Player Epilogue: The New World

Kaede Lightfoot scouts ahead. The island of Trinka had been devastated by the decline of magic over the year the adventurers had taken to restore a new World Dragon. Even now, five years later, the spores from the mushrooms that had thrived from the decaying plant life fill the air with a gauzy light. Her dappled fur matches the shadows beneath the trees, but the scarf she has had to tie around her face is bright red.

Stealth is not her goal, however. She wouldn’t have the advantage in this forest, anyhow.

No one knows why, but the Firbolgs disappeared after the World Dragon ascended. Not much was known about the mysterious gentle giants, but Kaede had heard the rumors. Of how a Firbolg Revolt after the Laxavis Wars had driven out all the loggers, but not a single person had been injured. Of a rare recluse of a Firbolg who sought after the High Council to help in saving the forest during the Chaos Year, but was rejected. The remains of the abandoned port city is overgrown with trees and ivy now, barely recognizable as a civilized habitation. But with the Firbolg no longer present to defend their forests, unsavory speculations made their way onto the island.

With her contacts in X Society, Kaede was able to learn that a party had gone to uproot some of the most ancient trees on Trinka and, despite the power in their numbers, had disappeared without a trace.

Curiosity has always been a failing for Kaede, but this… this was too much to resist.

Halfway through composing a song about the vanished Firbolg, she stops in her tracks.

Trees were big on Trinka, but this one had gotten BIG. And the strangest part wasn’t its size, but the lichen and mushrooms growing around it. These had grown in such size that it felt like Kaede was walking through a forest made of frilled umbrellas. It made it hard to breathe.

She barely even notices the hole at the bottom of the tree where animals of every sort gather. These creatures do not seem to mind the heaviness of the spores. Instead, they sit around in a small semi-circle around the hole the way little tabaxi would sit around a storyteller. They do not notice her crouch closer to see what is inside.

A kobold appears, bright red against the natural greens and browns. Kaede jumps, the familiar face more shocking than what they carry: a leaf-wrapped bundle shaped like a seed. The kobold looks up, proud of what she carries only to see Kaede doing a little wave from behind a giant mushroom stalk.

“Glory be, is that Ms. Lightfoot?”

“Hi, Kov, what brings you here?”

“Oh this and that” She hefts the seed in their arms and shoos away some critters who try to help him lift it. “Places to be. Come along, it has been too long.”

Kaede follows her old friend out of the copse of mushroom stalks and towards a mountain threshold. It isn’t hard to get her old friend to tell his story. They look well, the little tremor in his hands not as noticeable as it used to be. He carries the seed-shaped package carefully, as if it was a bowl full of water instead of an unsprouted plant. 

“Last I heard,” begins Kaede, “you were at the High Council’s dissolution. Weren’t you about to become the first Kobold representative?”

Kovri snorts. “Best they could find was a kobold raised by Tabaxi to represent the entire genera. The whole council was corrupt; it would have been an insult to accept the position. Nothing would change. It was better to take the kobold issues to the Library’s remaining elders. What that monster had done to my people…” Kovri bares her teeth in an angry grimace. “It still bothers me that some part of that creature escaped.

“Speaking of which, did you keep an eye on that thing I asked before we last saw eachother?”

Kaede’s whiskers droop, guilt tinging her words. “I did look, but I didn’t hear word of your parents. Maybe Link had better luck, but I haven’t heard anything from him.”

The usual energy Kovri exudes dims just enough for her to slow his pace. “I shouldn’t have hoped for much. But things will be what things will be. Come, I have much to show you.”

They stop at the foot of a wide cavern, the base of one of the mountains known as the “the Pebble.” No written records were left of the Firbolg society, but traders who engaged with them for special herbs did mark locations on the island based on what the Firbolgs themselves called things. Usually, a large river would be marked as, “Trickle,” or the lake at the center of the island, “the Puddle.” Firbolgs had a strange concept of size.

Kovri steps into the cavern and a strange glow spreads from her footsteps, making an iridescent blue-green path deeper into the cavern.

“What are you doing here, of all places?”

“Funny thing. Door Door Travel brought me here. We’d been experimenting, you see, ever since the World Dragon broke the pathways. I expected to find some kobolds, as usual, but what I discovered was even stranger.”

At the end of the cavern, Kaede sees lights dance in the air, much like the spores did in the forest. A small child, not much bigger than Kovri, runs down one of the paths. The child has an eerie furlessness to their limbs and fire for hair. It dances over their eyebrows and burns bright on their lashes. Kovri speaks in an unusual tongue to the creature and it laughs and bounds away.

“What is that creature?” asks Kaede.

“They call themselves Genasi, people of the elements. No claws, funnily enough.”

“That isn’t… I’ve never heard of such a people.”

Kovri smiles, a secret burning in their eyes. “Trust me. You’ll be wanting to save saying that for later.”

As they turn another corner in the path, Kaede tries not to suck in her breath.

“I can’t–how in the world–”

“There was something I learned while going through the High Council records. It seems we were not the only plane of existence that had a bit of trouble with the Chaos Year. And a group of adventurers was sent to solve this problem, only they ran into a little problem themselves…”

“I can imagine if this… I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“No,” said Kovri definitively. “You’re not. Welcome to a new world, Kaede Lightfoot. One that is only just beginning.”

Below them, in the expanse of a cavern the size of New Keteratonik, a city of mushrooms glows beneath them, strange people made of light interacting with limbed myconids, flying creatures without wings darting between towers that glittered in that same iridescent blue. The child that Kovri had sent off was returning, a mythic Firbolg tottering after them with careful, slow steps. They greet Kovri with a gentle nod, tears filling their eyes as Kovri passes the seedling to them. A little hand peeks out of the wrapped leaves, fresh as new grass. As Kovri chatters in strange languages, Kaede steps to the edge of the cliff overhanging the glittering city and pulls down her mask. As she breathes in the spores, she feels something move in her mind. An inclination, a feeling. Then, a greeting out of nowhere.

“Hello, Traveler. Welcome to Capetella. How can we help you?”

A new world, indeed.