The Infinite Source

"Put it back the way it was, please," I asked, glaring at the adorable monster with a frown.

"No," the green creature answered after a moment's hesitation, and then covered its red eyes, listening to its feelings. - I like it better this way.

For a moment, the Forest Guardian's lips trembled slightly, as if in an attempt to hold back a smirk.

I'm sure she realizes this and is just having fun at my expense.

"Mr. J," the blonde called softly, clutching the sleeve of my coat, and when I looked up at her, she gave the green-haired girl a sly glance, "she's a beauty.

His imagination immediately conjured up a couple of racy scenes involving a dryad and a blond cutie. No! Don't even think about it, Jay! It was male a couple days ago, and unlike Ivy, Swampy would be a log in bed, literally. God forbid she get a splinter in that very spot.

"Harley, no. Ew. We're not doing this," the prospect of a nasty injury helped me gather my thoughts.

"You won't do what?" The Swampmaiden clarified in her new melodious voice.

"Fucking sex. It's nothing personal. You're a hottie, but you've been a man for a while now," I hastened to smooth things over a little; after all, we'd come to ask a small favor.

"Oh... I don't think you'd be able to do that. I only look human, but I don't have the right organs. My body is a plant that the forest breathed life into.

As a demonstration, she opened her chest with her hands, revealing a tangle of sturdy green vines and something resembling thick roots that served as a skeleton of sorts.

Brrrrr, it looks creepy, but this information made me feel a little better.

"What about the sex?" I decided to clarify the question that was bothering me, since the dryad was making contact instead of acting like an emotionless log. Her speech is less sluggish, and she doesn't sound like she's talking to an Ent.

"I used to be a woman," she shrugged, regaining her normal appearance.

What a bunch of bullshit! I may not be a DC fan, but I remember perfectly well that Swamp Thing was some guy who was into biology and drowned in a swamp of nuclear waste.

"Then why the hell did you look... Looked... Damn, I'm confused. Anyway, why did you only decide to have a sex change a couple days ago?" I was suspiciously eyeing the adorable monster.

"Because before I didn't see the point in changing the look created by the past keeper, but now I realize I'm much more comfortable this way.

"The Swamp Creature could actually be female, and there were at least a couple of them," I said meaningfully, trying to get my head around the idea that the Swamp Creature might actually be female. - Let's sit down and have a normal conversation. You're not in a hurry, are you?

"The eclipse is coming soon," she glanced toward the gloomy forest.

"We've already prepared for it as best we can, all that's left is to wait for Grundy to awaken.

"Okay... Then we can talk.

"All right. Sun, get a thermos and a snack, and I'll organize the place, - I feel that we're going to have a long conversation, so we should prepare for it thoroughly.

A couple of warm plaids from the car, some sandwiches thoughtfully grabbed by Harley before leaving the house, tea, and now I'm fully prepared to interview a major conservationist.

The swamp girl was clearly pining for normal human interaction and was eager to make contact, hiding almost nothing. And yes, she was indeed female and, until Les had made her his avatar, had gone by the name Abigail Arcane. As for her original appearance, she had inherited it from her previous keeper, Alec Holland.

This disregard for their appearance may seem strange, but if we take into account the problem of all avatars: the similarity of worldview with their patron, then everything falls into place. However, in this case, the interaction is more like an obsession, but a very unusual one, since one of the participants does not have a full-fledged mind.

The patron saint of all Swamp Creatures is the Forest, a.k.a. Green, to use a classification from Zee's magic books, the embodiment of the life force that permeates all plants in the universe. Although the term "personification" sounds too loud for the "collective mind" of the plant world. What can one expect from the egregor of flowers, grass and trees? It doesn't even have thoughts as such, if Abby is to be believed; just the will it broadcasts to its avatars. It's amazing how Green managed to create such protectors for himself.

Hmm, but he draws power directly from Nature's plan and he has the will... Imagination and faith must have come from some predatory plant that the Tyrannosaurus was planning to trample, so we get the three components of the spell, multiplied by an unrealistic amount of magical energy.

By the way, the Tyrannosaurus is mentioned for a reason. The first incarnation of the Swamp Creature was a natural trilobite. According to my conservative estimates, Green first created an avatar for himself more than two hundred and fifty million years ago. This figure is even more impressive when you consider that this trilobite is still alive!

Each protector of nature is essentially an elemental (the physical embodiment of the element) and cannot go off the edge on his own, but over time he can, so to speak, physically and mentally harden, becoming closer to his patron.

Naturally, the Swamp Creature can no longer keep up with the rapid pace of life and reacts to all events with a huge delay. No, in a direct confrontation, the enemy will not show little, but to arrive at the place of large-scale deforestation or to the site of nuclear waste dumping such an avatar will be able at best in a couple of years, or even ten, when the situation can not be corrected. Therefore, when the guardian feels that he is no longer able to fulfill his duties, he selects a suitable replacement, pumps it full of "earth power "*, and retires, joining the Parliament of Trees - a circle of interest formed from past incarnations of Green. However, sometimes there are exceptions to this rule.

The process of hardening, depending on personality and mindset, can take hundreds of thousands of years (as it did with the trilobite), for humans at least a dozen centuries, but in Abby's case the previous keeper died during a fight with the Rot or Black, which is the main antagonist of the Green, representing the power of death and decay.

When it came to Death, I picked up, because it's the older sister of a beautiful cutie with multicolored eyes, but it turned out that Black is not directly related to one of the Eternal, and stands a couple of steps lower in the local hierarchy due to the fact that it does not have a full-fledged mind, although in terms of strength is not particularly inferior to the lord of the dead. At the same time, the lack of brains doesn't prevent Rotten from independently advancing the party line on the destruction of life. And we have a dead man ripe with the energy of death, just a hand's reach away from the Heart of the Forest.

In principle, this was one of the main reasons why the Parliament of Trees decided to outsource the problem with the Revenant, and offered a pretty good reward. The second reason was the Swamp Lady herself and her strange appearance.

In the course of careful questioning, I found out that the dryad had been practically forced to become a keeper while she was still alive. Alec had died and matured in the swamp for five years, lying in nuclear waste and slowly soaking in the Green's energy, gradually getting used to it, while Abby had simply fallen into Parliament's hands after the final death of the last guardian, because she was very close to Holland and loved nature. Because of this approach, she still can't get used to the available powers properly. What to say, if the green beauty had already started to get a little dewy, plus, it was still winter, which also seriously affects the rhythm of life of living creatures. That's why she seemed a little slow, and I think the mismatch between body and soul must also have something to do with it, because she's become a little more active since the change of appearance, or our companion is trying to tone up to be ready to give a decent fight to Grundy if we screw up.

"Poor thing," my lovely companion sympathetically stroked the hand of the keeper, who had somehow unnoticeably appeared at my side during the conversation.

Or am I at her place? The dryad is a little bigger... Whatever, I don't mind the neighborhood, she's a woman, and she's also a good shield for Harley and me from the bitter December wind.

"It's not worth it, I've long since accepted my situation. Besides, human life is too short, and now I can live forever.

"If Rotten doesn't finish you off," the blonde remarked.

"You're not very good with tact.

"This is coming from the creature who's been trying to sniff my boyfriend the entire conversation.

"It's not my fault that the scent has gotten weaker and now I need to be closer to smell it," the dryad replied nonchalantly.

"Ladies, don't fight," I interjected, finally ripe for the asking. - Abby, I realize you can't directly intervene in the upcoming battle for fear of attracting Rotten's attention, but could you charge these diamonds?" I retrieve a dark pouch from my spatial expansion pocket and pull out a few clear stones. - I promise I won't use them during the battle.

The green protector took one of the diamonds, examining it curiously.

"Ouch," she yelped in a feminine way as the mineral in her palm turned sharply green and then crumbled into precious sand, shimmering with a mysterious green color.

It's an interesting effect... I should try using this thing to draw magical symbols. Glad of my hoarding, I took out an empty vial.

"Probably a poor quality structure. That's okay. Pour this stuff over here," I put the glass container in front of me.

After the magic sand was tightly sealed and stowed in my pocket, I gave Swampy another diamond, having previously checked it for defects, but after a second it also crumbled.

"Hmmm... I have two assumptions. Either your energy just isn't right for charging, or there's too much of it. Try again and, if it's not too much trouble, try to limit the amount of mana.

"Good," the guardian of the Forest nodded concentratedly.

The third stone joined the other two, but it was able to last a little longer before turning to sand. Taking into account the previous failed attempts, the dryad was able to find the optimal amount of energy for the fourth time, and now a small diamond lay in my hand, glowing acid green.

"You can use it when you fight an immortal. There's too little of my energy here. The rot won't notice," the green beauty said.

Wow...

A quick check showed that I can safely replenish my reserve, and it's also easier and, in some ways, more enjoyable than in the case of neutral mana.

"And you can charge more of these," I pour out the entire pouch, trying to pick up the drool.

If it's not much energy for her, then how much is a lot, and is it realistic to find a suitable storage facility for her to feel a serious drain? If you think about it that way, it's unlikely, since Swamp Girl has access to all the natural mana in the universe. It's not entirely clear if there's a limit to one-time conductivity. She's an elemental and could theoretically channel the full power of Green, but I doubt it's that simple and there's no limit.

"You're really weird," Abby snickered at me, starting to charge.

"Aha-ha-ha," I nodded stupidly, watching the rocks turn green one by one.

Whew. Okay, Jay, calm down. Don't spook it and you can have an endless source of easily digestible natural mana, and you don't even need the Heart of the Forest, although it would be interesting to see the thing, but the Parliament of Trees isn't likely to let outsiders get close to a break in Nature's plan.

***

I left the meadow in the most wonderful mood. Fortune had not smiled at me so much for a long time. I managed not only to expand my knowledge of the local universe, communicate with an interesting creature and replenish my mana reserves, but also to agree on further cooperation. And all it took was to agree to communicate with the protector of nature periodically to keep her in tone. The former avatars of Green had become too close to the plant world, which made them difficult to call interesting interlocutors, and ordinary people were unlikely to agree to talk to a swamp monster. Moreover, they certainly wouldn't smell like ba-hion, whose odor Abby liked very much.

The bag of green diamonds warmed his pocket nicely. That's how many cool things one could try to realize now. Screw to the machine a full-fledged complex of illusions, using diamond sand, which theoretically should have better conductivity and capacity than salt, and also, unlike the blood of the hound, it can be simply bought, and you can take at once diamond crumbs almost on an industrial scale. I'd like to combine shields and illusions, and start studying the combat direction, because I know the necessary runes. No, it's too early to learn one attack spell from each element and use my own reserve to cast it. Yes, that's exactly what I should do, and at the same time Harley should be trained in this direction. I look at the girl sitting next to me with a bonsai in her hands. I didn't fully understand what it was supposed to do, since I'd been distracted by packing, but it seemed like the miniature tree Abby had grown before we left should do something to help Ivy's plants, which had begun to wither without their mistress.

The good news did not end there. As soon as we got home, Alfred called me, saying that everything was ready and we could pick up the equipment from the warehouse, located in the west of the Bernlei district. This is great, but in my dreams I was already becoming a great magician, not doing the work of a loader ...

"Sunshine, can you get a big van that no one will look for and go get the equipment?

"Sure, Mr. J, but I'll need $40,000.

"That's fine. Take what you need from the safe. I'm counting on you," I kiss the hottie, adding motivation.

"Mh..." she pulled away a little after kissing me, looking at me with shining eyes. - Okay, I'll just put the plant in.

My faithful assistant scurried off in the direction of the living room, and I went to the workshop, where I stayed practically until the evening.

I was distracted from calculating the next combination of runes by a call from Harley, who had successfully completed her task and was now on her way home. Praising her, I decided to take a short break and cook something for dinner, because we were planning to go hunting again tonight. The bandits would be in trouble now that I had to practice my battle magic on someone.

"Good evening," I said hello to the dryad in the maid's outfit, walking into the kitchen.

My thoughts were still preoccupied with calculations for creating solid illusions. It was worth trying to create not two spell nodes for each combination, but four at once. This approach would complicate the formula, but it should add stability, and if I redistributed the energy... Stop!

I did a one-hundred-eighty turn and went back into the hall. Abby stood surrounded by flowers, eyes closed, wearing the skirt from her maid's outfit. The only item of clothing was clearly my favorite, and because of the height difference, it looked like a weird miniskirt on the green beauty, hiding almost nothing.

"Hello again. Why are you here?

"Harley called me, asked me to help with the flowers.

"Yeah... Why the outfit?

"Harley did, said it made me look more attractive.

"Hmm... She's right, it looks good on you. You want dinner?

"No, I don't need food.

"Good, then I won't get in the way," I continued on my way, deciding to keep it out of my head for now for fear of missing an idea I had for improving my illusions.

*Earth Force: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpxlJCG6mjo