Ravage the Land II

Iskra emerged some moments after her name had been called out. Casually, with one arm, she held a half-cooked goat leg. So poorly-cooked was it, that a bit of blood dripped from the joint that had been ripped, untimely, from its home. She ate it as though it were, in fact, a tender cut of meat, ignoring the short, bristly fur that still clung to the appendage.

Several large rats, a little larger than the average housecat and behaving like bipedal rabbits in their mannerisms, peeked out of various cracks and windows in the structure, bidding their guests farewell.

"Bye!"

"Don't be strangers, humans!"

"Lightning bless you!"

Iskra shook her head and approached the company. "I'm ready to move when you all are."

It was a hot day, but these were her native forests. Even if her nature gave her a predisposition to the cold, her upbringing taught her to enjoy the heat and the humidity when prey were plentiful and worn-out by the temperatures. "Lethe?"

[ EXP: 200 ]

Iskra looked at the map for a moment and where their newest claim was before promptly deciding to march directly north.

As she walked off, she explained her choice of direction. "Any further east will put us out of the forest and open to being bothered by Medius. Surely there are some disorganized bands in this direction?"

Of course, she didn't answer the question. She had a good sense of where the three larger villages were situated in the woods, and she had a vague sense of where the smaller tribes and bands resided. Most of such small bands, she knew, were comprised of thieves and criminals and runaways who felt they had no place in larger society. In exchange for freedom from persecution, they gave up their safety from entities such as herself or other spirits that might seek to harm them.

Then again, this was a relatively demon-free segment of the woods. Most of the spirits preferred the southern woods for whatever reason. She imagined that they were drawn to the idea of climbing up the "ladder" as it were. A shortcut to power.

[ EXP: 215 || +1 TEXP (2nd post) ]

Iskra finished the meat from the leg and consumed the bones with a few frightening gulps, licking her finger as though having consumed nothing harder to swallow than a piece of bread.

There lay a motive in her madness, though she didn't discuss such with the men in Lethe's company or Lethe himself.

Among the humans who lay outside of the village of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, there were many pagan societies who associated themselves with various celestial objects and natural concepts. Just past the woods north of her, she knew there to be an encampment of humans. On slow days, she'd gone by the area and noticed a tremendous... thing. If she knew anything of the times before the dawn, she'd know it to be a light-up logo for stores in the age of technology. For now, she only knew it as some large, strange object in the shape of a 5-pointed star with a tail trailing after it. The primitive villagers had put a candle in it, and among the ruins they'd discovered and repaired all the non-electronic telescopes they could find.

They passed the days in relative peace, sleeping in the day and waiting for the night so that they could see the stars that they adored. Indeed, their obsession culminated in the worship of Kokabiel, "The Star of God". They saw the statue as a representation of this particular deity and worshiped it daily.

But they were too small and too close to the path between Iskra's claim and her lackey's. Thus, they would have to be removed or subjugated.

"We'll be there soon," she grunted low to prevent herself from being heard by anyone but the immediate company behind her. "Is everyone ready?"

[ EXP: 333 ]

Iskra nodded at the company behind her, having little comprehension of looking ready and not looking ready. Humans never really looked ready to fight to her. One who was preparing to fight had stiff legs, a growl, and teeth bared with a bristling main along their neck or some sort of bristling. The teeth were a major part, though. Thus, instinctively, she never really saw humanoids as prepared for battle in the way she understood it. They had some other, more dance-like manner of performing combat. The sort of thing that required distance from one's opponent.

But there wasn't much time for conjecture. They would soon be in the clearing.

She crept out of the bushes with infinite caution, her footsteps silent as she came upon the scene.

There were several young adults sleeping on blankets around a series of primitive telescopes. Of course, Iskra didn't know what a telescope was, but any human who lived in a moderately advanced village might have learned the use of this particular sort of relic and how handy it was for spying things up close. They worked under the same concept as glasses which many humans had awoken with plainly on their faces after the dawn, though the beast had very little experience with such devices other than that they were thoroughly inedible and had killed a hyena by the name of Pilgrim who thought to crush and ingest the tasteless lenses.

A number of primitive shelters had been constructed all about from local materials: large, wooden boughs for the skeleton; skins, cotton, and textiles for insulation; and sand, mud, and rocks to fill out the structure. Some of them had angled glass panes that fit awkwardly into the roofs. The ground below was weakly paved with ruined asphalt with lively sprigs of grass and moss covering the shards as the woman crept forward, a central object catching her eye.

At the very center of the village there was a star, or what even she could recognize as the symbol of a star with five points and a sort of squiggly white tail with a red bottom. A candle from the previous night burned away inside of it, causing it to cast a pale, yellow glow that was all but invisible in the daylight.

It rested on the ground, embedded into the wide side of a large, flat stone that looked as though it had come from some ruin.

"Lethe... Lethe!" the woman whispered harshly to her follower. "Explain to me these human things. I've always been curious."

[ EXP: 522 ]

Iskra held her hand up against her chin for a moment.

Her next moves were sudden. One moment she was standing here, her had against her chin as her narrowed eyes took in the sight of the apparently fallen star, the next her teeth were about its uppermost tip with a harsh screech.

Of course, she didn't bite down with full force. The fight against the strange, malicious plant and the death of her clanmate who consumed the glass taught her to be suspicious of such things, but she did want to verify its taste.

She stood up slowly. The people had barely stirred from their slumber. It was apparent that they weren't used to being bothered. Iskra shook her spotted head and folded her arms. "These are a weird bunch. Either this thing has some sort of powers that protects them from being killed and eaten by the first hungry beast that happens along, or they're secretly very good at fighting and are just lulling us into a false sense of security." She tapped a foot up against the smiling idol. "I think we can safely call this area ours, but I don't like making announcements to people who are slumbering and not awake. Besides, they might be nomadic and roam around. Maybe they'll leave this area on their own."

The permanent-looking nature of the settlements seemed to contradict her words, but she took out a blade and scratched an odd, sun-like symbol into a nearby tree anyways. The sound still failed to rouse anyone. It was apparent that the place had no guard.

"If they're still here when I come back through, we will enslave them. Come, now. We have much more ground to cover."

[ EXP: 327 || +1 TEXP (1st post) ]