BEYOND

4

Linnah Gregory {25th day of first moon, 754Q}

"Linnah Gregory"

"Present", a lean girl around twenty-two years of age, wearing round rimmed spectacles, is seen raising her hand, so as to catch the attention of her professor. She is sitting at the right corner of her classroom; a few books and a feather quill can be seen on her writing desk. A beautiful girl, at first glance anyone will recognize her to be a studious individual.

While the zoology professor Mr. Jenkins moved on to call the names of other students, Linnah continued to read the book 'The unsolved world of Duo'. She still could not believe that her work is now one of the greatest sought out book in the empire, even the imperial scientist and royal Scholars were trying their best to confirm whether the information that is presented in the book is valid, or whether it's just a fake. She even saw Professor Jenkins reading it the other day. She still cannot believe it, that despite being a person who fears the smallest things, she managed to gather up courage and take one of the greatest risks of the empire, to wander inside the forest.

It was not an easy task for her, to convince her professor that she was going back to her home in Ottingel, to visit her parents, and stay with them for about three weeks, and also to convince her parents that she wanted to return to the university so that she could submit her assignments and project work. And above all, the hardest task was to buy a potion that would help her to shape shift into any creature that she wanted to. Madam Liera was not a person to easily believe your stories, and of course she will have suspicions when a noble's daughter comes to her asking for a special portion, so she had to tell the truth to the old woman, well partial truth, that is more like it, what she told the old witch is she would like to explore the woods of Ottingel and research about the animals there. The witch was somehow convinced and gave her the potion, which was worth around #150 gold coins.

She bought the potion, but now the question was how is she supposed to get to the Duo forest, it will take at least one week to reach the forest from her home town Ottingel and she only had around three weeks of leave, as it was summer break for the students at university, so the next thing was to extend her leave, for this she had to write a letter to her dean , telling him that her maternal grandmother was terribly ill and the doctors had only promised another two months on her grandmothers life ,so she wrote in her letter that she wished to stay with her grandmother for another two weeks, so as to spend some time with her grandma during her last days.

The dean a middle-aged woman, whose name was Makilea Reincrafy, always valued family relations so much, it is one of the reasons why despite the university rule 'not to grant leave to students unless an emergency', she was granted a three weeks leave to visit her family, whom she had not visited for a year cause of exams and other activities in the university. She being a bright student and one of Madam Makilea's favorite also helped. In reply to her gloomy and depressing letter, the dean sent her a letter granting her another two weeks of leave and a heartfelt sorry for her grandmother's state.

Linnah had to read this same letter in front of her grandmother who was lecturing her on finding a suitable partner and criticizing her for deciding to continue her studies in zoology. The very next day she packed her things and took whatever she felt like is necessary for the trip and said a very pleasant goodbye to her parents , off she went to her 'university', but the place she ended up was the Duo forest.

It would be foolish to tell that the girl was not afraid, she was, she knew her life was in danger, and maybe she would never be able to comeback out of this forest, But her desire to learn and curiosity to know was much more compared to others, she wanted to prove to her parents that she could do things much more better than her brother, who is now one among the kings special force. But was her desire to prove herself worth her life? Well what it was going through her mind when she went into that forest no one knows except her, she must have been entirely mad or truly brave.

But the result is, she came back without any scratch on her, her disguise as an owl worked and she learned about the creatures that lurked in the darkness of the forest.

The reality of the dark forest was the exact opposite of what people had conceived in their minds. The forest was much more peaceful and safe, compared to the small woods in her town Ottingel. What she wanted was to know about the unknown creatures, but each and every single being that she came across was harmless and most of them only came out when the sun was set and the forest was filled in utter darkness, when you cannot distinguish between the leaves of tress and the dark sky.

When she came back she knew she had to change people's view about the dark forest, but telling the entire truth will be a stupid thing, the innocent creatures of the forest may be harmed, and hunted down by others. So she created a half truth of the forest, wrote a book under the name of Rog Lin, and only wrote about those creatures that are large and fearsome. She tried her best to maintain the false perception that people has about the forest and published a book under the title 'the unsolved world of Duo'.

Even though she could not tell others that she is Rog Lin, she still felt a sense of accomplishment, she had done something others thought was impossible.

But one thing still troubles her mind, a lot many people had tried to venture into the forest, some failed , some people were lost and others never came back, and the few ones who did come back alive , had gone completely out of their minds . But how is it that she was unaffected by the forest.