I can’t believe that was over five years ago now. We were so madly in love back then. We were so ignorant… or at least I was.

My sadness made place for a furious rage. They are all the same, those Khaei. Always thinking about themselves, those damned arrogant monsters. I had always loved James dearly. I would never even hesitate to give up my own life when his depended on it…

He ruined me. He and his little Order ruined my life. I swear to the Gods if I ever see The Order again I will…

My memory faded before my eyes due to a growl, not a silent one, but most certainly not a loud one, and Valentina pulling at one of my arms. I didn’t know if The Elder Drake had already woken up, but if she had, we were in big trouble. We both decided it wouldn’t be the best idea to hover around much longer to see if she was still asleep and made a run for the exit.

The light was coming from, a narrow, long tunnel which – while uncomfortable to crawl through – didn’t slow us down on our escape to safety. When we came out of the tunnel we were greeted by the kiss of some rays of sunlight on our faces – for as much of a face we both had – and a magnificent tree greeted us with its shadow falling over us.

The Tree was at least one hundred eighty feet in height, and had a trunk with a radius of approximately twelve feet at the ground, which got smaller the higher it got. The complexity of branches that sprouted from the trunk was at least of same levels as the complexity of the roots below, resulting in a simply enormous canopy, casting a shadow over a piece of land even more gigantic. The Tree itself resembled an oak which gleamed of power, an oak who had stood the test of time, and time had thus given up on destroying it.

The vast majority of the branches were untouched, not even birds dared to make their homes in these branches, not even insects dared to live underneath their bark, not even caterpillars dared to feast upon the leaves planted on them.

The most remarkable thing on the whole of The Tree must’ve been its leaves; if not in amount, then in variety of colors. There were millions – if not billions – of leaves present on the branches, in all prominent, most important colors in The Lands: blue, green, red, yellow. As I stepped back, I noticed how they were all growing besides one another: there was no order in their placements, it was – simply said – utter chaos. But the more it went towards the end of the reach of the branches, the colors became ordered: all red leaves were grouped together, and the same was true for the blue, yellow and green ones.

I would like to describe The Tree and its beauty better than I have, but sometimes words cannot describe sheer amounts of magnificence. Luckily, this fantastic view made my recently welled up memories slowly fade back to the back of my head, where they were kept.

“Wow…” That’s the only thing I could utter, and honestly also the only thing I could think.

Valentina blinked green, as to agree with that statement, after which she became a yellow color, as opposed to the anger induced color of red from before.

Looking at The Tree from a distance, I now noticed something slightly odd; a fifth color in the leaves. It wasn’t a derivative of one or more of the other colors like the different roots down below The Tree. It was actually not derived from any color, but rather the absence of it: it was black. Not a pure black, like the scales of The Elder Drake, but a black of extremely dried out leaves. Strangely, only a slight fragment of the outer layer of leaves was this black color, and it didn’t extend that much inwards; it didn’t mix in with the rest of the colors and didn’t even come close to reaching the center. This part of The Tree was the sole part of the whole canopy which didn’t glimmer with a gold-like shine in the sunlight.

I don’t know how long we stood there, admiring the view, but it must’ve been at least ten minutes, in silence; neither of us spoke a word – to be fair, that wasn’t a difficult task, seeing how Valentina cannot speak. The atmosphere was further enhanced by the sounds of the breeze blowing through the grass, the fluttering of butterfly wings and the whispered songs from birds, coming from a forest not far to the West.

“We… We should…” I uttered, still amazed by The Tree, “We should be moving on, Valentina…”

Valentina slowly blinked green, while still keeping her gaze on – I supposed – The Tree. I presumed she wasn’t going to leave anytime soon, since she was charmed by the beauty of nature’s finest tree, so I wanted to help her loosening that charm.

I channeled a slight bit of Air Essentia from the yellow crystal floating behind me into my right hand, which gradually started feeling colder. After I had channeled what I presumed to be an amount which would suffice, I started focusing on creating a tiny whirlwind: I was now moving my right hand in small, horizontal circles. The longer I did this, the smaller the circles got, and the faster I was moving my hand around them, until all cold disappeared from my hand, and before my eyes formed a miniature whirlwind, just below where Val was floating.

The current of wind was anything but significant; only about 1, maybe 2 on the Beaufort scale, but it was enough to get Valentina rotating – which was my original idea. She started rotating, first slowly, then faster, while also moving towards the center of the whirlwind. I tried my best to stop the whirlwind, but I couldn’t; it was no longer under my control and thus acted as any whirlwind would, but with the added feature that Val was now stuck in it. I could see her turning dark blue between the currents of wind rapidly rotating around her, while she was making high-pitched sounds of panic.

Not much later the whirlwind disappeared, not in a way where it would first progressively rotate slower before completely dissipating, but rather instantly, which made Valentina fly out in my general direction due to the inertia acting on her. When she hit me I closed her in my arms, and we both were pushed back. The force acting upon us was strong enough to destabilize my Magnetic Field Manipulators, which caused me to fall flat on my back in the soft grass, with Valentina safely between my arms, holding on to her tightly.

A few seconds passed while my Magnetic Field Manipulators were recalculating my current orientation and position several times, so they could alter the magnetic field in the right place to easily lift me back to my vertical upright position (or something like that… I remember hearing James talk about it.), while keeping Val close to me.

I released her from my grip once I had reached a stable position again.

“You can be mad at me as much as you want, but you can’t deny it was probably the most effective way of getting your attention away from The Tree.”

To my surprise, she didn’t turn red, not even a slight bit; she kept shining bright yellow. After a second of getting her bearings again, she floated past me towards the forest located in the West. I had little choice but to follow her, so I rapidly started floating beside her, leaving The Tree of Life behind us – for now, at least.

We traversed through another forest, but this time there were other lifeforms to be seen: I remember seeing bunnies running past us after one another, all coated in a white color – as white as the pages of a book are. They didn’t seem to be made from fur and flesh though; it looked like they were just a breeze, following in each other’s wake and being guided by the wind. I saw them stopping underneath a young tree – I’m no expert on trees, but this one looked no older than three years old. They all gathered around one central thing, which I couldn’t see well from this distance, but when we tried coming closer, all the small rabbits fled the spot, taken away by the breeze. I could now see how they were eating from a cloud which very strongly resembled a carrot, it only lacked the orange and green colors.

I remember passing underneath a tree, the branches of which were laid with caterpillars and centipedes – all with a small, fiery blaze coming from between their segments – sleeping on it. Around the tree were lily pad-like flat plants floating with a flower growing on it, which had leaves made of clouds.

It was a magical experience moving through this forest – on a slower pace than we should’ve been floating. We were dragging ourselves forward for a time longer than I care to remember; the sun was already starting to make her way down the horizon. I enjoyed every last bit of the mood it created, until we heard a feminine scream coming from a little ways in the distance. The scream was one of either pain or fear, and only a few milliseconds after we heard it, a few birds flew up from the ground, and passed over our heads.

“That didn’t sound good, Val…” I was seeking Valentina’s permission to see what happened.

She rapidly blinked green, and increased her speed, moving in the direction where the scream was coming from.

“That’s what I thought.” I mumbled to myself, while having a big smile on my face, in my head at least.

We both burst through the vegetation that was in our way, eager to go see what had happened exactly and, perhaps more importantly, if this person – if it even was a person – was alright. In the end, we reached a big, open field, filled with nothing but green and a giant red circle of burning flames around a central black spot in the landscape. The closer we came, the more it became clear this black spot was a person dressed in dark robes, stuck in a containment of fire.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” I screamed at this person.

“What? Yes!” The voice was of a female, she came running to the edge of her prison, to where we were floating. I couldn’t see a face, as it was covered by shadows from her darkened purple robe, but I could derive from her voice – and the current situation – she was in panic.

“I… please, please help me. I know I am a Necromancer, but please I’m begging you.”

I could hear the desperation in her voice. I could virtually hear the tears forming in her eyes and rolling down her face.

“Don’t worry, Miss. We were already planning on doing so. But please step back, we wouldn’t want you to get burned.”

She lifted her left hand up high, I could see a mark of burned flesh through the blazing flames coming from the ground.

“I fear it’s already too late for that.”

“Hang on…”

I turned around and pointed my hand to the Essentia Crystal which was glowing faintly with blue color, which started making its way into it. The heat and sounds of the inferno behind me made it extremely hard to focus.

“This should be good.”

About one third of the Water Essentia which was stored in the Crystal was now stored in my hand, which now moved slowly and floaty through the air, as if there was some sort of resistance on it.

As I did before with the bolt of fire, I held my hands close by each other, trying to make an orb of water which I could use to extinguish at least part of the flames, so I could help the young lady out of her imprisonment, and all went according to plan: the Water Essentia from my hand was forming into a spherical form of actual liquid water, growing in size the longer I held it. The problem occurred when I threw this orb against the walls of flames however: instead of putting out the fire like I had anticipated, the water was instantly evaporated and turned to a bolt of air, knocking the lady to the ground.

“Sorry! That was not what I expected to happen!”

“No, it’s alright. I should’ve told you: this fire cannot be extinguished via normal means. That’s what you get when messing with Forbidden Magiks.”

“So how do I save you then?”

“I wouldn’t know either, I’ve never been in this position myself. I just know normal water won’t fulfill the job…”

I thought about it for a few seconds. “Not normal water”, I repeated in my head. What could I use other than normal water?

“Do you happen to know what happens when you shatter a Water Essentia Crystal?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not all too educated in the Primal Essentia. I don’t know why you would…”

I jumped up in the air to grab the Essentia Crystal – in which I succeeded – and threw it to the ground next to the ever-burning fire. The crystal itself shattered to dust, leaving not a single shard to pick up, but the Water Essentia trapped inside escaped in a liquefied gassy form, which raveled itself around a small portion of the flaming wall, and forced it open. From the very moment the Essentia touched the fire, I saw some parts of it slowly turn to a yellowish white.

“This is the best it’s going to get!” I shouted at the now free prisoner, “Jump through!”

She did just that, she swiftly ran through the opening in the wall of flames, right into my arms. Behind her I saw how all Essentia had now become this yellow, and faded away with the breeze, causing the blazing circle to close itself again. From the corner of my eye I now noticed how Val was becoming blue, either from fear or sadness, or preparing to do what I would be asking her.

“Thank you so much!” She hugged me closely. I could feel her heartbeat against my shell. “You don’t even know how grateful I am! You saved my life!”

“As an arbitrary passerby, I felt like it was my duty.” She smiled a smile on a face I couldn’t see in the shadows of her robe. “Let me first see your hand.”

She showed me her hand clearly now, and as I gently grabbed the back of it, it still felt burning hot. The sight was a gruesome one: her whole hand was soaked in blood, coming from burnt away flesh in lines which started at the middle of their fingers and came together in the center of her palm, from there it continued to the place where the hand was connected to her wrist.

“Valentina, would you mind helping out a bit?”

Val didn’t blink green this time, but came floating above the woman’s hand in her bright blue color.

“This might hurt for a moment, but it should ease the pain in a couple.”

Valentina began to cry drops of rain over the horrible wound over the whole hand. The lady let out several small cries of pain, and she was suppressing her urges to pull back her hand with great effort.

“We would love to aid you more, but sadly this is all we can do at the present moment. Sorry.”

“No, it’s alright. You have done your part already! I don’t know how I could ever thank you, miss…?” The pain was still present in her voice, but in lesser amounts than it was previously.

“You can call me Kate, and this,” I pointed at my friend floating next to me, “this is Valentina.”

“Thank you, Kate and Valentina, Valentina and Kate. My name is Chaele.” She finally put down the hood of her robe, revealing her face in the orange-tinted hue of the dusk.