I fly beside them moments after.
"What's the hold up?"
"What's the hold up?"
The other wolves take off running. They become ghostly specters as they shoot off into the darkness, quickly fading from sight.
"I will even stop the man's horse. Or it'll stop itself because he's going to kill it. Stay safe, and call when there's trouble." White sighs and takes off like a bolt of lightning, dirt being kicked up behind them.
We continued at a much slower pace. Eventually, we found ourselves at the edge of the forest, a full moon high in the sky. The square, pale face shone a silvery light on the Overworld, giving us just enough light to see what was before us. We all dismounted and approached the disasterous scene. Herder placed a fence post into the ground and tied all the horses to it so that they would not wander off. I cast the lanky boy a smile, then scanned the surroundings looking for Butch's horse; it was nowhere to be seen.
I stared at the devestated biome in shock. As before, many trees lay on their side, their scorched remains an ashen gray. They were nearly all composed of ash, just barely holding their original long, rectangular forms together. They reminded me of long gravestones, marking the burial place of the once-proud forest. But the most eerie thing was the silence. Not a single animal made a sound: no moos, no bleats, no clucks. It felt as if I had something in my ears, blocking out the always-present sounds of the Overworld. There was nothing left alive. All the animals had either run away or perished. (i don't mean the wolves.)
As I moved into the carnage, I thought maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. There was no color to be seen other than black and gray. Charred wood and ash covered the ground, giving the appearance that everything was in black-and-white, like on my Grandma GG's old TV.
Stepping up to one of the fallen trees, I could see a boot print in the side of the characoal trunk; Butch had been here.
"He was here," I whispered. The silence made me want to be quiet for some reason. "Where do you think he went?"
"Who knows?" Digger replies.
"Who cares?" Hunter adds.
Stitcher punches her sister in the arm. "Hunter, be nice," Stitcher chides. The older sister just smiled.
"Herder, are your wolves still with him?" Crafter asked.
"Of course," the young NPC replied with pride. "They will stay and protect Butch until..." He didn't finish the sentence, but we all knew what he meant: until death.
"Call to them," Crafter said.
Herder put his rectangular fingers to his mouth and whistled. The shrill sound cut through the silence like a razor-sharp sword. Instantly, barking could be heard off to the left. We ran in that direction, our hurried steps causing clouds of ash to rise up off the ground, hiding our feet and the ground from view.
The ground crunched under our boots as if it were fragile sheets of the finest crystal. Shards of reddish-brown glass flew in all directions, bouncing off our armor and adding to the dust and debris.
As I ran, I noticed the reddish hue to the sharbs and recognized it, but I couldn't remember where I'd seen it before. Putting aside the thought for a moment, I focused on following Stitcher as the young girl blazed a path through the devastated landscape.
Soon, we saw a group of low, white shapes materializing out of the gloom. As they neared, a taller figure began to emerge amidst the ghostly forms: it was Butch, surrounded by wolves.
"How could this happen?" Butch said. "This forest is completely destroyed."
"We can see that," Hunter replied.
"But look at the ground," he said.
"We can see that," Hunter replied.
"But look at the ground," he said.
I pused the piles of ash aside and saw that all of the ground had been fused into a dirty, reddish-brown glass. Moving farther into the devastation, I saw it had all been turned into glass...every last block of dirt. Whoever had done this had not only destroyed the trees and all the life within the forest, but they'd also destroyed the land itself so that it would never again support life.