Despite the fact that the handler was only hanging on by my hand, I could see the smile on her face as she relaxed and took in the view as we traveled via Wingdrake. "Wow." She breathed out. I looked up hearing her, scanning the view myself, I couldn't deny that it was beautiful, a large tree seemed to reach all the way up into the sky, it's roots just as big, big enough for one or two people to walk on side by side comfortably, it was the biggest tree I'd seen, the sky was orange, the sun making the clouds glow, where the clouds parted a dark blue sky could be seen. "The New World." The handler breathed out excitedly, absolutely in awe in the place we had come to explore.
A small 'huh' and a gasp from the handler beneath me brought my attention back, the Wingdrake screeched and jolted slightly, it clearly didn't want to carry us anymore. It reared down, cutting through trees, hitting us both in the face with leaves and twigs, and I didn't exactly have a hand free to try and block the annoying attacks as the Wingdrake pulled us forward, closer to the ground now. We fell onto the ground beneath us, I landed on my knees, hands braced out to stop myself from colliding on the dirt too hard, the Wingdrake had shaken us off as though something had spooked it. I could hear the handlers pained gasps from behind me and looked over my shoulder to make sure she was alright, she was already stood, brushing the dirt off herself with a little groan.
Like always, she took off running, further away from the Sea Monster that we could still hear groaning from behind us as it moved away. I let out a little sigh, shoulders dropping slightly before deciding to follow her, there wasn't anything else to do. "What's this?" She asked curiously, how I was supposed to know I couldn't tell you. "Somebody must have set up this camp." She said as I approached the area she now waited at. Indeed that's what it looked like, a yellow tent that seemed to be triangle from my view, a red canopy hanging from it which blocked the sun as it filtered through the trees. Our goal was pretty simple, no matter where we were we had to head for the Research Commission's HQ.
I walked towards the handler, my boots crunching on the floor beneath me sounded like leaves rustling. As I got closer the handler approached me, she seemed pretty calm despite what had just happened, and for the fact that we had no idea where we were. "I found this in the tent. It has a map in it ..well, part of one at least." She told me as she reached into her back pocket and handed me something that looked like a little red book, the cover of it engraved with a symbol I couldn't quite make it, but it looked rather well held together. I slipped it into my pocket, a map would be pretty damn useful around here.
I opened the map up after a moment, it would do us good to know where we were. The map had squiggles on it, in the gaps of the map, around the edges were numbers, I guessed these were the sections of the area, pretty useful so far, only sections 1-4 were marked, all gathering in the lower half of the map. There was a little red circle around number one, I guessed that's where me and the handler were right now, and given the size of where we stood and the size measurements on the map, it seemed possible that the little thin section is where we were. "Looks like we're right around here." The handler said and pointed to the general area on the map over my shoulder, we were both taking a guess, but at least we had the map now. "The Research Commission's base of operations is here. This is where our shop was supposed to dock." She told me and moved her finger to point at the very edge of section 4, at a dead end on the far right hand side of the map, so, not that far then. "For now, I think it would be best if we make our way to the base." She told me and I gave a small nod at her in agreement.
We jogged away from the camp, towards the only other exit we could see, up a light dirt path that had a hole in trees we could walk through, able to see the blue sky through it. We waded our way through the thin vines that hung down and once at the top of the inclination, we got a view of the New World. It was stunning, the sky seemed brighter out here, the ground was rock and had plenty of bushes covering around the edges, a number of trees were dotted around, there was a fair volume of water in the centre of the land we could see, and a large tree root seemed to cover the whole back of what we could see. Then, there were the creatures, I could see at least two monsters, resembling dinorsours that walked in four legs, so, they had everything the needed to survive here, which was also good for us. I opened up the map and had a look around the page, this area seemed to be called the Ancient Forest, the name scribbled down at the bottom of the page in black messy handwriting. The name only seemed fitting as that fit this environment perfectly.
The low groan of the monsters beneath could just be heard over the sound of the water, the handler pointed towards the giant tree root as she took a small step closer to the edge. "look! The Research Commission's headquarters! C'mon, let's get going!" She said enthusiastically. I followed her off the small rock we stood on, taking a little jump down after her, our boots now making imprints of the brown dirt beneath us. We walked down the little path, one of the monsters in front of us drinking the water didn't seem to notice us, or these particular creatures just weren't bothered by our presence. "According to the map, to get to HQ, we need to...hmm..." She trailed off as she looked at the map, I waited patiently as she was quiet for a few moments as she studied the map in her hands.
She didn't finish her sentence, she put the map in her back pocket again and began walking down the path, I grew a little nervous walking so close to the beasts but the researcher seemed to know what they were. "These Aptonoths seem every bit as docile as the ones back home!" She said, we went through the little bit of water on the ground, moving around the Aptonoth there to avoided disturbing it, the handler climbed up onto a rocky platform with ease and I followed her, pulling myself up with a small grunt. "it looks like we need to go around." She observed, one hand on the telescope as she pulled her leather goggles down. She then pointed into the distance to show me where we needed to go.