[center][h3]Turn 10[/h3]

[hider=The Map]
Coming soon!™
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[h3][color=DarkGray]The Lycan Covenant[/color][/h3]
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It seemed as though the trio of Rhino Men had indeed stumbled across the corrupted and broken remnants of the obelisk that had been closest to Wulfhelm. Much to the alarm of the three packs that now stalked the strange creatures, there were only two Rhino Men wandering down the shore, not three as the scout had reported. The missing third one had no doubt left to find more of its kind. It wouldn't have been able to tell its friends about the presence of Wulfhelm or of the Lycans' new home across the river, which made it all the more important that they ambush and kill these two before they could discover as much.

The lycans crept slowly and quietly through the muddy ground and high grasses. Those Silentpaw  experienced in such skulking took leading the way for the less-so Bloodfang, until they eventually came to a suitable ambush spot just a few hundred yards ahead of where the duo was walking. They waited, and slowly the two great creatures lumbered closer. There was a soft wind blowing into their faces as they peered out at the approaching giants, and the breeze helped to carry the sound of the strangers' voices. Surprisingly, between the frequent snorts and despite the beasts' guttural speech, the lycans were able to comprehend pieces of what was being said.

"Think it was...erhm...some sort of storm or somethin'? Saw the dark clouds over here for weeks."

"Storm can't break stone! No, some dark magic...erhm...[i]defiled[/i] the sacred stones! Elder will know what to do. But we gots to find the guardian spirit. The ghost sitting under the sacred stone shoulda came out when it broke..."

The queer giants angled their faces away from one another as they spoke, staring into the grass along either side of the path that the trod, presumably searching for whatever creatures had broken the dumb rocks. [i]Searching for them,[/i] the lycans realized. Well, their beady little eyes didn't find the lycans. It was their noses that did, in the very instant that the wind took an unfortuitous change of direction and began blowing towards the Rhino Men and carrying the scent of the lycans. The duo of giants immediately stopped dead in their tracks, took a few steps back, and eyed the tall grass suspiciously. Seizing what little chance remained to take them by surprise, the twelve Bloodfangs exploded out from the underbrush, followed a moment later by the somewhat more cowardly Silentpaws. The Rhino Men didn't take even a moment to sense the hostile intentions of the blurs charging towards them out of the grass; they lowered their heads to point their horns in the lycans' direction, stamped their feet and snorted, and then made contact. The Bloodfang had attacked from such a close range and with such little warning that the two giants hadn't had time to break into a charge, which probably spared some of the warriors from being outright trampled. But even so, as some of the Bloodfangs moved to circle around and flank, the lead ones leaped right at the Rhino Men...and met their horns.

One of the Rhinos managed to bring down his head and raise it up just in time to utterly impale a pouncing warrior through the abdomen. The lycan's throat filled with blood and bile, but even as he died he did the others some service by clawing at the neck of the Rhino and remaining stuck atop its face. Others clawed at the giant's sides and legs as it struggled to rip the hefty lycan off its horn so that it could face the other attackers unencumbered. Meanwhile, the second Rhino had tried to perform the same move but wasn't quite fast enough. Instead his head collided directly with that of the pouncing lycan warrior. The Rhino recovered faster and quickly kicked at and stomped on the dazed and fallen Bloodfang enough to maimed him, but before the Rhino could finish the job it found itself distracted by another half dozen of the savage lycans. The Rhino Men went on to bravely fight. They made a good account of themselves as they gored with their horns, stomped with their massive hooved feet, and clobbered with their fists, but even so they were badly outnumbered and surrounded and were taken down quickly enough despite their fortitude and thick hides.

Still, they were formidable and tough adversaries. Woe to any small creatures that faced such brutes; had the lycans not been as large as powerful as they were, that skirmish might have gone differently even with their advantage in numbers. In the end, the scrap lasted not even a full minute. Two lycans had been killed--there was that first Bloodfang that pounced and got impaled, and there was some inexperienced Silentpaw that was overeager for blood and far too comfortable getting close to the giant; that youth was battered down and felled with one well-aimed stomp to the head. There was another lycan with severe injuries that might cripple him forever, and two more with minor wounds. Naturally the lycans had killed both of the Rhino Men in their rage and in the heat of the moment; their ambush hadn't gone as well as had been hoped, and these creatures had been [i]far[/i] too dangerous to take alive and bring back for questioning.

As they carried their wounded and fallen back to the pontoon bridge and to Wulfhelm's new location, they all wondered how Vlath would react. Preparations had to be made; as it was, it only going to be a short matter of time before [i]more[/i] of those monstrous creatures came to threaten the covenant. Right now the bridge was guarded, but if the Rhino Men crossed somewhere else and then approached Wulfhelm from the south on its side of the river then their village would be vulnerable. Right now the two corpses of the Rhino Men also remained where they'd fallen; it made some sense to deal with those, but then again, the two corpses were barely a few hours' journey away from that crude outpost of Seagard. If the Rhino Men went around searching for their missing friends, even if they didn't find the bodies they were likely to stumble upon Seagard while the looked.

For all of those dire portents, there was at least one good one. As the prospectors ventured towards the mountains they discovered an entire cliff of basalt. The sturdy and hard stone was black as night, black as the bottom of the ocean, black as the Void Gods and realm in which they slumbered. Given all of that, it was surely sacred. And it would also make a good building material. Perhaps they would be able to start quarrying it sometime in the near future. In the meantime, the Goldpaw simply relayed the good news, made note of the basalt's location, and continued on closer towards the mountains.

[b]A) Improve food
B) Improve military technology
C) Improve infrastructure
D) Improve culture
E) Explore
F) Improve resources/technology
G) Prospect the land
H) Expand military
I) Take diplomatic action
X) Other[/b]

[b]Population:[/b] 139 men, 142 women, 67 pups.
[b]Livestock:[/b] Small number of rabbits
[b]Military:[/b] 2 void monsters. Militia able to be conscripted up to about 30% of adult population.
[b]Food level:[/b] Slightly below average
[b]Resources:[/b] Lumber (low quantity; increasing), basalt (none harvested yet; can be mined with a quarry)
[b]Wealth:[/b] Nonexistent
[b]Trade:[/b] Nonexistent
[b]Growth:[/b] [i]Low; impacted from food level.[/i]
[b]Morale:[/b] Average; brought up by respite from rain, brought down by food level
[b]Foreign relations:[/b] [color=silver]Rhino Men: (???)[/color] 
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[h3][color=lightblue]Attolia[/color][/h3]
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"But how am I supposed to know [i]which[/i] stupid animal we need to find and bury? I've hunted dozens! And I still think that this 'spirit' stuff is probably nonsense..." Salvdal remarked to the shaman in a tone that sounded almost entirely unapologetic. Lady Saphira, or whatever was left of her, just peered at the foolish hunter with the empty eyes of a ghost. There was a bit more fire to be seen in the shaman's baleful glare, and together the two of them stared Salvdal into a repentant silence. They treasured and kept that silence for most of the journey's remainder; they found and buried at least a score of skeletal gazelles (and for good measure a few other carcasses that they stumbled across, too) in the hopes that one of these had been the particular animal whose vengeful spirit had returned, but there was no telling whether or not that was the case, nor was there any true way for them to know if the mere act of burying the bones and offering a quick prayer would even be enough to exorcise the spirit that was guiding their enemies. Nonetheless, they continued their work for two days and then began to make camp. Then, the Spirit Vessel suddenly craned its host's head and looked to the distance.

"I sense their presence. The enemy is near."

Salvdal muttered something to himself and quickly climbed up one of the steppe's rare trees, the one that they had been meaning to camp beneath for the night. About halfway up, he let out some exclamation. "Fires!" he said.

The shaman squinted into the distance, and sure enough, there was the faint glow of two campfires. The steppe here was so flat that they could see that from miles away, but it was hard to make out any more detail. But then to their horror, the two fires became six, a dozen, more, and more...

This was no small band that was pursuing their people; it was an army!

The shaman was distraught. "We must head back to warn the others, right now! There's no time to sleep!"

"No; fleeing is the coward's way. We can strike now and sever the snake's head," the Spirit Vessel declared. The shaman looked up into the tree for the dark silhouette of Salvdal, trying to find support in [i]that[/i] scoundrel of all people.

[hr]

At their camp, it took the better part of an entire day as well as the following night to create a ritual to summon the local spirits and ask of them the great favor. It was always hard to tell whether the spirits understood what was being asked of them, because even with wisdom accumulated in death they ultimately remained animals at heart. But as they shuffled away in the morning, one could only hope that they were somehow muddying the path for the Attolians' enigmatic pursuers. Progress migrating north was [i]much[/i] slower than they would have liked. It had grown to the point where they hadn't moved camp in years, and over time complacency had led them to accumulate more belongings, and to simply lose some of the readiness and hardiness that their people had once had. In addition to simply having more belongings, they now also had to worry about driving their substantial herd of cattle onward. It was hard to move the animals at anything that could be considered a fast pace, and impossible to cover the entire herds' tracks.

[hr]

It was quickly becoming apparent that this was not a foe that they could flee from, at least not without abandoning nearly everything that they had worked so hard to earn over the past years. And with two days already wasted, time was running critically short.

[b]A) Improve food
B) Improve military technology
C) Improve infrastructure, and some w
D) Improve culture
E) Explore
F) Improve resources/technology
G) Prospect the land
H) Expand military
I) Take diplomatic action
X) Other[/b]

[b]Population:[/b] 143 men, 144 women, 78 children.
[b]Military:[/b] 1 elite warrior (spirit vessel). Militia able to be conscripted up to 30% of adult population.
[b]Livestock:[/b] A large herd of cattle
[b]Food level:[/b] Above Average
[b]Resources:[/b] Horses (A small number)
[b]Wealth:[/b] 200 pounds of gold; some precious jewels
[b]Trade:[/b] Some internal trade, facilitated by currency
[b]Growth:[/b] [i]Average; impacted by racial traits, good food level, and good morale.[/i]
[b]Morale:[/b] Below average (ill omens)
[b]Foreign relations:[/b] None
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[h3][color=purple]The Mustaqilun Tribe[/color][/h3]
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Following Rukdug's decision, both the miner and the shaman set about trying to recreate the cursed weapons that they had promised. Saliva and worse things that didn't bear mentioning were mixed together by the miner until he finally managed to create some putrid black sludge. There were a few plants and mushrooms crushed into the paste as well, bu it was hard to tell if the miner was truly following some well-known formula or just tossing in whatever he could find as if this were some sort of soup. But by the end of the day, he'd created a sizable pot of the disgusting concoction. He'd then thought to coat a long spear with the stuff and prod at one of the runts from outside the cage, but the boar handlers assured him that such precaution was no longer necessary. It'd been weeks since any of the boars had gored someone, and most of the aggression had been bred out of the animals by now. As a far bit of good news, the pigs were finally docile enough to be considered domesticated.

So since the pigs weren't to be feared, they coated a small nail with the miner's ointment, since it would be a better test if they merely scratched the pig with a short nail rather than skewered it with some long spear. The thing predictably squealed and struggled, but quickly its body began to stiffen. Eventually the poor thing's sounds ceased as did most of its movements, though it was still alive and barely breathing. Over the following day the tiny scratch became swollen, and soon enough to wound turned black. The other pigs avoided that one, and it died the following day. The experiment wasn't a total waste of time; it seemed that the miner's concoction was some sort of fairly potent paralytic poison combined with enough nastiness to ensure an infection that would often prove lethal. But Rukdug and all the others still agreed that this was no curse. There were a fair few in the village that now felt vindicated about having initially called the miner an idiot. and some advocated for him to be punished for his impudence.

As in for the shaman, he stressed that he'd said one needed to use the axe to [b][i]slowly[/i][/b] chop down the tree that it was made from. He claimed to need at least several weeks in order to craft the axes, and that was pushing it; to achieve the best results would maybe require even longer. There were many that murmured about how this was a waste of time and just stalling on his part. At least he had the decency to begin crafted nearly a hundred of the axes at once rather than a single one to demonstrate his point, so there would hopefully be a sizable batch of cursed weapons ready. Still, each axe required its own tree and this meant that the shaman had reserved nearly a hundred large trees nearby. Considering the great shortage of lumber and the pressing need for charcoal to work the forges, many were especially unhappy with having to wait so long to fell said trees. There were other trees of course, but those were distant enough to make it logistically difficult to fell them and then move them through the hills and crags back to Riverforge.

Sending out Nyorgha was going to help, but the fact remained that it would be some time until she could establish a viable outpost and send the first shipments of lumber. They'd heard nothing from her expedition yet. In the meantime they would have to either do without, or risk ruining the shaman's plans.

[hr]

The tengu and the goblins seemed taken aback at how Pak had essentially offered his people to be used as bait. That was how the orcs interpreted the ninja's contemplative silence, anyways; who knew what the bird and masked goblins were truly thinking.  Their leader finally broke the silence. "This ploy of yours could work. He is arrogant and with an army at his back, so he will take the easiest path and not bother about being seen. There are a few ideal places along the way. We wouldn't even need to bother with filling your camp with trinkets, it can be devoid of valuables altogether; his warband would raid a camp anyways, if only to take even more slaves."

"We have...ways of going about unseen," Master Ie went on, drawing a sharp glance from Digzu. "But there is no magic with which we could  make false images of your kind. You would be alone before the Dai Oni and all his brigands, and very close. In the resulting fight you would be in mortal peril even once we spring out of hiding to help you."

One of the goblins now blurted out, "It is a poor plan. Saizo said that these...[i]orcs[/i] were tempted by the firestones. [i]Any[/i] oni king would hypnotize and enthrall them, and this one is even more clever and snake-tongued-"

"Enough!" Ie looked down to Pak and handed him some odd piece of wood that he'd procured from his belt. "We will commit to your plan of action. You must lure as many of the bandits into the camp as possible. And you must stall them and draw out their king, looking as inconspicuous as your kind can be whilst remaining ready to strike in the blink of an eye. And when that moment comes, one of you must play this flute. Then we too shall strike, and together we may well be able to exploit the chaos and kill the majority of his men before they can react. Dealing with the Bandit King himself will be...more challenging. We will have to improvise. But if he can be felled, then I shall banish his spirit back to the nether realms before he can form a new body!"

[b]A) Improve food
B) Improve military technology
C) Improve infrastructure
D) Improve culture
E) Explore
F) Improve resources/technology
G) Prospect the land
H) Expand military
I) Take diplomatic action
X) Other[/b]

[b]Population:[/b] 200 men, 200 women, 99 children.
[b]Military:[/b] No standing military. Militia able to be conscripted up to 60% of adult population.
[b]Livestock:[/b] A large group of pigs
[b]Food level:[/b] Average
[b]Resources:[/b] [i][color=gray]copper, zinc, and arsenic[/color][/i] (decent amount; not yet being worked or smelted into alloys), charcoal (tiny amount), [color=green]paralytic poison[/color]
[b]Wealth:[/b] Some semi-precious gemstones
[b]Trade:[/b] Nonexistent
[b]Growth:[/b] [i]Average[/i]
[b]Morale:[/b] Below average (improved by sending away the worst complainers)
[b]Foreign relations:[/b] [color=Gold]Ful's Ninjas: Neutral[/color]
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[h3][color=orange]Orr'gavol: The Hammersworn[/color][/h3]
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Seeing as they were all southward bound to the Darr, the parties of Herim and Makkar traveled together through the snowy forest. Here and there was a great lump protruding out from the white canvas on the ground, and the learned dwarves of Phosphorus and Glass Unions would brush off the snow covering. In that way they found many boulders,  a of which were identified as dolomite. The rocky outcroppings were then slowly broken down with hammers and pickaxes before being loaded onto sleds. Whilst some would then haul the sleds back to have the stone processed into lime, others went on all the way to the frozen river in search of glassand.

And along the way, they heard a strange sound--the dripping of water. That was something that few save the furnace operators had heard in the past few months; there had been no rain to fall down from above and drip off the leaves, only flurries or blizzards of snow. The only place where water had dripped had been off the tops of the fiery furnaces. But now they were seeing and hearing droplets of water falling free from a few long icicles perched upon rocks and treelimbs. It was a sight that made more than a few of them jump with joy, for it renewed a hope of spring.

As they went further south to the river, the signs became slightly more evident. The river's surface was still frozen solid, but in parts the ice was softening and had become more like slush than solid rock. That spared them most of the effort of having to break their own holes in the ice. Digging through the slush, they made holes into the frigid riverwater below. Sure enough, there were a few fish down there, and most more sizable than the minnows they'd found by the sea! The fish seemed abuzz and vibrant, as they too could no doubt sense the warming that came with a shift in seasons. They were perhaps even more desperate for spring than the dwarves, for in their starvation they were biting at all before them, even the hard and shiny shape of the bare hooks that the dwarves put at the end of their fishing lines. Makkar and his Union didn't find much, for most of the fish had likely died in the winter or swam out into the sea if they were capable of it, but their bounty was still substantial and far better than nothing.

Herim's expedition met with similar success. The sediment from the river's bottom that they dredged through the slush pits was little more than useless mud, but along the short strips of beach were a few sandy parts where they found what would pass for glassand. They dug up as much as they were willing to haul back, and then returned to the Hovel alongside the (considerably more popular, now) Earth Union fishermen. Their arrival back home was just in time to see some of the newer forges; the Hammersworn now had managed to refine quite a bit of their iron ore.

All seemed good, and spirits were high. But then there was a terrible omen: one of the miners returned from his station in the mountains without a load of ore, sprinting like a madman. Between the pants, he told them that they'd seen the Abductor fly in from the cold north and land somewhere in one of the mountains nearby. Perhaps it was already gazing south in search of prey; the runner had hid beneath the cover of trees wherever possible, but even so, he'd always been looking back over his shoulder terrified of what he might see in the sky.

Godrim had left his post in the pass by the mines to (they presumed) run a few miles down the mountain chain, scale up the peak where the beast had perched, and try to drive it away a second time, but the miner hadn't stuck around long enough to see what'd come of that. Come to think of it, the miner hadn't even realized that Godrim [i]could[/i] leave his post.

[b]A) Improve food
B) Improve military technology
C) Improve infrastructure
D) Improve culture
E) Explore
F) Improve resources/technology
G) Prospect the land
H) Expand military
I) Take diplomatic action
X) Other[/b]

[b]Population:[/b] 234 men, 235 women, 115 children.
[b]Military:[/b] No standing military. Militia able to be conscripted up to 30% of adult population.
[b]Food level:[/b] Below average
[b]Resources:[/b] Lignite coal (low grade; large amount, increasing), iron ore (substantial quantity, increasing), iron (substantial quantity)
[b]Wealth:[/b] Nonexistent
[b]Trade:[/b] Nonexistent
[b]Growth:[/b] [i]Average[/i]
[b]Morale:[/b] Low; influenced by finding more food, successful expeditions, and teaching the young, and another sighting of the Abductor
[b]Foreign relations:[/b] [color=goldenrod]Heel's Hundred: Friendly[/color]
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[h3][color=lightgreen]Ekon-Danna[/color][/h3]
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Though the slaver lord approached the mat, so too did his bodyguards. Their hands hovered not far from their weapons. And even as the slaver sat down, he did not accept the trolls' food. Instead he procured a wineskin and drank from its contents without offering a share in turn, and nor did he offer his name back. At least he gave an answer that seemed earnest enough, "I can tell you that it was soldiers of Giwabi that took note of your presence and came to observe you in the weeks past. But as your band has not yet moved and Giwabi's armies are otherwise preoccupied, they have yet to take action. Though if you linger long enough, the king's men may well try to see you driven off or collect a tithe for your settlement upon his lands. But it that is between you and them; we are not involved."

"And we will not bring you to the king," the slaver declared without a second's pause, "for he is on campaign against your cousins to the north as well as the other barbarous kingdom that presses at his borders. And our business takes us away from all of that chaos and turmoil, to the burning mountains in the east. Besides, it is known that Giwabi has no love for your kind."

The man suddenly snapped a finger. One of the bodyguards came to kneel besides the slaver, and the man whispered something into his servant's ear. Then he looked back to Senwe. "But enough talk of Gwabi...[i]Senwe of the Ekon.[/i] You ask about the prices of our wares, and I find that topic much more interesting. You must know that chattel are heterogeneous goods and there can be no one price for each head; such a thing is best negotiated on the basis of each individual or group. One of my men will bring forth an assay of our merchandise that you may inspect it with your own eyes and negotiations might begin. In the meantime, I will tell you that we transport three dozen heads, of which ten and ten again are of your kind; if you have the wealth for it, there are another four strong men that could be sold. But the remaining heads are not for sale!

Six pounds of silver, or two pounds of gold, could see those of your likeness into your possession. Make that ten, or three and then some, and you can have the human heads too. Of course, as I have said before, we are in a position to accept payment of similar worth in salt or other goods."

As they had spoken, the bodyguard that he'd whispered to had waved some sign to the convoy. One of the wagons was stopped, and the horsemen about it began dragging out the wretches within. No less than five trolls in the distance were chained to one another and then slowly marched closer to where Senwe and the slaver lord sat, though even from such a distance it was easy to tell that these were no sand trolls after all--they were taller and had skin green as moss.

[hr]

The lands around Hunzuu were quite desolate. Eyes that were used to the scarcity of a desert nonetheless managed to take note of what few details and precious things of value were present, and a few children had indeed gathered strange rocks. The rocks were black, but they also shone and reflected the sun's baleful glare just as readily as water. The things were smooth along their flats but surprisingly sharp on their edges, and more than a few of the children had cut themselves or one another whilst playing with the stones. Naturally, they'd just laughed it off and regenerated over the next few hours as troll children were wont to do. More elderly and pragmatic minds had realized that since the stones were easily fractured and naturally sharp, they made for good speartips and arrowheads.

[hider=Black stones][img]https://assets.catawiki.nl/assets/2018/9/10/6/e/6/6e6da9cb-9f6c-457b-83d0-d5326d6503f7.jpg[/img][/hider]

Beyond that, there hadn't been many resources that they'd simply stumbled upon. There was the occasional pile of bones from a dead animal, and all such things were gathered up and taken back to the camp. Even old and dried bones could be put to use.

[b]Population:[/b] 172 men, 173 women, 61 children
[b]Livestock:[/b] None
[b]Military:[/b] Militia able to be conscripted up to 50% of adult population.
[b]Food level:[/b] Below Average
[b]Resources:[/b] Bone, obsidian
[b]Wealth:[/b] Nonexistent
[b]Trade:[/b] Nonexistent
[b]Growth:[/b] [i]Average; influenced by low food and racial traits[/i]
[b]Morale:[/b] Average
[b]Foreign relations:[/b] [i]Kingdom of Giwabi(Wary)[/i]
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[hr]

[hider=Meanwhile...]
"Time is running short, O Great King..."

Each softly whispered left the witch's lips with a serpentine hiss.

He clenched a fist so tight that it might have shattered were he truly  made of ice, but he was still of flesh and blood yet. "What will it take to rouse them from their sleep? Another fortnight? Even longer?!"

She shrugged and he grew even more furious. "Tell them to keep driving back the spring! You'll soon have more to fuel the magic."

He rose up from his gigantic throne and made for a balcony in his frozen fortress. Though he was far from cold, Tjatse clutched his eagle pelt tighter about him as he left.[/hider]