Spellheart 9: Chapter 32 (Patreon)

I stayed up throughout the night nursing a glass of wine in one hand and held a book in the other. I hadn’t taken so much as a sip from the glass, though, nor flipped a single page of the book.

I was too busy looking out the window. Was there something I was missing? Was the Cult of the Unblinking Eye planning something?

Or was I overthinking this?

Maybe Ethan and his librarian were exactly what they said they were. A favor from the Cult of the Unblinking Eye to me meant to pave over past grudges now that it was too late to stick a knife in my back.

I’d already chosen not to send Ethan away. That decision was made. But I didn’t yet know how close I would keep his council. It was clear he expected to stay well informed, but I could either have him at my side or leave him stuffed in that cottage on his own devices to learn what he could through rumor and gossip.

Decisions… decisions…

One thing was clear, though. I needed to strengthen my mind magic. I would have to give it more focus over the next few dual cultivation sessions. Only when my powers over mind zeal approached Ethan’s would I feel somewhat safe having him around.

This might delay my push toward demigod-hood, but that was alright. It wasn't like I was racing anyone. Well, except perhaps my evil robot twin hiding in a pocket dimension, but there was no way he'd be ahead of me with how hard I'd been working as of late.

But with safety in mind, I met with a late-night visitor. I put both wine glass and book aside as he entered.

“So… what’s this about some chump squatting on your turf?” Dean asked, pounding a fist into his palm.

“Ethan, from the Cult of the Unblinking Eye. He claims he was sent here by the Cult of the Unblinking Eye as an envoy.”

Dean nodded. “Right. So you want me to beat the crap out of him?”

I pursed my lips. “Not quite. I just want you to stay in the Hearthwood in case something happens. As a safety precaution.”

“Huh. Okay. Sounds a bit boring, to be honest. I thought I was in for some action…” Dean reached for the wine bottle next to me, flopped himself down on a nearby sofa, and drank straight from the bottle.

He coughed and spluttered after his first sip. “Theo… there’s no alcohol in this!"

I chuckled. Dean never changed. “It's just normal wine. There is alchohol in it, just nothing that could affect someone at my level. I wanted my wits sharp the whole night long. But I’ll have some wine suitable for a Demigod brought right up.”

“Good.” Dean kicked back and relaxed. “If I’m going to be playing bodyguard for your entire city, I’m going to need more than this. Do you think the local bars and game halls will mind setting up a tab for me? I spent all my money on a really big blast door for my kids to hide behind when the apocalypse comes.”

“All your money?” I asked skeptically. Dean might not be the richest of Demigods, but someone of his level could earn fortunes just by hanging around an area and having people attempt to curry favor with extravagant gifts.

“It’s a very nice blast door,” Dean explained. “It’s got lights and everything.”

“…Right. Well, I’ll let everyone know that you’ve got a tab in my name. I’ll pay for whatever you need to entertain yourself while in the Hearthwood. It’s the least I can do.”

“Sweet! Free stuff!” Dean grinned as he sat up.

“Just promise me you’ll just use this for food and entertainment, alright? No buying overpriced blast doors.”

Dean nodded. “Deal.”

***

I’d taken it upon myself to entertain Dean a bit. Food and entertainment only were going to be a bargain for having a Demigod on call, but I knew how much Dean could spend on a night on the town. And that was before he got magical powers that granted him the ability to ingest unlimited liquor.

Having him in the Hearthwood was going to cost me a small fortune. The more time he spent in the Castle, the more I’d save. I already had a bowling alley being built under the castle, and I rented out the nicest-looking poker joint in town. Before the following evening, Mac would have it filled with elven actors who wouldn’t let Dean lose too much of my money.

The first issue with the Sacred Grove occurred shortly after the sun rose.

Aelina rushed all the way to the Hearthwood to tell me. Mac told me I’d find her waiting outside the castle, shuffling nervously and quite clearly bearing ill news.

“What’s the problem, Aelina?” I asked.

“Sir… it’s about your grove. Something was wrong with one of the trees. We can deal with it, but you might experience a reduction in power…” Aelina flinched back as though afraid I was going to strike her.

“Okay. I’d like to take a look myself.”

Aelina’s eyes widened. “That’s really not necessary. We can cull the bad tree ourselves!”

“I just want to see.” I started walking in the direction of the Sacred Grove, and Aelina jogged to follow close behind me.

“Sir, I don’t want to trouble you with this. I just wanted to let you know…”

I shook my head. “I appreciate it, Aelina. But I’m interested in this stuff. At least let me watch.”

I suspected I knew what was going on. Aelina had mentioned a bad tree, and now that she’d pointed it out to me, something did feel a little off with my connection to the Sacred Grove.

A dense network of living things built into a magical array like a Sacred Grove could no doubt be twisted in ways unfavorable to the user. I was guessing that was what the bad tree was.

This may very well have been the trick I was waiting for. It would be terribly easy to slip a seed that would harm my Sacred Grove into a batch of seeds containing the usual helpful ones. In truth, I was a little excited to see the problem.

If I had a clear example of how the Satyr King planned to catch me in a trap, I could better anticipate his future tricks. That was all the more reason to check out this tree.

I had Aelina lead me to the tree in question.

“Here it is,” Aelina said. “We’re going to chop it down today.”

She gestured to what appeared to me to be an ordinary tree, at least with my ordinary eyes. Looking at the tree with my spirit sight, though, I could sense something amiss with the flow of zeal through the area.

Nature zeal ran through the forest nearby like a great vein, channeling and distributing power throughout the Sacred Grove and ultimately to the Keystone Wisp in the center of the grove.

This tree had been grown directly over that vein, and it looked like it was meant to serve a crucial function. Perhaps it was a filter that processed the nature zeal running through the grove. Or perhaps it was supposed to modify the zeal’s behavior before passing it on.

But whatever it was doing, it probably shouldn’t have been sewing droplets of blood zeal into the energy flow beneath it. Blood and nature were closely related enough that many spells would still work, but there would be odd side effects, especially with regard to healing and regeneration effects.

That’s probably why this was considered a bad tree. A Satyr dependent on their Sacred Grove might not notice something like this until the middle of battle, when it would be too late to fix it.

In that case, he could only hope the elves and fae he collected in his Sacred Grove were willing to look and take care of these problems for him.

I had a lot of questions for Aelina. More than she was prepared to answer on her own. She had to call over some of her fellow elves to answer them since her domain was only nature zeal. The other aspects required other elves.

But between a dozen of them, I soon had a good grasp on what the problem was and how everyone planned to fix it.

“I must admit, during our training, we were never required to give such thorough explanations of what we were doing,” Aelina wiped the sweat from her brow. “The Satyrs only cared if we could keep a grove running. Not on how we did it.”

“Well, I’m not a Satyr. You’ll find I’m a bit more hands-on than they were.” I ran my hands up and down the tree. “So, how do we go about safely removing the tree? Do we just pull it out by the roots?”

“Workings of zeal out of harmony with the flow of the rest of the Sacred Grove could disturb the flow of zeal, which might cause discomfort to the Satyr bound to the Sacred Grove. So, it is considered bad practice to do these things the easy way. Instead, we’ll use shovels.”

“Up to you then. Alright, hand me a shovel.”

Aelina’s eyebrows rose, but she did as I asked.

***

Once the tree was safely removed from the Sacred Grove, I went to check on our new librarian. It was time to see if Ethan and the Cult of the Unblinking Eye could really do what they’d come here claiming they would.

Ethan wasn’t hard to find. He hadn’t even left the cabin I’d given him and was merely sitting on a rocking chair, watching the city. His gaze was distant, and I recognized the look. He was seeing with his mind magic rather than his eyes.

“You have a very happy city, Patriarch of the Hearthwood. And your people adore you. That’s a rarer feat than you realize,” Ethan said without opening his eyes.

“I’m flattered. Though I hope you’ll avoid prying too deeply into the heads of my citizens. We have personal privacy laws around here.”

Ethan chuckled. “Yes, I saw that. A constitution for your city guaranteeing the rights of citizens and residents. It was very nice. A few of the more sophisticated nations have something similar, though rarely spelled out as formally as you provide. The sense of personal security it gives certainly seems to make your local breed of elves a great deal more entrepreneurial than I’m used to. Most aren’t nearly as ambitious as yours.”

I placed a hand on my hip, expression serious as I met Ethan's gaze. “Ambition breeds success, and success begets more ambition. We’ve done well for ourselves, and so long as that continues to be the case, the newcomers will be inspired by those already here. But I’m not here to chat. I wanted to consult with your librarian about a tree we found.”

“Of course.” Ethan finally opened his eyes and rose to his feet. He stepped into the cabin, where the Librarian of Sacred Groves was pouring over a book. At the attention of her master, she set the book aside and rose. “Our host has a question for you, Librarian.”

She bowed and looked at me expectantly.

“It’d be easier if I showed you,” I gestured in the direction of the Sacred Grove.

Ethan and I flew toward the Sacred Grove. The librarian traveled flung over Ethan’s shoulder. He set her down by the uprooted tree the elves and I had set just outside the bounds of the Sacred Grove earlier that morning.

“Can you identify this tree?” I asked. “The elves said it was interfering with the flow of zeal through the grove.”

“I can,” the Librarian said, running her hands across the tree’s bark. It was a little too smooth, like a young sapling expanded far wider and sturdier than something of its age should have been. “This is a Maleficent Entling. They are ordinary trees until they reach the True Mage realm, after which they grow capable of uprooting themselves. However, they began to draw in the living vitality of those working at the Sacred Grove long before that. They are considered pests, as they shorten the lives of elven and fae workers near them.”

I nodded, impressed at the toughness of the explanation. The Wanderer had given me the name with a quick analysis, but not nearly so detailed an explanation. This was also the most I’d heard the Librarian speak since her arrival. She had a pleasant voice, likely trained to be soothing to listen to by the cultists who would pry her for knowledge.

“What kind of damage would it have dealt to the workers?” I asked.

“It would have drained small amounts of vitality from them. Not much, but enough to slightly lower their ultimate cultivation potential. If a heartwielder might have someday been able to reach True Mage, they will only reach the peak of Mage Acolyte now,” the Librarian explained.

I ran my hand across my chin. “I trust that restoring that lost vitality would renew their missing potential?”

The Librarian bowed. “Of course. It would only take a small amount to replenish what was lost. Though Maleficent Entlings are voracious, you have a large Sacred Grove here, and it didn’t have nearly enough time to drain anyone to the point of permanent damage.”

“How do you think it ended up here? Could it have been mixed in with healthy tree seeds?” I asked.

“Unlikely, Maleficient Entling seeds are extremely distinctive. It would have to have been intentionally placed in the garden. I imagine it was placed over a nature zeal vein?”

I nodded.

“Then it was likely a conscious attempt to weaken the Sacred Grove. That is a common tactic the Satyrs use in feuds among themselves. As Sacred Groves are external forms of cultivation, they are easy for rivals to target.” The Librarian kept her eyes on the tree, gaze only flickering to meet mine for brief moment.

I bent over in front of the tree to meet her gaze. “On that topic, I have a project for you. If you can, I’d like a brief document detailing common ways to sabotage a Sacred Grove. I fear I will have to deal with attacks like this one quite often, and I would like to be able to spot them myself.”

The Librarian bowed. “I shall get to work immediately. It will be ready this evening, honored sir.”

I left, and Ethan brought the Librarian back to their cabin. I turned back to the Sacred Grove. So the tree had been placed over nature’s veins intentionally.

I scanned my workers. The Fae didn’t seem intelligent enough for such a plot. Their memories were short and flickering things, and it seemed as though they forgot orders as quickly as they were given. While their magic flowed through the Sacred Grove, their actions were more like those of forest birds than of gardeners.

No, something like this could only have been done by one of the elves. The only question was who. And why were they still working for the Satyr King?