This is a story that no one knows, that no one witnessed and no one can corroborate, but that today I come to tell you.

Our story begins in a desolate wasteland. Where there were only small plants crawling on the arid land, doing their best to grow.

In the heart of this place, there was one of these tiny plants, barely alive, standing tall as it sought the rays of Veldor that encouraged it to survive. This brave sprout was ignorant of the great change going on around it.

In this world, strange phenomena sometimes occurred. One such was when the magic circulating in the world would concentrate in a single point for a long time, until, like a volcano preparing to erupt, it would explode and create a pool of pure magic, like flowing water. This is known as a Spring of Life. Such a fountain can create new beings, or alter those with whom it comes in contact.

That little sprout that was struggling to survive in this hostile environment, was in the middle, a victim of this phenomenon, and thanks to this, it was given a chance. The chance to become a legendary being.

The small being created by the magical phenomenon stood up and explored the place with her new eyes, confused and curious. At her feet a crystalline spring formed, its waters were cold, but they didn't feel like water, it was a sensation that tingled on her skin and somehow gave her strength.

She explored her new body, which was small, no bigger than a squirrel. Her green skin was soft, just like her stem from when she used to be just a sapling growing out of the ground. Her hair was tender leaves, green and small. Her pink eyes conveyed a pure and infinite innocence. Her body was a little chubby, with small, soft arms and legs. If any being saw her, they would say she was just a baby with strange colors.

Our once small plant, now a beautiful little girl, took a step out of the fountain and upon contact with the arid ground sprouted bright green grass. The little girl jumped in surprise but soon realized that it was not dangerous. Fascinated, she walked around, bringing new plants to life. She danced, jumped, and played for what seemed like years, giving birth to a huge green field, from which plants could now grow with strength and vigor. The young being saw this and rejoiced. She thought "I can give my sisters a place to grow and stretch their leaves. A place where their branches will stretch up to the sky covering the earth with bright colors, and where flowers can bloom and beautify the world."

An infinite amount of time had passed since she formed that thought. That little plant had become one of the first of the Feeric races to gain its consciousness. She, who is now called the great mother of the forest, the Alraune Olisteraphys. A woman made from the forest itself. The girl, once so small as to fit in the palm of a hand, was now as big and strong as an ancient tree. Her skin became like wood, her hair was filled with strong leaves and beautiful flowers, her eyes had become the golden color of sage and filled with wisdom from the thousands of years she had lived and traveled, and her body was wrapped in clothes made of moss, petals and bright grass.

For centuries, Olisteraphys walked the soils of this forest, nourishing the earth, straightening the trees so that their leaves reached the grace of Veldor, and she guided the races of faith to populate the home she had grown from that first field of grass, giving birth to the rainbow of flowers it was now, and which has become one of the lungs of the world.

After a very long time in this place, Olisteraphys felt lonely, longing for someone else’s company. Although she was known to the first races as the great mother of the forest, she had no real children to whom she could give the love she wished to give. And, although she cared carefully and lovingly for the trees, plants, and animals, this did not fill the emptiness in her heart.

And so, Olisteraphys traveled to the heart of the forest, to the source of life that had once given birth to her. She took parts of her own body, the bark of which her skin was made, the leaves and flowers of her hair, and with great care, bathed them in that fountain of mana, while lovingly shaping them. She created two beautiful and graceful beings from this act, the first nymphs. Askal and Fenas. But to talk about them, we must understand what nymphs are.

In nature, they are born from the high concentrations of magic in the forests, starting their life as seeds that the environmental mana would alter to transform into a living being. What today is known as living elements. From this seed will be born a small plant, which will feed on the nutrients of the earth and the mana in the environment for 10 years. From it will grow a flower from which a Dryad or a Spriggan may be born. We can consider them both as the same and the opposite.

Once this stage is reached, the Spriggan would travel through the forests looking for their partners, attracted by the bewitching scent they produce. Upon finding one, they would become their protectors, caring for them and transporting them to the places where they would obtain the most nutrients, receiving as a reward the love of their partners and the sweet nectar they secrete.

It would take another 10 years for both to reach the next stage. The Dryads would make a flower bud grow from their bodies, which would swallow their partner and, during a whole night, both would be wrapped in vines, creating a huge cocoon. For several months, these two beings would undergo a metamorphosis, merging them into a whole new being.

Finally, after about 6 months, the bud would open into an incredibly beautiful flower which, at its core, would be a tiny Nymph, who would awaken and begin her life as a forest Fae.

Askal and Fenas were at that time the first nymphs to be born and the ones who would beget the entire race. Askal, the older sister, was the more cheerful and energetic of the two. Her skin was green as fresh grass, her long golden hair fell like a cascade of honey and she wore pieces of soft bark covering part of her body in a beautiful and sexy bikini. While her younger sister, Fenas, was calmer and spent most of her time caring for the smaller beings. Her appearance was the opposite of her sister, her skin was the color of wood, her short hair was white as fresh snow and she wore big leaves in a cute short dress. Both were the opposite of each other, but if there was one thing, they shared it was their love for their mother, for nature, and the color of their eyes, bright blue like the sky.

The sisters saw the incredibly beautiful existence that created them, smiled, and rushed toward her in a big hug. Instinctively they knew that she was their creator, their mother. Lo and behold, she named them Askal " the one who nurtures" and Fenas "the one who cares".

Olisteraphys had never felt happier than at the moment when both nymphs came to life. The mother of the forest embraced her daughters and filled them both with the greatest and most infinite love she could give. The great mother would teach them everything she knew about plants, animals, and life itself, how to cultivate and grow the trees, how to guide the animals, and... it was then that she noticed something else coming out of the ground.

A small group of rocks began to move, piling one on top of the other, as mud and clay gathered them together and molded them into a strange humanoid appearance. Only a while later, a being emerged, no larger than a wolf, made entirely of mud and stone, and with the appearance of a small ape. With its empty eyes, it stared in confusion at the forest mother. The sisters approached this new being with curiosity, noticing that it was a head smaller than they were.

Askal, the braver of the two, brought her hand close to the being of rock and mud, touching what looked like its head. Seeing that nothing happened and that it even seemed happy for the action, her sister Fenas imitated her, and both began to play with it. Olisteraphys thought and thought, having no idea what that being that emerged from the earth was, had it been the remnant of the mana she used for creating her daughters, or had it been a mere natural coincidence? She did not know, but now that this being had emerged, it was her responsibility to take care of it. So, Olisteraphys took him also as her son and named him Oskgir, or "born of the mud".

The years passed and the mother of the forest imparted all her knowledge to her children. She gave them the gift of speech, taught them the language of the ancients, and instructed them about the races that inhabited the world and whom to avoid. Askal and Fenas learned at an astonishing speed, and in just a couple of years, they had mastered almost everything. Oskgir, on the other hand, was much slower. What his sisters learned in just a few days, Oskgir took months. This would depress anyone, but not Oskgir, he was happy. His mother was incredibly patient and taught him everything with incredibly deep love, and Askal and Fenas supported him with the same amount of love. Who could be depressed being surrounded by such wonderful beings? Definitely not Oskgir.

Although Oskgir was slow to learn, he was incredibly fast to grow. In just 50 years he had already reached 10 feet tall, and his body had become much stronger and sturdier. The rocks and mud that made him up hardened, becoming much tougher than granite and as malleable as clay. He gained such perfect control of his body that he could take any shape he wished and travel great distances across the earth. He had become the best guardian this forest could ask for, and this made his mother and sisters proud.

Askal and Fenas loved their brother so much, that they decided to name him their "husband" a term they learned from the beings outside the forest. Both sisters were so absolutely inseparable that they came to the decision (after a little discussion between them), that they would both be Oskgir's wives and that they would love him forever. With their mother's blessing, (amused but happy), the two nymphs traveled every day beside him, sitting on his shoulders, laughing, and sometimes even dancing around him, professing their unconditional love. The happiness of this family was absolute... but, in this cruel world, nothing is eternal, not even the rocks or the forest.

One day, while Olisteraphys was traveling through the forest with her children, she found an area that was withering. The trees were drying up, the earth was cracking and animal carcasses littered the ground. Death and decay had taken control of that area, bringing grief and sorrow to the forest family.

Olisteraphys knew what brought such desolation. The devourer. An undead that consumed all life in its path. Olisteraphys ordered her children to return to the spring of life, what she thought was the target of that monster, and take shelter there. Sadly, they had no choice but to follow their mother's orders, knowing that, whatever it was going to face, they would have no chance to help her.

When her children had gone far enough away, Olisteraphys advanced through the dead zone, her heart aching to see everything she had worked to care for grow dry and rotting unnaturally on the ground.

It was not long on her way when she encountered an abominable being. A beast wrapped in tentacles and giving off miasma from its body, which was a collection of heads of different beings from the forest and beyond, all in an eternal expression of pain and agony. The being was a mass of black and disgusting slime, from which those heads expressed a weeping and silent terror as they returned to the slime to emerge again from it in a different place on its body. Whatever it touched was dried up and stripped of all color and life.

Olisteraphys could not bear to see such an unnatural creature doing whatever it wanted, so she jumped toward it and attacked it with her magic. But nothing she did caused it any harm. She tried physical attacks, hitting it with her arms and legs, but the damage was nonexistent. Throughout the day she continued to attack it without success. The aberration did not even react to her attacks, as if it did not even realize she was there.

Olisteraphys tried everything, but nothing seemed to work. Just when she seemed to lose hope, she noticed that the monster was avoiding a certain route by consuming the life of the forest. It was moving away from one of the dragon's veins. A dragon vein was, as the name implies, a vein that ran through the world, carrying mana with it, like blood running through a body. It traveled through the forest and flowed into the spring of life. Olisteraphys understood that perhaps this was the solution.

The great mother channeled her mana, the purest she could muster, and, hurling it in a gigantic torrent of pure energy, struck the creature, which roared in pain for the first time since she encountered it. The devourer moved towards the great mother, as if finally aware of her presence, and attacked her with everything it had, using its tentacles and clouds of miasma. Olisteraphys did everything she could to avoid them and continue her attacks that, little by little, seemed to cause significant damage.

The battle lasted several days. Time in which even the forest was tremendously affected. Thousands of trees were razed to the ground, dividing the forest into 3 parts and leaving the central zone, converted into nothing more than a great wasteland. It is said that this great battle was responsible for separating the mountains of Torias from the mountain range known as the left claw of the dragon. Such was the magnitude of that event.

Worried about their mother, Askal, Fenas, and Oskgir left the spring of life, desperately searching for her. When they finally found her, Olisteraphys emerged victorious, but at the cost of all her life energy. The great mother lay beside a dead tree. She was withered and the bark of her body was falling to pieces. The leaves that were once the greenest and brightest in the whole forest were now shriveled and brown.

Olisteraphys, barely alive, called her children, who gathered around her, and with her remaining strength, requested one last favor from them. Tasked each of them to take care of what was left of the forest, to keep alive the home she had been in for millennia. The 3 of them promised her that, no matter what happened, they would never let such a thing happen again. Olisteraphys looked at her children with a smile, and after exhaling her last words of love for them, she died under that tree.

The sadness of the three of them was overwhelming. They had lost their beloved mother, the one who had raised the largest and most beautiful forest in the whole world by herself. They took her body and carried it to the spring of life, maybe, and only maybe it could bring her back again. But they were too naive... once a life is lost, there is no way to get it back. Perhaps the gods would be capable, but they, mere children and barely longer-lived than most mortals, were not capable of such a feat.

And so, they decided to say a final farewell to their mother and let her be consumed by the flames, the way she taught them to give respect to those who left the mortal world. Fire, which destroys but also gives life.

The ashes of Olisteraphys would bestow new life, nourishing it. New plants would grow, and a greener forest would emerge.

After this last act, the 3 children of the great mother of the forest would part ways, taking with them a portion of their mother's ashes. Oskgir would care for Cedarstone Forest, Askal would care for Alderleaf and Fenas would care for Saltrot, vowing that they would strive to make the great forest grow once more, no matter how many centuries it would take, they would reclaim the forest that had once been the fruit of their mother's hard work.

Centuries have passed and, every so often, the siblings meet to discuss their progress, catch up, and profess to each other the love that they had promised would last forever. Now, in the age of beings outside the forest, the next meeting of these 3 siblings is approaching.

Will this be another story without witnesses? Well, we'll see about that.

FivesZeta

Well, there it is. At first, it was going to be quite different, but then I thought it over and, after many changes, it ended up like this. I wanted to tell it differently, trying to make it sound like an old story (although I don't know if I achieved that goal).

Some things may not have been very clear, but I plan to clarify them in the future.

My idea is to do more of these extras, expanding the lore about things that may not end up going into the main story or that I don't know how to include, that includes the reason for the names of some places in the world or events that changed kingdoms or the continents themselves.

That would be all for now. I'm waiting for opinions about how it turned out to improve the next ones. Thanks for reading, and see you soon. Hasta la vista!