Treepo, Gregory, and I came to shore at the beach, the cairn still standing and marking the way. Treepo grunted, shaking off the ocean spray that coated his fur. Gregory yawned lazily from my shoulder.
“Thanks,” I told the new whaloid that I recruited to bring us over. “We’ll be back in a bit.”
We stepped into the jungle, pushing through the understory, the sounds of bugs, birds, and other beasts around us. With invisibility and silence cast over us, we weren’t likely to be attacked, so long as nothing smelled us.
As we approached the clearing, the sounds of the jungle didn’t fade like they had before. The presence of the dungeon was gone, and beasts had moved back into the area without fear of being enslaved by the weird magical zone which had grown out of the earth.
We came to leave a monument in memory of Birdo. I wasn’t able to bury him and have a proper grave, but I wanted to leave something here to remember him by.
We broke through the bush and into the clearing where the cave had been, and I stopped, surprised.
“Huh,” I said, and walked over to the tree. That hadn’t been there before.
In place of the dungeon, a tree had grown, already mature even in the small amount of time it had been since we had cleared the dungeon and removed the core. The magic saturation of the dungeon must have released into the earth and caused this to grow, and to grow fast at that.
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I looked up through the silvery leaves and saw some splashes of color. There was fruit hanging from the tree branches, wine red similar to the dungeon core, though I felt no maliciousness from the tree.
“Treepo, gather up those fruits,” I told the high treehopper. He scampered up the tree and fruit started dropping to the ground. I picked one up, and looked it over. It was relatively soft, about the size of an avocado, but more reminiscent of a ripe peach in texture. I ran my thumb over the skin which was slightly fuzzy.
I dropped it into my inventory so I could appraise it, and my eyebrows rose dramatically.
“Huh,” I said again.
I looked up at Treepo, who was looking down at me from a branch.
“Better collect all of them,” I told my familiar with a grin. Treepo chittered happily and got to work collecting the rest.
Pilus will return in Book 2: Worldseed Initiate
thank you everyone for reading Book I of the Worldseed Saga, Worldseed Incarnate!
first ever book. I didn't actually think I could write a whole novel, but here we are! I know it wasn't a perfect book, but I'm proud of what I accomplished here and I'm thrilled I was able to share it with all of you.
Worldseed Initiate. In the meanwhile, your follows, favorites, ratings, or best of all your reviews will be hugely appreciated. If you haven't rated Worldseed yet, please consider taking this opportunity to, now that Book I is finished! If you have rated, consider leaving a full review!
back to posting chapters next week for Initiate! I'm thinking we'll drop the posting rate from daily to 6 days a week, just to give myself a little more time for writing Book III, which is shaping up to likely be the conclusion of the story after all; I had initially thought it would be a 4 or 5 book saga, which is still possible, but I think I can fit everything I wanted to do with the story into one final volume. We'll see!
Book II is going to be more exciting and more dangerous than Book I by quite a bit, as Pilus grows stronger and more capable but faces larger risks and challenges. There are more mysteries of magic to solve; more beasts to tame, evolve, or do battle with; more hard choices to make and grow from; and finally, more of the wider world to explore. I can't wait to share it with you. You'll be able to grab , free for members, before it posts here, as well as catching a glimpse into and helping to shape my future writing projects.
