[New Title gained! The slumbering King arises!

You have awoken the Mad King from his slumber and defeated the winter aspect of the Mad King. Your actions mended what the Mad King had shattered on purpose. There is no way to foresee the true consequences of your actions, but the Mad King will shake the earth once more, one way or another.

It‘s actions like these the aeons, heavens, and hells recognize and reward!

New Skills unlocked: [Blessed Cycle of Seasons], [Cutting Winds]

Additional rewards: 100 EP and 25 Shards]

I saw the bridge from miles away. Bridge is too grandiose a word for what the Snake Clan had built here. Three ropes, one for the feet and two a little higher to grab on to, were spanned across the chasm over maybe 50 feet. A thin line, hard to see from a distance, reaching over a whole lot of nothing, connecting the floating debris with terra firma. Well now, if I had sent out search parties into the Wyld, and had to defend those ropes, I would post the guards on the side of the Broken Lands. So if whatever came out of the woods could be stopped by just cutting the rope bridge. I would even post a sentry on either side, because why not.

The question was: Did the Wyldlings care? They had no settlements, they only knew how to defend themselves and their campfires at night. They were wild, they were strong and they were not known for their infrastructure, chain of command, or discipline. Would they be content with hanging around a guard post? I kinda was banking on the fact that they would not. Or I would find a cut rope, grinning Wyldlings, and would have to take drastic measures.

So I snuck back into the twilight of the woods, just a bit, cloaked myself in the shadows of [Walk the Night Unseen], and approached the bridge from an angle that would give me the best chances to hide if necessary.

I first heard their rough voices laughing casually in their guttural language. A small group of them, it seemed, and they were camping out on this side of the rope. I was fairly well hidden in the undergrowth, but should I wait for nightfall? I could use the Nightmares to my advantage, but they would threaten me as well. No, I had to act soon.

I crouched on my belly, carefully bending low hanging branches out of my way, and hid in a nearby thicket. There were three of them. Two males and a female. One of the males looked like a youngling to me, he had a bit of striped fur growing on his naked back and shoulders. There was a club, a strangely grown branch with a thick knot at one end, highly polished, lying beside him, while he used a dagger to cut some meat for the fire that already burned between them. The bigger man was burly and had a wild mane of hair on his head and wore the hide of a wolf, with head and all, over his shoulders. He laughed with sharp teeth through a thick beard that reached down to his breast. His weapon of choice was a chipped longsword, badly maintained. And definitely not made by the Wyldlings. Spoils of war. The women had a longbow and some short axes, a stout body, and war paint all over her skin. Her head was without a single hair, you could see some scales shimmering through and she had the slitted eyes of a reptile.

The woman seemed to be the most dangerous because I had nothing to defend myself against well-aimed arrows, especially if distracted by other fighters. Depending on her strength and Skills, a longbow such as this could pierce my chain shirt with ease and not even [Stonehide] would protect me completely. I had not known that the Wyldlings even had longbows. At least they had not been used in the siege, I had the misfortune to have taken part in. Spoils of war again? But you couldn’t just pick up and use a longbow effectively, even if she had the strength to draw it. The bowmen of Ravenrock, farmers, and other low-borns that trained twice a week every week, took years to reach their full potential on the battlefield. That meant that she either had a specialist class for the bow, easing the use of it, or she was overconfident. Better to assume the worst and take her out first.

She was also the reason I did not try anything rash, like trying to lure them away. Surprise was my only ally here. To split them up seemed worse to me than to alert them. Never alert someone with a longbow. There was the added risk of them simply retreating over the bridge, cutting me off completely.

Well, it had been a while. The last time I had fought the Wyldlings in truth I had not died yet, had not been a Twice-Born. A lot had happened since then. I had overcome bigger obstacles than this. The plan was simple, as any good plan. Misdirection and attack from where they would not expect it. I would avoid the night, the Nightmares were too scary, but I needed the twilight of dusk to not be exposed to whoever guarded the other side of the rope.

The ground at the cliff close to the chasm was pure stone, easiest to sneak on, especially if you took the strong winds into account that blew there. I had crawled behind a boulder, to which one of the ropes had been tied to, that protected the fire and the group from the side and the wind, but not from their allies on the other side of the bridge. The sun touched the horizon and I threw the heavy branch I had brought. It sailed past the group and landed among the bushes. They whirled around, eyes to the woods. I timed the two steps I had to take with the noise of the impacting branch, after that all they could hear was the fluttering of my cloak. I was behind them, over the cliff, nothing under me but an infinite fall and the swaying ropes. [Airwalk]. I pushed myself off the air, towards the group, which was getting up, grabbing weapons, and scanning the bushes for danger. Time seemed to slow down.

I landed behind the youngling with the striped fur, who was just bending down to grab his club. I ran past him to the middle of the camp. I had eyes for the woman only, who had gotten up quickest, and already had an arrow nocked on her bow. She heard me and the scream of the older Wyldling as I dove for her, Kingsbane throwing his sharp shadow over her reptile visage. She raised her bow even as I descended upon her mid-swing, but here the large bow proved to be her downfall. It was too big to be readied that fast, she could not bring it around quickly enough. I went all out on her [Improved Strength] driving Kingsbane deep into her shoulder, cleaving through breast and torso until it got stuck on the collarbone. [Ghost Strike] trailed behind, smashing the falling woman in the face, frozen flesh, and blood raining over the ground, cutting the scream short.

[Female Wyldling Scout defeated! Reward: 13 EP]

I kicked her off my sword. I should not have taken the time to do that. The club with the polished head smacked me on the back of my head, and while my [Improved Resilience] caught most of the blow, I stumbled and fell. It saved my life. The sword of the bigger man cut nothing but my hair as I went down. I scrambled away, heard the club hitting empty earth behind me. The youngling had jumped after me, getting in the way of the bigger man. The next wild swing I caught on the flat of my blade and kicked the man back into the other one. I could not let them coordinate.

I pressed after them and activated [a Murder of Crows] when I was close enough. The crows wrought of shadows erupted out of my cloak and fell on the Wyldlings, who rocked back defending themselves from the chaos and pain. I ran the young one through until my sword exited his back and we were face to face. He gurgled blood at me, staring in confused pain. With a sickening squelch, I tore Kingsbane free of the flesh, while the dead man fell into the fire, sparks flying everywhere.

[Young Wyldling Scout defeated! Reward 4 EP!]

The older man bellowed in rage under the onslaught of ghostly crows. His eyes burned in a scarlet light and his muscles bulged up under the wolf fur. He completely ignored the crows that took tiny chunks of flesh off his back and stormed at me, sword flashing with unnatural strength. I made the mistake of parrying the first strike. Kingsbane ripped free of my grip, sailed away into the bushes as my wrist bruised under the force. I screamed in pain and jumped backwards in desperation, his sword always just a little bit too short to catch my neck. Finally, I had the Ravenbeak free. I managed to duck under a swing and my hammer smacked into his side. Uneffective. He did not even slow down.

I had to take a risk. I activated [Stonehide] with all the Mana I had left, which was not much after the crows, and went into his range. His chipped and old sword smashed against the stone and ...shattered. As well as the stone. We both were repelled by the impact and the exploding shards of metal and stone, tumbling backwards a couple of steps. We looked at each other over the smoldering corpse of the youngling.

He raised his hands and said something in his language and bloody horn blades shot out of his knuckles, while all over his body horn plates grew, tearing his flesh while emerging, until a blood-soaked abomination of flesh and horn stood before me, roaring as he charged. I knew that feeling all too well, being charged by something big and terrifying.

I rolled out of his way as he punched the tree behind me, punched through the tree behind me, splinters following his swing. I scrambled back, he grazed my shoulder, sending me spiraling to the ground. He grabbed my foot and threw me. I sailed through the air, smacking into a tree. Jagged blades of horn pierced my leg, pierced my belly. I coughed blood. He raised me up over his head, snarling with no sign of humanity left in his eyes. The Ravenbeak smacked on his head. Once. One more. Again. The spike popped his eye. Blood splattered everywhere. I slipped out of his grip as he stumbled back, hands pressed on his face.

He swung wildly. My hammer smashed his knee. He roared. My hammer shattered his wrist. He followed me stumbling. I ducked under his deadly embrace, grabbed his belt, and pushed. He stepped into the air. I jumped screaming, turning, and hit his back with both feet, slamming to the ground afterwards. He fell. His head hit the rope on the way down and he spiraled out of sight down into the chasm.

[Wyldling Berserker defeated! Reward: 16 EP]

Three Shards floated over to me as I stumbled to look for my sword. I had puncture wounds in leg and belly and was bruised all over. But I had won. Victory.

I looked out over the bridge as the sun finally went down. There was a Wyldling halfway on it, with a pair of them still on their side on solid ground. Our eyes met. Well, that was just stupid. I cut the rope he stood on.

[Wyldling scout defeated! Reward 8 EP!]

I made myself a fire well away from the Wyldlings, looking over the spoils I had taken. Three Dragonamber amulets, as I called them, and a longbow with a 14 arrows in an artfully embroidered quiver. I had taken the daggers of the woman as well, good steel from the Empire of the Sun, and she had taken care of them where the brute had neglected his sword. They were proof to my theory that the Snake Clan had indeed come from the shores of the Empire, alongside Barak Bloodbraid, and where either looking for the [Shamans] and [Seers] in training or a way to their home, that was not blocked by the Dragon of Darkness and his forces.

As I pondered the events of this more than exciting day, I had just finished cleaning and bandaging my leg, Zero crouched out of my pocket and fell into my lap raising his end to the fire.

"What is it buddy? You still cold?"

I watched him crawling awkwardly over my leg until he came to the belt pouch and started to rise up and fall on it. Over and over. I got the message.

"You want something?" I opened the pouch and took out the Dimensional-Flexibel-Chest, I had stored there. Zero tapped against the wood as fast as his little body allowed. "What is it?" I asked, then snapped my finger in realization. "The metal?"

Now I was excited as well and hurriedly opened the chest to its full dimensions, taking out one of the light and shiny ingots of unknown metal the golem maker had left me. Zero bounced up and down when I held the metal in my hand.

"Here you go." I said and put the metal next to him on the ground. Zero crawled over and climbed on the ingot, laying flat on its surface. "Is that helping you?" He showed no reaction, but I could hear a faint grating noise from him. Was he somehow...eating the metal?

"You do you." I yawned. "Wake me if something comes up."

The next morning something much more beautiful than the impressive sunrise greeted my weary eyes. Zero had somehow made that ingot of the unknown metal disappear and was now five rings long. And he shone in the sunlight because he was now made of the foreign material.

"Yes!" I cried. "You did it. You scared me there, little guy. But this is awesome. You can have all the metal you want, we have plenty."

He bounced in joy and renewed strength and vigor.

"Say, Zero, can you tie a knot?" I asked, only to see him angle his head as if in question. "Well, time to practice." I threw my rope over to him.

So, here it was. The stupid way to reach the Broken Lands. Zero had rolled himself to a small knot of metal. I had spliced my rope to his last chain link and was now swinging the rope with Zero as a weight at the end. It took a couple of tries to throw him over, the distance was not too far for my strength, only 50 feet, but it had to land just right, not immediately slip down afterwards and Zero was fairly light after his transformation. It took forever. Zero landed somewhere behind the rock I had aimed at and began, excruciatingly slow, to drag the rope around the rock. He was so little that he had problems pulling the rope, not to speak about moving under and around the rope to make the knot I needed. A simple slipping knot that was not to hard to make. But it was tricky to tighten the knot subsequently from my side of the chasm.

So it took an hour or so, but finally, I stood over the cliff with the rope in my hand. I had slung the rope under my arms, knotted tightly, so I would have something to catch me if my arms failed to hold me.

This was so stupid.

I stepped over the edge.