Protea slammed the heavy leather-bound notebook down on the table with a huff. So far she had gone through eight different books, two dozen tomes, and even a few artifacts, but nothing she found had given her the insight she had wanted or needed. The library was indeed a wealth of information - at least it was 400 years ago. There was no guarantee that any of what she had just read now was still accurate. The only things that maybe had some weight to it were the maps of Uliazin.

The region was a small continent surrounded by ocean - one of which was pure red all year round. They were practically on the other side of the hemisphere from the Empire. Although, she couldn’t quite tell. Based on all the models she had seen, Vostea was actually two times bigger than Earth.

On the bright side, she had finally learned why everyone called Uliazin “the Wretched Lands.” True to all the lore and myth she had studied since arriving, Uliazin was a mishmash of several different biomes, each unique and distinct from one another. There was the Gulf of Uliazin which had the Mahogueuil Archipelago in it (she had already made a point of altering the old maps to say that the islands were no longer inhabit.). In the center of Uliazin was the Isolated Plateau, where Infinitum was located, made up of plains and prairies, and a few forested areas. To the west was Scarholme, a large desert/savannah biome, named after the huge canyon that ran through the center of the desert. To the north was the Whimpering Expanse which consisted purely of tundra and cold mountains. And finally, to the far east of the plateau was the Dilruti Jungle, a massive rainforest with swamps and mangroves at the edges.

This was as much as she could get from the archives. Everything else was at best outdated, or worse, downright wrong. Protea was stuck. Her earlier success in the courtroom had convinced her that there would be a clear path to victory in Uliazin, but that had been a clear misconception.

“My Lady?” Zephyrine called as she came in.

“What is it?” Protea hadn’t spoken to her much outside of when she brought her meals to the library.

“We’re running low on food. Willow and I are heading to the woods outside of the city for more.”

“And?”

“Well,” Zephyrine shifted awkwardly, “You’ve been inside for so long. It would do you some good to get out for a while.”

Protea began to send her away, but as she looked back at the heaps of book books and paper strewn across the desk where she’d spent the past few days, she suddenly found herself agreeing with her lady-in-waiting.

“I suppose some air would be nice.” Protea closed rolled up the map she’d been staring at and tucked it into her pocket. It wasn’t as if she was going to get anywhere else just by sitting and looking at the paper.

Protea tried to ignore the soft crunching of snow under her boots as she walked through the underbrush. Everything seemed much louder when you were trying to be clandestine. The Red Forest was full of barren trees and bushes, which provided little cover for them to shield them from anything they would be hunting. It wasn’t as if there was much to hunt here, seeing how winter would still be here even after the equinox passed in two days. The most they had eaten during this period of time were a few hares, a deer, and a healthy helping of those strange berries from the garden - odines, the books called them.

They were extinct everywhere else in the world, which could be accredited to the Reshaping. Amazingly there were a few trees in the garden with odines in their branches. It might have even been a common fruit. Protea looked up at the leaf-bare branches above her. The trees didn’t look any different from normal ones, but there was a part of her that couldn’t help but wonder. How many plants had been lost to the ravages of time and the destruction of the Old World? Were there monsters like that too - people unfortunate enough to live in a world where the cosmic forces cared little for the lives of another ’s children?

Protea shuddered, but she could hardly say it was from the cold. Even if Aen was eternal, it was a shame to think that she would have to watch so many of her children be slaughtered.

“I found something!” Zephyrine chirped as she plodded through the sludge. In her hands, she held three hares, their pure white coats stained with rivulets of blood. Strangely, the hefty woman didn’t seem to have any weapons on her. Maybe she had just used her magic?

“Whoa,” Willow murmured with wide eyes. She and Protea had been searching for an hour and they hadn’t even found so much as a footprint.

“Good work,” Protea complimented, “We can head back now. I think that’s all we’ll need.”

“No, let’s keep going. There has to be more out there, right?” Willow interjected.

“I suppose so.” Zephyrine could have just been lucky. “You’re not going off on your own again are you?”

“Don’t you worry none, Lady Protea. I’ll be back before you know it.” Somehow, she felt inclined to believe her. Zephyrine disappeared into the underbrush, leaving Protea and Willow alone with only the occasional breeze to accompany them. For a moment they walked in complete silence, aside from the sound of their boots softly crunching in the snow.

Willow was the first to break the silence. “I wonder why they call it the Red Forest.”

“I’m sure the leaves are simply red all year round,” Protea brushed her off.

“The Red Sea of Dersidhe is like that too. But it’s not because of any natural qualities. It’s actually-”

“As lovely as it would be to speculate the origins of nature’s phenomena, we are supposed to be hunting, Willow.” She could already tell that the warden was about to start another one of her unnerving stories. Just two days ago, she had recounted one such tale about the Cursed Belladonnas in the garden. Protea had to choke back a gag; even thinking about it was unsettling her stomach.

Willow yelped and jumped back suddenly. Protea turned to ask what had happened, but then she was met with the sharp end of a crude spear. On the other end was a stout goblin with yellow-green skin, baring sharp yellow teeth in a deep sneer. He wore a tunic made from pelts haphazardly sewn together, and pants made from a similar material. His hands were tipped with black claws like a cat, and his yellow eyes dug into her with the intensity of a fire’s heat.

“Dsarferr’ae!” he cried in a shrill voice. He shoved the spear towards Protea’s neck, forcing her to back into Willow. More goblins appeared; some jumping down from the treetops, some from under the snow cover, and others from the nearby ferns and bushes.

In an instant, the group of warriors circled the two, forcing them back into the trunk of a wide tree.

“What did we do?” Protea gaped.

“They say we’re trespassers - this must be their territory!” Cynder said quickly. One goblin thrust his spear at Willow; she shrieked and turned to run, only to push Protea back into the tree. She had trapped the blue-eyed woman between her arms; she threw herself to the side immediately, but Protea noticed a slight red tint to her cheeks.

“Ruuk ed dhaus srudhar! Nird fa resha krufra’dhi,” one goblin chattered to the others. Another one, bulky for his small size, licked his lips maliciously and pulled a knife and fork from a pouch on his waist.

“Can you translate? What did they just say?”

“They think we’re nobles. I-” Willow shifted just a bit from her position, and the leader shoved her back again.

“We didn’t mean to trespass! We’re sorry,” Protea raised her hands and opened her palms, hoping they would see the gesture for it was.

“Naun kud naek wa du dsarferr. Esa wa russurr.” Willow’s voice quivered as she spoke.

The leader of the crowd scoffed. “Heya faak daerauk’r resdi twa’me uun.”

“They say we stole their food.” Willow didn’t dare take her eyes off them this time.

“We didn’t realize it was yours. My friend has three rabbits already. If we give them to you, will you let us go?”

“Heya seird wa dsa hesa’r. Ad rauya wa resha’me du resdi, waurr saraera resdi wa’te?” At that the leader seemed to almost falter; but then he dug his feet into the snow with a renewed hatred.

“There’s more food in the castle garden. It has food all year long. We could even give you a cut of that in addition to the hares.” Willow quickly repeated the sentence in Enirkria.

“Rann’r od rauka kruun naer. Neurrfa hurin deka wa uas?” A goblin with olive-green skin and a lanky figure spoke quietly to the one next to him. Their leader sent him a sideways glare to silence him. He barked a few orders at two other goblins, who quickly came to point their own crude weapons at the two.

The rest huddled into a small circle, chattering in hush voices and sneaking an occasional glance at Protea and Willow.

“What are they saying now?” Protea whispered.

“I can’t hear from here. I think they’re talking about your offer.”

Then Protea spied something from the corner of her eye - a flash of red fabric in the underbrush. Almost immediately, one of the goblins guarding the pair was picked up in a violet aura and hurled into a snowdrift.

“Zephyrine!” In all the tenseness of the moment, she had completely forgotten about her lady-in-waiting. The other guard let out a shout as Willow wrenched the spear from her hands and pushed her into the snow.

Immediately, Zephyrine lept from her hiding place, her hood falling from her head to reveal her blonde hair. She waved her wand, this time picking one goblin up and throwing it at the one unfortunate enough to be standing nearby.

“Wait! I don’t want to fight!” Protea cried. One goblin lunged at her with a crude dagger in hand, and she darted to the side in response.

“You don’t have a choice now,” Willow called over the fray of battle.

For a moment, Protea wondered how she would fight back. She didn’t have the advantage of a weapon, like Willow, or a wand she could use for magic like Zephyrine - then suddenly, streams of silver light shone through her gloves. She pulled them off, letting the magic flow freely from her hands.

It was almost instinct. With a shake of her hand, a wall of ice and snow materialized between her and the goblin in front of her. She made a pushing motion, and the wall mimicked her, pushing the goblin across the snow and pinning him into a tree. Another goblin charged at her with a battle cry. He was easily dispatched, a pillar of ice sending him flying into the air.

Protea spun around to find Willow and Zephyrine. She was met with another goblin, the same lanky olive-green one from before. He held his spear almost reluctantly, and for a quick, fleeting moment the two simply stared at one another.

“Sadsaed!” The leader called in that same shrill voice. The ragtag group of goblin warriors quickly picked themselves up, not even stopping to help the ones that were hurt. Soon, the small clearing the three impromptu fighters had created was empty aside from them. The only evidence left behind was the mess of snow and ice left behind.

Protea pursed her lips. She was supposed to be helping monsters, not getting into scraps with them. She had one chance to make a good first impression, and it had been completely squandered in only a few minutes.

Admittedly, this wasn’t a good start to her time in Uliazin. Surely there was some sort of silver lining to be found here, but try as she might, Protea simply couldn’t find anything positive to say about the experience. Well, there was that one moment when-

She shook her head as if to push away the heat rising to her cheeks. So there was one positive here, but it took a backseat to the diplomatic issues she had made in under a minute.

She looked over at Zephyrine and Willow, the former fretting over a gash that had been driven into Willow’s arm.

“What a mess.” The lady-in-waiting muttered as she ripped a piece of her skirt off to wrap the wound.

What a mess, indeed.