Rick stood with Lydia near the base of the stairs, that lead out of the dungeon, speaking in low tones. She nodded, squared her shoulders, and called out orders to the departing soldiers. Her voice echoed off the dungeon walls, steady and firm despite the exhaustion evident in her stance.

  Len watched the stretcher bearers climb the stone steps, their movements careful and deliberate. The blanket-wrapped forms of Mason and Vael led the procession. Behind them, the rest of the squad followed, their faces hollow from lack of sleep and grief.

  The past day had been a blur of activity. After the battle, the squad had thrown themselves into harvesting everything they could from the fallen treant and flying creatures.

  They'd stripped bark, cores, collected sap and ingredients that could be used in potions. The work had given them purpose, something to focus on besides their loss.

  The soldiers had worked mechanically, barely speaking, driven by a need to keep moving, to keep doing something, anything.

  Rick finished his conversation with Lydia, they hugged briefly before she followed her soldiers up the stairs, leaving just the two of them among the remnants of yesterday's violence.

  It wasn't long until the sound of their departure faded.

  Len felt the weight of the empty dungeon press in around them. Only the soft glow of the bioluminescent plants remained to light the vast chamber where the battle had taken place.

  He checked the pile of materials organized at the dungeon's entrance, the heating slabs he'd made and their bed rolls.

  Len surveyed the scattered remnants of battle one last time. Three days until the relief squad arrived. Three days to process everything that happened. Three days alone in this ancient place with his best friend. "Way I see it we've got three options, cultivate and temper, clean up the dead, or w go looking through the ruins in the trees."

  Rick caught his eye, that familiar glint breaking through the heaviness of the past day. "We're dungeoneers."

  Len felt a small smile tug at his lips. Some things never changed, no matter how many lifetimes they lived. They were dungeoneers to their core. The lure of unexplored ruins and forgotten treasures called to them like a siren's song.

  "Ruins it is," Len said. The prospect of discovery created a crack in the wall of grief that had settled over them. Here was something they knew, something that felt right - pushing deeper into the unknown together, like they always had.

  Len gathered flat pieces of wood as they walked. His knife scraped against the wood in precise motions, carving intricate patterns while his domain swept the surrounding area for threats.

  He sent out pulses of mana in one hundred and eighty degrees, no more than what his mana regeneration could support. Rick watched the other side.

  "What're you making?" Rick's boots crunched on dead leaves beside him.

  Len held up the piece of wood he was working on. "Condensing formation. Break down the creature remains. Use the mana pieces for our cultivating."

  Rick whistled. "That'll speed things up. Guess the meat will start going bad before we can harvest it all."

  "Dungeoneers don't waste," Len said.

  Rick snorted. "So what you think the backstory of the houses in here is?"

  built into the trees themselves, using the branches as bridges."

  "They had to have a high ability in nature magic," Len said.

  "And have it balanced out so that the trees didn't work against them or die off from what they were doing," Rick said.

  "There aren't many homes, though the working on them is well done. So a powerful group then?"

  "Probably, could be isolated, or they picked to be isolated?" Rick asked.

  "That tracks," Len pointed with his blade at the tree-homes. "Look at how they're positioned - all facing inward toward that central clearing. Like they were built around something important."

  "Could be a temple complex? Its old so it wasn't temporary."

  The path wound between the ancient tree's wide trunks. Len counted them as they walked - forty-seven total, arranged in a perfect circle around the central tree that the ancient treant had come from.

  "That one looks promising," Rick pointed to a dwelling about ten meters on one of the outer trees. Wooden platforms wrapped around the trunk, balconies and bridges.

  "Give us a boost will you?" Rick asked.

  Len finished up his enchantment, putting it and his knife away. He cupped his hands.

  "Little forward," Rick said.

  Len moved forward. "Good!"

  Len set himself and Rick ran for him, pack bouncing up and down.

  He jumped for Len's hand, Len felt his foot land and heaved, driving his legs up, using that momentum to throw his hands—and Rick upwards as he jumped off of Len's hands.

  He grabbed onto the bridge, swinging over and crashing.

  "You good?" Len yelled.

  "Yeah," Rick said.

  He leaned over the side. "I think I see a path." He walked down the bridge to the tree.

  "Yeah right here." He tapped the trunk.

  Len moved closer and studied what he was pointing at.

  "Looks like handholds and footholds all the way up. From here I can see it."

  Len rubbed the tree, finding rows.

  He reached up and put his foot against the tree, finding a foothold.

  Len gripped the rough bark, finding natural handholds where the tree's growth had created ridges and knots. The climb was easier than expected - whoever built this place had modified the trees themselves, creating subtle paths upward if you knew where to look.

  "You got the cool way and I have to climb," Len grumbled as he ascended.

  "Can't all look dashing and cool," Rick said.

  "Says the senile old man."

  A middle finger extended from the bridge, Rick must have been looking inside the tree.

  Len hurried up and stepped onto the bridge.

  Rick was studying the interior of the home.

  The walls of the tree were thick and so was the core of the tree, branches stuck through the space like spokes on a wheel. Though these had been turned into floors and walls within the home that was a series of platforms, connected by stairs that wound up through the tree.

  The craftsmanship was incredible - the entire structure seemed to have been grown rather than built, as if the builders had convinced the tree itself to form these spaces.

  Len climbed the winding stairs, studying the storage spaces built into the walls. Shelves lined with clay pots, wooden boxes stacked neatly in corners. Everything covered in a thick layer of dust, but organized with care.

  "Look at this," Rick lifted the lid of a chest. "Preserved food stores. They packed it all away proper."

  Len ran his hand along a shelf, finding cooking implements, gardening tools, the basic necessities of daily life. "Not in a hurry when they left. Everything's cleaned and stored right."

  "Like they meant to come back." Rick replaced the lid carefully.

  They ascended to the next level, finding sleeping quarters with rolled futons and blankets sealed in waxed cloth wrappings. Personal items tucked away in carved wall niches.

  "Methodical," Len said. "The kind of packing you do when you know you'll return."

  The upper levels opened into a circular chamber, its walls covered in intricate carvings that caught the dim light. Len sent out a pulse of mana, watching as the etchings began to glow with a soft blue light.

  He activated his translation spell, the familiar sensation of knowledge flowing into his mind as the ancient script transformed into something readable.

  "Records," Rick said, moving closer to examine the illuminated text. "Look here - they're talking about cultivation methods, ways to communicate with the forest itself."

  Len traced the glowing symbols with his finger. "Instructions for growing these living spaces, maintaining balance with the trees. This whole settlement was meant to work in harmony with the forest."

  The wall before him detailed intricate magical formations, methods for directing the growth of trees without killing the trees. Each carving precise, preserved perfectly as if waiting for someone to return and make use of them again.

  Ready to be passed down to later generations.

  Len opened a cabinet built seamlessly into the trunk, revealing rows of specialized tools.

  Growing and trimming? "Enchanted tools to work with wood I think."

  A workbench occupied one corner of the room, its surface worn smooth from years of use. Detailed diagrams were carved into the wood - cross-sections of trees showing how the living spaces were grown within them. Small samples of different woods were mounted on the wall above, each labeled in the ancient script.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  Rick pulled open a drawer beneath the workbench. "Look at these." He held up what appeared to be seed pods, each one stored in amber that preserved them perfectly. "Growth catalysts maybe? For starting new trees?"

  "The formations we saw downstairs," Len said, "these are the tools used to create them. Whoever lived here was teaching others too." He gestured to practice pieces stored carefully on shelves - partially completed carvings showing progressive stages of the work.

  "Seen more places to sleep, probably more than a single family in the tree," Rick said as he continued to search.

  "I'd guess that this tree housed people that were learning or teaching others how to make these tree-homes."

  "Looks like we just hit gold." Rick held up a leather-bound journal filled with detailed notes and sketches. He flipped through the pages. "Looks like they documented everything. Their whole process is here."

  Len moved over to Rick, studying the journal's detailed diagrams. "This'll revolutionize our lumber operations in Goran. Growing houses instead of building them? The formations alone would cut construction time in half."

  "Speed up wood production in the meantime," Rick said.

  "Can use this to create orchards. Look at this, grafting different trees to one another to create different attributes," Len pointed to a page.

  He glanced at the seeds in amber.

  "If we can figure out which trees those seeds are we could really kickstart things off with them."

  Rick left him to the book and continued going through the space.

  He flipped through more pages, each one filled with precise instructions and observations. "With these techniques, we could create defensive positions that blend perfectly with the landscape. Living walls, watchtowers grown from the trees themselves."

  Something nagged at his memory. In all their years dealing with information brokers and guild archives, he'd never heard whispers of this knowledge. Not even rumors of its existence.

  Rick's face darkened. "That's because they burned it all. The first clearing party - they said it was faster to torch everything. Just set the whole place ablaze and kill whatever came running out."

  The journal felt heavier in Len's hands. He remembered those stories now, adventurers bragging in taverns about the experience they'd gained. How the creatures had fled the flames, making easy targets.

  "So all of this..." Len looked around the chamber, at the carefully preserved tools and teaching materials, the generations of knowledge carved into the walls.

  "All of it was destroyed. Burned away for a quick clear," Rick grimaced.

  Dungeoneering wasn't an easy job at all. Though that seemed so wasteful.

  "Good thing we got here first this time around," Len said.

  Len created a makeshift inventory system using blank pages from his journal. Each item they discovered needed proper documentation - not just for their own use, but for preservation of this knowledge.

  Rick's excitement grew with each new architectural discovery. He traced the living walls with reverent fingers, examining how branches had been coaxed into forming natural support structures.

  "See how they used the tree's natural growth patterns?" Rick pointed to a spiral staircase that wound through one trunk. "They didn't force it - they guided it. The tree wanted to grow this way."

  They moved through three more dwellings. Each one revealed variations on the same theme - living spaces that worked with the trees rather than against them. Some homes spread across multiple branches, connected by bridges that had grown as part of the structure. Others spiraled up single trunks, making efficient use of vertical space.

  "Look at this kitchen setup," Rick called from one dwelling. "The ventilation is part of the tree's natural hollow. They just shaped it to draw smoke up and out."

  Len noted how each home maintained its own character despite using similar techniques. One favored open spaces with platforms extending out into the air. Another created cozy nooks tucked away in the branches.

  "The building skill applications are incredible," Rick said, sketching quick diagrams in his own notebook. "We could adapt these methods for different environments. Create structures that strengthen themselves as they grow."

  They found common areas where residents clearly gathered to share meals and stories. Each discovery added another piece to understanding how this community had lived in harmony with their environment.

  Len followed Rick across another bridge, this one wider than the others they'd crossed.

  The higher reaches of each tree contained similar layouts - circular chambers with walls covered in carved records. Some told stories of daily life, others contained detailed magical theory. But it was in the connecting bridges that Len found the most revealing information.

  The bridge walls held continuous narratives, meant to be read as one walked between trees. Len's translation spell worked overtime as they crossed, revealing fragments of the settlement's history.

  "They came here seeking balance," Len said, running his fingers over the glowing text. "A group of magic users who believed working with nature was better than trying to control it."

  The carvings showed their arrival, how they'd spent years learning the forest's patterns before attempting their first living structure. The community grew slowly, each new member carefully chosen for their dedication to maintaining harmony with the environment.

  "Here," Len pointed to a section of text. "About sixty years after they established the settlement. Something changed." The carvings showed increasing concern about external threats, though they were maddeningly vague about specifics.

  Len followed Rick across another bridge to a tree with distinctive spiral markings around its trunk. Unlike the other dwellings, this one had wider platforms wrapped around its circumference, creating terraced gardens at different levels.

  Wooden tags with faded writing still marked each plot. Len's translation spell revealed names of plants he recognized - some still used in modern healing potions.

  "These are all medicinal ingredients, healing, stamina, to help against poisons indigestion, allergies."

  "Looks like we found your alchemy farm," Rick said.

  Inside, the walls were lined with shelves containing clay jars, dried plants hanging from the ceiling. The air filled with herbal scents.

  "Look at these formations," Len traced the patterns carved into the floor. They spiraled outward from the center of the room, creating channels that would have guided healing energy through the space.

  The next level revealed examination rooms, with padded platforms built seamlessly into the living wood. The walls here bore detailed anatomical diagrams - both human and plant. The carvings showed how the healers had viewed them as interconnected systems.

  "They treated both," Len said, studying the diagrams. "The people and the forest itself. See how these formations mirror each other?" He pointed to similar patterns used for healing human injuries and treating diseased trees.

  Storage areas held specialized tools - some familiar, others whose purpose he could only guess at. Each one showed the same careful craftsmanship as the rest of the settlement, grown from the living wood rather than carved from dead timber.

  A workspace on the upper level contained racks of bottles and preparation areas for medicines. The walls here were covered in recipes and treatment protocols, explaining how to blend natural healing with magical assistance. Len noted how they emphasized maintaining balance - never taking more from nature than necessary, always giving back what was used.

  Len followed Rick into what appeared to be an alchemy workspace. His eyes widened at the sight of crystalline taps growing directly from the tree's interior walls. The taps weren't added - they were part of the living wood itself, grown into perfect spouts and valves.

  "These formations," Len traced the patterns that surrounded each tap. "They're filtering something through the tree's natural processes."

  Wooden shelves held rows of glass beakers and vials near each station. Many still contained traces of dried substances, their colors ranging from deep amber to pale green.

  Len picked up a clean beaker from a nearby shelf and positioned it under one of the taps. He turned the crystalline handle with careful precision. A thick golden liquid flowed out, its consistency somewhere between honey and water.

  "The tree's processing the ingredients," Len said, examining the liquid. "Look at these markings - they show different solutions being filtered through specific parts of the trunk."

  Rick moved to another section of the room where larger vessels sat beneath a complex network of interwoven branches. "Here too. The whole tree's part of the process."

  In the center of the room, Len discovered a basin carved directly into the floor. A pale, luminescent liquid pooled there, trickling down through a channel in the wood.

  "This is..." Len read the words around the basin "It's diluted world tree sap. Its heavily nature based. Can reduce mana corruption and restore dying plants. Useful in regenerative over-time healing potions."

  "Good to have one of those before you head into a dungeon to keep up a passive heal," Rick said.

  "Right." Len looked around. "This place is a fricking gold mine."

  Len followed Rick across another bridge, this one leading to a structure that seemed more expansive than the others. The entrance opened into a vast chamber filled with terraced growing spaces that spiraled up the interior of the tree.

  His translation spell revealed detailed instructions carved into support beams, his eyes racing ahead as his heart beat faster.

  "What's got you all excited?" Rick asked.

  "Methods for increasing crop yields through magical formations and careful breeding of plants. This knowledge is well far beyond simple farming techniques!" Len shook his head. "If we knew this we could have increased the speed that we recovered from the apocalypse."

  "We didn't have the translation spell until well after," Rick said.

  "Just taking the seeds here and planting them would have been enough!" His eyes lit up, following a line to a wall.

  Diagrams-piece of art showed different plants planted together, creating symbiotic relationships that strengthened each species.

  "This would increase the yield massively. You'd need to use different ways to harvest, the field method we use wouldn't work well. Though with a high farming skill? They must have had the system. This would work so well with it."

  Preserved specimens lined the walls in amber cases similar to what they'd found earlier. Each one labeled with its properties and the changes made to enhance its natural abilities.

  A sealed container caught his eye, its surface covered in preservation runes more complex than the others. Inside, nestled in crystalline sand, sat a seed that pulsed with a soft green light.

  Len's translation spell revealed its name: Seed of Renewal.

  "That is looking mighty special," Rick said.

  "Yeah, you could say that," Len said.

  "What's it do?"

  "Its supposed to create a natural healing zone around itself when planted It purges certain types of magical corruption while providing regenerative healing to those who rest in its shade," Len said. "It says that it 'stabilizes' the mana. Allowing one to naturally integrate with it."

  "Its a tree that heals people and cures mana corruption?" Rick asked.

  The rest of the text detailed the careful breeding process that had created the seed - generations of work combining natural healing properties with magical enhancement.

  "There's part of their story here." Len traced it out. "They made this and two others. The first they planted in the middle of their village," He glanced out of a window at the massive tree in the center of the dungeon. "Then the second they took with them to 'heal the forest'."

  "Can we make more of it?" Rick asked.

  "I don't know. There's a reference here to a good large section of the tree with more information," Len said. "Based on what I read it was a miracle they were able to make three and had been working on it for a long time."

  Len studied the nook it was in and the enchantment on the amber. He reached out, taking the seed carefully and gently.

  The magic protecting it faded away as the enchantment upon the amber continued to glow.

  He took of his pack, wrapped the amber in cloth and packed it away carefully.

  "Shall we keep going?" Rick asked.

  "Yeah." Len stood back up.

  "This place..." Len shook his head, still processing the magnitude of their discovery. "We can't let this knowledge get lost again. The farming techniques alone could feed entire cities."

  Rick nodded leading the way out towards one of the bridges. "We'll need teams dedicated to documenting everything. Not just copying the texts, but understanding the practical applications."

  "The formations, the growing techniques - it'll take years to properly study it all." Len ran his hand along the living wood of the bridge.

  "Good thing the troops need training up. Getting people with a head for this kind of work is going to be harder," Rick said.

  "I bet Lucius can help us out with that. He turned Velkaris into a hub of some of the most skilled artisans and crafters in the world, " Len said.

  "We'll need to keep clearing the dungeon regularly," Rick said. "Can't risk letting it get overrun. It'll still be a good lumber source, though there's so much more."

  "Might be an idea to bring in Christina Xinta too," Rick suggested. "Her engineering background could help understand how they integrated the living wood with their tools and equipment."

  "Good idea. The more expertise we can bring in, the better chance we have of properly preserving everything." Len looked around at the towering trees, each filled with wisdom. "We can't afford to lose this knowledge twice."

  "Forgotten library and here, we've got a good base of information to work from now," Rick said as they reached another tree home. He grinned at Len. "Dungeoneering, don't you love it?"

  "Never know what you're going to find," Len smiled.