"They're sort of spirits? Maybe they aren't animals. They small and curious and get everywhere and then talk about it. There's some in Okhema you can meet. They probably find wilderness boring."

Ah, a translation mistake. "Then they may be kin to ours. Our nymphs do love nature but there isn't much of it left here." 'Probably boring' could be a real difference or it could be a city-dweller speculating about something not seen on this world for a thousand years.

That reminds her to check what the trees told her. "How long ago did this 'black tide' start? And how does the lighting work in this world, is there no sun?" The giant orb became brighter as they journeyed towards it but stayed about the same while they rested, so it doesn't seem to have a night-day cycle of its own. She hopes it isn't as bright as a sun up close.

"What other races still live here? And how do you all feed yourself with no animals left?"

"The black tide's first signs appeared about three thousand years ago, around the same time the Titans of Calamity - Strife, Death and Trickery - awoke. Though it was only a thousand years later that it started destroyed city-states."

"There used to be a sun, Aquila, the Titan of the Sky, would open and close their eyes to bring day and night to the world. People of Castrum Kremnos - the city of Nikador - went to war with the skyfolk, and the war has blinded Aquila, plunging the world into the eternal night."

"There's many titankin of different sorts, there's Mountain-Dwellers, the white dryads of Cerces, the winged beasts of Aquila, and so on."