A point on the Map

"... This place. I have a good feeling about it." Steve's uncle declared, pointing at the large crack on the table next to his cup. Steve's other uncle and the rest of their miner friends nodded, their faces serious and thoughtful. Steve stifled a giggle.

Turning at him suspiciously, the men saw only a pair of blue, innocent eyes looking back at them. Steve put another spoon of stew in his mouth. The grown-ups turned back to deciding the next destination point in their journey.

Of course, they were not looking at the old, wooden table. They were looking at a magical map, which emanated from a small, white stone embedded into a journal book Steve's uncle placed in the middle of that table. The map unfolded across the entire table surface, showing the World and glowing patches and circles which stood for places where people asked for Miners or Adventurers like Steve's family.

Blue bands of rivers twisted across valleys, dense forest covered the rolling foothills, and the tall spines of mountains rose further toward the end of the table, where the men had pushed aside their empty plates and cups to make room for their planning.

To Steve's view, the mountains appeared to grow straight out of those dishes, with an odd angle here and a fork-like structure jagged out on the side.

It was as if... Giants! The giants came to have a picnic and put their things there. And then... fell asleep. Or maybe left? Or maybe they just stepped away for a moment, so they could talk between themselves when they were all content and full, just like Steve's family and their friends did after finishing their dinner.

The Giants rested. And the tiny creatures below did not even know that they existed, because to them, the Giants moved so slow that it was as if they didn't exist at all. While the giants...

Just to move that spoon probably took them a thousand years!

Steve looked at his own spoon and hovered it above the surface of the world, wondering what it might be like to be such a mysterious, powerful, enormous, and terribly slow being. Next, his eyes fell on his cup and he pushed it with his finger across the map to the base of the mountain, trying to make its edges blend with its green, wooded slopes.

There! Satisfied, Steve traced the pale edges of the cup, which now became an ancient volcano with a lake in the middle of it. Frosty, white shores covering its entire surface so it looked like milk.

What if a giant came back and decided to pick up that cup? What would it look like to anyone that happened below?

Steve could just see it. He heard the cracking noises as the entire mountain broke off its foundation and began to lift into the sky. Slowly, maybe an inch a year, so anyone down below would get used to it and think that the mountain simply always was there, floating above their heads in the flowing mist. Waterfalls trickling down in thin streams, sparkling through the air and spreading rain-bows in sunlight.

And then... Steve picked up his plate and carried it slowly above the mountains. Floating Islands! Steve couldn't stifle a delighted laugh.

"..." Steve's uncle paused, as all of them looked in direction of the little boy dressed in cyan shirt and dark blue trousers, who stood by the far end of the table with a cup and a plate in each hand. Slowly hovering them above the ephemeral images of the mountains, the child grinned, lost in a world of his own making and oblivious to their attention. Both of Steve's uncles hid a smile.

"All right. So... Does that sound like a good plan? We're going to take on the job?" Steve's uncle returned everyone's attention back to their potential destination.

"Yes, as good as any." One of the men, a miner with thick, broad shoulders and short cropped dark hair, said with an indifferent shrug.

"These biomes are barely explored. No one has been there for ages. There will be plenty of mines to mine."

"Are there any villages down there?" Another verified.

To answer him, Steve's uncle scrolled the map closer and a chain of local villages appeared amid the heavy green of the endless forest. Loose strings of them scattered across, nestling close to streams flowing down from the mountain range.

"There are always villages." A younger man smirked.

"And portals."

"And caves."

"And a lot, a lot of trees. This world is full of them."

"This world is young. There aren't even that many monsters here just yet."

"Well, that's only good for us, Greg." Someone chuckled.

"Steve, eat your food before it gets cold." Steve's other uncle, younger, with green eyes and just a fuzz growth of a beard, reminded the boy, drawing him out of whatever pretend world he just made up.

Steve grinned and sat back down at the table.

"Then, it's decided. We're going to this place." Steve's oldest uncle concluded. "Ron, you're going to send a message to your brother's group? So we can all meet up there?"

The tall, gloomy faced man nodded and left the gathering.

Stepping out from the spacious cabin into the camping site, Ron glanced at several wagons with provisions crowded together. Horses rested in the crudely built coral nearby, their sensitive ears moving to pick out sounds of danger, but only heard the easy laughter and familiar voices of humans. Beyond the camp glimmered the faint security wards, which ensured the safety of their group against the majority of wild animals and monsters that might get drawn toward the light of their campfire.

Satisfied, the man proceeded to his wagon, where he climbed in and started searching for something. They were safe. Even in this remote place where nothing but woods surrounded them.

Swiftly, the sky darkened. Night was coming.