“That’d be ‘cause I used a scroll written by some nameless desert swordsman that I got out of the sect’s vault,” smugged the self-satisfied beast-slayer. “They could be two different things, but something in my gut tells me the Primordial Self mentioned in that scroll and the Spirit Animal you speak of are one and the same, or at least near enough. A concrete manifestation of man’s primitive side, of raw instincts and savagery.”

The norseman furrowed his brow in contemplation as she spoke, then sighed in resignation, “It sounds correct, and I’ve seen examples of such synchronous development in the arcane arts before, but it being a sacred part of my own culture, I find it difficult to believe. Let us move on for now, we will know whether your theory is correct when we perform the ritual - after your defeat of Arnys, that the winds of victory in holmgang might ensure its success.”

And so, the final steps towards the door they made, and it opened.

Zel expected any of a million things at the other side - perhaps a walkway over a gaping vortex of arcane power, like the dungeon core. Perhaps a machine room with a tremendous spiral pump quite literally pulling magic from the earth. Anything even remotely in line with what she’d seen Three Kings Era architecture and essentech to be.

When the door did slide out of the way, though, what awaited was… A grove.

A pristine image of nature sprawling all around for hundreds of meters, idyllic beyond reckoning - filled with grasses, flowers and herbs sprawling out in a blanket of white, lilac, and green. At its epicenter stood a twisting tree with white bark and snake-like branches weighed down with pinkish bulbous fruit, yet no fallen fruits were to be seen at its base. In the same vein, wheresoever one looked, everything seemed either in bloom or fruiting, yet not even the tiniest suggestion of the decay which came after fruiting could be seen.

The chamber was encircled by a wall of wood resembling the inside of a gigantic, hollow stump, the only holes in it those of other doors just like the one they’d just passed through, and the one at the top of the chamber. Through the chamber’s apparent top could be seen what, at first glance, looked like a beautiful midday sky. In fact, it looked exactly like the sky above the sect, nearly perfect - were it not for where the walls met the ceiling, for there the projection could be discerned from reality by its flickering.

And there Jorfr stood, staring at - or rather, just behind - her.

“Hm? What is it?” she raised an eyebrow, Ozmir patting her on the shoulder as he leaned over with a smile.

“Your Primordial Self is showing, dear elder,” he said. “A phantom of it, anyhow. A side effect of the aetheric saturation of the atmosphere down here.”

“A Spirit Animal in the shape of man… That is most certainly a Spirit Animal… In the shape of man….” murmured Jorfr, before shaking his head and getting his bearings. “I am in no place to ask of you this, but if at all possible, I wish to see the scroll you used to achieve this.”

“I would share it gladly,” said the Despot of Self, prompting the norseman to turn his attention towards the chamber’s interior… And lose his bearings again.

“Is that-” began Jorfr, staring wide-eyed at the blossoming tree in the middle of it all.

Ozmir beamed with pride at the display: “Our very own Tree of Life, safely contained where no inconvenient manmade changes in the natural environment can threaten it. This is why Willowdale has ever been the breadbasket of the south without fail - the Second King’s mastery over the living realm… Or so my predecessor said when he first showed me this place.”

“What you see within this grove - the herbs, the trees, the grasses - are my own handiwork. The true Tree of Life is, in fact, this chamber’s walls, and goes down several more kilometers, its roots stretching into bedrock where they pull raw essentia from the earth, and by the time it reaches us here near the surface, it will have been diluted and filtered enough to give life rather than scorch indiscriminately.”

“This… Is not what I signed up for when I promised to share the arts of my people,” said the norseman. “I am not a half-step close to being qualified to channel the power of a place like this.”

This was the first time Zel had seen him like this, though she couldn’t blame him.

“Nobody’s telling you to,” said the more experienced of the two men. “Just do your ritual as-is here, it’ll still work. Just much better than it would above-ground.”

Ozmir pointed to a small area off to the side, a small blackstone altar poking out in the midst of a patch of particularly thick flower growth.

“See that? I used that altar last year to enchant an ironwood knife, for pruning plants metal is toxic to,” he gestured to the pillar. “It is simply much easier to fill a bottle by submerging it in a river than trying to catch a tiny stream, as long as you don’t plunge your arm so deep as to be drawn in by the flow, so to speak… Though I suspect you already knew that.”

“I… Did,” came a murmur from the filth-encrusted tundra-strider. “Well, though I would rather listen to my gut than your word, it seems that they are in agreement. I will prepare the ritual here. You spoke of a Fog Gate - is there one that leads directly here, or must I use that infernal lift to leave once I’ve done the preliminary preparations?”

“Yes, I would be glad to show you to it,” agreed the elf.

Zelsys took a quick look at her pocket watch as the two men walked deeper into the chamber. A good nine minutes’s rest time left. With that in mind, she followed and observed, content in not interrupting.