The climb was no longer a struggle; it was a rhytmic percussion with one instrument and two sounds
Crunch
Rip
Crunch
Rip
If Kaelen needed to stop, well his hand would be stuck in the tree and feet had a nice hold , so he could rest anytime he wanted to.
Unless of course the feather didn`t want him to and yelled at him from the inside, making him go up again.
"I`m basically a woodpecker at this point" One of those rests he made a brave move and looked down. Holes in a random pattern below him made a nice path up. "Isn`t this enough for you?"
No. Higher
You need more experience
Not enough
Higher
"Sigh.. why do I even ask" And he went on. Again.
Until the sound made by his fingers changed from wood breaking into a cold hard stone hit.
"huh"
After his fingers didn`t pierce the surface, he focused on the gem more, the yellows spark reignited inside, his hand became even harder and even darker and..
ting
And only after a few tries and hurt fingers, he decided to look up.
The edge of something was just above the stone, with moss and grass hanging down to the bark. And with a bit of more searching, there was...a tree. Growing on the Great Tree.
"That`s...new" But useful as the tree had beautiful hanging branches and lush long vines coming down, so long that they reached under the stone part and went even below Kaelen`s level.
A few more rips and crunches, climbing up the vines and rolling over, he was there.
Laying on a grass floor while being high above the ground. So high that looking down now was a vomit prayer.
Yet Kaelen still just laid down and laughed. Rolling on fresh grass, not mud, not pools of murky water. Just grass.
Do not relax just yet
But he was snapped out of it pretty quickly.
And then he reminded himself why would he not be so careless right now.
He was no longer in the swamps or the roots of the Tree, where people were mostly slaves or thieves, workers at the bottom of the hierarchy.
This was the actual Great Tree, the lower parts of it but still - the middle. Here live people, not slaves. They could own things, have families, love each other. And they are very protective of them.
Kaelen was almost sure that he was on someone`s property right now. But if that person was a common smith or a great rich man - he had no idea.
So just in case he went quickly behind the tree and scouted the place.
This was....a garden?
Benches and weird flowers around him, paths in the grass and even statues were visible around him. But no people in sight. Good. Kaelen went for a very stealthy stroll through the place, hiding behind benches and bushes, rolling on the floor and sneaking up on a white stone pillar.
"What the hell is this" As he looked at a lion statue on it. "Rich people have some crazy imagination"
A bit ahead inside of a fog, there it was. A very very large house. At least that what Kaelen decided it was based on what he heard from his father years ago. That the rich people have entire houses made of wood instead of mud. Crazy.
Few minutes later he got up close to the building and it wasn`t as nice as it looked from far away.
Muddy, overgrown and just dirty.
"This...is a really big hut" Now that it looked like familiarity from the swamps, he felt much better, like its still the ground, not a place he had to climb the entire day to get to.
HIDE
Kaelen dropped to the ground and moved behind a corner of the wall where the vines were thickest and almost blended him in.
A column of figures were coming out of the building towards metal gates, dressed in dark clothes with purple lining, very similar to the Overseer`s colors.
And between them was a line of around twenty laves, chained neck-to-neck. Walking step by step while their capturers were poking and pulling them. Near the back of the column a flash of red hair caught his eyes as the lantern at the gate shined on it.
"Mira" Kaelen whispered.
She looked bad; hunched over and covered in ash, her red hair was miraculously still visible from under it.
Beside her was a familiar face, also hunched over and miserable but with a significant difference - no collar on the neck. Tessen.
Another of the Overseers dogs. Just less rich clothing and more degraded, but a dog nonetheless.
"What are they doing to you Mira?" he tighten the grip on Pierre`s stolen dagger as he waited for them to leave the area.
Why are you waiting
You can crush their heads
You could kill them all
Why do you hesitate
"Because there are slavers here and someone forced me to climb the giant tree for the past few hours. And I`m out of food. And its getting cold. And dark."
The figures left the area and the gates behind them closed with a loud metallic bang.
"Also I think I`m trapped for now"
Weak
Still weak
As he waited still, the clouds became darker and darker, while the sun set and stars were barely passing their light through them.
Kaelen finally moved, along the wall looking for something, anything.
Cracks were often but led to nowhere.
Roots too, but climbing wasn`t in his mind for now.
Windows however were perfect. Large and mostly covered in cobwebs, they could be easily opened ( or smashed ) and entered through.
So Kaelen found the most over grown, over webbed and most destroyed one and climbed inside as quietly as possible.
He was in a small room dirt on the floor and puddles somewhere, along an expensive looking white polished stone, with a large hole inside. Other weird things around like a brush that was nothing like a brush, leather but white and very thin, and the god damn stench of shit was in here the most annoying thing.
The doors opened and a man without looking started to take off his pants.