Chương 509: B8—Chapter 16: Oddities All Around

The other side of the Gate, in Ishkareth, sat on a rise overlooking a city. It was a city, not a town, with at least a few hundred thousand people, but it was the strangest city I'd ever seen. The first oddity was its shape. It was long and narrow, built like a snake wrapped around a forest. The city was only five to ten streets wide, but it stretched on for kilometers, twisting like a snake as it slithered around a forest that looked thousands of years old.

The trees closer to the city were tall, but still looked normal at first glance. Further in, they grew taller and taller, their trunks thicker, their canopies higher, until at some point they stopped feeling like trees at all. Some of them looked as tall as the skyscrapers in New York, rising straight up and vanishing into the clouds. Another oddity was the buildings. They ranged from single-story houses to sprawling, multi-story structures that took up the space of several blocks, but that wasn't the strange part.

Every building was made from logs with the bark still on them. From a couple of kilometers away, I'd thought the wood just looked rough or dark. When I focused, it was obvious the timber was untreated. That didn't make any sense. I've seen log cabins before, and the logs were always stripped. Why would they leave the bark? The third oddity was the lack of smoke. A city built entirely out of logs would obviously try to minimize open flames; that was logical. But people still needed fires to cook.

Blacksmiths needed them for smithing. There were dozens of everyday uses that couldn't simply be ignored. Yet the skyline was clean. So where was the fire? The fourth oddity was the lumberjacks. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people were chopping down trees along the entire length of the city, with a long line of logs sailing downriver past the hill we were on. And the biggest oddity of all was the mana. The Gate said mana level 40, but it definitely wasn't. My channels itched on the verge of pins and needles.

And the mana itself had such a thick Nature Mana flavor I felt like I was inhaling a salad. Thankfully, with the mana saturation so high, I regenerated in minutes, and the itching disappeared. We stood on top of a steep hill, about two kilometers from the city, still invisible.

"Looks strange," I finally said after taking the whole place in.

"Why?" Mahya asked.

"What do you mean why? Look at it. From the shape and the buildings to the lack of fire and the strange mana."

"What is the issue with the mana?" Al asked.

"It's much higher than 40, and it's saturated with Nature Mana."

"It is?" Mahya asked.

"Don't you feel it?" Both said no. Huh. Later, once we took rooms in an inn, I finally solved the fire mystery. The inn was in one of those sprawling buildings and turned out to be closer to a suite hotel than an average inn. Each room had a sitting room, a separate bedroom, and a bathroom with both a tub and a toilet with running water. Actual running water. You had to work a hand pump to get it going, but still. Running water, in an inn.

As far as I was concerned, that put it in the same category as meeting a unicorn. On second thought, Lumis also had running water. So not a unicorn. The suite also came with a small kitchenette. It didn't have anything resembling a fridge, just two regular cupboards under a wooden counter, but it did have a rune-powered cooking plate. It wasn't Magitech, since it didn't use a core or a crystal. Instead, a magical circle sat inside a sealed metal plate that, sadly, I couldn't examine properly.

A smaller plate beside it let you channel mana into it, so the main one would heat up. Unlike the cooking plates in my house, it didn't offer heat control or a proper way to shut it off. You channeled mana into it, the plate heated up, you did what you needed to do, and it stayed hot until the mana ran out. Cruder than what I had, but still impressive. The tub worked on the same principle. You worked the hand pump to fill it with water and then channeled mana to heat the water.

I also learned I wouldn't be able to sell my light plates in this world. They had their own lighting solution, and it looked better than mine. Grrrr. Big glass balls, about the size of a grapefruit, were placed in strategic spots throughout the suite, and you activated them by channeling mana into them. Of course, I got curious about their efficiency and fed one unit of mana into a ball. It stayed lit for about four minutes, and I immediately felt better.

The first version of my plate, the one I'd scrapped, worked almost twice as long on the same amount of mana.

"Amateurs," I told the light ball. Over dinner, with plates of local poultry glazed in a thick jam sauce between us, I leaned back in my chair and glanced around at the others.

"So," I said, drumming my fingers lightly against the tabletop, "do you want to stay here for a while, or explore?" Mahya didn't answer right away. She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at me.

"Did you check the Map?"

"No. But I will now." I opened it, and my brows shot up. The Map wasn't just surprising; it was downright weird. Right around us were four Gates, stacked almost on top of each other, one of them being the one we'd come through. I zoomed in, and the illusion broke. They were farther apart than they first appeared, but not by much, with a day or two of travel between each at most. The whole world had only eleven Gates, and four of them were clustered right here.

"How come the Gates are so close?" Al folded his hands neatly in front of him.

"We do not know." Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! I scratched the side of my jaw, eyes flicking back to the Map.

"So you want to check the Gates, that's what you're telling me?" Mahya snorted and leaned back, crossing her arms.

"No." She shook her head firmly.

"We raced through two worlds at almost breakneck speed. Right now, the only thing I want is to stop for a while and not even think about driving, flying, sailing, or anything else." She tapped the table once for emphasis.

"I mentioned the Map because of the peculiarity. Nothing more." I nodded slowly, feeling the tension drain out of my shoulders.

"Yeah. I'm with you on the stopping idea." Al inclined his head in agreement.

"Indeed." We went to sleep a short while later, all of us drained from racing through the manaless world. In the middle of the night, a knock on my door pulled me out of sleep. Rue lifted his head off the pillow, let out a quiet growl, then dropped it back down.

"Yes?" I called, my voice still thick with sleep.

"If you want to see the magic, you should come out shortly," a female voice said through the door. I was still more asleep than awake, so it took the words a few moments to register, and even then, they didn't clear anything up.

"What magic?" I called. No answer came. With a sigh, I pushed myself up and got dressed. Once my curiosity kicked in, there was no chance of going back to sleep anyway. Rue lifted his head again, squinting at me, then sighed too and climbed out of bed.

"Yeah, buddy," I said quietly.

"I know what you mean." We met Mahya and Al in the hall, along with a few other guests from the inn, all of them looking far too perky for the middle of the night and quite excited.

"What's going on?" Mahya asked. I shrugged.

"Beats me." We both turned to look at Al. He looked back at us, just as confused. With no ready answers, we followed the rest of the guests out, crossing two streets toward the outskirts of the city at the edge of the forest. The night wasn't as dark as I'd expected. An enormous moon hung low in the sky, even bigger than the big moon in Shimoor, and the stars were thick enough to give everything a pale glow. There was more than enough light to see clearly.

The people around us buzzed with excitement, shifting on their feet, whispering, grinning, acting like kids about to get on an amusement ride. We, on the other hand, were still utterly confused, glancing around and at each other, trying to piece together what we were supposed to be seeing. After a few minutes, someone near the front shouted, "It's starting," and the entire crowd turned as one toward the forest. We followed their gaze, and I understood. Every tree stump from the day's logging began to grow.

They shot upward at an accelerated pace, wood stretching and thickening before my eyes. It was like watching a time-lapse on YouTube, only without any of the logic. Since when did stumps regrow? In less than half an hour, every tree that had been cut that day stood tall again, their trunks reaching about seventy or eighty meters high. Branches burst outward next, followed by a rapid bloom of leaves, until the forest edge looked untouched, as if nothing had ever been cut down.

I stood there with my jaw hanging open, barely aware of the murmurs and gasps around me, trying to wrap my head around what the hell I was watching. Al looked downright gleeful and even bounced on his heels. The movement was minimal, almost imperceptible, but it was there. He did bounce.

"It is imperative that I survey the plant life in that forest."

"I'm not working as your pacifier," I said. Mahya giggled, one hand flying up to cover her mouth. Al stared at me with a blank, unreadable expression.

"The swamp in Lumis?" I reminded him.

"I understood the reference," he said evenly.

"However, what led you to believe that I require a pacifier?" I waved him off.

"Never mind. It was a joke." He sniffed dismissively.

"Not a good one." In the morning, after making up for lost sleep, I claimed a seat at the bar in the dining hall and ordered breakfast. Before the food arrived, Al joined me, settling in with his usual composed air, and Mahya wandered over a few minutes later, looking far more awake than I felt. Then breakfast arrived. It was a tall stack of grilled meat with bread. Just meat and bread. I looked at it, trying to understand how breakfast had double the meat dinner had, and nothing else.

At least dinner had some cooked root vegetables with the bird, and a salad of green leaves with fruit. Breakfast was meat, meat, and more meat, and my culinary sensibilities were having an identity crisis. Reminding myself that when in Rome, do as the Romans do, I dug in. Once the rush at the bar died down, Mahya waved the server over. She tipped her chin toward the windows, in the general direction of the forest.

"So. About the trees. How come the forest grows back like that?" The server paused, wiping his hands on a cloth. He looked past us for a moment, as if checking whether anyone else needed him, then shrugged.

"Nobody really knows," he said.

"But there are legends." That got my attention immediately. I straightened a little on my stool.

"Legends?" He nodded.

"Plenty of them." He leaned an elbow against the bar.

"The oldest one says the forest was blessed by the goddess of nature, Eshara of the Living Green. Supposedly, she met her lover in this forest and lay with him beneath the trees. As a gift to the place that brought her such pleasure, she blessed it. The forest never forgot." Mahya snorted softly.

"A horny goddess." Before I could ask anything else, the server glanced sideways.

"One moment." He stepped away to pour a drink for someone farther down the bar. Mahya leaned closer to me.

"A goddess sex story. That's a new one." I shrugged.

"Why not? Goddesses need to make small godlings somehow." That earned another snort from Mahya. I briefly considered offering her a tissue. Al folded his hands neatly in front of him.

"My family's archive contains no mention of gods engaging in such acts. I therefore believe this legend is false." Mahya nudged him with her elbow.

"You're always looking to get laid, so why not gods?" Al shot her a murderous glare and drew breath to reply, but before he could speak, the server returned and continued his legend-telling as if nothing had interrupted him.

"Another legend says it wasn't a goddess at all. It was a druid. A powerful one. They say he was slain in the heart of the forest, and when he died, all his magic sank into the land. His body rotted, but his mana never left. It's still feeding the roots." He was pulled away again, this time by a couple asking for more bread. Rue lifted his head from his bowl, swallowed, put a paw on my lap, and looked me dead in the eye.

"Bestest breakfast. John need learn how to make breakfast like this."

"I'm not sure my arteries would forgive me," I muttered. When the server came back, Mahya waved him over again.

"Are there any more legends?" He smiled.

"Of course. One story claims the forest is sitting on an immense mana vent with predominant Nature Mana. It pours enough energy into the land to rebuild what is taken."

"That one actually sounds plausible," I said.

"The air is saturated with Nature Mana. It's like breathing leaves." The server stared at me, clearly confused.

"He's a wizard," Mahya said. His expression cleared instantly, as if that explained everything. I scowled.

"There's one more," the server added.

"Some say the forest is alive in the way dungeons are alive. Not with a core, but with a will of its own. It lets people take what they need during the day, then heals itself at night." He straightened as someone else called for him.

"That's all I know. Pick whichever story you like best." With that, he moved off again. I sat there for a long moment, chewing slowly, replaying the legends in my head. Mahya leaned back on her stool.

"It sounds like bullshit." Al nodded once.

"Without corroboration from historical records, there is insufficient data to form a conclusion." Rue licked my fingers and settled more comfortably.

"Bestest breakfast." I smiled, my gaze drifting back toward the forest beyond the city. Legends or not, the magical effect was fascinating, and I really wanted to understand it.