Spellheart 9: Chapter 33 (Patreon)

True to her word, the Librarian had a report for me before the sun fell. It was quite an extensive report as well. The bundle of papers was as thick as my finger, which meant she must have picked up her pen the moment she returned to the cabin and not stopped for rest until she was finished.

Such dedication from a servant of the Cult of the Unblinking Eye was suspicious, and I wondered how much of it came from her own will and how much from daily doses of mind magic granting her supernatural enthusiasm for her assigned role.

Still, I accepted the report with a smile and read it from cover to cover. It was very informative, and I sent it to the Hearthwood presses to make copies. It would be excellent training material for the workers who’d eventually replace those currently operating my Sacred Grove once it was established, and I’d rooted out the Satyr King’s agents.

I couldn’t grasp yet how the Satyr King kept a leash on whoever was still working for him here. They were in the Hearthwood, far from the Satyr King’s reach. By all accounts, they were being treated far better than they ever had in Satyr territory, and all of them were free to go at any time.

Just what was the Satyr King doing to keep them plotting against me? Until I knew that, I couldn’t overcome whatever hold he had on them.

Despite the betrayal from one of their number, I appreciated Aelina and the others had caught the tree so fast. I had expected to discover these things myself, but however many elves the Satyr King managed to keep under his thumb, he didn’t have complete mastery over them. When I bolstered the ranks of the Sacred Grove’s workers with my people, the number of loyal among them would only grow.

As thanks for their good work, I had Sava brew a few vitality potions. Even distributed so many ways in that evening’s means, the boost in vitality they received was more than enough to make up for whatever the tree had stolen from them.

“This stuff is wonderful!” Aelina said as she slurped down a tube of gooey white nutrient paste.

“...If you say so...” I shook my head and shivered. Sava diluted the vitality potions with The Wanderer’s nutrient paste. It was a favorite in the Hearthwood, despite how it looked and smelled to me.

Sava brewed one extra potion, so I had a special plan. I wanted to see just how bad this Maleficent Ent would have been had it been allowed to grow and fester. So I poured the vitality potion over its upturned roots and recruited Melise’s help.

“Alright, see if you can speed up passage of time a little, Melise!” I beckoned her forward. Argona stood behind me, taking notes, while Comela held a drawn sword and an eager look in her eyes. I’d promised her she’d get to fight it, assuming the thing really did reach true mage.

Melise waved her hand around the circle of wire Argona had laid out area. That provided a clear barrier for her Fate zeal and made this working of informal magic a little easier to cast. Melise didn’t have a spell for speeding up or slowing down time, but she was powerful enough that, given some time and a bit of thought, she could make it happen.

“That’s a week... two weeks... a month... two months...” Melise counted off time, and the uprooted sapling grew before our eyes. It was already big thanks to all the nature zeal pumped into it, but now it looked like it deserved its size. The faint nature zeal spread throughout the plant and became far deeper and richer. But as it grew, so too did the faint line of blood zeal running through it.

The crimson stain spread throughout the plant, traveling through the plant’s inner structure like a spiderweb. No, like a set of veins. Though it still looked like a tree from the outside, I sensed a change taking place within.

The wood within dissolved, twisting and reforming into crude organs and something halfway between bone and hardwood. Joints formed below the surface, and the beginnings of eyes and a mouth took shape just beneath the bark. It was like watching a moth form from within a cocoon.

Then the tree woke. It shook off its own bark, which sloughed off and fell to the ground around it. It opened its mouth, letting out a ferocious roar.

Melise broke off her spell. “That’s about as long as I can keep that up. Now that it’s hit true mage, and it’s moving, it would take exponentially more energy to keep the time dilation up. Perhaps Samuel the Fateweaver could do it.”

I waved her off. “This is wonderful, Melise. Argona, were you watching it develop?”

“Truly strange...” Argona muttered, still jotting down notes as rapidly as she could scribble on her notepad.

“Is it going to break out now?” Comela asked. “And how strong is it?”

“That copper wire of Argona’s will continue to act as a barrier, but I’m sure it will figure out how to break free, eventually. As for its level...” my voice trailed off as I looked.

Maleficent Entling (Early True Mage - Level 20)

“Early True Mage. It should put up a decent fight. I’m eager to see what abilities it has. You’re up, Comela!”

I gave my daughter a pat on the back. She shoved her helmet on and charged. I used earth magic to disable the magical barrier, so she didn’t run face-first into it before hitting the Entling.

Then, Comela met the monster sword-to-tree branch.

The end was as resilient as I expected a tree to be. Unfortunately, that was all it had. Comela was faster and had far more magic. She fired beams of golden light one after another, and the end could do little more than sacrifice some of its leaves to generate temporary barriers powered by nature’s zeal.

They didn’t last long, though, and once Comela landed a few good hits, the ent caught fire and started burning. From there, Comela was practicing the lumberjack’s art more than the swordsman’s.

I was wondering if I should find her an axe instead of her sword when the end finally died, and I gave her a polite round of applause.

“Good fight,” I congratulated her. She beamed back up at me with a wide smile.

***

The Maleficent Entling was the first sabotage we spotted, but far from the last. I swept my senses through the area each time I walked through it, carefully noting how energy flowed through it. I was getting a bitter feel for how healthy energy flow looked when passing through a Sacred Grove and what unhealthy energy looked like.

Despite my best efforts, it was once again Aelina who brought the issue to my attention.

“Sir, I found an abnormality you might be interested in.” Aelina wrung her hands outside my office. “I know you’re very busy, and normally we would have taken care of it ourselves... but...”

“I’ll be right over.” I searched the room to find my pants. Dual Cultivation could get a bit hectic.

Aelina led me to the point of interest. This one was another tree. I sensed something was wrong, though not what was wrong.

“The tree is fine. It’s the vines this time. See these? They’re creeping up the sides of the trees and choking them of nature zeal. Soon, the tree will die, throwing the entire area out of balance,” Aelina explained.

“Right. So we tear down the vines.” I reached up to tug down the vines.

“Maybe,” Angelina shrugged. If we were desperate to keep the Sacred Grove running at maximum power, we could tear down the vines and nurse the tree with nature zeal. But it’s already stunted. It’ll never grow to its full potential now. The best thing to do would be to remove the tree and replace it with a healthy specimen. That will ensure it grows properly into the indefinite future."

I nodded. “Interesting idea. Alright, we’ll do it your way. Though I’m going to double-check with the Librarian of Sacred Groves.”

“Ah...” Aelina looked nervous for a moment. “She’s the one you brought the other day, right? She... knows a lot about Sacred Groves.”

I shrugged. “A lot of book knowledge, at least. I’m not sure how much she’s actually learned to apply. Don’t worry. I’m not putting her opinion above yours. I just want as much information as I can get.”

“I understand.” She bit her lip and shuffled from foot to foot.

I wasn’t gone long, but the Librarian of Sacred Groves said much the same as what Aelina said. However, she had one important comment to note that Aelina didn’t.

“Like the Malificent Entling, the Poisonrot Vine is hard to miss. It would have to have been planted as a cutting right at the base of the tree it infected,” the Librarian explained.

“You’re thinking sabotage again?”

The Librarian nodded.

“I suspected as much...” I sighed.

I returned to Aelina’s side and helped her tear down the vines and replace the tree with a new sapling. She was a bit nervous to work with me, but not as much as she had been when we removed the Entling. It seemed she was getting used to how I did things.

“You’re certainly no Satyr,” Aelina said as we finished. “They hated getting their hands dirty.”

I dusted the mud from my fingers. The gesture was largely symbolic because the Earth magic cleaned me off more than the physical action. I waved my hands and cleaned Aelina off as well.

“I’m rather glad to hear that,” I grinned. “I’d say you put in a good day’s work. Have you had a tour of the Hearthwood? I could give you one.”

“Really? With you?” Aelina asked. “I... I wasn’t aware I was allowed to leave the Sacred Grove besides running to get you.”

I shook my head. “This isn’t some prison colony, Aelina. You and the others can visit the city any time you like. Come on. If I show you around, will you show the others around when they finally get the nerve to leave the Sacred Grove too?”

Aelina nodded, and soon she was trailing behind me.

***

I’d given tours of the Hearthwood enough times that it should have been second nature to me by now. Having lived in this place since its earliest days, I should have been as familiar with its layout as I was with the back of my hand.

But the truth was that I wouldn’t have known the name of half the landmarks and businesses in the Hearthwood without Mac’s guidance. Too many new things were happening as of late. It was hard to track where everything was and what they were doing.

“That row of stores is all armor crafters of various sorts. See the blue armor? That’s Waterbeetle armor. It reflects damage back on your attacker and is quite versatile. The Heartwielder and Mage Acolyte level stuff is based on designs refined over generations by one of the local tribes. Anything built for True Mages is a more recent tradition. You see, we figured out how to mutate Water beetles and push them to a higher cultivation level than they could achieve naturally. This makes them harder to kill, but it makes their armored shells correspondingly more valuable since without them, they wouldn’t be able to survive a fight between True Mages.”

From the wide-eyed look, as Aelina looked over the city while following at my heels, I was pretty sure I was giving off the impression of a wise and knowledgeable Patriarch. That was what I was hoping for, at any rate. Truthfully, Mac was whispering half of what I said in my ear.

“What is that? The tall coned building. The one that looks like a giant... ah... mushroom head?” Aelina pointed to one of the Hearthwood’s more distinctive structures, face red with a blush.

“Oh, that’s the spaceship launch site.”

“Space... ship?” Aelina asked, confusion clear on her face.

“They’re exactly what they sound like. Ships that fly through space. My daughter and I were launching a fleet of satellites outside of the World of Sanctuary and Serenity. I have an orc tribe under my control. I visit from time to time to make sure they’re running smoothly. And you never know when a space fleet might come in handy!”

As we watched, the roof of the distinctly phallic-looking building opened up, and a rocket blasted into space. Aelina took a step back in surprise, but nobody else on the street did. A few admired the tremendous feat of magic and pointed at the rocket as it ascended, but most simply went about their day.

Such launches were a regular occurrence these days, so it was no surprise that people had gotten used to them.

“Amazing!” Aelina gasped in awe.

“They really are. They could even reach to other worlds. This is just the start, but the Hearthwood’s reach will soon extend beyond this planet. Maybe to the World of Woods and Wilds...”

Aelina’s expression froze a moment at my words.

“All in all, I think we’ve made the Hearthwood a better place to stay than most,” I smiled as I watched the spaceship fade into the distance. I turned my gaze to Aelina. “Say, it’s about time for your paycheck. Here, let me give it to you personally. You deserve to spend a night on the town after a hard day’s work.”

“Paycheck?” Aelina asked in confusion.

I laughed. “Money. Spend it and buy stuff for yourself. Here, this is yours.”

I tossed her a bag of holding from my Dimensional Storage. It contained a bundle of Macmarks greater than she probably should have been paid. But I wanted Aelina to return to the Sacred Grove with plenty to show the others for her little adventure.

I waved goodbye to her. “I trust you can make your way back to the Sacred Grove! A True Mage shouldn’t have any trouble.”

Before she said anything else, I ducked into the rocket launching building. Argona had launched a rocket without me. How could she? I loved those things.

<Note>

Thanks for understanding the slower release rate for a bit, guys. I will jump back up to full speed again at some point. I’m dealing with a lot of editing/publication work for Amazon Apocalypse and the Paladin 4 audiobook, so that’s taking a lot of time.

Plus, I have a lot of prep work to do for this novel and some revisions to make to the earlier sections. I kinda went into this book a little ahead of myself. I had the first 15 chapters written last year and hoped that would be enough at a 1 per-week release rate to last long enough to finish AA1 and Paladin4. Alas, it was not, and I was forced to write a big chunk of book 8 chapter by chapter from just my outline that I wrote last year and my notes.

But now that the other books are mostly out of the way, I am gearing back up for Spellheart mode and going over the previous books to get myself in the right headspace and refresh myself on all the plotlines in the air. I'm just past chapter 40 on the rough draft, so as long as I completely my reading (and any edits to the earlier sections those readers necessitate) before those chapters run out you shouldn't experience any interruption to the release schedule, just a slower release rate for a time.

Once that process is complete, the chapters should start coming out faster.