Flying high up in the sky, the first big target I found after leaving the elders' village was a goblin horde. Only thirty kilometers separated the goblins from the village.
While one could compare the elder village with a retirement home for centaur chieftains - the levels of everyone living there was in the third tier - a goblin horde was the perfect siege weapon. They couldn't defend everywhere and the goblins would spoil the centaurs' food just by dying everywhere. Without the vegetable gardens, they would starve as there isn't decent food anywhere in the sand-and-gravel semi-arid environment of the peninsula.
"I'm going down to fight them!" I told the fairy riding on my back.
"Why would you do something that stupid?" The fairy shouted back. "Seriously, what's wrong with you?"
"I need to kill goblins and level up! I have to go down and kill them!"
She slapped the back of my bird-head. "Why do you need to go DOWN to do that? You're level ZERO girl."
"I'm--"
"A barbarian, I got it!" She screeched. "You've played too much 'raid the human village' with your fellow foals, stupid pony. Nevermind, I got this!"
Nenandil dropped several boulders from my item box.
"Oh," I gasped.
"You can go bathe in the blood of your enemies whenever you want after you are no longer some flimsy filly daydreaming. Here it comes..."
> For killing level 11 Goblin, you gained 3,287 Exp (Base 1,210 x3.05 Exp Boost x5 Fast Learner x0.75 size x0.95 contract x0.5 Rarity x0.5 rank)
>
> You reached Battleborn Centaur Heritor level 5.
>
> [...]
>
> You reached Centaur Berserker level 5.
>
> [...]
>
> For killing level 6 Goblin, you gained 978 Exp (Base 360 x3.05 Exp Boost x5 Fast Learner x0.75 size x0.95 contract x0.5 Rarity x0.5 rank)
>
> [...]
>
> For killing level 21 Goblin, you gained 11,979 Exp [...]
>
> You reached Battleborn Centaur Heritor level 11.
>
> You reached Centaur Berserker level 11.
"Seriously, rain down some magic on the goblins!" Nenandil yelled. "Weren't you bragging to be the most powerful [Berserker] spellcaster to a deity hours ago?"
That felt so damn wrong. I should be there, crushing them with a big weapon, seeing them driven before me, and hearing the lamentations of their women. Oh, fuck.
Compartmentalized Mind
I triggered Apricot's special ability that I purchased as a [unique] Perk. I shoved all the bloodlust and rage into a box and shut it there. My mind cleared at once.
"I think I know what's wrong," I told Nenandil.
"Really? The big bad six-limbed barbarian used her brains?" She whined.
I ignored her taunt. She was about to gnaw on my feathers.
"Listen to yourself. Don't you think there's something wrong with you too? Were you always whiny like this? What Class did you pick?"
She paused to think and calmed down for a while, then everything came back again. "[Frostborn Sorcerer]... don't you try to study me you dummy brute!"
I needed to calm her down. I spoke softly, "Hey, it's me. Me. Am I a barbarian? I came from a world where culture reached levels this one will never even dream of."
"Erm..."
I knew what it was. Enforced behavior. The System was messing with the users' minds and pushing a stereotypical behavior based on their Class picks.
"Listen, Nenandil. The System is doing that to you. It probably thinks sorcerers and berserkers should be at odds with each other."
"Oh, now the big bad berserker is a know-it-all," the fairy sneered.
"System. Can you confirm the System is injecting behavior patterns into their users?"
> ACKNOWLEDGED. Affirmative. Behavioral modules are set for all Classes.
Oh, yes. It was good to be able to peek under the curtain of Oz. "Disable behavioral modules for me and my contracted users."
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
> ACKNOWLEDGED. Submitting query. Approved. Behavioral modules disabled for users [ID hidden] Snowdrop, [ID hidden] Nenandil, [ID hidden] Marlowe. User [Pandora] has no Class.
"Log a complaint about that to the admins. Disable these modules for the users listed in the last query automatically."
> ACKNOWLEDGED. Message sent.
"Thank you."
> ACKNOWLEDGED.
I circled around to come back and fly over the goblin horde. The greenskins were busy looting what was left of their brethren, at least the ones that weren't directly underneath the boulder but close enough to the shockwave to take damage. In fact, they were finishing the ones that were badly wounded. I kept getting notifications for partial Exp. But I had more important things to do than finish the horde.
"How are you feeling?" I asked the fairy.
She sighed in relief, "Better. Thank you. I can't believe they did that..." I felt her fidgeting.
"Don't worry. You're welcome," I screeched happily. "And now..." I traced the spell circle, "{Siege Fireball}, {Siege Fireball}, {Siege Fireball}."
The spells were expensive and I didn't have enough Energy to cast another two even with my cost reductions. Their area of effect was great, anyway. Exp notifications popped up. I'd reached level fourteen but now the levels ramped up to ridiculous amounts. Sixteen hundred thousand for the next level. As much as I'd gathered so far. I would need to slaughter another goblin horde to gain a single level.
Off to the next target, then.
----------------------------------------
Fulgen's Throne Room
----------------------------------------
"Cursed fairies!" Winter shouted as she threw a goblet at the wall. "Couldn't they speak language like anyone else?"
"Don't say that," Spring rebutted. "They are our link to Nature. You know very well that without their aid, we would've to submit to one of the Gods."
Sariandi stood and left the throne room, filtering the bickering of her daughters. Where did she fail? Why did they end up like that?
"Your High Majesty," a guardian saluted. "The farseers are on their way."
She nodded. "Send them to the Solstice meeting room. And have entertainers distract my daughters."
The guardian saluted again. "It will be done. For Aiur!"
She sighed. The salute, the crown, everything was a joke played on them by... Alloralla. The Old Soul, the Traveler, the Reincarnator. She bitterly remembered the last time they met. A simple request that was denied by the narrowness of her daughters. Just to spite her. Just to prove they were superior. Strangely enough, she took it in stride but the threat of breaking contact hurt her.
She was Sariandi's adoptive mother, after all. Even if it was just a farce to dump the responsibility on her.
Reaching the meeting room, she entered and sat alone. There were two guardians at the door on either side but she was alone as these elves would never reveal something that transpired in the room. The words of the dryad echoed in her mind.
> "A bond that's been broken. The weakness of your heart, Sariandi."
>
> "You've committed the same sin twice."
What sin? What bond? She knew the fairies favored the Old Soul. She was aware of the sudden boom in the fairy population in the last few hundred years. She saw the goods brought from the fairy island. Pushing that aside, she focused on the dryad's closing words,
> "Bark is but a cover for the heartwood hides within. Look at it with your eyes, talk to it with your voice, hear what it has to say with your ears. Learn of your folly and the love you've lost for naught. Despair, and maybe after that you'll find salvation."
Could the answer be that simple? Did the fate of the Forest rest on the Old Soul's shoulders once more? It's been a century since "The Siren", the first mermaid princess died. Her legend reached Pekothas' shores already. Of how she could entrance armies with her song and rain devastation upon the enemies of the ocean.
Yes, the Old Soul should be around, somewhere. Sariandi had no way to reach her, though. Without knowing who she was now, it was impossible to send a {Messenger Bird}.
Her reverie was broken by the door opening. The five farseers, magicians specialized in divination magic, greeted her. "Your High Majesty, we answer your summons."
"[Farseers]. King Brunswick of Pekothas assaults the forest. He sits on a throne on wheels and never leaves it. He's invincible, and I think it is because of the throne. I need you to look at it. Look into it. I fear there's some artifact buried in it that makes him so."
"We shall do as you ask. For Aiur."
The magicians cast their sight across the forest, into the human camp. They saw the King, they saw the throne. Two of them slumped in the chair, exhausted probably because of some ward against divination. They at least managed to weaken it so the other three could peek at it.
"We see it," they said in unison. "A wooden throne that is too heavy for wood. Deeper grooves on the dirt, it makes. Inside, we peek."
Two more collapsed, spent. The last one spoke, "Carefully, my sight pierced the deadwood. Behind the throne and into the arms, a statue. A peasant human woman, kneeling in supplication, her arms raised as if making an offering."
He fainted after that.
Sariandi felt the blood leave her extremities. Her skin went cold. She knew of the statue. "Witch of Tambrillia," the humans called her. A wicked woman that defied the Gods, the [Bards]'s songs said about her.
But she knew the truth.
There was no witch. It was the petrified body of a mother, whose only sin was loving her daughter.
Scared, she stood up and backed away from the table until she touched the wall. The ancient tree. Looking around her and seeing as if for the first time, Sariandi reminded herself they lived inside a giant tree. A living being.
> "Look at it with your eyes, talk to it with your voice, hear what it has to say with your ears."
She used her {Elven Spell-song}. She didn't try to shape the wood. She sang to appease the tree. Her harmonious voice evoked the sound of leaves rustling in the wind. Of acorns rolling in the ground. That triggered a response.
"Your acorns, great Home-Tree?" She asked along with the song.
Sariandi slumped and slid along the wall to sit on the floor. She hit the living tree with the back of her head, berating herself. That's why she didn't insist any longer. When they denied her the sapling, she just asked the tree for seeds.
"They are, Home-Tree. Your acorns are safe and healthy if they are with her," She said and finished her song.
It was so ridiculously obvious now.
> "A bond that's been broken. The weakness of your heart, Sariandi."
>
> "You've committed the same sin twice."
She recognized she did. Her heart clenched as she remembered the long-extinct Council. The same sin, twice.