Path of Dragons 18 - Chapter 6 - The Secret Life of Trees (Patreon)

Sometimes, understanding an ecosystem took years of observation, experimentation, and study.  Other times, it was much, much easier.  Such was the case on Shelly’s back.

When he’d first arrived a few days before, Elijah had been completely perplexed by the vicious war between giant hummingbirds and equally massive bees that took place in the skies above the tortoise.  However, now, he knew precisely what caused it.

The flowers gave off an intoxicating scent that affected even Elijah.  They were characteristically huge – maybe a hundred and fifty feet from petal to petal – with equally large reproductive parts.  Aesthetically, the resembled zinnias, with bright blue-and-yellow petals that clearly attracted the bees and hummingbirds.

And Elijah, if he was honest.

There was a part of him that wanted to dive into the center of one of those flowers and bathe in its nectar.  It was a silly notion, but such was life in Silvara, where even a human-dragon hybrid could be tempted by a simple flower.

Shelly’s entire right side was covered in those flowers, and anytime one of the hummingbirds or bees got close, they were attacked by the opposite faction.  It begged the question – couldn’t they simply go elsewhere?  But clearly, that wasn’t in the cards, because they fought tooth and nail, dying by the hundreds just for a single sip of that nectar.

The whole scenario fascinated Elijah.

There were other organisms that lived in the vicinity too, and the entire ecosystem revolved around those flowers.  Even now, Elijah could feel man-sized grubs in the soil beneath his feet.  They fed off of decaying material that made its way to the surface, an in turn, they aerated the soil that hosted the zinnias. 

  Of course, they weren’t alone.  There were also horse-sized beetles that fed on dead shell and fallen nectar, creating a resin like material that ended up filling the cracks in Shelly’s shell.  Elijah had used Avatar of Storms to manipulate the earth and investigate, coming away impressed by how everything fit together.

The tortoise’s shell also hosted plenty of predators ranging from massive, whale-sized snakes to sleek tree frogs that could – and would – swallow him whole. 

In short, Shelly provided for an entire ecosystem that existed completely separate from the surrounding forest. 

By Elijah’s estimate, they’d traveled about two or three hundred miles since he’d landed on the shell, but fortunately, they were moving in a roughly circular pattern around the camp where he’d left the others.  So, he wasn’t that much further away than when he’d discovered Shelly.

He’d spent nearly all of that time trying to commune with the tortoise, but to no avail.  He was just too small and inconsequential to get Shelly’s attention.  That wasn’t to say that he had made no progress, though.  Just touching the beast’s spirit was enough to overwhelm his mind, so plunging head first necessarily taxed the entirety of his cultivation system.

He likened it to a rising tide of emotions, thoughts, memories, and sheer presence.  Most of it was simple enough.  Just the same sorts of things he presumed most animals thought about.  Food.  Shelter.  Comfort.  But the difference lay in the massive weight of the creature’s admittedly simple thoughts. 

It was easy enough to look at that tide and think it was safe.  But then, seconds later, it rose to untenable levels and threatened to drown him.  Maintaining awareness of the danger was what really taxed his mind, especially while trying to keep his proverbial head above the water.

The good thing was that he’d already begun to see improvements.  The groundwork he’d been laying for the past few years had started to show its worth, and Elijah estimated that he would be ready for a final push sooner rather than later. 

The real question was what might provide the impetus for that last step into the next tier of mind cultivation.  Like all aspects, it required a significant source of energy.  Those weren’t necessarily rare in Silvara, but the particular flavor of ethera he needed was.  He didn’t just need nature.  Nor would it do to find something that was simply destructive.  Instead, he needed those two things plus a specific mental component that any sane person would avoid.

Not for the first time, he considered seeking out some vespirans and abducting some of their mind-controlling larva.  The sane part of him recoiled at the idea, but the cultivator in him considered it a viable path to mind cultivation.

Unfortunately, there were no vespirans inside Silvara.  None that he knew of, at least.  In fact, he questioned whether any sort of civilization could survive the Plane of Nature. 

Individuals could make.  Small groups could survive as well.  But larger collections of people?  Ones that wanted to build and expand?  Silvara would eat them alive.

Probably literally, given what Elijah knew of the wildlife.

So far, Shelly was the strongest creature he’d found, but he knew there were more out there.  And some of them would be far more hostile than a tortoise that just wanted to be left alone to do her thing.

With that in mind, Elijah turned away from the massive field of gargantuan flowers and made his way across the shell.  Walking through the forest came with a different sort of feeling than traveling along the surface of Silvara.  For one, Shelly was moving, which made the area shift like a giant ship.  For another, the predators tended to be much smaller than the ones down below.

Elijah passed a few such beasts along the way.  One of the giant snakes was the easiest to sense, but Elijah also saw a couple of wolf-like creatures as well.  Thankfully, they all left him alone, which let him cover ground remarkably quickly.  Soon enough, he reached his destination at the front of the shell, just on the edge and overlooking Shelly’s craggy head.

Unlike the shell, it wasn’t covered in trees, but her species clearly possessed some sort of earth attunement, because her scales looked like nothing so much as jagged cliffs.  They were roughly in the shape of a head, but from Elijah’s vantage, that was difficult to really see.

In any case, Elijah leaped down from the shell, landing on her head.  A few seconds later, he was nestled between her eyes.  And he had to admit that the view was absolutely spectacular.  The war between the hummingbirds and insects took place over the shell, with few venturing close to head – because why would they?  What they wanted was back there.

That left Elijah relatively safe from interruption, which allowed him a moment to truly appreciate what he saw.

It wasn’t just a vast expanse of wilderness that stretched out before him.  It was, that, but it was so much more as well.  It represented a freedom Elijah had long sought.  In Silvara, he could simply exist without responsibilities or repercussions. 

And all it would cost was everything he held dear.

No more Callux.  No Imal. No grove.  No Carmen or Miguel or little Eli.  No Sara or Mano.  No Illska or a few dozen other people he cherished.

It would not be a fair trade, regardless of what his instincts told him.

Regardless, Elijah took a moment to appreciate a sight he knew very few people throughout the multi-verse got a chance to see.  It was both humbling and a little frightening. 

He couldn’t afford to dwell on it, though.  As much as he wanted to enjoy the view, Elijah had a task to accomplish.  So, without further ado, he settled into a cross-legged sitting position, put his hands on his knees, and closed his eyes.  For a few moments, he did nothing else.  Instead, he focused entirely on his senses.

First, the smell.  Like all reptiles, Shelly had a very distinct, musty odor about her.  Not quite earthy.  Not quite like a mammal.  Something wholly reptilian.  Elijah didn’t find it entirely unpleasant, but it did activate a part of his brain that recognized that reptiles, by and large, were very efficient predators.  Humanity had evolved to interpret that smell appropriately.

Next, he moved on to the feel.

Shelly’s skin was subtly pebbled, though it primarily felt like rock.  More impactful was the sensation of the wind washing over Elijah with ever step the tortoise took.  The rocking back and forth, the heat coming off her head – it all combined to become a wholly unique experience.

Elijah could taste the humidity in the air, as well as the after effects of trying some of the flowers’ sweet nectar for himself.

Hovering over it all was the tortoise’s immense presence.  Physically, she was huge.  Metaphysically, she was something akin to how Elijah imagined a god.  Her spirit suffused the atmosphere with its suffocating existence.

Thankfully, she exuded serenity in a way that only a creature completely at peace with her place in the world could be.  Elijah could only hope to emulate that acceptance. 

That was one of the things Shape of Trees promised.

It was also what made that form so dangerous.  Peace came with an entirely seductive quality, and one that threatened to overwhelm every other aspect of Elijah’s existence.

Elijah resisted that pull, focusing instead on the structure of his mind.  He didn’t think he needed more leaves.  Nor did he want more spores.  What he had was difficult enough to manage, and he believed that adding more would just dilute his mind well past the point of optimization.

So what did the next step of mind cultivation really entail?  What did he need?

Some of his friends might say that he needed an internal clock.  Others would stress that he needed strict guardrails to keep him focused on what was important. 

Elijah almost laughed at that.

The last thing he wanted was to be constrained by some notion of what he should be doing.  However, he cut himself off before the laugh really formed.  Because that thought gave him an idea that he thought did have some merit.

Instead of constraints on his actions, what if he had constraints on his identity?  That was increasingly becoming a problem, wasn’t it? 

What if he reaffirmed who he was, carving it in stone, so to speak?  What if he made his identity unassailable? 

He frowned.

Wasn’t that a toxic thought, though?  Like most people of healthy mind, he wanted to grow.  He wanted to become a better version of himself.  So, what if he etched his identity too strongly?

Elijah knew he was already stubborn.  He had trouble changing, especially when it came to reasoning.  He was also introspective enough to recognize that he should, though that usually came after the fact.  He wanted to make better decisions. He wanted to be a better person.  And yet, his natural inclination was to follow the same reasoning that kept leading him to various dark places.

If he locked his identity into his mind cultivation, wouldn’t that just get worse?

But where did personality end and identity begin?  That really was the question, and Elijah was in the middle of pondering it when he heard a voice.

“Little Druid.  You disturb the balance.  Explain yourself.”

The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, all at once.  When Elijah opened his eyes in alarm, he saw nothing.  Even after looking around, there was no one on Shelly’s head but him.

“What’s going on?” he asked, pushing himself to his feet.  “Who are you?”

“You do not ask questions in my realm, sapling.  Answer me.”

“I didn’t hear a question,” Elijah spat, letting his annoyance show through.

That was a mistake.

Suddenly, an enormous pressure slammed into him from all sides.  His body went limp as his spirit retreated into the safest corners of his identity.  He fell, slamming against Shelly’s rocky scales.

“Impertinence will not be tolerated.”

Elijah mustered his soul and tried to extend his Mantle of Authority.  It failed spectacularly, never even leaving his body. 

And he wasn’t going to let that stand.

There was one way he knew to enhance that effect.  He’d not wanted to use it, but it seemed that he had no choice.  So, he cast Shape of Trees, hoping it would give him the ability to resist whatever force had come to hassle him.