The trail out of Rolan's lands was at least sedate. We walked along the paths through the trees, taking our time as we picked our way to the north-west. With the supplies we had and the time we'd taken there was no shortage or rush.

Isha still stopped to trade with a few of the roaming merchants we met. I got the feeling that there were either more of them here, or there were so many fewer paths that we were meeting more of them. That seemed the most likely explanation at least, as nobody really walked along the ground in the forest. It meant that though there weren't really fewer people they seemed more concentrated, and you passed by basically every village regardless of wanting to or not.

Nobody stopped us on our way out either, at least not more than just to talk. A lot of the Elders were curious where exactly we thought we were going, but when it was explained they let us pass. After all, we'd seen their Ancient already, and he'd not had us thrown off of his tree, (Something I later learned was an occasional execution method) so we must be fine.

The village structure was similar to ours, though that made sense. One older elf leading the others who were younger than them. Even in the trees there must still be monsters now and then, and a more powerful individual would be needed to fight them. Their gathering was far, far different though. These elves didn't do as much digging for roots as our people did, instead preferring vines, ferns, flowers, nuts, and mosses that could be harvested from their treetop homes, or grown there.

They even had a basic form of something I was stoked to see.

“Look on the roofs Chien,” I enthused as we passed through one village.

“Looks like moss,” he answered, squinting.

“The same moss they gave us to eat,” Isha said, seeing where I was going with this.

“Yes, they're growing it here themselves. Even if it can't be gathered this will make it a sustainable food!” I was so proud of them.

“Is this that agriculture stuff you're going on about again? It looks nothing like what you did back in Elayatol,” Isha griped.

“Of course not, that was a ground based attempt,”

“That made a mess.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“And here they're growing it up in the trees. This is also a perfect environment for moss, warm and wet.”

My lover rolled her eyes, she'd never thought much of my attempts at farming. The first had been when I was much smaller, back in the village we both grew up in. It was an abject failure, not just because I was not a farmer, but because nobody cared. The food there had been too common, too easy to gather, so nobody saw any point to it.

I'd had some success in Atal, selling the concept to people who were in discord about gathering rights. That was all though, and I'd even explained it to the ruler of the city once. He'd understood it, and what it would do, but saw no point to it either. After all the population didn't grow much or fast and gatherers could get plenty for the city without any of the hard work farming would take. Perhaps he'd been right, with how many people died before getting too old maybe farming wasn't needed yet. I'd like to change that at some point though.

After weeks of travel the trees got smaller and smaller, they also changed type. The large ones of the forest looked more like deciduous trees, but as we moved north there were smaller trees interspersed, with needles rather than leaves. There were few at first, just a couple here and there tossed throughout their mighty cousins, but soon the larger ones shrank and were replaced.

Eventually the bridges couldn't keep us so high, the giants being too far apart, and sadly we made our way back down to the ground. As we did though we got one look outwards, over the branches and in the direction we were going. I saw the sheer rock faces before us and cringed.

At first I thought it was mountains, because that would have at least made a lick of sense, but no, not mountains, a plateau, a very, very sizable one. I couldn't see either end as what seemed to be a sheer face rose from the ground, reaching upwards to the heavens. We even managed to get a nice cold breeze as we stood there looking at it.

“Why does everyone have to live up high?” Chien asked, looking at the direction we were going.

“Better question, why did nobody tell us what exactly we were going into?” Isha retorted.

“Because they like laughing at people,” I told both of them. “I know for a fact that Rolan is sitting back there rolling and smacking his throne at the idea of us marching through what is definitely going to be a blizzard. And if you think Jina isn't the kind of person who'd let us go into this unprepared you're wrong, she's basically a sadist.”

“Jerk,” Chien said, shaking his head.

“Nah, he didn't warn us, but at least he gave us winter gear. Even if he had it wouldn't have changed anything. We knew it was going to be cooler, but not this much.” I was pretty sure I could see ice decorating the top of that thing, the light white-blue color distinctive even at this distance.

“Okay, how are we getting up that though, it looks perfectly flat.” Isha didn't seem pleased as she spoke.

“Don't know yet, but I'd wager there are crevices we can use. May also be time to develop a flight spell.” While thinking on how to do that I descended the bridge to the ground.

“Wonder why they don't bring the big trees all the way in,” Chien asked as we walked forwards, the number of pines steadily growing.

“May not be able to, that plateau is rock, no doubt about it. Soil might have something similar below us, getting really shallow really fast.” A lot of the depictions of the ocean were like that back on Earth, with a hard falloff in depth at a certain point. It would at least explain the change in vegetation.

Over the next few days we found ourselves not in our normal forest but in something I recognized from my previous home in the Carolinas, a pine forest. It was pines, pines, pines everywhere, needles everywhere, slippery but at least soft. There were signs of previous burns, but as we approached the rainy season none of those were currently active. By some miracle we'd also missed the pollen season. If we'd arrived to the clouds of yellow dust that must surely arrive yearly I might have just turned around and waited, or burned it down. My eyes found the little orange indicators that it was soon to come though, currently shining a brilliant yellowish-green.

Everything not covered in needles or the few shrubs trying to make it through the acidic soil was sand, foot deep and loose. At least there were no monsters, which gave me plenty of time to have flashbacks to my first youth, and all the national parks I'd been drug through by well meaning teachers and parents.