“Alright, I’ve turned a blind eye since you’ve been helping the village, but what in the infinite hells are you doing?” The elder dryad demanded, eyeing the lot of them suspiciously.

Despite the prior conflict, Ben went back to using the more cheer-filled attitude as he spoke to her. “Ah, Hentath, nice to see you. Any thoughts on letting me fix up your home a little? Maybe work on improving your enchantments?” She was his only holdout, and even if he’d already gotten his quest complete he didn’t want to leave things unfinished, especially when there was a chance her house could have some of the same issues with rot and structural damage he’d seen in the others.

She turned her nose up at the offer though, instead focusing on the boulder they brought with them. “You can’t just fly something like that through town! You might hurt someone or damage our crops!”

Well, I’m pretty sure we could have with the logs too, but she’s not wrong.

“You’re right, I’m sorry I didn’t consult you first,” He told her, bowing his head as he did.

She didn’t expect things to go that easily and seemed taken off guard. “Well good, as long as you understand then do what you need to with it out of the village.”

“I can’t do that, sorry. I made an agreement with your goddess a little while ago so I need to do as I promised.”

He heard a small gasp behind him and realized he hadn’t actually mentioned why he needed the stone to the girls, something he probably should have considered considering it involved Sachel’s former god.

Oops, well it’s probably fine.

Hentath only looked at him with more suspicion though. “You’re saying Jagal made a request of you to bring a rock into town?”

“Well to be specific, it was more like a trade with my god. I’m supposed to make a statue of her for the town since she doesn’t have any artists or craftsmen to ask, and rather than make it out of the way and risk breaking it while moving it, I figured it’s better to work on site. So is there any place in particular you would want it?”

She still didn’t seem convinced, but she led him and Thera to an empty place in the center of the village as Sachel and Ralia broke away.

Well, she probably has some complicated feelings being around her grandmother right now, no harm in her taking a little distance.

Thera placed the rock down where Hentath indicated and took a seat, with the older woman going to sit beside her.

“Um, you both planning on watching?”

“I’ve got nothing better to do,” Thera told him, not even considering checking on Sachel despite the last two weeks working together without any more issues.

“I need to be sure you’re doing as you said since I'm letting you build this in our village.”

He could only shrug. “If you guys are sure. Can’t promise how exciting it will be though. Thera, do you think you could grab me a stool while I get started?”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

With a nod she hurried off to Fontesh’s home to grab it while he got to work, marking lines to figure out where to cut away rock as he waited and reflecting on what he’d seen from that goddess as she’d posed for him. All of his minds were devoted to making the best statue he could, and as he worked he found the goddess within the stone.

Enchanting his tools to deal with the hardness of the stone he got to work on what he could, breaking away larger chunks to get to what he could, bringing the basic shape out to be seen. He didn’t know how long it had taken, he’d gotten lost to time as he worked, but as the sun began to fall and he noticed the world growing dark he put an end to the task for the day, to be continued the next.

Thera had left at some point, but the elder stayed, watching him as he worked and seeming to have grown a sense of serenity as she saw the form of her goddess slowly emerge from the stone.

As he put his tools away, ready to stop for the night she grabbed him. "Come with me."

"Sure, what do you need?"

"Just come on," She said, pulling him along with strength he wouldn't have expected for her age until they were in front of her home. "I've got some enchanted tools I wouldn't mind having improved, I assume your offer still stands?"

"Of course," he said, only smiling on the outside but cheering within.

Take that! My hard work and positivity win in the end!

He let the elder lead him around her home, moving from item to item and doing his best to complete them all.

"Oh sweet!" It felt like a bonus reward for finally getting the elder to accept his help and he couldn't be more thrilled to have it done. "Don't suppose you could point me to the nearest job change room, could you?"

"Sure, the city two days away."

"You're kidding."

"Not every small community like this can have something like that. I'm under the impression they're pretty hard to make."

Not so hard that I won't though. Hey Myriad, you listening? Walk me through it.

And I was so close to being done for the night. He sighed to himself. Oh well, who needs sleep anyway.

"Alright, unless you need any other enchantments fixed up I'm going to work on making this place a job crystal, you can't be traveling two whole days just to change your jobs."

He wished her a good night and started to head out when she stopped him.

"Hey, before you go I want to know why you were so insistent on helping out Sachel."

"What, do I need a reason?"

"Humor an old girl. You seemed pretty angry. Is it just because you’re the apostle of her new god, or have you fallen for her charms? She's pretty committed to her snake lady, I don't think you have much of a chance."

"What? No, there's no charms drawing me in, you don't have to worry about that."

"Then what got you in such a tiz about it?"

He thought about brushing it off with some non-answer but decided the truth might go a long way in making things better between them, creating some much-needed perspective on just how not serious changing her faith was.

"It's not exactly a secret but do me a favour and keep it to yourself, your granddaughter and her companions don't know. You heard about the groups that were summoned about a year and a half ago? Well I'm one of them. I just didn't like hearing you talk to her like that when she's right there wanting to help while I'd kill for the chance to see my family again."

Whatever the old woman was expecting it wasn't that, and he left her in stunned silence. With that, he promised to work on the rest of the house once the statue was complete and went off to work on creating a job crystal.