I come to some time later. The sun shines in shards through the thin green needles and thick redwood branches directly above me as my head swam and my eyes flutter between open and closed.  My body still aches but I have to continue on. I pull my satchel close to me and pull out the water skin, put it to my lips and take a deep drink until the skin is empty, and then I breathe quick and heavy before pushing myself up. The leaf paste had solidified into a thick caulk that covered my wounds. The pain had stopped, as did the bleeding. I take a deep breath and shudder. I am cold. I wrap the cloak around me as tightly as it could go. I finish off my bread and pick begin packing everything aside from my water skin, and the now-still black mass. 

I pick it up and set it in my lap. It feels like a clump of green wood, and smells like blood. A large root sticks out from its back and I look up towards the tree. There is a large, sunken cavity in the tree where it had been stuck in. I use my knife to carve into the thing; cutting out a small disk of the flesh of the thing. Just beneath the front surface. Rotting blood pours out of the wound. It smells unbelievably foul. Like a corpse left in the sun for too long. I gag and reach into my satchel for something to wrap around my face to block out the odor. I had heard that monster parts sell, so I decided to cut off the tendrils, and roll them up; putting them in my pocket. 

I dig around inside of the flesh a bit more with my knife, until it clinks against something hard inside of the body. I cut out a chunk of flesh around it and pull it out. It’s the color of the noon sky and luminous. It feels like a chunk of rigid glass in between my fingers. I can feel the mana pulsating within. It’s my first time seeing one, but I knew what it was at once. 

“So this is a monster core.” I say, turning it around in my hand a couple of times. 

I put it in my satchel for safekeeping, sling the bag on my shoulder and push myself up. I decide that I better check the journal to see how many more of what I still needed. I find the request near the front this time. 

“So 42 more Sheep’s Head, 80 more Mothwort and 30 Atoria’s Tears left.” I close the journal and put it back into my satchel. 

I sigh and stretch, and brush off some of the caked green paste. The all the cuts and the puncture wounds underneath had shut, leaving barely visible scars streaking across my arms, and continue my search for the items. I find some more Sheep’s Head in a meadow hidden behind a hill; about twelve more in total, and fifteen more good sized Mothwort. I hadn’t found any Atoria’s Tears yet, as they grew on the peaks of windy mountains. 

After another hour passes I come across a river. I hear it first; like a constant rushing of wind beyond the trees around me. Then I feel it; the sudden shift in the humidity in the air. It is about three feet wide. Foamy peaks form in the middle as the water runs down the slope. I stoop and cup a little bit of it in my hand. It’s fresh. I dip my head in, and let the cold water stimulate my heart. It is refreshing. I can feel the blood beginning to pump through my body again. I felt less dizzy. Less nauseous. I pull my water skin beneath the currents and let it swell until it was fit to burst. I tie it to my belt and push up. My back pops. I take a look around for the first time. 

The river stretched through the forest. Upstream it climbed a rather sizable cliff. Downstream it snaked its way ever westwards towards the coast. I decide to head deeper into the mountains. Perhaps I’d find a nice, airy peak where I could collect the Atoria’s Tears that I still need. The forest grows thicker the further upstream I go. The flow of the river stops up at a pool that catches the waterfall that rushes through a vertical channel through the smoothed out granite cliff, that juts out of the side of a hill. 

I climb the hill; pulling myself up by wrapping my hands around the exposed roots of the tree, or grasping onto the slender trees that grew along the slopes. It takes about ten minutes, and a whole lot of effort, to make it up to where the ground once more evens out, and I continue along the path of the river.

The river cuts through a small gorge, so I follow it by the sound. There are more felled trees here; some had fallen quite recently, judging by the green still found in some of their needles, while others had been there for a while. Some seemed to have been cut by human tools. Regardless, I break open the hollow ones I come across and pull out the Mothwort inside. I collect the rest I need, along with a few extra to cook over the fire tonight. 

The heat of the sun on my back slowly creeps over to my left shoulder, when the forest begins to clear. More of the fallen trees have the tell-tale signs of having been felled by human hands — the uniform style of the separation points between the stumps and the logs, and the way the bark had been stripped near the bottom to allow their axes and saws to bite and cut. A whole section of forest seemed to have been chopped down. I spend some time here gathering more Mothwort in the abandoned logs and Sheep’s Head that grew in the new clearing. A few redwood saplings poked through the grass. This place was definitely logged, I think to myself. 

I smile. Maybe there was a town here after all. I hadn’t really looked at a map, so I didn’t really think about it; but there was a road leading up the forest and beyond, so it wasn’t out of the question. Perhaps I’d find the road there, and I wouldn’t have to bush wack through the forest to find it again.

Aside from the remains of the logged trees, and the screaming cicadas and singing birds in the skies; the only inhabitants of this man-made clearing were granite stones, jutting from the earth. They varied inside, but each contained the typical sparkle of quartz crystal when the sun shone on it at the right angle. There was red granite, dark granite, and white granite. The smallest of them reached up to my waist, while the tallest of them matched the trees in their heights. Spires of stone climbed to the sky,  and I stood in awe. I had seen rock fields before, but nothing quite like this. I pull the bread from my satchel, along with one a Sheep’s Head, a Mothwort, and a few of the other herbs I had had thought would be useful and leave it on one of my folded up shirts in the shade of the largest of the stones. It was something that my grandfather had told me to do; and something that he would do whenever we came across an outcropping of stone in the middle of the woods during our time training together. 

The skies begin to grow orange before I near the top of the incline and the plateau of the hill. The path of downed trees lead me right to it, and just like I thought the tops of wooden structures begin to take form at the summit of the climb; yet it was oddly still. There is none of the normal ambiance of a town. No chatter of people being carried by the wind. No laughter of children. No baying of animals. Nothing but the rushing of wind over the peak. 

“Hello?” I call out. 

Nothing but my echo answers. I climb the hill. It’s not really a town. A few buildings jut out from the grass, spread evenly apart in a large circle. They’re all about the same time; save for one in the middle of the town; which is about three and a half of the length of the other buildings. I peak into the shattered window of one that I pass on my left — the glass that once occupied it glittering on the floor at my feet. 

Twelve cots occupy the building. Each with a trunk at their feet. Some of the beds are knocked over on their side, but most were upright. A few scant items lie around the room. I look at the building to my right. It is laid out much the same. 

“A bunking area?” I say. “Temporary housing for workers per….” My words trail off as I come into the middle of the town. 

There was a large oak. Larger than any I had ever seen. I approach it with my mouth slightly slack. It evokes the same feeling of holy smallness as the White King or the Great Blue. It grows out of a circle of fine white sand, and reaches to the sky with its enormous branches. Green, five fingered leaves grow from its branches. I pick one that I can actually reach. It completely covered my hand, and most of my arm. I let it flutter to the ground to join. I walk closer. The tree is wide, too. I can imagine five large oaks taking up the space this one did. The largest of the branches seemed to me a tree. I have nothing but a lack of words to properly describe the absolute size of it. I run my hands over the lumpy trunk. The bark is rough, except in one place where it was black and smooth as if a fire had been lit underneath. The black stains my hand. I wipe it on my pants leg. Heavy black acorns grow on its branches, and dangle above me. They are too high for me to reach, even if I stood on my tip toes. 

I leave the shade of the tree after a few moments of looking through it to begin searching inside the buildings. As I take my first steps away from the tree I stumble on something buried in the sand. I bend at the waist and pick it up. It’s a hickory ax handle, and an iron head — red with rust, and bent at the blade. I put both back into their resting place, and continue on my way. 

The wooden floor boards creak and groan as I step into the long building on the northern edge of the town. It is dark inside, and difficult to see as the sun no longer bled in through the windows. I turn around. I suppose I’ll wait until morning to check it out fully, I suppose. I should get a lantern whenever I can. I pivot on my heel and head to the bunking house on the west side of town; where the sun was beginning to hang over the horizon.

The red light bleeds into the room through the empty windows; bathing the entire room in evening’s glow. Many items seem to have been left behind by the old inhabitants.

“No way.” I say, as I hurry to something sticking out from beneath one of the beds. 

I pull it out, and can barely conceal my excitement when I see that it’s a pretty large backpack; like the ones that you expect to take on long trips overland. It’s made of sturdy leather, and the brass buckles of its straps still gleam brightly.  I pull it open and it is empty, aside from a bit of dust that dances on the air, and a moth that had been caught in there for gods know how long. There are leather straps and rings on the front to hold my water skin, and to tie my bedroll to it so that I can free up a lot of room inside of the bag itself. I recognize the design. It’s one that was particularly popular 10 years back, I know this because my grandfather had one, and said as much during the time. Though his, unlike this one, opened up to our cellar. I test it out. The leather is a bit rough, but that would be a given because of it’s age. I put my satchel on the ground and sling the back over my back. It feels comfortable. I adjust the slings to my size and put it back down on the ground. I transfer all of the contents of the satchel to the bag, making sure to put the heavier things on bottom.

I can’t do much at the moment. The skies will soon be gray, and the moon will soon begin to rise. If I looked around for Atoria’s Tears I would not be able to find any, as their signature, tear shaped flowers only blossomed in the early morning, and closed at noon. I put the bag down besides the bed, and walk out of the building. I still had to secure the small village before night fell. 

I picked up a metal rod from one of the broken beds and begin my walk around the town, dragging it through the soil, digging a small trench as I go. It takes me ten minutes to completely encircle the town. Once I connect the ends of the circle I sit down in front of it and begin to fill it with mana, while the moon begins its heavenly arc.