Their destination was in sight, the mountain range separating them from the first layer, roughly eighty miles away. It was tough to tell exactly how far since the land curved up instead of down. It was weird judging distances without a horizon.

Max saw that the temperate forest they were in ended a few miles ahead and a blue forest took its place. These trees were tall and spindly, thinner than the Earth type he was currently hanging onto. That meant that he could see through the forest better, enough to see movement even at a distance.

There was a herd of monsters in the forest ahead, their dark fur easily contrasting from the light blue wood. Max couldn’t tell for sure, but he guessed that there were at least sixty of them. More than enough to overwhelm their little group of five humans.

As he watched, an explosion of lightning blossomed out from the center of the herd. The dome of electricity looked small from here, but he estimated it was forty feet wide. Just getting close to that type of monster would be deadly.

They would have to go around. Spinward was tempting because they could avoid the blue forest altogether if they went that direction. However there was a river running north-south that he wasn’t sure they could cross. It was just wide enough that he didn’t like their chances.

Anti-spinward looked good. There were low hills that would give them cover so they could guarantee they wouldn’t be seen by the horde. There was a dungeon tower farther north, so they would need to cut spinward again after a few miles, but Max wasn’t too worried. They should have enough room to avoid the tower, even if it had a mandatory quest going on right now.

The path decided, Max climbed down and told everyone what he saw.

“Any chance we could kill all of the monsters? If I used my troll form and that awesome hammer you made for me, I could kill a bunch of them on my own.” Gus said. “If the rest of you set up a killing field and traps, do you think we could kill them all? It would be worth a lot of money.”

Max shook his head. “These guys are huge and have lightning magic. We would be lucky to kill three of them before the rest of them electrocute us.”

“Yes, thank you for being reasonable, Max,” Lily said. “I don’t want to die because we got greedy. We are so close to freedom.”

“Freedom is farther away than you think,” Max said. “We are much slower without Ebba.”

“The point still stands,” Lily said with her hands on her hips. “We need to be smart about this, play it safe.”

Max nodded and they headed out.

Gus and Max took point with Lily and James behind them. Yang took rearguard this time because she needed to work on the Camouflage quest. She wouldn’t be able to focus on the magic and scouting at the same time.

They weren’t too worried about monsters ambushing them. With the horde of lightning monsters just a few miles away, any other monsters would have left by now.

It didn’t take long for them to enter the blue forest. Max felt unnerved as soon as stepped foot inside. The tree trunks were thin and spindly, not providing much cover at all. There wasn’t any underbrush, just a thick mat of moss and lichen. Or at least the alien equivalent. It was soft and springy, like they were walking on rubber. Like the trees, the moss was blue, but it had streaks of yellow throughout. It made the forest feel sickly to him.

Through unspoken agreement, they grew quieter as they entered the forest. They were one false move from drawing a horde down on them.

There was an unexpected benefit to entering the blue forest. There was nowhere for monsters to hide. The thin trees couldn’t hold Max, let alone a large monster. If anything tried to attack the squad, they would see them coming from a long way away. They were able to pick up their pace considerably.

Max kept an eye anti-spinward as they hurried around the herd. He didn’t see any monsters coming close, but he regularly caught glimpses of brown in the distance. Each time, his heart beat faster and his grip on his hammer tightened. The monsters never wandered closer though.

To take his mind off things, he decided to make himself a better hammer. Right now he had a copper hammer which had a great magical attack, but wouldn’t last long as an actual war hammer. He cracked off a branch from a nearby tree. It dripped red sap, almost like blood.

Max shivered. He would be happy when he was out of this creepy forest. He focused on the branch and clicked that mental button to transmute a hammer.

It didn’t work.

That had never happened before. It always worked the first time. He tried again, and failed once more. What was going on? He read the card description to see if anything changed when he wasn’t looking.

Advanced

Multiple Hammers

Citadel

Transmutes mana neutral matter within aura into hammers of the cardholder’s design.

Mana Cost: 14

Refresh: 0.4 Hours

Card Level: 6

No, it was all the same. Why wasn’t his card working then? He reread everything and stopped on ‘mana neutral’. Was it possible this branch wasn’t mana neutral? If it was a magic tree, that would explain things.

Staring at the branch didn’t trigger Inspect. He tried staring at a nearby tree instead. This time Inspect did trigger.

Mycelium Aspen - Charged

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

That was concerning. What did ‘Charged’ mean in this case? Did the tree have a magic attack? Max looked around the forest and the same description showed up over every single tree. A sinking feeling fell over him.

Mycelium was the connecting thread of mushrooms and Aspens were connected underground as well. This forest wasn’t made of thousands of different plants, it was all one big organism. One single plant, with a magical spell to protect itself. What if that dome of lightning he saw earlier wasn’t from the monsters? What if it was the trees?

Max dropped the branch and jumped away from it. “Guys? I think we need to leave the forest. Now.”

“What? Why?” Gus said.

“My Inspect says the trees have a magic spell charged up. I think it might be the lightning I saw earlier,” Max said while nervously trying to stay away from all of the trees. It wasn’t really possible.

As if to punctuate his statement, a tree behind them exploded in a dome of lightning. It was the same one he had taken a branch from.

“Run!” Max yelled and turned towards the spinward edge of the forest.

They sprinted after him, Yang quickly outpacing everyone. Another tree detonated its lightning charge, this time closer to the group. The edges of the electric dome were only a dozen feet away from the slowest in the group. The plant system had some way of tracking them.

Max slowed a bit and yelled, “Drop your pack, James and Lily!”

They complied right away, shrugging off their backpacks and sprinting forward. Max made sure they were keeping up and surged forward. Gus was fit enough to keep up with his pack on, and Max wore Yang’s pack so she didn’t need to worry.

Somewhere along the way, Max had activated his Levitate stat and was running along at half weight. He could keep this up for a long time, but he worried about the others.

Another tree shot out its lightning, closer this time.

James and Lily were caught on the edges of the field. Tiny tendrils of lightning hit them and danced across their forms. They both cried out in pain and stumbled to the ground. Their momentum brought them out of range and ended the effect.

Lily rolled across the ground and bounced to her feet. She slowed down when she saw that James wasn’t beside her.

“James!” Lily yelled, the cry full of anguish.

The chubby man was still on the ground. He jerked when he heard her call his name. He rolled and stumbled to his feet like a drunk. She ran back to him.

Max had the same idea and they arrived at his side at the same time. They each took an arm and helped him get going again. James groaned in pain and tried his best to get running again. His arms and neck were spiderwebbed with angry red scars. His shirt covered his back but the way he ran showed it was in pain too.

Gus had kept running, not looking back. Yang had been in the lead, but stopped where she was, unsure if she should run ahead or go back to help.

The hairs on Max’s arms stood up. He scanned the forest, his eyes wide in panic. His Insight gave him a fuzzy hint that the tree ahead of them was glowing brighter with magic.

“This way!” Max shouted and turned them.

The tree shot off its charge a few moments later. The expanding dome of lighting was centered on where they would have been if they had kept running. As it was, the edge of the effect still hit Max.

His right arm and leg were caressed with tendrils of lighting, pain shooting through his body. The jolt of fiery anguish would have brought him to his knees, but James held onto his arm this time. The help was enough to keep him upright and they kept running for the forest’s edge.

A hunch formed in Max’s mind, prodded by Instinct. The trees took some time to release their magic payload. They had to guess where their prey would be and start charging up before they got there. If Max could see the tree that was going to blow next, he could angle them around it.

A flicker, a slightly brighter fuzz of magic made Max yell, “Left!”

They turned as one, avoiding the next explosion of magical electricity. Yang saw that they were going to survive and started running herself. Gus had never stopped, he was far ahead of everyone.

The three of them kept running arm in arm, as fast as they could. It made things easier for Max to turn them as a group, angling them around the trees that were about to blow.

Max had thought that they were fairly close to the forest’s edge, but they weren’t there yet. Panic was distorting his sense of time. Each step took an eternity and each tree activated faster and faster.

James was breathing hard, starting to stumble occasionally. Lily was much more fit, but the pace was getting to her too. Max felt like he had to drag them along.

His own heart started pounding faster and faster.

Finally, the edge of the forest came into view. Gus and Yang were there, standing at the treeline, just outside the range of the electric attack.

Max’s heart plummeted. The tree in front of them was charging up. So was the one to the right. And the left. The whole alien treeline was going to blow as one. There was no way to run around it.

He slowed in indecision. Then a thought struck him. “Stop!”

They tried to stop as one, but the rubbery moss gave at just the wrong time and they fell to the ground in a tumble of limbs.

The treeline went off then. The sound of so many electric explosions at once was like thunder from real lightning. Max cringed and braced himself.

They were just outside the area of effect. He sighed in relief and then jumped up. “Go, go, go!”

Lily and Max helped James back to his feet and they ran forward. The inner row of trees exploded. They left the blue forest just in time to avoid the second lightning row.

James stumbled to the ground and lay on his back. His arms and legs were splayed out. He had his eyes closed and he was gasping for each breath.

“Damn Spinworld. Even the trees are out to kill us,” Gus said.

Max turned to him. Gus had basically abandoned them to their fate. He didn’t even consider helping them. At the same time, Max knew he couldn’t say a thing. Gus had never pretended to be anything but selfish. He was number one in his own book.

They took a break so everyone could recover. The fresh pine scent was like a soft hug, helping them relax.

Several minutes later, Lily came to sit next to Max. She turned to him, her eyes wide.

“Hey, Max? How long do you think it will take the trees to recharge?”

“I don’t know. It could be hours, it could be minutes. The whole forest is one interconnected organism so I wouldn’t be surprised if it could pass mana along to recharge trees quickly.”

“Oh,” she said, her shoulders slumping. “Well, do you think you could repeat your trick again so we could get my bag?”

She must have seen something in his eyes because she hurried to add, “It’s not about the stuff. We can buy new stuff. I left a magic card in my bag. That’s worth a lot. Plus, I have a few mementos from Earth. It’s silly, but my mom gave me my grandma’s pearls. It’s the only thing I have left from her. Do you think you could lead me back?”

Max rubbed his neck. They had been lucky to survive with their lives. Sure, he could drop his pack and run in on his own, but it would still be a huge risk. On the other hand, he understood the importance of family. The whole reason he left Earth was to meet up with his brother. Family was important.

He was about to say he would do it when Yang appeared. She had been standing nearby and let her Camouflage drop.

She sat close to Lily and said, “That’s not true. You are the most important thing to come from your family.” Yang touched Lily’s knee lightly. “Keeping your memories of her alive is far more important than a string of oyster spit. Your mother is watching you now, and I’m sure they wouldn’t want you to risk your life for an object.”

Lily looked down, “Maybe. It’s hard though. Thinking of walking away from the forest feels like walking away from her memory.”

“Tell us a story of them, we will help you bring their memories along with us. They will live in us as they live in you,” Yang said.

The corner of Lily’s mouth twitched up, “I think I’d like that.”

Gus cleared his throat and said, “Maybe while we are on the go? I’m seeing movement down the corridor south of us.”