CHAPTER 1

The green goblin with specks of gold on his pointy ears ran off to the side of the road just

in time for Gaelron to make his way past without detecting the little green one’s

presence. The lord of the manor was in a grotesquely dangerous hurry and almost

stumbled over himself in his inordinate speed back to the sunken castle, an architectural

feat unknown to any world of Earth’s history. It was entirely underground, with a rounded

little entrance which appeared something like a set of stones roundly formed into an

outcropping with prickly shrubs ensconcing it. A powerful illusionary magic made

whatever appeared to go into the portal disappear as if at some point there was a

vanishing point leading to another world.

The goblin laughed hysterically, and plead with himself to hold onto what he had found

until he got to his sanctuary of putrid, wretched and foul sanctuary. The sorcerer name of

his master was Herdoles, and the bizarre human had a way with the natural forces of the

world which were a result of a natural ability as well as an engineered application of

necromancy. So great was his power that shadowy beasts of an underworld which only

existed across ocean like murky bogs would feel and draw to his power while his spells

were being cast. The land mass on the other side of the bubbling goo was a lot more like

another plane of existence entirely with beings which would be far too potent in their

vibrational energies to live on the more peaceful 'tamer' side of the boggy seas. Dragons

were able to thrive there and if anyone resembling a sentient humanoid were to be able

to first make it across the slimy bog to their world, it would be impossible to count as

high as the number of dragons they would possibly find. But therein lies the conundrum

that wherever dragons are, logic ceases to make any kind of relevant connection to
circumstances at hand and one must immediately blame their perceptions of reality for

leaving out such impossible beauty.

What the wiry little goblin had was a shiny lock of hair which was curly, shone with

golden blonde and shone with an unnatural brilliance as if a distant moon in some far off

place was reflecting sunlight. The lock of hair itself was from an oddly mysterious man

with very unusual hair himself. This very mystical person with extremely long jet black

hair wore a majestic looking garment of hundreds of woven fabrics flowing together in a

rainbow of colors. The hooded cloak was light to the touch and made of silks which

came from deadly spiders who would weave intricate multi-hued webs in a unique way

to ensnare predators many times their size. How this cloaked man acquired such

marvelous threads was as cryptic as the way the garment appeared as it moved! A

shimmering waterfall of every imaginable color would ripple and flow with each shift of

the garb's surface area.The lock of hair the goblin clutched had slipped absently from the

strange man's hand as he frolicked from one place to the next in a freakish route to

somewhere.

The grand city of Ulohjr was where this man would be most commonly seen, though

'regarded' would be more carefully chosen a term for he was viewed as an outsider with

an aura of a missionary's isolation. The streets themselves were brightly hued even at

night and different neighborhoods would reflect the spiritual tendencies of the locals by

their various colorations. Most of the buildings were physical manifestations of light

which the population had formed from ritual chants, hums and meditations together in a

harmonious technological magic. Language as we know it was not in use there! The

people rarely used speech to communicate but were able to understand each other all at
once in a synergy which was refined over countless eons. They all knew what the other

intended to ‘say’ just by being around them and their mannerisms were all distinctive to

their elemental grasp of each other in a mostly speechless world. The attuning of their

collective souls was the wellspring which formed their dwellings and other city structures,

kept and strengthened by their long quest for transcendence into light forms.

Many of the light buildings in the grand city resembled a certain blue and pink flower in

its primal essence, so the architecture of the place all resembled the shape of the

bulbous flower'. Structures which were closed up and impenetrable would open up

reflexively to the presence of those wishing to enter closeby. The petals of fluxing light

would respond to the falling of the pink and orange rain native to the region forming an

awning around the perimeter with the kissing upward at the top of the bulb so that a rim

formed widely for those beneath to be warmer and dry. A soft flooring made of cellulose

within the entryways always was accompanied by fresh moist air swirling about as their

feet sprang on the bouncy surface.

The goblin fingered the hair in his slimy dark green fingers and the lock crackled at the

friction, spitting off blueish-yellow sparks. The filmy grey and black nail of the mottled

dark-green skinned creature bubbled slightly with an acrid smoke as a tingle of

‘goodness’ crept across the creature's flesh with the sparks from the hair.

‘Yaaahhooaooch!” he shrieked out reflexively in a guttural wail.

The green goblin's form was obscured in a veil of shadow energy that was placed upon
him magically by Herdoles, a form of near invisibility which would be undetectable by

most inhabitants of Ulohjr. He would be detectable if he lingered about long enough for

them to sense his vicious energy or if his uncanny stench permeated from the same spot

a while. He trekked skillfully along the perimeters of the colorful streets, nightmarishly

fast and always evading those pesky humans. He was a true goblin from the blood of a

dragon which had a demon living inside it's belly. The demon had been imprisoned in a

tree but broke free when the dragon bashed the tree with its tail to get some of its yellow

and red fruit to fall.

The yellow scaled dragon with three large green horns blew a noxious mustard-like

poison mist at the tree before feeding on the fruits because it would force the hordes of

invading insects away from the juicy fruit which had fallen and burst on the ground for

the dragon to feed on (though many dragons did indeed breathe fire there it was only

one of every imaginable form of spew-- sometimes smaller dragons).

Dragons would occasionally consume the entire tree in one session of feeding,

chomping through the base then devouring the rest in its own time chomp by chomp.

This yellow scaled one managed to flush out this demon which was banished by some

other dragon probably to being inside the tree forever and when it happened, the demon

for whatever reason failed to find freedom but instead a new home in an een less

comfortable home! Dragons were able to do whimsical things with the contents of their

stomachs including the formation of new organs to ingest specific beings just like a

demon. In this case, without any surprise the dragon belched wildly at the inhalation of

the demon and merrily feasted on the red and yellowish fruits which had broken all over

the ground under the tree. The spirit of the demon was all that remained as the physical
form was shocked out of existence by the last dragon.

This particular tree was very rare to behold even for the habitat of a dragon for it was

protected at the bottom by garish thick black 'hairs', a bark so hard and thick that even

for most dragons who would bother it would take an effort to chew through, and

underneath the bark was an enormously dense meaty wood which had the unusual

property of turning into a liquid if penetrated by fire! The fruits all had a bit of this black

tree hair, this immensely tough outer shell as well the fruit itself liquifying at the friction of

being chewed. A dragon's delight! But unfortunately, if one managed to find a ripe fruit

bearing tree like this and fed, the smell would attract another dragon which usually led to

a fight.

That day a dragon with pinkish red scales responded to the wafting aroma of the freshly

eaten dragon fruit. It was rare to see any two dragons in proximity without a battle soon

erupting. A great fight began before the pinkish red scaled one had even got close to the

tree and the insects who were kept at bay by the poison cloud all caught fire and turned

to smoke at the heat the clash generated! The reflexive whipping of its tail was the

greeting the pinkish red scaled dragon got for creeping up behind the other and it turned

into a raging tempest of furious violence in less time than humans would be able to

perceive. The demon inside the dragon managed to find some nourishment by feeding

on all the murderous passion and this gave the demon a start on a return to corporeal

form-- a shape of a devilish humanoid with three horns, just like the dragon who was

now his home. But fortunately for the demon, the pinkish red scaled dragon dramatically

and unexpectedly flicked its thick tail with a three-pronged fang tip to pierce its enemy

right in the belly!

A bellowing wail shook the territory with the strength of a wounded dragon. Trees

thousands of miles away felt the soundwaves of the moan and a pool of dragon's blood

formed into a puddle as the pinkish red scaled dragon sauntered away. Three goblins

sprang up from the blood pool, each one with characteristics of the dragon fruit tree. The

first goblin's form was covered in thick black hairs which gave him a special advantage

for stealth, especially at night. The second goblin was tremendously tough-hided with

enormous large yellow fangs which would pierce the protective scales of even some

dragons if the goblin would have been strong enough in the jaws to penetrate one (which

would have been impossible, though the goblin could chomp down and break a fallen log

like it was nothing). The third was a fleshy, drooling mass of a thing with rolling blubber

which shook with unnatural violence as he moved. Where the other two goblins were

while the third was fussing with a lock of hair in his hand back in Ulojhr is unclear but the

demon spirit just after their births managed to escape from the three holes in the yellow

scaled dragon's stomach. The demon poked through creating one large hole in place of

the iprevious three, then his fully formed demonic humanoid body rolled onto the ground.

Delighted to be free and corporeal once again, the yellow scaled dragon saw this in a

hazy weakened state and gulped the demon down in a large thrusting bite! Back to the

wounded belly and the hole he had made closed itself up, sealing the demon's fate and

helping the dragon recover with some entertaining company locked away for long

digestion. Dragons won't really die unless they want to and this one decided to sleep a

while until more fruit appeared to shake off and gulp down. Perhaps an even better

dragon battle would result the next time!

The stealthy goblin clutching the golden lock of hair in Ulojhr was not visible even to light
faeries which hovered in the tunnels on the river, making a maze through the entirety of

the landscape. Light faeries would usually see anything which was there, but the the

goblin was too murky and immersed in the underworld magics of his master Sorcerer

Herdoles for them to notice, or so long as he moved fast enough..The dreadlock like

black ropes of hair all over his body glided along the wind as he moved which the goblin

used to sense air pressures and resistance, enabling with alarming swiftness and evil

grace. As he went slicing through the air at the less traveled edges of the light, he

sucked in some of the scent in the breeze with blotchy green thick nostrils. Coughing

and spluttering at the fragrant aroma of flowers and sweet night mist, he glanced back to

see the last glimpse of the city he would have before reaching his dour destination. A

rolling stream of purple waters about powdery blue streets and an arched light bridge

greeted his slitted pupils which made him giggle feverishly-- such disgusting beauty! The

city was perched on the edge of a large cliff and there were enormous thorny bushes all

around inhibiting travelers from leaping off. Taking no notice of the treacherous

obstacles, the unnaturally fast and sneaky goblin bolted through the brush which caused

them all to catch fire! The hole he burned into the bushes left a smelling acidic smoke

that lingered on for weeks after he had left. Flying off the cliff in a grotesque display of

acrobatics and malicious glee, the goblin spun downward into the air for a long while

before finally meeting a mercurial hole in the ground below! This hole was not sensed by

any of the wildlife because it drew power from the invisible netherworld and was only

detectable by those who were able to enter. The speedy goblin merged with the entry to

the darker realm as if a greedy hand had snatched him out of the air and stuffed him

down a chute! It was a great relief for the feisty brute for the return to a more suitable

environment from all the putrid happiness and love being regurgitated all over the place

in Ulojhr.
Just as the goblin had been diving off the edge of the city into the hole in the ground

below, a particularly brilliantly plumed golden bird with a frosty white beak had been

sailing by! The bird did not like the antics of the green and odious goblin but was unable

to do much more than drop his digested lunch onto the foul dark green skin of the critter.

This was a phenomenal weapon bred by nature for the bright bird's feces was a powerful

benefit for hunting down prey! The excrement would plop with precision timing by the

bird onto a rapidly moving land target,usually a red-tailed rodent which was easy to spot

from high altitudes. When the bird's missile made a direct hit on their target it would

harden into rubber from the impact shock then act as a trap by sticking the unfortunate

animal to the ground in mid stride. The rubbery texture would change rapidly to a

hardened state which would petrify the animal making it possible for only the same bird

to return for a meal later by spitting up a digestive enzyme which would be the only way

to dissolve the rock like exterior. There were countless examples of hardened bird waste

on rodents and animals which the bird left for later but had remained there for centuries

instead, unconsumed and left as another rock by all the life around it.

The goblin got smacked with a large glob of the rare golden bird's dropping on his way

down! The glue effect didn't work as it would have on a creature native to the forest but it

did cause the goblin shock and pain enough to notice. The goblin's trek downward was

only altered in a way noticeable to the green skinned riffraff and it very slightly disrupted

his perfect trajectory into the nether hole. On another day the impish little demon spawn

might have relished hunting the bird down and using it's bombs as rocks to launch from

a sling at it but this moment was defined by Herdoles and the goblin's mission was being
accomplished.

As the goblin had merged with the nether world in the hole and disappeared, the bird

dropping shattered around it and due to its rare density the feces managed to just ever

so slightly adhere to the fabric of the forest which interlocked with the nether hole. An

insignificant difference to the naked eye or nose of the average beast but a skilled

tracker might be able to detect something was there now just by using skilled

observation with the intention of detection. The goblin's murky green body melted away

upon impact with the hole, wiping away his existence and placing him into the dimension

of an abyss beyond comprehension for all but those wicked enough to endure it.

The unusually radiant gold bird who'd managed to hit the goblin with his well aimed

dropping had once witnessed the same goblin ritually channeling hatred from a tribe of

extremely diminutive forest men (they were so tiny that the bird would have had trouble

locating them in their movements on the ground from an otherwise ideal hunting

altitude). The tribesmen did not reproduce like humans, instead being birthed directly out

of trees and beginning their life as insects who would most resemble Earthly ants (but

these ants on this distant planet had eyes which glowed purple at night). This method of

reproduction by tree had come about from a deal struck between the ants and the

previously more average sized humanoid tribe (which also had women) struck a deal to

defend from alien invaders which were coming in millions of years! Ironically, the way the

ants and the tribe saw it was that it would make for a great party if the ants and people

got together this way, bonded in their evolution then the fiesta when the aliens came

would throw them off a lot better than any space weapon, which was inconceivable to

them anyway.
What the goblin was really interested was not the emotional menace he could be to the

ant tribe, draining away whatever love and goodness he could once they were hazed

ritually with his powerful necrotic charms but actually in their mushrooms. The goblin had

become addicted to mind (if it could be called such a thing inside that thick skull) altering

fungus soon after being born of demon infested dragon blood. These particularly small

tribesmen who were awaiting the big party to fend off those nasty aliens were the only

ones on the whole planet who would lead the goblin to those delicious blue and purple

white spotted mushrooms which were the delicacy beyond delicacies for him! Even fresh

babies were not as tasty to the goblin as a delicious morsel of this blue or purple white

spotted stuff.

When the unnaturally quick goblin had wandered off in the first few moments of life from

the blood puddle, he had made his way to a mystical realm of mushrooms by a frothy

bubbling spring. A greenish mist which he'd found so sweet and inviting as a cloud

hanging near a fallen tree was so inviting for him but apparently was a barrier to all other

life because the hazy mist laden spring which bubbled gently in a lazy rhythm appeared

untouched for longer than an imagination. There were insects parading around

vegetation such as four winged dragon flies each with a slight scaly resemblance to their

much larger distant cousins. But no animals had consumed the mushrooms which were

proudly married to their positions in the spring, undisturbed for perhaps billions or more

generations! The goblin's dark green skin tingled with a greedy hunger only a newborn

could have and the scent from the magical fungus wafting into his moist fleshy nostrils

with unnaturally thick black hairs growing out of them was utterly intoxicating. In truth,

the misty green fog the goblin had so easily pierced through without injury or
consideration had an odor so foul that it actually choked most with the capacity for

breathing before they made it anywhere near. This is logical since the goblins own bile

fragrance was enough to wilt flowers and down small insects as he passed them by!

The goblin scooped up mushroom after mushroom in a mad feast, gobbling down whole

handfuls of giant various colored fungi. Pretty quick the little imp doubled over from the

overwhelming amount of both food mass and mind altering visions. Over a glorious

stretch of time he repeatedly awoke with a fresh interest in first devouring heaps of

plundered magic mushroom meat then

collapsing into a sleeping heap of rancorous green huffs, grunts and snores. All of this

dragon mushroom nourishment led to the swift demon spirited goblin to being able to

project his spirit outward to gain more perception during his travels, rendering him far

more dangerously speedy than even before.

When the goblin had dived into the hole he did not actually go anywhere. Although it

would have appeared on the outside to any observers that he just disappeared into thin

air, in reality where he went was into the fabric of the energy formed around the visible

things where the hole was. He was stored in the plants, the soil, the purple-green fog

which was in a constant rolling haze around all the plant life there. The goblin was still

'there' but he had stretched, shrunk and intertwined his entire being into being the

embodiment of the wood. His viciousness and his purity of malignant pressures to

expose all foul things to their bitter beauties was what made it possible with the help of a

steadying spell by Herdoles. The goblin actually became so tiny within the fabric of the

natural elements there that he began to grow through to the other side and manifest

within at all, so one could say actually that he didn't go anywhere but rather
'everywhere'. It is a hard cruel lesson for some and easy for others to understand but

good and evil exist together for the forces of nature insist that a cold morality is

mechanistic to the cosmos.

When his soul went through the ether, and found itself at one with the unending

darkness of the underworld, he felt completely at home. He would be immersed in the

black pitches of instantaneous movements across the vast chasms of evil which were

eternally available, like a climax of wicked emotional delight which for him which was

unending. A feeling of blissful and endless sadism and nihilism so that the only feelings

left were the dank rot of isolation in the world of power he had sacrificed him unto. Yet

the goblin was committed to the uglier side of things, it is always another mechanism for

the known universe to see evil creatures often do things which become helpful to those

whom they'd otherwise most likely oppose, be it by accident or purpose.

And thus his place in life was secure, he was absolutely fresh and at something which

could be called a peace within himself that also sacrificed the need to bond with anything

for love of all but the self. Hence it was a cold and boundless emptiness that always

supplied the anchor for his expressions of ill will. Though he was no longer a physical

body, he was still as real to the touch or as any life form such that his infusion of spiritual

embodiment to the surroundings became the sensations all at once he would find, and

without purpose or measure would eat away as life went on outside the invisibly dark

hole. Essentially, we may say that he was a dream at that point, that he slipped between

where all things are moving within themselves independent of physical barriers. And this

may very well be the source of many nightmares around many star systems, his flight of

fancy without a corporeal form. But at this time he was focusing in something like a

prayer or meditative trance to prepare for seeing his sorcerer master, a person who
would position the stinky menace into a dynamo for the grand spell which he was busily

preparing.

Herdoles had learned to contain the flows of essence which made if possible for him to

train and control demonic goblins while on the dragon island across the boggy ocean.

The manner of travel he used to reach the other side was a gating of his spirit and his

bodily vibrations into a singular thin long strand across the gurgling ocean, which by any

who would survey it would probably say that if you traveled a hundred lifetimes from one

land to the next you would still not reach the other side! The soul gate of Herdoles was a

similar magical utility as the stretching of the soul by the goblin to plop into the nether

hole and sail about in the impossibly dark world around and in between all things. The

channeling of this magnificent spell required that the great sorcerer astrally project

himself all the way over the bog through a ritual meditation then the song of his being

would actually follow and 'pull' his physical form to the other side.

Some of the dragons there could travel freely between the two land masses but wouldn't

bother most of the time unless they were interested in bringing an egg of some kind

over. Peoples on the tamer continent had passed down stories of great winged creatures

flying with an egg in its claws near the shores every so many generations. Those who

reported these things rarely had fear of the dragons presence this way but recognized

them as the most powerful of all creatures known.

Herdoles use the land of dragons much like a fountain for his magics! It was boundless

energy free to seize hold of and use for designs of playful sorcery. His philosophy was

beyond words to translate but suffice it to report that he considered his work neither
good nor evil and very necessary. There were many secrets to be gleaned by being

among the dragons and he'd encountered mystical artifacts which he'd study from time

to time to break the silence of their long buried mysteries, then he could honor the

objects with the use of his modern magics!

There was one necessary item to empower Herdoles to get from one side to the next

and that was an anchoring piece of petrified wood from trees which had stone hard bark

but liquid centers in their trunk. These trees were related to those which bore the dragon

fruit the demon spawn dragon born goblins had come from but were the cousins on the

softer side which would only bear a crunchy red nut with a juicy sweet middle. These

were used for energy by those who would harvest the dragon nuts locally but Herdoles

was a learner of the ancient lores and methods of all things, thus he was capable of

using the strange power of these dragon trees for his mode of transport in his soul-gate

spell. He would set the half from the same petrified tree bark (which was hard as rock on

the tree itself but petrified was of such hardness that it was almost like a diamond) onto

the shores of the muddy bog sea and hum a chant. The prayer would last for hours until

the wood piece would begin to churn inside with a liquid that Herdoles could attach his

vibrational consciousness to! This would anchor the wood fragment to the ground so

none could move it no matter how much strength they used to remove it from its

position. Then when Herdoles reached the shores of the dragon land, he would position

the other half of the petrified wood to a random position on the ground there and hum

the same chant in reverse. The water in the half on the dragon shore would then create

a powerful bond between both broken pieces of petrified wood that allowed Herdoes to

'breathe' normally in the more hostile habitat and also to withstand the dramatic changes

in overall intensity of the area. Being anywhere near dragons in their natural
environment would rip a common humanoid apart if they somehow managed to get

close! Dragons would have to use special illusions to be seen by those who were in

proximity so they'd never be to close to handle it. Such was the way of a dragon, that

they were never quite as they appeared!

The tales of eggs being flown from far away were not only true but very true for

Herdoles. Dragons designed him to be part of some great plan and delivered him to

grow, live out his destiny. He had a presence which was electrifying to those around him

and no matter which people he encountered in his long journeys, there was always an

aura separating him. He was a loner by nature who would only be content for a while in

the company of others. Eventually, he would retreat into his lair where studies, spells

and meditation would feed his soul.

He stumbled upon the high arts of the woods which was the derivation for all his sorcery

by exploring the great trees, waters, moon cycles from observations. On this planet, the

life upon it was not necessarily going to die of old age or disease and so this kind of

exploration would be too long for the common person of Earth to understand. It was in

Herdoles wandering research of mushrooms, flowers, the animals of the forests, of

springs and brooks that eventually one day he began harnessing their powers

automatically, as if it was the next natural step in his immersion of his entirety into the

spirit of the forests. There were many forms of magic but wood sorcery was considered if

not the most dangerous and difficult to master, then it was among those arts at the

pinnacle of power for it. It was something to the reality of the life there that one would

assume this role as needed, a mechanism to the universality of consciousness and of

time, of the overall divinity of balance. Even those rare wood sorcerers of the past were
not always able to traverse their way across the eternal boggy ocean, let alone survive

there for more than a moment. Herdoles was born in a very interesting and potent age!

The wood sorcerer had spent whole seasons at a time investing in his magical petrified

wood route to the other side. In doing so, he consumed many varieties of special

mushrooms which grew all over the world of trees and wildlife he skittered about in his

endless search for a natural truth. He did find it useful to prepare for the trips ultimately

by engaging in a very enjoyable ritual of ingesting copious amounts of several fungi

types which were marinated in some of the liquid from the bog ocean, then he would

begin transporting himself in spirit to the other side so he could more easily astrally

project to it when he was ready for the actual journey.. Once at night and once in the

morning during his mushroom induced ritual visions, he would turn a device something

like an Earthly hourglass over, a crystalline object that had sea bog liquid inside with the

scale of a tiny bog sea snake. The scale would react to the churning over and over with

a tiny electrical pulse that would align with Herdoles chakras and bring his powers into

the perception of the spirit of the sea snakes in the bog. He considered this a meeting

wherein the bog sea snakes would assist him in his travels, stabilizing his soul and

making it a smoother spell with enhanced security.

Once while he was out gathering mushrooms under a pair of full moons somewhat near

the outskirts of Ulohjr when a wild pack of tusked orange beasts who resembled

something like a cross between an Earthly wild boar and a brontosaurus stampeded

toward him! One of these orange critters was fiercely aggressive, and took umbrage at

the display of this humanoid in his territory who was blasting bright blue light around him

like a reflecting moon himself. The purpose of his use of his energetic aura was to
harmonize with the mushrooms so as to make their locations more obvious to his

senses. Most beasts would have be steered away by the radiant luminescence of his

magical search if they got close enough to the intensity and heat from his efforts (it

would be just under the level to ignite objects into flame), but this particular orange

'boarosaurus' like beast only treated it as a beacon. He charged at Herdoles, but the

energy of fungus seeking luminosity blasted the animal into oblivioun, hurling great

flying chunks of the beasts horrible bloody flesh all over the place. The blood was

actually black with yellow streaks and a burning smell permeated throughout the area as

the carcass smoldered nearby. The herd pressed on, ignoring their fallen warrior and

Herdoles continued his uniform movement to the concourse of his applied focus of

mushroom seeking. He came with an especially brilliant orange and white mushroom

that night which he stewed in the bog juice marinade with just a bit of the bloody orange

animal's remains.

He hadn't realized it at the time but it was this special stuff from the orange boarosaurus

which had really made things possible for his spell across the great boggy ocean. The

species had originated as an orange dragon and when it had gotten lazy one afternoon

under a giant orange sun, it fell into a deep sleep so wonderful that it decided to have

some new form of animals running around so the dragon could continue sleeping even

longer! And thus, the critters sailed over the clouds from the dreams of the orange

dragon and into being on the other side of the bog sea. There they stampeded endlessly,

always following the path of one mushroom haven to the next but never feeding.

Eventually, the dragon awoke and the orange boarosaurus' suddenly poofed away in a

puff of dragon smoke, but that was long after this story ends!
His quest for knowledge of his beloved forests over countless seasons led him deeper

and deeper into his own consciousness, more and more attuned with the rhythms of life

in the wood. He began to evaporate into mist sometimes and appear in another location

near a mossy tree but he'd do this without even realizing it. He just had wanted to get

there so quick to see the delightful green growth on the slippery grey tree trunk that he

wound up disappearing and getting there another way from a distant location. He began

to sing bird's songs back to their sailing flocks, unable to know why or how he could sing

in their language as naturally as weeping or crying but was delighted to hear them

respond with whistling glee. He climbed trees to their tippy tops and sometimes laid flat

along their huge branches so that he could sleep for days on end, often a furry creature

or two nuzzling up between his pits as he lounged and dozed with abandon to all time.

And one fine night when he had felt that he could not possibly want to find anyplace

more beautiful or arousing for his senses did he suddenly stop, turn around and find the

most magnificent spiring tree!

The lengthy tree trunk went all the way up into the pitch black seeming to reach to the

moon just at the pointy tip. It was particularly thin with spiraling shelf fungus encircling

the entirety of the murky grey bark and something Herdoles had not seen before on any

tree from the multitudes of forests he investigated was branches which wrapped in a

circular formation so that one branch would be hugging and spiraling upward joining with

hundreds of others just like it. The canopying effect of this was awesome and twinkling of

the night sky;s stars poked through with a sparkling dance. He saw a family of bushy

tailed rodents (there were not squirrels on this planet but many versions of rodent) with a

way of eating insects with a suction cup on its red hands, so that they would plunk down

a palm and several insects would get caught in the suction cup then sucked out by the
rodents mouth.

Herdoles knew he was at home and found himself uplifted in his spirits so much that a

warm breeze erupted underneath his feed and suddenly he was floating on air to the top

of the spiring tree. When he reached somewhere close to its peak, a strong instinct to

merge his magics with the bark struck him and he focused himself into its energy and

was rewarded with the 'melting' away of bark which formed into a spiraling opening-- a

slit that continued to open and close in a bout with light and the nether. The hole in the

tree spun like smoke being swept through a tunnel by a voracious wind and responded

to the moods of the deeply mysterious sorcerer. When he wanted to look out upon the

forest, he would peer outward from the nether window and it would appear as open air, a

natural and normal space as many structures often have. If we was upset, the storm of

the spiraling round area would become murky and conduct electricity, sometimes a cold

form of fire. If we were chilly, the space would waft warm air into the area just inside the

top of the tree which was hollowed out with curved areas for sleeping, sitting, storing

things and pacing around in circles.

The speedy goblin who dove into the hole had already met with his sorcerer master in

the nether realm recently. The other demonic dragon spawn were in the habit of meeting

Herdoles in his special lair within the spire where he had special niches within the

spacious hollow of the tree top for them each to rest. There he would weave magic into

their nightmarish thoughts which would manifest in beneficial ways for his visions of

balancing the spirits of the wood. The goblin master currently stood peering out from his

nether hole in the treetop, hands clasped behind his back in a flowing white spidersilk

robe. Reflecting about a time which appeared ancient to him now, closed his eyes and
let out some pink smoke. In his world, pipes were unnecessary for the master sorcerer

could exhale a rich satisfying cloud of smoke from many plants with an utterance from

his inner soul.

What the sorcerer of the wood had been recollecting was about a trip he had made to

the land of the dragons when he came across a strange yellow tree. It was hypnotic and

its spindly blue branches with orange tinged dark blue leaves made a rustling that

sounded more like hollow rocks clanking together by the thousand rather than a kind of

leaf or foliage. He strode closer to get a better look now that it was in his eye and

hearing a dragon approach from the brush some ways away, he crouched at a clump of

red bushes near the base of the yellow tree. The dragon in the distance appeared also

to be mostly red and yellow scaled, but fortunately for the sorcerer it was waddling off to

find a fresh meal, one much bigger, riper and juicier than the bony appetizer Herdoles

would provide. In fact, the gaunt sorcerer was a wiry individual with surprising agility and

physical strength but was generally fortunate to be seen as too stringy and with little

meat enough for a great many predators he came across in his travels! Soon, Herdoles

discovered that inside this bizarre yellow tree with odd sounding blue foliage was a very

special sap. The gears of his mind spinning wildly now, he knew that if he was really

lucky he might locate an already petrified hunk of the sap somewhere closeby! It had

happened so many times that the sweet sap of an unusual tree had yielded its amber,

useful for his magics and interesting just in general for his insatiably curious mind.

Once the great red and yellow dragon had moved on, the wood sorcerer searched

under a clump of the tree roots. Above the mangle of twisty gnarled yellowish, brown,

blue and dark green roots was a sizable gash in the trunk itself which had obviously
been made long ago by claws or teeth! A struggle which seemed to have broken off

fragments of whichever it was, bone or claw for there was some petrification around it

(indicating clearly how long the tree had been around). It mustn't have been a dragon

which could have sliced through the entire tree with a hiss let alone consume the whole

tree with a gulp without even bothering to uproot it first. That would probably only make

the dragon release enough gas to notice the trouble (dragon farts are worshipped on the

fair side of the bog as healing and an aphrodisiac but potent enough that the person may

explode if they attempt to use some captured in a special bottle by a master of magics).

The chances of finding some of the lovely tree's precious hardened sap was much

increased from the sight of the petrification!

Herdoles whipped his body around in a flash and went mad thrusting his long bony

fingers through the soil with precise effort. It was a reddish brown soil mostly with blue

and white rocks here and there, much blue grass (grass there sometimes would be so

fine that it was like walking through hairs) surrounding the area where the tree was. The

wild blue hair like grass led to a small hill off in the distance with pale blue and rusty

yellow, orange and red bushes bushes dotting the hillside. After ripping through soil and

revealing root bunch after root bunch, he finally found purchase for his sensitive

fingertips when they rolled past a pleasurably cool, round object. It was obviously not

part of the tree and he immediately felt a bond with the stone or whatever it was he was

touching. Though he was looking for the amber specifically, it took more than a moment

for him to realize it was what he was looking for because he was suddenly struck with a

vision! A dragon was sailing by the sun, blue scales with fiery orange wings.

Could this have been the tree a dragon had used to harbor an egg? Tree tops were quite
common for them to use on the planet since there were no predators but other dragons

who would be able to break through any dragon egg, even by shaking the whole tree

and dumping the egg onto hard rocks below. In fact, a real dragon egg was capable of

traveling in space from planet to planet and would not exactly burn up if it got close to

the sun (what happens there is a difficult explanation but suffice it to say there is a

situation where the dragon is reborn before being able to reach the stages to live their

lives out and such they would become a sun themselves, possibly birthing an entire star

system). The reason why dragons wouldn't concern themselves with other predatory

dragons is that if one actually went out of their way to gobble down a dragon egg, they

would have to contend with the dragon they just ate which would usually eat the other

dragon from the inside until it was big enough to fly out their mouth. This was less

pleasant than a nice long movement, which to dragons could last the length of many

Earth seasons and usually a tree grew where the dragon laid its excrement while the

planet expanded slightly, hence making this one of the biggest planets in known creation

which would be the equivalent to many sizes more than the Earth's sun (and getting

bigger all the time).

Although it was only a brief glimpse of the dragon he witnessed in his second-sight,

Herdoles had slept under the tree for so long that he had started to appear as a tree root

to all the wildlife surrounding the yellow tree (and long enough for a dragon to lay an

especially large dung pile). When he went to sleep usually the sorcerer would disappear

but in this case it was impossible to separate himself from his vision which was

originating with the essence in the roots (which were the stuff of dreams if no one has

explained to you that trees are directly connected!) When he awoke and rubbed his

sappy, dirty, sweaty face he was flabbergasted to see an eye staring back at him in his
palm! The pupil of the eye appeared to be a fragment from what Herdoles was sure now

was the shred of an ancient claw of a large animal which had swiped the tree trying to

free the treetop of its incubating dragon egg.The critter apparently lost a good bit of

blood over it and must have failed, but got through the uncannily solid bark before giving

up. The piece of petrified claw was lodged in a roundish chunk of the tree bark itself,

likely a bit which escaped from the trunk at the time of the assault and with some of the

claw still attached to it. At some point during his slumber the amber which the claw scrap

and rounded bark was contained in had burned into Herdoles palm and bonded with his

inner being.

He got up and feeling the power, held high in the air upward to the sun! Whatever he

was feeling would react with the eye in his hand with sparkling energy of all colors, a

maelstrom of chaos contained within his grasp. There were times when the eye itself

would briefly flame with blue and green tendrils or wisps of necrotic dark energy which

flickered outward and snapped into a climax into thin air. He hadn't notice before but he

was had grown. His height was double it's former size and he knew without thinking

about it that his tree spire home was already hollowed out in a way to suit his new

dimensions.

That was the day in fact, just after he had awaken and returned in a slingshot home that

he was greeted on the other side by the three goblins who in his mind would have the

sound like “H'aru”, “Guhthl” and “Blixighisk”! Returning from the dragon lands was

instantaneous whereas the invocation to create his harmonic transitory strand across

from the calmer side took the waxes and wanes of many many moon cycles. The three

glorious brutish beasts spawned from the demoni possessed dragon by the dragon fruit
tree looked to him with greedy eyes, those of a newborn set of triplets seeking a path in

their new world. H'aru possessed the thick rope-like black hairs resembling that mythical

tree bark of his 'roots' and he was swiftest by far of the three. Guhthl had impossibly

tough skin more like the hard tree bark from which the dragon fruit came and when he

really felt like it, was able to petrify his entire body in a state of petrification. And

Blixighisk was larger than the other two with enormous rolling mountains of blubber. The

fat inside occasionally turned to liquid like the inner core of that singular tree.

Herdoles considered them a neutral force within the paradigm of his deep understanding

and connection to the woods and the other side of the great bog. Though they were evil

creatures in all ways we might understand it, the perceptions of the strange wood

sorcerer in his philosophy of the lives he led (for we do lead many if you weren't

convinced before) were not inclusive of such devices as 'good' or 'bad'. This was

happening and it was a mechanical necessity to the spiritual fortitude of the woods upon

the planet which he knew connected to infinite other worlds. Their function was bound to

forces he would not question or judge for there was the way of the wood and that was

always dangerously mysterious, thus all things were possible! He regarded the situation

as similar to the anchor he left of the petrified woods for his sonic pathway, the events

which he was turning the celestial wheels for in commanding these three demonic

goblins were a matter of supremely important circumstances which would develop in

many eons from then. No one but he would possibly comprehend any or most of this and

he was reclusive by nature, such the way of the sorcerer.

The three seething goblins each dragged their yellowed and blackened clawed toes in

opposite directions from each other across the muddy, red earth on the bank of the
boiling bog. Sparks arose from the moist turf from the release of nether energy in their

magical friction, pyramiding outward from each other in a ceremonial engagement with

the intention of lining up before Herdoles symbolically for worshipful orders to be passed.

Their dark and ancient magical forces chafed with the more natural, elegant and serene

side of the bog. They pivoted from facing each other all at the same time to face the

sorcerer dramatically, grinning evilly. Their eyes became a murky grey tunnel filled with a

misty void, each receptive to new assignments as their master was about to bestow

upon them.

Herdoles smirked wistfully as he raised his amber eyed hand up high into the night air

which felt moist and cool. A light began to pour out from the pupil, warm blue light that

penetrated the air with a low hum. Then a sea began to appear from the steady radiance

of the light which appeared as a rolling crest of breakwater, a splashing riptide of a

streaming vision. The rolling white crashes of the river of foaming seas appeared in the

center of the blue beam which steadily made its way into the triangular formation of

goblins before him. Their voided grey eyes met with the blue light with a rolling white

ocean in the middle of and their eyes began glowing a sickly crimson as green sparks

raced around their lids. Obviously this was the form of communication most economical

to the gaunt wood sorcerer and the three servants began drooling a grimy green liquid

on the ground which turned black on contact with it, bubbling in a smoky goo.

Their mouths hung agape as Herdoles reached into their latent consciousness, traveling

to their core to inspire each with specific homing archetypes. It was a concentrated form

of communication which used visualizations of patterns with the frequencies of the

intentions behind their meanings as the wood sorcerer laid an elaborate spell far too

complex for their three 'minds' to fathom. The goblins faces slowly split into wide impish

grins as their mission directives burned into their matrix. H'aru yowled and beat on his

chest making a yellowy black flash with his claws moving so fast back and forth, then

dove into the bog disappearing underneath (only something like a goblin could even

consider this for it was a quick death from being fed upon by the many predators just

under the gurgling surface). Gu'rhthl began rocking on his feet from left to right then

sprang suddenly away from the shoreline in a fanciful display of acrobatics. Blixighisk

grabbed his belly with both clawed fists and shook it down to the ground, causing an

impact tremor and making the hoary goblin cackle in dark delight. Herdoles only leaned

his head downward and developed an even wider grin than the generals for his war.

He strolled off into the woods for a trek which lasted many nights. By the time he

reached his spired home, he knew that he would have a new way to reach his quarters.

Touching the amber eye of his palm to the bark of his tree, his body appeared to twist

and dematerialize into a white liquid which wrapped fastly around the tree trunk as it

rose upward in a spiral. His body reformed from an apparition of himself, misty and

unreal into the warm form of a blue-blooded man as he penetrated the nether window

(he actually had blue blood though that was not considered any sort of 'royalty' in his

world).

Herdoles had returned with artifacts from the bog, and each found a place in his keep

with obsequious priority for representing different fields of his studies. A dragon tooth

and one of its scales he’d found underfoot while communicating with something

resembling a brilliant blue and grey crocodile, only much larger and with double sets of
teeth. A white spotted baby blue dragon had been gnawing at some of the tree trunks in

a teething phase and one of them dropped, as they were common to do for certain

dragons in their early life stages. The scale was veined with ultra-fine white patters

which would sparkle loudly under moonlight; the tooth was also blue but was speckled

with white flecks. Another artifact was a broken red eggshell with yellow interior which

came from a bird which regurgitated its meals into a puddle of hot lava which was cooled

into obsidian by a hypersonic flapping of its tail. The bird would then invoke a flatulence

which would act something like liquid nitrogen on Earth, where the object becomes

frozen solid and can be broken easily into innumerable shards. The bird would then eat

the fresh icy obsidian treat to digest it all again in a second stomach, so that when it

returned to its nest a very wide vent in an otherwise modestly sized volcano (for the

dragon land). Finally, the regurgitation of the iced obsidian would form a nutritious syrup

for the chicks in the hot nest.The life cycles of these birds were many thousands of

generations of Earth species so that the rare shell was the sign of a recent cycle of

reproduction-- an honor in itself to be a part of. Herdoles had a way with birds more than

every other species and he would often rub the shell for spiritual insight and to find

comfort with his aviary friends, even if by touch and psychic connections alone.

Herdoles saw one of these rare birds on his way to a lava swamp where he went to hunt

for a meal. Walking, flying and teleporting around the dragon habitat made him

extremely voracious in his appetite and he planned to consume an entire wandering

beast. There would be no trouble roasting it in any of the hot pits filled with smoldering

molten globs. Although he used his sorcery to make kills during hunts some of the time,

generally he would strike with brute physical force and shocking agility. It was a

primordial experience for him which connected him to raw instincts that fed his soul as
well as his hungry belly. The bird was sailing low in the air on its way back with a fresh

second stomach full of crystallized obsidian from its funny process. It had yellow feathers

around its broad neck like a ring or a halo that slipped off its head and got stuck at the

collar. It's beak leaked smoke from vent holes and piercing brilliant blue eyes greeted the

sorceror's orange irises and they instantly knew each other as old friends. A sacred

event in his life which most importantly gave him the means to contact a buddy

whenever need be.

The egg he had found on the ground was from a running stream of molten lava which

didn't bother Herdoles from the heat, for he was able to manipulate his own body to

match the environment and resist the remarkable volcanic intensity. Trickling down in a

bright red orange and yellow blaze, the stream lazily greet him and brought a gorgeous

red eggshell. These eggs would never crack, burn, melt or otherwise suffer from the lava

and it was only warm to the touch (even if Herdoles had not had his magical defenses

up, the eggshell remained a steady temperature).

The shell was the most personal item but a green stone which was able to turn from a

liquid to a gel, to a solid rock and into putty depending on the way he rolled it around in

his hand was his favorite item for thinking. He would rub it and pick it with his

thumbnails or sometimes throw it against the inside of his tree spire to see what would

happen. Each time was a new effect and the properties of the stone were unpredictable

from what you would do to it. The stone was from a waterfall which had sparkling gems

and stones by the millions. It literally rained gems with the falling waters, some as big as

the sorceror's head. When he found the falls, he instinctively reached his hand into the

steady streaming liquid and plucked a delightful green rock. Stuffing it into his wood-lace
gown (made from the bark of trees which certain beetles he'd befriended would eat and

spin out something like a 'beetle silk' which was exceptionally acute with conducting

locally available kinetic energies which could be harnessed for his spell weaving. A

beetle from the process of making the threads would always live inside the gown to

make sure Herdoles was comfortable in it. Forgetting about the green object, he took a

dip in the lake of magic gems and fell asleep underwater. He was able to breathe

underwater there but not on the fair side of the bog.

Yet another object he found was a vial of a blue-green liquid which was almost chewy in

how thick it was, gathered from a tiny pool he found beside a den of animals most similar

to dog species on Earth. The six legged thick green furred animals had enormously long

snouts with mouths with teeth that must have been in the hundred in each gum line.

They were extremely tall and were at present sleeping together without a sentry

awake.There were thousands of them in all scattering across the distance and under the

dreamy silver moonlight, their heaving chests and billowing bellies reminded him of

leaves on a tree responding to some gentle wind. Apparently the unusual animals drew

some power from the reservoir of blue-green liquid which was inexplicably thick yet

remained in the state of liquidity despite it's viscosity. The little pond was surrounded by

rocks which were actually soft to the touch. Herdoles wouldn't have disturbed them but

could sense that if he'd pressed into them, they'd be squishy. His perceptions would be

verified later when he stepped on one of the same kind of stones after gathering the

saucy waters. It was spinning in a whirlpool there, disappearing to some funneling

tandem within space so that it appeared to him that this little water hole might be

connected to a hole in space. These existed and they were anchored somewhere,

usually guarded by...fierce and magical creatures. Hmmm!

A wood vial he'd prepared by scooping out a hollow space for its contents and a tight big

round cap (he used his fingernail instead of any other tool) appeared from his gown and

he uncapped it, turned it upside down and hung it over the puddle. Suspended from

some grass wire he'd tied to the bottom of the vial, he saw that the liquid began making

its way upward and into the wooden vessel! It was a slow upward drip and pretty soon,

enough of it was in his vial. His cap was a dried mushroom which snugly fit over the

rounded wood bottle. Topping it off and retreating from the source set off one of the her

which had a long white goatee that was blowing to and fro by some breeze that wasn't

coming from anywhere in the air. The creature snapped to attention and an involuntary

rumble erupted from its crocodile like mouth. Soon this became a growl with a high

pitched squeal following it which awoke the entire pack at once! More appeared from

caves Herdoles had not bothered to notice were there (let alone their entrances were in

pitch darkness but who needed sight when he had sorcery). They all began to look with

startling intelligence and the sorcerer simply stared back, enjoying his moment with the

sublime creatures. His heart was racing and the danger was beyond measure but he

was comfortable to be relieving the pool of its plunder for his work and to take what the

dogs had in return for him. The judgment was in-- it felt amusing to them, Herdoles

determined and if he had just taken a slight bit more or less of the stuff that the delicate

levity of making them all begin to howl and preen in amusement would have been lost.

They went back to rest but would have not tolerated more...

The last thing he gathered for his laboratory he found by a tree which constantly burned

at the base and was surrounded by water. The natural moat prevented fire from

spreading beyond the perimeter of the flaming trunk which was obviously immune to fire
completely. The tree itself seemed to have some natural defense that inhibited the

flames from rising any higher than at the very bottom. Some natural gas vein was

probably spitting gas through a fissure in the ground which had somehow evolved with

this tree on top of it. When Herdoles had come cross this place he dove straight into the

glassy greenish water and gently floated with guidance from his kick below the surface

across to the tree.

Quickly he plunged his hand into the flames spewing from the fissure of gas at the stony

bark base. He came up with a scoop of insects with similar armor on their exoskeletons

as the reddish stone exterior on the base of the tree. His hand was badly burned which

would have been impossible if the tree were not magnificently magical (which made the

pain and damage worth it to him), but the insects quickly sucked out the heat, and his

hand returned to normal almost instantly as he withdrew it from the fire. The naturally

healing insects were all shaped similar to seashells and had millions of little legs

between them to crawled all over his garb. They attuned themselves microscopically into

a natural lair within the wispy white fabric which was a material enough like their former

wooden home that they could survive there comfortably. If he was ever cold they would

activate at once and moving around in an army of action, their bustles would heat up his

entire body to a perfectly comfortable temperature. One of the insects had turned to

ignimbrite (volcanic rock) on the way out from the tree and landed in his hand which he

plopped in his pocket and pursued another territory to discover.

Herdoles peered out over the landscape from his nether window and using his to hike

his own light across the strand of a nether fiber, was able to perceive all the way down to

the ground as if his eyes were looking just above it from a floating position. The
individual multi-hued twigs with the leaves and the dirt had something like millipedes

crawling all over them but they were more like billipedes which sometimes began floating

upward into the air like miniature dirigibles from some self-activating gas and sack in

their bodies. From all the way up in his spiraling spire, leagues up and impossibly dark

he was still able to see with perfect clear vision the minute details of each individual leg

of the billipedes, if he needed to. He did acknowledge with his consciousness how long

he had been wrapped up within his research this time— he'd managed to lose himself

for longer than he could remember reflecting and learning from his new artifacts. Down

there on the ground was where he was going soon and he wanted to gauge his landing

conditions for his new method down.

Sensing H'aru the Swift had just popped into the nether hole again outside of Ulohjr, he

stuck his head out of the nether hole and kept going until his whole body was pushed out

like being birthed.His impossibly fine silky white gown assisted in his downward hike on

the air but he 'rode' the encircling branches on their auras, making it appear as if he was

afloat in a downward slide. His body merged with the powerful beetle woven garment so

that he contorted and billowed as a boat upon the air, uninhibited by physiological

constraints. When H'aru had plunged into the hole this time, Herdoles was struck by a

feeling of water flowing through him coldly. This was the bond he shared with his goblins

and H'aru was speeding through the abyss in a disembodied state which used the wood

sorcerer to anchor on the other side.

Herdoles floated all the way down as if he were the force itself convincing a natural

whirlpool to spin into its collapsing conical signature, sailing around the divine tree on a

blanket of air. Cool, flowing breezes swooshed around his long ears and through his
currently magenta colored long stringy hair (on Earth people died theirs, Herdoles

couldn't retain the same color for more than an Earthly hour unless he concentrated) as

he lazily drifted toward his selected placement near the base of his tree house.

He made his way to Ulojhr by floating half the way out of sheer refusal to completely

wake up and pay attention to the ground he was stepping on, and went to a place where

there was fresh drinks and eats for him to awaken with. The merry Ulohrians danced

together and laughed in the rounded quadrangular purple light structure that was sort of

a pub and a meditation center in the same location for them. Herdoles blended into the

background as much as possible, becoming ambience rather than a participant but he

was uplifted and careful to maintain a mood which was wholesome for the party. For a

long while he patiently rested while his mind attuned to the waking tasks and he became

so still that he began to stop being visible as a humanoid anymore but directly as part of

the pink walls which were always billowing, rippling, shimmying and flashing in their

constant yield of focal communal energies. He wasn’t intending to hide exactly, but more

that he was comfortable blending in than being social. It wasn't exactly clear what had

brought him there that evening but he required something, a scrap of data for his spell

work which could only be found there. He was sure of this but not when it would arrive

and so melded with the atmosphere even more to marinate in the anticipation.