The Thorned vale.....
The night had been peaceful, but a shift occurred. Like a strong force of wind being blown into the room. They felt their bodies giving in.. Their weapons pulsed on their bodies as dusk bled into the night.
This had to be the third realm they all thought.
Unprepared, unaware, confused is what they were as they found themselves standing at the edge of the portal.
The thorned vale. Everything about it looked dangerous.
The portal didn't shimmer this time. It bled.
A tear in the air, jagged and pulsing, opened like a wound in the sky. The girls stepped through, weapons drawn, runes activated, breath held.
And the Thorned Vale swallowed them whole.
The air was thick with rot and perfume - a sickly-sweet stench of overripe flowers and something dead beneath the soil. The trees were twisted, bark blackened and slick with sap that looked like blood. Vines hung like nooses. The ground pulsed faintly, as if the entire forest had a heartbeat.
No birds. No wind. Just the sound of breathing - not theirs.
Zenid whispered, "This place is wrong."
Then the forest answered.
A low, wet clicking echoed through the trees.
They moved in formation - Matilda at the front, whip coiled and ready; Tori covering the rear with her twin daggers; Zenid casting light wards that flickered like dying fireflies. Keisha's bracelet pulsed with both the
The first creature emerged from the trees.
It looked like a deer-if a deer had too many legs, a mouth that opened sideways, and eyes that blinked vertically. Its antlers were made of bone and thorn, and its skin was stretched too tight over something that pulsed and writhed beneath.
It screamed -a sound like metal scraping bone - and charged.
Matilda struck first, her whip wrapping around its neck. It didn't flinch. It bit the whip in half and kept coming.
Zenid shouted a binding spell, but the creature twisted midair, dodging it with unnatural speed, forcing her to use her glazing blade.
Keisha raised her hand, the Heartroot Locket glowing-and the creature hesitated. Just for a second. Enough for Tori to leap forward and drive both daggers into its throat.
It collapsed, twitching, leaking black sap.
Then the trees began to move.
The Vale wasn't a forest. It was a trap.
The trees shifted behind them, closing paths, opening others. The vines reached for their ankles as the flowers opened to reveal rows of sharp teeth.
But this angered the forest creatures and they came out to play...
The Hollow-Faced Wolves,with their snouts split open like petals, revealing nothing but void attacking without fear.
Before the girls could prepare mimics shaped like children crying for help, who turned feral the moment you touched them also attacked... The weren't creatures they expected..
"how do we even fight these ugly things" Matilda shouted as she continued to wipe out the hollow wolves..
"i have no idea... Lord i dont wanna panick" Keisha said as she faced a mimic, perfect time to bring out her weapon...
As soon as she took out her shimmering Rapier, she had recently got it..turns out there's more the bracelet can do.. Thorned Ones - humanoid figures made of bark and bone, their joints bending the wrong way, their mouths sewn shut with vine-thread.
"oww they keep getting worse... Can't they be a little cute" Tori said as she swang her daggers like a true professional...
"you worried about creatures being ugly.. Really" Zenid said looking in Tori's direction but still focused on the fight.
Matilda's whip cracked like thunder, severing limbs of the vale. Tori moved like a shadow, blades flashing. Zenid's runes burned bright, carving protective circles into the ground.
Keisha held the line feeling close to the Heartroot Locket which was glowing brighter from a distance with every creature that fell.
After hours of blood and breath and broken spells, they reached the heart of the Vale - a clearing where the trees bent inward, forming a cathedral of thorns.
At the center stood a pedestal. Upon it: the Heartroot Locket, pulsing like a heartbeat.
But it wasn't unguarded.
The Thornmother rose from the roots - a towering creature of bark and flesh, her face a mask of thorns, her limbs long and jointless. Her voice was a whisper in their minds: "You do not belong here."
She attacked.
Her vines lashed like whips, tipped with venom as her scream shattered Zenid's wards.
She moved like smoke, impossible to predict.
Keisha ran for the locket but the Thornmother turned, vines lashing toward her - but Matilda intercepted, taking the hit, blood blooming across her side.
Keisha grabbed the locket.
It burned.
Visions flooded her - not of emotion, but of truth. The Vale's origin. The Thornmother's curse. The artifact's purpose: to cut through illusion, to anchor reality in places where magic had turned predatory.
Keisha screamed and thrust the locket forward.
The Thornmother shrieked - not in pain, but in rage. Her body cracked, vines withering, bark splitting. She collapsed into ash and root.
As the Vale shuddered.
And began to collapse.
---
When the girls realized the Thornmother had been defeated they ran, dodging falling trees, leaping over roots that tried to drag them down. The portal flickered ahead, shrinking.
Keisha turned once - just once - and saw the Thornmother's eyes still glowing in the ash.
Then they were through.
---
They landed hard in the school courtyard, covered in blood, sap, and ash. Matilda was wounded. Zenid was shaking. Tori was silent which was unusual.. These realms were really starting to become dangerous... Keisha planned to summon the girl with blonde hair, she need answers.
Keisha held the Heartroot Locket in her hand. It no longer pulsed. It throbbed.
Three artifacts now. Oracle stone, memory flame and heartroot locket...
Seven more to go.
And the next realm was already stirring, because what they started in the third realm had the other realms awaken.
But that wasn't important at the moment...
...
The girls could not utter anything to each other,as they were in pain and all wondering what to do next.
As they looked.. someone was waiting for them in the court yard...