Two weeks later
Zalia strolled through Et’s way, chewing at her lip, deep in thought. She’d been thinking about renaming the town to something else, something more fitting to its new appearance and purpose. Previously, it had been a main commercial stop between the majority of the kingdom and the capital just a few days west of it. Somehow, she doubted that it would ever serve that purpose again.
It was unfortunate that she was only able to create one Druid Grove. Something surprising to her, however, was what she had found when she had made a little trip to the old war camp. She’d gone alone just to check up on the old farmer Mate and his few.
Strangely, she had found that the plant and animal life that had thrived within the old Grove was still there. Sure, he had mentioned that the crops were no longer growing as quickly and the effects of her Grove were certainly gone, but the animals were still helping out the farmers and it seemed a little beautiful ecosystem had formed.
That helped settle Zalia a bit, as she’d feared the Grove was manipulating the animals to act that way somehow. Instead, it seemed like it had given them a place where they felt safe and shown them how they could interact with each other and the people living there. In addition, it seemed that the brief appearance of Ro had caused some of the animals in the old Grove to start worshipping him as well. She had caught the large feline that guarded the place dropping off a few shiny bits of foil at the altar, though she had no idea where from. Where Ro had been for the past few months, she had no idea. Shortly after the fight at the capital, he had flown off with the remains of the Thousand-eyed one. Wherever he was, she was sure he was okay, it wasn’t like there was much in the world that could threaten him.
With her mind settled and knowing that both Ro and the farmers would be okay, she had returned to her family and new Grove.
It felt a little weird to still call the place Et’s way. It just didn’t feel right for what had become their new home, a lush forest built overtop an abandoned town. She had briefly considered calling it Et’s Grove instead but didn’t like keeping the original name as part of it. That was mostly because she had no idea who Et was or what they had done to have the town named after them. Deciding she needed to find that out before she changed the name, just in case they were someone important to the Endarians, she had invited Indis and the Generals to come to see what she had done with the place.
In a way, it was her own message back to Indis. She could try to manipulate Zalia, twist her words and actions to keep her close and doing what Indis wanted her to do. She could try, but Zalia wasn’t going to just roll over and accept it. Indis wanted to give her the town as a way of saddling her with some sort of responsibility within the kingdom, to ensure she wouldn’t go wandering and never come back.
Well, Zalia was going to do what she wanted with the town then.
She was expecting them to arrive within a few hours, having received confirmation of their departure almost two days ago.
They had actually reached out to them through Aylie of all people. Using her ability called Dreamweave, Aylie was able to bring both Zalia and General Faian into the same dream. Or, what might be better described as showing each other the same dream and the reactions they each had to what the other said in their own separate but identical dreams. Zalia wasn’t even quite sure exactly how Aylie managed it, but it had been amazing to experience either way.
It was an ability that Aylie had been experimenting with more and more as of recently. Mostly, Ember and Aylie worked together on that ability, as Zalia didn’t exactly sleep very often. They were probably back at the statehouse at that moment, playing around with Aylie’s abilities and working them towards leveling up. Zalia expected a few of her abilities to start ranking up to Iron rank any day now.
Lumin was another matter entirely. She wasn’t exactly sure if they would rank up in the same way everyone else did, due to the Ascendant affix that came after their Tin rank designation.
Zalia had been feeling out the limits of her own abilities as well, such as they were. In doing so, she had made a discovery about Healing Presence.
While the range of its effects greatly outpaced what she could sense normally through her normal senses, as well as the magical ones, she couldn’t see what it affected. At least, not in a way that could be considered seeing.
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She had noticed it a couple of weeks back, a sense on the edge of her mind. It felt like her power was a part of the land as much as it was a part of herself, meaning that while she couldn’t see everywhere it affected she could feel it. She could sense the lay of the land, not to an exact but more a vague, blurry image of it. In addition, she could feel when that land was being affected by some kind of magic.
That was how she sensed Indis and the generals coming.
They must have had an earth mage with them that was flattening out the land in front of them to provide easy sure footing on their horseback journey to her town. It was something that she had seen the army doing a lot of the time, though usually there were quite a few of them that also returned the land to normal behind so as to eliminate any tracks they might leave.
Zalia strolled towards the front gate, eating some kind of nuts she had found growing on trees that had popped up in the main street. They were nice, kind of like almonds. When she reached the gate, she sat on a nearby piece of broken stone fence, one leg over the other.
She didn’t have to wait long, soon seeing five figures riding down the road from the capital.
Once they were close enough that Zalia could see them, she allowed herself some slight satisfaction at seeing the disgruntled expression Indis held. She was looking at the new and improved town behind Zalia, her annoyance more than obvious.
They trotted up on their horses, everyone except Indis dismounting as they walked up to Zalia. She popped another of the almond things in her mouth, enjoying the satisfying crunchiness of it.
“Hello.”
Faian nodded, gently patting the neck of her horse.
“Hey, love what you’ve done with the place.”
Zalia smiled.
“Well, come on in then.”
She stood up and started walking at a casual pace into the town.
“How are things in the capital anyway? Last I heard you were all much too busy to be coming all the way out here.”
“We certainly are too busy, but-” Indis started, speaking from where she still sat atop her horse.
“But, we can make time for one of the people that was majorly responsible for the current free state of Endaria, despite not being from here,” Faian finished for her.
Zalia could hear Indis’ teeth grinding in frustration. They had obviously had this argument already. Zalia didn’t envy Faian’s having to deal with the woman on a daily basis, but if anyone could she was the one.
“Good to hear. I actually wanted to know some of the history around this town you saddled me with. Who or what is Et?”
General Ballast was there too, along with Faian’s advisor Ryn and a mage she vaguely recognised from the army. Ballast was looking around at the overgrown town with an air of approval similar to Faian’s. Indis, on the other hand, was looking more and more annoyed.
Faian was the first to answer.
“Well, I don’t know the full history, though Lady Indis might, but from what I remember Et was a high-ranked merchant, one of very few in history. He was the founder of this town.”
Zalia looked to Indis who nodded in agreement.
“That’s about all I know as well. He was the reason the town ended up so large, from what I know, though how he did that I’m not sure.”
General Ballast let out a deep chuckle.
“Ah ha! Finally, something I know more about than you two! Et was no merchant, he was a scientist at heart. Sure, he excelled in mercantile business but I happen to know that the only reason he did this was to set Et’s Way up as a major trading post in the kingdom! Why, you might ask? Well, it’s simple. He did so because the lazy bastard didn’t want to have to go anywhere to buy his materials! Why go to them when they can come to you? Well, that and the fact he ended up with enough money to do as much of the said buying as he could wish for.”
Zalia frowned.
“So, to put it simply, a somewhat greedy man basically made the town and named it after himself?”
Ballast laughed again, much louder.
“Ha! Greedy. No, the only thing that man was greedy for was knowledge. He was an inventor!”
Zalia hummed in thought as they arrived at the statehouse. It was fully grown now, with a huge canopy reaching out over the town far above. Leaves gently floated down amongst floating warm lights.
“Well, it doesn’t particularly sound like anyone would mind about my renaming this place then. Welcome, to Nature’s Reclaim.”