“Any idea what this says Erika?”

It was a half-branch later and Erika had already struck gold… literally! She hadn't really known this about herself, perhaps thanks to a lack of opportunity? But Erika found she loved loot, bounding from house to house with a bulging sack she cackled like some dreadful little loot gremlin as she stuffed jewels and treasures, weapons and keepsakes, art and artifacts, into the depths of her bag.

The others were more restrained, Kara was still leading and seemed to have stuck to grabbing any coinage she could find, Reidar had gathered a rather fine necklace of huge pearls which he now wore, Gunhilda was grabbing runes and nothing much else, she seemed the least keen on the looting but that hadn't stopped her finding the plate.

It was about the size of… well… a dinner plate to be honest. A dark green grey metal about as thick as a door with a handful of strange characters engraved on the surface.

“I thought they were runes.” She said offhandedly as she dumped the plate in Erika’s hands. Erika staggered under the weight and tried not to collapse shooting the oblivious Gunhilda a glare as she rested the metal rim on the edge of a crate, that damn Gothi had the muscles of a troll Erika swore.

Squinting at them and trying to remember her lessons Erika let the plate fall onto the ground. “It’s just the city’s name, Elkhorned… like the city beast, both have the same name.”

“The citybeast has horns?” Asked Reidar over the sound of him kicking a cupboard in around the lock. “I didn’t see them?”

“How do you think the city stays on? The horns are wound around the shell and form the edge of the city, when you get back look at it properly and you’ll notice.” Erika said this all rather smugly but she felt she had earned it; this was life shaper stuff after all.

“How can you read this?” asked Gunhilda seemingly genuinely shocked… After a moment Erika realised it was probably because she was a Gothi, they had such a deep connection to the runes that a non-runic language probably seemed impossible.

“My mother taught me clear cant, the nomad’s language, I'm pretty sure it’s a derivative of alven maybe from when the Alf empire invaded. Anyway, it uses symbols like the runes we use but these are called hieroglyphs, the little symbols are whole words not word components.”

“What’s the one that looks like a man on the toilet?” Asked Reidar.

Erika sighed but knew the one he was talking about. “It’s a man catching a fish… between his legs… anyway it means conceptually the idea of movement or momentum, they don’t have a hieroglyph for elf so instead they use basically the words Powerful Forest King as a compound word, its actually quite fascinating but totally worthless.”

“You sure? Isn't it like… unique?”

Erika shook her head slowly. “I think there’s one in all the leadership buildings?... maybe… actually just drop it anyway… its way too heavy to haul around.”

“It is?” Asked Gunhilda, she seemed… guilty? For a moment.

“Yes, you’ve got muscles like a damn troll.” Said Reidar walking up to the pair as Erika shoved the heavy metal plaque off the table and onto the floor.

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Gunhilda smiled at that. “Yeah yeah, I made sure to drink my milk as a kid! Now I’ve got the strength of an ox!”

“And the brains of one to.” Said Reidar smoothly, Gunhilda threw a cup at him.

“Speaking of big beasts,” Kara said, smoothly stepping between Reidar and Erika. “The citybeast? What IS it?”

Erika paused for a moment as she grabbed a shiny looking rock off a set of bone shelves, tossing it aside as worthless she smiled shyly at Kara. “Ah, you’ll set me off again at this rate.”

Kara laughed, she had a pleasant laugh, light and sweet like mead. “I’m fine with that, I like hearing you talk.”

Erika tried not to blush as she set her sack down on the floor and emptied a draw of loose coins into it. “Well, I don’t know much, no vitki secrets sorry and obviously I couldn’t tell you them if I knew them. But I do know that the citybeasts of the great clearing were made from Woldbeasts eons ago, back when Yggdrasil was still wet from the waters that washed away the old world. One of the first life shapers lived in the clearing… or the Wold, the story’s conflict, anyway she saw the danger for her people, camping next to the Wold was just tempting the creatures within so she made the citybeasts.”

As she spoke Erika grabbed her bag and strolled away, calling back over her shoulder, there were still a handful of buildings she wanted to clear before they stopped for the day.

“Designed specifically for this purpose, big enough to carry a city making it a moving threat not a stationery target and scaring away the Woldbeasts with their sheer size. Of course, the citybeasts don’t ever fight despite how big they are! They’re only as smart as moss despite being animals only able to followed the edge of the Wold and put their feet before the others nothing more, can’t feel pain, can’t feel fear, can’t be bored, perfect right?”

Erika gestured downwards a few times for emphasise as she chatted then she activated [Graft: Warg] with a thought, she felt her well twinge slightly as it emptied so much but there it was, a faint scent, like… saffron? It hung in the air so vague she’d barely noticed but the nose of a Warg could catch it. Not showing any reaction to the discovery she trotted forwards her mouth on auto-pilot, following the pale trail that almost hung in the air.

“They are nearly unkillable, citybeasts don’t age, sicken, weaken, need no air or food and very few things can harm them even intentionally,” Erika noticed she was lisping slightly, the Warg teeth on her new muzzle messing with her human throat structure. “A few of the stormers that Silvermane’s company make to fight Jotun might scratch one but not much else. Even if you do manage to kill one, they have a kind of pearl inside them that re-makes their bodies after an hour or so and nobody’s ever managed to even dent a pearl, so there are only twelve city beats but there will probably always be twelve.”

The scent was getting closer, Erika tried to keep the excitement hidden as she hurried along, Kara to her left and Gunhilda somewhere behind her, Reidar was pacing along on her right and would get a good view… of what Erika didn’t know, the scent might be new or it might be old Erika only had the nose, not the brain, of a warg so she had none of the instincts or drives but whatever it was it was right behind the…

“HEY GUYS!”

Erika leapt backwards like a startled cat, to panicked even to form a spell. Behind her Kara managed to smoothly draw her hammer but fumbled her shield which bounced off the wall, and somewhere in the mass of tent like buildings behind them one of the other two face planted. Above them Skarda was waving from the second story of a more substantial hall of bone and fur, more bone that fur Erika noticed idly as her heart races, richer side of town?

“Damn it Skard you nearly gave me a heart attack!” Erika snarled, properly snarled at that with her warg face.

Skarda noticed and flinched back but he seemed to calm down when Erika dismissed her Graft. “Sorry lady vitki but I’ve got good news, me and my brother found a place to camp out tonight, Sigurn and Alvis looked around it and said its good so we got sent out to grab everyone, Sigurn said she wanted camp set up three leaves from now.”

Kara sighed and grab her shield off the floor. “Where? And are you sure its secure enough? We are being chased and something happened her, we may not know what but something did.”

“Its about three streets that way,” said Skarda pointing left. “And it’s definitely safe.”

“Why?”

Skarda grinned like a droog in muck. “It’s a bank.”