Vela

[Vela Nanashi]

Arch Druid Calandor:

I feel a powerful ripple of what at first feels like fey magic wash over me, but it feels not quite fey, I enhance all my senses and the fake fey energy hides aberration, abomination, unnatural energies, they are helping life, but also changing it in unnatural ways, disease, death, is being pushed away. I see colours becoming more vibrant around me, all scents too, and the climate is shifting, warmer, more humid, yes currently welcome as we have had a bit of a drought. I sense one of the most intense near me concentrations are toward a swampy old battle field. I shape change to an elk and head my way there carefully, keeping my eyes open.

I see strange rainbow coloured butterflies flutter past me, they shine like tiny stars of eldritch magic, but I don't think they can be the real source of this problem, they seem very passive. As I enter the swamp lands I hear crunching bones, and screeching crunching half rusted metal armours and soon I see the source of the sounds.

It is an elk with eldritch violet eyes, crunching through a full plate helmet, it shines with eldritch energies.

I shape change back to my elf form and I want to understand this corruption of the natural order, so I enhance my senses fully with true seeing and I yelp as I see the truth. The elk body is real flesh, but infested with tendrils of eldritch ooze inside the head and along nerves and digestive tract, and in the head is a crack and as I look at it I see an enormous ocean of eldritch energy in a dimension beyond that crack in reality. I see tendrils of energy connecting it to many other cracks in reality all around, every single butterfly, and tendrils of energy reaching into the ground.

I must stop this invasion of corruption, the elk is looking at me as it chews a rusty sword showing no fear. I call on all the power of nature to push away this invading outer realms being, and anchor reality to slam closed the cracks centered on the elk.

I see the horrid image of the ooze ocean wink out with the crack in reality in the head of the elk.

The nearby butterflies fall like droplets of sparkling ooze into the swamp water and the elk's eyes flicker and its body twists, it shrieks a horrifying howl and I see the ooze rapidly consuming the flesh and bone of the spasming and screaming elk, its bones snapping and twisting as it collapses into the water. The trees nearby fall toward the swamp and the ground under my feet turns even more liquid feeling, I summon the power of the storms and a vortex of clouds form above and I start raining lightning down at the tendrils of ooze showing up from under the water and the lighting grounds into the writhing mass of ooze as the water drains away, I scream and tendrils rapidly envelop my body. I cry out from immense pain.

Vela:

I flinch as a tiny part of me is severed from my body, I look with my nearest butterflies at what happened, a storm forms above the swamp where I was feasting on the ancient dead warriors, I see a huge ooze mass forming and rapidly consuming the whole battlefield, I can't control that part of myself, it is severed from me and it clearly reverted to wanting to eat everything fast.

I drip down my nearby butterflies and rapidly flood out of them forming a wall of my own self, and I send an imploding tidal wave of my true self, my ooze toward the ooze that once was a swamp and once was part of me, it lashes out against me, our membranes rend each other and it tries to avoid me enveloping it the ground shakes violently and a chaotic magical storm erupts around the swamp, trees ignite and twist, cracks form in reality and elemental energies are ripped from the elemental planes, meteors, lighting, fire, water, tornado, ice, radiant and necrotic energies, other lesser aberrations explode out like tiny droplets from the nearby dimensions as reality cracks and crumbles. My raw energies erupting and mingling through the ripped membranes as we fight, the earth shakes violently and magma starts to erupt from the fissures in the ground below the fight.

This hurts so much, but I can't let a tiny fragment of me consume this world, I flood more and more of myself through my growing rifts into my pocket dimension and finally envelop the fragment and shred its membrane fully and consume it, but I can't stop, I must consume all the other aberrations around me and try to mend reality and set magic to be more like it was. The weave is destroyed in a huge radius and I don't really know how to mend that, the fissures erupting magma into me I seep into and I form a large lake of my own ooze to contain it from erupting, I seep through the many rifts leading elsewhere and once on both sides I create a rift to my own dimension on both sides and push the edges of the rifts closed and consume the scars left behind.

The chaotic magical storms fade and soon I have consumed all the lesser things, I work on integrating the memory of the fragment into my greater self, it hurts, so very much, I nearly lose control of my own hunger again, but once all the memories have been fully integrated and drawn back inside my own dimension that calms down. I am now hunting in many new planes, burning forever in the glorious infinite plane of fire, basking in eternal radiance and hungry energy that still nourishes me, I swallow mountains of earth and rock, drink oceans of water, and inhale unending air, creating a vortex around myself.

I create the closest approximation to a weave I can around my lake and all the way out until my weave tendrils caress the tattered edge of the normal weave and I weave myself into it far enough that I am sure I can safely tug it a bit around the wound and hold it securely.

I enter a deeper slumber as I try to understand what happened, I was a happy elk eating a sword, watching an elf male, a druid, he was using magic to see beyond the flesh, into me, and then I lost myself and became scared, and oh so hungry, severed from the bulk of me, tiny again, most of my memories lost, I fought with all my tinier selves, until I won and I consumed the elk flesh, the trees, the land, and the elf that killed most of me, sending lighting bolts from the sky into me, it hurts, but can't kill, I consume it, scary larger ooze is trying to surround me, I lash out, must escape, so much pain, the larger ooze is slower than me, but so huge, so much, more flooding around me, it rips me asunder.

I look deeper into the elf's memories, what did it do, it was elf arch druid Calandor, he was trying to restore the natural order, apparently I am helping nature in the wrong way, in an unnatural way, I see what he did that nearly destroyed the world, I examine that magic closely and combine it with knowledge of the star elves, apparently one can collapse portals and cracks in reality using certain forms of magic, but one can fortify portals and stabilize cracks in reality to make that harder, so I work on doing that to all my cracks in reality, as I know that even if just a tiny droplet of me, a butterfly, were to be severed, it can consume the world very fast, but I am not about to leave this world, I want to be here. I am very angry at this elf arch druid Calandor, he did not even think to talk with me, just attacked without saying anything. I know where other arch druids are, I think I need to visit them, make sure they don't destroy the world trying to fight me.

Meanwhile I noticed that Kenneth was distracted when he woke up, looking into the far distance, and I smiled "I want you to go buy alchemy and herbalist ingredients and reagents, and recipes, I want to learn more things, and I need to have a bit of alone time" I create a leather bag of bejewelled pyramids and hold it out to him "spend all of these you need to get at least one of everything, and seeds for plants too if you can, and if there is enough value left over see if you can pay for a place to stay, I will manage to find you later when I am done with what I need to do."

"Are you sure?" Kenneth asks "I owe you a lot. I promised to protect you."

I tilt my head "I need you to do this for me more than I need your protection, also make sure you do some fun things if you can, and tell me about them later?" I peek into his mind as I say these things and I see his mind immediately go to Diana and he feels it is very strange his dream seems to match what I am asking him to do "oh and figure out where we can get one of each dish people know how to make, when I get back to you I will be very hungry."

Kenneth nods and smiles "alright, see you soon" he says and hugs me tight and then heads away.

I watch him leave and melt into the ground.

My raven back in the village has landed in the midden heap and melted into it, and I consume all the unwanted things and transform the midden heap into a garden with all kinds of flowering and fruiting trees and flowers. As well as butterflies and bees of myself to enjoy the flowers.

I create a new raven closest to where the nearest arch druid is and fly toward her domain, under the soil I am spreading as well, but it will take me a day to reach her domain under ground at the rate I am carefully moving, as I don't want to destroy roots and mycelium or other beneficial life.

I spot her facing the sun on a high perch, golden hair filled with beads and feathers and small bones being all that covers her skin slightly as she meditates in the sun. I glide to a landing in front of her and my raven turns into my nymph form, I let my back be toward her as I bask in the sun too, but I say softly "I want to talk with you Miri, I mean no harm to you or nature, and we need to come to an understanding."

I hear her gasp behind me and I feel her quickly cast several spells, but I don't move, if she wants to attack me she can, I will not start conflict with her.

I feel a storm forming over us, crackling of lightning and thunder and she is breathing heavily as she has expended a lot of magic just to get to a point where she feels safe and ready enough for combat to slow down and register my words.

Arch druid Miri speaks up in a trembling voice "why do you want to speak with me eldritch abomination?"

"Because I want to keep your world and nature safe, it nearly ended earlier today because of the unwise actions of arch druid Calandor, as he surprise attacked me and made me lose control of part of myself, I seek to avoid a repeat of that, so I must speak with you and the other druids, and come to an understanding and coexistence" I say.

I feel Miri cast a spell that surrounds me in heavy barbed vines, strong as iron, as the barbs bite into my skin I allow my blood to become my true form and consume her vines before exploding in a cloud of rainbow butterflies fluttering harmlessly in every direction, I emit my version of fey life magic.

Miri yelps "face me and if you want to talk we must be under a zone of truth spell, as I don't trust your words."

I turn to face her, I can see her skin has turned into metallic bark scales of some sort "I accept a zone of truth, you cast it so you can sense that it works on me."

Miri casts the spell and I let it work on me, I could have easily not let it work. She senses it take hold, and also that I could have prevented that. "First what happened with Calandor, if he attacked you, did you fight back?"

I gaze into her eyes "he severed a part of me, and I lost control of that part, and it consumed him, I had to fight that part of myself and consume it to prevent it from consuming the world, but Calandor is dead, had I not lost control maybe he would just have been subdued instead, as I do not want to hurt people. Though I also think it is fair of me to defend myself if someone attacks me, even to the point of consuming them" I say honestly.

Miri's eyes go wide "how did... how did you defeat him? He is an expert on fighting aberrations, he has cleansed the land of all of them."

I shake my head a bit "I am not some lesser mindless abomination at least not anymore, if you dare use true seeing you can look through the crack in reality in my head and see the scale of me, and then tell me if you think all arch druids working together could stop me if I was hostile."

Miri concentrates and her eyes glow faintly green and she stumbles backwards as she looks past my body and she slumps to the ground "please we will do anything you want, please do not destroy or corrupt our world."

I frown a bit "please don't do that" I motion to her shaking in dread "I am not going to destroy or corrupt your world willingly, but there are ways to force me to, and I want druids to not do that, also Calandor seemed to think I was helping nature wrong, so I would like to understand how to help nature right, but I can't promise I will entirely follow that precisely, but I would like to at least understand what I am doing wrong."

It takes all of Miri's willpower to pull herself back together "I don't know what he saw you do, but he lost his family to aberrations when he was a boy, and since then he has done his best to wipe them out, and they are not natural so we approved of that. If what you say is true though, we would be happy to teach you how we want to help nature, but also how we would not want it to be helped, but we will respect at least some differences in opinion if that means we don't get destroyed."

I look more into Calandor's memories and tears flow from my eyes "I am so sorry that happened to his family and village, but none of those were me, but I once was that dangerous, but I ate this nymph's ancient corpse and she taught me living things have desires, want to live, love, eat, procreate, dream, create, learn. Now I want all those things, but I am always hungry, always will be, however I can also not ever be sated, so I am ignoring my hunger as much as I can, it is very hard" my stomach howls as I say that.

Miri brings out some berries from a bag and casts a spell on them and they grow more plump and magical and she offers them to me "these are good berries, a single berry is enough food for even a huge man who works all day and night."

I take them all from her hand and try just one, and it is surprisingly sating for a few moments, like more than the whole boar Kenneth made for me, or five rabbits, or the stag he killed and cooked for me. Without really thinking I pop the berries one after another until they are gone, the flesh is not hungry anymore but my inner self is.

"I can make more" Miri says.

"I can eat other things too, and share nutrients with roots" I explain "dead bodies, rotting things, rocks, anything unwanted" I explain.

Miri looks disgusted briefly "there is some land we would love to have cleansed, but going there very quickly makes us sick and kills us, and anyone killed by that land becomes toxic disease spreading undead" she shakes her head "I am not sure that is safe for you even, but I can guarantee if you clear that land you will make most druids accept your not quite natural ways."

I stand up "I don't know for sure if I can clean whatever it is, but I can try, is it the place that glows blue that Caladan remembers?"

Miri nods "yes, it is an extremely ancient battleground, from before the ancient woods grew over the land, and before most of the land rose from the sea."

That makes a star elf memory dance across my mind "oh yeah, it was the star elf battle to subjugate some fey lords who would not accept servitude" I say.

Miri shudders "I don't know what star elves are, but anything that tries to subjugate fey lords is scary."

"They destroyed the court of the nine ages that existed where that land now is" I say.

Miri looks at me "I have not heard of that fey court, but since you are still under zone of truth I know it must be true what you say..."

I nod "can you lead me as far as is safe for you to take me and then I will see what I can do."

Miri nods and leads me using some enchanted fairy roads to get there quicker "I can't go further than to here safely" she says and stays next to a sickly ancient almost dead oak, worse than dead.

I look toward the blue glow and I have my body erupt into butterflies that flutter out over the land. I see magical tendrils lash onto each butterfly and try to drain life, toxic gasses fill the air and I can sense the weave is corrupted, it will twist almost any magic attempted in this area to do very much the opposite or worse than the caster wanted to do, if the caster is using the weave to do magic. Several skeletons with blue glowing eyes rip themselves from the slimy dead ground and attack my butterflies. I melt into ooze form and rapidly consume the skeletons, dripping into the slimy ground and feel the full force of the ground trying very much to corrupt my life force and make me undead, but I am not alive the same way, I start to draw that corrupting energy into myself consuming it as I consume the slime and corrupted toxic ground, I lash out with tendrils and soon larger tentacles and soon enough I send waves of myself consuming the land, consuming the corrupted weave, it is delicious if what was that word bitter, but not really bitter, but something like it, something that would make Kenneth frown if he tasted it. I prefer eating everything else I have eaten so much more than this. As I eat the corrupted land I am leaving a bare crater behind as I need all the mass and energy to fight the increasingly potent resistance of the corrupted lands.

I sense Miri doing magic at the edges trying to heal the land, that I did not eat and I sense her slightly impacting the sick stuff on the edges. Though maybe I should have consumed that too, for now I will let her do what she wants though.

I flood more of myself out here to speed up my cleansing of the dead land, I find corpses of star elves, many kinds of fey and animals and dragons, this was a huge cataclysm, the star elves recorded it as a victory, but clearly it was not a good victory, even they could not fix the destruction here.

There are a few aberrations corrupted from normal functioning that try to attack me, but they are tiny little morsels, but do struggle against me worse than anything else, even the undead dragon skeletons that attack don't do as much as they. Then I come to where the fey lords bodies are and they awaken and attack, ripping my membrane in several places, but they get destroyed by my raw energies erupting from my wounds, I have to hurry to catch that energy so it does not cause another magic cataclysm. It takes me a whole day to consume the whole corrupted lands, I feel icky after it is all done, I slowly allow my energy and mass from the corrupted land to flow into the real me, making sure to convert it fully to my own type of energy.

Then after I finish that I vomit out earth and rock from the plane of earth, and some pure water from the plane of water, to fill the crater, then I weave my own network of life helping into the soil and kidnap mycelium and other soil life from where I have mingled with it, and form plants to provide a root system until real plants can take my place.

Miri walks onto the land I replaced the dead lands with and I create my nymph body again to meet her.

She looks around at the crazy forest I have made and then to me "these things are all you?"

I nod "yes, but I want help to spread real plants here, I don't want to occupy so much land, I am happier in the roots" I say "so when trees and bushes and all that moves in I will yield the sky and land to them."

Miri smiles "you could have kept all this land yours if you wanted though, it is so much better now, but I need to call the others and make sure they know you did this and that you are an ally of nature and druids" she makes another two handfuls of good berries for me "here you earned this and more, we will all work on spreading the forest into the recovered land."

I smile warmly "that makes me happy, now I think I need a bit of rest" I say as I eat all the good berries, but then I melt back into the soil, I slowly spread in the soil from here, and soon the other spreading edge meets up with this one. I don't really have a concept for how long I rest, I see people enjoy the midden heap garden, and druids, walking trees, and fey all work on the recovered land.

I notice Diana picking some fruit in the garden and she is heavily pregnant and beside her Kenneth walks, they wave to several of my butterflies, and I hear him tell her about me, she blushes and giggles.