[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/220818/8e0297e9cce80d3771104ea7bf0e2917.png[/img][/center] “My god what is a pie? Please, you have to tell me!” was the first thing Jeon heard once he’d finished his little chat with Lektor the bolder kitty. Specifically out of the one that had been unable to answer the goddess' riddle and been charged with creating a Pie as an alternative to becoming kibble. “I think she was joking, Pebble. Right Jeon?” Fern tried to calm her friend, before repeating “Right?” more assertively to Jeon, which the god found quite funny. Making demands of him, a god! He quite liked the attitude, but he was going to have to disappoint her. “Oh not at all. You, my dear Pebble, should be honored! You are quite possibly the first person to be charged with a divine quest!” Jeon replied “She wants me to make a thing I don’t know what it is or else she’s gonna eat me! How is that a blessing!?” Pebble bemoaned her fate, having slumped into Stag’s arms as the elf tried to comfort her “Is she though? I mean there was no ’or else’ in there so maybe it’ll be fine to not do it” “I. Well. Look you don’t want to upset gods you know. We can do anything, and some of us are probably big jerks!” Jeon explained, not really relaying the threat of getting on the wrong side of an actual malicious god that well “That said, think not of the potential consequences, but of the potential boons and rewards that would come with completing the quest!” “What would that be? She didn't exactly say anything about rewards either” Fern pointed out “Well you’ll be able to make more pies, and pies are great!” Jeon said “plus, um, nebulous favor? I’m sure she’ll be impressed if you manage to figure it out!” The elves did not seem convinced, looking between each other before one of the ones who hadn’t spoken yet asked “Can’t you just teach us? Like you did with food and sticks and stuff?” “What. No no no no! That would just go against the whole point of a quest. You can't get other people to do them for you jeez” Jeon sounded appalled at this suggestion, before remembering his audience and saying “Because you wouldn’t be following the spirit of the quest. The hardships and self improvement is like most of the points, especially with gods. We can make anything, so what we want to see is impressive effort! It's not like she’s asking you how to make pies because she can’t make them herself. She wants you to learn, and then to spread that wisdom to all!” “But we don’t even know where to start!” Pebble replied, getting them back to the original problem. “Hmmmm. Hmmmmmm” Jeon held his chin and tapped his foot vigorously as he thought for a few moments. Then he looked to have an idea, but rather than speak one he instead said “give me a few days and I’ll see what I can do” The elves looked dubious at that, but it looked like that was all they were going to get when Jeon clapped his hands together and then said “Now then, how about we blow this joint and you all can go back home and awe your friends with tales of your underground adventure!” which they were all very much on board with and soon enough the elves were climbing back up towards the light. [hr] Once he’d gone his separate way from the underground explorers Jeon set about orchestrating a way for his elves to learn how to make pie without him just handing over the information. That would be dreadfully dull and they did need to learn how to, well, learn as well. So to that end the first thing he did was make a book and detailed on it everything you needed to make an apple pie from scratch, but with a forestry touch to it (Acorn flour (no grains in the woods), penguin eggs, milk (and butter) from a redwood-deer and, of course, apples) along with whole host of other baking recipes, all with plenty of diagrams that would explain things to even the illiterate elves could get some use out of. Now, it was all well and good to list some ingredients, but there were two big missing components here, namely how to actually cook things, and how to milk a (pant) animal in the first place. There were some hints in there of course, but he hoped that having to work those out parts would be a quite helpful learning experience for the elves. Now that it was made, there was no way he was just handing this over either. He’d said as much that if he just told them it would defeat the purpose of the quest. So how then to hand over the information in a way that didn’t just involve, well, handing it over? Well for Jeon this was quite obvious: Make getting the book its own quest! And what better way to start off his adventure making that the classic: a dungeon! But not some same old same old set of tunnels in the ground, Kitty had those covered and he was sure that if he wanted to make the best of the best those he’d want to collaborate with her anyway. So no, instead he’d make something nice and forestry instead. With that in mind he found himself a nice big tree, laid a hand against it, and then made it grow. And grow. And grow. Till it towered three times above its lesser kin and its lower branches where a canopy of their own blocked out the sun. Inside these branches he wove dwellings made from living branches and leaves fusing together in such a way that the tree became home to a small community’s worth of dwellings and homes that were all made out of the tree itself. “There, maybe that can be a hint too” Jeon said to himself, before saying “and now, what to use for the danger? hmmm” before looking around at the trees now smothered by the titan’s sun stealing size and thinking “well, how about we repurpose these!” He snapped a finger and accelerated time for the trees, causing them to crumple and decay around him as he recycled the energy of doomed trees into something else: a heart, one that was rotten and fossilized yet still beating in the god’s palm. It throbbed, pulsed, and then the rotten wood around it started to shift and splinter until grotesque limbs started to form, and then rotten decayed humanoid shapes used those limbs to haul themselves out of the graves of the trees Jeon had condemned, each and every one possessed by the pretty ticked off souls of the dead trees. Their claws were long and gnarled, their eyes glowed red, and they wanted only one thing: destruction. Unfortunately for them, their desire was superseded by that of the rotten heart and what it wanted? Why that was to put up a jolly good fight against anyone invading its dungeon! “So, you know the drill, yeah?” Jeon asked as one of the lumbering dead approached, took the heart, and shoved it into its chest. The tree corpse's face, initially just a gnarled mask, split in twain to form a toothy maw that worked itself, creating horrific sounds as it tried to find words for the first time “grnfoemfn nefmrm nrry heeh. Nyee eh. Nye he.” it tired and then found its rhythm laughing “Nyeh heh he!” and then saying in a nasally and somewhat high pitched yet still male voice “Sure I do boss! Get me ghoulies up in the treehouses, put em in some nice ambush spots, and then show the boys and girls you're inviting over a good time! “Ha ha yes now that's what I’m talking about” Jeon replied, excitedly giving the zombie some finger guns before pausing and asking “ah but one thing, you need a name. Now what’s it gonna be?” “Hmmmmm” the heart in the tree thing pondered as its host body continued to refine itself to its whims, face becoming more skull like, limbs like bony wood coated in solidifying bark armor and then a hooded cape of brown leaves forming over its back and a garbled branch appearing in its arm as it declared “you shall call me… Jim!” “.. Jim?” Jeon asked, finding it oddly close to his own. “Jim the stunningly sinful sorcerer supreme!” he extended it, bowing as he did in such a way that his leafy cloak fluttered in the wind behind him before standing up and holding out a hand and demanding “now, hand over the treasure I’m gonna be guarding nyeh heh he” Still a bit bemused by the name the goat god handed over the cookbook which caused bemusement in Jim, who after saying “What is this? Some arcane tome of unfathomable perhaps?” flipped through it and was forced to conclude that “this is a recipe book for pies? You wish for me, the mighty Jim!, to guard pastry making instructions?” “Well the elves have basically learned about eating, drinking and hitting things with sticks at the moment,” Jeon defended himself “so the secrets of the universe are a bit beyond them at the moment. Besides, it's for a quest! From a god! Who isn’t me! Which makes it a big deal all on its own, yeah?” “A quest?” Jim said, before figuring something out, which was: “Wait. So are you expecting me to lose and for them to claim my treasure?” “Well yeah, you're a bad guy guarding an precious item in a dungeon, and dungeons exist to be beaten, so you know, your loss is kinda the point” Jeon replied, before adding “but don’t go easy on em or anything, i want this to be a proper adventure and test of their mettle. Or wood I guess, ha!” “But, then when they win, won’t they kill me?” Jim asked, suddenly fearful for the first time “you know for getting in the way and trying to kill them and stuff” “Whaaaat? No no no no. or I mean they’ll try, but your heart’s super tough, so much so that they straight up can't hurt it with the sticks and stuff they’ve got. Just play dead and you’ll be fine. Or make a dramatic escape, those are fun too. Be all like “I’ll get you next time you meddling elves nyeh heh he!” or something and then throw yourself from the canopy. You’ll live and they wont be able to follow” “Oh? ... Ok great!” Jim perked up at finding out he was invincible, before frowning again and scratching his wooden skull “Wait. So. What happens after I 'die' or run off?” “Eh, we’ll figure it out” Jeon replied with a shrug and then adding “Don’t think too much about the future, just live in the moment and ham it up buddy, and I know you’ll do great” and patting his creation on the shoulder reassuringly. “Ah. hmm. Well then, there's only one thing left to say then isn’t there?” Jim said, before pointing dramatically upwards towards his new treetop dungeon home and commanding “Climb my minions climb! Let’s go prepare to roll out a warm welcome to those no good adventurers, nyeh heh he he he he he heh!” [hider=summary] Jeon Du Termas talks to the underground exploration party about the quest they have gotten (to make a pie) and tells him that he can’t just teach them as that would be cheating. So instead he sends them home and goes off to make a quest for them to do that will help them along their way: retrieve the ledger artifact known as Grannysmith’s cookbook which will give them an idea of how to make a pie, (once they figure out fire and milking and such). Then he makes a massive tree, puts living wood homes in it to form a dungeon, and finally creates Jim, a petrified heart with necromantic powers to act as guardian of the cook book. [/hider] [hider=mp] Jeon De Termas: 1 mp/2 ap 1mp: artifact: Granysmith’s cookbook: can be used to learn how to cook an apple pie once the prerequisite technologies have been acquired (fire -> cooking and some form of domestication for dairy products) 1 ap (discounted from 2 from adventure!) monument/landscaping/legendary beast (hard to say what this counts as tbh): big tree house dungeon 1 ap (discounted from 2 using adventure!) legendary ‘beast’: Jim (of many titles): a calcified heart that still beats and is capable of reanimating anything that once had a soul into undead creatures serving his will. Seeing as everything has a soul, well, that gives him a lot of options. His heart is very sturdy, requiring strong magical or divine power to destroy, but his body is always just another reanimated minion crafted into a personal vessel for him to pilot and give villainous speeches using. None spent [/hider]