The Auctorian Conquest IV

Good morning folks.

Over the next 5 days leading up to The Auctorian Conquest campaign weekend, hosted by Leicester Sabres, I will be posting the background text I co-wrote with the GM.

If you want to get involved, head over to the Facebook Event Page here!

But not before you read this, the background for the Ork Waaagh!;

The hut stank. It stank of rotten flesh, defecation, desperation of victims and the victories of those who victimised. It stank of blood and sweat and all the chemicals that pumped through a warrior's body in the split second between winning as the survivor or dying as the defeated. None of that truly registered in Kraat-Urk's mind. To him, the hut stank of home.

From the outside, his hut was little different from the rest in the Ork shanty; a little wider perhaps, certainly not as tall as the tower workshops of the Mek-boys. The interior did mark it apart though. Every increment of space on the walls was bedecked in symbols of victory, mementos of particularly good fights and grizzly trophies of particularly worthy foes. Those same walls didn't just extend up to the metal sheet roof, but deep in to the ground and out below the rest of the township, if such a grandiose term could apply to the Ork camp. The hut sat on a natural cave, further excavated to form an arena of dirt and rock. Smaller side caves functioned as store rooms for food and loot, stockpiles of the best weapons Kraat-Urk could lay his massive hands on. They didn't concern him. He had Grotz and Boyz to keep them in order. Only the main chamber kept his attention. Around the edges, piles of old meat festered with ageless bones poking out as the only reminder that the remains were once limbs, torsos or skulls. The only place free of such macabre decoration was a throne, perched on the blown out wreck of a human tank, the spot Kraat-Urk sat and watched events play out before him.

A mob of Nobz stood idly around the wreck, staring up at the hut's entrance. They were braying insults and challenges at the figure that stood there, silent and unmoving in stark contrast. With the light from the local star at his back, the figure was in complete shadow, save for two glowing eye lenses staring out from the helmet. There could be no doubt, those eyes were locked firmly on those of the Warboss, neither in challenge or submission to Kraat-Urk. In an easy, fluid motion the stranger jumped down from the high doorway, eschewing the steps down to the hut's floor in favour of landing gracefully in the middle of the space in a single bound. As the dust cleared, Kraat-Urk could clearly identify the intruder as a human warrior; his armour hummed faintly with every movement as he stood up to his full height; a match for any of the Nobz in the Warboss's Waaagh! Bulky shoulder guards bolstered the all ready considerable frame, every armoured plate of which was battered and dented from decades, if not centuries of constant warfare. What remained of the paint suggested a two part livery of blue and white, but what really caught Kraat-Urk's attention was the squared off skull symbols that infested every plate. They hurt his eyes just to look upon them, like they shouldn't be, like they didn't belong in the real. A larger, brass version of the symbol hung from the warrior's waist on a length of chain, flanked by real skulls affixed in the same manner. More still hung from his backpack, framing a pair of massive chain axes that glinted with a hungry light.

The warrior stood calmly before the Warboss and started talking. Sound spilled out of him like blood from a wound, but it meant nothing to Kraat-Urk. The only things he had needed to know of humans up until this point in his life where they were and how quickly he could get to killing them. After a time, the human stopped talking. His eyes had never left Kraat-Urk's, nor had he moved from the spot where he'd landed. The Warboss had recognised his own name in the warrior's speech, along with the phrase 'Waaagh! Kraat-Urk', but nothing else. Despite the fact, he smiled and raised his arms, each larger than the human warrior's legs, before clapping them together in a single slap.

The Nobz needed no further instruction, drawing their choppas and powering up pneumatic klaws. As one they charged the lone warrior, bellowing for all their might. In the time it took them to take their first pace, however, the warrior had drawn his axes and revved their teeth up to full speed. By their second he had all ready started moving, stepping in to the charge as he brought the first blade round for a strike. It fell, only to be met by the double-headed axe of the nearest Nob. Both blades deflected to the side, leaving the path of the warrior's second axe clear to decapitate the Nob. Even before the severed head hit the floor, the warrior was moving on. Using the momentum of his swing, he turned into the next opponent, bringing up the deflected chainblade to cleave through the arm of one Ork as the other axe bit deep in to the leg of another.

Each swing wounded or killed. The warrior moved through the pack of Nobz as wind through trees. He dropped to a knee to avoid the crushing klaws of one Nob, only to spring up and hurdle the slashing swing of a sword-like choppa. Even the warrior's feet were put to use, kicking an axe into the belly of on opponent one moment, only to use it as a springboard to bring his paired chainblades down through the head and torsos of two more the next. Geysers of blood filled the air, further staining the stone floor of the pit, as it had countless times before.

Pulling one chainaxe free of the torso is had been lodged in, the warrior's elbow smashed in to the face of the last Nob. In a matter of seconds, the warrior had eviscerated Kraat-Urk's favoured deputies and the greatest threats to his rule. He swung in a complete circle, bringing both weapons through his final victim's stomach and slicing him cleanly into three pieces. A flourishing flick cleared the axes' chains of and remaining chunks of viscera before they chugged to silence and stillness. The warrior was transformed; no more a battered soldier in damage blue and white, but murder given shape and formed from the oil-dark red of Orkish blood. Still the eye lenses glared out, still they focussed on the Warboss, still in neither challenge or subjugation.

"Kraat-Urk," said the warrior, as calm and even as before the slaughter. He continued to speak, though this time the Warboss called forth one of the Grotz that had been cowering behind the throne.

"Get the Deathskulls. Gruhg-krn speaks some human." Kraat-Urk never let his eyes leave the warrior's as he gave his order. The grot scrabbled away, giving the warrior a wide birth as he ran up the steps and out of the hut. Other began to slowly crawl out of the wreck, working in groups to pull the carcasses of their former masters to the edge of the room to join the other piles of flesh. None dared get within arms' reach of either the Warboss or the stranger though, leaving a small monument to his butchery at his feet.

The two mighty figures dominated the room, standing in silence as they waited for the interpreter. As the blood dripped clear of the stranger's armour, Kraat-Urk saw that no further damage had been added to the significant amount all ready heaped upon it. With a thud of realisation, the Warboss understood why it had never been repaired. Only the most worthy opponents would ever land a blow on the warrior and, just like the heads and claws that hung around them, those opponents were worth remembering. Kraat-Urk promised himself that he would do more than just land a blow, but that would be for another time.

With a clatter of metal plates, Gruhg-krn burst in to the hut, practically falling down the stairs as he laid eyes upon the human warrior.

"Ask him what he wants," snarled Kraat-Urk. The Deathskull Nob uttered a collection of sounds that sounded like non-sense to the Warboss, but the warrior seemed to understand, speaking again but slowly. The pair continued the exchange for a few moments, before Gruhg-krn turned back to his leader.

"Says he's some kind of 'ummie Warboss, boss. Um, like a Spacy Mureen, but wiv those weird'uns." Gruhg-krn looked back  and forth between the two commanders, unsure how to continue, "says we shout fight wiv... no, for him. Against the other 'ummies."

"Why don't we just fight his lot?" Kraat-Urk smiled broadly at the warrior whilst his translator relayed the question. The reply was short.

"Says he want to pay us. Something about gowul... kowld... somefing like that." The warboss scowled, but before before he could reply, the warrior spoke again, sheathing his weapons for the first time since the fight broke out. "Says he can give us guns and dakka, boss. Kroozas too! Says it'll be a real big fight."

"Orks don't need bribing," replied Kraat-Urk, cutting off his newest lieutenant, "we fight to get what we want, we'll fight because we're attacked. But most of all we fight because we was made to fight, and to win!" He paused, the interpreter taking a moment to realise that he was supposed to be telling the warrior this. "We'll take those guns and Kroozers though..."