We walked in silence for thirty minutes. I looked back at Sé holding hands with Blánaid. He gave me a nod, and I nodded back -- I was unsure of what we just communicated to the other, but it felt important.
"Sé. Where's the trail to the tree?" Eimear finally asked.
"This way," Sé said and took the lead.
Over the next hour, the forest got quieter, with less birdsong or animals calling out to each other. There was only the occasional rustling of leaves and the wind to keep us company. There was a slow build up of a sweet yet rancid smell in the air that I couldn't quite place until we walked past the corpse of decaying chim-fang-zee that was covered in welts, and abandoned stingers.
What I thought were large trees were eventually overshadowed by something massive ahead of us. In a clearing, we saw the majesty of the giant world tree. It stood higher than mountains, as it climbed up into the clouds above. Even the fifty meter behemoths of the forest paled in comparison, and grew thinner in density as not even they could compete with the world tree for sunlight.
Instead we waded through scraggly scrub oaks, bushes, and ferns that thrived in the shadows until we stumbled upon a game trail that wound its way uphill towards the tree.
Roots the size of oak trees blocked our path, and we had to start climbing over them. At the second giant root, my Locate Monsters spell started going crazy. "Oh my..." I stopped myself before I could get into trouble again. Then I had a thought, "Oh my god." Really? It could tell the difference in intent? I guess it was partially connected to my brain. Thinking of god as a generic felt different from thinking of God as what I was used to.
"What?" Eimear asked.
"There's so many of them." I pointed past the giant root we were bouldering over to the shifting underbrush that was chock full of enemies.
"Yeah..." Sé said as led us to a hiding spot. "It's why we didn't meet up with them." He looked around the edge. "There's dozens of these giant ant things. Most are on the ground, crawling about, but there's a few flyers. They stick pretty close to the tree, I guess that's their hive. Fortunately for us, they don't chase anything that runs away, but they will swarm on anything that gets too close."
"Are you sure that they're here?" Eimear asked.
"Maybe... 75%? We got the dungeon boss clear message a day and a half ago. Now? They might be anywhere."
"I can try to check. They might be in range..." I said. At third tier, I couldn't add metamagic to Locate, but I could add it to the tier one Sense. I'd added Increased Range to go further, and Increased Effect for better material penetration. "[Sense Elf]."
A vague haze surrounded the party with me. But as I swept the spell across the clearing, beyond the field of monsters, and at the entrance to the dungeon at the base of the tree, I saw a distinct greenish haze.
"They're there." I pointed.
The group let out a collective sigh of relief.
"Now we just need to get to them." Eimear said.
"Can't we ask them to come to us?" Sé asked.
"I don't have any messaging spells." I thought back to the trait slot that I had unlocked. "I might be able to unlock a trait for it."
"But...?" Eimear could sense my tension.
"But it's a gamble, and I don't know if that's the best use of a trait point."
"Then save it." She peered over the root before she shouted at the top of her lungs. "HEY ASSHOLES!"
Blánaid and I grabbed her by the collar and yanked her back behind the root. We waited for the swarm to come after us, but they kept milling about. However, Fianait, the adventuring team's archer, peaked out of the edge of the dungeon. She grinned from ear to ear as she saw Gormán waving to her, raised a single finger to us then walked back inside.
"That's one way to get their attention," Gormán said as he rubbed his ears.
A moment later the four of the adventuring party gathered at the front. Even from this distance, I could tell they were exhausted. Their clothes were in tatters, Niall, their healer, had a complete staff, but Aodhan, their mage, only held half of his. Seanán, the knight, had lost their shield, and it looked like Fianait's quiver was empty, then she cast a spell to fill it. Magic was great like that.
They talked briefly for a moment, then Fianait held up five fingers on her hand. Four. Three.
"Be ready. We're going to help them," Eimear said, as Fianait finished counting down.
When her last finger closed, she pulled out a conjured arrow and loosed it at one of the flying insects as Aodhan launched a cerulean bolt of ice at another. I cast Add Element Fire on both Eimear and one of Sé's weapons.
Battle broke out on both sides of the field as Seanán and Eimear charged towards the other, cleaving through the dog-sized insects. The ants were confused by the pincer attack, they didn't have a clear line of division for which assault to contend with. Some collided, chittering at each other to convince them that their side was the real threat.
I stayed next to my fellow non-combatants, with our spears at the ready, and called out any threats that might threaten to flank Eimear. I used my last concentration slot, on a Locate Monsters spell to find any signs of an ambush. The only pings were in the field, and it took a good chunk of my attention to parse all of the red in my vision.
Fortunately for us, the insects were as simple minded as we could've hoped for. However, their numbers more than made up for it, even with Sé being able to take one out in a few seconds, Eimear quickly found herself overwhelmed with numbers. Blánaid and Gormán moved up and poked around her flanks to keep them at bay.
I wasn't really doing much, but I knew that I would be just as likely to get in the way than I would be to help. It hurt to feel so useless, though the amplifications I had running were doing work. Each time their blades cut into an insect, flames burst forth and consumed part of the ant monster. They would shriek in agony and anger before falling to the ground twitching.
The adventuring party worked together with the practice of days of constantly fighting for survival. Niall kept one hand on Seanán's back as they walked through the field of enemies. They took big steps side to side, trying to take up as much space as they could while Niall constantly adjusted to maintain his position at their back. He chain cast spells that drew red mist from the insects to weaken them, and Seanán fought with such abandon as to barely protect themselves. Each scratch that they received was quickly healed over.
Fianait and Aodhan launched projectiles as fast as they could. Both of them focused on enemies in the middle distance, trying to become as much of a threat as they could to keep the enemies at bay. With each bolt Aodhan swapped to a different element, going through all five basic elements. Each iteration, his spells grew stronger as he built up momentum while dancing from element to element in a never ending storm of prismatic chaos.
As the weakened enemies got closer, either Seanán or Fianait would finish them off.
We met with them about a third of the way across the field.
"Glad we found you," I shouted while the rest of our party focused on the battle. "Come on back. We've got a base setup, we can get you reequipped."
"No," Niall shouted back. "We need to keep pushing into the dungeon. We've fought the first boss, but there's still two more." He seemed tired, but determined. "We could use the extra bodies to make it through. Any chance you have supplies?"
"Yeah. We got potions, and a new set of armor."
"Good," he said. "Follow our lead. We haven't trained together, so you're on flank duty. Split up between Fianait and Aodhan."
With that, they pivoted to face back towards the tree.
We didn't have nearly the precision that they did. I wanted to argue with them, to convince them to come to safety. But an argument on the battlefield sounded like it would be a quick way to get distracted and die.
Especially as the entirety of the swarm converged on our position. We'd carved a path to meet each other, but we'd just fought through a line, and there was a whole field of monsters that had heard the din of battle.
We slotted ourselves into their formation, and started phase two of the fight.