Tower of Cold, Naggarond, Naggaroth

The Tower of Cold is a very special place, built as the epitome for all that was Druchii and as a home for the being that had set them on this course. Malekith, the Witch King, had ascended from such lowly beginnings. All and any beings within it lived at his whim, and every corner of it was full of secrets. None were more so than the chamber at the top of it that was only ever entered by the king himself. Many things were said about this room, that Malekith could see to any corner of the world, that he could kill any being, that this was the place where he restored himself.

The latter was true, among other things, but now this chamber held a secret unknown even to the Witch King. The message had lain on the balcony in one of the leather rolls that was standard for such things. It bore the right markings, some of them made clear that the contents were of the highest priority. All his checks had shown that no magic clung to it and so he had opened it. No vile chemical clung to it, it was just that the standard message roll contained the kind of paper only made by the Germans, smooth and unnaturally white. The letters were Druchii, but spaced so evenly and so uniform as if printed.

20 Years ago Malekith had welcomed surprises, a life that had spanned five millenia made for a lot of boredom. The dozen years had provided many of them and made him wish for a less exciting time. Only rarely in the last 2000 years, he had to contemplate events that might end the Druchii, now there was a hostile power on the other side of the ocean who could do so whenever they made their minds up to it and two mortal enemies attacked his realm at the same time.

So such a surprise was less than welcome, especially as it hinted at weaknesses in his defenses he could do without.

And the message deepened the mystery even further. Whoever had written the missive within offered help, even if he demanded payment for it. There were demands for coin and concessions, both within the limits he was willing to give. He scoffed at the idea that others knew too well he needed help defending his realm. He marveled even more that those who offered the help dared to do so.

Off the Vampire Coast, Lustria, 2522

Fell winds pushed black clouds through the sky. They churned the waters till white foam tipped angry waves that raced from the far-off Lustrian shore. They drove a fleet of ships before them that mortal eyes had rarely seen and even more rarely reported on.
Galleons' bulbous bows crashed into the waves, half smashing through them, half being lifted by them. Druchii Hydra ships raced through the waves on rapier-thin twin hulls, Orkish Hulks bashed their way through the seas, Reavers' long necks moved back and forth in tandem with their powerful limbs which propelled them towards the horizon.
In the center of the fleet; a huge galleon made its way. Its masts were set at an angle, giving a huge cannon pride of place. Its quarterdeck was massive and high so to be an asset in boarding operations. It was crowded by all manner of beings, some armed and waiting, others busy with navigation and keeping in the in the wind created by their own sorcerers. There was a bubble in that mass, a bubble of emptiness that moved with the single being inside.

It was a tall being, slender and moved with a grace not given to those around him. Slim hands lifted a long brass tube before eyes the color of boiled eggs pierced by two holes of the deepest black. The telescope briefly scanned the ships ahead of the Black Coffin. Several sported the elegant lines of Asurian ships or the brutal perfection of Druchii raiders. The enhanced view provided by the telescope also revealed the state these ships were in. Their once proud colors were faded and stained, metal fittings left long rusty tears, ropes were frayed and wood was gray, leached and missing parts. Sails were patched, off-color and billowed in ways that spoke of no tension. Many hands pulled ropes, moved rudders or readied weapons. No place that the telescope observed contained even a single beating heart.

Luthor Harkon surveyed his undead fleet and saw that it was good.

His connection to the winds of magic might be gone for centuries now, but as long as others did his bidding the fleet would sail before favorable winds towards loot and glorious slaughter. And as long as he did that new recruits would join his fleet as soon as they were resurrected from the watery grave his crews had consigned them to.
Today was an interesting day, something rare for a being that had been born when Nehekhara was still a realm for the living. Ships from all races and all ages sailed under his flag and yet his sorcerers had promised him ships unlike any he had ever seen before. He was more than a little intrigued by what that could mean and tried his best to spot them as soon as possible. The lookout high above him had already done so, yet he would not climb up the rigging, he was no monkey.

When they finally appeared Luthor did not know what to make of what he saw. He had been promised a great convoy and there were less than a dozen ships. He had expected ships and saw no sails, no rudders and no other means of propulsion. He had expected gilding, figureheads and other garish displays of wealth the living needed to distract themselves of their oncoming demise. Instead, he saw drab colors and if any artist had worked on there for an hour he found no trace of it. He looked for mighty warships, loaded with cannons and fighters. He found a single ship which might have something like a tiny cannon in a rounded turret up front.

Nothing was as he expected and the sorcerers should better be right about the riches in their big bellies. Speaking of big, he started to get a feeling about these ships, and this was where his well-hidden unease took a turn to the worse. Either these ships were manned by midgets or they were bigger than anything mundane had any right to be. And while he was dead to the Winds of Magic, anything that allowed for such leviathans to move would still register. If they were indeed made of steel then that alone would be a treasure of unimaginable proportions.

So far the enemy had not shown any sign that he had even spotted his approaching demise, but now the gray ship changed course and approached the closest members of Luthor's fleet. It was still two miles from the Hawk Ship leading the charge when its cannon fired a single shot that went into the waters a hundred meters before the Hawk's bow. In the time a human heart would beat 30 times nothing changed, then the cannon fired rapidly five more times. Five waterspouts that were far too high for such a small gun erupted in a neat line, this time much closer.

Luthor's breath would have stopped then if he still needed such a crutch. He was still thinking about what to do about this when the cannon started to fire again. The Hawk Ship's bow disappeared in splinters, thunder, fire and smoke for about ten seconds and when the sight returned a proud ship had turned into a floating wreck. The bowsprit was gone, the foremast started to topple and the bow itself had rearranged itself into a shape that would hardly stand the next waves. None of this mattered as the first smoke started to rise already.

The strange ship fired again and again, at ships which were far too far away to fight back in any way, and whatever it shot at got hit. Those ever-lying mages working for Luthor had sworn these ships were bereft of magic and here it was for everybody to see.

Something lifted from the gray ship's aft end, something like a Dawi gyrocopter, but probably quite a bit bigger. It did not have that far to fly before it was in position to shoot a great lot of something that looked like spears on fire into Luthor's ships and the results were even worse.

Luthor did not need to speak, his crew heard him well enough anyway. The flags that called for a retreat went up in time with the survivors' flight. That was all too well, Harkon would have had to punish any captain who retreated without orders and by the looks of it Harkon needed any ship he could lay his hands on. To his great relief, the gray warship never pursued.

Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Hamburg, 2534

The bar of the Vier Jahreszeiten was superb, having retained the best bits of its pre-Weltensprung design while being enhanced by the works of an Asurian interior specialist. Jakub General had only ordered a tea. He wanted to be able to foot the bill without threatening his credit balance if the negotiations with the headhunter did not pan out.

"Herr Müller, my teeth are in perfect order, I have taken part in the last Cyclassic race and have done my stint in the Bundeswehr, so I know which end of a rifle is the dangerous one. Also, I do not have any family attachments at present. My question is: why do you need to know all of that?"
"Herr General, my company is specialized in finding suitable individuals for projects all around the Warhammer World. Some of these projects, such as the ones in Kislev or Cathay are pretty far from anything that resembles civilization as Germans are accustomed to. The next good hospital might be days away, the chances for a quick visit to relatives are nil and the local law enforcement might either be nonexistent, inefficient or working for its own ends. The upsides are that these places are where the legends and the miracles are. You will have to make some of them yourself though.

All of that means we are looking for people who can meet such challenges, and from what I see you could be such an individual."

"So what kind of projects are we talking then?"
"There is always a lot going on in Ulthuan, the Asur finally decided to get the thumb out. If you are not afraid of a couple of moving bones Nehekhara has several things going for it. And then there is always something brewing in Kislev. The Tzarina is pulling her country forward, even if it kicks and screams all the way. The Army of Light has used us a couple of times as well."
"And what kind of work are we talking about?"

"Forget about running a facility as manager, there are other companies who are better at providing warm bodies for that and I believe it would not suit you at present. No, we are looking for people to participate in projects like the River Mortis cleanup, the Lynsk Dam construction, or the Weijin chemical plant. These kinds of things offer contracts for a year or two and if you and the employer are happy you'll find something new with them. If you are feeling a bit more adventurous than that there are several prospecting ventures that really send you to places no German has ever seen. These jobs carry nice salaries and often a hefty performance bonus. I have seen some young people come back quite well-off after a successful project. At the same time, I have seen some people not come back at all).

A couple of things should be clear to you: These projects do not have the eight-hour day, the five-day week or six weeks of holiday. The accommodation can range from a literal palace to a part of a tent. Food can be interesting; internet access is something that depends on the employer and if the satellites are in the right position. A smartphone may be the most useless thing to take along, while a decent gun may be your best friend. Don't expect to work by the book, be prepared to write the bloody thing. Make a will before you leave and I mean it."

Jakub did not need to pay for the tea, the negotiations ended amicably enough. He had promised to think on this and send a message once he had made up his mind. He did not see much on the bus trip back to his apartment, his thoughts were elsewhere. Here was an obvious chance to change his life into something totally different, see the world and experience something. It was also his chance to die early, to suffer through the lifestyle of pre-industrial societies, to work endless hours with little chance of entertainment.
He made it home on autopilot, checked his emails and messages on a pad while dropping something unexciting into the microwave and spooned the results before the television. Böhmermann was on a roll tonight, the comedian presented a mock-casting show "Deutschland sucht den Superkaiser" (Germany seeks the super-emperor). Several actors played inbred imbeciles who wanted to become Emperor. It was his way of commenting on the Kaiserlichen and their attempt to replace the Federal President with an Emperor.

He was about to go to the bathroom when he remembered the joke too many Germans had learned in this new world. "Adventures are bad things happening to other people." He looked around in his apartment. TV, decent Laptop, hot water on demand, the kind of food he liked delivered to his home, competent medical services about five minutes and a phone call away. All he knew about his job, all things that made up his spare time were here and he was unlikely to find better. What had come over him to seek worse than that?

He was back in bed and about to go to sleep when he thought that tomorrow he would boil boots, not gloves. That would make for a change of pace. The last thought had gone through his mind when he sat up with the speed of a closing rat trap. His smartphone was beside his bed and he typed a message to the headhunter.

Jungle close to Vampire Coast, Lustria 2528

Luthor Harkon never forgot a slight, not in all the thousands of years he had been about. All too often he had been robbed of his revenge by the death that ended human lives. Even then more a few of those who had cheated him in life served him in death. This slight was unlikely to end that way, this was against a nation, not an individual. Likely he would see its end sooner or later; human achievements were rarely long in this world. But before they met their inevitable demise they would learn that they could not discount Luthor Harkon so easily. Thrice now they had sent his ships to the bottom, thrice they had invoked his anger, now they had made a mistake that would allow him his revenge. He could not attack them at sea, but he could do so on land. These Germans had built a town in Lustria, not too far from the Vampire Coast. For a mundane army, the march through the jungle would be impossible, they would lack provisions and the many pestilences and the heat of the jungle would lay them low long before they reached their target.

So, the Winds of Magic had revealed that the Germans had become lazy. There were no great walls around their settlement, no mighty towers, no grand army protected them. Oh, they would have some men-at-arms, for sure, but he had brought more than mere flesh and blood, undead or not. Bigger than many ships, encased in a shell hard as steel and armed with pincers bigger than a boat Prometheans marched in the center of his army. Giant bats rested behind the main body, catching up at night. Undead of all races and ages made their way through the jungle, stumbling, creaking, losing parts and ever moving to the target of Luthor Harkon's wrath.

He was deep enough in his revelry that his minions needed a while to gather his attention. When they finally did he had a hard time understanding what they thought worthy of his attention. He had a long-standing feud with the Slann, so a dead Skink was really nothing noteworthy. Well, maybe not the Skink, but the curious little box he clutched in his clawed hands. He had seen nothing like this before. It was obviously of supreme craftsmanship, the small gaps and the even surface said so. On the other hand, it was of drab color and of materials that were strange, but did not seem valuable.

He was still marveling when he heard the scream. It was a scream unlike any he had heard in a millenia-spanning existence. It was unending, loud enough to shake the leaves on the trees around him, changed place so very fast and spoke of bloody tidings. Before he could make up his mind the scream mixed with other sounds, a long series of explosions, the deep whoosh of something flammable and something that sounded like an enormous cloth being ripped apart. The jungle was ripped apart by an evil wind that ripped off branches, tore down trees and converted nature itself into flying shrapnel that ripped through his troops. The trees in the direction of the small clearing he had occupied only so little time ago let an evil orange glow pass between them and the light was accompanied by the heat of a forge.

His mind snapped then and there and the next hour saw him running around in mad circles, slashing at trees, corpses and still moving allies till he was utterly exhausted. It took much longer to regain the little sanity Luthor commanded and longer still to take stock. Probably half of his troops were dead or missing, all of his undead constructs were bombed to bits. The bats brought news of Slann troops approaching and even his mind could see only one way out of this. No living army could have managed the retreat Luthor commanded, still only a fraction of the troops he had led into the jungle made it back to the Vampire coast.