I caught most of the branches across my chest, purposely trying to keep them off the brothers. I figured I had a better defense at this point than either of them, and while it was painful, it wasn’t anywhere near debilitating. As the branches retracted, I felt an odd pulse through my body, and a ssage popped into my view for a split second.
Disease ResistedTreerot
I had no idea if that was due to my resistance or because I wasn’t a tree. I hoped it was the second, as that would make the brothers immune as well, but I strongly doubted it. That wasn’t the kind of luck we generally had here. From behind , a blast of fire shot out over my shoulder, striking a solid impact in the center of the monster.
I pulled out my mallet and charged forward, not wanting to waste the impact of Elicec’s fireball. I heard the heavy footfalls of them directly behind . Two branches whipped forward, catching under the chin and drawing blood. Another instance of treerot being resisted popped into my view. I ignored both the ssage and the pain as I slamd my mallet into the side of the tree, feeling it crack under my blow.
More of the branches slashed across my back in response, and it opened its mouth to roar again. I t the roar with a hard swing of my mallet into whatever was inside of it—sothing ruptured with the impact, covering the head of my mallet in a vile green substance. The next roar never ca as another fireball struck it, this ti in the snake-like branches. Both myself and Cecile rained down blows across the trunk at the sa ti, finally splitting the thing in half. Once the top half crashed to the ground, all the movent stopped.
Monsters Defeated
Awakened Tree, Rotting Pine
25 Experience
Experience Gained
25 Points
Multipliers Applied
No Armor
x1.1
No Weapon
x1.1
Total Experience Gained
30 Points
“That wasn’t much experience; I’m not sure this is going to help you guys level up that quickly,” I said. I had been hoping for a lot more, it wasn’t bad for my simulator with the modifiers I could apply, but it was nothing special for them.
“Oh, the real experience is going to be in completely clearing the dungeon, once we remove the core, we should get a good boost there,” Cecile said. I had entirely forgotten about the three quests I had completed when we finished the first dungeon. At the ti, they had been a good early source of experience, so I was wrong. This would still be viable for their leveling, which is great. Sotis, being wrong is for the best.
“Fair enough. Sohow I’d forgotten about that part. So do we want right or left?” I asked, pointing to the three paths we had to pick from.
“Let’s do the two on the right and see what’s hiding down there,” Elicec said.
“Works for ,” I responded, heading to the path closest to the entrance. It didn’t make much of a difference to how we explored this place as long as we cleared it.
The balls of light continued to follow us as we rounded the corridor. There was a second entrance to our left for this new chamber that likely linked up to the one we had just left. I made a note to make sure we backtracked that way to verify it was entirely cleared. Looking ahead into the room, I saw what I was pretty sure were another five or so of the tree things in the distance. I wasn’t sure if they hadn’t spotted us yet or if we were just too far away for them to attack. The last one hadn’t seed able to move from the spot it started in, so if that continued, this place wouldn’t be all that difficult.
“I can count five more of those trees in the distance. What do you two see?” I asked. While their eyes looked the sa as mine, I had no idea if that ant they functioned the sa or not. For all I knew, they had so other specialized senses to detect just what was in the room. I made a note to ask them about it later.
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“Sa,” Cecile said, agreeing with my assessnt.
“I think they’re in range for one of my bigger fireballs, and since they haven’t moved yet, I can likely take the ti to make it a bit more powerful,” Elicec said.
“Go for it. I’ll watch for any movent in the anti,” I replied. I was curious about just what Elicec was capable of with his elental magic, and this should give a good demonstration.
Elicec had closed his eyes, and while I could see his lips moving, I couldn’t make out any words. This was a stark difference from when I had first seen him casting spells. What had changed there? Was it just better skills or more practice? These questions were certainly not important enough to interrupt his casting with. I’d likely find the answers out myself in ti. Elicec raised his hand as a ball of fire about three tis as big as the previous one appeared in it. He lifted it up higher, obscuring his face from view.
He held it there for another minute or so before the ball flew from his palm towards the cluster of undead trees, hitting the one in the middle with a booming impact that exploded into smaller balls of fire. Each of them ignited a different tree as they expanded out from their point of impact. That was our sign to join the battle before the trees had a chance to put themselves out. It took us no ti at all to finish them off as they flailed about, unable to fight back.
Monsters Defeated
Awakened Tree, Rotting Pine x5
25 Experience
Experience Gained
125 Points
Multipliers Applied
No Armor
x1.1
No Weapon
x1.1
Total Experience Gained
151 Points
“Nice job, Elicec,” I said. He had made short work of the trees, which looked to be the only residents of this side of the dungeon. The lights were dancing across the room, illuminating every nook and cranny.
“Ready for the other side?” Cecile asked. I was.
“Yep, let’s take that other path back, just in case there’s sothing in that passage. Seems unlikely with the size, but why chance it,” I said. There was, in fact, nothing, and we continued down the final passage with no other monsters in sight, just the constant weird, wriggling branches on the walls. They seed to be getting more active the deeper we went. It was unnerving, to say the least.
“I really don’t like these walls,” Cecile said, breaking our silent exploration.
“Sa, I have a pretty bad feeling about them. I’m worried they’re connected to sothing deep in the dungeon. When you consider this has all been pretty easy so far, and l’s seemingly lack of confidence with us going here. Sothing just isn’t adding up. So, what I’m trying to say is ‘be on your toes’, guys,” I said, worried about what was coming up.
As we worked our way through an extrely narrow passage, the wriggling all around us suddenly ca to an end. The balls of light flew over my head, showing exactly why that had happened. Laying sideways in the center of the new chamber was a massive tree, with thousands of tendrils growing out from it, blanketing the walls of the room. It had been using them as feelers during our whole exploration, which ant that this thing was expecting us.
As I had this realization, all the little vine-like branches ca back to life, wriggling free of the walls and trying to wrap themselves around us at every point they could. I quickly pushed myself forward out of the cramped corridor to give the brothers a chance to squeeze free as well, but it was too late. They’d already been deeply entangled. I turned back to try to pull them free, but as I did so, I felt sothing new rake down my back and latch onto my ankle.
I found myself lifted into the air by my leg, dangling helplessly as the appendage reeled closer to the opened maw of the monstrous tree. I switched over to my fire elental orb and concentrated on Fundantal Forces, trying desperately to do sothing with it.
In the back of my mind an image of rubbing two sticks together popped up. I focused on it, and the sticks moved faster. I felt the words leave my lips without fully understanding why or where they had co from. “Dry twigs ignite, burn brightly!” I had no complaints, though, as the fire did exactly what I had sohow asked it to do. The branch dropped as the fla engulfed it, running quickly up back towards the monster it was attached to.
I looked back to verify the brothers were still breathing and saw that Cecile had managed sohow to gain control of a few of the branches. Several of them had sprouted leaves and were now wrestling the ones holding them to the wall. That gave all the reassurance I needed to charge forward at the thing trying to kill us.
I switched over to my Imbuing orb as I ran, trying to align my mallet with fire. I felt the mana pour into it, but I wasn’t sure if it had worked. I swung my arm wide at a branch trying to block my path towards the trunk. It ignited on contact, ending my worry. Nothing else stood in my way as I leapt off the ground, coming down hard onto the trunk, feeling my Stomp skill activate as my boots made hard imprints into the rotting wood below.
I followed up with mallet strike after mallet strike into the thing, fighting off each branch as it tried knocking down yet again. A gleaming hoe caught my eye as the blade cut straight through a branch directly attached to the trunk. The brothers had freed themselves and caught up with .
More flas shot out from Elicec as his brother and I continued our onslaught. I heard them both yell in pain, but as the hoe kept breaking away chunks of rotting wood, I had to assu they were okay for now. Finally, after one last mighty swing, I felt the trunk crack deeply as the tree stopped moving. We had won.
Wait, why wasn’t the experience box popping up yet?
The trunk we were still standing on exploded, catapulting us into the air.
Necromantic mana orbs, while common in so portions of the Spiral, are not usually sought after by many factions. They are seen as distasteful by many at the top due to the end results of their use, and this has led to them falling out of favor. That isn’t to say they have in any way disappeared as many a person still uses them in specialized builds, and they are as popular as ever amongst the children of the long silent sun.
An excerpt from Mana Sources by Henjen Klank.
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