood." He smiles and turns his eyes away from the plateau. "What can I do for you, Lady Magister?"
"Just wanted to check in with you. I'm juggling a lot of hats right now, but one of them is being head of the Wizards on this Expedition."
He nods and smiles. "I suppose it can't be easy to manage Journeymen while also somehow looting a Marienburg ship. Nothing to worry about with me, I couldn't be happier to have seen the famous Zorn Uzkul, and soon the Great Steppes. I'm told they look something like northern Kislev, but on a much vaster scale."
"No lingering effects from the battle? The effects of a Higher Daemon of the Tempter can be rather subtle..."
He shakes his head firmly. "Not that I've noticed. If anything, well, not to get too graphic, but that sort of thing is trending downwards as spring gives way to summer, as it always does."
You decide against pursuing that line of enquiry too closely. "Do the seasons still have such an effect, even this far north?"
He nods. "We've never encountered a place where it didn't. I once read an account of a Jade Wizard that travelled to Sudenburg and was still subject to seasonal variations in mood and magic even though the weather there didn't reflect it. The current atheological theory is that the rhythm of the seasons is constant and powerful enough to keep Wizards in sync with it no matter the distance."
You nod, considering his words. Your first interview with him did reveal that he considers himself something of an explorer, so you suppose it's no surprise he'd focus on the landscape rather than the events. And maybe his seasonal attunement keeps him centered in such a way that the periphery of a Tempter aura couldn't get its hooks in. You're not fully convinced, but it's your job to never be fully convinced. "And the theological one?" you ask curiously.
He sighs. "The theological one is busy being fought over by the Rhyans and the Shallyans and the Ishernosians," he says with a shrug.
"Do you take a side in that?"
"Not if I can help it. I think the march of the seasons is powerful enough to venerate it without needing to put a face and a name on it."
You nod. You've yet to discuss the matter with a Jade Wizard that didn't keep out of that disagreement, though you suppose it makes sense that those that travel far from their home College would be those that don't want to get involved in the major internal disagreement of their Order. You're glad that the Grey College didn't inherit any major institutional baggage from the pre-Teclisean era, as it seems to be a huge weight on the mind of Jade Wizards. You thank Cyrston for his time and leave him to his study of the landscape.
---
Sir Ruprecht the Younger is a hard man to get a hold of, as he seems to spend every waking moment on patrol, giving orders to those about to go on patrol, or receiving information from those that have just come back from patrol. It's good that he's so dedicated to his work, but that it requires so much constant hands-on management from him suggests either internal troubles or a lack of confidence, though you suppose their performance back in High Pass would justify a certain amount of close scrutiny. You finally manage to pull him aside in between patrols and it doesn't take much probing from you before he's voicing his thoughts on the battle.
"It was that illusion," he says, shaking his head. "We were ready to charge in there and kill everything that was underdressed and beardless, but suddenly there were those heretic Slayers, and our own Slayers were cut down so quickly by them. That was something nobody could have predicted, but they should still have reacted. But they didn't, not until I all but threw them at the fortifications."
"Inability to adapt to changing circumstances?" you ask.
He nods. "I think we've grown too used to predictable foes, the Orcs of Iron Rock and the Dragon Ogres of Thunder Mountain. That's why back in the Empire, only half of us would be on guard duty at any one time, and the other half would be out striking down the enemies of man. Beastmen one week, cultists the next, and Forest Goblins after that. But ever since we settled down in Ulrikadrin the only time we've done anything but skirmish with the neighbouring brutes is during the battles at Karak Eight Peaks."
You nod. "There's only so much drilling and skirmishes can do. But that might be unavoidable. You don't have an entire province to fight across any more."
"We might," he says. "There's been rumblings from Barak Varr about Mad Dog Pass - it's the last of the southern passes that isn't controlled by the Dwarves, so it's the destination of choice for those that would rather take their chances than pay the Dwarves their cut. But that much wealth attracts the wrong sort of attention, and there's rumours of bandit-kingdoms along the Howling River. And it's a very small step from bandit to pirate, and Barak Varr definitely doesn't like that sort of thing. It was just talk when we left, but after Karak Vlag I've been thinking about it a lot."
You frown, consulting a mental map. "With Karak Vlag back, Mad Dog Pass would be the only overland route to the east outside of Dwarven control."
"And they last had that level of control, I've heard, before the birth of the Empire."
"Long before," you say with a nod. "Karak Norn was founded by the Clans that once watched over the Silver Road and Mad Dog Pass."
"And that could be where the Winter Wolves fit in. Mad Dog Pass is the only Pass without a major Dwarfhold on it. Seems better suited to being watched over by cavalry than by Dwarves on foot."
"That would put you in close proximity with Night Goblins and Forest Goblins. There's your unpredictable foes."
"Bloody Spear and Black Spider tribes," he says, nodding. "That way we have a chance to still be Knights in a few generations, rather than monks with puppies or feudal lords with pretensions."
"You wouldn't be the only ones to benefit. If the Dwarves took a cut of every caravan from Ind and Cathay... well, even Dwarven vaults would be swelled by that." You consider that for a moment, then turn the conversation back to the original topic. "Have any of the Knights been troubled by the battle? Not so much by their performance, but from the influence of the Daemons?"
He shakes his head firmly. "Our martial skills may have slipped, but our faith is stronger than ever now that we're far from the politics of Middenheim. A few are troubled, but they already know the prayers and meditations that will guide them past it, and our more experienced brothers are watching over them."
"Glad to hear it. I'm sure they'll have a chance to prove themselves once more soon." You clap him on the back and leave him to it, and it doesn't take long before he's hurrying back to his men. Perhaps a slight inclination to over-management, but you suppose that's only natural after overseeing a failing like that.
---
You're resting atop the Alriksson as the caravan negotiates its way around a corner when it happens. By the time it's audible over the engines of the steam-wagons, the clattering of falling stone has escalated into a full-blown avalanche, and there's a roar of draconic disapproval as the ground below the largest of the steam-wagons gives way, dragging it over the edge and out of sight as an extremely disgruntled dragon flaps his way free, carrying an even more disgruntled Elf in his talons. As the silence drags on you become more and more horrified, until at last there's an earth-shaking crash as the Urmskaladrak hits the ground far, far below.
It only takes you a moment to collect yourself before you're shaping Ulgu and appear at the edge of the cliff, then several more times as you jump from outcropping to outcropping until you reach the shattered vessel. To your shock there are already a couple of survivors crawling free of the wreckage, but you take just a moment to confirm that none of them are Gotrek before you turn to cast your eyes over the surrounding terrain. You can't see him, nor can you see the speck of Shyish that would probably indicate where he fell if he was atop the steam-wagon at the time, but from so far a drop he could have ended up any distance from the wreck itself. And if he was inside...
Time becomes meaningless as you do everything you can to negotiate a nightmarish maze of twisted metal and gore as you try to find survivors, or more accurately one survivor. Gotrek's knowledge of steam-wagons is irreplaceable, and without it there's that much less chance of being able to correct anything that goes wrong with them. But you're keenly aware that if he didn't survive the fall you have only a few minutes before he's beyond the grasp of the Seed of Regrowth, and though you've pulled out two more Dwarves that somehow survived the fall free of the wreckage, neither of them are Gotrek. And none of the recognizable corpses you've found are, either.
By the time you emerge once more, the Winter Wolves have wound their way back down the road and are starting to help retrieve and treat the wounded. You wipe the blood from your hands as best you can and start to numbly reassess the chances of the Expedition, because as soon as you and the survivors return to the convoy, there will be a debate over whether this has just ended it.
---
- The Urmskaladrak is completely destroyed.
- 16 Engineers, including Gotrek Gurnisson, died in the fall.
- Five Engineers survived, and will join the crew of the remaining steam-wagons
- Asarnil and Deathfang are unharmed.
- Most of the Expedition's food requirements are for the mounts, so this has a negligible effect on food consumption.
- About one week of food was aboard the Urmskaladrak. None is recoverable.
- About two weeks of food remain on the other steam-wagons. This is their maximum capacity.
- Karag Dum is approximately one week away.
- Kislev is approximately three weeks away.
- The scouts have not encountered any Iron Wolves, but if there are any in the area, they would have heard the falling Urmskaladrak.
- The Kriestov and Alexis are behind the rockslide area, and will need to negotiate the now narrower road if the Expedition presses on.
- The Alriksson, Magnus, and Volans are ahead of the rockslide area, and will need to negotiate the now narrower road if the Expedition turns back.
Ergo, the Expedition should...
[ ] Press on
[ ] Turn back
[ ] Other (write in)
- There will be a one hour moratorium.
- Convoy dicerolls: 1 on a d100 for cornering, 8 on a d100 for recovery, got the Urmskaladrak on a d6, rolled another d6 for how far a drop (higher better) and got a 1. Deathfang got an 82 for his reaction. Gotrek's survival roll, everyone else's, Mathilde's S&R.
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The Karag Dum Expedition, Part 13: The Great Steppes
"To get us all mining the same vein," Borek begins, "with the Urmskaladrak destroyed, we've not only lost our best Engineer, we've lost most of our food storage capacity. We are left with only what the other steam-wagons have room for, which is about nine tons apiece. This equates to about two weeks of food at full rations."
"We're three weeks out from the borders of Kislev," Snorri says, his voice distant. "If we turn back now and switch to half rations as we approach High Pass, we should remain battle-ready until we're out of the area where we're likely to encounter enemies."
"This quest was perilous in the best of circumstances," Sir Joerg says. "Without food, it cannot continue." Sir Ruprecht reluctantly nods in agreement.
"I may have a solution to that," you say, and all eyes turn to you. After properly washing the blood from your hands, you had spent some time considering the problem that the other Councillors are already wrestling with, and had come up with an elegant solution, and then had spent some time atop the Volans with a piece of measured string while trying to keep the words 'Mookery of Death' out of your head. "I have a spell at my disposal that will ensorcell the target into a sort of enchanted sleep. If we can acquire cows from the Kurgan, either by silver or steel, there's room on the top-deck of each of the steam-wagons for about sixty by my measure. They'd still require watering, but apart from that they'd be essentially cargo."
There's a long silence as everyone considers those numbers. "These wouldn't be fat Averland steers," Sir Ruprecht says. "Call it two to a ton, and a quarter of that bone."
"At least twenty tons of meat per steam-wagon," Borek says, a hint of hope re-entering his voice. "That triples our range. If we can get enough cows, that's more than enough to reach Karag Dum and for the journey back."
"The other problem is the missing part of the road," Sir Ruprecht says. "The Engineers have been taking measurements, what did they determine?"
You see heads turn towards the empty seat. "It's passable," Borek says in Gotrek's stead, "but barely. The remainder of the road seems stable, but there's stable and then there's a steam-wagon going over it stable. We'll take out the shotcannon and the more portable supplies and as much crew as we can - for such a short stretch we just need a stoker, a driver, and a pilot."
"I can have Hubert standing by to grab the pilot if the road goes, but the other two will share the fate of their steam-wagon if anything goes wrong," you say. That's all you can contribute to this problem, unfortunately. You've been trying to figure out a way for the Rite of Way to help in this situation, but it was built with the explicit intention of the caster not having to manually control it, so you're stuck with how the spell's targeting mechanism was built - and it was not built to bridge ravines.
Snorri exhales heavily. "We all knew that could be the price when we joined this Expedition. After already having saved one Dwarfhold, I'd be surprised if less than half of the Engineers stepped forward for the job."
"How do the numbers change if we lose another steam-wagon? Or, Gods forbid, both?" Sir Joerg says.
There's another moment as everyone wrestles with the numbers. Gotrek would have had a slate handy. "With four steam-wagons, five weeks," Borek says eventually. "With three, a little under four."
Sir Joerg considers that. "That's still viable."
"Then we continue on," Borek says firmly.
---
With bated breath, three hundred sets of eyes watch as the freshly-unloaded Kriestov noses its way forward. With its engine struggling to get up to steam on an incline it was always going to be slow, but given the circumstance it seems like very understandable hesitance. The remaining portion of the road seems far too narrow for the steam-wagon to slip past and you find yourself holding your breath as it slowly noses its way forward...
...and through, allowing you to finally exhale. But the wait for the Alexis to be unloaded and de-crewed allows tension to mount once more and you're just as nervous the second time...
...though, thankfully, for nothing. With the remaining steam-wagons reunited, the Dwarves scramble to reload the cargo so that the Expedition can finally get moving again and start to make up for lost time. The impact of the Urmskaladrak could have rung the dinner bell for any Kurgans or Ogres or who knows what else might be in the area, and right now your best defence against them is to be elsewhere.
---
Thankfully the final leg of the ascent is uneventful and you find yourself on the Great Steppes, the vast rolling landscape with the Winds blowing overhead and the constant feeling of being watched. Sir Joerg has reported that his scouts have spotted individual and small groups of horsemen, which so far have ended uneventfully with the horsemen falling back and the Knights letting them. It would be better for the Expedition if battle can be avoided, so it's better not to start any blood feuds if you can help it.
Soon you'll reach the point where the Expedition will veer north off Skull Road and into Dolgan territory. With a trail of smoke pointing to your position at all times it's likely they'll find you before too long, and hopefully they'll be inclined to stick to their end of the deal. You weren't exactly forthright about the band you'd be arriving with, but if the Dwarves stay out of sight then a band of monster-riding warriors surrounding huge, strange metal behemoths doesn't exactly scream 'not Chaos', so your lies by omission have a decent chance of being swallowed whole.
The landscape itself isn't too bad, and the dry landscape should hold up fairly well under the steam-wagons, or at least better than they would if it had rained recently. Still, any time spent casting Rite of Way would speed up the Expedition. You could also proactively make contact with the Dolgan instead of making them come to you, or take care of your side of the deal with the Ice Witches now if you think it would be better than doing so on the way home. And there's always value in checking in on others in the Expedition to keep tabs on their mental states. So much to do, so little time...
The four with the most votes will be chosen.
Spend time getting to know...
[ ] Thane Borek Forkbeard
[ ] Head Ranger Snorri Farstrider
[ ] Preceptor Joerg von Zavstra
[ ] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart the Younger
[ ] Asarnil the Dragonlord
[ ] Deathfang
[ ] Ice Crone Ljiljana
[ ] Magister Egrimm van Horstmann
[ ] Citharus, Barbitus, and Timpania
[ ] Magister Michel Solmann
[ ] Journeyman Cyrston von Danling
[ ] Journeywoman Alexandra Kohler
Become involved with:
[ ] Ranging far ahead of the convoy - With the Knights of Taal's Fury
[ ] Scouting near the convoy - With the Winter Wolves
Other:
[ ] Use Rite of Way for the worst patches of rough terrain
[ ] Use Rite of Way for the moderately difficult ground
[ ] Use Rite of Way nearly constantly - For these, vote cumulatively. For example, if you want to use two of Mathilde's four choices on it, vote for both the 'rough terrain' and 'moderately difficult ground' options.
[ ] Attempt to make contact with the Dolgan - These are the Kurgans Mathilde met with earlier, who agreed to sell her cattle.
[ ] Attempt to make contact with the Yusak - These are the Kurgan that live directly south of Karag Dum, who are said to have lost the favour of the Gods and may be seeking to move further south.
[ ] Attempt to make contact with the Kul - These are the most infamous of Kurgan tribes, who gave rise to Asavar Kul. They are said to live to the west of Karag Dum.
[ ] Attempt to make contact with the Iron Wolves
[ ] Attempt to steal the Chaos artefact with Ljiljana
- There will be a one hour moratorium.
- Trying to scout ahead to Karag Dum is very strongly recommended against. Even Asarnil and Deathfang would not go that far into the Chaos Wastes without back-up.
- For the Rite of Way vote, vote cumulatively. For example, if you want to use two of Mathilde's four choices on it, vote for both the 'rough terrain' and 'moderately difficult ground' options.
- My compliments to a particularly creative thread contributor who hit upon the Mockery of Death solution, without which this would have been a very different update.
- I am declaring a moratorium on all ideas and discussion about how to get the steam-wagons past the narrow part of the ascent until it's time to embark on the journey home once more.
Tally
[*] Use Rite of Way for the worst patches of rough terrain
[*] Attempt to make contact with the Dolgan
[*] Use Rite of Way for the moderately difficult ground
[*] Attempt to make contact with the Yusak
With the Expedition leaving the road and veering into the seemingly-endless steppes of the Kurgan, you've decided your best contribution to this Expedition would be to use Rite of Way to ease the journey over any difficult terrain, and to make contact with the Kurgan tribes whose territory lies in your path. Hopefully your established deal with the Dolgan will lay the foundation for a peaceful passage through their lands, and hopefully the fact that the Yusak have fallen from the favour of the Chaos Gods will mean they won't be looking for new enemies.
Hopefully.
As the steam-wagons turn off the road and onto the soil you take up position at the prow of the Alriksson alongside Borek, whose eyes rarely leave the northern horizon. You can feel the steam-wagon slow as the great wheels bite into the turf, but the great engine below grows louder and the many wheels keep turning, biting a deep furrow and leaving a trail of upturned black soil in its wake. Behind you the Magnus does the same, driving slightly to one side to avoid sinking deeper into the trails left by the Alriksson. If the great columns of smoke weren't enough, ten parallel black lines in the landscape will make it trivial for anyone with eyes to follow your trail, but then again stealth was never the plan. Speed and intimidation are how you hope to avoid conflict.
With the Expedition still making relatively decent forward progress you refrain from assisting with Rite of Way as the engineers make their assessments, monitoring engine and axle stress, measuring speed with a modified chip log, and conversations being shouted back and forth or had by writing down messages, attaching them to a crossbow bolt, and then firing them at targets attached to the fore and aft of each steam-wagon's funnels. Only once so far had such a message missed the target, and Snorri has said that the bolt will remain embedded in the funnel until the Ranger responsible can knock it off with another. When a consensus is finally reached, the results are sent to Borek, who glances down at them and grunts. "No worse than expected," he says to you. "Barring any dramatic changes in the landscape, we should arrive slightly ahead of schedule."
"Well, let's see if we can improve that," you say cheerily. "Might want to take a few steps back."
[Rite of Way: Learning, 87+28-10(Winds overhead)+15(Windsage)=120.]
You reach your hand upwards and with force of will you snag one of the overhead streams of Ulgu, causing it to break free of the overhead tapestry to swirl downwards towards the Alriksson and spiral around you. You feel giddy as you feel it engulf you, the thrumming energies throbbing in time with your heartbeat and flitting hither and thon in response to your slightest whim. With an effort of will you remind yourself of your purpose and channel the Wind through you and into your Staff, the altered dragonbone almost as permeable to Ulgu as your soul. Fog billows out from your staff and hands and mouth and eyes, pouring forward to embrace the terrain ahead.
The first steam-wagon seem to surge as it hits the grey road you've made, and at the same time there's a yank on your soul as the spell demands much more energy to sustain its effects, so much more than they required on the Skull Road. But now more than ever before there is energy aplenty, fresh from the Aethyr and ready to shape the malleable world to your will, and you meet the demands with only a slight effort. Then a second yank as the Magnus reaches the road, then a third and a fourth and a fifth, and now the entire stream flows straight through you and out onto the turf below. If you attempted to hold this much energy it would tear you asunder in seconds, but you simply let it flow through you. The lever moves the world, but the fulcrum remains steady.
This is what it is to be a Wizard. The robes, the rituals, the titles, the books, they were just decoration. To be a Wizard is to face the tide of power that would kill the world, and to bend that power to its defence.
"Maybe more than slightly," you hear Borek mutter to himself behind you, and your smile widens.
---
By the end of the first day the Expedition has grown familiar with the terrain and now knows how steep a hill can be and still be surmountable unassisted, and by dawn tomorrow the Knights will have a map ready for the day's travel that will give a route around the hills and bogs that dot the terrain. After most of a day immersed in Ulgu your thoughts flit about unfamiliarly, but a night's sleep surrounded by steel serves to ground you and you rise ready to face whatever the day will bring. The Knights have also reported regular contact with small groups of Kurgan, but so far both groups seem content with keeping a cautious distance. You hope to hammer that ad hoc ceasefire into a more solid agreement, and get confirmation that the Dolgan will cleave to their side of the deal.
As the steam-wagons set off, you ride out with the Knights for a spell and then split off from them to try to encounter some of the locals alone. It doesn't take you long to spot a promising sign - a thin wisp of smoke rising from over the horizon, much smaller than the column at your back. You ride towards it, slowing as you do so; by the time you can see the flicker of light you're only at a trot, and when you can make out the figures around it you slow even further. You want there to be no possibility of mistaking your approach for a charge.
By the time you reach them, they've long since spotted you, doused their fire, and mounted up, ready to fight or flee if necessary. Three of them look no different than any number of Gospodarin or Ungol horsemen you saw in Kislev, but the fourth has a strangely elongated head and a silver ring around his neck marking him as the leader. According to the books you've read both are signs of status; the children of prestigious Kurgan have their heads bound as infants to change their shape with the intention that an artificial mutation will attract truer ones from the Gods, and the torc is a display of martial confidence and an open challenge to all, saying that the silver belongs to anyone that can remove his head.
"Blood or tea?" you say in Khazalid, an echo of what the Shaman you met first said to you, and the leader eyes you thoughtfully for a moment, his eyes flicking downwards to your Shadowsteed and then over to the column of smoke that marks the Expedition. Then he nods and points upward, to a point higher in the sky than the sun currently is, and you nod and point downwards. There's another exchange of nods, then the leader exchanges a few words with the others and they gallop off. You note the direction. You're sure they'd change direction when out of sight so they didn't point you directly at the nearest encampment, but it does indicate a direction where the encampment isn't.
As the sun nears the indicated point in the sky, you see your response approaching, and one much larger than the previous. You count fifty horsemen, and from their auras can spot three Shamans, one the Ghur Shaman you spoke to previously, the other two aligned to Aqshy and Shyish. The leader of the group is easy to pick out, as he wears metal pauldrons and both arms are ringed with an eclectic collection of silver and gold bands. But most obviously of all the only feature on his face is his mouth, the rest of it smooth, flat skin where eyes and a nose should be. Despite this apparent handicap his face is pointed straight at you as the band approaches, and your hands itch for Branulhune.
They stop several meters from you, and the mouth of the leader issues a sibilant order, and the Ghur Shaman approaches, the two of you dismounting to close the final few meters. "Blood or tea, Shadowed Shaman of the Mountain Ring Clans?" he asks in guttural Khazalid.
"Today, tea, Untamed Shaman of the Dolgan Tribes," you reply, and as last time he approaches to offer you a flask, and again you flick some north before forcing down the fermented horse milk.
"This is Irnik, Slaaksho of the Four, who rules these lands," he says, gesturing behind him at the faceless chieftain. "I shall speak for him, for his tongue only speaks the Blessed Language. I had suspected that the metal longboats that sailed upon a sea of fog was your pilgrimage."
You nod. "We have travelled far, and we have further yet to go. Our beasts are always hungry, and our blood is destined to stain other lands." You produce an ingot of unmarked silver from your robes and hand it over to the Shaman, who turns and throws it to the chieftain, who snatches it out of the air and considers it closely. A long, bright pink tongue emerges from the being's mouth, its unnatural length caressing the metal carefully before retracting with an audible snap. It nods.
"It is agreed," the Shaman says. "How many beasts do you require?"
"We shall buy up to sixty adult cattle now, and up to three hundred on our return journey, or the equivalent weight in other beasts." This, you had decided with the rest of the Council, was the best way forward. It left you with a thin margin of food at Karag Dum, but that was preferable to having exposed cattle atop the steam-wagons when you enter the Chaos Wastes proper.
The Shaman nods, and turns and has a prolonged exchange with one of the non-Shaman Kurgan in the crowd. "We can fulfil this," he says when he turns back. "We shall meet you at the Yusak border with the first of the beasts."
"We shall be seeking to return through these lands within the next two white-moon-cycles, when we will purchase the remainder."
"Very well. We shall bring some of our herds to this area, and watch the border with the Yusak for your return. Your silver is pleasing to Slaaksho Irnik. May we both grow stronger to bring glory to our peoples and enjoyment to our Gods."
---
Though the Knights and Winter Wolves remain watchful for any sign of treachery, the Dolgan prove as good as their word and you spend a few hours wielding magic to render lively, nervous cattle into still-breathing cargo, at which point the beasts are hoisted upwards to be tied down on the upper deck. It gives the other Wizards a chance to get used to casting in these conditions as they cast Sleep on the beasts to render them more vulnerable to Mockery of Death. By the time you reach the edge of Dolgan land the beasts have eaten their fill and then some, and at your current pace you'll reach Karag Dum with several days remaining before their return journey - more than enough for the return journey to relatively uncorrupted lands.
Now you have only one penultimate unknown: the Yusak. All you know of them is that they, in the words of the Ghur Shaman, 'lost favour with the Four and seek lands further from them'. Perhaps this means they will be weakened and unwilling to seek conflict, perhaps this means they will be all too willing to in an attempt to regain their lost favour. So on the final day through Dolgan lands, the Expedition charts a particularly conservative path as you head north at full gallop.
In the Empire, most borders are invisible, ephemeral things, marked on unreliable maps and argued about almost constantly. This border, at least, is quite different. Further north the eight-coloured stream of energies is joined by a ninth, uglier, heavier shade, as Dhar emerges from wherever it is Winds come from and sinks to the ground much sooner than the others, hanging in the air and seeping into the soil. The line where the unnatural arc of dark magic reaches the ground is as visible to mundane senses as it is to Magesight, as the vegetation changes abruptly from near-uniformity to a chaotic patchwork. In some places the vegetation is dying off, poisoned by the unnatural energies, and in others the grasses draw vigour from the Dhar, growing tall and stained with sickly colours. The landscape varies even further as you push deeper, and at points the land is scarred with roads appearing from nowhere and going nowhere. You spend some time considering a stone ziggurat worn almost into a pyramid by the passage of time or some other process, and you spend as little time as possible considering the distant flocks of figures too large to be birds that drift lazily through the sky.
Eventually the grasses die out entirely, leaving the lands alternating between dry, dusty soil, unpleasantly sticky mud, and bare stone. Here and there mushrooms as tall as trees grow in clumps, dripping with mucus and emitting an unignorable stench like overripe fruit. It's around one of them that you find the first signs of the Yusak - a band of sheep crowding around the stalk of a mushroom that looked sicklier than the others, those closest to it taking bites out of its stalk. At regular intervals the ones eating stagger off to collapse to the ground, either sickened or intoxicated, and more press forward until finally it gives way. The sheep scatter out of the great falling weight, but as soon as it lands they turn and charge towards the swollen cap, butting and bleating at each as they each try to be first to the fruit of their labours. With sickened curiosity you watch as they gorge themselves on the soft flesh. You'd wondered how anything could live in the Chaos Wastes, and it seems you have part of your answer.
Just as with the Dolgan, a stranger atop a magic horse watching but not attempting to steal the livestock is the sort of conundrum that would send a worried and confused Yusak herdsman to seek answers from the Tribe's authorities. Just as with the Dolgan, the troupe that eventually arrives to investigate you is led by someone dressed in the panoply of a Shaman. But this time, you can see no Winds surrounding him, and that doesn't leave a lot of options for what he could be a Shaman of. But you remind yourself that Branulhune is only a thought away and let him approach, and to your surprise he offers you blood or tea in guttural Khazalid first.
"Today, tea," you respond, and you go through the usual ritual of dismounting and drinking with him.
"I am a Shaman of the Yusak Tribes. I serve the White of the Two."
You try not to show any indication of relief that he's a Shaman of Mannslieb. "I am a Shaman of the Mountain Ring Clans. I serve the Shadowed of the Eight. My Clan is travelling north on pilgrimage."
"Ah. You seek to test yourself against the Dum?" he asks.
You consider your response for a moment. "Yes," you reply, which is true, to a certain extent.
"All are welcome against the Dum," he says. "The Kul and the Kvellige are there now, but the southern front is available to you."
"What state is Dum in?" you ask.
He gives you an odd look. "Dum is as it has always been."
"Ah." You decide against angling for further information. Something about your question seems to have been wrong. "We shall arrive within the quarter-cycle, with beast-mounts and metal ships. We do not seek quarrel with the Yusak."
"Then pass, and feast upon the bounty of the land freely." You watch thoughtfully as he remounts and departs. He had something of a listless, distracted air to him, which could be indicative of hard times for the Yusak, but you don't know nearly enough about Kurgan moon-worship to say if that's out of character for a Shaman devoted to Mannslieb. In any case, you've got as close as you're likely to get to a non-aggression pact with the Yusak, so you consider the job done.
---
Forewarned by you of the terrain ahead, by the time the Expedition reaches what you're considering to be the border of the Chaos Wastes proper everyone is braced for what they encounter, and though there's a ripple of shock through everyone present as they set eyes on it for themselves, nobody is entirely taken aback by it. Now more than ever the Rite of Way proves itself as it gets the Expedition through the rapidly-changing terrain at a fast pace and without setbacks, circling around strange ruins and mushroom copses as it pushes relentlessly north. Each day leaves you mentally drained by the effort of keeping the flow of Ulgu as free as you can of the Dhar that's all too eager to cling to and corrupt any other Wind it touches. Several times you have to put out spot fires on your robes as the Runes on your Belt purge errant Dhar, and you're starting to worry what it would mean for anyone else to wield magic here.
The mostly flat landscape starts to grow rugged as you approach the foothills of Karag Dum, and nervousness gives way to anticipation in the atmosphere of the steam-wagons. You stay quiet, occupied with the dark mutterings you heard from numerous sources about what fates might have befallen Karag Dum, and what lengths they might have gone to to avoid them. The temperature has been steadily falling as you ventured further north, but here it grows hotter and drier as the ascent continues. You pass tattered banners hammered into the bare stone of more varieties than you can identify, most seemingly Kurgan, some completely unfamiliar to you, and others completely wiped clean by the hot, gritty wind that seems to be blowing directly into your face. And then the Alriksson crests a final rise and the landscape opens up before you, and you barely manage to release the Rite before shock tears it from your grasp.
You'd seen pictures of Karag Dum, the tallest of a small cluster of mountains approached through an exposed vale. But now it stands alone, jutting out from a great crater that you find yourself on the lip of. Directly below you is bone-white sand, interrupted regularly by actual bones that grow thicker on the ground the closer it is to Karag Dum. And with shocking abruptness the desert gives way to disturbingly familiar forest that now rings the base of Karag Dum, burying the bottom third of it in apparently primeval forest that by all accounts was not there a mere two centuries ago. And as you stare and as the Alriksson continues trundling forward, you see a figure at the edge of the forest, standing taller than a man and taller still when you consider the skull-adorned frill that juts from its skull.
In a flash of realization, you know why your question had confused the Yusak Shaman. When he spoke of Dum, he did not mean the Dwarfhold of Karag Dum.
He meant Cor-Dum.
As you watch reality flinch away from him, Morghur the Shadowgave, immortal demigod of the Beastmen, bellows a warbling prayer to the mountain that has become his Herdstone, and from the trees countless more voices join him.
Wheels sink into sand as the Alriksson slows and then stops, your eyes locked on the figure as it tosses its head to and fro, sending energies arcing through the air with every motion. Most of what little you know of Beastmen comes from your former Master's stories, and what little he knew of Morghur was second-hand. He's supposedly been locked in an eternal war with Athel Loren that occassionally spills out to devastate some other part of the Old World. The only time you've really heard about him outside of those stories is in relation to the High Elves pursuing him through Bretonnia some centuries ago, which is part of why Karag Dum's warnings in the lead-up to the Great War Against Chaos were ignored.
As the demigod bellows once more but shows no sign of approaching, you risk a glance sideways at Borek, who'd become more and more glued to the prow as you grew nearer to his home. You're not sure what you expect - shock? disbelief? despair? But you definitely weren't expecting resignation. "Borek-"
"We did the best we could," he says. "When it comes time to tell the rest of the Karaz Ankor what has become of us, please tell them that as well. May the Ancestors forgive us."
With that, he pulls loose a knot that causes a rope ladder to unfurl and clambers over the guardrail. "Borek?" you ask, trying to process this as the first of the other Dwarves start to spill out of the lower levels, seeking a better view than they could get from what would have to be very crowded gun-ports.
"What in Grimnir's name is that?" says the first Ranger to reach your side.
"Cor-Dum," you answer simply.
There's silence for a moment. "Ah," he says. Then he looks down. "What's Borek doing?"
"If that's Cor-Dum, that's it for Karag Dum," says another. "He'd be joining his kin."
"Maybe," you say, watching him. Something about this isn't adding up.
Though Borek's pace is steady, his process across the sand is anything but, as the heat-shimmer embraces him and sends mirages of his image shimmering to and fro. Morghur simply watches, and you can begin to make out parts of the forest's edge that are the silhouettes of other Beastmen, rather than trees. You ignore the steady thock of crossbow-fired messages from behind, then hear an out-of-breath Snorri swearing as he barges through the crowd behind you. "Why have we-" he stops himself as he looks out into the crater. "Where'd the other mountains go?"
"Don't know," you answer.
"Why is there a forest? And a desert?"
"Don't know," you say again.
"Why's Borek out there? Wait, who's that?"
"I think it's more of a 'what' than a 'who'," you say.
"Cor-Dum," one of the Rangers says.
There's a moment as Snorri processes that. "Alright, job done, Borek's back home, time we accomplished the same for ourselves," he says briskly. "If this thing's stuck, leave it here."
"Just a moment," you say. "Things aren't adding up."
Across the sands, the two figures meet, and the Shadowgave bends down to consider the Dwarf before him. Then he reaches out a twisted claw and runs it over Borek's hair in what seems to be an affectionate gesture. He stands aside and Borek continues his march, disappearing into the trees. Deafening silence embraces the crowd of onlookers, broken only by the wind whistling past you.
"Karag fucking Dum," one of the Engineers finally says.
"I never listened to all the mutterings," Snorri says. "More fool I."
Morghur gives one final bellow before disappearing back into the forest, and you exhale. Some time very soon, an even further reduced Council is going to meet, and all eyes are going to be on you to make sense of all this and suggest a course of action. You sigh and mentally begin to sort through the pieces of the puzzle before you.
Morghur:
- Morghur is said to have been 'born' three hundred years ago, but there's stories of beings identical to him stretching back throughout recorded history.
- From your very limited knowledge, Morghur was last seen being pursued by High Elves in Bretonnia shortly before the Great War Against Chaos.
- From what the Yusak said, and what the banners you passed seem to attest, Kurgan tribes have been fighting or 'testing themselves against' Morghur for some time.
- Morghur did not attack Borek, instead greeting him with what to Dwarves is a very intimate gesture.
- Borek's reaction to Morghur did not seem surprised.
Karag Dum:
- The magic flowing to Karak Vlag was uncorrupted, which you're fairly sure would not have been the case if the Hold had been conquered by Beastmen.
- The landscape around Karag Dum has changed, including the disappearance of the smaller mountains around it, the growth of a forest around its base, and the appearance of a desert around the forest. It is also hotter here than anywhere else in the Steppes. Apart from the forests covering the lower parts of it, the exterior of Karag Dum appears unchanged.
- The forest is inhabited by Beastmen, who seem to be obeying Morghur.
- As far as Mathilde can tell, none of this is an illusion.
- There is less ambient Dhar here than other parts of the Chaos Wastes Mathilde has seen, though still more than outside of it.
Mathilde will present the leading theories and courses of action as possibilities to the rest of the Council. You may vote for multiples of each if you wish. Please use this format to vote for them:
[ ] THEORY:
[ ] ACTION:
- There will be a three hour moratorium for the above to be digested and discussed.
- If anyone has data points that Mathilde would have access to that they think should be added to the above, please suggest them.
- If there's anything about this that's unclear but would be clear to Mathilde, please point out what.
Tally
[*] THEORY: The specifics are hazy, but this is a known contingency plan that Borek is entirely aware of, but hoped hadn't been enacted. The result breaks all Dawi notions of acceptability, but Karak Dum survives in some capacity and continues to inflict attrition on every local and visiting Chaos force that want to take a swing at them, so it is considered a lesser evil by the pragmatic Karak Dum.
[*] THEORY: The Dwarves of Karag Dum did something to burn away the taint of Chaos, much as your Belt of the Unshackled Mountain does, but on a far grander scale. Perhaps it had an effect on the Beastmen here, Cor-Dum included.
[*] THEORY: Karag Dum is using a fake Morghur to make the real beastmen fight for them.
[*] THEORY: Karag Dum has somehow tricked or compelled Morghur to fight the Kurgan tribes.
[*] THEORY: Omegahugger
[*] ACTION: Gain more information.
[*] ACTION: Turn back
[*] ACTION: Politely ask Morghur to be granted entrance into Karak Dum.
With the five steam-wagons lined up on the lip of the crater with broadsides pointed towards the mountain, the Council meets atop the Alriksson to discuss what to make of all of this. Unsurprisingly, all eyes are on you. You're the Wizard, but even more relevantly you're the Loremaster. Making strange and unpredictable circumstances make sense to the Dwarven mind is your job. And you've spent the time since Borek departed compiling theories and possible courses of action, with quite a lot of overlap, frustrations, and desires to yell at Borek finding their way into the list.
"'We did the best we could,' he said," you repeat to the severely diminished council. "'When it comes time to tell the rest of the Karaz Ankor what has become of us, please tell them that as well. May the Ancestors forgive us.' I have about a hundred different theories, but to me, that would seem to imply that whatever we're looking at is a known contingency plan that Borek was aware of, but hoped that the besiegement of Karag Dum would never become desperate enough for it to be enacted. So I think that it's likely that Karag Dum is still intact and functioning in some capacity, and whatever they're doing is inflicting constant attrition on the forces of Chaos."
"What have they done, exactly?" Sir Ruprecht asks.
"I'm not an expert on Runes or Beastmen, but it seems clear they've used some sort of Runecraft to bind Morghur to their service. Perhaps some sort of illusion or ensorcellation, perhaps something to burn the Chaos taint off of him to free him from the orders of the Chaos Gods. Perhaps his latest incarnation was born to Dwarves, and they managed to either bind him or protect him or raise him so that he's more loyal to them than to Chaos. I don't know if Morghur's been sighted in the Old World since the Great War Against Chaos-"
"Not since the Battle of Arden in 2244," Sir Joerg says.
"Well, there you have it. Though it might just be a coincidence and all this is an illusion, one good enough to fool Beastmen into thinking that it's their demigod so they protect the Hold."
"None of those possibilities are the sort of thing that covers Karag Dum with glory," Snorri says darkly.
"Hence Borek's resignation. He assumed that once we clapped eyes on Beastmen defending Karag Dum, that would be the end of the Expedition."
"Whatever the case may be, they don't seem to need rescuing," Sir Ruprecht says, running his eyes over the bone-strewn desert. "And as far as I'm concerned, if the forces of Chaos are killing themselves off here even faster than usual for their kind, that's to the good."
"If our descendants are going to be faced with another variety of Chaos Dwarf, any information we can give them would be of benefit," Sir Joerg says.
You nod. "This might be the last chance the Empire and the Karaz Ankor get to study whatever has happened here. The practical thing might be to depart at all speed, but I do want at least some answers to bring back."
"I want to know what Gotrek died for," Snorri says. "If whatever's in there isn't boiling out of it to take a swing at us..."
All eyes turn to Sir Ruprecht, who stares at the forest. "We won't be in much more danger for staying here a little longer," he concedes.
"How long do you need to gather your answers?" Sir Joerg asks.
"There's a few things I can do safely and quickly," you say. "Perhaps a couple of hours will shed enough light to know if there are more answers to be safely plucked."
"We can reassess then," Sir Joerg says, and Sir Ruprecht nods. Snorri just stares at the forest that Morghur disappeared into pensively.
---
"They're definitely Old World species," Journeyman Cyrston says, peering through a telescope. "I'd need to get up close and collect seeds and samples and bring my own Magesight to bear to say with any certainty, but if I had to guess, I'd say northern. Drakwald, Laurelorn, or Forest of Shadows."
"Any idea how it would have got here?"
"Apart from just labelling it Chaos Waste weirdness? None whatsoever. Until I clapped eyes on these I'd have bet good money you wouldn't see any of these species further north than the Western Oblast."
"And their age?"
"Under normal circumstances, which," he gestures vaguely at the Chaos Wastes behind you, "I'd say it would take centuries undisturbed, perhaps longer. These are old forests. The type you don't go into lightly, because if there's not something terrible already living there, it's because the trees are the something terrible."
"Any sign of mutation?"
"Nothing major. Though I can't rule out minor mutations at this distance."
---
"This one's definitely Beastman," Esbern says, running his fingers over the curved horns attached to misshapen skull. "Look at the growth rings. This wasn't a sudden mutation, this was something they were born with that grew over decades."
"Teethmarks," says Seija from the one she was inspecting. "But not as many as usual for a Beastman feast. They filled their stomach and left the rest where it stood. That's how they act on a raid when they're wary of counterattack."
---
"I wasn't a part of that jaunt, but three of my cousins were," Asarnil says. "Finubar's attempt at building bridges. The Forest of Arden had been corrupted by Morghur and Beastmen flocked to it from across the Old World. L'Anguille called for aid against a foe they could not understand, the Everqueen pushed for its restoration, and the so-called 'Glade Lord' Araloth that was preparing a great hunt for the beast had a lineage greater than that of some Princes. Finubar the Haggler saw a chance to earn credit with three polities at once, and was all too eager to spill Elven blood for it, so Prince Eldyr of Tiranoc and Handmaiden Ystranna raised a mighty host. Many of them never returned." Asarnil chuckles darkly. "Bitterness over that poisoned any hope of improved relations between Ulthuan and its abandoned colony, the Bretonnians gave all credit to their Lady, and as for the Everqueen, it wasn't long after that she found she much preferred the brother of your Teclis than the company of the Phoenix King. Finubar has a gift for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory."
---
"This is how they act if they're near something they consider sacred and feel threatened," Sir Joerg says with a nod. "If they can, flank and kill. If they can't, stay out of sight and wait for an opportunity to flank and kill. If pressed, kill or die for the sacred whatever."
---
"No doubt in my mind, definitely less ambient Dhar around than in the Chaos Wastes," Egrimm says. "Hard to tell much more than that with this much turbulence, though. Timpania has a headache and Barbitus can't stand up without staggering like a drunken sailor. The overall trend is it definitely being drawn towards the mountain, though."
"That was my impression too," you say, nodding. "Can you pick up any more than that?"
Egrimm looks to Citharus, who is frowning, his eyes closed as he concentrates. "It's like the busiest, noisiest shepherd's tone I've ever heard," he says eventually. "Always falling, but never getting any lower. Or at least not fast enough to be detectable to me."
You consider that. "That could be hopeful or very grim. Any idea which?" He shrugs. "Very well. Thank you both for your insight."
---
"The item we have to retrieve, is it in the Karak?" you ask Ljiljana.
She concentrates. "No."
You exhale. "Good."
"Yes."
"Do you know anything about Beastmen?"
She sniffs. "No. Hag Witch business."
---
Max reels in the long length of rope, his eyes on the half-apple attached to the end of it. "This has to be the least precise experiment I've ever done."
"We don't need to know a ratio, we're just testing for temporal abnormalities," you reassure him. "I'm mostly sure it was just heat haze, but mostly sure is a good way to get killed."
Max finishes the reeling, and compares the two halves. One's clearly more shrivelled than the other, but no more browned. "Well, it's definitely hotter in there," he says, "but there doesn't appear to be any time difference."
---
"Smoke from fires from what looks like moderate-sized settlements or encampments," Snorri says to you after hearing from the Rangers who were straining their eyes to try to make out details through their own telescopes. "One northwest, the other northeast, I'd say about an hour's walk or a much shorter ride from the lip of the crater."
You nod. "Any reaction from the semaphore?"
"Nothing."
"Thought not, but it was worth a try. What was the other matter you wanted to discuss?"
"Look," he says, pointing at some sort of metal pole driven into the lip of the crater. "Eleven and three quarter inches between it and the sands."
You consider that thoughtfully. "And what does that signify?"
"An hour ago, it was exactly twelve. I'd stake my beard on it. Measured it three times, and two other seasoned Rangers measured it twice apiece. You don't put a theodolite stand in about the right place, you put it exactly where you wrote down you put it."
You frown, and kneel down to consider the edge of the crater. To your eye, it's solid stone. You dig into the sand next to it, and find that there's no fresh crumbling underneath, just smooth stone. "It hasn't crumbled," you say. "The desert is expanding."
"That's what I got from it," Snorri says with a nod.
"A quarter inch per hour, times two hundred years," you say, looking at the forest in the distance. "Does that add up?"
"We can't get an accurate measurement from here - we know the exact height of Karag Dum, but we can't see the base. So we're going off of eyeballing here. But... yes. Two hundred years at six inches a day, that's about the distance you get."
You frown, then drop onto your stomach to examine the edge of the crater from an inch away, to see if you can witness individual grains of the stone crumbling into sand. "Find me whoever knows the most about stone in this Expedition," you say.
---
"Dormant stratovolcano," says the Dwarf that Snorri fetched for you as soon as you ask about Karag Dum.
"And the stone of the landscape around it?" you ask, still staring at the edge. "Don't answer from memory, look at it and tell me what it is as if you'd never heard of this place before."
He obeys, producing a pickaxe from his belt to chip off a piece to examine, and then carefully chew. "Scoria," he says with confidence.
"Is that what should be here?"
"Aye. More mafic than I'd have expected, but then again, we are far from the mountains I know."
"And the sand? Is it fragmented scoria?"
"No," he says instantly. "Wrong colour completely." He bends down and picks some up, letting it run through his fingers before putting a pinch in his mouth. "Sedimentary silicate, not igneous. Nearest place you'd find this is the southern Dark Lands."
You remember what Cyrston said. "Anywhere in the northern Empire with that sort of sand?"
"Nowhere near. All I know of that would is the southern Dark Lands, Araby, and Nehekhara."
With a tiny fizzle of Divine energy, a tiny piece of rock disappears from the lip of the crater, replaced by a few grains of sand that tumble down to join the rest of the desert.
"Thank you for your insight," you distractedly tell the Dwarf as you stare.
---
After running through all the safe experiments you could think of, you're much richer in questions but not exactly overburdened with answers. From here, the avenues for answers get significantly riskier, and often significantly more dubious. You also won't have long before the others begin to start pushing for the Expedition to leave, and not without reason - though nothing is currently attacking you, this is the Chaos Wastes, and enemies and corruption are never far away.
[ ] Approach the Kul camp peacefully and attempt to discuss the Karak with them
[ ] Approach the Kvellige camp peacefully and attempt to discuss the Karak with them
[ ] Fortify here and see if anything interesting happens over the next day
[ ] Attempt to approach Morghur to see if he can be communicated with
[ ] Attempt to scout the forest at the base of the Karak
[ ] Attempt to infiltrate the Karak with magic
[ ] Attempt to infiltrate the Karak without magic
[ ] Attempt to intercept a Kurgan war-party en route to attack the Karag and the Beastmen - Hopefully, this will trigger the Protector and implant the knowledge that you protected them in both the Beastmen and any remaining inhabitants of the Karak.
[ ] Ask for a volunteer to approach Morghur to see if he can be communicated with
[ ] Ask for a volunteer to test Morghur's reputed ability to turn anyone using magic nearby into Chaos Spawns
[ ] Leave
- There will be a two hour moratorium.
- If you have an idea for some other approach, let me know.
- If anyone isn't shown as being explicitly asked, assume that Mathilde asked them off-screen and they didn't have anything more to contribute.
- If you have an idea for experiments that don't take long that involve no spellcasting, not leaving the fortified position, and not potentially starting a fight with the Beastmen, suggest them and I might edit in the results of Mathilde doing them.
- Experimenting with the rock-to-sand effect will be set up before Mathilde does whatever is voted for, unless 'leave' wins.
- Among Morghur's reputed abilities is that anyone casting spells near him has a chance of turning into a Chaos Spawn. Just something to keep in mind.
