RE: The Battle of the Victors (*S1/2*) - Round "1" - Crystal Mirage XIX
05-02-2025, 11:44 AM
She was experiencing the birth of the universe again.
In the beginning there was Creation. Not creation as in the act of creation, but Creation as a primal force. It was a hot wind upon the bark of the Archon Junimanyr. It was a burst tank of water, flooding itself over a world that hadn’t been made yet, desperate to expend itself and become something more solid, more stable and indifferent in what that thing might be. Shielded from its more insidious effects within one of Archon Xoxellous’ bubbles, the gods of this world looked at what they had wrought. She was filled with apprehension - oddly triumphant and yet fearful at the same time. Archon Kiste stepped forward on padded foot and -
Anguish. The world was suddenly replaced with unbearable choking agony. A woman with cerulean blue skin and golden roses blossoming from her long white hair, she is seated atop a black and gold throne, a blanket pulled up to her waist, her head lolling to one side. A flicker and she’s awake, next to you walking through a lush purple gardens. She’s laughing but the overwhelming emotion is still sorrow and pain as though your soul has been speared with a thousand burning needles.
She tries to scream but her connection to her physical self is off somehow. Her body feels distant, as though she’s having to grow nerves in a form that doesn’t contain them, as though she isn’t meant to exist as more than a series of disembodied thoughts.
The agony is gone and now she sees visions of a simple white stone temple. Beyond the pillars are barren grey lands, dotted with distant simple stone halls and occasional tracts of black thorn bushes. The Archons are stood, and sat, scattered around a large stone door, held firmly shut by an enormous mechanism. She feels a sense of exhaustion, an overwhelming desire to rest.
“He can’t get aw-
ay with this.” Archon Lah says but their voice corrupts as they speak; that anguish bleeds in and she’s looking again at the woman on the throne but her throat has been slit and black blood has seeped down her body, down the blanket, across the floor. Its like she’s wading through a sea of ink.
‘She can’t get away with this’ you think - she thinks… She can feel her own thoughts being overwritten. You knew this woman, You loved this woman, You will make the insect that did this to Your beloved suffer and struggle and eventually force a plea for death from those silent lips. Rules be damned.
And then she catches a glimpse of the object of this hatred. A young woman with blood red hair, sunglasses and a bone white arm clutching a cruel black scythe. And her mind catches on the image, there’s a familiarity that jolts her out of the trance. She recognizes this woman. She tries to push past the agony to remember where she knows this woman from but everything before these visions is occluded, as though being viewed through a warped glass window.
Something is wrong.
For a moment the agony is gone and then its back, more intense and directed than previously. She feels as though she’s being pinned to a corkboard, as though a light is being shined in her eyes.
“What are you?” Its not spoken so much as felt. The voice is a shockwave from a distant atomic blast stripping away her body layer by layer until there’s nothing left. She tries to call out, to answer that she doesn’t know, but she can’t speak.
When she emerges from the tree she is screaming.
“It’s okay.” An unfamiliar voice said, little more than a moment later. The voice seemed surprisingly calm for the circumstance, though admittedly she was struggling to parse exactly what that circumstance was.
It took her a moment to gather herself; to notice that the agony, and the blistering scrutiny of the hate filled presence, have both lifted. First things first she had a body now, it felt weird and uncomfortable. Maybe that’s just a consequence of being disembodied for however long it was that she was. Second thing, she was on the floor, which in this case seemed to be a sturdy wooden platform. Through the holes in the slats she could see a mass of golden something moving quite a long way beneath her.
“The visions given to us by Archon Junimanyr can sometimes be overwhelming for the recently sprouted, but do not worry. You are safe here.” The voice continued to offer reassurance and it did seem to be sort of helping.
She went to push herself up and in planting her hands on the floor beneath her she froze. Her hands were deep green accented by a twisting lilac pattern; as though the stem of a flower were twisted around her limbs and had blossomed on the backs of her hands. These weren’t her hands; this wasn’t her body. It was an instinct, not a conclusion drawn from evidence. As far as she knew for sure she didn’t exist an hour ago, so how could she be so sure that this body wasn’t hers?
“It is normal to experience some disorientation after sprouting.” The voice continued, and finally she looked up to see the source of the voice. There was a furless humanoid figure squatting over her. They had pale brown skin though skin might not be correct, the texture looked rougher than skin usually does, and where there should be hair there was an explosion of bright pink blossom. “It’s okay.” They offered a hand down to her.
“Where am I?” she asked as she turned her attention to the rest of her body, and in doing so she confirming that whatever this other person was, she was as well. Not exactly the same though; she gingerly felt for the top of her head and noticed she had no more than soft buds where the stranger had full blossom. At her question there was an odd hesitation from the person standing over her, and momentarily they retracted their hand and straightened up off their haunches.
After an awkward moment they reluctantly answered. “You’re in Arboren Vale, in the branches of our mother tree Junimanyr.” As she might have predicted this meant exactly nothing to her.
“Oh.” she said awkwardly.
“I’m sorry, you really don’t know do you?” the pink haired being neatly punctured the weird social impasse that they had both seemingly fallen into.
She nodded her head, then hesitated and shook her head instead, and then finally, still uncertain about having communicated correctly, she said: “I have no idea where or who or what I am.” The blossom haired figure frowns thoughtfully.
“Okay, well thats, um, unusual.” They said affecting a faint smile. “Nice to meet you I’m Tender Sakurane. You are Arboren, just like me, and we, as Arboren, are born from the branches of the Archon Junimanyr.” They made a gesture indicating something behind her and so she turned her head to see.
She hadn’t really taken in her environment before this. She had been too focused on her own body, that of Tender Sakurane and the circumstances of her sudden existence to really pay it any mind. Behind her, emerging from a hole in the platform below her was a large black branch arching upwards, and hanging from that branch was an enormous person sized pink fruit. Or well, it clearly had been a fruit but now it was a hollow mangled rind empty of whatever it had contained and dripping slightly onto the planks below.
Nearby she could see other platforms encircling other branches, many of which bore similar pink fruits in various states. Crisscrossing bridges connected these platforms, with occasional stairways leading up or down. As she followed these stairways she noticed that above her more platforms presumably serving the same functionality and supposed that the same continued below. Small shafts of evening light illuminated the scene filtering in through the platforms and branches above.
“While an Arboren grows Lady Junimanyr shows you, through her memories, the history of the world and the birth of the Arboren people.” Tender Sakurane said. “Or that’s what is supposed to happen.”
“I think I got some of that… before it was drowned out by the pain?” she replied. Sakurane had been reaching down to once again offer her a hand up but now had frozen, her expression twisting into a faint frown.
“What do you mean, the pain?”
“Like drowning in sorrow and anger and hatred and um pain as well.” Finally feeling a little more stable, she climbed up to her feet. “Your mother tree, I think she’s having some issues. She seems to really hate someone…” She stopped herself, it’s probably not a great idea to tell someone you might be their goddess’ number one enemy.
“No, that doesn’t make sense. Let me just -” Sakurane took a step towards the branch, rested her palm upon it, and immediately went abruptly silent.
She watched for a second as Sakurane seemed to commune with the tree, panic rising about how to get away from this dratted place and any who might be tending to this archon’s whims. Cautiously she leans over the edge of the platform to get a better look below. As suspected there were more rings around more branches and below it, distantly, a gently swaying canopy of golden leaves. She felt a sudden dizziness come upon her as she finally realized just how high up she was. She stumbled back and instinctively reaching out for support she grabbed the thick black branch.
For a moment she’s back there in the bodiless emptiness of the dream and she can feel the eyes of Junimanyr fix upon her once again. “Thrillseeker.” It is an accusation, and an insult and a cry of pure unbound rage all at once. Everything hurts, the pain somehow ratcheting up from excruciating to unbearable to some new unimaginable level beyond that. It seems to last a second before-
Returned to the physical world Thrillseeker was taking deep gulps of air as though surfacing from the depths of a deep black ocean. Another arboren was here, their hand around her wrist.
“We need to get you the fuck out of here.” This other arboren was golden; her bark-like skin a deep golden brown with crisscrossing patterns of brighter gold, this shade was matched by her leaves which were worn long on vines going down to shoulder height. She pulled at Thrillseeker’s wrist, and for a moment Thrillseeker hesitated.
“Who-” she started to say, before the golden arboren pulled on her arm and she suddenly stumbled forward. She felt a blossom of pain as something nicked the back of her neck. Taking no more than a moment to right herself she glanced back to see Tender Sakurane brandishing a small curved knife (more of a gardening tool than a weapon) towards the stranger who had moved in between the two of them.
“Step out of the way sister.” Tender Sakurane snapped. “The one you protect is not one of us, an intruder amongst our kind. Mother Junimanyr demands her death.”
Thrillseeker hesitated behind the golden arboren, glancing between the confrontation and the path behind her. She could take her chances but without a weapon she was loathe to abandon her only seeming ally in this place.
“I can fucking guarantee you that your damn mother’s never even heard of our dear Thrillsy.” The golden arboren says, as if explaining to a child. Sakurane hesitated, their eyes flickering between Thrillseeker and the arboren shielding her. “Due to circumstances I couldn’t hope to explain to you, the soul of a being a billion times more powerful than a god got stuck in your precious tree mommy and yes, she has a score to settle, but she’s just as much an intruder here as any of us are.”
There was a moment, a full second, where Thrillseeker thought that the stranger got through to Sakurane. Maybe if what the stranger has to say is true then perhaps this situation wasn’t quite as dire as she had suspected so far. Then Sakurane leapt forwards, stabbing her blade through the stranger’s shoulder. Without so much as a cry of pain the stranger grabbed Sakurane by the shoulders, pinning them close and making it impossible to withdraw their knife.
“Well I fucking tried.” They sighed, ignoring Sakurane’s outraged cries, and without any further hesitation they moved towards the edge of the platform, bodily dragging the struggling and cursing Sakurane.
“Wait!” Thrillseeker called out, but it was too late. By the time the cry had left her mouth both Sakurane and the stranger were toppling from the platform, Sakurane’s protests quickly turned to screams, the stranger strangely silent. Thrillseeker hurried to the platform’s edge, but they had both already vanished from sight beneath the canopy below.
—
Junimanyr was both mother, god and home to the arborens. Her roots clutched storerooms and prison cells. Built around her trunk was a huge multilevel sprawl of a city filled with guilds, shops, craftsworkers and all of the other amenities of the land. As you climbed higher and higher up into her branches that was where you found the birthing fruits, which had, until now, long lay dormant. The only thing higher than this, at the very pinnacle of her trunk, was the manor of the Ashkina Sunskimmer, Greenskeeper of the Aboren people.
The Tenders were among the first affected by the change within Junimanyr as those most often in direct contact with her physical form. Those up by the birthing fruits quickly got to work cutting open any fruit that seemed ripe enough to bear another arboren, or else hurried to look for their quarry directly. In the lower sections groups of Tenders would ambush unsuspecting arboren, drag them closer to the tree and force them to make contact, and in doing so another would join their ranks.
Ashkina Sunskimmer was almost forgotten about entirely. Tenders up in the higher branches were so busy inducing the birth of new arboren that climbing further up to deal with one high ranking arboren was not worth their time. And so it was that as this was happening Ashkina was relaxing in quiet meditation on her terrace, feeling the soft wind upon her bark.
No matter how she tried to empty her mind, doubts and worries continued to creep in. Something was wrong with the world. After years of fighting and scheming and pressing every little advantage the Dark Archon Nittleaus had stopped. Or well not stopped. Stopped was the wrong word. His orcs continued to plunder and pillage and their attacks on certain outposts were regular as clockwork. But it was as if he’d run out of new ideas and all he could do were the same tired tricks. It was true of everyone. Even Ashkina herself was no exception to this omnipresent stagnancy.
Slowly Ashkina became aware of the sound of someone moving around nearby. She opened an eye and returned her focus to the world around her. It was unmistakeable, the sounds of someone moving around in a nearby room; drawers being opened and rummaged through, cupboards being opened and closed, the faint sound of something whooshing through the air. It gave her pause. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for people to enter her manor without asking; the Archon’s chamber was designed to let adventurers enter and alert her to their presence. Occasionally you’d get the more… enthusiastic adventurers who would beeline their way through her private rooms to report on some urgent advancement on an important task. Someone coming in just to quietly rummage through her things was genuinely unprecedented.
With one hand still pressed to the wooden floor beneath her, Ashkina unravelled a length of wood from the floor itself. In her hands it was malleable as clay and at her wish it took the shape of a large scythe; simple in design but imposing in size. She ran her hands along its length, honing its sharpness along the blade and whittling away the wood to form a comfortable handle. Within a minute the task was complete, the small circular groove in the floor the only indication of her activity.
Quietly Ashkina pushed herself up to her feet. The noises had not abated though they had moved slightly, from her kitchen to her study if she had to guess. She stalked through her house, following the sound of the movement until, there in her study trying to pry open a locked cabinet with the handle of a frying pan was a newly sprouted arboren. They were a dull pink with highlights of scarlet. Their auburn leaves had been swept out of their face and tied back behind them.
“What do you think you are doing?” Ashkina demanded. The intruder glanced over her shoulder for just a second before wordlessly gesticulating towards the cabinet as if to say that it was very clear what they were doing. Ashkina sighed and brandished the scythe more threateningly. “Explain yourself sprout.” The intruder glanced back over her shoulder and this time seemed to take in the perfect craftsmanship of Ashkina’s scythe. Eagerly she turned to face Ashkina and took a step forward.
“Hold it!” Ashkina snapped, her scythe flicking forward threateningly. The intruder stepped back, gesturing placatingly with her one hand that wasn’t still holding a frying pan. “Now, once again, would you explain yourself.” The sprout rolled her eyes, gave a nod and then started rifling around on a nearby table. “Okay I’ve had just about enough-” Ashkina began before seeing that the stranger had grabbed a paper and quill and was scribbling something down. After a moment she handed the paper over and Ashkina read:
‘If only I had a weapon.’
Ashkina read it and then again as though hoping to divine some further information out of it. “Is this supposed to explain anything? Who are you?” The paper was snatched back, and momentarily handed back.
‘Behold, thrillseeker.’
“A thrillseeker?” The sprout bowed theatrically. Ashkina rolled her eyes. Just some oddball adventurer after all. “Well I suppose its a pleasure to make your acquaintance hero. Please refrain from picking through my personal things and mayhap I can point you in the direction of an armory.” Ashkina offered a map marker to the thrillseeker where a quartermaster could be found: down in the city below. A much more sensible place to go looking for weapons, she smiled softly. “And since you seem inclined to adventure I’ll speak with Mother Junimanyr, see if she has any missions that you might… delight in.” Urgent scribbling.
‘Ill-omened creature ahead’
Ashkina frowned. It would be easy to be dismissive given the situation, but there was something about the sudden urgency Thrillseeker was displaying that gave her pause. “We’re in danger?” Thrillseeker gave a nod. “We’re in danger as in you and me specifically?” Thrillseeker half nodded thoughtfully, before making a gesture with both her hands. She brought them close to her chest and then slowly expanded them out. “Not just us in danger. The archon?” Thrillseeker’s hands stilled, her eyes glazing over as she seemed uncertain how to answer. “Okay well I’ve heard enough we need to speak to Junimanyr.”
Ashkina turned and started towards the Archon’s chamber. It was a more appropriate setting for such a conversation and, importantly, the upper trunk of the Archon ran through the back of the chamber, allowing consultation at times such as these. But before she could leave the study the sprout grabbed her gown and stopped her short. Ashkina turned to look back, the thrillseeker offering a new note.
‘Be wary of corruption.’
“Yes, quite.” Ashkina said. “I don’t disagree, but I do think this conversation would go much smoother if we could all speak directly.” She turned and started again towards the Archon’s chamber. “Just this way please.” She heard the sound of footfalls behind her as she walked through the halls and entered an enormous chamber.
It was mostly empty, open doors to the left that lead outside and eventually back down the tree. To the right a semi circle of seats, those of herself and her council. The seat at the center was only slightly more osententatious so as to gesture at her rank whilst not giving herself airs. The others were reserved for her various advisors, currently absent. At the very back of the room, the entire back wall, was the trunk of Junimaynr at its thinnest point. Above was a glass roof through which one could see the highest branching of Junimanyr’s trunk immediately above. Huge branches curved and twisted overhead each bearing their own smaller branches many of which bore Junimanyr’s luminescent white leaves. No light made it in through the thick tangle of Junimaynr’s branches and so the room was lit only by the eerie luminescence of the leaves above.
“Now I’m fairly certain that in Junimanyr’s dream you should be able to communicate a little more directly and clearly.” Ashkina said, as she strode purposefully towards Junimanyr’s trunk. And then there was a a thud, something extremely heavy hitting the side of her face.
Ashkina stumbled, falling to her knees but managing to catch herself on one of her advisor’s seats. Her scythe flew out of her hands coming to a rest close to Junimanyr’s trunk. Her face felt like a blossom of pain sprouting from her right cheek. Her ears were ringing and she could feel the sap coagulating around her wound. Her hands gripping tightly around the chair, there was no time for finesse, she pulled out of it a plank of wood and swung to her right, pivoting her upper body with her movement. As she spun she saw the sprout, both arms wrapped around her own frying pan, now slick with her sap, midswing. Ashkina’s clumsy swing collided with the Thrillseeker’s, her plank snapping in half but still managing to knock Thrillseeker enough off balance that her swing went wide.
Ashkina used her momentum to quickly get to her feet, quickly reshaping the remaining half of the plank in her hand into a dagger. Thrillseeker took only a moment to regain her composure, but instead of swinging wildly a third time, she hung back seeming to assess the situation.
“What is your problem, lady?” Ashkina demanded, taking the opportunity to sharpen her blade to a wicked edge. Thrillseeker simply gestured in her direction. Profoundly unhelpful. “You want to do this? You do know who I am right?” Thrillseeker shook her head. “I am Ashkina Sunskimmer, Greenskeeper of the Aboren sometimes known as Junimanyr’s Ebon Blade. I’ve cut my way clean out of nightmares you’ve never even dreamed of. Stand down or I return you to the earth from whence you came.”
Thrillseeker smirked slightly, gripped her frying pan in one hand and gestured cockily towards herself with the other.
“Fine.” Ashkina rolled her eyes. “You want it, you got it.” It would be incorrect to say that she flung her dagger towards Thrillseeker. It was a practised move, carried out very quickly. She held it out in front of her point facing towards the newly sprouted and then in one quick motion let go and while it was hanging in the air brushed her hand across it in Thrillseeker’s direction, pouring kinetic energy into it as she did so. The end result was sort of like as though she’d thrown it but with much less of a followthrough and far quicker. The blade zipped through the air towards an unprepared Thrillseeker who half dodged, half stumbled out of the way and even so still caught a glancing blow along the side of her abdomen.
But Ashkina wasn’t done yet, she’d thrown herself forward, palms down onto the floor and in another quick movement she pulled. It was as though she was pulling a carpet out from underneath Thrillseeker. The wood moved as liquid, flowing across the room pulled towards Ashkina and quickly being reshaped once again. Thrillseeker’s stumble from the dagger quickly became a full fall, landing with a thud on the now uneven floor beneath her. Out of instinct she rolled to the side just in time to get out of the way of Ashkina with a wooden harpoon in each hand, now lodged into the floor, and even that wasn’t an impediment for long. Within moments Ashkina had pulled them free, pulling out more chunks of wood as she did so and turning them both into heavy maces.
Before Ashkina could resume her onslaught however Thrillseeker swung low with her frying pan, sweeping the back of Ashkina’s legs and forcing her to her knees. Both prone on the floor and neither willing to concede the time it took to get to their feet they both swung again. Wooden mace and frying pan colliding uselessly.
After such quick flurry of activity there was finally a pause. A tense moment, each woman unwilling to move unwilling to look away, waiting for their opponent to move, to make the first mistake and present an opening. Thrillseeker moved first, reaching down to push herself to her feet, Ashkina responded by grabbing and pulling away the ground again. Thrillseeker stumbled but managed to right herself, but it was for naught. She was still off balance when Ashkina slung the newly gathered wood out as a lasso. It tightened around Thrillseeker before suddenly losing all of the flexibility and becoming a rigid wooden noose holding her tightly in place.
“That’s quite enough of that.” Ashkina said, getting to her feet with a complete absence of urgency. “What in the monochrome hells are you sprout?” She stepped closer to Thrillseeker who was futilely struggling to break out of the lasso’s tight grip. “You’re clearly a newly sprouted but you fight like a demon. You won’t say a single word out loud but will warn me of cryptic danger in your stilted notes… and then try to attack me when i try to get you help.” Ashkina grabbed Thrillseeker’s chin and tilted it upwards to look into her eyes. “What the hell do you want here ‘Thrillseeker’?”
Thrillseeker sunk the dagger into Ashkina’s side and she screamed. Stabbing once, twice before Ashkina flung her away across the room. “You archons damned psychopath!” she exclaimed, reaching down to feel her wound and the thick sap pouring from it. It was a bad one. Pretty fatal place to get stabbed all things considered. Ashkina placed one palm over the wound and forced the wood in her body to acquiesce, to knit itself back together. It was agonizing. No more fucking around with this sprout, it was time to get serious.
Thrillseeker slammed the frying pan into the side of Ashkina’s head again and down she went face first to the ground.
GREAT ENEMY FELLED
And then she slammed the frying pan into her body a few more times just to make sure.
In the beginning there was Creation. Not creation as in the act of creation, but Creation as a primal force. It was a hot wind upon the bark of the Archon Junimanyr. It was a burst tank of water, flooding itself over a world that hadn’t been made yet, desperate to expend itself and become something more solid, more stable and indifferent in what that thing might be. Shielded from its more insidious effects within one of Archon Xoxellous’ bubbles, the gods of this world looked at what they had wrought. She was filled with apprehension - oddly triumphant and yet fearful at the same time. Archon Kiste stepped forward on padded foot and -
Anguish. The world was suddenly replaced with unbearable choking agony. A woman with cerulean blue skin and golden roses blossoming from her long white hair, she is seated atop a black and gold throne, a blanket pulled up to her waist, her head lolling to one side. A flicker and she’s awake, next to you walking through a lush purple gardens. She’s laughing but the overwhelming emotion is still sorrow and pain as though your soul has been speared with a thousand burning needles.
She tries to scream but her connection to her physical self is off somehow. Her body feels distant, as though she’s having to grow nerves in a form that doesn’t contain them, as though she isn’t meant to exist as more than a series of disembodied thoughts.
The agony is gone and now she sees visions of a simple white stone temple. Beyond the pillars are barren grey lands, dotted with distant simple stone halls and occasional tracts of black thorn bushes. The Archons are stood, and sat, scattered around a large stone door, held firmly shut by an enormous mechanism. She feels a sense of exhaustion, an overwhelming desire to rest.
“He can’t get aw-
ay with this.” Archon Lah says but their voice corrupts as they speak; that anguish bleeds in and she’s looking again at the woman on the throne but her throat has been slit and black blood has seeped down her body, down the blanket, across the floor. Its like she’s wading through a sea of ink.
‘She can’t get away with this’ you think - she thinks… She can feel her own thoughts being overwritten. You knew this woman, You loved this woman, You will make the insect that did this to Your beloved suffer and struggle and eventually force a plea for death from those silent lips. Rules be damned.
And then she catches a glimpse of the object of this hatred. A young woman with blood red hair, sunglasses and a bone white arm clutching a cruel black scythe. And her mind catches on the image, there’s a familiarity that jolts her out of the trance. She recognizes this woman. She tries to push past the agony to remember where she knows this woman from but everything before these visions is occluded, as though being viewed through a warped glass window.
Something is wrong.
For a moment the agony is gone and then its back, more intense and directed than previously. She feels as though she’s being pinned to a corkboard, as though a light is being shined in her eyes.
“What are you?” Its not spoken so much as felt. The voice is a shockwave from a distant atomic blast stripping away her body layer by layer until there’s nothing left. She tries to call out, to answer that she doesn’t know, but she can’t speak.
When she emerges from the tree she is screaming.
“It’s okay.” An unfamiliar voice said, little more than a moment later. The voice seemed surprisingly calm for the circumstance, though admittedly she was struggling to parse exactly what that circumstance was.
It took her a moment to gather herself; to notice that the agony, and the blistering scrutiny of the hate filled presence, have both lifted. First things first she had a body now, it felt weird and uncomfortable. Maybe that’s just a consequence of being disembodied for however long it was that she was. Second thing, she was on the floor, which in this case seemed to be a sturdy wooden platform. Through the holes in the slats she could see a mass of golden something moving quite a long way beneath her.
“The visions given to us by Archon Junimanyr can sometimes be overwhelming for the recently sprouted, but do not worry. You are safe here.” The voice continued to offer reassurance and it did seem to be sort of helping.
She went to push herself up and in planting her hands on the floor beneath her she froze. Her hands were deep green accented by a twisting lilac pattern; as though the stem of a flower were twisted around her limbs and had blossomed on the backs of her hands. These weren’t her hands; this wasn’t her body. It was an instinct, not a conclusion drawn from evidence. As far as she knew for sure she didn’t exist an hour ago, so how could she be so sure that this body wasn’t hers?
“It is normal to experience some disorientation after sprouting.” The voice continued, and finally she looked up to see the source of the voice. There was a furless humanoid figure squatting over her. They had pale brown skin though skin might not be correct, the texture looked rougher than skin usually does, and where there should be hair there was an explosion of bright pink blossom. “It’s okay.” They offered a hand down to her.
“Where am I?” she asked as she turned her attention to the rest of her body, and in doing so she confirming that whatever this other person was, she was as well. Not exactly the same though; she gingerly felt for the top of her head and noticed she had no more than soft buds where the stranger had full blossom. At her question there was an odd hesitation from the person standing over her, and momentarily they retracted their hand and straightened up off their haunches.
After an awkward moment they reluctantly answered. “You’re in Arboren Vale, in the branches of our mother tree Junimanyr.” As she might have predicted this meant exactly nothing to her.
“Oh.” she said awkwardly.
“I’m sorry, you really don’t know do you?” the pink haired being neatly punctured the weird social impasse that they had both seemingly fallen into.
She nodded her head, then hesitated and shook her head instead, and then finally, still uncertain about having communicated correctly, she said: “I have no idea where or who or what I am.” The blossom haired figure frowns thoughtfully.
“Okay, well thats, um, unusual.” They said affecting a faint smile. “Nice to meet you I’m Tender Sakurane. You are Arboren, just like me, and we, as Arboren, are born from the branches of the Archon Junimanyr.” They made a gesture indicating something behind her and so she turned her head to see.
She hadn’t really taken in her environment before this. She had been too focused on her own body, that of Tender Sakurane and the circumstances of her sudden existence to really pay it any mind. Behind her, emerging from a hole in the platform below her was a large black branch arching upwards, and hanging from that branch was an enormous person sized pink fruit. Or well, it clearly had been a fruit but now it was a hollow mangled rind empty of whatever it had contained and dripping slightly onto the planks below.
Nearby she could see other platforms encircling other branches, many of which bore similar pink fruits in various states. Crisscrossing bridges connected these platforms, with occasional stairways leading up or down. As she followed these stairways she noticed that above her more platforms presumably serving the same functionality and supposed that the same continued below. Small shafts of evening light illuminated the scene filtering in through the platforms and branches above.
“While an Arboren grows Lady Junimanyr shows you, through her memories, the history of the world and the birth of the Arboren people.” Tender Sakurane said. “Or that’s what is supposed to happen.”
“I think I got some of that… before it was drowned out by the pain?” she replied. Sakurane had been reaching down to once again offer her a hand up but now had frozen, her expression twisting into a faint frown.
“What do you mean, the pain?”
“Like drowning in sorrow and anger and hatred and um pain as well.” Finally feeling a little more stable, she climbed up to her feet. “Your mother tree, I think she’s having some issues. She seems to really hate someone…” She stopped herself, it’s probably not a great idea to tell someone you might be their goddess’ number one enemy.
“No, that doesn’t make sense. Let me just -” Sakurane took a step towards the branch, rested her palm upon it, and immediately went abruptly silent.
She watched for a second as Sakurane seemed to commune with the tree, panic rising about how to get away from this dratted place and any who might be tending to this archon’s whims. Cautiously she leans over the edge of the platform to get a better look below. As suspected there were more rings around more branches and below it, distantly, a gently swaying canopy of golden leaves. She felt a sudden dizziness come upon her as she finally realized just how high up she was. She stumbled back and instinctively reaching out for support she grabbed the thick black branch.
For a moment she’s back there in the bodiless emptiness of the dream and she can feel the eyes of Junimanyr fix upon her once again. “Thrillseeker.” It is an accusation, and an insult and a cry of pure unbound rage all at once. Everything hurts, the pain somehow ratcheting up from excruciating to unbearable to some new unimaginable level beyond that. It seems to last a second before-
Returned to the physical world Thrillseeker was taking deep gulps of air as though surfacing from the depths of a deep black ocean. Another arboren was here, their hand around her wrist.
“We need to get you the fuck out of here.” This other arboren was golden; her bark-like skin a deep golden brown with crisscrossing patterns of brighter gold, this shade was matched by her leaves which were worn long on vines going down to shoulder height. She pulled at Thrillseeker’s wrist, and for a moment Thrillseeker hesitated.
“Who-” she started to say, before the golden arboren pulled on her arm and she suddenly stumbled forward. She felt a blossom of pain as something nicked the back of her neck. Taking no more than a moment to right herself she glanced back to see Tender Sakurane brandishing a small curved knife (more of a gardening tool than a weapon) towards the stranger who had moved in between the two of them.
“Step out of the way sister.” Tender Sakurane snapped. “The one you protect is not one of us, an intruder amongst our kind. Mother Junimanyr demands her death.”
Thrillseeker hesitated behind the golden arboren, glancing between the confrontation and the path behind her. She could take her chances but without a weapon she was loathe to abandon her only seeming ally in this place.
“I can fucking guarantee you that your damn mother’s never even heard of our dear Thrillsy.” The golden arboren says, as if explaining to a child. Sakurane hesitated, their eyes flickering between Thrillseeker and the arboren shielding her. “Due to circumstances I couldn’t hope to explain to you, the soul of a being a billion times more powerful than a god got stuck in your precious tree mommy and yes, she has a score to settle, but she’s just as much an intruder here as any of us are.”
There was a moment, a full second, where Thrillseeker thought that the stranger got through to Sakurane. Maybe if what the stranger has to say is true then perhaps this situation wasn’t quite as dire as she had suspected so far. Then Sakurane leapt forwards, stabbing her blade through the stranger’s shoulder. Without so much as a cry of pain the stranger grabbed Sakurane by the shoulders, pinning them close and making it impossible to withdraw their knife.
“Well I fucking tried.” They sighed, ignoring Sakurane’s outraged cries, and without any further hesitation they moved towards the edge of the platform, bodily dragging the struggling and cursing Sakurane.
“Wait!” Thrillseeker called out, but it was too late. By the time the cry had left her mouth both Sakurane and the stranger were toppling from the platform, Sakurane’s protests quickly turned to screams, the stranger strangely silent. Thrillseeker hurried to the platform’s edge, but they had both already vanished from sight beneath the canopy below.
—
Junimanyr was both mother, god and home to the arborens. Her roots clutched storerooms and prison cells. Built around her trunk was a huge multilevel sprawl of a city filled with guilds, shops, craftsworkers and all of the other amenities of the land. As you climbed higher and higher up into her branches that was where you found the birthing fruits, which had, until now, long lay dormant. The only thing higher than this, at the very pinnacle of her trunk, was the manor of the Ashkina Sunskimmer, Greenskeeper of the Aboren people.
The Tenders were among the first affected by the change within Junimanyr as those most often in direct contact with her physical form. Those up by the birthing fruits quickly got to work cutting open any fruit that seemed ripe enough to bear another arboren, or else hurried to look for their quarry directly. In the lower sections groups of Tenders would ambush unsuspecting arboren, drag them closer to the tree and force them to make contact, and in doing so another would join their ranks.
Ashkina Sunskimmer was almost forgotten about entirely. Tenders up in the higher branches were so busy inducing the birth of new arboren that climbing further up to deal with one high ranking arboren was not worth their time. And so it was that as this was happening Ashkina was relaxing in quiet meditation on her terrace, feeling the soft wind upon her bark.
No matter how she tried to empty her mind, doubts and worries continued to creep in. Something was wrong with the world. After years of fighting and scheming and pressing every little advantage the Dark Archon Nittleaus had stopped. Or well not stopped. Stopped was the wrong word. His orcs continued to plunder and pillage and their attacks on certain outposts were regular as clockwork. But it was as if he’d run out of new ideas and all he could do were the same tired tricks. It was true of everyone. Even Ashkina herself was no exception to this omnipresent stagnancy.
Slowly Ashkina became aware of the sound of someone moving around nearby. She opened an eye and returned her focus to the world around her. It was unmistakeable, the sounds of someone moving around in a nearby room; drawers being opened and rummaged through, cupboards being opened and closed, the faint sound of something whooshing through the air. It gave her pause. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for people to enter her manor without asking; the Archon’s chamber was designed to let adventurers enter and alert her to their presence. Occasionally you’d get the more… enthusiastic adventurers who would beeline their way through her private rooms to report on some urgent advancement on an important task. Someone coming in just to quietly rummage through her things was genuinely unprecedented.
With one hand still pressed to the wooden floor beneath her, Ashkina unravelled a length of wood from the floor itself. In her hands it was malleable as clay and at her wish it took the shape of a large scythe; simple in design but imposing in size. She ran her hands along its length, honing its sharpness along the blade and whittling away the wood to form a comfortable handle. Within a minute the task was complete, the small circular groove in the floor the only indication of her activity.
Quietly Ashkina pushed herself up to her feet. The noises had not abated though they had moved slightly, from her kitchen to her study if she had to guess. She stalked through her house, following the sound of the movement until, there in her study trying to pry open a locked cabinet with the handle of a frying pan was a newly sprouted arboren. They were a dull pink with highlights of scarlet. Their auburn leaves had been swept out of their face and tied back behind them.
“What do you think you are doing?” Ashkina demanded. The intruder glanced over her shoulder for just a second before wordlessly gesticulating towards the cabinet as if to say that it was very clear what they were doing. Ashkina sighed and brandished the scythe more threateningly. “Explain yourself sprout.” The intruder glanced back over her shoulder and this time seemed to take in the perfect craftsmanship of Ashkina’s scythe. Eagerly she turned to face Ashkina and took a step forward.
“Hold it!” Ashkina snapped, her scythe flicking forward threateningly. The intruder stepped back, gesturing placatingly with her one hand that wasn’t still holding a frying pan. “Now, once again, would you explain yourself.” The sprout rolled her eyes, gave a nod and then started rifling around on a nearby table. “Okay I’ve had just about enough-” Ashkina began before seeing that the stranger had grabbed a paper and quill and was scribbling something down. After a moment she handed the paper over and Ashkina read:
‘If only I had a weapon.’
Ashkina read it and then again as though hoping to divine some further information out of it. “Is this supposed to explain anything? Who are you?” The paper was snatched back, and momentarily handed back.
‘Behold, thrillseeker.’
“A thrillseeker?” The sprout bowed theatrically. Ashkina rolled her eyes. Just some oddball adventurer after all. “Well I suppose its a pleasure to make your acquaintance hero. Please refrain from picking through my personal things and mayhap I can point you in the direction of an armory.” Ashkina offered a map marker to the thrillseeker where a quartermaster could be found: down in the city below. A much more sensible place to go looking for weapons, she smiled softly. “And since you seem inclined to adventure I’ll speak with Mother Junimanyr, see if she has any missions that you might… delight in.” Urgent scribbling.
‘Ill-omened creature ahead’
Ashkina frowned. It would be easy to be dismissive given the situation, but there was something about the sudden urgency Thrillseeker was displaying that gave her pause. “We’re in danger?” Thrillseeker gave a nod. “We’re in danger as in you and me specifically?” Thrillseeker half nodded thoughtfully, before making a gesture with both her hands. She brought them close to her chest and then slowly expanded them out. “Not just us in danger. The archon?” Thrillseeker’s hands stilled, her eyes glazing over as she seemed uncertain how to answer. “Okay well I’ve heard enough we need to speak to Junimanyr.”
Ashkina turned and started towards the Archon’s chamber. It was a more appropriate setting for such a conversation and, importantly, the upper trunk of the Archon ran through the back of the chamber, allowing consultation at times such as these. But before she could leave the study the sprout grabbed her gown and stopped her short. Ashkina turned to look back, the thrillseeker offering a new note.
‘Be wary of corruption.’
“Yes, quite.” Ashkina said. “I don’t disagree, but I do think this conversation would go much smoother if we could all speak directly.” She turned and started again towards the Archon’s chamber. “Just this way please.” She heard the sound of footfalls behind her as she walked through the halls and entered an enormous chamber.
It was mostly empty, open doors to the left that lead outside and eventually back down the tree. To the right a semi circle of seats, those of herself and her council. The seat at the center was only slightly more osententatious so as to gesture at her rank whilst not giving herself airs. The others were reserved for her various advisors, currently absent. At the very back of the room, the entire back wall, was the trunk of Junimaynr at its thinnest point. Above was a glass roof through which one could see the highest branching of Junimanyr’s trunk immediately above. Huge branches curved and twisted overhead each bearing their own smaller branches many of which bore Junimanyr’s luminescent white leaves. No light made it in through the thick tangle of Junimaynr’s branches and so the room was lit only by the eerie luminescence of the leaves above.
“Now I’m fairly certain that in Junimanyr’s dream you should be able to communicate a little more directly and clearly.” Ashkina said, as she strode purposefully towards Junimanyr’s trunk. And then there was a a thud, something extremely heavy hitting the side of her face.
Ashkina stumbled, falling to her knees but managing to catch herself on one of her advisor’s seats. Her scythe flew out of her hands coming to a rest close to Junimanyr’s trunk. Her face felt like a blossom of pain sprouting from her right cheek. Her ears were ringing and she could feel the sap coagulating around her wound. Her hands gripping tightly around the chair, there was no time for finesse, she pulled out of it a plank of wood and swung to her right, pivoting her upper body with her movement. As she spun she saw the sprout, both arms wrapped around her own frying pan, now slick with her sap, midswing. Ashkina’s clumsy swing collided with the Thrillseeker’s, her plank snapping in half but still managing to knock Thrillseeker enough off balance that her swing went wide.
Ashkina used her momentum to quickly get to her feet, quickly reshaping the remaining half of the plank in her hand into a dagger. Thrillseeker took only a moment to regain her composure, but instead of swinging wildly a third time, she hung back seeming to assess the situation.
“What is your problem, lady?” Ashkina demanded, taking the opportunity to sharpen her blade to a wicked edge. Thrillseeker simply gestured in her direction. Profoundly unhelpful. “You want to do this? You do know who I am right?” Thrillseeker shook her head. “I am Ashkina Sunskimmer, Greenskeeper of the Aboren sometimes known as Junimanyr’s Ebon Blade. I’ve cut my way clean out of nightmares you’ve never even dreamed of. Stand down or I return you to the earth from whence you came.”
Thrillseeker smirked slightly, gripped her frying pan in one hand and gestured cockily towards herself with the other.
“Fine.” Ashkina rolled her eyes. “You want it, you got it.” It would be incorrect to say that she flung her dagger towards Thrillseeker. It was a practised move, carried out very quickly. She held it out in front of her point facing towards the newly sprouted and then in one quick motion let go and while it was hanging in the air brushed her hand across it in Thrillseeker’s direction, pouring kinetic energy into it as she did so. The end result was sort of like as though she’d thrown it but with much less of a followthrough and far quicker. The blade zipped through the air towards an unprepared Thrillseeker who half dodged, half stumbled out of the way and even so still caught a glancing blow along the side of her abdomen.
But Ashkina wasn’t done yet, she’d thrown herself forward, palms down onto the floor and in another quick movement she pulled. It was as though she was pulling a carpet out from underneath Thrillseeker. The wood moved as liquid, flowing across the room pulled towards Ashkina and quickly being reshaped once again. Thrillseeker’s stumble from the dagger quickly became a full fall, landing with a thud on the now uneven floor beneath her. Out of instinct she rolled to the side just in time to get out of the way of Ashkina with a wooden harpoon in each hand, now lodged into the floor, and even that wasn’t an impediment for long. Within moments Ashkina had pulled them free, pulling out more chunks of wood as she did so and turning them both into heavy maces.
Before Ashkina could resume her onslaught however Thrillseeker swung low with her frying pan, sweeping the back of Ashkina’s legs and forcing her to her knees. Both prone on the floor and neither willing to concede the time it took to get to their feet they both swung again. Wooden mace and frying pan colliding uselessly.
After such quick flurry of activity there was finally a pause. A tense moment, each woman unwilling to move unwilling to look away, waiting for their opponent to move, to make the first mistake and present an opening. Thrillseeker moved first, reaching down to push herself to her feet, Ashkina responded by grabbing and pulling away the ground again. Thrillseeker stumbled but managed to right herself, but it was for naught. She was still off balance when Ashkina slung the newly gathered wood out as a lasso. It tightened around Thrillseeker before suddenly losing all of the flexibility and becoming a rigid wooden noose holding her tightly in place.
“That’s quite enough of that.” Ashkina said, getting to her feet with a complete absence of urgency. “What in the monochrome hells are you sprout?” She stepped closer to Thrillseeker who was futilely struggling to break out of the lasso’s tight grip. “You’re clearly a newly sprouted but you fight like a demon. You won’t say a single word out loud but will warn me of cryptic danger in your stilted notes… and then try to attack me when i try to get you help.” Ashkina grabbed Thrillseeker’s chin and tilted it upwards to look into her eyes. “What the hell do you want here ‘Thrillseeker’?”
Thrillseeker sunk the dagger into Ashkina’s side and she screamed. Stabbing once, twice before Ashkina flung her away across the room. “You archons damned psychopath!” she exclaimed, reaching down to feel her wound and the thick sap pouring from it. It was a bad one. Pretty fatal place to get stabbed all things considered. Ashkina placed one palm over the wound and forced the wood in her body to acquiesce, to knit itself back together. It was agonizing. No more fucking around with this sprout, it was time to get serious.
Thrillseeker slammed the frying pan into the side of Ashkina’s head again and down she went face first to the ground.
GREAT ENEMY FELLED
And then she slammed the frying pan into her body a few more times just to make sure.
Telephone | Born This Way | Bad Kids | Teeth
Paper Gangsta | Sour Candy | Bad Romance | Bloody Mary | Just Dance | The Edge of Glory
Paper Gangsta | Sour Candy | Bad Romance | Bloody Mary | Just Dance | The Edge of Glory