Three days had passed since the new depth of his connection to the plants and network had been 'gifted' to him.
Three days of learning to filter out having to feel everything, it was thankfully different from the first time it had happened when he linked up to the Rootmind, rather than being flooded by sensations it was far more muted and calmer, a constant hum of background noise that he could easily fall into if he focused but even so, in quiet moments, it still overwhelming, finding it to easy to slip into it.
This was now one of those moments.
Chris knelt beside the shadow berry vines, his hands buried in the soil, pretending to tend to their roots but his attention wasn't on the healing plants. It was on the dungeon and how he could now feel how its wrongness had steadily been growing stronger.
He realized it was what the plants had been telling him, now understanding what they had told him about it. How it seemed to creep like a stain spreading beneath the surface of the world, slowly spreading out its reach without a care, without any urgency as if it felt it was a certainty.
"You feel it too now, don't you? or do you finally see it"
The Voice's manifestation appeared at the edge of the patch, the old man in the tailored suit, top hat who's mismatched eyes looked at him with amusement. Since his connection deepened he had now been seeing him outside the network rather than only hearing it. He stood with his cane planted before him; his gaze fixed on the dungeon cliffs with a mix of longing and trepidation.
Chris didn't look up. "I always feel it, its just stronger now."
"No." It told him plainly, shaking his head. "Before all you felt where the echoes, faint ripples. Now you truly feel it now. It's hunger and corruption, its patients."
Chris's hands stilled in the soil.
"What does it want?"
The Voice was silent for a split second before a wide grin split across his face. "The same thing it has always wanted. Everything!" The Voice tapped his cane against the ground as he said that and Chris felt the plants stir uneasy as if in response.
"The core you returned didn't calm it like you had hoped. All you did was feed it, you should have listened to me and used yourself rather than making it stronger, the only benefit it gave you was that it needs time to subjugate and absorb it."
Chris stood slowly, brushing the soil from his knees before turning to face the manifestation.
"Your part of it though, so what difference would there even be?"
"I am connected to it. As are you. As is that large bulbous plant you call a 'Rootmind'." The Voice said, pointing its cane towards the plant in question, his smile turning thin and cold. "We are all connected now. But the question you should be asking is who will control that connection and how deep does it truly go?"
Those words send a shiver down his spine, causing his head to snap towards the dungeon, feeling a pulse of hunger from the cliffs. It made it clear, almost tauntingly so that the beasts coming tonight would be stronger and in greater numbers.
He closed his eyes and reached through the network to send the message to prepare and be ready.
The eastern wall: bamboo alert, stalks rigid. Creeping vines running along the perimeter as the strange vines and gympie's began to stand straight and spread in preparation. the Scream flowers beginning to pulse in what seemed like faint excitement.
"They're coming early." Chris stated flatly.
"Yes."
"A really large wave."
"No, not a wave, a tide."
Chris let out a sigh and exasperation as the Voice's manifestation began to fade, but his presence lingered.
"The plants will hold."
"Maybe, but you can feel it now, the dungeon is patient and doesn't care how long it takes to get what it wants, but even you can feel its spread now, how its creeping outward."
Chris walked toward the eastern wall, noticing Sera was already there, her hand on her sword hilt and ready for what she possibly felt coming.
"Something big is coming…" she said.
"It's because something's changed. Returning the core only seemed to stall whatever was already happening but will make it stronger when it does take things seriously."
Sera was quiet for a moment. "How bad is it going to be?" Her tone was steady but there was barely visible notes of fear.
Chris looked toward the cliffs. The sun was setting, painting the Barrens in shades of orange and red. Beneath that beauty though he could feel it—the hunger, desire and patience.
"I don't know yet," he admitted. "But I think we're going to find out very soon, its why ive been preparing as best I can for this, the damn voice called it a tide."
The words did little to ease her worries.
"I wish I could have just farmed in peace, grown what I wanted and made my haven, not dealing with this shit, making a giant green village, not this." He muttered softly, missing the days where his biggest worry was fearing the Strange Vines eating him.
That night, the beasts came in a far greater number yet where not the usual scattered waves, they were organized again and moved with purpose.
Chris was ready, already having connected to the Rootmind and directing the plants well feeling their responses, having spoken and planned it all out with Korr as soon as he had returned. The bamboo hardened into blades, something they had recently learnt to do as the various vines moved through shadows getting ready to strike.
"Somethings commanding them, there being led and guided on how to act, on what to do, this won't be as easy as it has been before." Korr yelled, watching from his vantage point.
Chris didn't need him to tell hm that, he could see it through is network, how the wolves moved in formation and how the Minotaur's forcefully did what they could to hold back and stay in the loosest sense of a formation.
"Well, isn't this interesting," the Voice whispered with a mocking edge. "It's testing you and slowly learning how you respond and how you react."
Chris did what he could to try and ignore it, focusing on coordination the biggest fight he had yet.
The first wave hit the thorn vines as per normal but this time began to swerve around them. Finding what openings, they could, the vines responded near instantly, crushing them and snapping bones as they slipped from one beast to the next, the lack of mutts clearly visible.
"The second wave is larger," Sera said, her voice tight. "They're learning, I can see wolves now using mutts as spring boards to launch themselves over the thorn traps."
Chris could feel it, the way the beasts adjusted, adapted and found the various gaps in their defenses.
"You could end this rather quickly and extremely easily," the Voice said. "One seed. One plant designed specifically to consume. You could wipe them out and have it directed at the dungeon, you made hungry things before, the vines around your special little tree more than proof enough that you can do it."
"No." Said with finality.
"How do you expect it to stop though? They will keep coming night after night, steadily growing in numbers and means till you break, it can wait for however longs it takes but the same cannot be said the same about you."
Chris's jaw tightened. "We will hold, no matter how long it takes we will stay strong, and when it comes, we will face it and bring it down."
"Well aren't you optimistic, but what if they don't stop? What if you're overestimating yourself? Do you honestly think you could take it when it gets serious? You're just a joke to it. A way to pass the time"
Chris didn't answer.
The tide didn't recede till dawn when the remaining beasts pulled back, leaving their dead scattered across the Barrens. The plants had held against their assault but only barely. Thorn vines, bushes and balls had been shredded. A hole had been blown through one of the Ents making up his wall by the Minotaur's, its scream and pain having paralyzed him for a few minutes, in that time Sera had taken to try and fighting them, the strangle vines even needing to recover after one of them near its base, there target clearly the world tree growing within.
As he looked across the damage Sera limped next to him, her sword dark with blood and a clear gash across her leg where a wolf had managed to bite her.
"It was really bad this time, they caused some serious damage and if we get attacked like that again I worry about how long we would manage to hold out." Sera told him, "Do you have any plans to counter or stop them?"
Chris looked toward the cliffs—at the darkness that seemed to pulse beneath the stone.
"I don't know. But we'll try, I'll see about maybe trying to grow something, or even talk to Korr to try and plan things out a bit better."