I left the questions about the chaotic nature of the Tree of Life behind as I climbed the stairs, once again disguised as a servant. Their habit of using Chosen as Servants might be wasteful, but it was beneficial for my purposes.
It gave me an excuse to surround myself with nature mana, creating an outer shell that would hide any illusion I might need to cast underneath. With that assistance, I picked a faster pace, climbing the stairs.
Seldanna finally stopped moving, suggesting she was finally imprisoned. I needed to make sure she wasn’t suffering from any kind of problem. The connection didn’t show her distress increasing, but better safe than sorry.
Even with all my advantages, an hour later, I was still searching for her, unable to find her. My ability to sense her was distorted, which was an achievement.
Even more interestingly, I could see several elves discreetly running around, their discussion implying panic. Curious, I slid closer, listening to their discussion. “Any clues in the cell?” one asked.
“Not yet. Not even our best magical tracker could find her. She somehow disappeared from existence. No mana presence, no life energy, nothing,” the other answered.
“We need to find her. The prince already relayed his intentions to speak with her. I don’t want to tell him that I failed him … not in such a critical time.”
The first one sighed. “Why does he want to talk with a savage in such a time in the first place? I thought we had bigger worries.”
“I don’t know, and I’m not stupid enough to ask such questions,” the second one said. “Why don’t you take that as a lesson and focus on searching, so you don’t get demoted for losing the savage that the prince needs.”
Interesting, I thought as I listened to their discussion about the disappearance of the prisoner. It wasn’t hard to guess that they were talking about Seldanna, though. From their whispered discussions, I could hear that Prince Arun suddenly developed an interest in her…
My guess, it was about the report about the God Forest. Probably they realized something extraordinary, and they probably linked it to the Eternals … or, as they knew, the mysterious merchants.
Either way, they might send another force to that. I used the connection to send an order to the trees, and the whole forest used nature mana to turn into treants, and started moving. I ordered them to join the tribal elves, before starting to migrate — with orders to take any other elven tribe they had seen with him and move to the inner parts of the plane.
Hopefully, their numbers would allow them to absorb the other tribes without Seldanna’s assistance. Though, even if they failed, the moving forest should be enough to confuse the Prince … and whoever was responsible for making Seldanna disappear.
I watched the soldiers search Seldanna for a while, only for them to fail. They had been using many mundane and magical means, but none worked.
Luckily, I didn’t rely on just mana. I used Divine Spark to create a path between me and Seldanna, tracing it toward the prison. To my surprise, even that didn’t work as smoothly as I hoped, giving an accurate read only when I managed to get a lucky break, and got closer to the entrance of her new prison.
“Fascinating,” I murmured as I realized the entrance of the prison was actually carved into the Tree of Life itself, which, from everything I had seen, was a heretical behavior for Elves. Though, while heretical, it was extremely useful. The chaotic dance of mana worked excellently to hide anything inside the prison, to the point that they didn’t even assign any guards, trusting the tree to keep the intruders away.
And, not for a wasteful reason. The secret path was actually filled with the same chaotic flow I felt earlier, threatening to erode me. It would have been scary if I didn’t experience much worse when I first arrived.
The elves weren’t traversing the chaos every time they walked, of course. On the wooden walls of the tunnel, I could see many etched wards, capable of temporarily protecting the tunnel. However, activating those would mean alerting the others.
Luckily, as a constant source of Nature mana, I could easily merge with the dance of nature mana, and the occasional Sparks that I collided with were easily dealt with.
{+4 Purified Divine Spark}
My objective was not to drain the Divine Spark, but I wasn’t going to bother trying to avoid every single scrap when absorbing was easier. And, it didn’t even harm the tree, as the floating crystallized pieces were clearly harmful to its general health.
And, the deeper I moved, the more I started to feel that the assistance was necessary. I was not in very deep compared to the general thickness of the tree, but still, I could feel something was wrong… I didn’t have any direct evidence … just a general feeling.
Before I could analyze that, I came across a door. barely a few hundred feet deep. Unlike the tunnel, the room was protected by active wards, ignoring the storm of mana that raged around. The wards were strong … but with my enhanced stats, barely enough to delay me for more than a second.
I found Seldanna alone, worried. “You —“ she gasped as she turned. “You’re here!”
A wave, and the chains that were holding her fall apart. She dashed forward immediately, hugging me. “Don’t worry, sweetie, I’m here,” I said, patting her back to calm her down, her arms tight around me.
I wasn’t in a hurry to make her move, as we were in the safest location. The one that imprisoned her here was confident that it was impossible to find the location, and ignored other disadvantages.
Including the fact that they couldn’t observe the location.
I felt safe, as even if they walked in, they wouldn’t send a big force, and I would have the absolute advantage. Worst came to worst, I could try to drain the tree of Divine Spark to get stronger. It would be risky, as I could feel the tree was already giving me a bad feeling, but it was not a concern I would take if I suddenly faced a deadly situation.
I hugged her for a while, letting her calm down, until I spoke. “Now, why don’t you tell me what happened since you arrived?”
“Really? Shouldn’t we escape first?” she said.
“No,” I answered as I waved my hand. “Believe me, this place is much safer than anywhere else we can find in the capital. And, since we’re here, we shouldn’t waste the opportunity to look around a bit.”
She looked doubtful, but she still said. “If you think that’s for the best,” she whispered.
I chuckled as I waved my hand, and a chair appeared in the otherwise empty room. I sat down, and pulled her down to my knee. She continued hugging, not wanting to avoid the proximity. “Now, tell me what happened since your arrival,” I said.
“That was confusing. First, some kind of commander tried to question me about the forest and how it suddenly managed to appear, and didn’t believe me when I explained it. He kept asking about a group of merchants,” she said, looking at me at this point.
“I know who they are asking about, but I’m not one of them,” I explained quickly. “The merchants are the ones that are supporting the undead. I discovered it very recently as well.”
She nodded, blushing slightly as she questioned me, but I let it slide. She had her concerns, viable ones. “Then, they mentioned one of their useless princes, and left me in my cell…”
“Not this one, right?”
“No,” she answered. “I was suddenly attacked by a magical rush, and I was immobilized. Then, a robed old man appeared, and for some reason, asked me which god I was working for, and why I was betraying them.” She stopped, snarling in anger. “Like I owe those smug entitled monsters any kind of loyalty in the first place.”
“Any idea why he asked you that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “He just used some kind of crystal on me, and based on the results, he started questioning.” In other words, he tried to drain her Divine Spark, but the amount of spark she had was the same. So, either he failed to drain, or stopped halfway intentionally. Either way, the mysterious interrogator — probably the high priest — used the crystal to assess the state of her Divine Spark, only to realize it was somewhere between Demigod and God — though the exact nature of the latter was still a mystery for me.
“Then, what happened?” I murmured as I found myself frowning. I suddenly felt a flicker, another line of Divine Spark connection establishing with her. It was soft, vague, and impossible to notice if she hadn’t been sitting on my lap.
“He mentioned something about sacrifices, forced me to eat some kind of fruit, and dragged me here. I was afraid of being poisoned, but I don’t feel anything like that,” she explained.
“I don’t know what it was, but I’m sure it wasn’t poison. I suspect it’s something much more interesting,” I murmured, letting my smile widen. “I think I need to check it carefully, without anything to intervene,” I said.
And pulled off her robe.
“H-here,” she stammered, shocked, not expecting. But it didn’t last long as she realized what her exact state of undress would lead to.
It was time to use Tantric once more.
{Strength: 16 Charisma: 22
Precision: 16 Perception: 16
Agility: 16 Manipulation: 22
Speed: 16 Intelligence: 16
Endurance: 16 Wisdom: 16}
{Purified Divine Spark: 342}
{Pseudo-HP: 8000 Mana: 15000}
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Light - Chosen 7.4
Nature - Chosen 10}
{MINIONS
Guardian God Forest - 1452}
Elven Priestess - 70}
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]
