You know, between skill learner letting me learn uncommon skills easier and awakener helping me get to the next tier, all I really need is a title that would help me level my skills easier. Know anything that would fit Myriad?
His god didn’t answer, leaving him alone with those parting words as Thera began to bring them down to the ground below to begin their investigation with Verbum.
“Oh, sweet land!” The pleiaden yelled out as he jumped out of the cart, looking deeply relieved to be on the ground again, even if it meant needing to start his investigation as Thera spoke up.
“So we should be in the right area, I think we just need to go north a bit until we’re in the general vicinity we need to be.”
Those words were enough to pull the joy from Verbum in an instant, leaving him looking like he wanted to make a quick escape and only stopping thanks to how far from civilization they all were.
Ben for his part didn’t want to wait for him to get comfortable. His god’s lax attitude meant it couldn’t have been anything bad, but Myriad’s parting words did leave him wanting to see just what it could be about so he walked over to him in the middle of his indecision and threw him over his shoulder, leaving Thera to hold back her laughter.
“You know, I’m so used to seeing you as the one in that position. Decided to try dishing it out yourself for once?”
“Ah, just didn’t want to wait,” He said, ignoring the feeling of Verbum’s struggles against his grip. “Come on, let’s check this out. Verbum, what should we be looking for?”
“Killi didn’t tell you?”
“She mentioned that you needed to be in charge of handling things while we were working everything out. Didn’t she tell you that?”
“I thought she was lying!”
“Okay, well she wasn’t, so focus.”
Ben felt the man wiggle around, trying to get out of his grasp but ultimately failing in his escape and giving up, finally answering the question.
“Strange plant growth and animal behaviour,” He eventually gave in. “It was enough to freak out a completely different rank one adventurer but they still want me looking into it of all things! I’m supposed to be important, toss it to someone who doesn’t matter, damn it!”
“Yeah yeah, life’s hard on all of us,” Ben muttered, not really caring about the whining as he looked around. He’d been to plenty of areas within the untamed lands before for one task or another, but for whatever reason, the section he currently found himself going through felt familiar.
He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why, but then, it was a living forest. If he’d been in the area before there was plenty of time for it to grow and change a bit, leaving it just foreign enough that he couldn’t place it as they walked.
When he looked at Thera, it was obvious she was feeling the same thing. A sense of familiarity that was leaving her to look around just a little more than usual before stopping in her tracks, her eyes going wide as she did.
“Oh, this is going to be weird to explain,” She muttered, just as Ben caught sight of what she’d noticed and finally let things click into place.
In the distance was a tree, one of many in fact that was experiencing some unusual growth, just as Verbum had said. Its branches were all warped, twisted into right angles to make hundreds of cubes within the one plant.
Seeing it left him stunned enough that it gave Verbum a chance to escape his arms as he looked at what the other two were staring at, the discomfort of being there obvious enough on him if only anyone were to look his way.
“That’s it,” He muttered, trying to be quiet. “That’s what was in the report. An entire section of forest changed without rhyme or reason. Anyway, since we can see it from here, why don’t we stay nice and safe and as far away as we can while I get to work-”
He was cut off as Ben took his hand, dragging him in further. Both he and Thera needed to see what it was like despite the protests of the one they were meant to be guarding.
“Ben…” Thera began, not having any clue what she was supposed to say about everything they were seeing but knowing she couldn’t leave it without comment.
“I literally could have never predicted this was going to happen,” He tried to argue in his defense while she just shook her head.
“I mean, I believe you, but maybe we should have come back for the nails before it got to this point?”
“It was free faith! How could I do that to Myriad when this was so harmless? Hell, I’m pretty sure despite how this looks it’s still harmless.”
Though I can’t deny it looks a little bad.
When they got closer it was clear it wasn’t one or two trees with the strangely cubed branches, but a forest of them, with even more effects to go with it. No matter the species of the plant, their leaves had developed into an irregular shape too, far more straight lines than many of them would normally allow as they took the shapes of squares, filling the branches above them and littering the ground below, but it got worse from there.
He was seeing square nests and hives in the areas of each plant that had caused the change and the bugs around were flying in geometric patterns, leaving him to see the long-term consequences of what he’d done to win a bet over a year in the past. He was seeing how the forest had changed from him turning each tree into faith generators, an enchantment nailed into them to gather it for his cubic god.
“What are you both talking about?” Verbum asked, looking at the two with even more suspicion but being ignored as Ben walked around.
He only found one tree nearby that didn’t have anything to block where he’d hammered in his enchanted nails but it revealed that even if he wanted to get rid of it, it was too late without tearing down the entire forest. A dense layer of bark had grown over it, burying it in the plant's depths to keep any chance of removing it as nothing but a dream.
He turned around, wondering just how he was supposed to explain this, only to find Verbum looking on the edge of a panic attack, knowing the two of them knew something about what they were seeing but with neither of them outright saying it. It was flaring his most paranoid of delusions, making Ben slowly raise his hands to try and calm him down.
“Verbum, Verbum I need you to chill, okay? So, this is kind of a funny story when you really stop to think about it, but I actually know why the forest looks so that actually makes things super easy for us!” He told him, trying to seem positive and failing to elicit the same response in the other. “Okay, so you’re definitely going to laugh, but this all started with a bet from a goddess…”