Hey, Everyone!
Are you ready for the next part of Mary’s Orange Seed Trial? I’m calling it that because she has to plant an orange seed at the end. So far, she and her companion Aurum have entered a cave and ran away from a jelly. I hope here is where the real action starts?
Content warning: The text below contains descriptions that might be upsetting to some readers (blood, injury). Proceed at your own caution.
“Ok, that wasn’t so bad,” Aurum declared. “We almost got killed by a giant jelly but look, now there are two doors to choose from!”
He was grinning happily, finally having emptied his alcohol flask.
Mary inspected the two doors from where she was standing. The first was big, metal and covered with deep scratches, as if something had tried to claw its way through, unsuccessfully. The other wasn’t as much a door as the remains of one, pieces of wood and nails covering the floor as if shattered by a great force. From out the other room. Which they probably had to go in next. Now, how do they get there without risking being shredded like the door?
“Mary, Mary, Maaary!” Aurum dragged out. “Why so tense? Come here, lemme do something for that!”
He reached out to rub her shoulders but Mary just waved him off. Her brain was straining to think of a way to predict the future or see through walls.
Then she got it.
Her Unseen Servant was the first gift she asked of her Patron. She named him Page because she initially conjured him to carry her books and make her tea while she read. She liked having someone around to talk to, even though sometimes that had upset the librarian.
Now, Page was going to be her invisible scout. She conjured him and sent him to the dangerous room with the task to take something out. Maybe that way they were going to guess what was out there. Page came back with a small black cauldron. Something had dried out on the bottom a long time ago. Maybe the room was a kitchen? Mary sent the Servant for something else. He brought a tiny brass scale, then an empty vial, a pair of safety goggles and a magnifying glass. The growing pile of stuff on the corridor floor was starting to form a certain picture in Mary’s head.
“Look, this is boooring” Aurum grumbled, frustrated by her lack of attention. “There’s probably nothing in the stupid…”
As he was talking, he stepped into the doorframe and instantly jerked in pain. A long wooden spike had shot out of the room and pierced his chest.
Mary screamed. She felt a thick layer of ice cover her body and realized that, more by instinct than anything else, she had used the Armor of Agathys spell to protect herself. "But what about Aurum," her mind screamed. "Is he…"
An awful scratching, like nails on metal, attracted her attention. Slowly, a tree-like creature emerged from the other room. It was tall and thin and had a crown of thorns which was almost too wide to pass through the frame. Almost. It looked at its arm, sticking out of Aurum's chest, and retracted it back to its side.
The bard stumbled back and coughed. He was alive!
Wincing in pain, he stood up and patched up himself with a Healing Word. Then he took out his sword and with a big swing chopped off the branch which had impaled him a second ago.
The tree didn’t even flinch. It took its--now severed--arm and used it to whack Aurum's head. The bard responded with another swing of the sword, this time leaving the tree without one of its legs.
The creature rumbled. It looked hurt. It jumped straight up in the air and crashed on the ground, burying its remaining leg in the floor and planting its roots through the stone of the corridor. Pulsing energy started moving through its body from the ground up and, slowly but surely, its arm began to grow back.
“It’s *healing!” Mary cried out. “The ground is healing it!”
But before they could do anything for that, its crown swelled up and the thorns exploded in every direction. They shot in the air, pierced Aurum’s cloak and skin, thrust into the walls, and, for Mary’s fortune, shattered in the Armor of Agathus without hurting her.
The tree got quiet for a second. So did Aurum and Mary gave him a worried look. She didn’t have any way of helping him, no healing spells or potions, nor any of Bruno’s medical skills. The only thing she could do was help defeat the tree. And she had to be smart about it, brute force alone wasn’t going to do it.
She looked at her surroundings. What did she have at hand? She had Aurum, badly hurt. She had a walking tree, dangerous, self-healing from the earth. So, number one, she had to remove it from its healing source. She looked at the room from which the creature had escaped. An old alchemy laboratory, judging by all the stuff Page had brought out. Only, its floor was reflecting Aurum’s Light in a peculiar way.
Because it was covered in metal.
Mary gathered all her Eldritch power and sent out a blast, pushing the tree away from the stone floor and into the lab. Its roots broke away and it fell backwards, separating from the earth and stepping on the metal.
Number one was a success. Now, for number two: destroying the tree.
Mary looked around the creature. There was a table at the far end of the laboratory and on it there were two vials of liquid – one bright red and one turquoise. Mary made Page bring her the red. It looked like fire.
But while the red vial was moving through the air, the tree started moving again. It stood up and made a step in Aurum's direction. Mary couldn’t risk another attack.
“Go, Page!” she yelled. “Throw the vial right at the tree!”
The red glass flew in the air. Crashed into the creature’s trunk. The red liquid splashed onto the bark and started smoking. In seconds, a hellish flame arose, engulfing the living tree, it creaked and crackled, and filled the air with the smell of burning wet wood. Then it toppled on the ground and smouldered for a minute more, until it was finally gone.
Mary ran towards Aurum.
I wrote down another fight :) Am I getting better or worse at this? I can’t tell.
While I was writing, I was reflecting on Mary’s behaviour and realizing how selfish everything she does in this trial is :) It’s her thing, to hell with Bruno’s safety and Aurum’s self-confidence :D It’s her time to shine, dammit! :D
I’m sure she gets better down the line.
I hope she gets better down the line.
Anyway.
Thank you for reading!
Hope you liked it!
Have fun and take care!
P.S. Here's the next one :)