Your instinct tells you to avoid the town, by afternoon they will all be talking about what happened at your house. You leave the dirt path and head for the forest on the hillside over the town. Th night is warm and when you reach the edge of the forest you are exhausted. Climbing up into the safety of a tree you look down at the town and wonder what to do next.
You take out the manuscript you found and puzzle over it for a while. It was left deliberately, you found it, but you don't know what it means. The stories that the people of Phoenicia put symbols on papyrus with very complex meanings have been around for years but you've never seen anything like this. You decide to try to sleep as you lie in the thick moss on the tree's branches.
"Wood you like a friend you wood, you wood need a friend you wood right now you wood" Your whole body trembles, your mind is somewhere between sleep and consciousness. In a world between Olympus and the Earth. "Wood you like to talk? I wood, wood you?" A cold rough hand touches your arm, you feel no shock, just peace, contentment, like the touch of a lovers hand in a time of strife. "I am the Beech Dryad, you would call me Bee, if you wood". Captivated by the sense of ease you embody in this strange presence you muster two words, "Please, explain." You friend knows exactly what you mean and speaks:
"Much is coming from Olympus, a power has been granted by the great Zeus to your kind. But put power in foolish hands and a disaster wood surely occur. You hold the power but know not what it is. You must go to Phoenicia to decipher what has been ciphered".
One hundred questions filled your mind but the sense
of ease - so welcome at first, now sealed your lips in a horrible lethargy.
The dryad was gone and the air was too warm again. You make up your mind to
move on.
