[center]The North
[i]Here be dragons! And worse things![/i][/center]

Further west, Raijin had landed. There were not so many rivers out here and he hadn’t seen any of the bjork dams; perhaps mortals had not yet conquered these wilder parts. So, without being so concerned about being sighted, the dragon trudged through the pine wood by foot. He left some very curious and large tracks with his four great big claws feet and his long tail that occasionally slid across the snow, but there were all sorts of big creatures out here with funny trails already.

Unlike some of the lazier or more mischievous dragons that had come here with Shen, Raijin wasn’t bothering with pilfering from the offerings of mortal shamans. He hunted on his own, and though he’d already earned a few swipes of a claw whilst slaying a giant grizzly bear, the glowing praise of his master was worth it.

Here, though, he’d come across another bear as it was feasting upon a huge stag. Still, there was something else besides the cloying, metallic scent of blood in the air. This one didn’t smell right; the odor of rot hung over it like a cloak. It didn’t look right. Bit of ragged flesh and fur draped down the sides of its ribs like curtains, and it was a wonder that the thing was still walking. On that note, it didn’t walk right. Its gait seemed unnatural and ungainly, as if it weren’t used to its own limbs, and yet it still moved altogether far faster than any bear should have, wounded or healthy.

And its head wasn’t right either, because it was charging right at the giant dragon rather than fleeing! He snarled through a cruel draconic visage, then he too charged forward like a bull. Where the two giants met there was fury and rending. Raijin’s scales were like stone and they held up well against the beast’s claws, and yet even as the dragon tore through flesh, the bear seemingly felt nothing. They wrested, bit, and clawed, trying to force down and finish one another, and yet both were utterly unyielding in their strength and fury.

With a great swipe that disemboweled the grizzly, Raijin felt a sense of triumph. But that glowing grin gave way to a horrified gasp when maggot poured out of the great wound alongside rotted guts. Still, the bear that was a wehniek fought on, dragging its guzzards through the dirt and snow as if they were no more hindrance than a sagging pair of pants! Its incessant slavering roars and growls seemed to have attracted more of its kind, for soon Raijin saw more darkened silhouettes bounding towards them from the shadows of the dense forest.

At this point, he began to grow panicked. He bashed his head into the bear’s own iron skull and then wheeled about to retreat for a clearing, but when he found it, to his horror the sun’s rays were oppressive, bright, and utterly unfazed by any clouds. It was so warm that the icicles in tree branches were weeping… it would be difficult and time consuming to conjure any rain or mist, and without that, a dragon had no means of swimming away into the sky.

[i]’Thump-thump-thump!’[/i] his heart pounded, so hard that it seemed as though the ground was shaking.

Agony coursed through him as one of his pursuers caught up and bit the end of his long tail. [i]THUMP![/i]The dragon spun about and breathed out a freezing mist, but the chill carried no bite for the wehnieks; once, they had been spirits born of that same icy aspect, before they’d been twisted by hunger. Still, they feared not the cold. [i]THUMP![/i]

Draconic claws rent and tore through rotted flesh, while putrid maws bit down on his hardened scales. Individually these monsters were frightening to be sure, but perhaps not big enough to truly maim his great serpentine body; however, together, this pack of them was overwhelming. The one that had bitten his tail held on tightly, and another one gnashed and tore and dug into one of his rear legs. [i][b]THUMP![/b][/i] Raijin’s head was spinning as he thrashed about, biting into one of his assailants and gagging at the revolting taste that filled his mouth. The itself seemed to throb, no longer even in tune with his heartbeat.

Neither dragon nor wehniek had noticed the guardian until its gargantuan shadow fell over them and the pounding thumps of its footsteps ceased. It reached down and snatched one of the corpse-bears, crushing it in a display of might almost as gruesome as the gore that spilled from between its great fingers.

The gigantic guardian looked every bit a god, for it towered over even the highest of pines. Before its great stature everything was tiny and almost insignificant – a microcosm of the whole forest crowned its head, and that immaculate globe looked more regal than any golden circlet or laurel wreath or rack of antlers.


Raijin’s awestruck stare shattered in the next instant when the guardian’s fist slammed into another wehniek, pulverizing it as easily as a careless foot was wont to crush a flea. These spirits were rabid, but even they had enough instincts of self-preservation to show some dismay at this turn of events. It mattered little though; the remaining two or three only lasted a few seconds longer; how could anything evade those giant hands? How could even a four-legged beast, whether it could tire or not, hope to bound fast enough to outpace those huge strides of the guardian?

The massacre finished, the guardian turned its gaze to Raijin’s the sole survivor even as the wehniek spirits abandoned the ruined bear-husks and fled away in search of new corpses to puppet. But it looked at him almost inquisitively, as if unsure what to do. It probably hadn’t ever seen a dragon before – but before it could finish whatever deliberations were taking place within its enigmatic mind, there was a screaming sort of sound from high above.

The guardian and the dragon both alighted their heads skyward, only to see a fiery trail of glory as some crazed humanoid man was falling upon them with terrible speed and force, a great big metal pole in hand. 

[b]“HIYAH!”[/b] Shen roared as his battlecry, and with a resounding [i]thwack[/i] he struck the guardian over its globed head so hard that it staggered down onto its knees, dazed. The pole became a gigantic bag, and then the master was suddenly yelling at him. “Great find, Raijin! You’re doing better than even Susanoo! But here, hold this thing, and held me get it open–”

The guardian shuddered, planting a hand on the ground as it readied to push itself up. In a panic, Shen took on his true form – that of a great golden dragon.

The two fumbled with the sack for a moment. It was really tiny compared to a dragon, but it proved quite stretchy and their giant claws got it wide open. And then as the guardian tried to stand once more and groaned with fury, Shen circled around it really fast and headbutted it right in the rear, such that it tripped forward over its own face and fell right into the open sack. There were a great many thuds and yelps and sounds of jostling that echoed out from inside the bag, but Shen closed it really fast before anything could escape.


“Close one! Ahoo-aha, ha-ha-ho,” he cackled.

“But what are we going to do with it?!” Raijin stammered, all thoughts of his near-death already replaced by overwhelming bewilderment. It started raining, and Shen’s golden scales gave way to rags as he once more became an old man, except this time wet and tired. And so, so very hungry. He found his rice pouch and nibbled on his dinner, biting the grain in half and letting it sit in his mouth for a minute so that it felt like he was cheating and eating tomorrow’s food too. Perhaps this diet wasn’t going to work out after all.

“Hmm, I’m not sure,” Shen actually confessed, “but the Plan is flexible enough, and a guardian this big will be useful for sure! Hmm, maybe once our invasion is over, we’ll even be able to induce it to make some new guardians to watch over the locale.”


“What locale? I thought you said that the Hivemind had already just about killed everything in its land?”

The god shrugged at that. “It can protect the wildlife then, I suppose. You know, the little bunnies and other critters.”

“What happens when you take one of these guardians away from the land it’s supposed to protect?”

Shen shrugged again. It’d be a science experiment worthy of a kynikos!

Fortunately for him, the incessant questions stopped when Susanoo fell down with the raindrops. The newcomer dragon landed with all the grace of a one-legged horse, which is to say that he slipped and slid in a puddle, splashing muddy water on his master and friend alike.

 “My friend, you look worse for wear!” the fellow dragon began affably. Raijin only sighed in response.

[hider=Summary]
Voligan week contribution.

One of the other dragons that went up norf with Susanoo and Shen is hunting in the forest. It’s not rainy so he can’t fly, and a bunch of wehnieks mob him. It’s looking really bad but then one of the Guardians (the friendly protector giants that Voligan made from the corpse of Aletheseus) shows up just in the nick of time to mash the wehnieks and save our friendly dragon!

Shen comes to the ‘rescue’ a moment later, thwacks the guardian over the head, and then stuffs it in his bag. Notably, Shen ruminates upon the difficulty of sticking to his diet and there’s foreshadowing that he may waver and cheat in the near future.[/hider]