RavensDagger

  Chapter Two Hundred and Three - Do Sce To It

  Momma was a very humble sort of bun. She didn’t mind at all when I suggested that we tell the others of our pn, if we could call what we had in mind a pn.

  My reasoning for wanting to share was simple. The others knew more about magid such than I did, by a whole lot. Amaryllis had a proper education, and Awen was clever, and Bastion probably saw all sorts of things as a padin.

  “So,” I said. “Our pn is real simple. We’ll grab the root, and feed it full of mana that it doesn’t like, then see what happens. Hopefully, we weaken it enough to get it off the core, or maybe chop it apart.”

  “Do you think that will remove the iioirely?” Amaryllis asked.

  I shifted from foot to foot. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell where the root starts, exactly. I don’t remember seeing a starting pce for it in any of the dungeons I saw with Evil Roots, and this one is all over the p there, it’ll be hard to see where it inates.”

  “I don’t think that would work on a pnt,” Bastion said. “Now, keep in mind that I’m no expert when it es to gardening or horticulture, but I have spent some time in the royal gardens. I’ve seen gardeners prune roots apart and the pnts were entirely fierwards. Would trimming these roots do anything but slow them down?”

  I crossed my arms and frowned really hard in thought. “I really, really don’t know. I think that this is the kind of thing that will be really hard to remove. Maybe it’ll mean spending a long time w on it too.”

  “Taking the roots away, bit by bit, every day,” Carrot said. “Until it gives up and dies food.”

  “Or until the thing we do to weaken it finally starts ag like a sort of poison,” I said. “Pnts sometimes need really specifids of earth and dirt to live. Though, I guess weeds are different. Ah, I wish Oak were here, he’d be good with this. Bet he knows a bunch about pnts.”

  “Well, he isn’t,” Amaryllis said. “And I for one suspect that we don’t have all that much time to lose with this.”

  I nodded along. We couldn’t leave and just return, not when reag this floor took hours and leaving would likely take a while too. “Well, we call this pn A, and give it our all.”

  “And if it doesn’t succeed?” Bastion asked.

  “Then we do as the World wants and break the core,” I said.

  He winced, but there was nothing to it.

  We moved closer to the core room, but paused before entering. “What kind of magic will we be trying?” I asked.

  Momma hummed. “When did you gain your ing aspect magic?” she asked.

  “Uh,” I said. “Just after getting my first quest,” I said.

  “I suspected as much. In that case, perhaps we’ll use that to begin with.”

  “It’s nearly at rank up,” I said. “Then I’ll have ing at Rank S. That’s, um, Master Rank. I think that it might get stro that point.”

  “Master Rank ing,” Momma repeated. “Well, that’ll be a first.”

  “Hey, it’s a really versatile spell,” I defended.

  The bun nodded and patted me on the head. “I’m certain it is,” she said over the sound of Amaryllis cag. “Now, let’s go see about those roots.”

  We slipped into the core room again, trampling on the uneven roots across the ground. It was just me and Momma this time, the others waiting by the exit, and keeping fairly close to the portal leading back to the surface.

  I went around the root, looking food pce to start while I felt the mana in my body start to tingle. I found a bit of root stig out from the rest. Just a handspan, but enough to grab onto.

  My eyes narrowed, my feet set. I took a deep breath and pushed as much ing magic as I could into the root, all the magic I was abs from the core and more. Nothing happe first, but, like poking a finger into a tub of hardened grease, I broke through and the edges of the root started to fray and break apart, turning into dust the way that all grime and yuess did when my ing magic got it.

  “It’s... w!” I said through ched teeth.

  After a moment, I stopped and pulled my hand free. The little stub looked as if a dozen caterpilrs had been gnawing at it for an hour, dimples and bits missing all along its form. I looked at my work, then at all the roots around us.

  “You’re having an effect, at least,” Momma said. “e here, I’ll give you a hug.”

  A reward hug? Well, I hadn’t said no to hugs before.

  I spread my arms out into the optimal hugging position and ughed when Momma engulfed me with both arms. She was very strong, and warm, and obviously knew what she was doing when it came to hugging.

  You Have Received a Hug from a Fearsome Mother! Your Power Increases!

  “Oh! A Buff!” I cheered.

  “Indeed. Just a little one, but useful all the same. I tend to avoid giving those to just anybun, they tend to make one overfident at times.”

  I nodded. “I have teas that give booo. But hat’ll help here, I don’t think.”

  “Unfortunate. Do any of your panions have skills like that?”

  “Not that I know of. Bastion might, maybe, but I think he would have used them already if that was the case.”

  Momma nodded. “Well, try now, we’ll see how it goes.”

  I nodded and found another bit of root. I would have used the first, but I o be able to pare the differences pre and post hug.

  Biting the tip of my tongue, I gripped on hard to the root, then shoved mana into it as hard as I could. I felt a vein on the side of my temple throb and my hand shook, but mana, lots and lots of mana, came p out of me and attacked the root.

  The difference wasn’t huge, but it was there, the root started to wither, not like a pnt that was dying, but as if someone was sug all the life out of it from the inside. Little bubbles appeared along its greeh, and they popped and bust apart with little puffs. The root started to turn to dust even faster after that.

  gratutions! Through repeated as your ing skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank S costs Five amon Bun Bun Css Skill Points!

  “Yes!” I shouted.

  “Oh?” Momma asked.

  “My i up,” I said.

  ingRank S - 00%You have mastered liness. Dirtiness fears you, grime shudders at your approach. You have taken the first step onto the Path. liness is o godliness.

  “Whoa,” I said.

  “So?” Momma had a knowing little smile, like someone who knew something but wanted you to tell them the good news yourself.

  “It’s, um, not very detailed about what this does. Like, as my skill gets better, I always get hings, but this is more vague than usual. Still, it sounds good.”

  “Master Rank is often like that. Give it a try.”

  I took a deep breath and grabbed onto a root, then I closed my eyes. The first bit of ing magic came out, and I stopped right away.

  It was... n, but definitely different. My magic had always e out as a sort of flow, a weird sensation that reminded me a little bit of having blood drawn for a test. It tingled and made me feel a bit empty, but it wasn’t painful.

  Now my ing magic felt more like someone had turned my veins into a pressure washer. It was a lot, a lot and hard.

  I grit my teeth and focused a little more, then fired just a burst of ing magito the root I held.

  The mana came out of me, spun around like the writhiacles of an octopus trying to hug arice, then stabbed into the root from all sides. The magic then spread out, poking at the weakest, least dirty parts first, then rag in and suffusing the root’s length with ing magic that practically bsted the root to dust. Thehat dust faded, leaving the air smelling pine-fresh for a moment.

  “Whoa,” I repeated as I looked at my empty hands. My palms felt as if I’d just scrubbed them . It wasn’t painful, exactly, but it was harsh.

  “That seems to have worked,” Momma said. “How’s the accuracy?”

  I licked my lips and fired a ball of ing magic across the room. It zipped into a root-covered wall and mao break a little divot on some of the roots. “It’s not bad,” I said.

  “Well then,” Momma said. “Start with a circle around the pedestal, we’ll free the core first. I suspect that the core will want to fight back, if only a little.”

  “Alright!” I said.

  I got to work, walking slowly around the core and grabbing all the little roots I could and breaking them up with bursts of ing magic. The bigger one needed some more time, with me basically grabbing them as if I wao choke them with my bare hands, and pushing mana into them.

  Momma left to go waste her mana, a me with Carrot as I worked, wheur was with a big smile on. “I think it’s w,” she said.

  “Oh?” I asked as I rubbed the bay hand ay brow. I was w up a sweat.

  “The roots oerior are looking a little parched. I suspect that the current root system is as big as it be.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Trees will only grow acc to the amount of water they have avaible. Starve them, and their growth will stall. Likewise, a little bun will only grow to be as good as a bun be if there is enough love and attention and care around them. I think that this Evil Root’s growth might have been slowing down. It grew too fat off the mana of this core and ’t sustain any additional growth. Perhaps its step would be to grow into something else, but I hope we don’t o see that.”

  “I think I get it,” I said. “And now we’re cutting it off.”

  “So we are,” Momma agreed.

  I got back to work, pushing myself twice as hard now that we k was w. I could hear my friends talking outside, but I had to foy hands and on my magic if I wahings to work out.

  Momma might have been right about the root. The little leaves on the roots arouwitched and it felt almost as if they were growing bigger.

  I let out a bit of my ing aura, making sure not to send it towards the core, ahe roots chew on that for a bit.

  The leaves shrivelled, like someoaking a bite of something and realizing it was super sour.

  My circle ended soon enough, and all the roots ging onto the core itself were now loose. I stood up, grinning, and moved to the wall he edge of the room. A hand pressing against the roots there, I pushed out more magid started to walk in a long circle around the room. Seeing all the mean roots curl up and fke aonderful.

  “Nice work,” Momma said. “Buster, little ones, could you help us? We’ll be pulling these remains out. Drop them outside. Carrot, you try to burn them. No magi the core room, aainly no hitting or toug the core.”

  Once I’d pleted a circle of the room, my friends taking the cut-off bits of root with them and leaving those too entwined behind for ter, I started to look at the ceiling. I didn’t know where the roots came from, exactly, but it had to be close.

  I used ing magic like a fme-thrower, flooding the roots with it until they died and flopped to the ground.

  And then, just as we started to clear up the very st of them...

  Quest pleted!Trim the Cruel!The Core is saved!

  I bli Miss Menu... was that it?

  Of course, that’s whearted screaming.

  ***

  RavensDagger

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