Before we set out for the Spooky Grove, I go over to take a good look at the oak tree I planted a few years ago behind the workshop.

After being fed a potion made from samples from the boss in the Mushroom Garden, it has undergone a growth spurt and gotten a little weird. The three-year-old oak tree now stands over two meters tall, though its trunk is still only a few centimeters thick. Its gently swaying canopy seems to be trying to reach out experimentally on its own. The bark has taken on a bit of a bluish-purple cast, and the leaves have acquired a cool mystical sparkle.

Category: Plant | Type: Tree | Species: Common Oak (Modified) | Rank: Elite | Tier: Novice | Class: Malleable Sapling

My little sister, Juniper, is sitting beside the tree, facing it and meditating. She seems to be working on some enhancement skills. While I would be generally trying to direct energy into my hands, feet, or brain, she's pulling it in toward her heart. An Enhanced Heart skill would make sense given that she's a [Tranquil Child]. What's she trying to learn there? I watch the flows closely. (I mean, I could just ask her, but that wouldn't help me learn skills.)

The stream contains concepts of malleability and willpower, and I soon match it to a skill I saw recommended for hopeful Sorcerers. Mutant oak trees were not among the recommended symbols to meditate with, but it seems to be working well.

Skill identified: Enhanced Heart (Malleable Will) Description: Improves your ability to express or suppress emotions. You have greater control over your emotional state.

Skill acquired: Enhanced Heart (Skill Identification) Description: The ability to analyze the vis being used by another and determine what sort of skill is being used. Description: If it is a skill you are familiar with, a full description will appear, otherwise you will receive a general analysis of the concepts.

Finally. I was trying to get that unlocked the other day, but people kept pestering me trying to get me to be social. I knew it had to be possible, and I almost had it.

"Hi Drake," Juniper says, her voice soft and flat.

"Sorry to interrupt your meditation," I say.

"It's fine. This is your tree. And I should be able to talk and meditate at the same time."

"I can hardly believe it's the same tree," I say.

"I've been giving it that potion just like you said," Juniper says. "It's gotten so pretty. I come out here every day at indigo. That's the best time for Enhanced Heart skills."

"It's green now, though," I point out. "You weren't at breakfast."

Juniper blinks and looks at the sky. "Oh. Oops."

"Perhaps you should meditate with a clock, next," Aunt Savannah says with a gentle smile.

She's still wearing the spirit ring I gave her last year. I hope she has been getting good guidance from my past life, Liu Xing. I should probably be using him more to keep in touch with Corwen, but it hasn't really been necessary. Nothing has been so urgent that I couldn't just fly over here.

Maybe I'm just making excuses to have forgotten to call my sister. I've been busy! And not used to thinking of that as a possible thing.

Aunt Savannah shoos Juniper along to the Hearth to get fed, leaving the two of us alone with the tree.

"I ran across Aunt Hazel working on Invocation (Guardian Tree)," I say. "I'm going to need to learn some sort of plant manipulation skill myself. I don't think I have any innate affinity to wood like I do with copper. [Resonant Child] is a Crafting-based class, though, so I need to think of something as a crafting material or crafted item."

Aunt Savannah nods. "You could consider plant manipulation to be a form of crafting. Connecting with a plant is not the same as connecting with an inanimate object, though. The plant is a living being, and its vis flows on its own. You must guide it to flow the way you want it to rather than forcefully shape it with a tool."

I circle around the tree slowly, carefully examining it both physically and spiritually. I haven't really examined a plant's aura in as much detail before, and I don't have a great deal of agricultural experience. This tree, however, has been absorbing essence from multiple dungeons, and its aura is quite distinct from the more ordinary oak trees outside, even the huge one.

The Great Oak is big but not sapient, not even sentient. Normal plants don't think in the same way animals do, even simple animals. And treefolk are monsters. They probably have to be, even if they originated as reincarnated tree souls or whatever they are.

I open my astral connection and send to Pinion, [Do you think Hebron's spawner would be able to spawn a treefolk?]

[I can find out,] the gnome replies enthusiastically. [I'll get back to you once we've acquired a potted plant or something.]

Delegation of my latest ridiculous idea complete, I focus my attention on the tree. Digging it up and taking it to Hebron would be a ridiculous idea, anyway. Hebron's spawner is just a convenience to access the Game hub. Necromancy can do the same thing, if I have access to the soul already. I still want to experiment more with how the spawner can be best abused, though, but I can leave that task to Pinion, as he seems thrilled about the idea.

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"With the tree's increased flexibility, it will be good practice for learning Invocation (Plant Control)," Aunt Savannah is saying. "Coax one of the branches to bend. Gently now."

I don't get it right away. Just wanting it to bend isn't enough. It's not until I specifically start thinking of weaving its branches together artistically that I get an effect, along with a notification.

Skill acquired: Invocation (Plant Control) Description: You may cause plants to move on their own, grow rapidly, flower, or fruit.

A branch shifts, just a little and not especially artistically, and that's all I get before I run out of Inspiration. I got the unlock, though, and that's enough for now. I can raise it over time, and practice on whatever plants happen to be nearby, wherever I am.

"Got it!" I say with a grin. "Alright, there's one more thing I want to do before we go."

I gaze at the sky to replenish my Inspiration meter, and bring myself in tune with the conceptual energy of the tree in front of me. At this moment, nothing else matters but this tree.

One day we will fly, beautiful tree.

I resonate with the tree's vis, and dream of flight. I pour all of my Inspiration into [Imbue Item]. It's going to take a lot more than this, but I ought to try giving it as much as I can whenever I'm here.

The leaves have shifted. Their edges have become a tiny bit feathery.

"Fascinating effect," Aunt Savannah says, examining the leaves. "I am curious as to what the end result will be. Do you have a specific design in mind yet?"

"Not yet," I say. "I still have a lot of research to do. I'm going to eventually want things like cabins, workspaces, and such. But I'm staying flexible on the details. It still has a lot of growing to do, and I need to grind a bunch of skills."

The flight to the Spooky Grove is a quick one with Aunt Savannah on board. It takes a good deal of focus not to get distracted by the way her [Fast Travel] skill warps space around the boat, but it doesn't matter. We put down outside the dungeon gate what feels like only minutes after we lifted off. I barely have time to get started drafting an article on [Skill Analysis] for the dwarves.

"Amethyst, if you go straight down that path, you'll find puzzles suitable for Basic rank," I say. "Melody, take the right-hand path about thirty meters into the dungeon. You will find something music-related if you look hard enough. I won't spoil it for you. The rest of you, stay with the boat for now. Aunt Savannah and I need to go talk to the aether core."

With the [Celestial Druid] trailing along behind me, I head straight for where [Aether Sense] indicates the core is. The first time I found it, I listened to the sound of the strange forest spirits to show me the way. The little white creatures with the weird eyes seem much more benign now than the creepy watchful eyes that I now know are connected to hostile undead.

I find the right knot to touch and open up the hidden passage down into the core room, and Aunt Savannah and I climb down into it. The room contains only a glowing yellow crystal orb. No bonus chest is offered to us.

Name: Treharris Tempest Tiganna Race: Aether Core | Gender: None | Rank: Heroic | Tier: Stone | Class: Spooky Groundskeeper Disposition: Friendly | Mood: Passive

"Treharris," I say. "I want to know what your intentions are regarding the undead in that crypt you've kept hidden."

[I have no intentions,] the aether core replies in my mind. [Corwen is my liege, and I continue to maintain and develop my dungeon for Corwen's benefit. It would benefit Corwen to have higher ranked training targets, would it not?]

"What would the undead do if the crypt were to be opened?" Aunt Savannah asks.

[They would fight anyone that enters the crypt. They would not exit the crypt.]

"They would not wander off to cause problems?" I ask.

[They would not,] Treharris assures us. [If you wish to open it up to fight them, you need not be concerned about them going anywhere.]

"They're people, though," I say. "Not monsters. Why not let them reincarnate?"

[The ones who wished to be reincarnated elsewhere already left. The ones who remain are here because they wished to stay with their family.]

"And you don't have new, living bodies for them to incarnate into," Aunt Savannah says.

"Estelle implied that humanoid bodies were expensive, and you couldn't afford to give her a new one," I say. "Although given that Hebron has a spawner that can give a brand new fleshy body for the equivalent of a single gold coin, I'm starting to think she exaggerated."

[I cannot reincarnate her into a new body while she is bound to her phylactery. I offered. She refused. She would rather be a ghost than a zombie.]

"You can't make new living humans?" I ask. "You did at the start of the round."

[The first day of the round is the exception, of course. My current specialization is toward 'spooky' themed creatures. I do not have a spawner like Hebron that can create living people. They are quite an expensive investment.]

"Okay then… Why and how do you have souls and bodies from the previous Game round?"

[I kept the souls, not the bodies. The bodies were destroyed during the Divine Apocalypse. I respawned the bodies. I can create undead.]

"When and why did you create a crypt full of zombies?" I wonder.

[I built it up over the past few hundred years. I completed the project prior to the previous Legendary Apocalypse. I thought it would be a suitable addition to my 'spooky' themed dungeon. I have been waiting for it to be discovered. I had hoped you would like it. Do you like it? I based the architecture on ancient mausoleums in Wales.]

I restrain the urge to sigh and put my face in my palm. It does not, cannot, understand why there's a problem here. It was just doing what it was supposed to do.

They may have preferred to stay with their families, but there's no way every human soul in there will be forever content to just sit in a hole in the ground waiting for someone to show up and fight them. Being dead and capable of watching the world outside may have given them supernatural patience, but they're still human. They will want more. And they've done nothing to deserve being stuck like that.

"You said the people who wanted to be reincarnated already moved on," I say. "So the people who are currently in the crypt wanted to be zombies and try to fight people?"

[Correct. I do have more souls than that who wished to wait for reincarnation as something else, and others who are too high of rank for me to currently spawn. The ones who are in the crypt are eager to fight. They are no higher than Heroic rank and would be perfect to whet your party on.]

I make my way back out with Aunt Savannah. "I don't really know what ought to be done here."

"If they wish to fight, why not indulge them?" Aunt Savannah asks.

"They're zombies. Zombies always want to fight."

"It sounds like they were made into zombies by choice, though."

"Of course," I say. "Any opportunity to interact with the world again."

"Your party would doubtless appreciate the experience and the chance to be the first to explore a new subzone."

I don't directly remember the zombie apocalypse, but I think I'm letting my imagination and too many movies run away with me. Earth is long gone and these undead are contained.

"Fine," I say. "Let's see if I can use [Plant Control] to turn these briars into a nice pergola or something. Just telling them to move wouldn't be 'crafting'."

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