POOHEAD189

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Rise to The Top: Medieval Intrigue RP

Galt wasn't very knowledgeable with the laws of court or expected gender roles. While women were still mistreated on the streets, luckily there was a bit more diversity in terms of circumstance and personage. He had met a few girls who could outwit him or even beat him in a fight in certain situations. He wasn't one to underestimate someone due to their sex, and one look at Silke told him she was someone to be reckoned with.

He also figured she was a bit too proud to admit she wanted or needed help, but he honestly found it cute. Not in a 'quaint' way a noble might look down on an inferior, but a quirk he liked. He swiftly found he liked many things about her. He suddenly had images of her and he in his head, those of a romantic fashion. He tried to push them out of his mind, but he found they hung on the periphery, just waiting to be pulled back in. He gave her a wink when she agreed to lunch, and then called for one of the servants to bring them some food. He made sure to thank the man before he ran off to finish his task.

Galt awaited her to get to her feet, but the former-thief blinked when she asked him about archery.

He smiled curiously. "No, I never had the occasion." He said, wondering why she might be interested. Unlike a neighboring country or two, archery wasn't the national past-time here. He made sure to pull her chair out so she could take a seat, just as a gentleman would. Once she did so, he would take his own and recline in it, thinking on her question. "Bows are for hunters or yeomen, usually. Or that's what I hear from folk. When one is in the city and they want to do something less than legal, they tend to use crossbows. Slower but less uh, conspicuous. Hey, look at that. I'm using big aristocratic words already."

He grinned at himself, and some water was placed in front of them. "Oh, thank you," he told the maid. She gave a small bow and exited. Galt took a sip of the clear water, still amazed at how clean some water really could be. He was always surprised at how thirty one got after drinking a few sips. He supposed his body was just annoyed with him having neglected itself for so many years. Not like it was his fault...

"I'm handy with a knife, but bows I'm not familiar with." He admitted, placing the glass down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He realized as he did it he should have used a napkin and went for it, dabbing what was left. Why do you ask, Silke? Is there a tournament coming up? I'm afraid I wouldn't do very well in it."

As he finished the thought, steaming plates of food were laid before them. Galt found he was fairly famished. Beefs, lettuce, potatoes and butter were set in round, wooden plates. Utensils were placed before them, before the servants hustled away once more.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

Emmaline later told me his mind was a conglomeration of intense emotions, unbridled and chaotic. It was hard to imagine he was a coherent being, let alone one of the oldest servants of the emperor. The Thunder Warriors were the precursors to the astartes, and I had only heard of them in the oldest of texts my master had made me read. I saw Emmaline clutching her head, screaming for her life. The huge bronze warrior did the same, crying out intensely, piercing my ears like a knife.

His archaic gun pummeled the walls with rounds before he threw it from his hands and began to pound the scarabs, hunks of steel flying everywhere as he vented his anguish, his voice reverberating along the walls. I didn't speak any further. Instead, I made my way over to Emmaline and shook her gently, calming her down as best as I could.

"Emma! Stay with me!" I cried, and held her until her screams subsided and she fell limp into my arms. I felt her chest and breathed a sigh of relief when I felt her heart. It was strong but erratic, like her. As the seconds passed, it became more steady. She opened her eyes slowly, but I didn't see. My eyes were on the the thunder warrior, whom I had noticed had stopped screaming. On his knees, he breathed heavily. If I had not known better, I would have called him a mere statue.

"You... are...a man..." The Thunder Warrior said softly, or softly for such an immense being.

"Yes," I said, holding Emmaline protectively. "I am an Inquisitor of the Imperium of Man."

"What is that?" He asked, his voice slow. "Why... was I shown the High Commander?"

I spoke with surety. "This is the forty first millennium. You have been asleep for over ten thousand years."

The warrior was frozen, but from my meager psychic skills, I felt emotions. I wish I was as skilled in the art as Emmaline. I couldn't tell if it was confusion or rage. It was far more subtle than his earlier emotions, but after many moments he moved, getting to his feet. He grabbed his weapon, and I when he turned he found I now stood between he and Emmaline, my power sword ignited.

"These things were xenos? I remember them..."

"Help me kill them, and the cultists or wish to summon daemons using their foul tech." I asked him, unmoving before the juggernaut.

He said nothing, but I felt his affirmation with my mind. He turned to face the wall, and I helped Emmaline to her feet.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Beren had seen a demon once, years ago. It had almost ripped him out of his sanity, not to mention his heart from his chest. He couldn't know the extent of their kind or the trillion variations from hellish creation. But that thing in front of them wasn't a demon, he was certain. Somehow, he knew.

It was an Outsider. One of the denizens of the void.

It's head was elongated and yet squat, though it was hard to discern where its eyes were. Spikes protruded along its cranium. Every movement it made was strange, ethereal, and yet wholly abnormal. It moved like an infant horse that had just hit the ground after having been birthed, and yet when it did move, it was hard to decipher and watch the movements. It 'glugged' if one might call it that, almost a chortle sound. Beren felt a wave of disgust rise up in him.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Jocasta whispered, crawling backwards towards Beren.

The creature shuddered, the very atmosphere an alien feeling to the being. It opened its maw and let out a gasping growl, and suddenly it began to mold and morph into another form. Its body contorted, if it had bones they snapped, if it had skin it changed. Over the course of a few moments, it went from a monstrosity to what might pass as a man. And yet there was something still quite disturbing about him.

Beren blinked, his breathing coming in shallow. The thing's hair and eyes...somehow he couldn't decipher what color they were, and yet he looked right at the thing.

"What realm is this?" It asked, speaking in a tongue spoken before the stars burned. It moved it hands as it spoke, as if getting used to its new form. Somehow the message entered Beren and Jocasta's heads, perfectly translated. They were a bit too preoccupied with staring to answer. "No matter. You boy, why do you not kneel like the woman?"

"I'm not that kinda guy," He said lightly, breaking the tension. Jocasta looked up at him, and he looked down at her and smiled, trying to be reassuring to the both of them.

"Beren, I advise listening to him." She mouthed.

His smile faded, and he shook his head. He was bound by the oaths of his order. He couldn't do that, even if he wanted to. And he was a bit too proud to want to, he had to admit. He stepped over Jocasta and held his axe, the blade shining in the light of the gloomy sigils. The Outsider flinched slightly, and likely knew the axe was runically enchanted.

"You can't have her," Beren warned. Clearly he had some theory the summoner was bound to something with the summoned. The Outsider merely glared at the Eru'Dai, and then he moved.

Beren was fast, strong, and immensely tough. But this thing's steps were quicker than Beren could blink. It all happened to fast, a small blur before Jocasta's eyes. If she hadn't known any better, she would have sworn that Beren had scored a hit with a swipe of his axe. Indeed the Outsider did seem pained, a small gash on the side of its human-like visage, a frown on its face. Unfortunately, its fist was also covered in blood, straight through Beren's chest.

Incredibly, Beren's arm shook, hand grabbing at the 'clothes' the Outsider wore. The warrior wasn't done with the thing! But it contemptuously knocked Beren down with a shove of his other hand, pulling his bloodied arm out of Beren's chest cavity. The Eru'Dai fell to the ground before Jocasta's feet, bleeding out warm lifeblood as he shuddered. His axe slipped from his hand, eyes losing their light before her.

"Does this upset you?" The Outsider asked Jocasta, idly looking at its fingernails. "Shall I save him with what time I have left on this plane?"

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

The halls here were large, but they weren't seemingly endless like the other areas of the facility. The only perpetual direction one way or another seemed to be up, and it was only because I could not see past the darkness after a few dozen meters. As it stood, Emmaline and I were in an unremarkable hall in an entirely remarkable, dangerous place.

"We only need to know two things." I said sternly, holding aloft my autogun. I had lost my shotgun in the firefight and subsequent teleportation. "Where the sorcerer is and how to get out of here once he is dead."

"Very pragmatic," she said. I looked at her to ascertain if she was joking. Her face was serene, gazing back at me with her pretty eyes. I realized I was being harsher than usual. She tended to be the one person to make me laugh, beside Lazarus. Thinking about it actually caused me to feel a bit of levity in that moment.

"That's me, all business." I remarked. It didn't do to panic now, and Emmaline asking questions on how exactly we were to get out was another thing I was not prepared to answer. All we could do is move forward, and so we did at my insistence. She clutched the staff, more sure of herself now that we had taken a taste of combat and survived. I had no doubt the next time we found a xenos or cultist, she would throw them a hundred meters down the next hall.

Unfortunately, I would find out soon.

The next bend in the hallway, we had entered a bizarre corridor; an almost exhibit of stalls. What appeared like strange glass covered the walls, sectioned off by huge dividers of the xenos metal. From what we could tell, the glass shined a glare we couldn't view until we stepped in further, and the sight was horrible and breathtaking.

I saw a man's face. A face contorted into a scream. He wore the robes of an ecclesiarch, his skin tanned as if the sun still beamed on him brightly. But the robes he wore were unlike any I had ever witness. Their symbols were strange, runic, and the few I recognized were old-fashioned even thousands of years ago. The next stall held an Ork, or what I thought was an Ork. It's skin was red rather than green, and demonic horns sprouted from its cranium. I couldn't feel the chaos taint on the xenos, but I knew it was there, locked in this prison of eternity.

"Hadrian..." Emmaline said, drawing my attention. I gasped when I turned.

Across the hall was another prison of stasis. A giant in baroque, bronze power armor, holding a weapon that looked very much like a storm bolter, only of a distant, weird design. It wore a tall helm with a red mane, and I thought it to be one of the venerable custodes for a brief moment, but I had seen the guards of the emperor before. They were taller than this squat monstrosity, though whatever this was dwarfed an astartes in size.

Click clack click

We turned, weapons held at the ready. What approached was a machine, but it wasn't sentient or sapient as far as I could tell. I would later find out it was a thing called a Tomb Spyder. As large as a ground car, it had many limbs working in perfect unison. I thought it would come at us immediately, but it seemed content with checking the status of the hall and the consoles, it's subroutines likely just maintenance. Either way, I loathed the thing.

I leveled my pistol at it. As I did so, before my finger touched the trigger, I saw more forms. Not the walking things I later learned were called Necrons, but machines that crawled across the ground. They were stout, the size of large dogs. I was not initially concerned, but there looked to be dozens, no, hundreds of them. They clattered and skittered, charging forward like a wave past the Tomb Spyder.

Emmaline waved her staff forward, the front thirty scarabs suddenly crushed or tossed back into the darkness behind the relentless tide. Oil burst forth like blood, xenos-material crippled. I fired into the mass, hitting either its 'eye' or center mass with every shot. But I could not reload quickly enough, and soon I took a step back. They swarmed forward relentlessly, and we knew their mission was merely to kill.

With a burst of sudden thought, to this day I did not know if it was inspiration or panic, Emmaline scrambled over to the closest terminal. She hesitated a moment, but began to smack and poke at the console, frantically trying to get it to work and do something, anything.

"Emmaline! We need to run!" I started, but even as I finished my scream, there was a change in the glass. It glared brightly in a brief flash, and then dissipated like liquid that retreated rather than fell with the law of gravity. A scarab hit me in the stomach, sending me to the ground. My quick unsheathing of my power sword saved my life, slicing it in half even as it bore down on me. Its two sides fell to my left and right, and I pressed a tired hand on the floor to lift myself up before I was overwhelmed.

A massive foot stepped out of the stall, encased in archaic steel-plate. The next step crushed the nearest scarab as if it were made of paper. I saw Emmaline gaping, holding herself on the ground as the massive man stepped forward, its weapon igniting, tearing through the mass of scarabs. Dozens were shattered every second, and with the terribly loud weapon came a scream from the giant, echoing out of its plated great helm. A cry of rage and madness. Luckily, I would soon find the madness would subside. It was a temporary phenomenon his strain of post-human dealt with when first made by the God-Emperor.

Never in all my years did I ever believe I would meet one of the Emperor's legendary Thunder Warriors.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

Redfall looks pretty good, after watching the Bethesda showcase

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

A small part of him sort of hoped he could impress her by climbing the wall with naught but his hands, but his conscious mind knew that was foolish, boyish bravado. Something you couldn't really entertain in the world-below. Even being alone, separated by ten meters was a haunting experience for most people. Thankfully, the Evergod had blessed him with ample experience. He heard her mumbling to herself above as she studied something, and a smile bloomed on his face.

After she had dropped the rope, he saw it slide down to dangle before his eyes. His necklace's talisman was clutched in his hand to keep it held close, but it somewhat obscured the light, giving a soft radiance rather than the brilliant beam of illumination it generally provided when called to. The darkness crept in closer as he reached for the length of cord, but his hand stopped dead.

Beren froze.

Above, he could hear Jocasta humming gently, her light voice softly echoing off the walls. He felt his heart beating loudly in his ears, and he subtly glanced behind his still form. Though his eyesight was very good, he wasn't a dwarf or one of the elves of Leth'Arian. He saw little but empty shadow. The silhouette of the passageways softly kissed by the covered glow of his necklace; naught but gaping mouths for even deeper darkness.

He steadied his breathing, but there was little he could do for the mounting fear. The warrior-monk had felt a dozen changes within the black that peered over him, but none he could articulate in the tongues of men. His horror coalesced in his mind, and he felt a small pressure; a pain in his back. It was a ghost pain. Nothing had touched him, but he couldn't shake the feeling of a blade bursting forth from his chest.

The shadows began to move just outside of his vision, blades slowly unsheathing from their accursed scabbards with sigils of the tainted prince. He couldn't perceive them with his eyes, but he knew they were there. A shift in the air; a silence that seemed deafening yet unnatural. He suddenly realized Jocasta had stopped humming. Instead, she spoke out.

"Beren?" His companion called. "You there?"

Her voice shattered the glass. Beren leaped to the left as the telltale 'click' of crossbows fired at where he had been a moment before. Bolts hit the wall and scattered to the ground, footfalls, inhumanly quick, padding across the stone. Beren spun, able to perceive the coming offense by some primal sense of survival. His attacker was unseeable one moment, and the next they plunged into his field of sight, hitting him as a serpent, netheril blade slicing at his neck.

Beren caught the dorcha's wrist with his left, his right forearm crossing the dark elf's arm to aid in halting the momentum of the swing. The elf's eyes bulged in surprise, and Beren had to agree. He knew if the dark elf had expected Beren to be somewhat prepared for combat in the deeps, he would have better struck and likely killed him. But Beren had been here once before in his life, and the dorcha had underestimated him. "Diabhal hrultur!" Beren cursed in Dwavish, the man headbutting the snarling, haunting visage of the accursed elf. Blood spewed from the male dorcha's nose, and Beren kicked him in the chest, sending him flying back into the darkness.

Three more took his place, but Beren had not kept still. He opened his fist, letting the light beam radiantly in their eyes. He saw them now, in their black armor and evil grins now turned to scowls from the blinding rays. They were attractive in a bedeviling fashion, sculpted features ruined by their infatuation of demonic, abject cruelty. As he opened his fist, he ran back to the right, grabbing the rope. But rather climb, he used the momentum of his charge to run, feet clapping against the wall as he swung up, up, until he was twenty feet in the air. As he went, he rolled the rope further and further along his forearm until it clung around his muscle like a constrictor.

His momentum brought him back, crossbow bolts hitting the wall a hairs breadth from his swinging form. He grappled the rope and yanked himself up the last few feet, his body cold with anxiety and fear. He haulted himself up with the last of the rope.

"What's happening?" Jocasta asked, but she was cut off by shrieks of frustration from the darkness all-too-close below.

"Run!" was all he said, taking her hand and pulling her down the corridor. Anywhere was better than behind them. There was very little in the mortal world more torturous and wicked than the dark elves of the world-below. He only hoped the one he had kicked would deal with a few broken ribs.

Words in a vile tongue rang out to their back, and Beren knew it was only a matter of time before they climbed the expanse and followed. He was too focused on behind than ahead, and it took Jocasta crying out for him to look forward just in time to see a thread that had been tied ankle-height. Miraculously, Beren and Jocasta both leaped over it, but when they hit the stone, they both sunk down a few inches, and something clicked and whirred.

Wordlessly they sprinted, the seconds passing by giving them the fear something would come sliding out to cut them to pieces. Instead, something very different happened. Before them, the light-illuminated passage before them began to close up. A wall began rising up from below, spikes standing before it to bar their way. It just caused Beren to pick up speed, and rather than leave her behind, he picked Jocasta up and laid her on his shoulder, letting her watch the darkness behind as he ran with her hip pressed to his cheek.

Beren couldn't hope to long jump the spikes and the moving wall, so he leaped to the right, kicked off the wall to hit the left wall, and then used that as an elevated platform to leap over the spikes and slide across the rising wall on his knees before they slid clear of the obstacle. Unfortunately, both of them hit the ground on the otherside none-too-gently after a small free-fall. Jocasta fell on Beren, but not on his lap for once. They lay in a heap in the darkness as the door closed behind them.

"You ok?"

"Yeah, what was that back there?" She asked him.

They could not know where they were, but when Beren raised his pendant to examine the large room of items stacked in great heaps and arcane symbols on the walls, he was speechless for many moments.

Rise to The Top: Medieval Intrigue RP

"You have a point there..." Galt conceded. His urban mind didn't account for weather, and then there was soil comp...composition? He had heard that phrase somewhere, but had never bothered to pay much attention to it. He sighed, he had a lot to bloody learn. He still hadn't seen his estate grounds. He had to have been granted good land or at least a profitable arrangement, or else what sort of hero-turned-count would he be? A poor one, he supposed. Galt turned a page in the ledger, eyes on the paper at what exercise she might have in store for him. He needed to be engaged. There was very little in the world that motivated a young man like an attractive woman, even if he knew she wasn't available.

As she began to present what she had prepared, she cursed. He turned to see a long bead of blood sliding down her nose, the woman hastily trying to clean it up. Galt did not know what to do, at least conceptually. But already his hands were moving, reaching for a handkerchief in his pocket. She tried to continue the lesson and tried to staunch the flow of blood, but Galt placed the book on his lap and placed a gentle hand behind her head, letting him get a good look at her. He wasn't used to spontaneous nose bleeds, but he knew wounds and bleeding from street fights and the occasional knife attack.

"We'll get to that," He said softly, taking away her cloth that had slowly been blotched with crimson and pressing his thicker cloth to her nose gingerly, watching her closely. "You're not going to compromise yourself on my account though."

He held it there for a few solid moments, and then pulled his handkerchief away to examine, before placing it back with a care. He was very close to her, his black hair almost absorbing the light and his dark eyes glinting in the firelight. "Do you need me to call for water or anything? If we need to stop and eat, I admit I am hungry." He chuckled, and yet again pulled the cloth away. At that, he found the flow had seemingly stopped. He smiled, letting her go and rolling the cloth up outside in so the bloodied mark was hidden away.

"In fact, a full stomach might help me learn." He said lightly, placing the handkerchief down. Satisfied, he looked at her curiously, not quiet concerned yet, but invested and with a care. "Do you feel better now, Silke? Don't try and trick me, I'm very familiar with that game."

He smiled like a boy.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

We rumbled along the corridors, the alien geometry of this facility's construction was thankfully without much in the way of curvature. In fact the floor was so smooth, it made the chimera's dimensions look completely lopsided. Every movement of the track made me realize how clumsy and imperfect the design of the armored vehicle was. What sort of civilization would make a labyrinth such as this? Our travel lasted for thirty standard minutes, I calculated, before we found anything beyond an oddity.

I heard the crack of machine-gun fire from an accompanying chimera through the thick hull, the thunder of the heavy bolter supplementing the rattling fire in varying iterations. It could have been a mile away or mere meters to our right, but when our own chimera began firing we shuddered in our seats. I should have gotten in the front of the vehicle to better direct the driver, but as it was I sat in the back along with Emmaline, Lazarus, and Sergeant Rhadvek's squad. Briefly I believe I heard men calling out from outside the vehicle, and through the small visor, the red flash of lasers blended with a strange, green light that flashed like lightning.

"Chaos spawn!" The sergeant cursed,, flipping his lasgun to full auto, telling the men to take positions at the firing slots. The men did as they were told, aiming their lasguns at a 45° and aiming at whatever non-friendly they could get into their sights. A few of them began cracking off lasbolts, but even as they did I could see the confusion and fear in their eyes.

"It's not just chaos spawn," I told them cryptically.

There was a bright flash of green, and a deafening silence followed by a concussive force and a fiery light from the right slots. The men on that side fell back, panting and blinking from their eyes trying to dim the light they had witnessed.

"They...they destroyed Chimera C!"

"Everyone out!" I ordered, getting to my feet and slamming my fist onto the bulkhead door trigger. Immediately there was whirring and the back end of the chimera began to lower, revealing an iron-grey ground littered with dead men and stragglers who fired past our position from behind odd, gleaming obelisks uniformly placed along the path. Even as I stepped out, an eldritch lightning bolt of green warped into one of the men flanking the Chimeras. I watched in horror and fascination as the trooper was stripped atom by atom before my eyes, leaving naught but the barest flecks of cloth on the ground.

"Hadrian!" Emmaline cried in my face.

"Move! Behind the pillars!" I cried. The bolter rounds were unimaginably loud, but I was thankful we had them. I rolled out of the cover of the chimera and gauged what lay ahead, and what I saw was pure pandemonium.

The room was an immense chamber, with larger obelisks planted to frame the central causeway towards what looked to be a full-sized pyramid that doubly served as a throne. Atop it was a lone figure, twice as tall as a man and built like a statue who watched the fire fight below with cold eyes. Before the figure were the cultists, or at least some of them, crouched behind pillars and a central, rectangular 'fountain' that housed what looked to be pure plasma at the center of the walkway. They fired lasbolts and grenade launchers, but not at us.

From the darkness, within nooks of pulsating green light, emerged those things. Taller than men and made of metal, they walked in monotonous but strangely animated steps. There were dozens of them, some close by and stepping over the corpses of our guardsmen. They were machines, but I could tell that was not the full extent of what they were. Burning in their breast and behind their eyes were their lifeforce; an alien form of what might have passed as a soul, or what was left of it. It glowed the same green as their weaponry and architecture, only deeper in hue. A few of them lat scattered and broken, shattered by grenades or bolter rounds, or the relentless fire from the heavy stubbers. But even then I saw one, its metal body broken, reanimate and crawl toward its severed lower half.

Before it could, a shot from the trans-uranic arquebus reduced its steel form to fragments. I turned and looked at Lazarus, who watched with rapt fascination. I could tell he fired on instinct, and was loathe to harm these things because of the questions they might answer. But he was my ally, and in the end I knew I could count on him.

"Push forward!" I roared, rounds erupting from my combat shotgun. Four shells burst one of the skeleton-machine's apart, pressing forward at the head of my men to have them follow in my wake. "Fire until there's nothing left of the xenos! Kill the cultists! For the Emperor!"

Tales of Azeroth: Flames of Chaos

Ironforge

King Magni Bronzebeard and his Honor-Guard marched up the sloping road that fed into the great gates of Ironforge, the distant booms of rifles and mortars being tested were a familiar chorus across the valley. The colossus of Modimus Anvilmar towered over the burly warriors as they continued into the heated halls of the vast citadel, glad to be back. For how industrial the capital was, it was quite cozy and warm, and it felt like home even to visitors. Gate guards saluted their king and gave reverence to their fellows who followed in his wake.

The main thoroughfare, known as 'the commons' for obvious reasons, erupted in cheers and shouts of 'for khaz modan!' as Magni raised a fist, the tall dwarf striding past his kin that socialized and bartered before the gateway. Even the auctionhouse master went silent, and all those awaiting the next item cried out praises and undulation. Magni always felt most proud to be a dwarf when he walked back into the city, his home. His clan dominated the landscape, and though they numbered hundreds of thousands with the young and old, they were as tight-nit as any family of four.

He and his men turned southeast toward the military ward, the heat of the great forge kissing their skin even from their distance across the chasm. As they marched in, the Captain of the guard, Morek Ironguard, saluted his king. Black bearded and steely eyed, he was as trustworthy as any human knight to their liege.

"I take it the meeting went well, high thane." He said formally, though he spoke with the smile of a friend.

"I had no doubts." Magni Bronzebeard rumbled, gesturing with a wave of his hand for his men to relieve themselves and take a well needed ale for their watchfulness. They passed by two hundred doughty warriors in columns, drilling for the coming conflict. "In two weeks, we'll be passing by Loch Modan and heading north, both ye and me."

"The council will need something more than what ye've given them." Captain Morek reminded him, the two steel-clad warriors watching as their men stood in formation, training with the axe and shield, moving as one. Ever swing could fell an orc, every shield shove could knock a troll of their balance. The dwarves were short, but they were by no means small. They each weighed at least as much as a grown man, and their armor added another chunk to their muscled forms.

"We'll give them what they'll understand." Magni said, appraising his men as they moved and turned by every command of their lieutenants. "Money and open roads."

"That'll probably do it," Morek acquiesced.

"Any news from the expeditionary force?" Magni asked, not taking his eyes from the warriors.

"The one in Northrend, or that other one?" Morek asked, deliberately vague.

"That other one..."