The Community Grove, Northern Forest of Tob, eight hours before the Zuranon Disaster
"Okay, Pinison. You can do this. You can do this."
The young dryad said to herself, over and over again. She knew that what she was about to do would be going against everything she had ever learned from her elders, especially Grand Oak Naaru.
From what she had gathered from her eavesdropping on the new arrivals and her patriarch, it had been nearly an entire moon since the disappearances of her fellow sisters. It had been nearly a full day and a half since her wood and sap sister had disappeared as well.
Then the arrivals had left, and she was forced to remain behind, alone, in a grove with other scared witless dryads. The argument with her grandfather had not been pretty.
She closed her eyes and took another breath of carbon dioxide, that which all plants, dryads included, needed to survive. She recalled the conversation that had taken place not long after the new arrival's departure.
"They're being kidnapped?! How could you hide this from me?" She had shouted, scaring off some of her peers with the ferocity of her tone. She felt bad, for they were barely out of their sapling years, those tree spirits, and had come to the elders for guidance.
What it was about she didn't bother to remember, not when it came to her own list of grievances.
"Because I know your heart, little one," Grand Oak Naaru had said, patient and tranquil as always. He waved away some of the other elders in the half circle, who returned to their home trees.
The black orbs he called eyes bored into Pinison with such intensity she could practically feel herself sinking into the earth. She tried to meet his gaze, but found that she couldn't.
The patriarch huffed. "Had I told you that our sisters in bond were disappearing into the very forest we call home, you would have been the first to go out searching for them. I couldn't allow it."
"But our people have gone missing! Pops and Svend and Bjorn and everyone else are probably worried out of their minds right now, and we're not there to help them," Pinison shot back.
"They will survive. Humans are hardy, and they possess several of Lord Grover's sacred artifacts. We cannot risk going out and falling prey to those who stalk our lands."
"But what happens when they do come here? We're so far away from our human friends, and now we just sent away probably our only chance to find them…"
Naaru's wooden features frowned. "I will hear no more of this. I have done as the sacred texts decreed. And now saviors have arrived to aid us in our greatest time of need. You are not to leave this grove, and that's final!"
The younger dryad's face burned with rebuke at her elder's warning, and she could feel protestations bubbling in the back of her throat.
"If it weren't for these stupid restrictions, maybe Tulipa wouldn't have snuck out and made herself disappear!"
Her patriarch stopped dead in his tracks, and Pinison heard gasps from behind her. Most likely some of the other dryads had been passing when she screeched that last part out.
She felt her taproot sink into the depths of her abdomen, as a deathly silence fell between her and The elder tree spirit.
He turned around, his expression curiously blank, but his knowledgeable eyes betrayed how he was truly feeling. They always had, for as long as Pinison could remember. Though his face could be more like granite than wood, his eyes revealed all.
There was no floral fury behind the abyssal veil, nor was there even a sense of disappointment to perceive. There was a sort of emptiness that her relatively young mind could not fathom, which stared at her.
Grand Oak Naaru seemed to be looking through her rather than at her, as if she had ceased to exist all together in his own little world.
"Nothing haunts me more every day than the idea of our own home being turned against us, of realizing the voices of our dead lure us away. I can't help but think what Lord Grover would say, if he saw us now."
The elder dryad lowered his head, his endless gaze kept away from his grand-pistil. His voice was unusually quiet, and even soft rather than its usual roughness.
"What I do, little one, I do only to preserve us. If I thought the divine spear would be enough, then I would gladly march out and meet whatever it is that kidnaps us in honest battle. But as it is, you do not have all the facts."
Grand Oak Naaru's head snapped up, his anger and anguish melding into something truly formidable as his attention almost seemed to burn her. His body, which was a mix and match of different foliage, flowed with spiritual rage.
"I will not have you leaving this grove, not while I live, little one," he echoed, the dirt quaking beneath their feet, much like Pinison was. "Of my precious pistil, you are all I have left of her. I will not allow you to leave and endanger yourself. Tulipa still lives, I can sense it from her tree. Can you not as well?"
She could say nothing. How could she, when she felt the old power flow through her patriarch as it did? His body was absolutely immersed in the glowing green aura. Her eyes were glued to him as he spoke.
"I have spent nearly four-hundred years keeping our people safe! It was I who heralded our arrival to the Forest of Tob. It was I who trusted in Lord Grover's word that humanity was worth more than violence and corruption. And it was I who ventured out with the Seven Heroes, to put Zy'tl Q'ae back to sleep, who murdered our lord!"
A burst of air trumpeted at his last word, the leaves swirling around him in his rage. He looked ready to tear apart the grove, to rend everything in his immediate vicinity. The earth was already ahead of all else in that regard.
She couldn't help but whimper, her knees knocking together at that point. That seemed to get through the patriarch, who's ghostly aura faded away.
The soil stopped churning, and the trees which had started to sway to his emotions stilled in the peace. The elder dryad took a deep breath as his shoulders slumped.
He seemed to age another hundred years, the grass and leaves that composed him browning even more. "You are forbidden from leaving the grove. I better not catch you trying to do anything of the sort, especially not when our warriors are on guard."
She tilted her head at that, not understanding his specific usage of "warriors" in his warning. But he turned away from her, and then melded back into his home tree in the half circle of other ancient oaks.
She had sat on that for the rest of the day, and long into the night. She had thought on his words, and came to the conclusion that led her to her current predicament.
Ringing around the entire grove was a series of hardened, reinforced trees that were intermingled with those used as home trees for the dryads that took up the mantle of being a warrior. On certain days and nights, those very same warriors would switch from tree to tree, creating a constant and near impenetrable patrol around the entire grove.
But as it so happened, today was not such a day.
They were on the opposite side of the grove, practicing with their new spears and weapons of war, which was needed to protect the less able and young of their grove. They were not in the trees, and they were not on patrol. Instead, guard duty had been relegated to Aster.
Aster was a hoary tree spirit, fattened from excessive honey and lazy from fresh springtime air and pollen. She was not used often for such a purpose, but she was of great magical potential and quite capable of using it should the occasion arise.
Unlike other dryads, who took pride in their physical bodies and took care when designing or reshaping them once they came of age, Aster usually took a bland or shapeless form, vaguely humanoid with the outline of her spirit.
Pinison continued to hype herself up, dancing from one foot to the other as she stood in front of the border of her grove. She could hear the faint laughter of saplings off in the distance, either playing with one another or experimenting with their developing powers.
She rested a hand against the post tree that she figured Aster would be at, listening intently for the telling signs that she was looking for. A grumbling snore assaulted her hearing, but it was one that she smiled at regardless.
For once Aster, you're actually taking a nap when I need you to.
She raised her hand and took another step back, studying the trees in front of her to see if she could look beyond them and through every other aspect of nature in her way. She knew it was silly, but sometimes she wished she had that "x-ray" vision that she learned about from Grand Oak Naaru's stories about Grover.
She had personally never met him, for he had vanished into the Forest of Tob ages before she was born nearly two hundred years ago, but she had heard enough stories from her patriarch and the human leaders over the years.
She took one final gulpful of carbon dioxide and reached out tentatively with her right foot. She glanced over her shoulder, to check and make sure no-one else was watching her as she attempted to leave.
There was nobody, and she felt a surge of emboldenment strengthen her resolve. She stepped with both feet, and medled into the trees in front of her. Her vision did not darken or shift as she passed though, as she would not be staying for very long.
However, the brief passage through revitalized her physical form, as if she had gotten a full night's rest in only a second of her time. Then another second passed and she was directly outside of the grove.
She blinked, swiveling her head to look at the spot where she just emerged from. She heard no shouting on the other side of the wall, and she sensed nothing of the other dryads' presence coming after her.
As of now, she was well and truly alone and out of there. She focused on the path in front of her, pockmarked with debris, random trees, and patches of grass. It was nothing like the uniformity and general cleanliness of the grove, but that was nothing new.
She had no general sense of where to go, nor did she really have an idea on how to proceed from here. She was already mentally kicking herself for her rash impulsiveness.
First it was bringing in the new arrivals, then it was arguing with Grand Oak Naaru, and now here I am! But there's no way I can just go back, not when my sister is still out there!
When the thought of her beloved sister came to the forefront of her mind, she smacked her forehead in realization.
I'm looking for my sister! I doubt that she would actually be at any of our usual spots, but it wouldn't hurt to start checking for signs of her there.
Resolve wrapped her in its iron grip, and she turned in the general direction of where she would need to go to reach one of the first spots that she knew Tulipa would have visited in the past.
She closed her eyes and extended her awareness to the surrounding titans of trees, like she was shifting her fingers through a bowl of water and feeling where the ripples bounced off of. It was a simple sense, meant mostly to help her identify compatible trees, but sometimes it could help her to detect ones that were...different from others.
She wasn't sure how the ones who used the voices of passed loved ones were able to avoid detection as they did, but if they could so easily fool a dryad in their home turf, then they had to have some way of interacting with the environment to stay hidden.
She grunted, and walked forward a few paces to expand her abilities to trees further out in the forest. When this yielded no new results either, she walked another few paces in the same direction. She rinsed and repeated, as the humans would say, several times over.
Each time she would open her eyes and scan her surroundings, marking mental checks on the distance she had placed between herself and the community grove. At the point she was now, the walls of her home were no more than a blur at the edge of her eyesight.
Focus, Pinison, focus. Think, what could possibly appear out of the normal? What would be not natural?
When she searched again, she could feel a presence at the very edge of her "tree sight" as she called it. She proceeded onwards, taking care not to make too much noise and shifting from tree to tree as she felt the tug on her spirit greatened with each step.
At the end of the path was a flat outcropping of rock, surrounded by several familiar specimens of the oak variety. Though the bark itself on many of them had not been shed or broken, intricate shapes had been traced into them through the use of magic.
They were merely doodles of animals that Pinison and her sister had seen in years past, simplified and made by sapling hands. The faded shapes of what she remembered to be an owl-bear, Spotted Frill Basilisks, Legion Grubs, and some more mundane wildlife like single species bear, average deer, and shining wolves all congregated together on the surface of the tree.
However, while amusing to study and wonder at how she could have been such a terrible artist back then, that was not the subject of her search.
Her target was another oak tree, but unlike the others which dotted the landscape around her, this particular member was covered in a thin, almost translucent layer of black slime.
She was tempted to touch it, to see what it was exactly, but she contented herself just by watching and seeing if it had any effect on the tree itself. It slowly slithered down the bark, moist and slippery, before pooling at the roots.
She bleched in disgust, backing away and surveying her immediate area. Nothing indicated that anything was amiss, or out of place. The birds sat in the branches above, tweeting and whistling to their neighbors high above her head.
A flowing wind caressed her timber body, giving her a dull sensation of coolness in the mid-afternoon sun. The green grass was a luxurious carpet between her toes, and the dirt springy from the treading of the wildlife.
Save for the odd substance coating the tree, all was as it should be, and if she wasn't pressed by current circumstances, she would stay there and soak in the sunshine.
Of course she's not here, but this is definitely a start. I don't think I've ever really seen anything quite like it before.
Courage did not abandon her this time, and she managed the lightest poke at the alien substance. It clung to her finger much like ordinary sap, but when the surface broke, the most horrid of odors slammed her full force.
She did not consume in the same way that humans did, for she had no reason or purpose to. Still, had she been capable of doing so, she probably would have gagged.
The best she could manage was waving away the foul stench. She turned to face the flat piece of granite, deciding to sit down on its edge and rest her head in her hands.
She tapped her cheek with her forefinger in thought, humming a tune to no specific rhythm. She felt a memory of her first time ever being in the space rising up, taking over her waking dreams.
She sat upon the piece of landscape like her personal throne, even if it did make her bottom somewhat sore after sitting upon it for an extended period of time.
Tulipa stood in front of a tree, tracing a drawing into the dense bark with a glowing index finger. Though she was facing away from her, Pinison could see her older sister's "tongue" sticking out as she worked.
The elder sibling looked off to her left. "Do you think you could sit in the light a bit more? I'm having a hard time really catching your essence."
A hulking, charcoal colored owl-bear hooted, before clumsily scooting over on its butt into the beam of light that reflected off the side of its beak. The illumination made its eyes sparkle just as beautifully as an unobstructed starry night.
A pair of stout, vestigial wings fluttered in contentment, and the apex predator preened itself. It looked at the sibling duo with an expression of animalistic pride in its lustrous coat of fluffy feathers and coarse fur.
Tulipa grunted her thanks, the swishing motions of her doodling growing faster as she came closer and closer to finishing her artwork. She uttered an exclamation of triumph, stepping away from her piece.
"There," Tulipa said happily, "that should paint you in a rather flattering light, I think."
Pinison groaned at the unintentional pun, while the owl bear rolled its enormous eyes. It sat up, going up to the tree and closely examining the older sister's attempt at replicating its likeness.
It hooted once, and then lazily ambled out of the safe space, twisted talons on its feet tearing up the roots and dirt with raw power.
The younger dryad raised an eyebrow, finally seeing the artwork for herself and smiling at the overdramatics of her sister.
"With how fast your hands were moving, I would've thought you'd be making something to rival the humans themselves," she said, smirking in faux contempt.
Tulipa huffed. "So? Black Root seemed to like it, or at least I think so, since he didn't try to sit on me this time. You're just mad 'cause you can't draw a masterpiece as well as I can."
The younger sister eyed the "masterpiece" in question, essentially being made up of two circles overlapping each other, with rough blobs to make up the legs, lines to make the claws, and a triangle for the beak.
"Right...So what's the plan for today? You said you wanted to come out here to get away from the grove for a while, so which way's the wind blowing?"
Tulipa didn't say anything for a moment, her face curiously devoid of any emotion as she replied.
"I got to see the human settlement for the first time. I was kinda...disappointed if I'm being honest with you."
Pinison didn't say anything, merely gesturing for her sister to continue.
"With how much Grand Oak Naaru went on and on about the humans, I thought they would've been more impressive. I remember when he used to be more suspicious of them, but that seems to be a thing of the past now."
"He just said to be wary because they can be cunning," Pinison pointed out, "just like he says to be careful when playing with Black Root. Both are really nice but can have their mean streaks."
Tulipa considered that, then shrugged. "Either way, the humans from the settlement didn't seem all that interesting, except for one really. I think his name was Steven? No, it was Svend!"
The younger dryad leaned backwards on her hands, letting the sunlight soak into her body better. She started swinging her legs.
"Really, Tulipa? That's what you got out of your visit? Already thinking about human males? Please don't tell me that you're starting to pollinate."
"It's nothing like that!" the older sister shot back, looking scandalized at the comment. "He just seemed...interesting is all, out of all the other ones. Besides, what Grand Oak Naaru says is a load of fertilizer anyways. Tell you what, as soon as I come back, I'll let you know how it went. Promise."
Pinison could only shake her head as she got up. "Just make sure you don't do anything you'll regret, alright? I may be younger, but it always seems like I'm having to pull you out of trouble."
Tulipa waved her off with a giggle. "Right back at you. We should head back, before the grove starts to get worried."
The memory faded from her mind's eye, and now she was back in the present. There was a distinct lack of her sister's presence, which dug at her taproot.
She sighed, getting up from her spot on the slab of granite and going back to the tree with the slime on it. The small hole she had poked through was now completely sealed, cutting off the foul stench that she'd been subjected to earlier.
As she studied the black mass more and more, a sudden urge came to her to reach out with the "tree sense" she had used earlier. She had detected its presence as she got closer, but in her excitement neglected to truly take the time and analyze it.
With the last of her daydream falling away, Pinison found a much clearer headspace to work with. Her consciousness ever so slowly creeped closer to see what she could deduce. The amount of slime would be enough to completely drench her entire upper body.
Then she made contact, and she felt absolutely nothing.
A noise of confusion came from her throat, before she pressed even harder mentally against the slimy substance. The oak upon which it was based hummed with life, whirlpools of spiritual energy flowing in and around its corporeal form.
Except for where the slime itself touched it.
Instead, it was like a wall had sprouted up right in front of her, obscuring everything that was behind it. For all intents and purposes, it was as if the slime didn't even truly exist.
"There's no way that could be possible," she murmured, "I should be able to sense the entirety of the tree, and yet…"
Revulsion was thrown to the wayside when she dug her hand through the slime, scraping it off into the dirt below. It landed with a wet squelch as it impacted. When she extended her senses this time, the hole in the slime she'd made all the way down to the bark's surface was now visible to her.
"It's like a cloak! Whatever this stuff is, it hides whatever it comes into contact with, which means that whatever has been kidnapping the others must be using something like this to stay hidden!"
A flush of pride warmed her all over, and a self-satisfied grin carved itself onto her face at her reasoning. She couldn't take it with her, as she had no container with which to carry it, nor was she keen on scooping it up and carrying it in her hands.
"It's not much yet, but with this as a start, I can search for similar cases! There could even be a trail, and if I can find it, then I can probably find where the other dryads are being held-"
The smile faded when she turned back around, coming face-to-face with a monstrosity.
It leaned forward on all fours, with bulging arms and heavy, scaled hands. Its hind legs were digitigrade, ending in blunt stumps where the ankles were. The spine protruded grotesquely as if it had been pulled halfway out.
The skull was vaguely reptilian, a mish-mash of teeth and wood splinters sticking out of its bony jaws. A pair of deer's antlers were angled forward, almost obscuring the hollow, dull-red pinpricks for eyes.
The same kind of black slime pooled onto the ground from its maw, a low growl clicking from deep within its chest. It took a lumbering step towards Pinison. She took a step back.
The temperature dropped suddenly to near freezing, and a gnawing feeling of hunger tore at her. She took another step back as the beast ambled forward, slightly opening its snout to allow a torrent of slime to escape its repellant jaws.
Her back hit the slime soaked tree, the monster shuffling closer as its eyes lit up and honed in on her diminutive form. It snarled lowly, lowering its head slightly.
Instinct took over for Pinison, her physical form melding with the tree behind her. Tunnel vision placed her stalker at the center of her sight, the creature suddenly lunging forward with a booming roar.
The slime did not hinder her transition, though it was uncomfortably chilling to pass through. The animal's horns lodged themselves into the bark of the oak, wailing in frustration at having missed its mark.
The younger dryad landed on her backside, scrambling away from the violently shaking tree. The abomination shrieked, garbling strongly coherent words in its rage.
"Hunt...gather...claim…," it hissed, now ripping at the stump with its muscular limbs. "Hunt...gather...claim…!"
Pinison did not wait for it to try and free itself, hastily getting back to her feet and running as fast as she could.
A BOOM! resounded from behind her as she sprinted, not daring to see what had happened in fear of losing precious time to make her exit. She melded from tree to tree, gaining back valuable energy spent.
Despite its speed, it was quite clumsy in its movements. The monster crashed into trees more often than not, howling in frustration as wood shards flew out like shrapnel.
it was coming closer and closer, spittle spilling from its jaws as it snapped them shut on the most recent tree that the younger dryad had melded into. It's powerful teeth eviscerated the trunk, crashing to the ground.
Pinison yelped, being shoved out of the tree with the force of the beast's bite force. As she fell, she managed to twist herself so that she would land on her back. She reached out an arm and made a slashing motion at the creature.
The dirt erupted, several roots shooting out faster than arrows in defense of their user. It was not a moment too soon, as the reptilian monster pounced on her much more fragile body.
The roots slammed into the torso of her attacker, piercing its hide as easily as the cotton shirts of her human allies. Black sludge poured from its wounds like tar, holding it up in midair.
Some of it speckled into her face, and that prompted her to slash another arm and shoot out more roots from the nearby trees.
It thrashed wildly in its suspension, chipped, coal-colored claws slashing with abandon. Pinison huffed and puffed, drawing in needed carbon dioxide from her recent mini-marathon.
Her pursuer stilled, presumably bleeding out as it shuddered. She waited a few moments, before she let out a sigh of relief.
It was short lived, as the monstrosity gained a second wind and gripped onto the roots that impaled it. To her utter shock and horror, it began to pull itself downwards along the spikes.
It's actually hurting itself to try and get me?! Why didn't it die?!
In response to her thoughts, the creature pulled itself down even more, close enough that its talons could graze her timber features. It roared directly in her face, the younger dryad making out the rough texturing of the fangs.
The beats batted heavily at her, the claws grazing her cheek and drawing a thin line of sap. She desperately dug into the dirt underneath her, panting hard from a mixture of fear and adrenaline.
Her hand touched the surface of a wayward root, her grip tightening immensely on the arboreal piece. Some of the black slime from her attacker's mouth dripped onto her supernatural features.
Yes! It won't be much but it'll have to do!
Already her body was fading away, her spirit absorbing into the roots of the tree. It almost happened in slow motion, sounds muted and her reflexes sluggish as she utilized the less efficient way of melding.
Thankfully, she disappeared in the nick of time, the wood and vegetation dissolving into the earth from where she'd been born. Her vision narrowed and slowly rose upwards along the length of the tree.
The beast slid down upon the roots all the way by then, almost all of them snapping under the tremendous weight of its bulk. Those that did not immediately break were torn to pieces by monstrous paws.
Snarling ceased as curiosity replaced it, Pinison watching in stunned shock as the beast shredded where she had been. She sucked in a breath when it tore off the root she had used to escape.
The abomination sniffed the piece, before tossing it over its shoulder with disinterest. It's glowing orbs searched up and down the tree itself, before locking eyes with where Pinison's field of view was.
It stalked forward at a snail's pace, the roots that had impaled its torso dragging along and leaving creases in the moist soil. It yanked them out, not even wincing as black blood gushed from the open wounds.
Antlers brushed against the bark's surface, sharp tips scraping and a low growl emanating from the creature. The younger dryad watched, transfixed.
White bone from its skull was smudged with mud and cracked in various spots. The orifices of its nose blew air in and out against Pinison's temporary residence.
A mighty paw rose, claws flexing in anticipation like cleavers in a butcher's shop. In her case, she mentally cried out and braced herself.
The limb stopped, and the creature tilted its head as if it were listening to some far-off voice in the ear canals of its cranium. It clicked its jaws, the tongue hanging to the wayside.
It looked up to the canopy, and then directly behind it. It snapped its mandible shut, the prehensile appendage slithering back into its cavernous home.
"Later...come...find you...others...find you...first…," it hissed as it turned around. The shadows of a nearby tree darkened as the creature approached, simply falling through the shadows like it fell off of a ledge.
Pinison dared not exit her current abode, her sense of sight pivoting on an imaginary axis in all directions, unnerved by the attacker's words.
After roughly fifteen minutes had passed and no other indication that a being of similar nature or stature to the previous one would appear, the younger dryad slowly reformed outside of the tree.
She noticed the great trail of destruction that her chase had left behind, as if a boulder had been chasing after her rather than some horror straight out of her nightmares.
The change in temperature had also disappeared, as had the overwhelming sense of animalistic hunger that had latched onto her very state of being.
Metaphorically speaking, her "stomach" churned and twisted itself into knots as the full weight of her situation crashed down upon her. The sap from her cut upon her cheek traced its way along the ridges of her wooden face.
She timidly tiptoed to one of the fallen arboreal titans, reaching out with her tree sense. As she expected, their life force was steadily draining away, though patches of varying sizes were shielded from her sight.
She ran her hands along the broken branches and cracked bark, sighing with the loss of potential new dryad life, if she was understanding the life energies correctly.
While a coupling between a dryad and a compatible male was the fastest way to make more saplings, some trees within the Forest of Tob possessed a special potency within themselves to form a consciousness.
Once enough energy had been amassed, that consciousness would slowly gain sentience, forming thoughts and emotions far more complex than any mere bush or tree. It was only then that a physical body could be made, and a dryad's first steps into the world would be taken.
But such a process could take years, if not decades, and there would be no guarantee that they could reach a community grove in time to avoid the many predators of their native environment.
Pinison had been born and raised within the forest, within the safety of the community grove under Grand Oak Naaru. She had meticulously learned under the tutelage of her elders, who themselves had learned from Lord Grover, the lost god of the Forest of Tob.
She should've known these thickets like the back of her hand. She should've been able to find her sister and lost grove siblings like it was nothing!
A cry of anguish erupted from her throat, falling to her knees and slamming a fist into the dirt. Even in her self-anger she could not bring herself to strike a denizen of her home, sentient or not.
The wind continued to blow, rustling the foliage on her head. Her joints clicked with the shifting of her body and with her raising a hand to rest on the broken specimens.
The remaining life energy flowed through her fingers and up her arms. It settled deeply in her core, restoring the lost strength she'd expended.
She got back to her feet, extending her supernatural abilities to the surrounding area.
Well, it wasn't what I wanted, but it was a start, going to visit one of our old stomping grounds. Where else could I go and check?
Several places flickered through her mind's eye, being given the boot as they were either too inconsequential or too far out to warrant the trip, especially after the monster's ominous warning.
Its ability to speak did confirm the story of dryads and humans being lured off with the voices of loved ones, though she wasn't sure how anyone could be fooled by such a gravelly, inhuman tone.
Perhaps it could change the inflections of its voice? Or influence the mind of its targets? Whatever the scenario, she knew now that she had to exercise the greatest amount of caution she could muster.
Finally, a place came to mind of where she could search next. It was easily an hour or so's walk, and, thankfully, laden with many places to hide and rejuvenate should the need arise.
However, her only means of defending herself would be using the other trees as shields or projectiles. If more creatures like the one that had just assaulted her were awaiting wayward travelers, then such measures would not be enough.
Really should have grabbed a spear before I left. But then again, who says I don't have one?
The hand that still held onto the fallen tree shone with innate mana, wisps of magic worming their way into the dead timber. Flakes of bark and surface level timber fell away, as the core bent to her will and mental designs.
Her eyes were screwed shut to better focus on the image, the topiary molding into a thin handle. The excess fell away, revealing a spear with a homogenous texture due to its origin.
The tip was already sharpened to a razor edge, and it felt far lighter than any other material of a similar build had ever been.
Not bad for a first attempt, and definitely good enough to defend myself with.
She gave the spear a twirl, marveling at the work of her own hands. However, the shaft caught on her fingers, making her drop the weapon. She half-heartedly laughed at her own attempts to wield it.
"Seems I should have asked for fighting lessons from some of the other warriors," she snarked to the spear. "Hope you're strong enough to not snap in half the first time I stab with you."
Said weapon did not respond, thankfully. The sturdy grip of its wood was an answer enough to her question.
"Right. Now to go to the one spot I know Tulipa would have visited at least once before she disappeared."
Such a place had been considered sacred and barred entry to any save some very specific individuals who knew of its existence, though it was not because of any reason particular to the dryads or their human allies.
Rather, it had been deemed as such due to the importance of it to her missing sister and her graftmate Svend.
"By the Deep Roots, I hope I don't find anything too disgusting while there."
Against her best wishes and hopes, the trip to Svend and Tulipa's meeting spot was not uneventful, but there was nothing particularly dangerous about it.
The monster's warning about "others" had come true, and each instance proved frightful and disconcerting in their own ways.
Only a half hour in another had appeared, lounging in the branches of the canopy above. It's beady, glowing-red eyes had bored into her, flickering to the weapon in Pinison's hands. It was far skinnier than its previous companion, and had the skull of a deer.
It appeared malnourished, with how closely the skin clung to the bones. Otherwise, there was nothing truly remarkable about its appearance, even if it was quite heinous.
There was also a surprising lack of interest on the monster's part, remaining in its position and watching Pinison with idle curiosity.
She held her spear tighter, aiming the point at the newcomer. Her hands slightly trembled as she stared longer and longer, the sense of something profoundly wrong chewing at her now that she had the chance to stand still and study it without interruption.
The temperature did not change, but a curious new sensation of being watched from every direction at once. The pressure of so many eyes on her at once almost crushed her.
The beast, upon seeing her change in stature, immediately dissolved into its own shadow, clicking noises from its throat like mocking laughter as a parting gift.
The younger dryad blinked, shaking her head at the brief encounter.
At least it didn't start chasing me like the last one, she mused, continuing onwards.
At around the hour mark of her journey, she met a pair of identical monstrosities deeper in the forest. They were just barely beyond her perception, even with the aid of the tree sense, which showed them as holes in the world.
These ones were of an average bulk, with the skulls of owl-bears. A recurring theme of deer's antlers adorned their brows, but each possessed a pair of tattered, ruined wings upon their backs. They were significantly larger and even appeared capable of flight, were it not for the massive holes in the membranes.
The usual deathly grin of a skull greeted her, and the abominations jeered at her in warbled voices.
"Little flower...little flower...running away…," one grunted, dropping to all fours and dashing off into the tree line.
"No...searching...searching for...what is lost…," another squealed, cackling like a coyote before joining its brethren. Both fell out of sight.
Pinison's bark crawled at the sight, but her feet carried her forward when conscious thought failed. Her head was on a swivel by that point, wondering what else might be tracking her along the way to her destination.
The feeling of being watched never went away, and had only intensified every time one such creature appeared.
Every step closer to Svend and Tulipa's old meeting spot brought more of them out of the woodwork, sporting the skulls of various animals and other features unique to themselves. Some were identical, having the craniums of deers, and all with a pair of horns to match.
They jeered at her, chasing one another and tumbling in the dirt like common cubs. Their janky movements and decrepit bodies were all vague horrors that hinted at something else at play.
Various skin tones of ashen gray and charcoal black contrasted heavily against the background of the forest's palette. All their ethereal eyes glaring at her in rage or amusement or sorrow. Each member kept up with Pinison as easily as if she were a newborn learning to walk for the first time.
One mischievous participant came at her from her blindspot, raking its claws against the upper half of her back. It was not deep enough to cause any significant damage, but the sudden pain made her reflexively swing her spear at the assailant.
It skittered away with a wolfish smile, the skulls of several hawks conjoined to make a larger whole.
This is not how I wanted to spend my day! I just wanted to find my sister!
Pinison's lower lip trembled as she slammed the side of a spruce tree to her right. Shards of bark fell off and levitated to her form, melding and creating haphazard armor. The bark plate was a far cry from what was made back home, but it would suffice in the moment.
"I don't know what any of you are, but if you want me, come and get me!" The younger dryad challenged, aiming the point of her spear at the offending party.
She expected the beasts to proceed with caution, now facing a fully armed dryad, even if her equipment was subpar. At the very least, they should have backed off and given her a wide berth to walk more comfortably.
Instead, the armor only emboldened the smaller monstrosities, who employed hit and run tactics against her. Some moved so fast that in a blink of an eye they were gone, the only evidence left behind the thin scratches in her bark plate armor.
Others were more deliberately sluggish when coming forth from the larger party, as if enticing Pinison with easy targets. But whenever she jabbed the point of her spear at them, they were always just out of reach.
Her feet were on a constant pivot as she edged agonizingly onwards to her destination, hounded by her abnormal visitors.
"Come...come...let her...see…," one with the skull of a regular bear said, pushing away the smaller creatures.
"Need…more of us…," another replied, half of its lower jaw missing.
A dozen and a half pairs of glowing red eyes scanned her body, digging past her armor more easily than tooth or claw could. Their stares seemed almost able to tear apart her very soul and peer into her deepest, darkest secrets.
"Leave me alone!" Pinison screamed, "Just know that if you want to kill me, I'm not going down without a fight!"
That statement elicited unearthly howls of scorn and cheer, as if the beasts grew excited from the thought of combat.
"What's the matter?! Too afraid to fight me when I'm armed? Is that why you had to use the voices of my sisters to lure more away? I thought I was dealing with the stuff of nightmares, not some cowardly, half-rotten imps!"
One of them responded, the same owl-bear headed creature that had been a part of a pair earlier. The light of its hollow orbs ignited in such a way that it resembled flames from a fireplace.
It clashed with her, others of its party closing in to get a better look at the brawl. Pinison was sent sprawling to the ground, flat on her back as the full weight of her opponent drove the carbon dioxide from her stomata.
She held her spear up horizontally, shielding herself from the worst of the tackle. The beast's claws pushed down on the weapon's handle with a groan.
"Teach...you…," Owl-Head, as Pinison dubbed him, snarled, snapping its beak at her face. It screeched in avian fury, pressing down even harder with its weight.
The younger dryad's face contorted in floral rage. "The only one who is gonna teach me anything is my Grand Oak Naaru!"
Her will extended through the earth, calling upon the roots deep below to rise up and slam into the attacker's body with blunt force. It sent the creature scrambling, giving Pinison enough time to get back up.
In her mind, though they tormented and mocked her, none of them actually tried to majorly hurt her or at least succeeded in doing so. So she thought to return the favor.
She flipped her weapon so that she was aiming with the flat end, smacking the creature full-on in the face. It was not hard enough to crack the cranium, but definitely solid enough to give off an audible thump.
Owl-Head wailed, returning to its twin as the other amalgamations laughed in their airy, halting manner.
"I could have killed you, and for all you've done I should've, but for whatever reason you're keeping me alive. Consider this payment," Pinison said, her glare heating up hot enough that she imagined she could melt the stalkers if possible.
Her guard was at an all time high, and her senses vigilant as she extended her tree sense to incorporate the beings around her. It helped to keep track of them, for while their presence was hidden in a manner of thinking, the void they left behind was still too visible to be ignored.
The trip went on in relative peace, her new "companions" watching but never coming close like they had previously did.
Their jeers and animalistic taunts had also ceased all together. Quiet reigned for the entire trip save for the occasional crack of a branch underfoot.
She breathed a sigh of relief once she passed the threshold of the meeting spot between her missing sister and human graftmate, taking stock of what was all around her and what clues she might find regarding Tulipa's whereabouts.
Svend and Tulipa's meeting grounds had been a secret place for those who had been brought there, and it had been molded by the elder dryad sibling to better fit their needs.
It had once been just an ordinary section of the Forest of Tob, but with some magical influence the trees had been moved to form a circular meadow of sorts. If Pinison was recalling her understanding of human measurements correctly, then the diameter was around fifteen meters by fifteen meters.
All the displaced oak and spruce trees had been used as a semi-solid border to keep larger predators out but allow smaller critters in. It was unlike the densely packed, fortified trees of the community grove.
The grove's creation seemed to have happened almost yesterday, with the amount of fanfare that had gone about on her sister Tulipa's part.
The dirt erupted in miniature showers as roots were upturned and slithered across the land. The trees which the roots grew from were carried off to an imaginary edge, guided by the hand of the older sibling.
Pinison watched with crossed arms as her bunch of arboreal specimens labored across to their portion of the in-progress grove. She pursed her lip when she noticed how much faster her sibling's trees were moving.
"You sure I can't convince the trees to carry themselves a little quicker," the younger dryad said in bored annoyance. "At this rate, you're gonna end up done way before my first batch is finished."
Tulipa laughed gently at that. "Your powers are still developing. You're only, what, fifty? Give it another decade and you'll see some improvements, I promise."
The younger tree spirit rolled her eyes. "Says you. As much as I don't mind doing this, I don't get why you need an entire portion of the forest to yourself and Steven over there."
"My name is Svend, actually," the human boy smoothly corrected.
Pinison gave him a side eye, taking in his rugged and somewhat dirty clothes. By human standards, he had just reached adulthood at eighteen years, but he would barely be a sproutling by her kind's measurements.
"I'll use your real name when your Druid magic kicks in, Steven," she teased, before channeling more of her own mana to move another patch of trees once her first ones had settled in place at the border.
Svend scowled while Tulipa giggled, the former giving the latter a scandalized look.
"Sorry! Sorry, honey. I'm sure your grand stamen will have a lot to teach you when the time comes," Tulipa amended, going over to give her graftmate a hug.
Ever since the both of them had gotten together, Pinison had noticed that her sister would almost always be wearing the human boy's tunics. It fit her surprisingly well.
"Yeah, if Pops would ever stop preaching from Grover's book, he might actually be able to tell me when I'm ready," the lumberjack snarked, fully embracing his graftmate.
They shared a tender moment and kiss that lasted long enough for the younger dryad to make a gagging noise. The in-love pair split off from one another with an airy laugh.
"Can we please finish making this place before you decide to pollinate? I really don't want to be here for that," Pinison pleaded, taking pleasure in the human's cherry red face.
"You say that now, but then you'll find someone yourself one day to be with like Svend and I," Tulipa said in a sage voice, taking after Grand Oak Naaru as she said that.
"Yeah, and when I do, I'll make sure to stay far and away from any innocent eyes."
The older sibling hummed at that, spreading her arms as if to embrace the entire world. "Hence why we're building this place! I'll take good care of it, and make sure nothing ever gets in or out without my say so."
"Uh-," the lumberjack started, before being hushed by a single finger to his lips.
"I'll make sure to keep a gap for you until you can get official training once your magic appears."
The two of them then left Pinison to be in their own little world, chatting away the day as the last trees rerooted into their planned locations. The younger dryad smiled to herself, taking in the sight of her sister.
"I'm sure you'll take very good care of this place. But please, just make sure to warn me about what you're doing before I ever come here to visit," she said, temporarily bringing the pair back to reality to share a laugh with her.
And that was how it ended up being, up until Tulipa had disappeared. Though it had only been a couple of days, it felt like her sibling had been gone for ages now. Her meticulous care of the private space beforehand was second to none.
Which is why the younger dryad frowned when she saw part of the border had been torn asunder. The trees had been snapped in half, as if some terrible giant had come along and broken them in its rage.
Much of the other greenery had become a dusty brown, sapped of all moisture and life. The shriveled husks of similarly drained trees littered the rest of the private meadow.
As she walked around the perimeter of the space, the monsters trickled out with her, taking up spaces at regular intervals surrounding the interior. They held a sort of nervous energy to their aura, as if eagerly anticipating something.
Pinison's concerns deepened at that, as well as the deep impressions left in the dirt. The soil was cracked and musty, and the grass around it was just as dry.
She kneeled, running her hands through the dent in the earth and coming away with thin and useless soil. She gently blew it away, catching on the currents of the wind.
Whatever happened here, this soil will be barren for generations, if not more, the young dryad thought, before standing upright.
A quick assessment of her surroundings showed that damage was prevalent throughout the meadow, and she turned inwards to see the epicenter.
A shining patch that was distinctly not wildflowers or water stuck out to her, and she trudged over to see what it was. The moment she did, a tiny gasp escaped her unbidden.
It was a few days old, by her estimate, but still fresh enough to see what it truly was. It was a splatter of rust colored blood, having been exposed to the air, and a hardened piece of amber that had mixed in with it.
What resulted was a strange, discolored piece of life fluid from two different species of intelligent beings, ones that Pinison could guess at strongly.
That-nobody else really knew about this place, which means that sap and blood could only belong to…
She bent over to grab the piece, gingerly holding it like it might shatter at any moment. When she held it up to the light, she could more clearly identify the blood that swam throughout the sap.
Her hands shook the longer she held it. Her mind was zooming at nearly a million thoughts per second. Possibility after possibility presented themselves before her, each more horrible than the last.
"This can't be it. There has to be more. There has to be more!" Pinison whispered to herself.
A chittering broke her out of her self-despair and over-analyzation. She turned to see that one of the creatures that had followed her inside was perfectly mimicking the sounds of a wild chipmunk.
Her head tilted quizzically at the foreign being, which raised a single talon to point in the direction of the destroyed trees. It chattered some more, and then fell to all fours and sprinted out of the grove.
Others of its kind followed the example, disappearing out of sight and into the forest beyond. The feeling of being watched did not abate but lessened considerably.
"No. This is as far as I go. Whatever happened here, I need to get back to the others and convince them to join me. I don't care what Grand Oak Naaru says at that point," Pinison said.
She turned on her heel, determined to reach the community grove by any means necessary and report her findings. She knew the amber was all she had, but it was proof enough that something had gone horribly wrong.
She could imagine it already. The primal power of her patriarch tearing their home apart in his lividness, demanding to know why she had left anyways when he had so clearly invited her to escape anyways.
Now she had tangible evidence that the disappearances were far more insidious. She just had to reach the grove in time. She just had to reach them!-
"Pinison…," rang out a voice, from where the beasts had wandered out, causing her to stop dead in her tracks. Her taproot ground to a halt as well.
The rolling inflections caressed her ear canals as easily as any song that a maiden could produce. It was warm and kind and comforting to her all at once, but it also weighed down her limbs with dread.
The bark of her body tightened in response, while her armor bunched up alongside it. Her grip on her personal spear was near the shattering point, small splinters breaking off and falling.
Before she could really question what she had just heard, it came to her again, just as hauntingly beautiful as the first time.
"Pinison," came the voice of her beloved sibling, Tulipa, from the woodlands beyond, "Won't you come to me? I have something I need to show you."
Her feet had literally rooted themselves to the ground, as a powerful and compelling force tried to force her limbs to obey. Already the resistant tendrils that grew from her body were receding.
You're not here. You're not here. You're not here. You're not here. You're. Not. Here.
Over and over again this mantra came, but she was facing the annihilated entryway, marching against her will to reach the source of the voice.
Once she stepped past the threshold, the drained oak trees dissolved into an ashy substance and trailed with the younger dryad.
"There are possibilities that you can't even begin to guess at," said False-Tulipa, "Come, let me give you a peek, as to where I am now."
The tree spirit grit her wooden teeth, and her arms strained against the unworldly force that influenced her very body.
The tree sense revealed little besides the obvious, and there were not even the voids of the abominations to keep her company while she walked on.
Time ticked by, the sun slowly setting into an early afternoon, but Pinison's coerced stroll allowed no respite whatsoever. She prided herself on her willpower and tenacity, as it was, afterall, those very factors that had gotten her out into the deeper recesses of Tob in the first place.
A portion of the forest she did not recognize began to spring up around her, and it was then that a whole host of alien plant life presented themselves before her eyes.
One such example was a cluster of bone white flowers that grew on rocky outcrops scattered along the earth. Their petals looked like clamps, a flat bed with blood red tendrils flicking through the air and lashing at the flies that swarmed them.
The prongs of the clamps curved inwards, joined by a single hard plate at the upper middle section where both sides met. A segmented length came out of the side of it, dangling uselessly.
At first their shape confounded her, for Pinison had never encountered such specimens in her entire lifetime. It took her a moment to realize they were shaped the same way a human rib cage and portion of a spine would be.
Another exotic plant species was bulbous, with serrated edges at the top and four vines snaking above the dirt. Several carcasses of natural wildlife littered the base of it, picked clean of any remaining flesh.
One that was relatively tame was a legitimate human skull, the teeth growing upwards and forming a spiral above the forehead. It reminded Pinison of an umbrella, only much more cracked and yellowed from the elements it was subjected to.
The eye sockets were overgrown with budding flowers of all colors and sizes. Their roots extended so overreaching around the skull that it created a second pseudo skin for the discarded cranium.
Pinison trudged against her will past them all, watching as the piles of bone and rotted carcasses grew at an alarming rate. It was completely silent, wherever she was, save for the clattering of dead remains.
Then she was presented before a gargantuan wall of interlocked trees, twisted in unnatural ways to form a gate of sorts. The community grove's borders were uniform and glowing with life, while this example was dull and jagged.
"Just this way, not much farther now," cooed the False-Tulipa directly in her ear canal, "All shall be revealed, and given a chance to be explained."
CRACK!
The gate shredded itself, pieces of decayed plant life falling as they grated and ground against one another. Some trees were sunk into the earth to open the gate, while others were outright thrown free of their place.
The cacophony was like a chorus of the damned, and Pinison cursed whatever infernal force held her in its grasp to prevent her from covering her ears at the shrieking noises.
All quieted once the gate finished opening, a mess of wood chips and molded leaves the only sign that it had been there once. The younger dryad's body continued on.
As soon as she walked past, the supernatural hold on her form ceased, causing her to collapse to the ground. Her limbs felt sore from straining so hard against her invisible binds, but now she had full autonomy once more.
Pinison's tree sense had been extended to all reaches of her new area, but nothing jumped out at her like back home. It was if she had walked into the great expanse of space of itself, with not even the stars to keep her company.
But such things were not needed, when she could see physically just fine, especially with what she was now seeing.
In her youth, she had heard only fleeting whispers of its existence from the elders of her grove. Grand Oak Naaru spoke only of it in passing, as if it were a terrifying nightmare that he had had only the night before.
Pinison's patriarch always gained a far away look when he recalled those days, traveling with legendary heroes to smite a horror straight from myth. It was a time even before Tulipa's, when Naaru had been full of warrior's vigor and rage.
It had sapped the life of the very forest it called home, and supposedly killed their patron, Lord Grover, in his final moments of sanity. None were safe when in its warpath, and when it slaughtered indiscriminately.
Zy'tl Q'ae, the great scourge of the Forest of Tob. Its hunger everlasting and unsated. A monster among monsters, a killer without equal. The demon tree that supposedly could kill a lord of the forest like Grover.
And it was completely and utterly dead.
The center of the tree, which had sported a cavernous maw of timber shards for teeth and congealed roots for a tongue, hung limply and unmoving.
Grooves which served as the eyes were shuttered and dark, and the wood surrounding them grey and cracked. Its great height which shot through the canopy and could be seen for miles around sagged in its postmortem state.
Pinison recoiled as if physically struck by the revelation. "What! I-I don't understand. Grand Oak always said it could never be stopped, that it could ever be put to sleep...How...?"
"Such is the way of life," answered False-Tulipa sweetly, her voice echoing all around the glade at this point, "That which is mighty and proud can and will fall. And out of all life...can be born something new."
The younger dryad instantly started scanning her surroundings at those words. Her eyes caught the tattered remains of cloaks with dried blood disclosing their fabric, along with fist sized holes.
One such cloak was mostly intact, and had the symbol of a simplified, hooded skull with red eyes painted onto it cheaply. All attire littered the ground at the base of the dead demon tree.
More of the bulbous plants she had seen outside were awake and wriggling their prehensile vines around, picking up the fresh and not-so-fresh carcasses of various wildlife and depositing them into their orb shaped bodies.
Those that were not as active swelled to near-bursting sizes, with cores filled with glowing golden fluid that grew and harbored fetal abominations like those that had harassed Pinison on her journey.
There were nearly two dozen in total that flanked the entirety of Zy'tl Q'ae's personal grove, with around another dozen smaller variations growing right in front of the fully mature ones.
The younger dryad's attention was then directed to the tops of the trees which formed the border, taking note of great, slimy masses that clung to them, the bodies of both human men and dryads slotted deeply into their holds.
There were two individuals to each "pocket", a dryad and a human, and though they looked the worse for wear, they were all alive and breathing, at least from what Pinison could observe from her place on the ground.
They're alive! They're all here, and it's not just my grove siblings but the humans too! That can only mean that Svend and Tulipa are around here somewhere.
"Tulipa!" She cried out. "I'm here! If you can hear me, say something, anything and I'll come get you!"
The tree spirit hefted her spear and put on her best war face, swiveling to catch a glimpse of her lost sister and her lover among the others. When she did not spot them up with the others, she quickly searched among the warped greenery at her level.
"I'm here," said the voice of False-Tulipa, emanating from the carcass of Zy'tl Q'ae. "You're so close now. Just come here, and you'll find me."
That gave Pinison pause, as she gazed at the gaping maw of still razor sharp wooden teeth. When she gave the eyes of the demon tree another glance, they remained dark and lifeless.
She even went so far as to go up and touch the tree, to sense if any residual life force could be detected from it. Her tree sense couldn't get the job done, but maybe her own ability to touch could.
It confirmed that there was absolutely and truly nothing left in the demon tree's body. It wasn't even the fact that it felt obscured for that was a different feeling, but rather nothing flowed through at all.
No nutrients. No water. No sugars. Nothing.
The new knowledge strengthened her resolve, diving directly into the mouth of the nightmare that had plagued the forest for generations.
Whatever had killed Zy'tl Q'ae had also hollowed it out, leaving ample room to stand upright comfortably. However, the space was still narrow enough that anything that wasn't hidden by magic was left in plain sight.
Which is how she found them.
No attempts had been made to obscure their broken bodies, though they had not been desecrated by either artificial or natural means. Whatever wounds they bore were entirely from when they would have gone missing.
Svend, dear, brave lumberjack of the tribe of allied humans, who followed the old ways and respected the laws of nature...was dead. His chest had been shot through with a hole as wide around as Pinison's arm.
His skin was deathly pale, and the front of his tunic doused with blood from his chest wound. Crimson life fluid had poured from his mouth and created a sinister streak down his cheeks like abhorrent tears.
Despite that, his body was in far better shape than the cadaver that lay next to him.
It was nearly unrecognizable, looking as if it had been smashed flat into the dirt like some common insect. Only the vaguely humanoid form and the fact that it was entirely composed of plant matter gave away its true nature.
Fresh sap pooled between the cracks of the timber skin, and the chest rose up and down in unsteady, gasping breaths.
Pinison collapsed to her knees, the spear falling from her hands as she crawled over closer. Her hands hovered shakily over her battered sister's body, unwilling to touch and further do harm. She sobbed at her sibling's sorry state.
"I knew it. I knew you were still alive. Your home tree could never lie, but how - why - I'm getting you out of here!"
She checked over her sister's nearly eradicated physical form, desperately thinking of some way to lift her sister out of there and carry her all the way back home, back to Grand Oak Naaru and the other healers.
In her almost manic search, the younger dryad noticed some crudely scribbled words near the top of where Svend's and Tulipa's heads were. At first the lettering didn't make sense to her, but when she studied them more closely, her reading lessons from the elders came to mind.
A rough translation came though, simply inscribed as "ALWAYS TOGETHER".
The temperature dropped to near freezing, and a thousand pairs of eyes seemed to dig into Pinison's armor and back. The rustling of a great many things right outside the opening made her sit up ramrod straight.
She slowly peeked over her shoulder, witnessing as the way out was swarmed with many of the abominations. In the dim lighting of the demon tree's insides, the skeletal grins of their skulls were especially demonic.
Through the horde she could see the legs of a Titan standing right outside, far too gigantic to even edge its way into the corpse of Zy'tl Q'ae. A claw, all encompassing and able to smother Pinison in its grip alone, gripped the upper jaw.
False Tulipa's voice giggled. "Here, we are all family. And it is here that we come together. It is here that we make a new life."
SHHCRACK! BOOM!
The entire upper jaw of the demon tree was ripped off, letting in bursts of light to illuminate the trio inside. The bulk of the deceased corruption sagged even more, but held.
The younger dryad had to crane her neck to truly see the source of her sister's voice. Skin darker than tar and with grand points jutting from the head like the antlers of its smaller brood. Any and all luminance bounced off of its form, further obscuring it while it was in literal daylight.
Flaming, ethereal red eyes peered down at her, and a single digit from its adamantine strength hand slowly lowered. The biggest of the forest amalgamations tilted its head and gurgled.
"Won't you come and be a part of my family too, little one?"