"Go back to your stone cities," Elara called out as they fled. "Tell them the Champion is awake. And she is very protective of her garden."
Elara wasn’t a knight in shining armor. She wore boiled leather cured in walnut oil and carried a staff carved from a lightning-struck rowan tree. She was the Forest Champion, though she preferred the term "Gardener with Teeth." The Forest Champion!
He swung a mechanical claw, but Elara didn't flinch. She slammed the butt of her rowan staff into the soft loam. “Listen,” she whispered. "Go back to your stone cities," Elara called
The legend of "The Forest Champion" is a tale told by the moss-covered stones and the whispering oaks of the Elderwood. It is not a title given by men, but one earned through the pulse of the earth itself. She wore boiled leather cured in walnut oil
The trouble began when the silence changed. The usual chatter of the squirrels and the rhythmic drumming of the woodpeckers stopped. In its place came the mechanical clunk-shriek of iron meeting ancient root.