Everything was not going according to plan.

We had entered The Magical Forest, but the well was nowhere in sight. From what I remembered in the book, they had found it rather quickly, almost immediately after entering, so how come we had walked around for at least an hour, and not seen a single sign, yet?

“Well, this is just awesome,” I mumbled to myself, looking this way and that.

“Oh, did you spot the well?” Vincent asked, peering all around for a well that didn’t exist.

“What’s ore-some? Some-ore? Stones? Is the well made of stones?” Pip squeaked.

“Where are the stone gnomes? I’ll kill every last one of them!” Blaze whipped out his crossbow and pointed it in every direction, aiming it far too high for what I assumed would be small-ish creatures.

“They are rock gnomes, Sir Blaze. Stone gnomes are entirely different,” Leo added. “And they are our friends. Stone gnomes though…” He trailed off, eyes slowly finding the ground as he shuddered. I didn’t think a two-hundred and fifty pound wall of muscle could look so terrified.

Holy shit, I couldn’t say anything in this place, could I?

“Sir Krystal, did you indeed find the well?” Sir Zantar asked in a voice that made the others instantly shut up.

“No… It’s just an expression…” I said, tired.

“Yes, well—”

“OH, I get it! I see the expression now!” Pip squeaked, interrupting Sir Zantar.

Vincent made quick work of slapping the back of Pip’s head before he turned to me, “I apologize for the misunderstanding. We are all a bit high-strung, but will proceed with the utmost caution and locate the well.”

“Awes- Superb,” I corrected at the last second. Let’s not get them started again, yeah?

I sure hoped we didn’t run into anything hostile in these woods, because these guys were kind of hopeless, weren’t they?

After much more banter and searching with Sir Zantar and Vincent getting us all back on track, we finally found… deeper forest. But now it was darker!

At first, the ground was dark and dead, but as we got further into the forest, it changed. Popping up here and there were small plants and flowers. They were too vibrant from any plant life I knew, and the colors reminded me more of the kind of poisonous mushrooms and frogs you’re told never to touch, but they were beautiful.

“Oh look, a beautiful specimen of the rare Yellow Dragon’s Breath,” Leo exclaimed excitedly, pointing to a little yellow flower as we passed by. I went along with him, interested to learn what to touch, and more importantly, what not to touch, in this strange world.

“Is it useful for anything?” I asked. It was so small that it looked more like a grain of something than a full flower.

“It explodes into a fiery mess of death if you get too close!” Leo hadn’t finished his sentence before I pulled the reigns of Prince to make sure he didn’t stomp right on it. 

Leo paid no mind and only pointed to a bigger green flower. Not the dark green of leaves, but a very vibrant lime green that was… glittering?

“Aaaah! And a Lime Glitter Bomb!” Leo yelled, turning to me for just a second before he hopped off his horse and plucked the flower right out of the ground. He pulled the root like you’d do a confetti cannon.

And out came… glitter. Who would have thought?

These names were a bit on the nose, weren’t they?

Pip made his horse spin around, trying to catch the glitter as it fell, looking like a little kid seeing snow for the first time. Blaze tried to cut it, unsuccessfully, while Sir Zantar and Vincent completely ignored it.

“AND THIS!!!” Leo seemed like he had just found the greatest treasure as he ran off in the opposite direction towards a patch of purple flowers. They seemed like something you definitely shouldn’t touch, I thought as he picked one up, “THESE are Deadly Poisonous Purple Shade.” He held them over his head like it was a trophy.

“Let me guess, they’re deadly and poisonous?” I asked dryly, not super comfortable with him holding them so close to his face.

“No? They make for the most delicious tea!” Leo shrieked in ecstasy as he started throwing a bunch of them into his bag.

Talk about a misleading name.

After that, Leo seemed to be content and went back onto his horse to continue the journey.

The collection of strange, potentially dangerous or delicious flowers got more frequent, and more colorful as we rode, and Vincent seemed convinced they’d lead us somewhere.

We followed the path of flowers until it took us into a clearing, where the trees got thinner, but the flowers took over every inch of ground.

It… was a garden. Right, smack dab in the middle of this thick forest there was a beautiful, absolutely gorgeous garden.

It stretched far and wide through the clearing that allowed the sun to shine down, with patches of all the flowers we’d seen along the ride, now separated into blocks by their colors and appearance. Pathways wove between them to allow folks to pass through. 

Leo made sure we stayed on the path and didn’t allow our horses to trample any of the plant life as we wandered into the garden. Which I was happy to oblige to, as some of them could explode on impact.

No thanks.

I’d never seen a garden so lively. Not a single plant had one imperfection. No browned leaves. No wilting petals. Nothing but perfect, flawlessness.

“Wow! This is beautiful, don’t you think, Sir Krystal, lady?” Pip cheered as he practically leaned sideways on his horse to look at the flowers more closely.

“It sure is,” I said, but in my head I was thinking how it was a bit… too beautiful. Too arranged. Nature had more flaws and randomness than this. But I was in a book, so perhaps I was thinking about it too deeply.

Then again, when bits of armor began to appear as part of the arrangement,  I started to wonder if this wasn’t natural at all. Helmets were being used as pots for small trees and shrubs, breastplates were being used for flowers. Some armor were even lying whole, with roots entangling the metal, almost like the armor was being held down by them.

Where did all this armor come from…

And where, exactly, were the people who once owned them?

All of that shot right to the back of my head once the second most glorious sight appeared in front of us.

There was a collection of smooth stones piled high into a perfect circle, with a deep hole right in the middle.

Well, well, well, look what we have here! 

A well!

“Well, this is just ore-some!” Pip squeaked, at the exact same time Vincent said, “It appears we have found a well. Let us hope it is the well.”

Leo said nothing, but stared very intensely at something a bit away from the well. I followed his gaze and noticed a rock that was around the size of Leo’s fist, so around twice the size of mine. Maybe thrice.

And there, beside it, was another one… and another one… and another. I followed the pattern with Prince all the way around the well, while the others dismounted their horses. The rocks were laying in a perfect circle around the well, all basically the same size.

This couldn’t have happened unless someone or something had handpicked and arranged them, right?

Just as I had thought that, Leo’s gaze finally seemed to change from thinking about something to having had an epiphany as he ran toward the circle of rocks.

“FRIENDS!” He bellowed, his feet stomping away and still, somehow, avoiding all the plant-life. For someone who sometimes seemed in control of his own body so little, he sure was able to avoid things when it mattered to him.

“Leo, stop this instant!” Vincent yelled in a panic and stretched out his arm, like that was going to stop the giant man. “Let them sleep!”

Sleep? Let who sleep? What the heck were they talking about?

“Don’t worry, they’re friendly as long as you’re friendly!” Leo called back, not stopping before he was right beside the nearest rock.

“Hello little buddy,” Leo said, bowing down and whispering to the rock. What the actual hell was going on here? The idiom ‘dumb as a rock’ came to mind for a second, before Leo started petting the damn thing like one would do a cat.

Okay, what the fuck?

“Good morning sleepy-heaaaad.” He continued petting it even though Vincent and Sir Zantar had made their way over to him and desperately tried pulling him off and getting him to stop. Nobody could move that mountain of a man…

“Leo, I order you to get away from that rock gnome now. DO NOT WAKE THEM!” Sir Zantar yelled in an increasingly angry tone.

Even Prince began acting up, bucking and neighing like he also wanted Leo to stop.

And then…

The rock that Leo was petting started…

...to move?