“Uh…what is this?” asked Sadie, staring wide-eyed at the small, velvet-covered box. “Why are you giving this to me?”

Only then did Elijah realize that he’d made a mistake in his choice of gifts. In his defense, he’d only really concerned himself with the ring’s trait, which acted as an ethera reservoir. Not as deep as the one associated with the Antlers of the Wild Revenant’s False Grove, but still useful in a pinch. Plus, the ring was made of gold that matched Sadie’s armor. From his perspective, it was a perfect gift, and one he’d bought from Atticus the second he’d seen it.

But he’d forgotten about the symbolism that came with giving a woman a ring. Judging by the look of horror on her face, Sadie clearly hadn’t.

“Okay, so I know how this looks,” he said, raising his hands. “But it’s not that. I just thought it was a cool item that you’d like. It doesn’t mean anything but that I was thinking about you.”

“It looks like an engagement ring.”

“I see that now,” he admitted. “I…ah…didn’t see that before I gave it to you. But it’s got a really cool effect! Basically a second pool of ethera you can tap into when you’re running low. And it refills itself overtime.”

“I see.”

That was one of the other ways it was inferior to the Antlers of the Wild Revenant. If Elijah chose, he could forcibly refill False Grove, then rely on his much faster Regeneration to recover what he’d spent in the effort. The ring was wholly reliant on its own ability to absorb ethera, the pace of which was quite slow.

Still, he thought it would be very useful.

“I messed up, right?” he asked, rubbing the back of his neck. “I can take it back. Maybe we can go together. I’m sure Atticus would –”

“No!” she said, already binding the ring with a drop of blood drawn by her fingernail. “I like it. I really do. It just surprised me is all.”

“Ah. Are you sure? Because…”

Turned out that she was certain, as epitomized by the act of throwing her arms around Elijah and planting a kiss on his lips. That went on for a few seconds before she broke away, revealing Elijah’s grinning face.

“I was always terrible at giving gifts,” he admitted.

“It’s nice,” Sadie retorted. “I love it.”

Elijah let out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t really a joke. Every time he’d tried giving gifts, he’d ended up making a fool of himself and getting the absolute wrong thing. So, he was more than a little gratified that Sadie was at least pretending to like the ring.

For the next few minutes, he explained what he’d discovered during the trip to Argos, mostly focusing on the identification of his loot.

“And these new footwraps actually have a cool ability,” he said, lifting his leg and wiggling his foot. “Called Cloud Step.”

“What does it do?”

“Let me show you.”

With that, he took her hand and dragged her out of the treehouse and onto the balcony. The afternoon sun shone down on the grove, casting it in bright illumination that somehow made all the colors pop just a little more. Insects and birds chirped, and one of the fat bees from his apiary hovered lazily nearby. It was an idyllic setting, and one for which Elijah was more than a little appreciative.

“Watch this,” he said, smiling broadly as he activated Cloud Step. The second it took hold, he leaped into the air. When he reached the apex of his leap, he pressed down with his foot. However, instead of finding nothing but open air, he felt something solid, though slightly spongey. He didn’t need to look down to know that a localized cloud, maybe a foot in diameter, had appeared beneath his foot.

He sprang from it, throwing himself higher into the air. Four more times, he repeated the action until the charges ran out and he fell to the mossy turf below. Then, he leaped to the balcony, saying, “Ta-da! I can run on air. Sort of.”

“You could already fly.”

“Yeah, but this is usable in all my forms,” he insisted.

“Seems a little…ah…situational,” she pointed out.

“Agreed, but you have to admit that it’s very cool,” he argued.

She nodded, though Elijah could tell that she wasn’t nearly as excited about it as he was. Which was fine. She preferred to keep her feet firmly planted on the ground – except when she sprouted wings of light – and he didn’t. It was okay to have different priorities. Variety was the spice of life.

After that, Elijah explained the other two items he’d gotten, pointing out the issues he faced. “Oscar is just as entitled to those items as I am,” he said. “What do you think I should do?”

“Talk to him.”

“Huh?”

“Use your words. Tell him what you’re thinking. Then ask him what he wants to do,” she elaborated. “Like an adult.”

“Oh. That. I don’t know. Being an adult always felt boring.”

“You’re almost forty.”

“Forty is the new teenager.”

“Nobody says that,” Sadie said, a slight smile turning up the corners of her mouth.

“They should though,” Elijah argued. “I mean, think about it. What do you think the average lifespan is now? A few hundred years at least. It makes sense that emotional development might be affected by the increased lifespan.”

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“Sounds like you’re looking for an excuse for immaturity.”

“We both know I don’t need an excuse for that,” he declared. “But seriously, I really do need to just talk to him.”

She shooed him away, so he leaped from the balcony and strolled across the grove and into the surrounding forest. Thankfully, he didn’t need to spend time searching for Oscar. With his locus, he could feel everything on the island, so he knew his friend and the rest of the pack were on the beach on the north side of the island.

When Elijah arrived, the dogs were all frolicking in the waves while Oscar sat on a nearby rock, his forearms on his knees as he stared out at the sun setting over the mountains to the west. And he wasn’t alone.

Of course, Elijah had felt that Kurik was there, but it was still a little odd to see him just sitting with Oscar.

As he stepped out of the forest, Elijah didn’t attempt to conceal his arrival. Instead, he made a little extra noise, which both men noticed. Only Oscar turned to look, though. Elijah settled in beside the man, but he didn’t speak. Instead, all three – Kurik, Oscar, and Elijah – watched the sun set.

Only when it dipped below the mountains did Elijah break the silence. “We need to talk about something,” he said to Oscar.

“You want me to leave.”

“What? No. Of course not. This is about our loot from the Primal Realm. Why would you think I wanted you to leave?” Elijah asked, a little concerned that that was his friend’s guess. Had he made Oscar feel unwelcome in some way? He hoped not.

“I’ve found that most people don’t tolerate my presence for long.”

“That’s not it at all. You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you want. Indefinitely. Permanently if you think you fit.”

“Ah.”

The dogs continued to play in the surf, clearly unbothered by the darkness. In the meantime, Elijah explained the natures of the geode as well as the Heritage Crystal. After that, he said, “There are a couple of ways we can do this. I mean, you can have one, and I’ll take the other. Or I’ll just sell them both, and we can split the money.”

“Keep them both.”

“That’s not happening. You earned them just as much as I did,” Elijah insisted. He’d given it a lot of thought, and he had decided that, of the two, he’d much prefer to keep the geode. It fit too well with the other elemental treasures he’d planted in the grove.

“I will take the Heritage Crystal, then,” Oscar stated. “Perhaps it will give me some insight into inducting new members into the pack.”

“You have your eye on some other dogs?”

“Not yet. But dogs breed. At some point, there will be puppies. I would like them to have the best chance of growth,” Oscar revealed. “The Heritage Crystal seems like an appropriate way to ensure that.”

Elijah wasn’t so sure about that, but then again, he had no idea how Oscar’s class really worked. The pack obviously hadn’t been sapient when the world had changed, but by this point, they were as intelligent and nuanced as most humans. Perhaps not wholly sapient, but not far from it, either. Maybe that was the result of Oscar’s class, and if he thought he could use the Heritage Crystal to help their progeny, then he was more than willing to give it up.

Besides, Oscar had just as much claim on the treasure as he did.

In any case, Elijah had questioned the viability of the Heritage Crystal in the first place. Much of his power was based on things that couldn’t be replicated – like the bond with a guardian, his powerful nature attunement, and his undeniable talent regarding cultivation. So, he expected that trying to pass on his class would likely result in less than optimal results.

Would that be the same case if he’d taken a more normalized Druid’s path? Certainly. But that wasn’t the route he’d chosen.

In short, he had no issues with letting Oscar take the Heritage Crystal, save those raised by the greedy parts of his mind that wanted everything for himself.

With that in mind, he retrieved the crystal from his Arcane Loop and passed it to Oscar. As he did, he said, “Feel free to set it up wherever, but I’d ask Nerthus about it if I were you. You don’t want to mess with his balance.”

“Thank you,” Oscar said, holding the oversized hunk of crystal. It looked subtly different than it had in the Primal Realm – less spear-like and more like a normal, faceted crystal. “I will go ask him now.”

With that, he called for the dogs, who reluctantly followed him into the forest and toward the grove.

“That was kind.”

“Huh?” Elijah asked, glancing at Kurik, who’d remained uncharacteristically silent throughout the whole conversation.

“He would have let you keep it. Ya know that, don’tcha?”

Elijah shrugged. “I figured as much.”

“And you gave it to ‘im anyway.”

“It’ll help.”

Kurik grunted. “You finally ready to look at the defenses?” he asked.

“Kind of dark for that.”

“You can see in the dark just fine. C’mon.”

With that, Kurik rose and strode across the beach and into the surf. Belatedly, Elijah recognized that the dwarf was wearing the gaudy but effective ring he’d gotten in the Trial of Primacy which would let him breathe underwater. Soon enough, Kurik dipped below the waves and swam toward the boundaries of Elijah’s domain.

Elijah, of course, followed, though he didn’t bother shifting into the Shape of the Sea. The darkness was oppressive, but due to his advances in cultivation, he had no issues seeing relatively clearly, and after only a few moments, he saw Kurik treading water near a small ball of knotted kelp. It was hooked to the seafloor via a thread of ethera, and when Elijah focused on it with Soul of the Wild, he saw that the ball contained an incredible amount of densely packed energy.

And there were hundreds of them scattered out to sea.

It was only a second before Elijah realized he was looking at a minefield. What was curious was that the mines in question seemed biological in nature.

After a few moments, he and Kurik surfaced, and the dwarf asked, “Whatcha think? Impressive, yeah?”

“Explain what I just saw.”

“Well, I was gonna just use normal mines, but then I got to talkin’ to Nerthus, and he wanted to help. Takes defense of the grove personally,” Kurik explained. “So, he provided a few specially grown seeds that work with my trappin’ abilities, and we came up with those. Won’t trigger for beasts, guardians, or monsters, but they’ll blow up any folks that get too close without the right permissions.”

“Uh…should I be wearing a pendant or something?” Elijah asked, remembering the jewelry the miners had to wear to keep from setting off the traps beneath Ironshore.

“Nah. You’ll be fine,” Kurik said. “Same with Sadie, Carmen, Ramik, Ron, Carissa, Miggy, and the kids. And the pack now, too. Ah, and the Alchemist. But if anybody else wants to visit, they better have one of you escort ‘em, cause they’ll blow up otherwise. If you want more folks to come and go, I’ll make ‘em some keys.”

“I think that’s everyone,” Elijah said. “What kind of explosion are we talking, here?”

“You know that big metal boat you sunk?”

“Yeah.”

“It’d get ripped into a thousand different pieces. Takes some inspiration from your vines, actually. Proud of that bit.”

“Damn.”

Elijah was impressed. Sure, he suspected he could endure such traps, but he was one of the most durable people on the planet, so he didn’t think that was a good gauge. Besides, the defenses would do their job of slowing potential invaders down, which was all he could ever hope for.

After a little more inspection, Elijah and Kurik swam back to shore. Once there, Kurik built a small fire, and they enjoyed one another’s silent company. Then, Elijah asked the question that had been on his mind ever since he’d returned.

“You feel different,” he said. “Why is that?”

“Too much time in the grove,” Kurik reasoned. “I was always drawn to nature, but my attunement ain’t that strong. Turns out, spending time here brings it out on me. Nurtures it. It won’t never be dominant, but it’s more prominent now. Not any stronger, mind you. Ain’t nothin’ can change that, ‘specially after only a few months. But it’s closer to the surface, that makes any sense.”

“I guess it does,” Elijah acknowledged. “Have you ever thought about joining the grove. Officially, I mean. You and Nerthus work really well together, and I trust you as much as anyone. More than just about everybody else. You could keep building defenses. Maybe show Nerthus how to do more on the island itself.”

“Hmm. Maybe.”

It wasn’t a no, which was all Elijah could really expect. Still, he hoped his friend would join, if only because he wanted to shelter those closest to him beneath the boughs of his grove.