Broken Lands

Leo carefully poured water around the roots of the tiny tree, then moved on to the next tree to repeat the task. This was not what he had in mind when they went into the World Tree and was decidedly not what he expected of a “Challenge Chain” that would let them climb above the Roots and reach more difficult Challenges.

The first few steps of the Challenge Chain were fun, too. They found an abandoned house and explored it, only to find out that it wasn’t an abandoned house at all. It was an abandoned fake house with a secret door hidden in a wall.

Okay, it wasn’t quite that simple.

They probably wouldn’t have noticed the house at all if it wasn’t for the whispering shadow-monsters that chased them into it. Leo didn’t have a problem with them, even though they were intangible; he knew himself well enough to know that he was a whimsical teenager who got himself into trouble, not an impulsive brat who dragged everyone around him into situations that would get them killed. He also knew how to spontaneously cast light spells which could harm the shadows.

Okay, he overdid the spell a little and temporarily blinded all three of them. It wore off!

And he didn’t use all of his mana on the spell. Most of it, yeah, but it also dealt with most of the shadows! It wasn’t his fault that the ones that were left were enough to make Reko and Arvinn run. He was just keeping up!

The scorch marks from his spell would fade. They’d probably fade pretty quickly, actually; this was basically a dungeon, after all. The flowers they hadn’t picked … well, it definitely wasn’t worth trying to go back for them even if the shadows were gone.

The first building they found was locked. They didn’t have time to deal with that properly, not with the really hurtful shadows chasing them, so Leo spent the rest of his mana on changing the lock so it would open.

It, ah, melted. But it still opened so that was fine!

The three friends hurried inside and closed the door. Reko managed to block the door with some of the furniture from the entrance while Arvinn set up a couple of Smooth-Burning Torches that should keep shadow monsters from entering through any cracks Reko missed. After that, they just had to wait out the night. Reko was confident that the monsters he called Whispering Doubts would have to hide once the sun rose.

The house was a different zone from the bellflowers and Whispering Doubts, so they were probably safe even without their precautions, but none of them wanted to count on that. Leo knew he was fine, but both Reko and Arvinn looked shaken and he knew they’d feel better if there was no chance of seeing the shadows again.

They really shouldn’t have been exploring at night, but there were some plants Arvinn wanted to find that only grew in the waning moonlight. Who knew that Night-nodding bellflowers would be surrounded by Whispering Doubts?

Leo certainly didn’t, and he was pretty sure Arvinn didn’t either. It was Reko that recognized them, and Reko hadn’t known about the bellflowers.

None of them were ready to sleep, so they explored the house instead. It was kind of creepy, really, because it was in the middle of nowhere but looked very much like an Archon’s house from the Moonlit Branches. Archons rarely lived alone and when they did, they didn’t live in a house that was … well, it looked like it was just abandoned one day, fully furnished but with no food or anything spoilable.

It was really pretty poor work compared to what the World Tree usually did, but more importantly there was nothing to fight. That was just weird; most zones had something. Well, other than safe zones and a safe zone wouldn’t have been locked. Safe zones required more effort to get into than that, like helping out the “homeowner” or something.

Leo expected mimics. There were no mimics. It was kind of disappointing, really. Mimics were some of the best monsters, but they were unusual - and when they did show up, there was usually only one. He kept his hope up for the entire time they searched the house, but … no mimics.

Neither Reko nor Arvinn had ever heard of mimics. It was frustrating; everyone knew about them back home even though they were rare. Were they just not a thing in the World Tree? That would be such a waste!

Instead, when he was … uh … beating on the wall in the basement to see if it sounded hollow, yeah, that was the right way to put it … his fist actually went through the thin shell that made up the fake wall. There had to be a “proper” way to get past that wall, but the trio never found it. There wasn’t any reason to, not when it was already open enough to easily clear the fake wall out of the way.

Inside the wall was a set of shelves and a hidden underground passage. The underground passage explained everything: this wasn’t a real house at all. It was just supposed to look like one for some reason.

Arvinn was immediately convinced that they’d stumbled onto the beginning of a Challenge chain. The tunnel went somewhere and it would obviously be a different zone because they’d already “solved the puzzle” of the house. The fact that it was … uh … completely deliberate didn’t matter; all that mattered was that they got through it. Sometimes there were choices that mattered but there were always supposed to be multiple ways through a puzzle, and if you could break it that meant it was a valid solution.

Leo liked hearing that. He was much better at breaking things than most people. Okay, he wasn’t as strong as his brother or as good at magic as any of his siblings, but he was also only sixteen. He had a lot more growing to do and they had years of practice before he was born. He’d catch up; it was just going to take time.

What magic he did have, however, was perfect for breaking things. It wasn’t obvious to most people, but the easiest change to bring about was exactly that. Well, technically, it was entropy, but entropy was just a fancy word for “things break” as far as Leo was concerned.

Leo stayed out of the argument about whether or not the bellflowers and Whispering Doubts were the first Challenge in the Challenge chain or if they needed to have two more zones instead of one. It sounded like that really only mattered if they wanted to move up to the first branch, and he was pretty sure they should stay in the roots. If you had to run from monsters on one level of a dungeon, you didn’t go farther in; you stopped and pulled back. Oh, you might clear the rest of the area and even deal with those monsters after you recovered, sometimes that worked, but you didn’t go down. Or up, in this case. He hadn’t been in many dungeons, but that was just basic common sense.

He decided he’d bring it up when they finished arguing. Or maybe when they next headed into the World Tree, if they did manage to earn their way higher. He checked out the shelves instead.

The shelves were empty other than a small burlap sack with a weathered note pinned to it.

The sack was not a mimic. Darn it.

He checked out the note first, of course; that was a basic precaution. Sometimes dungeons put strange stuff in sacks and if there was a note, it meant you needed to know what was on it before you opened the bag.

The note was written in Bridge, which made it easy to read.

Only in the right conditions can the seed of Yggdrasil germinate.

The young sprouts attract danger and opportunity in equal measure.

The gift of Memory given freely enlightened a treasure for all of Arcatiz.

Give a gift of yourself as the sprouts grow if you seek Yggdrasil’s favor.

Leo frowned. The note was instructions, but they weren’t complete. What were the right conditions? How were you supposed to give a gift?

He glanced down the hallway. If the instructions weren’t clear, that probably meant they didn’t need to be; it was probably something that would be obvious if they moved forward.

With that settled, there was no reason not to open the sack. It ought to hold tree seeds, at least if he was right about Yggdrasil being the World Tree. He was pretty sure the name was right.

The sack was filled with seeds that glowed with mana. They were shaped almost like feathers, but they definitely weren’t feathers. In fact, other than the color, they looked familiar. He pulled a few out, then let them fall. They spun as they fell, which clinched it: they were just like helicopter seeds, except that helicopter seeds were dry and brown while these were colorful even though they were also dry. He wasn’t sure what tree helicopter seeds came from, but they were all over Aki’s dungeon, where he grew up.

Leo sighed and packed the seeds back into the bag. Reko and Arvinn didn’t seem to notice. He gave them a couple more minutes to argue before he interrupted and pointed out that it didn’t matter; they should follow the Challenge wherever it went, whether or not it was a Challenge chain. Somehow, that worked; both Reko and Arvinn seemed to think they’d won.

For some reason, neither of them seemed to be able to read Bridge. That was weird; it was a trade language and that meant everyone who planned to travel offworld or delve spoke it back home. All Leo could guess was that maybe interplanetary travel was rare here; if they planned to only make stuff for people from Arcatiz, knowing Suras was enough.

The tunnel led down, back up, and then around in a curve before ending in a ladder. Arvinn spent the entire trip telling the story of Mimir and the World Tree. It was almost exactly the same story as the one the Prelate told the day after they arrived, though Arvinn didn’t mention the Guide. The colorful glowing helicopter tree seeds were apparently Hearthtree seeds, just like the World Tree was supposed to be. She also claimed that Memory was Mimir, because the World Tree was a Hearthtree blessed by Mimir.

It didn’t quite add up but it was more than close enough to work for a legend. Leo still wasn’t sure what they were supposed to do; trees took a long time to grow, so surely that couldn’t be it?

Above the ladder, a short entryway held another set of shelves. This time, the shelves held gardening supplies - gloves, a watering can, a garden claw, and a trowel. It was not nearly enough stuff to manage a real garden, at least not one that wasn’t already prepared.

The floor below the gardening supplies had a stack of burlap bags. This time, there was no note and they didn’t hold seeds. Instead, all they held was dirt. Okay, it was magical dirt, but it was still dirt.

Leo didn’t know how to garden. Neither did the two Archons, but it looked like they were going to get to learn.