The path between the Sacred Tree and the magical pond had been worn over the last few days. Rud marched over that path with two buckets, each half-filled with the glowing pond water on either side of his stick. He rested that stick on his shoulder, finding this to be a much easier way to carry water. Humming as he went, the sensation of something building within his chest became more intense by the moment. His subclass would come soon enough. Then he could see what Ban was talking about.

  When Rud returned to the tree, he saw the faint glow of magic emanating from the trunk. He set his buckets aside, not willing to interrupt whatever it was the tree was doing. Sitting on his butt and popping a few mushrooms into his mouth, he watched and waited. A pulse of energy radiated outward, sending his long brown hair poofing out. The druid felt something like an electric charge sizzling between the hairs. A moment later, the tickle in his soul burst forth.

  Only a moment later, the sensation was gone. His soul felt more complete, and Ban had never felt closer.

  “What was that?” Rud asked.

  Ban laughed, its voice echoing through the forest. “We finally connected. Your subclass manifested on schedule.”

  “Yay,” Rud said, opening his attribute interface and finding the Grove Custodian subclass waiting for inspection. He rubbed his hands together, reading the description.

  [Grove Custodian]

  Rank 0 Level 1 Subclass

  Description:

  Grove Custodians dedicate their lives to tending to Sacred Trees. They gain adaptive abilities, depending on which form their bound tree takes.

  Skills:

  NONE

  “Oh, interesting,” Rud said, nodding. “So, what form have you taken?”

  “I took pieces of you, the region, and our guardian to form an archetype. We’ll focus on creating structures to enhance the area. To put it plainly, we’re building a town.”

  “How is that gonna work?”

  “I can generate buildings from saplings. Buildings that I can shape to whatever we need. You may enter that building to activate a subset of abilities tied to your Grove Custodian subclass.”

  “Neat! What’s the first building you’re going to make?”

  Rud felt his awareness shift as though he were following along with Ban’s perception. The tree dragged its thoughts northeast, toward the spot he suspected was the mine. “I’m generating a Mining Workshop right now. The amount of energy it consumes is significant. So if I appear dormant, don’t wake me. Ask Mint if you need help.”

  “Okay. Did she leave my shovels near the site?”

  “She did.”

  Rud dumped the two half-buckets of water on Ban’s roots before grabbing his walking stick. He took a handful of shelled nuts and some mushrooms, eating them as he walked along. Ban’s sense for where the mine rested was powerful enough for him to follow, and he was glad to see it wasn’t as far as the logging area. Nestled at the base of a rocky rise, and surrounded by trees, a collapsed mine appeared. Timbers mingled with stone near the entrance, and a shovel and pickaxe were laying near that ruined mine.

  A strange-looking plant had come forth near the mine. Rud knew in an instant that this was the mining workshop Ban was working on. It twisted in on itself, forming the general shape of a round building. Before he could get any skills to pull anything of use from within the mine, he needed to clear away the rubble. It might not have been a horrible job for a person of full size. But he doubted he could move even a single large rock. He approached the entrance to inspect the extent of the damage.

  The support timbers were rotted through with age, leaving behind no structural qualities. Rud wedged his stick between two rocks and pulled one loose, surprised to see one move at all. He shifted rocks for a while, finding the work to be more frustrating than he expected. Instead of pressing forward he found a nearby tree to nap underneath and took it easy for a while. When he woke, he searched the forest for some food and got back to work.

  The strangely shaped tree had become more of a building than a tree. The walls had gone further out, while a canopy of branches formed the roof. “Looking good, Ban,” Rud said, nodding with approval. He stood a fair distance from the forming tree-building, waiting for the Sacred Tree’s response. But nothing came. He guessed it was silent, just as it had explained before.

  Rud decided that the entrance to the mine wasn’t as bad as he initially thought. He studied the area, finding that the rocky cliff face above the cave was the culprit. After removing a layer of blocking stones, he poked his head through an opening. Everything beyond that initial layer was clear. It was only the entrance that had been clogged. He pulled his head out, aware of the sounds of the forest around him more than ever. A twig broke behind him, then leaves were scattered. One of the red squirrels had snuck up on him, and was tilting its head to one side and chittering.

  “Hey little guy,” Rud said. He knelt, holding a nut out for the critter to take. “Hungry?”

  The squirrel bounded over, grabbing the nut before retreating to a safe distance. It nibbled at the pink nut, chittering the whole time. Rud listened closely, trying to understand what the squirrel was saying. He didn’t even get a sense for how the creature was feeling, let alone what its thoughts were. He wondered how high his Animal Communication skill needed to be in order to understand a simple squirrel.

  “Well, buddy… these rocks ain’t gonna move themselves,” Rud said with a chuckle. He turned back to the mine’s entrance, removing more rocks. After pulling one from the side of the clog, it caused a collapse. He moved away in time to avoid having his foot pinned and the squirrel scrambled for a tree. It found a high branch and chittered down at him, making its thoughts known. “Well, that solves that problem.”

  As the squirrel squeaked away in the tree, Rud inspected the mine. The stones had fallen away, revealing the musty cave within. Just as he was moving to climb over the piles of stones, a message appeared in his vision.

  [Skill Gain!]

  Your Animal Communication skill has increased to level 2!

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  It was no surprise that this would be the skill that leveled first. Rud spent most of his time listening to the sounds of the animals in the forest. He already knew that the sounds the squirrel was making were those of an angry creature. But with his skill at Level 2, they made more sense. The squirrel was scared more than anything, and was trying to warn other squirrels about something. Rud couldn’t tell what that was though.

  The druid pressed into the cave, studying the wooden supports at the entrance. They were mixed with the rocks and rotten through, but the mine’s mouth held firm. A set of mine cart tracks, rusted and rotted through, stretched as far as the light would reach. Rud entered the mine, pressing his hands against the cool walls. He couldn’t tell if there was ore to be had in here, or if it was all just rock. Something glimmered in the mine, far in the distance. He narrowed his eyes, he tried to decide if it was a shiny-eyed beast or the crystal that Ban wanted.

  Rud left the mine before he could find out, getting to work on clearing the entrance instead. There were rocks that were too large for his little body to move, but he cleared a decent enough path to come and go with ease. The tree needed more water, though. The druid gathered his buckets from the tree, then filled them at the pond before returning. When he poured them on the Sacred Tree’s roots, it soaked that glowing water up eagerly. Creating the building was taking a lot out of the tree.

  “Mint?” Rud asked, finding himself feeling lost without direction. “Is the tree doing good?”

  Distant branches rustled and Mint’s spectral form emerged. Her hackles were raised as she looked between Rud and the tree. “She is fine. Why?”

  “I just wanted to make sure this was normal,” Rud said, staring up at the high boughs of the tree. “And wait, the tree is a ‘she?’”

  “She was a doe before her soul ascended. Now she is a tree,” Mint said.

  Rud was glad that the wolf didn’t have a tone of annoyance with him. This was all new to him, and he didn’t know the first thing about deer becoming trees. As always, she bordered on being a patient mother and a savage wolf.

  “And she is a fine tree,” Rud said, chuckling nervously. “How long will she be out?”

  “Days or weeks. It is hard to say,” Mint said, sniffing the air. “There are interlopers on the northern side of the grove. I must go.”

  “Oh, just real quick,” Rud said, reaching out as though he could stop her. “She just wants me to collect those crystal things, right?”

  Mint was already half-way to the forest’s edge. She turned around and nodded. “Indeed. Practice your skills. Try learning a new spell from the forest that doesn’t cost as much mana. You need to increase your level and skills. You’re doing great.”

  Rud gave her the thumbs-up before she dashed off into the woods. With Mint gone and Ban sleeping while she made the building, he felt adrift. This wasn’t the first time he was completely alone in his life, though. He watered the roots of the tree and gathered some food for lunch. Something he could work on was a shelter for himself. A place where he could cook food to make it taste better. That required more than he could invest right now, but it would become necessary. Especially considering that weather wouldn’t always be this pristine. The basic clothing only went so far to keep the rain off of him.

  “Right. Priorities.”

  With Ban watered and nothing else to do, Rud went through the forest collecting fallen tree branches. He used the mining shovel to cut—more like bash—the errant sticks off, making straight pieces good enough for his purpose. He found a spot near the Sacred Tree not crowded with roots and dug those sticks into the ground, forming a crude shelter. Atop those sticks, he placed branches low enough for him to smack down with the shovel. He stood back and appreciated his work.

  “It stinks, but so do I,” Rud said, giggling to himself. The shelter didn’t need to be big. Because he wasn’t big. He tested it by curling up inside, finding that it was good enough for now. Mint wanted him working on other things, though. And that came with problems.

  The Druidic Spellcasting ability said he could only learn new spells from nature. But what exactly did that mean? He had been given the first spell, so far as he could tell, and couldn’t think of a way to convince something as nebulous as ‘nature’ to give him another. Instead of worrying about it, he got a better lay of the land. So far, he had explored the Sacred Tree, the pond, the mine, and the logging site of the mortals. That accounted for his immediate area to the north, northeast, and east based on the tree’s location. Rud selected west for exploration next, grabbing a stick and heading off.

  It didn’t take long to hear the distant babbling of a stream. Rud smelled the scent of the moving water on the wind. Trees ran the length of the rocky bank, snaking along with the stream to carve a path through the forest. Forest creatures fled when they heard him, but they were likely drinking from the clean water before he arrived. The druid had been drinking from the magical pool, and wouldn’t risk some kind of rabies type disease from the rushing water. He approached the bank, it to be average creek size. It was shallow enough for him to wade in, but he had no intention of getting wet in such a cold environment.

  The area south of the tree was less interesting by far. Rud followed the stream southward, finding that it cut to the east before falling off a cliff. He stood on the edge of the cliff, looking off to the forest below. It was hard to see very far, as most of the forest below was obscured by a low-hanging bank of fog. The misty mountains rolled on beyond what he could see, but he had a sense of the lake that was mentioned before. He sat on the cliff’s edge and watched. Just watched the nature below.

  The day wore on as he observed. Birds flew from the trees below, scattering from hunting raptors above. Hawks, or falcons, were hunting. Wolves bayed from the area below, joining with those birds to find some prey. Rud supposed that was part of nature. The constant push and pull of predator and prey. He struggled to imagine cute little animals being predated upon, but that was life. The druid didn’t focus on what he could change. He centered his mind on the ebb and flow. The constant scramble of so many creatures in such a tight space.

  “Ah,” Rud said. A swirl of blue energy poured from his chest, wrapping him in a comforting light. A moment later, a new message appeared.

  [Spell Obtained!]

  The Stag Spirit Bent has taken notice of you. He has gifted you with the Detect Animals spell.

  “A new spell!” Rud said, jumping to his feet and pumping his fist in the air. He danced for a bit, remembering the stag from the tree planting ceremony. He opened his Druidic Spellbook and inspected the new spell.

  [Detect Animals]

  Rank 0 Druid Spell

  Mana Cost:

  10

  Description:

  Draw on the power of the Stag. This spell allows you to detect animals near you. The range increases based on rank. Animals that have ascended to higher ranks will be more difficult to detect.

  Effect:

  For one minute, you will detect all animals within five-hundred paces.

  That wasn’t as useful as a spell that made plants grow, but it was still really neat. Rud called on his new spell, feeling it waiting for his call. The blue energy of the Stag Spirit Bent came to his call. The magic flowed from his eyes, wrapping around him to form a sheet of magic. Once the spell had finished, the surrounding forest lit up with activity. He saw badgers, squirrels, deers, birds, and even the worms burrowing into the ground. Watching those things move around for the full minute, the druid gained a deeper appreciation for the forest. He wasn’t alone at all, even with Mint and Ban not in communication. There was life all around him.

  “That’s called perspective,” Rud said, turning away from the cliff. The spectral blindfold he wore fell away, and the glittering forms of the surrounding animals fell away with it.

  So the various spirit animals would give him spells based on his interaction with nature. Rud didn’t know how this worked exactly, but a lower cost spell that showed him animals was nice. Managing the grove would include the animals within, so that was nice to have. He left the cliff, looking for more interesting features in his immediate area. Unless he felt like walking for hours, this was it.

  On his way back to the tree, Rud made note of a few mushrooms that seemed untrustworthy. There were the blue ones that he was warned about, but also a glowing purple one that smelled like fresh asphalt. He considered limiting which nuts he ate, just in case. The ones with the annoying shells hadn’t hurt his stomach, so he would stick with those.

  When Rud returned to the tree, it was pulsing with a mixture of colors. Waves of magical energy flowed forth, although he couldn’t get a sense for what the purpose was. Ban was doing her thing, and he had to trust that she knew what was going on. Who better to schedule magical tree stuff than a magical tree? He settled into his little hut, finding that it wasn’t much warmer than the open air outside. Tomorrow was a big day. The druid planned to drag some special crystals out of the mine.