Rodent had reached the base of the great tree and found that even his neck craned back and struggled to see the top of the thing. It blurred the further it went and swore that its top was further from clouds than to the ground. It was a forest for giants as it would be as big as one to even them.
"Where's a beanstalk when you need one?" Rodent asked with a shake of his head, twisting and digging into his satchel. He pulled out two foldable hooks, having to twist out a lock that allowed the curved, sharp points to come out—before screwing the lock back in. "Though these look pretty special."
He twisted them in the air, finding them glossed in something translucent blue. He hummed and nodded before lowering the tools. Coming to the base of the great tree, he shook the hook in his hand before trying to stab it into the tree.
Just then, there was a rumbling and a great groan throughout the area, causing Rodent to yelp as he stumbled backward. He flicked around, trying to see where the sound had come from… before looking forward at the tree itself. He stared at it, confused, before shaking his head and trying to drive his pick through it again.
Once more, there was a groan, and a rumbling in the air.
Inside the rumbles were varying sounds that, upon Rodent's ability, then became words.
“WHO… STRIKETH… AT… ME…”
Rodent blinked. "Oh shit."
“WHO… SPEAKS IMPROPER… UPON THESE… SACRED GROUNDS…”
"Uh…" Rodent stepped back and glanced side to side, seeing the wall of flowing Deskar beside him, which causally kept on its journey. "I want to blame it on the Deskar, but… it was me… I did both of those things."
“WHY… HAVE YOU… HURT ME…”
Rodent shrugged while looking up at the big brother to the word BIG. "Didn't mean to—just needed to climb you."
“WHY… DID YOU… NOT… ASK…”
"I… wasn't expecting the trees to speak, dude!" Rodent threw up his hands with a smile. "If I had known… I mean… I would have asked… probably."
“WHY… DO YOU SEEK… TO CLIMB… ME…”
"Don't know if you've noticed," Rodent said while looking at his sides again, where the Deskar rose to the middle points on the trees, leaving a small space around the large, scattered stones on the ground. "But you've got a tide of black stuff that quite literally eats existence and leaves nothing of it. I'm trying to get above it."
"FOR… WHAT… PURPOSE?"
"I need to get this sword to make one person screw off and a lot of other people happy." His arms returned to his sides. "Plus… I just need a sword. I don't have any coin, so this works out."
“YOU MEAN… THE SWORD… HAS CALLED TO YOU…”
"Hell no." Rodent's head shook. "I haven't heard it say a single thing."
“HOW… HAVE YOU… REACHED HERE…”
"Because I think I'm worthy enough for an audience with the sword."
“AN… AUDIENCE… HOW… INTERESTING…”
"Are you going to stop me?"
“I… AM BUT A TREE… WHAT CAN… A TREE DO…”
"Oh." Rodent looked down at the stone rock he was on and bounced his head as he thought that over. His foot tapped, and his smile was strange. "Guess that's right."
“DO… YOU THINK… THIS IS A WISE… COURSE OF ACTION…”
"No." Rodent looked back up at the tree. "But I don't care. I have to at least try."
“EVEN… AT THE COST… OF YOUR LIFE…”
"Never meant much to me to begin with," Rodent said. "Rather die doing what I can."
"DO YOU… CONSIDER YOURSELF…. A HERO…"
"No." Rodent's head shook. "Just a guy looking for a good time."
“A… GOOD TIME… HMM…”
"So… may I climb you?"
"IF I… CANNOT PERSUADE… FOR YOU TO LEAVE YOUR DEATH… THEN OF COURSE… YOU MAY… PROCEED…” Just then, branches shot out from the tree, each as thick as planks as they curved around the tree in a spiral that headed upward. "HOWEVER… I CANNOT… HAVE HOLES… SO COME… IF YOU CAN TRUST… IN ME…"
Rodent shrugged. "Sure."
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The spiral took longer than expected, and at the few points where Rodent had to recover his strained breath, he nearly expected the branch beneath him to recede and for him to be dropped into the sea of Deskar below.
However, that never came to be the case as the man continuously rose.
He watched the wall of Deskar that surrounded the branch staircase, its thick, dense surface, which waves coursed across and images played upon its reflection. Rodent looked but never felt anything at what he saw, allowing it to pass through him.
“…IMPRESSIVE…”
Rodent looked up at the tree.
He nearly passed its middle.
“THE DESKAR… DID NOT… AFFECT YOU…”
"It's no different than the fears and nightmares back home." There was a large, wooden platform above, which sprouted around the tree itself. It was there that the branches ended. "Didn't care for that there; don't here."
“HAVE YOU… RESOLVED… YOUR HEART…”
"What? No." Rodent shook his head and tried his best to really think about it. "Just… couldn't be bothered when I was younger." He struggled as, at the bottom of the platform, was an opening he could pass through to reach its surface. "And that trend just never ended."
“THAT IS… ONE WAY… TO BE…”
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Rodent soon reached the top of the branches and passed through the opening onto the platform itself, which was round and broad, worn down, and mostly barren.
It was large enough to fit a small village, and, from the ruined structures upon it, that might have been the case a time ago.
He walked around the area, seeing just the ruined, boxed-shaped buildings that seemed to be made out of the same material as the trees. There seemed to be blocks where statues were, but no statues remained upon them. Beyond that, there was nothing—the place was horribly barren.
Looking across, Rodent saw similar platforms on other trees, each at varying elevations. Some were still connected by bridges that could fit at least four carriages across their width, making the man wonder what this place used to be once upon a time.
Rodent looked back at the base of the tree, its bark a different kind of ebony, like it had been stained to be that way. "If you don't mind me asking… who are you?"
"THAT IS… A FOOLISH… QUESTION…” The Tree's rumbles sounded throughout the area… but did not travel far into the forest. "I… AM BUT… A TREE…"
"Just a tree that can talk and can sprout branches on a whim in a legendary forest where it seemed like civilization lived across all of you." Rodent threw up his hands and took a step back from the Tree itself. "But if you don't want to talk about it—you don't want to talk about it." He came over the platform's edge and peered down—seeing the slow-moving sea of Deskar. "Pretty amazing, though, that you can keep around despite all that stuff."
He looked back at the Tree. "I thought that Deskar is supposed to eat away at existence itself." He then glanced at the countless other gigantic trees here. "So, how are all of you here? I get that you're big, but… I saw a woods on the way here… and barely anything remained of it."
“DO… YOU KNOW… THE NAME… OF THE WOODS…”
"Yeah. Warro Woods." Rodent placed a hand against the side of his neck and cracked it. "Met a Wolf that tried to kill me—then itself. Seemed to be a site for something else."
“DOES THE TOTEM… STILL… STAND…”
"Yeah… but not for long—WAIT!" Rodent grew a gigantic smile and rushed toward the center of the platform. "Do you know anything about how to repair that? My friend, that Wolf, it's stuck in a dying land—I promised to try and find a way to fix it."
“YOU… CANNOT FIX… THAT WHICH IS ABSENT…”
Rodent's shoulders lowered as he stood in place.
“ENERGY… HAS TO BE REPLACED… WITH ENERGY…”
Rodent's face was pleading. "Then… how do I do that? I… don't think I'll ever be capable of magic."
“YES… AS IT STANDS… YOU… WILL NEVER CAST MAGIC… AS MAGIC IS COMMONLY KNOWN…”
Rodent looked down and to the side. "Shit."
“SURELY… ONE WHO KNOWS… HE IS NOT STRONG ENOUGH… FOR THE SWORD… MUST HAVE REALIZED THIS…”
"Yeah. Of course." Rodent looked down, sighed, exhaled, and everything else that represented the weight he bore inside his chest and heart. "It's just… I got sent here from another world just looking for a good time… realizing there wasn't one here either." He looked up at the tree with a brighter face. "And I'm okay with that. But… I wanna try showing the people here a good time… y'know… even if it's just for a little bit."
The Tree seemed to listen.
"But the problem is… all I got are my words… and nothing else." Rodent looked away from the tree, seeming sour. "I got lucky against the Wolf, and Steinith, the guy holding a village hostage, showed me that I can't compete with pure strength. I don't want power—I don't want to suddenly have great strength… but I want to be able to help those people."
“AND… JUST WHAT IS IT… YOU PLAN… TO DO… WITH THE SWORD…”
"Hope that it's enough to please Steinith for a time," Rodent said with arms raised and hands spread. "And figure out another plan to get those people safe or away while he's distracted. I need to become stronger. But as a human from another world with no {Q} or magic or ability to get big… I don't know if my potential even matches the guards I first encountered in that village."
“YOU… ONLY BECOME SERIOUS… WHEN IT’S FOR OTHERS…”
"To a certain extent, yeah." Rodent dropped his arms and started to walk in a small circle. "It's just… I know who and what I am… and I still can't figure out why I was sent here—or if it was just some happenstance after all."
“IT… DOESN’T APPEAR… YOU USUALLY… GIVE THESE THINGS… MUCH THOUGHT…”
"Hell yeah." Rodent nodded, stopping. "I just do what I do and I figure it out as I go along." He tapped the side of his head. "I don't really like to think a lot."
“PERHAPS… IF THAT… HAS LED YOU WELL SO FAR… THEN… YOU SHOULD TRUST… IN YOURSELF…”
"Maybe."
"YOU… ARE NOT… THE ONE THAT I… EXPECTED TO COME FOR THE SWORD…" the rumbles became softer. "YOUR ANSWERS… ARE DIFFERENT… FROM ANOTHER… THAT I DID NOT EXPECT TO REACH HERE."
"You met Isaac?"
“WE… DID NOT SPEAK… THOUGH HE KNEW… THAT I WAS LIVING…”
"Yeah." Rodent blinked. "Somehow… only I can understand every language."
“THAT… IS NOT ALL…”
Rodent blinked. "What… do you mean?"
"YOUR… ONLY COURSE OF ACTION… IS TO KEEP… MOVING FORWARD…" The Tree also seemed to become still—the platform no longer vibrating. "KEEP… AS YOU HAVE BEEN… AND TRUST… IN YOURSELF…" Rodent started coming toward the Tree with a raised hand. "EVEN… SOMEONE ORDINARY… CAN DO… SOMETHING… EXTRAORDINARY…”
And just like that, Rodent was left alone, his hand left in the air… before it came to drop and he was left to look around. He saw the starting of the trees and how densely plotted they became the further they went in, a great distance awaiting him.
He exhaled and nodded, rubbing the back of his head and starting forward. As his feet caused the wood beneath to croak slightly… he stopped, looking at the tree behind him. He smiled and nodded his thanks, feeling strangely helped somehow.
He did not understand what was going on and that he was in the middle of something extremely complex that he should not have touched in the first place, but since it seemed like the next Hero wasn't coming to do as they should, it was up to this strange man to try and give this a shot.
So he walked forward to the bridge connected by strange beams to the monolithic branches above the place. Smooth and swirling ramps connected area to area, branch to branch, and some trees, a long time ago, seemed like they could be entered.
Rodent walked on to what he thought the forest's center to be.
It was a quiet walk.
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Rodent walked across the bridges and explored around the platforms, which had simple staircases between the various discs that went up and down each tree. Even in the space between the trees, suspended from their hooks, were floating platforms that looked like they could be raised or lowered however one wished.
Rodent took a moment to sketch this lift, drawing stick figures around crates that were utterly massive and impossible to move even with normal vehicles. He didn't know why he drew them that way… only that it felt natural and right considering all things.
"But that just leaves the question of what used to live here." Rodent stashed his notebook in his jacket and came over to the edge of the platform he was on.
There was an upright bridge and a lever on each side of it that, if pulled, would drop the bridge onto the floating platform in the middle. "Despite the size of all this stuff, it seemed like things the size of me were supposed to live up in the trees."
He looked down at the Deskar below, almost wondering what would happen if he dropped the lift—if it would pass through the Deskar… or be eaten upon contact. "Did some of them used to live down there too? Or was it too big down there… or maybe… things down there were too big."
Rodent went to the left side of the bridge to the lever there, working at its various locks and holds in order to operate it. After various clicks from it and groans from him, he unlocked the mechanism and managed, with great strength, to pull down on the lever.
He reached down and picked Stick from the ground.
"Hey… d-do you mind… h-holding this in place?"
Stick vibrated in his hand. “I…a.m…y.o.u.r…t.o.o.l…”
"Hey! We had an agreement, right?"
“I…I…I…d.o…n.o.t…m.i.n.d…”
Rodent slotted Stick between a set of teeth inside the mechanism so that it would not release when he let go of the lever. Coming to the other side, he did the same, pulling on the lever and watching the bridge fall forward before crashing into the floating platform.
Rodent blinked. "Oh shit."