Chapter 114. Tree Up!

Dweezil was right. Pretty much the entire clan turns up to gawk at the zeppelin. And there's a circle of unaffiliated just behind the glade's perimeter. Three layers deep and several layers tall. And I suspect it wasn't even moreso simply because everyone who didn't have anything vitally important to do turned up to look and there were simply no more elves to thicken it even further. Bridgit, Lily-Anne and Roxolane disembark by the ramp. I've decided not to give out the fact that Bridgit can teleport. Just in case. Hopefully, this precaution is unnecessary, but... just in case, indeed. Moon Unit is explaining to them the current state of events, while I'm examining the dead tree they want me to remove. It's a pretty sizable specimen, but not a particularly old one, as far as I can tell. Ash, as it so happens. Which is a little... ominous, given that as far as I remember, nordic legends posited Yggdrasil to be ash as well. I can already feel this is going to be... odd.

Practically speaking, ash is one of the hardest woods available in this part of the world. So I'm not surprised elves put off the removal of this husk for so long. It's a lot of effort... For anyone else. For me, hmm well... Let's see... the roots are going here, and here and here, and... hmmm... HMMM... KINETIC ADJUSTMENTS HERE, HERE AND HERE... STRIP THE EARTH... TRIM, MULCH, MIX... HMMM... QUALITY TIMBER, SLICE IT UP.

"...Oh. Oh wow." - someone says behind me.

"Yes?" - I ask, turning around. It's Moon Unit... and the rest of my harem.

"Is that... the tree that was here just now?" - Lily-Anne pitches in, gesturing towards the stack of planks next to me - "Good grief, Alyssa, how are you a lumbermill all of a sudden?"

"Remember what I told you? Tool of Gods." - Moon Unit teases her - "Honestly, why are you even surprised?"

Lily-Anne just snorts at her. Then asks me - "Well, that is done then? All that's left is to plant the sapling and wait for it to grow into a tree? I'm sure it will be fine in a few decades or so."

I shake the handful of seeds I was able to salvage from the ash. I'm... getting ideas. Honestly, this is... well. Hm. So there's actually enough nutrients, and those seeds aren't that hard to control... Hrrrm... And into the ground those seeds go. Now, let's see here. ACCELERATE. CONTROL. TRANSMUTE. SHAPE. DEFINABLE REPLICATION. LOW-LEVEL INTERFACE. FRAMEWORK. AESTHETICS. ERGONOMIC DESIGN. PROVISIONS FOR ADDONS. BASIC NETWORK PROTOCOL... SCALABILITY ACCEPTABLE. TESTING. DIMENSIONALLY STABLE. LEAKS NOT FOUND. PHOTOSYNTHESIS QUICK TESTING... PASSED. SUSTAINABILITY... PASSED. OBSERVATION PENDING. STRUCTURIZE UPDATES... VARIANCE... HM. NEURAL NETWORK SORTING/LEARNING, SEED THE BASIS...

Ok, this should do the trick, it would scan in the tree types and find commonalities before trying to plug in... Wait. Just what the fuck did I... Oh. Oh fiddlesticks. Well... residence get? Who is knocking on me. And why. Oh, hey there, Moon Unit... Why I'm a tree?... Good question... Oh, I was testing the network protocol... Oh. Fudge. I did it again. It being... uh... Scalable programmable treestruction?... So... well, shit. I'll have to teach Moon Unit's siblings how to work this thing, won't I? I mean, I kind of... took over the whole glade? Not that they actually know yet. But they will... Hence it's best if I tell them. Bother bother bother bother.

"Yes?" - I try to say. Then I realize I'm a tree currently. So I change back to my "normal", and repeat - "Yes? Sorry, I got distracted."

"Distracted enough to turn into a tree?" - Moon Unit quips sardonically - "...Well. Let's go explore the, uh... what do we even call this? Living tree? Treehome? Unbelievable wonder of forest flavor?"

So... I have taken the idea of a treehouse and run with it... way the hell away. What we have is... superficially, huge ash. With rooms being grown into the bulk of the trunk. The bottom seems to be a fairly sizable salon, the middle level seems to be a number of small rooms encircling a bigger central one, and the top level is a big room and several smaller ones, arranged in a way that implies a luxury apartment to me. The big room is the bedroom, two bathrooms, one big for soaking, one small for quick necessities, a kitchen and... hm. This is sort of study, I guess? The stack of planks from behind me is gone, and I think it went into making furniture for this domicile. Along with a bunch of stuff I teleported from the storerooms in Parsee and Grand Forge, apparently.

Roxolane tugs my arm lightly. "I think you might have, um... befuddled the people around." - she proffers softly. This revelation prompts everyone to take a look around. Moon Unit facepalms slowly at the sight of the whole damn clan staring at the newly grown tree in openmouthed wonder. Mostly. The rest seem to stare at me with expressions I have no choice but to consider reverent. Bother bother bother bother. Totally didn't intend this, but, whatever...

___

I do my best NOT to react to the rather palpable reverence I'm being bombarded with. I'm not even exaggerating, here, the "holy shit, we just saw something incredible and probably sacred" is powerful enough combined to actually feel as a magical influence. Hopefully it will ease down to something less glaring over time... Or at the very least ramp itself into something reminiscent of dwarven reverence. Because they're doing this thing too, but... Hm. Maybe I'm just used to them?... Oh well. Fine. It's not like it's malicious or problematic, just... there, existing within my sphere of awareness. I guess I'll just get used to it.

Anyway. Showing my wives around the newly acquired house. Tree. Treehouse. Hometree. Bleh. Need to figure out the name for it, really. The bottom level is rather obviously a hall. Suitable for welcoming in parties. Because of course I made that thing with dimensional fuckery going on. Spatial compression at a nice 2.3 factor and steady. And an innate property of the tree itself. If something happens, it's going to peter out at about the same rate as the tree itself does. So less "suddenly squish" and more of "will get a little bit smaller each day once it's dead". Center features a column with some sort of vine forming the spiral stairs upwards. Bioluminescent, too, so no missing the stairway. Lights up the whole hall, actually. I left it empty for now. The next level is... hm.

"I think those are guest rooms." - I venture - "Or, hm... visitor rooms? Something like this. Anyway, they're all the same." We have just poked through the closest one. The area around the stairs is set up like a parlor. Plenty of simple poufs and little tables, doors studding the walls, each of them leading into a room. All of them so far look identical, with bed, light source, storage and botanical analog of a chamberpot. Which is an inspired piece of magical munchkinry as it takes pretty much all kind of refuse and transforms it into tree-suitable nutrients. The leftovers that aren't useful (mainly metals and some minerals) are being secreted as globules in a sort of "technical crawlspace" within the central column. Not really accessible to random joe. There is nothing more to see here, so up we go.

"I take it this level is our family space." - Lily-Anne sums up wryly for all of them, as they take in the luxurious environs. For our personal space, I have put in a lot more effort. Good big bed, basin big enough for all of us to stretch in and soak, veritable workshop and library and alchemy lab all clumped together into a "work area" of sorts. I'm just going to call it study. Kitchen. I wonder... oh. Ooh, this is nifty. Open flame is a bad idea within the tree for obvious reasons, so... The solution I went with was in equal measures obvious to me and unadulterated black magic to anyone else. Simply put, the stove is a selection of slices of superdense wood forming heating elements. Each of them has a spiral of nichrome within. Even better, since I did bother including metal separation and refining into the design, the coils are self-replenishing. No burnouts. Electricity plus nichrome equals electric stove.

"So convenient." - Bridgit approves, apparently. I was somewhat worried that she'd be upset I'm hijacking her maidly duties again by including surreptitious floor cleaning into the design, but apparently it's fine. Showing off the laundry section actually gives me a prompt to try and install something similar at all domiciles. Not a problem, I did already make an analog of washing machine for the airship, not that there was a reason to do laundry mid-flight yet.

While I did prepare a lot, there is still a bunch of things to unpack and prepare, and Bridgit takes charge on that. And... I've been exiled to go meet the visitors. Pointing out that if actual princess Lily-Anne is fine with doing those chores, than I definitely am good for it too was in vain... At least, Moon Unit is with me. But this is getting a little grating, and I make a mental note to do a lot of molestation tonight.

___

I have a feeling Dweezil is going to bruise his forehead with all the facepalming. And Ahmet might have dislocated his jaw. Maybe. Oh, nevermind, he can close his mouth, he just feels like keeping it open a whole lot. Oh, and here is the last of Zappa siblings. Diva, unlike the men of the clan, is not struck a case of speechlessness. Rather, she is talking mile a minute right now. It's funny how Moon Unit is the youngest, because Diva sports a serious case of babyface and probably could very well pass for Moon Unit's daughter, if she wanted to.

"...All interesting theories, but none of them are actually close to what I did." - I finally weigh in - "Grand spells have their place, but to handle a lot of detail with a single big spell, it has to be ridiculously complicated. So no, not one spell but rather an immense assortment of basics and cantrips."

"That is all well and good, but!" - Dweezil interrupts in exasperation - "What did just happen?"

"Well... You had a lot of dry ashwood there." - I begin - "I pulled it out, cut it into planks and dowels to put the most of it to good use, then mulched the rest and stuffed it back into the ground as fertilizer. I've been able to salvage a couple of viable seeds as well, so I planted them back and pushed their growth in desired direction. Treestructure is stable, will maintain itself and should last for a good long while. Then I used the planks and dowels to construct some basic furniture, pulled the rest of the needed materials from my warehouses in Parsee and in the estate and that's pretty much it. There is a provision for the treestructure to spread to other trees and convert them to domiciles as well, but they won't be as spacious or well-planned as this one. I'll leave that one up to you, here's the manual on the controls."

Dweezil looks at the stack of paper as if it was a live cobra. Ahmet just looks flabbergasted and pained. Diva, on the other hand, gleefully snatches the papers and immediately starts to read them.

"Just... one question." - Dweezil finally forces out - "Does this, uh... connection work only within our glade?"

I shake head - "Nah, it... wait, actually, let me check... Ah, good, the basic network had already propagated itself through the Evergreens. Ostensibly speaking, you can command any tree to convert itself to domicile or some kind of utility structure right now. I've put in some prefabs, so you can just convert trees to storages, workshops, kitchens or dormitories at a command. And back to regular tree, of course. There are subsections here to each archetype, for example storage can be for granulars like grain or sand, for liquids like water, stackables like timber or shingles or singulars like tools or glassware. Keep in mind that each tree has a capacity you can't really exceed, but you can grow younger trees quickly if you supply mulch or other fertilizer. Older trees probably won't grow much even if you try, but they should have a pretty good capacity as it is."

I think this is too much for them. Men rather synchronously cover their faces with palms and drop down onto the chairs, groaning. Diva does not even notice, she is far too busy scanning through the network protocol manual and muttering excitedly under her nose. Then she... tries something. Oh. Well... yes, that's not a bad idea, really. I was worried for a moment she'll try to alter the tree we're currently on top of, but she seems to understand it might be a foolhardy idea, so her target is lone beech over yonder. It's still growing, presumably, because there is no walkway connecting it to the perimeter. There WAS none, at least. At Diva's issued commands, beech converts into a... Oh. Welp, I guess I just figured out who the mad scientist in this family is. The bottom level is alchemical laboratory, or at least the setup for one. I think I'll do her a little favor, here... And added to prefabs and current construction. Fume hoods are an important thing. The top level is pretty spartan apartment. She'd have to supply her own furniture there, there was only enough tree resources for the counters downstairs. All in all, pretty respectable first effort.

"Did it work!? It did!" - she yelps and runs out of the room immediately. I can see her entering the newly made place and poke around. Her brothers, in the meanwhile, seem to be still struggling.

"Can I please just hand all of this over to Diva?" - Dweezil pleads with me for some reason. Moon Unit pats his head.

"Uh... yes?" - I hazard a guess - "I mean, if she wants to, than sure, she can be your dedicated tree shaper. Just make sure she takes an apprentice or two and keep the manuals somewhere safe. Here, have a few copies."

"I'm moving there!" - suddenly, a wild Diva appears in the window - "I'm moving to my new place!"

Dweezil just sighs. "Fine, fine." - he mutters - "Come on in for now, I'll get some people together to move your stuff after the dinner."

He pauses, waves his hand, then forges on - "Diva, do you want to take over this completely?"

"This? What do you mean, this?" - she blinks at him.

"You seem to be well suited to using this... tree network, given you've made someplace you actually want to move in to on the first try, no?" - Dweezil proffers reasonably - "So. Do you want to be clan's official Tree Shaper? We obviously want to shape a whole lot within our glades. We also might be selling the expertise to other clans later on a case by case basis. Figure out some impressive-looking rituals to go with it, let's have people think each tree has to be handled individually. Anyone finding out we can just alter any tree at will is going to cause a lot of panic and rash decisions, best keep that one under wraps."

I offer another book to Diva to go along with his suggestion. They all look at it. It's one of the things I have prepared in anticipation of future opportunities. The title is "Timber Industry and You: 101 Spell For Your Wood".

"A couple spells and alchemical know-hows I have put together for production purposes." - I explain - "You should be able to use this and design a couple trees to be dedicated woodwork shops to churn out furniture to specification. And some impressive-looking spells for planning out the place. Just visual illusions and telekinetics when you dig into the mathemagics of it, but looks impressive and sufficiently ritual. I think that would work out well with your ruse."

"Out of curiosity..." - Ahmet begins slowly - "Clan Zappa not being prosperous beyond imagination was never an option ever since Moon Unit caught your eye, was it?"

"Well... yes?" - I mean, what else did he expect? Of course I'd take care to make sure my extended family is wealthy and influential.