What came from the wall was unlike anything Cort had ever encountered before. It was shaped like a man for all intents and purposes. Tall as Emile in fact. The luminous flowers on all sides gave Cort a clear look at the details of the monster.
At first Cort thought that the thing's skin was green scales from the way it seemed to flake gently off his body. It was more like countless tiny leaves hanging to its body. A patch was missing on its arm, revealing dark bark underneath. As it moved, its body creaked.
Its head or whatever the thing atop its torso turned back and forth. Cort saw no extra features, just a spherical chunk of wood with splotches of the greenery across the side facing the divers. The body continued to creak as it rolled its shoulders and stretched its "neck."
Cort was nudged aside as Lond took point on the group, holding a hand out. "Wait!" Emile barked just before a single fireball left Lond's hand. Cort realized what Emile was concerned about. They were surrounded by possibly flammable plants, and Lond could have started a deadly wildfire if he was reckless with the magic.
There was a breath of relief from Emile when the fireball hit the wood creature. Any spare embers dissipated in the air before touching the walls or floor. The blast hit the monster's wooden face and the flames stayed.
Then the flames spread to the rest of its leafy body.
And the beast hunched over.
The howl that followed obviously came from the creature before them, but Cort did not recognize it as anything a normal creature had made. The pitch of the pained noise fluctuated, and the sound seemed to shift from human to animal noises as it echoed in the narrow corridor.
It screeched for a few seconds, then crumpled into a heap or burning wood. Emile attempted to rush forward to stamp out the flames himself, but Lond halted him with a gesture. Emile listened, breathing heavily as he stepped back from the flames.
They slowly died down, the monster's remains having completely faded due to labyrinth's magic. In its place was a black magic stone bigger than the one the feralises dropped and a white flower. Unlike the ones on the wall, the one dropped by the wooden thing did not glow.
"We are in an ent mother's domain," Lond explained as he reached down to pick up the magic stone and flower. Another scream came from further down the hallway, and the diving group had begun rushing toward it once again.
"How long ago did you realize what this was?" Cort asked. He had never heard of ent mothers before.
"When that drone came out the wall it confirmed it," Lond replied. He was keeping up with Cort and Emile's speed, seeming less hampered by the awkward footing of the vines on the floor. "Ents tend to make wherever they inhabit into a breeding ground. They need foliage, quality dirt, and strong magic."
"That's nice," Emile added. "Mind telling me why you were so confident you weren't going to set this whole place on fire and kill us?"
"The vines have some kind of fluid on them. It's fireproofing. If flames can destroy your home easily, you'd want to protect your home from them."
Cort agreed. But he was still a little perplexed by something. "How do you know what an ent is?" Cort asked.
"Their sap is very important to many magical potions," Lond replied as he deftly stepped over a vine jutting higher off the ground than the others. "Iphos-Magus had a book on them, with some annotations of course."
Cort nodded in understanding. He was just glad that Lond seemed to be doing better. Another scream stopped him from examining his worry further. They were getting closer. Just a few more steps and they would be around the corner.
When they arrived, they had found the source of all the commotion. Two ent drones, just like the ones they had faced moments ago, were standing on either side of their victim. A man in bronze armor that was screaming out in pain. Each ent had one of the man's arms in their hand. The man screamed in time with tugs from the ents.
"Pretty barbaric," Emile commented as he stepped forward. "Lond, if I tear them to shreds do they die?"
"They have a heart-like organ in the center of their chests," Lond answered. "Burn it, pierce it, or crush it and they're finished."
"We'll get these two, then," Cort replied. "We use fire and we might hurt the guy."
Emile initiated their charge with a roar, and Cort was not too far behind. Emile had started by driving his heel down into the right ent's arm. The snap it made when it broke made the ent let out its bizarre cry of pain, which in turn distracted its comrade.
With that opening, Cort struck for himself. He was worried that his own strength would not be enough for his sword to cut the limb off. Instead, Cort opted to go for the immediate kill. He slipped behind the ent and prepared the technique. As soon as Emile had moved out of the danger zone, Cort struck.
Frog Princess's Leap for The Heavens.
Rather than the hand he had used against Rabi in their fight, Cort held out his sword. This was the true nature of the technique, as was most of the school of Gracious Lily. Snapping and twisting sounds filled Cort's ears as the sword pierced through leaves and wood. He let out a breath when he realized his aim was true, and the ent let out one last brief shriek before collapsing around his blade.
Cort watched Emile finish off his ent. The Savorian had lifted the creature by one leg in his teeth, and was slamming the ent into the wall and floor over and over again. It went on for a few moments, and the ent's head had already fallen off somewhere. With one last slam on the ground, the ent was dropped to the floor, disappearing since its heart had been destroyed from the repeated blunt trauma.
The man they had saved had fallen to the ground, hands over his heads as he curled up in the fetal position. He was mumbling softly, and Cort went over to him. He stooped down and listened closely to the words, but it was too muffled.
"Come on," Cort said as he grabbed the man's shoulder and twisted him around. "Talk to me."
The man's face was white, eyes wide and lips quivering. He kept turning his head to look at Emile and Lond, both of whom were standing over him after collecting their spoils. His lips barely moved as he spoke, most of the words coming out unintelligible.
"This guy alright in the head?" Emile asked. "Lond, splash him with some water."
"That won't do anything."
The voice seemed to come from nowhere, but Cort thought he recognized it from somewhere. He turned around, sword at the ready, only to be greeted by an empty hallway. There were more sounds of vines shifting nearby, and Cort saw that they were the ones on the wall closest to him. He kept his sword held out towards the movement, preparing for the next stage.
Suddenly, a person stepped out of the vines. She had a cloak over her body and head, the color of it vaguely resembling the color of the vines all around them. A tuft of auburn hair sticking out from her hood was Cort's first clue to their identity, but then she pulled the hood off to reveal herself.
"You guys remember me?" Haley asked, flashing them all a little grin.
"You were our waitress last night," Lond pointed out. "How are you?"
"We can skip the formalities for now, Lond," Cort said. He pointed to the man they saved who was still sitting on the ground. "Do you know what's wrong with this guy?"
"Him and his party tried to take on the floor boss, and it went horribly wrong," Haley replied. "He's the only one of the group that survived."