The Color of Television, Tuned to a Dead Channel

[Shipfish]

...before promptly crashing in a wildly hilarious fashion.

You had completely forgotten that since you were supposed to build your hive up to the gate, the gate exit would be ground-level in your land. Well, this was slightly embarrassing.

The flying machine was in disarray, though thankfully none of the wooden pieces were snapped or the canvas airfoil punctured. However, it would take several minutes rejiggering to fix the slipped ropes, and this forest was a little eerie to be sitting still in. So you captchalogued the currently useless mess and looked around.

This piece of forest was older. The trees were taller, and had evidence of moss on them, a slightly lighter shade of stone than the bark. They had gnarled roots that formed an uneven floor, making it easy for someone who was not paying attention to trip and fall. It was all rather reminiscent of a forest you had seen in a movie, a film about a young boy who learned he had magical powers and had to go to a boarding school where he would learn to be a powerful mage. Great films. Scary forest.

You didn't think you would find any friendly half-giants or magic one-horned hoofbeasts or mysteriously evil cloaked figures in this wood, though. You felt quite alone. You reminded yourself firmly that your hunter's senses did not extend to the creatures of this realm, for whatever reason. You must keep a sharp eye out for any danger.

As you stand, you idly wonder which direction you should start off in. This forest was so dense that it was difficult to see if there were any landmarks in the area. Spying a tree that appeared to have been hit by a Newfoundland recently, since it was leaning against its neighbors in an alarming fashion, you decided to get a higher vantage point to look around.

You shimmied up the trunk as quick as a nutbeast might have, and jumped higher and higher, branch to branch, with easy familiarity. Once you were as high as you felt comfortable going, you glanced around for anything that stood out.

Ah, that was something. A tree that was quite a bit larger than the others was stark against the dark sky. It was white and ivory, and black specks, small with the distance, flitted across the white trunk and branches. You squinted, but could not make anything further from it.

Oh, did you bring your spyglass? Of course you did, because you are prepared for nearly every eventuality. You battled briefly in your modus to regain the instrument, and held it up to your eye. It was hard to make out... the passage of the specks was so fleeting across the white trunk... but eventually you began to suspect they were birds.

A light breeze, counter to the constant wind from the east ruffled your hair. You blinked, and looked up: something black had obstructed your view in the spyglass.

To your very great surprised, a very large bird was huddled on a branch in front of you. Its head was cocked curiously at your spyglass, shiny black beak clicking open and shut. Suddenly the gold-and-black eye focused on you.

"What a curious device click What does it do click?" The bird ruffled its wings and turned its head the other way, to inspect you with the other eye. It shuffled closer to you on its taloned feet. Very sharp talons, you were quick to notice.

"Oh, er. It's a spyyglass, it lets you see things that are far awayy. It uses lenses." You were edging away unconsciously, and forced yourself to stop. You stowed the ocular device back into your modus.

"Oh, you don't need to put it away click I was not done looking at it click I was not going to try to take it, though ordinarily I would have click It would not be good to rob our Hero click" The bird talked too fast, and the only separation between its sentences was a sharp snap of the beak.

"I'm yyour Hero? What does that mean? Wait, no, don't tell me. Do yyou live in that tree over there?" You really didn't want to listen to this bird try to explain why you were its Hero.

"Yes, Hero, I live in the Whitetree click" It let off the conversation to issue an exceptionally loud screech toward the Whitetree. Several answering screeches could be heard. "You must come to the Whitetree, Hero click There is something you have to do click Also, the Elders will want to speak to you click"

The bird spread its wings and took to the air, urging you to follow on the ground. You slid down the trunk again, jogging off towards the Whitetree, following the silhouette of the black bird.

[Quakerlol]

==> Follow that bird!

[Shipfish]

==> Follow that bird!

What a wonderful idea, you were going to do that anyway. The command console has been very sensible recently.

You trek over the gnarled forest floor with as much speed as you can without hurting yourself, which sadly isn't very fast. The wind barely reaches down here in this older forest, and the dust of this world pools amid the tangled roots, with each of your steps waking it and throwing it into the air to hang until gravity and the cold drops them again. It is quite beautiful, you let yourself admit that.

But ever the bird circles above your head, calling out to you in its clicking voice to hurry it up. Apparently 'the Elders are waiting click' and 'everyone wants to meet you click.' You fervently hoped the Elders would not talk with such an awful accent.

Within a few minutes of just the two of you, several other birds came and began to swoop and play with the first bird. They seemed to be having a hurried conversation with much too much clicking for you to follow very closely. They seemed a but agitated, so you started to pick your way out with a little less precision than you had before, going a slight bit faster. The going was still rough though, and you did not have any intention of tripping and getting sparkle dust all over yourself.

Suddenly, your avian escort scattered. Up ahead, you discerned a movement in the shadows. Without any warning, a huge pseudo-reptilian creature lunged out of the canopy, jaws just barely missing snapping shut around the body of one of the new birds. With a disgruntled cry, it fell back down, sinuous length crashing back through the branches with all the force of its weight.

You got a decent look at it when it hissed and flopped around to right itself. It didn't seem to have suffered much from the lusus prototypings, seeming only to have gained a rough-looking, non-reflective skin. As it turned around, you saw that it also had a sleek, dragon-like snout almost overflowing with sharp teeth. Silently you cursed Lerena's lusus.

It hadn't spotted you yet, which was a great thing, considering how enormous this thing was. Just in time to ruin any sort of chance you had at hiding from the thing, a bird swooped in, crying "BASILISKCLICKCLICK" in a screechy and grating manner. It rose out of the range of its-- the basilisk's-- jaws quickly enough, but it still gave away your position something fierce.

The basilisk focused its eyes on you. It gave a long, piercing and almost troll-like scream, then bounded towards you, all four legs with five be-taloned toes scrabbling on the roots, kicking up still-dark dust.

You unashamedly turned tail and ran. With skill of having done this before (ran from a beast you had no hope of besting) you stretched your legs out as far as they would go, occasionally having to jump across depressions in the ground where the roots were not high. You cursed your genetic heritage, that you weren't tall or exceptionally fast.

Even if you were both, the basilisk would still gain on you. It seemed designed to take advantage of the surroundings in ways that were detrimental to you. It's claws found purchase where the ground would only trip you.

And speaking of tripping. One of your strides was ever so slightly miscalculated, the root you had been planning on pushing off of instead becoming a snare to catch your foot and make you fall. You tumbled down, turning the fall into a sort of roll, though your hands and knees still smarted. You suspected you were bleeding a bit, though there was no chance to check.

You had rolled into a depression, which was not very good. A quick glance backwards confirmed it. You likely wouldn't be able to escape quickly enough to gain any sort of lead on the basilisk. It was time to make your stand.

You stood up, wincing a little at the feeling of your new abrasions stretching. You got a good hand on your staff, gripping it loosely. The lantern swung on the end, you reached to take it down, it would be bad to damage-- you are an incredible idiot. The lantern, of course. Without hesitation, you twisted the dial in a direction you felt was backwards and shone the strange light on yourself.

With that tingle and dislocating feeling you now recognized, you found yourself precisely where you had been before, only several minutes earlier. Or perhaps not several, for you could hear the sound of the slavering beast running this way from in the distance. So perhaps one or two minutes.

Quickly, you got out of the hollow in the roots and hid behind a near-by tree. Oh, how lucky, this tree's heartwood (heartstone?) had rotted out, leaving a nice nook to sequester yourself in. It was just large enough, leaving just a few inches for you to move your hands around. You settled down to wait, stilling your breathing and trying to keep quiet so the beast would not find you.

After a minute or so, you heard yourself trip, which sounded painful, and you winced for her sake. Oh, and yes, your hands were bleeding just a bit, and your knees, staining your training pants a little lime green. Ah well. You heard the basilisk close in, you heard it give a quizzical noise when the past (present now, that's you) version of you was not nicely trapped. You heard it snuffling around a bit.

You were suddenly fearful. Was it possible this creature had inherited the nose of a digbeast? You hoped not.

You entered your modus and battled for the most important thing, a multiple army setup, you could see. You hoped it would be useful. A spherical object slides into your hand just as the black, toothed jaws of the basilisk round the trunk of the tree, and sniff in your direction.

You close your eyes and throw the sphere as hard as you can at the basilisk, hoping at least to distract it and get away.

[Quakerlol]

==> Spherical thing: Be a grenade! Explode!

OR

==>Spherical thing: Be a net bomb!

OR

==> Spherical thing: Be a McGuffin!

[Shipfish]

==> Spherical thing: Be a Chekhov's Gun!

Why, it would gladly be what it had always been.

You had your eyes screwed shut, but even through your eyelids the white flash could be seen. The basilisk made a peculiar noise, mid-way between a croak and a strangled growl. Suddenly, everything seemed very quiet, the only sound you could hear was something rolling down into the depression you had so recently climbed out of.

You were frightened to open your eyes, not wanting to see the basilisk's jaws closing around you. But after a few seconds, it became clear that something had happened to the creature, that last-second modus drop had probably saved you.

You peeked out of the small hidey-hole. There was nothing unusual in sight, and not a sign of the immense basilisk. You scrambled out of the spot, welcoming the slight breeze that cooled your face from the thin sheen of fear and sprinting sweat that coated it. You wiped off with the sleeve of your shirt.

In the depression, something glinted at you. There, at the bottom, the sphere was completely intact. You glanced around once more for the basilisk and scrambled down into the ditch when you spotted nothing.

You picked it up cautiously. You recognized it as the WORKING POKEBALL you had alchemized earlier. It was of the standard colors for the pokeball, white and red and black. It was heavier than it had been.

You had a sudden irrational desire to throw it against the ground and summon a pocket monster. You had to severely remind yourself that that sort of thing was impossible. Though it irked you... were had the basilisk gone?

Just then, a bird swooped down, the one you had talked to before. "Where did it go click click? There was a flash and it disappeared click!" So there was no help from that quarter either. You politely told the feathery creature you had no idea. It seemed disappointed, as if you had something to do with it.

"Come on then, to Whitetree click" it added before taking wing again.

You looked at the ball in your hand again. Where had the basilisk gone? There was a white flash of light, and that last vocalizationg had seemed rather compressed... abruptly the image of someone capturing a pocket monster flashed in your mind. Well, it was certainly possible.

You stepped back, tossed the ball into the depression, and resisted the urge to yell something incoherent.

When it touched the ground, there was another white flash, and something of a joyous warble, and very suddenly there was a blue-green reptilian standing in a rather relaxed position in the ditch. When it spotted you, it turned its yellow and black beak to you and rubbed on your arm. Though it was only a gentle touch, from such a large beast it was quite a push, and you stumbled a bit away.

It cooed in your direction and shuffled its feet, four splayed legs with wide gecko-like pads on them. It nosed over to you, shaking its mane of blueish feathers.

You recognized it! It was the reptavian creature on which a masterful knight rode to face down a cyborg general in one of your favorite movies! Therefore, it was a she, and her name was Boga. "Boga!" you called to her, and she perked up immediately.

She was already saddled, with a high-backed saddle and straps for the rider's legs, which were of course necessary because this species of mount was capable of scaling near-vertical walls. Certainly she could handle a forest floor with no problem at all.

You put a hand on her beak, and patted along her scaly side to reach the saddle, vaulting up with minimal difficulty. You reached for the reins, found them to be well-made, strapped yourself on, and lightly tapped Boga on the sides with your heels.

She sprang into motion immediately, with a warbling cry, and was off racing through the forest with no trouble. You had to steer her back towards the direction of Whitetree, which you could see in the distance, but other than that it was a free ride for you.

You could not be happier right now.

[Quakerlol]

==> Ride your varactyl off into the sunset, triumphantly enjoying your plot point.

==> To Whitetree!

[Shipfish]

==> Ride your varactyl off into the sunset, triumphantly enjoying your plot point.

Truly the command console need not even suggest this. It was implied. Though to be perfectly honest you were not riding in a sunsetting direction. If we were to take the little blue speck as the 'sun' you were riding sort of perpendicular to the sun's arc, more towards its origin. So, north-north-east.

==> To Whitetree!

Onward to Whitetree, then!

The ride on Boga was not bad, once you got used to the slight waggle caused by her peculiar running stride and the automatic adjustments she made for slightly varied terrain. As long as you paid attention, so as to know when to duck for a low-hanging branch, you would be fine.

You pulled out your new computer, that sleek transparent pane that you had now. You were hoping to find some sort of option to track your progress through the game, since being upgraded seemed to have put many more programs on it.

After you shifted to accommodate a sharp dodge around a tree, you brought up the program list. Thankfully, the operating system appeared identical to your previous computer, elsewise you would not be able to find anything. You flicked through the list, recognizing everything you had put on there, and spotting the new additions. You paused on one labelled Maps.

Exiting the program list, you found the icon on the desktop. Double tapping it seemed to do the trick, and you waited for it to initialize. You tucked the device between your leg and the saddle to keep it from dropping to the ground.

Boga had slowed somewhat from her original fast pace. Perhaps that quick trot had been her excitement at being able to run (for the first time?). Now she was going at a pace that was quicker than a walk but not nearly as breakneck as it had been. Even if she slowed even more, you mused, you both would be traveling much faster and more efficiently than you had before.

The forest had changed a little, too. Previously you had seen no trees of a coniferous type, but here they were plentiful. You reined Boga in and led her to inspect one of the conifers.

You realized they had no needles, and that is why they looked so strange. You were used to seeing evergreens with needles or leaves, and without them they looked so bare and skeletal. Deciduous trees just looked sleeping, conifers looked dead.

Boga was attempting to chomp on the lower branches of one such tree, and was not having much luck. When she tried to bite the branches and swallow them down, they only shattered, and her wide pink tongue was not very well suited to the task of swallowing such disparate pieces. She seemed to be enjoying herself, though, so that was good.

You tugged her away and urged her back to the pace she liked to hold, heading towards the clearly visible white trunk of their destination.

You checked the Maps loading progress. It had loaded and was urging you to input a name for your marker. You obliged it, and watched the program draw a line from your gate (a swirling green mark) to where you were now, a blinking green dot marked "Kyanas," sharing space with a blue-green question mark labelled "Unexpected Entity, Input Name and Choose Icon."

You sighed and did as you were told. You put Boga as the name, of course, and chose a zig-zag mark in a gradient blue-green to start with, though you saw there were more options.

What was interesting in this program was how it handled your time-travel. It was clear, on the map, where you had traveled off your path in your flight from the basilisk. Where you had traveled, there was a white star icon, which was flashing and scintillating distractingly. The line of your path, which was ordinarily green, was white while it was near the previous one, to distinguish them easily.

There were also several options for playback, all of which were labelled with inscrutable things like 'k-time playback' and 'e-time playback.' You ignored those.

You were nearing Whitetree, but one last thing intrigued you. Over on the side, away from the main image of the map, was a sliding dial that had five options: 'show k past,' 'show e past,' 'show k future,' 'show e future,' and finally, 'show all.' Without even thinking, you slid the control to 'show all.'

The screen filled up quickly with all sorts of colors, red and green and blue and orange, all crossing each other multiple times. Too many little star icons were rotating on the screen, some white, some blue, some other shades altogether. It was too confusing and you had no idea what it meant, so you reset the option and it went back to being just your line.

Ah. And they had reached the base of Whitetree.

It was enormous. It reached more than three times as high as the surrounding trees, and was forty or fifty times as wide. Looking closely, you saw that it most closely resembled an oak tree in shape, but grew taller versus its width than an oak would.

The bark was glittering in every shade of the rainbow, and the combined effect was to produce an off-white glow that permeated the glade the Whitetree's bulk and shade had produced. You unconsciously pulled Boga to a slow walk, in awe. What a marvel of growth this place was! How odd that one tree had grown so mighty!

All at once, a mob of birds were flying around your head, of all types, magpies and ravens and songbirds and seabirds and even the occasional falcon or hawk. All of them were putting up a racket, most of them screaming it, but some of them singing in high voices: 'Our Hero! The Hero! The Hero is here!'

You pushed Boga to a trot, traveling up a giant root to a natural hole in the tree's base, where you could see within a large gathering-space. Without much thought, you directed Boga straight in and dismounted, the birds flying in behind you and settling up to roost on the many ridges and spurs on the inside of the tree.

The birds were still chattering and clicking, but once an owl, even larger than the rest of the birds, rose from an unseen perch and glid silently to alight in front of you, the massed feathery audience quieted.

The owl stared unblinkingly into your eye, for it was as tall as you, and said: "We welcome you and condemn you in equal measure, Hero-Thief, for you were our death and will be our salvation," before beckoning you toward a more private place than the center of the communal space.

[Quakerlol]

==> Follow that owl!

==> Make sure Boga doesn't eat any of those birds. They look important to the plot.

[Shipfish]

==> Make sure Boga doesn't eat any of those birds. They look important to the plot.

Boga is herbivorous. The only flesh she might ingest is that of her enemies, and she would rather not as it is. In fact, some of the solidified moss on the inside of Whitetree smells quite edible to her. She will think about going to eat it after this little grey rider with the colorful head decorations lets her.

What a startling creature just alighted in front of her rider. It was all feathery, like the smaller creatures who filled the open trunk, but was bigger. Boga thought it did not have scales in the right places, nor the adequate number of limbs. Its beak was also hidden, almost cowardly, in the fluff on its face. She hoped her rider did not mean to spend too much time with that thing.

==> Follow that owl!

You would be glad to do that. Breaking gazes with the immense bird was difficult enough, and it was eerie the way that it made no sound as it moved. You saw it fly behind a half-partition in the tree's structure, a natural inner ridge of the tree that was supplemented with more shining wooden branches and what looked like metal cables.

You turned back to pat Boga on the beak. You told her that she was a good girl and to go find something to eat, and unhooked the reins as you did so. She looked rather put-out that you were not going to remove the harness or saddle, but that would have to come later. Boga bounded off to the wall, climbing up the side of the tree to pick at a patch of wood that looked darker than the rest.

You captchalogued the reins and set off to where the owl had gone.

As it happened, you did not notice that the place where the owl had disappeared was more than a dozen feet off the ground. You had to go all the way around the protrusion on the inner side of the tree, and only spotted the steep stairs by accident. It took you several minutes to to climb them, since they had to wind around and around to prevent becoming so steep they were impossible to traverse.

As a result, it took you almost ten minutes to make it to the small room you now found yourself in.

Well, to be honest it wasn't really a room. Perhaps 'anteroom' would be more appropriate. Or 'entranceway.' The little alcove seemed to mostly be to afford entrance to a hollow in the tree, which was brightly lit since the stuff of the tree itself shined so brightly white. Inside you could glimpse a few odds and ends, but no owl. You were content to wait until he invited you in.

On that note, you saw the owl hop past the doorway, from unseen perch to unseen perch. The owl spoke "Enter," and you did.

You managed to keep in a gasp, but it was a close thing. All across the walls were brilliant little gizmos, all clockwork and tiny gears, some moving and some still. On the floor were a few more, bigger, but unmoving. The huge owl was using a particularly large one as a perch, fiddling away at something that you could not see.

After a few moments of the bird ignoring you, you decided to pay more attention to the devices on the walls. The nearest was a mostly circular device, with a hole through the middle in which it appeared a lens had been clumsily stuck. The housing was incomplete, it was easy to see that, gears and loose fittings characterized the look of every little machine here.

The owl was staring at you again, you could feel its gaze on your back, or rather, more like you heard the little tinkering noises stop. You hung the little ocular device on its home peg, and turned to talk to the owl.

True enough, it had paused in whatever process had occupied it. Disconcertingly, it had twisted its head almost all the way around to look at you, body still facing away. It blinked slowly.

"Do you know why you are here?" It said, not even bothering to hide that odd quality it had in its voice. Somewhere in the room, a tiny chime went off, which the owl ignored.

You were beginning to feel out of place. Within the large open space, you had felt that perhaps you were going to receive a purpose in your being here, that the many hundreds of birds had expected you here. You paused before you answered, trying to find a way not to say no.

"So, not yet?" The owl turned back to work, then, as if abruptly bored, spread its wings to hop down to you.

It looked you in the eye, close enough you could discern the tiny dilations and contractions of its pupil in time with its cardiovascular pump. Your own heart sped up perceptibly, and without thinking you tightened the grip you had on your staff (which you do not remember being in your hand a moment ago).

The owl gave off a noise that might have sounded like a chuckle if not for the slightly off-putting clack of opening and closing beak. "You are still quick, or you are beginning to be quick, I was never sure with you."

It trundled off towards the back wall of the clock-work room, pushing aside a cloth partition to enter yet another room, taking a moment to beckon you in. You slipped through the parted curtain as gracefully as you could, keeping balanced on your toes. This owl was starting to put you off.

The room was dark except for a reddish glow emanating from a dark box. You noticed that the floor of the room seemed different than it had been before, smoother, more constructed. A curious tap of your toes made you think the floor was made of some metal.

It was then that you again noticed that the room was dark. You realized that the tree itself provided light in any interior room, so this one must be constructed of something other than the organic wood. The owl was doing something on the other side of the room that you couldn't really see, so you cautiously edged to a wall and felt of it. Rough, but cool metal greeted your fingers. You felt a riveted join, with huge and strangely dented rivets. Where the untextured metal met the join, it changed into patches of smooth and relieved surfaces.

The owl spoke again. "Those aren't even the best murals, they were done by my kind."

Artfully balanced on one leg, the owl opened the top to the dark box situated in the center of the room, letting the red glow of the fire within escape, and the heat too. Quite suddenly, the cool room was boiling hot, the coals glowing red and gold and white as the air hit them.

Instinctively, you retreated to the wall, affording yourself an extra few feet of air between you and the forge. And it was a forge, you could see that, the extra illumination revealing tools and a bellows on the far wall, which the owl must have been tinkering with.

Again demonstrating remarkable agility, the owl dropped some small chunk of metal into the flaming box and turned to look at you. It's eyes looked like perfect mirrors of the fire below them. "Look at the mural," it instructed, holding the forge's lid open to direct the light.

You turned, but could not make much out other than the red hues on the wall, and a few radially placed circles. You were mildly disappointed, you had certainly expected more than that. You thought about pulling out your lantern, but just as that thought occurred to you, the owl shut the lid of the forge again, casting the room once more into darkness, and led you back to the clockwork room.

The owl once again returned to the corner, setting atop the larger device, and commenced making the sort of small scratching noises you had previously heard. However, before you could distract yourself, the owl brandished a piece of parchment, feeding it into the device, which produced a whirring noise.

The paper came out the other side, apparently unchanged, and the owl took a moment to file it away at the writing desk that had previously been obscured by its winged form.

Once more turning to you, its eyes crinkled in that peculiar manner that you thought might be a smile, and said "I apologize for the lack of introductions. You simply came at a time when I was a bit busy."

You mumbled something incoherent, unfortunately still a little bit disconcerted at the odd quality inherent in the owl's voice. Something you had taken to be slightly different for all people, but consistent internally, was off with the owl. This was incredibly fascinating to you.

It occurred to you that it had been a long time since you had last sat down (sat down on something that wasn't Boga, who while a comfortable steed did not count as a seat). With that realization, you crumpled into a kneeling meditation position, which was a great relief on your feet. In about a half-hour it would begin to strain your knees, but you did not think that you would be seated that long.

The owl clacked its beak down at you, reassuming the perch it took on the paper machine.

---

Hereafter you will not work on this post any more and work on the next one instead. This has taken up too much of the author's time.

[Shipfish]

A moment of silence held sway over the room for a spare second.

Then the owl spoke again, while you rested your feet.

"I've been very rude. My name is Lante. I believe I'm not yet knowledgeable of yours." The owl-- Lante-- idly began to inspect a talon, as a troll would glance over their fingernails.

You found your voice. "Myy name is Kyyanas." You couldn't really think of anything else to say, you were very much confused by the proceedings and were unsure about your place in them.

"Not a bad name. I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. Do you know why you are here at all?" You shook your head, aware that he had asked that question already. You were beginning to feel quite dumb in front of the bird, which did not resonate kindly with you. You straightened your back and answered him fully. "Whyy, then, am I here?"

Lante clacked his beak again, and ruffled his feathers a bit, in a way that suggested a smile. "There she she is, feisty Thief I know." He hopped off his perch and shuffled to a section of the wall compartmentalized into drawers.

You interrupted his walk to ask him a question that had occurred to you several minutes ago. "YYou act as if yyou know me, and yyet did not know myy name. Whyy?" Legs having rested enough, you stood and followed him to the drawer.

"That's an easy one: You've been here before, of course. Long, long ago in your heroic guise, and multiple times in the past few hours to take care of some things you didn't arrive in time to take care of. You have quite the obsession with timely perfection." You weren't going to argue with that last part.

"What do yyou mean, myy heroic guise? And I've met yyou before?"

Lante nodded, at least as far as his avian skeleton could allow. "Future versions of yourself. And be patient!" He was a little snappish at that. "Picking things up is not easy with these claws." He drew from the compartment a stone, one that could be compared congruently to an average-sized fig. It was white, but had a slight opaline quality which you found appealing.

He did not shut the drawer, though, and a peek awarded you with the view of a very complex holding device for the stone, consisting of the same sort of parts as the devices on the walls of the room, but in some intangible way more elegant. You were quite perplexed as to its function.

Lante began to speak again. "A very long time ago, you will steal this. Or rather, you will steal what this rock is but a small part of." You began to notice the room's light dimming, which caused you to glance around for the source of the light. You were forcefully reminded that the brightness inside was from the wood of the tree itself, which was currently becoming less at an alarming rate. Lante hurriedly placed the stone back on its cushion of machinery, and closed the drawer, which made the room at once the regular brightness.

"That little thing powers the whole tree?" You were fairly incredulous, failing to see how such a small item could provide energy for so much luminosity.

Lante chuckled, "You carry a lantern that can bend the flow of time, and yet you ask how a pebble can create light?" You smirked, having seen your surprise was a little unnecessary. He continued. "The heartstone of Whitetree was stolen dozens of years ago by yourself. Without the centerstone, the whole world became unbalanced. The other Trees went dark. The smaller trees, the meadows, the rivers, everything is dark now. The Newfoundlands went rabid in the cold dark. Only this small piece was left, enough to provide one Tree with light. Your appearance here harkens the revival of the world." Lante trailed off, waiting for your response.

To be honest you were a bit ticked with your future self for stealing the stone in the first place. That seemed like a jerk move on your part. But, now that you think about it, perhaps the act of bringing it back was what stole it in the first place. What an odd, self-fulfilling loop of time.

"I'm sorryy I will have stolen the er... heartstone." You honestly were.

"It is nothing, you bring it back too, do you not?" Lante seemed to shrug.

"I promise to bring it back, of course, and tryy anyything I can to relight the life here." Your sincerity was a little ringing in the small room, but it got the point across.

Lante looked at you with an inscrutable expression. He sighed. "If you have no more questions, you are free to explore Whitetree or continue on your quest. Anything you choose, really."

You bowed, thanked him, and left the small room from the way you came.

[Quakerlol]

==> Get pestered by Stebia!

==> Talk to someone!

==> Go explore.

[Shipfish]

==> Go explore!

Gladly! Though to be honest you wanted to find somewhere to sit down for a long while and explore your new technology. Having a new GUI was going to mess you up unless you explored it.

You found yourself standing above the grand open space you had previously been at the center of. Boga was clinging somewhat tenuously to the inside of the enormous tree, licking at a section of moss and cooing quietly (for an enormous reptavian beast, which was actually quite loudly). You didn't really feel like bothering her for a ride, she seemed quite happy. Though...

"Boga!" You had your hands up around your mouth to make your cry just a bit louder. She twisted her head around and blinked at you, then scrambled sideways along the wall to your position. Every scrape of her claws sent a few bits of moss or wood fragments raining down onto the dark ground. In moments, she was nuzzling at the hand you put up to her snout. You whispered happy things at her and Boga warbled back and nosed at you.

After a moment, you moved to her side and began to unbuckle and and untie the various parts of the saddle, which you felt was sort of mean to leave on in the first place. You rationalized it a bit in that you had had no idea how long Lante had wished to speak to you.

Pulling the whole thing away, you captchalogued it and left it for later. Boga gave you a little lick and bounded off again, which looked odd because she was bounding straight up the side of the tree.

You turned away again, leaving Boga to her thing. Now that you thought about it, you didn't really yet care about exploring the tree. What you would rather do is sit somewhere quiet and fix up your flying machine, which you wanted to get better at. You also needed to catch up on Pesterchum, because it had been at least an hour since you talked to anyone and you needed news.

So you needed to find a quiet place. If you climbed up just a little higher, you could sit on top of Lante's studio and be in peace.

Having done so, you quickly battled the useless mess of the flying device out of your modus, and left it so you could sit down and contemplate it in peace. After a half-moment, you also took out your new tablet, and checked for missed pesters, of which you had none.

You started to work on the machine, unlooping the tangled cords and ropes. You had built the smaller model yourself so you knew exactly how it worked, and even the slight extra bits that came with the big one were not that difficult.

Suddenly, your tablet beeped melodiously and the screen lit up. It appeared someone was pestering you! However, you were in the middle of resetting a tension cable, so you let the pesters lie for a moment without thought.

[02:59] -- philosophersBones [PB] began pestering salientStrategist [SS] at 14:59 --
[03:00] PB: Hello?
[03:00] PB: Is anyone there?
[03:00] PB: This is a group message!
[03:00] PB: I need some help!
-- salientStrategist [SS] is an idle chum! --

Well this was no good! What was going on?

[03:00] SS: Stebia?
[03:00] PB: Oh thank goodness!
[03:01] PB: Hi Kyanas!
[03:01] SS: Hi.
[03:01] SS: What do yyou need help with?
[03:04] PB: Okay so are you in any position to get to my land?
[03:05] PB: I sort of fell down this big ro(--k wall and I think I dislo(--ated my shoulder
[03:05] PB: And I got some bumps and bruises but the point is that I (--an't get out of this big (--avern pit thing!

Without any hope of a way there, you glared at the still-knotted mess of your glider. You felt absolutely awful that you couldn't help her. You laughed though, at the concept that you could fly to her planet anyway. Like there would be air in the space between their worlds. And you didn't even know where her planet was!

[03:05] SS: Oh no! I wish I could help, but I'm grounded on myy land right now.
[03:05] PB: Oh darn.
[03:05] PB: Well, sorry for bothering you then!

Sorry for bothering? You shook your head. It wasn't a bother!

[03:05] SS: Is there anyything else I can do?
[03:05] PB: I think I'll figure something out!
[03:05] PB: Probably.
[03:06] SS: I hope so.
[03:06] PB: I'm just hoping those ogres outside don't break in, I'm not exa(--tly in a position to defend myself.
[03:06] PB: Oh wait hold on
[03:06] SS: Hmm?
[03:06] PB: (--rap I think I hear something (--oming!
[03:06] PB: I think it's an ogre
[03:06] SS: Oh no.
[03:06] PB: I'm going to have to talk to you later, bye!!
[03:06] SS: Byye!
[03:07] -- philosophersBones [PB] ceased pestering salientStrategist [SS] at 15:07 --

You were confident in Stebia to be able to protect herself, but you were worried for her anyway. Oh, you wished you could help!

You set down your tablet and sullenly began to work on the glider again.

[Quakerlol]

==> Fix your glider, that looks important.

==> Talk to someone and gather intel.

==> Reflect on just what the heck happened today.

[Shipfish]

==> Fix your glider, that looks important.

You're working on it! Jeez.

==> Talk to someone and gather intel.

You don't want to. You have enough on your plate already, ok? This is all very new and your day has gone very differently than you had planned. Birds and trees and reptavians and different physics. The very machine you had flown here on, the glider you were fixing, by all rights should not be able to fly but it did. And a small piece of stone power an entire tree? Why did a tree need power in the first place?

It was all very much and you were happy to do nothing but sit here and fix your mechanical device.

---

Once you finished, you set the glider against the rough wall, and went to dangle your legs over the edge of Lante's abode. Directly below you, the entrance to his studio: below that, and out, was the open ampitheatre where you entered. An occasional bird swooped through the open space, chattering in their clicky bird voices.

After a few moments of observation, you realized that most of the birds were of a sort you would consider common, magpies and songbirds, ravens, crows, thrushes. You could recognize a great number of them, though you had never made more than a casual study of avian phylogeny. A few were larger breeds, predatory ones; eagles and hawks and vultures. These were vastly outnumbered by the smaller ones, at least 20:1.

The birds were entering and leaving through numerous small holes in the trunk, which looked to have been carved through above major branches. As you glanced further up, you noted Boga, and saw the distant top of the open space. Judging by how you remember the size of the outside, the main chamber only extended a third of the way up the trunk.

You noted that a staircase descended from the top, though it looked to be in extreme disrepair from this viewpoint. It did not extend all the way to the ground, instead stopping with a few dozen feet left. You decided you would investigate that later.

Your tablet beeped again, and you checked it absently. You were really not being a very good server player. It didn't matter, though, since Lerena had apparently no trouble reaching her first gate by herself, and immediately zooming around and skipping the first few steps of her quest. You sighed. Now they were coming here, and would probably expect you to quickly look for your next gate and everything.

You peered down at the long set of stairs that would take you back to the ground. That was dumb, you decided, and looked to your glider instead. It was all fixed up, and it took a few moments to strap in and glide to the dirt floor of the main chamber. You captchalogued the entire device straight off your back, which would hopefully make it easier to put on the next time.

Without much to do but wait, you sat cross-legged on the floor and faced the entrance.