Camellia spoke with a bit of a stricter, more serious tone, “First of all, the question which has definitely been in your mind since the destruction of your village, who caused it? Well, there's a simple answer and a more complex one. The simple answer is, humans, they’ve been at the crux of this world’s problems for decades at this point. If you want to go into more detail, it's the elemental factions, which are inherently run by humans.”

  Night looked curious, “Humans… Huh… I thought I was human, so why would they target others of their own race?”

  Looking directly into Night’s eyes, Camellia said, “Night, you are not a human. There's no doubt about it. The very fact that you were in that village proves the point. Turn around for me Night, and lift up your shirt, there's something I need to see.”

  Night was obviously startled by this weird request, but he obliged. He realized that there must be an important reason, and frankly, he felt like he could trust Camellia at this point.

  He turned around and lifted up his shirt to reveal his back. His back was plastered with a huge tattoo-like marking which Camellia took interest in. She analyzed the marking for a bit before she told Night to turn back around.

  Camellia pointed to him as she said enthusiastically, “That! That is the key. The seal on your back is one hundred percent proof that you are in fact not a human. Your seal has an image of a scythe on it which means it's the seal of the reaper. Night… You are a reaper, this seal has just been nullifying your powers for your entire life.”

  Shocked at this news, Night said in disbelief, “Wait… What! Why wouldn’t I be informed of this by anyone?! I mean I’ve seen the tattoo on my back before, but even still I’ve always believed that I was human!”

  “The precise reason why you were never informed of this by anyone in the village including your parents, is because nobody knew. Everyone in the village believes that they and everyone else are in fact humans. It's the masterful manipulation of truth which the humans who created the villages used on the founders.”

  Night looked invested, he asked out of curiosity, “Who are the founders? Also why would they want us to not know our own race?”

  Camellia responded in a slightly condescending tone, “I'm getting to that. The founders are the ones who first got trapped in the many similar villages throughout the world. Most of them were prisoners of war which the humans captured during the Second Great War. After the human’s victory in that war, no other race could even put up a fight, which meant that the prisoners of war who were supposed to be released, never got released and were instead placed in the villages to be isolated from the rest of the world.

  Night sat there in shock and awe, “The Second Great War? So this means there was a First Great War?”

  Camellia sighed, “I don’t have enough time to explain everything about them right now. My knowledge of the wars is limited anyways as they happened way before my birth. Once we get to the stronghold though, you can ask a real veteran who participated in both of them, I’m sure that he could tell you everything as if it were just yesterday. But to just give you a brief rundown with the knowledge I have, the First Great War ended in a treaty between all races, and the Second Great War ended in the victory of the humans who had become corrupted by their new leaders.”

  With a more serious look in his eyes, Night said, “So I’m guessing that the corrupt leaders are part of the elemental factions, right?”

  Camellia replied, “Yes exactly! The revolutionaries still don’t have all the information yet, but we can assume that it's the leaders of those factions which are the ringleaders of this whole shebang. They must also have been the ones who decided to isolate the other races in order to have a human dominated world.”

  “So you're saying that whoever those leaders are… Are the ones who coordinated this attack on my village and killed so many innocent people? And their only reason was because they are not of the human race?!”

  Somberly, Camellia replied, “Yes, and it's not just your village which this has happened to, it's every single one of the artificial villages that the humans created… Including my own and many of the other revolutionary’s. We don’t know why, but they only allow for one individual to escape before they eradicate the entire village. Maybe it has something to do with spreading fear through the lone survivor or something.”

  After this statement, Night began to look at Camellia and the revolutionary army in a different light, ‘These revolutionaries, how strong must they be to continue fighting an enemy with such overwhelming capabilities? Have their wills not broken yet? They mustn't have, just looking at Camellia, I can tell that she still enjoys life. The power of their collective desire, it's so inspiring.’

  ~~

  Camellia stood up and looked at Night as he was contemplating everything in silence. After she picked up her bow and strapped it to her back, she grabbed a small horn-like instrument which was hanging on a necklace tucked under her shirt.

  Camellia called over to Night, “I think we’ve discussed enough for right now, I'm way over schedule. Have you decided if you want to come back to the stronghold with me? You probably should, if I’m being honest, but it's really up to you.”

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  Night looked up at her, “Oh yeah, I had already decided. I’ll come with you, based on what I’ve heard from you alone, I’m sure that the revolutionaries can definitely help me a lot.”

  “Alright, good choice. They definitely will be able to help you. Let's get going.”

  “Are we just gonna like, walk there?”

  “Of course not. We’ll have a ride, just give me a second.”

  Camellia grabbed the small horn from her necklace and put it up to her lips where she then blew into it. Surprisingly, no sound came out.

  Confused, Night said, “What's that little horn for and how come it doesn’t even work?”

  With a chuckle, Camellia responded, “This horn is working just as intended, be patient and you’ll see what it's for.”

  A second later, Night could see something in the distance flying over the distant mountains. It was some sort of large bird with enormous wings. It flew towards them and slowly landed, causing large gusts of wind when it flapped its wings.

  The bird must have been at least twenty feet tall as it towered over both Night and Camellia. Its feathers were a deep purple, while the highlights on the inside of its wings and belly were a lighter more pastel purple. The bird bent down and chattered its dark beak as it turned its head facing one of its large purple eyes towards Night.

  Seeing Night visibly scared, Camellia called the bird over to her in a high pitched voice, “C’mere Eurus! Oh who's a good boy!”

  The bird instantly disengaged from Night and moved its head over to Camellia where it affectionately cawed and lowered its head as she began to pet it.

  Night asked in a curious voice, “Is this bird your pet? It doesn’t really seem to like me very much.”

  “Eurus here is more of a companion than a pet I’d say. I’ve known him since he was just an egg so that's why he trusts me so much. He’s pretty wary of strangers, but as long as you're nice to him, he’ll warm up to you eventually.”

  Camellia adjusts to look towards Eurus, “We're in a hurry so we need to get going now, just make sure to be a good boy for our new friend Night here. I’ll give you a treat if there's no trouble on the ride home, okay?”

  Eurus nodded, seemingly understanding everything that Camellia said to him. Eurus lowered his large beak to the ground and Camellia stepped onto it, the bird then flung its head up causing Camellia to fly through the air and land gracefully on its feathered back.

  Night watched in awe at the immaculate stunt as Eurus turned his head over to him and touched it to the ground. Hesitantly, Night stepped onto the gargantuan bird’s beak and prepared to get launched. Surprisingly though, instead of launching Night high into the air, Eurus gently placed Night on his back with precision and care. Night let out a sigh of relief as he laid back in the soft feathers.

  Camellia laughed, “You thought he was gonna throw you?! Of course not! We practiced that trick for a while, if you tried it then you would’ve fallen flat on your back in the grass for sure!”

  Laughing at himself, Night said, “Yeah I probably would have! From that height I might have broken a few ribs if I fell like that!”

  “You definitely would have, I know too well from experience! Anyways, how about we get going now? Just make sure to hang on tight. And don’t worry about pulling too hard, these feathers are more resilient than they look. Are you ready Night?”

  Night nodded as he gripped the huge feathers with all his might. Camellia patted Eurus’s back twice which signaled him to begin take off. Eurus’s wings extended and began flapping with a monstrous force that slowly lifted his body off the ground while leaving clouds of dust in his wake.

  Eurus gained altitude in a fast but controlled way, trying to not subject Night to much g-force as his body was not trained to handle it. Once they were high enough in the sky, Eurus stopped ascending and began to glide along with his wings extended, only flapping once and a while to keep his speed.

  Night was in awe as he looked around at the landscape below him, “This is just amazing… I can finally see over the top of the mountains… There's so much more out there, so much more color and life…”

  Camellia turned around to look at Night, “Just wait until we get to the stronghold, you're gonna be speechless when you see its beauty, especially from a birds eye view, literally.”

  ~~~

  After a little while of flying, over mountains and all sorts of strange biomes, they were finally getting close to their destination. Night looked backwards and observed how far they had come, it was farther than he had ever travelled in his life. But even at this far of a distance, the familiar mountain range was still visible along with the foreboding presence of the eternal storm above them.

  Camellia called out to Night as she pointed forwards, “Look Night, that's the region where the stronghold is located, the Forest of Dreams! We're getting close! I just can't wait to show you around!”

  Night looked towards where she was pointing and what he saw was a landscape like nothing he had ever seen before. It was a forest shrouded in a light pink mist with trees that were almost as tall as mountains sticking out from the top of the fog. The foreboding cloud of mist was dotted with small glistening yellow dots, almost like stars in the vastness of space.

  Night was in awe as he looked intently at the forest below them, “The stronghold is in there? I'm not gonna lie, it looks beautiful, but how do you even traverse the forest with that much fog?”

  Camellia just patted Eurus on the back and said, “We don’t traverse it, the birds do, it's their natural habitat. They can bounce ultrahigh frequencies that are too high pitched for us to hear, off the trunks of the trees in order to traverse. That's the same reason why my horn doesn’t seem to make any noise, but Eurus knew I was blowing it because it emits those frequencies.”

  “Interesting, I was wondering about that. Is there anything that I should be-”

  Night was cut off by the sharp downwards turn that Eurus made, he was now heading almost vertically down into the vast ocean of fog.

  Camellia yelled over the intense sound of the wind as it rushed past, “There's not much to be worried about in the fog! It's not dangerous to inhale, and you can breathe just fine in it! Just make sure not to touch the shiny things, they might look pretty, but they're actually giant centipede eggs!”

  Night screamed at Camellia, “Centipedes?! You should have told me earlier!”

  In a dismissing tone Camellia responded, “Oh you’ll be fine! As long as the mother centipedes don’t find us…”

  Before Night had a chance to respond, they shot through the blanket of mist with the speed of a bullet and were instantly engulfed by it… Engulfed by the foreboding Forest of Dreams, a nightmare in disguise.

  End of Arc 1 - The Dark Tower