Keppler Space station, Orbit around Warhammer World
"Could you pass me some of that Dornfelder Oberstleutnant?"
"Certainly, Frau Klatten."
The Dornfelder that Nathan Alpers passed to his right was very good. Given the transport costs to orbit nothing else made any sense. The same went for Nathan`s surroundings, they were first class but made exactly zero sense in his eyes. The room was spacious, at least by the measure of a space station, and nicely equipped. It was part of a grav wheel, so the food stayed on the plates and in the glasses without prompting. For those who could stomach it there was a breathtaking view of the Warhammer World and the endless sea of stars.
Like the room Nathan did not really believe in what he was currently doing. But if people payed five million marks for a trip to orbit they thought being entitled to a dinner with the Space Station`s commander. That Nathan had to take a trip from nearby Kopernikus to Kepler to do so was not so important in his eminent guests and DLR`s view. Nathan accepted that this space tourism thing paid for very nice living quarters that were also used by his crews. They also made some of the movers and shakers even more inclined to think well about Germany`s expensive space program. It provided financing and justification for another Zwilling B SSTO spacecraft. He still felt out of place, especially as he had to wear a freshly pressed uniform for such occasions. To somebody who normally wore a T-shirt for a week before considering replacement that was an utter waste, but that was a decision taken far above his pay grade.
He had to make this trip once a week during his deployment, it seemed that DLR was doing brisk business. The only bright spot as far as Nathan was concerned was that they had actually constructed a second space station for that. By now Kopernikus commanded an apocalyptic amount of firepower, given that they had refurbished no less than 15 KEW satellites during the last years. Not even his enthusiastic DLR bosses thought it a good idea to have tourists anywhere near that.
Pale Sisters Mountain range, Bretonia
The path meandered along the mountainside of a nameless grey giant. Despite the fact that autumn had just started the thin air held a chill and the slope above the travelers held snow that did not retreat in summer. The path itself was tight and often invisible. Loose rubble made for a treacherous footing. All of this made sure that this path was rarely used, if ever and for that reason the group travelling it had chosen this way. There were about 20 humans and double that in horses and mules that pushed forward at a speed dangerous for this kind of terrain. All of them wore loose-fitting robes of some kind which hid features and whatever equipment the riders preferred.
Only very few beings on this world would have been able to identify this group. It`s members were seen only by very few. Every year Bretonia`s children were tested for magical talent. All children with such talent were taken from their parents and given to the Lady of the Lake. The female children were trained to be Damsels and served the Breton nobles and the Lady. The male children were not seen again.
They were trained both in magic and in combat, a force which had few peers in this world. They served only the Lady and whatever tasks they performed when not in the Lady`s Groove they performed anonymously. Rarely they were out in such numbers and now this was just one group of several that made their way.
One rider seemed totally unperturbed by the cold. He seemed different from the others somehow, even when an observer would be hard-pressed to say what made him different. Still, that observer would have been right. Robert de Grail was no mage, he thought the temperatures mild compared to what he had endured a few weeks ago and he led this quest. Likely it was the last quest he would undertake, he would fail if he would be recognized and no minstrel would ever sing his praises if he succeeded. He did not care about any of it, only that he succeeded doing the Lady`s bidding. Robert de Dubois would have had doubts, would fear the outcome and question the mission`s ethics. Robert de Grail had no such weaknesses, the Lady had burned them from him when he drunk from the Grail.
Robert might be removed from most mortal weaknesses, but he took great care for the satchel that was tied behind his back. Something was in there, something so cold that it chilled him even through the many wards and the insulation provided by its packaging.
Kopernikus Space Station, Orbit around Warhammer World
Nathan Alpers` posture seemed designed to give him a cramp or two in very short order. It did not as the gravity which would compress the limbs and reduce blood flow was absent. A container with apple juice hovered by his side, secured only by a small strap. The astronaut had no eye for it as he was glued to the monitor before him. It showed the video from the drone that Frank Walter controlled from his seat two meters to Nathan`s left. The data transmission was good enough for a very high-resolution video, not that this improved the scene shown on the screen.
The terrain that passed under the drone was cleansed of most life, with only lichen clinging to some rocks. There was still movement between the rocks and across the plain that bore them. Sickly green things, the size of tree trunks, moved in a sinuous fashion. They were studded with barbs that allowed them to capture and move things and that they did. A few minutes before, when the drone had still been in the outskirts of the crater, it had shown a migration. Neither the migration of nomadic animals seeking a different place to rest for the coming winter nor grazers looking for greener pastures. There had been animals and sentient beings, old and young, big and small. They all moved in the same direction at whatever their best speed was. They moved directly into the crater before them. None made it under their own power, sooner or later they encountered one of the tentacles that ringed the crater. They were impaled, killed and in many places ripped apart. The tentacles moved the pieces into the crater`s center where unending rows of teeth rimmed a hole that seemed to stretch into eternity.
The Great Maw swallowed them all.
Germany had learned at great cost that no sentient being should approach the Maw. The first team of scientists had disregarded the Maw`s attraction as something that endangered only animals and simple beings like Ogres. They were wrong and were not seen again. The second team had kept a greater distance and made it physically difficult or impossible to leave for the crater. Two still managed somehow, the rest were still undergoing therapy and full recovery did not seem likely for them.
Erring on the side of caution the research was given to DLR who promptly decided that controlling the drones was best done from orbit, when several satellites and Kopernikus itself allowed for acceptable lag times. Now Nathan`s crew controlled a small fleet of drones which had been brought within range by an airship. By now several tissue samples from the tentacles had been acquired, countless pictures and videos taken. At the same time, the attempt to investigate the Maw itself had been frustrated by drones that crashed when they got too deep. Now it was time to try something new.
Frank Walter brought the quadcopter to a hover above the maw. The camera that pointed downwards displayed rows and rows of teeth fading from view into darkness.
"Begin descent upon my mark. Mark Mark."
"Copy begin descent."
The drone was not a toy bought from Radio Shack, this was something built for the German army at the cost of a nice car. It had plenty of power and enough electronics to remain stable in serious gusts. It started to wobble around the place nearly immediately after it passed the craters rim. Frank had his hands full to keep the drone centered.
"Sensors say there is a significant downdraft Frank."
"You don`t say. With this amount of juice I give this thing it should rise by ten meters a second. Instead it is going down."
"Interesting. The satellite pics indicate no place where that much air is ejected. So where does all that air go?"
"Let`s see if we can find out. Reaching 75 meters, downdraft increasing but fewer gusts."
"Stabilize at that altitude and lower sensors."
"Copy lowering sensors."
Under the drone a small winch unspooled a length of spidersilk rope. At its end a sensor pack was lowered into the shaft below.
"Shaft diameter is still 15 meters, does not seem to get any smaller from here."
"Good thing. We touch these teeth once and the sensor pack is a loss."
"Yes. But what in God`s name is that?"
"That" was something like the surface of a lake, a very reflective surface that had ripples and waves running all over it. There were additional waves whenever something was handed down the endless rows of teeth and passed the membrane or whatever it was.
"I have no bloody idea. Well, one way to find out I suppose."
"Lowering sensor pack."
For a moment the surface loomed larger, then the sensor was past it. Both men would never agree what they had seen on the monitor. The video recording held only white noise, interestingly more of that than the time the sensor stayed down allowed for. The video of the two astronauts showed them staring at the screen, both screaming warning at something followed by a valiant battle to keep the contents of their stomachs down till they had acquired their barf bags.
None of them could ever describe what they had seen but for a hash of colors. Both had recurring nightmares for more than a year.
The sensor pack was retrieved when a fail-safe system pulled the drone up and to its starting point after receiving no input for a while. The pack was still attached, but nearly unrecognizable. It was not so much melted, but changed. It was disassembled by remote control and later stored in one of Germany`s deposits for things too dangerous to be in this world. The test results were classified and even Ottokar Proktor was disturbed when reading them.
The Great Maw went into the list of targets for the KEW satellites a few days later and a rocket in Libenau stored its coordinates in its silicon memory. Nothing more than that was done for quite a while.
Athel Loren, 250 kilometers from the World Oak
The room had seamless wooden walls and ceiling, while the floor was covered by a soft moss. Two windows had an oval shape and were currently open, letting a refreshing breeze of air in. Most of the room was given to various nooks and crannies containing wool in several stages of production into threads. The centerpiece was a complicated looking, pedal-powered machine that was operated by a slender, ageless-looking Asrai.
A total of 13 spools turned before Isirlad ad` Garolin`s eyes, something that she still found hard to believe. Her daughter had called her latest gift "Spinning Jenny" and it had changed her life. One of her main jobs had been making threads, so she had used a dropping spindle whenever she made sure the small ones did not commit too much mischief or chatted with somebody. On a good day, she could make 50 meters an hour, a set of tunic, robe and trousers needed more than 6000 meters. Now her feet moved up and down, before her many spools turned as one, making nearly a kilometer of thread in an hour. To top it off she had also received another machine that took over the combing of wool or flax and speeded it up even more than this Spinning Jenny. Her daughter had been so kind as to grow the machine`s frame so that it would not all feel as lifeless as the metal parts made to frightening precision.
She had been more than a little skeptical when Athel Loren`s newest and first ambassador had told her what she brought, now she was sold on it. Several clan members had been highly skeptical till she asked them what cloth had been made that way and which one was made by more traditional methods. They invariably picked the wrong ones, till they learned that the most even thread was the one machine-made. By now there were several discrete inquiries what it would take to acquire more of these.
When the machine was set up it could be operated with barely any thought besides moving the feet in the right direction and watching the spools grow to the point where they would have to be taken off. That allowed her to pay attention to the sounds that filled the ad`Garrolin farm. There was some chanting and rustling, her husband and one of his sons reshaped the cow pen. This year`s last harvest had been brought in and stored, now it was time to make sure the farm would go well through winter. Now the trees and bushes confirmed to the ad`Garrolin wishes, once they had dropped the leaves they would no longer do so. The farm animals had to be protected so they would provide sustenance and would still be alive next year. And the next winter would be long and hard, everybody felt that.
Charite, Berlin
Ralf Winkler closed the door behind him, clutching a clipboard with a stack of documents on it. No matter if a therapy was mundane, magical or both at the same time it was important to obtain patient`s informed consent. As the youngest member of the five and the one best able to explain the why, the therefore and the potential oopsies to patients, he was usually the one to obtain the signatures. Checking his watch he found that he had…
"Hoot Hoot Hoot"
Automatic doors closed a short distance from the former medic, the lights above emergency exits began to blink and the PA system started to blare for the patients to stay put. Winkler estimated that the alarm was centered on one of the emergency wards. Realizing that and where he was he stepped back into the next doorway and was not disappointed when the quick reaction squad made their way down the corridor very, very quickly.
They were a marked contrast to their surroundings, clad in black armor, festooned with wards, shields and a closed-loop breathing system they clutched everything from submachine guns to a flamethrower.
Fuck, not again.
Isabel Wegener barely noticed the robed man that stood back from the QR squad`s path. Something really, really bad was going down in Emergency Ward Two. The magical detector had started to scream when an ambulance brought in a patient that looked like a homeless person.
The CCTV had shown how he had suddenly surged up and started vomiting an unending stream all across the ward. That was not really special, this time of the month there was still money for alcohol. That the stream really did not stop was and that the mass voided started to move even more so.
The squad had already been on their way when the mass had started working on the other patients and the nurses in the room. Isabel`s last view had been of flesh that melted like wax. If she were a betting woman she would say that Nurgle was at it again. And while she was heading towards a mayor clusterfuck she had a totally untested weapon in her hand. Wasn`t life wonderful?
All of them stopped at the solid doors that had started their life as fireproof doors and which were now upgraded to ward off even more insidious dangers. Their team leader stopped them with an open hand held up and pulled them together with a twirl. He presented a small pad that displayed what video was still to be had from the ward.
By now the inhabitants of the ward had melted together and something huge was rising from that mess.
"Fritz, Werner, door. Markus, grenade, two stun. Isabel, you´re next, you have one shot. If that works give him what you got, otherwise Marius starts the barbeque. Got me?"
"Yes Sir."
"Get set, we start on my mark. Go Go Go Go..."
Isabel watched the doors being wrenched open as fast as their brakes would allow, she saw the two grenades sail in when the gap was barely wide enough. She closed her eyes as tight as they would go and turned her head. Her helmet`s filter did indeed damp the sound of the flashbang nearly as well as the sales rep promised. The extrabright flashes were another matter.
She stepped forward when the last flash made a pink light through her eyelids and pointed her weapon at the mewling mess before her. Her adrenaline prevented her from feeling too stupid when she pulled the trigger and all she got was a measly stream of water. Her weapon might be painted tactical black and had an important sounding acronym but all it was was a super-soaker. And all it did was spraying water from its internal tank. Well, water with a bit extra and the results were not silly at all.
Smoke rose from the mass before her, half-formed skin bubbled and several mouths screamed like a herd of cats at a rocking-chair convention. Looked like they had found something new to kill Nurgle`s pets. Virophages specialized in eating single-celled life touched by Nurgle suspended in water blessed by the Sister`s of Shallya. Obviously did the trick.
Isabel pumped a couple of times and released another stream of water. Might be that the ward could be saved, much better than using the flamethrower.
Border of Athel Loren
The women before Robert de Grail was of ethereal beauty. Very slender, elegant and with a smile that offered more than just a friendly welcome. Parts of her body were hidden by a green, flowing sheath and what was visible inspired visions of the delights below. She stood on a carpet of multicolored leaves.
"So are you the mortal that was promised to me? How nice."
"I am Robert of Soreil. The Provisional Government sends its regards to you mylady. "We have a matter of common interest to discuss."
"And what might that be young Robert who may be of Soreil?"
"You desire the same thing as we do. You want these woods for yourself, we want the Wood Elves gone."
"Why would you believe that I would want the Asrai to leave Athel Loren?"
"As they have used the spirits of the forest for so long as their shields and their spears, regardless of the suffering they caused. Because your contribution to their cause was never really appreciated. Because they do not belong in Athel Loren, but you do."
"And what would the Rebels gain from that?"
"The Asrai have done their sponsors, the Germans great harm. They want to extract revenge, but do not want to sully their hands."
"And I am to believe that?"
"How can I make you believe? Let me prove that I have brought the relic that was promised to you. The ones that will allow you to fulfill your wishes, to sate your thirst for revenge and give the forest the quiet that you so much deserve. That is if you really want this."
The transformation before him was a flowing thing, still full of violence. Skin changed hue, limbs changed shape and hands became claws made from living wood. The face went from lovely to hideous and finally to frightening.
"I am Drycha. Never, for the briefest of moments, doubt that I will rid the forest of the Asrai pest. And now show me what morsel you have brought and which you believe is worthy of my attention."
Robert de Grail showed her. The branchwraith never neared the case, as she was unable to.
"This is..powerful, very much so. But I will never be able to use this. What kind of ugly jest is this human?"
"You will not have to do it alone Drycha. You will have allies, me among them. We will help you as long as you help us."
"Which allies do you speak of?"
And Robert told her. Even Drycha, the oldest branchwraith, the one the most disturbed, was taken aback
