“Nnnnh.” – Isabeau softly moaned as she felt her warm, comfy pillow move beneath her. She was exhausted and sore, but also had feeling of fulfilment and contentment. She also felt a slight sting on her behind, but chose to ignore it for now.

Feeling another nudge, more insistent this time, she frowned before slowly opening her bleary eyes.

The sun was already up and the first thing she saw made her pause, frozen as memories of fiery hot passion resurfaced from the night before. Or rather, nights.

‘Right… this ‘Brute’ has been having his way with me ever since that night…’

Sainte Denise had fallen five days ago and while the Frost Wolves had spent this time on collecting and moving their plunder back to their ships, Isabeau had spent her days either rolling the sheets with Erik or eagerly waiting for when Erik finished his obligations and they resumed their increasingly wild bouts of passion.

At one point, Erik had called her an insatiable hussy and smacked her ass as he rode her from behind. To Erik’s surprise, she reacted to this by clenching hard on his member as she let out a keening moan of pleasure. It turned out that Isabeau had quite a masochistic side to her… Whether that was always the case or a result of the rapid changes over the past weeks didn’t matter, Erik enjoyed the gift he was given and began exploring a whole new area of shared pleasure.

The price he paid however was Isabeau referring to him as ‘the Brute’ and developed a habit of ‘scolding’ Erik for ‘forcefully having his way with her’. Isabeau’s mouth said one thing while her actions proved otherwise.

“You up? The final wagons are about to arrive, which means we’ll be setting sail for home soon.” – Erik said while smiling at his latest conquest.

Less than a week ago, Erik questioned whether he loved his women back home or if he just lusted after them. After consummating his desire for Isabeau, he came to a conclusion:

Who cares?

He knew he cared about them and wanted them near him. He craved their touch and attention and was content when they reciprocated that sentiment. What does it matter whether he truly loves them or not? In the now, he cares about them and if not now, then he will undoubtedly love them fully in the future. And Erik decided that was enough.

Now, he had succeeded in his first raid and obtained great rewards. Even if more than half of the loot was made up of foodstuffs, the thralls, iron and chests of valuables taken from the nobles’ houses still made for an incredible pay-out.

Besides the material gains, Erik also gained reputation among the Frost Wolf warriors as both a powerful fighter and a strong, wise leader capable of achieving grand feats. This had already led to multiple occasions where parts of Warbands that lost their leader came to find Erik to offer their swords to him.

During the raid, Erik’s initial force of 300 had dwindled to less than 150 effectives but with the new additions, Erik had gained far more than he lost and left the raid with well over 500 men at his command.

Jarl Ingolf had also officially recognised Erik as a new Thane of the tribe, giving him a seat on the Witan as well as certain other perks. For example, Erik now had the right to command his own ship and set his own course for the next raid of the year. He would have to stay home during the third season, but this was actually in line with Erik’s desires since Kitten would most likely deliver their child during that period.

And lastly, Erik had gained a truly massive amount of Favour.

Killing, raiding and pillaging non-stop for close to a month was very well received by Khorne.

Taking pleasure in those acts, his experiment with the Brettonian mother and daughter, torturing the captive knights as well as the ‘game’ with Isabeau had greatly pleased Slaanesh.

Spreading death throughout the countryside and Sainte Denise pleased Nurgle and oddly enough the trip through the sewers netted Erik an oddly large amount of Favour for such a short trip. Maybe Nurgle tried to attract Erik’s attention in this way to have Erik pay more attention to His other aspects besides death?

And then came the real windfall. Tzeentch had truly been incredibly generous with Favour. Reorganising the stubborn Norscans into a slightly more disciplined force, going back to a previously pillaged target to easily harvest additional supplies rather than just taken the stuff ready to grab and the well thought out and successfully executed plan to capture and sack the powerful stronghold of Sainte Denise. Tzeentch proved very appreciative of these feats and rewarded Erik with as much Favour as all other three Gods combined.

And with access to such a wealth of Favour, Erik began seriously considering how to spend it all. Before, he had unlocked the shop function by completing his Trials and reaching 50 stat points for each stat. But the only things he could afford were not very useful to him or had additional requirements.

Now, Erik could finally afford a lot of these things. Abilities, Gifts, items, character boosts, he could take his pick and likely be able to afford it.

Erik skipped past the stat point-tonics for now. He could only buy and consume ten of each and it would be more beneficial to use those when regularly buying stat points became exorbitantly difficult and expensive. After reaching 50 stats, every point now cost 30 Favour (1-30=10F, 31-50=20F) and he had the nasty suspicion that after hitting 75, each point could well cost 40 Favour.

He did however immediately buy an experience boost for gaining Proficiency levels, replacing the rather expensive need for daily sacrifices for a temporary boost with a permanent one. It was one of the more expensive items on offer, but it would definitely pay dividends the earlier he got to use it.

Erik also spent some time browsing over the different abilities he could buy and picked up a few useful ones. Spending a couple more Favour, he then proceeded to upgrade his abilities so he could make better use of them.

Gifts were powerful boons, but came with the risk of mutations and had strict requirements before Erik would be eligible to obtain them, so they too were ignored for now.

And while some of the items on offer were very tempting to Erik, like a Khornite Greatsword capable of cutting through anything like butter, the useful ones were incredibly expensive while the affordable ones were more or less a waste of Favour. When Erik visits a tribal capital settlement or even better, the forges of the Chaos Dwarves, he would be able to obtain equally powerful weapons at a more reasonable price.

‘Too bad I can’t just buy the raw materials from here… where am I supposed to get a fresh dragonheart or Lustrian Solar Gold? Well, a dragon and Lustria but still…’

Finally, Erik spent a lot of his newly gained Tzeentch Favour to unlock an ability he had been eyeing ever since it showed up on his GAO-overview: Magic!

Somewhere along the way, Erik had ticked of the hidden requirements to unlock it and he could now simply complete the acquisition through a purchase.

After unlocking Magic, Erik was happily surprised when the System didn’t ask him to choose a specific school and instead directly offered a list of spells he could learn. And after reading the System-prompt that explained how his newfound magical powers would work, Erik was even happier.

Learning and casting spells were both very difficult and time-consuming activities. A mage had to familiarize him- or herself with the intricacies of what they are trying to achieve, submit it to memory and then calculate the amount of Winds necessary to cast the spell, depending on a multitude of different factors. Some areas experienced a drought of Magical Winds while others were covered in a veritable storm. Areas could be infused with certain elements, like Fire Magic around a volcano or Ice Magic on the Kislevite tundra.

Erik did not have to take in these factors himself and instead just had to activate the spell, wait for the timer and then simply cast it. No tough memorisations, no impossibly hard calculations. Just ‘select, wait, cast’ and the Magic would cast.

Deciding he needed at least some insight from a native sorcerer, Erik held off from purchasing any spells for now. He received three free spell slots for unlocking the new ability as well as a new set of Proficiencies related to the different Magic schools, but before committing to anything Erik wanted to learn for example Scaldar’s opinion on certain schools, spells and their application.

Still, Erik was smart enough to leave a large portion of Favour behind to allow him to continue regularly buying stat points or to purchase something in an emergency. From now on, gaining Favour would be a problem of the past. Raiding and pillaging proved so incredibly fun and lucrative, Erik decided to make the most of it every chance he got.

And after spending a long time thinking of what to buy and after carefully exchanging large amounts of Favour around, Erik’s updated status finally looked like this:

~Bleep! – Player information displayed!

Player: Erik –
Affiliation: Chaos, Frost Wolf Tribe (Skaeling Confederacy)
Patron: Khorne; Slaanesh; Nurgle; Tzeentch

Title(s): Chief of the Winter Hunt (+5 CHAR); Vanquisher of Beastmen (+10 CHAR fighting/talking to Beastmen); Champion Slayer (increased Favour gain); Sacker of Sainte Denise (increased chance of finding valuables); Scourge of Couronne (decreased morale for Brettonian enemies); Casanova (all females are more susceptible to CHAR, +100%)

Player stats:
Strength (STR):               75 (+25) (+100% Berserk)
Dexterity (DEX):             70 (+20) (+10 from Contract) (Total: 81)
Constitution (CON):      70 (+20)
Wisdom (WIS):               70 (+20)
Charisma (CHAR):         58 (+27) (+200% for females) (+15 from Titles) (Total: 73)

Player Favour:                 (stat expenses, 12 weeks)          (purchases & upgrades)  (remaining)
Khorne:              5250 (+5000)             à -- (-750)             (-2000)                                       2500
Slaanesh:           5151 (+5000)             à-- (-600)               (-2000)                                       2551
Nurgle:               5173 (+5000)             à -- (-600)              (-2000)                                       2573
Tzeentch:           8062 (+8000)             à -- (-600)            (-5000)                                       2462

 (Earn Favour by performing actions that either directly please your Patron or are in line with their commandments.)

Favour can now be exchanged for Patron Deity’s Abilities, Gifts and Bonuses.

(Shop tab available!)

Abilities:
Khorne:               -Berserk II (Active) Lv. 2 (+5)– Activated at will or when extremely agitated. Temporarily doubles STR stat.
Slaanesh:            -Pheromones II (Passive) Lv. 5 (+3) – Attract members of the opposite sex. Gain better initial relation and get better prices when buying or selling items.
Nurgle:                -Regeneration III (Passive) Lv. 2 (+5) – Limbs can now easily be fully restored, even Trolls envy your perseverance!
Tzeentch:           -Encyclopaedia (Passive) Lv. 15 (+8) – Allows the user to gather and store information. Also provides a basic understanding of new discoveries and first encounters.

NEW abilities:
-Crossbreeder (Passive) Lv. WISH  – Able to breed with anything of the opposite gender.
-Grow Warband (Passive) Lv. WISH – As Player’s reputation & prowess grow, warriors will flock to your banner.
-Magic sense (Passive) Lv. 3 – Sense Winds of Magic density in the area and detect spells being cast.
-Evade death II (Passive) Lv. 3 – Upon receiving a lethal or incapacitating hit, maintain peak fighting form for 8 minutes. Can receive healing to cancel ‘death’.
-Inventory IV (Active) Lv. 5 – Store 50+ (total ability Lv. * 10)= 250 items or stacks of materials.
-Warcry III (Active) Lv. 2 – Let loose a mighty Warcry, rejuvenates soldiers & lifts morale whilst reducing enemy morale.

(Abilities can be improved by spending Favour or with repeated use of the ability.)

Player weapon proficiencies:
Unarmed:           154
One-handed:    399 (+69)
Two-handed:    396 (+22)
Polearms:           589 (+241)
Archery:              50
Throwing:           455 (+72)
Firearms:            50

Player armour proficiencies:
Unarmoured:                   60
Medium armour:            213 (+31)
Heavy armour:                213 (+153)
Magic armour:                 (-)

Player Magic proficiencies:
Wind/Lore:
-Blue/Heavens: 10
-Red/Fire: 24
-Yellow/Metal: 40
-Brown/Beasts: 10
-Green/Life: 10
-White/Light: 10
-Purple/Death: 10
-Grey/Shadow: 10

Other:
-True Magic (Chaos): 80
-Dark: unavailable (requires mastery of 3+ Winds)
-Ice: unavailable (=/= Kislevite)
-Blood: unavailable (=/= Vampire)
-WAAAGH!: unavailable (=/= Greenskin)

Player Magic spells:
-Slot 1: -
-Slot 2: -
-Slot 3: -

(Next Spell Slot Unlock: 500 Favour)

Player mutations:
Right arm: Chitinous Claw morph – A strong, razor sharp claw capable of rending armour.
Right arm: Tentacle morph – An extendable mass of muscle with high sensitivity and great strength.

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~Bleep! – Player Divine Missions received! Complete missions for rewards, failure will result in penalties! When Player completes 5 Missions, Main Questline will be released!