Warp Token 2 Word Update

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She cackled under her breath, hushing herself lest Kretch or his rats heard her. She had always fancied herself an assassin, and the time had come for assassin-ing.

-xXx-

Zral Skyseeker negotiated the woods like a whisper, only the faintest creaking of the branches giving away her presence. Like the forests of Tilea, the ferns and plants of Brettonia were at once familiar yet strange. Where the forests of the south were tall, rounded things full of greens and yellows, here the leafy canopies were the colours of a sunset, vibrant oranges splashed with bubbles of red. The treetops formed colourful lines of ferns through the hills, stretching away forever whenever she glimpsed them through her treetop journey.

She would have taken some time to admire this world, but her focus lay upon the undergrowth. She kept no more than thirty meters to their rear, slinking behind them just as heir hunched shadows trailed after. They were not hard to follow, they crunched shrivelled leaves beneath their paws, chittered and laughed and snarled to one another. She was confident she could have closed the gap to a handful of yards and they’d be none the wiser, master of stealth that she was, but her mission demanded that caution be put before confidence. 

They numbered eight, but only one of them was worth fussing over. Kretch was the only rat to steal glances over his shoulder, casting worried looks across the ferns, and he was right to do so. As she’d suspected, he’d given her the wrong direction when telling her of Ironsnout’s underburrow, but was still keeping an ear out for her all the same. He was not as dumb as he looked, though obviously his cleverness paled compared to her own. If he continued to never bother looking up, he’d never detect her.

He urged his band to pick up the pace, whether that was because he was suspicious of being followed, or just wanted to retreat from the earlier battlegrounds, she couldn’t say. There had been more man-thing patrols about, she could hear their hounds barking and the clopping of their horses, but she’d only caught glimpses of them through the leaves. The locals must be aware of the vermintide moving through this area.

Before long, the breaks between the trees began to grow, the wind ruffling her black fur as the canopy diminished. The woods gave way to a clearing, and within its borders she could make out structures of stone, though any strength they’d once had had long since faded. Grey columns and layered defences rose up from a hilltop like corroded teeth, forming a short but sufficient wall of rubble that enclosed several distinct buildings. A church, a townhall, a couple watchtowers, each more reduced than the last.

Kretch’s band raced towards these ruins, Skyseeker perching on the closest tree to watch them. She used her goggles to zoom in, but could see no gates or breaches on this side of the wall. Destroyed settlements were oft the best places to raise an undercity or a burrow, did Kretch mean to climb over the wall?

The Skavenparty stopped just short of the ruins, where the shell of an outhouse still stood at the hill’s foot. She could see two more clanrats standing guard by the wooden door, or rather, sitting guard on some rock nearby. She could hear them converse with Kretch, but even her sensitive ears could not discern their chatter. After a brief pause, the band slipped inside the outhouse and did not come out.

It must be an entrance to the burrow. There was likely more scattered about, but she had little time to search for them. Kretch was her one lead right now, she couldn’t afford to lose him.

Bunding up her cloak, she made the descent to the ground, her pink feet pattering on the rich grass as she moved forward. There was no cover to conceal herself on the approach the hidden entrance, Skyseeker forced to crawl along on her belly.

Her paw snaked its way to her scabbard as she neared the outhouse, getting a better look at the guards. She’d approached from their rightmost blind spot, her eyes narrowing in consideration. Her caution seemed unwarranted. One of them had his muzzle tucked into his chin in a distinct power-napping way, while the other was knuckle-deep into his nostril in search of a troublesome booger.

Skyseeker knew it would only take a quick scurry and put a blade through their necks, they weren’t even wearing helmets, the one sleeping wouldn’t even have time to wake. She pulled at the hilt of her dagger, exposing a sliver of bright green metal, but it soon disappeared as she relaxed her paw. No, she had only one target today, and it wasn’t either of these idiots.

She circled around until the outhouse covered her approach. The door was slightly parted, and Skyseeker eased herself through the gap, sucking in her breath to make herself thinner. She sidestepped through without an inch of contact, and then she was inside.

A cleft of narrow darkness yawned before her, dirt and grassroot giving way to wrinkles of rock. Echoes of noises slithered up the passage, a cackle of laughter, a faded ringing of clashing metal. She could sense movement in the walls, small but constant, Skyseeker imaging other passages in her mind’s eye not a few feet away.

Skyseeker wanted to press inside, but hesitation caused her to stop. While a Skavenwas always more at ease with the surface curtained away by rock and earth, these burrows were far from safe. The vermintide lurked beyond, and there would be no quick escapes in this unfamiliar burrow.

No, she couldn’t give her fear any room to manifest. Roderick and the Imperials were counting on her to get rid of the Skaven. They’d already bested them once, she would not let it happen again.

It was easier after the first couple of steps, Skyseeker focusing on how the layers of earth surrounded her with some sense of protection. It occurred to her that she had not been underground since the first leg of her journey, when she’d left Skavenblight for the surface-world. The nostalgia helped to come her nerves a little.

The passage opened up into a junction, three burrows trailing out of it, including the one she’d come through. She snivelled the air, feeling dust and dirt enter her lungs, and something more as well. Just as Kretch and the other patrols had followed her scent from the sea, so too did she use his musk as her navigator. Using her enemies’ own tactics against them, did her brilliance know no bounds?

He’d gotten a good whiff of him when he’d interrogated her, and she sensed his stench down the leftmost passage. This one curved slightly right and up, and it too opened onto a three-way junction. Again, she followed the left path. This time the way was wider, and there were wooden brackets holding off the weight of the earth every few feet. Planks underfoot trailed ahead, as well, and this time there was no junction but a room.

She knew it was a workshop from the noises shooting up the passage. It was only twenty meters across at its widest point, but there were so many ratmen packed inside. Along the walls were mechanical contraptions, glowing gears infused with warpstone churning and rotating as conveyer belts travelled across the floor. Skavenslaves stood along its moving length shoulder to shoulder, each holding a hammer or some other blunt instrument. There were metal nodes cruising along the belt, and the slaves hammered away at them, while guards hammered at their backsides with whips. There was another belt on the opposite side, and a giant bench formed an aisle between, more Skaven crowding its surface.

At the far side was another passage, only this one was a ramp with a hole of sunlight at its end. Skyseeker just barely glanced the straw-coloured fur of Kretch as he climbed out, his figure disappearing as his followers fell in line behind.

Skyseeker drew up her hood tighter around her face and chest, slipping into the workshop. She was shorter than the males, so all she saw was a see of mangy chests and soiled garbs, but the slaves were too focused on their work, and the guards to focused on beating productivity into them, and none took notice of her.

Her mission lay beyond, but she couldn’t deny her curiosity, and she peeked round the bulk of one of the hammering slaves. She assumed the little metal bits on the conveyers was warpstone, and her mouth began to water at the sight. And yet, the slaves insisted on beating them down into smaller, rounder shapes, until they were no bigger than the print of her thumb by the time they reached the end of the belt and fell into waiting buckets.

Slaves carried said buckets to the bench in the aisle, dumping them on top of its already cluttered surface. The Skaven were taking these warpstone nuggets and cramming them into metal containers, slotting them in with repeating, metallic clicks. She recognised these containers. Skaven carried them whenever they were paired with a rattling gunner. They were making ammunition down here.

Not wanting to dawdle before someone put her to work, she moved on from the press, chasing Kretch’s tail. The slope was watched by a guard, but Skyseeker was like a shadow, and he never noticed her passing.

Sunshine warmed her fur as she was returned to the surface, greeted by the sight of the wall’s inner face. It looped in both directions, parts of it loose and crumbling, but just intact enough to conceal the holdfast within. Now on this side of the wall, she got a better look at the ruins, and they were just as defeated as she imagined. Squat buildings lined either side of a short curving road, houses and taverns and shops, perhaps ten in all. This didn’t look like a man-thing castle, but the defences would have been solid in their prime. If Ironsnout had sieged this place, he must have brought war engines with him.

Most of the vermintide’s facilities must lay below ground, she could see several underground entrances like this one scattered about, but the former settlement wasn’t being wasted. Skaven workers were erecting scaffolds across the buildings, rebuilding them into the glorious Skaven image. Breaches in the wall were also being plugged by sharpened stakes and entrenched positions where snipers could lock down anyone foolish enough to enter. An army would have little hope of routing the vermintide from this place, but a lone Skaven on the other hand… she was on the inside with no one nary the wiser.

She clung to a chest-high wall, keeping her red eyes peeled. She located Kretch moving down the path ahead, the street busy with Skaven carrying boxed cargo and spare parts back and forth between the burrows, the sound of hundreds of chitters and squeak filling the air, superseded by the banging of tools on metal. She was in the heart of the tide, now, she would have to be doubly careful.