At this point, I am not as surprised at the strangeness of this place. The tree man looks like a large Ent or Groot. The one big difference is in the eyes, both those characters had humanoid eyes. This being just has to cool blue glowing dots where its eyes should be. I identify the creature that came from the tree. What I see boggles my mind.
Golden Guardian Tree (Forgotten Forest) lvl 260.
Guardian Tree Avatar lvl 96.
It is not just the avatar but the fact that the tree has a level as well. I know that plant-like creatures can have levels but I was not expecting the tree to be an entity of its own.
“Welcome young traveler.”
The avatar's voice sounds like it has gargled with boulders. It is rough and deep. It might have been soothing once but right now I feel like I might want to run. It clears its voice, the cough sounding like two large branches banging together.
“I must apologize it has been quite a long time since I have guests I could speak with. I must get used to speaking again. But you are quite safe and welcome here in my grove. You have done me a great favor. You must be tired and you have come quite the distance, and had a few trials on your way here. Follow me.” It says this and turns to walk away.
Not really having any other options I follow along. The avatar moves at a measured pace to not leave me. We walk for half an hour to a nook at the base of the tree. I find what can only be described as a cottage in the nook.
The cottage is a mix of stone and wood it has wooden shutters over the windows. It gives off the whole built by hand vibe. The place is two stories and has a sloped roof. It would not have seemed out of place in a small mountain town. It had that whole old homestead tourist vibe. I can tell though when I look at it there is something more to it. The place seems like it is trying too hard to look ordinary.
The Masked Tower (Traveling Athenaeum) lvl 2.
“You can rest here my young friend. You will find that it should have everything you would need. While it will be cozy it should be clean. I have made sure that it has had at least the mana it has needed to maintain over the years. We will talk in the morning after you have rested. I owe you much my friend.” He walks away after that.
“Thanks,” I say to the wind exasperated.
I walk over to the cottage door I halfway expect to find the door locked. When the door opens, I release a breath I did not know I was holding. I watch as Akurra finds a nook to curl up in.
“You know you could just shrink and come in buddy?” I say to him as I look inside. I get the feeling from him he wants to sleep outside.
When I cross the threshold two lamps flicker on inside the cottage. The place is very cozy and larger than it looks from the outside. The door opens into a decent-sized common room. The room is taken up by a large table with benches on both sides. There is a large hearth with a large fireplace in the center of the room thankfully there was not a fire. There was a much smaller kitchen area in the corner with a much smaller fireplace for cooking. In the corner was a large sitting chair. There was a small hallway with a bedroom with a decent-sized bed. There was even a bathroom with a large stone tub. From what I could see there was no running water, but it was there. While it would have been nice to take a bath, I did not need it. I had expected everything to be covered in dust. The whole place was clean and dust-free. I don’t see any stairs to the second floor on my tour. I go outside and look again there is definitely a second floor but no steps are going to the second floor. It is a mystery for another day.
I went back to the common room and made myself a quick meal. Akurra was still digesting the wolf he ate and was not interested in more food at the moment.
When I am done eating, I undress and climb into the bed. I can’t remember the last time I slept in a bed. I think I will have issues sleeping but, as soon as my head hits the pillow I am out.
I wake up the next day, and for the first time, I am not awake at daybreak. I really needed the rest. I go out and check on Akurra. He seems content. Normally he would be pestering me about food.
“You didn’t eat something you shouldn't have right buddy?”
He looks at me and shakes his head and looks over to the side. The avatar is sitting there. I can tell he is not present since there is no glow in his eyes. Once I look at him the glow comes back.
“Ah, you are awake my young friend. Get dressed and we will break your fast.” He stands there waiting as I go back inside and put on my clothes. For the first time, I don’t equip my armor though I can still do so with a thought. Sky cutter is still on my hip as well.
“Ah good, good come along.” He says his voice is much smoother today. “I hope you rested well? You must have much you want to ask me?” He says as we walk. He leads me to a grove of trees. When I look up, I can see that they are all fruit trees of different types. All of the trees have ripe fruits on them that he reaches up and picks. “Yes, this will do quite nicely.” He takes the fruits and walks over to a large stone that has been shaped into a table. He puts the fruit down on the stone and moves to a large root and sits. “Eat, eat you must be hungry,” he says pointing at the fruit.
I pick up one of the strange fruits and bite into it. I don’t know what the thing is called but it is like a mixture of a pear and an orange and is delicious. I eat the whole thing and tear into a different fruit that is like an apple and a strawberry.
“Good, good my young friend. You have had quite the time since your arrival young traveler.” When he says that I freeze. He knows that I am not originally from this world. “No need to worry here my friend your secret is safe with me,” he says with a harsh laugh. “Yes, I am aware of your origin you arrived in my domain. The power of your arrival would have been impossible for me not to notice. I mean you no ill will though. Quite the opposite you have done me great favors” he says with a wave. “You are also not the first traveler I have met you must have questions. Plus, I owe you rewards for the favors you have done me.”
“I am confused you keep saying that I have done you favors but we just met?” The confused look on my face must be obvious. As he begins to laugh, while it is still a bit rough, I can tell there is a musical note to his laugh.
“You do not need to have met someone to have done them a favor my you friend. I will tell you the favors that I speak of though. The first is, that you weakened the SkyWeaver Queen. She had been sending out her young into the greater forest. Whatever you did the flow of the spiders has slowed greatly. Then there was the bigger issue of the beast of the swamp. That thing and I have been fighting for thirty-plus years. It was all I could do just to contain it now, it has been thoroughly destroyed. That swamp was not present before the creature arrived. I can reclaim that portion of my forest. So, you see you have done me great favors.”
I thought about the quest notifications. The unknown faction that I had been confused about. I now knew what, or who that faction was. It had been the forest itself. Or, at least the forest guardian in this case.
“Well, I had my own reasons for what I did. But I do need information so I won’t refuse.”
He looked at me for a while. “Where to start the name of this realm is Satis. You are on the continent of Greater Eyela. My forest covers about forty-four percent of the continent.” He waited for a while for it to sink in before he started again. “The major races of this world are the Alvairan, Demios, Human, and the Demons. Those were the races with their own nations anyway. There are also the Ossum and the Brack. Who are numerous but more nomadic.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
He continued like that for some time. He described each of the races to me in detail. The Alvairan were akin to the elves in our books and games. The Demios or Demis were the beast kin. From his description, the beast kin here were more beast-like in their features. They were far from the depictions we had in our media of more human-like with slight beast features. The humans were similar to me the only difference was size. I seemed to be a bit larger than the average human here, or at least from his recollection. He stated he had not seen humans in hundreds of years so he would not be sure. The demons were exactly like our depictions. Red skin beady eyes and evil as shit. The Ossum ended up being goblins. From what he described small green monsters with multiple forms got slightly more powerful as they got larger. The Brack ended up being the Orcs similar in size to humans with grey skin and tusks. There were other races but they were not nearly as numerous. I asked him about dwarves. From my description, they had been called the Shigan. They had been wiped out by the demons.
He explained the time system here. I had noticed but had no way of quantifying it, the days were much longer here. He told me the new names for the times. Nul were hours, there were one hundred minutes per hour. Days there were twenty-six Nul per day. Moons are months there were forty days per Moon. Arcs were years there were ten moons per arcs. So, from my calculation not that I was some mathematician but the years were about twice as long here.
So based on what he told me I was surprised at the next piece of information. The average life spans were crazy. The Demios on average lived to be about two hundred arcs. Humans could live to be anywhere from three to five hundred. The Alvairans lived to be thousands of arcs. The Demons were functionally immortal.
“So that leads me to the last thing I know about young human. The reason why I have not had visitors in almost two thousand arcs. What my last visitor called the great cataclysm, to his great shame! The other three main races allied against the humans. It was not a war though, the demons brought a plan to curse the humans. It was intended to slow human development. You see the others thought, the humans were advancing much too quickly. It had to do with the fact that the humans were not tied to any tradition. If they found something new that worked better than what they were doing then they went with it. The Alvair were too tied to their own traditions, and the Demios were not innovative. It inspired jealousy in the others. From what my guest told me the demons were acting out of fear. The humans were on the cusp of a breakthrough that would have been a real threat to them.”
He looked back at the cottage. I got the feeling of great loneliness from him. There was even an undercurrent of sorrow.
“The others got together out of fear and jealousy and hatched a plan. They called it the great slowing. What they did not know was that the demons had been scheming the whole time. They were working to weaken all the races and weaken the boundary between this world and their home plane. During this time the humans became aware of the plot. It was too far along for them to stop it so they found a way to change what was being done. They worked to reflect some of the curse on those casting it. While also changing the effects of the curse.”
He stopped shifting for a bit as he moved to gather me more fruit.
“When everything happened, it did not go according to either plan. The curse and the counter curse interacted having unintended effects even to this day. The humans were both strengthened and weakened. The Demios and the Alvair were both weakened. The demons were also weakened, but more importantly, they were cut off from their home plane.” He is saddened when he finishes this point.
“The curse had other effects. The plants and animals of the world changed. The beast became bigger and stronger. I grew and expanded to twice my previous size. At first, I was happy about the change but as fewer and fewer people even attempted to enter my forest, I realized my mistake.” He stopped I could tell he was thinking about what to tell me next. He had become introspective.
I had a few questions of my own so I decided to ask. “Your forest seems off the wildlife is strange to me was it always like that? Or was this something that happen because of the cataclysm?”
“Good question young human. Yes, the reason why my forest is the way it is, is because of the cataclysm. At first, my expansion was a good thing. I do not level as you do. I level by growing in size among other things. So, after the cataclysm, I was able to expand. The cataclysm brought with it other perils, in the form of portals. One hundred Arcs after the cataclysm the portals started to arrive. When a portal opens it will spew beasts from it. After that it sits inactive for some time then it will spew more dangerous beasts and disappear. That is how a number of the beasts that inhabit my forest came to be here. It is how the spiders arrived, and it is how your friend arrived. It’s how the plague beast came to be as well. I realize that in my expansion, I made myself a target for these portals. They are drawn to power, and my expansion gave me power” says stoically.
“I need a break to gather my thoughts, young human. Tell me of your world do you have forests there?”
I look at him and laugh. “Funny you would ask that I was walking through a forest before I was brought here. Though it was more like the first portion I was in, more temperate I mean. Yes, where I am from there are only humans, but if you go by our legends there were once more than humans at one point. There is one remaining forest of similar size on my world. It is called the Amazon. There has been a big push to protect it since it is essential for all life on my planet.” That statement gets his attention.
“Explain this to me young friend!” his voice is excited I can’t tell just what he is so excited about but I indulge him.
“Well, from what you have told me it sounds like my planet is more technologically advanced than this one. We have scientifically broken down the processes of most life including plants. Most living beings that breathe use an element called oxygen. The oxygen is circulated through the body by our blood. It is then expelled as a different gas called carbon dioxide. Plants like trees absorb carbon dioxide, along with the minerals they absorb in the water from their roots. Through a process called photosynthesis, they turn the carbon monoxide back into oxygen. From what I guess it is probably the same here. There is also probably some portion of the equation that adds mana to the mix as well. Plants also have been found to purify the water table so you probably serve some of that function as well.”
I watch in surprise as he closes his eyes to take in what I just told him. Well, he didn’t close his eyes it was more like they just disappeared. His whole face did one moment he was there then he was not. Then a bunch of shit started happening the ground started to rumble. And I watched as the large tree got fucking humongous. The tree had to have grown a few hundred feet taller. It also got wider as well. The glow of the tree also intensified and the leaves went from white to rainbow-colored. When I say rainbow-colored. I mean the light passed through the leaves like prisms. The effect was stunningly beautiful it was unlike anything I had ever seen.
Hidden epic quest completed, A spark of inspiration: The entity known as the Golden Guardian Tree has been unable to advance. The Golden Guardian Tree has been stuck at stage two for over two thousand Arcs. It has been on the cusp of a breakthrough for many years. It was being held back by the lack of specific knowledge of its full place in the circle of life. You with your advanced knowledge provided it with what it needed to advance to its final form. Quest difficulty/ Epic. Completed 3/3!
Calculating Quest rewards: Legendary crafting materials, +5 levels, Exalted (Forgotten Forest), Titles; Forest Friend, Multiple Variable!
LEVEL UP! You have increased your level. You have attained level Forty-five. You have received 80 attribute points you have 256 unspent attribute points.
The notification reminded me that there was so much I want to ask about that I had not gotten to yet. It was obvious to me that this day’s questions were over with. If was anything like what happened to me when I leveled, he would be gone for a while. I looked at him again to make sure and what I saw startled me.
Divine Guardian Avatar lvl 1.
Even though it looked like his level had reset, I could tell he was way more powerful. You could feel it in his presence even though he was not consciously there. There were also physical changes. He was now at least forty feet tall, and ten feet in circumference. He looked like a miniature tree himself. I also noticed that all of the trees in the grove were changing. Whatever happened it had spread to the other trees though not as drastically. Well, at least I had the cottage to figure out and explore.
The rest of my day was spent trying to figure out the mystery of the second floor. For the life of me, it eluded me. I did find some of the old occupant’s belongings. After what I found I could only guess that he had been Alvair and a mage. I figured this out because I found some of his clothes. What I found led me to believe that the previous owner was almost six feet tall. He was exceedingly thin like blow away in the wind thin. I found a surprising amount of clothes but no armor. I did find a set of robes though, they were ornate and reinforced, but not magical. Outside of the house itself, I did not find one magical piece of gear or book or anything of the type.
I looked out of the door to check on Akurra and found that he was not there. I could feel his general presence, and he was in a good mood. He also has that sated just ate feel he would get after feeding. I figured he had not broken any rules so I would leave him be. I settled down for a meal of my own I had enough fruit left over to make a nice meal for once. I ate and went to bed happy to sleep in a bed for a second night.