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Alex would have sworn that they\'d already triggered everything that could have been triggered. He was proven quite wrong.

In the short time it took them to get out of the dungeon, Derek managed to get hit by four more axes and impaled by a spear. He got killed so many times that his powers kicked in and boosted his speed to a point where actually started getting fast enough to dodge the last few traps.

Alex had no clue if Derek was just magnetically attracted to traps or if he\'d been intentionally setting them off. Either way, due to his presence, nobody else got so much as scratched on the way out.

They emerged from the dungeon and back into the Mirrorlands without any incident. Then they were off once more, setting course for one of the many twisting trees spattered across the multi-colored landscape of the Mirrorlands to get Orchid a branch for her staff.

Alex and Claire both let themselves trail at the back of the group, lowering their voices to speak whilst Derek — unintentionally or not — distracted Orchid by regaling her with a tale of his favorite bed before the apocalypse.

"I really need to figure out what Aspect Gems are," Alex whispered. "I\'m convinced they\'re really important."

"I think we\'d already gathered that much," Claire whispered back.

Alex resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I meant more than that. Have you had a chance to put any energy into your Mind Palace after reaching Initiate?"

"Quite a bit of it. I\'m not dumb. I saw how huge the difference was between you and me. I\'m not letting myself fall that far behind again. Why do you ask?"

"What have you managed to get out of it? What things have come up in your soul?"

"Plants, mostly. Some fences and brick walls. Honestly, it\'s a bit of a bleedin\' mess. I\'m really not a fan of it."

"No door?"

Claire tilted her head to the side in thought. "A door? No. I don\'t recall anything like that. You put a lot of stress on that word."

So my soul was different. She didn\'t have the door that sucked up all my magical energy. It\'s unique to me, then? Or is it something to do with being an Anomaly? I\'ll have to ask Derek what he\'s done in his soul to see if I can get a bit more information.

"I\'ve had a bit of a roadblock, and I think it\'s connected to the Aspect Gems," Alex said. "Did you not have anything in your way when you reached Initiate and started infusing yourself with energy?"

"Nothing." Claire shook her head. "It came quite easily. More than I\'d like, honestly. I\'ve been trying to sift things around and get them put into spots where they aren\'t annoying. I really need to get a Visualization."

A Visualization. Finley talked about those as well. They were patterns to arrange your Mind Palace to best distribute energy and grow more powerful, if I remember correctly. He had some shitty ones for sale, but if you\'re going to follow some pre-made pattern, using a low-quality generic one is probably the worst thing you can do.

"Do you happen to know where we could get good ones?"

Claire waggled a hand in the air. "I know where I can get one. It won\'t do you much good."

A flicker of pain passed over her features. Her back stiffened and her next step fell heavier than the previous did. Her curse was tightening. She\'d said more than it wanted her to, but that was to give Alex all the information he needed.

Something about her class or the Trial it came with was related to a Visualization — or perhaps the Nightmarch family simply had a Visualization that would work really well for her particular abilities.

Either way, she\'s got it handled for now. If Visualizations can be unique, then it makes sense to assume that it isn\'t just about getting the best sounding one. It\'s about getting one that fits you the most. What works for Claire definitely isn\'t going to work for me.

I\'ll have to keep an eye out for any information there… but for now, what I need the most is to pry Orchid with questions on Aspect Gemstones without revealing that I\'m not part of the Starfallen Family.

"What about Aspect Gems?" Alex whispered. "Is there anything more you\'ve got on them?"

Claire shook her head, then glanced over to Orchid. "No. I take it you want to…"

Alex nodded. "If you could. Do you think it would be a good idea to reveal that we aren\'t actually — well, you know — to her? Keeping this shit up is a pain in the ass, and she\'s pretty much stuck with us at this point.

Claire shook her head firmly. "No. She\'s tossed her lot in because of what she thinks we are, not who we actually are. Fear is an immensely powerful tool. It\'s frustrating to keep this up but overshow your hand and you\'ll have nothing left to play. We don\'t know what Orchid\'s motives are, but never forget the reason she\'s not acting out against us is because she\'s scared of our supposed family. That may change in the future, but throwing away that advantage now is dangerous."

Alex nodded. "Yeah, you\'re right. This is more your battlefield than mine, so I\'ll let you lead. It just seems like it\'ll be difficult to keep the act up constantly, especially once the town is set up."

"Things will be different once the town is set up," Claire said absently. "We can worry about that when we get there. Right now, we don\'t even know where we\'re going to put it. It\'s not like we can stick it right next to Valley Ford. Not if we want to keep the Offworlders from sieging it."

"Yeah. It\'ll have to be hidden." Alex\'s lips twisted into a frown. Even if he\'d remembered much geography, it wouldn\'t do him a lot of good now that the world had changed. They were going to have to put a lot of distance between themselves and Valley Ford… but he couldn\'t cross that distance in the Mirrorlands.

They\'d run out of energy and food well before they covered significant ground. But, even if they didn\'t, he had no clue which portals would lead back to Earth. They had to use the one they came in from.

"I should forewarn you," Alex said, accelerating to catch back up with Derek and Orchid as he raised his voice. "When we return to 274-50, we\'ll be using the same portal we used to get here."

"You think those Offworlder blokes are still waiting for us?" Derek asked, cracking his neck — and causing a dagger lodged in it to squelch around in the process.

"They won\'t be there anymore," Orchid said with a shake of her head. "They\'ll all be searching for the Town Token. I\'d imagine they\'re close to finding the dungeon now if they haven\'t already… so they\'re going to be wondering where it is and who took it. None of them will suspect us. Attention shifts as quickly as a light breeze when there are bigger things at hand."

Perfect. That just means we\'ve got to avoid Valley Ford on our way to find a place to set up. We can worry about where after we get out of here.

"Nice," Derek said. "So all we have to do is break a stick off a tree so Orchid can make her staff and we\'re good to go?"

"Pretty much. It might not be quite so simple."

I certainly hope it isn\'t too easy. I need a good test for Spark\'s new form.

***

About an hour later, they all came to a stop before a twisting tree with white bark. It loomed about twenty feet into the air, its warped branches devoid of leaves and clawing through the sky like grasping skeletal hands.

Alex had seen a number of these trees before, and they never failed to set his hair on end. There was something deeply unsettling about the faces pressed against their bark from the insides, frozen just moments away from breaking free from within it.

He glanced around to make sure there weren\'t more trees somehow lurking around them in wait.

All he found was rolling hills. There was no forest lying in wait. It was just a single tree.

That did nothing to spur any of them forward. They all stood before the wretched, twisting thing and stared at it in silence.

Even Derek made no moves forward.

"Well," Alex said. "There\'s your tree."

"Right," Orchid said warily. "It\'s a tree. Probably."

They fell silent for another few moments. Orchid\'s hands twitched at her sides. Alex couldn\'t blame her. He\'d never looked this closely at one of the odd trees, and now that he was, the last thing in the world he wanted to do was touch it.

The forest was almost better because it was so obvious what would happen. This tree is alone. Is it the same kind of trap, or will something completely different happen?

"That stick looks good." Derek pointed at a low hanging, gnarled branch. It was just out of arm\'s length, near the bottom of the tree\'s canopy. "Seems pretty dry, too."

"Everything on this tree is dry," Orchid said, but she moved to get a better look at the branch she\'d indicated.

It did look like a good stick.

"Just grab it fast," Claire suggested. "You don\'t want to get stabbed by something while you\'re fiddling around. Move quickly."

"I can get it for you if you want," Derek offered.

Orchid shook her head. "No. I have to do it. It\'s part of the staff creation process. I have to harvest the materials myself. I\'m just thinking my approach through. I\'m going to get it now."

They all nodded.

Orchid flexed her fingers. Then she strode forward, jumping up and grabbing onto branch. She gave it a sharp tug.

To Alex\'s surprise, it snapped clean off.

She fell down with her prize, landing on her feet and skip-staggering several steps back, clutching the wood to her chest. Her eyes darted around in search of a monster or an attack.

Nothing happened.

Orchid blinked. She looked down at the white wood in her hands, then up to the tree.

"Huh," Derek said. "That was easy."

A loud crack echoed through the Mirrorlands before Alex could even think about groaning.

The center of the tree split wide open, peeling apart like the skin of a banana, and a gnarled wooden hand emerged from within it. A leg of matching material emerged after it, driving down into the ground with a heavy thud.

A dry, cracked face followed after it.

That was followed by another.

And another.

Distant, murmuring groans assaulted Alex\'s ears as a monster pulled itself from the tree, ripping the bark apart as it emerged into the Mirrorlands. The creature was covered from head to toe with moaning faces, each of them twisting and groaning in apparent agony. Sap leaked from their eyes and mouths, trailing down the creature\'s humanoid form and dripping from knotted claws.

Gibbering Treant (Initiate 9)

"Fuck me," Orchid said, cringing back in disgust.

Fuck yes.

"I\'ve got this one." Alex extended a hand. "Spark. Come to me."

His shadow twisted. A black hand shot out from within it, driving into the ground, and Spark pulled himself into existence. Shadows bound the hunched Knight Wraith\'s limbs as it moved past Alex, lumbering to stand before him.

"What is that?" Orchid breathed. "It almost looks like…"

"The Night King," Derek muttered. His eyes widened. "Goddamn. That\'s brutal. You stole his corpse?"

"Repurposed," Alex corrected. "And not his corpse. His soul."

"That\'s definitely worse," Orchid said.

"Is it?" Alex tilted his head to the side. "Oh well. He tried to kill us first, and some of those edgy one-liners he dropped makes this even more justified."

"Fair," Orchid said, backing up as the Gibbering Treant approached them. "I… should probably give fair warning that I still can\'t fight. I need to make this a staff. It\'s still just a stick."

Figured.

Gibbering Treant lumbered toward Alex, the moans coming up from its body intensifying. Pain pierced into Alex\'s ears and he grit his teeth.

"Just stay back," Alex said with a grin. He thrust a hand toward the approaching treant. He\'d been waiting for this. It was the perfect opportunity to see how far his former Echo Wraith had grown. "Spark — kill."