RESPONSIBILITIES

In which a journey is embarked upon and an ambush laid…

When Khallen Alterskein, Magister of the Coven of Mightfulness, had heard that forces from the Swallowing Bogs were making incursions into the plains, he was overcome by a sudden sense of dread.

Thankfully, his fright was soon dispelled, as Ashori—the liaison between his cult and the ghurneth of Packhome—explained that these were not the undead aelves of Pearlgrave, but merely some overly ambitious hobgrots. Ever since his encounter with an emissary of the Fortress Librarium, Khallen had been unnerved by the undead, and by aelven necromancers especially, so he’d not been at all keen at the thought of facing the Drowned Emperor’s armies.

Thus, he was greatly relieved to hear that the Denkeepers were only asking him to deal with some uppity grots. Ashori cautioned, however, that the Bogswallow Marauders were comparable to the ghurneth and several other powers in the region, so it would be foolish for his small cult to face their main force head-on. Instead, she recommended he focus on picking off scouts and other, smaller parties.

This was hardly the sort of large-scale, epic battle he’d hoped to end up in after taking Packhome’s side in the unfolding conflict, but this war was just getting started, so there would be plenty of time for that later, he told himself. Also, hobgrots were hardly renowned for being fearsome foes; no matter how large the army of them, a battle with such creatures could hardly be considered “epic”.

So the clans wanted this taken care of as efficiently as possible, to put the hobgrots off making any further incursions into ghurneth lands. There was little doubt that the wild aelves could overcome the Bogswallow Marauders in a fair fight, but if the hobgrots had advance notice of the clans’ movements, then they could take their time to choose a battlefield that suited them and litter it with traps, as their kind were so fond of doing.

That meant someone had to deal with their scouts, to deprive them of that vital intelligence. Though Khallen’s cult weren’t nearly so keen on ambushing, spying and backstabbing as most arcanites, it would’ve been a lie to say they were ignorant of such things. So he agreed to Ashori’s request, and returned to his stronghold—the gargantuan, enchanted tent he had named the Papillon Pavillon—to perform an eldritch ritual intended to reveal to him the closest of the Bogswallow Marauders’ scouting parties.

Such magics were difficult, for attempted scryings could be blocked—or worse, manipulated to reveal false information—by an attentive wizard, and although hobgrots were hardly renowned for their sorcerous capabilities, Khallen had long ago learned in the change-cults of Chamon that for an arcanite to underestimate their rivals was the surest path to a swift demise. So he was careful, taking his time to properly prepare an intricate ritual with the help of his sister-in-law, Zeyresci, and seven of her underlings.

With chalk, they drew a detailed circle of Tzeentchian glyphs and sigils on the floor of an unused room, somewhere in the depths of their tent-stronghold. The symbols seemed to warp and shift subtly as one beheld them, and even for the cultists themselves, watching that for long would give them a splitting headache, so they were careful to avoid looking at them too much. That alone would likely have been sufficient, but to give the spell a little extra oomph, Khallen opted to prepare a special potion to further enhance its effect, just to be sure he wouldn’t fall foul of some canny hobgrot’s trick.

Many of the ingredients were quite esoteric, and included such arbitrary items as eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog. It was an odd recipe, but they were able to get most of what they needed fairly quickly. The wool of bat caused a bit of a delay, though, when they discovered that bats typically grew fur, not wool. Thankfully, after catching a few and zapping them with some change-magic, they were eventually able to get what they needed.

With everything finally prepared, Khallen downed the vile concoction he’d produced, doing his best not to gag, then sat at the “top” of the circle—with the other eight arcanites spaced out at equal intervals along its circumference—and began to meditate, as they all muttered a low chant under their breaths. He focused his mind on what he was searching for, and after only a couple minutes, he felt a strange, weightless sensation, as his spirit left his body behind.

A blurry vision of the countryside around his pavilion presented itself, then wavered as his viewpoint shifted, briefly gaining tremendous speed, before coming to an abrupt halt. The vision resolved itself into an image of astounding clarity, and he found himself looking down from a bird’s eye view, upon a small band of hobgrots, accompanied by a pair of aelves who wore white robes adorned in aetherquartz, the realmstone of Hysh. Ashori had said that the Bogswallow Marauders were trading with merchants from outside of Ghur, but he’d not expected their trade partners to be (what he assumed were) lumineth.

Neither the hobgrots nor their aelven allies appeared to notice that they were being observed, but the magister wasn’t taking any chances. The aelves of Hysh served directly under the god of magic, Teclis, so were surely very accomplished in their craft, and while he wasn’t certain if hobgrots used magic all that well, he’d faced enough of the Loonking’s fungus-mad shamans back in Chamon to know not to underestimate grot spellcasters.

He was careful not to try and focus too closely on what was going on below, lest he give away his presence, but from the direction the group was moving, and the pace they were keeping, he got what he needed. Once his vision ended, he relayed what he’d learned to the others, and they readied themselves for the journey across the plains.

Though the scouting party Khallen had observed would have been the closest to his stronghold, it was still over a day’s travel from the Pavillon, so they had to camp out on the way there, and the morning afterwards, he repeated his ritual, to be sure they were still on the right track. As before, none of their targets appeared to notice that they were being watched, but Khallen noticed the two aelves keeping close together and talking in hushed tones.

That might have been because they’d spotted his scrying and they wanted to discuss how best to turn the tables on him without it being obvious they were aware. Or it might just have been because they were a pair of richly-dressed aelves surrounded by hobgrots who frequently shot greedy looks at them and their resplendent, aetherquartz jewellery.

Nonetheless, the Coven of Mightfulness wasn’t going to be put off from a fight based on pure speculation, and even if both aelves turned out to be wizards, with their magister and two bands of kairic acolytes, there was a good chance they could unbind any spells the wizards attempted. So they got into position and lay in wait for the scouts to cross their path.

When that finally happened, they launched their ambush.

In hindsight, they all felt a little bad about that. They’d have been happy to have a fair fight, but had they offered their foes that opportunity, the hobgrots likely would have just fled, so Khallen had judged the ambush a necessity if they were to accomplish the task that their new allies had asked of them. Though he did agree afterwards that it probably would have been better if everything hadn’t gone quite so smoothly. As it was, the battle had just felt unfair.

He’d been expecting one or both of the aelves to be wizards, and possibly for there to be a hobgrot spellcaster as well. As it transpired, none of them were, which left his forces with an overwhelming magical advantage.

Oh, the aelves were by no means weak—radiant with aetherquartz energy, they’d dashed into his front lines without hesitation, and one of the pair had even managed to wound Zeyresci, a kairic adept—and even the Marauders had shown more backbone than he’d come to expect from grots. But all the same, their fighting spirit had counted for little when surrounded on all sides and subjected to a torrent of sorcerous fire.

It was a decisive victory, yet far from the Coven’s proudest moment.