VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 66: An Orb worth Pondering
Thick vines wrapped around the Trunk of a Living Tree, restraining it’s branches and stopping it from launching its flaming apples.
Waving his hand like a conductor, Figg controlled the vines like they were extensions of himself and beyond the confines of the original spell. While the original use was just to bind, Figg commanded the vines to plunge themselves into the body of the Living Tree.
He reinforced their tips, turning them into tendriled spears that stabbed into the Living Tree’s trunk, before snaking their way through the depths. His glowing green eyes narrowed slightly, before he clenched his fist tight.
The Vines inside the Living Tree burst out from it, in different places than where they had burrowed in, and then all at once pulled outwards. Cracks spider-webbed across the trunk, before the floral being shattered into a hail of splinters as he was ripped apart from the inside out.
Figg dropped his hand and heaved in exhaustion. He glanced at the other two, checking if they needed his assistance, before shaking his head with a smile. It was just a few Baboon’s left, nothing they wouldn’t be able to handle.
The group had been running in this dungeon for close to two hours, even going back on themselves once or twice just to get into even more fights, instead of trying to save themselves for the boss.
Of course they didn’t go all out on the basic mobs, as there was no need to dump disposable items on them, but Figg felt that just this dungeon run gave him more experience and understanding with his magic than the last few days in the game combined.
This forest seemed especially good for him. Being surrounded by all this nature didn’t just feed his understanding of it more, but it just felt right to him. This was what he had wanted out of this game, and he loved every second of it.
So much so that he was dreading the moment when he would have to log out and go back to normal. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮
Clambering onto what was left of the tree, Figg stuck his hand into the opening he had torn into existence, and started to root around in search of a Source Remnant. In their time, he had only found one.
So, when his hand brushed against something solid, smooth and decidedly not wooden within this Not-so-Living-Anymore Tree, his heart skipped a beat and he nearly jumped for joy.
However, when he pulled out his prize, he could only stare at it in utter confusion.
’Is this... amber? That does come from tree resin after all... But only when it’s fossilised. What in the world is it doing inside of one of these?’
He rotated the amber slowly, inspecting every inch of it. It was a perfectly smooth sphere, roughly the size of a snooker ball. It was too perfect and spherical to be natural, yet he couldn’t see any signs of it being crafted or carved.
It simply... was the most perfect sphere he had seen in his life. The only thing ruining this ball of pure amber, was a dot of crimson in the very centre of the ball, roughly the size of a marble.
Blood. That’s what his mind immediately went to, not just from the colour but because he remembered a movie that had a plot point revolving blood being preserved in amber. But what blood it belonged to and why it was there, still eluded him.
As if to add to the mystery of this object, a message flashed before his eyes the moment he was finished looking at it, as if it knew that he was satisfied by his discovery.
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[The Forest has heard your pleas and has noticed your dedication.]
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It was a message that was dreadfully ominous, and completely unhelpful in informing him what this was. Oh well, Loot was Loot. Shrugging slightly, Figg placed the orb into his bag and searched the corpse again, actually yelling in excitement when he found a Source Remnant inside the tree this time.
Kissing his prized loot, Figg stuffed it into his bag and harvested the rest of the goodies. Flaming apples were good for all, but the bark and other components of its body were perfect for progressing his Eutierria stat, which was the Druid’s equivalent of Belladonna’s Esoterica stat.
Just by studying different plants and learning as much as they could about them, among other things, would lead to an increase in a Druid’s Eutierria stat. Surprisingly, Figg’s started rather high compared to others, but that wasn’t the reason he picked Druid.
With everything collected, Figg quickly forgot about the strange Orb as he rejoined the group and headed deeper into the dungeon. Yet there were no more monsters or encounters waiting for them.
Instead, they came across a familiar set of imposing metal doors that were covered in vines and other overgrowth. An ominous aura flowed out from the cracks in the door, which would have been much more imposing had they not already faced this boss once before, but even still they could appreciate the aesthetics that had been built just for this.
They were just about to enter, when Vestra suddenly cursed as she looked at the screen floating in front of her.
"Crap! I’m getting a bio warning. Do you guys mind if we take ten, just to refresh?"
"Sure thing, I got all mine sorted last time, so I can keep watch and make sure nothing jumps us if you both want to go." Belladonna suggested with a smile, glancing towards Figg.
He considered it for a moment, before nodding softly with a laugh.
"Yeah, I probably should. I would hate to beat the boss only to log out and find I had pee’d my pants."
With a little confirmation between each other, Figg and Vestra got themselves into a more defensible position before their bodies went limp.
When Figg next opened his eyes, he was still surrounded by plant-life. But gone was the vibrant green that he loved, replaced by the withered yellow and pained black that he had grown used to.
He brushed his thumb over the plant nearest to him with a deep sigh. He could almost see a black tint on his thumb as it drained the life from his beloved plants, but it was all just in his head.
Clambering from his chair, he left his bedroom and headed into the rest of his apartment, which was also filled with dead or dying plants. Leaving behind the one plant in his bedroom that had a tiny dot of green amongst the withered yellow, right where his thumb had brushed it.
