Gladesbale Grove [druid, litrpg, town building, slice of life, cozy]

Rud put his back into the swing, chipping a small amount of bark away from a massive oak tree. Just like the worms, he was happy trees couldn't talk. Being a druid that destroyed trees would have made him feel bad. But as badly as he felt about destroying nature, he was comforted by the other side of the process. This diseased tree would be replaced with one that would support the grove. One that was healthy.

"This is why we use the saw," Taz said. "Otherwise we'll be here all day."

"Agreed," Rud said. "And I suddenly don't feel so much reverence about my spells…"

"Bah. Let's go."

Thanks to Taz's Strength attribute, it wasn't difficult to saw the tree down. Rud did his best to push and pull the tandem saw, but he felt more like a helper than anything. The first tree fell soon enough, crashing into the forest's floor. Instead of harvesting the wood, they would leave it there for nature. It would support critters, mushrooms, and other life forms found all over the forest's floor. While the druid got to work planting another oak, Taz leaned against another tree.

"Some things seem like a contradiction in the grove," Taz said, stroking his beard. Rud knew it was time for some well-worn dwarven wisdom. "Chopping a tree and planting another in its place. Making sure the badgers are happy. Burning what the forest provides to heat our water, smelt our ore, and fuel our forges. But that's looking at our grove from an outsider's perspective. We on the inside know it takes an intelligent hand to keep things moving."

Taz was just confirming Rud's own thoughts on the matter. He cast his Plant Growth spell, watching as the seed rose into a young tree in a moment. "As long as we trust our Sacred Tree, there's no reason to think we're doing the wrong thing. We've got production, which is true. But everything feeds back to our tree. We're here to support her, and the other way around."

"Let's chop another tree," Taz said, pushing off from the tree. "Although I agree with you, I don't want to be out here all day."

"Seriously. If only a certain Sacred Beast—HINT HINT, BASIL—were to give me a fancy spell to quickly chop trees… Any time now!"

"Nothing happened, did it?" Taz asked after a long pause.

"Nope," Rud said, pressing on. "More trees to chop."

The pair chopped and regrew their way through the forest. Taz told tales about his old home in the mountains and the way dwarven society was organized. They had a veneration for their ancestors, and were fairly stuck in their ways. That included which gods they worshiped and how they worshiped them. While Taz wouldn't explain what he had done to be labeled an apostate, he claimed it was not that bad. Perhaps he went into the forest and hugged a wolf pup, judging by how much he enjoyed living in the grove.

They spent half the day removing those twelve trees and growing their replacements. Rud felt a sigh of relief spread through the grove, the trickling rain still hampering Ban's ability to draw power. She would have been fine today with the crystals she had been fed, but some sunlight would have been welcome. At least the flowers were there to back her up.

"Is that it?" Taz asked, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"Yeah, thanks for the help."

Taz shrugged. "Least I can do for letting me use that workshop. I haven't had this much fun in a while."

"Go figure a dwarf would have fun working the forge." Rud clicked his tongue, shaking his head. "Don't worry. I like the forge, too. That place is so cozy."

Rud did his check in at the Observatory in the late afternoon, happy to see the adventurers with a camp by the dungeon. They were taking care of it before it had enough time to take root and grow in power. It seemed the longer a dungeon stayed where it was, the more powerful it grew. But as long as he sent word to the town, and as long as they sent some adventurers out to take care of it, they could stop it before it became a problem.

Making notes of the weather clearing up tomorrow, and the dispersal of the energy, Rud had Nulsa carry his message off to the town. The day hadn't been very long, but he knew there would be a lot of forest maintenance in his future. The area Ban had incorporated into her network wasn't vast. It was some fraction of a percent of all trees she could command. While everything within the grove was linked, this was the first time it would be linked directly to her.

Perhaps it would be wise to inspect the trees before she integrated them. But that would require a lot of work, compared to the reactionary approach. When Rud returned to the grove's center, he wasn't surprised to find a group of adventurers eager to use the baths. He was surprised to see the existing water in the single bath slightly warm. Just above blood temp. But he ran them a new bath, pushing all of his boilers to flood steaming water into all four baths.

"Would ya look at this?" Rud said, scooping a bounty of crystals and a single Dungeon Core Fragment from his donation box. "The bath is already paying for itself."

"I'm having a chat with Basil," Ban said, speaking into his mind.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"You'll gain a spell soon enough. He's having stored energy troubles of his own. But you should expect it soon."

"I love new spells. Which one?"

"You'll have to wait and see."

"Alright then, Tree… Keep your secrets."

Stored energy seemed to be the single largest problem a grove faced. Stocking up on crystals made even more sense, considering that. Before calling it a day, Rud took stock of his various projects and what he needed to move forward.

Major would be a great addition to the grove, but he had a feeling about that cute bear. That cute, thousand-pound bear… Gaining Sacred Beast status would only take a few days, assuming the creature absorbed as much energy from the grove as it could. Perhaps he could become a glorified truffle bear. Bears had very sensitive noses, and the right kind of claws to dig into the earth.

The bath was a smash hit. As expected. Rud's tea farm had expanded enough to support a store, assuming he was diligent enough to keep both his farm and drying operation going without distraction. Combined with the bath, once he added the general store things would really pick up. Nulsa claimed they would see more people coming through the grove's path, which meant more people to offer donations. But the druid still didn't know what the average pace of a mortal was. They got tired easily, which might have been an effect of the grove itself.

The last project he had in mind were the portals to other groves. That was something out of his hands, but something he could influence. The more fancy crystals and dungeon cores he snatched, the higher chance Ban had to store her energy and use it to purchase portal-related stuff. This project tied directly to keeping the forest healthy. He only hoped Taz was up for chopping down half the forest to plant brand new trees.

Before heading to the longhouse for some food, Rud planted a few more trees and grew them. As he went along the forest paths, he scooped acorns and pinecones to add to his bag. Perhaps it was a good idea to keep them on him at all times, filling in bare patches of the grove as he went. At least he knew the trees he grew wouldn't carry the diseases of those older trees.

Stolen story; please report.

"What's for dinner?" Rud asked, bursting into the longhouse.

Taz sat alone at the long table, warming his toes before the fire. "Soup!"

"Excellent," Rud said, rubbing his hands together. "I love soup."

Taz laughed, gesturing for Rud to take a seat. "That's good news. On the menu this week… Soup today, soup tomorrow, and guess what we have for the day after that?"

"What?"

"Soup!"

Rud shook his head, taking a seat at the table. He spooned himself some soup from the cauldron, taking a tentative sip. Each day, the mixture was slightly different. There was something zesty about today's offering. Perhaps the dwarf had tossed an entire lemon into the mixture. He didn't care. Soup was soup.

"So, I was thinking about making some road snacks," Rud said, taking his first bite of the soup. He made sure to get a big hunk of meat in his first bite.

"Road snacks? Snacks for the road?" Taz asked. "I've got some suggestions."

"Beer nuts, dried mushrooms, yak cheese," Rud said, counting off the things he thought dwarves might eat on the road.

"One out of three," Taz said. "Dried mushrooms. Have you considered it?"

"What for?" Rud asked. "Dry, flaking mushrooms… Yum!"

"Get serious. A traveling dwarf will always carry a pouch of dried mushrooms with them. Not for snacking, but for making a hearty soup when nothing else is at hand."

That wasn't as bad of an idea as Rud thought. Perhaps Taz wasn't wrong about it. Growing mushrooms might be easy… Or perhaps there was a mushroom-sniffing bear that could help him. There was absolutely an upgrade Ban could take, but he didn't want to waste her energy on that. He had another idea entirely. One that didn't involve mushrooms.

"I'm going with the theme of collecting the bounty of the grove," Rud said, holding his hands wide. "Which means I need nuts, berries, and other fun stuff like that."

"I'm useless there. If you want me to dry some venison, I'm your guy."

"Could you?" Rud asked.

Taz looked up from his bowl of soup, his mustache dripping. "Yeah. I guess I could… Are you serious?"

"Sure am. Don't we have like… ten-thousand pounds of meat in our freezer?"

"We have a lot, if that's what you mean."

"Jerky would be great. Especially some that's been seasoned. What about cheese? Meat, cheese, nuts, dried berries… Those are some traveling rations right there."

"Hmm. I don't know how to make cheese. I guess we could figure it out, since Mint began stacking goat milk in my freezer like she owns the place. I mean, she kinda owns the place, but you know what I mean."

In a fantasy world like this, he couldn't imagine a better snack. And these were items Rud could get his hands on if he tried hard enough. Creating these items for the donation-based shop within the grove was a good way to help the mortals out. But exporting those items to town—where he was allowed to sell items for currency or to barter for other items—would make them a fortune. Not only would the food be of a high quality, but the mortals absolutely adored everything made in a grove. It was like passing by a souvenir shop right at the exit of a theme park with a cranky toddler being dragged through the gates. They couldn't help but leave with an armful.

"Where is everyone else, anyway?" Rud asked.

"Nobody tells me nothing," Taz said, pretending to be grumpy.

"Well, stop living in a cave."

"Fair enough."

"Anyway, hope you're excited to chop some more trees. Tomorrow, if you have the time."

Taz dropped the grumpy act, sighing. "I love that cracking sound they make as they fall."

"That's a satisfying noise, isn't it?"

"Indeed."

Before heading to bed, Rud had a bath. Filling a single tub at the bathhouse was easier than heating the vertical tub he had been using. While he would love a bit of automation, there was only so much a little druid could do to make it work. Since he wasn't as tired as he thought, he returned to the longhouse. It was empty, but the ever-present fire crackled in the long firepit. The scent of burning Fairy Peat lingered in the air, wisps of smoke rising from dying embers. Taz would restart the fire in the morning, but there was no point doing so now.

Rud felt clean and satisfied with the work he had done today. He almost dozed off at the table when a tangle of roots rose from a section in the room. A portal appeared between those roots before vanishing a few moments later. The druid rubbed his eyes, narrowing them at the offending spot of the longhouse. After a few long moments he approached, finding what was left behind by the brief interdiction. He picked up a potted plant, pulling a length of parchment from the side.

"Huh… Dear Rud… Enjoy the plant. Love, Basil," Rud said, holding the plant to get a better look. It took him far too long to realize what kind of plant he was looking at. "Thank you Basil!" he shouted at the ceiling.

"You should get your spell, too," Ban said.

"I've wanted one of these plants since I saw them," Rud said, holding the hovering light plant out. It was a stout plant with jagged fanning leaves. The most interesting part was the large bulb at the top. When conditions were right—as in, not inside of a longhouse and out in the open air—the bulb would spring open, releasing a light that hovered a few feet in the air. "We owe Basil something fun. Maybe a fruit basket."

"Sending a tiny plant over consumes far less energy than sending a sapient being. Far less than granting a custodian a spell, too."

Whatever Basil had put into the act was worth it. Rud was already making plans in his head to line his path with these lights. If the mortals were too confused to stick to the wooden walkway, a bunch of hovering lights would see them through. His Plant Care skill gave him ideas on how to propagate his new plant, and he would clear space for it right away. It was very easy to keep a garden healthy when druidic magic was involved.

Instead of waiting for morning, Rud ran from the longhouse and headed for his tea plots. His frantic dash slowed as he passed under Ban's boughs, watching as lights glittered between her flowers. Drops of mana floated as though in zero-gravity, passing between flowers or soaking into the branches of the Sacred Tree. After that momentary distraction, he found a decent spot in his plots. There were still bare sections he hadn't filled in with tea.

Rud selected a few stems from the base of his new plant after setting it into the soil. A few applications of Plant Growth, and those four stems because plants of their own. Forcing them to create offspring now would be detrimental, likely damaging the plants beyond repair. Despite the application of magic, they still needed rest. But as he stood back, appreciating his five new lightbulb plant, they opened. Five orbs of light rose into the air, illuminating the area with a soft glow. The druid was surprised when that orange glow shifted to blue, and then light purple.

"This is awesome," Rud said, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight. "Fancy plants for the fancy-pants."

Fifteen minutes of plant appreciation later, and the promised spell arrived. Rud clapped his hands over his mouth as he read the message.

[Spell Obtained!]

The Treefolk Spirit Basil has taken notice of you. He has gifted you with the Prune spell.

"Prune? That sounds fun," Rud said, inspecting the spell.

[Prune]

Rank 0 Druid Spell

Construction Magic

Components:

Imbued Leaf

Tree Branch

Description:

Part of living with nature is steering it in the right direction.

Effect:

Create a cut into any plant. The size and shape of this cut depend on the quantity of components consumed.

"That will allow you to cut trees down," Ban said. "Without using the saw, of course."

"That's amazing," Rud said, reading the spell over a few times. It only cost components, instead of mana. The real mana cost came in imbuing a leaf with his mana. "Guess I could do mostly the same thing with the Shape Plant spell…"

"This is more efficient," Ban assured him.

Another spell to add to his arsenal. Rud felt more motivated than ever to get his booty in gear and push for Rank 1. Between pruning the forest and planting these lightbulbs, he would get plenty of skill levels to push him closer to that. But first, it was time for bed. No matter how exciting everything had become in such a short time, he still needed sleep.