Morskittar liked to think of himself as a rat of logic. His mind was a well-oiled, well-organized factory and so he wanted for his world to be; under a strict schedule, efficient, devoid of time-wasting impurities, just like a bar of warp-laced steel, ready to be imprinted with runes of destruction and attached to a cannon's frame. No place for disturbing, intense emotions, he found them distracting; to eliminate them, he had learned to keep himself under a tight control. The operations conducted upon himself to dull his emotional part had done the rest.

Morskittar was a rat of habits. He liked his routine, and disliked to have to change it, something that happened only very, very rarely. Time had only made that attitude more pronunced.

So, precisely two hundreds scratches and twenty heartbeats before the farsqueakers sirens blared the beginning of the working day, just as the sun started to peek out from the horizon, up into the overworld, he came back to himself. He didn't really wake, he hadn't needed to sleep from a very long time. He just returned from the haze of memories, fantasies and ideas that assured to the body and mind, the machine, his rest.

As always, his first thought was to control the intricated net of security of his personal lab that was connected directly to his brain. As always, he found it intact, except for an assassin caught into the web-trap. The work of latest clan to enter the Council, Fangis, sure enough. They still needed to understand how things worked, up there. Well, he had lowered his defences just enough to give them a demonstration, so no real problem.

He conceded himself a brief moment of relaxation into the pool that acted as his bed, waiting for the lethargy to dissipate. Two thousands pints of life-giving juice, freshly extracted every two days from extremely rare beetles that grew only in fields with the right volume of concentration of warpstone and other substances. He had stopped thinking about it with satisfaction after the first four nights he had used it. But he enjoyed the warmth.

Thinking about the message he had to send back with this assassin, he began to detach the cables anchoring his body. It was a laborious, delicate work, but he liked it. It was one of his many rituals, helped him to kick in.

The last cable gave way with a slight fizzle, and he got up, grimacing a little at his joints' strain. Damn, he was old.

The greenish, life-giving slob shuddered and sploshed as he made his way across the inclined floor of the pool. As he exited, the machinery all around buzzed to life. Under greenish light, a small brigade of slaves scampered to him with towels and tools. Each and every one of them was a lobotomized puppet kept moving by a mixture of magic, technology and technomancy. Morskittar numbered them between his many weakpoints: each of them had been a particularly talentous rising Junior Engineer, murdered by jealous rivals. They reminded him of himself.

He left them work on his body, drying, cleaning and detaching the bigger maintenance components.

After a while, the slaves retreated, and he walked into the bedchamber. Anyone managing to make it that far, and nobody had ever managed, would remain quite surprised at seeing the Lord of Decay's private chambers. Apart from the massive apparatus needed to host the daily maintenance and regeneration, what it remained in space was occupied by piles of manuscripts, books and other, more exotic form of retaining information, plus Morskittar's extensive collection of gnawing material. All precisely arranged in scaffolds, this one made quite the sight, and he was even a bit proud of it. From the humblest piece of wood to beautifully hand-crafted dwarfish gromril artifact, from stained cloth to warpstone-charged dragon scale that left even metal tongues feeling all fuzzy. Morskittar would have disliked such estravagance in any other place, but this was all functional to his rest, and he liked functional. That was the same reason none of his works found place in his sleeping chamber. When it was time to rest, it was time to rest, and nothing else.

The door unlocked at his mental impulse and he walked through. Afterwards, there was a corridor, long and straight. Its walls were made of plates of smooth iron while the floor was simple soil. Morskittar enjoyed feeling it against its feet. It remembered him of sane, good things, even if it was only an illusion given by stratus upon stratus of earth laid over cold metal.

As he walked slowly down the corridor, he conceded to himself to enjoy the peace. Another ritual. He wondered how his life seemed to be full of it. Maybe they were the only reason he hadn't given up to death, insanity or worse. That was an amusing thought.

The door at the other side, a massive wall of reinforced warp-steel, swung open without a sound to let him enter into a great room. A swarm of brainwashed servants waited in keeling positions on the other side. They jumped to their feet as he entered, but Morskittar barely glanced at them. Instead, he cast a cursory glance to the four guards standing motionlessly at the sides the door. A masterpiece of technomancy, each and every one of them. Mh, the second on the right needed a bit of tune-in, though. He left the thought wander away. He would have taken care of it during his spare time.

Without even glancing to what was contained into the vast hall, he turned right, and entered through another door. After another corridor, the kitchen. Any other skaven would have judged it quite large, but for Morskittar, it was small, essential and, what it was more important, what it was needed. No extravagance here. Only a time-worn table and as well worn great iron chair. All around, strange implements and lobotomized skaven with empty eyes in waiting.

Morskittar took place into the chair with a small sigh. He left his gaze wander upon his servants, or, well, the forms in which they were useful. A small spike of nostalgia hit him. He wondered what it would mean for him to see ratlings scampering around, instead of those voiceless faces. His fantasy stirred, and that gloomy kitchen disappeared, leaving its place to another place: good, old rock and soil, with a soothing shadow. It wasn't silent, though. Small, blurred images ran and tumbled around, laughters and small chitters filling the air. A paw, touching his shoulder. He turned to see a smiling nuzzle and eyes full of affection.

He shook himself by that reverie with a small fizzle. His sight was slightly blurred, he noticed. With a click of his tongue, he extended a paw. A slave put a screwdriver on it, and he jammed it into his head. A quick whirring and his sight was back again.

He huffed, giving the tool back to the servant. Well, that was enough fantasy for the day. He hissed softly, and the servants scampered forward, three of them struggling to carry a large bowl. Fermentated juice of mushrooms grown from warpstone-dusted soil and special chemicals he had started formulating at the same time he started to enhance his body. He took in the smell, but didn't do nothing of it. It was irrelevant. A servant put a straw to his lips and he bit on it, starting to suck.

When he finished, the servants took everything and scurried back from where they came. Bathing into the good feelings of the juice renovating his body, Morskittar thought with a bit of satisfaction that they really were as he wanted. Quick, efficient, and silent. He liked silence. It helped him to think.

Thinking that, he turned to the small device on the table. He turned it on, and stood listening, counting his heartbeat. Thirty-five beats later, the device emitted a low hum, then fell silent. Morskittar grunted affirmatively. The siren declaring the start of the workday had arrived at the moment he instructed. It looked like that threats of gutting were more effective on overseers than the need for punctuality, like more proofs were needed. Why those scummers couldn't understand that for the clan for succeed, they needed to be always on schedule? The old General Overseer, he knew how that was important. Oh, how he missed him.

He gave himself a nice stretching. Well, useless to think about that. Now, he needed only to… His spine popped, and he sighed with satisfaction. He put his arms on the table, taking in slow breaths. Game face, Morskittar. Game face.

There.

Now he was ready for the day.

There was a complicated labyrinth, layers of defences manned by brainwashed, half-mechanical servants and their machines, and a small river to cross to reach the end of Morskittar's personal bunker. It was more akin to a world than to a fortress, self-sufficient, impregnable, autonomous. As the mechanized guards opened the last door, and Morskittar stepped through, anyone else would have felt like he was finally escaping from a dead world made of vacant eyes, cold steel and endless corridors, a nightmarish plane built by a crazy mind of ticking gears and pumping fluids.

To Morskittar, it was simply stepping out of his burrow. He had never been fond of exuberant metaphors.

The vast antechamber before the outer door was crowded full with Warlock-Engineers. From the highest grades to those just arrived at the rank, they were all there, a colorful, chattering crowd of ratmen garbed with strange devices and sorrounded with crackling energies, arrayed in carefully prepared rows, based on ranks and personal favour, all anxiously waiting for his arrival.

They all stepped to attention as he emerged from the door, the general attention snapping to him as silence fell. Skaven listened to their betters, but never, never, fell completely silente; there was always some scuttling, thinking, sniffing. Here, instead, silence, immobility. They all watched him.

Morskittar could almost hear their thoughts: here's Morskittar, the Master. Morskittar the Leader, the one whose tactical, political and commercial prowess brought Skyre to become the strongest and richest clan in existence. Morskittar, the Genius; he took the technology of the clan to another level altogether with his breakthroughs in metallurgy, technomancy, magic, technology; he had perfected the warp-generator and had it organized into a list of models of every kind and dimension; he had invented the concept of Nimbus Chaotici and all its derivatives, upon which the magic of the Warlock-Engineer had could been extended to unprecedented numbers of skaven magi; he had invented the warp-conductive mesh and the Vitalis connection, without which no kind of bionic enhancement could ever be possible; his discoveries had etched his name into skaven history, on par with great Skyre, the founder of the clan, and other milestones of its glorious history. Morskittar, the Builder. He had built the power of Skyre all over the Under-Empire with an enormous campain of infrastructure development and organizational effort; he had dissenters silenced, enemies destroyed the clan brought together to unprecedented levels of unity. He had founded the Morskittarium, the central school from which generations of Warlock-Engineers and Warp-Smiths had learned their crafts. Morskittar, the Chosen. He had been so close to become Under-Emperor, the closest than any skaven had ever been. The intervention of the Horned Rat himself had been needed to stop his rise, and, even then, he had been chosen twice to become part of the Council of Thirteen.

Morskittar, the Emperor of Warlocks. From almost a millennium, he was the mechanical heart of Skyre, its pulsing brain, the mind at the center of the labyrinth. The oldest clan banners conserved in the Hall of Dust, the thophy hall he had opened the day of his rise to power, were so weather-worn that the clawmarks over them had faded away. Speeches long weeks couldn't make justice of all his accomplishments, of the organizational, administrative, territorial, technological and cultural advancements he had brought to the clan, of his personal greatness. He was more than a skaven, he was an institution, he was an ideal made manifest, he was the father of a race, the fount of a civilization. Everything a Skyre clanrat and every skaven could ever aspire to be, and even more.

Morskittar had heard that discourse too many times to recount. He thought of himself as an efficient planner, and that was that. And then, repeating obvious things was such a waste of time.

After a few tense moments of silence, the crowd seemed to snap back from its reveries. Shouted greetings came from here and there, from those that didn't heed enough the careful instructions given to them beforehand.

Morskittar ignored them, letting his gaze wander over the crowd. His lens whirred and moved as he took note of those who had spoken. He would forget them, but not if they kept doing that. Initiative was good, but not always.

He turned to his right and, to this signal, a skaven in a red robe and with a metal jaw scampered out toward him.

"Greetings, majesty-lord, yes-yes!" He panted, mechanical eyes extending and retracting as he nervously rubbed his paws together.

Morskittar nodded in confirmation. Rollik was his Master of Ceremony, a title that he earned for his maniacal attention to details, and as such, he had the right to be the first skaven to greet him in the morning.

"Who's new in attendance today?" Morskittar asked, turning back to the nervous crowd. He noticed a couple of the most junior Warlocks, the ones in the rows at the back, twitch at hearing his mechanical voice. He frowned. What was that attitude toward the machine? These younglings…

Rollik frantically consulted one of the document filling the satchel hanging from his shoulder, and Morskittar repressed the need to sigh. Really, he was his master of ceremoniy from fifty years already. Did he really need to still be this nervous?

Yet again, it was his fault. Being considered a demigod did that to social interactions.

"Ehm, today's new…" Rollik controlled a couple of parchments, coughing a little. "The High Warlock brought three of his assistants-pawhands." He read. "As well as the-the Chief-Smith of the Second Forge. And, ehm, the Master Inscriber brought all of his assistants. Again." He coughed a little more, trying to hide his unease as he glanced his way for reactions.

Morskittar just nodded. Being able to bring some assistants to the greeting of the morning was a privilege of his high-ranked subordinates, a way to show his favour and to allow them to flaunt their power. The Inscriber was using it a little too liberally, though.

Another thing to think about.

"Let's begin." He said.

Rollik bowed, and he marched past him. With two of his mechanically-enhanced guards at his sides, he stopped before the crowd.

He nodded to two skaven in high panoplia. One of them raised a heavy-looking roll of parchment and started to read out loud: "The Tinker-in-Chief, Emperor of Warlocks, He-who-is-Twelfth!" He recited, so that everybody could hear. "Lord Morskittar, Head-brain of Skyre! The Warlock Forum offers its respects!"

The Warlock Forum, that is, all the Warlock-Engineers that were assigned to work into the central compound of Skavenblight, the heart of Skyre and seat of power of the clan, plus what it virtually was his personal staff. Morskittar's personal approvation was needed to enter that revered rank, and he gave it only after close scrutiny of the skaven presented to him through recomendation. The rest, the High Warlocks, the lords of the clan, his staff, only he had the power to nominate them. In a word, what stood before him was the heart and brain of Skyre, and as everything around him, one of his creations.

"We offer our respects to our Master-Lord! And we-we renew our fealty to You!" The Forum squeaked at unison, all of them prostrating themselves before him.

As usual, Morskittar took their respect with a small nod and a moment of silence. Truth to be told, all that flattery bored him, always did, but he felt it was necessary. Skaven understood whom the boss was only by having their heads repeteadly beaten with it. And then, he felt that helped teamwork.

Thank goodness he kept his list of titles short, though.

"Let's start our day." He said. "And may it be full of good results for the our cause. In Science and Magic." He rapped his temple with his knucklebones, and all the Forum did the same, repeating the motto of the clan.

With that, the greeting ritual was done, and Morskittar turned and marched toward one of the door by a side of the hall. The respecting, fearful or downright adoring gazes of the majority of the Forum followed him, but he ignored them

As he went, a swarm of assistants and Warlocks tagged along, keeping a respectful distance. Secretaries, filers, scientific helpers, bringers of information of all kind or simple porters. They were the staff that helped him with the daily activities, plus some high-ranked skaven that would go their way as soon as it was sure that he didn't need them for the moment.

He gestured, and one of them came close.

Jizzak was his Chief of Informations and as such, he was in charge of the spy network of the clan. Morskittar knew that he shrouded himself partly from shame for his numerous prosthetics and partly for an inadmissable admiration toward the Nightlord of Eshin, but he let it run. Jizzak was well worth enough such disrepectful behaviour.

"Everything as you wanted, master-lord." The Chief said, his voice hushed like always.

Morskittar registered the information with a small fizzle of satisfacion. An overly disrepctful clanlord disposed of and his clan incorporated, but that wasn't the reason for his being pleased. Eshin liked for pubblic opinion to think they had the monopoly of covert operations, but reality was much different. And then, a small stab to a Great Clan's image was more worth than a thousands clanrats and stormvermin extra.

The procession arrived to a massive door, the symbol of Skyre etched on it in brass and iron. A small regiment of heavily-mechanized skaven guarded it, the clawmarks on their ornated heavy-armors marking them as Morskittar's personal guard, the Technox. Its soldiers were singled out at birth, based on their constitution and dimensions, and grown into complete isolation of Skaven society. They were trained to use the best weapons of the clan, outfitted with the most powerful prosthetics and educated to a complete adoration of Morskittar. The result was a small army of fanatically loyalty, half-machine rats, ready to live and die by his command and powerful enough to rival and crush even the most powerful force of any other race. Morskittar supervised their training personally, and set the standard for them: a Technox had to be proficient enough to defeat an Elven Swordmaster in single combat. Those who didn't make the tally were used as support personnel. Morskittar didn't like to waste resources.

The guards stood to attention, four of them rushing to open the large door for their leader.

Behind it, the great office of Morskittar was a paragon of order. Not a speck of dust marred the ornated metal floor, the emblem of Skyre etched in it in lines of copper and brass. Banners, each representing the virtues upon which the clan was founded - bravery, science, magic and curiosity - covered the walls and where they didn't, there were scaffolds inlaid in the walls, small lines of objects standing at attention on them. They were but trinkets, worthless for anyone else, but each reminded Morskittar of a lesson learned in a time now passed. Even as he walked by, he couldn't but smile a bit internally at seeing a half-burned, twisted, copper wire.

Those were the proofs that office didn't belong to the chiefs of Skyre. It belonged to Morskittar. And still, such wasn't for the centerpiece of the office.

Generations of clanlords had used the massive wooden desk and chair towering at the center of the office, the objects having been witness to world-shattering decisions that had seen the end or salvation of skaven, clans and, in a few occasions, the entire world.

Morskittar kept them both out of respect. Those ancient objects represented the story of the clan for him, and, for better or worse, his story too, with all his delusions and successes, thriumphs and tears. It was an anchor point in an ever-changing world, the seat of a power that fought and won against chaos. As he sat on it, he could feel the weight of history upon himself, the souls of his predecessors helping him find the way, streghtening his mind to do what it was needed to be done. And, well, they were comfy.

The great, metal chair gave the smallest creaking as he sat on it. With a bit of amusement, he wondered that it probably was the only thing in that entire compound that he allowed to do so in his presence.

He turned to look to the train of his assistants, that, in the meantime, had formed up into a disciplinated line. No squeaking, pushing or talking out of turn. In Morskittar's presence, the Skaven had to stop being Skaven, or else. No exception.

"Reports." He commanded, and his assistants moved to obey.

The major part of the morning went away with reading tomes of reports, regarding both inside and outside's political situation.

The Under-Empire's political landscape was an ever-changing mire, with powers rising and falling and all clans constantly jockeing for power. Since open war between the Great Clans was prohibited, they measured themselves in the camp of influencing smaller clans, securing sources of incomes, resources and all the like. In a word, it was an extremely complex war of espionage and counter-espionage, made of meetings, intrigue, covert schirmishes and even small-scale conflicts. Morskittar had an enormous number of operatives employed on numerous fronts, the results, failings and progresses of which ended in those books in extremely condensed formulae. The struggle of an entire civilization, all summarisied into sheet of papers. It was an amusing thought.

The reports concerning the inside were smaller, but not less daunting. Percentuals of production, sales forecasts, marketing prospects and other dozens of voices, they made Morskittar, as well as a king, the leader of an industrial conglomerate that got his income from selling massive amount of weapons to the other clans. It wasn't really a problem of requests, everybody wanted Skyre weapons, the problem was to find that perfect balance between selling and keeping the market from oversaturating itself. It was a complex tune-in, that selling instable weapons could compensate only to a certain measure.

Morskittar liked it. He liked to know things. And liked for things, his things, to go smoothly. He read, and decided where and if intervene. Obviously, he didn't waste his time trying to manage the smaller endeavours- it was a waste of effort and impeding more than optimizating - nor it was possible even for his staff to follow them all, but he kept an iron grip over the management of the clan's macro-works, like, selling a massive shipment of liquid components requested by Moulder or decide if let a Pestilens-affiliated clan to pass through Skyre territory. It was his clan, after all, and he was the one to decide.

An entire tome was dedicated only to what the various Lords of Decay were personally doing at any given time or what maneveurs were acting. At that level, it stopped being movements of numbers and became like a play of chess. Brain against brain. A single skaven against a single skaven. It was Morskittar's personal read, as it gave him the chance to put his creative brain to work the most. Cratch Doomclaw, the rising star of Mors, was throwing another great parade, showing off the new troops he was about to send to reinforce the siege of Karak Eight Peaks. As everything that upstart did, it was a bold statement. It said: observe the power of my clan, my servants! And observe how we commit ourselves to furthering the cause of the Great Horned Rat! Surely, the other clans will support us in this endeavour, yes? Maybe throwing in a small discount on a certain shipment of weapons?

Morskittar snorted. Young, cheeky rat. And of course, Kritislik had thrown in his pubblic blessing, just to put more pressure on them. Morskittar took a pen, and wrote under the report: "organize the public gifting of a shiny weapon personally to Doomclaw. Throw in a parade of troops and some fireworks." And like that, Skyre's commitment to the cause was assured in the most spectacular way possible. A discount on a big sale meant less warp-tokens. Giving away a shiny gun meant an empty space on a scaffold.

He scoffed a little bit, putting the paper aside. That was but light fencing, little schermishes. Now, about that double covert operation into the mines of Skribrit…

After a while, a small knock to the door interrupted his work. His pen stopping over a line, Morskittar grimaced, already knowing what it was about to happen. Out of a little hope, he looked at the time-measurement device on his desk. It was almost time for lunch. No escape.

With a small sigh, he gave permission to enter. As always, the one to bring the bad new was a junior assistant. The experienced ones knew better.

The young warlock peeked from the door like it was the entrance to a lion's den. "Ehm, it's almost time for the mass, master-lord, yes-yes."

Morskitatr nodded and got up. As he exited, he zapped the assistant a little bit, just out of resignation, making him jump with a yelp.

Outside of his office, a small crowd of assistants and secretaries waited anxiously. Glances were thrown at the zapped assistant's way as he ran, his tail on fire, toward the many buckets of water already prepared for that kind of "accidents", but nobody dared to move. They knew better.

"Let's go." Morskittar said, and stomped down the corridor with his guards, the group hastily following him.

The corridors of the central section of the compound were well-kept and clean, with banners with the symbol of the clan at regular intervals. The various skaven Messenger, scribes or bureucrats scampering around walked softly and spoke with hushed tones. It was a quiet environment, voted to work and concentration, just as Morskittar wanted.

Still, it didn't sooth his irritation as he marched down the corridors.

He hated that moment of the day, he simply hated it. Why? First, he hated. Being. Interrupted. Especially during work. Second, that moment was the continual reminding of his greatest defeat by his greatest enemy.

He wasn't a religious Skaven, and he was the first to know it. In fact, he wasn't a believer at all. In his mind, the Horned Rat wasn't but a tyrant, responsible for his race's deplorable conditions and therefore worthy only of contempt. Of course, nobody knew that. Atheism was paid with death in Skavendom. His assistants understood that he didn't like that moment, as it reminded him of his enemy's victory upon him, but that was it. The brisk pace, the few words, the zapped assistants, there was nothing unusual in them. And then, every Skaven believed in the Horned Rat, hoped for his fickle favour or just feared his ire. Morskittar would have loved to put himself above them all, but knew that he was part of the latter.

Four Technox Guards stood at attention as he passed into a separate section of the compound. He barely aknowledged them, and, after stompping down a couple of corridors and other guards, he pushed through a lateral door, the two guards remaining outside. The accension of greenish lights welcomed his entrance. They illuminated a large, gloomy room. Great cabinets stood against the wall by the sides, with a large, swiweling metal chair at the center, with strange plates jutting out of it at various heights, like comical wings.

Morskittar grunted a command as he stomped toward it. Silently, a brigade of lobotomized slaves scampered out of the shadow. As he took position on the chair, four of them made it rotate until he faced the mirror, while the others opened the cabinets and took out a bunch of bottles, rags, combs and brushes, bringing them to him.

Morskittar grunted again, and the slaves started to work on his body. They labored over it like a mass of construction workers over a building, using the various plates as supports to reach every nook of the Lord's large metal body, daubing it with special pastes and oils, polishing and straightening.

As always, Morskittar chafed silently at the uselesness of it. He didn't care about his aspect. He was big, he was threatening, he kept a rigorous maintenance over it and that was all. Things like spotless plates or groomed fur or straightened-up whiskers were irrelevant in the great scheme of things. But, he remembered with irritation, there was little to do about it: a high-ranking skaven, even more so a Lord of Decay, had to go to mass while at his best. It was one of the many things with which their rank showed their difference from the rabble. Anything less would have meant an act of impiety, and he had enough of Kritislik's attempts at having a subordinate of his accused of atheism the fourth time it had happened.

The slaves worked fast and in less than no time, the little swarm drew back. Morskittar gave himself barely a glance, taking in the plates of his body polished to a shine and the freshly given layer of luster, before stoming out of the room once again.

His assistants were waiting for him just outside the entrance to the separate section and, after a scramble to get out of the way, eagerly started to follow once again.

Morskittar controlled the time-measurement device installed into his armor. Mh, continuing with this pace, he would arrive just in time. He slowed down just a tad, just enough to arrive fashionably late. Another ritual, this one out of sheer pettiness. After disturbing him, they could wait a bit.

He gestured for one of his assistants to get close.

A Manager of all Religious Affairs was a helper he would have been glad to do without, but some things you just couldn't have them as you wanted. Still, Scrchkraktorikkh was the perfect skaven for the job: white-furred, old as murder, quiet, balanced between fealty to the clan and fear for his immortal soul and, more importantly, he did his job without bothering Morskittar with it. The ridiculous name was an added bonus: he always smiled with a particular kind of satisfaction at immagining the Seer trying to say it without biting his tongue.

Religious matters always managed to bring his petty side out.

"What do we have today?" Morskittar asked, as the old skaven whirred with his wheeled chair at his side.

Scrchkraktorikkh, rheumy eyes, limp ears and sparse fur, annoyingly chewed on his own saliva for a moment before answering.

"Elf, mighty-great lord." He said, sounding and looking like he was about to breathe his last. He turned and spat a glob of phlegm into a bowl attached to his breastplate, making it ring like a bell. "A young one." He added, giving him a grin of wooden teeth.

Morskittar nodded with satisfaction; not for the sacrifice of the day, but more for the confirmation that he chose well. At the time of the choose, he had wondered about sending old Kriitk, the one so deaf that couldn't hear a warpbomb exploding, but thought otherwise. Having to deal with that old rat had to be a hell already.

The corridors guarded by the Technox eventually gave way to wider, more somber hallways; acolytes in long, white robe took the place of scuttling bureucrats, and the hushed whispering of politics and information exchange was replaced by the low, humming chanting of prayers and supplications. Two things didn't change: the silent, disciplinated presence of the Technox seemingly at every corner, and how each skaven they met hastily got out of the way, prostrating themselves at the lord's passage.

Morskittar registered their devotion with far disdain. No matter the centuries, he still disliked that he had been forced to accept a religious quarter inside his own compund. No matter the politics, he never found a reason solid enough to have it eliminated once and for all, and Kritislik's motivations for it was simply too strong. That old bugger just wouldn't budge about it. A Grey Seer had to be inside the master of Skyre's compound, to make sure that "spiritual needs" were met. And an armored door dividing the two quarters? Why? Maybe the Lord of Skyre had something to hide from the Horned Rat's gaze?

Morskittar had to relent, but he had made sure that whatever advantage the Seerlord hoped to obtain from that foreign object inside of his compund was curbed to the root. The skaven inhabiting it that sectionsent from the outside were kept under close scrutiny all the time and had to follow a strict daily schedule. All their food, clothing and support personnel were provided by Skyre, and if they wanted to interact with the outside in any way, they had to file a formal request that needed Morskittar's personal approvation to be approved. All of those rules were enforced by the Technox, and he made sure to control the situation regularly.

The procession entered into a great hallway, this one as large as three of the previous ones combined. Small knots of skaven dotted it here and there, looking like distant, murmuring islands in a sea of black stone. The hallway went on and on, ending into a gigantic, opened door of granite. Statues of black obsidian lined the sides, each of them representing the Horned Rat in one of his aspect. As they walked, Morskittar appraised them, his lens whirling and crackling to adjust to the distance. There, first the Tyrant, His most prominent aspect, according to the Seers. The Tyrant Horned Rat was seated on a throne made of bones, with all around small, stony representations of skaven of all rank abasing themselves before Him. He held a skull aloft, full of something that could be blood, or whatever Gods partake of. Small droplets fell from the overflowing cup, skaven rushing to lap at them as they splashed on the plinth. The other claw was imperiously pointed forward, as to commanding, and other skaven were caught in the act of rushing to obey. The Horned Rat's expression was amused, condescending and threatening at the same time. Morskittar thought that it was the face of a ratling happy that his toys did as they were told.

Well, he had to hand it to the Horned God, though. He never left them any illusion about that: the Skaven were His, body, mind and soul; they had to follow His commands and pray that He gave them a crumb to eat. Or die. It was that simple. The Seers' version to the masses was a bit different, but they were all lies.

A mechanical, multi-wheeled contraption was waiting for them. Two Technox opened a door for him, and Morskittar entered it, while his followers swarmed over the numerous backseats. He accomodated himself, then gestured for the driver to go. The skaven, another Technox, nodded, and the machine, with a chorus of grinding and gears and sputtering of steam, started to move.

As the large statues of the hallway paraded before him, Morskittar entertained himself with watching them a little more.

There, the Horned Rat in its Corruptor aspect. He never actually quite understood what the point of that strange doctrine could ever be. Of course, he had studied it extensively, and understood all of its nuances, but wondered if its blabbering preachers ever asked themselves what it happened once you ran out of things to corrupt and make to decay. As a Lord of Decay, and even before that, very ironically, the very first thing he had learned was to think into the long run, to see the great picture. If he didn't think it was a waste of time, he would concern himself about Nurglitch's mental sanity.

The following statue represented the Horned Rat in its Bringer of Prosperity aspect. Morskittar couldn't but smirk a little bit at that stone, overweight horned rat raising his paw in a benevolent gesture. He diverted himself from that little contemplation.

The machine came to a wheezing stop just before the great door, and the group stepped down.

A small army of attendants in grey robes waited for them, their dutifully abased forms forming a corridor toward the entrance. Rows of slaves, showing utmost respect to a lord while shackling him to a path already decided by others. Morskittar took in the irony with a flick of grim amusement. That's what it happened when you had to do with a God, it seemed.

"My Lord…" Morskittar focused his attention on the grey-furred skaven limping toward him. He didn't like Grey Seers, but seeing this one managed to elicit a small flick of satisfaction into him.

Thirrik was old, really old, both as a Skaven and as a Grey Seer. He had reched that age when most rats, bar the most frenzied and power-hungry, just wished to settle down, nurse their old wounds and live off their last years on earth in quiet contemplation. Each of his gestures, even while he came forward to welcome him, radiated a slow, calm steadiness; like if his long years of deep devotion and measured gestures had ended on sticking on him, following him around everywhere he went. If peace could have a face, it would probably be Thirrik's.

If it wasn't irrelevant, Morskittar could almost find himself to envy him. Not everybody managed to find their place at last, to just say "that's enough" and wait for the end to come with that peace of mind. He surely wasn't one of them.

"Welcome to my humble abode, Lord…" Thirrik leaned heavily against his decorated staff of office, his voice a rasping whisper. His left brow was slumped, reducing his eye to a squinting fissure. "We…" He was interrupted by a series of choking coughs, that shock his skeleteal frame like a old trunk under a storm. One of the acolytes standing at attention behind him, looking like bodyguards, guards and doting grandchildren all together, hurried to give him a arm against which to sustain himself.

While waiting for the moment to subside, Morskittar felt that flick of satisfaction again. If Kritislik had sent that doddering old fool to him, it only meant that he had abandoned any hope of obtaining any advantage from him. It was a satisfacting thought.

"We…" Thirrik wavered for a moment, before bringing his only good eye on Morskittar again. "We are ready for the ceremony."

Morskittar nodded, and stomped forward. "Kriak?"

This time, it wasn't out of pettiness that he asked about the Plague Priest appointed, together with that Grey Seer, at his own spiritual well-being. It just was that, when you had to do with two fanatical, continent-spanning cults, you just couldn't play favorites.

Thirrik, dutifully following seven steps behind with his cronies, gestured toward the door. Sure enough, the Plague Priest stepped out of the shadows under the hinges, his own flock of heavy-robed acolytes behind him.

Pestilens' doctrice taught that the more virulent the plague, the greater was the favour from the Horned Rat. So, those Priests that contracted, and survived, maladies so powerful that permanently crippled them were highly venerated. It was thought that, in taking away their bodies' strenght, the Horned One had chosen them to be His ministers in all things spiritual and all rituals; snatched them from the glory of the battlefield's holy works to bring His truth to the faithful masses and administer to the well-being of the Skaven soul. Venerated as martyrs and depositaries of the God's will, they were called the Whispers, as they were close to be vessels for the Horned One's divine voice and were adept in the arts of interpreting signs and conducting rituals.

Morskittar thought that, as in everything, Pestilens had such dramatic ways to describe things.

Kriak, his bloated and warped body heavily covered and bandaged, rested atop a litter of interlocking ebony and bone. He leaned toward Morskittar, showing respects as much as his ravaged form allowed him to. Morskittar aknowledged it with a nod, and kept going.

The door loomed ominously over the now-numerous company, its great shutters etched with elaborated images of He-Who-Is-Twelth laying his paw over the Pillar of Commandments, and then taking his place at the left of the Thirteen Seat, where the Horned One held His throne.

Morskittar allowed his mind's eye to see that event once again. The towering, phantasmatic pillar looming over him, the shadows all around seeming to move and whisper and scratch at his mind with far-away words. And his own thoughts, a bundled mix of fear, exaltation, disbelief, anger and an empty kind of sensation in his heart that he had never proved before. And still, conviction, absolute, invincibile, all-encompassing, in himself, in his destiny to rule Skavendom, in the path that he had taken. Ambition had always been part of his soul, and had never shined as bright as thtat moment. He had felt like a smouldering warp-generator was lodged in his chest, powerful and dreadful at the same time. And so, he had plunged his paw against the Pillar, daring, daring!, the Horned God to reject him. It wasn't what a faithful pilgrim should have thought, in fact, it probably was the epytome of blasphemy, and still, no malicious, hungry fire came to test his magic defences; no, instead, Power, roaring, overhelming, rising like a hungry tidal wave. It had surged into him, a primal force that set aflame his soul. He was invincibile, untouchable, a thousand warp-generators were hooked to him, and he could smash through the rocky skin of the world, ouverture the cities of the no-furs, rise to devour the sun. For a moment, he thought he was dying, for a moment, he thought he was reaching for the stars.

Instead, he had found himself before the Pillar once again, that power now flowing through his veins like warp-fire, the seat of the Council waiting for him, and Kritislik smiling knowingly.

He diverted his attention from those memories. He could hear Thirrik and Kriak behind him, exchanging last-minute information about omens, auspices and such. His word, he had never thought that a Plague Priest and a Grey Seer could ever get along as well as those two. Maybe it was a sentiment born of equally felt felt old age, or imprisonment, or just simple, old-fashioned respect for one that was chosen by their mutual God.

It didn't matter.

The ritual was a success. The elf, a high-born selected by the Seerlord himself, died screaming, and both officiants agreed that the tone of the screeches, the arrangement of the drop of blood on the altar and the way the bones had broken under the sacrificial hammers were all of good auspices.

Morskittar assisted to the ceremony in dutiful silence, then, as usual, ordered everybody except his guards to vacate him for some moments of solitary prayer.

He took place over one of the many pews filling the space before the altar, ignoring the creaks it gave to accomodate his large body. Set at the third row, it wasn't close enough for him to feel under scrutiny by the great statue of the Horned One towering over the altar; nor it was far enough to make others think that he wasn't focusing over religious matters. It was the seat he had taken since the first day that place had been built. There was an indent imprinted on it, following the form of his back side, and it was kept rigorously empty at the brief mass that would be held afterwards. It probably was the second most sacred place in all that Temple, just right after the altar.

Morskittar scoffed slightly at that thought. He left his gaze wander around, taking in the cavernous naves.

Religion hadn't ever been his camp of expertise. He was a rat of science; his world was made of data, numbers and carefully calibrated misures. Be it a mixture boiling into an alembic, its colour and temperature held under tight control, a political maneuver in which to balance conflicting interests or the nomination of a skaven to a specific role, he followed cold resoning and by cold reasoning he acted. Yes, he was power-hungry, always been, and that was an instict. In fact, he needed power as much as he needed to breathe; and, as much as he could become bored by the endless adulation, in the end, he would always return to grab the reins of authority. It was his drug, but at his core, he was a thing of frigid logic. Trial and error, write the results and then repeat. Minions were numbers, each with their numerical values, tools among which to choose the most adapt for each job.

Religion wasn't like this, it was made of hope, faith, emotions. You couldn't make calcolations while praying, understand how much favour your actions would gain you. You couldn't bargain, couldn't cheat or ploy or kill your way in it. You could only pray and hope and trust that, in a very vague way, your wishes, or, at least, your emotions, would reach He whom you gave your devotion to. There wasn't control, or reasoning into it, and upon those two things Morskittar had built his empire.

Slowly, he accomodated himself on the floor, the smooth, black rock scraping against his knees as he leaned against the front pew, leaning his head down.

He supposed that from anybody's view, he would look like he was praying, but the truth was a little different from just that. He was… testing, in a way; concentrating what little there was left of his emotions into an overlaying focus, a hot mass from which a fervous, pious, heartfelt prayer could spring from. He wanted to see if something replied to it, a presence, making its listening presence known, waiting to hear what one of the greatest, most influent skaven to ever live would ask, or just pray, to the Horned One. After all, it didn't stand to reason for Him to give Morskittar more attention? Couldn't he unravel, with his own decisions, even the greatest plots that He could lay down?

Morskittar wondered if there was, or ever been, a skaven with such a complicated relation with the Horned Rat like him.

In a way, he was an heretic, the kind that Kritislik would call eternal rejection upon, calling each and every living Skaven to spur, reject and kill him at any given chance. He had been the most prominent member of the Council of Thirteen to seize upon Pestilens' repeated failures to have them ousted from the Council. He had plotted, bribed, threatened, called in endless favours and loyalties to have that fateful vote passed, despite all the frenzied attempts of the Seerlord to deny him. When the results had been given, everybody in that room knew that to be his victory. In more way than one, he had been the main author of the Second Skaven Civil War.

And he had done it full knowing of the consequences.

The reasons were many, but they could be condensed all in one: Skaven society was a complete failure. It was a giant maze packed full of squealing rats, with no rhyme or reason except a vague ideology based on merit and a costant, ever-lasting battle for survival. Yes, resources shortage was the great problem of their civilization. Yes, meritocracy was the right way to go. But this abomination of a structure was wrong on so many levels, so wasteful. He didn't care for the well-being of the ignorant masses, but the complete lack of reason in the way they lived and were governed offended him in way too deep for words to be able to describe it.

So, he had done the only reasonable thing left to do: start from scratch again.

As he expected, Pestilens hadn't accepted the decision of the Council, and rose into rebellion. Their presence in Skavenblight had tried to seize control of the Shattered Tower, only to find Ikit Claw and an array of Skyre machines and soldiers to bar their way. The battle had been bloody, and had extended quickly to the rest of the city as authority crumbled down, but the troops of Skyre, already mobilized and ready, had ended on prevailing. All the clans were submitted, all the rebels were crushed. Skavenblight belonged to Skyre.

That had been the day of his triumph. With the weight of destiny behind him, he had strode into the Council Hall and, before the baffled Lords of Decay, proclaimed himself Emperor. What a dazzling moment, that had been. He could still taste it, hanging just beyond the horizon of his mind. The sheer exhilaration of standing where no Skaven had ever arrived, bursting through even his resistance to emotions. It was more than having arrived to the peak, he was to be the founder of a new order, a renaissance of the Skaven that would brought his own visions into reality.

As his grip over the Capital strenghtened, the rest of the Under-Empire fell to anarchy as the factions, free from the Council's control, warred for dominion and resources. And that was good, just as planned. Let them weaken each other. Morskittar would bide his time, prepare and then, when the moment was right, start his conquest. He would radiate forward, a methodic, unstoppable force, retaking clans and lost territories, and this time, he would do it right. It wouldn't be random colonization like the Great Sniff had been. It would be conquest by force of arms, with all the power and technology of Skyre employed in the fullness of its magnificence, with all the works of true, solid annexation after it.

Oh, what magnificent dreams! What visions! He immagined a new regime, based on reason and control, where the ignorant masses would be funneled into fecund work, educated to true obedience and to understand of what great work they were part of. The deserving would be raised, and everybody would work for the betterment of the society as a whole. He could see it; factories covering the lands, their chimneys raising to the sky. Between them, the masses, working all together, strong and weak, young and old, industrious, fecund, wisely guided by those that understood what it needed to be done. He imagined gigantic warp-generators, producing the enormous energy needed for the machines to work, the lifeblood for a thriving society. He imagined Warprails, radiating outward like the circulatory system in a healthy body, and massive wagons bringing troops and workers where they were needed when they were needed, as swift as the gale in their task to bring civilization forward. He imagined entirely mechanized armies, unbound by the slow pace of foot soldiers, flying upon wings of iron and fire; he could see them as they smashed through opposition, rushing to take control of critical points, sorrounding and destroying any enemy foolish enough to bar the way. He imagined a new world for the Skaven, one not governed by the whims of fools, rantings of lunatics or shortage of food, but from reason and measured wisdom. And, at the center of that world, he imagined a great palace of iron and brass. There, like the core of a world-spanning machine, he would rule, watching over his creation, proud like a father, humbled before that magnificence. Because he knew humbleness, he was too smart to not to. And just like that, he would accept for his works to outlive him, to outgrow even his most wishful of thinking, he would rejoice for it!, and then, at the end of all, he would step down, lnowing that his work was done, that he had given to the cause everything he could; and he would go into his last sleep, entrusting the future to those coming after him, knowing that great march to be too grand, too beautiful to be stopped.

He had dreamed. And what magnificent dream it had been.

But, reality had taught him that even the greatest dream must reach its end, and even the greatest of dreamers must eventually awake. Sometimes, he wondered what would have happened, had him devoted more resources to root out the Grey Seers. Maybe he would have got a chance to disrupt what they were doing? He still couldn't understand how they managed to do it. He had an entire network of control of the Winds of Magic installed around the Tower, a gigantic device to keep their power at a minimum, and countless plans and possibilities to which to fall back. And still, Vermintide had come.

He had felt it long before the messenger's arrival, a change in the air, a small, little breaking of glass that signaled the end of a dream. He heard the expression "broken heart", but until that moment he thought it to be only a metaphor. He didn't expect for it to be an actual pain in his chest, throbbing at every breath he took. It had pierced straight through him during the Summoning, keeping pinned at his throne like a butterfly pinned by a needle just as his gaze was pinned over the apparition of Him filling the sky.

He hadn't ever been a religious rat, he barely even believed in His existence until Vermintide. Afterwards… It was more than simple power. He had enough of that, hidden in his laboratories to destroy the world ten times over. It was even more than that capacity to impose itself upon the world, making a life of planning come crumbling down in but a moment and with few words. It was that he could feel Him. In his bones, beyond flesh and machine, nestled against his soul, he could feel His gaze, undeciphrable, enigmatic, untouchable. He was part of him, as He was part of any living Skaven, as much as his own heart and even more. Morskittar couldn't escape him as much as he couldn't escape the need of eyes to see, and He had made him know hat without any doubts, as well that his dream wasn't His will. And how could you fight someone that already held a claw around your heart?

Before that impassable obstacle, the only possible reactions were to fall to despair or go mad. Morskittar was simply too rational for the second, so he went with the first. For months, closed in his bunker, he wallowed into a state more akin to death than life, not dying of sheer neglect only because of the lobotomized servants taking care of him. Terrified like the smallest of rats, in despair, he almost wished for death.

Paradoxically, it had been fear itself to save him.

He still remembered that moment: he was sitting in his kitchen, staring into the void while his slaves kept on trying to feeding him. Methodically, they brought spoon after spoon of slob to his mouth, and he would half-slurp and half sent it to dribble down his chin and across his chest. He had to have switched on the radio, because it suddenly started to wheeze out statics. Out of instinct more than anything else, he started to fiddle with it, stabilisizing the frequence until he started to hear two whispering voices. Two juniors Engineers, he noted with vague marvel. It had to be one of the many recording devices he had installed into the compound's corridors.

"…i-i mean, but have you-you seen the new capacitor presented by Lord-sir Sruech? It-it is great-wonderful!"

"Yes-yes, it is! I cannot wait to try it-it in the laboratory!"

He needed a moment to understand of whom exactly they were talking about. Sruech? Who was that supposed to… the realization sank into his mind like a brick into muddied water. Oh, right, Sruech, that third-grade Warlock-Engineer. He barely remembered it, more for his disasters with the Scythed Warp-cart project than for anything else. Wait, and why two juniors were talking about that incompetent's works with so much enthusiasm? Had… had his clan, no, the scientific community that he built inside of his own compund deteriorated to that point?

Anger, outrage and sheer terror had surged inside of him at the prospective of such a disaster and he had rushed out of his bunker with the terrifying realization that all his work could have gone up in smoke. In the end, it wasn't like that, and Sruech had actually managed to put together something not completely worthless, but the spark was struck. Fear pushed him out of depression and when that ran out, he was already too deep into work to care about doubts. He worked his knees off to conserve his clan's power and mend the damage of months of inactivity, his mind kicking back into gear with each passing day. As he worked furiously, he couldn't but think. Reason suggested only one way: conforming to the new situation. He couldn't destroy the religious power as he wanted, but his power was still all there. With anger and stubborn obstination, he refused to be beaten, even if a God stood in his way. And so, he stepped at the Pillar once again, and dared to challenge a God to refuse him.

And now, here he was, kneeling on that floor, inside of a Temple built only for him, with a Plague Priest and a Grey Seer attending only to him with all of their following. It was the same attention the clergy gave to an entire city, and sometimes made him wonder if Kritislik actually hoped to convert him in some way.

He was sure that he wouldn't ever been a true believer.

For him, the Horned Rat was another force to contend with, an adversary at worst and an unknown factor at best. He couldn't defeat Him, true; but he had challenged Him endless times, and not a bolt had ever fallen from the sky to obliterate him. He feared Him, though, and couldn't but constantly keep Him present in his calculations. In a way, he had to abandon his old dreams, and probably that was more than enough for Him. The Horned Rat had taught him the true meaning of humility, and he couldn't but respect and hate Him for it.

He wondered where that put him in His judgement. He himself, he knew it well, was a product of the skaven world they lived in, an exceptional rat came out victorious from the struggle for domination that enfused his society. Still, him, and those like him, went a step further: they not only reached the pinnacle, but made sure that nobody could dislodge them from it, by changing the rules of society itself. Before his arrival to Tinker-in-Chief, almost a millennium before, Skyre was a lot more brutish in its choosing of leadersin the same measure. During his long reign, he made sure to shift the culture of the clan, making so that the mind's prowess, and technological contributions, were considered far more important than the body, an attempt made easier by the fact that technomancy could mend and strenghten any weak flesh. Going further, he founded a school that held exclusive formation of the Warlock-Engineers. From every corner of the Under-Empire they came to study there, and in the programs it had a central role a thourough indoctrination to the values that Morskittar had choosen. Scientific ability and passion, magic's prowess, study, technological advancements, they were the pillars he had reforged Skyre around and as the greatest Engineer-Warlock to have ever lived, he embodied them. In a way, he had made Morskittar as the perfect model of the perfect Skaven and builder-mage, hiding any shortcomings and raising himself almost to an abstract concept. He was the leader, the pinnacle, the great mind behind everything, irreplaceable, imitable but never truly reacheable. It had been a patient work, lasted more than decades of generations, but in the end he had built an universe that couldn't exist without him. There couldn't be rivals coming for his head, because nobody though himself able to, as they were taught to think that. Morskittar had jumped out of the maze and built his own. That what it made him? The most blasphemous of heretics, daring to escape the world that the Horned Rat seemingly wanted his children to live in, or the ultimate, most perfect product born from it, its logical conclusion and greatest success? At the moment of death, he would ascend, become a mechanical perfection, the first of Skyre Verminlord, or fall to damnation, spurned by the Horned One's gaze?

He sometimes wondered about it, but, in the end, he had learned to not let unanswerable questions plague him too much. The Horned Rat managed to teach him that at least, together with his own place.

He didn't despair anymore. He still dreamed and still had his visions. A Master to serve, as much as hated as He was, was only another piece of data to factor in.

He gave a last nod toward the statue, before getting up and returning to his waiting retinue.

"Let's continue." He just said, and stomped past them. They all hurriedly followed.