The creatures were reshaped, shambling trees. Two of them vaguely resembled humans or at least humanoids, and one of them was a ma.s.sive, wolf-like thing made of wood. They all possessed eerie, ethereal eyes, roughly eye-shaped orbs of light that illuminated other empty s.p.a.ces where their eye sockets would have been on the creatures they modeled after.

The two human-shaped ones loosely held weapons of light, one of them holding a spear of light and the other holding a light-blade. They were both outfitted with one extra piece of gear as well. In the case of the spear-holder, it was gripping an imitation of a leash, tied to the neck of the wolf-tree. I studied all three of my creations before I turned my attention fully to Raiz.

"These creatures are your bodyguards. They have one order: to protect you." I told Raiz over our mental connection. I saw her turn to the arboreal playthings that stood beside her and look at them. She wasn"t enthused about the situation, but when she replied to me her tone wasn"t as negative as it could have been.

"Alright, master... I trust you." She told me, speaking sincerely albeit somewhat unhappily. I chuckled but kept that hidden from her as to not worsen her mood.

"Thank you, Raiz. Your trust is not misplaced and in time I shall give you protectors that more match your particular aesthetic tastes. Whatever those happen to be." I told her, aware that her concern with her current retinue might well be one of optics rather than something immaterial.

If it was true that her concern was one of optics and aesthetics I could understand that and didn"t begrudge her for it. A part of me, perhaps either due to the influence of the domain of faith or the subdomain of corruption, had an intuitive understanding of the importance of optics and aesthetics.

I understood that to mortals, aesthetics carried weight and could shape impressions and opinions. And I wanted mortal worshipers.

Her bodyguards were an odd-looking group. That was only partially my fault, as it was true that I didn"t give them especially impressive looking gear, or craft them to be works of art, but it was also partially because trees aren"t the kind to give the aesthetic opinions of elves much, if any consideration. That said, every second brought us closer to them.

But in time, we got close enough to my party of servants that the time came for me to cease studying my creations and for me to meet them, in the flesh. Within a few minutes, Farrane and Calorron drew close enough to Raiz and her bodyguards that the elves could see the dryad and her unusual honor-guard.

Our encounter began with my elvish allies verbally greeting the strangers they could finally see.

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"h.e.l.lo! We are visitors to this forest. May we approach and converse with you?" Calorron asked when we stood about sixty or so meters away from the wooded warriors I had created. I used this time to truly study Raiz for the first time.

She stood under a meter and a half tall. She had a curvy body, one that I had bestowed upon her consciously as a manner to lure l.u.s.t-driven mortals to her more easily. She had long, wavy, red hair inspired by one of the more common colors of apples that was made all the more lovely by contrasting it with her snow-like pale skin.

She had bright green eyes and the sharp-pointed ears of elven kind. She radiated a faint aura of magic, a dimly visible green one, but at a glance, I had difficulty discerning what kind of magic she was radiating. It was magic, unlike any kind I had seen so far, which was annoyingly limited. While studying the aura I heard the voice of the domain of knowledge whisper into my mind.

"That aura... it"s possible she"s radiating evocation magic, which tends to be magic that druids excel at manipulating. Not that you would know..." Said my free-loading companion, before making a snarky and unnecessary remark. An accurate one, but still an unnecessary one.

"Hey, all I"m saying is that you should focus on building your influence over all of the subdomains of magic, and not just the ones your soul is attuned to." Complained the domain, which made me roll my eyes. Once again, it wasn"t wrong, but it was still annoying.

"Hey, that"s the other domains say about me too!" Whispered the obnoxious ent.i.ty. I heard a faint giggle come from it before I refocused and continued studying Raiz.

Loose piles of multicolored leaves covered Raiz"s naked body, keeping the parts of her that mortals tended to find the most pleasurable to look at just out of view. Aside from that she immodestly showed my allies and myself her body, which was quite pleasing to look at.

I would have focused more on her companions, but I had already studied them extensively. I wasn"t about to pay them anymore mind just yet. Raiz turned and began to reply to Calorron.

"h.e.l.lo friends, welcome to the Rodan forest. I am Raiz, the high priestess of the Cosechian faith. Please come and introduce yourselves. Do not be afraid of me or of my... relatives. They are blessings bestowed upon me by the G.o.d I serve. They do not seek to harm anyone, only to protect me while I enact my master"s will." Raiz declared, her voice carried to us on the winds themselves.

Farrane looked to me, and I shrugged. She then looked to Calorron and he nodded at her. And so we closed what little distance separated us from Raiz and my other creations, with a few swift moments of motion.

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When we stood just 10 or so meters away from Raiz, we found ourselves on one end of a path and found them on the other end. The four of them together soundly blocked us from advancing forward, as although none of them were particularly bulky when they stood shoulder to shoulder they were just tall and wide enough to keep us from advancing unless we went around them.

I was the first to speak, moving a bit closer as I did so. I smiled at my creations, proud of them for so regally and distinctly representing me.

"h.e.l.lo! My name is Althos and I am a druid and healer who lives in a nearby community. For the past few days I have been coming to this place and healing who I could. I am interested in learning about the Rodan forest, and so are my companions." I declared, speaking excitedly and energetically to the creatures in front of me.

As I spoke I telepathically transmitted a message all of my followers who stood before me, while linking our minds together. It was a simple message.

"h.e.l.lo, my name is Althos. I am also the ent.i.ty known as Cosecha. I am your creator, and I aspire to be worthy of your worship and your service." I informed them, knowing that Raiz knew my name already and that my other servants didn"t. I felt three powerful surges of awe and worship surge into me as my creations suddenly had names for me. It widened the smile already on my face.

"h.e.l.lo Althos! I and my... lesser siblings," She said the words "lesser siblings" with a touch of annoyance distinctly audible in her voice. "Are newborn or newly created creations of a young G.o.d named Cosechca. This G.o.d is a spirit of the harvest, and... other things." She said, smiling cryptically at us.

I had to work to hide my grin as my elven allies looked at Raiz suspiciously. They weren"t exactly distrustful of the young dryad, but they weren"t fans of the cryptic comment she just made, which was honestly quite fair.

"Raiz, there"s a lot... weird about what you just said." Calorron told the young dryad, a tense expression on his face. There was an edge of steel in his voice as he spoke, but he was careful to not make any overtly hostile statements just yet. Raiz turned to look at him and smiled disarmingly.

"I apologize sir..." She said, before quickly waiting for him to introduce himself. The elf, annoyed at both his own rudeness and her exceedingly gentle way of pointing it out, began to speak.

"I am Calorron. I am an elf who is a part of the Ansari empire. As is my companion. Yesterday there was an... event in this forest. The Ansari empire maintains its own colony on a nearby island and that was where we were stationed. Our technology detected... energy coming from this forest." Said Calorron, introducing himself and then immediately beginning to explain why he and Farrane were here. Farrane immediately interrupted him, her eyes throwing daggers his way.

"And I am Farrane. As Calorron was saying, we"re here to investigate this place. The existence of a... G.o.d, in this forest is definitely something we"d like to learn more about." She said, speaking cautiously and in a tempered way. Raiz smiled at both of them, and her eyes were suddenly filled with palpable energy.

"You"re curious about Cosecha? Cosecha is my creator! I"d be thrilled to tell you about it." She said, in a rapid burst of words. Her soft voice was filled with awe as it exploded out of her.

The two elves gave each other a look, one that was intriguing to me because I could tell it was significant to the two of them but was unsure of precisely how. I ended up being the first person of the three of us on my end to speak after her energetic and bubbly voice spilled out of her.

"Why do you keep calling it, Cosecha, an "it"?" I asked, honestly curious about this. This was a legitimate question, as it was an odd thing that I had picked up on and was intrigued by.

"Well because Cosecha is... a chimera. You see, Cosecha is a G.o.d, but also it"s more than that." She told me before time suddenly froze again, capturing her mid-thought and mid-utterance. It was easier for me to tell this time because Raiz"s mouth was still open.

[s.h.i.t.] Muttered the system. This caught me off guard, so I stayed still as I waited for the system to expand on what was happening.

"I told you that you should have told him." Said the domain of knowledge, in a rather smug voice. I couldn"t help but chuckle, as I wondered what I was about to learn.

[Well Althos, we have good news...] The system, my oldest companion, told me. Its voice was rather chipper, but clearly artificially and falsely so.

[Do you remember back when you first came to life, your wild-traits?] The system asked, attempting to lead me to a conclusion that almost immediately made itself apparent with just that question.

"Are you telling me that you told my first creation more about myself than you told me? Because I can easily guess that you"ve figured out what "More Than Meets The Eye" means." I said, wanting to laugh, but also wishing that the system had a face so I could at least yell at it rather than speak loudly in my own mind.

[In our defense, she takes after you, and the earliest signs of MTMTE are beginning to show.] The system explained, abbreviating my wild trait. I took a deep breath, and then calmed myself before next speaking.

"So what does it mean? What am I? Because Raiz made it clear that I am not just a G.o.d." I asked, both curious and annoyed in equal measure. I was so annoyed that I almost forgot to ask a good question, but I corrected that the second I noticed it.

"Also, what reason could you possibly have for explaining something I don"t know about myself to her and keeping it hidden from me?" I asked, and this question was born entirely from annoyance.

[Well Althos, those are all really good questions and fortunately, we"ve got... somewhat good answers? We"ve got alright answers. We would have really liked to have more time to research this. You"re a... one of a kind creature.] The system teased, before finally launching into a real explanation.