Dusk settles slowly over the northern wilds, casting long violet shadows across the tangled pines and frostbitten undergrowth. Once-quiet trails now carry the uneasy echo of things moving just beyond sight—skittering claws, chittering whispers, the faint scrape of metal dragged across cold earth. The wind that sweeps down from the high peaks carries more than chill; it brings the scent of unfamiliar musk, the tang of warpstone dust, and the unsettling sense that the land itself is being watched. Travelers speak of the forests darkening earlier each night, as though the twilight hastens its descent in fear of what creeps beneath the roots.

Signs of encroachment have begun to scar the wilderness. Trees are felled and left in twisted heaps, gnawed nearly to splinters. Scouting markers—crudely carved runes, bone totems, and bundles of stained fur—appear along the trails where none stood before. Burrows gape at riverbanks like open wounds, their depths too perfectly carved to be the work of natural beasts. Even the animals of the region have grown restless; deer bolt at the slightest noise, and wolves refuse to approach certain glades, whining low with hackles raised. Whatever is spreading northward is not merely passing through—it is claiming territory.

Further south, scattered homesteads and isolated logging camps tell stories of fleeting shapes darting between lantern beams, or of entire tool sheds vanishing overnight, hauled off by unseen hands. Some folk whisper of strange traps hidden beneath leaf litter—snare-lines of wire, spikes of sharpened bone, pits too cleverly disguised to be accidents of erosion. Where the ground sinks softly underfoot, there may be tunnels beneath—long, winding, reinforced by chitin and scavenged timber. The Skaven are not subtle in their expansion; they carve and steal and burrow, marking every step of their growth with industry and hunger.

Though no single warband has yet declared dominance, all signs point to their numbers swelling. Fleeing tribes, splintered clans, and ambitious engineers push further into the cold frontier each week. Their motives are as varied as their mutations—resource gathering, scouting, raiding, or simply spreading the reach of the Under-Empire. By torchlight or starlight, the forests feel different now: heavier in the air, sharper on the nerves, full of the quiet certainty that something listens from the dark. And for those who wander these northern paths, the Skaven need not be seen to be felt—their presence is already here, growing, plotting, and watching from beneath the soil.