Manning

Unfortunately, the two groups I was watching did not instantly start fighting. As much as I would have been sad to see my not-so-carefully laid plans go to waste, allowing them to slaughter themselves would have been a lot more convenient for me. I missed a lot of what was said between the groups before they backed away because I was busy trying to digest, for lack of a better word, the gains from the deceased captain.

Along with the rush of energy I usually got from dying sapients, I managed to gather a couple mundane skills from the dead man as well. Apparently, he had been a tax collector or accountant because I learned a lot about basic arithmetic from him as well as some basic sword movements. It’s weird, looking at the man and the way he presented himself I would have assumed him to be uneducated, but I guess you really can’t judge people by their looks.

I redirected the more veteran looking group deeper into the forest and pinged Cara to let her know to be ready. I then collapsed the path in front of the larger group, leading them directly to the night time trial grounds. At first, my group did not move much at all but stood together and shouted at each other. Apparently, with the death of their leader they’d not had a backup, so they first had to figure out who was in charge. Figures, they are in a life or death situation and they were more worried about who could stick their chest out the farthest.  

I checked up on the townspeople and saw that they were getting ready to enter the clearing with the cultists. Whomever was injured managed to make it this far, so I figured they were going to be okay after all. Before I could see the reunion however, the raiders started moving again. Some middle-aged man with gray in his beard and a red boiled-leather chest piece took charge of the group and started calming down his men. Although he was not their leader, he managed to project confidence and get his people moving again. Impressively, he managed to calm down the frantic would-be-murderers and get them back in working order, marching slowly down my tight path toward where I cinched off the trail.

As they rounded the oak tree grown into the path, the magic took effect and whisked them off into a forest of pyrolusite oaks. Instantly, they were warried again, and anxiety began its slow climb back to the peak. One by one, they exited the forest onto the three-foot wide trail and turned around, only to find dark and foreboding woods behind themselves. Their new leader collected them up again and got them moving. I started to get annoyed with him interfering in my psychological warfare.  

Almost instantly he became my new target. I was going to kill them all, in time, but with him corralling his men and keeping them alert, rather than panicked, my job became significantly more difficult. My forest critters specialized in ambushing tactics and that was made significantly easier when everybody was jumping at their own shadows and ready to sprint off into the woods at the first sign of danger.  

I had my bats, squirrels, boars, and hybrids collect along the trial, darting between trees and rustling up enough noise to spook the humans. Several times one of the jumpier men would fire off his crossbow at a pair of squirrel eyes that was reflecting their torchlight, only to miss miserably. The bolts went wide and my spearells would avert their eyes and scramble off to the next branch. Throughout their march toward the willow-glade, I never managed to get a clear line of attack on the red-chested man.  

I even managed to enlist the help of the smaller willow sylva to torture the humans. He rode out on the back of one of the hedge-hogs and did something that startled me. The willowy tree-spirit wandered up to a random oak tree, one that was not its bonded home tree, and pressed its… tentacles? Branches? Arms? I’ll go with arms for now, because the other two options sound a little weird even when referring to a tree spirit. It pressed its arms against the tree and sunk straight into the trunk as if it were made sap or syrup. The tree trunk rippled a little and then settled back to its original appearance.  

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Had I not been watching, I would have had no idea that the tree was now inhabited, at least not visually. The tree itself gave off a much stronger vibe while inhabited, as if it were far older than it truly was, which I noticed only after the fact. Once inside of the oak tree, the sylva started piloting the tree like a golem, very slowly reaching down the stiff oak branches to brush against heads, hair, and helmets. Because of the nature of the tree’s materials, it wasn’t very flexible at all. In a pinch, the sylva could probably do some blunt impact damage by slamming down with the heavy branches, but I did not want the humans to be afraid of the trees just yet.  

Instead, by the time the humans managed to get into the glade their nerves were at an all-time high and they were ready to take a seat and breathe, just like I’d intended. Compared to having my animals and wicked trees at arm length, a tranquil lake and innocent looking willows with a long field of view toward the offending forest looked a lot more welcoming. The red-chest ordered his men to take a break and collect firewood before wandering over toward the trees and inspecting for critters.

He found what I wanted him to, absolutely nothing. I’d vacated all the spearells and other dungeon creatures that lived in the glade so that they would think it was a safe area and let down their guard. Meanwhile, I had my hedge-hogs prepared to charge into the glade from various areas with their stunning spores armed. Various hawks and spearell bats circled overhead, awaiting my signal to dive down, and even the hedgehogs themselves were ready to dig a few holes and trip up fleeing humans. My trap was set, and I needed only to wait for the humans to take the bait.  

Finally, the group got enough wood together to start up a large fire in a poor attempt to dispel the gloom they felt while inside this sub-forest. I could understand the fear, even my regular forest critters disliked venturing into the pyrolusite and willow domain because of the atmosphere that was projected due to the mana composition of the area being a lot closer to Cara’s dungeon than the rest of my forest. Unrelated note, I need the townies to start naming my sub-forests so it's easy to refer to them in my head.

Unfortunately for the ill-advised would-be invaders, the fire they lit was going to do nothing to beat back the gloom past a few feet. It would, however, dim their night vision and lower their guard. With the fire lit, they began collecting around it with a few others standing guard not too far from the fire, staring out to my forest. They weren’t going to go as far as going to sleep, but I didn’t really need them to in the end. After an hour or so the fire started dying down and they had a decision to make.

“You ten go collect more firewood, we are going to stay for another thirty minutes or so. Everyone else prepare to head out, I want waterskins filled and nerves calmed.” The red-vested leader started issuing orders. Although the brigands were extremely reluctant to leave the fire, they begrudgingly started carrying out assigned tasks.

10 men, accompanied by 5 more carrying torches, approached the tree line where I had my beasts waiting in ambush in order to start collecting branches. It was pretty inefficient for them to locate suitable firewood. While they were combing through the blackened grass and weeds in search of equally dark colored branches, they complained to each other about being given the shit duty. Several of my hedge-hogs, or stun spore covered boars, waited within the underbrush to attack the humans. They were camouflaged by the fact that while standing still, they appeared to be a large bush. Their green colored skin, covered in patches of flesh and blood plants, blended in well with the forest.

The humans were bent over scrambling through the grass for firewood and the torch bearers were night-blind due to the fire proximity. They didn’t were unable to spot the danger, and I was only waiting on an opening to carry out Cara’s request before I launched the ambush in earnest. All of the blocks were falling into place.