Dryfu returned from a scouting flight while the rest of the group chimed in with the ping of back-up axes.

No sign of a way to the artisans. There’s a lot of rock between us.

Thank you.

Foraging boosted his efficiency to gather the stone into his storage. The saturation of Venom in the minerals triggered his Danger Sense to painful static flowing in and out in intensity between his ears.

Lank led their way up a fissure toward a small miner’s bridge spanning the ten-meter gap. Once they reached that point, he hoped to get a breather and a chance to purify the stone shards into Pure arrowheads.

Tim pictured the demon who cut him and swung hard at a stubborn outcropping of sharp rock. A crack splintered from the base but did not dislodge. Tim wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, careful as it dribbled over Chris’s hardened paste. He dabbed and lost it in the cracks where it absorbed into his itching wound. The aura in his sweat fizzed in the hot interference of Venom leaking from his pores.

As kids, their parents took Tim and Chris to Florida; he still remembered the walking into an oven oddity that was exiting the Miami airport. As Ohio boys, they hadn’t known the humid heat so overwhelming it lived on the edge of your skin and inside your lungs when you inevitably inhaled its power.

This dungeon was like that, but demonically claustrophobic.

With little else that he could do but keep on, he collected another round of energy and exhaled away the flecks of raging fire impurities from his sore throat. They coursed through his breath like embers licking gashes across his fragile flesh. He tried purifying the Venom in the air but failed to do much more than expunge and endure its dominance. The opacity in the rock could have taken millennia to collect, and it was all around him, like an army without eyes or end in number, yet knowing all and expanding without restriction.

Any advice on aura purification? Tim thought to Dryfu, pressing down sarcasm optimism in his tone.

You’re still alive, Leifman. Be grateful and don’t give up. Light Burn on a slow cook might do the trick. Your AF base is poisoned. It’s producing fits and starts, so try starting with that in conjunction with Warding to keep it contained. At your tier, the amount of Venom in the air is stifling. All your spells are costing twice the energy right now. You’re doing well purifying your airways and the oxygen in your blood is fighting that sickness. Keep cycling in your breathing while you mine. If you overdo it…

Thank you, Dryfu. I won’t.

Chris swung over on a vine to land beside Tim. An extension of his makeshift climbing rope helped guide Murphy on a long loop behind him. He handed Tim a freshly packed bowl of Alligator Express. A glimpse of fear held in his dust-swirling pupils. “I enhanced this for you,” Chris said. Its warm smoke tickled his lungs with aura regen coating the gashes in his throat and chest. He coughed and the smoke’s heat surged into new openings deep within. Tim’s eyes watered and some of the pain evaporated, including a calming of his nausea. “Thank ya,” he said to his brother and tried catching his breath.

Chris climbed the steep incline with a vine he’d grown from the ledge above and wrapped around him and Murphy like a climbing rope. Sticky moss grew out of the crevices in the rocky floor, padding some of the uneven crags for easier footing.

The group waited at various stages of climbing. The fissure was only about ten feet at its widest. Lank looked back down through the hole he had climbed. One that would force Tim and Murphy to Kari’s ankle-wide ledge and circus acrobatics to get his donkey up the steep incline.

Murphy brayed in disgust.

Sweat and aura singed into a metallic odor as it ran off Tim’s grip and sizzled on his pickaxe. He rested it on the ground like a mini crutch until he caught his breath.

Lank continued his Babe Ruth swings into the overhang blocking their path.

“Murphy, can I get some of that pure pure,” Tim mumbled. The boundary between delirium and pain-purging ecstasy reeled around him like a merry-go-round without breaks. He opened his eyes and held firm while pinpricks of hazy light filtered clarity into his vision of the approaching donkey.

“I’d like to prep my next Dose,” Tim said, thinking of his dagger’s skill switching to Attack on the next use. Against the demons, he couldn’t wait to see it hit them where it hurt. With that and a few dozen arrows tipped with Pure, he was looking forward to the retort.

Murphy nudged past on the narrow ledge, brayed, and released his cloud generation with its passive healing to their sore muscles. Red light filled Murphy’s kneecap and brightened as it concentrated into a narrow hole. Tim rubbed his thumb over the jewel in his dagger, casting Ward. It opened a hole mirroring the light source beaming from Murphy’s knee. Tim rolled the jewel overtop, smothering the tiny well while heat filled the chamber in his casting of Light Burn. Whisps of dirty smoke permeated through the initial sealing of his Ward. Tim cauterized the hole to finish the Warding.

Fluorescent blue rays cast brilliant light from the aura pooling in his dagger jewel.

“Lue Mond,” Lank exclaimed. His wide eyes beheld the beam of light burrowing into the dense black rock. A pool shimmered across its bubbling surface.

Lue Mond is a hero of local legend, sometimes referenced in prayers or when witnessing a god’s power.

Thanks. And what exactly is going on with the rock?

Beats me, but like I said, use Ward or it…

Lank saw his chance, raising his pickaxe in a triumphant backswing lacking the caution rising in Tim’s chest.

“Wait,” Tim said, straining to send Warding into the Light Burn hitting the stone. Every ounce of his efforts skipped off the channeled spell without penetration. Letting go of Light Burn before Lank hit his mark was too little too–

Sky bright light shot through webs cracking out from the pickaxe’s impact. Boom. Debris cut and blinded. Its speed and power startled Tim into activating Battleground and a Protection spell wide enough to cover the group.

“Lue Mond is right,” Kari said.

Tim’s scab crusted eyes burned where the Venom dust permeated anywhere it could. Blinking away the dust and wiping it free was torture with a long tail. By the time he could see, Kari and Lank were already climbing into the newly blown open tunnel.

Beyond the wall they’d blown away by about five feet on all sides, was a spacious inner room deep and expanding as Chris’s staff cast its glow over gnarled trees and shadows.

Deciduous forest perk activated - Goso El Sinuous trees identified. A dungeonized strain of Folos El Sinuous, it is also known for resilient wood useful for tools, rope and weapons. The dungeonized elements allow it to replace photosynthesis with a system capable of ingesting dimensional gas and darkness instead of light and c02. Venom concentration is reduced within range of enough of these living trees.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“It’s a–”

“There’s a body,” Kari said, interrupting Lank, sliding into a defensive stance with her whip hanging loose at her back leg.

Tim sent Danger Sense over the cobweb-wrapped corpse curled around the trunk of a Goso El Sinuous tree. Tim’s Magic Hunt melded with the spell to root out any aura left on its bones. Bugs had cleaned them to the marrow, but he found something more interesting in the aura trail leading under the tree roots. “I don’t detect anything suspicious,” he said, and released his spell. His migraine throbbed for breath, forcing Tim to squint and press into its fulcrums. Ranger sense tickled his scalp with the opportunity to Forage, Craft and Cleanse living wood, which was far more malleable than the abso stone in his pack.

Lank knelt at the body and tucked a corner of his pickaxe blade under a fold in heavy webbing, then peeled it back to reveal a wool uniform charred around the edges of a nasty chest wound. Cocoons and shells of insects long gone occupied the hollowed-out chest cavity.

“He was wrangling haklas,” Lank said. “But they weren’t what killed him.”

What’s that? Tim thought to Dryfu.

I get that you’re careful, but I think Lank could use the truth about you and Chris.

Lank and Kari already knew he was White Fuego, Leifman and Jewel winner, and Kari knew he was a Gatewalker. With her buddying up with Lank, there was a strong likelihood Lank knew already.

Lank’s a changed man since you met him. Still hard on the edges, but in a good way. The little I heard about him while with my last guide was the Dutchy considered him a threat and a variable best taken out if they found him.

All I asked was what a hakla was.

Yeah, but I could tell this needed said. It’s about time. Ask Lank.

Tim snorted under his breath.

Lank rose, stretching his low back and collecting himself before looking Tim in the eye. “I know you’re a Gatewalker who doesn’t know a hakla from a hole in his ass. Aside from the stykiller as your Guide, Kari also told me about you and your brother.”

His focus returned to the corpse and scraping his axe hook across the webs and debris. “A hakla is a hairless rodent composed of about eighty pounds of tunnel churning acid belching power. Picture a bulldog’s wide strength and loose skin, which helps it wiggle through tight spaces. Not much help for falling far from the ugly tree. Its mouth is like two shovels sharp enough to break through rock. If they hit abso stone, their saliva can burn through what their teeth can’t cut. Even at no higher than your knees, the adults can mow you down to bubbling bone pudding in no time. They burrow with two long front claws, wheelhouse strong legs and a tongue producing acidic saliva. Their nose has a strong scent for the chemical reaction between dimensional gas and untainted flesh like ours. Wrangling them is a dangerous but well-paying occupation, if you can catch them.

Tim noted the mishmash of slashes across tree trunks up to five or six feet off the ground. “Are those their claw marks?”

Lank nodded. “Wise sight. One way to lure them into a trap is to excavate a tree grove where they go for refuge. Right, like this self-enclosed area. They sealed it off to protect the future Goso El Sinuous saplings they planted inside. The way the trees process dimensional gas produces oxygen in an exchange that lures haklas, who love to sharpen their claws on the trunks. This helps the trees grow and increase their oxygen production. With that purification of the air, the haklas recover and breed. Their skin has unnatural healing to help the burns its saliva leaves. Some hunt them for their skin and potions you can create. Some sell pups at a steep price to any dungeon dweller who wants to plant a goso grove or… Some can be trained to hunt or protect humans, their nose sometimes leading the way to buried miners or providing a way out for those who’d been buried.”

Lank scanned the grove and a trail winding through the center of the tree covered hills. Chris’s moss spread a luminescent green across the ground and ceiling, which rounded like a dome to a high point about four stories tall.

The enclosure felt like a graveyard housing the hundred or so trees, and so far, he didn’t sense any hakla or living creatures besides their company. The trees were too thick to see to the end. His Danger Ping searched for an exit, straining with the distance. It only returned hard objects and shapes. The tangle of trees also disoriented his senses.

“We should check the other side, maybe send Dryfu,” Lank said. “The wranglers usually only seal at two locations. An entrance and a retreat. Any more cost too much, not to mention the risk of being captured if someone spotted its forming.”

Dryfu’s wings buzzed with his lift off from Tim’s shoulder. “Ping me,” Dryfu told Tim. “I’ll check.”

Tim cupped a vanilla light of Danger Sense for Dryfu to fly through, directing the spell into greater concentration on his wings and eyes. This work around allowed him to cast it at a short distance and maintain while Dryfu flew the perimeter.

Tim inhaled the rotten fruit in the air. Husks of goso fruit hung from stubborn black strings connecting them to the branches. Many more long ago pelted the ground at the trunks, just like they did over top E’Tic, staining him in seed-dirty purple and brown. They hardened like shitzu turds dolloping the corpse.

Tim carefully spit on the tip of his gotr dagger blade, cast Magic Hunt and Ward in a tiny enough dose to test an idea. The way in had stripped him of most of his strength, but this held potential if the corpse’s aura was trapped under the fruit pies.

Aura fatigue and his fever manifested tremors into his hand. Tim exhaled and cycled another round of MP into the spell, held his forearm and inserted the tip into the center of the pie. A Spirit Memory sparked a vision of E’Tic on the run. It zipped shut into his Ward and absorbed into his blade.

Tim did it again. And again.

E’Tic’s brother died and was among Tim’s wraiths. This connection sparked life in memories of a network of tunnels E’Tic used in this area. Some had storehouses, others friends who made a living down here, though none stayed long. He’d come to prune before his grove’s winter.

Darkness closed in, pixelating his vision into distance and fuzz.

“Whoa,” Chris said, catching him from a short but abrupt fall over the corpse.

He’d lost himself in the memory of fleeing Nee. The sulphuric cinnamon scent exuding from the unholy armor branded into Tim’s smell memory bank.

Chris lifted Tim’s dagger with his staff, balancing it before it fell into the ribcage. Its blade glowed purple and yellow with aura. “May I use this to plant a tree of our own?”

Tim tried to capture the fleeting memory of where the demon rider had surprised him. And why. It felt like more than predator versus prey. E’Tic’s relatives were tied to the rebellion, and he traded with them primarily. In the search, Tim lost his ping on Dryfu. Tim had planned to plant the seeds, and Chris was the obvious one to do so. Still, the eagerness in his spirit was disconcerting.

“The grove is dormant,” Tim said, offhand, pursuing the possibility E’Tic’s hunter overtaking him first at an abandoned quarry. Yapeem, one of his friends, lived in one of the towers, a fifty-story monolith combining housing with efficiency in producing and transporting the product. Four towers like that formed a courtyard from which the eight quarries were carved. Inside the towers were gateways to Hist’s Prison, connected by the riftstone and empowered by rift mana to continuously expand his Enclave.

The towers were carved from the space between them and the ceiling, making them more like pillars to prevent a cave in.

Maybe Chris was just eager to help, using his gifts for their family. Maybe that was Tim’s concern, if it would be.

Guess he could only say yes and find out; not that he had evidence otherwise. He handed the dagger over and Chris took it to the fresh hole he’d dug while Tim was stabbing the corpse. Spring morning white vines grated from his staff, raised high to touch a knot in the lowest bough. The roots wove into the dead maroon wood and sent a trace of light into its empty bowels.

Aura born spell tracers shot on open airwaves through the new vines above and down through Chris, then out Tim’s dagger to the dirt below.

Chris pouring water reminded Tim to justify another sip from his canteen.

I found the exit, Dryfu telepathed. The distance was too great to read. I’m doing fine. It’s quiet. I’d say ten twelve thousand square feet enclosure and I’ll need you and Lank to open the seal over here.

Nice! We’ll get there. Tim felt like an oven baked Papa Murphy’s pizza then a nice long nap.

You know there’s a chance those in front of us will also need backups and reups. We’re on our way into a buzzsaw.

Are you saying what I’m thinking?

I guess so. Say it for our sake, out loud.

Chris’s sapling sprung ganja buds while also mirroring the languid on a supermodel diet structure of loose trunks posing in a reach for the heavens while its seed rained mercy on his people. Already it stood six feet, with three interwoven trunks as wide around as his fist.

“Think we should stay a bit?” Tim asked. He took out Princess Pearl and tapped her broken barrel. “I can use the sap in these as part of fixing this. There are a couple more stops to make before we take on the Borderlands, but if I can shoot holy bullets between that demon’s eyes, I’m gonna shoot that shot.”

“A couple more stops?” Kari asked, intrigued and weary. He’d say her vote was audit proof. All he had to do was mail it right here.

“E’Tic’s network of Silo 19 scavengers might help us slap a demon or two on our way to the Tomb. You done with my dagger?” Tim asked.

“You want I scrape the paste off now?” Chris asked with the blade pointing Tim’s way, his wide smile baring teeth gleaming with the aura reflection from his gotr shine.