The creature that emerged from the mass of flesh was in no way better than the corpse dwellers, it was tall, pitch black, and stood on digitigrade legs. It had spines running down its back and a large head with bat-like ears and large glowing red eyes. It looked at the corpse dwellers for a second before lunging into action and bit the one closest to it. The dweller tried to fight back but soon its carapace started to lose its luster and its legs curled up. Once it drained the blood and magic from its victim the creature tossed it aside and pounced on the next one, but this time it did not waste time feasting on blood and just tore into its next victim. The dweller screamed and struggled as the entity tore off its carapace and proceeded to beat it with it. Finally, the other dwellers reacted and quickly pounced at the creature, to which it responded by ripping off its current victim and stabbing all those who came close.

After a few stabs, the dwellers learned their lesson and tried to back off, but the Murolok wouldn’t let them. It grabbed a second leg and jumped into their mist and started frantically stabbing them and the dwellers were fighting for their lives. After a while, everyone was full of holes, but the dwellers looked like they had the upper hand. The Murolok realized its situation and backed off but not before grabbing a mortally wounded dweller. It retreated to a safe distance and bit the dweller's neck, its vicious puncture wounds started to close and its eyes shined brighter. The dwellers realized what it was doing and charged trying to disrupt its healing process, which worked. The Murolok’s wounds were only partially healed when it was forced to back off.

I was growing tired of their little show so I decided to end it. I raised my hand and infused magic into the Murolok causing its body to swell and twist. It grew another two feet and its claws extended and gained a black luster. Its wounds had healed and it was ready to finish the fight, it dropped its previous weapons and charged back into the crowd of dwellers, and started to tear in. This time the dwellers had no chance to fight back. The Murolok under my influence was now unstoppable and it tore apart everything in its way and soon the battle was over.

The Murolok stood on top of its enemies for a second before walking to the stage and stood by the pinned Buckferd. Now that all the dwellers are taken care of, I looked the room over for anything I missed and didn’t find anything. I turned back to the dumbfounded audience and slowly swept my vision across each individual. They lowered their head and backed away when they sensed me observing them, the desired reaction.

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I turned to the halfbreed and waved her over. She looked at me then turned to the staff bearers for guidance, and they responded by looking at each other and whispered a few things before one of them, personably the elder, turned back and gave her a small nod. She looked down a second and gathered her courage before nervously walking to me. I reached out and formed a mental teether and asked for the purpose of the raid, and she responded with something that was very interesting.

The broken hand of god, a completely unfamiliar name to me but the description on the other hand was very familiar. A metallic box that’s covered in all kinds of gears and moving components, with a large eye-like symbol on the top that contains a deep purple jewel in the pupil. A familiar object but I know it by a different name, the flesh sentries. These seemingly benign boxes of metal are in fact prolific killers who know no mercy. If placed by organic material they will rapidly absorb and assimilate it until it has enough to form a humanoid shape, then it will proceed to look for material, living or not until they become towering giants of flesh.

I knew I recognized that aura emanating from the wall, and now that Buckferd opened a rift to a section of the killing fields the aura was much stronger, what I sensed before must have been the residual energy from the frequent openings of the rift Buckferd opened. Talking about Buckferd, I turned to look at him, I wonder how he even got his hands on such an object. I turned back to the halfbreed in front of me and asked a few more probing questions before walking over to the stage.

I sent a glance back at the serpent and decided to send over the general coordinates of the forest I decided to claim, before grabbing Buckferd and walking through the rift along with the Murolok. The space around me warped and spun for a second before I arrived at its set destination, the entrance to a large stone temple. I looked around and sent out a probing wave of magic, and found no traps or anomalies, but I did find several people. I did not arrive at the place I was expecting, it was not one of the fields. There was, however, a familiar environment, ash blew along with the wind and the sky above was a pitch black. The magic in the surrounding area was choppy and inconsistent and the very air around me looked almost distorted.