Treetalks (1/2)

Year 79 Month 9

”Did you hear? One of the mage guild's private gardens near the Royal Grove, was robbed last night! A lot of valuable herbs and plants were lost.”

”Oh? Any idea who are the culprits?”

”The mages suspect a mage, so the royal guard has been deployed. But there were no traces. It's as if the plants all just... vanished into the ground.”

”Can't it be just some thief with a magical bag? Or some kind of plant-manipulation artifact?”

”I think it's just an unhappy mage taking revenge. There's a lot of politics going on in the mage guilds. This is just a reaction to the mage's council votes!”

Ransalah.

It's a large city, and there are a lot of high leveled people around. Strong adventurers, powerful generals and mages. Their very presence permeates the air, and I occasionally pick up the effects of their skills, despite me being mostly magically-insensitive.

A direct confrontation is not ideal, not with the distance penalty I suffer at long distances.

This might be the first time I have 'seen' a city, Moton and New Freeka can't compare to the scale and sprawl of a capitol city.

It's also the first time I encounter 'enchanted' roads. Around the capitol, these road has some kind of 'anti-vegetation' effect, and as a result I cannot spawn my subsidiary trees near them. Even underground, the capital has a sprawling network of sewers and tunnels, and they are strangely, also, 'enchanted'. I suspect its the effect of some masonry skill, or builder's skill which prevents decay and damage to these structures, because logically, using magic on sewers just didn't seem to make much sense. These enchanted sewers prevent my roots from spreading that deeply, and so that greatly limits the extent of my spread.

In the city, multiple structures, such as the army's fort on the riverbank, are enchanted with strong defensive magic, which I am yet able to identify, but I presume to be a kind of 'warding' magic. The magic on the fort walls create a forcefield that repels my presence, and prevents me from placing subsidiary trees and also stops my roots from approaching.

I frankly don't know all of these, whether its skill or magic, either. Or whether its the powers of a local Lord or King which grants such passive benefits to the city which he or she rules.

These protections, magic or from skills, are clustered mostly around the old Castle, the palaces, the eight forts around the city, the mage's main towers, the old cathedrals and temples to the gods. The usual 'places of interest'.

All of these, together with the layout of the river, meant I have very little access to the inner city, where all the royals are.

Still, there must be something I can do.

First, is the Royal Grove, which, despite its royal status lacks magical protection. I guessed that unlike the places where the royals live, the Royal grove isn't worth much protection. So, I extend a few subsidiary trees into the forests, and soon discover that it's earth does have some magic. There's also a lot of new herbs and plants that I have not seen.

The royal guards and rangers, are always on the lookout, for monsters, or for thieves, but when they spot a new tree, they just go, eh. All I need to do is disguise my tree look like a small shrub, and I can slip through the patrols like nothing.

The best reaction I got from a ranger, ”Oh, when did this tree pop up?” And then promptly proceeds to ignore that tree. Like, not even an investigation?

In fact, the most legit confrontation I gotten, is from a woodcutter. I had attempted to expand into the new part of the city, where all the regular citizens live. But the presence of a tree just stuck out like a sore thumb in the messy, dense mess that is the west side of Ransalah. So, a woodcutter came up to my tree that popped up at the edge of town, without any hesitation, chopped me down.

Chop. Chop. Chop. And timberrrrr.

My subsidiary tree fell just like that. I bet that woodcutter had like special [woodcutting] abilities that makes my tree's defenses absolutely useless. Those poor subsidiary trees didn't stand a chance.

Maybe that axe is enchanted to be super effective against trees. But honestly, other than the woodcutters, no one really notices an unusual tree in a forest. I mean, I am discounting the fact that anything green just sticks out in a place filled with houses, roads and shops.

Does this world not have tree-monsters? Nobody disguises themselves as a tree trunk? Does this world not have ninjas?

Anyway, the Royal Grove, and, as my [subsidiary tree] connects to the other trees and the earth, I get a notification.

[Gained a passive buff. Connected to an enchanted forest. Herb effectiveness increased by 50%.]

Oh. Funky. Enchanted it is.

”What's your plan?” Alexis asks, she's obviously a huge fan of seeing new places. ”I've been there, that city. But we've only stayed a few days. It's nice, looking at the city from your point of view.”

”Hmmm... I plan to first gradually infiltrate the capital, have trees and vines throughout the city... then, I need to find the culprits. I want to know whether the commanders that ordered the burning of the village, are they still alive?”

”That's it? If they are alive, do you plan to kill them?”

”Hmmm... I guess so. I should kill them.”

”Is this for revenge? I mean, they burnt down the village, so its revenge, right?”

“Revenge, yeah, I think so.”

Actually, that's a good question.

Why am I doing this? Am I just carrying the fury of the burning of the village of Freeka in my heart? Kind of silly that I am asking myself this now that I have made the entire journey here. I even invested all these subsidiary trees to establish a connection, a chain of trees that span a country.

So, that question prompted me to think about what exactly I want to achieve, and because I could not answer the question myself, I turn to the elves. My fellow survivors, the 7 elves that suffered the consequences of the army's brutality.

”Lausanne, what would you do if you found the one responsible for killing your father?”

”Slap him. A few times.”

”That's it?”

”That bad person, he made me grow up without a father. It is a bad thing, bad people do such bad things, to me. But, it is so long ago, I was still just a small baby, I do not know what happened. So.. somehow, I'm not really, really angry. Maybe angry, but, it's not really, really, burn me up kind of angry, you know? I should be angry at these bad guys, because they did a bad thing, but, but it's not in here, you know?” Lausanne points to her heart, or is it her gut?

She has a point, she’s a baby, she’s not seen it happen, though she suffers the consequences of it. But that’s been her life since.

”So are you angry?”

”I think I am. But not much, really. Maybe mom will be really angry. Wait. I should be angry. I am angry.”

”You... don't sound that angry.”

”I am angry because a group of bad person did bad things to us. But, that's it, I guess, I am angry because I should be, but not angry because I feel it like a fire in my heart.”

Okay, confusing.

Laufen.

”Laufen, what would you do if you find the man that ordered the burning of the village?”

Laufen sat, and she just kept quiet for a while.

”Laufen?”

”I heard you, TreeTree. I... I need to think. I just did not expect such a question from you, suddenly.”

Oh. Laufen kept quiet for a good 15 minutes, maybe an hour? Just alone, thinking. I honestly didn't notice the time.

”Honestly, TreeTree? I don't know what I would do. Maybe I will kill him? Or maybe not. But me... I... I think I probably won't be able to do anything. It's been so long, TreeTree... I. I don't know.”

Laufen looks really uncomfortable, and she sits down on the large chair in her office.

”They took my friends, my husband, my home, from me.”

”So you will retaliate?”

”Yes. Maybe yes. But, but I myself, I tell Lausanne not to let it cloud and consume us, that this is a cycle, of how the world renew itself... The world is full of this, you know, killing. People always kill each other, they always find excuses to. If it’s not humans, it’ll be royalty, or money, or territory. We have always been killing, or getting killed. I sometimes wonder whether maybe it would be demons that got us instead, if its not the army.”

”I'm confused, Laufen. Why are you talking about that?”

”Me too. I don't really know what I will do. What I should do? I like to think we have all moved on, we succeeded in rebuilding our lives. A part of me takes the stand that living a good life is the best revenge. That not to be consumed by vengeance is the way to move forward with life.”

Laufen pauses, and takes a deep breath.

”But the loss, somewhere, it still hurts. When I look at Lausanne sparring, I wonder what Ricola would have said. When we celebrate her birthdays, I wish Ricola and all others to be here.”

She looks really sad then.

”But does my sorrow, my sadness, allow me to seek vengeance? I know, Casshern once told me that when you've lived through so many years of death, you learn to accept it. But I can't. So what should I do, TreeTree? What's the right thing to do?”

She stretches.

”Like I said, a part of me thinks the right thing to do, is to forgive and forget. But I don't want them to entirely get away scott-free either. I feel like a statement needs to be made. I'm so torn between those two feelings! TreeTree? I want both. I want to let go. Only with letting go I will have inner peace. But I also want to have vengeance, a statement, some way of slapping these idiots for fighting us when their attention should be demons.”

Well, I can actually share that emotion. I too thought I knew, but now that I am at the point where I am able to retaliate, I actually don't really know what I want to do with Salah.

Do I proceed to slaughter the Salah Kingdom? Many of whom are similarly unaware of the evil their military commits? Or should I just focus my goal on the true culprits? But let's say I do find the true culprits, is death the right punishment for them?

”Jura, what would you do if you find the culprits behind the burning and slaughter of Freeka?”

Jura leans back on his chair. ”I would have the true culprit stripped naked, hung upside down in a public market, and starved, whipped and burned for a few days, but without dying, without sleep.”

”Huh, why?”

”Because he deserves shame, and pain. For someone who crossed me personally, I feel to just let the person die is too lenient, too light. He should experience my terrible days, when I was hiding, running, my skin still scorched by the flames that engulfed the village, my feet bruised, the bottom of my skin bleeding but I had to keep running, all of us ran like crazy for days. So yeah, he should have a taste of that.”

”Okay...”

”But you know, now that I'm the Counsel of the Valtrian Order, I can understand how it got to that point, why the military did what it did. The burning. Even if I disagree with it.”

”Jura?”

”I mean, look, a King exercises his authority through his institutions, and his subjects. What good is a King if there are no subjects that obey his command? So, when a King gives an order, there must be a weight to it, that citizens learn to obey them. We clearly disobeyed the order, so we were punished. Sure, the punishment on us is really extreme, but then, I sometimes wonder, if the punishment is light, who would put their lives on the line and fight for the King? I have heard of death for traitors, death for those who desert the battlefield. What we did is similar, no? We refused to fight when we were clearly asked to.”

I think there’s more to it, so I let Jura continue.

“Eh, it’s just some things I think about, sometimes to rationalise why such a tragedy happened. It’s... it’s a way of coping, to try and understand why it happened. A part of me learns to come to terms with that reality, by accepting that we deserved it.”

Well, dissecting and rationalising is a way of coping?