Location: Arbola Forest
Timeline: Sixth Age, 52nd Year, Spring
The Great Green Hall was less a room and more a living cathedral. Amorosi legends claim the Hall wasn’t built so much as it was dreamed into existence by their goddess Alyssa.
The “walls” were a marvel of Amorosi tree-singing—translucent, silk-like bark that had been coaxed to grow thin enough to pulse with the rhythmic heartbeat of the Great Weir-Tree. This bark filtered the morning sun into a thousand shifting shades of emerald and jade, casting long, liquid shadows across a floor of woven silver-wood. The floor itself felt alive beneath their boots, a subtle springiness that seemed to absorb the aggressive thud of the Drokka princes’ heels, turning their defiant march into a muffled, awkward shuffle.
High above, the ceiling vanished into a tangle of massive, glowing rafters where Cloud-Owls perched with unblinking golden eyes, their feathers shedding a faint, shimmering dust that drifted through the air like diamond-light. This wasn’t merely a seat of government for the Amorosi people; it was an ecosystem for the entire forest. Tiny Amber-Squirrels scurried along the vine-wrapped balustrades, carrying messages or perhaps just gossip, while the occasional Forest Drake—no larger than a hawk—spiraled through the upper reaches, its scales reflecting the green fire of the canopy. Countless other animals and birds went about their daily lives inside the Hall – which was itself an extension of the great woods.
As for the Council, Barkla and Brega must have been surprised to see that these leaders didn’t sit behind a heavy stone table or atop cold thrones as the Drokka lords did. Instead the Amorosi leaders looked as if they were integrated into the tree itself. A series of massive, horseshoe-shaped boughs had been coaxed into tiered seating, allowing the members to look down upon the center of the hall from various heights. The brothers had to look closely to identify their would-be inquisitors…
- Rian, the Regent, sat at the focal point, his brown robes almost blending into the darker bark of his seat.
- Dallegheri, the Great Lore Master, was tucked into a nook of roots that seemed to cradle his frail frame, surrounded by floating globes of light that illuminated the ancient scrolls in his lap.
- Helena occupied a bough draped in shimmering Arbola silk, her auburn hair a splash of autumn against the perennial green.
- Adarius, the Azora Cavalier, stood on a jutting limb near the edge, his hand resting on the hilt of a spear that looked like it was grown from o.
- The Diplomat Lorindel moved restlessly along a lower vine, his eyes darting from the Drokka to the Regent, gauging the political winds.
- And, almost swallowed by the shifting shadows of the upper boughs, the strange mysstro El-Janus was perched. His small frame was draped in iridescent grey robes that made him appear as part of the tree’s own bark. He remained perfectly still, his hands resting lightly on his knees, his calm gaze weighing the iron in the Drokkas’ souls against the fragility of the peace he was sworn to protect.
The rest of the hall was filled with hundreds of other Amorosi—scholars, warriors, and weavers—who stood on various platforms or sat on moss-covered ledges. They were a sea of pointed ears and shimmering silks, their collective gaze falling on the two brawny, bearded outsiders like the weight of a mountain.
The Drokka felt the pressure. Barkla felt the claustrophobia of so much life – in the mountains, power was stone and iron; here, power was the slow, inexorable growth of wood and the patient memory of the stars.
“It’s like being inside a giant’s lung,” Brega whispered, his hand straying mindlessly to his side, only to remember his weapons were back at the bungalow – for to have brought them here would have been an afront to the Amorosi leadership and would have diminished his status as a protected envoy.
“Don’t let the beauty fool you,” Barkla grunted, his jewel-like eyes fixed on Rian. “Trees can crush stone if they’re given enough time. We state our business, we get our answers, and we get out before we start growing leaves.” And then, with a defiant stomp, Barkla planted his silver-gilded ash staff into the silver-wood floor. The sound cracked through the melodic hum of the hall like a falling axe, demanding the attention of the High Council.
The Plea
Brega stepped forward, his blood-red surcoat a jagged wound against the serene emerald floor. He did not lead with the grunt of a warrior, but with the measured, practiced cadence of a would be diplomat – for he had been groomed for that role since birth, always knowing that his older brother Barkla would take the throne.
“Regent Rian, Elders of the High Tree,” Brega began, his voice turning surprisingly melodic for a man of such brawn. He bowed just low enough to acknowledge their rank without surrendering his own. “We come not as supplicants for charity, but as sons of a divided house seeking to mend a broken lineage. For too many decades, the high winds of the North have carried only silence from the Akka Mountains.”
He paused, his jewel-like eyes scanning the council, perhaps lingering a moment too long on the ancient Dallegheri, a mortal being who was shockingly far older than any Brega had laid eyes on before.
“Our father, Kon-Herr Drokka Hanbull, grows old. Rhokki Pass stands as the last bastion against the power of Gor, but a house with only one pillar cannot weather the storm forever. We seek the Amorosi’s blessing—and more importantly, your maps, your intelligence, and perhaps even your people. We intend to march North to Akka, to reunite the Drokka clans and our kingdom that can once again hold the line to help protect our Flat Earth.”
As his brother spoke, Barkla stood behind him, a silent, black-clad shadow. He remained motionless, but his eyes were narrowed, tracking every twitch of the Council members’ faces.
“We ask for your eyes,” Brega continued, his fingers idly tracing the silver runes on his ash-wood staff. “Your scouts range where ours cannot. You see the movement of the mist and the shifting of the mountain snows. Tell us what you know of our lost brothers, do they need our help?”
There was a subtle shift in Brega’s tone as he continued on—a slight tightening of his jaw. To a mind as sharp as El-Janus or as calculating as Helena, it was surely as clear as a crack in a diamond. He spoke of “lineage” and “unity,” but he spoke with the desperation of a mortal looking for a lost key. He wasn’t just looking for brothers; he was looking for a miracle, and he was perhaps terrified that the Elves knew exactly what he was hiding.
Lorindel leaned forward, a thin, oily smile playing on his lips. “A noble sentiment, Prince Brega. Unity is a beautiful word. But you speak of the lost with a certain… hunger. Is it truly just the company of your cousins you seek in the frozen North? Or is there something buried in the deep delvings of Akka that the Rhokki find themselves suddenly in need of?”
Brega didn’t flinch, but his grip on his staff tightened until the silver plates creaked, yet it was Barkla who replied, “We seek our people, Diplomat. The wealth of the Drokka is our blood. Is that not enough for the Amorosi?”
The air in the Great Green Hall grew stagnant as Barkla’s words hung in the light. Yet Lorindel and Helena continued to pick at the seams of Brega’s story, their questions like silver needles—probing why the Drokka would suddenly risk the Skulz-ridden wastes for a “family reunion” after half a century of silence. Meanwhile, Adarius scoffed openly at the mention of the eastern threat, suggesting the Drokka were simply looking for Elven archers to fight a war they were too tired to finish themselves.
Through it all, Brega held his ground, but the sweat on his brow told the real story. He was a dwarf drowning in a sea of silk, his lies catching on the sharp intuition of the Council, and there wasn’t much Barkla could do to help in this parlay of words.
Then it was that Rian, the Regent, finally raised a hand. The green tassel of his robe swayed as he leaned forward, his brown eyes heavy with a worry that seemed to transcend the immediate bickering. He looked at the Drokka brothers—not with the mockery of Lorindel or the afront of Adarius, but with the weary pity of a friend delivering a eulogy.
“Prince Brega,” Rian said softly, his voice cutting through the rising murmurs. “You speak of a house with one pillar. You speak of a reunion that has been the prayer of your father for many winters. But this council deals in the hard truth. Perhaps it’s time we shared some.
He turned his head slowly toward the nook of roots where Dallegheri sat. “Aba, you have spent more years than any of us tracing the lines of the world’s maps. Tell the Princes what the stars and the scrolls have said of the North.”
The ancient scholar stirred, his frail form shifting like a pile of dry leaves. He didn’t look at the brothers; his eyes seemed to be tracing the movement of a cloud of dust motes in the emerald light.
“The newest lore is clear – the North is no longer yours, children of stone,” Dallegheri whispered. His voice was thin, but it carried to every corner of the hall. “The halls of Akka have fallen silent. Many decades ago a wasting shadow crept through the deep veins—a sickness that turned the living blood to soot. Your brothers didn’t leave; they became part of the mountain in death. That which you seek is now a tomb, guarded by ghosts.
A sharp, indrawn breath escaped Brega’s lips, and Barkla too was aghast for this news was dire indeed. The silence was absolute until Rian spoke again.
The Truth Will Set You Free
“Cavalier? Mysstro?” the Regent looked to his council. “Do the Azora’s confirm the Lore-master’s words?”
Adarius was the first to speak. “Our scouts have skirted the foothills of the Akka range for three decades. They report no smoke from the forge-fires of the mountains, no sound of the Drokka tongue. Instead, they find the scent of man. Human kings have built villages of wood and stone atop your ancestors’ bones. They call the region Orkney now and the capital city is Fubar.”
“It cannot be!” Brega gasped.
“Have the delved the mines?” Barkla couldn’t hide his anxiety at the thought the Grim might be already lost
It was El-Janus who answered. The diminutive Mysstro’s voice rang out with a terrifying, calm authority. “Until recently, the caves of your clan were undisturbed. Yet with the rise of a new king, much as changed. Miners are indeed in Akka. That which you fear is perhaps not without substance. Scavengers!”
The silence following El-Janus’s words was not the silence of peace, but the heavy, airless vacuum that precedes a mine-collapse. Brega looked as though he had been struck in the chest, his silver-plated shield suddenly seeming too heavy to bear. But it was Barkla who broke the spell. He stepped past his brother, his iron-shod boots biting into the silver-wood floor with a sound like bone snapping. He didn’t look at the scholars or the diplomats; he looked straight at Rian, his jewel-like eyes burning with a dark, tectonic fire.
“Scavengers? So that’s it?” Barkla’s voice was guttural snarl that vibrated in the very ribs of the Great Weir-Tree. “Your warriors tell us our kin are ghosts and our halls are infested with human vermin, and you say it with the coolness of a Valdermakken describing the weather?” Then he slammed the butt of his silver-gilded ash staff down, and this time, the floor didn’t muffle the sound. “If Akka has fallen to thieves, then the blood of the Drokka cries out for more than just mourning. It cries for a reckoning! You have the Azora. You have an army of archers who can kill a moth at a hundred paces in the dark. We demand your aid. Stand with us! We will march on this… this Fubar… and we will burn the human filth from our halls until the stone is clean again!”
As Barkla’s shouts echoed, a ripple of movement swept through the gathered Amorosi. The scholars and weavers on the lower ledges leaned away as if from a physical heat. High above, the Cloud-Owls took flight, their massive, silent wings creating a sudden downdraft of cool air that smelled of old snow. Even the tiny Amber-Squirrels froze mid-scurry, their tails twitching in a frantic, rhythmic alarm that mimicked the rapid thumping of the Drokkas’ own hearts. To the Amorosi, the Prince’s anger wasn’t just a noise; it was a disharmony that fouled the very song of the tree.
While some on the council bristled at the Drokka envoy’s affront, Rian didn’t flinch, though the worry in his brown eyes deepened into a profound sadness. He gripped his green tassel so tightly his knuckles turned the color of the white bark walls.
“Prince Barkla,” Rian said, his voice a steady baritone. “The Amorosi do not march for vengeance. We do not spill the blood of our sons to settle the property disputes of other nations. If the humans live there now, the mountain has accepted them. We are pacifists by creed and by necessity. To unleash the Azora is to invite the very war-fire we have spent ages trying to quench.”
“Pacifists?” Barkla spat, his black beard bristling. He turned his gaze toward Adarius, the golden-haired cavalier. “And you, soldier? Do you prefer the safety of the branches to the glory of the field? Does your spear only know the weight of forest shadows?”
Adarius met the Drokka’s gaze with a cold, sharp pride. “My spear knows the weight of duty, Pietromi. And my duty is to Arbola, not to the lost treasures of a fallen race.”
Meanwhile, Helena, who had watched the exchange with a calculating glint in her green eyes—her mind likely already spinning webs of how a Drokka-Human war might benefit her own rising ambition—remained silent. She knew the Regent’s mind was set so she held her tongue for now, like a serpent waiting for a better season. This was an opportunity she would not miss.
The Departure into Darkness
“So that is the word of the High Tree?” Brega asked, his voice hollow. He looked at Dallegheri, seeking a spark of the old wisdom, but the ancient scholar was staring at the floor, his mind seemingly miles away—perhaps already wandering the forbidden sands of Ramos which the secret desire of his heart still longed for.
“It is,” Rian confirmed. “We will provide you with supplies for your journey. We will provide you with maps of the foothills. But you will have no Amorosi steel at your side. The path to the North is yours to walk alone.”
Barkla’s face was a mask of cold, hard granite. He looked up at El-Janus, who remained perched in the shadows like a silent gargoyle. The Mysstro’s expression was unreadable, but there was a flicker of something—respect, or perhaps a warning—in his ash-colored eyes.
“Alone,” Barkla repeated, the word sounding like a death sentence. “Then keep your trees. Keep your silk and your prayers. We will go to Akka. We will go to Fubar. And when the fires of the Drokka’s wrath reach the sky, don’t look to the Rhokki Pass for a shield when Gwar’s minions come for you.”
He turned on his heel and left; Brega followed, his head bowed, the “man of words” finally silenced by the weight of the truth. They marched out of the hall, two small, brawny figures against the vast, indifferent beauty of Arbola. They had come seeking a kingdom; they left seeking a grave.
The Apocrypha of Azazel 