In the grand hall, the court had convened. The room was tinged in an ethereal blue, almost purple light, which filtered through the intricately woven branches and leaves of the ceiling. At the center of the grand hall stood a long, pale table.

Carved from the bones of a massive creature, it was covered in intricate carvings and sealed with the resin of the last tree shepherd of the north. Standing around the pale table were chairs of wrought gold, seating ‘people’ of otherworldly presence.

Some were glaringly beautiful, overshadowing even the greatest models and nation-toppling beauties. Some wore eccentric outfits fashioned from never-wilting grass and leaves in colorful combinations.

Others looked not even human, faces cast in shadows. Fatty, dark hair and clothing telling tales of rot and mold and a life in darkness. Some presences stained the gold they sat on. But they all shared the same, unaging aura.

Sitting at the head of the table, not on a golden chair, but a throne of the same, pale, white bone as the table, was a woman with skin like fresh snow and hair like dried blood. She wore a dress woven from spiderwebs and shadows, releasing a dark fog that surrounded her seat of honor.

Her eyes wandered over the assembled court. She was not bothered by the enchanting charm or hideous repulsion of her subjects. Her gaze shortly halted on the two empty seats before resting on a blonde woman who looked like misery incarnate.

“You have failed us,” her cold voice cut through the ethereal atmosphere, like a shard of ice. The woman winced, perfectly clear about her crimes.

“Not only have you failed us, but we can also feel a terrible power rising in the west. The vermin you failed to control have found a protector of unknown origin,” the queen continued. Her voice held no emotion, but it still felt scalding to the people present.

She sighed, and the room shivered.

“We awakened to a world that has become foreign to us, but it is still our world. The natural order is stronger than ever. The trees thrive and die. Monsters roam the woods and die. The air is clean and full of energy,” she romanticized. Her voice was soft and almost warm.

“However, ruins of decaying iron speak of a terrible past. Like jagged teeth that bear witness to the horror the vermin have brought upon the world. The mountains are hollowed and the grounds unstable where they dredged for materials, greedier than any dwarf;” her voice reached unprecedented coldness.

“You all understand why they must be stopped from expanding again.” The temperature in the room dropped. “And yet you are all failing me,” she gave her verdict.

“The Horr’se has vanished. The Fatherbird has not left his tower, mourning his loss. Now you, Lilee, the most promising of them all, lost your grasp on the city of rust. “

“I’m sorry, Mother Winter,” Lilee said with tears in her eyes. “The outsiders were too strong for my slaves and me…” she whimpered. Mother Winter looked at her, as if considering admonishing her, but in a rare moment of mercy, she didn’t.

“It is no excuse,” she stated,” It was your conceit that caused this problem. However, let this be a cautionary tale for all of us, not to underestimate humans. Lilee, report what you know of the outsiders that have beaten you,” she instructed the blonde Lianenn to share her experience.

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“They are called Minas Mar. They are a group of people who have managed to unify what was left of humans after the great collapse. They are supposed to live in the roving mountains in the far, far west, so I never expected that…”

“No excuses, just report what you know,” the queen interrupted her. Lilee nodded.

“After the great collapse, humans have become able to master the mystic arts and power surpassing their original strength, and Minas Mar is among the strongest groups of such champions. 4 days ago, a group of them suddenly showed up in New Hope, the city of rust;” she paused, reliving the painful memory of her loss.

“There were just a handful of them, but the tree I met was overwhelmingly strong. Just one was enough to beat my strongest pawns. I suffered several deaths before I managed to flee the city,” she continued.

“But you were surrounded by iron, that must have weakened you,” one of the participants commented. Lilee remembered “No excuses” and shook her head. She couldn’t blame it on the surroundings. It would have been fatal to give them the wrong idea of the strength she faced.

“ZuoZuo, my strongest pawn, would have easily crushed me no matter the place. I was lucky he was weak to my beauty and charm. You all met the foreigners; they far surpass human standards through their otherworldly methods. Yet they stood no chance against the people of Minas Mar. They were one-sidedly crushed…I was one-sidedly crushed,” she said bitterly.

Everything she had managed to set up in New Hope had become null and void in a matter of hours after the westerners arrived. The grand hall fell silent after Lilee revealed the details of her failure.

“Does that mean… the City of Rust is not the only group of humans left?” a creature covered in moss and oozing mud over its golden chair, asked slowly. The room sighed. How could he be this slow?

“No, they are not. The world is large, far larger than it was in the past. The northern mountains were moved so far away that you can’t see them, and the roving mountains are gone from our view,” the queen answered calmly.

“…and this vast world is now filled with nature, beasts, foreigners, and an uncountable number of humans. It is imperative that we take into consideration the meddling humans from far away and their potential threat.

Lilee, do you know what this power I feel in the City of Rust could be? Could Minas Mar be behind it?” Mother Winter asked. It was the detail that bothered her the most in the recent past. Ever since Lilee returned, something was sucking energy from the earth, massing it…growing. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Lilee nodded. She had only heard rumors, as the people of New Hope knew little of the things past the ragged borders of their own settlement.

“I heard rumors of Minas Mar. People told of cities in the shadows of trees. Massive crowns that encompassed mountains and cities. Maybe, what your majesty is sensing, is one of those?” the blonde asked hesitatingly. The room stared at her.

Trees that covered mountains and cities? The doubt was written across their faces, if they had faces that could express such emotions. The queen had fallen silent, focusing on her perception.

The lay of the land, the flow of magic in the forest, the shimmering in the shadows. She felt the pull, the suction of the being that was greedily absorbing the power of the land. She compared it to how trees felt.

There was a… resemblance. It was not obvious by any means, but if she really focused, then yes. The suction reminded her of a tree, or at least a plant. However, the magnitude of the being…maybe it was really a tree that could cover the whole City of Rust.

“But for what reason…are they planting a giant tree?” the mud spirit voiced another question. Nobody sighed this time. It was a valid question. There had to be a reason why they did that. All eyes turned back to Lilee.

“I-I don’t know? I can only repeat what I heard in New Hope, there was not really a connection between it and Minas Mar until recently,” she exclaimed defensively.

“I said no excuses,” the queen chided her, having opened her eyes again. “If you know of a group of people in the west, you should have sent someone to find out more,” she said calmly.

“That is exactly what we will do now. Before we plan our next move, we must find out the range of our opponents’ capabilities. Any volunteers for a journey to the west?”