Pioneer flew high into the sky stopping just under the peaks of the fierce waves roiling across the ocean’s surface. Wavy light tinted blue light the world as the star heating it started to move from one side to the other. He stopped and looked down on the surface rod. The party and the prisoners were all looking up at the Pathfinder. Between them was a swarm of the explorer’s kind. He screeched an intense cackle that filled the entirety of the Bubble even stopping all the fighting between monsters on the surface.

  A cloud of flying animals stopped their chaotic soaring and soon a precise dive took place with them pulling up at the last second and landing gently on the surface. Pioneer landed last and stood by Zuls.

  Before the crowd, Vorin stood on the roof of the sole building. His eyes scanned all the prisoners and Pathfinders. He spoke, Zuls passed the general feelings along, and Pioneer translated.

  “Fellow class chosen, and noble Pathfinders. We stand here with a mission before us—a mission that could prove fatal to some of you.” A cold shudder passed through the crowd when he paused. “Now obviously, we would like this to go off without any fatalities, and we believe we’ve picked the optimal plan to make that happen.” He paused once more and pointed towards the ocean.

  All heads turned and looked up to stare at the violent sea encompassing the world. Shadows moved just below the surface. Some big, some small, all hungry.

  “To escape this prison, we must get through the outer layer of the Bubble. We don’t know what lays beyond. We don’t know how sensitive those great leviathans are. What we do know is that if you stay here, you will eventually die.” Another dramatic pause let the reality of the situation sink in.

  “So, hear me now, Synexus is working on a tree. A special tree and quite honestly, I’m not clever enough to understand the in and outs of what he’s making, but it sounds like we will only have one chance. He promised it would be ready within the hour. That’s when we will make our escape. If you don’t want to make the attempt, tell us now.”

  Silent murmurs ran rampant through the crowd. Nods passed between looks. Seconds passed as they all came to make their decisions. After it was all said and done, only one person stepped forward.

  Vorin looked at the lone man standing out in front of the crowd.

  “You wish to stay?”

  “No! I just wish to ask one thing.”

  “Ask me anything. I will answer if I can.”

  “Why are you relying on your friend, can we not escape on the backs of the beasts?”

  “We thought of that ourselves and they will help with the plan. Once we clear the ocean, we don’t know if we will find open air or space, either way these animals are suited to traverse the spaces while providing small protections outside their bodies such as a small oxygen shell.”

  “Thank you. We shall join you on the endeavor. Live or die, thank you.”

  The man stepped back and a woman jumped up onto the roof to stand next to Vorin. Dancer stood proud holding onto a scythe twice her height made of pure starlight.

  “My fellow prisoners. We were taken advantage of. Assaulted by the same enemy before they put us in their horrid boxes. Countless years have passed. Our families, our worlds, our people may not even exist anymore. They, you know who I speak of, treated us as if they were our creators. They took the right to play with our existence like it was theirs. THIS WILL NOT STAND! Today we flee, tomorrow we fight!”

  Even Vorin found himself cheering and clapping at the woman’s words. Emotion bled through as if they were paper thin. She came over and put her hand on Vorin’s shoulder before giving a nod and jumped back towards the crowd.

  Pioneer finished his cackles towards his brethren, and their tails went straight into the air—a salute amongst his kind. Cackles rolled over the surface letting the others know they understood their role.

  Zuls wanted to save the other animals as well, but most were too violent to be calmed. Endless battle had warped their minds. It was a feat of nature that they were even able to survive and reproduce in such conditions. Eating only the meat of each other to survive. She had Synexus log their DNA so that they could be honored. He also grew more plants along the surface to give them actual homes instead of a flat world.

  Kumo and Prith would act as the spear tips for the operation. At all times they would be first to help take down any opposition they face, and their abilities would let them cut into the water to provide Shell the space she needed to work.

  The Wave with her ability to warp water would be just behind the two manipulating the water from the group. Like a bubble carving a path through. She would also be absorbing some of the water into her bag.

  Vorin and Dancer would be watching the sides. He prepared plagues that worked underwater to target the fish. When she saw his scythes, she conjured hers saying the length would give her the ability to strike without leaving the safety of the bubble.

  Zuls would be conducting the Pathfinders while riding Pioneer. They were all terribly afraid of the ocean, she would be working her magic to keep them calm and moving forward. The only bonded out would be Snowfall who will be freezing the edge of the bubble to create a more substantial wall against the deep.

  Everyone else would jump in where they feel they are needed. Vorin simply didn’t have time to understand everyone’s class and abilities. Synexus was able to read a lot of them, but formulating a plan to use all of them would have taken time they didn’t have. Instead, the party trusted them to know where they could be of use and to perform their duty as a class chosen.

  Synexus, of course, was in charge of using his skills to grow their vessel. Before it was going to stop right before the ocean above, but circumstances had changed. Instead, he needed something much bigger. In his own words, he called it a World Tree. Even with his skills and the mana available, his calculations led him to realize that he could only get them halfway up the ocean before they would need to fly the rest of the way. That turned out to be perfect since they had no idea where ocean ended and space began. After reviewing their genes, he determined that the Pathfinders do produce small bits of oxygen in a field around them which would help, but it wouldn’t be enough.

  After he perfected his plans on the World Tree, he started in on a fungus that would grow along the skin of most beings to create a thin suit. The fungus was designed to produce oxygen inside their shell and to also insulate heat. On the outside, the fungus would harden and become quite strong. His only two flaws in the plans were that anyone who used the fungus would need him to get them out of it and while it was around them, they wouldn’t be able to see. Flaws they didn’t have time to fix. Luckily, the Pathfinders would be there to lead them out.

  He stood signaling to Vorin that he was ready, and everyone formed up. Three prisoners to every Pathfinder. Synexus waded through the crowd until he was in the center next to Prith, Shell, and Kumo. He pressed his hand to the ground, and the entire surface rod shook. Mana flowed from him like he was the ocean above draining into the earth below.

  What the crowd couldn’t see was that as deep into the surface as he could make it, a seed was placed. A massive seed containing such a complex genome that it was taking an unprecedented amount of mana to grow. Even more than the bio-bridge even if it wasn’t going to be as magnificent.

  When his mana met the shell of the seed carrying with it the intention of Instant Growth, the seed greedily started to drink its fill. Soon roots shot from the bottom while a wide hollow sprout started growing towards the surface.

  The world started to shake violently causing the waves above to get even choppier. Prisoners, Pathfinders, and animals alike started to panic. Some fell; others were sick. To them it felt as if the surface rod was going to split apart and it did.

  Ground broke and a massive ring of wood came through to surround the group. Weird spatial mana started to assert itself warping the fabric of reality giving them the perspective of standing in a much larger space with each other side by side. Above them the ring looked narrow and impossible to fit in, but as it grew, the space inside followed. Up and up, it shot until it clashed with the ocean’s surface and the growth disappeared into the depths.

  Still the surface shook and people looked at Synexus breathing heavily. To him he could see the massive roots breaking through the other side of the rod before spiraling around out over the entirety of the land mass just to keep the tree stable. When the last root gripped around the surface, he passed out from exhausting his mana.

  He jolted awake with a bit of confusion but quickly looked around and realized the plan was underway. He was on the back of Prith and Kumo’s Pathfinder. Shell was filling up the inside of the tree with water from her bag, and they were lazily being lifted towards the ocean above. From how big the waves looked, he would have guessed they were halfway although he didn’t have to wait long to confirm. Just as he was looking around, they were passing one of the side branches he worked into the genome. An escape tunnel if things turned bad. It would be pulling in mana and oxygen from the world into the spatial dimension they were currently travelling through.

  “You overdid it again! Why is this a common occurrence?”

  “He can’t help himself. It is in his nature. My creator was the same way.”

  Gene landed next to Synexus and pecked his shoulder.

  “If you do it again, it won’t be a peck from Gene. I’ll shoot a cloud blade at you without holding back.”

  “I’m fine, Kumo. This tree took all my mana to grow. What did you expect from something I called the World Tree?”

  “It is a magnificent tree.”

  They both turned to look at Prith who had a bit of a smirk on his face.

  “Don’t encourage him.”

  He shrugged and looked back at Synexus.

  “All I’m saying is the man knows how to grow a plant.”

  Kumo sighed.

  “Fine, let’s focus on the mission. We estimate twenty minutes until we break the surface.”

  Synexus nodded and pulled a mana fruit from his bag to start refilling his mana. By the time they got to the surface, he needed to have spores on everybody. He wouldn’t grow them until they were close to the other side, but they wanted to be ready.

  He felt a bit like a fairy from the stories the Branch used to tell him when he was growing up. Small creatures spreading glowing dust onto anyone they deemed enemy or friend. A cloud of spores came from his Progress Garden and covered everyone. The Pathfinders didn’t need them, but it would have been impossible to make them discriminate in the time given. He would just avoid growing their spores when the time came, if the time came.

  Looks were shared between the odd group of beings slowly rising in a column of water inside a tree toward a bigger body of water. Some tensed. Others were flushed of color. A couple were bouncing from foot to foot. A group was even smiling. Emotions are complex and everyone processes situations differently. Staring up at that growing surface of the ocean above signified possible death, but also an opportunity of freedom. All that were rising had decided the opportunity was worth the cost.

  Soon the peaks of the nasty waves were nearly touching them. Beneath the surface were fish of all shapes and sizes looking through the water at them. Calm waters would probably have reflected their excitement and fears back at them, but these were never calm waters. Even the seconds before they broke through the waves, they could see the turmoil the fish were constantly in. Bigger fish came and devoured them only for even bigger fish to come seconds later and claim their prey. It was pure bloodshed, yet the water stayed clear.

  Right before they broke through, Shell started to pull the water above into her pouch while still maintaining the rise of the water below. She wanted to do it this way to ensure that she was filtering out anything in the water above that may cause them harm. Smaller fish would be absorbed into her bag while bigger fish fell from the stream and were slain by Kumo or Prith. They were still inside the trunk of the tree. Above them was the crown of the world tree. A mass of dense branches topped with leaves that were reaching for the little light coming through the water. For the people inside the trunk, they would provide a distraction for all the predators lurking in the water.

  At the peak of the tree, they all took a collective breath before Shell started their bubble. Kumo helped her by pushing the water back with her wind. Snowfall started to create walls of ice that would no doubt break in minutes. Still, it helped take some pressure off Shell as the group moved forward.

  Prisoners riding on Pathfinders looked around in amazement. Even in the dark depths of the ocean, they could see the sprawling city of branches and leaves making up the crown of the world tree. A whole civilization could have been born and died without ever leaving the branches. When they passed by one of the leaves, they realized how giant they actually were. One could hold four times the amount of people and animals they were travelling with.

  Their wonder turned upwards as they saw a bubble forming and pushing towards the surface. Slowly they all started riding up through the water on the back of the Pathfinders. Shadows moved at the edge of their vision. Instead of panicking, they all pretended they weren’t actually there.

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