Haernos rolled around and with it, in another curious twist of coincidence, the Hunter at last returned from His work on Dia'ruis. Having spent much of the year tending to the fledgling Plane and crafting the paths to properly anchor it to the Prime, none of Haern's vitality or vim had yet ebbed away, renewed purpose and zest making Him practically buoyant as He emerged into Duiran for the first time in many long months. Announcing the way with a nonchalant laugh, to the ancient cairn stones went Duiran, the self-same method used to access Dendara of old now granting passage into the Plane of Life reborn as Dia'ruis.

What awaited them in Life's Basin - once the Ancient Valley, now transformed and reborn - was a magnificent vista of lush valleys, rolling hills, and healthy, vital woodlands. Crystalline waters ran through its centre, teeming with life. Countless newborn creatures frolicked and thrived beneath the wildwood canopies and evergreen landscape. Eternal dusk and eternal dawn presided in harmony together, and above all a feeling of peace and prosperity suffused the air; freed from Shadow's taint, the Plane of Life was truly an awe-inspiring wonder to behold. Dominating the skyscape, the nascent boughs and trunk of a great Tree of Life now dwelt at the Basin's heart, its mighty limbs, even in infancy, striving to cradle the Dia'ruian heavens in its embrace.

Where once Dendara suffered under rot and the omnipresent threat of death, Dia'ruis instead enjoyed harmony. It soon became clear that the Plane would violently defend the natural balance in order to preserve itself, the undergrowth coming alive to strike at any bearing a duamvi symbiote in much the same way that Dendara would assail the undead. This aggressive rejection of any entering its eaves bearing a profusion of shadow /or/ spirit gave Duiran much to think on. No longer solely concerned with shadow, the Council, disturbed by revelations of the Akkari and the ascended duamvi's existence outside of the Cycle, made an unprecedented decision: to entirely outlaw those bearing the symbiote and deny citizenship for any carrying one.

Haern's return brought with it fresh concern for the Shadowbound Durdalis making camp near the Western Ithmia. In a meeting with the Council, He, along with the Underking, outlined a plan They had formed in order to bring the General down. Dhar looked then to Iesid, informing them that they were to be the bait for a trap, utilising their - by now, notorious - penchant for the Song of Oblivion in order to lure Jokach into the Ithmias. It was the Gods' intent to funnel Jokach through the Ithmia along a path laid out by the Shamans calling upon nature to barricade alternate directions. The Sentinels would prepare massive log traps to slow Jokach's passage and provide Them the opportunity to strike. Meanwhile, the Sentaari would carefully harness the kai energy created by the Gods fighting and prepare a grand banishment for Jokach, allowing Haern and Dhar the freedom to deliver a finishing blow and return the Durdalis to nature.

Preparations followed in force as Duiran came together to haul logs and fully scout the Ithmia in order to determine the best path along which to funnel the General. Songlines would be the key to ensuring Iesid's survival while the Song drew its prey nearer, conveying them to remote points and forcing the General to follow. While the Sentinels set their treetop ambushes, Esrytesh Sibatti plotted the course, meticulously lining the forest floor with a series of flags arranged to point the way and form a circuitous route through the wood.

At last the hour came, in the early days of Variach, 505. Sibatti summoned the Council to their side and began to speak on the task ahead, impressing upon them the importance of what they were about to do. While Sibatti spoke and the group partook of Tempo (an "enhancement" inciting euphoria and bloodlust), the Guardians revealed their approval, one by one making their presence known as they lingered, watching beyond the sight of mortal ken. Dhar and Haern manifested before them and while the Underking reached out to Iesid and infused their soul with that of thousands, Haern told them to be ready, and to wait for the soliads before moving in.

The wait was a short one. Peppering the air with ditties of amused laughter, the soliad swarms drifted through the Ithmian forests, spots of warm sunlight trailing behind them. Reforming into an aurous horde before the commandpost, Vanguard Milihion stood at the head of the excitable horde, the golden nimbus of his form banishing the surrounding darkness. In shrill commands he set them loose, and the soliad hummed in delight at their task, surging at the barricades in a terrfying fae frenzy. The fortifications yielded soon after, crumbling to naught and laying bare the path to the camp beyond. Jokach, unmoved, paid little head save a low, grating rumble.

Iesid moved into position as Illikaal prepared to convey him away from the front via songline. Empowered by Death, Iesid took up fiddle and began to play, the ominous notes of Oblivion's sombre song rising from the commandpost's edge to chill the air in doleful refrain. As the bow glided along the fiddle's strings, he sang in concert, verses of ruination steered towards the hated foe lurking beyond the brink. Amidst a great shifting of stone and moss, Jokach finally stirred into motion, its lolloping tread discarding loose shale and decaying bracken. As Iesid retreated into the Ithmia, the General gave chase, and the hunt was on.

While dozens flocked to battle the General directly only to find themselves effortlessly culled by its incredible might, Duiran worked in the treetops and woods. Set free by the wily schemes of the Sentinels, logs fell with a loud clatter from the trees, denying Jokach easy passage through the woodland. The Gods seized Their opportunity, chains of anaxagorite whipping free from the invisible spectre that was the Underking to reave and restrain the General, haunting echoes of charnel puissance rising to fill the air as Death worked. Rhythm's Spine erupted from between two sycamore trees, its sharpened tip driven painfully into the Duradalis' back. While Jokach recovered the Gods vanished further into the overgrowth, unseen beneath the sprawling canopy and endless leaves.

Spilling out of the commandpost in a frenzied wave of black, countless shadowspawn followed in the wake of their General's footsteps. Once more the soliad peeled back their veil of illusory sweetness, swarming around the armies of Ohlsana and tearing dozens of them apart. Those that broke past the fae blockade swaggered into the Western Ithmia, but found their confidence short lived indeed. Clicking mandibles and the roars of savage beasts beyond the ken of any Sapient animal, drowned out the horde's rampaging paean, the might of the Ancient Guardians manifesting to utterly eradicate that which foolishly dared to enter their domain. Only Jokach remained, its every footstep shaking the forest.

Haern stalked the woods with the skill and tenacity of a veteran predator while avalanches of well-trapped log piles fell to enclose the General further. Life essence coursed down the length of His spear, the weapon spinning in a rapid arc of ferocity as it struck home. Stymied on all sides by trap and tree, Jokach stumbled again and in its singular moment of hesitation, Death once more made Himself known. Roiling waves of pale essence washed over it and seeped into its stone flesh, the General writhing in sudden agony. Still adventurers hurled themselves at the Durdalis fruitlessly while the Sentaari worked to harness the kai starting to punctuate the air and the Sentinels deftly navigated the treetops ahead of its passage to harry it further.

Roused by Shamanic entreaty, the Ithmias rustled in violent protest of the intruder breaching its boughs. Dense thorns and snaking vines interlaced to form impassable blockades, the undergrowth conspiring in a gesture of absolute rejection. As nature itself came alive again to harass that which should not be, the Underking shimmered into view again, the silver-grey essence of death tearing chunks of stone and soil from His foe. Arrows rained down on the General from Whisper, the figure of the Hunter barely visible as He lurked, concealed, within the treetops.

Pressing on through the growth impeding its path, Jokach resumed its chase, seeming to barely be scratched by the Twin Gods' assault. Something mimicking confusion sparked in the gnarled sockets of its umber eyes, its very mind under assault from forces unseen while the soul-empowered song rang out all around. Manifesting in a storm of freezing energies, Dhar scarcely bothered to conceal His disgust, the swing of the Sword of the Underhalls leaving grave wounds as it clove twixt rock and moss and stone. The brutish figure of the Hunter appeared briefly from within the tangled brush, His newfound zest for life imbuing Him with greater vigour and determination. His hands shaped the power of Life itself while He grunted, glaring at Jokach. Massive brambles and stinging thorns sprouted across the Durdalis' body, piercing through gaps in its stony form and constricting tightly around its massive limbs.

Rumbling its rage, Jokach shrugged free its fetters and crashed through the overgrown thickets seeking to restrain its traversal. Still the air quavered 'neath the aria of ending, Oblivion's foreboding notes driving Jokach forward through snare and snarled overgrowth. The Underking waxed lethal, Divine essence relentlessly castigating Jokach as the Lord of the Grave wracked its very soul. Tiring from its treacherous traversal through obstructions laid before its path, Jokach shivered in rage, the laboured motions of its montane shoulders resounding like a nauseating grinding of stone. Rounding on the nearest wall of thorns and foliage curtailing its advancement, the General shredded flora and verdure alike, its pursuit of the fleeing fiddler continuing on.

Ambushing the General before it could take another step, Haern lent His own might to the Underking's, the entwined essences of Life and Death now wreaking calamitous judgement on its soul. Thick enough to taste, the kai energy suffusing the air reached palpable degrees, the clash of Gods and Durdalis inciting terrible friction in the atmosphere. The work of the Sentinels and Shamans was done, and now the Sentaari, having utilised their skills in telepathy to keep tabs on Jokach's location, acted. Exerting the full weight of their mental prowes to master the torrent of kai energies rioting through the Ithmias, the monks lifted their voices and invoked an ancient, terrible command.

Reality folded around and through the Shadowbound Durdalis, whose form diminished, becoming hazy and translucent before it finally faded from sight. Bought time by the banishment, Dhar and Haern moved into position, scythe and spear lofted and ready to bring about the aberration's end. Minutes past before ripples in Creation signalled the return of Jokach from its enforced exile, the General's mossbound form sharpening as it came back into view. A sprawling multitude of vines rises up to ensnare the Durdalis, coiling malevolently around its legs and torso. The trees released a mighty, thundering THWOOM and branches descended to bolster the verdure's entanglement, the mighty limbs of ancient, wizened sentinels binding Jokach in place. The world stilled as Dhar's voice pervaded, "You have come far enough." Haern, more insouciant, simply bellowed, "DIA'RUIS ETERNAL!"

Foregoing Their weapons in favour of raw might, the two Gods - one the Lord of Death, the other the Steward of Life - shared a poignant glance and turned as One cohesive pair to regard the Shadowbound Durdalis with nothing less than absolute disdain. Strands of essence spilled from each of Them, green and grey interweaving to form a singular vortex of
nature's wrath made real. Resigned to its fate at the hands of Hunter and Underking, Jokach began to wither, tainted bract and the dreck of befouled nature frothing from its twisted form. Yet before it fell, before death at last claimed its due, the Shadowbound Durdalis groaned, its haggard figure splitting to shape a gaping mouth. Strings of incomprehensible syllables poured from the General's maw as it seemed to sing, the gentle soughing of trees contorting into a choir of grating voices joined in discordant union and weighed down with the odious tinge of corruption.

The notes of Creation's tainted Song rose in pitch and rhythm, not with the harmonious, awe-inspiring wonder of its namesake, but straining with cruelty and abject malice. Each verse incited the air to convulse in protest, the song resounding volant through all the trees and woods alike. The helix of essence scourged Jokach with the inconsolable fury of a raging tempest, battering its corrupted form with relentless precision. Shrinking beneath Dhar's pitiless glare, the General slumped and the Underking, He Who is Death, Master of the Underhalls and Lord of the Grave, coldly tore free its soul.

Forced to reach its coda by the twin Gods' assault, Jokach gasped out the final words, some strange and unknowable power set loose with the General's closing exhalation. Bark shattered and blackened moss crumbled, treacly sap bleeding from sundered rocks and rotten vines as the Durdalis at last succumbed and nature, ever implacable, claimed its defeated
remains. As the Hunter and the Underking withdraw to recover from Their battle, an eerie, ominous silence settled over the woodlands and forests of Sapience.

Darkness writhed into being within the Bloodwood, a sinister gloom so thick and oppressive that it spread as a black torrent through the devastated wood. The taint clinging to its outskirts yielded to the lingering power of Jokach's Song, the rot of Ohlsana conjoining with the virulent filth already extant in root and stem, drawn toward the forest's heart. Something stirred beneath the rotten canopies and blasted boughs, birthed anew by the terrible voice of Jokach. A scream of unfathomable anguish rose from the depths of the Bloodwood, bark and branch, bud and bloom coerced, twisted, forced to foster a grim charade of life. What once was a redwood, wrought to ruin through taint and befouling stain, woke.

Eyes of black and violet opened to regard the world with vainglorious contempt, and a gnarl felt more than heard drummed through the woodland realm. Wrenching roots from the ground with another ululating cry of torment, Shadow Major Seqyluros traversed the land with labouring steps and lumbering gait, and it stomped its way into the Western Ithmia. Absolute chaos ensued as the collective might of Sapience hurled itself against the Shadowbound Arborean (this author would like to note that, contrary to popular rumour, the Shadowbound Arborean was not in fact Nipsy). Seqyluros fought with terrifying power, bending nature to its will and rousing the forest to act on its behalf. In its hands it swung an ironwood greataxe as big as a Human man, cutting down swath after swath of adventurers while its toughened bark turned aside sword and blade and fist and magic.

The sixty adventurers arranged against it rallied time and again despite the very Ithmia itself rising to deny them passage into the forest. Sibatti became a rallying point, their songline totems conveying people past Seqyluros' barricades and into the woods so they could continue fighting. Advice from Rhulin suggested the use of fire, and eventually, slowly, tenaciously, they wore through its defences, but at a great and terrible cost. For an entire half day they fought, fending off scores of ravens that it summoned to its aid and enduring the brand of the forest inciting nature to do them harm. While several vampires looked desperately for dryads or other sentient beings on which to replenish their blood after the forest had drained them - and everyone else - of vitality, Seqyluros raised eight terrible Bloodwood trees across the Ithmia, a mantle of shadow rendering it immune to the adventurers' attacks as it hurled its axe at any within reach.

Stine Emerson took up the greataxe and hastened to fell the unnatural trees, chopping them down one by one. When the last fell, the Major's shroud of midnight died along with them, and it finally began to falter. Knocked unconscious as it weakened, the greataxe fell again from its grasp and as Aisling, Stine, and others wrestled with the weapon in order to land a killing blow, it was Commander Mjoll Seirath who, in a moment of quick thinking, took up the axe and flew away before launching herself from the skies with the mighty weapon in hand to finallly cleave the Major in twain. Exhaling a deep, reverberating sigh laden down with sorrow entwined with relief, Seqyluros fractured, bark and branches crumbling. Turning loose a final defeated sough, the Shadowbound Arborean disintegrated in a falling cascade of rotten leaves veined with sickly black.

Sapience too heaved an incredible sigh of relief as the woodland withdrew its preternatural barriers, allowing passage once more. As they recovered and withdrew to rest, Mjoll claimed the greataxe for herself and briskly marched home to celebrate.

Penned by my hand on Quensday, the 10th of Variach, in the year 505 MA.
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