BabaVader
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Chapter 305 Sapling
🕑 Added 2023-01-22 23:04:10 +0000 UTCAuthor's note:
Here it is! Late but there!
I did some minor edits to the previous chapter. The first one is that I added terra affinity to the Elder's status page. The second one is that I expanded the paragraph after the details on the 'subdued mind' status. I forgot that Fio had identified some of the bark-kin earlier and should have noticed it if everyone had it. That's what can happen when you do worldbuilding on the fly... Anway, here's the edited paragraph:
Okay. So it was Hive. And from what I gathered I was in no danger from the tree-node… thing. Then I remembered the first bark-kin I met did not have this Status. A quick use of my Skill on one of the attendants confirmed that the Elder was the only one who had it. Hive’s control seemed not complete. Though with the society being built around those he manipulated, I was not surprised they followed his will. It was very likely he had taken over more of the bark-kin in key positions. I would learn about silverwood and then leave as soon as I possibly could.
And that's all, for now. I got another chapter coming up in a few minutes. I hope the inconsistencies are mostly dealt with, now. If not, please tell me.
For now, enjoy the chapter!
Cheers!
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That evening, Catori drew my attention for an interesting conversation. She had managed to have the starling body reach sapience. More importantly, she and Nymph confirmed that the system was sapient from how it dealt with that situation. Or at least intelligent. I was not fully convinced. It might still be something like a highly advanced AI. But the most important idea was that nodes were the gates to souls.
It looked like every person had a node inside them. The same thing I had once called ‘inner gate’ and drawn all the vis I was absorbing towards. Thinking about it, that made a lot of sense. The body usually acted as a physical barrier but if one was to force the energy through it was like what happened with two nodes placed next to each other. They would absorb energy from the other one with the largest prevailing. The soul likely was the real barrier as it filled up whatever body a person had. That made it much easier to understand how someone like Alex could be alive even though she was entirely made from metal.
On top of that, it made sense for large enough nodes to change their surroundings. The souls were trying to form a body. If consciously or not I could not tell but that was most likely what was happening.
I kept that thought in mind as I left the room that had been prepared for me. It was a simple but comfortable place. For owls, at least. Soft branches with moss and leaves had grown to cover the ground and three walls with a few larger pieces of wood to sit on. I found it lacking. Which made me realize I was no longer just an owl. As if I had ever been something that simple.
At least all those ‘revelations’ had served to distract me from the disturbing things Hive was doing to the bark-kin. Elder Leaf greeted me with a few servants carrying plates of unwillingly willing food. This time, I partook. Saving the time and energy to focus on the task at hand was more important than my morals considering food. And there was an argument to make that I freed the critter from the mind control.
Elder Leaf had not changed her behaviour at all since last evening and cheerily took me along towards the wall of silverwood trees in the distance. We could see it from the root we were on right now but had to dip down into the forest to get there. She talked about all kinds of nonsense like who was going out with whom, where relationships were breaking apart, which children were being stupid or smart. Small talk. Not something all that strange. I slowly got more and more comfortable with being around her.
It looked like the area south of the ‘Great Tree’ was mostly residential. Many more children were out and about and practically nobody was carrying weapons. The bark-kin offspring looked much more plant-like than their adult forms with stumpy arms and legs having branches and roots grow out of them. They could move freely and many of the little ones were pointing at me.
One very young child I saw was literally growing out of the mother’s front. She was not wearing any clothes covering her ‘breasts’ and for the first time, I saw that it was simply a soft protrusion instead of breasts. There were a few stems going down from them and coming up from between her legs that had a torso growing between them like a piece of fruit. It had a very stumpy shape with little definition but for the beginnings of a head. The woman smiled deeply at my attention as she was sitting on some sort of bench in the sun with her feet in a trough of soil.
As we reached the end of the normal forest, I was convinced that life here was not so bad. The people were happy and cared for. The mind control was still weighing on me but I was far less opposed to spending time with them. If Hive was not here, I might have been able to make a few friends.
An empty field of grass extended in front of us. Pathways were tread into the ground reaching to the other end where the silverwood trees grew. I spotted a few bark-kin walking around here and there carrying gardening tools in their hands.
“We are almost there, Hero Fio”, Elder Leaf said, “Now, tell me what you see?”
I pushed my senses to look for anything magical before answering.
“Those are silverwood trees. And not all of them have a node inside. It looks like a pattern. Do you keep them that way or is that a natural thing?”
“Ah, very good. Yes, that’s how they grow naturally. If they would grow this dense. Please, follow me.”
We made our way over to take a closer look at one of the trees. Another bark-kin with big shears stood close to us.
Elder Leaf indicated the tree.
“You see, silverwood needs a clean area to grow big and healthy. The advantage is that these trees clean up as they grow. That’s why taint can not pass them. Their wood has absorbed the purity of their surroundings and will break down anything that would harm it. But! It only works for living trees. If you cut one down, it loses its cleansing properties and you’re left with a simple barrier.”
“I saw something like that”, I said, “How exactly does the cleaning happen.”
“I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry. I just don’t know. What I do know is that silverwood trees need a large amount of auram to start growing once you cut off a sapling.”
She indicated to the bark-kin on standby and he brought up the shears to cut off a branch about twenty centimetres long. He handed it to Elder Leaf before she sent him on his way.
“Let me show you”, she said.
I watched as she walked over a few steps, away from the trees proper, and started digging with her hands. It was only a small hole, less than ten centimetres deep, but I was still surprised at the deftness and speed of her work. Then, she put the sapling inside the hole and closed it up with the soil she had freed up.
“Now comes the important part. Watch closely!”
I strained my eyes and soul to feel for the magic all around me. Elder Leaf was glowing with herba. Air was flowing around her and through the energies in her hands. She put them forwards, flats pointing at the sapling, and took a deep breath. A quiet rustle went through the nearby trees and I spotted auram vis flowing directly from their wood into the steadily growing stream of air. As it reached the sapling, several things happened at once.
First, the Elder cried out. I could not tell if it was a cry of pleasure or pain but I saw the vis being ripped out of her body where she had layered it close to the surface. At the same time, the auram vis began to intersect with the stream coming from her and moved towards the sapling. And on top of that, the wind stopped coming from behind me and instead formed a vortex of energy around the sapling.
Four seconds later, it was over. Elder Leaf was panting slightly as she smiled at me. And the budding silverwood tree… looked no different to mundane eyes. What my magical senses told me was a different thing. The sapling was glowing with the vis it had absorbed and some of it was seeping into the ground. It was slow going but there seemed to be some kind of magical roots growing.
“If you look closely, you’ll see the sapling is a tree now”, the Elder said, “It’ll take a while to grow big and strong but we can accelerate that with our Skills, guide nutrients both magical and normal to it. It’ll be as proud and strong as its brothers in no less than five years. Do you have any questions?”
I blinked and thought through the process again. It seemed simple enough, though…
“How long do you have until a sapling won’t become a tree anymore?”
“That’s based on how much auram you can supply, I believe. We never waited for more than a day.”
“And how would you go about bringing auram to a place without silverwood trees growing already?”
“I can’t help you with that, Hero Fio. I’m sorry. Maybe Elder Bloom will be able to help you out. He’s much more familiar with the details of the aspects, both helpful and hurtful.”
“So he’s like your thaumaturge?”, I asked.
Her eyes glazed over for a moment before she turned to me.
“We do not have such people here. All is for the Great Tree.”
I bobbed my head.
“Sorry. It’s just the best comparison I could come up with.”
“I forgive you, Hero Fio. The Warp is dangerous. Don’t let it subsume you.”
“I’ll be fine. Thanks for the warning. Could you give me a sapling? I have a storage Skill and I want to see if it can stay in there or if I need to hurry to bring it somewhere to plant.”
“Sure. Let’s find a healthy tree. We wouldn’t want to overtax this child, now would we?”
I took a look at the place the sapling had been cut off. The branch was leaking vis as it slowly sealed up. I could make out a small difference between its energy and the surrounding trees. Not a lot but it was obvious one had to be careful how many saplings to take from one silverwood tree.
Once we found something suitable, Elder Leaf had a worker come over and cut it off. When I put the sapling into my storage, she pointedly ignored the Skill. It was almost as if she could not even see it. I decided to ignore the obvious and simply move on.
