Manning

I'd spent the last couple hours watching the blond human sitting against the hill. Like with all the sapients that had traversed through my forest so far, he was emitting minute amounts of refined mana back into the air as he breathed.

Cara and I hadn't been expecting an Adventurer's Guild to make it back to the forest so quickly, they were nearly 4 weeks ahead of schedule, but we were not caught as unaware as the last time we'd had visitors. There were 4 humans and the elf from earlier who decided to traipse through my forest, and only one of them remained above ground while the other's decided to explore Cara.

I didn't mean for the one named Jacob to get mauled by a hedgehog, but when he fell into the burrow his leg startled the mother hiding down there and she lashed out.

As I lay there watching Jacob grimace in pain waiting for his friends I was set upon by a bout of debilitating fear. If I had the ability to breathe, I was sure that I would be unable to. The world was ending, and I was never going to see another day. I couldn't even think straight. Then just as fast as the fear came it dissipated and rage rushed in to fill the emotional void created.

The last thing I remembered was Ash's voice in my head, pleading with me to calm down.

* * *

I was dreaming again.

I was back in the forest but this time the child was grown. Now that I had some knowledge of humans, I could tell that he seemed to be just reaching his adulthood. The young man I was watching was around 180 cm tall, with brown hair that was slightly brighter than the soil on the forest floor that he walked through. He looked to be coming into his facial hair and had a wildish look in his eye.

I noticed that he looked distracted and so I followed the direction he was looking.

We stood on the edge of the forest, looking into a nearby town. Specifically, there was a young woman walking along the trail that lead towards his forest. She looked to be a few years younger than him, with blonde hair and blue eyes. It was hard to get a gauge on her height from this distance, doubly so because she was stooped over picking wildflowers from the edge of the road.

I could feel... something for this girl. I almost felt like it was real.

As the dream began to blur away, I couldn't help but contemplate how strange it was.

* * *

"Manning, please! Wake up, you are safe! Cara is safe! Please calm down you aren't thinking!"

"Ash! Stop yelling, what is going on?" Her frantic begging had started to bring back that peculiar fear I felt earlier, and I was not in a rush to experience it again.

"Cara's core was attacked, and because you two are linked it sent you into a frenzy as well as her. You set the birds upon the human with the injured leg and ordered the rest of your minions to kill the two adventurers who are still running."

Oh no, that does not sound good. The last thing I want is for people to think that anyone who comes into my forest does not leave.

I panned out my concentration until I found the other two and was not pleased at what I saw.

They had almost made it to the river and were being bombarded by my squirrels. However, I tuned in just in time to see Copper trip the clumsy looking human and leave him for dead.

The entire scene left a sour taste in my mouth, so to speak, and spoiled the images that I had of adventuring parties always sticking together to the end.

I reigned in the creatures who had started to surround the young man and told them to refrain from injuring him. The greedy elf however was fair game.

Unfortunately, it seemed that his natural elf prowess when it came to forests allowed him to evade my beasts and he was going to get to the river bank scot free.

I sighed at the lack of justice in the world and was utterly surprised when I saw the tree grasping at him as he ran beneath it.

"Ash, Ash what is that tree doing?"

"Oh, lucky day! Manning, trees do not usually have kinetic evolutions for hundreds of years, if ever! It looks like we lucked out when you mixed your dark and nature mana growing it!"

"Well how do we control it?"

"Err, right now there isn’t really anything we can do. Eventually you might gain the ability to reason with them, granted they evolve to have enough intelligence to communicate. Likewise, I could probably speak to them, and whereas they would understand me because I am a forest spirit, they would not be able to speak back. They are too young, the only thing it knows is hunger."

I watched in fear as the human limped over to the traitor. I was thrilled to have such a rare evolution already, but terrified at the possibility of being unable to control them.

The elf was subdued, but it looked like Jeremy was going to be able to cut him free. The human just dropped the sword and stumbled towards the river however. He had no idea how lucky he was that the Willow was currently too consumed in his task to pick up another creature.

As Echil the Traitor trashed about and the last vestiges of life left him the mana he emitted intensified. It was far sweeter than what I'd tasted as they just walked and ran through the forest. I assumed it had something to do with the amount of mana his body was passively burning through to try and escape. Still, it was not enough.

Death came and took away Echil, resulting in a torrential flood of mana, and something else I hadn't quite identified, pouring out of his corpse. A decent portion of the mana and other energy source was absorbed by the thirsty willow, while the rest of it rushed back through the forest to my core.

When it contacted my core and started permeating through the surface, I felt alive with electricity. I was buzzing and was surely going to explode any second. This had the potential to be a very addicting feeling, but it was not particularly comfortable. I cycled the mana back out as fast I could into my environment. The Coppernut trees that I had experimented with shot up in size, and looked to be fully grown.

It didn't stop there however, it seemed that killing a sapient was the ultimate power boost. All the trees in a 1000-meter radius from my core grew roughly 10 cm taller and started coating the forest floor in seeds and fruits as they experienced several rapid growth cycles. My hedgehogs got a bit larger, the birds a bit swifter, and even my owl seemed to bask in the feeling.

When I'd felt that I'd successfully avoided critical mass, I took a second to analyze the other energy that I'd absorbed. Memories! Well, not quite memories so much as knowledge. Echil had left me with intimate knowledge of knife throwing, basic herbalism, and a racial ability called 'Woods Pathing'. This was something that every elf was born with and allowed them to traverse every forest as if it were their own back yard. I also unlocked a dungeon-specific variant of the ability, that allowed me to counteract the ability by choosing the route that someone was locked into.

It was perfect! No longer could they jump the river and run straight to the center of my forest, now I could lock them into specific paths and force them to go through challenges of my own. Just what every magical forest needs when growing up. Upon further review I realized I had also gained a few more skills from the death of Jacob.

I tried not to think of the gruesome end he must have had to endure at the ends of my avians' beaks. Luckily that experience was not one of the ones I had stolen. From him I learned basic sword stances, leather upkeep, and cobbling. It appears Jacob's job had been repairing shoes and boots in town. Not exactly as useful, but still I was not one to argue with handouts. You never look a gift owl in its beak.

I started pushing for the next level up and elected to expand my forest eastward away from the river. I'd let the river be one of my natural boundaries and work in the other directions. At the same time, I reached out to Cara to check up on her and exchange the skills I'd learned with the ones she had picked up from the other two who must have perished in her domain.

* * * * * * *

Cara

Cara had not been so shaken in a very long time. She had not even been this afraid when she awoke and found herself trapped in a gemstone for the first time. Sure, she had been depressed, and angry, but that did nothing to stand up to the level of sheer rage and anxiety that she'd just experienced.

She'd been suspicious of the group when they first entered. What kind of guild scouting party shows up without any healing or archers for support, after all. The group didn't even have a proper tank!

Still, she'd given the group the benefit of the doubt and allowed them to work through the first floor of her dungeon. They hadn't fallen for any of her traps, although the bat stalactites had been very close, and systematically worked their way towards her core.

When the two larger men started to pummel against the hardened limestone around her, she temporarily lost control of her faculties. Her drones came pouring out of the walls to defend her, and even Brick had tried to get back from the other side of the wall where she'd stashed him when they arrived.

Finally, she'd calmed enough to watch their escape from her dungeon and their flight through the forest. Sweet little Manning looked like he was doing his best to avenge their misdeed, and so she let him. She'd regained control of herself, but the sense of impending doom had not yet faded.

After about 30 minutes Manning tried to connect to her through their mental link, and for once she'd let him.

Manning gave her access to the skills he'd unlocked from his two kills and explained that he let one go. It was the spearman who disarmed all her traps, and his reasoning made a lot of sense.

"We don't want them thinking that we went all out and murdered their entire crew for no reason. At least if he gets back to town, he might have the good sense to tell them all how they'd attacked the dungeon core and were punished."

For what he was, he could surely think things through. She agreed with the reasoning but knowing that one of her attackers was still at large made her feel dirty nonetheless.

The crown jewel that he'd given her was probably the herbalism. She was having trouble trying to breed plant life that could sustain itself in her caves, but now she knew of several plants that fit the scene, she just needed to find a sample or seeds.

Meanwhile the cudgel duo left her with almost nothing useful. She learned where she could hit on the human body with a blunt weapon to prolong pain and suffering, crippling blows, and basic club fighting. Most of this was common sense or could have been easily learned naturally by her dungeon creatures. Surprisingly she'd learned a bit of botany and flower arrangements from the bald scarred brother, Jackson.

It takes all types to adventure, she supposed.

The first floor felt like it was the right level of difficulty for now but left her feeling naked. To this end she re-opened the wall to the second floor she was developing. She had the spider clutch mothers watching over their eggs and the bat matriarchs were already working on new fighters in their breeders’ dens.

Hopefully this experience would scare off trespassers until the experienced dungeon divers arrived, because Manning and Cara had some serious renovations to do.