To say that the Earthlings failed horribly would be an incredible understatement. At one point Kohn was got so frustrated that he snapped and started punching the tree. When Tender Hake asked what the fool was doing, forcing himself to talk through the laughter, Kohn replied with his eyes maddeningly wide.

“THIS WORKS ON EARTH! PUNCH-PUNCH-PUNCH-GET BLOCK!”

Sasha and Trevor both got the reference from Kohn’s insanity, but Hake and Collins had no idea.

Despite the hilarity of watching Kohn going crazy, Hake eventually called his lesson to a halt and finished up the work of bending trees with his hand. After the trees they had tied the Shinto rope around were all neatly folded up into squares and packaged into a corner, Hake brought out another tree from the opposite side of the room.

“Now for the other part of my job as a Tender. Cutting these into pieces of specific size and measurement so that they can then be combined with other materials in order to make the powder that is used to create permanent magic formations.”

Hearing Hake talk about magic formations snapped Kohn out of his mad laughter with his arms raised up in the air. “Huh? What’s going on? How’d I get here?” But his memory of the last couple of minutes when he went crazy seems to have been wiped clean.

“Get over here Kohn!” Sasha grabbed a hold of his ear firmly with one hand, dragging him over.

Together they watched Hake turn his hand blue before measuring along the tree and marking certain intervals. Then he cut along the marks with his hand. This time his hand was green as he was dividing the large tree into smaller segments. Then he measured again and repeatedly cut the tree into smaller and smaller portions until he had dozens of pieces in the shape of rectangular ingots.

Although the roots and leaves were left in a discarded pile, the small pieces of wood ingots looked healthy and alive. Not as healthy looking as the new trees that they had just brought up, but never-the-less they were alive, full of water and heavy.

“So what do you do with these now?”

“Me? It’s your job now. You have to take and deliver these to my friend Chiel. After that you have to assist her with her job as part of your punishment from King StoneTooth, may he never change.”

The people within the capital seemed to like saying ‘may he never change’ whenever they talked about the King. It was almost like a chant or prayer. And knowing the kind of power he could wield and very few who’d be able to stop him Kohn didn’t think it was such a bad idea. But for Sasha, Collins, Trevor and Kohn their prayer about King StoneTooth only reminded them of their desire to get as far away as possible from any planet who’s World Heart was held by a person.

Hake loaded the wood ingots onto four backpack harnesses. The straps that held them in place was a collection of leaves. They had been forcibly grown and intertwined to create a living rope strong enough to carry the load. Each of their packs were loaded up with as much wood as they could carry before my leaf straps were put in place so that nothing could fall out.

“GUUH!” Kohn unintentionally grunted out when the load jerked him backwards. “You sure this isn’t too much?” He said through gritted teeth.

“This is nothing!” Hake called out cheerfully. “Besides, you’re not going far. It’s only at the other end of the street.”

The ‘other end of the street’ turned out to be a long hike away. Being the capital, with a ton of people and loads of business, a single street stretched for miles. By the time they finally made it to an odd looking store with no other buildings in the immediate vicinity they were all drenched in sweat and out of breath. A sign on the front had a picture of a beautiful woman throwing a bottle with orange liquid at a man, an explosion throwing him into the air.

“Oh this is going to go so well.” Kohn tiredly and bitterly thought to himself. Already cursing Hake in his head. “I liked you Hake. But I don’t anymore.”

Kohn briefly knocked on the door before leading the way in. Sasha was too tired to move so Collins had to push her in while simultaneously pulling Trevor who had a sit down.

“Hello?” Kohn said, exhausted.

“Oh hello! Come in, come in!”

Unlike with Tender Hake, the Earthlings first impression of the little old woman Chiel were quite pleasant. She was pretty small. Hunched over at about four foot, eight inches. She was also pudgy, but just the right amount. She was very warm, open and friendly. She was like the perfect carry-size grandmother to Kohn.

“Oh dear! That looks heavy. And you’re all sweaty and exhausted. Here, let me get that off you.”

“No, I’m fine-eh! It’s alright.” The little old woman was partially climbing onto Kohn as she tried to take the backpack off of him.

“Nonsense! Give it here.”

“It’s really heavy though…” Kohn trailed off as the woman casually lifted the backpack with one arm as her other beat at his dirty clothes.

“There, isn’t that better? Oh look at you. You’re all filthy and dirty. Not to worry! I have some clean clothes in the back that look just about right for you.”

She then went on to grab everyone’s pack, carrying them all at the same time with one hand while her other grabbed on Kohn’s arm, pulling him along with her as she called out to the others to follow her.

“Here. Sit. Sit! Have a cookie.” She had led him to a chair, but when he thought about how sweaty and dirty he was he didn’t want to sit. With what looked like a gentle tap on his shoulder Kohn was slammed heavily into the thick chair, making it groan in pain beneath him.

“Oomph!”

The others quickly sat down in other chairs when they saw her handle Kohn that easily. When she lifted a tray in front of them they reached and took something off of it before they even saw what it was. Each one of them held a ‘cookie’ in their hands.

When they heard the word, the Earthlings felt surprise. Thinking they’d see an Earth pastry all the way out here on another planet, but when they looked down they realized it must have been a translation thing. The ‘cookies’ were small squares of green so dark that it looked black if you looked anywhere but the corners. It had the consistency of fruit cake. Sasha in particular hated fruit cake.

Kohn didn’t think anything of it and threw the whole thing into his mouth. When he tried to chew it his teeth became stuck. Like he had chewed into a big wad of gum or nearly dried glue.

Seeing Kohn comically try to move his mouth, either to spit it out or keep attempting to eat it, the others quickly looked around the room to find a place to stash it.

When Chiel returned she brought spares of large shirts for everyone to change into. Sasha stealthily undressed from her damp shirt underneath the spare.

“Now, what brings you here?” Chiel asked them when she sat down. Her feet swinging in the air, unable to touch the floor while she was in the large chair. She sipped a steamy drink out of an opaque glass.

Kohn wasn’t able to answer so Sasha spoke up while worriedly looking at Kohn who was quickly tiring out. His chewing was getting slow and he was taking in deep, haggard breaths. Oddly enough, Kohn was looking down at his nose in a vain attempt to look at his mouth trying to chew the ‘cookie’.

“We were told to deliver the wood to you from Tender Hake-”

A loud crack and tinkling sound drew their eyes away from Kohn towards Chiel. The wonderful and warm little old lady was replaced with a fiery demon from hell. The glass in her hands had shattered into tiny little pieces. Her eyes were turning red. And the hair on her head was standing up as if it was sentient and wanted to strangle someone.

“TENDER. HAKE!” She gritted out in an angry voice.