Emmaline lay back basking in the lambent glow of so much gold, her belly filled with good food feeling genuinely pleased with herself. The one things she might have wished for was wine, but the fermented corn mash which apparently served a similar function for Lizardmen was beyond unappealing and likely poisonous to humans. She was just about to suggest that T'krit give her and Amal some alone time so she could 'reveal the will of Sotek' to him, when the skink abruptly stood.

"It is time," he said portentously and Emmaline felt her stomach lurch with sudden trepedation.

"It is time for what?" she asked the shaman as the Skink took her by the wrist and turned towards the top of the central ziggurart. Emmaline shot a concerned look at Amal and the thief's hands shifted slightly to his daggers. The lizard did not seem on the brink of plunging a dagger into her however.

"To view the will of Sotek," the skink explained impatiently tugging on Emmaline's wrist.

"Ow! Ok I'm coming," she replied huffily and followed the skink to the very top of the pyramid. At the pinnacle was a large cupola inside which stood an massive circular stone. The only object they had seen so far that wasn't fashioned from gold. The carvings were intricate to a level almost beyond belief depicting a great serpent coiled around the world. Smaller lizard and even human figures could be made out making sacrifice and offering obeisance. Other figures seemed to be intent on desecrating the great serpent, many of them were of human form, though heavily armored in the fashion of the fearsome men of the north, others were hunched and ratlike, skaven beyond a doubt. There was writing also on the tablet.

"Can you read the sacred words prophetess?" T'krit asked, sounding eager despite his alien speech pattern. Emmaline really tried but she couldn't help it, she began to snigger and then to laugh.

"What is this madness!" T'krit demanded. The writing on the stone tablet was in neat and perfectly legible Riekspiel, strange and arcane to  the lizard folk but easily legible to any burgher who had ever been schooled in his letters.

"Sorry, sorry," Emmaline said, trying to act with the dignity T'krit evidently expected she should. It helped a great deal when she remembered how old this place must be and that Riekspiel probably hadn't existed even in spoken form when this tablet had been carved.

"For the time of contention shall come upon you, for the arrival of the Prophetess shall yield the day of challenge unto ye," she recited. Well it wasn't quite modern Reikspiel but close enough.

"And among your enemies also shall rise one who, upon the appointed hour shall open the way into the Golden City of the Serpent and contend for it with ye," the sinking feeling began to accelerate as she read.

"And neither ye nor ye companions may live whilst the enemy walk amongst the City of Sotek, ye though ye may try for all the days of your life you may not flee ere the contest is resolved..." panic began to well up inside Emmaline and her speech increased in speed.

"And yay by the reading of this prophecy shall the contest long ordained in the stars be opened." As she said the final word there was a sound like a distant earthquake and the door that lead back to the spawning pool slammed shut. Cries of dismay echoed from the Lizardmen though none of them tried to rush back towards the distant now solid rock face. Then a second rumbling came, this one from deep beneath the earth. Dust shook from the ancient golden structures and the vibration made Emmaline's guts contract. Suddenly the wall on the far side of the cavern burst open and a vast cone of spinning steel chewed its way in, throwing rocks and dirt in all direction before it paused on the precipice of a terrace, toppled and plunged downwards. It was like a great Steam Tank though many times the size of the one Emmaline had seen. Weird green crystals festoned it and brass pipework lined its rear section. It seemed that migthy chains had been wound around great wheels to drive the thing through the earth. The remarkable feat of engineering hit the ground at the base of the terrace and bent with a terrible creaking of metal and shower of greenish sparks. An instant later there was a flash of green light and a dull thump and smoke and flame began to pour from the body of the thing. Hatches flew open and skaven poured out of the thing like... well like rats abandoning a sinking ship.