Tibba gripped the trunk of the giant Atlatl Tree with his feet. Growing to heights of over 150 metres, Atlatl trees were the defining feature of the Morradat Jungle and supported a variety of ecosystems at different elevations. Down here, at a height of roughly fifty metres above the ground, was where Creeping Tanglevines started to show up. One of the jungle's many dangers for those who didn't know how to watch out for them. For those who did, their fruits were a delicious addition to almost any meal when they were in season.

Tibba gently rubbed the side of one of the larger vines, one that was slightly thicker around than his leg, with his knife. This triggered the plant's strangling reflex, causing it to slowly constrict towards the side that he disturbed. He continued along the side, causing the vine to curl up and follow its touch until it was tightly coiled at its base where it was anchored to the crook of a branch of the Atlatl tree it was growing on. Tibba repeated the process for the three other thick vines to get them out of the way to expose the clusters of dark red berries on the underside.

Tibba reached in, ignoring the smaller vines that tried to wrap around his wrist that were much too weak to cause any harm, and sliced off several bunches of the ripe fruit. He spun the sack he was wearing on his back around to his front so that he could open it and carefully put the berries inside, then shook his hands to dislodge the few tiny thread-thin vines that had wrapped around them while he was harvesting.

It had taken longer than it used to, but his sack was finally full. Tibba looked upwards towards the canopy. The morning light was beginning to dim, which was the first sign that it was almost time for the early afternoon rain. Travelling the treetops in the rain, when the wind above was making the upper branches sway, made navigation a bit trickier - especially when trying to glide from one tree to another with a full pack. Hopefully he could make it home before that.

The dead patches that had been showing up around the jungle... Tibba had a small involuntary shudder at the thought before turning around to climb back up the tree. He would've been back home an hour ago if he hadn't found those two new ones. Sekehra wouldn't be happy to hear about them, especially since he'd found them so close to the village, but hopefully Tibba's notes and sketches would help her figure out what was going on and how to stop it. Ever since the first dead patch was discovered two years ago, it's seemed like the spread of the problem was slowly getting faster.

Hopefully somebody would figure out how to deal with the problem soon.

[Tibba reports the dead patches in the forest to Rastika, the old sage]

Rastika lived in a small at the very edge of the village, a small hut that hung from a massive bough that was more than halfway down to the lower canopy. Nobody knew exactly how old she was - some said that she was older even than Kliktamorska and that it was her duty to the forest that was somehow keeping her from entering Second Childhood. The hut was old and creaky, swaying gently even in the minimal winds that made it through all the different layers of leaves. The air that clung to the front porch felt heavy and smelled strongly of countless varieties of dried and drying herbs that Rastika kept inside.

Tibba fidgeted with his hands as he stood in front of the door. All of the windows were shrouded by dark, heavy curtains that made him feel like the house was watching him. Judging him. Not seeing anything particularly favourable to relay to the occupant inside.

Should he knock? Even though he tried his best to land lightly, his added weight had definitely affected hut's gentle motion. If anyone was inside they must have noticed. Maybe she was out gathering more herbs? Or maybe just napping?

Tibba was suddenly acutely aware that he didn't actually know the first thing about talking to the inhabitant of the creepiest house in the village, someone who may or may not be able to put a magical curse on young men who interrupted her when she was in the middle of more important things. The most polite course of action would probably be to just hop off and glide away and try again some other time.

Tibba nervously scratched at the wooden floor of the front landing with the claws on his feet.  Yup. Probably best for everyone to just leave now and try again some other time. He started to turn around.

Creeeeaaaak

Tibba's head whipped back around as the door slowly opened, his sudden motion causing the whole hut to rock slightly. He gripped tighter with his feet and flared his wing-flaps to keep his balance.

Two eyes in the shadowy hut looked back at him - one a dark amber, pupil fully dilated from being in the unlit interior of the house, the other a milky white.

Tibba did his best to hold still under the weight of that gaze, but couldn't help shifting his weight from foot to foot as he stood there, awkwardly, trying to find any words that he could feed to his mouth to break the awkward silence.

"Tibris?" she finally asked, her voice coming out more like a croak, as though it hadn't been used in a very long time.

"My younger-parent," Tibba replied, immediately grateful for anything to talk about to quell his imagination. "She goes by Tixabris now, is one of the head foragers. Tibba. Um, I mean, that's me. I'm Tibba, pleased to, uh, meet you..."

"Huh. Kids." Rastika gave a heavy sigh as she turned to go back inside her hut. "Always growing up on you when you're not looking. Come in, come in, watch your head," she said as she shuffled inside without looking back. "Tea?"

"Uh... sure?" Tibba answered, taking a deep breath before plunging into the dark hut. Outside, the odours from all of Rastika's herbs and medicines may have been clingy, but in here it was like an olfactory shouting match even before Tibba had a chance to inhale. Tibba kept a hand on the wall as he slowly picked his way forward while he waited for his eyes to adjust, his face smacking into a bundle of wortweed hanging from the ceiling as he did.

"Sit."

Tibba sat, his knees bumping into a low table as he did. He bit his tongue to keep from yelling out, which made it harder to keep breathing through his mouth instead of his nose.

"So? What brings the young... Tibba, was it? Here to see this strange old woman, hmmm?" She placed a pitcher of some sort of cold-brew tea and two wooden cups on the table before sitting down opposite Tibba. "No, I don't do love potions, I'm a terrible matchmaker, and if you want to curse your rival you'll have to do that on your own. Does that cover it?"

Tibba gave a nervous laugh as he took his cup of tea. "No! No, it's nothing like that. You see..."  Tibba launched into an explanation of the dead patches that he'd discovered in the forest. Rastika's expression quickly turned grim as he spoke. Occasionally she would ask a few clarifying questions, but otherwise let Tibba tell his tale uninterrupted.

"...and so they said that I should be the one to come and tell you, so here I am," Tibba finished.

Rastika took a long, slow breath and slowly let it out.

"It is good that you came to tell me, Tibris."

"Tibba," he corrected.

"Yes, sorry. You look so much like she did at your age." Rastika took a sip of her tea, then paused as she seemed to be carefully considering what to say next.

"Tibba... With your news, I fear..." She shook her head. "You know of the great Lord of the Forest, yes?"

Tibba nodded. He had been to the tallest tree of the forest only once, the day when he and the other Ghishveldi of his year were officially recognized during their coming-of-age ceremony.

"The trees of the village haven't heard her voice in weeks," Rastika continued. "It happens that she goes dormant occasionally, but-"

"You can really speak with the trees?!" Tibba clapped his hands over his mouth at his outburst. "Sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-"

Rastika gave a low, raspy chuckle. "And so could you, or anyone, if you listened properly. Trees are quite chatty, you know, and can send a message to any tree that is is part of the same root network. But if you are not ready to dedicate a lifetime to the craft..." She sighed, and her expression became dour once again. "The life-lines of the forest all run through the Forest Lord, and from her radiate out to the farthest reaches. If the Lord of the Forest is silent, it could be nothing, or..."

"Or she's been cut off from the network?"

Rastika grimaced as she stood up and turned away from the table. "Or the unthinkable. In either case, if the life-lines have been severed the entire forest is in peril. You are young and nimble still, young T-... Tibba. Go. Make haste!" She shuffled some items on the shelves and rummaged in some of the drawers. "You must visit the Lord of the Forest and make sure she is still well. If not... aha!" She held up a wooden amulet on a beaded string. "And if she is in trouble, seek out the dragon in her uppermost branches. The dragons will know what to do, if nothing else."

Rastika shoved the wooden amulet into Tibba's hands. In the dim cabin he couldn't see the details very clearly, but his fingers could trace out what felt like a carving of a Ghishveldi in flight.

"Me?" Tibba squeaked. "The dragon?"

"Yes, you. I would go myself, but..." Rastika stretched her back and wingflaps, and Tibba winced at the sound of all the joints popping. "That amulet will grant you an audience. Go! And glide swiftly."

[Tibba meets Dimos]

Tibba paused and listened. Was that a voice yelling out? Did somebody follow him?

He heard it again. Too far away to make out actual words, but definitely a voice. And from somewhere up ahead, so not somebody following. Unless they'd got ahead of him somehow?  Tibba closed his eyes and shook his head. He should stick to his plan. Just get to the Puinigarst tree, find Smaragdin, petition the great dragon for a miracle. She'd have to have something to stop this... this great dying.  And since nobody else was willing to make the trip...

Tibba landed on the side of the next tree and paused as he climbed up and around it. There was that sound again. It sounded like he was closer to that voice, and whoever or whatever it was almost sounded like they might be in trouble. He hesitated, unsure. It was probably just a Tikitalla bird mimicking a voice that it heard once. Or if it is a person, their companion should be able to help them, right? This part of the jungle can be dangerous, they shouldn't be travelling alone!

That he himself had snuck out on his own hit him with a small pang of guilt. He adjusted his position and leapt, spreading his wingflaps to glide to an arboreal pillar that was off his intended path, away from the trail that was well-travelled enough that it was kept mostly clear of the worst dangers.

This had better not be a Tikitalla playing tricks.

Tibba moved cautiously through the trees, painfully alert for any of the Jungle's many dangers. He navigated around a patch of rash-inducing poison gesprite, hid in the shadows beneath a thick branch when he thought he glimpsed a shadowcat from the corner of his eye, and avoided gliding face-first into a blue-banded tarantula's web by pulling his wingflaps in to drop significant altitude at the last second.

Leaving the trail was a mistake...

He heard the voice again, much closer this time. It sounded close... like it was coming from somewhere almost directly below? Tibba frowned. He was already about  as low down in the canopy as any Ghishveldi would want to travel. It sounded like... like the voice was coming from below the lower canopy, the floor of leaves formed by the lower plants reaching as high as they could to soak up the limited light that the Atlatl trees let through.  He was already well outside of the areas that he knew well - any number of dangers might be lurking that close to the ground!

But if the situation was reversed and he had been the one knocked so far down...

Tibba carefully crawled down the side of the tree he was on, down into the thick layer of leaves and twiggy branches of the lower canopy. It was a lot darker here than it was in the normal layer of the jungle, and it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom. He could hear thrashing now, shaking leaves that were more than just the wind or scurrying animals. He crawled further down, winding his way through the tightly woven leaves and branches, keeping his wingflaps held firmly at his sides to not scratch or puncture the membranes, until he finally nosed through the bottom of the leaf layer, emerging barely fifteen metres above the moss and ferns of the jungle's true floor.

And there, dangling from a cluster of Creeping Tanglevines, was the person whose voice Tibba was following. Tibba could see pale blue scales patterned with red and yellow stripes between the places where the vines were gripping them - both legs were bound up, as well as one arm. Another vine was wound around their torso. They were sawing at the side of one of the vines with a long dagger while their tail was twisted around in a very un-Ghishveldi manner, blindly fishing in the pouches they wore across their back, presumably for something that would help them out of their predicament.

"Hold still!" Tibba yelled as he looked for a safe path to get closer.

The strange person turned their head to look at Tibba, then broke into a wide grin when they spotted him. "Ah! Perfect timing! You see, I have just discovered the most incredible shortcut to tree-climbing! I'm just in the process now of inventing a way to get back down..."

"Stop!" Tibba yelled as he jumped and spread his wingflaps to glide through a clear patch to reach the tree that the stranger was dangling from. "You're hurting it!"

"Yeah, probably? I kinda ran out of ideas when 'pretty please' didn't work."

Tibba frowned as he crawled along the bottom of the branch that the vine was growing on, careful not to disturb it further. "Look, it's just Creeping Tanglevine. The more you thrash, the more it'll try to wrap you up so it can crush and digest you. Just relax and I'll get you out."

"Whoo, sure thing," the stranger said as they leaned back, closed their eyes, and let themselves go limp. "Y'know, gotta say that's exactly not the advice I expected to ever hear in the deadly Black Forest," they laughed as Tibba gently stroked the backs of the vines to encourage them to loosen their grip. Soon the blue-scaled stranger's hand was free, and they immediately started to massage it.

"Stay still!" Tibba hissed quietly as he went to work on the next vine. "What were you even doing so far down here?"

"So far down?" The stranger chuckled as they bent their neck back and opened their eyes to look at the forest floor below. "Let me guess - you're one of those 'veldi who've never left their woods, am I right?"

Tibba chose to focus on the vine rather than answer that question. Coming this far and putting himself in danger for an outsider-

"Call me Dimos," the blue-scaled one said conversationally once it became clear that Tibba wasn't going to answer. "Originally from the Isle of Pearls. I guess you probably don't get many other Tssrrn 'round these parts, hey? So when I say it's the most beautiful place in the world, there won't be anyone to disagree. And is there anything I should call my mysterious benefactor?"

"Huh? Oh, uh..." Tibba carefully pulled back as he finally coaxed the vine around Dimos' left leg to start relaxing, then moved to the one around his right. "Tibba. But why would you leave home if it's the most beautiful place? Did something happen to it?"

"What? No! Home's still there, waiting to be home whenever I get bored and go back. But you gotta travel, right? Can't know that it's the best place in the world if you don't scope out the competition, eh? So how are you doing that?"

"The- what? Oh, this?" Tibba was finding it hard to focus on both releasing the Tanglevines and Dimos' banter at the same time. "Just need to coax it a bit to curl to the other way. They're not that smart."

"Huh. Hey, let me do the last one!" Dimos said, curling their tail around to rummage in their pack and pull out a dagger of their own. Tibba had never seen anyone able to bend that way, or grip something with their tail like that. Ghishveldi tails could curl around a wide branch or tree trunk for extra balance, but not grip something as small as a knife like their tail was an extra hand. As he moved away from the last gripping Tanglevine he wondered if all Tssrrn could do that or if this Dimos character was just freakishly flexible.

"So just like this?" Dimos asked as he used the dagger in his tail to mimic what Tibba had done. After a few strokes, the last vine began to loosen its grip around their waist. A few more and suddenly they slipped right out, flailing their limbs as they plummeted through the layer of broadleaf ferns and crashed into the ground below.

"Dimos!"

A blue-scaled hand popped up from under the ferns, giving a thumbs-up. "I'm okay!"

Tibba released the breath he was holding. "Then get back up here! It's dangerous down there!"

"Back up? Wasn't getting down the whole point of getting away from that trap-weed?"

[Tibba and Dimos reach the dragon Smaragdin and learn that things are worse than Tibba feared]

Tibba helped pull Dimos up onto the next branch. Not for the first time Tibba wondered why he'd agreed to bring the strange Tssrrn along with him rather than leave him on the ground to find his way out of the jungle on his own.

One look at the blue-scaled traveller answered Tibba's question, though - Dimos was pretty winded just from this part of the climb, and they were barely a hundred metres up. Who knows what kind of new and possibly fatal trouble they might get caught up with if they'd been left on the forest floor? Tibba didn't want to think of himself as somebody who would rescue someone just to let them get killed as soon as he turned his back.

"Whoo. Who knew trees could get so tall, hey?" Dimos panted before taking a swig from his water canteen. "We getting close?"

"Slowly," Tibba replied as he took stock of their situation. The light was getting low, and night would be falling sooner than he would have liked. If he didn't have this tropical chatterbox slowing him down... Tibba shook his head. He'd promised Dimos that he would make sure they got out safely, and leaving them here while he went ahead would likely get Dimos attacked and eaten by one of the jungle's nocturnal predators.

"That's not an energetic 'yes,' y'know," Dimos said after a few more breaths. "Phew. Alright. It's just taking me a few minutes to get my tree legs, I can pick up the climbing pace if you need."

"I'm more worried about how to get you across," said Tibba. "I think I know a long way around that wouldn't require gliding, but..."

"No gliding? What's the matter, you pull a wing-muscle?"

Tibba blinked. "No, I meant you."

"Pshaw. Don't worry about little ol' me. Which direction are we heading?"

Tibba pointed towards where the Lord of the Forest grew. Dimos clapped his hands and rubbed them together as he looked around the area. He walked halfway down the large branch they were standing on, bent his knees to give a few experimental bounces to test the springiness of the limb, then repeated the experiment a few times down towards where the branch tapered off into twigs and leaves.

"Over, down, sproing and back up..." Dimos muttered. "Right. You ready to see some Tssrrn magic in action, kid?"

"See what-?" Tibba started to ask, but Dimos didn't wait for an answer before breaking into a sprint down the bough. "No! Wait! What-?!"

Dimos jumped and pushed down on the branch when he reached the more springy part at the end. The branch bent, then sprang back into place, launching Dimos through the air. He tucked into a somersault as he arced gracefully between the trees before landing on his feet on a different branch that was growing up at more of an angle. He slid down towards the next tree's trunk, arms out for balance, before grabbing on to a Creeping Tanglevine that was dangling down from a layer above. The vine wrapped around Dimos's arm and started to pull the Tssrrn up while their momentum kept them swinging forward and higher until Dimos could reach a branch that was thin enough for them to wrap their legs around. Dimos used their tail-blade to slice off the end of the Tanglevine and free his hand as he pulled himself up onto the branch. He turned around to face Tibba and give a bow.

"Didya see that, kid?" Dimos hollered across the gap.

Tibba frowned as he leapt off the side of his tree and glided to the one where Dimos landed, hitting the trunk only a few bodylengths higher than the branch that Dimos had landed on. "What were you-?! You could have gotten yourself killed!!"

"Better to go out doing something incredible than to just sit around and wait for something to snuff you out for you though, right?" Dimos grinned, though he was breathing even more heavily than before. "Hoo. I don't think I've got too many more of those in me, but I see what you mean now about this place being incredible. Might even go so far as to put it in my top five."

Tibba shook his head, struggling to keep up with Dimos' stream of thoughts. "Well, if you can do that a few more times, we should be able to make up a lot of time..."

"I've got a better idea," Dimos said as he swung his pack off his back and started to rummage through it. "Now where is...? Nope, not that... No..."

Tibba's curiosity started to get the better of him and he crawled out along the underside of one of the nearby branches so that he could hang above Dimos and see what he was looking for. The Tssrrn's pack was stuffed full of all kinds of junk, with no apparent organization to it. A scrap of cloth painted with some kind of design that Tibba couldn't make out, some assorted figurines carved from stone, some kind of fruit that Tibba didn't recognize that Dimos popped into his mouth as soon as he'd found it... From what Tibba caught from Dimos' mutterings, he got the impression that each little artifact had a story behind it, and he started to wonder what kind of storied past the Tssrrn had.

"There it is!"

Dimos pulled a coiled length of rope out from the bottom of his sack. Several trinkets threatened to spill out and tumble to the distant ground below, but somehow none did. One of the figurines, a bird of some sort, slipped out and bounced on the tree branch, but Dimos somehow caught it with his tail and put it back without seeming to notice.

"Here, catch!" Dimos tossed one end of the rope up to Tibba, snapping him back to the present just in time to not fumble it.

"What-? Nuh-uh, there's no way I could carry you across!"

"Good, 'cause that's not what I'm asking. If you can just get a little bit ahead and secure it to something, then I can swing across a gap! Then you take it forward past the next one, I swing, and with a little bit of leapfrog, boom! We'll be there in no time."

Tibba gave his end of the rope a dubious look. "I guess we can give it a try..."

Threading a rope through the upper canopy in a way that would help guide Dimos through Tibba's arboreal world was not a straightforward ordeal, but it was still better than watching the Tssrrn struggle with all the climbing up and down to get to places where branches crossed. Even still, it was almost night when they finally came within sight of the Lord of the Forest.

Tibba crawled to the end of the branch he was on to get a better look at the single most important tree in the jungle.

"Oh, no..."

All of the trees surrounding the Forest Lord were ashen-looking and had dropped most of their leaves, making them look skeletal in the dying light. Even the air tasted like dry, like ashes and death. Tibba could hear the cacophony of all the jungle's night life waking up and getting busy, but all the insect calls, bird songs and other nocturnal sounded distant behind him. The Lord herself looked sickly, her leaves brown and branches drooping.  Even the woven wall of thin branches near the very top that marked the walls of the dragon's nest looked haggled and in disrepair.

"Looks halfway to being firewood," Dimos observed from the branch below.  "Whoa! No offence intended," they added when Tibba shot them a very offended glare. "Just callin' 'em as I see 'em! So your dragon lives up there? Smoggles or whatever?"

"Smaragdin," Tibba corrected, turning his gaze to the topmost part of the tree's crown, which pushed through the jungle's upper canopy to tower over even the giant trees of Tibba's home. He squinted. It looked like it was pushing through a burnt-out ring of death, but way up there, up near the top, he thought he maybe caught a glimpse of something green still holding on to life up there. It was too hard to tell in the fading light for him to be sure, and he desperately hoped it wasn't just his wishful thinking.

"So... we going up there, or just going to enjoy the view and then go home?"

Tibba scowled. He did not need the Tssrrn's snide remarks right now. He opened his mouth to start to tell them that, no, he was going to see the dragon and they could very well wait here for all he cared, but stopped. Either way, the sun was going to be completely gone for the final stretch, and he could already imagine the feeling of those skeletal limbs brushing against him as he climbed.

"How well can you see in the dark?" he asked instead.

"Probably 'bout the same as you," Dimos answered, fishing in his pack again. "I'm no Elf or Gorr, if that's what you're asking. That's why I like to carry these with me," they said, pulling out a handful of tufts that looked like seeds.

"What are those?"

"Fairy seeds! They grow in really cold places, said to have sprouted from the last tears of Hrassitssar, if you believe stories like that. But here, watch." Dimos placed one of the seeds on his empty palm, lifted it up, then blew on it to send it floating through the air. As it drifted, it lit up with a soft pink glow that was bright enough to illuminate the area immediately around them with just enough light to make it possible to see what they would be climbing through. Dimos reached out and caught the seed again, and the light winked out.

"Pretty spiffy, hey? Should help us both out on the final push. Assuming you're in a rush and we're not going to make camp here and sing songs around the fire first, of course."

"Yeah, that's... Alright. Let's do it."

Tibba took his end of the rope and glided to one of the barren, skele-trees that stood between them and the Forest Lord. The touch of the dry bark of the dead or dying tree made Tibba feel itchy, but even though he wanted to jump off immediately he forced himself to endure it long enough to secure the rope and wait until Dimos could use it to swing across and land on the Lord herself.  He wasted no time untying the rope and could not leave fast enough.

Tibba braced himself for that same feeling of deadness when he grabbed the side of the Lord of the Forest, but thankfully it wasn't nearly as bad. He was no tree-speaker like Rastika, but even he could feel the deep, stately thrum of the great tree's life force just like he could the first time he had been here. This time, though, that power was greatly muted by whatever was ailing the forest.

He closed his eyes as he gently brushed his hand down the side of the tree, almost as an apology. He could feel himself getting unexpectedly emotional and took a few moments while it washed over him. This tree was older even than the creation of the Ghishveldi, was already a giant when the dragons first came into this world, and that powerful presence had watched over every generation of Ghishveldi to ever come of age in this part of the world. If it died...

"You okay up there, kid?" Dimos asked softly.

Tibba swallowed, then nodded. "Yeah. I will be. You're ready?"

"Couldn't be readier," Dimos replied as he took out one of the seeds and lit it up. "Beautiful night for a romantic climb for two up to meet with the fangs of your forest protector."

Tibba choked back a laugh as he climbed up as high as he could go with his end of the rope. He twisted it around a thick branch so that Dimos could use it to help his climb, then climbed up to the next highest branch once Dimos reached the landing and could take a short breather. They alternated this way all the way up to the uppermost branches of the Lord of the Forest.

"Really good thing I'm not the least bit afraid of heights," Dimos bantered as they climbed. "How far could you glide from up here, do you think? All the way to your house from here?"

For the most part, Tibba didn't reply to any of Dimos' nattering, though he was grateful to have any noise to drown out the oppressive and unnatural silence that surrounded the climb. Finally, as they approached their destination, Tibba motioned for Dimos to be quiet.

"Great Lady Smaragdin?" Tibba chirruped from just below the woven-stick wall. "Um... Sorry to be calling on you so late, but... we seek an audience with you, and I have this amulet from Rastika, and we want to stop the forest from dying, and..."

Tibba trailed off. He heard a low growl from inside the nest.