NationStates Jolt Archive

SNW Hub Thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=499949)


"Why are we down here again?"
"I keep telling you private, we're looking for more mining locations." Sergeant Bengal shifted his rifle over his shoulder and took out a map. He spead it on the floor of the tunnel the team was exploring. "According to the map we've just exited the explored area." He rolled it up and unslung his rifle. "C'mon. we've still got a whole lot of area to cover.

The team walked off down the tunnel. After another thousand feet or so... they bagan to hear noises. Groaning, clanking, screaming....

"Sarge? What the hell is that?" The sergeant stopped, and dropped to the ground. He crawled foreward slowly, and looked over a ledge at the edge of the tunnel. He froze.

"Sarge?"

"Oh... shit."

Below the sergeant, scuttling busily around a flickering campfire was a den of ratmen ((Skaven)) and goblins. Filthy cots, racks of meat, bins of food and bedrolls lay scattered across the crowded cavern. The large cave's fell inhabitants ran to fro, chittering back and forth in their strange, insect like language. In the center of the foul campsite, hanging on chains from the cave's rock ceiling, was a large iron cage filled with half-starved humans.

"Eeee-chew-actai!" screamed a tall, well muscled goblin clad in black, iron armor and brandishing a steel mace in one hand and a whip in another. Several ratmen, themselves wearing dirty rags and rusty metal plates, stopped their game of dice and quickly began picking up bins of foul smelling meat, carrying them down a number of dark tunnels that led away from the encampment.

A swollen spider roughly the size of a housecat scittered across the filthy hovel, snagged a large rat in it's fangs, and began hobbling back towards it's den. The goblin in black armor kicked it absently as he walked by, sending the nasty arachnid flying at the wall. The spider recovered, it's prey still clamped in it's jaws, and scuttled up the wall.... oblivious to the ledge, and sargeant, above it.

The sergeant rolled to the side and worked the bolt on his rifle, chambering a round.

"Sarge?" The private asked.

"Shhh!! Keep quiet!" The rest of the small expedition, the 4 other privates, unslung their rifles just as the spider topped the ledge. The Segreant slammed his rifle butt into the spider, killing it. He grabbed its leg, but the rat fell over the ledge, to the cave below.

Sarge groaned. "Get ready, we may have trouble." The 5 privates chambered a round, and stood akwardly, wondering what had the sarge so worried.

The armored orc grinned as he watched the sarge's head disappear behind the ledge from the corner of his slitted eye. His sharp, bristling cannines shone faintly in the flickering light of the slaver camp.

"Arwok!" he shouted to a runty goblin riding a dog-sized rat as one would a horse, "Dar ick icki!"

The rat-rider bounded off down a dark tunnel without a moments hesitation.

"Sooo," hissed the goblin commander to himself, running a hand through his greasy black hair, "We find the 'uman's mine at last..."

"Sarge? What's going on?" One of the privates asked. THe Sergeant jerked his head towords the cave.

"Orcs, and Goblins. Lots. Ok men, time to retreat. Keep your rifles ready." The team slowly backed away from the ledge and started back off the way they had came. They had gone about 30 feet when they heard noises coming from the tunnel ahead of them.

"Shit. We're cut off." The sergeant motioned the privates against the wall. "When they come into veiw, let'em have it."

Screeches of animal excitement and goblin warcries issued from the tunnel behind the Armenicans, followed by the deep thudding of drums. Ratmen, fell orcs, and goblins clambered up the rocky wall to the human's tunnel with spider like ease and charged down the passageway at their quarry. Rusty scimitars, maces, and axes glittered in the flickering torchlight as the fell creatures swarmed.

"Don't mind the bullets, scum, charge!" screamed the goblin cheif in his hissy, cracked voice, and he began to climb up the cavern wall. Blaring horns sounded in the countless tunnels that branched from the main cavern, and goblins swarmed. Several ratmen weilding halbedeirs and spears circled around the humans by way of a hidden passage and charged at them from the opposite direction.

Somewhere, not too far below the chaos, a troll roared. The most ominous sounds however were the constant drums, and the distant sound of iron clad feet marching towards the mine....

The team fired into the horde in front of them. The hail of bullets breifly punshed a hole in their ranks. "Run throught! Make for the stopper!" Sarge yelled. They ran through the horde, firing blindly into the mass of bodies. Two privates fell, and were hacked apart by the horde. "Come on! Only a few hundred feet!"

They ran, the horde close behind. They rounded a corner and saw the stopper. The barricade that stood in case something wandered towords the upper levels. Although it was just a precauting, the Stopper had warrented one of the powerfull machine guns to guard the tunnel.

"Jeff! Get ready!" Sarge yelled. The guard, Jeff, saw the goblins behind the expedition team, and ran to arm the machine gun. When the team was less then 100 feet from the barricade, jeff yelled, "Ready!"

Sarge turned back to what was left of his team, the remaining 2 privates (2 more had fallen to the goblins) "Down!" Sarge yelled. He dropped to the ground, and the privates followed suit.

BBBRRRRRR!!!! The Machine Gun ripped up the air above the Sergeant as bullets whipped down the tunnel.

The foul beasts swarming up the tunnel were cut down in droves by the machine gun, their armor and shields useless against the modern device. Wails of pain and dismay erupted from the disgusting swarm as bullets sliced straight through their ranks. The UE troops began to fall back... though the soldiers of Armenica were no safer....

Oblivious to the massacre above them, swollen spiders, scorpions, rats, and other nameless creatures scuttled out from under the feet of the goblin horde and, safe from the Stopper's bullets, attacked the sarge's last two men.


Farther down the tunnel...

"FOWARD SCUM!" roared the orc champion, lashing his whip at the beasts immediately surrounding him, "He'll run outta bullets sooner or later AHAHAHAHA!!!"

A stray shot tore off the massive goblin's ear, causing it to laugh even harder.

"AAAAATTTTACKKK!"

So the denizens of the Under Empire surged on, ignorant of bullets, mindful of only the bringing death to the human intruders.

Deep below the skirmish, drowned out by the heavy thumping of the machine gun, drums continued to beat, accompanied by the sound of iron boots marching upwards and onwards.

((sorry for the lousy post and fo rnot being around yesterday, been a bit busy))

Sarge heard the screaming behing him as his last privates went down. Knowing he would die with them if he didnt move, he began crawling down the tunnel towords the stopper.

Something grabbed his leg and bit. "AGGGGHHH!!!" Sarge turned and shot blindly, hitting the creature, but hitting his leg too. HE continue crawling along below the bullets, and finally reached the stopper.

"Jeff! Warn the barracks! I'll give you as much time as I can." Sarge yelled over the roar of the machine gun.

"I wont let you-"

"GO!!" Jeff nodded, turned, and ran down the tunnel. Reaching the stairs to the surface, he turned breifly. "Godspeed" he whispered, before running up and out of sight.

Sarge grabbed the machine gun and continued firing down the tunnel. He spread fire all across the tunnel, hitting anything and everything.

*tick tick tick tick tick* Out of ammo. The horde, now unopposed, closed in. Sarge reached into a box beside the gun and pulled out a grenade. pulling the pin, he clutched it to his chest as the horde closed and hacked at his body.

"See you in he--" Sarges curse was cut off as his head was seperated from his body. Then even his gurgles ended as the grenade exploded.

The grenade vaporized the swarm of ratmen that had been gleefully hacking at the sarge's body, but had little overall impact on the unruly horde advancing up the tunnels.

Spear weilding goblins riding bloated, deer-sized spiders, scuttled after Jeff, screeching their alien warcries. Skaven and orcs advanced quickly behind the spider-riders, swarming hungrily through the Armenican tunnels.

Meanwhile, farther below the earth, the sound of drums and marching grew louder.

Clothed in the jet black rags of Clan Wark, two stealthy gutter runners watched their clan's two greatest foes, New Armenica and the Under Empire, fight eachother viciously. Such news could help secure the unstable control Clan Wark had over Ratspleen Pass to the southeast. Grey Seer Rannosvik would pay them hansomely for their loyal reporting of these interesting reports.

"Go-go, Nik'rin. Report to yer'lord!" chittered the elder spy.
"Watt?! Why is-it me that's goin?!" complained the younger
"You'd lern more from it!" sneered Brinnkki the elder

Begrudingly, the gutter runner left with haste to return this valued information alive. It was pointless to argue with Brinnkki now anyways, he had an once of truth on his side. Desending from their hidden hole above the sergents ledge, picking his way among the shadows, towards a hidden hole back to Clan Wark territory at the ledge's base.
(Seeing as you guys will be my neighbors when the map is updated I thought I'd get a bit involved in this little conflict. Hope you don't mind too much.)