A Jaded Life

These people were better grateful that we had given our word not to harm them while staying here. Without that promise, I might have started a murderous rampage when things got… loud first thing in the morning. People chatting between the trees, some noticing the gingerstone house and questioning its existence in addition to incessantly tweeting birds and, for some unknown and likely unknowable reason people singing, it all combined into a deeply uncomfortable and highly disturbing din. Far too loud, especially if one wanted to sleep for a few more hours, before emerging rested and relaxed into the sweet embrace of the night.

Alas, it was not to be. People were interested in the gingerstone house, so they decided to investigate its existence. As they did, I could feel their magic and, thanks to my extra-sensory perception of minds, I could even feel their interest itself intruding upon me. There was a faint temptation to conjure something suitably annoying around the house but not outright harmful, something to make these people go away and keep them from disturbing me.

Sadly, I quickly noticed that Luna had woken up, too, and seemed to be planning to go out and meet these people, something I wasn’t too enthused about. Sure, she wanted to learn how to shape living beings from them, I could empathise, but that didn’t mean it had to be this early. And if she was out there, I couldn’t just go back to sleep, I’d want to keep an eye on her in some way, at least until I knew I could trust these people. Who knew what foolishness they’d fill my munchkin’s head with otherwise?

So, with a soft, stifled groan, I pushed myself up from my comfortable bedding, feeling my muscles groan just a little as I stretched. Creating a decent bed would be a suitable task to accomplish during the day, I was certain I’d be forced to rest inside at some point, if only to escape from the Sun.

“Breakfast first,” I told Luna, who looked like she was about to run out and meet these people head-on, right after she had dressed herself. Well, mostly dressed herself, she had managed to twist her socks something fierce, amusing me just a little.

Sadly, Luna had to wait for breakfast so I could create the actual utilities we needed to prepare food. Luckily, the gingerstone house had enough space, otherwise I might have been forced to get creative with things. As it was, I only had to morph some stone, add some Ice and carve a few simple runes to set up a fairly simple kitchen that I could readily use to turn some of our supplies into the usual breakfast fare, noticing that we might want to look for more berries and fruits, we were starting to run low. Or we might be able to trade with these people, depending on their needs and interests.

“Sit, munchkin,” I pointed Luna to the table I had raised from the stone, setting her breakfast before her. “Think Lady Hecate will be interested in this place?” I asked, curious if Luna had some indication of the deity’s interest.

“Don’t think so,” she shook her head, surprising me just a little. Compared to the Charland, this place seemed to be at least of similar interest, or so I would have thought. The way I saw it, the strange proto-elves that likely used to be humans were changing their race, their entire existence, while I still struggled with the question of where the dryads came from, we had seen two, in the middle of the night, so there most likely were more. Unless there was some fairly outlandish coincidence involved, I wasn’t about to believe that a bushel of dryads just happened to spring into existence from nothingness, nor did I believe that they all used to be Travellers and had embraced their legacy. No, they came from some other effect and I was fairly interested in the source of that effect, an interest I had thought the Lady Hecate would share. But apparently not.

“There’s nothing really arcane here, you know? Just people doing their thing, nothing special or exciting,” she elaborated with a small shrug, looking fairly unconcerned with the whole thing.

Considering her words, I could only frown and wonder what she meant by that. From the obvious signs of civilisation and intelligence, I had concluded that these people used to be human, as their looks still indicated, so might this mean that dryads were an aberrant result of Shattering and that these dryads had, in turn, used an effect similar to the symbiosis employed in the forests of Arbotoma to change the people in turn while sheltering them? If so, it might be the kindest result of the change possible, at least that with the least harm done. Sure, their homes and previous culture were completely gone but they were still alive for the most part and got to live for a long, long time if the effect was equivalent to that employed on Mundus.

But that left the ultimate source of it all, why things had turned out differently here compared to elsewhere. Why did these people get dryads, if that was what really had happened, there had to be a reason for it, unless it was a simple happenstance, a stroke of fate of some kind that made this place special.

For a moment, I closed my eyes and felt out the Astral River, noticing that there was a massive amount of Life flowing through the area. More than I would have expected, even with the forest, it was more like the power near a node in the Charland, only less localised. It was diffused in the entire area, making me, again, wonder how that had happened. Maybe the root system of the trees, I had noticed that the roots were connected in ways I hadn’t expected, so maybe that also influenced the Astral River in some way. It was possible, but the mechanism? That remained a mystery.

But, at least according to Luna, not a mystery the Lady Hecate was interested in. Maybe because it was, as contradictory as that sounded, an ordinary mystery, something mundane in the grand scheme of things. But mundane and ordinary to a Goddess didn’t mean it was mundane and ordinary to me, in fact, it might be particularly interesting to me, simply because it wasn’t of interest to Lady Hecate. That, in turn, might mean it was something I could understand by myself and use it to build my understanding of the greater and deeper mysteries of magic.

“Did she tell you anything? Or is it merely a lack of communicated interest from her that makes you think so?” I asked, thinking that maybe Luna had her usual lessons with Lady Hecate during the night.

“A bit of both, she just chuckled about the tree-dwellers, suggesting that we should get some nuts if we so desired. Apparently, their nuts are really tasty?” Luna’s voice rose in question at the end, making me wonder if Lady Hecate had made some fairly tasteless joke, considering that Luna was still a child, or if there really were some special nuts somewhere in this commune. Possibly both, which didn’t help my mood.

“We shall see,” I allowed, feeling the Astral River around us once more, “Have you considered what you want to learn first? These people are certainly great at shaping living wood but I would think doing so takes a lot of time. They might be able to use their techniques to craft items like my Frozen Shuttles, only made of wood, obviously, kept alive by your magic. A friend of mine, back on Mundus, had something like that. The weapon’s usual form was a nearly unbreakable staff but it could easily manifest a tip, turning it into a sharp spear, or use her hairs to string itself and turn into a bow, allowing her to launch magical arrows with incredible precision,” I explained, hoping that Luna would learn something more useful than building white picket fences.

“Living wood, kept permanently alive by my magic?” Luna asked, clearly intrigued by the idea. The plants she grew were always temporary constructs, only living long enough for the task at hand before shedding a few seeds that Luna could use in the future and crumbling back into dust and dirt once her Astral Power was spent.

When I nodded, I let myself drift back to memories of Adra and the way she had wielded her magic. If these dryads were using their magic in a similar fashion, it would help Luna to have some idea what was possible if she wanted to learn. Sure, Adra hadn’t been focused on magic, she had been a magical archer with a lot of skill in woodcraft and tracking, something I made sure to impress upon Luna. To drive the contrast home, I made sure to tell Luna about my encounters with the dryad Tegi and the folly she had undertaken in an attempt to make herself more powerful. Hopefully, Luna would never make that sort of foolish mistake.

Gathering power, sure, letting it consume and control you? That was just stupid.