Two [Elemental Surge] teleports and a ten minute headlong dash through the forest later we arrived at what could only be Uncle Galloway’s former grove. The trees surrounding it stood far taller than even their closest bits of competition, towering nearly five hundred feet in the air compared to the two hundred feet of their fellows. The effects of the [Forest Shaman]’s presence were obvious, as were the effects of his absence.

  The grove had to be at least a mile across, with six different kinds of fruit tree orchards growing beneath the boughs of the massive defender trees. [Essence Reading] let me know they were all Rare variants that shouldn’t have been able to grow there, but the [Forest Shaman]’s touch was obvious as they stood nearly double the height most of them should have with far more laden branches. It wasn’t all good in the grove, however.

  In the center of the grove, where a once powerful and majestic [Celestial Oak] stood, now a shriveled hulk of a thing dominated the space. The formerly amber bark had lost its luster and was now a deep, depressing, grey. My gaze traced up its height and I groaned at what had been lost. Gone were the balconies and slides I’d played on as a young boy and in their places were black iron grates and spiky protrusions stabbing both into the wood and out into the air.

  The foot of the tree was the worst, as far as I was concerned. Uncle Galloway’s prized [Topiary Lions] now stood bare of their leaves as they prowled the steps leading up to a new black iron gate that replaced the sweeping wooden entrance I remembered. Up against the gate stood a pair of black robed and hooded figures with massive blacked-out long axes hung over their shoulders as they guarded the entrance.

  All throughout the grove, a place I’d once been told would always be around to protect me, dozens of black robed figures roamed. Some were doing mundane things like picking fruit from the orchards, but others were working on hideous contraptions belching smoke and flames into the air. Said contraptions were a bit like the [Goblin War-Wagon] we’d found in the Dungeon a month ago, but instead of ramshackle steel plates strapped to a wooden wagon with a boiler bolted in the middle, these looked like tuned instruments of war.

  Has it really only been a month since the Dungeon? It feels like forever.

  “This is totally unacceptable.” Staring through the trees at the state of the grove, I growled to myself. “Their perversion of this place will not stand.” Part of me wanted to dive in, right there with Mindy on my shoulders, but I stopped myself before I took more than a few steps.

  A few deep breaths later, I turned and looked at my allies. We weren’t in the best shape and I knew it.

  “They’re beautiful.” Gabby’s eyes gleamed.

  My hackles rose. “I’m surprised at you, how coul–”

  “The fruit trees,” she shut down my indignation in an instant with her reverent tone, “they’re all so perfect. I think I gained a level just by looking at them for a few minutes. Can you imagine what I’d gain if I could actually spend time with them?” She shook herself out of it and looked over at me. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

  “Nothing important.” I turned to look at Ylsa, who nodded.

  “You’re in charge.” She stared me straight in the eyes. “I’ll do whatever you want, but I’m prioritizing keeping you alive over anything else.”

  A plan started percolating in the back of my mind on how we could do what we needed to in the grove while keeping our allies safe.

  “I can work with that.” I turned to look at Gabby. “Do you have any stealth abilities? I’m mostly looking for something that might let you, Raiju, and Mindy hide here at the edge of the grove while Ylsa and I go on a quick trip into the mess out there.”

  She raised a finger, hesitated, then put it down. “You know, that’s probably not a bad idea.” She pulled a Scroll from the bag at her hip, then slowly put it back. “I should just use my Daily.”

  “What’s a Daily?” I physically couldn’t stop myself from asking.

  “It’s not something you’ll ever really have to deal with, considering your insane Stats, but for us normal people,” she ran her hands up and down herself, “we usually have a Skill or two that have cooldowns that around a day long, so we call them Dailies.”

  Thinking back, I remembered Dad complaining about Mom’s lack of cooldowns and realized he probably had something he’d call a Daily if he knew the term. I really needed to sit down and talk with him at some point, but now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that!

  “OK, that makes sense.” I nodded. “What’s your Daily?”

  She took a few steps closer to the nearest [Barrier Oak]. “It’s called [Mother’s Embrace]. It lets me and up to five other people temporarily occupy an extra dimensional space within a plant.” She blushed. “I’ve only used it a few times, because if the plant were to be killed or destroyed, I’d go with it.” She slapped the massive tree appreciatively. “But that won’t be an issue with this big boy! He’s damn near indestructible, so we should be safe.”

  Unbeknownst to me, Ylsa had begun moving Raiju and Mindy’s unconscious forms toward the tree Gabby was standing beside, so when I turned around to look for her, I found her in the middle of the process.

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  “I was just about to say we should do that…nice work.” I blushed faintly before moving to help.

  Thirty seconds of giant wolf wrangling later, Gabby saluted me with a fist over her heart. “I’ll keep them safe while you do whatever it is you’re planning on doing.” She moved her hand to touch the tree beside her. “When you get back, I’ll pop us out so we can get moving right away.”

  “But how…?” I trailed off as she started chuckling.

  “It wouldn’t be much of a defensive Skill if I couldn’t see what was going around my hidey-hole.” She took a deep breath before letting it out long and slow. “[Mother’s Embrace].”

  In less than a second, she, Mindy, and Raiju disappeared from view. The Party Interface said they were fine, so I trusted Gabby’s Skill was working.

  Turning to face my remaining compatriots, I slipped [Night’s Fury] onto my right forearm and slowly tested the action to deploy the blade. The foot long blade seemed to defy the light’s very existence as it seemed to drink in the light rather than reflect it as it should have.

  “I guess that’s what level two hundred Wraith Dragon parts gets you.” I let the blade sink back into the housing. “My plan is pretty simple, I want to keep this a stealth operation as long as possible. Volta, are you confident in the new Skills you unlocked after your evolution yet? I can’t think of any of your old Skills you’d even be able to use stealthily.”

  The Storm Elf produced a short blade of concentrated black lightning from a sheath at her waist before stowing it once more. “My new Skills from the evolution are mostly big and flashy, as most proper Storm Elves have been since time began, but I did learn [Wind’s Whisper]. It should at least let me get away with sneaking around.” She looked down at her feet. “I’m not exactly used to walking around yet and flying eats Mana now, so I’m getting used to it.” Her face hardened. “Don’t worry about me though, I won’t hold you back.”

  Stepping forward, I patted her shoulder. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Before I could address Ylsa, she beat me to the punch. “I was already pretty stealthy before my [Agility] nearly doubled, no big heavy armor for me.” She flexed her impressive biceps. “Stealth takedowns? I can do that.”

  I beamed at the pair. “Let’s do some planning then. We don’t have all day.”

  ***

  Over the next twenty minutes the three of us observed the guards’ paths of travel and slowly built up a plan for how we would make our way through the scattered defenders. Our biggest problems were the war machines, which [Essence Reading] identified as [Consuming Colossi]. Their defenses looked impressive, but as long as no one was inside them, they were useless.

  During our time observing, I’d only seen one person even enter one of them, but they didn’t come out again for nearly ten minutes, which made them far too much of a wildcard not to deal with them immediately. Conveniently for us, the area containing the majority of them abutted the forest, likely so they could gather wood for the forges in the same area more easily.

  The three of us moved through the woods as quietly as we could, but not before I filled my last floating Skill slot.

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  Sun Armor

  Arcane Cannon

  Sunburst

  Raging Torrent

  Silent Step]

  With [Silent Step] deadening the sound of my footsteps, I led the way through the forest with Volta twenty feet behind me and Ylsa thirty feet behind her. I reveled in the freedom of the forest. I’d played in the glade most of the times we’d visited, but when I was nine Uncle Galloway hid a toy in the area around it and sent me out to look for it. Six hours later, I’d returned to the residence triumphant with a new dagger made of [Ironwood] clutched in my mud caked fist.

  Mom hadn’t been happy with me, but Dad and Uncle Galloway had laughed their asses off until her glare silenced them.

  Shaking off the memories, I slid through the shadows cast by the enormous [Defender Oaks] making up the edge of the glade. We worked our way clockwise so the sun would be in the eyes of our targets as we attacked. It may have been a risk to each take our own target initially, but we didn’t really have a choice, there were half a dozen targets just in the vehicle pool. If we didn’t all do our part, there’s no way we didn’t get caught.

  I snuck past a cloaked smith with bare arms working a forge and messaged Ylsa to take that one when I gave the signal. Next was a slight fellow working beneath one of the [Colossi]. He had on a bandolier of tools we’d already seen clatter to the ground multiple times and each time his fellows rushed to his aid, so we had to take him out where he was or the jig would be up.

  That left me with the most dangerous target, a seven foot tall black cloaked figure with a black oiled greatsword thrown over one shoulder. With no apparent pattern, he would occasionally burst into motion toward something unseen dozens of yards away and slash at nothing before slowly returning to his former location over the course of a minute or so. He’d just returned, so I was relatively confident he wouldn’t do the same thing again immediately, but my backup plan was bad, so I really hoped I didn’t end up needing it.

  We all got into position and I counted down in the Party chat so we could all strike simultaneously. ‘Five, four, three, two, one, go!’

  Just before I went to slide the blade of [Night’s Fury] into the base of my target’s skull, I triggered [Flash Focus] and was immediately grateful I’d done so. Just outside the cordoned off vehicle area a robed figure was walking into view with his hand raised in greeting. His eyes went wide as he spotted me just as my blade began to sink into my target’s spinal column.

  In a panic, I did the only thing I could think of. I produced a [Psyknife] and sent it hurtling toward my observer’s forehead even as I let my perception of time return to normal. A few things happened at once after that. [Night’s Fury] severed my initial target’s spinal column, killing him instantly as [Assassinate] triggered and a blinking new notification in the corner of my vision told me its secondary property triggered properly and I was now the new proud owner of an [Assassinate] Skill of my very own.

  A tenth of a second later, my psychic blade struck the interloper’s forehead and he fell down like a marionette whose strings had been cut with his mouth wide open, but no noise was coming out. I hurried to produce another pair of [Psyknives] and hurled them at his prone form as I activated [Distant Legerdemain] and strained my mental muscles to pull him the last ten feet into the vehicle pool.

  Dropping as low as I could while still moving quickly, I darted over to check if he was still alive and found his heart had stopped. A few more stabs with a [Psyknife] later, I was confident he was dead and moved for my next target, a [Battlefield Mechanic] working on the armored plating of the nearest war machine. She was smaller than her fellows, but I’d seen her bend over backward to dodge a rogue fireball from her metallic charge and knew she could move far faster than her attire would lead you to believe.