Chapter 18: Magic Upon the Trees (Patreon)

I arrived at the foot of the tree wall, the magically sustained patch of forest that protects and surrounds the town of Latarus. Tall towering trees stood at unnaturally even intervals, their barks just a little bit too smooth, with branches and roots lacking some of the chaos of their typical formations.

“Let us go!” Salaire cheered, causing her unusually elegant coat of white fur to flutter. Her wife Luine was also with us, along with all of my friends. Which meant Granuel and Moonwash both.

I looked at the thick heavy-duty fence that separated us from the tree wall. I knew of the dangers that lay just beyond. From natural traps to unnatural ones, pits and spikes, vines and thorns, and poison galore. My arm immediately yanked Granuel away the moment he even took one step towards it.

“Wha… Haell! Let me GO!” I knew it! He was about to jump to his death, the bloody idiot!

Moonwash was sketching on a piece of parchment. She walked over to the fence with a very curious expression. I think. Most people would still find her face to be blank and unexpressive. Frankly, I might be seeing things that aren’t really there.  

I swatted her hand when she tried to touch a leaf that was bright and purple. These color-coded leaves were really only present on the outer edges of the tree wall, and I didn’t think it was for a lack of poison in the rest of the plantation. I’d seen Baston turn a toxic blue plant into a regular unassuming green over a difficult and intensive magic session.

Luine ruffled my hair. “Wow! Such a caring big sister you are! Haha!”

I rolled my eyes and pushed her hand away. “Moonwash is older than me.”

She grinned again, but this time it was genuine. “I know. And she’s brilliant. But she’s also… very different. So thanks for getting along with her. I was actually worried for a good second there!”

Lacking the words to respond, I just looked at Moonwash standing right beside me. “She’s right here.”

“I know.”

I snorted.

“Alright. Ride’s here!” Salaire called out. A platform lowered from the canopy, held aloft by ropes of vine.

“Welcome… to the treeopia!” A blue-green belfegor man in a flamboyant tunic held out his hand. Salaire grabbed on and he helped her up to the platform. Luine just jumped and climbed from the side of the makeshift elevator. I tried to do the same, but gave up after one leap and the lack of height that resulted from it. I and my friends took the proferred hand, and I felt the unyielding grip of a higher level belfegor that could crush my fingers.

The elevator shifted, and it shook as it ascended. I looked over the railing and marveled at the sight of our town, divided by a very wide street in the very center and intersected by an equally imposing river. The settlement was big, very big, to the point that I doubted it would be called a mere town in a medieval setting. I wasn’t quite sure for modern Earth standards.

People milled about in the familiar place, there were those that stood out for being so much larger than their peers. I spotted two sundertops swaggering towards the baron’s mansion, the people who looked like white feathered triceretops. A tyranight was lounging by the river, one of those people that looked like a black-scaled tyrannosaurus. There was an ogre taller than grandfather walking down the main street, followed by a contingent of people walking in a very disciplined manner. I pegged them to be soldiers, that seemed a bit much for guards.

The elevator jolted to a stop, and I had to grip the railings tight to maintain my balance. I turned back around and said hello to the two ogre guards as tall as my father. 

We were led further into the tree wall, a place that amounted to its own village or even town really. Platforms were nailed onto trees, or outright grown unto it. Bridges connected the houses built around or even inside the trunks, again a mix of regular constructions and living plants shaped through magic. I walked across them, and saw patches of busier ‘streets’. They had their own bakeries and pharmacies, it was a self-sufficient place. The people were friendly and amicable, perhaps overly so. 

“Hello there…!”

“Hi kid!”

“Never seen you here before!” 

“New face!”

“So elegant again, Salaire!”

“Did you just come here to gloat???”

“How are the children Luine?”

“How do you… keep giving birth!?”

I returned the greetings directed at me, and laughed at the ones said to Salaire and Luine. They seemed to be decently popular and well-known. People weren’t only using the bridges to travel around, there were plenty of traffic on the large branches around us as people swung themselves from place to place. The majority of the population here seemed to be made up of belfegors.

“Yellow alert!”

“Froggior!”

“166 degrees! Five Front!”

People were suddenly shouting, and bystanders that were just minding their own business earlier repeated the message. The people of the tree wall were suddenly stirred into action like a disturbed hive. 

I felt a tug on my arm as Luine spoke. “Come everyone! This will be fun!”

“Okay!!” I responded with zero hesitation. I had no idea what was going on anymore, but I was indeed already having fun.

We crossed rope and wooden bridges with a purpose, jumping from platform to platform. There were a good many people heading in the same direction, and those who decided not to join got out of the way, wishing us good luck.

We reached our destination on the outer edges of the tree wall. I could see the sizable clearing that surrounded it, and the untamed forest beyond, its trees generally shirted than that of the wall. 

A croaking groan of pain resounded from below, and I looked down from the random platform we’d perched ourselves on. There was a froggior stuck in the foliage, a frog monster the size of my mom, with funny and ridiculous proportions. Legs large enough for bipedal movement, thick and springy for jumping. Its hands were small and thin, the body slimy, and a face that looked stretched and derpy. The creature was stuck against some plants, leaves were winding around and sticking to it, refusing to let go.

I heard a whistling sound just beside me. Luine had taken out her bow and loosed an arrow. “What are you waiting for? Kill it!”

She loosed another arrow, and I understood what was expected of myself. I was quite excited too, to finally get to fight my first monster even under such conditions. My parents were going to kill Luine later for this, but that was emphatically not my problem!

I grabbed a powerful wand from my belt and shot out an experimental stream of fire mana towards the froggior. I manifested the magic, and a streak of flames crossed the air before harmlessly dissipating into a wide cone. The mana naturally fell apart and separated once it was out of my control, and the physical fire traveled along with it, pulled along. Countless other projectiles landed on the monster in the time that I made my attack.

As I thought. I can’t reach from here.

That was how fire mana worked. It could be hard to hit far-away targets with it. It didn't naturally travel very fast in the air, and the flames were easy to crumble and separate.

But it’s not a problem that can’t be overcome!

I raised my wand again as arrows, boulders, and more elements struck around the entrapped monster. Granuel too was tossing rocks at the froggior, and Moonwash was doing the same with magic. 

It was, quite frankly, just worse than what Granuel was doing. Maybe about as strong, but even less accurate.

I gathered the fire mana into a growing ball, and then compressed it. I held it there for a few seconds, focusing, until I managed to draw out a single strand from it, still connected to the larger roiling mass. I then wrapped that single thread around the ball of mana.

Sweat dripped from my brow, a dull throbbing blossomed in my head. But I kept at it. I repeated the same process, twisting the mana around itself, knotting it together, until finally, it looked like a roiling ball of yarn.

Now.

I loosed the projectile, and activated the mana just as it exited my range. 

A fireball roared into existence. It streaked through the air as a single mass. It traveled with a whistling rush of wind, ultimately hitting the tree next to the monster I'd aimed for!

"Yes!" I pumped my first, staring at the burning wood. The fire impacted with a heavy splash, quickly covering a large piece of bark. The tree was on fire, and it was spreading towards the countless plants surrounding it!

Wait, that’s a bad thing!

Someone lobbed a mass of water at the fire I started, before I could truly panic.

Luine addressed the human mage with a friendly bellow. “She’s a kid! Bad aim! Still training!”

“Have a nice train! Become strong!” He squinted to get a better look at me. “She must be what, ten or something?” Nine, actually. “That’s really good for your age! Keep up the good work!”

“I will!” I waved back.

“You should also put that out.” He pointed at me, and I felt momentarily confused until my feet began to feel very hot.

My earlier attack had set the wooden floor beneath me on fire.

“Ow, ow!” I jumped away and gathered fire mana around the flames. I then wrenched the mana away, causing the flames to follow and dissipate harmlessly into the air. I repeated the process until only embers remained, and then I stomped those out.

It didn’t take much longer after that for the monster to breathe its last. 

“It’s dead!” Someone announced, and the crowd erupted into cheers. People immediately began descending the branches and towards where the monster was, the majority of them belfegors. They used magic to control the plants on the ground, in order to untangle the dead creature from the traps. The rest of the community reacted as well, and a new wave of motion was carried out as they moved with a purpose. Harpoons were shot, the corpse of the frog was pulled up, people crowded around it and began dismantling it right then and there as a group. 

Blood was drained and preserved in jugs, meat was sequestered away and carried off by others to shops and butcheries, bone was taken to the proper workshops, and skin was hung like laundry to dry and be treated later. 

They moved with a practiced purpose, their cooperation near seamless even as they nearly shouted at each other and negotiated right on the spot. And all the while, they had a merry and jovial attitude. 

I decided that I liked this place. Couldn’t we have just lived here instead?

~~~

“FLIER!”

“Yellow-Red Alert!”

The shouts came just as I was about to devour the popsicle I bought. Luine suddenly pushed my head down, and I understood. I crouched down and found a place to hide, pulling Moonwash and Granuel along with me.

A heavy caw resounded from above just after I disappeared from view. I looked to the canopies and saw a large shadow crossing through it as I remained alert. Another screech followed, but this one it was of alarm, confusion, and aggression. Leaves and branches twitched and writhed unnaturally, and then the invader suddenly began plummeting down.

The enemy was revealed in that moment, a cross between a bird and a wyvern, colored a yellowish brown. It was unable to move properly as some sort of red slimy goo clung to its form. It seemed to be clotting, spreading, and hardening.

“Tirruk,” Moonwash supplied the name of the monster.

Luine was already gone from her spot, and Salaire was doing her best to hurry on over as well. I saw a blur in the branches, it was Luine bouncing up and running across any and all surfaces gracefully until she landed on the cow-sized tirruk, deftly avoiding any of the goo. She slashed at its face with a dagger, taking out an eye or two out of four, before hopping back away to dodge a retaliatory peck. 

The tirruk lost altitude, and the arrows that followed didn’t help, which didn’t only come from Luine. She ran up right next to it again and held a dagger in both hands. The flurry of strikes that I couldn’t even follow shredded a wing, and the beast truly began to fall in an uncontrolled way. 

The bird fell through platforms and bridges, before ultimately getting entangled in sticky branches and vines. People scattered out of its way and helped each other get to safety.

Salaire dropped down right on top of the tirruk. Serrated beak tore through her fluffy dress, and the white of it began to be dyed red. I screamed out in horror at her injuries, but the belfegor woman just took it, holding the monster in an unyielding chokehold. More attacks landed on her, and her fluffy clothes were soaked more and more in blood, but the pecks and claws seemed to somehow penetrate less and less with each subsequent bite. 

It didn't take long for more help to arrive. The ranged attacks had to slow down because of Salaire’s presence, but more belfegors soon dropped right next to her, trying to steer clear of the goo. Their gear was quite a bit different, studded with spikes and serrated edges. The design was more than merely uncomfortable once they began hugging the bird, crushing its limbs and penetrating to the bone.

Luine suddenly appeared after I’d lost track of her for a while. She stepped out from the shadows of some nearby leaves followed by spikes of darkness that struck the bird. They didn’t puncture very deep, but the monster visibly weakened the moment they made contact. 

Luine finished the fight by diving right into the fray, weaving past the other combatants and systematically slashing through the enemy’s flesh. The creature’s range of motion narrowed with every slash of the woman’s daggers, the crucial joints and organs accurately targeted. At some point, the creature finally stopped moving, and it was pronounced dead after a few more attacks that landed.

Cheers resounded from the surrounding crowd, just as excited for this kill as the last, even though it must happen frequently here. The dead tirruk was swiftly sequestered away, and the inhabitants of the tree wall wasted no time in processing it for more usable products. The broken structures were not neglected for a second more than necessary. People immediately went to repair them, mending bridges and fixing platforms, using both physical labor and magic. The plants that were spent and damaged sprouted anew.

It was fortunate that no one died in the attack, but injuries were inevitable. I saw how the community helped each other, getting the wounded and helping them back to their feet, with a generous amount of healing provided, of both magical means and mundane. I briefly wondered about the costs when a fountan man passed right by me, muttering to himself about precisely that. It seemed like they had a set amount of funds, to pay for the medical care of residents caught up in these attacks. 

I sat back down on a nearby bench as the adrenaline finally started to come down. Granuel and Moonwash joined me, and I bought the three of us new popsicles as our previous ones were kinda dropped. The ishkawtan woman at the stand gave me a generous discount.

Luine and Salaire returned a short while later. The former walked with a barely noticeable limp that might have just been my imagination. Salaire meanwhile was as spry as could be, already healed to the picture of health, with even her fur coat being cleaner than it should have been, bereft of blood. 

“What’s up with that?” I asked, forgetting what I initially wanted to do.

“Vladmonke fur. Absorb blood, become tougher.”

“Ooohh!! That sounds nice. Your skin was also mighty tough!”

A red alert should’ve been around her same level, a truly dangerous foe. Yet her skin held up better than I expected it would.”

“Ah. That is because it’s not natural belfegor skin.”

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

“She enhanced it with the materials harvested from another monster,” Luine answered for her wife.

“You can do that!?”

“Oh yes. Although it is a very dangerous process that could leave that specific Mutation crippled for life.”

“It’s not necessarily good even if successful,” Salaire added, “Only different. I can’t change colors anymore. I’m always pink.”

“You could’ve picked something else,” Luine countered. “It’s likely that you would have kept whatever color you had during the change.”

“Yes, but I like pink. You like it too. Don’t lie.”

“I–Well, yes… But it’s not very practical!” she mumbled, blushing a little.

I chuckled, then pouted like a child. Which I was. A child. “Aaaahhhhh! Quit distracting me! Luine! You’re still injured. I’ll heal you!”

She smiled curiously at me, happy for the reprieve. “It’s just a scratch. But alright.”

A big grin crossed my face at the go-ahead, but I quickly tempered my own emotions, meditating on the proper headspace.

Healing magic was something that my mother really wanted me to learn, and I had no complaints about it. We’d tried the common and readily available elements, from flows of water to brilliant flashes of light. All forms of mana that I could somewhat wield, but nothing that really stood out. It was plain as day that I lacked the talent for them. 

So instead I drew upon the memories of my past life. From all the times I sat alone in a park, not wanting to go home. To the times I’d wandered into reserves or went hiking with my friends.

I loved the quiet of the forest, the countless sounds that depicted ongoing conflicts lying just out of sight. The smell of the air, the breathtaking sights, the moments spent around a crackling campfire. I could feel the silent presence of my friends, as we existed as just another segment of a greater whole.

I poured all of those feelings out into my current spell, a slowly pulsing mass of nature mana, far more still than its fiery counterpart, and seeking to grow into countless branches and leaves. 

I thought of untamed landscapes as I Luine towards a particularly verdant tree branch nearby. The leaves began to grow just a little bit larger, the bark crackled in its own sprout. So did scratches on Luine’s arms and legs heal, as I thought of the natural course of life and the resilience it could so often show.

Such was the healing magic I had found for myself. 

Incredibly inefficient for combat, unable to direct vines and roots to strike at a designated enemy, but very effective at healing, and at being the catalyst for plantlife to grow as they please.

It was only natural, for nature to be untamed.

“That will be a hundred gold please,” I joked, holding out my hand with a big disarming smile on my face.