.^^ Fire Dragon ^^

— Rune —

The concept, the idea, of having a new village in my territory, full of Expeditionary Forces, was an interesting one; one I thought about deeply, as I made the Lift that would carry goods and people through the many layers of the new interior of the Plateau.

Their presence would no doubt cause a shift in balance, and there would be some tension, of course; new settlements always did that, regardless of any other factors. However, the increased trade would be appreciated, and the guides would love the new business, as well as the cartographers who would be making maps of the entire continent, with groups of people to protect them as they explored it.

There would be friction, as well, if the expeditionaries brought their own Craftsmen, and did not rely on the surrounding Craftsmen, the Gnomes and Callywomps, primarily, though the Fire Demons did make good quality metals as well, and shaped them better than most had the ability to, with their innate gifts of creation.

I made a note to make sure a few Craftsmen from the City and the Gnome Village arrived within a few days, and set up their workshops and Smithies before any expeditionaries found their ways in.

The lift was a relatively simple creation, one I'd toyed with before, so I completed it while everyone else was still sleeping, and the Flyer flew it and me over to the plateau, before the pilots helped me install the base, the actual lift set to the side for now. I would need Raava's assurance that the rock was properly supported, before I tried to install heavy machinery.

I returned just as dawn crested, and nodded to the pilots. "Get some rest, guys. How did the Bean mission go?" I asked.

"Yeah, about that..." they handed back the big bag of beans. "We planted one, and it tore through like six trees. Those things are dangerous, and they actively destroy the environment."

"The parasitic organism known as the Redwood, you mean?" I smiled.

They looked at each other, then me. "Huh?"

"Alright. While we're away, today, you're going to plant these around the plateau, with as close to exactly 50ft between them as is possible, and fill the Coal Grove with them, leaving a few hundred feet to spare around the outer edge. They are a bit disruptive, but if you get stationed here, they'll be one of your main food sources, so do your best, yeah?" I handed the bag back, replenishing my smaller bag, and went to wake up the crew.

A sight caught my eye, as I exited the Greenwood, after nudging everyone awake gently. Ophelia was sitting on the bank of her river, petting a river snake, and humming a tune. I approached, and sat next to her calmly, waiting.

After a few minutes, she opened her eyes, noticing me. "Ah! Hello, little one." She handed the snake to me, and it gently wound around my shoulders, then slipped into the water, swimming away in disinterest.

"Hello, Ophelia." I nodded.

"You've planted quite a few things for me, you know... I might need help keeping up with it all..." she smiled happily.

"Don't worry, I'd never dream of taking advantage of your gardening obsession! The people who are coming, expeditionaries, they will do their best with all the Farm-work, those is them who aren't combat-oriented." I smiled.

She laughed. "Oh of course not! But tell me, what's this issue with the Slaver's Cliffs? I haven't been that way in a little while."

"I don't know... they're complaining of increased goblin raids, but likely they just want the Stone Mage to do magic, and cut the rocks into perfect cubes without any expended effort on their part." I snorted disdainfully.

She frowned. "Yes... they are terribly distasteful, aren't they? I have had half a mind to end that nonsense, several times before... to think that after all these years, elves are still enslaving people... disgraceful."

"They're serving prison sentences. Doing the work lessens their sentences. It's not slavery." Dashiva grumbled sleepily, splashing water on her face near us.

"Do they have a choice? No? Then it's slavery. Simple as can be, no miscommunication or misunderstanding possible." I said casually.

She sighed. "You just dropped into our society a week ago, and you've been judging us the whole time-"

"Because your society is a festering cesspool of Corruption and Classism, and you regularly deny your faults, even when they're glaringly obvious, and my society does no such thing... You call your nephew Naïve, darling, but you yourself are also terribly enchanted by your society that you are blind to the majority of its faults, until they're quite unceremoniously crammed down your throat." I scowled, and she reared back, confused.

Ophelia hummed, and popped the back of my skull sharply. "Now now, there's no need for nastiness! I don't disagree with what you're saying, but there's no call for rudeness here!"

I sighed. "True. It is not her fault she is blind to the mud she treads upon, and the people's that sustain themselves upon it or within it. Let's get moving, the Cliffs are a good ways away. Eat quickly, bathe quicker, and be ready in fifteen minutes." I walked away from her stricken look, and entered the Construct.

I began readying myself for the day, pulling my armored coat on over my clean skin, and belting on my weapons belt. I chose a pair of ice pistols, today, on an odd instinct, and then my MagiCannon, and the sword that I'd taken from the Iron Workshop, and still hadn't used yet.

It was of fine craftsmanship, with a dragon for the guard, and the design continued its way down the blade, where the flames the dragon breathed were worked flawlessly into the rippled texture of the blade.

Shaking my head to clear it, I looked away from the gleaming sword, and ate some rations, making another note, to gather what I needed for my famous stew, today. The final day of the expedition, until I came back to this land again, and I still hadn't cooked for them, as I promised.

The group was gathered, when I exited, and cleaning up the camp site. I nodded and cleansed them all, removing their scents with the magic water in my canteen, then my own, and waved to Ophelia, leading the group out into the northern forest.

We entered the trees almost instantly, and I began guiding us past the Weizenbeast nests between the Temple and the Cliffs, all three that I'd marked down on my map.

Duncan found his way up to me, and cleared his throat. "So... can I ask a question?"

"You may ask me anything you like." I nodded.

"Oh, good, alright, Uhm... yes, how does this... Grapevine? How does that work?" He asked.

"Ah, Yes. That's how we get messages across large distances. It's Dwarven ingenuity, mostly... when the Dwarves conquered this land, before the Redwood came in, they tapped into what the elves would call the 'Ley Lines' of the Continent." I stepped around a large, sleeping snake, and motioned for him to do the same.

"Oh! Thanks. So, Ley Lines, aren't those sconces of magic, or something?" He asked.

"Something like that. It's a network, a grid of sorts, that is all over the planet, beneath the ground. When it gets close to the surface, it makes plants grow. So, they had the idea of planting lightning rods, deep enough to touch the grid, and then placing literal grapevines around them. Like this." I reached out, and touched a fruit tree, with a small, nearly invisible grapevine wrapped around its upper boughs.

It shivered, and I felt the others, looking for any mental messages and warnings that had come through. I found one, a troubling mention of a dragon in the upper quadrant, about twenty miles north of the Gnome Village, and hummed. "Interesting."

"What?" He asked.

"A dragon sighting, about thirty miles north. Nothing to worry about today, on our current mission." I assured him.

His eyes widened. "And anyone can use them?"

"I think so, yes. Try and say hello." I motioned at the vines.

He grinned, and touched the vine gently, literally whispering. "Hello? Oh! It responded!!!"

He almost reared back, but I placed my hand next to his, and found a Gnome, responding casually, amused by the new human trying out the grapevine for the first time.

I chuckled. "Ahh, it's a gnome. Hullo, there." Then I stepped away, and continued walking. "Most fruit Trees have the grapevines, almost like a symbiotic relationship... the Redwood is afraid of the Grapevines, because of the poisonous grapes,-"

Duncan gagged, spitting out a grape and rinsing his mouth out a few times.

"-and let that be a lesson to you not to eat things in the forest?" I smirked, and tossed him a purple apple, from the same tree. "The grapes are only a little poisonous, they'll make you puke and hallucinate, but they won't kill you. Anyway, the Redwood doesn't try to eat the fruit trees, because of the poison berries, and also the Grapes take a little nutrients from the tree, and the Ley Line underneath."

We continued walking, and Duncan inspected the purple Apple for a moment. "Never seen a Purple Apple... Huh." He crunched on it, and seemed pleased, so I continued.

"The lightning rods are still there, of course, so there's lightning every once in a while, that rips some of the canopy away, and gets some sunlight to the fruit trees. It's a good system." I finished, and stepped around a goblin's trap.

He nodded. "So, if we weren't supposed to mess with the trees, why are we walking in them?"

"Easy answer, Sir Duncan! Because you're with me, and I know how to do so properly. See, it's rather simple: the trees grow upwards. The top, or Canopy, is the most dangerous place to be, because it's the place with the most Redwood activity, and also where the Goblins make their little villages, with their own symbiotic relationship with the Redwoods." I hummed.

"And the traps under the leaves... I get it." He nodded slowly.

"Indeed... The middle is where the Birds and Monkey's live, and the bottom rung here is where the Weizenbeast's make their nests and webs; the lesser predators, and most prey animals, live on the floor of the forest." I grinned at his immediate pallidness, and guided us around the second of the three Nests, keeping a thousand-foot semicircle of space between us and it.

"So... walking here is dangerous, but faster than on the ground, so it's an acceptable risk?" He asked slowly.

"Correct. Also, it's how anything that isn't prey travels, in this Forest. Keep up, Raava, you're making Yeshiva look like a Master Climber! Sorry Yeshiva." I grinned.

He chuckled. "It's true, though."

Raava stopped moving, then suddenly puked over the side of the branches.

I groaned. "Did he not listen when I said the grapes would make him puke? Dashiva, go see if he needs any medical attention, please."

She was already halfway there, so she checked his vitals, and sighed, slinging him over her shoulders. "He's got a high fever, he probably ate quite a few."

"Alright, we'll make a brief stop in the Gnome Village to get some medicine." I sighed, and turned our course slightly eastward, then began descending almost immediately.

"We're headed down? Isn't the Gnome Village- oh, I suppose that would make sense, they aren't goblins, they wouldn't live in the trees." Duncan grinned.

I nodded and lead them all to a large tree, a very old Oak that matched the towering Redwoods in height, but easily tripled them in width, all entwined with the Grapevines, and therefore safe from the Redwood. "Well, they sort of do, just not the Redwoods." I chuckled, and knocked on the low door, set into a gap between the roots.

"Who knocks!?" A small voice asked in new Romnidrian, the Gnomish Language.

"Oh fuck off, we both know you can see me just fine! I've got an Islander idiot who ate some Grapes, here, can I trade some silver for a vial of medicine? Not asking for entry, just trade." I jingled a sack of silver in front of the eye slot.

"...thirty silver pieces!" The voice now spoke common.

"Oh Fuck you, you little swindler, I'll pay no more than 10 for a vial of medicine that I could make myself!" I snapped back, holding up a hand when Dashiva stepped forward.

"... 15, final offer! Also, Yemna says hello!"

"Yes Yes, fifteen is fine, tell Yemna I said hello as well." I pulled out fifteen pieces, and slid them into the small slot. An equally small vial slid out, into my hand, and I nodded, waving it to Dashiva.

"Yemna says to keep the Islander idiots alive! And stay away from the dragon! 'E's very mean, that one!" The slot slammed closed.

"Have a nice watch... coinpinch." I grumbled at the loss, and poured the medicine down Raava's throat, throwing him over my shoulders. "Let's keep moving." I nodded.

"Wait, that's it? That's the village? On the map, it looked huge!" Yeshiva asked.

"It is... under the surface... That's just... the entrance." Raava murmured dreamily.

"Alright, you fuckup, no more eating random things! Wake up, now!" I slapped his cheeks roughly, and poured water on his face.

He snorted, shaking his head, and stood up, off my shoulders. "Wha- Whoa... that was... interesting." He gazed at his hands slowly, clenching them.

"The hallucinations will fade in a few minutes. Just stick close." I shook my head at him, and began climbing back into the lowest tier of the canopy.

The rest of the way was rather uneventful, unless you count Yeshiva finding a new Weizenbeast nest, by falling into it, and basically tackling the Matron all the way to the forest floor.

I paused, and stared at the hole in the branches, then laughed, and leapt after him. The Matron was dead, her neck snapped and her skull crushed under the weight of the fall, and I couldn't control the laugh that bubbled up from inside me at his clueless, terrified face.

The rest of the nest waking up and starting to circle did sober me up for a moment. "Well, you killed the Matron... and you did so with your bare hands. That's impressive... but now you've pissed off a whole Nest. You lot stay up there, we can handle it! Be good for the boy to get some tenderizing! Now, Yeshiva, they are immune to fire, so now might be a good time to test your aim..."

He nodded and slowly pulled the rifle out of his bag, and set it against his shoulder. "There's nine of them, though... how many shots do I have?"

"As many as you have the magic to make." I nodded.

"So about twelve? So I can only miss three times?" He frowned.

"I'd prefer you didn't miss at all, but mathematically, yes." I chuckled.

He raised the rifle, firing into one of the circling beast's faces, at about 20 feet away, and managing to miss the face, hitting the chest.

As the rest kept forward, I grinned. "I hope you were aiming for his chest!" I shouted, and kicked the first one away, before they all froze, and the one that had been shot in the chest exploded, a tree growing from its form and taking root about twenty feet to our right, then ripping into the nearest trees, making the others of our group leap down to relative safety.

He breathed shakily. "I was not aiming for his chest, I was aiming for his eye... I forgot the whole 'aim straight, not arced', thing."

"Well you got two kills in the space of a minute, so rejoice! Duncan, you can handle the rest, Aye?" I grinned as they all lit on fire, as if on que.

Yeshiva squeaked, hugging the rifle, and I chuckled, tackling the only one on the ground with us, and breaking its neck, then stuffing its body into my bag. I grabbed the Matron as well, as I planned on giving him the Pelt. He'd earned it, after all, even unintentionally.

The remaining seven paused, still flaming, as the Heartwood began to set itself alight, an unforeseen situation, and one that quickly reduced it to ashes.

"Well, I guess your weapons don't work as well as you thought." Dashiva smirked.

"Fuck you... that was uncalled for." I muttered.

The remaining seven lunged as one, standard tactics, and I watched as Duncan leapt to meet a few of them, while Raava raised a fist of stone, and casually swatted the rest out of the air, and scrubbed them with a downward slam.

"Ah, Mages, making fights boring since the beginning of time." I grumbled, and pulled their bodies into my bag, where they immediately stopped burning.

Duncan had already dispatched the three on his side, albeit in a much bloodier fashion, and I collected their bodies as well, then the ashes from the Heartwood tree, as well, just because I was sure there was someone who'd buy them.

"Alright, onward!" I laughed, and we made our way back into the interwoven network of branches that made up the lowest tier of the canopy.

We managed to reach the Cliffs with no real issue, about an hour later. Three miles tall, they were originally a Mountain, then a plateau, and now a semicircle of stone, as the mountain itself was being slowly carved away, piece by piece. Close to two hundred years of mining this particular mountain had slowly turned it into the white crescent of cliffs what we locals called 'Slaver's Cliffs', or something similar, depending on who was talking.

Seeing the place at a near halt, no work being done, Dashiva approached the Foreman; a tall, sturdy looking human man, with a bull whip and a speaking cone on his hips. "Hello! I'm Dashiva Drundomidon, this is my party, and we've been sent in response to your complaint of increased goblin activity?" She asked.

He looked at her, incredulous. "Goblins? Who the fuck told ya the problem was Goblins?!" He snapped, just as one of the cliff walls shattered with an elemental, wrath-of-nature-type sound, and a roar, as a Red Dragon burst its way out as if being born, fully grown and ornery, from the earth's stone womb.