She Was Too Low Level - Revu

Revu Grarnatre the Fertile Human Druid, Level 2

And who is this we have here,

the Guildmaster thought as a young, dusky-skinned human woman came into the Adventurers' Guild.

Pretty young thing... and so scantily clad! Must hail from one of those tribes on the other side of the mountains, the ones that cling to a more 'primitive' lifestyle. The simple cloth wrappings around her chest and that short skirt barely leave those impressive breasts and perky plump ass covered.

The attractive young woman's good looks distracted the Guildmaster, preventing him from his normal reaction to the arrival of any woman inside the Adventurers' Guild Hall he ran. "Women SHOULDN'T be adventurers," was a belief that had driven him almost all of his life. When younger he'd refused to join any party with a woman in it and once he'd retired from active adventuring and taken up the job of running this Guildhall he'd done all he could, without drawing any undue attention that would have jeopardized his beloved position, to ensure there were far fewer female adventurers in the world.

"Excuse me," the new arrival said as she stepped up to the Guildmaster's counter. "This is the local Adventurers' Guild, is it not?"

The Guildmaster nodded. "That's right," he said, faking a happy expression. He knew it was important to never let the women he interacted with know how little he thought of them. "We're the hub for official Guild business in this region. Are you looking to join the Adventurers' Guild?" He asked the question with sincere hope, although he knew it would be misunderstood. She'd interpret it as him hoping to sign her up as a Guild member, but in reality he hoped for the chance to find a technicality to

DENY

her membership.

"Oh, no, I'm already a member," she said excitedly, reaching into a pouch hanging from a leather strap that rested on her wide hips. She pulled out a large coin-like emblem with the symbol of the Adventurers' Guild on it and held it out. "I'm supposed to present this to you, right? And then you can help find me a quest?"

His mind quickly shifted.

Okay, she's already a member, I can't prevent her from joining the Guild. But I can work to ensure she does not remain an active adventurer for long.

"That is indeed how it works," he said, taking the coin. "Your history as a Guild member is magically contained in this emblem. All I need to do is put this enchanted monocle on and I'll be able to read that history," he told her as he pulled the monocle out of his pocket.

The small, curvaceous woman waited, one arm wrapped around her exposed belly while she nervously teased her wild, dark hair with the other.

She can't have gone on many quests,

the Guildmaster thought as he put the enchanted monocle on. When he looked at her emblem words appeared above it that only he could see, a display of all the information the Guild had recorded about its member. The magic of the monocle made it so he could "scroll" through that information with a thought.

A Druid,

he read.

I suppose that makes sense, I've heard her people have a close connection with nature. And it would explain why her hair is so wild and unkempt, probably chooses to sleep in the wilds even when she's near a town.

And just as I expected, only rated at level two. Says she's finished a few simple quests but little that's involved combat outside of a short adventure with a larger party. There's a note here saying she's painfully shy and has had trouble bonding with groups and has preferred to take on solo quests. How perfect, the ones too dumb to join a party are always easier to deal with.

He glanced up at her and gave the young woman a long, appraising look. "And what kind of quest were you hoping to accept today? Are you after coin, glory, or loot?"

She shuffled, staring at her feet. "I don't care about any of that," she said quietly. "I left my village to... well, to do some good in the world. There was only one kind of life for me there and it's one I'm

NOT

ready for. I want something where I can use my Druidic powers to help the world. Do you have any quests like that?"

"I might," he replied. "It'll take me a moment to look through the quests we have open, please be patient."

He grabbed a large ledger, opening the thick tome and flipping through pages of unfinished quests, but only pretending to read them. Instead, he used the magical monocle to continue studying details stored on the coin.

Even though the Guildmaster that inducted her into the Guild made a mistake allowing another woman to enter our prestigious organization he at least did a proper job with their entry interview.

The file explained that the society she came from was a very patriarchal one and young women were expected to birth as many children as possible during their most fertile years. It noted that the only real way for young women to avoid this position in society was to leave it, which she had done. "Revu Grarnatre says she left her people to become an adventurer after discovering her ability to use Druidic magic. It seems this was only an excuse and that her real reason for leaving was a pathological fear of anything dealing with childbirth."

What a deliciously unfortunate fear,

the Guildmaster thought, a wicked smile spreading across his face.

I know exactly the quest to send her on. A real special one I've been saving for a woman just like her.

"Here we go," he said, trying to hide the spiteful glee he felt as he turned the log to the perfect quest to doom the shy, dangerously fertile young Druid. "I've got just the one for you. It's something most adventurers couldn't accomplish, but for a Druid it should be easy. And the pay is good, too, even if you say that's not something you care about."

She blushed and looked away. "Well, my coin purse has gotten a bit light. Filling it

WOULD

be nice."

"You'll find some ruins withing an ancient patch of forest," the Guildmaster began. "The ruins were once a shrine of some kind and whatever magic was once upon it has gone wrong over the ages. It's causing wild, rampant overgrowth in the whole area, preventing anyone from settling those parts of the wilds."

He was only telling her partial truths, just enough that if she somehow managed to come back she'd have no reason to blame him for her failure. The ruins existed. The ancient shrine's magic was causing troublesome overgrowth that was preventing the area from being settled. But he was leaving out essential details and making it sound as though the threat was far less severe than it was.

"The shrine needs to be cleansed," he told her. "That is something you should be able to do, correct?"

Revu nodded, looking excited. "Yes, that's something I know how to do!" She paused, suddenly looking nervous. "But will it be dangerous? What kind of monsters are lurking around it?"

"None," the Guildmaster said, again speaking a half-truth. "A party of Guild members cleared out that section of the wilds not more than a week ago. It should be weeks before any kind of dangerous monsters or beasts are redrawn to the magical ruins. And if you cleanse the enchantment on it they should no longer be drawn there and the area can be settled."

All of that was true, he was just leaving out specific dangers coming from the ruins. No monsters were waiting there, but there was peril far worse than any magical forest critters. And most delicious was the nature of that threat and what he knew was most likely to happen to the fertile, shy woman standing before him.

So eager to begin what will very likely be her final quest,

he thought, pleased with the doom he was setting her on her way to face.

Revu glowed, smiling eagerly as the Guildmaster grabbed a piece of blank parchment and began drawing her a map to the location of the shrine. "Something tells me this is going to be an adventure I'll never forget," she declared.

How right you are,

the Guildmaster thought.

* * *

Revu Garnatre glowed with delight as she soaked in the power radiating from the ancient forest she was trekking through. "You've been here for ages," she whispered to the forest. "Longer than my silly tribe has even existed. You've such power in you," she added, stopping by a large, ancient-looking tree and placing a hand on it. "Such power," she repeated, but added, "yet something is not right here."

She took a step back from the tree, looking up at the tangle of vines and greenery twisting in and out of its branches. "This overgrowth is not natural. Look how it chokes out that which has stood sentinel for so long. The young things in this place are breeding too quickly, overwhelming and choking out the older trees. It isn't right, there isn't balance."

A sudden breeze blew through the forest, causing it to look as though all the thick overgrowth was shivering angrily in response to her comment. The shift in the Druidic magic she could feel around her made her question just how natural that breeze had been.

The thing causing this harmful overgrowth does not want me here,

she thought as she pressed on towards her destination.

It had been hours since she'd looked at the map she had with her. She simply didn't need it, the feeling of unnatural power emanating from the ancient shrine was like a blinding light to her. At first it had been a distant beacon, calling those that could see it. But the closer she got to it the more there was a sense of that power looking back at her, aware of her presence. There was intelligence behind the power, intelligence that seemed to know she was coming to cleanse it.

The power will defend itself,

she thought.

I've no idea how but I must prepare myself best I can.

Soon Revu began to enter the ruins. At first they were hard to see. They were ancient and ages of wild growth had done much to remove them from the landscape while the more recent untamed overgrowth had destroyed much of what had managed to survive this long.

"This was no simple, lone shrine," Revu whispered, kneeling and thrusting her hands into a mass of interwoven vines and greenery. She reached out with her Druidic magic, connecting with the plants and willing them to come under her command. There was resistance unlike any she'd never encountered but it was faint enough for her to overpower. The greenery began to move, the vines moving snakes that twisted and slithered away, taking the other overgrowth with it to reveal overgrown ruins.

Revu stared for some time at what was revealed. "Stone," she said, reaching out and touching it with her hands. "Or marble... hard to tell. Time has eaten away at it." She stood up and took a step back. "It must have been a pillar of some kind," she said.

She looked around, trying to picture her surroundings without the dense greenery. "The trees run almost in a line here and here," she said, pointing ahead of her. "Almost as if..." She knelt and dug her hands into the forest floor. "Just below a small layer of leaves and dirt... Could have been a paved road at one time," she said, getting back to her feet. "A road that leads... to the temple," she whispered.

Her advance grew easier as the ruins grew denser and more obvious. Whatever the place had once been it had been full of magic that had helped maintain it through the ages. "Perhaps this was once a city," she pondered, overgrown buildings appearing amongst the forest ahead of her. "Maybe not a large one... or maybe only this part of it had magic woven into it strong enough to help it stand these long ages."

She came across a creek that flowed in a straight line and quickly realized it was running over what had once been a stone walkway. She followed it into an area of forest where there were far fewer trees. The ruins were too thick here for trees, too many stone buildings and paved walkways only smaller plants could push up through. Stairs lead up to higher ground while there were still ornately carved archways standing and the occasional giant statue. Everything was overgrown and covered in twisting vines and flowering bushes that had pushed up through cracks in the stone walkways.

"This is the place," Revu whispered. "The ancient enchantment that is causing the rampant overgrowth, it's coming from here somewhere. One of these ruined buildings or these empty fountains... at one point they were a shrine or temple. Whatever power it held has become... corrupted."

The word seemed to echo through the still air around her. The overgrown ruins, which had already been far quieter than the rest of the forest, grew disturbingly quiet.

"I am not afraid of you," Revu called out. "I am a Druid and I come to heal this place. I come to cleanse the corrupting force radiating from here." A breeze, light at first but quickly growing more intense, began to blow. "I am not afraid," she called out, louder this time. "I am one with Alaria, one with the very earth I stand upon. I shall channel the power of nature into the world here and cleanse this place!"

For a few more moments the wind howled, whipping her hair in the wind. Revu felt some unknown power push against her, tendrils of something with a sliver of intelligence trying to press into her mind. Before she could muster some magic to prevent the force from moving deeper into her mind it was gone and a moment later the wind died down.

Revu grinned with pride, impressed she'd so easily pushed past the defenses this corrupted place had put up. If she'd been more experienced she'd have realized what had happened, had recognized the intrusion into her mind as the power she was trying to banish and cleanse reading her essence. She might have realized it now knew her weaknesses, her

FEARS

.

But she didn't.

Revu was too inexperienced, too low level for the threat she faced. A threat she now thought no longer had the power to oppose her.

Thinking she was safe, Revu began to perform the ritual that would cleanse the forest around her. It was a simple ritual, one that allowed for much freedom in how it was performed. Like most Druids how she wielded her magic and performed her spells was heavily influenced by the culture she'd grown up in.

Her people were, compared to most others in the region, fairly primitive, others often describing them as "wild" and "untamed". Nudity was not something her people shunned the way the "civilized" peoples did. To be naked was natural and thus in her mind the most powerful of Druidic spells, the ones tied most deeply to influencing or drawing from nature, required nudity.

Thus Revu stripped out of the meager, simple clothing she wore. With her nubile, curvaceous, and fertile body fully exposed she began the ritual of cleansing. It began as a dance, sensual and enticing the fertile powers of nature to her. Soon the young naked Druid was glowing with green light, her body full of magic drawn from the natural world around her. She smiled and danced, laughing happily from the thrill of being so connected to the natural world around her.

She danced through the ruins, reaching out with the power she was still gathering to try and find the lines of corrupted magic she needed to cleanse. Small tendrils reached out from their source and whenever she'd find one she'd drop to the ground, plunging glowing green hands into the dirt or pressing them flat against the stone floor of the ruins. The power would extend out from her, burning away the corrupted enchantment.

There was no pushback against this. Revu believed the corrupted enchantment she was cleansing was simply too old, that any push against it was causing it to simply crumble away.

She was wrong.

It knew what she was doing and was lulling her into a false sense of safety, letting her think she was victorious before the battle had even begun.

The force did not choose to strike back till Revu had reached deep into the ruins. A ring of old, overgrown trees surrounded what had once been a large ornate fountain. When she reached it the fountain was empty, only dried leaves resting in it. But there was power there, immense power she could feel.

She moved to one of the trees, kneeling and digging the fingers of one hand into the dirt at its base while placing the palm of her other hand against the tree. She used her Druidic powers to reach into the tree and the ground, hoping this would be the place where the corrupted enchantment could be fully broken.

At first she thought she'd found what she wanted. Unlike all the other places she'd cleansed the power here was pushing back against her. But what started as a gentle push back against her cleansing ritual soon swelled in scope. Within moments she was no longer pushing against the corrupted enchantment, it was pushing back against her.

A moment later it was doing more than that. She felt its power reach out, grabbing hold of her hands. She gasped, trying to pull away, but was unable. Roots and vines radiated hostile power, moving through the dirt and wrapping around the fingers she had plunged into the earth. The hand she had pressed against the tree felt painfully fused there, the green glow of her Druidic magic beginning to shift in hue, sparking red.

"What is this," she groaned, almost in tears as she tried to pull away. "What's happening?"

She knew then she was in over her head, that this was no simple corrupted enchantment. Some intelligence was directing the force at work, corrupting not just the enchantment but this entire part of Alaria. It was not

any

corrupting force, it was

THE

Corruption, a power determined to corrupt ALL of Alaria and leave

nothing

untouched and unchanged.

Revu's chest was heaving, tears running down her cheeks. The Corruption was reaching into her, corrupting her body, her mind, her soul. And it was drawing something from her, using it to change the corrupted enchantment causing the wild overgrowth even further. She could feel it grabbing hold of her fears, centering in on her fear of breeding.

And then it let go of her.

She'd been trying so hard to pull her hand out of the ground and her hand away from the tree that when the power let go of her she stumbled back, slamming into the ground so hard it knocked the wind out of her. Her breasts wobbled wildly as she flew back and hit the ground, ensuring The Corruption's continued focus on her.

Dazed, it took her a moment to make sense of the world around her. The ruins and the forest grown through them were different. The air smelt different, FELT different. The sounds were different. Yes... sounds. What was that sound? Revu sat up, looking around to try and locate the strange sound. Almost like running water but not as smooth...

"Have to find my gear," she muttered, holding the back of her head where it had smashed into the ground. She was suddenly very aware of how unarmed and naked she was. She felt unsafe, like a threat was nearing in on her.

As she got to her feet the world spun for a moment. As it righted she wondered if she'd have been any safer with her gear and weapons. "Probably not," she muttered, trying to get her bearings and remember which direction she needed to go to retrieve her things. "But I still need them," she told herself, the sense of danger growing more intense with every beat of her heart.

The strange running water sound had grown louder and changed into something that sounded more like thick fluid bubbling up. Sensing this sound was related to the danger she felt Revu looked around for its source. She saw that the ancient fountain was no longer empty. Something was filling it, although it was not water. The goopy fluid was too thick and too white.