A familiar light pierced the foreign treetops and illuminated Kai's eyes bringing him awake. He opened his eyes to look around at strange scenery, tall trees with strange blue leaves, vibrant colorful foliage surrounding him. He found himself on a raised stone platform surrounded by dense forest under one of the blue-leaved trees, the platform covered in green, yellow, and red vines intertwining to make a surprisingly comfortable bed.
Thoughts and memories began to leak back into his conscious mind, he remembered Guen, he looked furiously around, his breath beginning to quicken as the other strange events ran through his mind. He had so many questions but no answers, "Where am I? Why am I here? Who is that entity? WHat happened to the soldiers? Where is Guen?" is among them. He continued to search although he was wary of the strange plants, he made his way several yards from the stone platform and began to hear a peculiar melody.
"La-la-Lalala-la-la" protruded from the dense forest in a chorus. Enchanted or delirious Kai followed the voices into the forest, he followed it for several minutes until he came to a giant tree from where it originated from. He could not see the source so he circled around the tree, as he circled it the singing began to grow louder than it had before, almost to the point of pain. Yet Kai was still entranced following the sound, until he found it originating from an unconscious Guen, lying against the tree. As he saw her the enchantment stopped and he rushed towards her.
"Guen! Guen! Wake up!" he shouted to her, but she did not move. She was pale and looked sickly. On the edge of tears Kai hears a branch break behind him, he freezes. A slight grumbling of an old man can be heard cursing something. An old man emerges into sight, he is wearing only a crude cape and a satchel overflowing with herbs, some glowing with curious luminescence. He does not immediately notice Kai and Guen but continues to mutter inaudibly to himself. He walks just a few feet from them and then suddenly jumps up in freight.
"What creatures of leisure dare venture here! Into these woods defiled by the reaches of the unstoppable greed of your kind!" The old man's fright turned to anger as Kai knelt by Guen frozen. "What do you say you miserable spawn?"
Kai looks back and Guen and then at the old man. " We didn't mean to come here, we're sorry, but she needs medicine, can you just tell us where the nearest town is and we'll go."
The man steps closer and looks at Guen. " There are no towns here, not for several days' walk. What is ailing her?"
Kai tries to think of a way to explain what he doesn't understand and gives up. " I don't know, strange things have been happening ever since we left the city."
"What kind of strangeness?" the old man raises an eyebrow clearly intrigued, wanting a specific answer."
Kai thinks whether he should tell the man about the soldier's disappearance and the entity that survives in his sleeping consciousness. "Things I can't explain, things that have never happened before, and your very being here scares me." He looks at Guen.
"If you carry her back to my home I can try and treat her."
"Thank you"
Kai grappled her onto his shoulders wary and hungry, but he managed. He struggled through the dense forest vegetation as the old man frolicked ahead of him, effortlessly. Once in the journey Kai attempted to make conversation again but was met with a wall of silence from the old man. After a couple of hours, they came upon a hole in a hill under a tree. The structure supported great roots that acted like pillars. The inside was dirt and leaves with plants growing inside and outside filling every space it can.