The Third Step: Chapter Fourteen (Patreon)

Approaching Obsidian Forest was a unique, new experience for me. Thus far in my travels, I’d visited Crysite, Delitone, and Dragontooth. Bot

Approaching Obsidian Forest was a unique, new experience for me. Thus far in my travels, I’d visited Crysite, Delitone, and Dragontooth. Both Crysite and Dragontooth were part of the Mossford Alliance, and even though they had their strong cultural differences, they were all part of the same alliance of unified nations. Delitone technically wasn’t in the alliance, but it was in the same region of the world as the Alliance, and there was enough trade and military cooperation for putting down threats that emerged in trade routes that many people felt it ought to be. 

Of course, I’d gone to other places. I’d spent a day in the Crystal Coves, meeting with Darius for his successful attempt at an ascension. And technically when Orykson had brought me around the world to examine the spatial weave in different locations, I’d stopped all over, including some spots where I still weren’t sure where I’d been. And when I’d approached Crysite, it had largely been wild land, only barely not the Unclaimed Lands.

But this… felt different. I wasn’t teleporting in, I was on a ship, and could see the land approaching. It wasn’t right in the same cluster of the world as the Mossford Alliance. Obsidian Forest was closer to Vinopae, Nightflock, or even Aergarde than it was to Mossford. 

Obsidian Forest began as a smear of browns, greens, grays, and black on the horizon, and as we approached, it slowly resolved into clearer shapes.

The port was clear and clean, but the moment that it stopped extending out over the sea, and onto dry land, the strangeness began. The ground was covered in a thin, wispy fog or mist. It wasn’t thick enough that it obscured vision, even for Kene, and with the ingrained effect of my Vampiric Senses spell improving my night vision, it was especially easy to peer through. Most of the time, the banks of fog only spiraled up to my mid-thigh, or to Kene’s knees, but occasionally there were fogbanks towering ten or fifteen feet high.

In the distance, peeking out from the massive waves of mist, were towering trees. They looked mostly like oak, lark, alder, maple, and pine trees, but there were a few of them that were distinctly magical looking. One in particular looked like an yellow-star tree, a more potent variant of my own red-star apple trees. Its apple crop hadn’t come in yet, with it being too much in the summer for them to really bloom yet. 

The strangest part was that all of the trees, even ones that normally should have been fairly short and stubby, were stretched out long and massive. The smallest of them were at least thirty feet high, with the tallest of them stretching out hundreds of feet in the air. 

That was all I could see from the ship, and I didn’t see any more until I completed the multi-hour-long process of getting through international security – apparently ‘I’m looking for a kludde to learn its magic and a rebirth tree’ caused some rather unique questions, and put me under a bit of scrutiny over potentially transporting alchemical plants and substances without a license. Once I had finally passed through the security checks, though, I was able to get a better look at what Obsidian Forest looked like up close. 

I wasn’t sure if it was all through the country, or if it was just a peculiarity of the city that we’d landed in, but all of the roads here were grass, with their path outlined by glowing mushrooms, and wound through the giant trees in a wild pattern. Mixed in between the towering giant trees were a variety of different things – I spotted normal sized trees, areas of grass that looked like parks, and buildings. 

The strangest part was that only about a fifth of the buildings were on the ground. The rest of them were tree-houses, winding around the trunk and through the branches of the towering titans. There was no visible path between the scattered trees, but people were floating through the air as they shifted from spot to spot, either flying artifacts were a lot cheaper here than they were in Mossford, or Obsidian Forest had set up some sort of flight tunnels, akin to the massive underground network that Dragontooth had used to move between and within cities. 

Life and death energy was everywhere, as well as a surprising amount of mental energy. Lunar energy shone out through the mists and shadows, and the world seemed to thrum with strange, mysterious power. The magic honestly reminded me somewhat of a hag’s, but it wasn’t a perfect match. 

“Have you finally been released?” Kene asked, stepping up next to me from where they’d been reading a book. “I swear, every time we visit somewhere, you wind up detained by the border security.” 

“What can I say? I’m a mystery, Dusk is an enigma, and Dawn is a paradoxical existence not yet understood by the world’s top scientists.” 

I paused for a moment as I realized that, even though I’d been joking, I’d also largely been correct. I wasn’t that much of a mystery, but worldspirits were definitely something of an enigma, and Dawn’s nature wasn’t yet understood by Orykson. That thought led me to some uncomfortable mental roads, however, so I shifted the topic. 

“Have you found Meadow? She said she’d meet up with us here.” 

“I haven’t, at least not yet,” Kene said. “I’ve mainly just been waiting for you here.” 

“I wonder if the Headsman stopped her?” I pondered. “I mean, she did mention that she wouldn’t be able to protect us here.” 

As if on cue, my spatial sense picked something moving towards me, fast. It wasn’t fast enough that I thought it was fired by a spell, but it was being lobbed at me. It was small and round – maybe an enchanted item? 

I spun and conjured Briarthreads. If this wasn’t an attack, then I’d be in less trouble for manifesting a defensive spell. If it was, they could defend me. 

The threads of briars tore through a half-rotten tomato, and it splatted over me. 

“Hey!” 

The voice came from a short, dark eyed woman about my age, and I turned to face her. 

“Are you Malachi, Kene, Dusk, and the glowey one?” 

“Dawn,” I supplied, even as my hackles raised. “Who are you?” 

She flashed us a mischievous grin and nodded rapidly. 

“Okay, good, I thought so, but your fate is really hard to read. Part of the issue is that you keep changing it. Like, you weren’t supposed to find the glowey one. She was destined to die, and her corpse would slowly dissolve and become a lump of divinity-bone, and you forced things to change, then stopped most of the retribution through tithe and that created a whole mess.” 

Her speech was moving even faster than her head had been when she’d nodded, and I barely caught half of the words she was saying. Kene was apparently almost as baffled, as they started to say something, but then stopped, then started again. 

Then it clicked into place. One of the threats that Meadow had told me to avoid was the daughter of the Headsman. A young woman, about my age, but with a powerful gift to read the winds.

“Are you the–” 

“Headsman’s daughter? Yes. He’s really not as bad as he seems, a lot of things he has to do because of… things. Stuff. I don’t. Can’t…” 

She shook her head. 

“Listen, I was only able to move so many things to get people to stop and divert the flow of foot traffic in order to slow down Meadow from reaching us, and you would not believe how hard it is to set up traffic delays weeks in advance before anyone’s looking at you, or how hard it is to convince some of the things like Adininial to exit the cordon and stop my dad or Meadow from listening in on us without reporting it or them listening to what I’m saying, I had to–” 

She stopped and sucked in a breath, seemingly only then remembering that she needed to take breaks between sentences. In her defense, I was pretty sure I’d done the same thing, especially before I’d started my medicine. 

“Right! Time! Time time time, it all comes down to time and clouds. Things are… changing fast. But you need to listen to me, and listen closely, because I have five pieces of information that you all absolutely need to know. The first one for Malachi, Dusk, and Kene are all needed if we want to stop Vivian from killing my dad and conquering north to Delitone, then getting into naval conflicts and dueling wars with Mossford!” 

I jolted upright at that. I wasn’t going to just blindly obey this woman, just because she was an oracle. As she’d said, fate could be avoided and changed, and things were turbulent right now. It was even possible she’d lied, and said all this to get my attention. But I also couldn’t tune out the possibility that she was being genuine. And if she was, then I needed to listen. I began flowing mana through the Timemind, to ensure I formed crystal clear memories of what she had to tell me.

“First of all. Malachi in your tournament, I can see a standoffish sword mage. She competes for Elohi, but is from Feng Chui. You must make her an ally. Maybe try to convince her to look with rage at other injustices. This one is very clear, I can absolutely see why.”

I narrowed my eyes. Even as she spoke, I felt my own winds of fortune blowing in agreement with the words that the oracle was saying. 

“Dusk!” she said, spinning to look at the small spirit. “You’ve done a lot of work on the world mammoth spell. That’s good. It’s important. But it’s only the beginning. If you want to stop this, you’re going to need to keep working at it. But you have to learn to allow the glowey one’s magic to empower it. It’s not meant for that, but it’s also not meant for a spirit’s use at all. You have to. Otherwise…” 

She shook her head and spun to Kene. 

“You! Kene. If you want to stop it, then you have a choice to make. If you choose total freedom, then things will be harder on everyone for a while, but will lead to greater results in the end. But if you take the other path, things will be easier, but come with more limitations. Either one can help stop the plan, but if you don’t choose, then it’s all for naught. You must make that choice.” 

She let out a sigh and her eyes flickered around as if she could see a thousand things that we couldn’t, and needed to figure out the truth behind them all. 

“Alright, the last two are more general, and less certain. They deal with the far off future. But one of you has to learn the truth, and then forgive someone for it, or else things will be much worse than they would be on their own. And if you find yourself needing to climb a mountain of crystal to reach the sky, take the leap of faith.”

“I’ve heard you, but I don’t understand,” I said, frowning. That caused her to laugh, and it sounded almost like she was on the verge of a panic attack. 

“Neither do I! Isn’t being an oracle great? Alright, I’ve got to go!” 

She turned and ran off, and an instant later I sensed a flash of forest dragon magic. Powerful stuff, at least sixth gate. Then, I felt a familiar presence, and turned to see Meadow, slowly stumping up the road to us and waving. 

“Hello dears! Sorry for the delay – a cart got overturned and I had to go the long way, only for that to be blocked too.”