Fauna’s days on watch passed quickly with a few monster attacks. All of them were by monsters they’d already dealt with before and with Gaia’s senses they could call a bronze rank group over almost immediately. When their free day arrived, they woke up early to use their new items from the Verdant Colossus. They weren’t entirely sure how to use the roots to upgrade their already implanted items so it was more experimentation than when they’d implanted the seeds before. Stephanie went first since hers just needed to be implanted.

  “So I just need to make a cut on my arm and put the root in it? Does it hurt a lot?” Stephanie asked as the others explained how they implanted their seeds.

  “It depends. Mine hurt a lot, but I also had two. Also, now that I think about it, do we know if the root will upgrade both of my vines?” Gaia asked.

  “I don’t know.” Griff replied before continuing. “As for if it hurts, mine hurt a lot too. I also had two, but the pain for me came from how mine worked the first time. After the initial use, it was painless.”

  “Mine didn’t hurt a lot. I just had one like you, but mine was just in my hand. My hand had an ache to it for a day or two, but I didn’t have any pain using it the first time. I think it may be different based on the item and where it needs to go.” Fergus added.

  “Ok. I guess I just need to implant it to find out.” She started before continuing a few moments later. “Well, here we go.”

  Stephanie made a big cut in her forearm and started to push the root inside her arm. This took a while due to the size of the root and from the grunts Gaia heard, was also extremely painful. After about three minutes of intense pain and exertion the root was fully implanted. Gaia healed Stephanie a bit as soon as it was fully implanted to stop most of the bleeding but left a three inch gash in case the root would have an external part. It wasn’t even a minute later that Stephanie dropped to the floor writhing in pain. This lasted for a couple minutes before she was able to get up. When she did Gaia quickly checked her arm. What she felt was similar to her vines. Stephanie had roots covering her entire arm, from shoulder to fingertips, that all met at a small swirl where the cut had been. Stephanie then pushed some mana into it and more roots grew to create a massive shield. The shield was akin to a tower shield being about six feet tall and around three feet wide in a large rectangular shape. It also had the ability to create small slots where she could put a smaller gun or weapon through. The oddest thing was it seemed to weigh nothing to Stephanie who could move it around like a buckler shield, outside of its size. Its name was the Colossal Buckler.

  “That hurt like hell. The dang thing grew inside my arm all the way through my shoulder. Like literally inside my muscle. The outside part didn’t hurt and seems to act like armor naturally. It also doesn’t hurt anymore. I guess it was worth the short period of pain. Now, it’s y’all’s turn.” Stephanie said as she grew and withdrew the shield while waving it around.

  The group experimented on how to upgrade their items since it didn’t specify how to do so, and they didn’t know anyone with a Floral type bound item. They tried many things from placing the roots on the bound items, to just implanting them where it said they should go, but none of them worked. Eventually, they went to ask Flora, Legion and the Guild Master. None of them knew either but did give them some more ideas to try. This was how they found out what to do. It depended on what the item was. For Gaia’s she needed to implant it inside her vine. For Fergus he needed to use it as the string for his Vine bow. For Griff he had to have Gaia cast some growth magic on it to graft them to his gauntlets. This caused their items to each gain a new ability.

  Griff’s new Gauntlets were called the Verdant Gauntlets. They absorbed mana from the environment and stored it. Then he could use it to deal more damage with his attacks. He could choose whether to expend it all at once or use small bits with each punch. It also allowed him to gain a boost to healing while in bright light or sunlight. Fergus’ new bow was called the Root Bow. It gave all of his arrows more speed and force due to the heavier yet flexible string. It also allowed him to gain a boost to movement while in contact with the ground.

  Gaia’s root only upgraded one of her vines, the one not changed by the miasma. It changed her vine into a Vampiric Vine. It gave her the ability to leech minute amounts of mana and health from her enemies as long as they were under the bleed condition. It also allowed her to use some of her blood to cause an enemy to bleed slightly when slashed, whether they naturally could or not. As for her other vine she still didn’t have a clue of how to upgrade it. This was when something extremely unexpected happened, it started writhing and moving around, without her input, towards her space bag. This was the first time her vines had moved by themselves for anything other than to wrap back around her arms. She didn’t know what it wanted, but she let it access the bag and it dropped something in her hand. When she felt it, she was surprised, it was the seed she’d gotten from the item dealer Trevor. She was even more surprised when she analyzed it.

  Seed of Blight – A seed tainted by a force making it impossible to grow. Will corrupt the land around it if planted. Cannot hold mana aside from Miasma and will corrupt all mana surrounding it. Miasma slowly is released until empty.

  After reading the description she finally realized the reason she hadn’t been able to analyze it before. She had tried to force mana inside it, which it can’t hold. The only reason she could now was that she had Miasma. The reason it didn’t show up in her mana field was that it had no mana in it and since it could only hold miasma her mana had passed right through it. Now that she knew it was tied to miasma she understood why the vine was acting up. It wanted the seed and could possibly upgrade itself with it. She obliged and let the vine guide her in what to do.

  Her vine started to move her hand towards where it sprouted from her arm. She wasn’t sure exactly what it wanted, but guessed it wanted her to implant the seed in that spot. She had to get some assistance to make a cut there, since it was in an awkward spot and she would just have to guess she was correct when cutting. Fergus was the one to do so and he placed the seed in the cut. Gaia had noticed when he cut that it wasn’t her arm that was cut but instead the vine, since she hadn’t felt any pain.

  After the seed was implanted they waited for a few minutes for something to happen, but nothing did. After around ten minutes of nothing happening, Gaia was going to suggest that maybe they tried to implant it incorrectly, when something finally happened. She could feel something growing from the spot where her vines grew. It took it about half a minute to fully grow and when it finished she reached to touch it. What had grown was a large flower about four inches in diameter.

  It had many petals that spread out in a bowl shape when she felt the petals she felt that there were pointed ends that curved inward. Each of the points was sharp and felt more akin to blades than the rest of the petal. She also noticed small flowers similar to the large ones growing along the length of it. At the tip of the vine was now a larger flower matching the one from its base. The main difference was the one at the tips of the vine was twice as large and its petals curled inward almost similar to a mouth.

  When she analyzed it, she noticed that its name changed as well from the upgrade. It was now called a Tainted Flower this gave it a new way to attack. The Tainted Flower could bite something with the flower at the end of the vine. It also gave her the ability to taint the mana of whatever the flower bit with Miasma. This also gave it the ability to taint the immediate surrounding mana with Miasma and store it for the attack. It also seemed to gain a spirit from the upgrade. It could only indicate basic feelings from what she could interpret, and it mainly complained that it was hungry.

  She was stunned by the changes to her vine, as it was a major change when compared to her Leeching vine. It took Gaia a while to fully interpret what the Flower wanted, but eventually figured out it wanted food of any kind. It didn’t seem to care what the food was as long it could bite and eat it. She gave it some jerky she had and it calmed down for a while.

  The party went their separate ways to familiarize themselves with their new items and abilities. They met back up around dinner time and had a discussion. Would they go to explore the fourth floor tomorrow or practice with their new items on the first floor? This was the question they needed to answer.

  “So, what do we want to do tomorrow? Do we want to check out and possibly explore part of the fourth floor or practice with our items tomorrow?” Griff asked.

  “I want to practice with my item for at least part of the day. I want to see each of our items in action so we can know how they work and how we can use them together.” Stephanie replied.

  “I agree with Stephanie. I want to practice with you guys for a bit. I think we should practice with our items for part of the day and then go take a look at the fourth floor.” Fergus added.

  “Yeah. I think just taking a look will be enough for tomorrow. We can always explore a bit if we finish practicing earlier than we plan.” Gaia stated.

  “Alright. Then tomorrow, we’ll focus on practicing and understanding our new items. Then we’ll take a peek at the fourth floor and decide whether to explore more or leave it for another day.” Griff finished.

  Fauna went back to the inn for the night and relaxed in the main room. There they saw Legion and talked for a while. Gaia and Fergus were together in a small loveseat while everyone else talked. Ever since the operation on the second floor she’d had a single thought that she couldn’t get out of her head. Which was, of course, about Fergus and the fact they’d only technically kissed during it. Even after it finally happened, he hadn’t done it since. It had been around a month, so she finally got the courage to do something about it. As everyone else was talking about a monster attack or whatever happened that day she turned towards Fergus, which he noticed. He turned and before she lost her nerve, she kissed him in front of everyone.

  There was a brief moment of silence before there were a couple cheers from their little group. Stephanie and Griff chuckled as they saw the embarrassment on Fergus’ face, along with him going beet red from blushing. Gaia stopped a moment after hearing the cheers and laughs.

  “Dang it, Fergus.” Griff stated as he passed Stephanie five cores.

  “I told you she would be the one to initiate it. He seems a bit too embarrassed for public displays.” Stephanie stated.

  Gaia ignored them and focused on Fergus for a moment. “Now, next time you need to initiate it. And it better be much sooner than a month.” She stated as she got up and grabbed Stephanie’s hand before going to their room.

  Fergus just kinda sat there for a while dumbfounded. Legion and Griff had started their discussion back up a minute later. They paid him no mind while the conversation continued. He didn’t speak until about five minutes later.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  “Has it really been a month? It felt like just yesterday.” Fergus mumbled.

  “Yeah, it has and honestly, it has seemed like she wanted you to do that since then. You can be really dense sometimes, but now you just need to do it. She has put the ball in your court.” Griff replied.

  This was when he got up and dragged Fergus back to their room for the night. Meanwhile, in the girls room, Stephanie was laughing as Gaia’s face was redder than a tomato. She had been extremely nervous when she decided to do that and now that she was back in her room it all hit her. Her face went redder than Fergus’ had been, which was quite a feat considering her skin was stone, and she cuddled up with Shadow trying to hide her embarrassment. That was probably the most assertive thing she’d ever done and had essentially demanded he do something similar soon.

  Stephanie laughed at Gaia for a while before laying down and cuddling with Gaia’s bonds. Griff read his book for a bit, while Fergus tried to figure out what he could do. Needless to say, Fergus didn’t get to sleep much if at all that night.

  The next morning the party woke up and met at breakfast where they saw a very sleep deprived Fergus. Stephanie laughed at him while Griff explained that he might not have slept at all. Gaia was worried, but he tended to glance at her before looking away so she guessed he was probably alright. They all ate breakfast together and went back to the inn to grab their equipment.

  They then swiftly made their way to Xerios’ first floor and practiced with their new items. Stephanie acted as a vanguard with her new shield. She could make it form and disappear almost instantly so she tended to keep it in its armor form unless she planned to block or couldn’t dodge an attack. She also discovered that she could form it with a small slot for her to place her rifle through. She could now fire from the cover of her shield allowing for her to pick off enemies that could attack from range without needing to drop behind something.

  Fergus was a rearguard, so he fired arrows that shot much faster and pierced through armor he hadn’t been able to penetrate before. The movement enhancement was extremely useful as well. It allowed him to swiftly change location to dodge attacks and change the trajectory of his attacks to catch enemies off guard. He also discovered that he could fire while moving much easier now. The increased movement also affected his reload and fire time making each attack quicker.

  Griff was a vanguard that focused on dealing damage to nearby enemies. He used his gauntlets to increase his damage slightly for each attack. This made each of his attacks stronger and deal slight miasma damage. He expended all of the mana during one attack to see the effect and the monster ended up with a large hole where his fist struck and the monster started to melt as the large amount of miasma caused it to decay near instantly.

  Gaia used her Vampiric vine to bleed the monsters that Stephanie had blocked or injured. As the monsters bled she felt a small trickle of mana and health flowing from the vine into her, replenishing her mana reserves and health. As it did, she could sense a small portion being absorbed by the vine. When she attacked with her Tainted Flower, it lashed out slicing a small cut that started to bleed, before the flower at its tip bit into a creature and the monster started to melt. As it did, the flower seemed to consume the tainted flesh it bit off.

  After a couple hours of training like this Fauna moved towards the fourth floor to take a look at it. If they remembered correctly the next floor should coincide with the Spectre, which was a ghost like creature. It was resistant to physical attacks unless augmented by magic. This would make the monster troublesome alone, but it also had the ability to command ghosts and spirits which it could create from any enemy it killed. This meant there were likely hundreds of spirits or ghosts even if it wasn’t the same Spectre as the myth it likely had quite a few spirits under its command.

  They arrived at the fourth floor after about an hour of traveling. The central staircase made travel much quicker as they went to the third floor and entered the tunnel to the fourth. The tunnel was unadorned smooth stone that continued down towards the fourth floor, Nufnerbeld. The temperature got colder the deeper they went into the tunnel until it was cold enough that they were shivering. When they entered the fourth floor they noticed nothing around them. It was a wasteland devoid of life and structures.

  From what Gaia could sense, as her mana fields range was extremely shortened to around a fifth of what it usually was, the area around the floors entrance was a barren wasteland with hard stone for the floor. The floor wasn’t flat either it seemed to odd natural formations that caused parts to rise a few feet or make a pit a few feet deep. The floor was almost entirely covered with these small plateaus and pits. There wasn’t any form of water on the floor from what she could sense or hear, and it was extremely cold, to the point she almost started shivering.

  The floor seemed to truly be a wasteland with no living things on it. There wasn’t anything she could hear, sense, or smell to indicate something could survive here for long, if at all. They moved into the floor a slight bit to scout the area within about five minutes of the entrance. There didn’t seem to be any monsters, or anything at all for that matter, within the area they searched. Gaia had heard Griff and Stephanie complain about the floor being almost pitch black, even with some kind of bright white light shining from above. The only reason they could see at all was that their eyesight had drastically improved since reaching stone rank.

  After they concluded their search of the immediate area, they returned to camp. They stopped by the Guild Master’s house on their way in and let her know what they found. It wasn’t any new information for her since she had scouts searching the floor, but still thanked them for reporting. They then split up for a couple hours where Gaia went and checked on her garden.

  While she was there, she took a nap while relaxing. Griff was off training and Stephanie was working in her forge. Fergus, however, was still trying to figure out what to do about Gaia’s statement the night before. He ended up talking to Titania who smacked him before offering suggestions.

  The party met back up for dinner and enjoyed the meal before returning to the inn to relax. They spent the night talking with their friends and passing the time. The next day was their last free day before their watches began again. It passed by quickly with Fergus and Gaia going on a date and he finally got the courage to take the initiative.

  Their watches began the next day and the week passed quickly with monster attacks almost constantly. Most were quickly dealt with and only one had been dangerous. This had been by a high level bronze rank monster that attacked a different side of the wall and had managed to heavily injure one of the bronze ranks from the Journeyman’s Guild. He wasn’t killed, but had his arm bitten off by the monster.

  The monster had been a type of fox. It was small and extremely agile, but lacked defenses. It could easily dodge attacks, but would die with a single strong hit. It had managed to dodge all of the attacks from the hunter’s party before biting and ripping his arm off. This was when an arrow fired from the wall managed to pierce its skull, as it was slowed down by the appendage. Luckily, the camp had many healers one of which was bronze rank so his arm was able to be reattached, as they still had the appendage.

  When it was time for their first free day they all met up at breakfast and moved to the Guild Master’s house to get as much information about the fourth floor as they could. When they arrived they noticed Edrahni exiting the building and guessed he’d just reported the results of their current search. They arrived and the Guild Master told them what they knew.

  The fourth floor is a massive wasteland. There are no true structures or buildings aside from broken and demolished foundations. It is nearly pitch black and most forms of light don’t work to light up the area, outside of skills that create sunlight. The large light in the sky while being extraordinarily bright does not give any heat or light. The floor is freezing and any outside source of heat is destroyed making the floor perilous to explore for long periods of time. There haven’t been any sightings of monsters, or at least any hostile ones.

  There have been a few sightings of ghosts or wraiths, but most swiftly disappeared after being spotted. Most scouts didn’t search the areas where a wraith or ghost was spotted either. There haven’t been any clues as to how to clear the floor at this time.

  This was all of the information the scouts had discovered, aside from the fact that every floor has gotten slightly smaller than the last. This was welcome news as it meant the floors should be able to explored faster and faster the deeper they went. With the information the Guild Master gave them the party went to the shops to grab some cold weather gear since the floor was exceeding cold.

  They were able find a few coats and pants that would help them keep warm. It took them a while to find the gear they wanted and needed with each of their choices being different. Fergus got a thin fur lined amber coat and matching jeans with boots. Griff got the same as Fergus but in a light blue color. Stephanie got a pinkish red set that was thicker than the guy’s set, but fit under her armor comfortably. Gaia’s was more of robe or dress that was all fur lined while being dark purple and blue which her living silk armor was able to cover completely.

  With their gear and armor prepared they made their way to the fourth floor. This time when they entered the stairs went all the way to the third floor making the trip extremely fast. The tunnel to the fourth floor was around a half hour walk so they arrived at the fourth floor a few hours before noon. When they entered the floor, they realized their new gear would only slightly mitigate the freezing temperature. They decided to move quickly and immediately moved from the entrance towards the center of the floor.

  The entrance was in the wall of the floor making following the wall less useful. From their experiences with the higher floors, they noticed that if the entrance was in the wall, the way down was likely in the center of the floor and vice versa. They were hoping the same would be true for this floor and were moving under that assumption. They moved inwards, but didn’t take a straight line. They zigzagged around searching for anything they could find that might be relevant to clearing the floor. After moving around in this fashion and not finding anything they made a beeline towards the center of the floor.

  As they got close to where they imagined the floors center point was, they started to find more indications of a civilization. Where the entrance area had sparse indications such as foundations and broken walls spread far apart, the area they were entering had foundations similarly spaced. They found one foundation around a hundred feet from the last and this pattern continued with slight deviations, like the area between being slightly longer or shorter than the last.

  This was also when they started to spot wraiths in the distance. They continued moving forward until Gaia sensed something off within her field. There was a small spot where the mana was congealed. It was similar to how a portal felt, but was much less cohesive and weak. It almost felt like a small ball that pulsated and was flickering in and out. She relayed this to her companions and they moved towards it.

  The odd thing was within a crumbling structure beside them. The structure couldn’t be called a building as while it still had a semblance of all four walls, the roof had caved in and disintegrated. The walls weren’t in a much better state with portions missing and parts breaking off when touched or nudged in any way. When they entered, they finally saw what it was, a nearly transparent and flickering amoeba of light. They couldn’t hear anything from it, but their best guess for what it was, was a ghost of some sort. When Gaia entered, she could barely hear the faintest of whispers coming from the light’s direction.

  “He. Me. Elp. Me. Help Me!” The light whispered.

  Gaia couldn’t hear the full words until she was directly beside it. “How can we help you?” She asked.

  When the ghost realized someone had found it, it shivered and floated backwards as if afraid. Just as it was about to reach the wall it stopped as if realizing the party was different from what it expected. It slowly moved back towards Gaia until it was inches from her face.

  “Help me? Find… Body… Burn. Not… Long left.” The mass whispered before shrinking and dimming drastically.

  Gaia turned towards her friends. “Could you guys hear any of that?” She asked.

  “Nope. Just what you said.” Stephanie replied.

  “Okay. It seems to want us to find its body and burn it maybe? It also said there wasn’t long left.” She said.

  “Great. So we’re helping ghosts burn bodies now. What’s next? Stabbing an immortal?” Griff asked incredulously.

  “I don’t know. All I know is we should try and help it. Since it’s stayed here, its body may be buried nearby.” Fergus stated.

  They searched the area and found a small grave behind the structure. Fergus and Griff dug it up and found a skeleton. Stephanie immediately brought out her flamethrower and burned the bones. They immediately went up in flames and turned to ash. When this happened, the light appeared above it.

  The light was different this time. To Gaia, it was still like a congealed blob of mana that was barely cohesive, but she could sense it had a humanoid shape this time. The others saw a transparent young man wearing a soldiers armor.

  “Thank you. If you find others like me, release them. The ruler of this realm has trapped us here to empower itself. You saved me before it claimed my soul for eternity. Please kill it, do what we failed to do.” The ghost stated before evaporating and disappearing.

  “Well, I think we figured out the way to clear the floor.” Griff stated a moment later.