Crosse stood still on the step for more than a minute as Mike watched, not sure what to say. He was visibly gathering himself, fists clenching and unclenching and breathing deeply. He then spoke up, “We need to get moving, you need to see the Lady for healing and I want to make a report directly to her of Connor’s death, she likes to know when one of us dies and it is my responsibility to go between the hunters and her, as I speak Gildaic.”

Mike nodded, glad for the diversion from the heavy mood, “lead the way,” Mike replied.

Crosse did, leading Mike up the steps that circled up the trunk. Mike looked around as they ascended, seeing the forest floor getting further away as the climbed, he looked up to the dwelling on the other trees, still above them. He could see the people moving in and out of the doors that lead into cavities that made for the rooms in these towering trees.

“What do you call these trees that you live in? Are they different from the other gild-leaf trees? They seem larger,” Mike asked, hoping that he could distract Crosse further from his dark thoughts, and also because he was genuinely curious.

“We call the trees Inasholmes, as they are the town and because she made them for us. As far as I know, they aren’t any different to the other gild-leaf trees, they just look larger because of what was done to shape them into their current forms. The hollows that we live in weren’t carved into the trees, the trees were reshaped to have them, so the mass that was there had to go somewhere, that’s why the trees seem so much larger,” Crosse explained, still looking ahead as they reached the first landing.

The landing was a walkway that circled the entire trunk and Mike could see the first doorway to one of the hollows that Cros had described, hanging in it to obscure the entry was a curtain that seemed to have been woven from the leaves of the tree. They didn’t have the aura of metal mana about them that Mike could still see around the leaves above them.

As Mike took the chance now to look around with Mana Sight on he saw that the whole village was covered in that diffuse white aura that he had seen back in the facility. It clung to the trees and bridges, had all of this been done with only Light Magic?

As Crosse lead them around the walkway to reach the set of stairs to the next level Mike wondered if he should prepare for meeting this ‘Lady Ina’ he had heard a lot about her from Crosse up to this point and it seemed likely that she was rather powerful, more powerful than Ishare or that woman he had seen right before escaping, Ailish.

What would he do if she was hostile? Or if she wanted to take him back to Ailish and the facility? Not much he imagined but he couldn’t just not see her, she seemed important to this place, if he wanted to stay here for some time to gather his bearings a little, which he did, he would need to meet her at some point.

No time like the present, if she was hostile he would know soon. He didn’t have to go in unprotected, though. He thought towards the AI, he wanted to swap skills but couldn’t open up a window here with so many people watching.

There had to be a way to cast an illusion that only he could see. He didn’t know it though and it seemed neither did the AI or it would be teasing him with it to teach him it. So he sent a thought towards the AI in his mind, he was certain it could read his thoughts, as disconcerting as that was.

He wanted to swap Metal Magic Resistance for Light Magic Resistance. Nothing happened, but he got some feedback. It seemed like he needed to be standing still, something about the window not existing made a different restriction activate.

The AI seemed to want to discourage the swapping of Skills in intense situations. He wasn’t sure why, besides the obviously vulnerable moment of absolute stillness that he had experienced with the peryton.

So he followed Crosse up the next set of steps, which also didn’t have a railing, trying to think of a moment where he could stop and be still. “Does anyone ever fall?” Mike asked, mostly out of sudden curiosity.

Crosse chuffed a laugh, “Not often, and unless they are supremely stupid, they get healing afterwards. We haven’t had anyone die from falling, that I can remember.”

Mike nodded, The steps were up against the trunk of the tree and although they didn’t have railings, the walkways did, and it was only three-ish metres per level. So unless someone fell off a walkway or a bridge, they wouldn’t be falling far. Not that one needed to fall far to die from it, but it seemed likely that the people of this world were a tad sturdier than back on earth.

They reached the next level and Crosse walked towards one of the branch-like bridges that connected the trees, Mike looked out across the village from the bridge as they made their way across. He stopped when he saw something he hadn’t noticed yet. He over walked to the railing, leaning on it to get a better look.

Not far from the most distant Inasholme tree, there was a wide river that Mike could only barely see the other side of from the bridge. That was the river he had been hearing for the past hour or so.

On the near bank of the river there was a dock that had grown out of the side of one of the Inasholme trees near the shore. At the dock there were what seemed to be canoes with people unloading laden nets from them. Some of the nets were obviously full of fish, others were full of what looked like fruit, though he couldn’t tell what kind from this distance.

As he had leaned up against the railing he had sent the request to the AI to swap the Skills, and had been making these observations in the seconds that he couldn’t control his body, he felt the swap finish and could immediately sense the Light mana that was surrounding the bridge in a diffuse aura.

He tried to cast a Minor Illusion, but couldn't, the mana simply didn’t react to his Control at all.

Crosse had stopped to watch Mike as he looked out over the dock, he spoke up as Mike moved again. “Most of the Villagers' food is fish and fruit from an orchard that the Lady helped set up down the river, that kind of place draws specific beasts so it needs to be apart from the rest of the town.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Mike nodded again, it was good to know what they ate around here, he was honestly hungry enough a moment that he wouldn’t complain about just eating his rations. Fresh fish and fruit sounded much better.

“Come on we are almost there,” Crosse said as he turned to keep walking, raising an arm to point a finger towards a tree at the centre of the village. Mike looked and saw the tree was different from the rest.

It was actually even larger than the Inasholme trees that looked almost 10 metres in diameter. It only had one bridge connecting it to the rest of the village, this bridge didn’t have railings, and it seemed to end at a dead-end at the side of the large tree.

“Lady Ina’s home changes much more often than the other trees. She controls its shape directly and it is entirely hollow, with walkways and passageways within instead of on the outside. Doors and bridges appear as she needs them instead of being static,” Crosse explained as they reached the next tree and walked along its second level walkway to the start of the bridge connecting to Lady Ina’s tree.

Mike took a deep breath before he followed Crosse out onto the bridge. When they were halfway across the bridge he saw a pulse of Light mana run over the bark wall at the end of the bridge and the wooden wall separated, flowing apart, until there was a doorway large enough to walk through in the side of the tree.

Mike and Crosse entered to be met with a wall and a staircase going upward their right, Mike looked up it and saw Light Orbs spring into existence along the ceiling of the stairway. Mike could feel the Light mana moving through this tree. It wasn’t in the Aether, or at least most of it wasn’t. It was physically in the tree and didn’t seem to be evaporating the way he had seen Elemental mana do whenever he tried to channel it into the Mortal realm.

He wished he could sense the amount of it, but he didn’t have Arcane logic equipped and he hadn’t mastered enough of the skill to do the calculations entirely on his own. He felt like he would likely need both Acting and Language in the next little while so he didn’t stop to make the change either.

Mike was hard-pressed to think of a situation where he wouldn’t need Language, it seemed to work rather differently to his other skills, he wondered what would happen if he tried to unequip it, would he maintain his ability to converse in the acclimated languages? Or would everything just become gibberish?

As he walked up the narrow stairway behind Crosse, Mike remembered that he had unspent Stat points! He hadn't had a time alone to think about their allocation, which he would have preferred, but he was going into a potentially dangerous situation here, he should probably spend at least the free aspect points.

He sent the order towards the AI to put the two Magic points into Attunement and the two Mental points into Wisdom. They would work, he didn't think having an incredibly unbalanced stat would be worthwhile, so dumping points into Intelligence likely wasn't ideal. He was also going into what might be a tense social situation, and he had the hunch that wisdom was the better stat for that. 

When he flexed his Attunement sense after spending the points he was happy to find that it was probably a metre wider in radius, bringing it to four metres. He was starting to see the correlation between his Attunement stat and the range of his sense. He would need to work it out exactly later.

Because right now they had reached the end of the stairs. Mike exited the staircase behind Crosse and found himself in a room that greatly reminded him of a study. The walls were lined with shelves stacked with books, their covers made of thin sheets of golden metal and there was a desk directly across from the entrance, at which sat a woman.

All Mike could see of her was the back of her head, which was covered by pale golden hair and the tips of golden ears that poked outwards to the sides and upwards.

Much more concerning was the fact that Mike's still active Attunement sense reached her seated form now. She was a beacon of Light mana, though no more of it was visible around her than in the rest of the building. Before Mike could proccess this or even try to understand exactly how much mana there was Crosse stepped forward, and the ambient noise of a metal pen scratching paper ended.

“My Lady, I have come with news of the death of a hunter and with an ally that I found in the forest, he was wandering alone and managed to single-handedly defeat a young peryton. He was injured in the fight however and wishes your aid in healing. He also helped me recover the remains of my dead partner by aiding in the killing of a golden-sap ooze. I ask you to please help him Lady Ina.” Crosse said as he bowed forward at the waist, keeping his arms by his side and his legs straight.

There was a sigh from the seated woman, Lady Ina. “I have said to you before Crosse, you do not need to call me Lady. You are one of the only men from this village I ever actually talk to, my name shall suffice,” She said as her chair turned on its own.

Mike could see the Light mana flowing into it as a spell, because his attunement sense didn't pick it up. It was reshaping the wood somehow. As he focused on it with Mana Sight, he could see that the Light Magic was interacting with another form of mana that he hadn’t noticed before. The same brown mana that had made the arrow from Crosse’s bow. Wood mana he assumed.

The spell hadn't drained the absolutely immense amount of Light mana at all to Mike's perception, which meant it was either completely free, or so trivial to the whole that his sense wasn't fine enough to tell the difference.

The chair turned around and he got his first real look at the Lady Ina. She was beautiful a small smile on her mouth, as he had expected. She looked less sharp than the woman he had seen in the facility, she looked mostly like a Human, but with skin that was metallic gold and of course the ears that narrowed to a point.

His inspection halted when he looked at her eyes. They were even more different, the two High Elves in the facility had slitted pupils like a reptile, Lady Ina’s eyes were normal. Well, here irises were gold, but her pupils were black and round like a human’s.

While Mike was inspecting her Crosse replied, “You know why I continue, This town calls you lady and just because I happen to speak this language doesn’t make me better than them.”

Ina rolled her eyes, making Mike blink in surprise, this wasn’t how he had imagined the woman from Crosse’s descriptions.

She took a step forward. “So, Connor is dead?” she said, some of the cheer exiting her voice and expression.

Crosse nodded, “Yes, and I’m sure that his father and the elder hunters are going to hold me accountable to a degree. But that is hunter and village business, which you have told me not to bother you with. This is Mike he has given the village quite some aid by killing the peryton and helping to kill the golden-sap ooze that killed Connor, please …” Crosse stopped as he was interrupted.

As Mike watched Ina’s attention and gaze turned towards him he felt a chill as her expression became cold and her pupils flashed into slits. Mike tried to step back as he saw a wave of light mana run from her and into the floor, but he found his feet had sunk into the wooden floor. He started to pull on his foot to try and slip it out of his boot.

Before he could, he saw the cold expression on Ina's face change to one of outrage and her pupils shift back to circles. The stately woman snarled looking up to the ceiling as she shouted, “None of that you scaly bastard!”

Mike felt the pressure restraining his feet loosen as he was lifted out of the floor by another pulse of Light magic into the floor from Ina. She then looked to him, seeming taller than she was.

“Who are you?” she asked with very thinly veiled intense curiosity, completely lacking the malice that she had when she had shouted.