Tundra

A ziggurat to rival the pyramids, a monolith on legs, the mechanical skitterer climbed out of the sunset, its every length of newly forged steel glowing golden. Atop his clicking and clacking portable throne, Erasmus sat, his perfect poker face only slightly ruined by the shadow of a smirk. A hulking, industrial sound followed him across the naked tundra towards Mossen Grove, but Erasmus didn’t hear it. Since ingesting the fungus, his world was purple and full of the faint presences of material things like rustling oceans of grass, shifting sands and the shouts of men. His nearer neighbours were the inhabitants of the spirit world that circled above his head, hovering hungrily on the edges of his vision, where Grissos had bid them stay. He would have to do something to address that problem permanently, he thought, but it could wait.

Around him, more solid than the mirages of people and things he controlled, gnarled oak trees began to sprout from the soil. Their branches instinctively sought each other and intertwined to form a latticework tunnel. The arch was just big enough to permit the skitterer, humungous as it was, but it would have been amply wide no matter the size of the congregation that followed the man who sought it. Groves permit people rather than dimensions, and stretched their living, growing shapes accordingly. They were situated in the astral plane rather than in the physical realm in which their glamours anchored. Thus, Erasmus could visit Sentinel Rock even though he had chosen to inhabit the spirit world for the time being. As the shadows of the oak trees fell clawed upon his procession, a familiar figure strode out of the glade, pale as the sliding glaciers barely visible on the horizon.

‘What are you doing?’ he demanded, forcing Erasmus’ party to a halt.

The self-proclaimed High Thane slipped gracefully down from his seat, dismounting the skitterer via its long, sickle-shaped front claw. ‘Mossen Grove, remember?’ he said, meeting Grissos’ glare.

‘And what is this?’

He patted the sturdy leg of the contraption in an appreciative way. ‘My method of conveyance,’ he said briefly. ‘My Seafarers built it for me. Do you like it?’

‘It’s not bad,’ the druid admitted. ‘I may have to get one. Tell me, what do you know of Eiron the Seafarer?’

‘Eiron?’ Erasmus’s eyes glinted cold. ‘The name sounds familiar. Tentacle tattoos, scar, dark hair?’

‘So I am told,’ said Grissos, in a grating tone.

‘I think Mossen Grove sent him after you,’ Erasmus said at last, ‘but I killed him before he could cause any trouble.’

The druid frowned, creases like crow’s feet marking him as a Morrígan thinker. ‘He’s alive,’ he insisted. ‘He has allies, and they are moving against us.’

‘What allies?’

‘Fish-men. A couple of mages.’

Erasmus scoffed. ‘I see.’ He raised a sleek eyebrow. ‘Well, it shouldn’t matter,’ he decided hurriedly, idly inspecting a knife he had drawn out of his belt for the sheer joy of toying with it. ‘I beat him once, I can do it again easily.’

Grissos lowered his antlers. ‘See that you do,’ he said.