Tales from a shattered world - the forest

Chapter 1 - The arrival

"Finally, I'm here," Jeb exclaimed with a loud sigh as he stood over the hill and looked down at the town of Almer. From where he stood, it looked like any other town a weary traveler might pass through.

As he scanned the horizon, nothing about the town itself really stood out to him. Plain-looking wooden buildings lined dirt roads, the craftsmanship too similar for him to distinguish one from the other from where he stood. The only exception was one in the center that seemed bigger than the others, yet besides its size, it seemed to be made no different than the others. 'Function over form,' Jeb thought to himself as his eyes were drawn to the outskirts of town. There he saw fields of some green plants he could not yet identify, all neatly arranged into large square patches. A farm, perhaps? He made a note to look into it later, but the farm was not what drew his gaze, rather what was beyond it.

Jutting out, almost naturally out of place, was a dense expanse of forest. Giant trees whose barks were not quite red and not quite blue grew higher than any Jeb had seen, at least in the human world. The foliage leaves seemed oddly normal to Jeb, a normal shade of green as far as he could tell. Though something was amiss. It was not a windy day. Nary, a breeze blew. Yet the leaves seemed to sway as if dancing to the wind.

Jeb considered expending some power to get a better look but decided against it. He didn't want to exert himself before entering unfamiliar territory, especially when he was about to get a closer look anyway. Hugging his blue cloak closer, he made his way down the hill and toward the town of Almer.

Jeb knew quite a bit about the town; traveling through the region, it was hard not to hear something about it these days. A lot of rumors, a lot of gossip, a lot of tall tales and a surprisingly large number of people claiming to bring goods from there to sell for wayyyyy too high a price.From what Jeb found condensed down from the hearsay, the town was founded by the old Baron Maller, a supposedly gifted alchemist by trade. Using the 'special' properties of the land to further his studies. All things that are expected from a rich old man whose curious about the arcane.

What brought the town to the limelight is not any of the baron's work in his life but rather his death. Yes, the old baron had died, leaving everything to his children. Rumors of foul play ran amok, but Jeb paid them no mind. Whenever someone of esteem dies, such rumors tend to sprout. Besides, it had nothing to do with him.

As Jeb neared the town, he couldn't help but notice fresh cart tracks running along the road. Normally this wouldn't interest him, but as he could help but feel uneasy, a buzz in the air sent tingles along his skin. He let out a small sigh and mumbled to himself, "Well, let's hope it's not gonna be too bad.

He stopped for a moment, focusing his senses. To anyone passing by, he'd just seem like a strange man who just stopped in the middle of the road, staring at nothing. Well, he was certainly strange, but he wasn't staring out at nothing. His vision began to blur as he gazed, not at anything in particular but the space between.

He looked on as a thin haze began to fill his vision. The haze slowly gathered, sharpening till threads began to form, five of them. Leading from where the cart was coming from and leading into the town.

He reached his hand forward and began to run his hands along the threads. The threads danced along his fingers, flowing around them, the natural flow.These threads were sharp and powerful; the ones that left the trail behind were expected to be skilled. Threads of red, green, yellow, blue, and shade Jeb couldn't quite identify, as if knotted together, 'a hybrid perhaps'. As interesting as that was, that's not unexpected.As he stared at the space between the spaces, a glimmer appeared in his vision. A glimmer that Jeb knew should have formed into a thread. One he would be able to follow and track; that's what he was good at.