Barrier within a barrier

John felt water begin to seep into his shoes and socks, as the sound of trickling water tickled his ears. Slowly his vision returned, looking down he saw he was standing in a shallow pool, with a thin layer of shale gravel, which soaked him to his ankles. “Fucking great!” He huffed, opening his inventory and removing his footwear.

Looking up he spotted something familiar, a white-barked tree. The tree before him was maybe four metres tall and it looked like he could easily reach the low branches and pull a deep blue leaf from it if he wanted to.

John moved closer, realising he hadn’t really inspected the Silverwood before, due to the goings-on with Leilani while in the grove. Putting a hand on the smooth pale trunk, the texture almost felt like a matte plastic but it gave off a pleasant warmth; if it weren’t for the few silver imperfections he saw along the tree, he’d think it wasn’t real and living.

Looking up at the leaves, they reminded him of blue spearheads, with light markings that almost emulated brushed metal. The undersides of the leaves seemed to shift in colour, almost attempting to emulate the clear blue sky above as a gentle breeze pushed them side to side. Looking at the tree his brow furrowed and he said, “Better late than never I suppose?” Then used Observe.

Silverwood tree

This Silverwood has been magically stunted in its growth in order to maintain an aesthetically pleasing size within the courtyard.

Like all Silverwoods, this tree had to be nurtured using magic in order for the seed to sprout and produce a sapling. Unlike most Silverwoods, however, magic was used in order to **** the tree to grow to an impossible size before being cut down for building materials, then magic was used once again in order to regrow it smaller at the centre of its large stump.

The Lumber from Silverwood trees is quite aesthetically pleasing and due to being a hardwood is also extremely resilient. Due to its strong ties with magic, it is favoured heavily by Tree-Shapers as a building material.

The seed of this tree was given as an offering of peace to the Royal Family Fraena when they secured their seat on the throne.

“Huh, okay. So the barrier has like lore behind it too?” John pondered, looking at the tree, confused about where the stump of the older tree was. He looked down and scraped the shale layer to one side, showing a silvery-looking wood with dark blue rings. He looked around and realised the pool he stood in was held by the stump. “Wow, this tree must have been huge.”

John’s tunnel vision finally subsided allowing him to take in more of his surroundings. Behind the Silverwood was a massive building, one he would have expected to be made from or partially of stone, but instead it was made of wood which seemed to flow in an almost natural way, as if it had been grown rather than constructed.

The building seemed to have a large curved wall at its front, and on the left side of the building, where he stood, there was an overhanging roof section that jutted out until it reached a small but wide tower.

Moving his focus back onto the main building, John stepped back a few times, wincing as he stood on the shale. It was hard to see many other features of the main building from his position but he could just about make out the structure a little better above him.

The building seemed to be tiered, getting narrower the higher you go, with roofed sections that made up for the loss of floor space, John could barely make out three towers on the main building. He could make out one thing, though, but it confused him: from the first-floor roof there was a pillar reaching up past the second-floor, and maybe even the third, before it connected to the higher-up floors with a bridge-like structure; the only problem was that the bridge didn’t lead anywhere.

Shaking his head John focused back on the outcropping with the tower. He trudged through the pool, grunting as his feet were attacked by tiny pieces of shale until he reached the edge of the stump, where he stepped down onto a soft grassy area. Five or so paces brought him to a couple of steps which he climbed to find a vacant stable.

There were six fairly open box stalls in which John could imagine horses would usually be kept. Being up close he could finally take a closer look at the wood used in the construction of the building. The lighter and most used wood was a silvery grey colour that had deep blue grain which reminded him of spalted maple.

The other wood was almost matt and reminded him of walnut but it had deep red streaks running through it. Both types of wood looked extremely nice and like something someone would use to make decorative furniture.

John looked back towards the Silverwood and assumed that the grey and blue wood must have come from there. He then looked past the Silverwood to see the crimson leaves of a second tree at the opposite end of the courtyard, sitting in the centre of its own giant stump.

John walked back down the steps and around the Silverwood stump where he found a pathway at the point the two stumps pushed against each other. There were two steps which John climbed, looking either side at the two very different types of wood.

Standing in the middle of the walk way, John could get a slightly better view of the building. If he walked forward until he reached it, there were more steps, which led up to a veranda area that spanned the whole building. The centre of the building bowed out a little more than the rest of the building where a very large front entrance sat, it looked solid and had an intricate design using the light and dark wood.

Looking up John could see an open roof section directly above the entrance, maybe two floors above, though he couldn’t be sure. His best assumption was that the opening was for a large balcony

John again shifted his attention over to the tree to his right. He wanted to get a closer look at it, so he began his painful walk through the shale-floored pool of the new tree, letting out quiet exclamations of pain as he did so until he stood a metre or so away from the tree.

Before he inspected the tree, he looked past it at another section of the building which jutted out. This was more of a solid building, maybe two floors tall with a taller tower than the stable. There were also two smaller towers which stood on the front and back of the building roughly in the centre.

From John’s position, he could see an arch at the bottom of the smaller tower on the front side which led further in, and from the look of it, he could see sunlight coming from within that made John think that it was a tunnel rather than an arch.

Turning his attention back to the tree, it was more evergreen-like, though it didn’t have needles like pine. The leaves were red flat pads of soft scale-like fingers, similar to a cypress tree. He felt smug once again for his passion for art coming into play due to having pressed similar leaves into ceramic tiles. John stood back so that he could see the half a metre of trunk at the bottom of the tree. It was essentially the polar opposite of the Silverwood: it was a muddle of different shades of brown, grey and murky green and the texture was extremely rough, with pits and grooves all along the base, as if it had **** stretch marks, and when John pushed his hand through the leaves to look further up, it seemed that the gruff looking bark persisted.

“Hey Ellie, this thing looks pretty gnarly, it might have some kind of alchemy use, don’t you think?” he asked, turning around only to now realise that he’d been so distracted by his surroundings he’d completely forgotten about his companions. “Fuck.” He sighed. “I must have done something wrong with the barrier.” He hit himself in the forehead. “Oh shit actually, yeah. Not only are Ellie and Robin not here, but there’s no barrier objective. I’ll check the barrier info and see if I can tell what I did wrong, then leave. Hopefully, Ellie and Robin are still in the watchtower thing, I’ve only been here a couple minutes so I doubt they’ve run off.”

After willing the barrier screen up, he selected the barrier info page.

Instant Dungeon Status: Creation Paused

Barrier Focus: Mossy Castle Brick

Barrier Setting: Palace of the Royal Family Fraena

Current Occupants: 15

John scratched his head. “Creation paused? That doesn’t sound good, what could it even be for? Not only that but fifteen occupants? Could that mean that Robin and Ellie really are here somewhere?”

Quest: Don’t split the party (not yet at least)

Find Ellie and Robin on the palace grounds and bring them back to the courtyard.

A sigh left John’s mouth. “Great, this was supposed to be a training barrier and now we’re playing hide and seek.”

John headed to the main entrance door, reasoning that it would be the most logical direction to go. Standing in front of the Silverwood door he reached out and pushed; the door didn’t budge at all, almost like it was a solid wall.

“Fuck,” he exhaled and his head thudded against the door. “Yeah, figures… That’d be too easy, right? I guess it does say on the palace grounds, not in the palace… Fine!” John groaned as he spun around.

John looked around at the courtyard. “Guess my options are the stables or the tunnel,” he thought out loud. He looked back and forth a couple of times before sighing and grumbling, “Guess the stables probably make the most sense to start with.”

He began walking, water splashing as he cut through the pool. “What even is this quest? Why not just have us start together? Are we going to have to fight our way to each other? Or do some kind of puzzle? I was hoping for us to all be able to work together on something; I wanted to see what Robin can do and try to find out what’s going on with Ellie…”

John walked to the stable. To start with he called out to Ellie and hammered on the door of the tower after trying the knob and not being allowed entry. When no reply came he looked through the corrals and walked around them where he spotted a set of stone staircases which led down into a rather large orchard that barely reached the railing he stood at.

As he began descending the staircase, he heard the distant voice of his girlfriend, “Hey, get back here! And Azula, stop picking on Zuko! Seriously, what is your obsession!? Oh Gimli, stop rolling around in the mud!”

“What the heck?” John mumbled as he quickened his pace down the staircase. Once at the bottom, John could see Ellie in the orchard running around, waving her arms and seemingly chasing something.

“Hey Ellie, what are you doing?” John called, waving over to her and walking in her direction.

“Shit, John!?” Ellie looked up for a moment before turning back. “Quick, you need to hide, get back here! Where is Candle?”

John, confused, continued walking towards her when he felt something crawling up his leg. Looking down he spotted something skittering up onto him. Half freaking out he shook his leg until he saw it a little better, after which he tried to be a little more gentle and reached down to pluck the tiny little lizard from his knee.

It wasn’t any kind of lizard he’d ever seen. It was mostly matte black in colour, with a few orange and red scales and a series of similarly coloured lines running across its back. He knew it wasn’t a natural creature due to its warm glowing lava-like tail. John held it up and looked into its black red-ringed eyes.

“Oh! Ace there you are!” Ellie called, rushing over. “Shit, uh, John, close your eyes and pretend you didn’t see anything!”

John looked up at his girlfriend as she took the gecko-like creature from him, and he watched as it skittered up her arm and hid away beneath her hair.

“What the hell was that?” John questioned, stepping towards Ellie, seeing more tiny lizards skitter up onto her shoulder and behind her head.

Ellie pouted and looked away. “What was what? I think you were seeing things,” she claimed.

“Ellie…” John said, standing in front of her, folding his arms.

Ellie’s cheeks puffed as she pouted, letting out a huff. She held out both of her hands and clicked her tongue a few times. “Come on out.”

The hair at the base of her neck glowed a warm soft orange and red for a moment, then dulled once again as tiny lizards clambered down her arms and onto her hands, each finger having one hugging it and one curled up in each palm, easily displaying a dozen lizards.

“So… meet my new pets! You’ve met Ace already.” Ellie smiled as the lizard on her left thumb looked back towards her while she gently wiggled it. “I’m not sure what happened, but last night when I went to get some luminite from my store cupboard, the crystals had changed colour and then these little things broke out of them.”

“I… huh?” John expressed dumbly, trying to make heads or tails of what Ellie was saying.

“Just… why don’t you try giving them an Observe, since you already know him, do Ace first.”

John quirked an eyebrow and reached over towards the thumb Ellie gently wiggled, prompting the tiny lizard to jump over and into John’s palm; he looked down and cast Observe.

Name: Ace

---

Title: Fire Fist | Class: Spirit
Level: 2 | Age: 19 hours | Gender: M | Race: Diminutive Volcanic Elemental Wyrmling (Fire)
Size: 6cm head-to-tail | Weight: 1.7g
RP: 17 | Allegiances: Ellie Turner (Non-biological Mother)

Character Info:

In the short time he’s lived, Ace has shown that he is smart, caring and responsible, but can also be curious and foolhardy at times which embodies his namesake.

Diminutive Volcanic Elemental Wyrmlings are common mountain spirits and are usually born alone when mana awakens them. The Luminite crystal Ace’s spirit-seed resided in, however, was introduced to quartz which slowly seeped mana into it, and due to the close proximity to other crystals, the spirit-seed spread creating Ace’s brothers and sisters.

Opinion:

Ace doesn’t really know you, but you have a faint smell of his mother, which he approves of.
Ellie seems to be friendly towards you, which he likes.

Abilities:

Create Flame/Heat/Light

Shape/Direct Fire

Thermal Sight

John looked back at Ellie, prompting Ace to leap back onto her hand. Before allowing him to say anything, Ellie spoke, “You next, Bhumi.”

Another one of these small wyrmlings jumped across into John’s hand, almost the same but with some very obvious differences. It was similar in size and shape but this one had glossy black scales. It still bore similar red and orange scales that dotted its back but they were much darker and harder to see. The ash grey tail was the most notable difference., It was missing the bright oranges and reds that seemed to almost flow across Ace’s tail, but an extremely dim glow still dotted this wyrmling’s tail in the form of flecks and sparks of ember-like clusters which rather than the roaring fire of the other tail made this one look more like a smouldering campfire.

“Uh…” John started but stopped himself, realising it’d be easier to use Observe then ask questions that he might have after. Looking down at the creature, he opened up the Observe window.

Name: Bhumi

---

Title: Earth Queen | Class: Spirit
Level: 2 | Age: 19 hours | Gender: F | Race: Diminutive Volcanic Elemental Wyrmling (Earth)
Size: 6cm head-to-tail | Weight: 1.7g
RP: 36 | Allegiances: Ellie Turner (Non-biological Mother)

Character Info:

Bhumi is calm and docile. Though very young, she is quite observant and the most likely of her siblings to understand more complex requests.

The name was chosen due to it referencing Earth King Bumi from the Avatar cartoon series. The spelling was also a reference to the Hindu goddess, which coincidentally happens to be an aspect of Gaia.

Diminutive Volcanic Elemental Wyrmlings are common mountain spirits and are usually born alone when mana awakens them. Bhumi was the first to spread from the spirit seed into quartz, which also makes her the oldest of the earth wyrmlings.

Opinion:

While observing you she has noticed the closeness you share with Ellie.
Your demeanour has shown that you are friendly and concerned, which are things she values.
She was concerned when you initially tried to shake Ace off, but settled when you began handling him gently.

Abilities:

Create Earth/Stone/Minerals

Shape and Direct Earth/Stone/Minerals

Refine and Enrich Earth/Stone/Minerals

“So, uh… These things came from the luminite and quartz? Is that why you weren’t answering your texts this morning? Are they all different elements with different abilities? Are they like familiars or something? Is this all of them?” John rambled.

Bhumi jumped over to Ellie and the group of Wyrmlings ran up her arms and hid away again. “Uh, yes, they came from the crystals. Yes, that’s why I wasn’t looking at my phone… Uh, no, there are six fire and six earth… What was the next one again? Oh right, I guess they are like familiars, yeah, and yeah, that’s all of ‘em, they’re a bit of a handful,” Ellie answered. There was a pause before she spoke again, “They could have also been a trigger for those dragon beacon flowers.”

“So, why didn’t you tell me about this earlier? Or call last night?” John asked. “Also what the hell, I looked like an idiot hiding from dragons earlier and all the while you were hiding these that were probably the reason the flowers were glowing!”

“I wanted it to be a surprise! And I didn’t call last night because I was kinda caught off guard, and once things calmed down, I wanted to explore this new stuff and thought it’d be super cool to surprise you with. I was hoping I’d get to do something flashy or something with them and wow you. I guess I should have just done something in the Hunters’ barrier…” Ellie sighed. “Oh, actually, where’s Robin? Probably still doing whatever starting quest he got, right? What was yours? I assume you finished it, which is why you came looking for us? I still have one more fruit to find in this orchard.”

“Uh, I don’t know where he is, no. I assume he’s on the other side of the palace, and no, I haven’t finished my quest. I’m supposed to find and bring you and him back to the courtyard at the front of the palace,” John explained.

“Oh, well, give me like five minutes and we can go,” Ellie said as she rushed off looking up into the trees.

He stood waiting before Ellie rushed back over seemingly finding what she was looking for. She grabbed John’s hand and pulled him in the direction he’d come from. “Come on, slowpoke, don’t make me wait around for you,” Ellie said, smiling and sticking her tongue out.

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