[Group, Receive]

  I arrived at the farm portal site but I needed to have some soup, I was starving and close to dead on my feet. These early mornings were killing me. I had a delicious bowl of chicken noodle soup, while I chatted with Lu. Then we reaffirmed our plans to meet at the guardhouse by five. I kissed her goodbye. Then walked into the fields in search of Woody. I was pleasantly surprised, the crops hadn’t seemed to grow any higher since I was last here. Of course maybe whatever plant that was might have already reached its maximum height.

  Then I saw Woody moving my way, unusually he was all alone. This is the first time he wasn’t surrounded by a grove of trees. Maybe I’d scared them all with my harsh treatment of thug number one. I didn’t think it was harsh but Elma seemed to think it was, she also seemed to think that whatever Woody had to tell me, was going to send me into a torturing mood. I certainly hope not. He seemed to be really taking his time walking here, going a little bit slower with each step.

  Oh no, I hope they haven’t hurt anyone. I started to walk towards him a little more quickly. This had the opposite effect on him. He was noticeably slowing down. This really is a huge tract of land I’m developing. Once this talk is over I can just portal to the guards from the middle of these fields.

  The gnomes had completed one barn for each of the quad farms, and had begun construction of the first four houses. They’d taken on an enormous job for the ten plots of land they’ve been given.

  "Why did the leaf break up with the branch?”

  “I don’t know Woody, why?”

  “Because it needed room to grow.” Hoot, Hoot.

  “Is everything alright, Woody? Elma said you needed to talk urgently.”

  “Yes, everything is fine now, but let me just preface what I have to say, that we didn’t mean to cause any problems for you, rather the opposite was our aim and as soon as we discovered that it was causing you distress we reversed it. You woke us up so we owe all to you, that’s why we were trying to do you a favor but it seems that it was not what you really desired. So we reversed it immediately and I take full responsibility. The other trees wanted me to ask your permission first. But I’ve heard the stories, humans enjoy a pleasant surprise as much as a tree does. Also that saying it’s better to ask for forgiveness then permission. This is me asking for forgiveness Rose. Please don’t have Nyx put us back to sleep.”

  “Woody, just tell me you haven’t hurt anyone?”

  “Ohh, no Rose we would never, could never, do that, it goes against our core beliefs.”

  “Good well, as long as no one is hurt or worse, I don’t see what could be so bad.”

  “Well it’s caused you distress which in turn has caused us distress. It was just a bad idea and as I say it was all my fault. If anyone is to be put back to sleep or made to itch it should be me ma’am.”

  “Woody, no one is putting you back to sleep, or making you itch. Those men attacked me, they were paid to attack me. I needed to know what they knew but they wouldn’t tell me. That was the one non violent way I could think of to force them to give me the information. Do you understand”

  “Yes Rose, I understand.”

  “Good no more beating around the bush.”

  “Hoot, Hoot, Hoot. Very good funny, Rose may I borrow that please.”

  “Yes of course but it means get on with it, what did you do that I’m not going to like?”

  “It was a little spell ma’am.”

  “A little spell, that doesn’t sound so bad, I didn’t know you could cast spells, but we’ll talk about that later. What does this little spell do Woody?”

  “Really just a minor enchantment really.”

  “What does it do Woody?

  “It makes things grow.”

  “What did you make grow, Woody?”

  “The crops.”

  “What crops?”

  “All the crops on your farms, I knew you wanted to beat the cartel and I thought the way to do that was if your farms were better than their farms. I thought better farms meant more crops but after what happened at town hall I realized I’d made a horrible mistake so I reversed it. The crops will grow at their regular rate from now on, but I couldn’t reverse the growth without killing all the crops and I didn’t want to do that unless you ordered me to.”

  “I could hug you Woody, I was really worried about it, even after Arthur and Orin told me it wouldn’t be a problem. I just knew that sometime in the future it’d become a problem for somebody. You know about money right, well money is the root cause of greed.”

  “Hoot, hoot, root cause Rose.”

  “Woody the point is too little money and a person can die and too much money can rob a person of their happiness. See, most people think you can’t have too much money. But money is like water, too little and you die of thirst, too much and drown in it. You drown in money too, once you have you never want to let it go. You don’t possess money, it possesses you. But lots of people think the more money you have the happier you’ll be. But when you have vast sums of money and expensive possessions do people like you for who you are or are they just after your money. How do you find someone to love you, and not love your money? Also people may very well be after your money, you're not paranoid if people really are out to get you or your money. So now you have to protect your money from who knows who?”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “I see but what has that got to do with crops?”

  “Once the crops are harvested the part that the family doesn’t eat will be sold at the market for money. I want the farmers to be very comfortable, to take time for themselves and their family, I want them to be happy, that’s why I designed small farms to make the largest number of people happy. I was afraid, maybe unnecessarily, that the incredible growth rate would make all the farmers rich and drastically lower their chance for happiness.”

  “So you designed the farms to make everyone comfortable, and I threw off the careful balance that you were trying to achieve. I apologize, Rose.”

  “No need to apologize, but there is something you absolutely must do today, you must talk to all of the other trees and make them promise to never speak about this with anyone else. If someone else found out they could try to threaten you into enchanting their fields. They might threaten you physically or threaten to burn you or any of the other sentient trees. Get them to swear on their seedlings or whatever they hold dear. If you find out that someone does know, we can always move you to one of my fictional worlds. I have one world that has only plant life, but that is a last resort and if none of you ever speak about this, then it’ll never come out. It won’t be a problem.”

  “They swear Rose, it’s just between us.”

  “I need to tell Lu, and Draco.”

  “The werewolf and the Dragon, they are outsiders like us. What can we do for this extra worry that we caused you?”

  “Nothing, I’m just so relieved, Draco and I thought that it was a side effect of Nyx’s magical field and we were trying to figure out a way to counter it, without having an adverse effect on you sentient trees. We were afraid if we dissipated the field, you’d fall back asleep. So we decided to look for other solutions. Now we don’t have to. So Woody can you all cast spells?”

  “Yes to varying degrees, some are better at it then others.”

  “If it’s not a secret do you use your imagination to cast the spells?”

  “Yes and it’s not a secret from you, Rose. We just imagine the ambient magic into the object that we are enchanting, then we imagine the effect that we wish to occur.”

  “Thanks for sharing that with me Woody, and thank you for telling me you enchanted the crops, that was something I really hadn’t seen coming.”

  “I’m going out on a limb, hoot, hoot, but am I forgiven?”

  “Of course Woody, you were trying to help me out. But maybe in the future just run stuff like this by me first. What do you say?”

  “Yes, certainly I’ve, we’ve learned our lesson, we will check with you before doing anything like that in the future.”

  “If you hear of any plots against me or the farms or my friends or even just general plots against the town, please tell Elma or Elmer and ask them to inform me. Or if you hear the name David Harris mentioned, apparently he wants to kill me, so let Elma and Elmer inform me alright.”

  “Rose a David Harris entered the town about ten minutes ago, he was accompanied by two men.”

  “Thanks Woody, that’s really the kind of help I need when people want to kill me.”

  “We can’t let that happen Rose, if you die we may fall asleep. Such is the nature of Nyx’s magic. Imagination and desire magic are deeply tied to the person who desires it. We’ll come too.”

  “Thanks Woody but we can’t have a forest walking through town, Wyldwood is pretty laid back but even so, I think that’s just a little too strange for them.”

  “If we can get some trees there secretly we will, we have to at least try. People may notice moving trees but stationary trees are mostly ignored.”

  “Alright just be careful, I have to go get Lu and portal down to the guard house. Bye Woody.”

  “Be careful Rose, stay safe please.”

  I walked over to Lu at the farmer recruitment tent, it was now being used to answer questions about the town, local stores and any general information really.

  “Lu, are you all set to go?”

  “All set Rose. I had hardly any questions at all today, I think the farmers are settling in nicely.”

  “Good, I think we can shut down the recruitment tent, we can put up a sign if they need something, just portal to the bookstore and I’ll deal with them directly. I think the actors should stop as well. We can tell McCracken tonight when we get home. Everyone knows free food for the next couple of weeks, and our five vendors have zero competition. They are just targets for the cartel’s thugs. What do you think?”

  “I think I want to get my hands on the guy who ordered you to be kidnapped. But I agree about the tent and the advertising actors. We’d never have had the numbers of farmers we have now if they hadn’t gone out on the road and recruited them.”

  “You’re right we should throw a party for them and you too, you took time out of your own business to help and I love you for it but hopefully maybe after Dogberry arrests these guys tonight, the cartel will throw in the towel. I hope so.”

  Then we portaled to the guard house.

  Once we were in Dogberry’s office I told him that Harris had entered town with two other men about a half hour prior.

  “I know that Rose, I had the gate guard portal back here and let me know as soon as he passed the gate. But how did you know that?”

  “The trees told me.”

  “Of course they did.”