There were many ways in which one might react to seeing strange, green-skinned and slimy creatures, slightly reminiscent of the Rumcols in the old Craft of War game, lurk in the water near the coast. Even I could only see them thanks to the raised altitude of the scrying construct I was using to scout furthest from my little group, and that raised perspective allowed me to react to them. Some might have responded with fear, some with disgust, especially when those noticing these creatures theorised that these might be the local variant of the Shattered. Most would undoubtedly increase their vigilance; there were countless ways one might react.

But amusement and laughter? I had a feeling that those were unique to me, especially as neither the amusement nor the laughter had a hysterical quality to it; I was simply amused and, quite frankly, intrigued by these strange and entirely unexpected creatures. Thinking back, I had encountered creatures similar to these back when I had done a favour to the Naga near Neyto, when Sigmir and I had just started out on our shared journey. It would be interesting to see if these creatures here could compare to those and just how badly the local Naga back then had stunted the growth of their foes. Likely quite severely, I couldn't imagine any intelligent species allowing any actual threat to their primary resource to persist and grow. It would be incredibly foolish to do so, and I couldn't imagine sensible beings allowing that.

At least not if the threat was obvious and the cost of dealing with it wasn't overly harsh. After all, humans had merrily burned up literal metric tons, or rather kilo-tons, of various hydrocarbons to fuel their industry, all without a single care in the world just what would happen to the equally massive amount of released toxic gas. However, given that said hydrocarbons were, again, quite literally, the fuel that built the global civilisation before the change, the status quo, unsustainable as it had been, had simply been accepted. Sure, people had known that it was unsustainable, after all, nobody sane would claim that one could continue eating from the same cake forever without replenishing it, but there had been a lack of good alternatives. Civilisation required energy, and it was far too convenient for anyone, even for me, to abstain from the various comforts of said civilisation. Thus, wilful ignorance had been the emotional default, as ignorance had been bliss. Who knew how long civilisation, and humanity for that matter, would have endured without the change bringing things to a sudden and fairly devastating stop?

It was an interesting question to ponder whether the change had doomed humanity or if it had been saved by it, despite it killing billions of people outright and billions more in the aftermath. That would only become known in the future; it likely depended on an individual's definition of doomed and saved, as well as the question of the period one observed. After all, even the current iteration of humanity, altered by the change as it had been, wouldn't last forever; nothing did.

Regardless of these questions, I had bigger fish to fry, namely, I wanted to learn more about these strange, green-skinned humanoids hanging out on the shores south-east of us. Maybe there were more elsewhere, possibly in the rivers, I had yet to check. Perhaps they were forming some form of rudimentary civilisation, as the Sasquatch had, or maybe they were simple monsters, merely in humanoid form. I simply didn't know. So far, I had been unable to determine anything about them except their appearance.

My first instinct was to make sure none of the giants travelled too far south. While I had never observed them in deep water, I was almost sure that they couldn't swim, only wade through rivers. Their sheer size and incredible physical prowess made me somewhat leery, especially as I knew their bones were hard, dense and tough enough to resemble metal. Unless they had some sort of innate magic that allowed them to float, they would sink like stones.

So far, I had only been semi-successful in keeping the giants from attacking everything that moved, meaning I had no confidence in their ability to stop themselves from charging into the water to attack these green creatures, nor did I think I would be able to hold them back. That, in combination with their likely inability to swim and lack of overall intelligence, meant that any giant spotting one of these green creatures would feed the fishes. Or the green creatures, if they were as carnivorous as I thought them to be.

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With the need to keep the giants away from the water, especially the bays to the south, I conjured up a few fresh ravens, deeply infusing them with my bound spirit. This way, they'd be able to fly further and with less direct control required than usual, allowing me to gather additional information.

Soon, while I did my best to marshal the giants further to the north in order to avoid the widest part of the local rivers as they made their way down to the ocean, my constructs reached the area where I had first spotted these green creatures.

With the additional constructs, I could get a much better look from closer than before, though that wasn't what stood out the most. No, that was reserved for a massive conglomerate of Ice, snow and rubble, which marred the landscape like a sore thumb. All around us, the forest was almost temperate during the summer, and the only snow we could see was on the various mountains in the distance. But here, in that one instance, a massive iceberg was sitting in a bay where a large river was meeting the ocean. If that didn't count as 'strange', I wasn't sure what should count, giving me something beyond the strange, green creatures to investigate. But how was I supposed to accomplish that feat?

I could hardly split myself in two, leaving one aspect of myself here, to continuously guide the giants towards the Nexus, while the other aspect ventured out to investigate this strange phenomenon.

Nor could I leave the giants be, if I did, they'd run rampant and create a massive amount of chaos and destruction, possibly dying in the process. I had only so many of these large and dumb creatures; I couldn't just let a few of them die in stupid ways. I needed them all to maintain a high and genetically diverse population. Hel, even that wasn't ascertained with the ten I currently had, and I really didn't want to travel a few weeks just to get a new batch of giants. No, those I had would have to be enough, somehow.

So, I had to do the entire investigation remotely, which was incredibly annoying. Sure, my constructs were good, their eyes and ears as good as those of any human, but human norms were, compared to my senses, just pitiful.

My constructs couldn't detect magic, they couldn't track by scent or taste the air to learn more about our quarry, they couldn't even use Observe, as rarely as I did that. They were useful, yes, but also limited. Maybe I would have to rework their entire concept at some point in the future, but for now, they were what I had access to.

And so, they were what I could use.

With a thought, I split the ravens I had sent south into two groups, one group staying up high, the other descending a little, allowing me to get a better look at the strange conglomerate of ice, snow and rubble.

It looked, quite frankly, disturbing. Now, with a better angle to look at the thing, I could see that it used to be a city, a fairly large one, judging by the sheer amount of rubble left behind and how far it was spread out. Whatever had happened to the city, either the change or something else, had been impressively devastating. While the ice wasn't clear, nor the snow for that matter, I could see enough to discern that few, if any, buildings had more than a single wall remaining, to say nothing about their roofs.

Then, after all that destruction, the entire city had been covered in ice and snow, and neither of those seemed to be capable of melting. Sadly, I was too far away to sense a cause for that, which annoyed me a fair bit. I would have suspected the Nexus if I couldn't sense it further to the north-east of us, remarkably close now. Maybe a week or two, if I had to guess, so it could hardly be responsible for the strange formation of ice and snow that covered the city south of us.

At least not as far as I understood these things, I would have to investigate once the giants were settled around the Nexus.

But, for now, I let the first flight of ravens descend just a dozen metres or so above the glacier covering the city, curious if they would scare something up. And, if not, they could continue descending further, investigating the strange green creatures in the water.

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