As I pushed forward into the forest the path started to open up by itself and by the end I had no need for my flaming machete.
In a few steps I felt paved ground beneath my feet and when I stepped around a particularly huge bush I found myself on a wide paved road. Here the scorched earth was paved with many large gray stones.
Suddenly a whirl of cold wind blasted into me and the stone braziers on both sides of the forest road lit up with sinister green flames. Their dancing illuminated the purple thorny vegetation on both sides of the road, casting eerie shadows before me. Now I could see the thorn bushes, the size of oak trees, ascending into the air and then curving above the road to create a canopy of thorns. The road extended forward and then split into three. It was slightly overgrown at parts but not to the extent that it would be impassable. The thick, spiky branches warned me of the labyrinthine nature of this place. The pricks were so densely packed that there was no getting off the road. Once you were here there were only two directions: forward and backward.
As I pressed forward the chilly air somehow became even colder. It was like those braziers were sucking in the heat from the environment and not the opposite.
Suddenly, a wave of cold air sent a rusted iron helmet the size of a basketball clattering onto the pavement. The rust was eating the once glorious mastercraft from the inside and out. There were hundreds of holes in its side and the front was corroded to the extent that the emblem was unrecognizable. However, the remains of the crest on top of the helmet were distinctly Akkadian. The decayed dragon wings signified that the wearer must have been of significant standing.
I looked to the side and noticed a withered corpse, collapsed behind the brazier I just walked past. The greenish flames cast malevolent-looking shadows onto its face. They made the corpse look almost alive.
Now that I looked more closely I realized that they were everywhere. On the path, behind braziers, caught the thorns, and some were even hanging down from the ceiling. These corpses were dressed in all types of armor and they carried all types of weaponry. From sickles to swords. They hanged limp in their arms or more often, stabbed in their lifeless bodies. The weird thing about these corpses is that they didn't look that old and yet they were extremely thin. As if something sucked out all of their internal organs mummifying them in the process.
As I moved toward I noticed that many stones had runes inscribed into them. Weldian runes are a part of a larger phonetic alphabet that is quite nuanced in a lot of ways. The runes are very wavy and often insist on being connected into longer sentences. If you can't put two runes together graphically there is a good chance that's because you shouldn't. It's like a hypervaried puzzle. As I walked forward I realized the runes on the stones did in fact connect into a meaningful sentence but it got forcefully cut off at the trifurcation. In front of every junction was a single word embedded into the stone.
If I put together every rune from start to finish the correct rune would be the one that solves the puzzle. It was like a verbal puzzle. The final word was the punchline that would indicate which junction was the right one: left, middle or right.
There were too many runes in my head. I couldn't focus on arranging them well enough. The sentence went something like this: "We, drawn onward to new…"
The final word was supposed to be found at the junction entry and would fill the sentence in a meaningful way.
The three paths in front of me had from left to right: Era, land, and hope. These were inscribed in the stone before me so it was definitely me that was mistaken here.
I'll grab one of those abilities from the talent tree. They should be useful in unveiling this mystery.
As I entered my mindspace and took a look at my tree of knowledge a small earthquake was suddenly triggered in my mind. The fog overprotectively swirled over me and in an instant I was wrapped in a cushy blanket.
*****
>An influence is trying to peer into your fate
>Scrambling data sets
>Generating decoy profiles
>Flooding attack vectors with noise
>...
*****
As the eminence that was prodding me became more and more annoyed at the lack of results it increased its force. The tree suddenly curved around me and swerved with its thousands of foggy branches, swatting the intruder away. The intruder now furious attacked from all angles trying to penetrate my cocoon of gray fog. The fog hardened and expanded creating three huge walls and hundreds of small ones in between me and the attacker. The walls looked as tough as concrete and in between them floated thousands of small foggy forms. Some were winged, some walked and some swam. Some even dashed around in a futuristic manner and some were completely static.
Suddenly the eminence attacking me was quiet as if it had withdrawn. But that was only quiet before the storm. All of a sudden an all-expansive night sky formed around my cocoon threatening to eat me whole. However, my cocoon didn't react at all as if being devoured by thousands of stars was not that big of a deal.
To my shock the stars flew together like how oil floats to the top of a water glass. They formed a large silver cane that smashed into my wall like a tsunami. Breaking through instantly, I thought this was the end, but the smashed pieces of the wall formed into clay-like gray bricks and started incorporating the silver cane into the wall. By the end it looked as if it had always been there from the beginning. Suddenly the end of the cane reacted in a surprising manner. The hook disconnected from the rod and shot toward the nearest foggy form, stabbing through it in the process. The form, that looked kind of like a salmon drawn by a five year old, squirmed a bit but ultimately gave up. Then the hook flew back toward the wall where it broke down into a liquid form upon contact, smashing like an egg. It then slithered throughout the not yet repaired cracks the cane created, leaving behind silver "eggshells" and taking the salmon-like form with it.
After this the attack was over. The silver cane was deconstructed and my mindspace calmed down, making me think this might've been just an illusion.
Well, it wasn't.
*****
Status report:
>outer firewall has been breached twice
>one decoy has been poached
>Host location successfully spoofed
>Host time successfully spoofed
>Host stats successfully spoofed
>Host existence unsuccessfully spoofed
>Attack successfully blocked
>...
*****
So somebody who knows of my existence in real life was prodding at me. Yeah, I am not surprised. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I just didn't know it would happen in this manner. I also didn't know the tree of knowledge would protect me. It's great to know I have somebody on my side. However, the opponent was exceptionally strong, way stronger than me. Their prodding technique was simply inferior to my defenses.
I'll deal with this nuisance when I get back to Sumeria.
Now back to the linguistic puzzle. I decided to grab [Predictive Linguistics] from the first branch. The drop of knowledge that I had spent my entire life accumulating was now gone.
It fell upwards toward the upside down tree, touching the first root. The root suddenly came to life as thousands of smaller branches and golden leaves sprouted from it. The golden leaves emanated a light that seemed to carry the weight of lost knowledge.
I didn't feel any different except for my mind… Thinking in sentences felt easier, faster, and I was more accurate. Now I could write in a minute what would have previously taken me an hour. Writing a decently long poem would only take five minutes now while previously I would not have even been capable of producing something of this quality.
The linguistic puzzle made more sense now: "We few, drawn onward to new…"
I made a mistake previously while putting the runes together. I fumbled some of them. But there was clearly something missing. My newly gained intuition was telling me that I had missed quite a few runes. This makes sense as at the start I was very concerned with not being eaten by the shrubbery.
I turned around and started backtracking.
Wait!
I suddenly stood in place, alert. Something was deeply wrong. I could feel it and it had nothing to do with the previous prodding into my fate. There was an environmental danger somewhere here that I missed.
I pulled out my crossbow and used the cranequin to prepare a shot. This thing can penetrate full plate anywhere within my line of sight. The corridor has thorns on both sides so the enemy can't hide.
Wait, that's it!
I threw a single look at the braziers I had previously walked past and immediately realized what the danger was. The rusted helmet was no longer on the ground where I left it! The corpse was gone as well!
I quickly made a 360 degree sweep.
My years of military training had not left me in the ditch at this moment. If not below then it must be above!
I jumped to the side as fast as I could to evade the heavy armored corpse that came crashing down on my previous spot. If that had landed on me I would have definitely been dead. The weight of a suit of armor is equal to a car battery. No one can survive that.
The corpse landed in a standing position, ready to take my life with its rusted scimitar.
I did not hesitate.
With a single shot I decapitated the attacker. The broadhead arrow stabbed right into its withered neck, exploding the corpse's spine and blasting off the rusted helmet.
But the corpse still pushed forward, not bothered by the loss, clicking with its rusty armor set. The sounds of footsteps suddenly became numerous as corpses started falling from the ceiling and walking onto the path from the sides where they were previously resting.
I had come here with four large weapons. A lance that I had left at my camping spot. My revised and updated crossbow that hung from my waist and two swords. A saber for slashing action and an estoc for armor penetration.
I love slashing swords because of their versatility but I don't want to leave myself exposed so that's why my loadout is such.
My landshark armor shone in the sparse light, the canopy of thorns let through, as I unsheathed my estoc.
I won't let this headless walking corpse get me!
The dead man was dressed into what once was full plate iron armor. With excessive ornamentation above the breast plate-signifying this individual's past arrogance. The corpse itself was withered and dried. The rolls of skin looked as if they were draped over a skeleton with missing bones and there was evidence of decay all over its body.
I dodged the drunk swing from the shambling zombie. His joints literally creaked as he attempted to swing again.
"No, you're not!"
I pushed my estoc into his shoulder joint through his armpit and used it as a lever to aggressively pry it apart.
The ghoulish abomination couldn't even protest the loss of its sword as I did the same to its exposed knee. The headless husk collapsed to the ground like a chair missing a leg. It then started slowly crawling toward me.
I jumped on it, cracking its spine in multiple places.
Looking around I finally noticed it. The controller of these zombies.
There were three thick gray tentacles extending from the corpse's body. All of them went in the same direction. Toward a giant light red flower bud that was blooming on the roof of this thorny labyrinth.
Now that I noticed this I realized that hundreds of red flower buds were sprouting on the walls and the ceiling. Out of them extended all colors of tentacles that would seek corpses in pairs of three. When they found one they burrowed into the corpse, taking control of it.
Those flowers that bloomed closer to the ground had gray tentacles while those on the ceiling had pink and purple ones. Probably to mask the root of the parasite. That way it's harder to see what's controlling the corpses. Pink stands out on the ground so ground flowers with pink tentacles probably get purged more often than gray ones.
Well, either way. I now knew my way out. The problem: there were hundreds of dead bodies blocking my way and I still had to find five Weldian words, scratched into the ground the zombies were walking on and solve the puzzle. All that while fighting!
I stabbed my estoc into the gray tentacle that was controlling the corpse I was standing on. The tentacle pulled out of the corpse on instinct and split itself diagonally, turning into two half-tentacles that were spraying out dark green blood.
Wait blood!
I immediately dogged the spray and danced around another corpse that was trying to get the jump on me.
The thorny branches that had been still since the moment I entered the labyrinth suddenly dashed toward the blood splattered all over the ground. They bashed the corpse, I had dismembered, into a pulp. The rot spreading juices on the thorns eventually corroded the corpse completely, turning it into a repulsive brown mush that will fertilize the plant in the coming days.
The zombie I hid behind got a similar treatment. He was impaled through the chest by a thorny branch that then snaked all around his skeleton crushing all of his bones and armor. When the tentacles were once again cut off they furiously sprayed their dark greenish liquids all over the road which incited the purple thorny plants even further. They kept bashing at every tiny drop of green blood until it was gone.
Fuck! These plants have such good synergy!
The thorny plant is the foundation that turns everything living into fertilizer and the red flowers are the corpse-controlling parasites that feed on the foundation literally and metaphorically. And I was caught in the middle of this!
If even a single drop of plant blood lands on me I am dead meat.
The branches continued pounding the road behind me, severely limiting my movement. A group of undead was approaching me from the opposite side sandwiching me in between the thorns and a hard place.
The problem is that this group of undead contained pikemen. Their range was disastrously big and they kept drunkenly stabbing at the air while menacingly walking in my direction.
There's one more thing I can try.
I sheath my sword and pulled a small clay bottle out of my bag. I made these myself.
They were ball-shaped clay bottles filled with dragon spit. Instead of a cork I stuffed them with old fabrics to create an impromptu molotov. As off-brand as it was it worked well on the test dummies and the barn.
Yeah, that barn was gone in the blink of an eye. What an accident.
I lit the cloth, doused with a flammable liquid, and threw the improvised incendiary grenade at the group of pikemen.
The grenade shattered and the flames enveloped the corpses like a large yellow curtain. The corpses' half-decayed dry clothes that were packed underneath their armors, burned brightly in this dim space.
The moment the flames came in contact with the tentacles a loud sizzle was heard as if somebody was grilling a large piece of meat. The tentacles pulled out of the skeletons immediately. I managed to see how two tentacles controlled lower body functions and the third one controlled the sword arm. But now they all immediately retreated into their red flower buds that promptly closed as if scared of the fire.
What a genius ecosystem! The thorns expand with the fire and eat up more organisms. The parasyte flowers consume the thorny plant's juices and use the remains of animals to lure new ones in. It's a horrific synthesis of offense and defense. A perfect anti-siege ecosystem.
Whatever soldiers you send in become food for the plant and burning it down doesn't work. If you try to manually cut it down with steel then even a single drop of blood will trigger this feeding cycle that I am trapped in the midst of.
Well, the solution is simple: "Exploit the cycle!"
The thorny branches extended toward the flaming corpses, feeding off of the heat. This isolated a small quarter of the road, giving me the space to peacefully search for the missing words. My mind was as fast as lightning when it came to filling word gaps so things were much faster this time around.
I gave the occasional zombie a kick in the shin, making sure not to hurt the living plant inside of him. Crushing all the person's most important joints, immobilizing him in this manner would be a horrible experience for him. I would know. However, these corpses just stay on the ground, clattering like the sack of bones they are.
I used the same strategy as before. I isolated segments of the road with molotov pots and systematically searched them for the remaining words.
After I had collected them all I switched to my saber and dashed toward the tri-junction with full speed. The answer to the word puzzle seemed so obvious now.
On the way there I sliced off every single tentacle. Blood sprayed everywhere and the walking corpses were ground to dust. I didn't want to have these rotting husks stalk me after I crossed the tri-junction crossroads.
I ran through the left path with the word "era" inscribed on its stone. The answer to the puzzle was plainly obvious now.
The full sentence was: "Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?"
Putting "hope" or "land" at the end makes sense thematically but it doesn't create a palindrome! Only if you add "era" can the sentence be read in both directions. The way Weldian runes slot together like pieces it should have been obvious that was what the puzzle was about but I am not a linguist. Without the new skill I acquired I would have been forced to pick blindly and hope for the best.
I closed the path behind me with a final molotov, running forward, not looking back as the flames consumed the shambling corpses.