Years later, as his soul was being absorbed by the necromancer, Ra Phee-Ki would remember the day his spawn-leader took him to see ice. He had been a mere pup of 47, and had already survived his first campaign against the Skaven. Hosay Ark'a-dyo Bwenya, a vulnerable scar leader, had been ordered by his Mage Priest to take a troop of saurus to the Chaos Wastes and report back anything he found living or multiplying there.
Ra was but a champion of a minor unit; nevertheless it was he who Hosay Ark'a-dyo Bwenya selected for the elite team mission into the heart of the dread lands. The veteran had prophesied that Ra Phee-Ki would start his life tied to a carnosaur and end it being eaten by ghouls. Feeling the shock of freezing winds on the barren plains after teleportation - the first time he had experienced less than 80% humidity or lower than 30°C - Ra Phee-Ki swore that he would never leave Lustria again. The team huddled around its Solar Engine like a flies on a carcass, pressing on into the endless emptiness for days on end.
Eventually Ra Phee-Ki noticed that small flecks of white were settling on his scales, and Hosay Ark'a-dyo Bwenya had to explain that it was not ash from a terrible explosion, but a form of horrifying frozen rain that made their unceasing march even more treacherous. Soon the stuff was so plentiful that Ra Phee-Ki was blinded and became separated. Within hours, he had fallen into a coma, with insufficient heat to invigorate his cold blood. As he faded from consciousness he muttered a prayer to Chotec, and was rewarded with what sounded like moaning.
Ra Phee-Ki awoke on a slab in a dark room within an enormous pile of masonry - quite a familiar and comforting sensation. The bindings on his limbs and the chap with the strange outfit (not to mention larger fangs than most humans tended to grow) were less encouraging. Pronouncing all his Ws as Vs, the assumed warmblood explained how Ra Phee-Ki would play a vital part in his experiments.
"Has anyvon ever told you to get a life?" he asked.
Before Ra Phee-Ki could answer, a huge bust of energy from the Solar Engine shattered the castle wall and Hosay Ark'a-dyo Bwenya leapt into the room, skewering the vampire with his obsidian blade, causing the latter to complain what a nuisance it was to find nice clean shirts these days. The two lizards proceeded to ransack the other rooms in the castle, finishing in the crypt, where they found other bodies, in various states of completeness, stored in boxes filled with an exceptionally strange crystalline substance. Tentatively, Ra Phee-Ki touched it, withdrawing his hand soon afterwards with a shudder.
"It's freezing," he said. "This is the worst invention of our time."
Centuries later, on the campaign to find the Naq, Ra Phee-Ki found himself in mortal combat with a cohort of undead guardians, lead by a suspiciously similar fanged gentleman. The necromancer was using the abundant magicks to siphon his soul, and Ra Phee-Ki thought back to that day when he had touched ice, trying to decide which of the two experiences was least enjoyable.
I blame myself. While Ini-Me’ni was casting, I suddenly felt the urge to aide his spell, which worked as far as it went, but when I then attempted to prevent yet more magical raising of undead warriors by reading a dispel scroll - something I do literally every battle - I found it was impossible. The whole thing was just weird and unpleasant...real magicalism. Let's just hope history doesn't repeat itself.
Ra was but a champion of a minor unit; nevertheless it was he who Hosay Ark'a-dyo Bwenya selected for the elite team mission into the heart of the dread lands. The veteran had prophesied that Ra Phee-Ki would start his life tied to a carnosaur and end it being eaten by ghouls. Feeling the shock of freezing winds on the barren plains after teleportation - the first time he had experienced less than 80% humidity or lower than 30°C - Ra Phee-Ki swore that he would never leave Lustria again. The team huddled around its Solar Engine like a flies on a carcass, pressing on into the endless emptiness for days on end.
Eventually Ra Phee-Ki noticed that small flecks of white were settling on his scales, and Hosay Ark'a-dyo Bwenya had to explain that it was not ash from a terrible explosion, but a form of horrifying frozen rain that made their unceasing march even more treacherous. Soon the stuff was so plentiful that Ra Phee-Ki was blinded and became separated. Within hours, he had fallen into a coma, with insufficient heat to invigorate his cold blood. As he faded from consciousness he muttered a prayer to Chotec, and was rewarded with what sounded like moaning.
Ra Phee-Ki awoke on a slab in a dark room within an enormous pile of masonry - quite a familiar and comforting sensation. The bindings on his limbs and the chap with the strange outfit (not to mention larger fangs than most humans tended to grow) were less encouraging. Pronouncing all his Ws as Vs, the assumed warmblood explained how Ra Phee-Ki would play a vital part in his experiments.
"Has anyvon ever told you to get a life?" he asked.
Before Ra Phee-Ki could answer, a huge bust of energy from the Solar Engine shattered the castle wall and Hosay Ark'a-dyo Bwenya leapt into the room, skewering the vampire with his obsidian blade, causing the latter to complain what a nuisance it was to find nice clean shirts these days. The two lizards proceeded to ransack the other rooms in the castle, finishing in the crypt, where they found other bodies, in various states of completeness, stored in boxes filled with an exceptionally strange crystalline substance. Tentatively, Ra Phee-Ki touched it, withdrawing his hand soon afterwards with a shudder.
"It's freezing," he said. "This is the worst invention of our time."
Centuries later, on the campaign to find the Naq, Ra Phee-Ki found himself in mortal combat with a cohort of undead guardians, lead by a suspiciously similar fanged gentleman. The necromancer was using the abundant magicks to siphon his soul, and Ra Phee-Ki thought back to that day when he had touched ice, trying to decide which of the two experiences was least enjoyable.
Mood: WHATHAVEISEEN
Listening to: Moaning, so much moaning
God most likely to sacrifice to: Chotec, god of the bloody Sun
Everything is different now. Not in any big sense, it's just all the little things. Like when we went into battle against the undead today, they were calling themselves a vampire covenant - a covenant?! What the heck is that? Now I've fought plenty of vampire counts before, counts I know and love. Well not love, obviously. Understand. Counts I can deal with, they're just energetic aristocrats, like a Mage Priest if they ever bothered to muck in. But covenants....yuck.
Then, when we were discussing tactics, Ra and I suddenly felt very strongly that we should try to keep as many of our banners in the centre of the field as possible. We've never needed to do anything like that before. And my spells, they essentially do the same things, but they feel all different! It's like we've entered some kind of new................age. That's what happens at the end of an age, right? Everything suddenly changes in super small ways for no discernible reason?
Anyway, whatever was going on, the battle was a disaster. The enemy had so few units that our skirmishers were able to effectively stop them from moving anywhere, but the one spot where we engaged them turned into a kind of never-ending death soup. We cut down their ghouls in an endless stream, only to find them raised back up more or less immediately. First, pretty much all our saurus were gradually consumed, as if they were being marched - slowly - into a shallow pool of lava. Then we sent in an enormous charge of two stegadons (why do I want to call them triceratops?!) and Reks, which hit home with the enormity that three gigantic dinosaurs typically command. But still the ghouls kept picking themselves up and carrying on as if nothing had happened. By the end of the battle, almost all of our troops had been lost, while the enemy army had barely altered or, indeed, moved.
