Adarin observed the scene around him—the hundreds of woodland creatures, the circular canopy cathedral, the ritual stone on which his mentor, Bloommaster Ges’ksi, sat; gray granite clearly stained with the deep rust of old blood.

  “How can you be here?” Adarin asked, his voice carefully controlled. More system fuckery. Just what I needed.

  The Bloomaster chuckled. “It’s a chance meeting. I see you have not yet studied your tree-lore.”

  He stretched out a hand, and Adarin felt something brush against his very essence. He felt seen, understood, embraced.

  “You earned the blessing of the willow. But the willow… it’s a fickle thing, a fickle idea—flexible,” the Bloomaster said, turning his fingers and playing with several vines, “almost formless, like the rivers and the water it so loves.The beech is a different beast entirely.”

  He made a wide gesture, and a hum spread out through all the woodland creatures. “Some say on the old homeworld, Urf, the very first words were written as symbols in the wood of a beech tree. It is the root of wisdom.”

  The Spriggan spoke up—and with a delay of a fraction of a second, all the other woodland creatures joined in the humming. “We know, we know, we know.”

  Adarin saw his men reacting with sage nods and felt himself agreeing with the sentiments. Of course they knew. What wouldn’t they know? Something in him hesitated, but he brushed it off.

  The Bloomaster smiled broadly. “And as you haven’t induced any druids at the first site, I thought I might give you a little hand, boy. But first—”

  Adarin sensed the manipulators that connected him to the ground shudder, and felt his body sprouting roots and leaves—connecting him to the trees, to the majestic palace of nature around him. It was ancient. There had been beech forests here long before the System, even in the time of the Old Empire. Like a rope frizzling into thousands of fine strands, he felt paths going off into infinity, one path leading from world to world, from star to star, as this species—like many others—had followed humanity out from its nearly forgotten homeworld. Another thread pointed to words written on paper, written on wood; another to tumbling sticks carved with runes and vague hints of prophecy and prediction.

  Distant singing began permeating his skull, and Adarin began swaying, joining in the rhythm, the undulating sound and the frizzling string drawing him deeper and deeper.

  Bloommaster Ges’ksi’s words came from everywhere and nowhere, accompanied by the chorus of the woodland creatures. “You see the path of the beech, the power of the magic that is information, that is knowing, that is mystery.”

  “Mystery, mystery,” another voice rang out, and Adarin knew this was something that was nothing—the not-the-forest yet the forest; not a tree yet a tree; not an idea yet an idea. “Do you consent?”

  “Consent? Consent.” Chorused something much older than civilization around this star.

  Adarin felt what was offered and inclined his head. “Yes.”

  “Yes, yes.” His agreement was taken up as a whisper, vibrating up and down the many strings. He felt a wide woodland—wolf hunting deer, deer feeding on underbrush. An endless cycle. A forest the size of a world. It shrank and recovered with the seasons and civilizations claiming it. They all faded, but it endured.

  Suddenly Adarin was back in the aborial cathedral of the locus. He took in the scene at once. His skeletons stood there like statues. His soldiers—sailors, musketeers, scouts, and mages alike—were all either unconscious and still clothed, or naked, entwined in a not-quite sexual manner with half a dozen woodland beasts each. Adarin saw the Spriggan standing on one side of the stone and Bloomaster Ges’ksi on the other. The stamping and clapping of wood on wood could be heard, and the humming intensified. The green light seemed to be alive itself, flickering like a waterfall over him.

  Adarin’s heart beat faster as he heard the song, its cadence speaking of secrets and the ancient past. He blinked. Interpositions had shifted. Naked bodies were undulating over wood, shifting, transforming—skin turned to bark and back, eyes grew green and vibrant with Alteration magic. A wolf and a deer lay on the stone, bound into the shape of a yin-yang symbol. They weren’t struggling. They were asleep.

  Adarin noted the sharp-edged club that lay before him, made of polished beechwood. He took one step forward and the world shook. The trees seemed to shift through the seasons, losing leaves, blooming rich with fruit, and growing heavy with winter snow at the same time. He took another—and suddenly the grove was young. There was no stone, only a single circle of sprouting beeches. The next step: he took up the club. It felt heavy, containing all the meaning of all the houses, all the tools, all the books that had ever been made from the wood of this forest.

  Adarin stepped again and stood before the altar. Darkness, warm, rotting, and comfortable surrounded him. The soil; he felt the writhing life, the circle of roots, falling leaves, rain, minerals, carbon dioxide, and water around him. He raised the club and brought it sharply down onto the head of the wolf. The predator’s skull cracked and pink brain mass spilled forth as it twitched a final time, dying and being released from the roots that had bound the proud predator. Adarin raised the club again, shattering the deer’s skull as well. Roots grew out around the altar, twisted, impaled, and wrung out the sacrifices, bathing the stone in steaming, smelling blood.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Words appeared in the turbulent surface of the spilled essence of life.

  Do you accept it? Accept. Accept.

  The forest vibrated with them, and all the woodland creatures—all his men who were being transformed by the forest—repeated them as if they were spoken by one throat that was a million.

  ‘Archdruid. Archdruid. Archdruid.’

  ‘Blessing. Blessing. Blessing.’

  System text swirled in the blood:

  Aspect of the Beech:

  - +25% magic resistance

  - +50% resistance against Illusion magic

  Adarin lowered his head. “I—” He paused, feeling the forest taking a breath in anticipation, feeling seasons passing and the forest going through another cycle. “Accept.”

  Leaves exploded around him and the world turned green, richly organic with a smell of chlorophyll and charged with the fresh fragrance you only smell after a storm. Adarin felt something happening to all his cores—felt them growing more compact, smoother somehow, especially the one in the back of the head of his digital avatar. The Illusion core felt less like a rough gem and more like a perfect pearl. He heard whispers—whispers of secrets, whispers of things seen, of things not forgotten, for they had happened in the forest.

  He stood there in communion, feeling, knowing—knowing too much. And only as he registered the orange light of evening did he come back to his senses. Bloommaster Ges’ksi stood next to him, beside the bloody, root-enveloped altar.

  “We shall see each other soon again, son. Remember—I hold your next spell behind your quest. For now a warning: beware of the way the High Shaman Kathrak twists the roots of the world. Do not let him win.”

  ‘Win, win. Not, not win. Not win. Win, win.’

  The very trees shuddered and whispered, and at those words the Bloommaster collapsed into a pile of leaves, soon blown away on the wind.

  Adarin blinked, his mind suddenly clear. The woodland creatures—most of them at least—were gone. A hundred unconscious clothed soldiers of the Order, fifty naked ones clearly transformed, remained.

  Here: hair that was made of vine.

  There: a body remade from beautifully marbled beechwood.

  Next: green eyes, a companion snake made of living roots.

  Soon, only the Spriggan stood before Adarin. It fell to one knee.

  “Archdruid,” it whispered, its voice still resonant but somehow also reverent. “Now I welcome you. It has been a long time. I thank you for initiating the first cycle. Serve the land, that it shall serve you.”

  With those words the Spriggan walked off and merged into the trunk of one of the beeches.

  Adarin looked over the naked men and women and found Mage Lieutenant Krislov, who had been transformed into a hulking Adonis of beautifully marbled beechwood. Suddenly the serenely smiling soldiers began blinking; gasps could be heard as many suddenly covered up their nakedness or scrambled for torn-apart uniforms. The men and women on the ground began stirring, blinking sleep out of their eyes and looking in shock at what had happened to their comrades, and Adarin swallowed hard.

  How the fuck do I tell the others that this was the result of a normal scouting mission?

  He turned around and studied the group. “Soldiers—” he said, then swallowed the word. It felt inappropriate. “Initiates of the Dray River Beech Druid Circle, I, Archdruid Adarin, welcome you to this new phase of your life. Serve the land, that it shall serve you.”

  Looks of confusion warred with glints of certainty, until Mage Lieutenant Krislov curled his hand into a fist and began thumping it against his chest. First a dozen, then all of the new druids picked it up. The steady thump, thump, thump told Adarin all he needed to know as they began marching back towards the ships.

  We need to figure out this druid stuff later. For now—I was gone an entire day.

  On the way, the soldiers who hadn’t been blessed by the grove walked with lowered heads—some envious, others happy, a few disgusted. Mage Lieutenant Krislov smiled serenely, running his hand over a beech tree. The tree suddenly seemed healthier after he had touched it. He tilted his head and looked at Adarin.

  “There was a fungal symbiont that had grown imbalanced in the root system,” he said. His voice sounded somehow otherworldly and deeply manly at the same time.

  Adarin just nodded. A tension had settled in his guts. All noospheric libi I had set up were cut. He began pacing in his mind space.

  They had almost reached the ships when a panicked Liora reached out over the noospheric link, reestablishing the connection. Her voice was frayed with disgust and terror.

  ‘Adarin. It’s raining flesh—’

  She stumbled and stopped, apparently uncertain what to say now she had reached him after presumably shouting into the void for a while.

  She suddenly yelped. ‘Holy Mother, I think that was a liver. Tell me you are…’

  The connection cut off and Adarin reestablished it, his heart frantically beating. What the fuck happened in my absence?

  ‘Liora?’ He reached out, keeping his voice deliberately calm and steady.

  ‘...hammer— I don’t understand— Mother, Mother, protect—’

  Adarin cursed as they began rushing back towards the temple.