Chapter 8: The Nature Spirit
Among the dense trees, buried in shadow after shadow, covered in the muck from frequent falls, was Mr. Enter. He trudged on, only motivated to move when the Old Man behind him poked and prodded. But, the trees soon thinned, and Enter gave a sigh of relief when a clearing entered his sights.
A few trees dotted the clearing, specifically at four points. These points acted as corners for the centerpiece of the clearing; a small, one-roomed, one-floored, house. Its walls were as brown as dirt but as solid as wood. Moss covered the roof and trickled down the sides, where it intertwined with vines bunching in the corners.
Not a single window was on the place, aside from the one next to the red door. Its red color seemed to be created with more natural methods, as it was faint and neared pink the more he stared at it. Glowing berries lit the shadows underneath the roof, as though hostile mobs would spawn if they never grew.
"This is the place?" Enter asked, half wanting confirmation to relax and the other half almost concerned. The shack had a strange feel to it, like he would be scammed upon stepping inside. Old Man remained confident as he pushed past Enter, reaching the door and twisting it open.
"It's just as I saw it."
Inside, various decorations were strewn about the place, creating the atmosphere of a desperate thrift store. Blue orbs and yellow orbs floated overhead, stopping just enough so that it didn't hit the ceiling. Small, fit-in-your-hand statues were stocked on the highest shelves, with jarred plants and books occupying other shelves. Racks of wizard robes were carelessly positioned. The part of the store which hooked Enter's eyes were the shelves behind the main counter, where, on the upper half, dozens of glowing orbs were stationed.
They were a near-exact match to Enter's and the Old Man's, aside from their color being a bleak white. A figure reared up from under the counter, stocking jars underneath the orbs. The presumed store owner had no similarities to any creature Enter had seen before.
He had four arms moving away, each limb slender and ending with four thin, sharp claws. His whole body had near-white short fur which was only dimmed by the green leaf cloak he wore. The shopkeeper's two-point ears flickered as Enter and the Old Man neared, and he whipped around, revealing four red eyes. Their size was unequal; two were positioned like any human's while the other two were smaller and located on the top, as well as had a tighter spacing. Two fangs were visible on the spider-like creature.
"Well, if it isn't the Old Man," the Nature Spirit said. "I knew you would show up sometimes today. I didn't think it would be during stocking time."
The Old Man gave an unamused stare, blank as always. "I've come to request your aid in training, for the apprentice I have here," he motioned towards Enter, who cautiously got closer. The Nature Spirit's red gaze seemed to piece Enter's soul with its judgment.
"I ain't training someone who doesn't know a staff," the Nature spirit refused, turned around, and continued as though they weren't there. The Old Man's orb flared red.
"You're the Spirit of Nature," the Old Man stated, staff raised with intent. "Have you not sensed a disturbance in your element?"
The Nature Spirit's two large eyes narrowed, his remaining two untouched. "I couldn't care any less about the disturbances I hear. What makes your disturbance any different from what I sense ever day? It has blurred together so much that I rarely have the ability to do anything."
Old Man lowered his staff and leaned closer- about half-way past the counter- to whisper something in the Nature Spirit's ear. It was so faint that Enter couldn't distinguish any letter, yet he saw the Nature Spirit's suspicious eyes widen to their previous size. He raised all four arms to slam them on the counter, causing a jingle to echo from the assorted goods behind him.
"He's back," the Nature Spirit mumbled, not as a question, but as a statement. Enter shoved the Old Man to get to the Spirit, his curiosity growing impatient by the second.
"Who's back?" Enter demanded. He twisted to face the Old Man. "Is it the one who's sending the shadowmen?"
He was met with no response. Neither side gave him the answer but both faced him like they would, any second now, if he waited with more patience than he would ever have. The two looked at each other before returning to Enter, which is the moment when the Old Man shook his bearded head. "I cannot tell you now."
"Why not?" Enter's voice rang, a rage building. A threat he was destined to defeat, something so powerful that he had to learn magic he never knew existed, and yet he could not know what he was training to fight? "How can I defeat this character if I don't know who I'm fighting? Isn't that the first rule of a major conflict like this? Isn't that something you should know, of all people?"
The Old Man heaved a breath in, took a pause, and let it out. "I'm afraid that if I tell you, your mission will be in jeopardy. You cannot handle the truth. It could shock you so much that you will be unable to fulfill your destiny, all because the truth makes you unable to take your mission seriously anymore. Building up the threat as we are now will allow you to succeed in your training, and once you are finished, you will learn the truth. Or, your knowledge will arrive from a secondary source. Our current timeline has changed since I last remembered it. Every step you take either brings us closer or farther from the saving of the universe."
His words were spoken with elegance; Enter could almost admire how much effort the Old Man put into his speech. But to take any of it serious, much less take any bit of substance from it, proved a greater challenge that whatever he was intended to face. "Are you really sure I can't have a hint?"
The Nature Spirit slammed four sets of arms down, gaining the attention of the bickering duo. "Rather than fight, come "˜long and I'll get you all trained up. That character... I'd thought I'll never see him so long as the planet turned right. But, the Earth wishes for me to get in action, so come on and hurry up."
He reached under his desk to pull out another staff, this one almost completely encasing its inner orb with wood. That was before Enter saw the shape of the orb, which was not at all a sphere, but instead a dodecahedron. They come in different shapes?
Old Man appeared to have seen Enter's locked look on the rectangular mass and came close to explain. "Each wizard is gifted a sphere, but those of higher power require a shape fit for their strength. While you could hold your own staff and the triangular dohicket of a mage's wand, you would be unable to wield the rectangle of a warlock, the dodecahedron of a Spirit, the triacontagon of a Demi-God, or the hecto-centagon of a God."
His questions were plentiful, but Enter chose not to speak them. By now, the Nature Spirit had led the duo outside, where the trees continued to cast a thick shade up until the start of the clearing, where grass replaced leaf litter and vines entangled walls. Enter gazed about, taking in his surroundings. Surely, in a place as flammable as this, the concept of fighting would not be tolerated?
"Alright, everyone over here, near the border," the Nature Spirit waved his dodecahedron staff about, the light from it shining so bright that Enter ducked down. Though he was unable to see, the last movement he saw from the Old Man was nothing. Despite the shine, he remained still, staring at the light as though he wished to go blind.
The Nature Spirit said a strange chant before smashing the shape on the ground, something Enter assumed would break it, and yet, it was as unharmed as before. The call, combined with the gesture, released a fury of light sources which flew around like wisps released from lanterns.
These wisps wiped their light tails on the trees and sky, forming a dome which donned the color blue. It was with this formation that the wisps faded away, shooting themselves towards the Nature Spirit's staff to be reabsorbed and restored. Once the last wisp had gone in, the Spirit continued to speak.
"I hear you need training," he pointed his staff at Enter. "So, I'll give it to you. Your opponent is a true force to be reckoned with; going in with a cold stone will make you crack. So pick whatever spell you think would help, but I assure you, they will not do anything towards my attacks. If you can defeat me and all I throw at you, then congrats, you can go, but until that point is reached, you'll be stuck here, living in my basement under my rules. Y'got that?"
The Spirit's voice became angry as it went on, all with tired undertones. Has this happened multiple times in the past, or did I catch him on the worst day possible? His store can't be that busy, for being located in the middle of nowhere. Taking on what Enter assumed to be a battle stance, he twisted his orb to check his spell list.
Obviously, water can't be done. The only time Enter managed was when he nearly died in a source of the stuff. Fire? Oh, sure, burn the whole forest down, right in front of the guy who controls it. A death wish, if he'd seen one. Ice borrowed its cons from water and fire. Health could make Enter last a few seconds longer, if the spell even worked. And necromancy, oh boy, Enter didn't want to know how that would go. Isn't nature associated with life?
Digging deep in his mind, Enter searched for every possible choice he could do, all within a few seconds before the Nature Spirit's impatience grew. Four red eyes narrowed at him, their hostility like claws down Enter's robes. He looked up, looked back at the staff, and finally selected a spell.
"Drizzle?" the Nature Spirit spat. "Out of every common spell on your staff, you picked drizzle? You could splash, you could pool, but you decided to drizzle? Eh, I guess your water spells aren't the best thing in the world," he turned to the Old Man, "you really had to screw the world's savior over, have you?"
"He can't learn strategies if he is never in a tight situation," was the Old Man's only rebuttal. Enter straightened himself out, tempted to interrogate all the other, more useful, spells he could've had, but the Nature Spirit burst ahead.
The Spirit moved with calculated elegance, leaping over every small obstacle to get to his opponent. Enter began moving back, slowly at first, before twisting around to break into a run. Swinging the staff like he was trying to catch a signal, Enter cast drizzle to a rather cloudy sky. The darkness grew above as sunlight seeped in to cast strange shadows onto the world.
Lifting his dodecahedron, the Nature Spirit swung with another chant, bringing force a fear and realization. The fear, obviously, was the six-legged creature who just summoned a burst of... light? Oh, and the realization was how the Nature Spirit cast by using foreign chants, making it impossible to tell the next move. Great. Real great.
Enter felt the first few raindrops before the light punched him with deadly velocity. Before he could feel the impact of the dome behind, a vine grew out of the ground and snatched him mid-air, bending just enough that he couldn't be struck with a concussion. However, the vine tossed him across the sky, albeit at a slower speed, just so he could fall into the grasp of another vine.
Snapping through his spells, Enter, without hesitation, chose a fire spell. Fire Ring, Torch, and Lantern. Impossible to decipher, but the decision was swift. Enter imagined the ring of fire around the vine, swallowing it and tilting him towards the ground. Wait, WAIT! The possible impact that could result made the orb shift back to water.
No fire came, but the rain became a harsher drizzle. Clothes wet and heavy, Enter squirmed in the plant's grasp, his grip on the staff draining. Then, it fell. The plant pulled itself into the ground, almost completely, leaving Enter on the surface. The Nature Spirit cast another chant to heave himself into the sky, taking advantage of a wind gust from the trees. He drifted along to the vine, where he stood over Enter, four arms crossed.
"Defeated within moments, your only accomplishment being the rain you cast. I had not fought anyone in a decade, and a millennium before that, but my rusty staff can produce better results than you."
"I hardly have a week of experience!" Enter shouted, "and how old are you? A thousand years? What'dya think would happen!? No one's that experienced!"
His voice fell silent after another chant. The vines let him go, releasing him with a sharp pain in his arm. Upon striking the ground, the Nature Spirit walked by, not even a "are you okay" as Enter clutched his injured arm. Struggling, he got back on his boots, now wet in and out, a sickness twisting in his stomach.
Could it have been the flight from the plant? Or how tight it was holding him? Perhaps the storm he summoned showed signs of a worse fate. All three, I'd bet my life. At this point, betting his life sounded more like a risk than a phrase. The Old Man walked alongside the Nature Spirit as Enter fell behind.
His head spun; the sounds muffled. The forest around dimmed as the clouds' dark presence became heavier by the second. At some point, the Old Man looked back on Enter, and though hesitating, joined his side to push him into the house. If there were a more miserable time experienced in his life, Enter could not recall it; it felt like the scythe of death waited on the other side. Fittingly, it was at the door when the world joined the darkness.
Enter woke up in the same place he blacked out: The doorframe of the Nature Spirit's shack. As he got to his feet, the feeling of reality faded. There was no doubt that the place he stood in was a dream, for the Old Man and Nature Spirit were not only missing, but so were the objects in the shop. Behind him, the door remained closed, and Enter stepped away, intending to keep it that way.
The shop had a different feel to it. It was less like a magic thrift store and more like a deserted aisle. Empty shelves lined the rims, every jar was gone, and the orbs' glow had left the place in near-darkness, if not for the faint light from the windows. What pierced through the clouds was what lit the place, causing shadows to creep from every corner.
"Old Man?" Enter called out. He'd considered calling for the Nature Spirit, but doing so might've caused the dream to turn sour. "Are you not here?"
Silence answered for him. Every step he took, every frozen breath he felt, filled the empty room with the slightest bit of life. Any moment seemed on the verge of breaking its sanity, to open the world and let it fall into the ether. Enter continued walking around, going so far as behind the counter to check the door which lacked a handle.
He pressed against it, feeling the wooden stopper on the other side. Fitting his fingers into the crack, he pulled, feeling the door push out until it stopped, unable to go either front or back, frozen in its place. An urge to pass through the door entered his brain and refused to think otherwise; a paranoia lurked outside the store.
If he didn't get inside the shut room, the front would crack open and he would be consumed. It, whatever it could be, waited for Enter's back to turn. He kicked the locked door, swung a heavy pole at it, almost anything he could find was used. The panic grew for reasons he himself couldn't understand.
An ax shone in the corner, its metal edge reflecting the little light. Snatching it, Enter struck the wood down, plank by plank, until he could fit his hand through the hole in the door. Unlocking it, Enter opened the door with a thump, swerving inside to shut himself in. Chest heaving, Enter took a moment to take in deep breaths.
Once recollected, he looked around the room. Except... it was not a room. Rather, it was an open plane of grass. Behind, the room vanished, replaced by a field of grass. The scene smelled like the woods he had fled from in a state of near-death. And there, sitting atop a rock which was not there before, was a large Newfoundland. Its coat was the typical black with its shaggy fur obscuring most of its features, but its sturdy legs were posed with confidence as it showed off its webbed toes.
"I'm glad I could speak with you."
"You're... Glad you could speak with me? Why?" Enter asked. What business would a talking Newfoundland have with him? The Newfoundlandjumped off its rock to step closer to Enter, prompting him to take his own steps back. Gazing up with large, dark brown eyes, the Newfoundland spoke.
"I am the River-Dog."
There was no way anyone would name themselves "the River-Dog" . Imagine if humans worshiped "the River-Human" ! It was ridiculous. That fact alone proved that whoever this was spoke from a state of sleep and not one from a higher power, not that Enter believed in that stuff anyways.
"Okay," Enter paused at a loss of words. Exactly how does one continue a conversation like that? "So... What do you want from me? You must've wanted something if you made the whole store disappear like that."
The Newfoundland's voice was that of a female, a deep one, speaking as though her speech was practiced many times before. Her voice was pleasant to listen to, almost putting Enter into a sleep if it were not for the oddness of the situation.
"The Spirit Dogs have chosen you and another to rise up against the evil whose roots have sprung again. To deny action would be to accept fate; to fight without thinking would be to accept defeat. Your choices and every step you take guide you against the rising threat you do not yet know but feel in every breath you take.
I ask for your movement and haste; for the Spirit Dogs know what lurks in the shadows and strikes you from every corner. Rise up and use the magic gifted to you. We cannot change the course of fate, but we can give warnings to steer it towards health. Go on, and do not let the Spirits above faint. Go on, and defeat the one before he becomes six. Time is running out..."
A storm swirled around the Newfoundland, engulfing the scene behind before the waves inched ahead, gushing down with such speed that Enter struck the ground upon impact. The world became a blur...