Chapter 60: Chapter 60: End of the Beginning Part 1/5

Book1, Volume 6

Chapter 60

Little Ceri flew to and fro across Havenscent Meadow, happily tootling as she gathered sweet-scented flowers and colorful rocks that were round and smooth, carrying them to Tundri in her small front arms; Tundri's helping serpenvine hands gladly accepted Ceri's efforts. placing them inside his wagon space.

The sound of flowing water soon caught Tundri's attention as he looked up to see that their little gathering adventure led them near the river which flowed from the north side's waterfall pond.

Tundri began to trombone a series of musical 'wahs', evoking one of his skills as the energy within him flowed causing small ripples to appear on his round watery belly.

His 'Wahs' reaching a soft crescendo as a small trio of purple and golden honey-hued figures jumped out of his watery belly, growing to the size of footballs, as their long flowing lotus petaled fins swished to and fro like majestic wings as they swam through the air like water.

The trio of 'flying' lotus fish scouted about the area around Tundri, finding herbs, fruits, nuts, and flora; Wrapping them up in one of their many pairs of beautiful fins and bringing them back to Tundri as he gathered them with his serpenvine hands which splashed out of his watery belly.

As the serpenvines retreated back into Tundri's belly pond with their small treasures placing them in the pantry or storage room (depending on the item gathered) the flowery fish scouts splished into the river to continue their scavenger hunt.

Seeing the little scouts diving into the gently flowing river, little Ceri excitedly chased after coming to a floating stop above as she looked into the clear blue water below. Her eyes opened wide as she spotted some...things, strange things moving slowly about on the bottom of the river.

These things were almost as big as her; The upper half of their bodies were covered in long soft colorful strands of flora making them look an awful lot like fuzzy caterpillars. Their bottom halves were partially transparent and gelatinous like slugs. Atop their heads sprouted three stalks tipped with dark-hued eyeballs.

They were very cute... in a creepy sort of way.

A mischievous glint flashed across Ceri's eyes as she dove into the river with a splish, tootling underwater as she gathered up the first of many of those cutely creepy fuzzy underwater... worm slimes; Images of Wylla's first 'meeting' with these new found friends bubbled in her playful mind.

But these... slirmes weren't the only watery beasties gathered, a variety of fishes, flowery urchins, and types of crayfishes (all part flora like every beastie found in the Goddess Sylvenori's created starting area) were also added to Tundri's watery belly, shrinking down to sizes smaller than a pinkie finger as they were added into his watery belly turned aquarium.

While Ceri and the lotus fish scouts were exploring the river below, Tundri was busy sending his serpenvine hands way over to the other side of the river to gather flora from the outer edges of the unexplored western forest, which included certain sapling trees that would definitely bring a smile to Wylla's face; Tuttle Tree saplings.

(This was thanks to the Goddess Sylvenori's quest blessing which, amongst other things, allowed his serpenvine hands to reach further than normal.)

Gathering as they went, the happy duo followed the river south into the Desparu Swamp Forest where they came upon a group of Swampweed Gators in one of the many ponds.

Tundri approached the wary group without fear, releasing a sweet honey scent in the air and a series of 'Wahs' which the beasties seemed to understand (triggering another benefit of the special blessing they had received for their quest).

The gators made low rumbling growl like sounds in response, calmly swimming into the waiting arms of Tundri's serpenvine hands.

As this was happening below, Ceri was busy tootling up above as she led a group of fluffy spotted flying Womlynx bats into their new temporary home.

Hissing sounds soon resounded from beyond the dark wiggling curtain of leaf laden desparu tree branches; Ceri exited Tundri's belly pond and froze in the air the moment she heard the sounds. Tilting her head to get a better listen, a smile lit up her face in recognition and she sped off, breaking through the squirming desparu tree drapes, tootling loudly for Tundri to follow.

By the time Tundri caught up and made his appearance known, Ceri was happily having her second family reunion, tootling excitedly to her family while nuzzling them.

Not wanting to disturb them, Tundri began gathering porcu shrubs, mushrooms, and another Skunktail Reed (which didn't spray him with its vile stench thanks to a combination of his Green Thumb and Gardenheart skills).

After 10 minutes had passed, Ceri led her family into Tundri's wagon space, settling them down in the newly added expanded space that was created especially for the quest; This new spatial section was absolutely huge and added onto the other side of the kitchen allowing it to be seen through both the watery window above the sink and the new doorway found on each side of the kitchen's wall.

The new area was wonderfully modeled to look like the inside of a large wooden boat with a magical forest created upon the hardwood floor.

Happy with the knowledge that her family was now comfortably settled in, an image of a certain young friend popped up into Ceri's mind... So she rushed through the air, splashing out of Tundri's watery belly, issuing a string of tootles as she began to lead Tundri to a certain ghostrose covered hut located on the outskirts of a certain village in order to invite her little friend along.

As Tundri and Ceri wended their way through the swampy forest towards their newly added goal, Wylla was carefully listening to her surroundings.

Soft sounds of constant rustling rained down from above causing Wylla to look up into the dark canopy, eyes glowing.

It was hard to see the beast scuttling about up there; Its body hidden in the Desparu Tree's leafy branches but its stealthy movements were seen through as Wylla's honey gold eyes focused on the beast's blackish-red aura marred with writhing stripes of lime.

Wylla lifted her arm, spidery lotus tipped wand in hand and aimed. A small burst of golden-green light flashed from the wand's spidery lotus flower; A sap filled seed dart streaked through the air towards its target as leafy firefly-like wings sprouted from the seed's body.

SKREE!

A screech of pained surprise rang out as an eight-legged freak..y looking beast fell from above; Wylla's eyes tracking its fast sprawling descent, her foot tapping the ground as a sharp earth flora spike burst up from the ground.... directly under the falling spidoll... SPLISH!

Wylla turned her head away from the impaled spidoll whose many legs twitched in its final throes of death.

“Just 2 Kavi left,” Wylla muttered to herself, lightly tapping her wand against the palm of her free hand as her antenna pulsed scanning the area in a sphere around her. Her eyes glowed searching the swampy area in front for the final two foes of this training simulation.

She continued to think out loud about the current training game she was in, not a bit worried about alerting the last of her remaining foes.

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“Either all of these beasties have gotten a lot weaker or I've become much stronger since ranking up... because every beast is quickly dying with just a spell or two. Making it pointless to DOT them with my hexes and curses so...

I guess I should raise the difficulty in the next round to all rank 1 elites otherwise I won't get the chance to use my new spells... which was the whole point of this training session.”

With mind made up, Wylla's orchid butterfly wings fluttered as she ran about the simulated Desparu Swamp Forest, quickly locating and 'snapdragon-ing' the last two Kavi targets, ending the round.

The Syldrake Pagoda's dojo training interface screen popped up as Wylla began to change the settings, preparing for another round as she walked towards the starting ring.

Should I make one? She silently asked herself considering the odds of beating one... of beating a rank 1 three-man boss-type beastie.

She looked down at the wand in her hand, a smile on her face as she recalled walking up to the weapons rack when she first entered the dojo, happy to find that both her wand and staff had upgraded as well.

Her newly upgraded wand not only increased her constitution, wisdom, and intelligence by 3 points now but more importantly, it also increased her casting speed by 20% as well as the speed at which her spells moved.

As for her staff, the attribute increase was even greater due to it being a two-handed weapon; At least that's the reason she thought of that made sense to her since the increase was plus 7 points to constitution, wisdom, and intelligence. And a whopping 10% buff to spell power which increased the power of all her spells, not just the combat ones.

So now she had a weapon specialized for speed and one for power!

“Yosh, let's do it then!” Wylla said to herself, tightly gripping her wand and finalizing the settings.

[Round Two... (BUZZ)... Begin! ]

“Okay, we got this!” Let's save the mini-boss for last...

Meanwhile, Ceri stealthily led Tundri around the Kavi village, reaching the outskirts of the east side unseen. Along the way, they had added many more beasties (and flora) to Tundri's wagon space like spidolls, serpris, paru owls, and three-eyed cat foxes known as Vulynx.

A tootle echoed over Ceri's little friend's courtyard causing all the Kavi guards to stiffen, grasping their spears with white knuckles as their eyes searched above, spotting the once again uninvited guest by the beautiful ghostroses atop their witch's hut.

Ethereal ghostroses which captured Tundri's vibrant blue water eyes as he came to a full stop, unintentionally standing behind the hut, out of everyone's sight, as he began to gather those wonderful flowers.

Ceri spotted the cute little netheryn ghostrose witch by her long worktable in the midst of creating another talisman. She called out softly with a tootle as she flew over to her young friend's side.

The Kavi guards shook as they struggled internally, wanting to jump forward and attack this bad influence of an intruder whose last visit seemed to have caused some changes within their newly sprouted witch but remembering how strictly the little witch had scolded them for doing so the last time they tried to attack Ceri... so they remained standing at the ready to attack should they be given permission to do so.

Nyra, the newly created name Ceri gave her little witch friend (because she felt that it was sad that her cute little friend didn't have a name so she made one for her) was filled with elation the moment she heard those tootles but fought hard to keep her emotions in check, focusing on finishing her new lunar serpris pendant talisman.

Ceri seemed to understand that Nyra was busy and needed to focus on her work so she remained floating near and slightly behind her (just out of sight) so as to not distract her friend's concentration.

Nyra whispered a few words of power, etched the final lines, and then put her tools down as she stepped back from the table. The talisman glowed brightly for a moment with magic signaling its successful creation.

“Tootle-tu-too!” Ceri sang out, congratulating Nyra.

Nyra turned happy as can be, arms opened wide, and laughing as Ceri flew into her embrace. They stayed like that for a while until a 'Wah-Wah' echoed across the courtyard and a giant flora yeti with a watery belly and silvery masked face stepped out from behind the witch's hut and into the courtyard.

Nyra's eyes widened at the sight of this giant newcomer, her body trembling a bit as her eyes searched for her staff that was leaning against the edge of the far side of the worktable... the side nearest this giant... beast?

Nyra hugged Ceri tightly to her body, turned her back, shielding Ceri as the trembling Kavi guards began to step towards Tundri with shaky spears pointed high.

Tundri just stood their, head tilted in confusion, not understanding what was happening as Ceri took action to calm her little friend's fast-beating heart with a series of tootles and nuzzles.

Nyra's trembling began to lessen as she listened to Ceri, her eyes staring into Ceri's, seeking assurance that she was hearing right.

Ceri nodded her head, rubbed her cheek to cheek, and then squirmed out of her embrace to fly next to Tundri. With quite a bit of coaxing, Ceri successfully introduced Nyra and Tundri to one another as Nyra, tentatively at first, approached the big gentle-hearted flora yeti and put her small hand onto the very large palm of Tundri's open hand.

She then released a small startled “EEEK!” as Tundri happily lifted little Nyra and placed her onto his soft leafy shoulder; Turning Nyra's startled cry into laughs of joy as her eyes opened wide seeing the world around her from on high.

As for the Kavi guard, what could they do? Their little witch willingly walked up to this giant intruder and let herself be captured so they just stood there restless with their spears in their hands nervously doing... nothing as Nyra, Ceri, and Tundri began to chat with one another as they asked the little witch to join them for a grand adventure.

Nyra clapped her hands excitedly, nodding her head, and began pointing at things in the courtyard, and then within her hut, for Tundri to gather up for her including the precious ethereal ghostrose shrine that birthed her! A task which Tundri was only able to do thanks to his Green Thumb and Gardenheart skills and the Goddess Sylvenori's powerful blessing.

Happy to see everything packed up and put away, Ceri joyfully led Nyra into Tundri's wagon space, taking the little witch to meet her family as the Kavi guards outside ran about in confusion, unsure of what they should do.

By the time they came to the decision to send one of their numbers to call upon the new village chief, Tundri was gone from sight and headed towards the spriggankin village in the Makai Forest...

The sun moved across the sky, nearing the western horizon as Wylla's eyes opened, signaling the return of her astral form to her body.