HOLY BEING - Season 9 episode 13

When a male Dryad tried to hit on Lith, his patience was on the verge of snapping and so was the Dryad’s spine.

Yet learning about the Sapling’s existence sent a shiver down everyone’s spine. Suddenly the situation had become much more complicated. Lith and Kalla shared a worried look, forcing her into action.

“Thanks for your cooperation. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have a job to do.” Kalla said as the small crowd of plant folks opened in front of the Wight as if she was carrying explosives on her back, freeing her human companions from their respective suitors.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Friya asked, patting Kalla’s head and appreciating its odd warmth.

“Yes. If what the plant folks have told us is the truth, then this city itself is a priceless treasure. If Erlik becomes its Sovereign and gains access to the knowledge Laruel holds, traveling undead will be the least of the Kingdom’s problems.” Phloria felt the dire need of a shower and to leave Laruel as soon as possible, but abandoning her sister was out of the question.

“Indeed. I wonder if Marth didn’t mention the possibility because it’s a secret or simply because even he is unaware of it.” With the stakes getting higher, Lith inwardly cursed his inability to overcome Invigoration’s limits.

He had already asked Faluel how she could visualize life forces with her breathing technique instead of using the tier five spell Scanner, but the Hydra had refused to share her secrets.

Friya shrugged, taking her communication amulet out of her dimensional amulet to contact Marth, just to discover that even though she was channeling her mana through the acorn Lyta had given her, the device was still dead.

The group reached the treehouse and only when they were in front of where the door was supposed to be, did they realize how big the damage it had sustained was. The bark was of pale white with only a few brown areas.

Even though the air was fresh, the wood smelled like it had been soaked for a long time, making it swell in several places. The base of the tree was covered in mold, and even the rejuvenating abilities of the Sapling were having a hard time fending off the infestation.

The treehouse was also completely sealed. There was no door nor window, making it look like a giant rotting tree. Lith took his acorn out of the sealed box where he kept it, making sure to not touch it with his bare hands but only through the gloves conjured by his Orichalcum armor.

The thought of being spied upon by Leannan was bad, but if the acorn actually belonged to a World Sapling, a most likely Awakened being of untold age and restless hunger for knowledge, then even the simplest interaction with it might expose his hybrid nature.

The moment Lith’s acorn touched the white bark, his worst fears became true. Lith could feel an unknown energy passing right under his feet that used the acorn as a focus while the outline of a door formed in front of his eyes.

‘Fuck me sideways! This is worse than I thought. The Acorn is part of the Sapling and the Sapling has granted Leannan part of its authority. The closest comparison I can draw is that the plants’ city-state is like an academy and its Sovereign is akin to a Headmaster.

‘The question is, who actually controls who?’ Lith thought while he pulled the door open. A disgustingly sweet scent assaulted their senses, making even Kalla cough.

The space inside the tree was completely empty. There was no trace of its previous owner. Only the signs of an intense struggle remained. The walls were charred in several places and several centimeters deep nicks were present even on the ceiling.

The inside was even worse than the outside, with the wood randomly turning from ill white to rotting black to healthy brown and with irregularly placed swollen patches that gave everyone the impression of being inside an agonizing beast.

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The house reacted to their presence by attempting to bloom a table and a few seats, but unlike in Marth’s apartments, the process was slow and painful. The pavement and the sprouts squeaked in an almost human way that gave the group the creeps.

The old wood’s screaming ended only when the makeshift furniture collapsed under its own weight, almost making the floor follow suit. In the effort to provide to its masters a minimum of comfort, the house had consumed most of the flooring’s wood, but being incapable of regenerating it fast enough, the floor had become paper-thin.

“Easy, big fella. Just rest and recover.” Kalla said while using a healing spell on the nearest wall and a diagnostic spell on the floor. The former was sucked like water poured on the desert, whereas the latter gave an unexpected response.

Kalla didn’t see any wound or illness, she only felt pain. Something that light magic wasn’t supposed to be able to do.

“Okay. Let’s do our best.” Lith’s eyes flared with mana as he activated Life Vision, Invigoration, and the tier five spell, Scanner.

Friya used her best diagnostic spells, while Phloria took out her Royal Forgemaster silvery wand to scan the area for any enchanted item that Erlik might have left behind.

She had come to Lith’s same conclusion and even though her means as a Healer were inferior, she was far from resourceless.

The short time she needed to chant her first spell what was allowed her to notice Lith becoming pale as a ghost a second before he doubled over in pain. She caught him in time before his face met the floor.

“Are you okay?” She asked while lifting and picking him up in her arms as if he was just a baby.

Her act of kindness prevented him from puking his guts out. Lith was plenty capable of multi-tasking, but what he had not considered was that the tree-house was his biggest, most complex patient ever.

Just like the tissue samples he had previously examined, each cell sent him a feedback, causing his three detection means to give him a sensory overload.

From the inside of the house, Life Vision perceived the green of the plants, a lingering black shadow of death, which was unclear if due to the tree precarious state or the previous presence of the undead, and an unknown color brown.

Normally, Lith would have worried about Life Vision detecting an unknown color. Yet because of Invigoration, the pain of the tree was reverberating through his body as if it was his own, while Scanner was feeding him a massive amount of information that was driving his mind insane.

Whereas a human body appeared as something made with a mix of lego bricks and an erector set, the tree was like countless streams that crossed paths with each other several times.

Each interaction changed their shape, size, and color, giving Lith the impression of looking at an Escher painting while using stroboscopic lights and while being under the effects of LSD.

Solus would have incurred in the same fate if the lack of a physical body had made her used to employ her long-distance mystical senses and share Lith’s physical perception.

“Now I do.” He said. Phloria had unknowingly dispelled both Scanner and Invigoration, relieving the pressure on Lith’s brain.