“Girl, you don’t need to be afraid. It’s already the third time; we know nothing can go wrong… isn’t that right, Feldir?”

“Indeed. It’s been tested several times to guarantee a safe travel.”

“See? And still, I’m here for you. Don’t worry.”

The darkness of her blue began to diminish, as did her grip on me, but I could still feel she was quite tense about this all.

“Wait, after we’re transported, where do we go from there?”

“Head towards the surface as soon as possible, you don’t want the creature seeing you.”

“And then?”

Feldir was already beginning to channel the Magica Essentia into it, and the teleporter started to function.

“Head to the west. Find the Necromancers. Find our king.”

“Got it.”

The force field we had grown to appreciate, yet hate, appeared once again.

“I’ll see you soon, Feldir.”

“Goodbye, Ka—”

The sound instantly went away as the white flash appeared, as per usual. A little less than a minute later, the whiteness faded away to make place for a new environment.

We arrived in an underground chamber ten – maybe fifteen – times bigger than The City under The Mountain, but it didn’t have a giant crater in the top; everything was covered by some type of ground, either rocks or dirt. The room was dimly lit by small slivers of light coming from several thousand – if not millions – of bundles of roots. We were floating above one of the major bundles, which was hanging about thirty feet above the ground. I couldn’t see the whole chamber we were in – of course I couldn’t, it was absolutely enormous – but I saw there were at least two more major bundles of roots – both approximately seven feet in diameter – from which sprung at least four hundred minor bundles. The one to my right let out bright red lights, the one to my left bright blue, and the one I was hovering just above bright green.

All three of the major bundles were, along with their minor offspring, disappearing through the walls on one side. On the other side, they were curving up to the ceiling, and combining roughly in the middle of the room, and all together they traveled up to the surface.

There were roots everywhere. I’m not exaggerating that, everywhere I looked, there were hundreds of thousands of roots to be seen, all curving around, through and into one another, making it both terribly hard to see in this place, as well as near impossible to easily navigate around. The roots were all glowing in different colors: the vast majority of roots had the base colors of Essentia: green, red, yellow and blue. But there were strangely also a few variants on these colors: a light blue which neared white was a perfect example of this. All of the roots seemed to either originate from the ceiling, the major roots or their minor offspring, and every single one was headed through the walls or floor.

“We need to get off here,” I whispered to Valentina, “You go down there, see if everything’s safe to land.”

She left me to do what I had asked her, in a dark blue color she slowly floated down, avoiding all smaller roots on the way. I followed her with my eyes the whole way down, making sure nothing would happen to her, and luckily, nothing did. When she reached the bottom, I saw nothing that could cause for troubles, so I jumped.

As I jumped down I saw Valentina cycle through a ton of colors: her blue first grew brighter and lighter, then she turned an aggressive red. Finally she realized what she had to do and turned a bright yellow, sending a strong current of wind in my direction, which broke my fall – like she did when she threw me into the air when we first met.

When I landed on the ground safely, she turned into a bright and angry red and made a lot of high-pitched, glassy noise, like she was trying to tell me, ‘Don’t give me heart attacks like that!’

“Thanks Val,” I said with a giant grin she couldn’t actually see, “But could you please be a slight bit quieter? We don’t want this ‘guardian’ to hear us.”

She calmed down in the sounds she made, but her color stayed the same furious red. We set out to search an exit out of this chaotic labyrinth of roots underneath The Tree of Life.

“Hey Val,” I whispered to her, “You don’t happen to know where the exit is, right?”

Though she was already burning red, I noticed a change in the shade she was glowing, signifying her denying to know the answer.

“Oh, come on Valentina. It was a harmless joke! I knew you would be able to catch me!”

She completely ignored it and went on with being red. I figured I should just let her be and shut my mouth for a few minutes, she’ll come around eventually.

We were making our way through the pandemonium that lies below The Tree of Life. Since we were on the lowest level now, we could see everything fairly clearly, as most of it was located several dozen feet above us. I could now see how there were, in fact, four major bundles of roots. One was – as I already presumed – glowing brightly with yellow. Looking down from there was more amazing than I originally would’ve given it credit for: the combination of all the different types of light made for a most spectacular view above, like watching a firework show, but all the sparkles of the fireworks were frozen in time and space.

There was only one thing which concerned me: something what seemed like a very dark gray – almost black – bundle of roots, about six feet in diameter, which didn’t seem to be connected to any major root. It reached awfully long, and was curling itself around and between the other roots. Contrary to the rest of them, this bundle did not have any light coming from it. It was like the bundle had given up its Essentia, like it had died out. I tried following it to find any end to it, yet I was unable to; not because there was no end to it, but because it was tangled in so many roots it was hard to keep track of. I did notice, however, this bundle was getting ever so slightly thicker on one side, and thinner on the other.

“Do you see that too?” I silently asked while pointing towards the black roots.

A very brief blink to green, and then back to the angered red.

“Do you know what it is?”

The same switch in shades as she gave me a couple moments ago: she didn’t.

“Wait a second… Did it…”

Yes. Yes it did, I was one hundred percent certain of that. It moved. Not by much, but it moved nonetheless. It wasn’t a bundle of roots, it never had been. No. This was the guardian of The Tree of Life. And it was sleeping. Otherwise it would’ve noticed us a long time ago.

“What part of the beast are we looking at, Val?”

Valentina turned to a bright blue color now, like she realized it was a beast only when I said it. She hid herself behind my back again.

It – no, Feldir had said the guardian was female – she was larger than what we saw in the tunnels under The Mountain to The North-East, way larger. I tried focusing very hard on following her body curl around the immense amounts of roots, and it was only getting longer and thicker, and the longer it went on, the more spiked – or spined? – it became. After what I assumed to be an eighth of a mile, I reached some sort of leg – well, two, to be precise, one on each side. Each with on them a vast amount of razor-sharp, curving spikes, and on the end a hand-like claw which had its grip on a nearby minor bundle of roots. The claws had nails which looked like they could pierce through your skin by just the slightest touch.

Not much farther down the body – well, ‘far’ is relative here, it wasn’t far compared to the rest of the body – I saw the head, with on it horns that looked like the antlers of a deer. The general structure of the head was the same as the one of the Dragonling we saw in the tunnels, but made of a more wood-like texture. Both her eyes were closed, and she was breathing through her nostrils very peacefully.

“We mustn’t wake her up, Valentina. Doing so would probably result in both of us dying horrifically.” I wasn’t even trying to get it across subtle.

Val blinked purple for a short moment before going back to her darker blue, as to ask ‘what is it?’

“I think,” I wasn’t sure at all, but it was the best bet I could make, “I think this is The Elder Drake.”

This was a shivering thought, to be in the same room as a devastating creature, created with the sole purpose of protecting The Tree of Life, the same Tree of Life we were currently underneath. Luckily she was sleeping deeply, so her chances of spotting us diminished immensely. We took the time to take a better look at our surroundings, which – in hindsight – was a strange decision, seeing how we couldn’t possibly foresee when The Elder Drake would wake up. We didn’t look at the chamber the same way we did before: we didn’t admire its beauty, we didn’t gaze upon the millions of lights; we didn’t even feel comfortable anymore, not in the slightest. We were intensely scanning the area for anything even bearing the resemblance of a way to the surface, and it took us a while – longer than I care to admit – but in the end we did see something that looked like a way out in one of the cavern’s walls, and we let ourselves guide by the slightest bit of light – a comforting and relieving yellow with a slight hue of orange hidden within it – coming from the sun above The Lands.

‘Letting us guide by’ is actually a slight understatement, we were heading towards the light at the same speed it was traveling – one might say we were rushing – to get out of this place. We were floating in the direction of the light as if we had been lost in a desert for weeks while surviving with barely any water, and the light was a lonely oasis, lost in the heat of the sands. It was like that one time, back when I was only about nineteen.

James was called by the Order of Interdimensional Exploration. I never admired the OIDE, I never even liked what they did, but I didn’t loathe them specifically (well, before they made me into this Gods forbidden probe I didn’t…). They hadn’t caused for any big troubles and, to be fair, they have probably been the most prominent reason as to why the Khaei are so intelligent and well-advanced in science, which – I have to admit – is a good thing, no matter how hard I despise the unnatural things they did.

I don’t know exactly for what he was chosen, but it was some sort of expedition through the multidimensional realm that would take somewhere between three days and three weeks – which might seem odd, but this was the norm with interdimensional expeditions; they’d only return if absolutely necessary. I remember him being thrilled about it: “This is an opportunity in a lifetime, Kate!” He had said, “The Order doesn’t pick anyone willy-nilly to go on expeditions. A lot of opportunities might open up in the future for us!”

I never shared his excitement though; I never did and probably never will. I didn’t know the details about these expeditions, “Classified”, they said, and the fact I was one of “them” didn’t help me gather information. The only thing I knew about the expeditions is that they tend to end badly, losing one or more Khaei in the progress. So I assume it’s blatantly obvious I was dead scared when I saw James step into the vessel which was headed towards the rift between dimensions.

Twenty-six days. Twenty-six days I waited for the vessel to return, twenty-six days I was hoping for some sort of message to arrive, even if it was a message of James’ death, I wanted to know something. Twenty-six days I was slowly but surely being killed by ignorance. To this day, I still stand by the fact I would’ve suffered way less if I had gotten the message James had died than if didn’t receive anything. Twenty-six nights I was nearly sleepless, staying awake until the sun almost rose again, filled with concern, with thoughts James would never return. Twenty-six damned days I was clueless, I was furious, sad, terrified… I was an emotional wreck.

I was now reliving the memory so vividly I stopped rushing towards the exit, I was just hovering there, shivering in the fear, sadness and anger I had felt back then. I’m sure I would’ve fallen to my knees, if only I still had them. I would’ve cried, if only I could. The only thing I could now do is stop and throw my head between my hands, as if I was covering my nonexistent tears so Valentina wouldn’t see them, while making sounds of sobbing without the intent of doing so.

I remember the day very well. That twenty-seventh day. I woke up very early – or that’s what I told everyone at least, in reality I never slept. Only some found this very sweet, the fact I was worried so much for the well-being of my boyfriend – he wasn’t even my husband back then – but most found it utterly dumb. They said I had gone mad, that it was a waste of precious time and energy to worry so much about another Khaei that your own health began to suffer from it.

When I heard the news, I acted like nothing major was happening, I probably was just presuming I was dreaming, I went on with my life.

It was only at noon I realized James was returning, when I saw the vessel, which departed what seemed like an eternity ago, arrive back in our bases. I remember just seeing the tip of it, and my heart instantly filled with fire again. I remember how I was barely capable of keeping my eyes open before, yet I was fully awake when the vessel came closer to the docking station. I remember barely being able to stand upright, yet when it docked my feet couldn’t take me there any faster. I specifically remember how the door opened and I saw him standing there, and how I jumped over the fence and evaded the security guards, whose job it was to keep crazy people like me out, thanks to a high boost in adrenaline. I ran straight into his arms and I swore I’d never let him go ever again.