Time Since Reckless Self-Endangerment: 0 Days, 3 Hours

The world unfolded before Nic.

In the distance he could see his first human encampment. A huge stone statue lifted from a hill, arms outstretched, the icon of a goddess wreathed in climbing mosses. Her eyes wept a small stream that gathered into a pool.

Around that water were dozens of tents and small fires that flickered in the night.

Thankfully it was a long way off - just not far enough for comfort.

Along his way back ‘home’ to the poison grove was a place where the trees turned from emerald leaves to dripping, algae-green slime, bending and warping under some strange influence as they held up armfuls of ooze.

Two rivers swept through the forest. One was the familiar river of water he’d followed, leading out to a large lake underneath which a town was submerged. Telephone poles rose from the surface of the lake and dozens of birds perched atop them. Even from here he could see the massive fish that swam between the drowned buildings.

The other ‘river’ was made of fire. Everything to its sides was scorched and burnt to ashes. It rolled into a secluded valley and filled the space between the hills with flickering angry fires. But it was glorious in its own way. With his hawk-like vision Nic could see that the fire actually formed trees, beautiful tall fir trees with fire for branches and thousands of golden embers instead of pine needles.

Finally there was a magnificent tree of blue crystal leaves, with a swirling portal deep in its heart. It perched on a hill alongside a lonely windmill and there was no mistaking it for anything but the entrance to a Dungeon.

And beyond all that, there were eight points hidden in the forest that simply had… something to them. A magnetism that drew his eye to seemingly ordinary places in the same way he’d been pulled towards the tree.

Nic already knew he’d find Dominus Nodes there.

“Sofia? Can you make a map?”

“I am allowed to use that function, if requested.” She said. She sounded very pleased. Like this had been some kind of test.

There was a flicker, and a flattened bird’s eye view of all he’d seen appeared in front of him. It was made of pale blue light and seemed to move with his eyes.

“And put points here, here, and here.”

One by one he marked out the locations he’d seen with little stars. The end result was a functional map of points of interest within the Lumenarch Forest.

Sliding down from the railings, Nic turned and began to explore this strange outpost on the tree’s side. The walkways led to several small cottages with comfortable beds and miniature kitchens, as well as crude toilets that dropped their leavings out hidden portholes.

It actually looked like someone had been living here at one point. One of the cottages was unkempt and the bed had been left unmade. That led to an extra dose of caution as he crept from one bunk to the next, expecting to need the spear in his hands at any moment.

“It’s odd when and why you’ll display caution. You throw yourself into danger one moment, and become as careful as a mouse the next.” Sofia noted.

“I’m allowed to endanger my life on my own terms. Nobody else. That’s how you know it’s mine.”

It was the kitchens that excited him immediately. Metal pans, knives that were the size of swords in his hands, and packets of spice contained within folded green leaves. He began to eat fistfuls of minor treasure from his pack just to make room, gorging himself to eventually fit in the smallest frying pan, an enormous bottle of cooking oil, and a large dark knife. Best of all, he found a heating stone underneath the cookpan, one that would make fire when it was given Essence.

Pausing for a moment he applied a simple strengthening rune and fed a hint of Essence into the pack to reinforce it against busting a seam and spilling out his precious finds.

As he did so he noticed a shadow sliding towards him.

A pale white spider with shaggy fur and golden stripes was creeping down the tree. It approached slowly, but wasn’t actually trying to hide. Its long legs tapped against the ground as if it was trying to signal to him in advance. As it came through the doorway Nic immediately called on Archive Recall.

Pearl Weaving Spider. F-Class // Sapient. This harmless, quiet creature relies on others. They possess the power to create pearls of concentrated Aura with immense healing properties, and some say a thousand-year specimen can even revive the dead. Nevertheless whole nests are often driven to extinction by greedy hunting, although kinder civilizations adopt them as cattle or spiritual companions.

It’s entire body language read of fear and shyness as it froze in front of him and lifted its arms to its mouth. Each long, furred limb ended in a clawed digit, and it used these ‘fingers’ to spin a glowing spittle it spat out, molding a golden ball. A pearl.

Setting the prize down on the floor, it rolled the pearl towards Nic with one arm and reached for his pack with the other. It wanted to trade.

“Here.” Digging into the bag, Nic pulled out a ripe white fruit that glowed with inner starlight. The beast snatched it up eagerly to devour. The sight of spider mandibles sinking into the fruit’s white flesh was uncomfortable at best- and made worse by the blood-red color of the juice that flowed out. “I bet you trade with the humans who stay here too. Dangerous. I hope you’ll still be alive next time I come by.”

He pulled out three more fruits and set them on the ground. That seemed like a fair trade. Then, he slapped a fist against his chest. “Me Nic.”

The spider clicked its mandibles and hissed. It wasn’t even remotely a word he could understand, but he tried to hiss back, and the spider seemed happy.

Pointing at himself, he lifted the finger to gesture upwards. “Take me up?”

There was something up there he needed to see. The Peregrine Rune wasn’t what had called him here: the source of his compulsion was higher still, waiting at the tree’s peak. The Dominus Node.

The spider paused for a moment, then nodded.

---

The higher he climbed the more cold was an issue. His body was adapted for hot volcanic springs and murky swamps. The height of the tree and the bitter wind blowing actually created slicks of ice and frost on the bark.

With every minute he dragged himself up, the cold, numb pain in his arms grew worse. Nic was desperately envious of his spider guide’s thick coat of wooly fur.

Huge outcroppings of luminous flowers sprouted from the bark. So did numerous ugly creatures. A giant lizard almost completely blended into the moss, using long antenna-like whispers to feel out coming prey. Only the spider kept Nic from being ambushed by its sticky tongue.

More of the trap-jaw ants that ate burrows into the bark rushed past, two tribes engaging in a turf war.

But it was when they stopped to rest on a high branch that danger struck.

Nic was just leaning down to harvest a bee hive hanging underneath the branch. His poison mist quickly disposed of its guardians, and the fistful of honey he dug out tasted incredibly sweet with concentrated Essences from dozens of magical flowers. The wax itself would be equally valuable and he hummed a little tune as he stowed the nest away in his pack.

Suddenly, his host let out an ear-piercing squeal, and Nic rolled up just in time to see the danger coming. A monster had climbed across the underside of the branch above and was dropping down towards him, a claw raised to execute him in one cutting blow.

A mantis-person.

The lower half was entirely the stick-thin body and gangly, precise limbs of a mantis. Its upper half was more humanoid but still covered in gold-green chitin. From each of its arms extended brutal scything blades, and one of those claws was already descending towards his throat like a guillotine.

Nic rolled onto his feet and lifted his spear in the fractions of a second he had to save his life. The impact was brutal, eye-opening, flinging him back. If he hadn’t enforced his strength it would’ve knocked the weapon from his hand and killed him outright. If the weapon wasn’t enchanted- the blow would’ve cleaved through like nothing was there and killed him, just as brutally.

He skidded back.

The mantis person wore a dark grey helmet of chitin, with a single forward horn extending out over the hollow eyes to give its face an anvil-like muzzled shape. White hair cascaded out in the wind. There was a smaller set of human limbs hidden beneath the enormous insect claws.

It was the most humanoid monster he’d ever seen.

Mantis-Folk Praetorian. F-Class // Sapient. Hailing from the Shrine Worlds of Aud-Lap, this ancient race was subjugated by Logos and rewritten internally after their strict moral code and inflexible minds caused them to struggle during Integration. Now they serve as guardians of holy sites. Beware their powerful defensive mantras.

Without expecting it to work, he clapped a hand to his chest. “I’m Nic!” He croaked, the high winds almost drowning out his words.

To his surprise the mantis-folk bowed low, hand folded to its waist. “Brave warrior. You tread on sacred ground of the Low Tomb. You must die.”

And without another word of warning it came to make good on that threat.

Huge, powerful limbs swiped left and right, slashing at the air brutally. Nic was forced to retreat step after step, losing ground and lost in the tempo of the enemy’s attacks rather than making his own rhythm. If it continued- if he didn’t find a way through the storm of blades- he would be pinned down against the wall and torn apart.

With a furious shout, Nic flung himself forward. His spear rattled and rebounded against an incoming blow, sweeping towards the mantis’ torso as he deflected the claw with all his strength. Instantly a human hand rose and a green-white shield burst into existence. His speartip deflected against it in a spray of sparks as the mantis-folk began to chant something in a droning voice.

This high up, there was no earth to draw on for the stony doppelganger spear. He vented a shot of poison at the shield to no effect.

His attacks and momentum wasted against the barrier, the mantis let it drop and surged forward. Its claw raised up-

And a lasso of silk dropped from above to snag against its arm. The spider had slipped up high and cast down a single deadly thread of adhesive silk.

For just a moment the creature’s deadly arm was caught high, and Nic dove in, slicing left and right with such fury the spear bent in his hands with the momentum of each blow. He carved a bloody cross in the creature’s side in the blink of a an eye, but as he opened his mouth to spray poison into the wound, the shield sprang back into existence.

It bought the single moment the mantis needed to tear free of the silk line, ripping its arm down and sweeping out in a wide, deadly blow. The sheer force of the strike made the arm blur into a crescent of green death.

There was nowhere left for Nic to go.

So he flung himself sideways and off the branch, letting gravity drop him beneath the oncoming strike. His hand shot out and struck the bark. Instead of falling to his death, he swung by the adhesive aura wrapped around his palm, turning the downwards momentum into a pendulum arc that flicked him back up onto the branch-

And as he swung underneath the mantis, he sprayed poison across the right half of its limbs. Instantly the armored chitin began to crack and boil.

As he landed on the opposite side of the beast, it spun to face him. His spear darted forward and was intercepted by the shield. It didn’t matter. The mantis-folk’s shield chant was weak and faltering and the barrier flickered violently.

Nic simply advanced, striking blow after bone-rattling blow against the shield. Now the momentum was on his side. The beast couldn’t counterattack without dropping the shield, couldn’t drop the shield without being struck.

And all the while its poison was digging deeper.

With a final gasp of pain, the creature’s legs gave away. One moment it was there. The next it was tumbling out over the edge, growing smaller and smaller as it fell.