Hans needed to write this down. At his request, Becky and Olza joined him in the guild hall. When they entered, Olza quietly caught Hans’ attention and widened her eyes.

I feel the same way, Olza. The exact same.

“I have 1,000 questions,” Hans said, refiling his tea after pouring a fresh stein of beer for Becky, “but I need to say that, as a rule, I’m against deals like this.” In his mind, he heard Devon screaming, writhing on the floor of the Hoseki training hall after breaking his Paladin oath. “I’ll hear you out, though.”

Becky explained that the Lady of the Forest wanted to revive a species that had been lost to time but used to be native to Gomi and the Dead End Mountains. The creature was a bird called a “zout,” but Becky had never heard of it before now, nor had Hans or Olza. Since the Lady of the Forest could not create life, she wanted Gomi to use its dungeon core on her behalf.

The Lady’s offer was compelling, Hans had to admit. Several days’ advance notice of an enemy coming for Gomi was an incredible tactical advantage, and it was an advantage no enemy would ever expect or account for. That was an attractive offer, an offer so good that not pursuing it felt wrong on a moral level, like walking by an injured traveler on the road, ignoring their pleas for help.

Now I see why people make deals with the fae.

“Why does she want us to do this?” Olza asked.

In his focus on making a deal with a magical being, Hans had neglected to pose such an obvious yet important question. “Yeah,” he added. “Why?”

“I swore I wouldn’t say more than I already did,” Becky said, sincerely apologetic. “I told her you were the cautious type. She said she’d answer any questions you had herself. We’ll meet her on the way to the cabin.”

“When?”

“First thing.”

Hans sighed. “I’m sorry, Becky. I can’t. I need to be here for the next caravan.”

“It’s urgent, boss. We can be quick.”

A soft desperation gleamed in Becky’s eyes. This was important to her. She had always done as he asked no matter how big the request, and she trusted in his judgment even when her life was in danger. Were it not for Becky, squonks would have killed him and much of Gomi long before any outsider could notice something had gone wrong in the remote mountain town. And she had never acted as if that entitled her to special treatment.

“Let’s be quick, then,” Hans said.

Quest Update: Help Becky by considering a deal with the Lady of the Forest.

***

The Becks and Buru led Hans along the trail to the cabin. At roughly an hour before noon, they turned sharply and began traveling through the forest. Though the Druids moved with complete certainty, there was no path that Hans could see.

Like the Becks, Buru didn’t leave a trail, disturbing nary a leaf as his hulking figure passed quietly between trees and over trickling creaks. The Guild Master, meanwhile, became increasingly aware of how heavy his footfalls were by comparison, and how much of a trail he left behind even when he tried his hardest not to.

New Quest: Ask Becky if non-Druids can learn silent walking and snow walking.

On any other journey, Hans would have asked Becky right away, but he picked up on a sense of reverence in the way the Druids behaved when they left the trail. The change was subtle, but it had the feeling of moving through a noble family’s home.

Keep your voices down. Don’t touch anything. Speak when spoken to.

As the sun centered itself overhead, the party came upon a tree that was larger than any of the old growth Hans had seen around Gomi. He had already found Gomi’s oldest trees to be humbling. Now, standing next to a tree as wide as the guild hall gave him the same feeling he had in museums. Like seeing a stone tablet carved by a forgotten civilization, that single tree represented centuries of history, perhaps more. And this tree made Gomi’s other old growth look like saplings.

How have I never noticed this tree?

They were off the trail, sure, but a tree of this size was like a mother hen holding her wings open to shade her chicks. It would be hard to miss.

Rising like a wizard tower, that feeling of awe strengthened as Hans followed the Druids to the nearest side of the colossal tree. Becky gestured for Buru to go ahead of her. The tusk put an open palm against the tree and closed his eyes.

Less than a minute later, Buru opened his eyes and said, “She is ready to see us.”

Before Hans could ask him to elaborate, the Apprentice Druid walked around the tree, going out of sight for a moment with the Becks following shortly behind. The Guild Master half-jogged to catch up.

When he had first approached the tree, the land beyond it was more forest, dense with hardy mountain trees and littered with rocks. Now, moving around to the other side of the massive tree, he saw a small clearing lit by golden sunlight. A small cabin sat at the far end, a design similar to the structure Becky built for Hans in the early days of investigating the Polza patch.

Becki grazed on the grass while her master moved to sit on a round log. Next to Becky, a feminine figure watched a flower sprout from her palm, her body like a sculpture of found materials in nature. Vines, leaves, bark, soil, and pebbles linked with another to define her shape. When she turned, she revealed an arm formed from bones of all sizes. Some were bleached from ages in the sun while others still had tufts of fur at the end, like scavengers had only just recently stripped the meat away.

Hans thought he saw the clover forming her lower jaw bend into a smile, but he wasn’t sure.

Buru inclined his head respectfully to the dwarf and then to the woman before sitting cross-legged in the grass. It was as if the four of them were finding a place around a campfire.

“It’s rude to stare,” Becky said. “This is the Lady of the Forest.”

Still unsure of what that meant exactly, he mirrored the respect the Druids had shown the plant creature. He guessed that she was some form of dryad or nymph, but he had never met one in person. The accounts he had read of adventurers interacting with such beings were a few generations old. He couldn’t recall hearing of a dryad encounter happening in his lifetime.

When the plant creature spoke, her voice sounded as if it arrived with the wind instead of originating from her mouth, giving every syllable an ethereal quality that was both whispered directly into his ear and echoed from a distant, unseen mountainside. “Well met, adventurer,” she said. “My friends tell me you can help my forest.”

By friends, he assumed she meant Becky and Buru. Not subjects. Not acolytes. Friends. Though Hans had heard several people cover the word “friend” with manipulative slime, the Lady seemed sincere. Or was she just that good at disguising her intentions?

“My sisters and I are few, one for each forest in the world,” the Lady continued. “I tend this forest and have done so from the very first tree. Ah, your face already bears the human qualities of confusion. You may ask your questions as you need.”

“What does it mean to ‘tend’ the forest? Like you keep order?”

Her shaking head sounded like rustling leaves. “The idea of order is newer than you realize, and order is not the way of nature. The wilderness thrives on chaos. What you see as cruel, like a wolf eating a fawn or an old bear falling to the ambition of his sons, is not good or bad. It simply is.”

Hans felt like he understood, but her answer still seemed vague and indirect. “How do you ‘tend’ chaos?”

“I am told your rulers often keep gardens, fields of flowers and trees carefully selected and cared for by scores of gardeners. Despite the apparent order of their planting, they still live in chaos. They can’t control the sun or the rains. They depend on bees to visit and move among their blossoms. Birds nest in their trees, and rabbits forage the garden for food. I don’t own my garden. I don’t create its inhabitants from my will. I see the beauty of chaos where your people cannot.”

Wanting to choose his words carefully in the presence of the Lady, he opted to simply nod to indicate his understanding.

“One of my sisters has fallen,” the Lady continued, “and these Druids have graciously offered to see to it that the same does not happen here in our forest.”

“Fallen how?”

“I can’t say why a star stops shining. I can only see that it has gone dark.” The Lady gestured for Becky to take over.

“I’m guessing the war did it,” Becky said. “Our Lady wants to preserve her domain to keep the same from happening here.”

“War isn’t chaos?”

Leaves rustled again. “A seed riding the fur of a bear to grow wherever it falls is chaos,” the Lady said. “A forest cut to nothing and its earth salted so that it may never be a forest again is simple cruelty. The end of life. There cannot be chaos without life.”

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“I think I understand,” Hans said, hesitantly. He recalled hearing that the orc army was razing whole fields and forests. “What are you asking me to do?”

“There’s this bird called the zout,” Becky said. “Acts like a normal bird, but when it lays its eggs, it plants itself in the ground. The Lady says zouts would absorb the salt.”

“Right, but it's extinct.”

The Lady nodded. “You can change that, Guild Master.”

“Uhh… I’m not the forest goddess here.”

Her laughter sounded like hummingbird wings and chickadee chirps. “I’m no goddess. A gardener helps their garden thrive, but they cannot create the flowers.”

“But a dungeon core could.” Hans said simply.

“Seems like the kind of deal that you’d get all excited about,” Becky added. “We help the forest, and we help Gomi. It’s a good trade.”

A permanent watch around the entire forest border is a good trade.

The biggest problem–out of several–Hans could see was that he had never seen or heard of a zout, which meant he had no idea what he was actually resurrecting. A conniving being, the kind who reveled in the suffering of others, might want to trick him into introducing an ancient horror to the present world. All they knew about the zout came from the Lady, and she could easily omit that the bird also fed exclusively on infants and sweet old grandmothers.

Furthermore, he wasn’t sure he could imagine the zout the way he imagined an imp or a camahueto. If that mattered, his suggestion to the dungeon core could fail because, until now, everything the dungeon grew came from one of Hans’ vivid memories. He shared that concern with Becky, the Lady, and Buru. He had nearly forgotten that Buru was there as the Apprentice Druid hadn’t moved since he first sat in the grass.

The Lady told Hans to be still, which made him want to do anything but. Becky promised he was not in danger.

A set of thin vines extended from the Lady’s feet and climbed Hans, wrapping his face with the gentleness of a mother comforting a child. His vision flashed white, and the sensation of falling into a river of fresh snow melt washed over his body. From the white, a vision of a bird a little smaller than a chicken emerged. It had emerald feathers and a line of white dapples starting at its pointed beak, running up its head and down its back like drops of paint.

The vision formed in his mind like a memory. His brain told him it was familiar, that he had seen this bird with his own eyes, lingering somewhere between the near-reality of a dream and the complete fiction of imagination.

The cold came again and so did the white.

Next, he saw what resembled an exceptionally slender earth element with thick roots woven through its body. He felt himself reach for his sword, but nothing changed in the vision. The monster continued lumbering toward him.

When Hans opened his eyes, the Lady’s vines retreated down his body, disappearing within her form a moment later.

Before a string of curses could escape Hans’ lips, as the experience had been jarring, the Lady spoke. “Now you have seen a zout. I saw that you will never swear an oath on my behalf, so in exchange, I have given you something you desire. Repay that kindness by keeping my confidence as the Druids do.”

When he opened his mouth to ask a question–well, a great many questions–the forest around him changed. It didn’t transform or fade or even noticeably shift. It was like he had fallen asleep on a wagon and woken up somewhere completely new, two distant places separated by one immeasurably small blink.

The cabin and field were gone, replaced by the forest he saw before Buru touched the tree. Becki stood near him, chewing a mouthful of green grass. The boar seemed to swallow it with sadness. With the Lady of the Forest gone, so was her snack. In front of Hans, where the lady once stood, he saw a scattering of leaves, vines, sticks, and bones.

Quest Update: Grow zouts to complete the deal with the Lady of the Forest.

“Becky,” Hans said flatly. “Explain.”

Only then did it occur to him that the forest spirit may still be able to hear him, but that was less important than his curiosity. They had the whole walk to the cabin to sort through the hundreds of questions racing through his mind.

“How long have you known about the Lady of the Forest?”

“Since I was a kid,” Becky answered. “I don’t know how much I can tell you. The Lady swears us to secrecy.”

“Us?”

“Druids. Like me and Buru.”

The Apprentice spoke softly from the back of the line. “Only Druids are permitted to meet the Lady of the Forest.”

“Well cover me in ear wax,” Becky laughed. “I guess that makes you an honorary Druid, Hans.”

Nooooooo.

Stammering, Hans changed the subject. “What do you do for her?”

“With. Aint ever been for. But recently it’s been the mountains and borders. She can’t see there.”

With more prodding, Becky explained that the Lady of the Forest asked for the Druid’s perspective as much as she asked for her to visit places she couldn’t see. Those places were usually at the borders of the forest, where the Lady’s reach ended and another spirit’s began. Becky would report on their health and pass messages between the two. Sometimes, the message had passed through eleven or more dryads before reaching Gomi. In return, the Lady taught Becky spells and informed her of peculiarities. For example, the Lady sent Becky to the Polza patch originally. She may have never found the little purple flowers otherwise.

“Does us building out here bother the Lady?” Hans asked. “We’ve chopped down a lot of trees already.”

Becky shrugged. “Birds build nests. Beavers build dams.”

“True. Sorry for all the questions, but I’ve been thinking about Druid magic a lot actually,” Hans said, remembering one of his quests. “Can someone like me learn to walk on snow or not leave a trail? A non-Druid I mean.”

“But Mr. Hans,” Buru began, speaking with no hint of humor, “you are a Druid.”

“We’ll come back to that later.” Or never. “Could I learn it or no?”

Becky looked over her shoulder and said, “Absolutely. The Lady can grant it to anyone I bet.”

Hans knew what that meant. The Lady of the Forest would ask for a quest or a favor or an offering. If he passed that test, he could learn the ability.

Was it worth it? That would need more thought.

Quest Update: Decide whether or not to pursue silent walking and snow walking.

***

Chisel, Yotuli, Honronk, Bel, and Lee were at the cabin with the new Apprentices, Kane and Quentin. Terry, Sven, and Tandis would rotate in for the next shift. Though the Apprentice Black Mage would have to work two rotations in a row, as he was officially in a party with Terry and Sven, he wanted to catch up on his magery studies.

Becky and Buru agreed to wait for their arrival on the surface. Buru was joining the next shift anyway, and he hadn’t trained with Becky in person for some time, though she insisted the Apprentice Druid progressed just fine.

For now, Hans struggled to explain why dungeon runs would now include capturing a bird–unharmed–and delivering it to the surface.

“Are we doing bird drills then?” Yotuli asked.

“For what?” Hans asked in return.

“So we learn how to catch the zout bird or whatever?”

“Oh, I have no idea how to do that.”

Yotuli hoped that was a joke, but it wasn’t.

Hans opted to not grow the odd earth elemental he saw in his vision. He wanted to, that could not be denied, but he knew better than to take on a new monster without research.

New Quest: Research the root-covered earth elemental.

In happier news, the dungeon core did as it was asked on two accounts. On the first front, it grew a zout. Just one. It appeared in the room with the imps, who oddly had no interest in or aggression toward the mini green chicken with the long beak. Because of that disinterest, the zout had plenty of cover to escape the room before the imps were defeated. Though the bird ran and didn’t fly, it could jump and glide, making it surprisingly nimble.

The adventurers, with Hans leading the way, chased the zout around the dungeon for the next three hours.

After the first half hour, Hans announced it was more strategically sound for him to watch the hallway to the surface than to chase the zout. Bel and Lee arrived at a similar conclusion not long after and guarded the other end of the hallway, lest the zout interfere with the dungeon core.

That left the Apprentices running back and forth, their backs hunched and their arms outstretched. They tried several methods to corner and restrain the bird, but it was quick to scurry through the smallest of openings. Eventually, Yotuli hid around a corner and dove at it headfirst. The Apprentice Ranger refused to open her arms until they were in a closed room, preferring to carry the bird up through the Bone Goblins rather than risk having to run it away again. That meant standing back away from every encounter leading up to the surface.

Fortunately, they had plenty of adventurers to manage running the Bone Goblins backward, a slightly easier series of encounters as they were guaranteed the element of surprise in nearly every battle. Hans was proud to see Kane and Quentin held their own. Though they weren’t first into the boss room, they were the lead on a few of the goblin skirmishes. They moved like adventurers, and they stuck to their training.

As the party walked down the final hall, toward the ladder to the surface, Chisel asked, “We’re doing this every time?”

Hans nodded.

“Adventuring is an odd gig.”

“Well Chisel,” Hans said, “it will probably get weirder.”

Bel and Lee agreed.

“One time, we took a job hunting titan eels,” Bel began, pausing to give Lee time to finish her groan. “This chef wanted them alive, and those guys are as long as we are tall.”

“Like wrestling giant demon sausages,” Lee added.

Bel described the semiraw dish the chef made from the eels, and how he warned them not to take too long to finish their plates. If the meat sat for more than an hour after death, it turned deadly poisonous. Bel and Lee passed on trying a dish.

Yotuli was halfway through a rant about the eating habits of nobles when she remarked, “Are we going uphill?” They were and had been for some time. Soon, the party saw a staircase and daylight ahead, confirming that Hans’ second suggestion to the core had been accepted as well.

He smiled.

Quest Complete: Pick a practical secret passage design to disguise the dungeon entrance.

***

Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

Mend the rift with Devon.

Complete the manuscript for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

Ask Charlie about the history and legends of the Dead End Mountains

Protect Gomi.

Find a way to share new knowledge without putting Gomi at risk.

Talk to Gomi’s tradespeople about apprenticeships for the children.

Find new ways to safely sell a larger volume of reagents.

Decide whether or not to pursue silent walking and snow walking.

Grow zouts to complete the deal with the Lady of the Forest.

Research the root-covered earth elemental.