After a few moments to build up his courage, Mike started "...There is no easy way to say this, but I'm basically a Reincarnator, or I suppose a Transmigrator might be closer. I died and was sent to this world with a new body. Because of that, I pretended to have amnesia in order to explain my lack of common sense and general knowledge. I'm sorry to have deceived you for so long, but I had my reasons initially, and then it simply became too difficult to explain."
As soon as he was done, he glanced over at Tal, who had been silent this entire time. The elf stared at him for a few moments, the faintest hint of a smile on her face, before looking away at the trees. "I understand. No apology is needed."
He blinked, feeling a little confused. "Are you sure? This is a pretty big thing I've been hiding from you. I was sure you'd be angry."
She looked back, once more smiling. "But you are sharing it now, yes? That means that you trust me enough to tell me. Why should I be angry?"
"That's...I'm not really sure what to say, but thank you." He muttered, feeling strangely warm.
"Besides, we've known about you being a Otherworlder for some time now."
"...Eh?"
For a moment, she almost seemed to break out into laughter, before the emotions vanished from her face once more in an seemingly forcible manner. She continued with a slight frown of annoyance. "You are in a party with an Oracle, who has devoted much of her free time trying everything she could to divine the swirls of destiny around you. Both to guide you along the right path, and help you delve into your supposedly forgotten past."
[Well, now I feel guilty.]
"Wait, so Sera knows too? Who else? For how long?"
"Don't worry. It's only the two of us. We decided to keep it from Brenden, since we were unsure of how he would handle it. You know he's a bit unstable when you are concerned." She replied quickly. "Shortly after we arrived at the University, Sera came to me stating that she'd attempted a ritual to peer into your past."
"What, really? That sounds incredibly useful. Why didn't she mention anything about it before?"
"It only works if the caster is very familiar with the subject, and has something of significant emotional value belonging to them. Which meant that it's largely useless outside of a specific set of circumstances. I believe she intended to bring it up if she felt it might come in handy at some point, and planned on telling you if she discovered anything regarding your forgotten past. However, I what she saw rendered that moot."
"I see. I suppose it would."
"Besides, she temporarily borrowed Audra for the process." The faint smile reappeared on her lips. "I think she felt a bit ashamed about needing an entire chicken to bribe her into cooperating."
Mike chuckled. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Well, what did this ritual reveal? Do you know about my past life now?"
"Not really. Even an Oracle cannot penetrate the boundaries between realms, so she was unable to see anything farther back than the moment of your arrival in this world. Apparently though, that was sufficiently informative. Also somewhat traumatic, although she wouldn't explain why. Suffice it to say, she caught a glimpse of one of your titles. Specifically the 'Otherworld Traveller' one."
Thinking back to the manner in which he'd first appeared in Ea, he could imagine what bothered her. [I'm going to have to tease her about this in the future.]
"Well, I guess that saves time, then. This tree guy is actually another traveller from my old world."
Tal nodded. "I assumed that was the case. Does this mean he will be as ridiculous as you?"
"Let's hope not." Mike replied with another chuckle.
Silence descended between the pair for a few moments, until Tal broke it quietly. "I would love to hear about your homeland, should you feel like telling me."
Feeling that warmth again, he nodded. "I will, I promise, but we shouldn't leave Reber hanging for too long. From what I gathered, he's been alone for nearly a century."
"Alright. There is still the other door in the basement left to explore, as well." Tal said, while starting to walk back to the cabin.
"What other door?" As far as he could remember, there was only the one entrance. He'd made sure to check for that exact thing, since it seemed so odd that there was an exterior entry to the basement that seemingly didn't connect with the laboratory.
Tal paused for a few seconds. "Ah, I think I understand the problem. There may have been an illusory wall covering it. Once we return, I shall point it out to you."
[Yep, definitely going to have to work on some kind of illusion resistance or immunity. If I stay like I am now, it could get me in serious trouble.]
When they arrived back at the cabin, they were greeted with the sight of Reber lying spread eagle on the ground. His eyes were closed, so he basically looked like a strangely humanoid piece of driftwood. After waiting a few moments, Mike coughed loudly.
The tree man cracked one eyelid. "Sup?"
"We've finished our conversation, and were planning on heading back down to the basement to finish our investigations." He answered.
"Cool, cool. Do what you got to do." Reber fired back, before closing his eye again.
"Actually, I was kind of hoping that you'd go with us, since you are the person most familiar with this place. You know, guide us through any hazards. That sort of thing."
"Oh? Why didn't you say so?" He replied, standing up. "I don't know too much, but I'll guide you through what I can. I mean, it's not like I have any trauma related to being in that basement. You know, the kind that might cause a PTSD style flashback or anything."
"Ah...I suppose that might be the case. Sorry to have asked."
Reber tapped him on the shoulder. "Have you forgotten already? Tree. Glands. Don't have them. While I still get a bit of the old plant stress response from being down there, I think it has more to do with the lack of sunlight and soil than anything psychological."
"Alright...thanks."
"No problemo, I'm just excited to be using English again for the first time in a while. Which, now that I think about it, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Excitement is an emotion, right?"
Mike nodded as he followed Reber back into the cabin.
"So, maybe my brain is only partially a tree?" He frowned, deep in thought for a few moments before shrugging, "Eh, whatever. Not worth worrying about it, I guess. Anyway, I'll take you through best I can, although I was serious about not knowing much. Spent most of my time here as a prisoner, after all."
"How did you end up here, anyway? Surely you didn't reincarnate as this Fatima's test subject."
The tree man nodded. "That's a bit of a story, actually. I was born to a tribe of nature worshippers that lived in the Forest of Shadows. You know the types. Big on recycling and planting trees. Used renewable resources for pretty much everything. Real hippies. They all seemed to believe that they lived in some kind of paradise simply because they didn't have to worry about air pollution or some such thing. I, having once enjoyed the benefits of modern society, found it pretty damn depressing. So, when I was old enough to survive on my own, I decided to set out and find my fortune."
"Must have been tough." Mike remarked, recalling how his own experiences in the forest went.
"Well, truth be told, I didn't get far. About twenty kilometers from my village, I ran into a bunch of Druids by accident. Interrupted some kind of important ritual, actually. I learned later it was supposed to balance nature in the forest for a decade. With my interference, they would have to start over and prepare for it again, which would take weeks of effort. You should have seen the Grand Druid's face, he looked ready to skin me alive." He gave a nostalgic sigh. "Anyway, while they were debating about what they should do about me, one of them used some kind of magic crystal and found out I had the potential to be a Druid myself. Since they seemed to have an issue with recruitment, they finally decided to let me off the hook, provided I join their order for the rest of my life."
"That's a bit harsh, but at least you got to be a Druid, right? That should have been pretty cool."
Reber nodded. "I thought so at the time, too. Figured it would be all throwing fireballs and turning into bears and whatnot...You know, now that I think about it, I never did get to turn into a bear...Anyway, it's a lot more about learning herb lore and animal behavior than you'd think. Hell, I spent a full month learning how the Lunagloss flower responded to different levels of moonlight, simply to figure out how to extract the nectar in order to make a mild analgesic. Suffice it to say, after a few years of this, I'd had enough."
"So, you made your escape?"
"Like a pro...or at least I'd like to say that. Truth be told I only managed to get away for a few hours before they tracked me down. Didn't take them long to hog tie me and start dragging me back."
"Ah, I see."
"Anyway, that was where I met Fatima. She was conducting a survey of the plant life in the southwestern part of the forest, and ran into my captors by pure happenstance." Reber stopped in front of the basement door and looked a bit wistful for a moment. "There was a standoff. I thought she was trying to rescue me, but apparently she'd been looking for druids to capture for her experiments for years and wasn't about to let this chance slip by."
Mike waited for him to finish.
"Long story short, she and my captors fought for a bit until finally the Druids decided they were overmatched and escaped. Fatima was a fairly powerful Tier 3 mage, you see. It would have required some of more powerful members to stand a chance against her. Anyway, she captured me and turned me into a lab rat. You know the rest of the story."
"Wow...sounds like you had pretty rotten luck."
Reber shrugged while walking over to one of the basement's walls. "What can I say, it's a gift. Anyway, there's a door over here that will take you into the demi-realm's control chamber. Don't know much about it myself, but Fatima went in a couple of times to adjust the illusions when she was having visitors. Apparently, she wanted to spruce up the place a bit when company was coming over..."
Reber waggled his non-existent eyebrows at Mike for a few seconds. "Get it, spruce? And I'm a tree...Hm...I guess my comedic talent went the way of my meat-based organs..."
After neither of them commented on his pun, the tree man gave up, and pressed a button on one of the devices in the room, causing a portion of the wall to fade out of existence and reveal a steel door. Inside was a small chamber, little more than a few meters square that was empty save for a single object.
At the center of the room was a metallic pillar stretching from floor to ceiling, and about a meter in diameter. It was carved with some of the most intricate arcane runes that Mike had ever seen. Which happened to glow with a faint blue light.
He tried to imagine how long it would take him to make something like this, and could only figure that the carving itself would require months, if not years of dedicated effort. After a few moments of marvelling, he tried to use Appraise.
-------------------------
Control Pillar
Magic Device (Tier 3, Rank 5)
Origin point and control nexus for the demi-realm it is found in.
-------------------------
[Gotta love the System's explanations.]
"This...is…amazing." Tal muttered, sounding slightly overcome.
"Pretty impressive, isn't it. This is the heart of the demi-realm, and the reason that it hasn't collapsed under the pressure of interdimensional space, or so I've been told." Reber explained proudly. He stared up at it for a few seconds and then glanced back at them. "Well, that's all I know about it, anyway."
Mike gave him a confused look.
"What? Do you think Fatima shared the secrets of operating this thing with me? Hell, I spent 90% of my time inside that Stasis Array. I only know what I told you because she mentioned it once when she was drunk. By the way, did I mention that she had the bad habit of going on a drinking spree and then coming down to complain about her love life?"
"What, really?"
"Yep, it was quite sad. I would have felt a bit of pity for her, if not for the whole, being held prisoner for insane experiments, thing."
Mike looked back at the pillar. "So, you don't really know anything else about this?"
"Nope, but I will say it's probably safe to leave it alone. After all, it hasn't exploded or anything after all these years. The only other thing of interest in this basement is the storage room through there." He pointed to another steel door opposite of the one they came in. "It was where Fatima kept most of her bulky plant samples. I'm sure it's mostly gone bad by now, though. You can also get into the back yard from there, should you feel so inclined."
"I see. Thanks for the explanation." Mike replied, before passing the information over to Tal, who was busy examining the control pillar. After deciding that they should avoid experimenting with it until they knew more about how it operated, they agreed to bring this current expedition to an end.
"So, Reber, we're going to be heading back now. I wanted to ask, what are you planning on doing. Do you want us to take you somewhere?"
The tree man scrunched his face up in the parody of deep contemplation. "Actually, there is one thing I've been wanting to try for a while now…"
------------------------------------------
"So, this is Reber, everyone." Mike explained to the rest of the party once they were back.
"Look! Look! I'm doing it! I'm photosynthesizing!" The individual in question was yelling. Not long after he'd stuck his legs into the dirt of the dorm's backyard, the branches on his head and back started to sprout leaves.
"How does it feel, buddy?" Mike yelled back, ignoring the odd look he was getting from Sera.
"Have you ever been bald before? Imagine suddenly developing the ability to grow your hair back at will, and then also having that hair absorb sunlight to chemically produce energy. It's wild, man. You got to try it sometime."
"Right. I'll definitely get on that." He replied with a sigh.