Alter

1st Amrat 170AU

The shaman wanders through the crimson forest. Only the slightest glints of light from the deep-orange sun high in the midday sky penetrate the thick foliage four stories above. The foul smell of the blackfruit has attracted raptors which tear into its flesh dispersing its fine spores. The raptors pause to watch the shaman as he passes. Alas, all the creatures of the forest avert their gaze to watch the wise master at his craft.   All his eyes are closed and with his staff gripped in his left hands and his right hands stretched ahead, he chants an ancient warning.   There are fouler things than blackfruit in this forest, he thinks. He feels his purple-scaled familiar, a snake wrapped around his staff, agree silently.   His arcane call draws him as if by invisible chains to the source of the poison.   The stench is otherworldly. The ground is soft and the shaman feels the ice-cold, putrid mud against his toes as he opens his eyes. The corrupted glade is black like coal but not dry; it is moist and rotten. The leaves have fallen and the sounds of the forest have stopped here. The pile of bones in the centre, balanced precariously, recounts the deaths of a dozen creatures at least. The bones are cracked and bent almost beyond recognition as if they had been twisted and warp like glass in a kiln.   This was the work of a sorcerer.