Konja was somewhat practiced now at slowly, meticulously accomplishing what he set his mind to. Compared to when he had trapped Azura, he was able to change his tree body much quicker, and on a larger scale. One of the most important differences is that he had recently learned of a way to utilize mana.
After Azura had so rudely starting pecking into his wood, Konja had reflexively done something with his mana to reinforce his timber. Eventually, his body had become so hard that Azura had hurt himself trying to peck further into the tree. "Served that little troublemaker right." Konja had thought at the time.
So now, he came up with a simple plan. First, he made it more comfortable for the man to sleep. He softened the ground under him with his roots, better covered him from the rain with his foliage, and slightly shifted the largest branch he was sleeping under. The rain was still heavy with no sign of stopping, so Konja thought he probably still had a fair amount of time. They probably wouldn't depart in the dark night anyway. The muddy ground would be a nightmare to get through, even if they had a lamp.
Since Konja had a lot to do, and he would take his time doing it, he also made sure to cover the children from the rain as well. Though he couldn't provide any warmth, he let the tips of his branches droop a little to better cut the wind ever so slightly.
With the children taken care of, Konja focused his attentions again on his target. He waited a while for his victim to fall into a deeper sleep, before he began to grow that large branch above him. It began to take on a strange shape, as the tips of the branch withered and shrivelled, but the main section became thick and heavy.
Like a snake, preparing with imperceptibly small movements to strike out at its prey, Konja set his trap. Though he was capable of moving faster, Konja did this over a period of a couple hours. By this time, the unsuspecting wretch had been nestled into a small depression in the ground by his roots, and the branch was heavy and round.
To assure success, Konja poured his accumulation of mana into that section of branch, hardening it like iron! Sensing the heft it had, he withered the connecting segment of branch until it could no longer support the weight! The rest of the branch snapped off and fell down with a heavy crash, smashing through smaller branches on its way down!
It was a quick, painless death. The thickened branch had crushed the scoundrel's body completely. Konja wasn't concerned about meting out justice, or torturing the fleeing criminal. He just wanted him gone. A quick, easy solution to the problem. But he soon realized that things weren't so simple...
Jeremy and Shelley had been startled awake by the loud crash! They couldn't run around the thick oak trunk to see exactly what happened to their captor, as they were still tied down. However, they were able to see just enough of the large branch to deduce what happened. They became especially certain after calling out to him with no response!
Jeremy immediately began jumping around in excitement, while Shelley was contemplating the situation. It was during this time Konja realized these children were also a problem. If he let them go, and they told someone about him, it might cause endless headaches, especially while he was still learning to control his mana. But he didn't feel like killing them either. He couldn't clearly say why, but he felt there had to be a better way to deal with them...
"Shelley! Shelley! My prayers were answered! We're saved! Saved!!" Jeremy was so ecstatic, he was having difficulty controlling himself. Though he was tied down, he was still jumping around like an idiot.
"Jeremy. Stop. We're trapped here. We're going to die if things go like this."
"Oh." Stopping in his tracks, Shelley's astute observation killed his mirth as he realized the new dilemma in front of them. He felt as though he was back in the pouring rain, before they had found the tree. He sat down, calming his breathing as he began to think too about how to escape.
It was at this time that Konja began to notice a new problem. The poison vial has shattered under the immense weight, and now the poison was sleeping into his roots. He immediately cut off those roots, and realized that soil might be unusable for a long time. Konja wasn't too sad though. He had intended to study the poison later, and maybe learn to make some himself. Having taken care of that minor issue in a timely manner, he returned his attentions to the children.
Shelley was calm to an unnerving degree. Though she was young, in this world she had seen death and cruelty aplenty. She didn't care that her captor had died. She didn't care about a lot of things anymore. She felt dead inside sometimes, as tragedy after tragedy had filled her memories of life. But somehow, this allowed her to remain calm and focused on solving the problems in front of her.
"Jeremy, do you remember the story of the dryad forest?"
"Of course. Dryads are a race of familiars for magical trees. Folk say they're so generous and kind, they used to grow fruit for nearby villages. As the villages became famous, the kingdom came and harvested these magical trees for their wood, and the whole forest was so kind as to just let them!"
"Do you think this is some kind of magical tree?" Shelley asked.
"But... it killed someone..." Jeremy replied hesitantly.
"No one said all trees had to be so nice! Or that the story was exactly true! I'm asking if you think magic trees are real!" Shelley said testily. It seems not every emotion had been bled out of her quite yet. Annoyance was still strong and often present.
"Yeah, of course. My father used to have a staff made out of magic wood. It glowed with strange lights sometimes at night." Jeremy recalled with some awe in his voice.
Shelley turned to the tree, and said "Pray again, but this time to the tree." She shoved the task to Jeremy as she tried to step away slowly as far as she could from Konja.
"Ummm... Sir Tree? Did you save us?"
A few moments later as Jeremy was looking around for some kind of response, an acorn fell on his head, causing him to shout in surprise.
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"What shall we do now, Empress?" One of the shamed gods of her escort asked hopefully. He would have been happy to hear her give the order to turn around and snap a few wings off those snarky Celestials.
"Not we. I. I'm going to see Anurka. You should return to the younglings. Make sure they grow up faster, and learn to take responsibility. We may need to tell them the truth, lest the Demons make it apparent for us." Hezala dismissed her entourage, thanking them for braving the trip. As immortal Gods, they had every reason to value their own lives. It was not a small thing to ask them to take any sort of risk, lest they eventually succumb to ill fortune.
Once they had returned to the heavenly plane, Hezala spatial-shifted again to a dark, misty wood. The air was still filled with aether, but it looked drastically different from anywhere else in their home plane.
"Anurka, I have come as I said I would." Hezala said in the general direction of the forest.
"Welcome, welcome! Did the Celestials tell you anything?" A distracted voice echoed from the trees.
"No. I'll need you to see what you can find out about it after all." Hezala alluded to a previous agreement she had made earlier with Anurka. He had been dubbed the God of Curiosity, and he was the most suitable to research the shard. So she had contacted him, and told him what she knew before she left. He had prepared her with a few specific questions, but the Celestials were clearly not going to tell them anything.
"Certainly. Please come into the forest. I'm just finishing up something. I can start on the shard fairly soon."
Hezala took a step, but seemingly appeared deep in the forest. Another step, and she was gone.