“Look at all of these withered plants!” Thigi gasps as the group breaks out of the dense, tree-filled forest into a silent, grey desolation.
All around the adventurers lies dead grass, and dried out vines hanging down from hollow, pale trees. Nothing moves in the barrenness, and the silent tomb of plants cuts sharply into the wintery forest. Skeletons of animals litter the barrenness, and Gole cautiously picks her way around the bones.
“This must be the work of toman trees.” Poole whispers ominously, and Gole stops in her tracks as she peers around a group of lifeless, tall, grey trees, gazing out at a silent barrier ten yards in front of them.
“You mean those?” She whispers anxiously, and Poole observes the immense curtain of colorless trees stretching for miles from side to side, whose appearance is closer to that of air than of any solid material.
“Yes. Be very careful, they drain the energy out of anything they can catch. Their roots must have caused the devastation back there.”
“Are we in danger?” Trouse whispers timidly as he gazes at the trees with a foreboding sense of danger, and Poole grimaces, before replying slowly,
“Not if we’re very quiet.”
Stealthily, Gole creeps towards the awaiting tree barrier, with Erve following behind, stepping lightly to make as little sound as possible. The travelers ease their way across the barren ground, stepping cautiously over roots and avoiding any contact with the trees as they worm their way into the deadly maze. As they reach the middle of the wall of trees, the baying of dogs echoes through the groves, seeming to come from all sides, stopping the adventurers in their tracks, frozen with horror. The trees sway slightly, as if listening, and then shoot glass-like vines at the adventurers, trying to ensnare them.
“Hurry! Stealth won’t help us now!” Poole shouts, ducking as a vine strikes over his head, piercing the tree beside him, the vine’s shards raining down upon him like sharp rain. Gole bolts towards the other side of the trees’ bleakness, leaping over roots and dodging beneath vines as the trees try to ensnare them, with Erve pounding furiously behind her. The trees, seeming to know where the alterna is sprinting, begin putting up a blockade of glass-like vines to cover the break in the trees.
“Brace yourself!” Gole shouts before charging through the vine wall, splinters of the vines striking across the faces of her riders and herself.
With a last burst of effort, Gole and Erve charge across a barren clearing. The clearing is devoid of all plants with only bones of unfortunate creatures scattered around. They rush through a line of lifeless trees, who still have grey-white ivy hanging off of them, struck down in life so quickly that even dead it looks like a strange, beautiful ivy curtain surrounding the emptiness around the toman trees. As soon as they fly through the wall of ivy, the adventurers immediately regret their decision to exit from the toman tree graveyard. Swarms of dogs immediately converge together to surround the group, and Trouse looks around fearfully at the many types of dogs.
“Why are they surrounding us? We didn’t do anything wrong!” He squeaks, and Poole twists up his face as he points to a bunch of tents made out of leather gathered together some thirteen yards in front of Gole.
“It’s a dog encampment. They’re protecting their young.”
“Oh, this is bad.” Thigi gulps as she looks around at the dogs surrounding them, their long, sharp canine teeth bared, with fur bristled, and their ears back.
“You don’t say?” Gole retorts sarcastically as she bares her teeth back at the dogs, her tail lashing furiously behind her like a furry whip.
“Let go into trees. Better of survival.” Seehea says, and Gole snarls at the dogs.
“I’d rather go down fighting than be killed by a bunch of trees!” She exclaims as she growls fiercely at a small dog as it creeps closer to her, quickly causing it to backpedal back into the throng of beasts.
“Never too smart for alterna.” Seehea says as the dogs cut off their possible retreat back into the bareness of the toman tree grove by circling completely around them and he begins to dig in his bag on Erve’s back.
Before Gole can reply, a dog, black, short and slick- clearly the leader- stands on its hind legs and barks in an odd, guttural language with brief words that are put into short-lived sentences to the adventurers.
“Does anyone speak that? Thigi, ask the humor girl, maybe she can.” Gole asks as she turns to look at her comrades, and Thigi quickly translates Gole’s question to Onewe as the others shake their heads.
“That’s Do. Only dogs speak it.” Poole explains to Gole, and a slight rumble fills her throat.
“That’s nice, Professor Poole. Maybe your knowledge will actually bring some good news someday.”
After the adventurers do not reply to the leader dog, the other dogs begin to tighten the circle around the group, their snarls combining together to sound like some bizarre monster under the ground. Suddenly, Seehea pulls an outlandish shield out of his bag and pulls a lever on the back, spraying orange mist out onto the dogs. Instantaneously, the dogs flee in fear, yelping and whimpering like a swarm of bees is chasing after and stinging them.
Only one enemy remains in front of the adventurers. A girl doub with sandy blonde hair, a foot and four inches tall, wearing a white cape over a red sleeveless shirt and pants made of turtle skin, with cushioned knee pads. The girl’s emerald green eyes flash as she crouches in front of the group, wielding a gleaming white lance, pointed directly at Gole’s chest. Immediately, Thigi unsheathes a flashing sword and leaps off of Gole’s back, slicing the lance in half with a swift stroke, before knocking the doub girl to the ground and holding the sword’s point against the girl’s neck.
“I need a rope, and quickly to ensure this girl doesn’t attack us as we try to leave.” Thigi states, and Seehea tosses Trouse a black fuzzy rope, which Trouse grasps tightly as he drops off of Gole’s back, over to the other doub.
The two doubs regard each other in silence for a moment, before Trouse and Thigi quickly bind the girl with the rope.
“We can’t leave her here now. The dogs will tear her to shreds for being beat by us.” Poole says, and Gole raises a furry eyebrow as Thigi and Trouse drag the girl towards her.
“Why is that our problem? She’s the one who pointed a lance at my heart.”
The argument is cut short as the baying of dogs approaches once again, and Gole scoops Thigi and Trouse onto her back using a big fluffy paw before she picks up the bound doub in her mouth.
“’Ine, ‘et’s o.” She mutters past the girl in her mouth as she breaks out into a sprint, Erve following closely behind.