The Guardian

Chapter 3: Growth

I watched the farmer settle into the nature village. The Umpriel people welcomed him warmly. I was fascinated at the Umprians way of development. Their technology was more in tune with nature than my people. They grew everything they needed, from chairs, beds, to even weapons like bows and spears. Their diet mostly consisted of berries and herbs but they would occasionally eat meat as well. Just not as much as my people. There was thousands of Umprians living within that village.

The farmer stayed in the village for a few weeks while he waited for his leg to heal. In that time he and the leader learned to speak to each other with very basic words, and mostly used gestures to communicate. The farmer grew to love their nature loving characteristics, but like all things he had to return home. The Umpriel people held a banquet for the newly healed farmer, and after a hearty farewell the farmer began his journey home.

The journey home took longer than expected because he had to take detour to safely cross the river without being dragged down its currents, but once he crossed the river it only took five days until he reached home once again. The farmer told the people at the outpost about his experiences with the Umpriel people but nobody believed it. It sounded absurd that a group of people lived in trees houses, and that they grew their own furniture from seeds. After this ordeal and being ostracized for it the farmer never mentioned it again.

I watched the farmer life sped by, people eventually forgot about his crazy tree people idea, he married the love of his life, and had children to love. I watched him grow old, the Umpriel never appeared once in his lifetime, but he knew the truth that they existed. The farmer eventually passed away. It was a heart-wretching but loving moment while on his death bed, being surrounded by his children, and his children's children.

The outpost eventually turned into a village, and the original village in the forest became larger, with proper tools from the ironsmiths they started building better home, and storage units for housing foods and tools, and with more diverse jobs this created a need for currency, and a primitive alphabet system for storing data. All this created an economic system of trade between the village in the plains and the village in the forest. The plains for their more abundant food, and the forests for its tools and wood.

I was presently pleased with the growth of my people. I have learned they started calling themselves the Humes. The village in the forest was called Cradle, and the village in the plains was called Sunchaser. The people from Cradle started scouting further down south until they hit a huge wall of ocean that blocked their path from travelling any further.

All this time not once had any of my people have made contact with the Umprians. The most my people came to see was the uncrossable river with its daunting river currents, but during this time they learned to fight smaller creatures and large trolls and goblins that threatened them at both Cradle and Sunchaser. This also created adventuring parties that explored the plains for its wealth and jobs posted by the people. Another building also came into existence with the creation of the adventurers was the adventurer's guild. It served as a local hub for adventurers and performed administration and paperwork as well as posting tasks needed by the people.

One day a new Reverent in Cradle inherited the post from his father. This Reverent was different from most of previous Reverents, this Reverent was greedy for wealth, his mind consumed by the use of the gold coins for luxuries. He charged enormous taxes upon Cradle, and this created a rift between Cradle and Sunchaser because goods purchases suddenly spiked. The people became dissatisfied but was quieted by Cradle's military might.

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I was honestly mixed over this. On one hand the high taxes by the Reverent created the 'Reverent's Guard' that policed the village in and out which was good in my books because it reduced crime, and on the other was the trouble and fighting that was bound to happen when dissatisfaction boiled over and of course the dissatisfaction eventually boiled into a rebellion, and massive fighting broke out in the streets. Production came to a shrieking halt in Cradle, and the population sharply declined, some refugees moving to Sunchaser, some moving into the wildlands to build a new life, and most fought for the injustice of the Reverent. The rebellion lasted a month until the Reverent was betrayed by the 'Reverent's Guards'. The leader of the rebellion took over the post of the Reverent, and peace settled in Cradle to rebuild what was destroyed.

Multiple villages popped up into existence after this time. One village settled near the ocean south of Cradle, and two villages settled in the forest, and another one in the plains by the unpassable river. Since the rebellion of Cradle, Sunchaser became the most populated village in the Humes territory.

I watched all this happen, but once again I didn't do anything to stop it. This was a counter-production to the ideal to help develop their growth, but I knew this was a form of growth. Without the decline of Cradle more villages wouldn't have came into being, and the Humes wouldn't have spread their territory further to the edge of the known world. I still needed to explore more of this land if whether those creature existed in this world, and as well as develop trade with the aloof Umprians, who even after all this time hasn't made contact with any of my people.

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The adventurer Letto stabbed the goblin with his sword, and an arrow flew over him and hit the goblin that was about to hit him while he was prone.

“Thanks Lydia,” Letto replied.

Lydia was their party's archer. There was also one more party member named Rain. Rain was their scout, he mostly used daggers as his primary weapons.

“Next time don't stabbed them when there's more than one enemy idiot,” Lydia replied.

“Hey! Don't call me an idiot, idiot!”

On the tree branch Rain watched them, and smiled fondly at them. They were his childhood friends from Sunchaser. He closed his eyes and felt the guide tell him there was no more danger around him. He also didn't spot any more goblins around them. He jumped down and landed near them.

Rain wasn't sure but most scouts were taught to trust that instinct at the back of their minds. It was helpful when they weren't sure what to do. He was taught that it was there since long ago, since the days of the hunters that populated Cradle's past.

“I don't see anymore goblins, I think that's all of them,” Rain stated.

“I think the mission said there was nine?” Letto questioned.

“There was ten,” Lydia sighed.

“One, two, four, seven, ten. Yeah that's all of them,” Letto grinned. “Well let's go back to Coldwind, and report mission success!”

Coldwind was the village near the ocean, it was a small village but the view was beautiful when you go to the beach.

“Let's go back,” Rain replied. Lydia agreed as well. The sun was setting and it was dangerous at night within the forest.

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