Chapter 12: Splash

“They planned it all?” I ask befuddled, “Who planned what?” I look at the strange reddish orb that pulses in his hand like a heart, a few droplets of blood leaking out of it.

He puts the strange item into his spatial pocket.

Sairal shakes his head, “Now is not the time for explanations. Since all the beavers are dead the effects of their skills are starting to wear off. This dam will break and flood the area if we don’t do anything.”

I stare at the dam that spans further than the eye can see. Already holes have begun to form, water gushing out of them.

“I don’t think we can fix this. Don’t you realise how much water it’s holding back? We can’t plug all the holes. Besides, soon enough the water will rise high enough to just spill over.”

The dryad turns towards me, the blood and grime on his face getting washed away by the rain. “Who said anything about plugging the holes? All we need to do is create enough holes so that more water will flow out than is being collected at every moment. Just start out pulling branches without making it collapse.”

I frown. This is gonna go so terribly wrong. Yet fleeing now would just make us get caught in a tidal wave that will wash everything away once the dam breaks. Dammit, I really should have chosen Hydro Mandrake.

My gaze travels back to the Sairal who already has begun pulling out entire logs without making it collapse. I start doing the same, though with smaller branches.

Huh, this is actually a lot of fun. It kind of reminds me of Jenga, only with your life on the line.

***

The presence of time gets washed away by the storm like many other things do. I don’t know how long I’ve been playing this game of Jenga with my life on the line.

What I do know is that it’s barely helping. While we do make an effort, it isn’t enough to compensate for the increasingly furious rainfall. Let alone all the rain fell higher up in the forest and is now rushing downwards like a tide.

By now my home must be underwater. Maybe Sairal’s has been swallowed up by the lake?

I look to my right where Sairal is sprinting along the wall, pulling out more logs that won’t influence the stability of the dam. Tiny rivers form wherever he pulls out a particularly large log, the water blasting out with enough force to wash away the grass and dirt where it hits.

More branches get tugged free by me, releasing so much water that it can fill the stream twice over. Still, it is nothing compared to the newly formed ocean behind the wooden walls.

I meet paths with Sairal, dodging all the spurts of water, “It’s barely having effect! Can’t you contact other dryads?” I yell over the wind.

He doesn’t pause pulling free entire logs as he replies to me, “I can only speak to other dryads when I’m near my tree. Besides they are occupied with other things. Everything is chaotic thanks to the additional mana from the weather spell.”

I shiver. This all, the tingling in the air, this entire storm, was created by someone? It seems that I was mistaken about the height of power in this world.

In fantasy worlds, more mana in the air means more monsters that act crazy. If that is truly the case here, then entrails must hang like party decorations in the trees in the inner forest.

Seeing that Sairal has continued with more fervour, I decide to climb the dam, looking at our progress.

Finding myself atop the wooden wall, I stare at the amount of water behind it. As I said, it might as well be a sea. And even with so much water pressing against the dam it somehow still holds up. Lots of things can be said about those beavers but at least they were good at their job. Too good at their job.

Luckily for us though, the rain seems to be decreasing in intensity, allowing for slightly more visibility. But somehow I still can’t see any trees in the distance. There is only the endless ocean, no land or trees in sight.

My focus turns back to the wooden wall, or to be more precise, the waterline. It’s a good twenty centimetres below the wall, slowly rising every moment.

I jump off the wall and dash towards the furiously working dryad. “We need to go! This isn’t helping. It isn’t enough.”

He turns towards me his wet hair streaked over his scalp, “No, Green! You don’t have any idea of the ramifications this will cause! We can’t give up. If we don’t succeed the stalemate might break.”

Something snaps in me, “You keep saying things but you never explain! Don’t I live in this forest too? Don’t I consider it to be my home!” I yell, my voice growing hoarse as I fight the wind that tries to snatch away my words.

Sairal opens and closes his mouth several times, thinking about who knows what. He comes to a decision and narrows his eyes as he stares at me.

Unblinking I stare back, the hatred still clear on my face. I know that he has his own thing to do, but it now just feels like a poor excuse; not telling me about a lot of things since I might not make it to the next grade.

His eyes narrow further, “Are you a s-”

He’s cut off by a reddish flare that lights up the black sky, drawing both our gazes to it. The flare looks like a firework, howling and hissing as the rain around it is evaporated by the sheer heat that radiates off it. A few moments later six other flares, just like the first one, join it dancing in the sky.

The first flare reaches up high in the sky, almost scraping the clouds before falling down back to earth, hurdling down like a miniature meteorite.

“What is that? A warning signal?” I ask after the six others have fallen down too.

The howling wind and the hissing of rain are silenced by the flares, each of the fireworks sounding like breaking ice.

“We don’t use fire as warning signals. They are fireballs. Grand fireballs to be exact,” he comments the colour draining from his face.

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“We need to go,” I state while tracking their arcs with my eyes.

Sairal looks back at the wooden wall, water gushing out of it like a sieve, yet somehow it still isn’t enough. “Green I-I can't. I-”

“Yes you can,” I cut him off. I lower my voice and raise my tone to be demanding, “Time’s up. There is only one thing you can do and that is retreat to live another day. Run to live, to become stronger, so that if something like this happens again in the future you are strong enough to prevent it.”

His lower lip begins to quiver. “This will break the stalemate,” he says again.

Sairal picks me up and holds me in a princess carry. With him being far, far faster than me, it’s just more efficient. He begins to jog downhill, gradually speeding up. His footing literally gets washed away several times, making him almost slip.

A literal carpet of water, several centimetres thick, rushes downhill along with us. Fleeing what soon will come.

I look back up at the bright, orange-red Grand fireball. The breaking of glass grows louder as they fall from the sky like stars. Even at this distance, I feel the heat emanate from them as they reach terminal velocity.

The first Grand fireball hits the earth. Tremors race through the ground, making the carpet of water fly up like spikes piercing everything. Sairal doesn’t seem to be moved by it, only stumbling slightly.

I almost expected there to be sound after it hit. Anything like the breaking of wood or the rushing of water. However, there is nothing but silence. A chilling silence as if the entire forest is shocked.

Then the spell gets broken. The six other fireballs hit the dam all at once but at different places.

Multiple things happen in a single moment. More tremors shake the earth, far worse than before. Sairal stumbles forwards. Trees topple over when the tremors reach a crescendo. A blast of wind follows, carrying splinters of wood it picked up from the blast. The dryad shields me as they cut through the air and spear into his back.

He lets out a painful groan but keeps running, shrugging off the blow.

As if that isn’t enough trees around us topple over, unable to withstand the blasts of wind. Sairal dodges one and slides over the ground evading the second by centimetres.

The flow of water is next, growing louder and louder as it is unleashed from its cage like a starved beast. Muffled cries of birds and other monsters in hiding resound from behind us as they all get swallowed by the tidal wave of water.

“Sairal,” I manage to stutter out in the face of an all-consuming wave.

“I know. It’s just too slippery,” he comments completely calm.

The wave is catching up behind us. Even all the trees standing in the way barely stall its speed.

I feel my heart sink in my chest as it keeps advancing bit by bit, gaining ground. But luckily enough, we reach flat land in time.

The dryad’s speed increases double-fold now that he’s less likely to slip.

“Where are we going?” I ask with my eyes on the tsunami behind us.

“To my tree. I have defences set up for this.”

“You seriously have defences for a tsunami?”

“Sort of, but it takes time to activate,” Sairal says. He continues to speed up, gaining traction on the ground while commenting to himself that he needs to find something that will give his feet more traction to the ground no matter the circumstances.

Everything around me begins to blur as he picks up his pace, now having found his footing. The splintering of wood flows away into the background.

We trail along the new banks of the stream that now is the size of a river.

“Are you sure your tree isn’t underwater?” I ask.

His face splits into a small smile for the first time after my evolution. “It’s only submerged by three-quarters.”

I ignore how he somehow knows that and focus on another detail, “Just? Your tree is tall, very tall.”

“It’ll be fine,” he says.

I sigh and focus my attention on the tsunami that’s slowing down. The flat ground means that it isn’t gaining extra speed. And with the trees around, it’s actively being slowed down now. Already some trees are rooted deep enough in the ground for them to remain standing.

Monsters that haven’t fled earlier before the storm broke form a stampede just before the wave. They fight with tooth and claw to gain every bit of distance they can between the wave and them. The monsters that can’t keep up anymore get swallowed up by the tsunami, often letting out a final painful cry as their body is torn apart by the debris that floats in the tsunami.

Now it occurs to me that I accidentally, in some strange twist of fate and luck, made the best decision possible. Going back home would have resulted in me drowning while staying out hunting would have me join in the stampede.

I get pulled out of my thoughts as Sairal makes a sharp turn and speeds up even further. His breathing grows deeper and ragged as he pushes himself to the limit. “Hold your breath,” he gasps.

Far in the distance, I see what once was the lake. Most trees around it only have their very highest branches sticking out of the water.

The dryad speeds up further until I feel my body begin to ache from the speed. Sairal runs straight towards the lake, reaching top speed. He doesn’t stop for the water and keeps running.

It takes my mind a second to realise what he is doing. He…is running on the water, soft splashes resounding each time he steps.

Momentum is lost and he starts to sink. With his last step, he leaps forwards and plunges into the lake while still holding me. He swims towards his tree while holding me with one hand.

My eyes adjust to the water and I look backwards at the wave. I don’t know if it’s more ominous or less seeing it from down here. Instead of seeing a wave that is more than a dozen metres high, I see a wave of wood splinters, gore and other things it has picked up in its path.

All hopes are dashed. There is no escape from this. No tree nor skill can protect us from this. Everything will just be swept away. Underwater isn’t safe, the splinters that drift in the tsunami turning any monster into a sea urchin.

The dryad stops, having reached his tree. He throws me towards a branch which I grab onto with my life.

A strange glow fills the water around the tree. It emanates from the carpet of moss laying at its base. It rises like a curtain. All the hibernating mushroom guardians waking up and swimming towards the upper branches of the tree. Moss wraps around the tree, making it look like a Christmas present. Air fills the space and the moss blows up like a balloon.

I look at it all, sitting on one of the branches next to a purple-capped guardian. Tiny beads of green light are tied to the moss. It almost looks like the night sky.

It’s serene. It calms me, even knowing what will soon crash upon it. I close my eyes, breathe in the air and prepare for the worst.

Sairal is strong but is he strong enough to shelter his tree from a tsunami?

The question is answered by the upcoming rushing of water that fills my ears.

It's close.

Guttural screams from the monsters as their bodies are perforated by who knows what rings out.

Wood splinters breaking apart, trees falling over. I hear it all. If one of those splinters hits the bubble, it will pop, killing everyone inside.

The dryad climbs upon a branch close to me. He looks worse for wear, his face pale from exhaustion. He fought for who knows how long before trying to take care of the dam. And he sprinted all the way back too. He must be almost out of resources.

He takes in a deep breath. “Green Reinforcement,” the air thrums with power and life as he speaks the skill. He slumps over and begins to hack and cough.

The moss takes on a shiny metal-like look. Tiny dings of objects hitting the bubble echo making me think that I’m in a shooting range.

There is a louder ding and a shard of wood pierces the bubble. In response Sairal winces and his coughing grows louder.

Soon enough the wave passes and his coughing fit ends.

He takes in a painfully deep breath and lets out a sigh, “This day sucks.”

I nod and replay the conversation we had before those fireballs were launched. There are too many things I don’t know. I need answers. “So…mind telling me about the things you said before the fireballs and all? I, uh, think you were speaking about a stalemate.”

Sairal glares at me, “Only if you remove the splinters in my back.”

“Deal,” I say, smirking now that I have the upper hand.