“Harper will be upset she missed this,” Piper said, looking at the three wands spread out on her lap.

  She was sitting down across the fire from Loch, robes bunched up around her knees to create a place to put the wands. One of them was her old one, the others she’d picked up after they’d killed the real boss of the Mossy Caves Dungeon. It’d been a Caster, some kind of Druid, that had gone insane. He’d looked human, dressed in brown and green robe, cloak, boots and gloves. Old, with a scraggly beard down to his waist. And dirty. The Druid Of Moss, as the Connection had called him, looked like he hadn’t left the caves in months.

  Luckily he hadn’t smelled.

  His goal had been to raise an army to attack the outer world, to defeat those that harmed nature. It had been a decent fight, in Loch’s opinion. His group wasn’t the best setup for it. More ranged damage would have been preferred. But they’d managed to take The Druid Of Moss down and reap the rewards.

  Piper had gotten two wands. The twins had each gotten metal bracers, the exact same things. Which had surprised both Loch and Cerie. Brian had snagged an armored chest piece. Mostly leather with some padding, and metal along the upper chest and shoulders. Elora, along with her boots, had gotten a ring that increased her stealth. If Harper had been there, she would have gotten the boots or the ring.

  “Harper will be fine,” Loch said, stretching out his legs toward the fire, leaning back against a tree. “She’s running that Dungeon with Davis.”

  Loch almost hadn’t let her go. It was an overnight trip to one of the Dungeons that had been in old Silver Bark territory before they’d rearranged the borders between the Clans. The thought of his fifteen year old daughter alone in the woods overnight with her boyfriend, even though the two hadn’t made anything official, had worried Loch. But Kim Hudson had been going along as part of Davis’ team and had assured Loch that she wouldn’t let anything happen.

  He still worried. He’d been a teen once and knew how easy it could be to sneak out at night. But he had to trust Harper, and Davis, that they knew the situation and wouldn’t let teenage hormones get in the way.

  He looked around the clearing they had chosen for the night. Tents had been set up, Brian and Elora were on first watch patrolling the treeline. The twins were arguing quietly, this time. They hadn’t started out that way, but Loch had quickly set them straight. Julia sat down next to Loch, leaning against her knees, hands extended to the fire.

  “That Dungeon wasn’t too bad,” she said.

  “No, but the dragon and druid might be tough for a low teens group,” Loch said. “Think I’ll have Alison give it a Level 15 plus classification.”

  They were still working on an official classification system for the various Dungeons in Clan Brady territory. Cerie was helping combine the ranking system she knew, which was used by most of the greater Connected System, with how Clan Brady was interpreting what they got from the Dungeons. The fairy couldn’t be everywhere to evaluate the Dungeons, so they had to do it their own way. Mostly it was based around the Level strength needed to defeat the monsters and clear the Dungeon.

  “And more ranged,” Julia added.

  “We need more ranged, period,” Loch said, sighing. “Need more Casters too.”

  “They’ll come,” Julia said. “They have to.”

  Loch leaned forward. He looked up into the sky, seeing the stars. One of the newcomers, Henry Bolton, had been an Astronomer by hobby and had started mapping the stars, trying to determine the new layout of the constellations. He’d been happy when the scavengers had brought back several books on the subject from the library. Using the starmaps, he thought he’d be able to measure how much the Earth had grown. He’d also gotten a combat Class, strangely enough. Astromage. It was Uncommon and somehow related to the stars. Loch had been happy to get another Caster, but the man was only Level Eight.

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  Not even Cerie had been able to figure out how studying Astronomy had given the man a combat related Class. He should have been a Crafter of some kind. But the fairy hadn’t known of any Crafting Classes related to studying the stars. In the Connected Worlds, it wasn’t anything useful when people could travel from one world to another crossing over millions or even billions of lightyears in a single step. Why bother studying the stars when there were actual Divine Beings that people could commune with? Actual magical monsters?

  Loch still liked looking up at them, watching some shoot across the sky. No airplanes anymore. Any lights moving in the sky were actual shooting stars, and there were a lot more of them then before the Connection.

  He smiled, knowing that Kelly was looking up at the sky. He missed her. Having her back had been wonderful, but it hurt at the same time knowing that she would have to leave again. It was bittersweet remembering their days together. They’d be reunited soon enough.

  ***

  “What are those things?,” Brent asked quietly.

  Which surprised Loch. The twins rarely did anything quietly. Equally surprising was Trent not replying to argue with his brother. The creatures were that surprising.

  They were humanoid, tall and thin. The bodies were covered in thick layer of leaves and moss, sticks poking out randomly. Leaves formed the long hair and beards, moss covering the bodies with more leaves at the wrists, waits and calves. They moved in a shambling gait through the forest, either not seeing or ignoring Loch and his people. A half dozen of them had come out of the shadows to the side, barely making a noise, barely leaving a sign of their passage.

  MOSSY FOREST LESHY

  Evaluate had them around Level ten or so. Not a real threat for the group, but they seemed peaceful enough. Loch was curious about the race. They didn’t seem like invaders so were more like the hobs, redcaps and others? Generated by The Connection from the ambient Spirit in the air?

  A thud and cracking of branches came from where the Leshy had just left. Loch held up a hand, pulling everyone back deeper into the shadows. Whatever was coming sounded large.

  He watched as a hand moved out from the trees, wrapping around one as the rest of the body followed. The fingers were long and covered in bark, the arm long, thick and rough with bark. The legs were the same, wide and thick, no toes or feet, just trunks. The whole thing resembled a humanoid tree as it walked, pushing aside branches with long arms. Leaves grew off the sides of the bark, long and thin branches. The body a wider trunk with no neck, the head part of the body. Eyes were barely visible in the rough bark. Small and black that looked everywhere as it walked, the body twisting so the eyes could see to the sides.

  OAKEN TREANT

  The thing felt strong, almost Loch’s level. It moved slowly, awkwardly.

  They watched it disappear, following after the small group of Leshy.

  “Dude,” one of the twins said. “Walking trees. So cool. It’s like straight out of…”

  “Dude, everything we’ve fought and seen has been straight out of those movies,” the other one said.

  The two started bickering, again, until Brian uttered a low growl. That instantly shut them up. Once the two had chosen to become Bannermen, Brian had taken on the responsibility of whipping them into shape. He’d done a pretty good job so far.

  Elora appeared ahead of them. She hadn’t been there and then she was. She looked both ways, not saying a word, just motioning them forward. The group moved quickly, Loch the last one. He paused, looking down the path the Leshy and Treant had gone.

  Was there more of them around?

  There were a lot more races in the woods around the school then Loch would have thought. They’d encountered two mounds of Hobs and a bunch of Redcaps. They still hadn’t found the village or base of the frog-like humanoid, and they’d only seen the one so far. Now there were Leshy and Treants. There were all the monsters too.

  Cerie had said the wild areas would start getting populated with monsters and races. New Dungeons would appear as the world aged and grew in ambient Spirit.

  It was a lot for a relatively small area. Loch had worried about everything fighting over the same Resources and territory. Cerie had explained that was by design. The Connected System wanted it’s Adapted to constantly strive to grow and part of that was defending and claiming territory and Resources from the threats that would always be around. She warned there would be more elite monsters like the Katshituashku, Unfey and the Gaviat.

  They just hadn’t found them yet.