Calyx was nowhere to be seen when we reached his tree, making me think that perhaps he was asleep and we might have to find a way to pass the time until morning without enjoying the protection of his shield.
I needn't have worried, though, because as soon as I got close he emerged from the trunk to greet us.
"The tree says that you are welcome any time you want," he explained. "Just approach the trunk, and it will open for you."
I thanked him and we headed inside, going straight to bed with a promise to catch up first thing in the morning. We slept like logs, enjoying the immense feeling of safety and isolation from the world that came with having access to the underground rooms under the tree's thick trunk. No sounds drifted from the outside, no light told us that the sun was coming up. There were little fake windows, lit by glowing mushrooms, but the cozy soft ambience only made sleep all the more enjoyable.
When we woke up, it was early afternoon according to the guild token. Calyx had prepared us a hearty breakfast, and a double dose of ambrosia for Vespera. I too found myself oddly attracted to the sweet drink, much more than before. I looked at the demon, knowing that it was her who was influencing me through the bond. She smiled and shrugged, downing her glass and sharing the taste with all of us.
The dryad regarded us curiously, no doubt wondering what was up with us. We chose to share the happenings of the last few days with him. Unlike Ted, he was an ally we had no reason to doubt. Besides, our duty as allies was still nebulous, as there wasn't much that we thought we could do for him and the tree, and keeping him up to date with the events of the outside world felt like something he might appreciate.
When asked, he confirmed that indeed it was. "I cannot move far from the tree, and even then I never leave the boundary of where the shield can protect me at a moment's notice. The world passes me by, and over the centuries I have learned to just… let it. Hearing the tales of your adventures makes me feel like I'm a part of it, not just an observer. Even though I actually am."
Elyra looked up, and I felt a tender desire to protect within her. "It is not true, Calyx. You are a part of our world now."
The drayd smiled. "This Ted," he said. Vespera rolled her eyes at his clumsy attempt at deflecting away from topics that made him feel vulnerable, and I sent her my amusement. "I do not like him. He keeps claiming that he is your only ally, even though you have told him about the tree and I."
I hummed. True, the dwarf never once mentioned the tree after I told him about it. Sure, it wasn't much use to him since I couldn't tell him the answer to the riddle or the tree would change it. But, he didn't even ask me to try and see if I could bring people inside.
Calyx stared at me and I realized that I was only thinking these things and not saying them out loud. That's when the girls also realized that they were sharing their thoughts with me, unintentionally keeping the dryad out of the loop. Crazy how we had gotten used to telepathic non-verbal communication in less than a day, to the point we were forgetting Calyx could not listen in.
"The tree asks me to encourage you to be careful," the dryad said after we took turns explaining our part. "And I can't help but wonder. Why did Ted think the wall was sabotaged, and why did he use that particular fact to convince you to go to his club meeting? Which, you cannot tell me about because you swore oaths, is that correct?"
I nodded. "I think we could break the oath rather easily, but Ted would know the next time we try to join a meeting."
"I understand. You have decided to become members, I take it?"
"We considered not doing it," Vespera said. Well, Elyra and I did, but the bond allowed her to consider our positions and points of view. "I talked them into accepting."
Calyx hummed pensively. "Why is that?"
"Opportunities," I said. Already Ted told us offhandedly, that once we were members we could probably put our [Matter Reclamation] skill to much better use than just using it on random junk while trying not to catch anyone's eyes. Once members of the club, catching eyes was no longer a problem. We could just invoke the club's existence, never in the open but implying it, and all problems would… well, not go away but close to it.
"Opportunities that have a cost, of course," I added. "If we use our mana to transmute material for him, we won't have it to fight monsters."
"That is correct," Elyra added. "Thus, we would be dragged into the city's economic sphere, of systems within systems, designed to control us."
I raised an eyebrow. Quite the anarchic way of looking at things. It didn't come from me, that's for sure. No matter how much I hated it, I was a cog in a wheel back in my old life. The thought triggered a small flash of memories, once again not mine but Elyra's. A book, but an eastern professor. Not an angel nor a human, but a half-dragon with slitted eyes.
Game theory applied to the world economy.
The moment passed, and the angel kept talking. "Yet, we are in dire need of resources, and the three letter club opens many doors that would otherwise be closed to us."
"Are you in a hurry to do anything?" the dryad asked. "Can you not… take it easy?"
"Yes and no," I said. "We have all the intention of taking things slow. No need to burn ourselves out. But consider this. You wanna go hunting anything that's not wolves? You need to pay for the map. You wanna fight and not get mauled in the process? You gotta pay for the instructor to teach you."
"And for weapons and armor," Vespera said. She was thinking about the damage redirection chestplate again, and it went for a hundred buckaroos. Hmm. Where did that word come from?
She shook her head, and I got the impression that she was a bit annoyed I was sidetracking her rant. "What about healing potions? Last night we tried sharing attribute points. It works, but it has limits. At least for now."
I smiled at her. So mature. So much like Elyra. Maybe it had to do with how she'd been all over Elyra last night? Perhaps the angel rubbed off on her even more than would normally happen with just the bond.
The girl in question blushed. I blew her a kiss and her wings twitched. Vespera, not wanting to feel left out, brushed her tail against my back and touched Elyra's wings with it.
"Then, there's the whole levels business," I said. "No matter how slow I take it, the moment I level up, I better have enough cores. But the cores are also currency, so…"
"I get it…" Calyx said, rubbing his temples. "Your life is so complicated. Sometimes I am glad I am just a dryad."
"Besides, I don't think we'd enjoy total isolation."
Vespera looked at me. "Speak for yourself, spacer boy. I can live just fine only interacting with you and Elyra."
That was cute. She was actually convinced of it, but I knew reality was rarely this easy. Back when I was a hauler, I spent so much time alone that I ended up craving any sort of human contact, even if it was with the scum that lived on certain space stations. I got fed up of them rather quickly, but it was still a need that reared its head after long periods of time alone.
I wondered if it was going to be the same with us, given that we weren't alone but together. Still, for all its problems I liked the city much more than I ever liked the space stations. Despite the similarities, there were also differences. This place wasn't that bad.
"Save for how they treat the slaves, the fact that they look like they are always on the brink of collapse, the corruption, the rot, the wall that's one good beast tide away from erasing the city, Ted the weirdo…" Vespera muttered through the bond. "I get it, spacer boy."
"The wall will not collapse," Elyra said.
"How do you know?" the demon asked.
The angel wanted to play coy, but the bond betrayed her. She was convinced that Ted knew more than he let on. There was a power struggle at play with the wall, and getting obliterated by a tide benefitted nobody. However, holding the city right on the edge of potential destruction, while carefully making sure it did not fall? Well, it funneled all the resources to a few people who, maybe via a certain secret society, managed to find themselves in positions of power near the nexus of the money.
Vespera's response to this was that Elyra was having strange thoughts ever since that eastern professor memory flash and that perhaps she should touch some grass.
I took a neutral stance.
"So, the plan is this," I said for Calyx's benefit. "For now, we decompress. We still have six days of guild map updates thrice a day, might as well use them to find weak monsters to hunt for practice and to gain some levels and cores, right?"
Nods all around. Even the drayd nodded, although we wondered how much he could relate to our points of view.
I smiled when I realized that, for the first time, I could say that WE wondered about something and it was actually true. It had been all three of us, synched up thanks to the bond.
Amazing.
"There are some people around the tree, killing the wolves," he warned us before we went up the winding stairway carved in the tree's trunk. "I thought you should know."
"Thank you," I said. "Well, that raises the question. Should we wait until they are gone?"
Vespera, of course, was against the idea. "Who cares? Remember when you told us we'd be living life to the fullest? Guess what, spacer boy, hiding from randos just because we are coming out of a living tree that kills everyone doesn't sound like living to the fullest."
Elyra giggled and shook her head. "Yet, there is merit in secrecy," she said.
It earned her a glare. In the end, our debate was cut short when the guild workers ran out of wolf encounters to farm and left on their own. The coast was clear. Very well, time to get out. We said our goodbyes to Calyx, promising to be back for the night or in case of a tide, and left the boundaries of the tree's domain.
It was just so that we could lounge on the soft grass, under the shade of a non-magical tree, and consult the guild map in my token without people wondering what we were doing. Totally. Best of both worlds, although I had to agree with Vespera, I didn't like being on high alert all the time. It was the angel on my shoulder, which was an almost literal analogy, that convinced me to be at least a little bit cautious.
At least for now. But then the devil on my other shoulder spotted something interesting on the map, and there was no stopping her.
"Sol, grab your stick," she declared. "We are killing that king slime and bringing back the biggest core and purest congealed slime the city has ever seen. You were right! We need the city! Where else would we get our fame and glory at such a marvelous feat?"
"Vespera," Elyra said. "You are celebrating before we even see how big this king slime is."
"Chill, little cat," the demon said. "It's marked as unknown-level, high E-rank difficulty. Guess who is E-rank? Us!"
"But—"
"Nu, uh. We know how to kill slimes. Cmon!"