The Land: Founding (Chaos Seeds Book 1) (18 page)

Mountain Troll, Lvl 22. Health:
1100/1100, Mana 0/0, Stamina 520/520.

Richter face froze into a twisted
expression as if he had eaten something sour. Making eye contact with Sion, he
motioned sharply with his head for them to leave. Sion gave him a perfect,
‘What the hell did you think we were going to do expression’ and nodded back.
With slow deliberate moves, they eased back from the edge on their stomachs and
then collected their mounts. They backtracked a good half an hour before
setting on a path that would take them well wide of the creature. Sion later
told him about the troll. The creatures were apparently brutally strong and
fast. They were aggressive almost to the point of insanity. They were driven
solely by the desire to feed. Worst though was that it regenerated so fast that
even massive wounds didn’t slow it. Without dismembering it and then lighting
it on fire, it would not stop until it had eaten you, most likely alive.

Though the troll was the greatest
threat they came upon, it was not the only one. A few days later, while taking
a break to eat, Sion was ranging around the campsite. It was a something he had
a tendency to do. Richter wasn’t sure if constant movement was something
endemic to the Wood Sprites or if Sion just had a bad case of ADD. Whichever
was the case, his friend would often would scout in small circles around any
area they paused at or stopped at for the night. This time Sion came back camp
excited. “I need some time to do something. It might take a bit, is that all
right?”

 After Richter’s nod, he pulled
out his mortar and pestle and started grinding. Richter didn’t recognize the
herbs, but they made a greyish red paste. Sion scrapped it onto a piece of bark
he cut from a nearby tree being careful not to get it onto his skin. He left
camp again with no explanation, moving quickly back the way he had come.

 Bemused but not concerned,
Richter simply continued to relax. It was nice taking a bit of a longer break.
Walking for days on end was not as glamorous and restful as it might seem. He
laid on his back with his pack as a pillow, and looked up at the forest canopy
and the snatches of blue sky that could be seen between the leaves. About
twenty minutes later, Sion came back smiling broadly and said, “I found
something. Come with me, I’ll need your help.”

 Richter got to his feet, “Where
are we going?”

 “Just come, and leave the
ponies. They will be safer here.”

 Not exactly sure what he meant
by ‘safer,’ Richter just shrugged and did as he was asked. The two of them
walked two hundred yards from where they had been eating. Sion stopped walking
and pointed to a large dead tree. The trunk was about three meters wide and six
meters high. The top was jagged and irregular, clearly only the base of a once
much larger tree. There was a large hole at the bottom of the trunk leading
down into the earth. The opening was about three feet tall. Richter could
probably make his way into it, but it would be tight.

 “Okay great. An old dead tree.
Is it a long lost relative?”

 Sion huffed in irritation, “No
gyoti
!” (The translation was something like
‘irritating fool’ as best as Richter could make out with his Gift of Tongues
ability) “This was an Offshoot! It was the beginning of a Hearth Tree long ago.
Something obviously happened.” Sion picked up the bark with the grey-red paste
on it, and tossed it down the hole.

 “But the Hearth Tree is huge,”
Richter protested. “This thing is a toothpick in comparison!”

 “That’s because our Hearth Tree
is built on a Place of Power. Normally Hearth Trees are just the center of a
Wood Sprite community, though a few Sprites may live within if it get big
enough.”

 “So finding this is like
finding a piece of your history,” Richter asked. History had never really been
his strong point. He still shuddered when he thought about the historical tours
his grandmother would drag him on. At some point people just need to admit that
looking at old homes in Gatlinburg is not that great!

 “Yes, it is that,” Sion said
with his previous excitement. He either did not pick up on or decided to ignore
Richter’s nonplussed tone. And why not, he was just talking to a
gyoti
after all. “More important though, is that the
Seed Core might still be viable!”

 Richter just looked at him.

 Sion peered at Richter from the
corner of his eye, then looked back at the tree, then peered again this time
with a small turn of his head, then looked back at the tree. This continued for
a good five minutes, with Richter just staring at the sprite. The human’s
stubborn resistance finally won out.

 “Do you know what that means,”
Sion asked exasperated.

 “You know that I don’t! You knew
before you said it, that I didn’t know what a Seed Core was! You could have
just called it a mystical booty scratcher! I still wouldn’t know! Just tell
me!”

 “Fine! You humans are so cranky
and impatient. A Seed Core…,” Sion paused for a moment, Richter was sure just
to mess with him, “is how you make a Hearth Tree, a Guardian Wood or a host of
other magical trees. One of the sacred duties of my people is to further the
cause of good by growing magical trees for the betterment of all.”

 “Oh, so it’s like a stem cell?”

 Sion looked at him confused.

 Richter gave his best sarcastic
grin, “Not so fun when someone drops a term you don’t know, is it?” Changing
his expression to one of gracious forbearance, he said, “You may continue.”

 Grinding his teeth, Sion said,
“The point is, the Hearth Tree only makes a Seed Core once every several
hundred years, if that! If the Core is still viable, it will be a wonderful
boon!”

 “This tree looks like it has been
dead for a long time, Sion. Why would you think that this Seed Core thing
wasn’t dead too?”

 “The Core is a source of great
magical power. It gives to nature, but also is maintained by it. As long as its
power is not drawn upon too much, or too fast, it can sustain itself almost
indefinitely

 “Okay, okay, I’m sold,” Richter
said. “How do we check?”

 “We simply need to go down into
to the bowels of the tree, and see if we can find it. I should be able to feel
a resonance if I am close enough. It will be a round sphere about yea big,”
Sion held his hands apart showing something the size of a grapefruit.”

 “Okay that won’t take that
long. Let’s do it,” Richter said.

 Sion looked at him a moment
opening his mouth to speak, and then closing it again, looking indecisive.

 “What is it,” Richter asked.

 “Well, from the stories I have
heard, if a Seed Core is ever left out for a long period of time, it has the
tendency to attract monsters. The healing and regenerative properties of the
Core can be used to make the monsters stronger, more resilient, or… bigger.”

 “What do you mean exactly by
bigger?”

 “Just that. The elders told
stories of giant ants or snakes. I’m sure that they were exaggerating. Besides,
we don’t need to worry about that here.”

 “Phew. For a second I thought
we were going to be overrun with flesh eating beetles or something,” Richter
said with a small laugh. He had never really been a big fan of bugs.

 The sprite laughed in return.
“No, no. There are no flesh eating beetles in the Forest of Nadria.” There was
a short pause, “What we DO have is a
viscious
animal
called a
skeeling
. It’s usually only about the size
of a badger. It is completely blind, but has excellent hearing. It’s
subterranean, and they don’t wander to the surface. It has ridged scales and a
very distinctive smell. They have been known to burrow under trees and eat the
roots, killing the tree. It’s a pest we try to get rid of whenever we can!

 Richter nodded along, thinking
it was remarkable that Sion had so much information about one forest creature,
but wondering why he was focusing so much on it.

 The sprite continued, “Now
skeelings
are mean and fast. They had two rows of sharp
teeth that can tear through an animal in seconds! Luckily, they hate the
extract of red vine mixed with iron leaf. It’s bad enough that it drives them
out of their holes and above ground. Then they are easy to kill! Now when I was
wandering earlier, I found this.” He tossed a flat palm sized rock to Richter.
“I didn’t know what it was at first. It had ridges like a
skeeling
scale, but was way too big. Most scales on adult male
skeelings
are about the size of your thumbnail. Are you following me so far?”

 Richter nodded again, starting
to feel uneasy about story time.

 “Well, now that I have found this
old Hearth Tree, it makes sense that a
skeeling
might
have made its home underneath.”

 “
Okayyy
.
So you want to drive it out from underneath the tree?”

 “Yes. As I said, it would only
take a mixture of red vine and iron leaf. We toss it down the hole and the
skeeling
is so angry it comes to the surface. Then we can
kill it and look for the Seed Core.”

 “Sion,” Richter said quietly,
“does red vine and iron leaf make a greyish red paste when you mix them?”

 “It does,” the sprite said in
an innocent voice.

 “Would you want to avoid
getting it on your skin?”

 “Oh yes, it causes horrible
itching,” the sprite replied, “That’s why it’s best to keep it in a container
or on something like a bark plate.

 “Hmmm,” Richter said. “And if
you were to throw something like that mixture down a hole, how long would it
take for the
skeeling
to react.”

 “Hmmm,” Sion replied. “That’s
actually a fascinating topic. Now that you ask, it would depend on time of day.
Skeelings
are nocturnal. If it were to be exposed to red
vine and iron leaf at night it would go into an immediate rage. If, however, it
were to smell the mixture during the daytime,”

 “Like now you mean,” Richter
interjected.

 “Yes, Richter, like now. Well
in that case, it might take a few minutes to wake it up, but I can promise you
it would be EXTRA furious when it did.”

 “So it might take, almost
exactly the amount of time it took you to relate all of this information.”

 “About that amount of time, yes
Richter,” Sion replied.

 Losing patience Richter asked,
“Okay, so what do we do after it comes up?”

 “Well,” Sion replied with an
evil grin, “depending on your perspective, this is the easiest part. Just run
and I’ll kill it before it eats you.”

 The ground in front of the tree
exploded upward, and a shrill screech filled the air.

 The
skeeling
was NOT the size of a badger. The thing was the size of a black bear! It had an
armored carapace like an armadillo. The four legs of the creature ended in
three fingered paws. Each finger was tipped with a wicked black talon, arched
slightly inward towards the palm. It was off white in color and its face
resembled a rodent of some kind. The eyelids were closed, and two large
triangular ears stuck straight up from its head. The snout was rat like, but
when it threw back its head and shrieked, the teeth were flat, but tapered to
be sharp at the bottom.

 “Run,” Sion shouted. The sprite
had begun imbuing an arrow as soon as the creature appeared. He struck it in
the side, and the arrow impacted with its customary boom. The
skeeling
fell, knocking over a small tree, but got back up
quickly. The arrow hadn’t pierced its hide!

 “Well this might be a problem,”
the sprite called.

 As the
skeeling
began running towards them, attracted by the sound of their voices, Richter
looked over, “You think??”

 “Move!”

 The sprite jumped up into the
tree he had been standing underneath. Richter didn’t waste time firing an
arrow, but cast Haste on himself instead. The he enacted the second phase of
his master plan. He ran his butt off.

 Haste let him keep ahead of the
monster that was clearly attracted to his footsteps. Not by very much however.
Sion rained down shots on the creature which slowed it down, but did little
damage against its armored hide. As Richter ran for his life, he realized his
current situation was probably due to poor communication. He was all for taking
initiative, and pursing one’s own personal bliss, but Sion could have given him
a better heads up. He really needed to have a discussion with the sprite and
teach him that communication was the foundation for any true friendship! Then
maybe in the future, he could avoid narrowly being eaten by a horrible albino
rat monster! Of course, maybe all of this was happening because Sion was just a
dick, and needed him to act like bait…

“
Ahhh
,
ahhhhhh
,” Richter screamed. The tip of the
skeeling’s
claws had caught him on the back. Most of the
damage was blocked by his armor, but blood freely flowed down from his right
shoulder. He put on a burst of extra speed to add some distance between himself
and the monster.