Chapter One: A Seed of Conflict

Oak could remember the day he first saw the Destroyer.

The memory was scarred into his soul and on his branches. Even the oldest of them bore the blemish of fire and the ugly, but faded, marks of the axe-blade.

He had been little more than a sapling at the time, his bark greener than the first grass of spring and his roots had yet to harden. His life had been sunshine and rain, the curious moments where the long days of motionless growth were still a marvel.

Then the Destroyer came.

He wasn’t the only man to sweep into the Darkwoods that day, but he was the only one whose mere presence made the trees grind their trunks and had the grass wilting away. Fire followed him, and when his axe swung trees screamed as they were torn asunder.

Oak listened to the wails of the wind, to the angry treesong of the dryads that might have been his parents as they prepared for battle.

He listened, and as was the duty of youth, he obeyed the counsel of his elders. His roots carried him away from the Destroyer and his ilk, but not before a distant swing of the axe bit into his trunk and the flame of a man’s fire swept over his few leaves.

Oak survived, but a tiny fraction of the Darkwoods was lost that day.

Many more were lost in the days to come.

The West was being eaten by men, the Destroyer’s domain ever growing. The South was where the salty ocean lay, an impassable barrier. The East had swamp and river and lands of fertile ground but biting wind, unsuitable for a proper dryad.

The North was mountainous and filled with treacherous rocks and vile creatures.

And opportunity.

There he rested amongst his own kind, toiling in the hopes of growing stronger, of helping the forest grow.

It was there that he met a young woman. A human who spoke the tree tongue. She showed him tools. She showed him weapons.

Oak had brought these to the other dryads, first to the young and impressionable, then, when they approved, to the great elders.

The most ancient of trees, Coniferous Sage Lewis was not as impressed as Oak would have hoped. Weapons were not for dryads. Spears and bows and slings were tools for the humanfolk, and they were as close to an axe as an acorn was to its parent.

But Oak knew that the seeds that travelled far from their parents grew the fastest.

And so he had asked for the right to prove the utility of the gift he had been given, and it was granted.

Oak had until the season of withering leaves to kill the Destroyer.

“When you die, can I have your bow?”

Oak’s slow, calculated footfalls paused. He turned a little and took in the one the elders had sent to make sure the task was accomplished fairly.

Wisp was a small Dryad, only ten winters old, and already she was at the height of her growth, as was common amongst her sort. Her long hanging branches were her pride, and Oak suspected they were the only reason she had accepted to come with him.

In the short time he spent with the young human that had given him tools, she had climbed onto his back and had done things to his looser branches, pulling them into knots and long strands she had called braids. He did not mind. They were young branches, and it had amused the human.

Now though, Wisp insisted in a manner that would have the elders chastising her for her haste that he had to teach her the secrets of the braid.

He did not know these, and yet the willow-y dryad insisted on following him.

Oak looked at his bow, then back up to Wisp. “... No.”

He resumed his walk.

“But you’ll be dead,” Wisp pointed out.

“Yes,” he agreed. If he failed then death awaited him. Death by the hands of the Destroyer, where his body would not even be allowed to fall onto barren earth to feed it for the next sprouting.

“So you couldn’t stop me from taking it?” Wisp asked.

He supposed that were he dead, he could not stop the dryad. This much was true. “Yes.”

“Yes you could?”

“...No.”

They moved over brambles and around bushes, insects landing on their bark and birds perching on their branches. Some made a game of it.

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The forest was alive, but in the chirp of the squirrel and the caw of the raven he heard distress and anger. They were growing closer. Closer already.

It felt as if Oak’s world was progressively growing smaller, season by season as the Destroyer and his kin cut across the Darkwoods.

Oak closed his eyes, letting his feet take him across the rough forest ground as his mind wandered to the garden of his soul.

          Name Oak Fallenleaf     Race Dryad     First Class Tree Tender of Darkwoods     Second Class Sentree     Seasons Passed 15 Winters             Health

145

    Stamina

125

    Mana

125

            Resilience

45

    Flexibility

25

    Magic

45

            Learnings Growth     Tree Tender of Darkwoods       Gardening Elder Tree     Woodcrafting Elder Tree     Wood Walking Tree     Animal Friend Sapling     Growing Touch Sprout             Sentree       Eagle Eye Sapling     The Tree for the Forest Seed in Fertile Soil             General Learnings       Sun Soaking Sprout     Standing Still Sprout     Meditation Sprout     Silent Tread Sprout     Favoured Territory: Woodland Sprout     Tool Crafting Seed on the Wind          

The mother world had once whispered to him of his learnings and their growths, but now on closing himself from the world he saw things far more clearly. He had yet to decide whether this new path was one he preferred over the old way.

Change was... hard for him. For any respectable dryad.

Change had come anyway, regardless of how unprepared he was to receive it.

He did not have time to contemplate the thought as he had arrived.

“This is the place where I will watch you die,” Wisp said, her voice as soft and airy as a Spring wind, but something melancholic flashed in her eyes. “Live,” she demanded.

“I... will try,” Oak said.

“Good. I want a bow of my own,” Wisp said. “You cannot make me one if you are rot.”