Excerpt: Origins of the Species

A few hours later, Bruce found himself walking out towards the edge of the woods, dressed in a hemp robe and carrying what Gaia had called a Staff of Nature, and what Bruce believed to be, in fact, a large knobbly stick.

This was, in Bruce’s experience, the epitome of the Bad Result. Underneath, Bruce knew that it was always risky to get involved in any kind of one-night stand, and a one-night stand with a woman who’d just had you dragged through the woods by a grumpy blue goblin really should have been a no-brainer.

Come to think of it, no-brainer was just about the perfect description for the whole episode.

So here he was now. Ten minutes of sex, almost an hour relaxing and enjoying the glow, and all of a sudden he was the Chief Druid of the New Order of the Monks of Gaia. Or so Gaia had informed him, along with a number of other things that he didn’t understand and, in his heart of hearts, really didn’t want to know.

This was, without doubt, the worst date he’d ever been on.

“Now, you’ve got to be careful with that power that Gaia gave you,” said the goblin, who was leading Bruce along the way. “It’s not something to be toyed with.”

“That’s one thing I didn’t quite understand,” said Bruce, hefting the staff in one hand. “What exactly does this staff do?”

“You didn’t get that, even? Blimey, you’re a bit thick in the head. Never did figure out how she ended up picking her champions, but then it’s her choice, isn’t it? Anyway, listen close. It carries with it some of Gaia’s essential power,” said the goblin. “If you squeeze the staff, you can feel it inside, pulsating.”

Bruce decided not to follow the obvious line of jokes about squeezing a pulsating staff, and instead followed the goblin’s instructions.

“And then what?”

“Once you feel that energy, you can just open your mind to it and let it flow inside you. It’ll give you strength, speed and energy, just when you need it. But it’s not a limitless supply of power.”

“No, I suppose there’s only so much magic you can get inside a knobbly stick,” said Bruce.

“That is the Staff of Nature, not some knobbly stick!” yelled the goblin, hopping up and down in annoyance. “It’s one-of-a-kind, that thing is!”

“There’s only one of it?”

“There’s only one of that one,” said the goblin, hedging his bets. In fairness, the goblin had only existed for around a day, and wasn’t quite sure what was and wasn’t true, but he wasn’t about to admit anything like that to Bruce. “And it’s special. That one right there is special.”

Bruce had to wonder why, if the staff was so special, they hadn’t made it look special. It was the kind of stick that he’d picked up in the woods as a boy when he wanted to use it to climb up hills, a process that usually meant he took twice as long to climb the hill while he carefully planted the stick every step of the way. He could have picked up a dozen like it in the woods without trying. Even the knobbles had the ill grace to appear in the wrong places, so that rather than having a gnarled, winding staff with a clustered knot that formed a head, he instead looked like he was walking around carrying a giant Twiglet.