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Nachgeheim 22th ,2488 IC
The musket shots echoed with force, bouncing off the stone walls and creating a prolonged echo through the underground chambers. Some goblins began to fall, struck down by the impacts, though many shots missed, thrown off by the dim light or the nerves of battle. Still, chaos spread among the greenskin ranks. Several began abandoning the battlements—without arrows, there was little they could do from up there. Most seemed to retreat deeper inside, likely to prepare a final line of defense.
Fortunately, the goblins hadn't bothered to repair the fortress's main gate. The collapse of stone and charred wood still partially blocked the entrance, but it was passable enough for us to enter in tight formation.
I waited patiently. I watched as the heat continued to warp the metal atop the walls. Some goblins died without being touched by lead or blade—just by stumbling and falling into the molten iron puddles now scattered across the ground. A miserable death.
Once I felt that all the remaining goblins had abandoned the high positions, I ordered my men forward. Pikes at the front, as always. The musketeers positioned themselves in the fourth rank, ready to fire over their comrades if necessary, but without breaking formation.
I could feel the greenskins. All of them. Like a plague gathering in one single spot.
We advanced through the main gates into a great dwarven hall, with high ceilings and walls engraved with ancestral reliefs. The yellow crystals hanging from stone lamps still worked, bathing the room in a soft, warm light. Statues of ancestors, stone-carved runes everywhere, and pillars solid as mountains.
We checked the side towers to make sure we didn't leave any enemies at our backs. In one of them, several of my soldiers stopped, stunned: some goblins were still there, literally stuck to the walls, trapped by layers of iron that had solidified over their still-hot bodies.
We regrouped and formed ranks. This was the final push. With some luck, it would be the last battle in this fortress. It wasn't a particularly large structure. More like a border keep—an old garrison built to protect a pass or perhaps some valuable resource the dwarves had discovered here centuries ago.
Finally, we positioned ourselves in front of the heavy stone doors that led to the last redoubt. We pushed them with force. They creaked, opened slowly, and revealed hundreds—perhaps thousands—of goblins crammed into a room far too small for them. They were seeking protection. Shelter. Some huddled behind broken furniture or pillars.
I gave a single signal with my hand.
And a volley of lead burst from the muskets. The goblins dropped like flies. The drum began to beat, marking the steady pace. Ordering the march. My men advanced with perfect discipline: steady steps, tight formation, pikes at the front.
When the pikes began to pierce the first goblins, the fight—which was already expected to be long—erupted in fury. The push was constant, disciplined. But I... I felt something was wrong. Very wrong.
That sensation. That pressure in the chest. That sharp nausea I knew too well… like when enemy drones flew overhead, hunting, stalking. But this was different.
The air itself felt rotten.
I looked around, trying to identify the source. My men moved like a well-oiled machine, impaling goblins by the dozen. Still, the advance was slow—
Not because of resistance, but sheer numbers. They kept coming, like a tide with no end.
And then I saw it.
Riding atop a spider the size of a bear—hunched and covered in hair—came a different goblin. Thinner. More jittery. His eyes glowed like green coals, filled with madness. His mouth never stopped moving, gesturing at a sickening speed.
"He's a goblin shaman!" I shouted, pointing with my finger. "Shoot him! That one! Kill him before he does anything!"
The musketeers reacted instantly. A volley rang out, but most missed or only hit the spider, which screamed in fury but didn't fall. The shaman, unscathed, looked at us with a mixture of hatred and frenzy. He began raising his staff and moving his hands even faster.
'Shit… he's casting a spell. I have no idea how to stop it. Hieronymus never taught me this,' I thought in despair, feeling cold sweat run down my spine.
But then I saw it.
On his staff, a decoration: a small carved mushroom, topped with a shining metallic piece. Iron.
I clung to that detail like a drowning man to driftwood.
I extended my hand. Pointed as if I were still giving the order to fire. And I channeled everything I had left. All my energy. All the wind of Chamon I had gathered during the battle. I made the iron ornament on the staff start to vibrate—fast. Friction. Sparks. Heat.
The metal began to melt, sliding like it had a will of its own. But I didn't let it fall. I forced it up along the staff, like a liquid serpent, and it lunged toward the shaman's neck. There, it solidified immediately—still glowing, still burning.
The goblin started screaming. First like a madman. Then like a beast on fire. He fell from the spider and began to writhe on the ground, while the burning chain of iron tightened more and more around his throat, searing flesh and collapsing his airway with every second.
But for some reason… the rotten feeling didn't go away. In fact, it worsened. As if the air itself was rotting in my lungs.
I looked at the shaman, still convulsing in spasms, but I felt something was wrong. The improvised counterspell… maybe it interrupted the incantation, but it didn't stop it completely. The spell had begun. And now it was being unleashed without aim or control.
The ground trembled.
A dull explosion shook the chamber, as if all my powder reserves had gone off at once. The roar echoed against the stone walls, and my ears rang. Smoke rose like hellish breath from the spot where the shaman's body lay, and then…
Goblins.
Dozens of them were thrown into the air like ragdolls tossed by an invisible storm. They flew over our heads, slammed into walls, crashed onto the floor… or landed on us.
One of them fell right on top of me, bursting in an explosion of hot blood, guts, and shattered bones. I felt the impact, felt the ruined flesh on my face, and a moment later—the stench.
"Perfect… just what I needed. A goblin blood bath," I muttered in disgust, tearing off a piece of spinal cord that had stuck to my breastplate. "This wasn't part of the plan…"
Where the shaman had once stood, there was now a smoking crater—blackened stone with green flames rising like demonic tongues licking the air.
Apparently, my trick had worked. The spell hadn't completed… but the uncontrolled magical energy had still been released, annihilating all the nearby goblins.
"Well done! Whoever hit the mark avoided a catastrophe!" I shouted—not just to boost morale, but to cover up what I'd done. They didn't need to know it had been me.
After the explosion, the goblins panicked. Whatever discipline they had left collapsed with the shaman's death
Only instinct remained: run. But run… where? There was no way out. It didn't matter. Some tried to climb the walls. Others hurled themselves at us, ignoring the fact that our pikes were waiting.
The battle ended quickly. Without their leader, the greenskins were hunted down one by one. Some died impaled, others decapitated.
Once I no longer sensed any goblin movement, I ordered the withdrawal to secure positions. The wounded were few. Most had only suffered bruises when a flying goblin landed on them after the blast. Painful, yes… but nothing that couldn't be fixed with rest and firm bandages.
The cleansing of the fortress continued chamber by chamber. In what seemed to be an old dwarven forge, we found only crude goblin-made weapons, worthless. Further ahead we found the shaman's room—a nest of strange mushrooms in bizarre colors, with dwarven skulls piled up as tribal decoration. A repugnant place, more plague than civilization.
Later, we came upon what had once been an armory. Empty. Completely looted. Not even the goblins seemed to have gotten much out of it; the only things left were rotten food in broken baskets, mixed with feces and bones.
In the final chamber, we found a dwarven statue. Half-destroyed, covered in filth. The carved dwarf's expression was stern, yet dignified—as if even mutilated, it refused to fall fully into disgrace.
I stood there in silence.
"Damn it... I lost men, I've got dozens wounded, and nothing to show for it…," I muttered, running a hand over my blood-covered face.
"I didn't even come to loot… but I would've expected at least a pile of dwarven gold, a forgotten treasure… something."
Then I felt it.
A pulse of Chamon.
Not a strong wind, nor an active one… but an absence. A void. A place where there should have been flow… and there wasn't.
I turned slowly. Walked in silence to a smooth stone wall. I reached out. Nothing. But something felt wrong. It was as if the wind was being absorbed, as if that spot had no minerals—which was absurd. We were surrounded by iron, tin, and lead.
I ran my hand over the surface again and again, until my fingers brushed over a groove. Something clicked. A dwarven rune lit up with a faint blue glow.
The wall trembled.
The stones began to shift, rotating with millimetric precision until they slid aside like a gate of advanced engineering. Before me… a passage.
I stood in silence for a moment. Then sighed, smacked my forehead with an open palm, and muttered, "Ah… of course. A secret chamber… why didn't I think of that?"
I descended into the chamber. It was perfectly lit by the same yellow crystals that decorated the rest of the fortress, but here they were denser, more intense. The place had a solemn air, almost sacred.
There were tombs. Beautifully adorned with polished granite and hammered bronze, each one with a distinct statue of its occupant. On the walls hung the shields of the fallen clan, with inscriptions and runes that even I could feel humming with power. Beside them—swords, axes, and runic hammers. Some armors too, broken and blackened, yet still dignified. Dwarven armor… small for us, yet still imposing.
I walked slowly, observing in silence.
Then I felt a draft behind me.
I turned immediately, hand on the hilt of my sword. Nothing. There was nothing.
"Eh… what the hell? How is there wind here?" I murmured, looking around, both annoyed and unsettled. There were no windows, no visible cracks.
"I don't like this place one bit…," I whispered as I approached a black stone table. Upon it rested a thick old leather-bound book, older-looking than anything else here.
I froze in place, not touching it.
"Is that… a Dammaz Kron?" I said softly, narrowing my eyes. It was a Book of Grudges. The sacred book where every offense against a clan was recorded. Only the dwarfs knew what it truly contained…
"My lord? Are you here?… By blessed Sigmar…," said one of my men-at-arms who had just entered behind me.
I turned just in time to see him reaching toward a runic sword hanging from the wall, still embedded in its shield.
"Don't touch anything. And don't do anything," I said sharply, raising my voice and stopping him with a quick step. "Are you insane!? Do you want your name—or mine—written in the Book of Grudges? Do you want to be cursed by generations of dwarfs?"
The idiot pulled his hand back instantly, recoiling as if the sword had growled at him. He lowered his head without a word.
"I want guards posted here, rotating at all times. No one touches anything. I mean it. For the love of Sigmar… not a single hand on anything."
I left the chamber without looking back at the tombs. The man-at-arms followed me in silence.
At the threshold, I placed my hand on the side of the door. The runes responded immediately, lighting up with a soft blue glow. The stone trembled slightly, and the walls began to move. The doors slowly and silently sealed once more, hiding the chamber again.
No one was to enter there without my permission.
And above all, no one was to provoke the dead.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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