It had been foolish to leave the settlement unaided and unguarded. He'd spent so long cooped up in the abby within the burgeoning colony of New Ooelsnitz that his urge to explore entirely overwhelmed his common sense. He snuck out of the abby with only a week's provisions, a heavy burlap rucksack, and his prized books. He took a small blade with him, better suited for cutting back the thick brush of the forest than for defending his person.
Even the Abbot did not know where he'd gone.
He was alone in the wilderness.
No... not alone.
They'd ambushed them as he was examining a particularly fascinating circle of stones. Each stone was covered in an uncontrolled mass of vines and centuries of mos but each was unmistakably perfectly carved into a square that would easily have impressed the Imperial Architectural Institute in Dietzenburg.
A swift strike from behind and an agonizing headache later he'd awoken to discover his arms and legs bound and his body suspended above a cook fire. The gash across the side of his head did not hurt the tenth part as much as watching page after page covered in lovingly written notation fall into the fire, wisdom used for kindling.
The bronze cook pot bubbled cheerily, wafting a mouth watering scent of boiling stew spiced with the exotic flavors of Lustria. Bright colored lizards the size of Wagner's thumb were tossed into the pot with glee by the skink chef with casual aplomb. The small lizards flailed as they flew in little arks in trying to avoid the bubbling liquid, dancing in the air.
The other members of the tribe gibbered and hissed in the sibilant serpentine language of their kind, ophidian words warbled with a forked tongue as they bartered for trinkets and baubles. They growled in a low warbling staccato seemingly disconnected from their conversations over the cook pot, a rhythmic rumble, grr-ribbit-creek, grr-ribbit-creek, grr-ribbit-crack.
It was the first time Wager had ever even heard that the Lizardmen society had music. Few written accounts of the Lizardmen's culture dealt with anything other than warfare. The great lizards of the dark continent had little patience for the intrusions of mammals. They tolerated humans at best and loathed their very existence by some accounts. All analysis of their motivation was little more than speculation though.
The Lizardmen apparently felt neither the need nor the inclination to explain their actions. Some speculated that they even lacked the capacity.
Under different circumstances Brother Phinieas Wagner would have been thrilled to catalogue this newfound knowledge into one of his many leather bound diaries, taking care to write his notes in the margin with a careful hand so as not to smudge the ink or waste paper. Every sheet of paper cost a thousand times its weight in gold.
However at the moment his academic interests in the skinks was secondary to a burning desire not to be suspended above a bubbling cook pot. And his books! How could anyone do that to books?
He could mourn the loss of his books later, he had to remind himself, now was the time for action. It was a good though, a proactive one. But for the life of him he couldn't think of a way to do it. He was no adventurer, no Celle of Danme with bulging thews and a sword blessed by the will of Sigmar. Wagner was an overweight scholar from Heilsbron with a fondness for breeding racing pigeons.
Play to your strengths Wagner, he grumbled to himself, play to your strengths. He thought of everything he knew about he Lizardman, he needed something anything that he could use to his own advantage. Most of the Lizardmen could understand the speech of men, even if they couldn't speak it themselves. They were superstitious and prone to mysticism, with a great respect for magic.
Wait... magicWagner grinned wildly as he thought to the date. It was mid day and the chaos moon was moving into alignment with the sun in a matter of minutes. These savages would soon be at his mercy, You're a clever man Wagner. Use your knowledge against them.
He sat and hoped, staring towards the heavens and hoping against hope. He waited and watched in glee as the sphere moved across the sky, blotting out the sun from view. His heart leapt with joy even as smoke filled his nostrils. He looked down and glared into the eyes of the largest and oldest of the tribe.
"I'm a powerful mage," Wagner threatened, "You shall let me down from here. I warn you not to test my power. See how I've blotted out the sun."
The skinks ceased their conversations and stared from him, to the sun, and back again. Wagner prayed that the reports of Lizardmen's comprehension of human speech were correct and continued, "Let me go. Just let me go and I will bring back the sun."
The skink chief nodded to one of his underlings and motioned to the rope suspending him, before turning back to Wagner cheerfully, almost lazily amused. Wagner felt rush of of elation and victory as the lesser skink pulled out an obsidian knife and lowered him to the ground only a few paces away from the cook pot.
It was gone as quickly as it came. The chief snapped out, grabbing Wager's throat with a slash of razor sharp claws. A stream of hot arterial blood shot out and spurted across the skink's face, sticky red prominent over pale blue scales.
As the world faded into blackness the skink chief's lips ground out a rough approximation to the human language with his forked tongue, explaining the movements of the planets as was cataloged and predicted by his peoples for generations. The movements of the celestial bodies, as the chief put it, were regular predicable acts upon which there lay little in the way of mysticism only the simple collection of cause and effect.
He described the teachings of those who walked before. How each star and moon and planet was simply another ball of rock or pocket of gas nestled into a spot much like the one they lived upon, each spread out many millions of miles from each other.
Wagner died watching his books tossed to the fire that would roast his flesh, wishing only for a scrap of paper and a quill to write with.
