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Race: Draconian

Bloodline Powers: Improved Strength+, Rending, Firebreath+

Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 6, Wind (Noble) 4, Sound (Advanced) 2

Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

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“Why is it that you’re dragging me along on this little misadventure of yours again?” Dussok asked, adjusting the straps on his backpack. Much like Samazzar’s it was made from deer hide. Unfortunately, although Samazzar and Tazaerra were able to figure out some of the chemicals needed to treat the leather, they hadn’t been able to get the mix just right. The end product was overly stiff and brittle in addition to smelling vaguely of rotting meat.

“Because I need someone large and imposing to scare off predators,” Samazzar replied smoothly, before letting a sly smile slip over his face. “Also having someone big to help with carrying the trade goods helps.”

“I have a backpack full of rocks,” Dussok said sourly. He sighed. “At least you’re helping to carry them this time. It takes a little bit of the emotional sting out of it.”

Samazzar laughed, tossing a wink Dussok’s way.

“This time next year I hope to have both wheelbarrows and trade goods that are a bit lighter. Next time we make a trip like this it should be a lot easier.”

“I suppose,” the big draconian responded morosely. “Still, there’s so much to do back at the village. It feels like I’m ducking out on my responsibilities.”

“Yes and no,” Samazzar replied, his eyes half lidded as he searched his surroundings with the wind. “There is always more construction to do, but we were running low on scrap iron anyway. Maybe if Barsa finds a vein while we’re gone there will be more when we get back, but for now we will have to rely on the scaventing teams, and they’re pretty slow. After all, it’s not like there are a lot of chunks of iron ore or human forged trinkets laying everywhere. They’ve already found most of the easily available resources.”

“What’s more important is securing a new source,” he continued. “Even if we can’t get a full trade treaty, the forest folk likely know more about the territory surrounding their tribe than we do. I doubt they know of any proper iron mines, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Who knows, they might have some information on ironsand or something else that’s visible from a surface inspection.”

Dussok groaned. “By the mysteries little dragon, I hate ironsand. It’s all but impossible to smelt iron from it without directly controlling the temperature of the furnace.”

“But both of us can directly control the surface temperature,” Samazzar noted. “Better yet, I can control the wind from the bellows to prevent it from blowing the sand itself away as we’re heating the charcoal. I think both of us would prefer more traditional ore, but modern industry means steel or iron, and we need a source of iron if we’re truly going to grow past one isolated village.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Dussok began, only for Samazzar to raise a hand. He pointed silently at a thick cluster of foliage some seventy paces away.

Both of them changed direction, walking toward the ferns. As they approached, Samazzar nodded in appreciation. There was body heat buried under the greenery. Not much, but it was there. What was more interesting was how hard it was to detect their observer through the mystery of wind. Everything about its silhouette perfectly matched the heavy plant life it was hiding beneath.

“Hello there,” Samazzar said cheerfully, both of them stopping about ten paces from the ferns. “I can see you hiding in there. We’re just here to talk and trade, so you don’t have to worry about us.”

Nothing moved. For almost five minutes, the two of them simply stood in silence, smiling at the patch of plants.

Finally, the leaves rustled, and a short squat figure trundled out into the forest. It was only a little taller than the average kobold, barely up to Samazzar’s chest, and its body was draped in heavy moss in lieu of clothing.

Samazzar squinted at it for a second and redid his assessment. Some of the moss appeared to be clothing, but much of it seemed to actually be part of the creature’s body.

“How,” it said, voice surprisingly deep for such a short creature. “Gingo was hidden in the deep green. How did you see him?”

“One of my specialties is spotting living beings,” Samazzar replied. “You were actually very well hidden. I can usually spot someone hidden from three or four hundred paces away. It was actually fairly surprising to me that I only found you when we were within a hundred paces.”

“That does not answer how,” Gingo responded. “No one can see the folk when they are in the deep green. You did. You used magic. Why is a shaman walking through this area of the forest?”

“I suppose I did use magic,” he answered. “As for why I’m here, my brother and I were looking to establish a trade relationship with the forest folk. We’ve united the tribes in the area, and one of our groups appears to have traded with you in the past. We were hoping to either continue or improve upon that relationship.”

Gingo looked them up and down suspiciously. His beady black eyes were barely visible under the mop of hanging moss that he used as both hair and a hat.

“The big one has an ax,” he observed, motioning with an arm so obscured by lichen that Samazzar couldn’t even make out how many fingers he had. “How can I be sure that you aren’t here to find our village and kill all of us?”

Samazzar and Dussok shared a glance.

“Because there’s only two of us?” He hazarded with a shrug. “Theoretically I could have come down here with an army, but that doesn’t benefit anyone. The forest folk have skills that the kobolds don’t and wheel, the kobolds have a whole lot of extra hands that the folk don’t have. Even if we are only trading our numbers for your help, that has to be something of value.”

Gingo harumphed, not responding while he stared at the two of them. After a pause of almost twenty seconds Samazzar shifted slightly, adjusting the straps on his backpack.

“Hey,” Dussok whispered, leaning down until he was practically in Samazzar’s ear.

“Yes?” He replied absently, trying to keep himself from fidgeting while he waited for the forest folk to say something.

“I think you have something on your face,” Dussok continued conspiratorially, “he keeps looking at you.”

Samazzar sputtered, but before he could find a response, Gingo spoke up.

“The elders say that they will meet you. Follow Gingo.”

The creature turned and waddled off into the undergrowth. Despite his small size and short legs he moved fairly quickly, especially given the way that the greenery around it seemed to bend and move out of Gingo’s way of its own accord.

“Huh,” Dussok said, his brow contorting slightly. “I didn’t see the little guy talk to anyone, yet here we are with orders from an elder. That’s certainly not something you see every day.”

Samazzar nodded thoughtfully as he began to follow the forest folk.

“Apparently they can speak to each other over some distance, that isn’t something that I’ve managed to find in any of the books on their society. Of course, all of the records are old. Mostly pre-fall. Who knows if that’s something that they developed after the world split apart.”

“Who knows,” Gingo replied from forty or fifty paces ahead without turning around or breaking stride.

Samazzar shot Dussok a startled glance, but the big draconian just shrugged. Evidently, there was more going on with the forest folk than the humans realized. Hardly surprising given how infrequently the city dwellers ventured out into the true wilds of the world, but having a hole in his knowledge disturbed and excited Samazzar in equal measure. This was his chance to learn something new, something that no one but him had experienced before.

He felt his pulse racing. It wasn’t exactly a clue to improve his mysteries or his bloodline, but in a world full of hidden truths and unseen plans, it was a flash of light. The gleam of the real world that was concealed from the everyday denizen.

After almost twenty minutes of travel, they found the forest folk village. One second they Dussok and Samazzar were pushing through the thick undergrowth, snapping vines and overpowering thick bushes heavy with thorns, and the next they were standing at the edge of a clearing. Inside, felled trees, easily ten times the size of anything he had seen growing in the forest, had been mostly hollowed out. Windows and doors were carved in their sides and thin lines of smoke that disappeared into wisps of nothing came from carefully fashioned chimneys.

Squat figures, all draped in different kinds of vegetation trundled around the clearing, piling sacks into crude wagons that were attached to surprisingly placid elk. Around the edges of the glade, curtains of vine and moss hid the entire area from view. Distantly, Samazzar could feel the echo of a mystery he couldn’t quite place coming from the barrier.

“This way,” Gingo said, waving a hand for them to follow as he led the way toward a massive tree stump. Amidst its yellowed roots was a small door, carved to look like the rest of the decaying plant.

Gingo opened the door, and Samazzar and Dussok ducked to follow him. It took a second for both of them to remove their backpacks and set them down near the entrance, and by the time they were actually in the passageway, Gingo was almost all the way down the hallway. The walk was uncomfortable for Samazzar, but Dussok had to literally drop to his hands and knees to crawl down the sloped dirt tunnel. Both of them had to suck in a deep breath and keep their shoulders tight to prevent them from scraping against the moist soil of the walls.

Some fifteen paces away, the three of them emerged into a large circular room made of packed soil. The room was lit by basins filled with mushrooms that were glowing a light blue, and above them, the aging roots of the stump formed their ceiling.

Already seated on a log in the center of the room were three forest folk. It was hard to judge under the vegetation that passed for their clothing and skin, but they looked a bit more hunched than Gingo and the other folk that Samazzar had seen working in the forest clearing.

The rightmost figure nodded at GIngo, and their guide nodded back before turning in silence and leaving the meeting hall. A glance around the room for a chair revealed nothing, so with a shrug, Samazzar simply crossed his legs and sat in the dirt across from the three seated forest folk.

As soon as Dussok joined Samazzar on the ground, the leftmost figure spoke up.

“Gingo says that you found him while he was hiding in the deep green. How did you do that? Are you a shaman?”

“I am my tribe’s chief, but I am also a magus, at lesser completion in the mystery of fire and a senior student in the mystery of wind,” Samazzar replied politely. “I don’t pretend to be an expert. I’ve met experts. Still, the skills I have learned are useful and enough to keep myself and my tribe safe.”

“Experts?” The middle shape asked. “So you’ve been to human or elven lands?”

“Human,” Samazzar answered. “My siblings and I spent some time in Vereton. Unfortunately the humans are too volatile for my taste. Every interaction had some sort of subtext or hidden agenda. I don’t think the humans could even keep track of all the intrigue. When we left, it was in the middle of a war where we didn’t even know who was on the other side.”

“Far too complicated for my liking,” Dussok added. “Fighting is a waste of resources, but if you’re going to fight, you should do it straight up. A surprise attack is a fine tactic, but everyone should at least know who and why they are fighting.

The three folk rustled slightly, but said nothing. The silence stretched on for almost a half minute before Samazzar cleared his throat.

“We apologize,” the far left shape said with no contrition in their voice. “We were discussing your words with the rest of the tribe. Unfortunately, it is impossible for us to come to a clear conclusion with the amount of information you have provided.”

“Hold on.” Samazzar raised a hand. “Before we go any further, you need to tell me how you are able to talk with other forest folk without opening your mouth and seeing them. I’ve heard of some species that can speak with smells or sounds that the ordinary ear can’t detect, but it’s clear that isn’t what’s happening here. Unless I can figure out how you’re doing that, I’m going to spend our entire conversation trying to figure the trick out and I won’t be able to focus.”

“What?” One of the folk managed. For the first time, their steady and aloof demeanor broken by surprise.

“Are you using vibrations through the floor?” Samazzar questioned. “Maybe electrical currents running through the air? I can’t detect those. Honestly, it’s driving me mad.”

“That is what you wish to ask?” The far right shape asked, incredulous. “You have trekked leagues and weathered hardship to meet us, and you want to know how we communicate with each other?”

“Among other things,” he replied. “Whenever I see something I don’t understand, my hands get itchy. The world is full of secrets, and it’s hard for me to keep walking when I find one of them. None of the books I read in Vereton hinted at anything like this, and I’m fascinated to learn how your people live.”

The three elders lapsed into silence for another ten or so seconds before the center one spoke up.

“It should not hurt to tell you, after all there isn’t much you can do to replicate our speech. The forest folk are connected via the deep green. Even for those without knowledge of the mysteries, it grants us abilities that are useful. Some can hide in foliage, others can grow crops in a fraction of the time, and still others can tame herbivores by soothing them with their voices, but the one common factor is that all of us can speak through the deep green.”

“That’s fascinating,” Samazzar replied, his eyes shining. “So your race has a bloodline. Nothing of the sort is recorded in the biology textbooks I have read. As far as the humans are concerned, the forest folk are just like my people, the kobolds. Barely sentient savages that live a miserable existence in the cracks where civilization’s light cannot reach.”

“We are not savages,” the elder on the right snapped. “The humans cannot understand our way of life so they denigrate it. Hardly surprising given their history.”

“I knew there was more to your story,” Samazzar responded, leaning forward slightly. “You are right about the humans. They have accomplished many things that I would like to replicate, but they approach the world with an arrogance I find preposterous. They see themselves as the masters of the world now that the gods have fallen, ignoring the dragons and ancient beasts that have existed for longer than the oldest building in their oldest city.”

As one, the three elders began laughing, a soft and dry sound, like leaves rustling. The sound was eerie, almost otherworldly in the soft blue light cast by the basins full of mushrooms placed around the edges of the room.

“Very true draconian,” the leftmost folk responded. “You say you are here for trade and to learn, and both of those seem possible. Unfortunately, I do not know that a long term arrangement can be reached even if we were to trust you fully.”

“What do you mean?” Samazzar questioned. “My goal is to set up a city where all of the races that exist outside of ‘civilization’ can come together freely. I can understand not fully trusting us at first, but once you have a chance to interact with my people, I hope that you would be able to appreciate our motives and efforts.”

“If that is truly what you want,” the leftmost elder answered, “that is admirable. In another time and place, we might even want to interact with this society you are trying to make. Unfortunately, it is time for our people to leave this forest.”

“What.” Samazzar blinked. It felt like his entire mind had stuttered and come to a halt.

“You wished to know about our people?” The right elder asked. “Very well. The forest folk survive by living a quiet life closely connected to the land. We hide, tend our mushrooms and live out lives of quiet fulfillment away from the greedy eyes of humans, goblins, elves, and dwarves. Right now, the orcs that are overlords of this region do not trouble us much so long as we pay them tribute. That is a healthy relationship.”

“Unfortunately,” they continued glumly. “That means they do not protect their tributaries. Not long ago a goblin tribe was completely destroyed and they did nothing, not even investigating the cause of their disappearance.”

“The forest folk are not a warlike people,” the center elder picked up where their companion left off without any pause or hesitation. “We are experts at hiding and running, but we are unsuited for fighting. If we are found, we must leave. If a natural disaster happens, we must leave. It is arduous to pack up our entire tribe and move, but so long as there are trees, the deep green lets us rebuild again shortly.”

“Disaster has found us,” the left folk said quietly. “Waves of predators and monsters from the plains are entering the forest. They smell of hunger and fear, and they hunt all that they can see. Already we have lost a half dozen amongst the gatherers. We cannot communicate with predators as we do herbivores so there is no way of knowing exactly what is happening, but it seems as if they are being pushed into our domain. Whether that is by a larger predator, a famine or some other natural disaster, we have no way of knowing.”

“So we will trade with you today,” they continued, “but after that we must leave. We wish you the best of luck with the creation of your city. Maybe someday when matters become safe our tribe will return to this forest. We would be happy to trade with you then, but for now, I apologize, but our meeting and interaction must be brief.”