The Chained Watcher

The Old Base

~~~

"It's been how long since we were here?"

"Fifty years, probably a little more. I'm planning on flying over to the mainland soon to see if this is really the same place."

"But the war?"

"I'll be careful."

Walking out of the command building, Grian looked around to see if he could spot Philza. The black-winged avian would most likely want to come along, if only to check in on the children rescued the first time they came here. He found him chatting with one of the bakery managers, haggling for an oversized basket of pastries.

"Hey Phil!"

"Oh? Hey Grian. What brings you around here? You're usually out scouting in your spare time."

"Well, I heard something from a merchant ship while scouting, and I thought you might want to come along to see if what they said was true. If I'm not wrong, this is the same place we were last time, but fifty years have passed instead of two."

"F-fifty?"

"Fifty. You coming?"

"Of course!" Phil finished buying the pastries, packing them into his inventory before walking over to Grian. "Are we leaving now? I know you have the tendency to do something the moment you make up your mind to do it."

"You know me so well. Considering that there's a war going on out there, delaying is not the best idea, just in case something unexpected happens."

"A war?!"

"I'll explain on the way."

~~~

"Wow, that is... certainly something."

Flying high above the empty battlefield, the two avians took in the torn ground and scorched earth. Grass had started growing back over everything, but discarded weapons littered the field marked with the footprints of thousands of soldiers. Large scorch marks mar the ground, the very soil itself blackened by whatever fire had swept it clean.

Neither of them wanted to go down to check in detail, but this was definitely the location of a fierce battle in the past. There was a town nearby, but it wasn't in ruins as they had feared. The only sign that something had recently changed in the town was a couple conspicuous empty spots in the noble district filled with more scorch marks.

Judging by what Grian had heard from the captain, this town had been captured by the queen's side, which is why the noble district was missing a couple mansions. The general populace appeared to be content from what could be seen, so there's not a good reason to think badly of the occupation.

A map in one of the shops Grian snuck into had a location he recognized marked on it, so using that as reference they were able to find the old base location. Hovering just outside the forest, their expressions turned a little weird when they saw how the spooky part of the forest had overtaken the rest of it.

"Did the custom part of the forest always reach this far?"

"I don't think so? This many trees would have taken a lot more time to sculpt than any of us had back then."

"But aren't we the only ones who can build Minecraft style?"

There was no answer to this question as they gazed upon the strangely shaped wall of trees in front of them. This kind of growth was in no way natural, with all the branches weaving together to block out the sunlight very thoroughly and the roots making any path hard won. The bark was also rough and gnarled, completing the haunted forest look.