Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Their Fated Travels...Chapter 26 - To Nuln By Barge Part Three
Read it at fanfiction.net here - http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5775192/26/Their_Fated_Travels
or below pasted to the blog -
Their Fated Travels…
RPG Party events as told By Robert James Freemantle
Chapter 26
To Nuln By Barge – Part Three
The barge had suffered a terrible amount of damage, but its design had been commissioned on a purely private basis and therefore had implemented ideas not usually seen within the design of normal passenger transports. This one had water proof sealed segments to its hold compartments so that that part that did indeed break away, didn’t sink the entire vessel.
Nothing had been seen of the beastman war gor who was presumed dead and no further attacks came.
Soon after the incident had happened, the amethyst wizard Gabrielle aboard the barge was assisting the vessel’s travel, in a semi state of magically willed meditation to keep it moving forward at great speed. Slowing down now would be potentially fatal given the conditions of the land around them and the attack they had just endured. Her concentration meant that they were now making even better time than they would have been. However, it also meant them making an unscheduled stop along the way for dockyard inspection. After all, the lady magistrate could only concentrate her powers for so long before needing to sleep.
Some passengers disembarked prematurely of their destination, not wanting to chance the river any longer. This just so happened to free up space for new passengers.
Tordrad, Rissandrea, Tobias and Dieter stood together watching the newcomers board. One was a tall, muscular looking armoured fighter type in his early fifties. As he thanked the staff and bowed, it was clear that this man had roots in Bretonnia, still carrying some of the accent in a warped mix of that and of the Empire’s general accent. Dieter considered that this man must have spent quite a time away from his home land. His behaviour too, while courteous also carried a certain rugged air about it, as if the refined training he would have had perhaps was slipping by the wayside for whatever reason. Dieter was very good at reading people like this. Those who had no magic. They were easiest to read.
The would be doctor scowled at the next passenger accompanying the Bretonnian: A gnoblar, who carried a range of weaponry about his person that suggested he was a helper to the man, ready to hand him a weapon of variety when required. However, the way he looked too, something I his eyes and the scars on him suggested that he too might be a formidable opponent in battle, oddly enough. Dieter chuckled hatefully at the idea of killing such an ugly greenskin small thing. He detested small people.
Gnoblars are cousins of the goblin race, usually employed (well, kept) by ogres in a somewhat mutually beneficial lifestyle. How odd then to see one wandering about in civilised society and with a human too, thought Dieter.
Dieter watched as other passengers stared in fright at seeing a greenskin board with them – and then watched with intrigue as the man shackled the creature’s legs and hands with manacles. Based on the fact that he did this only now and not before they boarded, Dieter concluded that this was merely for appearances sake, for the sake of the other passengers and not for that of the human. Indeed, it appeared that the human and the greenskin got along quite well actually! They spoke as if they had known each other for years.
Next to board, also with this bizarre party came a person that put Dieter into a state of alert – someone he couldn’t read: A wizard. He was obese and of average height. His face could not be seen behind the gold mask he wore across it. This told the physician that this was a magistrate of the gold order, those wizards who would manipulate metal itself.
The wizard’s high pitched voice was instantly irritating for Dieter to hear, yet there was something of a scoundrel about his tone too. He boarded the ship with great endeavour, frequently dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief from the effort of the climb up the somewhat raised boarding plank.
Last to board was another Bretonnian. This time a damsel. She spoke in a much purer manner, unlike the man. She joined the group too to complete their numbers but Dieter could see no closeness between the man and woman to suggest that they were anything more than team mates. Magic too danced somewhere behind this woman’s eyes. Dieter would have to keep an eye on this lot, he reckoned…To make matters worse, their cabins were close to the party’s.
Later that day the barge had begun to move up the river again, having passed its dockyard inspection.
Night had come upon them once again and most of the passengers were asleep.
Beyond the sounds of snoring here and there about the sleeping quarters, an easy to miss muffled scream followed by a squelching sound could be heard – as a crewman desperately answered his attacker’s question. The wizard he did indeed confirm was in this area. With that, he gagged as the last of his life force was robbed from him by the dark hearted person who stood over him.
Quickly the assailant moved up the passage, looking at closed doors to either side. A slender form gave suggestion of it being a woman underneath the dark grey full length coat. She then produced a gem of fine quality, that instantly glowed with red pulses. She smiled as this indicated that the magic user was indeed close.
As the assailant made her way further up the passage, the gem’s pulsing began to speed up, until she passed a room in particular. After passing its doorway, the pulsing began to slow again, which made her turn about and walk towards the door.
Quietly she crept into the room. Locks meant nothing to her anyway, but this room wasn’t locked anyway. She saw a form in the bed before her, asleep. She moved forwards and still the gem sped up to confirm the target. She would give her quarry no chance. Quickly she drew an ornate looking dagger, that had crimson jewels set into its handle – and brought the piercing end down into the sleeping figure, piercing the sheets and bringing about a sudden scream that was muffled by a hand across the mouth.
The scream! It didn’t sound right! It sounded like a woman? But her target was a man. How could this be she wondered? But then it dawned on her, of course, there must be other magic users aboard! As the assassin looked closely at the now dead woman in the bed, she noted her blonde hair and fine features, so different to her own. The only thing they indeed shared in common the horrified death gaze on her face – for she recognized that look from deep inside her own soul.
Where the dagger had pierced the woman, a strange red glow emanated from the wound. This weapon was an artefact of great power indeed.
Quickly the assassin made her way out of the room and down the passage again, turning to run down a new passage, following the indicator of the gem.
Maestro had slept within the cotton-wool like embrace of unconsciousness for a long time now. He had responded to no stimulus whatsoever. His magical centre, the power that exuded from his very being had been cut off during this time, due to the traumatic way that he had gone into unconsciousness. But as soon as the damsel had died, the energies stored within her from her own trauma had burst into the atmosphere of magical awareness and this had struck Maestro too. At last his own empathic magical channelling began to work again. He was now merely only asleep.
The assassin crept into a new room. This time she would make sure first. She pulled the covers back slightly and there she saw the wizard she had been looking for. Maestro Rophel Illefescion, in the flesh before her. At last her quest would be fulfilled. She rose the dagger like before, but before she could plunge it into the man’s heart, Maestro’s nose twitched as his sense of smell alerted him to something he did indeed have a long time hatred of. Maestro awoke with a single word on his lips, “Elf!” Just at that moment, a hammer struck the woman about the head from behind!
Angelique stood over the assassin, who was still alive, groaning to stand again. Her long coat had fallen open and only then did she see it was an elf. Not only that, but a dark elf. She wore very little in the way of clothes, showing off her body in a lurid display. This was a witch elf, one of the so called brides of Khaine.
Maestro was up and onto his feet. His staff in hand, he thrust it to the elf’s throat and vented a mad anger that was unusual for the man, “Why are you here, Elf? Why does your kind plague me so? Be they high elf, dark elf or whatever elf. You are the bane of me, I’m sure!”
The witch elf began to laugh, with a mocking cruel tone evident. She was captured, was at a disadvantage and yet still she smiled. She spoke slow and purposely, “Malekith the Witch King wishes you dead. Be it not by hand now foolish wizard, be assured if he does wish it, then it shall be.”
Maestro and Angelique gasped at the name. Everyone had heard of the Witch King. The leader of the dark elves, the great betrayer of his kind. He who was responsible for much of the misery the Old World was now entrapped in.
Angelique questioned violently, “Why does he want to hurt Maestro? Answer my question before I tear you in half!”
Again the witch elf laughed, but did reply, “All I know is what I am told. Hah. A future vision he has seen. A future that must be avoided. The catalyst of it all, is you!” and then she laughed again.
The elf quickly raised her dagger. Before Angelique could strike her again in response to this threat, the witch elf assassin did something that no one was expecting. She slit her own throat, quickly and confidently and died quickly with a smile on her face.
The magical dagger the assassin had wielded was a very powerful thing indeed. It was empowered by Khaine’s will. The last person it killed had their soul bound to it. If the wielder took their own life too, it will bind the two together.
And so it was, that the witch elf’s soul departed her body, and was drawn by the shared essence from the dagger, back towards the Bretonnian damsel. Her soul entered the woman’s body and suddenly the former cadaver now alive again, smiled. This was quickly replaced by a scream of pain as the dominant original host that was still present took control again.
Crewmembers were awake by now and everyone was trying to understand what had happened.
Maestro stood up and brushed himself down, then went red as he realised he was only wearing a night gown. Worse still, he couldn’t remember changing into it…Angelique hugged the wizard who gave a terrified little yelp in response.
Maestro tried talking but his voice was muffled by the bosom of the Sister of Sigmar. He at last managed to pull himself free enough to ask, “How did you know she was trying to kill me, sister?”
Angelique replied, “I saw her sneaking into your room. A young harlot intending trouble no doubt, so I struck her. It was a good job I did. You see, I am good for you my Maesty-ro.”
The wizard considered this and then said, “But what were you doing creeping about at night?”
With that, the nun went a little red in the face replying, “I was coming to see you, my love.”
Maestro shuddered at the thought. He considered briefly which would have been worse to wake up to, in actual fact. Though the assassin was an elf and he certainly did hate elves – this was Angelique we were talking about!
The rest of the journey went without incident, albeit with Maestro spending as much time around Tordrad “for protection” as he could. He had tried to explain to the Kislev bodyguard that he was worried in case anymore attacks came. Though the real reason, Tordrad suspected was that the wizard was afraid of the mad lusty nun who kept following him everywhere.
For now, all was well too with the damsel. They had considered her lucky to be alive - A miracle really. The gods were praised, as was usual. But ironically, that praise would have found its way instead to a more malign omniscience, gratified by the attention.
((Don’t forget to vote in the favourite character poll. You can find it at various Warhammer Fantasy forums including Warseer and fanfiction.net via the Their Fated Travels forums. Thanks for the support))
or below pasted to the blog -
Their Fated Travels…
RPG Party events as told By Robert James Freemantle
Chapter 26
To Nuln By Barge – Part Three
The barge had suffered a terrible amount of damage, but its design had been commissioned on a purely private basis and therefore had implemented ideas not usually seen within the design of normal passenger transports. This one had water proof sealed segments to its hold compartments so that that part that did indeed break away, didn’t sink the entire vessel.
Nothing had been seen of the beastman war gor who was presumed dead and no further attacks came.
Soon after the incident had happened, the amethyst wizard Gabrielle aboard the barge was assisting the vessel’s travel, in a semi state of magically willed meditation to keep it moving forward at great speed. Slowing down now would be potentially fatal given the conditions of the land around them and the attack they had just endured. Her concentration meant that they were now making even better time than they would have been. However, it also meant them making an unscheduled stop along the way for dockyard inspection. After all, the lady magistrate could only concentrate her powers for so long before needing to sleep.
Some passengers disembarked prematurely of their destination, not wanting to chance the river any longer. This just so happened to free up space for new passengers.
Tordrad, Rissandrea, Tobias and Dieter stood together watching the newcomers board. One was a tall, muscular looking armoured fighter type in his early fifties. As he thanked the staff and bowed, it was clear that this man had roots in Bretonnia, still carrying some of the accent in a warped mix of that and of the Empire’s general accent. Dieter considered that this man must have spent quite a time away from his home land. His behaviour too, while courteous also carried a certain rugged air about it, as if the refined training he would have had perhaps was slipping by the wayside for whatever reason. Dieter was very good at reading people like this. Those who had no magic. They were easiest to read.
The would be doctor scowled at the next passenger accompanying the Bretonnian: A gnoblar, who carried a range of weaponry about his person that suggested he was a helper to the man, ready to hand him a weapon of variety when required. However, the way he looked too, something I his eyes and the scars on him suggested that he too might be a formidable opponent in battle, oddly enough. Dieter chuckled hatefully at the idea of killing such an ugly greenskin small thing. He detested small people.
Gnoblars are cousins of the goblin race, usually employed (well, kept) by ogres in a somewhat mutually beneficial lifestyle. How odd then to see one wandering about in civilised society and with a human too, thought Dieter.
Dieter watched as other passengers stared in fright at seeing a greenskin board with them – and then watched with intrigue as the man shackled the creature’s legs and hands with manacles. Based on the fact that he did this only now and not before they boarded, Dieter concluded that this was merely for appearances sake, for the sake of the other passengers and not for that of the human. Indeed, it appeared that the human and the greenskin got along quite well actually! They spoke as if they had known each other for years.
Next to board, also with this bizarre party came a person that put Dieter into a state of alert – someone he couldn’t read: A wizard. He was obese and of average height. His face could not be seen behind the gold mask he wore across it. This told the physician that this was a magistrate of the gold order, those wizards who would manipulate metal itself.
The wizard’s high pitched voice was instantly irritating for Dieter to hear, yet there was something of a scoundrel about his tone too. He boarded the ship with great endeavour, frequently dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief from the effort of the climb up the somewhat raised boarding plank.
Last to board was another Bretonnian. This time a damsel. She spoke in a much purer manner, unlike the man. She joined the group too to complete their numbers but Dieter could see no closeness between the man and woman to suggest that they were anything more than team mates. Magic too danced somewhere behind this woman’s eyes. Dieter would have to keep an eye on this lot, he reckoned…To make matters worse, their cabins were close to the party’s.
Later that day the barge had begun to move up the river again, having passed its dockyard inspection.
Night had come upon them once again and most of the passengers were asleep.
Beyond the sounds of snoring here and there about the sleeping quarters, an easy to miss muffled scream followed by a squelching sound could be heard – as a crewman desperately answered his attacker’s question. The wizard he did indeed confirm was in this area. With that, he gagged as the last of his life force was robbed from him by the dark hearted person who stood over him.
Quickly the assailant moved up the passage, looking at closed doors to either side. A slender form gave suggestion of it being a woman underneath the dark grey full length coat. She then produced a gem of fine quality, that instantly glowed with red pulses. She smiled as this indicated that the magic user was indeed close.
As the assailant made her way further up the passage, the gem’s pulsing began to speed up, until she passed a room in particular. After passing its doorway, the pulsing began to slow again, which made her turn about and walk towards the door.
Quietly she crept into the room. Locks meant nothing to her anyway, but this room wasn’t locked anyway. She saw a form in the bed before her, asleep. She moved forwards and still the gem sped up to confirm the target. She would give her quarry no chance. Quickly she drew an ornate looking dagger, that had crimson jewels set into its handle – and brought the piercing end down into the sleeping figure, piercing the sheets and bringing about a sudden scream that was muffled by a hand across the mouth.
The scream! It didn’t sound right! It sounded like a woman? But her target was a man. How could this be she wondered? But then it dawned on her, of course, there must be other magic users aboard! As the assassin looked closely at the now dead woman in the bed, she noted her blonde hair and fine features, so different to her own. The only thing they indeed shared in common the horrified death gaze on her face – for she recognized that look from deep inside her own soul.
Where the dagger had pierced the woman, a strange red glow emanated from the wound. This weapon was an artefact of great power indeed.
Quickly the assassin made her way out of the room and down the passage again, turning to run down a new passage, following the indicator of the gem.
Maestro had slept within the cotton-wool like embrace of unconsciousness for a long time now. He had responded to no stimulus whatsoever. His magical centre, the power that exuded from his very being had been cut off during this time, due to the traumatic way that he had gone into unconsciousness. But as soon as the damsel had died, the energies stored within her from her own trauma had burst into the atmosphere of magical awareness and this had struck Maestro too. At last his own empathic magical channelling began to work again. He was now merely only asleep.
The assassin crept into a new room. This time she would make sure first. She pulled the covers back slightly and there she saw the wizard she had been looking for. Maestro Rophel Illefescion, in the flesh before her. At last her quest would be fulfilled. She rose the dagger like before, but before she could plunge it into the man’s heart, Maestro’s nose twitched as his sense of smell alerted him to something he did indeed have a long time hatred of. Maestro awoke with a single word on his lips, “Elf!” Just at that moment, a hammer struck the woman about the head from behind!
Angelique stood over the assassin, who was still alive, groaning to stand again. Her long coat had fallen open and only then did she see it was an elf. Not only that, but a dark elf. She wore very little in the way of clothes, showing off her body in a lurid display. This was a witch elf, one of the so called brides of Khaine.
Maestro was up and onto his feet. His staff in hand, he thrust it to the elf’s throat and vented a mad anger that was unusual for the man, “Why are you here, Elf? Why does your kind plague me so? Be they high elf, dark elf or whatever elf. You are the bane of me, I’m sure!”
The witch elf began to laugh, with a mocking cruel tone evident. She was captured, was at a disadvantage and yet still she smiled. She spoke slow and purposely, “Malekith the Witch King wishes you dead. Be it not by hand now foolish wizard, be assured if he does wish it, then it shall be.”
Maestro and Angelique gasped at the name. Everyone had heard of the Witch King. The leader of the dark elves, the great betrayer of his kind. He who was responsible for much of the misery the Old World was now entrapped in.
Angelique questioned violently, “Why does he want to hurt Maestro? Answer my question before I tear you in half!”
Again the witch elf laughed, but did reply, “All I know is what I am told. Hah. A future vision he has seen. A future that must be avoided. The catalyst of it all, is you!” and then she laughed again.
The elf quickly raised her dagger. Before Angelique could strike her again in response to this threat, the witch elf assassin did something that no one was expecting. She slit her own throat, quickly and confidently and died quickly with a smile on her face.
The magical dagger the assassin had wielded was a very powerful thing indeed. It was empowered by Khaine’s will. The last person it killed had their soul bound to it. If the wielder took their own life too, it will bind the two together.
And so it was, that the witch elf’s soul departed her body, and was drawn by the shared essence from the dagger, back towards the Bretonnian damsel. Her soul entered the woman’s body and suddenly the former cadaver now alive again, smiled. This was quickly replaced by a scream of pain as the dominant original host that was still present took control again.
Crewmembers were awake by now and everyone was trying to understand what had happened.
Maestro stood up and brushed himself down, then went red as he realised he was only wearing a night gown. Worse still, he couldn’t remember changing into it…Angelique hugged the wizard who gave a terrified little yelp in response.
Maestro tried talking but his voice was muffled by the bosom of the Sister of Sigmar. He at last managed to pull himself free enough to ask, “How did you know she was trying to kill me, sister?”
Angelique replied, “I saw her sneaking into your room. A young harlot intending trouble no doubt, so I struck her. It was a good job I did. You see, I am good for you my Maesty-ro.”
The wizard considered this and then said, “But what were you doing creeping about at night?”
With that, the nun went a little red in the face replying, “I was coming to see you, my love.”
Maestro shuddered at the thought. He considered briefly which would have been worse to wake up to, in actual fact. Though the assassin was an elf and he certainly did hate elves – this was Angelique we were talking about!
The rest of the journey went without incident, albeit with Maestro spending as much time around Tordrad “for protection” as he could. He had tried to explain to the Kislev bodyguard that he was worried in case anymore attacks came. Though the real reason, Tordrad suspected was that the wizard was afraid of the mad lusty nun who kept following him everywhere.
For now, all was well too with the damsel. They had considered her lucky to be alive - A miracle really. The gods were praised, as was usual. But ironically, that praise would have found its way instead to a more malign omniscience, gratified by the attention.
((Don’t forget to vote in the favourite character poll. You can find it at various Warhammer Fantasy forums including Warseer and fanfiction.net via the Their Fated Travels forums. Thanks for the support))
Monday, 28 February 2011
The End In Sight!
With book 4 being in the focus for me right now, I can finally see the finish line on this project. The end is truly in sight. Book 4 (Nuln) is pretty much going to wrap things for the entire story. Note I say pretty much. There may be an epilogue that deals out some interesting exposition, but you know what I mean.
I'm really looking forward to bringing the project to a close. That's not to say that I am not enjoying it. It's just that finishing it is a satisfying feeling. Doing that will allow the new hungers inside of me to properly manifest too.
Don't worry, there will be a proper ending. It's not going to let you down like Lost did. Hehe, but that's because with real nature like this - there's always the chance for a return series.
I know that this is the end run (however long it will be) because we the players at the table having wrapped things up haven't been meeting to play WHFRP for months now.
There's nothing left to do but plan for our next RPG sessions. We're going to be playing Dark Heresy by the way. Not that we plan to have THAT written up into an adventure like TFT was (and then voice recorded on youtube too...) No that certainly doesn't seem a likely thing to happen. But I will perhaps let you know how those sessions go...If I don't get tempted to start fleshing it out...writing it...
So until the final curtain draws to its close, I want to say, I hope you enjoy the rest of our story.
I'm really looking forward to bringing the project to a close. That's not to say that I am not enjoying it. It's just that finishing it is a satisfying feeling. Doing that will allow the new hungers inside of me to properly manifest too.
Don't worry, there will be a proper ending. It's not going to let you down like Lost did. Hehe, but that's because with real nature like this - there's always the chance for a return series.
I know that this is the end run (however long it will be) because we the players at the table having wrapped things up haven't been meeting to play WHFRP for months now.
There's nothing left to do but plan for our next RPG sessions. We're going to be playing Dark Heresy by the way. Not that we plan to have THAT written up into an adventure like TFT was (and then voice recorded on youtube too...) No that certainly doesn't seem a likely thing to happen. But I will perhaps let you know how those sessions go...If I don't get tempted to start fleshing it out...writing it...
So until the final curtain draws to its close, I want to say, I hope you enjoy the rest of our story.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Their Fated Travels...Chapter 25 - To Nuln By barge Part Two
As always, you can read TFT here at fanfiction.net - http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5775192/25/Their_Fated_Travels
or read it below via blogspot's line arrangement.
Their Fated Travels…
RPG Party events as told By Robert James Freemantle
Chapter 25
To Nuln By Barge – Part Two
Extract from the diary of Rissandrea:
Day 100:
I was standing on the deck admiring the view outside when something shocking came to my attention. Over on the river bank I was facing, some way ahead was a scene of slaughter. A caravan party with bodies surrounding it lay dead over the way. Many of the trees in the copse that ran along the bank were scarred and hacked, as if a group of violent minded people had passed that way. The boxes of goods they carried were fine cloth. I could see this as one of them had been busted open, revealing its contents. They had left that too.
Then the truth of the matter was revealed.
High above the barge, on an overhanging rock that jutted out from the mountainside above the river, a wild eyed bloodshot beastman peered over, watching the approaching vessel beneath. He gave a sharp hand signal and guttural command to a nearby gor, who held a rowing boat’s oar in his hand. He quickly wedged the paddle end of it underneath a large nearby boulder, with the help of two more gors pushing it with their hands.
The maddened beastman too resembled a gor, yet he looked like so much more as well. The veins beneath his skin stood up on end. He breathed heavily at all times and dried blood was clearly visible down his front and chin, originating it seemed from his mouth. He once had been a gor, but now he was something else. Tallagh Grorrv now commanded this troop, a force of beastmen he had once been an infantry fighter within. He barked a new order to the other side of the wide ledge. Fifteen ungors quickly took their positions, with bows at the ready, while the gors pushed the boulder to the very edge.
Then the troops waited for his signal.
Soon the barge was in the right location and he gave the order to open fire. The ungors shot their arrows over the edge and let gravity bring their plummet into an awful missile barrage.
Rissandrea was standing next to a marine, one of the posted guards that would attend such barges. They had been chatting about faith and life’s bigger meanings when the sky above them turned suddenly dark. They looked up just in time to see a hail of arrows come down upon them.
One arrow lodged into the collarbone of the man Rissandrea had been speaking to. Another arrow had landed close to Rissandrea – too close! It had pinned her robe to the deck, through the bottom flowing part that met the floor. She tugged at the material and it pulled free with a sharp tearing sound.
Next the Shallyan turned her attention to the injured man as the alarm began sounding. Shouts and screams could be heard already. A terrible voice carried on the wind, inciting some dark command in a language nobody present could understand…nobody conscious that was…
A dead passenger, a woman in her twenties was carried along the deck by an already grieving man. Her arrow wound bled profusely where the man had already removed it. Rissandrea looked around, trying to assess the injured and those who could be saved. The casualties were not many at least.
Suddenly a new hail of arrows came down, raining around the passengers and crew, but taking no casualties this time except for a crewman who had an arrow scrape down his cheek, making it bleed deeply.
The screaming commotion brought others from below, onto the deck to see what all the hubbub was.
The sea marines were ready, weapons in hand, shouting orders back and forth for defensive positions to be set up and maintained.
Suddenly there was a crashing sound, as a falling screaming ungor plummeted into the deck, smashing cargo and rigging with his descent. His body was crushed against the now split plank boards. This ungor had been unfortunate enough to miss twice with his bow hitting only water - giving Tallagh Grorrv all the excuse he needed to dish out what he saw as a fitting punishment for negligence in action. Again his wild cry sounded and again the arrows fired.
The captain of the vessel was looking up from his cabin, in distress, as his first mate was giving him a report of what was happening out there. The captain quickly turned the barge to the starboard and it pressed towards the bank with great power. This was a timely action, as the next hail of arrows landed soon after. Only two of them had made contact with the barge, thudding into the wood planks harmlessly.
The war gor cried in triumph at his foe doing exactly what he had wanted them to do! He gave the command at once and the gors hauled the boulder as hard as they could. They were pushing and pushing, but for some reason the boulder did not topple over the edge, simply choosing to shift weight back towards them as they stopped pushing. Tallagh was not impressed and screamed wildly at the gors who renewed their efforts suddenly. Even this fearful expression of energy on their parts was not enough to shift the huge rock.
It suddenly became clear why this was happening. An outgrowing tree had sprouted out from the mountainside and was stopping the boulder from rolling forwards properly.
Tallagh peered threateningly over the edge once more, seeing the barge was about to pass out of range for the planned arial attack. Failure was unacceptable to Tallagh. He had suffered defeats before, back when he was a normal gor, but since his new found strength of status, he knew no defeat whatsoever. He was not about to start now! The growling war gor watched the gors struggling with the root, to push the boulder around it somehow, while one of them hacked desperately at the small tree, to chop it off. Ineffective, thought Tallagh, who walked purposely up to the gors, looked at them a final time and kicked the one currently pushing the boulder at that moment – a great kick which connected with the entire bottom of his hoof. The impact was harder though than any kick had a right to be, snapping the small outcropping tree and pushing the boulder, gor and all over the edge into a plummet below.
Tordrad, Tobias, Dieter and Ulger had now joined Rissandrea on deck. Maestro was still out cold, but Rissandrea wasn’t so concerned about him. She had given the wizard a quick medical inspection earlier, under the watchful gaze of Angelique. The Shallyan had put his unconscious state down to over exertion and recent stress. He would recover well enough she knew – plus he had been left in the capable if rather large hands of the Sister of Sigmar, who stayed at the man’s bedside praying for many an hour.
On deck, Dieter looked up to see the falling boulder above. The others followed his gaze. Dieter calmly patted Ulger and stated, “If we die, we die.” before pulling his jacket up around his face to cover his head. Just then, the huge boulder landed: hitting the very edge of the barge, almost capsizing it from the force and making it rock violently.
Below deck, Angelique had ended up on top of the still unconscious Maestro, as she peered down at him and said aloud to no one in particular, “Sigmar truly works towards this union, does he not my love?”
Above on deck, the barge was still mostly intact. The boulder had pulled some of it away, but there was no breach enough to spring a leak. It had been mostly cosmetic structural damage. The boulder bobbed in the water, as if mocking them. There must have been some property within the rock, or air that kept it afloat even this long considered Dieter.
Rissandrea praised Shallya. Tordrad praised Ursan. Tobias grumbled and cursed, having been lurched backwards onto his back from the force of the blow. Ulger growled defensively at the new scent approaching from above…
Tallagh Grorrv had bounded forwards, his heart carrying his unnatural blood through his veins at an alarming rate, as he grabbed the two remaining gors and jumped over the edge, with one firmly in each hand. The two gors screamed fearfully at their unexpected descent. Their war gor leader roared with the lust of battle ahead. He could taste it coming up and he would let nothing step in its way.
Tallagh landed, his fall softened somewhat by the unfortunate gors either side of him. Their bodies broke upon contact with the boulder, but their leader who had still been gripping them had perhaps been lucky, with the equal distribution of force at his sides - and he had landed on his hooves, directly upon the boulder. Even with this small help, it was unlikely that any normal creature could survive such a jump – and thusly it was clear that Tallagh was very special indeed!
The maddened war gor let both gors slip from his grasp, into the deeps of the river below, before he bellowed a challenging war cry and leapt with all of his might. Within a blur of motion, the war gor had made the jump from the boulder that had landed behind the barge and the vessel itself. Had he waited any longer to jump, he perhaps might not have made it – although that theory was in some doubt, considered Dieter, who observed how easily the man beast had managed what was arguably a hard jump, making it look easy anyway.
The crazed creature landed, his hooves making a clud sound on the deck. He simply stood there, his huge chest moving up and down as he breathed in the battle to come. He unfastened a huge polearm from his back. Its deadly range was drastically more than the eye could behold, as a passenger attempted to run – the war gor swung the weapon outwards and struck the man through his shoulder with it. With a carefully precise yank motion, the blade tore the arm off. Gutteral screams ensued from the victim who stumbled away – satisfied with the horror, Tallagh allowed him to do so.
The crew’s onboard weapons had been unlocked to allow the marines access to them. A marine raised a handgun, aiming at the great beastman. He calmed himself and fired with a deadeye shot. The bullet did not strike its target in the way he had hoped though. The beastman swirled the weapon in front of him and there was a clanging spark sound as the bullet ricocheted off of the metal weapon head. Everyone gasped at this show of skill. Confidently Tallagh strode towards the quivering marine, who regained his senses in time to draw a sword. The weapon was quickly knocked out of his hand, even though he had struck with it. The beastman’s reflexes were on a scale beyond imagination. The marine ran from him and jumped overboard, screaming as he went!
Tordrad saw this and his face soured at this cowardice. He grabbed the only weapon at hand, a scimitar that lay nearby, and stepped forwards in determination.
Rissandrea walked behind him, ready to support as always. Lives were at stake and she would do whatever was needed to save them.
Dieter and Tobias sneaked forwards carefully, to get into flanking positions as quietly as possible.
4 weeks ago.
A bloodied copse not far from Nuln.
An Empire threat response platoon was mopping up the last beastman stragglers, of those foolish enough to run amok, attacking some of the smaller settlements in the area. This band of beastmen was only one of several running rampant across the lands, so near to the city without being picked off, especially during a militarily busy time that it was disquieting.
Still, with this battle, the chain of command was now severed from the head of the troops, for Captain Anders’s soldiers had at last found and killed the war gor in charge. His head hung from the captain’s horse already, chained up by the pierced ring that went through its entire nasal cavity.
“No wonder we won” Anders had joked, “It probably couldn’t see past that chunk of metal in its face.”
The men laughed in approval, as a release of the nervous energy that had built up in the face of battle.
Suddenly, Captain Anders became intrigued, as he saw what he had believed to be a corpse, getting back up - A beastman gor who didn’t look particularly spectacular but a little more powerful than the others of the squad around him.
Anders instinctively pegged this one as a chieftain, a unit champion. With a furious bellow, the gor commanded to the bodies about him. Several of them arose from the ground. This took the good captain by surprise, and he ran his hand along the feather in his helm as he would often do out of habit.
These were not undead. These were simply beastmen who were badly injured and would have normally laid there until either the Empire troops had gone or until the soldiers killed them, by stabbing the dead “just to be sure.” It was common for troops to be put out of a battle in this fashion, damaged sustained that the pain stops one from arising, or sometimes going in and out of consciousness while bleeding badly. But for those around the gor chieftain to arise on his command, this was something out of the ordinary. Anders glared at his intended target as it strode towards him, seemingly unaware of the head wounds it had sustained. The captain had his runner take his horse back out of the way as it was starting to spook, perhaps just from being in the presence of a true child of chaos.
The chieftain closed in on the captain, bellowing a challenging word in its bestial dark tongue. The captain drew his sword in response. The other beastmen indeed waited back to allow this fight to take place.
The chieftain picked up a bone cudgel from one of the dead of his kin and kept walking. As he did so, he threw the weapon at the captain’s face! Such an act was so unexpected that Anders almost didn’t doge the improvised projectile in time.
The chieftain, Tallagh Grorrv drew an axe. Anders was ready in-case this too was thrown at him. It wasn’t. Instead the beastman reached him and melee battle began.
This chieftain had a strong sense of battle skill, perhaps long honed over the years. His attacks were wild but with grace of balance enough to parry again from the captain’s counter attack. Already the captain’s sword had been knocked aside and he was open! The chieftain thrust the point on the weapon’s head up to take him in the gut, but Anders brought his metal clad boot across and kicked the axe against its flat part, redirecting the angle to miss him.
It was then Anders’s turn to be on the offensive. His speed was superb, forcing the gor chieftain to peddle back defensively with flurry after flurry of attacks.
Still the beastman retreated as Anders tested him from every conceivable angle. It would not be long now, the captain knew. Already he had gashed the creature to the arm twice. It was a testament to its willpower that it had not dropped its axe, for one blow had slashed right down to its hand, opening a wound between his forefinger and thumb. Gripping the axe would now be agonizing.
As the battle continued, with the human stepping forwards every few blows and the beastman retreating, a strange darkness over them from the sky was impossible to miss. As if a rainy storm were due at an accelerated unnatural rate. An explosive impacting sound off in the distance that made the ground about them tremor, not far from them, threatened to tear their attentions away from the battle they were in, but both fighters kept their enemy resolved before them. That did not stop the others of their respective groups from looking though.
Human and beastman alike, stood and gawped in shock at the smoke rising up from the site of impact two miles away. They couldn’t tell what it was, but something had fallen from the sky.
As the two adversaries fought on, a new presence in the sky above them again was impossible to miss, even though they dared give it much regard. A darkness began to grow as a large shadow formed over the two of them.
Tallagh swiped his axe in a wide arc to buy himself room and chanced a look upwards at the cause of the growing shadow. He was in disbelief at the huge chunk of green stone that plummeted towards their very position. The captain almost had Tallagh’s head off, but this time he jumped backwards just in time to avoid the fatal blow. Suddenly the beastman’s hoof struck against the body of one of his own kin and he fell over backwards with a crash – just as the warpstone meteorite hit their location, landing dead centre upon the Empire captain, who had looked up at it and smiled darkly with acceptance of his cruel fate.
As the large chunk of warpstone made contact, it killed the human outright and splintered immediately, with pieces firing off like shrapnel around it. The dust cloud and soil thrown up buried several of the fallen, both those dead and alive.
Tallagh’s rough leather armour tore open as warpstone flew at him. One particularly shard entered his body perfectly, like a needle bullet. It punctured the beastman’s heart and lay embedded there as the falling soil fell around him, burying him alive.
There he lay, for days on end, trying to dig his way out, but struggling, because the warpstone in his chest felt like it was killing him. For some reason, the wound had not been fatal. This warpstone had begun to mutate the area of its entry soon after contact. This effect had indeed resurrected the dead beastman’s heart and forced it to beat, against the will of all natural biological order.
Still Tallagh lay there, slowly digging his way out. The only food was that of his own kin, the body he had tripped over. Had that mistake in battle actually saved his life he wondered? Were he standing, what then would have happened? Was the shock perhaps lessened by him exposing less of himself to it on impact? That the body of his dead kin shielded him from much of the blast? For it had surely hit the corpse first. Whatever the reason was, he told himself that he was alive and his foe was dead. It was an intervention of the chaos Gods, he was sure. It was a sign that he had been chosen to fulfil some great deed.
The other beastmen who had been similarly struck with pieces of the foul tainted green stone had also mutated somewhat, but none of these survived. Only Tallagh would prove strong enough in body and will to dig his way out and be all the stronger for it.
4 weeks later…
Tallagh’s polearm smashed against Tordrad once more. With no armour to protect him, he was prone. Already the Kislev born warrior was bleeding in three places as Tobias and Dieter finally managed to attack. Ulger sunk his teeth into the war gor but the creature brought his other hoof up and kicked the doberman away, fracturing its face from the impact. It whined and pulled itself back up to a standing position as its master, Dieter threw a bottle of alcohol at the beastman. It impacted with a klish, harmlessly against his armour. Every attack from Dieter’s previously concealed scalpel was dodged.
Tobias let swing another stone from his sling. This time, it had hit the beastman. Again, he shook off this attack as if it were nothing and kicked Todrad hard to the chest, sending him sprawling across the deck. He cursed in his native tongue.
Rissandrea proclaimed, “I have never seen anyone do that to Tordrad! I fear this bodes ill for us all.”
Together, Ulger and Tordrad charged as Rissandrea fired redemption, the gun she carried. They had not bothered to search the Shallyan nor enquire for weapons and hence she hadn’t realised that weapons were not allowed – for it was unlike the order to carry weapons. The gun’s shot blazed out towards Tallagh, again with a tail on it like a white comet. The war gor had seen it coming though and side stepped, ducking his head under and around the bullet as the trail whizzed past him harmlessly! The soon to be priestess stared in fascinated horror. How could anyone dodge a bullet?
Ulger and Tordrad leapt at the same time, a jumping attack to bring the full momentum of their weight and gravity down upon the war gor. Tallagh did not balk at this. He placed his weapon’s handle in a horizontal position and thrust up outwards at them both. Not only was the war gor strong enough to hold the two of them in their jump, (Ulger at the neck) but his counterforce actually repelled them both backwards onto their backs, each landing with a terrific crash on the decking. Tordrad’s head had hit the board too hard and he began to lose consciousness.
Ulger was struggling to get back up. Dieter commanded the dog to stay put, telling him he was a good boy. Rissandrea rushed to Tordrad’s aid at once, pulling his eyelids open to check his pupils and whispering prayers of healing.
As another stone struck the war gor, he had decided that that was enough. He brought the handle of his weapon up and round into Dieter’s face, his movement a blur. The impact spun Dieter around to face the other way and dropped to one knee. Were any of these a threat to Tallagh, he would have made the executioner’s kill there and then. But they were not. Plus the one who had flung stones at him was on his mind foremost.
Before Tobias could load another shot, the war gor was upon him, with blinding speed. No-one they had seen had ever moved as fast as this, except perhaps on horseback. He picked the halfling up by the throat, lifting him off the ground so as to be level to level with his face.
Tobias desperately swung his hanging legs, but they were too weak to do any harm from kicking. His prised his hands around the grip of Tallagh, but this he knew, was also a futile gesture. Soon his face was beginning to turn red, as death from asphyxiation was only moments away – but just at that very same moment, the beastman, himself imbued with warpstone, recognized a trace of it in the halfling too. He was just like him. How? The confusion of this made him let Tobias go, who fell to the floor like deadweight. He was barely alive and certainly no longer conscious.
Dieter quickly ran up behind the war gor, jumped onto his back and called upon the small reserves of secretly kept illegal magic within him. A small amount of fire appeared in his hand as he brought it against the alcohol that stained the armour. It went up like a match!
Tallagh reached around and pulled the trainee doctor down and over him, as the fire blazed on the war gor’s body, burning him severely across the torso. He then held Dieter tight in a bear hug like manoeuvre until Dieter cried out in pain, as flames licked at him.
Dieter would not survive this long and this made him angry. So angry that the other, the presence almost took ahold of him again.
Dieter’s shadow shifted jaggedly, dancing up Tallagh’s body, cast unevenly against the burning flames. These same flames seemed to bother the war gor in no way, even though his skin was cooking through the armour he wore.
The shadowy hand curled up to Tallagh’s throat and there it snapped in movement, its fingers closing around the beastman’s windpipe to strangle him. This did throw the creature off of its attack. It began to struggle with the shadowy presence that strangled him, as he let go of Dieter.
Dieter’s skin was burnt up the left side, from waist up as far as his neck. He resolved that higher collars would be in good order. A strangely calm thought to have had, seeing as the pain he was in and the injury sustained should have been the things on his mind.
The warpstone shard inside the beastman’s heart had cauterized the wound when it struck – however it did something else as well. It mutated the cells of the organ itself, super enhancing it so that his heart would beat at an extraordinary rate. The heart inside the foul creature’s chest began to speed up, as abnormal amounts of adrenaline surged into his system. His gift was at last kicking up into a new gear – this time to compensate for the oddly paranormal attack the small curly haired human had brought upon him.
Everything around Tallagh moved slower than it ought to. He recognized this effect as beneficial. It wasn’t that the world was moving slower. He was moving faster! His eyes were perceiving input at an accelerated rate.
The presence that strangled him, cut off his windpipe. With an almost supernatural blurring shift of movement, Tallagh Grorrv moved out of the shadowy grip and roared at it with commanding presence. The blast of this sent it backwards flying into Dieter at once. This knocked the would be doctor onto his back and sent him sliding across the ship. The shock of the other’s presence so forcibly taken into him, brought Dieter low, making him convulse on the ground. Rissandrea looked about her, seeing that there was nothing she could do against the monster – with her team mates down. She could only try to save them in any way she could, but she feared that the dreaded beast man would not let her.
There was a terrific crashing sound as doors flung upon further back on the barge. Then very heavy quickened footsteps could be heard approaching.
A woman’s voice called out, “Beast! You shall face the wrath of Sigmar.”
Angelique Rosemead appeared at the front of the deck, bearing a great two handed hammer and pointed it towards Tallagh in challenge. She looked around at the casualties already suffered and saw again the beastman’s speed as he threw a charging marine over his shoulder and into the water, with but one hand.
“It ends here!” cried the plump woman as she ran towards the war gor with the hammer she had broken free from the weapons locker. The great weapon glowed with a bright intensity. A holy radiance could be felt from it and this made the beast man roar, as if in mental pain at its proximity. His skin began to darken in reaction to the presence, as if he was mutating once again. His fur was also changing, turning a bluer shade of colour.
The war gor waited, his long pole arm in a counter attack stance as Angelique neared him.
Just as Tallagh was ready to avoid the blow, the sister of Sigmar cut short her downward swing, bringing the massive hammer down against the deck between them as she cried out a prayer of strength to her God. She concentrated with all of her strength as a powerful zeal enlightened her muscles to a supernatural level.
When the hammer struck the wooden deck, it cracked from impact as planned – a huge gaping hole that shattered downwards to the water below as the holy infused energy connected to the weapon gave it a further mass charge of shock wave, finally released.
They were very near the end of the barge and the beastman had nowhere to go as the impact created fast splits across the whole deck and down the entire vessel.
Without warning, the entire end of the barge gave way and fell into the water with a large splash that sent water up over their heads, covering the entire barge.
Tallagh could not be seen amidst the wreckage in the water but Angelique was taking no chances. She looked back towards the captain’s bridge cabin at the other end and saw him looking back up the barge in concern. She took a deep breath and shouted a command at the top of her powerful lungs, “Captain, get away! Full speed ahead!”
The captain did not have to be told twice and within moments, the vessel was pulling away at its top speed.
Rissandrea continued to heal those who had fallen in battle as they pulled away from the place of the wreckage and all was still…
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Their Fated Travels…
RPG Party events as told By Robert James Freemantle
Chapter 25
To Nuln By Barge – Part Two
Extract from the diary of Rissandrea:
Day 100:
I was standing on the deck admiring the view outside when something shocking came to my attention. Over on the river bank I was facing, some way ahead was a scene of slaughter. A caravan party with bodies surrounding it lay dead over the way. Many of the trees in the copse that ran along the bank were scarred and hacked, as if a group of violent minded people had passed that way. The boxes of goods they carried were fine cloth. I could see this as one of them had been busted open, revealing its contents. They had left that too.
Then the truth of the matter was revealed.
High above the barge, on an overhanging rock that jutted out from the mountainside above the river, a wild eyed bloodshot beastman peered over, watching the approaching vessel beneath. He gave a sharp hand signal and guttural command to a nearby gor, who held a rowing boat’s oar in his hand. He quickly wedged the paddle end of it underneath a large nearby boulder, with the help of two more gors pushing it with their hands.
The maddened beastman too resembled a gor, yet he looked like so much more as well. The veins beneath his skin stood up on end. He breathed heavily at all times and dried blood was clearly visible down his front and chin, originating it seemed from his mouth. He once had been a gor, but now he was something else. Tallagh Grorrv now commanded this troop, a force of beastmen he had once been an infantry fighter within. He barked a new order to the other side of the wide ledge. Fifteen ungors quickly took their positions, with bows at the ready, while the gors pushed the boulder to the very edge.
Then the troops waited for his signal.
Soon the barge was in the right location and he gave the order to open fire. The ungors shot their arrows over the edge and let gravity bring their plummet into an awful missile barrage.
Rissandrea was standing next to a marine, one of the posted guards that would attend such barges. They had been chatting about faith and life’s bigger meanings when the sky above them turned suddenly dark. They looked up just in time to see a hail of arrows come down upon them.
One arrow lodged into the collarbone of the man Rissandrea had been speaking to. Another arrow had landed close to Rissandrea – too close! It had pinned her robe to the deck, through the bottom flowing part that met the floor. She tugged at the material and it pulled free with a sharp tearing sound.
Next the Shallyan turned her attention to the injured man as the alarm began sounding. Shouts and screams could be heard already. A terrible voice carried on the wind, inciting some dark command in a language nobody present could understand…nobody conscious that was…
A dead passenger, a woman in her twenties was carried along the deck by an already grieving man. Her arrow wound bled profusely where the man had already removed it. Rissandrea looked around, trying to assess the injured and those who could be saved. The casualties were not many at least.
Suddenly a new hail of arrows came down, raining around the passengers and crew, but taking no casualties this time except for a crewman who had an arrow scrape down his cheek, making it bleed deeply.
The screaming commotion brought others from below, onto the deck to see what all the hubbub was.
The sea marines were ready, weapons in hand, shouting orders back and forth for defensive positions to be set up and maintained.
Suddenly there was a crashing sound, as a falling screaming ungor plummeted into the deck, smashing cargo and rigging with his descent. His body was crushed against the now split plank boards. This ungor had been unfortunate enough to miss twice with his bow hitting only water - giving Tallagh Grorrv all the excuse he needed to dish out what he saw as a fitting punishment for negligence in action. Again his wild cry sounded and again the arrows fired.
The captain of the vessel was looking up from his cabin, in distress, as his first mate was giving him a report of what was happening out there. The captain quickly turned the barge to the starboard and it pressed towards the bank with great power. This was a timely action, as the next hail of arrows landed soon after. Only two of them had made contact with the barge, thudding into the wood planks harmlessly.
The war gor cried in triumph at his foe doing exactly what he had wanted them to do! He gave the command at once and the gors hauled the boulder as hard as they could. They were pushing and pushing, but for some reason the boulder did not topple over the edge, simply choosing to shift weight back towards them as they stopped pushing. Tallagh was not impressed and screamed wildly at the gors who renewed their efforts suddenly. Even this fearful expression of energy on their parts was not enough to shift the huge rock.
It suddenly became clear why this was happening. An outgrowing tree had sprouted out from the mountainside and was stopping the boulder from rolling forwards properly.
Tallagh peered threateningly over the edge once more, seeing the barge was about to pass out of range for the planned arial attack. Failure was unacceptable to Tallagh. He had suffered defeats before, back when he was a normal gor, but since his new found strength of status, he knew no defeat whatsoever. He was not about to start now! The growling war gor watched the gors struggling with the root, to push the boulder around it somehow, while one of them hacked desperately at the small tree, to chop it off. Ineffective, thought Tallagh, who walked purposely up to the gors, looked at them a final time and kicked the one currently pushing the boulder at that moment – a great kick which connected with the entire bottom of his hoof. The impact was harder though than any kick had a right to be, snapping the small outcropping tree and pushing the boulder, gor and all over the edge into a plummet below.
Tordrad, Tobias, Dieter and Ulger had now joined Rissandrea on deck. Maestro was still out cold, but Rissandrea wasn’t so concerned about him. She had given the wizard a quick medical inspection earlier, under the watchful gaze of Angelique. The Shallyan had put his unconscious state down to over exertion and recent stress. He would recover well enough she knew – plus he had been left in the capable if rather large hands of the Sister of Sigmar, who stayed at the man’s bedside praying for many an hour.
On deck, Dieter looked up to see the falling boulder above. The others followed his gaze. Dieter calmly patted Ulger and stated, “If we die, we die.” before pulling his jacket up around his face to cover his head. Just then, the huge boulder landed: hitting the very edge of the barge, almost capsizing it from the force and making it rock violently.
Below deck, Angelique had ended up on top of the still unconscious Maestro, as she peered down at him and said aloud to no one in particular, “Sigmar truly works towards this union, does he not my love?”
Above on deck, the barge was still mostly intact. The boulder had pulled some of it away, but there was no breach enough to spring a leak. It had been mostly cosmetic structural damage. The boulder bobbed in the water, as if mocking them. There must have been some property within the rock, or air that kept it afloat even this long considered Dieter.
Rissandrea praised Shallya. Tordrad praised Ursan. Tobias grumbled and cursed, having been lurched backwards onto his back from the force of the blow. Ulger growled defensively at the new scent approaching from above…
Tallagh Grorrv had bounded forwards, his heart carrying his unnatural blood through his veins at an alarming rate, as he grabbed the two remaining gors and jumped over the edge, with one firmly in each hand. The two gors screamed fearfully at their unexpected descent. Their war gor leader roared with the lust of battle ahead. He could taste it coming up and he would let nothing step in its way.
Tallagh landed, his fall softened somewhat by the unfortunate gors either side of him. Their bodies broke upon contact with the boulder, but their leader who had still been gripping them had perhaps been lucky, with the equal distribution of force at his sides - and he had landed on his hooves, directly upon the boulder. Even with this small help, it was unlikely that any normal creature could survive such a jump – and thusly it was clear that Tallagh was very special indeed!
The maddened war gor let both gors slip from his grasp, into the deeps of the river below, before he bellowed a challenging war cry and leapt with all of his might. Within a blur of motion, the war gor had made the jump from the boulder that had landed behind the barge and the vessel itself. Had he waited any longer to jump, he perhaps might not have made it – although that theory was in some doubt, considered Dieter, who observed how easily the man beast had managed what was arguably a hard jump, making it look easy anyway.
The crazed creature landed, his hooves making a clud sound on the deck. He simply stood there, his huge chest moving up and down as he breathed in the battle to come. He unfastened a huge polearm from his back. Its deadly range was drastically more than the eye could behold, as a passenger attempted to run – the war gor swung the weapon outwards and struck the man through his shoulder with it. With a carefully precise yank motion, the blade tore the arm off. Gutteral screams ensued from the victim who stumbled away – satisfied with the horror, Tallagh allowed him to do so.
The crew’s onboard weapons had been unlocked to allow the marines access to them. A marine raised a handgun, aiming at the great beastman. He calmed himself and fired with a deadeye shot. The bullet did not strike its target in the way he had hoped though. The beastman swirled the weapon in front of him and there was a clanging spark sound as the bullet ricocheted off of the metal weapon head. Everyone gasped at this show of skill. Confidently Tallagh strode towards the quivering marine, who regained his senses in time to draw a sword. The weapon was quickly knocked out of his hand, even though he had struck with it. The beastman’s reflexes were on a scale beyond imagination. The marine ran from him and jumped overboard, screaming as he went!
Tordrad saw this and his face soured at this cowardice. He grabbed the only weapon at hand, a scimitar that lay nearby, and stepped forwards in determination.
Rissandrea walked behind him, ready to support as always. Lives were at stake and she would do whatever was needed to save them.
Dieter and Tobias sneaked forwards carefully, to get into flanking positions as quietly as possible.
4 weeks ago.
A bloodied copse not far from Nuln.
An Empire threat response platoon was mopping up the last beastman stragglers, of those foolish enough to run amok, attacking some of the smaller settlements in the area. This band of beastmen was only one of several running rampant across the lands, so near to the city without being picked off, especially during a militarily busy time that it was disquieting.
Still, with this battle, the chain of command was now severed from the head of the troops, for Captain Anders’s soldiers had at last found and killed the war gor in charge. His head hung from the captain’s horse already, chained up by the pierced ring that went through its entire nasal cavity.
“No wonder we won” Anders had joked, “It probably couldn’t see past that chunk of metal in its face.”
The men laughed in approval, as a release of the nervous energy that had built up in the face of battle.
Suddenly, Captain Anders became intrigued, as he saw what he had believed to be a corpse, getting back up - A beastman gor who didn’t look particularly spectacular but a little more powerful than the others of the squad around him.
Anders instinctively pegged this one as a chieftain, a unit champion. With a furious bellow, the gor commanded to the bodies about him. Several of them arose from the ground. This took the good captain by surprise, and he ran his hand along the feather in his helm as he would often do out of habit.
These were not undead. These were simply beastmen who were badly injured and would have normally laid there until either the Empire troops had gone or until the soldiers killed them, by stabbing the dead “just to be sure.” It was common for troops to be put out of a battle in this fashion, damaged sustained that the pain stops one from arising, or sometimes going in and out of consciousness while bleeding badly. But for those around the gor chieftain to arise on his command, this was something out of the ordinary. Anders glared at his intended target as it strode towards him, seemingly unaware of the head wounds it had sustained. The captain had his runner take his horse back out of the way as it was starting to spook, perhaps just from being in the presence of a true child of chaos.
The chieftain closed in on the captain, bellowing a challenging word in its bestial dark tongue. The captain drew his sword in response. The other beastmen indeed waited back to allow this fight to take place.
The chieftain picked up a bone cudgel from one of the dead of his kin and kept walking. As he did so, he threw the weapon at the captain’s face! Such an act was so unexpected that Anders almost didn’t doge the improvised projectile in time.
The chieftain, Tallagh Grorrv drew an axe. Anders was ready in-case this too was thrown at him. It wasn’t. Instead the beastman reached him and melee battle began.
This chieftain had a strong sense of battle skill, perhaps long honed over the years. His attacks were wild but with grace of balance enough to parry again from the captain’s counter attack. Already the captain’s sword had been knocked aside and he was open! The chieftain thrust the point on the weapon’s head up to take him in the gut, but Anders brought his metal clad boot across and kicked the axe against its flat part, redirecting the angle to miss him.
It was then Anders’s turn to be on the offensive. His speed was superb, forcing the gor chieftain to peddle back defensively with flurry after flurry of attacks.
Still the beastman retreated as Anders tested him from every conceivable angle. It would not be long now, the captain knew. Already he had gashed the creature to the arm twice. It was a testament to its willpower that it had not dropped its axe, for one blow had slashed right down to its hand, opening a wound between his forefinger and thumb. Gripping the axe would now be agonizing.
As the battle continued, with the human stepping forwards every few blows and the beastman retreating, a strange darkness over them from the sky was impossible to miss. As if a rainy storm were due at an accelerated unnatural rate. An explosive impacting sound off in the distance that made the ground about them tremor, not far from them, threatened to tear their attentions away from the battle they were in, but both fighters kept their enemy resolved before them. That did not stop the others of their respective groups from looking though.
Human and beastman alike, stood and gawped in shock at the smoke rising up from the site of impact two miles away. They couldn’t tell what it was, but something had fallen from the sky.
As the two adversaries fought on, a new presence in the sky above them again was impossible to miss, even though they dared give it much regard. A darkness began to grow as a large shadow formed over the two of them.
Tallagh swiped his axe in a wide arc to buy himself room and chanced a look upwards at the cause of the growing shadow. He was in disbelief at the huge chunk of green stone that plummeted towards their very position. The captain almost had Tallagh’s head off, but this time he jumped backwards just in time to avoid the fatal blow. Suddenly the beastman’s hoof struck against the body of one of his own kin and he fell over backwards with a crash – just as the warpstone meteorite hit their location, landing dead centre upon the Empire captain, who had looked up at it and smiled darkly with acceptance of his cruel fate.
As the large chunk of warpstone made contact, it killed the human outright and splintered immediately, with pieces firing off like shrapnel around it. The dust cloud and soil thrown up buried several of the fallen, both those dead and alive.
Tallagh’s rough leather armour tore open as warpstone flew at him. One particularly shard entered his body perfectly, like a needle bullet. It punctured the beastman’s heart and lay embedded there as the falling soil fell around him, burying him alive.
There he lay, for days on end, trying to dig his way out, but struggling, because the warpstone in his chest felt like it was killing him. For some reason, the wound had not been fatal. This warpstone had begun to mutate the area of its entry soon after contact. This effect had indeed resurrected the dead beastman’s heart and forced it to beat, against the will of all natural biological order.
Still Tallagh lay there, slowly digging his way out. The only food was that of his own kin, the body he had tripped over. Had that mistake in battle actually saved his life he wondered? Were he standing, what then would have happened? Was the shock perhaps lessened by him exposing less of himself to it on impact? That the body of his dead kin shielded him from much of the blast? For it had surely hit the corpse first. Whatever the reason was, he told himself that he was alive and his foe was dead. It was an intervention of the chaos Gods, he was sure. It was a sign that he had been chosen to fulfil some great deed.
The other beastmen who had been similarly struck with pieces of the foul tainted green stone had also mutated somewhat, but none of these survived. Only Tallagh would prove strong enough in body and will to dig his way out and be all the stronger for it.
4 weeks later…
Tallagh’s polearm smashed against Tordrad once more. With no armour to protect him, he was prone. Already the Kislev born warrior was bleeding in three places as Tobias and Dieter finally managed to attack. Ulger sunk his teeth into the war gor but the creature brought his other hoof up and kicked the doberman away, fracturing its face from the impact. It whined and pulled itself back up to a standing position as its master, Dieter threw a bottle of alcohol at the beastman. It impacted with a klish, harmlessly against his armour. Every attack from Dieter’s previously concealed scalpel was dodged.
Tobias let swing another stone from his sling. This time, it had hit the beastman. Again, he shook off this attack as if it were nothing and kicked Todrad hard to the chest, sending him sprawling across the deck. He cursed in his native tongue.
Rissandrea proclaimed, “I have never seen anyone do that to Tordrad! I fear this bodes ill for us all.”
Together, Ulger and Tordrad charged as Rissandrea fired redemption, the gun she carried. They had not bothered to search the Shallyan nor enquire for weapons and hence she hadn’t realised that weapons were not allowed – for it was unlike the order to carry weapons. The gun’s shot blazed out towards Tallagh, again with a tail on it like a white comet. The war gor had seen it coming though and side stepped, ducking his head under and around the bullet as the trail whizzed past him harmlessly! The soon to be priestess stared in fascinated horror. How could anyone dodge a bullet?
Ulger and Tordrad leapt at the same time, a jumping attack to bring the full momentum of their weight and gravity down upon the war gor. Tallagh did not balk at this. He placed his weapon’s handle in a horizontal position and thrust up outwards at them both. Not only was the war gor strong enough to hold the two of them in their jump, (Ulger at the neck) but his counterforce actually repelled them both backwards onto their backs, each landing with a terrific crash on the decking. Tordrad’s head had hit the board too hard and he began to lose consciousness.
Ulger was struggling to get back up. Dieter commanded the dog to stay put, telling him he was a good boy. Rissandrea rushed to Tordrad’s aid at once, pulling his eyelids open to check his pupils and whispering prayers of healing.
As another stone struck the war gor, he had decided that that was enough. He brought the handle of his weapon up and round into Dieter’s face, his movement a blur. The impact spun Dieter around to face the other way and dropped to one knee. Were any of these a threat to Tallagh, he would have made the executioner’s kill there and then. But they were not. Plus the one who had flung stones at him was on his mind foremost.
Before Tobias could load another shot, the war gor was upon him, with blinding speed. No-one they had seen had ever moved as fast as this, except perhaps on horseback. He picked the halfling up by the throat, lifting him off the ground so as to be level to level with his face.
Tobias desperately swung his hanging legs, but they were too weak to do any harm from kicking. His prised his hands around the grip of Tallagh, but this he knew, was also a futile gesture. Soon his face was beginning to turn red, as death from asphyxiation was only moments away – but just at that very same moment, the beastman, himself imbued with warpstone, recognized a trace of it in the halfling too. He was just like him. How? The confusion of this made him let Tobias go, who fell to the floor like deadweight. He was barely alive and certainly no longer conscious.
Dieter quickly ran up behind the war gor, jumped onto his back and called upon the small reserves of secretly kept illegal magic within him. A small amount of fire appeared in his hand as he brought it against the alcohol that stained the armour. It went up like a match!
Tallagh reached around and pulled the trainee doctor down and over him, as the fire blazed on the war gor’s body, burning him severely across the torso. He then held Dieter tight in a bear hug like manoeuvre until Dieter cried out in pain, as flames licked at him.
Dieter would not survive this long and this made him angry. So angry that the other, the presence almost took ahold of him again.
Dieter’s shadow shifted jaggedly, dancing up Tallagh’s body, cast unevenly against the burning flames. These same flames seemed to bother the war gor in no way, even though his skin was cooking through the armour he wore.
The shadowy hand curled up to Tallagh’s throat and there it snapped in movement, its fingers closing around the beastman’s windpipe to strangle him. This did throw the creature off of its attack. It began to struggle with the shadowy presence that strangled him, as he let go of Dieter.
Dieter’s skin was burnt up the left side, from waist up as far as his neck. He resolved that higher collars would be in good order. A strangely calm thought to have had, seeing as the pain he was in and the injury sustained should have been the things on his mind.
The warpstone shard inside the beastman’s heart had cauterized the wound when it struck – however it did something else as well. It mutated the cells of the organ itself, super enhancing it so that his heart would beat at an extraordinary rate. The heart inside the foul creature’s chest began to speed up, as abnormal amounts of adrenaline surged into his system. His gift was at last kicking up into a new gear – this time to compensate for the oddly paranormal attack the small curly haired human had brought upon him.
Everything around Tallagh moved slower than it ought to. He recognized this effect as beneficial. It wasn’t that the world was moving slower. He was moving faster! His eyes were perceiving input at an accelerated rate.
The presence that strangled him, cut off his windpipe. With an almost supernatural blurring shift of movement, Tallagh Grorrv moved out of the shadowy grip and roared at it with commanding presence. The blast of this sent it backwards flying into Dieter at once. This knocked the would be doctor onto his back and sent him sliding across the ship. The shock of the other’s presence so forcibly taken into him, brought Dieter low, making him convulse on the ground. Rissandrea looked about her, seeing that there was nothing she could do against the monster – with her team mates down. She could only try to save them in any way she could, but she feared that the dreaded beast man would not let her.
There was a terrific crashing sound as doors flung upon further back on the barge. Then very heavy quickened footsteps could be heard approaching.
A woman’s voice called out, “Beast! You shall face the wrath of Sigmar.”
Angelique Rosemead appeared at the front of the deck, bearing a great two handed hammer and pointed it towards Tallagh in challenge. She looked around at the casualties already suffered and saw again the beastman’s speed as he threw a charging marine over his shoulder and into the water, with but one hand.
“It ends here!” cried the plump woman as she ran towards the war gor with the hammer she had broken free from the weapons locker. The great weapon glowed with a bright intensity. A holy radiance could be felt from it and this made the beast man roar, as if in mental pain at its proximity. His skin began to darken in reaction to the presence, as if he was mutating once again. His fur was also changing, turning a bluer shade of colour.
The war gor waited, his long pole arm in a counter attack stance as Angelique neared him.
Just as Tallagh was ready to avoid the blow, the sister of Sigmar cut short her downward swing, bringing the massive hammer down against the deck between them as she cried out a prayer of strength to her God. She concentrated with all of her strength as a powerful zeal enlightened her muscles to a supernatural level.
When the hammer struck the wooden deck, it cracked from impact as planned – a huge gaping hole that shattered downwards to the water below as the holy infused energy connected to the weapon gave it a further mass charge of shock wave, finally released.
They were very near the end of the barge and the beastman had nowhere to go as the impact created fast splits across the whole deck and down the entire vessel.
Without warning, the entire end of the barge gave way and fell into the water with a large splash that sent water up over their heads, covering the entire barge.
Tallagh could not be seen amidst the wreckage in the water but Angelique was taking no chances. She looked back towards the captain’s bridge cabin at the other end and saw him looking back up the barge in concern. She took a deep breath and shouted a command at the top of her powerful lungs, “Captain, get away! Full speed ahead!”
The captain did not have to be told twice and within moments, the vessel was pulling away at its top speed.
Rissandrea continued to heal those who had fallen in battle as they pulled away from the place of the wreckage and all was still…
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Friday, 25 February 2011
Their Fated Travels...Chapter 24 - To Nuln By Barge Part One
You can read the chapter at fanfiction.net here -
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5775192/24/Their_Fated_Travels
or below via blogspot's manner of ordering after a copy and paste -
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Via warseer forum’s stories section of the site
Or through the following warhammer fantasy forums in their offtopic sections:
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The Herdstone
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Thanks for the support. Poll entry results amassed together will be listed here at the end of this story series. ))
Their Fated Travels…
RPG Party events as told By Robert James Freemantle
Chapter 24
To Nuln By Barge – Part One
On their way back to Altdorf, the group had several questions to ask.
From the diary of Maestro:
Day 88:
I’m wondering now why we didn’t see a peep of that Anastasia girl during the skaven battle…I wonder where she was? Not that the authorities that be will even admit that there was a skaven battle, regardless of how much we tell them. The officials of the Empire have decided to keep the underfolk as mere myth and mystery. Something to scare the children into behaving themselves. From what I could understand of the officials I have conversed with and the study I have made, the greatest threat to mankind is the race of skaven. Though they are apparently too taken up with in-fighting and backbiting politics to properly unify enough to set upon mankind in a jointed effort. Were they to do so, it is considered highly likely that they would overcome us. If we knew for a fact that the underfolk truly did exist then we would fear them. Fear them for the bogey-men they are! We would attack and drive into their rat holds in great numbers. We would bring the fighting to them, for the first time in history and they would react by doing something that hasn’t be done in history – unify out of self preservation. That would be very bad for us…
Oh well, we’ll have to just let them carry on believing the myth and the lies. We’ll say it was merely beastmen that attacked us. It saves time and paperwork that way!
From the diary of Tobias:
Day 88:
Maestro was quite disturbed. He’s quite disturbed generally, but on this occasion it was Anastasia. Somehow she and our driver Samuel had gone missing. He brought this concern to me and I was able to explain what was going on. I am experienced enough at seeing other casters to understand what magic is in play here. Anastasia uses the ice magic lore that can be found in the Kislev people. Their raw magical power is channelled not from the eight winds like Empire wizards, but from the ley lines that permeate the lands. I observed that though she doesn’t understand how to weave magical words or willingly cast a spell, the girl can cast spells with her auto-reflexes. Just by wanting to protect herself from the skaven attack, she unknowingly weaved a shield of ice around both herself and Samuel. What made this all the more complex of course was the further genius behind it! The bending of the ice refracted light in such a way as to create a mirror of nothingness there to the air about it. For all purposes, the girl disappeared before us. I was the only one to have witnessed it.
It’s lucky for the group that they have me along with them. A scholar of such masterful understanding. The buffoon Maestro wouldn’t be where he was today without me.
Extract from the diary of Tordrad:
Day 88:
I have no idea what happened in the big fight. One moment I am fighting with three black cowled rat men – the next I am being pulled backwards by some force, through a hazy place that made no sense. It makes my stomach want to heave again just from remembering it.
From the diary of Tobias:
Day 88:
Ah and of course there is then the matter of Dieter! Oh dear. I saw it…I saw something that again no one else saw. I wonder why I am the only perceptive one amongst this group? Something changed in the man. Something was wrong with him. We need to be careful, to keep an eye on him. I am starting to think that he is not being honest with us about his past. If no one else will, I at least will try to observe him.
Extract from the diary of Rissandrea:
Day 94:
We arrived back in Altdorf safe enough.
It turns out that we have a second reason for going to Nuln now anyway. We have received new intelligence suggesting that the location of the final shard will be Nuln. I don’t have to feel so guilty about pressing the party in that direction now.
From the diary of Tobias:
Day 96:
We have used our contact in the Amethyst College, the lady wizard Gabrielle to aid us in the next leg of the journey. She has granted us access to a barge she was travelling on – ‘The Emperor Wilheim’. As long as we go to the Countess of Nuln’s masquerade ball as her entourage once we get there. Maestro wasn’t very keen at the thought of potentially meeting Countess Emmanuelle of Nuln herself. He has heard of her rather…hot blooded reputation for males that visit within her hospitality.
Extract from the diary of Tordrad:
Day 98:
Oh wonderful. We travel by barge once more. They serve us lobster. It just had to be lobster didn’t it? I wonder how long this time before wizard make himself sick? The bloated nincompoop, like all men of this Empire.
Extract from the diary of Maestro:
Day 100:
Of all the places I had to meet that woman, it just had to be while I was trapped on a barge unable to escape. I have to admit though, I was and am rather tempted to jump overboard and risk my chances swimming the rest of the way…
Maestro was stood upon the deck, taking one of his quick lung-fulls of air before he’d disappear back down below, like always. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something had felt wrong about being up on deck. Something that his future warning senses had nudged in on. He looked around warily and still couldn’t figure out what it could be.
Meanwhile, on an upper part of the barge, high atop on the roof of the driver’s cabin, sat a rounded large figure of a woman, knelt on her knees in keen observation of a certain ragged and worried looking wizard below her. Her overzealous eye looked massive in the unrealistic lens of the telescope she looked through – however, when she opened her other eye, it too was just as large! Now she watched the man, as if he were her prey and she a huntress in the wild.
Maestro had adjusted his monocular, the implement he wore upon one of his spectacle lenses. He had felt something awry, as if he was being watched. Again he adjusted the monocular in the direction his mystical senses drew him to and he saw nothing – nothing but a blur of brown. He then realised that he was zoomed too far in – on some wooden decking. With a quick sharp little twist the viewfinder snapped back to reveal the entire lens filled up with a face! An image of a burly round faced woman who was looking back at him! She had a sadistic looking lustful smile on her face. Her smile was wide and revealed her mix of real and wooden teeth. The large wart under her eye had blue veins going through it, the same colour of blue as her own eyes, almost giving the impression that she was growing a third eye too. This was of course just Maestro’s way of seeing things and in no way an indicator of mutation – especially given the fact that the woman who glared longingly at him, who jumped and clinged onto a rope then swung down towards him crying out in a shrill cry of adventurous glee was a Sister of Sigmar – a Sigmarite Nun! Worse still he knew her. This woman, he knew from Altdorf. This woman was besotted with him. He had lost count of how many times she had tried to win him over…an admirer wasn’t such a bad thing as he saw it, even though he wasn’t interested – it was just how forceful she was about it.
Sister Angelique Rosemead had landed on the deck as a creaking strain poured out of the floorboards below her. She started speaking, “Oh my Maesty-ro, I have not stopped thinking about you. I waited with baited breath for when I would next see you my wuffy puffy.”
It was all the wizard could do to not let a panic attack come on. He steadied himself against some rigging and concentrated on the sensation of the rope and the way it hurt his hand the harder he clenched it.
Maestro looked around him with a shudder and said, “I’m just glad the others didn’t hear that.”
“Yes you are right” answered the overly enthusiastic brawny nun, “we should be alone together, to catch up on the past…and the future…”
Maestro spluttered and almost choked on just spittle alone before replying, “Oh no, I’m fine being up here thankyou sister.”
“Oh come now” came the nun’s reply, “you don’t have to be so formal with me! Call me Angelique. I like it when you say my name.”
Maestro replied, “Oh well in that case then, I would hate to disrespect your order and faith to Sigmar, sister.”
Angelique frowned at this. Then her jovial smile returned to her plump features as she enquired, “So what brings you aboard the Wilheim my sweet?”
Maestro sighed and answered, “We’re being roped into more service for others. All in the name of progressing, of getting better. You’d think I would have a control over where I’m going but fate or whatever it is just keeps pushing me in a particular direction.”
Angelique took Maestro’s hand in hers and seemed oblivious to the fact that it made the wizard squirm as she replied, “You cannot fight destiny, Maestro. What is meant to be…is meant to be…”
Maestro tried freeing his hand but it was no good – her grip was too tight. He simply considered that he was lucky to at least be a celestial wizard, in the most prime of positions to question and change fate if anyone ever was! It hadn’t saved him from this though, he considered…
Quickly changing the subject, Maestro asked Angelique, “And sister, what brings you toward Nuln?”
“Sigmar guides us in his own way my fluffy bunny. I am to attend Lady Emmanuelle’s fancy dress ball on a secret mission to uproot a possible chaos cultist amongst her bodyguard detail. So you can see, it was Sigmar who guided me to you.”
Maestro almost stupidly made the mistake of saying that he too would be in attendance at the ball and then stopped himself, realising what a mistake that would have been. It would have also further given Angelique ammunition towards her crazy theories of divine match-making between them. Suddenly a panicked feeling arose in him, that she would see him at the ball anyway. Then he realised that they would be wearing masks. All would be well then, he considered.
“Maestro’s hand was starting to throb now, in the grip of the nun. He asked, “Erm, could I have my hand back please?” and gave it a futile tug, before adding, “It’s starting to hurt, you see.”
“Oh poor little man.” Came the woman’s reply, “of course. Let me kiss it better for you.” And she began to do just that, even though the wizard strained in her profoundly powerful grip.
Maestro was scared of this woman, he hated to admit it, but it was the truth. Come to that, he was scared of most women. Angelique then oddly made a point of this in her next question, “My darling. Why do you play so hard to get? Why can we not just be together like we are supposed to? Why keep up this lie? This façade?”
Maestro winced at her forwardness. He had gotten used to living a life free of this woman and he didn’t much like the reminder of being back in it. He realised that if he told the woman that she wasn’t attractive to him, it might anger her in some way. He wouldn’t be able to defend himself either, because no spells or weapons were allowed to be used on the barge…Even with her bare hands, Maestro fancied the woman could kill him in seconds. He devised a new strategy – one that was not a lie – and with it he replied, “Look, I’ve told you before about my dooming? The warning curse. I had my stones read by an expert in this and I carry with me a dooming. Women. Women shall be my downfall it said. The further I am from women, the better it is for me, you see? If you believe so much in fate, and in my well-being, you will understand surely that this is for my best interests.”
The nun considered this for a few moments, a serious look across her features. To Maestro’s sorrow her confident smile suddenly returned again and she replied, “And it may be true, with any other woman. You were right to steer away from those other harlots and strumpets, my love. I think you are right. You are cursed by women. But let me ask you a question my wizzly wizardy woo-woo…”
The nun was oblivious to Maestro’s eye spasm as it twitched violently in protest to her wording. She simply continued, “The first place we met was when I was on a mission to your College? Do you remember that day?” Maestro solemnly nodded his head as she continued, “then we met after that, at the church of Sigmar, going to and fro and sometimes on official business? For blessed Sigmar’s church is only across the road from your College. Each and every time we meet, including now I am on official business for the church or am in the vicinity of the church building itself. Therefore, our meeting is guided by Sigmar – and in that regard it must be safe. Therefore, were you to fight against it Maestro, do you know what that would be?”
Maestro gulped and blinked his eyes once before quickly shaking his head, fearfully at what the crazed woman was about to say.
Angelique continued, “It would be blasphemy against HIM. You do not wish to blaspheme against Sigmar do you?”
Maestro could see nothing he could say that would get him out of this pickle. His heart beat anxiously in his chest. His head throbbed terribly with stress and then suddenly, he fainted. He would not wake for a very long time indeed. Dreams of doom and women, women and doom and blue veined warts garlanded his nightmarish slumber. He felt trapped within it, as if he might be sleeping for a thousand years. With Angelique waiting for him outside of that reality, he preferred it that way…
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5775192/24/Their_Fated_Travels
or below via blogspot's manner of ordering after a copy and paste -
((Don’t forget to vote in your favourite character poll for this series. You can vote at fanfiction’s website via this URL - http://forum.fanfiction.net/topic/86768/37888424/1/
Via warseer forum’s stories section of the site
Or through the following warhammer fantasy forums in their offtopic sections:
Da Warpath
The Herdstone
Bugman’s Brewery
Chamber of the Everchosen
The Daemonic Legion
Thanks for the support. Poll entry results amassed together will be listed here at the end of this story series. ))
Their Fated Travels…
RPG Party events as told By Robert James Freemantle
Chapter 24
To Nuln By Barge – Part One
On their way back to Altdorf, the group had several questions to ask.
From the diary of Maestro:
Day 88:
I’m wondering now why we didn’t see a peep of that Anastasia girl during the skaven battle…I wonder where she was? Not that the authorities that be will even admit that there was a skaven battle, regardless of how much we tell them. The officials of the Empire have decided to keep the underfolk as mere myth and mystery. Something to scare the children into behaving themselves. From what I could understand of the officials I have conversed with and the study I have made, the greatest threat to mankind is the race of skaven. Though they are apparently too taken up with in-fighting and backbiting politics to properly unify enough to set upon mankind in a jointed effort. Were they to do so, it is considered highly likely that they would overcome us. If we knew for a fact that the underfolk truly did exist then we would fear them. Fear them for the bogey-men they are! We would attack and drive into their rat holds in great numbers. We would bring the fighting to them, for the first time in history and they would react by doing something that hasn’t be done in history – unify out of self preservation. That would be very bad for us…
Oh well, we’ll have to just let them carry on believing the myth and the lies. We’ll say it was merely beastmen that attacked us. It saves time and paperwork that way!
From the diary of Tobias:
Day 88:
Maestro was quite disturbed. He’s quite disturbed generally, but on this occasion it was Anastasia. Somehow she and our driver Samuel had gone missing. He brought this concern to me and I was able to explain what was going on. I am experienced enough at seeing other casters to understand what magic is in play here. Anastasia uses the ice magic lore that can be found in the Kislev people. Their raw magical power is channelled not from the eight winds like Empire wizards, but from the ley lines that permeate the lands. I observed that though she doesn’t understand how to weave magical words or willingly cast a spell, the girl can cast spells with her auto-reflexes. Just by wanting to protect herself from the skaven attack, she unknowingly weaved a shield of ice around both herself and Samuel. What made this all the more complex of course was the further genius behind it! The bending of the ice refracted light in such a way as to create a mirror of nothingness there to the air about it. For all purposes, the girl disappeared before us. I was the only one to have witnessed it.
It’s lucky for the group that they have me along with them. A scholar of such masterful understanding. The buffoon Maestro wouldn’t be where he was today without me.
Extract from the diary of Tordrad:
Day 88:
I have no idea what happened in the big fight. One moment I am fighting with three black cowled rat men – the next I am being pulled backwards by some force, through a hazy place that made no sense. It makes my stomach want to heave again just from remembering it.
From the diary of Tobias:
Day 88:
Ah and of course there is then the matter of Dieter! Oh dear. I saw it…I saw something that again no one else saw. I wonder why I am the only perceptive one amongst this group? Something changed in the man. Something was wrong with him. We need to be careful, to keep an eye on him. I am starting to think that he is not being honest with us about his past. If no one else will, I at least will try to observe him.
Extract from the diary of Rissandrea:
Day 94:
We arrived back in Altdorf safe enough.
It turns out that we have a second reason for going to Nuln now anyway. We have received new intelligence suggesting that the location of the final shard will be Nuln. I don’t have to feel so guilty about pressing the party in that direction now.
From the diary of Tobias:
Day 96:
We have used our contact in the Amethyst College, the lady wizard Gabrielle to aid us in the next leg of the journey. She has granted us access to a barge she was travelling on – ‘The Emperor Wilheim’. As long as we go to the Countess of Nuln’s masquerade ball as her entourage once we get there. Maestro wasn’t very keen at the thought of potentially meeting Countess Emmanuelle of Nuln herself. He has heard of her rather…hot blooded reputation for males that visit within her hospitality.
Extract from the diary of Tordrad:
Day 98:
Oh wonderful. We travel by barge once more. They serve us lobster. It just had to be lobster didn’t it? I wonder how long this time before wizard make himself sick? The bloated nincompoop, like all men of this Empire.
Extract from the diary of Maestro:
Day 100:
Of all the places I had to meet that woman, it just had to be while I was trapped on a barge unable to escape. I have to admit though, I was and am rather tempted to jump overboard and risk my chances swimming the rest of the way…
Maestro was stood upon the deck, taking one of his quick lung-fulls of air before he’d disappear back down below, like always. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something had felt wrong about being up on deck. Something that his future warning senses had nudged in on. He looked around warily and still couldn’t figure out what it could be.
Meanwhile, on an upper part of the barge, high atop on the roof of the driver’s cabin, sat a rounded large figure of a woman, knelt on her knees in keen observation of a certain ragged and worried looking wizard below her. Her overzealous eye looked massive in the unrealistic lens of the telescope she looked through – however, when she opened her other eye, it too was just as large! Now she watched the man, as if he were her prey and she a huntress in the wild.
Maestro had adjusted his monocular, the implement he wore upon one of his spectacle lenses. He had felt something awry, as if he was being watched. Again he adjusted the monocular in the direction his mystical senses drew him to and he saw nothing – nothing but a blur of brown. He then realised that he was zoomed too far in – on some wooden decking. With a quick sharp little twist the viewfinder snapped back to reveal the entire lens filled up with a face! An image of a burly round faced woman who was looking back at him! She had a sadistic looking lustful smile on her face. Her smile was wide and revealed her mix of real and wooden teeth. The large wart under her eye had blue veins going through it, the same colour of blue as her own eyes, almost giving the impression that she was growing a third eye too. This was of course just Maestro’s way of seeing things and in no way an indicator of mutation – especially given the fact that the woman who glared longingly at him, who jumped and clinged onto a rope then swung down towards him crying out in a shrill cry of adventurous glee was a Sister of Sigmar – a Sigmarite Nun! Worse still he knew her. This woman, he knew from Altdorf. This woman was besotted with him. He had lost count of how many times she had tried to win him over…an admirer wasn’t such a bad thing as he saw it, even though he wasn’t interested – it was just how forceful she was about it.
Sister Angelique Rosemead had landed on the deck as a creaking strain poured out of the floorboards below her. She started speaking, “Oh my Maesty-ro, I have not stopped thinking about you. I waited with baited breath for when I would next see you my wuffy puffy.”
It was all the wizard could do to not let a panic attack come on. He steadied himself against some rigging and concentrated on the sensation of the rope and the way it hurt his hand the harder he clenched it.
Maestro looked around him with a shudder and said, “I’m just glad the others didn’t hear that.”
“Yes you are right” answered the overly enthusiastic brawny nun, “we should be alone together, to catch up on the past…and the future…”
Maestro spluttered and almost choked on just spittle alone before replying, “Oh no, I’m fine being up here thankyou sister.”
“Oh come now” came the nun’s reply, “you don’t have to be so formal with me! Call me Angelique. I like it when you say my name.”
Maestro replied, “Oh well in that case then, I would hate to disrespect your order and faith to Sigmar, sister.”
Angelique frowned at this. Then her jovial smile returned to her plump features as she enquired, “So what brings you aboard the Wilheim my sweet?”
Maestro sighed and answered, “We’re being roped into more service for others. All in the name of progressing, of getting better. You’d think I would have a control over where I’m going but fate or whatever it is just keeps pushing me in a particular direction.”
Angelique took Maestro’s hand in hers and seemed oblivious to the fact that it made the wizard squirm as she replied, “You cannot fight destiny, Maestro. What is meant to be…is meant to be…”
Maestro tried freeing his hand but it was no good – her grip was too tight. He simply considered that he was lucky to at least be a celestial wizard, in the most prime of positions to question and change fate if anyone ever was! It hadn’t saved him from this though, he considered…
Quickly changing the subject, Maestro asked Angelique, “And sister, what brings you toward Nuln?”
“Sigmar guides us in his own way my fluffy bunny. I am to attend Lady Emmanuelle’s fancy dress ball on a secret mission to uproot a possible chaos cultist amongst her bodyguard detail. So you can see, it was Sigmar who guided me to you.”
Maestro almost stupidly made the mistake of saying that he too would be in attendance at the ball and then stopped himself, realising what a mistake that would have been. It would have also further given Angelique ammunition towards her crazy theories of divine match-making between them. Suddenly a panicked feeling arose in him, that she would see him at the ball anyway. Then he realised that they would be wearing masks. All would be well then, he considered.
“Maestro’s hand was starting to throb now, in the grip of the nun. He asked, “Erm, could I have my hand back please?” and gave it a futile tug, before adding, “It’s starting to hurt, you see.”
“Oh poor little man.” Came the woman’s reply, “of course. Let me kiss it better for you.” And she began to do just that, even though the wizard strained in her profoundly powerful grip.
Maestro was scared of this woman, he hated to admit it, but it was the truth. Come to that, he was scared of most women. Angelique then oddly made a point of this in her next question, “My darling. Why do you play so hard to get? Why can we not just be together like we are supposed to? Why keep up this lie? This façade?”
Maestro winced at her forwardness. He had gotten used to living a life free of this woman and he didn’t much like the reminder of being back in it. He realised that if he told the woman that she wasn’t attractive to him, it might anger her in some way. He wouldn’t be able to defend himself either, because no spells or weapons were allowed to be used on the barge…Even with her bare hands, Maestro fancied the woman could kill him in seconds. He devised a new strategy – one that was not a lie – and with it he replied, “Look, I’ve told you before about my dooming? The warning curse. I had my stones read by an expert in this and I carry with me a dooming. Women. Women shall be my downfall it said. The further I am from women, the better it is for me, you see? If you believe so much in fate, and in my well-being, you will understand surely that this is for my best interests.”
The nun considered this for a few moments, a serious look across her features. To Maestro’s sorrow her confident smile suddenly returned again and she replied, “And it may be true, with any other woman. You were right to steer away from those other harlots and strumpets, my love. I think you are right. You are cursed by women. But let me ask you a question my wizzly wizardy woo-woo…”
The nun was oblivious to Maestro’s eye spasm as it twitched violently in protest to her wording. She simply continued, “The first place we met was when I was on a mission to your College? Do you remember that day?” Maestro solemnly nodded his head as she continued, “then we met after that, at the church of Sigmar, going to and fro and sometimes on official business? For blessed Sigmar’s church is only across the road from your College. Each and every time we meet, including now I am on official business for the church or am in the vicinity of the church building itself. Therefore, our meeting is guided by Sigmar – and in that regard it must be safe. Therefore, were you to fight against it Maestro, do you know what that would be?”
Maestro gulped and blinked his eyes once before quickly shaking his head, fearfully at what the crazed woman was about to say.
Angelique continued, “It would be blasphemy against HIM. You do not wish to blaspheme against Sigmar do you?”
Maestro could see nothing he could say that would get him out of this pickle. His heart beat anxiously in his chest. His head throbbed terribly with stress and then suddenly, he fainted. He would not wake for a very long time indeed. Dreams of doom and women, women and doom and blue veined warts garlanded his nightmarish slumber. He felt trapped within it, as if he might be sleeping for a thousand years. With Angelique waiting for him outside of that reality, he preferred it that way…
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
News On Book 4 - Nuln
With book 3 'Return To Altdorf' completed now (in both written and spoken word foms) my mind turns towards book 4, which will be chapter 24 of Their Fated Travels...
Oh and what travels they have been. When I think back to the gaming sessions that created these happenings, a fond feeling swells within me. These characters together like this are like old friends, let alone the players who play them!
Look out for book 4 'Nuln' - coming soon!
Oh and I should just mention, it would seem that YouTube has granted me the power to upload videos longer in length than 15 minutes. I think this may mean that I could contain whole chapters in single videos now...if this is the case, I shall attempt to do that. Bear in mind though that the YouTube upload space limit remains as 2GB per video - so regardless of how long it is, there's going to be a cap...
Oh and what travels they have been. When I think back to the gaming sessions that created these happenings, a fond feeling swells within me. These characters together like this are like old friends, let alone the players who play them!
Look out for book 4 'Nuln' - coming soon!
Oh and I should just mention, it would seem that YouTube has granted me the power to upload videos longer in length than 15 minutes. I think this may mean that I could contain whole chapters in single videos now...if this is the case, I shall attempt to do that. Bear in mind though that the YouTube upload space limit remains as 2GB per video - so regardless of how long it is, there's going to be a cap...
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