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It's nighttime in the Utah Rockies. Fog had flooded them. A full moon blazes high ahead. It gets spooky out here.

High over some of it, a statue towers. It's the Capitoline Wolf. It's MUCH bigger than the one from Rome. Around it, strange wolves howl.

Around a mountain, a strange wolf lumbers. He wears a collar made of forged iron. He's got a wild boar in his jaws. At the shoulder, he's taller than a horse.

His collar is branded with the Asgardian roundel. Not only is he not from Deseret...he's not from Midgard.

He passes a pile of boar carcasses. He swings his onto the pile, and lumbers past.

He's a Grandson of Fenris. And he's not the only one.

Long ago, Mormons settled around here. Most were loved by their families. Others were not so ideal. The Mormons' excommunication rate should be astounding...if it ever has been.

Long before their arrival out here, there was turmoil on Asgard. The berserkers are the spec-ops of their army. Some attain victory in battle by losing control, and staying out of control until all of the enemy is slain. Others take this a step farther, and shape-shift into beasts once lost of control.

Sometime after the Mormons settled here, Deseret was invaded...by the Marauders. Most Mormons are scions of white supremacy; the Asgardian Einherjar saw an opportunity. A band of berserkers, who now call themselves the Grandsons of Fenris, traveled to Deseret, at great risk to themselves and their people, and expelled Midgard of the Marauders' expansion. They morphed into wolves and bears, and had the mountains, deserts, softwood forests, and lakes cleaned up in no time.

Alas, by the time the Grandsons finished, they discovered they couldn't get back to Asgard. So they cloaked their existence from the rest of Midgard, and settled here.

Since then, they've become a very special servant to excommunicated and evicted Mormons. Like generous she-wolves, they take in lost travelers, and forge them into Asgardians.

Up here on a peak, this neat gadget of Asgardian origin is a body-forge. This is the first step, of how lost travelers become blonde, redheaded, or light brunet Asgardians with blue, grey, or green eyes. When they go into the forge, they're excommunicated Mormons without a prayer in Deseret-or likely in the Union, once they must reveal their Mormon resumes. When they come out...well, let's just say they're "one of the guys."

Not all who settle here can animal-morph. But those who can usually transform into lobos, kit foxes, bears, seals, sea lions, ferrets, badgers, spotted skunks, coatis, and ringtails.

The lobos, coatis, seals, and sea lions are social. With respect to their fellow Grandsons-animal-morphing and not-they stick to, and stick up for, their packs.

Life here in Ulvgaard isn't much more active than it is on Asgard. Most people here are usually either napping or hunting. Those who can't animal-morph forge axes and hammers. The animal-morphing berserkers haven't needed barding in a while.

From their hunts, the lobos bring back the carcasses of dead ungulates, rodents, rabbits, hares, and game fowl. The coatis bring back giant spiders, snakes, and toads. The seals and sea lions bring back, from the depths of the great lake, sturgeons, trout, walleyes, saugers, and bass. There's a huge pile of each where their respective packs rest.

The non-animal-morphing berserkers take some of the game off the piles, and butcher it. Many of them brew ales...with big and scary iron-forged brewing machinery.

In his blond human shape, Lowell, the boy who saw Liz before the Sacrilegious Six attacked her, carries a dead wolf through Ulvgaard. (It's a real wolf; not a berserker.) In his bare feet, he walks the many long narrow blackened paths towards someone who might know a certain scent on the wolf carcass better than he does. From what he's heard, he's a relatively new addition to Ulvgaard...especially considering how old he is...

He passes two lobo/berserkers, playing tug-of-war with a long tibia. They stop as Lowell passes them, and appear to have a moment of silence.

Around here, the real wolves are like sheep to the Asgardian shepherds. (The excommunicated Mormons probably taught them that...)

Lowell descends into a cave, thinking the sniffer is inside. He hesitates when he sees a Malayan sun bear slumbering inside. The bear blinks, and looks at Lowell. Embarrassed, Lowell apologizes, creeps out, and scurries off on his way.

From the top of a rock, a ringtail watches Lowell as he travels a path. He follows him down to the lake.

He descends a hill, towards the great lake. A pile of seals, with big noses, slumber on the shore. They barely acknowledge Lowell as he approaches. He sets the wolf carcass down, and takes a few steps back.

"Excuse me," he calls into the pile of sleeping bodies. "Melchizedek?"

The seals keep snoring. Right, Lowell remembers, forgetting your old name is part of the transfiguration process here.

"Metcalf," he calls.

From the pile of bodies, a bull seal emerges. He's much bigger than most of the others. He stands on his belly, and bellows. Lowell bows low, beneath his tall, tall chest.

Nearby, a spotted skunk/berskerker crawls into the midst. He seems curious...and prepared to defend Lowell, if he must...

"The scents on this carcass," Lowell speaks, "demand thy nose's services."

The great bull seal lowers himself. He hangs his nose over the carcass, and sniffs around. He should get a fair sample of more than what's there. That's one big nose...one that's probably attracted one or several mates since his body-forging...

The bull hesitates. He blinks, and fidgets his whiskers.

Spontaneously, he rolls over sideways, like a rolling log, until he hits a cliffside. He lies right-side up, and bellows a cloud of poison gas. Lowell is confused. He watches as Metcalf transforms into an old Asgardian merman, with blond hair.

From a hole in the ground, a badger/berserker crawls. It seems he heard Metcalf's racket.

"Uh," he groans, "I never assimilate to that new ability. Even as a Muslim, I was sickened by dogs...and creatures that remind one of the same..."

Lowell watches. Around him, the rocks that Metcalf now sit in are like a rocky chair to him. He happily slaps his tail against the rocks under him. He seems comfy...yet paranoid.

"I know one of those scents," he confirms. "Tis of my ex-wife. One of many, I had. My home hosted a vast harem in my older old life."

A ferret/berserker crawls out of a hole. He seems curious.

"Thine ex-wife," Lowell repeats. "What business brings her to Deseret, and why does she kill wolves?"

"That, Master Lowell, I am ignorant of. As dangerous as she was even then, she does not strike me as the dame who would fear wolves...for Islam or for herself."

"So, she hunted them? Why did she not collect the carcass?"

A kit fox/berserker wanders into the midst. He has big ears, and can't help overhearing.

"That I also do not know. But if she is still in this wild, I cannot imagine that whatever business she has with me will end benevolently, by any of our standards."

Farther away, a lobo/berserker with red fur returns from a hunt. He leaves a boar's carcass on the lobos' game pile, and wanders off.

Somehow, he couldn't tell the boar's made of metal. On its back, the miniaturized Sacrilegious Six hang upside down from their respective saddles. (The SacrilegeMobile is upside down while leaning against the side of the pile.) Around them, this seems like a shithole of a place to look for an ex-husband.

"He always did stink up his chambers when he was depressed," Elektra grumbles. "He didn't really eat pork, though..."

"None of us did," Mystria needlessly reminds everyone. "Allah-damn Islam to Jahannam!"

"Why do I get the feeling," Sandgirl poses, "that even if the last ex-husband was in this labrynth of macabre, we'd still know him?"

"We might not," Dr. Octopussy laments. "But we can't afford to leave him alive any more than we can Spider-Man, need I not remind any of you." She looks around at all of them. "And if I do, I might as well as rue the day me and She-Vulture decided to spare the rest of you the remorseless executioner's ax back in Afroasia-the one that the Caliph himself once doomed us all to...all for the love of freer women."

"And ham," Huntress adds. "And vodka. And puppies. And brothels..."

"Pipe down, Huntress," She-Vulture demands. "It's already bad enough that Deseret's a dry county."

"Country," Sandgirl corrects her.

"Of course," She-Vulture whispers darkly. "Mazel tov."

They all sigh, and dismount. Ulvgaard is a big place...and at their size, it'll take a very long time to search. But the two witnesses are too well-protected, and it's senseless to look for Spider-Man when they already know-or think they know-where the last ex-husband is. With luck, they won't end up as maggots in a berserker's stomach...or, more embarrassing, the last ex-husband's...