The first beings to discover the massive series of fortifications in the center of the formerly Uncharted Lands were scouts from the United Non-Human Alliance. A small force had reached a mountain that was a great ways away from the farthest line of defenses and could overlook them. A male Elven scout was the first to notice that something bizarre had manifested itself several tens of kilometers from the foot of the mountain, as his Elven eyes were second in sight to none. Still, he could not clearly make out what was there, and took a spyglass from a pouch and motioned for his comrades to cease their actions so he could concentrate.

As he gazed through the dwarven-made spyglass and turned various knobs to focus the view he was shocked by the sight of strange and unnatural constructs. He motioned to a dwarf nearby to look through the spyglass himself, to which the dwarf replied with a grumble. As the dwarf focused the glass to his own needs, a look of shock swept his face as well.

“By the Ancestors! I’ve never seen fortifications like these before! Who could have made them in such a short time?” He uttered in the typical Dwarven accent that sounded like a heavy Scottish accent.

“Well, Barton? What do you think, did the Humans make them?” the Elf asked.

Barton lowered the glass and shook his head.

“No, there is no way in hell that the Humans could have made that in such short time, let alone gotten this far by now. Something, or someone else made this and likely much, much more. Did you see the small pyramid-like boulders jutting out from the ground? Those are likely to be designed to stop siege-works and disrupt movement by columns of troops. The twisting wire fences are likely to be used to trip up and stop infantry and cavalry, while the larger stone structures are possibly designed to hold archers or crossbowmen… Whoever thought of this defensive line made it quite long and likely many layers deep. Also, there appear to be areas where the land is uneven. I would bet my last pint of ale that there are traps placed underneath the ground there. In the heat of a battle you wouldn’t know it until you walked into them.”

The scouts were now very concerned. Something powerful had made its home either near or on the center of the Uncharted Lands and thus had key access to both the Human lands and to the newly founded United Non-Human Alliance. The Alliance scouts had actually made a discovery besides the discovery of the central fortifications. As they had traveled faster than the Humans, they had discovered that any area other than a relatively narrow lane through the middle of the Uncharted Lands would be suicidal for an army to cross.

Despite the former dungeon now being stable, the effects of its former instability were easy to spot. In the north of the central access there were treacherous mountains and canyons that intersected each other at chaotic intervals. In that place you could be walking through a mountain only to turn a corner and fall several miles from the mountain to the start of a mile deep canyon. There was no way an army of Humans could move through there, especially with the high-rank monsters that prowled there. While in those areas scouting the scouts had to constantly move and hide to avoid being torn apart by Rank 4 Storm Eagles and Rank 5 Mountain Wyrms.

Stolen novel; please report.

On the south side of the central access there was a catastrophic mix of molten, volcanic hellscapes that were too hot for all but the dwarves and blistering cold frozen snowfields and glaciers that could cause late stage hypothermia in mere hours. Only in the center, in a relatively straight path was there any habitable terrain. It would have been the best avenue of attack for the Humans on their crusade and a place where the Alliance could build a barrier to attempt to stop them. Now that they were far enough in they saw that they now either had nothing to worry about or everything to worry about. To the scouts and the higher ups who received their reports they now had a 50/50 chance of either gaining a powerful ally or a deadly enemy.

Finally after several weeks of debate between the Alliance Council, a course of action was decided. They would send diplomats equipped with prototype Teleportal Escape Devices. In the event that they were meeting a friendly group, they would attempt to bring them into the Alliance and if they were hostile they would use the Teleportal Escape Devices to instantly teleport back to the safety of a designated city.

….

….

While the scouts were observing the fortification line for the first time, they were unaware that there were "eyes" trained on them. Several GM Snipers had lined up shots on the potential foes center of mass. Their beam weapons fired a pinpoint precision stream of weaponized energy at an extremely high speed and the only real way to avoid a shot from their specialized beam rifles would be to know where it is going to hit and move out of the way ahead of time. With their mechanical forms they were unaffected by cold, heat, wind or other environmental hazards that would force normal snipers to move or stop their task.

While they trained their long-range beam rifles on the Alliance Scouts, they were receiving reports from numerous aerial units of other small scouting groups operating near the edge of the fortifications. As the number of scout groups that had been detected increased, the odds of one of them getting away increased as well. Not all of the scout groups were in places that had groups of long range specialist and there were likely to be groups that they weren’t aware of. While monitoring the scouting groups it became clear that they weren’t human, which is what ultimately swayed their creator to make a decision.

“Don’t shoot. Let them be. They aren’t Human and have not tried to harm us yet. If they make a hostile move then we may escalate, but not now. If there is a conflict I want us to be in the right, and killing them now would only put us in the wrong and give them incentives to declare war. Alert me if they send actual military forces and, if so, check to see if they might be escorts for diplomats. In preparation for a possible diplomatic visit, clear out most of the mines and Punji traps from a portion of the line and send a Big Tray over there. If and when they arrive, I want them to see that we are not someone to make an enemy out of.”

Thus, the GM Snipers lowered their weapons, but kept a close eye on the scouts until they left.