Monsoon

The woman who raised her arms was very obviously a ranger, someone local probably looking after this place…er forest rather. I couldn’t tell how many animals or maybe pets she brought with her but I could tell there was enough to surround us. Kellen seemed to have woken everyone up with a telepathic shout because one by one everyone started, well waking up. Seethe was a bit scared because of the giant wolf? Or was it a coyote? Or maybe a really big fox? I couldn’t tell I didn’t have my seeing goggles on and it was dark, something canid but big was hanging over my brother and he was scared, okay! Everyone else as they were waking up were startled by the giant canids except for Liz who just growled at the one standing over her and it ran away. The ranger looked really disappointed when she saw that, like a mother who just watched her child pee herself, or at least I think that's what it looked like, I wouldn’t know.

The woman shaking her head in disappointment introduced herself, “Hello campers? Explorers? Adventurers? Whoever you fuckers are, hello, I am the ranger charged by the kingdom to protect this forest and its rather, extreme wildlife from outsiders. My name is Corila, I’m half elven. Welcome to the Lost Elf Woodlands, named after when a lost elf planted a tree from the Faewilds here that infected the entire area making everything bigger, invasive species and all that. This caused the animals to have to evolve to be bigger, as you see with my giant crow friend, Elusis, here, and the pack of ‘Canis Fae Magnus’ or simply known as the elven wolves by some. This is because you know they were made big because of fae and elven magic. Now I assume you’re all just idiots who walked in here not knowing it was a nature preserve, or rather a preserve for humans who might get eaten by nature.”

Seethe panting, gasping for air after crawling away from the elven wolf on top of him said, “Yup just idiots. Why isn’t there a perimeter set around here to make sure people don’t enter? ”

Corila replied with, “There was but the recent storm blew most of it away especially on the south and east sides. Not your fault I’m on patrol here to check in because of that. I’ll allow you guys to stay here the night but you have to leave first thing tomorrow because if you anger any of the herbivores you are fucked, moreso than any carnivore or predators. Oh here’s a prop tip though: stay away from grand tree bears, they are really big and really protective of their cubs.”

Liz scoffed and said, “Trust me as long as I’m here these guys are safe from any wild animal, especially bears.”

Corila raised her then realized an unfinished tattoo on Liz’s upper body that I personally didn’t notice before. She asked Liz, “You from the Wildlands? A shifter I assume, yeah nevermind you guys will be fine, if a Shifter is intimidating enough to scare this pack’s momma she can probably at least talk down a grand tree bear.”

Kellen had this weird look on her face like she didn't understand what Corila meant by that, so she asked her, “I come from Trensor that huge city northwest of here and while I didn’t know this was the ‘Lost Elf Woodlands’ I thought grand tree bears were supposed to be like apex predators around here able to dominate anything. Why would a Shifter be able to even talk one down?”

Liz rolled her eyes and replied to Kellen, “Well Kellen, I’m a Beasthide Shifter, otherwise known as the toughest of the tough among shifters. Whenever you find a tribe of Shifters, if they got a group of Beasthides in the commune we’re usually the leaders, nine-times-out-of-ten. This ain’t even a racial superiority thing, it's just that the other Shifter species are just more fit for other roles, like hunters and scouts. Specifically if you haven’t noticed I’m a Bear Beasthide Shifter, so bears don’t really scare me and they don’t really try to hurt me either”

“If you guys have got a Bear Beasthide Shifter you should definitely be fine ,especially with those tattoos. If I’m right you should belong to the family of your tribes’ chief right? Shifters don’t get tattoos like those unless they are in the running to become the next chief.” Corila commented.

Liz just nodded and became oddly quiet at the mention of her tribe.

Kellen, Gale, and I all looked at Liz like she was definitely hiding something, ‘cause Liz and quiet do not go together at least when she’s talking about something she’s confident in. Corila talked for a bit longer before leaving our campsite again advising us to leave before noon hits us because that's when the grand tree bears come out. We followed her advice and went back to take our rest and continued our rotating watch. When we eventually all woke up again it was about an hour and half away for noon according to my pocket watch. We followed Corila’s advice and started to leave the Lost Elven Woodlands, before noon hit. Before she left she told us what things to look out for to stay out of the territory of the bears or any other large animal that could cause us trouble. We followed all of her tips and tried to avoid any trouble we could,because Kellen lived near the northern area of the forest, currently we’re in the southeastern area, she was more or less familiar with the paths set for people. Using the advice from Corila and her own knowledge and some input from Liz every now and then Kellen was able to guide us safely through the forest. Mostly safely… according to Kellen at the time we had about 15 minutes left before we got out of the forest, but… before we got out we ended up encountering a skulk of foxes. These foxes were fairly large and were apparently called spirit foxes or ‘Kistune’ by the elves who live in Miraxisys. Supposedly they evolved to be very similar to the ‘Kitsune’ of the faewild. Anyways we got caught up and surprised by this skulk of spirit foxes, these foxes were large, they had blue and white fur, and a growl that sounded like an eerie whistle. Before the ‘Kitsune’ were able to attack us though Liz came out, went into a rage and started to shift and with her new spiny tail and bear-like fram she let out a ferocious roar. This was very fucking cool in the moment, she first created a line with her tail then as she let out her roar other bears in the area started to roar making all the ‘Kistune’ around us whimper and run away. This made me wonder though if Liz is that scary and the ‘Kitsune’ are that scary who scary and large and terrifying would those grand tree bears be. After that incident we eventually made our way out of the forest, Quarry was the only one in the cart at the moment because we had to protect it to make sure our stuff or our horses didn’t get jumped by any weird woodland critters. When we finally got out of the forest both Gale and Seethe let out a huge sigh of relief, Seethe because that boy is terrified of accidental arson. While Gale… honestly I didn't know why she sighed at the time, I just assumed a similar reason to Seethe like forests give her anxiety or something.

Kellen pulled out her map and compass and started to chart our course towards Alucaya, she and Quarry started to talk about how much longer it would take to get there. Quarry looked out at all of us and said, “Okay, so we’re about two or three more days away from Alucaya, but there is a landmark from the unification of the kingdom we can visit before we get there, just to explore. Personally I want to see it but, if we do go to see it, it’ll put us half a day behind.”

Seethe, Gale, and I all raised our hands signaling we wanted to see that, because as much as this kingdom has hurt our family, honestly this place has some badass history. Like Lithiyurn used to be to separate nations before a political marriage that caused civil unrest and an attempted revolution to kill the princess of one of the previous nations. I know which landmark Quarry is talking about because it is known as sacred ground for alchemists, where a special garden is grown in remembrance of the prince who sacrificed himself for his love so that their kingdom can flourish and be unified. Beautiful stuff and all that, these two royals loved flowers so much they created this garden, this garden eventually was blessed by the gods Spur and Ild because of the royals love of justice and desire for unity. This caused the plants there to be really fucking weird and have super cool properties, that I was gonna raid, because I want to see those fucking plants. Liz shrugged because she didn’t seem to have an opinion, NoName did the same, while Corrin said, “I’d be down to see an important monument of the nation I’m currently staying at. What’s it called anyways?”

Kellen responded to his question, “This landmark is called the Garden of Olona and Aron, the parents of the first King of Lithiyurn, High King Olonaron.”

Liz raised an eyebrow and asked Kellen, “They named their kid after both of themselves why?”

Gale answered her question telling her, “It’ll be simpler to explain when we get there, right brother?”

Quarry just nodded his head, and with that we all seemed to agree to visit the gardens. We were less than a week out from the kingdom’s capital or mercenary work, and on our way to visit a sacred ground for the kingdom.