278: Elarith Vale

Being called to the front of the caravan like this felt horrible. I just wanted to enter a city without someone trying to kick me out or wanting to attack me.

Though I doubt a priest wanted to attack me, I was wondering if he heard what happened to the storm temple when I tried to visit and maybe the head priest here doesn’t want to take the risk that the tree will get destroyed like Mt Divinus.

My head was racing with crazy ideas, so much so that I didn’t even notice when I reached the front, or that Crisplet had joined me.

“Trevor, Crisplet, Clacks, meet Priest of the life temple, Lital,” Hari introduced.

Lital looked at us kindly and looked surprised at the mention of Clacks. On the other hand, Clacks just gave a quick chirp before going deeper into the nest.

“I’m sorry, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Lord Ashmoon. I was informed that you’d have a fire elemental and a cat likely following you. I didn’t expect a bird,” Lital said.

Not even a second later, he was staring at my scarf as his eyes went wide, knowing exactly what had happened there.

“That would be Lily, just know she is listening too,” I explained.

I knew I shouldn’t be so standoffish to the man; he’d done me no wrong, but in my mind, I was convinced this was going to be some annoyance.

Lital shook off the shock of seeing Lily; the guard, however, had not.

“Yes, well, I’m sorry to do this on the road like this. The head priest sent me out here, and said there would be less attention drawn to us if we had this discussion on the road and that you would appreciate that,” Lital said.

“I see,” was all I could say. I was waiting for it.

“Our head priest would like to personally invite you to the temple of life upon your arrival. He said it would be worth your time, but he added there are currently two old friends at the temple he thinks you might like to visit as well,” Lital explained.

I was caught off guard. Yes, I was being dragged into a meeting, but I was sure they were going to try and turn us around on the road out here. The fact this was an invitation was incredibly surprising.

“And my party?” I asked.

Lital had a beaming smile, “Everyone is welcome to the temple of life, and they all can join you if you’d like.”

Looking around, I saw a subtle nod from Hari.

“Uh, well thank you, that would be agreeable, though I don’t know when exactly we’ll arrive,” I said.

“No bother, please come by the temple at any time. We’ll be expecting you. I will now leave you be as I was informed you like your privacy,” Lital said, bowing to me.

Not a moment later, he had turned around on the road and started to approach two horses tied to a fence just a short walk away.

I turned to look at Hari, but he just shook his head. “Talk soon,” was all he said.

This told me everything I needed to know, and I made my way back, rejoining Jen and Liane, now with Crisplet not leaving my side.

“What happened?” Liane asked.

“Hari said not to talk about it yet,” I answered, getting a nod from Liane and Jen.

There was a pause as Hari was clearly waiting for the priest and guard to get some distance from us before we started to move, but eventually, we did.

As soon as we moved, I noticed that Milo and Hari were dropping to the back with the rest of us, leaving Gilain up the front.

I still had not seen Luis, but it was very possible he had gone ahead or was listening in to the priest and their guard for more information. I trusted, however, we would see him again soon.

I felt the air mana rush past me, causing Clacks to let out a chirp before anything was said as the invisible bubble surrounded us, and more impressively, appeared to move with us.

I made a mental note to ask about it later.

“So I’ll say right away, we shouldn’t need to panic about this at all,” Hari said.

“It’s rather odd for a priest of the temple to come meet someone on the road and ask them to attend the temple, though,” Liane countered.

“You’re correct, his language around getting a feeling you were coming has me slightly concerned, but not because I think they’ll do something stupid. I suspect they have heard outlandish rumours and want you to repeat the capital event here, or—well no, never mind that’s outlandish,” Milo said.

“You want to say the god of life might have sent them the feeling, don’t you?” I asked.

Milo had a slight grin. “Under normal circumstances, I would think that chain of thought is ridiculous. I’ve even said it to you multiple times until it was proven wrong: the gods of this world don’t interact with its inhabitants, and any records of them ever doing so are hundreds, if not thousands, of years old.”

“Trev’s not normal circumstances though,” Jen let out a snort.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“I don’t think it’s worth worrying about anyway. If you’re involving beings that far beyond us, it’s entirely out of our control anyway,” Hari said, basically shutting it down.

“He mentioned two friends there? I only know of the one who would be there,” I commented.

Milo seemed to think for just a second. “The acolyte girl, Amanda. Yes I remember.”

The only people who were unaccounted for from the orphanage was Sara, as I’d not heard or seen her since she’d got the archer class.

I relayed this information to them.

“That seems most likely; it’s very possible she joined a group and they moved to Elarith Vale as their base, though I don’t know why she’d be at the temple,” Milo said.

“Could be that healer girl from Dunhearth, the one who came to the inn. It wouldn’t be completely unheard of for healers to move between towns and cities based on demands,” Jen said.

That made a lot of sense, and in my mind, I was fairly sure it was going to be Gemma.

“What’s the plan then?” I asked curiously.

“Business as usual. We arrive, finish our job with the guild, then we’ll make sure we visit the temple sooner rather than later,” Hari said.

“We don’t need to go right away?” I asked, confused.

“It was an invitation, not a demand. I think we’ll have some time,” Milo said.

“Right then, let’s get this over with; we’re nearly there,” Hari said, already moving back to the front.

I was glad they were not concerned, but with the track record of arriving in cities, I wasn’t fully convinced.

Something I was noticing that was very different about Elarith Vale compared to the Capital, Grey Rock or Boltron, was just how many houses and people there were living outside the city itself. We were passing houses fairly regularly at this point, and there had been several small roads leading off down the fields. Even the air here felt different.

The other thing was the number of people actually out in the fields and working. For all the ones we had passed near Dunhearth or even near the capital, I had never actually seen people out in the fields working, but now there were probably hundreds of people.

The tree at this stage had completely dominated the horizon. To say it was giant would be a drastic understatement; the trunk looked to be the size of Mt Divinus, only I was fairly sure this went higher.

“Jen, am I seeing right, the city has no walls?” I asked.

I was in disbelief as the city itself, from what I could see at this distance, looked to be built into the tree and on the side of it, but there wasn’t a wall or barrier to be seen from here.

“Yes and no, there are no walls on the outer parts of the city, but it’s built like a fortress when you go into the tree itself,” Jen explained.

“So inside the tree is the city proper then?” I asked, confused.

Jen shook her head, “Not at all, the only thing inside the tree is the Temple of Life. Not even the palace can build inside; it’s said the tree rejects anything other than the temple.”

“How does a tree reject something?” I questioned.

I knew the tree was heavily magical; I could sense the mana from even here, but for the tree to defend itself or actively reject a building inside was strange.

Liane laughed, “The last place that tried was a lord’s manor, and anytime they attempted to build, the site would be covered in a thick sap, making it impossible to build there anymore.”

I felt embarrassed because my mind went straight to wondering if I could use the sap somehow in cooking. Surely a legendary tree would produce legendary sap?

“So when are we in the city then?” I asked, mostly to distract myself.

“We’re already technically in the city now. They deem anything under the canopy as within the city limits, but it’ll be about an hour before we reach the centre.”

I was distracted by Clacks pecking my finger. Clearly, a meal was overdue, so I mindlessly fed her another fish while I just observed my surroundings.

Curiously, even as we got closer to the tree, it never glowed blue with my foraging ability. I didn’t know if that was because this tree was just not edible in any way, shattering my hopes of legendary sap or a fallen branch for smoking wood, or if it was just too far away, or too large.

Lily also decided now was a good time to join again, and I felt upset that I didn’t see Huling again before we left the forest. She ran off in such a hurry that I thought she’d come back.

Lily’s appearance hadn’t gone unnoticed as heads turned in our direction as we passed, but even the few guards we had gone past so far had not said anything or moved to stop us.

Coming over the final small hill, the road led straight into the centre of the city. I could see the open market just off to the side of it, right next to the base of the tree, while buildings lined either side of it and stuck close to the tree itself.

The road, from what I could tell, led straight into the trunk, where there was a giant opening to what I assumed was the temple of life.

To my relief, there were no guards waiting, no priest ambush; there didn’t even look to be a checkpoint of any sort.

“See that large building on the right that appeared to be carved into the bark itself?” Liane said, pointing.

I noticed the one she was talking about only because it stood out from everything around it by being at least twice the size.

“That’s the guild,” she said happily.

“Magnificent,” is all I muttered.

We’d not even made it to the city buildings when the first odd sign showed up. A single leaf fell from above. It surprised me due to its size, as the dark green leaf was about the size of my head, and landed right in my lap.

Not thinking, I went to store it, and was surprised when it worked.

Would you like to store [Rare] Leaf of Life x1 for 5 mana? Yes/No

I was actually surprised this item was rare. Looking up, there must have been millions of these things, but it was while doing that, that I couldn’t help but noticed we were getting a lot of attention from people off the road.

Dozens were now looking in our direction.

It was then that a leaf hit Crisplet, and I was stunned to see it didn’t burn. I think even Crisplet was surprised by this fact as he held it and was turning it in front of him; there wasn’t even a scorch mark.

Looking down at the leaf still in my hand that I hadn’t stored yet, I couldn’t help but wonder how exactly I could use this ingredient, especially if it didn’t burn?

Could I maybe wrap something with it, infuse the properties and use it again?

There was noise around us now as more leaves fell, landing on everyone in the party before they stopped.

Not a single one hit the road, and not a single one went to the merchants or their drivers. Every single leaf landed in the lap of our party, Gilain and Luis included.

The only one who didn’t seem to get one was Clacks. That was until a tiny little leaf, that looked to be fighting the breeze, almost fluttered down and landed squarely in her nest, earning a chirp before she carried it deeper into the nest and went back to sleep on top of it.

“So, uh, I’m guessing that doesn’t happen much?” I asked, now noticing a growing crowd of people murmuring as we entered the city.

Jen just laughed, “No, no, it never happens, though we should expect that now.”