Interlude Two

Snud

Snud woke up in a bed aching from the bruises he got in the fight. To try and regain his rightful position as chief he had charged straight at the leading invader, and was knocked unconscious with a single blow. He got up and went to Tedru to try and get some medicine to make the pain go away.

“You have medicine? Snud hurt from battle.”

Tedru looked up and saw that it was Snud before he responded saying “Medicine limited. Mav order only use during battle. After battle have to wait for Medi or natural healing.”

“Where Medi? Snud injured valiantly attacking invaders. Deserve to go first.”

“Medi is at center of village. Healing heavily wounded defenders. He no heal you” Tedru said

Snud stomped his foot and said “Snud was chieftain! Snud go get healing.” Before wandering off towards the village center. When he got there he found Medi healing birds, so he interrupted. “Heal Snud. Birds no important.”

Medi looked up and said “I decide who to heal. You’re barely injured. Go get stabbed if you want me to heal you.”

“Why not heal Snud? Snud need to train so Snud can become chieftain again. Can’t train with pain from battle!.” Snud said

Medi ignored him and continued to heal the birds so Snud said “No ignore Snud. How Snud become Chieftain if you no heal?”

Medi looked up at Snud with a furrowed brow and said “Fine. You want to be healed? Just volunteer for the Holy tree’s experiment and I’ll heal you right now.”

When Snud heard he was going to be healed he nodded excitedly and walked towards Medi.

“Great heal Snud now. Aches no fun!”

Medi quickly finished the bird he was healing and then healed Snud’s aches. As soon as it was done he said “Now go to the Holy tree.”

Snud nodded and ran off to the gem’s island. Once he got there he said “Great Holy Tree Medi sent Snud to help. What can Snud do?”

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After a second Snud the Holy Tree’s voice appeared in Snud’s head. “You volunteered for the test? That's good. My experience working with you should help. Come sit by my trunk and prepare to accept my mana.”

As Snud walked over and got closer to the tree he realized that there were small pieces of blood and flesh scattered over the ground so he asked “What these from? Didn’t invaders go down?” before sitting down while touching the trunk.

The Holy Tree responded “That’s from defenders that couldn’t accept my mana. Make sure to try your best.”

Snud had a second to feel extremely afraid. Then the mana started to flood in. At first he just tried to not resist, but he could feel that the mana was still hurting him when he did that. He tried to think back to the first time he had contact with the Holy Tree. When he was so afraid of death that he was able to let the Holy Tree’s mana into his entire body to read his mind. After a few tries and continued motivation from the feeling of his body being torn apart, he reached that state of mind again. The Holy Tree’s mana started flowing through his body without hurting the flesh it was passing through. The intensity of the mana kept increasing more and more, until eventually Snud was entirely full. Then the mana all came together. All the mana the Holy Tree had forced into him went to his chest just under his heart and formed a small blue marble.

Snud wondered at it and felt his own body to make sure he was still alive. Then he started to feel an overwhelming exhaustion and went unconscious once more.

Mav

Mav watched as Snud was carried back to camp. Why was he still alive? Every other drybold that had volunteered for the Holy Tree’s experiment had exploded into a million pieces. Now her number one competitor for the chieftain position succeeded?

This wasn’t good at all. When the other defender’s survived the Holy Tree’s experiments they became much stronger almost instantly. If the same thing happened to Snud then she would have a serious threat to her position on her hands. She needed to prepare. She called to her assistant and said

“Bring me some red berries, some candles and a rock I can hide in the palm of my hand.”

Her assistant nodded and then scurried off. The next thing to do was to curry favor with the warriors. Once they knew about Snud going through the experiment they would probably turn on her, but many of them disliked Snud from his initial time as chieftain so it was possible they would band together against him if she played her cards right. She went to the Holy Tree and negotiated a feast with fish and honey in exchange for their recent defense of the dungeon.

The last thing she needed to do to solidify her position was to make the farmers support her. They might not be able to fight, but they were still necessary for her to have a solid base. She negotiated with the holy tree for that as well. She reminded it that its defenders were living off of the food that they were producing, and that the farmers would work harder if they were given rewards. In the end she convinced the Holy Tree to give the farmers domesticated animals of their own. She also convinced the Holy tree to try and commission some of the farming tools it had learned about from the human's memories. Now she just had to wait for Snud to wake up to see if it was enough, and well, if it wasn’t, then she would figure out another way to stay as the chieftain.