A perfectly clear image quickly revealed itself as Haffa spread the tree open wide with her hands. Mana was gushing from her as she magically held the tree open and stepped to the side. "Now go." He ordered them. "Before I start charging you."

Walter ducked and Copper quickly walked through but not before Walter got out one last comment: "In what? Rare seeds?"

Isaac and Lenna hesitated for the briefest of seconds which was long enough for Gypsy to blast past them and dive through the tree-made opening through space. With her gone, Isaac and Lenna had no other choice than to hurry through. They spared Haffa a nod in thanks before they crossed the threshold into another space.

Isaac tripped and collapsed onto his hands and knees as soon as they reached the other side. He felt like someone had switched the weight on his pressure plate with an identical one and had hoped that it wouldn't trigger. The momentary disorientation was enough that he had tripped but he was almost entirely fine as soon as he had finished crossing the threshold.

"Isaac?" Lenna asked and grabbed his shoulder to help him stand.

"I'm alright." He told her. "That was much better than a teleportation circle."

Walter hummed in agreement. "That's because a mortal's magic naturally subtly shifts to incorporate their will and intent into it. A teleportation circle is just an inanimate object. No matter how much the creator wanted it to be smooth, the best they can do is make it extra smooth for a few select people." He explained.

The group all looked around and realized that they had found themselves in an almost identical section of road through the forest with a maple tree directly behind them. Walter was rubbing his knees that had scraped the edges of the tree as they passed through but otherwise had his eyes scanning their surroundings.

"How much time did we save with this shortcut?" Isaac wondered.

"Time? An hour or so if we start again right away. I would rather use that time to slow down a bit and let Copper not have to work so hard." Walter explained. "We should probably get a move on though before Lambda shows up and gets mad at us."

"Too late." A woman's voice came from behind them. All four whirled around to see an elvish woman draped in a robe woven of dried grass with countless different types of furs woven in. "Haffa or Keffen?" She demanded with predatory amber eyes and dark black hair that hung almost the entire way to the ground in a roughly straight mess.

"I'd rather not say." Walter replied. "Though, I will if you grant me an apple."

Lambda narrowed her eyes on him and her hair started to shrink. As it did, pure black fur started to form all across her body evenly. "Haffa." Lambda growled. "If I find that one of my apples is gone, free-walker, I will find you and withdraw the price of one from you directly." She threatened Walter and turned. She reached towards the ground and finished her transformation into a large black wolf. She started to move down the path but stopped as she locked eyes with Gypsy.

Gypsy's ears folded back and she arched her back slightly. Her claws extended a full extra inch and they dug tiny troughs into the packed dirt as she bared her teeth at Lambda. "Easy, Gyps." Walter spoke calmly but firmly. "She's not actually a wolf, she just turns into one, not the other way around."

"The other way around?" Isaac questioned with a sudden chill down his back.

"False-fox." Lambda's voice came out breathy and with a snarl from her wolf form. "Do not return. Ever."

Walter's eyes narrowed on Lambda. "Listen, sister. Don't threaten my fox." He warned her calmly. "You know who I am."

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Lambda growled deeply at Walter. "Try me." She snarled.

"I see why Haffa likes pissing her off." Isaac's comment broke most of the tension in the air. "It looks really easy. But also, we have better things to do than watch Walter burn down half the forest in a gun and magic fight with an old angry druid."

Lambda's rage filled eyes locked onto Isaac. "Human. You know not of what you speak." She talked down on him like she was that one old grumpy lady that liked to scowl at kids from the street corner and Isaac had just made a comment about how older folks had it better than the rest of them. She then wrinkled her nose at Lenna and turned to leave.

Isaac couldn't just let the slight slide completely. He had enough self control, over months of practice and plenty of times of it causing problems in the past, to keep from jumping straight to violence, but then tension in his muscles was still there. He looked down his nose at her. "I know plenty." He told her flatly. "And I've killed stronger and more legendary fighters than you. They all made the mistake of underestimating me and looking down on my wife."

Isaac and the wolf woman's locked eyes intensified as power seemed to roil and build inside and around each of them. After a long moment, Lambda stood up and turned back into her elvish form. She broke her eyes off of Isaac's, giving him the win in their stare-down, and looked at Lenna, Gypsy, and finally Walter. "I will escort you to the edge of my domain. Take your charges and leave my garden." She ordered the artificer.

Walter nodded. "That was the plan." He told her and turned Copper towards the direction they were going to go.

"And do not take the emergency Maple Gates unless it is an actual emergency." She stated with her permanent scowl. "We shall have the winds at our backs and a straight grassy path." She ordained and it was so. The entire path before them turned into low and luscious grass and the path subtly shifted to be more straight through the forest. She started forwards and turned back into a wolf before starting off in a trot. She stopped when she was a few dozen feet in front of them and turned to look over her shoulder at them. When she did, Walter nudged Copper forwards and the group started moving after her.

Lambda led the group for four hours which, according to Walter, covered about six hours worth of ground despite moving at a slightly slower pace that would've made the trip take eight. When they finally reached the end of her grassy path, Lambda turned back into her elvish form and waved them onwards. "I would appreciate it if you took another way home." She said them as they passed.

"I'll be back through for sure." Walter told her. "Don't bother keeping a light on for me." He joked which made her visibly bristle.

After the group had moved on, well out of earshot of the druid and her trees, Isaac looked at Walter questioningly. "How close are we?" He wondered.

"At this rate, we'd arrive before the sun comes up if we traveled through the night." Walter explained. "We should stop soon for the night though, Copper doesn't like traveling in the dark and she's not as young as she used to be."

Isaac nodded and they continued on for another hour before they decided to rest just off of the path in a small clearing that had clearly had campfires in the past. "So, what's with the old bitch?" Isaac asked Walter directly. "Like, I've met plenty of temperamental people in the past but she just seemed…"

"Like she had a stick up her arse." Lenna finished for him.

Isaac nodded. "Exactly."

Walter shrugged. "Who knows. I'd never met her before, despite going through her territory multiple times in the past. She usually keeps to herself so I never thought anything of her, most of the druids who's territory we've gone through do the same." He unhelpfully explained. "Maybe she's upset that the only guy chasing her tail is Keffen." He joked. "Some people are just cranky, and we did sort of just barge into her garden with the help of someone she doesn't like, instead of entering the normal way, which is also an emergency only route, not that it is ever used."

"What about Gypsy, she seemed to really not like her?" Lenna wondered. It came off as strange how violently defiant the fox appeared to be as soon as the two looked at each other.

"Gypsy's not a fan of wolves, as a general rule, but she's extra not a fan of people threatening me." Walter explained. "That's all it was. But Lambda needs to work on her friendly face. If she's gonna be guarding one of the main paths between the capital and the neighboring kingdoms, she shouldn't go antagonizing everyone. There are dwarves to the north, humans to the south and west, another elvish kingdom to the north east, and a third to the south east. Out of the five main routes, this may be the least traveled, but she's still one of its wardens."

"I was wondering why there were druids lining the path. It seemed pretty deliberate, especially considering that there aren't supposed to be that many high elven druids." Isaac said with a thoughtful look on his face. "There can't be druids lining each of the five paths, can there be?"

Walter shook his head. "No. Each direction's guarded by those that match the areas the best and on the current border there's always an outpost." He explained. "Warriors to the south and north, mages to the east, druids to the west. Fortresses with scouts and rangers stationed on the borders of each."

"Do they fight often?" Isaac wondered. "And I thought the rainbow forest was a part of the, what was it called?"

"Celestial Kingdom." Lenna helpfully reminded him.

"Ah, yeah, that's why I remembered it as the Pretentious Place." Isaac joked. "Anyway, I thought that it was the border and not where the fortress is."

"That's what the humans think too." Walter agreed. "But the forest is technically sovereign ground. No elvish kingdom or country is allowed to directly claim it. I don't know why, some old treaty or something."

"So, are we finally going to get to see the city in the morning?" Isaac questioned their guide. Walter had been a great guide but he had also been the reason why Isaac had been plagued with headaches for the last two and a half weeks and all of them had been rained on for days on end.

"Noon." Walter corrected him. "We'll leave at first light and be there at noon. It might be a pretentious place with a pretentious name but it's damn stunning to witness the first time."

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