The negotiations between Clan Skryre and Clan Verminus proceeded with remarkable fluidity. Among skaven, diplomacy becomes surprisingly efficient once both parties realize they lack the immediate means to annihilate one another. It is a performance of grotesque sycophancy, where negotiators wear smiles more fawning than the lowliest human serf while bartering with flecks of flying spittle, all while straining every fiber of their treacherous intellects to lace treaties with hidden traps and pinpoint exactly where to slide the knife during the inevitable betrayal.
Ultimately, the local sect of Clan Verminus agreed to sell their plundered STC fragments and key technical data to Clan Skryre. In exchange, they received Warp-weapons and the dreaded Rat-nest starships. It was a necessary trade; Clan Verminus remained largely entrenched sub-surface, and without the promise of orbital fire support, any attempt to contest the surface would be a death sentence.
Meanwhile, the Imperial Crusade forces tasked with the reclamation of Ornsworld had suffered catastrophic losses. Bloodied and broken, they were forced to retreat to nearby moons to lick their wounds. They waited for reinforcements, though in the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the Adeptus Terra, the arrival of such aid was a matter of grim uncertainty.
In this age of total mobilization for the Holy Inquisition, a terrifying truth had been unearthed by the Ecclesiarchy and the Ordo Malleus: the rat-men were infested throughout the very foundations of the Imperium. To prevent a pan-galactic panic, a veil of absolute secrecy was drawn over the fact that Imperial citizens were essentially sharing their homes with these loathsome xenos.
A strict gag order was slapped onto the Ornsworld expedition. Commanders were commanded to strike the term "bipedal rats" from their logs, officially designating the Ratlings of Ornsworld as mere "human traitors."
Simultaneously, the two companies of Space Marines from the Hammer Strikers Chapter received urgent vox-missives from their home world. The message was dire: traces of the rat-men had been detected within their own fortress-monastery. They were ordered to abandon the crusade immediately to purge the vermin-blight threatening their gene-seed and recruitment grounds.
Across the Segmentum, Chapter Masters and Canonesses of the Adepta Sororitas found themselves in the same humiliating predicament. Under the Inquisition's shadow, they were forced to conduct low-profile, "quiet" purges. To admit that a recruitment world of the Emperor's Angels or a holy Shrine World sat atop a literal nest of xenos was a sacrilege too great to endure.
Thus, the Ratlings of Ornsworld found a momentary reprieve. With the "assistance" of Chrot, they gained the means to construct "Hamster Balls"—compact, sub-miniature Warp-vessels capable of carrying barely a hundred souls.
The Great Horned Rat seemed to take a perverse interest in these creatures, desiring to see their innate sniping talents spread across the stars. Battis Swollentooth, Master of the Ornsworld Ratlings, deemed his home world no longer secure. He commanded vast numbers of his kin to board these Warp-spheres, scattering them into the void to link up with Ratling populations hidden across the Imperium.
This exodus inadvertently birthed a new way of life for the burgeoning Clan Ratling: they became the ultimate Skaven mercenaries.
As the first waves sought out their distant kin among the stars, they encountered Ratling deserters from the Astra Militarum who had already fled into the hive-sumps. Using their scouting and marksmanship skills to navigate the lightless depths, they met the more primitive, feral rat-men dwelling there. These local warbands immediately hired the deserters as elite muscle. When the more organized, greedier contingents from Ornsworld arrived, they realized they had discovered a goldmine.
Because Ornsworld lay within the Segmentum Sanctum, an encounter with Clan Verminus was inevitable. Though the Verminus leadership was initially piqued that another Great Clan existed besides their own, they were quickly awestruck by the Ratlings' supernatural lethality at range. Hostility turned to contract-signing.
The two clans entered a formal era of cooperation. While each viewed the other, one as a walking coin-purse, the other as a disposable weapon, Whitesick demonstrated a rare flash of statesmanship over sheer brutality: he chose co-option over extermination.
Whitesick recognized Bilbo's right to a seat on the Council of the City of Blight, acknowledging them as a Great Clan in their own right, united in their goal to prey upon humanity and repel any "foreign" skaven venturing into their territory from beyond the holy borders.
"Mmm... not bad. This roughly aligns with my projections. A worthy investment of my efforts."
Within his Realm of Ruin, Lucius nodded with satisfaction. To him, the material universe was a game that could be paused, rewound, or fast-forwarded at whim. He could peer into the turbulent eddies of the Warp to witness the long-term consequences of a single decree.
Generally, the Four Great Powers of Chaos loathe altering a decision once made; to them, the mortal realm is merely a source of amusement. But for the Great Horned Rat? Heh. The Rat-God is always willing to scurry through the cracks to ensure his designs reach fruition.
"Though the City of Blight remains a gutter-fire compared to Skavenblight, it will suffice," Lucius muttered to himself upon his throne. "If my children do not plot and backstab, how am I to harvest the souls and devotion I require?"
His domain hungered. Each soul consumed expanded his territory within the Immaterium, yet every new acre of warped reality required more daemons to garrison it, lest it be swallowed by the unaligned predators that drifted through the psychic soup of the Warp.
"Ya-ha-ha-ha!"
"Hee-hee-hee!"
Mid-thought, a shimmering portal of shifting blue and violet tore open at the edge of his realm. Nine cabals of Tzeentchian daemons, led by nine Lords of Change, spilled out like a tide of neon-pink and cerulean fire. Horrors of Tzeentch babbled gibberish, casting iridescent fireballs and brandishing curved silver daggers as they began to despoil the Realm of Ruin.
"Tzeentch... again? Throne's sake," Lucius growled, narrowing his eyes.
Immediately, an uncountable swarm of Vermin Herders surged forth from the warrens of his domain. These were his "Rat-startes"—tall, lithe, almost eldar-esque daemonic entities. Some, born of the lineages of Mors or Rictus, wore rusted plate and charged with warp-blades and shields. Others, the scions of Skryre, were encased in warp-power armor, hosing the Tzeentchian host with warpfire throwers, Ratling guns, and Poison Wind globes.
Thirteen Greater Daemons of the Horned Rat leaped into the fray, clashing with the nine Lords of Change in a spectacular display of sorcerous fire and clashing warp-steel.
"Oh, Great and Terrible Father! Let me go! Let me slaughter them—kill-slay the bird-things!"
Kritislik, the Fanatic-Plague Lord and current master of the Grey Seers, shook his thirteen horns, his staff vibrating with anticipation. Lucius gave a sharp, predatory nod.
With a crackle of green lightning, the Verminlord vanished, manifesting in the heart of the battle. His Skaven-sorcery tore through the Tzeentchian ranks. The "discount" Lords of Change sent by the Architect of Fate were quickly unmade, their essences banished back into the Warp.
Across the Immaterium, the mocking laughter of the other three Chaos Gods echoed, all directed at Tzeentch's humiliation.
Lucius knew this was the true "pastime" of the Dark Gods: the Great Game. They did not necessarily seek to annihilate one another, but to humiliate and outmaneuver. In the past, before Lucius had mastered the power of the soul, his domain was frequently overrun, forcing him to personally crush the invaders. To the other Gods, seeing a fellow Power forced to get their own hands dirty was the height of comedy.
But now, seeing Tzeentch's legion routed by Lucius's subordinates before they could even reach the inner sanctum? That was a profound embarrassment for the Great Conspirator.
Watching Kritislik return to boast of his victory, Lucius thought to himself: If the Four Powers fought the Imperium with even half the effort they put into their own civil wars, the galaxy would have burned ten thousand years ago.