Above the roaring waves spraying white mist as they crashed into each other, two people and a dragon flew, riding the currents of air as if swimming.
By the time they had spotted land, the sun had touched the horizon, brilliantly reflecting off of the ever-moving sea.
Salem landed upon the large swathe of land just as the sun was swallowed by the horizon, painting the sky a deep purple.
Upon the new continent, they found nothing but a massive expanse of sallow and dying forest that blanketed the mountainous terrain.
The animals that populated the sickly forest were skinny and few in number. Many of the animals were diseased, their skin open and festering as it rotted off of their bones.
"What the hell happened here?" Salem asked rhetorically, staring in bewilderment at the diseased continent.
Neither girl replied as they hopped off of his scaled back and onto the dry, yellow grass.
"I think that it has to do with a lack of energy." Ruby sad after Salem finished his transformation into a humanoid. "Without a sufficient amount of energy, anything will die."
"But why is there so little energy to go around?" Salem asked. "Unless the ecosystem's energy is going somewhere else, it shouldn't reach the point that the land becomes infertile."
"Perhaps the ecosystem's energy IS going somewhere else." Alina said suddenly. "The continent we just departed from."
"You think that they're drawing the essence of this land to strengthen their own land?" Salem scratched his chin. "Fascinating. How would they have managed that?"
"We can search the area and find out." Alina suggested. "Maybe we'll find people to talk to."
"Let's rest first." Ruby suggested. "Even though Salem did most of the work, the fight wore me out."
"You did almost nothing." Alina laughed. "If anything, Salem should be the most tired, and yet he seems to be the most awake out of all of us."
"Well, I'm not against rest, but I think we should at least scope out the area first." Salem suggested.
Salem and Ruby explored the land with their nanotech bugs, which scurried across the land and gave them a map of the surrounding terrain.
"Hey, there's a small settlement nearby." Salem said, pointing in the direction of the setting sun. "Shall we check it out?"
They headed towards the tiny village that was little more than a small collection of poorly-built buildings that had been arranged in a messy row.
The few people that inhabited the village were scrawny and sickly, and wore little more than thin rags to protect themselves from the cold.
The three of them watched as the villagers harvested a large swathe of the infertile earth growing sickly yellow plants. They then pounded the plants with rocks and boiled them in clay jars to make a soup, of a sort.
During the entirety of their worktime, the villagers constantly looked north, as if afraid something was going to spring up from the narrow road that wound towards that direction.
Curious, Salem extended bugs northward, quickly exploring the forest in a straight line.
As he explored further north, the forest got greener, the grass got thicker, and the wildlife got healthier. It was a strange phenomenon, and he wanted to figure out what caused it.
Far beyond the gradient of health in the forest laid an opulent castle of white marble and silver that towered over the surrounding hills that formed a natural bowl shape.
Upon the tall white walls were glowing white formations that Salem couldn't identify, so he went to Ruby.
"Any idea what these formations do?" He showed her an image of the walls.
"Energy distribution, with a few sensing formations mixed in." Ruby responded after a brief look at it. "But formations like that need to take that energy from somewhere."
"I think that's why the forest is like this." Salem said, gesturing to the sick forest around them.
"Do you want to do something about it?" Alina asked, leaning against a tree.
"I do." Salem nodded. "It doesn't seem right to disease the land around yourself to improve your quality of life. That disease will spread to them eventually."
"That's my Salem!" Alina gave him a hug.
He chuckled, patting her head and sending out more bugs to search for the formations that were sapping the energy from the forest.
Nearly an hour later, the bugs he sent out found a large pentagonal stone tablet to the southwest of their position.
"Shall we investigate?" Salem asked, showing Ruby an image of the strange tablet.
"Absolutely." She agreed.
"I wonder what they thought they'd gain in the long run." Salem mused as they rapidly made their way to the tablet's location. "Poisoning your environment will only hurt you. What a fascinatingly short-sighted behavior. Do all humans lack long-term foresight? Or did they just not care?"