Lucas stood behind a pillar, waiting for the signal from Bart. There were 4 of the Rootlings, all huddled together in the ruins of a small stone temple. Over the past 5 weeks, Lucas and Bart had to deal with hundreds of the tiny buggers. Lucas had got cocky one too many times before and had almost lost his eye because of it. As Lucas lapsed into contemplation about the danger of the small sentient plants, he heard the faint echo of a light tune played on a flute. The Rootlings started dancing in a frenzy, their small branches waving up and down as they jumped around in a circle. Lucas materialised his rainbow sword and pulled his Shield of the Rainbow Snail out of his inventory. He would only have one chance if he wanted this to go smoothly.

Lucas dashed out from behind the corner, shield raised. The small creatures didn’t notice him approaching as they continued their rhythmic dance. Lucas closed the distance and swung at the Rootling closest to him. His slice caught both the stem and the roots, and the creature fell apart before him. Lucas brought his sword up and slashed at the second creature, but it brought its body up in time and blocked most of the blow. Even with its upper body blocking most of the attack, it was still badly injured, and Lucas quickly finished it off.

The other 2 Rootlings capitalised on the opportunity and took positions on either side of Lucas, circling him slowly. The music that had been keeping them docile until this point ended, and Lucas could hear a low growl coming from the plant-animal hybrids. The two creatures dashed at him from both sides. Lucas stepped towards the one in front of him and raised his shield up at its lunge. The thick wooden spike hit the shield and its rainbow pattern swirled around, mesmerising the Rootling temporarily. Lucas turned around and delivered a heavy roundhouse kick to the Rootling flying towards him from behind. The creature flew off to the side, and Lucas turned around to deal with the mesmerised Rootling.

Lucas’s awkward footwork saved him as a wooden spike went straight between his legs, where he had been standing. Lucas cursed under his breath as he jumped back and let out a high-pitched whistle to let Bart know there was an alpha. Lucas wasn’t sure how he hadn’t seen it before he had made his attack, but was glad he had got lucky. Lucas dismissed his shield and created a rainbow throwing knife in his off-hand. This was the perfect time to train up his thrown weapons skill and hopefully reached Untrained 3.

Lucas started throwing daggers at the Alpha Rootling, aiming for vital roots and some of its larger branches, but missed each throw. The Rootlings moved in to surround him, and Lucas backed up. He could handle two Rootlings at once but a third one getting involved meant trouble. Lucas waited until he was almost up against the pillar before dashing at the Rootling that he had kicked before. Lucas pulled out a second sabre and slashed at the Rootling in a cross motion. The creature fell into four pieces as the blades passed through it like butter.

Lucas turned around to see the alpha launching directly towards him. Lucas let his Rainbow Blades fade away beside him and reached his arms out towards the Rootling. The creature tried to change its trajectory but couldn’t do anything mid flight. Lucas caught the Rootling in a tight hug and kissed it on the trunk, watching as it crumbled away in his hands. Lucas smirked as he thought about how he had just brought a whole new meaning to the phrase “tree hugger”.

Lucas turned around and saw two sharp roots centimetres away from his face as the remaining Rootling sought its revenge. Lucas could only watch as the roots inched ever nearer to his face before a small throwing knife flew past his face, snapping the branches. The Rootling howled as it turned to find whoever had stopped it from getting its revenge. It turned and saw a small greenish goblin dressed in sleek leather armour holding two daggers and covered in small leaf and twig particles.

The creature dashed at this new more fragile target. It closed the distance in a matter of seconds and stabbed forwards with its remaining branches. Bart didn’t even bother to dodge as he sliced anything that got too close to him with a blinding agility. Lucas casually approached from behind the Rootling, taking his time and watching the show. “Took you long enough to get here.”

Bart grit his teeth as he carried on blocking the barrage of attacks. “You know how many Twiglings swarm me when I play the willow flute, I can’t help it.”

Lucas casually slashed the final Rootling from behind, and it fell to the ground. “Every time you seem to use it, it feels like you summon more Twiglings. At some point this dungeon will have to run out of the little cretins.”

“If that announcement was right, I’m pretty sure they are just endlessly being created. I’m also pretty sure the amount of creatures I can charm is directly tied to proficiency in wind instruments. I managed to rank up the skill to Untrained 6 when I started playing and immediately more Twigling’s flocked to me.”

“Maybe increasing your rank in wind instruments increased the range at which it could be heard? Either way, I still should thank you for blocking that attack directed at my eyes. It would suck to have to finish off our last pain obliterator.”

Bart chuckled darkly as he brushed chunks of twigs off of his armour. “It would’ve been worse than that. For a body part as delicate as delicate as an eye you need a dedicated healing specialist. Sensory organs are very fragile when it comes to healing. I heard a story about a thief who had his tongue cut off and regrew it with a pain obliterator. Apparently he wasn’t able to taste any food and also couldn’t make the exact same noises with his mouth.”

Lucas looked at Bart in shock. “You mean if that hit me I would’ve been blind until we managed to find someone with a healing aspect ability?”

“If we managed to reach someone with a healing aspect. If you were blind chances are we would just die in these tunnels trying to find the exit but there’s no point in thinking about possibilities that won’t happen. We need to set up a camp spot for the night and get to training our abilities.”

Bart and Lucas set up camp and got ready to begin training. They had been trying to make sure they could maximise their time each day in the dungeon by keeping to a strict regimen. Every morning they would wake up, eat breakfast and explore the dungeon for around 10 hours. After they were done exploring, they would sit down for the evening to train, eat dinner and relax.

Lucas sat on the ground, hunched over a large pile of rainbow daggers. His brow ran with sweat as he tried to maintain his concentration of the pile whilst also creating a new dagger. A 9th dagger materialised in his hand for only a second, before they all faded away. It was a personal record, but still one Lucas wanted to improve upon. Lucas flopped onto his back as he sipped from his waterskin. The improvements had been nice but the headaches he got each time he tried practicing were starting to tire Lucas out. Lucas turned his head over to Bart to see how the goblin was faring.

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Bart was trying to juggle his daggers. He had been taught how to juggle only two weeks ago by Lucas but had quickly picked up the skill and enjoyed it. It not only helped him practise his hand eye coordination it also allowed him to improve upon his blade throwing technique as well. He had started off only trying a couple blades at a time to make sure he didn’t hurt himself, but had quickly worked up to 5 knives at once. He had tried the sixth knife before a few times but had never managed to sustain the cycle for long. Bart looked at his lightly bandaged hands and shuddered at the reminders of what had happened before when he had made a mistake. There would be no room for error here and now.

Lucas watched from his spot on the ground as his shorter companion started throwing dagger up in the air. Bart had been practicing the skill daily since Lucas had told him about the street performers they had back on earth. The goblin’s ability to balance and juggle the knives was seriously impressive, even if Bart had cut himself a few times when trying to catch the blades. Lucas saw Bart add the sixth dagger to the loop of blades that circled his head and watched as he nimbly balanced them all. The light glinting off of the blades almost seemed to form a halo for a second, as the bright light formed a circle around Bart before it all came crumbling down. The knife slipped out of Bart's hand and he quickly stepped backwards as the knives fell.

Bart turned and stared at Lucas with an annoyed look on his face. “Can you try not to blind me next time when I’m trying to practise?”

Lucas turned behind him to see a pile of rainbow daggers stacked up high. As soon as Lucas focused on the pile started to fade away, but Lucas counted 12 daggers before they all mixed back into the air.

Lucas and Bart sat down to eat lunch. Their daily routine for the past month had been the same. Wake up, explore for 10 hours then go train for 5 before going back to bed. It had become apparent as Lucas and Bart had continued their journey that something was trying to keep them trapped down here. Their minimaps told them they were walking down already explored tunnels, they found the remnants of their old camps and found dead ends they had already marked with chalk, but no matter where they went they couldn’t find anything but endless waves of minions.

“We need to change up our game plan. If we end up carrying on like this we will run out of supplies and die of thirst.” Bart paced up and down next to the wooden blockage before them. “We have no way of getting through this unless you’ve been secretly carrying a bunch of explosives in secret.”

“If you let me use the Aspect of Water, I can probably sort out the water situation. I don’t see why you won’t let me use it.” Lucas sat on a small log he had found and had taken with him as a stool.

“Absolutely not. You can get away without training for your first aspect but by the second you should try to get as many skills as possible before you take another aspect. The fact one of your aspects is Artefact rarity only means you should be training harder than ever before taking another aspect. If you don’t have enough abilities before reaching tier 1 you will be seriously crippled. Each aspect you take from this point onwards will make it harder for you to gain more abilities so make use of this period whilst it lasts.”

Lucas sighed and went back to eating his stale crackers and dried fish as Bart continued on his lecture about the importance of daily training and the benefits it provided. Even if Lucas wasn’t a big fan of the constant lectures, Bart was right. He had noticed a significant slowdown in his progress since he had gained a second aspect. He had trained enough to earn a third and fourth ability for his Rainbow Aspect, but apparently his Aspect Affinity wasn’t up to snuff and he couldn’t learn them yet.

No one had really explained Aspect Affinity to Lucas, but it seemed to measure how much his actions and ideals lined up with that of his aspect. Lucas looked over to Bart’s pacing form and decided it would be best to wait until he was in a better mood before he started asking him questions. Lucas thought about Deepoak and its giant body. If Deepoak really was one giant tree deep underground, then they would have to be in the depths of the roots. The easiest way to get back to the surface would be to just always take the pathway that seems to lead upwards, but whenever they had tried doing that they would find themselves dealing with an endless series of dead ends.

The only way for something to always know which path to block and where they would be would be for their enemy to have a constant stream of information including their current location. Lucas looked around the rough floor and walls and felt his stomach churn. For a second, he could feel a gradual pulse coming from the ceiling and floor and felt something watching him.

“Hey Bart. I have an idea on how we can escape from this place.”

Bart stopped pacing. “Oh? I’m all ears for any plans that you have but I don’t think there is anything left for us to try except just hope we find our way out.”

“The basic idea is the same as our first escape plan. Follow only the paths that lead upward until we get back to the adventurer’s guild. The only difference is that we will only travel whilst you are playing the willow flute. I think that the tree itself is monitoring us and blocking the paths we need to take, but the flute might be able to prevent it from tracking us in time for us to get up.”

“You do remember that I get swarmed by Twiglings whenever I play the willow flute right?”

Lucas clicked his shoulders back into place. “I do but it’s not like we have any other options. You will handle the flute whilst I defend us against any incoming Twiglings. We should be able to avoid dealing with any Rootlings as long as you can keep up the flute playing.”

“I won’t be able to talk you out of this will I?”

“You know me so well.” Lucas gave Bart a slightly grim smile and prepared camp for the evening.