The Master of the Dark Forest

The path towards the floor guardian’s room became more and more difficult to traverse. Dark wooden roots stuck out next to jagged rocks like spiked pitfalls, waiting to destroy a dungeoneer’s feet and legs. Besides the magma paths of the lower levels, the Dark Forest was known as the most difficult terrain to traverse. The roots constantly slithered and moved about, making mapping dangerous areas impossible. The group of young adventurers carefully treaded through the narrow, pronging, pathway. On occasion a wooden construct would come out of the dense forest and attack the group. Whoever spotted it would immediately take up a defensive position, while another member of the group would circle around behind the construct and deliver a paralyzing blow. One of the main weaknesses of wooden constructs in general was their vulnerability to shattering. While a being of flesh and blood would absorb a wound as a gory hole, a construct made of something like wood would shatter. While it was more difficult to deal a mortal wound to a construct, it was easier to immobilize it.

“Ah.” Lily quickly squeaked out in pain.

“What’s wrong Lily?” Ardi asked, turning around to look at her.

“Nothing, just got stabbed pretty good in the ankle by one of these stupid roots.” Lily replied in anger, kicking at the root that had stabbed her.

“Let me see.” Rel said as she moved closer look at Lily’s wound.

Rel bent down, putting her hands out in front of her. She repeated a quiet mantra and a warm yellow light enveloped Lily’s wound, healing it.

“Thanks.” Lily said, throwing a peace sign up with her hand.

Rel smiled at Lily, giving her a peace sign back. The group had been walking so long that some fatigue had set in. Lily had started daydreaming and stopped paying attention to the ground. Ardi and Manrin shared some small talk, trying to make a decision on if they should stop or not. As they were in the middle of talking a strange wooden bug jumped out at them. It had long arms which swung around like a whip.

“Ardi!” Lily yelled as she grabbed at one of the root arms that had whipped at her.

“On it!” Ardi replied.

Ardi took advantage of the pinned whip-arm and sliced at it, using his acid covered blade to cut through the appendage. The creature let out a loud screech and whipped its head around towards Rel. For some unknown reason it pounced at her, seeking to take her out first. Manrin pulled a short sword from under his cloak and moved in front of the creature’s attack, blocking it with his magic sword. The sword had runes carved on the blade which began to glow. The creature jumped back. The part of its last good arm which had reached towards Rel crumbled. Lily jumped from rock to rock gaining speed and altitude before slamming her spirit blade over the construct, splitting it down the middle.

“What the heck was that?” Ardi asked exasperated.

“Some kind of weird mutation, I guess.” Manrin chimed in.

“What is that sword!?” Lily yelled out, running up close to Manrin and gleefully looking at the sword that he was holding.

“Just a magic sapping sword.” Manrin said, attempting to back up.

Lily pushed forward invading his personal space as she looked at the sword with sparkles in her eyes.

“Do you want to hold it?” Manrin stammered.

“Can I!?” Lily yelled back.

Ardi audibly sighed and moved between the two.

“Put the sword away. Let’s focus up, we are almost to the floor guardian’s room.”

The two shook their heads and did as Ardi told them too. The group took a short respite just out of visual range of the floor guardian’s room. Rel set out a tea set and some dried meats and fruits as a snack to get everyone’s energy up before the final fight. After Rel had finished setting things out she sat to the side, looking up towards the ceiling of the labyrinth and muttering to herself.

“What’s Rel up to?” Lily asked Ardi who had sat next to her to pick up some dried meat.

“She is praying, I guess.” Ardi answered.

“I don’t really see the point of that. The gods don’t stop good people from dying every day, why would they help us out?” Lily said blankly, not intending to be philosophical, but more as a matter of fact.

“Who knows what they think about.” Ardi answered, looking at the spot of the ceiling that Rel was fixated on.

“Do you follow a god?” Ardi asked after a moment of silence.

“I used to follow Beunike.”

“Were you parents both farmers then?” Ardi asked in response.

“They were.” Lily responded.

Ardi paused for a moment, reading in between the lines.

“I see. Take a quick breather and get some snacks.” Ardi said as he stood up and walked over to Manrin.

The group shared some more pleasantries, reminiscing on times past; playing jokes on professors, and other general shenanigans. Rel and Ardi were laughing about some past event when Manrin cleared his throat. Ardi, Rel, and Lily looked towards Manrin.

“Should we continue?” Manrin asked with a serious face.

The group looked at each other with a pondering bewilderment.

“Getting nervous Manny?” Lilly asked.

“No, I just want to finish this up.” Manrin replied, glaring at Lilly for correctly guessing his concern.

The group agreed to take an early start and formed a defensive formation, carefully heading towards the floor guardian’s room. The floor guardian of the twentieth floor was a treant; a living tree. The treant would be covered in black bark that was as hard as the most mythical ore and as resistant to magic as Acreonite. The treant was often the end of gold star student’s journeys. Finding a strategy which could take the treant down was almost impossible. Even if a group was able to damage the sentient tree, the dark forest itself would resupply the treant with magic to restore it. Like the first-floor guardian it was often said that the treant was out of place on the higher floors and should be lower with the more powerful monsters.

The group eventually rounded the final corner. Coming into their view stood a great mass of darkness. Like a black skyscraper, thrust into the sky, a tree of wonder stood. The earth shook as the great mass of immortal wood shifted to focus on the group which now stood before it. Pieces of bark all throughout the tree cracked and shed off, revealing disturbing black eyes underneath. The red center of the black eyes floated for a moment before all locking eyes with the group below. For every one eye that the group had one-hundred more stared back at them. An aura of primal terror flowed forth like a mist on the ground. An explosion of wood reverberated as the treant released portions of its mass to form arms and hands. What stood before the group was no longer just a tree, but a being of hatred, a paradigm of nature’s vengeance. The group slightly stepped back out of fear before exchanging glances with each other.

“You’re up Manny.” Lily said in a quiet hush.

“Buy me a minute.” Manrin replied, gulping nervously before raising his hand to prepare his spell.

Everyone nodded their hand in agreement before leaping out in different directions. While this strategy was extremely effective against most enemies it would barely hold against the dark master of the forest. Wooden tentacles chased after the group as the main body of the treant advanced forward, shaking the ground with every slow creaking root step. The treant focused on Ardi as it raised its mace-like fist of wood and brought it down like a meteor. Ardi used a darkness technique to slide to another shadow, barely avoiding the wooden boulder slamming down. Lilly chanted an explosion spell, sending the treant’s roots reverberating backwards, but barely damaging them. Rel stood by Manrin, casting a light shield to ward off the dark roots.

Manrin sat with his arm out, silent. He didn’t need to chant since he was using his innate affinity, however, what he was doing was gathering magical power. The spell he was about to unleash would completely deplete his magic. Rel’s light shield started to flutter as Manrin finished taking in as much of the atmospheric magical energy as he could. Ardi and Lily sensed that the magical buildup had reached critical levels and jumped backwards away from the treant. Manrin stared at the treant before moving his lips to speak. The putrid air around him whipped up into a whirlwind as the magic being crafted into the spell began to disturb the very air around it.

“WITHER!” Manrin yelled out.

A brief pause struck the room as the slithering wooden tendrils ceased moving all at once. An unusual silence struck the air. Suddenly, all of the wooden trunks and roots and tendrils which strung around the room imploded, letting out explosive squeals. The treant let out a groaning roar before it too imploded. The violence of the implosion caused a white heat to explode outwards from the treant. The massive trunk which had jetted upwards broke at the bottom and tipped over. The vast body of the treant slammed into the ground, causing the group to nearly be thrown into the air as the earth reverberated. The group looked around. They had cleared the twentieth floor with a single spell. Manrin lived up to his reputation as the master of nature, and a hidden platinum rank sorcerer.