[center]The North
[i]Where the wild things are![/i][/center]

A bitter coldness clung to the morning’s air; this was the north, and when winter came its chill could bite to the bone. The sun up here could at times feel almost anemic in the impotence of its warmth, even if the white snow was suffused with its light, reflecting its splendor more beautifully than anything save perhaps for the endless seas. On this day, however, the sun was not visible, for great clouds obscured the whole of the sky.

Fortunately, these were not the gloomy clouds of gray or black that heralded freezing rain and blizzards; these were white, wispy, and innocent enough clouds, like the warm breath of invisible giants. 

Susanoo swam through those clouds where they were thickest and puffiest. He swam up there, high above the ground, not just to hide from prying mortal eyes but also because dragons like him could not truly fly. Though many of them took to the many isolated mountain caves and hollows of their homeland in the Great Dragon Range, and lived largely solitary and ascetic lives, they were equally at home in water; some of them lived in the rivers or lakes of that distant country, and a few of the most adventurous even dwelled beneath the sea. So dragons could swim, see, and swim through moisture of any sort, unimpeded by thickness or cold or hot or salinity… and clouds were wet enough for those magnificent serpents to swim through, and so they could fly in a sense, when weather permitted.

It was convenient that they could control the weather, of course.Susanoo brought the rain, and the wet rainclouds bore him onwards in this strange land. To keep his bearing, the dragon occasionally slipped into the lower, thinner reaches of the clouds where it was not so opaque. Everywhere below there was forest, lake, fen, and river. And along every lake and river were so many bjork dams. From above they looked like little wooden bridges!

He wouldn’t find what he’d come for too close to those dams, though. So he wandered away, over the forests, seeking out the telltale signs of rising smoke. Eventually he saw just one such plume, and so he conjured a light drizzle and made his landing a short distance from the campfire. On the ground, he coiled his great long body around a pine tree once, twice, thrice, and then stretched in some odd manner that bent scales into fur. What walked away from that tree looked nothing at all like a dragon!

Stealthily, he crept through the wood. Bjorks were not at their home here, away from the rivers; they were like awkward little toddlers in this land of savage and giant beasts, which was why most kept to the safety of their lodges. [i]Most[/i] of them, anyhow. Here and there were the odd hermits, ascetic and hardy, that wore strange masks and worshiped some even stranger spirit. They lived (and died, in many cases, the dragon suspected) for the thrill and challenge of the hunt, and so they dwelled reclusively out in the forest and fought these beasts, and not even to eat them! The meat, and sometimes even parts of the useful pelts, they left abandoned in the forest in shrines.

The dragon, guided by his keen nose, had stumbled upon just one such bloody shrine then. He looked over the pickings; yes, these would do. He began scooping them all up when there was suddenly a garbled voice that cried out, “Halt!”

Susanoo the Bjork spun around to witness one of those strange shamans in a mask, the funny little mortal leveling a spear at him. It was rather impressive that the hunter had moved so quietly! An eddy of wind changed directions, and then that other bjork’s pungent stench reached Susanoo’s still-sensitive nose. It was even more of a surprise that the bjork’s reek hadn’t betrayed his coming.

“You would steal from the spirits, stranger?” the hunter demanded even as he edged closer. The bjork-shaped dragon didn’t flinch or back down, of course.

“Actually I was stealing on [i]behalf[/i] of a god,” he smugly replied. “Collecting your tribute, as it were!”

Confusion lit the beady eyes that hid behind the mask, and then anger. The shaman came even nearer, holding his spear out so far that it threatened to push its point into Susanoo’s fur, but then there was a cracking sound. The thin layer of hoarfrost that had coated a boulder seemed to come alive, and it leaped forward.

The hunter immediately thrust his spear into the ground and knelt in obeisance, murmuring something that sounded like a prayer. [i]“Nisshinek, forgive…”[/i] the dragon heard the hot-head whisper, and the strange ice spirit seemed satisfied. In placed itself firmly between the two bjorks, but then right on cue to sow the maximum amount of chaos, a third bjork arrived with a great big sack slung over his shoulders.

“How strange!” Shen exclaimed. The god walked right up to the nisshinek and bent over to look at it. The little spirit stared back curiously, and then Shen grabbed it and tossed it unceremoniously into his bag. “That one might be useful for later,” the god explained. “Now, Susanoo, let’s see what else you’ve found here. Hmm, hides, very useful. Of course we’ll need to cure and tan them into leather, then braid the strips, and we’ll need a lot more to build the ballistae…”

Pleased that the great and enigmatic Plan seemed to be taking shape, Susanoo eagerly assisted his master by tossing the bits into that sack. They’d been filling it for days with leather, timber, and other sorts of useful materials. Oh, and a couple of conscripts too. Somehow the bag never quite ran out of space, and all the stuff inside never spilled out or got broken around by all the jostling.

Another ice spirit appeared as if from nowhere, possessing a cloud of freezing mist, and it foolishly charged at Shen. A great sneeze erupted violently out of him; partially a product of that mortal guise, and equal part from the fact that he was an old hermit who usually lived in a cave. “What, are you trying to give me a rheum?” the god called out as he flailed about trying to swap the ice spirit like a fly. When he finally managed to catch it, it bit his finger, and with a yelp Shen let go and looked at the blackened tip.

[i]Frostbite![/i]

“Phooey!” he called out, desperately rubbing his hands together. It was no use, he needed something else to get warm. The nisshi was meanwhile buzzing around Shen's ears, but Susanoo opened the bag [i]really[/i] wide. A great whipping wind was created as air suddenly rushed into the massive void inside the enchanted pouch, and aided by a little bit of huffing and puffing, Susanoo managed to force the spirit into the vortex so that it was sucked into the bag, and then [i]somehow[/i] he closed it again and returned it to his master's hand -- the one that Shen hadn't magically lit on fire.

In any case, the shaman, who both Shen and Susanoo had turned their backs upon and largely overlooked, bellowed out a roar of outrage. He seized up his spear, and as the two [i]defilers[/i] before him spun around at the sound of his battlecry, he rushed forward with his spear…

Only to have Shen knock it aside with that gigantic bag. “Yield!” Shen called out as the shaman staggered to the side, his balance lost. The god really did look quite intimidating in that moment, despite subpar planning, if only for the fiery hand. Really gave him a nice demonic flair.

But the attacker said nothing, only raised his spear once more, and so the sack in Shen’s hands suddenly became a stick (for just a moment!) and with a sigh, Shen knocked out that hapless mortal with a single [i]THWACK![/i]

And then the staff became a sack once more.

Susanoo scratched his furry beaver head. “Should we put him in the bag too?”

Shen shrugged while shoving his half-frozen, half-burnt finger into that unconscious bjork’s drooling mouth. “Maybe he’d make a good spotter?”

They put him in the bag too. It was handy having a bag, for when plans went awry.

[hider=Summary]
Chailiss week!

Shen and Susanoo arrive in the norf again to further the Plan™. They're like a reverse Santa claus duo, stealing things and kidnapping people and stuffing it all into a great big magical sack. They need lots of materials like wood and leather, but fortunately, Tuku has instructed a bunch of goons to leave bits of animals out into the forest so they just go around stealing from all those shrines. Things go awry when a shaman and then a nisshinek confront Susanoo, but Shen arrived and stuffs the nisshi into a bag. Another nisshi appears, and Susanoo gets that one sucked into the bag too! The shaman tries to resist, but gets THWACKED and also stuffed into a bag.
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