Red Wood City Part One

Today was finally the day! Iris was so excited as she bid Fern, Holly, and Fawn farewell. She'd see them the next morning, but Iris wanted to have a proper visit to the city.

As the three strongest males with the most important roles were all leaving for the day, it was necessary to assign temporary leadership. While Fern was part of Iris's family, he was too new to take the lead. Thus, Caspian appointed Quentin temporary leader and Basil gave him a few pre-made packets of herbs in case any common injuries or issues popped up. Things like heat, injuries from wild animals, etc were quite common after all.

As Iris was pregnant, even if it was still early on, her males were stressed about being overpowered in this larger city. Thus, they firmly insisted Iris wear her hooded cloak and be carried by one of them the entire time. Iris was, of course, not thrilled by this, but didn't think it was worth arguing.

As they got closer to the city, Iris found herself fascinated. The city was in woods full of tall and thick red wood trees. These trees were large enough for twenty beastmen to hug at once and taller than thirty beastmen stacked on top of each other.

The outer city wall was made up of tall logs buried in the ground with sharpened wooden spikes sticking out of the ground around the outer edge. The entrance to the city was guarded by two rather powerful and intimidating looking guards of at least the sixth level. Iris gulped nervously as they drew closer.

Ember took the lead as the only qualified male in their group as he addressed the guards

"Hello! This is our female and we three are her mates. As you can see, I am level five while these two are level four. We are prepared to pay the fee for entry, if this is acceptable?"

One of the guards nodded at Iris as they demanded

"We will need the female to lower her hood so we can confirm."

Ember gave an easy smile as he replied

"No problem."

Caspian who was carrying Iris lowered her hood long enough for the guard to see her face. Seeing as she was a complete female and, in fact, an actual female, the guards nodded to confirm and accepted the payment for entry.

During the short time that Iris's face had been exposed, unbeknownst to Iris or her family, another caught a glimpse of her. This stranger was a tall level six male of great importance in the city who had stepped out to hunt. This male's name was Ash and he was the third prince of Red Wood City.

Ash noticed Iris's tribe while out and informed the guards

"That group has a tribe they are traveling through the area with. Doesn't appear to be wild beasts, but you should still increase security around the perimeter for the next few days."

Ash was quite taken with Iris's beauty and was quite curious what they were doing near his city. Thus, he quietly observed them as they wandered around the city.

Iris found the city buildings quite interesting. They were actually built inside the trees! The trees closest to the outer gate had shops while the ones further out had homes. Further into the city, there was another wall separating the inner city from the outer city.

The shops had the first level carved out with a window with a counter in front and a door to one side. Iris could only guess at what was above, but thought it was likely either additional storage or living quarters as stairs were carved out of the wall leading up.

Additionally in the business district were several inns, an auction house, and a combat arena. The auction house and combat arena were built without roofs as open stadium-like buildings made of logs. The outer edge was made of logs half as tall as the trees and sunken into the ground with several logs shoved together. Iris had no way of knowing the interior without going inside, but wanted to save that for later.

As per usual, Iris wanted to look at food stalls first. Iris loved seeing all the different foods foraged, hunted, and grown in the different biomes throughout the beast world. Besides, even if they were on their last leg of their journey, more food was always good.

Hazelnuts, huckleberries, black raspberries, thimble berries, and woodland strawberries were all available for sale. The hazelnuts could be stored easily long term and would be delicious roasted. Huckleberries and black raspberries could be found both fresh and dried.

Thimble berries were good fresh or dried. The shoots could be peeled and eaten as a vegetable or used as tea. Meanwhile, the leaves could be dried and powdered to use on burns to prevent scarring. When Basil saw the herb that was unavailable near where they previously lived, he immediately wanted to buy a good chunk of the stock available.

Woodland strawberries were also another great find as both the berries and leaves work as a natural bleach. It's great for whitening tooth enamel and preventing tartar buildup. Iris definitely wanted as much of this as possible as she hoped to create a toothpaste with Basil's help later on.

Additionally, the roots are good for digestive health. While the leaves and their juice are good for antibacterial salves. Basil was quite happy to get the chance to purchase many good herbs for the tribe.

As forests are an abundant source of resources and this was a large beast city, Iris easily spent fifty crystals purchasing many of these herbs and plants. Ash found it quite curious that Iris's family was able to afford to spend so much money in one go.

This wasn't even to mention their odd behavior as they rented an inn room to drop items off and left the items unattended when they went back out. Using his authority, Ash easily went to their room to look at what they could possibly be doing to protect their items. Only, he found there was nothing in the room when he entered it. Confused, Ash could only continue to follow behind them, careful to not be caught watching them.

Iris was quite disappointed by the inn room. The bed was literally just a large chunk of wood that was smoothed to prevent splinters. There was still no other furniture at all, even despite being such a large and prestigious beast city.