[Dante Alan Skyisle]

As I laid down on the soft moss beneath the sparkling stars, and listened to the whispers of the leaves of the Mystic tree above me, I contemplated how I could possibly save Skyisle from radiation and poison that had nearly killed Kliss and what I could do about the new Overseer of Skyisle that was her replacement.

“What do you think, tree?” I asked. “How can I stop the new Overseer from ruining my plans? How can I save Skyisle from the poison-filled mists rising from the Valley of Death?”

Purple leaves above me shimmered with orange and gold colors as late evening wind blew from the mountains.

“You’re talking to trees now?” Delta smirked as her ghostly form stretched out on the mossy ground beside me.

“The Maori people of Earth believed that there’s a spirit in everything, thanks to mana. Especially trees,” I commented. “If this tree is as full of magic as you say it is, then who knows… it might be alive on some level. I’m certain that it sang the Sentinel’s song with us.”

“Hrmmm,” Delta squinted at the tree.

“Listen,” I said and slowly hummed the Alanian Sentinel’s song up to the tree. The song whispered, danced across the tower, responded from the soul-sucking hex-beacon. It danced across the tree’s branches and leaves and then came back in barely perceptible whispers, an echo that lasted far too long as if the tree was singing the same soul-calming melody, but at a much, much slower rate.

“You’re right… it is singing back!” Delta said. “Just as much as the beacon…. if not more.”

“Can you converge with me, help me talk, speak using my mouth in… ancient Alanian? You’ve picked up some of it in the Astral, from whatever bits of people Phantom Sasha fed you… yes?”

“Um… yes. Not all of it… but yes. Should be enough for a slow conversation,” Delta nodded. “I can extrapolate, guess whatever is missing. Let's try it.”

A tether from her snapped into my mind. She stepped forward, overlaying my body.

“Hello tree,” I said and as my lips moved, they spoke in a soft, musical language that I didn’t understand. These were words in ancient Alanian. “I hope you can understand me.”

No response came back.

[Well, we’ve tried,] Delta commented from my mind.

I stepped closer to the tree, and reached out with my hand, touching its moss-covered brown bark.

“Don't be afraid. I’m the last Alanian Sentinel. I don’t know if this means anything to you, I don’t know if you can understand me… but I’d like us to be friends. I’m alone… and I barely know anything about Alania. I could really use your knowledge or your help, Mystic tree. Your large roots must go deep, far across the forest. You must have seen a lot.”

Silence.

I sighed, stepping back. What did I expect? It was just a big tree..

“F-r-i-e-n-d-s?” the leaves suddenly whispered. The word started at the bottom of the branches and slowly echoed upward the enormous trunk resonating all the way up into the sky.

I nearly jumped back.

[Holy crap, it can talk!] Delta gasped.

“Friends, I’d like to be friends with you,” I said slowly. “What’s your name?”

“L-e-e-n-y,” the answer cascaded into the sky with endless whispers.

[I can’t believe it… you were right!] Delta commented. [It is alive, sentient! I didn’t even detect its level nor the fact that it’s intelligent enough to converse… it… knows how to hide itself! Its soul and core must be elsewhere... buried somewhere deep in the ground!]

I smiled. “Leeny, that’s a nice name. How old are you?”

“One thousand, one hundred and seventy seven springs,” the answer came from the whispers of the tree in Ancient Alanian.

I recalled that Kliss told me that the Tricameron Citadel had been destroyed 1171 years ago.

“You’re also a child of Alania then?” I asked.

“Yes,” the tree whispered. “It has been long. I miss them all. I miss my mom most of all.”

“Your mom?”

“Yes,” the tree replied. “She died to give me… life.”

I froze, listening to the somnolent whispers of the tree translated to me by Delta. “I’m sorry to hear that. You must have seen how Tricameron was… before it was destroyed, turned into the Valley of Death?”

“Yes,” the leaves resonated. “I have. It was beautiful…”

I was tired of standing. I stopped gaping up at the tree, sat down on a root and leaned against it the Mystic tree called Leeny. “Can you tell me how it happened?”

“My mother was an Alanian mage named Kopusha Megara Tricameron and I was… her seedling.” The Mystic tree sang in slow, echoing whispers, all of its leaves vibrating in harmony to produce semblance of human speech.

“She gave me the name Leemy.

She sang to me in the evenings and mornings, imbuing me with tiny bits of her soul and her best memories… my perfect, beautiful, talented, young Agromancer of a mother.

She planted me in a lovely meadow in the forest-park of Borria at the edge of town called Skyisle, hoping that I might someday bloom into a full dryad. I was her graduate project and an assistant for her Agromancy research, a friend and… much, much more.

Kopusha poured her love for the wild, for plants, for sunshine and for the ever-bright future straight into me.

A future that she believed was coming with her entire heart, for the world was changing. For great progress was being made across her nation. The great Alanian Empire had finally managed to strike terror into the hearts of the false gods, had managed to permanently halt the hand of death, had discovered spells that could pull, split and inject the soul into anything.

Acolyte Kopusha of Tricameron had chosen to give her soul to me.

As I grew and blossomed in my meadow, my mother returned every morning on her sky-glider, giving up bits of herself for me again and again, pouring her dreams and memories of the elegant, white cathedraltown of Tricameron Citadel into my tree body, infusing me with her own life and magic.

One morning she didn’t come. I waited patiently for her, for I was a tree. I knew her, knew that she would not forsake me unless something unexpected had occurred.

She had arrived that evening, splitting from the sky on her glider, spinning out of control.

She had let go of the glider and it detonated with a catastrophic crash, carving apart the meadow. She rolled across the forest floor, her body twisting unnaturally. I wanted to reach out to her, to help heal her… but I knew that aiding her was beyond my skills for I wasn’t born as a dryad yet.

Mom slowly crawled towards me, leaving a trail of blood behind her. I reached out with one of my soft branches and she had taken it into her hand.

“L-leemy…” she choked. “T-the Seditionists have taken Tricamerion. It’s over… it’s all over. They believe that what we are doing, s-splitting our souls and granting intelligence to magical constructs is wrong. They… killed my Academy Instructors, Leemy. Trust no-one. I will surrender the rest of my magic to you… I know that I’m done for… but at least you can go on. Just… be careful… grow old and beautiful for me, p-please. D-do what I can-n… cannot.”

As the blood of my mother poured over my roots, I wept. It was over. My dreams of holding her in my arms, of hugging and singing back to her would never come true. My dreams of working together, healing the world, growing forests across deserts were not to be. All because some mages didn’t understand what we were trying to do.

Kopusha’s life left her eyes. As the last of her mana and soul departed from her, passing into my roots, her body ossified, deflated, emptied out, leaving just a dead shell that held onto my roots with blackened fingernails.

The empty husk began to grow cold. I wept. Would the Seditionists come for me, would they find my mother’s ossified body, scan me for signs of consciousness? I couldn't get away, couldn't hide from them. I was a tree. I haven't learned how to walk yet, so I couldn't dig myself out! I couldn't get away in time!

As I freaked out more and more, the ground started to shake. I turned my eye-stalks towards Tricameron Citadel and saw a brilliant, blinding light piercing right through the forest. The world caught on fire. My mother’s husk turned into ashes. Trees around me ignited.

The forest around me groaned as trees snapped in half, shattered as if they were made from glass. I saw that the entire Citadel burned. Mountains around it burned. Someone had set the entire world on fire. We were betrayed, vanquished...

I had lasted slightly longer than the rest of the trees, but eventually my mana had run out.

I screamed and thrashed as I died in agony.”

. . .

The leaves fell silent, singing no more.

“Um, you died?” I mulled. “But you are… alive? I don’t understand.”

“Yes. I died… but the Chrysalis skill designed by my Agromancer mother was incredible. It was created so that I could… survive anything, grow once more if only given enough time. My new life came at a great price. I had lost most of my soul. Only a single shard of me remained in the ashes, buried deep within my scorched bark. It took me a long time to grow from the dead remnants of the forest. A long time to find sufficient mana to return to life. Many centuries…. My roots slowly grew through the ruins of Skyisle, seeking life… seeking energy. I found it here, in the derelict of this tower… a cracked, leaking Alanian battery deep in the ground. I moved into the tower to be closer to it, grew tall and thrived. I helped the land rejuvenate, drank the poison from the air and the ground, brought life back to Skyisle.

When the humans came from their shelters, emerged from the underground tunnels… I did not speak to them, did not trust them for I knew that their leaders were led by angels. For hundreds of years more I fed upon the leak of the Astral Engine… until I heard your song.”

“So you’ve seen… everything,” I said.

“I have, young Sentinel. Your Rewind hurt,” the leaves sang languidly.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I uttered.

“It is fine. I am strong,” the leaves whispered. “Your Rewind woke me up fully, made me realize that a single Alanian had survived… but I was too afraid to speak to you... with that angel-bound girl around. Kliss. Her forefathers, people guided by angels and gods are vile monsters that destroyed our Citadel, killed my mother. I was afraid that she would set me on fire again while you slept.”

“I understand how you must be feeling,” I said. “You’ve been alone for a long time.”

“I have,” Leemy said.

“If you’re a Dryad… can you make a human avatar?”

“I tried to… but my soul was greatly damaged. Essential knowledge was lost… so I had given up, lived as a tree for a thousand years. The battery in the ground is almost dry too... I went to sleep, because I knew that I would die unless I find new power. I have been slowly dying for centuries in this manner. I have not bloomed in two hundred springs. My roots aren't strong enough to break the other batteries...”

“Maybe I can help you rebuild your skills… I can crack another battery open for you, help you bloom once again,” I smiled.

“That would help, yes,” the leaves whispered. “Thank you, young Sentinel of Alania.”

I yawned as I realized that our incredible conversation had taken a few hours. The tree was an very slow narrator, slow to answer my questions, each of its words a somber, languishing song of pain, loss and growth.

“I’m a tad tuckered, had a long day. I'll be heading to sleep now,” I said. “You don’t mind that I stay between your roots, right?”

“I do not. Sleep well, little Sentinel. We can talk tomorrow.”

"Tomorrow," I yawned.

I crawled into my tent, tied up the front entrance and curled up into my sleeping bag with a big, wide smile. Radiation and poison clean up was an enormous issue on my mind that I had been avoiding, skirting around because I knew that I had no way of saving Skyisle by myself.

Leemy was the answer. Leemy was my bright hope, the reason why I didn’t have to convince anyone to relocate anymore!

I didn’t have to abandon my home to the magogenic fault!

I made a new friend, a shard of the Alanian civilization, a Dryad tree! Leemy was the solution to the poison leaking from the Valley of Death, the reason why people could live so close to the fault. She kept this valley alive and green.

She was growing weaker, yes... and her slow death was likely the reason why the level cap was behaving as it was!

But... if her skills could decontaminate radiation, then she could help me save, rebuild Skyisle… as long as I fed her power.

I yawned once more and my eyes closed.