Chapter 182: Prep For War; Feeling (P2)

While my hunch was simply that, a hunch, it seemed the forest and the monsters within it planned to comply with my gut feeling.

All except for one…or two, or are they three. Looking at them I can't be sure what exactly they are. 

Late into the night, a few sleepy hours after I retreated into the tent to have a well-deserved nap while the men patrolled and kept watch in shifts. A man blew on the alert, waking up several of his brethren and Juri himself to decipher what exactly approached our camp.

In the end, with the creature's approach and strangely docile behaviour, it was decided that I would be needed to handle the thing.

I summoned Anselm, a thing I haven't needed to do anew since I picked him up at Frozia and listened to Juri's report on the towering creature in front of me.

"Milord, it…has just stood there." I nod and urge him to tell me everything quickly, still very groggy from my awakening, "It suddenly appeared in the distance, one minute there was nothing to be seen in the depth of the darkness not with our torches and the next, the moon is out and my man sights a giant with three…four heads on it."

"We tried to intercept it, take it away from the camp and even see if we could defeat it without your aid."

"A dumb thing to do." I throw in scolding him, "If you're going out to seek glory then I should at least be awake to supervise, this place is dangerous and it'll be quite a stain should I come back to Aste with less of you than I left with."

Anselm huffs, "Is that really the only reason you should be worried about losing men, Asher?"

I shrug, "That and the reason you're thinking about."

Anselm's face swells up with rage and a rant materializes in the back of his throat, ready to spat out at me.

Instead, he lets it go, a thing he's been doing more and more of recently. "Whatever, you know better."

He mutters that and floats off, circling the giant, three or four headed tree creatures.

The thing stood at the heights of any regular long branched out tree, except, it stood on two thick root feet and legs that copied the human anatomy to a beautiful fashion with the only flaw being the extra long thin arms that fall at its side, almost sweeping the floor – it looks like a broom anyway.

All the way up there are all sorts of flowers and berries growing fresh and ripe on its body, all the way up to the torso where I see things change and the flowers, while still beautiful, are clearly either poisonous or carnivorous.

And then, at the top is the reason why there's a debate on how many heads the thing wields atop its wide shoulders. 

There are three fully formed ones, large things that although glued together by their branches can be told apart from one another simply by looking at the sort of beautiful face it forms.

And then there's the odd fourth, one that hangs off the shoulder limply, and for a thing made out of wood and leaves it does a marvellous job of looking…dead, deceased and decaying.

The head doesn't sit upright on the shoulder, if anything it hinders the rest of the body with its unnecessary, ugly weight. I'm sure it'd be much better off chopped off, but I'm also sure a tree creature like it would not appreciate any part of it being chopped off.

"So, what did you try doing to it? It's far too big for any one of us to stop with swords, and since you don't have magic…what was your plan?" I interrogate, still staring up at the tree tall thing.

Juri nods and sighs, "Yes well, we thought at the very least, with all our efforts combined we could chop off one of its legs and fell it so you find it far easier to destroy when the time comes."

"Standing tall…" I drawl, pointing out his obvious failure.

He sighs dejectedly again, but this time he tells me something interesting, "That's the thing. When we started going at it, with our swords and some axes, the thing…it just…gently pushed us away?"

He sounds bewildered even saying it. I don't blame him, I am too. 

I realize the humanoid tree sized tree creature looks exactly like the others that attacked me, except, far more advanced in the face aspect and pretty much everything else.

"It pushed you aside?" I repeat. 

Juri nods, "We tried chopping its foot down again and again but, every time it ended up the same. With us being gently shied away by those long arms." He shakes his head, I bet the man has gotten his fill of magic and mystics for a lifetime, "Eventually, the thing grew sharp thorns with paralytic poisons."

At this my head whips to face him, I glare, "You know this because someone got paralyzed, don't you?"

He doesn't deny it, "But it only lasted a minute or two. I haven't heard of any paralytic that only lasts such a short period. The thing must be purposely trying not to hurt us."

"Well, that's quite obvious anyway." I mutter humming up at the titan of a humanoid creature.

Juri looks to me expectantly, "What do you want to do with it?"

I chuckle lightly and fall on my butt, relaxing on the soft grass. "I don't think that's the question, Juri."

He looks confused, looking between me and the giant, "Then what is?"

"Well, what does it want to do with us?" I smile brightly and spread my arms out receptively, "I'm ready to hear it! O tree creature!"

Juri looks at me like I'm mad but the look disappears, morphing into one of terror and shock as the giant kneels over, branches aching and cracking with every shift.

And it speaks, "Yes, it would seem you are."