Path of Dragons 14 - Chapter 4 - The Force of Nature

Alfie Simmons waved his hand through the dust motes dancing in the ray of sunlight peeking through the forest canopy.  His feet dangled over the edge of his balcony, brushing against dew-covered leaves as the sound of chirping insects and singing birds echoed in his ears. 

He leaned back, his palms resting against the smooth wood from which his home had been constructed.  Then, he let out a contented sigh. 

Morning.

It was Alfie’s favorite time of any day, when the island’s ecosystem truly asserted itself and reminded everyone that it was still there.  Dusk came with a similar – if still different – vibe, as the nocturnal animals ventured out of their dens to hunt.  Alfie enjoyed that, too. 

But not as much as mornings in the Hartwood Grove. 

Even as he basked in that atmosphere of vitality, dense ethera, and pure nature, he thanked fate that he’d found his way to the island.  He didn’t remember the old grove, the one his parents had helped found.  Not really.  But he’d heard their stories.  And he did remember one bit that haunted his dreams.

Fire and death.  Blood.  Swords and spears and evil. 

He’d only been a few years old back then.  Not nearly old enough to grasp what was happening.  But he remembered the fear.  Since then, he’d heard stories, too. His parents had kept the worst of it bottled up, but they passed on the basics.

Men and women, driven by greed, had invaded their tiny grove.  The Collective had fought back, but most of them were non-combatants.  People whose only goal in life was to grow their plants and give their community a good, peaceful life. 

They had a few fighters among them, but not nearly enough to stop the slaughter.

By the time it was said and done, the grove had been plundered, and most of the Druids had been captured.  Dozens of men and women – pacifists – in chains.  That was when the warlord came and told them their fates.

They worked for him, now.  They would be expected to grow treasures and feed his growing armies.  And in exchange, he wouldn’t kill them.  Or more importantly, their families.

The lives of the other children like Alfie had hung in the balance.

The last he remembered seeing of them was when, from afar, he’d watched them marched away in chains.  Men and women on horses and ethera-powered motorcycles guarded them. 

His parents had been smart, though.  They’d used the chaos to escape before everyone had been rounded up.  They’d saved him and his baby sister. 

But what were Druids without a grove?  How were they meant to survive? 

Fortunately, their archetype came with a multitude of advantages.  Not least among them was that they tended to blend into nature.  Beasts usually left them alone, so long as they didn’t make the mistake of venturing into some powerful creature’s territory. 

But his parents weren’t combatants.

They were glorified farmers.  People who, even before the world had changed, had devoted their lives to nature.  Alfie didn’t know the details, but he got the feeling that they’d spent most of their years trying to escape the trappings of civilization.  He’d heard them speaking fondly about the difficulties associated with setting up their homestead, about surviving via hunting and fishing, with little help from the outside world.

He didn’t think they were hermits.  They still had friends.  Family.  They still had some connection with civilization.  But they’d settled in what they referred to as the Alaskan wilderness, miles away from the closest town.

Then the world had changed.

Suddenly, they had better tools to survive.  Magical powers that Alfie took for granted were now available.  And over the next few years, they established their grove.  It was a small thing.  Barely more than twenty yards across.  But it was home, and it inevitably attracted a small community.

The first groups were ragged, but peaceful.  And over time, more and more came until the grove had nearly tripled in size.  The Collective, as they’d come to call it, had become a small town of nature lovers. 

And life was good.

Good enough that people started having children again.  Good enough that people were content.

They all knew it was a mirage.  Like everyone else in the world, they’d received the notifications about the Trial of Primacy and the race against excisement.  And yet, they remained apart, trusting that the rest of humanity would step up and do what was necessary.

And if it didn’t?

No one talked much about that, but even through second-hand information, Alfie knew that most members of the Collective had adopted a fatalistic culture of stoicism.  They were pacifists, and they weren’t concerned with fighting against fate.  If excisement took them, then that was how it was meant to be.

Alfie hated that attitude.

It smacked of giving up.  Of surrender.  And he didn’t have that in him.

The threat of excisement came and went, and the Collective remained apart.  Then, the visitor came. 

No one remembered his name.  Just that he was strong.  An Explorer by archetype, and one with a decent nature-attunement that made the Collective accept him. 

That was a mistake. 

Until then, their greatest protection had been concealment.  Their grove was located deep in a forest and surrounded by powerful beasts.  And Alfie’s parents had taken evolutions meant to keep it hidden.

They had always wanted to remain apart from civilization, and their classes gave them the tools to make that happen.

And they’d squandered it all by inviting that Explorer into the community.

No one thought much of it when he disappeared.  People were free to move on, if they so desired.  The Collective wasn’t for everyone, after all.  Their culture was too passive.  Too reactive.  Too weak, in Alfie’s opinion.

Nobody understood that better than Alfie, who’d spent most of his life at odds with his parents.  If they’d have been a little stronger, they might have resisted against the warlord so long ago.  They might have spared themselves years of suffering before they’d finally arrived at the Hartwood Grove.

But they argued that nothing could have protected them from the warlord’s greed.  They were just Druids.  Not combatants.  They couldn’t have resisted.

The Hartwood Grove’s founder put the lie to that.

He’d fought for the world.  He’d become the most powerful man on Earth.  He’d toppled Primal Realms and defended his grove as only a territorial animal could. 

“And he had died for it,” his parents were so eager to respond.

He wasn’t dead, though.  That was the official position of the Hartwood Grove.  Nara and Nerthus didn’t doubt Elijah Hart’s survival.  Not even for a second.

Everyone else did, though.

Most of the world believed he was gone and that the leaders of the Hartwood Grove chose to keep up the lie, either for the protection of his memory or because they simply couldn’t let go.

Alfie chose to believe them, though.  He needed to believe Elijah Hart still lived and that, somewhere out there in the vast multi-verse, he was fighting to return.

He wasn’t alone in that belief, but the majority – even within the Hartwood Grove itself – looked at it as no more than superstition.  Like a religion, but without thousands of years of history to back it up. 

Regardless, that faith – if that was even the right word – had had a great impact on Alfie’s life.  He was only eight years old when they reached the Hartwood Grove, but even then, he knew that he would never follow in his parents’ footsteps.  In fact, it wasn’t until he’d lived in the Hartwood Grove for two years that he even considered the path of the Druid as a viable option.

Before that, he was dead set on being a Warrior.  Or a Ranger.  He could even join the Hartwood Sentries so he could defend his new home. 

That was not his path, though. 

Not after he’d heard the stories of Elijah Hart.  He was a Druid, and yet, he was anything but weak.  He’d fought innumerable battles, using his ability to shapeshift into powerful beasts to see him through. 

That was what Alfie wanted.

It was what he needed if he wanted to ever feel safe again.

Those stories had ignited a fire within him.  Until that point, he’d taken his training and education as seriously as any of his peers.  But after hearing enough stories about Elijah Hart, Alfie’s training had become an obsession.  Barely a day went by that he wasn’t chasing the island’s various animals.  When he was twelve years old, he even convinced his parents to allow him to venture out into the mainland’s forest, where he stayed by himself for more than two weeks.

That had nearly killed him.

He was connected to nature – his attunement saw to that – but being all alone in the wilderness was a new challenge.  That first day, he was nearly eaten by a bear, and he only escaped by climbing a tree.  The creature could climb, too.  It just didn’t care enough to put in the effort, and it eventually wandered off.

That was a terrifying encounter that nearly sent Alfie running back to the island.  But he stayed.  If Elijah Hart could survive for two years all alone, and without any supplies, then Alfie could stay in the forest for two weeks.

And he did. 

That experience solidified his path in a way he couldn’t really comprehend.  It changed him, inside and out, and by the time he returned, he was a different person altogether.

As the years went on, those outings lasted longer and longer until he was more comfortable outside the grove than within.  He also ventured further and further from civilization, and at some point, he began to understand why his parents had made the choices they’d made. 

There was a purity in nature.  Certainly, it was dangerous.  More than once, Alfie had been forced to flee for his life.  But he could understand the way it all worked together far easier than he could ever understand civilization. 

At some point, Alfie had formed a bond with one of the white foxes that lived on the island.  It wasn’t intentional.  In fact, the little creature had adopted him more than anything else.  But by his fourteenth birthday, the little fox followed him wherever he went. 

He even named her Skadi – a callback to his parents’ ancestry. 

And then, just after Alfie had taken his Druid class, disaster struck.

He and Skadi had been exploring the mountains a few dozen miles south of Ironshore when a cougar had attacked them.  Alfie, who was only level three at the time, had tried to fight it off, but he was injured in the battle.  He had to watch as Skadi fought in his place.  Fox versus snow cougar. 

And she won.

But not without a cost.

Even as she limped closer, leaving a trail of blood in the snow, Alfie tried to help.  By the time she reached him and snuggled close, he could feel her life waning.  He tried to heal her via Touch of Nature, but her injuries were far too severe. 

She died in his arms, the bond they shared fading quickly into nothing.

For a long time, Alfie had laid there, self-recrimination and guilt warring with his grief.  But eventually, he set about healing his own wounds.  Touch of Nature was not a powerful spell.  Druids weren’t real Healers, after all. 

It was enough, though.

At the time, Alfie wasn’t thinking about his Legacy.  If he had been, he might have expected what would come next.  But subsumed by grief, he could think of nothing but the loss of Skadi.  Of the fact that she would never again snuggle close to him on a cold night.  That he would never again complain about her wet nose or her need for attention, even when he was busy with other tasks.

After that, he grew depressed.  For more than a year, he barely returned to the island.  Instead, he relied on rote repetition to see him through.  And gradually, distance began to mitigate his grief.  It never really went away.  Even now, more than three years after her death, Alfie frequently thought of that little white fox and the time they’d shared.

When Alfie finally reached level ten, he was surprised to find a rare class waiting for him. 

Animist. 

It was the same class Elijah Hart had taken.

In his grief, Alfie hadn’t really considered his childhood obsession with the founder of the Hartwood Grove.  Even if he had, he wouldn’t have made the connection between Skadi’s death and the stories surrounding Hart’s progression.  His loss paralleled the other Druid’s.  And he’d gained a rare class option because of it.

Alfie took it without question.

It was only when he cast Shape of the Predator the first time that he had second thoughts.  As he understood it, the class’s various forms tended to depend on the Animist’s Legacy, and the presentation of at least one of the forms was linked to the bond that made the class possible. 

In his case, that was Skadi.

Predictably, his expression of Shape of the Predator was a white fox.  If he’d bonded with a more robust creature, then it would have affected a later spell. 

That first transformation came with a rush of familiar but old grief, and for a few days, he refused to repeat the spell.  The other Druids in the grove tried to help him. His parents comforted him.  Even his little sister had attempted to cheer him up.  But it wasn’t until Nerthus himself came to him that he started to see the spell in a different light.

The spryggent had framed it not as a reminder of grief, but as the memory of the bond they’d shared.  A tribute.  An homage.  A legacy which Alfie had a responsibility to live up to. 

And since then, he’d done just that. 

He threw himself into towers.  He hunted rifts and Voxx in the wild.  He even managed to acquire a spot in two Primal Realms, where he used his stealth abilities and attunement to nature to act as a scout.

Through it all, he found himself wondering how Elijah Hart had managed it.  The Primal Realms were now well-regulated, but back then, they were nightmare scenarios that could only be conquered by the best of the best working together.

Elijah Hart had conquered multiple such realms.

Now, nearly five years after acquiring the Animist class, Alfie was on the verge of ascension.  He wasn’t sure if his Legacy was enough to guarantee it, but one thing was certain – his goals of following in Elijah Hart’s footsteps were the dreams of a child.  He would never live up to that standard.  Instead, he could only live his own life.

Even as those thoughts drifted through his mind, Alfie felt something wash over the grove.  The ethera thickened until it felt almost solid, and a cloud of dense vitality coalesced into a green fog.  In response, the vegetation trembled.  The pillar trees creaked with rapid expansion, causing the houses suspended in the canopy to shudder.  At the same time, Alfie could feel the vines clinging to the underside of the balcony writhing with sudden growth.

He used Shape of the Sky, transforming into a snowy owl.  He flapped his wings, dodging between the trembling limbs of the pillar tree before bursting through the canopy and into unobstructed air.

That’s when he saw it.

That was when he felt it.

The creature was enormous.  Two hundred feet of glittering, rainbow-colored scales.  It slithered through the sky, though its position remained stationary.  Great wounds cut through those shining scales, dripping thick blood onto the canopy below. 

But more troubling was the sheer weight of its presence.  Suddenly, Alfie could scarcely remember to flap his wings.  He could hardly breathe beneath the magnitude of that creature’s power.

Alfie had seen demi-gods before.  There were a few in the grove below.  But none of them felt like that multi-colored serpent.  Not even close.

It turned its attention toward Alfie, its eyes like self-contained galaxies. 

And then it spoke.

“Huh.  You’re new.”