Clambering up the vine of the sickly emberberry vine, Kai found himself face to face with a squirrel nearly as big as he was. Given that the bonsai treant was just a hair over ten inches tall, this wasn’t particularly impressive, but Kai wasn’t in the least bit frightened as he stared into the critter’s big, dark eyes. He’d always been good with animals.

“Any issues further up?” he asked.

The squirrel chittered. Bad air up higher. Not particularly helpful information, but confirmation that he was at least heading in the right direction. That was good to know.

“Happy travels, little friend,” Kai said as he walked past the squirrel and underneath the sickly yellow emberberries hanging from the next vine up. By this time of year, they should have been orange, or at least pink. He scowled up at their dry, shriveled appearance, and quickened his pace. If he didn’t stop the rot, the entire vine would fall ill and there’d be no choice but to destroy it. The elders wouldn’t like that, and they’d hold him responsible.

There were a few things that could cause disease in vines, but Kai was almost positive it was his longstanding arch-nemesis: spore weevils. There were a few of the telltale holes here and there on the leaves, but the squirrel’s mention of bad air was all he needed to know. True to their name, spore weevils released spores into the air that formed a blueish mold on top of the vines which made them easier to eat and digest.

As he climbed higher, Kai started seeing traces of the mold here and there. A patch of blue fuzz with bite marks in it eliminated the last of his doubts. Soon enough he was avoiding the mold with every step. He unslung his bark buckler and readied his blade leaf as the gunk became thicker and started showing signs of having fruited. He was getting close to the nest now.

Activating [Put Down Roots], Kai tethered himself to the vine with a thick tendril attached to his back and clambered up over a pile of mold that was as high as his chest. This was a precaution learned from harsh experience: When he’d been a new [Grove Caretaker], he’d once been knocked down from the canopy by a group of spore weevils, and it had taken almost an hour to climb back up a second time.

Doing that today was not in his plans. There were other vines that needed tending.

Behind the wall of mold, as expected, was a scurrying mound of spore weevils. Sensing the treant’s intent, they filled the air with their garbled language and skittered towards him. Instead of jumping down right away and throwing himself into battle, Kai resisted the call of his sap, opening his mouth instead.

He spat a few seeds down to the vine below and closed his eyes.

“[Sprout Guardians]!”

Shoots of green magic flowed out of Kai and down the mold, racing along the vine and into the seeds. The seeds glowed for a moment and then were replaced by thin, leafy bodies. [Sprout guardians] were about seven inches tall and had a pair of blade leaves on the ends of the branches instead of hands. They weren’t the most durable fighters, but they were perfect backup for Kai and would help make short work of the weevils.

Now it was time to give in to his impulses and let loose. Jumping down to the vine, Kai stepped in front of his sprouts and raised his buckler as the first weevil crashed into him. Kneeling so that he kept his footing, Kai made two neat cuts with his blade leaf and the lifeless halves of the bug collapsed in front of him. The next three weevils were cut down by his guardians, and Kai slowly moved forward. His sap sang with joy as he sliced and stabbed the bugs. Now this was work well worth doing! Stab, slice, slice! Duck, block, cut!

What a glorious sensation, to fight with his own limbs!

For all of their numbers, the bugs didn’t really put up much of a fight. They were still a young colony, and hadn’t had time to start developing the armored hulks that were normally a pain in the branches to fight.

With the battle finished, Kai let the life trickle out of his sprouts. It all trickled back into the vine and dispersed along its length. The sprouts turned brown in a matter of seconds and they fell to the floor of the orchard below, where they’d help nourish the life yet to come. Kai brought his arms together, rushing through the prayer of thanks that the skill required in order to be used.

Though he knew he was supposed to feel otherwise, Kai couldn’t help but be a bit morose as he carefully cut away the remnants of the mold from the vine and used his [Revitailize] skill to start mending the damage that’d been done by the insects. He knew how important it was to heal the vine’s sickness so that it could prosper for years to come, but the work was so boring! Why couldn’t he just focus on fighting and let another [Grove Caretaker] handle the healing?

He ran his limbs over each spot where the vine had been damaged by the nest. He breathed green life back into it inch by inch, and felt the energy running up and down the vine. Wherever there’d been bits of mold, the power would burn the fungus away and in a few days, the vine would be back to its healthy self once more.

Vine tending was slow work, and when he was finally finished, Kai noticed a small yellow blossom had sprouted on his shoulder. An interesting trophy for a job well done, he supposed.

Kai stood up and felt his legs tremble. He’d used more power than he thought, but that was fine. The other vines that needed tending were all low enough that he could do whatever work needed to be done in his barkbody. His own powers weren’t going to be necessary.

[Quest Complete! You have successfully found the source of the vine’s sickness and restored it to health!]

[Might +1]

[Green Spirit +1]

[Your Revitalize skill is now more powerful!]

He’d have to atone for the increase in might, but the elders would be pleased by the boost to his Green Spirit. Balance in all things, it seemed.

Climbing back down to the ground was much faster than going up had been. Wrapping a tendril around the vine, the bonsai treant simply rappelled down to where he’d left his barkbody and clambered back inside the pit.

Barkbodies were the most powerful tool offered to [Grove Caretakers]. They were all around four feet tall and carved from the finest logs of wizardwood the [Grove Masters] could find. Kai’s was entirely black but for the stars of blue bark that gave the wood its name. He hadn’t adorned his barkbody with paints or dyes, the way some other [Barkbody Pilots] did. It just didn’t seem right.

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Thick green springvines secured its arms and legs to its torso, and attached to the barkbody’s back was an acorn mallet. During the harvest season, a basket could be tethered to the branches there instead to help carry emberberries back to the grove, but since it was the heart of tending season the elders ordered weapons to be carried there instead. If Kai had his druthers, he would have never taken the mallet off.

Kai settled into the smooth, sanded nook that had been carved specifically for him and sent his vines into the barkbody’s limbs. He closed his eyes. “[Shift Consciousness].”

It felt a little bit like pushing the pulp of an emberberry through the strainer to extract the last bit of juice from inside. No matter how many times he did it, Kai still found the sensation unpleasant. When his consciousness settled, he was looking at the world through the crystalized sap eyes of the barkbody instead of his own. It took him a moment to get his bearings and reorient himself to his new perspective, but Kai had long since grown used to the bizarre sensation and moved the tool almost as well as he used his own limbs as he headed deeper into the orchard.

The other vines in his care were much healthier than the first he’d visited. They had a few darkish spots, but Kai didn’t feel anything impeding their life forces, and so he returned to the grove without needing to fight again. He was a bit disappointed. The best days of tending were the ones where he had to fight at every vine, the song of battle loud in his sap.

He used [Shift Consciousness] once again and climbed up and out of his barkbody once he’d stood it in its proper nook. A few of his comrades had already returned for the day, but most were still out tending their vines. Maybe they’d gotten into some fun fights!

Not that I’d ever get to hear about them, Kai thought sullenly. The elders thought his enjoyment of battle was “unbecoming a treant,” and told him that his sap ran too sour. If they’d had their way, Kai wouldn’t have even been allowed to be a [Grove Caretaker], let alone have access to one of the grove’s precious barkbodies. Thankfully, the [Oracle] had expressly ordered them to give him one. He still didn’t know why.

Tolkin, Kai’s branch brother, was waiting for him next to the pond with some dried emberberries and a bowl of water. “You look dry,” Tolkin said as he pushed the bowl towards Kai. “And that blossom on your shoulder tells me how you spent your day. Drink up.”

“There was an infestation of Spore Weevils on one of my vines,” Kai said defensively as he dipped his arm into the bowl and let his roots pull up some of the water inside. Sweet relief flooded through his body. Tolkin had been right. He had been dry. “You should have seen me. I cut them all down and healed the vine. It was glorious.”

“Don’t let the elders hear you talk like that,” Tolkin warned. “You know how they feel about fighting.”

The pair of bonsai treants recited the old wisdom simultaneously: “Fighting is an evil thing. Only do it when necessary to protect your own life or the life of a vine. Do not take pleasure in ending a single life.”

Kai shook his head. “I don’t know how they expect us to adhere to that. It’s just a bunch of stupid old idealism. Back when we weren’t the only caretakers of these orchards, it might have made sense, but now there are fiends and insects and all sorts of other monsters that will destroy the vines if we don’t protect them. What will we do if we lose the emberberries?”

Tolkin shrugged. “That’s why we have the barkbodies and have you and the others go out to protect them. No one disagrees that we need to guard the vines, Kai. It’s that you seem to enjoy fighting more than healing that makes the elders nervous. It makes me nervous too, to be honest.”

Kai glared at his branch brother. “Another lecture, is it? I swear, Tolkin, sometimes you sound just like Elder Palmatum. Now if you could bend and twist your branches and make them lose their color you’d be a perfect—”

He stopped as Tolkin gave him a horrified glance that could only mean one thing: Elder Palmatum was behind him. Kai turned and found himself staring up at branches full of perpetually red leaves.

It was said that Elder Palmatum was one of the oldest bonsai treants in the world. He was over two and a half feet tall – which made his ability to sneak around noiselessly all the more impressive – and his bark was weathered and scarred from decades as a [Grove Caretaker].

Kai thought him a hypocrite.

“Welcome…back…to…the…grove…Kai. Please…finish…what…you…were…saying. It…sounded…interesting.”

Kai bowed as was required when dealing with an elder and held out his arms. “I was finished, elder.”

“It…did…not…seem…that…way. Oh…well…Come…with …me. Lots…to…discuss…with…the…other…elders.”

Hanging his head, Kai followed the Palmatum’s slow steps towards the clearing in the grove where the elders met and discussed the important issues of the day. Kai had been to the clearing several times before, though almost always for disciplinary reasons. This was probably another such visit. He didn’t even know what he’d allegedly done this time. Did they already know that he’d fought and killed spore weevils today? Had the birds told them?

He’d find out soon enough. There were six treants in the elder council, and the other five were already waiting as Kai stepped into the center of the grove. He could feel their eyes on him and shrank a bit beneath the power of their stares.

Elder Palmatum settled into his place in the circle and let out a long, slow breath. Thankfully, it was one of the other elders, Serissa, who spoke up. Kai didn’t think he could bear to endure an entire admonishment from elder Palmatum.

“Sapling Ginficus, are you well? You wear a pleasing bud on your shoulder, so I assume that your skills were needed during your tending today?”

Kai nodded. “An infestation of spore weevils was killing one of my vines. I removed the infestation, though I regretfully had to kill the insects to do so. I healed the vine afterwards, and this blossom sprouted when I was done. I hope that it stays on my shoulder for a long time to come.”

“You do not sound remorseful about the fact that you had to kill,” Elder Serissa said. “Like I have told this council before, your sap runs too sour—”

“Oh sweet syrup, not this again,” interrupted Elder Picea. “If I have to hear another word about this young one’s sap I shall lose my mind and take permanent root! Be done with it, Serissa. We did not bring Kai here to scold him today.”

Elder Serissa glared over at Elder Picea, but did not press the issue. She simply glowered at Kai for a moment and then shook her branches.

“I dislike how hasty this must be,” Elder Serissa said. “But the times demand it. There has been a change in the city, Sapling Ginficus. We have heard from the birds that there is a young man in Oar’s Crest who has opened a dungeon. The [Oracle] has instructed us to have you go and meet with him on our behalf. We have a letter we’d like you to deliver to him as well. The [Oracle] wrote it with her own sap, on one of her own leaves. Once he reads it, you are to deliver his response if there is one. I must admit that I dislike sending you by yourself, but the [Oracle] insists and I follow her wisdom.”

“We all follow her wisdom,” echoed the rest of the elders. Even Elder Palmatum did so, though he was still on ‘follow’ by the time the others had finished.

Kai had to consciously close his mouth. A letter from the [Oracle]? Written in her own sap and on one of her leaves? That had only happened one other time in Kai’s life!

“I will do as I’m ordered,” Kai said, doing his best to conceal the song of excitement humming in his sap. “I’ll leave right away.”

“You are to wait until morning,” Elder Serissa said. “The [Oracle]’s sap has yet to dry. When you go, you are to take your barkbody. According to the birds, the city is not as safe as it once was, and we do not want you to come to harm. Go now and rest, Kai Ginficus. If the [Oracle]’s visions are correct, you will have an arduous journey.”

Kai nodded and bowed to the elders, then hurried out of the clearing as fast as his legs would carry him. He returned to the pond and saw that Tolkin was still sitting in the same place. He told his branch brother about his mission, and the two spent the next several hours recounting every story they’d ever heard about the city.

From here in the grove, Kai could see out across the vast expanse of abandoned farms, vineyards and orchards that humans called ‘Eastown’. On the other end of it was the mass of walls and buildings that Kai had dreamed of visiting since he’d been a seedling.

Oar’s Crest! For the first time in decades, a bonsai treant was going to cross through the city’s gate, and it was going to be him! What a fortunate twist of fate!

Kai's Character Sheet:

Kai Ginficus

Primary Class: Grove Caretaker (Pachi Palmatum), Level 15

Secondary Class: Barkbody Pilot (Pachi Palmatum), Level 11

Might: 6 (+1)

Wit: 6

Faith: 11

Green Spirit: 22 (+1)

Adventurousness: 2

Guts: 6