The endless Sea of Green, once thought for the Doctorate-Commander Cold Iron as a serene forest retreat, a comforting contrast to the sanded wastes of Eastern Texas had shown to be masticating maw slowly chewing his constitution away. Yes, the Climate is mild if not Eden-like yet there was a slow aching venom that crept through those who walk the lonesome stone road. That slow-acting poison is the utter like of any other life the further one journey’s, no water sources, no animals not even a few brown shrooms to sate one’s consumption from this grueling trek. The disenfranchised Roboticist’s throat became arid with thirst and his stomach writhed, the toil of this long trek with his remaining robots. His legs eventually began to strain heavily on him as H.E.N.R.I faithfully carried his master on well-welded back, despite being kit bashed together with scavenged arms. If shelter and food isn’t found soon H.E.N.R.I. foresee the deterioration of Izo’s health if his untimely expiration. A scenario he was programmed NOT to allow.

“Must… must… fin—” Cold Iron’s spirit willingly pushed forward against this adversity, yet his flesh had become weak. Teetering between the edges of death and life, only stubbornly defying the former by sheer animosity from the Last Pioneer.

The rest of the Doctor-Commander’s mechanical servants, a procession Mister Handy’s, Olive Assaultrons, a wolfpack of Sawpups and it’s veritably made ‘mother’ a blood stained Slicerdicer remained alert. Programmed to fight and die to protect their master. Their red eyes gliding across the tree lines, their prediction algorithims, if they could sweat fell upon a mania of unassured variables. Such variables bordered between they are not the only entities walking down this grass stone road.

“Halt!” a voice bellowed from the wind gushed trees. So matriarchal and dominant was the voice that it chilled the hearts of men and children alike.

The rusted saws of the Robots and their scavenged weapons whirled to life as they gazed upon their beholder, at the ready for any hostilities that could befall to them in this strange land.

“Who are you strange travelers, to walk the stone paths of Nirmathas?” the bulbous plant-person spoke forth from her ascendant branch. Wielding her wood staff into the air to shepherd the forest beyond away from these metallic interlopers.

The strange fellow was draped in a rotund torso of lavender with hair that stood tall like the blades of grass almost like an Onion had been given arms, legs and black doll-like eyes in a caricature of dressed to be likened of a person. It appeared to be less like a person and more like a plant that happened to walk and talk like one. Specifically, an Onion if one gave it arms, legs, black doll-like eyes and an incision for a mouth. The creature’s height was easily dwarfed by the trunk of the tree it stood beside.

“What kind of damn mut---” Izo’s hunger-frailed eyes opened piecemeal. Too drained of health to think properly, his animosity of his predicament unable to be let go of.

“We require your assistance, Unknown Creature.” H.E.N.R.I. interjected, the robot waved his hand towards their pint-sized greeter at its most amiable setting to present itself as a non-threat. It’s Diplomatic Protocols preceding with neutral intent. H.E.N.R.I followed his program to ensure the wellbeing of his master and that is to above all else not create antagonisms at such a fragile state they are in.

“You seeketh only hospitality, from us?” the plant-person inquired, her staff still raised to offer a distance between themself and these strangers.

“We are just simple travelers.” H.E.N.R.I. explained itself, voice modulated into a diplomatic calm.

“Well… you do not look like you are from Lastwall or from Molthune…” the Plant-Person responded. Its body angled away from H.E.N.R.I. She carefully studied these strange contraptions who stood easily of three of their own heights combined.

For an agonizing tense moment, Izo’s Robots stood ready with their weapons in the event this stranger decides to attack their frail master. The winds blew across the forest canopy, it was if the very land held its breath, waiting for what this fateful meeting shall bring about between this crossing of two worlds.

“I can take him to my village to heal him. But only you and you alone may accompany him!” the literally Onion-skinned welcomer said forth her proposal at last.

“Damnit H.E.N.R.I. what are you doing?” Cold Iron growled at his servant. His delirium exaberated, his sickened body, weakened throughout his trek in this ‘Nirmathas’ land was.

“Ensuring your survival Master.” H.E.N.R.I urged Izo to calm himself. “I acknowledge to your terms.” The mechanical servant turned around to the Onion-Guardian of this forest.

“Fucking hell… this better not be some kind of trap…” Izo muttered to himself shivered nervously, he is a prideful man but right now he is a beggar, and he cannot afford to be a chooser. He remained resolutely of his bulwark, ready to fight and die trying just to survive if H.E.N.R.I’s little ploy produced infelicitous results: Death by plant people…

He heard that was becoming a thing between Utah and Colorado right now. A terrible if not ironic fate for a machinist such as the Doctor-Commander.

The Onion-Person opened her mouth and she whistles amongst the tree line.

Not a moment sooner, two Plant Persons of the same dwarven size as their summoner emerged from the bushes. One intrepid rescuer was a lively Sunflower whose body below its radiant face was made of twisting green vines to made to resemble a torso and its limbs. His equally plucky partner is a snappy individual that smell of dew and herbs on indecipherable origins. He was more of some kind of subterranean root parodying a human’s upright posture than anything else. They carried upon their backs, made of stitched twine, leaves and moss a large man-sized stretcher.

Ushering his master onto the safety of the Rescue Basket, he gently placed the delirious Roboticist onto before nodding to the Onion-Person to proceed in due haste.

Not a moment of hesitation, of they went. Hazed into a famished and tired from his long trek, Izo hated to admit no matter how much he did not dare to say: afraid for his life. His body became the more feverish as his mind blurred around him every moment passed as the Onion-Plant Person and her constituents escorted him and H.E.N.R.I to their village. Every little jolt from the few small bumps from the road ahead quaked his body to its near limits, it was almost like one more pelting of his besieged constitution could give out. Death was nigh a certainty as this point… a fate he refuses to yield unto its light.

It didn’t take long for the murky night of the forest greeted him brightly with lantern lights.

“Ignite my Cauldron!” his Onion host cried forth as soon as she arrived.

The village she has called forth home was something straight out of the depths of fantastic insanities for the cogent Izo. These hovels that made up these villages were more of plant nurseries that allowed their fruits to overflow with its babe well ripe above their age. Vegetation, sprouts and dimpled canals of spring water bore fruit in idiosyncratic harmony with wood and stones to make up these homes. Such growth was almost too fantastic that if one hapless hydroponic farmer back home were to see this village: Izo could flip a coin to see if they would cry in tears of such bountiful flora or fall into despair as their farm had turned into a jungle. More if not over a hundred of these Plant Peoples emerged from their tiny huts, little more than playhouses that can barely fit one to three of them inside. It was if he stumbled upon a Farmer’s Market, if the fruits and vegetables had legs, eyes and can talk. These Plant-People stared curiously at the ragged Human stranger and his statuesque if rather colorfully mismatched automata.

Protectively, H.E.N.R.I. ushered away these curious hordes as Mama Sopas took him into her large hut that sat central within the village.

As was ordered, her pot had been ignited. Steam exhausted forth from its coal-black iron cast as the matrimonial Onion-Person first laid out a small barrel of water into it. The heat sizzled when it came into contact with the liquid as Mama Sopas stirred the pot round-and-roundabout. She spoke in a strange if not druidic tongue as she danced her fingers and body amongst the rhythm of her circular stirs, galvanizing some strange power within herself as she placed several more ingredients into the pot. Some were herbs, yet others were more exotic of ingredients such as greenish stock cube of indecipherable content, a small eye of a tiny creature and even a few bugs.

If this was hospitality, Izo wondered as he writhed weakly on the Sickbed this Onion-shaped Druidess had laid him on, then he would hate it more what they do to those who pleased them.

“Bubble-Bubble… and done!” Mama Sopas removed her wooden spoon from the growing cauldron of aromatic waters. She carefully placed the spoon onto her lips to taste before smiling. “Done.”

She then proceeded to pour the soup onto a bowl before she gently turned around to Izo with her tiny hands carrying it.

“My Special Brew.~” She gave the bowl of soup onto Izo’s two hands. “Drink up son!”

But by then, he lost the strength to even lift an inch of his hands however, the last of his energy now seeping away just as either salvation or sweet release from his misery stared right at his face.

“Come on!” Mama Sopas pouted as she lifted the bowl, Izo’s hands still weakly gripping them upwards towards his lips.

Upon the piping hot brew met his lips, the misanthropic Inventor’s eyes glowed as bright as the desert sun. Not of anger, fear or haughty indifference but of unadulterated… ironically to his name: Warmth.

‘Here son…” his mother gave him a small share of her Brahmin Bone Broth to Izo.

Cold Iron could remember her kind face as he sipped every drop of that soup… before… THEY took her away from him.

Returning back to reality, Izo gulped down the bowl with childish abandon, several drops of the broth spilling into his shirt. Yet those that made it to his tongue, he savored every bit of it.

Warmth returned to Izo’s frail body. Mama Sopas’ incantation, for whatever merits or superstitious character it has gave to this bowl of soup reinvigorated him. He leaped up from the Druid’s moss bed only to hit his head amongst the manlet-sized ceilings of the hut.

“Careful traveler!” Mama Sopas called him out for his overt eagerness. “My hut was never meant to coddle folks of your size!”

The Doctor-Commander’s body jolted back to life as he rocked himself back and forth, to feel his body return to strength, and now remembering he currently lives in a glorified playhouse he couldn’t wait to truly stretch his legs again. Yet even more so, the Druid’s warm bowl of soup she had made, it was perhaps the kindest act he had felt for a long of his cold and selfish life. Fleeting, yet he held onto this warmth with all of his avaricious paws so it could never be taken away from him ever again.

“Son…” Mama Sopas, upon seeing Cold Iron’s streaming tears waddled to his side. “Are y’all right?”

“I… I… it’s fine…” Izo smiled gently to the Druidess. “It’s been a long while since I had anything like this.”

“I can see that in your little human’s eyes. Nothing is more satisfying than sharing the fruits of a day’s labor.” Mama Sopas nodded.

“Yeah… yeah it is.” Cold Iron couldn’t help but agree as he finished the rest of her special soup.

“Hmm… you’re not fully well just yet son. It looks like I may need to make another bowl just for you.” Mama Sopas caressed Cold Iron’s pinkish skin with her purple paws.

“Call me Izo Ma’am.” He told her.

“Izo. That’s a nice little name…” Mama Sopas continued to beam her radiance smile as she reached over to her kitchen across the hut and began to work on the second serving of her soup.

“What did you put in my Soup by the way?” Izo asked.

“A bunch of vegetables, a bottle of sun-light and some herbs. Seeing you how I brought you back from the brink of Pharasma’s Court, my Brew is working on you.” The Druidess explained. “Do forgive me for taking the trouble to make a second one. Most of the portions I give out are for all of my fellow villagers here in Crossfen. You and your knightly friends are quite the oddities here in Nirmathas.”

“Where in America is that?” Izo questioned.

“Where in what? Is Ah-Mary-Ka?” Mama Sopas was about to grab a mortar and pestle to grind several seeds into a powder until Cold Iron brought up about this ‘America’; a land she had never heard of. She turned around, holding her peculiarly shaped pestle at hand.

“What exactly… are you?” Izo asked Mama Sopas.

“I am the Druid of this humble ol’e hamlet here of Crossfen. We are all jus---”

“No, I mean… what are you exactly?”

“You are really not from around here, aren’t you?” Mama Sopas thrusted her onion body forward. Her mouth moped with comforted certainty. “I am what you call a Leshy, fair stranger. We are, how some people say ‘plant-people’. I had a feeling you aren’t one of those dirty little Molthunians or some of those creepy folks from Lastwall up north since you asked.” She warmly answered.

“Mol—what and Lastwall?” Izo repeated back what the Druid said as a question.

“My thoughts exactly.” She smiled confidently. “You are far away from wherever you are. Let alone to even think of travelling here so close to the Eye of Dread.” Sopas informed him.

“Eye of Dread? Excuse me? Where in America are you talking about?” Izo raised his voice.

“America? I… I do not understand what you speak of…” Mama Sopas fumbled. “All I had done to you was make my Soup and enchanted a Spell at you so I may be able to understand your language.”

“You casted a spell at me?!” Izo flared.

“I did not harm you! I only had your health as my greatest concern Stranger.” She allayed him.

“That is Doctor-Commander Cold Iron to you Witch.” He called her out. “Do not ever do something like that to me… at least… not without me permission!” Izo tells her.

“I only did so to help better speak to you Outlander.” Mama Sopas answered, her voice shifted from her typical delicate lilt to a sneering clench of her voice. “And I do not know anything of this… ‘America’ that you speak of.”

Izo seethed as he retreated back to his sick bed, he couldn’t believe the direness of his scenario. Not only was he driven out of his homeland once again, but now he is probably never having the chance to see it again.

Reluctantly, with his head heavy with burdens, the Doctor-Commander incredulously stared at the ‘pestle’ the Druidess held. Normally such a simple kitchen device would be made out of polished wood or ceramic plastics and then shaped into a miniature club with a round edges. Yet Mama Sopas’ was completely linear in geometry, an elongated rectangular box with leather and metal tips protruding around its sides. But what really pushed the slowly recuperated Doctor-Commander was the glinting reflection that reflected pass the small fey-lights that illuminated Mama Sopas’ hut.

“Give me that!” Izo lunged forward, grabbing the ‘pestle’ from the Druidess hands.

The tech-savy Doctor Commander got hold of this strange device and to his horror he recognizes several of the strange rune carvings attached to its side. For these carvings were none other than the latinized alphabet of Earth! The carvings stated: ‘Property of the United States Department of Defense. Unauthorized possession of this item is punishable with imprisonment and/or death under Federal Law.’

It was a relic of the old world reduced to a mere pestle masher by some savage tribal witch doctor. Such a rare find back home would have been calls for a rapturous applause. Thankfully this relic, whatever it may be hasn’t look like it wasn’t been too damaged by ravages of time and decay.

“What exactly are you?” Izo probed this ‘pestle’ further.

His slid down his fingers around the rectangular relic’s body for them to come across a trigger shaped button below it. Curiously, Cold Iron pressed this trigger in the hopes of figuring out what this relic was made for. The trigger sprouted forth from beyond its dormant state a metal prong on one of its end and lights to glow forth around the middle of where he handled the device. The glinting surface that had caught his eye beforehand was in fact a miniaturized electronic interface that sprouted forth another set of words: ‘D.o.D. Sec. Gideon Baird. Master Access Level – Granted. Nearest JSOC Facility – NE 1km.’

“Jackpot.” Izo was so coy. He had found an old Access Key that not only had a ‘Master’ level of security clearance that allows him to bypass most defenses in placed by old world bunkers. But it even tells him where to find it too.

If he recalled his history lessons from his youth, he knows that the acronym of ‘JSOC’ was meant for the Joint Special Operations Command of the Old World. Famous for their access to advanced weaponry, armors and tools that were the peak of technology before the bombs fell. And this key was meant for someone named ‘Gideon Baird’. Whoever he is, he was so important to gain Master Access to their facilities. Such a key would be invaluable to any technologically savvy scavenger in the wastelands, and the Doctor Commander was that lucky scavenger.

He wiped off the dust and dirt that had befallen through the Access Key and was about to put inside his Pockets when Mama Sopas let out an exasperated expulsion:

“Is this how you treat someone who he---"

“Where did you get this?!” Izo yelled at Mama Sopas.

“Apolo---”

“WHERE!?” Izo yelled at her.

“Your phlegm had suddenly changed for the worse you know that? You were behaving so well when I brought you here. But now you're disrespecting my hospitality. Apologize!” Mama Sopas stomped her foot down.

“S-S-o….” Izo struggled with his next words. He was already back at his health half-full yet what is even worse than to be left in the shadows of such a mystery of this US Army Access Key he has on his hands. “I… I am sorry…” he admitted defeat. He was in no room to worm his way out of this one without spoiling all the bunch for himself. Izo is going to have to play this great game coming from a position of want than his usual position of overwhelming strength.

“The look of your eyes, Izo?” Mama Sopas sighed. Not the one to hold too long of a grudge and being of elder age to know younger folks such as Izo and those in the village of Crossfen were a tempestuous bunch. “You have lost something? Or perhaps just searching for some great treasure right now?” she inquired.

“Yes and Yes…” Izo leaned back over the hut’s wall and rested. “I am… a traveler just looking for a place I can feel safe at.” He vaguely indulged the madame with a halfly-true account of his story.

“That explains how you wondered around the Nirmathas Forests for so long. Hovering around like blind ole’ducklings aimlessly by the main road! Most of the village lads who scavenge for supplies don’t bother passing through the old Cobblestone Road.”

“I walked quite a distance…” Izo chuckled. He wasn’t much of a hiker himself but he did say he's a bit more robust for a Vault-dwelling lad like himself. His smile however was just another mask beneath trying to slowly bury the notions of his faults. Of this delusional tribal mutant about how he ended up in some uncharted locale after his Hadron-Colider failed.

“But let me explain this… thing I have here.” The Robotocist kicked himself back to the conversation, not wanting to dwell too much in within his thoughts right now. “This… ‘pestle’ here? It isn’t a pestle. It’s actually a Key.” He explained.

“A key? Like something you would use to hide… things you don’t want people to steal from?” Mama Sopas curiously asked. “It doesn’t look all pointy to me… at least all the ones I have seen.” She mimed her wrists around in a door-opening notion.

“Not all keys and all locks are the same where I come from. There are special keys for very special doors and I know this one should open one! One very special door. But now that you mentioned it Mama Sopas, how did you get your hands on THIS key in the first place?” Izo pressed.

“It was just something I took off from a recent scavenging expedition that one of the villagers came back with. It was pretty hardy so I used it as my pestle until you showed up.” The Druidess tickled her chin upon understanding. “Say, Outlander? If you say that this ‘Key’ we have opens a ‘special door’ do you think maybe it could lead us to some nice treasure? Maybe some kind of special artifact?”

“Typically yes it should.” He nodded. “Look here Ma’am. The engravings here say in my tongue: ‘Property of the Department of Defense’. These were people who are in charge of an Army that came from my homeland. What’s also special about this Key is that it tells me where its respective Lock is supposed to be at and it says it’s not too far away.”

“Army? Like soldiers with weapons, eh? That does sound interesting Outlander. Most of the village’s scouts tell tall tales of what they have seen during their travels. Strange sunlights,” Mama Sopas eyes leaped out of her body. “This Key could actually be of some use to us if it leads us to somewhere we can get some weapons to help us defend ourselves from all the horrors outside.”

“What kind of ‘horrors’?” Izo asked.

“Crossfen isn’t the most peaceful of Gardens here despite our best efforts. Monsters from the North and South stalk us from every corner and search for any weaknesses. Already the village had lost three of their best scouts to them.”

“Well… maybe as a bit of a thank you I can share off whatever this key opens up.” Cold Iron proposed. A law of equal exchange. “Also I can help you out with these monsters and scavenge some stuff for you. Can you maybe let me live nearby with you? At least for a little while?”

“That is intriguing…” Mama Sopas carefully put into thought of the proposal. “I will need you to reveal the mysteries of this key first before I make a decision if you may become our neighbor. Prove to me Izo that the villagers of Crossfen can trust you.”

“Alright, that I can work that.” Izo blithely nodded. It looks like he will have to work from the bottom just to get back to the top now.

“Say do you remember which of your scavengers had given you this key?” Izo wiggled the US Army Access Key on his hands.

“Oh, I should have known you will ask for… him…” Mama Sopas grimaced. “He’s… one of the feistier of the villagers if I may warn you of… him.”

“Try me. I have seen all sorts of folks in my time.” Izo was no stranger to some of the ‘quirky’ folks that the Pioneers of old had encountered during their dominion days in Texas.

“I do not know if you are either brave or naiive then, but if it means I can have that Iron-tongue little runt be of better use out there than here. Then I shall lend him to you for his assistance.” Mama Sopas turned around to her Huts door, gulping apprehensively of who she is about to summon.

The Druidess of Crossfen walked out of her hut, to the awaiting masses of her fellow villagers. “Where is Golgar?” she cried forth.

“That crazy bloke? Are you sure you want to summon him again? Not af---” One of the Leshy’s questioned the Druidess.

“I said, where is Golgar?” she repeated herself. “And make sure when I summoned him forth… he is at least be made clean… again!”

“Sounds like he’s a nasty piece of work…” Izo clattered his teeth awkwardly.

“You do not know even the beginning of him.” Mama Sopas whispered to his ear.

The crowds of Leshy’s shuffled around themselves as they looked for this particular villager. Nervous murmurs ran through the ears of these plantfolks upon their ears hearing the name of ‘Golgar’. If their skin color could change, they would be as pale as snow. Izo couldn’t help but let out a concerned glower unto the Leshy’s of Crossfen village as they scrambled amongst themselves to fulfill Mama Sopas orders.

After they turned the village upside down in search of him, the Leshy’s raised above their crowds a vulgar little mushroom with red arms and legs to the presence of the Druidess. An iron scent masked his approach as Izo smelled the all to familiar of freshly spilt blood shrouding the body of Golgar. But that was only the beginning of the Leshy’s heinous introduction to him. His crimson little fungoid head was netted into a rosy veincap with the life of not only his own vigor but the now dissipated vigors of whatever creature he had just recently slain that crowned his lupine teeth into an august sneer. In some macabre mockery of a little Christmas elf and a garden gnome, he sprouted a childish demeanor beneath his leaf-clothed garments and hardwood armor complimented by his twin green daggers that curled like canine fangs that demand to seek the flesh of only the worthiest of prey.

“Outlander, this is one of the village’s Scavengers and our best Warrior. Golgar.” Mama Sopas introduced him to.

“Mama? Who’s this Outlander? He do’sint look so tuff!” the Leshy named Golgar spoke.

Blood and the smell of guts seeped out from his breath whilst he pointed his twin daggers, fashioned from leaves in an intimidating display of his prowess towards the Doctor Commander. His speech, however, was far more dangerous, spitting venomous steel to those he walks past by that had only proceeded to further unnerve his fellow Leshy’s in Crossfen.

“Golgar me boy, so you remember where you got this trinket?” Mama Sopas pointed to the Access Key on Cold Iron’s hand.

“That useless piece of junk?” Golgar chuckled. “Fetched it from some maggi-corpse when I scavenged for stuff around Kassen by a rat hill.” The Leshy answered rather crassly.

“It’s actually a Key.” Izo informed him.

“A key? It doesn’t look like it can open any lock I know.” Golgar avouched.

“Well, it would be nice of you to have a guide. Can you just, I don’t know… point to where this ‘Kassen’ place is and I can just check it all---” Izo tried to deflect away from Golgar’s unwholesome poise so that he can make off for the JSOC Facility on his own with his robots. He is beginning to see why, for these ingenious little Leshy village here in Crossfen, Golgar was the town’s misfit.

“Listen here, take my best warrior and scout from Crossfen for as long as possible… please.” Mama Sopas whispered to him.

“You sure?” Izo protested.

“Do it please or our I will turn your proposal down.” The Druidess warned her.

“Fine.” He relented. “Okay Golgar, I guess you will have to travel with me to Kassen then.” He faked a cooperative smile at the blood-drenched warrior Leshy.

“Then I hope you and your longlegs can keep up with me then.” Golgar jittered his little feet to a frenzy as he readied himself for travel. “Kassen, it’s just a river from Lastwall. All sorts of nasties like to cross the river there. I love how they squish so nicey down there!” he grinned excitedly.

“I am going to have the reunite with my retinue of ----”

“Last one there is milk-drinking Ouh-landa!” Golgar ran off to the other direction.

“He’s a real piece of work, isn’t he?” Izo turned to the Druidess, just as he readied his legs to depart.

“That’s not even the beginning of him…” Mama Sopas let out an aggravated sigh.