"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.