D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

“What did you do for fun, or just to stave off boredom? Do you guys have like… books and stuff? Or is that a bit icky to think about?” asked Lily.

Mint shrugged, “We make plenty of things from wood, so books are perfectly normal to have. I suppose the comparison would be like… like making wigs from real people hair? Or perhaps a sculpture out of nail clippings?” Mint ignored the shudders from Kat and Lily at the latter suggestion. “As for fun… well…

“We don’t really focus on fun too much as children. I think it comes from the fact that we can’t get bored. It’s simply impossible. As a species dryads just do not experience it. We can loose focus on a task, we can become slow and lethargic if we’ve had no sunlight on our main tree for an extended period of time, but boredom is simply impossible.

“The saying ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ is scarily accurate to some dryads. We can rather easily ‘zone out’ and go into a semi-dormant state if we don’t have enough mental stimulation. It’s not considered a problem, and if we don’t delve too deeply into it the longest we’ll remain unaware is until spring comes and gives us a bit of a jolt, but normally something will grab our attention before it gets that bad,”

“So… you can’t get bored?” asked Lily, mostly rhetorically. “That’s such a strange thing. I mean… it makes sense because you’re trees and all but it’s still strange to think about. So… you can’t get bored at all?”

Mint shook her head and explained, “Not at all. It doesn’t necessarily mean we can focus on a dull task forever, for while we might not get bored, if the task lacks stimulation our mind might decide that we’re trying to sleep, regardless of what we’re doing with our hands or branches, depending on the form. So it’s still a risk. We can’t just… copy out books for people or make nails endlessly. It becomes dull, and then we become ‘sleepy’ for lack of a better word.,”

“Wait… do you sleep?” asked Lily.

“Sort of? When night comes we get a dip in energy, and we can easily drift off into something close to sleep until the sun rises, but we don’t necessarily NEED it like the other races. Sleep for us is… it’s like a magical crystal. As the level of magic in the crystal goes down, you need to recharge it. We’re the same. As we use energy, eventually we need to recharge. Though if you’re big and strong enough you can take in more energy then you use up doing things and avoid sleeping.

“We don’t really dream, not like the other races. Which can be really strange when one of us gets ‘dream’ affinity. Grape actually has it, and apparently it works really strangely on dryads. It’s both more and less effective. Oh, and we can review our memories as we rest, but it’s not the same, or so I’m told. It’s not really an area I cared much about before, so I don’t know it that well,” explained Mint.

*It can be strange just how different dryads are. A lot of the other races are ‘like humans but X’ or I suppose ‘Like the others but more Y’. Dryads though… they seem really different. I wonder if it’s their nature as more plant based then… what meat based? Huh, you know… I wonder if it’s because they don’t have brains? Do they have brains? Surely they don’t have a brain like we do.*

[Their original tree probably acts like a brain… and a heart, and lungs. It probably acts like a lot of things really. I do get what you mean though. I wonder if it’s something that’s been study?]

*How though? It’s not like they have access to any other species that are plant based like dryads to compare them too.*

[Hmm… yeah though I wonder if Alraunes exist in this world. Probably not, I’m sure the dryads would’ve mentioned it, but I do wonder.]

*I only vaguely remember those from the list. What are they?*

[They’re… well if dryads are tree people then Alarunes are flower people. Just as stationary most of the time, and they’re sort of like the Succubi of the plant-based person family. Though they aren’t strictly female, they just tend to look that way, because well, flowers.]

*I don’t get it.*

[I think it’s because they are predisposed towards the idea of ‘beauty’ and with magic as a real thing these days… I wonder if it’s that they’re actually aligned to the concept in some higher energy way instead of just genetics. It would explain the female dominance in their looks, because most men are considered ‘handsome’ which might have different magical alignments.]

*I sort of get what you’re saying. But that’s more your wheelhouse then mine so I’ll just trust you’re idea is correct.*

[No Kat, it’s an educated guess. Don’t just listen to me.]

*Lily is always right. I see. Noted.*

Lily just rolled her eyes. “Sorry, Kat and I got into a minor… argument feels combative so… discussion? Yeah, a discussion about what makes dryads so different from the other races and we were wondering if you know why?”

“Nope, sorry,” said Mint. “It’s something I’d like to know as well, and Thyme… well… they don’t really care? I mean, they did need to know a lot of these differences, and catalogue them to help teach about the subject but the ‘why’ isn’t something Thyme was interested in investigating too deeply. Maybe it’s something I’ll do in the future when I’ve grown up a bit. What ideas did you both have?”

“Well we had two,” said Lily knowing she could put things a bit more eloquently then Kat. “The first is that most races seem more aligned with the ‘animal’ side of the world, while dryads are aligned with the ‘plant’ side of it instead. The other idea is that it’s because you guys don’t have brains. Or at least, we don’t think you do?

“On my home planet, we know that it’s the brain, the thing stuck inside an animals skull,” Lily tapped her own for emphasis, “that let’s us think. Everything else might help us live, but our brains are the drivers. Dryads though, they seem to be based on their main tree… but we’ve got no reason to think that tree has a brain somewhere, or that it acts as ‘just’ a brain,”

Mint considered the ideas for a few moments, “I think they both have some merit. I’m not really sure which would make more of an impact. I don’t know of anything with a brain that’s more plantlike, and I don’t know anything without them that’s more ‘animallike’ without a brain. Then again, it’s also not something I’ve looked for? They could also be connected. The whole brain thing. Oh, and yes, dryads don’t have brains. .

“Well, some of these bodies do. Thyme’s been testing it out and having a sort of brain-like structure does help with moving everything correctly but it’s still in development. Our main trees though are basically indistinguishable from regularly trees. That’s one of the reasons it’s so hard to pick out all the trees with potential to be dryads.

“As I’ve said before, we’re pretty sure we can pick out those differences… sometimes. Some people think every tree can be a dryad, though we do know that the trees need to be a certain size. Most smaller tree species can never turn into a dryad. So that might be a limitation. Not enough… stuff… in the trees to give us sentience?”

“Actually, what do normal dryads grow up to do?” asked Lily, after thinking about it for a few moments.

“Well… a lot of them do nothing. Thyme isn’t very happy with that and they’ve been trying to fix it, what with making us more involved with the other races and learning more stuff… but a lot of the older dryads just don’t do anything. They just… live, tend to their tree and occasionally chat with each other.

“See… we don’t really need anything. The sun gives us more than enough food, the rains make sure we have enough water. Our presence invigorates the soul so that’s never an issue. The only thing we have to fear is certain magical predators, like magical termites but they’re not too hard to get rid of with a few secret techniques… which mostly just boil down to throwing mana at the problem. Something most dryads have plenty of,”

Lily almost wanted to ask how they could live like that. ‘Wouldn’t they get bored’ was the thought… for just a moment. No, that’s the thing. They couldn’t get bored. A dryad with no drive could live for hundreds of years before any problems might arise, where a human would starve in only a few days. Truly, an different way of looking at the world.