Paul Anderson

Paul Anderson is presumably a mage within the story of The Man Who Hungered For Trees, a programmer who uses neighbors to create sophisticated code at the expense of sacrifices. His disappearance serves as the main mystery of the short story.

Appearance
Paul Anderson is a middle-aged man of forty-nine years of age and otherwise seemed unremarkable.

Personality
To everyone else, Paul seemed to be a bit of a genius but an oddity who refused to live in a place closer to work and in a relatively isolated shack within Edinburgh. He rarely spoke to even Alan, who was essentially his caretaker, barring a warning against him entering the shack and to tell him he lacked any talent and should have quit years ago.

He would stare at a computer screen for hours on end, only to frantically start typing in bursts and never had an interest in anything else. He would occasionally stare out at the shed he kept in the back as well.

History
At some point in the past, Paul gained an understanding of a ritual to use brownies to program complex coding for the game company that he worked with at the expense of sacrifices. He then entered into an agreement to work for them as long as they paid the costs of his electric bills and other expenses. He programmed for them and had Alan acting as their in-between man.

The Gold Yarn
Paul only appeared at the end of the short story after returning from the other side of what was presumably the world of the fae, reborn from a large bud. He used Alan as a sacrifice to keep his subroutines going after using his own old body in order to cultivate the tree to fulfill a complex programming process from their boss.

Abilities

 * Magic : Paul at the very least demonstrated that he knew the intricacies of rituals to use fae as programming assistants and cannabis plants as subroutines, allowing for complex engines and processes to be created that were years ahead the field.

Quotes

 * (To Alan): "Alan, you are part of the tree now. You can never escape from the jungle I've created. Once you become a tree, you can travel to where the neighbors are."