DECISIONS

In which a pledge is made, a ritual undertaken, and a gift granted to a reluctant recipient…

In the aftermath of the great hunt upon which they’d been invited by the Denkeepers ghurneth clan, Magister Khallen Alterskein and the majority of his surviving acolytes had to spend several days recuperating. Even with the magic of the Changer power to aid their recovery, there’s only so much that can be done for those who’ve been trodden on by a stonehorn.

In retrospect, while it had certainly been a glorious battle, Khallen could admit that perhaps trying to fight a creature several times his size and made largely out of boulders was possibly not the most prudent course of action. Still, by some miracle, he and the majority of his subordinates had survived, and in the aftermath of that battle, the aelves of Packhome had been impressed enough by their courage—if not their common sense—to allow them to pledge their support to the defence of the clans’ lands.

It was a new experience for the arcanites, who hadn’t ever expected to find themselves cast in the role of ‘good guys’, not after trading their souls away to a chaos god. Having lived in Chamon long enough to get thoroughly sick of all the backstabbing and intrigue that went on in and between the various change-cults there, this was a pleasant change for them, and the magister certainly felt vindicated in his decision not to side with the Cult of the Unseen, whose modus operandi struck him as far too close to that of the very groups he’d come all the way to Ghur to avoid.

He knew there were other warlords in the areas around the steppe as well, who would also likely become involved in the events which were now unfolding, but while he had met representatives of the most notable societies of the plains—the ghurneth, the Cult and the necromancers who dwelt in the Fortress Librarium—he’d had no contact thus far with the factions further afield. Given how small his force was, he doubted they knew his Coven existed, and even if they did, they likely wouldn’t feel it was worth their messengers’ time making the journey across the plains just to make contact with such a minor group.

That was fine by Khallen, though, as he had no particular desire to meet them, anyway… especially not after he’d heard from Ashori—a Denkeeper envoy who’d been serving as his people’s main point of contact with the clans—that the Librarium’s gheistweavers weren’t the only necromancers around. Some idoneth and some sylvaneth in the Steppe were also fond of the restless dead. The magister had thought Nagash’s necroquake was over, but it now seemed to him as if the resurgence of Life had missed a spot.

Having learned of these other necromantic powers, he was thankful that he’d chosen to settle in the plains. At least here, there was just one creepy, haunted castle to worry about. Far better that than in the wood or the bogs, where such things were being more actively employed by aspirational warlords.

The only good thing which could be said about the arcineth of the Fortress Librarium, as far as he was concerned, was that so far they seemed content to ignore the Amber Stampede entirely, in favour of remaining shut up in their castle, working on whatever research occupied their fancy.

So given all that, it was Khallen’s pleasure to swear his service to the clans. His acolytes were no less keen to take their side, either; none of them being any more fond of ambulatory corpses than their leader was. More than just that, though, the ghurneth were just the sort of physically impressive warriors that the change-cultists had expected to encounter in the Realm of Beasts, and the arcanites got on with them far better than they would have with the Cult’s spies or the Librarium’s scholars.

The only minor sticking point came when Ashori tried to grant him a reward on behalf of her people. She said that a charm in the form of his spirit animal would be an appropriate symbol of his allegiance with the clans, and so she enquired as to what his spirit-animal was. Khallen hadn’t the slightest clue, but during the ceremony in Packhome’s Great Tent—in which he’d pledged himself to the ghurneth’s cause—he’d briefly encountered a fellow named Kor, whose spirit animal was a maw-krusha, and the magister wasn’t keen on being outdone.

So he described to Ashori the most fearsome creature he could think of. When he was done detailing the appearance of his ‘spirit animal’—a humanoid figure with bird-like talons for feet, a coat of feathers, and the head and wings of an eagle—he felt pleased with himself for all of a few seconds, right up until the aelven envoy flatly told him that his spirit animal was definitely not a Lord of Change.

It turned out the aelves didn’t consider daemons to be animals. Fortunately, they did have a convenient spiritual ritual which individuals could use to determine their spirit animal. It was typically used to sort young ghurneth into clans when they reached adulthood, but Ashori explained the process to the magister, so that he could perform it himself. It wasn’t a particularly quick process, but in his injured state, he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, so lying down and dreaming about bestial ghosts for a while was as good a way to pass the time as any.

The ritual was a success, and he discovered his spirit animal.

He wasn’t too pleased with the result, however.

When he’d come to Ghur, Khallen had brought with him an enormous tent, more than spacious enough to house his entire army. Admittedly, his ‘army’ consisted of only thirty people other than himself, so it wasn’t exactly the most numerous force ever assembled. All the same, a tent able to comfortably accommodate dozens of people was still a very large tent.

Big though it was, though, it was still made of fabric, and so hardly a fortress. So, to offer his people some protection, he’d summoned some daemonic beings to guard it. As more powerful daemons were always going to be untrustworthy, though, he decided that rather than employ such entities, he’d opt for weaker ones. Weaker even, in fact, than the very dimmest of brimstone horrors.

The tiny motes of sentience which he conjured were so feeble that they even lacked a predefined shape. For some reason, unbeknownst to the magister at that point, they had all taken on the form of a particular animal when he’d called them. Naturally, he’d rolled with this unexpected turn of events. In true Tzeentchian fashion, he claimed that everything had gone just as planned, despite that not really being the case at all. In honour of the little, crystalline creatures he’d conjured, Khallen called that tent—his stronghold in Ghur—the Papillon Pavillon.

He hadn’t thought much of it at the time. Now, though, he could see that the form his summons took must have been influenced by his spirit animal.

Despite this realisation, he still complained to Ashori, demanding a new one. Of course, she reminded him that a person’s spirit animal isn’t something they can just return and exchange for another. Then she asked him what his could be that he would disapprove of it so much.

The envoy was generally a stoic sort of person, but when he told her, he could swear he saw her face twitch slightly, as if she was trying to suppress a smirk. Still, she didn’t laugh, so that was something. He was new to the Steppe, of course, and not familiar with ghurneth culture, but guessed that it was probably considered bad manners to mock someone for having a lame spirit animal.

Instead, she went and fetched a small block of wood, and set about carving it into the animal’s likeness, while muttering under her breath something which sounded like it could be an incantation, or a prayer. Khallen was surprised that she was doing it herself, having assumed she would pass on the task to some lackey, but when he said as much, she simply shrugged, then told him to be quiet while she worked.

It didn’t take as long as he’d have thought, and before he knew it, Khallen was wearing the small, wooden icon on a thick string around his neck. It didn’t exactly mesh with the rest of his look. His pair of short, pointed horns, his maw of shark-like teeth, and his bulging muscles all gave him a fearsome aspect. The butterfly pendant? Not so much.