Licht followed the bloody trail through the woods, using the bushes like camouflage. Licht had lived the majority of his life so far in the rabbit beast’s stomach, so it wasn’t until now that he understood how hostile of an environment the forest actually was.
He had nearly jumped out of his roots when he rolled through a bushel of those orange flowers. They had all bent their faces toward him seemingly in curiosity, but Licht felt that there were evil intentions that he hadn’t noticed before in his previous flower-form.
“I realize that a stealth skill would make my life a lot easier in this forest.”
Luckily he had the [Withy Body], and that a single thwack was enough to deter the flowers from investigating him further.
After an hour or so of rolling, Licht finally came to a stop. The decomposing body of the rabbit was leaned up against a gigantic dark tree.
*Scrape* *Crunch* *Smack*
“Holy shit.”
Licht let out a whisper. Was he in enemy territory now? Thick roots that cracked the soil were sticking out of the ground and wrapping around the rabbit beast. The corpse of the beast seemed to have been taken as a trophy. They had razor-sharp jagged spines along them and seemed to secrete some kind of corrosive fluid as they tore into the rabbit slowly.
The roots themselves were of the same material as the humongous tree, leading Licht to believe the tree was controlling them to devour the beast’s remains.
“Some kind of tree beast? Is it kin to me?”
The actual base of the tree on which the rabbit’s body had sunk into, extended into the air well above the forest top. The tree’s branches had spread out in all directions, pluming out over the surrounding forest like the head of a humongous mushroom. Despite this, the nearby trees weren’t deprived of sunlight. Blue dangling luminescent bulbs cradled in gold netting hung from the roof of the tree in great quantities like stars.
Licht was unsure whether or not it was a plant-beast or nature’s ego. There was no feeling of familiarity when he gazed at the tree, but he wasn’t sure if there was even supposed to be one. There was also the worst possibility, that it could be the evolved version of a woodland ego like him, possibly leading to a territorial dispute. However, he felt that this was probably not the case. What were the chances of two organisms of the same extremely rare species being born asexually so close to one another?
Still, he hoped it wouldn’t recognize him as a threat at all. Two tigers cannot share the same mountain, after all.
Licht’s brilliant strategy of camouflage didn’t hide him for long. As he thought about pulling away from the tree’s territory, Licht heard the soft sound of a leaf crunch underneath his weight. Like a siren, an earth-shaking tremor was released at once by the tree.
“Hhhhhrrrrghhh!”
The ear-splitting roar sent a headache pulsing through Licht. The ground broke around Licht’s hiding place and out from below a snake-like root curled around his body, scooping him up. Licht thumped against the gigantic root in protest with his thread-like withe arms, but the beating went unnoticed.
The root curled around Licht raised upward, bringing him only a few feet or so away from the trunk of the massive tree. Licht was held in place as he watched another root break through the ground and rise upward. When the root reached the center of Licht’s field of vision it started to shrivel and lose color. Like a snake shedding its skin, the outer layers of the root misaligned from the main shaft and lost their color.
The extended root’s healthy brown color was squeezed from it, washing it a pallid gray all the way to the tip of the root by Licht. A small drop of amber-colored liquid formed at the pointed end of the root, outstretched toward Licht.
“Does it want me to take this?”
The tree didn’t seem hostile, which was a relief. As it wasn’t being territorial or aggressive, Licht supposed that it wasn’t another Woodland Ego or Nature’s Ego. Did it think they were kin? He supposed they were in some sense. Fellow plants and all.
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“Hhhhrrrrrrggghhhhh!”
A crescendo of noise rocked the fibers of Licht’s body as he thought about this. Being as close as he was to the tree now would have caused his hair to fly back if he had any.
“It must be trying to communicate? Should I use that skill?”
[Wooden Commune]
As soon as he activated the skill his vision went dark. The only color in his vision was the gigantic tree, its base to the top of its leaves flashing with constellation-like veins of orange light.
“Want. Sap. Ag-ree.”
Licht was shocked. He could hear the words of the tree! This meant that the skill was truly for communing with other trees. Did he have to be this close? Licht supposed the reason that the skill hadn’t worked properly when he used it inside the rabbit beast was because he had to be within some sort of range for the skill. Right now he was directly touching the root of the tree, so there was no way that range would be an issue.
The tree’s speech wasn’t advanced, but it showed that it obviously had some rudimentary intelligence. It should be of a higher level than the rabbit beast. Damn beast that wouldn’t even give him the time of day before swallowing him.
“Maybe a few evolutions past a normal tree? I don’t know. Do trees evolve?”
Licht was at least inclined to believe he wasn’t the only evolving creature in this new world.
Another shockwave of noise traveled through Licht as he was thinking. This time its meaning was directly interpreted into words he could understand.
“Want. Ag-ree.”
The root with the drop of amber-colored liquid was held closer to Licht.
“Is it trying to give me this sap? It doesn’t look like I have a choice.”
Licht tried to use the skill to speak back to the tree.
“Agree.”
The leaves of the giant tree shook for a moment. Was it from happiness or anger, Licht couldn’t tell. Do trees have emotions? The gray root then tapped against Licht’s withy body and let him absorb the drop of its sap.
[Virtue Learned: Branch]
[Skill Gained: Wood Manipulation (E+)]
Licht’s eyes lit up. What was generosity? This was! The sap seemed to have given him another virtue related to wood. When he learned the virtue he was automatically given another skill.
Licht was starting to realize the interconnectedness of the system.
Licht was elated, but then remembered why he had come here in the first place. He looked down toward the rabbit beast corpse that was still getting torn up by the roots.
“Want?”
Licht tried posing it as a question toward the tree. Truthfully, he didn’t want to ask for anything more. The fear of the tree feeling he had worn out his welcome was real, and he didn’t want to be on the other end of those acidic roots.
“Buuuuuut, on the other hand…”
The corpse would definitely provide him with an enormous amount of organic matter to absorb. Since the conversion for organics seemed to be a lot less strict than for water, he planned on focusing on it for now. The corpse would be a great boon. He did his best to communicate as much to the tree.
The tree paused for a second as if contemplating Licht’s request.
“I-is that good?”
Licht cowered like a schoolboy waiting to hear their crush’s response to their confession. It didn’t take long to know, however, as a lovely sound greeted Licht’s ‘ears’. The melody of wet tearing and a multitude of things plopping in the mud signaled the tree’s decision as a root coiled around the giant rabbit and tore it in two.
Licht’s energy ran out shortly after he had these thoughts, and the dark world created by [Wooden Commune] vanished.
“I guess that’s all 10 AF will get me.”
Licht looked back toward the towering frame of the blue-tipped tree.
“I’m going to start calling you the Giving Tree. Thanks buddy.”
As Licht watched, the root wrapped around him started to move away from the tree. Licht was carried through the air and passed over the forest top quite a ways before being set down onto a verdant woven treetop. The root had carried him far and away from the fantastic canopy of the Giving Tree, settling him down on a treetop. The root seemed to have extended itself for miles. But that was impossible, right? Despite now being directly in the sunlight, it was only marginally brighter than under the gigantic Giving Tree
After letting go of Licht, the root waggled a bit, like it’s own version of a hand wave, and snaked off back toward the tree.
“Wait! What about the-”
A loud splat and cloud of dust blanketed the bottom of the tree Licht rested in. He looked down and saw the gruesome half of a familiar looking rabbit corpse.
“Nice!”