I stand still, staring down at the strange tree ahead of me for a full minute, trying to figure out an approach while I begin to channel a Dragonfire Bolt. As far as I can tell, this monster is just a tree, a sapling even, and for the full minute that I watch it, it does not move. Six of the golden spawn seeds dangle from its top, their glow beckoning. Those six treasures represent twelve permanent attribute points, enticing.
The catfish, the first rank two monster I beat on my own, guarded a chest that contained much better equipment than these few fruits, and that fight had almost killed me. That monster had also been significantly lower level than this one. Looking at it in that light, it would be a poor risk to charge headlong into a fight against this thing, but at the same time, I didn’t feel any fear looking at this monster.
The fire roiling over my hand, a mass of orange mana condensed in such a small space that it seemed almost like a liquid, pushed for me to take on this challenge. For the first time in a long time, I felt desire really pulling at me, beckoning me to push forwards, to overcome a real obstacle in my way.
There was no doubt in my mind that this monster was far more dangerous than its simple appearance gave away. Never in my life have I encountered a harmless monster; this Mycose Territory Bulb will be no different. Still, I know now, in this moment, that I will win.
My legs coil, bending, boots digging into the soft detritus of the forest floor, grass roots snapping deep beneath the fallen leaves as I bend forwards. Like popping tendons, the ground beneath my feet gives away, slowly compacting, while I plant my non-burning hand on the ground in front of me. My full concentration goes into my legs as I keep my eyes on the monster in front of me, my thighs growing tighter and tighter as I compact my legs as far as I am able. When I can’t prepare any more, I let a slow exhale slip through my lips, breath puffing in front of me in the cool air of the forest.
Like a bolt of lightning, I explode off of the ground, a streak of orange light chasing me as I run forwards, straight towards the Territory Bulb. The distance between what I can see of the monster and myself shrinks in an instant, my legs pumping, beating the ground, as I sprint straight at the monster. Some reaction, a shiver shaking up the stalk of the sapling in front of me, threatens to give me pause as I close the distance, but I press on. In the bare few seconds it takes for me to reach the tree hollow the monster hides inside of, the sapling bends, its flowering head turning in my direction like a face.
Green spores, so small that they would be indistinguishable from smoke to the eyes of anyone other than a magician, spray into the air from the spot on the sapling’s crown where the branch-like tendrils meet the central mass. There is doubt that the green spores are toxic, but the Territory Bulb is too slow. By the time the cloud of spores blooms, a fast-racing cloud of noxious air, I am already past. The momentary weight of a spawn seed falls into my free hand before disappearing into my inventory. It won’t do to burn up the treasures I am after.
A blink later, my foot collides with the wall of the tree hollow, my speed too much for me to stop fully. I leave the ground, both boots clapping into the wooden wall behind the Mycose Territory Bulb, vibrations from my collision shaking up through the inside of the huge tree and my legs. I feel a pop in my ankle. My speed might make me race like a monster now, but my body isn’t prepared to take a full collision with a wall.
The Territory Bulb begins to bend in my new direction, its movements slower than I thought before. A part of my mind recognizes that I am still on the side of the wall, the weight of my collision still being absorbed by my legs, gravity hardly a force on me for the moment. It is almost as if time moves like molasses. For a fleeting moment I am afraid that the spores have gotten to me, infected me, and are now messing with my head. Then, I realize what this really is, the battle fever that Halford would sometimes talk about.
The creaking of the inner tree wall beneath my feet pushes me back to the task at hand. In the hollow of the tree, I do not even land on the ground as my feet explode off the wall, my jump carrying me straight past the Territory Bulb, another spawn seed falling into my hand, disappearing into my inventory. I misjudge my jump, landing on my side rather than on my feet, rolling on my shoulder out of the hollow of the tree before regaining my feet. The coolness of a passing shadow brings my attention upwards, and I dive to the side just barely ahead of a long gray mass that crashes into the ground where I had just been standing.
The crinkly remains of dead leaves and dirt explode into the air from the collision. In front of me, pulling itself up from the ground, is a limb of gray mass nearly twenty feet long and a foot around, sprouting from the ground just a few feet away. The heavy tendril bends like rubber as it pulls itself out of the ground, the space where it had just crashed down a flattened mat of dirt. I do not consider the strange tendril long before I flick the fire off my hand towards its base where it sprouts out of the ground. The ball of fire explodes against the dry leaves, a plume of fire sprouting up the tall stalk of gray, fire climbing up and along its length like a torrent.
Unlike the other Mycose monsters I killed before, this monster shrieks as the fire chews into it. The sound is awful, like the earth groaning, split apart by the whine of an out of tune guitar. The ground beneath my feet rumbles as the mass of gray spasms through the air like a burning whip, and I begin to realize that this monster is a lot bigger than I at first understood. The burning limb sprouts out of the earth nearly twenty feet away from the sapling in the center of the hollow, and as the earth continues to shake, fountains of dirt and leaves explode out of the ground as eight more twenty-foot long tendrils snake skyward.
I fall to the side, a green cloud of spores passing over me, splashing against the mushroomed trunk of a tree behind our battle. The mushrooms climbing up the tree erode in a fraction of a second as the spores pour over them, their vibrant color turning gray and chalky, calcification covering them before they start falling off the tree one after another.
Rolling back to my feet, two spears of gray stab into the ground around me. I dash towards the sapling again. The tendrils shouldn’t be able to attack me so easily when I am right near it; at least, that is what I hope.
Two more of the limbs that spike up from the ground slap down in my path, but I dodge around them easily, their movement titanic but slow. I toss a few motes of dragonfire towards the base of the tendrils as I run, the unchanneled attacks not nearly so effective, but still manage to spark fires that eat into the gray meat. The ground heaves as burning tendrils pull away, spasming and charring, and I duck into the hollow of the tree.
In the center of the hollow, the sapling spews a cloud of spores straight up, covering itself in the green death. Wincing, knowing I might ruin the spawn seeds, I release a gout of orange fire over the sapling, the barest licks of the flame cutting through the green haze. The sapling recoils from the fire, bending away from me like a curling finger, but again it is too slow.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
I slide forwards, both hands shooting out this time, grabbing ahold of a pair of spawn seeds that disappear into my inventory. I linger, fingers grasping another of the seeds, my left hand just barely missing the last of the seeds as the sapling bends away. I jump to the side with the seed, nothing other than knowing that I cannot stop moving pushing me to do so. A gray tendrils shoots into the hollow of the tree, the walls surrounding the sapling and me preventing most of the limbs from being able to reach inside. I am not sure as to whether it would have hit me if I hadn’t dodged to the side, but seeing the tendril stab into the bark on the inside of the tree, tunneling all the way through, I’m glad I jumped.
A stupid smile splits my face as I slap the tendril, pouring burning power over its rubbery skin. The earth bulges beneath me as the tendril retreats, but the fire scouring it only continues to spread. Alone with the sapling again, I see that it is curled in on itself in the center of the hollow, trying to hold onto its last spawn seed. My feet are already in motion before I know it, the battle fever pushing me on and on.
Bouncing off the walls of the hollow, I get onto the opposite side of the sapling, finding the last spawn seed laying out, ready to be plucked. The moment I reach towards it, the earth beneath me bulges again, the sapling rising away from me as a torrent of gray matter springs up right in front of me, leaving the spawn seed behind in my hand. A face made of gray decay and fury stands in front of me as my feet coil to jump away. One great green eye stares down at me as a mouth the size of a barn door opens wide, revealing teeth made of wood splinters.
The world lurches, time having changed in some strange way, everything around me speeding up. The face of the Mycose Territory Bulb falls towards me as if bending on some huge rubbery neck. Disorientation and weakness washes over me for the barest of seconds. My boot slips in the detritus, my focus lost as the battle fever slips away from me. A gray tendrils slaps into my back, lifting my feet from the ground, hurling my body towards the descending teeth in front of me. The mouth of the Mycose Territory Bulb comes down on me, its bite ready to split me in half.
A horrendous wrenching sound forces me to open my eyes. The momentary flash of panic fades as I feel needle-like teeth digging into my back, easily piercing through my shoddy bearskin cover. Teeth loom over me, moving an inch at a time, crunching down on the steel chest just next to me. My hand holds the handle on one side of the chest, wedging it between the jaws of the Mycose Territory Bulb; the steel box the only thing stopping the monster from biting down on my abdomen.
I put a boot into the monster’s pallet, pushing against its jaw with all my might. I may be a lot stronger than I once was, the closing mouth of the Mycose Territory Bulb even gives an inch or two as I strain against it with all of my might, but I am well aware that I might only be able to hold it off for a second or two. The keening scream of the monster shatters my eardrums as it tries to bite down on the pest halfway in its mouth, sending me into a world of high-pitched whines. The lower teeth of the monster dig deeper into my back as I push against it with everything I have, a silent roar echoing out of my mouth.
We hold in a stalemate for seconds longer, and I feel the steel chest at my side finally give away, forcing me to sacrifice another chest to this monster. I do so gladly, the precious seconds well worth it. My legs scream, bones and muscles sending jolting pain through my body to join the red in my vision, but still I hold on. Then, I feel my magic hit its crescendo, the burning fire in my hand having reached its pinnacle.
In front of me, the hideous mouth of the monster doesn’t give way to a throat, more a slab of hideous and confusing innards. My grin gone, feeling rivulets of my blood spreading across my back, I flick the ball of fire towards the back of the Mycose Territory Bulb’s mouth. The explosion of orange magic is enough to blow me cleanly out of the monster’s mouth.
My back collides with the wall of the tree hollow, barely enough presence of mind left to me to allow me to duck a swing of a gray tendril. In front of me, the monster thrashes, flames pouring out of its open mouth as it swings its bulbous head around inside the hollow. I sprint away from it, weaving through gray tendrils that spasm in all directions, wreaking havoc on everything even remotely close to the monster.
I fall to my knees almost a hundred feet away from the monster, watching as it wails and convulses in the tree hollow, flames slowly burning out of the center of its weird body like windows into the three hells. Watching its death throes does a bit to soothe my pain, but the big monster takes a long time dying. I keep an eye out for anything else in the forest approaching from another direction, but I doubt that anything will. The wailing of the burning fungus is enough to drive off anything, though, at the moment, I cannot hear its screams.
After a full two minutes, the last of the monster’s life has left it. Galea appears in front of me, a window held in her hands and a smile on her dragony face.
You have defeated Mycose Territory Bulb
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!
“Congratulations, Mistress Charlene!” she cheers, clicking her claws together in applause.
“Thanks.” I try to stand, finding my legs too sore to even manage that. My attention flicks to the top of my vision. With my incredible recovery, the sprains racing up through my legs should be gone by now. I am a bit startled to find that my Healing Points have been completely drained, despite the mostly superficial injuries I gained from the fight with the monster. I run my hands up along my back, finding that the bite marks are still fully unhealed.
Ten minutes of pondering on the strangeness passes by as my recovery slowly takes care of my injuries enough to allow me to stand. At the end of the ten minutes, I can only come to one conclusion. Despite how ridiculous it might seem, I can only guess that the heightened state of the battle fever somehow depletes my healing points. I would consult my books to try and figure out the mystery, but I am well aware at this point that even the idea of healing points is a construction designed by the Faeth. I really do need to travel to that remote island someday.
As the seconds tick past, I feel my strength return to me more and more. I kick one of the gray tendrils laying out on the ground as I walk towards the hollow, absently pushing the power of Disenchantment into the corpse of the huge monster. A huge chunk of my mana disappears in an instant, something that mostly goes unnoticed by me as an eruption of pink smoke blows the ground apart. I fall, the ground beneath my feet collapsing for a good three hundred feet in all directions as the body of the subterranean monster is turned into a pink cloud that spreads out all around me. While I cough, lying on my back, the pink descends at me like a waterfall, pouring into my inventory. The forest returns to silence as the mist vanishes, leaving me lying in a huge crater staring at tree roots all around me.
A crack cuts through the ground, the massive tree the Territory Bulb cut into to house its body collapsing. Several hundred feet of ancient tree falls towards my left, sending a cascade of branches, leaves, and more than a few monsters to the earth as it snaps through the forest. The collision of the trunk against the ground is the single loudest thing I have ever heard, and in the wake of the trees death, the forest falls into silence.
More minutes pass before I pull myself out of the earthen crater, climbing to the lip and observing the devastation left by the death of the massive tree. “I think that is enough monster hunting for today,” I tell Galea.