“Melody!” I called down into the cave. Before, I’d gotten accustomed to the sound of the roaring waterfall but now it was hard to yell over it. It was really loud. I looked down off the shear edge of the cliff into the cave basin below. A now familiar pool of water and river ran farther back into the darkness but there was no dragon to be found. Should I throw a rock in again? That seemed to wake her up the first time. I can’t pick anything up right now, though.

In my arms I was holding onto as many Lady of Endless Suffering mushrooms as I could possibly carry. There were a ton growing in this forest, probably for a variety of reasons. A light purple dust was now covering my whole body and falling from the bundle I was carrying. Without much wind to blow it away, I was leaving a trail of suffering in my wake. I wish I could clean up but I don’t have anything to hold water in and I wouldn’t want to put the water here on my body. 

“Melody!” I yelled again, calling for the dragon. 

“Arthur Callon?” a booming voice called out from the cave. The voice, surprisingly, was no longer as nerve racking as it probably should be. I’d completely gotten used to talking to a dragon. The giant black lizard with wings and a scorpion tail crawled out from the depths of her underground lair and popped her head out from the opening to the cave. Like a bird, she turned her head and looked over with the side of her face facing me. 

“Why would you bring those wretched things here.” she said, grimacing while looking upon my spoils. 

“I like them. They taste good.” I responded. I took a mushroom out of the bunch and popped it into my mouth. 

On her comparatively expressionless dragon face, Melody looked shocked for a moment, confused the next, and then finally accepting of what I just did with a slightly disgusted look. Without a word she sank back down into the cave, turning around and crawling back into the darkness. Hey, I still need to tell you something. She left already without even trying to take me back down. Down in the distance a loud grinding sound could be heard. I couldn't see exactly what she was doing but after a moment it stopped and then after another moment it started up again. From the cave, Melody rose up again. 

A large hand dropped something in front of me. I looked down to find a filthy bag that was probably once some sort of purplish color. Looking at the brown crust covering it I won’t want to even begin to think what happened to that thing. Carefully picking it up, I undid the drawstring to find a random assortment of items. Compared to the outside, the inside and its contents were relatively clean. Unfortunately, there was an odd smell coming from it but, like the pants, I'd probably get used to it. I can't be effectively poisoned, after all. At least not long term. Looking at everything I dumped on the ground I finally got the information I was wondering about before. There was a rolled up jacket, some sort of leather bottle, and a leather necklace with a shining dog-tag on it. That dragon, Melody, ate this guy, didn't she? Well, she ate me too, I'm not that weirded out by it. Taking the jacket, I put it on. Though I couldn't close it in the front and the arms were too tight, it was wearable and surely better than nothing. Actually, it looks pretty nice. I dusted off my chest and stomach and threw the bag of mushrooms over my shoulder. Good, no spores. 

"Thanks."

"I have no need for them and I do not want the lady mushroom infesting my cave. I take great care to kill any plants that may wander in here." The dragon responded,  puffing out a little fire with her words. She was leaning her head over the edge of the cliff to my right, watching me. 

Why didn't you just give me this stuff sooner? I wanted to ask, but that was probably too pushy.

"No, really, thanks. I was freezing."

"Do not worry over it."

Got it, I'll try not to. I looked back over to the waterfall while remembering what I was initially here to do. 

"Right, Melody, about the water. I need to show you something." 

Curious, the dragon tilted her head. She crawled out of the cave with her scorpion-like tail curling behind her. When she's next to me like this, I can really tell how massive she is. She's as big as an elephant though I don’t think I’ve seen an elephant for a while so I may be wrong. 

For a few minutes, the two of us walked side by side, but, upon getting frustrated with my speed, the dragon insisted I ride on her back. After that, we made good time back to a steady pool of water. It was surprisingly hard to find something that wouldn't wash away instantly so we just ended up going back to where I was before. 

"Ok," I started my explanation the moment my feet were back on the ground. Unlike the first dragon ride, I wasn't in much pain at all. I didn't think anything changed but I'm glad my precious parts are fine. 

I took a leaf off a tree nearby to replicate the test I'd done before. I'm sure Melody understands the properties of this water but the presentation feels better this way. The dragon had turned into her human form. With her tail swaying gently back and forth she was pensively watching my actions as I prepared my explanation. There wasn't much to explain though, as I said. 

"As you're aware, the water of this river has little microscopic creatures in it that devour anything they come in contact with."

Melody raised her hand to get my attention. I stopped and looked at her. 

"I was not, in fact, aware of that. What do you mean by "Micro-scopic"? That word is yet unfamiliar with me."

I could feel the blood rush to my face in embarrassment. That was stupid. 

"W-well," I continued, "it means that there are tiny creatures in the water that you can't see by just looking."

"Ah? That's what the foam is?!" She said, leaning over and looking into the river. She rested her head into her hand while thinking. Closing her eyes, Melody was quiet for a moment. "That does explain that. You see, when I used fire on the water it seemed to shake and foam as if it was consuming something."

I dropped the leaf I was holding in one hand into the pool. As expected, it was eaten away. So, that's nothing to be surprised about, then. 

Melody nodded her head, watching closely. 

"Now watch." I said, holding my empty hand out to the pool. With its characteristic pink glow, I cast transcendent light healing on the water below. Like before, a thick foam drifted to the top as the corpses of the little creatures were shown in their true form. Upon dropping the second leaf into the water, it floated there comparatively unharmed. 

Wide eyed, Melody starred at the leaf drifting on the surface surrounded by newly created filth. She bent over the water and stared at the pool in deep thought. Her hair fell fantastically around her face for a couple of seconds until she looked up. God, she really is cute as a human. 

"That's impossible." Melody said, looking up. She looked surprised but possibly a bit angry along with that. With her human like hand she pushed a lock of hair away from her face. 

“It happened anyway.” I said matter-of-factly. 

Even if it's impossible in this world it does make some level of sense to me. If I think about it, I'm pretty sure there are games where healing magic does damage to undead creatures, dark creatures, or something like that. Whatever these things in the water are, they're susceptible to that trope. In fact, that might be the only thing they can actually be damaged with. That dragon, the previous master of the silent forest, only reacted to my accidentally casting healing magic on him. Melody's fire and teeth really didn't seem to do much.

"This stuff," I said, pointing at the dissipating pile of foam, "This is what was coming out of your brother, wasn't it?"

Her expression became dark as she gazed into the pool. 

"Yes, I believe that is precisely how he came to be the way he is currently. It all started not three weeks prior to now."

Suddenly the dragon said something as if she was drifting into a flashback. The look on her face became distant as she looked into the water next to me. I sat down in front of her.

"You should tell me about it." I say, looking at her. 

"I do not wish to speak of him." She says.

Well, that's not really helpful. I'm helping you kill this master of the silent forest once and for all I should at least know what's happening. Right now, I am completely lost. I just gave you a breakthrough on your fight here… 

I lean back on my arms while looking over at the river silently. Melody's gaze follows mine as she too looks at the deadly liquid flowing down stream. I looked back over at her but she wasn't paying attention to me anymore. 

"He was my brother." She says.

I already knew that part. That doesn't give any more information about the story unfolding here. 

Suddenly, the dragon got up and walked a short distance away from me. In a cloud of smoke, her human form disappeared and a fire-spitting bug-like lizard took her place. She turned to me with her head. 

"Mount my back." The dragon said motioning with her neck for me to climb back onto her back. I couldn't help but notice the coldness of her voice. She sounded much different now than she did when we left the cave together. Obediently, I followed her orders and got on her back between her wings. 

She took off.

"I have realized just now something that I should not have forgotten." she began talking in her booming dragon voice that roared above the massive amount of wind pressure blowing in my face. "I will take you to the origin of the river."

With that we ascended higher than I'd ever gone before. The landscape of the massive forest stretched out beneath me to the point where I could finally see how big it was. The silent forest was a massive mass of dark green trees stretching for as far as I could strain my eyes. So much for my plan of walking out of here. The only break that I could make out in the sea of leaves was the deadly river wrapping between the gaps in the plant life. Far down below I could see the shadow of Melody's figure reflected in the less rapid parts of the water. The dark form flickered in and out as she moved forward at car-like speeds only to be reflected for a second before disappearing again. I couldn't even try to look forward. We were moving too fast. The wind felt like it was hitting the naked parts of my body like little rocks. I'm just glad there don't seem to be any bugs here. Actually, why aren't there any bugs? There should at least be insects in the air above the forest. It's not like even the rain is tainted. 

ACK- 

I spit out the piece of something that made its way into my mouth like a bad tasting punchline. Nevermind, there are bugs. Unfortunately, there are bugs…

The view, along with everything else that accompanied dragon riding, continued for a long while. Slowly, the terrain under the two of us started to get rockier than it had been. The waves in the land became more intense as the static forest became hills and those hills rolled up into small mountains. Everything was still coated in a thick layer of trees but now that was broken more commonly by bare rock faces where the dirt had been worn away. The river we had been following also slowly wound itself out until it was nothing but a decently sized stream that seldom showed itself from beneath the forest. 

We flew towards a waterfall and Melody landed.