Apparently, they could both enter through the hole in the wall. Steps, like Yildriv had described, led all the way up to the third layer.

  Yildriv dropped to his knees and kissed the black ground, while making quiet promises about a poem he would write in the tree's honor.

  “Do you need help with your Flora problem?” Caen asked.

  “Yes! Yes, I very much need help! I'll lead the way,” he said, already walking off. “Ha! I'm so happy I saved your life all those nights ago—”

  “You didn't, though—”

  Yildriv continued talking over him. “A lost, fresh climber desperately in need of proper wards. My valiant and noble heroics have come back to reward me. Parthra truly is always awake! Haha!”

  Caen just shook his head and followed the crazy individual.

  The bark glowed pleasantly with colorful lights all around. There wasn't much of a difference from the previous layer. Vast, high-ceilinged caverns, grottoes, alcoves, ledges, rounded walls, symbiotic plants and vines covering surfaces, wide passageways, and far more traffic. This layer was very active.

  All sorts of people loitered about or sat at tables to eat and drink, or on the floor sleeping, or in pools bathing. It felt like a community, a bustling town, Vai's mansion, and a fever dream had been fused into one surprisingly wholesome thing. Caen observed Parthra's soul structure as they walked.

  Yildriv eventually brought them to a garden within a grotto with a window-like opening that displayed the darkening sky as Parthra went into its night cycle. What had at first seemed like stalagmites in this alcove turned out to be black tree extensions protruding from the ground. Along each one were branchlike tendrils laden with leaves of various colours. Soul-sense revealed these to be a part of Parthra. Not quite trees, but vertical branches of some kind.

  The entire alcove was overrun with thick leafy crawlers and thin but barbed wooden tendrils. One wall in particular was so densely overrun by these that Caen couldn't even see the light of Parthra through it.

  “How did you find this place?” Caen asked.

  “Time. Lots of searching. All of which culminated in asking a dryad for directions.” Yildriv walked over to the wall overrun with crawlers and peered closely at it with a monocle he held up to his left eye. “What I need is behind all this. Dead matter. Parthra sheds these off sometimes. Large sections of Planar material that aren't reabsorbed.”

  Caen went over, and Yildriv offered him the monocle, but he politely declined. Pretending to squint, he used his speculon and could see jagged pieces of black bark sticking out through slits between the crawlers. These did not have soul structures. They were dead, unlike the rest of Parthra, and were notably devoid of the bioluminescent lights.

  The covering of roots and plant matter was several feet thick, about the length of his arm. In typical Parthran fashion, nothing here could be moved or dislodged without Flora magic.

  “This will take me a while,” Caen said to Yildriv. “Hours.”

  “Ha! ‘Hours’, he says. As long as you know what you’re doing, I will be more than happy to wait. It's taken me three entire months to get someone here. Hours pfttt. Take days if you like.”

  It would have been easier and taken much less time if Caen had simply connected to each plant that made up the dense covering on the wall and moved them aside. But he connected instead to his own vine slung around his shoulders. He needed the practice.

  The next few hours saw him slowly unknotting and detangling the network of plants using spell chains. This would be the first time in Caen's life that someone needed his help with Flora magic. More importantly, he was able to help. In the tunnels and in Odaton, he'd mostly used Blood-healing on the trees. Here, though, he was, for all intents and purposes, performing the role of a real Flora practician.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Caen sectioned away portions of the root wall, careful not to strip it all off. He intended to put it back the way he'd seen it, once Yildriv retrieved his prize. Good practice was always enjoyable.

  Together, they removed several already-dislodged pieces of dead black wood. Yildriv, much to Caen's surprise, didn't grab every single piece that was there, which showed more moderation than he would have expected from the man.

  The dead matter vanished into Yildriv's spatial storage, and he let out a very pleased sigh. “Well, I leave here a much better man, knowing that I have bested you thoroughly and completed my climb before you.”

  “I'd need to have been here for three months longer for you to have bested me.”

  Yildriv waved a hand to the side and began to rise slowly into the air. “Details. The point is… I won.”

  “Okay, Yildriv.” Caen had already begun the work of returning the plants to their previous positions.

  “Farewell to you, Caen. And thank you!” He began to hover very slowly towards the window in the wall.

  “You could just take the stairs,” Caen said.

  “I might as well impress Parthra one final time!” he declared as he moved through the window at a very glacial and perhaps unimpressive pace. He turned and waved energetically at Caen as he began to descend against the backdrop of a darkening sky. “We have exchanged Grat coordinates! Don't be a stranger, Caen!”

  Caen smiled when Yildriv was out of view. Kinesis magic was fascinating. Yildriv was alright, too.

  He focused on his work, carefully replacing the covering of plant matter. It was easy and enjoyable work. He sat on the floor comfortably for most of it. Then, when only half of the plants were left to be replaced, he disconnected from his vine.

  Caen, in his abjection, spent the next few hours casting the same spells with much strain and very slowly going over the components, lest the workings collapse. Despite this, they still collapsed several times, causing him to start again and again and again.

  It shouldn't have been so easy to manipulate Planar materials as quickly as he'd come to, but Mimicry allowed him to cheat, bypassing the long familiarization process.

  Now, even in his abjection, he had a better feel for the symbiotic plants and was very grateful that he could affect them in the first place. He was still working at roughly a fifth of the speed he'd been moving at when Mimicking the vine around his neck.

  Then something strange happened. Caen’s spell suddenly collapsed, which wasn't all that unusual. But his mind and spirit spasmed. His soul structure changed by a nigh imperceptible degree.

  He felt a keen awareness of the clothes on his skin, the ropes wound around his midsection, his trusty vine around his shoulders, and the patch of moss he was sitting on. Even the bioluminescent lights of Parthra stood out to him more.

  Passive augmentations.

  His Flora affinity had risen out of abjection.

  Caen felt at peace. He returned his attention to the wall of plant matter. When he began replacing the vines, the whole process felt far smoother now that he had the Flora magic passive augmentations.

  He'd Mimicked decent Flora Magic affinities from combatants at the Odaton camp and from people here in Parthra, too, so he knew that this wasn't a great achievement. But this was another affinity rising. Proof of him growing stronger. He wiped a tear from his eye as he worked, completely replacing the plant cover even faster than he might have with his vine.

  By the time he was done, night had well and truly fallen in the Parthran Plane. The bioluminescent light of the grotto shone more brightly, and outside, through the window, Caen could see glowing fireflies fluttering around and, further out, twinkling stars in the sky. All the branches of Parthra glowed with swirling color. It was mesmerizing.

  Caen left the garden and made his way to an alcove he'd passed on the way here. It opened out to a ledge, which in this case was a huge, wide branch with a flat top.

  He connected to Parthra, and its soul structure bloomed behind his vision. A vast and impossibly large structure, with roots hundreds—maybe thousands—of miles deep in the ground. It stretched just as many miles above him. He couldn't gauge the distance. It was mind-boggling. So high up. What was that like?

  At the same time he observed this, Caen watched the beautiful night sky with his physical eyes. He'd split his mind in two and just enjoyed two separate degrees of beauty.