I had to climb two floors before I could finally come across smaller rooms I could use to hide. Most of the floor was dedicated to a forge, with several zombies constantly forging swords while an impressive number of necromancers pumped necrotic mana into the forge to ensure the weapons would end up tainted.
It was painful to watch. I was hardly a professional forger, and I had my own shortcuts, but still, watching their horrible waste was annoying.
I didn’t let that annoyance stop me from slipping into one of the storage rooms, piled with weapons that were radiating cold energy. If it wasn’t for my layers of protection and Proto-HP, just standing in this room would have killed me.
As an advantage, the mana they radiated was enough to conceal my own spells as I looked into the Aether dimension.
Once again looking at the confusing dance of Aether and mana, I searched for my beacons. The beacons were weaker than I would have liked, but combined with the physical proximity — which assisted, but not as much as I would have liked — I managed to find the magical presence of the tree after a minute in the confusing mess of Aether and mana.
“What a pity,” I found myself murmuring. Unlike the physical part of the tree, which was broken and destroyed, the presence in the Aether dimension was still whole, just corrupted. There was no hint of nature mana or Spark in its presence, instead, the whole structure was doused with Necrotic Spark, pumping Necrotic mana to the Aether dimension…
I couldn’t help but wonder where, and I started trailing the mana tendrils. It wasn’t an easy task without fully phasing into the Aether like I was teleporting, but luckily, the constantly shifting nature of the Aether dimension helped. I didn’t need to move to trace that. As I waited, the destination drifted closer at one point, and I finally came across the other end of the connection.
The border of the plane. Or, more accurately, the chaotic, rotating shell of mana that was rotating endlessly, surrounding the plane, made from more mana than I could imagine.
No wonder it was a mixture of necrotic and nature mana battling, and why it was the undead trying to make sure the outer shell stayed intact by responding to the breaches.
It was clearly a lengthy affair.
I guessed the fortress tree I was in wasn’t the only focal point for the ongoing corruption — likely not even the strongest one — but ultimately, it was just a guess. I needed to explore much more to ensure it worked flawlessly.
With that, I left the armory, and started climbing upstairs, glad that the preferred fashion among necromancers was thick robes and cloaks.
I continued climbing up the stairs, each floor dedicated to a different kind of operation. However, I had seen the signs of a change on the tenth floor, with four death knights standing guard at the entrance. Combined with the lack of traffic, my constant disguises wouldn’t have worked.
Luckily, that was not the only trick in my bag — my admittedly large bag. I went back two floors down, and found another empty corner before casting several more spells, changing the dark robe into a patterned brown to match the color of the dead tree.
Then, in the absence of convenient windows, I carefully cut an exit at the outer layer, and started climbing the outer layer, the dead branches and an illusion to camouflage helped me to sneak in.
Though, even cutting had been a challenge, as the dead tree was containing a great amount of Necrotic Spark. My own manipulation abilities managed to keep it from turning into a disaster — though suppressing the temptation to drain the tree was big.
I could have tried to cut an entrance, but instead, I climbed toward the upper side, where there was an opening large enough for a dragon to land — and that was not hyperbole, considering I actually watched an undead dragon lift off.
It was dangerous, but not as dangerous as trying to cut open an entrance to end up facing a wandering lich or an overenthusiastic death knight.
Their private entrance was the less risky option. Still, I made sure to adjust my face slightly to look like an elf in case I got caught. That way, even if they enhanced their defenses to prevent another breach, they would focus outward.
Luckily, they relied on magic rather than active observation for defenses, which was easily dealt with. Once again, I was inside…
The upper floors lacked the chaos of the lower floors, which made it a pain to move around. Only Death Knights and Liches were there, forcing me to cast several spells to hide in the shadows. Their numbers weren’t high enough to trust the anonymity of their disguise.
I didn’t know where to go and was exploring randomly, so when I felt a flare of Arcana Mana. A good destination, I supposed as I followed it, only to see a death knight leaving a room empty-handed.
Clearly not an ordinary room, I decided, though matching the clues was not exactly challenging. For once, the room didn’t just use the dead tree as walls, but was actually made of metal. And, considering the number of runes that surrounded its walls, they weren’t just relying on the strength of the metal.
Another clue about the importance, the room was guarded by an impressive group. Two liches, and eight death knights, none of them particularly weak as shown by their presence.
Which meant sneaking the room was impossible, at least with my current stats. Concealing my presence while unraveling the Arcana defenses and pushing back the suffocating necrotic energy would have been challenging if I had access to full Stats and skills granted by the System, let alone now.
Even cracking it without destroying whatever was inside was a challenge in my current state.
Luckily, that didn’t prevent a more blunt approach.
But, I didn’t launch that strategy immediately but waited for someone else to arrive and use the vault — which clearly was — to see what kind of material that was hidden in its depths. I waited at the edge, slowly creating a few arrays that I pumped with mana -- nature mana I converted from the surrounding Necrotic energy.
I stayed as mobile as I could be for the next half an hour, away from the vault, filling several wards with nature mana to the brim, waiting for another undead to use the vault. It happened another half an hour later — a tense, stressful half an hour. The death knight was carrying a crystal.
The same kind they had used against me, to drain Divine Spark from the trees.
A good find, as from their lack of ability to convert the Spark, I expected them to just dispose of them into Primordial Aether. But maybe I was wrong, and they had the ability to convert it, just not as portable as I do. Or maybe they had some alternate usage.
Either way, they had something that was worthy of me to plunder, the same thing that I was in desperate need of. Fascinating.
Fascinating enough that I was willing to change the objective of the mission significantly, especially since the amount of Necrotic Spark that was locked in the tree made it a good target. I couldn’t steal all of it, not without defeating all the undead that was currently here — let alone the potential reinforcements — but the same didn’t count for the little amount that might get lost during the battle.
After all, even a percentage of the thousands of points I could feel locked in the dead trunk meant a stat point or two — and I was not at the point of turning my nose.
Still, I didn’t launch my attack immediately. If I was going to turn that into a more convincing assault, I needed a reliable excuse.
At that point, I remembered the seed I had buried, which was a good excuse for me to push. Creating a connection of mana was not expensive, but it would have been impossible to do.
Luckily, I wasn’t the only possible source of mana. Instead of connecting to me directly, I connected the seed to the God Forest, creating a stable connection that could be used to channel mana.
{-30 Nature Spark, God Forest}
Not a cheap connection, especially since the Spark that was assigned would get lost if the seed would get destroyed. Yet, that was not without its advantages. I used my permanent connection to the God Forest to modify the tree, so, when it started growing wildly, it didn’t grow as a tree.
But as a treant.
I assigned not only more than a quarter of the mana the forest was generating — the most I could afford without pushing the elves to panic — but also allowed it to access a few mana storages I had been keeping for a serious siege.
The amount that I channeled was significant. Almost two million points of mana… Enough to destroy everything.
But, not for nothing. I didn’t need my indirect connection to feel the approach of the treant, destroying the hordes on its path…
The way the ground trembled with each step was evidence enough….
{Strength: 8 Charisma: 10
Precision: 8 Perception: 12
Agility: 8 Manipulation: 10
Speed: 8 Intelligence: 10
Endurance: 8 Wisdom: 9}
{Purified Divine Spark: 399}
{Pseudo-HP: 2869 Mana: 16240}
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Light - Chosen 7.4
Nature - Chosen 10}
{MINIONS
Guardian God Forest - 2009}
Elven Priestess - 70}
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]
