White Wood 7

Birshia was, somewhat as the name indicated, a large birch tree. Although large didn’t really do it justice. Giant was close, but something beyond that would have been even better. Perhaps gargantuan. Whatever the word of one’s choosing, they all had to admit that this was one hell of a tree.

A hundred metres wide and growing tall into the sky, Birshia was a tree of the same variety that gifted the people of Heralry housing. The fine difference being that not one to eight people were living inside one tree, but rather dungeon monsters were crawling in the hollowed paths and rooms under its white and black bark.

‘Hashahin likes those three colours,’ Apexus thought, the green leaves of the tree’s distant canopy blowing in winds too high to be felt down where they were. Night was falling over the landscape, but the group was currently brooding over the question whether taking the risk of getting in was even worth it.

Aclysia’s calculation had turned out to be either false or the Adventurers Guild had found enough secondary hands to keep the business running as usual. Before the sole, ground-level entrance to the dungeon, a large arc with a rim of knotted branches in the bark, was a large building, busy with people even on this hour. Everyone who entered or left could be seen, if not stopped and talked to, by those working there.

“Maybe I could distract them?” Reysha suggested, the group sitting in the underbrush that separated the forest from the circular plain around the tree. For a change, it didn’t exist for a manmade reason. The giant branches above simply blocked out the sunlight for competing trees, turning the plain below into place of scattered leaves, piece of fallen of bark and a couple of other things that fell off the branches above.

Most of which was scavenged over the day, but the slime still saw a sword sticking in the ground. A normal iron one. The slime was sure it was missing something here, a solution to their problem.

“A simple distraction may be enough for me, but Apexus is a bit too big to get by unnoticed…” Aclysia theorized. A fair point, even if the slime’s size-gaining had slowed tremendously, he remained quite large. Overlooking a winged, blue slime at over a metre length crawling over the ground would have been an achievement in stupidity.

The outpost had a reinforced roof. Smart decision, seeing how there were such things as swords and shields falling down every so often. Made the scavenging job itself a bit risky. Although Apexus hadn’t seen yet any objects fall down, so it was probably a rare occurrence. How often was an adventurer realistically on those branches and lost their weapon anyway?

‘Oh,’ the slime thought and suddenly realized their way out of this conundrum. He poked Aclysia and then pointed at the branches above with a tentacle.

For once, the metal fairy did not get what he meant. “What is it, awakener?” she asked. The slime intensified his gestures. Then spelled out the word ‘UP’. Still, Aclysia was confused. “Up? Yes, we want to go up the dungeon, but we need to get inside first.”

Apexus slapped the tentacle against his face and clenched his eyelids in a moment of exasperation, a gesture he had picked up from his travel companions. As cute and smart as the metal fairy was, she was really prone to think only within a plan already set. Her on-the-fly adaptations were rather lacklustre, basically.

So, rather than spend tens of minutes slowly breaking down what he had discovered, Apexus just grabbed her, put her on her usual spot on his back and then begun, much to her confusion, to flap his wings. If they weren’t on a stealth mission, Reysha would have probably hurled some curse words after them for being left alone.

Aclysia was majorly confused by the slimes conduct. More importantly, she didn’t like the feeling that he was currently annoyed with her, as minor as it was. Supposedly, she was the thinker of the group, so if she failed at seeing the other options she was failing in her duty to her awakener. That and, more importantly, feeling like an annoyance to the odd creature she fell in love with was infinite layers of unpleasantness.

Apexus flew a large path curve, first away from the tree and then approaching it from where the outpost was no longer in sight. Then he made his way from one branch to the next, in search of something that obviously had to be somewhere. It only took him a couple of minutes to find it.

A branch that was a fair bit thicker than others, with its upside oddly flat, somewhat caved inwards even, like a walkway. Which was exactly what it was, a walkway on the outside of the tree. As it was the lowest hanging one, there was nothing there but a nice sight, but further up the branches got denser. With a high probability, there was as much a labyrinth in the brambles as there was in the trunk.

For that to be relevant, there needed to be a door in and out, and true enough there was a hole at the base of this particular branch, through which they could simply walk into the dungeon. If there had been no such things, it would have meant that the dungeon itself was raining equipment down on the nearby landscape. That would have been plainly odd, since Reysha had seemed to concerned about her weaponry.

“Oh…” Aclysia made an understanding sound the moment she saw that hole in the tree. “I see now,” her tone was downtrodden, her long ears hanging in shame. “I am sorry I wasn’t able to observe this logical conclusion, Apexus.”

The slime, his annoyance washed away at the much more important issue of his beloved fairy looking sad, wrapped himself around her in a tight hug. It remained the only gesture of affection he had access too, well that and tenderly loving her (but this was hardly the place or time for that). Although, perhaps instead of just hugging, patting would also work? Now that the tentacles had some more functionality and movability to them, best he could do is try.

In a calm and slow rhythm, a tentacle glided over her silky hair. Apexus was careful not to move against the combed back state of it, he couldn’t imagine that feeling too great. After a few moments of this, Aclysia did seem to be more upbeat.

“You are not angry?” she asked.

He shook his front to that, although that was an odd denial, with her still sitting atop and partly inside him. They all missed some details sometimes. Reysha was incredible at improvising but bad at any strategy that went over a longer timeframe. Aclysia was a good planner but not particularly flexible. Himself, Apexus was great at observing and solving practical problems, be it long or short term, but wasn’t good at theoretic things.

All of that combined into a cohesive unit. Just because Aclysia did most of the planning didn’t mean that she had to do flawless work or that him and Reysha could just sit on their butts and help with nothing. There was no such thing as a solidary obligation in a functioning party.

Returning to Reysha, Aclysia then explained their findings to her. “Okay, so you two can enter through the air and then fucking what?” the tiger girl asked. “Do you just want me to stumble around on my own? I am not in for getting lost and hunted on my own again.”

“You can find us just like last time,” Aclysia answered, now thinking in terms of the new plan. “Apexus will activate his pheromones for a bit,” the slime did for a second upon that mention, simply to give Reysha a refreshment on the memory what he smelled like, “should that not work?”

“No… no that will absolutely work!” Reysha was now grinning ear to ear again. “Yes, GREAT!” she said that as loud was possible allowed. Her fingers began to wiggle as if she was already sinking her claws into whatever she found. Blue-in-grey eyes opened wide, she let out a hungry growl. “Just gotta eat something again…”

“I recommend you only start feasting once you’ve found us,” Aclysia said, when that got no reaction from the salivating tiger girl, the metal fairy moved her entire, forearm sized body off Apexus, flew over to Reysha’s left ear and repeated, louder, right into it. “I RECOMMEND YOU ONLY START FEASTING ONCE YOU’VE FOUND US!”

Reysha, who had been lost in some sort of fantastical world where she was already feeling as great again as she had in the Clearwater dungeon, instinctively retreated away from the loud noise in a hurry. In her hurry, she took a wrong step and got stuck on some root. She caught herself on a nearby tree, her gloves preventing any chafing from occurring, but still hissed at the metal fairy.

Aclysia didn’t care. “You shall not ignore my warning again,” the metal fairy insisted. “I fear that you will go on a binge the moment you sink your fangs into anything. If you forget about us because of that, I will make sure you won’t hear the end of it!”

“Okay, fucking hells and dark-roots, I understand,” the redhead rubbed her mishandled ear with an unappreciative glare. “I will sneak to you once I am inside. Don’t you worry.”