Danny's eyes were still dry, and everything was a blur when he tried to open them again. Danny was able to find enough saliva to make his mouth feel tacky, if not damp.

  Coughing, Danny spoke, "Thank you."

  Acca jumped back at Danny's words, squinting up at his face. Reaching forward, the woman tentatively touched his skin in a few places.

  "What are you?" Acca asked in a whispered wonder.

  Danny rasped out, "Daniel."

  This simple response brought a smile to the woman's face, as she replied, "Well, Daniel, you are the most interesting human/tree creature I have ever met. Now, that's not saying much, you being the only human/tree creature I have had the pleasure of meeting."

  Danny felt the broken and fractured bones in his legs realigning themselves. Unable to not respond, Danny moaned in pain.

  "What's the matter?" Acca asked in concern.

  Danny gritted his teeth and responded through the pain, "Legs broken, fixing them now."

  Acca's eyes grew wide as she deciphered what Danny was implying.

  "Is there anything I can do to help?" Acca asked, unsure.

  "Water," Danny rasped.

  Acca rushed off before coming back with a cup. Danny was too high up for her to reach his mouth, so she handed it over to him. Danny tried to reach down and hold it, but his hands shook, and he found that his strength was not up to this simple task. To his growing frustration, the cup fell to the ground spilling its contents. Acca cursed, picked up the cup, and rushed off to get more. By the time she came back, Danny could feel the spilled water racing up through his body through his roots. Acca had also brought a box she used to step up on and reach Danny. Danny greedily tried to drink the water, but Acca wouldn't allow him but a few sips at a time.

  Danny smiled down at the woman, saying, "Thank you," in a slightly stronger voice.

  Then, something deep inside Danny's brain healed itself. Some connection that had been damaged in the fall into the pit more than likely. Most of the darkness and depression fled from Danny's mind, but not all of it. It was replaced with burning passion and a desire for revenge. Danny felt something incorporeal in the corner of his eye and instinctively focused inward toward what used to be the nothingness. The nothingness had been transformed into the tranquil sea he remembered like some memory from so many lifetimes ago. Danny sighed in contentment as he closed his eyes.

  ***

  Danny appeared whole and healthy in his sanctuary's command room. Danny stared at the largest holoscreen in front of him. Like before he had been poisoned with the powdered obstinite, Danny's full body was on display. Large swaths of red covered his legs, chest, and head. Danny watched the image for a few minutes, noting that the red was subtly fading away.

  A hesitant voice asked from his right, "Captain?"

  Danny turned to find Cece standing there, clipboard in hand, staring at him in obvious concern.

  Danny ignored the emotions playing across her face. She was nothing but a construct created by his imagination. Apparently, Danny was concerned about his own well-being. He figured that was a healthy response to his current situation.

  "I take it you found a way to free me from the obstinite poison?" asked Danny.

  Cece seemed almost scared to reply, eventually explaining, "Yes, sir. Our simulations evolved a creature able to not only process obstinite but to incorporate it into their cells."

  "What did this creature look like?" Danny asked.

  Cece gestured to the large holoscreen that now displayed the image of a vaguely humanoid creature. It looked like evolution had merged a man and a gorilla, forgetting to add any hair at all.

  Danny's eyes betrayed his first sign of genuine emotion as he interestedly asked, "What did that evolve from?"

  "It evolved from you," replied Cece.

  Danny looked in confusion between Cece and the creature on the screen, before asking, "Come again..."

  Cece continued, "Seeding the simulated world with basic life was getting us nowhere, so I took the initiative to add a few known variables to the world. Namely, yourself and other compatible human ascendants. An ascendant and a non-ascendant have a zero chance of conceiving an ascendant. In fact, being incompatible, ascendants and non-ascendants do not have a chance to conceive any sort of new life. With the obstinite everywhere, these simulated ascendants were devoid of using any magic outside what they could produce on their own. I had to also dilute the concentration of obstinite in the test world as it too quickly slipped into the test subjects bloodstreams and slowly killed them. With the new parameters established it was only a matter of a few million years and you have what you see before you. Then it was only a matter of extrapolating the correct genetic coding, conducting the testing you requested, and then initiating the genetic modifications."

  Cece waited while Danny took in all this new information, before continuing, "The modifications that occurred are as shown on the screen."

  Danny looked over to see a magnification of one of his cells. Along the cell membrane were the different proteins and clear crystals Danny had come to associate with his ascendant body. The image was now focused on a recent addition. A large red crystal was now taking up some of the space along his cell membrane. This new crystal was the only one of its kind in the cell Cece had focused on. As Danny peered closely, he realized there was a faint clear crystal shell covering the red crystal.

  Danny nodded, saying, "I see. Has this modification revealed how I could draw mana from obstinite not incorporated into my body?"

  Cece shook her head, "As I explained when you first summoned me, I am only able to make small alterations to your orders but not create new orders. I will have the science officers begin looking into that now."

  Danny closed his eyes and took a deep breath before asking the one thing he had been avoiding asking, "Cece, how long has it been?"

  "It's been over six years, sir."

  Danny's head flopped backwards as if Cece's words had been a physical blow. Danny stared at the ceiling for a long while as he tried to process the ramifications of what this meant. Willow, Ivy, Brooke, Jade, would they have waited for him, or would they have moved on? What about Phantom or Crossbark?

  Danny ran his hand through his hair and down his face, asking, "How did those women get me out of there?"

  "I don't know. The obstinite in your slave collar and the large chunks of obstinite around you stopped us from being able to scan outside your body," Cece answered.

  Danny looked askance at Cece, asking, "It's been six years and since I don't physically age anymore, I still look sixteen. Besides waiting to turn me into a tree, what have you been doing all this time?"

  Cece shook her head, "We had no orders past solving the obstinite issue and healing you once we were able to."

  Groaning at all the extreme amount of lost time, Danny stood up and began to pace. His mind was starting to careen down a spiral of depression he was all too familiar with. The Danny from six years ago might have lost himself to this darkness, but he was no longer that same person.

  Danny stopped pacing and began listing things off, "Get everyone back in here, scanning the area on all frequencies. I want my automatic defenses in place. Make sure to scan for gaps in the ambient mana, specifically those related to obstinite interferences. I want you to raise the earth or stir up the air so that any attacks against me are stopped or redirected before the obstinite can affect my ability to cast any spells at all."

  Cece only nodded as she started taking down notes. Specialists appeared from thin air and took up any empty positions around the control room.

  Danny mumbled to himself, "Boy, everyone keeps calling me boy. I need them to take me seriously, and that won't happen with the face of a sixteen-year-old." Danny addressed Cece again, "What would we require to increase my age physically to twenty-five?"

  Cece pondered this a while before saying, "There would be significant resources involved, both physical and magical. Then, there is the pain you will feel during the transition. We also don't know if there are any negative side effects to you aging that quickly."

  "How much time?" Danny asked.

  Cece seemed to reference something on her clipboard, "Estimates place it at a little over two days."

  Danny sighed, "Alright, that's a good chunk of time. Get everything ready to start that process, but don't pull the trigger until I give the word. I need to check on something first before we begin."

  ***

  Danny opened his eyes, pleased to find not only his vision back to normal but those magical senses which he could use in his sacred form were gathering precious information about his surroundings. Danny looked down and noticed that the strange sensation he felt from before persisted, the feeling of something cool entering through his whole body.

  Danny thought, *Cece, do you know what this strange feeling I have all over my body is?*

  *Captain, what little obstinite absorbed by the cells in your epidermis is now drawing in ambient mana from your surroundings,* Cece explained.

  *Is the amount absorbed constant?* Danny asked.

  *There is a maximum absorption rate, but I suspect if you entered an area with an ambient mana deficiency then you would draw in less. Assimilating more obstinite would increase this maximum,* Cece added.

  *So we would have to find a ready supply of powdered obstinite?* Danny guessed.

  Cece hesitated, replying, *Technically you could swallow a larger piece of obstinite, but you would have to wait till it is completely saturated with mana before your body would start digesting it. It was what both the simulated creature and what our tests showed you would be able to do.*

  *What would the negatives be to trying this out?* Danny asked, perplexed.

  Cece explained, *If the piece you consume is more substantial in mass than the total amount already assimilated into your body, then you will have slightly similar issues as when you were first poisoned. If you consume a smaller piece, then the amount of mana you generate would decrease by the difference. If, while you still had a large enough foreign unincorporated piece of obstinite in you, and you leave an area with significant ambient mana, you could start dipping into the amount mana you usually generate.*

  Danny sighed, muttering to himself, "More obstacles."

  "Hey, you decided to quit pretending to be just a tree," exclaimed Acca from where she sat in a nearby collapsible metal chair.

  Danny studied the woman with his restored eyes for the first time. She was short, but that could have been because Danny was in his Sacred Tree Aspect. She was wearing bulky clothing meant for someone accustomed to doing hard work. The layer of dirt and soil covering the clothing also attested to this.

  Acca smiled knowingly while asking, "Hey Tree-Boy, you see somethin' you like? No offense, but I prefer my men with a bit more meat on there... well, everythin'. An abundance of foliage is also somethin' I also try to avoid."

  Danny blinked in confusion before realizing he had been fixedly staring at her clothing, lost in thought. More specifically, he had been staring at the upper portion of her attire for longer than socially acceptable.

  Danny nodded his head in a semblance of a bow, "My apologies, it has been a long time since I was thrown down in that pit and my mind stalls at times. Could you tell me what has happened? Where are all the drow?"

  Acca spit to one side, growling, "Those floppy-eared rejects of nature decided to invade the dwarven caverns. Unfortunately for them, their initial forays didn't go as planned, and we finally got tired of puttin' up with them. We brought the fight to them and sent them fleein' out into the devourer's tunnels. What slaves the bastards didn't take with them, they killed. We only managed to save a handful. Sent them back home with our apologies for not realizin' our distant neighbor was practicin' slavery."

  Danny doubted that there hadn't been at least someone on the outside who didn't know what the drow were doing, but he didn't want to upset his rescuer.

  "How long did the attempted drow invasion last?" asked Danny.

  "I don't know, four or five years, maybe more," Acca replied her attention slipping to something she was fiddling within her hands.

  Danny searched through the information coming to him through his magical senses. The cavern ceiling and floor were bare. The red algae that had covered the floors of the cavern was now completely gone. A strange square building now stood where Danny didn't remember there being one. Made entirely of stone, the building had dense glass-like windows spaced all around it. Various equipment was arranged around the campsite the two woman had established. Then, there were the two huge headless statues off to one side. Danny stared at them for more than a few seconds before giving up.

  Danny glanced back down to where Acca sat in her chair. He questioned how he had not seen it before. The woman had practically told him when she explained where the drow went. The woman's body was proportionally correct for a human, but now Danny realized she was just surrounded by objects appropriately sized for someone her height.

  "You're a dwarf," Danny stated.

  Acca stopped her fiddling to frown up at him, "You have a problem with dwarves?"

  Danny shook his head, a few small multicolored leaves falling from his head, explaining, "A dwarf saved my life once. I didn't mean it that way. I'm just a little confused right now."

  Acca's face softened, "I'm sure y'are, you poor thing. Is there anythin' y'need? More water?"

  Danny just shook his head to the negative. Everything he needed was coming from the ground now that his roots had spread out far enough.

  "So, now that you have had some time to yourself, are you going to tell me what you are? How you got here," Acca asked, making sure her words came out as a request and not a demand.

  Danny was grateful to the dwarf women for saving him, but this world had decided to stab, beat, whip, and bury alive the idea that above all else, Danny needed to look after number one. Danny was good at lying, but there was something else he was even better at. Plus it would help pull him out of his year-and-a-half long funk he had been in.

  Danny shrugged as much as he could, telling her, "Well, you probably guess I was procured illegally by the drow and forced into slavery. I was immediately sent to the mines for pissing off Queen Snaggletooth. Then, about six years ago, I was tossed into that old mining pit after an abysmal performance review. I broke both my legs; it was pretty embarrassing," Danny finished as he waved a hand dismissively as if what had happened to him was a minor thing.

  "Alright, well then, how's about before you were a slave?" Acca asked.

  Danny looked down at the woman then looked down at himself. Then looked back to the woman, then back at himself.

  "Seriously? I was a man-tree. You already pointed that out like half an hour ago," Danny said as he stared down at the woman as if she had lost more than a few marbles.

  Acca did not look impressed, "So you are tellin' me you were this tree-boy..."

  "Man-tree," Danny interrupted.

  "Fine, boy-tree," Acca replied, with an emphasis on the word 'boy,' before finishing, "and the drow just stumbled upon you underground?"

  Danny shook his head pretending to be ready to argue when he acted suddenly distracted by the object in the woman's hands, asking, "What's that?"

  Acca, successfully distracted by the change in topic, replied, "It's a healing charm. It didn't work on you, and I am trying to figure out what is wrong."

  Danny leaned over extending his hand, "Let me take a look."

  Acca eyed him warily before handing the device over to him. Danny held the charm up to study it. The ornate charm looked like someone had attached a metal tube to a necklace and tried to pass it off as jewelry. Danny would have to leave his Sacred Tree Aspect if he wanted to use his mana sight. Then, Danny noticed that something had been carved into the device. In the bottom corner was a Nature Affinity rune, but with the rune's rings left out. Using the correct rune himself, he discovered that it put out only a small amount of healing. Danny knew the symbol carved into the charm wasn't the actual rune and wondered why they had put it there at all.

  *Cece, how's my healing?* Danny thought.

  *You're good enough to go, Captain. But you might want to do some more healing later.*

  Danny exited his Nature Aspect, and Acca jumped out of her chair as the excess bark and leaves on Danny's body fell to the ground near her. Danny ignored the woman's reaction and opened his mana sight to look at the charm. There was the same rune he had seen partially carved on the outside of the charm. The charm didn't hold any mana in reserve, so Danny held up the charm to Acca and pushed some of his mana into it. Nature magic flowed out of the charm and into the dwarf woman, who was still too busy staring at all the plant matter surrounding him to notice.

  Danny wobbled a bit unsteadily as he held out the charm to Acca, explaining, "Your charm is fine; it just doesn't work on man-trees."

  Acca took the charm back, looking at it as if he might have tampered with it. Then, the dwarf stood up and helped the unsteady Danny into the metal chair. Danny used the movement to look around the campsite with his mana sight, confirming something he had suspected. Everything that the dwarves had brought with them was covered in magical runes.

  Acca spoke up from where she was bringing over a plate of food and a cup, asking, "Why are you staring at my mining suit like that?"

  "What does it do?" Danny asked without turning back to the dwarf.

  Acca frowned, saying, "It mines."

  Danny nodded as if that explained everything. Quickly pulling his attention from the mining suits, he realized something else. Something that should have stood out from the beginning.

  "Why are you speaking elvish?" Danny asked.

  It was Acca's turn to act aloof, asking, "What's wrong with elvish?"

  Danny wasn't buying her act one bit and couldn't help but run through the various reasons why.

  Acca nervously changed the topic, saying, "Look, Daniel, I am going to have to go back down there and finish this reclaim job, or it will never get finished. You can sit in this chair here and recover. Here is some water and food for you if you get hungry. When my partner Edlin gets back, she can help you get to wherever you need to go."

 

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