Chapter 456: That's a relief

Feet splashed in fresh scavenger blood, as the group dropped down into the courtyard. They immediately sunk into battle stances, each watching a different direction as they waited for the unseen killer to reveal themselves or at least make a move.

The only one that wasn’t taking it seriously was Raev. He was too busy sampling the product he had managed to convince Figg to grow, before Belladonna’s babysitting got in the way.

But thankfully, he had Beans sitting on his head, acting as his watch-cat, to make up for his lackadaisical attitude.

After a few seconds of silence, with no invisible monsters leaping out of thin air or ghostly figures trying to slice them into shreds, Belladonna nodded to the others and they began to slowly move.

Step after step, they made their way across the courtyard and towards the castle.

But even after a full minute of walking, each second of which left them constantly on edge and waiting for an attack, what they were waiting for never came.

Nothing made a move, nothing showed its face. There was exactly what it appeared to be. Nothing.

If Belladonna hadn’t seen the scavengers be sliced apart half a dozen times, she would have been convinced that the castles guardian was long dead and the place was empty. But she had, and it wasn’t, which made this all the more confusing.

Still, the group relaxed slightly. At least enough to stop making their dramatic fighting poses every second, and instead picked up their pace in their advance towards the castle until they were finally stepping through its doors.

This was further than any of the scavengers had gotten, and much longer than any had lasted.

“What do you think? Some kind of illusion to lure us into a trap?” Revenant asked, but Belladonna simply shook her head.

Her eyes were glowing as she swept them across the courtyard behind them, as she scanned every inch of it with her Mana Vision.

“No… Not that I can see, although that doesn’t say much if they know what they are doing. Even still, what would be the point? Why lure us in? What benefit is there instead of just killing us here and now?”

“Maybe it’s scared of us.” Figg suggested, resting his staff on his shoulder as he strolled over to one of the bushes that decorated the courtyard.

Their shape suggested they had been cut, or intentionally grown, into various figures or artistic designs, but their details had been lost to random growth over time.

“I mean we are a pretty intimidating bunch. Maybe it knows what we did to the Undead and doesn’t want to mess with us.”

“Maybe…” Belladonna muttered, glancing at Raev.

He definitely seemed relaxed. Although was that because he knew something, or was that just the nature of who he was. She didn’t know him well enough to be able to tell the difference, but if he knew something he definitely wasn’t offering it up any time soon.

The open space of the courtyard turned to the wooden walled corridors of the Grand Tree Castle, as they moved further inside.

The walls had been moulded to be flat, and had many intricate reliefs carved across them that were broken up by small, semi circular recesses.

These recesses seemed to belong to guards, or were perhaps just to model the armours of said guards.

Some of the models were still standing, weapons loosely gripped in their hands as their beautiful and ancient ornamental armour was covered in decades worth of moss. On some it was nearly impossible to see the details of the armour, with only a few glints of the strange pure white metal they were made of underneath the mossy green.

As for the carvings these models guarded, it was an ancient relief devoted to the history of the Elves. Whilst none of these carvings had grown, as the dead tree seemed adamant to keep its original structure, they too had been ravaged by the territorial advancements of moss and withered away to the rotting corruption of time, despite the trees dying efforts.

The first, and most well preserved one, depicted an elegant woman that exuded the regal air that could only be attributed to a God. The moss on the carving only existed to perfectly form a dress around the woman, shielding her dignity as she knelt beside a small twig sprout.

She was holding out of her hand, casting some sort of magic on the tiny sprout. Magic that, according to the next carving, turned that tiny sprout into a colossal tree eerily similar to the one that they stood within now.

However based on the scale the carving depicted, this Divine Tree was so large that the dead Castle Tree they were in now may as well have been that tiny sprout in comparison.

The grand tree bore fruit, and shed seeds from the flowers that bloomed upon its branches. Those seeds appeared to turn into Dryads, the spirits of the forest, while what the fruits turned into had been lost to moss and decay.

The same went for the next few pictures, until finally they came to a carving of Elves standing in a circle around a Dryad, with an elf at each of the cardinal points.

In the North, there was an Elf carved atop the image of a tree. The East held an Elf that was dwelling within the dark depths of a cave. The Western Elf was surrounded by a small swirling pool of water.

As for the Southern Elf, they had been wiped from the carving. However based on the long jagged marks, and the way the moss was growing around it. It had not been removed by territorial moss growth or the ravages of time, but by blade or claw.

Figg stepped towards the picture of the moss-dressed Goddess. His eyes wide as they stared at her image, despite it lacking any defining features when it came to her face.

He touched his hand against the moss of her dress, which in turn reached out slightly to touch him, as the moss grew around his fingers like it was holding his hand.

“Almera…” He muttered softly, his wooden Antler’s thrumming with an ancient power as they started to grow larger.

They had already started to grow around his head, almost like a crown. This growth completed the circlet, and added a dozen new prongs to his already regal looking head piece.

Between the start of his antlers, the skin of his forehead split apart, as a small emerald seed pushed its way out of his skull and settled onto his forehead, were it completely crystallised into a true emerald.