For the first time in his life, Malcador wished Emmaline Von Morganstern was here for something other than carnal pleasure. A chamon user could find their way underground, perhaps not flawlessly, but they had a certain affinity for stone. Malcador, however, was ill equipped for the underground. His power came from the sky. As it was, he could maybe do something small, but his greatest magics were beyond him, even when he didn't have a hangover that could fell an ogre. 

"I concur," he whispered to her, eyeing the tunnel exit the ratmen left. He turned back to Hannah just as she finished mouthing a mocking 'I concur,' and he glared at her. She smiled at him guiltily, fluttering her lashes. It was the hangovers, he knew. But he wasn't going to leave it without a snide remark. "Be glad I don't make fun of your dung heap accent." 

Her jaw dropped. "Dung heap!?" She exclaimed, before clamping her mouth shut with both of her hands. Malcador was stricken, eyes wide with fear as her voice echoed across the cavern walls. They were both silent for long moments, but the damage had been done. Malcador hung his head, and Hannah's hands left her mouth, the duelist began to massage her temples as she muttered. "Just shoot me now, Ranald. Just fucking end me."

Somehow, her words gave Malcador a decidedly simple idea. He took her by the arm and yanked her, causing her to give an uncharacteristically girly squeak from the rough and tumble duelist. "We need to use this!" He told her. 

Moments later, the three ratmen scuttled back into the cavernous chamber, their lights in one paw, and each had a serrated long knife in the other. One chittered, either in fear or anticipation, and there was a musk that followed them so pungent, Malcador's eyes watered. The lead one pointed to the crates, his tail lashing. Malcador was still trying to get past the accursed smell. Luckily for him, as the odd beastmen began to split, Hannah struck first, eager to rectify her mistake of yelling earlier. By her own admission, she wasn't good with a long blade, but Malcador and Hannah had hidden behind both sides of the entryway, clinging to the shadows to flank the vile things. She had the element of surprise, and she used it. 

Her sword went into the back of the central ratman, piercing flesh and brittle bone. It couldn't shriek, because her blade went through the lung, but it hissed as it spasmed, before it fell to the floor just as she withdrew the blade. It dripped with black blood, and as she turned to the left beastman and bradished her blade, Malcador unleashed his spell. Having taken the time to summon his energies and craft the cantrip in the shadows, he thrust his hands out with a word of power. His hands glowed like flame, and streaking stars burst forth from his fingertips. The two beastmen turned, their mutated expressions unreadable but no doubt they watched in fear as the lights zipped and curled through the air to crash into their fur covered bodies, igniting their rags and hides in fire. This time they did scream, a keening wail of a dying animal. More stars hit them, staggering them before they could make good an escape, striking their forms repeatedly until they were naught but smoldering, writhing beasts, tortuously dying on the floor of the chamber. Their cries were silenced, now only whimpers, before that too was replaced with the popping of the fire. 

Malcador lowered his hands, and fell to his knees. He felt a sharp pain in his knees from the blow, but he hadn't the energy to stop himself. To his surprise, Hannah was beside him, helping him up with her arm slung under his.  

"Remind me never to piss you off," She joked. 

"You'd shoot me in the head if I tried it," He laughed tiredly, before his mind began to whirr again, and he looked at the accumulated corpses. The wizard stared blankly for a long moment, before he shook his head. "No, no... they can't be real." 

"What?" She asked as she guided him forward a step. 

"They're not beastmen," he breathed in disbelief. "They're skaven."