[center][h1][color=Deepskyblue][b][i]The Northlands:
Moonlit Nights[/i][/b][/color][/h1][/center]

[hr]

Under the moon’s frosted light, the snowdrifts almost glowed. Their luster was a bloodless white, almost like bone. Even as he crawled through it, Kono was unbothered by its chilling touch upon his bare flesh.

The woods seemed just as alive tonight as he felt. His heart nervously raced, the leaves whispered and the wind howled. He stalked further, crawling slowly through the snow and keeping to the shadows beneath trees. In the distance there was a crackling sound -- not that of twigs breaking beneath feet, but rather of them snapping in a bonfire’s heat -- and the flames’ orange glow seemed as bright in the distance as the morning sunrise. Good; that brightness only meant that they would be all the more blind to what dwelled in the shadows.

He inched closer at a snail’s pace, taking care not to brush against any bushes or bring his weight to bear upon any twigs. Beneath the snow in places where the blanket was thin, pine needles dug into his flesh, but this was worth that discomfort. When he had at last come close enough, so close that he dared not inch any nearer to the firelit clearing, he waited with all the patience of a giant sabertooth.

The words of the afternoon before echoed in Kono’s head: “So they truly gone then! It’s been three sunsets since we’ve seen them. What are we to do now without the womens’ warmth?” Wilu had asked.

“They aren’t far,” Kono had answered, “I know they haven’t wandered far. When the day is clear, I have seen the black pillars rising from where they make camp.”

“Perhaps we could steal some of them,” Honon had half-japed. “Just one or two to share, eh?” And then Wilu had laughed, but not Kono. And they must have seen the realization in his eyes, for they had immediately tried to sway him back.

“Hesutu said we are not to enter their camp, nor bother their band,” that craven Wilu had said. Well, at least Honon had been easy enough to convince. This wouldn’t be like that other time, kono had promised his friend, not like with that Lansa… that had grown horribly out of hand, when she had shrieked and clawed at them they had lost their calm. The snow in their minds had melted, and boiled, and they had acted on rage and instinct from then… all that came thereafter had been disaster, and they hadn’t even been thinking clearly enough to hide the signs of that mishap. 

Ah, and speaking of snowmelt… they had stayed still for so long that their warmth had started to melt the snow about them into slush, and Kono’s simple clothes were beginning to grow damp. He looked back to his accomplice just a short ways behind him, near another tree, and was about to signal that they should reposition… but then came a sharp snap. The two of them whipped their heads to the side and peered into the darkness, making out the silhouette of a lone figure heading out into the woods. She might have left the fire on the edge of the camp and separated from her friends for just a moment to make water, but that was all the time that it took. The two Childan men silently signalled one another with hand gestures, then crept after her with rocks and balls of moss in hand.

The night was of course dark, but not so dark that they stumbled over roots or gave any warning. When they were close enough, they leapt upon the unsuspecting woman, and abducted her as easily as an eagle might take a hare.

[hr]

Far away, through dark woods and blizzards and then some ways past a mountain that walked, there was a land with many lakes and rivers. One neck of a stream, once-wild and filled with rapids but now tamed by a small dam, was home to the floundering Blackmoss Clan. They have thrived here not so long ago, but that was before the First Betrayal and the dozen more that had come since then.

A small group of sentries paced atop the dam on that frigid night, keeping watch for any threat -- be it bjork or beast. The full moon illuminated the surrounding environs well enough to make the lot of them feel safe; it was so bright that only one of them even bore a torch -- Ruslan was that one’s name. On dark moonless nights it was easy to get on edge, for you could hardly see [i]anything[/i] more than ten feet from your torch, but now it was easier to relax.

So relax they did, until they beheld a sable shape in the moonlit waters. It was making steady progress downriver towards their dam. Ruslan slapped his tail upon the water out of precaution, and manbjorks scrambled out from the nearby lodge with spears.

“You’re being too hasty, that could just be a log,” murmured one of Ruslan’s fellows, but Ruslan had sharper eyes and he had seen a [i]tail[/i] bobbing behind that shape. It was a bjork, perhaps an enemy spy trying to sneak into their lodge in the dead of night…

The swift current bore the bjork downstream until it thudded against the dam. The bjork was swollen and waterlogged. “Just a corpse,” Ruslan announced, and that was met with a curious mixture of relieved sighs but also concerned murmurs.

Ruslan held the torch above the body, squinting at it. It looked as though some of the limbs had been gnawed on by fish or some other scavengers, so there was no telling (for his untrained eye, anyhow!) just what had slain that bjork, but he liked to think it was one of their own war parties camped upriver. Finally, he shook his head. “Not a face I recognize. Must’ve been one of those Wickedtooth bastards.” 

A raucous cheer erupted, but a cold breeze stifled it soon after. Most of the spearbjorks went back inside where it was warm, while Ruslan and the other sentries lifted the corpse and threw it on the other side of their dam. Let it keep going downstream, become someone else’s problem. It was bad to leave the corpses out in the woods -- the smell drew in the giant wolves and other predators -- so they usually just threw them in the river and let them drift away.

Their enemies -- those of that wretched Wickedtooth Clan upstream -- cared little and were wont to just leave their slain enemies where they had fallen, or sometimes even make macabre examples of the bodies. [i]Barbarians[/i]. At least that meant it usually wasn’t a familiar face that they found washed up on their dam.

When their shift was over, Ruslan and his fellows went to the larder and took their meal; times were hard with so many of the foragers having been slain by the Wickedtooth and so many others having been forced to take up the spear, so there was somewhat pitiful picking among the foodstuffs. A few morsels remained of that black moss for which their clan had been named, and each of the young bjorks claimed a bite or two of it to take with some berries. There were a couple of odd mushrooms too -- in recent days, those fungi had seemed to have begun growing everywhere, and never before had their kind been seen. But thus far none of the Blackmoss had been willing, much less especially eager, to try them. Hunger could gnaw, but there were many such fungi that could cause pain even worse, or potentially even kill.

Ruslan ate the berries, but left his chunk of black moss untouched. He made his way deeper into the lodge and found Tanas, a once-mighty manbjork that had been maimed by a spear to the gut, and who in the past days had begun to stink of infection. It hurt Ruslan to see him like that.

“Pa,” the youth began, “I brought you some of the good stuff.”

Through blurred vision, Tanas saw the moss in his kit’s hand and smiled at the sight. “No, savor it for yourself. You still have strength in you. Death is near, boy. I feel the fire creeping through me -- don’t think that I can’t smell it too --  and your presence is enough.”

The manbjork’s words were interrupted by a sputtering series of hacking coughs; the sound agonized them both.

“Eat something, at least,” Ruslan pleaded.

“Dust. I’ll eat dust, and save what’s left of the larder for you young lot. You know we don’t have the supplies to waste, boy.”

Ruslan stymied a tear. A warrior never showed his heart, not unless another bjork hacked open his ribs. “There is something, though. Some mushrooms we found. The others won’t touch them; we don’t know if they are good for eating. Haven’t seen their kind before. So take them, if you will have nothing else.”

“Oh? Well, I could try a few then, for the good of the clan… bring ‘em to me. I’ll tell you lot if they’re fish-shite or if they’re good to eat, ha!” his father managed, before the coughing returned.

Some time later, his son returned, and the old warrior graciously devoured the head of one mushroom in a single bite. He’d been ravenous, truth be told, and was grateful to have found an excuse to eat [i]something[/i]. He ate the stalk of that first shroom, and then began working on a second. The fungus tasted odd, and smelled like wet fur. Still, the stuff was not as foul as it might have been, and they seemed to settle alright in his stomach. It wasn’t a terrible last meal, but of course, he would’ve rather had something else.

[i]Or would he?[/i]
 
The taste was beginning to grow upon him. There was a strong earthy flavor but something more palatable layered subtly beneath; it was like aspen cambium, only muddled with a bit of dirt. More voraciously now, he consumed more and more.

“I guess you like them, pa,” Ruslan managed to chuckle.

Seeing Ruslan smile for a moment rather than give his piteous form [i]that look[/i] did more for Tanas than anyone else could have known. Between bites, he offered back a, “Ya, not so bad. See if I don’t croak from them within the hour, and then maybe try a couple for yerself.”

Then he settled back into the mat where he’d been left to rest. The heat in his head and the horrific burning in his infected wound both ebbed, while the aches in his back all but vanished from mind. Tanas felt his muscles relax, and was at peace. It was a good feeling, not like that ominous lack-of-sensation or queer warmth that you felt in a toe before frostbite took away its feeling entirely. But was it?! Tanas suddenly felt cold, and chills wracked him as his heartbeat pounded. Was this what dying felt like? Was he being lulled into the long sleep already? He’d thought that he was ready, but panic still set in.

“Pa, what is it?” he suddenly heard, but he didn’t see his son.

“Ruslan! Ruslan, where are you?”

“I haven’t moved!”

“Oh, of course… my fever, it’s the fever. Please, I need water. Help me to the water…”

Even as a wave of coughs punctuated that request and the remaining mushrooms tumbled out of his father’s hands, the shaken youth jumped to comply. With help from Ruslan as well as what little strength remained in his limbs, once-strong Tanas clambered up to his feet. Leaning on his son, the two slowly made their way through the den and to the river-entrance. Tanas half-stooped, half-collapsed faceshift down, and he greedily began sucking down the water. But this water looked strange. In the gloom of their clan lodge one could hardly see, but some moonlight filtered through the water of the exit, and it seemed to give the water an otherworldly glow. The stuff [i]looked[/i] odd too, its hue almost mauve, but maybe that was just Tanas’ imagination.

“Alright, that’s better. Take me back to my bedding,” Tanas mumbled. He wanted to say thanks, but some odd alliance of fatigue and pride held his tongue. Perhaps that was for the better; seeing him in such a state had to be hard on the lad; he needn’t remind Rustlan -- his little kit, he still remembered how tiny he had once been -- that time was so limited. They both already knew, but it was best to pretend that they could each banish it out of mind.

Tanas didn’t hear any reply, just the rushing of the river through the walls. How mighty was the river’s roar! And in the darkness of the den, the long shadow twisted and writhed. He saw figures in the darkness: they were fighting, they were filing out of a lodge and walking out over a dam, they were climbing a mountain. And that mountain was climbing a hill, and the trees bestride it were lurching and leaning to view the whole odd scene with better angles. [i]“Aho,”[/i] one of the trees laughed, suddenly twisting its shadowy trunk all the way around to look right at Tanas.

He had thought that it was a pine tree, with that trunk and then the triangle-looking shadow atop it, but it was not so pointed at the top like a pine should have been… it was rounded. It was a mushroom! 

[i]“You’ll be with us again soon, I hope?”[/i] the pine-made-mushroom loudly asked. Its tone was not a forgiving one. Tanas closed his eyes, but instead of darkness between his eyelids and his pupil there was a pattern of color. Maddeningly, when he stared into the color, he saw a mushroom that wilted and became earth, a pinecone that fell, a mighty tree that erupted from that soil and then fell, and finally the divine mushroom revealed itself anew as it sprouted from the rotting log. The cycle repeated, a hundred times and one, and yet he had only taken a single step through the tunnel in that span of time.

“I’ll be back soon, we’re almost to my bed. I’m, I’m sorry for letting you down,” he found himself apologizing to those mushrooms that he had so callously cast aside. How could he have not eaten them with the rest?!

Somewhere far away, as though distorted by being underwater, he heard his son’s voice echo something back before the lad began to sob. But that didn’t matter; he could always set his kit aside later and tell him how to behave like a real manbjork, but right now Tanas [i]needed[/i] the mushrooms’ forgiveness. It was a terrible thing to offend a god -- these parts were far from Clan Rod or Mish-Cheechel and so they had never heard of the Green Murder, but even so they just instinctively knew not to offend the divine -- and these mushrooms most certainly [i]were[/i] divine.

Tanas understood it now. The revelation came to him, even as he felt the strange sensation of himself laying on the ground and sinking into his bedding, so too did he feel a sort of cosmic understanding as it sank into the depths of his now-so-pliable mind: the mushrooms were not organized as clans, or even as individuals. They did not have one matriarch, and nor did they have just one grand mushroom lording over all the rest as the mushroom god. No, all things were connected! The mycelium tunneled through ground and soil and stone and river and space and time, linking every mushroom altogether in one incomprehensible and vast network. They were all one and the same, collectively and cohesively a whole, and they [i]were[/i] God, all of the mushrooms.  

It was hard to grasp, and Tanas realized that as he’d grasped the truth of that arcane enigma, he’d been clenching his jaw, gnashing his teeth, and closing his eyes with an almost crushing strength in his eyelids. All of that ended at once when he threw his eyes open. He was no longer inside of that dank and sickly smelling chamber in the lodge where they’d holed him up to die, no, he was outside again and could smell the fresh air. He was curious about his son though, as a father was wont to be, so he stuck his head through the walls of woven timber and mud (it all gave way as easily as water, no, more easily -- sticking his head through was as much hindrance as walking through the air) and observed his son there, looking down upon some shuddering mass of fur that lay on the ground. Ah, that was good, his son was still safe. The thing laying on the floor suddenly vomited, and it was only then that Tanas realized that he was looking upon himself, and yet that was no reflection in the pond. He was well and truly outside of his body!

But if he’d left it behind, then surely he was dead. Yet if he was dead, how was still he writhing and vomiting [i]right there?[/i] Tanas was a simple manbjork, but even he saw the inconsistency there. He concluded that he must not be dead, but merely liberated, unshackled, perhaps even ascended. It seemed logical. He had become a god, one with the stars and the mushrooms.

As a god, the affairs of mortals now seemed somehow beneath him. It was quite a different perspective that was thrust upon him all of a sudden, and normally it might have been hard to adjust to, but he was spurred on by instinct. So with a great slap of his tail upon the ground, he propelled himself into the sky. With that single bound, he thrust himself above the tallest of aspens. That still wasn’t good enough, so to get the ideal vantage point he slapped his tail against the nothingness of the air below him and provoked it into slapping him back (that was how bird flew, he suddenly realized) such that he was sent even further skyward, and now found himself comfortably suspended even above the pines. Yes, from here he could see a long ways away, all the way to the damned dam of those damnable Wickedtooth bastards, damn them all!

He supposed that his first act as a god may as well be to smite his enemies, or rather the enemies of the mortal that he had once been, and so he soared yonder with a malevolent mien about him. But then a soundless roar accosted him, and bid him stop. Furiously, he turned his head toward the source of the silent shriek, and then he beheld the greatest star of all in the night sky: the moon! And how had he never before noticed that Great and All-Seeing Eye socketed in its very center, that uncanny orb that [i]stared[/i]?

“You,” he proclaimed in an accusatory tone, pointing right at the moon, “may be a god also, but try and stop me! I shall summon the beasts of the land, and conjure malady and malaise, and cast it all upon those insipid fools. Let them worship me as their god, and mayhaps I will show them mercy!”

A ghostly dart flew faster than he could comprehend. It cut through the heavens faster than any shooting star, descending from the moon all the way down to the Galbar’s sky in a thousandth of an instant, and it [i]iskewered[/i] him through the chest, right where his infected wound had been. He felt pain again, and this time it was more vivid than ever. Even as an ascended ghost-god-mushroom, he could only gasp for air. But this was not a mere dart, it was a harpoon, and it wrenched him up into the heavens. He was spirited away at an unbelievable rate, but it felt so slow from the pain, slow like the Galbar’s incessant pull had suddenly become a push and he was left to slowly fall all the way to the moon. Still, with the push never abating, his climb grew faster and faster and erelong he was trapped midway between the two bodies, a tiny island of fur amidst the void-sea of space. Fractal lights and eyes peered at him from everywhere between the endless stars and galaxies all around, but his attention was focused solely upon the moon.

That moon was so much grander and terrifying in scale now that he’d approached it; in truth he’d always supposed the thing was just the size of a fist or so, but it sorta made sense that it was really big and just also really far. But none of that mattered; the Eye [i]demanded and commanded[/i] his attention, and he was utterly powerless to break contact with it or to avert his gaze and it bored into his mind. With oppressive callousness, the Eye sifted through his memories, and it was as though he relived his entire life in a few quick moments. Then, seemingly satisfied, the Eye ceased and desisted -- for a moment, at least.

Waves of images and condensed concepts, information and understanding, were forced into his mind. He caught tiny glimpses of the storms of thought that raged through Yudaiel’s vastness, and even just the smallest window into her alien mind was terrifying in a dozen different senses.

[color=9966CC]The concepts co-opted his memories and took familiar simulacrums, that they could retell his life with new meaning and wisdom imbued. In that manner, he could understand that which he could never have understood as words.

He saw the familiar shape of his [i]aunt[/i], the Blackmoss clan’s heavyset matriarch, only her eyes were black voids, like dried and shriveled little blueberries haunting sockets as empty as space. Instead, she looked at him through a great white glow that had been chiseled through her skull and forehead. Through that third eye, she Saw, as did the goddess of the moon. Tanas thought he could see the moon back in there, if he gazed deep enough into the white abyss.

“Y̜̌ȏ̦͔̽u͙̅ ̬̐s̗͎̓͛ę̣̿͑r͉͊v̬̈́e̺̍ ̜̲̂̓m̛͙é͉̣̚ ̠̫̇̚ṇ̙͂̇ǫ̖̽̀ẉ͎̀̃,” the matriarch and goddess stated as fact, “b̺̓͢͝ų̗͈͑͑͡ṭ͙̟́̎̕ ͙̝̳̥͋̓̑͞t͖̻̬̋̈́̈̎͟ḥ̝̘͕̏̏̃̕e̙̺̻̬̍̎͊͘n̡͕̳̗͛̉͊̔,̣̙́͝ ̬̟̩̆͗͘y̺̖̣͒͊͊o̧͍̹̹͂̾͑̀̐͟ų̨̤̣̏̒͘͠ ͎͓͋͢͡͡à̦̥̖͖̃͞͞l̳͚͈̠͑̆̇̄ŵ̧̟̼͘͠a̪̝̋̅y̻͈̦̿̐͆ş͚͋͞ ̡̲͋̄̇͟h̡͈̤̗̃͑̋̓ǎ̙̞̍̚͟v̡͖͂͊e͖̠̗͗̽̓.”

Ah, the reality of the situation was laid bare. He was a lesser god, subjugated to this great one. As all things had to be, and should be. Her truth imprinted itself easily into his mind, engraved itself into his soul, such that believing in it was at once as natural as breathing. But… what was the implication of it?

“How am I to serve your will? What is it that you want? Who shall I smite? I cannot possibly serve you if I do not know these things.”

The matriarch smiled, with teeth that were made of bloody diamonds. Then she chortled.

“I̎ͅ ď͔ó͈ ̣̐n̮͛ơ̟t ̹̽req͈̿uí͓r͔͗e̞̽ k͎̚no̢͆ẃ̗ľ͔e̜͊dg̪͑e̛̯ ȍ͇f͍̀ y͕̔ou,͙͑ ̗͋o͇̎r͚͐ ̻̀ä̲́ssen͙͝t̓͜.̠̽ M̰̍y͚͐ ̩̬͍̱̔̏͐̉̋̚͢͟w̙̦͔̦͒͆̀͋͌ͅí̻̖͘l̮̗͋͘l ͎̪̗̻̩̫͐͊͌̂͆͝Ṣ̛̙̜̝͍͗̎̾͆͘͠ͅͅH̨̦̆̄̽̋͜͟AḼ͚̪́̓̏L ̪̞͔̱̈̀̉͂b̘̫̞̫͓̀̌̂͑͒͢͠e̳͕͚͇̩͊͋͌͒͡ ̟͚̟̥̭̓͆͗̕͝d͖́ǫ̢̝̮͉́͐̽͆͝ń̼ē̛͉͙͚͈͕̑̒͗̚͟.”

Ruslan plodded into the room, a burden upon his shoulders. He laid a hand upon his father’s shoulder, and to Tanas that hand and its warmth felt realer than life itself. “You need only survive,” the young manbjork insisted. And then the dam collapsed and so too did the ideabstraction.[/color]

Ripples of oscillating color consumed his whole field of vision. Hanas’ spatial sense was completely unraveled, and so he was swept along by the mushrooms’ power just as surely as a twig was carried away by the river. Time’s subjective nature was intensified; he did not know or feel its passage, and felt simultaneously reinvigorated and exhausted when he finally awoke and saw a familiar setting of the lodge, only without strange colors or wild hallucinations. “You have to survive,” he heard his son’s voice echo from the ideabstraction, and when he turned, he found Ruslan asleep right by his side. No doubt the boy had watched over him all night, until he had lost the long battle with sleep. Tanas sighed and stood up. Unassisted. He looked down, and saw his festered wound miraculously healed over, with only a scar shaped like a crescent moon left to show for it.

[hider=Summary]
This was supposed to be a tiny little surprise post, but here we go. It’s divided into two parts, both of which take place in the Giant Lands:

The first part remained short, and just established names and such for a few malevolent Childans. At least some of the males are not content with the way things went with the women, and so the same ones that killed Laysa are back at it again.

Part two involves the Blackmoss Clan, who have fallen on hard times due to their ongoing fighting with their enemies upriver, that Wickedtooth Clan that Zenia saw. Bodies occasionally float down the river and stuff, there’s a bit of a warrior culture developing. That mushroom that told Jiugui it was a god might have been on to something, because now we’ve got a very reliable bjork as a source who says that the hallucinogenic mushrooms are indeed a god! 

A wounded warrior named Tanas eats a bunch of them because he was dying and the clan wanted to know if they were poisonous, but he not only survives, he sees all kinds of wild crap, gets texted by Yudaiel, and wakes up miraculously healed! Only now Yudaiel seems to own his tail.[/hider][hider=Vigor Expenditure]
Yudaiel started and ended with 4 vigor.
1 vigor discounted to 0 to send yet another poor (lucky?) soul on a wild trip. Who knew that the Deep State was behind the drug trade?
0 vigor to heal Tanas’ infection; that’s minor enough for a god to do for free.
[/hider]