Mason didn’t have time to worry about how Rebecca was handling Calypsa. ‘She’s sort of like a sex robot, and she needs my semen for fuel’ didn’t really seem like the best defense. He figured he’d just move on and explain things later.

So he took Rebecca’s hand before she had a chance to think about it, then told Blake and Seul-ki to form a chain with them. When they were all properly linked, he walked them slowly into the clearing and the mist, and they collectively gasped as they saw the tree.

“It just appeared out of nowhere,” said Blake. “How the hell do you hide something like that? No really, I want to learn the spell.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of holy tree magic not for mere mortals like you,” Mason told him.

“Not yet,” Blake corrected.

Mason stopped at the tree and met Calypsa’s eyes. “Anything we need to know before we go in?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what we’ll see. Before the corruption set in, at least two guards would be near the entrance. Perhaps they still are.”

“Alright,” Mason turned to the others. “Touch the tree. Agree to enter the dungeon. As soon as you’ve touched it, I’ll go in first. Ready?”

They all nodded, and Mason was glad to see Becky had gotten over Calypsa enough to get her game face on. They all touched the tree and looked to Mason.

[Enter Great Tree Corruption as a group?]

[Objectives: Cleanse the Great Tree.]

Streak whined at his side, and somehow he realized the animal couldn’t go along.

“Shit. Sorry buddy.” He activated Speak with Nature. Go back to the town, and wait for me there. I’ll see you soon.

The wolf grumbled and yipped a few times in protest, then turned and vanished into the woods.

“He’ll be fine,” Mason said, mostly to himself. Then he turned back to the tree and touched the bark again, the same prompt opening before his eyes.

This time he agreed, and as usual his senses seemed to move away from his body, all fading to nothingness then re-appearing in another place.

A foul smell pervaded the air and turned Mason’s nose. Green light pulsed all around him, showing a huge cavern above but with a series of maze-like barriers leading to several different paths. A man with the body of a horse, and another man with the head of a bull, stood as if guarding it.

“A centaur and a minotaur? That’s too cool,” Blake muttered. “It’s like we’re in Greek myth.”

The creatures were about fifty feet away, and though they seemed to notice the party they didn’t move to interfere with them.

“You have some kind of identify power?” Mason asked. “Or was that just the power of geekery?”

“The Greek classics are hardly 'geekery’.” Blake rolled his eyes. “In fact you might say they are the obvious sign of an educated person. I’ve literally narrated the story of that minotaur to you at least a few times that I can remember, starting with when I forced you to play Age of Emp…”

“Shut up. Calypsa, any reason I can’t just put these fellows in the ground with a few arrows?”

The beautiful nymph sighed, and looked saddened. “They are corrupted beyond my reach. Do as you must.”

Mason drew his bow, deciding the horseman should die first. He tossed a deadly trap several feet ahead in a clump of mushrooms growing through the roots. “Be ready to do whatever it is you people do,” he said to the others. Then with his upgraded Endless Quiver he picked a brutal broadhead, aimed, and loosed his first shot.

* * *

Blake was getting a little tired of his brother’s dismissals, and decided it was time for a display of power. Since they were alone now with trusted allies, and since Blake hadn’t accounted for himself terribly well with the taking of Nassau in Mason’s eyes—and since the sexy nymph was watching—a little boost in respect was warranted.

He glanced at Seul-ki, who immediately put out her hand for him to grasp. Power surged up her arm like electricity, and he felt a cold calm wash over his mind. A list of his powers appeared in the corner of his vision, Arcane Blast glowing slightly as Seul-ki enhanced it.

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Mason was shooting arrows at the centaur, and both creatures roared to life and charged towards him with murderous intent. His arrows stuck into the centaur but didn’t yet bring it down, and the minotaur came entirely unharmed.

Blake began channeling his spell. Unlike Telekinesis, Arcane Blast wasn’t quickly charged, and would likely never be useful in some kind of intense fight where every second counted—or where an opponent could stop him from finishing. But then Blake never really was much for ‘fighting’. Killing, certainly. But fighting? He preferred his enemy to have no chance of hitting him back.

Energy coursed around his body, building like a wave as unnamed pressure increased. Whatever it was, it felt good, and Blake almost groaned with the power. The centaur had fallen now a few steps from Mason, the minotaur coming on as Becky prepared some kind of defense and Mason drew his sword. They needn’t have bothered.

The arcane pressure reached its peak and released. A torrent of energy whipped like a lash from Blake’s eyes, for a moment slicing wherever he focused, which for now was across the space just above Mason and Rebecca’s heads. It slashed across the Minotaur’s chest with a sizzling crack, followed by a red and purple line forming perfectly along his flesh.

The beast stumbled, and fell. His upper torso bounced and carried forward a few steps with his momentum, his lower body and legs dropping where they stood.

[Great Tree Minotaur killed. Experience awarded.]

Mason dropped and inspected the creature for several long seconds before he finally turned around to stare at Blake. Becky and Calypsa did the same.

“I told you I had an offensive spell.” Blake shrugged. “Ready to move? I say we go left. That’s the trick with mazes—just stick to the same direction.”

He walked on with Seul-ki behind him, and soon enough Mason and the other girls started moving and took their places.

“You know your way through?” Mason asked Calypsa behind him.

“There was no maze the last time I saw this place,” she said in her always slightly aloof tone. “It’s familiar in most ways, yet totally different, as if something redesigned everything, and shuffled it around.”

“Can’t wait to find that something,” Mason muttered.

Blake, though, was sure they could overcome it, and no doubt benefit from the opportunities thereafter. They always did.

So he walked on and stuck with his plan, following the high, narrow passages of stone along the left wall, which were covered in thick brambles to prevent one from simply climbing up and over. Blake suspected it was still possible with enough skill and effort, but he decided he’d really rather not make the attempt.

Mason and Rebecca took the lead again, and Blake was happy to let them. He smiled and took Seul-ki’s hand, and she returned it. She was wearing her full mask, as usual—a magical deception to make her appear far plainer than the beautiful Korean actually was. Only her brilliant green eyes remained as usual.

He’d been trying to convince her not to wear the disguise anymore, but she insisted.

“Like you, I prefer deception,” she explained, “even amongst my friends. You never know when confusion and doubt might protect you.”

How very wise she was, he’d decided, respecting her choice even if he sometimes tried to change it. Of course he continued to flood her mind from time to time with positive feelings towards him specifically, ensuring she always considered him an exception to every rule.

The group walked along without much issue, their senses tuned to any little sound or change in the maze. Mason stopped them twice as he checked floor tiles, coming back with little dart traps identified that triggered depending where you stepped.

A little while later, some of the vines on the walls shuddered and came alive, leaping at the party like flying rope. Mason and Calypsa cut them down or otherwise used some kind of natural magic to pacify them, and the party yet again moved through the maze.

Next they found statues sitting on an old water fountain no longer in use. When Mason got close, the stone sprung to life and tried to smash him with slow, heavy swings. Blake used Telekinesis to help break them apart, and Mason smashed what was left using their own broken bits of stone.

After that, it was just a long, mind-numbing slog. And Blake got rather bored.

“So tell me, Calypsa,” he said when he’d tired of counting tiles, “how long have you lived in this magnificent tree? Do you have any family?”

She looked at him like one might examine a bug on one’s shoe. “All living things are my family, because we are all Gaia’s children. I have existed since the beginning of the world.”

Blake put on his winningest smile. Details were useful for Mental Influence, but this sort of nonsense wasn’t exactly helpful. He tried another tack.

With a conservative, perfectly reasonable use of mana, he released a targeted burst of curiosity into the nymph’s mind, specifically about him, and waited for her to engage more appropriately. She turned and narrowed her eyes in his direction.

“Are you always so annoying?”

Mason snorted up ahead, and Blake cleared his throat. It was fair to say she hadn’t yet warmed to his charms. But it was only a matter of time. It always was.

“Creatures up ahead.” Mason held up a hand and crouched as it seemed the maze at last came to an end. “Some kind of gathering. A pool, maybe eight or nine creatures I can see. Calypsa?”

Blake couldn’t see a damn thing in the gloom, and had no idea how Mason could. The beautiful nymph seemed equally capable, and stepped up beside Mason with squinted eyes that Blake could swear he saw wetness in.

“A sacred pool,” she said quietly. “The waters should be clear and green, not red. Those creatures are Sisters of Chiros—protectors and keepers of the pools. But they are…deformed, in body and spirit, and cannot be saved. They must be destroyed.”

“Alright,” Mason turned. “How many can you kill with your blast, Blake?”

“Probably a few,” Blake shrugged. “If they stay close together.”

Mason nodded, and Blake could see a hunger in his eyes—a love of mortal danger and the hunt. It made Blake smile. In their old lives his brother had always been subdued, as if he was waiting for something that never came, only half alive.

But since this new world had changed everything and destroyed the old relative tranquility of civilization, Mason had woken up for the first time. This was where his brother belonged.

“I’ll trap the passage,” he said, lifting his bow, “then Becky and I will guard the ramp that leads to us. Calypsa, can you stay with them and protect them if something goes wrong?”

The lithe woman frowned, but nodded.

“Then let’s go,” Mason’s voice changed to something…colder. “We kill them all.”