“Rain is good. Yup. Nothing better than rain.”
Licht internally nodded his head sagely.
“Though, if that’s the case…THEN WHY CAN’T I MOVE MY BODY?!”
Though he was initially glad to have the rain, as more moisture meant healthier animals and plants and thus more prey, what he realized as time went on was that the rain had more dire consequences than he imagined.
“Why did no one tell me I was in a low lying basin? How big is this goddamn floodplain? I can’t even see the water source that's being flooded with my vision sense! Is it that far away?”
That aside, the flood had ruined most of his pitfall traps and inundated his connected trees with enough water to make it hard to move them. He would just have to accept that it was a wash.
Though that’s not to say the situation wasn’t totally without its benefits. The water had been at a standstill for nearly a week. Allowing him to casually soak it up for speeding up the growth of his forest as well as–which came as a shock to him–actively hunt animals.
It turned out that the cute little creatures of this forest were not adapted well to flash floods, and he was able to pick off the tired swimmers from above by controlling his tree branches. That, at least, had netted him a fair amount of experience. His interface now showed as such:
[Level: 3]
[Exp: 316/400]
[Name: Licht Welles]
[Race: Woodland Ego (Juvenile)]
[Health: 50/50]
[Stamina: 20/20]
[Energy: 30/30 AF]
[Rank: E+]
[1 STR, 3 DEX, 15 WIS, 10 END, 0 CHA]
[Virtues: (Twig), (Branch), (Root)]
[Specializations: Wood]
[Skills: Psychometric Observation (D-), Biogenical Growth (D+), Passive Nutrition Absorption (E), Passive Acid Resistance (E), Passive Withy Body (E), Wooden Commune (E), Wood Manipulation (D-)]
“Preying on the weak to pretend to be strong? That’s not how a Guardian of the Forest should act!”
“Not very efficient compared to hunting with traps, but it beats just sitting on my ass. Not like I’m going anywhere.”
Indeed, Licht had spent most of his week just thinking. Pulling soaked rodents out of the water didn’t take much effort so most of his time was spent contemplating his problems. Specifically, the Giving Tree’s warning.
“Hunters would come for white leaves, huh. Well now that I know the benefits of having a tree-body, I’m definitely not leaving it anytime soon. Plus, I don’t think the white leaves are all that apparent, anyway.”
As an experiment during the monsoon, Licht had fully converted one of the branches coiled around his form into his main tree. Like he hypothesized, all of its leaves had turned white. It had proved that there was no getting rid of the inexplicable albinism easily.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“That said, I still need to prepare for possible contact with people. I wonder when it’ll happen?”
…
A few days later, the water level had started to decrease. Whether it was draining or evaporating Licht didn’t know. His own absorption of the water hadn’t seemed to decrease the level by even an inch, but all of a sudden it was suddenly visibly dropping every hour?
“Just one more thing that makes this place weird. Well, whatever. Not like it really affects me.”
Licht internally closed his eyes again after having been briefly interrupted, and got back to soaking in the sun’s rays.
“I really am starting to think like a plant, to enjoy something like this so much…what was that?”
A rustling nearby? No scratch that, a shaking! Lichts vision quickly shot over to the offending area, ready to nab the little critter that was making the noise. Except, there was no such thing?
“Where’d the little guy go? I don’t see anything.”
Licht prodded and poked the bush, preening between the leaves to see any sort of movement. The shaking noise happened again. Licht was stumped. Unless…?
[Wooden Commune]
Licht’s vision went black, focusing on the only thing of color present, the fruit bush sapling.
“Hello? Anyone home?”
Licht waited, although he hadn’t had any level ups in the past few days after level three, his AF gauge was not the flimsy thing it once had been. He could afford to be patient.
“Mrhrhm.”
Suddenly a high pitched voice resounded. A sound reached Licht’s senses, almost sounding like chewing, or some kind of squeaking.
“Woah? Are you speaking to me? Hello?”
“Mrm…hello?”
The high pitch voice resounded back to him. To Licht, it sounded less like the voice had understood him and more like it was just copying what he was saying. Kind of rude, really.
“I’m Licht, are you a bush? Are you… intelligent?”
He observed the tiny sapling bush, now refraining from prodding it with the hopes that it may be the second intelligent plant to have been encountered by him.
“Mruhim. Mrhuhuh! Hua hua. Bush!”
Licht frowned. Were those noises like the cooings of a baby, or were they actual words in some kind of plant-language? The Giving Tree hadn’t done anything like this, and he got the impression that the wooden commune skill wasn’t hindered by language barriers.
“You must be a child plant then? How were you born?”
Licht doubted it was going to start naming its parents, but given the evident extreme rarity of intelligent plants in this forest he figured the question was worth asking.
And Licht wasn’t about to start counting those evil orange flowers as ‘intelligent’. Those things still gave him the creeps…
“Maharem. Born! Water born! Safety in water! Born! Born!”
“Ehhhh?”
Okay, the bush knew ‘born’ for sure. But that was interesting, it must have been born during the flood? Licht wondered if that was why the water levels had suddenly started to drop. Were the newly born intelligent plants draining it all?
Then why hadn’t he seen more of them?
“Mrma. Water!”
Licht’s vision searched the small bush. Should he just experiment with it for now, and see what it does? At first Licht had worried about it being possibly hostile, but there should be no problem, right? It wasn’t a nature’s ego, after all.
No, if it was really intelligent, he should treat it with respect. Both being plant life, it was basically kin to him. Luckily, it was within his connected forest, and he would be able to support it.
“Hold on a minute, buddy. I got just the thing…”
Licht turned off the commune skill and with great effort, unplugged a nearby soaked root from the ground, bringing its dripping form out of the water. He coiled it around the risen semi-dry landmass that the bush stood on and left it pointed down at the bush’s base, feeding it a constant stream of freshwater.
“That should suffice for now.”