Ball of Nothing

Dinner at Half Mono Village was always delightful. However, it felt a little odd seeing as everyone was able to fit into the tiny kitchen. So many people were missing and Zero wondered if he would be able to catch a glimpse of some of them before he had to leave tomorrow. Thankfully, the one person that he wanted to see was here.

"Cleo, have you ever heard of spriggans?"

The question was rather sudden and the dryad wasn't expecting it. "Where did you hear about them?"

Truen listened as Zero retold the story about how they met Axel who was an exotic merchant. "Schaf should be talking to him right now. In any case, we agreed to find the desert poppy for him. I've never heard of a spriggan anywhere before. He looks like a dwarf with elf ears."

Cleo nodded. "A spriggan is a distant cousin of dryads. However, like dragons, they are rare and said to be extinct. Are you sure he is a spriggan?"

Zero nodded. There was no way to doubt it because he didn't detect any lies. Isaben's blessing didn't trigger and Zero knew Axel was telling the truth.

"He said that he was a spriggan and the seeds of a desert poppy were the last thing he needed to complete the spell. He wants to return to the forest and track down the treasure he was guarding before. Axel didn't say much about what happened in the past but I think he has it tough."

Cleo felt sorry for the stray spriggan. If a dryad was to ever lose their tree or forest, the anguish felt by the plants would be felt by them as well. If they weren't driven insane from the pain and become evil spirits that destroyed everything in its way, they would perish and return to the natural plane. Axel's treasure must still be around in some form because he wasn't crazy according to how Zero described him, merely odd.

"I believe spriggans are ancient tree guardians, similar to dryads but more powerful. They are the ones who guard legends like the World Tree. As humans have destroyed many of these trees, very few of them are left if they exist at all. This poor spriggan must have been separated from its tree because of the tree's relocation to a place he couldn't reach seeing as how he is still quite sane. If he doesn't return to his tree soon, the spriggan might gradually lose what remaining sanity he has and turns into a destroyer that the humans call the Monster of the Forest. When that happens, only a god can stop him."

Hearing Cleo's explanation, Zero had a feeling he knew what treasure Axel was looking for. There were only a few trees that matched the powers of a World Tree. Coincidentally, one of them had no guardian that he knew about. If Axel had been searching for it over ten years ago, it was even more plausible that this tree Zero had in mind might be Axel's treasure.

Lovina was born from this tree but she wasn't its guardian. If Axel was able to settle down somewhere near where the tree last was, Zero's guess might as well be correct at this point. The Tree of Life's timeline of growing on Endow Hill matches the timeline of Axel's relocation and Lovina's birth. The Tree of Life became a seed that Zero found in Sleepy Cave. It could explain why Axel suddenly lost his trace and settled down in Rocket Mountain. Now that Zero transported the tree to the abyss, Axel was panicked. The bond between them must have weakened so much that the spriggan had to perform a tracking spell to locate it.

"Are spriggans powerful?" he asked. If Half Moon Village was able to recruit a spriggan into their ranks, would that help with the current manpower shortage?

Cleo hummed. "If dryads were like the top tier of spirits, a spriggan is like the king of spirits. There is a huge class difference. Hence, only a god can stop a rampant spriggan but any powerful magician can deal with a rampant dryad. Does that answer your question?"

Zero nodded. "If I manage to enlist him into Half Moon Village, would that help with the lack of manpower?"

The dryad's eyes brightened when Zero said that. "Of course! A spriggan's blessing and magic to the area it is in is amplified by the tree it is guarding. If you manage to find the tree he is guarding and bring it to the village, we need not fear even if the entire of Smargdas attacked us."

Amazed by how powerful Axel actually was, Zero wondered if it was truly worth uprooting the Tree of Life just to convince Axel to move over. After thinking about it for a while, he decided against it. It wasn't easy to plant that Tree of Life and join her with the Tree of Knowledge to steady the broken plane. It was too risky moving it.

"What about a spriggan who doesn't have his treasure tree? Are they still powerful?"

Cleo nodded enthusiastically. "Definitely! A dryad is powerful because of their ability to command plants in a forest. However, a spriggan's power isn't limited to only plants. They can control elements in the forest as well as animals. Some spriggans in legends were rumoured to be able to make mountains walk itself. I've never met a spriggan in person but as a dryad and a forest fae, I have great respect for them."

That was all it took to make Zero determined to recruit Axel to the village. He might not have a solution yet to the shortage of manpower but he believed quality will make up for their lack of quantity. If a spriggan was this powerful, he didn't need to recruit a thousand dryads. There really weren't enough dryads to begin with. Zero didn't want to think about the cost-effectiveness of a spriggan versus a thousand dryads. Feeding that many people would be a nightmare and Zero didn't want to consider the rest of the complications such as accommodations and job distribution.

"What about gnomes. If we can find some and I manage to convince a few to join the village, would that help?"

Cleo was over the moon when she heard it. "Gnomes are legendary with their hands! They are the only ones who understand how to make machines work in a manner that is out of this world. Nobody else could do what they do. Even the lousiest of gnomes would make everything that the lab members create look like a child's toy. I'm not trying to offend Raj, Tambolt or Hyelin but gnomes are really on another level of their own. The blueprints that we have now might not even be good enough in a gnome's eye. At the same time, a gnome's invention would be all that is required to break down even the mightiest of fortresses. They have found a way to successfully dig through mountains and live under the desert. I know you're going on a journey to find them but be warned, they are very grouchy people. If you do manage to convince one gnome to come over even for a visit, we would be extremely honoured."

Zero thought that it was an exaggeration but nodded. "I'll do my best," he told her and the dryad poured more drinks for him until they were out of fruit juice for the night.

"Rest early," Truen told Zero and Bob. "We set out early before the sun rises. Don't forget to tend to the sand walkers so that we don't have to rush tomorrow morning."

Zero nodded. Tomorrow they headed south and he would change back to his healer's appearance. Bob would have to start getting used to being in his adorable bunny-dragon appearance.