"Long before man stepped foot on Earth, the Tree grew tall. It guided our kind on the path." Ryan's father had once told him. "In the dark we toiled away at our endless pursuits; only through its grace were we brought to the light."
Ryan always remembered his father's words; they guided him in his decision once he was sixteen to become an apprentice to the keeper of the roots. "It is the noblest of purposes to live one's life in service to the Tree," his father once said. Ryan has been diligent in his apprenticeship to the current root keeper. He observes with great care, taking the task on with the utmost respect. This however, had not gained Ryan much popularity with the other kids. They would taunt him on a near daily basis. Ryan does his best to ignore them. In his long hours spent tending the tree he'd come to realize this is his true purpose; even if it means enduring the mockery of his peers for the rest of his days. The Tree began to speak to Ryan on a few occasions, brief glimpses of a vision unfamiliar to him. On the most recent of these occasions Ryan felt an impending danger, something looming near. This leaves him feeling troubled.

One day Ryan is out in the woods with his younger brother, picking mushrooms together for their mother's stew.
"Remember Sam, to only pick the brown ones with the white stems. Ryan says.
Sam backs away from a flush he was about to pick.
"What role to you want when you're old enough to decide?" Ryan inquires.
"I want to be an explorer. I want to travel to new lands."
"That's a mighty task, I'm sure you'll be well suited for it."
A rustling of leaves startles Ryan; he turns around to see his sister standing there with a wild look in her eyes. She's only a year younger than Ryan, but she's an inch taller, this bothers him immensely.
"Carey?"
"Father says you have to come now," She urges. It's the Tree.

When they arrive at the outskirts of the village—it's empty. They make their way through the quiet streets to the courtyard at the far end. The Tree stands—forty feet tall—in the middle of the courtyard. Not the biggest, but the most important one by far. The whole village is gathered around the base of its trunk. The Chief's Lieutenant sees Ryan approaching with his siblings in tow; he barks an order and the crowd parts to let them pass. The Chief is standing near the base of the tree, someone is slumped over the roots. The chief turns to look at Ryan, his face grim.
"What's happened Father?"
He need not answer. As Ryan reaches the Tree, he lets out a gasp. The man slumped over the roots of the tree is Yaxley—the current root keeper. The roots are soaked in blood. It is an evil thing to slay the root keeper, especially on the tree's roots. Already the Tree appears to be withering.
"How is the Tree?" The chief probes.
Ryan walks up to it, putting his hand on the bark. He turns back to his father, "It's–dying." A lightness washes over Ryan; his vision turns black.

Ryan stands in a clearing surrounded by lush forest: moss pads the ground, long grasses rustle with the wind, the air tastes salty. A woman in a white dress stands in the middle of the clearing, next to the clearest pool Ryan has ever seen. The Woman regards him with piercing, blue eyes. She beckons him closer. Ryan walks toward her, stoping a few feet away. She's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen: her pale skin glows, almost as white as her dress; her face is unnaturally symmetrical.
"Who are you?"
"I am the lady of the pool," she answers in a cool tone, like a trickling stream. "The water from this pool is the only thing that can save the Tree. I can offer you some guidance. Someone in the village has betrayed you; watch your back. You will need two companions, neither of which you have met yet; look for them in the unlikeliest of places.
"But I don't understand, how did I get here?"
"You are not really here, your consciousness has drifted from your body."
"What do you mean I will need two companions? I'm not an explorer."
"Shh," she soothes. "There is no more time for questions; you must go back now. Remember what I have said."

Ryan opens his eyes. He's laying on the ground near the tree.
"Are you ok Ryan?" his Father asks, helping him up.
"Only water from the sacred pool can save the Tree."
"How do you know this?"
"The Tree–it told me. Someone must be sent at once."
The crowd gasps.
"If what you say is true, and the tree told you this; you must be the one to go."

"The tree has obviously decided on you son", his father pases across the width of the room again (as he has been doing for the last hour) his hand guestures returning and becoming soehow more animated than before.

Ryan sighs annoyedly. "And as I have told you, over and over and over and over, I am not an explorer.", he signals to his younger brother "Ask Sam, or thay kid from the other side of the village, or, I don't know, an explorer!"

His father stops pasing, taking a bite from one of the mushrooms they picked earlier, before this chaos began.

"Well for some reason, the tree picked you. So either you go on this quest or you doom the tree and this village with it."

He is not an explorer, he chose to be a root keeper for a reason. The furthest he has ever explored is ten miles outside the village, when Sam ran off while foraging and he had to find his younger brother before something bad happened. Besides, there are soooooo many reasons he shouldn't be the one to adventure outside the village to save their precious tree. (Not that he can think of more than three right now but the rest will come to him).

"Why can't you just send Sam?!"

"Yeah just send me!" Sam pipes up from where he is shredding mushrooms with their mother in the kitchen.

"No." Both their parents object in syncronisity. "Your brother is far too young to journey out on his own, he's barely fourteen and you know how unprepared you felt at sixteen to choose your apprenticeship."

Ryan sighs, but accepts that perhaps a literal child is not the best person to try and save their tree.

"But isn't the-"

"Ryan!" His father rarely shouts, but then again Ryan is rarely prophecised to by ancient trees and sent on quests to save them. So perhaps he can accept that some rules can be broken temporarily.

So he speaks quietly, voice threatening to spill over into tears.

"But what will I do without you and mama and Sam and Carey and- and...?"

Suddenly he is enveloped by the arms of the four aformentioned famliy members.

"I promise you will be fine Ryan. And we will be ok without you for a little bit." Carey thinks for a moment before continuing. "Although we can't let Sam out foraging by himself until he is smart enough not to kill us all with some poisonous mushrooms."

Ryan dries his few tears with a smile.

"Ok. I'll go. But I want the whole vat of mama's soup to come with me in case I get hungry and homesick before I save the village."

His mother just kisses the crown of his head with a bittersweat smile.

Ryan barely slept that night. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the Lady of the Pool: her stillness, her impossible beauty, her warning: someone in the village has betrayed you.

The words clung to him like burrs. By dawn, he felt as though he’d aged ten years. The morning light filtered through the shutters in thin, trembling lines. His pack lay open on the floor, half‑filled with clothes, dried meat, a small knife, and, most importantly, the entire vat of his mother’s mushroom stew, sealed carefully in a clay jar. His mother had insisted on enchanting the lid with a preservation charm.

“So it won’t spoil before you get to it,” she’d said, kissing his cheek.

He wasn’t sure if that was meant to be comforting.

Downstairs, the house was too quiet. His family sat around the table, bowls untouched. Even Sam, who normally inhaled breakfast like a starving wolf, only poked at his porridge.

His father cleared his throat. “The Chief wants to see you before you leave.”

Ryan nodded, though his stomach twisted. He didn’t want to see the courtyard again. Not after yesterday, the swight of Yaxley’s body slumped over the roots like a discarded doll burned into his mind.

But he had no choice. He stepped outside, the morning air cool and damp. Carey walked beside him, arms crossed, her usual swagger dimmed.

“You know,” she muttered, “if you die out there, I’m stealing your room.”

He snorted. “If I die out there, you can have my chores too.”

“Absolutely not.”

They walked in silence the rest of the way. The courtyard was still, even as the villagers parted as Ryan approached, whispering behind their hands. Some looked at him with awe, fear, a few with suspicion. The Tree loomed above them all, its once‑vibrant leaves now curled and brittle, its bark dull and cracking. Ryan felt a pang in his chest. It looked worse than yesterday.

The Chief stood at its base, hands clasped behind his back. “Ryan Marlesse,” he said. “Step forward.”

Ryan obeyed.

The Chief placed a hand on the Tree’s trunk. “The roots are weakening. If the sacred pool truly holds the cure, then you must reach it before the next full moon.”

“That’s only three weeks,” Ryan whispered.

“Yes.” The Chief’s gaze hardened. “And the path is dangerous. The forest beyond our borders is not like the woods you know. There are creatures older than our walls. And not all of them welcome travelers.”

Ryan swallowed. His palms were sweating.

His father stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You carry our hope with you, son. And our pride.”

“And our soup,” Sam added helpfully.

A ripple of laughter moved through the crowd, easing the tension for a moment.

The Chief stepped back. “Go now. And may the Tree guide your steps.”

Ryan left the village with his pack slung over his shoulder, his family waving until they were specks in the distance. The forest path stretched ahead: quiet, sun‑dappled, deceptively peaceful. He walked for hours, the weight of the Tree’s fate pressing on him with every step. By midday, he stopped to rest beneath a fallen log. He took a sip of water, then hesitated before opening the stew jar.

Then, before he could open it: a sound. A twig snapped, soft distantly. Then another, closer now. Ryan froze.

“Hello?” he called, voice cracking slightly.

The bushes rustled violently, and something small, round, and very fast launched out of them, slamming into his shins. Ryan yelped and stumbled backward. A creature no taller than his knee stared up at him with enormous amber eyes. It had a round, furry body, long ears, and tiny hands clutching a stick like a weapon. It squeaked angrily.

Ryan blinked. “Uh… hello?”

The creature squeaked louder, brandishing its stick.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Ryan said, raising his hands.

The creature paused… then sniffed the air. Its gaze locked onto the stew jar sticking out of Ryan’s pack.

“Oh no,” Ryan whispered. “Absolutely not. Mine!” He yelled and waved his arms, trying to communicate with the creature in front of him.

The creature lunged for the pack, and Ryan lunged too. They collided in a flurry of limbs, fur, stick and knife both drawn and making no contact with the other. Eventually, Ryan managed to pry the creature off and hold it at arm’s length. It dangled there, kicking its tiny feet, squeaking furiously.

“Stop that,” Ryan scolded. “You can’t want soup that bad!”

The creature froze. Then, to Ryan’s utter confusion, it spoke.

“Not soup,” it squeaked in a high, scratchy voice. “Magic.”

Ryan nearly dropped it. “You can talk?!”

The creature puffed out its chest. “Of course I talk. And that jar is very important. Very powerful. Must protect.”

Ryan stared at it, stunned, as the Lady’s words echoed in his mind: You will need two companions, neither of which you have met yet; look for them in the unlikeliest of places.

“Oh no,” Ryan groaned with dawning realisation.

A brownie. A small creature from fairytales and children's stories, mischevious little troublemakers, allied to magic users and drawn to it since their mythic fall from the fae realm, and cursed to be unwillingly helpful forevermore. However, they were always far more humanoid than this creature in front of them.

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

The creature grinned, showing far too many teeth for something so small. “I am Pip,” it chirped proudly. “And if you won't give me that magical artefact to protect, I will have to protect it alongside you,” Pip said. before firmly attaching itself to Ryan's backpack.

Ryan buried his face in his hands.

This was going to be a very long journey.