Cavern below Teotihuacan
Gotrek would have been dead but for his power armor a dozen times over by now. About ten minutes ago he had been on his way back to the surface, about to shed the armor and have a couple of cool ones to mark the end of his watch. Then all hell had broken loose when all over the tunnel network, but especially in the final cavern the face of mask of reality had split and hordes of Naga had emerged. His headphones were still full of status reports, cries for help and offers of support. Many were contradictory, some broke off in mid-sentence and others were garbled. None of it mattered, his path was clear the moment the emergency began.
He had joined the mercenaries' ready platoon on their way down into the tunnels that led to the final chamber. His adopted clan was under attack and it was his duty to protect them. The bows and arrows used by the Naga were so much more primitive than the assault weapons used by the mercenaries, but at close range the arrow's hardened, sharp edges had a disturbing tendency to punch through armor meant to stop blunt, comparatively soft projectiles.
Gotrek's armor had been made with such threats in mind and he would have hardly been at any place but closing with the enemy. That this made him a target and protected his comrades suited him just fine. The power armor lengthened his strides and allowed him to come within striking distance faster as if he had fought bare-breasted as so long ago in another universe.
Arrows zipped by him or broke on his armor plates while his microphones truthfully reported the whizzing of bullets that passed him far too close for comfort. The scaly hides, the coarse leather harnesses and elaborate bows of the enemy became more detailed with every passing second and then he was among them. His axe went down from the left barely slowed by the bow that was thrust in its way or the neck that it passed through. His assault pushed the headless corpse into the writhing bodies of his still living comrades. They would not stumble like humans would have but still needed a second to disentangle themselves from the body. This was the second they did not have, it was the second that allowed him to hammer the ax's head straight into the teeth of the next Naga with a force that pushed some of them straight into the airways. His weapon described the figure eight he had learned so long ago, powered by muscles, actuators, magic and the remains of a god. Its edge managed to slide under the parries that tried to lift it from its intended path and parted the flesh offered to it with ease.
Somewhere behind Gotrek a battle rifle filled the tunnel with thunder and he knew that an enterprising snake had tried to slither into his rear . He had never worried about that. Felix had been handy with that sword of his before, for a manling. Now, clad in a power armor and handling a German gun he was a force of his own.
The group of Naga before him died quickly enough, allowing the cries for help from below to reach his consciousness again. He barely checked if he was followed, an when he started the sprint down the tunnels that would lead him to the main cavern.
The run through the tunnels was a nightmare. The mercenaries' lights flickered with their movements and merged with the fixed lights rigged during the last days. These went on and off seemingly at their own accord, lending a stroboscopic effect to the surroundings. The action resembled not so much a movie but a montage of black and white pictures that burned themselves into the retinas of the those fighting their way to the cavern they wanted to relieve . Here was a picture showing too many pointy teeth, being the only things reflecting enough light. There was the image of a Naga's head, tumbling through the air, trailing a pearl chain made of blood droplets. Muzzle flashes illuminated their targets briefly, leaving the afterimage of carnage in the survivors' mind.
Gotrek was at the forefront of madness and it suited him fine. Fighting with an ax is never about subtelity, about feints and parries. It is about being faster than the enemy, about hammering the weapon through any defenses and to absorb what the opponent dished out. There were none better at this than Gotrek and this was the day when he showed his art in all its brutal glory. He barreled through Naga before they could get a bearing on him, pushed them aside and hacked at anything scaly. He left confusion behind him, a confusion exploited by the comrades he left behind at an increasing rate.
And then came the moment when he broke though the rank of Naga that had tried to blockade his way in vain, the moment when he entered the confusion that was the main cavern and the moment the lightning struck him. There was only darkness thereafter.
Cavern close to U40, Underground Sea, Naggaroth
"Captain, this is U40. Captain, do you read me?"
"U40, this is the Captain, I read you."
"Captain, please be advised that our magic detector shows increased energy levels, We have a spike that started about five minutes ago and the increase is not stopping."
"Copy that U40. Any particular Wind?"
"No Sir, we have increased levels all across the spectrum."
"Scheiße. Do you have a bearing for me?"
"Yes Captain, 242. That is where you are."
"Copy that U 40. Recall all landing parties immediately, we will make for the ship."
"Recall all parties, aye Sir."
"Looks like your estimate of a extinction pulse in a few years is a bit off Dr. Hermanns, we might just see one from the inside."
"Fuck."
"Indeed. Get going doctor, we need to make.."
Whatever Friedel Bauer had to say was swallowed by a series of explosions rather close to them, pummeling them with shockwaves and leaving them with ringing ears. U40's captain needed a few moments to hear anything through the ringing in his ears and some more to make any sense of the voice that stated that the energy levels were dropping as fast as they had risen before.
He was still trying to make sense of that when the two figures stumbled out from the room beyond the next doorway. They seemed to be clad in power armor and the shorter one clutched an ax.
The Warp
Lord Kroak's body had died 7000 years ago defending his people. His mind had refused to go through the veil and he had used his body as a focus to keep him somewhat anchored in the mundane. While he had lost the ability to communicate with his fellow Slann in the ways he was used to he had not let that keep him from doing his duty to further the plan of the Old Ones.
And while he was no longer taking part in the day-to-day struggle that the Slann and their allies fought through, he saw the many futures laying in ambush in the Empyrean, weighted them and supported those which would help the world to remain a going concern a bit longer.
A few years ago the strange new humans had found a new place for him, as part of the paths of the Old Ones. Once called the Zero Time Personal Transport System by the Old Ones Nathan named Weyland Yutani for their lack of ethics it contained titanic energies that threatened the Warhammer World if they were to be released in an uncontrolled fashion. He had been installed as part of the control system as one of the Slann being encased there for more than 20.000 years had been slaughtered by Chaos warriors.
Now he had access to energies he could only have dreamt about a few years ago. And not only energies, but lore the Old Ones had buried in the net they had erected. Energies and data that had allowed him to manipulate events on two worlds, using mechanisms and lore left by those who came before the Old Ones. It had been the most difficult task Lord Kroak had attempted in all the millenia of his existence. He had succeeded against all odds and if his lips would not have been stone they would have shown a big, shit-eating grin.
Chancellor's office Berlin
It was already dark outside the Chancellor's office, a state exacerbated by the armored glass that shielded the office. The office could of course be well-lit, but neither of the two old men desired this at present. Both had deep lines and deeper shadows in their faces and they both preferred not to see them too much. Each had a stein of Bugmann's in his hand and both looked wearily at the other.
"Four more days, then I will vacate this office."
Olaf Scholz sounded like he was not sure if this was a bad thing or not. He was that exhausted.
"Because the Social Democrats betrayed us, their very roots. Again I might add."
Jörg Hofmann's words contained more than a little acid, but his tone indicated resignation about it. He led the IG Metall, the second largest German union since about eternity, but he would not drop his hat in the ring any longer when the next round of votes came around.
"Is it treason to think about people besides those in manufacturing?"
"You give them the profits and steal our wages."
"Jörg, we have been there and it is utter bollocks. The Nanite Tax is easily high enough that your people can change retrain or finish their careers in dignity. And we will take in enough money to pay for that."
"It is not high enough to keep my members competitive. We are already hurting because of the competition from the Empire, Naseitochi and the bloody Skaven and you lack the spine to enact decent tariffs. And if that is not enough, now we have to compete with something that grows whatever we want in a fucking aquarium. And you did not tell us before it was too late."
"We had to manufacture some things needed to keep this world together, literally. All parties agreed to keep it a secret back then and I still support that decision. But even without that we need the Nanites and cannot tax them so high that using them will not pay off."
"And why is that?"
"Because Germany is too small to keep up a technological civilization by ourselves, let alone keep developing it further. We still use too many things that we could only make on Earth because there was a full world of people making some very specialized things. We can either not make them ourselves or only at such expense that only a few can afford them. Germany can produce marvels, we have the space program to prove it. But we cannot give everybody the washing machine, the flat TV and the smartphone at a price a middle-class family can afford, let alone a working class one. Not to speak of cheap solar cells, of new power stations and so many other things. Your members work miracles, yes I see this the same way as you do. But the miracles are too small. We use up those stocks we still have from old Earth and when they are gone that is it. We can either drop back to the tech level of the 60's or we can use the Nanites. That is why we went down that road."
"At our expense."
"Don't tell me that your members do not want cheaper goods. And it is not that your members will have no jobs tomorrow or the day after. There are far too many things we need to produce rather soon which can only be made that way. We have enough time and money to change."
"Not enough of both. And after the ruckus when the Nanites were revealed we had to react strongly, the members demanded it."
"And so you declared us traitors to the working class again, and like the last time it means the other guys get voted in. Have fun with that coalition, they will be so much better to you than us. I mean the CDU, the Kaiserlichen and the Fresinnigen, what could possibly go wrong for the Unions?"
The Warp
Lord Kroak's lips might be unable to form a shit-eating grin or move his face in any other ways. His brain was ossified and there were no longer any glands providing the chemicals that allowed mortals to feel joy or anything else. Whatever was left of the old Slann still felt a great deal of accomplishment and relief. He had used a lore that he understood half at best and applied that to more energy than he knew existed a few years ago.
For a being that existed for thousands of years it was remarkably reckless, but the opportunity that had presented itself had just been priceless. Using the network built by the Ancient Ones for whatever arcane purpose they arranged those fights for, using the illusions to draw the Germans and the Naga to draw the Dwarf to the place and the time they needed to be had taken every bit of his abilities.
Now things were out his hands, but practically every outcome possible was agreeable. The most likely one was by far preferable though. Too bad about the former Slayer and his companions, but the goal far outweighed any regrets. And Gotrek would surely agree with that were he to know.
Cavern, close to U40, Underground Sea Naggaroth
The cavern was a miracle, standing up to a pressure it should not, was filled with light that had shone for a hundred millennia and full of edifices that were as beautiful as practical in the eyes of their long-dead users. It was also the Shoggoth.
When the Ancient Ones wanted this installation they had brought the Shoggoth to a small cave in this location. It had developed something close to mycelial filaments that was quite unlike them at the same time. They had made their way through the stone around that cave, had absorbed what materials needed and asked the rest to move aside and change in the ways that suited it.
A transport disk had been provided and it had received more materials, Nanites and the bits and pieces that would take it too long to make by itself. It had shaped the main cavern, it had permeated every bit of it and it had become the great installation.
There had been others, others Shoggoths who made the Underground Sea useful to the Ancient Ones, who shaped it and other places. Most of them went away when their work was done, to become something else in different places and times. The Shoggoth hardly missed them, when it was finished its halcyon days had begun.
The Ancient Ones, their friends, their allies and their slaves arrived in numbers and used the installation and the arenas around it to the fullest. The Shoggoth did not know why the Ancient Ones did this, it played its part and it was good at what it did. Life was good.
At first it had not registered it, but after a time fewer Ancient Ones showed up, the transport system was no longer as busy as it used to be. Then fewer of the sacred ones came, fewer of those who had written their history across the stars. Now the upstarts arrived and they used the Shoggoth in ways never intended. They were reckless in their drive to seek a name for themselves and nobody seemed to care if something broke on account of that. And when they were finished and when it had done its best to repair the servants had come. When they went they took the most unique equipment with them. In the best years the transport system under his control had heated up the Sea of Malice measurably, then the great fog banks diminished until the waters in the Underground Sea were sufficient. And then the transport system was only used to bring things to other places, to take the Ancient Ones away and leave the Shoggoth to its devices. Nobody thanked the creature for its long service, none ever told it why it was left alone, there was no direction or guideline for the future.
It had kept the Installation up as much as it was still available after so much of it had been taken elsewhere. It had replaced what it could in creative ways, it had restored itself to an approximation of its former glory. And then it had waited for its masters return. And it had waited and waited some more. It spent a lot of that time pondering why the Ancient Ones had not taken it with them and when it was done with that it speculated why he had not been killed. And when he found only the answer that he was beneath their notice he had gone to sleep. His body would still maintain the installation, for all its imagined failings it was a dutiful servant of the Ancient Ones. The Shoggoth had woken up from time to time and had tested the transport system. It was still able to extract subjects from their humble abodes and they still fought the races that had been made as yardsticks to measure them. That there was nobody to watch their triumphs, their defeats and their inevitable demise but the Shoggoth and he could not care less. He just cared that he would be able to perform its sole function when the Ancient Ones would return.
During the last years he had dreamed of that. They had returned, they had praised him for being a good and faithful servant, had marveled at the good state of the installation. The Ancient Ones had asked him to perform his duties once again and he had joyfully done so. It had confessed that the only standard subjects it could still use were the Nagas of Khuresh and had been so relieved when he was told that this was totally sufficient. He had brought several test batches to that other universe that was so closely aligned when asked and then he brought the success back for study.
It was a good dream and even when the Shoggoth knew it was a dream it was such a good one that it was reluctant to let it go. It ignored the first tucks and nips, it told the alarm to shut up not once but twice. And then the alert level rose to the point where he could no longer enjoy his dream and still call himself a dutiful servant of the Ancient Ones. The Shoggoth let go of the best dream it had in many millennia and looked into itself. It found that it had been invaded by beings whose only place in life should be inside an arena and when it analyzed how this was possible he froze. For a terrible moment the Shoggoth thought about ending its existence as the extent of its failure was too big to allow it to live any longer. It had been used for purposes not of the Ancient Ones, it had done the bidding of an upstart. Dropping from the warm remains of its dream to the depths of desperation was nearly enough to paralyze the creature. The only thing that kept it from the brink was the need to remove the stain from its body. It would do that with all dispatch and then it would burn the faulty parts from itself.
Before the pyramid, cavern, Underground Sea
Andrea Hermanns had seen Dragons, experienced magic, had climbed the rigging of a Windjammer at Beaufort 8 and fought a duel with a knife. Now she stood as dumbstruck as the other members of U40's science team. Two beings who carried the same power armor as the soldiers who protected them emerged from the deeper chambers of the pyramid and from the way they stumbled forward they were at least as much at a loss as she was. One of the two carried an old fashioned battle rifle, the other clutched an ax.
"Stop, stop right there. Lay down your weapons."
The soldiers around Andrea did not aim at the two, not directly, but it was a close thing. She was about to protest when she remembered how many dangerous parties in this world worked with illusions.
The shorter of the two was about to charge when the other stopped him with an outstretched arm.
First one, then the other visor opened to reveal faces every German would recognize as Gotrek's and Felix's.
"What are you..."
That was when something made a crackling sound, when the smell of ozone and blood filled the air and Wilhelm Schumann's torso sported a hole one could push a head through.
