The rumours had been growing over the past few weeks. Xlakana’s Priests had been told of the missing humans, and the missing Seraphon, obviously, but so far they had done nothing. Those that called the Lustrare Valley home sometimes got lost, even skinks. It was a haven, but predators lurked in the jungles. What eventually, really, got their attention was the advent of The Corrupted Parasauradon. They had found the poor creature disembowelled, and hidden below the ground of some farmlands south of Oscoda. The creature’s foulness had made its way up through the soil and had infected huge swaths of the land before the priests from Xlakana and the High Temple of Chotec were called to rid the land of its taint.
No, this had not been the work of natural selection. This was their ancient enemy, and the Seraphon of the Valley and roared in defiance, their predators’ instincts kicking up into overdrive.
And so Xo’talac, High-priest of Xlakana, had sent their best. The scouts had been sent to follow the trail, to hunt down which of the vile Skaven holes had done this evil deed.
The chameleon skinks had done their job well. Scaling the peaks that surrounded the entirety of the Valley, they had found themselves within the Blade Tooth Mountain. For a week they had prowled over the peaks, looking for any Skaven out in the open, eventually, it had come. The Skaven was a pathetic thing, and it stunk to High Azyr. The smell of corruption, of decay and vileness, wafted over the small valley that they had found themselves in. The skinks had leapt from treetop to treetop, leaping over small cracks in the cliffside. And then, finally, the miserable rat had led them to a hole in the mountainside. Found deep within a fissure and invisible from above, the entrance to the Skaven burrow was hidden well indeed…
___
There was a single survivor. Somehow, by some stroke of corrupted, chaos-infused luck, the Skaven had found the scouts. In a way, they had seemed to expect them. Regardless, the scouts had found themselves walking straight into a hellhole. Within the burrow the scouts had found a miniature city, scaffolded, dirty, and seemingly falling apart it had smelled of a toxicity that even the chameleons had never smelt. Huge slides, tubes, and funnels were set up all around the city, every structure contributing in some way. Throughout the cavern hung cages with all manner of crying humans, broken Aelves, animals, and other denizens of the Valley locked within. Hundreds, possibly thousands of the cages were being used in whatever this particular hoard was brewing. And whatever it was, there was a lot of it. It spilled out into the city ‘streets’ in areas and was kept within massive open-topped bowls throughout the structures, casting a foul light into the cavernous burrow.
That being said, the skinks did not really get a good look at what they had found. As impossible as it would seem, it was as if the Skaven could actually see them sneaking out of the entrance, and scaling up the outer wall and ceiling of the burrow because the moment they had slowed their climb in order to get a proper look at the city below, massive globules of the brew were thrown up at them by plagueclaws waiting below in the city. The first strike managed to take out a skink before the hunters were able to react, and then they had scattered. Leaping from outcropping to outcropping the dove between dozens of thrown globs of the sickening brew. It seemed to score the rock itself, and even though the skinks were fast and able to avoid the primary projectile, it was the splashback of the vile liquid that finally fell the peerless assassins. The brew seeped into the chameleons’ porous skin, and slowly but surely brought them low.
All but one.
___
So the armies of Xlakana and the Chotec, led by Tl’uk, Old-blood and leader of the army of Xlakana, were sent out to destroy the vermin that the lone scout had told them of. The vastness of the armies sent up dust into the air of Desert of the Sun and sent swarms of creatures flying within the jungles of the Valley. Because of the size of the force and the terrain needing to be covered, the armies had taken a number of weeks to find themselves at the foot of the Blade Tooth Mountains below the fissure where they knew the Skaven horde were brewing their liquid death.
The combined strength now stood, at the ready. Ready to kill, to tear flesh, to purge corruption. As they began to make ready for the night before their assault, the lowering sun cast a beautiful purple glow across the sky, heralding the stars of the night. And from that stunning skyline came a single Terradon speeding towards the army as, far below them in the distance, in Northern Lustrare, green flame sprung up in half a dozen places.
___
Northern Lustrare was being attacked, the Terradon rider had informed them. From all across the land emergency calls for help were being sent to Tlacopan, but it was simply too much. Their only hope was that the people of the valley would stand strong against their aggressors until help arrived. As the rider relayed the information, Tl’uk began to realise the severity of what was going on.
Those left at the Temple of Chotec had sent out a warning that Skaven were seen burrowing out in the desert. It was unlikely that they knew what was buried deep below the sands there, but those forgotten chambers held something deadly indeed, the repercussions of that falling into the hands of the Skaven, or, worse still, eventually, the followers of Nagash, was… terminal. Tl’uk growled at that thought, and those around him took up the roar instinctively, yes, that what not be something that the Seraphon would want falling into the wrong hands…
If that were the only threat though, well, he would hasten down there at all speed, and with luck, maybe arrive in time. But it was not. Tlacopan itself was involved in the beginnings of its own battles. Skaven had appeared en-masse all along the Lusrare river, with massive barrels of some sort of pollutant. Early reports indicated that followers of Nurgle had also heeded the call, and together with an array of plagueclaws they stood in defence of the working lines of rats slowly but surely corrupting the river itself.
Although these initial attempts at corruption were still early on, it did finally make sense of what was thought to be an unrelated problem, namely, the rogue Thunderdon near Arbor Vale. Tl’uk had gotten word of the beast part way through their journey but had promptly ignored the issue, knowing that the Skaven threat was to be the great problem. Now, as the scout relayed the latest news, that seems to have been an unwise dismissal. Although those that lived in Arbour Vale had managed to stall the creature’s rampage through the forest, they had been horrified at what they had found. The Thunderdon was truly gigantic and thoroughly corrupted. It had grown a full two-thirds larger than any Thunderdon they had so far encountered, scales like battle-hardened armour, they oozed with a green liquid that burnt away the land nearby. Massive mushrooms had grown up its long neck and down its tail, and the land that it trampled and burnt was soon overrun by noxious shrooms, from those the size of a nail to ones larger than men. What was worse still, was that although it now lay chained down, those that had caught it had died from the fumes coming off the creature after relaying what had happened. It was still alive out there, in the jungle, just waiting to be released and sent off on a destructive rampage as the Valley had never seen. The Skaven must have gotten to it earlier.
Yes, they had been truly side-stepped. Whether it was on purpose, or by accident, the great army now found themselves without an enemy to fight, and with their homes under siege, too far away to do anything quickly enough. Now, it was up to the denizens of the Valley to decide what Lustrare would look like in the weeks to come.
