Rose could, in fact, get the trees to shape themselves into houses. Even open up spaces inside the larger trunks to function as rooms. It wasn't a fast process though. Her Class was definitely a non-combat one. Bernard couldn't see her managing to defeat more than maybe a sloth of some sort with the glacial speed at which the trees moved to her song. She had a pretty voice though, which was good since it would take hours if not days of her singing for each house.

Bernard was more interested in getting a private, or private-ish since they were just kind of out in the open forest, conversation with Leo. Rose was clearly not related to the man. She had some obvious asian heritage, and even if she was of mixed descent there wasn't even the slightest resemblance to the tall, muscular black man. He suspected their situation wasn't too different from his and Henry's. He made eye contact and nodded to the side while the girl was distracted.

The weapons had been put away and the natives were so enthralled by the magic the girl was working that she was doubtlessly already considered an even more powerful spirit than he was. That meant it was both safe, and an opportune time to touch base with the first sane-seeming person he had met so far. "So how'd it go for you guys?" He asked when they were a reasonable distance from the others.

Leo sighed. "I was already out here doing a geological survey, fascinating stuff really…" He glanced at Bernard and shook his head. "Sorry, not important. I was already here when Aegis came. I watched three of my colleagues dissolve right in front of me as it said 'converting 46.87 percent of sapients to biomass' and shortly after that Rose just appeared in our camp. We were desperately trying to figure out what was going on when a nightmare erupted from the forest. It was some sort of scaled octopus with snake bodies and heads instead of tentacles.

"The thing killed the only other member of our expedition and our guide, and would have killed Rose and I if Roberto hadn't managed to stab it several times before dying. Shortly after that we were offered class choices, and started trying to find a way out of here. What about you two? He your son? You don't look like locals."

Bernard shook his head. "No, I was dropped here alone. I found Henry and his mom when they were under attack from snake-monkey things. She didn't make it." He went on describing everything they had been through and how he was considering just staying. It was nice to have another adult to talk to that didn't see him as a religious icon.

"You have a point. I've been avoiding thinking about the fact that half the population was just… erased. At first I was desperate to get home to my wife as fast as I could, but I had to force myself to be realistic. Not only do I not stand a chance on my own, odds are she isn't going to be there. Technology doesn't work, or at least nothing we had at the camp did. Some more robust stuff might still work, engines maybe. Anything electric seems to have been fried.

"Without vehicles or tools it will take months or more to get home, and that's ignoring the fact that crazy monsters can literally just appear out of thin air around you." Leo shrugged. "I'm still going to try, and I'm going to continue to hope and pray that she is alright, but I need to be stronger before I go looking. That's why we headed to this zone when it was announced. Humanity needs to work together if we want to survive this."

Bernard nodded. "I'm sorry, I can't imagine how that must feel. I don't have anything to go back to, but I promise I'll do my best to help you get strong enough to make the trip home as fast as we can manage it. If I want to protect myself and others I need to be a lot stronger too. So, on that note, what can your class do? I have a connection to the forest, and get alerted to the presence of those monsters that spawn from thin air. Other than that I can take a hit. Still working on getting better at fighting without taking those hits, but it's worked out so far."

Bernard chuckled. "I can shape earth and stone, any kind of it really. I was always fascinated with the secrets buried in the ground around us, and getting the ability to control it with my mind was irresistible. It takes energy, so I have to end fights as quickly as I can, and this forest has made things extra tricky with the number of things that come at you from above. I think I would do better on an open plain."

"Oh, and if you want me to be useful defending your treehouses you'll want to have piles or baskets of dirt up there for me to use. Here, an example." He waved his arm and a thin spike of compressed dirt erupted from the ground. It was somewhere around 3 feet tall, and Bernard could see how it would be highly effective on anything close to the ground.

"I can also make walls, but it takes a lot of energy to properly compress things enough to make them permanent. I didn't compress this spike at all really, since it's just an example." He walked over and swatted it and it crumbled. "It wouldn't have hurt anything as loose as it was."

Bernard nodded. "We'll make sure you have something to use, I don't want anyone to be defenseless if they don't have to be. Can you launch the spikes? Shoot them at things?" Leo was about to answer when Bernard spun around to face the edge of the zone. "Abomination." he hissed. "Henry!"

Stolen story; please report.

He sprinted in the direction of the monster, not bothering to check if anyone was following. Henry would, he knew that without even having to think about it. The hunters might, and Leo might, considering his desire to get stronger. The sound of familiar footfalls behind him brought a grim smile to his face. Henry had gotten faster, and was rapidly improving his ability to move in the forest.

It didn't take long to find the voidlings. There were six, and horrifying in a way he simply didn't have words for. Spiders the size of a doberman with upside-down human faces frozen in a rictus of fear instead of the normal spider-face. He arrived just in time to see them drop a pair of jaguars with sprays of webbing. Disturbing sprays of webbing, since they came from the mouth of the spider instead of the spinnerets at the back end where he expected it.

He was deeply unsettled by the way those human mouths stretched unnaturally wide to spray sticky spider silk, and even more unsettled by the nasty-looking mandibles that protruded from the mouth when they did so. He needed them to die. He needed them to die yesterday.

He swung Thistle, having decided to just give it the name officially, before he was actually in its apparent range. The long, thick handle unraveled as the spiked head flew at the closest spider. It was caught off guard, and the increased weight of the wooden spike-ball let it land on the spider's face with a satisfying crunch. He pulled back and it obediently retracted, returning to its normal form as a great mace. Foul green goo dripped from its spikes.

"Hah!" He crowed, pleased to have made a strong showing for once. He swung one-handed at a spider as it charged him, batting it away, then punched another as it came from the other side with a thorned gauntlet. A foot crashing into that spider's side heralded Henry's arrival.

"What the fuck are these things!" He shouted a bit hysterically.

"Language!" Bernard shouted back. He chose to ignore the hypocrisy of him telling the kid to watch his language.

"Okay, what the fudge are these things!" Henry shouted back, punctuating his words with the sound of flesh pounding into chitin.

"Things that need to be dead!" Bernard replied as he smashed Thistle onto a spider's face as it charged him. That made two dead.

"Thank you Captain Obvious!" Henry growled. "Hah! Necrosis works on 'em! That's three for me!"

Bernard realized something was wrong at that moment. He had charged in because there were only six of them and they didn't look particularly strong. But if Henry had killed three, and he killed two, that should leave one. The problem was, he was facing four very alive spider-demons. Three sharp earthen spikes erupted from the ground beneath the spiders closest to him, punching through their carapace and stopping them in their tracks. Ichor gushed from the wounds, pooling at the base of the spikes.

Leo had joined the fight. "They're dropping in from above!" He shouted.

"Henry, protect Leo!" Bernard called, more worried about the other man than himself. He knew he could take a hit, and venom shouldn't be much of a problem. If he could draw them to him, with Leo taking them out quickly and Henry cleaning up any that got around him, they could manage this.

He underestimated the number of spiders they were facing.

Before long, six turned into a dozen, then that dozen turned into two dozen. Thistle wasn't the only thing coated in ichor before long, and the only reason he was still on his feet was the fact that his armor had put down roots and prevented him from slipping. Suddenly that well-rooted feat was looking pretty good. Every time a spider crashed into him and fractured his roots, pushing him back and hurting his armor, he pushed it up the priority list.

Luckily his armor loved being coated in any kind of blood. None of the ichor that splashed onto his armor stayed there for long. Thick thorns had sprouted all over, and he could feel a strange sort of glee coming from it. It probably meant his armor was evil. Scratches and cuts from the surprisingly sharp tips of the spiders' legs began to build up on him faster and faster, as they found the gaps in his armor. Still, he held his ground as the fight drug on.

He wasn't sure how long it lasted, only that he suddenly ran out of spiders to fight. He was nearly waist deep in dead spiders, and there were dozens of their corpses scattered about with stone spikes stuck in them. When he turned he saw Henry, nursing a few cuts of his own and one arm webbed to his chest, also surrounded by a fair number of dead spiders. Leo was unharmed, although it looked like some of them had gotten close.

There was also webbing everywhere, but it didn't stick to his armor very well, so it hadn't bothered him. What did bother him was the message they got.

Congratulations! Your party has slain forty seven adolescent voidling spawn!

Congratulations! You have earned enough energy to advance to level six! Would you like to advance now?

The level message was both welcome and elicited a bit of a groan as he realized that he had forgotten to take care of that earlier. The other one though raised one very important question. If those are adolescent spawn, where's the one that spawned them?