They walked into the rift and opened another to Mu'ut's room.
Her room had a single bed and a closet in a corner with abundant toys spread all over the floor.
"Where is he gonna sleep..." She turned around and saw a blue door appear in front of Mu'ut's door.
"I will never put my daughter in the same room without knowing what kind of a kid he is." He answered her silent question.
The adults put the kids to sleep before leaving. Like earlier, the vortex led them exactly where the kids were knocked out at.
A two thousand kilometers vortex with no outside help, especially near the two-hundred-kilometer radius of the twenty kilometers wide tree, was meant to be demanding even for Guardians since the tree didn't count as part of the continent.
The space around the tree was meant to be compressed and full of power no being could manipulate without the same output as the tree.
"What the..." They both stopped as the vortex dissolved.
The deciduous forest surrounding the world tree was back to its prime. If not even more powerful and majestic than it was before.
The scent of magic and a properly nurtured forest full of life hit their nose. Not even their divine senses could trace the massacre that had rose when the tree lost a single branch.
"where is the mess?" Gaga asked.
"I dont know. Even the branch is..."
"I cleaned it up." A soft voice that sounded like a spring was being caressed by a soft breeze said behind them. They promptly turned around with guns blazing.
Guardian senses allowed them a full 3D awareness of their surroundings for at least a kilometer. That's how they knew that a dragon kept its eyes on them without their need to pay attention to it. Hearing a voice and not knowing its origin was inconceivable.
An Acacia tree glowed pale green in the night light as another form of space vortex opened. A vortex that relied on plant lifeforce, not elemental mana energy all around every nook and cranny of the planet.
A dru walked out of it.
A particular dru they all knew.
"What are you doing here? King of Acadia?"
"That's not my title, as always. It's the midnights' or that Deer with giant antlers. I'm just a lord of the forest of Acadia." He responded with a smile meant to be kind, but his trembling and emerald green skin made him look like he was pissing himself.
"What is a salad doing here while I am hungry?" Gammad asked with a smile only a predator made when it saw the weakest of the herd separating itself.
The male dryad retreated cautiously and prepared to leave.
"The... Yggdrasil wanted to talk to you. I represent it for now."
"Okay, let's talk then, but take too long and I'll eat you."
"Gammad!"
The poor dru swallowed hard and looked around, almost crying as the giants began exuding power that scared him way more than the gods. But the aura exuding out of Gaga was meant to keep Gammad in check and protect him. Not threaten him.
Dryads were shy by nature. A state culminated by years of being eaten while they were helpless trees and flowers. Even when they evolved into beings capable of running, fighting, and killing, the trauma was etched in their entire being.
But being in front of the most powerful herbivores didn't help at all.
He sweated all over in the only way he could pee himself. His black eyes turned golden as he shapeshifted into yateveo. A humanoid plant made of vines sometimes roots with fangs that made even the dragons jealous.
The vines tied themself around the humanoid to give it the proportion of a human. Even the roots on his head weaved themselves into a neat hairdo.
"Gammad." The plant guardian said, giving the lord of all guardians a nod. His voice was now deep. His demeanor was that of a general. Or, in the case of a treantling, a bit piny and upright.
Blood lust in his eyes and his calm demeanor had always given the chamberlain a creepy feeling that was now reinforced by a couple of things. The presence of the forest boosted the king of the plants' power and made him seem as though he was now a Titania, titan plant folk.
"Mara,"
"Sorry, I sent my second in command, but I have way more problems on my side I can't take eyes out of."
"More important than the Yggdrassil?"
"Actually, it's worse. The Yggdrasil giving birth to a primordial dragonborn is only a symptom of it."
"Meaning?"
"We are not certain yet, but the forests of the seven realms are..." He looked behind him as his eyes lit red. "Shit!"
"Anything we can help with?" Gammad and Gaga asked almost at the same time.
"No, it's just a temporary state that happens every time a Yggdrasil enters its last share and another has to be planted or chosen. It will end soon. What you can do is to keep the child safe. He will protect you if you protect him and please keep him away from your elders. The Yggdrasil has bad blood with them in all its forms."
"Is he a Yggdrasil?" Gaga asked.
"No. But he might carry its will." The treantling kept looking down around him and frowning as the only indication that his focus was elsewhere. "By the way Gaga, are you certain you don't need to be at the palace? The kids are panicking and the guardians will need more than just a meeting to discuss the fate of the Yggdrassil and the dangers about to come."
"What..." Before they could finish their question the Treantling vanished.
"Damn rose buds!" Gaga cursed and looked at Gammad who seemed calm and not at all bothered by the rose bud's words.
"He is right though. Guess we will have that drink another time."
"I'll be back tomorrow night, we will talk then, and dont even think I will forget about it."
"I won't."
***
Gammad's return home took longer than the previous journeys. The moment Gaga had left for Ainoth, he had felt his own energies drop. The pressure the Yggdrassil put in space around itself almost crushed him ad made it impossible for him to break space and move away.
He decided to fly but even the air made him feel like he was wading through mud.
It took him half ten minutes to fly out of the area of effect of the Yggdrasil. But one more minute to get to his house. The time he spent fighting a headache that threatened to split open his skull. A headache that felt like someone was compressing his head trying to burst it open.
'My children!' A voice crawled into his head once he went past the defenses of his home. the voice sounded weak and with every note in the voice, he could feel the pain that he had felt when the saint before him died in front of him at the sword of a nameless terror.
The pain that drained all of his might and made him want to sleep and give up on everything. 'My children.'
But still, the weak voice had the determination of a mother holding on tight to life to see her child for one more minute.
'Please. Please I beg of you. Please free my children.' The voice kept on wailing and calling out for help. 'They've suffered enough. I swear they won't do you any harm. Please.'
Gammad looked around as he almost fainted and his nose started bleeding golden blood. The blood of the gods. He dragged himself to the front door. The minute he walked inside, the voice vanished and so did his pain.
He laid there on the floor as he tried to set his thoughts straight. The voice didnt bother him at all. Not even when he couldn't locate it on earth. Nor on any planes, he could access. The biomes that were built on the tree, under the ocean, in caves and some existing on floating islands like Acadia didn't show him anything.
The voice had just vanished.
But that wasn't his problem.
He just took it as something the gods or humans were either doing to their brethren.
He heard everyone's voice on earth. Even that of plants and insects. But that didn't mean he should respond to any of them. Some broke through the filter spell once in a while due to their desperation but it wasn't much.