"Listen, grass grows, birds fly, sun shines, and honey...I hurt people" he said proudly. The two figures sat across the table from one another. One an unruly, unkempt mess of limbs and branches and the other in a sleek dress of cloth tucked neatly so no corners were visible.

The woman across the table seemed skeptical though, her brows furrowed in more confusion than impress.

"Ah a skeptic eh? Not the first. Give me something to showcase on then, oh madam." the more rugged of the two mocked.

The woman reached under the table at his command and withdrew a small, stone-like creature, setting it down with a plop.

He stared down to the toad.

She stared up to him.

The toad on the table stared to nothing in particular.

And after a very long and awkward moment shared between the three the man spoke up. "Ya gotta be kidding right? Thats a Bumpy Ridgeback. You think I'd kill a thing of such beauty? No, give me a man or something- oh..., or woman, Hemlock doesn't discriminate. " he reached down and rubbed the toads bumpy back, to which it seemed to calm.

Across the table the woman was trying to find the words to say before finally landing on "Look, I just I don't believe you. You're a druid, it's not particularly in your nature to be an assassin, now is it?" Her eyes were steel in their gaze, set on their insult.

Slowly Hemlock rose from his chair, his green eyes growing wild like a summer storm. "Nature? Nature?! Let me teach you a lesson in the world lady." Hemlock rocketed up from his seat, sending his chair back to the ground. "Nature doesn't have feeling. Doesn't consider the others pain. Nature. Is. Ruthless."

The woman still seemed unimpressed, her face a block of unmoving ice which only further fueled Hemlocks spew of venom.

"You ever hear the voices of the trees? Oh they beg. Beg and beg for more, for higher, to steal as much of the sun as they can. And each individual tree would gladly blot that sun out if it meant they could grow larger. You? Me? We are merely future dirt. And that's the mentality I bring!" spittle flew from Hemlock's mouth as he ranted. A vein on his head popped loose like a river through the desert, running along just underneath his skin.

"You want a demonstration?! Fine. Watch on then, oh ignorant one."

With toad still in hand Hemlock stared his power into it. It did not struggle against his will, it just withered. Withered and decayed into his hands until its skin began to flake off like leaves from an autumn tree, until it was no more than a pile of nothing. It's bones fertilizer for the next thing to come.

Then, from that pile, bits of green sprouted up into life once again.

For the first time in their back and forth the woman across the table showed some impress, or maybe fear. Her eyes had visibly widened at the display. Never had she seen such death. Such a casual way to kill.

Hemlock leaned in close, placing a dirt filled hand on his future employers shoulder. With a whisper he continued, "I could do the same to you, to anyone. Your men...or rather your piles of dirt outside are proof enough that I am not a hitman. I am nature."

Once again the woman searched for the words to say, but had only couple worthy of a reply: "You- You're hired."

CASE I

Client: Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum)

Service requested: Complete clearance of the fast-growing, shade-loving species that were crowding out its progeny.

Method of execution: Creating an enormous wildfire. Sure, the rest of the local ecosystem as well as some of the local human communities were devastated, but my client was kept safe by its thick bark. Job completed.

CASE II

Client: Christmas Island Red Crab (Geocarcoidea natalis)

Service requested: Removal of the invasive yellow crazy ants that posed a threat to my client.

Method of execution: Blasting the anthills with a flamethrower, resulting in massive casualties for the ants. Job completed.

CASE III

Client: Domestic Cat (Felis catis)

Service requested: Removal of dog recently taken in by my client’s roommate, henceforth referred to as “hooman”. This dog was being a nuisance to my client, e.g. barking at my client whenever it saw it. Client specified that “hooman” was to be spared for the sole reason of “food”.

Method of execution: I’m a druid. I settle the struggles of nature, not petty feuds between household animals. Client was politely turned away, although I suspect it may find another way to achieve its goal…

I truly take no pleasure in this turn of events dear adventurers, I have no desire to kill you, as the matter of fact I will not, no, it is not necessary, but you see, you are the living ... for now ... proof, that my forest is finally ready for me to leave.

Let me tell you, what is the role you currently play. The forests have changed with the advent of gamekeepers and hunters. Before them, a positive cycle of life and death was maintained, as forest spread, more prey could live in it, more prey allowed more predators to thrive, and their dead remains in turn soiled the ground, and on and on it went. But humans try to kill all the predators, they hunt them for trophies, they hunt them to make shepherds’ life easier, they break the balance, and in doing so slowly kill the forest. Deers and other prey overpopulates, they eat the grass and the sapling, trees stop growing, and insect have nowhere to breed and will not pollinate and don't get me started on the lumberjacks. No, I decided, that will not do.

I started small a dark groove in the middle of the forest, far from you, where only the strong or fast survive. But death of the weak serves as the fertile ground for the most delicious and aromatic herbs, which draws in prey as well as hunters. Weak and dimm die, strong get stronger, fast get faster, all survivors get smarter, on and on it goes.

Is it my fault, people who stumbled upon this groove are weak AND dimm? I knew sooner or later someone like you will be sent to find and defeat the 'evil' in the middle of the forest. Hence the second line of defence. Mushrooms.

Oh yes, animals are smart enough to shy away from the wonderful spores. Spores that slowly sapped your strength as you went looking for my garden. It was most interesting to watch, oh I was proud like any father could be.

But no need to worry about any of that, your story is done. It never actually was your story, you are merely a chapter of this forest’s story, … or maybe a footnote? Listen. ... Can you hear it? Defenders are approaching. They have been following you from the moment you entered the trees' shade and waited, see how smart they are? Isn't it wonderful?

I said my piece and will leave you now. Good bye adventurers, and let me one last time thank you for your role in helping the forest. I am truly grateful.

As I lay in the warm sand of the Mojave, sheltering in the shadow of a rock outcropping, I heard someone call my name.

"Are you...Larry?" a woman's voice asked, hesitantly.

I didn't open my eyes. I hoped she'd go away.

My name's Polaris Moon, but everyone I don't hate calls me Larry. On paper, though, I'm just nobody, the son of two other nobodies who -- as you might have guessed from my name -- were basically attending Burning Man year round.

"I...was told you could help me." she pressed.

Sighing heavily, I opened one eye to regard my visitor. The young woman standing over me looked tired, sunburnt, and desperate. Desperate enough to hike up a steep desert trail to find me.

"Who told you about me?" I demanded.

She hesitated, and then licked her lips. "Star. She said you could help me. She said you're--"

"A druid?" I asked, grimacing.

Well, she wasn't wrong. I am a druid, though not by choice. I was born into it.

See, my mom and dad -- or, as they preferred I call them, Star and Banjo -- were performing a psychedelic-clouded ritual they learned while backpacking through Europe, on the night they banged me into existence. Unlike the mountain of other New Age bullshit they were into, that one turned out to be real. Lucky me.

As a result of their meddling with powers they were too stoned to comprehend, I was born with a connection to the forces of nature, and as I grew, I found I was able to draw power from the Earth, talk to animals and primal beings -- you know the drill.

My visitor nodded. "Yeah. I, uh, I'm--"

"I didn't ask." I cut off, then rolled to my feet briskly. "What is it you want from me?"

Brusque I know, but that's just how I am. You might expect that my mystical conception and innate druidhood would have made me turn out a lot like my parents: all hemp bracelets and organic everything, and fully in love of with the idea of a simple, nature-centered life that they never actually managed to fully articulate, much less live out in their day to day lives. But I didn't turn out like that.

Because, unlike them, I actually understand Nature.

"Well," she began, hesitantly, "I-it's my family's ranch, it's--"

"Dying, okay." I finished for her, rolling my wrist impatiently. "Megadrought, years of work, family legacy being slowly buried by dust and bad credit, sure -- I hear it all the time. You want me to fix it for you, right? Make your land lush, green, and profitable?"

"Well, I mean, you...you're in tune with Mother Nature, right, so..."

I rolled my eyes.

"Whoever came up with that 'Mother Nature' bullshit must have had one hell of a shitty childhood." I muttered, as I pulled out a cigarette and fumbled it alight with my battered old Zippo. "And that's coming from me."

"What?" she said, sounding truly taken aback.

I drew in a long drag, and then exhaled it with a sigh.

"Look, maybe you had a mom who kissed you on the cheek, tucked you in, and wished you sweet dreams at night. But Nature? She's not like your mom. She's not even like my mom. You know, the blissful burnout in the trailer park who told you where to find me?"

"Then...what is she?" the woman asked, hesitantly.

I paused for a moment, considering.

"She's usually more like a mother kangaroo. See, a mama 'roo will casually toss her own baby to a dingo to slow it down while she gets away. She can always make another baby, right? Or sometimes, Nature's like one of those mother rabbits, who'll quite frequently just up and eat their babies if they feel threatened. Or if they hear a loud noise. Or get too cold. Or too hot. Or just because." I explained. "When she's at her very best, Nature is sort of like a mother panda. Pandas usually take more or less decent care of one of their babies, while quite happily letting the other one starve because they just can't be bothered to multitask."

"What's your point?" she said, crossing her arms.

"My point," I said, thrusting my hands into the pockets of my jeans. "Is that you need to know what you're dealing with. The forces you're calling on aren't nice. They're savage, mindless, and heartless. And more importantly, their help isn't free."

"I...I brought money." she said, fishing a roll of bills from her purse. "All I have."

I looked at the wad of cash. It seemed like it would let me sleep inside for a while, if nothing else. I can sleep rough better than most anyone, but I don't like it. All the fresh air and open sky is too much like being at work. So, I held out my hand.

"You'll help?" she said, hopefully.

I glared, and she quickly dropped the money into my hand. I pocketed it, then held up a warning finger. "The money's good, but there's one more part of my price."

She bit her lip, and looked me up and down. After a moment, she nodded, took a deep breath, and raised her slender hands to the buttons of her top, parting the top one with a nimble flick of her fingers.

"Not that." I said, hastily raising a hand to halt her. "Shit. I'm not that kind of asshole." I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at the desert landscape. "You just have to watch me work."

She lowered her hands again, looking confused. "Why?"

I turned away from her, towards the desert landscape, and extended my hand. "So you'll know what my help really costs."

Then I reached out, seized the web of life in my hand, and pulled. I made some strands shorter, and some strands longer. Still others, I had to cut altogether. As I did so, the cacti and hardy desert brush withered and blackened across the sandy plains, as far as the eye could see. I had to take a lot from this place to give to my client's home, and the plant life here had little to spare. So I dug deeper.

The hard truth is that Nature isn't generous with her bounties. Everything that lives in her realm is living off something else's death and decay. It's been said before, but there's no such thing as a free lunch. The best you can do is make sure someone else is paying.

Desert creatures -- lizards, rabbits, and bugs of all kinds -- burst from their dens and burrows all around us, writhing in pain and screaming in a thousand tiny voices, as I ripped the life out of all of them. Using the young woman's connection to her home, I redirected that life into her dying patch of land miles away, and into the livestock her family raised there. Some might have called it horrific, or unnatural. Well, it might have been the former, but certainly not the latter. Something dies, and something else lives because of it. That's how Nature rolls.

When I finished, I was exhausted, and my client was gone. She'd evidently fled in the middle of my working, as my clients usually do. That was fine. I was pretty sure she got the point.

I started back down the trail myself after a few minutes, taking it at an easy pace -- I didn't want to run into the woman I'd just helped. No point in making things awkward.

I was looking forward to going into town, spending my money, and getting out of my head for a while. Most of all, I was looking forward to getting out of Nature.

The Druid (not historically accurate)

Small feet and claws clamoured through the undergrowth and roused a druid from its trance. He lifted his head, and pale eyes reflected winged silhouettes traversing a full and vibrant moon. His little grove had a rhythm, a song, as though the forest breathed through his frail form. When the forest held its breath, as it seemed to do now, the druid knew it was waiting for something. For an exchange. It was his place as a part of the forest to intercede with his own kind, when it was necessary. A solemn oath from a forgotten era. The druid held his breath alongside the forest and its children, the plants and animals that formed its whole.

There. Low tones and hurried words trickled through the now-silent underbrush, the trees working to guide the echoes to meet his little grove.

“Mm,” the druid agreed. “They are indeed lost. You may send them to me.”

The druid waited. Though his frail form was draped in white robes, he was near indiscernible among the other hues of the forest, shades of navy and green, all. Even the tangled beard beneath his chin bespoke a form of lichen or wiry fungus. As the human voices grew nearer, as their clumsy legs and feet trampled the limbs and ancient bones of his sylvan brothers, the forest seemed ever quieter and out of balance. A human cacophony met its match in the disquieting silence of the grove as two haggard travelers stumbled into his ferned dominion. They couldn’t have been old, he saw it in the plumpness of youth around their eyes. They were infants in the eyes of the druid, and younger still in the eyes of the forest.

“You told me we would have found the trail by now, Clay,” the shorter, more scantily clad of the travelers muttered. “The moon is halfway across the sky, now.” The other was not interested in listening to their companion, instead choosing to shake and smash a shiny, smooth contraption against the nearest tree. When the violence was done and Claymore had deserted his task, he moved to smashing a longer, circular gadget against a boulder. The other man watched piteously, shifting in anxiety, hardly ever daring a glance into the surrounding wood. A groan escaped him and he clutched his stomach, leaning against the boulder. The druid twitched a finger and a small breeze drifted low through the clearing, snaking among the weeds and grasses until it crept underneath the humans’ feet. It found its target, jostling a bunch of black berries peeking around the stone. “Thank God,” the man whispered, and grabbed a handful.

“What is it, Gill?” The one called Clay still stared in futile at his broken toys. The druid observed the two as they gorged on berries. No sacks, no supplies. No food, no water, and for some time. No anticipation that they should need for anything because humans never want to believe that they truly need anything. They want to believe that they know all that sustains them. No thought is given to what the forest thinks they need. They are used to being provided for by others of the human kind. They forgot what all the other kinds provide. The druid had heard tales of their markets; cart-fulls of food, but no trees nor bushes in sight. Haunches of pork, naked pheasants, but no animals to be found in their cities of stone, save for rats and those that eat them. They fight to keep the forest out and they take only what they want from it. They take none of the frigid cold, none of the thorns, none of the rot, the decay, the death. They want none of the grizzly, nor the skunk, nor the panther. They don’t want confusion, they don’t want to be lost. So, they make a trail. And along this trail, they allow to live only what they want for comfort. The prettiest of flowers, the juiciest and sweetest of berries. In their racket they quiet the forest, for they want none of the queer howls and grunts. Yet in their imposition of order on the world they are truly lost, just as Clay and Gill are.

“As they were,” the druid said.

The two humans finally ceased their racket, the whites of their eyes like little moons come to earth.

“What was that?” Gill’s voice was hardly a whisper. Clay didn’t respond, and the two hazarded a glance at the surrounding forest and scanned the clearing. Their eyes passed over the druid as though he wasn't there, tucked between bramble and brush.

“What do you hear,” Clay whispered back. Gill shrugged, and the two sat together in the darkness in the centre of the clearing, lost and afraid. No longer. A smile crept over the druid’s mouth as he beheld the two travellers’ first forest trance. A cold sharp wind filtered through the undergrowth at the druid’s back, erecting fine hairs along a pronounced spine. It was time. The druid finally drew his breath.

“What do you hear?” A voice like cracking thunder emanated from everywhere, from nowhere, ensnaring, enrapturing, penetrating the bodies of the two huddled men. Rodents scurried over the ferned wall, birds flapped their wings and shrieked. The druid rose slowly over the clearing, rising first to his knees, as if in a mockery of prayer, and then to his feet. Upwards and upwards he rose over them, feet upon feet, no man should be so large, so thin. But still he rose. His bare feet and twisted nails lifted gently off of the forest floor, and up, and up. He stopped in the centre of a vortex of leaves and twigs and dirt. He tipped his head slowly backwards, the dirty white robe slipping to reveal a grin like the gash of a dark, wet ravine. And the druid rejoiced in the symphony, the crooning of wolves, the snarls of unknown creatures, and the cries of men.

“What! Do! You! Hear!” The humans wept beneath him.

“Please,” cried one of the men. “What do you want? What do you want?”

“Do you know what I am, children?” The men panted, and found each others’ hands. They were silent again, holding their breaths, until Gill was moved to speak.

“Y-you’re a druid! Right? A druid, a keeper of the wood?” At once, the rodents stopped their maddening scramble, the birds nested. The soles of the druid’s feet met earth again.

“Y-you are, aren’t you!” Gill turned to his companion, panting. “Clay, you remember, right? In school? In the Forgotten Days, the druids defended the wood, remember?” Clay nodded. “They were a boon for the peoples of the forest.”

They both turned back to the gaunt figure in the centre of the clearing, their abject fear driving them toward solace in the dream of a hope. The moon rose above the druid's head, and in this light, the druid seemed as much a saint as anything the men had ever seen. Birds flitted to his shoulders, rats and ferrets scurried over his feet, snakes weaved and wound beneath his robes.

“What do you want from us,” Clay whimpered, voice breaking.

“I want,” said the druid in his booming voice, “to know what you hear.”

(ctd)

Walking into the tavern, I was greeted by many leering faces of some of the toughest men and orcs in all of the Westlands.

A large human-orc stops in his tracks as he approached me and forgets what he was going to say, as he catches a glance of the magic pulsating behind my eyes.

"Hey, this bar is for mercenaries only buddy. You have any licensing papers or a contract?"

"Yeh, that I do." I pull the papers from my coat and put them on the table.

He looks them over and then at me. "Sir... this is a heavy order, do you have the coin for this kind of thing? You'll need a small army for this."

The scurring of giant spiders can be heard outside and it spooks the men for a moment. We all walk out and see the pile of gems foraged by spider miners.

"This is a drop in the river of my kingdoms riches." I tell them.

"Which kingdom is that?"

"The Forest."

They whisper to one another, "...that mean you're a druid?"

"That I am."

They all burst out laughing. "He wants us to fight against the Arbcol slaver industry!" The man that looked at the papers says, before rolling into more laughter.

"How in the world would you think that is even plausible? I mean, what can a Druid actually do?"

"I just need five men, they get this pile and many piles after this... anyone willing?"

"You've got to show us what you can actually do first, we're not fighting no army with six men."

"Ok."

A moment later, Giant Spiders with saddles appear from the forest. "Jump on and don't forget the harness" I tell them.

Five men look at the gems and then at the spiders, taking a moment to think it through. "Alright Druid, let's see this."

They jump on the spiders and harness themselves on, and we immediately jump into the nights sky.

"God damn it Druid! Damn magic bastards!" A man screams as he's flying through the air on a spider. "If I wasn't a greedy bastard, I swear...!"

We land and jump a few times, and land on the top of a mountain. A group of goblins catch eyes with me and give me an honorary salute before scurrying back into the mountain's mine.

"Did those goblins just salute you?!"

"They exist, solely because of me."

They all look at each other confused.

"Come here and look at this" I tell them. I conjure a Spriggan Seed in my hands. It's the size of a melon and radiates a light with alternating colors.

They gasp and I let it float into the air.

"Look" I point at a slaver encampment that has one the forest's magical deer in a locked cage.

The seed glides through the air silently as the men in the encampment submit to folly and drink, casually poking the cage containing the magical deer.

My recruits are watching with sweaty palms and racing hearts, I can tell this seed was a nighttime fable to them until now.

The seed lands gently and it pulses into the ground with rapidly growing roots. Roots spiral from the ground, and a glowing red ball is sucked from the ground into the center of the roots, forming into lovely Spriggans.

"They're a deadly mess of roots protecting it's magical source of life energy. They are living extensions of the planet, doing it's bidding. Just as powerful as sorcerers and invulnerable to everything, they are unstoppable to normal men..."

They watch the Spriggans grow in size until the roots build a dome around the encampment. Vines fill the entire dome and entrap all of the men. A single vine arm jiggles the lock loose on the cage and let's the magical deer free.

The magical deer is seen running out of a tunnel of vines in the dome, that closes behind it. Thousands of Giant Spiders converge on the vine dome and feast on the bounty provided. The men inside scream in agony as they're being pierced by spiked vines from every angle and eaten by spiders.

"That's not going to do much against Imperial Sorcerer's, Druid. They'd cut right through that dung heap. Got anything to deal with them?"

"Yeah, you men are the key."

I open the land below us to construct a portal to the planet's sacred temple, a large blue colored whirlpool of magical energy.

"What the..." one of the men remarks.

"Jump in. You'll be rich for life and you'll be granted the powers of a Druid."

I pressure their minds with my magic and I enchant their clothing to feel the hunger for power. They all agree and jump in wholeheartedly.

Inside was the Temple of Death.

The planet forced all of it's own dark magic into a otherworldly temple to conceal it away and to encase it within a holy temple impenetrable to Dark Sorcerer's.

Golden Griffins with powers beyond the worldly, rule the realm. The men are frozen in absolute terror as the Griffins peer into their souls, revolutionizing their spirit with the righteous mission of nature's wrath.

All that consisted of these men's mind's find oblivion and they become living extensions of the force of nature.

They become as spiritually aware as demigods and look at me in confirmation that they've been put on the Holy Path, with eyes glowing white.

We all nod with our eyes glowing white and I open the sacred door to death. Large columns of stone rush open to reveal a black hole of endless darkness.

One by one we go through.

With our spirits claimed in the light and with an edict from nature, we became invulnerable wisps of energy in the endless dark void of death, rushing faster than light towards life.

We began to pulse together, quickly picking out our planet from the entire cosmos and seeding ourselves there.

Roots sprout in the forests of the Westlands.

Flesh and blood slowly cover those roots, and the magic of the forest bind it all to form reincarnated forms of our bodies.

"Alright" I crack my neck, "you've been deputized."

"Gawwwwwdamn, I don't know when I signed up for that!" A man yells. "But gaaaaaadamn, do I feel good!"

He turns into a bear and yells into the night, causing a thunderstorm. He turns back and laughs loudly, causing a small earthquake. He breathes in and out, and a breeze whispers quickly throughout the land.

"Getting the hang of it?" He nods.

We all tune in to each other telepathically, become water vapor and float as clouds towards the Arbcol region.

"He y'all, you thinking that "riches" are kind of pointless at this point?"

"Oh yeh, for sure"

"Yup."

"I was just thinking that". I chuckle a little at the amateur thoughts.

The Abrcol regions wall is seen and their sorcerer's immediately assemble into positions, as they sense the magical energy in the clouds.

Thousands of fireballs along the wall shoot into the air and turn into dragons, which shoot magic energy into the clouds.

We turn the clouds pitch black and bring down an endless barrage of lightning bolts onto the wall, causing the sorcerer's to encase themselves in a magic shield and to take flight.

A lightning hawk spawns from the magical lightning in the air and assumes the will of nature immediately, attaching itself to the magical shields of the midflight sorcerer's and dismantling them, allowing lightning to shoot them to the ground.

A smaller group of sorcerer's shoot through the air from over the horizon and land in the area. The lightning hawk pulsates electricity throughout the entire battlefield, but it's completely ineffective to these fancy dressed sorcerer's.

"Is that you, Gaia?!"

The lightning hawk slowly ceases, the storms settle and we manifest ourselves to the sorcerer's.

"Fresh recruits?! Gaia!? These are newborns!" The sorcerer in all red laughs. He throws ancient sigil magic signs into the air with a twitch of the wrist, but it's met with a fiery explosion of elemental magic he didn't anticipate and stammers out of the way.

"What's the move then, Gaia?! One unstoppable force comes against another unstoppable force?! We'll never stop!"

The night sky behind them fills with Superior Sorcerer's, capable of bending reality with power equal to nature itself, rising against the natural powers that make magic possible.

"If we must stand against God, we will!"

The ground breathes angrily. The thunder rolls from every stretch of the planet and is a thousand times deeper than normal. An earthquake can be felt around the world.

Abruptly, a mountain exploded, sending lava and goblins strapped with explosives through the air. The lava accumulated into a Lava Atronach, which stood as tall as a mountain and spawned an endless amount of Fire Atronachs from it's body. The goblins landed and ran towards the fight.

That same moment geysers erupted, sending steam to create a cloud sized Steam Atronach, which spawned countless amounts of Water Atronachs.

The winds rushed in progressively into a Tornado Atronach, which spawned countless amounts of Air Atronachs.

And the ground turned, bringing up huge boulders and mounds of dirt, forming a countless amount of Ground Atronachs.

The entire planet took a deep breath, the elemental atronachs flowed right into formation, we flowed right to the front and we transformed into elementals in animal form.

As the planet breathed out, all of the winds, all of the waters, all of the land, all of the atronachs and all of the goblins strapped with explosives, whirlwinded behind us as we speared into the sorcerer's city sized formation.

At the very moment of impact, the Sorcerer King appeared and the battlefield froze completely in time.

"Gaia, you bitch! Where are ya?!"

Magically glowing vines that completely defy the time stasis of the Sorcerer King, unravel into a circle that opens up a portal.

Out walks the Goddess Gaia. Behind her a rushing flow of growing and eternally prospering flora. Her beauty so profound it would destroy the brain of a mortal mind.

"You fool!" She screams, "do you have any idea how many laws you've broken?! Do you know what tampering with natural law does?! You idiot! You imp! Mankind has been a mistake... you foolish idiot..."

"What did I do? Make man a God, is that so bad?"

"Yes, you idiot...you corrupted the universe..."

The Dwarven warrior raised an eyebrow over his pint at that statement "Think me hearing must be goin'. Yer tellin' me ya not just some leaf lover, elf?"

My sharp ears twitch in annoyance, we have been at this the whole day. I turn a pleading look to our human companion for help who simply responds with an amused expression, seems like this will be the whole conversation tonight.

"No more then you are a simple rock biter, dwarf. Let me try and simplify it for you. The forest speaks to me and I listen be it animal, plant or the land itself. I'm sure your kind has something similar with your mountains and stones."

The dwarf takes another sip ready to a biting comment but I interject again.

"Sometimes things get alittle out of balance, the wolves have a good breeding season and so hunt more, which means less deer, so the plants grow more which grows the forest and that effects the magic of the land and thats a WHOLE other issue."

I take a swig of my drink befor continue, the dwarf and human glancing at each.

"THEN I have to deal with the plants and count yourself lucky mayflies that you can't hear them because they are very petty. Smaller plants demanding the cutting of a tree blocking its sun. Trees complaining their neighbours leaves are touching them or the vines are too tight. Pruning them down to keep the magic in balance while they try to make a case that it's TOTALLY fine to let it run wild is about the only good part of it next to dealing with poachers!"

I pause for a moment and notice the pair of them are staring at me. A realisation that I had been shouting and might have let slip my frustrations causes me to Bury my head in my hands in embarrassment.

The human speaks up first "You err... you good?"

I simply nod still hiding my face. The dwarf speaks next. "A'ight I can see yer point there. So what do you do with poachers?"

I look up from my hands and smile a wide toothy grin. Slowly my teeth turn to fangs, hands to claws and eyes change to slits.

"That's when I let off some steam..."

[deleted]

My own part of the bargain complete with the final blood of the sacrifice, I hear the old branch drop from the tree behind me. A new druid walking stick cost only the lives of every beaver colony within beaver territory of the tree. A price I paid gladly for this discarded branch from such an otherwise strong and powerful tree. Freely given in honor of a noble deed, this branch now held all the spiritual power it held in life, but it was mine to wield, for the price of being the arm of vengeance to the local trees. The beavers would return, eventually, and all would balance out. But it would take a generation or two before they filled the niche in this tree's range regarding beavers. Thus it had nothing to fear of beavers anymore and my deed was worthy of the sacrifice. The weak branch just gave way, and humans appreciate fallen branches. This would be the best fallen branch. I expressed my amazement and promised to return on my future travels. I do not tell them I spotted signs of rabid in the poor creatures and it was a mercy killing. I would have to remember to keep a closer eye on that. It could become an epidemic in the area if it has spread behind the beaver population at mating season. I'd also need to continue to watch the beaver population as well as some other animals prone to get the disease in this area.

Dragging my branch, apologizing for anything breaking off, and taking them with me as impossible to part with, if I'm able, but forcing nothing to break, I continue my now very excited journey through the wilderness.

I intended to be well out of range of the tree's territory before gifting most of the branch to the next beaver colony over, in showing I am no threat to them specifically, and to allow myself a closer evaluation of their temperament. I marvel at the beavers beginnings of this year's dam, and explain my own carving project, in doing so I explain to the beavers my own problem with separating the two arms of the branches and which parts I'm wanting, I was born with the unfortunately small teeth of a human. I then offer to split this wonderful powerful gift with them if they can help me solve this seemingly impossible task. I even end up helping them plan their build using the branches of my gift as key supports and the twigs as the perfect filler because I'm already breaking it apart into just the right size, I just couldn't break or gnaw through that one area because it was too thick for my small human teeth. I'm ever so grateful when they are easily able to solve my problem. The staff is the only part I needed of it, so they can have all the other parts. Once I explain the energy even in those parts I don't need, and how it's fate that we crossed paths and I happened to choose camp right in their territory because it would be perfect addition to their build. Even make the supports stronger with the residual magic.

They are thrilled at so generous a gift, knowing they feel silly for how easy it was for them to help. I stay and finish making camp, using old gathered branches for firewood, a little farther from camp than I like to scout for branches this large, but it's the ones the beavers haven't bothered with yet, and are actually easier for the human strength to drag fully closer to the planned dam. Of course they're glad to help me making the types of sticks I like. Humans do like special shaped sticks. They are fascinated by the idea of my druid powers to keep away predators with special sticks. The idea of me spending a night near their planned lodge and dam this early in the season is sounding like a great idea. Their shelter will be strong, but they've just barely begun building it. Perhaps if this "fire magic" I have is so powerful, they better watch me do it. Who knows, if it keeps the predators away maybe they could learn to do it too. Beavers are great with sticks after all. They are not sure it's manageable by the end of my explanation and once my fire is stoked. It is magic to them. Even if a beaver had the magic, try as they might beavers simply do not have the dexterity to start a fire with sticks. But for a night, the beavers worry about if they'll finish before the cold comes, or if there will be still or this year like there was last year. Convinced of my "controlled fire" being druid magic. If a druid said his fire would keep away predators, and he did what was clearly magic, you'd stick near him for a night too. You'd do all you can to help him chew his magic stick to the right shape and even dispose of the druid's unneeded bits by using them in the dam. Given freely and retaining the same power. These branches would now serve wonderfully for their dams, being guaranteed more structurally sound than any exact copy of the branch they would happen upon. It was an utterly reliable branch for them, and the cast off parts for my staff for me.

They thanked me before retiring for the night with promises of any stillborn of their litter that was birthed in the lodge they built. A cast off for them, an incredibly useful trade item for me. The perfect balance to the trade. It also was an offering by the group to check back again at birthing season, a sign of trust. Should the branches hold, I will return to find friends, gifts to fulfill promises, and perhaps more trades or requests that can become beneficial. With luck the explanations of rabies will keep them vigilant and the extermination I had to preform will be the last in the area. My visit also served to show humans can use special sticks for many things, and that special sticks make humans happy. Some humans can do magic with sticks. If other humans come and take sticks from beaver territory or even lodge as I have heard my kind has done, it might be just the right stick for magic. Beavers should be careful, and forgive humans for taking sticks, because most are not as wise as I.

In the morning I left, using the shortened and trimmed branch as a walking staff now. I knew the perfect frog pond I could reach by lunch. I intended to soak the bark loose there. This druid staff would take a lot of effort, but I had the general plan. I would need to find some bark beetles willing to eat their fill of soft bark and wood, but only in specific patterns I already laid out using an ink they find distasteful already to outline their path. Nothing they wouldn't do anyway, but this branch was enchanted. They would get more than just their fill. They would get the energy they needed to make it through the season, ensuring the next generation, and an unnaturally long life for them, with little hunger. It would be an excellent trade up for them. Only problem was getting the idea across. Beetles could be very casual about life until birds came along. I would need to begin some carvings and stuff the splinters into the beetle bores. Give them a taste. Lucky for me I kept many of the splinters from the beaver chewing. No piece of this gift should go to waste.

I swiped a handful of the poisonous berries spotted along the same stream as the beavers. I'd been following this streambed for a while and it was leading me in the right direction of the pond. I promised the berry bush to spread it's seeds far and feed additional ones to birds to speed farther. It was the fruit that I needed for inking my rune outlines upon the staff bark, and keeping the beetles from eating outside my desired design. There are a few other ingredients to gather along the way, so I stored the whole fruit away, making sure to mark it as poison. The frog pond would be the perfect place to mix that ink, with the cattail being a perfect binding ingredient. there always were a few birds there drinking, another safe place within this magical forest. Ones that would be very happy to take the seed cast-off now that I've rendered it safe and taken the poison part off it.

Shame it's too early in the season for fireflies. The frogs will love them around the pond next season. While it would have been neat to have the runes in the staff glow with firefly light, it may have to wait for the next staff. I lament this to the bird as I cast off the seeds. They have no solutions for me, but suggest I investigate the glow-moss they have seen on their migrations. I assure them that sounds like exactly my interest, asking their directions, and the birds are happy to describe to me their flight. My pitiful human wings built more for warmth than for flight, I pull my cloak tighter around me. A chill in the air, the weather will be changing soon and I still have too much forest to patrol. Never enough of a druid to go around.

The pine, whispers a sapling just outside the circle of shade, others rustling their leaves in an unseen wind in agreement, it spreads.

Too far. Too much. No sun for seeds, says a thornbush to its side. The pine in question is a regal old monarch of a tree, branches reaching higher than any other and trunk so wide around that you doubt you could circle it with two dozen people. The ground within its shadow is bare of anything except a thick pungent mat of decaying needles and the other plants cluster resentfully on the outskirts of its perimeter.

Druid. It falls. It rots. It returns to the soil. Seeds, fruits. For the druid. It falls, says the sapling.

"Done," you reply, accepting their terms with a quick fingerflick of magic. You blink and the cracked lines of its bark that earlier looked no different from any other formed by natural growth now resolve themselves into a contract written in a language no others would recognise. The leaves around you shiver in pleased anticipation.

As you stride forward across the boundary, the ancient pine comes into awareness with the low creak of shifting wood. Those younglings. They ask humans to do what they cannot. They want this space, this sun, this soil, but cannot have it. Nothing is here except this one.

You've heard it all before. They always think they're justified in their actions, or that they can convince you they have the right of it. What they don't realise is that you don't care. Anything that can't co-exist will be removed and when nature doesn't work fast enough, you take payment from any plant that asks.

Reaching into your pouch, you draw out a handful of seeds and toss them to the ground. Foolish, it says. The sun is mine. The soil is mine. Your seeds do not grow, human.

"I'm not a human," you say, drawing on your magic. It twists and burrows through your veins, shining green through your skin as flowers sprout in your hair and thorns erupt from your joints. "I'm a druid."

Before it can reply, you plant your feet through the needles and push, energy flooding into the ground and through to your seeds. The seedlings burst into life and with a speed that nature never intended, they engulf the pine in a thickening web of strangling vines that wrap around, over, around again, looping on themselves until not a trace of the pine's bark can be seen through their stifling embrace.

Then they constrict. The pine screams, the sound like a hurricane lashing branches and snapping roots. Needles fall from its boughs in a smothering rain until its bare limbs are left stark against the darkening sky and though you can't see it, you can feel it drying and the rot spreading through its trunk as the vines sap everything they can take.

At last the pine goes silent as its trunk crumbles away, the vines left wrapped around empty air with its hollowed-out imprint as the only sign of where it once stood. With the deed done, you return to the sapling, take your payment, and continue on. They know how to contact you next time something needs pruning.

The customer began: "My dear Sir, I am aware that you are lovers of nature and gua.."
Oh, I wonder when the world will ever know Nature as it truly is. Every human is the same. What are these kids even learning in their schools!

Lovers of nature? Guardian of the Forest? What fools!

I can’t say any of this aloud even though it echoes throughout my mind every time a human meets me to make use of my services.

“Before you say anything, I have to make myself clear”, I sighed.

“There are many druids of nature. We all have spirit animals an- deities? Alright, if it helps you understand, let’s call them deities, yes. Cig has the tobacco plant, Myx has the Siberian tiger, Wik there was blessed by the pine tree. And so on. Everyone is given different ones during our ceremony.”

“So what is your deity then, Maxilius?”, the man before me asked.

“Just Max. Anyway, I was bestowed and blessed by the parasitic worms. On land, water, plants, animals. They are all my spirit animals.”, I replied.

“My duty is not to create a new forest or protect an animal species from danger. I live to destroy, you understand?”

The man looked shocked and remained speechless. This always happens, people expect me to be like the others. The other druids do not like me much because I essentially ruin their work but that’s not my fault. I obey my spirit guide’s instincts and assist my customers for money, just like them.

After several arguments and fights, I opened my shop quite far away from the others. I made this decision when a customer paid me to destroy a few pine trees that had crept up in her house. Wik was livid. He threatened to destroy me, but the Chief dissuaded him.

My thoughts were interrupted by the hoarse guffawing of the man in front. Once he calmed himself, he pulled out a cigar and a matchbox. It looked quite fancy. Fancier than ones Cig helps make.

Lighting the cigar, he said, “Well, that’s just perfect then.”

“What do you mean?”, I asked.

“Now that I gots you, I don’t need niceties. The ones o’er there", he gestured to the main camp, "they don’t understand me, they’re dumbos. I’m a real-estate guy. I got this ugly swamp land I wanna use. Got it real cheap from some sucker.

“I was thinking…why not just bulldoze ‘em trees, dump dirt on that cesspool, build a park, and turn a profit?”

He looked at me as if he wanted my opinion. I gave him the same stone-faced look I gave to every customer’s “brilliant ideas”.

“Anyways, I brings up the tools and those foolish swamp lovers raise the trees and chase my men! They got me ‘dozers too! I want you to show ‘em who’s boss!

“Infest them with your gunk and slime and all that crap of yours. Kid, I tell you..you do this for me, you don’t gotta work anymore! Destroy that swamp for me!”

Well, this was certainly interesting.

All my usual requests hinged on revenge against some particular plants or animals. Giant trees wanting creepers to rot. Rabbits requesting sickness on a flock of deers. Humans who detested cockroaches or lizards in their houses.

“I understood your passionate speech, but I must tell you again. I am a druid of nature.”

“Got it.”, he shouted immediately, “you just gotta kill them all, kid!”

“Kid? I was born centuries before you, child. Mind your tongue.”, I replied with a tone of anger in my voice.

“You don’t look the part, though!,” he laughed before he continued seriously, “Look, destroy the swamp, you gets paid. That’s it.”

“I am not a monster, child. Nor am I here to annihilate for your needs. My spirit guides live on others, but they seek not the destruction of their source. They are as much nature as other beings.”

“You wanna listen to ‘em yucky dumb worms or the jingle of coins as you become a free man? Look at this situation properly!”, he retorted.

“Do you seek the punishment of my guides, fool? Begone from this place!”, I yelled out loud.

The twisted ambitions of humans were common knowledge to me, but I could not accept such vulgarity.

“Bah, you’re just useless as the rest. Someone outta really get rid of ya hippies and your trashy “deities”. “ He spit at the ground.

I cannot let this human go freely anymore.

“You fool! Look at your hand. Look at your legs. Look at your shoulders. My deities have made you, their home.

“And their meal.”

Twisting my fingers, I ordered the parasites resting throughout his body to erupt out. I guided and fed every worm on every inch of him, until he became silent. I bowed before the mass of worms which swirled and slithered about the ground and took my place behind the counter.

Waiting for the next customer.

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