He’s been rooting and waiting…

Kazex gazed up at the clear night sky. The three moons were fully visible tonight. In about two hours, the white, blue, and orange moons will line up into a total eclipse. It was a once in a decade phenomenon.

It has been about three years since Kazex found the field of world root flowers. Since then, he had moved out of his cave and built a shack hut on top of the highland plateau to stay in. He had spent every day since, harvesting world roots.

The land on top of the cliff was now a normal grassy field, barren of golden flowers. Kazex was sure he had gotten them all within the last three years. By now, he was also reasonably sure he knew why something as rare as a world root was growing by the thousands on this highland plateau. He was pretty sure that funny blue orb that he had found had something to do with it.

For one, that blue orb was emanating so much power that it made Kazex sick the first time he had picked it up. For another, all the world roots that had grown on this plateau had their roots pointing in the direction of the orb while the orb literally sat in the center of the field of golden flowers. It was like the entire field of flowers was emanating from the spot the orb hand landed.

That’s right. Landed. Kazex didn’t know what the orb was, but he had his suspicions as to where it may have come from. Kazex deduced that it must have come from the sky. How did Kazex deduce that, you ask? Well, there were clues…

About a year after Kazex had found the golden flower plateau and had set up his new home on the highland, something else fell from the sky, smack right in the middle of the field of flowers.

When Kazex went to see what it was, he discovered that it was literally a dead angel with an apple in its mouth.

Now if it was just that, Kazex was ready to dismiss it as a coincidence, but another year later, once again, another dead angel came splatting into the middle of the field, right out of the sky!

Thus Kazex had **** but to conclude that the orb must have fallen from the sky as well. Something strange must be happening above.

But Kazex didn’t have nearly enough time to ponder about happenings that were beyond the higher firmaments. He had world roots to harvest. The angels were delicious though. Each angel was nearly three times the size if a human man, so they provided Kazex with months worth of dried meat. Their organs and bones made extremely rare and powerful alchemical ingredients, and their clothes and what equipment they had on them were made of materials that were non-existent on this plane.

Overall, the two dead angels proved to be a treasure throve. Also, rather fatty bacon. Especially their ass.

Now here Kazex was, three years later, sitting outside his hut and a massive makeshift silo choked full of dried world-root, staring at the moons. As the cool highland breeze swept past him, Kazex recalled the stories about the world root regularly told by the fireside during his time with his tribe.

There were three tales that were commonly told about the world root.

The first was of Luga the goblin. It was said that Luga the goblin once found a world root, and one night, he was visited by a dragon who offered Luga a gift of power in exchange for the root. Thus Luga became the first ever hobgoblin, and for a time, unified the goblin race under a great empire. It was the golden age for goblins. The unique alchemical wisdom of the goblins was developed and progressed during this great age. They even developed culture and shit. Then Luga was killed by human heroes and the goblins descended right back into their anarchic ways and lived in caves. Their collective alchemical knowledge, while still potent, had become a mere husk of the science that it once was and was deeply plagued and corrupted by superstition and madness. Thus goblin alchemy had developed a reputation of being unpredictable and unstable.

The second tale was rather similar, but it originated from the humans. It was said a human once found a world root, and one night, when the three moons of Zora became one, that human was visited by a dragon who made a similar offer as the one with Luga. The human accepted of course, and that human proceeded to became the first emperor of the humans. That was hundreds of years ago and the humans have once again split into several kingdoms and nations, but it is said that the empire is still standing to this day in the lands across the sea to the south.

The third tale followed pretty much the same thread, but it was a troll who had found it. At the time, trolls were small and weak pathetic little creatures that lived under the earth, and for some reason, also loved to congregate under human bridges. At the time, they were individually even weaker than the goblins. But after getting a visit from the dragon during the night of the single moon, that particular troll who found the root changed. That troll likely isn’t alive any longer today, but its descendants still roam the earth and the dragon’s gift can clearly be seen in them. Trolls today are hulking beasts with regenerative powers that can only be permanently killed by fire or acid.

To Kazex, the stories all had one simple premise:

Step one: Get world root.

Step two: Wait for the night of the three-moon eclipse.

Step three: Get visited by a dragon.

Step four: ?????.

Step five: PROFIT.

Kazex hummed to himself, repeating the five steps in his head while the moons overhead slowly shifted and merged into a haunting green orb.

Kazex smiled when suddenly, a large shadow passed over him, accompanied by the sound of enormous flapping wings.