On Cabarum's back, with his size decreased to normal again so that the others properly fit on his back as well, and with Aulu running right next to them, Eisen swiftly made his way toward the place that Brak told him about. With the map that the bear-beastperson made him, he was able to actually find it pretty easily! Despite the quite confusing layout of the whole jungle.
But at one point, the map became slightly unneeded, and that was when they reached the area of the forest that was formed out of non-biological materials. Just to take a look at everything a bit closer, Eisen stepped off of Cabarum's back and immediately felt a sharp pain in his bare feet.
"What the-" Eisen muttered instinctively, and placed his hand onto Cabarum for balance as he looked at the underside of his feet. And immediately, the old man found needles stuck in there. Looking at the ground at the spot where he just stepped, he also swiftly found the source of those needles. The grass.
It was just like Brak described. Even grass was dangerous here. With a slight sigh, Eisen pulled the needled out and proceeded to cover his feet in a thick layer of his elemental rock as a replacement for shoes, which he for whatever reason simply didn't want to wear.
Now that he didn't have to worry about hurting himself anymore, the old man squatted down and pulled another one of those needle-like blades of grass out of the ground. It was actually quite interesting to look at once he actually held it. The reason for that was the weird attributes that this metallic-grass had.
It was slightly similar to bronze from its basic makeup but was just as green as regular grass would be. Of course, that was an aspect that bronze just had when the copper inside of it rusted. But the tone of green wasn't usually this vibrant, it was usually pretty pale like it was for the statue of liberty.
But the color wasn't its only interesting attribute. Otherwise, the way it acted in itself was quite interesting as well. When Eisen had it laying on his palm, it was like a regular blade of grass, albeit a slight bit heavier, and changes to the shape of his palm as it was laying there. But when he put any sort of pressure on it, for example squeezing it inbetween his fingers, it would immediately straighten up and harden, turning into a proper needle.
"Hmm... I wonder if I can melt this down and have it retain these qualities... This would be a great aspect for Armor. Maybe some leather armor with a thin film of this bronze?" Eisen thought to himself, immediately considering the possibilities of this material, and then just grew more and more excited.
"Let's see what else we have here." The old man muttered quietly, and then swiftly looked around the area, finding the first fruit-bearing tree of this non-biological property. First, Eisen took a look at the three itself, which seemed to be something like a type of ore with incredible mineral content. If you melted this down, you could get a fair amount of actual metal out of it. But well, that was the bark.
Using his Multi-tool, Eisen removed some of that first layer of the bark. Although, he was a bit unsure if he should use his axe or his pickaxe... In the end, he chose to use the latter just to be safe. And once the first bit was gone, the rest came with it quite swiftly. This was actually pretty weird as well, albeit in a different way than the grass.
The color once more was way too... life-like. And the way it acted wasn't quite normal either. It was definitely pretty high-quality ore, but it was as flexible as regular bark that you would find in a rainforest.
"Interesting... I'll have to ask that Copper Dragon about it later. He should probably know..." Eisen muttered to himself, and then looked at the tree in front of him again, the area where he removed the bark.
The old man scratched over the surface for a bit to see what it was, and then crossed his arms in thought, "That's just a type of rock, isn't it? It seems to be similar to marble. This would surely look quite nice if properly worked." He pointed out, "And since it's technically a tree, the marbling should be quite interesting as well. I wonder, can this be used like wood...? This ore is just a bit heavier as regular bark as well..."
"Do you want to fell this tree?" A voice asked before suddenly Kirisho stood next to Eisen. With a deep sigh, the old man just nodded his head, "Of course I do. Just think about what I could make with this. This opens up so many new things for me..."
"Right? With that kind of flexibility and durability combined in one, you can really go far. Especially with the actual metal extracted from them."
"Exactly, that's what I was thinking as well. There has to be some sort of physical agent inside of this to make it this flexible, so that has to be retained in the final metal, or rather alloy."
"Well, it might also be magical, couldn't it? Alchemical Softening is a thing, so if you properly attune which parts you soften to what extent, flexibility like that shouldn't be too far off."
"No, no, there's some part in this that's..." Eisen replied, finally pulled out of his deep thought toward the end of it. Who had he just been speaking to? The voice was rather familiar, so...
Immediately, Eisen turned his head to the side, seeing the familiar face of a being currently made out of both metal and wood on the outside. "Fluke?" The old man asked with surprise in his voice, and the Warforged immediately replied with a smirk and properly approached Eisen, "The one and only." He said, and then greeted Eisen with a quick handshake.
"What are you doing here? When did you come back to the mainland?" Eisen asked with a laugh, and the Warforged just crossed his arms, "Well, I got to the mainland maybe three two or three weeks ago. I went to look for you after that and heard rumors about a 'Living Dungeon', which I figured to be that small Dragon you had with you. So since that 'Living Dungeon' was traveling into this direction right here, I came as well and then heard about this part of the forest... I just couldn't resist." Fluke laughed, "Who'd have thought I'd meet you here?"
With a chuckle, Eisen just nodded his head, just as surprised to see this Warforged here, "Well, after I got here I sent out my drones to find anything interesting, and they found a person here, so I came over to see who it was and saw you." Fluke pointed out, so Eisen just smirked.
"This really is a fair coincidence, huh?" He replied, just staring at Fluke, waiting for him to say something else about that. And since he didn't, Eisen sighed deeply and shook his head, "This obviously isn't a coincidence. Tell me, how did you actually find me." The old man told the warforged, and he raised his brows confusedly and shook his head.
"I don't know what you're talking about! It really was just a coincidence!" Fluke exclaimed, and Eisen slowly raised his hand up to chest-height and snapped, "Lookouts. Come out." The old man said, and while Fluke was rather confused, all of a sudden a loud buzzing could be heard. Or rather, it wasn't a singular buzzing, but the buzzing of numerous bees tuning together from all around them.
From underneath Cabarum, from in-between the blades of grass, and even from the trees around them, a multitude of bees crawled out. They seemed to have taken different patterns and colors before, but now that they were moving, they all turned into a dark blue color. "There was not a single drone around here, Fluke. If there was, we would have seen it. Isn't that right, sweetie?" Eisen asked as he looked over toward Melissa, who was commanding and constantly receiving information from all these bees.
With a bright smile on her face, Melissa immediately nodded her head, "Yup, there was nothing around! Mister Fluke just came right over." She explained, so Eisen crossed his arms with a frown, "So? You heard her."
"Yeah... I did." Fluke sighed, "Fine, I give up." The Warforged admitted, and then scratched the back of his neck, before starting to explain what really happened.
"Just when I was preparing to leave the Golem Island and head to the mainland, I happened to meet five people... Or rather, five golems. The Great Golems." Fluke explained, and Eisen immediately stared at him with a deep frown.
"What did you just say?" He asked, "The five great golems? Did they introduce themselves as such?" Eisen asked, and Fluke slowly nodded his head, "Y-Yeah, I remember seeing them from before, and they remembered me as well. I spoke to them about everything that happened... It seemed like they were feeling rather complicated about everything, I guess." Fluke pointed out, "I asked them why they left you, and even if they didn't want to directly speak about it, at the very least they told me what you were planning on doing next. And at the time, the best lead they gave me was that you wanted to meet five ancient dragons, and they could even tell me the exact names and rough places they were supposed to be."
"Well, I did speak about the dragons while they were around, so that part makes sense." Eisen muttered quietly, and then waited for Fluke to continue explaining the situation.
"Since you apparently had an order in mind, I figured instead of following you, I should make my way to the dragon one step ahead of what you were planning, and then ended up here in this area. I spoke to Cracton a bit, and he gave me my first trial. I'm working on it right now... It's probably going to take a while, though. And then, finally, you got here." Fluke explained, "Sorry for lying like that. But those five asked me not to tell you about me meeting them if I met up with you."
With a slight sigh, Eisen just shook his head and scratched the back of his neck, "Don't worry about it. I understand. Thanks for telling me about it in the end, though. So how long have you been here?"
"Just a couple of days. My first trial requires me to take care of a sapling until it shows its first fruit..."