The Dungeon Tree

As the ground continued to shake, small cracks began to appear around the area. One such crack appeared beneath the monster's corpse, causing it to fall down and leave our line of sight.

"Times like these call for energy herbs." Felix said, running over to me with a large orange herb in his hand.

"Ew gross. I hate the way those things taste! Only ones I eat are the ones that heal small scratches!" I said, turning my head away from the herb.

I could see a vein appear on Felix's forehead, "Huh? Now's not the time to be a picky eater!" Felix tried forcing the herb in my mouth but I turned my head away and avoided it.

"No way!"

This led into a solid thirty seconds of Felix trying to force feed me the energy herb while I thrashed around, doing everything in my power to avoid the herb.

"John, I'm not going to carry you to the village!" Felix shouted.

"I'll crawl if I have to!"

"We both know you don't mean that!"

"Yeah… you're ri-" Felix finally managed to shove the herb in my mouth, allowing a refreshing feeling to course through my body.

Refreshing as the herb was, the bitter taste of the herb put a sour expression on my face. Felix let out an annoyed sigh before stepping away from me. He reached down into his bag and pulled out another orange herb, swallowing it whole.

"Alright let's get out of here!" Felix said, pulling me up to my feet.

"Yeah!" I shouted, grabbing onto Genki and putting him in his sheath.

The two of us began running as fast as our legs could carry us, doing everything in our power to get away from whatever was causing the ground beneath us to shake.

"Halt."

A deep voice echoed through my ears, causing me to freeze up. The sensation of dread had completely consumed my body and caused me to lose control over it. As Felix and I stood there helplessly, the ground in front of us began to open up. Two grey metal claws shot out from the ground. No, claws didn't sound right. They looked more like shields that just so happened to have sharp edges.

A humanoid figure jumped out from the hole and stared directly at us, his gaze piercing through our very souls. Until now, most of the monsters we had faced looked similar to wolves. Him, however, looked more like a human. At a glance, one could even mistake him for one. Well at least until you would realize that what should have been the whites of his eyes were actually pitch black and the irises of his eyes were a dark red.

"To think humans like you could beat my sword, spear, and axe masters. As their instructor, it brings me great sorrow to know that my pupils have been slain." The monster suddenly appeared right between us, his eyes weren't even focused on us.

"Axe master? That last monster just now didn't have an axe." I whispered to Felix.

"No, it did. I caused him to lose it before you arrived so you never got a chance to see him use it." Felix whispered back.

Felix and I both jumped to the side, creating space from the monster and turning around so we could face him. The monster raised his head and looked over his shoulder, allowing us to see one of his eyes glaring at us.

"Humans as capable as yourselves are a threat to what us monsters are working for. It's best that I snuff out those flames of yours before they shine too brightly." The monster's shields began moving around as if they were a liquid, changing their shape into a giant greatsword that rested in the monster's right hand.

"I wouldn't suppose you have anything that can restore mana, do you?" I asked, letting out a nervous laugh.

"I've got two potions left but they won't restore much." Felix said, throwing me a potion.

"Better than nothing." I said, catching the potion before gulping it down in one big swig.

The monster fully turned around and stared at us with that piercing gaze of his before pointing his weapon at us, "I am Godrick the Grey, weapon master of the Great One. Prepare yourselves."