When Isaac awoke, he was quite shocked to find that, according to all the pain receptors in his head, his head had just exploded, the fragments had been thrown into a blender, the blender dropped into a fire, and the fire filled with piranhas. There was no other explanation for the obscene amount of agony crashing through every thought he tried to conjure up. He tried to open his eyes, but found that that was far too much a bother for him to do at the moment.

In the name of Famfrit, he thought-moaned, what were they serving in the pub last night?

Finally, he managed to open his left eye. He was extremely surprised to find that, strangely, the ceiling wasn't that of the airship machine room or his usual room at the Winged Saloon, his normal crawl in Baguba. He closed his eye, now slightly annoyed. I had just gotten used to sleeping in the hammock, too.

Slowly, as he finally pulled himself up into a sitting position, he managed to open his eyes. What he saw made him wish he hadn't sat up. Curled up across from him was a huge red hunting cat of some sort. Its fur was long and luxurious, its eyes focused and intense, its teeth sharp and prepared to rip through skin and bone. It was looking directly at him, with a strange sort of dangerous understanding in the eyes. Isaac quickly identified it as a panther, creatures spoken of in tales of battles in the deserts by drunken warriors in the pubs. Strong, fast, and wily.

"Oh man, kupo," Isaac groaned. "Good kitty, good kitty..."

The cat growled at him, and bared its teeth.

"Okay, okay, whatever kupo," Isaac told it. "Just don't hurt me."

He gazed around at the rest of the area he was in. It was a strange hollow, with an earthy floor and walls, and an extremely strange ceiling. It looked like a bunch wooden tentacles, all reaching down and then disappearing into the ground. The entire, rather large space was lit by the same kind of glowing orb which Clay and Foobar used in the machine room. As far as furnishings went, there were none, but for a small table in the corner, on which was his gun, his blade, the belt of ammunition he'd been wearing, and…

"Potion!" Isaac yelled with glee. He tried to hop up and run over to the table, but suddenly found a rather painful explosion in his chest stopping him from doing so. Isaac groaned and fell back onto his back, rolling over to his chest so that there wouldn't be pressure on his head.

The panther, noticing this, stepped up, and approached him. It bent its head over his prostrate form, and then licked the large blood clot on his head once or twice. Isaac flinched whenever it did, but didn't dare move; who knew how it would react?

A moment later the cat padded away to the table, took the bottle of potion in its teeth, and brought it over to him. It softly dropped the green liquid down next to Isaac's face.

"Er, thanks, kupo," Isaac said, looking up into those intent eyes. It was definitely something he hadn't been expecting, but one look at the beautiful liquid so close to his hands, and Isaac had to say he wasn't going to frown at the strange occurrence. He grabbed the bottle and pulled out its stopper, greedily guzzling the potion down.

The potion actually turned out to be a hi-potion. As the silky, warm fluid drained down his throat, the horrible throbbing in his head died down and disappeared. He loved the feeling of a potion. They tasted so much better than that bitter taste all those webcomics always described. Whatever, you couldn't expect someone to understand something they'd never experienced.

Turning these thoughts aside, Isaac looked over at the panther. "Thanks for the help, kupo. For curiosity, where did you get that potion? And the table, for that matter, kupo."

In response, the panther simply gave him a strange look and then began leaving the small area.

"Hey, wait up, kupo!" Isaac called after it, pausing to grab his equipment. He jogged out the door after it. He looked around, and found that the place that he had been in was a giant hollow under a massive tree. The massive tree was one of many gigantic trees dispersed around the forest. They all went up, on and on forever it seemed. From high above came the sounds of birds calling and crying out. Seeing how high the trees were, Isaac gulped. I wouldn't be able to survive a fall from the top of those trees, let alone a fall from kilometres above. How am I still breathing?

Figuring that it was his best chance towards getting his answers, Isaac ran after the panther, its red shape easy to follow in the brown trunks and green foliage which filled the area. The earth on which he stepped was soft and spongy, with quite a bit of moss covering it. The air itself was hazy and filled with moisture, so that even as Isaac ran he found his clothes and fur becoming very damp. However, seeing as the panther was keeping up a furious pace, Isaac didn't stop to try and dry off or anything.

Soon, they came to the edge of a large clearing, which was ringed by powerful old trees. Isaac didn't know why, but there seemed to be something… something special about it. Something alluring, and wonderful, so attractive that Isaac began taking a step into the open area.

The panther reached across with a large paw and batted him in the front. The force of the blow knocked Isaac backwards onto his rump, where he sat gasping for breath for a moment.

"Ouch, kupo, what'd you do that for?" Isaac asked. He got up and looked back at the clearing, but the spell was broken. Now there was simply a sinister feel to the air. "Oh, was I just under a magic…"

The panther simply looked up at him and nodded.

"Right. Thanks, kupo."

Isaac sat back down and looked up at his feline companion. Why was the panther doing this? Why would it take him to such a magical place and then not allow him to enter? There had to be something going on.

He was shaken from his considerations by the sound of a rustling from above. Quite a loud rustling. Isaac looked up, and stared.

"Whoa."

Up above, Isaac could see several shapes in the highest branches of the woods, jumping from one to another and back again. One of them in particular was moving constantly downward. This one appeared to be the centre of the others' attention, because they kept following it wherever it went. However, they could never seem to catch quite up.

Isaac sat up, and turned to the panther. "Okay, what's going on up there, kupo?"

The panther shrugged, then kept watching.

Soon the figures, four of them Isaac now counted, were close enough to the ground to make out their features clearly. Three of them were fairies, two of which were green, one of which was pink. One of the greens and the pink had fierce looks on their angelic faces, each one apparently very intent on destroying this opponent. The secondgreen one, however, had a strangely serene look of happiness, and was simply following the fourth.

The fourth figure was, as far as was discernable, human. However, his entire head but for his eyes and a ponytail was covered by a turban and a piece of fabric draped over his mouth. On his torso were several tightly wrapped black straps, each with some sort of strange object in them. He also wore a pair of baggy, dark blue pants with a pin stuck into their side. The pin was in the design of a lightly coloured blue human face with dark blue animal eyes and fangs. Isaac had heard descriptions of those pins many times, and knew exactly what this stranger must be: a blue mage.

Currently, the blue mage had no weapon drawn, despite the two swords attached tightly to his back. He seemed to be more of just waiting for the fairies to attack him the correct way, with a calculating look in his eyes.

One of them came at him with an open palm, apparently the only weapon these fairies had that wasn't magical. The blue mage instantly ducked the pitiful swing, and came back out with his own bare hand, which for only a moment grew a set of deadly red claws which dripped of poison and glowed with a blue light. The claws slashed into the fairy, but the poison didn't manage to infect her. He jumped back and continued circling.

Then the appropriate attack came. The more murderous of the two green fairies, frustrated now, shoved her hands forwards, and a howling gale began, whipping up into a small twister which flew forward and hit the blue mage squarely. The force of the wind knocked him from his current perch and made him fall about five metres to the ground, landing squarely on his feet. The fairy, however, would not let up, and kept the gale coming down at him. It screamed in, ready to rip at him again…

When suddenly, the mage burst into blue flames, which rushed forward to consume the twister even as it came. They stayed on the mage until all of the winds had been sucked in, and then the blue mage looked up and smirked.

He brought his hands together in a look of concentration, then brought them apart violently.

Blue light shone, and a twister leaped to life at his command, and barrelled in at the two attacking sprites. They strained against the force for a moment, before they were thrown away by its strength.

The blue mage laughed as they receded into the distance. He then turned to the kind looking fairy. "Well, your friends there managed to beat me up pretty bad there. Would you mind, uh…" He didn't know why, but Isaac got that same impression he'd gotten when hearing Thom's voice. It was familiar…

The fairy nodded, and brought her hands forward. A wind came up, much gentler than the two previous ones, and turned a whitish colour. It drifted gently to the mage and surrounded him, bathing him in its brilliance. As before, the blue flames enshrouded him, and the wind vanished in their blaze.

"Thanks, milady, though now I believe I must go. My kitty's waiting for me back home. Ta-ta!"

He walked away from the fairy, waving his goodbyes. As he left the clearing, he looked around and caught sight of the panther.

"What are you doing here, Topier?" he asked curiously.

In response, the cat simply looked over at Isaac.

"Ah, our patient has wakened! How are you doing? It's quite a surprise you managed to survive such a fall."

"I've built up a resistance," Isaac muttered dryly. "Thank you for your help."

"Hey, you're welcome. I may only have an extremely lousy education as a white mage, but I do have a nice supply of potions. For curiosity, what's your name?"

"I'm Isaac," he replied, offering a paw, "machinist on the airship Torrent."

The blue mage shook his hand, but there was a faraway look in his eyes.

"Heh, that's strange. I used to have a friend name Isaac. Good guy. Oh, sorry, here I am reminiscing again. I'm one of the many protectors of Koringwood. The name's Ben."