Welcome to Gaia! ::

John sat there, his head bowed, his hand resting limply on his leg. A smear of blood shone brightly on the back of his hand, a crimson taint upon the brown yet pale skin. He looked up to Maximos as he knelt before him, his bloody eyes so full of sadness, so full of pain. His lips were pressed tightly together, almost as if he didn't want to speak, as if he wished he'd kept his mouth shut...

But he did speak. He had to. He needed to tell Maximos. If this was to be his final time on Gaia, someone had to know the full truth.

...But it wasn't John who spoke. When his lips parted, there was the almost regal tone to his voice. John was no longer present. Thor had taken over.

"We were raised on death. From the time of our birth, we were told when we would die. It hung over us like a dangled sword, ready to strike at any moment - so we were taught to live life to the full at all times. Fight hard. Live fast. Love fully. Asgard was a wonderous place, full of laughter and joy. When we went down to Midgard, we would speak to the mortals and enhance their lives. Life was glorious."

"But the finality of it was always evident. We did many things to prolong our lives, things I am not proud of. We chained mighty beasts who had done no wrong, we hurt brethern and ally alike. All for the name of extending the dream...or to answer for prophesis long since told. Did you know Loki did what he did because he cut out a witch's eyes and saw in his future his torture and imprisonment by our hands? He had no idea why we would do such things - he was a b*****d, but he never did anything to warrent such punishment. So he decided to do something that would - and thusly, our downfall began."

Thor looked out over the lands surrounding them, his bloodshot eyes wide, as if taking in the scene once more, as if he was there again. "The sun and the moon were swallowed. The Serpent rose from the sea. Nagalfar sailed onward, and the sky split, allowing the Sons of Muspell to ride, cracking the Bilfrost." He raised his hand to wave it across the expanse of Guldor before them. "Loki, Fenrir, Jörmungandr and Hrym gather here, in the field of Vígríðr, with all of Hel's own and all the frost jötnar. Heimdall sees this and sounds the Gjallarhorn with all his might, and we prepare ourselves."

His voice grew wistful, sad, almost painful. "...I will say this...when you know you are going to die on that day...you strap your sword on slowly. Your wife's kisses lingers on your lips, and her breasts feel softer then the clouds in the sky. The love of your brother and sister is as heady as the strongest mead. I set forth that day knowing, in my heart of hearts, that I would not live through it. I knew I would die fighting my mortal enemy, unlike countless times before, and all around me, my loved ones, my comrades, my friends, would perish also. All the people on Midgard would burn in white hot fire as Surtr breathed upon the earth, and Yggdrasil would fall."

He focused back on Maximos again, but this time, instead of pain, his eyes were full of defiance, almost anger. "We would die for the glory of Ragnarok. The worlds would burn and, apparently, be made anew upon our bones, and the bones of the Midgard people. Does that sound fair to you? To fight and protect the innocent all your life for nothing?"

He lowered his head back down, looking at the spots of blood on the snow, and lifted his hand to his nose, feeling the blood oozing out and looking at it as if shocked he was bleeding, before wiping the blood on his pants-leg. "The heroes all lines up. They were chanting war songs and laughing. They thought it was majestic. Go out with a bang, as they say. How wrong they were. They died like all warriors in war do - on the battlefield, emptying their bowels as their lifeforce drains from them to seep into the ground, screaming in agony or for their lovers or brothers. All around me there was death. There is no glory in death. There is only loss of life. And all loss of life is a waste."

He looked up suddenly, seeing something behind Maximos, and the shadow-warrior would turn to see a lone woman standing at the other end of the clearing. She stood tall and still, very still, with golden eyes which pierced into the men. Her hair was grey with a mane of white which flowed down her shoulders, which were exposed to the elements, her body covered in the blanket of wolfskin. Her smooth skin was milky white, her features beautiful and serene, as if she was as old as time yet young as a newly bloomed flower.

"...It is time?" She asked finally, her voice deep and husky, as if she had only used it once or twice in her entire life.

"Aye." Thor said, pushing himself to his feet to his full height, John's previous fatigue seeming to have vanished along with his personality.

"I thought so. The dreams were becoming more and more vivid this past millenium." The mysterious woman clothed in wolf-skin approached slowly, her naked feet stepping gently through the snow as she moved forward, pausing briefly every few steps as if unsure of their true nature. Eventually she would reach the men, and Maximos would see that she clutched the wolfskin around her body with one tiny hand tightly, and that instead of footprints in the snow behind her, was a set of massive, doglike pawprints. She looked up at the shadow-warrior and stepped up to him, her nose crinkling a little as she sniffed at him, before she stepped back, her voice wary. "...You brought a Godslayer with you?"

"Not I. My bloodkin." Thor answered, holding his hand out to the woman, showing her the blood on his fingertips. "He is sick in the head. The Godslayer is accompanying him."

The woman approached his fingers, sniffing them for a moment, before putting them in her mouth, lapping at them with her tounge, cleaning the blood off, before releasing his fingers to look up at him with bright golden eyes. "I have kept my bloodline clean. You have not. You are a man of your word, as you said."

"Aye." Thor said with a small nod. "...Although this form..." He said to her, motioning to her body clad in the wolfskin.

The woman looked back to Maximos almost judgementally, before looking back up to Thor, speaking in a haugty tone. "This world is confusing...and it is hard to find a suitable mate. The last one bore a female instead of a male, that is all."

Thor nodded, as if accepting this, before looking back to where she came from. "...Would...would you like me to do it here?"

The woman shook her head slowly. "...No. I have chosen a spot. It is not far down the hill."

Then she turned and began to walk down the hill, her steps as sure as a mountain wolf, as if she had trod these hills many, many times. Thor made to follow her, before turning to Maximos. "You may follow, Godslayer, or you may wait. It is up to you. What I am about to do, I have no pride in, nor any say - it was a pact made many bloodlines ago, and I am a man of my word. When I receive a boon, I pay my dues, no matter the cost. All I ask is that you do not interfere - what has been promised has been promised, many bloodlines ago."

Then he followed after the girl.

They walked for a long while, the snow falling gently around them, a god and a godslayer following the woman in the wolfskin blanket. She took them around the hill to the other side, skirting the edges, until they came to another clearing on the side of the hill, this one a little taller then the one where they had met her.

The woman in wolfskin walked to the edge of the clearing, a small cliff looking down the north of Guldor, and stood silently.

Thor walked to stand beside her, the two staring out at the wide white landscape. They ignored Maximos, as if he was not even there.

For the longest time they stood. Simply looking out. Taking in the serene beauty of this world. The way the moonlight danced off the snow to make it seem almost blue, almost ethereal. The trees were dark sharps pointing out to the sky. It was almost like this place had never been the site of such atrocity.

Eventually Thor finally spoke up, his deep, booming voice quiet amongst the wind. "...Do you have any requests?"

His voice seemed to be whipped up by the wind and carried away, but the woman seemed to stiffen at the request. Her wolfskin was hugged tighter to her slim body, her grey hair waving softly in the wind. Eventually, she found voice.

"...Lie with me."

If Thor seemed too surprised, he didn't show it. He simply turned his head and looked down to the woman, who kept staring out at the landscape.

"...No. Request something else." He finally said, causing the woman to look up at him with wide yellow eyes.

"You are a man of your word!"

"Aye. I am also an honourable man, as is my bloodkin."

The woman seemed to bristle a little, her wolfskin blanket clutched tighter to her slim frame. "You requested the boon of me. All those years, all those bloodlines ago. I agreed because you championed life. You did what you did for life. And I gave you that boon. And now you shall fulfill yours to the full. Honor demands it."

"What would come of it?"

"I have never held this form before. It is the crucible of life. It is the reason for life. I have never felt this before. I wish to feel it in full...before the end."

"The point of life is to continue living. If I lie with you then fulfil my boon, I would not be ending one life, but two. Who will answer for the second life?"

"Me. You may create the life but it is my purpose to help it survive in this harsh land. It is my desicion. You are a man of honor, as you say."

She turned to him then and released her grip upon the wolfskin blanket, letting it fall to the ground. Her skin was as white as alabaster, her body slim and supple like a mountain wolf. She had almost no hair upon her body, except for the mane of grey and white hair, yet she did not shiver in the wind.

Thor looked back out to the landscape they had been looking to before, his jaw tight. Unbeleivably, a tear rolled down his cheek as he turned his head slightly and addressed the Maximos. "Leave now, Godslayer."

"Why you rude, insolent little child - " Thor began to say, his fist clenched as he turned to face and advance towards Maximos - before a slender hand rested upon his chest, halting his forward movement. He looked down to the woman, who was staring at Maximos with wide golden eyes, burning with rage and retribution at his harsh words, brite calming with a cool patience which was born of millenia of experience.

She stepped forward then, unafraid of the scythe in his hand, and spoke to him in hushed tones. "Your love for your brethren is commendable....but this is the natural order of things. Just as age kills a mortal, a god must kill an immortal. Do you deny me a natural death? Your brother cannot do it. He carries the blood of a god, but he is Thorson, not Odinson. You cannot do it - you will ruin my soul, cutting it with such an ugly weapon and sending me to strange places to be judged by a different pantheon. Only Thor can. He is the last of the Odinson."

She then stepped around the scythe, a naked waif approaching a sociopath with the calmness of a child, and placed a hand on his chest. "Your brethren shall return. And you will help him along to his own natural conclusion, I have seen it. But now, do not interfere. I have been tethered to this coil for too long, and I yearn for freedom."

Her golden eyes looked up at him intensively. Words were bond to these brings here. Ritual was demanded for natural order to flow. Maximos was not here to interrupt natural order, but to enforce it. To deny her death by Thor's hand was to violate his own rule.

"When her boon is fulfilled. You have my word." Thor said pointedly, his jaw clenching tightly after he spoke as he watched the Godslayer's blade teeter on the very edge of her neck. The word of Thor was stronger then Gleipnir, the fetter which had bonded Fenrir to the Gjöll stone.

The woman simply stared at Maximos still, her hand outstretched to where she would have touched him. She saw him as he was - a man desperate to do the right thing, to do his duty...but torn by friendship and love. She lowered her hand, the wind blowing across her body, snowflakes falling around her. "...I pity you." She finally said, as if stating a fact, before turning, ducking under the scythe-blade to pad away from him, approaching Thor before spreading her arms wide to him.

"...Give me life, Odinson. Just as you begged me, all those years ago."

The woman's eyes went wide as she felt the edge of the blade against her bare skin, and she bared her teeth, long canines springing forth as a growl emitted from her body that was so loud, the vibration shook the snow from the trees upon the hill.

"You dare call me a thief?!" Thor roared, his voice powerful over the wind. There was no static that flashed over his body, nor was there any in his eyes - instead, the clouds above them rumbled violently, the earth around them seeming to shudder from the noise. "I call you a madma - " He began to accuse - before frowning as Maximos continued.

"There's a pearl, in your pocket. It belongs to me. I gave it to him, as a gift, not you. Give. It. Back.

The God of Thunder looked at Maximos with utter bewilderment - before reaching down, patting his pocket and feeling something within. Reaching into it, he pulled out the pearl, looking at it between his fingers with a frown, before tossing it to Maximos without another thought. "Take your bauble, Godslayer, I have no need for it, and be thankful I do not crush you for your insolence!"

Now he hoped Maximos would release the woman, so they could finish their grim destiny, and he could finally find some peace...

The woman tottered forward, turning and fuming at the Godslayer as he walked away - but now it was Thor's turn to speak calmly. "Leave him...he does not understand."

The woman turned to Thor, stabbing a finger to the path that Maximos walked upon. "This is what you saved?! This?! I told you this world is confusing!"

Thor looked down at his feet, seeming a little ashamed. "I...did not think that far ahead. He is right...we are no longer needed. Not really. But we deserved it. We were drunk on our superiority, just as he said...just as they are becoming now." He sighed, lifting his hand to his forehead. "My bloodkin does not have much time left...I feel his pain."

The woman heaved a large sigh, quelling her anger, before approaching Thor. "Then take me, and let this be done."

So he did.

Afterwards, he sat upon the snow, the woman lying next to him. There was calm upon the snow, a quiet calm that was stretching over the clearing. The woman had tears in her eyes, but she did not sob.

"I...did not know it would hurt that much." She said, after an eternity of silence.

"Life is painful." Thor agreed, nodding his head slowly as he stared out at the landscape, at the beauty, and the carnage it hid in his minds eye. "We strive and bleed and struggle, and we get life. That is what the Godslayer does not seem to understand. Death is easy. Life is hard."

The woman sat up to sit beside him, wiping her tears from her face and looking out at the landscape with him. Thor looked down to her. "...You regret your boon now, don't you."

She looked up at him with those golden, red rimmed eyes...before looking back out to the fields before them, not saying a word.

With a heavy sigh, Thor pushed himself to his feet, dusting off his naked backside as he stepped behind her. "...Are you prepared?"

The snow lashed against their naked frames. Drift was collecting on her body, small and timid now as she hugged her knees to her chest. Her eyes were transfixed upon the world before her, as if to drink it in before the final time. Finally, she nodded.

Thor closed his eyes and heaved a sigh, clenching his jaw tightly as he reached forward to dig his hand into her mouth, pushing his fingers in past her lips and over her teeth, before lifting his foot and kicking out. The blow was so powerful it blasted her body out into the field, the top of her head being torn off so cleanly he didn't even get any blood splatter on him. Below, at the bottom of the hill, a thud seemed to shake the world, and he did not look down to see what made it.

He released his breath, a shuddering, shaky breath, before looking down at his gruesome trophey. Placing it on the ground admists the snow, he gripped a canine with his forefinger, ripping it free and placing it between his own teeth before ripping out the next, putting it in his lips also. He then kicked the remains down the cliff, before turning to gather his clothes, dressing swiftly. He looked down at the wolfskin blanket the woman had worn and, taking it up his in hand, sniffed it for a moment - before throwing it over his shoulders, the blanket seeming to cover his massive frame easily.

Then he set forth, following the path back to Maximos, up to where they had stood when she had met them. He face was pale, as if he felt sick, as he held out his hand to the Godslayer. Within his grasp was a long, white wolf-tooth, almost a foot long and wickedly pointed, the blunt end yellowed and pitted, as if the handle to a blade. "A gift, despite your insolence." Thor said tiredly, as if he did not wish to argue anymore. "...You will most likely need it."

"To kill a god." Thor said quietly, sitting down on the space Max had provided for him, lowering himself down wearily before resting his elbow on his knee and his forehead in his hand, staring down at the ground, as if wondering whether he had done the right thing or not.

They sat in silence. Silence was rife on this day. What words could one say on the situation? Death loomed like a fog. It pervaded their lives. They both reeked of it - Maximos constantly, as it was his profession, though Thor has only recently acquired the scent. Words were meaningless to death. Scream at it, taunt it, mock it, laugh at it, it was constantly inevitable. The only thing that was truely invevitable. Death came for them all. There was no fighting it. There was only acceptance.

Finally, Thor spoke. Whether he could not longer bear his own thoughts, or could no longer stand the sound of the bitter wind blowing around them, was up to him. "...I killed him because that was what he wanted. To be freed. His entire life, he has been tied down. Captured, because soothsayers said he would play a part in the end of the world. When....when I thwarted Ragnarok, I begged him..."

He sighed, shaking his head. He pursed his lips as he tried to keep the tears at bay. His voice shook slightly as he spoke. The time had come for the truth. "....Death surrounded me. Ragnarok was raging around me. Beasts and men and gods were dying. I saw Odin get swallowed by Fenrir. I watched Tyr get killed wihtout a weapon in his hand. I saw Hemidal and Loki slay each other. They all fell, one after the other, as if actors in a play. They fell easily, it seems now, but I had become too enamoured in the Berserker Rage that I did not realise what we were doing until it was almost too late....I remember looking up, at the edges of the fields, and seeing the people langiushing in agony....they were not warriors, they did not wish for a warrior's death....so why did they deserve to die? What had they done to deserve the end? Us Gods deserved what was coming, but the people of Midgard..."

A shaky breath was drawn, and he ran his fingers through his hair, the frost on the edges of his stubble beginning to grow larger due to the wind. "So....I decided to test destiny, and my sway over my own. I faced Jörmungandr, and after a battle so powerful it cracked the world itself, scored a blow with Mjolnir on him so mighty it knocked him unconcious. He was at my mercy. My foot was on his throat and my hammer raised for the killing blow....and that was when I realised that destiny was what we made of it."

"I immediantly flew to the end of the field, and gathered all the messengers I could, and relayed the order to drive the battle to Asgard, over the Bilfrost. They listened to me without question - Odin had fallen, after all. I herded them over with mighty winds and great claps of thunder, and finally, when I knocked Surtr onto the Bilfrost, I raised my hammer and brought it down on the bridge with as powerful a blow as I could muster. The shock of that blow caused the wolf to spit up the sun and the moon. My next blow shook the world back into place, forcing the rivers to flow back into the streams and the earth to press back together. My final blow destroyed the Bilfrost. It exploded into a million pieces, shattering the bridge between Asgard and Midgard, and all the other nine realms. All the beasts, gods and men upon it fell onto Asgard."

"I stood there afterwards, my heart and mind racing as the fullness of my action became clear. I had thwarted Ragnarok. I had stopped death itself from claiming me. But my heart sank fast, as I heard the war raging behind me. I ran out to the fields to see the heros still fighting, still raging against one another. I tried to stop them, to tell them it was over, that Ragnarok was done, but they did not listen. The Berserker Rage was upon them all. I stood by and watched as they destroyed each other, in the name of Valhalla and Odin."

"When the final body fell, I searched for survivors. There were little, if any. None of my family remained. None of my brethren remained. They had all died, or had been caught up in the rush to get to Asgard. I stood by the broken Bilfrost and wept for their loss, before Fenrir showed himself. I had missed him in the maddness, and now we faced each other, daring each other to move. I proclaimed my innocence in his initial binding - on that day I had been fishing with my friend and brother Hymir..."

He smiled suddenly, laughing a little as his train of thought was derailed, depserate to find something good to remember. "He was a good man, Hymir....he brewed the best beer in all of Asgard. Hard-headed too - he could break stone with it. I once lost a good mug to his head, after I lost an arguement with him over dice..."

His smile faltered as he realised he was going off track. His face fell as he returned to the tale. "Anyway...Fenrir accepted I had not been present during his binding, but stated that I had never tried to free him, and thus was held accountable for the action of all the gods. So I made a pact with him - now we were stuck in the world of mortals, we would go our seperate ways and live our lives free, as mortals. I told him I would turn my bloodline, so the Gods could never rise again to fetter him. He promised to guard the Bilfrost in return, in case any Gods found a way back. If my bloodline ever came clear enough to reckon the return of the All-Father and the Odinson, Fenrir demanded I take his life, so he would be forever free."

He looked over to Maximos then, his bright blue eyes still flowing with tears. "But it was not to be. I sired as many as I could, sowed my seed far and wide, but my life was only split between those. i lived through them all. For generation after generation, I lived their lives with them, through them. Until finally, as if decreed by destiny, I came to be in this body, the culmination of breeding and fate. John Tomorrow was born, harbouring the blood and soul of a god." He looked down at his hand, curling and uncurling his fist. "...Even now, I can feel the parts of me flowing in his children....the boy and girl with fire in their hearts minds and souls....the girl who sleeps beneath the lake's waters....and the unborn warmly nestled in his lover's womb. These are his children, and yet, they are me." His jaw clenched tightly. "You may slay me with that blade, but it shall only cast me on, in the hearts and minds of my bloodkin's children. That is the curse of immortality. And then what? Do you hunt down all my kin and slay them all? Do you bury your blade into his lover's womb to finish me? That is the other curse of deity - the only way to die is by natural death."

"This is why Odin still lives. He was supposed to die during Ragnarok, in the belly of Fenrir. Somehow he escaped, but he could not find me...so he escaped into the cosmos and waited for the bloodlines to merge, as he knew they would. And now he is here. Watching, even now."

Raising his hand to wipe the tears from his eyes, he hefted a heavy sigh as he saw the hand visibly trembling. "...We do not have much time. My bloodkin is losing life, and I cannot prolong it anymore then I already have. My soul can only do so much by itself..." He looked back to Maximos. "Take the tooth. Use it. It is the natural way. I am to die by Jörmungandr - he is to die by Fenrir. We are destined to die. That much is certain. But this world is not. This world has lived on, thrived. It is chaotic, it is dangerous, it is insane - but what else could that be but life?"

He hung his head then, his frosty hair hanging around his face. "Take the boy into the temple. He will regain his strength there. And then this will end."



He sat there in silence for a moment, his chest rising and falling as if he had fallen asleep - before he suddenly bent over, his mouth open wide as if in agony, a choking sound coming from within his throat - but he did not clutch his temple, instead he clutched at his chest.

John was panicking. His eyes flitted left and right, and tears fell haphazardly as he began to sob. "O-Odin's eye...what, what, what, what happened to me? M-Max, w-what what is this? W-why do I f-feel this p-pain in my heart?!"

His hand scratched at the shirt underneath the woflskin blanket as he began to hyperventilate. "It feels like i've lost everything...Adamus, Amelia, Sam, Bren, Hono'o....oh gods Hono'o!!"

That was the only thing that made sense. That was the only thing that fit this gaping pain in his heart. He had lost everything and everyone dear to him.

Everyone was gone.

He fell forward onto his knees in the snow and wept, screaming his anguish into the cold damp, his tortured brain unable to comprehend the suddenly onslaught of grief and pain Thor had left him...

Shivering, gripping his head, John could feel his loved ones dead, feel their lives having been snuffed out right before him....even though the memory was not in his head, try as he might to access it. He cursed his damaged mind, before realising that it even felt like his closest brother had been slain - and yet Maximos was right here with him, shouting at him. He looked up to the smaller man with wide eyes, his fog of grief becoming pierced by Maximos' words.

"No they are not! Not yet! But if you dont help me right here and now then they're going to be! Get up!"

"...Get up..." John echoed, still staring into Maximos' mismatched eyes, as if unable to compute the order, Maximos' words jumbled, tossed into the air like so much confetti - but then everything crashed down into his brain, locking into place, and fire burned in his exhausted eyes. "Get up!!" He said again, determination filling every single letter of the two tiny words, surging to his feet -

And feeling white hot fire fill his head and eyes, almost choking as the pain caused him to teeter forward, like a felled tree, to fall into the snow.

He pulled his arm out from beneath him like a foal that had just been born and, with a mighty effort, managed to get it positioned so he could push himself to his knees. His head felt like it was going to explode - but he needed to help them, they were going to die unless he helped them...

Suddenly he moved. If Maximos had been trying to help him up, he would be shoved aside as John suddenly pushed off the ground, slipping slightly on the snow as he ran forward, roaring as the effort made his blood pump faster causing his pain to excalate to unbeleivable levels, running straght for the edge of the clearing at the hillside -

To slam through the hillside, his body seeming to disappear within the hill, a Tomorrow-shaped hole remaining in the snow for a split second as the hill shuddered as one...

Before the snow all fell.

It tumbled down in great sheets, rolling and tearing apart like old pieces of dough, falling down to the wayside from where the bench stood as the side of the hill cleared, revealing a simple stone edifice carved into the side of the mountain. The carvings were simplistic and crude, depicting mighty warriors fighting and slaying maginificent beasts, the warriors barechested and weildings axes, hammers, swords and sheilds, their hair braided and they heads covered in helms. It was not gigantic, it did not take up the whole side of the mountain - it was simple, serving the purpose it required.

There would be the square stone pillars which had once held up a sort of roof over the entrance to the temple, fallen down with ruin over time, beaten almost bare by the elements. Several steps would lead up between the pillars, from which Maximos had pilfered a stone. and then into the entrance, which was a large stone door which had now been shattered almost completely.

Within the temple, John lay on the floor, the show of strength utterly exhausting him as he lay amongst the strewn stone rubble from the doorway, snow blowing in from the outside, clumps mixed amongst the rubble. The first antechamber was about the size of a large room, with a high ceiling and a braizier within the center which had red hot embered still sizzling within it. Carvings depicting thunder and lightening covered the walls, runes and glyphs on every supportstone.

Each wall told a tale...to the west of the entrance was a carving of a large, bearded man weilding a hammer in one hand and a rope in the other, the rope leading down to the crude depiction of a snake, it's jaws open wide as if swallowing the rope. The man's hammer was raised, about to strike the snake, but another man had leant forward, knife outstretched, ready to cut the rope.

To the east was a depiction of the large, bearded man sitting upon a rock, resting his chin on one hand whilst his other clutched a hammer. Across from him sat a much, much smaller and uglier man, who'se hands were raised, and glyphs and runes filled the blank areas of the stone canvas, which poured from his lips. Behind the bigger man sat the sun, which shone down upon them both, and if either of them inspected the wall a little closer, they would see the smaller man had been hewn from thick, dark volcanic rock as opposed to the granite which the rest was dug from.

And to the north sat another doorway, this one much bigger then the one leading into the temple. The carvings on this wall, starting from the center of the door, dipicted a great tree rising into the sky, its canopy barely visible upon the wall. The trunk was thick and wide, the base at the very bottom of the door, the roots seeming to curl around what appeared to be a serpent, its jaws wrapped around one of the roots.

The floor itself was littered with bones which had been brushed to the sides, clearing the center, the piles having collected dust over the years. Weapons, shields and armour all lay in piles along the walls as well, pitted with rust and age - interestingly, there was only one weapon which had not been moved - a hammer rested against the stone tree doorway, its head dull and smooth, only slighty chipped with use. Its haft was bound by a thick leather thong, and the handle was only a foot long, much smaller then a warhammer should be It was the only weapon that seemed as new as the day it had been made, sitting almost dejectedly against the doorway, as if tossed aside.

A small deer-skin rug lay upon the stone floor just beneath the giant brazier, where it was warmest - a half-gnawed deer's leg sat discarded next to the rug, blood smeared on the floor around it. Wolf-spoor lay in the corner beside the temple's entrance, behind a small collection of bones. Just beneath the brazier, on the opposite side to the rug, sat a small collection of firewood, snapped into manageable pieces and piled up neatly.

The brazier crackled a little from the gust of wind that John's forced entrance. It was the only sound, besides the howl of the wind and John's laboured breath.