Locke walked quietly through the forest, whistling a well-known children's song, oblivious to the shadowy figures in the shape of cadaverous children who watched him from afar in a clear pose of menace. Locke is still in a straight line, whistling happily, his clear lack of fear left the creatures unresponsive.
'Hey Locke, did you ever realize that a child's music out of contention is f*cking scary?' Tia commented abruptly.
"Perhaps because children's songs remind us of our childhood, and the lack of a good context reminds us of how vulnerable we felt."
The creatures began to approach, closing in a siege around Locke, but he and the fairy continued their internal philosophical discussion.
'You know, children have a much more refined spiritual sense than an average adult, and so they often really see something, many weak spiritual beings feed on fear, so they disturb children because they are easy targets...'
"I see... So children are often right to be scared..."
'So it is! The worst is that no one ever believes the children and, sometimes, that are not small spirits that are behind them, sometimes there is even something dangerous aimed at the family, something that only that child could see, and as nobody ever takes the warnings of a children seriously... '
"They end up getting caught because they don't listen the young ones..." Locke completed, he sighed, the creatures now surrounded him completely, there was no room for him to walk. Locke looked at them with an expression of indifference, he scratched his head, closing his eyes in the process, the creatures took a step closer.
Locke opened his eyes, which now shone in an intense golden color, his black mana began to appear throughout his body, emitting a powerful aura of fear, all creatures were paralyzed like prey in front of the predator, unable to make any movement.
"F * ck off!" Locke spoke softly, the coldness in his voice seemed to freeze the air, with his words the little creatures lost their frightening shape of skeletal children, becoming something like little dolls made of plants with wings.
'F * cking sprites! They are shaming my species! But what sh*t was offered to them to participate in this? 'Tia commented. 'Usually they're just prankster's, these fools don't participate in murders!'
"Perhaps the answer lies in the center of the forest..." Locke replied, as he continued walking.
The day before Locke had decided it was time to buy a house, drop his old broken apartment, maybe live together with Hanna, he did a quick search and found this place, the unbelievable lower price, realy lower than expected, caught his attention, and he decided to research more about the house.
With his computer skills it didn't take long for him to find a trail of bizarrities surrounding this place, there were rumors of disappearances and descriptions of supernatural events in the house and on this land, this aroused his curiosity.
When Locke started researching the source of the rumors, his curiosity turns in full attention, while tracking the IP's addresses and sources of rumors he realized that all were done through throwaway accounts, using deeper tools (and not so legal tools) Locke was able to see a pattern in these accounts, all of which had been made on the same day by the same person, and although the posts were made on different days he realized that the person had a heightened interest in making the events of this house known.
Locke also realized that the company that owned this house today was nothing more than a facade, a fictitious company, made to look real in legal circles, but both its location and its records were completely false.
Upon arriving at the house Locke knew at once what was happening, his evolution had raised all his senses, and his intelligence and spirit had grown so much that the secrets of the house seemed like a neon sign.
The house was under a curse, Locke realized even before entering, there was a formation engraved in invisible ink on the walls of the house, which had the objective of making its residents in sacrifice for something, in addition this formation also had the ability to condense the fear in energy for the some creature, Locke understood at the time that this was the reason why the history of the house was spreading, someone was 'planting fear'.
While Maria showed him the house, Locke could clearly perceive the emotions she was hiding, while she was distracted explaining him about the wonderful assets of the house Locke analyzed the whole formation, he even found the 'rules' ahead of time, they emitted so much cursed mana that stank more than a full trash can forgoted in the summer blaze.
Locke realized that the formation directed the energy towards the forest, so he decided to start there, he invaded the forest without thinking twice, coming face to face with a bunch of sprites in the first place.
According to Tia, sprites were a smaller breed of fairies, small creatures that fed on the feelings of confusion, surprise and human light irritation, and because of that, they used to play tricks on people, hide objects and things like that, Locke had seen some of these in the city parks, and Tia said they were harmless, they only had minimal power to create some illusions and so Locke let them go harmless.
Locke continued into the forest, following the flow of mana, he finally reached a large tree surrounded by a strange formation.
'Bingo! We found the center! 'Tia celebrated. 'Time to get this over with!'
Locke looked at the tree in a curious way, he analyzed the formation for a moment, his mind worked at a thousand trying to understand its purpose. As soon as Locke understood, he was furious.
The formation was intricate and complex, but its purpose was simple, it all started to make sense in Locke's mind.
When a new person moved into the house, the training began to harvest their emotions, creating small 'incidents', making the occupants emotions increasingly darker. When the occupants found the rules, the moment they read them they closed a contract and got truly cursed, it was also the moment when the 'incidents' got heavier, causing more and more fear in the occupants and gathering more energy in the process, the moment they broke one of the rules the curse reached them and caused the death of the occupants, making their lives a sacrifice for the tree, all that formation was aimed at turning the tree into a monster.
Locke was disgusted, although the way was different he recognized the pattern, reminded him of the incident at school, where a poor girl's soul was forced to become a monster, Locke had the feeling that the culprits were the same.
'I know what this tree is! It's a dryad! They are incredibly rare today! These sons of bitches are trying to corrupt her! 'Tia commented worriedly. 'That's why the sprites are helping! These idiots can't understand what the formation are doing to her! They want to protect her!'
"Is there still salvation for her?" Locke asked, he approached the tree and observed it, it was a kind of tree he had never seen, a big tree full of pretty red flowers, it was not the biggest that Locke had ever seen, but it was a beautiful tree, even with the black spots around its stem.
'It doesn't look like she was corrupted to the core, it seems she's fighting it, you can still save her!'
"It was time to test this magis..." Locke positioned himself by raising his hands. "I came here for a fight, but now I have to save a damsel in distres..." his mana circled his body and began to involve the flow of mana that imprisoned the tree, Locke used the Dispel curse magic.
The magic worked, but it was very different from what Locke expected, when Locke learned that magic he imagined it would be something with a sacred content, like the divine light of a priest expelling an evil power, but no, his mana invaded the flow of the cursed mana like a furious beast, violently destroying it all the way to its core, destroying the curse.
'What the f*ck ?! Why is my mana always so violent? 'Locke thought, a little worried.
'Good thing you haven't tested this on a person!' Tia shared his concerns.
With the destruction of the curse's core the flow of rotten mana began to fade, Locke could feel, even though it was so far away, that the curse on the house was dissipating.
"And now?" Locke asked confused. "Should I speak to the tree?"
Before Tia answered the tree began to squirm and snap, Locke took a step back in surprise as a female upper body shape, made of wood and leaves, emerged from the tree trunk.
Her wooden appearance began to transform slowly, becoming more and more human, until she became a beautiful naked woman, attached to the tree by the waist. She had a beautiful body, her skin was wheat-colored and her hair was green like tree leaves, with red flowers intertwined, her eyes were two completely black jewels and her lips were a strong red color, her breasts were large and full, a golden fragrant sap dripped from her nipples.
"Oh powerful one! I thank you for getting rid of the curse! We, the nature daughters, will be your friends forever! " Her voice was beautiful, it sounded as if it were part of nature itself, like the sound of the wind through the trees.
[Congratulations! The nature daughters recognized the you, a new title was created - Friends of Dryads!]
[Friends of Dryads - The spirits of the forest and all nature's critters of good alignment will respect you! Will be easier to interact with beings from nature!]
"That... That was easy..." Locke commented. "No need to thank me, my new home was also affected by the curse, so getting rid of it was beneficial for me too!" Locke did not expect gratitude, he even felt guilty, after all, he did it for his own benefit.
"It doesn't matter, powerful one! When this curse consumed me, it would be the end of my entire forest! Everything that lives here would be dragged into darkness and become monsters! When you saved me, you saved all of us!"
Locke scratched his head awkwardly. "Well .. You're you welcome!?" Locke sighed and turned, ready to go.
"Wait, powerful one! Allow me to thank you! Tell me! What can I give you as a reward?" The Dryad asked, with a look of deep gratitude.
"No need, as I already said, I did it out of my own selfishness! Saving you was just a consequence!" Locke wanted to go home.
"Oh no! No! Powerful One! I can't let you go like this without me showing you my gratitude! I'm sure there is some way I can thank you! Would you like to taste my sap?" The dryad held the full breast in her hands, offering it to Locke.
'What a f*ck?' Locke communicated with Tia mentally. 'Does she expect me to start breastfeeding in her like that? Out of nowhere?'
'...Believe me when I say, she is actually being very delicate... Your father found his own share of dryades for his life and, let's say that if he fulfilled they wishes, today you would be half-plant and not half-human... This one is just being kind, the sap of dryades has healing powers, maybe it is good idea to collect some... ' Tia replied.
'F * ck, am I going to milk a tree now? ...Fine!' Locke sighed.
A few minutes later Locke was filling bottles with golden liquid inside a wooden bucket.
"I need to thank you, powerful one! Since I got stuck in my tree, I couldn't empty my breasts!" The dryad had come completely out of the tree, she was stretching her limbs and stretching, her naked body didn't seem to cause any shame.
Locke was working automatically, the previous minutes had been very difficult, while he 'worked', the dryad moaned and made a series of inappropriate sounds, almost driving him crazy, if Locke didn't have Hanna, today he would have attacked a tree.
'I apologize, it seems that she wants to seduce you, after all' Tia was commented regretfully. 'Look on the bright side, they really are good in bed!'
'I'm not going to f*ck a tree!' Locke shouted mentally, both to Tia and to himself.