Into the Greenscape (p)

A few hours had passed since Solmar had first stepped into this odd new realm, a place he figured was no longer inside of Fiore. As it had been the place the elemental node had opened the portal to, he believed that this was what he desired in his heart, a place that seemed to be completely free of humans and technology. It was free of any kind of industry that was slowly killing nature, a place where nature had taken the reigns and had not given it away to anyone or anything else. To Solmar, this was truly the perfect location to spend his time and maybe even live. Being a man that belonged nowhere and had no real friends or family to return to, he figured no one would miss him if he were to disappear and stay in this place forever. Knowing full well that forever was a very long time, even more so for those that were not mortal and therefore not bound by their sense of time. Knowing that his life would not last nearly as long as that of a demon for instance, he had to be much more considerate with regards to how he spent what time he had.

Looking out across the forest that sometimes moved a bit, he felt that now would be as good a time as any to start his exploring of the place in greater depth. What with the strange bird-like creatures he had encountered in the widespread forest earlier, he was not entirely certain as to what he might expect to run into this time. Luckily for him, these predatory birds had not considered him to be food, probably because they had never laid eyes on a human being before. As such, there was a chance that if he were to venture back into the place, at least one of them might try to get a shot in at him out of sheer curiosity, in which case he would certainly need to defend himself. Preferring not to have to kill anything as he passed through the forest, he would keep his sword at the ready, being able to summon it to him in a split second if need be. With that thought in mind, he descended into the forest from his perched position.

Starting to make his way through the woodlands, every rustle of leaves he heard put him on edge, knowing how fast those tree birds could strike after seeing one of them snatch up some sort of outlandish deer. Given their speed and size, Solmar figured that his senses would pick up on them as soon as they might even think of making a move on him, or so he hoped. Having grown to become quite capable, there were few things in the world the young swordsman feared, though there was one thing wrong with that current mindset that he was quite aware of. He was no longer on that "world", and there was no telling exactly what he might be running into once he got deeper into the forest. As much as this idea bothered him, it also spiked a certain curiosity that overcame his feelings of inadequacy. If he could handle himself in Fiore and Earthland, how big would the chances be that he might actually meet his match and killed here. Figuring he would be fine as long as he remained cautious and weary, he continued moving through the forest.

With every creak coming from above, he looked up ever so slightly, watching as large round avian eyes were staring down upon him. As threatening as they might have appeared, it seemed that they still did not consider him food and therefore just allowed him to continue along his merry way. As the minutes started piling up, he put quite a few kilometers between himself and the portal that had brought him here. Luckily for him though, he was quite adapt at finding his way around things, which was also why he had never gotten lost in all of those years he spent growing up in the wilderness. Although he was on his guard every second of the journey, he was amazed at how relatively uneventful it all was, almost as if he were wandering through an enchanted version of the woods in Fiore. But just when he started feeling like the local flora and fauna were harmless to him, he heard a loud crash beside him at a distance of little over ten meters. When he looked over in the direction of the noise, it seemed that some of the trees had fallen over, or so he thought.

Closer inspection showed that it was in fact one of the predatory birds that had been toppled over by a large reptilian creature. What made it stand out where the stripes it had, as well as the hair that seemed to form manes near its head, making it seem like some kind of cross breed between a tiger and an iguana of some kind. One thing was certain though, it was large, fast and lethal as it had easily thrown off one of the rather large birds and seemingly killed it before it had the time to fall to the ground. But just as how it had alarmed Solmar to the presence of a greater threat, so had it done the same to the other predatory birds that had taken residence in the area. Though he believed the lizard was the greatest threat to him at this time, the sound of many dozens of footsteps drawing closer like a rumbling avalanche was even more dangerous. Spooked by the sudden attack on one of their own, it seemed that all of the other birds had decided to make a run for it, causing trees to get knocked over, shrubbery and smaller animals to get trampled, and if he wasn't careful, Solmar himself being trampled as well.

Having no time to keep an eye on the strange reptilian creature, the young mage started making a run for it, hoping that he could somehow remain ahead of the birds that were a whole lot taller than him. As two third of their length seemed to be all leg, it wasn't at all surprising that these beings were incredibly fast and nimble. However, due to their frightened state, they did not care for whatever what was in their way as their only thought right now was about their own survival, and who could blame them. Barging forward, they crashed over one another as all familial ties went out of the window. All these creatures cared for was themselves and nothing else, others be damned. Being all too aware of this fact, there wasn't a thing in the world that could keep Solmar from running for his own life right now. While he could use his magic to protect himself, he would risk not only setting a large portion of this marvelous forest ablaze, but also killing creatures that were really just looking to stay alive.

While he too was just looking to survive, he did not want to do so at the cost of this whole portion of the forest, and so he just kept running as fast as his legs could take him. Due to his training and his lifetime of having to survive and outrun creatures larger or stronger than him, he managed to somehow keep himself ahead of the long-legged predator birds. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw how the massive lizard was still where it was before, feasting on the one it had taken down, though another one of its kind dashed out from behind some large rocks and started chasing the already frightened birds with vigor. Continuing to run, it was as if his legs were going even faster now that the jaws of death had chasing both him and the birds that were threatening to crush him underfoot if he so much as tripped or slowed his stride. Making his way through the forest where it changed for a more rocky terrain to his side, he saw a large cavern and plenty of rocks tall enough for him to hide behind and maybe get a break from all of the running.

Figuring that it was better than the alternative, which was to keep on endlessly running until he no longer could, he altered his trajectory and made his way over to it. Dodging and dashing between some of the tree-sized legs of the birds as he ran past them and leaped into the rocks, he barely managed to hit the floor before the massive reptile dashed into the side of one of the birds and caused it to crashed right on top of the rocks he was hiding under. With a rush of blood washing over him like standing underneath a waterfall made of the red liquid, he kept his mouth and eyes shut as he crawled further underneath the rocks. Getting a few meters away from the drowning pool of blood to the point where he could breathe again, he gasped deeply in an attempt to fill his lungs and put some distance between himself and the two creatures that were locked in a fight for survival. Though already mortally wounded, the bird still snapped its scissor-like beak at the creature, clipping some scales and a bit of hair, but not managing to land any truly painful blows.

Watching the struggle, the bird kept snapping until the reptile managed to place one of its paws on top of its throat, right beneath the head, allowing it to close its large maw around the long neck of the bird and snap straight through it like bolt cutters. Meeting little to no resistance at all, the lizard severed the head from the neck in one single bite, thus ending the struggle and killing its prey. With that much done, it let out a loud howl that did not seem like the kind of noise a reptile would make, being more akin to the roar of a lion, mixed with a strange gurgling noise. Regardless of that, it was quite an amazing spectacle to behold, especially for someone like Solmar who was basically just a visitor to this new place that had next to nothing on it and any of the creatures living inside of it. Waiting for the animal to stop boasting about its kill and started eating his prize, Solmar started putting a bit of distance between itself and the creature so that it wouldn't notice him and consider him some kind of scavenger that needed to be taken care of.

As he scurried away from it and drew closer to the cavern, it was there that his eye fell on something equally if not more interesting. Strange markings on the rocks that were partially covered in moss, as well as other signs of some kind of tribe living here. In many ways, it reminded him of what he had encountered when he followed up on a job and ended up finding a tribe of Kappa hiding deep inside an underwater cavern hidden deep inside of an ocean cove. Though they eventually became friendly to him, he had no reason to believe that the beings living here would greet him with the same kind of friendliness. After all, by all accounts, he was a being that came from a different dimension, so there was no reason to believe that they would greet him as anything other than an alien or a threat, possibly both. Regardless, that would not keep him from researching the place in greater depth, hoping to encounter something or someone that might help him along and get him closer to the point of figuring out whom he was dealing with.

Noticing what seemed like crude weapons or maybe tools to help whatever used them eat or prepare food, he combined it with the markings and strange kinds of symbol based writing along the walls to make the educated guess that these creatures were at the very least sentient. But to what degree this sentience went, that much was something he could only be sure of once he actually saw one of the things that lived here. Aside from that, all he had to go off of were the things he found left and right that told him a few select things about these people. The sheer amount of moss that grew in this place, along with some large holes in the floor made him believe that these beings might be in hiding or were merely living beneath the ground in these holes, which was why they had taken up residence close to the large cave beside him. But again, there was really no telling whether he was even remotely right about any of this until he got to see and speak to the ones that actually lived there.

It was not until he encountered more and more of these holes in the ground that Solmar started to wonder whether the beings dwelling here were for some reason subterranean. With the tribal architecture that surrounded these holes and the larger cavern in the back, he saw drawings upon the stones. Some of them had likely been created from plants carrying colorful pigment, though other drawings had clearly been made out of blood. The strong scent of iron he could sense with his highly capable nose told him all that he needed to know, and his nose was rarely wrong when it came to such things that he himself was quite familiar with. Though the spilling of blood was nothing to be proud of, it was something he had unfortunately been forced to do quite a lot, doing so often making the difference between surviving another day, or simply not surviving at all. As a self-proclaimed hunter, he had already been hired to do quite a few hunting excursions and went after all sorts of monsters and creatures so gruesome they could not even be classified as a monster.

Some of the Eldbitch creatures he had encountered so far were, after all, not from Earthland to begin with. They came from some place beyond the stars, maybe from another dimension even, though one thing had become quite clear to him at the time: they had come for the sole reason of devouring all life in their path. One of those encounters in particular came to mind when he looked at the holes in the ground and the cavern that seemed to go quite a long ways down. It had been close to the beanstalk village, within a portion of the monsterlands where some Eldbitch abomination had started to create a lair among the deep roots of the beanstalk that people revered to as a holy plant of god. Among the roots, it had been laying countless eggs which hatched into creatures with hooves, tentacles, claws and maws that devoured the very life force from within the beanstalk, causing it to slowly start withering and dying. As they too were subterranean creatures, Solmar hoped that he would not have to face these creatures in this place too. For as unlikely as it sounded, this world was a different dimension too, so there was no telling whether their reach had stretched as far as this place too.

Leaving the thought for what it was for now, a mere thought, he started venturing into the main cavern while keeping both ears and eyes open. Not looking forward to the possibility of running into something large and dangerous, he still felt the need to find out what kind of people might be inside of the caverns too. After all, no monsters he knew took the time to craft crude weaponry out of wood and stone, took to drawing pictures and markings on walls and lived somewhere dry as opposed to just living under the open sky. Finding it wise to leave the open space for the time being, at least until the large reptilian beast was done feeding on the large predatory bird outside, he left the scene of the massacre behind. Changing the scenery of the forest for a far darker and more damp place, it wasn't long before the darkness was being lit by brightly colored fungi that grew out of the stone walls. Captivated by their appearance, he figured this glow was due to some form of bioluminescence similar to the fish he had seen when out in the sea waters of Cedar.  

Paying closer attention to it, he wanted to touch one of them, only to be alerted to the sound of a high pitched noise echoing through the cavern. Wondering what it might be, he heard something shuffling past the wall near him, though he could not see what it was that made it. Believing that it might have been moving around inside of the wall, he shrugged it off for now and ventured deeper into the place. Paying close attention to the glowing mushrooms, he passed a few turns and forks in the road, finding out first hand that this place reached even deeper than he had actually imagined they might. When the high pitched noises were starting to become a faint memory, Solmar made his way to where the cavern ended, allowing him to look out across a vast and open space beneath the forest. This massive subterranean place stretched out incredibly far, further than his eyes could see. What stood out about this place the most was that there were no trees here of any kind, though there were various kinds of fungi, mushrooms of different shapes and sizes that all had the same form of bioluminescence about them to illuminate a place that would otherwise be covered in darkness.

Finding this place to be far more outlandish than the world above it, which was already very much that, Solmar figured that it was unwise for him to head any further down. Still not knowing all that much as to what he might encounter in the world above, it was unwise to head down into this place when there would be nowhere for him to go if he got himself in trouble. Once he was more certain as to what he could expect, he was absolutely going to be coming back in order to explore this place in far greater depth. For now however, that was simply not the wise thing to do, but at least he knew this place existed and how to get to it. As he turned around to make his way back, he picked up on a slight screeching sound from above him, but when he looked, there was nothing to see, just like before. At this point, Solmar was starting to doubt that there was actually something inside of the walls, and that he might just be hearing things that weren't there. Though unlikely, he wasn't going to rule out that maybe there was something in the air due to the mushrooms that made him see or hear things.

Whether this was truly the case or not remained to be seen, though it only further fueled his drive to get out of the caverns for now and collect his bearings on the surface. With a bit of luck, the large predatory reptile was gone by the time he got there. If not, chances were that he was either going to be in for a fight, or might have some luck at sneaking around the creature as it just ate. Not knowing a thing about the beast, he did not want to assume that it was the kind of predator that would take a nap after hunting and eating, though that was most certainly what he was hoping for at this point in time. Given the size of the creature, it would not have any problem with following him into the cavern system, and there was no doubt that it would be able to sniff Solmar out if it really wanted to follow him. That, and it would be quite hard to take it down since it seemingly had some dense scales, large fangs and an agile shape, meaning it was likely fast and nimble too. Not about to get ahead of himself or the situation at hand, he moved himself towards the direction he believed he had come from. Had he not possessed the greatly enhanced sense of smell and hearing of a slayer, chances were that he would have certainly gotten lost in the labyrinth of different passages within the cavern system.

Walking for a few minutes, he stopped in his tracks, knowing for sure that he heard a few quick and nimble footsteps behind him. Barely registering at all, his ears were not fooled quite so easily. Back in Hosenka, he had managed to hear a bunch of trained ninja sneaking around and actually managed to find them before they could strike and assassinate him based on his hearing alone. As soon as he turned his body, he heard the strange and high-pitched screeching again, this time coming from different locations at the same time. This time however, there was something else that was different about it, namely that it was more audible and seemed to be in response to him turning to face the footsteps he heard. If what he thought right now turned out to be true, it meant that something had been stalking him ever since he first registered the screeching noise, which had been for quite some time now. Hoping that this did not come from whatever species it was that was living around the cavern, at the very least it meant that they were smart enough to stalk him before attacking him, which meant that he might be able to speak to them before things escalated.

"To whoever is out there, I mean you no harm. But if you want to talk, show yourself. If you don't, I'll consider your skulking as an act of hostility."

Speaking up to any who might hear it, it fell silent for a little while, which proved to him that they were capable of understanding what it was he said, or merely registered that he was capable of making noises from his mouth too. Whichever it was, he hoped that it was the former of the two. When the chattering and screeching continued however, Solmar knew enough as nothing showed itself to him, meaning they chose to be enemies rather than friends. Given the time they had spent following him around from the shadows, which had been since the very moment he first set foot inside of the caverns, chances were that these beings had a plethora of chances at lashing out at him, but had for some reason chosen not to do so just yet. Running his mind over the possible reasons behind this, the most prominent one he could devise was that they were sizing him up, figuring out what his strengths and his weaknesses were before pouncing at him from wherever it was that they were hiding. Not about to give them a chance to pull this off, he figured that since his surroundings were all rock and stone, using his magic couldn't hurt.

As such, a towering amount of white fire rose up from Solmar, reaching all the way up to the ceiling as the magical light it shone started illuminating the creatures that seemed to be hiding through means of camouflage. Screeching at the idea of being found out without having had a chance to attack him properly, Solmar got a good look at their physical features, which made the lizard monster outside look like the kind of animal one might try to pet. Looking into what seemed like a gaping hole in their head, a large maw with rows of sharp teeth and tall yet slander body types, they reminded him of some sort of ape that had mutated beyond recognition. They were certainly clever, sentient and capable of using some kind of camouflaging method to hide themselves from being seen, though they were not planning on communicating with him, and so they were his enemies by choice. And by that extent, he too was their enemy. Releasing the pillar of flame, a wave of fire burst forth towards the side of the cavern, causing one of the green, moss covered ape-like beings to screech in a hellish tone as it was in great paining.

Running towards the exit, more of the creatures dropped down from the ceiling as they attacked the young mage with their claws. Doing his best to remain away from their reach as there was no telling what kind of filth might be accompanying their scratches, he summoned Sunvaar Kriid to his side. Using the massive greatsword to both keep some distance between him and the creatures and cut down those that came too close to him, it was at that point that he figured out some other interesting features these beings possessed. For whatever reason, when an arm got lobbed off or deep cuts were inflicted upon them, a regenerating factor kicked in that rapidly grew back limbs and closed their wounds, making it seem like there hadn't ever been one in the first place. To Solmar, this seemed like it made them more or less impervious to damage, though there was a weakness to it that he had already registered earlier; Fire. So far, those that had been hit with his fire magic hadn't gotten up yet, meaning it was a way to stop them from regenerating. And luckily for Solmar, fire was something he had plenty of.

Tightening his grip on the hilt of the greatsword, he let his fire magic flow into it as the blade super-heated to the point where it radiated heat and took on a white glow. As was always the case with his demon slaying magic, the white hue was something that just more or less happened as he had no idea how to tone that down. Regardless, the light radiating off of his blade gave it that magical appearance that made people want to avoid it even more than normal, and he figured the same went for these creatures. After all, they were sentient and had the mind and thought process to learn from the mistakes of others, which became notable when the other creatures kept at a distance from his blade after seeing a few of them get killed on the spot. It was at that point that he figured out that they had been doing quite a bit of learning as a pack, because as they were incapable of closing in on him from the front or the sides, they started increasing their numbers and started circling him. Actively looking for a place from where they could strike at his back, Solmar was gradually starting to lose his composure as he felt like he might need to let out his magic and burn all of them to death.

That was however not something he wanted to do to the locals of a new location, a new world even, one where he was a guest and not the reigning specimen. Still, they had decided to make an enemy out of him when they presented themselves as a carnivorous bunch that had just been stalking him this entire time to kill and eat him. What with the bloody markings and bones outside, the tools that seemed to have been made simply to make eating and preparing meat easier, he should have realized something was up sooner. But being the person that he was, he had decided that it would have been better if he stepped into things from a kind perspective and gave the indigenous people a chance. Narrowing his eyes as he turned and twisted his stance to keep up with the creatures that were circling him and approaching him from different sides, waving his blade around to keep them at bay for the time being. Just as he was about to blow them all away with his fire, an object got thrown to the floor in front of him. As it exploded, it sent a deafening noise throughout the tunnel that seemed to completely throw the creatures off guard, but not just them.

Due to his own heightened hearing, it was as if someone had taken a hammer and smashed it into his eardrums. Leaving him dazed, he felt something grab him by the shoulder and tug at him. Seeing that it wasn't one of the carnivorous creatures, he decided to follow this person away now that he had the chance to make a break for it. Following the strange looking person back towards where daylight was breaching through the darkness, the two did not stop running until they were some ways away from the caverns. By the time the shouting and screeching could no longer be heard and he was certain that there was nothing following them this time, Solmar turned his attention towards the one responsible for helping him out of that heated situation. Taking a moment to catch their breaths, Solmar unsummoned his blade, figuring that it would have been quite odd if this person chose to attack him now after going through all of that effort to get him away from those cave dwelling monstrosities. The more he thought about it, the more it made him wonder as to what they were, and if they were in some way demonic. From what he could see, they were certainly sentient to some degree since they had an odd sort of architecture, used weapons and could communicate with one another with high pitched shouts and screeches to organize their hunts.

As there had never been species like that or anything remotely like it on Fiore, it was safe to say that he had been caught off guard by their violent tendencies. Though he could be considered as trespassing, the things he had seen in their lair made them seem hardly friendly even if he had knocked before entering. One thing was clear, whatever those things were, they were violent and had no time to talk to people before attacking them, even though there was a chance that they might actually understand him and what he was trying to communicate to them. Not planning on going back there any time soon, if at all, the mage was still quite interested in learning more about them and what made them tick. As such, he believed the quickest way would be to address the one dressed in an armor of bark and see what he knew, after he figured out who this guy was obviously. When the man turned towards him and started talking to Solmar before he had a chance to do so himself, he picked up on a rather subtle deviation to what he had perceived, namely that the bark was no armor at all.

"You should never venture into those tunnels again outsider, the trolls have grown increasingly irritable as of late, leading them further and further from their regular hunting grounds and even raiding villages only a few hours away from their cavern homes."

Taking a moment to let all of this information sink in, one of the strangest things about all of this was that he was talking to a man that seemed to have been made up entirely out of wood and plants instead of flesh and bone. Wondering if this was for the same reason that the large birds with tree-like legs seemed to be part flora and fauna, Solmar felt it to be quite odd to ask the man about it. After all, chances were that Solmar looked just as odd to him as he looked to Solmar, so he figured he'd best leave such things for another time. Due to the fact that this plant man had brought up nearby villages, it made him wonder if the people living there were also plant folk like this one here, or if maybe they were a different kind altogether. Wondering if he would get to see them with his own eyes, the idea of those trolls preying on these villages like they had done to him made him rather weary of the situation at hand. Another thing that was quite interesting about this whole situation was how this plant man was capable of speaking the same language as him, knowing that the common tongue in Fiore was most likely not a universal language.

For now, he just nodded at the being and followed it towards the direction in which it was leading him. Even though the last somewhat sentient race he had ran into had tried to kill and eat him, he figured that this one was not that harmful to him, or at the very least wasn't interested in eating him. That alone was a good thing. So while he still had a metric ton of questions that needed answers, he figured that if there was a village of other plant man such as this guy, he owed it to himself to at the very least check it out. As he thought about it some more, there had to have been some reason as to why the elemental node had opened a portal that brought him to this specific place of all other places it could have sent him to. Keeping that much in consideration, this place couldn't have been all bad. Besides, if the sentient species that lived here all turned out to be violent, he wouldn't feel all that bad about having to kill more of them. After all, there would come a point where he would need to kill in order to eat too, that much had seemed quite clear to him as most of the things he encountered here were alive. For instance, what he believed to have been trees before were in fact large, land-locked birds of prey.

If this was the case with everything, he could only imagine that even doing things like looking for nuts, berries and fruits might in some way or shape end up harming or upsetting a living being, though that was just something that would take some getting used to on his part. Over the years, he had been forced to do a lot of stalking and killing in order to survive after being cast out of his home town due to the influences of the demon Vetis. Whether it was fish, turtles, snakes, wolves, deer, rabbits and hares or even a bear when the situation got really dire and food was scarce during the winters,  as this was when most plant based food was very hard to find. At first, he had felt quite bad about having to kill just so he could survive, though he soon learned that this was the law of the land as literally every species did some form of killing for the sake of living. Humans did it in bulk as they grew animals just so they could kill them and harvest their meat, though creatures such as wolves and bears all killed so they and their offspring could live, that was just nature doing what it did.

As the minutes started turning into hours, Solmar and the plant man did not really talk a whole lot. They did however speak enough for him to learn that his name was Dogeld, and that he had been sent to investigate the emergence from an outsider in the Greenscape. Though he wasn't sure as to what the Greenscape was at first, it did not take him a very long time before he learned that the world he was now finding himself in. More importantly, he also learned that the people Dogeld belonged to called themselves Treefolk, a rather simplistic name but on point none the less. They were tree people after all, so the name made sense. As to why Dogeld was able to speak and understand anything Solmar was saying however managed to elude him as even Dogeld did not have an answer to this. All he kept saying was that the Heartstone willed it, and so it had happened. Having no idea as to what a Heartstone was and why it would want for the treefolk to speak to Solmar, he had just continued following him all the way to what he could only describe as a village made from the woods, rather than being made out of wood.

If he knew any better, he wouldn't have believed what he saw was actually the case, but since he didn't, he could have sworn that the trees in this new area of the Greenscape he had wandered into had been grown for the sake of acting as housing for these Treefolk. Though they had no windows or doors, they had openings in them that let in light and larger openings that acted as doors, save for being able to be closed. Noticing a small stream that was passing through the village square, more treefolk of different shapes and sizes came outside to greet Solmar as he was brought in by Dogeld. Going down on all fours so he could get a few sips from the stream, the other treefolk looked at him strangely as they hadn't seen such a thing before. Apparently, they were capable of hydrating just by resting their feet in the stream for a bit, not needing to actually ingest it through their mouth. As such, seeing another sentient being that needed to actually drink the water down that way was quite an interesting sight to behold. From that point on, most of the treefolk did not really see him as something to be feared, but rather something to take pity on as he could not even enjoy something like water the same way they could.

Once the gathering crowd started thinning out a bit as many of the treefolk returned to their homes, it was time for the village elder to make his way to the scene. Accompanied by a few very bulky treefolk that were most likely his bodyguards, he could already imagine how hard it might be to fight one of them in close quarters. This elder, called Jogumold, explained to Solmar that his coming here had been foretold by the Heartstone, and that it was the reason why Dogeld had been sent out to meet him at the portal. However, since he had appeared sooner than the Heartstone had foreseen, the two of them had walked around one another which explained why Solmar had been wandering about on his own for at least an hour or two before Dogeld finally found him in the Moss Troll territory. Not knowing what the Heartstone was, Solmar just nodded as he continued listening to what the old tree man had to tell him, which turned out to be quite a lot. For some reason or another, this Heartstone had asked to speak to Solmar, though the elder had decided that now was not yet the time for such a thing. Not knowing nearly as much about the "fleshling" as they'd like to, Jogumold told him that he would be housing in this village for a while.

Once they got to know him better and could determine that he was in fact not a threat to the Heartstone, Jogumold told Solmar that he would take him to meet with it in person. Though it was quite nice to know that he now had a place to go to where he could at the very least spend the night away from marauding moss trolls, predatory birds and reptiles, he wasn't really sure how he was supposed to feel about the fact that the people there were keeping a close eye on him to see whether or not he was worthy enough to meet with this mysterious Heartstone that supposedly wanted to meet up with him straight away. Given how much these beings revered the thing, it made him wonder whether or not they were risking punishment by keeping him away, but figured that it wasn't up to him regardless of that. For now, he just nodded at the elder to show that he could agree with these terms and would abide by them until the treefolk felt like he had proven himself in their eyes. With that out of the way, Jogumold told Dogeld to take Solmar to his lodgings and inform him about whatever it was that the fleshling might want to inquire about, which was obviously quite a lot.

With the orders given, the elder bent his head for a moment before turning and leaving towards a rather large tree home further from the center of the village along with his two bodyguards. Doing as he had been instructed, Dogeld took Solmar towards the home that had been reserved for him, finding that it was completely empty on the inside when they got there. Apparently, treefolk did not need seats, tables or beds as they did not eat or rest like people did. Where as a human would need to eat, sit down or lay down in a bed to sleep, the treefolk just delved their roots into the ground and went into a comatose state for a few hours as their roots took in nourishment. Though he had maybe been expecting too much, he figured having a roof over his head was by itself something to be quite happy about. After all, he had spent most of his young life sleeping under the ground in a cavern by using his thick coat as a blanket. Compared to that, this was going to be a rather luxurious stay. But as one might imagine, now that he knew where he was going to be staying, he had quite a few questions that needed answers.

So as per elder Jogumold's orders, Dogeld stood ready to answer anything he could. One of the first things he inquired about was in regards to the local wildlife, both the flora and fauna as he needed to know of ways in which he might get his hands on food. Claiming that all life in this place was there due to the Heartstone, it was generally frowned upon when a creature was killed and many of the treefolk that actually killed something were punished for their actions since they did not do it in a way that benefitted them. The way Dogeld put it, only animals were allowed to kill other animals, which was why it would most likely be okay for Solmar to go about hunting and killing exactly as much as he needed in order to survive. Since he could not just put his feet into the ground in order to draw in sustenance through his roots, an exception was to be made for him. Delighted in the knowledge that these people and their ruler would allow him to make due for the sake of his own survival, he started inquiring about some of the things he had already encountered up until now and how to best deal with them without having to use his fire magic.

Because harming the forest was apparently something that could be punished by incarceration and even death depending on the gravity of the offense, Solmar was to use his sword as well as controlled versions of his other magic, which was based around light. Fire was most certainly out of the question. Figuring that he'd be able to make do with that, Dogeld continued by summarizing the kind of creatures he might be encountering up in the Greenscape when out scavenging for food or hunting for the same purpose. Starting with the Phoruzoan, which Solmar had come to know as the large terror birds with the legs that seemed like tree trunks and feathers that seemed like they were made of a leaf-like organic matter, it was said that they were very well aware of what kind of prey they could take down based on experience. Living together in large packs ranging between ten to fifty Phoruzoans, they learned from one another as they killed and ate something. If one of them accidentally killed something that turned out poisonous and got the bird killed, the others would know not to try and eat one of those animals again. Although morbid, Solmar figured that it was a good way to learn.

As such, unless Solmar put himself into a vulnerable position or god forbid, another human were to wander in and get killed and eaten, the Phoruzoan wouldn't bother attacking him as he was an unknown variable, which wasn't something they liked. They hunted only that which they knew they could take, meaning humans were not on the menu for that very same reason. Continuing on, there was the creature Solmar had encountered as well, one that primarily hunted in groups from two to three at a time and focused their hunts on Phoruzoans due to their size and the fact that they'd have quite the meal if they managed to take one of them down. Speaking of the Rynchosaur, these large reptiles were considered to be the apex predator of the Greenscape area located above ground. Though it begged the question as to what kind of life could be found beneath the surface, Solmar decided to keep this question and hold on to it for until after he knew everything Dogeld knew about this Rynchosaur. Though not a whole lot was known about these large lizards as they did not share a whole lot of plant features like the Phoruzoan and since they did not allow people to get close to them without being killed, a few distinct facts were uncovered.

One such thing was the fact that they hunted in pairs of two to three, that they were surprisingly fast and nimble in spite of their size and slow looking posture, and that they could live for well over a hundred years with ease. An example of this was a specific Rynchosaur that had been dubbed "Barkhide" due to the fact that it had a skin that had the texture and hardness of bark. After encountering a tribe of Moss Trolls while finding something to eat, it had been observed by a young Jogumold that the trolls did a good number on it by stabbing and carving into it, but had eventually all been killed and devoured by the creature. To this day, the same specimen can still be found wandering around to the far south of the village, and Jogumold, now in his old age and roughly ninety years after this encounter, still goes down to look at the beast from a distance. As such, it was believed that the average Rynchosaur could easily grow to be over a hundred years of age. Aside from that, they did not know a whole lot about their breeding habits or whether or not they were territorial, though that wasn't really something Solmar needed to know right now either.

No, with this kind of information with regards to two of the creatures he had encountered that might pose a problem to him, he figured that maneuvering safely through the woodlands would be a whole lot easier. If it came to having to actually fight and kill a Phoruzoan in order to prove that he was not food, he figured that it might actually be a good thing to do as it would assert his dominance towards all of the others and would provide him with enough food to last several days, weeks even if he managed to figure out a way in which to preserve the large amount of meat that would otherwise be left to rot. Figuring other creatures would end up eating what remained, he decided not to dwell on it for too long, though there were still things that he wanted answers to. Instantly being shot down when he asked questions regarding the Heartstone, Dogeld made it clear that Solmar would come to find out about it once he proved himself worthy of meeting it, and that all of his questions would be answered if that time were ever to arrive. Until that time, all questions in regards to the Heartstone would be met with indifference and would not be provided with an answer. Pouting a bit at this rather harsh display, Solmar decided to drop the topic for now.  

Instead, he continued asking questions with regards to the local wildlife that wasn't carnivorous, more importantly, the herbivores and omnivores in particular. Figuring that these would most likely become the targets of his hunts, he saw how Dogeld was pondering on the matter for a bit before he started talking. Starting with the Mosschid, which were a kind of deer that could be found in pretty much every region of the Greenscape, as well as a creature Solmar had already laid eyes on before. Stating they would often be found in groups as they grazed in more open terrain, they were also the targets of both Phoruzoan and Rynchosaur as they were relatively easy to sneak up on, were generally quite stupid and did not learn like the Phoruzoan did. This meant that if one of them got killed in the forest, another might try passing in exactly the same spot a few minutes later, only to find themselves meeting a similar fate. Aside from this, they were very fast runners and were easily spooked, causing the entire herd to make a run for it and find a new place to graze and lay down in. Figuring that these would become his preferred targets as the larger predators likely had learned this through experience, he still wished to learn more.

With a deep sigh of frustration, Dogeld decided to just keep on talking and provide Solmar with more information, as that was what he had been tasked with doing by the elder. At the time, it seemed like something he'd like to do for Jogumold, but after finding out just how inquisitive Solmar really was, he had grown to regret it in a matter of minutes. After a momentary pause, Dogeld started talking about an omnivorous creature that could breathe under water for days without having to come up, and when living by riverbanks, it could breathe through strange protrusions growing from its back. Talking about the Castuphar, a strange mammal that had a tail shaped like a water lily and hair that looked like water plants, the protrusions through which it could breathe were shaped like reeds. This allowed it to sit submerged by the waterside, hidden in the muck while waiting for something to pass by it either underwater or above the surface. Since smaller animals often used water lily-pads as a place to rest, it would alert the Castuphar and bring up its large maw to devour it in one go. Aside from eating anything that landed on top of the tail, it also ate fish and other marine creatures that could fit into its mouth.

Apparently though, the Castuphar were a rather docile species that did not care enough to attack larger animals that ventured into their territory, nor were they the slightest bit territorial to begin with. Though they did not stay with their relatives after being born, they found a spot in the many watery regions of the Greenscape and settled there for life. If other Castuphar were to encroach upon their bit of soil, they were often kind enough to settle down a few meters away from one another so as to not take food out of the other's mouth. Being rather gluttonous however, Castuphar sometimes choked on prey too large to swallow in one go as their massive teeth make it hard for it to properly chew. Finding it quite interesting how life had found a way to evolve in such a manner, Solmar couldn't wait to see one of these creatures with his own eyes once he started wandering outside of the village in search for food. Even though he had only seen a select few creatures out here, he had already become infatuated with the place as it was everything that Fiore was not. For the time being, Solmar felt like he had heard enough and was ready to venture out into the place and see for himself what else it had to offer him, though one last thing came to mind that simply needed clarification.

The Moss Trolls. Just thinking about them made him somewhat angry as he had tried to befriend them when he first encountered their markings and tools laying outside of the cavern he had ventured into. Once they had attacked him however, he had come to learn that they were not a kind of species one befriended, even if they were sentient and likely understood his intentions. When he asked Dogeld about it, he just went on to state that the Moss trolls were a strange people that had been around for a very long time. Where the treefolk were living plants, he stated that there was also a third kind of sentient being that could be found at the bottom of the caverns he had passed into, looking after and shepherding the area called the "Underglow". Being called the Mycelians, these mushroom people were created by the Heartstone, just like how the Treefolk were made by the Heartstone in order to look after and maintain the balance within the Greenscape. Where the Treefolk were more well equipped to dealing with the Greenscape, the Mycelians were more equipped to dealing with the Underglow, which was why the two species rarely met until something dire enough to bring their leaders together were to transpire.

This was where the Moss trolls came in, as they were originally made to look after the Greenscape and the Underglow, but started warring with one another as they violently craved to become the leaders of the others. Being greedy and violent narcissistical creatures, they eventually stopped listening to the Heartstone and started fighting among themselves in order to assert their dominance and rule over the Greenscape and the Underglow. Killing large amounts of other creatures, they drove many to extinction and created entire cities out of the bones of these creatures, as well as adornments and weaponry they used to further their wars among themselves. This created the tribes, each having their own leaders that switched from time to time when another of the duplicitous creatures killed their leader and usurped their throne, regicide being something that came naturally to these creatures. Though it had initially decided to stay out of things as it had made these creatures to rule in his stead, the Heartstone eventually intervened when yet another one of his species went extinct. Striking the creatures with a curse that made them wither away in direct contact with light, they were forced to retreat to the caverns that connected the Greenscape and the Underglow.

Incapable of coming up and settling in the Greenscape as the daylight would slowly kill them, heading into the Underglow where the bioluminescent mushrooms did the same meant that they were forced to remain in the caverns, living in the dark and only being capable of coming out at night. In these caves, the creatures started to devolve, losing their eyes and growing larger ears, longer fangs and possessing elongated limbs and claws. From this point on, the creatures created to rule over the entirety of the Greenscape devolved into the Moss trolls they were known as today. With their regenerative healing factors, enhanced hearing, sense of smell and camouflaging abilities, they made it next to impossible for the Treefolk and Mycelians to reach one another, which was why both ruled their own portion of the world without the interference of the other. In a way, part of him felt bad for what had happened to the Moss trolls that made them turn out the way they did, though he figured they had it coming for the things they did. Besides, if they were fully capable of reasoning and thinking the same way he did, it just made him that much angrier with them that they had decided not to communicate with him but just aimed to kill and eat him.

They had made their choice, and if he were to come across them again, he would make sure to kill as many as it took to make them realize that he was not something for them to feed on, but something for them to fear. With the history lesson out of the way, the young magician felt like he had suddenly grown to learn a whole lot more about this new place in very little time. Truth be told, he hadn't imagined he would ever learn this much about it at all, though that just went to show how quickly things could change if one kept an open mind and did not treat every unknown being with distrust or hostility. Thanking Dogeld for his time, as well as for helping him deal with the moss trolls, Dogeld merely responded by saying that he wished he hadn't as that would have meant at least ten fewer moss trolls for them to deal with. Nodding at the treefolk, it seemed that Solmar had been watched for longer than he had initially realized. As now there was only the matter of figuring out which  berries, herbs, nuts, vegetables and fruits were edible and which were poisonous, Dogeld decided that enough was enough. Pointing him towards a small building not too far from where he was staying, he said that the druid would be able to explain in greater detail.  

Thanking him for his time, it wasn't long before Dogeld disappeared in a hurry. While it was nice of him to point Solmar towards this "Druid", he figured that the treefolk had just been fed up with answering questions and having to deal with the human for so long. In a way though, Solmar felt that it was quite funny how much he managed to ruffle Dogeld's feathers just by asking the questions he himself deemed important, mostly because they were exactly that. He needed to know things such as these for the sake of his own survival in this world, which was also why the first stop he'd make before actually venturing out into the woods was the druid. As the village itself was rather small, as one might expect of a village, it did not take the young swordsman very long to get there. Once he did, he saw how the roots of the tree house were actively moving around in a way that was quite visible to his eyes, which wasn't something he had ever seen before. Looking past the moving roots, he saw how an insanely old looking tree man was chanting while waving his arms through the air, almost as if guiding the direction of the roots that way. Figuring that this was some sort of magic, it was also the first kind of magic he had actually seen within this Greenscape world.

What was so odd about this was the fact that, back in Fiore, literally everyone seemed to possess some sort of magic to some degree, yet here it all seemed to work quite differently. The moss trolls, the phoruzoans, the rynchosaur, even most of the treefolk he had seen so far did not seem to possess anything aside from physical abilities that were beyond that of the average mortal being. To name a few of these things would be to state the enhanced hearing, regenerative factors, camouflaging abilities and more, though none of that seemed magical in origin. Though he could have kept pondering on the matter for a little while longer, Solmar believed that actually asking the druid about these things would likely be the quicker way of dealing with things. As such, he rose up his hand in an attempt at greeting the druid, though it did not seem like the old treefolk even noticed him as he was locked deeply inside of a trance. Strangely enough, his eyes were following Solmar around wherever he went, though he at the same time did not seem to register the human being at all.

Waiting for the druid to finish, he watched as the roots were coming together like clay, connecting to the tree home and slowly growing and attaching itself to it as it expanded the building itself. At this point, Solmar stopped wondering how it was possible that these homes the treefolk lived in seemed to have been grown out of wood instead of being made out of wood. In any case, it was quite clear to see that this was a much more nature friendly way of building homes as it did not resort to having to cut down trees for wood, but rather manipulated the trees to grow in a specific way to make living areas such as the village he found himself in. During the time in which he waited for the druid to round up his work, Solmar actually came to think of how he had managed to miss out on asking a rather important question. As things were, he had no idea what this village was even called, and figured that it was a rather odd thing for him to not have asked about. After all, if he were to get lost and ran into another treefolk, he couldn't exactly ask for directions when he had no idea what to call the place he wished to return to in the first place. At times like these, Solmar felt rather stupid for letting his mind run with all kinds of questions while forgetting to ask the most basic ones.

Once the building process had been completed, Solmar heard a deep sigh as the druid lowered his arms and closed his eyes, taking a seat on a stone. Panting deeply, it seemed like the whole growing process had taken quite a lot out of him, so the young swordsman figured he'd be gentle in his approach. Sitting down on the ground in front of the druid so it looked that much bigger than the treefolk actually was compared to the human, he waited for him to notice him, which took a surprisingly long time. Once he did however, the druid thanked him for his patience, claiming that he and the Heartstone had already seen him, but were too busy to speak earlier. Though it wasn't said in so many words, and he knew he wouldn't get the answer he sought even if he were to ask, it seemed that this magic the druid used was somehow connected to the Heartstone, which explained the trance he had been in while casting it. Introducing himself as Nolemad, the druid asked whether or not Solmar had any questions for him as there were still a good amount of things he needed to do before he could root himself in and get some rest and nourishment for the day.

Clearly still having some of those up his sleeve, the human asked the druid about the kinds of plants that could be found within the Greenscape, more importantly the ones considered dangerous and the ones that could actually be eaten by someone like him. Looking him over for a bit, it seemed that the druid did not really think like a treefolk for now, but rather thought for Solmar's sake. When he started talking again, he brought up how he had seen the Moss Trolls eat particular kinds of fruits and berries, as well as nuts and certain roots for the sake of nourishment. While he did not like being compared to those dreadful beings, the mage understood that, for these people that did not actually need to eat the way he did, the moss trolls were likely their only point of reference as they had the same "shortcomings" Solmar did. Waving his hand above the ground between Solmar and himself, the druid caused a few small plants to grow at a highly accelerated pace, reaching maturity in a matter of seconds. Finding that they did not at all look like the plants he was used to back in Fiore, it seemed that the plants had all been grown in two distinct camps. Though he couldn't be sure, he figured one side was the edible one, while the other was not.

Pointing at those on the right side, the druid pointed at a plant that had silver colored petals and small berries that took on a blue color. Calling it Silversage, he made it clear that these plants had edible berries called Sage berries, but that the actual Silversage plant had venomous glands within the leaves. So when picking any sage berries, one had to either wear protective gloves or be extremely careful as the poison coming from the silversage itself could render his hands limp within minutes. Depending on how susceptible one was, it might even make that person lose all feeling in their hand for an undetermined amount of time, meaning it might not ever go away again. From there, he went on to point to a plant that grew on the other side, which seemed more like vines than anything. Explaining that this was called Wildvine, the druid explained that if one were to pick off all of the bark, one could actually eat the green insides of the Wildvine as it were a sort of paste that possessed high levels of sugar, making it taste rather sweet. Explaining that the Wildvine was one of those plants that attracted the smaller Nectarites. Noticing the wonder in Solmar's eyes, the druid went on the explain.

Claiming that the Wildvine had bright colored orange flowers growing from them, the Nectarites, small flying and fuzzy reptilian creatures were drawn to them and drew out the nectar with their long tongues, which was what they had been given their name for. As opposed to Dogeld, it seemed that Nolemad was actually quite happy to provide Solmar with the information that he was looking for and more. But that much stood to make sense, considering how this Heartstone thing was apparently looking at Solmar through the old treefolk while the two conversed. That, and a druid like him most likely knew just about everything there was to know about the Greenscape, so sharing a fraction of that knowledge with him was but a small gesture for him. For Solmar however, it was a big deal as he actively wanted to learn everything he could about this place before he went hunting or decided to just stay here forever and not return to Fiore at all. Even though he had only been here for a short period of time, less than a day even, the lack of humanity and more importantly the lack of demons in this place made him feel a lot more at home here already. Figuring that it was up to whether the treefolk would find him worthy enough to meet their leader or not, all he could do right now was his best.

Continuing with his herbology lecture, Nolemad continued with a dark red flower that had small sacs located on the inside of the large petals. Aptly named Bloodblossom, the sacs growing inside of the flower kept growing until after the petals themselves fell out, leaving only some brightly colored sacs the size of a fist. At this point, the sacs became a fruit that was very rich in moisture. Nolemad however made it quite clear that eating the fruit before it was ripe, which was something one could tell by touching it to feel whether the exterior had hardened up or not, could result in a rather serious case of food poisoning that would last for several days. Once he had made sure that Solmar could tell the difference, he continued by pointing at two plants that seemed nearly exactly the same, though both had different colors about them. The green one was called Fadebloom, while the brown one was called Briarbloom. While the berries growing on the Fadebloom were highly toxic, those growing on the Briarbloom were considered a delicacy for smaller woodland critters such as the Nectarites, Mosschid and Frogflies, the latter of them being another species he hadn't heard of before.

Picking up on this, Nolemad smiled a bit before drawing a picture in the dirt with his long, wooden finger. Drawing two pictures side by side, one of them seemed like a fierce kind of dragon, a creature he had come to learn quite a bit about in the past couple of months due to people constantly reminding him of the fact that they existed. First pointing at the larger, more draconic looking of the two, he called it a Chytridrake, a creature that could be considered the apex predator of the sky, the waters, the Underglow and the Greenscape alike. Though they rarely ventured into the Greenscape and stuck to the underwater regions of the Underglow, they only came up when it was mating period, after which they lurked around long enough for the eggs to hatch so they could eat the offspring of other Chytridrakes, thus ensuring their offspring to be the only ones getting a chance at growing up. Being incredibly territorial and violent creatures, Nolemad considered it a good thing that they did not come out of the water much and stuck to their own regions throughout most of the year. And from there on, Nolemad the druid made his way to the Frogflies he had mentioned before, these being the perfectly harmless offspring of the Chytridrakes that ventured inland in order to avoid being eaten by other Chytridrakes.

Being omnivorous, they seemed to mostly focus on eating plants, nuts and berries as they did not have the means to kill another animal aside from those so small they could more or less instantly be swallowed as they had no teeth for cutting meat, just for chewing. As things stood now, Solmar could not wait to venture back into the Greenscape in order to learn more, though it also made him that much more interested in venturing into the Underglow. That said, he knew that doing so meant he would need to pass through the cavern systems again, which in turn meant that he would have to face the Moss trolls again. This time though, if he were to have to face them again, he knew better than to try and reason with them, instead just not taking any chances and burning them all to cinders where they stood. Given the description passed along to him by Dogeld, Solmar figured that no one would actually end up missing those creatures, even if he were to kill literally every last one of them and drove them to extinction like they had done to so many other species that the young mage would now never get to lay eyes upon. For that alone, he felt like the moss troll species was beyond salvation and unworthy of being left alive.

But considering how they had not yet been killed off as per the orders of this Heartstone they all spoke so highly of, he imagined that they still served some kind of purpose within this dimension, one that eluded him but was clear enough to the thing that oversaw all things within this world. To that end, Solmar came to conclude that he should only kill the ones that chose to attack him when passing through the caverns rather than just actively seeking them out and systematically wiping them all out as he had originally planned. Having explained a good deal to Solmar, Nolemad felt like he had earned his much needed rest and told Solmar that if he wanted to know more, he could come back early in the morning. For now, he would not be answering any more questions, or so he said as he entered into his home and closed the entrance behind him like only someone who could manipulate nature could do. Thanking Nolemad by yelling through the walls, Solmar figured the druid had most likely heard him as he started making his way back to the building that had been bestowed upon him through the wisdom of the Heartstone and the hospitality of Jogumold the town elder.  

Upon arrival, he did what every other human being often did when they came into possession of a new home. Exploring whatever there was to it, he started picturing in his head what could be made out of it all once he was finished. Deciding that he wanted to sleep on the upper level rather than the lower one as it would allow him to hear any potential threats coming as they ventured up, the room that seemed to be underground would function well as a place where he could store his loot from the hunt. Whether they be fruit, vegetables, nuts, berries, meat, bone or hides, as long as he could just store them away down there, the other treefolk would likely not be all that bothered by it as they considered such things to be morbid. Placing his fur coat in the room he had decided would be his sleeping quarters, it made him wonder as to what Fellis might have thought about this place now that he was no longer around. Figuring that he would probably meet him again someday, he made his preparations for tomorrow, as that would be the day he started scouting and hunting for real. For now though, he had a lot of information that he still needed to process properly while also needing to get some sleep. After all, tomorrow was the start of a new adventure.


(12,351)
(Claiming 11,000 for 10yr freeform)
(1351)

Two weeks later…


Moving through the vast woodlands of the Greenscape, the young mage from Fiore was dragging a large bag behind him that seemed to contain some rather questionable content, content only he was really aware of him. Over the past weeks, he had been given quite some time to adjust to the new world that was all nature and therefore possessed quite a few dangerous creatures and even some dangerous plants here and there. Due to the things Dogeld had told him during his first visit to the village he now knew was called Marshknot, continued sessions of questioning and answering with the local druid Nolemad had provided him with everything he needed and more in terms of knowledge. Thanks to him, he knew which plants he could eat and which he needed to stay away from, which explained why he was casually eating a fruit from the Bloodblossom. Thanks to the teachings of the druid, Solmar knew that these fruits were ready for consumption once the outer layer hardened to the point where they needed to be peeled open before one could eat what was inside. Working it down slowly as there wasn't anything rushing him here, he continued dragging his makeshift bag through the woods.

Stopping for a moment when he passed by the river, which eventually branched off to the left as a small stream that passed through the village of Marshknot, he looked out across the water to see a few Mosschid grazing on the other side. Not really caring much for his presence, some approached the water and drank for a bit, standing on what they believed to just be muddy soil. When that soil started moving however, the Mosschid startled themselves into running back into the forest when it turned out they were actually standing on top of a Castuphar. Being somewhat grumpy at being disturbed, it stuck its head above the water and looked around to see Solmar, which was a creature it had most likely never seen before. Not sure whether to stay or run, it seemed the docile creature decided to just stay where it was, which was more or less what the Castuphar species was known for. Reaching into his bag, Solmar took out a bit of meat and tossed it into the water in front of the amphibian. Once the scent reached his nose and the taste of blood in the water triggered it to know that it was food, it opened up its large maw and worked the meat down in one gluttonous gulp.

Watching as it did so, he could imagine why some of these relatively harmless creatures sometimes choked on their food due to their own gluttonous and lazy lifestyle. Shortly after it had fed, the Castuphar allowed itself to submerge back under the water, sliding and slipping the brunt of his body under the much and taking on the appearance of what seemed like nothing more than reeds and other aquatic plants. With that, Solmar was more or less left alone again as the creature had returned to being only semi awake and waiting for new prey to pass it by. Getting up from his kneeling position, he grabbed the large bag and continued dragging it through the forest. From above, he could tell that there were a few Phoruzoans watching him, though they no longer posed a threat to him in the slightest. One of the first things he had done after he had finished with his introductions to the Greenscape under the tutelage of Nolemad and Dogeld had been to go into the forest to fight and kill one of the large terror birds for the rest to see. Due to their limited intelligence, they were capable of learning from such things, so when one died doing something or fighting something, the others would know not to bother.

With the death of that Phoruzoan, he had been given various new insights into what possibilities were at hand in terms of food and storage. As simply storing the meat as it was would not help him much due to the vast majority of it just rotting away in the basement of his borrowed woodland home, he had come to use his fire magic in small portions so as to dry the meat to the point where it became his own custom kind of beef jerky. Though it wasn't quite as nice as it was when roasting meat over a fire and eating it fresh, it had at least allowed him to fill out his stores with the jerked stuff in case he came to the point of actually needing it. Now, he more or less just used the jerked Phoruzoan meat as a snack, carrying several strips of the stuff in his pockets as he went around hunting. Sometimes he even used it as bait for certain types of omnivorous animals, the Mosschid included. Though they most likely had no idea what they ate, it seemed that those that had fallen for his bait had liked the taste of it quite a bit. Given the fact that it was the last thing they'd ever eat, it was a good thought on Solmar's part to know that they had died eating something they enjoyed.

Still wandering along as he reached the place where the river branched off a bit to let a small stream escape from the quickly and violently rushing waters, he made sure to follow it all the way back to the village of Marshknot. Once the village was in sight, it seemed that some of the other treefolk that had ventured outside of their homes had already seen him coming with his bounty. Some frowned a bit and kept on moving, though others were interested in seeing what would come out of it this time. Kindly nodding at them as he struggled to pull the bag along with the contents through the front door of his home, he eventually managed to do just that after a lot of violent tugging and pulling. Tossing the large bag down into the basement, he followed up after it while snapping his fingers, causing white flames to appear and burn away at some makeshift candles and torches. Looking around at some of the trophies he had stashed away, one of them was the skull of the first Phoruzoan he had killed, plucked, skinned, gutted and turned into jerked meat. Covering the exterior of the skull were all sorts of markings and lines he had carved in as part of his new hobby.

While the other treefolk thought of it to be somewhat morbid, Solmar had taken up the hobby of bone carving, either using the tip of his finger and a tiny, superheated flame as a blowtorch or simply using one of the knives he had made for the job. Primarily relying on his finger and magic as it allowed for a lot more precise work, it was one of those things he did when he wasn't out hunting or studying the local wildlife. Because two weeks had already passed up until this point, he had actually been wanting to go further from the village than he had gone up until now, though he wasn't allowed to by Jogumold, the elder and leader of Marshknot village. This was because the villagers were all keeping a close eye on him to see what kind of person he was, and whether or not they considered him worthy of meeting with their overlord, the Heartstone. If he were to venture too far, no one would be able to keep an eye on him, and there was also the risk of him getting lost, thus taking the option of judging him out of their hands. At the time of his arrival, the treefolk had been afraid of what damage he might have wrought on the woodlands if he were to be left alone, mixed with the fear of losing him and failing their precious Heartstone. Still knowing as much about the actual Heartstone as he did when he first came here, which was exactly nothing, he gradually become more and more impatient.

While his new hobbies were starting to fade in terms of how much enjoyment he got out of it, he could say that the past two weeks had made him rather proficient at the carving process, as well as helping him better control the size and intensity of his fire magic spells. And that was by itself one of the many things he had learned here that came not a moment too soon. What with the destructive power of his fire magics and the fact that he took to living in forests, the slightest lack of control could have made him the cause of an ecological disaster, something he had been quite aware of for some time now. It was also for this reason that he hadn't used it at all, and why he had learned to split the light portion of his slayer magic away, branching it off into a secondary form of magic that let him bend and control light, creating swords of light magic and even allowing him to blast someone with so much compressed light that it would wipe them clean off of the face of the earth. In truth, it was the only magic he had learned to really control as it was the only one he could use that had no risk of burning down the forest. That, and the other magic, the one his father had passed down to him just like the magic of his sword came from his mother, was something he could not yet control.

Up until now, that magic, the one he had not even been able to name yet on account of how it only seemed to pop up from time to time, had only done so instinctively when he was either in danger or when he was really interested in something. As such, it had gone as far as to implement a water god slayer technique and a few earth demon slayer techniques into the magic itself, though Solmar at this point had no idea how to actually use them. To him, the ability to take spells and magics used by others felt strange, though it also made him feel stronger and more versatile at the same time. Once he learned how to actually bring out those spells at will, he felt that his actual slaying capabilities would grow exponentially as he wouldn't just be limited to using fire to do it with, but would also be able to use earth against those demons that did not really feel all that threatened by fire. On the other hand, he'd also be able to slay more than just demons as even beings of light wouldn't stand a chance against his god slayer spells. While the thought of it felt strange, Solmar had been raised to believe that demons were evil, which was something he had seen firsthand twice now.

On the other hand, he wasn't dim enough to believe that just because something was angelic in nature, that that automatically made them into one of the good guys. Since he himself also wielded light magic and a form of anti-darkness magic, that did not make him into a good person by default, as he figured both being of light and beings of darkness had their own agenda that served to further their own goals. And if he were to ever fight against a being of light, it would be good to be armed against that kind of thing, at least that was how he saw it. It was also in part why he was both looking forward and at the same time not looking forward to meeting this Heartstone entity or whatever the hell it was. Being something that was revered by the treefolk, as well as by the other sentient beings called the mycelians that lived within the Underglow, it made him wonder what exactly it wanted with a human. Possessing some kind of clairvoyant abilities that had allowed it to foresee Solmar's coming to the Greenscape before it actually happened made the young mage wonder as to what else the being was capable of. But no matter how hard he tried or how many times he actually tried to ask, the treefolk kept their lips sealed and only seemed angry whenever he asked.

So, after that first day of being a resident of Marshknot, he had just figured he'd stop asking questions and would go about doing his own thing so as to not make the other villagers upset with him. Their secrecy regarding their apparent leader made him all the more worried and interested in meeting it, though as he had previously pondered in regards to demons and angels having their own agendas, so did this thing likely have an agenda of its own to live up to. For the time being though, there would only be so much that he could actually do aside from hunting, and since he had just come back from a hunting trip, it seemed wise to focus on the contents of his bag before continuing to ponder on and worry over something he had no real control over anyways. And so, he placed the bag on the floor properly and released the cord that kept it closed, or rather, pulled out the rugged piece of wildvine doing the job as a makeshift robe. As the cloth fell to the side to reveal the contents, it went to show that much of it, if not the vast majority of it were all Bloodblossom fruits, Wildvine innards, sage berries from the Silversage plant and raw meat from a Mosschid he had baited and killed.

While it seemed like all that he had taken were merely fruits, vegetables, berries and meat, there were also a couple of rather specific parts of the Mosschid skeletal structure found within as they'd serve for the purpose of bone carving some more trophies to display in his basement. One of these parts was a pristine skull, the antlers still attached to them as the antlers of a Mosschid were unlike those of Fiore's deer. The deer located in Fiore dropped their antlers every once in a while so they could grow in a new pair, though the Mosschid seemed to have theirs for life as they were much more tightly interwoven with the rest of the skull and were made from the same bone matter as the rest of their body. This was something he had managed to figure out after he had killed, skinned, gutted and deboned the beast, something that granted him greater insights into the rest of the species as a whole. Since he was the only one who had this hobby in the village, or maybe even the entire Greenscape, and was one of the only sentient beings that ate meat to survive and did not want to actively kill you when approached, Solmar was likely one of the few to know about things like these.

And it wasn't the only thing he had learned after he had started taking an animal apart in order to take out the bad bits and get to the parts he needed. For instance, when he slew the first Phoruzoan he encountered in battle two weeks ago, he found out the reason as to why the creature had such a strange physical appearance. As it turned out, the reason why they had feet looking like trees was because of the fact that actual plant-like tissue grew out of their bones in certain locations of their body, which was also why their feathers resembled leaves rather than actual feathers that other birds had. While it made it harder to actually carve out solid pieces of meat from the creature's corpse, and therefore also the first and last time that a Phoruzoan would be his target for the sake of gathering food, it was a very interesting find for someone who was not used to seeing this kind of thing in animal anatomy. Taking the bones out of the bag and placing them near the finished trophies, he placed the raw meat on top of a few large leaves he had taken from a massive tree so he would not need to place it on the dirty floor.

Creating a sword of light in his right hand, he held the large piece of meat in place with the left and started carving the solitary piece into many smaller sections, preparing them so he could cook them up later. Taking him a good few minutes before he was entirely done with this chore, he then started sorting the sage berries from the bloodblossom fruits and the wildvine innards, figuring it would be best if he put everything of a kind together. It did not really serve any specific purpose, though he just felt that it looked more neat. Continuing to clean up his basement and make preparations for dinner, it was at that point that his ears picked up on someone moving around a level above him. Leaving everything as it was, he ventured out of the basement and into his borrowed home, seeing that two brutish looking treefolk accompanying an older looking one whom he recognized from two weeks ago. It was Jogumold, the village elder and the one who was to decide whether or not Solmar was considered as mentally fit to visit the Heartstone. Once Solmar stood face to face with Jogumold, he nodded his head at him as a form of greeting, getting a similar nod in return as the two were not exactly friends, they were hardly even acquaintances.

Making no efforts at any form of small talk, Jogumold shrugged his throat and quickly cut to the chase, his visit had been regarding Solmar's worthiness. Trying his best not to look in any way offended that this much had even come into question, he kept his face as stoic as possible, even though it bugged him quite a bit. To be judged by someone like this who wasn't really as liked as he himself had believed himself to be, knowing for a fact that Nolemad the druid wasn't his biggest fan either for constantly disregarding his views on village affairs. It was for that same reason that it came as quite a bit of a shock to hear that Nolemad had heard various tales about him, some good, some not quite as good as the people didn't understand the human or why he was spending time in their village, most of them stated that he hadn't been any trouble to deal with and had been quite friendly whenever he was actually around to begin with. Figuring that this much was probably true due to the fact that he hadn't been in the village itself that often and spent most of his time hidden away in his basement to work on his hobbies or out in the woodlands to hunt or learn more about the local flora and fauna, there couldn't have been a lot wrong with him in their eyes.

So once the verdict had been made and Solmar was deemed fit to meet with the Heartstone, he nearly dropped the Mosschid skull that he had been holding on to, much to the dismay of the elder. Making it clear that the four of them would be heading towards the sanctum of the Heartstone right away and that he was to finish whatever he was doing at some later point, Solmar just rose his shoulders as if to say that he couldn't really care about that a whole lot and was ready to go whenever. With that, Jogumold, Solmar and the two bodyguards started walking towards the village, most notably the town hall that stood at a slightly elevated position when compared to the other houses. Because he had been doing his best to avoid the place before, he had never really gotten this close to the place before, let alone inside. Being one of the biggest trees he had seen in his life, it seemed even bigger on the inside. Noticing many kinds of different runes spread across the place, there were even more different doors leading to smaller rooms within the main building. Wondering what might be stored inside of the place, Solmar figured that he would probably have time to check this much out at a later time.

Venturing into a passage that was guarded by two equally large treefolk as the ones that were accompanying the village elder, he imagined that this was likely where the Heartstone was going to be, as it was what made the most sense to him. Walking at a steady pace, he could tell that the tunnel stretched out for quite a distance as he couldn't see the end of it from where he was right now, though the elder wasn't really all that mouthy about it either. Figuring an elder like him would likely not want to walk too far due to his own old age, he imagined that getting to their destination would not be much of a strain on someone who was as physically fit and in shape as Solmar was. It was after all one of those things he took a lot of pride in, and for good reason. After a few minutes of what felt like gradually walking further and further down, he started seeing strange lights ahead of them in the darkening tunnel. Much to his surprise, it seemed like these were the same kinds of mushrooms causing the eerie glow as the ones he had seen when he was at the end of the caverns in which the moss trolls were dwelling, if not much, much smaller in size.

Wondering if this tunnel went all the way down into the Underglow or not, it seemed that they were no longer heading any further down, only going further ahead. Looking around at the brightly colored and glowing mushrooms, he really enjoyed seeing this kind of thing. Thanks to Nolemad the druid, he knew that these kinds of fungi possessed an ability called bioluminescence to make light out of the darkness, it seemed that the ones he had seen some time ago during his onetime visit were supposedly all over the Underglow, just like how trees were found everywhere in the Greenscape. Even though he still had so much that still needed to be discovered within the Greenscape itself that he hadn't gotten to yet due to the fact that he had to remain close to the village and under the supervision of Jogumold and the people of Marshknot, the Underglow was a place he would really like to visit and explore at some point too. Continuing to ponder on it for quite some time, it was after a fifteen minute walk that they finally got to a point where Solmar could see the literal light at the end of the tunnel, though something seemed off about it. Normally, light wasn't supposed to be green, yet there was no way around it as that was what it was.

By the time they finally stepped out into it, it seemed that they had gone to a place in the forest that had been hidden quite well, yet was still somehow in possession of an open roof as he could clearly see the clear blue sky above them. But that was not what was the most impressive here, not by a long shot. What was however was the massive amount of branches that were coming from various directions and were growing together to connect and wrap around a massive chunk of what seemed like emerald. Clearly being one single piece, he estimated it to be at least thirty meters in height and about twenty meters wide, making it the largest emerald he had ever seen in his life. But that wasn't all there was to it, as it was the origin of the green light he had seen from inside of the tunnels, radiating with it in a very visible manner. But as he looked up at it, it wasn't that the light being bright hurt his eyes. In fact, it felt warm in a soothing manner, and for some reason it took away any and all forms of fatigue he had felt from running around in the woodlands for the past two weeks as even small nicks and scars he had sustained in the Greenscape slowly closed and disappeared. Whatever this stone was, it carried some serious power.

When Solmar saw that the elder and the two bodyguards both took a knee and regarded the large emerald with the name "Stonelord", there was only one thing possible here, and that was that the emerald he was looking at was in fact the Heartstone he had been hearing so much about. Not really sure as to what to do, he considered taking a knee as well, which was clearly what the elder wanted him to do as he tried to draw his attention by whistling at him and gesturing to lower his posture. Once he tried doing it, the stone started chiming as he heard a voice speaking to him in his head, which was a very strange thing to experience as one usually only heard their own voice in such a place. When he tried to think back, it did not seem like the stone's manner of speaking went both ways, meaning Solmar would actually have to speak up if he wanted to converse with the stone, which sounded strange no matter how one went about it. Listening as the stone spoke to him, it seemed that there was a reason why Solmar had been brought here, though it was not exactly what he had imagined it to be.

In reality, he had never really given it as much thought as one might have imagined one should when being brought through a portal to a strange new place. For as far as he was aware, the only reason why Solmar was here was because the elemental node he had collected by slaying the four elemental lords had read his heart's desire and brought him to a place that seemed to be all natural and had no humans in it whatsoever. Once the Heartstone explained that it had felt something reaching out from beyond his dome of power, he had allowed it to connect to it, meaning the Heartstone was just as much to blame for pulling Solmar here as the elemental node was. At this point, it also became clear to him how it had been foretold that the mage would arrive in the Greenscape, he had been the one that decided to let him in in the first place. Wondering why the stone would make his people believe that it was clairvoyant was something he did not know, nor was it something he was going to ask about with three of the treefolk being no more than three meters away from him. No, he had far more pressing questions, though they needed to wait until the Heartstone was done talking.

Due to the fact that it spoke to him within his own head, it was very hard for him to formulate any sentences, so there was really nothing for him to do right now but to listen to what it had to say. As it were, the Heartstone had decided to let him in because there were things happening to the Greenscape that were out of his control, and that was not something he enjoyed in the slightest. Over the past couple of months, he had felt how certain areas within the Greenscape and the Underglow went dark, meaning his influence no longer reached there. And since it was the lord and master of this entire dimension, the fact that it no longer had any power within those specific areas was quite odd, to that much Solmar found himself in agreement. Claiming that a sickness infested his world and slowly spread its influence throughout this world, he needed someone that was not made by him and was a being not made from the Greenscape to investigate and do something about it. When Solmar asked why the Heartstone had gone through so much trouble just to get him here, it responded by saying that he had already sent some of his most trusted shepherds in to look for it, but had since lost contact with them as well.

Fearing the worst, the stone entity believed that whatever was at the root of all this, the denizens of the Greenscape were all at risk of falling prey to it. Believing that Solmar, being a being of flesh and blood rather than plant or fungi, was among the only ones who might stand a chance at finding out what had transpired and could do something about it without risking to fall to corruption. Not knowing what he could possibly do about it as he had no idea of what he was supposedly looking for, where he was supposed to look for it and whether or not it was even something he could handle, the stone remained quiet for a moment as if formulating its next words very carefully and considerately. Continuing by claiming that this feeling had started somewhere deep within the Underglow after a strange object had fallen from the sky, crashed through the surface of the planet and remained within the subterranean cavern system. From there, it had first started spreading out across the Underglow, though a few weeks ago, it had also started coming out through the hole in the ceiling, from where it had started to spread throughout the forest. Hearing of this, Solmar was not exactly sure how to feel as he had no idea what this kind of corruption actually was.

If it was something that was slowly killing this dimension, than obviously he was going to want to do something about it, though the young mage clearly had no idea what to do about it. If it was something that spread from place to place, he could go about burning away the corruption and the corrupted with his fire magic, though that meant doing untold amounts of damage to the forest for generations to come. When he asked as to what he could do, the Heartstone painfully admitted that it too had no idea, but that one of his most trusted and oldest friends might be able to help him out with that. When the ground started to move beneath his feet, a few roots came up from the stonework, holding some strange kind of scale the size of Solmar's chest. Not sure what to do with it, the Heartstone told Solmar that this friend of his was called Feykroreyth, and that it was the original creature created by it to look over the place and act as his eyes and, if need be, his wrath. The way the Heartstone explained it, it was Feykroreyth that had been responsible for culling most of the moss troll population after they were cursed to spend the remainder of their lives and that of their offspring in darkness.


(5233 // 6584)

Since Feykroreyth could not tolerate most other sentient beings since that time, the Heartstone made it clear that if Solmar was to get to him and survive the encounter, he would need something that would prove that the Heartstone was responsible for sending him there and that he had a message for him. When the Heartstone requested to see Solmar's sword that he had used to kill the Phoruzoan and several Mosschid with, he choked up for a bit. Feeling like he might have overstepped when he killed living beings within the Greenscape, the stone quickly made it clear that it wanted to see his sword so as to give him a gift for doing this job. Once Solmar summoned the sword, the stone chimed at a high pitch, though the reason for this was unknown to the mage. A few seconds later, it seemed that the entity knew exactly what metals had been used to create the sword and that a certain type of magic had been woven into it. Claiming that it could strengthen the sword by fusing the dragon's scale to it, it said that this would alter the way it looked quite a bit, though it would empower the magical powers it had by quite a fair amount. Though the item had been an heirloom from his people that was meant to be used to actually slay dragons, Solmar reveled in the irony of a dragon's scale being used to make it more powerful.

Agreeing to the terms, Solmar handed Sunvaar Kriid over to the branches and roots that had been extended from the Heartstone's mass. Taking it from his hands, it drew the weapon and the scale into the air where roots started coming together, fusing together to form a strange kind of pod. Placing both the scale and the weapon inside of it, Solmar watched with interested how the pod closed up and started radiating with an intense green glow. This time, the glow actually hurt his eyes, forcing him to look away for a bit until the light died down again. Taking a few minutes, the young mage had decided to sit down and wait it out, looking over at the three treefolk men that were still waiting around without any real purpose. Figuring that they were quite curious as to why a fleshling had been brought into their world, they most likely wanted to learn all they could so they could return it to Marshknot village as gossip. Snickering at the thought of wooden men gossiping about what a talking stone had told them, it seemed that the Heartstone had finished doing what it had promised as the branch attached to the pod came to where Solmar was standing. Taking place on the ground, it opened up to let the young swordsman reach in and take out his new sword.

As he did so, he held a greatsword that was a good bit shorter than the original massive size of the blade, though it seemed to still maintain a similar weight to it. Waving it around a bit, it seemed that this new sword could be used with both hands and even with one, which was somewhat of an improvement over the last form. Believing this place would likely not be the best one for practicing the casting of his magic through it, he chose to take the Heartstone up on its word while looking it over. While the blade itself was quite normal in appearance, it seemed that the handle of the sword had taken on an almost organic look at the scale had fused into it, clearly having taken over those properties as the guard seemed like scales and nails. Finding this new appearance to be quite brutal, if not more elegant than the last, he looked back at the Heartstone and nodded in an agreeing manner. Returning the sword to its place of storage with a bright flash, the stone explained what it had done, though most of the things it said sounded like an altogether foreign language to his ears. When it claimed that the sword had been reforged from Sunvaar Kriid into a newer and stronger version, it had taken the liberty of renaming the sword, now calling it Caladbolg.

Figuring a new name for a technically new sword was fitting, he didn't really know what it meant as it was a language he clearly did not understand himself, though that did not matter. Judging by the Heartstone's intentions, he doubted the thing would give his sword a name that translated to something silly like "poopstick". With that out of the way, the chiming of the stone changed from the gentle light noise to a more audible and deep one as magical energies were starting to form in the space in front of Solmar. As it did, roots were coming up from the ground to form what seemed like a perfect circle, acting as a guiding force through which the magical energies centered themselves. As it all came together, it created a portal that was much like the one he had traveled through back in Sakuramori, leading him to believe that the Heartstone maybe had more of a hand in him coming here than he had initially admitted to. Abandoning those thoughts for now, he placed the deer skull that he was still holding on to on the ground next to the portal, entrusting it to the Heartstone and his three treefolk followers for now.

Once the Heartstone had made it clear that this portal would take him to the front of Feykroreyth's lair, it would be up to him to find and convince the dragon of his intentions from that point on. Feeling like there was still something the entity was not telling him, he merely nodded at the massive chunk of emerald wrapped in roots before turning his attention back at the portal. His ancestors from his mother's side of the family had always held a grudge towards the dragon that had sank their native homeland, which was why they had given him the sword that had just been altered and renamed Caladbolg. That said, the person he had met called Adalinda that actually claimed dragons were rather fantastical creatures in spite of actually being a dragon "slayer" made him wonder as to what to expect from this Feykroreyth. After all, he had heard about dragons from various sources, some praising them and some condemning them, though they all seemed to agree on the fact that they were powerful creatures that were a lot like humans in more ways than one, particularly in terms of personality and whimsical attitudes. But he had one thing going for him, and that was the fact that he now already knew about the dragon not liking sentient beings such as himself.

Sighing deeply as he just knew how this was likely going to turn into a whole situation he wanted no real part in, if it meant doing his part in saving this paradise of nature from corruption and eventually death, he felt that it was something he needed to do. And with that, he stepped through the portal, leaving the inner sanctum of the Heartstone behind and changing the scenery to a far different one. Though it seemed like another cavern, he came to find out that it was actually a chasm that was leading quite deep into the mountain range he hadn't been allowed to enter during the two weeks he spent in Marshknot. Looking around the chasm, he could hear a loud and strong wind blowing from the far end of it, clearly coming from above with an equally loud rustle. If he didn't know any better, he figured that this came from the dragon, though he couldn't be sure. If it were in fact the dragon, that would mean that the beast was massive, far more so than he had actually imagined it would be. Gathering up his courage, he started moving forward, heading deeper into the chasm that seemed to be rather inhospitable, or maybe it was just meant to look that way to keep anyone from trying to approach the dragon in his own territory.  

Wandering through the edged rocks that seemed t o make up most of the terrain, he could clearly tell that these were not natural formations and that they had been created by something big, clearly for the purpose of keeping people away from him. More importantly, the closer he got to the end of the chasm, the more the place was littered with all kinds of bones that had been picked clean and dropped down from a considerable distance. From what he could tell, the bones were those of Phoruzoan of varying sizes, though there were also a couple of large Rynchosaur bones among them. Proving that this dragon actually ate the apex predator of the Greenscape for lunch just made it that much more of a formidable foe, if it were to actually turn out to be an enemy as opposed to being a friend. Though friend seemed like a rather big word at this point, Solmar would be quite fine with just not being turned into food, or having to actually fight the beast as that wasn't exactly his cup of tea. He fought the undead, he fought monsters and predatory animals from the time to time, though dragons were not exactly on the list of beings he's fought and beaten before, and he was quite aware of how that might become somewhat of a problem now.

Upon reaching the end of the chasm, it was time for him to start making his way up, which was actually quite hard. Though there were some protrusions in the stone wall and some roots sticking out here and there, there was no clear way for him to get to the top. Then again, that was probably because of how the dragon had chosen this location and made it so reaching him would be one hell of a chore. Once he was done with all of this, Solmar would certainly have a thing or two to say to the Heartstone entity, among which the question as to why it did not just open a portal for him that would have taken him straight to the dragon instead of making him go through all of this effort just to deliver a message and retrieve some information. Beginning his climb, he made sure to scan as much of the surroundings as he possibly could before starting to leap from one place to the next, using the roots as a means of climbing up as high as they could possibly take him before he would need to look for a new place to jump on over to. Though this was not that much of an issue at first, it became exactly that once he got higher and higher up to the point where making a mistake would actually cause him to plummet to his death and become just another skeleton resting in the chasms until the world ended.

Instead of being afraid of falling, he kept his head up and refused to look down, knowing from experience that this was the point at which things might start going downhill, literally. Within five minutes, Solmar managed to leap and climb his way to the top of the chasm, from where he could already see the target of this somewhat different hunt of his. Just up ahead, he saw the dragon curled up between some large rocks and tall trees, though that was not all he saw. Noticing large glyphs carved into the rocks that were glowing with the same green light that seemed to radiate from the Heartstone. Wondering as to what that meant and why the dragon had chosen to make his perch here of all places, it seemed like it was no coincidence. With the dragon being vast asleep, Solmar figured that walking up to him and risking it waking up would surely put him into a foul mood, there was not a whole lot that he could do to keep that from happening. However, if he awoke the dragon on his own accord, he might keep himself from being eaten if the beast lashed out in a hurry after sensing an invader in his perch. As such, he summoned his sword, Caladbolg, and released a large amount of light from it at a brightness that would wake the dead.

While he did so, he called out to the dragon by his full name, Feykroreyth, hoping that that would do the job. When he noticed something stirring with his ears, the snoring stopped as a rumbling could be felt within the earth beneath his feet, almost as if saying that the beast was not happy to be woken up like this. But seeing as how there was nothing he could do about it and that the dragon's master had called for him, the young swordsman stood his ground, holding the blade tightly and reaching it out in front of him to let the dragon have a look at it. Narrowing its large eyes, it stirred once more as it rose from his curled up position and took to standing on all fours before continuing to move until it stood upright on its hind legs. Figuring that this dragon stood at a length of roughly fifteen meters tall, it dwarfed Solmar by quite a bit to the point where the young man must have seemed like a mouse holding a toothpick. Bringing its head closer to Solmar, it took a closer look at the sword that he was holding, and when he realized that his own scent came from the weapon the fleshling held, its eyes widened as it realized what might have been the cause of this. For the time being, it held off from any sort of hostilities towards the young man and allowed him to speak.

Letting a deep sigh of relief escape his lips, he unsummoned his sword and thought about where to begin, figuring that it was best not to keep the creature waiting for too long or bore it with too much information that was of little to no consequence to it. As such, he started with the things that were actually important, namely the fact that the Heartstone had called him in from another world called Earthland so that he could help them look after the forest. Responding with a bellowing laughter, it brought in its large paw and poked Solmar in the chest with its large nail, causing him to nearly tip over and fall on his ass. Barely managing to stay upright, it heard the dragon call his bluff by asking how such a little fleshy thing could do anything that it could not do by itself. Remaining silent for a moment, there was a part of him that wanted to call it out, though Solmar soon realized that picking a fight with an elder dragon such as this one was very unwise as he hadn't even fought a regular dragon yet. Taking a deep breath to center himself again, he continued by saying that the Heartstone believed that all of his creations risked falling prey to the corruption that was spreading through the Underglow and had now reached the Greenscape above too.

Putting its paw to its chin as if stroking some kind of invisible beard, it seemed that the dragon was pondering on what Solmar was saying and saw some kind of reason to it. After all, if the Heartstone believed that this was the case, Feykroreyth knew better than to call the wisdom of his master into question. This time around, it was the dragon that sighed deeply, causing loose branches and stones to fly about and drop down from the ledge into the chasm below. From that point on, it seemed that the dragon would refrain from eating him, making a rather heavy burden fall from his shoulder as he no longer had to walk on eggshells around the mighty beast. Asking Feykroreyth as to what it believed Solmar could do about it, the dragon merely stated that Solmar was asking the wrong questions. To know what he was doing about this, he would need to know what it was that he was supposed to be doing anything against, which was where everything started. Once he had that knowledge at his disposal, the next thing would be to look for what it was that he could do about stopping the corruption from spreading any further. Figuring that the dragon was right, he asked it as to what it was, to which the beast chuckled a bit before lowering his head and turning it towards the east where the blight had first been seen in the Greenscape.

Though making it clear that he had no idea as to what it was, it did turn out to be the case that Feykroreyth had seen the object as it came falling towards the woodlands from the sky like a huge chunk of black rock which had an odd red glow emanating from cracks along the stone. Believing that whatever was at the core of the rock was nothing short of malignant, it did not doubt that whatever was inside of it had been what was corrupting the creatures and blighting the land. Unfortunately for the dragon, it had been incapable of following it and doing something about it as there was not a single passage anywhere in the Greenscape that was big enough to fit him through it, meaning there wasn't a thing it could do to get to the origin of the problem all the way down in the Underglow. As even the crack in the ceiling was not big enough for him to pass through, the blight surrounding the hole made it dangerous for the dragon to even get near it anymore, making Solmar their next best chance at dealing with it for the sake of them all. Not really liking how all of this was falling into his lap as the sole person to be capable of this, he knew that he would need to get some help if he were to do anything about it, be it in fighting it or learning more about it.

As the dragon was clearly not going to be able to help him fight down there, the only thing it could really do was provide him with whatever information it had in regards to the rock that had fallen from the skies and the exact location from which the blight had originated. Knowing that there was not a whole lot that the dragon could do for him from this point on, Solmar planned on leaving and making his way back down, though it seemed that Feykroreyth still had something to say. Bringing up the name "Sporeback", which was apparently something it referred to as a "Toadstool  Shaman" was a friend to the dragon and to the Heartstone, even though it was a hermit that lived a reclusive lifestyle down in the depths of the Underglow. Because of his connection to the local wildlife and the fungal growths, it knew just about everything that was going on down there, making Sporeback the person Solmar should be looking for if he wanted more information as to what he was fighting and whether there was really something he could do to stop it from destroying the Underglow and the Greenscape once it was done down there. Nodding to thank the dragon for this information, the dragon thanked him for his service by picking him up and placing him on his back.

Instead of making him climb all the way back down and force him to look for the best place to venture down into the Underglow from, Feykroreyth seemed to be more than willing to set him off on the right track, believing that doing so would aid the rest of the Greenscape too. Setting off, the dragon started swooping down from his perch as it gained a lot of velocity. Holding on to the hard scales that seemed like bark, it seemed like the dragon itself had been composed of some organic type of wood, though it was at the same time reptilian, making it yet another one of those strange creatures one would only ever encounter within this dimension and never in Fiore. Covering a lot of ground in little to no time at all, the large beast eventually set Solmar down by another cavern system, a different one from the one he had been in before. Knowing that the treefolk would not venture down there, nor would the mycelians come up from them, the only creatures making places like that their home were the moss trolls. As such, shortly after putting Solmar down, Feykroreyth turned his head towards it, breathed in deep and exhaled a massive torrent of fire down into the cavern. Feeling the heat that was blasting off of it, it seemed unlikely that anything would survive coming into contact with it.

Breathing for a solid thirty seconds, the dragon closed its maw and retreated from the cavern, telling Solmar that if he went down here and just kept on walking, he would soon be out of moss troll territory and reach the vicinity of a mycelian settlement going by the name of Thruld, from which he might be able to get some leads as to where he might find the old toadstool shaman. Thanking the dragon yet again for all the things it had done for him, he wasted no more time with pleasantries and started up a solid stride towards the entrance of the cavern. Hearing the dragon wish him good luck on his journey, followed by the flapping of large wings that took it back up into the sky, it meant that Solmar was on his own yet again. Though this might feel somewhat disheartening for some, Solmar was more or less used to doing things on his own, generally not being that much of a team player to begin with. For him, this was just another day on his own in the wilderness, though there had never been this much at stake before, there never had been so much riding on him succeeding in his mission. After all, it was not every day that one could say that an entire world was at stake and might be lost if they failed at doing what they had been tasked with.  

Picking up the pace, he could still feel the heat lingering in the cavern after the breath attack from the elder dragon, as well as the many scorched remains of the moss trolls. When he witnessed the scene of the massacre, he did not really feel for them as he moved through the place, knowing that if they had been left alive, they would just come after him in an attempt at killing him, meaning he would in turn have been forced to kill them first. It also proved one thing to him, and that was that Feykroreyth really did not care much for sentient creatures as this had not been the first time he had murdered a large amount of moss trolls, and it most likely wouldn't have been the last time either. Continuing to move along for a solid thirty minutes, he eventually came to the end of the caverns as they opened up to show a massive subterranean wonderland that was located directly beneath the Greenscape. Looking up, it seemed that the roof was incredibly high, which explained why the journey down to it took him as much as thirty minutes even when moving at a rather high pace. Believing it to be nearly half a kilometer from the floor to the ceiling, it just made the Underglow look that much more massive. The fun thing about it was that the floor was up so high that the rock itself seemed pitch black, while the mushrooms growing from the ceiling looking like stars.

It was funny to him that nature could pull these little jokes from time to time. The more he looked around, the more he saw things that seemed almost as hard to believe as the things he first encountered within the Greenscape two weeks ago. The humongous glowing mushrooms ranging from about thirty centimeters to well over thirty meters in height for instance were quite the sight to behold. Upon closer inspection, he could also see some rather large spiders which had their backs riddled with mushrooms lurking within the large fungal growths, hidden beneath the spore caps which lit up as brightly as they did, making them the perfect hiding spots from which to leap down on prey. Deciding that it was likely best not to walk underneath any of the larger mushrooms, he made his way into the actual Underglow for the first time since he had come to this world. While the dragon told him that he would be quite close to one of the settlements at this point, it made him wonder if that meant close for something as massive and fast as a dragon, or close in relative terms. As the only real way right now was to just go forward, he kept his guard up and ventured deeper into the subterranean cavern system in search of Thruld and the toadstool shaman.

Getting further from the entrance that had brought him to the Underglow, he saw that there were lakes down here too, which seemed somewhat odd. The closer he got to these sources of water, the closer he got to floating blue and red lights, which were things he could not exactly make out in terms of their origin. Drawing closer and closer to it, it seemed that they came from small flying reptiles, most likely the creatures that Jogumold the druid had referred to as "Frogflies". Being young Chytridrakes, that meant that these were the lakes within which the adult drakes roamed. Not feeling all that safe, it was then that he realized that the fact that there were already so many of the young ones roaming about that the mating season had already come and passed. Just to be safe, he ventured closer to the water, which went to show that these lakes down here were not like the ones above in the Greenscape. No, there were more like massive sinkholes filled up to the brim with water, going down for what seemed like an eternity. Seeing a lot of larger lights moving around in the darkness, it turned out that there were also stationary lights in the depths, likely from a different kind of underwater fungi.

Truly, Solmar's eyes had never seen a place that was as beautiful as this in Fiore, yet the Greenscape seemed filled with wonder and beauty in ways Earthland would never be able to live up to. Rising back to his feet after peering straight down into the depths for  a while, he could have sword that he had heard a noise coming from a ridge not far from where he was. Focusing on his hearing for a bit, he actually heard someone talking. Or rather, he heard various voices communicating with one another. Wondering whether that meant that he had been getting closer to the town of Thruld or not, he started running into the direction of the ridge, made his way up there and went to look for the origins of the voices. As soon as he got there, he was greeted by three strange looking men that were like the treefolk, except for the fact that they were made entirely out of fungal matter. Knowing for a fact that these were the mycelians he had been told about, these people were supposedly the shepherds of the Underglow, working in service of the Heartstone just like the treefolk looked after the Greenscape above. When they asked him whether he had been sent here by the Heartstone or not, Solmar shortly replied by saying that he had been sent here by it and by Feykroreyth, and that he was to be taken to the town of Thruld in order to obtain specific information.

For a moment, the mycelians looked at one another in confusion and anguish before turning back to Solmar, stating that the town of Thruld had been destroyed by "the Blighted" over a month ago, and that the refugees had built a new settlement not far from here called Khruldruc. Fearing that the situation down here was a lot worse than it was up in the Greenscape, it seemed that he hadn't arrived a moment too soon as they came under attack by strange mushroom men, covered from head to toe in strange black goop and red, tumorous growths. Summoning his sword, Solmar activated the white flames and carved down the first of them, setting them on fire as they fell to the ground in two burning halves. This however did not seem to keep them down as both halves continued fighting as their flesh started warping, growing into strange tendrils that were flailing about. Watching how another of the mushroom men got pinned down and injured. Trying to get to it as soon as he could, he felt something hard bash into the back of his head with a lot of force as a wave of pain moved through his body, followed by a paralyzing sensation and a loss of footing. In the blink of an eye, he suddenly realized that he had fallen to the ground and that his vision was getting darker and darker, up until he no longer saw anything at all.


(4971 // 11555)
(Claiming 11,000 for 10 year job)
(555)

P.S: Made a mistake, thought 10 year jobs were 11,000 words each instead of 10,000 words.

(2555)

Spoiler:

Eight hours later…


Waking from his slumber with a splitting headache, Solmar looked around him as if to try and figure out where he was. Judging by the scenery, he was still in the Underglow, in the exact same spot as he had been in when he fell. As he thought about it, he was reminded of how the mycelians he was with had been attacked by strange fungal abominations, one of which had likely struck him in the back of the head, causing him to pass out. Wondering as to why he had been left alive after they had already managed to strike a cheap blow and knock him out cold, he tried looking around for any signs of the other mycelians, though he did not find much of a trace as to where they might have gone. Noticing the black that had come from one of the attackers he had cleaved in two still being there, the one he had actually cut down had disappeared as well, meaning just slicing them in two pieces was not enough to keep them down or kill them. That said, the amount of blood-like liquid they had lost had also not been much of a setback for it, or at the very least not enough to kill it.

Poking into it with a nearby stick, it seemed that the pool of black blood still had a bit of fight left in it, clutching unto the stick and trying to crawl its way up to Solmar's hand. Instinctively, Solmar sent a burst of magic through the stick and covered the small pool under a layer of white flame. Once he was certain that there was nothing left of it, he undid the spell and let the flames disappear, though something else took form in his mind as the flames flickered into non-existence. Was this black goo connected to the strange rock that had fallen from the skies? Was it the so called "corruption" made manifest inside of another creature? The more he thought about it, the more it bothered him. From what he could see, there had been nothing he could do against the strange creatures that had attacked him as cutting them in half only seemed to turn one problem into two, meaning he would need to rely on his magic next time he faced them. More importantly however was the fact that the blackened mushroom creatures seemed a lot like the ones he had ran into, which might explain a thing or two about the situation.

Given the fact that the Mycelians he had ran into at this exact spot had disappeared after the attack of the blighted ones, as well as the attack that had left their village destroyed, it seemed to make a whole lot of sense that these blighted fungal abominations might have in fact been villagers from that town that had become blighted too. Remembering what both Feykroreyth and the Heartstone had told him, this blight was something that was spreading throughout the Underglow and the Greenscape, so it made sense to believe that this blight had the ability to corrupt the denizens of both places and could have them spread it even further. This truly complicated things, because as far as he was aware, the governing bodies of this world were not aware of what they were dealing with and therefore had no way of counteracting this blight. As such, those that had been corrupted by it were likely already lost, meaning the only thing Solmar could do for them now was to kill them and keep them from hurting the ones and the things they once loved while they were still themselves. If this had been happening for some time now, there was no telling how many of these things he might need to face, or how many different kinds.

Though he had gained some insights into what had been walking around in the Greenscape, there were still many areas which he had yet to explore and learn more about. This counted double for the Underglow considering how this place had been hidden and kept from him while he spent his time in Marshknot. And now that there was no longer a village for him to go to in order to get information on what he might be running into down here or where he might go to find Sporeback, which was his main reason for coming here. If he was to somehow stop this blight from spreading and corrupting more of the world, he would need to get quite literally every bit of information that might give him an additional edge available. That's when it hit him. He did not have the luxury of time to just stand around here and wait for things to come back to him, for there was something far more pressing on his agenda. This place that the mycelians had spoken of, this Khruldruc, if it were to be the settlement that took the place of Thruld, which had supposedly been destroyed by the blighted, there was a very real chance that it would be the next place where the blighted would strike next.

With a lot of other settlements being attacked, it was said that the survivors had all gone to this new place and had started building back what they had lost, gathering more survivors every couple of days. But what most of them had probably not thought about was that if all of these refugees moved to the same place, that they were basically just putting a massive mark on their backs and telling the blighted to come and get them. Only possessing a vague sense as to the general direction of this place due to what the mycelians had told him, it made him wonder if he would be on time if he went there now, as well as wonder about whether or not he should be going there or not. His objective was to find Sporeback and gain an edge against the blight that was corrupting this world, though he could not just turn his back on these people and leave them to their fate. If for some reason human beings could not be corrupted by this blight, he was about the only person who stood a chance against it while being able to fit inside of the place that needed help the most, which was not something Feykroreyth could do. As such, he started running into the direction of Khruldruc, hoping that he would be in time to make a difference.

Given the pace at which he could sprint if he really wanted to, getting from one place to the next was not that hard a task, and so it seemed was also the case when looking for a large settlement that supposedly grew by the day. Feeling like he had arrived in time, he saw large mushroom-like buildings which undoubtedly acted as the new homes for a lot of mycelian refugees. While everything looked alright, Solmar soon learned that this was clearly not the case. Hearing screams as he approached the settlement, he felt like he should have seen this coming as there were no guards barring his way as he approached the gate. Dashing into the streets, he saw how strange black creatures were lurching over fallen mycelians. Sticking black tentacles into their bodies as they hung over them, they seemingly pumped their fluids into the bodies, which started oozing with the same black blood he had seen earlier. Not long after, the bodies started rapidly changing into the same abominable beings he had encountered when he was attacked and got knocked out by one of them. Watching the harrowing process unfold, it made him wonder if there was actually something he could do to save them. Right now though, all he could do was make sure that he did a better job than he did last time he fought them.

Sprinting towards them, he summoned his sword, set it ablaze in white flame and leaped towards the closest of the creatures, bringing his sword down right on top of him as fire erupted from the blade. Executing the creature on the spot, the erupting flame moved onward like a vertical crescent, catching several other black beings in its wake and destroying some of the dead mycelian bodies. Figuring that the best thing he could do right now was to destroy the converters and any corpses he encountered before they could be converted into blighted abominations, that was exactly what he did. Not planning on getting knocked down again, he now knew that just carving them up would only slow them down, and that setting them on fire was the way to deal with them permanently. In a way, these beings were just like the moss trolls he had encountered two weeks ago, if not more resilient and far, far more tenacious. The thought of these creatures reaching the moss trolls in the caverns and converting them into blighted was one that instantly frightened Solmar quite a bit, as the combination of the two seemed like the stuff of nightmares.

Burning his way through several of the creatures as he slowly moved his way to the end of the street, he looked around to see that there were quite a few of these black beings, but that there were also still those who insisted on putting up a fight to protect their comrades and loved ones. Though they seemed like lone warriors, the mycelians that were fighting back did so using peculiar weaponry that seemed like polearms. Using a strange fungal blade at the end of the pole to stick the creatures in the gut, it seemed that some kind of toxic acid got injected into them as their mouths started foaming uncontrollably and their flailing tentacle limbs started bubbling and bursting as they fell to the ground. This time, the black blood did not continue moving after being separated from the body, but shriveled up to a small hard crust. Whatever this toxic stuff was that the mycelians used, it proved rather effective against the blighted, though the fact that they were outnumbered made it hard for them to fight them properly. Luckily for them, Solmar was here now too, and with his flames, he managed to quickly dispatch the newly turned mycelians and the converters that moved among them. Even though they did not seem to put up much of a fight now that he knew how to handle them, the soon started becoming rather overwhelming for him too as their sheer numbers turned out to be the real issue here.

As he continued pushing his way up the street and clearing out and purging every bit of corruption he encountered along the way, he saw more of these odd mycelian warriors coming out of the side streets they had seemingly been cleaning out themselves. Pushing the Blighted out into the open at the main street, they were no longer able to invade any homes and turn innocents into monsters, nor would they be able to perform any sneak attacks. If Solmar did not know any better, he could swear that these people had been training for this kind of thing and that they were far more suitable at taking care of themselves than he had originally given them credit for. As a crooked, small smile formed on his face in response to the knowledge that he was not fighting this fight alone, he pushed back even harder. Turning up the intensity of his flames, Solmar stopped holding back and sent more of his flames out whenever he carved into one of the blighted creatures. Trying to hit as many of them with the lashing flames as he could, what seemed like dozens of black creatures eventually got pruned down to a mere dozen in total, proving that the efforts made at containing the threat and getting rid of it were paying off.

Screeching loudly as the beings were being cornered and taken down one by one by both Solmar and the mycelian warriors, by the time the last of them got killed, a loud, howling scream could be heard from the outskirts of the settlement of Khruldruc. Whatever it was, it sounded far bigger and angrier than these small fries they had been dispatching. Approaching the settlement with loud footsteps, it did not take it long to reach and evidently break through the front gate. Through the dust that rose after the gate fell, a large serpentine head stuck up from the cloud, followed by two identical heads that were screeching and hissing as their large body wandered into the settlement. Complete with what seemed like a reptilian body, Solmar could only begin to imagine what kinds of creatures had been corrupted and reshaped into this gargantuan monstrosity. Fearing that this beast would be more than the mycelian warriors could handle, there was even a chance that it would be too strong for Solmar's flames to take down. Given the sheer size of the beast, any attempt made at topping it would likely not be all that successful as it moved around on four legs, possessed a heavy tail to provide it with more balance and had three reptilian heads attached to long necks, all complete with sharp fangs that did not seem like they would allow anyone to get close.

As much as Solmar wanted to take this fight elsewhere, he realized that if he tried to lure it away from the settlement, there was still the chance that it would just ignore him, in which case it could do a lot of damage before the young mage would be able to circle back and do something to stop it. In more ways than one, it seemed like this would not be a battle where he could hold back, in which case he might cause more damage to the settlement than the creature might. That said, whatever damage he did could be rebuilt, which could not be said for the damage wrought by the behemoth. After all, if it were to somehow survive and win due to Solmar holding back, chances were that it would continue to kill every last mycelian in this place while reducing every building here to rubble, allowing the converters to swoop into the settlement and practically raise an army of blighted soldiers to take with them in taking down the last stragglers in the Underglow and taking the fight to the upper layer of the planet, straight into the Greenscape. Obviously being something Solmar was not willing to risk, he asked the warriors to abandon the street so that he would not have to worry about anyone getting caught up in the flames that would soon be just about everywhere.

Hoping to keep the collateral damage as low as could possibly be, the last thing he wanted was for anyone to die in his attempt to save them from such a fate. Given the fact that they had seen him fight and were obviously aware of the damage his white flames could cause, the warriors decided to do as Solmar had asked of them and cleared the streets. Instead of just standing around and waiting for the fight to end while hoping for the best, they started going through buildings in hopes of clearing out any that had been hiding or had gotten injured. Clearing out the houses closest to the main street, the mycelian warriors started rounding everybody up and herded them towards the largest building within the settlement. Likely being a command center of some sort, them being there would make the fighting a whole lot easier on Solmar as he would soon have nothing left to worry about in his fight, aside from the massive three headed monsters of course. Taking a deep breath, he released it slowly as a massive torrent of white flames started forming around him. Releasing the full brunt of his magical powers and holding nothing back, the buildings at the side of the street started catching fire.

This time though, it was the kind of collateral damage that he was looking forward to making as it would aid him in the fight. After all, the more flames there were around him, the more fire there was for him to control and use to limit the creature's own mobility. Starting the battle with another blast of fire being shot into the direction of the monster, part of it scathed the creature before colliding with a building behind the creature, which instantly caught on fire. Roaring loudly at the flames that lingered on the side of the creature, the portion of its body that was burning started moving. As if made from some sort of liquid, it just slithered off of it like a snake shedding its skin, thus removing the threat to the main body. Not waiting for Solmar to attack again, one of the three heads came at him at alarming speeds with an opened maw, aiming to outright devour him or bite off any limbs it could get a hold of. Doing his best to dash away, all he could really do was use the blunt side of the blade to dampen the attack and keep the creature from chomping down on him. Though he did not get bit, Solmar got sent flying back, crashing through the wall of a nearby building in which he landed.

Though it hurt like hell and he was certain some of his previous injuries were acting up, like the ribs that had been broken several times in the past and had actually just gone through a healing process, he could tell that all of his training had not been for nothing. Since the last time he had taken a hit like this, he had become somewhat more resilient and tenacious himself, allowing him to quickly get back up on his feet. Though the monster had planned on chasing after Solmar, it seemed that the flames he had created prior to being knocked away had spread to the point where it could not exactly go around moving carelessly, or it would risk getting burned in multiple areas. Roaring in anger, it started using its tail to flail about and topple the burning buildings one by one, hoping to reduce the amount of fire and allow itself to move again. Meanwhile, back in the building, Solmar had been devising a plan. Not knowing whether it was a good one as he had made it in under a minute, it would have to do for now. Cracking his neck and loosening his muscles a bit before picking his sword up from off the ground, he jumped down to the street through the hole in the build, making his way back to where the creature was.

Closing the distance, he shot a volley of smaller fireballs at the creature, aiming for the heads in hopes of distracting them while he got close enough to do some serious damage. Realizing full well the amount of force this creature could pack due to its sheer size, which became all the more clear after getting tossed around by it once already, he kept firing volley after volley. Though it would not do much initially, the fact that the flames would continue to burn and would mass together if enough of them hit might serve to wound the beast. Or so he hoped. Colliding into the heads of the creature, many of the flames flicked out as they hit the gooey exterior of the creature, which was quite unfortunate. Luckily, some of them lingered long enough for the next volley to reach, increasing the intensity of their burn enough to remain on top of one of the heads and doing their very best to burn away at it as much as they could. Doing the best he could with this opening that had been created for him, he leaped up with his sword and used it to sever one of the necks of the beast.

Moments later, the upper portion of the neck and the head fell to the ground, writing in pain as white flame ate away at the lower portion of the neck. Angered, the two remaining heads pointed towards Solmar and started charging what seemed like some kind of magic attack. Giving him little to no time to respond, he could barely use his light jump teleportation spell in time to carry himself out of the attack's range as a dark red beam cut through the street and various building in its path. Watching the devastation of this attack, it made stopping this beast even more pressing as keeping it where it was would not stop it from shooting more of those blasts and killing more people. Continuing to thrash its tail about, the creature removed more and more of the burning buildings by reducing them to rubble, which also flushed out some of the remaining converters and blighted mycelians that were still waiting around inside of them for any additional prey to come around. Now out in the open, it seemed that they responded to the writhing severed head as they made their way over to it as fast as they could. Dashing into it, it was as if the black stuff that made up their bodies merged together with it, creating a pitch black blob of goo that was moving back to the main body.

Trying to stop it by sending a ball of fire towards it as it tried to connect to the main body again, another blast of energy was propelled towards it, rendering it nullified. As the mass reconnected with the main body, it grew even larger than it was before, screaming and hissing loudly as it did so as it most likely realized by now that Solmar's sword would no longer be able to carve off heads or limbs as it lacked the power to do so. More than that, growing bigger meant that his fire would not be as effective as it was before either, and that was the real problem here. Spawning tendrils of black goo from its back, it aided the tail and breaking down the last of the burning buildings so that it could move freely once more. Though he could not be sure whether or not the beast possessed the capacity, Solmar was certain that it was smiling at him as he simply walked past him, aiming to get towards the main building where the mycelians had been gathering up in large numbers to evade capture. Upon realizing that it no longer considered him a threat and was moving on to its true objective, Solmar turned tail and ran as fast as his feet could take him. Moving along the rooftops as quickly as he could, he collected as much magical power as he could, using his speed to position himself between the behemoth and the last remnants of mycelian society. It all came down to this moment as it was now or never.

Collecting a large amount of flames around his sword and creating a ball of fire in the palm of his free hand, he kept adding to the flames as the ball kept growing larger and larger. Turning his stroll towards the beast into a full-on sprint, he closed the distance quickly as he increased the size of the ball to where it was easily the size of a boulder before letting go of it. Placing both of his hands on the handle of his sword, he used it as a bat, using what physical strength he could muster to strike the burning blade against the fireball. Imbuing it with the power of the sword and the flames he had gathered inside of it, the ball got propelled towards the multi-headed behemoth with tremendous force and speed as it grew to far greater proportions. In a matter of seconds, the fireball had gone from the size of a boulder to the size of a house, moving so fast that it was like a meteor coming from out of space, ready to eradicate all that it came into contact with. Spitting another blast of dark red energy from both mouths, it collided with the fireball, though all it managed to do was slow it down a bit as it just kept on coming closer and closer.

With a loud crash, the fireball made contact with the creature, and in a flash of light, the ball exploded upward and outward as an inferno of white. Doing so with such violent force that the buildings in a twenty meter radius from the impact zone were instantly reduced to rubble, the blighted behemoth did not have the time to let out a dying scream as it was evaporated instantly within the heart of the conflagration. All of the black blood that made up its body and allowed it to move as if the whole creature was fluid, allowing it to come back together after taking serious damage, all of that now worked against it as the insanely high temperatures that surrounded it from all sides would not allow it a moment's reprieve. Within the inferno, the behemoth disappeared like snow before the spring sun. And with that, the final threat to the settlement of Khruldruc had been defeated, rendering the place a safe haven, at least for now. Allowing himself to fall flat on his ass, Solmar felt how much energy and magic power he had quite literally burned through in an attempt to save people from a fate worse than death.

Though he was quite proud of his achievements and could feel that he had grown quite a bit since the last time he had been put up against a monster that could easily shatter his bones just by striking him, it seemed that the elemental ordeal he had been up against back in Fiore had hardened him more than he realized. Taking a few minutes for himself to catch his breath, all he could do right now was ponder on what this "Blight" thing really was. Judging from the black blood that had been pumped into the corpses of mycelians, as well as some that were still alive, it seemed like it was some kind of organism that rewrote one's dna entirely, turning into what it needed in order to not only survive, but thrive. Furthermore, he could at the very least assume that the blood from one of the blight corrupted creatures was compatible with all other kinds, as the converters and the turned mycelian creatures were all broken down, turned into building blocks needed by the multi-headed behemoth to rebuild what damage had been inflicted upon it, as well as to grow bigger and stronger. If this was the power of the blight, it made sense that the Heartstone entity was concerned about it.

Rising back to his feet at the sound of several footsteps approaching, for a moment Solmar believed that there were still some enemies nearby that might try to finish him off. When it turned out to be a trio of Mycelian warriors that had been among the group he encountered before, he let his guard down so as to not worry them too much. After all, he did not want to make enemies of these people so shortly after fighting such a troublesome opponent and throwing away most of his stamina in the process. Though what he really wanted right now was to take a nap, he figured that the Blight would most likely not waste any time in coming up with a response to this failed attack. That was, if the Blight was actually a thing that could think for itself rather than just consuming things and becoming ever stronger. Facing the warriors, Solmar introduced himself shortly before letting them know exactly why he had come. Once it was made clear that he had been sent on a mission directly by the Heartstone itself, any lingering doubts as to what he was or why he was here were cleared up. Obviously though, facing down the blight behemoth and helping the mycelians protect the last portions of their civilization had also been a big help towards that goal.

When one of them in turn introduced himself to Solmar as Knond, the mycelian warrior made it clear that after so many of his people and their settlements had been destroyed, it had eventually fallen upon his shoulders as the head of the guard to step in and take over as a temporary leader. It was under him that the settlement of Khruldruc had been built and steps had been taken to gather up all of the refugees in one place. It had also been his idea to look for Sporeback in order to learn of methods they might be able to use to fend off the Blighted, which brought them to the fungal toxins that seemed to kill the corruption on contact. As they claimed that this had been Sporeback's doing, that most likely also meant that they would be the ones to know exactly where to find the old creature so that Solmar could go to it for help. Once he asked the question however, they said that he had been avoiding his hoard for quite some time now and was always on the move so that the blight would not be able to get to him like it had gotten to so many others before him. Though they could provide him with some of the places he frequented, it was about all they could do to help him find the old hermit. However, it was not all that they could do to repay him as they offered him a bed to sleep in.

Not refusing this offer as fighting the behemoth had seriously done a number on him and his magic reserves, he could really use a bit of sleep to replenish his stores and get back out there. Knowing full well that time was not on his side and that the fight here had only been a temporary victory that might not mean much in the grander scale of things if he did not press the advantage they had struggled for, it would not help anyone if he went on in a weakened state and got himself killed. Now that the blight knew that Solmar would be a problem for them, it would not be content with just knocking him out cold for a few hours a second time. If he were to stumble and fall a second time, he would die, and that was about all there was to it. Taking Knond's offer and heading over  to the place that had been set aside for him, it seemed that they had also left some food for him. Knowing that he could not eat the same fungi they ate on account of them being toxic for humans, they had cooked up what was clearly meat within some kind of chitinous shell. Knowing better than to ask as to what it was, he just kept it to himself and ate it anyway. At times, it was just better to not be aware of what one was eating and just be grateful for the nutrients.


(5241 // 7796)

By the time he woke up during the next morning, he wandered across the room and made his way to the window, seeing that many of the mycelians were mobilizing for something. Unsure as to what it was that they were planning on, there had been a lot of buildings that got broken down, people that got killed and others that got taken. Though he could not be sure, he figured that they were likely estimating all of the damage, the loss of life and deciding what to do next, as well as figuring out what to do about a possible next attack. Not waiting around any longer to do more guessing, the young mage got dressed and readied himself to be on his way to find Sporeback, wherever he might be hiding out these days. With the map that had been provided for him, he would be able to locate the hoard he called home, as well as any traveling routes he frequented, which would really help Solmar out quite a bit. Not knowing the land down here at all, he would take every bit of help that he could get in order to navigate these strange new lands.

By the time he had gotten dressed and left the building, he watched as the mycelians were busy cleaning up as much of the damage as possible while doing their best to retrieve any materials that they could salvage. As a species that seemed quite close to extinction, they would need every bit of help that they could get, just like how Solmar needed help finding Sporeback and fighting back against the Blight. In a way, it seemed like all of their fates were bound together, just like that of the entire Underglow, as well as the Greenscape above. Though most of them did not know about it aside from Jogumold and Feykroreyth, the Greenscape was in just as much trouble as the Underglow was, though there was one big difference here. This being the fact that the Underglow was where the Blight was spreading fastest as it was where this strange space rock supposedly landed somewhere, meaning it was to be the first location that would be wiped out if things kept on going the way they did. If the Underglow fell, the Greenscape would be up next as the entire world below would have become a spawning ground for the enemy.

Shivering at the thought of all of these unique beings that were living down here falling to corruption and becoming systematically eradicated, he put on his coat and made his way over to where Knond was. Feeling like he owed it to the man to have a quick talk before he would venture back out in an attempt at saving the Underglow from the Blight, he still had some things he wanted to ask with regards to the strange toxins that were so very effective against the corruption. It had to come from somewhere after all. And that was just one of the reasons why he wanted to keep this place alive, there were so many things he had not experienced yet within the Greenscape, and even more than he still needed to explore within the Underglow as he had only been there for about a day now. That said, he had spent most of that time down here fast asleep. If he was to see more of both of these places and learn more about what they had to offer in terms of wildlife and unique applications that were entirely unheard of back in Earthland, he would first need to find a way to protect it and keep it all from going extinct. Upon reaching Knond and telling him that he was heading out, he got a strange offer that he had not been expecting.

Claiming that he was coming with him to personally oversee him reaching Sporeback, Solmar initially fought against this decision as the whole settlement could not do without someone to lead them. If they were to both somehow die, there would be no one around to keep them all safe and continue to lead them forward. But for all of his struggles, it seemed that Knond was not about to hear any of it, seeing as how he had apparently already established a temporary council and had put his second in command into power until he returned. As much as the people of Khruldruc wanted to survive, they realized that their best hopes of doing so were with Knond and Solmar succeeding in finding a way to beat back the corruption once and for all. By the time Solmar had been made to understand this much, he reluctantly agreed to Knond's terms. And with that, they were off. Headed into the more mountainous regions of the subterranean realm, it sounded weird to even say it, though that was what they were doing. Not sure what to call underground mountains aside from mountains, he decided not to dwell on it as he followed Knond's lead as they ventured ever further from the settlement.

Still not feeling all that good about leaving the place behind with their temporary leader, the fact that Knond was confident that he could leave it and still have it be in good hands meant Solmar just needed to get over himself and his doubts. He had agreed to the terms, so there was really no going back on it now anyway. By the time the settlement was no longer within sight, a silence fell over them that neither of them broke for well over an hour. Knowing that, for all intents and purposes, a blighted creature could be just about anywhere in this place, making any noise would only draw their attention towards them. This was particularly true when taking into consideration the fact that they were headed into the direction where Sporeback supposedly was somewhere, and Sporeback was on the most wanted list for these blighted creatures. As such, many of them had likely been mobilized and sent in to search and destroy the creature before it could do anything to help out the locals in fighting back any further. Looking at the spear Knond was carrying around, Solmar wondered as to how much more their target knew about the enemy.

Since he was the one who told the mycelians to arm themselves with a certain toxin that proved lethal against the black blood that seemed to be the driving force behind the blighted, he wanted to know more about that kind of stuff. So while they traveled deeper and deeper into the subterranean mountains, he kept that thought in mind for when they found a place to rest up and talk about their plan of approach. Given how Sporeback could be just about anywhere, they had to plan a manner of contingencies, including one for when and if Sporeback had been killed or turned by the Blight. All of these things were sprinting through Solmar's head as they went further up the mountain, knowing that there was a pretty solid chance that the one they sought was no longer alive to begin with. If this were to be the case, there was a pretty realistic chance that they ran out of alternatives for dealing with the blight and might have already lost the war before it even began. That said, their only option left after that point might in fact be to go to war and risk everything in an attempt at beating it back by force. That said, the young mage really hoped that it would not be coming down to that as he had seen what manner of creature the Blight had at its disposal.

The attack on Khruldruc had given him some insights into what the Blight creatures were capable of, and while the converters were scary in the sense that they could seemingly turn any being born of the Heartstone into a corrupted monstrosity, it was the three headed behemoth he had faced that really bothered him. If there were more where that one had come from, and Solmar knew for a fact that there were as it seemed unlikely for a single one to be created and just stroll into town all willy nilly, that meant that the Underglow was as good as lost. Though they might be able to win the battle of the Greenscape because of the fact that they had an elder dragon at their disposal up there, no real victory would ever be claimed due to how the Underglow would just become some kind of breeding pool for more blighted creatures. Not looking forward to an ongoing war, Solmar hoped that they would be able to outright prevent it by somehow halting the blight's advance and keep it from claiming any more lives than it already had up until now. Once they made their way over to a place where it seemed like they could hide out and have a momentary conversation in order to discuss how to advance forward, the time had also come for the mage to ask his questions.

Having plenty of them, the first was with regards to the toxin they used to coat their strange spears and where it had come from. While it might not have been the best time to ask about such things now, Solmar believed that there was something to this toxin that should not be overlooked, experiencing the whole deal as something that might in fact be the best way to handle the Blighted creatures until they figured out a more direct way to deal with it in its entirety. For a moment, things fell silent between the two as the mycelian was apparently in thought, trying to conjure up the memory of when and where he had gotten his hands on it. As it turned out, there was some sort of fungi growing in the Underglow that seemed to make this kind of toxin within the glowing cap. Every couple of hours, a few liters of it oozed out onto the ground, which coincidently also was how these mushrooms spread and grew in number. Though they were hard to farm due to the toxicity levels that came off of them, the outcome seemed to be worth all of the effort put into it. However, it was not exactly the toxin itself that Solmar was interested in, but instead the fungi itself as it seemed to truly be the answer they were looking for.

Taking the time to explain his idea to Knond, Solmar explained how he felt it wise to milk several of these fungi dry and use the toxin to create an area around where the Blight came from. While it would not initially be the solution to their problems, if they could coat a large enough area with it surrounding the rock that had fallen from the sky, it could create some sort of natural barrier around it out of these mushrooms that were clearly lethal to the Blighted. While Knond agreed that it was a good and viable plan, it would require a whole lot more for them than to just go out with some people and build this fence. They would need the right people to aid them in their quest, means to increase production and reduce the world load, all while making sure those working towards containing the Blight would be protected as they worked. That, and they had to figure out exactly how far the blighting had spread, what kind of defenses had been placed around the heart of darkness itself and more. For these things, they would need to see Sporeback and hope that he had the answers to their questions. If not, they would need whatever he could give them in order for them to push forward and see to the defense of the Greenscape.

When they heard movement outside of their temporary safe haven, the two instantly armed themselves by taking their sword and spear in hand. Gradually moving towards the entrance of the cave, they looked down into the undergrowth and saw several blighted mycelians moving around, likely in search of the same query as them. As it was but a short leap down, Knond made his way down first, putting his spear into one of their adversaries before pulling the bladed tip clear, spinning the whole spear overhead and striking with all of the built up momentum, cutting down a second before Solmar made it down to cut through the third with a super-heated blade. Sticking his blade into the remains to make sure they burned down in a contained fashion as they could not really use any of the pieces getting back up to continue fighting, they made short work of this scouting party. While the fight was a quickly earned victory, that was not the thing they were most content with. Since the blighted were still searching the area, that meant that they had not found Sporeback yet, meaning there was still a chance that the two of them could get to him before anyone else did. Leaving the discussion for another time, they started moving deeper into the area.

Passing through the rocky area, it was a couple of minutes after encountering the scouting party that Solmar's nose picked up on something strange. Though all there was around them was tall rocks and some taller glowing mushrooms, he was certain that he could smell food from nearby, very nearby. Stopping in his tracks, he followed the scent with his nose, moving into a direction that seemed to take him straight into a large rock formation. Placing his hand upon it, he felt that he could just push his way through it and that there was something on the other side of the strange wall. By the time he had pushed himself through far enough, it was made clear that the thing he pushed through was not some kind of magic, but was in fact some sort of mold as the inside was nothing like rock at all. Looking upon a strange creature that stood at a height of easily two meters in spite of hunching over, it was only when Knond followed in after him and spoke the words "Lord Sporeback" that Solmar knew it to not be a threat to them. Lowering his sword and unsummoning it back to wherever it went when it wasn't within his hands, he nodded at the strange creature in acknowledgement, receiving the same treatment in return.

Chuckling loudly after being called Lord, Sporeback huddled deeper into the strange room, stating that he was already aware of their coming and knew that they would not be able to enter if they had been blighted. Claiming that the mold he had grown this hidden room from had been grown with his magic, it had been done so that it would instantly devour any traces of the blight. Needless to say, both Solmar and Knond were both quite shocked to hear about this. If Sporeback could create such things, maybe he was exactly what they needed if they were to make Solmar's idea into a reality. This was something Knond was also aware of, and so he started introducing Solmar to the old man, only for it to chuckle and claim that he already knew more about the human than Knond did. Whether this was just his way of flexing on the mycelian or not only became clear to them a little while later as the creature told them everything about Solmar, starting from his date of birth, his place of birth and his blood type, as well as what kind of magic he possessed. Though it did not seem to know about his more demonic properties or the fact that he possessed a strange kind of nature magic that Solmar himself did not understand that well yet, he figured that Sporeback knew plenty about him.

Stopping him before he continued saying anymore, all Solmar was really interested in was learning of ways in which they could fight back against the blight, as well as getting more insights into what the blight actually was. As soon as that last question came, a grim silence fell over them as a rather touchy subject had apparently been brought to the surface. Telling Knond and Solmar to take a seat, the old being snapped his bone fingers, causing the mold to rise up in the form of two chairs, showing that it was a very potent mage when it came to controlling his surroundings. Doing as Sporeback asked, they both sat down while the old creature seemed to be preparing to tell the two a story that was important to what they were set upon doing. Raising both hands to the ceiling, a wide array of lights formed together to create some kind of screen that showed moving images. Never having seen such a thing before in his life, the young mage looked at it in awe, finding that the screen showed exactly what Sporeback explained with great clarity as if directly relaying his memories in visible form. Shrugging, it began the start of his story by bringing up the Heartstone.

Claiming that it was some kind of life giving entity that chose to encase itself within the emerald as a form of self protection while it slept, it was said that the Heartstone only spoke telepathically as it could do so while slumbering as it took a lot of energy and effort to provide the entire Greenscape with energy. Acting as the life blood to the various points of power that acted as a means of spreading these energies over a large area, the amount of power it possessed was unmatched by anything they had ever seen. Next, he showed others like him, a race he called the Karchel that had been tasked with keeping up with everything that went on in the Underglow and the Greenscape. The amount of newborn creatures and children, the amount of new plant buds, literally everything that might need to be kept in check or fueled at some point. If the amount of new life outweighed the amount of creatures and plants that died, a temporary infertility was put into place, just like how when things went the other way around, an enhanced fertility would take place to see that everything remained balanced. Though it seemed like an insane way in which to control life and make sure this balance was maintained, Solmar figured that it was not his place to speak up about such things as he was merely an outsider here.

When it showed the space rock falling through the ceiling of the Underglow and into the subterranean realm, it was shown that this rock was in fact a being similar to the Heartstone, albeit a lot smaller. Having been corrupted by some dark force, it was the very life blood that ran from the darkened Heartstone and into the Underglow. While the entity inside of it had likely been warped beyond belief, the black blood that oozed out of it still followed its will, which was to see to the balance of its world. Believing the Greenscape to be its own world, whoever had sent it to crash into the Greenscape had most likely known about this and planned for it to go this way. Wondering what kind of evil and miserable being would be responsible for turning a creature of life and nature into such a sickening life form, Sporeback continued explaining that the first creatures this dark Heartstone had gone after were the Karchel. As they were the ones responsible for keeping up with everything and recording it for the Heartstone, the dark stone which they had come to call the Blightstone had targeted them first. Corrupting them all, aside from Sporeback, they were all reduced to mere lumps of black goo that seemed to possess but a single goal, which was to corrupt more creatures.

Believing that this corrupted entity, the Blightstone, was likely corrupting creatures because it believed that it was doing a good thing by bringing balance and cleansing what it believed to be corrupted creatures, it turned out that the very source of the corruption was actually a rather sad one. It was not all that shocking to Solmar to think that Sporeback was saddened by all of this and in having to re-tell the story of how his own kind had been eradicated. That had become even more of an issue when one could not even really be mad at the thing that caused it, seeing as this Blight was itself a victim of a darker force too. Showing them all that they needed to see, it instead showed them a map of the Underglow and a black zone that symbolized the blight. With a red dot at the center, it also showed the exact spot where the Blightstone had landed, showing them exactly what area they would need to deal with if they were to carry out Solmar's plan. Feeling like they could use some insights from the last of the Karchel, Solmar decided to ask Sporeback himself instead of having Knond ask for him again. He was an adult now after all.

Claiming that he had the idea of planting the toxin producing fungi in a manner that would box in the spread of the Blight, Sporeback mulled it over for a while, claiming that they would be needing his help and that of various other Fungimancers and Druids if they were to pull it off. Needing all the help they could get to fend off the creatures that would undoubtedly be sent in to stop them from creating these anti-blight counter measures, they needed the fungimancers and druids in order to speed up the growth process of the fungi and increase their size beyond their natural one. Since they were only about thirty centimeters tall when matured, the amount of toxin they would produce wouldn't do a thing against any of the creatures coming from within the black region which had been renamed into the Blighted Grove as most would just be able to either step or jump over it. As that would not do, Sporeback decided that it would be best if he were to come with them to the settlement of Khruldruc. Knowing exactly what had happened to Thruld, it said that it would do whatever it could to reinforce the settlement while they went around to find the help they needed in creating this natural fence. While Solmar was quite happy with this news, it was Knond that seemed by far the happiest.

Likely not having any had real good news in quite some time as his people were facing the same fate as Sporeback's people had some months ago, they were now actually moving towards a point in time where they might be able to turn the tide. Not counting his blessings just yet, Knond told Sporeback of the foiled attack on the new settlement and that a second attack might be coming somewhere within the next week. Nodding in agreement, it said that it would make no difference. Asking about the amount of fungimancers left among the mycelian people, Knond said that he was aware of at least seven of them, but that there might be more among his people who possessed a knack for it if trained properly. Sighing deeply, Sporeback told him that he would start by teaching the seven he was aware of in how to grow the toxin fungi, as well as seeing exactly what they were already capable of before finding trainees to prepare for the incursion. Upon making his plans known, the three of them headed towards the settlement along the same way they came, knowing that the scouting party in that region at least had been taken out already and would no longer pose much of a threat to them on the way back.

They could not risk Sporeback getting killed on the way back as that would really reduce their chances of success, not to mention that his death would mark the end of yet another species going extinct. As that was not something Solmar was willing to let happen, he went above and beyond to protect the old Karchel until they made their way back to the settlement of Khruldruc. Once they were all safe and sound, the black haired magus wasted no time in staying around any longer as he needed to return to the Greenscape. Needing to confer with the Heartstone and let it know all that Solmar had learned down there, he also needed to go and gather up various capable druids to help them in isolating the Blight. Knowing one particularly skilled one that lived in Marshknot, getting a single druid would not be enough, and so it seemed wise to go straight to the Heartstone and see if he could use his influence to put together a group of Druids that could help Solmar out. Saying his goodbyes to Sporeback and Knond for now, Solmar started running as fast as he could, heading towards the same cavern system that had gotten him down to the Underglow to begin with. With a bit of luck, he would manage to get things done before the Blight could launch another attack. Only time would tell.


(4250 // 12046)
Turning in as a 100 year quest
(46)

Sprinting through the caverns, it wasn't that hard for the mage to find his way back to the surface. Thanks to Feykroreyth's flames of overkill, all he really needed to do was follow his nose to where the scent of burning flesh was strongest as most of the moss trolls he had slaughtered were located near the entrance. Finding that no new trolls had decided to move in during the past night, he managed to make his way through the cavern system without meeting any resistance, which was exactly the way he liked it. Seeing the daylight up ahead, Solmar made his way back into the Greenscape. Taking a deep breath of fresh air, he liked it here more than he liked it down below, finding it far too damp. Unfortunately, he did not have the time to enjoy it for long as he needed to move on to Marshknot, hoping he would be allowed to use the tunnel to the Heartstone chamber in order to share all that he had come to find out with the entity inside of it. Figuring that he would need to also share some of his findings with the head of the village if he was to pass along, he wondered how much he needed to leave out.

Judging by how much some of the people he looked up to the Heartstone as if it were some kind of god, claiming that the thing that corrupted this world was another that was a lot like the Heartstone might get him in trouble. Though it was nothing he couldn't handle, Solmar preferred to keep the people of Marshknot on his side as he had come to somewhat enjoy their company. Probably because they were people he could talk to in case he were to ever want to while at the same time not being self-serving human beings, he decided to leave out the part about the Blightstone while still filling people in on the things they were entitled to know, like that they were needed to defend their home by heading down into the Underglow. Believing this to be just another thing most of the treefolk would not enjoy doing and might just outright refuse, he would need to make his way over to the Heartstone and have it more or less order them into going. After all, they saw it as their god, so they would know better than to risk its ire being brought down upon them and their villages.

From what Solmar could tell, the Heartstone meant well for his people, seeing as he was responsible for creating them all. As such, it would most likely not force them into doing anything, though Solmar knew now that them sitting idly by would mean that they would all die. If things did turn out that way with the treefolk refusing to fight, Solmar himself would head back through the portal and seal it from the side of Earthland so that the blight would not eventually manage to make its way over there. But that was all a what if scenario as he was not sure how things were going to be going down here, though he wanted to make sure that he would not bring this darkness back with him when the people of this world failed to protect what was theirs. After a good thirty minutes of running and pondering on what needed to be done, the young man finally reached the village of Marshknot, only to find the old druid was already standing at the gate waiting for him. For a moment, Solmar wondered if he could possibly have known about what was going on, and came to the conclusion that he just might, given his connection to nature and his ability to bend and shape it as he saw fit.

Hitting a full stop at the entrance, Solmar stood a few meters away from the old tree man, Nolemad remained quiet as he waited for the human to speak up first. Giving him only a nod as a means of acknowledgement, he gestured that Solmar was to follow and walk with him so they could talk about what had been happening down below in the Underglow. As the difference between speaking to Nolemad and speaking to Jogumold was quite grand, the mage figured that he could tell the druid about the things he had seen, heard and encountered first hand, hoping that doing so might sway him into helping Solmar out in defending the Underglow. Starting by describing some of the corrupted beings he had fought, starting with the mycelian monsters, the converters that turned corpses and living beings of the Underglow and Greenscape into more blighted monsters, as well as the three headed monster that nearly reduced the settlement of Khruldruc to ruins. Judging by his expression, it seemed that the old Druid was already aware of some of these things having happened, though there were also portions that he had no knowledge of whatsoever. Continuing his story, he continued with their search for Sporeback.

Telling the tale of how he had gone along with a mycelian warrior called Knond and searched the mountainous underground region for the Karchel called Sporeback, he shared with the druid how the rock that fell from the sky was in fact another entity similar to the Heartstone, if not smaller. For some reason, some force had managed to corrupt it and knowingly sent it to the Greenscape in order to corrupt everything it could get to. In time, it would corrupt all of Underglow before spreading out into the Greenscape above. If it managed to take the subterranean realm, there would be nothing stopping it from coming up and taking over everything here too. Again, some of this had already reached his ears as he spied on the world below, though he had not imagined that things would be getting this bad this quickly, so the druid did not waste any more time in taking Solmar to see Jogumold and secure passage into the Heartstone chamber. Heading towards the main building, Jogumold already came out to greet the two while insisting on hearing what Solmar had encountered down there so that he could inform the people.

Making it clear that there was no time for such things and that they were headed to see the Heartstone right this instant, Nolemad made an executive decision as the head druid of the Greenscape, stating that Jogumold could come along with them if he really wished to hear the story first hand. Though it was clear that the village elder did not take kindly to being bossed around, there was really nothing he could do now that the head of the druids had made it his business to meet with the Heartstone and take Solmar with him. Understanding the situation he had been put into, Jogumold merely nodded and started leading the way past the two brutes standing guard at the front door leading into the main building of Marshknot. Venturing through the building and heading to the familiar door behind which the long tunnel was located, it seemed that Nolemad was in no mood for a fifteen minute hike. Summoning roots beneath their feet, he directed them all towards the end of the tunnel without having to move as the roots carried them all the way. Finding it to be a strange but effective means of traveling without actually having to take a step, they made their way into the Heartstone chamber in under five minutes.

As every minute might count in this case, Solmar hopped off of the root that carried him, thanking it for doing so, and later feeling stupid for thanking a magically commanded root for doing something for him. Instantly addressing the Heartstone, he could tell that Jogumold did not like him doing so in such a casual manner, though the elder knew better than to interrupt a discussion between someone and the Heartstone. Explaining everything he had been through in the past two days, the Heartstone was visibly saddened after hearing that his suspicions had come to be a reality. Before Solmar got the chance to explain his plan of containing the thing they had dubbed the "Blightstone", it spoke of how there were other inhabited worlds within the universe, and that this universe and the one Solmar came from were two different ones entirely. In this universe, it seemed that the Heartstone was one of several beings with the powers to create a world and give shape to all sorts of life, but that there were also beings of immense darkness that wished for only one thing: to consume all life in the universe. Though he did not really go into any further detail in regards to them after that, it went on to explain that it was thanks to these beings that one of his own kin had been corrupted and turned into a weapon.

Through it all, Solmar could only imagine what kind of beings these were that had the power to corrupt something that wanted to create and maintain life, and what their reasoning for it might be. It also made him wonder if they were in any way or shape related to the creature he had encountered along with Gangting while they were looking into what made the massive beanstalk in the center of the aptly named village sick. The creature they encountered was clearly not from the same world as them, meaning it came from somewhere outside of Earthland. When they encountered the summoner of the creature, which turned out to be someone who was parading around as the local priest, he made it quite clear that he served something he called the hungering abyssals. Meaning nothing at the time, it made Solmar wonder if these were the same beings, though he was at odds as to whether or not now was the time for him to ask such a question. After some internal debate, he decided to ask anyway, figuring he might not get the chance to bring up such a touchy subject a second time, nor would he really want to do so.

Bringing up the hungering abyssals, a momentary quiet fell over the room as a high pitched tone emanated from the massive emerald. Figuring that he had struck a delicate nerve, it remained quiet for a while longer before the entity merely spoke in agreement, that these were in fact the things they were facing here. Claiming that he had already fought one of their agents in Earthland and foiled one of their incursions there, the entity merely stated that it already knew about that, and that it had been part of the reason why he had chosen Solmar to be the first human ever to make his way over to the Greenscape. Not being certain as to how it could possibly have known about such a thing, Solmar again was made to doubt whether there was more to the Heartstone than it was willing to show him right now. Though it really did not make much of a difference to him at this point, all he cared about now was that he was right in his assumption that this darkness was in fact the beings referred to as the hungering abyssals, and that they needed to get a move on in terms of mobilizing the cavalry, so to speak.

Leaving the matter of the abyssals for the time being, what was important now was that he could get everyone on board with the plan he had discussed with Knond and Sporeback. Pitching the idea of creating a living fence of toxic fungi around the blighted grove area, Jogumold was the first to object as they did not have the amount of people that could potentially fight against the blighted creatures when they came to "object" against the building of such a fence. Arguing that both he and a special crew of mycelian warriors armed with spears possessing a toxin coating that killed the corruption would be defending the ones working on raising the fungal barrier from the ground and hastening its growth, Nolemad spoke up about how he would personally see to it that they had the aid of at least one druid, himself. Believing that if he went, other treefolk druids might follow him down into the Underglow, Jogumold objected again by saying that he would not be sending his own people into the "savage beneath". At that point, it became quite clear to Solmar that the elder had never personally been to the Underglow and that he really had no idea of what things were like down there at all, which in turn might explain why the treefolk would not go down there to begin with.

As he was about to speak up and claim that the elder was being a fool and would condemn the entire Greenscape to die at the hands of the corruption, it was then that the Heartstone silenced them all with another loud, high pitched ringing coming from within the stone. Really not liking it when it did such a thing, Solmar merely shot an agitated glance towards the stone as the room fell silent yet again. Once it spoke again however, Solmar's agitated feelings quickly disappeared. Making it quite clear that he would not let his children living in the world below die and that they were no less precious to him than his other creations, the people of Marshknot and the surrounding villages would do their best at containing the blight while it was still in a single spot and could still be contained. When Jogumold planned on objecting a third time in a row, the Heartstone made his point that much more clear by stating that if the Underglow were to be taken over by the blight, that meant that the Blightstone had just as much power in this world as the Heartstone did. Not just that, but it also meant that the entirety of the Underglow would be turned into a breeding pool for all kinds of ever adapting corrupted beings born and bred to devour life itself.

Beginning to see the point that was being made, Jogumold reluctantly agreed, saying that he would see what he could do in order to mobilize more towards fighting for the cause. Even as he said that much, Solmar could still feel that there was a lot of doubt within the village elder, there was not a chance that the treefolk man did not understand the gravity of the situation. Deep down, Solmar also knew that the elder really cared about doing the right thing for his village and his people, and that this was the reason why he objected so fiercely to some of these rather radical and wild ideas. Bowing his head before the Heartstone, the entity sent the elder back to his seat of power so that he could start mobilizing the people of Marshknot in taking arms and preparing them for the journey towards the Underglow. Next up was Nolemad, who spoke to the Heartstone and brought up the matter of druids living in other villages and settlements, as well as the group he called the verdant circle. Apparently being a group of elder druids like him, they were considered to be the elite among the elite of druids. Believing that if he could get them on their side, they would get the help of all lesser druids too, the Heartstone teleported him to their hovel.

And just like that, only the Heartstone and Solmar were left within the central chamber. With everything set in motion by others, Solmar could rest easy for a bit as the druids were being gathered by Nolemad, the treefolk were mobilized by Jogumold while Knond and Sporeback were making their preparations down in the settlement of Khruldruc. Slowly but surely, everything was coming together the way it should, meaning the fight against the Blightstone was drawing ever closer. In truth, the idea of having to fight such an enemy was rather frightening, knowing that anything made within the Greenscape could be converted and twisted into one of the corrupted monsters and be used to fight them. As such, they would need to devise a strategy that was as airtight as it could possibly become, lest they all be running the risk of getting decimated. Having seen first hand what manner of monstrosities the Blightstone could produce when he fought against the three headed behemoth, Solmar was made that much more aware of what it could mean for them if they were to have to face several of those things head on. Given how one of them had almost murdered him and nearly trampled Khruldruc into a ruin, he would not underestimate the situation.

Sensing the doubt within him, the Heartstone spoke to Solmar, stating that there was something he had promised him when Solmar set out towards the Underglow to do as the Heartstone had asked of him. Bringing up Feykroreyth and his ability to breathe fire that only burned what the dragon wanted to decimate, a small green flickering flame appeared in front of Solmar. Claiming that, as the eldest son of the Heartstone, Feykroreyth's flames were a creation of him too, he could grant it to those who he saw fit to wield them. In the coming battle, Solmar had to be at his best, meaning he could not be worrying about destroying his surroundings when using his fire magic to fight against his enemies. As such, the Heartstone had decided to grant Solmar the same ability by giving him a flicker of Feykroreyth's flames. Stating that he merely had to use his magically given abilities to eat the flame and that it would from there on augment his demon slaying magic to no longer burn the flora and fauna if he did not wish it to do so, the young mage did not need to think twice about gulping down the small flame. As soon as he vacuumed it down into his belly, he could feel a strange magic resounding through his body as his magic power spiked for a moment before returning back to normal.

Feeling like something had truly happened when he ate the green flame, he felt both stronger and more confident in his ability to see this through. As most of it was his plan to begin with, he would feel responsible for anyone that died during this undertaking, so he wanted to have every possible thing at his disposal to make sure that number remained as low as possible. Even though he was only eighteen years at this point, he was no longer a child who believed that all deaths could be avoided because he wanted it to be that way. The best he could do right now was to believe in his own abilities, as well as those of the people that were putting their lives on the line in order to fight along with him for the preservation of the Underglow and the Greenscape. Having given the human mage a moment to acclimate to his gift, the Heartstone then asked Solmar where it was that he wanted to go as he could take him just about anywhere in a manner of seconds. Though there were plenty of places he wanted to go now, there was only one place where he should go, and that was straight back to Khruldruc. There were a lot of things riding on things there going as planned, so he needed to be sure everything was ready for when reinforcements came from the Greenscape.

Making it clear that sending something to the Underglow was tricky right now as it all worked by sending a biological energy signal through a system of roots and hypha, though that was now being interfered with due to the Blightstone encroaching upon that part of his domain. If he were to attempt to send Solmar down to the Underglow, there was a very real chance that he would end up getting hijacked and sent to another part of the subterranean realm entirely. Feeling that that was a chance he was willing to take, Solmar made up his mind and prepared himself for the worst. Ready to summon his sword in an instant, he saw a flash of light before his sight returned a moment later, showing large glowing mushrooms and a city up ahead. While something had indeed gone wrong, he had landed but a few kilometers away from Khruldruc as opposed to being sent all the way to the other side of the Underglow or worse, into the heart of the blighted grove. Sighing deeply at the thought of having to walk there while at the same time being a sigh of relief that he hadn't been sent straight into the most dangerous place in the entire Underglow, he started marching towards Khruldruc at a solid pace.

Maintaining the same pace in his stride, he did so for the sake of being able to hear what was going on around him, as well as trying his best to sense any presences that might enter into his sensory radius. If there were any scouts this close to the settlement, he would prioritize taking them out before heading back, considering it to be the least he could do while he had to make his way back on foot. Making it all the way back to the settlement without hearing anything suspicious, he imagined that there was no longer a need for scouting parties at this point. Since the Blightstone was a corrupted being, that merely meant that it had had its directive changed, its point of view altered, though that did not make it stupid. It most likely realized that there was something strong enough out there to topple and kill one of the strongest blight creatures created up until this point, meaning it had to gather up more organic material to break down and reform into what it needed it to become. The idea of such a thing existing was quite scary, though what was equally scary was that these were things the Heartstone was potentially capable of doing if it really wanted to. After all, the Blightstone was a smaller and corrupted version of it.

It had not been given any new powers, at least not as far as Solmar was aware. All the Blightstone did was use organic material and connect it to its own corrupted body and energy, warping whatever it could get in its grasp into a more grotesque being tasked with what it perceived as an infection within its world. Within its own mind, the Blightstone was still in his own world, doing whatever it could to fight against a darkness that had taken over its world, fighting tooth and nail while creating any means of stopping it and getting his world back. In reality, its own world had already fallen to darkness as it too had been corrupted, swallowed by the very same dark forces that were now using it to besiege another world without it even realizing it. As sad as it might be to have to go up against something like that and eventually figure out a way to put it out of its misery, Solmar, as well as all the other sentient inhabitants of the Greenscape that had been made aware of the situation, including the Heartstone itself realized that this was something that simply needed to happen. Doing one last sweep around the outer walls, Solmar entered the settlement of Khruldruc, met instantly with guards armed to the teeth with not only spears, but also knives that had been coated in the fungal toxin that was proving to be oh so lethal against the corrupted black blood.

It was good to see that they had managed to better arm themselves during the time in which Solmar had been gone, even better to know that he had not missed out on another major attack on the settlement. This by itself could mean two things though, that the Blightstone needed the time to prepare better, stronger assault monsters, or that he was keeping everything close to home to protect itself from a potential incoming attack. If that were to be the case, that meant that it was a lot more clever than Solmar had given it credit for, or that it somehow had a spy somewhere close by and unseen by the mycelians. Hoping that he was just getting paranoid now that their counter offensive was getting so close to happening, he decided to leave the thought in the back of his head for now and just keep going towards the central hub of the settlement. Believing that that was where he would find Knond and Sporeback, he passed through the main street, seeing that most of the destroyed buildings had been completely taken down and had the useable materials used to reinforce the walls and create additional barricades around the outer walls, the main gate as well as making ramparts for the guards to stand behind.

It was clear that the time they had here had been spent well. Continuing to pass through the street, he saw how mycelian elders and women were working hard at turning long pieces of wood into javelins while others dipped them in containers holding the fungal toxin. Once he made his way into the meeting place, he saw how Knond was busy instructing people on what needed to be done, though he did not see Sporeback anywhere. Walking up to the current leader of the mycelians, he asked Knond how things were going and how much progress had been made. Stating that they had been preparing for counter attacks by increasing their defenses by miles, they had also put the civilians to use by having them making crude weaponry laced with toxin for once the reinforcements made their way over to the settlement. Aside from that, they had also been producing a far larger batch of toxin now that Sporeback had been working with a group of fungimancers in a different part of town. Working with the seven fungimancers that knew what they were doing, they were also instructing beginners in the fungi manipulating arts on how to do what needed to be done. This way, they increased their odds by a small percentage.

Even though it was small, they still believed it to be needed as every bit of an advantage would count towards making the bigger picture come to fruition. And so, everyone who was able to do something had been put to work, making sure there were no idle hands within the settlement of Khruldruc unless they were sick, dying or injured. When it was Solmar's time to tell Knond what he had managed to do, he told the mycelian leader that reinforcements were coming from the Greenscape in the form of fighters as well as druids, thus adding to the amount of people that could help in erecting the barrier, as well as people that could protect those that were doing so. With everything coming together so well, Solmar could not help but feel like something was about to go very wrong. It was very much unlike his experiences in the past that had shown that whenever things seemed to be going smoothly, something was right around the corner, just waiting to mess everything up for the worse. As such, he decided that it was time for him to go find Sporeback and have a talk with him in preparations of the assault upon the blighted grove.

Passing by several warriors that were stationed at key locations, he could tell that a lot of the people here were anxious about the coming fight. Solmar could not blame them. Having never been part of any big fights like this where there was so much at stake, he figured that he shared that with pretty much every other inhabitant of this world. Up until now, they had all been living under some pretty ideal situations, though for them, that had all changed when the sky rock, the Blightstone, had fallen into their world and put everything into a state of high alert as everything they knew was changing for the worse. For Solmar, his world had been thrown upside down when a demon had used him as a vessel to murder his own parents, his friends and his relatives before forcing him to live out in the wilderness as just being around people might mean that he might start killing again against his will. From that point on, things had only gotten stranger as he had fought against strange beings on an island, took on a monster from another world beneath the beanstalk, fought a yeti and a wraith, took on a small army of demons and their overlord and more. For Solmar, the fighting never really stopped as he actively sought it out as a means to safeguard the lesser villages and towns from harm.

While this was nothing like that as he was now part of a group that sought to protect an entire planet from a cancer that was festering within it and threatened to kill all life, he still felt the same way about it as he did on Earthland. To him, life was life. It did not matter if it belonged to a dog, a human or a mycelian, at least that was what he believed at some point in time. When threatened by something as dangerous as this, he just made it his goal to root it out and make sure that nature was preserved. To him, that had always been important, mostly because so many of his kind believed that nature was only there to provide for them while they could take whatever they needed from it, no matter how much they harmed the thing that gave them everything they needed in order to stay alive like oxygen, food, water and more. For the longest time, he had removed himself from society so that he would not risk harming any people when the demon dwelling inside of him forced its way out of him, though there was a part of him that wished he had never done so. Judging by what he had seen people do to innocent animals and to some of the most lush and beautiful patches of nature, he sometimes wished for nothing more than to go around ripping out some throats and culling the numbers of the human population by a bit.

Truth be told, it was something that was on his mind a lot, considering how humanity was the only species on Earthland which was not culled when they started overpopulating certain areas. Instead, they just took away more from nature and built more houses upon it, killing whatever wild animal returned to it and believing it was their right to do so, even if that animal once called that place home. So when he had come to learn that killing people that were harming or killing other people such as bandits or dark mages was alright, he had started taking on jobs that involved dealing with these kinds of people more frequently. Racking up quite a kill count, he could only begin to imagine the amount of lives the Blightstone had taken by now. If it were to be allowed to continue the way it was, countless species would become extinct before he would even get the chance to see them with their own eyes, to learn about them through personal experience, and that simply would not do. Just like these mycelians and treefolk, so did the animals of this world need his help in dealing with this being that would undoubtedly consume all living beings, both plants and animals.


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(Adding 2000 to the previous post so I can turn it in as a 100 year quest)
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