Warp Token Update

2k words. I'm a little better today, enough to get some typing going at least. If anyone has any more viruses or infections or flus or colds please don't send them my way this is the second time I've had to delay warp token.

***

Wilfred seemed to deflate as he leaned against the nearby wall, his frustration clear as day, but Roderick had said all he could on the matter, and they both knew it was the right decision.

“Skyseeker will need her weapons back,” Roderick said, addressing the captain. “and if you have a spare sword for me, I’d appreciate it. This Skaven one is poorly smithed.”

“We can visit the storeroom and get you refitted with some proper Imperial steel,” Von Kessel replied. “Get you out of that Tillean scrap you’re wearing. Your weapons are down there too, Skaven.”

“My rearmament has come at last,” she snickered. “Arabian’s shall tremble with fear-musk, soon-soon…”

-xXx-

Roderick flexed his fingers, watching the segmented plates of his shining gauntlets slide along with his movements. The Reiklander swordsmen who’d greeted him back on the Portomaggoire docks had brought spare suits of armour with them, and before long, he’d swapped out his Tilean plate with a little help from Skyseeker.

The cuirass was a deep shade of silver that bordered on grey, with gold trimmings along the pauldrons that shined in the low candlelight of the ship’s storeroom. Emblazoned onto the chest was the Riekland coat of arms, the chestpiece tapering into a skirt that hung over his thighs, split into two pieces so one could run at full kilter without tripping over their gear. A cape bearing the reds of whites of the homeland hung proudly from his shoulder, and plumes of horsehair of the same colour sprouted from the top of his new helmet.

While it was more ornate than his mercenary getup, it felt good to be clad in homeland steel, just wearing the plate filling him a fresh surge of piety. He gave it a test by walking from one side of the room to the other, the padding inside his sabatons providing a pleasant softness to his heels.

“How does it feel?” Wilfred asked, the wizard stood off to the side as he watched Roderick pace.

“A touch heavy,” Roderick replied. “but nothing I cannot handle.”

“Weight will be your most pressing issue in the days to come,” Wilfred replied. “You must burden yourselves with enough food and water to survive your venture into the desert, as scavenging off the land will be next to impossible.

“Burdened with food sounds like good problem to me,” Skyseeker chimed, the Skaven sitting on one of the benches, its surface messy with spare swords.

“Don’t be so sure of that, Miss Seeker. Look here…”

He led them over to the far corner, gesturing with his staff to a shelf mounted on the wall. Lining the wood was four waterskins, probably made from goat skin, each one as long as his arm. Beside them were leather bags, the smell of jerked meat wafting into his nose as Roderick approached.

“I prepared these supplies while you were dressing,” Wilfred explained, watching as Skyseeker lifted one of the waterskins. “I can’t be sure how far away the artifact is, so you must take as much as you can carry, while taking care to not encumber yourselves at the same time.”

“Curses!” Skyseeker snarled, her arms bulging as she struggled to shoulder the waterskin, her lugs buckling under the effort. “Thing weighs more than a rat! We really need-need all this?”

“I have travelled a scorched land before, a long time ago,” Wilfred replied. “You will churn through these reserves quickly under the oppressive heat. I can conjure water from the vapours in the air, but if you insist on going along without me, weighing you down is the only recourse left to you.”

“I’ll carry the food-snacks,” Skyseeker said, reaching for the satchels.

“What, so you can eat them all without me?” Roderick asked, giving her a sideways look.

“Scandalous! I’d do no such thing!” she snapped, her guilty expression telling him otherwise. “You’re big and hunky,” she added, poking him on his chestplate. “if anyone can carry all these things, it’s Rick-rod.”

“When you put it that way…” Roderick mused, relieving her of the waterskins while she giggled up at him. He glanced over to see Wilfred scrutinising them, clearly suspecting something more had developed between them, but not commenting on it.

“One last thing,” the wizard said, holding up a crooked finger. He moved over to one of the benches, and when he came back, there was a leather bag under his arm, along with a scabbard as long as Roderick was tall. “Your armaments. I believe you’ll find this more suiting to your needs than a paltry vermin sword – no offense intended, Miss Seeker.”

He thrust the scabbard into Roderick’s arms, the leather creaking as he grasped the wrapped hilt. It was a greatsword, an impressive weapon usually reserved for elite infantry. He pulled down the scabbard a little to inspect the blade, a sliver of polished steel reflecting his features. A little deeper up the blade were a pair of small hooks jutting from the blade – demiguards designed to protect the hand when halfswording. Coupled with his hundreds of spare paper charges, he felt more than equipped to deal with what lay ahead.

“And this is for you, Miss Seeker,” Wilfred added, placing the bag in Skyseeker’s paws. “Every blade from your… expansive arsenal is in there.”

“Better be,” she grumbled, untying the string holding the bag shut. Her signature weeping blades was the first thing she retrieved, sliding them inside her waistbelt in two swift movements.

“Well then, that is all I have for you.” Wilfred continued. “we’ll be making landfall within a matter of hours. Miss Seeker, I wonder if I might pull you aside for a while? If you’re going to guide Roderick through to the artifact in my stead, a little bit of mediation will go a long way.”

Roderick wanted to say it would be easier to summon the Lord of Change than to get Skyseeker to meditate, but stayed his thoughts.

“Not bringing Rick-rod with us?” she asked, turning to him for reassurance. It was an odd change from her usual almighty Skaven confidence – perhaps now that they were mated, her breeder instincts perceived him as her protector. He didn’t think she could be more endearing, but she was somehow managing.

“I think I’d just be a distraction,” Roderick said. “and you’ll need as few of those as possible if we don’t want to get hopelessly lost out there.”

“No pressure at all!” she scoffed sarcastically. “Fine. Lead on, wizard.”

“It should be sufficiently quiet up in the officer cabins,” Wilfred said, the Skaven following him out of the storeroom.

-xXx-

The wolfship’s great anchor dropped to the water with a splash, the linking chains grinding loudly against the pulleys as the sailors manning the mechanism waited for it to hit the seabed, which took only a few scant seconds, one of the men locking the chain tight with a pull of a lever.

The sails were reefed, letting the unfiltered, midday light bake the occupants of the deck, Roderick shielding his helmeted face as he peered out over portside railing. Foam curdles clawed their way south from the hull, the murky depths transitioning into bleached sand, the tidelines visible against the beach as squiggling lines of discoloured slate and seashells.

Beyond the shore, the land began to slope upwards, craggy rocks breaching the earth in places. The sand didn’t end, however, the colourless flecks stretching on into the limits of his vision, where the heat haze made everything look odd and fuzzy. This was so far removed from any sort of environment Roderick was used to, it looked positively dead in comparison to Imperial lands.

“This is as close to the shore as we can get without beaching ourselves,” Von Kessel explained, leaning on the bulwark to Roderick’s right. “Hope you don’t mind getting your feet wet.”

“It’ll be a nice reprieve before walking that scorched earth,” Roderick replied with a pointed nod to the desert. “You have my thanks, captain,” he added. “For transporting us all this way. I only wish it hadn’t come at the cost of so many good men.”

“A price of war I’m sure you’re all too aware of, Erdmann.” He glanced over his shoulder, the captain’s plumed hat whipping in the breeze. “if you need me to spare a man or two to accompany you, I can arrange an escort.”

“No,” Roderick replied, shaking his head. “your men fare well on the tides of water, not so much on tides of sand, I’d imagine.”

“You’d walk willingly into the Cracked Lands with nothing but a sword and a rat for company?” Von Kessel chuckled. “Then again, I suppose walking a path of desperation is the one thing left to an exile.”

The captain turned to face him, looking Roderick up and down.

“I don’t know all the circumstances of your fall from grace,” he began. “perhaps some details are embellished, and others have been conveniently forgotten, but that matters little now that I’ve seen your actions firsthand. You’re a braver man than I to go out there alone, and for that, I wish you success in your quest. The Empire needs more Generals with guts, not less.”

He extended his hand, Roderick blinking before taking it with his own. It was a stark change from the surly captain accusing him of treason back in Portomaggoire.

“Rick-rod and Kessel-man making friend-friends now?” a feminine voice chirped, Roderick turning to see Skyseeker and Wilfred approaching from further up the deck. “Thought you hated each other? Nonsensical!”

“You ready to go then, lass?” Roderick asked, ending his handshake with the captain to address her.

“All meditated up!” she confirmed. “Is amazing what Skaven can think of when there’s no interruptionings around. Thinking is so clear-clear.”

“I don’t know how you managed to do that, old friend,” Roderick asked.

“She found my warpstone samples I was hoping to archive once we returned to the Empire,” Wilfred muttered. “Ate the tubes as well. It was… a fascinating sight.”

“Should have hid them better!” she chided, cackling when the old man shot her a frown.

“So you’re all set on your journey, Roderick?” Wilfred continued, walking over and starting to fuss over his armour and pack, checking the straps to make sure they were fastened tight. “You have everything? Remember, hydration will be your number one concern.”

It was amusing and a little charming to see Wilfred worrying over him like a mother hen. While the wizard was inherently compassionate due to his druidic background, he mostly reserved his tolerance for plants or elves, and it made Roderick forget sometimes that he was a son of Sigmar like the rest of them. He remembered Skyseeker asking him if Wilfred was his father, and while he’d declined such a claim, perhaps an uncle, or surrogate grandfather might be closer to the truth than not.

“Do not fret, Wilfred,” Roderick chuckled, easing the wizard away. “You handpicked our supplies yourself, we have all that we need.”

“Of course, of course,” the wizard muttered, giving him a pat on the shoulder with a feeble hand. “Good luck to you both, and may Sigmar be with you.”

There was nothing more to be said, Von Kessel leading them over to a part of the bulwark obscured by a climbing net. The knotted ropes draped all the way down the hull towards the water, Skyseeker wasting no time in stepping down onto the first set of loops.

Roderick placed one armoured foot on the railing, preparing to follow her down, when Wilfred placed a hand on his arm to stop him.

“Remember what I said, Roderick,” Wilfred whispered. “Beware the artifact, but do not let it fall into the wrong hands. Make the right choice.”

Roderick pursed his lips, then nodded to the old man, Wilfred letting him climb down unimpeded. He could feel the wizard’s and every other sailors gaze on him as he lowered down the net, soon reaching Skyseeker who had paused halfway down.

“What was that all about?” she asked. “What did man-wizard whisper?”

“Nothing important,” Roderick replied, praying she couldn’t read his expression too easily. His worries were for not, for she beamed up at him as they resumed their descent.

“Yeah, man-thing words never are. E-Except yours, Rick-rod,” she added, wiping her muzzle with a paw.

“Well well! When did you become such a flirt machine, lass?” he joked.