The caverns stretched on for miles, each flickering with colour from the gem veins that flowed through them like blood. There were openings in the maze of tunnels that contained settlements of numerous variety, each with a different group of people and role in the world. The most numerous was the Tuinia race. They were a species that had evolved surviving off the energy in the rocks. Their physical needs were few, but they had found that sometimes people would come through the tunnels with strange trinkets. If not given a trinket then the Tuinia would quickly become aggressive and violent. That was their way, and was how Laurence found them a few days after moving on from the knife.

Standing in the tunnel, barring Laurence's way stood two men. They were both short of stature but wide set, and had an eerie pale glow to their skin. This glow had come from the salamandrite deposits that could be found in most of the caves, and was just one more oddity in these odd caverns that stretched for eternity. The two young men looked at Laurence and Yun, then said “Prize.” with a grunt. The boy looked at his friend and then back at the Tuinia in front of him. He had confusion plastered all over his face.

“I don't know what you mean.” He replied.

“Prize.” They said again, this time more aggressively. There was no way for Laurence to know that the prize the Tuinia were asking for would be anything he could give them. However just asking for a prize was a bit much for Laurence to take. He had been taught by his father that people get what they deserve, and if someone wanted a present they should deserve it.

“Prize!” The men growled. They were getting angry now, to them it was important that they get something to pass their rite of passage and Laurence was not being cooperative. The excess aggression caused by the Tuinia began to agitate Yun, and he growled back. Now almost a meter tall, the young wolf was an imposing mass of fur and muscle. He pulled his jaw into a rictus grin and let out a throaty rumble at the idea of fighting. The Tuinia both shrunk back at the growl, showing a large amount of fear and no small amount of outrage. They pulled two blades each out of the sides of their bodies and took a battle stance. “Prize or fight!” They said with finality.

“Oh! You want a toll!” Exclaimed Laurence. He quickly pulled out his bag and rifled through it. finally ending on two carved treantite curios that he had made. Neither of them had any power, but they were beautiful statues of plants that he had made to practice fine control of trueforming. He handed them the statues and the Tuinia looked at him, then the statues and then back at him, with confusion on their faces. They were not really prepared for the eventuality that someone might simply not understand them, rather than be unwilling to part with their ‘prize’.

“Toll?” Said the one on the left, pointing at the statue of a sapling tree. “Prize.” He said more definitely.

“Toll or Prize.” Said Laurence, pointing at the sapling as well. The two Tuinia began getting excited and grabbed at the boy. They pointed towards the tunnel they were standing in front of and began pulling Laurence that way.

“Camp!” They said, then began conversing with each other in an odd clicking sound. The two pulled the boy and his dog towards what appeared to be their home. What was presented was a village of sorts, built into one of the larger cavernous areas. It was a colourful place, filled with patterned gemstones and odd bric-a-brac that gave the entire settlement a lively, and almost festive feel. Small Tuinian children ran about everywhere, playing some obscure game where the end goal seemed to be giggling on the floor in a heap. To Laurence, the place was idyllic.

At the centre of the cavern stood a giant multicoloured vein that looked like a tree. It spread over the entire village and they seemed to worship it like a deity. Around its roots were scattered thousands of objects and skulls. Each object under the tree had at least one skull next to it, while some had two. There was obviously some significance to the objects with the skulls, but it escaped Laurence. The gem tree was nothing less than beautiful. The more Laurence looked at it, the more he wanted to make a miniature version to carry with him. He looked up and followed the tornado diamond trunk to its branches and saw the leaves were a fifth gemstone that he had not come across before. It piqued Laurence's interest, so he began planning a way to climb the tree.

“You come Chief!” Said the tree-statue Tuinian. He pointed at the gaudiest home in the cavern and led the boy there. Yun would have gone with him but he was set upon by children before he got the chance, and by rubbing his belly they managed to distract him entirely.

The inside of the chief's home was much the same as the outside. It was gaudy, bright, and most of the objects within were an eclectic mess. There was no rhyme or reason to the objects in the room, but they obviously had value to the chief.

Laurence sat on a chair opposite the old Tuinian male that he assumed was the chief of the tribe. The old man looked up and smiled, his entire face creasing even more than it already did.

“So. You the traveller this time.” His voice was even rougher than the young Tuinian who guided Laurence up to this point, but he seemed to have a more stable grasp on the common tongue. “I called Windread chief of Tuinians, Challenger who you?”

“I'm Laurence. I'm just passing through to get to the next stele. I have to ask, that gem vein in the middle, the one that looks like a tree, what are the leaves made of?”

“The holy tree not your worry. You want to go to fate door? If you give prize then will give you guide. Deal?”

Laurence thought about the effort required to make another statue, and the time a guide would save, then quickly decided the effort was worth it. He pulled out a shard of nereid aquamarine and began shaping it with his hands. He was trueforming, but to the leader of this tribe he seemed to be done sort of wizard. Every pass of Laurence's hands over the stone changed its shape. It started as a relatively pointed shard and slowly came alive in the boy’s hand. each pass was quicker than the last, and each pass added deeper and greater details, until finally after what felt like an hour to the boy there stood a small statue of a giant fish jumping. It was one of the fish that Laurence had observed on the primeval floor, and had etched into his mind as being particularly magnificent.

“Is this good enough?” He said, presenting the statue.

The chief of these Tuinians looked at the young boy as if he was either some sort of demon or godlike being, and then just said “Yes.” He took out a rolled up scroll and presented it to the boy. “This be your guide. You follow red path and it take you to fate door.”

Laurence accepted the map, and then stood up. “If it is okay, I will rest up here tonight and then be on my way tomorrow.” The chief assented with a nod and then he left.

When Laurence got outside he was confronted with a slew of festivities. There was green stones everywhere and the Tuinians seemed to be getting drunk off the energy in them. They were celebrating, and the source of the celebration seemed to be the two young Tuinian men that Laurence had come in with. Seeing how the town was reacting, Laurence looked up at the tree again and began thinking.

“Perhaps it was a good idea for me to stay today after all.” He said to no one in particular.