“Um… what am I looking at?” Nedira asked so softly by his side that it was likely that he was the only one who heard her.
Larek didn’t have an answer for her, because he was still trying to figure it out himself.
First, as far as he could tell, the spherical open space they were looking at was huge, reaching at least a half-mile in diameter, and the tunnel they emerged from was located along the bottom of the sphere, with the opening curved to blend in with the overall shape. Turning the earlier corner allowed them to see upwards and across the space, where dozens of other openings could vaguely be seen, other than where they were blocked by what was inhabiting the rest of the area.
Glowing roots.
Stretching from the ceiling high above to the bottom of the sphere were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of thick brown roots that differed in size along their length, from 2 to 3 feet in width, and they weren’t all necessarily straight up and down. Some of them bent and connected to each other, while a lesser number were stretched across the width of the sphere, but they were in the minority. The dark brown roots glowed with a similar green glow as the vines in the tunnel behind them, but instead of a steady, constant glow, the illumination given off by these roots seemed to throb like blood pumping through an artery.
If that was all, it wouldn’t have been that shocking, but that wasn’t what caused everyone in his group to stop and stare up at the enormous tangle of roots.
Instead, it was the thousands of monsters attached to the roots like flies stuck in a spider’s web that made the entire scene confusing. Even as he tried to comprehend what was going on, he watched a few monsters suddenly rush into the space from a different tunnel and rush toward the roots; with shocking speed, as soon as they passed into the sphere, a pair of roots suddenly detached from the floor and shot toward the newcomers, quickly spearing them—
—but they weren’t killed. Instead, they were stuck to the end of the roots initially, where they seemed to become paralyzed, before they slowly began to rise up the root. It took a few seconds for him to spot them, but it quickly became clear that the exterior of each root was covered in little, finger-length appendages that gripped onto the monsters and could move them all around.
Once he saw this happening, he couldn’t help but notice that all of the monsters he saw were constantly moving in complete silence, very slowly moving upwards like some sort of natural conveyor. The more he watched, especially as he looked further up toward the top, the monsters that he figured had been there the longest, he noticed that they looked worse for wear, with the highest at the point where they were basically skin and bones – or something similar depending on their bodily construction. If they weren’t dead already, they had to be near to it.
While he hadn’t seen anything like this before, his Magical Detection Skill was going crazy,
“Well, it looks like the SIC aren’t actively fighting like we thought,” Penelope softly noted, pointing toward a cluster of roots off to his right. When Larek turned his attention to where she was indicating, he sucked in a breath as a couple of strange things he’d been sensing finally made sense. He had been wondering why so many magical signatures had been clustered together without seeming to move for a while, but more than that, those traces of them he’d noticed had been weaker than he had expected. He thought it might be because they were simply weaker in terms of their strength, but now it was clear he was wrong.
Thousands of Mages and Martials were attached to the roots in a large cluster, and they were approximately halfway to the top. He hadn’t noticed them at first before because he had been distracted by so many monsters and the sheer size and insanity of the situation – and for the fact that the majority of their clothing and armor seemed to have been eaten away, and their skin had turned greenish-brown, blending into the glow of the roots. They obviously weren’t dead, but he could only assume that the greenish-brown appearance was due to whatever was keeping them paralyzed.
Bartholomew cursed when he saw them, as well. “How did this happen? And how do we free them?” Larek wasn’t the only one who had seen the roots attack the incoming monsters, and a few more had been snatched up over the last minute or so that they’d been watching in pure shock; as a result, almost everyone could somewhat understand what they were looking at, though how the SIC ended up there was still a mystery.
“I’m not quite sure—” the Fusionist replied, but the former SIC member pointed at something that caught his attention.
“Even General Maxwell got caught up by whatever this is, it seems,” Bartholomew noted, which made Larek pay attention to where he thought the man was pointing. It took him a few seconds, but he thought he could see the General, who – despite being paralyzed – still seemed to have an arrogant expression on his face. The man’s body was physically large, but not fat; instead, the muscle inherent in his frame was startlingly obvious, even though it appeared to have been wasting away from whatever the root was doing to him and the others.
While the Fusionist had absolutely no desire to save the General, nor any of the other Lieutenants in charge, as he wanted to replace the SIC leadership, he still wanted to figure out how to save everyone else. After cautioning everyone to stay inside the opening, only moving to the side in case any other monster reinforcements arrived, Larek leaned on his Magical Detection Skill to help him make sense of what exactly was going on here.
The density of Corruption was so thick inside the space that it was difficult to make anything definite out at first, at least until he focused deliberately on one of the closest monsters attached to a root, as his senses attempted to dig out the secrets of whatever process was occurring. After about a minute of staring at it, while ignoring the shuffling and faint mumbling of his group as they spoke softly among themselves, he finally felt something click in his mind.
Magical Detection has reached Level 104!
…..
Magical Detection has reached Level 106!
Filtering out the ambient Corrupted Aetheric Force flooding the area, his Skill suddenly allowed him to see what was occurring between the monster and the root – and it only somewhat matched up to what he was expecting. He had originally thought that the glowing root was somehow sucking the life out of the monster – and the SIC members – and using it to feed itself. While that was fundamentally true, it was a bit more complicated than that. The Treehemoth wasn’t using the monsters and the people trapped in its roots as a way to sustain its presence; it was using them to grow – which explained how unbelievably large it was.
The roots weren’t pulling any type of life-based energy from its victims; instead, they were draining them of Aetheric Force – both Pure and Corrupted Aetheric Force. Of course, there was so much Corrupted AF coming from the monsters it had captured that it couldn’t contain it all, which was why the area around the Treehemoth was so thick with the energy. But not all of it was being expelled, as he watched streams of it combine with the purer AF coming from the SIC members before it was sent upwards. His senses could only penetrate so far, but he saw it disperse throughout a good portion of the tree that he could perceive.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
What was most important, however, was that it wasn’t going toward the central Aperture, which was what he had been expecting. Instead, it was almost as if the Treehemoth had grown to the point where it was acting independently of the Aperture, hijacking almost all of the Pure AF from both the ambient environment and the SIC members that the Aperture would normally need to grow and used it on itself. Whether or not this was the Aperture’s plan all along, Larek didn’t know, but he supposed that it didn’t really matter; it simply meant that the high-tier, evolved Treehemoth monster had grown beyond the bounds of normalcy, and it was only growing larger by the moment. And the saturated environment of Corrupted AF only helped to speed up the process, as it seemed to be pushing against the paralyzed captives, squeezing out Purified AF from them like one would squeeze an orange to make juice.
The more he observed both the monsters and the SIC members, he had to change his evaluation of their status, as well: He had figured the strange appearance of the captive people had been due to the paralyzing agent used to keep them still; but instead, he thought it was actually something that was helping them – or at least keeping them alive. The roots that held the SIC members were the only ones that were different from the others, as there were two streams of energy: One flowing in and one flowing out. The roots holding the monsters only went one way, as they sucked the AF from the beastly captives and didn’t give anything back, while the SIC people had what looked like some sort of sustaining energy being pumped into them, as if they were being fed nutrients to keep them healthy and alive.
It made sense, in a way, because the Treehemoth didn’t want them to die; they were essentially a never-ending source of concentrated Pure Aetheric Force, after all. The monsters, on the other hand, were expendable, because they would continue being reinforced by its subservient Apertures, so there was no reason to keep them alive longer than it took to drain them dry.
“This is bad…” he mumbled to himself, before he began explaining in a low voice to his group what he had worked out from his observations. Every single one of them appeared horrified, as it didn’t matter if they didn’t care for the SIC or not – no one should be subjected to the torture they were undergoing, especially being kept alive like some sort of living energy resource.
“But that doesn’t help us free them, does it?” Bartholomew asked when he was finished with his observations.
Larek started to shake his head, but stopped. “No, but I think I have some ideas. I’m not too concerned about physically freeing them, but I’m worried about what’s being used to sustain them. Will detaching them from the roots kill them once they’re disconnected? Will the Treehemoth react to our presence by killing them rather than letting them be freed?”
“Those are questions I don’t believe we’ll be able to answer, at least not without more information,” Nedira interrupted. “But I have a feeling that if we don’t act soon, something is going to find us here and react before we’re ready.”
The Fusionist felt the same way, which meant they had to proactively move soon, or else they would be on the defensive. They had a window of opportunity here that they needed to take advantage of or it would be too late.
“Unless that’s exactly what the Treehemoth wants us to think,” Bartholomew countered, reiterating his trap theory. While Larek thought it was possible, he didn’t think that was the case. Either way, they had to act at some point, so they might as well do something before they had that choice taken away from them.
“Let me try something,” Larek eventually said, and he held up his hand to stop any protests. “I’m not going in myself at first, but I want to see if the roots will attack my constructs.”
No one had anything to contradict the idea, so the Fusionist ordered one of his Felis Stalker constructs forward. He had it pause just before it passed over the threshold, before he had it jump into the room about 15 feet away, putting some distance between it and the whole group.
Within a half-second of the construct appearing in the room, a root moved toward the Stalker – but it wasn’t one that was the nearest – nor was it one that was anywhere close to it. Instead, one of the glowing roots located where the cluster of SIC members were being held detached from the floor and seemed to elongate to reach the newcomer, hundreds of feet away. Larek made his Stalker dodge the original attack using its incredible speed, but he was surprised at how close it had been, despite expecting the root to come for it. But what was more surprising was the way the root seemed to splay at the end once it missed its original attack, expanding like a giant, webbed hand with dozens of individual fingers, and it swept down on the construct with blinding alacrity.
Even though the Stalker attempted to dodge again, a small portion of its expanded “hand” touched the rear leg of the construct and adhered to it like it had the stickiest glue connecting the two of them. Larek watched as a fluid was pumped into the semi-transparent form of the Stalker, which he assumed was some sort of paralyzing poison, but it did absolutely nothing to hinder the construct’s movements – because it couldn’t really be poisoned, obviously. Of course, it didn’t matter too much when the rest of the expanded root flowed over his creation, trapping it inside and sticking it to the point where it couldn’t move. A few moments later, everyone could see a massive bulge in the root suddenly sucked upward, like something large inside of a flexible straw. It only took about a minute before it was far up enough to be near the SIC members, and he saw the exterior of the root split and eject the Stalker, which was now attached to the outside.
It could still “move”, technically, but he ordered it to be still.
“What did that hope to accomplish?” Penelope asked.
Larek was silent for a few seconds before he responded, his focus on his construct – and what was happening to it. “Two things. First, I needed to know if the Treehemoth’s roots differentiated between monsters and sources of Non-Corrupted Aetheric Force, which is what my construct is packed full of; seeing how they had likely captured the SIC was also important at the same time. And second,” he said with a smile, watching as a chunk of Pure Aetheric Force was pulled from his construct and sent upwards into the larger tree monster, “I wanted to see if it would take the bait.”
“Bait? What do you mean?”
He held up his hand, before pointing toward the root holding the Stalker. “That, my friend, is what I mean.” The glow of the root, which had been pulsing like a heartbeat, suddenly intensified, growing erratic.
“What? I don’t understand,” Penelope said, even as Nedira chuckled next to him. He glanced down at her with a smirk, seeing that she understood it.
“Very clever, Larek,” his betrothed commented, before turning toward Penelope. “The Stalker is made from his Pattern Cohesion and filled with Aetheric Force, acting like a bladder filled with liquid. Does that make sense?”
Penelope nodded, but still looked confused. “Alright, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, remember what he told us the Treehemoth is doing?” Nedira questioned back. At the woman’s nod, she continued. “Then imagine that the Pure Aetheric Force that can be extracted from most people, even you and I, is like a cheap wine that doesn’t taste all that great, but also contains a small amount of alcohol. Stronger individuals, such as General Maxwell, might provide a better quality wine, but it’s still wine that may have a little bit more alcohol content – but not enough to be harmful. Either of these wines go perfectly with a meal of meat and cheese, which is what you could consider the Corrupted Aetheric Force that it’s taking from the monsters, and both contribute toward its titanic growth.
“But Larek’s Aetheric Force is different. Instead of a fine wine, the purity of his Aetheric Force is absolute, which means the tree is drinking pure, unfiltered, unflavored, and harmful alcohol. The Treehemoth is a product of Corrupted Aetheric Force, after all, and while it has learned how to apply combinations of both types of AF to fuel its growth, too much Pure AF can be dangerous for it.”
Larek nodded in agreement, looking at his construct. He halfway expected the root to continue “drinking” from the tainted source, but it seemed as though it realized its error as whatever was holding the Felis Stalker against its exterior let go, allowing the construct to fall.
As it plummeted a few hundred feet to the curved floor of the sphere, the Fusionist thought he might have a method in which he could free the SIC members: All it would take was essentially “spiking” the output of Pure Aetheric Force coming from each one, mimicking the same purity in his construct. It would take a while, and the drop would probably be dangerous once the roots released them, but they could plan for that.
The problem with that idea made itself known a few seconds later as the Felis Stalker approached the floor of the space. Out of the very wood that the root system was attached to, shapes began to emerge, all converging on where his construct would fall.
“I guess we found where the Calamity’s monsters were hiding all this time,” Bartholomew muttered, and Larek could only nod in agreement.