"Welcome to the Gold Root Forest! Believe it or not this forest is actually a mine for Sun Stones. Why has the forest not been cut down you ask?"

No one asked that, but Mr. Rider continued regardless.

"The plant life here is powerful. What I mean by that is that they repopulate and grow at extremely fast rates despite the lack of sunlight. You can thank the Sun Stones for that. Over the years the trees started to adapt to the rich nutrients they provided, turning their roots gold."

I raised my hand. My non broken hand that was. Even after more than a week the broken one still stung with pain at every movement.

"Yes Monty?"

"Why do the trees here have leaves?"

The Second Layer, unlike the First, had no main source of light. Instead different environments usually had their own sources of light that allowed a lot of plant life to survive. A giant glowing mushroom, an ever present storm that crackled with lightning. In the Gold Root Forest the light came from the leaves themselves. They glowed like the sun and even had cycles like day and night.

But that didn't explain why there were glowing leaves at all, they were supposed to absorb light not create it.

"I uh, well I don't really know, but it sure looks cool."

A sharp jab in my side made me shut my mouth before I replied. Melanie sent me a little glare.

"Shut it, I'm tired and wanna hit the hay."

I was also tired.

Our group was still the only ones to lose anyone, but that didn't mean we didn't face dangers since encountering the Skinwalker.

Each day we were given a task. Usually it was paired with reaching a certain location. Most of the time it was on our own, but sometimes we had the assistance of the Forged Order. Such as building a sheltered enclosure for a long term stay. We failed that one due to internal disputes. Not to mention we abandoned it the next day. Then we had to work together to stop a Rolling Stone Nightmare. As the name implied it was a stone Nightmare that never stopped rolling. The small ones were too fast to catch, and the big ones too heavy to stop. Melanie's cape has been perfect for that. She wrapped it around one the size of my head and was able to wrangle it to a stop.

The most dangerous task had been to steal an egg from a Thousand Eye Eagle. Whoever came up with the names of Nightmares had my thanks. The eagle had eyes on every feather, and the two on its face were a pair of compact eyes like you would see on a bee.

The danger is that each eye could "lock on" to a person, creating a thread between feather and target. The feather would fly along that thread to its fleshy destination. Vit used his Taskmaster to cut as many threads as possible while I used the thread against the bird, running Dismantle along its length to cut the muscles of the Nightmares wings. The eggs were just as fascinating as the bird. A twisting form of blinking eyes that finched when you touched them. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to keep it.

I could feel the fatigue in my bones, the others were no doubt the same. The way their eyes slowly closed only to flash open and the half second it took for them to respond in conversation. Exhaustion was a fascinating thing.

“This mine is overseen by the Dreamer Pax Cheshire, who I am sorry to inform you, has been following us since we entered the bounds of this forest.”

A man only as tall as myself walked out of a tree a dozen meters away. His eyes were a dull orange, almost brown, and his hair was as green as grass. His skin was pale due to being out of the sun for so long. But he was built like a squashed down version of Mr. Rider.

“Welcome to my home ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice deep and quiet. “There are one hundred and eight people under my command here. All workers who risk their lives to mine Sun Stones in this Nightmare infested forest. They stay here for six months at a time and in that time a tenth of them will die. If you wonder why someone would risk their life the answer is money. Six months of work here is equal to three years up top, and their families get paid double if they die. If someone survives ten rotations down here they get a pension for the rest of their life. That is how valuable Sun Stones are. The quality of the Sun Stones here are some of the best in the Second Layer. They grow quickly and large, with few impurities. But no matter how many times we tried to rid this area of Nightmares, they always return. Blurtails can bury straight through a man's gut in the blink of an eye. Red Spinners cover large swaths of land in their deadly silk. And the trees suck up the energy from below transforming into Ents. You will face all of these in your final test, but that is for tomorrow. Tonight you will feast and rest.”

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When he was done with his speech he turned, and walked back into the behemoth of a tree. The man was so different from the other Cheshire’s I had met before. Curt, to the point, but not cruel or dismissive. Was it because he was an adult and had survived the tribulations of the Second Layer? He was also able to walk through plants, which was thought inspiring. It made him perfect for this post.

While what Pax Cheshire said about conquering the forest was true, it doesn’t mean they were unable to work with it. A path eight feet wide was carved out to allow wagons. The road was gravel, with flecks of white covering the gaps between the stones, salt. It was an unreasonable amount of salt, but perhaps the powerful plantlife warranted it.

The leaves I pointed out earlier glowed a soft gold. It was beautifully ethereal. I wanted to put one under a microscope. They lit up the area all around. A gust of wind tears a few from their branches and my hand catches one. It is not warm like I thought it would be.

I run Senses through it, nothing. It was just a leaf that glowed. I refused that reality. My Senses skill was not that powerful, it cannot give me very minute information, and is bad at putting large pieces of a puzzle together. It was also terrible at sensing Intent. Then there was my lack of knowledge on plant life. It could be any one of those things, even all of them.

My only warning that we arrived was the warm metal of the Champion’s chest piece as I ran face first into it. I should not zone out while walking, especially down here.

The mining town was small and looked more like a military outpost than anything. Large wooden planks made up the surrounding wall, and several watch towers had sentries on them. Everything was covered in salt. It's odd that a Cheshire would salt the earth, but then again they know the way of plants better than any other.

Once we were inside we were shown to a newly cleared area where we would be able to set up our tents. The smell of the cooking feast filled our nostrils as we set up the tents. For some reason, this made me feel close to those around me. Was this comradery? The feeling of shared bounty after shared hardship? I liked the feeling, even as it made me feel less like myself.

Even with this new sense of closeness I didn’t speak during the meal except for one or two word answers. I also went to bed early, most of us did. When I woke in the morning I realized I didn’t even examine the buildings that made up the compound. I should, but we are called to the center of the compound. All the teachers, Sergeant Brightstrike, and Pax Cheshire were there, along with a few people I assumed were head miners.

The leaves were only just beginning to lighten with glowing color, soon they would snuff the torches that lined the walls.

Somehow I felt more tired than I did the previous night. Maybe it was because my brain was functioning fully again. The ache in my broken hand was so monstrous that not even the feeling of my watch ticking helped me.

“This forest is pockmarked with hundreds of tunnels leading to Sun Stone chambers where they grow over the years. The issue comes when we find a Sun Stone that has grown too large, because Ents will set roots there to absorb the nutrients, and other Nightmares will flock to the area. To them those Sun Stones are like bonfires in a blizzard, despite not being charged up by the sun,” Pax Cheshire said, his squat form

I wondered why exactly. The Ents apparently stole energy from them or their chambers in some way, perhaps the Sun Stones could increase the power of Intent by being near it. Surely there was some research on the subject somewhere. Just no concrete results, otherwise the academy would have made us use Sun Stones as teddy bears while we slept.

“We have identified several of these locations. Each of your teams will be assigned a mining team, and over the next ten days your goal is to kill the Ents and Nightmares around the Sun Stone chamber and help the miners to extract the resource.”

Then the test would be nothing like any of the others we had taken along the way. Before we were a group of Dreamers and warriors, each capable in some way. Now there were civilians we had to take care of. They had opinions and experience that would aid, but could also hinder as they did not know our capabilities.

Unlike every other part of our education this test was not for us to blossom with our individualism, but instead for our ability to aid the larger world. The teachers wanted us to follow our Dreams, and the school wanted us to aid the country.

"Money is not the only reason these Sun Stones need to be extracted. The longer they are in place the stronger the Ents will grow, but that is not the reason either. Who can tell me why?"

After a moment a hand raised. Marollo adjusted his glasses with his other hand shuffling his feet as so many eyes laid upon him.

"Weapons Lord Cheshire. Large Sun Stones are regulated by the government so that highly destructive weapons are not in circulation."

"Yes, exactly. Even airships use an array of smaller Sun Stones to fly unless they are government owned. That is because if you get a Sun Stone big enough it becomes a bomb, a weapon. That is even more dangerous than a Dreamer. Dreamers are individuals, they have names, faces, families. A weapon can be passed from one to another, stolen.”

Loyalties can pass from one to another too, and kidnapping is always a thing. I get his point though, Sun Stones are a controllable resource unlike Dreamers, so the government wants to control it. I would too in their position.