Chapter 53

Finally, after what felt like hours, there was a sudden increase in pressure, this one like a forceful wind that tore at the Greenwarden’s oppressive presence, the sensation of a gale with none of the movement or noise. Abruptly, the pressure let up, and I staggered at the sudden cessation. I drew in breath to laugh, but only a rasp came out, my throat feeling absolutely parched. I pulled the small waterskin I’d bought from my sash, and took a couple of careful sips, squinting at the almost crackling sensation it made inside of my chest.

I turned to regard the doorway that had appeared abruptly near me, almost crudely, standing up in the middle of the burnt field. There was none of the careful integration into its surroundings that the previous doorways had; instead, this one was almost petulantly dropped right into the middle of the field. Distantly, at the edge of the ring of trees, I could see that several of the trees looked badly damaged as if a storm had torn through, uprooting them and smashing their trunks, ripping branches off until cleanly shorn trunks glistened with weeping trails of sap. I blinked slowly as my notifications trickled down the side of my view, an endless series of small XP gains appearing and disappearing about as fast as I could read them. At the top, however, hung a single small notification, unremarkable except for its’ content and the fact that it didn’t begin to fade until I’d read over it a couple of times.

Direct use of auras, skills, or abilities to unfairly skew the results of the Tutorial against a single individual or group of individuals, whether for or against, is prohibited. As recompense, the Greenwarden is required to allow you passage to skip the following three floors, as this is the estimated progress you would have made based upon four hours of advancement.

May the Scribe account in all balance; justice for the just, power to the worthy.

The message made my skin crawl. What the Hell had just happened? I flexed my fingers, slowly stretching my arms and legs that had gone to pins and needles from being locked in one position for – apparently – four hours.

Did the System intervene, just now? I swept my eyes over the devastation surrounding the clearing. I had certainly caused a lot of the burning that had destroyed some of the trees, but the rest? A handful of the trees were physically uprooted, crowns smashed to splinters and roots grasping toward the sky as if seeking mercy.

When I stepped through the next doorway, the transition was much smoother; I stepped into another clearing, though this one was far smaller than the last, a mere break in the trees instead of an enormous ring. The forest was alive around me, birdsong and insects cacophonous, loud and varied enough that it took actual effort to clear them from my perception and begin to listen for any threats. Just as I cleared my mind and began to listen, the Greenwarden’s voice started up again.

“And thus did my power grow. What need did I have of a Sect too weak to defeat me? They were so far below me that I hardly took note of them; the survivors fled, the rest swelled my ranks, joining me… one way or another. They could not see that they were not losing themselves; they were becoming more than themselves, fusing with the untamed power of Nature itself. It is the nature of the weak to become food for the strong. Is this not the way of things?” The vision of the Greenwarden gestured expansively upward. “Is this not the command of the Scribe? Either they will strive for power, or they will be crushed beneath it.”

I was clearly missing part of his speech; what had happened in the last three floors? It didn’t seem terribly important, except as some kind of autobiography for the Greenwarden, egotistical as it was. I searched around the clearing for any sign of what to do next, but it took a long handful of minutes for the next prompt to appear.

Floor Six

Dilemma

You must choose one of the following options:

1) Confront the Floor Guardian yourself. If slain, this will allow others who follow behind you to bypass this floor entirely.

2) Bypass the Floor Guardian, requiring all who follow to confront it.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Whoever slays the Floor Guardian will gain a powerful buff which will aid in later battles.

What kind of choice was that? It didn’t seem like much of a dilemma; fight something strong and gain a powerful buff, or make a bunch of other people fight the boss? I hardly thought about it before I simply ‘pressed’ the first option with my thoughts, the words fading away quickly. I shook my head at the oddness of it, but only belatedly realized that the forest had gone utterly silent.

I stretched out my perception for a moment, and felt the edges of a powerful presence moving toward me. The fleeing throngs of tiny forest creatures formed a whisper at the edge of hearing, as if every creature was caught between utter terror for its’ life and the fear of being seen or heard by whatever pursued them. All at once, the presence vanished, drawing back from the edges of my awareness as if a candle snuffed out. I stepped cautiously toward it, and heard leaves crunching underfoot for an instant before the presence returned, suddenly close but disturbingly vague, the aura seeming to suffuse the forest itself instead of emanating from a specific point. I lifted my foot carefully, this time checking before I stepped, and slowly crept forward into the forest ahead. There was an unnatural lack of light, as if somehow the canopy itself sucked in all of the sunlight, burying everything beneath in shadow.

Another crunch underfoot drew my attention to a very different sound and sensation; the base of every tree was piled perhaps a couple of inches deep with bones. Tiny, tiny bones from a range of small creatures, perhaps the size of squirrels or rabbits. Every tree had a small mound built around it, the grass and flowers growing a vibrant, vivid green where they sprouted through the mass of remains. There was something unnerving about the sheer scale of death; every single tree was so adorned, every trunk in sight with its’ girdle of dead things and bleached white bones, overgrown with fungi and plants.

I shook my head, and gave a small laugh. Whatever game the Greenwarden wants to play, I’m not going to give it to him. I drew in a deep breath and pulled several small flames into being, concentrating them down to tiny blowtorches, small blue orbs of light that quickly darted into the canopy nearby, merrily setting alight the vulnerable greenery and casting bluish shadows like fairies swimming through the leaves and branches. The light around me slowly started to grow, the dark-leafed canopy becoming lit from beneath with ruddy yellow flames, the living wood only burning reluctantly and with a great deal of smoke.

The air suddenly became thick and heavy with the scent of wet, a sensation that came at the same moment as a sudden feeling of danger. I threw myself flat and rolled out of the way of… Nothing? I saw no movement, no attack, felt no presence other than the diffuse sensation of danger that seemed to emanate from the forest itself. I drew in a deep breath, and then pushed my senses outward, pouring energy into the flames that began to consume the trees around me, the space finally beginning to illuminate enough to see by. I swept my gaze around, settling on an odd reflection for a moment.

My attention was shattered as rain began falling the next moment; a torrential downpour that quickly snuffed my fledgling flames, dousing them and returning the forest to clinging darkness. I fought against the weight of water, pushing more energy into one of the last guttering flames, until it flared up high enough for me to see clearly what was causing the ominous presence.

It was a spider, perhaps the width of a small house. Well, mostly a spider; it had far, far too many legs, adorned in leaves like a camouflaged coating, and subsidiary legs branching off from the tips of each like long, hooked fingers. It looked incredibly ungainly, so many limbs of different sizes jutting out at various angles, the body long and narrow and looking absolutely incapable of supporting that amount of weight and movement.

Its’ maw held four large pedipalps, two inner and two outer, the outer pair ending in almost shovel-like appendages, while the inner pair were more like small, jagged spikes. I was so fixated on the smooth, eyeless shape of its’ head that I almost missed its’ attack.

One of the long limbs descended from the canopy above me, betrayed only by the violent rustling of branches that preceded the attack. I leapt backward, narrowly avoiding the reaching limb, only seeing up close the tiny red needles that emerged like cactus spines from the joints of the boss’ many limbs. The creature smelled awful, like rot and death, loamy soil and bitter mold. When I launched a firebolt in reprisal, it twisted its’ body in an utterly unnatural way, its’ many limbs anchoring it to various points in all the trees surrounding us, hook-like fingers wrapped around trunks and branches, distributing its’ weight over a huge expanse. Another leg swept at me from the side and I jumped over it quickly, ducking around another tree as a third limb swung back toward me, ‘fingers’ extended into a clumsy grab.

I summoned another pair of firebolts, quickly channeling energy into them, only for them to fizzle out nearly as quickly as they left my hands, everything around rapidly becoming utterly soaked through with the torrential rain, the ground beneath a morass of sticky, sucking mud. “Fuck,” I snarled as I backed away quickly, trying to figure out a way to gain an edge over it. My eyes were drawn back once against to its’ eyeless visage, the head twisting this way and that as if looking for me by some other sense.