“-or we WILL SEIZE YOUR CHILDREN FROM THEIR CRADLES AND BREAK THEM AGAINST THE GROUND. Do not test us! WOE WILL BEFALL YOU! Harm our friends again and the last thing you see will be my outstretched wings, my talons descending for your eyes! And the little pink one will HELP!”

Inkspur had a certain enthusiasm to him that Nic couldn’t help but respect. Certainly, it was effective in sending the ants scuttling away in fear. Moreso than Nic’s calm statements of threat would be.

The ants ran in great droves, abandoning their stolen colony and rushing away. The Myrmidons paused, perched on branches, regarding him with their dark eyes.

“You have done us a service, benefactor.” They whispered. “The hive will not forget.”

“Yeah.” Nic stood back, watching them with distrust. “See that you don’t.”

“We request your blood.”

He blinked, heavily. “My what?”

They didn’t blink back. They seemed incapable of blinking. Their eyes were pitch-black and relentless, their masked faces unreadable. “You have done a service for the hive. Those who serve are given immortality. Your blood will join the next Protector.”

Nic was- it was safe to say Nic was totally taken aback by these weird, unblinking ants calmly asking he donated his blood to be used for some kind of guardian. One they’d make by melting together hundreds of lesser ants. Would that make it his child? Would he have to raise a little ant-murder-machine with axolotl gills?

“Tellll you what. You take care of my spiders for me, and I’ll give you some of my blood... laaater….”

Nic shifted away uncomfortably, wanting a swift exit from this culty weirdness. The twin Myrmidons turned to each other and said, in buzzing unison, “It is acceptable. It is good we did not have to fight.”

“Yeahhhh….” Nic said, and whispered, “Good for you, weirdos.” He began to slide down the tree, descending fast with one hand half-stuck to the side and his body weight pulling him down. The sight of the ants departing their stolen colony in a great chain of bodies, watched over by the humanoid Myrmidons, faded away above him.

---

It was barely any time before Nic arrived at the observation platforms where the spiders had set up their new home. He dropped down, and the furry eight-legged shapes immediately began to appear on the rooftops and crawling from the windows.

“Hey guys. Inkspur, tell ‘em the good news!” Nic waved brightly.

“Your foes have been VANQUISHED. They fear the pink one so deeply they have agreed to SERVE YOU as guards, in exchange for him withholding his TERRIBLE WRATH!”

The spiders looked… dubious.

“Do you DOUBT ME? We slew a BEAST together, tearing it out of the enemy’s hive. It had forced them from their home and into yours! With the source of your STRIFE so thoroughly SLAUGHTERED order will return!”

An enormous specimen of the orb-weavers appeared, crawling through a window. Her body was massive, clearly the same species as her smaller kin but covered in black thorns that sprouted from her joints. Her front two legs ended in sharp bony blades the color of midnight.

Her jaws dripped and clicked.

“She… wishes to thank you? And to say you’ve done well to resolve the issue with so little violence. I disagree. I think we should have used FAR MORE VIOLENCE-”

“Inkspur.” Nic hissed. “Just translate.”

The matriarch of the spiders let out a hissing stream of words. “We are grateful. Yes. Long have we tried to maintain true to our principles and our human nature. We are a peaceful species. Our home is far above the world. We were given a chance to live above the slaughter and warfare below.”

“But we know we will need protectors, to wade into violence on our behalf. We have prepared gifts for you…”

Two spiders brought for a collection of golden pearls, seven in all. Nic took them gratefully. Each one was a more powerful healing treasure than any of the medicinal herbs or flowers he’d found. The spider’s healing abilities were the equivalent of natural pillmaking talents.

“The Lady of the Webs also wishes to say…” Inkspur added. “She will personally weave your clothing, out of respect.”

“Oh!” Nic grinned, and whipped out a piece of paper where he’d drawn some diagrams. “Let me show you something, then. Inkspur help me explain this…”

As he showed them his sketches of the armor, he drew several things out of his bag. First, the scaled hide of the sand-snake from the Valley of Memories that had swum through the earth. Second, several plates of scorpion chitin he’d harvested. Finally, a collection of rocky horns from the stone-skinned lizard he’d killed most recently.

“See? These here, and these here, and then I’ll be armored everywhere that matters.”

He was very proud of what he’d designed.

But the weaver clicked jaws in a way that felt like a tut, and dipped a leg into the ink. She made several quick adjustments to his sketch.

“Were you a tailor in a past life?” He asked, trying not to be disappointed.

“Yes. A tailor. She made clothes for the rich and powerful, the sorcerer-born nobles who ruled her city. Her talent was weaving spells into cloth. Dresses full of feathers for flight. Dresses woven out of sunlight and midnight. But her workshop burned down when a witch demanded a dress made of fire.” Inkspur translated.

“She made herself a cloak of beast-pelts and turned into a monster, killing the witch and dozens more. They condemned her to death- but the System offered her an escape.”

Nic nodded grimly. It seemed like the story was the same everywhere. The rich took everything they could, until somebody stood up.

And when somebody did…

They punished that person in the most brutal way they could, to set an example to others.

“This world can be different.” He said.

“We will make it different.” She agreed.

With that they parted ways. Nic still had to descend the rest of the tree, and morning was wearing on. The tree’s slope was shallow enough that Nic could plant both feet on the curve and slide down, skating across the moss-covered bark. The wind whipped at his face and he grinned.

In no time he was leaping forward, his momentum catapulting him to skid across the grassy earth until his feet dug trenches in the ground trying to grind to a halt. The forest was bright with sunlight and the hazy glow of lumernarch flowers.

Sylphs danced through the canopy, sitting on treasure fruits, following the small animals as they gathered resources. They were everywhere now that Nic could see them.

Nic had a simple goal for the day. Find his way back to the poison grove and retrieve the flower encased in the pearly barrier. That barrier had been a little over a week from falling when he first set out for the dungeon, and now it should be just hours from opening.

Considering the feather that had allowed him to grasp a Concept was only worth a barrier of a few days, Nic was eager to see what merited an entire week.

And once that was done…

There were some people he was hoping to find in the forest.

As he wandered it became clear the lumenarch flowers’ addictive nature was taking hold of the forest creatures. The long-necked tortoises Nic had encountered on his first day in the new world were still roaming, eating the blossoms from the trees, but their scaly necks and heavy thudding feet were covered by webs of glowing blue veins that pulsed softly with light in the dark.

Other creatures Nic passed showed signs of the same creeping corruption. He steered clear, listening to them hiss and crow defensively whenever he came too near a cluster of the precious flowers.

It was a shame. Almost all of these creatures were doomed by their dependance on the flowers. They’d never be able to cultivate to any high level, since they couldn’t take in Essence on their own anymore.

Even the forest’s gentle nature and abundant resources were a form of trap.

“I have been thinking.” Inkspur whispered on his shoulder. “You need a NAME.”

“I’ve got one. Nicolas. Nicolas Winterhome.”

“BAH! A human name. A mortal name! Nobody has ever trembled and pissed their boots in terror at the words ‘Nicolas Winterhome’. You need a MONSTROUS NAME. Did you name me Lother? Samuel? JEREMY!?”

“NO!” His wings expanded to their full reach, glowing brightly. “You named me INKSPUR!”

“Actually, you named-”

“I named MYSELF only because YOU would have chosen SCRIBBLETAIL or some other NONSENSE!”

“Uh-huh.” Nicolas rolled his eyes. He was actually thinking of Runewing, but...

“Similarly, you cannot be trusted with the matter of your own name. You need someone to guide you in the ways of being SAVAGE! You must inspire FEAR IN THOSE WHO HEAR OF YOU! You could be REDFIN!”

“I don’t have-”

“NIGHTBLOOD!”

“What does that-”

“FESTERWOUND!”

“... Gross.”

Nic paused. Staring out of the undergrowth at him was a wolf. It had red fur across its head like a devil’s mask, and enormous tusks that emerged from the side of its mouth, slashes of bright white under each yellow eye.

It growled.

Nic’s hand was going for his axe when Inkspur said. “Wait! He’s friendly.”

His hand relaxed, inches from the hilt.

“He says it can understand me, and wanted to know if I could understand him.”

Nic nodded slowly. He guessed it must be pretty lonely, for the animals who hadn’t yet found a way to communicate with the world. Hearing a voice that they could understand- that wasn’t coming from a human hunter- must have been a huge relief.

“He wants you to know there’s humans ahead. Two of them, surrounded by a field of traps. He can’t get close without the big one nearly filling him with arrows.”

Nic grinned suddenly. That sounded like precisely the people he was looking for.

“Tell him-” But the red-masked wolf was already gone, retreating back into the woods. Apparently it was only so willing to trust that Nic wasn’t hostile.

Nic shrugged. He had business to do before he could go about visiting old friends.

Returning to the poison grove, Nic spent a half-hour cutting bamboo reeds and collecting yellow poison flowers. It was satisfying work. With as strong as he’d become, the sweep of his axe could cut through dozens at once, toppling forests of bamboo. He cut into the earth and hauled up flowers with their roots intact, using his axe as a shovel. The earth was rich with Essence-filled berries and minor herbs, protected from the usual scavengers by the poison yellow spores that filled the air.

He stowed as much as he could in his bag, realizing he probably wouldn’t be back again. The forest of slimes was still slowly expanding and there were slug-like little globules of slime inching across the earth, scouting for the main mass of unkillable, devouring oozes.

But he would be able to transplant a little of the poison grove to a new home.

He was just about to wrap up when he spotted a particularly bright cluster of sylphs. They were wind sylphs, with bodies of bright light and swirling air currents, and they’d taken on the golden hue of the pollen in the air. They surrounded a single yellow flower that grew from a skull’s eye socket. Nic would have missed it entirely without the ability to see the little spirits gathering.

He reached down into the socket and pulled out what looked like a knot of yellow wood.

Creeping Muskwood. F-Class // Flora. This heart of poison encourages the growth of toxic and evil things wherever it is planted. Useful in both antidotes and cultivation medicine.

Finally satisfied, he ventured into the core of the grove. Monkeys shifted in the trees above. They were clearly terrified to see Nic returning, and it was also clear they had suffered badly since he destroyed their leader and most of their best warriors. Many of them were scabby, wounded, and malnourished.

As he approached the tree an enormous serpent slid down from the branches. It was gold, orange, and white-scaled with a trifold mouth, a pair of long red feelers extending from its skull in place of eyes like a centipede.

Nic didn’t pause. He vaulted forward, slamming its head to the trunk and coating it in adhesive aura.

“Stay there.” Inkspur snapped.

The pearly barrier was fading fast, with mere minutes to go, and the flower within was on the verge of blossoming. The snake whimpered as Nic climbed up onto the tree and waited, taking out segments of bamboo and hollowing them out.

As the barrier cracked open, Nic dropped down into the hollow tree.

The flower was a pale blue lotus. It grew on a stalk twisting around a spar of rotten wood, climbing up to blossom into petals that faded from cloud-white to sky-blue like the dome of heaven. Stars of dew sparkled on the inner curves. Within the core of the flower, small holes held seeds like golden pellets.

“Archive Recall.”

Wandering Cloud Lotus. E-Class // Treasured Artifact. This sacred lotus is bound to the wind’s desire to roam. Wherever the wind carries, the lotus can grow. By sowing its seeds, you can instantly return to the location of the planting from up to a hundred miles away through invoking the lotus’ magic. This can only be done once per seed. Both the seeds and the plant can be used in certain medicines.

Nic would've whistled if he could