A Jaded Life

Sneaking out at night shouldn’t be necessary and yet, moving through the darkness of the forest felt so much better than it had been while accompanying Luna during the day. The night was, quite frankly, more comfortable and relaxing, not only due to the darkness but also thanks to the lower temperature. Sure, the days had been getting colder as September had rolled around, bringing with it enough rain to drown a fish, and I had traits that made me more comfortable regardless of temperature but the fact remained, I was a creature of Ice, of the Cold and Darkness. Heat and Sun simply didn’t sit well with me, and the Divine Curse I was suffering under only exacerbated that.

In this case, the lack of scrutiny from both proto-elves and dryads only made me more comfortable, especially as I was planning to get a look at Mima’s tree. I wanted to know if my previous perception was correct, that she had something to do with World Tree, or a similarly grande structure, though I wasn’t sure what it might mean in the long run.

If she was bound to the World Tree, or maybe born from it, as the tree came into existence, the implications were quite fascinating. She had claimed that I would eventually destroy her tree and she had named me Dragon, two statements that, if true, had some rather large implications. One might even call them massive or world-shattering, especially the latter, but only if they actually held true.

Thinking back about the myths surrounding Yggdrasil, the Norse World Tree and the place of the dragon, of Nidhögg, in those myths, the implications painted a fascinating picture, one that essentially equated me to Nidhögg and his gnawing on the roots of the World Tree. What’s more, the implication gained some supporting evidence when looking at some of the notifications I had received, those that labelled the dragon whose touch was influencing me as my Elder Brother and claimed that my body was changing, the implication being that I was turning into an actual Dragon.

Or something along those lines, who knew what the system classified as ‘Dragon’ and how the changes to my body would occur? Did ‘Dragon’ only refer to the medieval, European idea of a dragon, a large, scaled reptile, often winged and capable of breathing fire or was the term more inclusive? Asia had its own idea of dragons, long, sinuous creatures capable of manipulating water or the weather to a degree, sometimes wise and noble advisors, other times greedy monsters. Even in the Americas, there was the idea of the Quetzalcoatl, the feathered Serpent, granted, it was worshipped as a deity but a feathered, possibly winged, Serpent able to soar through the sky certainly worked as ‘dragon’. And then there was yet another myth, a lot more recent but somehow even more poignant, talking about Dracula, the Son of the Dragon or the Son of Evil, depending on the way you translated the name, who could easily be considered the most famous Vampire. Those were only the images and ideas associated with the concept of the ‘dragon’ that I could remember off the top of my head and depending on how far one was willing to stretch the concept, there were countless more. So many ways to interpret that simple, single word and so little certainty of what it would mean for me in the future.

Hopefully, I wouldn’t get trapped in an egg or cocoon or something along those lines, that sounded rather unpleasant as things went. But, if nothing else, getting wings would be awesome and scales wouldn’t be too bad, either. Or so I hoped, having feathers had been a little weird while on Mundus, so scales shouldn’t be too much of a difference, right? Wasn’t there something about dinosaurs having feathers and scales, just like that feathered Serpent? So, maybe I’d get feathers, scales, teeth, claws and a little bit of everything?

But before I could drive myself mad with the possibilities, I should focus on the task at hand, namely to investigate Mima’s tree and find out if it truly is the World Tree or some sort of precursor to it. A fairly simple task, now that I could relax and follow the draw within the Astral River to find the most potent source of Nature Magic in the area. Luckily, the way trees rooted in the ground rooted them into the Astral River, too, gave them a direct connection that was a lot easier to detect than the floating, flowing connection of an animal.

Soon, I reached a wide-open clearing, far too perfect and open for me to consider it naturally occurring. Even from the ground, the area appeared to be completely round, with a single tree in the middle, the tree comparatively small but radiating undeniable power. Not enough to make me feel threatened but given that it should be a tree, just the sensation of a being that had crossed over the first Divide was surprising. It wasn’t like the tree could go out there and bash Undead or Shattered, nor could a tree easily teach people magic. Well, maybe this tree actually could do either of those things, but the tree had a fairly peaceful feeling to it, completely unlike the few actively dangerous trees I had seen on Mundus.

No, this tree was far more like the giant trees in the forests of Arbotoma than the few dangerous trees I had seen. Still, the similarities weren’t enough to prove that I was looking at a sapling that would eventually grow into the World Tree, but they were yet another mark that pushed the possibility into the realm of probability.

Closing my eyes for a moment, I stretched my other senses, looking for any trace of magic in the area, only to realise that I would have to take a lot of time to parse everything here, as there was a lot of magic around. Nature and Life were the most obvious but there were traces of almost all the elements in the air around me, wafting out from the clearing. Most of it didn’t feel as if it had a purpose to it, simply emanating from the tree but I couldn’t be confident that it was true for all of the magic. The sheer volume made it difficult to detect possible detection wards so I had to be careful.

Without ever stepping out from the trees, I slowly parsed the magic, using both my Magical Sight as well as my sense of taste and smell, taking note of the various things I could detect. It was quite fascinating, the more I untangled the mixture of magic, the more I realised that it wasn’t, as I had first assumed, a case of the tree simply pumping Astral Powet through itself, releasing the wild magic back out with just a little Life and Nature added for flavour but that the tree seemed to only release Nature Magic but the Nature Magic was, for lack of a better word, unravelling into different elements. It was fascinating and so very different from the way I had been understanding and conceptualising magic that I doubted what I was perceiving.

But, I had managed to twist together Air and Fire, getting Lightning, just like I had managed to discover Crystal Magic by twisting together two elements. So, why couldn’t it be possible that Nature Magic was somehow composed of all the elements I could feel, all of them and maybe even more? Everything could be considered part of Nature, depending on how far one wanted to stretch its concept. Well, maybe not the system itself, at least to my sensibilities that was artificially created. But even something like the Gods could be considered ‘naturally occurring’, as amusing as that idea sounded, so why shouldn’t Nature Magic encompass the Divine in some way?

Shaking my head, I focused back on the magic around me, detecting a few fairly detection wards but nothing too exotic. Granted, the wards weren’t exotic but they didn’t need to be, they were woven into the soft, far-too-perfect lawn around the tree, meaning anyone walking on the grass would be discovered. And with the almost two-hundred metres radius of the clearing, very few beings would be able to reach the tree without touching the grass.

Luckily, I was one of those few, thanks to my trusty cloak, but given that there obviously were defences, I wasn’t about to blindly bumble forward. Instead, I once again focused inward, trying to get a read of the tree, now that I was closer. It wouldn’t be as revealing as a direct, close observation would be, but I was fairly confident that I could keep myself hidden as I did.

It didn’t take long and soon, I was back on my feet, moving away from the clearing. Through the Astral River, the tree felt even more like the forest in Arbotoma, to the point that I, for a brief moment, had a flashback to the destruction of their tree and my subsequent death.

Still, not concrete evidence that this was a World Tree Sapling but by now, I was confident beyond a reasonable doubt. Which left the question of what I was to do about it.