Excerpt from Alexan’s Seventh Journal, Tour of the Small and the Strange.

I like the goblins. In fact, I think I might like the goblins more than individuals of my own race.

Considering that to be a goblin you have to visibly be a crossbreed of multiple other races, it stands to reason that they understand just how difficult and complex life can be, and have learned to live with those problems. On the balance, goblins are the most reasonable people I know.

But they still don’t like it when I describe certain wild beasts as goblin monsters.

Teacher Nolsa

“You’ve compared her to a mink a few times, does Alamia like them?” Tal asked.

“Like them? She loves them!” Nolsa replied with a warm smile. “Sometimes it seemed the only way to keep her in one place was to put her with the breeders and the ratters.”

Tal had to laugh at the idea of troublesome Alamia spending her time with a troublesome animal. “She’s spent a lot of time with the ratting minks I assume?”

“Oh yes, she was all over the little stinkers all the time! I lost count of the number of times I had to give Alamia a bath and clean her clothes after playing with the little beasts.” Nolsa sighed with remembered exasperation that had now become amusement.

Tal could sympathize. The mink and everyone who worked with them all shared that same musty odour. “I’m surprised she didn’t get her own mink,” Tal mused.

“Oh, she tried,” Nolsa’s smile went from wholesome to mischievous. “It’s the only time Alamia ever apologized to me for being so difficult to keep in one place; when she borrowed a mink without permission, then learned the trouble of trying to keep track of an endlessly curious and adventurous little thing.”

“She didn’t change though, did she.”

“No, hehe, she certainly didn’t.”

Unnamed Talkarn

The dim light filtering down from above wasn't much, but it was enough for Tal’s eyes to slowly adjust over time and see what he needed to see. Most of the time anyways.

There had been a couple of spots that required he infuse his eyes with darksight, but he was determined not to abuse the spell and hurt his sensitive eyeballs. His recent experience with mana burn made him leery of the danger.

The climb up the rock face wasn’t nearly so fun compared to climbing the root tunnels. Not that Tal had enjoyed that climb all that much either. But at least climbing within the tree wasn’t so rough on his hands. The walk had been better though, especially when the tunnels had leveled out long enough for Nolsa to regale him, quietly, with more stories about Alamia.

Tal peered up at Nolsa, trying to get a good look at her hair. It was too dark to judge if anything had changed.

Above Tal, Nolsa grunted as she pulled herself up the cliff, hands holding tight to the crude ledges carved into the face of the rock. She too was less than thrilled to be climbing the rock, but the end was in sight.

Tal considered them lucky that this route had seen the touch of intelligent hands before. A long time ago maybe, but it was something.

When Tal thought about it, he realized he had no idea just how long the Erlkin had been living here. If the Tree didn’t slowly change over time, then it probably wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that every place within the tree had been explored.

Just above them was one of the many limbs of the Hollow home. It had been grown over with foliage and pushed into the rock that surrounded the base of the tree. And judging by how some of the branches from the limb extended out to other limbs, this part of the tree was just the beginning of the deceptively large wild regions of Linumbra’s Hollow Home.

At least with the constrainedinner tunnels, the wardens and foragers could have some faith that when an area was cleared, it would stay that way for some time. Out here in the inter-connected limbs, under the cover of the teeming flora, it was impossible to track and clear all the fauna.

At least, not with the limited population inside the barrier.

Above Tal, Nolsa pulled herself onto a ledge with a groan. He could hear her following sigh of relief as he too arrived at the ledge. After climbing over, he flopped carefully on his side to rest. Easil hopped from the rucksack, landing on his feet as Tal hit the ground.

Easil walked around Tal’s head to stand between the two of them. “I don’t like it,” he complained.

“Don’t like it?” Tal grunted out. “We just got here.”

“I can hear rustling in the branches and leaves,” Easil explained. “And no offense, but unlike the both of you, Gnomes are conveniently bite-sized for most of the things that live here.”

Tal had to give him that one. “Okay, that’s fair. I don’t think I’d be happy either.”

“We might be larger, but that just makes us a bigger meal if we aren’t careful,” Nolsa cautioned. Easil nodded in understanding, but his expression still wasn’t happy. He turned his head, listening and watching for trouble as Tal and Nolsa recovered.

Nolsa sat up and patted Tal on the shoulder. “That’s a good enough rest, let’s move on.”

Tal stood up slowly, letting Easil climb up his arm as he did so. Nolsa was up and moving first, starting to check where they could climb into the massive branch.

“Do you know where the mining hut is?” Tal asked.

“Mostly,” Nolsa replied as she took the first step onto a twig as wide as Tal was tall. It widened further as it wound slowly up towards the limb from which it grew. It looked as promising as any other way up, and Nolsa was soon climbing again.

“We talked about it a bit,” Easil said from behind Tal’s head. “Stands to reason the hut would be up against the cliff face on the main limb.” His voice was muffled oddly as he spoke. When Tal turned his head he realized Easil had elected to hide entirely within the rucksack.

Tal grunted his agreement as he started climbing up behind Nolsa.

Being able to climb the wood again was a relief. It provided better crevices and places to grip than that of the rock face. Sure, someone had gone to the effort to shape the rock now behind them long ago, but not all of those efforts had remained intact. The tree also had the benefit of more light coming from the tree itself with patches of glowing lichen and fungus.

They ascended in silence as they climbed further into the recesses of the great limb, delving deeper into the nest of branches, twigs, stalks and leaves. Tal wasn’t used to seeing this sort of foliage outside of wandering around on the surface branches. It wasn’t surprising, but the discrepancies bothered him in subtle ways. While the foliage above ground had provided places to hide, here Tal could actually expect something dangerous to be hidden within.

The way the limbs of the tree started snaking around felt much like walking around the suspended village of Lisnail. Except none of the paths had railings, and instead of houses it was all big gaps into the abyss below.

Past the immediate sound of his own harsh breathing, Tal could hear things moving around in the foliage. He was used to the much quieter depths of the trunk. Out here at the extremities was different: noisy and lively. He heard the distant call of what might have been a bird. From another direction came the chittering noise of some small creature.

And at one point Tal and Nolsa froze as they heard the deep grumble of something much larger. It took a few moments of straining their ears for the danger before they decided to start moving again.

“There is something above us and to our left,” Easil’s voice whispered directly into Tal’s ears. Nolsa froze at the same time as Tal, and he knew Easil had told her as well.

Nolsa held out a hand and Tal could see her gathering dark mana into a dense little ball in her grip. She held up her hand toward a large patch of foliage, then released the hard bullet of mana, smashing through the leaves and rattling the offending branch.

A brown blur with patches of orange scurried out of hiding and started climbing up out of sight and into safety. Its fur rippled oddly as it ran, giving Tal a heck of a time trying to track its movement.

“A marten,” Easil mumbled quietly from where he was peeking out of his hiding spot. “That seals it, I’m not wandering around by myself while we are this far out.”

“Let’s keep going,” Nolsa murmured. She started moving and Tal kept close behind her.

“Martens are like bigger mink right?” Tal asked quietly.

“Yeah, and wild mink are already inclined to hunt Gnomes, they don't care that we're a bit bigger than they are,” Easil replied with worry in his voice. “Wild martens are even more dangerous, and that one looked like an aether marten. Through some trick of light, that breed can blend in with the world around them.”

In another time and place, Tal might have made a joke of Easil’s worries. But here in the outskirts, it didn't seem so funny.

The extended walk along the twisting paths of the tree continued upwards. There was no such thing as a straight path, every turn necessitating a stop to make sure the way they were choosing would allow them to advance further.

As the last ramp to the main limb came into sight, the dim light filtering down from above was starting to fade. While barely noticeable to being with, it had been enough to take the edge off. But losing that light made things much darker. Tal reached into a large patch of glowing blue mushrooms and plucked a stalk that was as large as his forearm.

Nolsa glanced at Tal when she saw the shifting light. "Is that safe?"

"It's a blue charm, perfectly safe," Tal replied. "You can tell by the extra skirt under the cap. At this size it will glow for at least a couple hours, we can even eat it later."

Finally they arrived on the primary limb. Having walked around in circles and climbed up stone and wood for hours, Tal knew he was going to sleep like a stone tonight. But first they had to get through the minor forest of small branches and stalks that stood out from the limb to create a lesser self-contained forest.

From here walking became much easier. The limb was wide enough under them to be nearly flat and there wasn't the risk of falling off a side if he tripped. Tal could even afford to walk beside Nolsa without any reason to worry! And the better pace afforded to them soon brought them in sight of the hut.

It was bigger than the word ‘hut’ might have described, more of a lodge really. It was a longer building, grown from the wood of the tree as most old Erlkin buildings. Too bad the roof had collapsed in. The structure was protected slightly by the forest of branches that stood around it like trees.

“Looks like the living quarters aren’t going to be in very good shape,” mused Tal, breaking the silence. “I suppose it’s been a while since anyone has lived there.”

A grumbling, coughing sound echoed out from in front of them, followed by a series of grunts. What came out drained the blood from Tal’s face and sent a lance of ice down his spine.

It didn’t fully appear at first, only partially crawling out from the caved in building. Its large glared at them with black eyes, muzzle pulling back slightly and hinting at the array of teeth it was hiding. The shape of its head reminded Tal of the black beast on the sign of the dark wood craftsmen back in Lisnail, the dark beast that he had eventually seen realized in the form of the shadow beast that had saved them from the wyrm.

But where the previous beast had a compact form and moved about rapidly on four legs, this one’s forelegs expanded out to a pair of huge leathery wings. It seemed almost top-heavy as it climbed out of the building, wobbling as it took a moment to stretch its wings wide as if waking from a nap.

Which would explain why they hadn’t heard it moving about.

“I’ve seen this in the old journals, It’s like a cross between a bat and a wolf,” whispered Nolsa, “like from the old wildlife journals, a winghound.”

“Well, Easil,” Tal whispered. “You’re not the only one bite-sized after all.

The winghound dropped its forelegs to the wall it was leaning on and the fur of its back bristled as it snarled at them. Long and wide ears popped up and swiveled to face the three of them. The monster had the second-largest set of teeth Tal had the misfortune of running into recently.

“Tal,” Easil grumbled in Tal’s ear. “If we get out of this, I’m going to slap you silly.”

End Chapter