The Heroes of Aeseganora: Part 1 - The Oca-Tree

The Seamount of Wizardsquids - Part I

Inkling opened his eyes and felt a sensation of floating in the air, his tentacles half-buried in something soft... and woolly.

Of course, I'm lying on a fluffy white cloud! he thought to himself, as any potential worries about what he might've been feeling began to melt away.

He got himself up to try not to sink into the softness of the sky pillow, and he raised a tentacle in order to wipe his monocle clean. However, as he was doing so, the little trickles of cloud which nestled themselves upon the glass fell straight down, instead of blowing away into the air.

As he shielded his eyes from the yellow sun, instead focusing his vision on where would be a suitable place to get down from the sky, he noticed that the clouds weren't moving in the sky at all. If anything, they were as still as a statue.

"This is different," the Dumbo octopus said to himself.

And he was right; everything was completely still, not a gust of wind to be felt, and not a drop of rain to be seen.

He noticed a few more clouds, which he used as steps to get down onto the ground (thankfully, the ground wasn't too far below the clouds), and noticed that the lush green carpet of grass was softer than an infant's blanket as his tentacles gracefully landed upon the non-injurious blades.

The grass gradually sloped down towards a body of water (which was so still it might've been a mirror), some fifty yards away. Behind him was a forest, with every leaf on the trees coloured every colour of the rainbow.

On top of this stretch of land, on a slight incline easily within his ability to climb, was a castle, which, upon closer inspection, was the exact same one that he noticed when the crew arrived through the rainbow mist and into Aeseganora.

It looked just how it was when Inkling first laid his eyes upon it - blanketed in kelp and seaweed, decorated with the little pink, lavender and white flowers, however, it was about half the height you'd expect from a normal castle.

Beside the castle was a space where a stable might've been, however, there wasn't any suitable facilities whatsoever to care for a horse - only dying grass and dried mud.

An uneasy feeling stirred underneath his skin as he peered out at the water. On the horizon, the only thing that broke the flat mirror surface of the water was a stick.

He managed to ignore the urge to go towards the water, and instead headed for the castle. The grass changed to stone as he used his suckers to climb, and before long, Inkling was standing at the front of the castle, which was so still it somehow managed to give him vertigo. He half-expected it to topple over and crush him to death at any minute, and looking up at the flag - which had the symbol of an octopus holding what looked like either a magic wand or a wizard's staff (or a combination of both) - made his head swim.

He walked towards the entrance anyway, his Gate gripped tightly in his tentacle. The sound of his tentacles making .ittle steps forward sounded deafening to his own ears.

****************

The door was swollen, and it wasn't so much closed as wedged most of the way into the doorframe. The interior's paint was flaking, peeling where most of the air had eaten into it. Inkling lightly caressed the door, his tentacle becoming prickled with the sharp edges of the paint as he dragged it to the black handle, gripping it hard and wrenching it free after several hard tugs.

As the door groaned and swung outwards, a strong stench of bitter coldness and something sour hung in the air, causing the octopus to wrinkle his nose as he stepped inside.

The room was fairly bright from the natural light that came in from the glassless windows, instead of the eerie darkness that he'd anticipated. There was a spiral staircase that was painted white in the back centre of the room, and far away from the door was a collage of papers, pictures, maps and photographs.