This Caern of the Borean White Wolves was a place of power, a holy site, and also had a practical purpose. It bound the Great White Worm, an ancient Bane of ice and cold, beneath it, preventing it from rampaging about the tundra and drowning the world in winter, or somesuch thing.
Generations of Boreans had been raised and died in defense of this place, sacrificing their lives against spirits and Fey and dark things born from the Maze that wanted to free the Bane.
One of the most effective ways to quiet the beast was blood sacrifice, so the occasional humans were kidnapped and their blood offered up to the thing to placate it.
This Sealing and monument to the White Worm was also their greatest triumph, and the one that had cemented their place among the Great Clans of the Werewolf Clans. As such it was considered the center of their power, and it was from there that the Five-tailed Werewitch of the Borea ruled her Great Pack.
Now something was out there in the tundra, in the cold and storms, and it was killing the Borea.
It was merciless and fast, and it only struck during the day. Greater werewolves, mighty warriors of the Pack, blooded in battle against terrible spirits and twisted beasts, were cut down without exception, none of them managing to escape. In rare cases, the scattered remnants were located, burning away with the vivic fire that had spread wildly among the Human Powered that were finally killing the undead their own sins had brought back from the dead, condemning the whole world for their unclean actions and mass slaughter of one another.
Obviously, the humans were turning on them, as treacherous as always!
Being hunted by mere humans was an insult the Borea simply could not tolerate. Numbers of them converged on the Caern of the Worm, determined to find and deal with these arrogant humans challenging them in the proper way, and then sacrifice them to placate the White Worm.
But there was no sign of them among any of the few human settlements within a thousand miles of the Caern. The Great Shroudzone had led to a massive evacuation of the lands of Russia, and the closest human settlements were far, far to the east in Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula. There was no way they’d miss any force of humans coming from the east or the west...
Magic told them nothing; it was hazed, grey, or simply dispersed uselessly. The spirits of the land noticed nothing in passing, save the bloody death of their kin. There were no lingering scents... and where the dead burned in unwhite flames, the Land reached up and took them eagerly, blossoming with green at their passing, as if it preferred them dead to alive...
They set traps. Sometimes their own burning bodies were found in them. They set bait and ready ambushers. The ambushers died, and if they stuck around, so did the bait.
They set watchers up high in the sky, or transformed into animals, or watching from a distance by magic. Some fell to their deaths, some were chopped out of their animal forms, and some were blinded when their Scrying magic was sliced through.
Packs of werewolves roved the landscape, seeking to blanket it in a carpet of bodies that could respond quickly to any incursion.
Still they died: the weakest, the stragglers, the lone hunters, the unwary, the overconfident.
Still, the bodies were fresher, although they still found nobody in the morning hours as the days rolled by cold and alone, and the kill totals on the Borea mounted.
The best trackers and hunters of the Borea gathered to track this incredibly dangerous prey, and now it was the turn of the Borea to stumble into tricks and traps and die in improbable ways and places.
Still the land and the spirits remained silent, as if those who killed them were invisible... or they had made a choice on who to back?
Or... perhaps the spirits that saw anything had died as well?...
Proud and bold elders and great fighters began to die. Grigmar the Thunder Caller. Krost, called the Render of the Wastes. Gorv the Iron Clawed. Krishka the Ice Fanged. Nimisha of the Eagle Eyes. Priotr, Might of the Borea...
They all died, as did many of their aides, students, companions, packmates, and blood kin. Cut or crushed, slashed and sliced, their bodies burning in unwhite fire, and their spirits could not be brought back to tell anything of their attackers.
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Then the Mazed arrived, following tales of weakness borne on the wailing winds, and even the Borea had to call for help as they found themselves swarmed by the insane werewolves who had fallen fully into the demonic madness that ate at the world. Red claw and fang warred over the white snows of the tundra.
The killing continued, and even intensified, and every werewolf that hunted the tundra was potential prey. It was not the night, cold and dark and windy, that the Packs began to dread, and the potential undead that would rise if the corpses were not disposed of properly, but that first light of dawn, because in the light of day their unseen and unknown killers were still coming for them.
Mazed, Borea, and the Elder Fangs who showed up all died with distressing regularity. Still the land and the spirits could give them no help, even as werewolves and wolfweres tore at one another under the occluded moon and uncaring Haze.
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The Central Spire, Hyperborea...
“Ughril, the Mother of Ice, the Wisdom of Winter! Traveler, Firelord and Snowslayer, would have words with you!”
My words rumbled across the mountainside, and specifically inside the gaping, howling cave here, out of which a subzero wind of nearly hurricane force was howling forth.
I wasn’t worried about not being heard, despite the thin air and strength of the winds. Voice of the Mage had a default range of a mile, after all.
I was also a bloody obvious source of fire floating out there on the Old Steed, radiating the fact I was a Firelord to all and sundry, and this Elemental Cold all around me was only making me burn hotter.
It didn’t take long for there to be motion from within. A great body thirty feet tall came moving warily through the winds, bringing an ever deeper cold with her as she stepped forth onto the side of the mountain.
She looked like a cross between an old woman and a very hairy white gorilla with outsized claws and jutting fangs. She definitely wasn’t a Hag with that Primal Aura about Her... this was a true Old God. Icicles condensed from carbon dioxide hung from her fur and misted about her, with drops of liquid nitrogen falling from her jaws and nose, steaming as they vaporized in midair.
Still, She reared up and howled up at me, flailing massive arms, plainly indicating Her readiness for a fight.
“You are the Wisdom of Winter, not the Wendigo of Winter, or the Witless of Winter. Please stop the silly displays. I am a Firelord, not an idiotic mortal.”
She paused for a moment as she went back to all fours, staring at me warily... and especially the three Skulls I was showing. My predecessor’s Skull was on Clavus, Inukchuk’s was on my belt, and her erstwhile rival Iriickik’s was in my hand.
Snowslayer was not something I’d called myself for no reason, although Godslayer would have been more appropriate.
“SPEAK, THEN.” Yep, that was Divine Allspeech. “WHAT DO YOU SEEK OF ME, ICEFIRELORD TRAVELER?” Her voice was deep and booming, as befit her size, yet still unquestionably female.
“Wisdom of Winter, I come with a question and an offer. Both are of grave interest to you. Have you time to listen to them?”
She continued staring at me, ready to respond to sudden attack with no-doubt blinding speed, but sensing no hostility from me. “SPEAK, ICEFIRELORD,” She said simply.
“Thank you, Oh Mother of Ice. Let me frame this properly.”
I spoke of the Shroud and the Haze. I told Her about the burgeoning death of the Shroud, and the implications if it were not killed, and our fighting against it. Not even Old Gods would survive the Shroud, either slaved by it as Inukchuk was, or slaughtered and enslaved by the Shroudlords themselves.
All of the Old Gods would be killed or enslaved. There would be no recourse, no alternative, for in the end they would kill the planet itself and use its spirit to enhance the Shroud yet further.
Then I spoke of an Entity stripped of power, no doubt desiring to reclaim it, and probably trying to manipulate that great invading Shroudlord to a certain course of action, which it could turn upon its head.
This knowledge could be kept from mere Soulborn, but not from an Old God, Titanic or otherwise.
“The Wisdom of Winter sits and hears the wailing of the winds from uncounted worlds lost to time. Tell me, oh Mother of Ice, what do you believe this false Guide to Death is planning that would kill this world entire, and deliver all that power from the living and the dead, to it?”
The ape-woman rocked back on her four limbs, studying me, and finding no lies in my words or demeanor. The ice about Her grew even colder and more brittle, long icicles spontaneously coalescing from gas and shattering in the wind about us.
“IT WOULD CALL A WORLD-EATER, AND IF THAT FALSE GUIDE WAS ONCE AS POWERFUL AS YOU HAVE CLAIMED, IT WOULD STEAL ITS POWER WHILE IT IS ENGAGED IN DEVOURING THIS WORLD, INCLUDING THE WORLD-EATER ITSELF.”
“That is also my thought, Wisdom of Winter. I would like to stop that, but to do so, I must know what Bringer of the End it would call upon, and how it would think to dupe the undead to employ such a creature.”
Her pale eyes, just barely blue, turned to the fake black starry night above, painted by the swirling Elemental winds pouring down from beyond, and the clouds swirling about the peaks a mile and more below us.
“GUIOGG, THE DEVOURING MOON,” She said, and the words literally condensed to ice and shattered as they passed me, so that no other could hear them. “YOU SAID THIS GUIDE CAME FROM OUTSIDE?”
“I did.”
“IT IS ONE OF THEIR KIND. EONS IT DWELLS IN THE BLACKNESS BETWEEN STARS, COLD AND SILENT. BUT WHEN IT IS CALLED, BE IT BY FOOLS, THE MAD, OR WRATHFUL GODS, IT COMES TO DOOMED WORLDS. IT KISSES THE WORLD, AND DRAWS ALL LIFE FORTH FROM IT, SAVE THAT WHICH IS BEYOND MORTAL,” the Old God informed me in cold, precise words that still held an undercurrent of grim dread.
“Which would leave the dead, and the undead... The Guide could strip it of that power, and use it to devour the World-Eater, and the entirety of this world together.” I considered that idea, turned it around a few times. “Does the Mother of Ice know of this Ritual?”
“SHE DOES.” She almost smiled at her answer. “WHAT DO YOU OFFER FOR IT?”
“Two new Titles, and a new home.”