Chapter 67: The power of geekery

Chapter 67: The power of geekery

Mason didn’t have time to worry about how Rebecca was handling Calypsa. ‘She’s sort of like a sex robot, and she needs my semen for fuel’ didn’t really seem like the best defense. He figured he’d just move on and explain things later.

So he took Rebecca’s hand before she had a chance to think about it, then told Blake and Seul-ki to form a chain with them. When they were all properly linked, he walked them slowly into the clearing and the mist, and they collectively gasped as they saw the tree.

“It just appeared out of nowhere,” said Blake. “How the hell do you hide something like that? No really, I want to learn the spell.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of holy tree magic not for mere mortals like you,” Mason told him.

“Not yet,” Blake corrected.

Mason stopped at the tree and met Calypsa’s eyes. “Anything we need to know before we go in?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what we’ll see. Before the corruption set in, at least two guards would be near the entrance. Perhaps they still are.”

“Alright,” Mason turned to the others. “Touch the tree. Agree to enter the dungeon. As soon as you’ve touched it, I’ll go in first. Ready?”

They all nodded, and Mason was glad to see Becky had gotten over Calypsa enough to get her game face on. They all touched the tree and looked to Mason.

[Enter Great Tree Corruption as a group?]

[Objectives: Cleanse the Great Tree.]

Streak whined at his side, and somehow he realized the animal couldn’t go along.

“Shit. Sorry buddy.” He activated Speak with Nature. Go back to the town, and wait for me there. I’ll see you soon.

The wolf grumbled and yipped a few times in protest, then turned and vanished into the woods.

“He’ll be fine,” Mason said, mostly to himself. Then he turned back to the tree and touched the bark again, the same prompt opening before his eyes.

This time he agreed, and as usual his senses seemed to move away from his body, all fading to nothingness then re-appearing in another place.

A foul smell pervaded the air and turned Mason’s nose. Green light pulsed all around him, showing a huge cavern above but with a series of maze-like barriers leading to several different paths. A man with the body of a horse, and another man with the head of a bull, stood as if guarding it.

“A centaur and a minotaur? That’s too cool,” Blake muttered. “It’s like we’re in Greek myth.”

The creatures were about fifty feet away, and though they seemed to notice the party they didn’t move to interfere with them.

“You have some kind of identify power?” Mason asked. “Or was that just the power of geekery?”

“The Greek classics are hardly 'geekery’.” Blake rolled his eyes. “In fact you might say they are the obvious sign of an educated person. I’ve literally narrated the story of that minotaur to you at least a few times that I can remember, starting with when I forced you to play Age of Emp...”

“Shut up. Calypsa, any reason I can’t just put these fellows in the ground with a few arrows?”

The group walked along without much issue, their senses tuned to any little sound or change in the maze. Mason stopped them twice as he checked floor tiles, coming back with little dart traps identified that triggered depending where you stepped.

A little while later, some of the vines on the walls shuddered and came alive, leaping at the party like flying rope. Mason and Calypsa cut them down or otherwise used some kind of natural magic to pacify them, and the party yet again moved through the maze.

Next they found statues sitting on an old water fountain no longer in use. When Mason got close, the stone sprung to life and tried to smash him with slow, heavy swings. Blake used Telekinesis to help break them apart, and Mason smashed what was left using their own broken bits of stone.

After that, it was just a long, mind-numbing slog. And Blake got rather bored.

“So tell me, Calypsa,” he said when he’d tired of counting tiles, “how long have you lived in this magnificent tree? Do you have any family?”

She looked at him like one might examine a bug on one’s shoe. “All living things are my family, because we are all Gaia’s children. I have existed since the beginning of the world.”

Blake put on his winningest smile. Details were useful for Mental Influence, but this sort of nonsense wasn’t exactly helpful. He tried another tack.

With a conservative, perfectly reasonable use of mana, he released a targeted burst of curiosity into the nymph’s mind, specifically about him, and waited for her to engage more appropriately. She turned and narrowed her eyes in his direction.

“Are you always so annoying?”

Mason snorted up ahead, and Blake cleared his throat. It was fair to say she hadn’t yet warmed to his charms. But it was only a matter of time. It always was.

“Creatures up ahead.” Mason held up a hand and crouched as it seemed the maze at last came to an end. “Some kind of gathering. A pool, maybe eight or nine creatures I can see. Calypsa?”

Blake couldn’t see a damn thing in the gloom, and had no idea how Mason could. The beautiful nymph seemed equally capable, and stepped up beside Mason with squinted eyes that Blake could swear he saw wetness in.

“A sacred pool,” she said quietly. “The waters should be clear and green, not red. Those creatures are Sisters of Chiros—protectors and keepers of the pools. But they are...deformed, in body and spirit, and cannot be saved. They must be destroyed.”

“Alright,” Mason turned. “How many can you kill with your blast, Blake?”

“Probably a few,” Blake shrugged. “If they stay close together.”

Mason nodded, and Blake could see a hunger in his eyes—a love of mortal danger and the hunt. It made Blake smile. In their old lives his brother had always been subdued, as if he was waiting for something that never came, only half alive.

But since this new world had changed everything and destroyed the old relative tranquility of civilization, Mason had woken up for the first time. This was where his brother belonged.

“I’ll trap the passage,” he said, lifting his bow, “then Becky and I will guard the ramp that leads to us. Calypsa, can you stay with them and protect them if something goes wrong?”

The lithe woman frowned, but nodded.

“Then let’s go,” Mason’s voice changed to something...colder. “We kill them all.”

Oh hi there.

If you'd like to get access to images of the girls in this story, additional cut steamy scenes, and 10 additional chapters beyond SH, you can subscribe to my .

Enjoy!