(Gladil)

“...and that's why you all should appreciate the Forest. I know you are new to this town but, so long as you dedicate yourself toward the betterment of the Forest and its companions, this Forest will protect you all.” Gladil finished his speech just outside the confines of the forest. It had been a while since the town guard had allowed his flock to gather but they’d finally managed to regain approval and the flock was bigger than ever.

“Is this the same forest that killed our neighbors, brothers, and fathers?” One of the newer members, Gladil hadn’t gotten all of their names yet, shouted from the back of the gathering. Obviously he was one of the new citizens from the now-defunct town of Ostlind.

“The Forest killed nobody, it protected. Within the Forest, those of us who recognized it for what it was, an earthen deity, fled to it and pleaded for safety. It supplied. If you lost a loved one in the unfounded, unwarranted, and illegal raid on our beautiful town of Annahiem, it had nothing to do with the Forest and everything to do with the unsavoury character of those that you lost.” Gladil could not fault those who resented the Forest for the same reason he appreciated all of those who worshiped the Forest. In war, there would be losers and winners.

“Now, unless you have any other interruptions that you’d like to make heard, it’s time for us to trek into the forest. Make sure you keep all of your weapons sheathed, the Forest presents a battle only to those it believes to be seeking a challenge.” Several of the newer members had their hands on their sword hilts and axe hafts. The group hadn’t lost a worshipper to the Forest yet, and Gladil did not want to lose one so soon after regaining permission to enter the Forest.

As the group, almost a hundred strong, trekked through the forest, Gladil took a moment to appreciate the Forest. The ambient mana had spiked both in quality and quantity since he’d discovered it those many months ago. To believe, back then he’d been a simple ranger investigating the potential spawning of a new dungeon. Not only did he find a young dungeon, but he’d even discovered the fledgling Enchanted Forest that was both feeding off the dungeon’s power and keeping it contained.

Squirrels leapt overhead, exposing their chitin armor and metallic tails to all of those who looked up. A few of them even stopped to eat Coppernuts directly overhead before dropping the leftover shells down onto the heads of the villagers who were gawking.

Speaking of which, Gladil couldn’t help but remember his lost compatriet. Copper’s presence had always been more of a burden than a pleasure, both of them saddled together as two of the few banished elves that lived within the human kingdom. To this day, Gladil had never discovered if his friend had been killed in Ostlind or, more likely in his opinion, attempted to steal the dungeon core that they’d discovered together. The man had been a renowned thief and his greed had been the reason he was banished from their homeland, alongside his heavy gambling debts that likely led to the string of robberies the man had pulled off.

Whether the dungeon had killed him or the Forest had, Gladil did not care. He shared only the bare minimum amount of fellowship with the fellow elf. If he really had snuck back to steal the dungeon core, Copper deserved the most gruesome of deaths. It was likely that had he succeeded, the youngling Enchanted Forest would not have had enough power to grow in the way that it had. The kingdom’s charts did, afterall, have the area labeled as barren when it came to ambient mana quantities.

“Fucking rat! Get down here and try that again!” One of the men from Ostlind threw a fallen branch back up at the squirrels, spectacularly missing both the squirrel and the entire branch that it was sitting upon.

“No! Stop!” It was too late. By the time that Gladil had noticed the man was getting ready to throw something at the forest denizens, the branch had already left his hand. Overhead, every one of the armored squirrels stopped moving at the same time and swiveled their heads to look at the man. For long seconds, nobody moved.

Then they left. The squirrels, that had numbered in the tens, just up and ran away while some of the regulars held back the new flock member from drawing his weapons.

“The citizens of this forest are both more powerful than a full grown man, that's you, and more playful than the Fae. How dare you try and attack them? You are angered because they dropped a nutshell on your head? That is the limit of your patience?” Holding nothing back, Gladil spun on the man and began yelling.

“The fucking rats were obviously picking a fight, so get out of my face you dirty tree-humper!” Spitting back from where he was restrained, the man showed no remorse.

“Those shells they dropped to you are valuable, and the squirrels know that. They were awarding us with a bounty of metal that can be easily refined and turned into nails to help rebuild the town that your deceased compatriots burned down. They gifted us with copper, and all you had to do was bend down to pick it up and thank the Forest for its supernatural bounty. Why are you even here if you mean to be so aggressive?” Not even blinking at the racial slur, Gladil had heard much worse than the bumpkin could think up, the Elven priest-to-be asked the question he’d been thinking since he saw the twenty new faces attached to their flock first thing that morning.

“The same reason all of my brothers are here. We’re either going to find our town members or we will find their bodies and chop this entire forest to the ground. You disgusting sub-humans and race-traitors can play pretend-god with the forest, but you’re not fooling us. Our gods are humans, the superior race, and this ‘Forest’ is no less evil than the dungeon it sits upon.” At that, the men holding him back were yanked backwards by more of the new faces.

Looking around, Gladil saw that the ex-Ostlind members were wielding axes and several had torches that they’d pulled from the packs on their bag. They intended to start a fire and Gladil intended to have his followers nowhere near that ill-advised action. The rest of the worshipers also pulled out their daggers and make-shift weapons. They were better armed then than they had been before the raid and before long the groups had separated.

“If you think the Forest is easy to destroy then you are a fool. Who am I to stop you from throwing your lives away though. Worshippers to me, we are separating here.” With weapons brandished at each other, Gladil had his followers follow him into the treeline off the path. The Ostlind men, either fearing the deep forest or not wanting to fight against a foe that outnumbered them, stayed on the pathway as they departed.

“High Priest, what are we going to do about them? Should we go back and get the guard? What if they actually start a fire?” A concerned member of the flock spoke up, an older Gnome man who had not been a believer before the raid. His life, and that of his family, had been saved by their timely fleeing into the treeline and he’d seen the light.

“The men who burned our homes down had torches too, and a lot more of them. They entered this forest and they were never seen again. There is nothing to worry about there, let’s keep going until we find the clearing.” Gladil didn’t even slow his stride as they walked through the overgrown roots, discarded branches, and general bramble of the forest. Only minutes later, the Forest opened before them and presented a tall hill. Upon the hill was the glinting Holy Pear Tree that had saved the drow girl who would have otherwise died.

The clearing showed no signs of the fact that it had been camped upon by hundreds of town members overnight. When they’d left the clearing, scraps of cloth and burnt out torches and such had been left behind even though it saddened Gladil. Looking back at it now, however, it was pristine. One couldn’t see where fires had been lit or where blood stained the soil.

Gladil also noticed that the treeline had backed up from the clearing, as if the area contained within the trees was now larger than before. He’d been lying if he said he hadn’t been worried about running out of space with his growing congregation so that was a large relief. The trees also showed a larger density of Ironwood and Copperwoods than there was before. It wasn’t even that the regular trees had been replaced as he saw several of them that he recognized. No, the trees had been spread out somehow and between them grew sturdier and broader metallic trees, a bulwark against a potential second invasion he thought.

“This is our stop. Everyone gather around the foot of the Holy Hill and listen to my word.” Gladil took a few steps up the hill, toward the Holy Tree, before returning to speak to his followers. He’d never been an overly religious Elf back home but his new role came to him as easy as a fish took to the water. After everyone finish seating and lighting up various herbal cigarettes to pass around and smoke, Gladil began with his speech. He hadn’t planned anything to say, but that had never really been a problem when in the Forest as it spoke to him.

“I look around and I see several new faces. Perhaps new faces isn’t the description I should use, as you’ve been in our town since the beginning. No, I see those who have found the light and come to worship our savior, the Forest.

“Even as the actual new faces grow and prepare to strike out against us again, the Forest protects us. Although we have not been here in many weeks, the Forest has been watching over us. It sent us metal and wood to rebuild that which we lost, and put food on our tables to help replace the stores that were pillaged and spoiled.

“Look around and you’ll see that the Forest has us in mind. It has even strengthened our worship area with its magnificent Metal Trees. It has provided us more area to gather, encouraging us to preach its word and welcome newcomers. It does not even punish us for unknowing bringing malicious men into its trails, merely guiding them away from us to be dealt with. It knows us, and it loves us, welcoming us into its boughs even when we stray from the trail.

“I know many of you worry about the combining of our two towns, and of the sudden influx of attention from the various guilds, but I can promise you this. Even if they try and keep us from our savior, the Forest will always lead us right back here. I’ve never been one for overly long speeches, and never have I needed to. With this, I am finished preaching. Let us partake in the herbs of the forest, and the infinite bounty it provides while we offer silent prayer and quiet conversation.” Gladil descended from the hill, accepting the first cigarette passed his way.

With a deep inhale and a slow exhale, he felt all of the tension leave his body. He helped set up the blankets and food, thankful to finally be back in the Forest.