Gladesbale Grove Book 2 - Chapters 37,38,39 (Patreon)

Chapter 37

The Wolf and the Dwarf

Distractions from important projects was a grand tradition in Gladesbale Grove. Rud justified his newest project by claiming he could increase his Animal Communication skill while working on a new plot of land for his tea farm. And why exactly would he need the help of an overly energetic spirit wolf? Digging, of course. Lots and lots of digging.

“What’s the idea? What we doing?” Sarya asked, running in circles while she held a branch in her mouth.

Rud grabbed it for the thirty-third time and tossed it. The wolf ran after it right away, snatching it up and growling as she shook it.

“The plan is simple, my dear wolf,” Rud said, grabbing the stick. Sarya wouldn’t let go, so they played a game of tug-o-war. “We’re moving the tea farm away from the tree so we can expand it out. We have two options. First is that we put the farm into the ground. Easy enough if we can find a wide-open place. Next option? A raised garden bed, which requires me to weave some trees together to create the perfect growing environment.”

“The second one sounds hard.”

“Very hard. Especially since we’ll need to move dirt from the forest floor and bring it to the platform.”

“Digging?” Sarya asked. “I love digging!”

Either option was a large undertaking. But if he created a large planter box for his tea, he could flex his Rank 1 Construction Magic skill. Perhaps he could even put his Grove Reinforcement upgrade on display, pushing his newest structure to its limits.

“Right. Giant planter box,” Rud said with a nod. “We’re locked into the plan, so don’t back out now. The first step is to find a place to put this thing. Good news is, we can get kinda wild this time around. I mean real wild.”

“Let’s get wild,” Sarya said with a growl.

“Your energy is infectious,” Rud said, pressing both palms into either side of the wolf’s face. He squished it and her tongue lolled out. “Here we go. Time for sky tea.”

“Rud’s Sky Tea!” Sarya shouted. “Business name right there.”

The concept was simple. Rud had some great experience creating structures that didn’t rely on ground-contact. His bathhouse only touched the ground in spots, and he was a master at creating bridges that spanned vast distances. This would be a treehouse-style platform with raised edges. The tricky part would be to enable it to endure the crushing weight of so much dirt. That’s where his newest upgrade came into play.

Sarya wouldn’t be much use if she couldn’t move the dirt…

“I wonder if Taz is busy… Could you go find a cart?” Rud asked. “You know… The same way Mint finds all my random crap.”

“The abandoned village?” Sarya asked, tilting her head to the side. “Yeah. I think I saw some beast-drawn carts over there.”

“Go fetch one for me,” Rud said. “Gonna turn you into a little pack mule.”

“I’m on it!”

Rud rubbed his hands together as he stepped through a nearby bush. He had a few ideas for where to place the new tea farm. With no need to clear the land, he could pick any section of the forest. His current plan was to put it east of the bathhouse. There were enough trees close together that he could use them as the supports for the farm. But first, he needed a man who just loved to dig.

“Busy?” Rud asked, poking his head into the smithy. 

Taz turned, raising a bushy brow. “That’s the voice you use when you need something.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Wanna dig?”

“What are we digging?” Taz asked, coming closer as though that was enough to entice him.

“Dirt. I’m gonna do some silly stuff,” Rud said.

Taz glanced back to the forge, his eyes lingering for only a moment. “Okay, I’m in.”

“Excellent,” Rud said, rubbing his hands together. “This is gonna be awesome. We’ll have an entire farm raised off the ground. Treehouse farm time!”

“As if living above ground wasn’t bad enough,” Taz said with a shiver. “Now you’re talking about living in the trees? How far does it go, Rud?”

“To the moon! Moons, I guess. Come on, grab a shovel and let’s go.”

By the time the pair approached the work site, Sarya had returned with a wooden cart. Somehow, she had attached the yoke over her shoulders and was currently doing circles.

“Sarya will pull the wagon up a ramp after you’ve filled it with dirt,” Rud explained.

“Okay. What ramp?” Taz asked.

“The ramp I’m about to build,” Rud said, scoffing as he touched his Shape Plant spell. It felt more powerful now, as though his new ascension to Rank 1 in the associated skill had empowered him.

Weaving the various trees together to create the ramp almost seemed effortless. The air filled with a green haze as it filled with mana, tendrils forming from the nearby plants joining as one to form the ramp. Rud guided it, snaking it up and to the right at a right angle.

“Ah, that ramp,” Taz said. “Sorry, didn’t know you could just do that so quickly. How about fixing the angle, though. Unless you want to kill poor Sarya.”

“Right,” Rud said, fixing his stance as he reworked the angle on the ramp. Now that Taz had mentioned it, the poor wolf would’ve had a hard time lugging a cart filled with dirt up at such a steep angle. He ensured there was a platform where they could dump the dirt.

This was where the Grove Reinforcement upgrade would shine. Rud infused the support sections of the ramp with his mana. The wood hardened before his eyes, shimmering for a moment before becoming more dense. There was a bit of sway to the ramp before the druid had hardened it, but now it was solid. It didn't move an inch as he stomped along its length. No matter how much he moved, the ramp did not budge.

"Out of the way!" Taz shouted from the base of the ramp. The wolf rushed past him, reaching the top of the ramp in moments and jumping up to dump our load. Then she was back down on the forest floor, awaiting another load from the dwarf.

Rud didn't have any time to waste. He had forced both Taz and Sarya to get to work, and he had to admit he wasn't even ready. He rushed to the top of the ramp and began weaving parts of nearby trees into a solid platform. The plan was to have a recessed area deep enough to contain enough dirt to make the tea plants happy. That would likely be at least a foot of dirt spread over the entire area, but even before he could get a few branches from nearby trees to move over to the soon-to-be platform, the wolf came to deliver another load.

“Good gravy! You guys are fast!” Rud shouted, going into panic mode.

No matter how fast Rud thought he could weave plants together, he couldn't be nearly as fast as the wolf and the dwarf. But with his newly upgraded skill, he created the width of the platform using nearby trees to support his creation and hardening them with his new upgrade. Each section he used that new upgrade on felt sturdy, and even when the massive wolf came thundering up the ramp, it didn't move at all. Perhaps this would work after all.

With a width of about 50 feet, the above-ground farm would be positively massive. When Rud had enough of the planting bed constructed, the wolf began dumping her load directly in there, and it fell to the druid himself to move the existing piles of dirt. Thanks to his low strength attribute, this was difficult, putting him further behind the devilish pair. Only when Taz came up to help him out did he breathe a sigh of relief.

"You gotta keep up," Taz said, clapping a hand on his back. "Work more like a dwarf instead of a scrawny human."

Sweat poured down Rud's face as he shoveled dirt, evening it out in sections. When the dirt was placed to his satisfaction, he got back to work on the platform, desperate to stay ahead of Sarya. Her tongue lolled to the side as she dumped the cart, listening for the last clod of dirt to fall free before taking off like a bolt.

When Rud first asked Taz to help him, he had expected the dwarf to decline the offer. Instead, what resulted was three solid days of working on the platform. Both the dwarf and the wolf were relentless. They gave him no rest and forced him to work on his elevated farm from dawn until dusk. But the result was satisfying.

The mid-afternoon of the third day, Rud had completed the platform itself. It was a 50 by 100 foot monster of an elevated farm that even had an integrated root watering system in the bed. The wolf was pulling one of the last loads of dirt up—a fact that had become complicated. Drawing dirt from the same spot would create large divots, so they had taken dirt from here and there to keep it even throughout the grove. The result of all their efforts was a sprawling farm and a fantastic view.

"You need to put some safety rails on this thing," Taz said, peering over the edge of the platform. His face went white as he withdrew from the edge. His hands clenched into fists.

"What's that? A 40-foot drop?" Rud asked, flashing a smile. “That’s nothing.”

"You're lucky I'm even up here,” Taz said, blustering. "And you're only saying that because you can turn into a flying squirrel. If I fall, I'm dead."

Rud took a moment to stop teasing his friends. "Seriously, guys, thanks," he said. "I wouldn't have been able to get this done without you, and you two made an unexpectedly awesome team."

"I only have one request for my services," Taz said. "I need you to name some tea after me. One of my choosing, preferably."

Rud couldn't help but laugh. Most people would have requested money or items for this service, but the only thing Taz wanted was to have some tea named after him. "I could do that," the druid said, clapping a dirty hand on the dwarf's back. "With all this extra space, I'll have plenty of different varieties of tea, and everything that gets planted here will be infused with even more of the grove's power."

“Even more powerful tea?” Taz said, sighing with satisfaction. “Guess this venture might actually be worth it!”

Rud would file this under his ‘mega-projects’, like the road. They were things that took a ton of his time and effort, but the rewards were absurd. Unfortunately, he had neglected his Animal Communication skill during the construction. It had simply taken too much of his focus to keep up with the whirlwind that was Taz and Sarya. He had absolutely no plans to get the transplant process going.

The group dispersed, going back to whatever it was they were doing before the project. Rud found his way to the grove’s center, letting out a heavy breath as he fell to a seated position against Ban. Her warmth spread through his back. The flowers on her boughs twinkled and he smiled to himself. The druid shifted into his squirrel form, sprinting up the Sacred Tree and finding his way to her boughs.

Before him sprawled the grove. It was an endless field of green. Each tree blended together to create a sea, waving as the wind blew.

“Quite a view, isn’t it?” Ban asked.

“It really is,” Rud said. “You can’t even see the spots where I built stuff.”

“No, you cannot. Because you’ve learned to live with nature. None of your structures exist outside the grove. They’re part of it.”

That was a fantastic way of thinking about it. All the buildings he created were made from living trees. They still went on living, absorbing energy from the sun and drawing nutrients from the ground. Each tree was connected with Ban, living in symbiosis. It was a tree-hugger’s paradise.

“Any luck with the lab?” Rud asked.

“I found the labyrinth’s core,” Ban said, the sound of a sly smile entering her voice. “It shouldn’t take me long to crack it.”

“That’s scary,” Rud said with a nervous chuckle. “You have the potential to get real strong, don’t you?”

“You should see Bent’s grove,” Ban said. “An army could assault that place and fail. Even our grove could withstand a decent attack.”

“Right? They couldn’t even find the center! Not without getting lost or going bonkers… Guess our grove is pretty scary already!”

“Not if you’re on the inside,” Ban said reassuringly. “I’m happy with your current project. It feels like a creative use of your powers.”

“Right? I’m very happy with it. I made it so I could expand it if I needed more area. And of course, it will never hurt the forest floor. Well, except for the lack of sunshine.”

“A few shrubs here and there won’t hurt.”

Rud enjoyed his time in the tree’s branches. He could see nothing of the forest below, but watching the way the wind blew the leaves was enchanting. After working so hard on the new farm, he knew he deserved a few moments to take a breath. The plants still needed to be planted, and new strains of the tea plants had to be discovered. But that singular moment of rest was revitalizing.

Ban’s progress had stalled in the past few days. She had become obsessed with figuring out the labyrinth, but she was free to do what she wanted. It wasn’t as though she had stopped processing energy, either. The Sacred Tree was hard at work, splitting her attention between too many things and he couldn’t blame her for not rushing through ranks.

Rud climbed to the underside of one branch, looking at the world of the grove in an upside-down manner. “Well, if you’ll excuse me… I need to go bother some forest creatures.”

“Don’t neglect your Grove Custodian class,” Ban said, laughing.

“Ah, right. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go bother some mortals and some animals. At the same time, if I’m lucky.”

Chapter 38

Underground

Steam rose from the surface of the bathwater. Rud ran his fingers through the hot bath, nodding in satisfaction. A group of adventurers had come from the east and had requested a hotter-than-normal bath. The druid was happy to oblige. Each action he took with mortals made him feel a twinge of progression with his custodianship skill for his subclass.

Rud regarded the people outside his bath with a smile on his face. They looked dirty and tired from the road, and each eye flitted to the space behind him as he emerged from the threshold. “It’s all ready for you guys,” he said, giving them the thumbs up, “and feel free to enjoy the rest areas while you’re here.” he turned intent to tend to other tasks for the day. 

The group of adventurers moved excitedly past him, jumping into the hot water without hesitation, But as he was leaving, a system message appeared, one that he had been waiting for.

[Skill Milestone!]

Your Custodianship skill has reached a milestone! Please select from the following upgrades…

This one was going to be a hard one to pick from. Rud headed to the longhouse, found a seat at the table, and went over his options. The custodianship skill was all about making the lives of people in the grove easier and the upgrades reflected that. He thumbed through the list of options, marking a few that were interesting enough, but he settled on a single one that caught his eye. It was interesting and had big implications for anybody visiting the grove. But the druid inspected the upgrade.

[Transient Guest]

Custodianship Upgrade

Description:

Only those marked by the grove may pass throughout.

Effect:

Grants you access to an interface where you may mark mortals visiting the grove. These mortals will experience none of the damaging effects of the grove. You may toggle this on and off at will and at no cost.

At first, the ability didn’t seem all too powerful, since Rud had created the roads that would allow the visitors to pass without issue. He hadn’t thought much about it, but first-hand accounts from those people made it clear it wasn’t easy or fun to pass through the area, even with the structures. He didn’t plan on giving this to everybody, though. It made sense to keep a certain level of trepidation interwoven into the idea of the forest. But people like Elm, Oak, and Barrow would benefit greatly from this upgrade. They were honored guests as far as he was concerned.

Rud accepted the upgrade and found that it was at the tip of his mind right away. With a thought, he summoned the interface. It presented him with an option to add mortals to his whitelist based on his own knowledge. A large list of existing mortals appeared. He added those he thought were trustworthy enough, and that was that. Perhaps one day they would have a sort of ceremony to induct people into that hallowed list, but that sounded like a lot of work.

As the druid was pushing himself to his feet, intent on starting his transplant project, his favorite resident dwarf entered the hall.

“Didn’t you say something about a bunch of caves underground?” Taz said, pointing an accusatory finger at Rud.

“Who, me?” Rud asked, pointing at himself. There was nobody else in the longhouse, so the dwarf must have been talking about him.

“Yeah, I was thinking that might be an opportunity to get myself some more metal,” Taz said, walking up to the table and leaning against it. “Want to go on a trip?”

“Well, if the esteemed Taz wants me to go, who am I to decline?” Rud said with a smile. “But you have to pick which spirit beast we take with us. I don’t think Major was happy the last time I forced him to go.”

“We should take the young wolf,” Taz said. “She was perfect for the digging project.”

Rud couldn’t disagree there. She was a hard worker who never gave up. And she wasn’t terrible in combat either. She was, after all, being trained by Mint to be a guardian of the grove. But before they left, the druid wanted some more specifics. This was an oddly impulsive thing for the dwarf to do, and Taz was anything but impulsive.

“So, we’re not looking for anything specific?” Rud asked. “Just metal for you to smelt?”

“Well, you never really know when you’re going to find some dwarven artifacts,” Taz said with a booming laugh. “I assume you’re free today, so why not?”

“That was a good point.” Rud was happy to drop everything to help the dwarf out, but they had to round up Sarya first. He brewed all three of them a cup of energizing tea, placing two portions in two fresh cups and one in a bowl for the wolf to drink. When she arrived, she lapped it up eagerly.

“Is today an adventure day?” Sarya asked, looking between Taz and Rud with excitement in her eyes.

“We’re going cave diving,” Rud said, withdrawing the lantern from his bag. He lit it and made sure the other two were ready. They really didn’t have to prepare much. As long as they could find more bushes underground. When the group was ready to depart, he led them to the nearest bush. Provided other grove members were close by, when he used thicket travel, they would all come along. It was a nice perk of the upgrade.

The sudden transition from light to dark was striking. Rud closed his eyes as they passed through the bush. The sounds of the whispering forest around them faded. The howling wind, driving through the endless sprawl of caverns, arrived an instant later. Sarya padded forward, apparently undeterred by the sudden change in the light. Taz did the same. They could both see in the dark, while the druid could not.

“Let’s wait here for a second,” Rud said, preparing a spell. “I’m going to check to see if we’ve got any baddies around here.”

The druid cast his Detect Life spell, and pinpricks of creatures far in the distance flooded into his vision. They were too far for him to be concerned, but he couldn’t spot anything out of the ordinary around here. When he was satisfied, he gave the command to press forward. Taz ran his hand along the cavern walls as they walked, muttering words about the striations in the rock to himself and looking back every so often to offer a smile.

“There’s a strange scent in the air,” Sarya said, tilting her head to the side as she took in deep lungfuls. “I do not recognize it.”

“Is there anything we should be concerned about?” Rud asked.

“Not yet,” she said, shaking her head. “But I would like to find the source of the smell.”

There would be plenty of time to investigate phantom scents later. For now, Rud kept his eyes peeled as he searched the area, awaiting a monster attack that never came. He drew his cloak tight as they delved deeper into the caverns. Taz and Sarya reached a compromise, working their way toward the source of the smell while he prospected for new ores. The first leg of the journey, which took about two hours, produced nothing. Rud felt like little more than a glorified lamp post, even if the light he shone was useless for the others.

“Let me mark this one,” Taz said, withdrawing a piece of charcoal from his bag and marking the wall. “Got a decent vein under here.”

“Will you be able to find your way back?” Rud asked with a sly grin.”

Taz tapped his temple once. “I’ve got the memory of a dwarf,” he said, “which is to say a very good memory.”

Rud would have to take his word for it. They pressed on through the caves, now following Sarya’s nose more than they were looking for ores. Taz had identified several veins that would take him quite some time to cut out. Of course, the problem would arise when he needed to come down here alone. He wouldn’t be able to excavate anything without a guard, which limited his options. But that didn’t dampen his spirits. Taz jigged along as they pressed even further into the caves.

“The stinky thing is up ahead,” Sarya said.

“See, when she says stuff like that, I get worried,” Taz said. “The last time we chased after a stinky thing, it turned out to be a big old pile of—”

“Just around this corner,” Sarya said, darting into the next passageway.

To the left, the passage slipped downward. The scent hung heavy in the air, and Rud could finally identify it. It was a musty smell, that of rotting wood mixed with moisture. The sound of rushing water that came next made sense, but he couldn’t have expected what he saw next. Sarya was standing stock still just ahead on a ledge. Taz trotted to a stop, his mouth hanging open, and the druid found it hard not to do the same.

Before them sprawled what could only be described as a ruined city resting at the bottom of an absolutely massive cavern. The area was illuminated here and there with spotty patches of glowing fungus. A large crystal shone from the ceiling, bathing the area in an unnatural blue light. In spots where those two sources of light clashed, they created a kaleidoscope of colors through waterfalls that fell from several places in the ceiling. The floor of the cavern was a mix of bare rock and pools of liquid that drained somewhere deeper.

“Excuse me, what am I looking at?” Rud asked.

“These aren’t dwarfs in buildings,” Taz said. Without warning, he withdrew a small axe from his bag. Rud felt the urge to do the same, but he was completely unarmed.

“I smell no living,” Sarya said, sniffing the air.

Rud was quick to cast his Detect Life spell. As expected, there was nothing, save for a few fish living in the pools and a scatter of bats near the ceiling. The energy in the air was confusing. It was a strange clash of the grove’s magic he was used to feeling every day and something altogether foreign. He couldn’t help but think that this was related to the recent events in the above-ground world, and a certain worry settled into his chest.

“Wizards,” Rud said out of nowhere. “Gotta be wizards.”

“You’ll have to run that by me one more time,” Taz said, craning his neck in either direction to get a better look at the city below.

“Someone told me that wizards had destroyed the moon. So this seems like something they could do, right?” Rud asked.

“I wouldn’t settle on the theory, but this is just weird,” Taz said. “Look there, near the base of that tower. I see more bushes. Do you think we should descend and travel back to the grove?”

Rud had to roll the thought through his mind. The safer option would be to go back the way they came, but a checkpoint would have been nice. They hadn’t seen a bush in quite some time and would need to march at least an hour to get back. He searched the nearby area, finding a ramped section of the ledge that led down to the rocky floor of the cavern below. It was about 100 feet down.

Before proceeding down the ramp, he activated his Clear Communication upgrade and spoke to the nearest group of bats. “Hey, are you guys awake?”

“Were asleep. Now awake… INTRUDER!”

“Now we’re just passing through,” Rud said, trying to soothe the chaotic creatures. “We’re just really weird-looking bats, looking for bugs. Do you know where any good bugs are?”

“Good bugs down below,” one bat said. “Straight down.”

“You’re talking to those bats, aren’t you?” Taz grumbled. “You’re making a bunch of weird squeaks. Ugh, I hate that.”

Rud could only smile. It would be difficult to get the bats to tell him anything useful, but he had to try. They weren’t as intelligent as most of the creatures in the grove, which reinforced his theory that the wild animals living within the boundaries of the sacred tree grew smarter over time. That was something he would test in the future.

“Have you fellow bats noticed anything strange around here recently?”

“Star shine,” one bat said.

“New shine,” another offered.

“Annoying shine.”

Rud looked up again, spotting the massive crystal that seemed embedded in the rock above. It shone brightly enough like a star that he could be convinced they mistook it for one. All at once, he put it together. The crystal had started glowing recently, and in the mind of a bat, it meant the past few days. A week at most. He relayed his findings to the others who, like him, filed them away for another time.

“Watch your step over here,” Taz said, almost slipping as he made his way down the ramp.

The wolf had absolutely no problem. She padded down the stone ramp, hopping from side to side and only stopping to sniff at the area she passed. Rud felt the tension in the air building as they walked. He wasn’t eager to explore a gigantic city underground, but the bush was right there. They could make a break for it if they needed to.

The temperature dropped the lower they went. By the time they reached the bottom floor, he had to pull his cloak tightly around himself to stave off the icy chill. When he scooped his hand into one of the many pools dotting the area, it felt as though his fingers would fall off. It was so cold. Perhaps it was just an effect of the cave or something else entirely.

Viewing the ruined city from above revealed just how vast it was. The group approached the tower surrounded by bushes and looked up, each of them feeling dizzy as they took in its height. How or why someone would build something like this was beyond any of their guesses. They stood there for several moments until the chill that had been settling around them grew so intense that not even the dwarf could bear it.

Rud thought Taz was having some kind of involuntary spasm when the dwarf swatted at the air with his axe. Even Saria looked confused when the dwarf’s flailing continued.

“Are you a good man?” Rud asked.

Taz turned, his face ashen with dark circles under his eyes. As he stared into Rud’s eyes, a dark shape appeared behind him. “Run,” the dwarf croaked.

Chapter 39

Spirit Wolf Defense

The cold was one thing. After dealing with the ice storm on the island, Rud was used to that deep burning sensation that rushed over his skin. But this was something else entirely. This was a kind of cold that soaked into his bones, channeling deeper to sting at the edges of his soul. All energy flooded from his body and the dwarf went slack. Just as the sound went mute in the druid’s ears, a different noise rose to batter it aside.

“How ya like me now!?” Sarya shouted.

The dim cave was filled with a rush of light. Ribbons of energy flowed off the wolf’s body, lashing at the air as though battering against unseen attacks. She took on a form more akin to Mint’s spiritual wolf form and launched forward, striking at something Rud couldn’t see. A rumbling groan echoed off the tower and shook the bushes. Some of his previous vigor returned to him as the druid watched a battle he couldn’t understand.

“Hold on, little ones,” Sarya said, pivoting as a wave of green energy rolled from her body. In a snap, she snatched both Rud and Taz by the collar and dashed for the bushes. The trio tumbled forward, falling through space and arriving at the foot of the Sacred Tree in a blink. The dwarf groaned in pain, rolling onto his back to heave breaths.

“Okay, what was that?” Rud asked, looking around in panic. Whatever it was, he hadn’t caught the brunt of it. Instead, that honor went to Taz, who seemed to have more of his life drained from him by the moment.

“What exactly happened?” Ban’s voice came flooding over the clearing, washing away whatever stupor afflicted Rud’s mind. Even Taz took in a sharp breath.

“Wizard ghosts,” Sarya growled. “I killed them all.”

“I’m pretty certain you killed none of them,” Rud said, shaking his head. “Although that’s not to diminish your rescue. I don’t think we would have gotten out of there alive without you.”

Sarya was still wreathed in the magical energy of her spiritual wolf form. Only after she was done growling at nothing visible did the form begin to fade. Eventually, she returned to her old timber wolf appearance, and her face softened as she turned to regard her two charges.

“Everyone is safe! Yay!” Sarya exclaimed, prancing around the clearing until she found a stick. She scooped it up, shaking her head a few times before bringing it over to Rud to throw. He was happy to do so. She deserved a far better reward than a few games of fetch.

“And now’s the time you tell me what actually happened,” Ban said, her voice sounding more curt than normal.

Although Rud didn’t truly understand what had happened, he explained what he had seen: the tunnels leading downward into the earth and the expansive cavern. When he got to the part about the ruined city, he could feel the Sacred Tree tensing as though he had struck a nerve with her. She didn’t say anything, though, and allowed him to finish the story.

“That may be more concerning than you realize,” Ban said. “When we planted this grove, Bent himself scanned the area and found nothing. While I think it’s impossible for something to have randomly teleported into a cavern, I can’t believe he would miss something like that.”

“It’s a real head-scratcher, isn’t it?” Rud asked, kneeling by Taz’s form and applying his healing magic. He couldn’t see any visible wounds on the man’s body. Perhaps whatever damage had been inflicted was deeper than the surface level… Some attack against the soul or something like that.

“Indeed, this may explain our recent misfortunes, and I am sad to say we’ll need to take care of it,” Ban said. “But from your story, it seems the power of the grove is enough to banish away whatever it is.”

Although Rud wasn’t so sure about that, he would go with whatever the tree said. The logical course was obvious. They would need to expand the grove’s influence underground, which he knew wasn’t impossible, thanks to Hagsrise Grove. Mostly, he was just impressed with how Sarya had fought. He would never consider her the strongest sacred beast in the grove, but she had displayed incredible aptitude in using the power of Ban to her advantage.

Dean, Major, and Mint padded into view shortly after. Mint was, of course, in her spiritual wolf form, the pressure from her power pressing down on all those gathered. She growled and snarled as she looked around, but once it was clear there was no threat within the clearing, she calmed down. She too reverted to a mostly-normal wolf form. If a 10-foot-tall wolf could be considered normal, that is.

“I was in the middle of the labyrinth,” Mint growled, looking at Rud as though it was his fault. “Ban sent out the emergency signal, but I’m happy to see you all here, safe and sound.”

Yet it didn’t sound like she was happy to see anybody, safe or not. Rud swallowed hard as he nodded, regaling the sacred beasts with the tale. He watched each of their expressions, trying to see if any of them had heard anything like this, but he was saddened to see that they hadn’t. Not even Dean, who seemed the most well-traveled of any of the beasts, had anything to add.

“Perhaps you should recruit the elven wizard to take this job on,” Mint said.

“The elven wizard is already looking at the island with the winter storm on it.” Rud said. “I think she’s probably a bit busy.”

“None here have experience fighting wizard ghosts,” Mint countered. “We’ll need outside help for this one.”

“Don’t be too hasty,” Ban said. “Not only are we not certain if they’re the ghosts of wizards, but we also don’t know if they’re ghosts at all. The only thing we know is that the power of the grove repels them, which means the solution is quite simple.”

“ We only need to expand the grove’s influence underground,” Rud explained, picking up where Ban left off. “And it should dissipate whatever errant energy is down there. I’m no wizard, but I think it should work.”

There was some debate about the best course of action, and Rud found it strange that everyone was jumping on this one. Perhaps they saw it as more of a threat than the storm on the island, but all members of the grove offered a solution. All members except Taz, of course; he was still lying on the ground trying to catch his breath. Although more light returned to his eyes by the moment, he was still down for the count.

“Someone helped me carry him back to his house,” Rud said, poking at the dwarf. Of course, Sarya offered to be his mighty steed. The others helped him get up onto her back.

Taz had made his home in the mine. It was the one place that made him feel closer to home. When they arrived, the wolf dropped him onto his bed, and Rud tucked him in. He had no intention of leaving him until the dwarf spoke at least a few words, so the druid made a cup of energizing tea. When the scent filled the stony room, some life returned to Taz’s complexion. After a few sips, he looked significantly better.

“What happened?” Taz asked.

“The jury’s still out on that one,” Rud said, forcing the dwarf to have another sip of tea. “But we think you were attacked by a wizard’s ghost, a field of energy, or something else entirely.”

“I’ve always wanted to be assaulted by a wizard’s ghost,” Taz said with a laugh. “It felt like something was draining my life force.”

“I think that might be exactly what happened,” Rud said, finding a seat on a wooden chair to sit on and shaking his head. “The underground area was a death trap, but our faithful wolf companion saved us. I think you picked the right sacred beast to accompany us.”

“I know a certain spirit wolf who’s getting extra deer bones tonight,” Taz said with a hearty laugh. By the time he drained the cup of tea, he seemed like his old self again.

“I think I need to write that down,” Rud said with a sly smile. “My magical tea can even cure the effects of a ghost wizard attack.”

“You need to put that on the label,” Taz said, punctuating his sentence by jabbing his finger in the air. “’Will ward off all ghost wizard attacks, seen or unseen.’”

###

Whatever ritual Elm was performing around the lake was expansive. Rud sat atop Dean as they thundered over the open landscape. The magical arrays she had drawn on the shore were now glowing, each with at least one person in a robe standing nearby. Although several days had passed, it didn’t appear as though they had made much progress. The storm still raged in the center of the lake, and now deposited heavy snowflakes on the water.

The wind that blew from the storm was even colder than before. It was fair to say that the progression of the intensity was rapid. The duo circled around, eliciting surprised shouts from the wizards nearby. However, Rud spotted Elm in the distance near the northern shore, closest to the logging camp. He approached, blowing a sharp whistle to avoid surprising her. Daffodil perked when she saw the wolf and its rider.

“What a pleasant surprise,” Elm said as Rud dismounted from the wolf. Dean sniffed around the area, on edge ever since the ghost attack. “We’re still working on the storm. Too little progress for my liking, but that’s magic for you.”

“I see your people are hard at work,” Rud said. “You don’t need any help from the grove, do you?”

“Not unless you’ve stashed an archmage in there somewhere. Nope, this is just going to take time. But we are making slow progress,” Elma reassured him.

“That’s a relief. Unfortunately, we’ve contended with a situation in the grove,” Rud said, trying to think of the best way to phrase it. “Have you ever heard of a ghost wizard?”

“A what?” Elm asked, blinking several times as though she had just been asked the stupidest question she had ever heard.

Rud had to take a few moments to think of the best way to phrase it. It was easy to get caught up in the childlike wonderment of the sacred beasts. They weren’t the most elegant when expressing complex topics like magic. If they hadn’t seen it before or didn’t have a word for it, they boiled it down to its simplest parts.

Rud instead explained what they had experienced in the cavern. He reduced his story to only the important parts, focusing on things that would be relevant to Elm’s area of expertise. Flooding her with too many details might give her the wrong impression.

“I can understand how you might think that was a ghost wizard, as you say,” Elm said with an amused look on her face. “But it sounds closer to magical corruption to me.”

There were details of the story that Rud had left out. He hadn’t described the underground ruins, as he thought that might pull her off track. If Elm heard about that place, she would want to study it immediately. He wasn’t opposed to the idea, but there was too much on her plate. Perhaps later.

“Could you give me the long and short of it?” Rud asked. “I’m eager to find a way to get rid of it.”

“As you said before, the grove should act as a filtering agent. If your sacred tree can expand her influence to the area underground, you will diminish that power. More than likely, this power is being generated by an abandoned magical artifact. That artifact would have originally been designed to generate vast amounts of magical power, and if it has nowhere to send that magical power, it disperses into the air.”

“Now that you mention it, there was this giant crystal we saw,” Rud said. He had wanted to keep that out of the details he shared, but now it seemed relevant.

“Ah, that sounds like a mana crystal,” Elm explained. “Depending on the size, it could be imbued with enchantments that allow it to draw power from the air. If it converts that power into a specific type of mana, then you could most certainly get some poisoned energy in the air. That would be my bet. With a corrupted crystal, your tree will need to wrap her roots around it and purify it.”

“Wow, that’s a lot more information than I had expected,” Rud said, a smile finally returning to his face. He withdrew one of his enchanted ingots from his bag and handed it over. “You know, I really have to pay you more.”

“Yet I don’t expect payment,” Elm said, looking down at the valuable ingot in her hands. “I won’t decline, though.”

“This is a little thing called greasing the palms,” Rud explained. “I know I don’t have to pay you, but you’ve already helped the grove so much. Think of this as an expression of our appreciation.”

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Elm said. “While I don’t have definite answers for the storm, we’re almost certain we’re dealing with a cursed object. The exact function of that object might evade our grasp, but we’re getting close.”

“So what’s the plan with that?” Rud asked. “Some kinda counter-spell or something?”

“Once we have an exact magical signature, we’ll bind it somehow. Either through a suppression field, a barrier, or some other kind of seal. That should give you enough time to purify the object,” Elm said. “I’m sure you noticed the various mages working on the problem. Truth is, they love it. None have seen anything this strange, and they’re all excited to research!”

Good thing mages were fiends for magical research. They stood out here in the horrible cold and endured for ‘research’. It would’ve been easy for Rud to make fun of their fervor, but he needed their arcane expertise. Instead, he had a plan to spread the love and show his thanks. The druid said farewell to Elm and headed to the first magical circle.

“Good sir,” Rud said with his best bow and flourish. He withdrew a box from his storage bag, holding it out with a smile. “A gift to keep you warm in this horrid storm.”

The human man took the box made from mushroom wood and blinked a few times. “Oh. Thanks,” he said, looking down at the box. His eyes went from half-lidded, sleepy things to wide-open in an instant. “OH! THANKS! I didn’t realize you were the guy who made the tea! I love this tea!”

“Enjoy,” Rud said with a wink. Then he was off to play Santa with the other ritualists.