[center][h2]Under the sea[/h2][/center]

A dark shape moved through the frigid water, the little water birds that called fleeing into the relatively safety of the crystalline vegetation smothered in the light devouring sea floor. Despite their ducking for cover, the titan kept coming, opening up mighty jaws as if it intended to simply devour its way through the reef. 

And that was, in fact, what its plan was, just not with jaws. Instead of devouring with its maw, life, instead, emerged from it. Beings with round armored heads, grasping claws and, at their core, a human, wearing/piloting the harvester diving suit.

The team of miner-gatherers descended the ramp from the airlock of their cylindrical submarine, a construction made up mostly of geomagnetically manipulated flesh rock covering and coated by the bones and scales of sea monsters. The humans in hulking scale clad armor advanced on the field of crystals, crouched down, and began using the massive cutting claws on their suits to begin snipping at and cutting up the glittering bounty, severing the raw diamonds and unstable crystals from their roots with one hand, and then catching the crystals in another which stashed them in various storage sacks and pouches.

Elsewhere in the sea similar vessels slipped beneath ice and waves, hunting beasts and fowl or excavating vast amounts of umbrium, all in the name of industry and prosperity. 

On land the population had grown from the initial group of colonists squatting in a single settlement to a sprawling realm of towns and cities, mostly built around ports on the coast. Those ports were the lifeblood of the realm, for both the new submarines and the more traditional seafaring vessels brought food and wealth from the sea, which in turn tempted more colonists from across it to set sail for the island, seeking a new life free from the fear of the wars that plagued much of the world. There were peoples from the realms under the triunvarate’s power, of course, but also beastfolk seeking a new life, and followers of the fallen mage god fleeing the massive wolf incursion presently ravaging the lands to the south not already embroiled in the war of life and death.

A true melting pot of people and ideas, and though it was nowhere close to being the crown jewel that was Eunomia, Xavior, looking down at it all from Shelly’s tower, was proud both of the people who had built it, and, of course, of himself for his own little additions here and there. However, while he had been doing his usual patronage and benefactor shtick, he’d been mostly tucked away in his tower on Shelly’s back, tinkering. 

Most of his little projects had been simple things but the little stone he held in his hand as he stood atop the tower gazing out to sea? Oh that, that was something different. He gave it a little admiring stroke, and then hefted it back and hurled it out into the dead sea, where the nodes held no sway.

With a little plop it hit the water, unharmed despite the fall, and then sank, sank, sank, down, down, down, til it hit the ocean floor. It sat there for a moment. Motionless. Completely indistinguishable from the rest of the near identical stones also scattering the ocean floor. Then, cracks formed along its surface, the stone splitting apart at perfect seams as it revealed itself to actually be a little crab golem. It stood up on tiny legs, skittered around in a circle, and then approached a nearby rock and proceeded to give it a little chomp.

Magmatic energy pulsed from the point of the “wounded,” soaking into the stone that began to rapidly heat up, the water around it flash boiling for a moment before the reaction finished. The bite mark closed up as other cracks formed and the new rock crab came to life.

It stood, waved its eyestalks at its progenitor, and then both crabs wandered off and repeated the process, creating yet more crabs. Crabs upon crabs upon crags. Endless crabs, all free. They would spawn, multiply and spread out across the place where nothing lived and the gods could not sculpt, and see if there was anything to be seen.

And then, once the ocean had been picked clean, they would return.

[hider=summary]
We take a little look-see at how node 33 and 34 are doing. They have submarines made out of rocks and sea monster parts, diving suits, and a whole heck load of more people. We also get a very brief report on what the southern wolves are up to, namly ravaging the (former) wizardlands and anywhere else in the south not under coherent protection.

Then we see what Xavior has been doing, and that is to make a self-replicating rock crab to explore the oceans for him to see if anything is left down there, or if there is anything that can be learned about the node by compiling data on the places they do not influence.
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[hider=mp]
5/5

Rock Crabs: Stones animated into crabs, which can in turn animate other stones into new crabs. Come in various shapes and sizes depending on the rocks that they spawn from (but there are no bolder crabs). Have a variety of senses and a crude collective consciousness used mainly to store and collate survey information. Various limits are in place to keep them from just overrunning everything (they can only spawn in sea water being an important one) and are by default keyed to obey and report to Xavior alone.

0/5
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