Empire Builder 1: Breed, Populate, Conquer by Dante King (free e books to read online txt) 📕

that right?” Ben asked, his mind filled with images of slaying monsters in return for power. He imagined standing on top of a fallen beast, something with many eyes and horns jutting out of its forehead. Ben pictured himself using Drain to pull the power from the beast, growing strong in the process.

He grinned at the mental image.

He liked it.

Once again, Vinata shrugged. “They are stories. My people believe the Forgotten Ruler will return, but it is mostly just tradition, tales sung by bards to keep children happy.”

“Do you believe the Forgotten Ruler will return, Vinata?” He asked, staring into her green eyes.

For the third time, the dryad shrugged. “Perhaps. But it won’t matter to us if we die of starvation.”

He laughed. “Too true.” he gestured around him. “Is this a halfway decent place to find food? We really should be getting back to the others soon.”

“Let us go a little further,” she said, and she glanced at the strange stone at his feet. “The vegetation here is tainted.”

Ben followed her further until she stopped him at a small clearing, surrounded by large, gray-leafed trees.

“You see the roots on the ground here?” Vinata asked as she squatted at the foot of a tree.

He followed her gaze, which led to a bunch of gnarled, twisted roots. “You expect us to eat those? I’m not exactly big on wood for dinner.”

Vinata’s lips curled upward, giving her cheeks cute dimples, but she refrained from looking smug.

“These roots are not the same as the others,” she explained.

“They look the same to me.” All Ben could see was dirty brown twisted looking roots.

“These roots are partly composed of succulent flesh, which will make a fine meal.”

Ben knelt next to her to look closer. “Do you need my scimitar to cut the roots?”

Vinata shook her head, making her long green hair shake lightly, as though in a breeze. “If you know where to grasp it, you can pull strips of the tree’s flesh away without causing any harm. This is one of the first crafts we dryads learn as children.”

“And doesn’t the tree suffer when you take away part of the roots?” he asked.

Vinata’s face lit up in a warm smile, and she looked into his eyes. “So soon and you already care about the life of the forest.”

He smiled back. He wasn’t sure how much he cared just yet, but maybe he could learn to see things from Vinata’s perspective.

“I care,” Ben agreed. “But right now I’m also getting pretty hungry.”

“Of course.” Vinata turned back to her work. “The trees do not suffer if you only harvest a small amount each time. The forest will gladly feed you if you know where to look, and do not succumb to greed.”

Ben watched in surprised wonder as Vinata pried her slender fingers into the flesh of the tree roots, appearing to know just by feel, exactly where the seams were.

With a sucking sound, a strip of the root just pulled away from the rest. Vinata held it out to him.

He took the strip in his hands. It was soft and flexible, much like a strip of animal flesh, not at all rigid and hard like wood. In the moonlight, he could see sap welling up and congealing on the root where Vinata had harvested.

“It won’t be long before the root heals over and grows back,” Vinata explained as she harvested several more strips.

Ben watched her work with attention, though he couldn’t help also watching her petite round breasts on full display as she crouched over the tree roots. Her leafy upper garment appeared better designed to hold than to conceal.

As Vinata handed him the last strip of tree flesh, she saw where his gaze was leading. Her eyebrows arched playfully, and she didn’t seem too bothered by his stare. Ben chuckled, taking his gaze from her chest.

Vinata laughed softly, her voice clear like birdsong. Her smile was open and innocent. If she was embarrassed by him staring at her like that, she didn’t show it.

“You are a strange man.” She studied him with curiosity. “You are bigger and stronger than the menfolk among our dryads, yet you are not brutish like the mountain ogres who took us as prisoners. Where are you from?”

Ben’s mind raced over possible answers to this question as he got to his feet, ready to head back. He would have to tell the nymphs who he was before long, but he had no idea how they would receive this news. He would much prefer to speak to Melody about the matter in private first, and work out the best way to explain the situation. For now, he would have to continue to be vague when speaking with the nymphs.

“I come from a little known region, far away from here,” he said. “It is far from the Arcanarium as well.” Technically none of that was false.

“What do your people do? What are they like?” Vinata persisted as they walked back through the woods. Ben carried the strips of harvested roots in both arms, with the scimitar gripped in his left hand. Vinata walked beside him on his right.

How to characterize humanity? People had spent their lives trying to answer this very question.

First, his mind went to ancient history, to the great empires long passed.

He imagined the Great Pyramid of Giza.

“We’re…creators. My people have built dozens, hundreds, of impossibly complex structures and bridges—monuments to their own glory.”

Then he imagined the Parthenon, the gleaming white, marble cities of ancient Greece. He imagined Greece’s greatest thinkers seated on its steps, discussing the nature of the gods themselves.

“We’re dreamers and philosophers.”

He thought of Rome, legions of warriors clad in blood-red armor moving with perfect discipline, soldiers capable of conquering a continent.

“We’re fighters.”

He thought of the Renaissance, the great sculptures and paintings and works of music.

“My people are artists, no bounds to our creativity.”

He thought of technology, of nuclear power and spaceships and computers that could fit in your pocket.

“My people are builders.”

That word was a mistake. Vinata gave