Today’s Earth date: October 19, 1991
While the rest of us tried to find a peaceful way to put an end to all of this, we saw thick black smoke coming from deep within the valley. And it spread and spread.
The cultist on the moose left in a hurry. The two who stayed behind seemed nervous and told us we were running out of time to “do the right thing.”
-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin
***
“I went back to the house to get you,” Fergus insisted. “You weren’t there!”
“How was I supposed to know you’d come back?”
“Listen to us, arguing like an old married couple.”
Wayne laughed.
The pair were in a room similar to the research rooms in the Royal Library, a private space with plenty of room to spread out dozens of sources. They were in the back of the Cuan archives, a government building with restricted access, looking through privileged information about the Underway Mountains. Three hours passed, and they hadn’t uncovered anything actionable.
If Blackwell’s lead was viable, they were looking for a “fancy stone house” deep in the valley forest between two of Underway’s peaks: The Wheel Mountain and the Rudder Mountain.
According to Fergus’ math, that was roughly 4,000 square miles. Wayne wouldn’t want to search even ten square miles. They needed more clues than knowing which valley it might be in.
Or a lidar. Most of the recent discoveries on Earth were found by plane with lidar or some other such ultra-advanced detection technique, seeing through the trees essentially. Wayne tried to remember the difference between lidar and radar, thinking that maybe he and Fergus could rig a low-tech version, but he couldn’t.
“How old is that survey?” Wayne asked.
Fergus leaned close to read fine print in the corner. “120 years.”
“Nothing more recent?”
“‘Fraid not.”
While Fergus examined the topographical map, Wayne skimmed the notes left by the assessment team, all of which had been bound into a hardback report.
The assessment team found traces of iron and nickel in the Wheel Mountain, but likely not enough to justify mining the area. Rudder Mountain had similar traces but a larger deposit of zinc, which was also not large enough. They saw lots of goblins and ratmen over their six-months of work, which didn’t seem to surprise them.
Flipping past day-by-day accounts of their expedition supplies, Wayne found a section titled “Local Residents and Property Owners.”
In this world, owning property meant you actively maintained and protected a specific area, and either you staked your claim first or the current resident agreed to move. Or were killed, by you, presumably. If you were isolated enough, that is. The farther from a city a person went, the looser the ideas of “ownership” became. This part of the report mentioned hunters, hermits, and homesteaders living in the valley, but it also mentioned druids.
And a druid retreat.
Unfortunately, the survey didn’t map where they found any of these locals. Instead, they stated how likely those people would be to interfere with a mining operation. All of the entries said, “Low to None, Deep Valley.”
“How much do you know about druids?” Wayne asked Fergus.
“More than some, not as much as others.”
“That’s very helpful.”
Fergus chuckled at himself and looked at the entries Wayne had found. “Oh, you’re right. This might be something. Where did I see druids mentioned before…?”
The excitement made Fergus fidget, his leg bouncing rapidly as he thought deeply. He suddenly left his seat and went across the room to dig through books and scrolls. He returned with a ledger tracking soldier pay. He flipped and flipped and then pointed to an entry from seventy three years ago.
“20x Ten Day Overtime, Asplugha, Druid dispute.”
“What does that tell us?” Wayne asked.
“If a problem was lively enough to warrant military intervention, surely someone somewhere wrote about the incident and the forest it took place in. For a town like Asplugha, twenty soldiers showing up is a big event. Even our little group caused a ruckus.”
Wayne looked at Fergus with incredulity.
“Maybe we’re a bad comparison on account of Outlawson, but my point stands.”
“Where do we go to learn more about local druids?”
“We speak to one.”
“Okay. Do you know where to find one?”
Fergus shook his head, “I don’t, but an herbalist might.”
***
“We don’t accept walk-ins.” The man blocking the door was late thirties, a bit overweight, and visibly stressed. He had the face of someone who had been on watch all through an eventful night. That was unlikely to be the case, however, as he worked at a greenhouse within the walls of Cuan, and it was noon. Also, Wayne wished they could for once visit a contact without encountering a surly doorman.
“Should we try another herbalist?” Wayne asked Fergus.
Fergus said no, Lady Grinroot was the de facto expert in Cuan. All of the local scholars at the Library agreed on that. Their next best option was thirty years younger and a recent transplant from a town in the continent's interior. Grinroot, now in her 90s, would have been alive when the druid conflict in Asplugha took place. That plus an experienced herbalist’s likeliness to collaborate with druids for rare ingredients made her the best choice, by far.
“We’re scholars, you see,” Fergus explained to the man, “and we are in need of Lady Grinroot’s unique expertise. I’m afraid no other herbalist will do.”
“Lots of people need her expertise, which is why she’s booked for the next seven months.”
“What if I told you I had the Zero Hero with me?”
The man scoffed. “Lady Grinroot worked with the Chosen Heroes themselves. The real Heroes. She hates counterfeits and imitations."
Wayne gently moved Fergus aside and tried a new tactic. “We need her help, yes, but this is also a courtesy as our research may disrupt Lady Grinroot’s work.”
“Are you threatening her, sir?”
“Not in the slightest, but without her direction, we could mistakenly anger her druid partners. We don’t want to be the reason why she can’t access an ingredient she needs.”
“One moment.” The man shut the door before Wayne or Fergus could reply.
Fergus gave Wayne a face that said, “not bad.”
“Lady Grinroot is not on the premises currently, but I’ve secured you an appointment for tomorrow morning. First of the day.”
“Oh, you’re magnificent,” Fergus said. “Thank you for doing us this kindness.”
The man offered an unimpressed nod and shut the door.
“Seems like a good time to get some dinner, wouldn’t you say?”
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***
The restaurant Fergus chose was on the docks, directly attached to a family-owned fishing company. From their table overlooking the water, they could see the small boats unloading their catch a few yards below. Less than an hour ago, the fish on Wayne’s plate was swimming through the ocean.
“I’m just saying, we made a killing on the beef,” Fergus said with a mouthful of rice. “People pay even more for fresh seafood.”
“But we’re going inland after the Water Temple.”
“Exactly! We’d have a once-in-a-lifetime seafood opportunity for some very hungry nobles.”
“I don’t disagree with you,” Wayne said, trying to calm the old scholar. “I just don’t want a Storage unit full of spoiled fish. We’re at least two weeks away from the next major city, and it's half the size of Cuan. I doubt we’d find the buyers we want in the small towns in between.”
“Even frozen?”
Wayne nodded. “We also agreed not to rush, right? I’d be worried every minute we were on the road, afraid we’d waste all that money and that I’d get stuck unloading 2,000 pounds of rotten fish.”
“I suppose I agree. Shame, though. Would have been good profit.”
“What could we buy that’s nonperishable and hard to transport? The beef was desirable, sure, but we could charge so much because of how hard it was to ship in from the source.”
Fergus said he’d need to think on that riddle. In the meantime, Wayne’s immediate ideas were fine furniture or an inconvenient raw resource like ore. Neither of those ideas were very good.
“We should not forget that items can be difficult to ship if they are too fragile, regardless of their weight,” Fergus said. “We have the advantage there as well.”
“Like dinnerware?”
Shrugging, Fergus said he didn’t know yet. “If it comes to it, we can load up on wine. That way if no one buys it we won’t be terribly sad about being stuck with the inventory.”
“Profit-seeking aside, any new thoughts on the cube translation?”
Fergus opened his notebook to re-read their translation of the dwarvish script on the “Diagnostic Cube.”
The side facing the ceiling read was the one Wayne translated first:
“Skeleton Lord - Exp 8,000 - Levels 14 to 16
Summon skeletons, three rounds
Death Rage ability”
The other five sides, when translated, read:
“Skeleton Knight - Exp 1,000 - Levels 1 to 4
Summon skeletons, one round
Power Slash ability”
“Skeleton Captain - Exp 2,000 - Levels 5 to 9
Summon skeletons, one round
Afterlife Warcry ability”
“Skeleton General - Exp 4,000 - Levels 10 to 13
Summon skeletons, two rounds
Summon skeleton knights, one round”
“Skeleton King - Exp 16,000 - Levels 17 to 21
Summon skeletons, three rounds
Summon skeleton knights, one round
Death Rage ability
Afterlife Warcry ability”
“Skeleton Demi-God - Exp 32,000 - Levels 22 to 25
Summon skeletons, three rounds
Summon skeleton knights, three rounds
Level 10 Black Magic
Death Rage ability
Afterlife Warcry ability
Conscript ability”
“My memory was correct,” Fergus said, “We have records of Skeletons, Skeleton Knights, and Skeleton Captains in the archives. Anything General and above? Never been seen before.”
“Yet we fought a Skeleton Lord.”
Fergus held up a finger. “We believe we fought a Skeleton Lord. We don’t have a way to confirm that.”
“Could have used Resource Values on the bones.”
“...Had our Cleric not banished them to the afterlife.,” Fergus reminded him.
“Right.”
“The only new thought I have to offer is that our understanding of boss monsters may be incomplete. We typically equate bosses with monster leaders, like the den mother. I thought that, perhaps, the first dwarves built the pit to imprison the gargoyle boss, but our recent run has me questioning that.”
“How so?” Wayne asked.
“It doesn’t make sense, but the evidence seems to suggest that the first dwarves put the monsters there intentionally. Please allow me to clarify that I have little support for that hypothesis, but it doesn’t feel completely baseless.”
Wayne nodded. “If that is the case, why would they do that?”
“Another tantalizing question we have yet to answer.”
***
Wayne and Fergus followed Lady Grinroot through her greenhouse. She was taller than Wayne and would have been much stronger than him too were it not for his system enhancements. He had expected a tiny, frail old woman. The person they followed didn’t look like a ninety year old. Fifty, maybe. She had fresh dirt on her knees from caring for her plants, and her hands had the roughness of a lifelong farmer.
On the way to wherever she was leading them, Wayne used Resource Values on anything he could touch.
Potted Mandrake, Average Value of 1 Silver.
Potted Nightshade, Average Value of 2 Silvers.
Potted Ginseng, Average Value of 1 Silver.
Potted Mint, Average Value of 2 Coppers.
He stopped when he found it hard to listen and read Resource Values at the same time.
“Druids tend to value privacy and solitude,” Grinroot said, “and I have a deep respect for partner and customer privacy.”
“An understandable position,” Fergus replied, “but if we talk, perhaps, you could think of this as a professional referral. Surely you connect your partners with one another when it’s beneficial to do so.”
“You’re a careful talker.”
“I value communication and sharing ideas.”
Grinroot nodded. “A Royal Scholar, indeed.”
When they reached the far end of the structure, Grinroot pointed to two small crates and retrieved one of her own. They were for sitting, Wayne realized. He had expected another office conversation, but they were going to have their meeting right here, surrounded by pots and plants and soaking in the humid air of an active greenhouse.
“We’d like to learn more about the Underway Forest as it pertains to anything related to druids. For example, we know of a conflict between Asplugha and druids some seventy years ago but have not found any sources that explain what that conflict entailed.”
Grinroot scrunched her face. “There are very few in Asplugha itself who know about that. It was kept from the residents and certainly didn’t become news in Cuan. I only know about it because I remember it and how it affected my friends.”
“I assure you, we would–”
“How do you two know about it?” Grinroot interrupted.
“Research,” Wayne said. Fergus nodded.
“And why do you want to learn more?”
Fergus gestured for Wayne to answer. “We believe there is an important historical site in the forest,” Wayne said. “Speaking with a local druid looks like our best chance at learning more about it.”
“You’re not angling to procure rare ingredients?”
Wayne shook his head. “I like unusual or hard to find things as much as the next person, but we aren’t herbalists or alchemists. To be transparent, Fergus is a wizard. He’s not a very good one, though. Anyway. My point is we don’t intend to become your competitors in any capacity.”
The herbalist crossed her arms. “How about a trade?”
Wayne smelled a fetch quest on the horizon. “What do you have in mind?”
“Are you familiar with a plant known as the ‘weeping man-eater?’”
Fergus was, but Wayne wasn’t. Based on the name, Wayne didn’t want to be familiar.
The monster got its name from its resemblance to a weeping willow–strings of leaves cascading down to form a canopy, like long hair pulled over a person’s face. Unlike the harmless weeping willow tree, a weeping man-eater grew more horizontally than it did vertically, giving it a wider net for securing prey. If an animal or a person walked into the leaves of a weeping man-eater, the branches snatched it up like tentacles and ate it.
“If you bring me a man-eater seed, I’ll introduce you to a druid.”
“Oh come off it,” Fergus said, his frustration slipping through.
“What’s the issue?” Wayne asked Fergus.
Grinroot answered for him. “The seeds grow on the trunk, which is difficult to reach on account of the branches in your way.”
“The man-eating branches.”
“Correct.”
“We can handle a monster, Fergus,” Wayne said.
The old scholar shook his head. “I suspect an herbalist would ask us not to kill the man-eater in the process of harvesting its seeds.”
Wayne looked at Grinroot. She said that was indeed the case.
“If we do this,” Fergus began, speaking carefully, “we don’t want to meet a druid. We want to meet the druid.”
“Fair.”
Grinroot shook hands with Fergus and then Wayne.
“I have one more piece of business for you,” Wayne said as she and Fergus made to stand. “Do you by chance make stronger healing potions than what we usually find in shops?”
“They’re expensive.”
“That’s alright. I’d still like to buy a stock of them.”
Grinroot was happy to oblige.