“Hah! See? Perfect circle!” said Gründ as he slowly set the machine down. Gotha’s laughter answered him, followed by “if this was a perfect circle, then Bared is our fastest runner!” The elder’s offended “hey!” was drowned by Gründ’s answer, and after a while they both had enough of Gotha’s remarks.

“You guys go ahead” said Gründ. That made everyone hush, which was the intention. “I’ll catch up and bring this thing for further inspection to the colony.”

They were, all of a sudden, very much worried. “Are you sure? Last time you went flying on your own…” but he would have none of it. “I’m safer up here than you are down there, and I’m not really fit for fighting yet.” He had a point, they couldn’t deny it. “Come back safe, Gründ… Toxal and Filnu will be very disappointed if you don’t! You know how much they like you.” Before Gründ could find a proper answer to Gotha’s worries, Bared’s “let’s just go already!” started the three Töskrs on their way.

The machine took off again after a big smack between the orbs, and our flying adventurer followed his friends from the air. Everything was going according to plan until… “Hey, don’t go so high, we don’t know what’s hiding between those leaves. Remember Atzi talking about krunskuvers in the trees? Those zueek?”

That had been the explanation given by the small Natl when she crashed on the hunting party all those pulses ago. She had been attacked by a Zueek, a tree-dwelling krunskuver, who had broken her wing. That was the start of Gründ’s flying obsession, and the first contact between Töskrs and another creature.

“ I know! I’m trying to go down but the wind…” The wind, who was driving him up and up, also took the rest of that sentence away. He could see his friends making grand gestures, trying to make him come back down. But no matter how much he leaned, no matter which way he directed the orbs, he couldn’t control his altitude anymore.

Slowly he climbed, his friends getting smaller and smaller until they disappeared behind the leaves of the giant trees surrounding him. Trees who were very interested in his progress, and a little anxious now: clearly something was going to happen again, just when they thought their little friend was safe!

Up, up and away he went, discovering how tall the Bocti really were, how far from the ground their top was, seeing animals he didn’t even know existed. The world did seem different up here, more blue as the Core was closer. Hints of purple here and there, and when he lifted his head, his breath caught in his throat.

Revealed now fully, the Core was beautiful. The continents floating around it gave her a necklace of colors and shapes that Gründ almost wanted to touch. Almost… Still too far away. He finally understood why the Ancients had wanted to leave Druss.

Now, back to reality. How was he going to get down?