“ Aw, it's just a dumb animal.” the last words of more than one leatherhead on the Beastlands     Third Market Day of Decadre, 126 HR Morânia stepped through the portal and found herself in a dense deciduous forest. She squinted. After the darkness of the ruins of Arendur, even the subdued light seeping through the leaves here was dazzling. Warm and golden, the sunlight fell between the wide-spreading crowns of the trees onto ferns and soft moss, casting pillars of light between the trunks. There was rustling and chirping everywhere, and somewhere nearby the deep, contented sound of a large animal. A flock of small, colorfully feathered birds fluttered from one branch to the next, while a couple of deer that had been grazing nearby leaped away in fright. Morânia stopped and took a deep breath. The air smelled of damp earth, leaves and blossoms. Something inside her immediately felt lighter. This was not a place where the world had been swallowed by the sea or lay in rui...