Chapter 1 “Bought and examined”:
“No-no, subject unwilling to, heh, undergo process causes death-expiration” Kreeth muttered to himself as he jotted down notes on his journal whilst prodding the now dead slave with a metal rod. “Experimental growth juices don’t mix well-good with high-elevated heart rate, yes” he continued, talking to himself and pacing around his small lab. He stopped, sniffed the air for one moment, then unceremoniously pushed the lab rat’s corpse from the slab it rested on; leaving the job of pulling the body out of the laboratory to his two slaves, Kreeth exited his working place.
His house, if it could be called that, was built inside the remains of what had been a dwarven smithy, which had suited just fine with Kreeth. When the dwarven fortress had first been taken, he had been left with the worst of the spoils: the smithy had been half a ruin, with only three walls left standing, which also had gaping holes in them. Steel swords, suits of dwarven steel plate, weapons and coins had already been taken by the warlord, the stormvermin and other, quicker, Moulder mutators, but Kreeth had found a great prize hidden beneath the cracked stone tiles: a small stockpile of gold ingots, not enough to draw the attention of the warlord but enough to make him rich and allow him to build a proper lab, as proper as Skaven buildings could be. __________________________________________________ “Move-hurry slave-things or you’re next on the slab!” Kreeth shouted as he donned his “outside world” clothes: robes, a shoddy gambeson, a breastplate that would’ve been better suited for a Norscan marauder and his short sword, stolen from a Stormvermin, fallen in the conquest of the dwarven fort; all of this was done to appease his well justified paranoia, as the streets of the fortress were never safe and thieves or, worse, assassins were always behind every corner. The last thing that Kreeth needed was not an object, but a creature: his mutant rat mastiff, one of his only successful creations, which he always brought with him on his walks.
“Need more test subjects, this serum batch is good-fine, yes-yes” he muttered to himself as he and his mastiff exited the lab. Kreeth had found that his walks, despite being filled with dangers, helped him think, granting him new insane and brilliant ideas, his latest one revolving around creating a new breed of powerful and loyal soldiers.
The smell of the filth encrusted streets had always troubled the mutator, even when he was just an apprentice in Hell-pit; it evoked the uncleanliness of the plague priest and his retinue of monks he had once seen strutting around his original home-nest, loudly proclaiming their superiority and the blessings of the Horned One. The disgust he had felt that day had never left him and since then he had always tried to keep his laboratory clean, or as clean as it was possible for a Skaven: unusable organs, limbs and anything that seemed to be even close to rotting was quickly destroyed, incinerated with a small warp-fire projector that Kreeth had “borrowed” from a failing Skryre acolyte and blood stains were removed as quickly as they came by his two ever busy slaves.
As always, the place that could’ve been considered a market square, was filled with merchants, clanrats and slaves, all trying to go about their day without getting stabbed in the back. Several peddlers were shouting their outrageous prices, waving around pieces of what could’ve been meat, stale bread and wormy cheese; one was even screaming about a barrel of dwarf-thing brew and how one hundred warp tokens were a justly fair price for it. The mutator would have avoided such a place, but something caught his eye: where once there was a food peddler’s stand, now the crimson banner of Mors stood; under and near it there were several Stormvermin, some of whom were standing to attention, parts of their armour removed.
What was probably the leader the black ones was gesturing at those that were standing at attention. “As you can look-see these are the best soldiers we have to offer modest-decent price” the leader loudly said, still gesturing at the other black furs. Kreeth thought he would have gotten bored but, soon enough, he found himself staring at one specimen amongst all the others: it was a tall Stormvermin with muscular arms and a powerful looking chest, covered in thick black fur, a scar running down from his throat to his belly. “Hmmm, good subject for experiment maybe? Or good-strong bodyguard?” he whispered to himself as he checked his purse: more than enough warp tokens to buy a singular Stormvermin, which was enough for him. __________________________________________________
“Yes-yes, step in there. No-no, just remove the armour and sit on the chair” Kreeth said as Zrach, Zrach Once-gutted that was his name, entered his laboratory. The stormvermin had been mostly quiet, mainly asking about the nature of his assignment and possible enemies he might need to fend off; from the start the mutator noted Zrach’s unusual discipline and lack of twitchy-ness, still present, even if suppressed, in some of his brethren.
“Very good subject for experiment, yes-yes” he said to himself again, whispering low enough to not be heard. In the meantime, Zrach had removed his breastplate, helm and armguards, leaving only his leg plate on. “Remove shirt too, it’s in the way-path of my paws” Kreeth said to the black fur as he readied his tools. “Why the need of analysis-exam?” Zrach asked, eyeing the mutator with a wary look on his face. “Need to ensure warp-token spent well-good yes-yes” he answered, stepping near the stormvermin. “Mmmh yes, hold out arm, like that yes” Kreeth said as he touched Zrach’s forearm.
“Hmmm, good-strong muscles, good for breaking-busting skulls of assassin-things” he said while continuing his groping, ignoring the weird looks of his patient. “Yes-yes, powerful biceps-arms, decent shoulders and..” he stopped, transfixed for a few moments by the pectoral muscles of his probable bodyguard. “Yes and uhm..” he stammered out, incapable of finding the right words. “Uh, Kreeth-sir?” Zrach inquired while staring surprised at his seemingly hypnotized master.
'Must grope-fondle' the mutator thought as he lurched forward, using both of his paws to touch the stormvermin’s sculpted muscles. “What in the Horned one’s naaaah..” Zrach exclaimed as the other Skaven groped his pectorals, slowly massaging them and even daring to go as far as pinching a nipple. Kreeth’s assault did not stop at that though, as he lowered one of his paws and started stroking the abs of the black one, all the while groping more intensely his pecs. “Yes good-good, goooood” said the mutator in an almost sing-song voice, smiling as wide as if high on warpstone snuff. Meanwhile the black Skaven slowly sucked in air, surprised by the unknown pleasurable feelings; he gritted his teeth for a few seconds, then began to slowly brux, half-closing his eyes. His chittering was brought to an abrupt end as his master stepped backwards a few paces.
Kreeth looked both pleased and slightly terrified as his eyes and, more importantly, his musk betrayed a light panic: the mutator felt hot, his whole body almost engulfed in what felt like fire. 'What is this-this? Poison-toxin of rival-thing, must be! No-no, did not ingest-eat anything suspicious, no pricks-pains felt' he thought as he looked around the room for a possible explanation. 'Poison through vents? No-no, would both be dead now-now. Must be something else' he concluded as he slowly calmed down. Zrach was still on the chair, still breathing slowly, but more alert now: his throat felt dry, and he felt a stirring in his loins. “Uh, examination was more than satisfactory-sufficient, your bed is in the cellar, yes” Kreeth said to him as he handed over his breastplate.
“Now go-go uuh, guard outside yes, I have work to be done-concluded” he finished, letting the still weirded out black-rat out of the laboratory. As Zrach left the room, Kreeth looked one last time around him, just to make sure he had not been somehow poisoned with a gaseous toxin; he then slumped on the chair, still feeling weirdly hot. “What the fuck-fuck” he mused to himself. Never once in his life had he felt something akin to that feeling: he had been stabbed once, poisoned several times (once by an adversary and thrice by himself after trying to concoct a poison to get revenge on said adversary) and even punched in the gut by an Orc. All of those sensations had been negative, but this, this had been weird; not in a bad way, but a strangely good one. Suddenly, inspiration struck: somewhere in his house he had stored some human books, where he had once hoped to find secret knowledge. Unfortunately for him, the books had contained nothing but curious tales written by strange beings called philosophers or even stranger books about Araby man-things embracing in a myriad different weird ways.
Perhaps the explanation of this curious phenomenon could be found in one of such books, if the slave-things had not already chewed through the parchment.