Vokinor strode into his little home, whistling cheerfully. Behind him, his little sister, Vorenn trudged, muttering dire things under her breath.
He ignored her. Vokinor thought of her as a bit annoying, but she was his sister, grown in the same little bit of earth as him.
He still remembered that. He woke up in the most marvelous place. Energy simply poured in unceasingly, calling to his cells to grow, multiply and stretch into the perfect form.
Vokinor stopped in front of the pile of seeds in the center of the room. To be honest, the pile occupied most of the space in the small burrow.
Vokinor wasn't sure just how it was that he and Vorenn had grown at all. The majority of seeds were still in slumber, nearly inert.
He wasn't even sure how he'd landed in that marvelous place. Now he got to protect it.
The very thought satisfied something deep inside. He glanced at Vorenn who was still muttering.
"So, you don't want to protect the land?" He asked her with a grin.
"Who said that? I never said that!" Vorenn immediately protested, her head snapping up and eyes darting from side to side. Then she frowned. "You're being mean to me! I'm going to tell!"
"Tell who?" Vokinor asked, cocking his head quizzically.
Vorenn stared at him for a long moment before stomping her foot. She raised one arm, pointing at him. Vokinor ducked as a stream of hot water flew past him.
"Meanie!" She snarled as she stomped off to her room.
"I'm the meanie?" Vokinor called after her retreating back. He glanced at the wall which was melting a little under the onslaught. "At least it helps expand the place," he muttered as walked to the wall.
*****
Vokinor polished the little bit of metal that he called his shield. It was hard and sturdy and didn't take that long to shine up. In short, it embodied everything he loved in a shield.
He pulled back just a little and stared at the shining flat surface. Then he frowned. It lacked something, but what he couldn't figure out.
Vokinor glanced out of the window he was sitting in front of. Vorenn's temper tantrums had helped him build up to a second story, cleverly hidden from outsiders by a mass of vines and broken stone. He'd even mortared broken stones onto the outside to make it even more hidden.
From his view, he could see giant hunks of broken rock. He realized after staring for a long moment that the weird striations and patterns were actually a broken symbol.
Vokinor put the shield down and stood. He walked to the corner of the little room. To be blunt, he'd only made the one little tower type room, thinking to expand as more of his people grew up and needed space. He climbed the knobby wall to the small hole in the ceiling covered by leaves.
Pushing the leaves aside, he levered himself onto the roof. Vokinor strode to the edge of the roof, staring at the rocks. Then he turned, taking in what little he could see of the rest of the plaza.
At the very furthest edge, the mayor was working diligently, or at least as diligently as she ever worked. She was picking broken bits off of the tiered mountain and watching them disappear into thin air. Then she would pull out a big square of stone and set it into the place the broken bits were.
Vokinor narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. Then he turned his head, catching a movement by the edge of the plaza. Two young rabbits were venturing around the edges, keeping to the broken stones.
Between the shadows, the stones and the rabbits' fur, it was hard to see them if you didn't know they were there.
Vokinor frowned as he watched them disappear in the direction of the field and then reappear a few seconds later, the giant blue cat chasing them.
Vokinor's eyes glistened at the sight of the running rabbits. Then he focused on the giant square stone near his house. It had been broken bits the last time he'd come to inspect.
Carved on the side facing upwards was a symbol. Vokinor looked at it thoughtfully before going back into his house.
He needed to fetch his shield.
*****
Vorenn snorted as she heard the clanging sounds. Her big brother was so noisy! All the time! It was so irritating!
She clapped her hands over her ears, wincing at the suddenly high-pitched scratching sounds.
Vorenn scanned the bits of paper that covered the walls of her room. She finally settled on one that proclaimed that it was a sound bubble.
Vorenn had personally dragged the bits of paper herself. They came from a storeroom that she'd known the location of. How she knew that information, she couldn't tell. It was just something that she knew.
There was actually much more paper there than her little room could accommodate. Much, much more. The words looked like they'd been written not by a giant, but still by someone or something much bigger than her small, tiny self.
She closed her eyes and followed the directions. A few seconds later, she breathed out a sigh of relief as the noise faded away to a few faint thuds.
Vorenn called up her status.
[Vorenn
Lv. 10
HP 100/100
MP 100/100
SP 2000/2000
Str: 5 Int: 50 Vit: 80
Exp: 5/500
Class: Mage (initial)
{Click for skills}
Note: Being a Grass Ent, regeneration occurs 5x faster than non-Ent species.]
Vorenn mused on it for a second. She was sure that her brother for all his silliness was at least 5 or maybe even 6 levels ahead of her. Unlike her, he gained experience just doing whatever stupid thing he was doing.
She had to actually do things related to magic, like learn spells or study magical things.
Just the thought made her a bit mad. It was like her brother was made to be some guardsman type.
She slumped against the curve of the bubble's inside wall. Vorenn had the desire to build something, but it was something she kept shoving down deep.
She didn't have the time or resources to build anything at the moment. Even the little house she and her brother occupied was barely big enough for them and the pile of seeds.
Vorenn knocked her little fist against the bubble, making it wobble. She hated knowing all these things she needed to do and not being able to do it. She had a feeling that if she told the Mayor, the giant would help.
That wouldn't do. Vorenn felt that she had to put her very own stamp on it. How, she wasn't quite sure.
But she was positive that she would eventually figure it out.
*****
Cora lay on her back by the City Hall steps. If she tilted her head just so, she could see the timer hovering over the dryad's forest, thicket or whatever it was supposed to be called. To her, it still looked like a ball of green light with a weird opaqueness that reminded her of the marbles one of her great-aunts' friends had given Nate.
That was before his parents realized that the marbles actually had some value as something other than a kid's toy. They'd sold them to a collector later. Nate had lied and said that he'd lost them.
Cora never did figure out whether or not her great-aunts or their friend ever believed him. At least they'd tried to replace them with cheap plastic imitations, but those hadn't had the satisfying feel or weight of the originals.
The timer above the dryad area showed that it still had almost five hours left. As it turned out, it only counted down when Cora was within Wilderven's city limits. Otherwise, it was frozen.
She had to admit that she hadn't been in the town that much since setting up the grove. Other than planting, harvesting and storing away the stuff she'd acquired, she'd been pretty much MIA.
Still, Cora wanted to at least get the stairs done before the grove opened or settled or whatever it was doing. The rest of the city was still in ruins. She'd be the first to admit that she had no clue just how to repair a house or even stack something to keep the rain out.
Cora looked up at the barrier that surrounded the town. So far, it hadn't rained while she was here, but she'd heard that it really rained in the game. That provided an interesting thought.
The gardens still retained some semblance of irrigation canals, all carefully paved with little stones half the size of her pinky nail. She was hoping that she didn't have to fix those. They were just too small.
So far, she had half the City Hall steps done. With luck, the bricks and slabs she had in storage would be enough to finish off the rest.
Honestly, her work schedule hadn't been helped by the discovery that she could just let the bricks make themselves in that nifty little machine. She'd gotten in the habit of lugging a granite block over, setting it in place and trotting off to go do other things.
Unfortunately, the other things usually involved her leaving Wilderven. It was quite the hike back, too. She couldn't wait to hit the next level.
And fixing steps only netted her a lousy 1 exp per brick.
Cora smiled to herself a bit sheepishly. Every little bit counted. Then she glanced to the side. There, another ruined garden could be seen, overgrown with grass, weeds and vines.
The smallest of scratchy sounds could be faintly heard. If she was right, her little garden guard lived over there somewhere. She wasn't quite sure where. If he wanted to turn the entire garden into a home for cute grassy people, he was more than welcome.
She thought it was a bit much that her population counter didn't really count him as a full member. He and his companion only registered as .1 on the counter.
Cora hoped he would bring friends and relatives along with him. Her mouth curled into a happy smile as the thought of a tiny neighborhood filled with little grass people flooded her brain. She wondered if she'd have to find tiny furniture and kitchen supplies for them.
She could almost see one dressed as a milkman with teeny, tiny bottles of milk.
Cora sat up.
"I wonder if someone makes something that small somewhere…"
With that thought in mind, she stood up, brushed off her pants and trotted towards her teleportation circle.
Something told her that if anyone knew the answer to that, it would be Ufkim, the orc merchant she sold most of her blood corn to.