Leopold tried to open his eyes, but even the faint light that flooded in was enough to make his head feel like splitting. His breaths were laboured and slow. It felt like something was sitting on his chest.
"Sigmar's balls! You took quite the beating there... Not much left of your fancy breastplate now. Now where did I put my knife..."
Leopold recognized that voice. Wolfgang Fersen. The Gunmaster. He wanted to reply to the man, to ask him where the bloody hell he'd been, but instead he focused on keeping his breathing shallow. That way it didn't hurt so bloody much. There was the sound of ripping fabric, a few shlinks and chops of a knife slicing things, and the weight on the lieutenant's chest lifted.
He sprang upright to a sitting position, drawing his lungs full of fresh air time and again with hungry gasps. He wolfed down the air like he was sitting at some noble's banquet after having subsided barely on army rations for months. How was it possible that air tasted this good? Leopold cast a quick gaze around his immediate surroundings, seeing the crouched Gunmaster in front of him holding the badly battered front piece of his breastplate. The leather straps of the piece of armour had been neatly cut.
"You look like shit, Scholz."
"Same to you, Gunmaster."
"Care to explain these chaps strolling about?" he asked Wolfgang while carefully trying to feel the condition of his broken nose with his hands. It was a bloody mess.
"Not much to explain there. Searching parties were sent out after us when we didn't return to the encampment, and these brave men here found the curious mist through which to travel here. They found me running away from that monstrous orruk and drove it off, so we could get back here to find you and bury the dead."
At that, Leopold left his aching nose alone and raised his gaze to meet the eyes of the Gunmaster.
"The dead? Eamond and Calvin are gone?"
"Yes, as gone as men can be, actually. They were butchered on the spot. Neither one's gun had even been fired."
"By Sigmar, what a way to go..." Scholz sighed, resenting the fact that those men had been loyal enough to follow him into unknown and died for it. He caught the sight of his greatsword laying on the grass, and reached out for it.
"So... What do we have here now?
"A bunch of Greatswords, some handgunners and a couple militia. Nothing to write home about, but they're better than walking around alone," replied the Gunmaster, still crouching beside the Lieutenant.
"Oh, and one of the men brought this," Wolfgang continued as Leopold was inspecting his weapon's condition. The engineer drew a faintly glowing red gemstone from his pocket.
"Keep this close to your skin and you'll be fine in a couple of hours."
A Phoenix Stone? Well how about that, thought Scholz as he took the stone and hid it under his uniform, placing it in the chest pocket of his undershirt. He could immediately feel the soft pulses it sent through his body, closing wounds and reknitting bone.
"Much appreciated, I'll get a serjeant's pin for the man who carried this here once we return home!" Leopold exclaimed as Wolfgang helped him rise to his feet.
"Now, we'll move out as soon as the bodies are buried, I have many questions which are in need of answers!"
After a couple of hours of digging and a short, modest memorial for the fallen, the Freeguilders set out into the fog once more. For quite some time they wandered around in the woods until finally finding something else than hills and trees.
"An archway? Here?" Scholz wondered as he laid his eyes on the moss-covered stone door frame that stood alone in an opening in the woods. Wolfgang didn't reply as he walked past the lieutenant and approached the construction.
"This thing is old... Old beyond measure, in fact," the Gunmaster pondered as he studied the stonework. The soldiers around them stood uneasy, casting nervous gazes at the woods around them. They didn't like the place, and neither did Scholz.
"How about we... I don't know... just walk right in?" the lieutenant suggested, starting to sprint towards the archway.
"I'm sick of these mysteries and puzzles! Onward men of Averbury!" he bellowed as he barged into the doorway and vanished. The soldiers obeyed, running after him and disappearing into thin air under the archway one by one. Some of them laughed, some of them held back tears.
"Sigmar's beard..." Wolfgang cursed as he followed the others.
On the other side of the portal the forest was gone once more. The men were standing in a great stone hall with a high-arching roof. Every sound was muffled, every move slow and predictable, like standing underwater or finding yourself inside a dream.
"Travellers..." came a booming voice from both everywhere and nowhere, echoing throughout the hall and inside the freeguilders' minds.
"I have summoned you to bestow upon you a task of great magnitude. A task that once accomplished will reward you all greatly. I am Zul'Nok the Traveller, and I need you to stop my brother's plans. He is currently imprisoned in an ancient crypt to which the key lies hidden in the Realm of Light. Find the key, find the crypt and bring an end to my brother's schemes."
"Riiiiight...." Scholz replied, turning back to see the expressions of his men's faces. They were terrified. One of them mouthed the word "heresy". The Gunmaster stood silent.
"If we embark on this quest of yours, will you ensure us a safe passage back to the Puffington Empire? Back to the outskirts of Averbury?"
"That can be arranged," the booming voice echoed around the hall once more.
"And perhaps some gold crowns and schillings to... help us recover from this arduous journey you're sending us on?" the lieutenant pushed his luck.
"I did promise you riches already. How much is a crown in Chamonian shimmerlings?"
"About two and a quarter, last I checked."
"I'll see what I can do," the voice concluded and fell silent. A door appeared on the far end of the hall.
The Freeguilders shrugged off the strange feeling left by the mystical encounter and walked throught he door, finding them once more in the foggy woodlands.
"I was hoping we'd get somewhere warm and dry this time," the Gunmaster complained as they set out to explore the lands.
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