They look far in the distance. Lee, who in his first nightmare had become a platoon leader in a war between gods. Knowing that they shouldn't rush, he began to walk south. More slowly than before. When he looked up and saw that the sun had barely moved, he thought that the sun and moon had a different time table.
After waking an hour more. Lee decided that they should go back to the forest. Adam had looked and scanned the surroundings and had noticed the sun's weird movement. If the sun wasn't going down, they needed water. Much more water.
Lesser was looking, but had not learned tracking or observing skills, he was not helping much. The one that noticed a change in the sky was Mary. She began to rush to the forest, dragging Lesser. Unmost tripping him. Lee rushed to, but Adam was slow to rush.
A shadow landed on everyone like it just appeared. Two claws fell on Adam's back, picking him up. Adam dropped the anchor that was hanging on him from his armor. Instead of flying with him. He stood there, unmoving. He tried to swing at the creature that attacked him, but he couldn't turn.
Lee turns around to see what attacked them. Its appearance was of a dark bird, but it had four wings, but one was damaged. He noticed that it was alone. Rushing to help Adam, he summoned a white flag that was floating still where it had been dropped off. Giving off a feeling of life. After seeing Lee turning back, Mary shocks the Lesser hand and follows Lee.
Lesser seeing that he couldn't help, but followed them anyway.
Lee rushed to the right of the bird, and Mary to the left. Molly triggered her aspect to learn what it attributes was. What she saw did not surprise her.
"It has two attributes. One to hide it present and the other to crush it pray. It's an Awakened Beast."
She turns and attacks with her repair, cutting one of its wings, but not completely. But before Lee could attack, it flapped its wings trying to flee.
When the nightmare creature noticed that the prey it had grasped did not move, and when the other beasts were running at it. It decided to flee, and hunt them later. Dropping its prey to flee, it was hit by something on its head.
Lesser threw his mallet, hoping to hit its wings. It crashed on its head doing nothing, but delaying its flight. Lee and Adam are now free to attack. Lee on its wing and Adam on its claw. Their weapon hit, but barely cut into it. Adam began to summon a new memory. Mary, this time cutting off one of its wings, after failing to cut it off last time, smiled.
The beast, feeling its wing being cut, screamed. Mary felt that it had called more, and they were coming fast. The beast tried on last time to flee, was stap way a what looked like a wooden Spike.
Adam had summoned his weapon. Strapping it, hard and sharp, like it had given any resistance to it. Mary began to run back to the forest like a storm was coming. Lee ran like he knew why. Adam too. Lesser already in the forest after throwing his mallet, and unsummon it.
Adam was the second to enter the forest, after him was Lee. The last was Mary, sweating down her face. What they saw was a group of ten to fifteen of them. Many of them were smaller, but one was big. Mary had seen the others nightmare creatures's attributes, her face pale. She said in a small voice.
"The tiny ones are just a dormant beast, but the big one is an Ascended Tyrant."
Everyone looked at each other. Lee pointed to go farther into the forest. They began to move.
***
They move like they were on the run. Calm, but moving fast through the forest. After some distance away from the battlefield, they stop. Lesser was tired, but they had only stopped to take a small breather. Adam spoke, in a calm voice.
"It was close."
"Yeah, too close."
Lee said back. They look at each other. Lesser was leaning on a tree, face confused. His body had moved like it knew how to throw and where it needed to. Like it had moved on command. 'I plan to throw it on the wing, but it changes mid movement.'
"So… what happened there… it was like I moved without my command to move?"
Everyone looked at each other. Adam realises the same thing seconds later. Mary looked at Lee, knowing why. Lee was quiet for some time. Finally he opening his mouth.
"Is my attribute, [Call to Arms], it made others who I consider to be my allice to fight in a way that makes them one mind, or like an army fighting under a commander. It was different in my first nightmare."
"It is weaker, I maybe can only form a six person army. It properly grows stronger the higher my rank is."
Lesser look at Lee, his own face was that of calm or more like a really. Knowing it to be true. Adam had an understanding and said nothing after.
They began to move. Farther into the forest. Ready, but when Lee walked on a rot that was striking out. A branch struck down on Lee's head, only for Mary to push him away. Hitting her back instead. She screamed. Lying on the ground, suffering from pain. Lee looks around not to see what attacks them. But Adam did and swung his sword cutting, the tree to Lee's right. It shook like crazy, but it was not alone. More trees began to move. Lee calls his flag, placing it beside Mary. Her wound began to heal. The three guys stood around her like a shield.
Lesser was panicking. They had been in two attacks so far. The first was one, but it was an Awakened Beast, but now a group of trees of an unknow rank and class. He ran up to the closest moving tree and slammed his [Stalwart Chisel] into it. It pierced the tree's defense, but it did not move far. Lifting is mallet and slam is [Stalwart Chisel] handle back. It went farther into the tree. Breaking something.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster: Cursed Deroku Tree]
[You have received a memory]
Lesser scream.
"Guys, the trees are an Awakened Monster!"
Adam and Lee look at him, like he had said the worst thing ever. Adam summons his spiked memory. Lee tried to cut with his weapon, but it only did a small cut. Mary standing up hounding her silver rapier smile. Her rapier pierced the tree bark, when she took it out the tree it had lost some of its color. Adam pierce another tree with his wooden spike, killing it.
Lee looks confused at first, then turns to another tree and blocks it attacks. Lesser mind had begun to calm, thanks to Lee's [Call to Arms] attribute. Thinking it only works if Lee is fighting with the rest of the team. They had made a safe area around them, because they had noticed that the trees couldn't move around. They still could move but it took a long time to do so. Now on his knee, Lesser looks up at the other. Sweat dropping off them, like crazy.
"How many did you guys kill?"
Lesser was said with a dry voice, not wanting to find out. Adam looked at him, full of hit marks on his armor.
"Ten, maybe more."
Lee fell to the ground, shaking. With a painful voice.
"Three."
Mary, still smiling, her clothes dirty and cut. said in a cheerful voice.
"Fifteen… no seventeen.
Like it was her calling. Lesser spoke.
"Seven, got two memories from it"
"One here."
Mary said, slowly calming down, from her frenzy.
"None"
"Same"
Said Adam and Lee with a disappointed voice.
***
Lesser summons his runes.
Name: Lesser Silverlight
True Name: —
Rank: Dreamer
Soul Core: Dormant
Soul Fragment: 6/1000
He still did not know why he had some soul fragments. 'I have not absorbed any soul shard yet.'
Memories: [Hard Mallet], [Light Robe], [Stalwart Chisel], [Blood Hanger], [Blessing of Avenli].
Name: [Blood Hangers]
Runes:
Memory Rank: Awakened.
Memory Tier: II
Memory Type: Weapon
Memory Description: [To hunt a witch of trees and beast, a group of hunter travan across the land of beast. They burn her forest, kill her beast. She was a witch of heaths, so her soul must burn. A lone tree stands, and the hunters hang. Forgotten why they burn the trees and murder the beast they hang there now, forgotten by the tree that hangs them.]
Looking at the first memory he got from the trees, it turned out to be a weapon. Looking at what the description said, he felt weird after reading it. Looking at the enchantments.
Memory Enchantments: [Hanging Blazing], [Bleeding Beast].
Enchantment: [Hanging Blazing].
Enchantment Description: [Burn your enemies, hang them to burn]
Enchantment: [Bleeding Beast].
Enchantment Description: [The more beasts that bleed, the stronger you become.]
Lesser felt nothing from it, one was passive, and the other was active. 'Why is the fire on an active enchantment.'. Looking at what the different meaning of the runes said, was like a learning experiment. The first had three different ways to read it. [You hang your enemies in a fire.], [Burns your enemies by hanging.] and the last felt weird, [Burn enemies, hang your burn.]. Lesser felt creepy about it.
Now studying the passive was easy. There was not much of a difference in what the spell had written, [You grow stronger, by the more beast you make bleed.]. It was a better weapon for him.
Entering his soul sea, and summing it down. Tacking from it reveals that it was a sword, a shortsword made of a blood colored pitch, with a metal guard and handle. He swung it around, knowing his limit, unsummon it.
"Not for me. huh."
Calling down the second memory, it took the form of a clay jar. The jar held what looked like a white sap. Around the jar it had a handprint of a child palm, beside it was a rune for a name Avenli. After it was the runes, two of them were collected with the runes for flowers, lost and the last hand was blooming or blossoming. 'Avenli, Flowerless Blossom'. Calling the runs.
Name: [Blessing of Avenli]
Runes:
Memory Rank: Awakened
Memory Tier: I
Memory Type: Tool
Memory Description: [She loved plants and beast, her heart was forever to give. She blessed them with life, curing their wounds was her life. Grow they felt, but run she did. A jar she likes, forgotten by all, even by Avenli herself.]
He first examined the description between the memories. Avenli was what the hunters were trying to kill, but they forgot and then hung themselves on a tree. Knowing what he had just killed, was Avenli a tree, but no. She could run, maybe a beast, but there was a child palm on the jar. Not thinking more on it, he turned to the lone enchantment.
Memory Enchantments: [Latex Sap].
Enchantment: [Latex Sap].
Enchantment Description: [This Jar contains enough for milky white Sap that heals and mends broken bonds.]
It could heal people, and can mend items. He looked closer and found it was a passive enchantment. The runes around the enchantment made the point clearer, than ever more.
Leaving his soul sea and summoning it. The sparks turn into a Jar.
Adam looks slowly to turn at him, hounding a pile of branches and dropping them in a pile on the ground. Lesser stop, hearing the stinks falling. Now looking around, and seeing every was moving the logs and branches. He began to pick up some of the branches and move them like everyone else.
***
After some time of moving things around, they had found some fruits from a normal tree that Adam had cut down, confirming if it was not a nightmare. The sun had moved, making it around the afternoon.
"What with that jar?"
Mary asks Lesser, after what looks like herself looking through her runes.
"A jar with some healing power."
Lesser eating the fruit in his one hand, and the other testing what it meant with mending. Tacking some of the sap and placing it on the end one stink and sticking it to a log, on the body of a fallen nightmare tree. After some seconds it had fixed itself on the log, not perfect as it was weak. He lifted the stick to see what happened, it had some resistance, but it did separate from the log.
'It like glue, but faster and stronger.'
"What did you do?"
Standing behind him was Lee, with a smug face.
"That memory heals, but it can fix stuff together too. How did you know it could fix stuff together?"
Lesser turn and said infuse by his flaw.
"Yeah, the enchantment description said that it could heal and mend."
Adam caught, Mary dropped her fruit, and Lee's face froze. in unison.
"What!"