43.

  Mature Dryad lvl. 68

  Dormant

  “You sure about this Santi?” Yessenia asked as she worked efficiently at the base of the Dryad’s tree. She drove spikes of steel into the roots with a wooden mallet, hammering away while keeping a fearful eye up on the massive monster.

  “Uhhh…it should,” Santi said. He was focused on the level of detail needed in drawing the lines of chalk on the ground. Salt or another powder would have been better, but with the light breeze blowing their lines would have been destroyed in a few minutes. It was actually a really pleasant summer day for planning a massacre. The temperature was just right, the light breeze, even the brightness of the sky was pleasant.

  “Santiago. That doesn’t sound sure to me!” Yessenia half shouted at him. Santi had to hide his smile as his sister was seeming to stir more and more out of her cocoon of misery. Glimpses of who she used to be emerging to breathe quickly before sliding back under those dark waters. Santi knew better than most that you never went back to who you were before grief left its mark. There were some scars that didn’t heal, you just became accustomed to the pain.

  He hoped his sister was becoming accustomed to the pain.

  “It’ll work. I mean, it’s just an evolution circle. Kinda. It should work.”

  “You are not inspiring confidence,” Yessenia said as she drove the seventh and final stake into the hard ground. Each of the lines of chalk that Santi was using lead to a singular spike, all of them embedded in the dryad’s roots. The chalk didn’t work well at all on the dried grass and Santi thought about using paint again, but decided it’d be good enough. The satyrs had nearly awoken the powerful monster and all it needed was one final nudge.

  Who cared if the containment lines were full of holes and would bleed energy like a sieve? As long as enough energy entered the circle and into the trunks then the dryad would awaken and then it was going to be every man for himself.

  “How’s that kid, Keegan doing?”

  “First off, he’s older than you. Second, he’s fine. Picked it up quick, had him do a few evolutions on some of the rangers that drifted up here. Super basic evolutions with only a singular treasure to fuel them, but it should be enough to influence his class selection.”

  “We can get him to do a lot of the basic work around the new settlements. Keep you closer to home working on the more advanced stuff,” Santi said.

  “Still going to need a few more. People are starting to trickle in faster now. At least that’s what the rangers said. With the group you picked up we’re probably going to need a few of us roving around and building protections for the little communities,” Yesi said.

  “Anyone else you want to train?”

  “No. There's a few who could probably do it. But this is exacting work. What we’re doing here is like,” she froze, face scrunched up as she tried to think of the right word.

  “Super basic and can be rough. Really could have done this myself, but with you activating it, might get you a nice achievement and help you on your next evolution,” Santi said. It was basic work that he could have done himself. Pulling his sister out and getting her away from the noise of the construction was a plus.

  “Thanks for thinking of me.” Her voice softened to the point that he struggled to hear even with his advanced stats.

  “I’m sorry. I haven’t been…myself.” Yesi trailed off and there was a glimmer of tears in her eyes. She continued to work, reapplying the chalk lines Santi had already made, filling them out further and making sure they’d work.

  “None of us are,” Santi said. There were other things he wanted to say, but the lump in his throat gave him pause. Now wasn’t the time to open up emotional wounds right before a battle, even if purging the rancid grief would be better in the long term.

  “After this is all over. We should all go out together for a few days. You, me, Mom, Bianca. Maybe Cam?” Santi said.

  “SANTI! Death flags!” Yessenia yelled, looking and pointing at him with a stick of chalk. Santi rolled his eyes but he didn’t argue.

  “So, what do I do now that this circle is all set up?” Yesi asked.

  “We go and eat dinner and wait. The first of them should be coming at dawn. We’ll find a place for you and your golem and you’ll hunker down and just wait out the storm.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “You don’t need my help?”

  “Naw. I’m not planning on doing much myself, that’s why we have that,” Santi said, jerking a thumb at the dryad.

  “Just have to get the ball rolling so to speak. Kill the first few of the group and it should wake up the big guy and then I just get out of the way. The curse should take over, fuel their battlemania as more and more of them die. This place reeks of bloodshed anyways. I’m feeling the tug of the curse just hanging out around here, those guys will lose their shit.”

  “What happens when that dryad finishes them off? You just let it walk off?”

  “What?! No, I kill it,” Santi said.

  “Santi. That thing outlevels you. By a lot.”

  “That’s why we’re going to have all these cursed weaken it first. Then we’re hitting it with the second ritual we have planned!” Santi said.

  “Second ritual?”

  “Ohhhh, I didn’t tell you about that one. Yeah, one of those nasty defensive energy redirection ones.”

  “We don’t have a power source Santi,” Yesi argued.

  “What are you talking about. We’re going to have fifty or so people dying in a circle. That’s plenty of energy,” Santi said as he grabbed the chalk and started to walk around the park, beginning a much bigger circle.

  “You’re insane! The energy transfer will be terrible, we don’t have the right ingredients to hold that power and redirect it. You’ll waste over two-thirds of that energy right into the air. And how are you going to direct it?”

  “We’re not. It’s going to be the simplest ritual spell out there. A heating circle,” Santi explained.

  “A heating circle?” Yesi said with disbelief.

  “I mean, with how much power that’s going to be inside of it, it’ll be more like a furnace, but yeah.”

  “You want to cook the giant tree?”

  “Crisp it,” Santi said with a smile.

  “You’re dumb.”

  “I’ve been told that. By quite a few people,” Santi said with a shrug as he continued drawing the line around the park. Walking bent over like this was starting to cramp his back and he resisted the urge to stop and stretch. It was important to have an uninterrupted line.

  “You going to make the appropriate runes to make heat, or do I need to do that too?” Santi said as Yesi continued to follow him. She huffed in annoyance but stepped inside the circle and began to make the adjustments to the line he was drawing.

  It really was a simple ritual, just a few runes that directed energy into heat within a confined space. Damn near anyone could make it and it had been an easy way to heat up food or drinks while on campaign when they couldn’t have fires. Most of the time you powered it with a thin trickle of your own mana, but this one was going to require some extra work if it was going to work.

  It took him a few minutes to circle the entirety of the park and then he went and started adding runes as fast as he could. The normal circle required two to three. This one he was placing a rune every few feet. The moment he sealed the circle, the spare energy inside of the circle would feed into the ritual, powering the heat until it became otherworldly.

  He had seen a trap like this once. A cagey old warlord who had trapped and slaughtered a force of Acolyte warriors in a small mining town. When Santi had been dispatched to find the small group he had been the first to find them, cooked alive after the warlord had released a swarm of low level monsters at them and then activated his trap.

  Most of the humans should be dead by the time the furnace hit critical levels and Santi had to hope that cursed warriors had enough strength to weaken the dryad enough that the heating circle would work. Or at least work enough that Santi could finish off the dryad without dying.

  “Still think this is stupid, but this is the biggest circle I’ve ever made,” Yesi said looking back to admire her handiwork.

  “Hey, what’s to keep someone from smudging something?”

  “Nothing. But the great thing about simple rituals like these is they are robust. It’s just energy transference. One into something and the other into heat. The circles can take a beating and all that will happen is they become less efficient. We don’t need them to be perfect for them to work for us,” Santi said with a shrug. Yesi shrugged in return and the two of them left the park and found a semi-decent house to shelter in.

  Yesi’s golem followed behind with their supplies strapped to its back, each step loud and grating. She had refused to leave without her golem and Santi had acquiesced even though he was more than enough of a guard for her. It was only when she pointed out that he would be busy that he had seen her point and relented.

  They cleaned off the table of the dust and debris on it and Santi went into the backyard and quickly got a fire started with some furniture. A bottle of water was emptied into a pot and he quickly rigged a grill up and over the fire and the water began to bubble. Yesi stood off to the side as he added noodles to the water and let them cook.

  “Just noodles?” Yesi asked.

  “You got anything else?” Santi shot back. The food wouldn’t do anything for either of them, but the noodles tasted good. He waited until they were al dente and then strained the water and let them cool. He added some olive oil to the mix and then he pulled out a few Acolyte tomatoes that had been grown and threw them into the noodles. Then he cracked open the field rations and handed one to Yesi as she stared at the pot of noodles with tomatoes.

  “This the best you can do?” Yesi said as she used a stolen fork to stab a tomato and a few of the bowtie noodles before popping them into her mouth. Her face twisted and then she shrugged.

  “Pretty plain and the tomato is a bit sour,” She said.

  “Everyone is a critic,” Santi said as he stabbed a few noodles for himself and then bit into a sour tomato. He hid his grimace as he and Yesi sat there next to a fading fire and ate out of the pan and just enjoyed the evening.