“I’m not sure that I am a druid,” said Isra. The frown hadn’t left her face since Verity had gone upstairs. “I don’t feel like a druid.”
Hannah nodded. “You just feel like yourself. It’s common for druids, or so I’ve heard, since most of ’em get raised in the woods, away from others, and all the talkin’ to animals and finding forage without lookin’ is no more an extra power to them than havin’ a second arm is to me.” She paused. “Can you find forage?”
“I forage,” said Isra, crossing her arms. “When you say that I find it without looking—” She shook her head. “I don’t think I understand what being a druid is. Alfric didn’t explain it well.”
If that was a slight, Alfric didn’t react to it.
“So,” said Hannah, always happy to be an authority. “As part of the seminary, we did some comparative studies, lookin’ into other gods and other things that are like gods. Other clerics, but also alienists and druids. Formally, a druid is someone who, first off, is born some five miles away from anyone else aside from their mother and doesn’t come within five miles of anyone else for the first three years of their life.”
“Which isn’t the case for Isra,” said Alfric. “She’s insistent—and I believe her—that her mother died in childbirth, and her father raised her alone. Also, I heard one mile instead of five.”
“Well,” said Hannah, “either way, that’s a mystery for later, but it might just be a corner case. Anyhow, a druid becomes attuned to nature, far more than you or I, and has a sixth sense for all kinds of things, which eventually blossoms into bein’ able to influence the natural world.” She snapped her fingers. “Isra, what’s the weather going to be like tomorrow?”
Isra stared at her. “Cloudy in the morning, then clear around lunch, and some light rain in the evening. You’re saying that you don’t know any of that?”
“Nope!” said Hannah, beaming. “You probably know all kinds of things that someone like myself or Alfric or even Mizuki doesn’t know, and you know them just by knowin’ them, without havin’ the faintest clue how you know. More likely than not, you never even thought about it, it just felt natural.”
“According to the census, she’s a ranger,” said Alfric.
“Och, yes, the all-knowin’ census,” said Hannah with a sigh.
“I was just offering it,” said Alfric. “And I had said that I would help to track down a druid for Isra to speak with, so we could get some confirmation one way or another, and she could work on her abilities.”
“Good next steps, I suppose,” said Hannah. “And it’ll be vital in the dungeons.”
“It will?” asked Isra.
“Oh certainly,” said Hannah. “The dungeons have all kinds of beasts and plants in them, and if you can hone your skills a bit more, you’ll be able to tell which of them are any good. All that talk of unique books in the dungeons? Well, what about unique plants? Tomatoes are famously a dungeon plant.”
“They are?” asked Mizuki.
“They’re thought to be,” said Alfric. He sounded skeptical. “And it’s illegal to bring anything that can replicate out of a dungeon unless it’s very securely contained. Illegal, and also a bad idea.”
“We’ve got the book, don’t we?” asked Hannah. “Shouldn’t be too hard to set up a grow box, should it? Not that we’ll get the next tomato, but it’s somethin’ to keep an eye out for.” She turned to Isra. “Meat and skins are the other big things. Normally you’d have no idea what any of the beast parts could be used for, but that’s somethin’ a druid might know, if the skill is honed.”
Isra looked between Alfric and Hannah. “The skill is… about money?”
“No,” said Mizuki. “A woods witch is about helping people. That’s her main job, or, I guess, role, since usually she gets paid in goodwill or being loved. Pucklechurch had a woods witch back when my grandpa moved into town, and she helped him get settled and clear this land.”
“How?” asked Isra. She was frowning. “I wouldn’t be able to do that.”
“She told the trees to move,” said Mizuki.
“And they listened?” asked Isra.
“It took a long time, but yes,” said Mizuki. “You’ve got to be pretty patient with trees, he said. Over a couple of months though, they started ambling out of the way.”
“But why wouldn’t he just cut them down?” asked Hannah. “There’s lots of wood used in this house.”
“Grandpa had a cart,” said Mizuki. “It was a magical one. He had filled it with timbers, stones, and tiles from Kiromo, and this place was meant to be a piece of his homeland, which I guess it did end up being, until he moved back. As for why he wouldn’t cut the trees, that’s an old Kiromo superstition. If you start your foundation with the death of trees, they’ll haunt your house.”
They were all looking at her.
“It’s true,” she said. “Or, it’s not true that you’ll get ghost trees, but it’s true that it’s a superstition.”
“But what would a ghost tree even be?” asked Hannah.
“Well, ghosts live in the elsewhere and then appear for brief moments, right?” asked Mizuki. “So I guess you’d be walking through your house in the middle of the night, and the ghost tree would be real and solid for half a second, just long enough that you run smack into it.”
“You’ve got some peculiar notions on ghosts,” said Hannah. “If you ever have a real ghost, I have some trainin’ in the matter, though I imagine we’d get Lemmel before lettin’ me have a go at it myself.”
“Anyway,” said Mizuki. “The woods witch died some three decades back, and Pucklechurch hasn’t had another since. We’ve been borrowing one from Liberfell, when we have need, I think.”
“Which is where?” asked Isra.
“Two hexes southwest,” said Alfric. “It’s the size of Tarchwood, maybe a touch larger.”
“We can send a letter out, if you’d like,” said Mizuki. “We have a cartier servicing Pucklechurch, and you’d get a response back in, oh, two or three days? Or I could talk with some guildmates I have there.”
Isra nodded. “And she would help me understand?”
“Better than we can, that’s for sure,” said Mizuki. “Though I’m sure that Alfric and Hannah both consider themselves to be experts.”
“I don’t,” said Alfric, holding up a hand. “And I already said as much.”
“I did have a class on druids in seminary,” said Hannah. She turned to Isra. “Though no, I wouldn’t call myself an expert, even if I probably know as much as anyone here.”
“You’re saying I’ll be able to speak with trees,” said Isra, looking at Mizuki.
“Oh, woods witches are quite useful,” said Mizuki. “Especially the most powerful ones. When the woods witch comes to town, she tells all the weeds in the fields to die, she tells the birds to stop poaching seeds, she tells the insects to bugger off, all kinds of things, then goes on her way. They naturally stop listening to her instructions after a bit, but it’s always a more pleasant week or two.”
“She tells the weeds… to die?” asked Isra, frowning.
“Pretty sure she does, yeah,” said Mizuki. “Oh, and druids have some weather control, so it’s always a nice balmy set of days when she’s in town and then usually rain afterward to make sure the crops get their water.”