The Tree of Ascension: A LitRPG Apocalypse (Peril's Prodigy Book 2)

by Craig Kobayashi

  *Yeah,* Auto said, *I’m so glad I picked Chimerist. Orctapus comes with a legit ability, Tentacle Whirlwind. I think I saw that in a hentai video once.*

  *Orcas are far from helpless creatures,* Alice offered from her perch on Garath’s back. *You may not have access to your normal spells and Abilities, but in the ocean, orcas are the apex predators. They have even been known to kill great white sharks on occasion.*

  Garath and the Party continued their discussion as they approached the first island, with the pod of native orcas trailing not far behind. He was surprised to see that the island was only the top of an incredibly tall column of the same color and texture. As far as he knew, it wouldn’t be able to hold its shape in the water if composed of only sand, so Garath swam closer to give it a better look.

  He circled it as he dove, getting closer to the column as he descended. When he was close enough, Garath brushed against it with one fin. His fin cut through its surface like a knife and sent clouds of white sand into dark water, only to return to the column as though pulled like bits of steel to a magnet. It was made up entirely of white sand. He followed the structure downward with his eyes, but couldn't see anything indicating an opening, or even where the column might end. Garath decided he'd like another deep breath before attempting to find out exactly how far down it went.

  Once back at the surface, Garath told the Party what he had seen and what he was going to do next. Everyone agreed to come along and a few seconds later they began their descent. Alice remained in her Octopus form, and clung onto Garath with her tentacles. The Party agreed to stagger their approach and circle the column as they continued down to look for anything unusual.

  As he dove deeper, Garath noticed the air in his lungs compressing slightly. At one-hundred feet below the surface, his lungs felt half the size they had been before and the light from the sky above dimmed slightly. At two hundred, it was even darker and Garath's lungs had entirely collapsed. Contrary to his human instincts, his body was telling him that this was a normal feeling. Garath had no idea why it was happening, or anything about hydrostatic pressure or the intricacies of buoyancy, but he did know his body was not yet desperate for air.

  At around two-hundred-and-fifty feet below the surface, it suddenly became easier to move at a downward trajectory. If he were to Google it, Garath would learn that there is a 'magic depth' for each marine mammal where they become denser than the water they are displacing due to the increased pressure from the water above them - and the many, many factors that dictate that 'magic depth'. Unfortunately, Google died with electricity, the internet, and most of humanity, so he just had to infer based on observation. His observation was that being an Orca was pretty freaking cool.

  Garath was starting to feel his body's need for a fresh lungful of air right about the time they reached the ocean floor. It was there that they found what they were looking for—a square opening in the column the size of a microwave, covered by a crosshatched fencing of metal bars. Garath scanned the area around the column near the ocean floor as well, and was a little nervous about what he saw.

  If Garath considered the lush green area they found themselves in upon entering The Tower something like a magical forest, he would probably call the scenery surrounding him now something akin to its haunted graveyard. It was still a forest, kind of. There were trees rising from the ocean floor, but they lacked any color or foliage—just tall black trunks sticking out of the white sand that lined the ocean floor, each with limbs sprouting in every direction, twisted and bare. The trees grew denser farther away from the column. This underwater forest was beautiful, Garath thought, but beautiful like Madonna or Kesha. Nice to look at on TV, but there was no way he was going in there. He thought he saw movement deeper in the underwater forest, but he couldn’t be sure. Sharon’s voice in his mind pulled his attention away, but he kept an eye on the spooky tree line.

  *What do we do?* Sharon asked. *Whatever it is, let’s figure it out fast. I need more air.*

  Everyone apart from Alice and Auto expressed their agreement.

  *It’s too small for any of us to get in there as an Orca,* Garath said. *Alidex, would it be safe to shift into a human form this far down?*

  *You would likely survive but I would not recommend remaining a human for long,* Alice told him. She then communicated to Garath directly after creating a sub-channel for the two of them. *Alidex?*

  *Yeah,* Garath replied. He just then realized that he hadn't yet told her that was what he was referring to her as in his mind. *It's like a nickname or whatever. I could call you Alipedia if you'd prefer?*

  *I prefer the Pokémon reference,* she said without a hint of amusement or humor.

  *Alidex it is then,* he said.

  *Garath, don’t be an idiot,* Athios said. *Shift into an Octopus if you’re going to try to get in there. Either way, do it, or let’s regroup at the surface.*

  Garath felt like an idiot. *Yeah, okay. If you need air just go for it. I’ll see if I can get in there to activate this island or whatever.*

  Athios, Atlas, Daisy, Sharon, Maimon, and the twins all swam upward without further discussion.

  Alice detached herself from Garath and landed on the ocean floor. The Orca Necrologist used his tail one last time to push himself through the water and into position. Only inches from the metallic crossbars, Garath triggered the transformation. His sixth BeastScape transformation of the day was used to adopt the form of an Octopus. If Garath thought being an Orca felt alien, being an Octopus was something else entirely.

  He smiled internally, thinking about his old favorite shirt, the one Warrion had slashed during their damage test during The Culling. It had read 'eight arms, three hearts, who wants a hug?'. Because of that shirt, he was somewhat prepared for the extra limbs and hearts. What he wasn’t prepared for was having an additional eight brains, one in each of his limbs. Or the fact that one of his limbs felt decidedly different from the others. For reasons he couldn’t explain, the rogue appendage was very interested in Alice, nearby in her own octopus form, in a sexual way. Garath scolded that arm’s brain with his main one under the pretense that this really wasn’t a good time, and that he was pretty sure Alice was asexual anyway.

  Moving around as an Octopus was also an interesting experience. The same organ that allowed him to push water over his gills to breathe also allowed him to spray a jet of water to aid in locomotion. He couldn’t help but think of it as his fart-propeller. He was also able to ‘walk’ along the ocean floor. Each of his sucker-adorned tentacles had so many nerve endings that he he could feel individual grains of sand as he walked.

  He scanned the metallic grill over the chamber’s entrance for a way in, or a mechanism to release the gate, but found none. Garath peered through the fencing and into the chamber itself. A glint of silver caught his eye, peeking up out of the soft sand within. He remembered seeing videos on the internet of octopuses forcing their way through tiny spaces, as long as the space was large enough for the one hard part of an octopus’ body—the beak—to fit through, the octopus could get the rest of its body through the space no problem. With that in mind, Garath cringed and got started.

  It was a disturbing process, squeezing his entire body through a gap between bars no larger than his old cell phone. His organs compressed and twisted as they moved through, making Garath want to throw up. Once inside, Garath located the reflective silver he’d seen from outside and picked it up with a tentacle. It was a simple key.

  It didn’t take long for Garath to find where the key would fit inside of the tiny chamber. He put it into the hole and turned. The gate popped open, swinging outward from hinges anchored to the inside of the chamber. As it did, a prompt appeared.

  You have activated 1/6 of the White Isles of Thisrak.

  Garath crawled out of the chamber and was promptly greeted by the terrifying visage of Auto’s Orctapus form. The Necrologist was then able to experience the panic response of yet another species. Black ink clouded the water aroun
d him.

  *You dickmouth,* Garath scolded his friend. *You made me ink!*

  Auto laughed hysterically over the Raid communication channel. Garath didn’t think it was very funny, but at least the majority of the Raid Group wasn’t there to see it. Silver linings. Garath took the key with him in case it became useful in opening the chambers beneath the other five islands.

  A fence rose out of the ocean floor near the black, underwater forest, white like the sand making up the island. It stretched from the island Garath had just activated to the shore. He watched as it continued growing up and away from the twisted black forest, eventually reaching the water’s surface.

  *Mission accomplished,* Garath announced over the Raid com. *Let’s meet back at the island and take it from there. Auto, can we hitch a ride?*

  Alice and Garath each took one side of Auto’s Orctapus form and held tight as the Chimerist returned to the surface, oddly gaining more upward momentum from the water jet that shot out from a hole near his tail than he did from the powerful whoosh of his tail itself. It took some semblance of self-control, but Garath resisted the urge to make a joke about the fart-propeller.

  Once back at the water’s surface, Garath felt the same light-heartedness as he watched Daisy and Athios play tag with a few of the native orcas. He waited for them to finish before calling the group together to discuss their next steps. They agreed to activate the other island close to the shore before moving in a clockwise rotation to hit the rest, as Alice had suggested. There was a short discussion concerning how to travel from one island to the next, whether shifting to and from flight capable forms would be worth the time it saved, but Alice informed them that orcas were among the fastest marine mammals and could swim at speeds of nearly 30 mph. Garath remained in Octopus form to conserve a shift, and along with Alice, hitched a ride on Auto as the Dungeon Party took off toward the next island.

  The native orca pod followed closely as they swam west from the first island. Skimming the surface, the Party moved at a pretty good pace but they did deplete their Stamina much faster in Orca form than they would in a flying form - forcing the Party to slow to an easier pace once to recuperate. The second island wasn’t far from the first and they made it there in about twenty minutes.

  When they reached the second island, Garath detached himself from his Chimerist mount to go ashore and have a look around. It was pretty neat, Garath thought to himself, that he could breathe for a short period of time outside of water in his Octopus form by processing the water still held within his body. On top of that, a small amount of oxygen was even being absorbed through his skin, a completely foreign and unexplainable experience. He wouldn’t be able to stay out of the water for long, but he could make it a few minutes. As it turned out though, he only needed about 15 seconds to find out that there was nothing at all to see or do on this second island either, so he did the awkward octopus-out-of-water crawl back to his Party.

  *You guys can wait for us here,* Garath told everyone. *Auto will take me down and I’ll activate this island, then we’ll head back up.*

  With that, Garath latched himself back onto the back of the Orctapus and Auto dove toward the ocean floor. The trip was much easier this time around for Garath, and not only because he was just a passenger. The changes in pressure as they went deeper were noticeable to him in his Octopus form, but only peripherally. He felt the pressure increasing, but because of the octopus’ unique body make-up, it just didn’t really matter. The bottom of this second white column looked very much like the first. The black forest of leafless trees must have stretched the entire length of their swim from the first pillar too, Garath noticed. And, just like the first column, a microwave-sized chamber was covered by an identical gate system where the column met the floor.

  This time Garath got through the process of opening the gate and activating its portion of the weir with much less effort. Using the key he’d found in the first chamber, Garath reached in with one tentacle, found the lock mechanism, and sprang the gate without ever having to squeeze his body through the bars. He received and dismissed a prompt informing him that two of the six White Isles had been activated. He watched for a moment as a fence identical to the first rose from the ocean floor. After that, he latched back onto Auto and headed for the surface.

  Garath let the Party know they had succeeded in activating the second island, and they all set off heading south with the native pod of orcas jumping and playing close behind them. From island to island the Party went, stopping to activate the underwater chamber of each and taking a second to make sure they weren’t missing anything on top of the island itself before moving on to the next. The third island and fourth islands were a good distance to the south and it took the Party about a half hour and a handful of rest periods to make their way there. With Garath riding Auto like a wild hog-monkey, the Necrologist and the Chimerist made their way to the ocean floor once again.

  The scene of twisted black trees and a white column with a small chamber at its base was starting to get familiar and Garath felt himself growing more comfortable in the Octopus form. Unfortunately, without a doubt in his mind this time, there was definitely movement happening between the charcoal black trunks of the underwater forest. With the limited light that made it that far below the water’s surface though, all he could make out were way too many legs for comfort skittering around between the trees.

  *There's something in those trees,* Auto said over their two-person sub-channel.

  *I see it too,* Garath replied as he detached from the Chimerist and fell to the ocean floor. *Too many legs, dude. If those are spiders, I’m fucking out. Someone else is going to have to do this.*

  Seeing that Garath had detached, Auto turned away from the white pillar and swam slowly toward the underwater tree line. *Not spiders,* Auto reported over the sub-channel he shared with Garath. *They’re… really ugly crabs.*

  *Crabs?* Garath asked with relief.

  The Necrologist laughed to himself, of course they were crabs. They were about three-hundred-feet below the water’s surface, how could there possibly be spiders so deep?

  *They look really…* Auto paused. *Tasty.*

  Garath laughed as he reached through the gate with one tentacle and started feeling around for the locking mechanism. *Can you Inspect them?*

  *I did,* Auto replied. *No threat. They’re only Level three.*

  *Eat up then, Orctapussy.*

  Garath activated the third chamber and then had an idea. If he activated Plague, he may be able to give the whole Raid Group a decent grip of Experience, depending on how many crabs there were. The cautious side of him slapped a #nope on that idea though. If he could be sure that crabs were the only creatures in the underwater forest, it may have been a good idea, but there was no way to be sure it wouldn’t also bring the attention of the kraken or some shit.

  You have activated 3/6 of the White Isles of Thisrak.

  The fourth and fifth White Isles came and went just like the first three, though the constant travel and Stamina expenditure was wearing on the group. When Garath and Auto neared the ocean floor at the base of the sixth white column though, things got a little out of hand. For one thing, the ominous underwater forest did not thin out closer to the sixth pillar as it had with the previous five. In fact, the leafless trees ran all the way up to the column itself and were joined by thorny vines of the same inky black. The entire base of the column was obscured by trees and vines so far up that Garath couldn't even get eyes on the final chamber.

  He wasn't excited about what he had to do next, but the Raid Group had already traveled several nautical miles, and everyone was exhausted. If he could get down there and activate the last chamber, they could get to the next area within the Dungeon.

  Alice had told him through their messages back and forth while Garath and the Dungeon team were Leveling up that other groups she accompanied were inside The Dungeon for multiple days. She'd mentioned that the majority of what she had seen of the place wa
s non-hostile, allowing the Parties to set up camp for the night in relatively safe areas. With hopes of a campfire and a good night sleep in his own natural form, Garath detached from Auto and slowly sank into the underwater forest.

  It had already been dark near the ocean floor due to the water filtering out most of the light from above during the day, but now in the early evening it was much darker. He doubted that this world inside of The Tower was rotating in orbit of a star like the Earth did. Garath tried not to dizzy himself wondering why the day had progressed like a day outside the dungeon, even though there wasn't a sun in the sky. He slowed his descent by grabbing hold of one of the tallest branches and nervously looked around.

  Garath saw a dark shape twenty or thirty feet down on the ocean floor skitter around a trunk of a tree and then disappear out of sight. Another to his left. And then more. Everywhere he looked, Garath saw little black forms moving this way and that. He knew they were crabs, but they still had too many legs for comfort. Cephalopods aside, four legs were the hard limit for Garath’s comfort. Garath hated spiders and was frightened even of crabs due to their resemblance of the wretched things. Garath hated that about the world of online gaming, too. Every single game had at least one area with gigantic, man-eating spiders. Trying to put his fears aside, Garath climbed down the branches of the black, leafless trees like an eight-legged chimpanzee.

  Finally, he reached the ocean floor. The crabs, it seemed, wanted even less to do with him than he did with them. Head on a swivel to make sure the crabs didn’t sneak up on him, Garath slid the key through a hole in the metal grate and unlocked the last island.

  You have activated all six of the White Isles of Thisrak.

  Return to the chest to collect your reward.

  Chapter Thirty – Si’am Whimstick