In an instant, I had another fully grown Winesap apple in my hand. I casually tossed the thing to the leader of the laborers and farmers. He easily caught it and brought the thing eye-level before beginning to scrutinize it.

"Yep! As a druid of the harvest moon, I pledge myself to a spirit of the harvest and in exchange, that spirit grants me an incredibly tiny fraction of its power. That"s how I can do neat things like make crops grow instantly." I explained, carefreely explaining the supposed source of my power. Gustavo turned to me and gave me an amazed stare when I explained the fabricated origins of my power.

I wondered how he"d react if I hadn"t told him about my persona and I had instead told him the truth. For a moment I considered it, but I knew that if I really wanted too I could infiltrate his dreams later tonight and tell him. Not to mention that I also figured that that"d make pursuing the quest I had been given a few minutes ago a bit harder.

"Whoa, how"d that happen?" He asked, curiously.

"A long time ago I was asked if I wanted to help rid the world of starvation. I said yes, I did. And the rest... well the rest is history." I told Gustavo, as I closed my eyes and feigned having a moment of nostalgia.

Gustavo was quiet for a moment while he considered what I said. And then he opted to accept it, deciding not to push the issue any further. Something he did push though, was the apple. He pushed it into his mouth and took a bite out of it. I opened my eyes right as I was treated to a familiar notification.

[Influence over Gustavo: 5%. This is due to you having gained increased power over the domain of the mind and the subdomain of agriculture, and the events that took place before he bit into the apple.] The system alerted me, giving me a good reason for a wide smile.

"So... how is it?" I asked, looking the farmer in the eyes with a grin seconds after he bit into the apple and began to noisily chew on it. There was a contented grin on his face as I asked him that.

"It"s delicious... A real apple. Grown from magic." He muttered as he bit more into it. I could tell he genuinely liked it, even without his words, as whenever he bit into it he took a second and sighed as its tastes coated his tongue.

"Oh my friend, I can do more than that. But for now, do me a favor would you?" I asked him, after teasing my other powers. He looked at me curiously, awed by my powers and evidently curious to hear me ask whatever I was about to ask.

"From here on out would you collect and keep every seed you could?" I asked, as I brought the apple I had bitten into to eye-level and began to dig through the thing for the seeds the apple contained not far from its core. It took me a few seconds to collect the seeds, numbering seven in total.

Gustavo looked at me after I finished speaking and began to nod. "I see, so you want us to collect seeds for you to use your powers on?" He asked, inquisitively. I chuckled and nodded at him.

"If you give me seeds, I will use my powers on them. If you wish we could even experiment with them and see if burying the seeds produces trees." I explained. I was happy to practice experimenting with my powers, and knowing that doing so would gradually increase my influence over Gustavo brought me great joy.

"I possess one more especially potent ability, but I don"t think its time to show you that one just yet. For now, I would like for you to spend the day thinking about and then selecting two lieutenants of yours that we will inform about my powers." I announced, not rushing anything but teasing Gustavo and suggesting I had one more trick up my sleeve that I could use that he"d like.

His eyebrow raised up curiously as he listened to me. I chuckled and continued speaking.

"I would like for your closest and most trusted advisors to know the truth. I don"t want you to carry this burden alone. And that way I can have more help in acquiring seeds for us to keep the population fed." I told Gustavo, explaining what my "intentions" were without actually revealing the truth.

Gustavo was quiet for a moment. He had a look of thoughtful contemplation on his face. I suspected he already knew who he was going to pick. Eventually, he nodded at me and began to talk once more.

"Alright, Althos. I can tell from the way that you"re talking that you would like to pick this up tomorrow? In that case, I have plenty of time to pick two people. I"ll select the men most able to help us!" He declared, speaking softly but confidently. I smiled at him and nodded gratefully.

"Cosecha be pleased! That"s excellent news, my friend." I told him, referring to "Cosecha" by name for the first time. The unusual expression caught him off-guard and he gave me a look but he didn"t ask for an explanation, so I opted not to give him one. Not for now anyway.

I had a plan for how to introduce him to "Cosecha". I intended to visit his dreams tonight in my more impressive form than my surprisingly ordinary human disguise. But tonight was a way"s off. I had more work to do elsewhere. So I kept him company for another five minutes before I politely bid him adieu and began my trek back to the Silver Xana.

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The sun hung very low in the sky as I made my way back to the inn I had spent the majority of my nights in. I was walking by a house inhabited by a lone man when he opened the door leading in and out of his home. At that moment I realized that I had a good opportunity here.

"I can go ahead and begin working towards curing Troik by striking this man with a disease bolt." I told myself, keenly aware that I had the opportunity to make progress towards becoming what was, in essence, a G.o.d of health.

"I don"t even need him to be infected for long. I can literally just cure him the second he"s. .h.i.t by the disease." I muttered to myself. That didn"t keep me from not wanting to do it though.

"He"s an innocent, elderly man. Why should he be the first target?" I asked myself, not at all a fan of this quest. I had only opted to pursue it because I knew that completing it gave me a potent power: the ability to cure magical diseases.

"Oh d.a.m.n it, I"ll just cure him the second the spell makes contact." I muttered, before targeting him with a casting of the disease bolt spell. The spell flew, invisibly to all but me, through the air and struck his back.

He began to cough, not violently or anything, but even as I did I immediately cast my spell that cured diseases on him. As soon as I did his coughing began to lessen in intensity, until it was over altogether.

"One out of five." I muttered, under my breath. I was grateful to have begun to do the work I"d need to do to gain the influence, even if I still had to infect four more people.

On my way to the Silver Xana, I was surprised, somewhat pleasantly, to find that the people of Comillas are early-risers. I encountered three people and subsequently infected and then cured them using disease bolt and cure-disease on anyone I saw. I made it to the Silver Xana uneventfully aside from that.

Inside of the inn I was delighted to find a pair of people who I had never seen before sitting down and waiting for something, probably me given that they were the pair of high-elves I had inspected using my tremorsense power earlier in the morning.

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The two high-elves, one male and one female, were seated on a single sofa, one of the two I had first seen during the beginning of my first day truly alive. It feels like so long ago that that happened that it"s difficult to believe it was less than one hundred hours ago.

Both of the elves wore simple clothes well-suited to trekking across forests and other ecospheres less suited to humanoids. They wore green trousers and had on matching green tunics. At their sides were bright blue bows and they each had a quiver filled with arrows strapped to their persons.

The elves smelled of the road as if they hadn"t had time to really change out of the gear they traveled in. One of them had long brown hair and the other had shorter blonde hair. The one with brown hair had empty white orbs for eyes, ones that lacked pupils, and the one who had short blonde hair had equally empty green orbs for eyes.

It was at this moment that I activated my appraisal power, targetting the two of them with the exact same ability I had used on Gustavo minutes ago.

[Name(s): Calorron Lordrawn (Level five ranger), Farrane Elfsflame (Level three wizard)

Species: High Elves

Alignment(s): Lawful good

Personal vices: Sloth (Farrane), Envy (Calorron)

Personal virtues: Diligence (Calorron) Kindness (Farrane)

Magic Sensing: High elves are naturally magical and can naturally use magic. Farrane Elfsflame is an exceptional spellcaster and a potent pyromancer, and the school of magic that most resonates with her soul is evocation magic. Calorron is not particularly skilled at magic for a high elf and the school of magic that most resonates with his soul is enchantment magic.

Faith-sense: These two elves are firm believers in the might of the empire they are citizens of, the Ansari empire. They are proud of their mission: to investigate the strange event which occurred last night in the Rodan forest.

Authority detection: Farrane and Calorron are relatively low-ranking officials in their government. They are scouts, trusted in their specific tasks but not taken with the same seriousness as others in their government. In their outposts, they are viewed as trusted figures whose reports are taken seriously and viewed as credible.]

They both looked up at me and began to grin. Isadora waved at me as I entered the inn. I smiled back at her and then went over to the sofa across from the one the elves were sitting in and introduced myself.

"h.e.l.lo, I am Althos. I suppose you are the Xana"s newest guests?" I asked, grinning at them.