We took a fairly easy pace, allowing the she-elves to keep a pace that didn’t overly tax them. Every hour or so, we rested and Risavis and her dire mount joined us.


    “So, what’s his name?” I asked, the first time the great wolf plopped down next to her, it’s chin on herp like a great puppy, noting his gender as the wolf did nothing to hide his equipment.


    “I call him Irsivir.” Risavis answered, scratching behind his great fluffy ears, making him gruff happily.


    “How hard is it to feed him?” I wondered.


    “Feed him?” Risavis puzzled, “He’s a wolf… he feeds himself. Do wolves in your home world need to be fed? I simply let him eat when he needs to and hunt as he needs.”


    I had to concede there was a point there.


    It was interesting trekking across the forest floor. There was a fair amount of smaller nt life among the roots of the enormous trees, but not so much as to really impede our progress.


    “So what kinds of dangers are out here?” I asked, adjusting my rifles.


    I found them to be mostfortable to carry with the barrel down. The butt of my sniper rose just over my shoulder with the barrel down by my calves. Thebat rifle was slung crossbody, but its smaller length meant that while the butt hung at the base of my ribs, the barrel was hanging down around my knees.


    “Well, we can’t bepletely certain.” Creadean admitted. “Once our rangers knew every beast living anywhere in our woods, and nothing came or left without us being aware. But now, our numbers are so low, and we so busy, that we can’t even track the threats of nature within the parts of the forest we still control.”


    “Part of the mixed blessing and curse of the forest is that it rests on what is known as a confluence of leylines.” Narusil exined. “Each leyline has an elemental affinity as well as a magical affiliation. Leylines spiral like rings around our world, each line anchored in but a single space. This forest is the anchor point of two such lines, a major line of Earth, associated with Augmentation magic, making the earth rich and growth more prolific. This is how we were able to grow the trees sorge. The second leyline, a far more minor one, is of water, and is associated with healing. Together the leylines make the local nts and wildlife grow strong andrge, like Irsivir. Were he born and raised in another ce, he might have grown only to the size and strength of a normal wolf.” She held out a hand at roughly the right height for a gray wolf.


    “Such beasts, grown to far greater size are known as dire beasts. Such as Irsivir being known as a dire wolf.” Creadean continued, “And most of the dangers of the forest are such dire beasts. Like that snake.”


    She pointed out a snake I would never have noticed, its brown mottled skin blended with the bark of the tree it clung to. It must have been thirty feet long and about five feet thick. Its ck eyes watching as we traveled below, too far away to really make an easy meal.


    “Other threats include aggressive nts like that bloodleaf or that firesap nt.” Flendreir piped up.


    The nts indicated looked harmless initially, but then I noticed the threats. The bloodleaf had thorns along the bottom of the leaves that seemed to tten and extend almost like a viper’s fangs, and the leaves swayed despite the still air. I was reminded of some of the carnivorous nts of earth, but with leaves the size of my chest. The firesap nt looked harmless enough until I noticed the charred ground underneath it, where even the root of the great tree it was growing on had been burned away. I was guessing that the sap, when exposed to air, wouldbust.


    “And that is assuming that no other threats have moved in to take advantage of our weakness.” Creadean conceded.


    “What kinds of things might have moved in?” I wondered.


    “Could be about anything.” Tavorwen admitted, “The worst would be a forest dragon. They have scales strong enough they are almost invulnerable, and the verynguage of magic is thenguage of the dragons. They are naturally magic resistant and can use magic as powerfully as any mage if they have too. Most dragons can breathe out fire, or some other harmful thing that is generally as dangerous as their magic. For example, forest dragons can breathe out a mist of potent acid that, while generally harmless to nt-life, can eat through softer flesh in a moment.”


    Acid breath, lovely.


    “And what are the odds of a forest dragon having moved in?” I demanded.


    “Dragons are powerful but reproduce slowly… but then again it has been over a hundred years since we could do a full canvassing of the forest… honestly, I don’t know.” Creadean admitted.


    “What do we do if we run into a dragon?” I pressed.


    “We hope we can evade it and it doesn’t notice us.” Narusil stated bluntly. “Some of the maidens may have some basic training for the possibility of a draconic attack, but the primary tactic is to minimize casualties as we lure the dragon nearer to Ealphamir where thest few remaining anti-dragon artillery weapons remain.”


    I looked over the grim faces as we walked.


    “My rifle was able to take out the wyverns without issue. Wouldn’t it be just as effective against the dragons?” I asked in confusion.


    Zanantha snorted, “Wyverns are dragons in the same sense that both sparrows and Eagles are birds. Wyverns can be captured and tamed as hatchlings. If you hatch a dragon and try to tame it, the wyrmling will y along until it gets big enough and strong enough to kill their captors, and then they willugh as they destroy their captors. Dragons are too intelligent to be tamed. The scales of a full dragon are between ten and fifteen times stronger than the scales of a wyvern.”


    Anbethir interjected, “In all fairness, our records indicate there are types of dragons that used to cooperate with our ancestors. In fact, if I’m remembering my studies correctly, there were more types of dragons that lived in peace with the humanoids in the region than the aggressive and violent dragons that fought against them. The friendlier dragons may have kept the more dangerous ones at bay.”


    Zananthaughed, “Yes, but three of the fivergest breeds of full dragon are aggressive and violent. Thank the gods that the most powerful dragons are more aligned with us than against us.”


    This was not encouraging. I wondered if the swap on my bullets from lead projectiles to adamantine projectiles would help, I’d looked at the adamantine and it seemed denser than lead, and as hard as it was it could easily be more armor prating. So long as my muzzle velocity wasparable, the range shouldn’t be hurt and the prating power should be better.


    We stopped to rest again.


    “One question.” I asked. “Why do you use the word ‘humanoid’ to describe the races like you? Wouldn’t ‘elvenoid’ be a better word? You’ve never met a human other than me.”Content (C) N?v/elDra/ma.Org.


    The elves all had an almost visceral, or nauseous, reaction to my question.


    “Oh gods… Is that what you hear us saying?” Narusil demanded with a shiver.


    “Ugh, that trantion is… painful.” Tavorwen shuddered.


    I looked at them.


    “Okay, let’s see if we can work around your trantion magic here…” Narusil thought for a moment. “So the word we use is… aphoril… did you hear that as our word, or yours?”


    “Aphoril?” I repeated.


    The she-elves winced at my pronunciation, “Close enough… oh, you need to actually learn elvish… But yes, that is our word, it means a creature that is generally intelligent, walks on two legs, has two arms, a single head, a torso that contains its organs, and reproduces sexually and gives live birth. Most also have the females nurse their young.” Narusil exined. “Elvenoid…” she shuddered trying to say the word, “That is a nonsense word and just seems wrong on so many levels.”


    “Is that all that it takes to qualify as a humanoid?” I asked, wondering about goris and such.


    “It is problematic to generally make the term more exclusive.” Tavorwen added, “As if you dere a race non-humanoid, then it is harder to determine which races should receive what levels of care and respect. Though magic sometimes makes that distinction for you.”


    I was startled, “What do you mean?”


    “Well, there are spells that are limited to a specific type of creature, like humanoids or animals. It simplifies the spells and allows a less skilled caster to cast the spell, but if you cast ‘paralyze humanoid’ on a creature and it works, then the universe has decided that creature is a humanoid, even if you wouldn’t think it should apply.” Narusil filled me in. “That was one of the determining factors to determine whether the Lizardfolk should be considered humanoids or not. The spells work however, so the universe has determined them to be humanoids.”


    “Lizard… folk…”” I repeated with disbelief.


    “Oh, yes. There are the tthree, the Ignodin, Grathgir, Hepthpar, Lakthree, Thraskar and the Wrencthes. They are each unique and often proud people. But due to racial simrities, we generally just call them ‘Lizardfolk’.” mir stated. “We had been attempting to build some form of diplomatic rtions with some of these peoples when the shadow elves emerged and unfortunately caused those negotiations to end when all our diplomats were called home and most of them were in.”


    “So how many types of humanoids are there?” I wondered.


    “That we know of?” Creadean rified.


    “Well,” Narusil thought. “There are the humans, and we elves, the hawkar, the fnin, the lizardfolk, the lorpins, the orcs, and the halfmen.”