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It was yet enough gray day in the settlement, and despite the sky being covered in black clouds, with the bright red light of Skia's sun barely shining through the cracks, it couldn't have been colder than 120 degrees. Aurora was leaning against one of the many crumbling and rotting wooden structures on the edge of the village, this one a saloon, as she watched over the villagers who were working in the garden, harvesting their shriveled vegetables that were planted in haphazard rows. One of the few things that could survive in such hostile conditions were a type of Eggplant that was commonly referred to as "Shitplants" by those on the outside, for their terrible taste that's somehow worse than the Eggplant and its shriveled black appearance. Most often, each villager who is still alive at the end of every few days, gets one Shitplant and one cooked rat as their dinner, just barely staving off starvation for the time being, alongside a cup of cactus juice to keep them from dying of thirst, due to how rare rain was on the Outside. In rare instances, the villagers would be able to feast on something else, such as a coyote, and maybe have some actual water with their food.

Nearby, Aurora could see a familiar figure approaching from beneath the shade of the village's water storage tank. The sight of the storage tank, a large metal dome with wooden legs, the only wood in the village that wasn't rotting, reminding her that the damn thing had been empty for six months now. The thought stung even more due to cactus juice tasting like tar mixed with rotten, moldy testicles.

By the time Aurora looks up again, the familiar figure, who she recognized as Sheriff Katzlein, who was most often just referred to as "Katz", had reached Aurora's position under the shade of the backside of the village's saloon.

Katz was a tall, light-skinned woman, with gray hair tied back in a long ponytail that reached her lower back, bright yellow cat's eyes, and a long, gray-furred cat tail. She was wearing a black top with a high collar with red vertical stripes and red edges, black gloves, black shorts with one leg and red edges, black bracers with red edges, and black-armored boots, with a transparent cloak. On each of her hips was a quiver of arrows, to compliment the red and black metal compound bow that she had strapped to her lower back. During Aurora's time in this shit hole, she had spoken with Katz relatively little, due to the fact that she rarely had much to say. The woman, while not unkind or unfriendly, was strangely terse with everyone, despite being well-liked by the village. Despite the fact that Katz is a Therian, the village had treated her very well, though if the murmurs that Aurora she had heard at the saloon were to be believed, this wasn't always the case.

Katz first stares out across the sand at the villagers who were gardening. One was a tall, strong man named Chuck, who had been a gardener in the village for at least a decade, according to the others. He had sandy blond hair and gray eyes, and was well-known for being very kind to everyone. Due to also being a cook, he also sometimes snuck extra portions of rat to Aurora when it was possible. Gardening with him was also an old man, at least seventy, named Fred, and a young Therian girl with long, dark hair, and bright blue eyes, named Aidalee, who would frequently bring others Cactus Juice, even when she wasn't assigned to gardening duty. It was well-known that Aidalee's parents had died of thirst just outside the village, and she was subsequently accepted into the village, helping with chores.

Katz eventually turns her attention to Aurora. "Last night, approximately 11PM, Chuck saw a flaming object impact the desert, approximately 9 miles to the north." she begins, as she leans against the Saloon with Aurora. She pauses for an uncomfortably long period of time, before continuing "I think it would be safest to investigate... I'll leave it up to you. Would you rather investigate the impact site, or stay here and protect the village?" she asks, staring into Aurora's eyes as she waits for her answer, no emotion on her face, as per usual.

During the most recent two years that Kaylynn had been wandering around The Outside, she had gathered numerous wayward Umbrage into a small village in the northern Grundleplyth Mountains, due to how rarely others tended to pass by there. With life on the Outside as difficult as it was, people tended to avoid having to scale through mountain ranges in roughly zero degree weather. That being said, having to travel through the mountains herself made coming and going just as difficult for Kaylynn. Luckily for her and those she had gathered into her small village, Umbrage had the ability to very quickly adapt to changes in weather, so while it remained extremely uncomfortable for her, it would not kill her unless she was exceptionally careless.

The ice and snow crunched under Kaylynn's feet as she made her way through the mountains, stopping beneath a Scumpkin. Scumpkins were gigantic, black Pumpkins that tasted like Shadow Creature splooge, and were filled with juice that had the consistency of tar. They were the most common food source in the cold climates of Skia, and grew from tree-like stems, upside down, making them look like trees with a giant black pumpkin placed on top. From here, Kaylynn was usually able to peer through the raging blizzard to admire her handiwork on her Umbrage village. The houses were constructed from the gigantic Blizzshrooms that populated the flat sections of the Grundleplyth mountains, their stalks to tall that an entire house could be constructed beneath it, and caps so big that they could be used as roofs, allowing the Umbrage to save resources.

Rather than the small village that Kaylynn had grown accustomed to seeing, and had spent so much of her life constructing, she sees that frozen lake that they had fished in and gathered water from broken through, the ice floating in pieces on the surface of the water, and the walls of her huts broken down, the Blizzshrooms ripped out of the ground and strewn across the snowy floor. It would have been a drastic improvement if Kaylynn could say that the villagers were nowhere in sight... but she could see them fairly well from here. Dangling from the knocked over mushroom caps, laying in piles on the ground, partly covered with snow, she could see numerous bodies of the villagers she had led to safety wrapped in thick black webbing. The men, the women, the children, all of them. Similarly, the warriors that Kaylynn had left to guard the place were flat on the ground, their insides liquified and leaking through their eyes and nose. Whatever creature did this even went so far as smashing the village's Scumpkin Patch.

If Kaylynn chooses to close the distance between herself and the village, she finds that pitch black powder had been scattered across the village. This wasn't an unknown phenomenon, as Kaylynn had seen "Shadow Minions"(Or, as Umbrage preferred to call them, "Glooms") killed before. When a Gloom dies, their corpse will eventually crumble to black powder, leaving little trace that they were ever there. Soon, Kaylynn hears a thundering sound nearby, which causes the snow to shift off of the shattered pieces of the village's huts, followed by a roar, the sound of a Scumpkin stem falling over into the snow, then the shouting of a humanoid. It sounded as though it was coming from the west of Kaylynn's position, on the other side of a nearby mountain of ice.

Alpha is awakened by a bump, then as she attempts to open her eyes, the sunlight blinds her at first, but as her eyes adjust, she can eventually make out three men and a wooden horse-drawn carriage. One man had shoulder-length blond hair and was wearing black leather pants and a tan button-up, with a tan cowboy hat, the second had short dark hair, a matching beard, and was wearing black leather pants and a light blue button-up with a white cowboy hat, while the third had brown hair and was wearing black leather pants with a pink button-up and matching cowboy hat. The blond noticed that Alpha was awake first, and spoke up "Hey, you, finally awake?" he asks, as he hands her a shitplant from a crate that sat between them. A fourth man sat in the driver's seat, driving the carriage, an old man with a long gray bear, a bald head, and wearing a thin white short-sleeved shirt with brown pants. The blond continues "We found you laying in a creak-bed, seemed like you were starving to death, and we couldn't leave you there to die." he explains, thoughtfully. The cart bumps as they drive over some rocks, the frame of the carriage rattling. Looking around them, Alpha could see that they were riding along a sandy trail in the desert, heading towards a village in the distance. The trail was flattened so heavily that carriages must have been traveling along it for quite some time, especially for the cart to manage to travel through sand, and the horses to be able to walk safely.

Serenity stood on the sidewalk, in the streets of the southern district of Ignova, the city of the Infernal Magna. 6AM was a bit of an odd choice for a business meeting, as was the sidewalk of a busy street, as it was a perfect location to be accosted by the Crimson Inquisitors, often referred to as Crinqles, but not in earshot. Primitive motor vehicles were zooming down the road in front of Serenity, though not too frequently, given the time. They had four rubber tires, seemed to need to be cranked up to do anything, and were constructed with a weak body comprised of a flimsy metal that those on this world seemed to consider sturdy. To make matters a bit worse, rain was absolutely pouring down on her. Due to the fact that it had started shortly after she had arrived at the meeting point, a red phone booth, Serenity had arrived without and umbrella. Behind her was a store, selling some of the more uncommon food that are only farmed on the Inside, where it can actually survive due to the Magnas.

As Serenity is pondering this, a car passes by too close to the cement curb, and splashes water all over Serenity, leaving her clothes soaked completely. As luck would have it, a woman approaches Serenity at this moment, arriving early for the appointment. The woman had shoulder-length white hair, with her bangs falling over her face and almost covering one of her bright blue eyes. She had pale skin, as was common for humans on the Inside, and was wearing a black pinstripe suit jacket over a white button-down shirt, both of which were cropped short to expose her naval, with a short black pinstripe skirt with a huge black belt with gold studs, thigh-high black boots, and black tights. Around her neck, she wore a black choker, and a necklace with a golden flame pendant, and each of her hands were covered with elbow-length black gloves that reached deep into the sleeves of her jacket. She was holding a black umbrella above her head, to keep herself dry. Serenity had spoken to this woman a few times, and this was because she often acted as a go-between for a number of different clients that had hired Serenity before, allowing them to keep their identities a secret.

The woman had an annoyed look on her face, and as she approached Serenity, she unclasped a second umbrella from her belt and opened it, before holding it out to Serenity. "Here." she says, flatly, though not unkindly, as she held it out. If Serenity doesn't accept, she shrugs and places it back on her belt, but if she does, she nods and continues. "Miss Serenity, my boss would like to hire you for your services as an independent contractor. To the north of the Dead Swamp, a village of Umbrages have been refusing to pay their protection Cawks to the Crimson Inquisition. A legal team was dispatched to that location by the Magna, a week ago, but they have not yet returned. To that end, it's in my boss' interest to either extract payment, or... nullify the need for payment from that settlement... before the Magna chooses to send a team of Crimson Inquisitors to solve the problem. I'm sure you understand. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to obtain that payment for my boss, or end the existence of that village." she says, placing emphasis on the implication of slaughtering the settlement if they refuse to pay.

Delta was in her mostly barren quarters within the Frozen Palace. Her room was had a light blue carpeted floor with white drapes covering her window that overlooked Bleeze, the city of the Blizzard Magna. The walls were white, decorated with light blue snowflake designs, while the ceiling was plain white, with snowflake-shaped blue gems hanging a short distance from the ceiling. This design, focusing on light blue, matched the design of the rest of the palace, which was designed to look as though it had been carved from ice. Its entire exterior was a frozen-looking light blue color, with each of the eight towers being topped with a dome-shaped roof, and an antenna with a snow-flake design on the tip. Occupying one corner of Delta's room was a little white arctic fox, a favorite animal of the Blizzard Magna, which had been given to Delta as a gift. It was laying on its side, rolling back and forth playfully, and holding a squeaky toy of a penguin in its mouth.

Delta herself was seated on her bed, a bed with a white mattress, covered with a light blue sheet, and a lighter blue comforter, which had been designed with an image of snow-capped mountains. Looking out the window of her room would reveal that, as always, it was snowing in Bleeze. The city streets, busy with cars driving along the road and pedestrians walking from place to place, were coated with snow. Despite the fact that Bleeze was situated in a part of Skia that actually had a warm climate, the Blizzard Magna ensured that it was always snowing. One may ask why she had her city built in a location that didn't have the climate she wanted, and the answer would be that she liked this spot best. So it was.

Suddenly, Delta's door swings open, and a familiar voice greets her. "Ooohhh, Delta~" says a woman's voice, sounding like rushing wind and filling the entire room. A few snowflakes blew into Delta's room, and Delta's fox stood up excitedly. Three more arctic foxes bounded into Delta's room and bee-lined for the corner of the room, where Delta's fox was, and they started to wrestle. Meanwhile, a familiar figure strutted in. She had long white hair that reached her lower thighs, and light blue eyes, snow white skin, and had fairly large breasts. She was wearing a white metal mask over the lower half of her face, with horizontal slits across the front, from which her icy breath misted into the air, a pair of light blue stockings with white snowflake designs and frilly tops, thigh-high white boots with light blue belt-like straps and avalanche-like designs, a black skirt with white snowflake designs around the edge, a white waist-coat with black edges with a snowflake pattern, a short-sleeved light blue top with white shoulder-coats draped over her arms and a black upper half that was designed with ice-like gems on the sleeves and collar which matched the bright blue gem that decorate the white bow that hung just above her breasts, and a white hood that she wore down.

Despite her mask covering her lower face, Delta had known the Blizzard Magna long enough to be aware that she was always smiling. "Hellooo, my darling~ rise and shine~" she says, in an overly enthusiastic manner, with a beautiful singsong voice, just before quickly approaching Delta as she ran a hand through her long, white hair. "I trust you're doing well this morning~?" she says, sweetly as she sits down on the bed, right beside Delta, and crosses one leg over the other, while resting an arm across Delta's shoulders. As she waits for Delta's answer, she uses her free hand to grab the mask that she covered her lower face with and take it off, resting it on the bed beside her. Without the mask, the rest of her flawless and beautiful face is revealed, and her voice ceases to sound like the rush of heavy wind, and instead sounds like the voice of a normal woman as she carries on "I'm having a wonderful morning, you know aside from a single small detail~" she says, sweetly, in her beautiful singsong voice, quickly continuing "There's a meeeaaan village in the Dead Swamp, I'm not exactly sure why anyone would want to live in such a nasty place, by the way, but they're not paying our fee for keeping them saaafe~ isn't that rude~? We have such good Bleeze Knights, they put their lives on the line to keep everyone free and safe, it's sooo mean and rude not to pay them for their hard work in keeping them free and safe, you know~?" she says, as she uses her other hand to rub Delta's back with skill that far transcended that of a professional masseuse. She waits a moment, sighing softly, though not in a sad way, before continuing further "You know, it would make me happy, and keep them from getting into more trouble, if you were to sneaky sneak into their village and get rid of whatever meany leader is telling them not to pay for our services~" she says, smiling sweetly at Delta as she continued giving her the world's best back rub.