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He did have to acknowledge, however, that this forest was no normal place. He’d visited many times before, and during each venture, it felt quite different from the last.

This forest... it was more alive than most. He’d come to believe that perhaps it really did have a will of its own, as the Dulvani claimed. Perhaps Jaskadan was a slumbering giant, and tearing through it like he and the Mendocava had been doing was going to wake it up.

He hoped so. It would certainly clear a few things up. And maybe this giant could answer a few questions, if it harbored any sort of communicable intellect.

In any case, the fact that the Mendocava had retreated here was interesting. As far as was known before, they had no connection to this place. The Gettira Plains, sure. That was the site of a great battle, one that had decided the fate of four civilizations of the ancient world. The Arakonyc, or Great Apocalypse, was its historical name.

While the true origins of the Mendocava were still disputed, it was now his view that they were enthralled as a result of that conflict. Instead of dying, a puppet master had enslaved them--or what remained of them, at least.

But if they saw Jaskadan as a place of refuge, then perhaps their master was here. Or perhaps... hmm.

He recalled a tale of this forest, one he’d heard when he was just a simple lad with nothing more to his name than the ragged tunic on his back and the treasured buskins on his feet.

He remembered it because it was the tale of a fallen star.

One quiet night, when there was no moon to be seen, a brilliant light fell from the heavens and landed in the heart of a budding forest. A man called Skapa saw it from afar. Being unable to resist its radiant allure, he ventured into the forest to find it.

As he trekked through the forest, however, he saw it growing and changing all around him. Where before it had seemed a small, quaint place, it became a dense, labyrinthine maze full of wondrous colors and sights that he could not describe.

Little creatures began to appear before him. Wisps or fairies, perhaps. And they began asking him questions, wanting to know all about him, who he was and why he had come.