NOVEL NEXT Chapter 10: In Which I Save a Tree
Things are not all well in Windcatcher Plantation either. It seems that there isn’t a single speck on this little island where everything is perfect and peaceful. Maybe there isn’t even a single speck in all of Tamriel, for that matter. Maybe I can yet do something about that.
A sickly green cloud surrounds the large tree at the edge of the plantation. A wood elf woman stands nearby, talking to the tree. Sure, why not. I’m not hearing the tree reply, but whatever. I suppose they wouldn’t have been called ‘wood elves’ if they didn’t have a thing for trees.
When I approach, she introduces herself as Spinner Benieth (whatever a Spinner is) and explains that the tree has been sick ever since the storm. That storm certainly did manage to mess up absolutely everything on this island, didn’t it. This tree is apparently an important windbreak and shade and not just a spiritual thing, but the Spinner here certainly seems to be very into the spiritual thing nonetheless.
Spinner Benieth had summoned a spirit to go down into the caves beneath the tree and heal its roots, but something is preventing it from doing so. She is unable to give an adequate explanation as to why she doesn’t just go down there herself and see what the problem is instead of just standing here talking to the tree and sniffing weird green stench. Whatever, I’ll just go do this myself.
As I circle the tree toward the cliff, I spot a column of distinctive blue light emerging from below visible through the miasma. A Skyshard! I rush over and hop off the cliff to go get it. Aaaaand the cliff is higher up than I’d anticipated. Ow! I tumble to the ground as my leg crunches beneath me.
Note to self: Don’t jump off cliffs unless you can see how far down they go. No, wait, let’s just make that don’t jump off cliffs.
Actually, jumping off cliffs wouldn’t be a particularly serious problem if I just made sure it wasn’t likely to hurt more than I could heal. After making sure there aren’t any bones poking at directions they shouldn’t be going with my own shitty healing spell, I down another bottle of glow juice. It would be worth getting better at healing magic just to not have to drink this nasty shit, no matter how effective it is.
Or maybe just get good at brewing my own potions. That might be an option, too. This was never much of a consideration when I was Hortator, as I always had an entire staff of people to brew potions for me. My job was to hit things and to tell other people where to hit things. I mean, I could admittedly just buy potions, too, but that would still require a source of income more reliable than people promising to pay me for odd jobs.
After absorbing the power in the Skyshard, I feel like I could learn anything and do anything I put my mind to, though, no matter what it might be. Every craft and skill, magical or martial, feels like it’s at my grasp, just ready for me to reach out and take my heart’s desire. Gods this is so much more addictive than skooma. Real power instead of false promises and empty pleasure. What could I do? What could I do?
With a gleeful grin, I fix my eyes on a mudcrab crawling across the beach amid the debris of yet more shipwrecks. I raise my hands and focus my inner power. Energy, bright and Aedric, comes forth like a javelin and impales the hapless mudcrab. Coooooool. Panting in exhilaration, I look down at my hands. That wasn’t a spell, not exactly. It didn’t even take magicka, only my own physical stamina. The Skyshards are becoming a part of me, one by one, filling me up and shaping my very essence. Well, there are definitely worse things to be a part of me than an Aedric spear.
Heh. Spear. Does my spear need a name, too? (Where did Vehk come up with the name ‘Muatra’ for his spear, anyway?) (Wait, did that even happen? Something feels odd about that memory.) This has got to be something good. This one’s a part of me, after all. Maybe I should even come up with a name for it that isn’t pointless innuendo, too. (Dammit Vehk.) I’ll think of something.
Okay, right, cave! The Spinner mentioned a cave around here somewhere. I turn around and locate a tunnel leading into the cliff I’d just jumped off of and head down inside. I find an Altmer sitting not far into the cave who introduces himself as a kwama tender by the name of Naarwe.
“Kwama?” I ask. “Ah! I thought those were scribs I’d spotted on the beach along with the mudcrabs.”
“You’re familiar with them?” Naarwe says. “Not all Altmer appreciate the usefulness of insects like kwama.”
“Sure, they’re good eating,” I say. “Nothing like kwama eggs for breakfast to get your day going.”
“Ugh, you sound like those Dunmer savages,” Naarwe grumbles. “I don’t raise kwama for food. I use them for mining.”
I giggle. “You’re missing out, then. You should try out the thunderbug omelettes while you’re here, too! They’re quite tasty. Just don’t let the Khajiit put too much moon sugar on your portion. I know it’s a whole cultural thing but it’s really not necessary to put moon sugar on absolutely everything.”
Naarwe makes a face. “As you say. In any case, whether or not they would have been delicious to someone with the palate of Morrowind, my shipload of kwama eggs started hatching when the storm ran my ship aground here and most of them ran right into this cave. A sound instinct for seeking shelter, but quite inconvenient, particularly when they started chewing on these huge roots and going mad.”
I have no idea why some kwama munching on tree roots would have made a huge cloud of noxious green shit float about aboveground. Here I’d been expecting to find that the tree had been poisoned or blighted or something. Weird.
“Did you see a … healing spirit thing come in here?” I ask.
“Was that what that walking plant creature was?” Naarwe wonders.
“Maybe? The Spinner was not very specific in describing it. I would have expected a spirit to be something more, you know, spiritual, but whatever. Wood elves are weird.”
“That they are,” Naarwe agrees. “The smaller kwama didn’t want to bother it. If you have to put down the larger, more aggressive ones to save the rest, do what you have to do. I tried to keep them from eating things they’re not supposed to but kwama are not particularly bright even under the best of circumstances.”
I don’t even wonder anymore why I’m the one who has to do everything. Fine. I go down into the cave and locate the walking plant thing and follow it around to make sure the kwama don’t bother it. It’s busy waving around its woody plant-hands and making things glow. Somehow this seems to affect the scribs, who calm down, and the green cloud dissipates as well. I can only guess that either the tree itself had caused that when it was bitten, maybe as a defense mechanism, or the kwama made some really nasty farts when they gorged themselves on roots.
In any case, I head outside and find the Spinner on the beach along with the kwama keeper, and she’s talking about how the kwama are now a part of the story of the Great Tree or something and they’ll protect the tree and the spirit and the kwama keeper is just going along with this so long as he’s getting paid and doesn’t much care about all this Bosmer story stuff. At least I’m getting paid for my trouble, too. I guess they really are short on people willing to wade into a cave full of foul miasma and aggressive kwama.
This ‘story’ business is an interesting perspective, I think. Bad things might happen but they’re all part of the story, right? It certainly beats agonizing and complaining over every little thing that might ever go wrong at any point. Calling it a story implies that things make sense and happen for a reason, but who knows what that reason might be?
If this is a story, who is the author? I damned well don’t think it’s Azura. It would be the old gods, Anu and Padomay, the gods of order and chaos, if it were anyone. Honestly, though, this is all way too philosophical for me. Vehk’s attempts at philosophy were always lost on me. I tend to take things too literally.
With the situation at Windcatcher Plantation resolved satisfactorily for everyone involved, I wander off down the beach. A couple of Khajiit fishermen have pulled a half-drowned wood elf out of the water, although one of them is complaining that they can’t eat him and they should have just thrown him back.
“I mean, I suppose you could eat him if you really wanted to,” I say. “Wood elves might be a bit gamey, though. Also the others might complain so probably best not to.”
The Khajiit woman makes a face. “Elenabi would really rather not. She will stick with fish, thank you.”
I still have glow juice leftover from the shipwrecks so I feed him a bottle to see if it helps. I then ask the fisher Khajiit which way Mistral is, to which they point across the water at some buildings at the top of a cliff.
“Okay, great,” I say with a smirk. “So more specifically, which way is the bridge to Mistral? Seeing as I do not have climbing gear and don’t see any need to scale rocks as there’s probably a bridge.”
That gets me some better directions, so I bid them good day and head off. It’s about time I met up with Razum-dar again and report in on all the stupid and occasionally useful things I’ve gotten done since I arrived on Khenarthi’s Roost. And I’m very tired, but not in a sleepy sort of way. Just mentally, I think. Dunno why.
Plenty of time to test out my shiny new Aedric spear power on hapless alits, though. Okay, alits aren’t particularly hapless and are perfectly capable of getting back up again and trying to bite me after I knock them several feet away with a javelin of light, but they’re a simple enough thing to finish off after that and which I don’t feel bad about killing. The spear of light appears out of nowhere and hits them in the blink of an eye.
I know! I’ll call it Blinky!
Oh, and I run across a few more camps full of Crosstree Bandits along the way, too, who are stupid enough to attack me on sight. Probably word got out of me killing their fellows on the other side of the island and they’re trying to get revenge or something by thinking one mer walking alone is an easy target. So I practice with my newly-dubbed Blinky on them too, which is pretty fun. Less fun for the bandits, but I don’t have much sympathy for anyone dumb enough to actually attack me. I am the Hortator, fetchers! Or, was the Hortator. Whatever. I am the Vestige! Okay, that’s a pretty stupid title. Eh, I don’t really need a fancy title, although I’m sure someone will give me one at some point anyway.
If I keep this up, I’m going to draw some attention to myself, but fortunately no one is going to think I’m anything but a skilled Altmer adventurer unless I tell them otherwise. My crazy ex-wife certainly won’t have reason to care about someone on the other side of Tamriel killing a bunch of bandits and giant bugs.
If only my life were to remain so simple.