Achre opened his eyes. A full year had passed, by his old world understanding. His depth of druidic knowledge had only grown deeper, and his small form grew a fair amount.
A few months prior, Achre had begun simple athletic routines. Beginner calisthenics, sprints, and light swimming consumed his free time when he chose not to study.
Still, he prioritized his mental faculties and education, as he had yet to fully understand this world. It had become clear now that his mental acuity had grown far beyond the level of his past life. When he was a soldier, he wasn't what one would call 'book smart'. Rather, his life on the streets and the burden of rearing his siblings had taught him to be shrewd and perceptive.
Now he had both forms of intelligence.
Odessa had not sprung anything revolutionary on him, not since the deepsoil ritual. Most prominent in the aspect of his magic, was his connection with the nature that surrounded him. He began to intuitively understand how close and intertwined everything felt, as if some miniscule effect from one end of his local biosphere would impact another, much larger part.
His daily tasks had not changed much either, although Odessa tested to see if he could trap small game within the clearing. This posed a discernable difference to the legends of druids he had come to know from his old world. Still, Odessa found no qualms in his killing of game, and even applauded him on it.
Breakfast had come and gone, as the boy followed close behind the girl to the lush garden below.
"I've a new task for you, my dear Achre." Odessa stated as she walked past the bountiful greenery. "You shall acquire some materials for our alchemical experiment."
Achre followed with confusion in his thoughts, 'We've never done alchemy?' As they continued walking, his feet settled beside her, stopped in front of the mighty hollowed tree. "Are you perhaps going to invite me within your workshop?"
"No. Not until you've acquired what we need." Odessa coldly spoke. "It's clear you can sense your surroundings now, you can easily identify plant and fungal material, and the animals from which you will take are of no danger."
Her hand reached for the workshop door. "You will do it alone of course. I suspect, with luck, you shall return in roughly a month's time."
The door was opened, a whimsical work space huddled inside the tree. Odessa took a step in and grabbed a small manilla sheet, charcoal words adorning both sides. She also grabbed a small powder blue pouch.
"I'd recommend you head opposite the mountain." She apathetically placed the sheet in the boy's lower right hand. "Now leave, my dear Achre."
The girl turned and began to walk away, before turning and tossing the small pouch to the boy. A sharp blast of a whistle came from her lips, as a stout raven flew from the trees. "If you die, Ulia will consume you and bring me your effects. You will never be able to sense him, so best stop any thoughts of aid now."
With that, she carried back on the path. Achre was in a state of slight confusion, but soon returned to calm.
'How comforting...'
*****
The boy had been walking for quite some time, an hour or so of clambering over massive roots and past earthy knolls. He had already picked up two of the materials from the front side of the sheet. Common rootwart and Pyles iris were readily available just beyond the clearing.
After looking over the list, Achre had come to a quick conclusion.
'The front side is easy enough, I might even find all of it before nightfall. The tricky shit is all on the back... a rare breed of nesting mushroom, the seed pod of an exploding popthorn tree, and an egg of the ever elusive Graco... not dangerous my ass.'
The three items would certainly be difficult to find, let alone acquire. Nesting mushrooms were parasitic fungi, known for their infectious paralyzing spores. Popthorn trees are as they are named, trees adorned with hardened wood spikes that explode at random. However, both paled in comparison to the Graco, in both difficulty of finding and life-threatening danger.
According to the only scholarly habitat study done on Graco, they are two meter tall, aggressively violent ground birds. The worst part was that the Graco studied were from a lesser forest - not from the entity that was Quailoon. Achre shuddered at how much worse their Quailoon counterparts must be.
As Achre jumped down from a massive root, he felt the weight of the powder blue pouch on his waist. From what he surmised, it held a larger storage than the exterior showed. Although it could store much more than a common pouch, it did nothing for the mass of the contents within.
From Achre's own estimate, the sum total of all the items easily exceed sixty-five kilograms. Thankfully it would only be that heavy on the return trip, after he gathered all of the materials.
The four armed boy carried on, stopping every so often to grab a flower or tuber or leaf. Although nightfall was still some ways off, the forest floor had darkened considerably. Achre decided to stop and rest for the night, a massive ten meter tall tree root his shelter.
It took only a handful of minutes before the boy setup a small fire. To his surprise, Odessa had packed him a small number of rations in the pouch. A half-sized portion of hardtack, some salted ofal, and a swig or two from his small water canister filled his stomach.
Achre remained wary of what may befall him through his rest. The harsher dangers of Quailoon would not be stopped by sharpened sticks or heavy rocks, so Achre went about setting up noise traps around his campsite. In his case, an alarm for incoming danger would be far more beneficial to him than hastily made booby traps.
As the night wound down and silence settled, Achre snuffed out his fire with dense green shrubbery.
'Since it's green it should kill the flames fairly quickly, and any smoke produced should mask my scent from predators.'
*****
It had been eight days since Achre set out from the clearing, and he had all but one final item on the front of his sheet.
'The final easy item, a petal from a histerium flower huh? Have to try and find a cavern or stillwater pond.'
Then, as Achre crested yet another giant root, a gaping chasm lay before him. From where he stood, he could barely make out a jumble of water and roots that marked the bottom.
'Much too far to jump, and the chasm is too deep and moist to climb down one side and up the other. It'll delay me, but I'll go around.'
The boy turned away from the chasm, his right foot stepping in the giant root. Like he had predicted, the root's exterior was moist from the stillwater down below, outside of his prediction was the height the invisible moisture ran slick. Achre's foot slipped off the root; his body sailed off the woody platform.
A tenth of a second later and Achre's mind jolted with thoughts. His thoughts sharpened to the point his brain forced immense pressure on his skull. Time seemed to slow and the further he fell, the slower time ran.
His mind racked itself for some improvised solution to this dilemma; anything in his reachable surroundings or own abilities.
'Druidic magic does nothing for me in this situation... nothing I can grab before I reach the bottom. Can I at least hit water?'
Another tenth of a second later and Achre's body caught up to his thoughts, as he looked to see his landing site.
'Well shit...'
His impending death rushed towards him; he would land on one of the many snaking roots. His body tensed and adrenaline coursed through his veins, his brain swelled further and he felt a faint hairline split begin atop his skull. Suddenly he felt his druidic sensory ability tear the skin apart on the nape of his neck, it screamed warning of immediate and impending death.
Another tenth of a second passed and the boy's body fell deeper. His thoughts settled on only one thing that may save him: the Hand. The mental hand he had willed a year ago, during the deepsoil ritual. Except he had no conscious control over it, and even if he did, he had no idea how to physically manifest it - if it even could be physically manifested.
Still, it was the only thing he could actively think of that may save him.
Four tenths of a second passed in the blink of an eye. Achre tried to will it into being, tried forcing his tense body to somehow conjure this mental apparition, he tried to remember the sensation he had felt at the moment it happened.
Nothing worked. Try as he might, nothing worked. Achre instinctively tucked his shoulders tight to his neck and bent his knees upwards, his feet pointed towards his crash-site.
It had been nearly a second of falling, and soon enough the second passed. Achre felt a pang of annoyance at this second chance at life he got.
'Slipping on a wet root... what a shit show of a death. Damn this sucks.'
Achre felt only annoyance. At himself, at his complacency, at his error. Most paramount however... was at his start. In both lives prior and present -- his start was abysmal.
'Can't complain though. When it rains it pours after all - and I couldn't play well enough with the cards I was dealt, huh?'
His seeming acceptance in that moment annoyed him. No. It royally pissed him off.
'Screw that... I already died once!'
One and a half seconds passed since the boy began his unwanted descent. A mental fog sprouted like viscous syrup across his psyche. He could smell the jungle, taste the dew of morning dance across his tongue, the harsh prickling of myriad bugs.
Alta Tellus, Una, Parvulus
An ephemeral voice whispered to him through his mental fog. Then came an endless tsunami, ripping through and tearing away Achre's thoughts, cold to the torment and pain the boy suffered. The fog had been torn from his mind, the ground now visible. Achre braced for his incoming death.
It never arrived. In hushed panic the boy opened his eyes and recoiled, as he witnessed the scene below him. His body had reached the bottom, or rather, he had.
His mind surged back to normalcy, his brain loosed of it's terrible pressure. However, he could still feel the hairline fracture atop his skull. Achre's palms and soles began to ache, before being quickly followed by a searing hot pain. The boy had landed on all six limbs.
Of all his limbs, Achre's lower set of arms hurt the most. Clear evidence he hadn't focused on their utilization or endurance properly. Another mental note marked and filed itself cleanly away, furthering his growth.
The far more pressing matter was still at hand.
'What in the hell just happened?'