A Theory on Godhood: An Overlord Story

Chapter 21: A Concerned Denizen

The Community Grove, Northern Forest of Tob, eight hours before the Zuranon Disaster

"Okay, Pinison. You can do this. You can do this."

The young dryad said to herself, over and over again. She knew that what she was about to do would be going against everything she had ever learned from her elders, especially Grand Oak Naaru.

From what she had gathered from her eavesdropping on the new arrivals and her patriarch, it had been nearly an entire moon since the disappearances of her fellow sisters. It had been nearly a full day and a half since her wood and sap sister had disappeared as well.

Then the arrivals had left, and she was forced to remain behind, alone, in a grove with other scared witless dryads. The argument with her grandfather had not been pretty.

She closed her eyes and took another breath of carbon dioxide, that which all plants, dryads included, needed to survive. She recalled the conversation that had taken place not long after the new arrival's departure.

"They're being kidnapped?! How could you hide this from me?" She had shouted, scaring off some of her peers with the ferocity of her tone. She felt bad, for they were barely out of their sapling years, those tree spirits, and had come to the elders for guidance.

What it was about she didn't bother to remember, not when it came to her own list of grievances.

"Because I know your heart, little one," Grand Oak Naaru had said, patient and tranquil as always. He waved away some of the other elders in the half circle, who returned to their home trees.

The black orbs he called eyes bored into Pinison with such intensity she could practically feel herself sinking into the earth. She tried to meet his gaze, but found that she couldn't.

The patriarch huffed. "Had I told you that our sisters in bond were disappearing into the very forest we call home, you would have been the first to go out searching for them. I couldn't allow it."

"But our people have gone missing! Pops and Svend and Bjorn and everyone else are probably worried out of their minds right now, and we're not there to help them," Pinison shot back.

"They will survive. Humans are hardy, and they possess several of Lord Grover's sacred artifacts. We cannot risk going out and falling prey to those who stalk our lands."

"But what happens when they do come here? We're so far away from our human friends, and now we just sent away probably our only chance to find them..."

Naaru's wooden features frowned. "I will hear no more of this. I have done as the sacred texts decreed. And now saviors have arrived to aid us in our greatest time of need. You are not to leave this grove, and that's final!"

The younger dryad's face burned with rebuke at her elder's warning, and she could feel protestations bubbling in the back of her throat.

"If it weren't for these stupid restrictions, maybe Tulipa wouldn't have snuck out and made herself disappear!"

Her patriarch stopped dead in his tracks, and Pinison heard gasps from behind her. Most likely some of the other dryads had been passing when she screeched that last part out.

She felt her taproot sink into the depths of her abdomen, as a deathly silence fell between her and The elder tree spirit.

He turned around, his expression curiously blank, but his knowledgeable eyes betrayed how he was truly feeling. They always had, for as long as Pinison could remember. Though his face could be more like granite than wood, his eyes revealed all.

There was no floral fury behind the abyssal veil, nor was there even a sense of disappointment to perceive. There was a sort of emptiness that her relatively young mind could not fathom, which stared at her.