[center] [h1]Fire and Steel[/h1] [/center] The end of the golden road that cut through the darkness of node 11 was not the end of danger that its southbound travelers hoped it would be. After tracking across the smooth luminous pathway, where every moment was a gamble on if something truly horrifying would come out of the darkness, the wall of trees found at the node 12 end of the road seemed like it might hold safty. There was none to be found. Deep within, a mass of muscle under gray fur sat atop a mound of bones. Bones of the wild made up the mass of it, but they were joined by the bones of livestock, the.bones of herders, and freshest and most prized of all, the bones of foolish travelers. Before this throne of bone the wolf king’s subordinates bowed down, each one no less grand and savage, and each and every one filled with the final spite of chaos crackling through their nervous systems and behind eyes too clever for mere beasts. One was standing among them, barking and growling in crude communication. Two legged prey had come. Packs of them blundered through the forest till they reached seemingly random spots, where they were cutting at the trees, piling sticks and setting down large strange smelling seed things. Ripe for the pickings, just as all the others, growled some. Strangeness, requires caution, whined others. Cowered. The voracious nipped at them and they were silenced. The wolf king of the north was pleased his court agreed with the choice he had already made. [hr] The howl of war ripped through the woods. “You hear that” one of the woodcutters said, as he paused his work to look fearfully through the thick dark woods “Wolves. Sounded close too” “All the better reason to keep chopping Jack. Faster we get this done, faster we can get out of here and can get paid” retorted Erin, the leader of their 20-something sized work crew, as she worked to reduce a previously felled tree to splinters which they piled up around the barrel they’d been told to place here, deep in the woods. Jack did that, but the howl stuck in his mind for a long while before asked “Do you think they know?” “Know? Ha. They’re animals they don't know jack, Jack” Erin retorted with a well worn joke. The target of it just rolled his eyes, but the familiarity of it put him at ease. Just how the predators stalking through the underbrush wanted him. Simple beasts followed the order of their pack-lord as they snuck into position, just as many of their ilk were doing around the other isolated herds of prey. They inched closer and closer, waiting for a signal. They were impatient, hungry, and overconfident. They got closer. Closer still. And then one stepped on a twing. “Hmmm?” Jack hummed, glancing over his shoulder towards the noise. He squinted, but saw nothing and after a moment got back to work, Erin’s words in his mind's ear. The beasts relaxed, the stupid prey’s dull senses having not alerted the foolish one among them. Unfortunately for them, the working humans had not entrusted their watch to themselves or even others of their own kind. No, instead that duty had gone to a waist high bundle of colorful feathers which tilted its fang filled mouth and tapped forwards on feet each of which was sporting an oversized claw. It sniffed, tilted its head to the side. Then it saw them. The tamed velociraptor let out a shrill alarm call and at once the woodcutters dropped what they were doing to respond. But they did not drop their axes. Instead they shouted at each other and moved to form up into a defensive posture as their watch dinosaur ran back to them, twittering with alarm. “Maybe it was-” Jack began to say, right before a howl ripped through the woods and the wolves ripped out of the undergrowth, barrelling towards them as their leader’s howl was picked up across the woods and the attack began before it was ready. It was joined by screams from the human and one more sound. A horn, calling loud and low, was blown by Erin for as long as it could be blown before she had to drop it and heft her ax at an incoming wolf. She caught the first, but then the second leapt over the skull split corps of its fellow and savaged her before she could recover. Several others fell before a stalemate began, the wolves circling the beleaguered humans (and their feathered pets) darting in to nip at them. Then their lord stood from its hiding spot and began to lope towards them. A towering beast it was, tall as a man in his prime and several times the mass. It walked towards them with a leisurely pace at first, seemingly drinking in their fear as it stepped into the light of the small clearing the mortals had felled. Only then did it pick up speed, coming at them at a breakneck pace, enough to simply crash through them. Closer. Closer. Then a shadow passed across the humans and it was like the sky was falling as a blue mass slammed down in between them and their doom. Annie, the first demon, a titan of muscle, screamed a wordless battle cry as she slammed a two handed warhammer of silver gray metal forwards and left a creator where the wolf lord had been before it dodged to the side, eyes confused. The wolf lord had not known the two legged prey had those like its own kind among them. The demon met its look with a sharp toothed smile before she lunged, hammer raised and swinging again in an instant as great blue wings bore her forwards with unexpected speed. Yet still, the woman, who had not been a warrior before her ascension, missed again, cursing as she did so. The wolf lord lunged at the clumsy titan, jaws snapping, only for its fearsome growls to be turned to yowls as Annie grabbed it by the throat and choke slammed it into a tree. Bones snapped and blood spilled, and the stunned wolf lord could do naught as the demon raised her hammer for a third and final time, and reduced the beast to a red smear. Silence reigned in the clearing for a moment from human and beast alike, before a shout of rage and victory burst out as the woodcutters charged the remaining wolves who turned to fee, only for several to be pounced by raptors and then brought low by axes. In a moment it was all over. The surviving wolves lead leaving only the victorious humans and fallen bodies behind. Some of those bodies were groaning in pain, quiet sounds that were nearly drowned out by the call of horns coming from other parts of the woods. “Stabilize your wounded! I’ll be back to transport the worst to safety once the attack is resolved” Annie ordered, before taking wing once more. [hr] The wolf king growled from atop his throne of bone at his subordinates. Failures, all of them. They whined about humans with wings and great size. Another growled that they were liars. Winger prey had been barely larger than the norm. It had slayed that which came for it and, true, fled afterwards when the retreat howls came, but that was the cowardice of others. Not it. Cowardice of the king. The king growled back, stepping down from its throne to meet this challenger. And then stopped. All stopped. And sniffed the wind. And smelled smoke. [hr] The unhurt woodcutters had hurried out of the woods, while their wounded comrades had been borne out on leather wings. Now those same leather wings returned bearing torches. They flew over the clearings of kindling and barrels of oil, dropped their flaming loads, and then they too fled as the forest began to burn. [hr] Wolves and their kings alike panicked. Ran. and found only fire. The spots the prey had been in had not been at random. They had been in a circle. And now they were surrounded by all sides by an inferno. It would be a slow death, hemming them in, suffocating them and scorching them, making them turn on eachother in panic. The king thought it was an impressive cruelty. He was wrong. The end was quick. When the forest fire reached a peak a ritual began at the fire’s edge. A great circle of runes within which hundreds of humans, many of them the same woodcutters who had survived the wolf attacks, stood surrounded by priests, one of whom declared “You shall be guardians! Protectors of all who travel here, and through the darklands! This you have sworn, and for payment for your labor given in the name of this task, now and in future we gift you ascension!” The woods raged with fire, incinerating all the remaining fuel in the blink of an eye, be it tree, wolf or beast alike and then it swept forth from the forest, plunging down onto the ritual circle, birthing swaths of demons. Guardians of the road of light, who would found the town of Twilight Rest on the ashes of their ascension. [hr] To the southwest, the plan was the same, to burn a hole before the narrow pass between node 18’s north mountains and the sea. However here the wolves were smarter still. They knew humans better because their king ruled from that same sea all the way up to stone lake, where many human settlements sat, clawing at forest and mountain alike. They did not let the fuel be set, and instead came at the humans as they approached. They fought not just with teeth and claws, but also stolen weapons gripped in strong jaws. Wolven warriors and mortals promised coin and glory, fought, spilled blood, and burned pyres of ascension. The stink of it all wafted south, the scent of the blood and rot and ash of god touched mortals and chaos touched beasts drifting over the valley. Tempting the very thing the humans had come to guard against. [hr] In his temple home Xavoir set down the last of his gifts to mortals, and turned to the node to once again eye the potential shimmering there that had given him the wisdom of steel. The connection to a distant land. It called to him. Reports from humans who had seen Monica and the unknown god meet, and seen the hunger of the blighted abomination that had been made, sat discarded on a table. “Is this a trap Monica? Surely not? Who would be so foolish as to step blindly across the world to the side of one who had declared me her enemy? Who stood by as a monster created an abomination that threatens the people and all we have built here” he asked no one but himself. “Yet perhaps I have been too paranoid by half? Look at me! I have not even left this node since I claimed it, as if looking away for but a second will cause me to lose it” he shook his head “as if I could not trust them with it for but a moment, even when I say I trust them to manage themselves” He sighed, and then, after a long moment, reluctantly raised his hand to the node. “You had better give me straight answers this time” [hider=new map] [img]https://i.imgur.com/eVnjC9A.png[/img] [/hider] [hider=Summary] An expedition led by Annie has burned a hole in the 12th node’s woods (after battling its wolf kings) where they meet the golden road of node 11. They intend to form a city there which will guard travelers from the dangers of the road and the woods. The burnt forest was used to make demons. An attempt to do the same in the south, however there the wolves are smarter and actually armed due to ongoing conflict with the stone lake settlements. The land is locked in an ongoing war with the humans creating demons haphazardly rather than en-mass. The death of god empowered mortals and chaos empowered beasts might well attract the hunger of the very Cradle the humans wanted to use this burning as a jumping off point to battle. Finally, Xavior has used Monica and Benea’s node access to raise his people’s tech again, and has used the time to wallow in indecision over whether he should link Monica’s nexus to his own. In the end he decides he should get out more, and does so, intending to travel to her to get answers about her intentions and those of the hostile god who took node 18. [/hider] [hider=Might] 4 nodes (2 monica, 1benea, 1 Xavior) and 3 mp used to raise the 12th realm to the iron age 2 mp use to make a Node Nexus on node 12 [/hider]