The roots moved fast. Faster than wood should move.
Loki hit the ground on his side, breath knocked from his lungs as a cluster of grey stained roots burst upward. One wrapped around his ankle. Another scrapped across his shoulder, leaving a cold, numbing sensation behind. The cat hissed sharply and leaped aside, vanishing into the underbrush.
More roots followed, sliding across the soil as if waking from a long sleep.
Loki rolled onto his stomach and dragged himself back. His fingers dug into wet earth. He could feel the Tree's presence soft and focused pressing against the back of his skull.
"Not again," Loki muttered.
A root thicker than his wrist cracked the ground open beside him. Loki grabbed a small bomb from his pouch and threw it toward the roots. His aspect igniting the fuse halfway through the air.
A dull sound echoed. No large noise, not bright light, just a clean impact that split the soil and forced several roots to recoil. The air filled with the scent of burnt sap. Loki scrambled backward, pulling free of the smaller tendrils that had wrapped around his legs.
Another root lunged. Before it could reach him the cat appeared silent, a flicker of black fur that slashed the tendril before darting away. The cut barely slowed the root, but it bought Loki half a heartbeat. He lit a second charge and tossed it closer to the trunk's direction.
Another muted crack. A spray of burnt earth.
The roots shuddered in response, pulling back just enough for Loki to get to his feet. His chest heaved. His arms shook. He called the cat in his mind and sprinted, feet slipping on loose soil. More roots chased some dragging through the mud, others bursting upward like broken bones. One scraped the back of his coat. Another nearly caught his calf.
He didn't look back.
He kept running until the trees changed. Only then did he stop. He pressed a hand against a tree trunk and steadied his breathing. The cat climbed up his shoulder and crouched there, quiet.
Loki waited until the trembling in his legs settled.
"That's enough scouting for today," Loki muttered.
The forest around him returned to stillness. He could no longer hear the pulse beneath the ground.
He wiped dirt from his palms and started walking.
----
Loki reached the old clearing he and the Hunter had once used. A few traps sat half-assembled where the Hunter had left them. The air smelled like damp ash.
Loki sat on a fallen log, his heart was hammering against his chest, his body felt heavy and his head ached.
Loki looked at his left arm, it was covered in gashes, the wounds cut long and deep, he could also see bite marks. Loki could already guess who's handiwork this was.
Despite the serious wound Loki only felt some pain, thinking of this Loki couldn't help but lament his bad luck, the heartwood token had dulled his senses of pain and in that brief confrontation against the Tree it had nearly cost him his life. If not for that brief but intense sting of pain he wouldn't have broken free from the Tree's hex. Loki couldn't help but laugh at himself, his pain resistance was so poor that he felt pain despite having a charm that dulled it.
Pulling the bag into his lap. He emptied its contents piece by piece: casings, resin, fuses, strips of cloth, bits of metal, and the newly crafted bombs he had made earlier.
He took the strips of cloth and started treating himself. He didn't rush. His hands moved from memory.
The Hunter had taught him how to clean a wound, how to stop the bleeding and how to bandage it.
When he finished, he went to the workshop. He had unsummoned the cat so that it could recover from it's injuries.
Now that Loki knew what was effecting the town and the forest he could plan what to do next, infact he already had a plan.
He just had to make sure that it worked perfectly.
----
Over the past few days Loki's wounds had somewhat healed, well at least he could use both his arms again.
In the meanwhile the forest around the town had also changed in the past few days. Tracks of corrupted creature had grown more frequent: broken branches, deep claw marks, half-consumed carcasses. Loki followed the largest tracks prints wide enough for a grown man to stand inside. The earth was churned where it had walked.
The cat sniffed the air and arched its back.
Loki climbed atop a talk pine tree hiding himself, body still and breath slow. Around the same time it emerged.
This creature looked like a fusion between an owl and a bear. It was a massive with the head of a great horned owl and the heavy muscled frame of a bear. Its size far larger then any bear Loki had seen, it was the size of an elephant. Its feathers thick like coarse fur along its back, forming a rugged mantle that bristled with each movement. It's broad shoulders carried immense strength, and its forelimbs had long, curved talons built to shear through stoneand metal alike.
Its eyes burn with a cold predatory intelligence and boundless wrath, a deep ember-red glow that fixed on its prey with unnerving stillness.
The huge beast was moving around restlessly as if looking for something, attacking anything that caught it's sight in anger.
Well, that was to be expected Loki thought grimly, he had been harassing the huge beast using the cat for the last three days. The first day, the cat had stolen the owlbear's meal. Right from under its beak. The owlbear had returned to find only a smear of blood left. The trees had shaken from its roar.
The second day, the cat had clawed on its legs repeatedly while concealed. Not deeply but just enough to annoy.
And on the morning of the third day, the cat had sat on a stump directly in front of the beast, grooming itself, only for the owlbear to blink and discover the stump was empty.
Now, the owlbear's eyes were wide and bloodshot.
Perfect. Loki thought.
Even He The magnanimous Loki would be angry if someone harassed him for three days nonstop.
According to the hunter this owlbear was one of the only two creature of Awakened rank creature in this part of the forest, close to the Town that had not fallen under the influence of the Tree or fled.
And Loki's brilliant plan was to lead this creature twords the town and hopefully along the way the other one would join in the fun too.
Loki had Already figured out that if he wanted to kill the Tree he'd have to keep the blighted creatures under it's influence busy or better yet make sure they died.
Loki knew it was now or never, the cat padded lightly onto the branch beside him, its fur unruffled, its amber eyes dull and uninterested. It blinked once, as if asking if it was time.
"Go, make it count" Loki whispered.
The cat yawned slowly and dropped from the branch without a sound.
----
The owlbear's ears twitched. Its head cocked sharply to the left. For three days something had been harassing him, scraping the edge of its patience.
Then....
A single, deliberate meow.
The owlbear snapped toward the sound.
The cat stood on a fallen log, perfectly visible for the first time in days. Tail up. Eyes half-lidded.
Click.
A dry twig cracked beneath the owlbear's talon.
Then the beast moved.
It lunged with a scream that shook the canopy.
The cat vanished.
Not disappeared, it simply moved with such speed that the eye struggled to follow. The owlbear slammed into the log, splinters exploding outward.
The cat darted away, a shadow slipping between roots.
The owlbear followed in a blind, cold fury.
The forest blurred. As the cat weaved between trunks, its tiny body flickering in and out of visibility. Whenever its paws touched moss or bark, it left no sound.
Behind it, the owlbear tore through everything.
Trees bent. Small saplings snapped. Soil flew up in clumps. Its breath came out in harsh, roaring bursts, each one a promise of violence.
Loki followed from a distance, running along a higher ridge, keeping pace. He used the quietest paths he knew, slipping from branch to branch, his Clown attribute granting the balance he needed to stay unseen and unheard.
The forest shifted as they ran. The air grew hotter. The trees more sparse. Claw marks appeared on the bark, jagged and deep. The scent changed sharply now almost metallic.
Loki knew this place. The wyran's territory. As an Awakened Devil, this lesser dragon was extremely prideful and territorial. Anything that intruded rarely left alive. Loki was counting exactly on that.
The cat darted into a clearing, fully visible for a heartbeat.
The owlbear burst in behind it...
And then the ground trembled.
At the far end of the clearing, something uncoiled.
The wyvern rose from the ground with a slow, deliberate weight. Its body was long, built from corded muscle wrapped in grey scales. Jagged spines ran along its back, each one tinged a sickly yellow that glowed faintly.
Its wings were thin but powerful, membrane stretching tightly over bone.
Its head was the most disturbing part: a skull-like structure almost pale white in color with long curving horns, as though carved from the remains of another creature. Beneath that bone mask, faint violet light pulsed in its eye sockets, following movement with unnerving precision. A forked tongue flicked between long needle like teeth, tasting the air.
The tail slid behind it, armored with ridged plates, cutting grooves into the earth.
An Awakened Devil.
It sniffed once. Then Its gaze locked onto the owlbear.
A low hiss slid from its throat, like steam escaping stone.
The owlbear skidded in its charge, claws gouging deep scars into the earth. The wyran stepped forward and then lunged twords the owl bear.
Unbeknownst to the two of them, the cat had slipped between their feet as the two monsters collided. It ran behind the wyran.
Upon seeing the cat, the owlbear's fury reignited. As an Awakened Demon it wasn't so easy to kill, so it barreled after the cat, not caring about the wyran's snapping jaws.
Seeing himself being ignored the wyvern's fury also ignited, so it barreled after the owlbear, not caring about the invisible cat.
Soon three predators, each driven by separate goal, teared through the forest like a storm.
Trees buckled. Leaves flew in spirals. Soil erupted beneath talons and claws.
Loki in excellent mood kept moving, always angled toward the town. He leaped a ravine, slid down a slope, and never let their sound leave his ear.
The cat darted across a fallen trunk. The owlbear plowed through it. The wyvern burst from behind, jaws snapping at the beast's flank. A spray of blood hit the moss. The owlbear's roar doubled.
Meanwhile
"Just a little further…" Loki muttered. The forest opened ahead, the treeline thinned and fog swallowed the ground. The town lay just beyond.
----
The cat reached the edge of the forest first. It skidded across loose soil and sprinted into the open.
The owlbear followed.
The wyvern slammed into its rear flank, twisting and screaming. The two tangled for a brief, violent moment just long enough for Loki to see.
He lifted his hand. The cat paused at the first house. And meowed.
Somewhere deep beneath the ground, roots stirred and the town stirred along as if recognizing something.
Windows opened, doors creaked. Figures stepped out with unnatural calm. Dozens of them all wearing the same smiling face.
The cat had once again vanished and as the owlbear and wyran crashed into the town like a storm.
The trap was sprung.