Hello again, so it's time for chapter 2
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There were some inventions in the Warhammer world that were just a bit… odd. Ikit Klaw couldn't have been in the sanest of minds when he decided that it would be suitable to ride in an unstable wooden wheel that randomly shot arcing bolts of warp-lighting. Evidently one Empire engineer could see the devastation that one rocket caused and therefore deemed it a good idea to get as many rockets as he could find and build an artillery piece to fire them all at once. However there was no doubt that such inventions were the pinnacle of warfare. That they were mad, but could still carve through ranks of enemy soldier like a hot knife slicing through better
However whoever the manic was who thought it to be a good idea to chain two great cave squigs together and use them in battle as a maelstrom of spinning, bouncing and lots of teeth was clearly several a few flames short of a horror.
The great cave squig was not a peaceful creature; all it ever thought about was ripping everything to pieces with its enormous jaws. Indeed the creature was a round ball of red muscles with pathetically short arms that served it no purposes. Its jaw took up most of its body and its legs could bound in forward like a rock fired from a lobba and they were creatures of a permanent unpleasant disposition.
Two tied specimens were snarling at each other, twisting around on their chains, wishing to rip the other apart. They tugged each other along in a snarling frenzy, bounding, tripping and tumbling down the tunnel. The rats in the cave scurried away, or were ripped apart in an instance.
Slipgit Crooker sneered from his hiding place in the rocks. Those 'umies would never know what in the name of Mork (or just maybe Gork) had hit them. He couldn't wait until he saw the squigs crash into them and hear the spilling of the blood and see limbs fly through the air. He pulled his hood closer over his features and waited, beady eyes and the tip of his nose peering outwards.
A terrible sound made Slipgit jump. He almost bolted down the tunnel back to his mates, but he was an usually brave gobbo and risked a peek out from the rocks. His eyes widened.
"Oh zogging fuck," He muttered under his foetid breath; he'd heard a man say fuck after a doom diver had driven into his guts and spilt them onto the floor and he'd liked the sound of the word.
The squigs had managed to break their chains apart and were now bounding down the tunnel and out of sight, snarling and gnashing their teeth all the way. That was the way to the Sleekly Gibbous tribe. Good. He'd never liked those scrawny, whiney little bastards. He hopes their smug git of big boss was reduced to a bloody paste. Then he heard the sound of humans talking. Yes they were carrying weapon and yes there were a lot of them. He saw one individual with a long fiery red beard and hair He'd once seen one of them look angrily at his mates and they'd set on fire. Just like that. Screams and heat and everything.
Getting to the conclusion that he'd gain absolutely nothing more from staying here, he bolted back down the tunnel. A lump formed in his throat. Those squigs had cost a fortune.
The warboss was going to kill him.
A snarling sound could be heard in the distance.
"Madam did you hear that?" Herr Otto Flurgrim asked, running his fingers through his orange beard, staff gripped tightly in his hand.
"Moor would have heard that," Captain Elista sighed, signalling at her troops to keep walking.
"I reckon he would of heard that " Fredrick, leader of the 5th Ostermark bulls, said, owner of a proudly combed and groomed goatee.
Elista saw the tired looks on the faces of her men and decided it would be a good time to take a break. She told them to stop walking and rest. They nodded and sat down in groups on the pathway, some taking swigs from their water satchels, others milling around decks of cards. She placed her herself on a reasonably flat stone and took in a few breaths, observing her troops. Their morale seemed high, which was always a good sign.
Elista, or Frau Elista Rlich von Ostermark as she was known formally by her documents, could have been aged anywhere between twenty-two and thirty-two, with dark hair and white skin. She'd been found in the ruins of a small Empire town just a whisker away from a swamp. Nobody else could be found, except this small girl found under a pile a rubble, muttering "scary-things" to herself over and over again. A group of Blazing Sun knights had picked the small, terrified, child out from the rubble and taken her to one of the noble houses of Nuln. The baron and baroness, unable to conceive their own child, took this child on as their own.
For most of childhood and teenage years her life had been happy. The baron and baroness had looked after her, treated her well and taught the ways of being a noble lady. She had friends and the food was simply divine. Life would have grand for all of them, except she knew who had destroyed the village. It wasn't some Beastmen as all official documents said, but she knew it was the ratmen. The vermintide. The sewer creepers. The Skaven. Whenever she tried to tell her parents they would just smile at her and praise her active imagination. Despite how much she said how different they were from beastmen, their shapes, their method of attack. Still the ignored her pleas.
Yet each night in bed she would think about them, the ringing of their bells, the scratching of their claws and the endless tide of rats that scampered around their feet. She would sketch drawings of them, write down every detail she could remember about them. Naturally her parents were worried about her, but the doctors assured her that she was still young and therefore there was nothing to worry about.
This was far from the only thing that troubled the two of them. She would ask them to take her back to the ruins, request that her parents ask they not be cleared up. When she got their she would scamper along the rubble, each time taking a piece of wood, a broken spear and most queerly one time a string of bells. She'd keep them in her room, observing them. Eventually her parents grew tired (and worried) of these pursuits and ordered the ruins cleared, despite her protests. There were no such thing as the Skaven they told her. She was a pretty girl with potential and she shouldn't waste it brining herself down to the level of superstitious commoners. She was young after all and there would be plenty of dukes and princes who'd wish to take her hand in marriage.
Naturally, she disobeyed them.
She had told her parents that she would move to Osterland, to fight the vermin. She had heard persistent rumours that strange, vermin-like figures would covert the lumps of hellish warpstone that landed in the ruined capital. In addition to this, she announced that she planned to raise a force to defeat the ratmen who lurked under the banner of those who destroyed her home, friends, family and life. Even if it took her to her grave.
Naturally, her parents found this notion to be ludicrous.
The Ratmen. Were. Not. Real. Her mother had said to her, going an amusing shade of red.
The two of them decided that it would be best for her to forget about all of this, to forget about this "crusade". They kept her in her room with a lock made out the finest steel available, forged from an ore known as "good intentions ". But did this little to stop Elista, who one day in the dead of night opened her window, awkwardly jumped down the ledges of her house, then half hopped- half ran her way across the Empire to Osterland . On the way she spent her time amassing a network of supporters to her cause, people willing to fight, be it for honour, revenge or, most commonly, gold.
The rest, as the scholars of Altdorf liked to say, was history.
"Grugi, pass me that map of yours,"
The hulking, stocky figure of the dwarf slayer Grugi Gutterson walked over to her, searching the pockets of his breaches. He was a squat, muscular figure covered in blue paint who gave too much attention to the rune covered battle-axe of his to be fully sane. Then again, could the same be said for any dwarf.
"Aye manling, here it is," He grumbled at her- which was the most optimistic he ever got. If she had a reckless attitude toward survival and a bard, she would he certainly had some happy tunes played slightly sarcastically into his ear.
She looked at the stale paper and traced her hand over the lines. She couldn't read dwarfish very well, but she knew a few words and she could grasp the basic concepts behind the map. The moon meant night goblins and that triangular mark meant Skaven. There were a few anvils at the edges of the map, signifying small dwarf holds.
"Accord to this, map we should reach the skaven encampment within a few hours," Elista mused.
"Aye, but the chance of it being there is slim,"
Elista knew this. The skaven frequently switched alliances. Clans were destroyed, rebuilt, realigned and destroy again several times in the space of a few years. She'd been told this map was around a year old and it was entirely possible for every skaven to have since scurried their digesting tails to another corner of the old world. Hell they might even be in a snake pit in Lustria. Always look on the bright side of life after all.
"But what does it matter? After all Grugi, where places are dark and underground, they are bound to lurk," Elista smiled at the dwarf.
"Aye manling,"
Elista turned to Flurgrim who waited for orders.
"Rally our troops. We've got rats to burn,"
"Finally," Grugi said, "This mission is making sense,"
Well I'm not sure how far to take this
How about taking it to the top.
