Forester, the retired general-turned-detective now known only as The Seeker, rode a tall, jovial beetlesteed who grew a dusty-purple coat of thick fur, a long skyward-pointing horned snout and a yellow cyclopic eye, wherein a long squiggling and lightless pupil revealed the sweet spirit of the tall beast. The Seeker was one of a few detectives directly under The Thorn King Oledias, and had been for the previous Monos, Posie the Wine-Wilted. Posie’s reputation would be buried under many layers of dirt by her heavy-handed successor, who ran for monarch on a platform of “Qyo-First”, but the role of the Seeker seemed to be more important as ever, as Oledias sought to track down many of his political enemies who had gone into hiding after his elevation to the Qyo Vase or throne. The title of “the seeker” was new, however. 

During Posie’s reign, Forester would seek facts, expedite information between long-distances with channels of hand-selected sources. To the Seeker’s bitter dismay, the Thorn King would propagandize this role, with the promise that “we will find you, and you will be punished!” Forester couldn’t let these things get to him, so he did his best to provide Oledias with detailed reports, but refused a position of “border-czar”, stating that he wasn’t the right person to head mass-scale deportation operations. Instead, Oledias kept him as more of a personal “private-eye”. He hadn’t ever been assigned a scout to assist him, however, so he asked of himself: Has the Thorn finally found a reason to distrust me? Why now, of all times? 

“Are you about ready?” asked Forester, dressed in comfortable, semi-casual denim robes with brass gauntlets. “Did they tell you what we’re looking for?” 

The Scout shook his helmeted head, fastened his high-end resined-walnut armor, fresh from the barracks. “They said we were looking for the Brainseed of the priestess who ran away, so the Thorn can crush it in his own hands.”

“Easy, kid. These are the brainseeds of real people we’re dealing with. Have some respect for the dead, or we’re not going to get along very good.”

“Just saying, that’s what they told us in the Barracks.”

The Seeker pulled the reigns, indicating it was time to start their ride. “Well, I can’t do this job without thinking of these victims as real people. If I can see how they might have reacted upon death, it makes it easier to find their brainseeds. And don’t you think you’re a little over-dressed for a camping trip?” They strode on placid beetlesteeds for many hours, following the natural decline of the road, along the south-side of the Forked River that raged in its eroded channel Eastward, eventually settling into the natural chasm and bustling up and over, out to the sea through a port town called Psittacina which, currently, belonged to the Sarracennian Union.

“Know of a way to get across, Scout?” asked the Seeker.

The Scout kept his eyes low, only glancing at the rotting windmill remnants, his anther-eyes guilty at the sight of this still-standing structure, tall with steel stake supports hammered deep into the riverbottom to keep it tall and sturdy. Rust had consumed much of the windmill’s base metal-weaves, chewing through the steel blades, so that on a bright day streams of sunlight would pass through the motionless windmill and shine onto the sideways-turned and battle-damaged water turbine, the heart of this failed peace-project between Qyo and the Sarracennian Unions. 

The Seeker looked at it eagerly, absorbing the sight with relish, as he seemed to do with everything. “The First Electric Windmill built between Kylyy peoples. Who would have thought we could pull it off? Construction on this long-planned project finished just as tensions burst between our aquí government and the Forest Unions. The Battle happened right here, from what I heard our soldiers wrecked the whole project. Even torched the bridge between it. Moth-Riders showed up to try and put the fires out, but were unsuccessful in stopping the Turbine from being destroyed by Qyo soldiers. Of course, that story is famous, now. Were you there, Scout? Did you know anyone from the raiding party?” 

“Why, weren’t you there?” asked the Scout, defensively.

The Seeker laughed. “They don’t let me on the field anymore. Lost one too many battles against busking Centarean Circus Performers. Well, without a bridge, we’ll have to keep following the river, and hope we can find a way across.”

The Scout griped silently, turned his steed back to the path. The road arched upwards, the grassy side sharpened into a cliff’s edge, wore down by the impact of the great river fueled by the melting of the Northern Mountains.

“Back when the Colossi worked at max-capacity,” said Forester, striking up another short-lived conversation with his traveling companion, “the atmosphere would get so hot and thick that it melted the snow as far North as the Frozen Mountains. That’s why we’ve had such bad floods the last century.” The Scout, emoting his annoyance with the Seeker, said nothing at all. “Pretty cool to see,” Forester continued, “hope I don’t live to see any Colossi in our neck of the woods, right, Scout?”

After three more days of riding in near-silence along the Forked River with no sign of a bridge to cross, the Seeker spotted a series of old trees with centuries of overgrowth that had been toppled, a few of which now bridged over the two sides of the strong river. 

“We’ll have to leave our steeds here for now, but they’ll follow us at their own pace. Watch your step, holler at me if you need a hand.” The Scout and the Seeker stepped cautiously over the lichen-conquered tree carcasses, whose tall limbs dried and broke apart over time. 

Once they finally made it on the other side of the river, the two men watched as Forester’s steed named Lady offered her tail to the Scout’s steed to use for balance as they crossed the dangerous tree-trunk bridge together. They rested a while, then got up and got going again. Now that they were on the opposite side of the river, they walked back east along its North side. The Seeker assessed its high current, assured that there really was no safe way across that could be seen. He planted a flag down in order to keep an eye out for this edge of the forest, in order to find their way across when their job complete. 

They hiked for many hours through thick trees. The Seeker tried to sense where a frightened person might have gone if they were lost in the woods. He went over the details of the night when the Arch-Priestess disappeared. “Dusk was falling, no worse time to start your walk into these sunless woods. She left at a time no one would have expected. No one knew she was gone until the Astinomia arrived to arrest her. She was already sentenced to be exiled but she left town before telling anyone of her plans.” 

The two kylyy and their steeds kept their guard through the night, both unable to sleep much as wind rustled between the leaves, simultaneously concealing and revealing the calls of many animals within these woods. Forester scanned the area as they stepped over the many fallen trees that made up the tumultuous forest floor. His eyes played through many scenarios across landscape ahead. He decided that the best way to think like the Priestess would be to take many deep breaths, think like someone in trouble in a directionless forest maze, fearful of being followed, and unsure of how to survive. H, then let the impulses of his mind take over. “Alright, I have been exiled and I can’t go home, now what?” he asked himself, “What would you do, Scout?”

The Scout shifted. “I’m not sure, Seeker, I have a hard time understanding why she didn’t hide with some friends.”

The Seeker found this series of consequences to be of great interest. “The Priestess knew the astinomia would be searching everywhere for her. The deacons and fellow priestesses she was close with were questioned harshly, but no one knew anything because the Priestess  left church one day and never returned. Nor did she show up for her official sentencing. No one could lie, nor did they have any good reason to do so.”

Forester saw another way forward. He kept a loose hold of his reigns and went many hours without deciding on a specific direction. The beetlesteeds carried them through the thick barrier of trees born by the riverside. The beetlesteeds continued to sniff around for fallen pink-djamora-mushroom fruits, chomping with quiet gratitude for this diversely-pungent, snack-filled-forest.

Even after a turn into a strange chasm, Forester never tugged the reigns to turn his steed away, and the Scout followed without question. The Seeker kept an eye on the Aspens, surmising that running water must be nearby. Once they were out of the aspens, they would be in a new part of the woods. “I’ve been told that once we see Jukai trees start crawling up, then that’s when the dangers of the Feral Forest truly begin,” said the Scout.

“I’ve heard that myself,” said the Seeker, “but I’m not worried, not when we got these good tough ladies taking care of us.” Forester patted the shoulder of his beetlesteed Lady, hiding the fact that he actually found the enveloping darkness of the woods to be frightfully dense and absent of light. Through forest chasms, Lady and Yunaika carried the seekers, their steps becoming slower, greater in distance and unpredictable in elevation. The Jukai trees clearly became the dominant form of life, save for the lichen and moss ecosystems feasting and growing upon it all, and myriad insectoid beasts of myriad sizes crawling and thriving along the bittersweet mix of tall, towering trees and their fallen casualty counterparts. Entering into a clearing of less-snarling trees, the Seeker tugged the reigns to slow Lady’s steps, slowing to a stop. “I don’t think she came this way, this seems to only be accessible with tall beetles like we have. Maybe I should have kept a closer eye on the road. Who am I kidding, though? It’s all forest to me.”

“Are you named Forester because you like forests?” teased the Scout. 

Forester smiled. “Just a lucky coincidence. This is the most I’ve ever walked around in forests in one long period of time. Let’s study the area round here for a little bit,” said Forester, and he and the Scout dismounted so that they might rethink the possible route of the Priestess. With the sun absent other than the rays the made their way through the thick tangle of the busy treetops, they decided to absorb the few streams of sunlight that they could before the darkness of a forest night fell on them. 

“Thick forest in all directions. She has nowhere to go. Would she try to find a way to speak with these trees? She wouldn’t be able to. She was sure scared, I bet,” he said to the Scout, who listened patiently: “In these woods, she was nothing more than a scared kid. Not the Archpriestess or someone full of authority. The Monos took that away, then expected her to face a public denouncing. She fled here to avoid harm befalling her Monastery. She saved everyone by leaving. She came here, and there’s no way she could have lived without guidance or direction, and as we have seen, we haven’t met anyone on our travels, so she likely didn’t either. She looked through the trees, hoping to see something, but what could it have been? We haven’t seen anything so far but trees, mushrooms and some rodent-bugs.” 

He felt stumped again, deciding that they would stay here for the night, and leave at the first sign of sunlight that hit them. The Scout and the beetlesteeds fell asleep, but the Seeker remained alert. No longer did he ponder the plight of the banished priestess, as now he pondered what actually lives out here in this expanse of timber. What might be observing him, what threat did he possess to other creatures here, and what threat did they have over him? 

Fear began to fill his throat, but he couldn’t look away. Between the vertical lines created by the trees, he saw faces peaking from behind them, contorting into wallowing monsters who yearned for menacing desires. Forester felt afraid, so he put his hand on the back of sleeping Lady for comfort. He looked around more, picturing the frightened priestess, whose steps he tried to follow now. 

“I thought you would find a way out of Ecclesia,” he thought to himself, “You stayed at the monastery in East Dakukad. No one stays in East Dakukad, but you did. You made it into the pre-eminent church in Qyo, and showed us all a model of how to utilize a holy space for absolute goodness. All of this, and the Monos convinced everyone to hate you for it. You wanted to the Qyo Faith to embrace the unstudied science of our world in order to better understand our doctrine. Monos Oledias couldn’t stand to see you succeed, because in order for his plan to work, he had to keep the world blind to the wonders of this life, the very wonders you tried to illuminate. You were eager to learn more, even in exile here in this maze of trees.” 

Now, Forester felt like he could think like the Priestess. He looked around for mushrooms, or lichen, those biological communities that Nerva loved to observe and support. “A church is an ecosystem of love,” he recited these timeless words of the Priestess multiple times and realized it helped a great deal to focus on the possibilities of her location. “The Priestess seeks the Church Ecosystem!” Forester told himself, centering his focus into his perception of this viewpoint of the Priestess. “Then, the Pink Oysters…”

Then, as if being struck by an angry old friend, he remembered The Stasimilas Affair, a public media spectacle regarding a Pink Djamora mushroom-person, accused by Monos Oledias of poisoning the reasoning of the Arch-Priestess with mind-control spores, driving her to an obsession with these Feral Forests, so that her peaceful view of the Qyo doctrine would never have the chance to change the world. It’s no secret to anyone at this point that Monos Oledias used everything in his power to tarnish the public image of the Fulgen mushroom-people and their kylyy supporters, or as Oledias called them in his many public addresses: “Flowers of the Fulgen”.

“Scout, did you ever come across any pink-Djamora mushrooms back in Heliamphora?” asked the Seeker. 

The Scout pondered, then answered: “I know about their crop, there’s usually a stand full of yellow, blue and pink djamora-cultures at the farmers markets in Boma, like the ones the steeds ate earlier, but it’s usually ran by Wildflowers instead of stasimilas Fulgen. I can’t remember ever actually seeing a bipedal Djamora kingdom who stands and speaks… have you, Seeker?” 

The worried corners of Forester’s eyes scanned his memories of that strange and tumultuous time. “You don’t see many stasimilas Pink Djamoras walking through Qyo State, especially not since Oledias has been running things. It looks like we might be entering the fiefdom of Pink Djamoras after all. If you couldn’t already tell, Lady, here, loves Djamora mushrooms. They’re sweeter, and even a little more savory than a lot of other kinds of mushroom-based feed.” The beetlesteed stepped with a careful pace, sniffed the ground at the base and up and along a large dead tree, bent her head and hooked a tangled brush of leaves and vines, twisting her head to pull them away and revealing beneath them perfectly ripe Djamora mushrooms. Lady’s hidden mouth-hands grabbed it from under thickets of fur and held it steady for a proper chomp, inspiring Scout’s beetle Yunaika to join in on the hidden treasure. “Maybe these sweet beasties of ours know the right way after all. I changed my mind, we should follow their lead for a little while longer. Even if this isn’t the right way, it might lead us to someone who can give us directions.” 

The Seeker and the Scout walked along as the steeds sniffed out more mushroom bulbs. As they discovered, there were many clusters of individual djamora fruits tucked away under tufts of forest scrub. They followed the beetlesteeds into the Northern part of this clump of forest. Though the ladies were full, they continued to sniff out semi-buried ridged-pink mushrooms, a few of which were picked and stored in saddle-bags until they, too, became full. As the djamoras started to thin out, the Seeker and the Scout were happy to see that the thicket of knuckled-limbed trees now gave way to the startlingly beautiful view of a crystal clear lake.

“Great detective work, Lady and Yunaika,” said Forester, patting the shoulderblades of the tall, one-eyed and thick-furred beetlesteeds, who huffed and purred low and loudly together, nuzzling like the old friends they were. “I’m not too sure we’re any closer to finding where the Priestess could have gone, we’ll have to ask someone, if we see them, now that we’ve made it to this nice oasis.” 

The Mind’s Eye of the Divine Ilia, the bright, hot Sun worshiped by all creatures across Her Body Incarnate, was beginning to set behind the mountains, east beyond the edges of the massive lake. “I’ve never seen a body of freshwater so big and so calm, what about you, Scout?”

“No, sir,” said the Scout, wide-eyed and marveling at the serene lake, seeing people fraternizing carelessly outside of any official armor dress code, “There’s people over there! Mind if I go splash around?”

“By all means, just be careful!” said the Seeker, grateful to have gotten through to the Scout on a friendly-enough level. Lady trotted down and drank some water as Scout and Yunaika dipped into the placid lake. While the crew was busy cooling down, Forester decided to draw up some sort of map in order to try and reference where they had been and where they have yet to explore. He sat on top of a boulder planted at the plateau of the lake’s water-line that bowed down gently into its basin, sketched a rough estimate of the shape of the lake including its two long legs of watery inlet stretching down and around a tight group of densely-packed pine-trees. He noticed that a few dozen people were lounging in copper-bath-bowls in the shallow-end of the crystalline lake. He sketched a long-dead yet firm-standing tree at the far end of the North-shore inlet, realizing that it was a fertile Djamora Silo, home to a large family of rapid-growing orange-pink djamora mushrooms, such as those found and eaten by the beetlesteeds earlier in their journey.

 The sun was setting fast as Forester studied this new area. He then wondered: “What do the Qyo Elite know about this lake? They refuse to let anyone know what really happens outside their jurisdictions. Lady trotted up to him, purring as soon as Forester’s hand began to scratch her mighty Dynastinae horn, her eyelids drooping with loving gratitude for the pets given by her bipedal kylyy friend. “You think someone would have told us this lake was here, at least,” he said to Lady, who huffed in excitement at the sight of a half-dozen wild beetles that had galloped towards the dark, dead tree with large pink mushrooms growing from its hollowed husk. “Look, Lady!” Forester said excitedly “Why don’t you make some new friends while we’re here?” With her long, bushy-tail wagging gleefully behind her, Lady galloped down to sniff and jump around with the other tall longhair beetles who had arrived to get some  from the lakeside Djamora Silo.

As the light of Her Mind’s Eye faded away to make room for evening, the kylyy exited their lakeside copper baths, and the Seeker asked them politely if they had heard any rumors regarding a Qyo church leader who was banished to the Feral Forests, though to his surprise none of copper-bath-bathers had ever heard of such a tale. The Seeker apologized for putting a damper on their evening, to which the bathers smiled and assured him that their night was perfect nonetheless, and wished him good luck in his journey to find the Priestess. Forester walked North along the shore, sat at the base of the Djamora Silo, watched as the tails of the beetles wagged sociably and happily. He retrieved his journal once again, turned to a page free of careless scribbles, sketched the scene of the beetles roaming around with a charcoal pencil, including a rough outline of the Djamora Silo he rested against in the foreground-corner, sketching until he had to admit that he couldn’t see well enough to focus on the detail of his work. 

Once darkness overtook the landscape, Forester felt a tinge of panic as Lady pranced away with the herd of beetles. Lights were few and far between, and the teasing light of a crescent moon wouldn’t arrive for many hours still. The pink djamora blossoms growing from the Silo tree offered a soft neon glow that became brighter as the night grew on, providing a unique atmosphere Forester had not experienced before. He saw the Scout laughing and chasing after the wild steeds along with a few new friends of unknown origin, shocked to see him without his traveler’s garments or armor, so far were they from Qyo laws of faith regarding nudity of the flower-blossom that they all ran as naked and free as some strange and sacred dream. Noticing the red tulip-petals growing boldly from the Scout’s back, Forester watched until he blushed, then shifted to sit away from the scene. With his mind at ease, he fell asleep against the Djamora Silo tree.

Just as he had reached the timeless and endless realm of dreams, Forester was shaken to wakefulness by the hands of a large, erratic man with a wild mess of razor-grass hair, and blackened-yellow eyes shocking and wide.

“Are these your steeds, friend?” he asked the startled Seeker, “Oh, I bet yours is the one with a nice Centarean saddle. What a beauty she is! You had to have gotten her from a breeder, right? Definitely Qyo-Brindle stock, I thought they stopped breeding these babes years ago! Goddess, what a beauty! How do you end up with a beast like that? You hearing me, friend?”

Forester squinted away the shreds of his restful state and studied the razor-grass-haired man who eagerly watched the one-eyed insectoid horses with his hands on his hips. Despite his soured-mood and as friendly as he could, Forester answered the old stranger: “Lady has been in my family for a while. Her Grandmother was my Mom’s steed, then my mom kept Lady’s dad, Knotts, bravely died in the last Qyo war against Ordensus. They let me have first pick of his first litter, so I chose Lady.” To his discomfort, a strange and overly-long silence lingered after his story, which Forester tried to close-out by saying “Lady is as good a friend to me as anyone.” 

The razor-grass man guffawed, and taunted the Seeker further: “A breed this strong is part of your birthright? That means you’ve really got it made, doesn’t it, friend?”

“I’d be lying if I said I was ever unfortunate,” said the Seeker, withholding a friendly laugh. 

“We haven’t seen Qyo officers this far North of the Forked River very often! The woods usually do a better job of scaring away the big-city types! Don’t look at me like that, I’m only kidding around with you! You must be on an important errand to have made it all the way to Fenngar Lake from the Emerald Nurseries on the mountaintops of Qyo Prime!”

Forester didn’t appreciate how he was being spoken to by this man, who he felt should have kept to himself in the first place. He thought of the Priestess, and decided to turn this aimless discussion into a more productive one. “Someone went missing here a little while ago. A Scout and I were hired to find out what happened to this person…” As he spoke, he realized he had no idea where the Scout nor the steeds had gone. “Also, have you seen a young man with red tulip blossoms around just today? I didn’t realize I slept so long, I lost track of time..”

The razor-grass man offered an uneasy smile and said, “People go missing out here all the time. If your sweet beetlesteed here didn’t sniff your way out of the Southern Pass, you might not have made it to this lake. Pretty smart of you to trust her instincts, I gotta hand it to you, city-sapling! Nothing like an animal friend to remind you how to navigate through the wilds of nature, wouldn’t you say?”

Forester was growing annoyed with the man’s questions, yet kept his friendliness armed and ready. “How have you managed so well for so long out here, old-timer?” 

The comment made the old man laugh a bit more. “That’s a question I’d like to know the answer to myself! Why would anyone end up in such a hungry place as this?”

Forester smiled wryly. “You don’t remember your own past? What prescriptions are you on, and can you spare a few?”

“You’re a funny one, Seeker,” said the souring razor-grass man, “one thing you may want to learn about these woods is that nobody here remembers very much. We’re too busy paying attention to which trees we walk by so we can follow it back and get home safely. There are many pitfalls here, many chasms and caverns, many paths that lead to imminent death if you’re not careful! To be truthful, I am proud of the person I have become, someone molded by these hungry woods! The Trees, to me, are close friends. I cherish each step that doesn’t plunge me into an abyss. There isn’t air this fresh back in the Empire, not when I was there, and I’m sure as bug shit it isn’t fixed now!”

This man had overstayed his welcome in Forester’s eyes. “Is there something I can help you with?” he asked, pushing the conversation past the man’s history and squarely-on his vulnerable state.

A markedly more level-headed attitude was draped over the grassy stranger. “Oh! I am just here to check in with visitors. I don’t mean to be a burden, but it’s getting dark! You would be wise to seek shelter soon!”

Forester smiled with his brand of compassion. “Don’t worry about it, and thanks for the heads up.”

“One more thing!” said the razor-grass stranger, “At dusk, no one can truly describe how it happens, but the forest changes its face, like phases of the moon. Do you know anything about this, the phenomena known as the Folding of the Forest? Then, I ask, do you know where to search for your friend from here? This is important, Seeker. She could have been caught between the Folds of the Forest, don’t you have any faith in the words of a forest-dweller such as myself?” 

“I don’t honestly know where to go from here,” said the Seeker, his chestnut-brown anther-eyes became a dark-blue against the soft glow of the neon-pink Djamora mushrooms. “Have you heard of a Priestess passing through these woods? I would hope she made it to this lake, in fact, if she did, I wonder if there’s a chance she is still alive! I’ll take any rumor, any lead or direction.”

“Many are reported missing every day. There are people who seek solace in the safety of Fulgen Kingdoms. What if your Priestess friend wants to remain in these woods, would you remove her by force, and risk retaliation by the friends she has made here?”

“Do you know about her or not?” snapped Forester.

“I do not seek out gossip, Seeker. That is your job.” said the razor-grass stranger.

Forester noted that this must be the true-timbre of this stranger’s voice, cold and dismissive when seriously pressed. The brows on Forester’s handsome, hex-centennial face furrowed. “Is there no Forest-Watch? No unified network of surveillance to keep the forests safe from attack, or to warn travelers of this, folding, as you call it?” 

The manic and friendly voice of the grassy-stranger dipped like oil onto a low pile of deep, hot embers. “Ah, yes, well as you may already know, Seeker, there is no State to coddle us here. If the Nomads in Sarracennia provided us with protection, the Monos in Qyo would interpret this act as encroachment on Neutral territory. Here in the Feral Forest, what options do we have? We can’t act against Qyo’s best judgement, nor can we ask for help from the Moth-Riders without intervention from your Military State. Therefore, these lands are hated, abandoned for centuries and demonized by your ultra-holy military. Why won’t you pay attention to my words of this folding world? If it is an answer you seek, Seeker, you need only listen!”

Forester began to panic. “Have you seen the Scout, my friend? The guy with red-tulip petals… he was at the lake, but now I don’t see him there.” He felt a heavy bubble of guilty phlegm rise up in his throat, throwing him into a coughing fit and nearly causing him to double-over. “I should have stuck with him, what the hell was I thinking? You haven’t seen him at all, have you, friend?”

“I have only seen you here so far. What’s all this about a missing person?”

“Will you keep your eyes peeled? I have no idea what became of him. He was just roaming around with the beetles… did you see where they ran? You were just talking to me about my beetlesteed Lady, where is Lady? We were supposed to find signs of the Priestess of East Jezzanthia, whether living or dead…”

“Is there a price on the brainseed of this Priestess?” asked the stranger.

“It was a government job… the court wanted us to find traces of the Priestess…” Forester stopped speaking immediately, and stood in a panic. 

The smirk on the face of the razor-grass stranger never relented. “If you don’t look now, you may never find her. For all I know, she could be lost between the folds…”

Forester pushed past the broad, tall man. “Scout, are you there? Lady?” As if he walked through a doorway into a large home, he stood in a lobby-like clearing of a new area within the snarling woods. “Hey, old-timer, how do I know what a Fold of the Forest is supposed to look like?” 

A voice, from behind every possible tree ahead of him spoke at once: “Watch for the flexing of the tree’s bark, then follow inward on that side. Stick to the wider spaces between the trees, until you find an invitation into the Eastern chapter of these forests. Now that I had time to think through my long centuries, I remembered something: The Priestess herself left you an invitation to walk inside…”

The Seeker heard voices whispering in filtered bursts and at sweeping intervals. He looked into the barrier-wall of dense woods a few dozen yards away from this lakeside shore, focusing his sight deeper and deeper still, until he caught the sight of a bright-pearl necklace held high on a branch swaying gently in the wind. Forester’s eyes locked-on to this necklace, but it was the will of his entire body that pulled him quickly towards this sacred item. 

“That Necklace…  that’s the Necklace of the Priestess, it has to be hers!”

Forester ran towards the necklace as the folding-forest closed, the spaces between trees blurring together in a defensive camouflage, locking the Seeker into a wave of Forest transformation. He felt the scowling eyes of hungry beasts all around him, as well as a sense of scowling judgement as the night consumed the last gasps of daylight, followed by a howling moan that broke apart into a series of chirping crickets. The serene lake now seemed far behind him, he knew not where to go if he chose to turn back to look at it one last time, and chose not to think much about it in order to keep his focus on the path ahead. Throughout its expanse, the forest exerted a low growl that demanded silence of all, then breathed in and exhaled a dense and powerful rumbling throughout the many habitats of the woodland creatures. His worried eyes noticed that, as he kept a quick pace, the swirling treebark he studied shared a pattern that mirrored in the treebark on the other side of this specific path, perhaps caused by natural-pulses emanating from the woods.

Though direct sunlight had been gone for hours, the brightness of the pearl necklace never seemed to dull in its brilliance. It did appear to the Seeker that the necklace was being handed back-and-forth between branches, for he was no closer to reaching the necklace than when he first saw it, luring him far into the unmapped folds of the forest. As he started to panic, he regretted deeply that his beetlesteed Lady wasn’t by his side through this part of the mission. He remembered the purpose of his mission and the risks involved, wondering if all of this brought him to the point where his duty demanded his sacrifice. 

Before he went into the abyss of moss and timber, Forester removed his old denim coat, passed down through many generations. He hung his coat beside the tall-tree stump covered in lichen, and appearing to house a small Fulgen ecosystem, complete with charming and small insect-rodent roommates. “Hopefully I’ll be back for you,” he said to his warm heirloom, “maybe Lady will recognize my stench and come looking for me, if so we’ll be back for you, pal.” With his lilac flower-bulbs bound faithfully to his frame by a cross-strap harness, the Seeker plunged deeper into this dense forest.

Forester strode on with a careful pace, continuing to look for the bright necklace in the branches, even if it was an illusion that guided him along. He stopped at the gradual-incline of a hill a few dozen metres at its height, where a new hierarchy of trees seemed to stand as a separate boundary altogether from those he just exited. He kept to the advice he was given, and saw this climb as the best way to pass through the wider-spaces between trees. As he took a breath, he watched the wind possess the treetops, causing the elder-bristles to bow and sway, the higher branches to flex and wave, the countless leaves at the edges of their wood-fingers to tremble, sigh and cackle together into a morose and noisy symphony. He climbed the hill, savored the level-plain as he realized how sore his legs were from the week’s long journey. Catching his breath, he continued forward, the plant-fiber muscle of his legs feeling more acute stress as his feet sunk deep into the spongy-mulch soils with every step. Even as he kept to the wider spaces between trees, he wondered why he would be seeing such apparitions as the necklace of the Priestess. He hated the thought of falling into the madness of wild conspiracy, but he couldn’t help but wonder if these forests really manifest illusions within those unaccustomed to their secret ways.

“I feel like I’m being teased,” said Forester out loud, “Do the trees dangle the necklace before me, and pass it between themselves?” 

From the center of a series of trees ahead to his left, Forester was startled by a burst of static, followed by an odd, modulating voice, filtered through thick membranes of hyphae and amplified by two distorted mushroom-speakers that grew up and curved out from a dead tree. 

“Kylyy Seeker, come here, speak with me through this microphone.” 

Sticking to the patterns of the trees ahead, he hurried to find the source of the distorted voice. The Seeker caught the now-familiar sight of a bright pink glow misting across the dark-blue hue of the trees at night, emanating from a particularly full Djamora Mushroom standing tall above the strange and intricate voice-conversion apparatus. “Yes, I’m glad you can hear me. Are you here to seek the remains of the Banished Priestess of the Qyo Faith? You are dressed as a Qyo Secret Officer, from your posture and dress I would believe that you are someone who stands proud in your esteem. You are, without a doubt, an asset to your Government.”

The hopes of Forester vanished, as he began to predict what was now expected of him. “I guess you could say that. The Monos sent me out here to seek any evidence of the Priestess after her disappearance.”

The gurgled speech of the pink mushroom spilled out of the fleshy speakers to the Seeker, soaked in pure, accusatory intent. “You have waited a long while before commencing this search, haven’t you? What evidence could remain, at this point?”

Forester shrugged. “The Monos didn’t want a search to commence until after the permafrost melted away,” said the Seeker, with as official an answer as he was prepared to give to another stranger who aimed to get him even more lost in these woods than before.

The velocity of the voice crushed the speakers as the Mushroom spoke: “The Qyo Emperor wanted to make sure she was well and truly dead, then.”

The Seeker took a moment to calm himself. “Look, I can’t rationalize the decisions of the Monos any better than anyone else. Even if you are right, there’s nothing I can do now except find out what happened to her.” 

The pink mushroom pondered aloud: “Perhaps you didn’t want to risk your own career by starting the search for the Priestess too soon, so that you might stay in the favor of the Orchid regime. Is that it, Seeker? If you lie, you will fool only yourself.” 

Forester sighed, and gave the mushroom what he wanted: “She was about to be stripped of a title that she had worked her entire life to achieve, a title many felt that she deserved, and many felt that they were cheated when she was no longer their Archpriestess. Whatever my thoughts on the matter, the Monos saw banishment as a proper punishment for her, and had her exiled from the Empire entirely.”

“And why is this, Seeker?” asked the pink mushroom, “What heinous crimes did they find her guilty of?” 

Forester felt a draught of confidence dry out the vacuoles throughout his entire body. He breathed deeply, enriching his pores with the cold, humid air held captive by the centennial romances shown in the weaving limbs of the trees. “Heretical Rituals Practiced During Wartime,” he answered.

“It is said that she had few friends in the palace, but many friends in the streets and among the local clergy. Is it possible that her popularity was seen as a threat to your Monos? Did you care for the Priestess, Seeker?” 

Without raising his voice, Forester snapped back with a question of his own: “How about I ask you something? Have you ever heard of a Pink Fulgen such as yourself walking around in Qyo, specifically in East Dakukad?” the Seeker asked the treebound Fulgen.

“Don’t trouble yourself with my intentions, Seeker, where am I to go? It would take me centuries to grow a body capable of stasimilas, which is why few Fulgen kingdoms choose this as the focus of their life’s path. Why must I conform to the bipedal nature of you walking-flowers? And don’t diminish your own intelligence in believing that I must know every pink-djamora mushroom individual, I have never left this spot since my culture was brought here! Remember, Seeker, t is you who requires my help to escape this maze of lichen, bark and Fulgen! Now answer my question: did you care for her?”

Forester swallowed in hopes of speaking clearly and with emotionless professionalism. “We all did,” said Forester, his vocal reeds cracking into helpless outpour of open-crying, “we all cared for her, and she cared for all of us. She cared for all kylyy people, all fulgen people, she even cared for the spirit of Wister Oledias, that damned tyrant!” Forester clenched his fists as he unearthed the memory of her kind face and dark-yet-compassionate presence. It pained him now to no end to recall her wide, redwood anther-eyes and tolerant, humble smile, one that invited everyone to her gravitational center of communal care. He remembered her boldness, her emphasis on the church being vulnerable to new ideas and how they must fit within their doctrine, and how she wasn’t afraid to preach as she was practicing for all to see. It pained him to remember those last few years, when her primary focus became defending her diverse churchgoers against the violent and apartheid tyranny of Wister Oledias, though she believed that someone had to stand up for those oppressed by the Qyo Military Complex.

Forester’s head swelled heavy with pools of hot sadness. He then confessed to the Djamora mushroom: “If I had known where she was going… I mean, If I had followed after her, I would have tried to bring her back, but then we both would have been killed. Now that I know she made it this far, she may never have never known what all this is like… This forest, it’s like everything I’ve ever heard about it, yet so much more beautiful than I could have ever dreamed…”

The speakers kept quiet for a time, allowing the Seeker to express himself in the presence of this clever Djamora mushroom. “A glorious answer, Seeker, so I will press no further. I know how to help you escape this dizzy maze of moss and lumber, but first you must help me. You must succeed in your quest to find the banished priestess. She is here. She is in past, and she may be in future, but her brainseed is the key to the space between time.”                                                                                                                                                                               

Forester sighed: “She is dead, then, and you could have told me that minutes ago.”

“She is dead now,” said the treebound Djamora through the distorted speakers, sounding as though it was crackling away, though each word seemed more carefully inunciated than the last. “Bring me her brainseed, for it is legally mine to collect. The trees have granted me permission to care for such a relic. I will have her brainseed, and I will nurse her back to life, just as she was before.”

Forester looked ahead in shock with his tear-burned eyes. “What if I don’t believe you?” he asked, “What if I don’t give it to you?”

“You will not be able to see the exit to these woods without my guidance, which I will not give until you return here with her brainseed. You will die here, as did the Priestess. Find her wilted husk, bring me her brainseed, and I will make sure you will exit these woods safely, so that you may be reunited with your beetlesteed.”

The Seeker stared again into the darkness beyond the glow of the pink djamora mushroom. “How am I supposed to find her brainseed in the darkness of this place, and how am I supposed to return?” he asked.

The Pink Djamora spoke with assurance: “Within this mechanical device that translates our conversation, there are two playback systems for recordings committed to magnetic tape. Once we are through speaking here, I will play the other tape, a pre-recorded song that will play on a loop for you to use as a homing beacon to this station, and save your skepticism for the uses of electromagnetic tape for when you return to your anxious empire! You will walk straight ahead from here with me on your left just as you entered. As the song becomes more faint in volume, continue to follow the wider spaces between the trees, though be sure to keep an eye forward for dense clusters, where you will likely see her necklace. The necklace you saw before? That was an intuitive apparition of your own mind’s making, but I can assure you that the the necklace is here, deeper in these woods still. Once you see it, follow the tighter spaces between trees, until you reach the location of her death, marked by that necklace which will be hanging directly over your head.”

“Why haven’t you sent someone else to do this before now?” asked the Seeker.

The Fulgen Kingdom explained: “According to my agreement with the Trees, this task must be accepted by a willing participant outside of my immediate cabinet. My stasimilas children, those that can speak and walk on two legs like kylyy people such as yourself, are not to be complicit in the handling of such relics. For the sake of full-transparency, the purpose of this Djamora culture you see now is to bequeath this quest onto someone such as yourself, a willing and capable person with the skills necessary to seek a true relic, just as your Qyo lord saw within you! Never has there been a bounty hunter so fitting for this task than you, Seeker.” 

Forester smiled wearily. It only took a moment before he ultimately thought to himself: Do I really care to bring this, my friend’s spirit kept within her brainseed, to the vengeful roots of the tyrant Lord Oledias? He took a hefty breath, then gave his decision to the pink mushroom: “I’m sure Nerva would rather stay here than end up in a dank mausoleum on the palace grounds. You got me, friend. You’re just as much my lord as Monos Oledias right now, and since you know the law of the forest better than I do, I will do what I can to find her and bring her back.” 

Without expressing any gratitude, the Djamora representative continued to instruct their new bounty hunter: “The Priestess has fallen within the chaotic realm of the aphid-wolves and their evil packmaster. As long as you are in hearshot of my song, the aphids will not bother you, but you will have to brave the deathful domain of the Aphid Herder in order to find the remains of the Priestess. I cannot help you beyond the reach of this song, though if you act fast and pay close attention, you will return to the sound of my chosen musical program. Return to me with the brainseed. I will be waiting.” 

The two conical mushroom-flesh speakers coughed forward a guttural-static blast of noise, followed by a loud warbling pop, and finally a pleasant song Forester recognized as the Hymn of the Nightlilies travelled out of the speakers and into the immediate surrounding-radius of woodland. He stepped over fallen branches layered-over settled nettles, layered-over mulchy, dark volcanic soil and with each step, the warbling and imperfect analog playthrough of Hymn of the Nightlilies became more and more faint behind him, blending into the soundscape of crickets, spiders, ants and aphids, backed by the soft sounds of a light wind through the trees. 

Scattered hissing, flying predators from all around, whinnied cries of fallen and injured beasts met with the satiated hunger of the most vicious beasts within this ruthless overgrown landscape. Forester entered into a wide basin, a crossroads between infinite paths, and desperate to keep moving, he noted a strange tree pointing back behind him, as though it were pointing in the direction of safety, perhaps even in the direction of the lake. He followed ahead between the wider spaces between the trees, keeping his eyes out for that haunting and pale, swaying necklace he could have sworn to have seen at the edges of these Easternmost thickets. As though it were a sign sent from Her Goddess Divine, the bright-opaque round pearls of the necklace appeared on the uplifted wooden fingers of the tall trees buried deep behind a stalwart row of other, thicker trunk. Forester began to follow the tighter spaces between the trees, and as he stepped along, he let his hands glide gently along the treebark as he passed by them. As he climbed over many fallen treetrunks that ranged between dozens of metres wide, he observed that they stood on each side and leaned progressively and drastically inwards, as if to create a shelter to protect from direct sunlight.  The closer he approached, the happier his excited-eyes became as they approached to the bright necklace, a sad token of remembrance that hung high in a tight conglomerate of trees, swaying above a mound of mountain vegetation as though to inspire devotion over the sorrowful martyr who died here.

The sound of shrieking, scuttling legs, garbled processes of thirst and hunger ran about, until Forester realized he was being followed by a mob of dangerous beasts, though he dared not to look behind him. He could hear the saliva sprayed from the mandibles of many starved mammalia-insectoids as they blindly followed the scent of the Lilac flower-petals growing from his shoulders and stamin. Now, he tied his flower-petals closer around his body, and searched even more fervently for the wilted husk of the Banished Priestess, darting quickly over the cross-hatch of fallen treetrunks. The strange path between the ever-tightening density of this climbing pile of poached trees lead to a horrifically massive and ancient tree whose roots reached outward dove down deep into the thick terrain, framing a mound of leaves that had  turned-to-mold by snowmelt, rain and sudden-warm weather and covered with spiderwebs that had been windswept and draped onto the cradled woodland altar.

He felt a gust of anxious air exit his vocal reeds when he looked directly above him, seeing that the necklace had twisted-around a high heavy-branch, weighed down by its burgeoning greenery. Forester looked down, seeing nothing but tangled forest-floor, until he reached his hand far into the loose-deposits beneath the roots of the tree, turning completely upside down and hanging by his feet around the roots themselves. His hand moved over copious amounts of loose dirt and compost, over wrinkled-velvet black petals before realizing that these belonged to the Priestess herself. Tears welled in his eyes again, and he reached past the petals in order to locate her head. He felt its edges, the dried vacuole-veins under her straight-grassy hair covered in dirt and damp with dew, though without sufficient light he could only feel around her cranium. Breathing deeply with the eve of regret, the Seeker put his arms under those of the Priestess’s body, and with his feet firmly on the roots of this dirt-and-tree-root-tomb, he pulled the body to the surface, became lightheaded at the morbid sight of the long-dead husk as he held it steady to keep it from toppling over. He positioned the husk of his old friend to rest against the massive, old tree, so that he may locate the part of the cranium that hovered and protected directly above her brainseed.

The Seeker’s eyes darted all around, each moment filled with anxiety of being caught while moving the husk of a dead person, and moving fast to avoid becoming food for the onslaught of insects who can smell every detail of what he was currently doing. His nightmares were realized as frantic antennae blurred into his view, camouflaged among the leaves and fallen trees. He reached over to his right and grabbed a hold of a brush-covered branch, pulling the body as it tipped dramatically to the other side, then he painfully ripped a tattered-strip from his denim skirt and swiftly wrapped it into a makeshift torch. Quick to light the tinder with flint-and-steel, the torch burst to life. The Seeker held it high, standing tall while holding body of the Priestess up with his other arm around her waist. 

“Don’t come any closer! I’ll light the damn tree on fire if I have to!” 

The aphids vibrated with eager fervor, waiting to lunge towards the Seeker, who held the torch aloft and shifted the body around in order to study her cranium. 

Unbroken, so the seed must still lay within!

“That doesn’t belong to you!” a manic voice called from behind the aphids. 

The Seeker had no choice. He carefully rested the body face-down against a thick tree-root, and with a stone he hammered through dead woman’s dry and wilted cranium, cracking it open not unlike a large walnut and unleashing ages of potent death-dust. The Seeker shoved the handle of the torch into the layers of soil and leaves, catching it as it leaned over with his knee as he equipped his pair of medical snippers from a pouch on his skirt. He cut through the now-wooded-over central nervous stem connected to the brainseed itself, and swore at himself as he realized the force of impact to crack her skull open also chipped the seed itself. With greater care than before, the Seeker carefully removed the large brainseed from the cranium of the wilted husk, wrapped it into a thick burlap cloth close around his chest. He spoke a soft and long-forgotten prayer to the reliquary-mind of his old friend. Grabbing ahold of the torch as he stood, he begged for forgiveness as he allowed the now-truly lifeless husk of the priestess to slump awkwardly forward into the pit of forest-debris that erosion had fashioned into her grave so long ago. 

Forester darted around the tree, goading the aphids to chase after him, and as they did so in a long-enough arc around this most ancient of trees he ran around back to reach the path to the forest tomb of the Priestess. He ran as fast as he could in the direction of the Djamora Station, shifting focus to the narrow-to-wide the spaces between trees, though he could still feel the quick feet of the aphids pattering angrily behind him. Though the wailing cries of the insectoid-wolves pierced his senses, it caused him to run even faster, though he soon realized he couldn’t keep on this same, easy path back to the Djamora station, as before him the morbid translucent exoskeletons of many more aphids filled in from all visible pathways ahead. In an instinctual decision that shocked even himself, he turned to his left and ran uphill so that he may roll downhill and gain a greater distance between himself and his hungry attackers. As he did so, bouncing against the soft terrain which dipped down back into a ravine, a old riverbed piled with rusted-over and motionless Colossi wreckage stretched barren and grassless for a great distance.

The Seeker ran southward around, pitfalls and random deposits of sediments and soils-mixtures, each step gripping at his rooted-feet with an aim to halt his movement, though he continued to run with speed he hadn’t manifested in decades, maybe even centuries, sprinting by statuesque Colossi modules covered in complex and beautiful spiderwebs and guarded by their ten-legged weavers, sliding down muddy slopes and over tufts of polished stones. 

After losing track of time and having dashed down this ravine for a long while in a direction he didn’t fully know was correct, he slowed his steps, reassured by the lack of aphid sounds following behind him. Many hours had passed before he was deeply-relieved to hear the amplified, tape-recorded sound of a distant bell ringing through the woods, signifying that the tape recording was beginning again. The riverbed-ravine arched westward and south, so the Seeker climbed up and out of it and walked Northwest as he followed the sound of the Hymn of the Nightlilies. If he kept following the wider spaces between trees, with an ear on the looping song that played in the distance, he was sure to find the Pink Djamora Station once again. He would deliver the brainseed to the Djamora speaker as he promised. All he wanted now was to find his beetlesteed Lady, his detective-partner Scout and his beetlesteed Yunaika, and make sure they were safe before returning to Qyo to give his report on how the Priestess vanished, without a trace, into the Feral Forests. 

“THE SEEKER IN THE FERAL FORESTS”

Written by spaceseer 

Characters, world, story and art by spaceseer 

Listen to our new album “FERAL MOON” at

https://www.spaceseer.bandcamp.com/

https://ampwall.com/a/spaceseer

“A THREAD BETWEEN FRIENDS, BOOK 1: FERAL MOON COMING SOON”