Wasps

Hanging by my feet upside down in the dark, wrapped up by coarse, thick roots, I couldn't help but wonder, "What the hell is happening?" Wiggling my hand free, I held it out and cast a basic light spell I had learned. With a ball of light illuminating the space, I looked around. I was hanging in front of the most massive tree I had ever seen; it had long thick branches, its bark pockmarked with many small holes, oozing black mucus-like sap.

{I am pretty sure that you are currently being held by a creature called a treant, although they tend to be mostly intelligent and reasonable as long as you don't excessively harm nature. This one seems to be enraged for some reason though.}

Hearing that this thing was intelligent, I called out, "Hey, what's wrong? Why are you attacking me?" The treant's only response was to roar from a vague mouth-like opening in its knotted and scarred bark, two slit-like hollows held eyes that stared at me with anger.

The rough roots started coiling around me, getting tighter and tighter. Finding it hard to breathe, and with a bit of panic, I reached down with my free hand and cast the first spell that came to mind, the drying spell. Immediately, water started streaming off the roots holding me, forming a floating sphere of water.

Struggling against the desiccated roots, they started splintering and pulling apart as I dropped to the ground. Quickly scurrying to my feet, I suddenly felt something looming above me. Without waiting to find out what it was, I dove to the side. Hearing a deafening bang, as I turned to look over my shoulder, a massive branch was embedded in the ground where I had been.

Left with no other choice after almost being crushed, dodging and weaving between the onslaught of roots and branches as I readied a spell. Concentrating on the floating ball of water whose surface had begun to stretched and warble, almost bursting as I lost focus while dodging. Imagining a compressed jet nozzle being fed by the water sphere, the surface of the sphere solidified as I channeled more mana into it before a high-pitched hissing sound reverberated through the air as a fine stream of water shot out.

Aiming for the branches and roots shooting towards me, chunks of wood and splinters rained down around me as I continued to dodge attacks. After a few minutes of continuously cutting anything that got close, huffing from the exertion, and feeling drained from using so much mana, everything went quiet.

Standing amid a semicircle of carnage that would surely be horrifying to any sentient plants that saw it, I heard a baritone voice whisper, "Kill...me." Looking towards the treant, with nothing but stumps left of its former branches, and most of its roots scared around, it only kept muttering the same thing over and over again.

"As you wish," I replied, before using the last of the water to slice the treant from top to bottom, dirt exploding out as my water jet gouged the soil, making sure to completely bisect the tree. The two halves fell away from each other and slammed against the ground.

As the dust settled, a buzzing sound began getting louder and louder. Suddenly, palm-sized wasp-like creatures began swarming out from the holes in the treant's body. At least a hundred wasps started swarming around me, the buzzing of their wings deafening, making my skin crawl.

Panicking, I gathered up all the mana I could muster and released all of it with only one thought on my mind: BURN THEM ALL. There was a violent detonation, generating a shockwave as the air around me ignited. A wave of flames surged out, superheating the air, before burning itself out.

Falling to my knee, my head swimming from mana depletion, ears ringing and hearing, thump, thump....thump, as scorched, smoldering wasps that were far enough away to not get incinerated fell to the ground.

After several minutes of breathing in the acrid smell of burning bugs and wood, appearing from the edge of the small clearing I was in, was Zarra, Ies, and Sonx, weapons at the ready. Noticing me still kneeling on the ground, Zarra ran up to me, panickily asking, "What happened? Are you okay?"

Still breathing heavy, and trying not to throw up, I told Zarra everything that happened. After a few hearing what happened, Zarra shook her head and said, "this is bad, we need to go talk to the fairies or we will be marked as enemies."

Confused, I was dragged to my feet and lead back to the camp we had set up. Zarra barked, "hurry and pack up," while she started collecting the mugs and utensils we used for dinner. Looking around, my new slime friends were hanging around my pack, after storing them, and settling the bulky basket on my back, we set off, heading northwest, with sunrise nowhere insight.

  ---

We continued walking for about an hour before the sun started to rise. Having recovered enough mana to not feal sick, I finally asked, "where are we going?"

"We are going to the fairy village to speak with the elder treant. The treants sense when one of their own dies. If we don't explain the fairies might attack." Zarra called over her shoulder, keeping up a steady pace.

The sun rose higher and higher into the sky as we walked, eventually passing its zenith before starting its slow decent. Finally, Zarra called out, "We are close." Before long we passed through the trees opened in front of us, revealing a gigantic tree, at least 60 feet in diameter and 130 feet tall, with a wide canopy, and massive roots spreading out from its base.

As we drew closer, an 8 inch tall girl flew towards us, on her back were silvery moth like wings. She had blond hair and wore a simple green one-piece dress that appeared to be molded from leaves. She flutters in front of me and bombarded me with a rapid-fire assault of questions.

"Who are you? Why are you here? I have never seen anyone like you before, what are you? Why are you with Zarra? Do...…" she asked in a high pitch melodic voice.