Fortunately Paul took care of the wasp this time. I watched as he pulled his sword from his side and his avatar flickered into place. His sword grew almost a foot of almost entirely opaque steel, and armor gained additional segments of armor everywhere that wasn’t already armored. That was clever, using normal armor to compensate for where an avatar didn’t reach, maybe I should try that. I backed behind Paul as he stepped forward to face the wasp. When it reached Paul he easily dodged past the stinger and cut clean through the wasp's abdomen, and it didn't last long past that. When the wasp remained he grinned and reached into it, pulling out a green shard I recognized as poison attuned. He seemed a bit disappointed, maybe he was looking for a specific type? Once he pocketed the shard we continued down the branch like nothing had happened. After a minute Paul pointed out a patch of samaras growing toward the end of the branch.
“In my experience the easiest way to do this is to cut them down and then retrieve them on the ground. You stay put, and holler if any wasps come your way, alright?”
“Alright.” Paul walked along the edge of the branch, cutting samaras down in pairs. I couldn’t see off the edge but I could imagine the seeds helicoptering down. This thought reminded me how high up I was, and I accidentally made my vertigo worse. I sat down on the branch, keeping my hands on the ground, and took a few deep breaths. You're fine, there are railings, and the branch isn’t going to fall. Just breathe. When Paul was done cutting down samaras I was more composed, though I was still staying as close to the middle of the branch as possible. On the way back a wasp approached and I had the “pleasure” of fighting one again. Its stinger struck my avatar enhanced shield, and this time I managed to hit its stinger properly, snapping it in two with a sickening snap and making the wasp hesitate. I stepped forward to drive my hammer's spike into its body, killing it. This one stayed, and though it was closed to the edge then I would have liked I harvested the shard, which was grayish. I didn’t want to feel its attunement so high up just to be safe, so I put it in my backpack. The worst part of standing on the edge of the branch was the way it started to curve toward the edge. It reminded me of the times I had been on the roof of my house when I was younger, but ten times worse. Fortunately we were on our way back now, so we would be back down soon, but that didn’t mean we were out of the woods yet, we still had a several hundred foot ramp to climb down. At least it wouldn’t be as bad as going up it had been.
—
It wasn’t as bad as going up had been, it was worse. At first it felt great. I was using different muscles going down than I had going up, so my legs felt fresh at the start, but I quickly realized this was not a good thing. I didn’t use these muscles as much so pretty soon the burning was even worse than going up, and that wasn’t even the worst of it. When I was going up I was looking up and the ground wasn’t easily visible. This was no longer the case, I could see the ground in the distance in most directions I looked, so every time I turned to Paul to better listen I caught a glimpse of the ground and my vertigo spiked. I spent most of the walk working on controlling my breathing and looking at the barky wall that was the tree’s trunk.
Finally we reached the bottom of the giant tree and I swore to myself I was never going on another samara gathering trip. If I had to find someone else to delve with that was fine, as long as it didn’t involve climbing that horrible tree.
Paul and I took a short break so I could catch my breath, and then we went off to gather the fallen samaras. We passed one group of beetles approaching the fallen fruit, but Paul just carved a path through them, leaving me to just walk past any remaining beetles. When we reached the fallen samaras Paul handed me the crate and then got to work. He used a knife to separate the two fruits and carve off the wings before putting them in the crate. We walked along atop a root nearly ten feet off the ground. I didn’t love it but it was much better than being up in the tree. The next samara pair we found had landed next to the root, so Paul activated his avatar to jump down the ten feet like it was nothing, his legs barely bending on impact. I was left on the root looking down carefully. Paul noticed I was hesitant to follow and called up to me.
“Your avatar will take the edge off falling in the same way it protects you from attacks. You’ll feel it a bit, but even with a tier one avatar you should be fine.” I didn’t want to, I was quite alright up here, but I had the crate, and throwing it down probably wouldn’t go well. I reluctantly summoned my avatar and approached the edge. Paul had already grabbed the samaras, separating them and cutting off their wings, and was wandering off toward another samara. If I didn’t jump I would be left behind. I psyched myself up and hopped down. My legs crashed into the ground pushing two shallow indents into the ground, but my knees bent like I had only fell a short distance. Paul had been right, the brunt of the fall had been absorbed by my avatar.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Hey wait up!” I called as I ran after Paul.
It took us half an hour to find all fourteen pairs of samara’s Paul had cut down, partially due to our leisurely pace, and the crate was filled to the brim with samaras. Paul had easily led us past any beetles as we gathered the fruit, but on our way back Paul had an idea.
“You wanted to tag along to train your avatar, right?” I suspected I knew where this was going.
“Yeah, I have a friend who's a dungeon guard who helped me yesterday, but he had to go to work this morning.”
“Oh, cool. Well anyways, I was thinking since we're here you could fight some beetles till your avatar runs dry and then we can wrap up.”
“Alright that sounds good, it’s about what I did yesterday.” Yesterday this hadn’t gone too well when I faced a group of beetles, but my sync was over four times higher and it wouldn’t run out mid fight. I was almost looking forward to it, this time I wouldn’t need any saving.
It didn’t take us too long to come across a group of seven tier one beetles skittering aimlessly along where our roots met the ground. I looked to Paul for confirmation.
“I believe that's your cue.” That’s all I needed. I grabbed my hammer and shield and then summoned my avatar with a motion. The beetles were tighter grouped than the group I had faced last time, but there were less of them. When I approached, all seven of them noticed me at the same time and they immediately spread out to try and surround me. I didn’t intend to let that happen. Repeating what I had I dashed toward the rightmost beetle and drove my spike into its head, by shield in the way of the rest of the beetles. My lowered shield blocked the nearest beetles retaliation and before it could position around my shield I dashed past the fading beetle to the other side of the formation, forcing the beetles to all turn around and giving me a window to attack the new right side. Again my shield blocked any retaliation, and it didn’t take me long to whittle the group down to just one beetle. This one faced me head on, but with a shield pressed between it and me it couldn’t do anything to stop me from driving my hammed into it. I felt great, I had improved so much, that had been easy. The entire fight took maybe two minutes, leaving me with plenty more time with my avatar. I dismissed my avatar to make that statement stay true. I looked at the remaining undissolved beetle corpse. I felt most of my adrenaline drain away, replaced by melancholy. They hadn’t hesitated to try to kill me the moment I approached. They didn’t even have access to higher emotions in the first place. But it was wrong to enjoy killing anything, no matter the context. I was doing this because I had to do it, not because I enjoyed it. I harvested the shard from the beetle, an armor attuned one, and stepped back, giving the dead beetles a moment of silence. The silence was broken by Paul.
“Alright, well I have to go now, but just holler if you want to help me out with samara gathering again.” There would be no problem with that, though of course I didn’t say that
“Alright I will.”
“Okay, see you later.” I handed Paul the crate of fruit, and he jogged off, his avatar active to give him a boost. I followed after him at a more sedate pace, I spotted a loose group of nine beetles up ahead, and instead of going around like I normally would I got ready to fight. Every encounter would help me build sync and bring me one step closer to my goal, and what I had done last time would work this time too. The root was higher than the ones around it, and the drop was almost ten feet, so I would have to be careful of the edge, but now I knew if I fell I would be fine. The beetles were moving away from me, so I got the first hit, killing one in the back before stepping back with my shield up. I watched from above my shield as the beetles reacted, turning around and chittering aggressively. Lunged again, I killed a second on the right side of the group as usual. This fight was over as quick as the last, and after gathering two more shards and taking a moment of silence for the beetles I was continuing on my way.
After winning two fights, one of which without any support, I was feeling much more confident in my abilities in this part of the dungeon, and I continued, fighting two more beetle groups and getting two more shards for a total of six shards by the time I left, with avatar time to spare. I stepped out of the dungeon and went home.