Deluge

Within a minute, a steady rainfall began to pour down from the skies. People squealed and ran or teleported for cover. Fortunately, the thick boughs of the trees were nearby and dense enough to block out the rain.

Sylas's clothes prevented him from suffering the worst of the attack, but his arms were exposed beyond his elbows because of the short sleeves of his tunic-shirt. Each raindrop felt like getting jabbed with a pin.

"Ye-owch!" he cried. Solarae quickly thrust out her hand, grabbed Sylas by the arm, and pulled him to safety under the canopy.

"Ow," he complained, rubbing his arms, as Solarae led the way over to one of the tree-trunks, which was hollowed out with a door. Within the trunks there was presumably a way to get up to the tree-houses. "What in the wide End was that all about? The sky just randomly starts dumping water on the earth?"

Solarae rubbed her cheek, abash. "I forgot to tell you about rain."

"Clearly! Can we please go inside?"

"Well, of course." They had reached the door, a mighty ten-foot-tall portal of stained wood, by now. It was unlocked and Solarae pushed it open, letting a golden glow from lanterns within the staircase-room spill out onto the dark grass.

Sylas would have offered Solarae to enter before he did-ladies first, after all-but he got distracted by a most curious animal guarding the door.

"Alo!" he exclaimed, surprised. "What's that?"

It was some sort of small, quadrupedal animal. Its lean body was covered in mottled green fur, and had a blot of dark green fur about its cat-like black nose and thin mouth, that resembled a gaping frown. Its front legs were thin and delicate-looking, but its back legs were muscular and so long they folded back on themselves like a rabbit's, ready for jumping and running and kicking. Curved black claws stuck out of the three toes on each paw. The animal regarded Sylas and Solarae with its large, dark green, soulful eyes.

"Sylas, I'd like you to meet the Creeper," Solarae said, laying a hand on the creature's furry head. "Ordinarily these are what you'd call a 'monster,' but we've tamed these marvellous creatures to guard our houses. The mere sight of them is enough to deter most intruders."

As if on cue, the creeper smiled, revealing a mouthful of teeth. The most eminent were its huge, razor-edged incisors, but a rather fearsome set of canine teeth stood out as well. Sylas recoiled, startled.

"I believe it."

"And if sight does not work, they have a most unusual mode of defence: they can explode and then regenerate themselves...like some sort of bizarre explosive phoenix," Solarae started to explain. "But I'm sure you don't want to hear an entire biology lesson from me. Come on. No good to standing out in the cold and rain. Let's go inside. I'm almost certain we have a vacant house on this tree."

Inside the trunk, it was dry, warm, and smelled of musty wood-like an old library. They teleported up the creaky stairs, which had been carved out of the sapwood. The dead heartwood of the tree had been dug out entirely to make ample room. The stairs spiralled up the height of the trunk, until they came to a set of double doors at the top. Solarae pushed them open and stepped out onto a balcony, with Sylas following shortly after.

The balcony was a wooden walkway running round the girth of the tree, and it reached out to overlap some extremely thick branches that held the tree-houses. Otherwise, a rope-and-plank bridge closed the gap between the houses and the main entrance. The thick shadows underneath the bulk of the tree's leafy canopy were dispelled by lanterns chained to small branches and fireflies blinking with a greenish-yellow glow.

Solarae pointed to a small house not far below them, that was connected to the trunk with a rope-and-plank bridge. A homely sign declaring the residence "vacant" hung by the door.

"How about that one?"