The Corrupted Apex Fang was destined to be remade as a spear again. He harvested an Iron Oak branch and polished it to a nice finish ending up with a long shaft. Then he used the metal spider scale to form a metal band and secure the fang in place. Since he had some success in enhancing arrows he dipped the fang into Corrupted Water; the fang absorbed the water like a greedy sponge. Once it stopped ‘drinking’ he finished the weapon giving it a good old Reinforce.

[You have crafted Devouring Spear of legendary quality. Crafting +1500exp.]

[Temporary perk Soul Steal obtained.]

“Okay…” The perk sounded ominous. “I have to test this, right?”

It was unlikely he will find any willing subjects, but where there’s a will, there's a way; or so the saying went.

He went to the Boar pen, picked a ‘volunteer’ and then witnessed the spear’s power. It dispatched the boar in a single hit. The tip glowed in faint red for a moment but that was it.

“Well, I don’t feel any different. So did it take its soul or something?” The perk was still a mystery, but it was obvious it could kill a simple animal in one hit, so calling it potent was an understatement.

“I’ll just be careful what I poke with it.”

With that done, he crafted himself a simple tunic to lay over the plate armour. He did so since the bright orange was a bit too flashy for his taste, not that the vivid blue was any better. If only he had a nice crest to put on it, he would look like a Templar Knight. Speaking of which his farm was in no way little, it was a budding kingdom with no less than five thousand spiders alive and growing. It was easy to forget how big it had gotten since the spiders were quite self-sufficient. Actually, it was hard to keep track of who was doing what, but he had his advisor for that.

Anyway, long tangent aside, it was time he designed a symbol to represent his people. There were some obvious choices, but drawing an obsidian black spider might send the wrong message to other people. That, and he wasn’t great at art. Actually, there was beauty in both the complex crests and simple minimalistic flags. There were kingdoms with dragons on their crests but too often that was just a pretence and a claim to unearned power; cowards liked to hide behind the powerful symbols. Since it was his kingdom he leaned on his own ideals and settled on a simple crest. It was a black hexagon on a blue background, in the centre of it were four dots. The hexagon resembled the iconic obsidian spider eggshell, and the dots symbolised the four spider eyes.

It ended up looking like some tribal mark, but he was happy with the simple and easy-to-replicate design. He presented it proudly to his best advisor.

“This is the symbol of our kingdom and you the spiders.” He showed a sample he had made for display purposes. “Can you make sure other spiders wear it with pride? Oh, and a few flags here and there would be cool too.”

“Understood.” The spider advisor simply chirped and then relayed the command to another spider.

The other spider went to the other two, two to four and four to sixteen and soon everyone knew of the new symbol. Thus the second commandment was born.

1. No one shall go naked.

2. You wear the symbol with pride.

In retrospect the commandments were quite silly, other kingdoms probably had laws such as: you don’t kill, you don’t steal, respect your God and King, or anything equally important. However, he didn’t feel like he needed those, the spiders were just too well-behaved and there was literally zero problem with them. And if ever anything went sideways it was because he didn’t explain it properly.

With the little details out of the way, he gathered some stuff into his inventory and went to see the elves.

…

Once he saw it he knew something was wrong. The living-wood palisade was all crooked and overgrown, the tall towers were replaced by unruly trees, the gates were wide ajar and there wasn’t a single elf taking a watch. He would have thought that the elves were attacked and taken out if not for the spiders who were waving at him in greeting.

As soon as he stepped through the abandoned gate he was met with the message: [You have entered The Ancestral Tree]. This was confusing because he was still outside and not even close to the giant tree which was growing in the centre of the elven city.

The oddities didn’t end there. The elven houses were all twisted and crooked, the beautiful lampposts were turned into normal trees. Actually, everything in sight looked quite unkempt and overgrown, plus he still had to see a single elf.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“What happened?” he shouted to one of the spiders he had left behind.

Instead, a pulsing orb of green light manifested right in front of him.

“Greetings, Friend.”

He looked at the speaking orb in confusion. Was he supposed to know it? “Hello…” He looked inside his memory hard, the woody voice was sort of familiar. “Great Dryad?”

“I see. You recognised my soul. Well done.”

“What happened? Did you die?” He worried that he might be talking with a ghost now.

“Die? No. The opposite. Come inside me, we will talk.”

He gave the talking wisp an odd look. “Actually, where are the elves? I’m here to see the High Chief.”

“Him!?” The voice sounded angry. “They are hiding out of shame. Come, we will talk.” The orb urged him to follow.

Even if reluctantly he followed the talking wisp. The streets and trees were full of various animals, all close to each other, wolf to a rabbit and owl to a mouse; together in an unlikely piece. He felt like he was walking inside a fairy tale. And there it was, high in the tree an elf, but naked! Why did they have to be naked he wondered at the mystery.

Finally, he was next to the ancestral tree. It wasn’t hard to put one and two together, but somehow he had gotten five for an answer.

“Wait… Are you an ancestral tree now?”

“Yes, we are one now.” The wisp pulsed and then disappeared into the rugged bark of the tree. “Come.”

He looked at the brown bark, there were no doors or windows. He wasn’t sure how he could follow the wisp, so he stood there waiting for a secret entrance to open or something like that.

The green orb poked out halfway out of the bark. “Come. We must speak.” It urged.

Well, maybe there was an illusion so he began walking towards the wall-like bark. He didn’t want to embarrass himself and miss an entrance so he raised his hand to touch any real obstacles. A wise decision it was because his hand touched nothing but rough bark, there was no illusion. And then…

He felt his mind to be pulled. Naturally, he tried to resist it, but the pull was overpowering. He felt his mind being ripped away from his body, which was an entirely new feeling, but at least it wasn’t painful. He could even see himself standing there frozen and simply touching the tree.

“Come!” The voice urged again.

The pull only got stronger and he was sucked inside the tree. His vision shifted and he could see the entire elf city from an eagle-eye-like view. He concentrated on a random formerly house (now just a tree) and the vision zoomed right in. Not only he could see the animals jumping in and out of the tree but also, tiny little sparks inside their bodies. He looked around for a bit and then zoomed in on a familiar spider, it too had a tiny spark inside its body; The spark was black in colour but it definitely was no indication that this spider was evil; The spider gave him an innocently cute chirp for a greeting. Just to prove the point he looked around singling out a large white spark in his vision, he zoomed on it and found a naked elf. The elf stared at him with eyes so wide they were on the verge of popping out.

Yeah, they could see him too which meant he had just committed some sort of invasion of privacy. He flew away from the startled elf and back up into the sky. He wondered what he looked like in this form, but he couldn’t see himself.

“Where did you go?” The voice boomed right inside his head. “Don’t get distracted.”

He felt the pull again and his mind flew far and fast away from the elven city, or whatever the settlement was supposed to be now. He was moving so fast that for a moment he thought he had become a ballistic rocket. Disorientating was the word to describe the experience.

He looked around again, by the looks of it he was at the edge of the forest. Well, to be precise, he was at the new edge which yet hasn’t been chopped down. In the distance as far as he could see he saw nothing but tree stumps and sparks of fire.

“Humans!” The voice boomed angrily. “They hate the forest. They destroy it.”

“Oh…” He looked down and indeed there was a group of humans chopping at the large tree.

It was the first time he had seen humans in this world and as expected they were slightly different from the norm but also familiar. He looked at the particular specimen and it was just a man, with tanned skin, a bushy red beard and green eyes. It wore simple and dull clothes, and in his hands was a silvery metal axe.

“They! Seek to destroy us.” The voice accused. “To turn this forest to ash. To fuel their wars.”

“I see…”

Now he knew what the Great Ancestral Tree was showing him, and he knew why.

“And the elves? Did they do anything about this? Did they talk with humans?”

“They did and they failed. This was going on for a century. The forest getting smaller and smaller. It is enough! Enough of failure!”

“I see…” He already knew where this was going.

“King of Spiders, you are a friend of nature. Will you help us?”

He wasn’t particularly for or against nature, he wasn’t an elf, so he didn’t know where that impression came from. Regardless, he did consider the Great Dryad as his friend because it had saved his life once. So not only there was a debt to pay but also an alliance to uphold.

“We are allies, and allies help each other in hard times.” He spoke his mind.

“Good!” The voice sounded pleased. “Cleanse the forest from this evil infestation.”

“Hold on a minute. Maybe we should talk with them first?”

“It is futile. It never works. They know only how to destroy and deceive.” The voice said it as if stating a fact.

“But then… you are speaking of war? Or am I misunderstanding something?” He asked hopefully because wars were ugly.

“Yes, War! It’s time nature fights back!”

He couldn't believe it, but was he really the only one trying to be reasonable here? Weren’t ancient trees supposed to be calm and slow to act, they should be smart and wise, they should be against violence!

“I don’t know about that. I’m human myself, so maybe if I asked them we could come to some agreement. You want to stop them from destroying the forest, yes?”

“Correct.”

“So let me talk first.”

“You can but hurry. Trees die every day.”

Well, he now knew the Great Ancestral Tree’s side of the story, so now there was the need to hear the other side. In all likelihood, he expected the humans just to be ignorant and unaware that this forest belonged to someone already. After all, misunderstandings do happen. So he lowered his spiritual self low enough so that he could be easily detected by the humans present.

He tried to project his Aura Perk, but that didn’t activate, so instead he put his best smile on and greeted the labourers with a simple “Hello.”