"You would place a portal near the Heart of the Forest?" The Queen asked.

"The god of winter is trying to end the world." I said. "He has obviously declared war on you. Why aren't you removing his army, by the way?"

"Their wall is just far enough away to be outside where we can defend the Heart of the Forest." Mal'Thorn said.

"Of course they are." I said. "The god of winter has already dominated the Mountain Keepers, and I would assume that they had the same magnitude of defensive capabilities that you do. I can offer a refuge that is warm, has sunlight, and fresh water. There are some practical considerations that would need to be considered. Which isn't considering that there would need to be some negotiation entered into. I will not decrease my people's chances of surviving the end of the world by accepting responsibility for the protection of groups that would create weaknesses in my defences. All of which means we would need to spend time negotiating. Time which I do not have to spare right at this moment. A portal will allow me to easily return to negotiate with you once my business is complete. And it would break the siege you are under, at least while I am in range of my portals."

I could just leave... Chantelle was one hundred and forty kilometers to the north, but she was feeling safe. I sent a feeling of questioning down my connection to her, pulsing it to get her attention. She sent back something like needing help and desire for me to be neaby, and then back to generally safe and content. Communicating with emotions wasn't a very clear way to express ideas, but I took it to mean she was safe for now, but did want me to come and get her.

Mal'Thorn had been talking with his Queen while I had been lost in my own thoughts.

"Lord C.C." Mal'Thorn said. "We would welcome your portal, in a location that we can secure."

"That's fine." I said. "If I'm going to do it I need to do it now, though. It will take me half an hour to do and I want to be gone as soon as possible."

"Follow me." Mal'Thorn said.

The tree root barrier around the heart tree clearing unwove itself, digging back into the forest floor. Mal'Thorn led me to the east along the ground until we came to a smooth grey-trunked old tree.

"Hmm." Mal'Thorn said. "I hadn't considered how to get you up."

"You go up and I'll follow." I said.

He started climbing rapidly, his hands and feet finding grips that I couldn't detect on the smooth trunk. He stopped at the lowest branch, five meters above my head. I ran some simulations, a four and a half meter vertical jump was within my capabilities. I crouched on the ground and leapt upwards and slightly towards the tree trunk. At the top of my jump I kicked off the tree trunk and tucked my legs up, coming to a crouch next to Mal'Thorn.

The branches after that were much closer together and I had no trouble following him. Halfway up the tree we came to what looked like a ceiling of woven branches. It extended as far as I could see, at least one hundred meters in every direction.

We came up through a hole next to the trunk of the tree we were climbing and entered a room with a pair of guards, each perched on a sort of chair behind a desk. I was distracted by the chair for a moment, as it was nothing like the Forest Keeper chairs that I had been making. It had a bar to stand on, another bar to sit on, and then a third bar for their tail to wrap around, all done in elegant curves. I made sure to get some good angles on it so I could recreate it later.

Mal'Thorn was watching me with an amused grin on his face. The guard I was walking around hooted at Mal'Thorn, who hooted back.

"You're making him nervous." Mal'Thorn said. "This is where you can build your portal, along this wall. This is a guarded entrance to our city, there will always be someone watching over the portal."

The wall he was pointing to was next to the wall that the doors that the guards were guarding was in. The room was a cube four meters by four meters, with three meter tall ceilings, and the hole leading down to the ground was against the wall opposite the wall with the doors.

I tried to sink my power into the wall and it bounced off. I should have expected that, as the wall and all of the wood around was glowing to provide a warm ambient light, it was obviously enchanted. I could duplicate the stone of my staff from the air to make a door frame...

"Do you have any unenchanted wood, or any other material, I could build with?" I asked Mal'Thorn. "I would only need a few meters worth."

"Certainly." He said.

He hooted at one of the guards who ran out the doors. From what I saw when the doors opened there was a bustling wooden road outside, with dozens of Forest Keepers going about their business.

"How big is your city?" I asked.

"Ten square kilometers, over a few layers." Mal'Thorn said. "Twenty thousand Forest Keepers at the last census."

"And you expect me to be able to create a refuge for all of them?" I asked.

"No, of course not." Mal'Thorn said. "A few hundred, a thousand at most. Most of us will defend our city. The purpose of the refuge that we would ask of you would be as a place to plant a Heart of the Forest seed, and to take enough Forest Keepers to ensure its health. You would be starting a new Forest that we could retreat to if the worst came to pass and Winter destroyed our Heart of the Forest."

I could do that without increasing the above ground area I needed to defend. An underground forest would just need a giant cavern. My druids could accelerate the growth of the trees as well as enchanting the sunlight.

I was considering pulling up a model of my fortress to plan out an area when the Forest Keeper guard returned, another Forest Keeper following behind him with a stack of two meter long wooden planks being carried between them.

I joined the planks together into a doorframe five centimeters deep, a meter across, and two meters high. I couldn't fuse the doorframe with the wall so I formed wooden spikes on the back and hammered them into the wall with punches and kicks. This would be my first wooden Pocket Dimension doorway, and I was surprised to find that carving the symbols into the wood was just as difficult as doing a stone doorway.

As the connection initiated with the first symbol carved I focused on it appearing in the same room as the village doorway, and the rest was just finishing up the rest of the symbols to complete the connection. Half an hour later I was done.

"The portal won't do anything useful as it is now." I said. "Later, I might set it up to tap into a network of portals for fast travel."

"It leads to a closet now?" Mal'Thorn asked.

"Pretty much." I said. "There is another portal out, but it's buried. If you make a list of places that it would be useful to have portals at I could see about hooking them up in the future. But I should be going now. Could you lead me to the northern ice wall?"

Mal'Thorn nodded and led me back down to the forest floor. The ice wall to the north was much the same as the ice wall that I smashed through to the south. Sinking my power into the soil I could sense the width of the wall at only one meter wide.

"Would you like me to carve a proper entrance through the ice?" I asked Mal'Thorn.

"That shouldn't be necessary, it would just be sealed again I am sure." He said. "However, you should know my Forest sense is telling me that there are winter priests on the other side of the wall. I think they're waiting for you to attempt to leave."

"I would have thought they'd have learned by now." I said.

I drew my sword and pushed heat into it. I placed the tip of the sword against the wall at the ground and pushed until it was through to the other side. Then I simply dragged it up, over, and down again to make a two meter block of ice cut out.

I took several steps back and charged at the doorway I'd made, slamming my shoulder into the ice knocking it out of the wall and into several of the priests that were waiting.

Having a clear look through the gap in the wall, the priests have their ice shard attacks ready and in the deep snow there is a line of snow worms blocking my path. Behind the snow worms there is another wall, this one sunk into the ground so I can't tell how thick it is.

I pull the heat from my sword and sheathe it, switching my staff to my right hand I heat it until it starts to glow. Stepping towards the wall I dance among the ice shards that are fired in my direction.

The ice worm directly in front of me launches at me, but I step over and along it. Reaching the second wall I slam my staff into it causing it to crack. Another hit and more cracks appear. And on the third hit it topples outwards revealing more priests and another wall, but this one is running south to north. I dashed off of the snow worm I was using to strike the wall from and through the still falling ice towards the priests.