Evie looked over at Romulus, who looked ready for a fight. She moved away from the Creature and over to searched toward where she felt the anomaly in the Dark Energy. There still was nothing.

The Creature began making noises again as it stared straight up into the forest canopy. Evie and Romulus searched the canopy for signs of anything, but nothing was seen.

"I think we were followed after all." Evie's face was stoic while her mind raced.

"I'm such an idiot." She had thought it wouldn't be a problem when her bubble barely reached past the lower branches.

They then heard a strange voice that seemed to come from all around them. "Remove your power and submit, Humans."

"I don't think they know which of us is the Null."

Evie nodded in agreement. "Let's keep it that way."

Romulus stood and looked around. "Give us back the woman you took, and you can have your comrade! We're not looking for a fight!"

The same voice boomed back, "You are not in a favorable position to demand. I say again, remove your power and submit."

Evie stood and looked at Romulus. "They wouldn't go about it like this if they were just going to kill us. Maybe something's up?"

"Maybe it's a bluff, maybe they don't actually have the ability to kill us right now."

As if queued by Romulus' words, arrows rained down toward them and stuck in the ground a few meters around them. Evie glared at Romulus. She knew it was suicide to try and fight without knowing what they were dealing with. She pulled back her bubble.

Dozens of the Creatures appeared from behind the trunk of trees in the distance, while others dropped from the branches above them. They were completely surrounded. Some of the Creatures began approaching.

"What are these Creatures?" Romulus quietly asked to himself.

"I don't think they're Creatures," Evie replied, "I think they're Beings that were never discovered."

One of the newly discovered Beings came closer than the others. It was much like the others, but thinner, and as tall as Romulus. Its bark-like skin seemed thicker than the others as well. Evie assumed it must be a leader. Her hand twitched at her side. The leader saw the twitch, and nodded. Four beings materialized beside the leader.

"Do not try to attack," the leader said to her. "There are more surrounding you that you cannot see. Try to use your power to reveal them, and they will strike."

Evie felt the blood rush from her face. They knew it was her after all.

The leader's head turned to look at Romulus suddenly. Evie turned too to see Romulus down on one knee, his head bowed. In his outstretched hands was his axe, and the sword they had looted.

"I surrender to your mercy. Please, let me see my sister so that I may know she is safe. I have brought your injured comrade that we found wounded and dying in the forest. I have healed them the best I can, and I believe they will survive."

The leader turned from Romulus and looked at Evie. "I believe you were the cause of our comrade's injury. You also slew another."

"I..."

Romulus interrupted. "We apologize, we were only defending ourselves. Your comrades surprised us."

The leader looked at Romulus again, who was still down on one knee. It then turned and began to walk away. "It was their mistake, their curiosity got the best of them. Come with me."

Romulus stood and put his weapons away. Two of the Beings appeared behind them and lifted their wounded comrade off the ground. The four that appeared before returned to invisibility.

Evie and Romulus began following the strange Being's leader, while the others that could still be seen watched them cautiously.

Silently, they moved toward the strange dark energy that Evie had felt. They weren't far from it when Romulus spoke up.

"I think I'm beginning to feel what you felt before. You're right, it does feel off. But there's nothing there... Wait, did they..?"

His question was cut short by its answer, as they walked through what felt like a wall of dark energy.

"They did."

Before them was a vast city among the trees. The same species of trees that filled the forest were within the city, but grew larger than those found outside. She looked up and could see walkways built into, and around the trees as far as she could see. She assumed they went beyond to the treetops. It seemed there was no wonder they were never discovered if they had the power to conceal an entire city. "There's no way this is the only one"

The ground level wasn't cleared of vegetation like a Human city would be. Instead, short grass grew untouched by the foot traffic of the city. The area was bustling with the newly discovered Beings in every shape and size imaginable. They weren't limited to just bipedal forms either. Evie wasn't sure if the other Beings were of a different species, but they seemed to be of the same sort of organic life the others were, and all had bark-like skin. They also seemed to interact with each other as equals.

The Beings scurried over to witness the new arrivals into their city, but kept a respectful distance from the armed guards keeping a path clear. They walked through what Evie assumed to be a market, full of goods to be sold.

Evie and Romulus were lead toward the largest tree in the city, situated close to the market. There was a large opening cut into the trunk, but blocked by thick vines that wrapped around the tree. The leader walked toward the opening and placed their hand upon the vines. Roots grew from their hand and intermingled with the vines.

They stood motionless for a moment. The vines then pulled away from the opening, revealing a lit descent into the ground. The leader removed their hand from the vines and stepped inside, giving a glance to the party that said to follow.

They began their descent into a wide underground tunnel. It was more than wide enough for Evie and Romulus to walk side-by-side, with room for a couple more. The ceiling was even much higher than Romulus stood tall, letting him walk through comfortably without the need for hunching over. They could even see easily, for the walls were covered with roots that shone with a blue bioluminescence.

They wound down into the ground in a wide corkscrew. Many tunnels branched off of the main one, but Evie couldn't tell what was down any of them. She decided it be best to keep quiet, and it seemed Romulus had the same idea.

Finally the tunnel evened out, and they entered a grand hall full of warriors standing at the ready, with their weapons in hand. They all were the same bipedal variety they had come across in Platshire, in the forest, and standing guard in the city.

In the high ceiling of the hall was light that shown on everything below, including the small trees, flowers, and various other plants scattered about the hall. Evie could not tell what exactly gave off the light. She would have thought it simply a vast garden then the hall of a leading class were it not for the seven large figures. The figures were seated in Equally as large chairs that grew out of the roots that covered the walls.

The figures had small roots growing out of themselves and into the chairs they sat in. They sat motionless and simply stared as the party approached. The leader they had met stopped short of the figures. They bowed low and went down to a knee before grabbing a root at their feet and grew their own roots around it.

The figures' eyes were fixed on Evie and Romulus, but all remained silent. After a few moments the Being that lead them to the hall rose to their feet, and turned toward them.

"I have been given permission to explain the situation to the two of you, under the condition that you agree to helping us."

Evie let out a short laugh and gestured toward the army surrounding them. "Do we have a choice?"

Romulus put a hand on her shoulder, and spoke to the Being. "Will you give my sister back?"

The Being took a few steps toward them and looked at Romulus. "Yes you will have your sister." Then turned to Evie. "And there is always a choice."

Before Evie could say anything, Romulus went down to a knee. "We agree."

At that, Evie folded her arms and reluctantly nodded.

Elena appeared next to the Being, where she had been kept invisible during the exchange. Evie raised an eyebrow as Elena approached her brother and placed a hand on his bowed head. He looked up, realized it was her, and embraced her.

"Hello, little brother..." Then turned to Evie, "Assassin..."

Evie sighed.

Romulus stood "Are you okay, Elena?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. The Panbaum are quite hospitable."

"That's what they're called?" Asked Evie.

"Well, no, that's what I'm calling them. They don't really have a word for their race in their language or ours. I figured they sort of look like panthers made out of trees, so..."

"May I explain?" Asked the Panbaum that lead them to the hall. All eyes turned toward them. "We have a sort of word for ourselves in our language, but it would be the equivalent of calling ourselves 'We' which won't apply well in yours. You may call us whatever is easiest."

The Party stayed silent.

"We do, however, have names for individual entities. I am Shahn, leader of our armies, and the one tasked with keeping an eye on the alien invaders. You."

Evie eyed the large figures still watching. "And they are?"

"They are our leaders, chosen by our people, determined to be the wisest among us. Scattered about the forest are similar leaders chosen by their collection of peoples. Like your mayors of your cities, but ours last for their lifetimes. Also unlike your leaders, ours do not seek their position of power, none of our people do. Individuals do not seek power or positions, we simply accept the positions we have determined to be the best for each other."

"Where did your people come from? Why do you seem to be part animal and part plant?" asked Elena.

"We evolved from other animals that formed a symbiotic relationship with the trees of our world. We protect the trees, and they give us life. Without them," Shahn raised their head and closed their eyes. "We are nothing."

Evie opened her mouth to speak.

"How long have you been watching our people?" Interrupted Romulus.

Evie closed her mouth.

Shahn brought their head back down to answer Romulus. "Since you first arrived on our world. Our scouts have been watching you Humans, along with the other Beings that have come with you. We have studied your languages, your customs, your every action on our planet. We watched as you cleared forests. Built your cities and farms. Mined every resource you found. We have learned everything we believe we could without contacting you directly."

Evie felt nervous at the mention of forest clearing. "But why not contact us before now?"

"We did not know the outcome. You are all so different. So... unpredictable. We know there are more of you out there on other worlds. We have seen what you've done to the life on this planet. We understand much of it was for survival, we can even understand your people's need for adventure in your short lives, but there has still been much that is unnecessary..."

Shahn seemed almost sad. They looked to the floor for a moment before looking back at the party.

"Your people have done much to this planet since your arrival. Far from your civilization, there are your kind who burn our forests and poison the ground. They perform immoral experiments on the life of the planet, almost as if searching for something, but for what we cannot tell. We cannot get close enough to fully study what exactly happens at those locations. The poison in those areas kill us as well."

Evie looked Shahn in the eyes with a defiant look. "How do we come into this? Why were we attacked? Why were we brought here?"

Shahn stared back. "You were not the target," Shahn gestured toward Romulus and Elena, "They were. We had been following them for many days ever since one of our scouts witnessed Romulus kill two of your people. At first we thought he was just another violent Human. One of many. But after observation, we found he did it to protect Elena. Curious, we watched further and learned of her healing power. We thought it may be of use to healing our planet as well."

Evie looked at Elena. "You can heal!?"

Romulus looked worried. "Please, do not tell a soul. That is what got us in the situation in the first place. The mafia learned of her power, and those men I killed were sent after her. They want to use her and her power for their gain."

Evie spoke up. "So why me? If you don't need me, let me go."

Shahn continued. "You embody the unpredictability of your kind. We had come to ask for help from Elena and Romulus when you came upon them. I instructed one of my scouts to stay close to you and ensure no harm would come to the pair. They grew too curious and too close. We didn't predict you would have such power, we haven't seen someone with the Null power on our planet since your people's first arrival."

At that, Evie shifted uncomfortably. "So you decided to cut your losses and take the girl instead of finding out what would happen."

"Exactly" replied Shahn. "It wasn't the ideal situation, but we didn't want to risk Elena getting hurt in any way. She may be the key to saving our forest. We didn't think you'd follow, but now that you are here, your power could be great use as well."

Elena looked at her party. "While you were on your way here to, uh, save me, I was practicing my power on some of the plants here. I haven't had much practice healing plants before, it's different from healing people. I've mostly just healed Romulus after he'd get into fights throughout his life."

Romulus gave a chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck.

She continued. "I was able to heal broken branches back onto the trees here, I was even able to heal the face of the Panbaum Romulus injured. Next I'll try my hand at the Panbaum the assassin almost killed."

Elena smirked at Evie's dirty look. It was clear Elena was having too much fun teasing her.

"But healing a forest from whatever 'poison' is being dumped into the ground is entirely different from healing an individual of some cuts and bruises. It's going to take a lot of study and practice, and most of all figuring out what these other people are doing, before I can really make a difference."

"We'll find out what's going on," said Romulus.

Shahn bowed. "Thank you, and please do not tell your people of us quite yet. The time will come, but now is not it."

Romulus and Elena nodded.

"Hold on," Evie interjected, "This adventuring hero shit may be OK for you two," She turned to Shahn, "But what do we get out of this? This is a lot to ask for, and you didn't even offer anything worth while... Aside from generously letting us live of course."

Shahn took a step forward toward her. "I'm essentially asking you to save us. You do that, and you will have allies on this planet for life, plus anything you could reasonably ask for. You may even keep the swords you looted from our fallen."

"Deal," Evie replied. "Uh, the fallen..."

"The body was already reclaimed, and any sign of the fight is gone. Our scouts will lead you back to Platshire. If you ever need us, just walk into the forest."

They all said their farewells, and followed the scouts. Evie felt a chill from the ominous feeling she had on the way out of the hall. It was if she could feel the gaze of the seven figures at her back. She brushed it off as best as she could, and continued on after the siblings.