The Eternal Forests: Layer 1
"Climbing down the cliff, secured by the ropes of my comrades, I recognized how Ayrika's eyes remained transfixed on the sky, while I myself almost couldn't take my eyes off the green treetops beneath us. Until i realized something. Her face was serious, but it had been since i got to know her, with so much as a smile only first appearing on it, once my jaw dropped staring at a jungle made of world trees from above. So it wasn't this seriousness which tipped me off about the fact that she was expecting trouble. From time to time she stopped, tilted her head, while her right grabbed for the small hand-crossbow, which hung pre- cocked at her left. Realizing me watching her, while I was at the same time trying to keep the jungle beneath us in view, she nodded towards me and then nodded towards the sky. "You are expecting trouble from the wrong direction…" she said. I looked around, but couldn't see anything threatening in the sky or near us, but I trusted her enough to loosen my sword in its sheath, and ready myself to draw it. I don't think i could write these lines if i hadn't. Of all participants of our expedition I am the smallest and most frail, a natural choice for predators to attack. Thus, when the sky suddenly started to move and some stingray like thing, whose underside displayed the exact same color as the sky, crashed down on me, I had just the fractions of a second to draw my weapon and run it off while holding myself with my other hand. It vanished into the jungle below, i could see its grey top disappearing between the light foliage of the treetops, still flying, betraying to me, how much space there must be between the branches, and belie the green carpet as just another optic illusion due to the uncommon proportions, the distance, and the fact that below us everything was green in green."
Geography
The top layer of the Eternal forests consists of the very top 20 to 50 feet, depending on the density of its foliage. Denser means thinner in this case, as the foliage lets less sunlight through, and provides a better protection from the airborne hunters of the top level, such that fauna and flora in these spots often changes much more quickly towards the one found on the second level.
Fauna & Flora
Fauna:
It is safe to say that big intelligent airborne hunters, like Cloakers and their bigger cousins, the Cloud Mantas, but also Green Dragons and Rocs are the ruling caste of the first layer. Here, where the vegetation ends, and their true realm begins, they live and hunt, taking full advantage of their mobility. Their neighbors constitute birds and flying squirrels, small mammalian herbivores, too small to be caught easily and equipped with the ability to glide from tree to tree, but also tressym, winged catlike predators which hunt them and which are then again big enough to be considered worthy prey for the top layers "nobility". Not everything that creeps and crawls here has the ability to fly though, there are Treesnakes which come here from lower layers to heat up in the morning sun, Draks looking for clean drinking water, that accumulates on the bigger Onauru leafs, or the ocassional group of Sitha Elves, who come here to harvest Yago berries, or hunt for Draks to tame.Flora:
This far up, the worldtrees carry their smallest fruit, oftentimes not bigger than a plum or orange, but are covered in herbal symbiotes, which carry their own. The very top is in fact usually dominated by the symbiotes which need most sunlight, aggressive flora which rarely allows other plants next to them besides the worldtree itself, which provides the remaining nutrients. This oftentimes leads to either monocultures, where one of the symbiotes won, or a balance of a few different planttypes keeping each other in check. The Yago Bush, whose berries are said to have healing properties and who is thus farmed by the Sitha of nearby hometrees, is one exmple, or the mistletoe forests, almost jungles in their own right.Natural Resources
The natural resources of the eternal forest's top layer are Yago berries and Cryst powder, which is gathered by grounding the dried resin of the Cryst flowers and constitutes a potent hallucinogen that both Norn and Sitha Shamans use to support their magic, and which also found use outside The Eternal Forests, mainly in Orom and Soth, where it is used in sacred rituals. The Magic towers all over Ardu also use it to induce the state of mind that allows them to curb the mind of a caster, who will not be able to face his Nemesis Fiend.
The Onauru wood here is usually very flexible, and the thin brances are, in combination with thicker leaves from further down the tree, commonly used for baskets or sun- and rainscreens.
Type
Forest, Jungle (Tropical)
Location under
Comments