Chapter Five

Gem

Ever since the invaders brought back the weeping willow the gem had been eagerly researching its abilities. All the trees it had were defenseless. Even the tree that its core was fused with was defenseless. If it could figure out how to make its trees like the weeping willows then the security of its territory would go way up.

The branches of the tree seemed like they moved the most, so that is where research started. The branches were all thin and flexible which appeared to help with movement. Other than that the gem was not able to see a single thing that let them move better than a normal tree.

The next thing it observed was the trunk. According to the memories it found the trunk of the weeping willow didn’t move, so when it discovered something useful it was a pleasant surprise. It wasn’t the secret to arboreal movement like it had been hoping, but there was acid. Very strong acid. Even if it wasn’t possible to make mobile trees just getting another tool to make deadly traps was a nice bonus.

That only left the roots to examine. They were green instead of the brown the gem had been expecting and were fairly tough. They were examined very thoroughly without a single useful thing being discovered. The gem was disappointed until it remembered how it learned about most things. It wasn’t through examination or experimentation, it was through death. If an invader died it gained their knowledge and if a defender died it learned from that too. It just needed a number of weeping willows to die in its territory and then it was sure to learn more about them.

Killing them led to its own problems though. The fact that they released poison when they died meant they couldn’t be in the valley. It also didn’t seem like a good idea to put them at the entrance of the dungeon that was currently being used. It might get killed there, but it was worried that the humans would be less likely to trade if it used what they gave them so obviously. That left expanding out the other side of the valley. Its roots immediately started pushing forward and soon the gem started to sense the next valley.

It was smaller than its original and had far fewer trees. In fact, almost all of the valley was a clearing. This suited growing the weeping willow perfectly. There were less plants for it to kill when it did die. It would also do well attracting animals since there were less trees providing shade and shelter for the small creatures that did live in the valley. With the placement decided the drybolds came to move the tree once more. They dragged it through the valley, pulled it a few hundred feet into the new territory, and then they planted it. The last thing the drybolds did before leaving was to cover it in fish so that it had something to feed on while it recovered from being moved. Then the gem gave the drybolds a feast of fish for their hard work and got back to expanding downwards while it waited for the weeping willow to grow.

Olivia

After sending out the scouts and getting every single detail she could from John and Bjorn Olivia locked the doors to her office and pulled out a communication crystal. She activated and was surprised when she didn’t hear the Chancellor on the other side. Instead she heard a much younger man who asked

“What's wrong?”

Olivia paused “Before we get into that who are you? I was told that I would be contacting the Chancellor of Expansion when using these crystals.”

There was a brief moment of silence before the man responded “I am the man who the Chancellor has given control of your settlement to. The fact that I have these crystals should be enough proof of that. Now why are you calling?”

Olivia hesitated for a second, and then decided that if a spy had gotten their hands on the communication crystals then they probably already knew everything about the settlement anyways “I’m contacting you because we found another settlement. We believe it to be the Sanguine empire but we haven’t been able to prove that yet. I wanted to contact you to make sure that it wasn’t another settlement you already know about.”

“That is concerning. As far as I am aware you are the only settlement we have anywhere close to there, so you should assume they are hostile for now. I will send you some additional supplies necessary for battle as well as some more advanced adventurers in the next supply shipment.”

“Alright. That will be very helpful. Since I have already used the crystal I would like to ask for a few more things though.”

“Go ahead.”

“The most pressing issue we have is winter gear. We expected to be able to gain a significant number of pelts here, but so far that has not been the case. If we don’t get some then the entire settlement won’t be very productive through winter. Also I am hoping you count this as supplies necessary for battle, but we need more metal. We haven’t found any nearby deposits so we are starting to run out of all expendable metal items. The most notable being arrowheads. Lastly, any items to improve the morale of the settlers would be appreciated. Many of them signed up to get away from the settlement and the war and now they have gotten attacked by the sanguine empire.”

The man on the other end of the line responded “I’ll see what I can do.” and the crystal stopped emitting any noise. Olivia sat back in her chair thinking for a second before she looked at all the paperwork on her desk and stood up. Half of it was going to be worthless if the other settlement did turn out to be from an enemy, so instead of working on it she got up from her desk and left her office. She strode out the doors and went straight to Johns cabin. She knocked on the door and when he let her inside she asked

“You free? With the whole possible enemy settlement thing I figured I better give you the date I owe you before we are too busy.”

John made sure to stand up straight and tried his best to look attractive “There’s no way I wouldn’t have time for that. What did you have in mind?”

“To be honest this is a bit spur of the moment. I don’t actually have any plans in mind. What do you want to do?”

John thought out loud as he figured out what they should do “Going to the bar is too boring for our first date, You haven’t given me enough time to bribe Frank into making us a romantic meal, and I do too much hiking while patrolling for that to be a fun date. That only leaves the more adventurous options.”

“Oh? What do you consider more adventurous options?”

“I have two ideas. we could go for a cold swim, or there is a rock that looked like it might be fun to climb. Either of those sound good to you?”

“Won’t the water be freezing?”

“That’s what makes it adventurous. Plus we can both use water runes and I can use a fire rune. Even if we wanted to swim for an hour we could warm ourselves up.”

“Ah, well, I guess that’s it then. I don’t have any better ideas and there is no way that I am going to climb rocks. Let’s get going before I change my mind.”

They left John’s cabin and went straight to the seaside.

Olivia felt the cold breeze running along the shore and said “You better be good with the fire rune once we’re done.”

“I’ve got the rune right here. As soon as we get out of the water I’ll warm us up.” John said

“Alright then. Lets go.” Olivia stripped down to her underwear and jumped straight into the water. She felt herself reflexively gasp and let out all the air in her just as she hit the water. Then she swam back to the surface and looked up at John “What are you waiting for? Going to leave me swimming all along?”

John started to strip down as he spoke “Can’t I enjoy the view for a little bit?” Then he jumped into the water with Olivia. He had the same initial reaction to the cold water that she did and then they started to talk.

“So what now John? I do enjoy swimming normally, but this is a bit cold for prolonged enjoyment.”

“Ah, well one of the other ideas was a nice meal right?” John dove down underwater and came back up a few moments later with a mussel in his hand. “My friend Mikey told me that these are all around the settlement. Told me they were tasty but weren’t worth swimming in the cold water without nobles to pay gold for them. Since we are already in the water how about we scrounge ourselves up a nice dinner?”

“Better to work a bit and stay warm than freeze and do nothing. Any trick to getting them?”

“Nope, just look for them in the sand and then swim down and grab ‘em. Easy as can be.” John responded

Then they both got to work gathering. After a quarter of an hour they had a sizable harvest and climbed up onto shore Shivering and with pale skin.

John grabbed his fire rune and asked “Can you dry us off while I warm us up? I still need a bit of practice at using both runes at once.”

Olivia nodded and used her water rune to dry both of them off while John warmed them up using the fire rune. Once they were back to their normal complexions the cooking began. They cooked the mussels in seawater over the open fire. Then they stayed there chatting and eating until they watched the sun set. As soon as the sun went down Olivia stood, kissed John, and said “I think that’s all I have time for today, but I enjoyed our unusual date. Let’s have another one soon.”