With the fey woman dead, the fog had thinned and cleared from the forest of roots. With Grey’s leg injured as it was, he was forced to walk slowly, shifting all of his weight onto his other legs to compensate. Misha walked just a pace ahead of him. She wouldn’t add her weight to his back in his state.

Misha’s ears and tail remained high and alert all the while. No other sounds or disturbances caught her attention in this place, but as far as she was concerned, this was enemy territory. The fey had the advantage in a landscape as bizarre as this, and more of Limalsa’s knights could appear at any moment.

It took a while of walking for Misha to notice that she had not made any turns since she and Grey had defeated their foes. The tunnel of roots they were following continued ahead without any twists or branching paths. Periodically, Misha would look back over her shoulder at Grey. The wolf would look back at her. Neither knew where the roots were taking them.

When the scenery changed up ahead, Misha was unsure whether to be relieved or concerned, or whether to even believe what she now saw was real. At last, the roots above thinned out, allowing afternoon sunlight to make it through to the ground below. The roots dipped down and disappeared into the dirt below, and Misha found herself walking out into open grassy land. Up ahead, closer than she’d ever expected to see it, was the trunk of the gargantuan tree that towered overhead. The roots had led Misha to stand almost directly in front of it now, and the trunk stretched on into the distance on each side. At the base of the tree was a hollow that reached all the way down to the ground like a welcoming entrance, and inside of it, Misha saw the lower steps of a wide, spiraling staircase made from tree bark. The stairs disappeared upward into the rest of the tree, as if they were leading to upper floors of a building.

“Am I supposed to expect a trap here?” Misha asked, somewhat rhetorical, and somewhat directed at Grey. “If I start climbing those steps, is a fey going to jump out and try to eat me?”

“How I wish that question could be one of paranoia and not a very reasonable thing to wonder in this place...”

The voice came from behind, and caused Misha to jump and turn around in surprise. For a split second she almost thought Grey had begun speaking, only to realize she recognized both the voice and the people walking towards her.

“Veldin!” Misha shouted. She was relieved to see her red-haired companion exit the same pathway she and Grey had just emerged from. Remerick was following just behind him as well.

“Good to see you well and alive amongst all of this, Misha,” Veldin continued. He nodded towards Grey and added, “Though, it appears even the both of you had your own encounter?”

Misha nodded. “We did. One of the fey, and something called a… balon?”

Veldin’s brow furrowed and he looked at Misha with brief confusion. “I beg your pardon?”

“I was hoping you would know. A slug-looking thing with tendrils and teeth?”

Veldin and Remerick exchanged a glance, both with that same confusion. “I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Remerick said.

“So… You don’t know, Veldin?”

“Well, I assume it’s hardly of consequence now,” Veldin replied. “You did kill it, yes?”

Misha nodded. She was so accustomed to lengthy, in-depth lectures whenever Veldin was asked anything.

“Then we can question that at another time. I believe we have more pressing matters to direct our focus to at the moment, do we not?”

“Right…” Misha looked down the pathway into the roots once more, but saw nothing else. “Did either of you see Aliana?”

“I was hoping you would have,” Remerick said. “Veldin and I suddenly found ourselves back on that path and made our way here.”

“She’s alone, then. Or, well, alone with Moonlight…” Misha tried to ignore the building sense of dread. Aliana would be fine, Misha would have to believe that. She looked over her two companions, noticing a bandage wrapped rather poorly around Remerick's arm. "Are you hurt?"

"Oh, this?" Remerick lifted his arm. "Nothing too severe, I think. The bleeding's stopped, from what I can tell."

Misha nodded. "That's good. Let me tend to it, hopefully Aliana will catch up with us. Where did you two end up, anyway?"

"Some form of pocket realm,” Veldin explained.

That matched up with what the fey had said, even if Misha still didn’t entirely understand what that meant. Much like the balon, she decided that would have to be a question for another day. "It’s good to have the both of you back."

“Quite honestly, I’m impressed at how well you handled yourself in this separation,” Veldin said as he took a few steps toward the tree to examine it more closely. “Though, you’re a capable enough person as it is, so I should hardly be surprised. But no few people would have easily fallen to these ‘tests’ that we have been put through.”

Misha had just been removing the old bandages from Remerick’s arm to replace them, but paused with a twitch of her whiskers before continuing. “Do you mean that?”

“You haven’t been killed, have you?”

“Well, no…”

Remerick smiled at Misha. “Don’t mind his phrasing. He has strange ways of complimenting people.”

“It honestly always surprises me to hear one from him.”

Veldin looked back from his study of the tree. “If you think it so strange, I can make a note never to do so again.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Misha said. “Thank you, though. That means a lot to hear from you.”

Once Misha had finished wrapping a fresh bandage over Remerick’s arm, she looked up, noticing movement at the edge of her victim. At last, emerging next from the forest of roots, was their group’s last missing member.

"Aliana!" Misha called out, waving to her friend.

Aliana waved back, but the movement was half-hearted at best. "You're alright," she said as she came to a stop in front of her companions.

“We are,” Remerick said. “It’s good to see you’re safe.”

“You are alright, I hope?” Misha added.

“I, um… I am. I’m fine.” The way Aliana said that, a tone that lacked certainty to it, stood out to Misha, but Aliana continued, “I was stuck with some other fey for a while. They told me a bit about their queen.”

"You spoke to these fey?" Veldin asked.

“Well, spoke to them and then fought them. It sounds like the only reason Limalsa had any sanity to her when Misha and I fought her was because of the bracelet holding back the corruption..."

Remerick ran his hand over the bracelet on his other wrist. "This one?"

“I see. I had feared that may be the case,” Veldin said. “If she’s lost the last shreds of her rationality as a result, we should expect she’ll only be all the more dangerous to face.”

"That’s fine. We have to stop her,” Misha said. “We have to stop her from doing this to anyone else."

Aliana looked up at the towering tree that loomed overhead. "She's up there, then?" Her face wore an expression of concern.

"Little to be done than to press on." Veldin took the first steps forward, adding, "We need the shard regardless. We can hardly stop here."

Misha looked back to Grey who had settled down on the ground for this conversation. "Grey, I think you'll need to stay here."

Grey growled, but Misha shook her head.

"I mean it. You can't walk like that. Stay back for now. Let us take care of this."

Grey huffed and laid his head down on the ground.

"I know. I'm sorry. We’ll be back soon, though.” Misha could only hope that no other threats would appear here outside the tree, and she turned to follow after Veldin and the others.

The spiral staircase was wider than any Misha had seen even in Indervel. The texture retained bark, as did the walls to either side, as if the tree had been shaped in that manner rather than made by hand. The tree’s interior quickly grew dark without any source of light. Instead, Veldin conjured his own sphere of light in the palm of his hand, allowing Misha to see where she was going. The stairs was full of vines and branches that grew inside the tree, and Misha's taller companions had to periodically duck underneath them or push them aside. It was one of those times Misha remembered there were benefits to being small.

The stairs carried on up and up, and after a time, Misha felt the muscles in her legs beginning to burn. There was a smell of flowers in the stairs that led up into the tree's upper reaches. Fragrant fruits and blooms that Misha could pick up easily. She tried to focus on those scents and the sounds of the others' footsteps behind her rather than the ache in her legs, until she finally spotted light up ahead. A soft green glow that she could not make out a source to at first. The stairs came to an long-awaited end, where they opened to a landing inside the tree.

Independent orbs of soft light provided the green glow and hovered in the air overhead. A set of tall double doors, similarly covered in bark, stood at the end of the landing. The doors were covered in ivy and other plants with colorful blooms that covered them in an erratic display. The plants could have been appealing under any other circumstances. But here, Misha could see the tree bark this high up in the tree had grown unhealthy, dull and lifeless with grey and white coloration. The plants on the door, while beautiful at a glance, were marred similarly by other colors. Dark splotches of a shard's corruption spread over many of them. Misha could feel it in the air — that oppressing atmosphere that signaled the presence of the 'fey queen' Limalsa.

"Is the door even safe to touch?" Aliana asked when the group came to a stop in front of it.

Veldin answered the question by casting another spell, and the doors swung open on their own. Aliana and Remerick both grabbed the hilts of their swords and Misha grabbed her bow from her back in preparation for whatever lay in wait ahead.

Again there were plants just as Misha had expected, all growing along the interior wall of the chamber beyond the doors. The room was huge and rounded, the dome-shaped ceiling stretching up high above. The ground was covered in overgrown grass that reached up to Misha’s neck. She could just make out several perfectly circular pools of water in the room. There were four of them, and they were spread out at equal distances from each other around the edges of the room. Though they appeared to be some sort of decoration for this space, the water was tainted with the dark murkiness of the corruption, and the same colors were apparent on the draping vines and ivy that writhed slowly on the walls. They were alive and overgrown just like the flower heart of the Orchard Forest.

At the far end, across from the doors, were a set of low wooden steps topped by a throne equally covered in sickly roses and chrysanthemums. Misha could see far larger thorns on the plants than were normal, and they pulsed slowly as if breathing. Sat atop the throne was the being herself. Limalsa. She was unmistakable, but did not look as she has before when Misha and Aliana had first encountered her.

Her shape had changed and become gangly, with her limbs elongated such that the skin was pulled taut over the far too visible joints. Smaller arms had sprouted out from along her sides in uneven intervals, and the dark corrupted coloration had spread over much of her torso, up along her neck and to part of her face. Her hair had grown out far longer and disheveled, into a huge pile that overflowed down the sides of the throne and onto the ground around her. Though seated and stationary, she fidgeted with small twitches of movement as if unable to remain still, sharp nails like huge claws tapping rapidly against the arm rests of her throne. When she saw the group of mortals enter, she smiled.

"Oh... I remember some of you. Good, good." As she spoke, it became apparent that she had sprouted more rows of those needle sharp teeth in her mouth. "I was notified that we had guests, but I was not aware that you were the ones from that little village. Alraune!" she shouted suddenly. She scraped her nails along the wood of one arm on her throne. "Why was I not told this?!"

"Alraune?" Aliana repeated the name.

There was a movement in the plants along one part of the wall, and some of them shifted aside to reveal the eye of a face peeking out from behind them. "I... I was not... aware you were familiar with these ones, Your Majes—"

"SILENCE!" Limalsa bellowed, then struck one of her hands out in the face's direction. The plants writhed more fiercely and the face called out in a terrified squeak of a voice, "Wait! I—I am sorry, I did not mean to—" But the plants engulfed them once more and they were gone.

Misha grabbed raised an arrow towards Limalsa. "What did you do?!" she demanded.

"Useless thing, she couldn’t even report to me properly," Limalsa said. "I'll have her regrown again later, perhaps that one can tell faces apart—" She stopped suddenly, then said, "No, no, it will not do to have you wait out there."

Misha hadn’t even noticed that, in the time she’d witnessed the fate of that “Alrune” being, she could hear Veldin quietly speaking the words of a spell behind her. Before Veldin could complete the spell's incantation, the vines and ivy on the doors reached out for the group. Misha reacted the moment she saw their movement and jumped past the doors to escape their reach. Aliana and Remerick both drew their weapons and sliced through the plants that came closest to them. Veldin ran through the doors followed by the both of them and shouted, "Limalsa! Cease this now! Allow us to free you of the shard and this entire matter will be resolved, we do not need to come to blows over this!"

Behind them all, the vines and ivy reached for each other and pulled the doors shut. Misha could see that the plants on the walls inside the chamber wriggled about threateningly as well, and she made certain to step out of their reach. If there was any saving grace to this, it was that there was far more room in here than the Orchard Forest, more space to avoid the grasping and stinging plants that wanted her and her friends dead.

"Hand it over?" Limalsa said, gripping the arms of her throne with both hands and scratching her nails along them. She brought one hand up to caress the scale shard that was still embedded in her chest. "Oh, no, no, I could never do such a silly thing as that. This world is in need of proper rulership, after all. This world is just the sort of place that I wish to grow into a beautiful garden."

She stood from her throne then, showing the extent of her stretched limbs and letting her wings, which had multiplied in number and grown into messy curtains much like her hair, drape onto the ground behind her like a cape as she stepped down onto the main floor of the chamber. "So, we have two choices that we can make here, little mortals. You can surrender to me now, become valiant knights who shall tend to my garden, and we can be done with this. Or, you can draw this out, and struggle, and suffer. Which shall it be?"

Misha barely waited for the sentence to be finished, loosing an arrow straight at Limalsa. It struck her in the shoulder and she staggered back slightly, but that was all. She gripped it, pulling the arrow straight out of her skin. The wound healed over in mere moments. "I suppose that is a suitable answer."

Limalsa waved her hand and Misha felt a rumbling in the ground beneath her feet. She managed to hop aside just as a line of the grass across the room extended upwards, growing thicker and firmer and sharper, threatening to pierce any standing too close. The grass turned into a tall wall. On one side, Veldin and Remerick. On the other, Misha and Aliana.

"Dammit!" Aliana shouted. She brought Moonlight up to cut through, but the blades of grass only bent and tangled around the sword. It took Aliana a great and forceful pull to bring Moonlight back from them.

"Now then," Limalsa's voice came from somewhere in the chamber, as more walls of the grass had sprung up here and there. Limalsa appeared climbing up atop one of the walls, standing tall upon it, and looking down at Misha and Aliana with a grin. "I think the three of us were in the middle of something, weren't we?"

With a wave of her hand, there were symbols appearing on the ground in dark light. Misha recognized this and moved more quickly than last time, avoiding the bolt of lightning that appeared from nothing and struck down.

The grass in the center of the room had grown well over to half the height of the area. Veldin could see the slightest movement in the plants, signaling that to approach them would be just as dangerous as the bark walls of this chamber.

Remerick raised his sword to the grass, but Veldin held up a hand and said, “Simply cutting it will be no use. Limalsa will not allow us to approach so easily.”

“But—“ Remerick began, but cut himself short as his attention was grabbed by something behind Veldin. Veldin turned just in time to see the nearest pool of dark water had begun to stir. A high-pressured jet of water shot out from it, and Remerick stepped forward to intercept it with a conjured shield of magic, droplets of water splashing onto the grass around them.

From the dark pool, water rose into a shape all of its own accord, forming itself to resemble a snake-like being. The dark and murky colors mixed into it making its shape easier to define.

“Fine then,” Remerick said. “What do we do about that?”

"Distract it," Veldin answered.

The snake-like elemental opened its mouth in a silent hiss and brought up whips of water to lash out at Remerck. His shield of magic protected him once more from the elemental’s attacks. Veldin focused on the creature, bringing to mind a spell to cast. An elemental was made of raw magic holding the water together, and so dispelling that power would be their best chance. Veldin recited the spell's words, and just as the elemental's mouth opened for another attack, its body wavered before dissipating into simple water that splashed upon the ground.

There was no chance to appreciate that small victory, however. Immediately, Veldin felt something grip him by the shoulder from behind, a cold and wet grip that also wrapped around his ankles and yanked him down to the ground.

"Velvet!" Remerick shouted.

Veldin realized he was being dragged across the ground and managed to look back to see a second elemental. It had left its own pool of water and instead rose up out of the grass. It must have dispersed its form and moved along the plants in droplets while its companion acted as their own distraction.

Remerick caught up to the elemental swinging his sword through its body. The elemental evaded the attack by allowing its own form to collapse and splash onto the ground. The droplets of water quivered and then move around through the grass attempting to gather and reform. Half of the snake-like body had taken shape before Remerick was upon it again, and with a word of magic, his sword was engulfed in a silver flame that hissed and sizzled. He brought the weapon down and sliced through the elemental's body. Much of its water evaporated and the creature writhed about, several sparks of the fire catching onto the grass around.

Veldin hurried to his feet, casting the spell again that returned this elemental to normal water, and hurriedly shouted, "Fire is perhaps not the best idea here!"

"I don't have many other options against something like that, Velvet!"

Veldin refrained from any further comment, turning his focus to Limalsa atop the wall. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps there were uses for fire here after all.

Misha sprinted through the grass as quickly as her limbs would carry her, frantically leaping out of the way of one lightning bolt after another. When she felt the temperature around her began to grow chill, and droplets of cool liquid formed on the tips of her whiskers and fur, she looked up to see a series of icicles sharp as daggers formed had appeared, forming a circle in the air. Misha rolled out of the way as the first one plunged towards her, then the next and the next in rapid succession. Each of the icicles grew more difficult to evade, one pierce through her cloak and Misha felt the cold of the last two as they made shallow cuts along her back.

In all of this, Misha could see out of the corner of her eye that Aliana had no difficulty moving away from the attacks with Moonlight's aid. But even then, both of their efforts were focused solely on surviving the onslaught with no opening to go onto the offensive.

"Is that all?" Limalsa called out from her perch on the wall. "My, my, how very boring. And here I thought that you two may offer me something more interesting after you’d made it all the way here."

"Don't you need us alive to turn us into your servants?!" Aliana shouted between avoiding one attack after another, a scream of frustration.

Limalsa was nonchalant when she answered, "No, not at all, so long as your death was recent enough."

As Misha continued to run and dodge yet more lightning and ice, her muscles begging for a reprieve, she found herself running towards Aliana and their eyes met. Aliana stretched her arm out and Misha leaped up towards her. She climbed up Aliana’s arm and onto her shoulder.

"Misha," Aliana said between panting breaths. There was only so long either of them could keep up this. "What will it take to get you a clean shot at her?"

"I..." Misha looked around. The plants all around the room writhed continuously. Limalsa's own many arms worked in tandem to bring her magic to life, and Misha knew the fey could stop an arrow short with no effort unless something stopped her. "I can't aim with everything in her advantage like this. There's too much for her to defend with."

"Got it," Aliana replied. Misha realized she was running straight for the wall of grass Limalsa stood on.

"Aliana?!" Misha called out.

In the next instant, there was fire. A great blaze of fire from the other side of the wall of grass. Veldin? Limalsa turned, a fury overtaking her features as her eyes narrowed and her lips pulled back to show off her many teeth. "What are you doing?!" she screeched.

On the other side of the wall, Veldin had conjured flames. First he’d engulfed a patch of the grass on the ground, burning it to cinders and leaving naught but charred dirt and mulch behind that had been beneath it. Then, with he and Remerick standing on the cleared space, Veldin turned more fire upon the plants and grass at one end of the chamber. The burning plants let out shrieks they should not have been able to produce even as they were incinerated into ashes. The wood of the tree itself burned far more slowly, however, and Veldin could see it regenerating almost as quickly as he managed to inflict damage upon it. More flowers and plants tried to grow back over the bare patches the fire had burned away, a continuous cycle of their destruction and regrowth.

Grass around the burned patch of land try to reach out and stab at Veldin, but Remerick was there to cut through it with flaming sword strikes the moment any drew close. Veldin paid the attacks no mind shifted his focus no longer to conjuring the fire, but to commanding that which had already come to exist. With a gesture of his hand, he gathered the fire together into a single flaming sphere. This part was easy for him — exactly the sort of magic he specialized in, manipulation of that which was already present in the environment. He moved his hand, pointing the fire to travel along the walls of grass, setting it ablaze. As expected, tainted by the power of the scale shard's healing magic and corruption, the grass did not allow itself to fall entirely, but it did leave momentary openings in the wall.

"You fools!" Limalsa's voice grew to an angered shriek and she easily stepped away from the sphere of fire as it passed by her. "My tree shall not burn so easily, you simple mortals! We are stronger than any of your tricks! You will die here!" She rose several of her arms up, gathering dark energy within her hands.

Misha clung tight to Aliana’s shoulder as her companion, empowered by Moonlight’s glow, jumped up high. Aliana’s feet came up to the grass wall and she began running straight up along it. The flaming grass blades grasped after her boots as she ran, wrapping around her boots and ankles. Yet in their burning state, the grass snapped easily as Alianacontinued to make step after step, momentum keeping her from falling. She swung Moonlight out at more plants that tried to assault the pair from above. Misha held tight, knowing that at this angle, any attempts to shoot from her bow would only cause her to fall. But at this rate, she would not be able to shoot, she would be taking a different tactic.

Limalsa's attention was on the casting of her spell, and when she saw Aliana, she swung one hand of dark swirling energy towards her. The black energy coalesced into more shards of ice that flung out at Aliana in a mist, sending her flying back with the impact. Misha kicked off of her, flinging herself forward. She kept going, arrow in hand, as she flew towards Limalsa.

The fey could not react to stop Misha's arrow from sinking into her chest, driven in by momentum and force. It knocked her back, the rest of the magic in her hands flying out towards Veldin and Remerick in a furious blast of icicles that coated most of the chamber, yet unfocused as the spell was, the shot went wide and missed.

Limalsa fell backwards off the wall, and Misha was tumbling down with her. Not the last time she would fall from a great height, she expected.