After Ava had so extensively explained the Circle of [Druids] and the like to me, I had made a number of images in my head of what their encampment could look like. Of course, the very word ‘encampment’ shaped that aesthetic, and I thought that perhaps they might be a nomadic group, never settled into one place, never straining the forest’s limited resources and so on. My other thought was that it might be like a treetop village, with wood huts built into its branches and rope bridges connecting the huts.

As it turned out, I was only half correct with that second guess.

The first change from the forest that hinted at the presence of people was the thick vegetation. Low branches, trunks of fallen trees, roots as thick as Ava was tall, bushes, vines and growing saplings, they all formed a wall that was just slightly too thick to be natural. It was only really noticeable if one took a closer look. There was a gap between two trees forming an archway, with a well-treaded path going right through it, forming a street towards what looked like a town square. I could also see massive trees with luscious green crowns, but they were few and far between so the sun shone down.

That was as much as I could see from my vantage point, anyway: the ‘wall’ was too thick and high for me to see what was behind it, all I could see were the trees that reached up past it.

“Well, Xyte”, Ava said, “welcome to Ashen Grove.”

“It looks beautiful”, I replied. “I’ve not even been past the gate yet and I can already tell.”

“Oh, yes, it is a wonderful place! I would show you around, but there are things I need to do first, you understand… passing on everything you told me of Rocky to the other [Druids] and deciding on our course of action going forward.” She slowed her step as a pair of women, both clad in armour made of wood and leather, stepped out of the undergrowth. They’d been so well camouflaged by their green and brown attire, I hadn’t noticed them at all! But the gate guards allowed Ava to pass with just a nod from one of them.

“Should I be there when you share the dirt you got on Rocky?” I asked.

“There is no need for that. Besides, those meetings are restricted. Only members of the Circle’s leadership may attend, as the matters we discuss involve many secrets. But do not worry, I know just what to do with you in the interim. Let’s go find Leah and see if she can make time.”

The next few minutes, while Ava walked through the village, I realised that Ashen Grove was even more beautiful than the picture I’d painted from that initial impression. The village in its entirety had been built around trees so massive that it would have taken a dozen men or more to form a human chain around the trunks of most of them. Multi-story houses had been built in ring shapes around the trunks, with holes in roofs and walls for the branches to come out, and long support structures propping them up from below. The roofs were made of straw or reeds, only a few of them had slate roofs. Still, stone and metal was used very sparingly for those huts. Ashen Grove wasn’t very big overall - I guessed it to have some five hundred people, perhaps -, but the villagers had made a great and thriving community.

I also noticed that… “Hey, Ava? Is that hut hanging from a branch?” I asked. “The small one over there, with the orange roof.”

“Of course. Many of the huts at that height are suspended from the trees or supported from below, rather than being attached to the tree itself.”

“Oh, right. The whole [Druid] thing, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it’s not to do with our attunement to nature. It’s because the trees here are hard to work with. The plants in Ashen Grove are infused with mana, most of the trees are variations of Ironwood. Living trees are even more resistant to change, which makes it slow and expensive to shift the wood into the designs we are after. We choose to build around the problem rather than forcing the issue.”

“Expensive? Shifting wood into new shapes sounds like a [Druid] thing to me, no? And you’ve no shortage of those in this place, if I understand you correctly…”

“We have many [Druids], yes, but not as many as to waste their power on vanity projects. And keep in mind that mana takes time to regenerate. Most [Druids] pursue the mage’s path, so they rely on having mana to do anything. To build a house, even with minimal floor space, by shaping living Ironwood… it requires hundreds of thousands in mana. A [Druid] would need months or even years to regain that much, and they could not spend that mana on anything other than the building.”

“Right… so they’d be out of commission that whole time, and they want to be paid for it if they do that kind of project for someone.”

“That’s right. A wealthy individual might be able to afford these services, but there are not many in Greenlake who have this kind of money, and those who do mostly live in Silverrock. The few buildings made of Ironwood that we have here in Ashen Grove are mostly pet projects by their habitants who have time and mana to spare, or highly important structures that need to be kept secure. Ironwood is hard to work, but quite resistant, so in those cases it pays off to invest more mana.”

“Then I take it that the bridge we’re walking towards is not made of Ironwood?”

“Ah, indeed it is not. There are many structures that are formed by our younger [Druids] as a way to train their [Skills] in a safe space, but we shift lighter wood for that. Or we do it the regular way, by felling trees and cutting their wood into what we need.”

“And that doesn’t violate your [Druid] rules?”

“Hmm. The restrictions are not that strict either.”

“You told me just earlier that if you’re attacked by a pack of wolves it’d still be counted against you if you strike one of the standbys. If that’s not strict, I don’t know what to tell you.”

Ava chuckled. “That is also true. It is more complex than that, though… The restrictions are more lax when it comes to plantlife. We would get penalised were we to cause wanton destruction to nature, but to fell trees in a responsible manner and use their timber is not counted against us. In fact, several members of the Circle do woodworking art.”

Then we had to pause our conversation because we crossed over the river and entered the more populated area. I took a closer look at the bridge: its surface was worn down and smooth from the thousands of feet that had crossed over it, but I could tell that it really was made of living wood. There were branches with leaves sprouting from its sides, roots dangling from the support beams and dipping into the river below, and if I wasn’t mistaken that hole on one of the supports was a woodpecker’s nest.

The water was deep and clearer than any river or lake I knew from back home. I’d gone hiking before and seen what mostly unspoiled nature looked like, but this was something else. The water was lazily flowing along the riverbed, with the occasional stray branch or a fish on the surface. The riverbanks were mostly natural moss-covered rock, with mushrooms growing where they could, often hidden away under large bushes of green. And judging from the croaking I heard, there were other little critters I couldn’t see making their homes by the waterside too.

The pathways had been built with the well-being of nature in mind, I could tell: planks and flat rocks were laid out to act as steps where the ground was muddy, always with a respectful distance from the younger trees, mushroom colonies and waterways. It was perhaps not a one-for-one how I would picture an elven village, not when they had reed and slate roofs, but it came damn well close.

Speaking of elves: when I looked at the ears of the people bumbling around us, I saw about half of them having pointed ears, while the other half had human ones. There were also people that had bird wings sprouting from their back, but those could just be humans with some special [Class]. The way people mingled and mixed, they looked to be living together pretty harmoniously.

I was about to ask where Ava was headed, when I heard a familiar excited voice yelling “Granny! You’re here!” and I saw Leah jumping out a window on a ground-level building, then running up to meet us. And she was speaking with [Animal Speech] still… or again? Either way, I was thankful that I could follow the conversation.

“Have you been waiting for us?” Ava asked. I did noted the amused smile her lips curled into.

“Yes! We need more lesson, no? Not done yet?”

“That is true, but thanks to our friend Xyte here, we now have a lot of information on Rocky. It’s important, and I have to pass it on to the other members of the Circle.” Leah’s face fell a bit, but Ava continued: “But we still have a promise to our friend here to keep, so can I trust you with the important task of taking him to the pens?”

“Ohh… I can, Granny! We find host for Xyte then?”

“Yes. Show him the Silverwolves.” Looking to me, she explained: “I think one of them would make for a fine host. Big enough that they don’t mind a bit of bloodletting once in a while, and their thick fur is good protection for you.”

Huh. First there was talk of the Ironback animal species, then Ironwood had been brought up, and now Silverwolves… this place’s naming conventions seemed to be pretty heavy on metal. Pun kind of intended.

Ava held out her arm and I climbed along it to get on Leah’s shoulder instead. As I turned myself around to be looking forward again, a System message popped into my vision:

[Ava] has ended [Spirit Voice]! Your link has been severed.

Ah, right. Almost forgot I had that enabled this whole time. Also, I noticed a dim blue glow where Ava was touching Leah’s shoulder.

“Full mana!” the girl exclaimed. “Thanks Granny!”

“It’s no trouble at all. But make sure to form a new [Spirit Voice] link with Xyte. Now, I must be off with haste, so you two go take care of things. And don’t neglect your studies, Leah! I will test you this evening to see if you’ve made progress.”

Leah grumbled but nodded as we linked back up, then Ava strutted off posthaste, and we turned in a different direction.

So that blue glow was part of some kind of mana-transferring ability, I thought to myself. Ava was probably at a higher level than Leah and had deeper reserves, or better regeneration. Interesting to see that this world had abilities like that, too… That aside, I was kind of excited to see what these Silverwolves would look like, and why Ashen Grove had them. Maybe they were mounts? Or some [Druids] had animal companions to fight alongside them, but there were restrictions on bringing them into the town proper and they needed to be placed into pens instead? I chose to ask Leah.

“Yes, that!” she replied, using [Animal Speech] despite the active [Spirit Voice]. It made it harder to understand her, but I was going to cut her some slack for wanting to train her [Skill] while she could. “Silverwolves… big. Strong. Not allow in town? So pens being for safe stay. Also big, nice home for wolves. You’ll see.”

Indeed, the pens were more like horse stables than dog houses, as far as size went: they were huge, with big swinging gates on the front and back end. They had been built into the wall separating the Ashen Grove area from the forest beyond, so that one gate led outside and the other into the town area.

“Wait”, I asked Leah, “wouldn’t this create a weak spot in the walls? Since you have guards posted at your gate, I mean… people could sneak into the town without going through the gate, no?”

“No, it’s… hmm, wolves are… agh. I don’t know the words”, Leah complained, switching back to the language she’d spoken with Ava. Since we had the [Spirit Voice] up, I could still understand her. “The wolves make their burrows outside, and the mothers sleep in the pens with their puppies. They know not to let anyone through their territory.”

So that’s what it was. The wolves got easy access in and out of the town and a safe space to raise their pups in, and provided security against intruders. Smart! But what about some male marking the pens as their territory and keeping the others out?

“Pens are shared room”, Leah explained, using [Animal Speech] again. “Silverwolves very smart, they… mmm, they understand. We teach rules so all are happy.”

“They learned to coexist? That’s amazing… but I guess that you [Druids] have your life made a lot easier by being able to talk to them. Help them understand and stuff.”

“Oh, yes. It very big help.”

Speaking of big, there were the first wolves, rounding a corner and coming into view for us. They were massive! The ones just coming into view were similar in size to a full-grown Great Dane, and based on how they were chasing after each other and play-fighting, I guessed that they were puppies or at least young. Then we got closer to the pens and a big ball of fluff raised its head and opened a pair of eyes as large as golf balls to look at Leah and me. It was hard to tell its real size with all the fluff and because it was laying down, but if I guesstimated about a quarter of the volume away for the fur, was about as big as a horse.

“Do people… ride these?” I asked. “They’re so huge.”

“Mmm, a few [Beastmasters] ride wolves. But they best at fighting”, Leah said. I could tell there was excitement in her voice now, as she crossed the open area past the playing puppies. “Now come, I show you Nem! She best friend of me!”

A friendly wolf? I wondered if this ‘Nem’ was going to be the one who Leah intended to let me use as my new host. With that said, I wasn’t sure how long I would be staying on one… my main reason for going along with Ava and coming to the Grove was to learn more about this world and its rules. I could plan a reasonable course from there, rather than just letting myself be dragged along by everything going on around me. And pretty high up on my list, was to get independent from other, larger creatures that I currently needed to feed from.

As we rounded the corner to the pens, I noticed that we were not the first ones in the box: there were three others already there, two standing back and watching as the third knelt in front of a huge she-wolf. She was laying on her side, nursing a litter of newborn pups - each one as big as adult Golden Retrievers - while looking at the kneeling one before her. Up close, I could tell there was intelligence in those eyes. These wolves truly were no mere animals.

Leah’s face fell as she noticed the three, her brows curling into an unhappy frown. “Eren? What are you doing?” she asked.

The three - I saw now that they were two boys and one girl, all with pointed ears - turned their attention away from the wolf and to Leah. She was speaking in the other language again, but [Spirit Voice] let me understand her.

The one who’d been closest to the wolf was probably Eren, because he replied to Leah with a smug smirk while the other two watched. Whatever he was saying, it riled up Leah who snarled back at him: “No you didn’t! You’re going after Nem again!” Again he said something I could not comprehend, and Leah balled her hands into fists and took a step forward. “Nem was assigned to me! You can’t-”

“Watch out!” I shouted but I was too late. In her rising anger, Leah had missed the rapid step forward that one of Eren’s friends, the girl, took towards her. She shoved Leah back with both hands, sending her stumbling back a step before she fell on her butt. The three of them laughed, and Eren said something again while pointing back at the wolf. Well, I was reasonably certain that that wolf was actually Nem. For now she seemed content with observing the ongoings and baring her teeth the slightest bit.

Throughout all this, I held on to Leah’s shirt, managing to hold myself in place. Whilst Leah sat herself back up, tears forming in her eyes and blushing furiously as she raised her voice, saying: “I’m not letting you subdue and steal her away from me!” I tried to stay on top, looking back at the three.

I couldn’t put together the whole picture, but it seemed like this Eren boy was doing something with Nem? Stealing her away from Leah when she was assigned to her? Maybe this was some kind of druidic bond thing for young druids, to train them by giving them an experienced animal companion. And Eren wanted to grab Nem as well. Though the way Leah had said ‘subdue’, it didn’t sound like a friendly process at all.

Eren made a dismissive hand wave and turned away, before reaching his other hand out to pet the giant wolf’s head. Nem had a wary look, as best as I could tell, but did not stop him. Just kept her eyes on him, and on Leah, while he pet her.

Then the last member of the group, the boy, exclaimed something whilst pointing at Leah… no, at me. Half a second too late, I realised that perhaps I should not be out in the open if these bullies were attacking Leah like that, but now I’d been noticed. Eren turned his head and his eyes locked onto me, then he came walking over, even pushing his friend out the way to get to me faster. There was a smug smile again, and he said something to Leah. Right as she was about to get up, he gave her another shove with one hand and plucked me off her shoulder with the other. She stumbled back and yelled out: “Xyte! No!”

[Eren] wishes to establish a mental link with you!

[Accept] [Refuse]

The words floated before my eye for a half-second before they glitched and distorted as a second window appeared over them.

[Eren] is attempting to impose their will on you! They command you as follows: “[Accept] it.”

A feeling that was equal parts cotton candy-like bliss and an eerie sense of wrongness came over me. It was an intrusion into my mind, drawing me to stop thinking and to give myself over. It felt wrong but it hit me unprepared. While I was still staving off the effects, new words popped up before me:

[Spirit Voice] is now in effect! You are currently linked to [Eren].

“There we go. Bet you can understand me now, ya little bastard”, the boy said, holding me up to his face. He held me by the top of my shell, so all my legs dangled freely in the air, out of reach from anything I could grab on to. “Fuck, you’re even uglier up close. Where’d you find this bugger, freak? Among your plushies, blendin’ right in? Ha ha!”

Leah was back on her feet now, tears in the corners of her eyes. “Eren, let him go! You’re…”

“Ah-ah-ah”, Eren said, tightening his grip on my shell a bit. I was a tad smaller than his fist, so he was able to keep a pretty good grip on me. “No getting closer, freak. One more step and I’ll crush your little friend.”

The girl’s desperate eyes met with mine for a moment. “Xyte, don’t let him get you! Resist him!”

“The fuck? That ugly thing has a name too? Don’t tell me you actually [Named] this thing! Hah, though it’d be just like you, finding yourself a little freakish friend cause you have no one else.” He grinned. “Maybe I’ll tame you too. What d’you think, Silv? We could sneak it in teach’s bed, make her do a little scream and dance when she finds it.”

As he spoke to his crony, his other hand came to touch my head with a finger, and laughed when I tried to bite it. Not a very successful attempt given that I had no neck with which to turn my head. “Feisty little bastard, aren’t you? That’ll be easily fixed.”

Again, the weird feeling of bliss and wrongness washed over me, this time stronger, but I was prepared for it. The words flickered before my eyes:

[Eren] is attempting to impose their will on you! They command you as follows: “Don’t resist me. [Accept].”

[Tame Beast] is now in effect! Current progress towards taming: 2%. Do you wish to allow a [Tame Beast] bond to be established?

[Accept] [Refuse]

The counter ticked up to four, then six percent before I was able to force the influence back. More text appeared.

You have successfully resisted the override of your will!

Current progress towards taming: 8%. Do you wish to allow a [Tame Beast] bond to be established?

[Accept] [Refuse]

The progress counter was steadily ticking up, but I didn't hit the button yet. I did my best to not let the unease overcome me - I was pretty sure I didn't want it to hit 100%, but if I panicked and acted too early, my one chance of making it out would be ruined.

“Pfh, that’s better”, Eren said, misreading my lack of movements as a surrender. “You’ll let me pet you now, won’t you?”

I stayed quiet, responding neither with words nor with movement. This made him snigger. “That’s better… you’re going to be mine real soon. Although, maybe I should stick you down the little freak’s collar before you’re tamed all the way, ha ha! The hell are you anyway… some kind of beetle? Let me get a closer look at you…”

I could just have ‘pressed’ the button with a thought, as I usually did when I controlled the System’s windows and dialogues. Here, I opted to use my claw, slamming through the [Refuse] button in front of me and stabbing it forward. In his confidence, Eren had brought me close to his face to see me up close, and now that came back to bite him in the ass. Or sting him in the nose, rather. Because that’s exactly what I did.

The boy’s laugh got stuck in his throat as I stabbed my arm up his nostril. I was too small to do any meaningful damage on the surface; I might’ve broken the skin but it would’ve been like a needle prick. But going up his nose, I hit him where the membrane was thinner and the nerves tighter packed, stabbing as deep as I could and withdrawing my claw right as he let go of me, screaming out with pain. There was blood on my claw: as I hoped, I’d hit a vessel and given him a good nosebleed, which he now struggled to keep in by covering his face. He was turning a deep shade of red, as I noticed much to my satisfaction while I got up from the ground. Barely noticed the fall… being tiny had its perks!

“That was a warning, you little asshole”, I said through the [Spirit Voice], allowing Leah to listen in as well. “Next time you try a stunt like this I’ll gouge out your eye.”

“Why you little…!” Eren exclaimed and raised a foot to crush me, but froze in place when he heard a deep growl behind him. Nem had stood up and growled, baring her teeth at them, now without hesitation. The colour faded from the boy’s face and he raised a hand as if to command her, before exclaiming: “The- what the fuck! Why’s my taming progress gone!”

Leah scooped me up from the ground and laughed. “That’s what you get! Nem is my friend, and she’s never going to let you force your will on her!”

“Shut up, you freak, or I’ll…” Eren began, but another growl and a threatening step forward from Nem silenced him. Still holding his nose with one hand, blood dripping between his fingers, he pointed at Leah and the wolf and said: “This isn’t over! You better watch your back!”

“Small man, big words. How about you fuck off back to whatever hole you crawled out of”, I told him, then severed the connection myself. It was surprisingly easy, and Eren’s shocked face before he yelled something that was probably a curse - I couldn’t understand him anymore - was delicious to me. Then he turned on his heel and stomped off, with his two cronies in tow.

“You okay, Leah?” I asked, now with a softer tone. “Those bullies pushed you around, but they didn’t hurt you worse, did they?”

“No, I’m good”, Leah said, though her cheeks were still flushed and there were tears in the corners of her eyes. I sat on her palm, she looked at me, eyes wide and practically glowing. “That… was awesome, Xyte! I thought you were.. That Eren was gonna… and you…”

“I did what I could”, I replied, cutting off the risky questions before Leah could think of asking them. “What was that about taming progress on Nem?”

Leah looked at the big wolf, who had come closer and nudged Leah’s arm. The girl reached out, but before she could pet Nem, the wolf carefully ‘bit’ Leah’s sleeve and tugged her over. Only once she had laid back down where her puppies were did she let go of Leah. There she settled down and let the girl pet her, even closing her eyes and leaning into it.

“…Eren is training to become a [Beastmaster]”, Leah explained. “They tame willing animals and form a bond with them, over time. Although, some of them believe in… a different kind of taming. They force their will onto the animal they want to tame, overriding its free will until there’s nothing left but obedience.”

I was glad that she spoke in the other language, or this explanation would’ve been a lot harder to understand. “He tried that on me”, I said. “It was a very weird feeling… I'm just glad I was able to push it back.”

“I wasn’t even sure you could… uhm. I mean, because you’re so much smaller and weaker than him, I mean. I thought he’d have you in a second.”

“Yeah, I… guess I just got lucky.” I couldn’t very well tell her that I was in fact a human occupying an insect’s body. Still, the rate at which Eren’s attempt to tame me had progressed was alarmingly fast. It reminded me just how small and weak I was in the grand scheme of things. If I’d been distracted or set on by multiple attacks I might not have been able to resist the will override… and who knew what being ‘tamed’ would do to me.

As I watched Nem laying back down to feed the whining, stumbling puppies again, and how Leah sat down next to her head and continued to pet the wolf mother, I realised that I would probably have died there, had Nem not helped. Even something as simple as a human kid, or whatever Eren was, could have trampled me underfoot like… well, like a bug. It didn’t take a creature of Rocky’s magnitude to grind me into paste - as it stood right now, even a toddler was a mortal danger to me, and no amount of human intellect or information I could barter would save me from a boy with a vendetta.

It felt sarcastic to say I had made a powerful enemy today - not that I had much choice, and I wouldn’t have acted differently if I wasn’t fucking angry in the moment - but most things in this world were “powerful” compared to me right now. My one saving grace, my allies in the form of Ava and Leah, were not someone I could rely on, as had just been demonstrated. Ava could not always be there and Leah was still young. They would not be able to defend me from all the dangers out there.

I needed to get stronger.