LIGHTNOVELONLINE 122: Stormpine
Ryn
It took a month of planning and preparations, but our new expedition was ready to go. Our group was comprised of Adam, Duncan, Grace, Eilian, and me, with Dr Ross the head of political sciences and two others tagging along. Jenna from the militia was there as personal security for Dr Ross, while Tom was the assistant.
Before we made our way out of the Avonside mountains, I had to help the three newbies move into their temporary rooms down in the guest quarters in my grove. I met them out in the main quad of the campus with a smile. “Dr Ross, Jenna, nice to see you both again!”
The professor stepped forward as I offered my hand, and we shook. “Yes, yes you too Ms Belrose,” he said. “And this is my assistant, Tom.”
Tom was your typical dude by all visual metrics. He was around six feet tall, with brown hair that would have a grandmother talking incessantly about haircuts, and the type of smile that was like catnip to girls who like nerdy boys.
I gave him a nod, then turned my attention back to the professor and gestured to their small packed bags. “You know you can take way more than that, right? We’ll be gone for months, I’d suggest bringing pretty much anything and everything you want.”
“Are you sure?” Dr Ross asked, confused. “How do we carry it all?”
“We don’t,” I grinned. “We bring it into my grove where I’ve had my people build the three of you a small apartment offshoot from my tree. Each day we travel, but then instead of camping at night, we transfer into my grove where we have all the amenities of a proper home.”
“This grove of yours sounds like a cheat code to life,” Tom said, speaking for the first time.
Dr Ross made a noise of agreement and said, “I am very interested in how this all works. Would you mind if we saw the accommodations before deciding what to bring?”
“Absolutely,” I smiled. “Shall we go now?”
“I don’t see any reason not to. Where do we go?”
“Nowhere,” I laughed, and touched each of them with a tendril of telekinesis.
Green leaves and magenta flower petals swirled up around us in a rush, and for a brief microsecond, we hung between realms. It was the sort of stutter in your perception of time that made you wonder if you’d just blinked or the lights really had gone out for a moment. Then we were in my grove, standing in the shade of my enormous Christmas tree home.
“Welcome to—” I began to say, when I had a light-bulb moment. “—To Stormpine, my home.”
My inner grove had developed significantly in the time we’d been at Avonside. The area directly surrounding the tree was now covered in small gently rolling hills, with pathways and streams snaking through them.
The forest beyond was a temperate jungle of exotic plants, trees, and all the small fauna that kept a woodland healthy. Regular cottontail rabbits had even been caught and introduced by the buns, although only after their breeding rate was nixed significantly.
My spells felt… stronger, when the plants were in part maintained and grown in a more natural way. Of course, we still grew normal food crops in a more organised fashion among the hills under the tree.
I could even see— hold on, was that a hobbit hole?
Frowning, I levitated upwards a metre or so and cast a magnifying spell.
Sure enough, over near the tunnel to Cee's grove was a small village under construction. The aesthetic wasn't entirely hobbit-inspired, with a style that was more rustic, and little square towers with pointy triangular roofs poking up out of the hills from each house.
It took a moment longer for me to notice the much more alarming change. Of the fifty or so buns I could see working to finish the village, about half of them were bipedal like Cee.
“Those little shits!” I exclaimed.
“W-wha?” Jenna sputtered, turning her attention away from gawking in wonder up at Stormpine.
All three of them had been staring around in open wonder at my grove, but now we were all watching the buns in bemusement.
“Fascinating,” Dr Ross murmured, his intelligent eyes tracing the fluffy miscreants as they went about their unsanctioned work. “They’re more intelligent than I thought they were.”
“We all underestimated them at first,” I agreed. “The upright ones are actually mages. That’s the form the fruit gives them when they transform. From speaking to the first of them, I’ve been able to gather that the language centres of their brains aren’t as well developed as a human’s, but empathic sections are greatly heightened. They’re able to smell emotions on people to a certain extent, and they’re very clued into body language.”
“Absolutely fascinating,” he repeated again. “And they have an organisational structure? Politics?”
Snorting with private amusement, I replied, “Only vaguely. They’re very communal creatures, so most of what they do is done in broad and chaotic telepathic discussions. One is a leader among them, though, who’ll generally have the final say in a matter. Then they all listen to me… most of the time."
"Telepathic group decision making…" he mumbled, still watching my buns. "How incredible. I look forward to meeting and speaking with them."
"They'll probably love that," I chuckled. "They seem to enjoy telling us humans that we're overcomplicating everything."
We continued to discuss the buns and my grove while I led them towards the newly named Stormpine. As we walked, I noticed more and more bun-meddling. There were crude little sign posts and shrines along the road. Wild berries had been planted in neat little hedges too, and there appeared to be the beginnings of pastures enclosed by stone fences. It felt like I'd stepped into an old English children's book universe.
The apartment I had built for the three guests was the first addition to the tree that hadn't been grown. It looked like a cute little cottage tacked onto the side of the tree at the third floor, and that's pretty much what it was.
It was pretty funny seeing them begin to realise just how much nicer things were inside the grove. When they saw the balcony cafe, there were more than a few exclamations of envy. The bunrista even had coffee ready for them when we arrived.
From there, we inspected the cottage itself, and it was about then that the reality of things set in. They could bring anything and everything they owned on the trip, they'd sleep in the same bed each night after a hot shower, and there was even power and a network connection.
The interior consisted of a tree-standard bathroom setup, complete with hot tub, a large sitting room with a small kitchen and study nook, plus the three bedrooms. There were also two storage closets in case they decided to bring a lot of stuff.
"I don't know what to say, Ms Belrose," said Dr Ross, slumping back into an armchair. "This is nicer than my rooms in Avonside, and the view…"
"This is only the inner grove," I said with a gesture out the large windows of the sitting room. "Beyond the edge of the plateau is the Order's plateau which is orders of magnitude bigger than what you can currently see."
“Are we allowed to visit it?” Jenna asked eagerly. “I have some friends who joined. They were really cagey about things in here and it should be fun to catch up with them now that my clearance has been raised.”
I gave it a moment’s thought, but couldn’t think of any reasons to say no. “Yeah, whenever you have time.”
“Sweet!” she said, pumping a fist. “Have you got a pub yet?”
“It’ll be finished by the time we leave, I think,” I replied.
Truth was, we didn’t have any pub planned, but as of right now I knew we needed at least one of them. It needed to be a proper fantasy tavern too, with multiple floors all piled one atop the other, barrels of mead everywhere… oh, and a bun minstrel! It was going to be awesome, and I knew just the construction crew for it…
