Chapter Sixty-Four
Before he took off, he focused on the bond, but like before, Solanine’s side felt closed. Should he wait until she woke up? It wasn’t a good idea to fly off without notice. Sure, it was only a scouting mission, but that didn’t mean something bad couldn’t happen.
On that thought, he pushed at the bond harder, earning himself a spike of annoyance from the other end. An irritable flat tone spoke through the bond soon after. “What do you want?”
He almost felt bad, but it was better to have an annoyed but informed snake. “I wanted to let you know I’m going to go scout.”
There was a few second delay before she responded. “Okay, I will reinforce our defenses. Our test revealed several flaws I must rectify.”
A shiver ran through Arden at the thought of a reinforced Solanine hellscape. He hoped no more intruders came and not just because he wanted their territory to be left alone.
At what point did her defenses cross into war crime territory? Well, it would be the intruder’s fault if they tried to invade, so it didn’t matter.
Arden sent his acknowledgement through the bond before shifting to his bird form.
Once in the air, he circled the massive tree as he went through his mind, trying to pinpoint where the nearest fuzzy image was. All he got was vague directions. To make it worse, even if the images were clear, there was nothing but stone trees surrounding them.
Suddenly he stilled. All but one. At the edge of one fuzzy image was a hint of green. His heart skipped a beat. That was far too close. If a faction occupied it, they were right on their doorstep. So much for a simple scouting mission. They couldn’t just leave a vulnerability so close to their territory core. He had to claim it if there was anything to claim.
Arden orientated himself to the north and shot off. It only took him a few minutes to reach the edge of the green, but nothing appeared within sight. Beyond the resurrecting forest was nothing but stone trees. Worse, there were a couple of locations to the north. All he could do was fly and hope he stumbled upon one.
Stumble upon he did. Only a few minutes later, he spotted something in the stone forest. That something turned out to be a treehouse or what was left of one. Only one wall and half the floor remained. If he wasn’t looking for anything, there was no way he would have spotted it. A crumbled tree house wasn’t what the fuzzy image displayed, however.
He lowered to just above the stone trees, emerald eyes scanning for more clues. More tree houses stood out to him, each one in various states of ruin, none intact. It was a miracle anything remained if they were as old as he thought they were.
Finally, his eyes caught on what he was looking for. At the base of a much larger than normal stone tree was a cave.
Now, with the target in sight, he circled several times, scanning for anything with his senses. Like with the tower, nothing stood out to him at the first few scans, but upon looking deeper, he felt a faint hint of mana.
This time, it was far fainter than before, so faint he wasn’t sure how it existed. If the state of the Ash Forest dungeon was anything to go by, he doubted there was anything left to fight back. At least if it was a dungeon. Maybe it was something else.
He refused to make the same mistake as the tower, so he continued to circle. Each time, he dropped a little lower, hoping to get a better look. Just as he passed by the cave, a weak melody reached him.
Like the territory tree, it felt off as if broken. That discovery sprouted both apprehension and relief. If it had a broken melody, that meant there likely wasn’t an intruding faction controlling the cave. Unfortunately, it also meant whatever was inside was in a poor state. Worse, he didn’t have a staff full of mana to resurrect whatever was within.
He couldn’t brute force it, but maybe he could take a more surgical approach. If the ruin was so close to the central tree, it had to be important. Maybe some capital city, as there weren’t any runs around the central tree. Though based on the size of the stump, the tree could have been the ruins.
Should he risk entering the cave? Did he have a choice? It was too close to their territory core to leave unattended. Close enough that maybe he should drag in back up.
Said murder noodle seemed murder noodle adverse, but with how close it was, she could probably reach it on foot. It was worth a try. Besides, if there were hostiles it would be an excellent opportunity to practice their teamwork.
Arden opened his connection to Solanine. “I found the nearest location. It seems to be some tree house city. At the center is a cave I think might be a dungeon or something similar. Do you want to provide backup? If you don’t want me to carry you, it’s only five kilometers at most run to the north.”
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As usual, Solanine took her time to respond. During the delay, he felt flashes of several emotions varying between determination and fear. Guessing what she was fighting with herself, he let her work it out as he flew in circles above the stone tree.
However, after almost five minutes of her internal war, he had to step in. “I don’t know what you went through, but you can’t let the fear beat you. If you need help, please ask. I’m willing to listen. We are in this together.”
Determination spiked brighter than the fear, though just barely as she spoke. “Come get me.”
A tinge of worry filled him, but he shot off toward their territory core, which was visible from the cave. Too visible. If there was a faction occupying the cave, all they would need to do was climb onto one of the ruined tree houses to see the massive tree.
He tried to put that worry out of his mind in favor of the other worry. Just because Solanine’s determination won out, it was a narrow victory. What if she locked up on them?
Still, it was a risk he needed to take. She handled herself fine in front of the Ashwood patriarch. Well, mostly fine, so it should be okay. Hopefully.
A few minutes later, Arden returned to the capital clearing to find Solanine. She stood in the open, donning the scaly armor she wore during the trial dungeon. Even from high above, her trembling was obvious, but even still she shifted to her snake form as Arden approached.
Like they practiced, she straightened herself out, but she continued to tremble. As fast as he could, he dropped into the clearing, shifting to stall momentum. Only for a moment, though, as his increased flight competence allowed him to parachute the rest of the way down.
Snake in his talons, he took flight once more. He had to fight to not clamp down too hard on the trembling snake as they flew over the treetops.
Fortunately, the flight didn’t take long. Despite the extra weight, he made record time reaching the cave in about a minute. As soon as he swooped down, Solanine wiggled out of his grip, then shifted.
With an impact that made him wince, she landed on the ground and stumbled several steps before coming to a limping stop. She shifted her weight off her right leg. After eating an unknown leaf brimming with nature mana, she shifted her weight even once more.
Not wanting to leave Solanine alone, Arden joined her soon after with a much softer landing in his humanoid form.
As he approached her, he noticed her frowning at the cave. “Why did you call backup for this? The dungeon inside isn’t even active. It’s in a mana starved dormant state, and going by its melody it might not wake up even with an influx of mana.”
Arden shrugged his shoulders, trying to hide the fact he didn’t know it was a dormant dungeon. He really needed to learn more about dungeons and territory functions. “I didn’t want to take another risk and besides, I figured since it was so close, we may as well delve it together.”
Solanine continued to stare into the cave, unimpressed. “There won’t be any delving into this dungeon. It doesn’t have enough mana to build a dungeon. It is a dormant dungeon core. Even the dungeon core isn’t worth anything damaged as it is. It might be better to destroy it to remove a vulnerability.”
She had a point, but he may as well try to resurrect it. Another dungeon so close to their territory core could be a boon. If he resurrected and claimed it, they had a third teleport near their territory core.
Since Solanine didn’t seem worried about hostiles, Arden strode into the cave. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but a misshapened cavern wasn’t it.
As if to mirror the broken melody radiating off a dark crystal filled with cracks, the cavern had walls jutting out at many angles. It almost gave him a headache just looking at the physics defying cavern. The cavern had no right to remain standing. At least the sections that had to weigh several thousand kilograms hanging by less than a meter of stone.
In case it did collapse, he had a mana string ready to activate his territory card teleport. To his surprise, Solanine joined him as they approached the dungeon core.
The closer they got to the dungeon core spider-webbed with cracks, the surer he was that its state wasn’t from mana starvation. Someone tried to smash it, but he wasn’t sure why. It would make more sense to claim or take the dungeon core, not try to destroy it.
Another oddity was if someone tried to destroy it, why didn’t they complete the job? He doubted it would take much effort to finish it. Unless the damage happened when it still functioned, and it fought off the attacker only to succumb to the damage.
Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter at the moment. Like the Ash Forest dungeon core, the melody told him it wouldn’t last much longer, even in a dormant state. Just the fact it remained intact at all was a miracle.
Arden focused deeper into the melody, a sigh of relief escaping when he found the melody wasn’t as broken as the stump. It was more severely wounded than completely shattered. Still, he wasn’t sure he could fix it without a dungeon worth of mana to feed it.
Was it worth the risk of trying and failing? Maybe another location had a functional dungeon he could recharge his staff with.
No, he needed to try. Who knew how long the dungeon core had? It was worth the risk to try.
He pressed his hand to the core, wincing when he felt parts of it shift. No prompt to claim the dungeon came, but he didn’t expect it to. Like Solanine said, it was inactive. He delved deeper while following the off-tune melody, not unlike how he entered his staff before it fully bonded to him.
As he went, he saw flashes of broken scenes, each one showing violence. Trees and roots lashed out at blurry intruders, but it was futile. The intruders were too strong. They gained ground until they reached the dungeon core.
In desperation, the dungeon core detonated the dungeon, expelling the intruders, but not without severe damage.
Another presence joined him. At first, he thought it was the dungeon, but it turned out to be Solanine. Soon they reached the center, no defenses blocking their way.
At the center, they found something odd. A shriveled little creature made of wood laid still, surrounded by cracked crystal.
They pinpointed the source of the off-tune melody as the creature sprouting questions from Arden. Was the creature the dungeon core? He never heard of a dungeon core taking the form of a creature. Guardians, sure, but not the dungeon core. He was hardly an expert, though. Going by the surprise he felt through his bond with Solanine, he wasn’t the only one.
Suddenly, he wanted to save the dungeon core even more. He knew it had some form of intelligence, but seeing the little creature drove it home.
How would they go about it, though? He doubted they had enough mana between them to pull it off, but maybe they didn’t need mana. Maybe a more delicate approach was what they needed.