The Best Laid Plans (of humans and dryads and bovines) Pt 1
Rosemary
Today was nice.
She and Lepius had finished up that weird conversation by the stream, and then he had made her laugh every octave her voice could go. Following that, he had gone out and done his strange little surprises with a will she hadn’t seen in days, and then they had another conversation, then another, then he had broken down a little, but that was okay.
Breaking down was almost a daily chore around here. And how she wished for another day.
A day with Lepius, where they could talk about it all again, rehash it through and through until it lay flat before them and there was nothing left to squeeze. She wanted to hear him say it a thousand times more: “You haven’t failed me. You are no failure.” She wanted him to hold her hands and tell her everything and nothing, and all the fungal fumigations in between that he knew would make her laugh. She wanted to laugh, too.
After all, the past few days sucked.
Two days ago, she had lost most of her family in an invasion, and then she had to fight a Stalkerwolf after almost dissolving into nothingness. Karra was the one bright spot. Then, the day after, Lepius had fallen into his funk and they got annoyed at each other, but at least they made it up pretty quickly.
Yeah, she really wanted a normal day.
But she knew that not to be the case today when the next thing happened.
Karra emerged from the forest.
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“Karra? Oh, Eldertrees! Eldertrees! Come here, darling!”
Rosemary leapt off the door and into Karra’s arms. They were furry, all the colours she could paint from memory: a main coat of white with splotches of beige here and there. Her bovine smelt of grass and something sweet, and it made her smile.
Karra trembled, and she pulled back to see if she was giggling, or crying, or just shaking for no reason. It turned out to be all three.
“Oh… oh, thank Laarsh. Rosemary, it’s so good to see you! I missed you so much, even if it was only, like, a day.”
“Oh, but what a day, huh?”
Karra nodded and was about to respond when Rosemary looked behind her, and saw it.
A horde of bovines. A literal horde.
There were little ones and bigger ones, ones that had grey fur all over and ones with dresses. Some had loincloths on, a handful had armour. They must have numbered over a hundred, maybe even three hundred, and every one of them had their necks craned up as they tried to see to the top of the Hospes.
And when Karra laughed, they all turned to look at her.
Their eyes smashed into her like a hammer, and suddenly every face in that audience was human, hooded, and smirking as they whispered the beginning of ‘Fireball.’. She stumbled back, heart thumping.
No…
But then she blinked, and all the faces returned to being furry, all those eyes back to round and side-facing. She gripped the doorframe, breathing heavy. She pushed away those memories, trying to fold her thoughts like she did laundry. She had to be a hostess. Come on, Rosemary.
But what were they all doing here?
She turned to question Karra, but the treacherous thing had already skipped through the door and greeted Lepius, beaming.
“Hey, Lepius! It’s so good to see you!”
“Karra! I was… Eldertrees, I didn’t think you’d… come back so quickly! Well, I’m glad that you did!”
They hugged too, but Karra had something else in mind, for she asked, “You know the waterslide you have here? Is it working?”
All three of them looked at each other, and Rosemary said slowly, “Yeah… why?”
“Where is the entrance? Is it safe?”
“Up to the top of the grove, and of course it is. We haven’t had the chance to test it out, though. And hang on, who are these people, Karra?”
“My Clan. Weavergrass. Thanks for dealing with them, Rosemary!”
Right before she hurried up to the top of the grove, Traitor Karra left her with a wink and her ragged herd of bovines.
Rosemary pivoted on her foot to face the nightmares mulling about on her clearing.
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The Weavergrass Clan Nightmare Extravaganza
First were the calves.
The little ones were both shouting and talking at once, all while pointing at water flowing down the tree. The waterslide. It twisted and turned around the main trunk, some parts shallow and some parts steep, and Rosemary had been intending on perfecting it today, but it seemed fate had blessed her with some willing testers. Maybe she would have Lepius try out the safety first, though?
Then, she turned to the second nightmare: the adults.
They were the ones who greeted the Hospes without any cheer at all, some even covering up their children’s eyes. Karra had said, as they would later tell her, that Hospes was a destructive weapon. That was true… to an extent. The elders in particular had given their huffs downwards and whispered behind their hands, a combination that did not bode well for her.
She recalled Karra telling her that huffs upwards meant approval, and huffs downward meant the opposite.
Then, she faced the third nightmare. Foreign mana.
A giant circle of mana began to form around the Hospes, the mana of protection. Between the trees, she spied bovines in hoods shoving wood into the ground and meditating at the stake, and every time they drove one down, the circle solidified further. Safety precautions, most likely.
It is just protection, she told herself, not fireball, not destruction.
And those were the nightmares.
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Eldertrees, Karra. What have you brought upon me?
It was at that point of contemplation that the calves decided enough was enough. They charged the entrance, slipping from the grasps of their parents.
Rosemary blabbered out everything to the elders - the grove, Karra’s night, and the waterslide - except most nodded as if they already knew, and if she asked around, Rosemary would have found out she had been ingrained in the clan’s mythology as the strange purveyor of thyme and trouble. Her cheeks would’ve been aflame if so.
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Nevertheless, she led them on a quick tour of the slide herself.
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“Get up here. Now, try not to wriggle. I need to aim accurately.”
“Rosemary, can’t we test, like, a piece of fruit, or maybe that wood carving I made-”
She kicked him, screaming into the tunnel, and watched him fly out at the bottom, looking like a tornado had just ran through him.
She dashed down onto the first floor and propped him up, “Is it safe for the bovines?”
“Why, Rosemary, I am fine, thank you very much.”
“Just get up and tell them you’re fine.”
The calves squealed when he stood up, raising his arms to show a soaking but smiling dryad. They turned to their parents, and their loud little mouths were forming those words. Wa Ter Slide! They called for it to open. And indeed, the Grove Hospes Waterslide was now in business, and her service began in earnest.
She sighed and took her spot. Her eyes darted around, then lowered as she breathed in and out, and whispered to herself.
Just tell them later that it is nature mana. Nothing else. Just like Karra.
Her mana coated her entire body, to the gasps of onlookers. She struggled to keep her eyes shut, but when she tapped into the focus, the instinct took over.
Then, she started to dance.
Every bump of her hips sent a gaggle of bovine children screaming as the trunk moved with her, turning sharp corners even sharper and the momentum into a heart-stopping twist and spin. Down and down they would come from the very top, at death-defying speed that only decayed off towards the end, where the calves would shoot out in a ball of wet fur and giggles. And then, breathless, they would dash to the door. A haggard Lepius would usher them up the steps, and at the top, Karra would be waiting for them at the entrance, along with plenty of chaperones.
Another trio of delighted calves flew past her as if flung from a catapult, landing in the stream.
And next to the stream, she had given permission for the adult bovines to prepare dinner for their clan. What a storm they conjured up. Spices and sauces wafted through the air, sprinkled onto potatoes and carrots stir-fried with green noodles an elder told her they made from grass. Mmm, she would sample those a hundredfold.
And so as a gift, she had lent them the stores of rosemary Lepius picked. She had hidden her little fist pump well when they accepted it.
Yes! Take the rosemary away, infernal herbs!
She looked about. Despite her exhaustion and discomfort, her heart swelled. This was the proper home they deserved: laughter, children, and the chattering of bovines well-fed.
All was well.
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Bendeit
All was terrible.
He could hear screaming children now, and Bendeit pushed down the urge to simply rush in and save them. Remember the tactics and surprise-attacks. Already had his five hundred dwindled down by two men, after one sprained an ankle and another remained by his side as a guard.
“Deity protect me,” he said, “for this is a great evil I vanquish for your glory today.”
Ahead they saw a clearing. And within that clearing, there it was.
There was a halt at the sight of the root of evil. His men crouched low, gazing upwards, up towards the true test of mankind, and some were shaking. He was doing so too, but very slightly. Who wouldn’t? What matter of Classless Dungeon could have even produced this tree-beast before them?
It is taunting us, he realised, dancing as if it already knew of its imminent and overwhelming victory, and the speech he prepared formed in his throat, to inspire the men to rightful zeal -
And then a little bovine boy crashed before him into the shrubbery.
His fur was wet all over, and he had been thrown with considerable force. Were… were those tears? Bendeit let out a sigh, and felt something beyond his armour constricting his heart. You poor thing. Waterboarding? What matter of… evil… Those innocent young eyes followed him, his armour, and then his bared steel.
It fled and began to scream.
“No, I am here to help! Stop!”
They had lost the element of surprise. His duty rose in him and demanded him to retreat, like the Priests had said. For a moment, he considered it. But then another group of children were tossed soaking and screaming to the ground, and he saw the faces of his own - little Sam and Ina – plastered on them. They were just children, all of them.
And something exploded inside him. Mana.
Foreign mana.
That was it.
He swept his sword up, and so did the men behind him. Despite all the horror, he smiled as he heard the rasp of hundreds of blades drawn at once, as they had practiced so often. Through the gap left by the boy, he saw the roots of the smug monstrosity and a dancing seductress.
A cult, then. Well, let it break upon us. I have five hundred swords behind me.
He hoped his voice did not tremble.
“Save the children! Forward!”
And he led the heroic charge.
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Rosemary
Hah! She hit a hip swing, and listened as the screams of children grew louder. That was a big one!
This was getting fun now. She was smiling and laughing as some of the other bovines danced with her, and her mana shined with no restraint.
Alert!
What? Her mana had picked out something. It grabbed her ears and narrowed her hearing to just that: the one terrified screech. Not the happy delighted ones that fed her full until she was glowing. No, this was a warning.
“Scary humans with swords! Help!”
At that call, every pore inside her swelled and exploded with mana. Nearby bovines scrambled backwards as a shockwave of pure magic blasted from her, and it told them all one thing in the universal language: fear.
Inside, she was screaming, and it was incessant and repetitive: “It’s all going to happen again, it’s all going to happen again.” Flashes of her smoking village came to vision, and they were bright as light allowed them to be. Her grove, burning.
Was it all going to happen… again?
Then she thought of Andura, bleeding out in front of her, her useless and left to watch. If Lepius or Karra was hurt…no. That thought snapped her in half, and the mana crested at her fingertips like the waves of a sea she had never seen.
The first man burst from his position in the bushes.
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Bovine Parents
“These noodles are something else, Minnow. They’ve got a little… kick to them this time.”
The bovine slurped up another dangling strand of grassnoodles, coated with a sluggish sauce that was some mixture of fermented mushrooms, sweetgrass syrup, and vinegar. Aside from the other vegetables, there was something else that toyed with her taste buds.
Clancook Minnow had to swallow through a mouthful before speaking, “Ms. Rosemary gave us lots of this herb she called rosemary. She named it after herself, I suppose. But it smells good, huh?”
She was about to comment when she heard shouting.
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Rosemary
She knew what to do this time.
No longer was she untrained in battle - only two days ago she had killed a Stalkerwolf. Let these humans come.
A branch hurtled down at terminal velocity.
She heard the man cry, “Save the children! Forward!”
Yes, of course he was – wait, what? She jerked her arm back, the mana around her arm dimming, and the branch staggered and stopped mid-strike. The soldiers behind him cheered.
“The Deity is with us today! The monstertree has been suppressed! Strike it and the seductress down! Save the children!”
Seductress? Hang on, what? Monstertree?
Some of the humans leapt forward and grabbed the calves, pulling them away as they struggled and screeched.
More of the parents turned to look at the commotion.
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Bendeit
The Deity smiles on us today. The monster has been suppressed.
With the monstertree purified by his Lord, he barged forward into the milling crowd of calves.
He passed the first one he got his hands on to the Swordsworn behind him. His heart was beating to every beat, and blood rushed through his body like never before – to his arms, his legs, his lungs. His sword weighed no more than the wooden ones back in the Barracks.
Every breath came deeper, and with that breathing, he focused.
His mana was here.
But he recoiled, for there was something unfamiliar he could not put his hand on, some faint shine that he did not come from his primary alone. It was the foreign mana. When he had raised his sword in the forest moments ago, he thought it was just an itch, or a whisper.
Now, it was a trumpet.
It called for him in the voices of children and the common people. He could also hear minstrels strumming their lutes, and as they sang they told the stories of knights slaying dragons and saving princesses, of a simple man and his steed who conquered the dragons.
The mana sang for something he didn’t understand. But what he could tell was that... with every child passed back to safety, the minstrels would strum faster and the common people would sing louder. He breathed out one final time, and his eyes opened. Within shone the echoes of all he had heard from this foreign mana, and the men around him roared twice as loud at the sight.
He raised his sword, “To the rescue!”
The mind-controlled bovines at the stream began to stir. As the roar of his men challenged them, they abandoned their posts and began walking, then running over.
“Switch to blunt weapons! Knock out the bovines controlled by the cult, they can yet be saved!”
The unfamiliar mana within him nodded, but his primary mana, duty, frowned. He had no duty to these strangers, these alien neighbours, and the Lesser House of Priests would agree so in private. But he saw the children, and their frightened faces.
What would Sam and Ina think… if they saw him, mind-washed by a cult?
He clenched his sword tighter and charged forwards.
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Bovine Parents (Roused)
The bovine dropped her bowl of noodles as she saw her son dragged off by a human.
Bovines were tried and tested cowards. It was an instinct built into them to shy away from conflict, and it was as much a part of them as their horns and fur were. But there was one greater instinct all animals had above all else - the instinct to protect their young.
It stirred her and everyone else into a battle frenzy.
They had not yet set up their perimeter. Palisades sat as logs on the floor, discarded at the ease they felt from their laughing children. Protective circles of mana had been cast, and it enveloped the Grove Hospes and its surrounding areas, but it was to ward off anyone who were to do evil against the bovines.
There were two potential scenarios.
Evidently, the humans had torn through it, so either they had some powerful mage behind them, or the protective circle was malfunctioning. Whichever way, they could not rely on their usual defensive tactics.
It was time to bring the battle to the attackers.