Pollen's head jerked up at the tear. Oh, no. It was getting worse! Breathing out with a ragged breath, Pollen sloshed her feet through the blood and twisted her head up to stare at the new wound. This wasn't good. Clamping both of her hands over her mouth again, she skipped over the physical focus, her mind dredging deep into pure survival instinct now. She had to close the seal, first.

And that's what she did. Pulling deep into her magic, Pollen tried to force the rest of the towering tree to close the new breach, to sew it up as she did the first one.

It had to work. She had no other option. Unable to keep her mind on her body, she fell to her knees in stressed out exhaustion, her focus entirely set on securing safety through magic.

The magic responded as if Pollen truly controlled plant life itself: branches rapidly rising, closing, weaving. Twigs extended out like vines, snaking through the skin-roof above like a series of staples and sutures.

Green light flared along the tree's trunk--and spread, upward, downward, glittering and shining. It grew blinding as it swept up through the branches, down through the roots, igniting the Oil and the smothered saplings below, illuminating the ceiling completely.

The light eclipsed Pollen's vision, and when it faded, what was left was... beautiful.

The roof was rock, but covered in glittering, glowing mosses; the earth beneath her feet was clean, grassy and bright. The tree was thriving, too: flowers left bright spots of color along every branch, and the leaves formed an emerald canopy overhead. A number of seeds hung from strange pods among its branches.

Emuh spoke, then: from above, in the tree, though who knew when he'd arrived there. "A STRONG MAGIC; VERY GOOD," he declared. "NOW..."

He fluttered down to land before Pollen, extending the tip of one wing to brush once--softly--across her fur. She would feel... drained, as though her magic was being sucked away from her, yet the hollow that it had left behind was greater than it had ever been. And the tree itself--its magic seemed to linger, imparting knowledge--a way to grow such things again.

"YOU'RE DONE. NOW GO," Emuh squawked, and turned, taking flight and vanishing into the new forest.

3/3

Pollen has Transcended. She is now a Transcendent Pupil, and may work her way back up to Transcendent Master. Upon attaining this rank, her player may post in Update Me to choose a Specialization (viewable in the Magic section of the Guidebook).

She has also learned the spell:

Sacred Tree:

Transcendent Intensity Manipulation. A planted acorn or other tree-seed is rapidly grown to full-size. Other plant species of the user's choosing will spontaneously grow around its base, and the tree itself will provide long-term nourishment to growing plants in a large area around it.

@Pollen