{To our great Queen Mother of the first Child,

we made a grave mistake in evaluating the Person Null as an enemy. He is not only an ally, in aspects I can not explain right now, he is guarding our Forest from a great evil. Inside the crater of the Starfall lays at rest a dangerous Object, that might destroy the whole World.

Null is right now not only guarding this Object, he works on delaying the end and even removing the threat on the whole World. As our misguided attempts at suppressing him made our positions worse I have only the last option available to sacrifice myself to appease his wrath.

Please interrogate all Soldiers to hear about the things they have seen, as these are only the smallest of the creatures waiting to invade. Their danger was already unfathomable and whatever is able to direct its way right to us can not be weaker, but only incomparably stronger than what we have seen.

As the fault laid with me, I accept all punishments out of free will and suggest to not only remove Dancing Wind from her position in the North-east, but all who might have a grudge against Null for who might not be able to make it back.

Nulls roots align with ours, even if his branches reach a different goal. Please never antagonize him again and understand our sacrifice as our last chance to make amends.

Although I am not proper authorized to make negotiations I have taken upon my last will to create these for the benefit of us all. Please accept those as stated, so my end has a meaning.

1. Null has free reign over 10 Kilometer around the Opening to Starfall crater. Additionally he is allowed to travel through the Forest unimpeded. A sign for him and his companions will be created to show alignment.

2. Null is allowed to forage for Herbs, berries and other plants. He promises not to hurt our trees and will not fell more than one every year. For compensation Null will put Mana inside the Forest to further the cleansing of Miasma and increasing the growth of plants.

3. Null has full autonomy of the Starfall crater. It is his Domain and will not be disputed. If someone from another Kingdom desire his Domain for themselves, we Root will help him deflect those attempts.

4. The Roots will treat Null as an accepted Ruler of his own Domain. We will give him honor to send dignitaries and Letters. In exchange, we are allowed to seek audience to discus changes in our alliance and propose new compromises we might need.

5. For the good of our friendship, Null will be giving us the Sphere, we took from the human Mink. The accident of the escaping Miasma will all be blamed onto the Magistrate of the Humans in the North-east.

Further I wish for all our lost Roots to be understood, that this shall not become a thorn that injures our stretched out hand. We all made mistakes in ways we can not fathom from our perspective. The Forest is big and our hearts need to be as big as the Forest, otherwise neither will be a good example for the growing saplings in our midst.

I wish I could have brought you this Letter myself, but I have already paid the price of my hubris.

Please oh dear Queen Mother, let my last act under your reign be a fruitful one. I do everything for the betterment of our Forest, that I promise on my family roots.

Your always faithful subject

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Falling Leaf

}

…

What a twist. Right before they grabbed me the other Soldiers tackled the three and even Falling Leaf was in the quarrel doing her best to restrain them. Not only did they barely escape me calling the last chance void, they even apologized profusely.

Restrained and gagged they were thrown into one of the rooms in the Mansion, while I watched over Falling Leaf writing the letter on a big Leaf she created with her magic.

By asking what I wanted, she just accepted everything I needed.

I want free passage.

I want resources.

I want to be left alone.

I want to be treated right.

I want not be held responsible for this fiasco.

Well that all was placed as neatly as possible into a written letter. What happens afterwards, who knows?

…

I had to test the soldiers in front of the truth seeker, but everyone else does not speak common. It was nice to know, they are at least honest, if a bit backstabbing.

Right now I turn the Rocks to dust in the tunnel with Red as my Avatar. When the last of the Rocks vanished, other scouts could be seen on the other end of the tunnel.

The first reaction of them was to draw their bows, of course.

{Do not shoot!}

Falling Leaf is at my side and she shouts the order. For a second they were a bit surprised, but then they let the bowstring relax while putting the arrow back.

{Soldiers, go deliver the Message. We might not see each other ever again. Remember not to antagonize Null in the future. Farewell.}

With a salute all Soldiers except the ones who can speak common left the tunnel. 30 People plus a truth seeker and no one tried to stab me or incapacitate me. Impressive, maybe I really have misunderstood Roots.

“So, you are not trying to flee? The Tunnel to freedom is right in front of you.”

“I might flee to live a few more days, but with this I would doom all my Family, am I right?”

“...yep.”

“Then it is better to die for the Sins of others, than further the spiral of distrust.”

“To be honest, you will not die. At least for now. I would like you to help me with my Garden experiment. I can not understand Plants that well and would like you to tend to them.”

“So I become your personal Gardner?”

“Something of the like. I need to understand Plants, Potions and Alchemy, to create enough ways to become powerful. Without a powerful body I will not be able to get my revenge.”

“So Potion making. I can not help with that, but I can help you with understanding the needs of plants.”

“This would be appreciated. Let us move back.”

The walk back I start to stop pretending to be injured wit Red. He is rather fit, so it was hard to play sick. The Blood around me was from Ava, as I disassembled him and the bandages are from the Backpack Burk had with him the first time he was here.

“You know, I want to travel back to my former World, and might destroy it. Does it not concern you?”

“The other World is not my problem. My family is in this World, so I will protect them, even if it means I have to damn a different World. And after what you said about this World, they made their own demise it seems.”

Well she is not wrong. I should start building my strength and find a way back. I am already over a Year in this World. There must be a way back.