The Past Ahead - an Empires SMP AU

Chapter 23 - Land of the free

  
       Lady Katherine and the other emperors who hadn't gone down to Gobland reached the end of the tunnel. She hadn't realized how much she missed the fresh air and warm sunlight until Sausage opened the trapdoor and she got out. The guardian of the Overgrown breathed in deeply. Flowers and fresh fields. Katherine wished that she could spend more time enjoying it. But not with Xornoth around.

           They were in a forest near Eversea. The trapdoor was concealed with shrubs of sweet berries; the bushes' sharp thorns deterring any curious noses. Katherine picked a few berries and stuffed them in her pocket. Just in case I need them.

           "What do we do now?" Shelby asked. "Go look for the wolves," Shrub said promptly. "Shouldn't be too hard, Lizzie's exact words were that they were supposed to patrol the lands in and around the other empires to spy on us." Joel said. As if on cue a few wolves appeared, hackles raised and teeth bared. Katherine was caught a little off guard. She was used to wolves being tamed pets and all the creatures of the land being friendly with her. I guess I forgot wolves are wild...

           The wolves growled, claws scraping the dirt, and a few emperors stepped backward, intimidated. Despite the obvious danger, Shrub, smiling as if at an old friend, and moved toward the wolves. Katherine restrained herself from stopping her. She knows what she's doing. The wolves moved forward towards the gnome as well. Katherine held her breath, then exhaled in relief as Shrub started petting the canines, some of which were rolling lazily onto their back to receive belly rubs. 

           "It's okay," Shrub called over her shoulder to the tense emperors. "They probably won't hurt you guys now." "Probably?" But all the wolves were surrounding the little gnome now, tongues lolling out and licking her in greeting. Shrub giggled and tried to pet all of them, but there were a dozen wolves and she only had two hands. The wolves started asking her questions in their wolfish language, and Shrub answered them in the language that the other emperors could understand. 

           "Oh, I've missed you too. How is there a gnome here after a thousand years? Uh, magic incident involving time travel. Er, time travel is hard to explain, I can do that later. Where's your mother wolf?" The wolves began to bark at each other, then howled in the sky for a few minutes before trotting off. The largest stooped down for Shrub to get on her, and soon the emperors were treated to the sight of a tiny gnome riding on a wolf. "Uh, should we be following them?" 

           As they travelled, the emperors noticed how much the corruption had spread across the lands. Katherine felt a pang of sorrow every time she saw wilted flowers and plants trampled by the red tendrils that was growing almost everywhere. It wasn't like this when Xornoth attacked before... He just attacked our empires... Guess he's changing his plans on how he's corrupting the world. What am I supposed to do to stop this? I'm the guardian of the Overgrown. And I failed my job. 

           Katherine remembered the state of her empire, as she had seen it, before Gem's spell had taken them to them future. Flowers burnt, rifts in the earth, earthquakes throwing the already chaotic place into more turmoil... And she couldn't do anything to stop it. She had even tried the life seed but it didn't do anything. How long had she waited, waiting for it to do something? Nothing. And more nothing, until the time Gem's spell had taken effect. 

           Katherine wrenched herself away from the sad thoughts she was having. You can be a mess later, when Xornoth's defeated. Somehow. She looked around. Shrub's wolves had taken them to a copse in a dark oak forest, where the corruption didn't seem to have spread yet. Holes into wolf dens could be seen if you looked carefully enough at where the shadows played with the shapes of the earth. A few curious wolf pups poked their heads out to see the visitors, making whimpering noises and happily greeting their returning parents. And under a towering tree lay a dire wolf, half awake, one eye watching the whelps play around her.