The Dryad 8 More Information

We all took a seat at one of the tables while we waited for our food. It was a little awkward around the table. For one thing, I had very little skill in conversing with others due to lack of practice and the others seemed to have too much respect for me to dare to engage in small talk. For another, our eyes all kept drifting to a very sad-looking, wilted daisy also touched by the blight in a rough vase at the center of the table. It reminded me painfully of the blight infecting the forest, my home, and I had to struggle against the impulse to restore the nearly dead bloom so I would not give my powers away. Luckily the wait for the food was not long, and once the man was back I did not need to find ways to break the awkward atmosphere.

"Thank you for your patience," he started as he set down the trays. "You elves come out of the woods so rarely, it is my pleasure to serve you. It would be an even greater honor if you were to stay the night at my inn. As I said earlier, we have been full up, but just this morning one of our guests that has been here for quite some time left in a hurry. If you three were to take his place, people would talk about it for weeks! Especially you two refined ladies," he grinned again. It looks like that part of humans also has not changed. Mentally I appended having a pretty face after money in my list of ways to interact with humans.

"We still need some information before we can make our plans," Istan reminded him.

"Then, what is it that I can help you with?"

"Who was the man that left in such a hurry this morning?" I asked giving him a charming smile.

The human gave me a curious glance for a long moment before he replied, "Oh, just another customer. We have been holding his room even when he went out of town on business, but he said he won't be coming back any more." What was with that long look, anyway? Did I have food on my face? "He has been staying here for almost a year and a half, since part way through last summer. It was nice steady income."

Istan gave me a glance. I was not sure what he was trying to say but I indicated that he could continue with the questions. "Something strange has been happening in the forest near this village and we are trying to find the cause of it."

The man showed a troubled face, "We have done our best to follow the rules of the forest that were given to us by the Elves all those generations ago. I am not saying that we never do anything foolish but I can't think of anything we would be doing that would be enough to alarm the elves. Could there some disease that is affecting the forest? I know that our crop yields these last couple years have been less than we would hope for since some of the fields have been affected by disease. If I remember right the ones near the forest were hardest hit."

Istan, not knowing how to field that question, looked at me. I replied,"I have spoken with the spirits of the forest. This is nothing that they have ever felt before. This was caused by someone's action. As we investigated the forest itself we could tell some human or elf was responsible." I really wanted to ask the man if he knew where Faun was. The blight would be easy to fix, but this was the only clue we had so far.

"Talking with the spirits. She must be a sorceress. No wonder she is with the elves." The man said under his breath. This was an understandable interpretation for him to make. I appeared to be human, and only humans with magical powers were able to sense spiritually. I myself, was not aware of why some humans had the ability to sense spirits and manipulate nature as us spirits did. But I did know that the gift was rare and they were often sought after by people in power. One thing I did know is that humans who had awoken this ability could be quite strong, surpa.s.sing lower level spirits like sprites. This was not something I had seen happen in elves.

Then speaking up the man said, "No one from this village would ever do anything to harm to forest. We depend on it. We do have visitors that come to the village but most of them never set foot into the forest. They only come to buy and sell goods."

"What about that man you were talking about earlier? The one that you said just left town this morning."

"He was some sort a magician from what I gathered. I think that he said that he was searching for new magic herbs in the forest and trying to find uses for them. I don't see why someone studying plants would harm the forest."

"If that was really the case I would agree with you. Do you happen to know if this man was out at night two nights ago?" I asked.

"As of the time I went to bed he was still here. But there is no saying that he did not sneak out after that, if that is what you are asking."

All I could do is frown at that statement. I was not getting any further at figuring out if that man was behind it. "You said that that he left in a hurry this morning. Tell me everything." To make the man more willing to talk I presented him with a small wooden flask. "This contains a restorative medicine. Even those near death's door can be recovered with this. It will work on any living thing, animal or plant" I made it look like I pulled this out of my cloak but in fact I just made this. It is something that I had worked on for countless years with Faun. There were often times where she would want to help some sick animal in need, and together we had perfected this potent healing tonic. It was convenient that my power could create the ingredients and craft the wooden container with so little of my thought going into it now. It still took a good deal of energy to make it from inside the village, though.

The human looked skeptical. So I took the stopper out of the bottle. I looked at the wilting, blighted daisy in the vase at the center of the table and let one drop of the mixture fall on its petals. In just a few moments, the flower was restored to its fullest bloom. "If I give you this," I continued while watching the transformation, "will you tell me everything you know about that man?"

I looked up to see three shocked faces. I could tell that the elves greatly wanted this gift too. I could not help smiling at them. "Don't worry, the mother of the forest will give the elves several vials for your a.s.sistance in this matter." Did it always feel this odd to talk about yourself in third person?

Leafia was the fastest to recover "We are most honored by this. We did not need any payment to give you *cough* and forest mother a hand."

"Thank you so much for this gift. I will tell you all I can." The worker started to go into as much detail as he could about the man. Apparently he was a loner that did not like to interact with the other guests. He would spend much of his time outside of the inn, presumably in the woods. The last two mornings he did seem a little on the tired side as if he had not slept well, and he wanted to leave first thing this morning. He was waiting in the lobby to settle his account as soon as the worker got out of his room.

"Do you know where this man is from or where he might have gone to?" This was what I most needed to know.

"He said he was from the kingdom of Yana. I myself do not know any more than that." The man frowned and thought for a bit. "I do know that when he first came here he worked with a hunter named Gray."

"Where can we find this man Gray?" Istan asked.

"His house is on the north side of town just outside the gate. Though at this time of day, I would think that he is still out in the woods. He usually comes home mid-afternoon."

Upon hearing the location of the man's house I decided to give my power a little stretch and see if I could find this man Gray. As the worker said, just outside the gate was a home. To me it felt much more wholesome and full of life than anything else around. But what was most interesting was the person that I felt in the house. For one thing, I could tell that they felt my presence too. I snapped the connection quickly, suppressing a smile. Feeling the release of my power from so close the elves shuddered a little. The human, on the other hand, did not seem to notice. However, he did act a little fl.u.s.tered. "Miss, your eyes are glowing green. Well, your eyes are always green, but they were glowing."

"They do that sometimes when I use my power." I turned to Istan and Leafia. "I have found the house and someone is home. I think there will be some useful information gathered from there."

"If there was only one person home it was probably the hunter's wife, Emily," the worker offered.

I stood up to leave, "Thank you so much for your help. I do not feel that we will be needing a room for the night but if that changes we will be sure to come back. Do we owe you any more for the meal?"

"There is no way I could accept money," the man said and then held up the wooden flask. "This is worth much more than a few small loaves of bread. I could probably even buy a new inn with it. If I was to take this to the capital and sell it to some aristocrats…." he trailed off.

There were several things in that statement that I did not understand but I felt they were not important enough to hold us up. I would just ask Istan as we walked. We left the worker with our thanks again. Once we were outside of the inn I asked Istan, "What is an aristocrat?"

"I do not know all of what that entails, but they are something like a village chief that rules over several towns." Istan glanced at me curiously. "May I ask why you seem to be so excited about what you found at the Hunter's home? As soon as you used your powers you were getting ready to leave."

"I am not entirely sure what we will find there. But I would be greatly surprised if it does not turn out to be a help to us in our dilemma." Istan and Leafia looked at me with confused faces, but I just smiled and kept walking.