Breathing harshly, Rittichik reached out a shaky paw and finally, after much digging, unearthed himself from the dirt and debris.
For several weeks, on the orders Arch-Warlock Laskitt Gear-Slash, he’d been leading his cadre of Acolyte-Trainees around, following other Warp-Engineers assigned to various tasks. They’d lost one Engineer to Kharadron gunfire…
“Okay, Acolytes,” Rittichik said in a slow drawl, using the reeking cigar in his hand as a pointer. “See-notice Warlock Skazzik over there?”
“Yes-yes,” was the reply from at least two of his trainees.
“Good-well. Notice he has-carries a Doom-rocket.”
A split-second later, Skazzit fired off the rocket he’d loaded, a loud WHOOOSH sound filling the area, followed by a more muffled boom sound as it impacted something metallic. The somewhat crazed expression on the warlock’s muzzle was matched by his laughter “A-hahahahahaha!!!”
“Yes, teacher-engineer.”
“Good-well. Now, doom-rockets are good-awesome for making-causing lots of explosion-booms, yes-yes?”
“Yes.”
Gunfire erupted from the ranks of the Kharadron thunderers across the scrub-land separating the forces. Bullets traced a line into the cracked earth, making a series of soft thumping sounds until they found their aim. A pair of metallic spanging sounds echoed towards them as the first two bullets pinged off of the crazed warlock’s armor, but the shooting ended with a trio of softer sounding noises, followed by a clattering noise as the warlock’s corpse collapsed to the ground.
“Ah, there you go,” Rittichik muttered, rolling his eyes as he gestured with his cigar once again. “Stupid dwarf-thing gunners shot him. Now, class, what is lesson-thing to learn here?”
Silence greeted his query, but one brave – or foolhardy – trainee raised a paw. Rittichik gestured for it to speak. “Um, doom-rockets are fun-awesome, but… um…”
“Yes-yes?” A different paw raised from among the pack of trainees. “Riknik?”
“Boom-rockets draw-bring lots of attention on user-warlock, yes-yes?”
“Very good! Here is lesson for you. As warlock-engineer, you needs-must weigh-consider options. Doom-rocket is fun-booms, but draws much attention and much dwarf-thing or man-thing or aelf-thing weapons-fire.”
“But… is fun-awesome!”
Nodding, his tail slapping the ground behind him, Rittichik smiled at his charges. “Yes-yes, it is. So, take lesson from Warlock Skazzit. If you use-wield doom-rocket, make sure-certain you have something solid-bulletproof to hide behind.”
“Yes, Warlock-teacher.”
They’d lost a second Warlock to a cliff about a week later (“see, class-students, this is why we graft-gift our Stormfiends some grappling hooks with long ropes”), and a third to some over-zealous Stormcast the day before.
But this… they had settled down in a secluded place to rest after fighting the Stormcast, when there was a loud explosion, the sky went all funny colored, and chunks of rock began to rain down all around them! Rittichik had been flung into a gully by one impact, and half-buried by the debris, dirt, and rocks flung up from the strike. It had taken him hours to dig his way to the surface again. He was pretty sure his left wrist was fractured, his head was pounding, and he felt like he’d been run over by one of those gigantic pig-things the Ironjawz liked to use as mounts.
He’d lost, well, pretty much all of his Acolytes from the looks of things. Prior to the strike, they’d still had five jezzail crews, nine remaining Acolyte-traineers, a ratling gun crew, fifteen stormvermin bodyguard, and a handful of surviving clanrats. Taking a look around, Rittichik couldn’t see any other rat-kin.
He’d also lost his prized long-musket, now buried somewhere under the debris. Normally he’d expend the effort to dig it out, but he was in a lot of pain, and now that he wasn’t moving it, his left wrist was swelling badly. He still had a pair of warplock pistols and his bandolier, plus a stash of food tucked into the pouches that still hung from his belt, so he wasn’t completely unarmed at least. Turning about, he tried to get his bearings. Everything was shrouded in a red haze from the dust thrown into the air. Sighing, he picked a direction and started to walk, and then stopped suddenly when his foot struck something cold. Reaching down, he picked the item up.
It appeared to be an unbroken poison wind globe… but… what had happened to it? All of the glowing warpstone dust had gone dark and inert! That wasn’t supposed to happen! Unusually for a member of Clan Skryre and its offshoots, Rittichik had been around a long time. Careful experimentation on his part over the years had proven to him that the only thing that could do that to a poison-wind globe was a powerful nullification or dispelling effect. Horrified, he checked his pistol and found that his warpstone bullets had been similarly affected, which implied a massive anti-magic pulse of some kind!
It also meant that contrary to his original assessment, he was unarmed!
A wisp of fear-musk spread from his glands as reality sunk in. Cowering, Rittichik looked for somewhere to hide until he could get his bearings…
