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Elder Witch Doctor Zyra, along with the six other Elder Witch Doctors emerged from her home where they had been confirming and studying the omen Zyra had foreseen, and no matter how they looked at the signs, they all came to the same conclusion.
If they joined forces with the big villages against the coming tide, there would be no victory, only survival if they were lucky, or death if they weren't.
When they gathered and polled their powers to foresee the coming omen, they saw the bright and powerful one making its way toward the big villages, and unfortunately, they were in its path.
As they used a ritual similar to the Mainland shamans to commune with the spirits in the area, their combined experience and wisdom helped them decipher the mess of visions they saw through the spirits.
With their minds connected to the spirits, their minds interpreted what the spirits saw into what made sense to their own mind and sensibilities, and what they saw was not pleasant at all.
They saw ruined villages left in the wake of a tide of blood, and at the front of the tide of blood was what they called the bright one or powerful one. It was a being that radiated power from the viewpoint of the spirits, and if something as powerful as that in the view of the spirits was making its way towards them, they felt they did not have a chance of fighting.
With every day that passed, the Elder Witch Doctors performed their rituals to see the progress of the Powerful one, and with each passing day, more small villages were left in ruin.
As the tide of blood closed in on their territory in the visions, the Elder Witch Doctors decided to meet the coming threat and see if they could minimize the damage.
As for how they intended to meet the powerful one, they decided it was best not to wait until it was knocking on their front gates, and decided to intercept it, peacefully if possible.
To that end, they needed to find out where it was going to arrive at, but after asking around for information on the exact location of where the powerful one would be coming from, they received the disheartening news that everyone, no matter which village sent men to investigate, never returned, the only thing they knew was that it was coming from the north.
So, the Elder Witch Doctors had to come up with another solution, it was not their first choice, but it was rather accurate. They had to rely on the oldest of them, Elder Witch Doctor Torin, the only problem was that after extensive use of… substances… throughout most of his life to chase a deeper understanding of the spirits, it had left his mind lacking for some normal everyday activities.
But despite Elder Witch Doctor Torin not playing with a full deck, he was the most in tune with the spirits, and after taking a few hours to hone Torin's focus on finding where the powerful one was coming from, they just had to follow his directions.
Which led them to a clearing where Torin said the powerful one would come. From there, their guards and apprentices set up camp and a canopy to prepare for the arrival of the powerful one.
After two days of waiting, Torin suddenly woke up from his nap while his apprentice was rubbing the knot out of his old muscles and said, "It is coming… the bright one is coming!"
Soon after hearing what Torin said, the Elder Witch Doctors spruced themselves up in traditional garb and made their way to the canopy, after a few hours of waiting while drinking tea and chatting, Torin snorted awake from his sitting position, blurted out, "It is here!" before he slumped down in his seat again, sleeping with his eyes wide open.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, the biggest man they had ever seen made his way out of the tree line and walked towards them, and just as the visions showed, when they looked at his mana emitting from his body, they understood why the spirits described him as the bright one.
To their vision of the man's mana, he was like the walking embodiment of spirit made flesh, and many of the Witch Doctors wanted to bow to the entity before them there and then, but they had promised that they would take Elder Witch Doctor Zyra's lead, on the count that she was the eldest and wisest among them who still had their mental faculties intact.
And because groveling and prostrating themselves in front of this someone the moment they met was not exactly good for their image as Elder Witch Doctors and spiritual leaders of their people, Zyra decided to go with the polite and professional approach.
"Welcome powerful one, this gathering of Elder Witch Doctors greets you." Zyra said with a bow from where they were sitting, and the other Elder Witch Doctors followed her lead, all except Torin who was staring out into the distance with unfocused eyes.
Zyra then gestured to the seat reserved for the powerful one and said, "Please, take a seat powerful one. We have much to discuss."
***
As Grud studied the Elder Witch Doctors before him, he noticed that the seven before him were powerful, especially the extremely old one who was staring out into the distance, and behind those seven Elder Witch Doctors, were seven young men and women, and his senses told him that they were also Witch Doctors, and that they were a cut above the average shamans or witch doctors around.
After looking around with all his senses, Grud felt confident that if something went down, he could defend himself against the copper-clad guards, escape with his life, and come back with his men to wipe these witch doctors out.
Grud then walked up to the seat prepared for him, took a seat, and put his spear down by his side, all the while he was keeping an eye out for any mana activity going on from the witch doctors.
After Grud was seated comfortably, the old lady who welcomed him spoke, "I am Elder Witch Doctor Zyra, allow me to introduce you to the other Elder Witch Doctors…"
She then introduced the Elder Witch Doctors and their affiliated villages, starting with the decrepit man staring off in the distance, he was introduced as Torin and was told to ignore him. Beside Zyra and Torin, there were four other men who were named Aric, Soren, Jaro, and Zanu, and the last was a woman by the name of Ulla.
Once all introductions were made on his host's side, ignoring why they were calling him "Powerful one" for the moment, it was only polite that Grud introduced himself. "I am Grud, Chieftain of the Rock Claw tribe. Seeing that all of you are sitting here sipping tea, I guess you were expecting me."
Zyra nodded, "You guessed correctly. We have seen you in our visions, leaving rubble and death in your wake, and we hope to peacefully settle things before our people start fighting each other."
Grud figured that with such a gathering of witch doctors coming together, they would have been able to divine something about his coming, but from what Grud had learned and practiced so far, visions and omens usually lacked some clarity and a lot of context for what they saw. That was why Grud was rather confused about talks of their people coming into conflict with each other, when the witch doctors introduced themselves, none of their village names were on their list of grudges.
Grud looked back at Zyra in confusion, "Why would I have any conflict with any of your villages?"
This time, it was the witch doctors' turn to have confused expressions on their faces, and the youngest of the Elder Witch Doctors, Zanu, spoke up, "Were you not killing all the villages who stood in your way to reach the big villages to have your revenge?"
Seeing the confusion, Grud clarified the misunderstanding, "Yes and no. Yes, we were killing our way to have our vengeance on the big villages, but we only targeted the villages that took part in the attack and slaving of my people, and we will repay them tenfold for what they did to us. And when you introduced yourselves and the village you represented, none of them are the target of our vengeance, so why would we attack you?"
Grud's declaration eased a lot of the worries they had, but they were still cautious. At the end of the day, there was still an armed and ready army of men who just butchered their way south towards them, and no matter what Grud said they would ready their people in the case the worst came to pass.
Now it was Elder Witch Doctor Ulla who spoke up, with some tension in her voice, "May I ask which village your next target is?"
To which Grud replied, "That depends, what are you going to do if you know?"
After a moment of silence, Ulla released a sigh and said, "I do not dispute your claim for vengeance, but I ask that you allow us to go to the villages that we have kin in and let them escape before you attack."
Grud thought about it for a while before answering with a firm "No." and raised his hand to silence the witch doctors as they were about to object and bargain.
"I will attack the villages as I always have, but as a courtesy to you for meeting with me in good faith, I will allow your people to accompany us. After we are done subduing and rounding up the villagers, your people will be allowed to come in and identify your kin to take them away." Grud suggested.
Hearing Grud's proposal, all the Elder Witch Doctors came together to discuss the matter, well most of them did, Torin was still staring out into the distance, but now with a smile on his face and drool leaking down the side of his mouth.
After a few minutes of discussion, Zyra said, "This is a decision we cannot make on our own, we will need to bring this up with our village chief, will you give us some time to talk with our village chiefs about this before we come to a decision?"
Grud thought about it for a while, calculated the rough distance of these peoples' villages that he was told by his Riversong guide, and came up with an answer, "Let us meet here in one week's time for your answer."
With that, after some small talk, they all parted ways and Grud waited to anticipate positive results from their discussion.