Ground scraping.

Heavy breathing.

Warm air paired with no draft.

Walls encased with runes, small enough to barely fit an adult dragonkin and far enough underground to be undetectable to anything lower than the Arch ranked.

The long journey through these dark tunnels was at its end however, as the figure hooded in runes of his own reached a courtyard sized room.

Woven into the ground like fabric lay tens if not hundreds of sacrifices, scaled or otherwise moving in a sense of altruism.

But in the middle lay four unmoving objects, each unnaturally still in the swarming room.

“Finally get mugged, Kelt?” The figure closest to him said mockingly, noticing his normal coin pouch was replaced with a smaller more bland one.

Scowling Kelt brought out a small stone, the LCD watch on his right hand glowing in the darkness as one of the greedy members looked on enviously.

“Traded.” He huffed defensively.

“I had meant to get back the trade from the potential slave, but apparently she likes to ‘sleep walk’. I’ve even heard she’s gotten with the UnderWatch.” Kelt offhandedly remarked slotting his gem into place.

“Ah well, in a way letting her go will be worse.” The others waited with their hands over the stones.

“Hah.” He turned his head to the crowd of silent struggles, still embedded and trapped with one way out.

“It will be.”

Crack

…

“Fisty!”

Waynev nearly fell over herself when she heard a serpentkin call out to a cat.

Smirking she continued her sprint to the forest, hearing chatter before the voices became muted with the distance.

“Her namess Misty, not Fisty!” A louder embarrassed voice called out.

“Who cares she respondsss to both, Mom!”

“Hahahaa, oh my god that’s hilarious.” Shadow laughed as Waynev’s expression became more forced.

Running for an hour was exhausting.

Or was it longer?

Quest:

Find or create a Magic Catalyst.

* Find an object that can be used as a Catalyst.

* OR

* Create an object that can be used as a Catalyst.

* Merge with the Catalyst.

Consequence:

You lose your innate ability.

Time Limit:

Three days, 8 hour, 2 minutes remaining.

“Jesus-” She leaned on a nearby tree, it had been longer than an hour.

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In fact, it was nearly noon.

Looking back, Aestern already seemed like a rock in a forest of green.

Waynev could also see the mother-daughter duo walking hand in hand back to their small house.

“We’re close.”

“If we weren’t I’d be doubting whether we could do this today.” Waynev pushed off the tree and made it to a small dirt path.

“North-West of Aestern and roughly half a field away is where we’re supposed to find the root-wait what was it called again?” Shadow sighed as lack of sleep was starting to affect her more than she expected.

Fast walking through the path, no monsters could be seen but if there were any this close to Aestern it would be obvious that the patrolmen were like their donkeys.

Asses.

If they had any donkeys.

Waynev kept walking before realising that something was missing.

“Shadow?” Hearing a soft ‘mmhm?’ from Shadow was weird…

But then again she was a voice in her head.

“Did you remember what the root was yet? Or what it looks like and where to find it?” The path ended up ahead and a small meadow seemed to stretch out.

“...Waynev. What would you do without me.” Shadow commented noncomittedly and without waiting for a response continued talking.

“Self-Hardened Bone-root, found in the ‘bone trees’ which I’m assuming are either white or literally made of bone. I don’t know and to be honest I don’t care. Now, Wayne.”

“Normally I love paying attention to everything that happens, but I’m tired. Either you didn’t get enough rest or maybe I just need a break, get the last ingredient on your own, I’ll be awake in an hour or two max.”

“Wait, I need to know if there’s any monst-”

“Goodnight.”

“Shadow please just tell me if there’s anything near us right now,” Waynev finally reached the end of the path as she called out again.

“Shadow?” She already had a creeping feeling, that Shadow was fast asleep.

She would have to do this alone.

“That's… fine.”

Taking two steps forward, Waynev finally pushed past the small natural barrier that blocked the meager clearing.

In it stood three mammoths of tree’s.

White.

Red.

Purple.

Three trees.

But… something seemed off.

The clearing was empty, unnaturally so.

Looking back at the path it looked unrecognisable from the surroundings.

Taking a step back Waynev stopped herself.

This was the first time free from Shadow’s constant chatter, backseat driving and … advice.

Her eyes flowed from the green bushes down to the white appendage on her hand.

She drew her thumb over it before straightening and turning.

Worst came to worst she could run.

Shadow would wake up if things got bad enough… right?

Walking up to the three tree’s her goal was obvious.

The white roots, the Self-Hardened Bone-root which should be at the bottom of the tree-

“Oh.” Looking down at the ground around her numerous roots splay and danced in between each other.

The first red, the second brown and the third purple.

“Wait-” Eyes danced and followed the roots into the ground but there wasn’t a spec of white anywhere except the tree itself.

Looking up, a small snowpeak gave way to the prize.

At the top branch a spark of white nearly glew with it's shine.

“How can I climb that far,” Thumbing the white knucks she almost smacked herself in the face with it.

“Oh right. I can teleport.” Thinking back on the earlier ‘battle’ with the two imps, she could’ve teleported in and done a sneak attack rather than slowly walk towar-

Waynev shook her head and focused on the task in front of her.

Looking at the highest branch the red and purple trees stood clear but just barely, as if just out of reach.

About to teleport she closed her eyes before quickly reopening them, she had her pack on.

Ripping it off she closed her eyes and quickly opened them and teleported to-

Nowhere.

Feeling the urge to laugh and cry, she pouted.

Closing her eyes again she calmed herself, feeling at the power inside her.

Unused yet not wasted.

Raising her head up, eyes still numb to the world outside she opened them and saw it.

The root.

Simple.

Easy.

But how would she take it?

Looking at her knucks their sharp points were too small and couldn’t really be used to ‘saw’ or even snap off the piece of self-hardened root.

Which left only one option.

Punching it.

Raising her arm, Waynev saw the pack rest on the ground.

“Oh well, I’m not doing this journey twice.” Twisting her legs around the branch under her, she brought herself to the base of the tree before questioning her life choices again.

THUNK

Branches flowed around her, green despite the tree’s unnatural white.

THUNK

Rustling of branches, and the root clump nearly dislodged.

THUNK PICTH

With a final hit the hardened root fell to ground below.

Satisfied Waynev began making her way down, the odd rustle almost matched in time with each downward step.

Wait, almost?

Snapping her head up Waynev barely saw the red flash-

Her arms were shoved from their handholds.

Desperately trying to grab Waynev could only watch in horror as the red branch pulled back and a purple branch reach out.

Sweeping Waynev’s legs from the tree.

“WAI-” Losing her grip became falling.

Falling became trying to grab branches but failing from lack of grip.

Down, down from the heavens to the mortal realm below she fell.

Then everything went black with a wet clunk.