Gotrek encounters Grimnir himself, the Vengeful Ancestor god at the Fortress of the First Slayer and the site of the warp gate that He closed in ages past. After a face-off against the god and dying to him, Grimnir resurrects him, whole. His ruined eye restored and granting him the second axe of Grimnir that once had been in the possession of the high king of the Dwarves. Now truly the Heir of Grimnir, Gotrek takes upon himself Grimnir’s doom to hold back the endless tides of Chaos, as the god’s power is waning and Grimnir says it was his time to rejoin it to try to save it, even if he might most likely die. Hinting that Gotrek might become a god for a future world.
Felix attempts to talk Gotrek out of it, but he refuses and asks Felix to remember him, truly happy at long last. Felix is then returned to the world outside Grimnir’s dolmen where it ends. Spending the last page of the book on chronicling Gotrek’s doom in the dying light outside it…..It is the last, unpublished, lines of his long From my travels with Gotrek: ‘If this journal is found, if the day was won, then remember this – here a Slayer lies.’
”Unwielding the string that sealed the precious pages of his journal, Felix opened the small book. Its spine creaked, aged beyond its years by disease. At the same time he unstoppered the ink vial, sharpened a tip into the quill with his thumbnail and dipped it gently in the ink. Then, in the dying light of his sword, he began to write.
Gotrek Gurnisson had found his doom at last.
And Felix Jaeger had an oath to keep.
If this journal is found, if the day was won, then remember this – here a Slayer lies.”
Felix :
And for Kat? during his time in the Fortress of the First Slayer, he was tested and had a meeting with her in her last moments and got to see their child, Rosa Jaeger during the Siege of Middenheim, getting closure with her and she is wanting him to let go, saying he had a future, but not with her, and that she was glad to be touched by his destiny, even if just for a short while:
”It actually rahter hurt, but Felix didn’t care. His heart had melted and turned to gold. ‘My daughter…’ ‘Rosa Jaeger’, said Kat softly, voice fading as the world around them returned belatedly to darkness. ‘Say hello to your father’.”
Doom :
As a slayer, Gotrek was searching for the mightiest “doom” a slayer could have. This usually means dying fighting the mightiest possible rival. But all such “dooms” are just remembrances of the one mighty doom of the first slayer, Grimnir, which was to fight Chaos for eternity(for thousands of years). Gotrek found literally the mightiest doom a slayer can have: Taking Grimnir’s fate, fighting alone for thousands of years to contain Chaos. What happens to Grimnir is unknown. He wanted to leave in order to take his place in the last battle, maybe die, in the End Times.To make Gotrek take Grimnir’s place was a clever way to give him the closure and respectful doom he (and we) was promised, without ruling out a comeback.
Gotrek gets his eye back, he is given the other (‘twin’) axe wielded by the High Kings of Dwarfs for all those thousands of years, the ultimate runes on both axes get activated, plus he gains a portion of Grimnir’s power.…
And finally we learn that his axe was indeed the 2nd Axe of Grimnir.
The end is worth the duo’s history and all those build-up years!
Chapter 19 : The Doom of Gotrek Gurnisson. From the Slayer book.
