After the brief introduction, Hemlock felt the figure hoist him up and carry him out of the damp cave. With closed eyes, he was a little surprised by the apparent height of the being.

Hemlock had figured as much from its tone of voice, but after being carried on its shoulder like luggage, he confirmed that his helper wasn’t human. As by feeling the coarse root-like structure of its body with his numb fingers, he supposed that they probably weren’t even from one of the races of mankind either.

But help was help, after all. So Hemlock made no commotion with his weakened body. He was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, after all.

As they walked through the forest, or at least the close-eyed priest figured that’s what they were doing from the persistent bobbing, he tried to ask his rescuer a question.

“Where are we going?”

It was a little bit more polite than the aggressive ‘where are you taking me!’, but would result in gathering the same information.

“Mhrm. Sanctuary!”

“Sanctuary?”

“Mrple! Help there. Good medicine for humans.”

The creature spoke with strange intonations. It frequently began its speech with incomprehensible sounds and then transitioned into Silver as if it forgot Hemlock wouldn’t understand.

As he had briefly worked as a missionary during his training for priesthood, he prided himself on knowing more than a couple different tongues. But whatever intonations the creature emitted were not from any language he was familiar with.

The fact that it was taking him to a base was promising however. If it was a settlement of some kind, the odds of him getting treated were higher.

“...At this sanctuary, are there more of your kind there?”

Hemlock asked with a dry mouth. Based on the clues, he figured that the creature carrying him now was most likely a type of plant life form. As his eyes were swollen, guessing was the best he could manage right now. But if that was the case, then it might make a difference for his odds in getting treatment.

While working and living in a country that was next door to a veritable nation of plant lives, he had some basic knowledge of the different cultures of plant life communes. While rarely, some were friendly to outsiders, most were isolationists and suspicious of the outside world.

“Mgma. No. Only Muan is like Muan! Or…Urli…maybe Likta counts?”

The response of the plant life Muan wasn’t as clear as Hemlock would’ve hoped for, but it didn’t seem that the situation at this sanctuary was as simple as he thought. There might be at least one other plant life there, a…Likta, but it didn’t sound like a homogenous plant commune. However even if that was the case, he would rather get treatment from a plant life than from another human, even if they were more familiar with his body. As usually with an advanced knowledge of herbology, most plant lives had a pretty good grasp on medicine. Hopefully this Likta was the healer, and he could get treatment from them.

Hemlock sighed in his mind. Even if he had his preferences, there was nothing he could do about them. He had nothing to offer, nor any sort of stance from which to negotiate from. If he was truly being brought into a den of isolationists, he would be screwed.

“Oh well.”

He had already been prepared to accept his fate in the cave, so he might as well just wait and see where his fate took him.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Artos…please guide me.”

Hemlock prayed silently.

…

Rustle.

Both Siya, then Arjun’s attention strayed from what they were doing as their eyes drifted over to the edge of the grove. Their ears twitched as they heard the wall of vegetation begin to part. The lattice of fibers dissipated in a certain spot, spreading apart to form a passageway through the bush-woven wall.

From out of the passage walked forth a green shaggy-looking figure. On two feet, he was about a hair shorter than the average adult male.

“Muan?”

Siya’s eyebrows rose as she was the first of the two to notice the man hanging over the flocculant entity’s shoulder.

“Is that…a man?”

Arjun questioned next to her.

Arjun and Siya exchanged a glance. Their dark eyes both shared a curiosity for the strange situation. They hadn’t had a true visitor to the grove in…two years? Since the grove had been isolated from the rest of the Trescult Woods by Licht.

When Muan, who in the past few months had taken on an appearance close to resembling Licht, got closer it greeted the elves.

“Mhruma! Muan found human man by food-berry! Human caught by snake-things. Dufmi! Need healing!”

The walking fruit bush quickly yet ambiguously described the situation of the man. Getting closer, Siya could see what had actually happened.

The man’s face was swollen. Black veins were scrawled all along the surface of his body. They bulged with growing intensity, irritating and reddening the skin around them. From their concentration, it was evident that they started at his leg, which was completely black. When Siya opened the man’s eyelids there was no response but the flaccid hang of his pupils.

She checked for a pulse.

“Hmm. It looks like he’s still alive, but he needs immediate care.”

She turned back to Arjun.

“Go find the medicine from the storage! Get the herbs for anti-venom and the older blossom salve!”

The boy nodded, his complexion was slightly nervous as he left. Siya turned back to Muan.

“Luckily you didn’t have to carry him too far, Muan. If you would’ve found him a little later we wouldn’t have had enough time.”

“Mrple!”

Muan agreed as he set the unconscious man down on a flat bed of stone. In the grove’s clearing, there weren’t many structures besides those made of wood. And those were purely residential, for the sake of the two elven children.

“Let’s see what’s going on with you.”

Siya examined the man. After exchanging a few words with Muan, it was clear that he had apparently suffered pursuit from a hunting party of serpenti. They were vicious beasts. Having evolved from snakes, they carried a potent yet slow-acting venom that corroded the insides of its victim, making their body feel like it was on fire. The number of serpenti in the woods had been rising intensely in the past year, which Licht had responded to by making sure they were stocked up on anti-venom at all times. Siya and Arjun had each been bitten a few times and were intimately familiar with its effects, though the venom didn’t seem to affect Muan as much.

Thinking of Licht, Siya was sure that none of this commotion had gone unnoticed by him. She wasn’t sure of how exactly, but she knew that the wall of the grove, a dense collage of branches and leaves reinforced by a skeletal root structure, was controlled by him. Since the man had been let through on Muan’s shoulder, Licht must have silently approved of his presence.

Siya smiled. Hopefully, that meant that Licht was becoming more open to the idea of outsiders. It wasn’t that she wanted him to become reckless. She didn’t think that was possible after the hurt they had all experienced two years ago.

No. Just the willingness to begin to trust others was more than enough. And that would hopefully start with this man, the first beside the three of them to be welcomed into the grove.

“Uh, I-I’m back!.”

The anxious voice of Arjun spoke out from behind Siya, instantly darkening her expression.

“About time! Are you trying to kill this guy?”

Siya yanked the basket out of Arjun’s hands and set it down next to her, huffing in annoyance. She then took out the herbs for blending anti-venom and got to work.

“Well? Are you just going stand there and look or are you going to help me?”

“Oh! S-sorry!”

Siya shook her head.

Honestly!