[A story of Annan Lyre and his Death-Quest, for the Slidecrown Sundering quest, Traverse the Forest.]
In respect for the champion who had saved their home, the Viridian King’s crown was left untouched. Lingering energies from the powerful incantation imbued it with arcane might, and over the passing centuries, a significant reservoir of Aqua Ghyranis collected around it. Thus, the power of Slidecrown Isle grew… coveted by many and feared by all.
“And so the story goes,” Og the Luckless finished.
“As always, unlike Mother’s vicious truths, your drylander tales stink of many falsehoods, Og the Luckless,” Annan Lyre drawled derisively.
“Yet we have come, Untasted One. Before us a forest of trees formed of daemon dust and elder magic.” A pause as Og’s nostrils flared in an appraising sniff. “I wonder if such a history has spiced the bark.”
“You are free to try. This land is not one of scarcity, if it is what you claim.”
With a flourish of his scaled talon, Annan Lyre gestured out to emphasise the thick overgrowth that had impeded their passage these past few days since making shore on Slidecrown Isle. Skittering below the fronds, Og’s gnoblar pets found no such issue, but for the fimir and his cadre of ogors, the densely-packed trees scraped and scratched unclad skin, and in many places formed an interwoven barrier, almost as though designed to deliberately bar entry to larger beings.
Daemons, realised Lyre, though he had yet to meet one, if they truly were as Og said invaders to this place, were likely of similarly prodigious size, true.
He thumped his knobbed tail on the leaf-cluttered ground in growing annoyance at the delay. Even with the gorgers he had named Skinripper, Face Eater, and The Grabber pulling roots, pushing tree trunks, and using crude flint weapons to make deep gouges in the Ghyran hardwood, the pace was as mountains of ice traveling across a plain, and had this been blessed swamp or river instead, they could have gone beneath or above such obstacles. But not here, where the trees towered to the heavens, their cloud-kissed height creating uncertainty of what else might fall any time a gorger brought one down.
A gnoblar’s warning cry signaled the imminence of such an occurrence as it took shelter at Annan Lyre’s ankles. The crude undercut was not even fully through the trunk, and it didn’t need to be; The Grabber locked its arms around the wounded tree in a firm embrace and began vigorously shaking. The sound of wood cracking pealed like lightning, joined by the communal ululation of all three gorgers.
Lyre and Og lifted their arms to shield their eyes from a rain of branches and birds’ nests as they kept vigil skyward. At the sound of a chirp, the ogor hunter angled himself to catch an inhabited nest and immediately bit and chewed the hapless roosting bird.
“Not long now,” the Ogor hunter said between crunches, “Pikt and Bakt say past here, trees thin out with spaces an ogor’s width can cross. A funny forest where the trees are thickest outside, not in.”
“I’m not laughing, Og the Luckless,” the fimirach noble scowled under the shower of bramble.
“Nor should you,” Og observed. “It is funny as in curious, not funny as in a joke, Annan Lyre.”
Lyre’s one eye fixed on his companion, “Then why not say such? A curious forest better captures the meaning.”
Og shrugged, “That’s just how it’s said, in most places.”
“Why have we words at all, Og the Luckless, if we are to accept their misuse without challenge?”
“But it is not misuse when enough others understand the secondary meaning,” Og countered.
The fimir’s eye narrowed. “And this is why I so often doubt your stories, Og the Luckless, as I cannot even trust your slithering words.”
“You are free to seek practice with words elsewhere, Untasted One,” the ogor showed snaggled teeth in a patently untrustworthy grin. “Face Eater’s grunts are almost language, and your mother speaks in your tongue.”
The tree finally snapped, and snapped loud. Its descent took several moments in which Og was blissfully silent. When the danger had passed, they all stepped through the gap in this layer of the forest wall.
“My Mother speaks words alone,” Annan Lyre resumed, “Her words are not meant for exchanges.”
“My gnoblars say she waits ahead in a clearing. She has waited several days.”
“So she will hunger,” the fimir asserted grimly. “More than usual.”
“And I will hunt as soon as we are through,” Og reassured. He busied himself with scooping up more fallen nests, which he stowed in a bulging sack. He licked his lips. “For us, the birds’ nests as a soup, flavoured with supposed daemon dust bark. For her, the forests’ bounty. Our eating will be good.”
“Yes, good,” Lyre said drily, “Also good will be freedom from your stories for a time. I hope for a twin feast of food and silence from you, Og the Luckless.”
The group continued forward, their heavy feet stamping down fern and leaf beneath them. As their gnoblar scouts had reported, it was now possible for the ogors to pass through with minimal struggle. Og, smaller than the gorgers, even found the space to now heft and aim his crossbow.
“I will not push that luck now, then, Annan Lyre. I hear your mother’s murmurs ahead, so will begin supplying for that feast before you throw me into her to gain your precious silence.”
The corners of Lyre’s beaked mouth curled at the thought. The funny thought. “Then I wish you good hunting. Your kills shall mark the start of the terror we deliver to this curious and onerous wood. So I, Annan Lyre, swear upon my Mother, Queen Mana Myr.”
Done with words and not about to irk the fimir by making light of his oath, Og the Luckless simply nodded acknowledgment, and with his pet gnoblars began to stalk for prey, hopefully enough to feed the many-fanged maw of Mana Myr, though from experience he knew it never would be.
