Path of Dragons 18 - Chapter 32 - A Lot of Work (Patreon)

“Look what we can do!”

Elijah shook his head, coming out of the trance-like state he relied upon while using Dictate of the World Tree.  It took a moment refocus, like he’d been asleep for far too long.  When his eyes adjusted and he looked back toward the voice, he saw something wholly terrifying and entirely endearing.

Callux hung from a fungal tendril, poised nearly thirty feet off the ground, and being whipped around like he’d grabbed hold of an untended firehose.  Elijah might have been alarmed, but for two very important factors.  First, the young orc was obviously having the time of his life, filling the air with a joyous scream-laugh that brought a grin to Elijah’s face. 

The other reason Elijah wasn’t worried was because he knew good and well just how durable Callux was.  His unique situation had left him with a body of wood, and not a normal one, either.  That first stage of cultivation was enough to completely alter someone’s body, and to a point where normal concerns just didn’t affect them the same. 

It didn’t make a person superhuman.  More like Captain America than Superman.  But with Callux, the difference was even more pronounced.  Mostly because he had naturally progressed to the first stage in every aspect of cultivation – a state most people didn’t reach until they became ascendents.  Callux had done so within a few years of his birth.

On top of that, he also took after his father in that he’d inherited some degree of Ok’tarik’s physique. 

The end result was that Callux could fall from a hundred feet and not even sprain an ankle.  So, Elijah wasn’t particularly worried about his son’s safety.

Still, some evolutionary instinct that told him that children – even those as large as Callux – shouldn’t be thrown around like that remained.  It tickled the back of Elijah’s mind, barely sensed but still impactful.

Thankfully, it was overpowered by good sense and the joy of watching Callux have so much fun.

The fungal colony had a personality of its own as well.  It was so much wilder than Fungee’s main body.  More independent, and rightly so.  It had been on its own for decades. 

The reconnection wasn’t difficult.  It still remembered Elijah well enough, and it had embraced him very quickly.  Yet, when he’d settled down to work on it, it had resisted his efforts.  That had forced Elijah to spend a lot more time reacquainting himself with the organism. 

In turn, that had given Callux a chance to do the same.

The fungal colony definitely preferred the orc.  If a collection of mushrooms, hyphae, and other fungal characteristics could be considered childish, then this colony definitely qualified for the term.  That meant that it and Callux were like two peas in a pod.

Endearing, but frustrating.

Still, Elijah had reason to believe in the surety of his success.  He’d already made inroads with the satellite colony.  Now, he just needed to buckle down and use Dictate of the World Tree the way he’d planned. 

“Come here,” he told his son. 

Callux immediately let go of the fungal tendril, which was a bit of a mistake.  Any questions Elijah had had about the young orc’s durability were answered in that moment, as Callux went flying for more than a hundred feet to thud into a nearby hill.  Thankfully, he landed in a soft bed of moss, which broke some of his momentum. 

Still, Elijah rushed over, using every point of strength to throw himself across the intervening distance.  He arrived to find Callux giggling in delight.

An odd sound, given his size and his deepening voice.

“Did you see that?” he demanded.  Then, he mimed his body flying through the air, only for his hand to slam into his other palm, which was obviously meant to represent the hill.  “Bam!”

Elijah knelt next to him and used Soul of the Wild to ensure that Callux was okay.  It was one thing to trust his son’s cultivation, but it was another to do so completely.  And Elijah wanted to be certain.

After a thorough checkup, he cautioned Callux to be more careful.  Then, he said, “I’m going to turn into a tree for a little while.”

“Cool.”

“Cool?”

Callux shrugged, as if his father’s resolution to become a tree was perfectly normal.  Perhaps it was from his perspective.

But what was even more interesting was the young orc’s vocabulary.  “Since when did you start calling things cool?”

Again, Callux shrugged, casting his eyes toward his own bare toes.  “Dunno.  Just a word.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Elijah said, reaching out to grip his son’s shoulder.  “I use that word too.”

That was probably the wrong thing to say.  Apparently, words weren’t cool if your father used them.  Even the word cool itself.

Callux’s explanation of the simple reality of that age gap took a few more minutes until Elijah felt entirely too old and out-of-touch to exist.  Finally, he said, “You know where to go if you get in trouble, right?”

Callux pointed toward the cavern’s exit.  Outside, a few people from the grove had established a temporary camp, mostly for Callux’s benefit.  It wasn’t entirely self-sufficient, but they were prepared to exist in isolation for at least a year.  Meanwhile, back near the dolmen, construction on the more permanent settlement had begun in earnest.

It was meant to house at least ten thousand people, and it didn’t even include the shipyard, which would be built in an entirely different location. 

Of course, at present, there were only a few hundred people there. 

Once the main structures had been built, more would come through. 

In truth, Elijah was a little reticent about the whole colonization idea.  A couple thousand people were fine.  Ten thousand or more?  That was when things might get out of hand. 

But he trusted the people he’d put in charge.  They’d all proven themselves time and time again, and he had to believe they could do what was necessary.

“Right.  Don’t spend too much time down here by yourself,” he said.  “You still need to study.”

Callux rolled his eyes. “I know…”

Elijah almost chuckled, but caught himself before the laugh could escape.  Somehow, Callux reminded him of Alyssa, right down to the way he rolled his eyes.  It was uncanny, especially considering that he’d never met her.  She was dead decades before he’d been conceived.

That, combined with the lack of genetic connection made it a mystery, and one Elijah wasn’t keen to solve.  Instead, he just enjoyed the connection.

He wrapped his arms around his son and gave him a tight hug.  “Be good,” he said. 

After Elijah released him, he pushed himself to his feet and headed back to the center of the cavern. As he did so, he kept his senses trained on Callux.  He intended to watch his son the entire time he remained a tree, but the reality was that he couldn’t devote much mental energy to that task.  Not if he was going to accomplish his goals.

In the end, it was about trust.  Of Callux.  Of the people he’d brought with him.  Of the goal itself.

With that in mind, Elijah planted himself next to the center of the fungal colony and used Shape of Trees.  As always, doing so came with a significant rush of sensory details.  Most of them were familiar, but a few surprised Elijah.

Like the tiny gnats that were somehow also fungal spores.

They were so small that Elijah didn’t even notice them before using Shape of Trees. But now?  They were so obviously miraculous that he wondered how he had managed to ignore them. 

It only took a few minutes for him to learn the truth.  They were using some sort of ability, barely formed but wholly effective, meant to keep them hidden.  It wasn’t stealth, per se.  Rather, it was something akin to the passive version of Guise of the Stalker.  A fantastic development, as far as Elijah was concerned.  A bit frightening, but that was just how nature worked sometimes.

There were also parallels to how he’d developed his own mind, which he found very interesting.

As noteworthy as the fungal bugs were, Elijah was more concerned with the task he’d set for himself.  With that in mind, he spread his senses wide, encompassing the entirety of the chamber that housed the satellite colony.  It stilled – even the tendril creeping up behind Callux to start throwing him around again. 

Elijah didn’t even need to flex his authority.  The fungal colony simply understood that it existed within his magnanimous domain.  If he willed it, the thing would cease to exist.

Not that he intended to exercise that control, but like most wild things, the fungal colony understood its place in the pecking order.

Once Elijah established the right mindset, he dove into Dictate of the World Tree.  At the same time, he funneled more ethera into Soul of the Wild and cast Blessing of the Grove.  The results were instantaneous. 

At the broad level, the atmosphere filled with water and life.  On the ground, flowers bloomed, fungal tendrils writhed, and the tiny gnat-like spores fluttered with increasing excitement.  Even the few bruises and cuts Callux had experienced mended in a heartbeat. 

Elijah was more concerned with what was happening on a metaphysical level.

The only way he could describe it was that everything drew closer to the ideal of nature.  It was almost like stepping back into Silvara, with the major difference being that Elijah was in completely control of everything inside that cavern.  He could destroy just as easily as he could give life. 

Idly, he wondered if that was how Kor felt at all times.  After all, his domain extended for tens of thousands of miles.  Maybe hundreds of thousands.  Perhaps there was no real end, and only a slight diffusion. 

The power it would take to not only hold it all in his hand, but to process so much information was incredibly humbling.

Elijah could only hope to emulate the apsara with future mind cultivation.  For now, he could handle the cavern and a little more besides. 

That was enough.

Elijah didn’t immediately use his spell to implant a sliver of the World Tree in the fungal colony.  That would work well enough, but he wanted to go further than that.  Much, much further.  In fact, for his plan to be successful, it was a necessity.

With that in mind, he began to work.

At first, the world contained within the cavern didn’t change much.  Not to the naked eye, at least.  However, below the surface, Elijah was busy stamping each and every cell with the essence of who he was as a Druid.  It didn’t represent ownership – not unless he wanted it to – but instead, it was evidence of cooperation. 

In a lot of ways, it wasn’t so different from a child inheriting a parent’s likeness.

It didn’t come without cost, though.  Elijah dragged great torrents of ethera and vitality into the fungal colony, and quite a lot of his personality came with it.  Not intentionally, but just as a side effect.

In that way, he got to know the fungal colony as well as he knew Callux.  Or Treebie.  Or Miguel.  It wasn’t a person, but it still had a personality hidden beneath its nature.

Once Elijah really got to know the fungi, he pushed forward to the next step – infrastructure.  Just like he’d done on Druhmor, Elijah directed the fungal tendrils to create a massive and complex set of runes that encompassed the entire cavern.  At the same time, he used them to build his own monoliths, not so different from the ones on Gorveth.  Each one was made of tightly packed earth woven through with so many fungal tendrils that it was more living than inert. 

They also pulsed with so much life that Elijah felt almost overwhelmed by the rise of ambient vitality in the atmosphere.

By his reckoning, the process took almost four weeks, but when he was finished, Elijah had built a complex, living enchantment that far surpassed anything he’d made with Treebie back on Gorveth.  It consisted of nine concentric rings of monoliths.  The ones at the edge were the largest, standing more than fifty feet tall, and each subsequent circle hosted slightly smaller standing stones until they reached the final ring.  There, they became trilithons. 

Just like the circles he built for his dolmens.

He didn’t bother with carving designs on them.  That was both unnecessary and could actually harm the process.  After all, the magic was already inside them, woven through each piece of packed earth in the form of fungal hyphae.

Once that was finished, Elijah shifted into the Avatar of Storms.

The rush of time came as quite a disconcerting tidal wave, but with his newly amethyst mind, he managed to keep its effect under control. 

After he’d recovered his wits, he ensured that Callux wasn’t around.  Then, at last, he created a three-stage storm.  The first consisted mostly of life, swirling around the cavern like a small hurricane.  That promoted growth in a way that Dictate of the World Tree could not. 

After that came water, during which time Elijah paid special attention to the monoliths, packing them as tight as possible while ensuring they maintained their shape. 

And at last, he created a storm of fire, baking them until they hardened.

The trick wasn’t the heat.  It was maintaining enough to do the job while protecting the fungal colony woven through each inch of those structures.

Fortunately, the fungi was both durable and regenerative, which made the process incredibly forgiving.

After that was done, Elijah took a break.  He went topside to find that the camp had solidified, not into permanence, but something approaching that mark.  Callux bombarded him with questions and stories about everything he’d learned. 

It was a nice couple of days.

But then, Elijah finally headed back into the cavern, adopted the Shape of Trees, and prepared himself for the final push.

When he was ready, he used Dictate of the World Tree – not to guide, but to implant that tiny sliver of the World Tree inside the fungal colony, pushing it well past the point of a normal natural treasure and into becoming something entirely unique.

Life exploded inside the cavern, and in a way that surprised even Elijah.  The fungal colony reacted differently, at first fighting against the intrusion, but then accepting that it was both necessary and a good thing.  When it finally surrendered, it did so with a wave of contentment that Elijah could only barely feel.

That was when it became something new.

But also old.

It remained the same creature, but more.  Elijah couldn’t explain it better until he had a chance to study it.  However, one thing remained certain.  He felt the metaphysical connection extend into the distance, presumably in search of the other colonies he’d already enhanced.  And, of course, Fungee himself.

A much more substantial connection left Orveth Kaal altogether.  Its power far exceeded Elijah’s expectations, but it was also much more difficult to detect than he’d anticipated.

But one thing was sure – the first part of Elijah’s plan was a success.  Now, he just needed to do the same for all the remaining satellite colonies.  Thankfully, God of the Forest affected Dictate of the World Tree, and Elijah felt that it would go off cooldown far sooner than it otherwise would have.

That sped up his timeline and gave him hope that he would soon complete phase one of his plan to claim Orveth Kaal.