— Blessed Death Root Alraune —

Nestled deep below the surface in rich loamy soil and surrounded by the thick bones of dead serpents the Blessed Death Root Alraune stirred languidly within her seed. As she watched the last fractions of a percent remaining on her development status she let her mind drift back through the many decades spent germinating.

Time had always passed oddly within the soil. The first few decades were an abstract blur as her mind formed and her sense of self cemented. Only in hindsight could she tell it was thirty six years, seven months, and 23 days after being planted that she had her first fully formed thought.

From there just shy of 120 years passed, 5 months and three days shy, she couldn’t help but clarify to herself. The seasons coming and going were marked mostly by subtle shifts in the ambient mana and the slow steady progress towards sprouting.

Aside from watching the slow accumulation of mana, all she could do to pass the long wait was listen to the whispers of the flora and fungi above.

They were always eager to pass along what simple thoughts and feelings they held but finding anything useful or interesting within the constant buzz of information was challenging. Even the more intelligent or predatory plants and fungus were rather scattered.

At one moment an exploding puffball mushroom would be transmitting the vibrations of nearby sapients speaking, the next it was focused on deciding if the tiny deer creature was worth detonating one of its spore sacks. Thorny strangler vines would sometimes speak of coming storms or forms of interesting animals it grabbed. Other times it babbled for days about the levels of nitrates in the soil.

She remembered the grass whispering the footsteps of her guardian as she walked about overhead and the rush of new growth as her plant magic washed through the area.

Her pleasant thoughts were interrupted as she thought about the whispered screams of plants as a large creature ripped a path through the forest, making a beeline straight for where the alraune sat in her seed.

She wished that she’d received more information about what happened next aside from the death of many small plants and the joy of those who remained at the nutrients they received from the aftermath.

She remembered the grass that once spoke of the magic and footfalls of her guardian instead whispered of the nutrient rich blood trail and even more dense chunks that fell along the trail leading to the tree of her guardian.

For weeks she first received no whispers of her guardian or those like her moving above. It was a dark time, and it wasn’t much better when the plants spoke of being called forth by her guardian’s magic to help her guardian move. No longer did the grass speak of the steady and joyous steps of her guardian.

After what some part of her mind confidently declared was six weeks and four days, another of the same type of being as her guardian arrived. The plants didn’t give her much useful information about the next seventeen days but when six more of the beings arrived the plants were eager to inform the alraune within her seed, of the copious spilled blood and the nutrients of the six bodies. They weren’t as thrilled when the trees of her guardian and the first being that arrived produced a single fruit before withering away to nothing, over the course of a single day.

That was the first time she’d been dug out from her earthen resting place. The other being dug her from the ground and carried the alraune and her guardian from the forest clearing they’d dwelled in.

Time passed even more strangely above ground. Things changed over mere hours instead of weeks or months. Some instinct told her that even her fairly durable seed form would not have survived if not for the infusions of magic from her guardian.

The little alraune didn’t know how far nor in what direction her guardian and the other being traveled over the next three years, eight months, two weeks and 1 day. What she did know was the feeling of being underground but not within the soil for six days short of seven months before being moved to a place where at long last she was planted again.

It was in that place that she spent the next eight years and three months. The new plants and fungi spoke of very different things. She heard the plants who were grown and harvested in seasonal patterns. She listened happily, if slightly worriedly, as the grass and other low growing plants spoke of the gentle steps of her guardian mixed with heavy, almost clumsy trod of metal.

The ambient mana in the new forest was strange, with plant magic mixed with stone, fire, and metal mana.

The alraune spent those years wondering what sort of alraune she would become with that odd mix of mana when suddenly her guardian and the other being she now knew were dyads left the area around her. Their trees remained so the alraune didn’t think much about it until they suddenly returned to their trees, dormant for the next five years, six months, and two weeks.

As the plants above became wild and uncared for, the alraune for the first time actively sought to acquire mana as fast as she could. She may not have known what happened but she felt she needed to somehow protect and perhaps awaken her guardian.

When powerful death mana had washed though the ground, she barely hesitated before pulling into her seed. The torrent of mana burned coldly but she fought through the painful and unnatural sensations.

She couldn’t let herself wait the many remaining decades to awaken naturally. If there was mana available, even if it wasn’t pleasant, she would take it. As the vast river of death mana flowed into her she felt as much as heard the amused voice of a woman. “You are not yet dead, little seedling. Are you so eager to welcome death into yourself?”

It wasn’t easy but she eventually forced out the thought “I will welcome death or even fire into my form if I can use it to protect my guardian.”

Once again she felt the chuckle of the voice in the burning cold currents of mana before she said “Very well, little seedling. If this is the path you wish to tread, and you fear not the consequences, dire though they may be, cast out the mana you have accumulated and I will give all that you need to sprout forth into the world as the first and perhaps only of your kind.”

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The alraune didn’t know if she could trust the woman but she didn’t feel she had another option. It took effort to clear her mind enough to do so, but as she pushed the life and nature mana from her seed, the cold mana soothed instead of burned.

She was just thinking about the second and final time she was removed from the earth when her remembrance was cut short. The final fraction of a percent completed and at long last her seed cracked open. Before she’d even fully registered the completion of her germination she began pushing towards the surface with a root like tendril.

— Cara —

Cara frowned, pushing down her deep exhaustion. She was low on mana and somewhat nauseous from the alchemical mana potions she’d been relying on to function. Too many potions taken in a short amount of time were rough on anyone, and it was even more true for partial spirits like herself. Regardless, she couldn’t avoid their use. With the weather growing colder by the day, nights that dropped below freezing were becoming common.

Improvement points helped, but they could only do so much to allow crops to be grown in cold fall weather, let alone grown fast enough to be useful. The fungus could be grown underground in basements and cellars but the other crops, especially the rice, were vulnerable to frost.

As she sent a steady trickle of her nearly depleted mana into the small row of grape vines, buffering them against the cold, she almost stumbled despite standing still. Fortunately the strong arms and concerned gaze of Dervla met her instead of the cold ground.

As Dervla took at least half of Cara’s weight, she said “You can not keep this up. You need rest.”

Cara smiled tiredly at Dervla and did her best to keep the exhaustion out of her voice as she responded “You have always worried about my health more than I do. I will rest soon enough but not yet. We need to grow enough of these new crops to last through the winter at least.”

Dervla hugged her closer but before she could argue Cara felt a sudden surge of death mana from their farm. From the way Dervla snapped her focus in that direction, Cara wasn’t the only one who felt it.

Cara started to pull away to hurry back when Dervla scooped her up and set off at a dead sprint. Cara was slightly embarrassed being carried like a princess but she was also glad. Not only did she enjoy being in Dervla’s arms, she was also glad to be moving so much faster. Even when she’d been whole and healthy Cara couldn’t move anywhere near as fast as Dervla.

In mere minutes they made the trip from the farm Cara had been bolstering, back to the place where they had replanted the alraune seed.

Cara almost forgot her exhaustion as she watched the ground bulge and split as a finger thick vine broke through the soil.

The vine was bone white with clotted blood colored short wide scale-like thorns tracing fractal patterns across its surface. Moving with strange sinuous grace the vine began twisting back upon itself, beginning to build a humanoid form.

Cara could feel the tears flowing down her cheeks as she watched the alraune take form. So many times she’d been sure she would never get to see her charge sprout forth from the earth.

After a few minutes Dervla grinned, a twinkle of triumph in her glowing eyes, and said “Well, you can hardly leave your charge to come into the world alone. I guess you will just have to take a break for the next twelve hours or so.”

A small twinge of guilt passed through her but she sighed contentedly as she snuggled into Dervla’s side and said “Then you will have to stay here to keep me company and make sure I do not sneak off to do more work while I wait.”

— Sloane —

Sloane sat cross legged beneath the long draping branches of her weeping willow form. Like all dryads she felt the most comfortable when resting close to the tree that held most of her soul.

With easy steady motions she scraped the whet-oak slab along the blade of her heavy iron oak polearm. After decades of service she barely even noticed the sway of the war grove beneath her. The heavy steps of the massive beast faded into the background, oddly muted in the quiet forest. The creature was slow but few creatures in the forest would even attempt to fight it. In many cases when it came to wild creatures, size was a tier all of its own.

She suppressed a shiver as an icy breeze washed over her. The cold bite of the fall air was unpleasant compared to the always temperate forest she was born in. She and the rest of her squad had been sent far from their home but the power of The Emerald Grove was present in every forest and to a lesser degree all other wild terrain.

Proof, if she’d needed such a thing, could be found in the vibrant greens of her tree and those of her subordinates that grew from the back of the war grove.

Her thoughts of home and her deity’s grace were shattered by an intense feeling of cold wrongness from far away in the forest. For days, she’d felt the faintest traces of the abhorrent feeling of the undead. She’d been seeking out the source of the undead ever since she felt a vast but concealed bloom of death magic, but it was so diluted she hadn’t been able to pinpoint it.

The current spike of death magic may have been exponentially weaker but it was also unmuffled.

Sloane trusted her subordinates knew what to do, even as she felt the war grove turn towards the death magic’s source. Instead she leaned back against her tree and called out to her deity.

She’d hoped for even a glimmer of attention or support. She was almost entirely unprepared for her mind to be pulled forcefully into her tree and in some strange way stretched along countless roots that went in directions that didn’t fit into a three dimensional world.

Before she could comprehend what was happening she found her mind floating in an impossibly vast clearing surrounded by mountain sized green crystal trees with leaves of blazing green mana. She traveled enough to know there was no way she should be able to see the hundreds of miles to the nearest trees, let alone see it as clearly as if it were mere feet away from her. She didn’t have the presence of mind to care about how impossible it was to see what she did, when she realized just what she was seeing.

She’d only heard stories and legends but she knew she was in the presence of The Emerald Grove.

She had no body, but she still tried to kneel in reverence. She barely had time to realize the futility of her efforts when she was almost crushed by the weight of her deity’s attention.

The Emerald Grove didn’t speak but its meaning was made clear in the roar of wind in its branches and the crackle of its mana formed leaves.

First she felt her memory of the lesser spike of death mana and the traces of undeath were forced to the fore of her mind. Next words, or something her mortal mind interpreted as words, came with crushing force “TRAITORS! CORRUPTED! FILTH! PROVE YOU ARE LOYAL! PROVE YOU ARE WORTHY! CLEANSE THE FOREST OF THE FILTH! THE TRAITORS! THE CORRUPTED SEED!”

Every word hit Sloane’s soul like a vast hammer. Only when The Emerald Grove finished speaking could she even attempt to respond. “I, I will do as you will.”

In an instant her mind and soul were slammed back into her body. Even sitting leaned against her tree she almost fell over as awareness returned to her body. After a moment she felt liquid across her face and when she checked she found she was bleeding freely from her nose and eyes.

Later she would return to her tree to regenerate her humanoid form. At that moment she burned with conviction and stood, using her polearm as an aid. Her head spun but with sheer force of will she pushed her discomfort aside.

With a savage grin made all the more impactful by the blood flowing down her face, she set off to gather her troops and deliver the verdict of their deity. It was time for them to march to war.