After we woke up, Torill and I went our separate ways. She was going to hunt some monsters for me. She had some of those lovely bags that Nefen had loaned me, so the cores she retrieved wouldn't degrade. I hunted breakfast for myself. It was a pig of some sort, the thing was huge and if the huge quantity of earth mana in its meat was any indication, it had been close to transitioning to either monster or spirit beast.

I regretted killing it, the earth mana made its meat tough, and though the mana added a richness to it, earth was far from my favorite flavor. I also felt a little bad for cutting off its chance to become a spirit beast. I didn't waste a scrap of its sacrifice though, and I felt as close to satiated as I was capable of being.

After a short nap, I put quite a bit of distance between myself and anything else of note. When I found a clearing a suitable distance from anything I cared about, I shifted to my tree form. I paid close attention to how I perceived the world. I did my best to shut out my mana sense.

My perception of the world in tree form was far more vibrant than I expected. The only other time I'd used it, I hadn't been paying much attention, lost in the life mana as I was at the time. It took me some time in the form to get a handle on my senses, nothing worked like I was used to.

I could see, hear, smell, and feel the world around me, in some ways my senses were better than they normally were. In many ways they were not, my sensitivity to light and color was off the charts, but in terms of vision, it lacked a lot in fine detail. My hearing was exceptional, once my brain figured out how to parse all the vibrations I was feeling, I could "hear" a bee buzzing from across the clearing.

After I'd gotten used to my senses, I changed my core to match the mana I'd felt in the tree's aura exactly. I practically started a mental chant that I needed to understand the tree in order to protect people. I also made sure that when I shifted I had a firm plan to switch away from the core when I was done.

Turning to stone destroyed my ability to sense light and numbed the sensations of touch and temperature, but increased my sensitivity to vibrations. After getting an idea of the baseline senses, I unleashed my aura.

My aura wasn't as dense or powerful as what I'd felt from the great tree, but it was closer than I expected. I could easily match its power if I threw enough mana at it, though I'd blow through my whole core worth of mana in no time doing it. I made a note to verify that before I switched cores.

With my aura extended I could feel every living thing that was currently under my protection. All things hardened and stilled, silence reigned in my part of the forest. I had to remind myself that I had more to protect than just the small patch around me or I would have lost myself to the contentment that came with extending my protection.

I turned my attention inward. I was very happy to note that despite being made of stone, my roots still drank the moisture from the soil they were buried in. My leaves still breathed, though they no longer took in any energy from light. Every part of me was immobile and rigid. I was relieved to note that Sturdy and Enduring were doing a lot of work simply keeping leaves from breaking in the light breeze of the clearing.

After my evaluation, I steeled my will, and used my ability to manipulate earth to break off one of my own branches. My whole body vibrated as the limb crashed to the ground, I never wanted to do that again. I knew it wasn't the same as losing an arm in my true form, and there was no real pain, but I felt its loss keenly.

I hurried to finish my last test, and that was testing the strength of my aura when I pumped as much mana into it as I could manage without straining my core. When I compared it to the aura from the tree, it was clearly stronger, though the tree would probably be able to push theirs to greater heights when stressed, I didn't need to overpower it for long.

Since I didn't want to know what I'd find myself missing, I switched my core to life for a while to grow back my branch before I shifted out of my tree form. I was very careful to focus my Aspect on healing and recovery, I wasn't looking to start another grove. I was also careful to keep my mana tightly contained, not allowing myself to release an aura. Part of the test was to see if the plants I'd hit with my petrifying aura would survive the effect fading.

I stared at the branch on the ground for a moment before padding up to it, and putting a paw on its stone bark. I hadn't realized how enormous I was as a tree. The branch was half buried in a crater that had been made from its fall. I pushed on the fallen limb with a paw and it didn’t budge. If I had to guess, I'd estimate that the damn thing weighed twice as much as I did in my true form.

That was fine, I didn't have to move it, and I wouldn't have much time to do so anyway, I could feel the Concepts that I had pumped through it fading from it and everything around me. If the rate of decay remained the same as time passed, I estimated that it would take a day for the Concepts to fade entirely.

I got to work testing the limbs reaction to my plan, the results were downright explosive. I could only hope that the real tree would be as vulnerable. With a thanks to my access to Angela's memories, and earth's education system headed towards the stone forest once more.

I had to get the petrified people out of the forest before I could start any part of my plan. I couldn't risk killing them if they had any chance of recovering. Not only did I feel that it would violate my contract, I simply wouldn't be able to live with myself.

I assumed my squirrel form, and shifted my core before entering the great tree's aura again. It greeted me as it had last time, though this time its greeting carried a sense of disappointment that I had left. I tried my best to convey the honest truth that there was someone I cared for deeply that I had to spend time with.

When it tried to convince me that it would be happy to bring my special person under its protection I couldn't hide how much the idea disturbed me. The tree seemed saddened, but I held firm, I allowed the possessive instincts I had towards Torill to bubble into the forefront of my mind.

The tree seemed to take it better when I made it clear that she was mine to protect. It took it less well when I found the first stone person, and started to move them. The wordless argument that we had after that lasted more than an hour.

I leaned hard on projecting kind, honest, and the protective aspect I was channeling. I projected feelings of need, of wanting to protect. I also pushed visions of the nearly empty streets I'd seen in Brightwood to the tree. I conveyed the fact that bringing the stone adventurers to Brightwood would help me protect it, and help protect me, in a way.

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It had the benefit of being true, if I could bring more adventurers to Brightwood it would make them all safer, they wouldn't need to be as worried about monsters building up. As for protecting me, being known for having rescued people would work wonders for my reputation. I thought that having a reputation for more than just killing was important to reducing how frightening I would appear. It would in theory protect me from the Concepts I feared I would pick up as a beast among humans.

By the time I was done, the tree was actively helping me find the people it had under its protection. It took me the entire rest of the day to laboriously move them out of the aura one at a time. I'm not sure if it was because they weren't originally made of stone, or because I personally didn't think they should be stone, but it took far more mana to move them than it should have. I had to take numerous breaks.

There were fifty people, and one turtle whose intact life based core felt like it barely had a whisper of mana in it. I felt it weakly reach out to me, but I simply sent it "Wait" in return, I didn't want to risk whatever conversation we had triggering a response from the tree. It seemed to accept it, because it didn't reach out again. The turtle was comparatively simple to move, but I put that down to its small size, it wasn't that much larger than me in my squirrel form.

Once every one of the people was carried well out of the range of the tree's aura, I switched to carrying them to camp in my demihuman form, it was much easier. On my third trip Torill showed up, she looked exhausted, but she saw what I was doing and started helping me without a word. I could see her spirit helping her lift the stone people that outweighed her by hundreds of pounds, but I was still impressed and grateful for the help.

It was late into the night when she collapsed in the tent. I wanted to join her, but my stomach was growling, and I had one other thing to do.

Before going off to hunt, I switched my core to life, visualizing a need for restoration and healing once again. I put a hand on the shell of the turtle and felt a sudden kinship with it that I hadn't felt before. I gently enveloped it in my mana, when I felt it attempting to take control of it, I released it without a fight.

"Thank you." I heard it say, it's mental voice sounded gentle, and vaguely masculine.

"I'm sorry I didn't do this sooner." I continued to let my mana flow into the turtle, I could feel him beginning to become flesh again. He could have been back to normal by now if I didn't wait until I had carried everyone to camp.

"Nonsense, you took the time you needed. A few hours more make no difference. In fact, you should slow down. Go hunt, I can feel the hunger gnawing at you when you speak. If you wish to continue helping me, perhaps you could bring me a bite or two of your dinner."

The turtle did not have to tell me twice. I flew off to find food.

I took a bit longer than usual to find a target, and not because it was dark. I intentionally found an animal that had some amount of life mana inside it. I set a large chunk of meat aside, and carried it back to camp in my sky terrors talons. It was decidedly difficult to shift into a sky terror with no venom, but I managed it.

When I returned to camp, the turtle had his nose pressed against one of the human statues. He turned to look at me as I landed with my talons full of meat.

The little turtle sounded very sad as he reported what he found. "Some of these people will be difficult to restore. They have been stone for too long, I am uncertain if they remember anything else."

"They can be restored though, that's wonderful." I had suspected as much, but I was happy to hear the turtle confirm my guess. "It's probably best if we don't restore them yet, unless you think that would hurt them. It would be best if they awakened in town, and around other humans." I didn't want them freaking out and doing something we would all regret I would deliver them to Belua's temple. They had proper healers.

The little turtle inclined his head, and I didn't miss how his eyes were glued to the meat at my feet."That is wise, did you bring that for me? I do not wish to take your food when I still feel hunger behind your thoughts."

"Don't worry about me, I ate a lot, the hunger is a curse that I'll soon be rid of. For now I do my best to ignore it." I hopped away from the meat then flapped my wings, before shifting to my demihuman form once more. I'd be joining Torill in the tent shortly.

The little turtle looked at me with a small amount of fear in his eyes. "I am unsure how you control yourself, but I suppose I should thank you for not making a meal of me in addition to saving me."

My teeth pulled back in a snarl before I could get hold of my emotions. "Never. I would never kill a thinking being just for a meal." The message was punctuated with a growl.

"Apologies, it should have been obvious that you have diverged far from your original nature. Though with all the forms I have seen you take, I haven't a clue what that nature is. I know you are a hunter in every form though. Even your squirrel form looks like a tiny predator."

The quick apology was all it took for the sudden anger to vanish, I was glad, because I was too tired to fight my instincts. "I'm sure you'll see my true form soon enough if you stick around. You are welcome to stay in camp as long as you like."

"Excellent, I would like to stay with the people who endured the stone curse. I wish to see them healed." The turtle's speech carried feelings of the horror of being stuck in stasis, of fighting the urge to stop thinking, and paying for it. The poor reptile was not doing as well as I originally assumed.

"I know it may be the last thing you want to do, but try to get some sleep. My mate has an ability that will keep us safe."

"I will, good night my savior."

I made the decision to ignore both the word the turtle called me, and the feelings packed into it, and headed into the tent. The System's ping alerted me before I even had a chance to lay down. Once I was in position next to Torill, I answered it.

Congratulations

For taking actions in accordance with your class and making progress on your contract, you have been rewarded by:

Level up × 15

Strength + 60

Constitution + 75

Agility + 60

Dexterity + 45

Intelligence + 30

Wisdom + 15

Perception + 15

Free stats + 75

I groaned as the System swept my mind away, I hoped that I wouldn't have to deal with Hash again.