The Shadows Book Two: The Legacy of Man and Machine.

Chapter 4 - The Rotted Plague.

Liki Wolfspirit.

When Liki was woken, it wasn't pleasent, as he was shaken awake by someone with a frantic voice. "Liki! Liki wake up!"

He blinked his eyes tiredly as he was shaken, "Wh-what? What is it?" He tried to focus and saw it was Reyals above him, her eyes wild with urgency she gripped him by his shoulders. She didn't seem to care that he was naked at the moment, but Liki did, his paws shotting over his sheath to hide himself from her.

"One-Eye took off somewhere." She told him, "I was taking a shower in the bathroom of our room before he suddenly snapped up awake and took off."

Liki quickly got up after that, scooping up his armor and straping it back on as fast he could, "Show me what way he went."

Reyals ran out of the room, and Liki, still finishing putting on his gloves and hood, was right behind her, leaving Kaz and Blackpaw as they were waking up slower.

One-Eye was dashing across the boarded platforms of Heartwood as his mind raced with new urgancy, he'd never felt like this before, usually when he was in control, his goal was to kill, now he was redoing what he had did earlier? Why was he doing this, why couldn't he control himself? As he passed around a corner onto the "Main street." platfrom, and set his sights on the large castle at the end of the platform, he forced himself to pause.

"What...the fuck...am I doing?" He panted heavily, kneeling over a moment to rest with his paws on his knees, "Why do I suddenly want to stop the thing? I just put it there...." He growled as he felt his body freeze up and he looked over his shoulder, getting that same icy feeling and he knew who was there already, and indeed, there he was.

"One-Eye! Just what are you doing? I can sense your intention you know, you dare to disobey me?!" growled the dark figure standing a few feet behind him, cloaked in a shroad of black smoke, and a pair of red eyes shining out from the dark smokescreen.

"My l-lord...I was just...uh..."

"Don't you forget who it is who controls you, you little twit of a fox, you've got half a brain." The dark figure raised an arm out from the smoke and pointed at him with his bony looking fingers, like he was a skeleton almost, but a pointed and sharp claw was visible on the tip. One-Eye knew that his lord was not actually there, but the fear he felt was the same as he felt the icy daggers dig more into his back. "It is merely my whims that get you to go where I need you, you've completed your task here, now get out of Heartwood before my plan takes hold or you'll be taken by the same fate awaiting thise Borians."

"Y-yes my lord, I'll get out of Heartwood right now..." The foxen said, but he already knew he couldn't lie about what he was feeling, he still wanted to go stop what he had helped start.

The black figure stared at him for a long time, "What is this...?" He whispered and he half stepped, half floated up in front of One-Eye's face, those red and evil looking eyes peircing into his own one good red eye. "Something is...stopping me from controlling your actions..."

One-Eye gulped as he was forced to stare into the deep blood eyes, he wished he had his other eye so that it didn't seem like he was being double teamed by two different pairs of eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about my lord."

"You've come into contact with someone powerful, and he's left a touch of his magic on you... I can't control you at a distance now." The figure tilted his head back suddenly and laughed loudly, surprising One-Eye, "Well then, congradualations One-Eye, seems you get your freedom back! I didn't need you anymore anyway. The Rot has already began to infect the tree. You better keep the one who freed you close One-Eye, you're no longer a Knight of the Seven." And with that, as soon as he had appaeared, the dark apperation vanished, leaving One-Eye standing awkwardly on the platform.

A few Borians were staring at him oddly, as the fox had been conversing with what to them appared to be empty air, but he had no time to excuse himself or anything, and as soon as he was about to resume his dash to the castle, that's when he heard another voice call out his name once more.

"One-Eye!" Liki shouted as he turned around the corner and he saw the fox standing there, a shocked expression on the fox's face.

"L-Liki..." The foxen stuttered a moment, looking away with a sudden blush before he drew up his courage and threw a fist at the wolf as he drew close.

"Whoa!" Liki ducked and rolled out under he punch, crouching on his knees, "Easy there."

"What did you do to me?!" One-Eye yelled, and instantly Liki knew this was the "bad side" of the fox just by how his tone of voice. "Why the hell did the sight of you just now give me a boner, and why can't my Master command me?"

Liki held up his paws lightly as he stood up, ignoring the rush of questions as he tried to calm down the fox, "Easy One-Eye, I'm just trying to help you."

"Help me?! You've doomed me, and you! And Her!" He pointed at Reyals as soon as he saw her round the corner, she had a harder time catching up it seemed. "This whole city is doomed!"

"What are you talking about?" Liki asked him, just before there was a small shout from the castle, and Liki looked back with the others to see a few Borians running out of the large building, and then, the most hideous looking Borian stumpling out after them, its limps looking a sickly black and brown and bits of inky fluid oozing from under tears in the bark of it's treelike body.

The Borians make an awful screeching noise unigue to thier species, like the sound of a tree falling, but longer and more high pitched, and a few dozens of them made this noise as they turned and fled away from the shampling creature. Liki was forced to cover his ears at the sounds, his ear drums ringing when it finally stopped after the Borians stampeded past him, and faded out into the rest of the canopy city. The creature fell to the floor of the platform at the sound of the screams itself, but as it faded and there was no one else on the platform, it turned its destroyed looking face and head over to the trio and it got back up to its feet slowly, black ooze dripping from its mouth as it started creeping toward them one step at a time.

"Great Gaia..." Liki whispered and he stood frozen, "It's a Rotted...in the middle of the City..." He had never seen a Rotted before, but he had heard of them from the Borians. With each step it took, the wood where it walked became black and oily, rotting away as if it had just aged a good two hundred years, and it spread out slowly from the center of those steps as the zombied Borian continued foward. It's eyes, as Liki thought, that were once a green glow when the Borian had been healthly, were now a sick looking brown, more of the black ooze leaking out like tears from the sockets.

"We have to kill it! Before it spreads the rot any farther than it already has!" One-Eye shouted while he raised his paws, and his massive black claymore appeared in his paws in a puff of black smoke.

"You can't kill Rotted!" Reyals snarled at him. She looked ready to run off on her own, there was plenty of space between them and the creature, but the fact that it couldn't be killed only meant it was just a matter of time till it caught them.

"Then restrain it!" Liki growled again and he dashed foward with One-Eye beside him at the creature, drawing up his daggers while they came close. The creature reacted first by bending itself back obscenly, it's barkskin cracking and peices of wood snapping off its body as it raised its arms up, grazing the ground. As Liki and One-Eye drew closer to about ten feet and readied to strike, it shot up the other direction it had been bending over in like a slingshot, the rotted arms of its body strecthing out sickly to grow past fifteen feet; bark and more black ooze littering the platform as the arms snapped and cracked apart. Shooting toward the wolf and fox, the hands of the elongated arms opened up grab them both. Liki dodged, rolling away quickly, while One-Eye used his large claymore to absorb the impact, the palm of the hand pushing him back as far as it could stretch, the fingers trying to curl around and embrace him.

The rotted Borian made a groaning noise, more of it's body snapping as it moved the streched out arms, swinging its right at Liki while bringing its left one up into the air to slam down on its foxen target. Liki rolled to dodge again, but he felt himself get grazed by the rotted arm and he gasped, before remembering that the Rotted could not infect regular Beasts, the rot was someone that only affected Borians and plantlife. With that realization, Liki made a desperate move after his roll while the creature was lifting up its other arm and finishing the sweep of the one he had dodged.

Liki dove at and tackled the Rotted, the creatures long arms waving up into the air as it made a loud, even more sickly screech than the healthy tree people did. Liki bit his lip through the scream, folding his ears back as he tried to concentrate on creating a Shadow Barrier to trap the Rotted in. He jumped away when he managed to finish his spell, planting his paws on the ground and there was a slight shimmer of light in the air around the infected Borian, the sound of its cracking bark and groaning noises were silenced as the barrier surrounded it.

He panted and eventually found himself having to sit down on the platform, he wasn't used to using that much power alone, usually he had Blackpaw to lend him some to do the spell. The Rotted rose to its feet, the infection still spreading past the barrier as it came a few feet from the wolf, and it seemed confused as it pounded on the invisible wall, its mouth hanging open, drolling and dripping more of that dark inky juice onto the floor, which seeped into the wood and turned it black and dead, and then continued to grow outward slowly.

The Shadow sighed and he watched the disgusting black color of the infection slowly spreading through the wood of the platform. "Heartwood's been infected...at the heart..."

When Kaz and Blackpaw arrived, the dead Borian was simply standing idlely in the barrier, it's head pressed up against the wall as it drolled and oozed its black blood continuesly onto the wood platform under it, continuing the infection as it was creeping foward, about one foot every hour. The HeartWood Guard was there as well, keeping well away from the site to avoid getting infected, as Liki talked to them about what to do next.

"We can't kill it...we can't contain the spread..." The Captian of the Guard looked sad, at least, as sad as a tree could appear Liki thought. "Heartwood is doomed to become like the Rotted Woods..." He was hopeless to any suggestion Liki had to fix the situation. Now that the rot had made it past the Rotted Frontlines to the east, where it was kept at bay twenty-four seven by different teams of druids, there was nothing to stop the rot from consuming the forest. There simply was not enough druids to keep the frontline secure and keep this new infection from spreading here in Heartwood at the same time.

The city was already on full alert and evacuation. The small town by the edge of the sea was the destination for refugees it seemed, perhaps others was to go across sea. With the rot in the middle of Heartwood, it was only a matter of time before it consumed the city, and then the whole forest. This wasn't a good solution though, Borians needed trees to surive, the chances of any of them making it across the Atlantic was slim, but if they stayed in the country, they would become infected instead.

Kaz made plans with the druids of Heartwood, they would try to slow the spread as much as they could for now, they could buy time at least, and he stayed behind as Liki returned to the inn with Blackpaw, Reyals, and One-Eye. Liki wasn't concerned for Kaz's wellbeing in this case, he could not be infected and he was large enough to handle himself if something minor happened.

As Liki packed his things into his backpack, he looked over at One-Eye. "Is there something you know about this One-Eye?"

One-Eye paused a moment, before he sighed, "I put that thing there..."

"What...?" Liki asked softly, not sure he had heard right.

The fox punched his bed, making it squek and shake, "I put it in the castle...rather...I had infected a Borian with it...It was my Lord's order."

Liki remembered, after all the excitement he had forgotton One-Eye's condition, that he was one person being controlled by two little kids inside his head, Wolff was in control right now, he was the one in control whenever One-Eye did so something bad. "Your Lord? Who is your Lord?"

"S-S..." The fox shook his head, "Fuck I can't say his name, his power over me still exists somewhat..." He looked over at Liki and continued, "I don't what you did to me after you captured me before, but whatever you did you left some kind of spell on me that is interfering with his control, I have freedom now. For some reason though too, when I look at you now, I get a raging hard on in my pants, when the sight of you had scared the shit out of me before... I guess I should thank you, but I'm gonna end up dead now so what's the point."

The wolf tilted his head, again ignoring the sexual comment as this was a serious situation, "You're going to be dead? From what? The Rotted can't infect you, and they aren't that strong."

"One at a time maybe." One-Eye scoffed, "But that's not what I'm worried about. My Lord says he has no more use of me, but now I am a danger to him with how much I know, he'll be sicking the remaining six Knights of the Seven after me."

"A Knight of the Seven!" Reyals turned around the corner of the doorway, again eavesdropping on Liki like she had before, "You're one of those betrayer bastards that tried to kill the King of Camelot?!"

"I tried nothing! I was being controlled!" The Fox yelled at her and Liki slammed his foot down.

"Enough!" the Shadow growled and he glared at One-Eye, "We'll worry about the Knights later, what do you know about the Rotted?"

One-Eye paused again, "There is a way to stop the spread of rot...You have to kill the original source of the desease, of all the Rotted, there is only one you can actually kill."

"You mean the King of the Rotted? In the Deep Maze?" Liki asked, and One-Eye nodded back to him.

"Yeah, him, but you'll never get to him, he surrounds himself with rotted and is the size of a bear." The fox scoffed again as he packed up the last of his things into his backpack and slung it around his shoulder. "When do we head out?"

"We? Excuse me?"

"Like I have anything else to live towards now, if I go on my own after this, the Knights will kill me. Whatever power you have is the only thing that's going to protect me now. So let's get going, we can join the frontline at the edge of the Rotted Forest, till we find an opening we can use to get in the Maze I guess."

Liki tilted his head, "How do you know so much about this? And why so eager to suddenly do good deeds instead of bad ones?"

"I...I don't know, before...my memories were only those that my Lord wanted me to remember and go by, I can remember alot of things now that I couldn't before...My Lord is responsible for alot of suffering it seems...I want to fix them, perhaps I can earn forgiveness from Gaia if I do...but there's still this blank space, I can't remember anything from my childhood."

"That's...to be expected." Liki said lowly but he didn't explain or give One-Eye a chance to ask anything, "All right then, let's get going."

The dark figure appeared in the middle of a dank and dark wooded area, the black mist swirling around him as he strode quickly, his long robe clearly moving rapidly as he walked. On either side of him, there were large, tall and thick walls of dark black and brown grass. This was the Rotted Maze, once, a bright and colorful nursing home for Borians where seedlings and saplings were planted and taken care off till they grew thier arms and legs. Now infected and covered in rot, the maze had been renamed to the Rotted Maze, and the nursing home had been moved closer to Heartwood. It was the Rotted King's home now, the first ever Rotted Borian that had spread his horrible illness throughout the maze, the infected seed and saplings growing into Rotted and then spreading the desease beyond.

As the robed Beast made his way through the maze, taking his route from memory as he had many times before, a few Rotted, mopping about in random areas of their forest, turned their heads to him, but did not make any move to attack. The infection here was so intense, that the flowers had become monsterous, and attempted to smash any object near them with their huge, dark colored and whitered petals. The flesheating plants of Heartwood were here too, but they were twice as big and had three different rows of teeth. He passed one up on his way around the maze, and it did turn to attack him, but he merely needed to raise one hand and a blast of energy shot from his palm and sent the enormous plant flying back thirty feet and through one of the hedges, leaving a gaping hole in the wall.

He was uninterrupted the rest of his way through the forest, until he came across a small garden like area in the back of the maze, the flowers, once bright and beutiful, were now wilted and dead and looking more like small masses of mush. Sitting among them, was a large, withered, old looking tree, and for a moment it might have been a tree, had it not been for the obvious arms it had growing out from its sides.

The Rotted King groaned as he sensed the presence of the dark hooded quest, "Lord...Salvis..." It spoke his name with a weak drol to its voice, the bark of its skin snapping apart and black ooze seeped out from the cracks as its lips moved and it turned its large head to Salvis, twisted branches reaching out into the air at the top, a few leaves hanging onto them and weakly flittering in whatever breeze would come through the garden.

"How are you doing my child?" Salvis chuckled lightly in a evil tone as he walked around the king's body, running his paw freely through the the seeping black ooze on its skin without care.

"Salvis...is...this almost over..." The Rotted King wheezed out. It seemed in pain, it wasn't like the other Rotted, to continue the plague, he had to be concious of his mind, to control the spread and all the other Rotted. "Is my task...nearly over..."

"Oh yes...yes..." Salvis said as he shook his paw clean, "Now that the rot has infested Heartwood finally, it is only a small matter of time until the entire country is consumed. Once there is no more forest, the Borians will die without their home or another forest to sustain them, and the overall power of the Beast Kingdom will weaken." Salvis turned in front of the large Rotted Borian, looking and he mocked a tone of sadness a moment, "Ah and to think, twenty years ago, you were but a small seed in the ground..."

"You..."

"And then, I cared for you till you were a sapling, and then I gave you this gift." He lifted his arms high with a large grin along his muzzle that poked out from the hood, his shining red eyes glowing up into the dried face of the Rotted King.

"My life..." The Borian started to cough out slowly, but its voice faded off as more of the black plague oozed out from between it's lips and it started coughing violently, spitting the black ooze out over the ground until it managed to wheeze, "Life...destroyed...I'm just a...plague."

"Oh water under the bridge you old tree." Salvis chuckled and he turned back around the king and started walking out of the destroyed garden, "You're going to be the first step towards a new world, King, bask in your glory as the victor in your war, before your purpose is fulfilled and my spell shrivels you to the same mush of these flowers." Salvis vanished in a puff of smoke, the large Borian seeming to curl up as it looked down at the ground where it sat, its bark cracking apart more so as it groaned in a deep and pained voice.