Heart of Oak

The home tree had gotten some upgrades since Oakengrove’s trip to the beast town. Through some speech wrangling from Oakengrove, he’d secured a supply of materials in return for new equipment. Frida was effectively employed by the town itself and sometimes begrudgingly, worked around the clock.

Since the unannounced arrival of the red-scaled lamia, Oakengrove had been on edge. It was beginning to worry a few of the others who dwelled there. Oakengrove’s private quarters were at the highest point in the tree where he ranted and raved in blissful solitude. That is until Saea caught him in the middle of one.

The slime popped her head into the room, pushing the magically grown wood door ajar. “You alright?”

Oakengrove stopped midstep, slowly turning his head with wide eyes as if caught with a hand in the cookie jar. “Oh, Saea,” he let out a sigh of relief and fixed his appearance. “Just thinking aloud, is all. I find it to be easier than letting my mind do it.”

”That snake guy, did he really cause that big of a problem?” Saea stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind her. “I’ve never seen you pace like this.”

Oakengrove turned and took a seat upon a crudely grown tree throne. “It’s more so what he said to me. Listen to this: “Florism must not fall to the hands of a dead god.”

Saea’s facial expression shifted, visibly showing her confusion.

”He referred to me as a dead god, a threat to this faith of Florism.” The giant treant then pointed to the chainsaw sword that lay idly on a grown table. “He attacked me with this. I’ve known tree-felling methods to use tiny blades on chains to do sawing motions, often done by teams of lumberjacks. It’s effective compared to using a woodcutting ax. However, this doesn’t even require a person. It runs on its own magic.”

Saea walked up to it and poked one of the tiny blades. It was dangerously sharp and there were two on every link of the chain. “A weapon designed specifically for you?”

Oakengrove nodded. “I suspect that he had time to plan for this and that makes matters so much worse.”

”How so? You killed him didn’t you?” Saea turned to look at him.

”Aye, I did. But not without my own war scar.” He lifted his left leg and showed the underside of his stubby root foot. It had a hole carved into it.

The small enoki mushroom walked in from the other side of the room, sensing his distress, and approached the wound. A faint dusty white light emanated from the mushroom’s hands but the wound saw no regrowth.

”Whatever he made that weapon from or enchanted it with, I’m not sure, but it caused permanent damage.” He set his foot back down and sighed. “There’s also nothing to say that more wasn’t made. We’re seeing the dawn of a new era of technology, one that works with magic.”

Saea nodded quietly. “What’s the plan then?”

”For now, we keep steady the current course. Khar has been doing regular scouting trips and I sent Falcher northward to Huma. I must know where this technology is coming from. I am making another trip to the beast town in a few days.”

”What about the rest of us?”

He stroked his ivy beard. “Honestly,” his hand then migrated upwards and scratched the top of his head. “keep this tree safe. I don’t want to do anything without appropriately planning for it and dealing with potentially an entire religion’s hierarchy sounds like a nightmare that requires time.”

Saea walked up to him and hugged him, enveloping his entire body in her blue-yellow slime.

Oakengrove raised a curious brow. “Oh? What’s this for?”

Saea’s face appeared atop the blob with a soft and kind smile, “You looked like you needed a distraction.”

He tried to hug her back but her slime form simply squeezed between the gaps like a goop slushie. “I appreciate the sentiment.”

The town was teeming with day-to-day activities. Oakengrove had made the trip to visit the monastery that resided there, including a pitstop at the turtle-kin’s place. Oakengrove walked up to the chapel and knocked on the door. The elderly turtlekin opened the door and instantly smiled upon seeing the treant.

”Oakengrove, it’s good to see you. Khar with you?” Rodgers craned his neck looking for the snow owl.

”Not this time, Father Rodgers. However, he did request me to sit and talk with you, if you have the time to spare.” Oakengrove bowed his head respectfully.

Rodgers motioned for him to come in, only to stop a few steps in realizing that the treant wouldn’t actually fit. “Ah, well, what did Khar want you to talk to me about?”

”Florism.” The Treant took a seat at the doorstep.

The elder turtlekin tilted his head, leaning on his wooden cane. “As a priest of the faith of the forest, what can I tell you about it?”

Oakengrove took a long deep breath. “I was visited by Castias Hranji, the druid of your faith.”

The turtle-kin’s mood soured. “What did that halfwit want?”

“To ‘protect the faith from a dead god’ as he so elegantly put it.” Oakengrove then brought forward the chain sword that was used against him. “He attacked me with this. Khar said you might know its origins?”

Rodgers took the chain sword, struggling to carry its weight, and leaned it against the doorframe. “There’s nothing special to it. Looks like a new kind of chainsaw that’s magically powered. It’s not dwarven, that’s for sure.”

Oakengrove pointed to the hilt of it. “I noticed there’s no crafter’s signature to it, no identity stamp. Would Castias have had the means to make it at home?”

Rodgers shook his head. “That idiot of a snake couldn’t make a proper religious sigil much less a functional weapon.” He rotated the weapon. “It’s human in origin, lacks the decorative flair that the Vikans use could be Huma or Basar in origin.”

”Basar?” The name rang some bells in Oakengrove’s mind. “They’re a collection of human clans in the south aren’t they?”

”A collection is one way to put it.” Rodgers shrugged and turned his attention away from the blade. “The Basars are enamored by florism, much the same way Huma worships Torcall. Since the faith’s deity disappeared a couple of centuries ago, the faith and the clans became so intertwined that one cannot exist without the other.”

The treant took the chain sword and put it back into his satchel. “What does that mean exactly?”

”The simplest term is theocratic tribalism. Basar Florism is a tainted version of the faith and it was weaponized in response to their god’s disappearance and the rise of Solism in the Far East. The druid coming after you means only one thing, the Basars are worried about an upheaval, a potential power vacuum,” Rodgers explained.

”And this weapon then was made in preparation and with the expectation of killing a creature like me?”

Rodgers shook his head. “It was made to kill you specifically, but this one isn’t the one I remember.”

”Is this what you’d expect Castias to make? A weaker replica? And why me specifically?”

”No, the one I’m thinking of was put into storage, six feet underground kind of storage. Castias is a thief, he probably found records talking about it and had it remade by less qualified hands.”

”You speak lowly of Castias, did he wrong you?” Oakengrove asked.

”I was the Druid before him. Lamia live about two hundred to three hundred years, give or take. Castias was my replacement. The Solist wars drove Florism towards a more militant path. I was forced to step down by Castias and the Basar Chieftain. So, yes, I have a distinct distaste for him.” Rodgers broke down into a coughing fit. “Although, with my age, I suppose I should let go of my hate and grudge and let it be. I suspect that with your return, he is… was concerned about his power being challenged by the one he supposedly worships.”

Oakengrove slowly nodded. “I suppose I should start worrying about the Basar clans coming to look for him then?”

Rodgers raised a finger and hobbled inside. He returned a few minutes later with two cups of tea. “My throat was dry, here, have some.”

Oakengrove took a sip of the tea, through freshly grown roots on the tips of his fingers. It was a honeyed tea of some sort. It was very thick and sweet, refreshing to the taste buds. “What do you know of my death and return?”

Rodgers took a deep breath. “I was a Grove Tender before I was a Druid and I only became a Druid after you disappeared. I tried digging into the details of the whole situation way back then. All I know is that a fire broke out one night and you never physically returned.”

”When was this?” He took another sip of the tea.

“Oh, bless my millennia-old memory. I’d say about six hundred years ago perhaps? And to answer your previous question, yes. Be very attentive to any Basar retaliation. They won’t take kindly to their Druid being dead.”

Oakengrove nodded and stood up. “Very well, I appreciate the time Father Rodgers, and thank you for your loyalty. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to stop this. I’ll make it right.”

Rodgers shook his head. “No need, Oakengrove. I’m retired and I know you have your companions to worry about and protect. Protect them and I know they’ll handle the rest. If there’s anything I’ve learned in my eight hundred years of serving as a clergyman, don’t force anything, do what is right, and what needs to happen will happen.”

”Who taught you that?”

Rodgers looked up towards him with a wide grin. “You did.”

The monastery was a large cobblestone structure with an open-air ground floor and a dozen archways, showing off the more rustic and ancient look of a previous era. The second floor was a mix of some sort of timber frame plaster with a handful of glass windows. From the ground, the windows were the bedrooms of whoever dwelled there. The building itself was L-shaped, wrapping around one corner of the plot of land it sat on, the rest fenced with a four-foot cobblestone wall.

The courtyard was mostly just gravel and some wild grass that had grown in the gaps. Some barrels had been set aside near the cobble wall with spigots built into the lid. Oakengrove turned to the front door, which was on the side of the building, and knocked on it. An elderly-looking Raton opened the door. He wore simple robes with a rope tied off at the waist to keep it from opening. He was short, about dwarvish height, had large ears that stood on top of his head, and beady black eyes which contrasted his thinned-out brown fur. The raton looked up curiously at the unusual guest. “Can I help you?”

Oakengrove knelt down, being three times his height when standing, “I’m looking for the monks of this monastery.”

The raton smiled. “I am one of them, I am Krandir of the Yonese Monastic Order. I’d offer you to come inside but you wouldn’t exactly fit.”

Oakengrove smiled, “I understand, but,” he said, snapping his fingers. His form drastically changed to resemble that of a male tuxedo catkin. “I don’t think it’ll be that much of an issue.”

The raton rubbed his eyes and took a second look. Standing before him was a four-and-a-half-foot tall fummau in simple robes, not the twelve-foot-tall behemoth of a treant. “You can shapeshift?”

The fummau nodded. “Always have been. Now, I have some questions for you and the rest of your order.”

Krandir led Oakengrove to a common area within the monastery. Sitting around a round table playing a game of cards were three others, a satyr, a gnoll, and a minotaur. “Brothers, we have a guest.”

The minotaur slowly turned his head and curiously eyed the black and white fummau. “Our honeyed wine isn’t ready yet.”

Krandir shook his head. “He said he’s got questions for us”

The gnoll let out a muffled growl, “Is it about the wine?”

Oakengrove displayed a friendly smile and raised his hand with an open palm facing them. “I’m here for knowledge, not of wine, but of healing arts. I was informed by Poppy that you all had knowledge that her own healers don’t know of.”

The minotaur nodded, “We do, but that’s a monastic secret. There’s a reason they don’t know it.”

”Oh? And why is that so?” Oakengrove crossed his arms.

”The very same magicks that can heal can also cause irreversible harm.” The minotaur stood up. “Are you familiar with liches?”

The term was familiar to him. Liches were undead creatures with insane magical potential and were prone to corrupting the living and raising the dead with no remorse. Oakengrove nodded, “I am.”

”Then you know that such knowledge must not be spread so freely,” said the minotaur sternly. “What is your name traveler?”

“So you do have knowledge of it. I am Oakengrove and I need some new methods of healing.” He unshifted his form, back into the bulky behemoth of a tree creature and the Satyr pissed himself.

The minotaur furrowed his brows. “And for what purpose does a treant want with necromantic magics?”

Taking a seat on the floor to be more comfortable in the tight quarters, Oakengrove showed his damaged foot to them. “I was attacked with this weapon.” He then pulled out the chain sword from his bag and laid it on the floor. “I’ve been informed that it is a weapon designed to specifically kill me. Despite all my magical capabilities, I am unable to heal it.”

Krandir examined the chainsaw and the wound, “Phil, get over here.”

The satyr groaned and approached the treant with an elderly shuffle. He stared at the wound and cast a spell from his memory. A sickly green mist poured from the satyr’s pale hand and flowed through the gaps between the roots.

Suddenly, Oakengrove’s whole body began to burn and his foot became numb with pins and needles. The necromantic energies seeped into the wound and into his body. The wound began to heal but it healed wrong. The hole left by the chain sword was repaired with knots of wood, looking very unnatural. For a moment, Oakengrove’s green eyes dulled and their color flickered briefly.

He sat upright once the pain subsided. “Why did that hurt so much?”

The satyr was still examining the wound. “I used a restoration spell that’s designed to repair major wounds but unlike other healing spells, it is almost instant but leaves behind scar tissue, or in your case, knots. Your foot will be very sore given that it’s adjusting to a very new part of you.”

The treant leaned forward and rubbed the knotted wood that made the previous wound stick out more. “This has a lot of potential-”

The minotaur shook his head. “Regardless of your reasoning, access to this knowledge will corrupt even the most stout followers of Syna. We showed you a glimpse of it but we never told you the full details of it. Our magics are necromantic in nature, we don’t heal using divine power. We rely on transformed magicks, magic that is considered sickly to the gods themselves. We can fix anything and everything, but it comes at a cost, both to the caster and to the healed. It draws on the life force of both to fix the problem. That’s why Liches become undead, a dark pact is the only thing that stops them from meeting Syna sooner.”

Oakengrove raised a brow, “Are you all liches then?”

The minotaur crossed his arms. “We learned early on what that path meant for us. We replaced the original liches that inhabited this place and we all agreed to keep that our secret.”

”It’s not a very well-kept secret then, is it?” Oakengrove wanted to push some buttons to see if they had a limit.

”You only knew of us as healers, not necromancers. We let you in on the secret because we know what you are,” The Minotaur said. “The last of the Treants coming to us for help is impossible, yet, here we are.”

”And we weren’t exactly all that truthful,” Phil interjected. “I healed your wound, yes, but in your body lies corruption. You will keep this secret.”

Oakengrove’s eyes lost their color, becoming black pearls.

Then from the ground, thorny vines emerged and ensnared all of the monks, squeezing them tightly. The blackness receded from the treant’s eyes and in its place, a fiery orange rage. He reached out and grabbed the satyr by the head. “I do not take kindly to backstabbing little shits.”

Blood splattered everywhere as Oakengrove’s wooden grip crushed the monk’s skull. A sickly green mist seeped through his fingers and his left arm began to grow new bits, gnarled and rotten to the core. He pulled himself to his feet, causing extensive damage to the stone and wood structure around him. With a clenched fist, pulverized the raton into paste.

The minotaur spent little time trying to break free and to him, summoned mage robes with bone sewn into the fabric. “You are under Boudal’s command.”

Oakengrove’s eyes dimmed and flickered again, his body slumping over for a moment. “I…” he tried to retain control. “…Refuse” Then grabbed a hold of the chain sword and threw it at the minotaur.

The weapon activated and as it traveled, the chains began to spin about the shank of the sword. Impacting the bone armor, it chewed through it, shredding it like grated cheese, and began clawing at the minotaur’s chest. The chain spun fast, sawing its way through the monk’s muscles with little resistance. It poked out the other side of him, still echoing its horrible metallic grinding noise.

The minotaur refused to die, pulling the blade out of him, he began to repair his own body with the remains of the satyr, creating a physical abomination out of his own body. “Boudal sends his wrath, guardian of nature.” He then spewed out more sickly green mist from his hands and filled the room with a toxic gas that began to eat away at Oakengrove’s bark-like skin.

The gnoll stood up, having been mostly quiet and disinterested until now. He charged forward, snarling and foaming at the mouth. With a hefty bite, ripped off one of Oakengrove’s fingers.

Oakengrove pulled back his hand and launched it forward, smashing the rabid gnoll through the wall and outside. With a second punch, slammed through the floor and into the structure itself, destabilizing the entire monastery.

Within seconds the entire building came crashing down, impaling the gnoll with a shrapnel storm made of a dozen wooden rods. The only one left standing was the minotaur himself, surrounded by a translucent yellow barrier and floating in the air.

Oakengrove stood up, kicking off the rubble. His left arm was swollen and covered in rot, numb to him and ignoring all commands. In his right hand, a thorny vine took form, this one nearly forty feet in length. With a large windup and a flick of the wrist, the thorny vine smashed into the magical barrier, wrapping around it and piercing it in multiple locations. Then it flickered and popped, dropping the vine to the ground.

The noise and rapid destruction of the monastery drew in a crowd. Beastfolk gathered in the hundreds to see what they’d never seen in a dozen lifetimes. The minotaur they’d known so well as a beer brewer, now floating above their heads, looking more wrong by the second. Across from him, was an equally deranged-looking tree creature.

The minotaur’s gaze drifted toward the crowd, a century of hiding was now wasted and his identity was revealed. “The Raton was a buffoon. Oakengrove, the father of the forest, behold the monster you created.” The green mist flowed from his whole body, creating a smokescreen, followed by a loud roar that shook the very foundation of the planet itself.

A silhouette of a massive dragon formed in the mists that poisoned and weakened the treant. Suddenly, a new thicker green fog rushes past the treant and down the streets of the city, inflicting all who were close by with a hefty fresh breath of poison gas.

Thorn whip in hand, he snapped it again at the silhouette in front of him, hearing only its howl and feeling the whip drag when he yanked it back. A third snap wrapped the vine around something and he gave it a hard pull. The rotting face of a green-scaled dragon stared him down, breathing out more noxious gas. The stench of death permeated the air around him.

Oakengrove furrowed his brow and grabbed the dragon’s muzzle, forcing it to look him in the eyes. “Vermin…” he muttered. Suddenly, his left arm screamed with a searing pain. It drew his attention and slowly, the rot and corruption withered, slowly leaving him like melted water.

Standing upon his left shoulder was the enoki mushroom, with bright radiant light pulsating from its hands. Its whole focus was on the corruption.

For a moment, he had control. His hand balled up into a gnarled fist and he brought it down upon the snout with righteous vengeance, slamming the creature’s head into the dirt below him.

The dragon, momentarily free of the vine whip, snapped at the treant’s leg, clamping down on it and breaking chunks off. With a heavy puff, more green mist flowed into the fresh wounds, burning his wooden flesh with the wrath of acid.

He hastily wrapped the whip around his fist, creating a barbed hide, and punched it down onto the dragon’s head. The thorns broke off in the scales, leaving him with a dead whip. Beside him lay the chain sword and with it, he powered it up. He felt it draw upon his own mana supply, and then doubled it. The chain spun around the blade at a blurring pace and with a powerful thrust, shoved it into the neck of the giant beast, churning flesh into paste.

The dragon roared and vomited more acidic bile upon the tree, dissolving much of his outer wooden shell.

”I’m not done with you!” Oakengrove shouted. He ran forward, chain sword in hand, and plunged it into the shoulder of the dragon, shredding whole chunks out of it.

The dragon defiantly outstretched its ragged wings and took to the air, cackling maniacally. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” unlike the more solid minotaur, the dragon’s voice was breathy, gasping on borrowed air.

Then suddenly, the dragon was knocked sideways. Bearing down into its back was a familiar snow owl. “Didn’t think I’d miss the party, eh boss?”

As the green mist began to dissipate, a second form appeared beside him. Wearing heavy plate armor and a thick cloth face covering a dune ant stood at the ready, shield in front and a khopesh at her side.

”Goblin strike!” Shouted a voice from above as a small green goblinoid landed center on the shoulders of the beast, digging a war pick into its spine.

Three arrows in rapid succession also came from above the dragon, impaling the long neck.

The dragon, now facing an onslaught from all angles, fell to the ground with a heavy thud, crashing through the roof of a tall house, and taking Khar and Ciez with it.

For a moment, Oakengrove could breathe. Then it all went dark.