“Judging by what happened to Letty,” Valerie looked at the still regrowing fingertip. “The tree had been completely corrupted by whatever they did to it. Using the fire or light element would be our best tool to destroy it.”

“Quentin could stand beside it with his domain activated,” Regis suggested. “That should greatly weaken it since it’s divine mojo boosted light magic. In the meantime, we’ll unleash whatever fire and light spells we have on it and won’t stop until there’s nothing but ash left.”

“Even if we manage to destroy the tree,” Letty spoke up after staying quiet for far too long. “The land around us had also been tainted.”

“A paladin’s light can cleanse such corruption, but it would take a lot of time and effort to completely cleanse the entire valley.”

“We don’t have to cleanse all of it,” Fabien noted. “Only the area near the village and beside the river seemed to have been affected.”

“They must have used the river as a means of transportation and the recently used ritual still had some corruption lingering around them, affecting the riverside.” Osmond drew his conclusion.

“Either way,” Quentin said as he laid down his bedroll. “The first thing we’ll have to do after sunrise is to destroy the tree. After that, Regis can start creating a gateway while we cleanse and clear out the village.”

The paladin barely got to finish his speech when a heavy banging noise resounded as something almost broke the barrier covering the smithy’s door.

“Looks like we have a big one,” the dark elf remarked as he touched the barrier to restore it. “I’ll take the first watch this time. Hopefully, these things manage to destroy themselves thanks to the barrier’s backlash by the time my shift is over.”

“This is going to be a long night.” Sophie muttered as she lay down beside Amanda while the rest of the group also made their beds.

While the others slept, Regis spent the following three or so hours periodically recharging the light barriers. The noise outside slowly died down over an hour as the malevolent shades either gave up or got themselves destroyed by the barrier’s backlash. When his time was up, the dark elf kicked the paladin’s boots slightly. Quentin woke up with a start, only releasing his sword when he noticed his companion standing beside him.

“My turn?” He asked with a weary tone, earning a slight nod.

Regis unceremoniously plopped down onto his bedroll and soon fell asleep. Despite the eerie sounds of the night, no one woke him up until a long time later.

“Wake up handsome,” Valerie shook him up. “It’s time to let some fresh air in.”

“It should be morning already,” Amanda noted. “Although it’s hard to be sure since your barriers glow brighter than any morning sunlight that would shine on the door or the windows.

“I’ll remove the ward from one of the windows,” the young spell weaver offered. “That way, even if the shades are still around, there will be only a small area they can attack.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Fabien nodded as the dark elf stumbled over to one of the closed wooden windowsills.

He placed his hand on the glowing wall of energy that covered it and the runes faded one by one before the glowing veil disappeared. As he opened the window, the faint light of the morning sun could be seen sneaking across the nearby rooftops outside with no shades in sight.

“Looks like we’re in the clear.” Quentin sighed as his friend removed the remaining barriers.

“To be honest,” Amanda let out a deep breath as she relaxed her grip on her weapon. “I didn’t expect to spend my first night in my new smithy while being surrounded by vengeful ghosts.”

“Then let’s make sure that you won’t have to spend your second night the same way.” Osmond noted as they left the workshop.

Although it was still relatively dark in the village square, there was enough light to see the surrounding buildings and the withered Landwaker. Quentin walked closer with his sword and shield at the ready, his eyes darting from one street to the other.

“Shall we get started?” The paladin asked, summoning his domain after receiving a firm nod from his companions.

As soon as the warm light appeared, both the ground and the Landwaker tree itself began to groan and hiss as black smoke rose from them, burning away in the light. The tree itself seemed to be slowly crumbling away as pieces of its bark cracked and fell off, turning into dust upon hitting the ground.

“Looks like it’s working.” Valerie said with a relieved smile as she cast a ‘ray of light’ on the tree, scorching it wherever the beam touched the tainted tree.

“This is going to take a while.” Fabien sighed as he tried and failed to burn one of the branches into ash with his ‘fire bolt’ spell.

“It’s going to take more than a single ‘fire bolt’ if we want to destroy a corrupted tree of this size.” Cruz muttered as she and Letty both aimed at the same spot before casting a ‘ray of fire’ on it.

Their united effort charred the tree branch, making it catch on fire, but the flame didn’t spread further than the meter-wide area they originally targeted. The branch burned with an eerie purple flame as black smoke wafted out of it before it snapped and fell on the ground, leaving behind crumbling embers.

“At least we know it’s possible to burn it away.”

“It’s a shame,” Regis sighed. “Landwakers are the epitome of magical plant life. We could have made a lot of useful stuff from the wood if it wasn’t corrupted.”

“We can always prune our own three later on,” Osmond reminded him. “For now we should just concentrate on getting rid of this one.”

“How are we going to protect ours?” Mary asked while she tried to cast the new spells she learned. “I mean, if we’ll let others come here later, won’t the tree be in danger?”

“Not if we do things right and make it grow up fast,” Osmond noted. “Landwakers are only vulnerable to poison until they bear their first fruit. Once it’s capable of bearing fruits, the tree will merely channel poison into a fruit or two and drop it. Not even the nastiest alchemic waste could harm it at that point.”

“Self-preservation,” Letty muttered surprised. “But what about attack spells? The tree in East Fork got hurt by ice magic.”

“From what I read in the guild’s library, the tree’s rank, rarity and quality greatly determine their defence capabilities. We have a ‘decent’ quality seedling. Not to mention that prismatic trees are tougher than the rest.”

“I’ll create a barrier around the tree later on,” Regis stated. “That way no one but us will be able to get close to it.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Cruz nodded as she destroyed another branch.

“Regis,” the paladin called out to his companion. “We’ll take care of the tree and the surrounding area. You should focus on putting together that gateway for us. We’ll need a way to fast-travel as soon as possible.”

“We’re pretty much at the centre of the village,” the dark elf noted. “I think it would be for the best if I placed the gate somewhere around there.”

The others followed his movements as he pointed at an empty place near the choke point of the small street that connected the village square and the gate they came through.

“It should be easy to access it from there,” Osmond agreed. “We could use the surrounding buildings as our temporary home until the area around the village gets cleared out.”

“Once that’s done,” Sophie added. “We could start repairing and expanding outwards from here.”

“Hey Quentin,” the dark elf waved the paladin closer as he decided on the exact spot for the gateway. “Could you cleanse this area with your divine mojo? I don’t want any corruption to interfere with the creation of the gateway, since I’m not sure about the possible consequences.”

“Just give me a moment.” The man nodded as he walked over, the circle of light following him while black smoke rose from the ground all around him.

Although his domain faded away due to the strain of the corruption he had to cleanse, it was also a good way to level up his mastery of the skill while helping around. When no more smoke floated out of the ground, the paladin gave a slight nod to his companion before heading back to the tree. Regis looked at the uneven cobblestone floor of the village square, letting out a slight sigh.

“It’s time to see just how creative and precise this spell can be.” He muttered to himself as he focused on his terraform spell and a pale brownish-yellow light appeared in his vision that covered a large enough area.

The young spell waver focused on the ground and made it flat in an octagonal shape that covered the area of a three-diameter circle. Under his relentless spell casting, eight pillars of condensed earth as thick as his thigh rose from the ground at the edges of the octagon that reached three meters in height. Once they stopped growing, an arm-thick beam of condensed earth grew out of them inwards at a forty-five-degree angle, connecting right above the middle of the octagon-shaped platform with a half-metre-long beam growing down outwards from the pillars.

It looked like the frame of a fancy gazebo, making the dark elf nod in approval. He rested and meditated for a short while before he cast 'earth to stone' on the octagonal platform, turning it into a greyish-white marble of low quality. He then repeated the procedure with the pillars and the roof beams, ending up with a frame that looked as if it was carved out of a single block of marble.

“Are you trying to flex on us or something?” Amanda called out to him from beside the now half-destroyed Landwaker tree.

“If I’m doing this, I might as well do it right.”

“Show-off.” Cruz grumbled while burning the tree branches with her sister.

While the rest of the group continued on with their crusade against the corrupted tree, Regis walked into the middle of the platform and sat down. He pulled out his endless tome, turning its pages to the one that depicted the expansive runic diagram of the gateway enchantment. After ten or so minutes of studying it, the dark elf shifted into a lotus seat position and placed a few small arcanite stones on the ground, covering them with his palms before closing his eyes.

Regis entered into his meditative state with the sole purpose of drawing up a large outer circle the size of 2.8 metre diameters. He drew the circle over and over in his mind until it turned into a dull grey colour. When it was done, the dark elf opened his eyes, finding the same grey circle on the floor while the arcanite stones beneath his palms crumbled to dust. ‘This is going to take a while.’ Regis sighed as he recuperated before spending the next hour crafting more arcanite stones.

After that, he formed a slightly smaller circle inside the big one, leaving a ten centimetres wide gap between the two. He drew line after line in order to create the base outline of the diagram before thinking of adding a single rune.

“You weren’t kidding when you said that it’s going to take a while”, he heard Letty’s voice from behind, the wood elf walking beside the pillar of the gazebo. “You’ve been at it for three hours now. Do you want me to bring you some food or something?”

“I’m fine,” Regis sighed. “It’s just a bit straining to craft something of this size, but I’ll manage. Thanks for asking though.”

“Don’t mention it. Oh, and we managed to destroy the Landwaker. Mary even helped us carve out the ground around the roots with her earth magic, so we only have a hole there now.”

“Did Quentin manage to cleanse the ground beneath it?”

“He did. Why?”

“I figured that it’s a good place to plant our own tree once the place gets cleared up.”

“It should be fine theoretically, but we’ll first have to cleanse the surroundings and it's a slow process. The light magic spells do work, but Quentin’s domain is the fastest to cleanse the ground and the buildings, but he runs out of arcana way too fast. Still, isn’t it a bit superstitious to plant the new tree where the old one died?”

“Well,” Regis sighed. “You could think of it that way or you can think of it as a symbol of rebirth. As for Quentin; he isn’t a full-blown spell caster, so it was to be expected. Anyway; it’s best if I get back to it. I barely finished the frame of the diagram and there’s a shitload of runes that need to be drawn up.”

“Oh,” the wood elf nodded somewhat flustered. “I’ll leave you to it then. Just... remember to call if you need anything, okay?”

“I will Letty, and thanks again for checking up on me.”

After the slight distraction and a bit of rest, the dark elf continued creating the runic structure. Rune after rune fell into place as the gateway slowly took form. By the time the entire diagram glowed up with a unified grey hue, the sun was already in the middle of the sky and the young spell weaver felt a gnawing hunger mixed with his content sigh as he looked at his handiwork. He stood up and stretched his limbs while looking around the village square.

None of his companions could be seen anywhere, but he felt too hungry to be able to care about that. Regis walked over to the smithy where he left his knapsack so that he could take out his waterskin along with some rations. Five minutes and a not-so-subtle burp later he patted his stomach as a familiar and slightly accusing voice called out to him.

“Would you look at that,” Fabien sighed. “We’ve been working our asses off while he’s just chilling out and stuffing his face.”

“As if you weren’t coming back here to do the same.” The dark elf retorted as he watched his companions return from one of the small streets connecting into the square.