Vampire Coast, Lustria, 2531

The tunnel was stabilized by a ramshackle construction from wood that had been part of buildings and ships before. Mismatched in colors, grains and sizes the boards were lashed and nailed together in a haphazard manner and still managed to hold the soil back from the passage that led into a dimly lit cavern below.
The two beings that went down the irregular stairs were as dissimilar as they could be. One was tall, clad in cloth that once had gaudy colors and now displayed their faded remains on frayed fabric to the world. What had been a man talked excitedly, animatedly and accompanied that by jerky, expansive gestures.

Behind him and to his side his smaller companion hid most of his body in a cloak made from something that was certainly not fabric, showing patterns that swirled and changed slowly. His right hand held a staff capped by a skull that chattered nonsense all the while, ignored by all. A hat that had been a tall cone in bygone times sat on his head and a wide brim hid whatever he thought about the babble that filled his ears. Some of it might well be boredom given that he had heard most of it several times already. That every time it came with different words in a different voice from the same mouth did not faze him, few things did these days.

"When the Empyrean allowed passage of your request for a safe harbor I knew that great things were possible. Why the fates themselves must have decreed the meeting of our great minds as to write their designs across the cosmos, it could not have come at a better time. Come my friend, come and see the great treasure they have provided for our partaking."

With arms and hands all over the place and eyes fixed on the gap between hat and beard of his companion, a foot missed the next wooden step, sending the being into a stumble. Flailing arms caught the walls and steadied the being before it could become a fall.

"I`ll burn that scallywag, mark my words, I burn him better than that slime-filled son of shit deserves."

Both went a few meters more till they hit a spot where a bit of water dripped from the ceiling. The being went to the side, pressing his back to the wall and trying to slide past the leak without getting a bit of water on himself

"Make sure that none of this gets on you. You never know what might be in there, it could be a poison of the Slann or one of my rivals. Or it could be one of yours as well? Didn't your star student betray you to these Germans? Or it could be the Germans themselves who poison the waters, that would fit them very well, you know their perfidy well enough, don't you Heinrich?"
"Yes, I learned of them well enough, but this is not them. A ton of Napalm is more their style."
"What is that?"
"That is the burning oil they drop from the skies when the cowards feel threatened. By the looks of it, your lair got a dose of it too."
"Yes, yes, but we are cunning, more clever than they. We left the burned ruins up there so they think we are gone and now settle in these caves. Yes, we are clever and careful, we are. We will keep our promise to you, yes we will. We are not traitor like your student who sold you to the Germans or the Carsteins who denied you asylum. We are honorable and clever yes, yes. And now it is time you see your task, now you see what you must do to uphold our bargain."

By now the two beings had reached the main cavern. No longer was it the silent tomb of a submarine and her crew, now it held quarters and workshops, a quay and cranes. Most of all it held a gate leading to the ocean, one that was presently closed. The submarine had been excavated and rested on blocks inside a dry trench. Out of the water it seemed huge, even silent and dark it easily dominated the cave.

The being in the cloak marched forward without any regards to his host and his minions. He made his way up the plank and walked till he was before the structure that rose from the hull like a sail. Shifting his staff into his left hand he pulled a glove off his right and touched the ship itself.

Something rare creased the face below the hat, something that could be called a smile if it had any humor in it. He had raised whole cemeteries when he was 14 and had never ceased learning ever since. He had read books written by Nagash himself, he had communion with beings from beyond the veil that would leave mere mortals gibbering idiots. He had seen where the dead went when their time on this plane of existence was over, he had studied the forces that shaped their passing. He had found the roots of these forces, had learned ancient ways to bend them to his will and devised new ones where the old ones would not suffice.

He was the only living human within several hundred kilometers and knew more about the dead and undead than any of his temporal allies who had gone that route already.

He was Heinrich Kemmler and there was no more knowledgeable or powerful Necromancer alive. He would raise the crew in their steel tomb and would animate this submarine that was as dead as its erstwhile masters in its own way. It would be most instructive to bring it back into the twilight between this realm and the one behind the veil.

Fuhlsbüttel Airport, Hamburg

Two suitcases with 52 kiklograms together, one piece of check-in luggage of 10, the clothes on his back and some numbers on a bank account. This was what his life so far boiled down to, it brought his achievements into a perspective that he was not sure he liked. At the same time, he had realized that the boredom at his own employer was also providing safety. Jakub General had known at any minute what to do, when to do it or why. It was a rare thing that he received praise, but at the same time, it was unheard of that he was dressed down. Where he was going a dressing down was probably the least of his worries, if he fucked up well enough he would not lose his job, but his life for all he knew. It was a good thing that he had burned his bridges so thoroughly, he would turn back otherwise.

When the elevator's loudspeaker emitted a single "ping" the billboard showed a big "C" above it. Looking at his boarding card again he realized that this was it, this was the point of no return. Now he could go back, in a few minutes it would be next to impossible. No rajska with dumplings and dill sauce once a week, no meetings with the small exiled Czech community. No more Lindenstraße and no more boiled squigleather gloves.

That was when he stood up and made his way towards the elevator. It brought him and 20 others up a hundred meter tower, to the point where the Charles E. Rosendahl swayed slowly in the wind. The airship would bring him to Erengrad in Kislev during the next two days. As his ticket was economy classs he would have to share his nighttime cabin with somebody else. He would probably survive that.

DawiZharr trench, Close to the Blacklight Tower, Naggaroth

Ernutan Doomshackler's love for his harsh mistress, the ground, had not diminished, yet the fact that he was currently in a trench reduced the hardships markedly. As long as one restricted oneself to short peeks above the trench it was nearly safe to stand up. Keeping the head up for a few seconds too long might draw a sniper's bullet if one was lucky. If one was unlucky it signaled a mortar section where it might ply its trade. If that happened the DwaiZharr survivors would be nearly as dangerous to the offender as the Druchii themselves.

Not that the short peeks presented a view that invited a longer gaze. The no-man's land between his lines and those of the dandelion-eaters were strewn with corpses in various stages of decay, tastefully interspersed with wrecks of a large Golem and several smaller ones. The damned pointy ears had at least one gun that could hurt them and something like a heavy machine gun that could take care of the smaller ones. That left infantry to storm the enemy lines and Ernutan was here because that had not worked that well with his predecessors.

He was no coward, he wanted to further the glory of the true dwarfs and Lord Mordred as much as anybody, but he would prefer not to die pointlessly. There had been enough dying and he had the pull with the DawiZharr forces to gain the best trump against the Druchii. It had worked before and it would work now, wouldn't it?

The trench's rear wall was lower and sloped to deny the enemy shelter in case they managed to take it. It also allowed it to see the arrival of no less than four flying disks. They were laden with bombs and would quickly remove the damned anti-golem guns and allow him to release the remaining war machines on the pointy ears.

The disks had barely cleared the DawiZharr lines when several machine guns opened up on the Druchii side of the field. Lines of tracer rose from the ground and searched for the disks that approached them. Ernutan hated these things, they had shredded the smaller golems with ease. He had been promised that the disks were too well armored for that to work and he waited for the results with bated breath. He did not have to wait too long, the disks were not too mobile when loaded down like this. At first a few and then more of the glowing lines connected with a flying war machine. Doomshackler breathed lighter when he saw them bouncing off without doing any appreciable damage.

He heard the first cheers when something made a much louder crack and hit the first flying disk like a hammer. It righted itself after the shock, a glowing, flickering light could be seen for a second or two. Then the disk exploded spectacularly.

Druchii command post, close to Blacklight tower, same time

Lord Silverhawk allowed himself to take part in the cheering for a moment. Torsten Breitkop had come through for him again. The Dread Lord watched the strange mounting he could see from his bunker. It seemed a bit unbalanced and crude and by the German's yardstick it was. Silverhawk did not give a farthing about that as long as it worked and that it did.

The mount shacked two weapons to each other that should not be on the same gun carriage. One was one of the very few 13 mm machine guns he had received so far, the other a much longer and heavier barrel. Even now he could see it fire and eject a long brass cartridge, being replaced by a quick-fingered loader.

The 37 mm projectiles followed nearly the same path as the tracers from the machine gun. As soon as the tracers indicated that the gunners had found their target they fired the heavier, semi-automatic gun. And by the looks of it this worked really well, two of the slow-moving disks were down while their brethren made for what safety to be had as fast as they could.

Lord Silverhawk cheered with his warriors, but he could not help worry. The gun had a short range, two kilometers at most and one if one wanted to make sure. To secure his lines he needed five of them at least and he had two. He could just pray that Torsten Breitkop delivered faster than the DawiZharr discovered his weakness. If not there would be hell to pay.

Ministry for Nanseitoshi, Berlin, Germany

The ministry for Nanseitoshi affairs was in the process of being rebuilt, since the empty building of a former Embassy was used for it. Both the representative office of North Rhine -Westphalia and the Nipponese embassy were close by, the Ministry of Defense could be seen in the not too far distance. The "Embassy Quarter" of Berlin, where a majority of the various Embassies had been before the Weltensprung, was being re-purposed since it became clear that a return was very unlikely.

In some cases, the Embassies were given to Warhammer nations. For example, the Nipponese Embassy had been the Japanese Embassy, the envoys of Miragliano and Tobaro were billeted in the Italian and Slovene Embassies, those being neighboring due to the complicated internal Tilean politics. The Five Tribes coalition of the Norse had been given the Nordic Countries square at Rauchstraße and Kislev was now stationed in what used to be the Russian Embassy.
In the case of the Empire, two options had been considered. One was giving them the US Embassy or the former Ministry of the Interior at the Spreebogen, since the move of this ministry into the new building at the Kanzlerpark.
In the end, Imperial Ambassador Count Ranulf von Wissenland-Rauhberg was now residing in the former US Embassy. There were obvious reasons for that move. The Empire was the, with a capital T, most important ally and friend Germany had on the Warhammer World. As such, an Embassy this close to Brandenburg Gate and political Berlin was only proper and suitable.
While for someone as Prof. Trevayne it was quite an experience that the former Embassy of the US was now the embassy of a monarchy, it had been the correct political move. Especially accounting for the fact that the Embassies of Germany and the Empire to each other were mostly for smoothing out problems. Today most ministries coordinated more directly with their counterpart than via the embassy.

Until the building renovation in the former Embassy was finished, Nanseitochi minister Tomohisa Shinkami from the Kaiserlichen and his officials were quartered in the Spreebogen building. The work atmosphere was a curious combination of strict and relaxed, owning much to the personalities of the minister and his three state secretaries Fröschl, Steiner and Wanninger.

Neustadt Arms Factory, Neustadt, Naggaroth

Kuan Ti's backside no longer hurt from her stool, it was asleep. She would pay for that later, when her shift ended and she would get up like an old woman. Her fingers no longer hurt when they touched the hot brass, they were burned so much these days that her fingertips were actually callused and felt not so much of anything any more. She was no longer hungry as the patron had sent sandwiches from the kitchen. She had not seen him this week, but last one he had been in the shop with Anja, distributing food when they had to work longer again.

She was no longer bored as she had gotten into the flow, shoving the brass around without consciously thinking. If someone would have asked her what exactly she was doing she would have needed time to come up with an answer as she did not think-

The scream ended her state of just being and it nearly took a finger of her hand. She managed to snatch it away quick enough, so that only a bit of lost skin reminded her of the fate she just avoided. Not that she needed any reminder, she had a graphic example right next to her. Ragnar, that clumsy klutz, that kind soul who had taken a second shift as his roommate was sick had placed his hand where it had no place to be. The full power of a 100 ton drop forge had punched a die right through the middle of his hand, taking most of the small bones there with them. Kuan Ti was barely fast enough to catch Ragnar when he collapsed in blessed unconsciousness.

Fuck, they just had made a week without a major accident and now this.