"Good morning Sir."

Louie nearly jumped out of his skin. As he leapt from the chair tripping over the rug and nearly face-planted in front of James. "Shit, James, you nearly gave me a heart attack. Good morning James."

James gave a small bow of the head. "Apologies Sir, you said I should wake you at six, I thought I should show you the options to the stairs."

Louie placed the book back on the coffee table and straighten the armchair that he had spent the night in, he noticed that the fire was still burning in the fireplace. He threw a quick at the fireplace.

This fireplace was created in a Dungeon and is imbued with the everburning charm.

'Nice, no need for firewood.'

Louie followed him to the door and out onto the landing where James showed him a pillar on the right side of the door, he had a closer look and what he first thought was decorative carvings turned out to be some kind of runes.

The one rune was glowing and James pointed it out. "These are old Norse runes, That is your new library rune Sir, it's the rune Kenaz, the rune for knowledge and wisdom." Louie nodded as if he knew what James we're talking about.

'Damn I will have to study up on these runes also, maybe I will understand more about the mana runes.'

"The rune on the top is the rune for Isa, symbolises ice and also rest, That is the rune for your bedroom. The second rune from the bottom is the rune for Othila, it symbolises home and that is the bottom of the stairs near the entrance of the tower."

"What's the bottom rune?"

"That is the Rune Raido, which symbolizes travel, or at this moment it is the rune meant to take you to the Gate chamber, Sir. But it's not active yet, it will only become active when linked from the other side."

"Gate? That's the portal between towers?"

"Correct Sir, it's the portal between an outpost tower and the Main tower Sir."

"So I must build another tower and there will appear a portal that I can link to this one?"

"Technically yes Sir."

"Technically?"

"Yes Sir you must build a tower and turn it into an outpost then in the basement there will be a carved archway with runes all around, each archway has five main runes if you activate the correct sequence then the portal will link to the main portal, only then can you use the portal to travel between that two towers."

"And only I can travel through the portal, not my pet?"

"Technically yes Sir."

'Again' "Technically?"

"Yes Sir. Technically this is a wizards tower Sir, but you are not a wizard Sir. This has not happened before, there have been cases where the wizard's tower was claimed by someone after the wizard was killed but never before was a wizard tower build and claimed by somebody other than a wizard Sir, So a lot of the usual wizard's rules for the tower won't apply."

"Like what James?"

"I have no idea Sir, as I am the interface for this tower I can only say what the System will make available for the wizard, but I don't know if it will work like all the other wizard's towers. That you will only discover when you try it out, Sir. Can I give you an example Sir?"

"Yes please James," Louie was curious about what James was going to say.

"The library Sir," "yes what about the library?" "This is not a wizards tower library. A tower gets a library when the wizard places enough tomes and scrolls in the vault then the tower is rewarded with a library where the wizard's tomes are stored."

"Vault? There is a vault? Ok sorry, let's continue with the library."

"Yes Sir thank you, Sir, the tower creates a library, but you furnished this room and then thought of it as a library and the Tower transform it into this Sir, which is unusual because a wizards library is a sterile place with warded shelves that houses the magical tomes, this is not what a wizards library should look like."

"It's not?" "No Sir, that's why I'm saying that I don't think the normal rules for a wizards tower will apply to your tower, Sir."

Louie saw that it's nearly time for the meeting, "James, we will have to sit down later tonight when I'm back and then you can explain it more to me but I got to go, or I will be late. How do these runes work?" James explained to him that he should place his finger on the rune and channel a bit of mana into it. Louie did as he was instructed and he appeared at the bottom of the stairs with his finger still on the Othila rune. Before he left he placed all the chests of parts and weapons in the braai area and asked James to place them in the vault.

He was a block away from the tower when he remembered and returned to place his hand on the tower perimeter wall, he contacted James and told him to make sure to alert the residents that they must be at the barracks at 07:00.

He started for the barracks but took another road and tried to raise a street light every 25 meters apart. The town wasn't very big and most of the residents were going to stay in the high rises that they are carving out of rock.

'I should drop half of the light stones at Joe, maybe he could somehow incorporate them into the town building as material.'

He saw that he wasn't the only person awake this early as he walked past the site where the builders were working on the apartments.

He stood and watched for a moment as he saw a young man shape a brick of stone from a rock. It nearly looked the same as his but he could sense no mana being used.

Louie stepped closer and saw the guy lean against a big rock. He saw the deep concentration on his face as he touched the stone and slowly a ripple passed through the rock as it shrank a bit and a perfect brick the size of a shoebox fell away from the rock.

"Wow."

The young man nearly jumped out of his skin as he spun around.

Louie held up his hand.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, that is amazing. What's your name?"

"Allan Sir."

He lowered his hand for Allan to shake.

"That was amazing, is that a spell?"

Allan shook his head, "No Sir, it's a skill that I unlocked."

"That's great, can you share the skill description with me?" Louie saw the confusion on Allans' face and explained to him how to share BBs

Stoneshape

This skill grants you the ability to mould stone to the shape you envision. The clearer and detailed the vision the better the quality of the end product will be. The fewer impurities or oddities mixed into the source material the less stamina will be burned using this skill.

Activation: 40SP +20/min

Louie saw the potential in the ability.

He handed Allan a silver coin and pointed at the streetlight a couple of meters from the workspace.

"This is yours, I want you to practise in your spare time and see if you can make posts like those, but without the light"

He reached down into the earth and raised a smaller version of the streetlight next to the young man. "Here is what they look like."

He placed his hand on Allan's shoulder, "good skill you got there, keep on practising."

Allan looked down at the coin in his hand imagining what he could buy with the money.

Louie left him staring and continued on his way.

He was nearly at the shrine when he remembered what James said about the tower.

'If I understand what James said about the library, then I hope I can make a workshop/armoury with all the weapons I got from the Dungeon.'

He stopped at the stone tree shrine and stood thinking for a while. 'Well, Sher says she exists, might ask for a blessing in fighting the infernal.'

Louie sat down on one of the petrified roots of the stone tree/pillar.

He touched the stone with his palm and allowed his mana to infuse the stone.

'Gaea, I ask for your blessing in the upcoming fight with this infernal.'

Suddenly he felt something shift and was shocked as he opened his eyes and saw he was sitting on the same root but under a living tree in the middle of a meadow.

Across from him on another root sat a proud young pregnant woman, whose whole body was tattooed with a world map, just like Sher described her.

Louie lowered his head respectfully.

She looked at him. You wanted to speak to me, Seeker? How can I help you?

"Gaea, Mother, I'm blessed to be in your presence, I am sorry to disturb you but I wanted to ask you for your blessing in the upcoming fight with the infernal and have some questions."

She held up a hand, Seeker I can't help you in your quest, Class Quests are sacred and cannot be messed with, but you have my blessing and more with the upcoming endeavour, the Infernals must not get a foothold in this realm.

Louie sighed. "Thank you, Gaea." He got ready to leave when her voice stopped him.

Leaving already? Is there nothing else that you want to know? You might not get this opportunity again for a while.

Louie halted, Don't worry Seeker, time has no meaning here.

'Damn, she is right I might never get this opportunity again.'

He sat back down.

"Why, did this happen? All this, billions of people dead?"

He felt the sorrow surrounding her.

You, humans, were killing me. At the most, I would have been driven so deep that you all would have died in a hundred maybe two hundred years, just like my other shards. For you it might sound like a long time, for me, it's a blink of the eye.

"Other shards? What other shards?"

The other pieces of my heart, my Daughters. They all sleep so deeply because their bodies being ravaged till there was nothing left. They slept too deep, but now I might have a chance to write the wrong of your ancestors, and wake them.

'Other shards, pieces of her heart, does she mean the other planets like mars and venus?'

"I understand, but why now, we were so close to killing ourselves and destroying the world a couple of times, why now?"

. . . I like you, Seeker, I will indulge you, I will tell you about my past.

I saw you humans evolving from the mindless beasts they were, into sentient creatures. I saw them discover fire and its destructive power, but I also saw how they harnessed that power to improve their life, to heat their foods, and warm their caves.

When they planted the first seeds and cared for the plants my heart rejoiced and when your human forebears moved from their caves I nurtured and cherished them. Eons I looked after them.

Later, some grew afraid of my power and the power that my daughters wielded, so I made a pact with them, they will govern and care for my body and I will take a rest.

Everything went well till they created gods and worshipped them instead of caring for me. I found myself trapped in slumber, forced deeper and deeper into the dream. I feared that I would never wake, over the last century technology had become a god and it was vicious and cruel.

I was asleep for thousands of years and feared that I would never wake. Then something came, and everything changed.

"The mist?"

Yes the mist

"I don't remember the mist, what was it??

. . .

I will tell you what I learned.

Long before I came into existence. There was a war.

She waved her hand up to the heavens.

Far away from here, Galaxies fought against each other, thousands of worlds were destroyed and thousands of species died. Untold Billions of lives were lost. There are weapons out there that are unimaginable. The simplest things were used and turned into weapons of mass destruction.

The war ended after a long time but Galaxies were turned into barren wastelands where nothing lived.

One side took a simple tool, a learner program that helped newly awakened beings to grow strong, and perverted it.

You would call it a nanobot. But it's smaller than an atom. Powered by pure mana. It had two functions. Awake the mana in everything and Replicate itself by stripping the awakened mana from those that were awakened.

This weapon was destroyed but one, only one manabot escaped, or was missed, it doesn't know but one got away. It floated out there, every time it encountered matter it replicated. It grew, moving from one rock to the next then from one asteroid to the next, all the time growing

Then millions of years later, it found a world brimming with life. It permeated the world, awakened the mana ready to harvest the mana from the life on that world.

The awakening of the mana woke me from my slumber, in a moment I realised what was about to happen. I found some humans and looked through their minds. Unfortunately, my hasty intrusion was very harmful and I caused their deaths, so I absorbed them together with their memories and their lifeforce and in their memories, I found the concept of hacking.

The manabots were powerful but for all that power it was still just a program and they had no defences against a simple hack.

I used its own function against itself, Replicate. I gave it two orders and used Replicate to spread those orders through the swarm. Eject the mana from its body and Erase.

That was the blue pulse. I made a mistake, it released a vast amount of energy, free mana. The sudden release of energy was so huge that it would have destroyed the universe.

She stroked the tree root. I loved this tree that Sher created. It's a pity it died.

She sighed and looked back at Louie.

So I had to act quickly. I stopped time in this universe, which used more than half of the free energy. And that gave me a brief period to work with.

From the hack, I had learned some things. I learned how to make a portal and that there were others out there.

I created a small portal and connected it to the nearest multiverse where there was a system, something resembling the gaming system that I saw in the mind of the human that I took the memories from.

I used Replicate again and brought that system here, with a few minor changes and closed the portal. Then I used the rest of the free mana to alter and redistribute humanity between my planets. That used up all the volatile energy that was released.

"The system? Like in game systems? Did you use the knowledge of a gamer to alter the system? And how did you redistribute humanity?"

Yes and no. I made the system to work on intent and the desire and knowledge you had when you were scanned, if you thought of yourself as a centaur, as Brandon did then you became a centaur, if you believe in Qi Cultivation or if you believe in mana then your system will take you that route, everybody is different, so everybody's system are different, then I used gates and distributed most of the smaller self-sufficient towns after I made sure that the system can adapt those humans to their new environment.

Why should the system try and force a fish to climb a tree like a cat? What you believe and need is what you got, which also caused a lot of problems. But I can't please everybody. And unfortunatly i can only do so much in ten seconds, i would only stretch so far before it would tear the timestream apert.

"Uhh ok, and what is Qi Cultivation?"

Cultivation is a method to fortify one's mind and body, and as such, it has a great place in the culture of the former Asian countries, the same as western countries were more into mana manipulation. You can learn more from your adopted brother, Joe.

She sighed.

I have tried to minimize the loss of life caused by the restructuring of the worlds, by trying to keep as much of the basic infrastructure intact as possible but the awakening of mana caused a lot of unforeseen mutations and growths that I could do nothing about. But with all the free mana used up, it will slow down the massive growth of the fauna and flora, but again, thereare things that i had no control over. The system does what it was programed to do.

There were also some unforeseen results to my portal opening and the system also added some unanticipated things, like the Dungeons and Ruined infrastructures

My portal was noticed and I had to close it down and erase the link but there was still a trace. Newly integrated systems are nearly nonexistent so they are searching for the origin of the portal. I calculated that they will find the origin in 10-15 of our years.

I will hold them away for 7years and then I will open the first portal again.

Louie shook his head, "why? Why 7years? We could use their help now."

The look she gave Louie was the same he got from teachers in school when he asked a stupid question.

Do you want to trade away your worlds for a couple of shiny beads again? Humanity must have that time to grow strong to survive the influx of these beings.

Small amounts of them have accidentally found their way to us in the past through natural tears, a small family of Elven farmers here, a Dwarven miner there, some have been benevolent but some have not, for thousands of years they have mingled with humanity but retreated into sanctuaries that they have created when technology started to rule.

Now with the awakening of all that mana, they will come back out of their hiding spaces. Use your class, Seeker. Discover as much as you can of your neighbours before the opening of the multiverse portals.

"Are you a god?"

She laughed and he saw the grass and trees burst into flowers.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

No, not in the way that you think of a god, I'm a planetary soul, my soul was split apart just before I became sentient, split into multiple pieces. Most of them survived for a time, but once your life on the surface dies then your body becomes barren and your soul withers away going to sleep and it might later die.

I have transplanted life onto the others in the hope that the tiny pieces of my soul that I can still feel would start to be nourished and eventually wake from their deep sleep.

Louie was shocked at what he heard.

She stood up. I must go. I am needed elsewhere. Thank you for your company, Seeker. Take care of my Daughter.

'Sher?'

She hesitated for a moment and spoke up before she turned away.

I am sorry for all the loss of life. I tried to save as many as I could, humanity was one of my favourite creations, I was so angry when I saw what they have become, what they have done to me.

She sighed, Grow strong Seeker. You will need it.

Slowly everything faded to black and Louie struggled to open his eyes, he saw back sitting on the root next to the Stonetree.

Gaea's Blessing

He found himself back sitting on the stone root at the shrine. 'Damn that's heavy.'

He looked down and concentrated on the round ball that he clutched in his hand

Gaea's Blessing

This is a Blessing that you received from Gaea. Sometimes you get what you need and not what you want, you will know when and how you need to use it when you need it.

Good luck Seeker.

"What the hell?" He shook his head and placed the ball in his inventory.

He stood up and started for the barracks again, 'I must tell Joe and the leaders about what Gaea said.'

He entered the Barracks and was shown to a big room full of blurry-eyed corporals and ex-soldiers that poured over the hand-drawn maps that Robert supplied.

After they had gone over some plans Louie convinced everybody that it would be best if he and BOB would leave from a different gate and go up the Elands river, to approach the clearing from a different direction, he would stay in contact with the main force that travelled down the N1 by chat.

Louie told Joe and the mayor about Allan and dropped half the boxes of lightstones of for the mayor to use. He also told them about the knowledge he received from Gaea and told them that they can discuss it more when they have finished off the Infernal. He then left to collect BOB for their trip.

It was just after 07:00 when Louie and BOB left through the small south gate alongside the Elands River.

They got the longer route so they set off at a fast jog. The road wasn't so bad, especially after all the earthquakes that happened nearly two weeks ago.

Some worrying sights greeted them as they reached the top of a tall cliff where Louie had to create stairs for them to ascend. He had turned around to look in the direction of Capetown but couldn't find anything but taller peaks. At first, this didn't bother him but something felt wrong, it was when he took a sip of water from his canteen that it clicked.

There were taller peaks than there should be, This was worrying to him because as far as he knew the Du Toitskloof Mountains were not that high and he should have been able to look into the distance, but all that he saw was more peaks and ridges, and the colour seemed off somehow.

'Shit, can't do anything but worry about that, so better to leave it for later.'

He looked at the clock in his HUD and set out towards their destination again. They had scarcely started when BOB set off towards an outcropping with his nose in the air, it was in the direction that they had to travel so Louie followed him.

"What are you smelling boy?"

Louie followed BOB to a cliff face streaked with thick rust coloured banded layers, while he stood scratching his head he saw BOB licking the rock.

"BOB what are you doing?" He started laughing at the dog's antics when he remembered that Golems can absorb metals.

He took a closer look at the bands and took an axe with a spike out of his inventory. He stood back and took a swing driving the spike into the cliff chipping a piece of stone about the size of his fist.

Magnetite

Description: This is a moderate sized vein of the magnetite and has a highly desired iron content. With the proper mining skill, this vein can produce tons of iron ore.

Ore concentration: High

Once this vein is claimed and the mine is established, selling this ore will result in substantial profit. Due to its high iron content, magnetite has long been a major iron ore. It can be reduced in blast furnaces to be cast into pig iron or sponge iron for conversion to steel.

"Nice find, good boy BOB, yip you are a good boy!" Louie rubbed him behind his ears, he reminded himself to be careful of the short spines along BOB' neck ridge.

He marked the spot on his map before he and BOB set out towards the waypoint on his map.

As they moved along a ridge they noticed movement below and he had to grab ahold of BOB as he wanted to charge down the ridge to attack the pack of what looked like wolves. They were just outside his range of he changed his mind when they started barking and fighting among each other, the biggest one tore into one of the smaller and it tore it apart, Louie took out binoculars that he got from Worcester and watched the pack of dogs.

He noticed that it looked as if they had tough rock-like skin.

'Huh, Rock hounds?'

He laughed under his breath as he moved BOB back from the edge and took off towards the waypoint again.

They found the valley, although it's more of a dell, not that they could miss it with the dark thundercloud hanging over the location.

They made their way down a runoff that got narrower as they went down the cliff, the end was so narrow that if he reached out he could touch the sides with his fingertips at the same time. 'Shit the force of water that will run through here will be tremendous.

He and BOB hid behind a couple of big boulders as they scouted the surroundings.

Louie noticed a dark opening hidden behind a big ragged stone that looked as if it fell from the cliff, he looked around but his eye was pulled to the opening again.

They moved a bit away from the cliff to see where the infernal was when his thoughts went to the dark opening again.

'What the fuck, why does the opening keep popping into my mind?'

"Shit" he softly whispered. He checked in with Joe and discovered that they were about 30 min away, so he turned around to go inspect the crack in the cliff.

He noticed that you could only see the opening from the place he and BOB had been hiding before.

The moment Louie stepped into what looked like a cave he felt the mana surge inside of him as if there was suddenly a vacuum inside and it's trying to suck in more to fill the space. The walls had what looked like thousands of bushman paintings reaching from the floor to high on the ceiling, in the one corner there was an alcove with strange-looking animal skulls.

He reached out to touch one and it turned into dust.

'Damn, this place must be old.'

He looked around finding nothing but the alcove with the skulls, he turned and left the cave.

The moment he stepped outside it felt as if he had lost something and he had the urge to go back inside to look for it.

Louie shook his head and suppressed the urge to go back as he slowly moved towards the clearing and the animal roars and shrieks he heard.

Moving up a stack of giant boulders he laid down on top of the highest, he slowly wiggled his way to the edge and looked at the mass of creatures in the clearing before him.

It was the first time Louie saw a Gnoll in real life, they look worse than they are portrayed in fantasy books.

They were about 1.3meters tall with a hunched back, broad shoulders and long powerful arms with human-like hands that nearly dragged on the ground and black claw-like fingernails.

Their human-like bodies were mostly naked except for a ragged loincloth and they were covered with sparse, tan fur with big spots.

The most gruesome part of them was their head, which resembled a hyena and they had that telltale hyena laugh that made you shiver.

He contacted Joe and found out that they were about five minutes from the entrance to the Dell.

Louie concentrated on all the creatures that he could see and saved snapshots into his journal, he had been thinking of starting a bestiary of all the local monsters and it might come in handy for when they started an adventurers guild.

He was looking around to try and spot the big creature that Roberts said he thought was in the area when he got a message from Joe and The captain stating that they were in position and that he can start the party when he was ready.

The pack of Gnolls and various other creatures was running around chasing a meerkat like a creature that was trying to get away with the injured body of some kind of feline.

This thing was twice the size of the giant rats they have been fighting, so it must either be mutated or a were.

It was too far to use but whatever it was, it did not go down without a fight since there were a couple of Gnolls limping after the one that stole their fun.

Louie saw that one of the humanoid monsters was nearly twice as tall as the rest and was holding on to a giant rusty piece of metal.

'Hmm, must be the skinwalker infernal.'

There was a strange shimmer around the creature and all the others ran around avoiding it like the plague.

It was obvious that it was the leader of this group with one glance.

It roared something in a strange bestial language at the meerkat. The other creatures around the clearing stopped and cowered.

It looked quite angry and the meerkat with the bleeding creature, it came and dropped the squirming body before it and started backing away.

It obviously wanted first dibs on the juicy meat, as it was salivating and drool was running down the monster’s chin.

It bent and grabbed the creature but before it could sink its dagger-like teeth into the body it reared back and screamed as it received a cut in its back.

It quickly turned around and swung the metal club at the gnoll behind it, pulverising its arm. The force of the strike hurled the gnoll through the air to smash against a tree, it shook violently as it tried to get to its feet.

The other creatures started shouting and grabbing their rusty weapons, they piled on the bleeding Gnoll, quickly taking advantage of their leader's disfavour.

There was a whistle as a blade suddenly cut through the dogpile, soon another blade flew towards the monsters cutting right through the pregnant female Gnoll.

One of the other creatures' heads exploded into a spray of blood and bone as it fell to the ground. The monsters panicked and looked around searching for the invisible attackers.

The Infernal must have some kind of skill or sight because it could see the airblades and was able to dodge them, it was smart enough to take cover behind some tall rocks.

It peeked out from behind the rock trying to see its attacker, it was able to pinpoint the general direction and then it saw Louie across the clearing, standing on a rock-throwing airblades at it.

It let out a roar and charged through the creatures, smashing them out of its way with its improvised club, storming across the clearing toward the rocks.

The confused creatures quickly recovered and followed after it, screaming and hollering.

There was a shout and suddenly Joe and the troops poured it off the trees from both sides of the clearing, hitting them in the flanks, laying into them with their blessed weapons.

Sally was in the thick of things with her shield and glowing mace, smashing heads, but it doesn't look like there were many possessed except the infernal as the creatures seem to go down quickly.

Louie heard Sher shout and saw thorny vines wrapping around some of the creature's legs; she followed it up with a spell and they were cocooned in thorns like an ancient iron maiden.

Louie kept on throwing at where there were more than two creatures together while keeping an eye at the charging infernal. Suddenly it roared something and the trees near Louie started to shake.

(Louie, watch out for the tree! , Sher)

Sher started running towards him as the giant oak that was next to the rocks suddenly lifted its roots from the ground and stood up.

It swung a massive branch in his direction trying to crush him crushing the rock he leapt from. The tree shook as BOB, now in his full-size shoulder charged into it nearly toppling it over.

'Fuck me an ent?"

Loo used as he dodged the tree branches and rolled out of its reach.

Mutated sentient Oak Level 2

HP 355

MP 170

This tree was destined to become sentient and lived through a long cycle of seasons, living normally for centuries before the system awakened its potential. Trees that awaken do so only under special circumstances and in places steeped with nature’s magic. Treants and powerful Druids can sense when a tree has the spark of potential, and they protect such trees by creating a secret grove around the tree as they draw near the moment of their awakening. When it is ready, the tree pulls its roots free from the clutching earth and joins its fellows in protecting its woodland home. This tree was unfortunate that there was no Druid or Treeant, but an infernal to greet its awakening.

Weakness: fire.

The Infernal screamed its mad cackle as it charged Louie, as it came into range he analysed it.

Skinwalker Infernal ? ? ? ?

HP ???

MP ???

This infernal has possessed the human and slowly absorbed it to take control of its body

The more the Skinwalker occupies a skinsuit the more elastic the skin will become and will be able to stretch to twice its size.

The Skinwalker can polymorph into any humanoid size it has seen as long as its body fits inside its stolen vessel.

The Skinwalker can mimic any sounds it has heard, including voices. And can long jump up to 7meters and its high jump is up to 5meters, with or without a running start.

Immune: Bludgeoning and slashing damage, resistant to most magical attacks.

Weakness: Sunlight and Holy light.

It looked human, well humanish, its skin was wrong, some places it was too tight and some too loose. Louie could see the demon moving under the skin. It looked like it had possessed the human and devoured it from the inside, like a wasp laying its eggs in a living caterpillar. There was nothing of the human left just the Demon using the human skin as a suit, thus its name, Skinwalker.

Its teeth were larger than normal and sharper. Its smile was unnerving, like that of a shark, if a shark could smile at you.

Almost faster than Louie could blink it was on him, it lunged for his neck but he moved at the last moment and its teeth sank into his armour, or it tried to. Luckily Louie had remembered to cycle his mana through his armour this time.

It was fast and its claws were long and sharp. Louie struggled to get a grip on it, but its loose skin acted like grease and he couldn't get a secure grip on the Skinwalker.

Louie snapped his foot out and caught it on its chest and flung it away from him.

His ninjato was in his hand and he swung at it with the burning blade but the wounds just closed and the fire had no effect on the creature. It roared and leapt at him again. Louie rolled to the side and the Infernal went over him and rolled down the slope, but it was up again and faster than Louie hoped, it was racing up the slope straight for him.

'Shit.'

The creature leapt at him and at the last moment, he scrambled to the left and it went head, or teeth, first into the rock, stunning itself for a couple of seconds. Louie grabbed its shoulder and shoved the ninjato right through its back out the front, sinking the blade into the rock.

It roared and struck Louie with a backhand throwing him down the side of the hill and then placing its hands and feet next to the blade on the rock it shoved itself away, tearing the blade through its body, leaving it stuck in the stone.

Louie slammed into the huge rock, back first, knocking the wind out of him. As he opened his eyes he saw the skinwalker coming through the air at him.

'Slow to learn or not very bright from the start.'

Louie rolled away at the last moment again and pushed his into the massive rock.

The Skinwalker screamed as it disappeared into the rock and Louie dropped it 13meters deep in solid granite.

Louie leaned back against the stony ground and groaned as his back pains made themself known.

"Damn that thing sucked." He struggled to his feet and drank a health potion. Wiping the sweat and blood from his eyes he looked around to see how the others were doing.

He saw two guys struggling with a big Gnoll. It looked like it might be an alpha. Somehow they had lost their weapon and decided it was a good idea to take on a Gnoll barehanded, Louie shook his head as he set off in their direction. They grunted and struggled as its body bulged and bucked, its growling laughter shifting into a barking, baying cackle that was suddenly cut off as lightning imbued war axe nearly split it in two.

He heard a roar and spun around, the giant moving oak tree was trying to fight what looked like one of the squirrels that had to attack them on the road while Sher stood chanting to one side as she binds the tree with more and more vines to the ground. He saw somebody with a compound bow standing next to her and slowly trying to turn the oak into a pincushion.

Louie saw BOB move in to tackle the tree again

The Oak moved to the right, but one thing it wasn't is fast, BOB had ample time to change his angle of attack as he charged at it. The tree slashed at the dog with one of its claw-like branches, but BoB wasn't an ordinary dog; he was a golem dog made from metal.

His teeth sank deep into the wood as he closed his jaws on the branch with the power of a bear trap. He shook his head and tore at the wound ripping the branch from the tree.

The wounded oak tree roared and tried to spin to face the canine, but BOB was too fast and spun around letting his back take the force of the blow, leaving a couple of spines in the branch forcing more sap out of the tree.

Louie saw that the Oak cast sufficient shadows for what he had in mind and he used to appear next to its trunk. He used and slammed the blade as far into the trunk as would go.

The tree shook and roared as Louie liquefied the earth under him and the tree, dropping him in a stone capsule. He used and to move out of the reach of the tree branches before he opened the capsule and lifted himself out of the ground.

Louie moved over to where Sher and the Archer were standing. He looked around and saw that the fight was well in hand, all the gnolls and other creatures were dead and the fighters were all concentrated on the meerkat's burrow, which had a couple of entrances.

Sher gave him a quick hand on his shoulder, before asking."The infernal?"

"Taken care of for now. It's trapped in stone, should give us a couple of minutes to take care of trouble here." He turned to the struggling Oaktree.

"What are you doing, it's sensitive to fire. Just burn it." He immediately knew he had said something wrong from the horrifying look on her face.

"It's one of the first awakened trees on earth, it was just unlucky that the Infernal came here and the aura influenced it. I got a quest from Gaea to capture and force it to dormancy so she can purge it of the Infernal influence."

Louie held up his hand and took a step back. "Sorry, what do you need, what can I do to help?"

She stood thinking for a moment. "Well you trapped it in stone so that it cuts it off from its source of regeneration, and Willem is grinding its Health down as soon as it reaches 1HP it will become dormant, I will bind it into place and Gaea will do the rest."

The oak groaned and its branches slumped till its tips touched the rock in which it was trapped.

"Can you turn that half-dome you trapped its roots in into some kind of giant stone flower pot? Just loosen the stone around the roots."

"I can do that but the loose gravel inside the pot would only be gravel, there wouldn't be any nutrients in there to keep the tree alive."

"Don't worry, Gaea's got that handled."

Louie stood and watched as five stone pillars rose from the ground just outside his stone patch with the oak in the middle, forming the five points of a pentagram. Then a thick vine grew up each of the pillars and reached out to the tree and bound it right. Louie went to the tree and turned the stone around it into gravel only keeping a meter thick outer edge encircling the oak.

Joe and the captain came walking up to them, "you took care of that Demon?"

Louie shook his head, "it's not a demon, it's an Infernal, and I got it trapped. I think we will need Sallys' blessing on our weapons to kill that thing, my ninjato does nothing to it."

"Can't you leave it in the stone?" Louie shook his head again as he answered the captain.

"Captain. ." he stopped as the captain raised his hand.

"My name is Paul, you guys aren't in my Guard."

"Ok, thanks you, Paul, as I was saying, I can't leave it in the rock because it seems to have an ability or some other means that I can feel is slowly breaking the rock apart, I can liquify the rock around it again but it will just wear it down again, it doesn't seem to need to breathe so sooner or later it will break free. Best to get it done now while we have Sally here to bless our weapons."

Joe nodded, "I will join the guys at the meerkat colony, see if we can take that place apart." He wished them all good luck before walking over to the other side to join the guys streaming into the underground entrance.

Louie handed out weapons to those that were going to fight the infernal and explained what he knew about its abilities.

They all stood ready.

He slowly raised the Infernal with the stone to the surface, and moved rock away from it but left it trapped in bands of stone.

There was a loud snap as it broke free from its stone bonds and it was like the wind as it tore through Louie and his companions. He got sideswiped by a claw nearly tearing his face off as he was hurled into the rocks. Coughing blood from a couple of broken ribs of which one seemed to have punctured a lung he struggled to his feet.

The Infernal was like a whirlwind as its claws ripped through armour and flesh, suddenly there was a golden glow as Sally's thrown mace impacted it like a freight train, throwing it back against a boulder. Louie trapped it again with bands of rock. Spears started to impact the Infernal but it only made it scream more.

The Infernal was skewered with so many glowing spears that it started to look like a pincushion, and still it struggled, screamed and spitting. It had broken free from its bonds a couple of times, but Louie got its arms and legs trapped before it got loose again. It had killed two fighters and injured 15 more before Sher had got to them and started healing. Sally was screaming swearwords as she stabbed at the Infernal.

Louie wiped the blood running from a cut in his forehead into his eyes with his right hand before realizing that it was covered in more blood and unknown fluids, making it worse.

"Why won't my Goddess blessing kill this thing?" Sally screamed as she plunged her spear over and over in the internal side.

For a moment Louie considered placing the Infernal in the ring and feeding it to the Dungeon, but he didn't know what effect it would have on the Dungeon, It might even corrupt it, and Gaea had said that it must be killed.

He abandoned that train of thought, an corrupted Dungeon run by an Infernal was just too risky.

Suddenly Louie knew what to do, he staggered to his feet and stumbled to the trapped creature and punched out as hard as he could, activating Wu Shu, which is a combination of all the unarmed fighting styles that he knew, and drove his fist into the Infernals chest.

The creature screamed its ugly laugh at him as the wound in its chest healed over.

"Just fucking die!" Sally drove her borrowed spear into its neck but it just screamed its maniacal laugh.

Louie saw the rock bands holding the arms and legs of the Infernal to the rock slowly break down from its aura and as it struggled to free itself.

He spotted Sher as she stumbled away from the injured guards. "Sher, when I say, use " She gave him a confused look but nodded.

He reached out and laid his hand on the spot where he had punched into its chest, ignoring the snapping jaws as the Infernal tried to reach him with its teeth. He reached out with his mana and encircled the small ball of clay that he had left in the Infernal after removing his hand from its chest cavity.

", he felt the ball crack as all his mana suddenly rushed out of him into the earth wrapped around the small seed inside the clay ball.

Suddenly it screamed in pain as a green light started shining out of its many wounds and from its mouth and eyes.

"NOW Sher!" Louie fell to his knees as his mana starvation kicked in.

"Gaea's Blessing!" Sher screamed as she poured her last mana into and cast it at whatever Louie placed in the Infernals chest.

Sally didn't know what was happening but whatever it was, it was killing this monster so she gathered all the power of her Goddess and channelled it into whatever was inside the infernal.

Golden light mixed with the green and it changed into a lime green colour and stems started to burst from the ground as flowers bloomed around the infernal and its struggles weakened before it suddenly slumped and died.

The light kept on streaming from the body as a brown sap started flowing from its mouth and eyes, down its face, sticking to the rock and covering its body. The sap flowed down into the ground.

There was a loud crack as green shoots pushed their way through what remained of the infernals' head, shooting into the sky, reaching for the sunlight as the overhead thundercloud slowly dispersed.

Louie stumbled as Paul helped him to his feet.

The sap had crumbled and flaked away leaving no trace of the Infernal only an unmarked tree trunk. He looked at the strange tree with its bulbous trunk growing against the rock and towering into the sky.

A splitting headache threatened to split his skull as he used but all he got was Question marks.