Dantes stood in front of the ancient tree deep in the heart of Rendhold with Jacopo sitting on his shoulder. He went through a quick mental checklist to make sure he was ready. His bag was filled with the herbs he’d gotten from Hema, some of the guns and gunpowder he’d looted from Iron and his men’s corpses including a pistol he kept for himself that now sat loaded within his jacket, and even a few wands enchanted with offensive spells he’d managed to snag from a shipment Mondego had set up. It was more of a sampler than anything, but the important thing was to demonstrate value and see what the other druids had to offer him in exchange.

He checked on the rats watching the Vixen and found it to be in the middle of some kind of celebration. There were dozens of sailors dancing with the girls, drinks and food were plentiful. The goons that Mondego had watching the place were watching the festivities with bored expressions, clearly not enjoying their assigned tasks. Vampa and Zilly were busy in the kitchen and at the bar, seemingly in perfect sync as they slung drinks and plates to anyone who wanted them.

Mondego wasn’t in his house, which meant he was at the club he could teleport to using the magic mirror, and Mercedes was lazing in a large bath. Danglars was sitting in his office, there much later than usual, biting his nails as he stared at the far wall.

Everything seemed to be as it should be, so Dantes looked up at the full moon one last time absorbing the energy and strength that seemed to be emanating from it and spreading within him and all the living things around him. He stepped into the tree. He felt his sense of self slowly come apart and spread through invisible roots deep within the mortal plane. He spread further and further until he had almost nothing left of himself. When a piece of him touched the Veridian Expanse he snapped all of those pieces of himself back together, and stepped out of a tree thousands of miles away in the center of the continent.

He took a deep breath as his ego returned to him. The feeling of oneness with everything faded, and he immediately felt overheated, sweaty, and uncomfortable. It was a state he much preferred to the vague sense of oneness with everything he felt when he tree-walked. The loss of his sense of self was very disturbing to him. He reached out his senses, and detected a pull from within the forest. He guessed that it was from Berkilak to guide him. He didn’t seem to be more than a few miles away, but he felt no desire to attempt another tree-walk until he left. He started walking, feeling a touch of envy toward Jacopo who was able to rest on his shoulder as he moved.

It took a bit over an hour over rough terrain, but he made it to the clearing without too much trouble. In a stark reversal to the last time, the first person he saw was Mor-Gan-May, and her raccoon companion. They seemed to be the first to arrive. They had built a small fire and the raccoon was mixing some herbs with a small mortar and pestle while Mor stirred something in a small pot. It filled the clearing with a sickly sweet scent.

“Whatever that is, it smells like it would make my teeth rot.”

Mor turned to face him. “Brother! Welcome.” she gestured to what she was making. “This would certainly rot your teeth, but you’d be dead long before that was a problem.”

“Oh?”

“The fumes of it kill the mites that like to inhabit the space between my scales.”

“Ah, you can’t just.” Dantes made a vague sweeping away gesture with his hand.

She shook her head. “No, actually. This particular kind of mite was made by magical means. Not sure of the full story, but a mage wanted some kobolds to clear out of a cave and instead of killing them, or asking them to leave, he developed a new species just to make them uncomfortable to the point that they left.”

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Dantes sighed. “That certainly sounds like the kind of roundabout thing a mage would do.”

She nodded. “They spread from there, and now kobolds almost everywhere need to deal with them. Our powers don’t really work on anything that’s been tampered with too much by magic.”

Dantes thought back to his attempts in the underprison to talk to giant spiders and skitterlings with no success. “That makes a kind of sense I suppose. At that point they aren’t really fully of the Mother, are they? Got a bit of the god of magic to them at that point.”

She nodded, and started waving her hands above the pot and toward herself. Dantes could see as several almost imperceptibly small critters crawled out from her scales. As they did so, her companion picked them from her, and ate them. Jacopo Joined in on the feast unasked.

Dantes sat next to her and pulled the sack of herbs and seeds from his pack that he’d bought from Hema. He held it out to Mor.

“Are those that the samples you promised me?”

Dantes nodded.

She grabbed it from his hands with her claws quicker than he was expecting and began laying out each sack and dried plant out in front of herself. She smelled and tasted almost each individual item. Sometimes she would nod, sometimes she would frown, and the entire time her tail moved quickly back and forth, forcing Jacopo and her raccoon to take evasive actions to avoid it as they continued to eat the mites that fled her scales.

“This is very interesting…” she muttered to herself, seemingly unaware of anything, but what was in front of her at that moment.

“Oh?” asked Dantes, trying to pull her back to some semblance of reality.

She nodded lightly, but didn’t look up. “Many of the plants exist in some version or another from other parts of the continent. They must’ve been carried to your city and the surrounding area by trade. There are a few unique species, but they… they have an odd feeling to them. Something I can’t completely recognize.”

“Are they useful?

“All plants are useful.”

Dantes smiled, he really couldn’t expect any of the druids to answer that question any other way. “Well, I’m glad you’re happy with them.”

She smiled, showing bright sharp teeth. “I am.”

“I believe we said you might teach me a thing or two about poisons?”

She nodded. “I can manage that. I may even be able to teach you three or four before the others have all arrived.”

…

Mor-Gan-May was not the best teacher Dantes had ever learned from. She frequently got lost on tangents of her own, and had a tendency to speak very quickly, but Dantes did his best to make up for her deficiencies as a teacher by being a good student. She gave him the run down on some of the most popular poisons, what plants they were made from, and how they could affect the body. Then she went into some of the more subtle ones. The ones that affected every race differently, or caused specific weaknesses in the heart or lungs, or even one that could remove a person’s sense of pressure from unique organs in the nose and by doing so could actually drive them mad. Finally she taught him broadly about how people can develop resistance to some poisons, or even how priests could deal with them through healing, though there were some poisons which couldn’t be stopped by even the most powerful priests. Just as he was asking if she could acquire some sample of specific poisons she’d mentioned for him, the others began to arrive.

Murk got there first, and quickly found a corner in which he could curl up with his wolf companion. Dantes pointedly ignored him, but when Traizen arrived later he stood to welcome him.

“Traizen,” he said, holding out his arm.

The albino elf clasped his arm and forced him into a short embrace. “Dantes! I was worried about you, brother. My mark for you was a burning red for a time.

“My blood garden… the city took things into its own hands. I was forced to break my connection to it.”

Traizen expression darkened. “They take so much from us. It would’ve been better for you to take that into your own hands.”

Dantes raised a hand. “I’m okay. It took me some time to recover, but in some ways I’m grateful it’s not a problem anymore.”

Traizen nodded. “Did Murk come to help you?”

Dantes looked over at the sleeping wolves in the corner. “No.”

Traizen’s frown deepened. “He is the only one that can reach you quickly when such issues occur. It is our responsibility to look after one another.”

Dantes shook his head. “I don’t want his help.”

Traizen smiled slightly, but his eyes stayed sad. “Many of those brothers and sisters that are no longer with us said similar things.”

Dantes stayed silent. Unsure of what to say. Luckily, more druids were approaching from the forest.