Shadowed Secrets, 1,865 words

Treakil (Treeq-AL) walked almost openly through the streets of the human slums. He did not skulk or sprint as a Skaven out in the open normally would. He merely took the pace of a slightly hurried human. Walking openly was actually preferable here. Given how many petty criminals and human ne’er-do-wells prowled in this gods forsaken part of Altdorf, a sneaking creature would draw more attention than someone who looked like they were just busy. Fortunately, Treakil was fairly tall for a Skaven, and the humans often wore obscuring cloaks in this part of the city. He could pass for a filthy human fairly easily as long as he hid his tail and face.
Treakil dug under the signpost where three days ago he buried a small pouch of gold coins he had stolen from around the city. The purse was there, but there were no coins it. Only a slip of paper with an address. Good-good. With how much value-worth humans place on gold, you’d think it could do something more-better than look shiny.
Treakil did not like relying on human informants, but he had run out of other options. No one in the Under Empire seemed to know where the Grey Wizards had their headquarters. Correction, no one seemed to be willing to tell Treakil where it was. Absence of evidence should never be taken as evidence of absence in the Under Empire. It wouldn’t have surprised him either way. Still, it was not hard for a young warlock to find the locations of the other seven magical colleges. They were not a major threat though. The Shadow casting humans were the most cunning humans in the Empire. If any humans could keep secrets from the Children of the Horned Rat, these humans would be able to do it. Of course that made their treasures and secrets irresistible to Treakil who needed some kind of edge against his many rivals.
Treakil scoped out the location. It looked just like any other building in this human cesspool, but that was to be expected. If the Grey College headquarters stood out in any obvious way, it wouldn’t be hidden. Treakil examined the surrounding area for two weeks though it felt like an eternity. Despite all the time Treakil spent a lot of time spying on humans, the humans still all looked pretty much the same to him. As far as he could tell, none of the humans who came or went near the address on the slip of paper looked unusual in any way.
Treakil noticed something few humans would see, but any Skaven would notice almost immediately. The one thing that stood out here was a lack of violence. The slums of Altdorf were crawling with so many desperate pickpockets and filthy cutthroats that it almost felt like a quiet Skaven holding. The human’s petty criminals seemed to unconsciously give this building and its surrounding alleys a wide berth without realizing it. As if it were radiating a subconscious warning not to mess with anyone in this neighborhood. This had to be the place!
After having scouting the location above ground, Treakil took to the sewers. The sewers of Altdorf were immense, even in the slums. The extensive sewers here were a relic from when the slums were actually a respectable part of the city. Centuries ago, this quarter of the city had aqueducts and pipes to bring in fresh water and take away refuse. The sewers no longer regulated the flow of human refuse. Now they regulated the flow of humans who were society’s refuse. There were clearly dens and hideaways used by smugglers, narcotics traffickers, thieves, and worse. Treakil’s superior sense of smell led him to a stash of bodies. Good-good hiding place from the eyes, but not noses. Humans never are very thorough.
Treakil was no tunnel runner, but all rats, bipedal and otherwise, have good direction sense. Treakil noticed that the area got more confined as he got closer to the address he was seeking. The sewers became smaller here because the natural bedrock was closer to surface, and the ancient humans chose not to bother with building sewers here since it took so much effort to excavate each foot. Treakil was only mildly surprised to see that the city block he was attempting to gain access had no sewer at all, only solid bedrock. Horned Rat’s balls! These Grey Wizards are VERY thorough!
Treakil checked the nearest buildings that he could enter from the sewers. The buildings in the slums were fairly close together, but not close enough for Treakil’s purposes. He was very athletic for a warlock, but he doubted even the best tunnel runner in the Under Empire could make the jump from the nearest building roof. Treakil didn’t dare try, the potential fall looked crippling if not lethal. Treakil resisted the urge to just use Skitterleap to reach the rooftop. He needed a non-magical means of entry. Even a simple cantrip would surely trigger any mystical wards or alarm spells the Grey Wizards would have placed. He could use Skitterleap on the way out to make his escape, but he would need a thoroughly mundane means of entry.
Treakil scouted out a window that was screened from the street and low enough for him to enter fairly easily. Treakil waited for dawn. An ordinary thief would have called him foolish. The best time for surface world burglary is generally midnight on a moonless night. “Breaking-entering in somewhere when it was light out is dangerous-foolish,” they would surely say.
Treakil was no fool. He was sure that the masters of Shadow magic would be at their strongest in total darkness. They might even sleep during the day. Early dawn would give him some darkness to hide in, but not enough darkness for the Grey Wizards to manipulate. Whether these humans slept by night or day, they should be groggy in the early dawn.
For added safety, he waited until after a human festival for one of the so-called Empire’s stupid gods. They have no deity near-close to the power-magnitude of the Great Horned Rat, so they try to make up for this by worship-praising DOZENS of gods. Pathetic. As much as he would have liked to daydream about destroying all the blasphemous works of the humans, Treakil needed to focus on his short term goals. Mankind had to be taken apart one piece at a time. He would make the Grey College yield its secrets.
In this part of town, the window was naturally barred. Silently, Treakil loosened the screws around the bars and gently placed the metal on the ground. He could have opened the window in seconds with a small and theoretically undetectable cantrip, but he didn’t want to risk even minor magic this early on if he could help it. He dropped in quietly and braced himself. His whiskers quivering as he tried to sense for hostile magic, but the window held no booby-traps, mystical or otherwise. He passed dimly lanterns and closed doors with snoring behind them. Sleeping quarters may hold humans he could easily murder, but they would not yield many secrets. Humans tended to put their best secrets in bound books.
The hallways were a little disconcerting. Most of the humans in the city had gotten very drunk in their celebrations the night before. He didn’t know whether or not wizards would partake of such things, but all the humans here seemed to be asleep. The lack of opposition was somewhat unsettling, heightening his paranoia. Every shadow that flickered in the lantern light made Treakil twitch. Eventually he found some stairs and descended. The humans had carved a small basement into the solid rock. Surely this was where the best treasures lay. He found shelves and shelves of books. At last! But what should I steal, I only have-brought two sacks with me? He figured he start with the books with gold embossing as humans tended to value gold and wouldn’t waste it on unimportant texts. He quickly scanned the titles to make sure he wasn’t stealing something worthless like The Royal lineages of the Elector Count Families or some other puffed up piece of garbage. As he was stowing away his fifth book a voice behind him made him jump.
“May I help you young man?”
Treakil turned slowly letting his sleeves fall over his furry paws and hiding his face under his hood. He saw an elderly gray haired human male wearing a dark but thin silk robe as if he were just sleeping. He held a completely blank scroll in his right hand and a very large feathered quill in his left hand.
Treakil could speak the human’s tongue, but he couldn’t speak the human’s tongue without his Queekish accent immediately giving himself away. Fortunately this human was not armed or carrying any obvious magical foci. He drew a poisoned knife from his sleeve and prepared to throw it.
“You can tell me where you want to be buried!”
Before he could throw the knife, a shot rang out. The human shot-hit me with a QUILL? He staggered and dropped the knife clutching his bullet wound. Shadows melted away from the quill as the illusion cantrip faded. Treakil saw that the human was actually holding a pistol, not a writing implement. The scroll was also under an illusion. It was not blank, but clearly held magic spells. The human read an incantation off of the scroll and a miasma of misery and darkness overwhelmed Treakil’s sight, hearing, smell and touch muting out all sensation—except for the pain of his bleeding wound which was intensified a hundred-fold forcing him to black out.
He woke up bound to a chair inlaid with obsidian dampening Treakil’s ability to perform magic almost as much as the ropes binding his hands. He was surrounded by humans in grey cloaks.
“Awake at last little rat? It took you a long time to wake up. It took you even longer to break in here after we gave you our address.”
The Grey Wizards WANTED me to come-come here? Just when Treakil thought he couldn’t be any more confused. One of them raised a wooden staff. It had the insignia of the Jade College. Why would they have that? Treakil thought.
“This was payment for services rendered to our colleagues in the Jade College.”
The human raised the staff and spoke a short incantation. Treakil’s abdomen dislodged the lead ball from the pistol and his wound sealed instantly.
“Healing can be a very cruel power, little rodent. It allows a single person—or rat—to be harmed again…and again…and again.”
The humans torture tools were not nearly as frightening some of the implements Treakil had seen (or used), but Skaven did not have the ability to instantly heal victims between administrations.
“For too long your foul kind has been hidden from us. Your numbers, your locations, your goals, your powers. Your torture will continue until you yield all of your secrets to us or you die. Oh, is that escape closed to you? We better make ourselves comfortable brothers…we will likely be here a while”

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I wrote this piece for a short story contest on the old Under-empire Skaven forum. The theme was Magic or Secrets.