Hyperion Evergrowing

Chapter 1: First Thoughts

Monster ecology was an underdeveloped field in the kingdom Leif belonged to, in all human lands really. A system that quantifies most of reality tends to stifle innovation outside of its rules and intricacies. This isn’t to say that the system didn’t have anything to do with monsters, just that enlightened races had access to different bits than said monsters.

As the body of our protagonist is currently decomposing into the soil, let's start by quantifying what a monster is. In Varan, a monster would be defined as an entity of unnatural birth. This isn’t wholly inaccurate, people and animals tend to be born after the sacred act of hand holding and kissing is performed.

Monsters, by contrast, do indeed tend towards the unnatural. Take for example the fact that roots are growing out of Leif’s spine. And yes, those are branches sprouting from his eye sockets. The exact process is technically defined as a form of soul parasitism. He’ll be fine… Probably.

As defined by the system itself, monsters are beings who are born through the intervention of mana. Undead are reanimated through skills and spells aspected towards death. Elementals are born through parts of the natural world being over saturated in energies, no points for guessing which kinds.

Slimes divide over time, in the same way bacteria and problems do. Goblins along with other facsimiles of sapience pool out of shadows in the ruins of civilization.

Plant monsters tend to be quite varied. From seeds to spores to implanting a parasitic bulb in the still beating hearts of their victims in an effort to supplant their mind, body and soul into a twisted replica of the original.

As exciting as it sounds, the process is fairly slow. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months as the seasons went by. Seasons, it should be noted, were caused not by the planet having an axial tilt, as this world didn’t have one. Instead they were caused by the rotation of the first of two orbiting moons.

Season, the first, closest and largest of the two moons rotated once every two months. When its ordinary crater pocked half faced the planet, weather acted normal and the climate didn’t fluctuate. When the half with the glowing red ravines criss-crossing the surface like they were the webs of terrifyingly huge spiders faced the planet. Well, things tended to get strange.

Strange from an outsider's perspective that is, the influx of thaumatic phenomena, extreme weather and exaggerated temperatures were quite ordinary to the beings of this world. A world with many names and colloquialisms across many languages and cultures. These all tended towards similar meanings; The land, the world, the soil beneath our feet.

For the sake of simplicity let's smoosh them together, aggregate the meanings and pick something at random. Let's call the planet Earth, probably hasn’t been done before.

===

As time rolled inexorably on, the dark grey sapling poking out of the ground wasn’t the only thing to change. The battlefield had sprung to life, corpses acting as fertiliser made the transformation from muddy hellscape to burgeoning forest smooth and speedy. Relatively.

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Weapons and equipment were scavenged, but the onset of monsters and wild animals made the massacre less than the ideal tourist attraction. Grasses and moss made the first move, the land quickly repainted green. Hundreds of small grey trees came next, though their growth speed was quickly eclipsed by traditional flora.

Within two years it was unrecognisable, within four a young forest had firmly taken root. The wilderness had reclaimed this part of the world, closing the pass between the unclaimed lands to the west and the grand lake to the east.

Neither the Kingdom of Varan nor the invading Legion retook the territory, and thus time went on.

===

Within an unnamed forest there was a tree, thousands actually but this tree was significant. It wasn’t the tallest, nor the branchiest. It was however growing in the exact place a man named Leif Vin had fallen seven years ago.

This forest was home to predators, the usual kinds like wolves and foxes certainly, but this forest was home to more insidious hunters. Tall thin trees with grey bark and blood red leaves not unlike the significant tree were the most fearsome of hunters within this land.

They strangled nutrients from the ground and choked the life from other flora. The footfalls of animals were followed by the sound of snapping wood and the sickening follow-up of flesh being punctured or bones being crushed. Where these trees grew grass was absent, as were the songs of birds and the chirping of insects. Grey totems of death reigned supreme as apex predators within this forest.

Though there was one peculiarity. A single tree was different. At first it had been like the others, bloodthirsty and ravenous, a savage hunter like all the rest. Somewhere between the fifth and sixth year of its existence and just after it had turned the cutest rabbit anyone had ever seen into a bloody smear of misfortune and sadness, the tree had changed.

Like all the rest it was a [Juvenile Blight Tree], but unlike the others of its kind it possessed a unique trait. Awareness.

It had a thought.

Huh?

This thought lasted three entire months, during which its aggressive tendencies stalled. No longer a beacon of death, grass wriggled its way into the tree’s territory. Then came insects, followed by birds, then small mammals.

During a heavy snowstorm the tree had its second thought.

Uhh?

Ok, I know what you might be thinking. This tree is stupid! And as well it should be, the poor thing has an intelligence of one. For context humans are born with Five! That's right! Five whole points! If you feel insulted don’t be, intelligence, as with all attributes is a multiplier of a creature's inherent characteristics.

So while the numerical difference between one and five might be somewhere around the ballpark of four, the difference between a human with an intelligence of five and a tree with the same score is stark. The fact this tree could think at all was remarkable!

Mmmh?

Keep trying little guy, you can do it!