“Oh, good I was worried that you were mute or dumb,” Tristan mocked the creature.

  “Those words mean the same thing,” Vulcan whispered into his head.

  Tristan shot back a mental shut up as the spriggon warbled out, “Not mute, I not mute. Take hand, take thorn.”

  It took Tristan a moment to realize thorn and finger were being used as synonyms, “As I said before, answer my questions and I will remove your arms and legs and leave you in the office. Don’t answer and I will harvest that storage of growth force in your chest.”

  The spriggon nodded rapidly. Tristan almost killed it right there, human emotions looked wrong on a mythical beast.

  “First off, how many ents are there down here?” He needed to know how desperate his fight out would be.

  “Four, I know four, and a mother,” the spriggon rattled.

  Tristan groaned, “Another forsaken creature is down here? How does a mother stack up against an ent?”

  The word mother felt weird when used to describe a monster. How did trees have a mother? They were neither male nor female as far as he knew.

  “Ent be one and a half mothers tall,” The spriggon said.

  Tristan sighed, “If an ent were to fight a mother, who would win.”

  “Mother dies. Ent no fight mothers, mothers help keep ents alive,” The spriggon was rambling,

  “Mother make spriggon grow to be ents. Make spriggon happy.”

  He paused, the spriggon could be happy? Was this not a mythical beast? It was dangerous, and he would kill it without mercy, but he had never considered if there were more than humans out in the world. Its very existence had come at the expense of Deep Cradle.

  At least he knew that the ‘mother‘ was a noncombat creature. However, the knowledge that four more ents were roaming the area was an issue. He was sure he could handle one now, a lava spear should be enough to light any kind of wood on fire. For a moment he contemplated finding and killing this mother, but he could not see a world in which a sentient creature left its loved ones unguarded with hostile forces roaming its home.

  “Where are the ents?” Tristan asked.

  “Two seek invader. Two help mother,” The spriggon answered.

  Tristan snorted at the word invader, it was ironic coming from a parasite, “Last question, are there many spriggon between me and the river.”

  “Many numbers of spriggon,” The creature nodded rapidly, “Most inside house of round chairs.”

  Tristan blinked, and Vulcan filled in, “The Colosseum.”

  That was not a bad description, Tristan nodded then thought of one more question, “Well thank you, do you have a name?”

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  He wondered if these beings had a sense of identity. They talked like people but acted like a swarm. It would be something to look into when he stumbled across his first civilization ruled by a legend.

  “I am Twig,” The spriggon said.

  Tristan decided not to push the point, twig could be their name for a tier zero or it could be its name, “Twig, as per our deal, I will leave you in the office.”

  With no further delays he tore off the spriggons legs and set him on the desk he paused as the spriggon yelled after him, “Thank you.”

  Mythical beasts that could be grateful. Tristan shook his head, he could not afford to moralize the tree people, it might make him see them as people. He strode out of the fort, filled with confusion.

  After stepping outside he was immediately confronted by three spriggons. They appeared to be waiting for him to step outside, having been alerted by their comrade’s screaming. Now that he knew that the spriggon had a heart, just like an elemental, Tristan could put his training to use. He had fought enough elementals for the skills to be ingrained into his muscle memory.

  A punch dagger construct formed around Tristan’s knuckles. When he struck the first spriggon’s body put up little resistance, the other two clawed him but he was able to force the impaled spriggon to pick up the essence tab for reinforcement. It cried out as he drained its essence dry.

  The other two backed off slightly as he dropped the empty husk. Unfortunately, a step was not quite out of Tristan’s reach. He started consuming their essence and depositing the excess into his reservoirs.

  “Vulcan, am I right to assume that developing an anima takes a massive amount of essence?” Tristan asked.

  “It is called cultivation and yes the process takes both immense essence and time. It's called cultivation due to the principles it shares with farming,” Vulcan answered, “I’ll explain it more when we get to a city where you can purchase some of the supplies you will need.”

  Tristan removed his last elemental heart and made a tier eight reservoir. He joked “How many spriggons does it take to fill a tier eight reservoir.”

  The answer was a lot. Tristan moved through the walled in government property draining every spriggon he came across. If he ran across a group, he would reinforce his body and harvest them. He supposed it was fitting that plant creatures could be harvested.

  When he neared the gate he noticed the ents body, or rather its lack. There were clear drag marks as its large corpse tore up grass and swept aside loose debris. What could they want with the body? Tristan frowned could they put a new heart inside and make a new ent with it?

  He had a decision to make, he could follow the trail and find out what the spriggon were doing with the body. It was also not his problem, he could leave, the city was wide, but he would have no issue escaping. The ents were fast over flat terrain, but the city was not flat, and for once he took corners better than another creature.

  The spriggon weren’t slow, but they were little more than walking snacks at this point. He turned to leave and paused, this might not be his problem now, but that might not be true in the future. He might like the first nation he came across and want to settle there. This problem would be much worse if it was allowed to fester.

  Remembering how difficult it was to get the Elders off their butts to do something productive, Tristan sighed. He followed the drag mark out. Information and proof were what the leader of said nation would want before he deployed an army for a subterranean assault. He quickly retrieved his hammer, which had shrunk back to its smallest form then set off,

  Tristan was not a tracker, so he was glad to find the path just as obvious outside the walls. The destroyed city was chaotic, with rubble having been strewn everywhere. This chaos made the straight line that the spriggon had taken obvious. Several spriggons tried to get in his way but none were above their baseline.

  Why were they locked to tier zero or tier six? There should be some variety unless none of these creatures had progressed in the last few years. Tristan imagined that plants could simply progress by sitting still and consuming resources, an activity the spriggon were partaking of in mass.

  As he followed he quickly realized where they were heading. He could see the Colosseum in the distance, and he did not have a particular interest in going inside. The spriggon’s numbers were thickening to the point where a fight with one group would draw the attention of another. Soon the skirmishes would stop adding any value, he needed more reservoirs if he intended to save the essence he took for later.

  Stealth was not a skill he had spent much time developing and he was found a few times. He did not bother with draining those ones, he hit them hard and fast. They couldn’t scream if he killed them before they could. Still hitting a tree hard enough to cave in its chest sometimes caused enough noise to get the other spriggon’s attention.

  A dozen monsters later, Tristan was hiding behind some rubble beside the door. He waited for an opportunity to enter, but the spriggon entered in a near constant stream. None came out, which was not a good sign for what he would encounter while within. It was a good sign for his entrance.

  If he could block the entrance behind him then he could stop any from coming in after him. This entrance had a heavy door and a bar, but he would need to draw the spriggon away. He considered making a distraction, an explosion, or something flashy. Vulcan’s gravity would be distracting, floating rocks weren’t an everyday occurrence.

  But, how would the spriggon know it wasn’t normal? They were effectively toddlers from a world experience perspective. Well if they couldn’t understand human architecture, he had more options. Kneeling down he loosened a brick at the base of the wall. Pulling on the wealth of reservoirs he had, he started making a puddle of decay essense right in front of the door.

  Just like he had expected the first few spriggon walked through, but they hissed in discomfort. Soon spriggon decided it would be better to take other entrances. It took nearly an hour for the spriggon to start avoiding the door in gaps large enough for him to take advantage of. One group would show up to test the puddle, and then the rest of said group would find a different door.

  “Well, that proves they don’t have a hive mind,” Tristan muttered as he took his boots off and walked through the puddle. He closed and barred the door once he was across.