Forest Of Giants

Kies didn't make it too far from the crime scene before he was caught red-handed by a group of elven soldiers. The expressions told Kies that they were not thrilled about the damage that his fight caused to the forest. If it weren't for the fact that he just helped save some of their kind, they would have buried him there and then as a tribute to the trees.

The elves looked around, assessing the damage that had been done to their forest. With each passing second, their faces grew darker. "Oh, no more!" One of the elves covered his eyes with his hand. A grumble escaped his throat as his hand slipped down from his face. The elf turned to Kies and said, "You..." For a second, Kies thought that the elf was going to lecture him or cuss him out. But to his surprise, instead, the elf just said, "Come with us."

The way that he spoke to Kies was not a friendly one, but it wasn't a rude one either. It sounded like the elf was doing his best to contain his anger but some of it was leaking out anyway.

Kies followed the group of elves, all the while utilizing his magic to make sure that no one was following them. He was pretty sure that all the demons were gone but he couldn't be too sure. But it turned out that his worries were unwarranted. The elves split up and had some stay in the far rear, some on either side, and even a few in the front to act as vanguards. This way, if any of them encountered someone or something, the rest would know fast and act on that information.

When Nyana said that they were close to the capital, Kies expected it to be a minute's walk away, but the minutes turned to hours. They caught up to the other group of elves, the villagers that were chased out of their homes. At this point, the trees were towering giants, each with a height that seemed like it could touch the clouds. The bases of the trees were wide enough that it was possible to fit an entire city in there, and they don't seem to stop growing there.

Further ahead, Kies saw a single tree that was the size of a mountain. It was bigger than the one that he climbed to retrieve the fragment. There was no doubt about it. The thing that he was looking at was the capital.

Kies looked around for any signs of Nyana but she was missing. She probably went on ahead to report something and he will find her there. Together with the rest of the elves, Kies traveled to the large tree in front of them.

The sheer size of the tree was overwhelming. Several Otanes could fit inside of it, and that was just the base of the tree. It also went up, further than the eye could see. The branches spread out and blocked out the sun entirely, yet the forest itself was still bright enough to see.

Balls of light, bigger than him floated around the base of the tree, lighting up the forest floor. They came in all sorts of colors, such as red, blue, green, yellow, white, and so on, though all of them were pretty dim, giving off very little light. It was because of this that the forest floor felt like it was permanently twilight.

A single entrance was carved into the massive tree, acting as a doorway to what felt like a new world. Inside, just like in the trees that he had seen in the village, luminescent moss glowed, keeping the insides bright enough to see. A spiral staircase lined the hollowed walls of the tree, leading up.

"Took you long enough." It was Nyana's voice. Kies turned and spotted the elf approaching him, not looking too pleased.

"Did something happen?" he asked her, wondering what it was that got her in this gloomy mood.

"Do me a favor and try not to cause any more trouble. You're not the only one who gets in trouble. I will also get an earful." Nyana gestured her hand next to them and Kies' eyes followed. Several old elves were speaking to the warriors that brought him here. A few shot unhappy glances at him.

Oh, so that was what this was about. "Sorry about that..." Kies had no excuses. It wasn't him who blew the tops off those trees, but he definitely could have done something to stop Ammine from doing so.

"If it weren't for the fact that you're here to resolve our problem, you would have been kicked out already. But while we're on that topic, follow me." Nyana led Kies to the staircase and the two of them went up. There were no floors or rest stops along the way. It was just a long staircase to where the first branch was on the tree. It was only starting from there that there were floors as they went further up.

They went up twenty or so floors when Nyana stopped and said, "This should be high enough." Kies stepped out of the stairway through the doorway that was next to it. Taking a glance down, Kies saw that they were extraordinarily far up, and it went even higher too. If someone were to slip and fall down the stairs, they were going to have the ride of their life.

"Come on," Nyana called out to him. "Don't get too distracted. There are many more things to see."

"Sorry." Kies followed Nyana down the branch. There were no other people around and they were the only two on the branch from the looks of it. The pathway was not a smooth one, as expected of a tree branch. There were constant bumps and leaves all over. Kies took one quick peek down and saw just how high up they were. Since there were no railings or any safety measures put in place at the edge, it was very easy for a gust of wind to send someone falling to their untimely death.

Just living up here proved to be a dangerous task in itself. Kies didn't understand why the elves chose to do so, but they probably had their reasons. Maybe the giant leaves every autumn would destroy anything they have built down there? Also, the view up this high was spectacular, to say the least.

Nyana stopped a little before midway across the branch and walked over to the edge. She sat down and dangled her legs over. Kies went over to her and stood at her side. "The problem that you're here to help solve is over there," she told him.

Kies squinted his eyes to see what she meant but saw nothing. There were only trees for as far as his eye could see. "Where?"

"Look a little harder."

"I don't-" Kies was about to tell her that he didn't see anything at all but that was when he noticed something odd about one of the trees. It was sprouting out of the ground sideways. Tracing the tree to its roots, it was connected to a hill that looked really out of place. Rocks were sticking out of the ground when there shouldn't be any. It was like someone placed a mountain in the middle of the plains.

"Is that it?" Kies pointed at the small section of land that didn't fit in with the rest of the landscape.

"Yes. If you look a bit lower, you will see the problem."

Kies looked further down like Nyana said and saw two bright gems. It was hard to tell how big they were from where they were, but one thing was for sure, and that was that those gems were priceless. One of them was a dark blue-green color and the other was a dark red.

"Those are its eyes," The elf told Kies.

"Eyes?" If those were eyes, then did that mean that what Kies was looking at was the golem that was threatening the capital? Then did that mean that the trees and dirt were its back? "Wait, that entire thing is the golem?"

"Yes."

"And you want me to take care of that?" Kies couldn't even see the end of the golem. As a scale, the tree on top of the golem's back was less than a quarter of its size, and that was from what he could see. It could be even bigger than that. It could easily topple down the tree they were currently standing on.

"We have the time to think up something. It will take another few months to reach us," Nyana said on a brighter note, but that didn't make the task any less daunting.

Kies sent his winds out to measure just how big the golem was but he couldn't find where its body ended and where the forest floor started. However, he did sense a powerful magic underneath the trunk of the tree attached to the golem. It was the Stormcaller's fragment that she promised would be there. "I sure have my work cut out for me this time..."

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