At some point, as she traveled to the right of the rising sun, Aiko noticed that the trees had begun to change, and the ones that she was used to seeing stopped being as numerous. That had a couple of different effects. The first effect was that, since the newer trees were smaller, she was forced to get much lower to the ground in order to jump from branch to branch. The second effect was that she wasn’t able to force these trees to produce nuts for her to eat.
She, therefore, had to get down at various points and grow seeds from the stockpile that she had in her backpack. It didn’t take many of the seeds, however, since most of the vegetables that she was growing were actually quite large and served as more than one meal. In four more days of travel, she only used five seeds.
She continued along for another five days only spending a few of her remaining seeds in that time. The reason she was able to save on her seed stock was that she actually managed to find a new source of berries in one of the local varieties of bushes. It was while she was down in one of these berry bushes that she discovered smoke rising into the sky from somewhere nearby. Of course, this set off immediate alarms in her head.
The moment that she noticed the smoke rising lazily into the sky, she stopped picking the berries and just ran for the cover of the nearest tree. She climbed spastically to the top of the tree with as much haste as she could put into her limbs. From this new vantage point, she got a front-row seat onto the wide low moor at the bottom of what Aiko was only then realizing was a slowly descending mountainous region.
The small rolling hills in the lush grassland were only visible because of the end of the forest line. Unbeknownst to Aiko prior to then, she was within the last stand of trees before they gave out entirely. She hadn’t even known it because she’d approached from low enough that the huge, and now that she looked closer, obviously cultivated, berry bushes were hiding the fact.
As Aiko looked out across the verdant green field, with its many small, rolling hills, she could see smoke rising from the peaks of many of them. She could also make out the forms of some men or beings of some kind moving between some of these hills. It was only once she was looking closer, that she realized just how close she had come to a few of them.
They seemed to be standing guard at some form of entrance. It was almost as though the hole leading down into the ground was the door of one of the elves' huts. As Aiko stood there Perched atop the highest branch in one of the last remaining trees before this grassland moor, she looked on with indecision, trying to decide whether she should approach these strange beings or not.
The beings that she spotted walking around and the two at the entrance to the mound were somewhat taller than her but not by a lot. They were a little bit broader than her and covered in fur that ranged from white to tan to brown with a few that she could see having even black spots. They wore little bits of clothing here and there with the females usually wearing something to cover both their teets and their crotch while the males only seemed interested in covering their crotch. Some of them did seem to have a bit of armor but these seemed to be set aside for certain roles, perhaps guards. They had slightly elongated faces with whiskers and big lips on short snouts ending in small Inverted triangular noses.
However, their most prominent feature no matter which individual was the pair of long ellipsoid ears perched atop their heads. they looked a lot like the rabbits that the elves would hunt from time to time. Aiko never ate any of the meat but she did have to admit that the fat from some of the creatures the elves would hunt made their stews taste particularly good. Enough so that she even began to question whether she was truly an herbivore or perhaps she had a bit of carnivore in her.
It was while she was in the tree observing these strange beings moving about, especially the two that were still next to the entrance to the mound that she came to the realization she recognized them. Not specifically any one of these creatures that she could see in front of her but that she recognized the type of being or that she had seen them before. It took her a moment to place exactly where it was that she had seen one of these before because the experience had been somewhat gruesome and she had been inadvertently trying to block the memories from her mind. However, the gruesome details of the hapless being from under the Bush came vividly back and she almost vomited again just from the memory.
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After having recognized that these creatures were the very same ones that the big red-skinned ogres were hunting she made the decision in her mind she couldn’t sit back and let these people be slaughtered without at least letting them know. The elves might have an advantage because at least they were roughly the same size but these people were almost as small as her. If they were likely to be attacked and killed they at least had the right to prepare themselves.
She steeled her nerves she was going to have to go down there and tell them. There was still a little bit of a lingering stigma in her mind when it came to approaching people but the elves had taken the edge off and it was no longer a phobia. After all, Aiko wasn’t exactly an antisocial person she just didn’t want to be attacked. That was fair, wasn’t it?
After settling her nerves Aiko decided to put on a bit of a show. She descended to a lower branch and cast airwalk before slowly and calmly walking directly towards the two guards stationed next to the whole descending into the mound. At first, neither of the guards noticed her but suddenly Iko could tell the difference in one of their postures.
She couldn’t actually see his eyes but she knew that they were on her as he had suddenly stiffened up. Her conclusion was confirmed a moment later when that guard Jabbed the other in the ribs and pointed in her direction. Both guards were holding crude spears made of burned and sharpened branches.
While certainly crude compared to the elves who used stone tips on all of their spears and as the cutting implements of choice for both axes and knives, these spears weren’t too bad. A sharpened stick in the hands of somebody with experience was probably better than a stone-tipped spear in the hands of an amateur like herself. While she was pondering this she realized that neither of their spears stood the barest shadow of a chance against her chaos knife spell.
However, it didn’t look like she would need to demonstrate that to either of them since they didn’t seem to be inclined to point their spears at her. Both guards seemed content to simply gawk at her as she walked calmly and sedately through the air. To be fair to them neither of the guards had equipment nearly as good as hers either.
Both guards were dressed in what appeared to be a vest made of simple boiled leather. Their helmets were just a little bit better. They were still made of boiled leather but at least they seemed to have been form-fitted to the shape of their heads this still left their long ears sticking out over the top of the crude dome-like helmets. Also, most of their face was left uncovered by these helmets. This didn’t strike Aiko as the best design for a helmet but it would be effective enough.
Her helmet however was made of a very hard seed and had been meticulously chiseled into a shape that fit over her entire face and covered the entirety of her upper snout before wrapping around the end of her nose and ending at the top of her jawline. It did have small holes cut out in the sides to let her small bushy round ears poke out the top. Even setting aside the construction of the two helmets her helmet was certainly made out of something harder than theirs.
All of that was before considering her armor which was leagues ahead of the pitiful armor that these two guards wore. Her armor was made from the hardest scales of the dragon turtles found around the Elvin Wood. Every elf grew up knowing that dragon turtles were a particularly nasty threat and that if you got caught in front of one you were likely to lose a hand if you were lucky and your life if you were not.
The only way to kill a dragon turtle was to catch it at the base of the neck with a spear or a very daring dagger plunge. Of course, Aiko had never seen a living dragon turtle but she had seen the hunters bring a couple of them in. The scales on their back and their stomach were impressively hard but they could be hacked through with a stone ax and enough determination. However, there were scales that were too small and too hard for any ax to go through.
These hardest of scales could only be found on the head and neck of the dragon turtle and the only exposed spot was the large preening scale at the back of its head that left a small patch of skin exposed right behind its head. After the creature was skinned, cleaned, and dried the hide with these scales could be processed.
In the case of her own armor, these beautiful blackish-green scales made up the entirety of her chest covering. Of course, to the elves, this was a paltry amount and it took several dragon turtles to make up a decent patch of armor for one of them however her own armor vest was made from the scraps of one dragon turtle. There were certainly advantages to her size if only they outweighed the disadvantages.
On the other hand, these two guards wore simple boiled leather as their vest. Aiko supposed that it would do well enough to stop many things from penetrating their hide but would have nowhere near the protection that her own dragon turtle scale vest would offer her. That was before even considering the vast difference in appearance that the glossy dark green scale vest afforded her. If only it weren’t so uncomfortable to wear over her fur.