I am not the mother of mankind, but the mother of all worlds. Tuatha De Danann is my womb, which is also my primordial world. The blood that runs through that world also runs through me. Those that originated from my primordial world have a closer bond to me for this reason alone.

~Mother Danu, The Primordial Goddess of Nature

A dirt tunnel extended off into the darkness. The wind whistled down the passageway, causing the hair-like roots dangling from the ceiling to sway back and forth. The height of the tunnel was about half the height of a grown man, which meant Crow half-scuttled and half-crawled. He wasn’t sure which way to go or even how he got here, so he went in the direction the wind came from.

The path wound every which way that he wasn’t even sure which direction he was going anymore. However, the tunnel remained a uniform size throughout. The only exception was the places that had partially collapsed. Those dangerous spots left him drenched in a cold sweat.

It bothered him, the consistency. Even the slimy texture on the soil made him think of only one creature, but he’d never heard of one this big. The thing was, he didn’t know if an earthworm could become a beast. If that were possible, then it wouldn’t be surprising to find an earthworm this large. Thinking about it, the way an earthworm eats doesn’t seem that scary unless it becomes big enough to consume a person. The thought of getting sucked into that thing and ground up in its gizzard terrified him.

An hour later, he spotted the light ahead and escaped the tunnel. Not even realizing how tense he’d been, he expelled his pent-up breath and felt his muscles relax. He didn’t know what bothered him more, being trapped in that place or the thought of becoming worm food.

Despite his jubilance at escaping, he hadn’t let down his vigilance. Around him were strange trees with bark so dark it was almost black. Looking up, he saw that each leaf was actually created from dark fire. Scanning the forest, he saw that it was the same for all the trees, and he knew that these were once oak trees. More to the point, they were exactly like the tree inside his Soulscape.

Looking through the thick canopy, he spotted the moon, and even though it was so far away he couldn’t see the details, he recognized it. It, too, like the trees, came from his Soulscape. He could almost sense the Frigid Nightmare Mushrooms he hid within it.

Crow wasn’t sure if this was reality or not, but he felt it was nearly impossible for such a thing to be a coincidence. The tree was something accidentally formed due to a list of unforeseen circumstances. The cold moon… who would ever think to combine those things like that? It wasn’t hard to realize something strange and unusual was happening here, but the kind of power needed to replicate those things on this scale was beyond his current comprehension.

Placing his hand on the trunk of a tree, he wanted to test whether it was the shadow of his creation or the real thing. The warmth from within was not something that could be faked, and in a normal tree, it would cause it to combust into flames. Hell, if Crow didn’t have a high resistance to fire, it would have melted his flesh.

“Definitely real…” he muttered. Or at least his mind felt it was real enough to hurt him.

Unsure what to do, he carefully turned and tried to strain his eyes through the darkness to find a landmark through the trees. Anything to give him a direction of travel. It was on the second time around that he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Turning to focus on it, he found a dark shadow rising toward the sky. It towered over the trees but was long and narrow, so it was easy to miss in the darkness. It was too straight to be natural, so he made that his destination.

Other than the worm tunnel, he spotted nothing else that might indicate anything lived here. Nearly a week went by since he climbed out of the hole, and when daylight came, he was forced to stop and rest. The sun’s blazing heat combined with the heat of the trees was too much for even him to handle.

Sadly, he was no longer in the Clocktower, so he also needed to eat. The rations he stored in the Vortex Pin would last at most a month unless he rationed and skipped meals. He had plenty of water, but even that would only last a few weeks longer than the food. He needed to find a source of both.

The monolith he spotted that first night became easily visible during the day. Especially the Ogham runes carved into the side of it. While he had no idea what the runes represented, he was positive it was a formation, and he’d find out in due time. It was time that was the real problem. Judging by his pace and the distance gained, reaching the monolith would take more than a month. Which meant he didn’t have enough supplies to make it.

That realization almost had Crow kicking himself. He’d always intended to bring more stuff into his Soulscape, like a large source of water and potentially animals, but he never got around to it.

The reason for that shortage was Nin. It was a simple oversight on his behalf because he never imagined being in a situation like this so soon.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Nin asked. He’d let both her and Lily out a few days back. Lily was his scout and Nin… well, she just ate all his food.

“We are rationing food.” Crow snorted unhappily.

“I’m a growing dragon, you cannot starve me, or I might eat you!” She snapped back.

Seeing the indignation on her face and the way her cheeks puffed up as if she’d been wrong caused Crow to burst out laughing. “Can’t you eat metals?”

“You think that tastes good? I only consume that for cultivation, and it causes me to hibernate while my body converts it. Even these horrible dry rations taste better. By the way, where is Mara?”

“Paths diverged. We’ll meet up with her at a later point, probably along with all the others.”

“So I have you to myself…?” Nin’s eyes lit up, and Crow felt like he’d just become a prized meal for her to gobble up. Before he could speak, Nin’s head snapped around and stared in a specific direction. Crow had his bow to hand almost immediately.

“What is it?” He asked softly, knowing that her senses as a dragon were much more acute than his.

Nin shook her head and held her alert stance for another minute before she finally relaxed. Slowly she moved her head back and forth while she scanned the area around their camp.

“We are definitely not alone.”