“So, how was the walk yesterday? See anything of interest?”

  Silvan glanced at Elowen. After their short but intense argument, followed by eliminating the undead, they spent the remainder of the day deliberating on the best way to convince Willow to come with them. The biggest hurdle they could think of at the moment was that Willow was attached to high-lord Long-Feather’s grandson, Taryn, and the adventuring group he was with.

  The typical rules of the Verdant Grove included keeping out any and all foreign entities; this included anyone who was not an elf. The elves were responsible for keeping the grove safe, and they’ve done this by making the forest in its entirety extremely segregationist, refusing entry to anyone without elven blood in them.

  The dwarves responded by doing something extremely similar and locking themselves deep underground. It was for that reason that very few dwarves are seen, with the exception of their fortress city on top of the Lone Mountains. There, they created a place to trade with nearby neighbors, except the city is too high to make the trip worthwhile. Not many elves bother to make that trip, with the exception of Silvan and Elowen, given their diplomatic jobs.

  The humans and the beast kin were then left alone for a few centuries, which led to them creating bonds tighter than blood. There are very few humans who don’t have at least some beast blood in them, and the reverse was true as well. However, this has led to an extreme dilution of beast kin traits, resulting in decreased prominence of phenotypes and decreased level gains. But it did allow for the more animalistic species to thrive, since before then they were a declining race.

  “The history lesson is nice and all, but where is this coming from? It feels very out of the blue.”

  Silvan’s eyes shot open, and she raised her head again. She had started to doze off while her mind went on a tangent. She raised her hood and gave her response, embarrassed that she had kept the Great Tree waiting.

  “The walk was nice. We eliminated an undead pile and had ourselves a nice romantic evening.”

  Her mind was still tired from getting very little sleep the night before. Willow had spent most of the night creating large amounts of mana water again, which kept her up. She would probably fall asleep again if she kept sitting here in the common room, so she opted to get up and stretch, letting Elowen deal with the conversation. She was never much of a talker, anyway.

  “Would you like a sparring partner?” Willow asked her.

  Silvan was reluctant to fight a Great Tree, but if he was going to use one of his wooden puppets, then it should be fine. It would be even better if he were to use one of the dirt puppets he used as ‘guards’ for the fort.

  “I would love one,” she replied. She gave him a beaming smile and tried to push as much positive energy towards the link she felt with him as she could. She still needed practice to get as good at it as Willow was, but she though she was getting better.

  Out of the ground rose the earthen opponent she was hoping for. As she put herself in a ready position to begin the match, he requested she follow him. He led her through a hall, and they entered one of the bedrooms.

  At least, it used to be a bedroom.

  Willow had taken down a couple of walls to create a more open space for the two to perform their dance. The area she was standing in was probably around 15 feet by 15 feet. As she looked around, she saw the ceiling had been taken down, and at the top sat her love.

  Elowen was sitting at the top of the wall closest to where she came from, with his feet dangling down. Silvan had to assume Willow used some Earth Magic to move him so quickly.

  ‘Right, he’s more than just a physical fighter,’ she reminded herself. ‘I need to watch the ground for any magical attacks, as well as the walls and sky. Hell, this entire fortress is within his Domain, so an attack can come from any direction. I need to be on my toes the whole fight.’

  As she was starting to circle the puppet, she noticed it start to shrink and grow and shrink and grow. Every time it shrank, the surface of the puppet smoothed out and compressed almost to a shine. When it grew again to its previous size, she saw more dirt flow up from the ground beneath it. While this was happening, Willow spoke again into her mind.

  “The rules of the fight are simple. I will only use the puppet you see before you. I will only use Earth Magic to move the puppet, and nothing else. I won’t use any other magic, I won’t use Earth Magic to ‘heal’ the puppet, and I won’t use any other physical attacks either. The match will be won when either you surrender or the puppet is destroyed. What say you?”

  “It feels like you’re taking me too lightly, Willow. Nevertheless, I’ll be sure to show you a good fight.”

  Silvan grabbed the daggers out of her bag and prepared to fight. She twirled her weapons in a display of dexterity and speed, then hurled one at the head of the dirt puppet. From the way the feet were facing, this should have been the back of the puppet’s head, but Willow could see an attack coming from any direction. The puppet’s head slid across its shoulders, moving in a way that would kill any biological entity, snapping its neck. The dagger flew across the arena and was embedded in the wall opposite her, burying itself down to the hilt.

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  She ran at the puppet and punched it with her free hand, expecting the head to explode in a cloud of dirt and debris. Instead, she was only able to make a minor crack where its temple would be, if it had a face.

  She didn’t stop there, though.

  Silvan continued pressing her attack, swinging wildly with each blow. Yet, despite her raw power, the puppet didn’t budge an inch. Willow only stood there, taking every hit she had to offer. After several seconds of getting pummeled, Silvan jumped over the puppet and ran to grab her knife.

  ‘He doesn’t even flinch. This fight might be more annoying than I thought it would be.’

  She looked at her daggers and realized they would be useless since her opponent didn’t have blood to draw. She tossed them in her bag and pulled out a pair of gauntlets. As she was putting them on, Willow decided to make his first move.

  The puppet started a very slow and deliberate advance towards Silvan. Each step he made caused a very mild tremor to resonate through the ground. The thud, thud, thud of his approach left her scrambling to hurry and equip her gear. In her rush, she ended up dropping the right one. She debated picking it up, but Willow was already upon her.

  The puppet raised its arm and swung very slowly at her; she could have dodged it 10 times over. When the arm passed by her, she swung her armored hand and made contact with the puppet’s sternum. If it were humanoid, it would have been knocked out; instead, there was only a slightly larger crack than the ones she had made before.

  Willow’s second strike came a lot faster than his first; this one was aimed at her armored hand. The attack was slow, but it came from an angle Silvan hadn’t expected, so Willow was able to land the hit. The blow was much heavier than it should have been, going so far as to dislocate one of her armored fingers.

  Silvan cried out in pain and jumped back from the interaction. She landed on the wall opposite where Willow was, clutching her hand to her stomach. She maintained a constant visual on her opponent, waiting to see if Willow would advance on her.

  Without looking, Silvan grabbed her finger and firmly pushed it back into place. It was extremely painful, only getting harder to do at higher levels, but it was enough to get her back in the fight.

  Once she was ready again, she advanced on Willow. She looked at the ground by his feet and saw her gauntlet. If she wanted to win this fight properly, then she needed to grab it and equip it before she made her next attack.

  Silvan and Willow stared each other down for a few moments before Willow made the first move. He knelt down, taking a runner stance, and Silvan mirrored his actions. If he wanted to make this a contest of more than brute strength, then she would gladly comply. Silvan waited, expecting Willow to start running at any second, but when he next moved, he came a whole lot faster than anything she expected.

  The puppet crossed the room in a flash, closing the distance between the two in less time than if Silvan could have with a running start. Silvan ducked under Willow, jumping into the gap between his legs and bouncing back up on the other side. When she stood again, she was hit in the small of her back with more force than she thought possible from a puppet like that.

  Silvan flew to the other side of the room, slamming into the reinforced walls. She landed shoulder first on the ground, out of breath and about out of steam. She heard a loud pop as she landed, and her entire right arm lit up in pain. She cried out, unable to fight anymore. She had been beaten in both speed and power by a mere doll, and there was no way she could win with only one working arm.

  She turned around and saw Willow already above her, poised to strike. She took a deep breath and called her surrender. Willow won the match, even with all the limits he put on himself.

  Willow relaxed his arm and held out a hand to help her up. She heard a soft thump as Elowen ran over to check on her. She wasn’t in that bad of a condition, but she was in a good bit of pain. Nothing she hasn’t experienced before, but still enough to hurt her pride a little.

  Silvan turned to face Willow’s puppet, but saw it start to crack apart and fall to the ground. The crumbled warrior was then absorbed into the floor, as if it had never existed.

  “Thank you for the match!” he called cheerfully in her mind. “Thanks to you, I just earned the Unarmed Combat (U) skill!”

  Silvan, still in pain, turned to the Great Tree’s main body and bowed to it. If he was able to do all that without a relevant skill, then he was definitely deserving of respect.

  “The pleasure was all mine. As well as the pain,” she half joked and half winced. Her forearm had taken most of the damage and was being held close to her chest.

  “Ahh, sorry about that! Here, eat this, and let me know if you need another.”

  A vine descended from above, holding a single berry. It was about the size of a cherry and the most vibrant red she had seen since coming to the human lands. She gladly accepted it. Before she ate the berry, though, she pulled up her status to see how much damage she had taken. She was still at 65% health, which made her rethink how badly her back was injured. She did a quick once-over of her body and realized she had a few broken toes as well. She just didn’t feel it from the pain in her arm.

  Rather than worry about it, she just popped the whole berry in her mouth and bit down. She was overwhelmed for a moment at how sweet the berry was, then a wave of warmth flooded her body. She could feel her bones pop back into place, the pain easing with each passing second. Once she swallowed, she was almost entirely back to normal. She still felt a small ache where some of the more grievous were, but she was back to 99% health, which she could not complain about.

  ‘Would he mind if I asked for a Stamina berry as well?’ she wondered. She realized she should have asked for one before starting the match, as she was still very tired from the mostly sleepless night.

  Rather than answer, Willow went ahead and brought one down to her anyway.

  “Of course, you can have a stamina berry. I should have let you rest last night; my apologies. Is there any way I can make it up to you?”

  ‘Can he hear my inner thoughts?’

  “Yes, I can. But only if I focus. I usually only read the more prominent thoughts in people’s minds when communicating like this. But when you’re as tired as you are now, the inner thoughts are as easy to read as the projected ones. I didn’t mean to offend; my apologies. And before you ask, yes, I heard some of your thoughts before, as well.”

  Silvan could feel some turmoil in the link between the two of them, indicating that Willow was probably quite upset.

  ‘Does he know of the plan to take him to the Verdant Grove anyway, despite his protest?’

  “I do now. WHAT THE HELL?!”

  “Oh. Shit.”

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