All Evil Hell Can Conjure.

Catalina Goat Skull by Dogzilla Lives

"or... four, it doesn't matter !"

independent rp blog for markus kruber from vermintide: the end times and vermintide II

written by pink

When he leaves, Heliinx points to mess he'd made on the floor, demanding a nearby slave to clean it up. With what? She didn't know or care, but she wasn't keen to catch whatever disease was lurking within the sick skavenslaves saliva.

In fact. She didn't think drinking the drink she'd commanded he get for her would be very wise either. Oh well. Save it and serve it to an enemy-foe. Yes-yes, that's what I'll do.

When Kha'shrol returns, a slave takes the glass and sets it before Heliinx some distance away. Notably, all the rats aren't keen to be near it, thinking it definitely poisoned or otherwise tainted. His claims make Heliinx's heart lurch and she quickly interjects to save face.

" Yes, to the misfortune of those daemons!" She declares, baring her teeth. " You are more trapped than me, slave-fool. This--" She claws at the brass collar, her talons squealing off the metal, " -- Is souvenir from corpse! Proof-evidence of my victory! Khorne-things take skull? I take-steal precious metal for my own uses!"

It was almost a Tzeentchian's gambit if he were to look upon it from the outside, the bloodbeast thought to himself, but it encouraged paws to consider leaving and leave him alone with this gnashing Seer.

'Misfortune, then... a souvenir.' Comes rasp in response, now empty digits closing into a loose fist before arm drops as if it's simply released from a string to rest at side. 'Unlikely.'

'Blood daemons do not take misfortune for suffering - weakening them for a death at the hands of ratkin. It fuels them, empowers them to fight, burn, pillage, kill.'

Shifting on paws the dying host's tail twitches. Maw continues to leak. He can feel the other rodentine's unease mounting, and Kha'Shrol draws from that feeling to make eyes shift amongst them all, a glimmer of firelight showing in pupils as saliva mixes with blackness of foetid ichor.

Normally, Bethanne would embrace any form of ratfolk with open arms being The Rat Keeper — but this…how to fondly put it? A very rag doll looking rodent? A dog’s chew toy?

Worse for wear.

The corner of her lip twitches upwards in an awkward smile, biting her tongue as to not say anything inappropriate for her new guest. The hand cleaning her pristine goblets pauses, strict eyes taking in his uncanny appearance. With her dark lips opening and closing several times to pinpoint the right choice of words, she finally utters,

“ Do you…require assistance, darling? You look rather…hm. I do not wish to be rude, as we have just met and first impressions do count, so.

Sickly. You look rather beaten down. “

A war veteran perhaps? A high ranking Skaven that had seen countless bloodshed?

“ Are you by chance a product of necromancy? “

Or a corpse reanimated like herself. Because that’s far more appropriate to say.

The Skaven’s eyes, one mostly blind from damage and the other that Betty could not see alight with a glowing orange, roved over the interior of the space he found himself within. The demoted daemon was within a castle. Old. Filled with the soft scent of decay and fur. He could sense the lives of creatures nearby and the parasitic creature that was the true monster felt bloody saliva wet fangs. The space, while massive and devoid of any visible life aside from spiderwebbing across moldering stone, was lavish. Bedecked with all manner of things that would serve a better purpose as kindling or smeltwork for the reaping of skulls. It was a far cry from the spartan spaces of the Blood God’s realm.

The word darling snagged attention as he studied his environment, rankling the daemon’s flesh and making mangey head swivel around towards the source of the voice. It felt like a Slaaneshi’s brief vocabulary, then followed by... a pity from something he had not yet killed. She didn’t seem to know what to think of him for a minute, and he took that to himself as another small victory.

‘Assistance,’ a wet noise sounded as Kha’Shrol parroted Bethanne, quick to regain his wits even if his host body did not outwardly display it. ‘There is little you could offer me that I would accept. I can handle my own - the appearance of flesh deceives.’

Definitely not that. Most Skaven had scratchy, high pitched or deep voices, but none sounded like this. If not necromancy at play, then what was keeping this borderline corpse alive? Was this some sort of illusion magic? That she was also skilled in, considering the fact she was always concealing her beastly form with this humanoid disguise. But he didn’t smell like her type of magic.

He smelled like death and decay.

“ …Forgive my blunt honesty…but you talk in quite a sophisticated manner for a mere Skaven who is not even a Grey Seer. “

There’s the suspicion. Where are the double words? The sniveling, the chittering? He speaks fluently. Smoothly. It’s skeptical.

Dubiously, she cocks her head to the side. The smile fades.

It was a tool of the Changes of Ways. A weapon for the weak and the cowardly who daren't cross blades with superior foes. It was not a tool that a Khornate oft employed - and this continued to stay true with Kha'shrol. He instead utilized his rage, his spite, and his corrupting ichor to keep such a weak body moving until he fulfilled his desires.

Contorting muscle to lilt head to the side, mismatched gaze fixates on Bethanne as the daemon scents the air with mouldering snout softly, experimentally.

'Queekish is not my father tongue,' the daemon responded. Kha'shrol was at least aware of the name of the ratmen's language from his tenure with that interloper God he had escaped, now, as well as a few other things no daemon of his ilk had a need to understand.