Dav’s sword sliced through the protective spell without slowing. The Disruptive Imbuent that allowed its passage shattered, but its work was done before Dav even impacted the woody false flesh of the second humanoid corpsevine they’d seen in their cautious stalk through the forest.
Sophia relaxed a little at the evidence that it worked and switched to a pair of Force Bolts aid at the softer belly. This was the second manlike corpsevine they’d found in the forest, and it went down as easily as the first. Now that Sophia knew she could Imbue Dav’s sword to break the enchantnt ahead of ti, she knew they’d be easy enough if they ran into more. That didn’t seem particularly likely, after the hours they’d spent searching the forest outside the West Conservatory.
Really, the manlike creatures were the easiest corpsevines they’d fought as they cleared the area out, even though they were the only spellcasters and the only ones with three cooperating corpsevines. They were just too fragile once Sophia broke the spell, since Taika’s illusion ant they were always able to take the monsters by surprise.
This ti, the prize seed to be so sort of magical berry bush. It held two very different berries, which Sophia thought was pretty unlikely in the wild, but it seed pretty normal for here. They’d located a ton of magical plants. Sophia just hoped they’d all still be good by the ti they got them back to the Registry to sell them.
Sophia added her haul of berries to the basket and frowned at it. If they found much more, either Amy would have to spend the ti to make another basket or Sophia would have to put the now-empty energy drink bottle that held the potentially poisonous mushrooms into her pack. There just wasn’t much room left.
“Are you sure we can let those yellow mushrooms stay in the basket with everything else?” Sophia hadn’t ever seen anything quite like them and Dav said that they were similar to one he knew but not quite right.
“Yeah,” Amy answered absently as she tossed in another handful of berries. “Halven has an Ability for that. I told you that back when we were dealing with the first set of mushrooms, he can separate things out. It’s a common Ability for alchemists, sothing to do with purifying. He’ll complain, but he won’t really an it; he’ll be happy we brought him anything. He’s always wanting new reagents.”
“On that note,” Dav said as he dropped a single berry on top that was at least four tis the size of any of the other berries, “I think we’ve pretty well cleaned out everything we’re going to in the forest. We’ve found six possible entrances; which one should we enter by?”
They’d spent a lot more ti in the forest than anyone Sophia had talked to before they left the Registry. As far as she knew, everyone had entered through the front entrance. No one had even ntioned other possible entrances. “Not the front. How about the side courtyard, the one with the white flowers? I think it’s the farthest one from the building, which makes it the opposite of the front entrance.”
“That or one of the two in the back,” Dav half agreed. “I’m fine with the side entrance. We can check the others out before we enter the building if there’s nothing there.”
“Probably not,” Amy disagreed. “There has to be a reason no one ntioned the possibility of leaving through anything but the front. I bet choosing the correct door is part of the Challenge. You may be able to see additional areas if you pick the right entrance.”
That sounded like sothing a dungeon might do back ho, but Sophia hadn’t seen any sign of hidden areas in what she’d seen here in the Broken Lands. “Is that sothing that happens in Challenges? Is there a clue to know which entrance you need to use?”
Amy shrugged. “Sotis? I haven’t done that many myself, I just know the stories.”
Sophia nodded reassuringly. Amy was confident enough that Sophia sotis forgot that while she knew more than Sophia or Dav because she’d lived in the Broken lands her entire life, she’d spent most of it as a child. Sophia probably had more experience with dungeons than Amy did, even if the dungeons were completely different.
“Then either it expects people to return multiple tis or there should be a clue, and you said people usually get it on the first try if they’re going to get it at all, right?” Sophia turned to Amy. “That ans there should be a clue where to go.”
“Maybe it locks in your first choice, and if you choose wrong you can’t pick again,” Dav suggested. “That would explain why it’s usually the first try, too. If you pick wrong the first ti, you’re out of luck.”
Sophia frowned at Dav. “Don’t be such a downer. If there’s no clue, there’s no reason to try. I can’t believe that the Guide wants it to be solved by luck.” She bit her lip, then admitted the rest. “Maybe by the persistence of a larger group, but then wouldn’t it want to reward everyone that helped for their part in determining which paths were wrong and therefore which was right? No, I think we should look to see if there’s a clue anywhere. Did anyone see anything?”
Dav shook his head. “There are six entrances, the front to the east, the one with white flowers to the north, two to the south … I think those had red and purple flowers. The back entrances had one that was plain ivy and one with brilliant blue flowers. I don’t rember if there was anything about the plant life at the front that was different, but it was the only one with a door instead of just an archway. Huh. I guess they did all have sothing different. Maybe that’s the clue?”
Amy thought for a mont, then shrugged. “I wasn’t looking, but all it’s going to take is ti. I think we’ve cleaned out the forest anyway. Why don’t we go look at each of the entrances and see if we notice anything?”
This ti, they ca closer and looked carefully. The nearest entrance was on the east end of the building, close to the south end, the one Dav identified as “plain ivy.” They approached closer than they had before and Sophia suddenly saw it. “There, in the upper left, between the ivy. I think that’s the only carving I’ve seen other than the sign at the front that said West Conservatory.”
Once they were close enough, Sophia could make out the design. It looked sort of like a flower, with eight symtrical points and a distinct flower in the center. Sophia wasn’t certain what kind of flower it was, maybe a carnation or a rose? The top of the eight points was longer and was capped with another flower that had to be a rose that had just started to bloom. That ant they were both probably roses.
Sophia turned to Dav, since he seed to rember the flowers better. “Were any of them roses?”
Dav frowned and shook his head. “The blue ones and the white were on the vines, I rember that. I didn’t look as closely at the red and pink ones, but I rember so of them on the arches so they probably were too.”
“I’ve heard of climbing roses,” Amy countered.
Sophia shrugged. She had no idea if climbing roses really climbed on their own or if they needed a trellis. “It sounds like we should check the flowers, then. Which one do you think it will be? The classic rose is red, isn’t it?”
Amy shook her head. “Blue roses are the most magical. These are magical plants, blue seems a lot more likely.”
Sophia had never heard of a natural rose that was really blue. That could be true, but how would they know which to go for?
“There’s no color magic on it,” Taika added from Dav’s backpack. “I’d see it if there was. That’s just the color of the stone.”
“Maybe we should check another entrance and see if it’s the sa. That might tell us sothing,” Dav pitched in before Sophia could get in an argunt with Amy about rose colors.
Sophia glanced at Amy. When Amy shrugged, she took that as agreent.
The next archway they checked was the other one at the back of the building. As Dav rembered, it had a different vine, with variegated leaves and intense blue flowers. The sa symbol was on the archway, although it was at the top of the arch and Sophia had to move one of the flowers to see the whole thing.
“Definitely not roses,” Amy comnted. “There are no thorns, and that’s the wrong shape. They’re blue, but this probably isn’t where we’re supposed to go.”
“The north one is white,” Dav said. “I don’t know what sort of flower it was, but it also wasn’t a rose. I rember that much.”
Sophia frowned at the symbol again. Why was there a rose on the north end of -
Wait a minute.
Sophia let the vine fall back into place and turned to Amy. “Is north at the top of maps around here?”
“Usually, yeah,” Amy agreed. “When you can figure out which way is north. Magic can interfere with compasses, and so shards don’t have a consistent sunrise direction.”
“And the little directional thingy on the map that indicates it, usually with at least four points but sotis eight, is called a compass rose, right?” Sophia rubbed her forehead. She’d completely missed it until Dav said “north” while she was looking at the symbol and her eyes naturally moved up to look at the rosebud.
“Yeah, that’s what they’re called …” Amy trailed off as her attention turned back to the partially covered carving. There was enough visible to see that the largest direction, the one with the rosebud, was north. “We’re supposed to use the north entrance, aren’t we?”
Dav closed his eyes in a long, slow blink. “The fact that it’s a rose isn’t important, except as a clue to the pun. Why is it always puns?”
The symbol repeated again at the north archway, but they didn’t pay it that much attention this ti. They also paid only a little attention to note that there were actually several types of white flower near the archway, though Amy did triumphantly point out a single rosebush with exactly one, partially in bloom, flower to Dav with a wide grin.
To Sophia, it was both confirmation that they were in the right place and a sign that while the Guide might use puns, it didn’t necessarily require people to know outside information. That was a good thing, especially since she and Dav were missing a lot of local knowledge. Taika couldn’t help; only Amy could serve as a local guide, and even she wasn’t from Casterville.
The first northern archway was made of stone like the others, but that led to a short corridor in the ivy-covered walls that turned left and then right before opening into a second set of arches. This ti, they seed to be built from the vines themselves and were festooned with white flowers.
Sophia kept glancing upwards, convinced she saw signs of moving vegetation. Each ti, it was just the breeze, but she didn’t like it.
In the distance, there seed to be a group of people headed towards them. That set them all on guard; they didn’t know if Taika’s illusion would be good enough or not. It wasn’t hard to tell that they were enemies; the top half of each person’s body was covered in green and white vegetation, just like the vines that surrounded the group.
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