Robin stared into the dryad’s jagged maw. He wasn’t sure what was more disturbing, the smile in front of him or the inevitable thought his mind presented him with when faced with the, ah, physical effects Cherry was having on him. Those teeth! He winced.

‘Holding people against their will is wrong,’ he said, trying to make his voice as firm as—you know what, stop it, brain! He bit down on the inside of his cheek. ‘Let us go. Now.’

‘No, little man, I think not.’ Cherry swayed like a tree in a gentle breeze. ‘This is the forest, and here in my domain, might makes right.’

He was going to need more skill if he had a chance of persuading her to let them go. Robin willed his interface open and with the speed of thought raised his Persuasion to 3. He could bump it again if he had to but he didn’t want to over-commit the points right now.

‘So if I got an axe and chopped down your tree while you were away, you wouldn’t resent it?’ Robin tried again with his newly buffed stats. ‘My might of arms killing Neher’s Oak? Splitting it up for firewood? Kindling? You’d be all right with that?’

‘As if a tiny thing like you could perform such a feat!’ Cherry laughed, but Robin’s Insight ensured he caught the flicker of unease the flashed through her eyes.

Robin forced a predatory smile across his face. He needed to convince her he was a threat and force her to leave. Making her mad was a dangerous ploy, but he didn’t exactly have a ton of options in his back pocket right now. If it was a simple as sweet-talking the dryad, Eli would have done it already. He’d only just met the priest but he could tell the man was very good with his tongue. So the stick rather than the carrot. He quickly willed open his interface and raised Intimidation to 3, erasing all his gains from battling the pixies and then some.

‘I grew up splitting oak logs for firewood on my grandmother’s farm,’ Robin shot back. ‘I know what it feels like for the steel edge of an axe to bite through the flaky bark of an oak into the pale beige wood beneath. I know what it smells like to be surrounded by sawdust, rich like whiskey and sweet as wine.’ Robin was laying it on a bit thick, but Cherry didn’t seem to do subtle anyway. He widened his smile. ‘This oak, well, I think it’d make a nice table, and maybe a rocking chair for—’

Cherry’s eyes went deepest red-black and she shook with fury. ‘You would not dare!’ She reached out with her branches to grab at his arm and draw him near. In her fury, the end of her fingers pierced his skin and left splinters buried in his flesh.

‘If I have the might, it is my right, by your own logic,’ he shot back, ignoring the minor pain of her touch. ‘Can’t object without giving the lie to your own law.’

Eli huddled back, close to the trunk of the tree. His eyes were wide and kept shifting between Robin and the dryad.

‘Your might is lesser than mine,’ Cherry hissed before flinging him away from her.

‘Is it, though? You didn’t capture me. A horde of pixies got lucky with a [Sleep] spell. That’s nothing to do with your might.’

‘They serve me because I am mightier than they. It is the way of the forest—’

‘You keep going on about the way of the forest, but that’s just a convenient excuse for you to bully people.’ Robin pushed. ‘Rats show empathy to other rats. Apes in the great forests and jungles will help one another—even members of another species—when one falls into a pit or gets tangled in vegetation. The way of the forest, my arse. It’s just a convenient excuse.’

‘What. Are. You. Doing?’ Eli forced the words out one by one.

Robin flicked a reassuring hand his way but didn’t allow his focus to slip from Cherry for an instant.

‘You have quite a large mouth for so little a thing,’ the dryad rumbled menacingly. ‘I could close it for you. Would you like that? Eli there likes it when I bind his hands.’

He was getting to her. Robin was definitely rubbing this dryad the wrong way. He just needed to push her a little more and hope she stormed off rather than decided to break his neck. He was counting rather heavily on the fact that she’d kept Eli alive so long, and that she seemed to have taken a likening to his red hair.

‘Tch. Bri-yanch, don’t test me. I will put an adze through your neck and plane your arse for an end table.’ Robin popped his tongue mockingly at the dryad. It had the desired effect.

‘You would not dare!’ Cherry shrieked.

‘Try me! Keep this tree holding us prisoner and just try me! I’ll strike a bloody lucifer and light this old relic up.’

To emphasise his words, Robin snapped through an invocation of [Visual Phantasm] and limned the whole tree in the illusion of flames, followed moments later with a [Lesser Phantasm] to supply a satisfying snap, crackle, and pop of burning wood.

‘He’Neher’a!’ Cherry called out in a language Robin had never before heard. ‘Speak to me!’

Another language. This one that apparently trees—or at least some trees—could understand. He filed it away with the rest of his swiftly growing library of [Tongue of the Fallen Tower]. An idea bubbled at the back of his mind.

Robin gestured again, cutting the fire and conjuring an illusory mirror standing Cherry’s full height before her. The dryad recoiled in shock.

‘Shadows,’ she hissed, ‘tricks and deceit!’

‘Mirrors show us as we are, Cherry,’ Robin shouted. ‘That’s no lie! Look! Look at yourself! That’s you, isn’t it?’

The dryad held out one hesitant finger and Robin concentrated furiously, willing the illusion to mimic her motions.

‘The might of the tree cannot withstand the might of the fire, nor the might of the woodsman with his axe. Are they right to cut you down?’ Robin went back on the attack. ‘Here, in this place, with us bound to your will and by the roots of this tree, we are the forest and you?’ Robin willed the image in the mirror to change. ‘You are the fire.’

Cheery wailed and fell back from the image of herself as an elemental of fire. Robin had kept her eyes the same exact shade of cherry-red. He thought it a nice touch.

‘Are you the fire, Cherry?’ he yelled. ‘Are you the axe?’

He willed the image in the mirror to shift again, to a flaming axe with a handle the same colour as Cherry’s skin.

The dryad moved back, stumbling away from the image before her. Robin willed the mirror to drift after her. It moved a few paces before it was forced to stop by the spell’s limitations. Robin hissed. He’d need to find a way to overcome that, somehow.

‘Lies!’ The dryad howled. ‘Lies and shadows and trickery! Your false words hold no power over me!’

‘Then prove it!’ Robin shouted. ‘Free us! Face me and my friends without your pixies, without your trickery! Because you did not overcome me by might of arm. You relied upon the magical power of a host of others.’

Cherry screamed in frustration and turned, her roiling gait carrying her quickly to the edge of the clearing and into the trees.

‘Get ready,’ Robin urged Eli. He willed his interface open and quickly upped his Deception to 5, using one of his precious banked points, as he didn't have enough experience left to do it that way.

‘What?’ The priest stared at him. ‘What do you mean? What did you do?’

‘I think she’s going to let us go,’ he said, loudly, in case the tree could speak common as well as whatever language Cherry had used with it. ‘I think she’s seen the truth in my words.’

Robin twisted his hand through the figures of [Lesser Phantasm]. A moment later, Cherry’s voice—and only her voice—seemed to echo back out of the woods to Neher’s Oak, in the strange language Robin had heard her speak but once but now knew as if born to it by virtue of [Tongue of the Fallen Tower].

‘Release them!’ the dryad’s voice seemed to say.

Robin held his breath, hoping against hope that his trick would work. For what seemed an eternity, nothing happened, but then the roots around both him and Eli began to shift and draw apart until there was enough space between them for the pair to wriggle free.

‘Come on,’ Robin pulled himself free before turning to help drag Eli out.

The elf stood on shaky legs. He stretched, limbering a body that spent far too much time cramped and bound by twisted roots.

‘We should move quickly,’ Robin urged quietly.

‘What?’

‘Now. Come on.’ Robin grabbed Eli by the arm and all but dragged him in the opposite direction to where they had seen Cherry vanish into the wood. He waited until they were out of the clearing entirely before he spoke again.

‘We need to put some distance between that clearing and us before she gets back and realises I tricked that oak with an illusion.’ Robin glanced over his shoulder.

‘Ah! Is that what you did?’ Eli looked delighted. ‘An illusionist! How handy.’

‘I’ve only got so many tricks. We need to find the rest of my party and get out of this forest.’

‘Easier said than done,’ the priest answered, ‘but I know a place we can hide for a bit. Neither Cherry not her pixies will go near the place. We can rest there and search for your friends from a relatively safe place.’

‘Lead the way!’ Robin gestured, more than ready to be on their way.

Eli glanced about as if getting his bearings, then began to lead them off into the wood. How he was navigating, Robin couldn’t say, but he assumed there were some landmarks one could use to get around as long as you weren’t being actively harassed by pixies and—the pixies! They must have been using illusions! That must be why he’d had such an uneasy feeling. His instincts were telling him something was off.

Robin gnawed on his lip as they walked. It wasn’t a perfect defence. It would be prone to a lot of false positives. But he should try and figure out what little tells there might be in illusions he encountered. If nothing else, it would probably help him improve his own magical art.

Speaking of magical arts, Robin checked for any notifications. Nothing yet. They clearly weren’t far enough out of the woods. Ha.

‘Maybe we should move a little faster,’ he suggested. Surely he’d get a notification that the first part of his quest was complete when they got far enough from the clearing, right?

Eli simply nodded and picked up the pace. Robin followed, but his mind was on recent events more than the path before him. His investment in Social proficiencies seemed to have paid off. How much experience did he have to play with if he needed to boost another stat, though? He pulled up his interface to check quickly.

ROBIN PARKER Heritage: Shadeling, Mature Profession: None Tier: 0 (Progress to Tier 1: 74%) Properties

Free Ranks Available: 1 Physical Mental Social Strength: 11 Intelligence: 17 Charisma: 15 Dexterity: 14 Cunning: 19 Manipulation: 13 Fortitude: 11 Resilience: 14 Poise: 15 Proficiencies

Free Ranks Available: 2 Physical (7/9) Mental (8/9) Social (7/9) Athletics: 1 Arcane Lore: 1 ??? Brawl: 0 ??? Deception: 5 Dodge: 4 Concentration: 1 Empathy: 1 ??? Crafting: 1 Expression: 4 ??? Healing: 0 Gossip: 0 Ranged Combat: 0 Insight: 3 Intimidation: 3 Sleight of Hand: 1 Learning: 1 Persuasion: 3 Stealth: 4 Natural Wisdom: 0 Socialise: 1 Survival: 1 Perception: 4 ??? Peculiarities Blessing of Rhyth Tongue of the Fallen Tower Mark of the Trickster Chronicle of Infinite Visions

Robin had about 7% to play with. It wasn’t a lot. It would boost one of his lower proficiencies. Maybe one of his lower properties? He concentrated, testing to see if it would let him.

Level insufficient to raise selected Property with experience. Please advance in power to enable this option.

Huh. He couldn’t use experience to raise his core stats until his level was higher than the stat in question? Interesting. Why on earth—or wherever he was—might that be?

He was distracted from further pondering the vagaries of the magio-physical laws he was now subject to, by Eli. The elf had his hand extended and a small squirrel was chittering at him and running along a branch slightly to the right of the direction they were headed.

‘Are you talking to that squirrel?’ Robin asked. Hey, Ora-Jean talked to an invisible badger. Who was he to judge?

‘No.’ Eli smiled. ‘I’m trying to get a sense from his movements which way Cherry might be headed. I’m not having much luck.’

‘How can you tell he’s afraid of her and not of you?’ Robin looked from the elf to the squirrel and back.

‘It helps if you speak softly and don’t make any sudden movements, to start,’ Eli answered.

Proficiency Unlocked: Animism.

Interesting naming convention. Still, Robin knew the proficiency covered interacting with animals and that it would likely come in useful sometime, if not very soon.

‘Where did you learn—’ Robin began, but the rest of his sentence was lost.

A scream of rage resounded through the forest, cutting off the conversation. Birds took flight, the sounds of startled wings adding to the cacophony. Underbrush rustled as small animals dove for their burrows. A stag went leaping past, eyes wide and bloodshot.

‘I think she might be over in that direction,’ Robin said drily, though his heart began to hammer in his chest.

‘Let’s put some more distance between where we are and where she is right now,’ Eli suggested.

‘Good idea.’

They turned and plunged deeper into the wood.