FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The luminous green tokens skittered across the scarred surface of the reclaimed writing desk, cast down contemptuously by the enraged Grey Seer Setkith, verminous fangs bruxing between words, "Maggot-brained man-things no pay-pay even half!" the hunched bipedal rat spat, sending flecks of spittle across the emerald-tinted spectacles of his diminutive chief scribe and apprentice, Skrawl Scrapeclaw,"

Why we even deal-bargain with witless no-furs?! They no-no make good on promise-contracts! You tell-speak that this man-thing reliable customer!" The warpstone lanterns that dingily illuminated the office cast an eerie green sheen over the Grey Seer's crimson eyes, and Skrawl felt his fear-musk-squirting glands clench at the thought that the horned sorcerer might be preparing to incinerate him with a bolt of arcane energy. He recoiled and spread his paws in a helpless gesture,

"Most dreadful and sagacious of sorcerers," he whined, "This flea-bitten maggot lacks your most omnipotent foresight in such dealings! This one promises vengeance-payback on the man-things! New, terrible product we will sell them, yes-yes! Clan Skaul prosper-grow!" Skrawl felt as if he were melting into the crook of his salvaged chair, so far was he slinking back in his obsequious display.

Grey-seer Setkith bristled with a threatening emerald crackle dancing across his eyes, "See to it that you arrange best deal with surface-scum of your worthless life," he snarled, "Or by the Horned One's grace I swear-promise you suffer slow-slow!" The seer spat onto the dirt-strewn stone slabs before shuffling from the burrow. How Skrawl wished to bury a dagger in the back of that wretched geriatric; the time would come, but the magic of the Horned Rat was not to be taken lightly.

The scribe bruxed his rodent teeth in frustration and gave his records a compulsive shuffle. Like nearly all Clan Skaul Skaven he was a creature of vices, and fished around in the many pockets of his drab apprentice's robes for his box of warpstone snuff. Huffing it into his twitching pink nose, his mind blazed with fresh confidence, the seer's threats fading into the background of his mind as he began to compose a missive in elegant Queekish pictographs to Warlock-engineer Stormtooth of Clan Skryre. Setkith thought Skrawl's exaggeratedly fine Queekish calligraphy to be a symptom of decadent human corruption, but with his words the scribe knew that the Horned Rat wrote through him. He would devise a plan so ingenious that even Setkith would be forced to bow to his undoubtedly superior intellect, and all of Skavendom would know his name...

High above in a secluded brothel in the Altstadt District of Nuln, lay a man surrounded by gilded luxury in the arms of his favourite concubine. Life had been kind to him in its distribution of wealth, circumstance and privilege, but Ethea of Tilea sensed in him a deep source of discontentment. She found Friedrich von Hohenburg kind, reserved and modest unlike most other men that made up the upper-class bulk of her clientele; they tended to be brash, entitled, opinionated and generally distasteful. Circling a daintily painted nail through the thin hair of his chest, she wondered what visions plagued him as his face twitched in the throes of some stressful nightmare. His performance over the past few weeks had not been his usual tender and considerate way; the roughness with which he spent himself made her feel that there were something else he was trying to expel from his body, yet no amount of gentle chiding would have him part with his secret. He would apologise for his sloppy form and make up for what he lacked in sexual prowess with post-coital tenderness, her only clue to his dilemma being his sleepy assurances that he would "deal with the demon soon."

The morning sun greeted them with a few rays playing through the thin slats onto their naked bodies. Friedrich wiped the sleep from his eyes as the distant din of Nuln's Industrieplatz began its song of hammers and steam across the River Reik. Squeezing himself from beneath the soft body of his lover, his efforts not to wake her were in vain.

"You were having a nightmare again," she muttered sleepily as he splashed himself awake at the washbasin. He gazed into the face in the mirror; 27 winters he had weathered, his boyish features becoming lined, sagging beneath the weight of his ever-present burden. How much longer he would be able to conceal its ravages from those outside his immediate company, he didn't know.

"Yes," he sighed, "Chittering underfolk again.. Consumed by the swarm."

"You speak as if you've seen them," Ethea giggled, "They're just a tale to frighten naughty children; do you still cling to such fears?"

Friedrich sighed again, this time laced with affection, "My dear Ethea," he said, "If you only knew what darkness lurked in this city..."

A look of concern crossed her soft features, "Why won't you tell me what ails you, Friedrich? Am I just some cheap sleeping aid?!"

Buttoning a gaudy teal and gold doublet he turned on her, his patrician features curling, "Because I care about you, Ethea! I will..."

"Deal with the demon soon?" she finished for him sardonically.

"Yes," he growled, "Once and for all."

Friedrich busied himself that day with the most mundane of activities, forcing Ethea from his mind. He met his accountant and updated the records of taxes paid and owed from his late father's textile business, visited the apothecary for bedbug-killing spray.. Anything to arrest the thought of what he must do in the dank corners of Neuestadt should he wish to "deal with the demon" that night. As twilight approached, dread rose in his gullet alongside the eerie green glow of Morrslieb, which leered full and portentous through the panes of Friedrich's townhouse windows while its silver sister Mannslieb waned. He threw his coat about himself and powered with steely determination out into the streets, bracing his nose for the foul odours that would greet him once he passed through the High Gate from his cosy district and walked the shit-strewn alleys of Neuestadt. He knew what he was looking for. The dark, secluded alley wherein lay the secret of his burden was nearing; he could smell it: The faint, chemical tang of the powder, so vague to his human nose, but he had grown accustomed to the scent and could now easily recognise it. It sent a burning shame down his spine as it sent his cravings flaring. "No more," he told himself, "No more." The scent grew stronger as he moved down the narrow, cobbled side-alley, its walls coated in layers of cold vomit. Walking with purposeful slowness, he came upon the crooked door to the den, marked with that unusual upside-down triangular symbol of intersecting lines. Despite the high walls of the alley, Morrslieb hung high enough in the night sky to illuminate it with its haunting glow. Had it not been for the additional lighting, Friedrich would have scarcely notice the dark, hulking shadow rise from a crate at the end of the alley and reveal brutish, almost ogroid features in the moonlight, his bald pate shining with a disgusting multitude of boils that almost pulsated with their eagerness to burst,

"Your gold our your life. Your choice, fop." the thug gurgled in a sickly, phlegm-soaked tone. A terrible dissonance rose in Friedrich's mind: He needed his gold! He needed it to purchase powder! But look at this vile, shambling husk of a being. This was surely what he was heading towards... Why not part with his gold and let this degenerate complete his journey towards self-destruction?

"Good man," Friedrich stammered, conjuring his most authoritative tone, "Surely you recognise the gravity of our shared burden. Knowing that, you cannot expect me to part with my wealth." He knew he must end his addiction tonight: He had no time for this rotting cur.

"You got plenty," the brute snarled, "I don't. And I think I'm a little farther along than you." To demonstrate, he squeezed one of the malignant boils throbbing on his scalp, projecting a green-hued pus onto the cobbles below. He grinned, revealing a maw of barely intact, blackened teeth. A wicked blade shone in the moonlight as the wreck took two shambling steps towards Friedrich, and all the bravado that he had spent the day working into his mind began to decay. He fell against the sick-strewn cobbles and prepared to toss his coin purse before this vagrant, but the need never came. A crackling green emerald light brighter than any cast by Morrslieb raged around the man's outline, illuminating every hideous ravage of his addiction; his body shook, eyes rolling back before melting like wax candles down his welted face. Every awful boil across his scalp burst with a vile splatter before his skin shrivelled against his bones. All that was left in a matter of seconds was a smoking pile of charred, skeletal remains. As the bones collapsed into a blackened pile, a shorter though immensely more terrifying shadow was revealed behind. Rat-like, horns curling from its murine head, it tread into the moonlight, grinning with yellowed rodent teeth and shining spectacles that matched the lunar light...

"Morskritt shines upon you, man-thing. A good omen, yesyes?" chittered the ratkin as it leaned on a gnarled, warpstone-tipped staff.

"Skrawl..."

"That's Grey Seer Skrapeclaw, to you, man-thing!" the bipedal rodent snapped, pointing the tip of his staff threateningly; Friedrich put up his hands in a gesture of surrender, recalling the undignified grovelling that Skaven expected of their "lessers". He stood his ground: Tonight was the night he faced the daemon, not bowed before it. He scrunched his eyes tight shut in the expectation of either a screeching reprimand and a firm strike or perhaps death, but neither was forthcoming. Cautiously, he allowed his eyelids to part into a squint, and to his surprise saw the blurry profile of Skrawl patiently tapping the head of his warpstone-tipped staff in a distinctly un-Skaven-like manner. The ratman straightened his posture and attempted a twisted reproduction of a human smile, but succeeded only in baring his yellowed fangs as if in threat; Skaven rarely took the expression to mean anything else, and it was rare indeed to find one that had spent enough time dealing with humans to attempt to replicate some of their mannerisms, warped and unnatural though its perverse mimicry was.

"What do you want?" asked Friedrich sharply, staring down his nose at the shorter ratkin with a dangerous lack of deference. Beneath the surface, the rodent could probably smell his fear. Skrawl minutely lashed his tail, every instinct telling him to reduce this ungrateful man-thing to smouldering ash. Did this furless flesh-bag truly mean to intimidate a Grey Seer?! The impertinence! To speak with such a disgusting lack of due respect to a blessed emissary of the Horned One! Mere moments after saving its worthless life, no less! With great effort and an inward prayer to the Horned Rat to maintain his composure, Skrawl managed to cling onto his air of fake geniality, though thought better of attempting that unnerving human expression again; his fur bristled with contempt at the coming debasement,

"You have been good-loyal customer, Herr von Hohenburg," Skrawl scowled as his tongue rolled over the ugly phonetics of Reikspiel.

"Clan Skaul wish-want to offer-sell you most best-greatest new product, yes-yes!" His teeth chittered in nervous excitement, "Make old powder look-seem like.. Feh! Scat-dung!" Skrawl thrust his staff into the acrid heap of bones at his feet demonstratively.

Friedrich felt his cravings for the toxic byproducts of warpstone refinement flair like fire up his spine; his tongue dried out, his mouth like cotton. He smacked his lips to bring back some moisture,

"No," he said thickly, "I'm not.. interested."

Skrawl flashed his fangs, slamming his staff against the cobbles with a threatening flash of neon green that lit his crazed, beady eyes,

"You lie-lie!" he spat, "Skrawl can smell-sniff your desperation! Know you want it! Man-things cannot hide-conceal their thoughts from me-me!"

Friedrich swallowed.

"No," he repeated, "These transactions have to stop."

"Transaction?!" Skrawl chittered, his maw widening as he once more failed to replicate an ill-advised grin, "No-no transaction here! Transaction is exchange, yes-yes? Clan Skaul offer-give sample! No charge! You enjoy-like? Then we squeak-speak business when Morskritt next big-full in sky!"

Skrawl fished around in the seemingly infinite pockets of his robe and withdrew a small pouch that Friedrich was sure was made with tanned flesh sewn with sinew. Any man not enraptured by the thought of its contents would have retched at the sight. Skrawl tossed it as Friedrich's feet with a light thud,

"Take it, Thing!" he commanded with a not-so-friendly flashing of fangs, "Clan Skaul's generosity not without limit! Refuse-spurn my kindness again and I make-turn you like him-him!"

He thrust his staff into the pile of bones at his feet once more, "You should grovel-beg before Skrawl the Magnanimous! Know that we not make such offer-deals to all! Especially not fool-meat man-things! Take! Take and go-flee before I make-sew new robes from your furless hide!"

Guilt and shame and disgust welled in Friedrich's heart as he snatched the leathery pouch from the ground. The scent of its contents, now closer to his nose, reactivated his salivary glands, much to Skrawl's amusement. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his coat, backing away in horror from the ratkin before turning on his heel to flee into the green-lit night like the coward he knew himself to be. Skrawl's manic, mocking laughter followed after him, the rich malice and contempt of his race reverberating through every breath,

"That's it, pitiful coward-meat! Skitter-flee! Soon be back-back to grovel-crawl at the paws of Skrawl the Magnanimous!"

Friedrich had faced the demon, and the demon had won.

Part 2:

Sweat-drenched and panting, Friedrich von Hohenburg burst through the door of his townhouse with Grey Seer Skrawl Skrapeclaw's diabolical laughter still ringing in his ears like tinnitus. It seemed to physically remain, as if the ratkin had woven some vile sorcery in order to mock him even in the cloistered safety of his own home. He clutched at his throbbing head and collapsed into a chair at the desk of his darkened study, rummaging in the drawer for a box of matches and lighting the single waiting candle he would need to smoke by. As he lit the wick, the clouds outside the tall, alabaster windows of the study parted, leaving Morrslieb to leer into the room and cast its ominous glow upon the flame so that it tauntingly resembled warp-fire, as if copper sulfate had been tossed upon it. Friedrich felt his gall rise at the paranoid notion that the warp moon was mocking him for his weakness, and strode over to rive the curtains shut. Friedrich relaxed as the moon's scornful visage was blocked out, and returned to the unpleasant task of opening the flesh-sewn pouch that Skrawl had tossed at his feet. What even was it? Dwarf? Man? Other Skaven? It didn't bear thinking about. He took a deep breath, the tantalizing scent of the pouch's contents becoming almost too much to withstand as thin strings of drool stretched into his lap; this debasement would be over soon.. As soon as he had..A taste...

An almost blinding emerald profusion of light burst forth from the pouch the moment it was wrenched open, brighter than any warp-glow that Friedrich had ever seen; even Skrawl's chaotic magic was no comparison. His eyes rolled back as his face was bathed in the irradiated lime of the powder, nostrils flaring as he experienced what felt like physical tendrils of intoxicating scent probing deep into his brain. With unintentional reverence, he scooped out a portion of powder with a small silver spoon that made up part of the smoking kit laid out in a leather satchel on the desk before him. He tipped it into his pipe, tamping it down and watching with fascination as wisps of ghostly green smoke drifted from between its granules as if it were already aflame. His mind moved through the steps automatically; he had done this many times before, though with much less potent material. He struck a match and lowered it into the pipe, enchanted by the iridescent swell of light as the powder ignited. He raised the pipe to his lips, lay back in his chair, closed his eyes, and inhaled the vapour into his lungs with savouring slowness.

At first, the sensations were familiar.. Dissociation, a pleasant feeling of floating, a regression into a hazy, painless state wherein the trivialities of life faded into irrelevance... It was an intensified version of his previous fare - just as Skrawl, he thought, had assured him - but this time, there was more: His eyelids scrunched tight shut, his eyes flickering rapidly behind them as visions danced across his retinas. Symbols, histories, wars, millennia of senseless, barbaric rodent bloodshed! A leering horned figure of terrible and unremittingly evil power loomed translucent as the backdrop to the diorama. Friedrich saw a city; it seemed prosperous, peaceful. A robed figure spoke in an extravagant court, offering great boons to the city's rulers... In profile stood a menacing stone tower, its utmost height occupied by an impossibly gigantic bell composed of strange, alien alloys. It rang with horrible apocalyptic portents, each of its 13 soul-shaking chimes foretelling great waves of verminous destruction that would sweep the world in an unstoppable tide. With each chime, Friedrich saw civilisations fall and entire races devoured in a brutal genocide of swarming, furred bodies. The ancient city of his vision sunk into the surrounding muck that churned around it in unison with the Vermintide, filthy marshes rising and swallowing its foundations until only the imposing tower remained, illuminated in profile by a forking crackle of emerald lightning. Morrslieb, in full, hung high above. It seemed to gaze upon the ruined city in dark, paternal approval. Upon the bell's 13th chime, Friedrich's mind was flooded with imagery of gnashing rodent teeth, an intimate gaze into millennia of murder and treachery. His now streaming eyes came wide open, pupils dilated as he let out a bloodcurdling scream that could have shaken even the most stoic of warriors. The visions of biting and gnashing and lashing and slaving did not cease: Instead he felt as if he were sinking into centuries of diabolical intrigue.. It was affecting not just his mind.. But his body. He was in pain. Terrible pain!

With mounting horror, he realised that emerald ripples of electricity were dancing around his fingers, coursing through his tendons to make his digits spasm. The flesh seemed to shrivel and thin out into an almost translucent pink sheet, the bones of his fingers flexing involuntarily below as they narrowed and lengthened. He gasped in alarm as his fingernails flaked away, revealing bloody, glistening spaces which seared with agony as wicked black claws squeezed like birthing parasites from the raw flesh and carved deep grooves into the arms of his chair. Aches coursed through every muscle in his body, quickly intensifying into a marrow-deep agony that stung with the sharpness of a subpar violinist's screeching strings. He fell forward into a hunched, prone position from his chair, his clothes rippling and bulging as his body reshaped itself with a cacophony of sickening cracks. He was shrinking, for sure, his strength wasting away. He clutched at his chest, gasping for breath as his heart pounded at thrice its normal rate; it felt just about ready to burst. "Am I having a heart attack?!" he thought, "More to the point, what in Handrich's name is happening to the rest of me?! What dealings have I partaken in to deserve such torment as this?!" Appealing to his patron God was useless. The stabbing pain moved to his face, which warped and distended before his eyes. His incisors lengthened hideously, cutting into his lower-lip and scraping the flesh as it extended into a twitching overbite. Dizzy and reeling, Friedrich let out a retching cough. Black blood spattered from his throat onto the hardwood floor, and glancing at his still dripping claws, he found that the crimson fluid had similarly darkened. His nostrils puckered and flared as the coppery odour of his blood - mixed with some other rank distinction he didn't yet have the words or experience to describe - flooded his nose alongside thousands of other scents in a rich olfactory tapestry. His ears lengthened and pointed, migrating with an uncomfortably loud shifting of cartilage to the top of his head. They twitched and rotated, and he found he could hear the muffled conversation of guards on patrol, the coursing of the River Reik, the sloshing of fetid water in the cisterns beneath the city and - if he strained hard enough - even the hammering activity of late-shift foundry workers in the Industrieplatz across the river. So sharp were his senses! Apart from, he realised.. His eyesight. He blinked, realising distant objects now appeared blurry and indistinct. What surprised him more, however, was the fact that he could see through the thick layers of darkness blanketing the room at all. He gritted his now rodent teeth as a sharp, stabbing pain erupted from his lower back; glancing behind himself, he lurched forward in an instinctive move to escape the writhing pink worm that squirmed behind him, only to realise that it was attached to him. He twitched it experimentally and felt his stomach heave in revulsion. He saw too that his feet had that same bright pink translucence as his hands, having slid out of his shoes as they narrowed; they seemed similar to his hands, perhaps even prehensile.. He had scarcely noticed what must have been the awful sensation of his altering feet. The pain must have blurred together in one mind-numbing mass, for the grooves where his toenails had once sat dripped with black blood. Now, grey fur began to swarm over his shaking body, covering every inch of his form besides his extremities in a thick insulating carpet. He seemed to recall something about grey fur and Skaven, though his psyche raced at such a maddeningly frantic pace that he could not order his thoughts beyond a scattered collage of fears and conspiracies. Two points between his ears throbbed.. His hands..Paws..Moved to touch them, and found ridged, keratinous structures curling, ram-like from his crown. He let out a muffled squeal of pain as they parted the flesh of his scalp, that black blood pouring thick and syrupy onto the floor between his hands as he pushed them out to support himself. His human clothes now bunched around his shrunken frame, he tore them away and felt his heartbeat once more hammer as he beheld the ravages inflicted upon him.. It was worse than the diseased, boil-covered cur in the alley! He was vermin! How could Ethea ever love him like this?! Ethea...

"No..." he croaked in a tearful squeak, his mind filling with memories of his beloved. Meeting her in the elegant brothel where he vented the stresses of life, she had been a breath of fresh air. Though their rapturous sex had been transactional, soon he found himself visiting her just to speak of dreams, woes, hopes and inspired ideas. At times she even suggested new ways of running his company which turned out to be sound investments; he had pondered taking her away from that place and making her his partner both in life and in business. In time she had insisted that the only payment he need offer her was the pleasure of his company. As warm feelings towards her supple body, kind hazel eyes and tender, caring way came flooding back, the primitive rat that now inhabited his primordial hinterbrain crawled forth to whisper its disgusting bestial temptations. It spoke, to Friedrich's horror, with the strange inflections of the Ratkin:

"Breeder-thing... Take-fill.. Give big-strong litter, yes-yes? Whelp-pups a thousand-fold.. Bring-summon the Vermintide.."

Friedrich should have been revolted by the mental image of Ethea curled in some filth-riddled den, her massive stomach distended and rippling with countless jostling, kicking mutant vermin, pumping their foul milk from inhuman rows of swollen teats. Yet his body reacted differently. His testes ripened and swelled, ballooning into a pair of churning orbs that he found ridiculous in proportion to his small and weakened body. It was no wonder the Skaven males were forever crotchety: These things were no doubt magnets for punishment. A thin string of pre-cum drooled from the fluffy grey sheath into which his now tapered pink genitals had retracted, the tip poking through and parting the fur as he fought back his burgeoning sexual urges. He forced his peeking penis back into its sheath with a grunt of effort, reaching into his forebrain to grasp tightly at what mote of humanity remained to him. He would cling to it until death. This he swore. The demon he must face was now so much greater: It not just surround him, but was within him as well.

At last, he managed to stagger unevenly to his feet, surveying the unusual sensations reduced height, and a segmented tail dragging on the floor behind him. He next became aware of a loud rumble from his stomach, realising that he was absolutely ravenous. Scampering down to the pantry with no need to light a candle, he felt no consideration for his predicament beyond his need to gorge himself. He wrenched open the pantry doors and salivated at the array of foodstuffs arranged before him, clambering with an agility unlike any he had ever possessed up the high shelves, his feet exactly as prehensile as he had predicted. Heedless to the sins of gluttony, he stuffed himself with cheeses, cured meats, bread, hardtack - On which he chipped one of his incisors - and a vast variety of fruits of vegetables, though he found that of all the things he devoured, he loved the raw meat the most: He should be repulsed, but he tore into it with a sort of predatory savagery that projected into his mind disturbing flashbacks of the undulating masses of cannibalistic beasts from his drug-fuelled vision. Until stuffed, his thoughts were sluggish and hazy. The metabolism of this species must be extreme. How often would he have to gorge himself like this to stay alert?!

His mind returning to broader matters, he sniffed at the air for the trace of a scent he was unsure whether or not he would truly know.. As a human, his bank of scents had been incredibly low, and he was uncertain whether or not so specific a trail would carry over into this form, rich and layered as scents were to his sensitive new nose. The blame for the past hour of pain and humiliation fell squarely on the shoulders of one hated nemesis: How dare he subject Friedrich von Honhenburg to this wretched ordeal! How dare he sully his thoughts of the breeder--...The woman.. He loved with with the degenerate ideals of his irredeemable species! One thing Friedrich knew, one thing he swore to the Horned--...To the Gods.

He would kill Skrawl Skrapeclaw.

Part 3:

"So, here's one. Why was the dwarf always angry?"

Olaf Schwarzfeuer, a Sewer Jack in the service of the Honourable Countess Emannuelle of Nuln's watch, grimaced irritably at his compulsorily assigned partner, Dietrich,

"Why," he sighed with resignation.

"'Cause he had a SHORT temper!" Dietrich guffawed obnoxiously; if there were any goblins or - Sigmar-forbid - Skaven in this stinking stretch of sewer, he was sure to stir them, if the sloshing of their high galoshes in the shin-deep muck wasn't.

"Dwarves are short. Goblins smell. Elves like cock. Tileans like cock. Bretonnians like cock. Norscans SECRETLY like cock. By Ranald I swear, if you utter one more joke that relies on one or more of these formulae I'm dunkin' you head-first in the rat shit."

Dietrich blinked at him stupidly, "Alright," he chuckled with his half-wit grin, "Here's one..."

Olaf rolled his eyes.

"Why did the elf cross the road?"

He grimaced, "Why..."

"So he could get to the chicken on the other side, 'cause elves LOVE--"

"SHUT IT! Do you hear that?!"

Olaf swivelled on his heel, his torch carving an orange trail through the fetid gloom as he primed his senses.

"I don't hear nothin'," Dietrich muttered, kicking at a submerged turd petulantly at the suspected attempt to cut off his routine.

"Listen!" Olaf hissed.

Then they both heard it, a sort of light, pattering, scampering sound interspersed with dainty, rapid splashes. Either a very large rat, or.. And this they dreaded.. A very large rat.

The skittering noise came closer, echoing around the close stone walls of the sewer. Olaf made a silent signal to Dietrich, who moved ahead to hold his torch aloft while Dietrich shouldered a heavy crossbow and trained it on the shifting locations of the sound. If it was what he suspected his aim would have to be true: Any Skaven weaponry even scratching the skin through his boiled leather armour could spell a gruesome death. He spied a skittering shape and loosed the heavy duty bolt of his crossbow with a loud Thunk. It clattered with a ricocheting echo as it deflected off the masonry, the lack of a death-squeak telling him he had missed. The scuttling footfalls passed them by, alternating between pattering against the walls and splashing through the canal. He trained his keen eyes - A requirement for the job - on the ragged-robed shape. He rapidly reloaded and would have loosed his second bolt, but recent decrees dictated that lone creatures capable of communication be interrogated before termination if not an immediate threat. Lone Skaven - especially those as keen to be on their way as this one - were cowardly wretches that would betray their fellows at the drop of a hat if it meant their lives. He had almost squandered his chance to question the beast due to his itchy trigger-finger, but he figured it was better to be safe than sorry. Skaven incursions had been easier to thwart since the introduction of the measures, and Olaf followed through:

"HALT! Who goes there and where are the others?! I can kill you in the bat of an eye! Don't test me!" He repeated the order, paraphrased in barely intelligible Queekish, confident that even with its agile movements his shot would strike true if it continued to flee. The shadow stopped abruptly and turned. Unlike any ratkin he had ever seen before, this one had curling, ram-like horns which sent a shiver down his spine. A mutant?

"I mean you no harm," the shadow spoke in unusually perfect Reikspiel with not even a trace of a Skaven's typical accent beyond its heightened pitch.

Olaf tightened the grip on his crossbow. Boot-camp taught that no man could trust a single word that spilled from a Ratkin's mouth; they were treacherous and devious by nature, and this one seemed more intelligent than most, "Where are the others, beast?! Speak and I may not loose this bolt through your skull!"

The creature straightened its posture and stood - about 4 and a half feet tall - with a disturbingly human bearing, "Tell Countess Emmanuelle that Friedrich von Hohenburg warns her to watch the dens of ill repute in Faulestadt and Neuestadt, the Reaver's Return, the Blind Pig.. Keep an eye out for disappearances..."

A threat. Obviously a threat! Olaf loosed his crossbow with a twang at the messenger. It was impossible to miss at such a perfect range with a target so static! A rasping grunt of effort from the shadow heralded a brief, disorienting flash of neon green light that coursed with a shocking pulse down the tunnel - The arrow veered off course and splintered against the stonework, Olaf and Dietirch were themselves blasted onto their backs by the force of the shockwave. By the time they had dizzily recovered, the horned messenger was long gone.

"We should get to the palace," mumbled Dietrich, rubbing his head and unstrapping his waterproofed backpack to remove a fresh torch.

"Obviously, you dolt," growled Olaf, shaking off his disorientation. "Let's get moving. On the double!"

Farther into the darkness of the tunnel, Friedrich stopped, leaning against the slimy wall with his heart pounding like a steam-powered jackhammer. He clutched at his chest as he caught his breath. He had never used sorcery in his life! Yet the need to save his skin had sent that blast of arcane energy coursing through his palm like an instinctive reflex! He tried to force from his brain the momentary glimpses of complex Skaven runes that had flashed through his mind the instant before the spell was unleashed, fearing that more than his mind and body were at stake. After a few more minutes' recuperation, his rasping breaths steadied. Magic, it seemed, was incredibly taxing. Hiking up the tatters of his bathrobe that he had sliced to length in order to crudely clothe himself, he continued his trek, following the scent of warp-powder to the access hatch that would lead up to the filthy alley of the Neuestadt Den. As he splashed through the sewer, his father's old walking cane grasped in one paw, he found himself picturing Skrawl's mocking, chittering face. He seethed with hatred, was powered by it.

His savage hinterbrain clawed its way forward and dug in, whispering in its scratchy tones,

"Stupid man-things try to kill you-you! But they not manage-succeed! Why?! Because Friedrich is better than flimsy-weak no-furs! They taste your power-rage! Skrawl taste it too! Make him suffer-pay for his transgressions! Rip-tear his throat! Char-burn his bones! Kill-maim! Kill-maim! KILL-MAIM!

"NO!"

Friedrich let loose a primal scream of frustration and terror as he tried to tear the shadow's parasitic roots from his thoughts, slamming him head repeatedly against the tunnel wall and shattering great chips from his horns, adrenaline pushing him through the pain,

"Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!" he screeched, smashing his horns against the wall with every desperate repetition and feeling a pent up pressure relieve itself from a stuffed pair of glands sitting just above his anus. The musk of fear flooded his senses and clouded his mind as it ran thick and reeking down his shaking legs. They gave way, collapsing him onto his knees in the scum-clogged water. Burying his muzzle into his paws, his human soul wept, his body heaving with heavy, wretched sobs, strings of mucus dribbling from his nose. He held himself, rocking back and forth soothingly in the darkness...

Deeper he receded into his fragmenting mind, clinging desperately to that mote of humanity he had earlier sworn by, until wrenched back from his feverish meditation by a scent he regretfully recognised. Perhaps his human nose had been sharper than he'd imagined. A dark, throaty chuckle filled with genuinely amused derision filled his ears, the gentle splashes of the figure's smaller paws flanked on either side by heavier, foreboding footfalls. He turned his head to gaze up at the still giggling Skrawl Skrapeclaw and his hulking retinue of two ochre-armoured, pitch-black Stormvermin,

"Just as I expected!" cackled Skrawl, "The man-thing's inferior soul cannot hold-contain the power-might of the Horned One! It reek-stinks of fear-musk! Pathetic! Even with boon-gift of greatest-best form you crawl back to cower-shake before Skrawl the Magnanimous! Did not expect you grow-develop such impressive-twisty horns, though, no-no.. No matter.. It seems no-furs remain-stay no-furs in all but fur.. Shame-shame..."

Friedrich seethed; his forebrain told him to stand, to do what he had sworn he would and kill this accursed life-ruiner even if he died trying, but cowardly rodent instinct disagreed. His glands were spent, and a gentle pain strained them as they fired on empty barrels.

Skrawl's mirth faded and he gnashed his fangs,

"Get up, man-rat-thing.. You disgrace-defile the visage of the prophets of the Lord of the Great Below! Stand-rise, or die-die!"

Friedrich rose, whether from fearful obedience or wounded dignity he wasn't sure, but rise he did. He was about Skrawl's equal in height, able to stare into his spite-filled eyes levelly. He saw clearly that no human reasoning would be sufficient to face this foe. It understood only one true language. He must allow the rat to take root.

"Yes-yes... Let me-me- take power-control! Wretched-weak man-things cannot hope to face the power-might of a Grey Seer! Witness-behold your true strength!"

Inspired by the heady, acrid scent of a musk that, with no other frame of reference, seemed almost the polar opposite of the substance that had been dribbling down his thighs minutes earlier, Friedrich summoned what little bravery remained to him in his wretched form.

"Yes! Look-see how the big ones shift upon their paws! They respect-fear! Kill-burn the hated one! Make it wish-beg for death!"

Unmoved by Skrawl's apparent fearlessness, nor the bitter scent similarly rising around him, Friedrich saw the runes from his battle with the Sewer Jacks once more speeding almost subliminally though his mind. With a wordless, vengeful battle-cry he used the last of the resources of his emotionally exhausted body to send forth a second shock-wave of esoteric power. Keeling over in exhaustion the moment the spell was unleashed, Friedrich was not even looking in Skrawl's direction to observe that its effect had been merely that of being hit by a moderately strong gust of wind. A protective talisman around Skrawl's neck glowed with the incantation's residue,

"Ha!" scoffed Skrawl at Friedrich's hunched, spent profile, "Such a vulgar display of powerlessness!"

The fight went out of him almost as soon as it had come. Why had he trusted the rat to take control?! What did it have to offer beyond idiot bravado and overestimation?! His fear-glands had refilled slightly, and squirted a meagre offering of submission as Skrawl marched forward, his protective talisman piercing the gloom with its viridescent light.

"Unworthy man-rat-thing!", he spat upon the recoiling Friedrich, "You are unfit to sniff my musk!"

He raised his staff as if to strike; Friedrich spat forth what defiance he could muster.

"Curse you, demon." he stammered.

"Ha! It has spirit-strength still! No-training practice in the arts of the Horned One and yet it summon-casts its pathetic contribution and fire-squirts the musk of battle.. Perhaps it has potential, yes-yes?"

Friedrich swallowed a growing lump in his throat, his hinterbrain blazing with the desire to submit while his forebrain fought with renewed tenacity,

"I'd rather die," he croaked.

"That is not your choice-decision, man-rat-thing," Skrawl chittered, "Skrawl is in power-charge here! You no know your true strength-potential.."

Skrawl shoved him to the ground with the tip of his staff and leant the weight of his foot upon his throat, his eyes shimmering with arcane energies, "You shall be my apprentice-servant.. But a new name you will need-require! I think.. Musk-reek, yes-yes?"

He let out a hoarse chuckle, the previously mute Stormvermin lingering in the shadows joining the chorus of mockery.

Friedrich found himself nodding quickly, both the rat and the human in agreement.

"Let him show-bring this potential.. He will soon-soon regret-fear!"

"For once we agree," Friedrich thought bitterly.

Skrawl snapped a command in Queekish to his Stormvermin bodyguards, "Minion-things! Take-seize Musk-reek! Bring-take him to Grey Seer Setkith! Many plan-schemes to chitter-discuss!"

Obediently, Skrawl's huge henchmen marched forth and lifted Friedrich by his under-arms, dragging him far past the Neuestadt access-hatch to some obscure burrow of Under-Nuln.. He doubted he would ever be found.

High above in the Drunken Guardsman in the Neuestadt District of Nuln, Olaf Schwarzfeuer nursed his ale, leaning tipsily against the bar,

"Geoff!" he called, "Another round!"

He tossed down some crowns as the ex-guardsman-come-bartender served he and Dietirch their fifth round of ale.

"I told you they'd never believe us," slurred Olaf, "A ratkin that speaks perfect Reikspiel?! Ha! Likely story..."

Dietrich sighed sombrely and rubbed his sallow jowls. He paradoxically had more sense when he was drunk,

"Who do you think Friedrich von Hohneburg is, though?" he pondered.

"I've heard the name," shrugged Olaf, "I think his father ran some tailoring business over near the Imperial Gunnery Academy. Made uniforms for the recruits and such."

"Yeah, but.."

Olaf sighed, "I don't know, Dietrich. Maybe we should ask around about these supposed disappearances. Part of our job, isn't it?"

"Aye, supposedly," muttered Dietrich.

"Sigmar knows the Countess won't do a thing about commoners' disappearances. Reduce the surplus population, she'd no doubt say," grimaced Olaf.

"Aye, no care for us simple folk.." agreed Dietrich.

"Only got where she is 'cause she fucked Franz," Olaf growled as he downed the last of his beer.

Dietrich's eyes widened,

"Careful with your words around here," he whispered harshly, "Countess's informants would have your tongue out for talk like that!"

"Let them come," Olaf snarled as he slammed down his tankard, "They shan't have my tongue before I have my answers." There was something terrible afoot here, and Olaf Schwarzfeuer would find out what.

Part 3.5:

The round, warpstone-lantern-lit chamber that Friedrich was dragged to was littered with various pilfered human furnishings that would have been opulent were they not covered in Sigmar-knew-how-long's worth of grey rat hair. Grey Seer Setkith reclined on a plush crimson divan while an emaciated human slave clothed only in a tattered loincloth dropped live mice into his expectant maw.

"Ah, my apprentice returns!" exclaimed Setkith, hopping up from the divan with surprising spryness for his advanced age, "Away with you, man-slave-thing!" he snapped at the human, waving a dismissive paw. The human meekly exposed in throat in the Skaven's gesture of submission and limped off obediently. Friedrich's heart sank at the sight: There was a broken man if ever he'd seen one.

"So!" said Setkith, clapping his paws together decisively, "What news-speak brings Skrawl of his deal-bargainings? And who.." he eyed Friedrich with suspicion, "is our guest-visitor?"

The Grey-Seer observed Friedrich's curling horns with a flicker of paranoid anxiety, running a paw up his own for reassurance: They extended high above his crown, their sharpened points convexly veering off into two menacing prongs. They added several inches to the seer's already - for a Skaven - intimidating height, and Friedrich was unsurprised that Skrawl exposed his throat in the same gesture as the human slave,

"Most wise-glorious and keratinously endowed Master of the Arcane!" Skrawl pandered revoltingly, "This unowrthy flea-kin bring-presents the future of Skavendom!" Even his pathetic, grovelling tone could not hide the pride from his tone on that final phrase.

Skrawl gestured to the Stormvermin rat-handling Fredrich, who tossed him roughly at Setkith's feet at the command. Instinctively, Friedrich exposed his throat to the tall-horned ratkin, having not understood a word exchanged between master and apprentice: For all he knew he could be next on the menu. "And what do they call-name you?" Setkith asked with a tone of genuine curiosity, running a paw along one of Friedrich's horns, "Most fancy-twisty horns, yes-yes? But not as magnificent as mine-mine!"

Skrawl cleared his throat, "This unworthy meat is call-known as Musk-reek!"

Setkith scowled at his apprentice, "Why answer-speak for it? Does it not know-squeak Queekish?"

Skrawl fidgeted nervously, "A-actually, most supreme-great of Warpweavers..."

"Explain-speak, Maggot-brain! What Grey Seer knows not the tongue-language of the exalted Underlord?!"

"Pitiful Musk-reek was once even more pitiful man-thing!" gushed Skrawl, "Skrawl has bestowed-given honour-gift of superior form with his most ingenious warp-powder invention-creation, yes-yes! Most venerable of seers ask-commanded Skrawl to make best deal-bargain of his worthless life! Skrawl has-has! One less man-thing! One more servant-minion of Horned One! Make-turn more man-rat-things, and we destroy-crush man-thing population! Soldier-troops of Great Ascendancy shall skitter-crawl from above! Slaughter-rend ally-friends! Bite-gnaw bones of litterkin, yes! Yes!"

Skrawl leapt into the air and knocked his feet together in a gleeful, giggling jig, scarlet eyes beaming with cruel self-satisfaction.

The elder Grey Seer listened incredulously, his ears perked, eyes shifting from Friedrich's hunched form positioned under the foot of one of Skrawl's Stormvermin, and then back to Skrawl. There was a brief silence, the calm before the storm, before Setkith exploded in a torrent of violence unleashed upon his apprentice. His gnarled claws raked a gash across his muzzle, and as he fell, his glands squirting the musk of fear profusely, the old seer kicked him again and again with a vigour unbecoming of his age, streams of epithets and Queekish expletives streaming from his mouth,

"Fool-meat! flea-brain! Litterkin of a goblin whore!" His crimson eyes sparkled with rage and warp-power as he loomed over his bleeding apprentice, "You give-offer the power-might of the Grey Seers to a MAN-THING?!"

He pointed with exaggerated theatrics at Friedrich, who squirmed beneath the now-nervous-looking Stormvermin bearing down upon his spine, his own fear-musk glands releasing as he struggled to keep pace with Setkith's rapid Queekish tirade; he assumed - quite welcomingly at this point - that he was going to die.

"This.. Abomination defile-despoils His blessed-divine countenance! BLASPHEMY! Should rip-tear your heretical tongue from your mouth! Seerlord Kritislik shall hear-know of this travesty-plot!"

Skrawl curled into a defensive ball beneath Setkith's flurry of blows, wincing in pain as his empty glands strained themselves,

"P-please, most unequivocally powerful Prophet-knower of His will!" stammered Skrawl desperately, "Witless no-brain Skrawl no knew that the man-thing would be bless-gifted with His sign-mark! Only meant to make Skavenslaves! Skavenslaves! Skrawl promise-swears that this is unexpected anomaly-error!"

He scrabbled weakly to his knees, seething with unconvincingly faked rage, "Is Warlock-Engineer Stormtooth's fault, yes-yes! Faithless Skryre-things mock always the Horned One with their blasphemous device-gadgets! Blame him-him!"

Setkith let out a long, ear-splitting squeak that was likely an expression of rage, tugging on his matted grey beard erratically, "Others know-know of this heresy!? Argh! Must summon-call council at once! Make them see-know sense-logic! MESSENGER!"

An agile though underfed-looking Ratkin appeared instantaneously from an alcove, fidgeting with nervous energy, "Yes-yes, oh most glorious--"

"Save your flattery! I have heard enough for a thousand birth cycles!" he vented, "Summon-call the Council at once! Quick-quick!"

"Immediately, prophet-master!" the messenger chittered, bowing in a jittering motion as if it had consumed an entire continent's worth of coffee before scampering from the chamber in a dark blur.

"As for you..." Setkith snarled in Reikspiel, turning his hateful gaze towards Friedrich, who squeezed from beneath his captor's heavy paw in an instinctual bid for self-preservation. The Stormvermin stepped hard upon his tail, and he let out a squeak as unfamiliar pain flashed through his new appendage.

"You may live-breathe until I consult-squeak with council! For now you shall pledge-swear your loyalty to Setkith!"

Friedrich's rodent hinterbrain had taken full control; his mind was a maelstrom of fear and submissive thoughts. It was if his mind were being squashed into some dark recess by the sheer weight of Skaven cowardice. He had picked up the rhythm of the species' grovelling from Skrawl's simpering noises, and made his best attempt at replicating them,

"Most uhm.. Kind, nice and wonderful wizard!" What little human part of him remained awake cringed at the display. "I swear by Sig-...By the Horned One that I will serve!"

Setkith scowled in disgust, "Nice?!" he repeated as if he were sucking a lemon, "I am NOT nice!" He stroked his long, straggly beard thoughtfully, "Wonderful, though..Perhaps, yes-yes..." Friedrich gazed up at him with fearful anticipation as he waited for him to finish contemplating his wonderfulness.

"Stormvermin!" he snapped, making Friedrich nearly jump out of his fur. The Stormvermin too juddered to attention, "Imprison-confine these heretic-meat vermin until I return! Separately! Horned One knows what conspiracy-plans they chitter-discuss!" The hulking black rats obeyed, Friedrich and Skrawl exchanging looks filled with equal amounts of hatred - though there was mostly certainly some competition - as they were dragged to cramped, claustrophobic holes over which rusted iron grates were haphazardly slid. While Friedrich brooded miserably, Skrawl rubbed his paws together deviously, whispering to himself,

"Council-members will have already received my missive-messages, yes-yes... Let the council rise-rebel against him! Great Descendancy shall come! Under-nuln shall be mine-mine!" He dared to let out a low giggle, coughing as it strained a bruised rib.