Rhen and Aki walked through the dim first floor of Illuth tower. The lava flows had decreased to a low ambiance, but even with no risk of creatures or Kavga, it was creepy to Rhen. He didn’t want to make a base somewhere so dark, either, so he was glad that Aki agreed a base on the second level would be in their best interest. They just had to clear the second level of the Kavga and control the portal stone, first.

The first level portstone had been hidden behind a thin crystal wall, which Aki had discovered was rich in stolecite, a mineral we could sell at the market. Rhen knew if it had value at the market, it probably did at the guild tower too, for crafting or other purposes. They’d have to figure that out once they got their base up and running.

Rhen approached the blue-glowing stone that would take him up to the next level. With one hand on his crescent knife, he reached out for the portstone. Lightning zapped between his fingers and the surface of the stone, and Rhen held his breath before slapping his palm down.

Electricity ripped up his arm and down the other into the knife as the world blinked out and back in faster than Rhen could see. One second it was the dim, lava caverns and the next he was standing in a tropical forest.

Behind him was a tall wall of black, glassy stone, illuminated from underneath by orange crystals. The air smelled of warm herbs and spices. There was a gentle breeze that wicked the sweat from his forehead, and a bird called in the distance.

Aki appeared beside him in a zap of energy. “It’s sufficient, correct?”

“More than that,” Rhen said, breathless.

Fruiting tree branches bent under the weight of their labors. Smaller creatures akin to rabbits munched away on mosses and grass in a nearby grove. Even the sky above shone with warm sunlight. Except, it wasn’t sunlight. The breeze blew the high hanging mist away to reveal large, orange crystals glowing hotly. Their combined strength created the same look and feel as the sun. Wondrous.

“It’s a paradise. We just have to find the level boss, and it’s our paradise.”

Aki’s fins fluttered with excitement. “What are we waiting for?”

Palm trees twenty feet around and at least a hundred and fifty feet tall cut through the landscape, offering landmarks for navigation. Rhen could hear a waterfall somewhere. Good, fresh water would be essential. There was plenty of food, though who knew if any of it would agree with Rhen and Aki’s biology.

Rhen stepped forward, heading toward the closest palm giant. He removed his crescent blades from his hips and brough his fists up to twin snakes bare fangs. Just because it looked like paradise didn’t mean it couldn’t hurt them. In Rhen’s experience, no level existed without its dangers.

The bunnies nibling in the grove ran at Rhen’s approach, which meant they had predators, or at least had predators at some point in the past before coming to the tower. Rhen wasn’t certain how each level was created—he knew next to nothing about the towers other than the portstones took them to the next level, or to another realm.

It wasn’t the time for these kinds of questions.

Rhen inhaled deeply and sharpened his sense. He listened actively, silencing his inner thoughts. He heard the buzzing of insects, other creatures that may have been something like frogs, rustling leaves, and more bird calls. Then, he heard the snap of a branch in the distance; something big.

A shadow flashed overhead and then another gust of wind blew through the trees, this time much stronger than before. The canopy was so thick here, Rhen could hardly see the crystals far above them in the ceiling. Logic followed that if he could barely see, whatever was up there couldn’t either, unless it came down into the thick branches.

Rhen wanted to keep their passing incognito for as long as they could to get a lay of the land, and the threats. The path was getting uneven with fat, overlapping roots, all snaking over one another. Rhen slowed his pace, looking down now and again to ensure he didn’t lose his footing.

It may have been the growing darkness and the thick, broad leaves which could easily conceal large predators, but Rhen was feeling a bit anxious. It was as if he could feel eyes on him.

“Here’s something to consider,” Aki said, his voice gentle like a whisper. “Given the diverse sounds we have both detected, I’m predicting an expansive food-chain that supports this delicate ecosystem. We should do our best to maintain as many of the native species as we can if we would like the level to maintain its paradise-like nature.”

“Kill only when necessary?”

“Exactly.”

The trees were getting thicker, and while he was pretty sure they were still going toward the mega-palm, he wasn’t certain anymore. They’d made many minor twists and turns around larger trees, or boulders, and without a proper sun to guide him, there was no real way to know if they’d stayed the path.

Rhen slowed, taking a quick break on a cool, moss-covered rock. “As much as I don’t want to expose our position to whatever has been making passes overhead, we need to be sure we’re going the right way.”

“I am not adept at climbing trees.” Aki reached out to grab a branch and it passed through is watery hand.

“Who’s the brawns in this operation again?” Rhen smiled confidently.

“It is a long way to fall.”

Rhen laughed him off. “Alright dad, I’ll be careful. If I do fall, I got Sanguine Regen, so I’m covered. But I’m not going to fall, so we’re good.”

He didn’t need to breach the canopy, just get clear of enough branches to find the palmzilla. Swift Twitch made it too easy. He dashed at the tree and stepped off the trunk, then rebounded onto the branch hanging out ten feet up. He began the climb at a good pace, keeping his gaze on the branches around him. Up here there were colorful birds that could shift their feathers to camouflage themselves against the leaves, arachnoids with twelve legs and extra long bodies, and some beetle-thing that croaked loudly when Rhen got too close.

Rhen reached for the next branch to see that there was none. Several branches had been broken clean off the tree, leaving a ten or maybe fifteen foot gap between the branches. This was a good opportunity to test Spatial Slip.

“I disagree.” Aki said.

Rhen looked down. There were several branches, large and small, on which he could catch himself if the new spell didn’t work out for him. He was still too low, with too much foliage in the way, to see where the palm was.

“I cannot make it to the top of this tower alone.” Aki warned.

And he wouldn’t have to.

Rhen looked up and set his focus on the thick branch that would support his weight. He took a deep breath, and whispered, “Spatial Slip.”

Nothing happened.

“Test failed. Practice later. Come down now.”

Aki’s nervousness was unwarranted and starting to bother Rhen. How would they get good at using Deathless magic if they avoided trying?

Rhen propped himself up on the top branch and then tried again, this time with a little hop as he whispered more forcefully. The tiny momentum was all it took to blur the world around him and thrust him upward onto the next branch. It was smooth, as if something had rubbed all the texture from the bark, and his palms prickled with fear.

There was no way he was going to fall and let Aki hold this one over him, so he tightened his grip and steadied his legs, tensing all the muscles in his core. When he was finally still, he pulled himself up in a single, fluid motion. Rhen sat for a moment, just breathing while his heart thundered in his chest.

The leaves had thinned enough that Rhen could see the vast landscape of the level. It wasn’t infinite, but it was massive. They could spend weeks just wandering around in here. They’d have to take a more strategic approach to finding the boss than just hoping to happen upon it like the first level.

There was the gigapalm, still a good quarter mile away. Rhen looked at the ground, picking out a few rocks that aligned in the direction they wanted to go. Another gust of wind blew through the branches and a shadow blotted out the orange crystals above.

Rhen’s hair stood on end, the feeling of imminent danger consuming his thoughts. He’d climbed too high. He rolled backwards off the branch, holding on with just his legs as he set his sights on the one below.

“Spatial Slip,” he whispered and released his grip with his legs. The world blurred and he reached out to grab the branch that was so close in his vision. He lurched to a stop, something constricting around his ankle.

Rhen slammed to a stop, suspended by his legs in the branchless gap. Something slithered up his thigh, wrapping tighter until it felt like the bone might snap. Rhen pulled out his crescent blades and curled up to his ankles. A thick, scaled tentacle wrapped in black flames twisted around his body. Kavga.

Rhen slashed at the limb above his ankle, severing it. Blood sprayed across his face and gravity took him as a creature gurgled out a painful hiss from somewhere far above him. Rhen flipped mid-air and caught himself on the branch below with his chest, feeling a painful pop as he did. Broken ribs—again? Really?

Rhen looked up to see the whole top of the tree come alive in a mess of slithering branches. An ear-splitting hiss shook the world around him, and a serpentine face twice the size of Rhen stared him down. He powered through the tightness in his chest to take a labored inhale, then stuffed the crescent blade back into its holster.

The entire top of the tree had come alive, branches wriggling and reaching for him. The snake-thing folded in its leaves like a fish flattening its fins, then lunged for him. Rhen let go of the branch, falling another ten feet before catching himself on the next. The snakish tree-horror snapped its wide jaw down on the branch he’d just been clinging to, snapping it clean off.

Another shadow passed overhead, and a jaw-clenching shriek cut through the rushing in Rhen’s ears. He risked another glance upward in his mad scramble to descend the tree. A bat-like creature with a wingspan of at least twenty feet dropped onto the snake-thing, digging its six-clawed feet into the meat of its neck.

The massive bat was, on second glance, not a bat at all, though its wings certainly resembled one. Its head opened vertically, revealing row upon row of razor-sharp teeth that lead to a gullet as big around as Rhen was. Its leathery skin was a dark maroon, and it had four, fist-sized black eyes on short stalks coming out of either side of its head.

The titans battled, snake-thing changing its focus from Rhen to the bat monster. In one swift snap, the bat severed the snake’s head, which went tumbling down beside Rhen with a hiss. But the snake wasn’t dead or hadn’t realized it was yet. It wrapped its remaining tentacles up and around the wings of the bat and constricted with all its might.

Another head was growing out of the stump the bat had severed, and Rhen wasn’t in the mood for being swallowed whole. The enemy of his enemy was his friend, so Rhen reached out, pulling on the Kavga anima of the snake monster. It writhed and whipped tentacles at Rhen, but quickly turned its attention back to the flighted creature.

The bat landed another deadly chomp to the snake’s neck, showering Rhen in its gore. Finally, when the snake was too weak to hold on, the bat was able to flap its wings again. Bright blue syntials flared to life on the creature’s leathery wings, sending powerful gusts of wind whipping over the tree.

Rhen wrapped both arms around the trunk, digging his fingers into the bark to hold tight against the battering wind. With several heavy flaps of its wide, leathery wings, the bat took off, ripping the snake creature from its perch. The entire top of the tree pulled away with a snap, sending a trembling vibration through all the branches.

“Still alive up there?” Aki asked.

“Think so.” Rhen panted, hugging the trunk of the tree as he watched the bat disappear into the misty clouds above with its prize.

In the distance, past the gargantuan palm tree, Rhen spotted the same glassy black wall that he’d seen at the entrance portal. They appeared to be completely enclosed in a pocket of this black rock, save for a potential exit next to a massive waterfall. A cluster of caves pocked the wall beside the falls, and much to Rhen’s dismay, he saw some dark maroon movement in that direction.

“So, are you coming down?”

“Yep.” Rhen slowly released his death-grip on the trunk and slipped down to the ground.

Aki sloshed water over his face, lifting the gore from him. “Don’t need you attracting another predator.”

“I hope we just saw the scariest monster in here, but I have a feeling that’s not the only horror this place has in store for us.”

“Either of them Kavga?”

“That tree snake was infected, but I don’t think the bat thing was.”

Aki scrubbed a tentacle across his head thoughtfully. “The only other beast I’ve seen was a mid-sized herbivore. It was not infected, either. The cap for this level’s energy must be quite high if all this life hasn’t attracted more Kavga.”

“We don’t know how much Kavga is in here… we don’t know where the boss is, either, though I have a pretty good idea where the exit might be.”

Aki fluttered, his skin vacillating between purple and pink. “I have a sensory kinse, Detect Anima! I can see anima density, type, intensity, all at great distances.”

“That’ll at least lead us to the strongest thing in the level, which has a high probability of being the boss… hold on,” Rhen paused, his excitement overshadowed by betrayal. “Couldn’t you see the snake monster’s Kavga anima up here?”

“Unlike your speed boost, Detect Anima is not passive. I have to focus my attention on the skill and use my anima.”

“But, you could have used it before I went up?”

Aki shrugged. “Oops.”

“Next tree, you get to go up.”

“Hmm, looks like we’ll both need to ascend the next one. What I see is most certainly the boss, and many of those bat creatures.”

When Rhen was clean and mostly dry, they set off again, with renewed haste. Aki could “run” by stretching his watery body into a wheel, spinning and splashing it over the terrain. They made good time, getting to the towering palm in just under thirty minutes. With a few minor course corrections, they were on their way toward the falls, and the terrifying amount of Kavga anima waiting there for them.