by Sam Ferguson
“Oh ho boys! Wonderful to see you still alive!” He stepped away and shook each of their hands vigorously. “And Freya of The Finer Points! A fine choice of companion. Well done,” he patted Freya appreciatively on the arm before catching sight of the fairy as she alighted on Freya’s shoulder and wrung her hands excitedly. “Bathilda!” He put a hand to his chest and grew somewhat more solemn, examining her eagerly. “You are changed.”
“I feel like I have been asleep,” she nodded her head and took to the air again. “You were also asleep I think. I feel all of Terramyr waking up. The trees are sighing and the earth is stretching, stretching so far.”
“Oh my, oh my,” Zammin was overcome. He began fussing through some of the materials still in the drawers of his desk. He came up with quill, ink, and parchment and began shoving things into a sack he retrieved from the top of a bookshelf where it had been carelessly flung. “Bathilda, I can’t tell you how pleased I am to hear this.”
Brian and Mike looked at each other with a mixture of concern and excitement. “Zammin, what does that mean?” Brian caught the old scholar by the arm and raised his eyebrows insistently.
“My sisters have been watching you,” Bathilda answered for him, excitement growing in her voice. “I’ve been watching you. Your movements awaken Terramyr wherever you go. Your friend visited the queen’s shrine near our fallen kingdom, and the queen began to hear the world again. The white warrior wishes to speak with you. The queen wishes for you to join her at the Great Tree.”
“We have, like four main quest lines to complete before the Great Tree,” Mike pointed out to Brian nervously, turning away from both Zammin and Bathilda. “How are we going to get them done? Rored will probably find us before we can even get out of Fezhik. We haven’t even saved our progress.”
“You need to listen,” Bathilda grabbed Mike’s cheeks and stared straight into his eyes. The proximity and intensity of Bathilda’s young face was almost comical against the surprise of Mike’s expression. “Fairy emissary invited you to the Great Tree. Stay focused!”
Brian snorted out a short laugh. He couldn’t help himself. “Bathilda, how do we find the Great Tree?”
Bathilda smiled happily and held her hands out to her side. “Just focus.” A moment later, a flash of white light blinded Brian, and he felt a wave of vertigo overtake him just before losing a sense for whether his head was connected to the rest of his body.
21
Seeds of Hope
As Brian’s head slowly found that it could discern his hands, albeit much farther away from him than felt normal, he recognized the sound of burbling water and singing glass. The roof of his mouth felt sweet and abnormally tall, but he finally noticed that his body possessed legs and feet. At last he began to feel more solid, more proportionate, and the sound of water and singing harmonica was joined by the deep voices of men conversing. He opened his eyes and had to wonder whether he should trust what he was seeing.
Brian, Mike, Freya, and Zammin had all been transported to a grassy knoll that overlooked a wide, green valley dominated by a truly enormous tree towering over a congregation of creatures large and small. Perhaps twenty yards away was a gathering of dozens of important-looking creatures, leaders of the natural races judging by their dress. Standing out for their size were perhaps twenty minotaurs. They stood in groups of six or seven, most resting crossed hands on the handles of great axes and war hammers whose business ends sat in the green grass at their feet. Each was fully clad in leather and metal armor and sported a red dot above his or her head.
“The white warrior is there,” Bathilda pointed, but Brian failed to see what she had specifically attempted to indicate before she turned to him and laid a hand on his shoulder with a solemn look on her face. He was surprised to notice that not only had she seemed to age again, now looking to be closer to sixteen, but her clothing had morphed into something closer to a set of training armor. The only vestiges of the flowing dress which remained were a short, asymmetrical skirt that rippled beneath a silver scale jerkin, and the flowing sleeves which were now wrapped with bits of white leather.
“Answer him as honestly as you did me. He is wise and will sense deceit. He was once a guardian of the world seed.” The reverence in her eyes was unmistakable. “The leaders of the other natural races will respect his judgment of you. May you earn a favorable one.” She bowed slightly and then flew away after shooting a small wave toward Zammin. Brian watched the fairy dust sparkle in the sunlight for a moment and then looked beyond the group of fairies to take in the massive tree standing before him about fifty yards beyond the knoll. It appeared to be about thirty feet across, and it towered over the forest around them, easily reaching five hundred feet high.
“Think that’s the Great Tree she mentioned?” Mike joked.
“That thing is bigger than Hyperion,” Brian said, comparing it to the tallest known living tree in real life. He realized, gazing at the thick, strong limbs and the broad green leaves that swayed in the warm breeze, that the sound of water and music he could just make out over the sound of voices was coming from the tree.
“Yeah,” Mike replied.
Brian noticed there were lots of different races staring back at him from the gathering at the foot of the tree. Minotaurs, satyrs, gnomes, centaurs, and fairies were all assembled. “Well, should we go down and meet the others?” Brian asked.
The three descended the hill. Freya removed her helmet, and Brian made sure to leave his normal clothes on as well, hoping that would help keep things peaceful.
“These are the heroes?” one of the minotaurs snorted, bending down to stare at Brian. The thing was massive, easily ten feet tall, as wide as an ogre, and reminded Brian of the bulls with double muscle he had seen at his uncle’s ranch. The heavy hammer the warrior now held at the ready easily weighed a couple hundred pounds, judging from its dimensions. “I could squash this one with my eyes closed.”
A fairy with rose-colored hair and studded leather armor zipped up and swatted the minotaur on the nose. The beast sneezed and shook his head. “Be nice!” she scolded.
“These people fought giants?” a centaur asked. “Truly?”
“And lived... apparently,” a satyr quipped.
“Let them through,” a gruff voice called out. The group parted slowly, allowing Brian to catch a glimpse of an albino minotaur that wore a very long beard. His face was wrinkled, his back hunched a bit with age. “I am Karthee’am, elder of the Tree Watchers.”
He stepped forward, using the long shaft of his halberd as a walking staff.
“The fairies have told me many interesting things about you,” he said, pointing at Brian. “Is it true you are a member of the Morr’Tai?”
Brian shrugged. “It’s true that I was, but I am not anymore,” he said. “I fight against them now.”
Karthee’am nodded and reached up to stroke his beard. “I see.” He turned to Mike. “And you, you are a wizard, is that so?”
Mike nodded. “I am.”
Karthee’am then looked to the scholar. “You help them because you believe them to be honorable?”
“I do,” the scholar said. “I also believe they are our best hope to defeat the Morr’Tai master.”
Karthee’am grunted and then moved on to question Freya, cocking his head to the side as his big, golden eyes studied her. “And you go with them because you love this one?” He pointed at Brian again.
Freya gave a silent nod.
Brian would have blushed if his avatar had such a function.
“I have heard other accounts as well,” Karthee’am continued. He reached into a satchel at his waist and pulled up a small wooden coin. “This token was carried by Pan, heir to the kingdom of satyrs. I heard he gave his life to defend yours. Is this also true?” The minotaur’s large eyes bored right into Brian’s. This particular NPC seemed much more alive than the others back in Fezhik. In fact, he seemed as awake as Rored or Zammin was.
“It is,” Brian said.
“Pan gave his life defeating the yeti king.”
Karthee’am tugged on his beard again. “Hmmm.” His low, throaty voice rumbled as he muttered a few unintelligible words, as if mulling the situation over in his mind. “It is not easy to get any satyr to be serious for long,” Karthee’am said, glancing to a nearby satyr and offering the slimmest of smiles to the creature. “But once their loyalty is given, they are hardy and steadfast to the end.” He looked back to Brian and narrowed his eyes on him. “Curious that Pan should have found reason to give you his devotion when he withheld it from his own father when the orcs came to conquer the seat of the satyr kingdom.”
Brian wasn’t sure what to say, so he offered a faint smile and short nod.
“I heard that the group of female warriors known as Kyra’s Fangs also pledge their devotion to you, is that so?”
Brian’s smile faded as he recalled that Rhonda, Chris, and Augustin were all in limbo, waiting for him to defeat Rored once and for all. “They did,” Brian said. “Though I should mention they were harder to convince than Pan.”
“Ah,” Karthee’am said with a smile. His large nostrils flared and his left ear twitched as he leaned onto his halberd for support. “What was it they saw in you?”
Brian shrugged. “We had a common enemy,” he said. “Rored, the one known as the Morr’Tai master, wants to plunder a powerful crystal so he can bring about order to Prirodha. Only... his type of order comes with a lot of death.”
“And yours does not?” Karthee’am asked.
Brian looked back at those golden, probing eyes and thought for a moment. “I will not deny that I have killed, but I have only killed Morr’Tai assassins, Greencap traitors, bandits, and monsters that attacked me first,” Brian said. His mind flashed back to Meredith accusing him of slaying the moondust wolves needlessly, but he wasn’t about to bring that particular issue up now.
Karthee’am made a throaty rumble again and gave a slow nod. “And because these monsters looked different from you, it was lawful to kill them?”
Brian frowned. “I didn’t kill them because they looked different. I killed them because they attacked.”
“Like the raptors on the coast,” Mike said.
“Or the turquloid in the forest,” Brian said.
Karthee’am nodded and stroked his beard once more. “So, if these creatures had not attacked, you would have entirely left them alone?”
Brian thought for a moment then shrugged. “Honestly, maybe not. We came here with the intent of exploring and discovering. So I imagine we would have tried to take some of the creatures anyway, but...”
Karthee’am smiled. “You are an interesting creature yourself,” the minotaur said. “You are not from this world, you hide among assassins, and yet you tend to be honest in your speech. A very interesting creature indeed.”
Brian glanced to Mike, who only shrugged.
“What do you mean, not from this world?” Brian asked.
“Oh, come now,” the minotaur began. “We are not without intelligence, or did you think that because we have fur upon our skins we are as stupid as the fish in the sea?”
“These guys seem a lot more woken up than other NPCs,” Mike commented in a loud whisper.
“Well of course we are,” Karthee’am said with a stamp of the halberd shaft on the ground. “Terramyr herself has woken up from her slumber. As we are her children,” he swept his free arm out to indicate the other natural races around them, “she has woken us as well. We here at the Great Tree have become well aware of our plight and circumstances. We know that you were not created upon our world, but rather come and go through strange statues. We know also that this master assassin of which you speak is also a stranger to our world.”
“We have been watching you,” the rose-haired fairy said as she flew in to land upon Karthee’am’s shoulder. “We’ve been watching all of you from almost the moment you arrived.”
“There is a final battle that must take place,” Karthee’am said. “The factions will all meet in the valley below the Cliff of Ulmog, and they will fight for the right to challenge Uz’Bogrog the Green.” Karthee’am smiled and pointed to Brian. “If you fight there and slay the dragon, then what will you do with the crystal? Will you use it like Rored, to impose your kind of order upon Prirodha?”
Brian shook his head. “No, but I would use it to rid the land of Rored and save my friends,” he said. “Then after that we will leave, and Prirodha will be left to itself.”
“You mean left to Mother Terramyr?” Karthee’am asked.
Brian nodded. There was no need to tell the NPC that the entire world would reset upon defeating the game. He didn’t want to risk upsetting the creature and being ambushed by beings clearly more powerful than him and Mike. Best to let them think he would hand over the crystal after Rored was defeated. “I will ensure Rored cannot get the crystal, and then I want only to keep the crystal safe so that no one can use its powers for evil.”
Karthee’am smiled and laughed softly. “I suspect that Kyra’s Fangs allied with you because your honesty persuaded them to believe you would keep the crystal safe.”
Brian sighed. “If only it hadn’t resulted in their deaths,” he said.
Karthee’am frowned. “What do you mean?”
“After we slew the yeti king, Rored’s forces destroyed the special statue in Bielshire. Because that happened, our friends died.” Brian started to choke up.
“But the only way that could have occured,” Mike continued, “was if Rored conquered Bielshire first. The warriors there never would have given him access to the city.”
Karthee’am frowned and snorted, a bit of steam erupting from his nostrils. “So you don’t know?”
“Know what?” Mike asked.
Karthee’am stepped a bit to the side and pointed toward the Great Tree. “Your friends arrived here some time ago. They were led by the fairies, along with a great army of Kyra’s Fangs.”
“WHAT?!” Brian shouted.
“If the statue at Bielshire fell to Rored, it is only because the warriors abandoned the city in the hopes of coming here to ally with us. Together, we can stop the master assassin, and preserve peace on Prirodha.”
Brian started to rush forward, but two giant minotaurs blocked him. “Can I go see them?” Brian asked anxiously.
Karthee’am patted one of the minotaurs on the back. “Let him through. They thought their friends were dead.”
The guards stepped aside, and Brian sprinted the rest of the way to the Great Tree, then skirted around it to find a valley stretching out for several hundred yards. There was an army of a thousand or more people camped about. Fang warriors ate from bowls, played music, and practiced fighting moves. Minotaurs, satyrs, and centaurs mixed in with them, some wary of the outsiders while others accepted and seemed to mingle with them happily.
“BRIAN!” Rhonda shouted.
Brian’s eyes found Rhonda, Augustin, and Chris sitting around a small campfire. They all rushed to each other and joined in a big group hug.
“I thought you were all lost!” Brian shouted.
“The fairies came and said we couldn’t wait,” Rhonda said. “They couldn’t magically teleport so many of us, and we figured we could find you along the way.”
“A few warriors remained in Bielshire to tell you where we went,” Augustin said. “But, they must have been killed. Shortly after we left the save point went down.”
Brian nodded. “Yes, we saw that right before we tried to fast travel to catch up. We thought...”
“Where did you go?” Rhonda asked. “We found the rhiquin at the base of the mountain, but you were all gone.”
“We went to House Bob,” Mike said. “We had hoped we’d be able to save, and we thought maybe you might be there.”
“Sounds like it was a trap,” Rhonda commented quickly.
“It was,” Brian said. “But we survived.”
“Most of us,” Mike said. “Atheron died, and we killed a lot
of Morr’Tai assassins.”
Brian pointed back over his shoulder. Freya and the scholar were making their way to the group. “We found him though and brought him along.”
“Oh, this is marvelous!” the scholar shouted. “It’s a good thing I brought parchment and...”
The fairy swooped down and touched the parchment just as the scholar retrieved it from his satchel, causing it and his writing utensils to disappear.
“What did you do that for?”
“None of this gets recorded. If this goes out to the other kingdoms, we would be vulnerable.”
The scholar’s face drooped and his shoulders slumped. “But I keep the records...”
“Not of this.”
“Oh dear,” he said as he dropped to sit in the grass. He crossed his legs and placed his elbows on his knees before leaning his chin onto his fists. “All of this knowledge, lost. Lost... lost... oh my.”
“Think he’ll be all right?” Augustin asked.
“Did Karthee’am speak with you?” Rhonda asked, changing the subject.
“Just now, yes,” Brian answered.
“He has pledged to be our ally,” Rhonda said happily. “They will all fight with us at the last battle.”
“What about the other keys?” Brian asked.
“That has just been decided,” Karthee’am said as he approached from behind. Brian turned around to see the large retinue following after him. “I was eager to judge your heart. Nothing could have spoken more clearly than your troubled spirits when you thought your friends dead. My word has been accepted while you enjoyed your reunion.” Karthee’am smiled and stopped just in front of Brian. “Pan trusted you, which means the Forest Key goes to you,” Karthee’am said.
An albino satyr stepped from the middle of the crowd and offered the key to Brian. It was a green, crystalline object that resembled a data stick, or perhaps a crude dagger, more than a key.
“And I have the Desert Key,” an albino centaur said as he pranced forward a few steps, then bent low to offer a yellow crystal. Brian took it with a reverent nod.
