A few days later, I took a trip over to Beast Haven. Although it was expensive, there were Wyverns who would ferry people from Angren Tower to Ael Tol. The offer was only limited to Rat Tribe, Red Goblins, Dark Dwarves and other tiny races. Some people had pet birds and other flying creatures that were big enough to carry them. Although there were lots of Wind Mages who would wear gliding suits or use actual gliders to travel places as well.

Most people just rode land mounts though. It was a lot safer, though much slower. Plus, once you made it to Maeleth Harbor, you would need to take a boat over to the island. Obviously centaurs would just run or walk, while merfolk would use the rivers and streams to travel across Lorthon Forest.

What did I do? Well… I rode on my majestic Jungle Strider mount! It was a giant fluffy twenty-foot tall black chicken named Zoomy. She could even fly short distances and glide for a long time, if she felt like it. Mostly she just ran super fast though. Then I got a personal ride from my buddy Mae, since she didn’t really have anything better to do… The slutty water dragon was so big that she could carry Zoomy along with me, over to the shore. Otherwise, I would have been worried for my adorable mount’s safety.

Once I made it ashore, I gave Mae a peck on the cheek of her elf-like avatar and then continued riding Zoomy over to the scariest place in all of Beast Haven: Yuri’s Laboratory. It started as just a normal tree house, like the rest, but after a few years… It was much bigger. The entire tree had moved onto the top of the giant pyramid that was meant to protect Ael Tol, the roots of which were completely surrounding and devouring the metallic structure.

“See what you did Lori? This is the kinda shit that happens when you wake up the Goddess of Death. Now she knows how to create World Trees. Good fucking job!” Levi started grumbling the moment I got off of Zoomy and started walking towards the gigantic wooden staircase.

“Aunty Lori~!” Then I was tackled by a giant birdy. Sorry, a little girl with wings. She was one of Mikey’s kids. A really naughty brat named…

“Lucy! Don’t wander off!” Rimeth, or ‘Rimmy’ was a cute harpy that Mikey saved back then. Since she was so in love with him, she decided to go behind his back and ask Yuri for his super-awesome baby-juice! That’s basically how Lucy was made.

“Ugh, Mama is so overprotective!” The little kid grumbled, as she stopped hugging my waist and then started flying over to her mother. Rimmy smiled at me and then escorted her daughter back to their ‘nest’, which was right next to Mikey’s old tree-house.

When I was walking up the giant spiral staircase, Levi reappeared next to my left ear and murmured “We need to be careful around her… She might seem like an innocent little girl, but Lucy is just as old and dangerous as Mike. Wouldn’t be surprised if she was responsible for most of the fucked up shit that happened in Lorthon, no, around the whole damn world since we got here. By that I mean that Earth Dragon that killed your daddy too. Maybe you should kill her or something? I would do it now, before she grows up and eventually destroys everything we’ve been working so hard to build here…”

“Please stop trying to convince me to murder babies.” I smacked the tricky bastard off my shoulder and then finally reached the door. Before I could even say anything or knock, the huge pink vines slide away and exposed the interior of the hollowed out area of the upper trunk.

“It’s a lot smaller than I remember…” When I walked inside of the empty room, the door closed behind me and then the vines in front of me opened up. It felt like I had entered into a sauna. Except instead of steam, a big gust of scalding hot, mana-filled air was crashing against my entire body.

“Lori! You made it just in time! I finished the suit a few minutes ago.” Lyn was yelling at first, while I was coughing and choking, then she quieted down once she was right in front of me. Except that I couldn’t even recognize her, since she was totally covered in black mithril armor.

I could immediately tell that the mana was as thick as the Fourth Ring, but I didn’t feel sick or dizzy. Instead, it was like my scales were tingling and I felt super energized! As I ran into the room and jumped around, I saw ‘it’.

“No way! Woah~! How does it work?!” It was almost three times as tall as I was. Basically the size of a Kodiak Tribe, but almost entirely made out of black mithril plate. The amount of money Lyn must have spent on raw materials alone… It looked kind of like a bigger version of the armor that she was wearing actually.

The helmet was shaped like the head of a dragon, or at least a lizard with horns. It looked like something I might have been able to wear on my own head, if I was way bigger. Then the shoulder armor was shaped like a dragon skull on each side. While the chest armor had a huge golden ankh symbol on it. The back was covered by a thick cape, so I couldn’t see what it looked like exactly. On the back of the left gauntlet was “777” in golden mithril. Aside from that, the individual fingers of the gauntlets had sharp silver claws and knuckles. The boots as well, were shaped more like feet and had silver talons coming off of the toes.

Lyn walked over and explained “This is just the base armor… I have a bunch of attachments and weapons too. I was going to make a shield but well, that’d be kind of pointless. Besides, have you ever even used a shield before?”

“Nope!” I shook my head and then jumped on top of the armor, trying to rip the helmet off and look inside.

She cackled, then yelled “Yuri! Lori’s here! Bring out that stupid plant you’ve been working on!”

The glowing white bugs on the ceiling suddenly scampered off to the sides of the circular room, as a hole opened up in the middle. Then hundreds of pink vines slowly lowered Yuri to the floor, along with a green Dryad that was even bigger than her own body. It had bright blue crystalline eyes, dark-green bark and its head was shaped like a snake or lizard.

“Woah~! How do I use it?!” I rushed over and started poking the strange creature, as it stared at me inquisitively. It was really thin and weak looking compared to its crazy height.

Yuri grabbed my hair-vines and then whispered “You must first learn to control your own body, before thinking of controlling this dryadic exoskeleton. You will also be required to learn quite a bit of water manipulation. However, I shall teach you… The process will likely require several months. I made many modifications to your basic form already. This includes, but is not limited to: Gills, wings, dryadic interface tendrils, several potent dryadic mana-cores and unlimited telomere regeneration. You will be able to breath underwater, extend wings from underneath your arms, connect with higher plant-life physically, reach an extremely high level of magical prowess and never age in the conventional sense. I have also enhanced your reproductive organs in order to made with various other species.”

“Umm, cool, but we’re kind of in a rush though… I need to hurry up and save the world from the evil fiery tigress that’s about to burn down Lorthon Forest!” I pried her fingers from my tentacle-hair and shouted at the scary pink giant.

Lyn walked over to my side and placed her hand onto my shoulder, then sighed and asked “Are you talking about Amber? Michael’s girlfriend?”

“No! It was a scary evil monster that burned down the southern World Tree stump thingy! Terra, the Spirit of the Earth, told me that I needed to go stop her before she destroys all of Lorthon!” The more I talked, the crazier I sounded, but the two of them didn’t seem surprised.

Pinky’s face abruptly warped and she took on the appearance of a beautiful elven woman. Well, the face at least, the rest of her was still all wooden. She smirked at me and murmured “Would a being such as Terra truly need anything from you, Lorelei? How are you so certain that the vision you received was from the Spirit of the Earth and not someone with malicious intentions? Even if it was Terra’s revelation that you received… You shouldn’t trust that child. However, the map that you drew was rather enlightening. It helped me remember a great many things. Regardless, it is always a good plan to continue growing and improving. I will teach you how to control the dryadic exoskeleton, but it will require time and patience.”

Ailyn dragged me over to her workbench and said “For now, I’ll show you all the cool stuff I made…” There was a huge silver meat cleaver and butcher knife, which had lots of pretty black runes all over them.

“These two took a lot of work, but they’re basically just really fancy cooking utensils. They handles look huge, but they’re only big enough to fit in the gauntlets of the armor. Although you could totally use them to kill stuff, they’re mostly for you know… Butchery. This, is a mining pick. With enough strength, this thing can let you mine pretty much anything, including really strong demons in the Fourth Ring. Here’s a hammer, for hammering stuff. That’s a umm, well, it’s an ax. In case you want to cut down a tree, or a treant.”

I couldn’t help but ask “Uh, Lynny, didn’t you say that there were weapons? Aren’t all of these just basic tools?”

Then she brought me over to a different table and complained “No, those were really ‘advanced’ magical tools! You have no idea how hard it was to make them… And how expensive. Well, you’re paying for it, so I don’t really care about the price. But it was still a pain in the ass.”

She reached out and pulled the black cloth off of the table and said “Now these, these are some of my favorites. I’m working on some extra arm mechanisms for the back of the armor still. I was going to make it mechanically powered through springs, gears and-or hydraulics but… It’d be easier to just make it possible for some plant tendrils to do all the work, while I just keep the general shape intact. This way you can have a rail gun, heavy machine gun or missile launcher on your back, while your hands are free to hold a pistol, SMG or rifle. While I did make these specifically for you to play around with, when you get bored of them or I make a newer version, you can always just sell them to adventurers in Angren or Ael Tol. There are some pretty huge Bear, Lizard and Tiger Tribe people out there. Beatrix also has me working on making armor for mounts… Like Earth Dragons with gatling cannons on their backs. Well, I only have to draw up some design plans though. My apprentices can do all the heavy lifting.”

There were a bunch of explosives too, but Ailyn wasn’t crazy enough to keep that kind of stuff laying around her workshop. She had a separate branch, literally a branch, where some of her crazier apprentices were allowed to work on bombs.

Anyway, the two of them managed to convince me to give up on my plan to stop Amber from destroying the world. I didn’t know if it was really Terra talking to me and Levi did give me his own warning.

“Lori, whether we like it or not… We’re both tied to Michael and Luna. Although Terra might be super sexy and have an amazing ass, she ultimately doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but herself. That’s fine though, because it means she’s easy to manipulate and understand. The problem is that there are way more forces at work, than just Terra, Luna and Sol. Everybody has their own agenda. Mine mainly involves having sex with Maeleth and all the other beautiful dragons out there… So maybe you could ask Yuri to impregnate you with some kind of giant lizard baby?”