Chương 30: Chapter Thirty: Great Trees

"Hello?" Hollis asked after a few moments of debating whether to respond. The unassuming sapling he had just grown made no attempt to explain the voice on the back of his neck. Quickly, he started probing the inspector for any information it had on great trees, and specifically the Great Bee Gum Tree. [Bushcraft lvl. 5] You see a sour gum sapling. When these trees mature, they are prone to suffer from a heart rot fungus which will hollow out their innards, leaving space for bees to create hives.

Explorers are cautioned to test any honey they find, as it will take on the properties of the flower whose pollen was used to make it. [Cultivation lvl. 4] You see a sour gum sapling, but this is not a new tree. It is a clone of an original, grown from a cutting. [Folklore lvl. 4] You see a sour gum sapling. Your nan would tell you to watch your mouth around young scrubs popping up out of nowhere like this. They were the eyes and ears of the great trees of Periapt.

A tree could take hundreds of years to become great if left alone from human meddling. The first thing they all do is find a way to see beyond their limits, to explore the world. These little trees ain't just trees, she would say. They're the footsteps of giants spreading over the world. Hollis stared down at the little sapling. He had considered, when he grabbed the root hanging down from the ceiling of the underground facility, that it might be attached to a great tree up above.

He knew of the concept, but not much about it. He certainly hadn't realized that trees like that were conscious at the time, or he might have been more careful breaking off a piece of it. The question was, how exactly was he supposed to speak to a plant? And if he could speak to it, should he want to?

"Hello," he said again, but this time really slowly, because he figured plants must exist at a more relaxed wavelength than humans. Still, nothing happened. Which skill would be used to communicate with a non-human intelligence? Would it be Cultivation, because this was a plant? Or would it be Diplomacy, which governed not only peacemaking but also translating whatever language the people of Periapt spoke into English, supposedly.

It also allegedly powered mind control and similar abilities, but that was beyond his experience. All he could do was stop and stare. And, of course, answer the question. What had the tree asked?

"Were you the one I felt down there," or something similar.

"That was me," Hollis said.

"Down underground." He waited a few moments, risking beasts from the west and the fog from the east just to get some response from this being. The voice returned after a few moments, and while he understood its meaning intuitively, it was the inspector that put it into words.

"I was worried that you had been trapped," the Great Bee Gum Tree said.

"I feel skittering from wretched things down below. I did not expect that I should feel a greater form of life from that place ever again."

"Well, I made it out," Hollis said. He had plenty of questions to ask. Willo mostly wanted to show the little plant his glowing tail.

"Are you here with me, or are you up above in the groves near the cliffs?" He wanted to confirm whether he was talking to the sapling with the old tree's mind, or if the sapling was just transferring the thoughts of the real tree. He had begun this exercise in the hopes of crafting his very own walking stick, imagining all the possible abilities he might be able to graft onto it in time, but the idea that he might have stumbled onto a connection to something beyond his understanding captivated him.

"I am here," the bee gum said, "in the garden where I have always been, tending to my bees, as I always have." Hollis felt he could find the great tree easily, then, assuming that the gardens the tree meant were the remains of the large estates not too far east of the canyon, like the one where the square well had existed that was actually a water elevator once.

"Do you want me to come see you?" Hollis asked. He knew very little about great trees, but he knew at the very least that the Great Firewood Tree could grant the ability to see the future, even if you couldn't understand it. He had to wonder what powers the Great Bee Gum might offer.

"I do love visitors, I believe," the voice said.

"I cannot be sure, because I have only had one guest in a very long time. Yes, I am almost certain I like visitors. My bees will be upset, but I can calm them. Do you fear being stung?"

"It depends on how many times. One sting isn't so bad, but a hundred could be pretty dangerous," Hollis said. He was mostly joking out of habit. He didn't know what tone to take with an ancient tree communicating with him through forces he didn't understand.

"I expect they will sting you fewer than a hundred times," the tree responded.

"Surely less than that. Yes. They are not aggressive creatures. They care for the flowers and plants in my garden, and they hardly ever attack the squirrels or birds under my protection." Hollis was surprised that a tree could be so articulate, but that might be the translation at work, stretching simple ideas into complete thoughts.

"I'll try to find you tomorrow," Hollis said, as he thought about what the tree had said. If the bee gum had small animals under his protection, that either meant that the fog did not reach him, which was likely if he was in the neighborhood Hollis expected him to be, or that he had some ability that allowed him to sustain a small population of woodland creatures against formidable threats.

"Could you tell me, where is the farmer boy?" the tree asked.

"He hasn't returned for years. He used to visit me every day, but one day he stopped. I have worried, but as high as I grow my limbs, I am unable to sense him in the distance."

"I don't know about that," Hollis said, "but the town and all the homesteads nearby were evacuated years ago. I assume that's why he left. Do you know his name?"

"Yes," the Great Bee Gum said.

"His name is Farmer Boy. I do hope he is well." Perhaps farmer boy was a translation error. Maybe whatever innate language the tree spoke and thought in didn't accommodate the sounds that make up names like they did the sounds that make up meaning. After a few moments of choosing his words, Hollis said, "I'll look into it, but I only got to Periapt recently. I'm not the person to ask for information like that." The tree didn't respond, even after further prodding. Perhaps it had gone to sleep with nightfall.

During the conversation, Willo had been crawling all over the sapling, perhaps looking for a source of the voice, or maybe that was simply a playful greeting for a bug. Hollis quickly made his way back to the hospice, where they could close the doors and spend the night safely. Sleep would not come to him for quite a while as he thought about the implications of having found a great tree. In truth, he didn't know if this would be a boon or a detour, but he was excited to find out.

~-~ Hollis was back out walking the fields to the east of the canyon as soon as the sun was up high enough that he and the others were confident it was safe for the excursion. Otis and Tawny had come, along with Royle. The experiments they had set up were no more than half a mile to the east. Otis had brought his blunderbuss and dogs just in case, but they didn't expect much danger. If they saw the fog, they could simply run. But it was best to be cautious.

They had shockingly little information about the nature of the calamity, so they had to assume that anything was possible. It didn't take them long to find the first rig. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

"Well, this was to be expected," Tawny said as they arrived at the experiment lit by natural flame. The torches were out, and the meat was gone, leaving only the slightest remains on the skewer.

"It looks like it's been nibbled," Hollis said, noting the small grooves from the teeth of whatever had eaten it.

"Don't suppose if you were the one being nibbled you would call that any less dangerous," she said.

"I suppose I wouldn't," he said. That site offered very little other information. They continued on to the other side of a cluster of trees, to a flat field where they could still see the faint glow of campfire moss coming from the setup of torches. It was in a state of disrepair, to say the least.

"This is a bit more than nibbling," Tawny said as they examined what remained of their little rig. The torches were still lit, but they were strewn about, having been haphazardly tossed from their holders. The skewer had been bent, and every trace of meat from it was gone. The entire rig was at least twenty feet from where it had been the night before.

"Well, at least we know we found the right bait," Royle said after they described the situation to him.

"And now we've proven once again that the fog is one nasty customer. What was the point of all this again?"

"One step at a time," Hollis said.

"We don't expect to learn all the world's secrets from one experiment." Needless to say, he was a bit disappointed. It would have been great news if they had returned to find a huge hunk of fish meat still attached to the skewer and five campfire moss torches neatly in the place where he had left them. This result was a bit confusing. The rig with the true fire was practically untouched. Whatever had eaten from it had done so gingerly. But the campfire moss rig had been torn apart.

Hollis stared at it, looking for any marks from a claw or tooth, but couldn't find anything that satisfied him as being unique and identifiable.

"So what do we make of this?" Tawny asked.

"What's the next step? Spread the torches out more, hope they can cover a wider area? Looks to me like even if this thing did keep the fog away, something could still reach out and grab it." She was right. That was exactly what had happened, Hollis realized as he examined the scene. That would explain the carnage to the rig. If whatever was inside the fog couldn't easily get to it, it had to drag it over the ground to a place where it could devour the meat.

He was certain that the campfire moss had kept the fog at bay, at least for a while. There was less dew on the ground in the entire area, both in the initial place where the campfire moss torches had been and where they had laid to rest after being thrown from their rig. Not no dew on the ground, but far less. In fact…

"Wait a second," he said.

"Come look at this from my direction. Your back to the east and stare west. Get low to the ground." Hollis couldn't help but crack a smile as he stared at the grass in the field. Otis moaned something like "look at that," showing the first real interest he had in the project.

"Now that's a funny thing to see," Tawny agreed as she crouched down beside him.

"Is somebody going to explain what you're looking at?" Royle asked. They were all too intrigued at the moment. They needed to find the words to describe what they were seeing. The fog moved west from the coast. That much they already knew. They also knew it was quite a powerful surge coming off the ocean, because the elevation from the east coast to the canyon rose about a hundred and fifty feet, so the fog was constantly pushing uphill as it spread westward. That was easy enough to visualize.

In fact, Hollis had seen it climbing up the streets of Beckett's Sound. But if that was what was happening, it was awfully hard to explain what they were seeing. Where the fog traveled, it left behind a very thick morning dew. The grass was practically dripping, as were the trees and any other plant life. This was the entire reason that the farmers had initially praised the arrival of the fog. It watered their crops. As they stared westward from their rigging, they noticed a very strange and undeniable pattern.

"It's like the fog got to the campfire moss and then it just split, half going left and half going right," Hollis said, so that Royle could understand what they were seeing. While the dew on the ground did form gradients, it was easy to see where the fog had simply moved in a straight line, forming a V shape from the point where the campfire moss had been. It almost looked like a large rock dividing the flow of a river, or perhaps casting a shadow over the field. The fog didn't act like a liquid.

It didn't fill in the field behind the campfire moss. No, it just hit the area with the bioluminescent light and picked a new direction to travel, moving almost straight in that direction, leaving a large triangle of grassland and even a small section of trees with noticeably less dew on them.

"That sure is a funny way for fog to act," Tawny said, still perplexed. When they had gone to the explorers' camp, it was easy to understand why the entire place would be covered in fog, because that place was a giant valley. The fog would move through there just like a river would. But in this place, with a slightly uphill gradient, the fog had split and seemingly hadn't filled the area behind the campfire moss.

"You know, I'm starting to think that this fog may not be natural," Royle said.

"It sounds like we need to design another experiment," Hollis said.

"Sounds like we need a lot more of this moss," Tawny agreed. ~-~ They could only stare at the strange pattern in the dew for so long until the sun dried it up. While Otis and Tawny headed back to the hospice, Hollis asked Royle if he would accompany him on his quest to look at a big tree.

"I like big trees," the horseman said.

"Plus it's easy exploring when you don't have to walk anywhere you go." He patted Jaq as he said it. Hollis told him everything that had happened since he finally managed to use Spirit to give life to the sour gum root. There were other people he would like to talk to about it. Tawny and Mae would likely know useful information. Heck, even Otis might know something. But the moment had not arrived. He wanted to greet the Great Bee Gum Tree himself rather than bring a crowd.

He didn't know the etiquette for such an event.

"You know, I met a great tree once," Royle said.

"That's how I got my Arc Shot ability."

"Is that how?" Hollis asked. He had wondered about it, because humans weren't supposed to have abilities like that. Royle could throw any object in an arc and, once it started to fall, cause it to accelerate with great momentum and seemingly increased mass, causing powerful impacts. But the problem with that was that humans didn't have the ability to control gravity, so how exactly would you graft that ability onto one? It was a mystery Hollis figured would come out eventually. Luckily, Royle was feeling talkative.

"I was headed west on my first real trip away from Beckett's Sound. This was when I could still see well enough to travel and be useful. Well, on the way out to Burnt Cabin there's a stretch of road that wraps around an orchard. The biggest orchard you've ever seen. I swear it went on for miles and miles, with these great big trees that had these whip-like branches they could move about like arms. But here's the thing, the trees weren't the only interesting part.

See, this had been some sort of commercial farming plot, and these were something called Plumbomb trees. You ever heard of those?"

"I haven't," Hollis said. [Naturalism lvl. 6] You hear tale of the Plumbomb tree, whose fruit is said to taste sweeter than raw sugar and can give any wretch the will to live. With numerous healing properties, the fruit and its seeds are highly valuable yet quite dangerous to retrieve, as the tree uses them as ammunition.

"I expect that the inspector just told you about them," he said. Hollis nodded.

"All right, well, what the inspector doesn't tell you is that these things are clearly smart. They aren't just wiggling around tossing their fruit everywhere. No, they have an intelligence to them, almost human-like. The way they move, the way they pick things up, how they turn to look at you even though they don't have eyes. It's the craziest thing you ever saw. But that's not the part that caught my attention.

We had to stop the caravan there because the trees had bombed out the trail, and we had to repair it to get the wagons across. You see, back when the farmers were growing these trees, they couldn't do it safely without getting bombed to death by those fruits that the trees could fling. Right? So what they did was build these huge, I mean massive, metal cages and lines that ran in a grid, with chains hanging off them. Chains attached to the tree limbs, trying to keep them from moving.

The entire orchard was filled with prisoners unable to throw their fruit. Now there's a lot of rust, but the chains still hold strong in most places, and the entire forest of trees left behind when the people evacuated are still there in that orchard, still chained up.

"Of course they've grown since then, and they have new limbs that they can use to throw their fruit, but it's a sad thing to see. Well, anyway, while we were stuck on the road trying to repair it so we could get the wagons across, I hear this voice calling to me. It's not really a voice, but I can still hear it in the wind.

And I end up walking into that orchard with all these angry trees looking at me, threatening to throw their fruit, and if they did, I would basically be a puddle of goo, and I walked all the way to the biggest tree in the entire orchard, the Great Plumbomb Tree. And you know what he wanted?"

"What's that?" Hollis asked.

"He wanted to barter. He doesn't even need an eidolon, because he's so smart and he can talk to me."

"All on his own?" Hollis asked. He knew that dragons and higher creatures like that could barter on their own. Trees were something else.

"Well, great trees can too," Royle said.

"And he says that he'll give me the Arc Shot. Anything I throw, I can turn into a dive-bombing projectile. And all he wants from me is one thing." He paused his story like he wanted Hollis to guess.

"What did it want?" Hollis asked.

"Bipedalism," Royle said with a laugh.

"Bipedalism," Hollis repeated.

"You're telling me that the tree wanted to trade you so that it could walk on two legs?" He nodded.

"The trees had been trading for that forever, slowly evolving so that they could walk. Of course it takes more than one trade for something like that to slowly change the species. He said he needed Blood and Breath, so I gave him that, and he gave me Mind. But of course the Arc Shot isn't compatible with a human, because we don't have the ability to control gravity or mass. So what does he do? He reaches over, gives me one of his fruits, and says I have to eat the whole thing, including the seed. So I gobble it up.

Most delicious thing I've ever eaten." Hollis knew that the animals and plants of Periapt, through bartering, could slowly change form and gain new powers. But the concept of a bunch of trees wanting bipedalism was still fascinating.

"So did they manage to walk away after you were done?" Hollis asked.

"No," he said.

"He probably needs to make a few more deals. But it's pretty crazy. If we ever make it out west, you should see these things. They're scary for trees, but they're amazing. They're really amazing." He was smiling from ear to ear as he picked a small rock from his pocket and threw it into the distance before activating his power and letting it cascade down toward the ground at an accelerated speed, creating a hole in the ground the size of a melon. The Great Plumbomb Tree. The Great Bee Gum Tree.

The Great Firewood Tree. These trees might just end up playing a bigger role for Hollis than he knew.