FMH: Everything ~ Seven

“I'm not sure if anyone has noticed this yet; is it just me… or is there a giant pillar of light going from the ground to the sky from the spot where Andre finished his quest?” Zed pointed straight up, and they realized that he was correct. The only reason the majority of them hadn’t noticed until this point was that they were within that same column, and focused on their own concerns.

Luke turned on his heel and dashed away, leaving the others to scramble after him as they each made the realization that this would be a literal beacon that brought the Kingdom's forces down on them.

Andre was snarling at himself internally. If they were caught because of his actions, he would feel terrible. Using his ability to connect with the world around him, he shaped the earth in front of them to constantly be a downhill slope, speeding up their progress immensely as trees and shrubs shuffled to get out of their way.

Oftentimes this still was not fast enough for the Murderhobo, forcing the Druid to take a moment to revitalize pulped foliage. “Luke, stop smashing things. It’s splitting my focus!”

“Where are we even going, if we’re totally surrounded?” Taylor called over, and Andre realized that was a very good question. Part of his mind was still connected to the forest, allowing him to track the rapid movement of the troops, especially the Ascenders at the front of the pack that were sprinting toward them thanks to the beacon.

“If we maintain this course, we are going to run into Kingdom forces in under three minutes. We need to get to one of our safe houses.” His words were firm, and he called after Luke to start going to fallback point ‘tree eight’. “After we get to a safe location, we can jump into a world and travel across the kingdom before leaving. I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain that we are no longer stuck here?”

“Only way to know for sure is to try it out.” Taylor agreed with a nervous smile and a shrug that was her attempt at injecting cuteness into the serious situation. “But I hope so!”

“I don't get lit on fire when I go into people's worlds anymore!” Zed enthusiastically agreed with their plan. “Which is my way of saying that your plan sounds great. Last thing, why didn't we have this plan in place before we completed your quest?”

No one had an answer for that, but it seemed that the tree branches got out of Zed's way a little less frequently after he made that comment. They dove into the small base that had been formed from the hollow of an oak tree's roots, then expanded with druidic magic. Andre closed the exit behind them with a simple stomp of his foot, and looked around at the others. “Who’s making the portal?”

“Can't.” Luke informed him with a grunt.

“Don't feel bad about it. The fact that you can perform at all at your advanced age is already a huge success.” Zed told him while holding out a single thumbs up. Luke had plenty of practice ignoring the Bard, and he continued to perfect that state of being even now.

Taylor shook her head, “I won't be fast enough to get us out of here in time, can you do it?”

The Druid nodded, pulling his LivingWood staff out of the earth where it tended to travel along near him, pumping mana into it and drawing out a circle. It connected and the portal began forming just as Andre felt a wash of mana that seemed to cling to him, and pull in a specific direction. “King Alexander’s saggy staff, I think they just got a lock on me!”

“It hit all of us, keep going.” Taylor advised him, her words carefully chosen so as not to be demanding or nervous. Simply encouraging, which was exactly what he needed at this moment.

The Druid focused on his task, and the portal fully formed in front of them. He held it open as Zed stepped through, followed by Taylor, but as Luke attempted to walk through, his Sigil flared brightly and caused him to stumble back and away, losing strength in his legs and core. Andre wrapped him with vines and tried to throw him in, but the Sigil audibly *chimed*, and in the next instant the Murderhobo had exploded from the bindings and thrown himself to the ground. Andre met his eyes, and Luke merely nodded at the open escape.

“Looks like I'm not going with you.” The scarred warrior stated heavily. “Get out of here while you can, I'll hold them off for as long as possible.”

Andre shook his head mulishly, “We are a team, and I'm not going to leave you here.”

“Get out of here, then go and put down roots somewhere. You had a taste of freedom. Solid appetizer. Now get a whole meal out of it.” Luke didn't wait for an answer, simply hopping to his feet and lightly slapping the Druid—sending him flying at breakneck speed through his portal.

The Scar in the world's membrane closed with a *snap* as Andre smashed headfirst into the stone wall that was on the other side of the portal. His head twisted to the side, the skull attempting to cave in from the forest. Frankly, there was a good chance that he would have died if he hadn't been tossed into his personal grove, where the Peace Lily was in full bloom and preventing death. “Ow-ah! Luke, you absolute lunatic…!”

“What happened? Where’s Luke?” Taylor inquired as she grabbed Andre and helped him up. It was clear the huge man hadn’t joined them in their attempt at escape. “You left him behind?”

“I did nothing!” Andre indignantly declared, “His Sigil refused him entry to my portal, and he nearly killed me by fighting to stay on that side because of it.”

The trio remained silent for a few long moments, thinking over what they should do. Zed offered his advice, “The time dilation on this world is about eight times greater than the time stream over there, correct? That buys us some time to figure out what we need to do. We need to make a plan.”

“Time shift is only six times greater. I think we should cut our losses and run for it.” Andre stated without a moment of hesitation. “That's what he wanted us to do. I say we figure out where the connection points to our world are, and leg it. As soon as we are in a safe location, I can start doing all sorts of things to make it harder for us to be found.”

“Look how well that worked last time!” Taylor raged as she punched the wall hard enough to split her skin, only for her hand to take no damage whatsoever. “At least when we are here, we have the defenses you have put in place, food, safety thanks to your flower, and we are able to help nurture your World Seed.”

“I still think you should grow it into a dragon.” Zed muttered almost too quietly to be heard. Seeing as he was not offering any useful advice, or participating in the conversation in general, the other two decided to focus on each other.

“The difference is that I would be dropping us in the kingdom, not a smallish area that can be easily surrounded and searched.” Andre argued with the Mage, “If we are in the Kingdom proper, their search Spells that are looking for humans are not going to be effective in finding us. If we get out there, we are free.”

“So long as we never read a document, get found by the guaranteed hundreds of bounty hunters that would be looking for us, or run into any official at all that would be able to order us around.” Zed chimed in unnecessarily, and completely unhelpfully. “I don't know about you guys, but when I see a notice posted, my first inclination is to read it. That’s going to be how they get me, guarantee it. That or I’ll lure an army to a tavern and make them listen while I ramble at them for free Potentia.”

“This isn't helpful. Like Taylor said, we bought some time.” Andre tried to calm himself down, only to find that he was seething with a raging sea of emotions. Disgust with himself for leaving his friend behind, annoyance that this was happening directly after his moment of triumph, and finally bone-deep weariness from constantly working to finish healing the desert over the last five years. For him, it was closer to nine years, thanks to needing to constantly return to this world and experiment without impacting the forest. Nearly a decade of work, all to be capped with impending capture.

It was an insult of the highest measure.

He walked away from the group without saying another word, the walls of roots and stones moving out of his way as he traipsed through the area that he had made intimately and intrinsically his. Walking into the main cavern, he found Arthur, his Dire Bear companion. Stepping over to the great Beast that was chuffing in acknowledgment and happiness, the Druid internally remarked on how wonderful it was that this magnificent creature had been within a domain that disallowed degradation. Arthur hadn't aged a day since he had come into this cavern, needing neither sustenance nor sleep.

The perfect guardian of his secrets, his successes, and all too frequently… his failures. Stroking the wire-like fur, Andre closed his eyes and heaved a great sigh. “Yet another loss after a glorious win, my friend. This time I'm not the one paying the price for my failure to properly plan, and it is already eating at me. What do I do?”

Letting out a warbling growl, the bear showed its teeth. Andre shook his head, “No, unfortunately I cannot eat this issue. If any of these people get close to me—it's humans that we are attempting to escape from, by the way—they will conscript me into service once more. My vacation of an exile is at an end, and now I will need to be constantly mobile…”

Arthur swung his head to the side, looking at the massive cavern filled with plant life and bioluminescent moss. Truly, this was a fairytale slice of Elysium, and the bear’s meaning was clear. Even so, the Druid needed to shake his head in the negative once more. “Until I'm able to achieve level twenty, I will not be able to remain here permanently. Even then, I will be attempting to Ascend to a higher world, and this will merely become my base world at that time. You do know you're coming with me, right?”

*Huff.* The Dire Bear snorted agreeably. It rolled its massive shoulders, then settled in on the floor. Even though it was laying down, its shoulder was at eye level for the extremely tall Druid, which made him quite pleased. His bear was his ideal companion and guardian, happy to listen to him and not muddy the waters with morals or ethics. Have an enemy? Eat them. Have a problem? Hibernate for a while, maybe it will go away. Andre sighed as he started to relax. “If only mankind didn't need to complicate their lives to such a degree.”

As he thought over his life for the last near decade, he decided to take a look at his Sigil in order to once more review his quantified growth.

Cal Scan

Level: 12

Current Etheric Xenograft Potentia: 17,843 / 37,700 to level 13!

Body: 13.15

Fitness: 10.4

Resistance: 15.9

Mind: 39

Talent: 28

Capacity: 50

Presence: 14.8

Willpower: 20.5

Charisma: 9.1

Senses: 10.25

Physical reaction: 12.3

Mental energy: 8.2

Maximum Health: 209

Maximum mana: 662

Mana regen: 9.3 per second.

Ability: Tier: Level

Bloodflood Binding: 7: 2

Hemoflora: 4: 9

Earthblood Terraformation: 4: 9

Brute Migration: 8: 5

Call Of Nature: 9: 0

It had been interesting to him how his Potentia had continuously increased, albeit slowly over the years, thanks to having such a rich, and highly mutable area that he was bound to. Nearly none of his growth had come from defeating other creatures; it had all come from his work, as well as the donations of the flora and fauna of his bound areas. Still, it had been enough to let him achieve the great milestone of level twelve, as well as allowing him to increase his Abilities beyond their previous limits.

Not spectacular increases, in most cases, as he felt that he had not truly mastered or understood each of those imparted Abilities to their fullest extent. Even so, he had made great strides with his Druidic Circle Magic especially, and he noticed that many of his characteristics had greatly increased. Even though he personally had only been able to allocate twenty total points thanks to his increase in levels, being around Luke, Taylor, and Zed had been fantastic for training his Willpower and Charisma.

Something about them made it extremely difficult not to simply give in when pressed on an issue. His constant resistance to domination, intentional or otherwise, had pushed the growth of his Willpower to new heights. Of course, the ability to train in an area with extremely intense mana density was also a major factor in his growth. It gave him keen insight into how Luke had become such a monster of a man.

That line of thinking brought him full circle, of course, and he sagged in place as he remembered his failure to rescue his friend.

*Wub.*

For a long moment, the sound that had just intruded on his private reminiscence annoyed him as he attempted to place it. “What in this world makes that sound?”

*Wub. Wub.*

His eyes widened in fear as he realized that he did, indeed, recognize that sound. He was right to be confused. There was nothing in this world that made that sound.

Not unless the Murderhobo was coming.

“Andre!” Taylor's distress was evident in her tone. “Luke is smashing his way in through your closed portal!”

“That's impossible! He was unable to enter… no! Someone has control of him.” Andre made the realization, and the ramifications were clear in his mind. By the widening of her eyes, they were clear for Taylor as well. “They are sending him after us… to bring us home. Scatter! Run for it!”