Still in lock-step with the other treants that moved into the first area of the city, the holding district, Ba-Khet and Ficus still concentrated on not acting too erratically. The holding district once housed many 24-hour-businesses for travellers who arrived at odd times. That time has passed now, as every building has been vacated, and nothing on the street remained that wasn’t bolted down. The entire place is now used for a more sinister purpose.

  “It's so damn hard to see anything here. What's going on?” Ba-Khet asked.

  Ficus caught glimpses of their predicament through the various holes in the treant husk, and there were scraps of bark and unusual scratches all around the holding area; signs of a previous treant struggle. He replied calmly, “I think they converted the place into some kind of trap. I’d assume guards are waiting for more to show, seeing as we ain’t dead yet.” After thinking over the best course of action, “I believe it's best if we get near a group of treants, and hide amongst them as cover to catch our bearings.”

  “Not like there’s any better options,” agreed Ba-Khet.

  The pair moved towards the center of a walled-off city area where the mass of treants had settled down, emotionless as ever. Ba-Khet and Ficus used the husk for their disguise to push their way toward the center. They exited after checking if they were out of the guard’s line of sight. Ba-Khet and Ficus observed their surroundings under the cover of the treants. There were masses of Aurelian guards of all shapes and sizes intermittently posted around on the ground and up on top of the walls, some accompanied with odd beasts Ba-Khet didn’t recognize. Other guards were also holed up by the gate and in a building labeled in bright multicolor paint, ‘Always open, Gerald’s General Shop’. These forces looked like they could roll out and “clean up” at a moment's notice when an order is given.

  Ficus, breaking his calm demeanor and checking the contents of his shoulder sling sack (which Ba-Khet just noticed Ficus had with him this entire trip), then exclaimed, “Ba-Khet, we’re surrounded on all fronts by these fools, and I’m out of ideas on what we can do.”

  Ba-Khet nodded. This wasn’t its first deadly predicament, and it surely won’t be its last, but the reality of the group’s decisions had finally caught up to them. And while this self retrospection had gone on, the entire holding area had been filling in with more and more treants.

  “Not to be rude, but you don’t seem to be the brightest,” Ficus questioned the now contemplating Ba-Khet. “But… By some miracle, do you have any idea what to do next? I’d prefer not to be impaled by an arrow or spear from an Alcion or Suculan guard.”

  Ba-Khet took a moment to process the request, then, before he could answer, a commanding voice rang out over the holding area, “Aurelian guard! We are collecting the last amount of these beasts for the slaughter, ready yourselves for the signal!”

  Ba-Khet, sensing the urgency of the situation, finally offers his answer: “We could just hide out in one of the buildings? Or find a way deeper into the city...”

  “By the gods, that's actually not an idiotic idea,” Ficus replied. “It looks like there is an unused set of buildings over there,” Ficus pointed to a set of three connected buildings that were deeper into the holding area. “It’s a Goods, Gubbins, and Garrison location; there's an inn of sorts, and a city access point; it could give access to anything from the insides of walls to the pipes of running water some buildings have.”

  “Looks like that’s our best chance then, let's be quick,” Ba-Khet added, feeling good about itself for coming up with the idea. Rapidly, the pair got back into their treant husks and moved slowly and purposefully through multiple groups of treants to make it towards their desired destination. Luckily, the buildings were close to the wall, so the Aurelian guards couldn’t see much of their antics down below. Just as the Ba-Khet and Ficus reached the doorstep of the store, a large projected voice blared out. “Do what you do best, Aurelians, make the king proud!” echoed out soon after.

  From then on, the holding area courtyard became what can best be described as a shitshow; city guards fired down from the walls with arrows and ballista bolts from handheld crossbows, aiming for anything tree-like that moved. The ground forces were well-equipped with either large repurposed war axes, hand axes with shields, or sharp spears. The guards then began to hack into the unaware treants. Under any affliction of pain, the treants would be broken from their trance and would lash out violently at their attackers by thrashing and extending the branches from the top of their heads down with some considerable force. The treants hit with arrows from the guards on the walls would find a ground target and stare them down; their eyes induced minor paralysis and fear for any onlooking military guardsmen who locked eyes with them. From there, any unlucky rookie or cocky veteran who stared down the singular eye would be met with the force of a ten sleipnir collision as the treant rushed them down and smacked straight into the victims. Treants would be chopped down like trees, and guards would die of blunt force trauma or untreated wounds. Brutality rang out across and throughout the holding area of the city as numerous treants were slain, with too many guards dying in vain.

  Whilst the slaughter was commencing, Ba-Khet and Ficus had immediately jettisoned themselves from their disguise and thrown their bodies into the “Goods, Gubbins, and Garrison” store. They shut the door and skulked about to check if they were being followed, they concluded that they were indeed safe.

  “Let's check out this place and see what they left behind. You look in the armory, as it's practically a warzone outside. I'll check for anything notable in the front,” Ficus paused to catch his breath, “afterwards I’ll take a look in the back. They always keep the good stuff in the back,” stated Ficus, taking advantage of the silence and the situation. The store was split up into 3 sections labeled Goods, Gubbins, and Garrison with a checkout in the back of the store wall, along with an employees-only storage area. This setup felt oddly familiar to Ba-Khet, but he could not figure out why. The goods section was nearly completely ransacked, but Ba-Khet assumed that he might find food there since there were tons of scraps lying on the floor. The Gubbins area was somewhat present, and all Ba-Khet found in the area were either full of random items or seemingly magical appliances, tools, and toys. Ficus was currently in this section and noticed that Ba-Khet was still observing the building encompassing him rather than following his instructions while a savage fight continued outside.

  To break him out of his stupor, Ficus quietly exclaimed, “Ba-Khet, catch!” and threw a special looking pocket watch at Ba-Khet. “It’s magical, so it's got extra uses and features.”

  The incomplete being responded by nearly failing to catch the object, and then giving a thumbs up in “thanks” before making its way toward the section and detailing everything else along the way. The Garrison portion of the store (which looked surprisingly untouched) had a sizable clothing selection for both fashion and function, and a small armory of protection and weapons at the backend of the section. Ba-Khet again got distracted, turning his attention to the cool looking clothing. He grabbed and folded some clothes from the counter that would fit both his and Ficus’ needs. He grabbed 4 short-sleeved tunics, 4 long-sleeved undershirts, 2 hooded, short cloaks and covering combos, 4 pairs of underwear and medium trousers, 4 pairs of socks, and to top it off, 2 pairs of short boots.

  This pile of clothes was very cumbersome, so it called out to Ficus, “Hey Ficus, wherever you are, could you find me a backpack?”

  Ficus responded by hurrying toward Ba-Khet, coming from the back room with two lightweight traveler's packs and replying, “Hurry up, the fighting isn't stopping anytime soon, but I wanna get outta here and check out the other places.”

  The pair packed their clothes into their bags; they each had a spare set of clothes and were ready to continue. “Grab yourself something to defend yourself, Ba-Khet, and get me an axe. These clothes are a good idea, but you need to hurry and worry about getting the essentials.”

  The corpse now urgently checked the back of the Garrison section; it had bits and pieces of armor and a limited selection of steel weaponry. Ba-Khet grabbed a dirk and a small buckler style shield in one hand, found and then carried a nice-looking axe over his shoulder with his other hand, and searched for holsters and sheathes for the merchandise. Once the proper gear was acquired, the noises of battle continued to rage on louder from outside the buildings. It seems that the slaughter was drawing nearer to the duo as they gathered supplies in the store.

  “Ba-Khet! Follow me to the next building through this door,” Ficus exclaimed as he took the axe and holster sling from Ba-Khet and attached both to his bag. He then started making his way to the inn next door through a set of double doors that connected the two buildings. Ba-Khet followed suit, as he did not want to fall behind as he had before outside in the fields of Aurelia.

  Ba-Khet took a second to look around at the place they entered. The new interior was made of stone and logs, unlike the planks that characterized the general store. The duo was inside the inn’s reception area, which had a waiting area with comfy furnishings and a stairway that led towards the rooms. The front of the room had a door to the next building, a reception desk, and, weirdly, an indoor spigot, which Ba-Khet assumed was for any transportation animal that would be outside, seeing as there were 3 buckets alongside this spigot. Never wasting a good opportunity, Ficus was filling up a canteen and then a bucket with the spigot.

  “What are you doing with that bucket?” Ba-Khet asked, being totally perplexed as to why Ficus needed a full lukewarm water bucket.

  “Here’s why,” Ficus replied while taking off his outfit and his person. He then proceeded to dump the water on his head and his body, washing off everything like the treant guts, urine, dirt, and odd colored blood he had accumulated over the trip. The cleansing had revealed that Ficus’ body had many scratches and cuts, the origins were unknown but most definitely not self-inflicted. Grabbing a towel from the counter, Ficus cleaned himself off and changed into the outfit Ba-Khet grabbed for him.

  “Are you gonna do the same, my friend, or is being a rotting, smelly corpse covered with Treant bodily fluids not good enough for you?” Ficus jokingly inquired.

  Ba-Khet decided to follow Ficus’ actions and clean himself, which he just then realised how dirty he was despite still being drenched in filth this entire time. Ba-Khet completed the cleaning ritual, got changed into his new outfit, and made sure to put on his newly acquired weapons and bag quickly as the sounds of war intensified further. The treants were being corralled towards these buildings to be finished off.

  “You all ready? We gotta make our way down wherever the access building leads us to, otherwise the treants will probably crash through these buildings, and we’ll get poached too,” Ficus said.

  Ba-Khet nodded, and then the pair got their act together and scrambled to the door that led to the access room. Now, inside a new, very small stone brick building, they only had one option of escape, a reinforced door with a sign declaring the pathway was to the Dungeon and Sewer access. sounds of fighting were eerily close and rapidly approaching, screams of both man and monster alike could be heard.

  “A sewer system?! And I just washed myself off just to get dirty again,” Ficus exclaimed in minor anguish. “Well, Ba-Khet, you go check it out, let's see if we need torches.”

  Ba-Khet obliged and opened the door to see that there was an unlit staircase with an illuminated bottom entrance. Ba-Khet was apprehensive about travelling down the unknown dark steps as—

  —Ba-Khet’s thoughts were immediately interrupted and changed, as Ficus was tired of waiting on the shit-for-brains corpse to monologue about their current predicament again. His solution was to sparta kick Ba-Khet through the open doorway and down the steps. All Ba-Khet could hear and think about were the sounds of itself crashing and tumbling down upon sets of steps. Its body rolled and skipped its way down to the bottom doorway entrance. The moment passed, and the sounds of a door shutting and another being smacked into echoed throughout the room. The pain was somewhat apparent to Ba-Khet when it finally got up at the bottom of the doorway and stairway and miraculously only suffered minor bruising and a cut lip after the comedic fall. Still slightly dazed, Ba-Khet opened the door and stepped into a cylindrical tunnel, with pathways along the side walls, and unspeakable objects and liquids flowing down through the middle. The incomplete being was thankful that the door stopped him from tumbling into the sludge river, and equally as thankful for the magical torches that lined the walls of the sewer access. Ba-Khet then stepped forward into the tunnel and turned around after hearing sounds of footsteps going down the staircase. When the figure of Ficus had emerged from the doorway, Ba-Khet took the opportunity to slap him across the face, grab, rotate, and pin him to the ground inside the tunnels.

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  “What was that for, Ficus!? I thought we stopped doing things that end up with me suffering?” Ba-Khet demandingly asked.

  “You dumbass, get off of me! Didn't you hear the fighting outside that was seconds away from reaching the buildings?!” the disarmed dryad screeched. "We would have definitely been caught in the crossfire if I hadn’t ensured we made it into here in time.”

  “Okay…” Ba-Khet paused, “Fair point, but stop messing with me to save yourself!” “Or else I’ll ensure you end up in this sludge river,” the corpse threatened.

  “Within reason,” replied Ficus, “I don't exactly want to die because of you, but I’ll stop hurting you in the process, You are important after all.” “I’m sorry, okay?”

  “Fine, lemme help you up,” Ba-Khet replied while helping the roughed up Ficus. “Let's start walking, I gotta ask you a few questions anyway.”

  The pair start walking down towards the dungeon since they have nothing better to do. Ba-Khet and Ficus thought that until they have a better plan or goal it's best to just walk around to explore the layout of the tunnels and see where the different access entrances lead. They couldn’t just walk back into a different, less treant or guard occupied, part of the city as they lacked an Alibi for being there, not to mention that Ba-Khet was human, a race still not yet known to this world. So, the uneasy friends walked down the sewer’s catwalks together. The smell was definitely not pleasant, but not as bad as the insides of a treant Ba-Khet thought to himself. It had been about a minute of walking before Ba-Khet finally remembered to ask his first question,

  “Hey Ficus, why are we even here in this city?” Ba-Khet asked

  “To be honest, I don’t quite remember anymore… I think I needed more supplies to trade back at my village, and I thought that maybe I could find more about you if we came here, or drop you off here for some doctor or wizard to study you. You’re pretty foreign to this place and I have a sneaking suspicion that you aren’t used to anything around here. You might be a byproduct of the recent Bazartis event.”

  “What’s a Bazartis?” inquired Ba-Khet

  “Well… It’s a phenomenon that occurs every, I think 625 years? Essentially every time a Bazartis event occurs, a thunderstorm covers the whole world and new things get introduced around the world. It could add a new species or concept like magic, but it’s completely random, hell, it could even bring about the end of the world if it introduced a corrosive plague or something. It seems like you are a new species, humans you mentioned, right? You look similar to the Alcions, but with less defined features… peculiar, I never actually gave this much thought until now, say don’t you look a little undead and purple?”

  Ba-Khet felt like he was understanding less and less as Ficus blabbered on to himself, so he decided to change the subject to hopefully learn more and maybe find a purpose through questioning.

  “Hey Ficus, what is this city anyway? It’s so weird and…” Ba-Khet was searching for the proper word, “Advanced. Way more than I’ve seen so far across these lands.”

  “Well, this is Aurelia, its main industries are fishing, farming, and trading, although it might not be suitable for farming anymore seeing as the treants trampled the outside fields. It was built by the Alcion bearers who are also known as the Alcion people or i guess just water elves’. Originally this place was a small, unnamed coastal village back when the Alcion race was divided. Then the Aurelius family united the Alcion people and settled down here, their patriarch becoming the first king. They erected a massive, state-of-the-art city with the help of forest and desert races like the Suculans, who for the lack of a better explanation, are just simply sentient desert plants people like us dryads.”

  Ba-Khet was slowly losing interest and yawned,

  “Forest Dryads like me also played a part in developing this city, but there were some complications. We simple tree folk have our life force intertwined with our trees and body, but if we get too far without the presence of our tree, we become very weak and not at all helpful. To remedy that, we carry saplings with us wherever we go to give us energy, I have mine in my bag as we speak actually. Getting back to the building of this place, there were more races like the Selkitsus who you have met before who helped build the trade roads and are allowed to stay in this melting pot of a city. oh, I nearly forgot about the desert Gykconns, they are like walking reptiles. Well, in closing, it's a diverse city.”

  Ba-Khet woke itself up and thought that the explanation was a mouthful, but it was better than detailing the random walk in silence. It pondered if this conversation was still a good use of its time. Ba-Khet felt enlightened but equally perplexed at what he had learned. But those thoughts and feelings are for another day, as after walking for quite a while, the pair had overheard a conversation up ahead. The speaking was echoing around a turn in the tunnels, the pair silently crept up to the blind corner turn. Ba-Khet quickly peeked out to get a look at what was happening; two guards were stationed at a weird door-shaped area that's built into the wall of the tubular sewer system access. Ficus had yanked the incomplete being back before he could be seen.

  Their voices now boomed through the tunnels, which made them sound way more imposing than they actually were.

  “Did you hear about the new prisoner?” asked one of the guards, “Apparently, that broad is the king's own daughter, and get this… she's pleading to us that something more is going on that we don’t know about.”

  “What a bunch of crap, if something wrong was going on, we would have heard about it, she must’ve screwed up big time, and that's why she's here trying to lie about it,” boldly proclaimed the other guard.

  While the guards were discussing things they didn’t understand, Ba-Khet and Ficus were panicking quietly about how they were going to deal with the guards in a stealthy manner.

  “How about we just lure both of them here and take care of them? I wanna see who they are talking about.” Ficus requested.

  “But what are we going to do? Kill these guys, or just knock them out? I don't have any blunt objects besides my small shield.” asked Ba-Khet, who, while not opposed to killing, didn’t think the guards should die just because they now wanted to check out the dungeon.

  “Well, Ba-Khet, you said it yourself, we don't have any non-lethal options that wouldn’t put us at immense risk. I think we should lure one guard and see what happens from there, okay?” responded Ficus, “Bash your buckler shield and make some noise.”

  Ba-Khet obliged and created three really loud bangs that caught the guards literally off guard. After a bit of muffled whispering and complaining, the shorter of the guards was sent to check the noise coming from around the corner. The short guard turned the corner and disappeared from the sight of the other guard. After leaving the sight of his pal, the small guard was met with the flat part of Ficus’ axe straight to the head, THUNK, and the only thing that saved him from a blunt force trauma induced death was his helmet. The small guard fell to the ground with a loud THUD but was still moving in pain, so Ba-Khet smashed the back of his head with its buckler, the blow was super effective, as the guard was now in a deep coma.

  After hearing the commotion, the fat but ferocious guard came rushing around the corner with his sword already drawn. The guard spotted Ficus first and instinctively rushed towards the dryad, wildly slashing at him. Ficus, now guarding with his large axe, was barely able to block the flurry of attacks, ruining the shaft of his axe and his sturdy arms more and more as the sword clashed with both. The chubby guard was so heavily focused on Ficus that he failed to see Ba-Khet, armed with its dirk, skulk to his side ready to inflict a low blow. It stabbed the portly guard right in the foot, allowing Ficus to catch his breath and lower his axe, then quickly Ba-Khet rushed around the side of the dazed fatty guard and took control of him by grabbing his back. With its dirk at the neck of the now very cooperative but still fat guard, Ba-Khet attempted to ask a question. However, by trying to multi-task, Ba-Khet immediately lowered his guard and ceased being aggressive, lowering its dirk just enough for the rotund guard to take advantage of the situation. He now had hold of the dirk's blade and began to spring backwards, falling down to try and squash Ba-Khet. The corpse was barely able to brace itself in time as the two fighters hit the ground. Ba-Khet was holding on to the combatant with everything its soul and body could muster, but its tenuous control over the big guard allowed Ficus enough time to kick the downed podgy guard in his side, knocking the wind out of him. Ba-Khet quickly came out from under the guard and stood up as Ficus started to repeatedly stomp the ever-living daylights out of the fat guards head. Ficus left him within an inch of his life, and Ba-Khet stomped in his left kneecap so that he couldn’t escape, if the chance arose.

  Suffice to say, the dynamic duo won this battle by a landslide, and the only injuries suffered were a couple of cuts on Ficus’ arm from defending against the sword slashes, and Ba-Khet became slightly more bruised after taking another fall. The pair admired their handiwork and the fact they managed to stay non-lethal despite not intending to. They checked to see if the guards had anything useful on them, but all they got was a little bit of money which Ba-Khet took, some minor medical supplies that Ficus quickly used, and a key to the not-so-secret door.

  After acquiring the key, Ba-Khet and Ficus immediately made their way to the door to unlock it, and they were amused to see that when they put the key in the slot, the door rotated 90° to reveal a passageway into the dungeon. After waiting a second to see if any more guards would show, the duo made their way inside to what is assumed to be the bottom floor. They were surprised by how empty the cells were, as there was only one occupied, an Alcion woman chained up to the corner of her cell. Ba-Khet and Ficus made their way toward the cell to get a better look at the prisoner.

  Her smooth voice rang out, “Are you guards back to finally interrogate me, or am I going to be executed since I know too much?” she inquired without looking up to confirm the identities of the onlookers.

  “Heavens no, we just dealt with the guards outside, we came inside since we were curious about the commotion,” replied Ficus reassuringly.

  The attitude of the woman shifted greatly after hearing the news; her blazing red swept to the side as she looked up at them with her slightly pale face and smiled from pointy ear to pointy ear. “Thats the best news I've heard in days, say who are you people? I’m Aylenne, Aylenne Aurelius”

  “I'm Ficus Witherwood, and I'll let my friend introduce himself,” replied Ficus

  “I'm… well, I don't remember who I am, but I call myself Ba-Khet, and I’m not from around here, I think,” said Ba-Khet somewhat confidently.

  “Heh, well, he certainly is an anomaly and an enigma. I think he’s a little delirious, but I trust him… anyway, that's who we are,” reassured Ficus, after Ba-Khet’s strange introduction.

  “Well, y'all sure are a weird pair, a dryad and a... something. Why are you here?”

  Suddenly, a wave of embarrassment came over Ficus, as he wasn't quite sure what the reason was why they were here.

  Ba-Khet, observing this, covered for his now friend, “Well, it's a long story, we tried to make it into the city so we could get supplies and see if anyone happens to know anything about me, but the city was under lockdown and was only letting in treants so—”

  “The two of you snuck in? Under the increased surveillance?" Aylenne questioned. “Sorry for interrupting, but both of you are some serious individuals for doing that, continue please, and again sorry.”

  “Well anyway, we were let in but we didn’t know we were about to be poached seeing as we disguised ourselves as a treant, so we snuck away into a shop, grabbed some things and made our escape through these access tunnels,” Ba-Khet stopped to catch his breath and his thoughts, then continued “ I guess we couldn’t go back up since we don't have an alibi for how we got into the city, so continued through the sewers, took down a few guards and wound up here. So yeah, I guess I'm still looking for a purpose, seeing as we haven’t been stopped yet.”

  “Well maybe I can give you a purpose Ba-Khet, as my family is in a bit of a predicament," stated Aylenne sensing an opportunity, “If you didn’t know already, my father is the king of Aurelia, and I’m his daughter. He has come upon some new thing known as a soul piece, or at least that's what our not so great advisor called it due to its abundance of energy that's known to orbit around it. That artifact was discovered in the Aurelian fields, and it seems like it can harness and amplify magic. The crazy wizard advisor Felix Fantasio has been the one to send out the orders to harvest the treant to amplify the soul piece's power with their magic hearts and their paralyzing eyes. He claims to be doing this to help my father gain more magical power to be better than the other cities, but he is really doing this to make himself powerful enough to usurp the rule of Aurelia,” Aylenne took a break and to collect herself, Ficus was shocked yet skeptical of this revelation and Ba-khet was emotionless yet intrigued, she then continued.

  “I learned this when I overheard him muttering this plan to himself at our estate, and then I confirmed my suspicions as I intercepted a letter between him and our top military general and my boss stating exactly what I had suspected, and it also detailed his research into the object. Felix found out though, and placed me under arrest for treason and blamed his guilty actions upon me, saying I want magic so I can take over the Throne. I was to be killed, but my father wants to interrogate me within two days to see if the claims are true. However, Felix is going to feed him false information and lies to sway him against me. Suffice to say, I am unbelievably screwed unless I can show him the letter. I still have it as the guards wouldn’t search me until later tonight since I complied when I got caught..”

  “Sounds like quite the predicament, I’d be willing to help if you need,” replied Ficus, seeing as there was really no better way to improve their situation without helping Aylenne.

  “That Soul Piece sounds like it could possibly be mine, would you be willing to give it to me? I feel incomplete and it would probably help in some way.” pleaded Ba-Khet, “Either way, I’m willing to help if you want.”

  “Thanks guys, you're doing me a big favor. I'll make sure you get anything you need, and possibly that soul piece, I’ll vouch for you both so you can have safe passage through Aurelia once this has been resolved, just let me confront my Father and Felix and our plan can fall into place. Sounds like a plan? If so, let me out of here and let's go make things right.” said Aylenne.

  Without hesitation, the gate to her holding cell was open, the Alcion was released from her chains and helped up, her peak physique made Ba-Khet and Ficus struggle to help her onto her feet. The now trio made their way back into the sewers. Aylenne took the lead and began to walk one way, so the others followed.

  “Follow me, we will make it to my estate, I know these tunnels like the back of my hand, as I used to escape through here as a child to skip military training. I'll need to change and get back into battle gear, then we can confront my father and that our good-for-nothing wizard advisor,” Aylenne stated confidently,

  “Does anyone need any assistance for anything else? If not, then let's kill that goddamn wizard then” her confident words rang through the tunnels as the benevolent warrior was unleashed upon the city.

  Discord