The Ramparts

Many medieval castles of old Britannia sprouted out of the ground like shoots in the rain during its heyday.

Sporting tall grandiose stone walls with towering watchtowers for as far as the eye could see, it was considered rare to not have seen at least one castle fortress in a peasants lifetime.

And although I was no peasant and had seen my fair share of castles in my lifetime before this one, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the towering black stone spires of a ruinous looking castle.

Dawning

To be honest, when I woke up from my nap on the branches of this tree, when I clambered up to get a lay of the land I had some doubts whether or not that this place was a one to one replica of the game Dead Cells.

But now those doubts we're gone like the wind.

Dawning sun casting it's rays on both castles situated on both castles they were equally as grand while also being direct opposites of each other.

The castle I currently stared at was spiked, black, red and covered in an ominous fog as shadows flitted by their multicoloured frescoe windows.

The castle on the other island however was blocky, white, gold and shiny as it reflected all of the sun's rays directed at them in direct opposition to the one absorbing it.

'Good God that looks impressive.'

Staring and comparing both of the castles like works of art, soon enough I dragged my eyes from the two eye catching structures and began to die what I should've been doing for some time now.

More recconasaince.

It wasn't as if more info could hurt, especially since wars were won with that information

'So the more the better I say'

Thinking that, I jotted down the several notable structures I saw from atop the trees.

A clocktower symbolising time, definitely need to go there sometime

A dilapidated lighthouse peaking over the clifftops, an optional objective

The dual castles, may explore depending on if I stumble across their entrances.

A large great wall of china like wall surrounding the island I stood on, I guess I needed to pass them to access other areas

Floating islands with swords stabbed into them while snakes coiled around their blades

'...'

I paused my memory note taking as I dragged my eyes straight back to the series of floating islands while recalling the entry in that one book I found.

'...'

'Yeah I don't remember'

Whipping out the book I instantly located the particular excerpt in the book ignoring all of the religious nonsense written in the rest of the pages.

-movements to the floating islands, building their shrines atop them, large snakes coiled around stone carved blades.-

'Well would ya look at that.'

Reading the entry I stared at the floating islands with shrines built atop them, large snakes could around those stone swords.

Closing the book I smiled.

'I guess I found out where In to go'

Making a note that it was on the other island I instantly began descending the trees.

Aiming for the ramparts hanging out at the edges of the island I prepared to cross their no doubt monster infested walls.

Whipping out the axe I used it as a climbing pickaxe, slowing my descent while also collecting the numerous wooden fragments they no doubt kicked up.

'A win win'

Following the several marks of when I clambered up the tree for a nap, I moved past the numerous chained branches holding up the corpses of various others.

Rotten fruits swinging in the wind and rattling their chains, soon enough I touched ground.

Well if corpses could be classified as ground that is.

'Fun'

Leaping off the numerous corpses eager to get away, I began to walk, consulting the map every now and then when I inevitably got lost.

'...Now where the hell am I?'

The problem was that I forgot to note the place the ramparts were and thus was now walking in endless circles

The treetops that were shielding me from the sunlight were now my enemy as they blocked the sight of the gigantic walls.

Chains creeping down the branches like snakes, the vibe like ropes choked the already non existent life out of the corpses

'On that note, I recall I had something that started with vine'

Pulling out my inventory as I chose a random direction and began to walk, I searched the items within.

'Bones, Bones, Wood, Bow, More Bones, Flesh-'

I threw out the last one before continuing my browsing

'-Even more bones, wood, copper axe, copper pickaxe... Haven't used you yet.'

Skipping over that last one I finally landed on the item that was the reason for my browsing in the first place.

"Gotcha"

Reorganizing the chaotic inventory screen while making sure the other only had my weapons and tools, I threw out some more flesh while pulling out the on-two items J received from the Elite Undead Archer

[Multiple Nocked How]

[Vibe Rune]

One was a purple bow that the Elite had stolen out of the hands of a fellow undead Archer.

Carrying three notches on its length, it was able to fire three arrows and was the source of a lot of my displeasure.

It was fine now however since it acted alot like a shotgun when close up.

It was a morbid but interesting sight to see limbs going in one direction while their torso was going the other.

The vine rune on the other hand was much like the blaze rune.

Symbolising a vine as it's name stated, the rune glowed green as vines were carved onto its surface.

And if the Blaze rune had anything to say, then it probably involved me controlling plants... Somehow.

'It's been a long time since I played the game alright voices in my head?'

'...I think the no people thing is doing me in' absentmindedly tightening my fist around the rune, I belatedly recalled that it required cells to function.

'Since I now have 178 of them... Was it 50 Cells?'

Pulling out a clump of cells and watching the count go down from 178 to 128, I stuffed them around the rune with swift movements.

Watching the green suddenly suffuse the cells and tangible vibes grew out of the rune I belatedly widened my eyes as I recalled something that I had forgotten after my nap.

This would hurt like hell.

Green vines surging into my hands, the next thing I knew I was surrounded by thorny vines hugging my hands particularly.

And by hugging I mean literally taking root into my palms.

In essence, it hurt like hell.

And when comparing the fact that I went through what I later found out was partly hell like torture that was something.

Unless you were a different breed of human, you would never get used to this.

Hell, even after going through it a third time and finally realising the connection I wasn't used to it.

'Well maybe I was a bit used to it now.'

Positively ripping off my bandages the very moment that the rune was finished embedding itself into my skin, I faintly realized that the bandages weren't encrusted in blood no matter how many times they were splashed with it before staring at my stylized hands.

Sporting vines alongside the flames, unlike the flames which were located around my wrist and focused on my hands, the vine tattoo on my body burnt around the wrist while crawling all the way to my elbows.

'...At the rate this is going, if I encounter even more of those runes I may be so covered in tattoos that there would be more tattoos than skin'

Amusedly thinking about that fact after ignoring the pain, I recalled an old friend of mine that participated in the mandatory military training with me at the time.

Covered in so many tattoos that the military had decided was to much of a hassle to laser them off for covert ops, the man had admitted to me over a drink that the tattoos were used to remind him of everything he had before he would get dementia like his pops.

It was a weird biological diary of sorts that he could never lose, but I never lived to see if he did get dementia.

Nevertheless, much like the blaze rune which lit my weapons on fire when I concentrated, I assumed that the vine rune would be no different.

Recalling the wooden arrows that had hundredss of thorns on their body as they passed, it was a miracle that they did as little damage as they did.

'If ripping out my shoulder flesh could be called minor that is'

Pulling out the blood sword as my test subject I focused onto it...

'...'

To no avail.

It did light on fire though.

Staring blankly at the flaming blade I stuffed it into my inventory before dragging out the wooden chips and did what intuition demanded.

And I guess that was the answer I needed.

Sprouting sharp throns I smiled in satisfaction at the fact that I now had a way to surreptitiously throw incredibly spiky wood fragments

*Bang

"Ow!?"

Rubbing my forehead I frowned as I looked upwards at the thing that blocked my path when many other trees couldn't.

And I looked up.

And up.

And up.

And up.

'...Well I guess I found the ramparts'

Staring at the gigantic block of stone half my height, it was a wonder that humans could build this entire thing to the point that the vines clam ering up the cracks could barely reach the top

Granted in a world where people could most likely take advantage of magic it wasn't as impressive.

But it didn't take away from the fact that it was still impressive.

'All those people who claim that the pyramids were built by aliens don't know what they're talking about'

+++

Tree that had found out the hard way that competitive swimming can make you vomit

I beat all of my Personal bests tho