Deer? Finally, something one might actually expect to see in the woods. He was extremely grateful that he hadn’t been near a zoo or a place where large cats were common when he got launched thousands of feet into the air. As they came closer, Alex noted that the largest deer was a buck and the two following behind were does. When they first came into view, he didn’t think they were much larger than normal, but he was so very wrong. By the time they were close enough to have thrown a rock at them, Alex could see that the buck stood much taller than any normal deer. Sure, at this point it was expected that they’d be larger but holy shit. When he first saw them coming through the trees, they already looked massive but that was an understatement. Alex estimated that the buck had to be standing at least seven feet at the shoulders, not including its head and massive antlers. The only saving grace seemed to be that the buck had to constantly maneuver its antlers around the trees so they didn’t get caught.
There was a brief and fleeting hope that Alex felt when he’d seen that the creatures were deer. The moment he was able to see the bucks red eyes and foaming mouth, that hope poofed. He guessed this thing had to be Mana Crazed like the other animals he’d come across. He wasn’t sure that he’d be able to or if it would cause the deer to react, but Alex decided to use Advanced Identify on the monstrous animal.
Mana Crazed White-Tailed Deer
Level: 19
Sex: Male
Skills: Parasitic Pack Leader
Status: Enraged
It worked and the deer didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t get as much information as he’d hoped for but knowing the level was at least something and he had no idea what Parasitic Pack Leader did. His Identify didn’t give him the option to expand on what the skill may do but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. This thing was an even higher level than the massive Turkey and he’d not really had to fight that monstrosity. Regardless of how strong this new threat was, he wasn’t in a great situation to avoid it. Slowly, he positioned himself in such a way that he’d be able to lunge for the buck’s underbelly when it got close enough. If he tried to run, the deer was large enough to start plowing directly through the forest after him. Nothing to it other than fighting for his life yet again, he supposed. His thoughts of fighting started to wain as the trio started to veer away from where he was hiding. They hadn’t noticed Alex or his companions and a part of him thought he may be able to just stay still and let them pass. Before he could fully entertain the thought, something hit the buck in the face.
nnnnOOOar!
The stag let out a pained roar only feet away from Alex which decided the course of action for him. He darted out from his hiding spot, ran directly under the reeling monster and jammed his blade as deep into its underbelly as he could manage. The knife was pulled away from Alex as the male stood up onto its back legs and tried to kick out at whatever had stabbed it. Having the knife ripped from his hands, Alex ducked to avoid the hooves barreling towards his face. Rolling away from the kicking beast, he scrambled back to his small barrier. Taking a brief moment to observe the battle, he could see that V.V. had hit another of the deer in the face with one of her concoctions while the third was standing completely still. The moment he saw the frozen deer he knew that Opal had snared it with Gaze Upon Prey. He wasn’t sure how long the doe would be frozen, so he decided to take down the buck as fast as possible. Ruby and the Sphere were steadily pummeling the stag in its head and neck, little flaming spots of burning fur were visible after every hit from Ruby. Emerald, Sapphire and his Orblet still circled him, and he wasn’t sure what V.V. was doing in that moment. Only a second or two had passed before he was back in it, rushing towards the flailing male in an attempt to grab his blade that was still protruding from the chest of the beast. Whatever V.V. had hit it in the face with had either blinded it or at least severely impaired its vision.
There were no words said, no commands issued as the group tore into their opponents. Alex fully trusted that V.V. knew what she was doing, and his other companions didn’t need any sort of direction either. He thought briefly about how he, himself didn’t know what he was doing at all but the thought quickly faded as he was upon the stag again. Dodging around the front of the massive beasts hooved kicks, Alex waited for its feet to land on the ground. Once it had planted its legs once more and before it could rear up again, he lunged into the space the blade was lodged, grabbed ahold and yanked. The blade came free and with it, a spray of blood and viscera. He’d clearly hit something important with his first stab but didn’t stop. Quickly moving to the back end of the monster, Alex began stabbing anything he could reach that he felt would impede or deeply wound the creature.
Just as the stupid part of his brain thought that the battle was going smoothly, he felt a snap in his mind and knew that Gaze Upon Prey had worn off and that the other doe was free. Whipping around to see this new threat took his focus off the current one. Doing so was a very bad idea as he felt a crushing pain in his side and then a weightlessness as he began to soar through the air. The stag had reached around its body and bitten Alex around the waist, lifted and thrown him up and away. Alex’s primary thought as he tumbled through the air other than Oh shit! was Did that deer just bite me? and then he hit the ground.
The air was knocked out of him, but the landing wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it should’ve been. Before he could put his arms under himself to get back up, he was already rising to his feet. Emerald and Sapphire were under his armpits, lifting him back up. Once back on his feet, he could see Opal slamming into the doe it had used Gaze Upon Prey on while Ruby and the Sphere continued to work on the stag. Neither of the deer were rushing at him, so he took a moment to catch his breath. V.V. had led the other doe away from them and seemed to be attacking it with a combo of head whacks and Consume, which let off dark bursts of energy when used.
Emerald’s Wound Care Aura, the Healing Orblet and his own natural healing boosted by Sapphire’s Boost Recovery were already hard at work lessening the pain in his side, so Alex decided he needed to get back into the fray. Before rushing back, he used Identify on the buck again and noted that all three of his blades status effects had triggered. The deer was Poisoned, Diseased and Infested. He still wasn’t entirely sure what Infested meant but he hoped it meant the giant creature would go down faster. Alex twisted left and right, making sure nothing was too out of sorts and darted back towards the giant buck. Even after being thrown over ten feet away and through multiple limbs and bushes, he still held his blade. He wasn’t sure if Poison stacked but he’d just assume it did and start slashing.
Despite being extremely large and imposing monsters, the deer weren’t especially good at attacking or defending themselves in the tight confines of the woods. Their size was an extreme hindrance to them as they tried desperately to attack with teeth, hooves or antlers in the case of the male. Some trees bent and others broke as the deer flailed around. The stag continued to roar out in challenge to foes he could not see while the does fought in near silence. Opal’s opponent reared up and stumbled back a few steps. In doing so, the doe lucked into putting distance between itself and the milky-white demon marble that was attacking it. Before Opal could rush back in, it was cut with a descending hoof that slammed it into the soft soil. Alex knew something had happened to Opal but couldn’t spare a moment to check on it while he was avoiding the sweeping antlers and stamping legs of the stag.
V.V.’s elongated sharp body slammed into the does head one last time and it collapsed. The deer had an enormous amount of endurance compared to the other creatures they’d faced directly but were unfit to fight against such small and hard-hitting adversaries. She drew herself back and looked to the other threats. Alex was handling the stag quite well while it looked like Opal was fairing decently against its opponent, just as she was able to head towards Alex and help him finish off the leader, Opal went down. Sure, Alex could revive his Orbs but what she also suspected was that if one of them died, Alex wouldn’t be perfectly fine. Such intimately combined beings like Alex and his Orbs were very rare but there were some sparse examples she could pull from. All of those examples made it seem that if one part of the whole is injured or died, the other parts are severely affected as well.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
She rushed towards where the doe had stomped down once, twice and then on third descending moment, right before V.V. slammed into the does neck, a Dome appeared. The doe slammed its hooves into the incredibly hard substance and instantly snapped its front legs. Where the doe had been almost silent in its fight with Opal before, now it let out a hoarse scream of pain as it collapsed over the Dome. V.V. did not waste time in Consuming lifeforce from the creature and attempting to stab her shape shifted body into the near defenseless animal. The doe tried to flail around the best that it could but ultimately V.V.’s knifelike body slammed home, and it took its final gasps of air.
When the second doe died, the stag stumbled into a tree. Alex wasn’t sure if it'd been the slash he’d just given it or if one of its back legs gave out, but he didn’t stop to observe. The male froze for a moment while his enemy continued to stab at its body before letting out a roar of pain that Alex hadn’t heard it make before. Alex jumped back, expecting something new to happen but what he saw wasn’t some hidden attack. The buck looked to deflate in size as it cried out in pain. Only a few seconds passed while Alex watched the giant shrink from the over nine-foot monstrosity to a more manageable seven-foot goliath. The deer fell to its front knees for a moment before it started to convulse. Alex wasn’t sure what was happening as he slowly approached the beast. Sickly purple fluid ran from its wounds and raised veins could be seen writhing under its fur coated flesh. Falling to its side, its legs kicked out in different directions, the head spasmed and searched around with blinded eyes while it struggled to take gasping breaths. The powerful deer went from being a horror of a creature to something deserving of pity.
“V.V!” Alex called to his companion who was still hovering over the doe she and Opal had killed. She left the dead deer and dome to fly over to Alex.
“Oh, that’s gruesome indeed. Why haven’t you finished it off yet?” V.V. said when she saw the state of the buck.
“What’s happening to it?” Alex said as he prepared to end the buck but needed to get his timing right to avoid kicking legs and sharp antlers.
“Hmm… You’re Poisons I suppose. Interesting that it took affect so suddenly though.” She said as Alex pinned the stags’ antlers to the ground before stabbing his blade into its temple, ending the monster. Wiping sweat away from his matted hair, Alex stood and looked around himself. Three dead monsters and only minor wounds to himself and Opal. He wasn’t sure how he knew but Opal wasn’t in too bad of shape. He almost felt it every time Opal took a hit from the doe, but he never felt like Opal was about to be destroyed.
“Anything else around us?” Alex asked, feeling the adrenaline starting to fade away but still not willing to leave him until he knew they were safe.
“There were several creatures that got close but then moved further away when the stag bellowed the first time.”
“Ok…” Alex said, leaning against a tree and sinking into a squatting position. He closed his eyes and breathed in calming breaths.
“That was an ideal situation for that type of monster. If we fight more of them, we should try to lure them into such tightly packed areas again.” V.V. said as she began to siphon blood out of the dead buck. She twirled the purple tinged blood around herself before depositing several streams into vials she produced from her storage.
Alex was tired again and he had a great reason this time around. Fighting super-sized venison to the death was right up there with fantastic reasons to take a nap as far as he was concerned. While he’d love a nice siesta, he had things to do, one of which was to inspect his Orbs. Opal slowly hovered into Alex’s view and hung there for him to inspect. There was a crack the thickness of a hair that ran in several directions in Opal’s porcelain body, but he could visibly see the cracks closing.
“That’s convenient.” Alex said to his little Orb and had the others float past him slowly so he could inspect them as well, including his Sphere. He still wasn’t sure about why it responded similarly to his Orbs, but he wasn’t mad about it as he pulled up both the Sphere’s status and the summoning description.
Greater Sphere
Duration: 0:00:00
Durability: 0/0
Quantity: 0
Level: 0
Greater Summon Sphere
Call a Greater Sphere from another realm to fight on your behalf for a period of time.
Duration: 5 minutes + 1 minute per user Level.
Durability: 100 + 100 per user Level.
Quantity: 1
Level: 1
“What the hell am I looking at?” Alex asked V.V.
“I’m not exactly sure. The duration shows zero, as well as durability and quantity. Any of those showing zero should unsummon the Sphere. You’re pretty weird, did you know that?” V.V. said after floating around to view Alex’s System panels.
“Weird… Right. So, since it hasn’t unsummoned, does it just stay now?” Alex said, confused.
“Do whatever you want. Unsummon it and resummon it to see if the glitch goes away. Keep it around and see if it’s invulnerable now that it basically says it has no durability.”
“You’re approaching this from a very nonchalant angle…”
“Go with the flow, like I always say. Zzzhazzha!” V.V. said, a twinkling laugh coming out at the end. She then proceeded to use telekinesis to open the stag’s mouth and scoop up bloody foam for her jars. Alex turned his head away at the sight and looked to the other two deer. He slowly got to his feet and unsteadily walked over to each of the does and collected the loot. Once he’d made his way back to V.V, she was done harvesting what she wanted from the animal. Alex looted the buck and settled down next to a tree several yards away from the deceased beasts. The System hadn’t made itself known at all during the fight and only after he had fully planted his butt on the ground did a window pop up.
System Alert.
Combat initiated with Mana Crazed White-Tailed Deer Level 19.
Combat initiated with Mana Crazed White-Tailed Deer Level 17.
Combat initiated with Mana Crazed White-Tailed Deer Level 17.
Combat finished. User defeated 1 Mana Crazed White-Tailed Deer Level 19.
Combat finished. User defeated 1 Mana Crazed White-Tailed Deer Level 17.
Companion Combat finished. User defeated 1 Mana Crazed White-Tailed Deer level 17.
System experience has been acquired.
System rewards are awaiting retrieval.
System quest updated.
“Nice.” Alex said after he read over the log. Everything looked standard except for the System quest update. He focused on that line and a new System panel appeared.
- Claim the Zone! -
You’ve declared your intention to claim a Zone while being less than 10 miles away from it. Congratulations on your attempt to stake your claim!
Defeat the current subjects of the Zone! 3/12
Defeat the current pseudo-Ruler of the Zone! 0/1
Time until pseudo-Ruler takes True Control. 19 hours 2 minutes 7…6…5…4…
“Oh wow! Those were some of the monsters for the Zone quest!” Alex called over to V.V. who’d been messing with different colored vials again. She put her toys away and floated over to him.
“That’s good to know. We can gauge the other nine off of these three. We can also expect the pseudo-Ruler to be around twice as strong as the stag at the very least.” V.V. said while observing the Status panel. She didn’t seem to notice Alex’s elation completely deflate at the thought of the boss monster being at least double in strength as the buck.
“That sucks…” Alex mumbled to himself as he looked at the pseudo-Ruler words.
“Only if we die. Just think of the amount of loot you’ll get from something twice as strong as the stag. I’m sure it gave you something pretty decent, right? Now double that reward!” V.V. said, clearly hearing Alex’s mumbled dejected comment.
“I didn’t even think about looking the loot over. I planned to look it all over after I sat down and just pulled it all into my storage. Then the combat log popped up…”
“Well don’t keep us waiting. What did you get?”