Breakfast was… uneventful, compared to how we all woke up that is. Basically, Joshua sat at the head of a table, with Suamalie and Lily claimed a table of to his side, whilst Eon and myself erred on the side of caution and decided to choose a table on Joshua’s other side. The original plan for this morning was to, you know, make a plan for the next few days at least, or at least make a plan for today. Obviously not happening considering who everyone woke up next to, and I for one was not going to broach the subject. Now Joshua? Joshua just knew we had a squabble, not about what or why. The man rose early and was down here before everything happened, so he could broach the subject and not get forked over with a food utensil. Or he might just let things flow and simply deal with his stall, leaving us to deal with each other.

“So now, seeing as all of you are being unsociable this morning, I think that I’ll take my leave here and head to my stall. No worries about coming to help me out while we stay here, I’m used to doing this by myself anyway. Take a look around and enjoy the sights, just try and keep the chaos to minimum, would you?” As Joshua finished speaking, he got up and quickly walked over to the inn keeper, paid for all of our meals, and left while ignoring the pleads for help from the guys, and the glares of death from the girls.

I was hoping for level heads to prevail rather a bystander looking at an accident in progress. Here’s to hoping that this accident doesn’t have any fatalities, because at this rate it will be a one sided massacre rather than losses on both sides. “Just… just great…” was the only thing that came to mind as I leaned back in the chair and looked up.

The rest of breakfast was, thankfully, rather uneventful aside from the occasional side glare from the girls, Eon and I just sat and ate in silence, not wanting our sight seeing trip to start to soon. I’m n0ot quite sure how long we were actually there, but it was long enough for the staff to shoo us out of the dining hall so they could clean up for lunch. Considering we got there and breakfast was still warm, it had certainly been a while. Who knew girls could hold a grudge like that? I swear, I don’t think they actually touched their food so much as plotted ways to kill us in ways that made it look accidental, though that is simply my conjecture on the situation.

Having come to an agreement (read as forced together), we shared our thoughts (read as butted heads) as to where we should start out sight seeing journey. I personally wanted to see the training grounds for the guardians if possible, while Lily and Eon wanted to something not quite so militaristic. Suamalie almost seemed to brighten up at my suggestion, and since it was tied two votes to two votes, Suamalie gave us another option. She suggested we tour the wall where we were checked when we arrived. Militaristic enough for my taste, allows me to see how things square up when compared to the Conclave anyway, and seeing as it was an option within the ‘anything else’ category, Lily and Eon were quick to agree.

As awful as this walk was, at least it wasn’t as bad as my walk with Suamalie to this inn originally, at least this time I have someone to talk to… or… well, mumble to, anyway. Time went by as we made a left turn here, a right turn there, and at one point in time I would have sworn that we walked by the same building at least twice, maybe three times; but I wasn’t leading the way so I wasn’t going to complain. For all I know, that style of building was just kind of popular or something. Regardless, it was well into the second half of the day by the time we actually got to ‘The Wall’ as Suamalie called it.

And a wall it certainly was. One of the things Gai’faitotoa has taught in the day and a half since I showed up? You never really have an appreciation for the scale of things until you’re at their base. ‘Wall’ fits the description of what I was looking up at the same way ‘The Eye of Sol’ back in the conclave would be called a magnifying glass. The statements aren’t wrong, and it doesn’t dissuade away from what it’s base function is, but calling either of them those names does no justice for the actual scale of the objects being talked about. While yes, ‘The Eye of Sol’ is indeed a magnifying glass, it is one of such magnitude and built with divine powers such that it doesn’t work like a regular magnifying glass; and something tells me that this ‘Wall’ is similar to that. It can be a wall, but it’s meant for so much more.

I was the first to come out of my stupor, and looking at Lily and Eon next to me, I felt slightly less ridiculous. Both of their mouths were open, and I’m sure mine was as well when I was looking up, and off to the side stood Suamalie, trying her best to stifle unexpected laughter. Having been inside her mind, her dreams anyway, and everything in there was massive. And given the immediate surroundings? Everything she’s known has been large so something like this is not necessarily odd to her. Now our reactions? Those are probably new, hence her reaction to all three of us looking up open mouthed.

I decided to let her have a few moments of levity at our expense. Given how the day started, any amount of tension that could be released would ease the rest of the day tremendously… I hope that’s the case anyway.

“Well, that’s enough gawking,” I said. No reaction from either of the gawkers. Speaking a bit louder and clapping my hands in front of their faces, I spoke once more. “HELLO IN THERE!!”

That one did it. Eon almost jumped out of his skin and Lily yelped. “Geez Adamas… why’d you have to be so loud? I swear I heard an echo from that…” mumbled Lily.

“Heard an echo? I felt an echo,” seconded Eon.

If nothing else, they at least temporarily forgot they were busy being angry at each other. Well, let us start the tour of our destination, shall we?

“Suamalie, when you’re finished holding your sides together, mind showing us around? We obviously haven’t seen something like this before; so aside from the reactions that you’ve just seen, how about showing us the ins and the outs. You did work in this thing didn’t you?”

“I…. ye… I…. whew. Hold on…. Ok, better. Wow, I was not expecting that, let alone laughing at that.” Suamalie had entirely doubled over from laughing so hard and forgetting how to breather normally. Between large gasping breaths, she slowly returned to her normal composure. “Sorry you had to see that. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that. Back to your questions. Sure, I can show you around, it’s been a while since I been in and on the wall, informative for you and memories for me I guess. And no, I did not ‘work in this thing’ as you said. I worked in a branch office. The wall itself is spilt into a multitude of segments, and even further still within those segments are sections. Three segments,” she stopped talking for a moment and thought about her next words carefully. At that point a piercing whistle shook me to my core, though it was obviously only heard by me as I was the only one who flinched. And judging by the somewhat surprised look on Suamalie’s face, my guess is that it was Gaia giving her the go ahead on letting Lily and Eon know the same information that was told to me in yesterday’s interrogation session.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Sorry about that. Where was I? Oh right, Segments. There are three segments, one for each of our Grace-felt, you know them as Saints. Within each of those segments lies a multitude of sections, and within each section lies a main branch. I was in charge of a main branch, meaning the section that we are currently in, I am in charge of overseeing. Now, before either Lily or Eon ask, the Grace-felt in charge of this Segment gave me explicit orders to basically make sure that you guys stay out of trouble. Adamas can attest if you really want to double check.”

“Really? That was your boss? I mean, I knew that person was a superior of yours, but I had no idea they were your direct superior. Aside from that, I also only knew that they were your m-“

“Moving on!” Suamalie said almost panicked while giving me a death glare. We haven’t been together very long, but at this point if she’s not trying to mentally incapacitate me in some form it just doesn’t feel quite right. I guess first impressions mean more than what I gave them credit for.

The confusion was split between Lily and Eon almost evenly, but no one got hurt so they just kind if rolled with it. Good. This mornings events are officially under the bridge, yay. Turning on her heel and point to the wall Suamalie spoke. “Follow me, you’re about to see something fun! Or well, what I consider to be fun anyway.”

I’d seen this before, on my way out of the branch building. The same wooden hallways, the only difference being that these had opening on both sides at regular intervals. Similar to the window that the huntress made when she touched the wall of the interrogation room only these didn’t require Gaian divinity to be opened and stay open. These viewing ports were long, taking multiple steps to cross by each, with a wall that came up between my waist and my chest, so no accidentally falling out of the windows by the looks of it, while at the same time granting great protection, a wide vantage point over a large portion of the surroundings on both sides of the wall, and allowing plenty of room to attack down the wall as well. The one time I actually stuck my head out of one of those windows to look up, I saw that each of the windows on the floors going up were offset at irregular intervals. Not quite sure what for, but it was certainly an interesting aesthetic.

After walking through the familiar styled hallways that extended the length of the wall, up until it turned out of sight; and the similarly styled stairs that ran up and down the wall’s height at set intervals, we finally made our way to the top of the wall. Gai’faitotoa definitely looks different from an elevated point of view versus seeing it from the ground level, it reminds me of seeing this place for the first time. Which was a day and a half ago. Wow, it feels like it’s been at least a week since I showed up here, maybe two. Not sure if it’s due to my circumstances or if I’m finally going crazy. Let’s call it two days. Officially, let’s call it just shy of three weeks since this all began. Let’s see… got summoned… a week later I went on my pilgrimage… my note book says nin-ten, I meant ten days, no, nine days. Wow, I didn’t think my memory was that shoddy. So that sixteen, plus let’s call it two days, so eighteen total, hope my memory doesn’t get any worse during this trip.

Back to my original thoughts, this view is phenomenal. All of the hustle and bustle here is something that I have never seen back in the Conclave. At least not on this scale, the Center was always packed once a month, but that amount of people was basically not even the main street of this large town. Looking out over the town and then out towards the duprisingly dark woods given the time of day, only one thing came to mine. “Man… am I ever out of my depth here…”

“Did you say something Adamas?” came the questioning voice of Lily.

“Nothing of consequence, just… talking to myself.” Before Lily could say anything further, I yelled past her to Suamalie with a question. “Hey, miss tour guide, I have a question concerning the ominous dark mass on the other side of the wall that you call a forest. Is it supposed to look like that?”

“Like what Sun-dweller? Dank, dark and unwelcoming? And at mid-day no less? Yeah. It’s supposed to look like that. Gaia might have all the beauty of nature, but she also has all its nasty tendencies as well. If you saw that and thought it looked like fun, then...”

A timid hand lifted from Eon. “Then… what?”

“… Then I wonder how exactly you managed to survive as long as you have with sense like that. Regardless, yes, it usually looks like that. More of a deterrent and a warning for what lay beyond what you see rather an omen for something that will reach out and grab you.”

“Well, at least we know who comes from a combat family if nothing else,” Eon joked half-heartedly.

Seeing an opportunity to have Suamalie talk about something she knows a lot of, I take my chance. “So, if that look is it’s normal ‘don’t come here’ look, are there any other ways it looks that indicate different… I guess, moods of the forest? Or is it all just basically ‘abandon all hope ye who enter here’?”

“While I do like your description of the forest, that only one of it’s many faces like you stated. When it gets really dangerous, the darkness of the forest will almost appear to actually creep out from under the cover of the trees and head towards us. This is usually the times when at least one Apex is nearby, forcing all of the creatures, fairies, and fearies out which in turn leads to many confrontations. On the other hand, there are days where the darkness seems to disappear into the woods. This only happens occasionally, but when it does happen, it tends to stick around for extended periods of time. During this time, we tend to send out our young and those in training. It teaches them valuable skills, and occasionally follows one of the many laws of Gaia. While not necessarily common, they do happen frequently enough for us to make use of them when they do arrive.”

Well, there was certainly some surprisingly dark information provided there that was quickly skipped over. Looks like the survival of the fittest is taken quite literally here. “Any other faces we should be aware of?”

“This next one isn’t so much a face of the forest so much as it is a precursor of coming events. Once every so often, the forest goes quite; leaving hardly a whisper of wind or a song of a cricket. And then the cry of the carrion can be heard, followed by flocks filling the skies… I can’t keep this up, you’re faces are ridiculous. I was kidding about the carrion cries, but in all seriousness, when things get quite out there, get ready for a form of hell rarely experienced, and even more rarely survived. The only time I have known the forest to go quite os when the things that live in there stop fighting each other and start trying to fight us. That usually only ever happens when Gaia thinks we’ve gotten to big for our place. So she goes ahead and makes sure we remember where we are in the pecking order, and how hard we had to fight to get there.”

“When you say quite, about how quite are you talking about?” I asked Suamalie after hearing her response.

“Oh about… Shit.” Suamalie’s eye’s widen in realization just before she turned rapidly and took off running. “Don’t move, stay out of the way, and for the love Gaia, DON’T DIE!”