GB - Chapter 27: The Forest’s Heart

Luke frowned and said to the strange woman, “Trying to kill these monsters.”

The plant-lady tilted her head and curiosity filled her voice. “But why?”

“The Last Warden gave me a quest to do so,” Luke replied. He then looked at Garran, who shrugged.

“Never seen a woman like her,” Garran quipped. “But maybe…miss, are you a dryad?”

She turned to face him and walked a few steps along the branches, her feet seeming to blend into the wood as she strode. She had a shapely figure, with large hips, and was clothed in leaves that had been sewn together. As far as Luke could tell, she was a type of humanoid he had not encountered.

Fantasy race? He thought. I didn’t know this world had them. Seemed very human-centric.

The woman said, “I am. You may call me Hessentha.”

Luke asked, “Are you like a human? Animal? Monster?”

She turned, and that look of curiosity was filled with affront. “I’m a person, of course.”

“Sorry,” Garran said. “My friend is…new here.”

“I am aware,” she replied as she kept her eyes glued to Luke. 

Garran kept speaking. “I know there’s non-humans in the world, but they often keep to themselves—”

Hessentha spoke to Luke. “You are not living.”

“Correct. Undead,” Luke replied matter-of-factly.

Her green eyes, lit with an inner flame, similar to Luke’s, glazed over and became dull. 

Luke looked past her to Garran, and the man shrugged. “Best not upset her.”

She snapped out of her haze after a few seconds and crouched so that she was on Luke’s level, as he was perched on the branch and still squatting down. “The Verdant Mother spoke. She says you are here to help cleanse the…well, un-pure life. This is good.”

“Pardon the weird question and maybe insult,” Luke said, “but are you a person like a human? A…different race? Species?”

The woman frowned. “You are like a newborn tri-voss.” She looked back at Garran and said, “Are you equally as uninformed?”

Garran nodded. “Been in this region for most of my life. Never met one of you. But, heard of your kind.”

She let out an exasperated sigh and stood upright. Planting her hands on her hips, she tossed her hair—which looked like vines—back with a tilt of her head. “I am a dryad, as you guessed.” She then stared at Luke. “And, to use your rik-tlas term, yes, I am another species. I speak to the gods, same as you…I assume, given that you mentioned one. We are long lived wardens of the woods.” She then looked at Garran, “And we are impossible to see unless we wish it, in our home terrain. Hence why you have heard of but never seen my kind.”

Luke asked, “Are there more of you?”

She nodded and pointed at the Forest’s Heart. “Stuck in the upper-most branches. We are not fighters, but tenders. They have been up there for months. Myself and a handful of others were out and about…and we came back to these Fog Creepers. They’d moved in and set up.” She looked at the Undead kriskarns, all standing at the ready. “You have some force at your command?”

“Yes,” Luke replied as he stood up all the way. “We were trying to figure out an angle of approach. There’s—”

“Three Matriarchs, eighteen Guardians, and a ton of the small ones,” Garran interrupted.

Hessentha let out another sigh.

Dramatic, Luke thought.

She said, “Well then, how were you thinking about approaching this?”

Garran said, “I am a Trapper. So a thought we had was me setting up a bunch of snares and the like, and then luring the Fog Creepers out.”

Hessentha’s demeanor shifted, along with her coloration. The bark of her skin became more of a soft brown, like chocolate, and the braid-vines comprising her hair shifted to a bright yellow. “Excellent idea. You do that. Bait them out into your traps, then have these kriskarn ambush from above.”

She is making a lot of assumptions, Luke thought. 

The woman turned to him. “I presume they’re under your control?”

“Yes,” Luke replied. “But, I have to ask, why are you just okay with taking what I am at face value? Everyone else has had a poorer reaction.”

She blinked a few times, as if confused. “I figured you were just another non-human. Some type of Undead race, or Death-bound one.” She put a hand to her torso. “Just like I am Life-bound.” She looked at Garran with what seemed like a sense of distaste. “Humans…they are populous. My kind have no quarrel with them, but they have not invited us to their abodes, either.”

“Didn’t know we could,” Garran said. “Sorry for that.”

Hessentha waved his words away with a sweep of her hand. “You erect walls around your abodes.”

Luke drew his sword and glanced out over the Fog Creepers. “Back to the more important subject at hand…This is going to be a massive fight, even if we pull away a large number for an ambush.” He looked at her. “You mentioned that you don’t fight…but can you control the forest to some extent? Or maybe change the terrain to our favor?”

“To some extent. What did you have in mind?” she asked.

***

A few hours later Luke had worked with Hessentha to plan out an optimal plan. The woods had been reworked—tree trunks, branches, and leaves moving at her touch to new positions. Other dryads had arrived—men and women, from what he could tell—and had aided the effort. 

To Luke, it was a fascinating dance as the trees shuffled around in a graceful near-waltz. By the time the setup was complete, they had the perfect funnel. The dryads all moved back quite a distance, but assured Luke that they were nearby and would recover his corpse if possible.

A large triangle shape, if viewed from above, made a funnel. Luke would be at the center of the funnel’s exit, as something about his mere nature, according to the dryad, would lure the Life-aligned monsters to him. His Undead minions would be in little ‘cubbies’ next to the exit point of the funnel, able to keep the Fog Creepers from surrounding Luke, while giving him the ability to empower them with his Chill Field. 

Garran came riding down the center of the full, and shouted, “Coming now!” 

Luke saw the horde of Fog Creepers past him, and felt his throat tense up in anxiety. There were dozens of the monsters—Guardians and the small, regular-sized ones—charging after Garran. The man blitzed past Luke and his mount, Fang, leapt up into the trees farther back. He was going to be taking up a position to help cover Luke. 

The traps were sprung, and Luke watched as several branch deadfalls crashed down from above. Vine-rope-nooses seemed to writhe to life and jump around throats to strangle the monsters, and large sheets of bark covered with sharp bristles slammed into the groups. Garran’s work had been vastly improved by the presence of the dryads, and the numbers were thinned out a decent amount thanks to it.

The first of the Fog Creepers reached the funnel, and the smaller ones could fit through three at a time. Luke immediately swung out with his Marrowsteel-infused weapon, chopping clean through the three of them with the mighty cleave. They were still alive, and the corpses were left thrashing on the forest floor.

More kept coming, pouring through the breach, and Luke kept his position at the funnel’s exit as best he could. But, the sheer press of bodies drove him back—and his Undead kriskarns acted. Their claws and front halves of their bodies popped out of their hiding holes, and they dragged Fog Creepers to the sides, decimating them with tooth and nail. 

The first of the Guardians got to the breach, and Luke moved forward to engage. A claw came crashing down, and he blocked with his shield, ducking under the shield, letting it fall behind him, and got into the monster’s reach. With a simple stab forward and up, he got right through the heart and out the back. The thing began to turn to goop, and Luke pulled his blade out.

He was forced back once more and the frenzy continued. His Marrowsteel Plate barrier took hits, and he watched with concern as it precipitously drained from his HUD’s view. Luke had a good-sized cluster of foes in front of him, and used a Grim Harvest. The large, scything grey-green blade flashed out from him, cutting through and sapping the vitality of the Fog Creepers before him.

I wish it was more like an actual blade, Luke thought. Percentage based damage is fine and all—

He had to fully focus on the onslaught directed at him from another Guardian. The behemoth dominated the space in front of Luke, and he misjudged a block and how much force he would need to put into it. His arm collapsed backward, and the weight of the overhead blow drove him to a knee.

Luke’s barrier was gone, and he started to take injury. He could feel the blunt force of the impact, as it jarred his whole body. But, he was not smashed to the ground, and one of his kriskarn, Undead minions grabbed the Fog Creeper from the side, pulling it away before it could strike another blow.

[Health: 123 / 125]

[Mana: 93 / 93 {138}]

[Stamina: 78 / 98 {123}]

Luke got back to his feet and slashed with a vicious, backhand chop—right at the base of the spine that was now exposed. The blow brought the monster crashing down, and his kriskarn dragged the corpse to the side to finish it off, while Luke pushed forward once more. He was able to cut his way to the funnel mouth, and thankfully it appeared that the Guardians were thinning, leaving more of the small foes.

As he prepared to face another one of the large Fog Creepers, a bolt appeared in its head, and it fell backwards. Luke knew that Garran was somewhere behind and above him, providing covering fire and thinning out the numbers by focusing on the larger enemies. Giving a silent whisper of thanks, Luke moved a little bit farther forward, goading more of the Fog Creepers to him, before backing up through the gap.

More of the small ones poured through, and Luke set to chopping left and right. Each hack and slash resulted in more death. He suffered injuries, though, as the smaller foes that were about the size of toddlers kept rushing in, and got some slashes on his legs. The scale armor was protecting him, as was the underlying chain coat, but he still suffered occasional nicks and slices as bits of the clawed appendages got through the protective layers. 

[Health: 101 / 125]

Luke kept a level head the whole time, and just let his body do its work. Almost autonomously, he dodged, struck, blocked, parried, and sliced. But, as he kept fighting, he felt like he was having more and more involvement. Seconds dragged on into minutes as the wave kept coming, and throughout the whole entire onrush, Luke grew more comfortable with how he was moving. The Melee and Armor Familiarity felt less like a guiding set of motions, and more like a series of instructions that he could choose to deviate from.

In a way, it felt to him like a rhythm game. Parry, counterstrike, side-step. He could choose to neglect the input instructions, and instead of stepping to the side, he could hop back, or thrust forward. He wasn’t just mechanically performing maneuvers that the body had memories of and kept implementing. 

Luke was actively fighting, drawing on his body’s knowledge, just like he would draw on data to draw conclusions. The data was his muscle memory, the way his sword moved, the angles of deflection, block, and parry. The conclusions were each thrust, slash, slice, stab, and cut. The results were piles of congealing mush from slain monsters. Every Art was like a new variable introduced in his favor—a formula plugged into a spreadsheet that simplified, streamlined, and collated the information.

After a total of three minutes, the entire group had been cleared. 

[Health: 84 / 125]

[Mana: 43 / 93 {138}]

[Stamina: 38 / 98 {123}]

Luke looked around at his Undead minions, and to his dismay, saw that four of them had perished, leaving him with two. Pierce was one of the two that survived. “Go gather the shards,” Luke softly said.

His minions set to task, and Luke plopped back onto his rump on the forest floor, staring down the funnel of congealing muck.

[Experience Gained: 1,776. Current Experience: 1,830 / 1000.]

Luke’s eyes went wide. 

He thought, Did…did every single kill in this encounter count? That’s the only thing that makes sense. How many…well I guess I’ll learn when I get the shards.

[You have enough Experience to level-up. Would you like to level-up at this time?]

“Sure,” Luke softly said. He glanced to his right as Hessentha walked over. “Actually, hold a moment.”

She paused in place. “Apologies. Did you not wish to speak?”

Luke shook his head. “Sorry. Wasn’t talking to you.” He looked back to the funnel. “There’s still the Fog Creeper Matriarchs to deal with. And whatever forces didn’t chase Garran.”

“It was most of them,” she replied. “You two have done us a great service, dealing such a decisive blow. Soon, the Forest’s Heart will be free once more.”

Luke nodded and pushed himself to his feet. He wiped his blade on his leg, getting some of the muck and blood off, and rested it on his shoulder. “Then let’s get to it. Oh, Essence Shards—you don’t mind if I take a good chunk of them, do you?”

“The Life shards are quite useful,” Hessentha replied. “I would prefer if you did not take a large amount, but won’t stop you if you desire that.”

“Do you have craftspeople amongst your numbers? I wouldn’t mind trading out my cut for some repairs.” He looked down at his starting-to-show-wear armor. “I could use that more than anything.”

“We do not deal in metallurgy,” she replied. “But, I can give you passage back to Mistbrook. My kind can open doorways through trees, provided the biome is connected.”

“That would be helpful,” Luke replied. “Very well then. Let’s say…fifty-fifty split?”

“Sounds more than reasonable, given you did the heavy lifting.”

Luke watched as Garran mounted on top of Fang came out of the trees and moved to the forest floor. The man had his crossbow resting on his lap. “Good job,” Luke said. “Those traps were excellent.”

“Ah, you’re too kind,” Garran replied. “It was thanks to our dryad friend, here.” He then gestured back to the trees with a sweep of his hand. “And her fellows.”

She looked at Garran with a quizzical brow raise. “Friend? Hardly. Mutual benefactors.”

Garran clicked his tongue, then shrugged. “Fine by me. You wanted to be welcomed to Mistbrook and integrate with humanity a bit…but fine. Be like that.”

Luke saw some emotion flit across Hessentha’s face, but was completely disinterested in how Mistbrook got on with the more isolated dryads. He had a task to complete. Get that Quest completed, return to the fort, and then get his writ to allow for safe passage. He set to picking up the Essence Shards nearby, and after a few minutes, had gathered up—along with his Mindless Undead’s help—all of the shards were distributed. 

Luke took stock of his current amounts, and saw it flicker across his vision.

[Essence Shards: x28 T1 Death, x89 T1 Life, x62 T1 sub-Life.]

Well, that’s a hefty amount, he thought. 

Putting his pouch back on his belt and tying it tight, he looked to the once-useful and now-useless funnel. “Let’s get to work, Garran,” he said with just enough air to be heard. “We have a forest to cleanse.”

And, he mentally added, I’ll deal with the level-up after I clear off these last few Matriarchs and other Fog Creepers. For all I know, it’ll be enough to push me up two levels, instead of just one. Not to mention I don’t know what this Undead Infusion thing is, and I might want to put Ranks into it.

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