When she opens her eyes again, she is inside a place she knows well.
At least it’s a pleasant change.
She stands in the middle of a giant glass platform, floating in the middle of a featureless void, but this one is not like the darkness of the maze. This is something intimately familiar, as is the giant tree growing from the middle of the platform.
“Why am I here?” Kikori wonders, walking towards her Skilltree. This is the same place she comes back to in order to meditate and grow stronger.
To cultivate their abilities, all Knights are trained to imagine an inner space where they can build up their Haoma, their Skilltree.
It’s just like Tarika said: this place is one for training, indeed.
She did not lie, or at least she did not lie completely.
Excited, Kikori reaches for her Haoma: it’s a tall plant with a silver bark and green leaves, peppered with red flowers, but only on the lower branches.
The flowers represent her level of training and abilities. She still has a lot to grow and learn…
As she wonders why she came here of all places – wasn’t she surrounded by tentacles inside that room? She sees something slither at the base of her tree.
Thick black tentacles wrap around the trunk and reach up for the branches, coiling around some of them.
“Ah!” Kikori winces as she feels the effect in her inner world propagate into reality. The tentacles… they are… doing something to her.
She stumbles on her knees and then falls before her very Skilltree as the tentacles keep wrapping around her Haoma.
+++
Kikori opens her eyes again.
The darkness is gone.
All around her the floor is completely free of roots, or tentacles!
The room is clear. They have disappeared, likely into the round holes that cover the walls.
And above she can still see those azure lights.
She can see… in fact, she can see that some things about her have definitely changed!
“Whoa… so that was…” Kikori marvels at her skin. It looks far smoother than before, and in fact… she presses hard against it, and it feels like she has grown a thin layer of protective rubber all around her body.
“I wonder if…” she remembers how tough the tentacles were when she first tried to hack them. Still naked, she walks between the strips that used to be her clothes and picks up her weapon, her axe.
She pushes it against her arm and it nearly slides off her now slick skin.
It doesn’t feel like the blade is able to harm her anymore.
She presses harder.
Her skin bends, but does not break.
“By Samash…” a grin grows over her face.
Throwing caution to the wind, she takes a swing against her arm!
Her weapon bounces off leaving her skin completely unharmed.
It still aches, so it’s not like she is invulnerable, but she has acquired a really really useful trait.
“So that’s why the tentacles were wrapping around my Haoma…”
This is really useful, but she is supposed to reach the end of the Maze to pick up the ultimate prize, though.
Whatever it might be, it is going to turn her into the best Knight ever!
No wonder Ember Soar managed to reach the end and come back… and once she did, she entered legend!
“I am going to write my own legend, just wait,” Kikori mutters happily. She picks up a few of the strips and starts to knit them to form something that approaches a pair of panties and a cover for her nipples.
Still, it does feel a little silly to be so worried about modesty. Also…
“Hmmm…” he hand reaches for her stomach and then for her throbbing clit, parting her already-wet cunt lips. It slithers in, but it really can’t compare to the tentacles.
Her eyes move to her axe. Its wooden shaft feels so hot and strong in Her grip.
Maybe… it would be so easy to just lay down and slide it in…
“No! No no no, I’m not like that!” Kikori shakes her head, trying to tell herself that she’s not a slut, and walks towards the golden mist, that has now turned silver like the one before.
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Thanks everyone for reading!
This is the official appearance of the Haoma, also known as the Skilltree. I was looking for a cool way to represent character growth and RPG-like specialization. I think I found an interesting middle ground. We are going to see much more of the Haoma in the future, especially in my next novel.
