Sasha’s movements were concerningly precise. She wasn’t moving like someone with the low dexterity that he knew her to have; instead she moved like someone who had practiced the movements countless times, even if her body couldn’t completely keep up with her.

  The Guardian turned his head to look at the hair stick that was now embedded in a tree. By the time he turned back to look at Sasha, she was on him, slashing at him. He dodged out of the way, moving with a speed that belied his physiology.

  Elijah had watched every movie she had ever made, but none of them could have taught her how to fight like this. He wondered where she had learned this. She was proving that she had secrets that her very public life had never touched.

  The Guardian slashed down, his fingers melding together into a single blade as he struck. She waited for the strike, almost too long, as if relying on a dexterity that she didn’t possess. The Guardian’s strike clipped her shoe, sending her stumbling away. What would have been a counter-attack turned to her stumbling to get her feet back under her.

  Nicholas moved to intervene, but Elijah put his hand out to stop him. “Don’t,” he hissed. “If you get involved, then it could change the match from first blood to a fight to the death.”

  Nicholas stopped and gritted his teeth as Sasha barely dodged another strike. She was on the defensive, unable to retaliate as the Guardian’s higher strength and dexterity began to overpower her.

  She took an opening trying to drive a knee into his stomach. She was too slow, and he blocked the attack with his non-bladed hand. His action was almost gentle, as if aware of how fragile she was compared to him. She lurched backwards, struggling to find her balance.

  He pushed forward, each slash barely missing Sasha. Each step forward, pushing her back, twinged at Elijah’s nerves. He wanted to intervene as much as Nicholas did.

  “You guys don’t see it, do you?” Bo asked, stepping up next to Elijah and Nicholas. There was a grin on his face as he watched Sasha fight. Elijah looked closely, trying to see what had Bo smiling. He couldn’t see it. He saw only a woman struggling against an enemy who far outclassed her.

  “She’s not struggling as much as it looks like she is. She’s leading him while letting him think he is on the offensive.”

  Elijah tried to view Sasha’s movement through a calmer focus. Not worrying about her as a person, but watching it through a critic’s eyes.

  He thought he saw what Bo was talking about. Her footwork and dodges seemed random, frantic, and stumbling. Instead, they were leading him along, closer to the edge of the clearing. She was leading him to where her hair stick had lodged in a tree.

  “She’s fighting like a rogue, or at least a build with a high dexterity. No clue where she learned that from, but I recognize the signs.” Bo crouched down, resting on the heels of his feet as he watched. “Every once in a while, she’ll make a move like she’s activating a skill. Skills she doesn’t have as a mage class.”

  The fight was gruelling. She couldn’t move the Guardian quickly; otherwise, she would give up her plan.

  “Yield, little one. You have done well, but you will fail. I do not wish to hurt you.” The Guardian spoke as he pushed her closer to the edge. She was sweating, her long blonde hair matting against her face and neck as she fought.

  She grinned up at him, swinging her arm and throwing her remaining hair stick at his throat. He blocked it with a swing, sending it flying off into the air. He looked down with a grin, only to be met with the sight of Sasha lunging at him.

  She’d made it to her destination. The thrown hair stick had been a distraction as she wrenched the stuck one free from the tree. She led with it as he turned to face her again. The stick in her hand dug deep into his arm, just barely missing his chest as he tried to dodge out of the way.

  Even from his position on the far end of the field, Elijah could see that Sasha had won. Dark rivulets of yellow seeped around the stick.

  The Guardian had been about to dodge and strike, to end this duel once and for all. His body relaxed as he looked down at his wound.

  “I’m sorry.” Sasha told him. Her voice carried on the wind across the field. “Will you allow me to heal you?”

  The Guardian stood at his full height, placing a hand against the wound. “There is no need, little one. The mother will provide.”

  He turned to face the orb, still floating above the plinth. Completely unbothered by the fight that had gone on.

  “This was my Mother’s last memory before the change. You will understand what I mean once you see it. I am sorry for the emotional toll that this challenge has taken on you, but know that she is thankful that others now learn of her story.”

  His voice resonated through the clearing, loud enough for the entire party to hear, but not overpowering. “I also have a gift for you, from the Mother herself, White Mage.”

  The Guardian reached his sap-covered hand out to her. His fingers elongated, then broke off. She took them and held them close to her chest—reverently. He nodded once to her and then sank below the ground, disappearing.

  Sasha returned to the party, the Guardian’s severed fingers still clutched tightly in her hands. As she approached, she held them out for the party to inspect.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  [Item]

  Tree Mother’s Kanzashi

  Rank: Apprentice

  Damage: 10-12

  Condition: 100/100

  Enchantments:

  - Growing: This item ranks up with the user.

  - Locked: Hidden

  - Locked: Hidden

  - Locked: Hidden

  - Locked: Hidden

  Elijah wanted to inspect the locked enchantments, as well as the ‘growing’ enchantment, but right now wasn’t the time or the place for that. Assuming they didn’t wipe in this dungeon, he’d have time to look at them.

  “That was some fight. Where did you learn all that?” Elijah asked her as she took out a waterskin, letting the cool water wash over her face.

  She smirked at him and shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you, but for now that’s my little secret.” She gave him a wink and then moved over to the plinth. She hesitated for a moment before placing her hand on the glowing white orb.

  This memory took over exactly where the last one had left off. The Guardian was lying on the ground, nearly dead. The Mother sprawled out on top of him. And Zed stood over them both, axe raised.

  He was about to bring it down on the Mother, to finish her, when the Keeper sprang out of a nearby tree and tackled him to the ground. The player went down as the Keeper tore into his flesh. The trees all around them began shaking in anger as more dryads, the Mother’s children, emerged in a furious wrath.

  The children of the Mother swarmed the player, tearing into him with feral ferocity. His health plummeted rapidly, but he brought the axe around and caught the Keeper in the side of the neck before his health dropped to zero.

  The protector staggered backwards, pushed away from Zed by the force of the axe. The other dryads, seeing their sister mortally wounded, wailed in anger, pounding their claws into the ground where Zed’s body had disappeared.

  The protector fell beside her Mother and the Guardian, her yellow sap-blood gushing from the wound in her neck and mixing with the blood of the two others.

  A bright golden light shone from within the blood. An orb coalescing from the lifeblood of the three creatures. It rose into the air slowly until it was just above head height. Ethereal vines and branches sprang forth from it, wrapping and coiling around themselves. A vaguely human shape formed, coalescing into the shape of a dryad.

  Then the wings formed, wings that the players knew all too well. Black feathers, tinged at the edges with gold. Immediately they all knew that this was the Goddess Fate, appearing to the dryads in a form that would be familiar to them, and would not raise fear.

  She floated down to the bodies of the Mother, Guardian, and Keeper. Her hands gently caressed each of them. “A waste of such a powerful life, this was not the fate that I ordained for them. I shall bring them back to you, children of the forest.” Her words echoed through the trees, and then in a flash she vanished.

  All as one, the fallen dryads inhaled.

  Color returned around the party, but instead of finding themselves in the clearing, the party found they were back in the room with the pool of water, standing in front of the door that had led them to the first challenge. A notification popped up in Elijah’s vision.

  [Trial Completed]

  The Maze of the Heart

  Description: You have made your way through the maze and collected all three of the Mother’s memories. You now understand the burden.

  Rewards: 600 XP

  Elijah looked over the notification and couldn’t help laughing. It was a bitter, pained laughter. “All we just experienced. The trauma, the fight, the pain. All wrapped up into a nice ‘quest’ completion notification and six-hundred experience.”

  “We still have two more challenges. Should be well worth it if they give out the same amount of experience. Ever closer to getting you to Celestial so we can get out of here.” Bo was trying to be pragmatic about it. That got Elijah’s blood boiling even more than the cruelty of Zed had.

  Zed, if he was even real, had been interacting with NPCs. He may not have even realized that they had any form of cognizant AI attached, but Bo was speaking to players. To his friends, who’d just shared a very traumatic experience with them. And he was acting as if it was just a means to an end.

  Elijah was about to yell at him, to scream at the rogue. Even if only to make himself feel better, when he saw the dour look on his face. Bo was just as distraught over what they had seen. He was trying to be pragmatic, yes, but he was hurting as much as the rest of them.

  Elijah let it slide.

  Sasha was working to put her hair back up. The wooden hair sticks looked beautiful in her hair.

  “So which door do we go through?” Sasha asked.

  The Keeper appeared from beneath the floor between the two doors. He held out his left arm, pointing to the right door. “Each door leads to a different challenge based upon the life of the Mother. The first leads to the Mother’s ascension to godhood.” His left hand lowered, and he raised his hand to gesture to the door on his left. “The second leads to the challenge based upon the Mother’s death. You must choose which you believe occurred first in her story.”

  The Keeper nodded towards their group and then stepped backwards through the wall, melding with it and vanishing.

  “Which came first? Isn’t it obvious?” Benjamin asked, looking between the doors and the party.

  “Apparently not, not if we are meant to choose.” Elijah answered. He approached the doors, expecting a riddle like the first door to appear, but none did.

  “We saw her death already. Zed killed her, even if Fate brought her back. She died.” Sasha confirmed that the others also thought what Elijah had suspected: that the winged dryad had been Fate.

  “That doesn’t mean that the next door is that specific death.” Elijah cautioned. “Do you remember what the Guardian said before the third memory? Her last memory before her change.”

  Nicholas grunted, “Plus we already saw her die in that memory. They wouldn’t show it to us twice, would they?”

  All heads turned towards Bo, who put his hands up and took a step back. “I had nothing to do with this quest or the quest team. I was a balance guy, remember?”

  Nicholas shrugged his shoulders. “Ascension door then?” he asked the group.

  “Sure,” Sasha said as she sat heavily on the ground, the light covering of dust flashing up into the air. “But first, we all need to take a rest and recover before we go risking our lives again.”

  “You know what I just thought about, guys?” Elijah sat next to Sasha, rubbing his eyes as a frustrating thought surfaced in his mind. “I could have summoned Bitter Root to take the damage until he died and then re-summoned him.”

  “That’s horrifying!” Sasha looked at him with bewilderment.

  “Nah, he would have enjoyed it. He’s a psychopath.”

  “Do you want to summon him and ask him about that?”

  Elijah couldn’t help laughing. “No, not particularly.”