Bloom

Tevril Windwhisper woke up slowly. She could feel mana flowing in her body so strongly it was almost effortless to cast the Purge Sleep spell.

Almond shaped yellow eyes snapped open assessing her surroundings before she froze in place.

At the Guild, there was a picture of a very specific subjugation target.

It had many nicknames given over the last fifty-seven odd years, but one of them stuck very well.

Red Death.

Like something out of a traveling playwright’s works, the creature was described as one of the most terrifying of the Dungeons allies. It was Guardian Rank Unknown, mostly because no one had actually ever successfully fought it.

When her team had encountered it here on the 39th floor, the party leader had made a snap decision to attack it.

The lure of over ten thousand gold.

“Anything worth ten thousand gold dead or alive, is obviously not something we could handle without backup. Damn idiot, leader.” Tevril said, as she rose to her feet wiping away tears.

It was bizzare, the Red Death just hovered there. Although the swirling lightning surrounding it flashed like a miniature storm, it was the strange artifacts that lured her eyes the most.

One appeared to be a mad clockmakers wet dream given form, while the second some incredible circular array that allowed it to float effortlessly. Both inventions would probably be worth their weight in platinum.

“Hello?” Tevril said, hoping against hope the creature could communicate. It had obviously healed her since she was still alive.

Alive and green. What the hell?

Tevril noticed how the mana flowed so smoothly through her glowing green body parts. Like a master sculptor had reached in and crafted her body, perfectly altering the mana alignment in her beast-kin form.

She looked upwards from her body at the Red Death before a crazed itch took over her right eye.

Fire. Everywhere around is Fire Mana. Ancestors! The entire room is flooded with it, there’s not a spec of Wind to be seen. And the tree, so bright, like a sun given flesh and form. It BURNS.

Tevril managed to tear her eye away before the retina was damaged.

A glowing tree formed in front of her averted eyes, a perfect miniature of the Red Death.

“********” a voice said.

Tevril’s jaw dropped as she realized she’d been saved merely as a conversation partner.