Warp Token 2 Update

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Smoke exhaust hung like a fog above the ruins, gushing from several retrofitted machines constructed in and around the husks of the stone foundations, the scent of purified warp stone reaching her nose. It was like being back in one of the warp fire factories that undercut Skavenblight, everywhere she looked she saw pipes and valves and tubes and engines, but she was not cunning enough to know their purpose.

The majority of the vermintide lay below, but there was still a significant amount of Skaven up here on the surface, dozens of mangy figures stalking between the machines and buildings, ferrying weapons and supplies. Kretch was rushing down the street away from her, and so she proceeded, vaulting the wall and hunching to all fours.

The hugged to the spots where the street touched the buildings, close enough to cover should she need to dash away, keeping Kretch within her sights. The slaves had the eyesight of a blind pup, and the alarm was not raised in her pursuit.

Suddenly there was a horrible, somewhat rhythmic growl, her ears flicking in surprise. It began as a low rumble, but quickly picked up, becoming loud and aggressive. It was so loud she could feel it more in her chest than her ears, the roar drawing near.

She leaned out from the corner to get a look down the road, but lurched out of the way when she came face to face with an oncoming vehicle. She cringed as it passed, the rev of its engine peaking as the air rippled in its passing.

Her heart hammering, she took a second look at it, the vehicle driving up towards the way she’d come. It was four meters long, and a giant wheel made up for most of its size. The tyre was protected by sheets of welded metal and scrap, the iron bolts sharpened to points. Geras and mechanics swirle within the glass casing upon its side, the mechanical clicks creating an undercurrent of sound overpowered by its growling exhaust.

It turned as it reached the end of the street, exposing its profile. Attached to the back on a high spring was a flexible seat which the laughing pilot sat, raised high off the ground so he could see over the ramshackle wheel. On the very nose of the wheel jutted a series of gut hooks and blades, slicing and whirling through the air. The weapons were powered by the cyclic rotation of the wheel, chopping at the air faster when the vehicle sped up, and slower when it braked.

Skyseeker recalled seeing doom flayers back in Tilea, but only from afar. From what she knew of them, they were the fastest modes of transport, second only to a doomwheel. They were brutal killing machines, capable of churning up a foe before flattening him beneath the tyre itself. Skyseeker wanted one.

The pilot of the flayer burned a few doughnuts into the earth, and then promptly rotated back the way he’d driven. Some of the Skaven hurled rocks, but he just laughed in their faces as he drove by, the engine subsiding once more.

Skyseeker picked up the pace, following in the bike’s wake. Kretch was soon located, and after a little more walking, he turned off the street. A short flight of steps led up to a structure that had once been a town hall or manor, yet the Skaven occupation had turned everything but its walls to dust, and now scaffolding and rickety support columns were the only things protecting its contents from the elements.

Kretch walked through the front door alone, his companions waiting alongside the guards, Skyseeker’s tail flicking as she examined them. Form their gear and halberds, these were stormvermin, elite guards who carried themselves differently then most Skaven, commonly serving as shock troopers, or guards for war lords. Ironsnout must be inside.

Making sure the flayer wasn’t on its way back, she scampered across the street, her hood flapping out behind her. She flanked the building’s right side, peering up its surface for handholds and grips. On the second storey was the gap of a window, that was her way in.

She peeled back her hood, searching for onlookers. When there were none, she made her climb. The stone was failing, she could feel the way it shifted beneath her paws, but the thought of falling never scared her, but alerting her enemies did. Yet not once did she slip, and up she went, slithering across the stones until her fingers gripped an edge.

She hauled herself onto a shelf of wood about five feet across, Skyseeker laying on her belly. The Skaven had built a crisscrossing network of rafters to support the thatch roof, and she crawled onto one of the beams until only its narrow surface braced her from a long drop.

From there, she looked down upon Ironsnout.

He had almost two feet over Kretch, and while he wasn’t as big as incandescent Lord Gnawdwell, he was no less a monster of a rat. His body was encased in a metal suit the colour of copper, pipes and tubes slithering along the segmented sleeves running down his arms. His paws were without skin or fur, his digits wrought from iron, yet they flexed and twitched as a normal paw, though they seemed twice as large than they should be.

A belt over his waist secured the lower half of a black robe, yet she could glimpse his legs between the cloth. They were more like pistons than legs, as wide around as a barrel, and his legs ended in bulky skids rather than feet. One of Von Kessel’s crew had a wooden leg in place of his foot, having lost it after a wound on the sea, and it seemed Ironsnout had prosthetics for both of his, though she doubted that was because of an injury. The skids were thick and reinforced, splaying out in a wide area, helping to spread and stablilise Ironsnout’s palpable weight.

It was hard to tell whether Ironsnout was a rat and not some sort of automaton. He was hunched over like a Skaven, though that might have been because of the giant pack weighing his shoulders. It was about the size of Skyseeker herself, and it was covered in conduits shaped like pyramids, arcs of green electric conjoining their tips sporadically. It was some sort of warp-battery, though she could not discern what it powered. Maybe his suit?

His helmet was welded to the shape of a Skaven, yet it was warped and unfamiliar, as though Ironsnout had only heard of a Skaven’s appearance and had tried to replicate it in metal. Two bulbous spheres served as eye protectors, the glass opaque, and instead of a muzzle there was a tube with a grill on the end. Skyseeker could hear raspy breathing echo out of it, even from up here.

A trestle table strewn with various warp stone gadgets and maps sat behind the war lord, while Kretch stood at his front, bowing so hard his nose almost touched the tiles.

“-snuck up-up on Skaven while Kretch was fighting man-things. Kretch thought it was going to kill me-me!”

“Why not?” Ironsnout’s voice rasped. There was barely a hint of an accent or an inflection, and there was a metallic quality to it, as though Ironsnout had replaced his tongue with steel.

“I-It wanted secrets,” Kretch replied. “warband’s secrets. Say that Kretch would have another hole if Kretch not say what breeder wanted.”

“So you grovelled,” Ironsnout growled. Every word was enunciated with some sort of gaseous rasp of snarl of gears, as though a doomflayer chassis was lodged in his chest, grinding out his words. “What did you reveal?”

“S-Some things,” Kretch said, gulping audibly as Ironsnout leered down at him. “It wanted under burrow’s location, the vermintide’s strength, a-and Ironsnout, breeder wanted to know about you-you. B-But Kretch tricked breeder!” he added. “Gave her wrong direction-way, so under burrow not in danger of discovery, Kretch outwitted it, just as plan-planned.”

Ironsnout snarled at Kretch, although perhaps that was just his exosuit whirring and wheezing. “And if it followed you?” the machine-rat prompted.

“What-What?” Kretch asked. “Why would breeder do that, when Kretch told it burrow was other way?”

Ironsnout moved faster than someone of his size and weight should have been able. In a flurry, Kretch’s wrist was clamped down by the vice of Ironsnout’s grip, his cold steel hands digging trenches into Kretch’s fur.

The ratman was lifted into the air, his feet kicking as he was left dangling before Ironsnout’s helmet. He tried to pry the fingers, but the iron digits never so much as creaked.

Skyseeker lifted a hand as a bright green light began to bloom from Ironsnout’s pack. Emerald tendrils were coalescing around the conduits, arcing between one another like little lightning strikes. When they began to snake onto the shoulder pads, she noticed the copper wiring taped into his exosuit, wending throughout his wargear like veins. She tracked the electric static as it flowed into the arm suspending Kretch, and when it reached the steel glove, warp-power mated to Kretch’s skin.

Th scream that Kretch gave was agony to listen to, Skyseeker watching down in horror. His fur was burning around Ironsnout’s glove, though there was no flame, just ashes. The currents were no longer visible when they touched the ratman, but Skyseeker could imagine the currents spreading to every one of his extremities. She dared not imagine the pain he was feeling however, to voice a scream so guttural.

He held Kretch like that for a few torturous moments, his expressionless visor regarding the writhing ratman with almost no movement to speak of. At some point of his choosing, he let Kretch fall to the ground, his exosuit still sparking as the residual energies faded, with no circuit to complete the charge.

Kretch writhed at his metal feet, spots of singed fur giving him the look of a beaten Skaven. When Ironsnout spoke, Kretch ceased his mutterings at once.

“Worthless little fool. Did you think you were let go out of mercy? The breeder is more cunning than you know. Did you even consider it could have followed you? It could even be in the burrow right now.”

Skyseeker was suddenly aware of every movement she made, Ironsnout’s observation putting her more on edge.

“What else did you tell it? Speak,” Ironsout demanded.

“K-Kretch told it nothing, Lord Ironsnout,” Kretch stammered. “Kretch told breeder nothing.”

“You are a worthless liar, Kretch, and this is how she fooled you. You think your life has more worth than the Clan’s schemes? What worth do you have, a clanrat who grovels before a breeder? Gnawdwell should stuff you back on that slave barge he plucked you from.”

Ironsnout shook his heavy head, then turned his head to the left. He breathed out like a beast, steam wisping from the grill over his snout.

“Take him,” he ordered one of the stormvermin standing by the door. “Find out what he told the breeder, then put him with the others. The rest of you, seize his band, they will corroborate his story. Or not.”

There were six stormvermin serving as his bodyguards, and they eah did his bidding without question, two of them hauling Kretch out of the entrance, the rat too exhausted to resist. When the warlord was alone, he turned to the trestle, lumbering over it with such heavy footsteps that the beam she was lying on shuddered.