Ah it’s good to be back on this planet, everything is so much greener than the last time around. I was here about 10 000 years ago when I tasked the elves to look after the world tree. I have not had any bad messages from the tree in the last few thousand years. Though some of my monitoring devices have failed over the years. I placed these to check on the growth of the roots of the world tree. As per my original plan the roots have to grow across the planet, it should meet on the opposite side of the planet where a second world tree will then bloom from the energies of the roots coming together.

I have tried multiple times to plant a secondary world tree in the past but they don’t seem to like each other. The weaker tree would be overpowered and killed by the stronger tree and the area would become a wasteland for thousands of years. Yes, the trees are alive, yes they have an attitude. I have had many issues with them in the past. But they are necessary for creating planets and protecting them. They feed the core of the planet with energy, thus making the planet spin and keeping everyone alive. Very few people know that you require a world tree to make new worlds, even fewer know where to get them. Killing a world tree will kill the planet, eventually. It spins slower and slower eventually stopping. It takes thousands of years though.

I found my tree (Arthenia) on a planet that was busy dying while traveling. The planet was hit by a flaming meteor demolishing the main world tree and rendering the planet lifeless. I saved her by planting her over in a container, only a small portion of her power was transferred. But since then she has sworn loyalty to me. Not that I asked for it though. I remember I was quite shocked when her voice reverberated in my head. And what a lovely voice it was. . . I was lost in my memories as I stood in a clearing in a forest. This forest was not under the control of Arthenia. I could feel the trees being normal trees. I can surprise her with a visit later. For now I need to inspect the progress of the roots and my monitoring devices. Some of them went offline some time ago. I think it was one or two hundred years ago.

I started tracing the root with a staff that glowed a light blue if the root was doing fine or yellow should anything be wrong. It would do nothing if the root was not below it. The plan I made consists of one root moving out around each side of the planet to meet on the other side. Thus I need to follow it from this side and then find it on the other side and check up on it. It’s almost like a network cable I thought to myself, the power travels around the world, but if there is a break it stops. Until the secondary tree is online. Then it only needs to be on the same planet. I am here to check on the progress of the roots.

I walk at a leisurely pace keeping an eye on my staff. Animals instinctively stay away from me. We will see how the other denizens on the planet re-act. To them I should appear as a normal Human. Ooooooh I should visit a few towns. That will be fun, I heard from Arthenia that the humans were an annoyance some time ago, but she had the elves deal with them. First I will need some normal clothes. I can get some from a village or farm, Ill also need some local currency as well. I'm guessing they use gold and silver or something.

I take a metal synthesiser from my backpack and set it to gold. I grab a rock close by and feed it to the machine, after a few minutes' gold nuggets are produced, I follow the same procedure but with silver and bronze. I now have 3 heaps. I don’t know if they use coins but the material itself should be fine. I keep on walking following the roots. It’s now late afternoon, time to stop following the roots and find a place to stay. I saw a road a while ago. I mark my position on my map and double back to the road. It’s a dirt road but looks well-travelled. After an hour on the road I see smoke rising in the air. It’s now almost dark and I hurry towards it.

I stumble onto a camp with many men sitting around fires. Most of them have leather armour and weapons strapped to their waists, some carry bows and one or 2 crossbows. There is about 30 men in the camp. I take this all in in a second and realise that I may have made a mistake not scouting first. A shout goes out and all the men look at me, I raise my hands above my head to show I have no weapons. The shouting men rush towards me with weapons drawn. “Ugh looks like I will have to fight I mutter to myself.” “STOP!” a shout goes through the camp. A man in expensive looking leather armour steps out of a tent, the man was easily 2 meters tall with a brown beard reaching down to about where his heart would be.

“Cap’n this ere is an intruder!” one of the men exclaims. “Calm down sonny, lets check him out before we kill him, he has funny looking clothes. “He looks me up and down and then says “Well? Where are you from sonny? You lost or something?” “He must be from the Malsian continent sir, they wear weird looking clothes almost like that.” An older man says behind the captain. “You mean the island?” another soldier asked. “Well its bigger than a normal island.” the old man argued.

“Do they fight well? These Malsian’s?” The captain interrupted. “No Idea cap’n.” the man replied. “Well then we will have to find out wont we.” the captain said grinning at me. “Uhm I would rather not fight if it’s all the same to you.” I chip into the conversation. “Well well, he speaks Valerian!” The captain said grinning. “I spoke it before you were born you oaf.” I think to myself. “Even before your little kingdom started, and it's not Valerian its English. But oh well.” The man did not seem to care for my opinions and exploded into action pulling his sword from the sheath. I was quite surprised with the speed he closed in on me. The sword looked menacing, it has a sharp edge on one side and is curved slightly. The other side is blunt, probably used for parrying or whatever these primitives use swords for. This guy probably spent his whole life mastering the sword.

The only sad thing for this person is that after a few thousand years of living you learn a few things. And you get stronger as you age, so to me it looked like he was moving in slow motion, though very fast for a normal human being. I would put him at the same level as a 100-year-old elf. I grabbed his sword with my two fingers and stopped the blade in its swing. There was a deathly quiet in the camp. I looked around and spotted many jaws that were dropped, the captain in front of me looked at me with disbelief in his eyes, his Jaw also dropped. “Impossible!” came the mumbled words. “It must be a trick.” He tried pulling his sword back, but I held it firmly. His eyes told me that he realized his error. Panic was on his face. The man kneeled before me, his men following suit. “Please spare my men warrior, they have not intended you harm.”

I sighed and said, “Just give me clothes and a sleeping place tonight and we will call it even, no need to pledge yourself.” “By your command Master.” The captain said standing up. I gave him a questioning look which he caught and understood for some reason. “I was totally outclassed by master, thus I will become Master’s servant until such time that I leave this life or you release me.” “I release you” I immediately said. The captain fell to his knees again with his face on the ground. “Please give me a chance to prove myself to you master! I will not disappoint you!” I refused and the man kept begging. The rest of the camp stayed quiet and acted as if they could not hear anything. “Ugh fine! Just get up!” I gave in to get the guy to shut up. “Thank you master! You will not regret this!” He shouted. “You there! “He pointed to one of the men, “Make my old tent ready for master.” The men jumped and ran to do his bidding.

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“That not necessary errrr. . . What’s your name?” “It is Duncan master” The man replied bowing. “Right, Duncan set up another tent for me on the outskirts of the camp. I do not need your tent.” “Master I cannot let you sleep in anything but the best!” he replied quickly. “It’s not up for discussion Duncan.” “Yes master” came the reply. I sat on a log close to the fire. The men sitting there got up and started to leave, some spitting on the ground. Looks like I made some enemies already. Bah, these primitives don’t scare me, but I will need to sleep lightly tonight. Duncan appeared after a few minutes and reported that my tent has been set up, he also handed me a bowl of stew with a spoon. I took it and thanked him. I swiped my hand over the food to allow my scanner to do an analysis of the food. Hmm, My HUD says it looks like some indigenous bird meat with some plants, nothing harmful though.

Duncan stood behind me to my right, like a soldier guarding his lord. I ate my food leisurely, enjoying the meat. I'm not sure what kind of bird this is but it is amazing, may be the seasoning though. I placed the wooden bowl down with the matching spoon and stood. Duncan led me to my tent, it looks like all the other tents that his men use, but as requested is on the edge of the encampment, there is a bigger tent set up right next to it. “What's this Duncan?” I ask him. “Nothing master, please ignore it and enjoy your rest.” I gave him a suspicious look and he beamed at me. It looks like strength is highly respected by this man. “What is your profession Duncan?” I ask, I already suspect them to be thieves though. “We are deserters master.” He replied dejectedly. “We fled from a battle we had no chance of winning. These men I pulled out of the battle before everyone was completely slaughtered.” He said in a voice full of regret. His face has a haunted look.” We are at war with the neighbouring lord, but our lord only sent 100 men to defend a village. The attacking force was 400 men strong. The villagers were evacuated by us much earlier. We lost 70 men before they breached the walls. We ran after that.”

“There is no honour in death Duncan.” I replied to the man, his face is full of regret, but if it is because of his desertion or 70 men he lost I don't know. “Thank you master, I will keep those word close to heart. Please accept my pledge of loyalty.” He says going down on one knee. “I will pledge myself to you as you are much stronger than me. I was the strongest in our lords army. All I ask is that we are treated fairly and lives are not thrown away needlessly.” He bowed his head. “I do not need your men Duncan. They are here for you anyway. I could however use someone who knows the area and surrounding areas well.” Duncan looked thoughtful. “I need to take care of my men master, please consider taking our vow.” “I need to be inconspicuous, I cannot afford to have 30 men following me around.” Duncan looked dejected, loyalty warring in his eyes. Ugh, he is one of those righteous fools that die before their time. I may as well help him. Its not like I havent done it before. Except that it usually ends up with them betraying me.

“Lead the men to the mountains to the South. There is plenty of game around, trees for wood, farmland and a river. Build me a village on the mountain, not right at the top” I said before he could say anything. “There is a plateau about 400 meters up the mountain. There is a small path going up to it. It will take some innovation but you should be able to do it.” “Master the closest mountains to the south is the DragonsReach mountains. It is not off limits for no reason. There is a deadly plague in that place.” Duncan replied worriedly.

“I am not finished speaking Duncan, the plague will not take you within a few days. Go to the stream, follow it until you reach where it comes out of the mountain. There will be a small path leading up the mountain. Follow it for half a day. You will reach a tree with Silver leaves. Each of you needs to take a leaf and eat it, make sure you eat the whole leaf. You should know that eating from the tree binds you to me, and betrayal of my trust will end with the plague immediately taking root.” Duncan was shocked. “This is the price of serving me Duncan”. “Master, are you a mage?” he asked in awe. “No, I just know how the law of the world works.”

I will warn you. Once you eat from the tree it cannot be taken back or removed. You will serve me until you are not of this world anymore. You will however have my protection until that time. You should also know that you will not be normal humans after this.” Duncan replied immediately. “As my master commands! I will speak to the men and see who is willing to come.” “Do not tell them of the tree Duncan, nor of the way to it until you are sure that is what they want. I hold you responsible for this.” After a bit of small talk and working out the details I went into my tent. It was completely dark now.

The idle chatter of the men could be heard in the background. It was not too disturbing. The tent is big enough for 4 people. There is a small wooden chair, with ropes as the base where you sit. A futon is placed on a piece of cloth with a can of water next to it on a small table. This is sparse, but I don't require much, It's all part of blending in with the Natives.

I closed the flap and sat down. I start to reach inside me and place my hands on the ground. After a few seconds roots spread out of the ground at the edges of the tent. These roots were susceptible to movement and was tuned to alert me should anyone come within a meter of my tent. Yes, I have the same ability as the Elves, just super powered. I hit the futon and closed my eyes. Sleep claimed me soon after.

I woke up with the sounds of my roots alerting me in my head, someone was approaching. I could see the sides of the tent lit up with the morning sun, the west side of the tent was a comfortable yellow and the other side shady. “Good morning master”, the gruff voice of Duncan came through the tent. “May I enter?” Enter as you please Duncan” I have brought you some food master, though it is not much.” he said entering the tent, he handed me my plate and stepped outside. I wolfed down my food and stepped outside. “Are you leaving today to get your families?” I asked him. “Yes master, we will then proceed to travel to the mountains.” Where can I find you once we are settled?” “It will be some time before I come back to you, do not worry, I will finish the first part of my journey and will find you for the second part. That will only be in about 10 years’ time though.”

“Master! I will be an old man by then!” He said in dismay.” Trust my judgement Duncan. You will be fine.” “As you wish master”. I left the camp waving a goodbye to the man. It was an extremely short meeting, the tree would let me know if something is amiss. They will die a slow death if they try to betray me. Anyway, let me get back to finding that root, I have LONG way to go.