Baoba was in the sky, riding a horse on a rainbow.
He enjoyed the warm embrace of the sun while stargazing, savoring the salty taste of the liquor in his hand.
Sobering up as he drank, he realised.
'Wait a minute... I don't drink !'
And then he noticed.
'Why does this horse have a horn ?'
But then he realised.
'Oh, I'm dreaming.'
Changing the liquid in his glass to apple juice with a thought, he relaxed and took another sip. The wind on his face felt nice, the air was cool.
'Big change of pace from the inferno... In here at least, my body isn't as sore....'
His eyes widened as he suddenly stood up again. In the same moment, the dream paused, as if frozen.
'Shit, the battle !'
He forcibly woke up. Sitting up quickly after opening his eyes, he scanned the surroundings.
He was in the forest. Not the charred battlefield, but a real green and live decor. His team was all here, and Capcsium was even sprawled comfortably on the ground, asleep. From her position, it seemed she went to bed on her own accord. The rest were leaning against different healthy trees. One of the light orbs from the light explosion was still here, so Baoba guessed he hadn't been out for too long. It was still day, but he couldn't see the sun from where he was, so the exact hour was unclear to him.
Urtica, Venus and Pando turned to him, pleasantly surprised.
"There he is !" Venus was smiling again. "Did you sleep well ?"
Not responding, Baoba instead asked : "What happened ? Where are we ? What time is it ?"
He shook his head as he got up, correcting himself : "Scrap that, you'll tell me on the way. We can't be still for too long."
As Capcsium slowly woke up from her nap, Venus laughed a bit.
"Chill out, captain, we're safe. After the battle, you passed out from exhaustion, so I carried you here. You were completely out for three and a half hours, we were starting to get worried !"
'Three hours ?'
He looked at the light.
'Then what the hell is this ?'
Pando got up to meet Baoba's eye level. "No beasts will find us. The situation has changed."
As she said so, the orb of light drifted towards him.
And spoke.
"Greetings, Boaba. It is a true pleasure finally being percieved by your physical body."
It was the same voice as the one in the white world.
'Which means this is...'
He felt is headache worsening.
'So she's sticking around, huh ?'
"I am the one you call the Mother Tree, you may adress me as you like. I must apologise for only manifesting now, even I can't cross the beyond as I please. Your death was sadly required."
"I'm sorry, who died ?" Capcsium was now fully awake.
"I did. Briefly. Don't worry about it." He tried to reassure her, rather unsuccessfully, before turning back to the orb."What was that, by the way ? The whole thing with the colors, lights, and the... dot."
He actually had his idea about that last one, but hoped he was wrong. This dot was too terrifying, too unfathomable for them to compete with it.
The supernatural orb bobbed up and down slowly in front of him, as a slight giggle emanated from it. For some reason, that voice didn't feel like it was made of sound, somehow. It was just radiating outwards, with an ethereal quality to it.
"Why, that was the great beyond, of course. Every soul condenses from it, and returns there when their mortal bodies cannot support it any longer. Do you not remember ? You passed through it, I think, about twenty five years ago ? Give or take."
'No I don't remember my own conception you big oak.'
Urtica intervened with a bewildered expression : "No no no, time out, you died ? You saw what was after ? There were colors ? Did you see any... thing else ?"
He cut his last sentence midway through, it seemed he actually wanted to ask something else.
Baoba was forced to give his team a quick catching up on what he saw.
After that, they were too stunned to speak, and he could finally ask his questions.
"You said souls 'condense' from there, what does this mean ? Are all souls taken from the fabric of the universe ?"
Turning to the light, he manifested some hide, a small piece of metallic carapace to act as a support, a feather and some ink. Preparing to take notes, he quickly noticed something strange.
'Was that hide always this clear ? Wait, the carapace feels a bit lighter than usual, too, what is going on ?'
He instantly forgot to listen. This was way too weird.
His blessing always, always gave him the same materials. There had never been any difference in qualities.
The most disparity he had ever gotten was with the general's carapace. This came from years of manipulating it, convincing himself to the bottom of his heart that as long as he had that material, he would be able to get any basic shape he wanted. And despite all this work, he was still limited to square-ish objects. It being too light, and happening on accident as well, was unprecedented.
When the Mother had stopped talking, he snapped out of his daze.
'Shit, I didn't get a single word of it. Whatever, this is more important.'
If he had a question about his blessing, who could answer it better than the Mother herself ?
"Why is my blessing weird ? What happened ?" He urged.
Capcsium's eyes lit up and she raised her hand excitedly. "Ooh, me, me ! I can answer this one !"
Baoba frowned. "You can ?"
"Yes, we had like five hours to burn while you slept, remember ?"
"Three and a half." Pando corrected. "And you slept for two of them."
Capcsium acted as if she didn't hear her remark, and answered Baoba's question.
"Basically, blessings are bestowed at birth, while the soul is being formed in the beyond. After that, the souls are firmly planted in reality, and she can't reach us anymore. But because you called the Mother Tree's spirit here, she was once again close enough, and took that chance to reinforce our blessings ! Look what I can do now !"
She took a small wooden ball from her pouch, and held it in her hand. After a brief moment of glowing, the ball erupted with fire, but this time was not like the others. The fire was small, and as she squinted, it roughly took the shape of a bird, batting its wings !
Baoba was completely shocked. Feeling quite smug from his reaction, Capcsium continued talking : "I can control my fire now, Urtica has got a new body that responds better to toxins, Pando's reach has expanded threefold, you can apparently choose your object's attributes to a degree,..." With a devious smile, she added : "And Venus is a cockroach now !"
Venus had been expecting her turn with a proud smile, but it disappeared instantly when she heard that sentence. "What ? No, my skin is more resistant ! Screw you and your sparks, you didn't even mention my endurance boost."
Not caring in the slightest for their bickering, Baoba started to experiment right away.
It seemed Capscium had not lied, it was really the case. Baoba could choose to change some things about his objects, and the scope was not that small either.
For example, when he was actually trying, he could make a completely white hide, like it was paper. However, making it fully blue or green was more of a challenge, since it was really different from the base form.
As for weight, he found that being heavy was one of the metallic carapace's main traits, it could not be made much lighter.
His bone sword, on the other hand, was already pretty light.
As he experimented further, Baoba found out he could make it as light as stick !
'Unfortunately, that's not very useful.'
The weight would not change after the object was created, and a sword that light would not do much damage. If it can accelerate fast, it can also be stopped easily. The bone sword was already almost too light before. Plus, Baoba had a feeling the sword would break too easily.
It was already way too brittle before. An ordinary swordsman would not even pick this weapon up, as it would be destroyed too fast. Of course, this wasn't too much of a problem for him, he could just make new ones.
'But there are definitely benefits to having a sturdy weapon. I wonder...'
He discarded his lightweight sword and concentrated on making a new one. As the blue light condensed, he furrowed his brows, trying his hardest to make mesurable changes.
The sword appeared, and looked normal. The decorative engravings on the handle and guard were the same, and it was only slightly heavier than before.
Next, he picked up his previous sword from the ground in an unfamiliar motion, and threw it in the air.
And then he shattered it in a single strike with his new and improved version.
'Success !'
He quickly inspected the blade. It didn't have a single crack.
'I can indeed make it sturdier as well !'
This was not a small thing. Not only could it not shatter as easily, but the fact it wouldn't crack either was a real boon. Cracks did absorb a bit of the energy of the attack, but that was not the main reason.
A sword's effectiveness resides mostly in the sharpness of the edge. But as it strikes, things strike it as well. Every cut takes a few particles off. On a steel sword, this effect is usually negligible in a single fight, and it can be sharpened afterwards.
But Baoba's bone swords eroded much quicker. After being blocked a couple times, they already got small dents that would make it cut much less. Baoba had avoided this problem until now because most beasts could not block his attacks, and by constantly producing new ones. But what if he encountered a smarter foe ?
There were all kinds of monsters in these woods. The ones they had seen until now were merely angry and stronger animals because of the Mother Tree's barrier, but some of them deeper in the forest actually had weapons, armour, some could actually have a sword fight.
'This is going to make my life much easier. Plus, who knows how this can develop in the future if we get more bles- wait, can we ?'
He whipped around to face the orb again.
"Since you're here already, can you bless us further ?"
He had no shame in asking like this : after all, this was kind of a crusade in her name.
Mother emitted a strange, monotone sigh. "Sadly, no. This avatar is like a hole through this realm to the beyond. While this does means my spirit can reach you, I am not the only entity there. Notably, there is one who wants you dead at any cost, especially now that I am here to guide you : the Lord.
"We are of the same sort. We are like souls that condensed without the need for life, without boundaries of the physical world. As long as we aren't destroyed, we can feed on energy and grow. There are a lot of us spirits, but much less of the kind that is powerful enough to have an influence on real worlds. These are usually called divinities by you mortals. I am one of those divinities, and he is as well. I am only more ancient.
"He cannot find you like I can, because he does not share our connection. However, if I use anymore power than I do now, I will not be able to conceal my traces, and he will be able to get to you. I will not lose the clash that ensues, but you will most definitely not survive it."
Imagining the clash between two deities, he shuddered. The rest could not picture it as well, but Baoba saw the chase of the monster's spirits in the beyond. He felt firsthand the might of the Mother pulling on the whole world to keep his soul together, and the force with which she pushed him back to life. A clash between two of these entities would be beyond disastrous.
Venus thought for a moment, and then asked : "By the way, Mother, you seem confident you can beat it, or him, I guess, so why didn't you do that already ?"
The orb floated to her. "While spirits are quite easy to deal with for me, divinities are different. An incarnation lets spirits be grounded in reality, and gain a sort of life while still being active and deliberate in the beyond. The only way to kill a deity is to destroy their avatar and then anihilate their spirit. Unfortunately, all this time ago, I chose a tree as my incarnation. This limits my possibilities in the real world. The Lord is different, he made himself a body, a strong and living body, thus sacrificing some of his power in the beyond. However, this lets him hide from me, and absorb my hard earned strength like a parasite while I am powerless to kill him."
'Is she... angry ?'
Hearing the Mother badmouth someone was not on Baoba's bingo card.