1.37 Arriving In Tao-Ti-Cua
The four did their normal rising routines in almost complete silence except for a few quiet pleasantries. Everyone still seemed mentally preoccupied with the fight from yesterday.
Vicktor's dreams had been surprisingly pleasant and his stomach had settled, so he did partake in his supplies of jerked auroch although he didn't look at the pieces before shredding them with his teeth.
Alar and Nora seemed to do the same with their jerky as Alar had a more limited supply of crickets. Nora seemed to choose the darkest color of meat to devour.
Master Tosk ate his eggs as normal, but he spent most of breakfast with his eyelids shut, eyes flitting underneath like he was dreaming.
After eating and clearing the site of any traces of their shelter, they quickly found the trail left behind by the goblins and began to follow it, Master Tosk setting the pace as usual.
Several hours passed, Vicktor was surprised how much he enjoyed this extended walk in the woods. He could get used to this.
"Tell me, my little magelings" Master Tosk spoke, interrupting their solemn march with a bit of levity. "This area is commonly frequented by versicolored pheasants. Could each of you give me three pieces of information about them?"
Vicktor was the first to respond to the broken silence, "illusion magic, powerful beaks, fast runners and we're about to fight one or more?"
"Illusions can be seen by mage-sight, usually hunt in packs, and are maybe four to five feet when fully grown." Nora said while rolling her eyes and drawing three large arrows from her quiver and placing them against the riser of the bow.
"They aren't technically flightless birds, but can still fly for hundreds of feet, they have a version of mage-sight that's always active, I think their eggs are versicolor and the shells are used by painters." Alar drew his crossbow, and loaded it with a bolt.
With a pompous gesture of his wrist, Master Tosk beamed at his apprentices, "Excellent! Full marks. I wonder if we will see any of these magical beasts on our quest!"
Vicktor could feel a rumbling underneath his feet and pointed in its direction, "Already?! I think they are that way, hard to tell how many, their stride is so fast! More than one!"
The birds glimmer flickered in-between the massive trunks as the versicolor plumes magically refracted the light.
Their plumage rippled several feet behind and ahead of them, but their location in the blurred waves varied. The pace of their sprint was consistent. There were two sets of chortling chirps and they jumped, soaring dozens of feet in the air. While they were airborne, there was no way for Vicktor to determine their location.
Just as they had appeared, the creatures disappeared, the feet pounding away from them, already hundreds of feet away from them. They had been perceivable for less than half a minute.
"Fast little tricksters aren't they! I was hoping they would do that, any thoughts on those brilliant birds after catching a glimpse of them?"
Nora sighed, "I doubt I could hit them even if I tried, they are so fast. That blurring ability of theirs makes shooting where they will be extremely difficult."
"I could maybe try to trip up their feet, but I wouldn't trust myself to consistently do it. Plus they can jump over any barrier I can make" Vicktor looked off where the birds had vanished.
Alar patted his bag, "My turret's wouldn't be able to hit them unless they were running this way. They might be faster than my projectiles too. Are they really in the same tier as us?"
"They aren't particularly strong, but they are just overwhelmingly fast. They also tend to only hunt mundane animals instead of any magical beasts. Even when you advance, you still might have a hard time with them."
They stopped to eat a quick lunch, then continued following the trail.
Master Tosk's mood continued to lighten "Just a bit longer, then back to real beds!"
Off in the distance, amongst the canopy that had been an endless sea of green, lay a beautiful ocean of blue sky, dotted with thin gray clouds.
"Welcome to Tao-Ti-Cua!"
It took a few more minutes to actually reach the large clearing. The tree tops were easily two hundred feet in the air at this point.
Once they cleared the final tree, drums began to sound from the village in front of them. They had no defensive walls and green shapes large and small were visible between structures made of primarily stone and wood. A few buildings seemed to be made of clay. Smoke escaped from the tops of a few buildings.
Fields of rice stalks lay harvested in a ring around the village, dikes divided up the parcels of fields. In each parcel was a stone building elevated to the same height as the dikes.
In total there were fifty-odd building fronts visible from this side where they walked. The whole village must've had hundreds of buildings, they grew in height as they approached the center, seeming to be five stories in height.
'Or, five stories of their goblin height.'
Vicktor hadn't really considered the height difference in their architecture. He was about to ask Master Tosk, when a flagbearer alongside a runner emerged and began racing towards them. It had been hard to tell in the forest, but goblins were inhumanely fast. Even with the adjusted scale of everything it was still easy to tell.
The four silently watched the two goblins run, and within minutes, the small people stool before them. The flag must've been tall for them, but the top was just above eye level for Vicktor.
The flagbearer was dressed in a woven long tunic that was sheer to their body, very little was left up to the imagination of their anatomy. They wore a tricorne hat with three versicolor pheasant feathers in the brim.
The flagbearer seemed to present both masculine and feminine. The heraldry flag they bore aloft was a rectangle, a field of red, with six white annulets braced above a sheaf of grain.
The runner wore furs and leathers in the form of a tunic that cut off at their midsection and a slanted skirt. Both were dyed black, it was decidedly more formal and contrasted well against her grass-green skin. They were fit, but not built like a chosen.
The runner bowed, revealing a head of dyed hair. Mostly blues and yellows, but there were some highlights of purples. The runners voice was high pitched, and a hint of sultry femininity.
"Welcome to Tao-Ti-Cua, I am Re'tai. I will be your guide for the duration of your stay."
Master Tosk nodded. Vicktor noticed something in his master's eyes, but couldn't place it. The apprentices just listened as Re'tai continued.
"Chief Re'at will speak with humanity's delegation tomorrow over breakfast, then you will perform the ritual. Trust that your prisoners are being kept fed. Their bindings have not been removed." Re'tai's voice was the first goblin female voice he had heard. It is more mundanely human than he had expected after Xethrai's harsh intonation.
"Thank you Re'tai, where will we be staying?" Master Tosk said.
The woman flashed a smile, "the only beds that can accommodate your proportions are in the brothels, please do not take offense, humans." Her front teeth possessed an additional set of canines instead of two pairs of incisors.
Master Tosk laughed, "None taken, it was partially expected. I ask that none of its denizens try to proposition me or my apprentices for anything beyond sitting for a nude portrait. Humanity tends to be exceptionally diverse than other sapients and we mages tend to have our secrets."
Both the goblins looked surprised. Re'tai asked, "All four of you are Mages? Xethrai was the only one willing to speak about your fight and only to Re'at. How did a Mage beat subchief Xethrai in melee combat? What tier Mage are you?"
"Lots of questions!", Master Tosk barked another laugh, "Human Mages have certain advantages, like not wearing out tiers on our sleeves or in our names unless we choose to." Master Tosk smiled warmly.
"Forgive my rudeness, but I must pry a little, please follow me." Re'tai seemed a little embarrassed, but also nearly painfully interested in the four of them.
"Pry away, my apprentices likely only know a little more than you do, but not much more. They are equivalent to middle-high tier one mages. We were lucky that your archers were good shots, my apprentice Nora would be far less happy with a shredded lung."
Vicktor turned towards Nora, worried, she hadn't said anything about it. He noticed Alar also turned to Nora, confused. She shrugged her shoulders, they would need to talk later.
Re'tai stuttered, almost tripping before catching herself on her small green legs. "I guess that's a 'good' thing?"
"Our arrows nearly collided in flight, mine just happened to bisect her spine." Nora said without a hint of bitterness.
Both goblins gasped, then looked to her titanic bow and quiver of large arrows. The warbow was double their height and the arrows were just as tall as both of them.
Nora continued, "She'll be fine, probably has all sorts of nasty abdominal tumors that were or are currently being removed."
Nora was just a little too calm and collected, which probably meant she had thoughts that had been bottling up for the last day.
The six people made it to the outermost buildings. They shared similar architecture to humanities structures, but the lack of height diversity caused most of the single-story residential buildings to be only five and a bit feet tall. Vicktor could easily see over the thatched roofs.
Re'tai began to point out a bunch of structures as they walked towards the center. Dozens of goblins got a good look at them before going about their business, a few children pointed at "Look! Giants!"
Almost all the adults that could hear them smiled and continued along. Vicktor had only heard stories about the giants, as well as some lessons from that boring longnamed Rector. True giants could grow to thirty feet in height. Instead of goblins maturing three times faster than humans, giants matured four times slower.
He looked around the assorted goblins, it was strange knowing that he was likely older than a significant portion of them. Any grey hairs on the women tended to be dyed away and the amount of beads on the men's hair tended to also increase with age.
He wondered what it would be like, to be his age, but already a grandparent or great grandparent. Re'tai continued to say, "here are the main churches to our pantheon, The Six, each representing a different emotion. Fear, Love, Anger, Lust, Jealousy and Hope. They speak to us on holy days."
Vicktor was about to ask questions when Master Tosk shook his head then looked at the three of them. Another small shake of the head.
"Down there are the markets, you should take a look! You'll be safe to explore our village. Re'at won't let anything happen to you."
They passed an intersection and Vicktor saw something out of the corner of his eye. At nearly the same moment, a familiar smell struck him in the face. It was a colorful old evergreen tree. Vicktor dodged between two families of goblins, drawn in by the wondrous smell.
Anchored in a perfect circle of interlocking inscribed granite masonry was a mature juniper tree that seemed to be four yards tall and another four yards across. It grew in a soft sandy soil, its trunk and foliage twisted into a pattern of three distinct styles. A third of the individual branches were ripe, the frosted blue almost glowing in the moonlight. Another third of the branches bore unripe green berries, looking like grapes or gooseberries. The final third of the branches held blood red berries. It was a beautiful aged tree that seemed exceptionally well cared for. There were no anthills at its base or birds nesting in the evergreen whorls. It was an exact replica of the tree in Allium.
Vicktor gazed at the familiar ancient tree, appreciating the astringent crisp freshness for several long heavenly moments, then ran back to the group. Only Master Tosk seemed to notice Vicktor's disappearance, his head turned a little and gave him a slight smile and nod.