by Noah Layton
‘And if it comes to that?’ Elera asked. ‘What if we must?’
‘Then…’ I sighed deeply. ‘Then we have to. But until then let’s stay focused on getting the girls back and cutting down any that get in our way.’
Somewhere in the distance, a feral screeching exploded through the forest.
We all fell silent. Elera scrambled up to the fire still burning within our cave hideaway and doused it with a layer of ice, just as she had done the first time I had met her in the Black Patch.
The fire from the explosives was now the only thing lighting our hideaway. Devilish shadows cast themselves up on the cave walls.
‘We need to wait until things quieten down out there,’ I said. ‘Let’s rest up for a little while until the heat dies down.’
We snuggled up against the dry cave walls and rested our heads.
I resolved to stay awake until the sounds died out. The moment that the coast was clear we had to get moving.
I had done plenty of violent things in Agraria for the sake of taking care of my tribe and my wives, but there were some things that I didn’t know whether I was prepared to do or not.
It made me think back to my grandfather – he was a vet, just like my dad, and I had asked him about his time on more than a few occasions. My dad had told me not to ask, but in secret my grandpa was happy to start talking about it.
One story always stuck in my head.
‘So one day we’re out on patrol, heading to this town. We’ve got a word that a group of fighters are holed up in a building there. My platoon, we’re moving on around three hours sleep, and that’s sleep that’s been interrupted by every single crunch and background noise of the forest.
‘Anyway, I turn this corner and stumble onto a pathway. I tell my troop to drop while I check it out. It’s dark, just before sunrise, and suddenly this kid stumbles onto the path. No older than you, Jackie. I freeze up. He freezes up… And then suddenly he pulls out an AK-47 from over his shoulder and starts shooting at me.
‘I hardly had enough time to get out of there. Went straight into the bushes, pulled out my pistol and started firing into the trees. The gunfire stops and I hear these footsteps pandering off into the fucking forest.’
I shuddered awake, looking around myself in the light of the explosives. It was still dark outside. I cursed myself for falling asleep, wondering how long I had been out for.
‘Elera… Lara… Are you awake?’
I reached out to my side in search of my nymph’s form, but I couldn’t find her.
Lara wasn’t nearby, either.
I looked around rapidly, finding neither of them present in the low light of the cave.
‘What the fuck… Girls? Where are you?’
I stood sharply, the press of sleep falling away quickly.
They were nowhere to be seen, but for some reason the adrenaline never came. I didn’t feel worried about the fact that my wives were missing…
Because this was a dream. It had to be.
I slapped myself hard across the face a few times, but nothing happened.
Just as I did, a green light began to fill the entrance to the cave. It was luminous with a strange brilliance to it… Until its source appeared.
Three green balls floated in the air, moving among each other playfully. They were similar to the explosives in size and appearance, save for the different shade of colour emanating from them.
I placed my hand on the handle of my sword, wondering if these were shapeshifting monsters that the forest had sent my way.
Shapeshifting might have been a far cry from what was possible in Agraria, but I had already been privy to ten-foot tall trolls and pits of gigantic insects, so this didn’t seem far away from the realm of possibility.
I watched the balls intently for a few long moments, waiting for them to approach. They swirled and danced, seemingly endlessly.
Fuck this.
I took a step forward towards the spheres.
Suddenly, in reaction to my movement, they shifted away from me, the same distance that I had moved forwards.
I halted, and they hovered once again.
Another step. Another responsive movement.
I sped up, drawing my sword and checking my power stones.
Telekinea would make short work of them – or whatever was controlling them.
I squinted hard and shook my head, focusing on the spheres once more.
It’s okay, Jack. You’re just going insane.
I continued on, following the floating spheres from the cave and towards the exit. They floated above the slow-moving river, taunting me to head out into the open, out into defenceless enemy territory.
The girls were gone, and these things had appeared out of freaking nowhere…
If this really was a dream, it felt unsettlingly real.
I gave myself another slap. Nothing changed. I was still stood in the entrance to the cave, watching these ethereal orbs floating above the water.
I could have fired an arrow, but Lara and her weapon were both gone. A ranged attack with one of my spells would do the job, but it would cause enough noise to bring every wood-elf in the area converging on me.
There was no other option.
Drawing my sword and checking for the sounds of any potential assailants once more, I left the cave, wading into the water until I was waist deep.
The current of the stream was weak, a moseying pace that went nowhere fast. As I approached the entities, they moved upriver against the current.
I could only guess that they were guiding me towards something. Whether that thing was useful or dangerous was beyond me, but right now they were my only form of guidance in this absurd dream world.
I moved upriver against the current with little difficulty, following the orbs until they moved right through the air towards the river’s embankment. Following them to shore, they continued to move into the forest.
Pausing for a moment, I listened for any sign of the wood-elves.
Silence. Not an animal struggling in the shrubbery, the breeze of the wind brushing the leaves together, nor the press of a foot against the dried dirt below.
This had to be a dream.
‘Why can’t I wake up?’ I asked myself quietly.
There were more extreme methods for waking up from dreams, like shooting myself or throwing myself off a cliff, but none of those opportunities were readily available.
I could always stab myself or cut my own throat, but on the off-chance that this wasn’t a dream I would qualify as stupid enough to deserve to die.
My only option was still to follow the orbs.
I kept my sword handy and followed them. No matter the speed at which I pursued them through the dense forest, they continued sweeping past trunks and around rocks, matching my pace.
Where the fuck are you leading me?
I had been jogging after them for several minutes when the forest began to clear a little, and a large structure came into view.
It was a dilapidated, ruined building, its roof long gone and its stone walls crumbling away. Judging by the vines and moss crawling up its exterior, it had been here for years.
It’s place in wood-elf territory was strange enough, but that wasn’t the weirdest thing about it – not by a long shot.
Protruding through the open space where its roof had once been was a large tree, standing at least six yards tall. Its branches were thick with leaves, hanging over the ruins of the building like a protective blanket.
‘What the fuck…?’
There were only two possibilities; either the building had been here for so long that a tree had managed to spend the last twenty years growing within it, or the architects of this structure had built it around the tree.
Stranger things had happened.
I stopped at the edge of the clearing, surveying the building for a few moments. The green orbs floated in the doorway.
They were waiting for me.
I moved onwards,
and the orbs floated through the doorway.
The green lights exposed the ground, though, and as I looked to the dried floor I saw what were unmistakably scattered bones. Femurs, broken skulls, ribs…
They were the remains of perhaps no more than three or four people. The animals of the forest had likely had their way with the bodies long ago.
I readied my sword and checked my power stones, then pushed onward into the crumbling building.
The green orbs lit the room, exposing ground that had become a mix of rotting wood panels, protruding grass and crumbled stonework.
The walls that weren’t chipped or destroyed were scattered with runic carvings and markings. Some looked like letters in an alphabet that I had never seen before, while others depicted the edges of drawings that I could only examine if I moved a little closer.
My intention was to check them out, but my attention was dragged away by the green orbs.
They had deviated from the behaviour that they had displayed so far; instead of keeping in time with me, they were moving further and further away – further towards the trunk of the tree.
The trunk was thick and squat, and as the orbs approached they revolved around the tree, separating from each other more so than they had done before. Eventually they pressed to the trunk.
The moment they touched the surface, dark ripples flooded over their surface. Within seconds I realized that they weren’t stemming from the orbs themselves, but from the tree – its bark was moving, wrapping around them enough to cling on but not enough to douse the green light that they continued to emanate.
The lights grew brighter, pulsing with energy, and as they did more began to light up all along the trunk.
No, not orbs… They were spores.
Before long the structure was flooded with light. The paintings upon the walls were magnified and lit up, but I couldn’t direct my attention to them. I was too captivated by the enchanting appearance of the entity before me.
The light was no longer a guiding force; it was enticing.
I approached the tree, staring at the majesty of it.
Soon I was stood before it, my eyes filled with the green light that it bore. It was all I could see.
CR-A-A-A-CK.
At the disturbing sound I snapped back sharply into the moment.
The lights from the spores suddenly dimmed as a huge crack rippled down the centre of the tree. It stretched from branches to roots, severing the wood like the slicing wound caused by a blade.
I staggered back, sweating hands clinging desperately onto my sword.
The trunk was… Pulsing.
Slowly, from within the crack, a pair of hands appeared in the low green light. They coiled around the edges of the gap, wrapping around like the clutches of a damned spirit pulling itself out of hell.
I switched to my Arcane Blast power stone, convinced that sending a tree up in flames was the best way to attack.
Even if this was a dream, the fear felt real.
But I was ready.
The gap in the tree grew larger and larger until it was as wide as a doorway. The hands still clung to either side, and while the exterior may have been pulsing with light, the interior was still shrouded in darkness, masking this infernal being.
Its arms bent, and from the darkness it emerged.
I expected some horrific, three-eyed monstrosity with eight arms, crawling out like a spider, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
A beautiful woman greeted me. Despite her dark dishevelled hair, her features were stunning – eyes with a green tinge that almost seemed to be glowing, a sharp nose, pouting lips, full cheeks and a slender neck that led down to her body.
One bare leg stepped out onto the floor of the building, then the other.
It got better, though. Steadily, moving with an unnaturally intimidating grace, she appeared in her entirety.
Her body was tight and firm, bearing two large, round breasts and a toned navel that led down to the nakedness between her legs.
She was as beautiful as any of my wives, but as the initial sight of her incredible figure subsided, the realisation of something else broke through.
It wasn’t just the light of the spores that made her skin appear green; her skin was green.
Wood-elf.
‘Stay back… I don’t want to have to kill you.’
‘Oh, my dear Jack,’ the serene voice said delicately. ‘Why would I want to hurt you?’
‘I don’t know, but the bones outside don’t exactly make a good case for you… Wait, how do you know my name?’
‘I know many things about you… Including the things that you do not know about yourself.’
‘And what would that be, exactly?’
‘Revealing such information will change the course of things to come.’
‘Right…’
She paused, staring back at me. Her green eyes dimmed a little as she scanned me, then smiled slightly.
‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘And what the fuck is this place?’
‘My name is of no importance,’ she chimed. ‘What I am… Is a dryad.’
‘A dryad?’
‘I am a spirit of the forest.’
‘I half-gathered that, considering you just clawed your way out of a tree.’
‘You speak very freely to a being of such great power, tribe master. Are you not afraid?’
‘Why would I be afraid of you?’
‘Not of I,’ she smiled. ‘But of the power that I can harness.’
I frowned in confusion, then heard a crunching sound coming from her feet. Looking down, I saw vines and flowers crawling up from the cracked stone, flourishing before my eyes as if months were passing in seconds.
‘That’s… An interesting trick,’ I muttered. ‘That’s the first part… What about this place?’
‘What about it?’
‘This… Your home.’
‘The forest is my home,’ she smiled. ‘But this place is where I choose to reside.’
‘Aren’t you afraid of the wood-elves? There’s a huge tribe of them nearby, and they’re not exactly friendly to outsiders.’
‘They do not dare grace this area with their presence.’
‘Why not?’
‘I welcome all beings into this place who respect nature and the wilds… The wood-elves are no such beings. They are heathens who follow a forsaken leader. They destroyed this building long ago, within which I created this tree.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘Did you not see the bones scattered at the entrance of this place?’
‘I did.’
The dryad smiled widely, her full lips bearing.
‘Let me simply say that they know not to come here. They fear me deeply.’
I turned and looked out the open door into the forest. My exit was still open if I wanted to take it, but I didn’t. Not yet, at least.
‘What is this building?’ I asked.
‘It was once a place of worship, long before the war, and before the wood-elves made it their home and cracked open the land.’
‘What do you mean by cracked open the land?’
‘That is a question that you should ask yourself.’
‘You’re giving me more questions than answers, here. Agraria has given me enough questions to deal with since I got here.’
‘Ahh, yes,’ the dryad said slowly, running her hands over her body. The move was so sexy as she ran her hands across her perky, full breasts, so much so that I would have called it calculated, but something told me that it wasn’t.
This was the dryad’s true nature. She was a spirit; graceful didn’t even begin to cover it.
She laughed lightly at me.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘You. The man out of time and out of place. You do not belong here, but then again, this is the only place that you do belong.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I know everything there is to know about you, Master Jack
.’
‘Then you’ll know that I don’t like being called master. Not anymore, at least.’
‘Indeed. And I know what it is that you seek.’
‘Great, but that’s something I already know.’
‘Would you like to see?’
Every word that came out of her mouth led to another question, another cryptic riddle… But the more I listened the more intrigued I became.
‘I have shown many beings what they desire to see… But you may not like that which you are shown.’
‘And what are you going to show me?’
‘There is only one way for me to show you.’
The dryad moved to me gracefully, her hips swaying until she reached me.
She planted her hands on my chest, running one into my shirt to press her warm hand to my skin, the other running over my shoulder and up to the back of my beck in a soft press.
I was powerless to resist her; she guided me to her lips, and in the serenity of the crumbling church we kissed passionately.
If this was a dream, it was a damn good one.
My sword and power stone fell from my hands, clunking to the ground.
I ran my hands over her tight, naked body as she effortlessly undid my overshirt, pulling it aside and exposing my toned body.
She ran her lips down my neck gently, nibbling and biting at my skin as she descended slowly over my chest and down to my abs.
Now at her knees, she undid my pants and graced a gentle hand over my throbbing cock.
Beneath my boots I felt the ground shift, and out of my peripheral vision I could see the greenery rising lusciously from the ground, cushioning the dryad’s knees as her glowing eyes admired my dick.
Suddenly, ferociously, she ran her tongue to the base of my shaft and lapped at me before taking me hungrily into her warm mouth.
If this was a dream, it felt pretty fucking real.
The dryad took me deep into her mouth, bobbing her head on my hard cock with an insatiable lust. I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she tongued me, sliding her lips over me wildly.
My eyes closed involuntarily, and my head fell back uncontrollably as I indulged in the moment.
Suddenly I felt her draw away from me. I expected her to take me in her hand, but after a moment her touch was still absent.
I looked down to see a perfect sight; the dryad lying on her back in the green light of the spores still glowing from the tree. She was resting on a bed of soft shrubbery and flowers that had materialised from the ground.