Path of Dragons 17 - Chapter 85 - Trees (Patreon)

Elijah gasped, losing his balance. He caught himself on the boulder a second later, but Illska clearly noticed when he nearly fell over.  She gripped his arm and asked him what was wrong.

Elijah didn’t have an answer.

“I…that’s never happened before,” he admitted, his head clearing.  For a moment, he’d teetered on the edge of blacking out.  “What was that?”

Illska asked, “Did you just choose your ability?”

Elijah nodded, glancing down.  Where his hand had rested on the rock, a few tufts of grass had suddenly grown.  All around the boulder, flowers had bloomed.  Only then did Elijah recognize the surge of vitality that had exploded out of him the moment he’d made his decision. 

“It must be an important one.  That sort of disruption is rare,” she said.  Then, she let a small smile turn up the corners of her mouth.  “What is it?”

“I…I was a little afraid to look, to be honest.”

At her prompting, Elijah finally took a look at the system notification:

  Elijah had no idea what to make of the new shape.  Or rather, what to expect when he used it.  The abilities themselves seemed straightforward enough, both in function and intention.  Clearly, it was meant to be a healing and plant nurturing form.  Yet, Elijah’s reticence came from something that had proven to be a problem time and time again.

He’d always relied heavily on his instincts, which meant that when he shifted into one of his bestial forms, he ran the risk of letting them overwhelm him.  It had happened before, and Elijah was nearly certain that it would happen again. And those were relatively familiar.  For all that humans and beasts were different, they were also all animals driven by many of the same things.  Food.  Sleep.  Safety. 

But a tree?

Elijah had communed with enough of those to know just how alien their thoughts – if they could even considered such – were.  So, he predicted that transforming into one would come with a much more significant change of perspective.  Could he manage it?  Almost assuredly.  However, he would need to be on guard when he used it.

Otherwise, he couldn’t help but feel happy with the choice.  Increasing the efficacy of his healing spells filled a hole in his tool kit that he didn’t really know existed.  Would he now be capable of competing with real Healers?  Probably not.  But he suspected that Shape of Trees would bring him a lot closer to that mark.  And there was a chance that he could surpass them in some ways.

That alone was a massive upgrade, so adding Vitality of Nature to the mix pushed it over the edge and into uncharted territory.  Elijah hadn’t really felt a lack of ability with any of his nature-manipulating spells.  Dictate of the World Tree remained incredibly powerful, as did Root Nexus.  But with Shape of Trees?

He was eager to try it out.

Elijah was decidedly less enthusiastic about Hibernate.  Were there situations where it could come in handy?  Certainly.  Off the top of his head, he could imagine at least a few.  But he would need to experiment in order to discover more.

He explained the mechanics to Illska, who seemed both confused and excited about the abilities.  However, as a non-Druid, she didn’t really understand the scope of what Shape of Trees really was.

Elijah couldn’t help but think that it was the final tool in his kit.  Sure, there would be evolutions, and plenty of them.  Yet, as far as the shapes’ basic premises, he felt that he’d covered all his bases. 

Shape of Withering was his stealthy, damage-dealing option.  Shape of the Reaver was the tank of the group.  Shape of the World Serpent was meant for air and void travel.  On the flip side of that coin, Shape of the Primordial Deep was supposed to be for aquatic life.  And Shape of Embers was his duelist’s form. Avatar of Storms was for pure casting.

Now, Shape of Trees was for healing and nurturing nature.

Each of those forms did other things, but the basic idea behind them filled very specific, individual niches.  And with Shape of Trees, Elijah felt complete in a way he’d never really felt before.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t find new abilities in the future, but that was almost entirely dependent on his deity class.  Even then, Elijah wasn’t sure if he’d get any new shapes.  Rather, his existing abilities would simply evolve.  Where they ended up was anyone’s guess, though.

He explained all of that to Illska, who agreed.  She added, “That is how progression works for most people.  I have not gotten an entirely new ability since early deity.”

She went on to say that evolutions could completely change the purpose of an ability, though.  She even cited a couple of her own, which was quite a show of trust.  Most people didn’t shout the details of their abilities from the rooftops, after all.

In any case, their discussion didn’t last as long as Elijah would have liked.  Nor did he get the opportunity to test Shape of Trees out before their time in Orveth Kaal wound to a close.  With only half an hour to spare before the Poet began his reclamation project, Elijah and his companions found themselves standing amidst a host of wildflowers inside the palace. 

The aroma calmed Elijah, even if his mind whirled with a thousand different thoughts.  Most centered on the myriad ways everything could go wrong.  He was about to take a step into the unknown.  Even Illska had never left Mortallum, save for when she’d been stationed in the Abyss.  So, she couldn’t offer any real advice.

Of course, everyone remained outwardly stoic.  None of their relationships had progressed to the point where they would show vulnerability to everyone else. 

Maybe that would change over the course of the next year.

“Is everyone ready?” Elijah asked.

They all nodded, and Illska said, “I will go first.”

That made sense.  She was the most powerful among them, so she was the best suited to dealing with any complications their arrival might bring to light. 

Everyone agreed that that was good idea, and Illska drew her sword and stepped through, ready for battle.  Ok’tarik went next.  Then, Gunnar, though the sniper activated some sort of stealth ability before doing so.  He didn’t completely disappear from Elijah’s senses, but he would have been practically invisible if Elijah hadn’t already known he was there.

Using Soul of the Wild, Elijah tracked Gunnar as he stepped through.

Then, at last, Elijah took a deep breath and followed the others. 

To his shock, it didn’t feel anything like traveling through the void – either via the system or using Shape of the World Serpent.  Instead, it was like stepping through a doorway.  More interestingly, the trip only lasted for as long as it took for Elijah to completely step through.

Then, he found himself in paradise.

Everywhere he looked, he saw nothing but greens and browns.  Trees, vines, and other vegetation filled the entirety of his field of vision.  Which shouldn’t have happened, considering that his companions had preceded him.

A grunt from nearby jerked Elijah’s attention in that direction, and he found an odd sight.  Illska and Ok’tarik had been bound by wrist-thick vines, and so tightly that neither of them could move a single muscle.  They looked as if they’d been wrapped in a cocoon of greenery.

It took Elijah a moment more to smell the blood, and when he looked closer, he saw that both had been pierced in hundreds of places by enormous thorns.  They tried to wriggle free, but neither of them were capable of escape.

That was all the evidence Elijah needed to recognize that Silvara operated on an entirely different power scale than the world they’d just left behind.  Both Illska and Ok’tarik were peak deities, and if they had been bound so easily – and quickly – then the Plane of Nature was truly a dangerous place.

Outside of that, Elijah felt nothing but contentment.  The emotion was powerful enough to make his reactions sluggish.  Almost like he was drunk, though with far more clarity than he wanted to experience.  Every sight was crisp.  Every smell was overpowering.  Even the temperature was balmy and perfect, reminding him of Hawaii. 

“You going to do something about that?” came Gunnar’s voice from above.

Elijah looked up, but he didn’t see anything.  However, the question jerked Elijah out of his stupor.  He immediately used Soul of the Wild and sensed Gunnar perched on a branch about fifteen feet above him. 

That was all he got before the sense granted by the ability was overwhelmed by the sheer vitality in the atmosphere.  There was something else there as well, and it didn’t take Elijah more than a second to recognize it as the Call. 

He cut it off only to find himself having dropped to one knee and panting in exertion.  Sweat poured down his face, and his mind jumbled into a million separate threads of thought. 

But through force of will, he shoved those away and focused on what was important – Illska and Ok’tarik. 

Elijah pushed himself to his feet and staggered toward them.  A second later, he took Thorn from his spatial storage, choked up on the shaft so he could use the blade like a dagger, and hacked into one of the vines.

It reacted poorly.

The entire forest came alive, with thousands of vines exploding out of the nearby trees and surrounding Elijah.  He didn’t waste any time before springing into action.  Thorn whirled as he cut plants apart, but they just kept coming.

It soon became obvious that his current strategy just wasn’t working.

Illska and Ok’tarik had already fallen unconscious, suggesting that the plant was either draining them of vitality or had administered an incredibly potent toxin into their systems.

The obvious solution to that was Blessing of the Grove, which came with a moderately powerful cleansing ability.  Elijah cast the spell, blanketing the area with dense clouds.  Rain began to fall a second later, and a massive sunflower burst free from the soil.  It cast the immediate surroundings in a subtle glow that Elijah knew would attack the toxins flowing through his companions’ veins.

But it wasn’t enough.

Even as Elijah continued to fight the vines, he recognized that the situation was untenable.  Blessing of the Grove seemed to have brought the toxins’ advance to a standstill, but it was incapable of banishing them.  That left both Illska and Ok’tarik teetering on the edge between consciousness and passing out.

Meanwhile, Elijah had his hands full just defending himself from the vines.

He considered his options.

He couldn’t shift to another form because Blessing of the Grove would eventually run its course.  Even the slight delay between resuming his human form and casting the spell would probably spell his companions’ doom. 

But fortunately, he had a new form that might fit the bill.  He’d obviously never tested it, but the situation seemed tailor-made to provide him an opportunity to do just that.  So, without further hesitation, Elijah cast Shape of Trees.