Orchard of Shadows
| You walk into a carefully managed forest, filled
with several trees of tangerines. It's roughly nine trees by time trees,
or seven by seven, or some odd number like that, because in the very
center of the orchard is a tree that looks finely carved out of
obsidian. The leaves are a bright copper, and the inedible fruit it
bears is an amythyst pear. You pluck the pear off the tree, looking
strangely at it.
You drop the pear with a thud, staring at the creature. He wouldn't have bothered you so, but he was a deer with a catlike tail, not to mention wings and fangs which closely mirrored Jekkal's. You stare at the creature, then at Jekkal herself.
"I don't understand . . . time moving slower?" You scratch the back of your head. "A day here could easily be a week in another realm, a year in yet another, and if the conditions are right, who knows how long? I had lasped a year here, myself." Chanid'Golan explains to you. "My grandson and I guard the Orchard of Shadows here . . . a housing of pets from realms like our own. We shall let you visit them, as long as you don't try to steal them away like you almost stole that pear." Stormbringer
Wolves |
"THIEF!"
A blueish deerlike creature runs towards you, staring intently at the
precious stone fruit in your hand. "You better leave that there,
thief. The mineral trees are a new invention of the Riph-tal and would
hate to have the secret leaked out . . . A little like China with its
precious silkworms."
"Sorry,
traveller. This is Chanid'Solair . . . Winter Dream. He's a wris'talora
� a hooved carnivore. I have a symbiosis with him. That's why he has a
few of my traits, like the fangs and the wings." Jekkal grins.
"Don't worry if you can't take all this in just yet. See that
butterfly? If you'll follow it into the 
"Or
so says the grandson who has very little idea about Jekkal's history
with bonded." A darker blue creature shows up, this one far more
tense than Chanid'Solair. "Yes, he's my GRANDSON. Time seems to
move slower here than it does elsewhere."