Cracking the Clanrats… Again

No one said a thing for a few moments as Sigmund finished his tale, each person processing it in their own way. John could see curiosity and intrigue passing over the faces of Naoto and Moira, while disbelief and confusion settled on the expression of Talia.

“My mother is your wife?” Talia asked, breaking the silence.

“If your mother is Arvida Nevergreen and is elven, then yes,” Sigmund said. “Though I don’t recall her ever mentioning raising a child-“

“She didn’t,” Talia interjected. “Raise me, that is. She had my mom and dad, uh… Frida and Halfdan raise me. She was too busy dying for the rebellion to be my mom.”

“She died for a noble cause then,” Sigmund replied. “She was welcomed into Valhalla by a chorus of Valkyries and permitted to share from Odin’s cup upon arrival. Not an honor granted to most, if I might say so. Not to even mention the fact that she now is a Valkyrie herself.”

“Yeah, speaking of the old bearded one…” John said, cutting into the dialogue, “you said that he sent you to us as a… protector?”

“Yes. Frankly, your sheer existence as a runic mage has managed to catch the eyes of many, and many who you never want to have caught the gaze of.”

John rolled his eyes a bit, leaning forward to rest his head on his hands. “Yeah, tell me about it. I’ve got at least two deities, three groups, and possibly even my current employer all vying for my head.”

Moira sighed. “John, I can assure you that the Order isn’t vying for your head.”

“Okay, then, metaphorically vying for my head. But to be honest, returning to prison and getting executed are pretty equally shitty options at this point.”

“Which is why I am going to ensure that neither of those happen,” Sigmund stated. “Not only am I going to protect you, but I will also hope to teach you how to be a better warrior and fight alongside your shield brothers a bit better.”

“My what now?”

“He means us,” Mavis interjected. “He’s an old ass Viking. Frankly, you’re even lucky that the guy speaks English.”

“I had a lot of time in Valhalla. Might as well pick up on more prominent tongues,” Sigmund said, a small smile growing on his face. “You must be the one called the Sword of Souls if I am not mistaken.”

“Got it in one, einherjar,” Mavis said with the flourish of some finger guns. “And you must be the einherjar of laundry.”

“Pardon?”

“Well, if you were, it would explain the washboard abs.”

Everyone groaned at the pun, aside from Mavis and Sigmund. The former was cackling at her own poor joke, while the latter remained a bit perplexed but smiled kindly, nonetheless. Mavis did have a point, though, this man was ripped. His bare chest was on full display, with the only clothes on his upper body being the skin of some animal that almost acted like a cape (bear perhaps? Maybe deer?). His torso and arms were covered in runic tattoos, glowing with an eerie unearthly green that also permeated in his eyes. His lower body was clad in leather pants and leather fur boots that he seemed to have taken from his time in life, as well as having a leather belt that was equipped with a pair of axes, sword, and a few knives. These weapons also glowed with the same unnatural green that his tattoos glowed with, and John could only assume that it was linked to his undead nature as an einherjar.

“I can assure you, Sword of Souls, that I am not in charge of clothes cleaning in Valhalla. But I thank you for the compliment nonetheless.”

“Just Mavis, please,” she said with a smile and a wink. “Or we can talk about a few other names that you can call me later.”

“Mavis!” John exclaimed.

“What? You get to stick your thing into two other girls. Why don’t I get to have some fun?”

“I mean, you can. But the guy just got here!”

“Yes, and the guy also is married,” Sigmund interjected. “He also does not wish to have relationships with weapons.”

“Hey, don’t knock it til you try it. The Sons of Ragnar certainly had no complaints.”

Everyone was silent at that comment, just staring at Mavis with confusion and surprise. “The… The Sons of Ragnar?” Naoto asked. “The legendary warriors who invaded and sacked England? The ones from Sigmund’s life? Those Sons of Ragnar?”

“In the flesh,” Mavis said, slyly checking her nails. “I was the sword of Ivar the Boneless for a time before he died. And trust me, he may have been fluid and boneless on the battlefield, but in bed he was anything but.”

“Ew, gross - I do not need to know how you fucked legendary Viking warriors,” John exclaimed, covering his ears.

“I agree,” Sigmund chimed in. “Although, that does explain to me why I thought I recognized you.”

“I ain’t exactly someone you ever forget,” Mavis said, her hand that she had been inspecting quickly shaping into a sharpened blade. “Especially if I am the last thing you see.”

“Then I am glad to have someone like you protecting John, especially if he is to meet his destiny.”

“Yeah, about that-“

“Now,” Sigmund said, interrupting John’s question, “you said that my wife Arvida is your mother?”

“Yeah. I’m Talia Nevergreen, technically, though I usually go by Hálfdanardóttir.”

“I see. I take it that is your adoptive father’s name?”

“Yep,” Talia replied, giving a short nod. Even to John, who wasn’t the best at reading people due to a lack of practice at doing so (after all, why practice social graces when you’re just the nerdy pariah of the school?), even he could see how uncomfortable Talia was with talking to Sigmund.

Sigmund probably noticed this as well, just giving a small nod while running his hand through his rather impressive beard. “Then if you even have half the talent that she has with your blades, I have no doubt that you are quite the warrior on the battlefield.”

“I’m still learning,” Talia said, her hand going to rest on the hilt of one of her blades. “But there are several ratmen who have learned that my learning is still quite lethal.”

“Indeed.” Sigmund then turned to look at Naoto, though his head stopped and his eyes narrowed as he looked at Moira. More specifically, the crest on her armor and shield. “… Paladin.”

“My name is Moira. Moira Brighton,” she said, trying to offer a bit of a warm smile that was met with a cold harsh gaze.

“The Brightons, eh?” Sigmund said, his tone just as cold as his glare. “I heard of your clan on the battlefield. Back when I still breathed as a living man.”

“Oh, well… I… I can’t really speak for-“

“Yes. I know your family quite well.” His hands went down to the rock he was sitting on, pushing himself up to stand at almost 7 feet. “They were commanders of the English Legions. Warriors. Holy men.” His mouth shifted to a snarl. “Murderers.”

“Hey, my family was defending their home and faith,” Moira said, standing up to try and meet Sigmund’s gaze. “If they killed your fellow warriors, then I am sorry but you probably killed just as many-“

“Oh, I don’t mean the men they fought and killed on the battlefield,” Sigmund growled out. “Those aren’t murders. That is honorable combat, and to fall in battle is to earn your place in Valhalla. If your forefathers and your Order only committed those acts, then I would be greeting you as a fellow warrior. No, your people thought of mine as “heretics” and “pagan fools.” At least, that is what they said after admitting to burning down villages and murdering the inhabitants.”

John turned to Moira, whose eyes had gone wide before she averted her gaze from Sigmund’s. “Yes,” she said after a few moments. “My family and my Order did many things I would consider abhorrent.”

“Good. At least you are sensible then.” Sigmund’s expression shifted, from enraged and disgusted to… almost tired. “Look, Miss Brighton. I am sure that you would not do what your ancestors did. I mean, you are working with non-humans and I was informed that it was through your actions that John even has a second chance. But you must understand that what your Order did to my people… Those wounds do not heal easily.”

“Even after centuries?” John asked

“No. Not even after that long.” Sigmund walked over to Moira, and John could see her face shift from solemn thought to that of worry, though she did not pull away from the einherjar. “Miss Brighton. I am here to protect Johnathan Newman, and if you are here to do the same, then we shall have few if any problems. But don’t forget, I will be keeping an eye on you. If I see the same kind of person that slaughtered my kinsmen and their children, I will consider you a danger to John. Are we clear?”

“Transparent,” Moira said softly.

“Good.” He turned away from her, his gaze landing back on Naoto as he had originally intended. “Now then, detective. I saw you are not only adept with ranged weaponry, but spirit summoning as well?”

Naoto nodded. “Correct. My main spirit is non-combative, as it represents my detective work and intuitive nature. But I do still have a couple of combative spirits as well as my guns.”

Sigmund gave a slow nod, rubbing his chin in thought. “I never found guns to be my style. Probably since I never got to use them in life and only learned of them while in Valhalla. But I do at least know how deadly they can be, even if they cannot hold enchantments nearly as well as a blade or bow.”

“Why is that?” John asked. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, the swords and spears and stuff really adds to the whole “fantasy” aesthetic, but I was wondering why most of the guards in prison had spears and swords rather than… I dunno. An **** rifle or something.”

“It’s simply the complexity of the weapons that messes with the magic,” Moira said, seeming to have been jostled out of her downed mood. “I actually had the same question, and as far as it has been explained to me by some of the enchanters in the Order, the more complex the mechanics involved with making a weapon work, the more chances that an enchantment spell has to critically fail.”

“Guns aren’t really that complex, though,” John said. “I mean, it’s a lever that pulls back a hammer, hits a bullet and causes an explosion. Pretty simple at its basics.”

“The issue, though, is that extra step,” Naoto interjected. “Think about it. When you want to push mana into your sword while fighting, you have a direct line. Mana goes from your hand into the blade, the spell activates and the effect goes off. However, if I were to do the same with my revolver,” she then pulled out the weapon in question, holding it out and gesturing to various places as she spoke, “the mana would travel from my hand to the trigger, then from the trigger to both the hammer and the main spring AND the trigger spring, as controlling exactly where the mana is supposed to flow isn’t exactly easy. Then all of that mana has to travel eventually into the end of the hammer, where upon striking the bullet, it would activate the spell on the bullet while firing it forward. There are so many opportunities for the mana to go to the wrong place, or to go unspent, or to accidentally find its way into other bullets thus causing a possible misfiring of spells while they are still in the chamber.”

“But I thought you said you had elemental bullets,” Talia said, her curiosity now piqued.

“I do. But only for one of my guns,” Naoto answered. “That gun was specially made with meticulous enchantments and protections that ensures that a chance of misfiring on any spell is extremely low. And even then, the possibility still remains so I prefer to rely on normal bullets and my own spirits rather than using magic bullets.”

“I thought the skaven were using magic shots,” John remarked. “Their guns were flashing green and causing green explosions against Moira’s shield.”

“Oh, I actually know about that one,” Talia said with a smile. “When the skaven first invaded, the Ljosalfr learned about it because of the sudden growths of warp stone in areas. They use magic and sacrifices and stuff to cause the stone to grow on Alfheim. Hell, if you go to some of the older forests or abandoned caves, you can still find some deposits.” She then gestured over one of the walls, which was covered in tool marks as well as small flecks of a glowing green substance. “They mine the stone and make it into bullets, bombs, power sources… anything and everything. Dad actually has a couple of warp stone weapons that he has fiddled around with in trying to reverse engineer them.”

“Why don’t you use warp stone bullets then, Naoto?” John asked.

“Talia said the reason. The skaven use it in bullets, sure, but also as the fuel for bombs.” Naoto gave a slightly dark chuckle as she said that. “The skaven don’t care if they blow up from faulty gear. I do.”

“A fair point,” Sigmund said. “Personally I prefer a bow if I am to use ranged combat. But to each their own.” The Viking then stood to his full height, almost a full seven feet, and cracked his knuckles as well as his neck. “Well, I am assuming that you all are planning on sending those ratmen into the pit they crawled out of?”

“Damn right,” John said, a wild grin coming over his features as he watched his party (aka his girls) all ready their weapons as they mirrored John’s smirk. They had been embarrassed once by the skaven. They all wanted a second chance.

“Then that’s what we shall do. But only if you are more careful in your fighting.” Sigmund then motioned for them all to gather closer. “Alright, so listen here. You all need to learn to fight as a group, and we will need to practice that later. But for now, here is what we are going to do…”

---

Chief Quet Mourntail was not having a great day.

To start things off, scavenging this morning had been terrible. When they had heard about Thrueetch’s **** a month ago, they would have figured that Clan Skritus would be easy pickings. But noooo, apparently they were now lead by self-crowned Chief Skriskrueel, apparently blessed by the Great Horned One himself. Quet thought that was a load of slaveshit, but apparently one of the Grey Seers believed Skriskrueel and now was a part of the fake-chief’s clan. So now Quet’s soldiers were **** to stay in these old skaven tunnels from the invasion of the elf-things world.

The plan had been that Quet and his soldiers would hide out here, scavenging for supplies and weapons while gathering a good strike **** to attack Clan Skritus. Then Quet would bring his clan in, take over Clan Skritus, and then use the combined clans to attack the elf-things above. Simple, easy, good plan. Plus, it involved Quet killing that fake-chief Skriskrueel, and getting favor in the eyes of the Council.

But scavenging had been slow, as the man-things Order was very good at not only killing clanrats, but also destroying weapons and tools of skaven. Plus, he had to keep his rats as hidden as possible; if the elf-things learned of his plans, they would attack him before he was ready and ruin his plans.

Only APPARENTLY it had been for nothing, because apparently there were now man-things exploring the old skaven tunnels! He had sent out a small detachment to kill-slay them quickly, as apparently the man-things were younglings. But THEN an old man-thing warrior with strange magics had attacked his detachment and sent them run-scurrying. So not only did Quet have to deal with low supplies this morning, but now the man-things were attacking his clan while he had his tail exposed.

AND THEN THINGS GOT WORSE! According to Thrak Clawscream, a clanrat who had betrayed Clan Skritus by joining Quet’s clan, the man-things were apparently ones who had helped Skritus come to power. One of the female man-things was a very good fighter and had killed the king, allowing Skriskrueel to step in and take over. Quet could only assume that Skriskrueel had heard-learned of Quet’s plans and sent the man-things to kill him.

Quet had hoped that the man-things would take enough time for him to go get his secret weapon, one that he had planned to unleash on Skriskrueel and his clan. However, he had not gotten more than a few tail-lengths down the tunnel that housed his creation when he heard the sounds of battle from behind him. The man-things were quicker than he thought, and were giving his clanrats a good thrashing.

__

‘Well, at the very least the man-things will kill-slay the weak skaven, and leave only the strong for when I return.’

---

The skaven warrior jumped, salivating at the idea of closing its teeth around John’s throat. Before it could land, however, John met its body with a quick swipe of his sword.

CRIT! 76 Dmg!

The strike was enough to cleave the rat in two, covering John in rodent blood and guts. He gave a short disgusted noise before wiping some of the guts off his face.

‘Adjust your stance, John. You’re off-balance again,’ Mavis said in his mind

‘R-right.’ John shuffled his feet before looking back up towards the battle. When they had entered into the main chamber with the skaven, they had been **** to move quickly as the skaven were caught off guard and they needed every advantage they could take. Sigmund and Moira were quick to push forward into the brunt of the battle, attacking with **** prejudice and clearing out enough of an area for Talia, John, and Naoto to get in and start picking off key targets. Most of the rats went to attack the two tanks, with most of them charging at them head on. If any tried to flank, John or Talia would meet them and take them out, as well as slowly push any skaven on the sides towards the front. Finally, Naoto would pick off various skaven warriors, either ones that John or Talia missed or ones that were far in the back that none of the melee warriors could reach.

John, however, couldn’t really focus on what the rest of the group was doing. His entire focus had to be locked in on the small battles that he would engage in. Keep his eyes open, look for a skaven getting too close to the right side of the tanks, approach and intercept the skaven, kill said skaven, then back up and wait for another attempted flank. All the while Mavis kept whispering words of advice to him.

‘Keep your stance balanced, John.’ He quickly adjusted his footing, meeting a sword with a parry before striking back.

37 Dmg!

‘Fix your grip on me, John.’ John quickly transferred hands, wiping the blood from his palm before shuffling Mavis back into his dominant hand.

‘Remember to breathe, John.’

29 Dmg!

John let out a slightly unsteady breath as he pulled his sword from the chest of a skaven before turning to face down another attacker.

‘Remember me, John?’ John looked out amongst the sea of rats trying to attack them, his eyes trying to focus in on the attackers nearest him and not the burnt ice mage hallucination that stood out amongst the warriors.

‘You killed me, John. You killed me and earned a spot in that prison. Now you’re trying to prove that you don’t belong in prison by killing more people.’ Brett’s smile turned cold as John quickly sidestepped a spear, breaking the tip off before swiping his blade across the rat’s eyes.

Crit! 80 Dmg!

‘Focus on the battle, John. He’s not real, he can’t-’

‘Surtr was proud of what you did. The destroyer of worlds was proud of you, John. I wonder if Odin knows that.’

John tried to tune it out. He had when those same taunts were said in prison, he could do it now. He had to focus on the fight.

‘You’re a murderer, John. Just like me,’ Brett said as John kicked a skaven away from Sigmund

10 Dmg!

‘You’re a murderer, John. Just like me.’ Brett was standing closer to John, but still John tried to ignore him. He could hear Mavis’ voice, but it was muffled like she was speaking through layers of fabric. John tried to ignore both distractions, quickly plunging his sword into the prone skaven’s chest.

Crit! 74 Dmg!

‘You’re a murderer, John. Just like me,’ Not-Brett said, his voice morphing into one that John had not heard since the summer before he started Ashcroft. He had John’s brown hair and John’s nose, although his had a few lumps from fellow prisoners who broke it. As John slew another skaven, this one with a quick pair of swipes to the chest, John couldn’t help but notice the nametag on the prisoner’s orange jumpsuit.

Ramírez Vigil

‘You’re a murderer, John. Just like your old ma-’

“SHUT UP!” John yelled, swinging his sword through the hallucination of his father. Unfortunately, his sword made no purchase and gave a nearby skaven the opportunity to swipe at him.

-35 HP

He could hear his father’s laughter echo through the chamber. Soon it was joined in by the chittering laughter of the skaven, the undead laughter of Brett, the snooty snicker of Warden Bourraeu, the cruel chuckles of Dimitri, all echoing in a chorus of failure and fear and dismissal and harm and hate and **** and **** and **** and-

“JOHN! John, snap out of it, it’s not real!”

John slowly cracked his eyes open to see Mavis standing there, her arm transformed into a blade and impaling the skaven who had attacked him. Talia was next to him, holding him and calling out to him through his hallucinations. Moira and Sigmund occasionally looked back in worry as they held the line, with Naoto now dual-wielding pistols as she took shot after shot trying to make up for the lack of manpower.

“John, can you hear me?” Talia asked softly, her warm hazel eyes like a lighthouse in the sea of John’s panic attack.

“I… Yeah.” He took a deep breath and stood up, looking back to Mavis. “Sorry, we need to get back into the fight.”

“John, I don’t think you should do that,” Mavis said, stabbing another rat without even looking. “You just had a massive panic attack, I really think-”

“I think we are in no position to argue this. Now either return to my hand, Mavis, or I’ll start slinging spells. Either way, we continue to fight.”

“John, Mavis has a point. You had a panic attack and got hit because of it. Maybe you should-”

“Maybe you should trust that I know what I can handle and what needs to be done!” John yelled. “Now we have a job to do, and I am not going to fail it! We are going to deal with the skaven and that is that!”

“No man-things will be dealing with any skaven,” a raspy voice said from across the corridor. The party turned to look, with the few rats that were left parting like the red sea to reveal a rat with a cruel smile and a sadistic gleam in his eye. Clearly this guy was the leader, and John could feel the mana in him itching to deal with this rat as soon as possible. “You man-things think you can interject in skaven business? Kill-slay us? Well… perhaps you are good at quick-kill clanrats, but let’s see how you do against… a true skaven!”

Mavis rolled her eyes, walking towards the fat rat leader. “True skaven, uh-huh. Yeah. This will be over with quickly,” she said, extending her arm as a blade.

The leader took a quick step back. “Oh no, I did not mean me.” He then pointed to the corridor behind him. As he did, a huge rat monstrosity slowly walked out of the darkness. The beast was easily three times the size of any of the other rats they had been fighting, with a body composed of strange scraped together technology and pure muscle. While one of his hands ended in a huge meaty fist, the other hand had been replaced with a chunk of glowing green stone, what John could only assume was warp stone, atop a strange metal amalgamation. The rat gave out a loud roar, punching the ground and cracking the stone beneath him.