OSOS 0x1D
Silva
{ √Δ }
Standing at the edge of the towering tree line that marked the border between Redonia and the sprawling dungeon that lived in its heart, Madison could see it stretch for kilometers in either direction before it curved out of sight. While relatively non-descript, she’d come to this location specifically, one for its proximity to one of Redonia’s largest harbors, Fàire, and two, it was far enough from any established trails.
Behind her stood a handful of similarly robed individuals who’d accompanied her from the Mage’s Circle, five of about two-dozen who’d helped develop the wards they were about to implement. The others had taken up measured positions surrounding the dungeon, in preparation, or were currently en route to their specific posting.
Since their encampment would be serving as the hub for a country-wide spell, most of those that had accompanied her were running last minute checks on their work to ensure it hadn’t been damaged in transport. However, one seemed to notice her ‘gaze’ and broke off from the others to speak with her.
She watched as the crunch of dew soaked grass beneath his feet brought him ever closer, almost sensing the half-hearted wave coming as he tried, once again, to break the ever-uncomfortable silence that grew so naturally between them.
“Hey! I saw you over here by yourself, did you not want to check the totem?”
Madison glanced towards the snowman-shaped pillar of composite they’d brought with them, one of seven created in a joint effort to channel and shape the multi-part wards they intended to impart upon the dungeon.
However, given their significance, and the weeks they’d all invested into creating them, she’d already made several reassurances in both their construction and transport. Of course Lensen knew this, so he wasn’t really asking, but rather trying to spark some semblance of conversation.
However, receiving nothing but what might have been a side-eye in response, Lensen straightened his robes as he took her lack of a response as an invitation, and joined her on the outskirts of the dungeon’s edge.
“Have you seen anything out here that might cause us problems with the casting?”
Thankful that she’d lost the actual ability to roll her eyes, Madison looked back to the tree-line with only empty gaps of nothing to be found between titanic pillars of red-orange bark.
“You know what? That’s a great point. I’m going to go scout. Let the others know I’ll be back soon.”
Caught in the middle of scratching his beard, Lensen could barely get a word out in protest before Mads was air-skating into the woods and out of sight.
“Wait!– Do you want help? I can…”
As his words faded out of earshot behind her, Madison expelled a sigh of relief from her stagnant lungs, thankful he’d given her a perfect reason to leave. She honestly wasn’t sure what he saw in pursuing her, but there were a whole bounty of reasons why it would never happen, and she’d made that abundantly clear, multiple times, and in varying ways.
“Whatever. After we’re done here, I shouldn’t have to see him for a while anyways.”
Sliding to a stop a good ways into the woods, Madison scanned her surroundings with both her sight, and her magic, but it seemed there was nothing to find except her and the trees. However, the blight that antagonized them had little chance of manifesting in something so direct.
Kneeling down to look at the undergrowth of the forest, Madison picked at several plants that seemed to have developed different traits than their neighbors. Standing up, she chucked half into a purple orb that appeared out of nowhere, and proceeded to pick out the remaining, one at a time, inspect it, then chew on it before spitting out the remnants.
Many had altered flavor profiles, what was once a smattering of bitter-matcha and seasonings had shifted towards a sweeter earthy flavor with strong undertones of sap. It was closer to what she’d have expected ‘weeds’ to taste like back home, but still had a taste of the unnaturally absurd.
“Mutation and normalization… I guess Infret was right about his hybridization theory.”
Looking to her floating orb of purple magic, and the now-dissolved contents within, Madison began splitting off the concoction into small bubbles before subjecting each to their own tests.
“Temperature range nominal… Average caloric content up thirty-four percent… Yet mana composition is down twenty-one percent… Genome stability… Degrading, but conversely… The mutations are branching stably? How fascinating…”
As each test concluded, Madison dispersed its respective bubble of magic until it was naught but her and the trees left. Overall, the results were intriguing, to put it lightly. Unlike the outright detriment to cellular health that should have come with such an excess of energy in the environment, the radiation actually seemed to be serving as more of an ‘evolutionary catalyst’; a fact that would undoubtedly complicate things if they weren’t quick about their work.
Subsequently dispersing each of her orbs as she finished with each of her tests, Madison shifted her attention to the looming towers of bark that surrounded her. While far older than the foliage woven between their roots, they were just as vulnerable as their tiny counterparts– Though most of the immediate damage would be present on the surface, a fact she was keenly aware of as she peeled and severed a small square of bark with her magic.
Beneath the skin of the long-standing titan of the forest, Madison found the residue of sap within to be far darker than she remembered, and, if her artificial sense of smell wasn’t malfunctioning, it carried with it a strong smell of citrus.
“I definitely know a few chefs who’d love to see what this could do to regular ingredients…”
Flipping the square of bark between its front and back, Madison confirmed that, while faint, the exterior of the bark had certainly taken on a more faded ginger-brown than the interior’s deep carrot-brown– A tell-tale sign of high levels of energy absorption.
“Even this far out, it’s still this bad?”
Grimacing, Madison tossed the sample into her inventory space, adding to a pile of several she’d already collected from all around the dungeon over the predating weeks– Not that there was much difference, but even the slightest discrepancy needed to be tracked if they wanted to have any chance of staying ahead of things.
Taking another quick scan of her surroundings for any signs of danger before she moved on, Madison paused as an uneasy feeling crept up the back of her neck. However, as far as her magic was concerned, it was just her and the trees.
Re-doubling her cast, Madison widened her awareness to all life, picking up even the smallest of plants. Of course, standing in a forest, and not the wastes of a desert, her ‘vision’ lit up like a supernova, and it took her a moment to adjust. Yet, even as the over-saturation trended into bright-but-discernible, Madison could find no source to her sudden discomfort.
Cursing under her breath and kicking up into the air onto her skates, Madison took off with unreserved haste. There weren’t many things that could unsettle her so, and far fewer that could while also evading her senses.
Speeding through the narrow wooden skyscrapers, taking turns both erratically and at random, Madison couldn’t help but shake the feeling she was only weaving her way closer and closer to the source. That, or it was gaining on her.
Slamming to a stop, Madison whirled around, almost demanding her ‘pursuer’ to show themselves. Yet, no matter which direction she looked, the feeling refused to coalesce into the material.
“...Merlin?”
Half-whispered, Madison wasn’t even sure why she was asking. Ghosts were at most an echo of intense emotions, even if there was some fragment of him left, it was simply a stubborn hope flitting on the wind.
“Come’on, shake it off girl. You’ve got more important things than getting spooked like a greenhorn.”
Pressing both hands to her leathery face loosely clinging to her bones, more out of an old reflex than any practical measure to refresh a bloodflow that no longer existed, Madison had to wonder if she really was okay. Merlin had practically been like an uncle to her, if not something more, and losing him so suddenly was quite a shock.
“Maybe I have been using work as a distraction…”
The words of her fellow-mage Remdal echoed in her mind, offered as a critical but honest analysis of her recent modus operandi. Back in the caravan, she’d brushed it off– The amount of urgency they were collectively under spoke for itself, but even then a part of her knew the truth. Now, it seemed she’d let it go so long, her own mind had taken up arms against her relentless avoidance.
Sighing, an old habit rather than an actual need to respirate, Madison found herself a small nook at the base of a large redwood and carefully sat down, avoiding as many undue ruffles as possible in the process.
Satisfied in her choice of seating, Madison opened a portal into her inventory space and reached within, fishing out a black padlocked book, and a sparkly purple pen. Both were items she’d invested a considerable amount of time into recreating from her home, with the book actually serving as the latest of many others already filled and stored away.
Waving her hand over the lock as she attuned to the multi-part inner mechanism, Madison unlatched the tome and flopped it open on her lap. The pages within responded to their exposure by rapidly flipping themselves along until the next empty page in her journal appeared for her to append.
Sticking the end of the purple pen to her lips, Madison weighed where she would even begin. She wasn’t the best at self-journaling, but with a life full of secrets, it was her only real chance at some semblance of therapy.
> I don’t know why he didn’t consult any of us beforehand. He left plenty for us to work with, and he clearly had enough time to assemble that, so why didn’t he reach out? What was the haste old man? Where was the foresight you were so famous for? Did you not even think about the power vacuum you’d leave in your wake? I feel like I’m corralling children.
>
> Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
>
> …
>
> You… Why didn’t you tell me? Of all people, I had the background to understand at least, so why? It’s like you didn’t even want to consider the options… You knew you weren’t coming back, but it didn’t have to be like that, so why??
>
> I miss you old man. I feel like we flew off a cliff when you left, and naught I, nor anyone else left standing has any idea when we’re going to hit the ground. But we can feel it coming.
>
> The forest is changing. Even without the native beasts, or perhaps even accelerated due to their lack, the tone has shifted. It feels far more wild than it ever has before, but only where you’re not looking. The ambient feeling is strange, but occasionally, it feels like there’s something more to it than an aura shift.
>
> …Your advice wasn’t always the most direct, but… We’re never going to chat like that again.
Slapping the tome closed, with the padlock restoring itself automatically, Madison chucked both it and her pen back into her storage space with little regard. Despite the mountain of volumes she’d assembled thus far, she still wasn’t sold on the practice as she always seemed to find herself more irritated with things after.
“Fucking dolt.”
Pushing herself off the roots to right herself as she cursed at her ex-mentor, Madison began dusting off her dress before pausing as something in the corner of her ‘eye’ shifted when it shouldn't have.
Unlike before, it was no longer just her and the trees. No more than fifty meters away, a stag of enormous proportions was staring at her. It was so large, the trees around it almost started to seem normal, and it was clear she could easily be crushed beneath a single hoof.
Treading lightly, Madison tried to shift slowly out of sight, but froze as the behemoth snorted in her direction, as if to protest any intention to leave.
Pausing, unsure if the action was actually directed at her, or if she was simply projecting, Madison hesitated, but eventually decided to call out to the oversized deer tower above her.
“Are you… Sentient?”
As antlers grated against the bark of nearby trees, the stag slowly nodded towards her, and a single word seemed to resonate out of every fiber in sight.
“Elevae.”
It was just a name, albeit a very rare one, but to a scholar like Madison, it was enough to immediately recognize one of the ancient guardians of Somnaintes.
Staggering back, open palms finding the bark of the tree behind her for support, Madison felt gagged in its presence. To say they were rare was an understatement, they were practically myths to all but those who’d seen them with their own eyes.
To a land, their presence was a bounty, a boon like no other, but to see one yourself? That was an omen unlike any other. Every recorded observation predated massive calamities, without fail. And now here was one, standing directly in front of her.
“That would certainly explain the unease I was feeling…”
Whispering to herself to calm her nerves, Madison tried to reassure herself that it meant her no harm, it was the wake that followed that would be the problem. So settling on passive, respectful difference, she focussed on learning as much as she could.
“If you’d excuse my ignorance, your kind is rare amongst my people, but we have stories… Do you have something for me? Or is there a reason we’ve crossed paths?”
At first, there was silence in response to her question, but then the wind picked up, the trees began to rustle, and the sounds of words coalesced in the chaos of the cacophony.
“Seed… Threat… Rooted… Stone… Abyss… Fleeing… Hybrid…”
Ceasing its tremors upon the wind and earth, the colossal guardian made it clear that seven words were all it needed to convey its message, and promptly wasted no time in turning to leave, it’s bus sized antlers taking huge swaths of tree trunks with them as it turned its head.
Ducking behind a hastily cast shield to protect herself from the sudden shower of splinters, Madison had to admit that that was all she was probably going to get.
“Polymese is going to love this... If that thing is fleeing something, it can’t be good news.”
Watching the elder guard plow through several trees as if they were ignorant to physical obstructions before finally disappearing into the shadows, Madison found a newfound trust in her intuition.
“Yeah… Paranoia justified. I might be functionally immortal, but I doubt that means much to them.”
Shrugging off the remnants of her involuntary tremors, Madison checked her routing and leapt up onto her magical ‘air-skates’ once more as she debated informing the other mages about her encounter upon her return.
“There’s definitely every chance we’re not accounting for an unknown, but… Preparation is better than second guessing. If anything, we can append to the wards once they’ve been established. For now… Silence saves souls.”
M{ -.- }RA
*BRRMM-BLM-BM-BRR-BMM*
With a sudden chorus of deep, guttural, rumbles heralding from far behind her, Mara immediately whipped around, sending her plaid skirt into a twirl.
“No fucking way. That… That couldn’t have been…”
By all rights, the sound was unmistakably directly behind her, and the only thing, especially at that distance, was a very particular stone on a very particular hill.
“Shit.”
I really need to learn when to shut my mouth, don’t I?
Hesitating, Mara knew that she really only had two options. There was every chance that that was exactly what she thought it was, but who, how and why were tantalizing questions. But, confoundingly, the people with those answers just detonated her respawn-rock. Not exactly great math for survival.
Okay– Rationally, if that wasn’t my blood-rune, then there’s no reason to go check. I’ll just respawn when I die next time. But if it was… Well, running towards the danger won’t do me any good. For now, I’ll just lay low, then circle back in a month or two… Though, where to go?
At this point, it was all systems paranoia. Thinking as she walked, Mara hopped off her straight-line path and began zig-zagging with some arbitrary leaps and light backtracking thrown in to muck up her trail.
Running with the theory I’m being targeted, I doubt I can head back to Elsa Myr. The icing-incident was probably the catalyst for the pursuers I’ve adopted.
Racking her brain for a game plan, Mara paused as her steps brought her beneath one of the iron-wood trees that intermixed the colossal redwoods.
I was going to climb this and traverse above but…
“You aren’t just trees, are you?”
Speaking the latter half of her thoughts aloud, Mara had little doubt the tree knew it was being addressed. Perhaps it was a sixth-sense of sorts, a lingering bond of clone-ship, but whatever it was, her intuition wasn’t wrong.
A series of wooden creaks and groans began to emanate from the tree as a section of the trunk-face morphed into the features of her own visage. Within moments, it was is if she were once-more looking into a mirror made of bark, with the exception that her botanical counterpart was yawning with its eyes closed.
“Uh… Hello? You are… me… right?”
Hoping she wasn’t offending the thing, Mara wondered what the other ones had thought of her rough ascensions in the past, or even the crater she’d just made no less than a week ago to kill the ‘surprise-nuke’ the giant Shadow-Faux.
However, it seemed her worries were unfounded, as once the iron-wood tree ceased yawning and set its wooden eyes upon Mara, its expression slowly morphed into a weary smile.
“So you do recognize me then… But I take it that speech is beyond you now, huh?”
Slowly blinking a singular time to affirm Mara’s question, the tree seemed inclined to help, but regretted its inability to do much for her given its own predicament.
Happy to at least find someone willing to give her straight answers, even if they were limited in how they could communicate, Mara chewed on her thumb for a moment as she threw together a mental list of the most pressing and easy to answer questions she could come up with on the spot.
“Okay, blink once for yes, don’t blink at all for no– It’ll save us time. Is that okay?”
Hearing the gentle creak of the wooden eyelids contract, Mara had to suppress the urge to leap in joy that it was being so cooperative.
“First question then, Is that what happens to me if I die as an Elevae?”
One blink, okay. That… Well, confirming it really doesn’t help me feel better about it.
“Second question, for posterity, is that also what happens to me when I’m set as a ‘Daemon’?”
Silence followed in response, so Mara shifted her phrasing to ensure she hadn’t misunderstood.
“You don’t know what happens when I die as a Daemon, do you?”
Hearing the tree blink once more, Mara sighed.
Figures. How would they know? They didn’t die as a Deamon. Stupid of me to ask.
“Okay, third question, then I gotta dash– Do you guys mind if I climb and jump on you? I apologize if you do, I did once before when I really needed to escape some things, but now that I know you’re all… Well, aware, I figured I should ask.”
For a moment, the tree seemed to be mulling over her question, but then Mara realized that it had actually responded ‘no’, to asking if they ‘minded’.
“Oh, so it’s okay if I do then?”
The tree bearing her face blinked once more. To them, she was lighter than half the wild things that could end up on their branches, so her presence was practically negligible– Most of them were bound to sleep through any encounter regardless.
Glancing back to the woods behind her, Mara debated on staying to ask more questions, after all, she had a ton, but something in her gut was urging her onwards every time she looked behind her.
Opting not to ignore such a strong feeling, Mara thanked the iron-wood tree she’d been talking to and headed further into the forest, picking directions at random. Only slowing to take a break after a good hour of running and a sizable chunk of forest between herself and any signs of a pursuer.
Slumping down at the base of one of the giant redwood trees, Mara did a quick once-over of her white sweater, thankful she’d avoided any major knicks or tears thus far, though it was far from unblemished and had started to shift towards more of an off-white overall in just a short span of time.
I really should have changed into something more field-appropriate before I came back… Not that I expected to pass out so quickly though.
Taking in her surroundings, Mara was unsurprised to find this bit of the ‘Lost Wilds’ looked like pretty much any other outside of the obelisk’s little sub-section of twisted and dead trees. However, there wasn’t a lick of that in sight, and nor was anything that looked remotely familiar to how she ended up with Celeste.
Perfectly lost. Perfectly safe. For now.
Craning her neck back, Mara peered up towards the wobbly sun, doing her best to guess where abouts in the ‘day’ it was.
Yeah… I couldn’t even do this back home with the sun roaming the whole horizon, the best I’m getting from this is maybe late morning or early afternoon.
Sighing, Mara’s gaze wandered over what she had to work with come nightfall, trees, trees, underbrush, and more trees; her options were truly endless.
Endless my ass, the only thing that’s endless around here is the ceaseless onslaught of nightmare-shadow-blenders. All I really have to work with is the trees and the dirt, not that I have tools for…
Putting her train of thought on hold, Mara needed to satiate a curiosity, her gaze transfixed upon a small square of earth about two meters ahead of her. She had an idea in her head, but there was just no way that it would work. It felt like cheating. The applications were terrifying if it were possible, but…
“Votum.”
Barely whispering the word, as if she didn’t want the world to overhear her, Mara cast the rune atop the small square of earth and wove her intentions into her verbalization.
Near-instantly, a small cube of dirt beneath her rune vanished, and within, the exposed sides had been coated in a smooth stone. By all rights, she’d just altered the space like it was a video game, and all it took was a liberal use of the Latin word for wish, a strong mental image, and the same sigil that had gotten her into this whole mess.
With wide-eyes, Mara stared at the palm that had cast the rune, unsure if she should be filled with awe or terror at what she could possibly do with the power she now wielded, and suddenly, hundreds of trees found themselves submersed by sounds of slightly-unhinged laughter.