Eofe had the foresight to better prepare for the second day. She had gathered some sticks from a small copse of trees a ways off the road before they set out. She figured she may as well work on getting another level in [Fletcher]. She didn’t have any feathers or arrowheads, and the quality of the wood left much to be desired, but the practice would still help her inch closer to another level.
Eofe whittled down the sticks to something resembling an arrow using a small carving knife as the wagon rolled on. The [Scribe] complained once about wood chips getting in the wagon, but Eofe gave him a and he quietly returned to reading his books.
She was nearly through all of her sticks before the caravan suddenly ground to a halt.
“Hold!”
Eofe jerked upright and scampered over the Goblin and the child to look over the driver’s shoulder at the front of the wagon. Any change to the caravan’s rote motions must mean something exciting. The cleric of Ulreth’s Pack was coming down the road, stopping to say something to each of the wagons ahead of them in turn. Eofe listened in when he reached theirs.
“Hamish found a suspicious pile of rocks beside the road that he’s certain is sentient. We’ll want to take care of it before moving on.”
“Who’s Hamish?” Eofe asked.
Eathan blinked. “The captain. I thought you two had been introduced.”
“I thought his name was Ulreth.”
Eathan laughed. “No, Ulreth was long gone before even Hamish joined the team. We’ve just kept his name. It’s sort of a tradition, I suppose.”
He continued on to warn the last two wagons in the line. Eofe watched ahead where the rest of Ulreth’s Pack had gathered. Hamish the [Ranger] and Kana the [Vanguard] were conferring together a few dozen yards past the head wagon. The Orc had donned her helmet and held her massive hammer in a two-handed grip. They stood a short distance from a mound of rocks that must have been the creature’s body. Eofe tried to [Assess] the rocks, but got nothing in return. The creature was too camouflaged as well as too foreign to her experience for the Skill to be of any use.
The [Stormcast Sorcerer] stood on a rise on the opposite side of the mound of rocks from his team, closer to the caravan. The man had no hair on his head or face, and was largely plain and unadorned except for some kind of markings or tattoos glittering blue on his neck and chin. He held a long copper staff tipped with a pale yellow stone.
A voice cried out up ahead and bubbles of warped air appeared around each of the wagons, looking as if a haze of heat surrounded them.
Her own [Driver] activated their protections by reaching a hand under his seat. Eofe felt the wagon vibrate beneath her boots as the magic reverberated through the wagon, and the same haze of magic surrounded them.
Once all the shields were up, Kana roared and charged forward, bringing her hammer down in heavy blow that pulverized a stone at the edge of the mound.
A great rumbling shook the earth and up rose a hill made out of stone. It took Eofe a moment to recognize what appeared to be a head rising over a dozen feet in the air, though it lacked anything resembling eyes or a mouth. Dozens of rocks were attached to each other by some invisible arcane mechanism, many as wide around as Eofe was tall, forming a figure vaguely resembling a man. The golem rose to an impressive height, standing up from the earth to loom over the adventurers. Its every movement grinded stones together, sounding like boulders crashing into each other. Eofe idly wondered how many arrows it would take to chip even the smallest stone of its body.
Her question was answered with a as an arrow snapped into the golem’s head, blowing out a chunk of stone. Hamish drew another arrow as the golem stumbled back and threw out an arm to right itself. A boulder flew off its arm and Eofe panicked as it tumbled in the air towards the front wagon. A flash of light intercepted it where it met the barrier, shattering the rock and spraying chips of stone over the road. The vehicle was unharmed.
The golem righted itself and brought a fist down in a lumbering swing against the [Vanguard] at its feet. The Orc twirled her hammer around to meet its punch, deflecting the blow of a limb that was larger than she was into the ground. She replied with a strike of her own, cracking one of the stones that made up the creature’s leg.
Hamish sent arrows into the golem at a steady pace, scouring small chunks of rock out of the creature with every shot. He must have been empowering his shots with a Skill, because there was no way an ordinary arrow could do so much damage. Eofe had a [Power Shot] Skill that could impart magical strength into her arrows, but she suspected that even at maximum strength she would not be able to do any more than chip the stone.
Kana continued to draw the creature’s attention with curses and yells and powerful strikes to its shins, each of which cracked and shattered even more stones. The golem’s lumbering swings were too slow to catch the armored warrior, who dodged what she could and deflected the rest.
“The storm calls!”
Eofe’s attention was drawn to the sorcerer, who pointed his staff at the golem. The yellow crystal glowed with pale light, and even from this distance Eofe felt her skin prickle and her hair rise on end. His shout must have been a signal, as Kana leapt back from the golem and held her hammer up in a defensive posture.
“Oh, best keep your head down,” the driver said to her side, then closed his eyes and buried his head in his lap.
“Why?” Eofe asked. “What’s—”
Lightning flashed and a thundercrack blasted her eardrums. Eofe shut her eyes and covered her ears in a futile gesture that was a second too late. After the streaks of light faded from her vision and the ringing in her ears ceases, Eofe looked back to the battle. The golem still stood, but with a gaping cavity in its chest with numerous cracks radiating from the wound. It remained standing for a brief moment before whatever magic held it together finally failed and it toppled over like a rockslide as dozens of boulders crashed into the earth.
The sorcerer’s staff crackled with spent energy, steam curling off its point while the smell of burnt oxygen assaulted Eofe’s nostrils. The man looked invigorated more than tired from the display of power and he turned to the onlookers.
“Ha! Did you see that?” he yelled. “One shot! Right to the chest!”
“Yes, yes. Excellent work, Eriden,” Eathan joined his companion. Eofe wondered where he had been during the fight. Maybe he stayed in the back in case things turned south. “Did that really require so much power, though?”
“Best not take any chances,” Eriden replied. “Besides, doesn’t it make your heart all aflutter, seeing all that power?”
“You know it does not.”
It was Eofe’s first time seeing a professional team of adventurers at work, and it was an impressive sight. She couldn’t wait until she was at the [Ranger]’s level and could break stone with her own arrows. She returned to her seat, leaving the two adventurers to their bickering, and soon the caravan started ambling forward once more.
“Is everything all right?” the mother was holding her son tight with a worried look on her face.
Eofe nodded. “It’s dead. It was some kind of rock golem.”
Eofe looked out the back of the wagon as they passed the pile of rocks that had once been a living creature. Or so she thought. She wasn’t entirely sure about the natural philosophy of whether a bunch of rocks animated by ambient magic was truly alive or not.
The clang of metal on stone reverberated through the air as the [Vanguard] continued to pulverize inanimate stones with her mighty hammer. The din faded into the background as the caravan moved on, and it was over an hour later that the sweaty and tired Orc caught up, covered in dust.
The caravan pulled off the road just before the sun set, setting up once again in a rough circle with a fire at the center. There were no announcements this time, though Eathan prepared another simple meal and handed it out to each of the travelers as everyone gathered around the fire.
“What was she doing to the rocks?” Eofe asked as he approached.
“Making sure the golem wouldn’t get up and bother the road again,” Eathan said. “It can be difficult to tell if stone golems are really dead—if they were even alive in the first place. Sometimes, the stones will just reanimate if you leave them alone for long enough.”
“Can we expect to see more monsters like that on the road?” the mother asked aloud.
“That’ll be the least of it, I’m afraid,” Hamish answered. “We’ll be at the edge of the Stonewall tomorrow. Most of the Flesh Shaper’s beasts come out much further east, but you should all be prepared for another encounter within the next two days. This road has been getting more and more dangerous each year of late. Once we cross the Anvers River, we’ll swing down to join the southern road and we should have a smooth journey from there.”
“’s not the beasts that concern me,” the Orc [Vanguard] added from across the fire. “They’re always out and about. But I just can’t help but wonder what a Woodie is doin’ way out here, so far from the forest.”
It took Eofe a moment to realize the Orc was talking about her.
“What?”
“,” the captain warned.
Kana laughed. “I’m just asking, captain,” she said before turning to Eofe. “The shamans have warned us of you lot. They say the Bloom’s comin’ around, and we’ll soon be up to our ears in trees and Elves.”
Eofe shrank under the attention of all the eyes on her. The other travelers gathered around the fire had sensed the budding drama and leaned in to see what would happen next.
“So, is it true, Elfie? Will you and I be at war soon?”
Eofe didn’t want to be at war with anyone, especially—she eyed Kana’s tusks warily—not an Orc over twice her size. But she couldn’t deny the kernel of truth of the woman’s words.
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“I don’t know,” Eofe said. “How long do Orcs live for?”
The Orc grinned. “I’ve got a few decades left before I croak with grey hairs on my head. So maybe half that if I keep adventurin’.”
Eofe shrugged. “It’s hard to say, then. Not even the Goddess knows when it will be time.” Which was mostly the truth.
“What’s the Bloom?” the [Scribe] asked.
The Orc guffawed. “What’s the Bloom, he says!” she bent over and slapped her knees, then wiped an imaginary tear from her eye. “This is why you city boys need to stop reading so many books.” The [Scribe] bristled, but the Orc carried on. “The shamans remember what’s important, and they tell us when it’s time to know. I’m sure your libraries are full of books all about the Bloom, but they’re thousands of years old by now. Nobody’s been reading them, so you’ve all forgot.”
“I haven’t heard of it either,” Eathan said.
“You’re a simple farm boy, cleric. I don’t expect you to have heard of anything.”
Eathan gave her a long-suffering look.
The Orc sighed. “All right, then. Gather around for story time, children. I’ll tell you what the shamans told us all about the Woodies and the Bloom.”
Kana’s entire demeanor changed in a moment. She sat up straight, her eyes gaining a far-off look as she prepared to repeat the story. Eofe was suddenly put in mind of the few [Minstrels] and [Bards] who occasionally swept through Fal Tiren, bringing stories of far away lands and strange peoples. She used to beg her mother to take her to the tellings, to hear about all the places she would never see. Though she still preferred her aunt’s tales of her own adventures.
“I take it you’ve all heard of the Green?” Kana started.
Most of the travelers gathered around the fire nodded, except for the child who shook his head. The Orc gave him a gentle smile that Eofe thought looked out of place on her savage face.
“It’s the place the Woodies come from, far away on an island where only Elves and wild men live. It’s owned by the Greenwarden, the [Goddess of the Wild]. No civilization is allowed in the Green. You see, it's a wild place for wild things. But once every two thousand years or so, that callous cur of a Goddess—” Eofe squeezed her eyes shut and silently prayed for forgiveness for allowing such blasphemy to touch her ears “—decides it’s time for the Green to grow. That time is called the Bloom.”
“The First Bloom began about eight thousand years ago—long before Orith was even a dream, when the world was still recovering from the Old Gods’ wars and the Reckoning that brought them low. It was a problem for the High Elves at first, who share the island with their Woodie cousins. The Green shook out its seeds and spores like a mighty beast shedding its fur and it covered the whole island with it. Trees grew out of Elven streets and wild beasts hunted their roads. The First Bloom bloodied their nose a bit, and the rest of the world had a good laugh about it. ‘Those silly Elves, fightin’ over trees,’ we said. We forgot about it for a time. Then about two thousand years later, the Second Bloom came and the Elves had a proper war over it. None of the rest of us know what really happened during the Second Bloom, it being so far away and so long ago. But it must have been a real mess, because it was right after that war that the High Elves built their walls and turned their cities into fortresses. So when it was time for the next Bloom, they fled to their cities and let the wild run all over their lands. Now the Bloom had strength to spare.”
The Orc shot Eofe a dark look.
“The Third Bloom crossed the sea. The Woodies carried its seeds on ships as big as castles and dropped it on Calan’s shores. Forests sprouted out of coastal sand and beasts grew on these wild trees like fruits. It didn’t get far that first time, but it sure was a surprise. Whatever kingdoms ruled the coasts in those days pushed the invasion back before it could taint the land. At least now we knew it wasn’t just a problem for the Elves anymore.”
The Orc’s grin faded, her jovial tone hardened. “If you’ve been paying attention, you woulda noticed that each Bloom’s been worse than the last. The Gods level just like us, and there’s nothing like waging war on the whole world to give you a level or two.”
She spat on the ground. “The Fourth Bloom was a desecration. There’s fleets at the bottom of the Opal Sea where foolish men tried to stop the Woodies from coming over on their ships the second time. But the Woodies had been preparing for two thousand years, and the rest of the world had only just remembered. The Elves live long lives, you see, and they always remember what the rest of us forget. So there wasn’t anybody ready to fight them when the time came. Not enough to stop their ships from landing and planting their seeds in Calan soil once again.”
“Now, you might be wonderin’ what’s so bad about the Bloom. It’s just a bunch of trees and beasts, right? But the Bloom changes the land. Wasn’t long before trees started growing out of the desert and swamps drowned the plains. Then the forests we already had turned dark and all your little farms stopped growing what they were supposed to, and started growing things instead.”
“And of course there were the beasts,” Kana growled, a deep-throated rumbling that put Eofe on edge. “There are monsters in the wild, the kind that we civilized folk have never dreamed of.”
A creature appeared in Eofe’s mind, a tyrant of tooth and claw, who shook the Wildwood with every step.
“And I include myself in that,” Kana continued. “I may be from the Tribes, but we also have our herds and our camps. Even that much is too civilized for the [Goddess of the Wild]. Remember, the purpose of the Bloom is to grow the Green, and the Green is a place of the wild. It hates nothing more than civilization. So these monsters out of the wild attacked your walls, broke up your roads, killed our herds, and tore down camps. All to conquer this tamed land for the wild.”
Silence descended on the camp as the travelers’ minds filled with images of their homes being overrun by wild nature and wild Elves.
“They say it even touched the Deep,” Kana said, and some of the travelers’ eyes filled with wonder at the mention of that dark and unknowable place beneath the earth. “The Underking was mighty mad about it at the time. So mad, they say, he dug a tunnel from below Calan all the way to that island of the Elves, right under the sea. Of course, none of us surface folk know what goes on down there, so who’s to say what really happened.”
If what Eofe was told was true, the bones of the old Underking lay somewhere in the dark tunnels below Ilthera, miles beneath the surface. It took the Dwarves and their vassals over a hundred years to navigate their way to Ilthera in the bowels of the earth. In the end, their mistake was assuming the Green had not already conquered the Deep beneath its roots long ago.
“We fought back in time,” Kana continued. “For all its terrible power, the Bloom only lasts for a year. We burned the forests, drained the swamps, and killed a whole lotta Elves,” she sneered at Eofe.
The others looked at the Elf, who chose to stare into the fire instead of meeting their gazes.
“The Fourth Bloom left its mark on this land. You can still find it, if you look real close. Some strange trees growing in the desert where nothing should grow at all. Flowers that bloom out of season. A dark forest with wild plants and tameless beasts.”
The [Ranger] perked up at that final statement. “Ah,” he said, coming to some revelation of his own.
“And now the Fifth Bloom is coming. It’s been near about two thousand years since the last one. It could start any day now, give or take a hundred years or so.”
They had a few years yet, of that much Eofe was certain. Though whether the Bloom would begin in full in five years or fifty, she couldn’t say. Not even the Goddess knew for certain.
“Why does she do it?” all eyes turned to the little boy, who immediately cowered in his mother’s lap.
The Orc smiled and looked to Eofe. “I don’t know. Why she do it?”
Eofe did not have a mother to hide behind when attention shifted to her. She couldn’t weave a tale as well as the Orc, but this was an old story, told to every child of the Surag. She drew herself up and met the Orc’s eyes, no matter how fast it made her heart beat.
“It’s a promise,” she said. “And a warning.”
She remembered sitting in her mother’s lap, listening to her recite the story of their people, of the history of the Green and each of its Blooms. She repeated the words her mother had told her so many years ago.
“There wasn’t much left after the Old Gods’ wars. Civilizations may have died, but the wild suffered most of all. Forests as old as the world were burned to ash. Ancient lineages of beasts were ended with senseless violence. Countless species were lost forever. After the Reckoning… when most of the Old Gods had been slain, the Greenwarden ascended with a promise. . Never again would the sanctity of the wild be subject to the whims of mad Gods and greedy civilizations. And she offered this warning to go with it. .”
Eofe looked over the travelers, each of them a child of civilization, bound to its rules and laws, and subjugating the wild with their very existence.
“The purpose of the Bloom isn’t to harm. Nobody ever has to get hurt, if you just let the wild be.”
Kana scoffed. Eofe glared at her, and the Orc smirked back.
“You can hide behind your walls and wait the year out for the Bloom to end,” Eofe continued. “No one will be harmed who lets the Bloom pass in peace. Just remember the Greenwarden’s promise and her warning.”
The camp remained quiet as each person absorbed those words. Many of them would likely live to see the next Bloom, to be forced to fight against the invasion of the wild and the Surag, or retreat to safety behind city walls and pray to their own Gods for mercy. The adventurers especially may feel responsible for defending the land against the wild. Some of them may not make it through to the end.
“Well, that’s bleak as shit,” Eriden piped up.
Kana laughed. “The Bloom may not be the only world-ending threat, but it is the only one on a schedule.”
“Hear, hear!” Eriden said. “We’ve still got the Wight Lords down south, who could unite any day now to try to take over the world. . The Underking might just decide that he and his armies are tired of living in the dark and would like to see the sun. And the Dragons are always up to something.”
The Orc grinned. “And maybe we’ll get another Chieftain Tarog someday soon. I hear he did a number on the Green back in the day. Isn’t that right, Elfie?”
It was true. Tarog and his horde had pushed further into the Green than anyone ever had, before or since. He even sacked two Aedwyn fortress-cities on the way, which had been long thought to be impenetrable. He was largely the reason the Surag held such disdain for the Orcs even after all these years. He still faltered before the end though, just like every other invader would.
But Eofe didn’t want to give the Orc the satisfaction of an answer, so she merely shrugged.
“You never answered my question, by the way,” Kana said. “What are you doing here anyway, so far from your forest?”
Eofe felt she shouldn’t have to defend herself, but her answer was simple and true.
“I came to Orith to be an adventurer.” She lifted the copper badge she had just received the other day. It didn’t compare to the golden token dangling from the neck of each member of Ulreth’s Pack, but it still filled her with a small amount of pride.
“The Guild’s on your little island as well. Why’d you have to come all the way over here?”
Eofe shifted awkwardly as she considered her answer. “My mother wouldn’t let me. I ran away from home.”
Kana unleashed a full-bellied laugh that startled her neighbors. “That, I can believe! Sometimes you gotta run far from home to find your own place in the world.”
Eathan offered Kana an affectionate smile, while Eriden slapped her on her armored back—before cursing and shaking out his hand. The group’s attention finally shifted away from the Elf and the rest of the night settled down into more mundane conversations. Eofe ate her food in solitude, trying to ignore the wary glances aimed her way.
She also couldn’t help but notice the [Scribe] adding to his notes off to the side. He had been writing in a mad frenzy from the moment Kana began to speak. There was a lot the Orc’s story was missing, however. The shamans only remembered what happened to Calan, after all. They didn’t know about the ships that carried the Bloom to the northern lands, or the Wildmen who took it to the far east.
It hadn’t reached all the way around the world yet. Maybe the Fifth Bloom finally would. Still, many peoples had suffered through the Fourth Bloom. And no matter what Kana said, many of them surely remembered. Eofe thought they would be much better prepared this time. But one thing Kana had said rang true in her ears…
The Greenwarden had leveled.
The Benefactor rewards momentous deeds and extraordinary skill, and there really was nothing like waging war on the whole world to reap those rewards. Eofe didn’t know what level the Goddess was now, or how she compared to the other Gods. Only her few clergy might know. The one thing she knew for certain was that the Fifth Bloom would be an event for the whole world to remember.
