Far to the south, deep within the Nyshara wilds. Something unseen was stirring.
The trees reached toward the sky, light filtering through their leaves in shifting gold.
Deer drank from the water, fox kits tumbled, played, and darted off from the underbrush.
And at the heart of the forest lived the Lirakai. The beastmen of the south.
The village of the Trel'Kari was woven through the trees. Their homes grew from nature itself.
Smoke lifted from morning fires. The scent of root and fish hung in the air.
Hides stretched on racks near the edges, and beside them the carved totems. Prayers for another day of peace.
As the Varesh raised their howls in song for the morning, they felt it.
The forest hesitated, their fur prickled and their instincts screaming at them to flee.
The Harakir Chieftain standing at the center of the village. Felt it moments later.
A wrongfulness spread through the soil under his hooves, the absence of wind pressing against his antlers.
Nearby a group of Nyrekai huntresses came to a halt, crouched on branches above, their tails flickering, ears pinned back, one bared her fangs.
The pulse rolled through the earth as something shifted.
The first crack split the air. A tree shuddered and collapsed, its base split in two.
The roots of the trees recoiled, leaves that were drifting in the air curled inward and blackened turning to ash.
The Chieftain turned.
"RUN!"
The Lirakai fled, gathering the children, leaving totems and homes abandoned.
They were not elders, not warriors or scouts, they ran as prey.
From its perch high in the canopy, the crow had watched everything.
It saw the deer as their antlers cut through the brush, eyes wide with terror.
It saw the foxes and the wolves, Their once playful yips now haunting cries.
And it saw the beastmen. And then it saw what they were all running from.
The crow felt something in the air change, and saw a young fawn.
Its legs buckled, it let out a warped guttural cry, as its flesh twitched.
The bones in its legs shattered. Its ribs snapped outward, piercing through skin.
A cracking sound as its jaw unhinged, its wide dark eyes boiled red.
Then it laid still. And when it moved again it was not to flee.
But to hunt.
A deer screamed nearby.
The crow cocked its head, seeing as its legs gave way.
It hit the ground with a loud "thump" as its eyes rolled white, something poured into its veins.
Its flesh began to twitch, bones snapping, reshaping into something that did not resemble the deer.
The Crows talons tightened around the branch, its wings opened, it needed to fly.
Then there was pain,
A deep sickening spike of all consuming agony dug into the crows bones and tore them apart.
Its talons grew, tearing through the branch, its muscles convulsed, tore, reknit themselves.
A massive pressure built up within the crow as if it would burst from the inside.
Then a crack, A splintering snap at the base of its beak, it screeched, but the sound came out twisted.
Its beak split, widened, bone and cartilage twisting over each other and peeling back like a flower, and in that flower, rows of teeth where none should be.
Its wings snapped open and fell apart, feathers falling and drifting like dead leaves.
Its veins blackened, tendrils spreading through its body like fractures on glass.
The last thing it saw was a fox. It was small. Fragile. The crow was hungry.
The thing that had once been a crow launched itself from the branch, its wings beating the air. As it plunged downward faster than it had ever flown.
The fox turned. And the 'Crow' slammed into it, its talons piercing deep.
The fox shrieked, its body twitching, patches of fur fell away, exposing blackened flesh.
It stopped shrieking, it rose again
And it hunted.
The 'Crow' understood, it must hunt, More creatures would flee, and soon the Nyshara wilds would belong to them. But the crow had to go, it was getting hungry. It opened its wings and it flew.
And far beyond the Nyshara Wilds, on the other end of Beloria.
The sun was rising over the last bastion of humanity.
As the village woke, there was the clash of swords in the distance, the howls of frostwolves deep in the northern woods, and the hammering of hooves on the ice as the Snowstriders were hauling the morning supplies.
In one home, beneath the soft blue glow of an antler's light, the world remained still.
A boy lay beneath thick blankets, shifting between waking and dreams.
His name was Thalos. And today, like every other day, he would wake to the sound of the world.
Unaware of what was coming.