I stood in the corner of the room, placing my foot against the curve where the floor met the wall. "It would be nice if I could walk up the tree. Couldn't you do something like that, Keeper? If you manipulate your weight—"

"I'm not coming with you," she said, flipping the page of the book in her hand, blocking the view of her face.

"Oh gods, again? You've no previous commitments looming over your head, do you?"

"I was planning to learn a bit about this wandering vigilante you dragged along with you."

"He's not coming either?"

"The fewer people the easier it is to sneak around. Weren't you a thief in your past life?"

I frowned. Keeper's tone wasn't appreciated. "Can we not call it my 'past life?' I do intend to return."

"It is still in the past," she mumbled, then nodded her head. "But right, my bad. I forgot we were doing the impossible. Casually."

"I've already overcome one impossibility," I said. "Surely you've noticed."

"Noticed that you stopped drooling at the sight of bare skin? Yeah, I have. On that note, are you sure you're fine with that waterskin?"

I lifted the waterskin. It seemed a large enough supply to me. "So we're going to ignore the question of how I did it?"

"Oh who cares, you overcame your Nature, well done, congratulations!"

I huffed. Is the sarcasm necessary? Tell me you don't care, sure, but mocking me is just…

"Perhaps," I said. "The wanderer would provide a slightly more authentic celebration."

"I would've thought you guys already had one. He's the one who helped you overcome it, after all."

I gave the girl another long glare and then, suddenly feeling a bit dumb, asked, "Are you testing me?"

She lowered the book, a wide grin reaching across her face. "And I'd say you pass. Your new Nature seems pretty tame to me, in comparison."

"You are such a—" I pressed a fist to my brow and took a deep breath. "Such an annoyance sometimes."

"Thanks," she said.

I let out a long sigh. "Remind me why I'm doing all this?"

"To get home?" she asked.

"No, I mean… wouldn't the Seers be happy with any old gift? I need this special orb, do I?"

Keeper placed the book on her lap. "With your ambitions, yeah. I haven't met anyone as painfully naïve about breaking the rules of The Realm as you."

"Much obliged," I grumbled.

"What I mean is you need something extraordinary to show the Seers. Something that demonstrates your growth, something that can convince them of your ambitions, and convince them to trust you with power not many others are entrusted with."

Entrust me with powers. What about Surreal, what was it that convinced her?

"We'll be asking for a special kind of trial for this ambitious young Name. And we need all the help we can get."

All the help I can get, huh? "I'm going to find the wanderer before it gets too dark," I said. "And would you stop calling me young?"

Keeper grinned and waved me off with much enthusiasm.

----------------------------------------

The city of Root, unlike Stock, held a lively atmosphere late into the evening. Certainly, fewer people wandered about the cobblestone streets, but noise from the market district still bled into the innermost points of the city.

I wandered down the street, looking for a way through the tightly packed buildings nestled into one another, when I stumbled across an alleyway with only enough space for me and a rat to squeeze through. The lights on the other side were plentiful; when we'd come through the area earlier in the day, they hadn't yet been lit, but now, the dangling lanterns were splattered all across the street.

I emerged into, not an exceptionally large number of people, but a cheerful crowd of modest size. They idled by food stalls, danced by the street performers, and even sat drinking at open air bars. By some stroke of luck, one of those men was the one I'd been looking for. He made large gestures and laughed with the barkeep, leaned over the counter and pat the man on the shoulder, then waved him off with a graceful departure, and came walking down the road.

He spotted me from a distance and nodded. I beckoned him over.

"You know him?" I asked.

Wanderer shook his head. "Not entirely. I have met the man four times now, and he offers me a compensated drink each time I come by. It has been years last I was around." He motioned his way down the road. "Come, walk with me."

And so we walked, underneath the slowly dimming sky. "He sounds pleasant."

"It would be a touch more pleasant if he made a quality drink. But the man values his connections more than his craft. He is a fountain of ever-flowing information."

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"And you mean to say that isn't pleasant?" I teased. "So, did he impart some wisdom on you this time?"

"Not much I have yet to hear before. The Treefolk are strange, the winter will be late, the church is planning a new celebration."

"The Treefolk?" I asked.

The man gave me a strained look for a moment, and then his features relaxed. "I continuously forget your lack of knowledge, my apologies. Some folk live in the tree, you'll meet them soon as you leave."

"Tree people," I said. "Are they as strange as everyone else in The Realm?"

Wanderer stopped in his tracks and let out a laugh. It was well concealed within the bumbling market streets, but to me it stood out as a serious peculiarity.

My heart sank. "Please tell me they're painfully normal and that's why you're laughing."

He shook his head, still recovering from his outburst. "I have heard many things of Treefolk, never that they are normal."

How fun.

A couple of hours later, I stood at the base of the Skypiercer Tree with Keeper and the wandering vigilante out keeping watch. From this spot, the tree felt more like the sheer wall of a cliffside than a naturally growing plant.

I huffed and rummaged through my bag for the metal hooks I'd gotten back in Stock. It was a comfort to be out of the traditional garments Keeper had made for me, and to be reunited with my cloak, pack, and all my pouches.

I looked up the tree-side once more and placed a hand against its bark. I knocked my fist against it. Hard. I found a spot where the wooden exterior peeled away and pulled to see if it would hold my weight. The bark came off like wet paper. If only I had my Coldsteel Claws, I'm sure I could—

Oh, right. I have these. The large formless masses sprouted from my arms, ending in three sharp points. I heaved them into the air, with far more ease than I'd been able to the last time I summoned them, within Kafk's dream, to kill my mentor. The memory stung at the edges of my mind and I winced, closing my eyes. I took a deep breath.

The tips of my claws sunk into the tree's outer shell as if it had not even existed, and I began a long and arduous climb.

After the exhaustion set in, which is to say, about an hour into my ascent, I could feel my concentration weaken. Left hand anchor, right hand reach—and when I began to pull myself up, my mind lapsed ever slightly. This resulted in my bulky arms momentarily liquifying. They were slipping away from me. My eyes widened, I held my breath, and my entire body tensed. The claws hardened back to their original state. I hung there a moment, panting.

Far enough above solid ground that falling would mean my body was no more recognizable than a bug splattered between one's hands, it occurred to me that I'd never kept my claws active for such a long period of time. Certainly, I'd been exhausted while using the Mauler's claws, but that was only ever for—relatively—short periods of time. Time which I was now acutely aware of. The stairs, where are the stairs?

The non life-threatening manner of climbing the Skypiercer Tree was a long spiraling staircase, sometimes dug into the tree, and other times attached around its perimeter. This was what I needed to find. Unfortunately, due to the undercover nature of my climb, I had started at the side opposite the main entrance. It must come around this side sometime, right?

I craned my neck in either direction, but there was no staircase in sight. And my arms liquified again.

"SHIT—" I tensed my body and eased out another breath.

No staircase? Easy, just need to find somewhere to rest. My eyes fixed on the closest branch, about fifty feet to my right. It was rather pathetic looking, compared to the tree at large, but plenty enough room to lay down on, and that was all I needed.

Slowly, I scaled across the vast stretch of space between myself and my safety. But I was too slow. My limbs liquified. They slipped away from me before I could regain my concentration, and I fell.

The air whistled against my ears. I reached my arms out to grab the surface closest to me, the tree, but I only ripped a chunk of bark off and pushed myself further into open air.

My mind raced, the blur of the tree rushing past in front of my face, the heartbeats until my death fast approaching. The grapple—

I shoved my hand in my pack, grabbed the metal hook, wrapped the rope around my wrist, and tossed the grapple at the tree. It clinked off without even the slightest hint of catching. My entire body froze. That's it. I'm dead.

A branch whizzed past on the left, and the hook, now floating in the air, followed on the opposite side. The rope caught against the branch and forced it to spiral around and snag deep into the solid wood. A sudden resurgence of hope had me grip tight on the rope, and the next thing I felt was a force strong enough to tear my arms off.

But they were not torn off. The branch creaked at my sudden weight, and I gritted my teeth through the pain in my arms. I bounced there, momentarily, before all the movement settled, and I was left hanging by a thread. Heavy breaths.

I reached one arm to pull myself up, but the pain in my shoulders screamed at me to stop. I listened. Hanging like this isn't so bad. Now just how do I, you know, get up there?

And as I hung there wondering, there came a tug at my rope. From the spot where my hook had lodged itself into the branch, a small face peaked over the edge.

"Pull?" it asked with a voice as faint as the wind.

With the composure of a man hanging for his life, I answered, "Ah—Yes! Yes, please. That would be helpful, thank you."

Two twig-like arms came out over the ledge and grabbed hold of my rope. I wondered for a moment how it would be possible for arms so fragile-looking to pull my weight, but I soon began to rise. One tug at a time.

It was a girl, I noticed once brought up further, and she looked young, too. I supposed she was one of the Treefolk.

As soon as I was close enough to the branch, I gritted my teeth again and reached for the solid surface. My leg came up overtop, and before I could do much to ensure I wouldn't fall right back over the edge, my body went limp with one leg still hanging off the side.

The girl pulled the rest of my body onto the solid branch and I flopped over on my back, staring up at the rest of the tree above me. How in the gods did I survive that?

Two wide eyes, the color of fresh basil, came into my peripheral, looking down at me. The girl stared for a while and then poked at my face.

"Ah—"

She squeaked, jumped, and ran off somewhere. I wasn't sure where there was to run off to, up in a random branch sprouting off the Skypiercer Tree, but she did.

After laying there a while, recuperating my strength, I gave myself a Repair, sat up, and looked around. Near the far end of the branch, in and amongst the foliage, was a platform made of large, flat leaves, a few sticks, and plenty of twigs. There sat the girl, hunched over a table of sorts, grinding away at something in a wooden bowl.

She looked over at me, noticed I was awake, and jumped again. I was afraid to move, for fear she might jump right off the edge. We sat there, staring at each other for a while, like animals caught sneaking somewhere they should not be.

Then, from her small den in the leaves, she tilted her head and lifted her bowl from the table. "Food?" she asked.