FMH: Everything ~ Six

After a short rest, a good meal, and gathering his friends around him, Andre was most certainly in a better place mentally. Each of his friends were looking on with excitement, interest, or absolute apathy depending on their own temperaments. “Thank you all for being here, I'm sure you all know exactly how much this means to me.”

“Make with the magic, plant boy! I want to see what happens!” Zed had a notebook and plant-based ink that had been supplied by the Druid, and was furiously writing even while he heckled.

“As you all know,” Andre continued without acknowledging the Bard, “we don't know what this is going to do to our future, nor to the kingdom, but we do know that it is necessary for the world. There's a good chance that reconnecting this section of land to the world at large will cause mana storms, rifts to open, or any number of strange effects.”

“Hold up.” Luke looked interested for the first time, “You mean to tell me that just by growing some plants, you might open a bunch of Scars that need… inspecting?”

“That's what I'm trying to tell you, everything is possible.” Andre couldn't keep the nervousness out of his voice, but fear of the unknown was not something that they slowed down for. “Here I go.”

Drawing on the power granted to him by being connected to this section of land, Andre pricked his fingers with small thorns, letting a thin stream of blood rise up from each finger of his outstretched hand. The blood was captured by his outpouring mana, and shifted into thin circles that raised up into the air above him to focus the channeling of his will. Three circles were created, allowing him to bind to plants, animals, and the world, in that order.

Shaping plants, he caused seeds that had been packed into the layer of fungus and plant matter to burst into bloom. Grass raised up, flowers opened their pedals, and small trees began to sprout. His eyes now firmly closed, the second Circle allowed him to bind to insects, worms, arachnids, and all sorts of other minor things that were necessary for the ecosystem to be balanced. He pushed them to expand their territories, increase their reproductive rates for a short amount of time, and worked hard to ensure that the plants would have the caretakers that they needed.

As those two layers began to cover the last remaining sliver of desert, Andre began the next, most difficult portion. Connecting with the planet itself, he poured mana into the network of criss-crossing Ley Lines that balanced the energy of the world. Smoothing out the final portions, growing the line as needed to connect to the world outside, and finally connecting the lines from the paradise to the countryside around it.

As the connection stabilized, a shock wave of mana rippled out from the forest, causing the ground to shudder, plants to tremble, and animals to cower. Over the next long few minutes, the thick power in the air that had collected over the course of their time in the area was sucked away, empowering the Ley Lines and moving along the will of the world to balance other areas that had suffered from the artificial mana drought.

Each of the four reacted to the lessening potency of the area in a different way. But all of them could clearly feel it, and it put a strain on them that they had not realized they would feel as they went out and about. Taylor was the first to voice it, even though it appeared that Luke was the one suffering the most. “That feels disgusting. Like.. I don't know, going from flatlands to the peak of a mountain in an instant, and expecting the air to stay the same. Is it actually harder to breathe, or does it just feel that way?”

“This place is becoming less real by the second.” Luke stated sadly, looking at each of his friends with a surging gaze, clearly trying to determine if they were actually caricatures of his friends as he had suspected all along. It seemed that they passed the test, because his intent stare moved away after a few long, searching seconds.

Zed had frozen under that stare, which was filled with a relentless bloodlust that had seemed to chill his very soul.

Andre didn't particularly care for the byplay, as he was reveling in his success. He knew for certain that it was a success, as the only quest he had ever gained from the Hollow Kingdom’s Archmage was showing… as complete.

Quest complete: Return life to the Sarrocco Desert! You've completed a legendary task given to you by the Hollow Kingdom. Return to the Capital, triumphant, to claim your reward!

“Oof. Yeah, no.” Andre muttered softly to himself as he looked at the message his Sigil had provided him. Frankly, he had not expected too much from this quest, but he was still hoping to receive a reward from the world itself. He didn't have to wait long, and he was not disappointed.

He had remained standing in place as he waited, and nearly five minutes had passed since the apparent draining of power from this area had concluded. Then, at the very edge of his senses, he felt it. Andre’s eyes shot open as he realized that the land that he was bound to was, for the very first time, expanding on its own.

An outside entity that has bound to you is altering your Abilities. 2

Ability mutated! Bind by Blood (Tier 6, Level 7) → Bloodflood Binding (Tier 73, Level 2).

Bloodflood Binding (T7): 0/300 to level 3!

Effect 1: By using your blood when creating a Druidic binding circle, you can gain additional benefits from the bond.

Bonus 1, at range: Circle can be created within line of sight.

Effect 2: Bond is 30+n% more likely to succeed in any circle your blood is added into, where 'n' = cumulative levels after tier 2! (T3 level 0 and beyond counts toward the percentage.)

Bonus 2, Multitarget: Increases resource gain among bound presence from r*5^-6 to r*5^-5 of offered resources, where r = offered resources!

Effect 3: Offered resources now include any Etheric Xenograft Potentia generated by bound beings within touch distance.

Bonus 3, AoE: ‘touch’ distance is now considered anywhere within the circular binding. Any future Abilities generated that require ‘touch’ can be activated by any plants you're connected and in communion with.

Effect 4 NEW!: Areas in the world that are bound to you'll expand on their own if there is a surplus of blood or mana in the area. Having both requirements filled will double the speed of expansion. This expansion occurs at a rate of 1 meter per 5 units of blood, or 1 meter per 50 units of surplus mana.

Although this was the only Ability increase that he saw, he also felt something within himself change. Once more closing his eyes, he focused on that change, and realized that he had become somewhat more sturdy, physically and mentally. He could not exactly quantify how, but when he opened his eyes, he found Luke staring at him in wonderment. The huge man stepped closer, then reached out and poked Andre in the chest. “You just became more real. How did you do that?”

The Druid was lost for words, until he remembered what that meant to the Murderhobo. “Are you telling me that my Potentia has become more stable?”

“Call it whatever you want to call it, but you look like you'll fall apart less easily now.” Luke nodded solemnly, “Whatever you just did, I want to do it too.”

Taking his time to think of a proper answer to that, Andre started to realize exactly what had changed within him. “I think that I just had my Potentia become condensed within myself. Going back to a long while ago, when you told the royal guards that they looked like fluffy fakes, my hypothesis on this is that I am now better primed to gain power, Abilities, and who knows what else. Would you say that this is fairly accurate?”

“You words too much. How I do what you did?” Luke said slowly, as though Andre was the one having a difficult time understanding him, and not the other way around.

“I think I've got this one, if you don't mind.” Zed stepped forward and pulled out a lute, strumming it gently as he stared into Luke's eyes. “The Druid went out, and did a mighty work. The Earth itself rewards him! To do what he does, be who he is, else quiet down… and do your job.”

The other three stared at the Bard as he played his janky song, but somehow it penetrated all of their minds and cleared up any confusion they had been having. Taylor shivered as she thought about the words, both in revulsion at the actual lyrics, as well as the fact that she knew he had just used some form of bardic spell on her. “It always makes me feel icky when you do that, even if it somehow clarified things in my head. It doesn't change the fact that we don't know what happened, and yet... I kind of care less?”

“It's a work in progress.” Zed carefully backed away from Luke, who appeared to be debating on whether or not to slap him across the grove. Luke didn't enjoy having his head messed with, and it took a lot of effort and power to make it happen. “Also, I didn't intentionally use a Mastery on you, I was just singing you a song.”

“Hmmph.” Luke grunted as he turned his attention back to the Druid. “Now what?”

“Now?” Andre read over his newly-upgraded Ability, and a wide smile began to stretch across his face. “I don't suppose you have any liquid mana that you would be willing to donate to a good cause? You know, be-cause it’d help me out.”

“Mooch.” Luke didn't fight against the request, it was a fairly common occurrence among the group, and each of them had been donating their usefulness in various ways to help each other with projects. Andre was glad that the big man didn't begrudge him the boost, even if he would never use the fact that he kept them fed, hidden, and sheltered for the last five years against them.

Accepting the oversized water skin that Luke returned with a few moments later, Andre merely opened the top and set it down. Zed and Taylor both sucked in a harsh breath, staring at the apparent waste of mana that would be worth a medium size fortune in the outside world. Only Luke was looking at Andre's face as the Druid's smile stretched wider, and wider, into a nearly maniacal caricature.

“I got a new Ability, and when there is surplus blood, or mana in the area, it increases my bound area by a flat rate over time. With just this mana leaking out, I'm already at over one hundred meters of new land under my control, and still counting.”

He blinked as his range extended and he felt something new. Small tremors that indicated something, or in this case, someone walking. The number of steps increased rapidly, and his wide smile slowly started to collapse. “Everyone, there are people approaching. They’re…”

Now there was only a pained grimace on his face, “They are everywhere. We are completely surrounded.”

“Surrounded?” Zed scoffed at that idea. “So drop us into the ground and we will walk along to a new part of the forest. How far away are they?”

“I'm not talking about us personally, I'm talking about the Scarrocco Paradise. The entire area is surrounded, and if I am judging this accurately, it looks like an entire division of the army has been deployed to slowly start walking toward the center of the forest.” Andre informed them with a hint of dread in his voice.

“So when you say that we are surrounded… you mean the several hundred miles of forest that used to be a desert is surrounded by tens of thousands of people?” Zed lazily waved around the area. “They will never find us if you don't want them to find us.”

“Actually, based on the fact that there are a ton of Spells going off, expanding my range of territory even further, I think that they will find us unless we do something fairly drastic.” Andre told them grimly. “If my guess is correct, those are a mix of ‘Detect Human’ and scouting Spells.”

“Sounds like the kingdom isn't very happy with us.” Taylor took a deep breath and nodded firmly, her next words assuaging the team's worries over where her true loyalties lay. “Our job in the desert is done. Let's figure out if we can find a way to get the abyss out of here.”