The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (58 page)

“
I think the roots
are what have been eating all the animals.” I stood up, aiming
my hand at a pair of roots that were approaching me. Remembering back
to last night, I gathered my flames in my hand and made my aura
stretch out like a giant claw, swatting the roots.

“
Well fuck, how are
we supposed to find shelter like this?”

“
Very carefully.
Hang on!” I cancelled my spell and lept to Denise, grabbing
onto her arm. With the familiar sensation of squeezing through a
space entirely too small for us, we vanished. This was a short hop,
so I didn’t bother with the incantation. Not like I’d
have had time for it anyways.

When we reappeared, we
were standing on the beach, the same place that Lilith had sent us on
our first arrival. “The tribesmen.. use the beach.. for
safety.” I let out my words between deep breaths, feeling like
I was about to retch. Denise took a few minutes to gather herself
before nodding.

“
Okay… so
it’s not that the forest is just attacking animals…
they’ve just figured out how to defend against it.”

“
It should be more
than that… there’s a reason you don’t build stone
structures on a beach. The foundation will give way bit by bit any
time the tide comes in. They couldn’t have been there more than
a couple months.”

“
We’re talking
about the same people right? Tiny little midgets wearing loincloths?
I don’t think they’d know what to do if they saw a ship…”

“
Exactly…
meaning that this is a relatively new incident. Something happened in
the last few months to this island. I spotted what looked like the
remains of a village, but it was entirely destroyed. Every piece of
wood had been removed, so that all that was left were toppled stone
fireplaces and stone markers.”

“
So… this
isn’t just the trees… something is controlling all the
plants, even used wood?”

“
That seems to be
the case.”

“
But that’s…”

“
I swear, if you say
impossible, I’m going to start pointing at things from the last
two months.”

Denise instantly shut her
mouth, slowly smiling. “Point. Okay, so if it’s not
impossible, what could do this?”

“
I’ve got no
idea. But I’ll bet you that somehow, those trees are able to
eat anything from an animal, down to the bodies in the ground.
Thankfully, hellfire can burn them, but we can’t be sure if
normal fire will work. That would be too convenient. If these things
could be killed with a forest fire, the tribesmen would have done it
ages ago.”

“
Yeah… so how
are we going to do this? We can’t fight an entire island worth
of trees.”

“
It might not be
every tree… but it’s too hard to check which ones are
enemies. They don’t give me any information for my Worldlore
ability, so I can’t tell what they are.”

“
How about calling
Dariel? Isn’t she an expert on nature magic?”

“
Yeah, but she’s
been with the Vinehaven clan area for so long they have lost most of
the knowledge they didn’t need. I doubt carnivorous trees were
high on their priorities.” I sighed, shaking my head.

“
Alright. So, what
do we do?”

“
When I was looking
at the situation, I saw that the trees avoided going anywhere near
that mountain.” I pointed to the big mountain at the center of
the island. “There’s a decent chance that something there
can hurt them.”

“
Okay… so we
just have to travel through a man-eating forest in the meantime. I
don’t suppose you could just teleport us to the mountain?”

I shook my head. “If
I do that, the sudden altitude shift could seriously damage our
bodies. And the trees were too dense around it for me to get us very
close. There’s.. one way we could do this, but it is really
risky and I’ve no idea if it will actually work.”

“
Any idea is better
than no idea?”

“
Right… well,
if I use my magic and carry us, while wrapping us in hellfire, the
trees won’t be able to hurt us.”

“
...Would your magic
last that long?”

“
Under normal
circumstances, I’d doubt it. But… I got something new in
Hell that I haven’t had the chance to show you yet. If I use
it, I’ll have two minutes to use my magic as freely as I want.
After that I’ll be exhausted, but you can grab me and use your
Light Speed to cover the rest of the distance if we haven’t
made it.”

“
You have once again
confirmed your status as a cheat character.”

“
If it gets us
through this safely, I can live with that. You ready?”

“
Nope. But I don’t
figure I’ll ever be ready for this.”

“
Me either.” I
stood straight up, flexing my hands. “Here goes… Spirits
of the pit, fires from the world beyond, become the shield that holds
your fury. Hellfire Aura, Demon’s Cloak.” My body began
shifting again, and I struggled to stay focused. The moment the black
runes began crawling along my skin, I took action.

I activated a Speed rune
on my neck, along with Running on my feet, and a Lighten rune on my
back. Then, I ran to Denise and picked her up, even as she stared at
me with a shocked expression. “No time…” Wrapping
myself in hellfire, I charged into the forest at my top speed-- which
it turns out is pretty fast when fully enchanted. Thanks to my skills
in Nature Magic, natural obstacles no longer impeded me, and I could
jump on a bush as if it were a platform.

Wherever my feet landed, a
black mark would appear to burn what I touched. There were several
vines, roots, and branches that tried to grab at me as I ran, but
they were immediately burned to ash upon contact with the aura around
me. Any time the trees directly got in my way, I would simply jump
around them, using other trees as leverage.

I’d say I made it a
little over halfway before my mana finally gave out, the two of us in
the air during a large jump. My breath was short and erratic, and the
moment my flames faded away Denise grabbed me by the hand. “My
turn.”

I felt an almost painful
pull on my arm, and the next moment we were at the base of the
mountain. Denise was standing next to me, taking a few deep breaths
before falling to her knees. “Dammit… I told you not to
overuse that..” I knelt down next to her, checking to make sure
that she was alright. Her health hadn’t decreased any, but
there were more ways to die than just losing hit points.

“
Sorry…
emergency… work?”

I looked back to the
forest, and noted that none of the trees had advanced to chase us.
“Yeah, looks like it worked. Next time, I vote we fight our way
through… probably less dangerous.” I let out a small
laugh, and looked back to the mountain.

“
Deal… so
now..?” Denise glanced to me, still short on breath. My mana
was already almost half recovered, so I felt pretty good.

“
Now you rest for a
bit. After that, let’s look for a cave or something. If this
mountain has a secret, it’ll be there. If not… well,
we’ll think of something else.”

“
Don’t sound
too confident…”

“
Hey, we are
fighting a giant forest, and I don’t have many spells that will
stand up to plants. Especially fireproof plants.”

“
Make one..?”

I sighed, shaking my head.
“Before I do that, I’ll have to figure out what these
things are. For all I know, normal fire just makes them stronger.”

“
...Good point.
Okay, gather information first, and
then
make the biggest weed killer spell you can manage.”

“
Now that sounds
like a plan. You ready to go?”

Denise nodded, standing up
slowly. “I’ll be good if we don’t go too fast. My
muscles are still a bit sore. Think you can magic us up some
directions?”

Nodding my head, I closed
my eyes, recalling the incantation from before. “In my eyes,
all things are as one. Perfect Vision.” I didn’t bother
opening my eyes, since the spell at this stage didn’t require
that. I soon found that, like before, I could see everything around
me. But unlike the last time I used this spell, or any variation of
the Scan spell, I couldn’t see through the stone of the
mountain. “Damn, it must be shielded or something, I can’t
pick up anything.”

“
I’d ask about
your water trick, but we are short on water.” Denise shook her
head, casting her gaze up to me. “So, old fashioned way?”

“
The only way.”
I nodded, and we began walking around the base of the mountain,
keeping an eye out for anything that looked like a cave entrance. Of
course, this was a truly large mountain, and it was at least two
dozen miles across. That meant walking the long way around would take
us days.

Unfortunately, it was the
only path we had the didn’t involve a long hike. We could see a
few trees and bushes following us along the edge of the forest, as if
waiting for us to head back in, or taunting us. Can trees taunt? Part
of me wanted to just roast this entire island, or summon a demon
swarm to wipe out the forest. But the part of me that still had a
semblance of patience knew that doing that probably wouldn’t
get rid of what caused the forest to come to life in the first place.

Still, it was a nice
thought. That night, we camped at the base of the mountain, where I
made a shelter entirely out of stone. Not more plants for me, thank
you. I also cast a wide Alarm spell, making sure that nothing would
be able to sneak up on us. Hopefully this time the little folk
wouldn’t be coming around for a midnight visit, since both
Denise and myself were entirely worn out from a full day of walking.

Sure, we had seen some
things that looked like they could be caves, and hiked up to them.
Then we discovered they were just small holes that were filled in a
few feet in. Not much of a cave. Once darkness hit, I knew that
Lilith would be worried, so I spoke into the darkness about what we
found. There wasn’t much to tell honestly, except that the
forest came to life during the day and had a taste for flesh and
bone.

Since I didn’t get a
response from Lilith, I figured that she was still going to let me
take care of this myself unless I call for her. At this point, I
didn’t expect to be able to do anything. Maybe if I learned the
cause of the disturbance, I could report it back to the kingdom and
get an official party dispatched.

As I started falling to
sleep, I thought I heard a small pulse coming from around me. Not
much, just enough to make me aware of it. Thinking that it was just
my own pulse I was hearing, I let myself pass out.

I awoke alone, in the
darkness. Or, maybe I wasn’t awake at all? Beneath me was
neither stone nor grass nor sand, just an empty void.
I
didn’t get killed in my sleep, did I? Or is this just another
dream?

I recalled the last dream
I experienced, and closed my eyes. Moving my hands, I performed the
actions as if I was going to stand up normally. To my great surprise,
I found myself on my feet within moments. “Walk the path
unseen, huh? Well, how am I supposed to find the fucking path if I
can’t see it?”

“
You know where the
path is. You just have to find it.” The same voice echoed
through the darkness, and I found myself standing atop a mountain
surrounded by a forest.
Guess this is the same
one.

“
I have to find a
path that can’t be found, yet somehow already know where it is.
I can tell you right now, I have not seen any way into this
mountain.”

“
No, you have not.”

“
You seem to know
everything, so tell me. Why me? Why are you doing all this shit to
me?”

“
You will
understand, when our paths finish crossing. For now, you must focus
on the task at hand. If you fail at this junction, there will be a
great many deaths to follow.”

“
So no pressure…
just got to find out what can possess an entire forest, find an
invisible path into a mountain, and then somehow solve this crisis
before it unleashes a cataclysmic event.”

“
You are the one
that has chosen this path to walk, as much as this path has chosen
you. But remember… if you fail…” Suddenly, a
shadow was cast over the mountain, engulfing it and the entire island
as trees withered and died, the darkness flowing outwards.

“
I got it. Any more
vague advice you can give me before I go back?”

“
Trust your
companion, and trust yourself.”
Yup, a
great big helping of vague.
“You did
ask for vague advice.” Was there a bit of attitude in the voice
that time?