^^ Treant ^^

— Alice —

The concept of Classes was a curious one. Monsters and humans and elves and dwarves and gnomes were all, supposedly, capable of accessing that system, and it was like a guide to their evolution. For dragon's, choosing between Necromancer or Mage was like choosing between being a Lich Dragon one day or a Draconic Magi; it was a very serious choice, but they generally knew what they wanted beforehand, and were more likely to receive that choice than humans were.

Classes could also evolve, through the acquiring of more skill sets, which was an intriguing development, but there was no system for humans to find out their possible choices, making us effectively waving our hand around in the dark and hoping we grabbed a wall. There was no temple where you could check your stats and such, unfortunately. Consequences of a real world instead of a Game, I supposed.

However, it was made clear that I could influence the choices with my actions and intentions; evidenced by Lena receiving the Rare Paladin Class, and Buri receiving the Rare War-Cleric Class, both of them qualifying for a Knights Academy of sorts that was outside the forest, in the kingdom that apparently owned the forest, but had no real say in what happened here.

I'd hoped that would mean that we would get to go see the Capital, where the Academy was, but instead they were actually retrieved by a pair of Mages, who utilized an incredibly powerful spell to simply appear in the center of the city, and then take Lena and Buri with them. It all took maybe ten minutes, and then they were gone.

While my parents were holding back proud tears, I made a detailed drawing of the scorch marks that were left behind, before it was swept away, and then returned to my studies.

The influencing of the Class Selection was as simple as learning new skills, so I took the time to cultivate most skills I possessed, and especially the Magical, Mathematical, and Chemical Ones, as I was aware of their plethoric uses in any society, much less one such as this.

I wrote full manuscripts on my theories and methods of micro-chemical magic, which I'd already taught to Buri and Lena, and nearly had them published into the Magical Society, but held back; there was something of a competitive market for magical knowledge, and I knew I'd need a bit more information about said society before I went and began changing things up.

More than that, I needed to get a little stronger than I was; Power was Respect, whether you were in a world of magic and warriors, or one of CEO's and Investors. Here, the warriors who used their spirits to fight, -despite their classes being something non-combat-related, such as Hunter or Farmer,- were given credence and precedence in most matters, while those whose spirits had no combat abilities at all were largely disregarded, but not to the point of blatant disrespect.

As such, I made my way into the woods around Ganda's house, and wandered past the electrified lines in the dirt.

The forest beyond the path was thick, almost jungle-like, if not for its decidedly deciduous and coniferous trees. Large vines hung between trees, camouflaged snakes hung loops down in an attempt to snag and snare unwitting animals and constrict or envenom them, gaining themselves a meal with the least amount of effort.

The further I walked, however, the more gnarled and savage the trees became, and the fewer glades and meadows I found. The snakes and even the Prey got bigger, and then I began noticing the homes of the Predators. It was daytime, so most of them were asleep, but I did see several tigers, relaxing in water and beating the pressing heat of the summer day. There was a good amount of shade, obviously, but the claustrophobic closeness of all the trees and plants made the air hotter than it had any right to be.

Then one of the trees moved. And another. And another. Soon the entire 'clearing' I was in was moving, and the dirt was writhing with vines and roots, all trying to grab me, but I was already halfway out of the glade. Just before I made my exit, a tree trunk in the shape of a Fist backhanded me across my entire chest, and I felt several ribs crack almost instantly, as I was launched back into the middle of the glade, into the mass of roots and vines.

The creature that attacked me revealed itself now, walking towards me was a tree with a savage, scary-looking skull-shaped head, large tusk/horns curling on either side of the face as it snarled at me. The vines tried to rip into my skin, growing little thorns and barbs, but my skin was thankfully too thick, due to the Dragon Scale that was imbued into my body at all times.

Still, I needed to heal my ribs, so I gripped the roots that were holding me, and began to heal myself, pulling the nutrients and water out of them and into myself almost instantly; what I didn't use was expelled as sweat, and the ent was now screaming at me, an unholy cacophony that deafened me quickly, something I was honestly thankful for.

The roots dissolved, and the writhing stopped, as the entire glade began to turn grey, then shrivel and die. The Ent, whose roots were now gone, charged me head-on while bellowing in rage, apparently intent on taking me with it.

Instead of meeting his charge, I rolled between his legs and grabbed on, leeching away his strength and feeding it to my Scale, like a lake with a new tributary. The leg crumbled, turning to dust, and he slammed to the ground, trying to stand up in almost a comical fashion. Instead, I walked up his back and touched his head, destroying that, next.

The entire body quaked softly, before I turned it all into dust, and fed it all to the Scale, waiting for the Spirit to arise.

After a few minutes of painful silence, (I'd healed my ears,) I noticed a small glowing patch in the dust, so I dug it out, and picked up a pulsing wooden heart. "Ah, I see... Well, you're mine, now!" I smiled and turned it to dust, letting the massive influx of energy flow right into the scale.

The design of the scale slowly changed, until it seemed to be made of silver bark, with a few roots clinging to the edge, but again, I didn't receive the spirit of the Ent.

"What am I missing?!? Why can't I get one of these spirits until this stupid Gifting Ceremony?!? There's got to be something off about this... I refuse to believe it's my error..." I growled, and kicked some of the dust.

The roots that were left, all of them thin and weak, began to turn green again, encircling my boots slowly. At first I worried they were remnants of the Treant, or some of his Relatives, but then they moved away, according to my thoughts. It was a slow movement, but I grinned slowly. "Okay... worth the broken ribs, maybe? let's see what else I can hunt down today..."

—

I collected a variety of spirits, over the next few months of hunting. Summer was when all the biggest and best beasts were out and about, and so I collected a great amount of furs, though there was no meat on the animals I killed; their blood and flesh and bones all turned to dust, feeding the Scale and slowly changing it. The bark-like design had given way to a sort of wooden fur over a metallic scale, and it had populated until I had four scales, fitted into a diamond pattern, showing that it would eventually return to its full draconic form, though most likely greatly changed for the experience.

Selling the tanned furs and hides through an established merchant would have been enough to earn me a reputation as a huntress, but selling them by myself was a way of developing a reputation as a proper merchant, and that was important.

8 years old or no, people were less likely to ignore you when you'd killed a dragon in front of them, I discovered, and my numerous businesses, (healing, selling pelts, alchemy, defense,) were in no way detrimental to that image of a proper and multifaceted merchant.

Done hunting for the day, I returned and settled the five or so wolf pelts down on my bedroom floor, (it had preciously been my siblings and I in this large room,) and began scraping them clean, humming a tune.

"You know, my dear, you'd make more money selling the meat, as well? Letting the meat waste away is... well, wasteful. And winter'll be here very soon, so we'll need the meat ourselves as well." Mother leaned against the doorframe.

"There isn't any meat wasting... I turn it to dust when I kill the animals. It's a painless death, and it gives me a perfect pelt." I explained, and then paused. "Though, I imagine I could simply drain the blood out of them, and sell the meat, you are correct, Mother... thank you, I will do so, going forward."

She nodded slowly, and then walked in, sitting on the bed behind me. "Why are you so... driven? What is making you work so hard to be stronger and to make money? What are you motivated by? Is it something I can help with?" She asked after a few moments.

I paused, and looked at her. "Why not?" I asked, and watched her confused look for a moment before going back to work.

—

It turned out that just removing the blood from a creature was incredibly delicate work, and it required a full understanding of the creature's anatomy; with Ganda's help, I learned the human anatomy first, as it would be the most useful, I imagined.

I understood, of course that sucking the blood from humans would likely end in my transformation into a vampire at some point, so I made a point to begin researching alchemical ways to remove a vampire's vulnerability to sunlight, so as to remove my future self's main weakness.

A virtual plague of methods became available to me throughout books on the subject, but I knew that the reason for that was likely to kill or weed out vampires who weren't known by the various forms of government or religion, though religion played a very, very small part of life in the city of Grand Pillar.

Supposedly, vampires who were pure of heart (or simply not evil,) could walk in the sun just fine, as it wasn't about the sunlight, really, but the radiant holy energy that was contained within each ray of sunlight or religious symbol; hence the myth of crosses harming vampires. Vampires who did not qualify as 'Evil' were called 'Noble Vampires', and considered Neutral Entities, -neither evil or good.

I wasn't sure how much of that was true, and as such, I needed a vampire to test all the theories on. Acquiring a vampire though legal means would no doubt be difficult, but creating one... that might prove useful. As such, I contacted the council, and requested a meeting.

Surprisingly, I was allowed into the meeting chamber almost immediately, and now I stood before the Council; a mismatched group of old merchants from the various important and rich families in the city. Ganda, I'd learned, was an honorary member, but rarely showed up, though she was somehow there today.

'Suspicious...' I frowned, thinking of things that could be wrong. "Well, I never thought I'd be allowed entrance so quickly? Could it be you've business with me as much as I do you, O' High Council of Merchant Lords?" I asked archly, and sat primly in the chair that was hastily provided me.

The current speaker, an old woman with dark brown skin and long white hair pulled back into a fuzzy bun, chuckled softly. "Mm... yes, actually, but let's hear your new business first?"

"Ah, that... I'm currently working on the cure to Lycanthropy and Vampirism, and as such I wish to have use of the various bandits that are in our prison awaiting execution. I plan on turning them into vampires and then curing them, and those attempts will likely end with their grisly, painful deaths, so their death sentences will be carried out, and also some notable good will come from their last days, as the scientific and alchemical information I will record could very well cure the entire world of Vampirism, or perhaps simply create a less-dangerous form that enjoys the benefits of eternal youth without the added detriment of bursting into flames upon contact with the sun. All in all, my request is simple; give me access to and permission to experiment on the Death Row Prisoners, for science." I crossed my legs carefully, relaxing into the chair and keeping my eyes trained on her gaze like a hawk watched a particularly juicy mouse.

The council hummed, and began conversing, casually discussing the pros and cons of allowing and disallowing the request; there weren't many cons at all to allowing it, as the only applicable bad circumstance included the created vampires escaping the prison, but that would require them to escape, and the council was quite proud of how inescapable their prison was.

The cons of pissing me off by denying me the request were of a longer list; chief amongst these reasons was a loss of patronage, as I'd take my business elsewhere, and the Ballistae would be confiscated and returned to me via the portion of my contract that stated that if at any time I or my family was ever removed from the city or imprisoned or in any way halted from continuing our business, then any and all of what is still considered my property would be returned to my family, until such a time as the grievance was solved and the matriarch or patriarch of that time decided honor was appeased and a lesson had been learned by the city.

After a while, they had talked out every con and pro until it was a unanimous vote, with the stipulation that I only experiment on the violent criminals and death row criminals.

"Good, I'll start immediately... now what was it you and Ganda wanted from me originally?" I asked, looking at my teacher.

She nodded. "Your road to the other cities? It's been approved, by each of the Three Cities. It's official, so long as you assist me in the creation of it, and I get paid normal rates to maintain it; you have to pay the first five years in advance, however, not the Councils, according to their contract, and half of the tax for it will go to your house from now until your house is gone, as you designed, suggested, and even built it. Should we die in the process of its creation, the five-years fee will go to the council, of course. Greedy little shits." She snorted at them, and they laughed softly, entirely unconcerned and not offended with the very accurate epithet.

"Five years in advance, huh? At 25 gold a year, three times?" I asked, doing a quick calculation.

"Of course, the Council will be happy to provide you with a loan... the interest rate of which will be quite high, given the dangerously uncertain return-" the speaker smiled dangerously.

I snorted at her disgusting display of greed, irritated. "For such a paltry sum? Wipe that smirk off your face, it makes you look like a toad! Regardless, a total of 375 gold? Easily done. Come with me, and we'll iron out the details and then get ready to leave." I waved a hand at them, dismissing them casually while they raised their eyebrows at me.

Ganda chuckled and led me out, nodding. "Yes, I imagine we've got a few things to talk about, hmm?"

"A few, yes." I led her to the bank that was connected to the Council building, and instantly withdrew about half of my current savings, handing the sack to her as she stared at me in confusion. "Don't just stand there and gawk at me like an idiot, we've work to do!" I snapped, making her jump and frown at me, depositing the money into her own account.

"Hmph... rude apprentice..." she muttered as the Bank Employee who oversaw the transfer tried not to giggle at the exchange.

"Yes, yes, rudeness and respect for elders, all that, now let's move on to important business, yes? Do you have a map of the entire forest? Also, do you have a way to dig tunnels under the ground with magic?" I asked, moving on.

She caught up as I walked towards the main portion of the City Hall, where sometimes you could find jobs and requests from people outside the forest or within the city, though it was rare. With my new road, it would be much less rare soon, which was a very good thing.

Those requests bolstered the economy of the city very well, considering it was essentially free money; people paid a set amount to have something done, and a portion of that prize money went to the city which handled the request, though they didn't have to do anything except do the paperwork, a paltry amount of work for 10% of the ofttimes blasphemous amounts of prize money that were paid for the requests.

"I have a basic map of the woods, sure, but tunnels? I suppose I could make something, but it wouldn't be very sturdy..." she hummed, tapping her cheek as she thought deeply about the issue.

"Mm... I might have something a bit more useful than that, though I'll need some assistance, methinks..." I approached the counter, and cleared my throat at the person sleeping behind it.

He snapped awake, flailing for a moment, and rubbed his face. "Huh? Wazzat?"

"I need a proper map of the entire forest." I set a heavy bag of silver coins from my pocket into the counter. "And I need it yesterday."