“Uh, what’s going on here?” Thera asked as she and the other two women returned in the evening to find seemingly the entirety of the village's young children in the yard and tugging at Ben, with Delair being the most demanding of his attention.
“Remember all those toys I made last night? Well, I gave them to Delair and told her to share them with her friends, and when they came to say thanks they just stuck around after.”
With the kids came their mothers, each less than willing to let outsiders have unsupervised access to the village youth, even if Fontesh was around. More positive though was the fact that a few of them had heard about his enchanting for the others. Even if they weren't willing to trust him, they’d brought some of the more portable items they’d had to be improved on, giving Ben something to do aside from just trying to entertain a bunch of kids.
When Delair saw them all return, she quickly ran to Thera, proudly pointing to a new necklace she hadn’t worn before.
“Can I see now?” The child asked, filled with curiosity.
“Um, later when there’s less people around, everyone needs to wear one after all.”
“Alright, promise?”
“Sure I promise,” She’d been hoping the young girl would have forgotten, but if she had to entertain her later for a bit it wasn’t the biggest deal. “Did you make any extras Ben? It seems like we’re going to be watched a bit while we deal with this and I’d rather not affect any bystanders.”
“I made two more to be safe and can make more if need be.”
“Hopefully that’s enough. How did the rest of the day go? It doesn’t look like you ended up doing any repairs to the house,” That wasn’t to mention the mysterious stone pot he had boiling, as well as whatever machine Skoe was twisting off to the side while looking exhausted, but she chose to ignore those, even if Sachel and Ralia went to check on their teammate.
Ben made a face at the question. “The village had none of the things I needed, so not only did I have to make some tools, but also the tools to make tools without any of the things I’m used to. I’m basically living in the stone age trying to get everything I want to done, I’d kill for a bit of metal to work with.”
“Then were you able to get everything you need?”
“Mostly I think. I’ll be able to make enough oil and tar to treat all of the houses, but I won’t be surprised if anything else comes up. I’ll also be borrowing Skoe to act as my seed-grinder for… well whenever I need him, but I’ll talk to Sachel about that later. How about you, think you’ll be able to manage with them?”
“We’ll see, I haven’t seen a frost bat before, but I’m fairly sure that we’ll be able to draw them out, I’m just not sure how hunting will go. I can’t use any earth magic without risking damaging the forest.”
“You’ve done some hunting with them before I showed up, right? Think they’ll be able to deal with them?”
“Probably? Since it sounds like they’re most active during the evening and night we decided to come back to eat and see if you had the amulets ready and then head back out.”
“Cool, in that case maybe I’ll come watch. It would be nice if I could make use of the bodies if there were no other plans for them.”
They chatted some more about everything that needed to be done until Fontesh called for dinner. The various children hanging around went home with their mothers while the rest of them went in to eat. It was a simple meal made up of many of the vegetables in the garden, but since they were all varieties Ben hadn’t previously tried it was a nice change.
Thera couldn’t relax for the meal though, the curious pair of eyes that seemed to want to bore into her soul didn’t leave her as they ate, and once they were done Delair finally asked.
“Can I see now?”
“Alright, as long as everyone puts on their amulets I guess let’s get this over with.”
“Hmm? What’s going on?” Sachel, questioned, not having been around for the younger dryad's previous questions about Thera.
“She wanted to know what Thera looked like under her hood,” He explained as he handed out resistance amulets to each of them. “I assume you all know how to channel a bit of your mana through a magic tool?”
Everyone gave a nod as they put them on and eagerly waited to see what she looked like. Sachel’s group was especially curious. Along with the more negative rumours that would go around about her in Stonewall, there was also a curiosity as well about the mysterious and dangerous girl that had an unusual passive magic.
She wasn’t used to having so many eyes on her, and the only time so many people she wasn’t particularly close to had gotten to see what she’d looked like was on her birthday with the restaurant staff who were at least being professional and not openly gawking, but since they’d be getting a look anyway as she hunted it was probably better to get this over with early so without putting it off any longer she lowered her hood.
She felt her cheeks warm and took comfort in the fact that only Ben would realise her face sparkling in the light meant she was embarrassed, even as she swore to herself that he’d be doing something for her to ease just how much of a bother it was going to be to help Sachel’s party. He was obviously getting a little kick seeing her so flustered as Delair gave voice to her own impression of Thera’s reveal.
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“Wow, you’re so shiny!”
“Um, thanks?”
“And as pretty as Mr. Apostle said!”
“You’re very pretty too,” She told the girl while pulling her hood back over her face. Just why was knowing how to talk to a child so hard? She felt that everyone’s eyes were still on her so she wanted a new subject to focus on. “Anyway, isn’t it about time we go for the hunt?”
It was getting late enough that it was probably a good time to start walking to the woods and except for Fontesh and Delair, both of whom needed sleep, everyone else got ready to go when Ben called over to Skoe.
“Actually, if you could do a few more hours of collecting oil and tar, that would be great.”
When they got to the sacred woods they found the dryad keeping watch and handed them a resistance amulet, explaining what they were doing and checking to be sure there weren’t any others around that might be affected before Thera removed her cloak.
They’d brought a couple magic lanterns so they’d be able to see and fight anything making their way out of the woods, but Thera had a more personal problem she’d slowly been growing accustomed to during their hunts together. Her charm wasn’t targeted, which meant that everything was drawn to her, even bugs. Luckily, she did have practice dealing with it. It hadn’t been too bad in Stonewall, at least not at the current time of year, but by the dryad village it was a nightmare as a cloud of them made their way to her.
“All of you stand back a bit if you don’t want to be hurt too,” She warned the others, shooing Ralia and Sachel back farther than Ben when they tried to stand with him. They didn’t have his resistances so they needed to act with more care.
Inspired by the way Ben would use his connect to act as a bug killer, she took advantage of her overwhelming mana and poor control to do something similar, letting out waves of life mana to play havoc with the small creature’s bodies in a way that quickly resulted in their death, causing them to plummet to the ground after getting too close. It was incredibly easy for her to do too, instead of needing to put all of her focus into making her life spells as harmless as possible, she instead just released it without worry. It still wasn’t a good idea for her to practice the magic on anyone other than Ben, but if it was being used as an attack then it was fine. One thing was strange though that bothered Ben the moment he gave it a bit of thought.
“Why isn’t anything else coming?” He asked, referring to any potential other small creatures that might live in the area, flying or otherwise. It was a forest after all, and unlike the one by Stonewall that was essentially the edge of the untamed lands, where the mix of life from hundreds of worlds had gotten into and made their home, creating a constantly shifting and changing ecosystem, the woods the dryads sacred forest was in should have been fairly separate, leaving life within it marginally more stable with the exception of the occasional new species appearing like the one they were currently trying to deal with.
That same species ended up being the answer to his question. “For the most part, eaten I’d bet,” Ralia answered. “Frost bats are omnivores, but preferential carnivores, they likely took out the majority of other creatures in the area before moving onto the trees. It’s probably caused the current insect problem as well.”
“God this planet's ecosystem is a nightmare,” He muttered, too quiet for the women to hear. “I mean, it managed for thousands of years of alien species being introduced, but we won’t win the war just to experience total ecosystem collapse, will we?”
<Try not to think about it too hard.>
“Wait I wasn’t being serious but now I want an answer.”
<...>
“Myriad, don’t you hold out on me here!”
<Sorry, prayers to answer and other godly duties to deal with. Call for me if there’s an emergency.>
“Um, is everything okay Ben?” Sachel asked, and he realized all eyes had turned to him as he got a bit louder than intended.
“No, but I’ll probably be dead before it matters so I’m going to try to not think about it too hard.”
Not the most cheerful answer in the world, but it was clear that much like his god he wasn’t going to explain more and they were all happy to drop it.