“Daniel said you offered your help,” Doris asked, after taking over the task of guiding us from Daniel. “What do you have in mind when you offer that? Are we talking about moral support, the creation of magical items, donation of resources, some behind-the-scenes help or something more concrete?”

“That partially depends on what you need,” I replied, “We won’t be in the area too long, merely passing through, we still need to venture further south, to Phalladri. We can spare a few days, maybe a week, and help you in that time if you have something worth our while. And I’m not necessarily talking worth our while in terms of gold, if it is a task that has a good chance to grant us a large amount of EXP, gold value can be negotiated.”

“I believe the easiest way would be to have us operate as an independent unit, I doubt trying to integrate the five of us into a larger group would work in the timeframe. We are used to working as a group, so let us work as a group, give us a worthwhile target, information on that target, some gold and support and let us do our thing,” I suggested, getting a thoughtful look from Doris.

“Depending on the target, I would refrain from joining you,” Oliva threw in, making me raise an eyebrow. “I will gladly heal your wounded in the meantime, but you always knew the limitations Eleutheria places on me. I cannot enforce my will on others, and I believe that whatever you do to help the rebellion, it will include some of that.”

Olivia’s words were reasonable, if disappointing. But she was right, I had been aware of her limitations, and from the expression on Doris’ face, she hadn’t expected anything different either.

“The help of an additional healer is always welcome, somehow, there’s always someone who needs aid, and never enough people to provide that aid,” Doris shook her head, a sad smile on her face, “Would you mind working with a group to provide healing to the poorest, those most in need? While the temples provide healing, they only provide healing at their place of worship. Places many of the poor and sick simply can’t reach, due to their infirmity and the guards keeping the unwanted out of town.”

“And they call themselves ‘Servants of All,’” Olivia snarled, almost under her breath. The anger in her voice was unmistakable, an emotion I hadn't heard often from her. She had always been calm and composed, even in the direst of circumstances, so the intense emotion made me raise an eyebrow.

“I will help however I can,” she promised, without giving me a glance.

“Your help will be greatly appreciated, of that I’m convinced,” Doris replied, before focusing back on me, “Now, for you, I’ll have to talk with some of the other leaders about what sort of missions would be most suitable. Can you give me an idea of your capabilities as a group? You can be vague if you want to keep your methods concealed,” she asked, the expression on her face making me think that vagueness was almost expected here.

“I believe our greatest advantage is stealth, maybe with a bit of magical sabotage. Depending on the opponent's countermeasures for magical assault, we should be able to infiltrate into areas of lesser, maybe even medium, importance and use large-scale magic to cause havoc there, before vanishing back into the cover of darkness,” I explained, unwilling to suggest direct confrontations. The best way would be something similar to the night raid we had done together with Dura Firebringer and her orcs, sneak in during the night, strike hard, cause confusion, but never actually engage. If the enemy was unable to see my companions, they couldn’t be attacked.

“A reasonable course of action, one similar to our usual tactics. Sneak in, take care of business, sneak back out. If possible, without the opponent knowing who was there or why so subtlety and distraction are incredibly useful,” Doris nodded, only for me to grimace a little. We could be sneaky, but subtle wasn’t really in our playbook. When I told her as much, she merely shrugged.

“If you can’t be subtle, don’t be subtle. You can always act as a distraction, while others do the subtle business, that works just fine,” she assured me, though the expression on her face made me think that she even preferred us to be distractions, letting her people move undetected. It also meant that we wouldn’t need to be told too much about their objectives, only a time and location where to attack for the distraction, which might even be a mere ruse. Mrs Wu had told me about attacks to measure response times and habits, trying to learn how an opposing force reacted to certain stimuli without actually committing to an attack. Such tactics could easily waste enemy resources and make them less alert when the actual attack came.

Doris continued to show us around, casually probing into our background, intentions, abilities and further plans. I let Adra do most of the talking, fading into the background with the excuse that I was a Traveller and thus, my background was rather obvious, I simply didn’t have one. I had literally just appeared in this world, by divine intervention,

Instead, I focused on the village around me and, more importantly, the faint magic in the background. The longer I was exposed, the more I became aware of it, the incredibly subtle and soft undertone, woven into the scent of the forest, concealing the village by making it feel like part of the forest. It was masterfully done, not with great amounts of power but with incredible care and skill.

Finally, after gently tugging and sniffing at the patterns for what felt like hours, but may only have been thirty minutes, I finally found a snag, a small artificial regularity in what should be pure, natural flow.

With a smile on my face, I couldn’t stop myself from following that trace, tracking the pattern back to its origin. Doris spoke up, calling out to me, but I merely waved her off, following the trail I had picked up, with Sigmir hot on my heels. I didn’t try to unravel the magic, that would be akin to burning a book or destroying a painting, but I wanted to see more.

When I came to what felt like the centre, I stopped, staring at a seemingly unremarkable tree, near the edge of the clearing. It was a pine tree and outwardly, there was nothing special about it. If not for the strange pattern, I wouldn’t have given it another look and even when I did, using Lenore’s sight, there wasn’t anything that stood out to me.

Reaching out, I tried to touch it, only for a hand to reach out of the tree and catch mine.

For a moment, I was utterly flabbergasted and before I could react, the hand pushed out further, followed by an arm and, moments later, an entire female body.

At first, the body was completely naked, a petite figure, roughly my size, only more voluptuous, with light-coloured skin and reddish-brown hair, hanging down her back. The skin was far lighter than any of the humans I had seen so far. The humans all had shades of olive, some more tanned, others less, but none had that shade. Somehow, it reminded me of a cupboard I had in my apartment, it had roughly the same hue.

“Now, who might you be?” the female asked, sounding incredibly curious, “Who are you, to try fondling me?”

“This is Morgana, a guest,” Doris replied to the female, glaring at me,” A very rude guest, I might add.”

“Oh, I don’t mind her,” the female smiled at me, “But I think she’s taken,” she added, glancing at Sigmir behind me. Her gaze continued to wander, before settling on Adra.

“And there’s a sister. You are still wandering, aren’t you?” she asked, letting go of my hand, taking a swift step forward and grasping Adra’s hand.

“I am,” Adra nodded, before trying to give a respectful bow, the greeting apparently a lot harder with her hand held by the other female, making her look a little clumsy. With the title given to Adra and the direct comparison, I was now able to identify her as a dryad, without needing to use Observe or something similar. Which meant the tree I had been about to touch was the tree she was bonded to - So I had been about to touch what amounted to her naked body. No wonder I was called rude.

“You can call me Tani if you like. Welcome to my grove. Do you want to take roots here?” the Dryad introduced herself, now completely fixated on Adra. Adra, in turn, looked a little helpless, obviously unsure what to do or what to say. Somehow, seeing the usually composed and confident Adra, suddenly being reduced to the same state I was in far too often made me incredibly happy.

Reaching out, I created myself a mug of Liquid Moonlight and a couple of thin, waver-like chips of Ice, for good entertainment had to be accompanied by tasty snacks.