Red switched his view to the South.
The atmosphere here was different. The fog was grey choked with green spores. The System map flickered, struggling to render the terrain.
[ WARNING: DOMAIN CLASH DETECTED ]
[ RIVAL DEITY: THE ROTTING DRUID (RANK 3) ]
Red didn't see a God. He saw the influence of one. The trees were twisted, weeping black sap. The ground pulsed like a sick organ.
Moss-Eye and his team (a Grey-Fin and a Mud-Skipper) were crouching in a grove of dead cypress trees.
"Don't move," Moss-Eye whispered.
Suddenly, the trees around them shifted. Roots ripped out of the mud. Branches creaked like breaking bones. The grove wasn't a grove. It was a gathering.
[ SPECIES DETECTED: MANGROVE TREANTS ]
→ Rank: C- (Nature Spirit).
→ Population: ~15.
→ Status: Dying / Infected.
The Treants were massive, walking distincts of wood and moss. But they were sick. Glowing green fungi grew in patches on their bark, eating them alive.
The largest Treant, the Root-Father, leaned down. His face was a knot of wood with amber sap for eyes. He blocked Moss-Eye's path.
"Flesh-things," the Root-Father groaned, his voice sounding like a falling tree. "You trespass. This is the Rotting Garden."
"We are travelers," Moss-Eye said, standing tall despite his fear. "We look for kin."
"There are no kin here," the Treant rasped. "Only the Rot-Walkers."
He pointed a branch deeper into the mist. Shadows of the followers of the Rotting Druid moved there. They were hunting the Treants, waiting for the infection to weaken them enough to be harvested.
"The Green God whispers," the Treant said, looking at the sky where the rival god would be watching. "He says if we submit, the pain stops. He says we become his garden."
The Treant looked at Moss-Eye. "You. Little lizard. Can you cut the rot? If you cut the rot, we let you pass. If not... we give you to the Walkers to buy us time."
It was a challenge. A desperate extortion attempt.
Red watched from the Void. He could use a miracle and burn the rot.
But Moss-Eye didn't ask for a miracle. Moss-Eye was a Kobold of Bastion. He had seen a Hydra fried by lightning. He had eaten divine meat. He was done being afraid.
Moss-Eye laughed.
It was a sharp, barking sound that made the Treant flinch.
"You threaten me?" Moss-Eye stepped forward, poking the massive wooden leg of the Treant with his spear. "You are termite food. You are dying. And you think you can bargain with the High Scout of Ka-lam-tee?"
The Treant paused, confused by the aggression. "We are strong..."
"You are kindling," Moss-Eye spat. "My God does not 'cut' rot. He burns it. He turned a Hydra into ash. He turned a mountain of mud into iron."
'I didn't, though…' Red thought to himself as he watched.
Moss-Eye gestured to his team.
"We don't need you. You are slow. You are sick. We have walls of stone and bellies full of clean meat. If you want to stay here and become mushrooms for the Green God, stay. Die."
Moss-Eye turned his back on the massive monster. "We are leaving. Don't follow us unless you want to live."
It was a gamble. A massive bluff.
Red grinned in the Void. "That's my boy."
The Root-Father looked at the shambling Rot-Walkers in the distance. He felt the fungus eating his heartwood. He looked at the arrogant, healthy Kobold walking away without fear.
The choice was death by rot, or submission to the arrogant lizard.
Creeeeaaak.
The Root-Father pulled his roots from the mud.
"Wait," the Treant groaned. "Does... does your God have fire?"
Moss-Eye stopped. He looked back over his shoulder.
"He is the fire."
[ DIPLOMACY SUCCESS ]
[ NEW FOLLOWERS: +15 MANGROVE TREANTS ]
[ ROLE: SIEGE DEFENSE / LIVING WALLS ]
—
-
.
While the West found healing and the South found salvation, the North found a wall.
Red zoomed his view to Iron-Scale's team. They were the elite unit, led by Krug's second-in-command. They had marched into the Rocky Highlands near the border of Gorr's (assumed) territory.
They expected to find starving stragglers.
Instead, they lay on their bellies behind a boulder, staring at a fortress that made Bastion look like a sandcastle.
It was a citadel carved directly into a granite mountain. Smoke poured from massive chimneys. Patrols of armed guards marched the perimeter. They were tall, muscular Obsidian-Claw Troglodytes. They wore heavy furs and carried weapons made of refined steel, not the crude pig-iron of the Kobolds.
[ SPECIES DETECTED: OBSIDIAN-CLAW TROGLODYTES ]
→ Rank: C- (Warrior Society).
→ Population: ~600.
→ Status: Well-Fed / Militant / Atheist.
Iron-Scale swallowed hard. This was a city-state.
He should have turned back. But he was Krug's Second. He had pride. He walked to the gate, holding his spear high.
"I speak for Ka-lam-tee!" Iron-Scale shouted to the guards. "The God of Iron! The God of Meat! Join us, and be fed!"
The gates opened.
A Warlord stepped out. He was seven feet tall, scars crisscrossing his chest. He looked at the scrawny Kobold. Then he looked at the "Iron Spear" Iron-Scale was holding.
The Warlord laughed.
He tossed a half-eaten leg of a mountain goat at Iron-Scale's feet. It was fresh.
"We hunt our own meat, little lizard," the Warlord rumbled. "We forge our own steel. We do not need a ghost to feed us."
Iron-Scale bristled. "Our God killed a Hydra! He commands the lightning!"
The Warlord leaned down, his face an inch from Iron-Scale's. "Then let him strike me. But until he does, we bow to no one. Go home. Before we decide you look like a snack."
The gates slammed shut.
Iron-Scale stood there, the rejected meat at his feet. He had failed, insulted and dismissed. They didn't need a God because they weren't desperate.
"We go back," Iron-Scale whispered, shame burning in his chest.
Red watched everything. At first, he wondered if they were followers of another God, but the way they talked and what the system said about them, it was confirmed that they didn't serve anyone.
Red selected [ SMITE ]
"Target warlord," he ordered.
[ TARGET LOCKING FAILED ]
[ UNABLE TO LOCK ]
"Well… that was… predictable. I knew there would be a catch to this."