Castle Drakenhof, Sylvania, 3 days later
Ulrich Stoiber really really felt out of place. He had been told that he had to attend the Victory Celebration given by Manfred von Carstein as it would be a snub to refuse. He would have been ill at ease at such a gathering anyway but the place this one used was even worse. The Drakenhof Castle was the architectural equivalent of a wrinkled old crone applying make-up by the ton. Huge halls with natural stone walls sprouting mold here and there and topped by domed ceilings colored black by the soot of ages were heated by infrared radiators and lit by halogen lighting in crystal lusters.
Huge windows gifted a breathtaking sight while the curtains were moved by drafts through ill-fitting stones. Music was piped in through a top-notch sound-system but the boards of the floor gave their own song when stepped on at the wrong places. Especially incongruous was the 6-Wheel AMG-tuned G-Wagon that had picked him from the railway station. Mediveal-looking vampires were not supposed to drive 600+hp off-road vehicles. Ulrich could easily see where the money went the Count received from the Oil wells he had helped to defend. All in the effect was disturbing-as were the guests attending the festival.
There was a gaggle of Germans and Imperials who had been selected from the troops that had been send to Sylvania to combat Crom the Conqueror`s army. Besides them there were Sylvanian nobles and court functionaries and hangers-on of all stripes. That was not disturbing-but the fact that you could never be sure which of them was alive in a conventional sense was.
Ulrich could have sworn that the frail, grey-skinned usher that announced the new guest was an undead-until said worthy cracked a knuckle by accident and bled. The young-looking svelte redhead that was so vibrantly full of life and highly interested in the tank officer seemed far less attractive when she bared fangs that would not have looked out of place in an Ozelot. It lent a lisp to her voice that would have been funny-if not for the fact that she could have ripped the tanker apart with her bare hands.
He was trying to find a way to get away from the Vampire when rescue came from an unexpected quarter.
"Good evening Sir Ulrich, might you have a bit of time for me?" The deep and cultured voice flowed like oil on top of water, utterly elegant, beautiful and conveying so many meanings like the oil spill had colors-and having the same corruptive effects on its surroundings that an oil spill.
Turning his head the German saw a handsome well groomed man in his 40`s in rich Brokat clothing. Everything about him was just so and his body language showed both the perfect host and a slight amusement at the pair before him.
"Ulrika, I fear I have to borrow this dashing officer from you for a moment. Could you powder your nose for a moment, that`s a dear."
Both men watched the receding backside of the young-seeming women while trying to conceal their interest. The Count was better at it, no doubt he had sufficient practice.
"Good evening Count von Carstein, I did not see you coming."
"I have to apologize young man; I have not greeted you properly yet at Castle Drakenstein. Consider yourself home."
"Thank you Count, also on the assist."
"Ah, you have to forgive Ulrika, she is still young and needs to discipline her appetites a little bit. But it is hard to fault her, it is a long time since Drakenhof has seen a warrior of your caliber and there are more than a few here who would enjoy getting a bit of you."
"Thanks-I think."
"Don`t worry, you are under my protection here as guests, nobody will dare to lift a finger unless invited. Which makes Ulrika all the more dangerous. But the soldier who took down what-5 Bloodthirsters-should not need any protection from me anyway."
"This is an unfamiliar battlefield if it were one and I have neither my crew nor my tank with me at present."
"Yes, together you are a remarkable weapon-maybe even more remarkable than you know yourself. I have watched the battle and was highly impressed. Was it really necessary to use my troops as a bait?"
"With all due respect Count: If you believe that I am sorry that we put these poor fraggers to the ground for good you are mistaken."
"Ah that attitude again. Look Oberleutnant Stoiber, I have read your Bible and understand your misconceptions about the undead. Suffice it to say that we do not bind the souls of the dead to their skeletons, there are other powers in play."
"From your mouth to Gods ear Count. Still, the answer is yes, we needed your undead as bait and a stopping line-that way we could take out most of the Chaos horde in one go and not hunt them through your forests for all eternity."
"Do not think me ungrateful-the losses we suffered were far less than what we would have taken without your aid. But next time please do not burn all the dead so thoroughly-you never know when they might come handy…"
The count engaged the tanker for some while in small talk before elegantly excusing himself. Unwilling to face Ulrika on his own the tanker sought company and promptly found himself in a small group with some Landwehr soldiers and incongruously some Red Cross officials.
"I see that you had your own dose of the Count Ulrich."
"Yes, quite charming for a bloodthirsty vampire who thinks we are cattle, isn`t he Henrik?"
"He can be very persuasive when he wants to. And yet he is quite uneasy these days I get it.
"Why, did you park your train too close to his castle?"
"Not in particular, no. But from what I hear he is rather unhappy about the humans acquiring new weapons that can threaten his kind so well. He requested that we keep the Grey Lady away from Sylvania, otherwise we might have used her instead of the MRLS strike."
"We were more flexible that way-the MLRS launchers can keep station much better, the B-52 can not."
"There is that, but the count also probably thought about 30 tons of Napalm raining down on his beautiful castle, just by mistake."
"Nice picture you put in my mind there."
"Now come on Gentlemen, it could be much worse that von Carstein-and things are looking up."
"How could that be? And sorry, but I did not catch your name at first."
"Ups sorry. I am Manfred Huber from the German Red Cross. We have lots of projects these days in Sylvania and so your comments struck a nerve. And you might be?"
"Ah, I am Ulrich Stoiber, I am with the 183 tank Battalion and this is Major Henrik Gerber who commands the train "Hammer" which made sure we all arrived in one piece and keeps the railroads open."
"Well met Gentlemen. But really now, this blasted country is improving. We have lots of projects offering good drinking water and basic sanitation to the local villages. And while a lot of the oil money goes into the Carstein household there is enough left that Sylvania has more tractors per capita than any other province of the Empire.
The DEULA has their own school in Eschen and trains the farmer`s children in modern farming methods. We have regional hospitals in.."
"All of that just means that the humans here are now well-fed cattle instead of just cattle."
"Ah that-that was the problem which brought us here in the first place and that is mostly solved. Even in Germany we are the foremost service for Blood Donations. We have experimented for a while to find anticoagulants that do not affect the taste too much and now collect the blood from Sylvania`s citizens for the Count and his followers.
Actually they do not need so much blood as one would think and since we can pay the donators we actually have a surfeit of blood which we send back into the rest of the Empire and Germany. As the minimum time between two donations is 2 months nobody is harmed. Before everybody was afraid that a Vampire would drink him empty or infect him-that is no longer the case. Everybody is happy. And I do actually believe that on Old Earth we cooperated with much worse assholes than the Count to get at the Oil we needed."
"Still sounds wrong, feeding Vampires-and you probably stand to make a pretty penny in the process."
"Guilty as charged Major Gerber-but the situation for everybody is certainly better than before for everyone-so if we do not overdue-what is the harm in doing good?"
"And with the better food supply you do not think that there will be more fanged mouths to feed in future?"
"Actually the Vampires are none too keen to sire more of their own as they tend to be competitors sooner or later-I do not see a big rise in population anytime soon."
"And if they still so it there is still the B52 solution."
"There is that Oberleutnant. But I think they opened the buffet-shall we?"
Neustadt, Naggaroth, same time
"Bang" Areta`s rifle was hammered into her shoulder and would enhance the bruise that already started to form there. Looking at the target she found that the hit was within the "7" circle-not bad but not really good, she had seen her instructors do much better. Swearing slightly she turned and pulled the bold handle of her rifle to eject the base plate of her last shot and pushed a new round into chamber before she closed the bolt again.
She was still marveling that you could do so lying down-so totally different from shooting a crossbow-and that you could shoot so fast-she had managed to reload 6 times in a minute during the dry runs. But the best was the totally flat trajectory at which the bullet flew-it dropped only a few inches even to 500 meters, which was more than 3 times her old repeating crossbow would reach. And the effects that the Germans sniper had demonstrated on a pig were not to be sneezed at either. But presently she was unable to make this work properly and that meant she led her squad down and that would not do. Well, let`s try again then and..
"You are jerking the trigger recruit that spoils your aim. Didn`t Segeant Swagger teach you any better?"
Areta was at her feet and at attention before she realized she had to do it. Wolfgang Böhler had stepped behind her without her hearing him. As any Druchii she had her doubts about a human commander of any Druchii unit but so far the Germans had shown they knew what they were doing. And anybody who had been close to Wolfgang to see his eyes knew better anyway. These eyes knew neither friend nor foe, just targets and the brain behind them decided who would die or not easily. Any true elf could respect that, no matter the race.
"This recruit requests permission to speak Sir"
"Permission granted recruit and stand at ease"
"Sir, this recruit has been told to pull the trigger as I would squeeze a tit Sir."
"So?"
"Err, Sir, this is what I am doing."
"Recruit, are you trying to pull my leg?"
"Sir, no Sir" The slight panic which crept into Areta`s voice must have convinced the former sniper that she was telling the truth.
"Recruit, I think we have very different ideas about squeezing tits-let me show you how to pull a trigger correctly, shall we? Give me your rifle recruit"
"Sir, rifle is loaded and safe" The Druchii made very sure she handled the rifle over with the muzzle to the sky and she understood already why the sniper still checked the rifle as if she had made no comment.
After giving it a quick inspection he put it to his shoulder in a motion that made the rifle look like an extension of his limbs. Pulling the trigger in a smooth not too fast motion he fired of a round at the distant target and followed with 4 more rounds. Areta looked at the target and thought there were 2 misses as there were only two holes. It took her Elven eyes some time to see that there was one hole slightly off-center and a slightly ragged one dead center which had swallowed all 3 bullets.
Handling the rifle back to her he pointed to her position in the firing line.
"Let`s try again recruit. Now pull the trigger more slowly and gently. The shot should come as a surprise."
Taking up the rifle as she had been shown the breathed out half-way and then stopped breathing while taking the sight. Pulling the trigger like she had seen the kick to her shoulder indeed came before she thought it would and the hole her bullet made was rather close to the ragged one left by Böhler-and so did the next 3 shots.
"Very good recruit and you have maintained the rifle well. Your squad gets a credit."
"Sir thank you Sir."
Much later Areta was loaded heavily with the buckets she had been given at the cantina which she carried to her squad`s tent. "Here goes folks, get it while it is still hot."
That she would be trusted by her squad to get their food and to make sure everybody got the same serving spoke volumes about the changes that the Druchii had undergone the last weeks. She was very pleased to see that somebody had straightened her cot during her haul and she was comparatively sure that everything was still there.
"I heard you got us another credit today Areta?"
"Yes, but it was a close thing and it had to do with tit-on the firing line."
"What?"
The laughter that filled the tent soon after showed that the mood in the unit was on the up.
Mirror Hall, Versailles, France, Earth 14 days after Battle of Middenheim
The famous hall of the premier French palace was filled to capacity by officials and TV teams from dozens of nations, except 1/6th where a group of 11 men and women was busy. Arcane signs were painted on the floor, herbs burned, a mini pyre for a sacrifice sat in the middle of a engraved ring, packed with glass lenses, carved wooden hawks and owls. Finally the 11 sorcerer from Marienburg sat down and began their chant exactly seven minutes after seven in the morning. At first, nothing seemed to happen, then the mirrors in the hall began to glow blue, then orange. for over twenty minutes, the mirrors kept their orange hue, then Magister VanderSchanz ignited the pyre. Once again, the mirrors glowed blue, then they began to lighten until a bright white light shone out of every mirrored surface in the hall. Suddenly, among the noise of a new chant, the mirrors flashed in a blinding cascade.
When sight returned to the visitors, they were shocked to see one mirror wall showing pictures like a TV. It was then, that Magister VanderSchanz spoke up in a slightly strained voice.
"The connection to our homeworld is difficult to hold with the weak flow of magic on this world. We will show you some live scenes, but we cannot predict how long we can keep it going. It might be 3 minutes or an hour, we cannot say. so if you want to record something, use your contraptions now."
The first scene convinced the Earth human delegations already that it had to be Germany they saw. The massive form of Cologne Cathedral was unmistakable. What was different was the view of the Central Station of Cologne. The streamlined, white form of an ICE High Speed Train slowly coming to a stop was normal, the puffy clouds spewing, decorated Steam Train leaving Cologne was not. The roads were filled, but there were noteably less cars than usual. Equally jarring were the visible Flak and Fla-Rak (AA) installations in the city. Not all that many, but the implications were clear.
The view changed and the geographical buffs among the people in the hall could recognise Wilhelmshaven harbour. While Cologne looked halfway normal, at least what had been visible, this new view showed the differences openly. The civilian harbour was not only filled with yachts, boats of hobby sailors and museum ships, no, a lot of sailing ships, barques, Galleons, hulks with colourful sails filled the anchorage. In one berth of the obviously rededicated "Bauhafen"(building harbour) a Galleon like out a pirate movie was either build or repaired, in the "Handelshafen" and the "Großer Hafen" ships both modern and old, were being loaded with goods or their loads brought to land.
The bird´s view over the naval station let some spectators gasp involuntary. A large aircraft carrier named Seeadler lay at anchor and a mix of destroyers, frigates, U-Boats and other ships flew some strange, archaic looking flags alongside the German national colours. In guest berths, two obvious War Galleons, flying Skull and Cross and Twin-tailed comet flags, were bopping leisurely in tact with the waves. Leaving Wilhelmshaven for the Jade Roads was a group of Dragon Ships, like out of a viking movie!
The view changed again, this time an Air Force base could be seen, where a B 52 bomber with Iron Cross markings was rolled into a hangar.
Once more the picture flashed and the entrance of a cinema was there. The names of the movies were mostly unknown. "Papenburg", "Raid on Hag Graef", "Hellenthal´s last day", had a lot of people going in. Equally large, maybe larger was the throng of people going for "Battle at Axe Bite Pass". Other popular movies were "The Alpine Hospital", "Goodbye Earth", which semed to be a dark comedy about being ripped away from home forever. And Earth was not forgotten with showings of a Louis de Funes movie and "The Big Sleep", a Bogart classic.
Another scene showed a group of Germans having a picknick at a river bank, an enormous river. A river of a size not known in Europe. Among the fruits in the baskets were several which left the biologists in the Mirror hall head scratching.
The following scene showed a road being build to a village which for all intents and purposes looked like a French village from bygone times.
Another flash brought a look across a Japanese looking city from the time of the Shogunate. But there were differences. There was a railway station, lots of German looking tourists, lots of construction going on and last, but not least, there were containers full of Mangas loaded onto Trucks!
Then a newspaper stand came into view, with headlines like "Merkel in Altdorf - Meeting with the Emperor", "Southland region with lots of cocoa trees found by expedition", "Railway reaches Meissen in Wissenland".
The spectators in Versailles hoped for more images from another world before contact would be lost, since no one could say when a new contact would be possible.
Above Earth, same day as the battle in Sylvania
After the unsatisfactory last few weeks on the Warhammer World, Tzeentch was delighted to visit his new playground again. And what a happy situation that was! The first true spark of a Chaos follower burned all the more brightly on this unspoiled planet.
Not that it was an instant door to domination, the Changer of Ways never worked and never wanted to work this distastfully direct, but the first step on a delicate road had been taken. No, even if would strife after his brother Khorne, it would not be possible. This world still lacked in the magic department, so he would help less obviously. One person who could need his help was the leader of local Bretonnia. His problems were easy to solve for a Chaos God. Bretonnia lay beside the shifted Wasteland, a good place to consolidate his power in the beginning.
A perfect start would be to give Bretonnia´s leader a needed victory. Well, he knew quite a nice one. After that, he would visit a city across the Big Ocean. The leader there was an untrustworthy Silvertongue, a backstabber after his own heart. On that visit, Tzeentch hoped to learn why he looked like a guy from the Southlands, in a region where the Dark Elves normally should be.
Oh, and the local Southlands were nothing short of a playground. This Mugabe guy alone spread Chaos like a soon-to-be champion... The Changer of Ways already loved this place.
Winkler Family apartment, Charite`, Berlin a couple of days later
Ralf Winkler wife was out shopping and having coffee with a friend so Ralf had a Saturday afternoon for himself. Looking guiltily at the anatomy book which he wanted to read up on his current lessons he decided that his head was simply full and needed a rest.
Looking for some entertainment that would not tax his mind any more he finally switched on the TV and zapped through the channels. The first one he got was of the DTM race in Hockenheim and the channel presented the pre-race show.
The DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft or German Touring Car Masters) had replaced the Formula 1 races as the primary interest of the motorsport fans as most formula 1 teams had not changed worlds with Germany and developing such cars was very expensive. As the much cheaper DTM cars bore at least visual resemblance to German everyday cars they had added appeal to many fans.
The commentator was going full tilt when Ralf switched into the channel. "The decision between Audi and BMW will rest on the question who has handled the conversion to LNG fuel best. Since last year LNG is allowed in the DTM and the rules restrict the amount of gasoline the cars can use in any given race. So everybody wants to convert to LNG despite the weight penalty, but as BMW found last season this is not so easy. Let`s see whether they got it right this year.
But now watch the presentation by the Jagdgeschwader 72-Bölckes Circus is just back from the Empire and now want to give us quite a show."
The Announcer might have said something more, but the 4 Eurofighters that went over the middle ground of the racetrack at barely 50 meters drowned every sound with their own. Dumping fuel through their emergency systems and then igniting them with their afterburners they pulled a carpet of flame behind them before breaking sharply upwards and delivering a short but utterly impressive aeronautics display for the audience.
And the audience was lapping it up if judged by the spectators jumping up and down and waving their flags. The medic was old enough to remember the Rammstein accident and shuddered but understood why the audience was lapping it up-it was a grand display of technological mastery and top-notch flying rolled into made things interesting was that the audience reacted so well to a display by the armed forces-that was new. The way the new attitude worked by now seemed healthy and within reason, he just hoped it would remain so.
No matter he switched channels and found himself watching a heroic epic about a Bretonian Knight on a Quest in a channel mostly reserved for youths. When the scantily clothed Lady of the Lake appeared he had a look at the plunging neckline of her costume and switched to the next one.
This one showed a trailer for a new installment of a long running crime TV Series with a new wrinkle, called "Tatort: Altdorf" (Crime scene Altdorf, wiki/Tatort). The new episodes were about a police commissar plus his team who were sent to Altdorf to show the imperials that criminal cases could be solved without torture and direct eye witness. They worked together with some imperial officials. Given that there were such teams in the Empire the medic made a mental note to watch this episode.
The next channel was some talent show which featured a mixed human and dwarf metal band called Grungier`s Slammers who actually did good solid metal music. He always liked Blind Guardian and their music style seemed not so far off that, even when dwarven voices had a different timbre than human ones-but very suited to the task he thought. He thought he might have met seen one of the dwarves before when they launched into a new song called "Der Sanitöter" (The killer medic) about a medic who wielded an assault rifle killing demonettes and pulling dwarves out of hellholes. The medic still had bouts of manic giggling when his wife came back home.
Bundeskanzleramt Berlin, next Monday
The video on the screen was not of the highest resolution and seemed to jump slightly. That was not because of the camera or the monitor-the camera had been a high-quality model and the Monitor was a high-end plasma screen. The video had been taken at long distance at sea and that main feature of the video was a huge balloon, suspended under it was a pallet with tarps which hid its contents. In the left upper corner of the screen a countdown was displayed. When the counter hid "0" the picture whitened out for a moment.
When the camera panned back one could see a huge fireball where the balloon had been. The fireball had incongruously some green color in it and while the onlookers watched the familiar shape of a mushroom cloud began to form. The sea was dished in by the pressure wave and then a frothy ring-shaped wave was expending at great speed before subsiding.
When the video stopped Thomas de Maiziere went to the lectern at the apex of the conference table. "What we have just seen was the controlled explosion of the warp bomb that we have captured in the tunnels under Middenheim. We tested this device over the Sea of Claws with enough distance to anything so while mages will have felt the detonation nobody can say for sure what happened and there was no danger.
The event was measured to have a power of 9.3 Kilotons, but the effects were not directly comparable to a thermonuclear weapon as the explosion showed very little radiation but increased thermal output. Given that nearly all magic indicators in the fleet got damaged we can count on other, less conventional effects as well."
"So, do the Skaven have Weapons of Mass Destruction?"
"Yes Angela, in a way. Yet, the threat may be lower than what we saw during the Cold War. The magical radiation of these bombs is easily detected and the Warpstone Crystal is so fragile that transporting it at anything but the greatest care and lowest speed is impossible. Also the weapon was initiated by new detonators that we built as the original ones would have likely fired out of sync which would have reduced the power of this device by at least an order of magnitude, but still it is potentially devastating. The good news is that not only is this weapon unreliable and hard to employ, but warpstone crystals of this size and purity are incredibly rare, so their number will always be low."
"So what do you propose to mitigate the threat?"
Well, first off we….
Neustadt, Nagaroth, same Date
Wolfgang Böhler enjoyed his breakfast quite a lot. By now a bakery was making decent bread fresh each day, some local ham was quite ok and one of their numbers realized that he was a so-so merc but a gifted butcher. Making butter had been not so difficult after all, so the thing Wolfgang did miss most was Coffee but there was a brew from some roots which was bitter and strong enough to etch paint. If that did not wake you up you were probably lacking a pulse.
"Another cup master?"
"Yes dear."
Wolfgang had given up on making Ludenka call him Wolfgang or any other thing. From what he was able to put together from the few things she knew about herself she was a second-generation slave with parents hailing from Kislev. She had been part of the slaves that had been granted to the Germans in exchange for the Hung prisoners. The blonde woman was a great beauty by Wolfgang`s standards and had been eternally grateful when the sniper managed to buy her son from his former Master.
Originally Wolfgang had accepted her as a housekeeper but that had not lasted more than a week. He had been without a woman for years now and Ludenka was so grateful and probably hoped to bind a relaxed Master to her more closely. Which did not mean that the results had not been pleasurable and Wolfgang would have been hard pressed to categorize their relationship. This train of thought reminded him that he had forgotten something.
"Ludenka, sorry, I forgot something I meant to give to you."
"Yes Master?"
The slight hesitancy in Ludenka`s voice pulled on the sniper`s heart-he had never done her any harm but she still suspected that her good luck might run out.
"Calm down, I think you will like it."
Unwrapping a package he pulled something out that had cost him a favor with Thorsten Breitkop, the Master Mechanic and engineer of the Germans. Ludenka wore-as all Druchii slaves-a collar that signified her status. One of his first acts when he took her into his house had been an attempt to remove it. It had been the one and only time when Ludenka had offered anything like resistance to him. Between the screams and sobbing he finally understood that this would not free her of something but given everybody license to do something to her. As long as she wore the collar she was under whatever protection Druchii society offered to a slave that belonged to somebody.
Given that the sniper had gone another route. The oiled paper he put away revealed a beautiful milled piece of stainless steel, made to size and polished to a nearly chrome sheen. Breitkopf had made parts of the new slave collar itself and had lasered the Names Ludenka and Böhler into them as well as the crosshairs which were something like Böhler`s coat-of arms.
"Oh my god, it is so beautiful-is it really for me, really"
"Yes of course it is dear."
Ludenka was at her knees in a flash and what could he do but to put the new collar around her neck. They were in each other's arms for what seemed like an eternity before the sniper broke the embrace. "Sorry Ludenka, but I have to go."
"Don`t say sorry Master and do not forget your hat again."
"Will do."
When the sniper made his way towards the Auxilia he saw Ludenka stepping outside of their house and proudly displaying her new collar. It felt wrong, so very wrong.
Outside of a factory building, Neustadt, Naggaroth, 2 hours later
Urglies Jeres walked into the wooden building and shook his head because of the feeling he had steeped into a different reality. Even from outside the building he had heard-and felt-extremely heavy blows of metal against metal of a kind he had never heard.
"I hope you show me secrets worth my money Herr Breitkop."
"What I can show you is how we make 10.000 Crossbow Bolts in 2 weeks with 100 slaves as opposed to 4 months. You will get a full description in writing with pictures. If you want to buy tools or the services of trained supervisors-that goes extra."
"Yes, I know-so now go on."
"Well follow me then."
Thorsten Breitkop led his guest past the door into the factory building and to the side.
"Why are you bringing me here then?"
"Because this is where it starts. Look here, you see this oven. From one side we put in coal, other iron ingots go in from the other side. Here we heat the ingots till they are ready for the forge."
"And what is that thing to the side."
"This is an air blower-it works like a reverse windmill and pushes air into the forge-that way it burns hotter and more even. You would use a bellows for a similar job but this is more efficient."
"And what is that slave doing with that stick?"
"At the top of that stick is a magnet. When the ingots have the right temperature they are no longer attracted-then he uses the shovel to pull them from the hearth and puts them into the slide into the building."
"Why don`t you put the forge inside?"
"Too hot and the exhaust gases are a problem. Let`s get inside and we see what we made with them."
Inside the building the source of the blows was revealed-but the sight just replaced one mystery with another. Huge blocky machines were arranged in a line at the far wall of the factory. On top of each box a wheel was connected to a driving belt and rotated. With the rotations a massive box of iron was pulled upwards and then clanged down with great force on the lower part of the boxes. Slaves just clothed by loincloths because of the heat put something glowing under the descending boxes and after the hammering threw them into a receptacle besides the next bin where the process was replaced.
"As you can see we put the heated ingots under a series of drop forges. Each drop forge has a two-part mold that hammers the ingot into a shape ever closer to a crossbow bolt. The ingots keep hot as they absorb the energy from the forging. When you look into this bin, this is where we have the raw bolts."
The sharp spikes of iron that the Dark Elf could see where indeed looking like crossbow bolts but were still very crude. Every 5 seconds or so a new bolt was added to the pile already inside the bin.
"How do these "drop forges" work?"
"Inside this big box we have an Iron box on rails filled by granite. It is pulled up by a gear and ratchet system powered by a steam engine outside. In the lower part of the forge and the dropping part are two halves of a mold we mill from high-grade steel. With each drop they forge the iron into shape."
"Uh-whatever"
The next workshop contained a series of vertically mounted wheels of some stone material which turned rapidly and more slaves-better clad in leather this time-which pushed the crude bolt against the wheels again and again. The sparks which flew from this lit up the workshop whenever a new bold was applied and a high-pitched grinding noise filled the room. Going from one grinding wheel to the next the Druchii found that the Slaves pressed the bolts against the wheels and some guides which allowed them only the right movements. More and more the bolts lost their mold lines and became the sharp tools of war they were.
The next step made Urglies step backwards and grasp for his amulet against magical attacks. A slave was putting about 20 Bolts between two rails hanging tips downwards where then hung between two more rails-and with no fore to be seen the bolt tips started glowing cherry-red from heat.
When they did that the slave put the bolt tips into a vat filled with oil where they hissed and gave off an unpleasant smoke.
"Here we heat the Bolts inductively-that means with rapidly changing magnetic fields-and then cool them in oil-that hardens them to 48 HRC or so-err very hard. The next workshop is where we attach the fins and…"
"Herr Breitkop, my head hurts already. This is so far from anything I know that you could tell me all day about this and I would still not be one step closer to make my own bolts like you do. What you do here is very impressive, no doubt and probably the way of the future. Still it looks like I wasted my money here-did you think it would be like that?"
"Frankly speaking-no. This workshop is, by German standard very simple and we thought it very suitable to sell to an interested party. In the long run we have too few Germans here to make such things and want to produce machines and tooling to Druchii like you who then make bolts and hammers and whatnot."
"Uff-so this is simple-thanks a lot-not. From what I can see I need to much machines and tools and knowledge-I would be here every other day for advice."
There might be another way-we could do more of we had more slaves, money and raw materials. If you provide them we could grant you shares for these and give you a part of the profit from that."
"How would you do this?"
"Let me introduce you to a thing called stock company…"
