The tree had a name.
It was written in crystal clear letters, the common letters which were, with localized differences, used in the entire Omniverse, on black stone that was embedded into the yellow-green grass. It was the only rock larger than a grain of sand, on the entire island. An island large enough that it would have taken a grown man of average physique an entire day to wander from one end to the other.
The tree’s name was Dave.
Despite being the only rock on the entire island, the stone had it better than the tree. Dave was notable, the most notable in fact, for two things. One was that it was the only tree that had been placed specifically as a divine landmark. While areas may get designated as forests by gods, ensuring that new trees would develop there even in the absence of seeds, individual plants rarely were. This had not originally been the case. Dave had been given this designation, and its name, because of its particular placement. There was, in no other place on the Leaf, a larger difference between any single tree and another one of its kin.
Thus, he was Dave, the lonely tree.
“And here stands, all alone,
A tree whose purpose is to grow,
And look green on its own,
With no envy,
But only splendour,” Aclysia read out the poem at the bottom of the plague. Her eyes went wide at the last line and she respectfully lowered her head. “Signed Keligula.”
“Is that important?” Apexus asked.
“Kinda,” Reysha responded, circling around the tree as if it was a cornered prey animal. “It’s one of the original 33 gods.”
“She,” Aclysia corrected.
Shrugging, the redhead kept on prowling, “I learned most of the names, but I can’t be bothered to remember what all of them are about. That’s not an invitation to give us a lesson, by the way.”
“Then I will only give it to my darling,” Aclysia said and turned away from the tiger girl.
“Fine, be that way, rear that butt at me, see if I like it!” Reysha shouted in played-up anger.
“Keligula is the 10th divine of the 33 original gods and the 3rd to embody the season of Autumn. Her alliterate aspects are earth and empathy,” the metal fairy explained.
“I do like it by the way,” Reysha said in the background, stopping in her circling of the tree to bow forwards and appreciate the rear at eye level. “I like it a lot.”
“Why do all gods have these twin aspects that are always alliterations?” Apexus wondered.
“I have no definitive answers to that.”
“Sheer aesthetics, just like these twin globes here,” Reysha asserted and grabbed Aclysia’s butt.
Taking a slow inhale, the angel did nothing in response. “It may be a mortal design that caught on eventually in the divine realm and has since been continued by the other gods. Notably, many beyond the original 33 do not use the same style of title.”
“Thankfully, they make most humanoids with the same style of titties,” Reysha purred and swiftly moved her hands from touching butt to cupping boobs. When that still failed to elicit a reaction, she pouted. “It’s not fun if you ignore me, Aclysia.” Several more seconds passed. “Okay, message received,” she said and ceased her molestation efforts.
Aclysia allowed herself a tiny smile at the success of her strategy, but it vanished almost immediately. Reason being a question Apexus asked, “How empathetic is it to plant a tree without any kin around it?”
“Uhm… most likely the tree does not mind?” the metal fairy responded, caught off guard by the question.
“Then why does it have the moniker ‘lonely’? Is that word not defined as a forlorn feeling of emptiness due to being alone unwillingly?”
“That would be a correct definition of this concept, yes.”
“So why does the goddess of earth and empathy make a tree that is lonely?”
“Maybe he was a dick to the other sprouts in the seedling garden?” Reysha suggested.
“I would suggest that you are overthinking this and that we are looking at a common plant whose only significance is its isolated location.” The metal fairy was on point with that. Dave was larger than any other tree they had come across, its trunk three metres across, but that was only due the time it had spent alive.
“How about we put it out of its misery?” Reysha suggested. “Hey, Apexus, ya hungry for some wood?” With a big grin, she looked up at the golden-leafed tree. “I know you’re normally more of a carpet muncher, but how would you like gobbling on this giant trunk?”
The innuendos flew right over the slime’s head, “We had fish earlier.”
“We shouldn’t harm it even if darling was hungry,” Aclysia protested.
Apexus hummed, as another thought surfaced. “There’s an endless number of gods, correct?”
The metal fairy was all too happy to switch topics away from the potential tarnishing of a divine landmark. “Figuratively, that is a true statement. Technically, it would be more accurate to describe the number of gods, like the number of Leaves, as exponentially accelerating in growth. More gods lead to more worlds attached to the Omniverse, more worlds are populated by more mortals, more mortals become more gods, and the cycle continues.”
“Right,” Apexus was still aware of most of that and nodded. “I am just thinking that ending up on Leaves made by the original 33 two out of three times is highly unlikely.”
“The original 33 would have the most time to create Leaves and be most prolific in it due to a vast amount of experience,” Aclysia gave a counterargument. “Statistically speaking, they should be overrepresented. It is, however, relatively unlikely. This specific Leaf has a high chance of being older, guessing from the ruins we discovered.”
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“Ever wonder how old the Omniverse actually is?” Reysha asked, as the trio started to walk away from Dave. They had only stopped there in the first place because the isolated tree was such an unusual sight. “…Guess I could have asked Veramas that.”
“The Church would be the most likely source for a truthful answer,” Aclysia responded. “As the oldest organization, they most likely have records dating back to the earliest Leaves.”
“Urgh…” Reysha shuddered. “We’ll see what bothers me more: talking to priests or not having an answer to a pointless question.”
The tiger girl would have enough time to think about that, as she once again had to climb on Apexus’ back to be carried above the ocean. After they had reached the westernmost tip of the continent they had originally landed on, they had taken to the air and relatively quickly found this current island. They had been exploring it for about a day now. Because it was so remarkably empty and they could view things from above, that effort had concluded quickly. While they found nothing of interest (Dave hardly qualified), they did spy another island north.
An island that turned out to be just as empty. That didn’t really matter to any of them, as they found some fish along the shore to eat. More important was that the existence of any landmass, particularly one they could follow further west, implied that there was more than the bandit-infested ruins they started at.
After another day of travel, they finally found something new. Something Reysha greatly disliked. “Didn’t I say I am sick and tired of yellow?!” she shouted from her position on Apexus’ back. Before them sprawled out another continent, one so thoroughly steeped in the golden colour of ripe grain that it made the place they came from look dull in comparison.
The trees at their destination were a lot smaller and less densely packed. Most of this new continent was flatland and highly fertile flatland at that. Every surface was either plastered in natural plants or densely packed with fields. The latter, combined with the small villages they could already spot, promised a more civilized environment.
“Can we land?” the tiger girl voiced another request. The reason for this one was the rain they were flying through. It wasn’t particularly intense rain, but the perception of that was wildly different when moving at a high speed.
“I support this notion,” Aclysia said, although her goal was establishing contact with the locals.
Apexus was fine with both and angled his wings to put them on a downward trajectory. For about five minutes, they gradually descended in height. Once he had slowed enough and they were close enough to the ground, the gliding transformed into a sharp drop, only counteracted by the occasional beat of his wings. Before impact, the beats intensified, making the landing a soft one. Aclysia, by comparison, just hovered down and landed effortlessly.
They had landed over a hundred metres out from the village, allowing the tall humanoid chimera to adjust his shape back to normal proportions. As per usual, when he had to carry Reysha, his back had been broadened to give her the required space between his wings. Once off the humanoid slime, Reysha shook out her arms. They had been wrapped around Apexus’ neck for a while now and felt understandably rusty.
“We’re being welcomed,” Apexus said, noticing several doors across the village opening. Alarmingly, men armed with swords, pitchforks, or whatever else they had in terms of proper or makeshift weaponry stepped out. Women armed with slingshots or other improvised projectile weaponry swiftly followed. A few stayed behind to make sure adventurous kids didn’t get the bright idea to follow along.
That particular behaviour kept the slime at ease. Among adventurers or other fighters across the Omniverse, there would have been no preference to keep women in the backline. The developments of physical powers spurred on by the absorption of ambient magic during dungeon delving and similarly challenging situations eradicated any biological strength difference fairly rapidly. Therefore, any large group that still acted with those differences in mind had no extensive training and were of little to no threat to the trio.
The villagers were distantly aware of that too and stayed in a large block, using their numbers to intimidate. “Who are you people?” one of them, a woman standing flanked by two particularly burly men, asked. They had been in situations like this before and a routine had been established.
Apexus and Aclysia looked at each other. The slime made a gesture indicating that she should take the lead. “We’re…” she hesitated, despite that, mulling over an important question one final time. “…My name is Aclysia,” she finally came to the conclusion of using their real names. It didn’t matter anymore anyway, the Deathhound didn’t need rumours to find them. “They are Apexus and Reysha. We’re adventurers.”
The villagers before them relaxed slightly upon hearing that. “What were you doing in Terrostir?” the women leading the group asked.
“Terrostir? Is that the name of the continent?” Aclysia returned with a question of her own. The slight relaxation turned into a number of relieved sighs. “I understand, you must assume we originate from the roaming bandits there.”
“Yeah, we have trouble with those sometimes,” the woman answered with a nod.
“Have ya tried building a wall higher than some dirt barricades?” Reysha suggested flippantly.
“Sure, bring me enough trees and we’ll get right on that,” the older woman responded in a dry tone.
“Please ignore my companion. We have come via a portal known as the Long Way and would appreciate information about this Leaf. We can pay you for your trouble.”
“We’ll see if we’ll need that,” the woman said and, understanding the signal, everyone lowered their weapons. “You can come into my house. Recken, if you could come with me.”
“Sure thing, Maril,” one of the two burly men grumbled into his beard and the pair led the trio towards one of the larger houses in the village. The rest of the crowd dispersed and returned to whatever they were originally doing.
Large still meant fairly unimpressive. The lack of wood and other building materials was apparent in every bit of the architecture. The only thing they did have in an adequate quantity was clay, so bricks filled the gaps between the wooden pillars and made up the majority of the furniture. The place didn’t look poor whatsoever and there was a clear abundance of food, both grain and meat, shown in the dried pig that was hanging from the rafters. Just this lack of wood and metal confined what they could do locally to a certain few options.
“Honestly, never heard of a Long Way portal,” Maril said while she offered the three of them chairs by the table. Recken sat down with them in a hasty fashion. He didn’t want just two women and one man sitting down alone at a table. “Do you want anything to drink? Tea or water?”
“We do not need any accommodation, but if you have a well or something else, we would appreciate a chance to fill our waterskin.”
“And if you have a bathtub, I would give you almost anything so I can hop into that fucking thing,” Reysha chimed in and snorted with amusement when her crass language caused the two older humans to look at her with shock on their faces. “If ya give me some soap, I’ll wash out my mouth right alongside anything else.”
“I do have a bathtub in the back, but you’d have to get the water yourself,” Maril said, “and I’d like some recompense.”
“We’ll pay,” Apexus assured. Again, the two humans directed their gaze at the same target. Of Apexus, they were pretty weary. Giant, muscular men of quiet demeanour usually meant something bad in their experience. The slime had no reason to prove them right. “How much do you want?”
“An iron coin would be enough for my troubles,” Maril asserted.
“We do not have any iron coins,” the metal fairy, who always held the group’s purse, confessed.
“Would you accept silver?” Apexus asked.
“That would be too much for a bath.”
Reysha laughed out loud, “I guarantee you that it’s not too much for how much I want it right now.”
“A silver for the bath and the bother,” Apexus said.
Maril thought about it for a moment longer, then accepted, “Sure.” Since these three seemed to care so little for a silver coin, she just assumed they had the money. Maril quickly showed Reysha the walled off area in the back, where to find the buckets needed to transport the water, and where the well was. Not losing any time, the tiger girl immediately went to prepare her bath.
“So, what’s the Long Way?” Maril asked, when she returned.
“A special condition portal that connects several Leaves together. We emerged on a small island south of what you called Terrostir,” Aclysia said.
Recken scratched the chin he had hidden under his thick, greying, red beard. “I think there was something like that on the map. Should I fetch it?”
“Please do,” Maril nodded.