For a while, Mark just lay there on the fort's western wall next to the western gate, catching his breath and watching Allyssa's beautiful skies as he was exhausted from all of the fighting he'd done to defend against waves of the Hondored dead that had tried to overwhelm the fort.

  Faro, the fort's commander, not that Mark had known that, sat next to him, calmly waiting for the undead's next move. He didn't say anything to Mark for a good while, letting Mark rest until he felt he had enough energy to talk. "So, Mark, what brings you here? Not that I mind the help." Faro asked in a casual voice.

  "I came to answer Detrei's call for aid and help the people of this land fight against Hargal's undead hordes." Mark answered in a barely audible voice, still trying to conserve his energy.

  "Ahh, trying to be a hero, are we? We've had a few brave warriors earn that distinction over the years. Don't you worry; we'll make you one of those yet." Faro said in a jovial but patronizing voice like one would have for a child's dream. Mark couldn't blame him, though. Despite being a hero in his own world, he hadn't made a good show of himself in this one. He'd needed to be saved in the first battle for God's sake.

  Like he was some junior hero who'd never fought crooks in an alleyway before, much less someone whose main job it was to watch the mad at an asylum. No, as far as the soldiers at the fort were concerned, he was a rookie with lofty aspirations, but he supposed that was a good thing; he'd only have to meet them, and he wouldn't have to worry about the backlash of a hero messing up as badly as he had. God knew what the media would do if footage had circulated of him in costume being choked out by a villain.

  "Well anyway, it seems we have a bit more time before we have to worry about the next attack. So was there anything you wanted to know? Well, you have this chance to ask Mark. Faro asked if he should try and give Mark a chance to gain knowledge of the goings-on in the world while he had the chance.

  "Hmmm." Mark hummed for a moment, thinking on the question, not really sure what to ask about but eventually deciding on asking about where they both were sitting at right now. "Well, Faro, what's the story with this fort?" Mark finally asked.

  "Well, that's simple enough. This is Fort Faria." So renamed after Lady Faria, who was slayed long ago. She was the wife of its first commander, who was my grandfather, Faro the First. I am Faro the third, though I just go by Faro. Faro said to answer Mark's question.

  "So what if your pharaoh is the third? Does that mean your family has been defending this fort for two generations?" Mark asked in shock as he was surprised that not only had this war been going on for that long but that Faro, who was such a well-going and buff man who looked more like a friendly bodybuilder, was actually the supposed strategic commander for this fort.

  "Yes, two generations have given their lives to the defense of this fort, and I shall be the third." Faro said in a proud voice as he looked off at where the bulk of the honored dead had fled to.

  "Well, okay then. It is an honor to fight by your side, Commander Faro the Third." Mark said, trying to be as respectful as possible to the commander and probably the best fighter of the entire fort.

  "None of that now. You weren't respectful before, so don't start now. Just continue calling me Faro, as you have been." Faro said in his usual jovial tone of voice. Mark was glad he didn't have to go through all the respectful courtesy you would expect of dealing with a lord, which being the fort's commander surely meant Faro qualified as one, but Mark was happy to nod in agreement at Faro's request to remain casual.

  Once again the two were left in silence as Mark continued to lie down on the wall and enjoy Allyssa's sky while Faro remained sitting down and continued to stare off into the distance, trying to be ever vigilant for another round of attacks from Hargal's undead. Eventually, though, the silence was ended as the sound of a massive thud echoed across Fort Faria.

  This caused Mark and Faro to stand up and stare out into the distance from the western wall, trying to find the source of the noise, but no matter where they looked, they couldn't see the source of the loud noise before it sounded out again. So once again a loud thump like a boulder hitting the dirt echoed across the fort louder than before, but once again they couldn't find what was causing it.

  Then both Mark and Faro, as well as the men around them at the western gate, got concerned as they heard the sound again, but this time they were pretty sure the gap between thumps was shorter, letting them know that whatever was coming was big and was getting faster, which wasn't a good combination.

  As they all looked around, desperate to find what it was that was causing such a loud sound, they heard a large thump for a fourth time, getting very concerned as the gap between thumps had shortened again and it was louder than before. Letting them know it was still building up speed and was getting closer despite them still not seeing whatever was causing the noise.

  Then a man from the northern wall ran up to Faro, desperation clear in his eyes. "Commander Faro, you're needed at the northern wall right now, sir!" The soldier practically screamed out, clearly trying to hold in his panic but not quite succeeding as he couldn't control the volume of his voice.

  "Alright soldier, I'll head over to the northern wall; you'll stay here. Mark, come with me, and we will see if your fancy equipment can help with whatever is going on." Faro said handing out his orders as both he and Mark began to run from the western part of the wall to the northern part so they could see what was going on.

  Faro has ordered the messenger to stay behind because he didn't trust him in the fight that seemed to be shaping up north of the fort faria. He was far too rattled to fight properly, so Faro had him stay on the western wall. So at least that way the man could still be of use to the fort by warning another section of the wall of whatever was going on to the north of the fort.

  After a fast jog to keep their energy high but make good times, both Mark and Faro reached the northern part of the wall to see all of the defenders staring at something off in the distance. There was an aura surrounding them that was of palpable fear. Faro didn't like that, so he sought to rectify it immediately. "Attention, men!" Faro bellowed out, causing all the men to line up, their training kicking in as they all held at attention with their scythes to their side, staring directly forward.

  Faro now in front of the defenders, taking the time to stare directly into the eyes of each of the defenders and not giving even a passing glance at what they had been looking at, deciding that restoring morally was more important. "Alright men, you are the defenders of Faria. This fort has stood for generations, and no matter what fresh horror Hargal has sent our way, it is your duty to see to it it stands for many more. Is that understood?" Faro bellowed out at the soldiers lined up and facing north.

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  "Yes, sir!" The soldiers bellowed back in perfect unison. Having restored morale, Faro finally looked at what Mark had been staring at in horror for his entire pep talk with the defenders of the northern wall. A giant abomination was slowly making its way towards Fort Faria with a few thousand honored undead lined up behind it. Mark figured, as he stared in horror at the abomination making huge crashing noises with each step it took toward them, that they were planning to pour through whatever breach the thing made once it bulldozed its way through some of the fort's walls.

  The abomination was a tree, but this wasn't just some forest variety redwood. No, instead it was a massive hulking thing made out of some white wood, and it was the size of a three-story building. It was slowly making its way towards them on four giant roots, moving like a spider and having its roots pierce the ground, leaving giant holes in the ground as it made its way toward them. Though considering the thing was undead, it wasn't surprising that atrophy had been making its roots stiff and strong enough to function as spider legs.

  As it got closer, Mark could make out more details, much to his horror. It had thousands of branches that all ended in sharp talons, which meant it had effectively hundreds of hands ready to tear apart anyone who got within range. Though the trunk of the creature was the most terrifying, as the creature somehow had hundreds of faces growing out of its trunk, all staring at them in either a look of eternal anguish or ravenous hunger.

  So suffice it to say, Mark was very concerned about how exactly they were supposed to deal with this huge tree abomination. This concern came from the fact that he had not seen a single siege weapon on the walls of the fort or in the fort's courtyard, so as far as he knew, they had nothing to hit the monstrosity with from a distance, nor did he think their sythes would have any real effect on the thing.

  "So, do you have any way to deal with that?" Mark asked in a hopeful voice that was tinged with desperation. Faro looked at him for a moment before shaking his head no, then stared straight at the giant tree and tightened the grip on his scythe, clearly getting ready to chop it down like he was a lumberjack, though from the look of its many taloned branch hands, he wouldn't survive the attempt.

  As Mark stared directly at the tree monstrosity once again, trying to figure out how exactly he was going to figure out this one, the stats screen popped up, showing him details of the tree abomination.

  So apparently Mark was looking at the leader of this horde of honored undead laying siege to the fort, which would explain the hole in their chest he guessed. So it seemed it didn't matter whether your heart was still beating or not; the pale tree still wanted it either way. Though the fact that the people he was standing next to had plant-based hearts was a bit of an odd surprise.

  Mark shook his head, trying to physically shake away the distractions as the pale tree ate up what little distance there was between it and the fort's walls. Still having no way to stop it besides fighting it in melee, and even if he and the other defenders won, their ranks would be decimated and would be easy pickings for the honored undead that came pouring in after the pale tree defeat to the defenders.

  So Mark looked at the defenders, trying to see if there was something he could come up with that they had to defeat the pale tree when it dawned on him. His equipment was the answer; his armor, the green heart, should protect him from the talon branch hands of the pale tree, and his sword, the fox's teeth, has the razor grain trait, which will allow him to slice deeply into the pale tree with each swing.

  So with his answer, Mark sets out to act quickly, knowing he needs to fight his way from the walls of the hill fort and in front of the hill directly on the plains. So he makes his way down one of the wall's inner ladders as all the defenders are focused on the pale tree working its way towards them and manages to cram open the north gate wide enough for him to slip through before he closes it shut behind him. Then he rushes forward, his blade held high as he charges toward the pale tree.

  As Mark gets closer and closer to the pale tree, his heart thumping in his ears, he can hear Faro screaming at him to come back. He even looks back at one point to see that the only reason that Faro wasn't dragging him back to the fort's walls was that his men were holding him there, not willing to risk their fort's commander on a random grunt who decided a suicide charge was a great idea. He couldn't blame them on that one, but if this worked, boy would they be wrong.

  As he focuses back on the pale tree, he sees he has closed the distance to the pale tree, and the giant undead tree looks away from the fort as it senses Mark's very fast beating heart. The pale tree lets out a screech of hundreds of different voices from its trunk of men and women in both agony and hunger, and once it gets a few meters from Mark, it reaches for him with over a hundred taloned hands made from branches.

  Mark watched in horror for a moment as what looked like an entire tree line of evil, sharp trees reached for him all at once, and then his swinging sword in desperation as hundreds of wooden hands clawed at him, trying to tear his heart out of his chest. They draw blood all over his body, and as in the first few moments of Mark's struggle against the pale tree, he finds himself covered in minor wounds and pulsating green as his armor prevents the worst of the damage as well as stopping him from dying of blood loss.

  Though Mark doesn't really notice as he swings again and again, taking off hand after hand as the pale trees screams of agony and hunger rattle his skull. Soon the air is filled with the smell of blood as the pale tree leaks a red sap from the wounds caused by Mark. Not that Mark noticed, as he just kept swinging in a blind desperation trying to survive.

  Before, when he had been fighting the honored dead, Mark had been a part of a well-oiled machine. Now, when he was fighting the pale tree, he wasn't a machine; he wasn't even a man anymore; he was just an animal trying to survive as he just swung again and again, and each time he cut off one of the pale tree's branch hands, the pale tree would bring more forward, making him feel like he had to chop down a whole forest or die trying to defeat the pale tree. Eventually, though, the two began to wear each other down as Mark ran out of energy and the pale tree was running out of red sap bleeding out from the hundreds of missing limbs.

  Sadly, though, by targeting the same spot, the pale tree had lost hundreds of branch hands, but it got its prize, and Mark got to watch as his own heart was ripped out and hear the pale tree cry out in joy as it held his still beating heart in triumph, though the pale tree only got to enjoy its prize for a few moments before it expired from all the wounds caused by Mark.

  As Mark's world grew dark, lying on the grassy plain, he looked up at the fort and held a shaky thumb up. He then watched as a bunch of gravel smasher horses came pouring out of the fort from where in the fort he had no idea and charged into the now leaderless honored dead horde. Before a victory screen popped up as the honored horde was quickly decimated.

  You have died in the battle. You are the VIP of the defense of Fort Faria by defeating the enemy commander Pale Tree Calacra in a duel. Reward to be given by Detrei upon return.

  Mark was then forcibly ejected from the game. He woke up still in the same game chair he had been in when he started the game. Though when he saw the clock on his computer's monitor, it confirmed he'd been there for a few hours. "Got to say, I didn't expect to be fighting a giant tree in my first session." Mark said to himself as he thought about how Alyssa had been a lot more than he'd been expecting.

  "Thank all that's holy that worked." I was worried something was going to go horribly wrong." Robert said in an exasperated tone as he stared at the portal where the player called Mark had been sent back through once his temporary body had been killed in the game of Allyssa.

  "Yeah, got to say that Calacra gave us quite a good show. Though I don't recall your boy Hargal making things like that?" Simon asked curiously when he had missed Hargal making giant undead trees.

  "He didn't; he's busy working on some project deep underground. From what I can tell, the undead above ground are making themselves at this point without a lot of input from Hargal." Robert explained to Simon.

  "Huh, didn't know that. It will make things a bit more interesting seeing as that means we'll have a lot of those undead commanders coming out of the woodwork then." Simon said he was intrigued by the idea of the chaos caused by so many undead doing their own thing as they pursue the living.

  "Yeah, for you maybe it's me who has to make sure it doesn't get out of hand." Robert said he was very concerned that so many intelligent undead experimenting with undead creation could lead to big problems down the line, but hopefully once Hargal gets done creating his sapient undead insects, he'll rein in his undead.

  "Well, you can't blame me for enjoying the show, Robert; it is my duty as a showman to enjoy another's performance; it's professional courtesy I extend to my fellow performers." Simon said with an air of sophistication.

  "Right." Robert replied with a tone that implied he found Simon's answer to be highly dubious, but he had a job to do. So he turned back to his workshop's many screens and went back to monitoring the situation on Allyssa, waiting to see what would happen next.