Lucky break!

Luck has removed your negative status: Bewitched.

You will be immune to it for the next ten minutes!

A sudden bout of clarity washed over me and it felt like the previously washed-out world slammed back into focus. I felt disoriented and nauseated as I looked around myself with confusion. I was sitting at the edge of a small creek, surrounded by other monsters that honestly looked like they were pumped full of morphine, glassy eyes, and drooling everywhere. A pain in my stomach told me that I hadn’t eaten for a long time and I felt weak, every movement more strenuous than usual.

I noticed the fancy system window in front of me telling me about how lucky I was and the puzzle pieces fell into place. Something here had bewitched me and every other monster but apparently didn’t care enough to finish us off for some reason. For now, I jumped back and away from the rest of the affected monsters and pulled out a corpse from my inventory, I needed to get some food in me and do it fast. I would only be immune to the status effect for ten minutes and needed to either find and eliminate the source or get the fuck out of dodge.

I nervously looked around for any hints about what was going on, when I saw some roots slowly emerge from a giant snake, wrap-around, and crush it, before dragging it underground. Aside from being pretty disturbing, it also provided me with a hint.

It was the fucking eximovere tree!

The system had described them as fiercely protective of their fruit, and what better way to do that than bewitch all of the monsters coming here, and keep them around as living fertilizer? I looked around, and suddenly the surrounding plant life that I’d previously thought to be amazingly beautiful seemed perfectly ordinary. Colorful, sure, but nothing out of the ordinary. I cursed as I realized that the fruitless trees had this effect as well in a much weaker version of this. I considered flat-out leaving since this was an extremely dangerous situation. The only reason I was still alive was due to my luck stat. Just how many days did I spend here looking at a tree like a zombie until I got lucky enough to cancel out the effect?

On the other hand, the object of my desire was most likely within reach, and I still had about nine minutes of immunity left. I had a chance to get what I wanted right in front of me and I wouldn’t squander it. With a freshly filled belly, I immediately rushed toward the tree in the craters’ center. On my way, I ran past many more monsters, all of them bewitched. Some of them were long dead, the only thing left was a skeletal frame that was overgrown by vines and flowers, their body used as fertilizer.

This place was beyond creepy and I wanted to leave, but I needed to check whether the fruit was present or not. I emerged from a small tightly forested area and into a massive clearing where the tree’s giant roots stuck out of the ground and sprawled in every direction. Upon closer inspection, they were undulating slowly, indicating that this tree was very much alive. I was close enough to use the archive and, sure enough, this tree wasn’t described as fruitless.

My hopes renewed I rushed toward the tree with the intent to climb it when a huge shadow overcast me. I looked up and saw that one of the roots had unearthed itself and was attempting to flatten me. I threw together a void jump in a panic and barely managed to get out of dodge before the root came slamming down, sending a tremor through the whole crater. This thing's strength was no joke!

I had little time to marvel at the power on display as two different roots were already coming for me. Unwilling to deal with this, I cast another void jump, this time upwards. I didn’t have enough time to charge the spell with enough MP to get all the way to the crown, but I was already in the process of casting it again when I emerged in the sky and snapped open my wings. Whatever senses the tree used to see, it had no trouble locating me in mid-air and another root was already shooting up at me.

Too slow, though, and I once again teleported higher up. I was now within range of the tree's crown and, just like I’d feared, the branches came at me like whips once I got close enough. Not wanting to risk getting absolutely shredded I pulled back out of reach. I cast another void jump so that I was above the tree, buying myself some time to figure this thing out. The fruit would most likely be hidden deep in the crown somewhere, but getting in there would be pretty dangerous.

Option A would be to activate all of my defensive skills and try to rush to the fruit and pick it. The problem was that the tree could probably easily grab and stop me if I tried that. Option B would be to burn the entire tree to the ground with a supercharged fire magic bolt. This, and general bombardment with explosive spells ran the risk of accidentally destroying the fruit. I had no idea how resilient these things were and didn’t want to risk squishing them on accident.

All of the fruitless trees so far had their fruit taken from them without destroying the whole tree, which meant there had to be a way to take it without getting snared. There had to be several options, I’m sure, but I was running out of time. If I had to guess there were only two or three minutes of immunity left and I needed to be done here before it ran out.

I needed to kill the tree.

I dove to a lower altitude, to about halfway up the tree where it was difficult for it to reach me with its roots. It was still trying and I had to dodge the constant attacks from above and below, but I was managing by keeping an eye out for incoming roots and projectiles it was somehow throwing at me. Not wasting any time, I started bombarding it with void javelins, each explosion leaving a crater in the hard wood, shaving away a small part of the tree.

I flew circles around the trunk, absolutely peppering the tree with javelins, taking the metaphorical axe to it. I could see it working as the trunk's circumference got thinner and thinner and the tree's attacks grew more desperate, but I didn’t relent. My protection from bewitchment could run out any second now and I’d prepared a void jump to get me out of here just in case. At the first sign of bewitchment, I’d teleport, if I could even detect it. I was sending in javelin after javelin, the explosions causing the tree to shake with every impact.

Until finally, something gave. The roots stopped dead where they were, oddly reaching for the sky, while the whole top part of the tree started to tip over and eventually crash into the ground below. I finally relaxed as the system confirmed the death of the tree and I landed on the scorched stump before me, looking down at the massive pile of wood and leaves that now covered almost a third of the crater.

Worried that the monsters in the crater would now be released from the tree’s spell and had an interest in the fruit as well, I jumped off the tree and dove down toward the center of the crown. If I was a tree protecting an immensely valuable fruit, that’s where I’d put it. Eventually, I had to put my wings away and fight hard to push past the barrier of branches and leaves. This was, thankfully, made a lot easier due to the fact that the tree wasn’t actively trying to murder me. The treetop was like a god damned maze and it took me a lot longer to find the center than I’d like to admit, but eventually, I found what I was looking for.

There, hanging on a small branch, was a watermelon-sized fruit that seemingly had flowing lava within it. It gave off an orange glow and its insides moved around constantly, reminding me a bit of a lava lamp that had too much of the stuff in it. No clue what was in these things. I used my arm tentacles to gently remove the fruit from its stem and immediately threw it in my gaping mouth, eating the thing in one piece while waiting for the system to tell me that this was indeed a lava fruit.

Sure, it looked exactly how I’d imagine a lava fruit would look like, but if it turned out that this was something completely different I’d be annoyed, nay, pissed.

You have completed a bonus objective!

Eat a Lava Fruit.

Congratulations!

You have eaten a Lava Fruit! Due to its effects, you have gained immunity to lava!

Lava Diver (passive) (B)

You gain the ability to swim in lava as if it was water.

That was an oddly cool effect…

I wasn’t entirely sure if even wanted to swim in lava, as that stuff was incredibly bright due to the heat and I’d probably not be able to see anything even if I tried. The lava immunity that came with it was neat, though. It would for sure help me out on this floor. I wasn’t sure how relevant an ability like that would be after I left this floor, but I guess having more immunities was always nice!

For now, I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d gotten the fruit and hadn’t been killed in the process. Having finished the battle, I realized how tired I was. I hadn’t slept in days even before I’d been caught in the eximovere tree’s bewitchment and who knows how long I’d stayed awake during that time. I’d definitely earned myself a little nap, and a drink sounded just about right.

Time to catch some Z’s!