Level 600, Skavenblight, sometime later
Oberst Stein and General Wolf were under more pressure than ever before in their lives and if they had the time to step back and reflect what they were facing and what they were doing they would probably have frozen themselves into inactivity. The way things were now they made it maddening minute by maddening minute. They had two things going for them: A very professional staff that could concentrate on one part of the picture at the time which kept them from getting overwhelmed. The other was a plan that had been waiting for disaster to strike. While the nature of the emergency was far different from what they had envisioned it was amendable enough to give a skeleton of a new one.
"Captain Harder, set the charges in the Pump room to 15 minutes and/or temper, herd the Skaven out downwards and block the downwards entrance, the get the hell out of Dodge. Your new position is at level 600, you reinforce the 100th Pioniers at the wire till new orders."
"Major Gerber-we will send ammo and some reinforcements to Level 1000, hold as long there as you can and then withdraw to level 800, we are erecting some defenses there."
"Captain Albers-no you cannot have 24 hours-you have 10, tops. And every bleeding minute of that will be paid with lives, so get going."
"Captain Maier, I am aware that some of your equipment is hard to replace. You will still evac personnel first and this time I will assume I just misheard "just Stumpies". If I have to assume I heard right I will replace you in a second."
Between the calls Oberst Stein could hear the sounds of heavy fighting not too far away. It seemed that every Skaven, whether part of their armies or not had taken up something pointy and threw himself straight at the allied lines through Warrens and side tunnels they had failed to detect. That meant that the Rats could only arrive in smaller groups, but they added up. So far they held but everything was strained and any breakthrough would ask for reserves he barely had.
Ground Level, Skavenblight
"Sorry folks-seven is the absolute maximum, that is stretching it already. I will come back and so will others." Nathan Alpers used a firm piece of Marsch as a runway and flew support personnel out to Miragliano airport. When he got his overloaded plane into the air he saw artillery firing and the bombing passes by Rhino flight. It seemed that they had not found all the tunnels around Skavenblight and now rats of all kinds tried to storm the allied lines.
Columns of trucks escorted by tracks or Puma IFV were making their way from Skavenblight towards Camp Köln and Tobaro and on at least one occasion he found them firing on something. The Germans and their allies retreated from Skavenblight as fast as they could. If anybody anywhere was safe when whatever had been summoned by the rats reached the World above was a question that bothered him a great lot.
Level 1000, Skavenblight
Gleepk the driver had been killed by the Veteran Clanrat that had trained the recruits into warriors by breaking them down and then rebuilding them in his image. Gleepk the hero had been harder to kill, it had taken the Horned Rat to do so.
What could kill Gleepk the killing machine was not clear yet. He had not been given to self-inspection even before and any such tendencies had been burned out of him by his God. This was a good thing given that he now could look right past his fur and skin and watch bones and sinews at work as well as squirming things he could not place.
What Gleepk could appreciate though was the fact that most weapons that had made the humans so formidable were no longer able to harm him and even those who hurt him left nothing lasting. He always seemed to know where the humans were and how to get to them the quickest way. Probably the same way he knew that fresh flesh and blood was the sustenance he now needed. He already had a couple of Humans and a Dwarf to his name and now he wanted to round that off with one of the armored warriors that gave his people such a hard time.
Currently he played a dead game of peekaboo with one of them by running from one pillar to another one while the hits by the human weapons chased him, mostly hitting air and rock. The armored ones were again more dangerous, he had received a grazing shot along his flank that still burned. Well-two more pillars and he would face him directly-and then he would teach them respect of his claws. His new and improved claws that cut through anything that he thrust them into, be it flesh, bone, armor or stone.
The world was great-he waltzed between shots, turned like a dancer around any obstacle, moved faster than ever before and he was not winded in any way-actually he felt great. Turning 180 degree around a pillar and himself at the same time he found himself face-to face with another of the armored humans-just that this one wielded a hammer, not a gun. His right hand extended itself with outstretched claws to pierce right through the breastplate just to be stopped a few centimeters short by the hammers haft. By the Horned Rat, the human was fast, this would be an exhilarating fight for Gleepk the killing machine. He started a lightning-quick series of attacks from left and right which were matched by the hammer`s head or haft. Interestingly the hammer did not splinter or break like anything else he had so far attacked and his paws hurt from one of the parries. The longer reach of the human was matched by his greater speed and he was actually pushing the human back step by step. Soon he would be back to a wall and then Gleepk would be able to open his shell and get at the tasty insides. The human knew that himself it seemed and he managed to turn himself so he could retreat back into the room.
Time to change the attack jumping forward Gleepk managed to get both paws around the hammers haft and pulled himself upwards to punch at the human with his feet. He managed to claw off a soft layer of the breast plate when everything ended.
An axe had opened his head with the ease of an egg and the runes in its head conveyed enough magic to end even Gleepk`s enhanced life immediately.
Which answered the question of what it would take to kill the former driver and hero-a team of Valten and Gotrek. Not bad for somebody who had driven Black Corn around for a living a few months ago.
"Boom" "Target destroyed"
Ulrich Stoiber gave thanks to the Gods he did not believe in as he had found something that could kill the Ghostsrats-a direct hit by a 120 mm Grudge shell did it, barely, it seemed. His coax and the grenade launcher had no problems with the unchanged Skaven but there were so damned many of them. And somewhere below him a horror beyond all imagining was ascending the tunnel step by difficult step as the tunnel that was enough to pass two tanks side by side was a nearly impossible fit for the Doom that was making its way upwards.
"Wolfpack 1, this is 4-we have taken ammo, you can pull back to rearm."
"Wolfpack 4, thanks, let`s change positions then."
A little later Ulrich`s crew and some infantry were restocking the depleted magazines of the big tank while Stoiber tried to get some orders.
"Sir, we can hold for another 30 minutes or so, but we are getting flanked already and we have no idea about the progress of the Horned Rat. So far it comes up slowly but there are several stretches of caverns where it might be faster-much faster. I also need some changes for the infantry-some of them have very simple NBC-gear and they should be out for some time now."
"Understood Wolfpack one. Pull back to level 800 at you own discretion and send the infantry back with the empty ammo trucks. We will send reinforcements to meet up with you."
"Commander-gunner here. There are new targets coming up"
"Engage at will"
It took a HESH shell to rip apart another Hellpit Abdomination and another one to take care of a Brood Mother which had borne a wizard of sorts. The latter had lost its duel with the coax. Still time was pushing and Ulrich was nervous at the fighting in the Warren to the left and right of him. Things were as quiet for him as they could till he finally got the orders for another retreat.
Level 620, Skavenblight, several hours later
The old Prince Cosimo would have been livid. His unit had fought as well as anybody could and then they had been pulled out of line and sent backwards because of their protective gear. The old Prince would have clamored about his units honor and demanded to be left in place or put backwards. He would have coursed his gear and demanded better.
All of that he would have done before he had seen the Horned Rat. He had not seen the whole beast and not for very long. He was not too sure if his sanity would have still been intact if he would have to endure that. Instead he had learned an important lesson-how important or not he was in the grand scheme of things. The Germans had the very best weapons to wage war and the ways to employ them-and even they retreated in the face of the onslaught they just faced.
While there had been a lot of chaos at Level 600 when he went of the trucks somebody seemed to have a plan which calmed him to no end. Currently he guarded a tunnel at which end a couple of engineers were doing something but he could not even begin to guess what, but he knew enough to know that it was vital.
His unit had scavenged whatever useful gear the allies were abandoning and by now the tunnel in front of them was choked with entangled furniture and some rolls of barbed wire. All of that might come to nothing as the fighting was about 200 meters below him, yet the new Prince was comforted by that fact instead of seeing it as a slight against his honor.
All was well till the spot appeared at the left side of the wall. The spot was first red, then orange-and then a white-hot piece of wall fell into the tunnel some 50 meters in front of the Prince. Several similar spots appeared all along the wall stretching from there.
He did not have to give any orders-by now his warrants were more than just ushers at the theater of war thanks to a German sergeant. They had their squads opening fire before Cosimo could do more than step a little to the side, draw his sword and look like a leader. The first Skaven were not much of a threat, stumbling along the obstacles that the Prince`s Own had put about or tangling themselves with the wire. The rapid shooting of nearly 70 men took care of them easily enough but as they died more and more of them tumbled from the freshly made openings. The Skaven that held the Warpstone Grinders applied them to the wire before they died and so the Rats managed to close better than he liked. Reminding himself that there was more to a leader than to a finely clad mannequin he turned to his command squad.
"MP´s to fire at 20 meters. Allessandro-runner to Oberst Stein and tell him of a flanking attack by the Skaven-we need some reinforcements. Do it now."
Turning back to the fight he saw that the Rats were indeed too close. Lifting himself to his full height despite the occasional Jezzail shot he screamed for all his worth-third squad-do it now." He did not even think about the lessons about "Chain-of Command" that he had received and no harm came from it. The Squad that had received Uzi submachine guns rose and fired their magazines at point-blank distance into the approaching enemy. The results were rewarding, provided one liked great heaps of bloody fur and offal. Given what the Rats had tried to do to his beloved Miragliano Cosimo approved very much.
And then more Skaven emerged, more tunnels opened and more fire had to be poured into the incoming flood. Globes filled with pestilences flew through the air, making the Price appreciate his mask even more. The tunnel behind the wire was so fill of Skaven, dead or alive that it became difficult to fire at the real threats and still the rats came. It was unlike anything Cosimo had so far seen and he was pretty sure it had to do with what he had glimpsed down there.
He was so concentrated on the front that the salvo that literally cut some Skaven in half surprised him. Turning to the source he saw several Germans led by a huge sergeant man their machine guns and firing belt after belt of ammo directly into the oncoming flood. This did not stop the Skaven that were in the tunnel already but at least no new ones tried to join the fray.
"Friend Uwe, thanks for showing up. Things were getting dicey for a moment."
"Yes, and here is not the only place. Tunnel behind us is prepared for demolition-we need to pull back."
"I hope they know to let us through first." Prince Cosimo would face any enemy in open battle-well maybe not all after what he had seen-without batting an eye. But the idea to be buried alive underground pulled different strings on his soul.
"I have one of my guys sitting watching them, but we have to skedaddle right quick"
"No argument from me amigo. I`ll send 1st and 3rd Platoon first, we keep here with the Uzi men."
"Sounds good to me, do it."
There were no new Skaven when the first groups double-timed back the tunnel and none when Cosimo and the rest went back, watching the tunnel fill again with Rats that received attention by the Germans. Only too few eyes looked the way they were going and so the explosion that tore open the wall besides the retreating allies caught them off guard. Sleek black furred rats jumped from the new openings, wielding green-glowing daggers that pierced any armor. Two other figures looked like the nightmare version of Skaven, glowing green and displaying their innards. One just threw himself at the humans, claws and teeth and hate, refusing to go down even when hit numerous times. The other looked even stranger with dirty-white bandages all around him and a bulky gun at his hip.
Turning a crank at its side the Skaven poured never-ending fire into his men and likewise refused to go down. His mind was blank from the catastrophe that had befallen his men and friends and for eternal seconds he did nothing till the oldest training he received took over. Despite the mask, despite the protective overall that slowed him he placed his feet exactly like his trainers had shown him on the floor of the sale. His sword, blessed by one of the many priests of Miragliano and sporting a jewel in its grip that had so far defied identification went by the guns barrel and pierced the transparent hide of the bandaged Skaven. Turning and withdrawing the blade was second nature as was pushing it directly into the back of the second ghostly Rat. He even presented his blade for a second before looking for more enemies when something ice-cold and exceedingly hot at the same time slid between his ribs from the back. Falling forward he found himself mask-to-mask with Uwe Meins who had succumbed to the Skaven he had just killed.
His last experience in this world was the explosion immediately above him that collapsed the tunnel in itself.
Joakim Vos was beyond exhaustion, beyond mourning for his lost comrades and beyond caring whether he made it past the next engagement. Command had realized soon that his unit was one of the few that could reliably stop the Ghostskaven that had a nasty tendency to appear in places that nobody expected them to. He was running from engagement to engagement without much pause, losing men every now and then. By now the tactics of his squad-platoon would be an overstatement- focused on keeping the Rats off the backs of Gotrek and Valten who managed to kill even the most magically enhenced Skaven. That these two were still functioning was a miracle in itself but sooner or later Vos feared the odds would catch up, even to them. And if not that way-the Horned Rat was supposedly at level 800 by now and would close the gap soon.
Heinz Albers knew far better than to improvise with large amounts of explosives, but the situation called for a few shortcuts at least. As cutting holes into the bedrock of Skavenblight had been a serious bottleneck he had asked some tank drivers to fire HEAT at the pillars and wall in question. In other places jury-rigged scaffolding had held shaped charges at ceilings long enough to explode them cleanly. The result was the same-clean long holes that he could stuff with untold amounts of future boom. The wiring of all of these charges was a major nightmare and he could just hope that his untested nest of colorful cables would do as asked for.
And for all the work and for all the sacrifices asked of others-now came the final test. Turing the handle on his field telephone he had a connection nearly immediately.
"Oberst Stein, the final charges are set-I can shoot at any time."
"Stay on hold till I give the word."
The waiting was bad. The blaster felt all the exhaustion that had piled up during the last 12 hours, all the years that weighted down on him and all the lives that had been expended to give him the time to do the job. The idea that he could fail was nearly more than he could bear and he longed and dreaded for the order to fire in similar amounts. Looking at the multicolored spaghetti in front of him he followed all strands when the amulet on his chest warmed up briefly. He had his pistol in his hand long before the half-seen half imagined sleek shadow that flew in his direction. He managed to get a shot off before the dagger punched into his left arm and a second one after that. The second round finally did the job and killed the Skaven assassin. The soldiers who ran to his aid could just help him apply a tourniquet to the arm that seemed to be on fire.
Ten minutes later he repeated the instructions on how to fire the charges to the soldier who still tried to apologize for the 5th time, when the blackness claimed him. He should not have worried, all charges fired on time when the word came a quarter of an hour later. All across Skavenblight tunnels and caverns were lit by explosions for the briefest of times. Bereft of their support rocks fell, foundations shifted and ceilings caved in. For hundreds of meters the only passages the allies had not closed very thoroughly were man-sized, closing all avenues to the quickly ascending Horned Rat.
The scream that was issued more than a hundred meters below was full of otherworldly anger, hate and frustration and had no problems penetrating so much rock in a hurry-something its owner could not claim, God or no.
The CH-47 Helicopter was one of the very few the Weltensprung had left in Germany and had been assigned to the Armored Infantry because of that. It looked like a mutated frog with two set of rotors and was as ancient as dependable. Joakim Vos was the last man to enter it via its loading ramp and when he had just passed the door gun it already had to fire on some Rats that still tried to get a piece of him. He had survived, yet of his original squad only four others could make the same claim. It would take serious soul-searching to find if he had done right. When the helicopter lifted he saw the black smoke of the burning equipment the allies could not evacuate in time. The only thing that still lived and moved was a column of tanks that retreated towards Tobago along the dam. Their tail end was brought up by two battered looking Leopard tanks and a few modified M113.
A hovercraft had taken Kargan Ironbeard to his first battle with the humans and it was just fitting that it would carry him away from combat as well. He had seen a lot of new things but in the end war always remained the same. He was utterly exhausted, felt empty for the loss of comrades and the horror that might enter the world and needed to sleep badly. For some things even the Germans had no solution it seemed-but what a run they`d had. The Dawi was asleep before Skavenblight had disappeared from sight.
Skavenblight, Level 500, 19. Festtag, Ulrichszeit
Rats can claw, burrow and chew their way through nearly anything. Stone, concrete and steels falls to their claws and teeth given sufficient time and reason and this went for their God in spades. Tirelessly it had dug through stone and loam, leaving a tunnel 50 meters across that barely fit its ever-growing bulk and hate. With every rock it vaporized, with every house-sized load of gravel shifted by a paw its hate on humanity grew in leaps and bounds. The Horned Rat had absorbed the knowledge of some humans that it had killed early on and they had such interesting memories. These arrogant humans would suffer for what they had done to it and its children for all time when it finally reached the surface. But for now its digging was led by a lodestone that drew its mind forward in eager anticipation. Something it had made a long time ago when he was still vulnerable in the warp, something that had given him the many followers he needed for its ascension to its current exalted state. The Horned Rat had felt the presence of the Screaming Bell ever since it had entered the material plane and wanted nothing more to secure it before the pesky humans could damage it in any way. Reuniting with it would enhance its already enormous power in this world and allow it to rouse the Skaven all around the world in the same fashion than the ones in Skavenblight.
The world would be its oyster and none of the other oh-so-arrogant gods could change anything about that.
Rammstein, Germany 19. Festtag, Ulrichszeit a little later
Some pilots treat their checklists as memory aids to help their mind perform things they had done hundreds of times already. Others merely looked at them without really reading them anymore or made jokes about them every so often.
The two pilots in this plane treated them with the solemnity usually only found in priests citing the core beliefs of their faith. They treated everything about their mission like this, this had been hammered into them in long training.
When they were finally done nearly everybody at the base had turned up to watch the take-off of the bat-shaped plane. It was hardly surprising, given that their weapons bays contained two weapons with more destructive power than all weapons ever used on Earth in anger combined.
Skavenblight, Level 450, an hour later
The Horned Rat had known that the wall in front of it would drop in such a way as it had known that there would be empty space ahead till the great prize. When the dust settled the God that walked on earth walked forward like a mountain that moved like a cat, inspecting the beautiful Bell with all its senses. It nearly missed the small box that was on the ground in front of the Bell and the line that led under it to a larger case concealed beneath the Bell. It could not understand what it saw for the briefest of moments as even its vast mind needed time to understand the utterly different concept in the hidden case. Only a god could have the time to experience a measure of fear before the inevitable happened.
Inside the case that was scanned by the Horned Rat with otherworldly senses a set of very specialized fuses triggered comparatively small explosions in a minutely timed sequence. Small packets of slow and fast burning explosives formed a lens of immense overpressure that compressed even the heavy metal ball inside like a human might do to a softball and reduced its size markedly. The Plutonium atoms moved ever so much closer to each other and the neutrons that emerged from some of them found more targets. These atoms in turn were ripped apart, releasing even more neutrons in an every-increasing chain reaction. Some of these neutrons were getting outside of the metal ball, and of these some hit a cache of Tritium that was kept at a precise distance. The Tritium in turn released many more neutrons and thereby made sure that a much larger part of the plutonium underwent was merely the first stage. A portion of the resulting plasma, electromagnetic radiation, and neutrons was caught by the interstage and focused on a lithium deuteride cylinder in a heavy metal jacket. The lithium deuteride was compressed to stellar levels of heat and pressure and started to fuse. A very small and brief star was born and started to expand into a fireball more than twenty times as powerful as the one that devoured Hiroshima.
All of this had taken a very short time and actually none of the light from this event had yet reached its real target. So far the expanding fireball produced by the innards of a butchered B-61 bomb was mostly heat, overpressure and radiation. In its present form it would hurt the Horned Rat very badly, but not fatally so. This changed when the plasma produced by the bomb reached the Screaming Bell. Made from the purest Warpstone crystal imaginable it was condensed magical energy and a study of it would have driven many a particle physicist into despair. It contained the power inside it for the time it took for a proton to travel its thickness-and then it converted itself back into its original state-raw energy. Now the explosion was present both in the material plane and the warp-very much so.
When it reached the Horned Rat it vaporized its material body immediately and burned off layer after layer of whatever soul the God might have. Both shockwaves reached out with terrible speed, one collapsing the tunnels and caverns below it, mushing the surviving Skaven all the way, the other igniting any particle of warpstone it encountered and releasing more and more energy. It finally hit a 13-sided pillar of even more pure warpstone that threw up a shockwave of its own. This rebound hit what remained of the Horned Rat from another side and finally threw its fragmented remains into the warp.
10000 meter AGL, Skavenblight, the same time
The crew of the B-2 bomber had circled Blighted March for 30 minutes now, waiting for their superiors to make up their minds or the target to show itself. They had received their PAL codes some time earlier and were preparing for the strangest of missions-hitting a moving target with a nuclear weapon. Well-close would also count, would it not?
The co-pilot was the first to see it and for a second was too shaken to utter a sound. One second the ruins of the city had done nothing but smoke here and there-in the next a dome had sprung up that carried buildings, roads and wall on top of it till it broke apart in flame and light. A green pillar of light could be seen for minutes that raged from the depths to the sky and a screaming could be heard with more than just the ears. The brightness of the pillar made it difficult to see anything at all, but both pilots would state that they had seen picture of an enormous rat struggling with another one, but could never agree how the other one looked like. One was nearly sure it had wings, the other would swear he saw a hammer and no camera picture ever would show anything but a great lot of light.
Hexoatl, Lustria, about the same time
The Slann and Skinks that attended Lord Mazdamundi were besides themselves with worries. Something had disturbed the sleep of their Lord and Master deeply. None of the most experienced attendants would confess to have seen similar-it was as if something was frightening the most powerful mage the Warhammer World had. The movements of limbs and facial features had increased alarmingly until the unthinkable happened-the great eyes opened, the lungs filled rapidly with air and the great Slann looked into the material world for the first time in a long time.
"Talk to them and help them. They killed the Defiler of offspring. They will bring the oracle"
Undercity under Nuln, six hours later
The tunnels, caverns and passageways under the most industrialized city the Empire had were filled with madness and violence. The tight bond the Skaven had with their God had transmitted the pain and demise of the Horned Rat into the brains of every Skaven with devastating results. Prone to violence anyway most of them had gone into an orgy of bloodletting that tore not only their society apart but damaged the carefully maintained life support the Undercity needed beyond repair.
Undercity under Mousilon, 24 hours later
The orgy of violence had come and had burned itself out already. Many victors were now finding themselves too weak to tend to their own injuries or even find food that their badly depleted physiologies needed. The Black Hunger, the curse of Skavenkind would claim most victors soon. Others had lain in coma ever since whatever calamity had befallen the Skaven. Unattended this was never a good thing as their very tongues would block their airways or vomit would find the way into their lungs, killing them within days. Many of them never awoke, those who did emerged in a devastated Undercity that badly needed repairs which overwhelmed the stricken survivors.
Chaos Waste, same time
Thanquol the Seer was nursing his sore head. Something major had happened, that was for sure, but the otherworldly nature of the Chaos Wastes had altered and muted whatever had befallen him and his entourage to the point where it was hard to make head or tails of it. Whatever it was it seemed to have hurt the Skaven very badly-and somehow he was sure that the never-sufficiently-damned dwarf had his hand in it. He would find out, and then he would plan his revenge like the world had never seen.
Undercity under Hunchback Mountain, 25. Bezahltag, Ulrichszeit
Terric Hammeredwell was sitting in front of his drawing board, deeply in thought. Whatever catastrophe ad befallen his Undercity, it had damaged the great pumps needed to keep the water out and fresh air in and repairs were needed. Yet, just a repair as before was out of the question, the warpstone radiation would kill everybody close to them soon and no matter whether Skaven, human or Goblin slave, that would not do.
And they needed better mushroom farms-Clan Moulder was gone for all practical purposes and nobody wanted to bring that kind of perversity back.
The Warp
The being in the Warp hurt-a lot. It had been a part of something far greater before, that was for sure, but the being had only a fragmentary idea what that might have been. It had a vast and powerful body, but much seemed to be missing there as well so at present the being could just rest and try to get some control back about mind and body.
It took a while till it felt something more was wrong. Memories went missing just when they were accessed. Body parts emitted strange signals and then went dead. The being concentrated enough to be able to access its surroundings and found that it was not alone. Several smaller beings surrounded it, and tentacles of light connected it to these lesser lights. It took the fragmented mind some time to make sense of it-it was being consumed. For a fragment it put up quite a fight, but not enough of it.
Bundeskanzleramt, Berlin, noon, 26. Königstag, Ulrichszeit
General Hans-Werner Fritz was the highest-ranking General in the Bundeswehr and commanding all forces of Reiksbund, the most powerful alliance on the Warhammer World, bar none. He faced a couple of tired civilians led by an elderly woman that was cultivating a public image as "Mutti" and he was standing as ramrod-straight like a recruit explaining himself.
"According to the seismic data and other observational data the explosion exceed 3 Megatons Ma`am Chancellor. The effects are hard to quantify exactly as a part of the energy was expended into magic effects."
"I do remember pretty well that we have authorized the use of a weapon with a power of 170 Kilotons and you promised that the effects would be limited to subterranean effects with no significant fallout."
"Yes Ma`am, so you did. But kindly remember that we already warned that the Warpstone could enhance the effects and no realistic estimate could be given by how much. We triggered the event inside the purest warpstone crystal ever seen and probably also incinerated a lot of the Warpstone also buried in Skavenblight."
"Was there any way to avoid that?"
"We could have tried to kill the Horned Rat with a nuclear weapon aboveground. But we have no idea if that would have worked or not. Given the threat posed by a God affiliated with Chaos and opposed to us we had to take our best shot-and that meant to use a nuclear weapon in close proximity and with the Screaming Bell for enhancement. Thankfully it worked and so far we can tell the aftereffects are manageble"
"Anyway-what are the effects now that this happened?"
"The Fireball of the Bomb itself barely reached the surface, but the Pillar of Light reported by the observers channeled a lot of energy off it seems. We currently have a funnel-shaped fallout pattern that contains both radioactive isotopes as well as small warpstone fragments that extends eastwards of Skavenblight. Fortunately the most heavily affected areas are inside the Blighted Marshes where they will not endanger humans.
We have contacted the Principality of Miragliano about this and we will help to relocate several smaller villages that would become unhealthy. As the March will fall more dry there is plenty of arable land to go around. Because of the feelings in Miragliano towards the Skaven no major diplomatic problems are expected."
"Do we have a final tally of the loses by now?"
"Yes Ma`am, we have. The Bundeswehr has lost 7230 soldiers with more than double that wounded. Thankfully there seem to be new treatments available for PTSD which will help with overcoming the effects of this campaign. Our allies have suffered similar in comparison to the forces committed to this battle."
"A steep price."
"We warned before committing to the fighting underground that this were to happen-we gave up major advantages when we went below grounds. The reasons for this were valid-we needed a negotiated end to the campaign and the appearance of the Horned Rat was unforeseeable. Even if I would not say that out of these rooms, given the environment that we faced and the enemy who showed up we got off lightly."
"All that ends well is well General. You have the thanks of the German government-and yes, your suggestion of a parade in Berlin has been approved. Our troops have earned that at the very least. So what is your planed follow-up?"
"We will remove our forces from the Blighted Marsches but for some observers and reduce the forces in Tilea in general. Camp Köln will be disbanded and the improved harbor facilities will be transferred to a civilian joint venture with the Principality of Tobaro. The Airport in Miragliano will be retained but the garrison will be reduced. There is a motion to rename it Prince Cosimo airport and I suggest we approve.
What will remain in German hands is the island of Saratosa, despite some public grumblings the City States are most happy to leave it in our hands and we can use a base we do not share with the locals. As for the other theaters of war we have reports of Skaven migrations-in some places aboveground where we collapsed the tunnels. Most seem to head for the World Edge Mountains and as long as they do not cause trouble we should let them go."
"Do we have any indication what happens in the Skaven undercities now?"
"We have inserted drones and probes into all known cities ever since the Battle for Altdorf. There seems to be a lot of internal fighting and chaos, but it hard to say more at present. We have also encountered some Skaven that seem to have lost a lot of their intelligence. At the very least they are no longer capable to speech. We will watch this closely, but at present the threat level is strongly reduced."
