Legacies, 26,462 words

Prologue

 

Count Renliss, Exiled Vampire Lord

    In a cave in Lustria, the incomprehensible warping effects of Tzeentch laced with the allure of Slaanesh had created an unsolvable riddle capable of enticing any advanced intellect to endlessly try to solve it. Now the jailers were the jailed, trapped in a prison of their own making.     The Lord of Change, Thazerick, was already completely incapacitated. His former ally, Darfiel the Keeper of Secrets, was likewise trapped but still had his mental faculties—for the moment. Darfiel knew breaking out was futile, but the outside of the jail would be less impregnable. He marshaled the last of his fading strength then stretched out a siren call as far reach as he could praying to Slaanesh that it would echo across the whole globe.     He called his legacy. Not legacy in the sense humans use, merely a genetic line. Darfiel called out to a legacy of action and knowledge. Long ago, Darfiel empowered mortals in the past who took on their own apprentices who became masters who took on apprentices throughout the centuries. He didn’t even know who he was calling or if any were alive. He just knew he had no other chance.     To the former priestess, Kayishen, the call was deafening. Over a thousand years ago, Darfiel taught her secrets personally under the guise of an alternate face of Slaanesh named Phidas. Kayishen had a direct link to Darfiel and was not very far geographically removed.     Kayishen was now a shadow of her former self, almost literally. A spectral banshee, she was subservient to the Lustrian vampire lord known as Count Renliss. She couldn’t resist the pull of her original master and managed to talk Renliss into coming to look at the prison.     “I see this area is steeped with potent magic, including concealment magic but at this close range, the magic aura is too strong for the concealment to block” “It contains power unimaginable! The Slann have imprisoned a mighty servant of the True Old Ones beyond the wards. We must break through to them."   “No.”   “NO!?!?!”   “I had interrogated a scouting party from Klodorex not long ago. This must be where the Battle of Kaitar’s Stand took place. The Slann imprisoned two Daemon lords here. Any ward built by four Slann is something I don’t want to test myself against.”   “Surely you are not that afraid of the Slann when they aren’t even present. Their bound spells are not strong enough to threaten one of your skill.”   “Maybe, maybe not, but I don’t feel like alerting the Slann to our presence here, we are not yet ready.”   “We will be ready with the Daemons on our side! Potent allies my lord. They will reward you for releasing them, power beyond imagining—”   “No, The Daemons of Chaos do not share power and have no gratitude.”   “They reward those who provide them service.”   “Yes, I’m sure the benefits you gained in your six months of being queen more than made up for your centuries of torment that followed.”   “But surely they hate the reptiles more than anyone—mutual foes!”   “No. The only thing more dangerous than being a Daemon’s foe is to be a Daemon’s ally. The Daemons will not recognize common cause with us. They never do.”   “Why are you turning down this opportunity?!?”   “I’ve learned the hard way not to ignore legends. I know hundreds of stories of individuals working with the forces of Chaos. Do you know how many came better for it?”     There was a pregnant pause. As angry as she was Kayishen was not going to take the bait and answer the rhetorical question.     “None of them.”     Kayishen attempted a different tack, flattery.     “But Lord, surely none of the others were as mighty or cunning as you yourself are…”   “That’s what the others said. I am cunning enough to not repeat their mistakes.”     Kayishen stared at the warding with ill-disguised longing. Renliss knew she wouldn’t give up on this.     “I don’t care if the prison holds or not. If the Daemons get out that will cause problems for Klodorex. That is good, but I don’t want to be anywhere near them when they do. If the Daemons want out, they will need someone else to liberate them. Come, it’s time to leave”    

Part One

 

Adrienne of Hill’s Bend

    Tarell the farmer waited anxiously outside his home with his two daughters Hertha and Rachel. His wife was in the labor with their third child. This was a clearly a far longer trial for her to endure than her first two children’s birth or the miscarriage that occurred between them. Tarell prayed to Sigmar and every god he knew that his wife would make it through. More than that Tarell prayed by the end of the day he would finally have a son.     A son could inherit his lands and help him work in the fields more than a daughter could. The Village of Hill’s Bend was unfortunately equidistant from a large forest and the coastline. That meant raiders could come from the north via the sea or the south emerging from the untamed forests. A son could help defend the farm against raiders. A daughter was another liability he was responsible for protecting.     The cries of pain from his wife stopped and a baby’s cries were able to be heard. About fifteen minutes later the midwife came out of the hut and began vigorously blowing a whistle.     Damn it!     The local midwife traveled with a bell and a whistle to announce the birth of healthy babies. She rang the bell for boys and blew the whistle for girls.     For a shameful moment, Tarrell hoped his third daughter would not survive. He even contemplated arranging that himself. He couldn’t bring himself to kill his own flesh and blood though. Especially not after how heartbroken his wife was after her miscarriage before.     I guess I have three daughters and no sons. I really wish she’d stop blowing that whistle. Some births don’t deserve fanfare.    

Huan-kai of the Western Spawning Pool

    Lord Desserex the Slann sat in his throne seemingly oblivious to his surroundings (as Slann are wont to do). The Skink attendants had no idea whether he was asleep, meditating on the mysteries of the universe, taking his turn reinforcing the barriers against Chaos or astrally projecting his consciousness to telepathically debate with Slann from distant locations. The few ranking Skinks in the know knew that Desserex and the other Slann of the city were in conflict (if vigorous debate would qualify as conflict) with Lord Mazdamundi of Hexoatl and Lord Chuqxlata(Chook-slot-ta) of Itza. Klodorex and the elder cities were disagreeing with how to deal with the prodigal races. Most of the Slann were neutral by default (either they were half-comatose or otherwise indifferent to the younger races). Of the Slann who joined the Debate, the Slann of the four largest cities mostly sided with the two Second Generation Slann. The majority of the Slann of Lustria’s lesser temple cities sided with Klodorex as well as the entirety of Southlands Slann who were involved. Klodorex had the first mover advantage there since they were the city that reopened the channels of communication with the Southlands.     Lord Desserex was naturally very busy carrying out his grand plans and trying to win more Slann over to his way of thinking, so the attendants were always waiting to carry out any orders needed. When Desserex jerked out of his trance one morning and ordered “attend the western spawning pools.” The Skinks nearly tripped over themselves in their haste to obey.     A rare few spawnings were predicted outright on golden plaques. Many were divined based on plaques and the readings of Skink Priest astrologers. Others were complete surprises. Sometimes Slann or Skink Priests got a premonition providing a brief warning. Generally if the Slann got the premonition it was considered even more auspicious. A large delegation of Skinks assembled by the pool in the faint dawn light under the direction of the Skink priest, Xapatli (Za-pah-TLEE).     The delegation waited. The sun rose fully. Then they waited some more. The sun rose to its zenith and began to set. Still the pool did not stir with a spawning. It’s still mirror-like surface showed nothing more than the purple reflection of the dusk sky.     Xapatli began to wonder if he should dismiss some of the delegation or at least send some of them to get provisions. Even an active Slann such as Desserex had a different frame of reference for the passage of time than Skinks and other mortals possessed. What a Slann considers to be an immediate issue could still take days or weeks to manifest. Finally, a Skink’s voice broke the silence.     “Look! In the center of the pool.”     The pool rippled and a single smallish form rose and headed towards the water’s edge. No more shapes emerged and the water grew still again.     Spawnings of single individuals are rare. Saurus leaders nearly always emerge from whoever can survive centuries of battle and tend to gain their position by attrition and experience rather than gain their status from predestined births. It is rarely obvious at their spawnings which ones will go on to become a Scar Veteran or Oldbloods. Most Skink Chiefs and Priests emerge with a spawning of lesser Skinks, usually the first or the last to rise were considered signs of the Old Ones favor. A single Skink being spawned was pretty much always considered a sign of great favor.     Most of the attendant party applauded and cheered. The Skink priests and their scribes simply stood in silent awe and confusion. This was clearly a Chameleon Skink. A spawning of one Chameleon Skink was unheard of. Even the legendary Oxyotl had spawning brothers. He was legendary for his deeds, not his spawning. He emerged from the Chaos Wastes alive and heralding the end of a long hiatus of Chameleon Skink spawnings, but the circumstances of his own spawning were unremarkable to the point of being forgotten.     The ranking Skinks rushed to the newly spawned Skink to look for markings of the Old Ones. There were obviously no colorations to look for since the newly spawned Chameleon Skink had emerged as the purple color of the reflective dusk waters and was rapidly changing to a darker color in response to the setting sun and the fact that he was now on land. The Skinks present checked his scales for unusual patterns or shapes, trying to feel for the marks of the Old Ones that they could not see with their eyes.     Other Skinks were on hand to see if he uttered any sounds. The Saurian language is half instinctual and half learned. It’s not-unheard for newly spawned Skinks (or rarely Sauri) to say something not long after emerging. These utterances were taken very seriously and recorded for posterity. Often taken as an omen for the spawning’s future. The scribes present dutifully recorded the new Chameleon Skink’s first words.     “Sssstop touching me!”    

Part Two

 

Adrienne of Hill’s Bend

    Adrienne was nearly six years old. She had no idea Father considered letting her die of exposure years ago. She did not know that Father blamed her for the physical toll the childbirth took on Mother. She did know that her father liked her older sisters better than her.     Hertha, the middle child, was clearly Father’s favorite. She had the spirit of a tomboy but was willing to do “women’s work” as well. Hertha was eager to please, strong and hard working. She was strong and dexterous. She was equally good as at helping Father till the fields or helping Mother with the sewing and cleaning.     Her eldest sister Rachel did not possess Hertha’s work ethic, but Father liked her in his own way. Rachel was very congenial and popular. She got along well with the other girls in the village, but she got along even better with the boys. Rachel was considered the prettiest girl in the village of Hill’s Bend. Father was in no hurry to marry her off. He was stringing along three or four village boys. He had told them he would marry his daughter to whomever proved the hardest working and of course they had to work on Father’s farm for him to be absolutely sure. Indirectly Rachel got more done than Hertha since she attracted gullible free labor for Father.     Adrienne did not have Hertha’s natural athleticism or Rachel’s good lucks and charisma. She was shy and quiet. Already socially awkward, things became worse since age four when she found a dead vagrant in the woods while exploring. Without a true understanding of death yet, she played with the corpse for a few days before being discovered. Since then, she got saddled with the clever nickname “dead girl”. From that moment on, she went from being the girl the other kids didn’t like to talk and became a girl that attracted bullies, both boys and girls. Mother occasionally provided support when she could, but Father was no help at all. He’d get angry at Adrienne for provoking the other village children.     She learned how to fight dirty. Soon the local bullies discovered they had to double team her to beat her, even the older boys. Adrienne became more even more withdrawn and became very good at hiding. After her baby brother Aldalrik was born, Adrienne became almost truly invisible to her family. That suited her fine as being ignored was preferable to being scorned.     One morning she had climbed to the roof of the barn and settled in a hole in the thatch out of habit. She preferred to hide in places where she could view a wide area. Adrienne saw Father fixing some loose boards in the fence. In the distance she saw a figure in a cloak riding a black horse towards the family farm.     Normally this would have excited Adrienne. She liked horses a lot, and very few people in Hill’s Bend could afford one, so she rarely saw one. Unfortunately, this rider had an unmistakable aura of menace. Even from a distance this man was creepy and Adrienne felt a chill run down her spine despite it being in the middle of Summer. The scary stranger approached father, He revealed his face and bowed politely to Father in the odd fashion city dwellers do. His accent was strange, dignified and not like the Nordland farmers or fisherman.     “Greetings good sir. Is this the farm of Tarrell?”   “Yes” Father said full of suspicion.   “Are you the one called Tarrell?”   “Yes.”   “I have heard you have a newborn son. Another mouth to feed. Times are never easy here and I am told you view one of your children as a burden.”   Adrienne’s blood ran cold.   “What business is it of yours?”   “I work in the employ of wealthy couple in town. Sadly the lady of the house is barren. They were looking for a daughter to raise as their own.”   “Right, tell me another one…”     He pulled a large jingling pouch from his belt and opened it. It was full of many silver coins. More money than Adrienne ever saw in one place. Probably more than Father ever saw.     “Are you sure, sir? It’d be a good transaction for both your daughter and the rest of your family.”   “I heard rumors about you. They say you made this pitch before. They say you are a kidnapper and spy for the Dark Elves.”     The strange man laughed vigorously. The hairs on Adrienne’s neck stood up.     “Why sir, I’ve never even seen an elf!”   “Get out. My daughter may be a burden, but I don’t hate her enough to sell her into whatever hellish slavery you have mind.”     The stranger looked genuinely sad.     “Slavery? I would do no such thing. I merely wanted to offer the girl a new home.”     Adrienne didn’t like her life in Hill’s Bend much, but she was glad she was not going with the scary man.    

Huan-kai of the Western Spawning Pool

    Huan-kai spent the weeks after his birth being run through many tests. The scribes had him stand fully erect and measured his length from head to tail. He was a little taller than average for a Chameleon Skink, but he wasn’t as tall as the other Skinks expected or hoped. Skink Chiefs, usually stood a full head taller than their fellows. It was pointed out that a Chameleon Skink’s effectiveness has little to do with physical prowess, so the lack of a major height advantage was not a problem—probably.     Dusk spawnings were rare. Morning or noon spawnings were generally more favorably looked upon unless one or more individuals from the dusk or night spawning had the Blessing of Huanchi. Haun-kai stumbled in the dark temple of Huanchi for hours and bumped into many things before the Skink scribes and priests were finally convinced that he did not possess exceptional night vision, the typical sign of Huanchi’s favor.     He clearly didn’t have the Blessing of Itzl. If anything, beasts grew more agitated in his presence though he did have the reflexes to avoid sustaining any serious bites. He clearly did not have the Blessing of Tzunki. He could swim okay in still water but had trouble in a swift river. He could not hold his breath longer than normal Chameleon Skinks. They ruled out Quetzl (not tough enough), Sotek (not a natural with hand-to-hand fighting) and Chotec (he would not have been spawned at dusk). Eventually the ranking Skinks decided on two things. First, he bears the favor of the Lost One like Kaitar and Zat-kai before him. Second, his fate must lie with his caste cousins.     The city’s Chameleon Skinks spent most of their time in the jungles. They were ecstatic to learn that a chief had been born to their caste. They figured that Huan-kai would grow into his abilities very quickly and lead the other Chameleon Skinks by deed and example.     They were wrong.     “You are too ssslow Huan-kai! You should be shooting dartsss twice that fast.”   “When I shoot faster you tell me I should be twice as accurate…”   “You must do both.”   “You are making me want to shoot at you.”   I’d be more scared if Huan-kai shot at the Skink next to me     Huan-kai turned away from the Stalker he was talking to and rounded on the other Chameleon Skink who insulted him.     “Don’t talk to me like that! I doubt you were an expert shot when you were less than a decade old.”   “I didn’t ssssay anything!”   “I heard your remark about my sssshooting!”   “I didn’t sssay anything, Huan-kai!”     The Stalker stepped in.     “We all need to calm down. If you are hearing things, you should take ressst. We should all take a break from practice for now.”     By Chameleon Skink standards, Huan-kai was merely adequate with a blowpipe. His speed and accuracy were noticeably below that of the Chameleon Skink Stalkers and far below the abilities of a hero of legend. The only reason Huan-kai was even passable with a blowpipe is because the other Chameleon Skinks were slow to accept that Huan-kai was a poor shot. For weeks they made him practice all day until his skills became acceptable. Pretty much all of his waking hours were spent practicing shooting. They made him practice more until they gave up and accepted that he would remain a mediocre marksmen.     The same pattern repeated itself with all skills in the Chameleon Skink repertoire. Huan-kai did not pick up any skill quickly, but the other Chameleon Skinks made him practice extra hard until he at least as good as a typical Chameleon Skink. Whatever skill they tried to teach, he seemed to fall into the middle of the pack in all categories.     He was not a natural at tracking though he eventually had the basics drilled into him. He was in the middle of the pack for swiftness for running and climbing. He was a little faster than most with swimming. This was a necessity to avoid the various aquatic creatures that seemed to go out of their way to bite him.     The one thing Huank-kai couldn’t seem to do acceptably at all was gathering poisons. When the Chameleon Skinks went foraging for poisons (by carefully catching small poisonous animals), they eventually stopped bringing Huan-kai along. He sustained so many bites and stings that they used up more antidote on Huan-kai than all the other Chameleon Skinks combined (and there were over two dozen Chameleon Skinks in all). Creatures seemed to go out of their way to antagonize Huan-kai. Unless he was trying to catch them, in which case they would bolt from him quicker than would for any other Chameleon Skink.     Once he got the basic skills down, the other Chameleon Skinks decided they would keep drilling him. They figured he’d have the longer life expectancy enjoyed by regular Skink Chiefs, so he’d have time to grow into his skills.     (Note for human readers. A Skink that avoids a violent death can expect to live to be between seventy and ninety years. Skink Chiefs tend to live roughly double this. Skink Priests can generally live about the same as Chiefs but a rare few individuals live much longer such as Tetto’eko.)     By Chameleon Skink standards, Huan-kai learned the art of stealth fairly slowly. Constant practice eventually made hiding his best skill. He learned to hide from his caste cousins to avoid their training sessions.    

Part Two

 

Adrienne the runaway

    Adrienne was eleven years old now. A few things changed. Adrienne had learned enough dirty fighting tricks that no one messed with “dead girl” anymore at although she was more alone than ever.     Rainfall was scarce this year this year. Adrienne and Hertha did their best to help Father dig wells. He didn’t have any strapping young men to help him anymore. Rachel had married and moved out recently. The other men of the village put their foot down and made Father marry choose a suiter. They were tired of their sons being pulled away to give Father free labor during this harsh season where the men needed their sons to work their own farms.     Adrienne had seen the dark stranger riding about in the distance. Once in a while, a struggling family would have one or two children disappear and then come into a decent windfall of money at the same time. Fortunately Adrienne was good at hiding and watching. When the dark stranger came back and convinced father to accept his deal the second time around, she was not taken by surprise. She had already packed a knapsack of supplies ready to go by the time the dark stranger approached the family farm again. She was far away from the village of Hill’s Bend when the stranger came to collect what he thought he had purchased.     Adrienne listened in on enough village men talking to know which road to take to Salzenmund. She walked or sneaked rides in backs of carts until she got to the city. While she had been underfed for months since her family was hit hard by the rough season, she arrived in the city more famished than ever before in her life.     Her offers to do chores for food were met with slammed doors in her face. She decided to turn to stealing just as a temporary means to survive. She figured if she wasn’t so skeletal thin or raggedly dressed she would be able to find work easier. Her skills at sneaking around proved invaluable for filching food. The city had more sets of eyes to avoid, but there were more shadows to hide in.     She quickly learned that the “work” people wanted to pay her for was unspeakably awful, so she did not seek said work. Many did not want to pay her, but the fact that she was fleet of foot and well-practiced at dirty fighting let her manage to escape each time. She decided to stop pressing her luck negotiating with adults, especially men. Stealing became her full time career.    

Huan-kai of the Western Spawning Pool

    The first thing Huan-kai found out in Klodorex was that he could generally avoid the other Chameleon Skinks by hanging around the city since the Chameleon Skinks did not normally spend much time there.     The second thing that Huan-kai learned is that he did not actually dislike training. He disliked being told what to do. A few days in the city lounging about in the sun was nice at first but then made him bored quickly. He decided to develop his own training regimen.     He tried throwing javelins. He found he was okay at it, but he preferred the blowpipe (this surprised Huan-kai). He didn’t mind practicing blowpipe shooting with the Sotek Caste Skinks. They were less judgmental since of course Huan-kai was actually a far better shot than most of them.     He was tired of beasts giving him a hard time, so he spent a lot of time around Beast caste Skinks to see if he could get any pointers. Most cold blooded creatures reacted poorly to Huan-kai but he found that he could make up for his handicap with knowledge. Once he learned the posturing and tone of voice that placates Huagerdons he was able to get Huagerdons to let him pet them and feed them. After mastering how to not agitate Huagerdons, he gradually progressed to creatures that were less innately friendly. He noticed that warm blooded beasts didn’t react well to him either, but at least they didn’t treat Huan-kai any differently than the other Skink.     Huan-kai wanted to work on his hand-to-hand fighting skills. After a short while he got bored with practicing with the worker caste Skinks as his skills quickly left them in the dust. The worker caste Skinks only drilled a few hours a week and Huan-kai practiced fighting every day (and he was a fair bit taller and heavier than most of them). He started practicing with the Sotek caste Skinks, but he eventually surpassed them as well.     Huan-kai figured if he was in a real battle, he’d be fighting someone bigger and stronger than a Skink, so he decided to try his luck sparring with a Saurus. Saurus are not that well-accustomed to sparring, especially not with weaker beings than themselves. They did not hit much softer than they would have in a real fight. Even with hollow wooden practice weapons and padded hide armor, Huan-kai found himself knocked unconscious a few minutes into his first practice session fighting a Saurus warrior.     He woke up in the healer’s temple bruised with the splinters from the Saurus’ broken practice weapon on him. After healing up over the next two weeks, Huan-kai decided to practice sparring with other Skink Chiefs. Eventually Huan-kai fighting skills could compare favorably to the Sotek Caste Chiefs. What he lacked in natural ferocity he made up for in finesse. He was pretty good at reading subtle cues his opponents made to give away their next move before they made it.     What Huan-kai spent most of his time in the archives. He convinced some worker caste Skink scribes to teach him to read (most Skink Chiefs were expected to be able to read, but Chameleon Skinks rarely bothered beyond a few simple glyphs to mark landmarks). Chameleon Skinks are used to standing still for long periods of time, so Huan-kai could devour scroll after scroll in single sitting.     At first Huan-kai thought city life was less structured than the jungles. Then he realized that he was the only unstructured one. Everyone else was following someone’s orders or directives all day long. Huan-kai could go where he pleased and do as he pleased since half the time no one noticed him despite the fact that Huan-kai wasn’t even actively being stealthy. When he was noticed, the other Skinks and the Sauri just assumed Huan-kai was acting under orders.     Most Chiefs are given deference normally and Chameleon Skinks only came to the city for important occasions. Huan-kai always got the training help he asked for because the other First of City assumed they were supposed to help him and that Huan-kai’s work took precedence over whatever they were doing.     Huan-kai also became somewhat popular in the circles he traveled in. It was unusual for a Chameleon Skink to rub shoulders with other Skinks, so he had a novelty appeal. He also found he was fairly intuitive to what the other Skinks wanted, so he could say things that they wanted to hear. He did not hold himself aloof like the other Chameleon Skinks and actually enjoyed long conversations with other Skinks, especially scribes. To further distance himself from his caste cousins, Huan-kai taught himself not to hiss when speaking.     “So I read through a lot of our accounts of past Klodorex heroes.”   “That’s good.”   “I’m not sure I like what I read. Most individuals of auspicious spawnings seem to die horrible deaths.”   “They died heroic deaths serving the Old Ones.”   “Heroic yes, but I’m not sure they were really serving the Old Ones.”   That’s almost blasphemy   “That’s not blasphemy, that’s good logic.”   “How is it logic? Wait! I never said it was blasphemy.”   “I think you may have let it slip.”   “No I didn’t.”     The scribe was clearly flustered. Huan-kai chose to pretend not to notice and continued.     “Okay. Well, one serves the Old Ones by fulfilling their goals. If you die you can’t serve the Old Ones anymore. That’s the first thing Chameleon Skinks learn. We wait for our moment to strike and flee if we can’t do anything more.”   “The first Preylot and his Chameleon Skinks stood bravely against the Old Foes in the time of Kaitar!”   “Right, and they were wiped out to the last reptile. Klodorex suffered for a generation without any Chameleon Skinks at all. That’s not serving the Old Ones, that’s making a symbolic gesture for the Old Ones.”   Haven’t thought of it that way before.     The scribe paused and chose his next words carefully.   “I would not broadcast that opinion. You wouldn’t call Kaitar’s actions a symbolic gesture would you   “Yes I would. He didn’t save the city’s Slann by dying for the Old Ones. He saved the Slann and then died for the Old Ones by rushing into battle.”   “What?”   “He could have fled after waking the Slann. Then he’d be alive today and able to serve the city.”   “That’s crazy! He wouldn’t have been able to save the Slann if he weren’t willing to die for the Old Ones! He wouldn’t have fought hard enough.”   “So one should avoid dying but be willing to die?”   “Yes…I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. The will of the individual matters.”     Huan-kai paused. The scribe’s facial expression was easy to read.   I finally stumped him!     “No, you haven’t stumped me. The way I see it, intentions are immaterial as well.”   “Why?”   “The undead creature who calls himself Lord Renliss intends to kill us all, but he ended up unintentionally serving the Old Ones will by his actions.”   “That doesn’t count!”   “Because it counters your argument?”   “No…but…mahrlect! I don’t know what you are getting at.”   “It hasn’t escaped my attention that all of the auspicious individuals with ‘kai’ in their name died horrible deaths ‘for the Old Ones’. I don’t plan to join their posthumous ranks. I like training with the other Skinks. I like lying in the sun and eating insects, mussels, and baked potatoes. I plan to live a long time. I don’t plan to die for the Old Ones, I plan to make the Anathema and Fallen die for their gods.”    

Part Four

 

Adrienne, the Shadow of Salzenmund

    Within her first month as a career thief, Adrienne was caught twice and severely beaten twice. She never was caught again after that. She became very good at stealing over the next two years. Due to an overheard comment about invisible thieves in the shadows, Adrienne took to calling herself the Shadow of Salzenmund, but she only outwardly went by “Shadow” among her new adopted family.     She had joined up with several urchins. Homeless boys and girls, runaways and orphans. She was older than most of them and viewed as the de facto leader after helping keep many of them from being caught. Small groups could pull off more than mere pickpocketing. They could perform minor scams or act as distractions for the others.     One day while pulling off a simple combination move, the plan went awry. Four kids would act like they were playing tag and then all of them “accidentally” crash into their mark at once. One would grab his pouch and they all would bolt in four directions to four predetermined hiding places.     Unfortunately Klaus did not move fast enough to conceal that he was the one with the pouch, so the mark pursued him alone. Adrienne ran after the pair of them.     By the time she caught up to them just as their would-be victim had cornered Klaus in an alley. He should know these alleys better than to run into a dead end! Klaus had yielded the man’s coin purse, but the man was not satisfied. He pressed the boy against the wall and clenched his fingers around the boy’s throat.     “You want to steal from me you filthy whelp of a whore?”     He slammed Klaus’ head against the wooden wall making a painfully audible thunk.     “I…was…hungry,” the boy choked out.   “You can eat my fist—AAAAGH!”     Adrienne had run up behind him and stabbed in the thigh. She had carried a small knife around for months. Before today, she never used it to do more than cut rope or cloth. Klaus stood transfixed by Adrienne carrying a bloody knife.     “Run you moron!”     The man turned to Adrienne clearly in pain, but not debilitated by such a shallow wound. He reached out for the new urchin threat, and she kneed him in his soft spot then grabbed his coin purse. The pair ran. As they put on distance Klaus gradually found his breath again.     The group met up and rested at one of their hiding spots. The second floor of an old house missing a wall. No one bothered them because no wanted to be in a three walled room in the Winter. Mellanie looked at Adrienne in awe. Counting Adrienne their little group included four girls and two boys.     “You cut a man.”     Now that the adrenaline had worn off, Adrienne was terrified with herself for what she done. She would not let that on to her surrogate little sister though.     “I had to, who knows what he would have done to Klaus.”     Klaus voice was still raspy from being choked.     “I know what he would have done. Shadow, did you hear what happened to Kenneth.”     Kenneth was the only member of their group older than Adrienne, but he did not meet with them as regularly. Adrienne cautiously answered his question.     “He told me he was going to lie about his age and join the navy.”     The younger children nodded at this.     “No, he tried to join, but they wouldn’t take him. He said he needed a big score, so he raided the house of the goldsmith.”     Every other child made a sharp intake of breath. The goldsmith was wealthy enough to afford guards. They had written off the house as too high a risk.     “The guildmaster had his guards cut off Kenneth’s hand. Said this was the price for stealing in Salzenmund now.”   “NO!” exclaimed Melanie.   “Where is he, we need to help him.” Adrienne said.   “I tried, it’s too late. His wound got infected, and he died.”   “Oh my gods….”   “Those bastards killed Kenneth.”     The sad and angry murmuring continued for several minutes. Adrienne tried to take control. She stabbed her knife into the floor.     “We need to make him pay!”     The looks from the younger children ranged from hopeful to confused.     “What are six children going to do to him, Shadow?"   "What!?!”   “We can—I don’t know…”   “Since we don’t have a better plan, I know what I’m going to do.”   “You can’t! That’s too awful. We talked about this…”   “I’m tired of starving and freezing every day. I’m not going to die in a gutter like Kenneth.”     Klaus stormed out and walked into the dirty snowy streets below. Adrienne the Shadow of Salzenmund had been keeping her emotions in check so far for the sake of the younger children, but this was too much. She broke down and sobbed.    

Huan-kai of the Western Spawning Pool

    On the whole, the First Children of the Old Ones are a forthright people. Their daily lives are not mired in deception like so many of the younger races, even the so called “noble races” of the Elves and the Dwarves. That being said, to say that deception is an alien concept to the First would be a lie.     The most popular deception for Skinks to use is a lie by omission. It is well known that Slann’s prodigious minds are usually focused on large issues. If the High Skinks are facing problems, and they think that they can handle a problem without the Slann’s guidance, they generally do not mention it to them. Lies of omission to the Slann are quite common. This has trickled down through every leadership layer. The lesser priests likewise coat their reports to the High Skinks in honey. Even the lowly worker Skinks fib to their foremen.     Once Huan-kai realized people assumed he was acting on important orders from above, he began implying things outright. He could even sense whose authority he should cite by reading a Skink’s body language to tell him who they most respected/feared.     He finally pushed too far when he started borrowing the Healing Amulet from one of the lesser temple’s vaults. While the regeneration bestowed was far less potent than a troll’s, Huan-kai discovered that he could recover from a beating handed to him from a Saurus warrior in less than an hour where before it took weeks. While he could not read a Saurus’ intentions near as easily as he could a Skink, his skills gradually improved until he could defeat Saurus warriors more than half the time in mock combat. Though sometimes he wondered if he could actual hit hard enough to wound a Saurus in real combat.     Other times he would spar with a dozen Skinks at once. After having beaten down or disarmed ten, the last two threw down their weapons with a panicky look on their faces.     “I’m not going to hurt you. We are on the same side. This is just training.”     One of the Skinks timidly pointed behind Haun-kai.     “Mahrl—How may I be of service, High One?”     Officially Xapatli was the highest ranking Beast caste Skink priest. Officially, was only the third highest ranking Skink Priest overall. Unofficially he was really the one in charge. Of his two superiors, one was towards the end of his life and could barely move on his own. The other one attended the Slann full time, so he wasn’t in any position to give other Skinks directives.     Haun-kai noticed it was odd that Xapatli did not have his usual entourage of three or four assistants. He appeared to have stepped from a shadowy corner.     “Your fighting skills are truly impressive, Huan-kai. Almost as if you can see strikes coming before they happen.”   “…thank you, High One.”   He couldn’t have possibly come here by himself just to watch me practice. Why can’t I read what he really wants?     The elder Skink priest stretched out his hand and open his palm expectedly.     “Nevertheless, we cannot allow you to use items from the pyramid vaults without permission.”     Huan-kai handed over the item trying not to show any shame or nervousness. Fortunately, it is not difficult to hide your emotions when you are the color of the flagstones under you.     “Come with me please.”   This can’t be good.     They walked in silence for some time, Huan-kai couldn’t read the priest as well as the other Skinks but he made an educated guess that the priest was deliberately milking the silence to make him uncomfortable.     I heard this Chameleon Skink was talkative. I wonder what he’s waiting for.   “What do you want from me? I always returned the amulet when I was done. What good was it doing anyone in the vault?”   “It was more the disrespect behind your act than the act itself, but that’s not why I’m here. This isn’t about the vault. However, you are fortunate that I heard about your indiscretions first. Most of the other Skinks are not as lenient as I. I am here because I have heard enough of your training to send some watchers.”   “I didn’t notice anyone!”   “There’s more than one way to hide. You were looking for Chameleon Skinks blending in with the scenery, not ordinary Skinks blending in with a crowd and pretending to look busy. You should know: the Chameleon Skinks you’ve been avoiding are quite upset at you, but that is not why I’m here either.”   “Are you going to tell me why you are here, or do I have to guess?”   “You seem to have premonitions of the future. That’s a sign in potential Skink priests of the Stars. This was discounted as a possibility because nearly all Skink priests of the Heavens have at least one purple feature and you don’t have colored scales in the sense of other Skinks. Though at your spawning you had wholly taken the purple of the dusk sky. Also, it appears that your premonitions are about things happening minutes or even seconds into the future rather than weeks or months like other Skink Priests. It seems likely that the signs would manifest different in a Chameleon Skink though.”   “You think…I might be a potential priest?”   “Yes.”   “Don’t I need the favor of the Old Ones? At least one of them at least? I failed every single test you subjected me to.”   “It could be that the signs manifested in some way we didn’t notice. Chameleon Skinks wouldn’t have the same traits as other Skinks. It’s also possible you have the favor of all. You seem to be a jack of all trades.”   “So what do you want me to do?”   “I want you to take the Trials.”    

Part Five

 

Adrienne

    Over the last year Adrienne had lost her charges one by one. First Klaus walked out. Then Melanie and little Gabrielle both caught pneumonia. Julie was caught by the town guard and died of her injuries after they just left her in an alley after beating her senseless. Herman fell while trying to jump between buildings. Nina simply disappeared one day. Adrienne didn’t have the heart to seek out a new surrogate family after all that heartbreak.   She had not been caught since she first started her career as a thief, but today had been very close.   She was sitting in a gutter nibbling on stolen bread and dabbing clean snow on her face to reduce the swelling from her black eye when she heard a familiar voice, Klaus’ voice.   “It appears that you have fallen on hard times, Shadow.”   Adrienne wanted to make a snappy retort, but she couldn’t think of any. Klaus had grown a bit taller. He also put on some weight. He was wearing a coat with no holes or patches. His hands were clean. Even his nails were clean. He could have passed for a burgher’s son.   “What do you want?”   “To help you, as you once helped me. We don’t have to live like this.”   “I’m not going to debase myself doing what you do.”   “That’s what I said about stealing once. Can you really get lower than you are now? You are half-starved and half frozen in an ally holding what must be more blood and dirt than snow against your face”   Adrienne knew that she could get lower than she was now, but she went with Klaus anyway.   The house he took her to was big and inviting. A high-risk, high-reward location to steal from. She didn’t see any men there, the only male was Klaus. Maid servants brought her food. Not just any food, but roast beef and sweet bread. Then they prepared a bath for her and gave her clean clothes. Adrienne’s suspicions were going crazy, but she shut them down. To be clean, warm, and fed was too much to pass up.     After two days, she was thinking she was thinking she should sneak out before things went bad, but she had the thought about half a minute too late. All the rich food made her reflexes slow. Someone had sneaked up behind her and placed a burlap sack around her head then bound her hands just before she was going to make her getaway.     She was lead around in several directions and spun around a lot so she had no ideas what her bearings were, but she could tell they took her outside, through several streets and into a new building. Adrienne did her best to try to loosen her bonds as she was shoved around. The wind wasn’t getting inside, but unlike the first house, there was no pleasant fire warming her.     The burlap sack was removed and she saw several men in cloaks. The men were chanting in a language she did not understand. There were two or three women there as well, also chanting, also with their faces covered. Finally they stopped chanting. One man removed his hood and revealed a handsome face, then spoke.     “It looks like I got you after all, Adrienne of Hill’s Bend.”   “You!?!”     It was the well-dressed man who tried to buy her from her father.   “Klaus told me that you tried to build a new family, but they didn’t want you around either, eh Shadow.”   “You bastard! You ruined my life!”   “I didn’t ruin anything, your life was capable of ruining itself. All lives are made to serve at the pleasure of Slaanesh and his followers. Your service will be short, and last as long as your flesh persists. Your death will be eventually be pleasing to us. No individual life has any great worth”   “Your life is the one with no worth!”   Even with the fancy clothes given to her by Klaus’ “friends,” Adrienne never stopped concealing her knife on her person. She wrenched the bindings off of her hands just enough to pull out her knife. The cloaked figures were not used to their victims having this much fight in them, so they were too surprised to act fast enough to stop her. She cut her hands free nicking herself in the process, but the pain only made her more alert. She slit the throat of the handsome faced man who thrice tried to purchase her.     “Your death was pleasing to me!”     She waved the knife at the crowd, but her strength was spent, and it was showing. A muscular hand grabbed her wrist and squeezed, causing her to drop her weapon.     “Kill her” hissed one of the cloaked women.   “No.”     All the figures turned towards the figure in the most embroidered robe.     “Her spirit is strong. She would be of great value to us as a member of our society.”     The uncomfortable shifting showed that many did not want to induct a street urchin who just killed their best public face.     “But you still killed one of our own, and a price must be paid for that. You may join us, but first you must pay the blood and pain debt owed…”     Then the cultists made her pay.    

Huan-kai of the Western Spawning Pool

    After a lengthy question and answer session, Huan-kai could tell the various assembled priests were upset at him. It was hard enough for a Chameleon Skink to be the center of attention for a large group, but half of this group could either fry him with lightning or curse him into perpetually stubbing his toe for weeks on end. Apparently being bored on a vision quest does not constitute a divine sign during the Trials.     What was Xapatli thinking putting a Chameleon Skink through the Trials…   It was a waste of time with Zat-kai too, and Zat-kai at least had dream visions…   The arrogant Chameleon Skink pushed too far raiding the vaults…   I’m hungry. I wonder if Xapatli would be upset if I sent a retainer to bring some salted meat…   “Quiet! This is hard enough without all of you blabbing.”   “No one else was talking, Haun-kai. I think this was stressful. You should go rest now. I’m sorry I made you take the Trials.”     Xapatli did not seek any redress about Huan-kai’s borrowing of the Amulet of Healing, but the other priests found out and wanted to remove the upstart from their midst lest his lack of respect spread to others in the city. They summoned a group of Chameleon Skinks to the city and within a short period of time the Chameleon Skinks departed once more, this time with Huan-kai in tow.     They didn’t talk much, but Huan-kai could tell that most of his cousins were almost as unhappy as Huan-kai was about the situation. The group’s Stalker tried to break the awkward silence.     “I hear you’ve been training without usssss.”   “Yeah I’ve worked on a few things.”     He did not elaborate, so the awkward silence continued. The Stalker shrugged and began nonverbally signaling the routine orders for their regular scouting and patrol duties.     Huan-kai was rusty at these group coordinated movements and made a number of clumsy movements bumping into things and making noise. He didn’t need to see his caste cousins directly to see they were giving him dirty looks.     Much of their marching was in the rain. Naturally this bothered Huan-kai little, being semi-aquatic and all. Sadly the rain didn’t seem to mute his caste cousin’s mutterings from his ears.   Clumsy fool.   Embarrassment to the caste.   Why does he carry a sword rather than a dagger? Who does he think he is impressing?   Arrogant newt.     Calling them out on this never did any good. They would just claim they didn’t say anything then everyone would stare at him. The general contempt was countered by a rare few moments of grudging approval     “Your ssshooting is improving.”     His cousins were really impressed when he snuck up on a bear and killed it with his sword dodging the creature’s claws fairly easily.     “That was impresssssive but why not shoot it?”   “I’m tired of my meat being seasoned with derelethi.”   (Derelethi venom was poisonous by itself, but it would neutralize itself with most other jungle poisons. If a Skink wanted to eat something brought down with poisoned shooting, derelethi venom had to be included in the cooking process.)     No one questioned the sword anymore.     Two weeks later they encountered a scene of disturbed foliage near a river. Haun-kai tried to identify the tracks, but he couldn’t even tell if it was a biped or quadruped with all the rain washing out the tracks.     Huan-kai decided to take a scoop of water from the river. Fast moving water always tasted better. Then he tried to impress his fellows with what he had learned from the archives and beast caste Skinks.     “Probably a fight between two Stegadons or a predator going after something while it was taking a drink of water. We don’t have to worry about it. Beasts that big will ignore creatures as small as us, especially when they can’t even see us.”   “It probably issss, but we have to check. We can’t leave any ssstone unturned here. We are near the site of Kaitar’s lasssst stand. We have to be extra cautiousss here.”     The dozen or so Chameleon Skinks all carefully looked around. They found a lot of trees had been washed out by a flash flood but nothing overtly suspicious. One called out.     “I ssssee a cave!”     The group met at the entrance.     “Well caves do come from water wearing down stone, and this place has a lot of water flow.”     The other Chameleon Skinks looked at Huan-kai. They didn’t really bother thinking where landmarks came from before and thought it was odd Huan-kai would bother learning that. The Chameleon Skinks looked at the cave apprehensively. Generally, the underground sections of Lustria had a disproportionate share of the jungle’s dangerous fauna.     “If the Anathema were here, this issss where they would go for shelter from the rain,” the Stalker announced and proceeded into the cave carefully.     Huan-kai didn’t want any of his caste cousins to have any room to criticize him, so he was the second one inside. That settled it for the others. If the city Skink was going inside, they wouldn’t be able to live with themselves if they stayed outside. None of the group was happy about it. After about twenty minutes of exploration one hissed a request at the others.     “I don’t ssseee anything that doesn’t belong in a cave. Let usss leave. I don’t hear anything in here”   “Of course you can’t hear anything with the rain outssside pounding on the roof!”     The Stalker turned and chirped.   “SSSSilence!”     The Chameleon Skinks were fanned out pretty far. They could only each see one other of their party. They were more accustomed to spotting Chameleon Skinks other than other Skinks were, so this was not difficult. A growl emanated from within the cave. Both inspiring and terrifying. Creepy, yet invigorating. Huan-kai yelled out the obvious.     “We need to get out of the here now!”     The party faced what was unmistakably a Troglodon. Awe-inspiring though the creature was, the fact that this giant dinosaur was favored by the gods did not make it any less terrifying. Most of the Chameleon Skinks had a clear run for the exit, but about a third of the group had the holy predator between them and the cave exit.     Huan-kai found that even under stress he looked over the Troglodon clinically, just like the beast caste Skinks had taught him. He could tell the Troglodon was a male. Its cracked scales told him this was an older male. The beast’s movements told Huan-kai it was slightly injured. This knowledge did not help him. It just informed him that this Troglodon was going to be desperate and would not turn up an opportunity to go after meat, even a morsel as small as a Chameleon Skink.     The Chameleon Skink nearest to the Troglodon instinctively froze.     Idiot! It’s common knowledge that Troglodons are blind, so your camouflage won’t mean anything     The Troglodon chewed the Skink up and spat out his less chewable bones and weapons. Huan-kai watched this with a mix of horror, disgust, and fascination before he caught his wits again. To their credit, the Chameleon Skinks with a clear path out of the cave did not choose this moment to abandon their caste brothers. Instead they fired darts which bounced harmlessly off the Troglodon’s thick hide.     The Troglodon flicked his head towards one of the shooters and lobbed a glob of acid at the offender. To his credit, even suffering from slow burns the Chameleon Skink did not utter a single noise as he tried to crawl away, but the Troglodon could hear the sizzling flesh easily despite this. He snatched the Chameleon Skink in his jaws and slurped the meat off his bones.     Would it be too much to ask for him to have swallowed some of the poisons we carry?…No, he would have swallowed the derelethi venom too and the overall effect would work too slowly to save us. Anything that produces its own venom and has weaponized stomach acid surely can handle a few ingested contact poisons.     The stalker put some distance between himself and his spawning brother and yelled before firing more darts to try to get the holy monster’s attention. He artfully ducked the glob of acid shot at him.     Haun-kai was impressed by the stalker’s bravery. He briefly considered charging with his sword, but thought better of it and fired another dart. This one stuck right where his eye should be if he had eyes anyway. The Troglodon turned towards him and did not turn away even as more darts stuck in his hide from other directions. Either they didn’t penetrate deep enough for the poison to take affect, or the beast did unintentionally swallow antidote.     Mahrlect, once a beast decides they want to get me, I can never shake him.     The attempt to spit acid went wide. Huan-kai knew if you stood right in front of a Salamander they couldn’t actually burn you. Maybe that worked with Troglodons too. Haun-kai decided burning in acid wouldn’t be how he wanted to die, so he charged hoping his agility would keep him alive, and that his cousins would follow suit.     The Stalker did, but he wasn’t as fast as Haun-kai and was snatched up in the creature’s claws and also eaten, much quicker than eating the others because the creature didn’t want to break his stride against Huan-kai.     Not even waiting till the fight is over to eat us! He must be REALLY hungry.     It was clear that Huan-kai would be the tastiest morsel of all.   It’s unfair! Why do the beasts always single me out!   “LEAVE ME ALONE!”     Without realizing what he was doing, Huan-kai dropped his sword and made a pushing gesture with both hands. The shadows of the cave were drawn into his hands then flowed outward from his hands below the Troglodon forming a dark pit. The Troglodon clawed feebly at the edge of the pit then fell in. The shadows rapidly receded back to their original places dispersing the pit. No trace of the Troglodon remained. Huan-kai was not sure what had happened, but he knew there was no way the Troglodon could have survived.     That’s not what I meant to happen…     The other Chameleon Skinks did not bother to hide their presence and stared at Huan-kai. They were clearly glad to be alive, but were shocked at what happened.     What did he do?   Sacred beast, plunged into darkness, a bad omen.   Controlled dark forces   Saved us all.   Slew a holy creature.     Huan-kai was not used to gratitude, awe, and accusation all at once. He forgot to suppress his natural hiss when speaking.     “It wasss going to devours all of usss. I had no choiccce. I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t mean to….”   I didn’t mean for THIS.    

Part Six

 

Adrienne, Acolyte of Slaanesh

    Over the next year, Adrienne was introduced/forced into every one of Slaanesh’s many excesses. She wasn’t the only conscript there, “Join us or die,” has been pitched to most of the cult’s members at some point, but Adrienne was inducted without any preliminary temptations (other than a desire not to starve and freeze to death). She did not like everything she had to do, but at least she felt a sense of purpose now. She didn’t know exactly how many members the cult had, but she estimated at least thirty. She lumped her fellow cultists into three groups.     The bulk of them were spoiled rich people. Wealthy burghers and lesser nobles. Without having any REAL struggles, they got bored with their wealth and sought forbidden pleasures to satisfy their jaded palates. The very sort of people that the Shadow of Salzenmund would have preferred to filch from, they might not even notice what was missing after being robbed. Naturally they got jaded to the cult’s pleasures very quickly which forced them to try ever more extreme debaucheries.     The next group was the rebels. They were mad at authority (or their parents, they tended to be young). They weren’t quite as well-off and spoiled as the first group, but they worshipped Slaanesh mainly to get back at their parents or some other authority figure they imagined slighted them. As a girl who was almost sold into slavery, she wondered what petty thing set these adolescents and young adults to believe they were unjustifiably wronged. It couldn’t possibly be that bad as what she had endured.     The smallest group was the true believers. They were in charge and followed Slaanesh out of a sense of holy duty the way a Sigmar priest might feel about his duty. They were not in this for a direct payoff (supposedly). Their service to Slaanesh gave them the indirect payoff of stoking their egos.     They would often tell glorious tales of Chaos incursions. They all went the same way. Lord _____ the chosen of ______ defeated all his rivals and united the warring tribes. They marched on the Empire through the border province of _______ and swept aside all opposition. They leveled the towns and provinces of ______, ______, and _____ but found no worthy foes so they turned to the Empire heartland. They fought against the hated Empire leader _____, who nearly beat them. The first setback in a string of victories caused Lord _____’s casual supporters to abandon him. Fearing he lost the favor of the Dark Gods, Lord ____ swore to destroy the city/castle/monarch of _____ and turned his armies there and nearly beat it only to have overextended forces completely wiped out at the Battle of ______.     Adrienne figured that all the incursions failed because they were led by a glory seeking man with the strategic foresight of an average Orc. If an army just marches in a straight line without securing any territory, they are bound to get overextended and surrounded. They bypassed the lands they defeated because the challenges were not worthy enough, then were surprised when reinforcements came from that same direction.     If Kislevites are such unworthy foes, why is Kislev still standing today after getting invaded a hundred times? Because their conquerors always let it recover. If Adrienne were in charge of an invasion, she would not move on from Kislev until every last man, woman, and child was dead or turned into the service of the Dark Gods. Then Kislev would not be a barrier to slow down the next invasion. If each invasion irreparably destroyed a single province rather than making a suicide run on Altdorf, the Dark Gods would be ascendant today. Unfortunately planning ahead didn’t factor into a testosterone driven strategy of most of the Warriors of Chaos.     Unfortunately, the Salzenmund cult was led by another such short-sighted man. That meant that Adrienne as the youngest female member was mainly ordered to serve as bait for victims and potential recruits. While the older women trained her how to use her wiles to entrap others, her real talents lay with stealth, something a secret cult desperately needed. Hardly a week passed when the cult wasn’t desperately scrambling to hide something or kill a witness to remain hidden from the authorities.     What Adrienne lived for was the violence. That was the one excess that she enjoyed thoroughly. After a lifetime of being brought low by everyone (including her new “family”) this was her opportunity to vent her frustrations on others. Her creativity and enthusiasm in inflicting pain won the attention of the cult’s leader who began encouraging her budding abilities. During one event of group debauchery she “accidentally” killed Klaus who was only there as a prop for one of the other cultists anyway. Not long after that, Adrienne got the privilege of selecting a target for the cult. She chose the goldsmith. The irony of the fact that she avenged the death of one member of her old adopted family and caused the death of another within the same week did not dawn on her until much later.     The cult’s sorcerer took her under his wing as an apprentice not long after that. He was impressed by her ruthlessness and had noticed her stealth skills and penchant for guile which he said were natural fits for Shadow wizards. There was no doubt a less professional reason for taking her on as an apprentice as well. Adrienne began to resemble her older sister Rachel as she grew older, but Adrienne had long since past the point of caring about trifles like that.     The casting of her first cantrip was the most exhilarating experience of her short life. This was power, not political power but real power that was hers to command! Over the years as she learned magic, she was given less grunt work. Though the “work” she performed was more irksome than before. Learning magic from the dark powers is as much about how much one is willing to degrade oneself as it is about practicing arcane manipulation. The way Adrianne saw it, it wasn’t really worse than the things the cult made her do before anyway. The accrual of power was too slow for Adrienne’s taste. She made plans to set up a grand gesture to win Slaanesh’s favor quickly.    

Huan-kai, Priest of the Lost One

    The surviving Chameleon Skinks returned to city with haste and head straight for the main temple. An attendant rushed to meet them.     “Huan-kai, it is good you are here. Xapatli wishes to speak to you.”   “Well that’s nice because I was looking for him too.”     After a very brief wait, Xapatli entered.     “I have spoken with numerous First around the city. I believe you were not reading the future you were reading people. It wasn’t intuition or good hearing, you were reading the surface thoughts of those you spoke with. Slann have similar telepathic abilities. It appears you may have some aptitudes for the magic associated with darkness and shadows.”   “You don’t say.”   “In which case, a Heavens Trial would be meaningless. You would need some kind of separate Shadows Trial.” “You don’t say.”   “If a Skink did have aptitude for a branch of magic other than Heavens or Beasts, you would need to endure some kind of difficult trial pushing you to your limits to awaken your latent abilities.”   “I think this would have been nice to know a few weeks ago.”   “What do you mean?”   “I have a story to tell you.”     The First didn’t use lies just for their superiors, but they sometimes created deceptions that went down the ranks as well. While there is some precedent allowing for self-defense, slaying a Troglodon is normally considered an affront to the Old Ones. Xapatli edited the story of Haun-kai’s Trials to involve frightening off wounded Stegadon with dancing shadows rather than slaying a sacred beast with a Pit of Doom. He ordered the other Chameleon Skinks not to share the true story, but he needn’t have bothered. Chameleon Skinks are not wont to gossip beyond their caste.   Thus, most were impressed rather than terrified that a Skink was wielding a branch of magic once only the province of Slann. This also meant new training. The Skink Priests shouldered a lot of leadership and ceremonial duties, but they had all been divided up between the Heavens and Beasts priests by centuries of tradition, so there weren’t any ceremonial duties for the Shadow priest to do.   Some academic minded Skink debated whether he should take over Huanchi veneration rituals, but Huan-kai didn’t care. Rituals held little appeal to him. Unfortunately, there was very little to do other than train his nascent magic skills. In fact, Lord Laershin apparently said Huan-kai should work on developing his magic abilities. At least that’s what the Skink Priests interpreted from his terse utterance.   Lord Laershin may have wanted Haun-kai to develop his Shadow abilities, but even a comparably young Slann is too busy to train a Skink. Huan-kai had to train with the Skink priests. They were such unyielding task masters that Huan-kai thought almost wistfully about his early training with the other Chameleon Skinks. The elder priests never got tired because they weren’t trying to call up new frontiers of magic. Also, they frequently handed him off to new Skink priests so his trainer was always fresh while Huan-kai was getting more exhausted.   Once aware that is ability to read people was actually mind reading, Huan-kai found he could read surface thoughts clearer through concentration. Even better he could turn that power off, so he no longer accidentally heard other Skinks’ snide unspoken comments when he didn’t want to.   The basic techniques for channeling magic power and disrupting enemy spells were the same for Skink Priests whether they used Heavens or Beasts, so they assumed the same would hold for Haun-kai. It was, but Haun-kai was a slow learner (surprise! surprise!) and could only dispel his trainer’s spells about a quarter of the time. They had train near a raging bonfire, so Haun-kai could recover quickly from all the ice that his trainer’s coated him with.   After several months he was able to control a visible magical manifestation. He was able to move shadows around cosmetically, but he couldn’t create any useful effects. None of the Skink priests could perform actual Shadow magic, so his “trainers” were Skink Priests who witnessed Slann casting Shadow spells or merely read about archived accounts of Slann casting Shadow spells. When Huan-kai got tired and angry, the old Chameleon Skink hiss would find its way back into his speech. Now a succession of Skink scribes followed Huan-kai around constantly chronicling his failures while a rotating cast of priests barked orders at him.     “Try again, Haun-kai.”   “Do you know what you sssound like?”   “What do you mean, are you reading my thoughts?”   “(mocking tone)’An agelessss being of unmatched power did these things! Why can’t you do them too?’”   “We only have Slann’s example to go on.”   “Why isn’t one of them teaching me? Don’t tell me they are too busy! If the Old Ones saw to break their millennia old ‘Heavens or Beasts’ limitation to Skink priest now, this should warrant a lord’s attention, shouldn't it?”   “I’m not sure they could teach you. They don’t use magic the same way we do. Could you teach a Rylok to shoot a blowpipe dart.”   “Ryloks don’t have opposable digits or lips. They can’t shoot blowpipes.”   “Exactly, the Slann can’t teach you to use magic like they do because they just do it. They can’t teach a Skink to use shadow magic any more than you could teach a fish to breathe air. You have to learn a new way.”   “Gods, you are so annoying.”   “Yes, because I’m right.”     Purely out of spite, Huan-kai covered his trainer in darkness. This didn’t really phase him. He was far too used to Huan-kai’s cosmetic magical darkness to care. Huan-kai wondered if he could probe deeper into his thoughts and pull up something embarrassing to lord over him when the shadows around the junior priest coalesced into fog.     The Skink priest shook, staggered and stumbled then fell down.     Mahrlect, that feels terrible.     He rose to his feet coughing and put on a show of false cheer.     “Excellent! You have successfully summoned the Miasma of Xlanhapec!”     Haun-kai make the metaphysical breakthrough that in order to hex someone with Shadow magic, he had to focus on controlling the shadows around a target at the same time he probed their mind. He was able to use variations of this technique to sap his target’s strength, endurance, coordination, or speed. The other priests quickly grew tired of this, so they had Huan-kai target worker caste “volunteers” instead.     That’s kind of a jerk move, given that you made me take your hexes.     Now his trainers kept barking orders, but Huan-kai wasn’t allowed to hex them. This was disappointing. Huan-kai got satisfaction hexing his trainers for another reason. After repeated use of magic, Huan-kai felt almost as drained as his targets, he thought this gave them parity. He felt less comfortable hexing worker Skinks then he did practicing against Skink priests. Check that,other Skink priests, I’m technically one of them now. Got a ceremony recognizing it and everything. Huan-kai didn’t think much of being a priest, but it was nice that he could get worker caste Skinks to fetch things for him, usually baked potatoes with live grubs on them. He tried not to rely on this too much. He didn’t want to grow soft and weak. It was bad enough that he was too exhausted after his magical training sessions to do anything else, so he feared his combat skills were atrophying.     Once he could provide hexes consistently, the Skink Priest insisted he try to make Shadow Constructs. Slann (as well as Prodigal races) had been using Shadow magic to form shadows and thoughts into weapons, tools, and creatures of great power. Huan-kai was not eager to do this. For one thing the pit he summoned was technically a Construct and he had nightmares replaying the Troglodon incident over half the time he slept.     It took Huan-kai a long time to get the basics of conjuring Constructs. He eventually came up with the notion that as his miasma distorts the thoughts of others so as to make them weaker, a construct used his own thoughts to make something stronger. Using his own mental energy was taxing. By the time he mastered the basic miasmas, he could be ready for a dozen castings after only an hour of meditation. After two hours of mediation, he could pull off maybe four simple constructs then he’d have to stop casting magic for the day and rest.     Slann usually made tools or weapons, but Huan-kai found he had more luck conjuring Construct animals. Especially animals that attacked him in the past. After his first Troglodon got loose of his control and demolished a wall during its brief minute of life, Xapatli suggested he take a break from magical training to rest and work make sure his mundane skills didn’t get rusty.     If I knew that’s all it took to get out of this, I would have demolished something earlier…    

Part Seven

 

Adrienne, Scourge of Hill’s Bend

    With a hissing death rattle, the old woman crumpled to the floor dead. Though her face showed great pain, all could tell she welcomed her death as an end to the torture. Hooded figures piled her corpse next to those of the other dead nearby. Each corpse bespoke of a different means of painful death. The smallest hooded figure spoke.     “She took the longest to die because I wanted you to suffer. Of all your family members, I believe Mother was the only one you loved unconditionally.”     Tarrell ceased his fruitless struggles against the ropes binding him to gasp and choke in disbelief.     “‘Mother?!?’ Adrienne is that you!?! What have you done!?!”   “I think it’s clear what I’ve done, Father. You destroyed my life, so I destroyed yours. I saved the worst for you.”   “What will you do to me now?”   His words were not defiant. They were a mix of curiosity and despair. After witnessing progressively greater tortures inflicted on his whole extended family he couldn’t imagine what could possibly be worse. Then he saw what happened to his wife. Was anything worse than that possible?     “I plan to do nothing. Your children, in-laws, and grandchildren are no more. I am all that remains. I am your sole legacy now. The daughter you never wanted. I am what you made me to be. I thank you for giving me the strength I now enjoy. As a reward I will let you leave unharmed. I don’t want any physical pain or discomfort to distract you from the memory that everything that happened today is directly due to your actions.”     For today alone, Adrienne was made leader of her cult and she did not want to waste a moment of the power. She turned to the men nearest her.     “The people, buildings, and possessions of Hill’s Bend is yours to do with as you will, but be ready to go at sunrise. I will have anyone not ready to leave at dawn slain. We will need time to cover our tracks in case the farrier’s son who escaped on horseback was smart enough to warn the nearest Knightly chapter house of our presence. This home is to remain untouched. Leave my father enough provisions to survive the Winter, a bag of coins, and a horse and cart to travel anywhere he wishes. You can untie him when we are ready to leave.”     Adrienne sat on a hill and listened to screams of the villagers of Hell’s Bend. She felt savage joy in what she did but also a small feeling of emptiness. Was it guilt for slaying her family? No, guilt is for the weak. I am merely upset that my devotional act for Slaanesh is so great that it will be near impossible to top.     Slaanesh was pleased. Magical power came swiftly thereafter.    

Huan-kai, Priest of the Lost One

    Huan-kai was surprised to find that he was pleased to be out in the jungle again. His caste cousins were actually pleased to have him along now. Though wary of his powers, they appreciated them. Hunting and hiding was easy when Huan-kai could befuddle the senses of predators and prey alike. They could get food easier and cover distance quicker.     Once again, Huan-kai found that self-training was more effective than following barked orders. He found that he could mix Shadow Constructs and hexes in the same day if he kept his effects simple. In the jungle he focused on sensory obfuscates and in the wide open spaces he experimented with summoning Construct rylocks to carry him for brief jaunts.     “I know I’m not a priesssst, but why do you use shadowy birdssss and not Terradonsss?”   “Cold blooded creatures don’t like me remember? Warmblooded creatures don’t reflexively hate me, so I prefer warm-blooded Constructs.”   “Constructsss have blood?”   “I guess not. You are right I don’t need to limit myself based on my prejudices for things that tried to bite me. You guys are smarter than the priests!”     Patrolling the area around the site of Kaitar’s Stand was pretty routine. Huan-kai novice mystical senses felt the overwhelming power of the Slann’s magic wards as well as something…else. While his companions slept, Haun-kai sneaked away to the site of magicks.     “Kaitar, this is the spot where you died, isn’t it? I don’t know whether you can hear me or not. The Skink Priests are unclear what happens to the First when they die, and the Slann aren’t sharing what they know, if anything. I don’t know if you are haunting this spot or if you joined the Old Ones or if your soul met Oblivion. Some priests have speculated that nothing of ourselves survives on in death, but they don’t generally share that with their underlings. I guess you are used to Skink Priests not sharing information with you aren’t you?   “I was technically named after the Lost One, but really, I was named after you. Like your spawning and Zat-kai’s spawning, the High Skinks didn’t know what to make of me. Both you and Zat-kai defied expectations. You have set an example for all of us to follow and though we’ve never met, I am proud to carry your legacy. I like to think that I defied expectations as well.   “Both you and Zat-kai died heroic deaths serving the Old Ones. I want to serve the Old Ones too, but I don’t want to die a violent death, heroic or otherwise. I can’t speak for Zat-kai but I’m guessing that wasn’t an issue for you. I always found it a cruel joke by the Old Ones that the Sauri, the First who never age and can’t die by any means other than a violent death are given so little sense of self-preservation while Skinks, the First who are so brittle and mortal, are instilled with a strong fear of our own demise.   “I plan to serve the Old Ones by defying expectations. I plan to defy expectations by surviving whatever the Anathema and Fallen throw at me. Something in this prison is calling out and eventually trouble is coming back here. This is trouble that I will be expected to deal with. I hope I can prove as capable as you.”    

Part Eight

 

Adrienne, Disciple of Slaanesh

    Once she had enough control to use stealth, control, or mobility magic in the field the cult’s close calls with being exposed were drastically reduced.     Unfortunately, even Adrienne’s cunning and skills could not prevent the other cultists’ sloppiness entirely. When your strategy for recruitment is “join us or die horribly,” a potential recruit is likely to play along long enough to escape and warn the authorities or someone will put two and two together following the string of mutilated bodies.     One day when the bulk of the cult was meeting at the home of one of their wealthier members, the usual debaucheries were interrupted by pounding on every door and several windows. Half a minute later, blue and yellow uniformed troops poured into the manor. They were armed with crossbows and short swords. Clearly this was planned, the more commonly used spears, halberds, bows, and hand guns would be awkward for close quarters fighting indoors.     The cultists were caught off-guard, but their paranoia meant they always had weapons nearby. Not all the cultists were fully clothed, but all were fully armed. The soldiers organized into squads. The best dressed soldier, clearly a sergeant shouted out.     “Throw down your weapons and submit to the mercy of Sigmar, and you will be spared!”     No one moved, and the sergeant wasted time when he had the initiative allowing the cultists to form a more cohesive unit during the brief delay. Sigmar was many things, but he was never merciful while he was alive. His heirs have only gotten harder hearted since. Also the sergeant didn’t really hold the authority here. Clearly, the hammer wielding priest and pistol packing witch hunter were really in control.     Adrianne would have liked to play along with surrendering for a ploy, but the testosterone driven true believers wouldn’t stand for that. Her own mentor should have better sense, but then he spoke out defiantly.     “Drop your weapons and recant your blasphemous faith in your false idol, Sigmar, and we will spare you!”     A pair of muzzle flashes later, Adrienne’s mentor fell dead before the grim-faced witch hunter. He had worked on making a foppish noble the figurehead of the cult to protect himself, but his bravado tonight ruined all that beautiful subterfuge by giving himself away. Adrianne decided that pretending to cower in the corner seemed the logical thing to do while the bulk of the cultists surged forward against the soldiers arrayed against them.     The Warrior Priest prayed to Sigmar for strength to his allies, but Adrianne willed his power away. Then she reached deep into the darkness of her soul and touched the essence of Slaanesh embedded within the minds of each and every cultist. She magically transformed their short knives into shadowy long serrated swords capable of causing grievous harm on both a physical and mental level.     Each strike a cultist made felled a soldier, but they were outnumbered and unarmored so they were falling nearly as quickly. That would simply not do. Though already exhausted from creating so many deadly Shadow Constructs, Adrienne reached briefly into the surface thoughts of the Elector Count’s men and manifested their fears and inadequacies into a slowing fog.     The cultists began prevailing against their foes, but the witch hunter pushed forward through the crowd towards the spell caster and true threat, ignoring the wound he received from a lesser cultist. He was too focused on his mission to issue any bold statements and Adrienne was too exhausted from casting two wide spread spells in quick succession to try to come up with a verbal ploy.     Not bothering to reload his pistols, he drew his sword and advanced on the young woman, unthreatened by the small knife she brandished at him. She isn’t even holding it in an appropriate knife posture. The witch has no fighting experience. While he did not speak, his eyes registered the shock as her “knife” fired a bullet at him. Adrienne smiled as the “knife” glamour faded away from her pistol.     “Your protective charms only work against direct magical attack. Shadows are never direct.” She muttered, then she spoke up.     Some of the soldier attackers were only “slain” mentally and were still alive. The surviving cultists were already planning their revenge.     “Stop.”   The cultists paused.     “Why do you dare restrain us girl!”   “My magic delivered you, so I am claiming the mantle of leadership.”     To emphasize her points she pulled the shadows in around her in an impressive display. She hoped this small cantrip would conceal the fact that it would be hours before she could cast a major spell again. The cultists were too tired to argue, many were wounded. They all saluted her, some even bowed.     “Good. I want as many of these soldiers alive as possible.”     The soldiers woke up to smelling salts and found themselves bound and facing Adrienne dressed as a fashionable Salzenmund noblewoman.     “Greetings. I am here to offer you a deal.”     The priest spat defiance. With all his wounds, Adrienne was begrudgingly impressed he had survived so many injuries. He would not survive much longer.   “DO NOT LISTEN TO THE WITCH! Don’t give into fears. Sigmar will strike them down.”     Adrienne walked closer to him and lowered her voice to a stage whisper.     “Your courage is great, but so is your fear.”   “I fear nothing witch!”   “When you were five years old, you barely escaped a forest Goblin attack. You’ve been terrified of spiders ever since.”     The priest was struck speechless clearly not expecting this answer. An incantation was the next thing he heard, then he found he was covered by shadowy spiders. His scream was terrible, though it was cut short as the creatures forced their way down his open mouth. As the soldiers watched the priest expire, Adrienne turned to the next one in line.     “Above all else, Timothy fears drowning.”     Shadows enveloped his face for a full minute, then withdrew leaving the man gasping for breath turning pale and looking terrified. Adrienne turned to the next soldier.     “Markus, you fear for the safety of your mother and younger sisters in the village of River Fork. River Fork is approximately a day and a half journey southwest of Salzenmund. They live in the second to the last cottage on the eastern side of the village.”     He looked more terrified than any of the men there.     “I know your names. I know where you live. I know what you fear.”     I did not have enough time to probe ALL their minds, but neither these soldiers nor my new followers need to know this. Shadows always look larger than the objects they represent.     “I want you all to listen very carefully and I will tell you the story you will report back. Your priest and witch hunter did not die in vain for they died completely eradicating a dangerous subversive cult in the middle of fair Salzenmund…”     Afterwards Adrianne had the sergeant removed for a private chat.     “I have seen your thoughts. You volunteered for this mission because you hoped Sigmar could help you fight what was within you.”     She stroked his cheek gently.     “Sergeant Emerich Dreher. It’s not your fears that interest me most. I have a different story for you to listen to.”    

Huan-kai, Priest of the Lost One

    The Klodorex Chameleon Skinks (and everyone else) were all recalled to the city in order to prepare for a military campaign. Most of the city’s First just knew that they were going to fight Fallen elves, but Huan-kai was going to be privy to additional information.     Huan-kai entered the temple he was summoned and was greeted at the door by the beast Skink priest Nka-Lat (noke-ah-LOT), who was fond of lurking near the entrances of high traffic areas.     “A Chameleon Skink! I see a Chameleon Skink!”   “I’m not trying to hide…”     Nka-Lat never seemed to get tired of the novelty of a Chameleon Skink priest and thought something was wrong if a Chameleon Skink was seen. He also liked to point out other obvious things.     “It’s raining hard out.”   “It’s the monsoon season.”   “Lot of Kroxigor out there today.”   “They are fixing the storm damage to the aviary building”     Most of the other priests never bothered responding to Nka-Lat, but Haun-kai was too much of a talker to go silent when addressed. After crossing the gauntlet of inane observations, Huan-kai entered a meeting chamber. Some attendants left them provisions and then departed. He knew it was an important meeting if the attendants had to wait outside. Naturally Nka-Lat wasn’t invited. Huan-kai never saw him actually do anything.     While not fully accepted by his new brethren, Huan-kai was still a priest now so he got to sit in on several meetings of the High Skinks (though they never asked his opinion on anything). Klodorex’s Slann and the allied Slann from other temple cities had decided that they can’t effectively move on their proactive goals if they had to defend their Lustria from constant raiders. While the ancestral enemies of the First would be Daemons or Skaven, Fallen Elves were currently the most common raiders by far. The short-term problem needed to be fixed first     Telepathically linked Slann had divined that over the majority of the Dark Elf raiders used an underground sea to reach them. The past strategy was to delay engaging any invaders in order to let jungle attrition wear down their foe, but the new strategy was to destroy every raiding party earlier and earlier to trace them back to their underground sea and then block that route of attack.     Huan-kai interrupted the High Skinks at this point and suggested that rather than trying to triangulate the location of their sea route from multiple raiding parties, it would be less trouble to simply spare some fleeing survivors from one raiding party and have Chameleon Skinks waiting behind the army to quietly tail them back to their ships.     While some of the more conservative Skinks were angry that the youngest priest dared to interrupt them, but Xapatli was all for the idea so they didn’t press the point (though they later gave Xapatli the credit for coming up with the idea). Huan-kai was mildly annoyed, but didn’t care a lot. Chameleon Skinks don’t exactly seek attention or praise. He just excited that after training his whole life in combat, tracking, and magic he would be finally using all of his skills in a real and meaningful way.     Itza was currently deploying about a half of Klodorex’s standing Saurus warriors, ostensibly because they needed reinforcements, but the priests all knew that Lord Chuqxlata was just trying to tie Merestar’s hands. This had the unintended effect of emboldening Klodorex’s political allies. With the allied contingents regularly provided by other small temple cities, Klodorex now had more military strength than they had before Lord Chuqxlata’s maneuver. It remained to be seen if Itza would be bold enough to attempt to demand more military reserves from ALL the lesser temple cities.     Lord Desserex was going to lead the campaign as was his personal guard along with a large contingent from every Skink caste: worker caste warriors with their Kroxigor spawn kin, Sotek caste Skirmishers, Beast caste Skinks with their war trained dinosaurs, and of course Chameleon Skinks. They were going to be joined en-route by a contingent of reinforcements sent by their allies, led by the mighty Saurus Old Blood Tagorit (Ta-GORE-rit).     Klodorex’s Chameleon Skinks would be the scouting party sent to harass the elven raiders. Allied Chameleon Skinks would do the quiet tailing later. Huan-kai hoped he could meet some of the foreign Chameleon Skinks. Continued exposure to Skink priests made him more appreciative of his own kind.     After mobilizing and trekking through the jungle, the two armies met with raucous cheers. Do Sauri ever do ANYTHING quietly? After the two forces coalesced and worked out formations, the army was on its way and Huan-kai and his cousins went took the lead.     Ordinarily Chameleon Skinks would leave members behind to softly carry back chirps and whispers to let those behind know where the enemy is, but Huan-kai had one-upped this system with a cantrip of his own design. He could pass whispered messages cloaked in shadows to an intended recipient over a mile away. The army of the First Children of the Old Ones didn’t get a rough position a quarter mile away, they got exact troop deployments from over a mile away letting Tagorit set up a flanking position with his Cold One cavalry against the elves’ weakest side.     Huan-kai took up a position and eagerly waited for his allies to arrive. I just hope Tagorit remembers we want some of them to escape. Once again the Sauri were unnecessary loud, but Tagorit’s forces at least refrained from their yelling and charging till the main infantry forces were engaging the Dark Elves.     The Saurus warriors clashed with the elves on two fronts but the elves held their position. Haun-kai could have watched them fight all day, but a Stalker interrupted him.     “Ssstop gawking Huan-kai, we have work to do.”     He wasn’t gawking, he was taking mental notes. He had never seen anyone handle blades so fast before. When Huan-kai and his brethren attacked a pair of bolt thrower crews, he used magic to make sure that these particular elves were much slower. He killed half of the surprised befuddled elves with his own sword.   “Good work, Huan-kai. If the troops are hexed, then charging isss better than ssshooting.”   “To the next battery?”   “No too far away. The Terradonsss can get it. Let’sss shoot the back of the unarmored warriorsss.”     The Chameleon Skinks fired some darts into the Witch Elves, then Huan-kai spasmed. He felt as if someone punched him the gut. He felt a surge of magical power beyond even what he felt when he cast the Troglodon into the dark pit. Then without realizing what he was doing he shifted sideways, dropped his blowpipe and opened his palm.     He fanned his fingers out and sent jets of white light shot from every digit into the elves his brethren were shooting at. About half of his cousins had the professionalism to keep shooting. The other half stared at him in confusion and awe. For the first time in years Huan-kai caught unintentional telepathic messages. He lost his ability to filter the thoughts of others. It was if the sensitivity of his telepathy was increased a hundred-fold, this time crossing language barriers too. His skin had changed from mottled jungle foliage to stark white.     He can summon Shadow AND Light now?   Cowardly Lizards with peashooters!   Mahrlect! I should not have stopped shooting darts!   Khaine protect me from this foul magic!   Sotek is pleased by the slaughter of the Fallen!   How are the Lizards using High Elf magic!?!   MOVE TOWARDS THE ELF COLD ONE RIDERS!   “Cold Onesss…attack elf Cold Onesss…”   “They are too-well armored for us to ssseriously harm them with darts.”   “I…pull rank…over…as a priessst”     As the Chameleon Skinks turned reluctantly towards a unit of enemy cavalry, Haun-kai felt another punch to his gut. Then his hands felt uncomfortably warm. He raised his hands in a trance and outstretched his figures. His scales were glowing like burnished gold. Jets of molten silver shot out from his fingertips towards the Cold Ones who began to be burned from the inside out as their own scales heated up.     How did Huan-kai do that?   Better I die here then let the sorceress punish me for failure!   Poor Cold Ones, they didn’t deserve this…   RAARRR!!!   Why is Huan-kai turning gold?   MOVE TOWARDS THE HYDRA!   “giant…sssnake…monssster”     Huan-kai struggled to keep up with the pace of his cousins, then fell to knees from another punch in the gut. This time he felt cold. Colder than even when he summoned major Shadow Constructs. Huan-kai barely registered that his skin turned solid ebony. He reached out his hand and felt the Hydra’s life force pass into him. It was terrifying but also euphoric. He felt a rush of even more magical energy flow into as the life force became mystical energy.     Already filled with more magic than he ever channeled before, Haun-kai feared he would burst. The coldness rapidly left him and he began shifting color rapidly between red, purple and orange. All the stolen life force was forced out and more. An entire column of elven soldiers burst into flame. As far as Huan-kai could tell, so did the entire world.     “HELP ME! I’M BURNING!!!!”     Though he didn’t have a physical mark or wound on him, he had turned dull gray: the color Chameleon Skinks turn upon death. Huan-kai and the other Chameleon Skinks did not always get along, but Chameleon Skinks look after their own. They scooped and carried away their priest away from the battlefield while he was still writhing in imaginary agony and screaming about fire. His face was streaked with tears, too powerless to even move.     The battle was won shortly thereafter, but none of Klodorex’s Chameleon Skinks were present to witness it.    

Part Nine

 

Adrienne, Matriarch of the Salzenmund Shadow Society

    Adrienne decided her new personal cult needed to learn subtlety, something she knew well from her earlier life as a thief.   Salzenmund mourned the loss of a brave battle priest but celebrated that a daemon summoning murder cult of Khorne had been purged from their borders. Surely good fortune was to follow, and it did. Crime fell dramatically as Sergeant Emerich Dreher, the hero of the battle against Khorne’s minions quickly became the scourge of the underworld ruthlessly rooting out criminals wherever they could be found. His talent for rooting out corruption assured his star rose quickly. After the current head of the captain of the city watch was found to be a Dark Elf collaborator, Dreher was the obvious replacement, though the former captain raved that he had no idea how the Altar of Khaine or the mutilated bodies got into his cellar even to the moment of his execution.     The city’s upper class was well-pleased, but this joy didn’t trickle down. Despite so many criminals being caught, the common people didn’t really feel any safer. It was almost as if for every criminal Dreher caught, two more rose in their place.     “Join Slaanesh or die!” was now a forbidden recruiting technique. Adrienne was never respected as a thief but she knew people who knew people. Adrienne knew that even pimps, whores, pickpockets, cutthroats, smugglers, and other ne’er do wells liked to at least pretend that they had scruples, so most would balk at serving Chaos powers outright. The new recruiting slogan was “pay the Salzenmund Shadow Society a percentage of your take or run afoul of the city’s golden boy Captain Dreher…assuming something worse doesn’t happen first.”     With so much money coming in from the city’s underworld, Adrienne was not dependent on wealthy cultists for support which was good as most of them were slain, and she didn’t like them anyway. With her finger on the city’s criminal element, she was able to provide support to strategic individuals with the goal of making it easier for any and all citizens to buy and sell of any and all vices. Adrienne figured a thousand men and women drowning in forbidden sins in total ignorance would serve Slaanesh better than ten such people venerating Slaanesh by name. Thus, the immediate focus was on tempting people to vice and crime, not to Slaanesh directly. Tempting people to Slaanesh would come later.     She instructed her followers to only make recruitment pitches to individuals so utterly drowned in vices and blackmail material that they were already servants to Slaanesh in all but name. With enough personal information about every potential recruit, the words “or die horribly” were not really needed in their recruitment speeches anymore.     Adrienne made it a priority to set up correspondence with other Chaos cults throughout the Empire, even those not of Slaanesh. Salzenmund was already a busy port with a northern position. Soon nearly all trade and correspondence between the overt Chaos Warriors of the north and the hidden Chaos cults of the South was occurring through Salzenmund. Adrienne got a percentage of every transaction.     This of course made crime worsen, but the city’s elite didn’t care. As far as they could tell, Salzenmund’s trade was booming. What they didn’t realize was that they were trading in goods looted from the rest of the Empire. Whenever Marauders looted something they couldn’t immediately use (art, gold, etc), they would now fence it through Salzenmund to buy things they did want (weapons, armor, quality alcoholic beverages). Some Chaos lords also had rarified tastes for civilized luxuries. Sigvald the Magnificent’s many demands alone meant lots of additional coin for Adrienne.     Adrienne had set up with unscrupulous wizards of all stripes both those directly aligned with Chaos and as well those of the Imperial Colleges who merely didn’t question their contacts’ loyalties. Certain rarified components were easier to come by in the Chaos Wastes (Bloodletter tongues, Manticore blood) and certain items were easier to acquire within the Empire (virgin blood of the third son of a noble family, alchemical potions). Adrienne set up cuts for this trade as well. This also gave her a dossier on the invisible movers and shakers of the Empire.     Bodies were traded. Even a subtle Chaos cult creates mutilated bodies routinely. Rather than risk them being discovered, Adrienne used her smuggling contacts to make sure any inconvenient corpses were dumped far out at sea. If a Chaos worshipper from north wanted to sneak into the Empire they had to do so with Adrienne’s blessing. If a cultists became too insane or mutated to maintain a low profile they would be smuggled out through Adrienne’s contacts to join their less subtle brethren in the North. There was limited trading in the living too. A few Chaos Lords up north had specific desired qualities in slaves and more than one vampire occasionally had the hankering for specific types of victims.     All this and more enriched Adrienne with coin and favors owed. Adrienne reveled in the fact that she would never be powerless again. Salzenmund would become an offering to the Dark Powers and no army could save it, for the attackers were the citizens of the city itself. Perhaps the Emperor could be goaded into razing the city, but that would merely sew disunity in the Empire. Adrienne made sure her core followers and wealth could be sneaked out in such a scenario, so the Shadow Society could simply pick up and move to another city. She would not overextend herself like all the militant Chaos Lords who fell before her. The gains for Slaanesh would be steady and impossible to reverse.     This was not enough for Slaanesh. One night while presiding over routine debauchery of her cult, Adrienne realized that the victims of the night were children purchased from unscrupulous rural families. This could have been me. Unwilling to torture them, she slit their throats quickly then danced in the blood. Adrienne said her whims were to feel the hot blood against her skin. This convinced her followers, but Slaanesh knew better. He was not fooled, and he was not pleased. Even the tiniest amount of mercy was unacceptable. He made his displeasure known as soon as Adrienne was out of sight of her minions.     As Adrienne writhed in pain she remembered what her late mentor had explained to her about humans being the favored followers of the dark gods. Daemons are perfect reflections of the dark gods but they consume a portion of the dark god’s power. Beastmen never fail to act on behalf of Chaos, but their worship is hollow since they know nothing else. The Beastmen and Daemons can’t be anything other than perfect servants of the dark gods. The gods needed mortals who could choose to follow them.     Adrienne realized that in order for her worship to be valuable to Slaanesh she has to be able to choose to worship him. She had misgivings about slaying her own nieces and nephews earlier but buried that under hatred for her father. Now she finally realized that the one dark act she did not enjoy or was indifferent to was inflicting pain on children who reminded Adrienne of her younger self. If this was what she did not want to do, this is what Slaanesh would demand of her. Over and over again.     Before, Adrienne often thought it was juvenile to want to become a Daemon Prince. Too many fail grasping at that prize all for the masculine need to have eternal glory and worship. But a Deamon Prince has no humanity in their tainted soul. As long as Adrienne had a tiny mote of humanity giving her cognitive dissonance over harming children, she would always be in pain. She would always be powerless. If she become a Daemon Princess, and then would be free of her weakness forever.     Whether she acquiesced to Slaanesh’s sick requests or resisted, it would wear down her mind. Eventually she would lose her sanity. She needed her sanity to maintain her brilliant but fragile network of minions in Salzenmund. She would not be able to use the slow corruption of Salzenmund to win daemonhood. She would need to do something bold and decisive. Not slow and methodical.     The answer came to Adrienne in a dream and never left her consciousness after that. Her mentor’s mentor’s mentor times who knows how many generations of sorcerers was trapped in a prison far to the West guarded by potent magic woven by the dark gods oldest mortal foes. She would free her daemonic forebear and crush the reptiles. This would earn Slaanesh’s favor, purging herself of weakness and allowing her to lord over the corrupt husk of Salzenmund for eternity.     Adrienne would never be powerless again.    

Huan-kai, Priest of the Lost One

    Huan-kai stopped hallucinating that he was on fire after a few hours. It was days before he got control over his color change power again and it was weeks before he felt anything like his old self. While recuperating he tried to distract himself reading scrolls,but he just got angry when he came across battle reports involving Slann. He had a notion, but hoped he was wrong. He headed to the busiest temple to find out.     “I see a Chameleon Skink!”     Huan-kai didn’t normally try to probe the minds of Skink priests. They tended to be hostile to this sort of invasion and their minds were generally hard to penetrate. Huan-kai reached into Nka-Lat’s mind and found his mind had all the resistance of a wet sheet of papyrus. He saw the simpleton’s mind was a vast network of metaphysical scars. Huan-kai was livid.     “Nka-Lat, the Slann broke your mind. They—broke—your—mind!”     He stormed out and began pacing, bobbing his head, and shaking his tail in anger. He needed to mask his anger if he wanted to confront his problem. After almost an hour of failed meditation attempts, Huan-kai centered himself and proceeded to the high temples he normally avoided. He approached the Temple Guard at the door with a mask of calm.     “Greetings, I have business in the temple. High Skink’s orders.”     The armored Sauri stepped aside and let him pass.     As he proceeded down the corridor, he was met by Choltehe (Chole-te-huh). Huan-kai always found Choltehe to be one of the city’s least pleasant priests, the epitome of an obnoxious mid-level leader imperiously ordering around underlings and blatantly kissing the tail of his superiors.   “I know why you are here, Huan-kai. I cannot let you pass.”   “I have important news for Lord Desserex.”   “I will not fall for your shadowy deceptions.”   “No deception, I have important news…High One.”   “You never use the formal titles…You are up to something. I will not let you pass. You may not disturb Lord Desserex.”   “You can’t stop me, High Tail-licker. You never trained in combat, I can pin you to the floor in ten seconds.”   “Guards! Do not let the priest of the Lost One to walk past me.”     Four armored Sauri moved to block the door.     “They can’t stop me either. I’m a priest of the Lost One.”   “They won’t listen to your orders, I outrank you.”     Shadows coalesced around Huan-kai.     “That’s not what I meant.”   “Hah! You could never best me in magic. I can do more than pin you to floor.”     Static electricity crackled throughout the room forming an ominous cloud around Choltehe.   “You don’t want to disturb Lord Desserex, yes? What do you think he ’ll say if you summon a lightning bolt through the temple ceiling and murder a fellow priest in the process?”     The crackling flickered as Choltehe pondered this. Huan-kai took advantage of the hesitation to send his superior sprawling to the floor with an elbow to the face.     The Temple Guard did not move a muscle for all of this, but they sprang into alertness as soon as Huan-kai stepped over the prone priest.     Excellent, they are taking their orders literally as usual.     The Chameleon Skink summoned a miasma and the Temple Guard suddenly staggered as if their halberds and armor tripled in weight. They charged to the attack at this. Even hexed, Huan-kai was no match for them.     “I guess I know when I’m beaten…”     Shadows completely enfolded Huan-kai then formed into a Construct of a Terradon who flew him to the exit then the Terradon melted into indistinct shadows and flowed over Huan-kai again.     Choltehe had staggered to his feet and was tried to project a confident bravado despite a bloody nose.     “You are wise to leave, Chameleon Skink. Why don’t you—Mahrlect! What just happened?”     Shadows pulled away from Choltehe. He had found that he somehow switched places and was now standing near the exit while Huan-kai was right outside Lord Desserex’s chamber. Huan-kai lifted the miasma from the Temple Guard.     “You heard him guys, don’t let me past him and through the door he is guarding!”     The Temple Guard could tell following the letter of the order would violate the spirit and moved towards Huan-kai (now much farther away). Choltehe stamped his feet and snarled in frustration.     “Nevermind, he can go in! It will cause less trouble on the whole this way.”     Huan-kai strode in and advanced towards the Slann at the end of the long chamber.     “Lord Desserex, we must speak!”     The High Skink and various attendants were all stunned. A blink was the only indication that the Slann noticed his presence.     “Lord Desserex will summon you if he wishes to converse young one.”   “FINE! Desserex doesn’t have to talk. He can just listen.”   “He is too busy to listen to—”   “SHUT UP!”   “Begone insolent fool!”     Huan-kai felt the air around him grow cold, but he was far too used to defending against Iceshard Blizzards by this point to be too concerned. The ice harmlessly slid down a trail of shadows to coalesce around an empty chair in the corner of the room.     “Try something like that again, and you get a dart to the neck!”     The High Skink flinched and looked angry but did not speak or try casting another spell.     “Lord Desserex, I was proud to serve you against the Dark Elves, but I refuse to become a hollowed out husk like Nka-Lat. How dare you violate me like that! I thought I was dying!”     The High Skink found his courage again.     “We all take risks to serve the Old Ones. Saurus Warriors risk their bodies in battle, we risk our minds.”   “Why didn’t any other priests risk their minds in the battle? Why only me?”   “As part of the advanced scouting party you had an ideal position to channel our Lord’s spells. It is an honor to serve as a vessel of a Slann’s power.”   “I am honored to serve the Old Ones, but I refuse to be someone’s blowpipe to shoot darts from. I’m a person, not a weapon. What’s more, I refuse to be treated as if I’m expendable. I am the only Chameleon Skink priest. I am the only Shadow Skink priest. I am not replaceable.”   “We are all expendable for the Old Ones plans you arrogant—”     Lord Desserex spoke and all others ceased stirring.     “You are young. I was overly focused on the battle and cast more spells through you than I should have.”     The Skinks in the room stood in shocked silence, but Huan-kai was far from mollified, unaware that by Slann standards this was the equivalent of an extremely profuse apology.     “Is that all you can say? ‘I overdid it slightly.’ I think ‘Soul of Stone’ refers to more than your magical ability.”     Huan-kai summoned more shadows around himself and a second Terradon carried him out of the room. Walking out on a Slann without formal dismissal was a serious breach of etiquette but either Desserex or the High Skink could have dispelled the Construct easily if they were truly bothered by this.     After pondering the incident for a few hours, Desserex spoke again.     “Tell Huan-kai that we will not use him as a vassal again unless he volunteers.”     Skink attendants rushed to pass this along, but Huan-kai did not get the message. Finding a Chameleon Skink is no easy feat when he does not wish to be found. Huan-kai had already left the city.    

Part Ten

 

Adrienne, Shadow Mistress of Slaanesh

    Adrienne assumed arranging an expedition to Lustria would not be difficult for her given that she had extensive contacts among seafaring Nordlanders and seafaring Norsemen. Unfortunately, this was more difficult than she expected.     Journeying to almost any other land allowed for land stops in between, but the path to Lustria was straight across nothing but ocean. That meant many more provisions would be required than other journeys of similar length. Ulthuan was more than a bit out of the way, and Adrienne figured they would be able to spot hidden Slaanesh worshippers much better than humans.     While Adrienne had racked up many favors owed and established a strong reputation among the followers of the Dark Gods, many balked at the thought of a long sea journey. Most major offensives occur over land because those favored by the dark gods, especially Khorne and Slaanesh need to vent their urges periodically and do not take well to being cooped up in small spaces for weeks on end with nothing to fight. Monsters were usually worse.     “Mistress, you have a visitor. He or she claims to have something to offer you.”     Outside her office she sensed a presence. She could not have risen to be being a lord among casters without being able to recognize magical auras from a distance. Tzeentch…   “He or she? Nevermind. Make the visitor wait fifteen more minutes, then send the visitor in.”     A completely hooded figure was let in. The build did not reveal anything to indicate the person’s identity. Its voice could have been a deep voiced woman or light voiced man, the only noticeable trait in the person’s voice was a very monotone delivery.     “Mistress of Salzenmund, I thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I hear you are gathering forces for an expedition west. I am here to offer the services of my humble group.”   “Tzeentch-ling, if I wanted the services of a humble group who can stab me in the back, I would have hired Skaven mercenaries when they made their offer. I decline.”   “You haven’t even heard my offer.”   “I don’t need to, hear it. If Tzeentch followers volunteer help, they either want to sabotage the endeavor or steal the prize.”   “Even if you refuse us, we still get the prize. I simply offered our help so you can be more likely to succeed.”   “Explain.”   “There are two greater daemons bound in Lustria. One of Tzeentch and one of Slaanesh. I want to free the Tzeentch daemon. I am naturally indifferent to freeing your daemon, but you can’t free one without freeing both. You may not trust me to act in your interests, but surely you can trust me to act in my own interest.”   “Perhaps, but the risk is still not worth it. My magic is plenty potent. Whatever paltry powers you have would be of no consequence.”   “It is not magic we offer, but sinew. Surely you know the Changing One has many creatures at his command.”   “I can get all the Chaos Spawn I want.”   “Do you have the ability to bind them into dormancy for a long sea voyage? What about Mutaliths, can you get all of those you want?”   “Very well, we can negotiate the details later as I have other meetings to attend to today, but I do not want to travel with disgusting mutants on my ship. There will be a separate vessel for all the abominations to travel on. The Mutaliths are free to ride on that ship with you as well.”     The Tzeentch leader was not what Adrienne expected from her limited past dealings with the followers of Tzeentch. Adrienne had seen lots of mutated followers of Chaos and assumed she couldn’t phased by grotesque mutations. Rather than having otherworldly features, her new supposed ally lacked any features. Underneath his/her cloak the sorcerer was a hairless albino with gray eyes. Neither male nor female. Not like the way Slaanesh’s faithful and daemons cultivate an androgenous look having traits of both sexes, this one had traits of neither.     They both had traits of neither. Her initial contact had a twin though Adrienne doubted they were twins by birth. Both were average height, average build, had monotone character-less voices, no hair, no pigment, and small but not freakishly small ears and noses. It was as if a sculptor had started making a basic human and was waiting to find out who he was sculpting before finishing. Adrienne did not relish the idea of mutating in the service of the Dark Powers, but the process of losing all identifying characteristics terrified her in a way more conventional mutations never could.     The reason for the twins being featureless was eventually made very clear, the Mutaliths. Every one of the twins’ followers had been horribly warped by the monsters’ warping power. No Chaos Warriors, no Marauders: all Forsaken and Chaos Spawn. Tzeentch chose his terrible gift well. Possessing no individual characteristics, the twins were seemingly immune to the Mutaliths’ mutating power. Their featureless bodies provided nothing for the warping power to latch on to. They were literally immutable.     Adrienne, though nauseated but secretly pleased to have the reinforcements from Tzeentch. The monsters would provide heavy muscle she was lacking. After several weeks of cashing in favors she deemed her force ready.     The bulk of her force was made up of Marauders dedicated to Slaanesh. They were motivated by their lust, avarice, and pride. These were vices that Adrienne was very well-practiced at manipulating. The hard part was logistics. They had to be brought in from the frozen North. That means she had to set up a rendezvous with her main force. Two small fleets setting up a rendezvous in a world where every message had to be carried by hand was no mean feat, but both the Nordlanders and the Norse were superb sailors, so this was achievable.     A small number of Chaos Warriors and Hellstrider Cavalry was joining her forces along with the Marauders. Whereas the Marauders wanted treasure and glory, these others came out of devotion or perhaps hope of truly gaining the notice of Slaanesh. They didn’t know they were trying to liberate a Keeper of Secrets per se, but they knew this was no mere treasure seeking raid. Controlling them would not be difficult as they shared Adrienne’s goals. The main difficulty with these was convincing those not fully in Slaanesh’s service to not turn away when they realized just who they were serving.     Accompanying her directly were the Flagellants of Deyarok. Some Empire Flagellants wanted to repent for their sins, but Adrienne studied the flagellant cults long enough to know that many individuals were more often motivated by a desire to experience and inflict pain as well as the pride of knowing they are sticking to a controversial faith others are too weak or foolish to accept. Slaanesh was better than Sigmar at letting his followers experience and inflict pain and a semi-secret cult let these fools believe they were on to some great secret and were right where everyone else was wrong. Adrienne looked up an obscure deity worshipped in the North in long past, all but forgotten, Deyarok. The name “Deyarok” in place of “Slaanesh” to let her pawns hide in plain sight among the scores of other cults of minor deities the authorities paid little heed to. They were not hard to convince to come along, the hardest part would be forcing them to behave on their long sea voyage.     What savings Adrienne didn’t spend on ships and supplies, she spent on hiring elite mercenaries. Over her years as the Shadow Mistress of Salzenmund, she made a point to identify the most amoral sell-swords in the area just in case of a situation like this. She needed additional soldiers and she needed additional soldiers who would overlook the fact that they were working directly for Chaos if they were paid enough. She hired privateers that fit this mold. Handgunners and cannon crews. These troops would provide ranged power to her forces, but they would still be so hopelessly outnumbered that they would not be able to have second thoughts of fulfilling their contract if they got cold feet who they were serving.     Adrienne brought the more violent and unstable members of her own cult with her. The violent members would provide useful soldiers. She took the unstable members because she didn’t want her cult to blow their cover during her absence. While she was willing to let her whole cult die to give her a shot at achieving daemonhood, she would have preferred to not casually allow her grand gift to Slaanesh wither on the vine. Captain Dreher was coming along. His growing excesses, while pleasing to Slaanesh, were displeasing to Adrienne. Adrienne doubted he would have been able to maintain his spotlessly clean public persona without her nearby to provide cleanup assistance.     The weeks at sea were less difficult than Adrienne supposed they would be. The Hellstrider steeds of her cavalry all went all but dormant along with their enslaved riders. They at least knew they were on a mission for daemon kind. The Chaos Warriors did not cause trouble, they were beyond such petty concerns as food or comfort. The mercenaries expected a long voyage, so they were content enough. Captain Dreher made a good intermediary between the mercenaries and the more Chaotic forces. The Tzeentch ship followed Adrienne’s orders. They stayed barely in sight the whole voyage, no closer and no farther. That meant Adrienne could focus entirely on keeping the Marauders in line.     As she got closer to Lustria the pull that drew her in grew stronger. She knew where to direct the helmsman. They disembarked smoothly and began their trek through the jungle. The more human among the group were pleased to be off the ship, but the jungle was rough going. Fresh water was not hard to find, but food was scarcer than they expected. A lot of the flora was poisonous, no fatalities but enough vomiting and hives occurred to convince the group to focus on finding meat. Easier said than done though. Most of the Empire humans didn’t have much wilderness experience and the Marauders made a lot of noise that drove away a lot of game. Even way in the back of the column, the Mutaliths scared away no small number of local animals.     A few days in, the jungle got very quiet. None of the expedition were accustomed enough with the jungle to find silence suspicious, until they marched into a clearing filled with undead soldiers. Zombies of several species outnumbering them at least five-to-one as well as nearly half that many skeleton warriors. A few larger dinosaur zombies and skeletons were among them, some pulsing with strong necromantic power. Adrienne began having her men prepare battle positions when she saw a human zombie towards the front of the column was carrying a large white flag. She signaled her men to form ranks but ordered them not to attack. A man stepped forward, a vampire in fact. That was obvious. Adrienne had done business with vampires before, but this one was different from the ones she met hiding in the Empire.     “Greetings travelers! Welcome to Lustria. My name is Lord Renliss.”   “My name is Lady Adrienne. I was expecting to face reptile-men. Please explain your presence here.”   “Interesting, one doesn’t see a woman leading Chaos expeditions often. I believe you learned Norse as a second language...you roll your “r”s like a Nordlander, not a Norsewoman. You are dressed as a noblewoman. That and your gunpowder troops suggest you are an underground Chaos cult. Your pretense of nobility is broken by your hands though. Too coarse for one of noble birth. You were born a peasant”     Adrienne switched to the tongue of the Empire.     “Impressive deductive skills. My turn. You are used to wearing finery but you have not been able to maintain it in the jungle. You’ve tried to compensate for this by wearing furs and reptile skins in a vaguely noble fashion. I can tell you’ve been in Lustria over a century by the state of your gear. Even some of your own personal gear looks scavenged rather than being ancestral heirlooms. You have many animated corpses of the reptile-men, but the most populous race in this area only makes up roughly half of your forces. I’m guessing this means you’ve avoided fighting them when possible. I can see that you’ve fed on sub-par blood for so long I doubt you could pass as human in the Old World anymore, and this probably galls you. Based on the slight twang in your dialect I’m guessing you were originally from Averland when you still were alive.”   “Very good. Now it is my turn again. You seek to free the Daemons that the Slann have imprisoned.”     Adrienne was struck silent with surprise.     “I know of your mission. I divined your coming would be at this time and place weeks ago. I’ve come to warn you. The Lizardmen will not be taken by surprise. The Slann of the city that guard your objective are more alert than most. They will send their armies to stop you.”     Adrienne noticed a spectral woman standing behind Renliss she didn’t spot before. The ghost sputtered incoherently, then shouted. Adrienne winced slightly at her high volume. Clearly this was a banshee if even ordinary shouting stung like this.     “You brought us all this way to tell them that?”   “Hush, I was not finished. Lady Adrienne, I would like to see my foes weakened. Your force is pitifully small to fight the Lizardmen. I could kill you all here and make a modest increase to my standing army.”     He paused for effect. The banshee sputtered angrily, but Adrienne was silent. Sven, the aspiring champion leading the Marauders shouted, “We can easily destroy these walking corp—”     Before he could finish his sentence. Adrienne cut him off with a shadow Construct muzzle.     Adrienne waited expectedly and Renliss continued.     “But I’d prefer to see what damage you could do against my opponents. You have strong troops, but you need more. Kayishen can aid you.”     He waved his hand and a large regiment of zombie infantry, several zombified Cold Ones, and a corpse cart slumped forward. Kayishen walked in front of them and called on some of her power and the undead forces stood up straight again.     “Thank you my lord, but surely you should send some of the stronger troops?”   “No, Kayishen, these can help soak up casualties to let Adrienne’s stronger forces attack where needed, I don’t plan to send anything I can’t afford to lose.”     The inference was clear. Kayishen would have blushed if she still had blood in her face. Adrienne interrupted the awkwardness and spoke up.     “Lord Renliss, thank you for this generous gift. Captain Dreher, please attend me.”     The captain stepped forward. Her tone was very gentle and inviting, but Emerich had no idea what she wanted from him now.   “Yes mistress.”   “Remember when I said there would be a time when you face the consequences for trying to sneak into my cabin on our sea voyage?”   “Y-yes mistress.”   “That time is now.”     Adrienne spoke a series of rapid incantations and brought out all of Dreher’s fears and unfilled desires and turned them against him sapping his strength, speed, coordination, and vitality all at once. He crumpled to the ground.     “While it’s unequal to the gift you have given me, allow me to bestow a gift on you. A rarity in the jungles. A healthy human’s blood.”     Adrienne was pleased to both strengthen her authority with her minions and develop a good relationship with a new business partner. The army marched away from the meeting with Lord Renliss with double the size it used to be. Adrienne reminded herself not to become over confident. Her force was twice as large, but hardly twice as strong. Undead generally needed superior numbers to prevail with the exception of a few of the more powerful creatures. Renliss had only loaned her one such creature.     Kayishen was a very interesting creature indeed, but she did not reveal much about herself.     “You seem very eager to help us, more so than your master.”   “Master? Hardly. He is temporary until I can return to my true master.”   “And your true master is?”   “None of your business.”   “Very well. Your accent is hard to place as is your clothing. From where do you hail?”   “The place I hail from is long gone.”   “Where was that?”   “None of your business.”   “Do you want to work with me or not?”   “Very well. The Lizardmen had raised a city of slave humans until I liberated them with my gods’ blessings.”   “Then what happened?”     The banshee stonewalled her after that. They walked in silence for hours after that. Eventually Adrienne chose to change the subject and convinced Kayishen to answer some basic questions about Lizardmen military capabilities. The army marched on. The jungle itself seemed to make war on them, but the addition of the undead seemed to have discouraged most of the hostile animals. They just had to deal with poisonous plants, biting insects, and high humidity heat. A mercenary captain hustled forward and nervously tried to get Adrienne’s attention.   “Yes?”   “Mistress, our supplies are very low. The animals are avoiding us completely now due to the undead, and that means we don’t have any game to hunt.”     After two deaths, three people breaking out in hives, and four cases of dysentery, the troops were not brave enough to try testing out what plants to eat.     “Kayishen, you are native here. Do you know what plants can be safely eaten.”   “I hadn’t eaten in over a thousand years and servants brought me food back when I was alive.”   “We have the same goals, but we can’t help you if our troops starve to death. You know the territory, there has to be something you can do.”     Kayishen paused and muttered something in a strange tongue, perhaps the tongue of the Lizardmen. Probably cursing the inconveniences caused by the living.     “I don’t sleep. When your men make camp I can scout to see if I can surprise a large dinosaur and kill it with my voice. That will give you plenty of meat.”   “Thank you Lady Kayishen.”     Adrienne sat in her tent mediating and praying to Slaanesh for her next day of spell casting. She did more praying than normal since she couldn’t sleep. She was already planning to try to rescue the Daemon but this didn’t cause the strength of the summoning to abate, it got more intense as she grew closer and this interfered with her rest. She hoped Kayishen return quickly.     As she was about to finally attempt to get some sleep she felt a minor stirring of magic very close by. She turned to face what she hoped was Kayishen reporting she found some meat, but she found herself facing a small Lizardman with a small floating Shadow construct replica of his own head floating next to him.     The Lizardman spoke in the odd language Adrienne had heard Kayishen mutter in briefly then the construct head spoke in the perfect dialect of a Nordlander.     “Hello, my name is Huan-kai. I’ve been following your so-called progress and you seem like you could use a competent guide.”    

Huan-kai, Priest of the Lost One

    The warmblood leader was too stunned by his presence to attack immediately, just as he hoped. She spoke in her own strange tongue. The human’s face showed up on the opposite side of Haun-kai’s construct head and the construct repeated her words in perfect Saurian.     “How did you get in here...never mind I see you are the color of the tent. You are one of the Chameleon Skinks I heard about.”   “If you really wanted to keep me out, you should have put the Cold Ones on your perimeter. They could have smelled me. Assuming the undead ones still have their sense of smell.”   “Why you are giving me advice on how to beat you?”   “I am seeking new employ. Somewhere where I could be appreciated. The Slann are not good bosses.”   “So I heard. You do realize I serve your Old Ones’ greatest foes?”   “The Old Ones left my people long before I was spawned, so why should I care. Do you want a better guide or not?”     There was a long pause before the human spoke again.     “Yes, but I have already reached my quota for allies I can’t trust, so I’m going to have to kill you now.”     The human summoned a miasma around Huan-kai, but he had enough experience with similar miasmas that he could harmlessly absorb it to counter the spell. Unfortunately Huan-kai could tell the human was only half trying. Her command of sorcery was amazingly strong for a mortal being and Huan-kai knew he couldn’t win a contest of magic. Then I won’t use magic. If she is anything like the other wizards I’ve seen, she can’t fight. He pulled out blowpipe and fired two darts right into the human’s stomach with a pair of rapid shots that would have made his cousins proud.   Pffft! Pffft!   Plink! Plink!   Mahrlect!   “Before you kill me could you explain how cloth stopped two darts?”     The human waved her hand and her noblewoman’s dress morphed into impressive combat armor.     “Shadow magic illusion. Obviously the Slann didn’t instruct you on Shadow cantrips. For instance, your translator spell was unnecessarily complicated.”   Excuse me, I had to invent my own cantrips not having centuries of tradition to go off of like the Heavens and Beast priests.     She waved her hand and Huan-kai’s construct head was dispersed into vapor which she inhaled into the human’s mouth. She spoke in perfect Saurian.     “What was your plan? Assassinate me and sneak away?”   “No, I was planning to blackmail with the poison antidote.”     The human began laughing hysterically.     “No assassin or spy would be that stupid or crazy. I’ll take your services as a guide. What I need is food for my soldiers.”   “No problem, there are some fruit trees and starchy plants nearby and your miasma is also great for catching fish if you know where to look.”     The next morning, the humans ate well. Huan-kai thought he found the humans food to spare, but they ate through everything he found as fast as a school of piranha.     Humans eat a lot more than the First. They also relieve themselves more…     Huan-kai noticed the humans parting to allow a semi-translucent human female through, behind her were some skeletons dragging a dead smallish tallisaurus.     “Sorry it took me so long, but this bit of meat should help your food problem—Mistress, there’s a Chameleon Skink hiding near you!”     Black energy collected around the banshee’s eyes and lashed out at Huan-kai. Enough magical energy to kill him thrice over but Huan-kai was able to read her surface thoughts—barely. He had just enough warning to pull out his stolen relic from the temple. The bolt was absorbed into a dark shaking cube.     Next she inhaled to prepare a scream. How does something without lungs inhale anyway? Huan-kai sprinted and dived for a block of zombies that have been standing motionless for hours. His ears ached, but no more than a Saurus shouting at him would cause. The zombies took the brunt of the blast, six or seven were blasted apart, causing Huan-kai was spattered with rotting limbs.     Kayishen (for who else could this screaming ghost be?) snapped her fingers and the zombies snapped out of their inert state and began trying to grasp at the Skink in their midst.     Mahrlect! Mahrlect! Mahrlect!     Huan-kai dodged and slashed his way out of the shambling crowd taking several minor scratches in the process. Darts won’t stop her, and I doubt I can dodge another scream…I didn’t want to do this, but I don’t want to die.     Huan-kai roared defiantly and willed his greatest nightmare to take form. He collapsed to the ground as a life-sized shadow construct of a Troglodon formed in front of him and charged the banshee. The Troglodon construct had twice the strength of a living Troglodon. Unfortunately, it was only half as fast. Once Kayishen got over the shock of a Chameleon Skink casting a massive Shadow spell, she was able to sidestep the charging monster. Some of the skeletons behind her did not have fast enough to reflexes to get out of the way though and were utterly crushed.     As surprising as a Chameleon Skink casting spells was to her, what was more surprising was when the Troglodon turned around and spat a glob of shadowy acid at her. As the acid crackled and fizzed painfully on her face she prepared to give the neophyte a full blast of keening only to face the biggest surprise of all.     Where Kayishen thought the Chameleon Skink was, Adrienne was standing, looking both surprised and angry. Huan-kai read the banshee's surface thoughts.     Shadow swaps only allow ALLIES to switch places…oh…Mahrlect!     “Enough Kayishen. Huan-kai is our ally. He provided more food then you did.”   “Huan-kai? As in that arrogant newt Zat-kai and Kaitar!?! You can’t trust him!”   “I don’t trust my perfume to last for more than six hours in this jungle heat, but I still use it every day.”     Huan-kai was equally livid.     “You stupid witch! It took me over three hours to calibrate that Cube of Darkness! Now I have to start over.”     Huan-kai summoned his translator construct again and turned to one of Adrienne’s lieutenants.     “Do all human females attack without provocation?”   “Yes. Yes they do.”     Kayishen scoffed and then summoned some necromantic power to bring about half the fallen skeletons and zombies back up (the ones that weren’t completely obliterated) and to fix her own burn wound from the shadowy acide glob.     “Since when do ghosts cast spells?”   “Since when do Chameleon Skinks cast spells?”   “I am unique. Also I am better than you.”   “I healed all the meager damage you inflicted, there is nothing you can do that I cannot do better.”     Huan-kai grabbed a mango out of his pack and ate it messily.     “That was good! Oh no, I got the juice all over me. I’m also thirsty. I think some clear spring water will wash this down. Maybe find a nice spot in the sun to relax….”   “I hate Skinks.”    

Part Eleven

 

Adrienne, General of Slaanesh's Southern Army

    Adrienne was equal parts impressed and annoyed that Huan-kai had managed to use a "Smoke and Mirrors" aftereffect to get out of harm’s way. She forbid the Skink from doing it again.     Over the next few days, the Skink helped Adrienne’s men find ample food though it took longer than Adrienne would have liked. He also helped take detours poisonous plants and other natural hazards.     Huan-kai and Kayishen traded a lot of insults in Saurian. Adrienne was content with this. She didn’t trust either of them. Minions feuding amongst themselves would have far less time to plot against her.     Things proceeded smoothly until she saw spotted six of the Lizardmen’s flying scouts passing over the army. As a Shadow caster she represented Slaanesh’s subtle side, but she had a magic item representing her master’s less subtle side for occasions such as this.     She spoke the command word and flicked her wrists. Slicing shards flew from her magic bracelets and homed in on the aerial scouts. Blood chunks rained down on the jungle. Unfortunately they didn’t get all of them. One of the twins caught on to what she was doing and summoned his master’s blue fire against the remaining riders. A burning Skink fell from the sky as his mount panicked and bolted, but a single rider got away. He only took down one Skink! So much for Tzeentch’s supposed master of sorcery.     Adrienne felt a tug of Shadow magic near her and for a moment thought Huan-kai was going to try to turn on her for killing his kin, but he merely summoned his translator Construct.     “With that many flyers in one group, that’s a military scouting patrol. The survivor will alert his army. They will send an army against this position within four to six hours. If we keep moving we’ll delay them catching us for maybe three more hours.”     The Skink said “us,” but Adrienne couldn’t tell from his expression if he was upset by seeing five of his own kind slain. She was usually good at reading people’s facial expression, human facial expressions at least. As a fellow Shadow mage, she naturally couldn’t read his thoughts directly unless he let her do so or he was really distracted.     She consulted the twins and the mercenary captains for where to set up battle lines, then Adrienne began supervising her troop deployment. Five hours later, the Lizardmen army arrived.     The mercenaries’ two cannons fired the opening salvo. Striking down a Stegadon as soon as it came in range. A hail of crossbow bullets rained down on the advancing skirmishers, causing one group on the end to turn tail and run. The twins panicked even more Skinks with blue fire.     The cannons fired again badly wounding another Stegadon. Now the lizards were in range of Adrienne’s magic. She summoned a miasma to make the Kroxigor fighting her flagellants slow and clumsy, then conjured a construct pit to plummet several charging Sauri into dark oblivion.     The Lizardmen tried some kind of magic spells, but one was caught by Haun-kai’s Cube of Darkness and another spell was stopped by one of the twins who was carrying a scroll of dispelling.     The Lizardmen were in range of their poisoned weapons now but very few of them threw anything since so many of them were slain or routed. Most of their javelins were sent at the zombie Cold Ones who charged into the Skink’s range first, but the Cold Ones eventually caught up with them. Some even unluckier skirmishers not panicked or routed by the shooting and magic had run afoul of one of the twins’ pet Chaos spawn which was consuming flaming Skinks with relish. The other Chaos spawn was far less successful. It was much slower and didn’t make it to the front lines before being incinerating by a magic beam on top of the shelled dinosaur, Kayishen had said it was called a Bastiladon. The Chaos Spawn weren’t the only problem for the screening skirmishers. The now fully alert Hellstriders of Slaanesh finally got to draw blood and ran down many foes.     One of the Mutalith’s melted a dozen cohort Skinks into a seething pile of blue scales and slime which rose on contorted limbs, the flesh reforming inside out. The rest of the cohort panicked and fled as the Chaos monster advanced on them. Ten small fanged mouths sprouted across the mass of roiling organs and bones. Half of the mouths roared in hunger and fury while the other half cried out in pain.     The other Mutalith had flanked a regiment of Sauri engaged who were engaged with a larger regiment of zombies. Nearby Kayishen and her skeletons were battling another group of Sauri. When catching her breath between screams, Kayishen would channel spells through her nearby corpse cart to bolster the undead blocks. The Skaven zombie overseer, Renliss named Squeak silently directed his cart of pained minions to fight the Sauri as well. The cart’s lingering magic empowered the zombies even further.     The Flagellents of Dayarok were ecstatic to finally be inflicting pain, bringing down many hexed Kroxigor. Unfortunately they didn’t get to receive a lot of pain barring their self-inflicted wounds because the few hits the Kroxigor made that connected tended to be instantly lethal.     The cannons were all silent now having run afoul of some Chamleon Skinks, but the hand gunners were still shooting at any Skinks foolish enough to stop fleeing or any Saurus who were open. The Lizardmen front lines were now made up of Sauri and larger creatures. The marauders, Forsaken, and Chaos warriors would do well.     Just when Adrienne was thinking the Lizardmen’s lack of magic was suspicious, a beam of light incinerated the newly born Chaos Spawn into a pile of slimy ash. The Bastiladon is fighting for its life! how did the Skinks aim the Solar Engine?. Adrienne saw the Skinks that the Chaos Spawn had routed now earlier suddenly rallied and returned to the battle. A glowing net descended on some charging Hellstriders who chose not break their stride and got ripped to pieces for their furor. Following the disruption in the winds of magic, Adrienne found the source of her new woe. Above a unit of armored Saurus warriors, presumably Temple Guard, was a floating platform with a toad-like Slann upon it.     Adrienne shivered from fear briefly before regaining her composure and rage, remembering her mentor’s proverb, though it gave her relatively little confidence. He said “Light only makes the Shadows stand out more.”     “Slaanesh take him!”     She conjured a pit to cast the Slann or at least his guards to oblivion but the Slann dispersed her construct with a flash of light before it could take lethal form. Quantity over quality then toad! She flung a pair of miasmas at the Temple Guard. Since the Slann was busy countering a Mutalith’s warping effect, both got through and softened up the armored Sauri just as the Chaos Warriors hit their lines.     The Slann tried to counter this effect by magically invigorating his guardians. Adrienne countered this though she was soaked with sweat from the exertion of fighting back the Slann’s spell. Her attempt to summon Construct weapons for her men was struck down by the Slann with pathetic ease. She had enough magic energy left to activate her magic bracelets and flense a Salamander team trying to sneak around the flank of her body guard. Adrienne wondered what the rest of her magically skilled supposed allies were doing.    

Huan-kai, the Fallen

    Huan-kai watched from behind a flank of one of Chaos lines as one of the featureless human wizards fled into the jungle along with a wounded Mutalith and seven or eight of the creepy armored mutated humans. Despite Kayishen constantly raising new fallen troops, the undead had been ground down to about half their original number, but the Sauri they were fighting weren’t doing much better. The undead could regrow losses, but the First could not.     Huan-kai thought about casting a spell, but he wasn’t sure he could manage more than a cantrip. Whatever was in the local Winds of Magic that wasn’t being pulled toward Lord Merestar and Mistress Adrienne was being scrounged after by the other Mutalith, the weird twins, and who knows how many Skink priests.     Why haven’t I seen a Skink priest yet? Huan-kai opened up his mind to read the surface thoughts of those in teh battlefield.   Must earn Slaanesh’s favor!   Death to the Fallen!   Glorious pain!   Old Ones, it’s hideous!   Why did I take Adrianne’s contract?   I found the traitor!   How did a Choltehe see ME before I saw him?     Huan-kai looked up and saw Choltehe riding a Terradon. He can fly? No one told me he had a practical skill!     The flying priest crackled with static as he summoned up magical power and Kayishen and Adrienne were hogging all the magical power he could have countered the upcoming spell with.     For the second, and hopefully last time in his life, Haun-kai sprinted towards a stinking block of zombies in order to avoid an attack. Then he rolled under the even fouler corpse cart. An arc of lightning tore through three zombies than landed on the corpse cart incinerating the reanimated Skaven task master on top and setting fire to the wagon. The zombies were already fighting Sauri to their front, and the magic of the corpse cart was beginning to fail. Huan-kai was on his own though he thought he would hide his fear with some bravado.     “Careful Choltehe! You almost hit me!”   “I’ll do better next time!”     Choltehe issued a brief prayer to the Old Ones and it began sleeting towards Huan-kai. Brrr that’s cold, but why bother with that spell if no one is in melee range—MAHRLECT!     The last thing Huan-kai expected Choltehe to do was charge, or in this case dive. Choltehe had brought Tzunki’s Blade with him. The sword fought with its own volition and skill so it would perform just as well in Choltehe’s unskilled hands as it would a Sotek caste chief. Huan-kai was slowed down by ice and then there was the Terradon to contend with too.     I never thought Choltehe would outclass me in close combat, but I bet he’s not expecting me to beat him in magic.     Rather than try to reach into the angry priest’s mind, Huan-kai entered the Terradon’s primitive brain with it's weaker mental resistance.   Heavy…Heavy…Heavy…Why are you carrying a Kroxigor on your back?     The Terradon moved from a controlled dive to a clumsy fall, then he bucked the burden that was Choltehe off him and flew away.     Huan-kai walked up to where Choltehe lay on the ground moaning.   “I’m impressed you didn’t break bones or lose consciousness. Oh I see, you are wearing an amulet. I understand that amulet only defends the bearer once every twenty-four hours. Well I might want some protection tomorrow.”     Huan-kai took his amulet, the Blade of Tzunki, and all of the priest’s ritual components. He made sure Choltehe noticed the tail dragging over his face before he lost consciousness.     The bodies of dead and incapacitated soldiers from both sides were everywhere. By the time Huan-kai was done with Choltehe both armies were well under half strength. Lord Merestar’s guards had beaten the forces in front of them but there were only about a half a dozen Temple Guard left in fighting shape. Merestar was wisely pulling back from combat to focus on his spell casting.     Amazingly Adrienne was holding her own magically with some assistance by one of the featureless mutants and Kayishen. At least until Merestar remembered who Kayishen was and focused his attacks on her. The banshee chose that time to flee the battle using the bulk of her remaining undead minions to absorb the vengeful Slann’s attack spells.     The remnants of Adrienne’s guard outnumbered the remnants of the Temple Guard, so they advanced, but the Temple Guard were not yet in range of charging their foes, and were backing up nearly as rapidly. Their respective casters kept on fighting mystically while a melee battle raged around them.     Huan-kai was so enraptured by the magical battle that he didn’t notice the Saurus cavalry until it was too late. They had run down a fleeing unit of marauders and ran into Huan-kai’s position without either of party immediately realizing it. Xapatli was with the Sauri riding Loroq the Horned One.     “Huan-kai of the Western Spawning Pool, you have been named Fallen. Do you have any words before we strike you down in the name of the Old Ones?”   “Yes, you don’t serve the Old Ones by dying for them, you serve them by making your enemy die for their gods.”     He summoned a miasma to slightly weaken the Saurus warriors and their mounts     “That won’t save you Fallen—where did he go?”     Shadows had swallowed up Huan-kai and deposited Adrienne in his place.     Surprised, she mounted a desperate defense. She shot a Saurus with her pistol and tried to put another hex on her attackers, but Xapatli dispelled it and she was overcome by superior numbers. She slumped to the ground from several spear wounds then was rent asunder by the Cold Ones. Her mental discipline slipped away and Huan-kai caught her last thought.     My Lord, why wasn’t Salzenmund enough?     The marauders stopped their charge and looked down on Huan-kai. With effort he duplicated the cantrip that Adrienne used for translation without a construct.     “I have defeated your leader! By rights that makes me your new leader now!”   “Did you expect us to believe that excrement, trickster?”   “No, no I didn’t expect it to work, but I thought it was worth a try”   Huan-kai began laughing as he parried the first of the marauders attacks. Huan-kai fought ten Skinks before in a training exercise, but twenty vengeful marauders, that was out of his league. He tried to read their minds to prepare defenses, but the Blade of Tzunki was more interested in offense than defense and fought of its own accord.     I wonder whose god I’m dying for today?    

Epilogue

 

Kayishen, Fallen Priestess of Turochlitan

    Kayishen was just trying to put some distance between herself and Merestar. She debated whether it was worth the risk to go back to raise more dead since she had a mere fifteen zombies left., and Renliss would be angry with her for losing so many minions. No it was too much of a close call, if I die again I’m not coming back. Then she realized she was being followed by something much larger than a zombie.   The zombies began having new wounds open and old ones close. Some even grew new body parts they never had in life. The Mutalith that fled from the battle had found her zombies and was following them as if in a trance. She noticed it sniffed the zombie that used to be a Skaven warlock. It smells the—what was it called—warpstone. Hmm, I failed at getting what I wanted but at least I don’t have to return to Renliss empty-handed…    

Terit, Chameleon Skink Stalker

    The Chameleon Skinks found the Fallen’s boats fairly easily following the piles of detritus from meals and broken camps that the humans did not bother to clean up. They sneaked on board and killed the few guardians.   “What do we do now, sssir”   “We sssummon the Kroxigor and worker Skinksss.”   “Why? We can just set the boatsss on fire?”   “New ordersss from Lord Desserex himself. We are to capture any and all boatsss that capable of crossing the World Pond.”    

Choltehe, Priest of the Stars

    Choltehe woke up far from the battle site without any possessions. He lying on something soft, sticky, and smelly. Huan-kai had specially moved him onto a pile of Stegadon manure.     “I’ll see the traitor dead if the last thing I do!”     When he made his way back, worker Skinks were already cleaning up the battle site. The workers bowed respectfully to the priest, then sniffed the air in confusion. Eventually he found Xapatli.     “You’re alive! How did you make it back.”   “I made it back no thanks to the traitor. He downed me from the sky and then robbed me”   “Why did he leave you alive?”   “Because…I don’t know to humiliate me! Where is he!”   “The humans killed him.”   “Good, we need to update the records for his treachery.”   “No Choltehe, we need to let the Slann decide on this.”     Choltehe and most of the priests at the battle wanted to expose Huan-kai as a Fallen and traitor to all. He provided comfort and aid to the Fallen and cast spells against the First. The Chameleon Skinks insisted he sabotaged the Fallen humans by slowing them down and leaving a very obvious trail to follow. Also they pointed out that Huan-kai could have easily advised the cannons not be deployed on the edge of the battle line near a bunch of concealing foliage.     Eventually the Slann decided simply to mention that Huan-kai was slain by the Fallen humans. All in the know about Huan-kai’s actions were ordered to be silent. Lies of omission often come down from the very top of the First’s society.    

Count Renliss, Exiled Vampire Lord

    As Renliss walked with his elite skeletons across the battlefield. The Maylar guard carried their unconscious prisoner, a Chaos wizard of Tzeentch with no distinguishing features. Years ago, Renliss would not have dared to drink the blood of a Chaos mutant, but had long stopped caring about paltry side effects. Fresh blood of wizards gave him a temporary surge of great power. While there were plenty of bodies to animate, it takes a lot of power to animate a corpse and imbue it with more will than simply a desire to rend things. He wanted this one to retain its memories and magical powers. Also ruined bodies needed substantial necromantic healing which also took a lot of magical energy.     He drained the sorcerer dry. After fighting back the torrent of images and sensations for a few minutes, he began speaking incantations in several languages to channel his new unholy power mending broken limbs and organs and expelling rot and scavengers from his target. Then he continued chanting adding in rarified ritual components including some of his own blood. After almost two hours of performing ritual magic, the body newly mended corpse held up by two zombies shook.     It grabbed a blade and chopped off the head of one zombie and the arm of another.     “Sssstop touching me!”

I wrote this one in 2014 for Lustria-Online and surprisingly this ended up the length of a novella. Like most of my WHF fanfic pieces, this is intended to function as a standalone story but it also touches bases with larger ongoing plots in my own slice of WHF lore.     Below is some commentary of the various sections.     Prologue: The prologue doesn't have much to do with the stand alone story but it ties this into Renliss' story and the events stemming from "The Fall of Turochlitan" and "The Fall of the Temple City"   Part One: Shows two contrasting "births".   Part Two: Huan-kai and Adrianne grow up with no clear purpose and often disappointing their elders through no fault of their own.   Part Three: Both characters try to make their own destiny. Huan-kai's arcane power blossoms as he accidentally reads the thoughts of others.   Part Four: Adrienne has character development that is important but pretty self explantory. As for Huan-kai, the Trials are an intiation test to see if a skink is or is not a priest/wizard.   Part Five: Adrienne officially joins a Chaos cult. To outside observers Huan-kai fails his Trials because he does not manifest an iota of Heavens or Beast magic, but he actually awakenes his Shadow magic causing him to telpathically read those around him with even greater frequency though Huan-kai does not yet understand yet what he is doing.   He casts his first recognizeable WHF spell, Pit of Shadows while under life threatening peril in a somewhat tragic way.   For context, killing a troglodon to a Skink is like killing a unicorn to a human.   Part Six: Adrienne gets her first taste of Shadow magic, but unlike Huan-kai, she knows exactly what is happening and why.   Huan-kai finally manages to cast another recognizeable WHF in a controlled way.   Part Seven: Adrienne goes back to her home village to work out her many issues in an unhealthy but Slaanesh-approved way.   Huan-kai visits the grave of his namesake Kaitar.     Part Eight: After a witch hunter kills Adrienne's magical mentor, she takes the opportunity to promote herself to leader of the local cult and takes the cult in a more proactive direction.   Huan-kai is now considered a full skink priest and is getting his first taste of skink priest responsibilities, this includes being an expendable vesssel for a Slann to channel magic through.     Part Nine: Adrienne sets herself up as a WHF equivalent of a mafia don.   Huan-kai realizes Nkalot's fate is what could happen to him if one too many Slann miscasts occur through him. He runs away from Klodorex and Lizardmen society, at least temporarily.   Part Ten: Adrienne wanted to stay in Salzenmund and be a crime lord, but she couldn't resist the call from the Demon Lord Darfiel, so she organizes an expedition of Chaos Warriors and unscrupulous mercenaries to go to Lustria, where is she is intercepted/greeted by Kayishen who is desperate to free the very same Demon Lord. Then Huan-kai and Adrienne finally meet.   Adrienne negotiates with Renliss, Kayishen and Huan-kai. No one trusts anyone with good reason.   Part Eleven: Adrienne and her coalition fight the forces of Klodorex. Huan-kai reveals his true colors.   Epilogue: In case it needs to be spelled out. Huan-kai is now branded a traitor out right and is now one of the undead though his former kin believe his simply dead.

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Warhammer Fantasy, Scale Universe
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Writing in my main story metaverse in Stories and Prose
Author
Scalenex
Publication Date
30 Nov, 2022
Creation Date
30 Nov, 2022
Last Update Date
1 Dec, 2022
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