Perched on top of some sort of packaging machine, Char stared at the barely dressed woman who appeared to have bark for skin. She was standing on a metal walkway that was a mirror to the one where they’d fought the first mini-boss. Turned away from Char, she had both of her hands pressed to the trunk of some sort of tree.

  The tree had a black trunk with cracked, craggy bark. Char couldn’t see the texture of the bark, but she could guess based on the lines of glowing green that looked as if the bark had shattered and been mended by some strange, eldritch form of kintsugi. The glow traveled up the trunk and along the branches to the leaves, making them radiate the same sickly light.

  The roots of the tree had punched down through the grating of the walkway, and some had grown to wrap over the sides of it. The ends of the roots soaked in a vat of glowing green goop, exactly like the one she’d fallen into.

  Char used Assess Foe on the woman, and Identify Plant on the tree:

  Vasculex-corrupted Dryad

  Level 24

  ————————————————

  Vasculex-corrupted Cottonwood

  Habitat: Temperate zones

  Uses: Unknown

  ‘A dryad? Well, that’s different.’ So far, everything she’d faced had been modified or mutated Earth creatures. This was something out of mythology. Or was it? Was the system just using that word without the cultural context? It wouldn’t be the first time Char had noticed something like that with this system. ‘Stop overthinking, Char. No assumptions, be ready for anything, and we’ll be OK.’

  It hadn’t taken long to fight their way here, with only a couple of puppet encounters. She’d let herself take a few more doses of the poison, hoping to raise the level of her Poison Resistance, but it wasn’t enough to bump it to Novice. The psychedelic effects from the last dose hadn’t fully faded yet.

  She could still walk away from this fight. She was doing this because she wanted to do it. She needed to challenge herself, to get stronger. There was no telling what she might find out there in a changed world, and she needed to be ready to face it, to find her dad, and, eventually, to face the Aldevari. This argument had been going in circles for a while now. She was starting to realize that she wasn’t trying to decide anything. She had already decided. Now, she was trying to justify it.

  It didn’t matter what excuses she gave herself. The truth was, she wanted this fight. She wasn’t leaving the dungeon because this is where she wanted to be, in danger, pushing the edge of what she could do. She’d spent her entire youth jumping from hobby to hobby, club to club, gymnastics to Girl Scouts, and she’d never found the one thing that sparked her passion. Her dad had often joked that her passion must be for trying new things, as often as she jumped headfirst into a new interest.

  But, now… since her bloodlines had awakened, she felt more alive than she ever had before. The thrill of the fight, the way her body moved, the tactical calculations, the spike of satisfaction when an enemy blow passed by her face as she swayed out of the way of damage by inches—it made her spirit sing. Her modern, twenty-first-century upbringing told her that she shouldn’t feel this way. Violence was wrong; it should be a last resort.

  With every new fight, that civilized mindset was losing its hold on her.

  Her heart was racing as much from anticipation as it was from fear. She slid backwards off the tank and dropped to the floor. If she remembered right, Dryads were magical creatures bonded to trees, so she couldn’t expect the tree to be just scenery to work around. She bit her lip as she considered her options.

  She still had one last road flare, but she wanted to save that for the big boss. There was nothing in her inventory that jumped out at her as helpful at first, until she noticed the empty bottles. They were the crushable, thin plastic type and would probably burst nicely if thrown hard enough. She closed her inventory window and tried to remember where she’d seen the tank with the Herbicide placard.

  About five minutes of backtracking took them back to the tank. It stood out in her memory because it was one of the few tanks labeled in both English and Chinese. She was thankful that it was one of the plastic tanks, and not a steel one.

  A quick punch with a screwdriver from her tool bag made a hole, and she caught the red liquid in her empty water bottles as it streamed out. Four bottles. She’d use two for the Dryad tree, and save two for the big boss. If they were going to poison her, she’d return the favor. She moved the crowbar from her Quick Access slot to her main inventory and added the herbicide bottles to the empty Quick Access slot.

  A few minutes later, they were at the end of the passage that opened out onto the walkway. Char debated using the Resist Poison potion, but decided to save that for the main boss as well. She was as ready as she was going to get.

  The Dryad hadn’t moved from her position against the tree. Her long, green hair writhed around her body like vines, but it was the only part of her that moved.

  The roots of the tree sprawled outward from the trunk. Char and Lulu would have to cross over them to get to the Dryad, and Char didn’t trust them. There was no way to sneak closer, and those roots made an all-out charge too dangerous. That only left the option of just walking in, bold as brass.

  So, with her sword in one hand and a bottle of herbicide in the other, that’s what she did. Lulu was by her side, the ruff of her neck standing on end, alert, and ready for a fight.

  Her footsteps made the walkway ring and vibrate, but the Dryad didn’t react until Char stepped over the first root.

  As soon as Char was within the field of roots, the Dryad turned half away from the tree and lifted one hand from its bark. She sneered at Char, hungry cruelty in her eyes. She lifted her free hand as though beckoning, and the smaller roots lifted. They writhed like the vines, lashing and wrapping, while their sharp tips tried to pierce Char’s skin.

  When the vines started moving, Char threw the bottle of herbicide onto a thick tangle of roots between her and the tree. She flung it with all of the strength she could muster. The plastic split, and the red liquid exploded outward to coat the roots. The Dryad shrieked in outrage. With both hands back on her sword, Char fended off the attacking roots.

  Lulu darted in and out among the roots, biting through the ones she could, dancing away from the ones she couldn’t. She kept all of the roots from focusing on Char, giving her some breathing room as she flowed and sliced her way through.

  The herbicide bubbled on the roots, and they writhed and withered, but the root field was wide, and the herbicide hadn’t hit all of them. The Dryad conducted the roots like an orchestra, sending them to stab at Char and attempt to wrap her up.

  She hacked through one root only to have another punch through her left shoulder before she could dodge it. Pulling away from the root in her shoulder, she sliced through it and stomped down on another root that tried to wrap around an ankle to trip her. Foot by bloody foot, Char moved closer to the tree and the Dryad.

  When she was halfway through the roots, Char pulled the second bottle of herbicide into her hand and threw it against the base of the tree. It burst apart, raining red poison across the trunk and the Dryad and dripping down onto the roots.

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  The Dryad screamed. She lifted a hand to the crown of the tree and made a gesture, opening her fingers wide as though miming an explosion. The tree reacted. An explosion of glowing cottonwood fluff ballooned out from among the leaves and branches. It stuck to everything it touched. There was no way to avoid it.

  It coated Char’s arms and clung to her face. Lulu jumped backward, trying to get out of range, but even she was covered in the stuff. Char could feel something flowing from the fluffy seeds into her skin, and her vision started to waver. She felt the burn of poison, but it was mixed with the hot-cold buzz of mana.

  Working quickly, Char pulled the Resist Poison potion from her inventory and pulled the cork with her teeth. She’d hoped to save this for the big fight, but it would do her no good if she were dead before she got there. It tasted like mint and cough syrup.

  Something pulsed inside her. She felt heat from her core. The potion flowed through her, and she felt the burn of the poison lessen, but the mana attached to it was still burrowing into her. The hallucinatory halos and fractals were back, stronger now. She was still trying to fight the roots, but she found herself swinging at roots that weren’t there.

  Her Foresight and her instincts kept her fighting, even as her more mundane senses failed her. She gave herself over to the pull of her blood, and as she did, she realized that she could see the difference between the illusory roots and the real ones. The gift of the Tuatha had been Truesight. Was that helping her now?

  Acting on instinct, she flexed a mental muscle she’d never realized was there and pulled mana from her core. She pushed it outward, flooding her body with it in an attempt to force out the alien mana that was invading her. It wasn’t skill or knowledge, it was a clumsy, brute-force effort; a desperate gamble to gain enough clarity to finish the fight.

  Step by step, she forced her way through the roots, slicing them away as they came, and taking wounds when she couldn’t avoid them. Lulu had backed away, out of the root field. She was turning in circles on the walkway, shaking her head and whining, biting at things only she could see. Char’s gut turned to ice at the sight, and her rage flared.

  The hallucinations were getting the upper hand on her, too. The cottonwood seeds were still pumping their insidious payload through her skin. The potion and her magic fought back, but they were losing ground even as Char gained ground on the Dryad.

  The herbicide had done its job. It hadn’t killed the tree outright, but Char hadn’t expected it to. She hadn’t been sure it would work at all against a magic tree. The roots were slowing, fighting with themselves. The leaves of the tree were starting to turn brown and drop away. That didn’t stop the tree from doing its best to kill her.

  Char was close enough now to see that the Dryad didn’t have her other hand against the bark of the tree; it was sunk into the tree, merged with it to the wrist. The Dryad had spots on her bark-skin, bubbled and pale, where the herbicide had splashed her. She was screaming in incoherent rage.

  As the tree’s attacks slowed, the Dryad turned more and more feral and enraged. When Char was almost within sword range of her, she pulled her other hand free from the trunk. Her bark skin thickened, and her fingers grew out into long thorny claws. Her lips pulled back to show a mouth full of the sharp teeth of a carnivore and crushed any illusions Char might have had about dryads being peaceful woodland guardians.

  She rushed at Char, claws extended, teeth gnashing, hair writhing, and screaming like a mad thing. The drug in her system slowed Char’s reactions; the hallucinatory lights and movement echoes made everything hard to track. Her Foresight warned her of the danger, but her body couldn’t move in time to get her sword up.

  The Dryad’s claws raked across her chest. Char spun with the blow, moving to lessen the hit. Four long, deep furrows opened in her jerkin and into her skin. The Dryad brought down her other claw in a wild swipe, but this one Char countered. Her sword sliced deep into the Dryad’s wrist.

  Char shook her head and blinked hard, trying to force away the colors and floating fractals that invaded her vision and tried to enthrall her mind. Every surface around her seemed to be squirming and crawling. She stepped back to avoid another blow from the Dryad.

  The tree-woman was flailing wildly, no training or technique guided her blows; only pure rage. Char had the muscle memory from the skill crystal. She had her gifts, Foresight and Primal Grace, to guide her movements, despite the hallucinogen trying to usurp her mind. She parried one swipe, only to take another across her ribs. Her counter left a gash in the Dryad’s side, bark splitting like rotten wood.

  Blood loss was taking a toll. Her wounds were compounding, and she wasn’t going to be able to keep going for much longer. This had to end, and she could only see one way. Stepping forward, she let the Dryad land a blow, and she used the opening that was created. She brought her sword around in a mighty overhead cleave, bringing it down on the Dryad’s clavicle and continuing in a cross-cut through her torso.

  The Dryad split open like a hewn log, her top half cracking and splintering away from her bottom half.

  A notification flashed across Char’s vision, but it went unseen as she sank to her knees. Her body and her mana lost the fight against the hallucinogen, and she sank into her mind.

  The withering tree seemed to recede into the distance, becoming only one tree among widely scattered clumps dotting a vast, endless sea of grass. Thunder rolled across the plain. A spot of white light highlighted against a roiling wall of dark clouds raced toward her. As it came, she realized that it was a giant golden eagle, limned in the actinic white of lightning. The thunder was its cry, and the storm was pulled along in its wake.

  She spread her arms, and as the Thunderbird cried again, she cried out with it, feeling the kinship of the storm, the freedom of the wind and rain. As the great bird passed over her, a bolt of lightning shot down from the sky and pierced her, burning through her. It didn’t destroy, it cleansed as it burned, scouring away the doubts and fears that held her back and chained her to who she used to be.

  The wall of rain broke across her, only it wasn’t rain, it was a crashing wave beating against the stone of a low cliff, wetting her with salt spray as it fell back into the sea. She turned to look inland, and there was a village of low, stone huts around a wooden longhouse with stylized dragons carved into its eaves. The sky beyond the village was eclipsed by the branches of a tree so large and far away that it was like viewing a moon beyond the haze of the atmosphere.

  In the center of the village, there was an apple tree, heavy with golden fruit. A woman with red-gold hair sat beneath the tree. She was carving runes into a wooden staff. The runes seemed to glow with power. They whispered ancient wisdom into Char’s mind, and she had to look away from them.

  When she turned her head, the village vanished, and she found herself looking into a tropical jungle. She spun. Behind her was another village, this one with buildings of wood and carved stone surrounding a low stepped pyramid with a temple at its top. A jungle cat screamed from somewhere in the rainforest behind her.

  People adorned with feathers and flowers surrounded the pyramid. Each of them held a bowl high as though offering it to the feather and gold bedecked man standing atop it. One of the men in the crowd turned to look at her. His eyes changed as he smiled at her, from a human brown to the slitted gold of a large cat. She felt the whisper of his spirit against hers as he called her ‘sister’.

  She took a step backward in confusion and found herself falling. She landed amongst the leaves of a golden Autumn forest. A tall, pale woman with raven-black hair peered down at her. She spoke with a voice like the cawing of a crow, “You’ve bled, little warrior, but not enough to cross the ford. Not yet. You shouldn’t be here.” She cocked her head in a very birdlike way, her black eyes piercing into Char, seeing through her. “Ah! The old blood sings again. Magic returns to the world. I suppose this means I’ll need to speak with my sister.” Her tone sounded intrigued by what she had found and resigned to some unpleasant task.

  She held out her hand to Char, who took it. “Go back to the mortal realm, child. You are not yet ready for this one; you have many battles left to fight.” She pulled Char to her feet, only to push her backward yet again. As she dropped back, the last whisper of the goddess reached her, “I have marked your fate, child. We will meet again.”

  The rushing, falling sensation came again, and she landed on her knees, but this time she opened her eyes to see the dead and weathered corpse of the Dryad sprawled on the walkway before her. Her breaths came in gasps as the remnants of the visions swirled in her mind. She could still feel the touch of the woman’s hand against her chest where she’d pushed her. “Why did I think of her as a goddess? Was that real… or was that just the drug?” She pressed her fingers against her chest in the same spot and rubbed it, wincing when she brushed against one of the gashes left by the Dryad.

  The pain was enough to shake her out of her daze, and with a groan, she climbed to her feet. She looked around for Lulu, a thread of panic worming down her spine when the dog didn’t rush over to her. She found her lying on her side at the edge of the shriveling roots. Her chest was still rising and falling, but her eyes were glazed, staring into the empty distance.

  Char forgot everything else in her mad scramble to Lulu’s side. She put her hands on Lulu’s side and pushed vitality into her, draining her own health dangerously low. Lulu whined and squirmed under her hands, turning and burrowing onto Char’s lap like a child frightened by a thunderstorm. Char wrapped her arms around the dog and hugged her tightly, ignoring the tears that dripped down her cheeks.

  “Too close, sweet girl. That was too close. I can’t lose you. I think I might go mad if I did.”