The mystery of the mobile tree would have to wait. I’d left my scrying mirror down by the plant core in my rush to bail Senica out of trouble. Taking her back underground with a teleportation spell wasn’t really feasible, not because it was impossible, but because the quick combat versions didn’t generally allow for passengers. There wasn’t much point in casting a full teleportation spell just to move a few hundred feet when we weren’t in that big a rush, so we flew back instead.
“This place is creepy,” Senica said. She peered around at the mass of vines wherever they’d survived my initial passage. New vegetation had crawled in to cover some of the bare patches of stone, but they hadn’t finished the job yet. Perhaps reaching the monster’s core had caused it to divert its resources away, or perhaps it simply wasn’t fast enough to grow new appendages in such a short amount of time.
Either way, the second trip underground went much faster. I deflected the plant’s feeble attacks when it mustered the strength to make the attempt and spared a brief moment to wonder if there were actually two plant cores whose bodies were tangled together, but if that had been the case, my scrying spells would have located the second one.
I frowned and traced the vines that were still moving back into the darkness. Could a second core be buried somewhere outside the temple’s stone walls? I could picture its core hidden away, the vines penetrating cracks in the walls and infesting the interior. There were thousands of them covering the temple; it was certainly possible that there was more than one core. What was less likely was that my divinations had failed to detect them.
Once I removed the core I knew about, that would settle the question. The vines attached to it would wither and die, and if anything was still moving about, I’d know there was a second core. Before that, I needed to determine how best to go about preserving the sac of biological metal for future experimentation.
“What… is that?” Senica asked, her face twisted into a mask of disgust.
Admittedly, the sac looked something like an enormous raison with a tree trunk’s worth of intertwined vines coming out of the top, but it wasn’t that ugly. “It’s the part of this monster I want to preserve,” I said. “Somehow, it’s growing metal like living tissue.”
“It looks like a bruised ball sac. And why it is… uh… pulsing?”
Choosing to deliberately ignore part of that description for the time being, I asked “Pulsing?”
“The temperature.”
“Hmm… I haven’t looked at it that way yet.” I cast a quick heat sensing divination and confirmed Senica was correct. The temperature was fluctuating over the course of a minute or so, peaking at a point so hot that the sac should have been glowing red before dipping back down to a more reasonable level, only to pulse out another wave of heat again. Each time, heat rushed down the vines before they cooled again.
“Ah, I see. It wasn’t doing that before. I think it’s generating heat to counteract the ice blanket I laid on the vines here. Look there, you can see where it’s almost completely melted its way free.”
“Should we do something about that?”
“Why don’t you take care of it?” I suggested. “Ice is just the opposite of fire. You should be able to thicken up that layer easily.”
We both knew it wasn’t that easy. Conjuring up an ice prison involved condensing water out of the air while simultaneously pulling heat away to freeze everything, which wasn’t that complicated, but was mana intensive. Since Senica was working off the mana I’d donated to her, she didn’t have any room to complain about the expense.
Scowling, she set about renewing the ice layer keeping us safe from being mauled by razor-thorned vines while I circled back around to my mirror. Both Hyago and Querit were visible in it now, talking in hushed tones and scribbling down notes while they waited for me to come back.
“Keiran,” the golem said when he spotted me. “You find the most interesting things.”
“This one was entirely on accident. But I think this might be the key to something big. I just need to figure out how to extract the core without killing it.”
“How important could it be?” Hyago asked. “It’s novel to see metal growing, sure, but I know you can transmute any quantity you need easily enough.”
“For steel or gold, yes. But what I need is a massive amount of mysteel.”
Querit’s eyes lit up with understanding, but Hyago just looked confused. “What’s mysteel, and why do you need it? And what does it have to do with this monster?”
“Mysteel is nigh-indestructible,” Querit explained. “It doesn’t form naturally and takes prohibitive quantities of mana to transmute.”
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“It’s also what surrounds the world core,” I added. “Patching up the hole Ammun tore in it when he blew up a moon is going to be difficult. If I could get this thing to start growing bio-mysteel, then replicate that a few hundred times, that would go a long way toward harvesting the amount I’m going to need.”
“So, the same strategy you used making the petrified forest?” Hyago asked.
“Same theory, at least. I’m sure it’ll be a vastly different process, if it even works at all.”
“Are you bringing that thing back to my grove?”
I shook my head. “Too dangerous. I’m sure it’ll put every effort into regrowing its vines once I amputate them. It’ll go back to my demesne where I can ensure it can’t hurt anybody.”
“Let’s get a look at the top of the core,” Querit said. “I think I know what to do, but I need to check something first.”
I obliged him and tilted the angle of the mirror to give him the view he wanted. Tendrils of a divination reached out through the mirror and burrowed into the sac while I watched, and a minute later my assistant and Hyago were discussing the results.
“You were right,” Querit said. “If you just sever the vines, you’ll kill the core. To be fair, the amount of metal I’m sensing there would make cutting through a difficult task for a normal person. Did you harvest any troll’s blood yet?”
“No, There were…” I shot Senica a look. “Complications.”
“Alright, well, for my idea to work, you’re going to need a gallon or two. The more purified it is, the less you’ll need.”
“This thing’s been feeding off trolls directly. It probably doesn’t need to be purified at all,” I said.
“That’s how it’s been growing,” Hyago said, “but you’re going to need the regenerative properties.”
I nodded. “You want me to cut the connection, relocate the core, then basically force feed it a massive dose of a regeneration potion.”
“I’d probably put up some sort of force wall between the sac and the severed vines on the ceiling when you do it, just to make sure it can’t reconnect, then hit it with the potion immediately. I’m not sure how long this thing will survive with that kind of damage. Despite what it looks like, it’s more monster than plant. I’d bet it bleeds like an animal when the core gets injured.”
That was more or less what I’d been planning on doing, though I probably wouldn’t have bothered to refine the troll’s blood. I doubted it was truly necessary, but it wouldn’t hurt. Besides, I could make Senica do the work there. That’s what apprentices were for.
“Alright, I think we’ve got a plan moving forward. Querit, I’ll be moving this by portal back to the valley. How much longer do you need before you’re done at the grove?”
“Two or three hours,” the golem said.
“Can you head back after to help me get this monster relocated? I’m going to have Senica do the alchemy, so figure it’ll be about five hours before we’re ready.”
“Sure. I’ll set up a specimen lab for containment. Maybe convert the one on the east side of the valley over.”
“Perfect,” I said. “I think we have a plan. Thanks for the help.”
* * *
“This is so gross,” Senica complained. “Why is everything in this place disgusting?”
“The fresher the ingredients, the better,” I said.
“It’s still alive! We’re basically torturing it.”
I glanced over at the troll, which was suspended above a wide stone funnel by manacles that stretched its arms and legs out to hold it tight. A spike of steel had been driven into the artery in its thigh, and blood gushed out to splash down into the funnel. Despite the fact that the troll had been up there for twenty minutes, it still thrashed and roared in rage.
“Trolls don’t really feel pain like you or me, if that helps you feel better about the whole thing,” I said.
Senica shot a look at the four corpses visible through an open archway. Their regeneration lasted only until they ran out of mana, and at that point, the blood was no longer valuable. The bodies had been tossed to the vines, which were slowly constricting around various limbs, trying to squeeze mana-rich blood out.
“It doesn’t, no,” she said. “How much more of this do I have to make?”
“How much liquid mana is left in that barrel?”
“Half.”
“I’d say you’re halfway there, then,” I told her.
I was doing my own work on the table next to her while simultaneously keeping the vines from intruding into the room. Really, Senica had the easiest part of the whole process. All she had to do was run the blood through a series of filters and mix the resultant base liquid in a two-to-one ratio with liquid mana, then add in the catalyzing agent I’d already prepared.
I was the one doing the other six steps of the process while keeping us safe and remotely hunting down the next troll. There was one drinking from the scum-covered pond just outside the temple I was about to grab with telekinesis if it didn’t wander away in the next few minutes, which it didn’t appear to be in any hurry to do.
If they weren’t so dumb, the troll probably would have smelled all the blood in the air and realized something was wrong, but I’d never met a troll that could do anything but batter its problems into submission and then stuff them in its mouth. Not much had changed in the last thousand years in that regard.
“If you want to take a break, the ice is starting to thin again,” I said.
“Ugh. No, you do it. I don’t want to go back down there alone.”
“It’s perfectly safe. Most of the vines are inert now.”
“Tell that to the trolls over there,” she said, gesturing to the corpses being slowly pulped.
“I’m pretty sure those belong to a second core somewhere else.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Why would I care which particular monster is strangling me?"
That was a fair point. “Fine, I’ll go refreeze it,” I said. “As soon as we replace this troll. Pull the shiv, please.”
“So gross,” she grumbled as she telekinetically plucked the hunk of metal out. The wound sealed itself closed, but it took several seconds instead of doing it instantly. This particular troll probably could have lasted another few minutes, but I didn’t need blood that didn’t carry its full regenerative capabilities, not when there were a thousand replacement trolls nearby.
My magic tossed it to the vines with the rest and pinned it down until they had it good and tangled. Then I snatched up the surprised and confused troll outside the temple and dragged it to our impromptu lab. The manacles fitted themselves around its wrists and ankles, then pulled themselves apart to stretch it to its full height while it bellowed in fury.
With a sigh, Senica drove the shiv in to our newest victim. If the troll felt it at all, it didn’t show it. It just kept roaring at us while it futilely tried to rip itself free of its bindings. Blood ran down its leg into the funnel, and Senica set the filters back into place.