Chapter 9: Forest of Monsters

Embedding my well-worn staff down into the ground beside me, I collapsed into a heap - heaving and sweating heavily. Remembering to let out a few Magelights for company, I rolled myself to the side, resting my abused body on the thick mat of leaves that covered the forest floor.

From the very hour I entered the gloomy, dark forests I was currently in, I quickly learned that the Darkling Woods was simply not a place to scoff at.

It wasn't the difficulty of the battles that almost did me in.

It was the sheer nature of the location.

Soon enough, the forest gave me an encore of the very thing I was dreading, as the very moment I managed to regain my breathing, it happened all over again.

An eye - pink fleshy lump, eyelids, and wide red irises and all - suddenly appeared from the ground beside my face.

The next second, it burst into blood as I reflexively inserted my staff into the corneas. However, as always, even fast reflexes proved to be too late as a loud wail resounded through the clearing I was in, calling in a fresh set of monsters ready to kill.

"I really hate this forest..." I groaned to myself, picking up my body from the ground as the swarm came close - making that really unforgettable chewing noise as my new enemies came by the dozens. "Why did people even create these kind of monsters?"

Seconds later, silence.

I stared them down. They, having no eyes, just exposed all of their teeth.

It was a field of flowers. Flowers of flesh and bone, of stems that were really arms that grew and jittered sporadically over the ground, of petals that were hands and fingers and teeth.

Lots and lots of sharp teeth.

HAND: Lvl 28 x 32

The staff in my hands glowed blue as my new Mana Channeling skill strengthened the weapon to its utmost limits.

"Let me hope that this time I won't get hit."

Taking a deep breath,  I opened my mouth to let loose a warcry. I jumped, and they struck.

Much blood continued to spill.

You have leveled up! You are now Level 43!

Sturdy (Passive): Lvl 32Laugh at those with armor using this skill! Give those monsters a taste of your washboard abs!

Effect: Reduces physical damage taken by 32%.

Critical Eye (Active): Lvl 19You now can see weaknesses of your targets when this skill is active! Go, Critical Eye!

Effects:

+43% damage to critical hits. Costs 32 mp per minute.

Percentile damage and useability increases with every level. Skill now detects hidden enemies.

Staff Mastery (Passive): Lvl 13'Tis weapon is not just a stick! IT IS MY STICK!

+39% damage to attacks using staves and poles. Mastery now allows basic staff manipulation.

"Well, at least the experience is high..." I tried for a laugh, but it came out short as my breaths hitched into coughs in the process. My hands covered my mouth as I expelled blood from my throat, the metallic taste still on my tongue as I did so.

It wasn't just the monsters who were losing in this quest.

"I really hate all the monsters in this god-forsaken forest..."

The Darkling Woods was a place right out of a horror story. Everything and anything, from the tree branches to the rocks beneath my feet to even the ground, pulsed in an unnatural rhythm, giving the term 'living forest' a whole new meaning.

The monsters were of the same token: from eyes that squirted toxic blood at you to hands made out of flesh and teeth to simple conglomerates of flesh that quite literally explode into acidic chunks in a few hits... To put it simply, they were enemies not to be fought by the faint of heart unless they wanted their hearts to be bitten right out of their chests.

And I would've faced the same demise if it weren't for my newest skills.

The Magelight and the Mana Channeling.

In this forest, light was a precious resource, to the point where it equaled out to delivering damage. Not only did the ability to see your enemies coming help, the monsters were all sensitive to light - enough to even take damage over time.

A single cast of Magelight now lets out seven balls of light, one per skill level. Combine that with my newfound Mana Channeling skill...

Mana Channeling (Active): Lvl 8Charge your blows with energy! Enemies be warned, power glows!

Effect:

Increases weapon's damage in relation to skill level and INT.

Uses 43 mp per minute. You can overcharge this skill for 116% efficiency at double the cost.

Well, there was no wonder then that I managed to take dozens on and live, right?

"Now, let's try that again..."

Placing my still-bloody hands over my legs, I focused on the wounds over my flesh. The HANDs were little trouble to defeat really, as they were just two or three hits away from being turned to mush and pixels. It was just their avenue of attack, chewing, was really troublesome to face, especially when they kept targeting your thighs and ankles.

One. Two. Three. Imagine flesh re-knitting back together, blood being recovered slowly but surely...

Energy and mana pulsed in my hands over my wounds... only to explode again in the familiar sound of spell failure.

A window once again popped up to warn me.

Spell creation failed! This skill is incompatible with your class! You have lost 248 MP!

Minor effects still established! You now have gained 116 HP!

"Damn." I slammed my fists to the ground beside me. "Where am I going wrong with this? According to my expectations, that should've unlocked the next part of my class!"

Seconds later, I realized my mistake. But by then, it was far too late.

All at once, a dozen of eyes suddenly opened in the previously empty forest. From leaves, to the branches, to the rocks, to the trees - they popped up, once again proving their ability to appear on any surface of the forest.

EYE: Lvl 26 x 12

I had to jump to the side as a dozen streams of poisonous liquid suddenly flew in my way.

Summoning several dozen Magelights as I rolled safely to my left - which concurrently merited another level for my Parkour Skill - I jumped for the nearest eye, which was practically vibrating as it attacked me from the tree branch it was on.

Making use of my arms, I grabbed for a nearby branch, running my way upwards over the trunk of the tree, before swinging my glowing staff at the offending eyeball. The bludgeoned end hit it directly over the retinas, stopping for just a second before it continued to press into the soft flesh.

Again, I was thankful for the natural censoring my Critical Eye gave me as the monster exploded into another burst of acidic blood.

In another feat of body movement, I jumped off the tree I was on, only to see it melt into nothing as the other grotesque creatures in the area tried to avenge their kin by sending me more bursts of blood. I then landed back to the place I started from.

I turned around to face the eyes. They all gave me their version of the bloodshot stare.

I sighed again before rushing back into the battle.

The Fool (0).

At the beginning, I had thought it was one of the standard Jack-of-All-Trades classes, where it meant I could learn many skills at the expense of not being able to master any one of them well. However, over the course of my previous night inside the Grimm Orphanage, I realized the contradiction in such a class scheme.

First, this world was different from any RPG. For one, skills in this world were all either taught or learned - people either created their skills or accessed to a new skill by the effects of an item or another player. Thus, by logic, any class could be considered a Jack-of-All-Trades class.

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All it took was to just find whatever unlocked a skill to be able to use it after all.

Second was the way as to how my Class was established: all it took was to just leave a starter town without a class nor equipment at over level 30. That was easy and simple enough, right?

No.

My abnormal case aside, the usual levels for a Player before leaving his starter town was around level 20. That much I knew after seeing the average levels around the gate when I left Pratumira. Plus, at that point, people already had their classes - as much as I knew little about how the other classes were established, everyone I saw then already had weapons in their hands from wands to swords.

Thus, my case was an extremely rare occurrence. Even if someone managed to get their levels to 30 in their starter town and then had all of their equipment stolen, the common sense of either picking up a class or some new weapon would usually invalidate what happened to me from happening.

And in a world such as Fate Online, rarity meant power. The Fool was a powerful class. All I had to was find out what it meant. And Elena, if accidentally, had shown me just what my Class was.

The Tarot classifications, or rather, the Arcana.

Fool. Magician. Priest/Priestess. Empress. Emperor. Hierophant. Lovers. Chariot. Strength. Hermit. Fortune. Justice. Hanged Man. Death. Temperance. Devil. Tower. Star. Moon. Sun. Judgement. World.

I didn't know their meanings, or what some of them implied - though the sound of Death scared me - but as a well-read person, I knew well enough of them to remember the standard Tarot Deck.

Plus, it helped that the moment I had the epiphany a new quest window popped up.

Quest: Power of A FoolYou have realized the meaning of your class. Do you have the ability to release all of its power?

Next Title: The Priest

Titles left: 20.

The next title was obviously a healing-oriented one, but to much to my initial ire, no attempt of creating a healing skill worked. All that happened was frustration and repeated inefficient attempts of healing.

"I guess it really doesn't work that way, huh?"

It was only after managing to fully heal myself - to an exorbitant cost to my mana stores no less - did I finally give up on easily gaining the next title.

"Well, at least for now I have a way to heal myself, mana-costly or not."

Not that mana usage was a problem for me in the first place. Having stat-dumped my build into INT and WIS, I had more mana than I could spend - even skill spamming didn't even seem to change my MP bar. When I had first noticed it, I checked my status for any kind of bug: and there it was, the reason I practically had infinite usage in regards to my weak mana-oriented skills.

Current MP Recovery:

13.2% of total MP per minute = 2046 MP/min

Immediately after that, I left my Critical Eye permanently active inside the forest, as well as my Mana Channeling skill. Thus, their experience bars raised automatically by themselves since then - with no MP cost for me to boot.

"Never mind!" I slapped my hands over the sides of my face to regain focus. "I should be finishing this quest as fast as I can. It's been an entire night and day already since I came in - I simply don't have time to play with the game mechanics!"

At the last part, my voice came out louder than I meant to do, which automatically made me shift into a stance in case I attracted even more monsters.

When nothing arrived, I let myself relax again.

But then, the singing started. As always, the tune was hauntingly clear for a simple melody - somehow resounding through the entire Darkling Woods, through all the plants and trees.

"♩All alone in this forest of yore... We have lost our way...♭"

When I had first heard it, I had been frightened out of my mind. The singing was beautiful - exquisitely so, even - but the words it carried, the thoughts that it symbolized, and the utterly unforgettable amount of emotions the singer gave off...

It was enchanting. Almost to the point it seemed so demonic.

I knew then and there that it had to be related to what Elena was looking for.

"♩Monsters of the woods... Of flesh, blood, and bone...♭"

Following the source of the song, I deactivated all of my light-giving skills - leaving me in the darkness. But it was no matter to me; the Critical Eye skill was useful enough to warn my way away from any of the monsters in the forest in the form of splotches of red.

I jumped, I treaded. The previous night, when I came to the song had already ended.

This time, I was not about to let the monster inside little Elena's dreams to get away.

"♩Grit our teeth and bear... Endure all as we wait for another day...♭"

That was the point where I found the source and perceived it with my very eyes.

In a few words, he - it?- was a personification of terror.

Skin as black as ebony, eyes so red that they lit sharply through the dark night. Curved horns over his head, with dark grey hair coming down in curls framing his face. His smile was terrifying, and the armor that covered his large body even more so.

A large black sword, huge enough to through people's torsos with no problem, hung over the right side of his waist.

I gulped when I realized the lack of red in my vision as I gazed over his location.

Red means monsters. Thus, there are no monsters around him. Did he kill them all?

If then, I didn't need a Magelight to know that the monster of a man before me was surrounded by pools of blood.

The song stopped. The forest returned to silence. All I could hear then was the sound of my own body shaking.

.....

However, for the sake of that little girl...

.....

I didn't know anything about the man before me. I didn't know what his level was, or whether he was a monster or some sort of quest NPC to be defeated.

All I just knew was that if my quest didn't end, tonight would be another night filled with nightmares for Elena.

.....

I won't give in to fear!

.....

In all happened quickly in the span of a few seconds.

Jumping out of the bushes, I spun my staff behind me, it crackling as I overcharged my Mana Channeling skill over it. In the same time, my left hand extended in front of me - letting out a hundred of my Magelights in an effort to blind the monster before me.

My eyes were closed to prevent me from being blinded as well, but I could effectively see through my eyelids as my Critical Eye guided me. Making sure to find the reddest spot in my vision, I judged it to be where the man's head was supposed to be.

I swung my staff, hard with all of my weight before it.

....That was when I heard the man before me scream in fright.

"AHHHHHH! IS THIS AN AMBUSH? HELP, SOMEBODY, HELP!"

My staff hit his face. Thus, defeating him very anticlimactically.

"OOF!"

All dramatic tension gone, I opened my eyes - only to see the same frightening figure I had just seen minutes before on the ground, with his health bar in the deep red and tears in his eyes. His face was bleeding, but what really took my attention was the sharp indent of his face on the surface of the tree he had flown to. Then, I looked over his head, and there it was - another light-grey Alignment Cursor.

That was the point I realized I made a mistake.

"Oh man, I think I just hit an innocent person..."

That was how I, Rain the Fool, met Myrrdin the Swordsman.