The scourge facing the kumojin were an isolated and cutoff spur that had crawled out of the Felwood into the mountains in the wake of the battle of Mount Hyjal.
Hundreds of the spiders infested the tunnels in the mountains. The discovery of thousands of what appeared to be an abominable mix of nerubian and human gave them some hope of being able to establish an actual base of power, especially as it seemed that the fools were, in their estimation, woefully undefended.
The initial skirmishes were, somewhat promising, but few if any of the gathered dead proved susceptible to the scourge. And then the raids began.
Small pinpricks at first that delayed their own return raids and forced them to re-establish the scourge on purified ground and rebuild structures.
Each successive raid was larger, first only the thick-skinned humanoids led by a powerful warriors, a scattering of spiders and, surprisingly, powerful holy women.
Within a few days, the unprotected human-seeming spider-folk started accompanying the others while wearing thick padded silk armor that kept their exposed flesh protected from the sting of their own dead bugs. These figures did not stay in direct fight so much, but stayed back used their own webbing to support the more melee oriented soldiers.
Each raid did more damage and uncovered more of the infested tunnels to their enemy, and their few responding attacks were more and more harshly rejected.
It was a losing campaign, especially as the kumojin, as they eventually learned their foes called themselves, and the humans with them, took residence in the caves they'd previously infested, giving the living spiders closer access to the undead's lairs.
When finally the nerubians were pushed completely out of the mountains, and five figures looked down the paths of the otherside of the mountain...
...into the Felwood.
"The spirits of that forest are in terrible pain," Kasumi said, almost wincing as she looked down with her kali eyes.
"Okay, anybody that lives up here's gotta know how to fight," Ranma said quietly, his own chi senses just about forcing a gag at the corruption below.
"Aiya," Shampoo agreed. "Grandmother must see this."
"We can set no hives or spiders down there," Kodachi said firmly. "We'd risk our friends becoming corrupted and turning against us."
"The geologists says we've got some good mineral veins," Megumi said, rubbing at the carbon smeared on her face from the pyrotechnics of battle. "We might be able to get the right stuff to make some charges make sure there are no and keep most of that down there. Set some traps."
Kasumi frowned at that thought.
"Hopefully," she said. "We'll be able to heal the land in the future."
"Let's get back," Ranma said.
****
The kumojin were not far from the stretch of land known as Darkshore, deep in the forests and on the edges of what the Kaldorei called Ashenvale Forest. In another time, the night elves would have been patrolling the lands fairly frequently, making sure that no one tampered with its natural state.
However, the battle of Hyjal was not long past and the night elves were still reeling from the effects of the Third War.
Far north on the continent of Northrend, the forces of the Night Elves contested with both the Scourge under Prince Arthas and the Naga and Blood Elves under Illidan.
On the Eastern edge of Kalimdor, Jaina Proudmoore and the Horde under Thrall had to deal with Daelin Proudmoore's uncompromising fleet.
The conflict raging between the kumojin and the leftover nerubians was small in comparison to these other conflicts, and gave the displaced refugees a headstart on building their own domain.
Already having experienced some nasty surprises both in their own home world and this new world, the kumojin built into the trees and the caverns, taking care that little to no sign of their presence be found by those traveling through the forests below.
Most of the humans went into the lower caverns, where they had hard ground under them rather than silken webs that most of them couldn't quite bring themselves to trust.
At the center of "Aratariku", or New-Land, was the largest of the web settlements, a virtual palace that was built amongst the branches of the tallest, strongest trees.
Originally it was just the amimono, the "web", after a few weeks, however, it was the Amimono. It held the homes for many of the more well-known families, including the Saotome and Morisato households.
There was very little pretension about the buildings, even the fanciful personal touches of individuals like Sayoko were more or less honest expressions of the individuals. The names of settlements were the names of common speech slowly converting from terms of reference into actual names on a map.
Aratariku: new land.
Amimono: web.
Morikeibi: forest guard.
And other places besides.
All in all, one small city, what would have been barely a town in 21st century Japan, and a handful of satellite settlements.
The small council of Nodoka, Cologne, Keiichi, Megumi, Kasumi and Nabiki kept things organized on a whole. Though the fighters were already starting to organize themselves under their own established names.
Eventually, they started sending out reconnaissance teams to see what their new world was like.
What they found was...
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(Posted Sat, 16 May 2009 06:06)
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