by Iliev, Neven
Just like before, a cloaked figure they could only assume was the Sandman dropped down from above. He checked on the contents of the chest, and then handed something small to Keira, which she immediately stowed in a pouch on her belt. She then took out the beautiful mithril rapier on her waist, gave it a few demonstrative swishes and bowed to the Sandman, presumably in thanks. Leaving the chest behind, she walked back to the rest of the platoon, at which point the Wizard took them all back to base. All things said and done, the whole transaction had taken no more than ten minutes.
Once they were back at the fort, Keira immediately reported to Underwood’s stuffy office, as the man had become her direct superior at this point. Technically he was her boss’s boss, but Faehorn was still away on some assignment or another, and as such was incapable of relaying orders down the chain of command. Boxxy considered whether this timing was intentional, but it didn’t care too much since it got paid regardless.
“Ah, Decanus,” Silus greeted Keira as she entered his office. “Shall I take your speedy return as a sign that things went smoothly?”
“Yes, sir! No incidents whatsoever!” she happily saluted.
“That’s good. So, do you have the item?”
“Yeah! Uhh, should I show it to you here and now?”
“Indeed. Let’s see it.”
The beastkin reached into the pouch on her belt and brought out a small orb that was seven or eight centimeters in diameter. It was made of deep, orange amber with a high degree of transparency and a flawlessly smooth surface. A single blue flower with seven large petals was trapped inside the resin as if it were suspended in time.
“Oh my…. It’s… quite something, isn’t it?” stated the elf in admiration.
If this was truly what the Sandman had promised during their earlier communications, then the Republic had a very real chance at victory in the upcoming siege. If not, then they had been duped out of a small fortune. This was something he and his superiors judged was a worthwhile risk, despite the fact that the idea the masked man presented them with sounded outlandish and ludicrous at best. Silus personally felt like they were grasping at straws, but he still pushed his superiors to accept the Sandman’s deal. Both his job and his life were on the line, so he was rather pleased that this amber orb at least looked like the sort of precious treasure the masked man had claimed to possess.
“Yes, sir! It’s really pretty!”
Keira’s simplistic statement accompanied a blooming smile that seemed determined to outshine the item in her hands. If Underwood was a betting man, he’d put his money on the catgirl’s beautiful face winning that competition.
Wait, why am I comparing the two?!
The elf let a small frown float onto his lips, as he silently chastised himself. This was no time to admire his subordinate’s natural charm. Besides, he knew better than to try anything. Pursuing a personal relationship with her was a bad idea for so many reasons that he’d probably need a third hand to count them all.
“And how exactly do we use it?” he asked after that brief moment of self-reflection.
“Ah, that’s easy! Mister Sandman told me you just need hold onto it and say in a clear and commanding voice, ‘Mater est opus vobis.’”
“Wait, don’t just-” Silus tried to stop her, but it was too late.
*FWOOOOM*
The orb in the catgirl’s hands flashed with an intense yellow light before Underwood could stop her.
“Guh!”
“AAAAAARGH!”
The radiance temporarily blinded the elf and caused the catgirl to scream in a high-pitched wail. It took nearly twenty seconds for Underwood’s vision to begin to recover, and he could clearly hear Keira’s pained screams and panicked thrashing the whole time. It sounded like the redhead had fallen out of her seat and was rolling around on the floor in agony. That was only to be expected considering her much sharper eyesight was far more vulnerable to this sort of sensory overload.
*SLAM*
The man’s vision was still blurry and full of spots when a couple of soldiers barged into the room, no doubt to see what all the commotion was about.
“Sir! Are you alright?!” one of them asked.
“I’ll be fine!” Underwood shouted while rubbing his eyes. “Take the girl to the infirmary, quickly!”
This sort of magical flare could permanently damage someone’s eyesight, and Faehorn would have his head if he came back to find his star pupil in less-than-pristine condition.
“Sir, I believe that would be a very bad idea.”
“What are you talking about?! Get moving before- Before… Oh…”
As his eyes slowly readjusted themselves, he could make out Keira’s figure. She was curled up on the floor and holding onto her face with both hands, just as he’d expected. However, his previously impaired vision prevented him from noticing when, where, or how, but it would appear the two of them had some unexpected company.
Underwood beheld the form of a small girl, seemingly no more than nine or ten years old. She had green skin, grass-like hair, and wore nothing but a cluster of giant leaves that draped over her like a summer dress. Even though she looked so young, the two soldiers were clearly fearful of her. Both of them were a part of Keira’s escort unit and had been waiting for their own debriefing, so they very aware of just how terrifying this seemingly innocent creature could be. Silus, as their commanding officer, immediately caught on as well.
The child was a dryad, and she wasn’t the only one. At first, the elf thought his messed-up vision was playing tricks on him, but now he was certain that there were, in fact, five of them. Five identical-looking immature dryads, presumably one for each of the hylt trees that made up the cornerstones of Fort Yimin’s defensive line. Yet none of them seemed to care about or even notice any of the people in the room.
The only exception to this was the writhing catgirl on the ground. The mini-dryads huddled around her and stared at her suffering in total silence. Their identical faces sported the same expression of childlike wonder and curiosity. This went on for several seconds, until Keira’s screaming and thrashing began to abate, at which point the five crouched down to get a better look at her. When the catgirl finally opened her eyes, she was greeted with the sight of five identical green faces looking down at her with some sort of unspoken expectation.
Not sure of what to do, the redhead forced a weak smile and spoke in a quiet, quivering voice.
“Uhm… H-Hello?”
The quintet of juvenile dryads smiled in response, and spoke up in a single, unified voice.
“Mummy!”
Part Five
Keira found herself in a decidedly odd situation. She sat in a large conference room she hadn’t been in before. Five people were on the opposite end of an oval table in front of her and five more stood around her in a circle. All ten pairs of eyes were on her.
She officially knew only two of those on the opposite end of the room. They were her direct superiors—Silas Underwood and Milo Faehorn. The latter of them had returned from his assignment barely half an hour ago. Next to them was an older elf with slicked back black hair and the fanciest uniform. He was Legate Aidun, the officer that stood at the head of the Republic’s 3rd Legion. Immediately to his right was a green-haired man who was extremely lanky and thin, even by elf standards. This fellow was named Drannor and he served as the Legate’s right-hand man, advisor, and strategist. The last elf was a middle-aged woman who would look almost exactly like a younger Imiryl if not for her light, ginger hair that had been put up in a tidy ponytail. She was Prefect Vera, the high elf’s niece and the officer in charge of Fort Yimin and the surrounding area.
Even if Kiera hadn’t been formally introduced to the latter three, Boxxy still knew about them since it had talked to all of them remotely as the Sandman. The Comm-crystal it had given Underwood was actually laid out in the middle of the table should the reclusive vigilante contact them again. This was quite unlikely to happen at that time, much to t
he dismay of the elves gathered there. They urgently needed to speak with the Sandman about two pressing matters. The first was the item they had purchased from him earlier that day.
The second, and arguably more pressing issue, had to do with the five juvenile dryads that surrounded the young Decanus Morgana at the other end of the room.
“Mummy, mummy! How come you have those funny-looking leaves?” one asked while tugging on the beastkin’s feline ears.
“Mummy, how do you make saplings if you don’t have flowers?” inquired another who sat in her lap.
“Muuuum! Torenia keeps hogging all the morning sunlight!” complained a third, tugging on her right arm.
“I can’t help it if I just grew on that side of you!” the culprit in question stomped her feet indignantly.
“Nnnn…. Mummy… it itches…” whined the last one while pulling on Keira’s other arm with a pleading face.
The elven leaders shared some difficult looks as the noisy disturbance didn’t seem like it would end anytime soon.
“Well, at least we know the item worked as promised,” said Drannor the strategist, his voice oozing with sarcasm.
“This is a dream, right? Haha, yes, a dream, that’s what this is,” Vera buried her face in her palms.
“Calm yourself, Prefect,” Underwood reprimanded. “You’re being unsightly in front of our… guests.”
“What guests?!” the woman snapped. “They’ve been here far before any of us have, right?! If anyone here is a guest, it’s us!”
“Well… You’re not wrong…” Silus answered wearily.
“Primus Underwood is correct,” the Legate took charge. “This is no time to panic. We have to assess and adapt to the situation.”
Vera seemed to calm down a bit at those words, though Aidun’s slightly quivering voice showed he wasn’t completely undisturbed by this turn of events either.
“Continue your report, Primus.”
“Yes, sir,” responded Underwood with a respectful nod of his head. “So, after Decanus Morgana accidentally triggered the Authority, the dryads you now see appeared in my office. They’ve been following her around incessantly since.”
“This seems a bit wrong, though,” Faehorn chimed in.
The veteran Ranger had been made aware of the situation through Comm-crystals while he was out on his mission, so he knew the gist of what had been going on in his absence. He fully understood the circumstances after Underwood finished bringing everyone up to speed just now, not to mention seeing the dryads with his very eyes.
“What do you mean ‘wrong?’” asked Drannor. “The Authority called out the dryads and made them respect the user, just like the Sandman said it would.”
The Elder Dryad’s Authority was the name of the amber orb the elves had received from the masked vigilante. It was something that Ambrosia had personally prepared for Boxxy when she found out her new ‘tenant’ would be headed further south and might come in contact with her daughters. Strictly speaking, it was highly unlikely they would be her direct offspring, as the seeds that spawned them could have come from any hylt tree. Such details didn’t seem to matter much to her kind, however. All dryads could trace their lineage back to Azurvale’s original twelve, so each one would instantly recognize Ambrosia or one of her peers as their ‘mother’ without a second thought.
Of course, that didn’t mean they would actually meet in person. A dryad’s way of life meant it was likely impossible for them to meet others of their kind, unless they happened to grow up in close proximity to one another. However, that instinctual parental recognition was exactly why the Authority was so potent. Simply put, the amber orb was a vessel containing Ambrosia’s highly condensed mana—her essence, or ‘scent.’ This stored energy could be released in a single burst by anyone who spoke the words, ‘Mater est opus vobis,’ which loosely translated from the Divine tongue to, ‘Mother has need of you,’ while holding onto the orb. This would, in turn, summon all the dryads in the area to the orb, and they would instinctively regard the item’s bearer as a messenger from their mother and treat them favorably. Indeed, that was how the Sandman and Cyrilla first met, and the situation in that meeting room proved the masked stranger was not talking out of his ass when he explained the item’s function. Boxxy had, of course, omitted certain incriminating details and specifics, but it had otherwise been entirely truthful.
“Well,” Faehorn scratched his chin, “accidental activation aside, their behavior is a lot more extreme than ‘favorable treatment.’ They completely think of the girl as their actual mum, don’t they?”
“He has a point,” Vera weakly agreed. “And how come they’re all little kids?”
“Good question,” nodded Legate Aidun. “Well, Decanus? Anything you can tell us about all this?”
“M-m-m-me?! Why are you asking me?!” Keira responded in a shrill voice, then remembered her place. “I mean, sir.”
“If not you then, who?”
“W-well, I don’t- I can’t, uh…”
She glanced at the five immature tree spirits around her, but stopped herself from suggesting something painfully obvious and stupidly redundant. The committee had already tried questioning them directly numerous times, but the five dryads ignored them and their questions completely. It was as if Keira was the only person whose existence was worth acknowledging. They were quite arrogant for a bunch of brats, to be sure.
“Why don’t you try asking them for yourself, miss Morgana?” Faehorn suggested.
“Oh, of course! Err, how should I even call them?” she mumbled quietly while the five green children pestered her. “Ahem! Kids?”
“Yes, mummy?”
All of them stopped what they were doing and responded in total unison with the exact same innocent smile on their faces.
“W-why do you think I’m your mummy?” the redhead asked.
“You smell like our mummy. Therefore, you are mummy.”
Again their voices rang out in perfect sync, accompanied by simultaneous head nods.
“S-smell?”
“Yep! It’s the same smell as the fancy light that woke us up!”
The truth had to do with their species’ millennia-long lifecycle, which meant their kind matured incredibly slowly compared to other living creatures. They also spent the vast majority of their ‘childhood’ sleeping, blissfully unaware of the world around them. Many never even bothered to wake up, unless some grave threat or major disturbance befell their trees.
If one considered this fact, then it was extremely likely that this was the first time this bunch was actually awake. Not knowing any better, the dryads had assumed that the being bathed in that motherly essence was a mother-like existence to them. Unfortunately, Boxxy knew nothing about any of this. It would need to have a long chat with Ambrosia on the subject later, but for now it was just as befuddled as the rest of the room.
“Good enough, I suppose,” said Aidun. “Decanus, leave the room and wait outside until further notice.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
The catgirl stood up with a salute and left the room with her chattering entourage in tow. Their high-pitched voices could still be heard faintly through the thick door, but the room was significantly quieter than before. The Legate was the first one to break the newly descended almost-silence.
“So, Faehorn, in your opinion, do you think she can control those dryads?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir,” the Ranger responded honestly. “Morgana seems to have a handle on things for the moment, but control? You’d have to consult someone else, this really isn’t my area of expertise. Maybe Imiryl has some insights on this?”
“Ah, that’s going to be difficult, sir,” Underwood butted in. “She had an… unfortunate altercation with the dryad that shelters the Sandman, so she adamantly refuses to be anywhere near one of their kind, let alone five.”
“An altercation, you say? I didn’t hear anything about that.”
Silus briefly explained the details surro
unding that event, including the humiliating spanking she had received in front of the troops. This news surprised the Ranger. Taking down a powerful VIP and an entire armed and alert platoon of soldiers in a matter of seconds was quite the feat to say the least. The Sandman had, during their last communication, claimed that Cyrilla hadn’t even broken a sweat, so to speak. The stranger had used the incident as an example of just how terrifying a dryad could be to people. From there, he suggested that the elves might want to mobilize the tree spirits that lived in their precious fort, which led to him letting the Republic borrow the Elder Dryad’s Authority for a nominal fee.
“I see… So that’s what this meeting is really about,” the Ranger nodded slowly. “You’re trying to formulate a defense plan, not picking on the rookie for making a blunder?”
“As expected, you catch on quick, sir,” Underwood offered a wry smile.
The idea was rather straightforward—lure the enemy force inside the fort’s walls and use the dryads’ power to subdue them en-masse. Once immobilized, and secured, the elves could do whatever they wanted with them. Still, even if they pulled it off, there were bound to be those that escaped the trap. Faehorn’s experience told him those restraints were not as all-powerful as they would appear at first glance.
While it was true that Imiryl got taken down without being able to put up a fight, that was mostly because she was ill-suited for that sort of situation. A Wizard, however mighty, was no different from a civilian once their MP ran out. An absurdly muscle-headed existence like Hilda, on the other hand, would likely be able to rip, tear, and chop her way out of those roots and vines with brute strength. The Ranger himself was certain he could avoid being caught with his superior speed and reflexes, even if the plants took him by surprise.
In short, the defenders would have to remain vigilant even in the event that this plan worked. It was questionable how dependable this idea actually was, but it was a real chance at an actual victory the elves wouldn’t have otherwise.
