Aelit huddled against the corner of the hollowed-out dead tree. She held her arms together shivering, in the cold weather, lying on a makeshift leaf bed she had constructed herself. The chilling air had irritated her nose and ears. She was sure to catch a cold tonight. Or worse succumb to hypothermia. Shelter and a bunch of leaves were all that the forest had permitted her.

She stared up into the heavens above, at the azure-lit moon, that brought light to the damned forest around her. Some ‘druid’ she was, she hated every moment of being here. Not even her title was of much help, the forest didn’t welcome her. It didn’t want her here.

It had been a rough couple of days. She had been captured by bad actors just after her tribal home was torn to shreds. Tortured for days on end, for things she had no knowledge of or understanding of. Dumped into a pool of flesh-devouring slime monsters, like she was unwanted laundry.

The minotaur who had helped her escape, she hoped he was okay. Gorm or Gormark, she couldn’t remember his name. He’d get in trouble no doubt, she planned on meeting him again after this debacle, make things even.

Serephine that vile whore, she was going to slit her throat, sew it back shut and torture the elf hag. An eye for an Eye and all that.

She had barely escaped with her life, nearly devoured alive. Chased around by goblins and then there were the skull knights and the griffon that had gone after her, likely their pet. They had stopped following her, though she couldn’t be sure, she had completely lost them. They could be out here, waiting for her to make the wrong move. Pouncing her from behind. It was all so stressful, so tiresome, just a month ago, she had a normal life. A prodigal daughter according to her parents.

“Fucking invaders! Fucking Elf! Fucking skull knights! Fucking Forest!” She shouted, frustrated at the position she found her in.

All she wanted was to go home, except there was no home. She was alone with no family. She was a vagabond now, cursed to roam the open plains and smelly woods.

“Aarrghh!!!”

A pebble flew right through the hollow gap, hitting her on the head.

“I said fuck this forest in particular!”

A single pebble had turned into a volley, all aimed at her face. She threw her arms up to cover her it, from being battered by a barrage of stones. Sharp pains graced her fragile arms, grazing her skin.

The volley had kept going until she was forced to profusely apologize, to the spirit of the forest. She wanted nothing more than to tear her hair out. Climb into a chasm, and sleep away this restless nightmare. She hadn’t had a good meal in a while, she wasn’t sure she would ever taste a home-cooked meal ever again. ‘The invader’, had destroyed everything.

She felt nothing, just deadness. Maybe running around was a futile endeavor, at least in captivity she would be fed. Maybe get experimented on once or twice a day. But at least her stomach would be full.

A bright white flash collided with the ground, not too far from her. The sound of thunder cracking through the sky made her spring up into the air. Shaking her to her core, her heart raced, she was trembling from the sudden noise.

Thunder and lighting. She had never experienced it so close. Not once.

It didn’t stop there, a series of thunderclaps started rolling out, and the light drizzle that had blessed the earth had turned into showering chaos. She could feel the woodland animals scattering among the trees, not too far from her. A fight had broken out not too far from her. Between a whistlingbird and a stonepecker. Though she was no animal communicator she could often make out in human words what the animals had meant.

The birds had started bickering for territory and were ready to start fighting for it.

“I own this tree, you are in my nest. Get lost! You can’t just start living here!” The stonepecker complained.

“Brother, do you see this nasty rain? I need shelter, or else i may not make the night. You have enough space here, surely you can share.” The whistlingbird argued.

“No! Do I eat out of your hatchling's nest, when I feel hungry? Go away now. Or I’ll Peck you a hole in you.”

“Selfish! Your kind is all the same.”

She couldn’t block out the words she was hearing, it would come and go. Part of the package of being a druid by bloodline she had supposed. But she didn’t need more voices in her head. Much less wild animals. If they couldn’t come to terms, then she would make them both go away.

She picked up, one of the pebbles the forest had thrown at her and prepared to throw at the bickering avians.

“Do! Not! Do! That!” A voice manifested herself out of nowhere, commanding her to stop. It was guttural, old, feminine.”Do not interfere! Where you are not needed! Nature will sort itself out”

Goosebumps, her back tingled and her fear had doubled.

A spirit made its presence known. It had the appearance of a naked woman, skin paler than mountain snow, and black eyes as empty as the void. Long hair that flowed below her waist. Nails ebonblack and as long as sharpened knives. She knew exactly who this was, it was the forest itself, in humanoid form. Presenting itself. No doubt it would ask her things now, or force her to conform with its rules. She was clueless as to what she was supposed to do exactly, as she was still green in her in this profession.

“What exactly…is it that you want.” She asked the spirit of the forest. SH wanted no games, no riddles, she needed rest. And preferably a direction to the nearest village.

“I want you to stop, I want you to think, and I want you to help me,” The spirit approached her, she could barely hear any footsteps she was making.”You may call me Mournvine, I am the forest, I am the tree you are sitting in. I am the leaves you have plucked from the ground below.”

What was next, did she expect her fall on the ground and gravel for it?

“I can hear your thoughts. What I want you to do is to listen, treat me like barren dirt and I will do the same.” it threatened. Shutting her up.

How comforting. She wasn’t even allowed to think.

“Can you feel it? Something is very wrong within the circumference of my trees in the disturbance inside the forest. Growing, consuming, devouring. An outsider…Trapped man in the flesh of a monster. I want you to stop him. Before he takes too much. Too much of me.” It put its fingers on her face, long-nailed trailing along her soft skin.

She felt uncomfortable, she was taught not to communicate with great spirits without the help of a senior druid, there was too much she could lose to it. It could curse her if it wanted to.”

“Do this, and we will treat you accordingly. We’ll treat you like our own, teach you what should’ve been taught to you long ago, young druid, damaged girl. You are confounded and confused, infantile and ill-prepared. I understand that.”

The last thing she needed was a psychological lesson, from a glorified network of trees. But if this favor could grant her a boon or two. Then she was in no position to refuse. She had grown sick of being on the run. Scavenging up and below for fruits, nuts, and wild mushrooms that didn’t poison her. What did she have left to lose except her sanity?

“My staff…I lost it, along my journey here. Without it... Nature will refuse to answer my call.”

It had been a gift from her father.

“You have lost a very personal thing, young Aelit. Something no keeper of woods should’ve ever have lost.”

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“I know,” she said with a hint of guilt. “And why exactly can’t you deal with yourself, you command the forest.”

The spirit grabbed her hands and held them together with its crude animalistic hands. There inside the crevice of their hands, something had formed. Something was rumbling in her hands, wood, she could feel it, treebark. It was growing, slowly taking shape, with wild and jagged edges. Its length grew outside of her hands. It came along nicely, though made of nothing more than simple wood, it was ornate in its carved-out shape.

As she held it in her hands, she could feel a surge of energy gripping her, the life force of the forest, it would aid her in the coming battle.

“We do not make the rules, the gods do. We cannot harm interlopers directly. We can only influence the beasts of the land.”

“But they may hurt us freely, and their powers are calamitic, destructive, and ruinous. They have no place here.

“A pain we all bear. Now go little black heart, waif of the forest.” The forest urged her on.

She sighed. She didn’t understand what she was supposed to do. Heavy rain hit her, and she took it head-on. Standing at the edge of the hollowed-out tree, she listens to the forest. The voices of passing critters running for their lives, a willow tree whispering of the chaos, foreboding warnings from the birds above.

West of here, near the river, something was going crazy there. Eating everything in sight, from the smallest rocks to bringing down the tallest trees, sparing not a single bush. The devourer had actively chased after large animals. Its hunger seemed unstoppable.

It seemed like an impossible task.

She morphed, her pale skin darkening, the small hairs on her body had started enlarging new fur-like hair that sprung up. Her spine contorted, all of the bones in her body bending and reshaping herself. A tail appeared on her backside. She leaned forward, body lying in a fetal position. Slowly becoming a feline beast. Her clothing shrank into nothingness and her newly gifted staff disappeared, dematerializing into thin air.

The transformation had its drawbacks. But she would not linger on its pains. Her senses were heightened. She could hear the chaos better, and see her surroundings in detail. Run faster, every physical thing a human could not do without powers, she had become a master of.

On all fours, and alert. She sped into the direction of the disturbance.

The journey there had been an arduous one, the ground was all sloshy with deep mud, the rain had constantly blurred her vision, and then there were the animals as large as her, fleeing but on a path of collision with her.

Then she saw it. A giant collective mass of blob, goo, and what was probably slime. Inside its body were all the things it could not digest, like the rock of the earth itself, and various metal stuAffs such as ore. Dozens of tentacles and long arms flailing about, she noticed most peculiarly the sword it held in one of those long arms. Using to cut its surroundings.

Reverting to her human, she held the staff in place. She would try to negotiate with the beast, and if it was truly mindless. She would put it down. A strange feeling took hold of her, the beast seemed very familiar. In her panther form, it smelled very much like the cave she had been dumped inside of.

Could it be….

Her father had always dealt with trapped souls like that. Interlopers who had reincarnated into the body of beasts went mad and had to be put down. Looks like she would be walking in his footsteps.

“You there, Monster!” She called out to him, and like as if its attention shifted towards her, two big googly eyes, locked themselves on her. “Stop this madness at once!”

It gurgled at her, some combination of a guttural growl, a burp, and the sound of vomiting in her ears.

Welp she had tried. It clearly didn’t speak.

With the help of her staff, she broke off a piece of dead wood and launched it at him. Piercing a hole through him.

Well shit!

It didn’t do anything but anger him even further, its tentacles came together and started lashing out at her. She retreated doing her best to hide behind structured obstacles such as the trees. She crept behind it, she needed some way to reduce its mass, reduce its ability to harm the surrounding area.

Feeling the presence of the forest spirit, well around her. She calls out to her, curious as to what he may do to fight the ever-evolving monster.

“How do you bring him down?”

“What doesn’t mix well with oil.” it had answered. “Try to minimize the damage it might, the forest won’t survive if everything is uprooted.”

Sure, just tell the giant monster to stop smashing trees. Lure it to a large body of water while you’re at it. Speaking of trees, the feeling of heat being built up behind her intensified. The Tree had been set aflame.

“What the hell.” she fled towards another tree, repeating what she had done earlier, but targeting the blobs tentacles, with the pieces of tree projectiles. Guerilla warfare. The blob had approached and had gotten closer.

She barely had enough time to get away and fired at it, while she scrambled to find more cover. She accidentally tripped and fell, her face landing inside a small hole. There inside a small tunnel, stood a large group of squirrels chattering intensely. They all stared at her.

“Hello!” she said awkwardly.

“What’s all this ruckus, we live here you know, get out of here.” The tallest of the squirrels spat and she struggled to get her head out.

“No more humans and elves, leave nature alone!” another shouted.

As she pulled herself out the blob was practically on top of her, she was grabbed by one of the icky tentacles and thrown through the air, just barely by the breadth of her neck landing safely. She pointed the staff to a nearby tree, a very thick branch had formed and grabbed her mid-air.

While she was in the air she spotted it, the river. She’d make it there with great effort. She wondered why the rain didn’t massively affect the blob’s body or perhaps it did, and that is why it was devouring. She killed that theory pretty quickly when it reached out for her.

She started sprinting, maneuvring across the muddy ground, Large boulders older than the trees, and the deep roots of those trees that connected from one tree to another.

Now standing in front of the river, where she would make her last stand. She needs a way for it to get inside. The blob approached but stopped, observing her. Did it know that the water was a weakness? That more than complicated things, it was more than smart enough to have survival instants, but dumb enough to determine the full ramifications of its growing destruction.

“Use the water, call out to the river, call out to its blessing .” the forest had guided her.

Between dodging tentacle attacks and trying to summon a large swathe of water to dump on the blob was an extraneous effort. The river was already wild no thanks to the storm.

“River spirit! I call out to you in a time, of need, wash away our mutual foe. So that the forest may once again be at peace.” At first, nothing happened. Despite the feeling of magical energy leaving her body. But then a tidal wave rose, up into the air, slowly rising, rainwater mixing well into it. All her energy taken by it, she sent the massive wave against the blop of slime slop.

It splashed against it. The Blobs from slowly disintegrating and being split into dissolving pieces. The water was spilling everywhere, she was already drenched, and now she was covered in

The Blob in a fit of rage, threw the sword at her, with flaming fury.

“Gladius Aquila Ignis!” it had shouted, narrowly missing her as she blocked it by, summoning the earth to form a wall of protection.

The beast now miniature but mad creature was practically defenseless, she would have to put it down.

The sword in front of her started humming madly and glowing, drawing her in, urging her to pick it up. She couldn’t help it, she felt compelled. As she picked it up from the ground. A spirit appeared in front of her, a dead soul of an interloper, she recognized the armor. She knew the spirit was trouble.

“Wait! Don’t kill him, he is not a wild beast, he is undergoing something right now.” The spirit begged her.

“Yeah, just let him devour everything, that will go well.”

“I have seen you in Victor’s memories, you would not be here if it wasn't for him.”

“What are you talking about, I've never met this beast.” She stared at the small ball of goo, dozens of noodly tentacles arms going absolutely nuts.”

“Oh, but you have, in that cave. Help him as he once helped you.”

She remembered. It was an awkward memory. She had been woken by an amorphous pile of slime, and it simply stared at her. Didn’t do anything like most of the things that gravitated toward him.

She sighed. She had made a promise to the forest. But she also couldn’t bring herself to end him. What was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to control him?

A softened lightning arched through the air and struck the ground next to her. A man appeared in front of her with a white staff, fully hooded by his robe, but she could still see his face in the dark and

A zoom spell. She was fucked.

A high-level wizard appeared, this spelled trouble. Now she wanted out of whatever this was. She turned to run but found herself kicking air as she was lifted.

“That’s quite enough,” the man expressed. “I don’t know whether to thank you or whether to harm you.”

“Go to sleep!”

She collapsed on the ground, the smell of wet earth entering her nose. Finally she could rest, her muscles ached, throbbing with sore pains. When was the last time she had a proper nap?

The last thing she had heard was.

“Oh…Victor what happened to you.”