The treeguards attention fell onto me with the weight of a world. Three grouped together and descended like vines falling from the ceiling. I staggered backwards, almost stumbling at the weight of the spiritual pressure they applied.

At the same time, a grate opened in the wall, spitting out a cinnamon bun. It was still steaming hot.

[Was that magically preserved? Get closer, I can’t see where it came from. Are there tubes in there? Or was that teleported?] Interface pestered me.

The treeguards paid no attention to the cinnamon bun or me. Their branch-like, sharpened appendages overlapped the jade tablet. It changed colors, dimming to black, and the treeguards retreated up into the ceiling.

Nalaar bleated in shock. The entire thing had happened in seconds.

I scooped the cinnamon bun off the ground and brushed it off, staring up at the treeguards to see if they were going to take it back from me.

“What did you do?” Nalaar asked, accusatory.

“I think Interface bypassed the payment on it.” I said. I broke the cinnamon swirl in half, offering it up to Nalaar.

He stared at me, uncomprehending.

[You’re really going to share that? It was a thousand stone!] Interface said.

“It’s not magical or anything, right? Just a snack. Best enjoyed with a friend.”

Nalaar took half of the cinnamon roll hesitantly.

“This was all over the ground…” He said, brushing off the cinnamon roll even more.

“You’ve never eaten something off the ground?” I asked through a mouthful of it. It was the sweetest food I had in literal years.

I spit out a rock.

Nalaar stared up at the ceiling.

“How often do you think you can do that?” He asked.

I shrugged.

[Oh, easily now that I know how it works! Every few seconds!”

“Every few seconds, I guess.” I said, vocalizing for Interface. “Sounds like a bad idea though. Are those things smart enough to realize it’s me opening them? They came down and intervened when we activated the tablet. Or was it one time use?”

“All of these food tablets should have dozens of uses.” Nalaar said. “Sometimes, we would come here and buy out plenty of food for feasts and special treats. Like birthdays.”

“Like the Matriarchs?” I asked.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

“The Matriarch doesn’t have a birthday. And she doesn’t remember the day she slipped into the world through the Scar. I think… I think if you steal again they might drag you to solitary confinement. They do that when you’re disruptive enough.”

The treeguards seemed to be paying attention to us. When the three that had descended returned to the ceiling, a wave seemed to reverberate through them. Now they shifted back and forth like an upside down canopy of trees. Only there weren’t any leaves.

“Is that how you ended up in confinement?” I asked. “Those are the prison cells we were both in when I entered this world, right?”

Nalaar shook his head.

“I ended up in jail for fighting during the Bleeding. The treeguards move out enmasse once most of the fighting is over, killing any remaining Celestials of the Second Realm and below, and dragging the unharvested bodies up the wall for processing.”

[Now that’s an interesting tidbit. There’s a good way to escape prison!]

“What?” I asked. Nalaar opened his mouth to speak again. “Hold on. Interface just said something.”

[Some of those Celestials are incredibly large. We could cut up one of the bigger ones and hide inside the body to be pulled over the wall.]

I paused to consider, still chewing on the food.

“Solitary confinement might be worth if it we can get something good enough.” I said, walking along the jail.

Nalaar paused behind me. It took me a moment to notice, but when I did, I turned back to look at him. The trophy dangling from his horn, a shiny bit of metal, danced from the inertia of Nalaar turning his head to the side.

“What was the idea interface had?” Nalaar asked.

I looked up at the treeguards. It probably wasn’t a good idea to discuss escape attempts in front of our seemingly sapient jailers.

“Oh, nothing important.”

Nalaar caught up to me. He seemed to be thinking something as he walked me through the standing aisles of tablets, pointing out what the various aisles were. At the ends of the aisles were shattered tablets.

“These used to describe what was for sale.” Nalaar said.

“Someone broke them all?” I asked.

“Yeah. Almost a century ago, apparently.” He paused. “The clan that broke them planned to hold the information and broker it for goods. One of the clans of the Upper City wiped out their entire clan in a night for punishment. To this day, anyone born with features of their ancestral Celestial is hunted.”

“So… don’t break the tablets.” I said, throwing a glance back to the one that the Treeguards had seemingly disabled after my meddling.

“Well…” Nalaar said. “Remember how I said all the treeguards head out a little while after the bleeding?”

“Yes…” I said, having a suspicion about where this was going.

Nalaar directed a furtive look at me.

[Oh. Oh! Oh yeah. Let’s rob them!] Interface said.

I mentally sighed.

“The next bleeding isn’t for another week.” Nalaar said. “We can prepare. Get some wagons to carry stuff, a group to come help us…”

[We have to rob the place! The worst case is solitary confinement, right? That’s worth it! They didn’t take the cinnamon bun away from you!]

I took the last bite of my cinnamon bun, chewing slowly as I thought about it.

“Alright. It’s a plan.” I said. “Now what’s here that I can afford?”

The answer was nothing.

A cinnamon bun cost a thousand stone — a single bleeding’s worth. And it had cost Nalaar’s eye to get that much. Sure, maybe we’d be able to collect more if we were more experienced or more aggressive, but it would take weeks or months to reach that state.

A cultivation manual? Just a book or scroll of paper pages? That cost up to 5000 stone. A years worth of resource farming. And you could forget about the other things they had. Interface could read what was contained in each very clearly. And some of it was incredible. Though it would cost hundreds of thousands of stone for a normal person to buy any of it.

“Who else are going to get in on this?” I asked Nalaar as we started walking back.

“Valar.” He said without hesitating.

I nodded. I wanted to get my hands on more cultivation manuals. Something for my body since I was rapidly running out of Hellfire. Without the power of the hells to imbue me, I was little more than a sitting duck in this world. With scale the mountain, I could run fast… but not much more.

Then, after we robbed this place blind, I needed to make a plan to escape this prison.