by Andrew Lynch
‘Da one dat trains us. Captain of da Pristine Guard. Koif.’
Chapter 35: The Grove
The first person to ever kill me was coming back. With a thousand troops under his command. And a Child of Light.
Talk about ominous.
But I was a different person now. I was stronger and knew how the game worked. He had been nothing special. Just like the little girl he had stood next to… who had been a construct I couldn’t begin to fathom.
Oh dear.
Priorities. Stay focused.
‘You said you didn’t manage to hurt the Child of Light?’
‘I mean, damage was done. I wouldn’t say it cared, ya know?’
Damn. I’d been hoping the force The Eastern Empire sent wouldn’t have one. When the Emissary saw Thanis, it could have been taken by a hundred men without much trouble. Two hundred, tops. Instead they send a thousand men and an unkillable Elite. My walls weren’t going to do much against something that could burrow under them.
In my nervousness, my unchained hand began rifling through my pockets, and I began fingering the minor shadowgem that the pointy hatted Geeko had identified for me.
‘Not to worry. I’ve got a plan for that.’ “Plan” was a strong word. Theory was closer. Hunch was more accurate to the likelihood of it actually working. I also didn’t have what I needed to make it work yet.
‘I have to admit, I’m not too familiar with the fast travel system. Why haven’t they used it to get here?’ I kept the question open to either Horace or Muadshai.
‘It’s for players and NPC groups of up to twenty only, master.’ Horace looked around. ‘You see, not a single group here over twenty.’
‘Okay. But why not game the system? Just send the army through twenty at a time? If they’re coming just for Thanis, then why not ship them through in small teams. Time it right and they’d come through only a split second apart. The entire army could be here in a few seconds, right?’
‘Tulgatha ain’t stupid. It know. Also, I don’t be thinkin’ dey only coming for you.’
‘Mr. Muadshai is probably right, master. The Eastern Shadow is making a lot of enemies and meeting a lot of resistance to their rule. As mentioned, that is exactly what is pushing these refugees into Thanis.’
I nodded. It made sense, and horrible as the situation might be, I couldn’t deny that it was helping me gather troops. And better equipped troops than my minions were at this level. Now, I wasn’t looking forward to the eventual fallout of trying to house all these guys together, but that was definitely a problem for another day.
‘What about times?’ I asked Muadshai. ‘From where you were to here. How long until we can expect them?’
The sandworm’s tail began patting the ground in thought, mirroring the gourd tapping against Muadshai’s thigh. ‘Two weeks. Give or take. I’ll post my women a day out in every direction. We can give you that much notice.’
‘Worst case, we’re looking at what, twelve days with a days notice before the attack?’
‘It depend. I don’t know their troop, how fast they can march. Lot of variables. But dat sound right.’
He’d been very forthcoming, but I knew some negotiation was coming up. Might as well get it out of the way.
‘Thank you for the information. What payment do you require?’
He swigged. ‘Nothing. No one belongs for free. I paid now, and I’ll pay in da battle.’
I was starting to feel like I really got screwed by Bri and Ixly.
‘Well, please make yourself at home in the kennels, of course. And feed any information you have back to…’ I suddenly realised I hadn’t designated anyone as the ultimate authority in this. I supposed it was me, but I had other plans up until the battle. In my absence I would have preferred Ixly to take care of things. Older, wiser, and a set of abilities that let him buff those around him. ‘To Horace, here, and when he returns, Ixly. They’ll be in charge of the defences.’
We said our goodbyes, and he set to organising his women. Which, I hadn’t noticed at all, but yes, he only had female minions. Better hunters, maybe? Cultural? Who knew.
I pushed my way through the crowd, passing races I didn’t even know were in the game. The attitudes were as disparate as the people. I moved past a group of humans, all covered in bloody bandages, with wicked looking weapons. I checked their health, and they were all fine. They just liked that aesthetic. Then, to my right, were a group of pixies, channeling hard to grow a small patch of grass and mushrooms in the middle of my artfully cracked dead land.
I kept going and noticed that some of the wooden slats on my tavern had been knocked out. Repairs from use? Made sense. The line into the tavern made sense. People needed to eat and there wasn’t enough space to house everyone. But the real sign of overcrowding was the line to get out of the tavern. People just weren’t moving fast enough. I looked around until I saw a tell-tale tree in the distance that looked like a black rag had gotten caught in it. I made a diversion towards that, and sure enough, Teint was stood next to She Who Slays.
‘A lot’s changed, hey?’ I said.
They turned to me.
‘There’s no more privacy, that’s for sure,’ Teint said.
A soft shriek of agreement from She Who Slays.
‘Temporary, I assure you. After the siege… well, after the siege we’ll know who’s planning to stay.’
A solemn nod from them both told me they knew the stakes as well as myself or Horace.
‘I see you’re both unassigned. We’re having some trouble at the tavern. Creatures from many different cultures, all with a different idea of exactly what constitutes a queue. Go and whip them into some sort of orderly shape, hey? Teint, your litigious nature should help. And She Who Slays… screaming, you know?’
They both agreed and moved to their new duty.
I turned back on my path to the the grove quarter. I wasn’t looking forward to this conversation. I’d have much rather had it with Ixly. Now Ixly was the type of class act you could approach with issues and know you wouldn’t walk away feeling emasculated. Bri, on the other hand, she knew what she was talking about. No doubts about her competency. And she was cute. Like a button. And that almost made it worse, because I knew – knew – there was no way I could ask for her advice without taking a barrage of shit first.
I hopped the fence, and after a few minutes of untangling my robe from the bush I’d just fallen into and explaining to the guarding Spriggan that I owned this village, and so was allowed access, went to find Bri. Except, it occurred to me, I hadn’t really explored her grove before. I didn’t know where her Altar was, or where she normally hung out.
Thanks to her natural dislike of people in a general sense, she had set her Spriggan to a very strict guard mode when she’d heard I was letting everyone stay. This meant I could still see from one end of the grove to the other, something that was no longer possible in my own half of Thanis.
The grove was actually a small hill. From the outside edges where it connected with mine and Ixly’s land, it rose about two metres to the centre. One standard building unit, now that I thought about it. In the very centre was a huge tree, and frankly I had no idea how it had moved there overnight. This wasn’t some old and gnarled thing, no, this was young and fresh and practically glowed with life. It brimmed with small creatures, beetles and butterflies, and things that didn’t exist on earth. Parts of the trunk seemed bulbous, and where this was happening, Fawns attended them, applying salves and filling jars from the fluid that seeped. At the bottom of the tree, among the roots, was an entrance. I suspected I’d find Bri down there.
After Horace had mentioned the network of caverns underneath Bri’s grove, I decided to check them last. First I checked a second, smaller willow tree. Smaller being very relative, it was still huge. Moving through the trailing vine branches of the willow, I revealed what had to be the Spriggan hangout spot. It probably wasn’t called that, but accuracy must be sacrificed for ease on occasion.
The Spriggan here were vastly different from the ones I’d seen guarding outside. Outside, they all appeared leafless, cracked, and dead – odd, as they were literally living trees, yet they seemed more dead than inanimate trees. But in here, they were flowering and in bloom. One walked around, constantly shaking, like a dog trying to get its fur dry after the rain, except with every shake, beautiful red and white flowers littered the ground around it. Another was stomping around, chasing two smaller Spriggan. All three of them were clearly modelled after the willow I now stood under, as they had long, green leafy vines sloughing from each limb. Walking towards me was a tall Spriggan, thinner than the rest, almost looking ready to break under its own weight. Silvery white and knots of brown, it had a green mossy growth below its mouth. It was cultivating a moss beard.
It gave a low, questioning cry, and reached out a spindly limb to me, then looked around. I think it wanted to show me around.
‘I, uhh, don’t have time.’ I looked around again at the home of what I had assumed were nothing but a scary and violent race of tree-folk, and realised how wrong I had been. Never judge a people by their soldiers. ‘But one day. Do you know where Bri is?’
The corners of the old ash’s cracked mouth turned up into a smile, and he pointed to the ground. As I figured, she was in the great tree’s root tunnels.
Out of curiosity, I visited the other two buildings that Bri had built. One was a hollowed-out tree, two stories high. The other was a single story and made out of multiple thin trees that were custom grown to make the shape of a house.
The hollowed out stump had a grumpy looking Spriggan and a bewildered Fawn, bickering with each other, while attempting to sell me some wares. The walls were filled with small trinkets, glowing stones, and chunks of wood that, while I was pretty sure were just driftwood they’d picked up, the Fawn assured me were very potent artifacts. The Spriggan also assured me of this, but with a somewhat less soothing tone.
The thin tree hut was an interesting place. When I approached, the trunks remained closed to me, however when I put out a hand to touch them, they parted to avoid me. I stuck my hand through and swished it around. The trees never touched me. I stepped through, a minor leap of faith that the trees wouldn’t trap me half way through. This must have been the Fawn equivalent of the willow I’d just seen. Several of the part human, part doe beings sat on the floor. Some were braiding hair, some were– I saw a metallic blur and felt the rush of wind pass me before I managed to react. The shaft of a long, deadly spear hung over my shoulder after the tip embedded itself in the tree lattice behind me.
‘Who dares intrude?!’ A Fawn, normally ones to prance, stomped angrily toward me.
‘Akuma Severo!’ I barked to hide my panic. ‘Owner of Thanis.’
The Fawn was right in front of me now, and a good foot taller than me. Calling them half humans suddenly seemed like a cheat. Her face was angular and harsh. She had piercings of metal and wood chaining from ear to nose to cheek to eyebrow. This one's skin was a pale aqua green. Not disturbing, but definitely not human. But it was in the eyes that I could see she wasn’t human. They were large and… she blinked, a set of second eyelids covering her eyes before her human-like ones. I saw it now. The eyes were too large, but they were still inset like a humans, however the iris and pupil weren’t there. She had a bug-like grid where they should have been, yet the whites of the eyes were still present. Fucking eerie.
‘We don’t like your kind here.’ She spit out, and I hoped that her spit wasn’t acidic. She grabbed her thrown spear with a powerful, sinew-lined arm, pulling it free from the trees with a single jerk.
Part of me wanted to turn and run and never look at these creepy things again. But then another part of me refused to be pushed around in my own damn village!
‘Hey. I own this, and I can go where I please. Also, I don’t appreciate your tone. It is rather aggressive. Not to mention the spear throwing!’
‘We do not recognise any authority as set down by one of you. You have no power inside our walls.’
‘How dare…’ I trailed off as I realised that she was right. All of my abilities were greyed out. Well, that was interesting, but also a rather bad time to find out about it. Not that I had any plans to kill my own troops right before a fight, or that I even thought I could handle the dozen Fawns in here before they killed me, but still. I had expected Bri to do the emasculating, not her minions.
I heard the trees behind me part, and Bri’s appeared beside me. She placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘Stagatha, he’s with me. He’s safe.’
Stagatha’s grimace didn’t lighten when she looked at Bri. ‘He should not be here.’
‘Save your hatred for the fight to come. You’ll need it then.’
Stagatha snorted like the demi animal she was, stamped a hoof, and then turned away, spear held behind her head across her shoulders. She clearly didn’t skip back day, and I found myself suitably intimidated.
Bri grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the Fawn’s hut.
‘One of my guards told me you came in. Intuition told me you’d need a bit of guidance. The main tree is safest for guests. Come on.’
We walked through the lush green grass back onto the cobbled path leading toward the big tree.
‘So… Fawns, hey?’
She cleared her throat. ‘Yes. They can be a handful. The opening druid quest when you acquire them explains it. Needless to say, I liberated them from “masters” with questionable ethics.’
‘That would explain why she spat the word “he”.’
We passed the roots and headed down stony steps, the spiral staircase lit with glowing orbs of… nope, they moved. Then they flew around. It was lit entirely by glowing bugs.
‘They really don’t like men. Justifiably so,’ Bri admitted. ‘Also incredibly racist.’
‘You know, I got that vibe, yeah. Spriggans seemed delightful, though.’
‘No doubt.’
‘Why the opposites? I mean, I only see scary looking banshee-like screaming Spriggan, and cute, sexy Fawns walking around the village?’
‘My idea. If you expect one thing, then they’ll be more effective in a fight when they don’t do what you expect. And, I once saw a Spriggan cry for an entire two days after her favourite flower fell off her head. No one’s going to be intimidated by that.’
‘They were nice flowers. But, we’re friends, why the deception still?’
She looked at me for a second too long then shrugged. ‘You never know. Also, even if we are friends, it doesn’t mean I know your minions, or Ixly’s, or any of the travellers coming into Thanis. Safer to stick to the plan and keep me and my minions protected.’
Now it was my turn to look at her for a second too long. The blue and yellow firebugs throwing shadows around her face and neck like they were deliberately repositioning to give her the best lighting with every step. Was she just cute? Was that it? Was I just getting a crush on the first girl I’d ever really spent time with? Did I care?
‘How come your guys are so cool? Why aren’t my minions all deep and stuff.’
She smiled. ‘You’re still a long way off getting your second minion type, so that’s not an issue. And for your cultists, well, you haven’t built their signature building. You just gave them a generic dormitory for living, and a barracks to train in.’
‘Ah. I’ve been so busy, I didn’t realise they had something like that. Well, after the siege, huh? But what about Ixly? He definitely knows, so why is his place just a boring swamp?’
She tutted at me. ‘Use your eyes, Severo. Firstly, he has structures, but they’re all below ground. Some of those swampy ponds open out into full buildings. I know he’s definitely got a Geeko breeding cavern. I fell into– nevermind. And his Stagodon are probably inside…’ She made a gesture with her hand, to let me think and finish the sentence.
‘The huge white temple. That I have never been in. Right.’
‘There you go.’
After a short, slightly
descending hallway, we entered a cavern. It was a bit smaller than the Moonbeast’s den, but seemed much smaller, as we were now walking along a giant root that led directly through the middle, about one story off the ground. The root split into four direction. Three side caverns, and one leading to the ground floor where there were another three rooms.
‘You have all this down here? How? The amount we’ve walked, this definitely goes beyond the city walls.’
She shrugged. ‘It goes beyond Thanis’ borders entirely, actually. We’re underneath part of the dead wood. Just past the lumber mill, I think.’
‘You can do that?’
‘Obviously.’
That was a stupid question, fair point.
‘What’s the point of the boundary, then?’
‘Tied into the levelling and progression system. You unlock more territory as you level. As a guest in your city, I’m still bound by the letter of the law about your territory, but also allowed to extend my own area due to my higher level.’
‘So, as long as you don’t touch the ground, you can build. So underground doesn’t count?’
‘Or above ground. As long as you’re not touching it. It’s a pretty niche rule. This kind of thing doesn’t happen too often.’
We took the leftmost root, and the room we were in was, for lack of a better analogy, a coffee shop. There was a happy, bouncy Fawn behind a counter, and there were stumps and juts and knots in the wood all over the floor that made natural chairs and tables. The interior was entirely covered in wood, the bare soil of the larger cavern now covered.
‘Want anything? It’s on me.’
I peered behind the counter and carefully avoided eye contact with the Fawn. They now creeped me out a bit. I tried, somewhat less successfully, to not look anywhere else, but a passing glance was impossible to avoid. Behind the Fawn were several organic contraptions, meldings of mosses, vines, wood, and stone, forming oddly misshapen canisters and tubes.
