Chapter: 741.5 - Endingtree (Patreon)

This is the first 'after completion' update. It will slip into Chapter 741 at the first scene break.

Chapter: 741 - Realities of the Fight

Tala felt it, late in the night.

A powerful source of nature magic that pulled her to wakefulness.

It had been a long time since she’d seen one in the wild, and the feel of it made her smile, even as it resonated with the inscriptions upon her flesh.

It was an endingtree.

As she bent her focus upon it, Tala’s smile grew.

It was a lone tree, which was swaying gently despite the lack of strong wind. The bark, as expected, was almost bone white, and looked as smooth as polished marble, at least at this distance. As Tala observed more closely, she could see that while the outer bark was, indeed, rather smooth, the flesh of the tree underneath was a tangle of fibers, lighting up in flickering waves to Tala’s more honed magical senses.

She chuckled, checking her own endingtree grove, within the sanctum and… yes. There the natural spellforms were.

Tala hesitated for only a moment. She was meant to be resting before a battle, but… something about this felt right, felt important.

It was worth the loss of a little sleep, worth the mental space to look a little closer.

Tala huffed a laugh, willing herself out, to stand at the edge of the tree’s domain, some three hundred yards from the trunk. The flier was still a bit to the northeast and it would take time to reach the tree and then to pass out of range to the southwest.

She had time, likely as much as an hour.

Tala pressed her perception forward, peeling back the layers and examining them in incredible detail.

The spellforms in the wood-fiber reminded her of the more overt examples she’d seen in Makinaven, where Master Jevin had woven his magics through the entirety of the body of the tree, using the wood itself as both medium and channel for power.

Tala looked up at the crown of the lone edifice before her. The leaves were green and full, and there were what looked like red berries scattered throughout the canopy.

She reached out with her aura and was surprised to feel resistance. The tree had power, even if it lacked a true will.

Even so, Tala didn’t mind.

I am your mirror. We are of the same cloth. She displayed her magic, specifically her cohesion, which rippled and flared in harmony—almost directly in contrast—with those within the wood of the tree.

It… accepted her, welcoming her aura and power like that of a long-lost sister.

With a simple act of will, and with no sapience to oppose her, an endingberry appeared in hand. After a quick examination, Tala carefully took a nibble of the familiar fruit.

Exactly as I remember.

The ending seed within was a packet of destruction. It was a shame that such would be useless against even the weakest of the Black Legion due to their reality field, but they were still potent nonetheless.

Tala moved this one into her grove, planting it as easily as she could have tossed it aside.

It was late into the night, and the clear sky above let starlight fall upon the odd spectacle.

Given her recent assault on the Black Legion infested escarpment, Tala noticed something she hadn’t really before.

In a bubble around the endingtree, extending exactly as far as its deep roots, was a sphere of control a place of… dominion?

She opened her view to the connections of reality, and her eyes widened in surprise.

At the edge of the bubble was a churning, roiling mass of reality threads, but they weren’t being cut.

Instead, it was almost as if they were being… cleaned? Pulled apart and put back together more perfectly?

It was hard to tell, but it was there.

She slowly sat, her hand shaking mildly as she found the ground to help lower herself down.

Alat was suddenly focused again. -Inside first?-

Yes.

Together, they combed through reality itself, all the myriad tangled knots and threads, the layers of connection and existence and they found… nothing.

There were no cracks, no abrasions, no flaws in the superficial near the tree.

-But that might be the point. Did it just pick a place that was unmarred?-

Tala nodded, realizing that such was the most likely explanation.

She stood in a rush, and began a circumnavigation of the tree’s domain.

For nearly half of the distance, they found nothing, causing their hope to dim, but then, there it was.

An imperfection in Zeme, where the superficial was pressed together and reunited to form the world from shattered fragments.

Instinctively, Tala knew that the Doman-Imithe would be thick and teeming on the other side here.

They traced it to the sphere of the tree’s reach and… it was gone.

The seam appeared to meld into the whole, unblemished cloth of the superficial.

-No, look here.-

Tala leaned in closer, focusing her perception even closer. I see it!

The healing, the repair reached beyond the tree’s reach, but just barely, as if it were growing outward, barely preceding the tree.

They turned back to the magics churning around the sphere, and the truth became unmistakable. Is this the tree Sovereign’s boon that Anatalis told us about?

-Maybe at least a part of it, yeah. This is too much in line with ‘repairing the world’ to be a coincidence.

The endingtree was breaking apart the connections and flattening them out, restoring the superficial to an unblemished state.

Tala’s eyes widened in realization. This reality, this area of the superficial, would be precious to magical and arcanous beast on an instinctive level even as they avoid it on instinct.

Alat huffed in mild skepticism. -There is no way that City Stone Holders would have missed that.-

Are you sure? Really? Do they categorize all the trees around every city throughout its whole cycle? All the magical and arcanous varieties? Do they do comparative analyses of that data?

-No, I’m not sure, but yes, they do categorize the flora around cities at every stage.-

Reach out to Mistress Ingrit? She should be able to pull the data.

-She should also be asleep…-

…Do you really think she is?

Alat sighed. -I’ll send the message.-

It took less than a half hour before the reply came.

-Huh… As it turned out, no one has ever done a meta-analysis of the concentration of endingtrees near a city and the intensity of its waning from a causation perspective. They grow so sporadically, springing up into full groves in only a handful of years, that they’re usually considered in the category of a magical or arcanous weed.-

Tala nodded in realization. The assumption was that endingtrees proliferating was an effect of heavier waning rather than a cause. The repaired reality definitely didn’t cause the aggression of magical beasts, but it seemed like it might exacerbate it.

-With this new in formation, Mistress Ingrit is initially optimistic that there will be a strong correlative effect, if nothing else.- Alat seemed to be reading. -She says that any research into this will likely be very dangerous for all but high-level Archons, but she’ll see if any are willing to take some of their time to do some direct investigation.-

Tala grunted in acknowledgement. Understood. Still, she continued to contemplate. So, a waning city, breaking up reality—that endingtrees had made right—could bring more attacks down upon that city.

-Seems likely, yeah.-

Tala shook her head in wonder. Regardless, that isn’t the most important bit.

Alat grinned within their mind. -No. No it is not.-

If the endingtrees emulsified and rebuilt reality, then there just might be a way to use that toward the benefit of the world as a whole.

It would take consideration, but overall?

This had been a very insightful stop.

Tala chuckled to herself, even as she willed her body back into her sanctum, the flying construct continuing its path toward war.