Perpetual twilight shaded their path through the forest. Unfamiliar trees grew dense and squat, with trunks as thick as redwoods, despite only growing to the height of a common oak. What little sunlight reached the rough cobbled road had been nipped at by the hungry canopy a dozen times over, filtered until it was little more than green shadows.

Nargen Forest.

They’d entered it a week ago, following the shortest route from Dawntown to Baanswell. The road was a potholed thing, and rarely tread — most travelers from the east came by way of Deadacre and Grandbrook, following the well paved highways to their south.

Kaius had heard rumours of this place. Will o’ wisps, luring weary travellers off the road to consume them utterly. A rumour with some truth to it it seemed.

Hundreds of dancing lights surrounded them — burning clouds in a riot of yellows and greens. Ephemeral sprites, their flames gave off no heat, and their light stubbornly refused to illuminate their way ahead.

They’d appeared an hour ago, when they’d departed the Pegleg. It had seemed a decent idea at the time. They were almost out of the forest, and Baanswell was close — no need to announce they had an artefact of such extreme value, even if it was bound to get out eventually.

A trio of sprites bobbed lazily through the air, clustering in his face. He huffed, waving his hand through the creatures. Dispersing like glowing smoke, they drifted on the wind, reforming a few strides away.

“Will these things piss off!” Porkchop said, snapping at a green sprite that bobbed a handspan too close to his eye. “They seem determined to be the greatest bloody nuisance they can!”

Kaius snorted, but he did agree. As pretty as they were, he’d gotten a little sick of their antics half an hour ago.

“What even are they?” Kenva said, poking her finger at one curiously. The sprite shivered as she brushed the burning green flames, bobbing away.

“Some sort of nature wisp,” Ianmus explained, encouraging one to bob closer with his hand. “I’ve heard about them before. People like to whisper of the sinister Witchlights of Nargen, but they’re quite harmless — even if they are over level eighty. However, they used to be rare, even in the deepest depths of the forest. They were almost never seen at all in the outer reaches near this road.”

It must have been the rising mana from the phase change. They were creatures of pure magic, so maybe it had created the perfect environment for them to proliferate.

Despite their beauty, and supposed harmlessness, Kaius had no doubt that this road would become even more rarely trod than it had once been. Few would have the stones to walk through a cloud of hundreds of sprites, let alone ones at level eighty. Dealing with incorporeal enemies was hard. For most people, at least.

“It’s a good omen, you know,” Ianmus said, smiling at the floating lights. “My father’s people say that flocking sprites are a sign of Yulneria’s favour.”

Kaius blinked at the mention of the elvish god of nature. Ianmus spoke of that side of his heritage so rarely — some sort of history had soured him on it, though Kaius had never pried. He’d tell them when he was ready.

Hopefully before they ventured into the depths of the Arboreal Sea to visit Porkchop’s den and investigate if the house of Dynia still existed, though.

“Good luck or not, they’re making it bloody hard to tell how far we are from the edge of the forest,” Porkchop grumbled.

Kaius blinked in realisation. With Truesight, the dense cloud of wisps did little more than provide a slight coloured tint to the forest beyond them. He could see the tree line clearly — though it was half obscured as laden boughs drooped towards the dense undergrowth.

“It’s not far, only a quarter league or so,” Kaius promised.

Covering the remaining distance quickly, the wall of light at the edge of the forest grew, revealing lush grasslands beyond, though his view was partially cut off by a rise at the edge of the trees.

The road they followed wound around the hill, snaking down a slight incline before it cut through an endless procession of fields. Eventually it merged with a much larger highway. Rather than bumpy, poorly maintained cobble of the road through the Nargen Forest, the wider road was well maintained, with flat paving stones and wardlights of all things.

Even from his limited view, Kaius spotted bloody travellers. A large carriage, with four armed men walking at its sides, as well as a group of five on foot further ahead.

He blinked. Where were the roving groups of guards? The massive caravan trains as merchants grouped together for safety? It was like they’d stepped back in time, to when beasts were a rarity rather than a constant threat.

Perhaps they were closer to Baanswell than he realised — Ianmus had said the forest trail exited near enough, and that hill cut off much of his view. The Dukedoms were populous, and had a strong warrior culture. Delvers, soldiers, and guards were all common professions in these lands, it was entirely possible they were keeping the surroundings of the city cleared and safe.

Curious, Kaius urged his team to move a little faster, and hurried for the tree line. The closer they got, the less sprites followed them — until a last drifting ball of green fire bobbed away, retreating into the forest behind them.

Sighing in pleasure as the sun blanketed him once more, Kaius jogged forwards. Breaking ahead of his team, he left the road to cut directly up the hill. It would be enough of a vantage point to spot the city.

Cresting the hill, Kaius froze as he saw a looming behemoth.

“What the fuck is that?!” he hissed.

Deadacre had always lived in his mind as the pinnacle of urban modernity, even if he’d known logically that it was small and remote. That image shattered like glass.

Hundreds of strides tall, the city's walls utterly dominated the horizon, though he saw not one lick of stone. It was bramble — a dense woven briar of vines as thick as temple columns. Thorns as large as lances visibly dripped a rosey liquid that shimmered in the sun. A riot of growth of every colour coated thorn and vine alike in a dense cloak. Kaius spotted cherry coloured roses blooming right next to plate-sized magnolias and bright yellow orchids. He could almost imagine the scent, a floral perfume that must blanket the entire region when the winds blew right.

It was a living arsenal, cloaked in a million flowers.

He was certain of one thing, the wall was no natural growth — someone had created the living fortress. But… how. It existed on a scale he couldn’t fathom. Even the fortifications made by the stone mages Madra and Isaac were a far cry from this.

At the highest reaches of the wall, braids of vines erupted from between the flowers at regular intervals. Each formed a cable that must have been a dozen or more strides wide, and arced in conspicuous loops where a more mundane city might have had watch towers. Magic burned in their depths, a glow that rivaled the sun that shone over the city.

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Blinking, Kaius pulled himself away from the insanity that was the city's wall as he spotted the snaking highway leading to an arched gap far to their right. There he spotted stone — grey masonry recessed into the living wall. A gate, made of blessedly normal lumber and steel bracing — if far higher quality than he’d seen at Deadacre.

There was a line of small figures waiting there as a squad of guards slowly allowed them passage within.

The frame of reference threw him off — they were small. The city was further away than he thought — how bloody big was it! Ten times the size of Deadacre? Twenty?

As he stood in rooted shock, his team caught up to him.

Porkchop reacted much the same as he had, stopping like he had run into the vine-wall itself. Ianmus and Kenva just smiled.

“That, Kaius, is the wyrdwall of Baanswell,” Ianmus said, responding to his earlier question as he leaned on his staff.

“By the Matriarchs… how many people live there?” Porkchop said softly.

“Half a million, maybe three-quarters?” Ianmus shrugged, “It’s a little smaller than Mystral. About mid-sized as far as Greenseed ducal seats go.”

Kaius’s mouth went dry — so many? He couldn’t even fathom it.

“And the wall?” he asked, dropping down onto the grass to just simply stare.

“A bit of a legendary story,” Kenva sat down next to him. “Supposedly it’s nearly two thousand years old. The Lord of Flowers, now a Ducal house, was the head of a small town, and saved the life of an elvish scion from some sort of maddened beast. A hydra according to the most popular tales, but that’s unlikely — it's nearly impossible to find actual draconic creatures in settled lands. They know what will happen if they go around torching hapless villagers, no matter how strong they are.”

“How does saving an elf lead to that,” Kaius asked, waving his hand at the ridiculous site in front of them.

“The scion’s mother,” Ianmus answered next. “She was supposed to be a Lifesinger. They are…the quintessence of elvishness. Old, well connected, powerful, and alien. The story goes she turned up with her coven when the lord was on his deathbed and offered him another hundred years of life. He turned her down and asked that she protect his people instead. They grew that in a single night at the edges of the lord's domain, and styled it in honour of his crest. The added protection made the population expand, until the city grew to the edges of the wall, and Baanswell gained enough acclaim to become a ducal seat,” he finished, nodding towards the wall.

“How much of that is actually true?” Porkchop asked.

Kaius wondered that too. A noble, turning down a hundred years? Fat chance of that.

“The core of it likely is,” Ianmus said, before he pointed to the loops across the top of the wall. “Those are wyrdfire lenses. Elven artillery. This is the only place that has them other than the Conclaves. Which means the wall really was the work of a Lifesinger, and they are known for repaying weal and woe in equal measure. It wasn’t done in a single night, at the very least. Living constructions like this are shaped, and then left to grow and strengthen over time. Other than that… who knows. My guess is the lord leveraged their hereditary control over the wall to fold a few other houses into his own as the city grew. A big city does not a ducal house make — you need a large enough Legacy for that. Regardless, it makes for a good foundational myth.”

Sitting in silence, Kaius did his best to grapple with what he was looking at. It made him feel small. He’d known that he’d grown up provincially — really about as remotely as anyone possibly could — but this? How could this have been waiting just a month away from Deadacre?

And if this was elvish work, he could see now why Porkchop was so trepidatious about them visiting the Sea before he was confident that they would be able to hold their own. This was magic at a scale he could barely fathom.

“Give me a minute to wrap my head around this, then we’ll go line up.” Kaius said, watching the distant figures that snaked away from the living wall.

…

Reaching the queue, Kaius and his team slid in behind a group of field-stained men sitting on the edge of a wagon full of cabbages. They were jostling, joking with one another as if the towering wall that shaded them was no more strange than a waist high thing of scavenged rocks.

Kaius smiled incredulously as the wind changed, bringing with it a bouquet of scents. It seemed that anything became normal, given enough time.

A few moments after they arrived, one of the men in the wagon ahead of them blinked, staring straight at Porkchop, before settling on his padded underarmour and the artefacts he wore exposed. Then he switched to Kaius. Then Kaius’s glyphs. Then Ianmus’s staff.

He elbowed the man next to him, before not so subtly nodding at Kaius and his team.

That man blinked too.

“Err, goodday, ser delvers. We don’t mind if ye wanna cut in ahead. No schedule we keeping, sers

The man gulped, nervously.

It was a little more than Kaius was expecting. Sure, it would have been blatant that they were Silver — none of them were trying to hide what they were, but they weren’t dressed for battle, and none of them were annoyed at having to wait.

“We’re fine,” Kaius said, giving the man his best comforting smile. “We’re in no rush either.”

The farmer didn’t quite know what to do with that. Giving them an awkward nod, he returned back to his companions — though their conversation stayed dead.

As the minutes ticked over, and they got closer to the gate, Kaius noticed the wagon of men kept looking at them — as if they were a strange dog who might bite at the slightest provocation.

“Bit odd,” he mentioned to Porkchop silently.

“I know, I’m used to people being nervous — but not like that.”

Soon enough, they were at the front of the line. The wall loomed high, while a deep tunnel of growth led to a stone gatehouse recessed into the fortifications. Two squads of guards stood by the gate to the city, toting halberds and wearing bright red tabards that were emblazoned with half a dozen different white flowers.

Closer to the line, another guard was talking to the wagon of farmers, while three more picked through their goods, checking their wares.

He barely paid any attention to the interaction, focusing on what he could see of Baanswell through the gate — and ignoring a slowly growing rumble behind him as he did. Some sort of caravan coming down the road, it sounded like.

The city looked…normal. At least, more normal than the wall. The road was wider than what he was used to, and far higher quality. The buildings were taller too, and largely made of stone rather than wood, but that was it. Mostly. The building closest to the gate had a vibrant coating of creeping heather on its facade, and he was pretty sure he could see a rooftop garden a little down the street.

That could be normal? Nothing grew inside of Deadacre, after all.

“Next!” a guard called, jerking him out of his thoughts.

Before he could step forwards, seven men mounted on overly-muscled ashen horses trotted straight past him. Kaius bristled, staring at them in disbelief.

Their square-jawed leader wore green and black silks perfectly tailored to show off his broad shoulders and strong arms, and his hair had been combed into a perfect black quiff. A gleaming silver saber sat on his hip, glowing with a magical potency matched only by the fat ruby necklace that openly dangled from his neck.

To Kaius’s belief, the man didn’t even notice them — staring straight into the city with honey-coloured eyes that spoke of boredom, and nothing else.

His entourage, however, did. Six men wearing identical black light-plate and white cloaks watched them like they were muddy hogs who had escaped their pen. Two of them openly sneered. They were clean shaven, had perfectly combed hair, and not a drop of mud on their sabatons.

All of them reeked of Silver power. A noble and his entourage.

Kaius scowled, scratching his stubble as the group pulled up by the gate guards, cutting right in front of them.

“The bloody gall of it,” he muttered under his breath, watching them with disgust.

“Silence, cur!” one of the black armoured men hissed, snapping towards him.

The gate guards paled, looking between their two groups nervously. Kaius barely noticed, his jaw clenched as he met the retainer's gaze without flinching. The comment was a mistake on his part. He knew that. Clashing with the nobility was foolish — but by the gods did he want to see that dog’s expression after they crossed blades and the man found himself utterly outmatched.

Their silence hung, as if the man was daring him to speak once more. Kaius raised his brow — the man’s sneer stayed bolted in place, though he seemed smug, somehow. Satisfied over his imagined victory, the retainers turned their back.

“Pricks,” Kenva whispered, so softly that Kaius could barely hear her.

One of the retainers froze. Crap.

“You dare!”

The retainers went for their weapons.