So trees know how to be melodramatic too, Jake thought.

Heads Up!

The Tunnel Wolf Matriarch has revealed herself!

Put a swift end to her and put a swift end to this quest! Upon her death, all enemies will retreat.

“Sounds like something we should be handling,” Jake said, both in response to the alert and the Mother Tree’s message.

Mother Tree: The strongest of my guard are with me, but some are being held up by the invaders. If you retrieve them for me, our force should be great enough.

“Then we should get a move on. Which way?”

Mother Tree: Through the flames.

Jake looked down the path Snout and his mount had used to escape. He gave the still very much on fire hedge that the Mother Tree supposedly had under control one look, then said, “I’m not really sure I want to go that way.”

Mother Tree: I’ll open a path.

After a short detour, the trio made it onto the path the goblin had blocked with its spore bombs. They weren’t traveling for long before they heard the sound of thorn warriors fighting wolves.

“Are there any more of the goblins carrying bombs around?” Jake asked along the way to the royal guard.

Mother Tree: Thankfully, only a few. This one had hoped you would have been able to stop the ones you encountered before they could get another chance to use them.

“Is the one we let go heading to your guard too?” Will asked.

Mother Tree: This one believes it to be so.

“Then we need to pick up pace,” Jake said, breaking into a sprint.

“Hey, wait up!” Will said, falling behind. He was being weighed down by his gear and having to carry Thorn.

“Tell me which way I need to go to catch him!” Jake said, sure that the Mother Tree could still hear him.

Mother Tree: Right at the intersection and left at the next.

Jake did as the Mother Tree instructed and then rounded a corner. At the end of the corridor he found himself running down a gap opened up in the hedge along with another in the hedge beyond it.

As he jumped through the second gap in the hedge, he heard the sound of a very surprised goblin. He looked to his left. The Wasp Whisperer had been riding its wolf down the corridor towards him.

“Close the hedge,” Jake whispered. Will was out of range for Jake to get the Mother Tree’s written response, but she could still hear him.

The hedge closed behind him. He acted like it was unplanned, feigning surprise as he tried to step back through the brush only to find his path through closed off to him.

His feigned panic got the wasp whisperer feeling confident. The goblin kicked his mount’s side and leaned forward into its back.

The war wolf barked and they sped up down the corridor, no doubt planning to trample Jake. They’d get revenge for their comrades, they’d kill them.

Jake waited for the right moment. The moment when it would be too late for them to stop their foolhardy charge. When it came, he summoned Branch’s spear.

As soon as the charging war wolf saw the ten feet of wooden death stick appear in front of it, it tried reeling back, but that was something it couldn’t manage.

It threw its rider against the thorn-filled hedge as it fell, tripping over itself into Jake’s waiting weapon. Gravity and momentum worked Jake’s spear through fur, flesh, and skin, impaling the beast upon it.

Holding the great beast’s weight on its thorns, the raised spear did not creak. It came from the Branch That Moves Stone, so why would it?

Jake twisted his hand against the spear’s shaft, unfolding its blade sharp thorns within the war wolf’s body. The beast let out a loud and pained whimper, before dying.

You have impaled a Tunnel Wolf with your spear!

Enemy: Level 6

Jake retracted the thorn’s of his spear. So the wolf wouldn’t fall on him, he leaned its corpse over to the side with his spear before recalling the weapon to his Inventory.

Resummoning his chainsaw, he approached the wasp whisperer keeled over against the hedge. He’d notice the heads of thorn warriors the goblin had tied to the side of his mount’s corpse.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

He hadn’t been able to get the head of its partner, but this one’s head would do.

You have beheaded a Goblin Wasp Whisperer!

Enemy: Level 7

He ported away his chainsaw.

Mother Tree: Take the path behind you.

Jake knew that Will must be getting close if he was getting messages from the Mother Tree again. Sure enough, Jake only had to round a couple corners along the path the Mother Tree had given him to find him.

“Jake,” Will called out a bit short of breath from having to jog while carrying both his bag and Thorn. After two intense fights back to back with a sprint in between, Jake was feeling a bit tired too.

For his own sake—but more so Will’s—Jake hoped that their stamina would scale drastically with the points they put into Vitality. He couldn’t imagine they’d be able to handle the instances in the future otherwise.

As soon as Will made it over to Jake, he let Thorn down from his back along with his backpack, then grabbed his knees.

“You good, Will?” Jake asked.

“Yeah,” Will spoke between breaths, “Just need… to catch my breath. The Mother Tree says that…”

“Just finish catching your breath first,” Jake said. “Or send it in a message.”

Of the two options, Will chose the latter.

Will: The Mother Tree says that her guards are just up ahead.

Jake could tell. He’d heard the faint sound of conflict in the corridor he had cut the wasp whisperer off in and it had only grown more pronounced as he continued further into the maze.

While he was waiting for Will to catch his breath, Jake summoned the Mother Tree’s defense stat with a thought.

Mother Tree’s Defense Integrity: 41%

Jake checked the time since he’d last looked at it. The rate at which the Mother Tree was losing defense was increasing. A product of the Tunnel Wolf Matriarch’s arrival on the battlefield, no doubt.

“Alright,” Will said, having caught his breath. “I’m ready.” He picked up his bag and let Thorn grab onto him.

“Let’s go,” Jake said, taking the lead. The trio set off running down the path towards action. The Mother sent a message saying that she’d open a path and at the end of the corridor they were traveling down, a gap opened in the hedge.

Looking before he lept, Jake saw the fierce battle that lay beyond. In the biggest clearing they had seen in the garden yet, four dozen wolves clashed with twelve thorn warriors, ten of which were sentinels.

The wooden wall of warriors had suffered no casualties, keeping the wolves at a distance as they marched forward. When one wolf was foolish enough to jump forward on its own, three whips of thorn would lash out against it and make its blood rain.

The wolves had the numbers, but they were too disorganized to fight such a deadly force willing to give their lives without the goblins’ brains behind them. Which begged the question, where exactly were the goblins?

The goblin wolf commanders had been shown capable of guiding large crowds of wolves, but there wasn’t a single goblin in sight.

“Did your guards already kill the goblins in charge?” Jake asked, scanning the battlefield for any goblin corpses. He knew one of their commanders could lead at least a dozen wolves, but there wasn’t even one present amongst this swarm of beasts.

Mother Tree: My warriors say they have not seen them. I shall check the surroundings.

While he was waiting, Jake immediately brought up her defense’s integrity.

Mother Tree’s Defense Integrity: 37%

Only two minutes had passed since he’d last checked. It was going down fast.

“Whatever, it's fine,” Jake told the Mother Tree. He wasn’t going to wait for her to scan the area. He needed to act now.

In an instant, he summoned his chainsaw and revved it. His sawblade’s roar pierced through the noise of the clearing. Its harsh sound drew the eyes of many of the wolves. None amongst the stoic thorn warriors turned to Jake, however.

With great speed, the sentinels’ thorned whips shot towards the distracted wolves. Before they could even react, the vines were already around their necks. They were strangled, pulled forward, and struck down.

Jake didn’t even need to step into the square. Just distracting the wolves was enough to hasten their defeat.

Still, he went forward anyway. Even if him joining the fray only saved them a quarter of a minute, it would still be worth it. At this point, every second counted.

He took a grand total of five steps forward before the Mother Tree’s message appeared in front of him on his display shades.

Mother Tree: WAIT!

Her message became almost see-through to Jake as something came flying over the hedge beyond it. A sack had been thrown over from the other side. Five sacks to be exact. All of which were leaking the golden spores Jake had seen in his fight with the goblin riders.

Acting more than thinking, Jake ported away his chainsaw and raised his hand. He planned to run over beneath the nearest sack and teleport it into his Inventory before it landed.

Before he could do so, however, a vine caught his arm. It yanked him back towards the gap he had entered the garden square through.

“Get back!” Will said, pulling Jake through the gap and tackling him to the ground. The gap in the hedge closed behind them.

A deafening explosion rang out, only just a few seconds later.

“Open the hedge,” Jake said, getting his friend off of him. The Mother Tree heeded his direction and reopened the gap.

A nightmare awaited them on the other side. Everything that had been alive in the garden square was now either charred or on fire. On both sides of the conflict, limbs had been lost and scattered.

Mother Tree: The fires will not spread.

As soon as he had read the words, Jake saw some of the fires still burning on the hedge across from him recede. The leaves from which the flames were removed were blackened and dead, but the Mother Tree was right, no flame would spread from them.

Mother Tree: I can at least manage this.

Without care for the wolves, Jake looked for any survivors amongst the garden’s forces. If there were any, even just one, he was having trouble spotting them.

“Are any of them—” Jake began his reluctant question.

Mother Tree: No…

We have lost them all and with them we have lost everything.