The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith

by Justin Miller

  Chapter 27

  That night I went to sleep thinking it would be nice if things weren’t so mysterious. In the morning, I woke up wishing the world was more subtle.

  “Jin! Look out!” I heard Denise’s voice rousing me from sleep. “Dammit, demon sword, hellfire slash!” Her shouting had gotten me to wake up enough to look, and I saw a sea of black and red flame soaring over my head. But.. that wasn’t really what had my attention the most. What really had me concerned was what that flame was burning.

  For some reason, the roof that I had constructed for the shack had been crawling towards me like a mass of snakes. “What the hell!?” I quickly rolled out of the shack, only to find that the trees seemed to be different than they had been before. They weren’t attacking or anything, but it felt like there were less around us.

  When we set up camp, we chose this location because the trees were so densely packed around the circle. Now, it just looked like another part of an open forest. It was then that I remembered something. Shit… I built two roofs.

  Quickly turning around, I saw that, indeed the branches and vines I had used to make a roof for Midnight had begun moving as well, slowly crawling towards us. “Dammit, I spend all that time trying to come up with spells against people, I don’t have spells to use against plants!”

  I raised my hand, materializing a scimitar like Denise’s normal one. “Hellfire Aura!” My body was quickly wrapped in the black and red flames of Hell, but more importantly the flames came strongest from the sword that was made of my mana. “How did that go, again?”

  Pulling back my sword, I channeled magic into the edge of the blade. “Hellfire slash!” When I swung the sword, I expanded he aura outwards from it, shooting a part of the aura out in a wave at the approaching plants. The clinging flames quickly devoured the roots and vines, leaving a black scorched path along the ground.

  “We’re fighting the plants now?” Denise backed up until she was just outside my aura, with her back to me. “We’re fighting plants, in the middle of a fucking jungle?”

  “Yeah, I know. This is not what I had in mind either.” Though, it seemed like none of the trees around us were moving anymore. So, maybe it was only certain trees? “Think you can cover me for a quick bit?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I want to see just what our friendly neighbors do at times like this.” I smirked to Denise, and she laughed, readying her black sword.

  “Alright, I can buy you a bit of time if they advance again.”

  “Good.” I sat down on the ground, dismissing the scimitar. Though, I kept my aura active. I’ll be damned if I’m going to make it easy for them. “In my eyes, all things are as one. Walking Vision.” I opened my eyes, and nothing changed. I experienced the normal green tint to my vision, but aside from that it was like normal.

  Damn, did it not work? I went to stand up, and found myself flying into the air instead. No, I wasn’t flying.. I could still feel myself sitting on the ground. Suddenly, my vision stopped rising, and I tried to slowly look down. Indeed, I saw myself, sitting while wrapped in an aura of hellfire. Standing behind me, Denise was glancing in various directions to watch for approaching plantlife.

  Can’t waste time, need to get a good view. My vision began rising faster and faster, until I could see every corner of the island. I could make out the moving treetops and identify that there were a great many trees that seemed to come alive. Likewise, several kilometers from us, there was a collection of stone buildings built on the beach. Trees near these buildings in the forest were shifting, as if leaning back and forth to wait for a chance to attack.

  Okay, so lesson one, wood bad, stone good. The three little pigs would have a field day with this. And they didn’t move until daybreak, so they need the sun to function. But damn, there’s no way to be sure that other trees aren’t also affected, and just hiding it. I turned my vision towards the mountain, and was surprised to find that there weren’t any camps along it.

  The trees kept a fair distance from the base of the mountain, yet none of the island’s inhabitants took advantage of that? Could it be because they wouldn’t have access to water and food without going through the forest? But why did the trees avoid it… The answers to my questions only raised more questions.

  Taking one last look down, I saw that a pair of trees were moving in the direction of the camp Denise and I had set up. “Incoming, two from the south. About.. two hundred meters.” Seeing as I could still feel the ground, I figured I could still talk.

  “Got it.” Denise turned in that direction, and I suddenly became all too aware of a very crucial fact. Roots began sprouting out of the ground, tearing up the dirt as they sprang at us. “Dammit!” Her sword was wrapped in hellfire as she slashed the roots. “Get back here! We need to move!”

  I didn’t take the time to complain, instead canceling the spell and instantly getting flung back into my own body. I should have realized about the roots! Nothing in the ground!

  “I think the roots are what have been eating all the animals.” I stood up, aiming my hand at a pair of roots that were approaching me. Remembering back to last night, I gathered my flames in my hand and made my aura stretch out like a giant claw, swatting the roots.

  “Well fuck, how are we supposed to find shelter like this?”

  “Very carefully. Hang on!” I cancelled my spell and lept to Denise, grabbing onto her arm. With the familiar sensation of squeezing through a space entirely too small for us, we vanished. This was a short hop, so I didn’t bother with the incantation. Not like I’d have had time for it anyways.

  When we reappeared, we were standing on the beach, the same place that Lilith had sent us on our first arrival. “The tribesmen.. use the beach.. for safety.” I let out my words between deep breaths, feeling like I was about to retch. Denise took a few minutes to gather herself before nodding.

  “Okay… so it’s not that the forest is just attacking animals… they’ve just figured out how to defend against it.”

  “It should be more than that… there’s a reason you don’t build stone structures on a beach. The foundation will give way bit by bit any time the tide comes in. They couldn’t have been there more than a couple months.”

  “We’re talking about the same people right? Tiny little midgets wearing loincloths? I don’t think they’d know what to do if they saw a ship…”

  “Exactly… meaning that this is a relatively new incident. Something happened in the last few months to this island. I spotted what looked like the remains of a village, but it was entirely destroyed. Every piece of wood had been removed, so that all that was left were toppled stone fireplaces and stone markers.”

  “So… this isn’t just the trees… something is controlling all the plants, even used wood?”

  “That seems to be the case.”

  “But that’s…”

  “I swear, if you say impossible, I’m going to start pointing at things from the last two months.”

  Denise instantly shut her mouth, slowly smiling. “Point. Okay, so if it’s not impossible, what could do this?”

  “I’ve got no idea. But I’ll bet you that somehow, those trees are able to eat anything from an animal, down to the bodies in the ground. Thankfully, hellfire can burn them, but we can’t be sure if normal fire will work. That would be too convenient. If these things could be killed with a forest fire, the tribesmen would have done it ages ago.”

  “Yeah… so how are we going to do this? We can’t fight an entire island worth of trees.”

  “It might not be every tree… but it’s too hard to check which ones are enemies. They don’t give me any information for my Worldlore ability, so I can’t tell what they are.”

  “How about calling Dariel? Isn’t she an expert on nature magic?”

  “Yeah, but she’s been with the Vinehaven clan area for so long they have lost most of the knowledge they didn’t need. I doubt carnivorous trees were high on their priorities.” I sighed,
shaking my head.

  “Alright. So, what do we do?”

  “When I was looking at the situation, I saw that the trees avoided going anywhere near that mountain.” I pointed to the big mountain at the center of the island. “There’s a decent chance that something there can hurt them.”

  “Okay… so we just have to travel through a man-eating forest in the meantime. I don’t suppose you could just teleport us to the mountain?”

  I shook my head. “If I do that, the sudden altitude shift could seriously damage our bodies. And the trees were too dense around it for me to get us very close. There’s.. one way we could do this, but it is really risky and I’ve no idea if it will actually work.”

  “Any idea is better than no idea?”

  “Right… well, if I use my magic and carry us, while wrapping us in hellfire, the trees won’t be able to hurt us.”

  “...Would your magic last that long?”

  “Under normal circumstances, I’d doubt it. But… I got something new in Hell that I haven’t had the chance to show you yet. If I use it, I’ll have two minutes to use my magic as freely as I want. After that I’ll be exhausted, but you can grab me and use your Light Speed to cover the rest of the distance if we haven’t made it.”

  “You have once again confirmed your status as a cheat character.”

  “If it gets us through this safely, I can live with that. You ready?”

  “Nope. But I don’t figure I’ll ever be ready for this.”

  “Me either.” I stood straight up, flexing my hands. “Here goes… Spirits of the pit, fires from the world beyond, become the shield that holds your fury. Hellfire Aura, Demon’s Cloak.” My body began shifting again, and I struggled to stay focused. The moment the black runes began crawling along my skin, I took action.

  You have activated the Demon’s Cloak, and transformed into a Rune Devil.

  50 temporary Intelligence and Wisdom

  As a Rune Devil, you can empower runes directly with your mana, without the need for spells. To some degree, this allows you to freely manipulate your magic.

  Likewise, you can see the runes of any magic used around you, and effectively counter them with your own magic. The only requirement for this is spending the same amount of mana used in the spell’s casting.

  I activated a Speed rune on my neck, along with Running on my feet, and a Lighten rune on my back. Then, I ran to Denise and picked her up, even as she stared at me with a shocked expression. “No time…” Wrapping myself in hellfire, I charged into the forest at my top speed-- which it turns out is pretty fast when fully enchanted. Thanks to my skills in Nature Magic, natural obstacles no longer impeded me, and I could jump on a bush as if it were a platform.

  Wherever my feet landed, a black mark would appear to burn what I touched. There were several vines, roots, and branches that tried to grab at me as I ran, but they were immediately burned to ash upon contact with the aura around me. Any time the trees directly got in my way, I would simply jump around them, using other trees as leverage.

  I’d say I made it a little over halfway before my mana finally gave out, the two of us in the air during a large jump. My breath was short and erratic, and the moment my flames faded away Denise grabbed me by the hand. “My turn.”

  Mana Recovery has increased to 4

  I felt an almost painful pull on my arm, and the next moment we were at the base of the mountain. Denise was standing next to me, taking a few deep breaths before falling to her knees. “Dammit… I told you not to overuse that..” I knelt down next to her, checking to make sure that she was alright. Her health hadn’t decreased any, but there were more ways to die than just losing hit points.

  “Sorry… emergency… work?”

  I looked back to the forest, and noted that none of the trees had advanced to chase us. “Yeah, looks like it worked. Next time, I vote we fight our way through… probably less dangerous.” I let out a small laugh, and looked back to the mountain.

  “Deal… so now..?” Denise glanced to me, still short on breath. My mana was already almost half recovered, so I felt pretty good.

  “Now you rest for a bit. After that, let’s look for a cave or something. If this mountain has a secret, it’ll be there. If not… well, we’ll think of something else.”

  “Don’t sound too confident…”

  “Hey, we are fighting a giant forest, and I don’t have many spells that will stand up to plants. Especially fireproof plants.”

  “Make one..?”

  I sighed, shaking my head. “Before I do that, I’ll have to figure out what these things are. For all I know, normal fire just makes them stronger.”

  “...Good point. Okay, gather information first, and then make the biggest weed killer spell you can manage.”

  “Now that sounds like a plan. You ready to go?”

  Denise nodded, standing up slowly. “I’ll be good if we don’t go too fast. My muscles are still a bit sore. Think you can magic us up some directions?”

  Nodding my head, I closed my eyes, recalling the incantation from before. “In my eyes, all things are as one. Perfect Vision.” I didn’t bother opening my eyes, since the spell at this stage didn’t require that. I soon found that, like before, I could see everything around me. But unlike the last time I used this spell, or any variation of the Scan spell, I couldn’t see through the stone of the mountain. “Damn, it must be shielded or something, I can’t pick up anything.”

  “I’d ask about your water trick, but we are short on water.” Denise shook her head, casting her gaze up to me. “So, old fashioned way?”

  “The only way.” I nodded, and we began walking around the base of the mountain, keeping an eye out for anything that looked like a cave entrance. Of course, this was a truly large mountain, and it was at least two dozen miles across. That meant walking the long way around would take us days.

  Unfortunately, it was the only path we had the didn’t involve a long hike. We could see a few trees and bushes following us along the edge of the forest, as if waiting for us to head back in, or taunting us. Can trees taunt? Part of me wanted to just roast this entire island, or summon a demon swarm to wipe out the forest. But the part of me that still had a semblance of patience knew that doing that probably wouldn’t get rid of what caused the forest to come to life in the first place.

  Still, it was a nice thought. That night, we camped at the base of the mountain, where I made a shelter entirely out of stone. Not more plants for me, thank you. I also cast a wide Alarm spell, making sure that nothing would be able to sneak up on us. Hopefully this time the little folk wouldn’t be coming around for a midnight visit, since both Denise and myself were entirely worn out from a full day of walking.

  Sure, we had seen some things that looked like they could be caves, and hiked up to them. Then we discovered they were just small holes that were filled in a few feet in. Not much of a cave. Once darkness hit, I knew that Lilith would be worried, so I spoke into the darkness about what we found. There wasn’t much to tell honestly, except that the forest came to life during the day and had a taste for flesh and bone.

  Since I didn’t get a response from Lilith, I figured that she was still going to let me take care of this myself unless I call for her. At this point, I didn’t expect to be able to do anything. Maybe if I learned the cause of the disturbance, I could report it back to the kingdom and get an official party dispatched.

  As I started falling to sleep, I thought I heard a small pulse coming from around me. Not much, just enough to make me aware of it. Thinking that it was just my own pulse I was hearing, I let myself pass out.

  I awoke alone, in the darkness. Or, maybe I wasn’t awake at all? Beneath me was neither stone nor grass nor sand, just an empty void. I didn’t get killed in my sleep, did I? Or is this just another dream?