[centre][h2][colour=#800020]Socialising - The Third Mistake[/colour][/h2][/centre]

Some days had passed since the capture of the 23rd node. In divine fashion, it had taken a mythically short time for Cotazur to recover from wounds that would have killed anything else. Of course, even the fact that it had taken some days had cost him valuable time. Time that could have been spent doing… What? 

The question had plagued him since he had woken up. What was he doing here, exactly? He had been alive for, what, a week, and probably five of those days had been spent in a blackout. The anxiety had stung deeper; what if he had been alive for months, but had been recovering from his wounds most of that time? And in his waking time, what had he done? Killed some people? Murdered some things? Made some stuff?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this was not the way, this was not the way. How would people recognise his greatness if, if he couldn’t even stay conscious for a full week? No, no, no, he needed publicity - he, he needed to get his name out there! He needed cronies, devotees, slaves to his will, oh yes. 

Oh no, wait, that wasn’t the way to think about it. He, he needed friends first of all. People who’d die for him smilingly, yes. Yes, yes, yes, that was a good framing. 

Now, how to do that?

Cotazur had spent the better part of the day traversing his nodelands, moving south at a determined pace. Despite the steepening of the incline, he hadn’t slowed down one bit, besting muscle fatigue with unblinking eyes and unabated speed. Within sundown, he had reached the highest peak of the mountain and stared across his own lands. The red sunset washed across his realm like the blush of a flattered face, but dared not pour into the black abyss that was the sea and the southern lands. Cotazur frowned - he would take those lands in time. 

Then he turned around and saw… Swamps. Swamps and forests. Like his forests, but worse. Yes, he was certain they were worse, probably because of the mushrooms. They popped up all around like zits on skin. Disgusting place.

He had to go there.

Charging down the mountain wall, the crazed man moved into the neighbour’s land.

[hr]

As his strength had recovered during his meditations, the list of things that Vatarr needed to do presented itself once again in his mind. However, as he pushed himself from this fungi throne to stand one idea rose to the forefront of his mind beyond all the others. 

Closing his eyes again as he focused on keeping his mind clear and calm, the only sound that originated within the clearly around Vatarr’s personal glade was that of his own deep breaths as he placed his hands against two different sections of his own body; His left hand planted itself on his upper thigh since that was currently were the new growth of his body was strongest, while his right found its was to his left shoulder, were decay held the most sway. 

There was a moment of silence. Of mentally preparing oneself for what had to happen next. Then…

The roar of pain that echoed throughout the fungal marshes was loud and inhuman, but it was brief. While ripping two handfuls of your own flesh out of your own body was a brutal and rather painful experience, the deity was a fast healer if nothing else. As Vatarr lumbered with their breaths for a few minutes, the two carefully selected pieces of his body that he had chosen rested within his hands while the wounds they left behind were already starting to heal.

Once the pain started to fade, Vatarr focused intently on the former pieces of his flesh and what they both represented in their own way. One represented the bloom of life itself, while the other was the symbol of its decay and rot. As he focused his divinity into them, both started to…melt? What were once chunks of divine flesh turned into a liquid like putty in his hands, twisting into a pair of censors made from some kind of metal, but told apart by being different colors (green and black respectively). 

From both censers grew a chain that allowed them both to dangle in the air, before the final touch of what appeared to be a wooden shaft formed within both of Vatarr’s hands; Long enough that he could use both of the censers in his hands as a flail, but short enough that he could tuck them around his waist to let them hang freely as the censers that they were. 

With the creation process done, Vatarr gazed upon the newly created Life and Death for a moment… before he turned his gaze towards the second of his borders to be claimed and calmed. There didn’t seem to be any harm in stopping by before he moved out to claim some new territory of his own.

[hr]

Kicking over a mossy stump, Cotazur stormed mirthlessly into the woodlands. The mountainside hissed with rolling gravel as he came to a stop at its food, spying into the thick overgrowth and dense undergrowth. He found his first giant mushroom; it taunted him with its mycelian vigour and myconic pride. Cotazur would not suffer its continued existence.

With a raged jump, he skipped ahead and cut it down with a single chop of Flawless. The mass of mushroom came crashing to the forest floor, clouds of spores rushing into the air like the dust off an old mattress. Cotazur kept chopping it up into thick rings; all around him, animal life cowered and escaped deeper into the woods. The madman screamed and kept chopping away with murderous glee, reducing the mushroom trunk to little more than spore sand by itself.

“YES!” he squealed, “UN-EXIST, YOU FOUL CREATION!”

He kicked over a nearby innocent ant hill and started chopping at a tree trunk thereafter. Before long, he had left a small trail of timber behind, making his way deeper into the woods like a drill through a mountain.

Of course, Cotazur’s one man rampage against the innocent scenery and creatures of the Fungal Marshes wasn’t exactly… well, subtle. One creature fleeing from something was just perfectly normal predator and prey activity; [b]All[/b] of them fleeing from something, regardless of where it was in the food chain… that caught Vatarr’s attention. 

It rather helped that they were all running away from the direction that he had been heading in the first place… and the rest of the ‘tracking’ that needed to happen was simply following the insane shouts and yelling. 

So it was that Vatarr was the first of the divine to bare witness to Cotazur in the flesh. Stepping out from the yet to be destroyed wilderness in front of the murderhobo of a deity, the lord of the Fungal Marsh looked every bit as intimidating and powerful as a deity should be as the tall, deer skulled entity stood shrouded and veiled in a mist that was a mixture of light green and dark green… that seemed to be both encouraging the plant life within its reach to grow out of control while at the same time causing it to wither, sicken and decay into melch almost as fast as anything could grow. 

“[color=darkgreen]Under normal circumstances, I would like to think that I would be a generous host for my guests. Doing one’s best to make them feel welcomed and trying to make them feel comfortable after taking the time to come and visit.[/color]” The tone had started with a general feeling of the speaker being put upon… and quickly devolved into annoyance from there. “[color=darkgreen]You are not acting like a guest. You are being a nuisance. A pest. I suggest you reconsider [i]very quickly[/i][/color].

In his steps, the madman froze like a twig in a winter storm. He chopped his final chop and looked around, his eyes finally settling on the horned creature a rock lob away. He swallowed, straightened his back and dusted off his sawdust-covered cloak some. “The trees, they started… They, uhm…” He looked around. “Uhm, actually, I cannot be a pest, because… Uhm… Because I am a person. Yeah, that’s right. Why are you accusing me of being something I am not, huh? Why aren’t you, you applauding my efforts?” He gestured to the trail of death behind him. “Can’t you see all the weeding I just did for you?”

There was a soft sigh and a shake of his head. “[color=007236]I don’t even know your name yet… and I can already tell that coexistence isn’t going to be possible. I don’t know what you represent sir, but there is no place for it in my world.[/color]” This wasn’t said in anger or boastfulness. It was simply said in the same manner one would say they were going to finally deal with whatever was causing that awful smell in the storeroom. 

The source of the mists revealed themselves as Vatarr started to spin his twin flails, his attention locked on this intruder. The crazed man scoffed.

“Wh-what! You, you would dare raise a hand against me?! You absolute cretin, you mindless bafoon!” Cotazur readied his axe again and raised it over his head. “You… YOU WOULD DARE?!” He then charged ahead swinging wildly. “YOU WOULD DAAAAARE?!”

There wasn’t a verbal response from Vatarr. There was just the patiences of a predator as he waited until the axe wielding idiot was in range… and then two things happened in quick succession. The first was for Life to come swinging from the right on an interception course with the axe blade, the goal being to ‘slap’ it to the side in order to knock the wielder off balance and open him up to attack.

The second was for Death to take advantage of this opening to connect with the side of his face, [b]hard[/b], the impact coming with pure entropy and pestilence to really make it stick.

As planned, so it went. By Life, Cotazur's tool of harm was obliterated from his hand, soaring into the unknown depths of a nearby swamp; by Death, his face suffered the same fate, though his neck was fortunately just strong enough to pull the rest of his body along. Cotazur soared through the air and crashed into a mass of moss and grimy water, forming a small crater.

"Kh… Kh…" was all his shattered mouth managed to squirt out as hopelessly directionless limbs twitched and poked weakly at the air and water. The mass of fur that was his cloak had hardly cushioned any of the blow - his armour was cracked in places.

In another timeline, this would have been where Cotazur’s story ended; With one or two finishing strikes from Life and Death and his corpse left to be dragged down into the mud and serve as nutrition for a great many lifeforms. However, before these final blows could land, there was a moment's pause on Vatarr’s part as he gazed down at the badly wounded deity. 

Silently, the dark green mists of Death started to disappear while Vatarr gently swung Life over Cotazur’s broken form, its life encouraging energies easily seeping past his broken armor and aiding his flesh in regenerating and healing. “You invaded my realm, terrorized its population, destroyed plants and animals with wild recklessness. By all rights I should kill you here and now for being the young and reckless idiot you are… but we are both young and capable of doing reckless, idiotic things.”

“[color=007236]In exchange for your life I am claiming your land and its Node to do with as I see fit and banishing you to the North. You may take your axe with you so that you may defend yourself and claim one of the still available Nodes to the North. Do you agree to these terms?[/color]” Some might have argued that the choice between being exiled and being executed wasn’t much of a choice at all, but one always had the freedom to suffer the consequences of one's actions. 

Without so much as a word, Cotazur sprinted off to the north like a spooked rat, not even bothering to look for his weapon.

For a moment Vatarr watched as the lesser deity fled without even stopping to claim the weapon that he had generously allowed him to keep in the terms of the agreement. There was a moment of silence before a sigh escaped him. Turning towards where the axe had flown, the deer skulled deity calmly went to go and search for it; He was already going to have to make a detour to request a mortal to take a message to Brey, he might as well ask for someone to take the axe and run it up North after its skittish owner. 

No one would be able to accuse him of being a thief after all.  


[hider=Summery]
Cotazur decides to come visit his neighbor, but hates the fungal swamp vibe they have going. 

Vatarr tears out chunks of his own flesh to create Life and Death before he decides to go on a detour to visit his second neighbor before heading towards Node 28. 

Vatarr encounters Cotazur in his domain, destroying the place and found the answer as to why wanting. Deeming this illogical idiot god to be more trouble then they are worth, Vatarr intends to kill Cotazur then and there. After a very brief 'battle', Vatarr is about to murder the disarmed and injured Cotazur before having a change of heart, instead allowing the deity to escape the encounter alive in exchange for Node 23 and banishment towards the North. 

Cotazur accepted the offer and fled without his axe, despite being allowed to take it with him. Vatarr makes a small detour in order to find said weapon so he can send a mortal to run it up north and give it to Cotazur, as well as a messenger to Brey. 
[/hider]


[hider=Might]
Vatarr spends 5 Might to create Life and Death, a pair of censer based flails made from his own flesh that respectively release a pair of mists that encourages healing, growth and regeneration [i]and[/i] decay, pestilence and destruction.    
[/hider]