The group was walking up the hill again. Lesser wanted the resources of the Souldream tree. Its body and soul shards. Holding his flag in his hand leading the group up. Lee turns to Adam and Lesser. Weapons summon. Mary was in the back looking up at the flying nightmare creatures. Some of the weaker ones were left, but Mery was the only one to detect them. The guys only saw clouds and nothing else in the sky. The Hunting Darkgale had their [Concement] attributes, and was getting annoying to Mary too, but she had a talent to find them, when they moved away.
When they got to the Souldream Tree body and saw its leaves all over the ground. Lesser summoned his [Tears of Home] for the first time, outside the dream. Lee and Adam were amazed by it. Lesser took a small look, and said what it could do. How big it stores was, and its other effects.
"So… it can restore essence and give mind and soul protections."
"Like I said, it can slowly recover one's essence if you are inside it, and on the outside you are given mind and soul protections. Lee!"
"So, why are we picking up these leaves then?"
Adam and Lesser turned to him, with a face of surprise, and Mary, still looking at the sky on the four Hunting Darkgale, spoke.
"Turn into a kindling."
"Hoo… I maybe–"
"Mary, how does the sky look?"
"Good Adam, good for now at least."
"Good"
They had not noticed when Lesser had walked to the body of Souldream tree, but when they noticed that the [Tears of Home] walked away, they turned. Lesser was standing in front of its body, [Stalwart Chisel] in hand, he stepped it into the Souldream tree. No spell spoke, but the [Stalwart Chisel] counter hand increased by 1. He slowly moved his other arm that was holding [Hard Mallet] that was now covered by roots from the [Heartful Dream], strengthened it so it was an Awakened weapon instead of a dormant one. Slamming the [Stalwart Chisel] to cave the tree. He pondered if this was how it worked.
Under the time he was doing this, the rest of his cohort had walked up to him, Mary looking at the sky still, but had taken some small looks of the tree. Adam and Lee looked at it, with small glimpses of memories of the dream they had.
They watched him work, work on the tree.
Slowly if formed, slowly shrink.
His mind wasn't clear, but it was focused. Blood was dropping from his hands to the ground, on the tree and gliding on his arms. The body of the Souldream tree was of an Awakened rank, so it shouldn't make him bleed when he is hitting with his memories. But the blood still appeared, he had cut himself on purpose.
It slowly formed, the Souldream tree stump was what was changing. A statue formed from the tree, leaving a big hole in it.
On the statue were runes, everyone of the runes was different. Move, life, follow, fight, but the last to be carved, was a name, "Dreamsoul". And slowly were the runes filling up with Lesser's blood and the Souldream's sap.
The reason he had carved a name on it was because of the spell. The spell had spoken of him, more of his true name. that he didn't have, maybe, but it had made him think, Mery had an attribute that needed a true name, Lee has a true name, and all echos and memories have names too, so names were important to the spell. So he hoped that if he carved a name on it, it would help it work.
Lesser felt dizzy, maybe it was his essence running out or losing too much blood, properly the blood. But he was done with the statue.
The others looked at him, Mary still looking up at the sky, four hours had gone by.
"So by the sound of things, is he done yet?"
"Look like it."
"Hoo, now he's down again."
"Then heal him then."
"I can't heal, blood lost."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Huh"
***
Adam and Lee caving out some meat of the nightmare turtle. It had taken some time to drag it out of the lake and then cut it up, It was after all a fallen devil. So cutting it with an awakened weapon is difficult. But they did it after some hour of work. Its shell was now lying there empty.
"Do you think Lesser can–"
"No."
Lee turns to Adam. A smile spread on his face.
"Why not."
"No, he will only pass out again."
"Let's go back then, Mary properly is done collecting some fruits, some hour ago."
"Yeah."
They had left a ton of meat left beside the shell, they lacked a way to move so much meat. After Lesser passed out, they had put him under the tree, to hide him away from the sun. It has been 14 hours since they had woken up. Most of the time they were looking at Lesser carving his statue, still it was impressive how fast he worked. Adam had heard from his mother and father how fast the Crafters of Valor work. Some work some day to make one memory, some tack some hours at best. So when Lesser was making that statue, he was impressed how fast he was doing it, with how slime Lesser's body was.
After walking some minutes up the hill with all the meat. They saw Mary making timber tents. They look at each other, wondering how long they took to get back. Mary turns to the fools.
"Your guys back, finally. I was getting bored. Waiting for him to wake up and you guys to come back from cutting that devil, soo… A took some longs and branches and built some tents."
"We didn't take that long for you to build three tents."
"Yeah."
Lee looked at the tents, one had all the fruits that Mary had gotten and the others were empty. Looting back at the Souldream tree, Lesser was lying on some leaves. His statue was standing in front of the nightmare creature. It took the appearance of a knight or a guard. Lee saw the place the campfire should be, he began to find a flat stone around the hill. Mary and Adam were talking about some legacy things or something, Lee didn't care that much. He had not interacted that much with legacy clans, in Australia all he could was avoid nightmare creatures or dying to animals.
After some time Adam and Mary walk up to Lee, Lee sigh, and turn to the east. Looking at the platforms or should they call them islands. On this hill they could see there were five surrounding around this one. One at north, it was covered with sand, to the south was one covered in snow and trees. To the East was three, they located more to the North east then east. The most east was a forest, the middle platform was forest too, but it looked like it was covered by cobwebs, and the most north was a grass plane.
"So… leader, which island is next?"
Mary's voice was calm and cold, it looked like her emotions were frozen at that.
"Don't know. Not to the south or north. No cold resistance and to heat resistance."
"And no to the direct east either, or the plans. To open to attacks from the sky."
Adam had added. So Mary looked at them, Lee had the same face as her, turning to the cobweb island/platform.
"Spider or silkworm right?"
"Yeah, big probability."
"100 procent."
"So, how many of us are scared of spiders?"
Lee said with a deadpan face. Mary looks at him and smiles. Adam laughed.
"So no one, maybe Lesser."
"If he does not like it he will be fine with spiders."
In the distance Annalee was floating over Lesser, and listening to the cohort. She turned to the statue, it had the same appearance as the stone knight. Now made from the body of a nightmare creature. She watched it, it began to move, and went down to its knees, no sword to wield. It bowed down to its creator. So when Lee, Mary and Adam were walking to Lesser to wake him up, and watch the wooden statue move and bow down to Lesser, who was lying unconscious. A smile appeared, they had a new teammate to work with. A Wooden knight, the "Dreamsoul".
[You have received a Echo: Wood Saint Dreamsoul]