Temple of Shallya, Middenheim, next morning

Ralf Winkler suppressed a yawn when he went up to the lectern and faced the first group of Sisters of Shallya who still looked at him like a two-headed goat. His flight by "NT" Zeppelin had been long and the lack of leg room had made sleep a difficult preposition.

"Thank you Reverent Mother Serena for the introduction: Let us get over the awkwardness of having a man inside these rooms as quickly as we can, as we have a huge task before us which we must complete quickly and without fail. Let me just add that I was at least as surprised as you are that I got the call of Shallya but as you all know once you have heard it, it is very hard to ignore, so here I am.
As we all know we have an outbreak of the Red Smallpox which is highly contagious and has a nasty mortality rate. Scientists of the Robert-Koch Institute have already made some preliminary findings about the cause of this epidemic. This illness is caused by a Virus, a very small life form which needs humans to multiply and harms them doing so. This Virus is transmitted by breathing the same air into which a victim has coughed ort simply staying too close in the same airspace with him. Once the pustules open the liquid from them is also high contagious. This means that from now on you have to use the gloves that we brought from Altdorf, use the sacred disinfect for them and wear the mask at all times when treating patients.

The Virus seems close enough to a smallpox form that is known to German scientists, so we can treat it in several ways. The preferred method is applying a vaccine-this is a very very dead version of the evil Virus which will tell the human body how to fight the live one. It protects healthy persons from getting the disease at all and can cure anybody who has infected himself in the last 3 days and has the first symptoms of the disease. It will be your task to inoculate the population so the disease will not become an epidemic. So far any questions-yes, your question first?"

"How safe is the inoculation. I have heard Germans say inoculations are dangerous?"
"For this Vaccine there will be 2 serious complications-not necessarily deaths- per 500000 inoculations. When you compare that to the 50% mortality rate of the straight illness this is pretty safe. Some Germans are opposed to vaccinations on general reasons or for reasons which have more to do with estoteric reasoning than anything else. They can have such doubts as Germany did not have any pandemic for a long time-mostly because of better hygiene and vaccination. In the end it shows that not all Germans are very clever, me included. Otherwise I would not be here. Question answered?"
"Yes, thank you Sis…Brother Ralf"

"You are welcome. Now your question please"
"How do we get the citizens of Middenheim to accept this "vaccination"? It looks like you put a needle into somebody, it hurts a little and they have to stand in line with possibly sick people."
"First off we rely on the sterling reputation of the Sisterhood of Shallya-this is one of the reason our governments asked us to perform the job. And if that is not enough, tomorrow there will be a very public ceremony where we will inoculate Count Boris and his immediate family, that should help."
"Have you already had the inoculation?"
The former medic rolled up the sleeve of his robe to show a small red scar on his ample biceps.
"Question answered?"
"Yes Brother, sorry to ask."
"Forget it, nothing happened. So if these are all questions, let's have a look at how we do this, shall we. I will show you how to vaccinate and then you will inoculate each other to get some practice. Here you can see an inoculation pistol. It holds vaccine for 50 patients in this glass vial at its end. It is very important that you swab the skin where you apply the pistol with disinfectant before you touch the skin and that….

Two hours later Ralf Winkler faced the next group of Sisters. They looked a little older and more experienced than the group who was already filtering out with vaccine and a mission.
"Ok, now that everybody has gotten the news about the virus and the vaccination program you probably ask yourself why you did not get a pistol and are now out shooting innocent citizens. The answer is quite simple-the vaccine will only help patients that have the infection 3 days or less. For all the other patients this will not be a help at all. For these patients we need to administer a cocktail of drugs which kill the Virus outright-and protect the kidneys of the patient from other parts of the drugs.
Unfortunately Cidofovir can only be administered as an infusion and that means that I have to teach you how to administer one. Actually that is more difficult that simply vaccinating and this is why you are here. Here you see a standard pack for an infusion, they come adult and children size.
For a peripheral cannula you need a swab, the disinfectant, two lengths of adhesive tape, the tourniquet and the Catheter with the Cannula and the IV Bag itself. So first you swab…..

It was already in the afternoon when Ralf had a look at the last infusion made by a Sister which so far had no chance to show her work. "Well done Sister Agnes. The only thing you could change is sticking the catheter in a S-bend so if the patient moves suddenly it is less likely he pulls the needle.
"I will do so in future Brother."
"Thank you Sister. Now, we have to discuss one more thing before we can all do our respective jobs. Please call together all Sisters who will do the infusions."
A little later:
"Sisters, I have one more task to share with you-we need to find the source of this illness. To this end the German military mission has made a lot of copies of this questionnaire. As the patients that you are treating have the oldest infections we need to ask them since when they are suffering and with whom they have talked, whom of these were not feeling well-look at the questionnaire, it has it all spelled out. When finished please give the forms to Herrn Meier of the Robert-Koch-Institute.

Quarry, next morning

Uli Stoiber had done many things with his tank in his life-checking the runway of a would be airport was not one of them, until now. Driving his Leo up and down the runway at breakneck speed and braking hard at off intervals was supposedly somehow proving that this abomination was indeed a workable runway.
As the Reiksbund needed a runway right now some clever soul had remembered that the UK had used a rather peculiar method of making runways in a hurry during the Great Unpleasantness round 2.

They had used tractors to literally plow and seed the ground with cement and watered the result liberally. Roll over lightly once and voila – instant runway. Anybody with anything to do with concrete construction thought that this idea should have been throttled at birth: the exact composition of the soil was unknown, therefore also how much loam was in there. The size and composition of the gravel was mostly unknown-they had put some in during plowing, but what was in the ground originally was everybody`s best guess.
All of this meant that nobody could vouch for the quality of the runway, and that had caused Uli and his crew to drive the runway up and down like mad. That this would cause more maintenance went without saying. The runs gave a result that was astonishing to most onlookers-there was only slight-and easily repairable damage to the surface of the runway.

The tank commander disembarked and went to the knot of people still arguing about the results to enquire if another run was needed when he heard a voice in English which could have sprung from a CNN News anchor.
"My boys have used runways far worse than this. As long as you FOD it often enough we can use it just fine." Uli looked for the speaker, who was a stocky dishwater blonde man clad in Air force overalls. The overall showed the name as "Raimond Wurz" and while it had the German flag on it, it also sported a ton of US airforce patches. The most important one showed a yellow Panther jumping from a blue cloud and read "81 Fighter Sq."
"Don`t you worry, our Warthogs can do it from here just fine."

280 Kilometers North of Middenheim, same time

Zepech the Skinner pushed his horse to go faster-his scouts had signaled that they had found something. The irritants that would have plagued a normal human who had ridden for such a long time, like an ass that had stopped hurting already or the irritating feeling from clothes worn too long were not for him. His armor was as much part of him as his right arm and he had not seen his own skin for several human lifetimes. Neither was he subject to ordinary constraints as hunger or being tired. His lesser companions were not so far removed from their human origins such as him but they would never complain about such concerns more than once. But he had been given a task and that task burned in him as surely as any coal.

His current job was overseeing a couple of Brigand bands who were foraging the countryside and brought their plunder to the left wing of the Crusade. Such bands were worthless scum and Zepech could have cared less about their welfare. But when 3 of these bands simply disappeared during a few days it meant that not enough plunder was delivered-bad. He could make that up by pressing more out of the surviving bands, but that meant that they would either starve or desert soon.
He could believe that one band deserted-he had not executed an example for a while-or that a band of remnant imperial soldiers had killed one-but three?
So whatever was happening he had to get to the bottom of things-soon. So he had gathered his heavy cavalry, his personal powerbase, and a unit of nomad hunters that had proven to be seriously good trackers and went after the last brigands that no longer showed up.

The Landscape changed the farther he went from the army`s main body. The Landscape he knew from his life close to or in the Chaos Desert-crippled and dying vegetation, crumbling buildings and wild nature was very similar to what the Chaos Crusade left in its path. The longer his recognizance-in-force went the more alien the surroundings became. Complete Hovels were orderly grouped around bigger Temples. Roads followed straight lines as far as possible and fields with only one crop and few weed were clearly separated from each other. It was unnatural, against the wishes of the true powers and showed the basic weakness of the imperial fools-they needed this artificial order to survive. He was part of a Crusade that would change all that-the strong would survive, the week would perish.

Prodding his horse to the point where one of his trackers was waving his arm to get his attention. The scene in front of him made him feel just like home-ravens and other birds picked on the carcasses that were strewn over the landscape haphazardly. While the carrion-eaters had their feast for more than a day enough was left to show that he had found at least a large part of his foragers.
Their state made it difficult to judge, but it seemed that most of them were killed with multiple musket shots-strange that. Who would shoot so many times with a weapon you could shoot 3 times a minute. The chief tracker showed him some footprints from boots he had not seen before and those of some shoed horses together with a track they could not identify at all. It seemed like the trail left by cars wheels-if said wheels were about 10 times broader than usual and left imprints like a snakes scale.

He followed his scouts at a distance in order to keep ambushes at arm's length. When sounds like muted musket shooting started and the scouts dropped he was not too surprised. Having engaged in warfare for far more than a human lifetime the decision came automatically-a few gunmen in the lowly bushes should be charged.
"Form the ranks" brought his warriors into the broad arrowhead formation that he preferred. "Advance" brought them to a fast trot-no need to wear out the animals early. Only when the brushes were less than 200 meters away he screamed a "Charge" and lost himself in the glory of a world which narrowed down to a tunnel, of a life which just hung on an off-chance and the anticipation of glorious slaughter.

In this state it took him more than a second to realize that there was a huge upsurge in the shooting and that the Warriors and horses to his left and right went down like ninepins. His mind was just processing the thought that he had been lured into a trap when his chest and right arm was hit by something like a hammer blows. A normal human would have been dead instantly-he was made of a different stuff and obeyed different rules. His horse, while being quite different from any mundane animal was not, so when the front legs of the steed dropped like cut of and the head tried to submerge in the ground he was thrown forward at speed.

Somersaulting from unspent inertia he finally stopped on his back a few meters from the brushes that hid the shooters. Staring into an uncaring heaven he was unable to move and could just watch the appearance of an ugly nearly toothless face above him. Immediately after this sight appeared a piercing burning pain spread from his right armpit and consumed him utterly.
Warden Merkel wiped the fluids off the sturdy stiletto while taking utmost care not to injure himself while doing so. "I had it blessed by a Sigmar priest before we went, never hurts to be sure with these bastards."

Sea close to Northern Ulthuan, later at night

Malus Darkblade did not sleep despite the late hour. Actually he could not sleep at all if he did not want to lose control to the demon he shared his body with, and especially at present this would be far too dangerous. Going from his study to the balcony to get a breather he gripped the stone balustrade and took in the Vista-it had not failed to inspire him yet. His Elves' eyes had no problem to show him fine detail, even in the moonlight scene and the pale white illumination added a sinister feel to the view which suited him well.
From the considerable height of his vantage point the sea around him was filled with ships wherever he looked-sleek Druchii sail ships, the catamaran-like hydra ships and fat-bellied freighters all making their way through the rolling sea. They could have made better speed on their own, but kept pace with the Black Arc he was standing on.
In a fortnight this fleet would reach northern Ulthuan and then there would be a reckoning of old hurts the world would remember for a long time.

270 Kilometers North of Middenheim, same night

Nathan Alpers watched the landscape below roll by on the night vision of his flight helmet. It relayed the output of the recon equipment currently mounted in the back of the cabin. Its infrared and low-light sensors showed a mono-color picture of empty farms, unattended fields and forests. Living beings showed up well by their heat, not that there were so many.
The new helmet was a great feature for night flying but brought neck pains like nothing else due to its weight.
Navigation was done by laser-based INS and digital radio navigation which was done automatically, so the pilot, while staying alert, had the time to mull some things over.

There were a lot of changes in his life recently. He was still flying a great lot as the Storch planes were able to use the meadow close to the "contaminated" runway and were providing a lot of services.
The new pilots that had been flown in before the recent assault regarded him as the "old hand" who`s wisdom should be adhered to and Major Winter regarded him as the go-to guy for all questions regarding "Storch" flying. This was a change he could live with easily. That everybody was regarding him as a stone cold killer for his actions during the first assault was less to his liking.

He had finally gotten around to show the rune of flying and its effects to the Major who had been quite astonished. Nathan had to write a report on it that the Major had endorsed and kicked up the line. So far the heavy use of the STOL planes meant that he was flying the enhenced plane for the time being.
Likewise Ermine and Castle Wolfenfels were mixed messages: One the one hand the Count had been much friendlier towards him during the one visit to the Castle that he could make and the visit was really great. On the other hand all the flying he had to do kept him from visiting the castle again and that could not make him happy at all.

None of his thoughts would keep him from realizing that he had found another major camp of Chaos. He doubted that he was spotted-the engine was far too quiet and the lower surfaces of his plane showed dark colors, so unless he was silhouetted against some starfield he was sure to escape notice. He circled around the camp twice to make sure that everything was well recorded before making sure he was noticed.
Flying directly over the center of the encampment he thumbed a switch that dispensed a number of flared from a rack under his landing gear-together with 20 submunitions that would normally be carried in a MRLS rocket.

Nathan doubted that he would kill lots of Chaos soldiers but especially the time delayed explosions would keep everybody awake during the night. This was a big unit, it was visited every night. This could not do morale ANY good.
Looking around with his helmet he spotted a black shadow of something which moved like a snake with wings-no need to overstay his welcome. Firewalling his engine and putting the nose down to gather more speed he left for safer pastures.

Temple of Shallya, Middenheim, two days later

The ward in Shallyas temple was a long, high room with an arched window showing stained glass artwork at its end. Curtains parted the many beds to both sides of the walkway and Shallys Sisters were hustling up and down to serve those for whom the inoculation had come too late.
The ward was full, like any other in the temple-but it could have been worse-far worse. To keep it from becoming the disaster the outbreak was designed to be Ralf Winkler and the Superior Mother Serena went to one of the worst afflicted.

The girl on the bed was a horrible sight. Small liquid filled pustules covered most of the visible skin and changed her features into something that was usually expected from a scaly reptile. The skin showed huge hematomas which gave the red smallpox its name. The breathing was slow and liquid from all the mucus that could no longer leave the airways. She had a high fever and was certainly no longer aware of her surroundings, which was probably a favor.
The robed figures did not need to hide their pity from the unconscious patient.

"Do you think she has a chance Brother Ralf?"
"In an intensive care unit in Germany-probably. When us 5 would be together-possibly. Here and now-no chance at all I am afraid Mother Superior. And this is a shame for more reason but the obvious-by the analysis of the questionnaire she probably had contact with the original bearer of the plague. And if you are right and this is Nurgles doing, then we need to find the source quickly."
"I will pray for her soul then."

"Actually I want to ask you whether you could have a look-inside-her before you do it and before the info is lost. Herad could do so-can you do that as well?"
"I am loath to disturb her last hours, but if will prevent more suffering. Yes, I will do it, please look after me while I am-away."
"Will do. When do you start"
"No time like the present-and we need to start quickly by the look of things"
The medic sprayed a liberal dose of disinfectant on the girl`s wrist before Serena laid her hand around the hot limb. The Priestess eyes turned up when her mind was using different senses than given to most humans.
When the Superior Mother Serena "arrived" inside Aida`s mind (Do not forget her name for Shallya`s sake) she found a happy girl which was running through the back alleys and streets of Middenheim, of a Mother who loved and a father who was proud. She saw a shy boy leaving fruit sometimes and girlfriends with whom she laughed and exchanged secrets.

And then things went darker-first her father and then her Mother started to cough and had high fever. Soon they were unable to work her market stall and the girl had to do a work that before always was just fun and never for real.
She also saw the same pasty faced middle-aged man appearing at the stall several times and ask in a sweet voice for the parents. He was also speaking to other on the market-and they all became…and then came the rush of pictures-totally overwhelming. The pictures of a childhood of growing up-so much-so fast that Serena had no chance to do anything but mentally scream.
Outside of the two womens minds Ralf Winkler watched about the still bodies which only twitched lightly and whos breathing had even slowed to….nothing on the girl-FUCK.

Checking the carotid pulse of the Mother Superior the medic threw her bodily on the hard stone surface and hardly made the effort to cushion her fall. The local Sisters which were in the same hall screamed in surprise and horror when he ripped her robe open to revel her bony chest. Pulling her head backwards he closed her mouth with a thumb and breathed several times into the Priestess nose.
Using three finger breadth from the lower end of the sternum for location he placed his hands upon each other while shouting above the din: "Sister Agnes-bring me the orange box from the doctor`s office-the one with "Phillips" on it-now. Somebody else-get the doctor-fast."
The shouting got the Sisters in motion-and nearly masked the sound like a breaking twig that signaled the breaking off of several ribs from the Sternum of Serena when the medic pushed the first time on the Sternum.
Doing CPR is hard work, hell on the knees and bad for the lower back-and never felt by those who do it as they quite literally have a life in their hands. Despite having started early and doing it in textbook fashion Ralf did not feel any breath coming back into the Shallyas Mother. The crowd around him parted to allow the sister who had brought the defilibrator as ordered.

Ripping the case open the medic switched the machine on and then placed the two metal paddles on both sides of his patient heart. The monitor showed only fast and irregular pulses instead of a steady rhythm which meant that the hearts nerves were firing-but out of sequence. Time for a reset.
When the rising sound of the defilibrator showed that the charge was prepared the medic shouted "Back from the patient" and then pressed the buttons on both paddles. High voltage surged through the chest of his patient converting the spikes on the monitor into a flat line. Ralf set the apparatus for a second pulse when the first weak pulse came back-this time the right ones.
He was still applying assisted breathing to the priestess when the doctor and his assistant ran into the ward.

The Warp, somewhere? Sometime?

The being awoke with a huge pain. It didn't feel this way in aeons. To be honest, it could not remember having felt something before. It could feel his corps was dead to a very great degree. Although it could reform the body soon, it would still cost nost of it's energy. And that was dearly needed elsewhere. It could feel that nearly all of his plans had failed in the meantime and many of his worshippers had doubts, were killed or had even went away. It's cult was at the brink of falling apart. Now it had to save it.

So it lasted some time until it heard the man, or better the dwarf, was still alive, who had done so much damage to it. It wanted revenge.

Berlin, Charité

The dwarf was sitting on his bed and watched TV. He was watching a NDR report about new villages in New Prussia. One of them was about the foundation of the village of Dreiquellen or Nouvelle Trois Fountaines in Bretonain. A certain Jean-Luc Marquis de Saint-Lac was explaining his flight:

"The family of the du Saint-Lacs were fiefs of the valley of Trois Fontaines in the Grey Mountains. The valley is only accessible by a small pass which is closed for over six months a year. Only in the summer months one could pass. We were loyal to the King and the Lady. However, in 2460 IC the younger brother and the younger sisters of the late Marquis Jean-Louis, my father, were taken away by the Dames as they were magicians. That broke my grandmother's heart. My father felt hurt as well, especially when his mother died only three years later. At that time he was just 8 years old, as his father had died the day before his brother was born, then he became the official ruler. Until his 18th birthday a cousin of his father was reigning until my father took over. He did everything to help people with magical children. But much was done in secrecy. He smuggled babies through the near Grey Lady Pass to the Empire. Or he let them settle in his small realm. Everything went well for a long time. The local Dame was in some way not interested to do something about it. In 2519 my father died and I became the new Marquis. Unfortunately also the old Dame died and was to be replaced by Lady Isabelle de Lyonnesse.

It was obvious that she was very rigorous in her belief and soon discovered that there were many magically gifted children and some grown ups there. As most were even taught basic knowledge, she correctly assumed they were taught by the late Dame. She needed time, however to reveal the whole extent and sent a letter to Morgiana le Fay herself, which should be brought to her in the last days in which you could travel the pass. A letter which would never arrive. The messenger was in fact a spy of mine. Indeed I tried to convince Isabelle to continue the policy of the old Dame. But it was not possible to argue with her, instead she realized I was the head behind it. And I was, as two of my children were magicians as well. And my wife Marie was pregnant again. In this dark night the drama began. The argument was soon out of control and Isabelle was going to arrest me, when she felt a storm of Magic. In this moment suddenly I had a dagger in my hand and killed her.

It was easy for me to get rid about the remains, but I was sure that Morgiana was going to investigate the "accident" of Isabelle and then everything would be discovered. I needed to flee with my people no one should remain. But how?

While I was still considering the options a messenger arrived shortly after the pass was passable again. He came with a message of the king to prepare for a war with the Wastelands and Marienburg. That was my chance. Soon the whole valley marched to the battlefield. The field of Tannenberg..."

In this moment Felix went into the room. "Hello, Shorty. What are you doing here?"
Gotrek didn't answer. He hadn't spoken very much in the last weeks. His body was healed. Completely. Even some bad scars had healed. And that was a problem. Gotrek was a slayer. Indeed he was a god slayer, but he didn't know it yet. And a Slayer seeks an honourable death and that was what he had found. Just that now he was not dead anymore, he was very much alive. He had come back. And there was this word from this German: "Forgiveness". He had to think about that. Indeed he wasn't really watching TV, he was thinking.

Felix knew his friend way too well. He had tried to talk with him but until now that did not really work out. Not for him nor for a psychiatrist or a priest.

"How are you?" Felix asked. "Fine." Gotrek answered. It was his usual Laconian answer. But this time Gotrek asked a question: "What do you think about forgivness?" "That's a difficult question and requires a difficult answer. There are two types of forgiving. Once the forgiving of others and twice the forgiving of yourself. Both might be problematic. Both might be easy." "Yes." said Gotrek. "You never told me why you had chosen the path of the slayer. But this German has a valid point: You were dead and thus paid the price. The guilt is repaid..." "I am not so sure. And I won't talk about the reason of my path today." Oh, I never asked for that." Felix said, although indeed he had hoped this would happen. "I know." Gotrek added. "I am simply not sure what happened and what to do now." I don't know, Gotrek. This is something you have to know. Sometimes forgiving yourself is the hardest." "Yes." "What about a holiday? The German government gives us three weeks at Malente..." Felix had said this and was indeed surprised when Gotrek told him that he agreed.

Gotrek wanted to solve the problems he had with himself. Another place might be good for that.

Rammstein concert, same evening

Anywhere else, and "The Worlds Greatest Playwrite", would have complained at being bumped and jostled so much, not that this mattered one jot, the muse had him enthralled. It wasn't yet the performers that had him, it was the audience - every colour of hair imaginable, more spikes and piercings than the most lurid paintings of Sigmars enemies, men muscled like dwarven blacksmiths apparently engaged in unarmed combat in some sort of frenzy of violence that would have given the Reiksguard pause before entering, and the perfomers, the noise, the cacophony they created gave unpleasant memories of the dread sorcerrer and the Daemons conjoured forth, but the imagery, never in his wildest dreams, (or nightmares for that matter), had he seen a perfomance where such alchemey had been combined with showmanship, the band members spewing forth fire as if from a dragon, wearing burning angel wings, riding a giant cock, cooking another band member with yet more of the dragon like flame throwers, suits of pure light.

Never in all his days had Detlef Sierck seen such a spectacle. Stunned, his senses assaulted by an entire army, his ears ringing, he knew he would not sleep tonight, the muse ran through him like one of these new German steamless tanks, Panzers or whatever they were called.
An idea that he had been playing with suddenly took on new forms - the play he had been writing about the Victory at Wolfenfels. Could he make it instead as one of these "musical videos" he had been watching recently, none of this vapid rubbish, but something more substansive moreworth of his talents - YES!

His journey back to the hotel and the following two days were a blur, a frenzy of artistic creativity, but then, it was ready, now to present it he could see it now:
Detlef Sierck and Rammstein - this would be truely epic.

Sierck looked at the letter.

Herr Sierck,
Thank you for your submission to Rammstein. Unfortunately we are unable to accept unsolicited submissions directly. We recommend that you send these ideas instead via Rammstein's Management company. They can be found at the following address...
Yours,
Hannah Noble

Detlef could not belive that he had been rejected so blithely, "these ideas" indeed.
It was clear that this Germany worked differently to the Empire, there just the mention of his name would open any and every door requested.
Undeterred, he resealed the envelope, and readdressed it accordingly. This would still happen, as surely as the cursed ringing in his ears would not stop, this would happen.

Just two days later, the package was waiting for him again. He read the attached note:

Dear D Sierck,
We are honoured that you would wish to work with our clients, however we are not forwarding any such requests to them at this time. We thank you for your interest.
Regards,

Joachim Bloch.

As he read the letter, a small square of yellow paper fell away from the back. In poorly scrawled handwriting were the words - "Reject, no idea who this is, keep these clowns off of my desk".

"CLOWN"! Detlef shouted, his voice dripping with indignity, "Clown is it, well Minheer Bloch, you will see who the clown really is".
Detlef took pen to paper, now here was something that had GREATLY improved since the arrival of the Germans. Finishing his note, he called for a runner, "here, this is to go to the Ministry of Culture, to Crown Prinz Dietmar and no other, tell them it is from Detlef Sierck himself". Paying his penny for delivery, Sierck returned to his study.
"Clown is it, well, lets see how Minheer Bloch likes being a clown himself"
Returning to the script, Detlef read...
"Act one, view of the Quarry, forrest in the background, Lindemann wearing miners garb and carrying a large hammer walks in to view from Mine exit, cue first bars..."

Since WeltSprung, the Minister of State to the Federal Chancellor, Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, (to give him his full title), had so far not had to deal with the surreality of this new world as his colleagues in Defence or Foreign Affairs did.
Until now.

"I quite agree your highness, it was most unprofessional of them. Yes, I can understand his upset by this response. Yes, and this is the ideal project to aid the cultural exchange between the Empire and Germany" Bernd Neumann listened as Crown Prince Otto von Dietmar, his Empire counterpart, shouted down the Telephone line. Apprarently this was to be expected, afterall, those in the Empire were so far away, they would not yet realise they need not to shout.
"Indeed your highness, I shall ensure the correct doors are opened for Herr Sierck, I found his stage adaptation of Drachenfels most moving. Thank you, good day to you too".

Neumann looked at the fax, so some playwrite wants to direct a video for a rock band and their management have refused to pass on the script for consideration. Normally such things would never have reached even his outer offices, but with sponsors such as this, it was good diplomacy to give it some attention.

"Roberta, can you get me Joachim Bloch at Pilgrim Management on the phone please, it seems it is time to finally cut some red tape instead of create it"?

Shortly a line began to flash on his phone, picking up the reciever he caught the words of his secretary: "Standby for Minister Neumann".

"Herr Bloch, hier ist Herr Neumann, now, I undestand that a few days ago you recieved a script addressed to one of your clients..."