“Foggy?! Is that you?” I asked again, not believing my berry eyes for even a moment.
Fogwarth had evolved. He had fucking evolved! The inch worm I had come to know and somewhat like on occasions was now… humanoid. In some ways the most humanoid thing I had seen to date. I could only stare at the behemoth of a thing that only partially resembled my worm friend, sizing him up as he passed Foghurdt and realizing that he was nearly the same size as his brother now. I was even more taken back when I realized that Fogwarth, unlike his siblings, was only on his Tier 1 evolution path since he was considered “unevolved,” and he was already radiating a powerful, domineering form. I was beyond impressed, and when my lips started to move into a smile I finally saw it. I finally saw the Foggy I had come to know buried in that new body.
He gave me his pudgy smile in return. There he was.
“I just can’t believe it,” I said, giving him another once over. “You’re…”
“Legendary?” He said, taking on a cocky pose with his arms folded over his chest. “Powerful? Incredible?”
“So Goddamn big!” Is what I finished my sentence with, and we both shared a laugh. “Thanks, by the way. I know you requested the armor for me. It’s appreciated. Not quite so worried about some tigers now.”
Fogwarth motioned to H’Acur as he laughed again, reaching out and accepting a long pole with a threaded end like a screw. Fogwarth held the shaft, feeling its weight and moving it around a bit. After a moment he reached out, flipped me upside down, and proceeded to jam the threaded pole into my berry hole.
Alright, I should explain that part. The bottom part of the armor had a thicker layer of metal that had a threaded hole in it. I didn’t think much of it since it didn’t go all of the way through, leaving my berry bottom berry protected, and Fogwarth had attached the end of the huge pole to my armor, essentially turning me into some kind of berry-on-a-stick. A fruit-kebab.
“Ah, splendid! Just superb!” Fogwarth said as he hoisted me up into the air and held me like some kind of war hammer. I obviously shouted and screamed my protest as he took slow-motion practice swings with me before resting me over his shoulder like an old movie hobo’s bindle. “What craftsmanship, dearest H’Acur! The balance, the weight, the power. I should have expected nothing less than excellence from such an esteemed artist.”
From my vantage, now high up in the air and trapped in a spiked steel ball, I could see H’Acur just give Fogwarth a shrug before returning to his duties, clearly wanting everyone to leave.
“What is going on? What am I missing here?” I shouted. “Why am I a metal lollipop?”
“Ya sure do complain a bunch for a berry,” H’Acur answered as he began to pound away at another heated piece of metal straight from the forge. “Let me break it down for ya. 7th here said ya need combat experience if ya want to evolve, right? Well, hard to get that when ya can’t hurt a damn thing. So, he proposed we turn ya into a big ol’ weapon but have it register as armor for ya. Tricky thing it was, tryin’ to play the system to not give the wielder the experience like that. Still, his plan worked out alright. Yer just wearin’ armor, he’s just swinging a pole.” He hammered a few more times before sticking the now flattened metal back into the heat source, letting it warm up to a scalding red again. “Sad thing is that Fogwarth here could barely hold anything but a dang sword before he evolved.”
“That is it…” Fogdahn answered like an echo from the shadows. I shivered hearing his voice come from directly behind me. “That is why you finally accepted your fate, brother. Is it not? You chose your path after all of this time so that you could wield the berry properly.”
I froze, and everything grew silent except for the chime of the hammer once again.
“Is… is that true, Foggy?” I asked. My gut sank, suddenly full of guilt and burden. Had I really done this to him? Had I forced his hand so much?
Fogwarth gave me a pshhh for some reason, and shrugged me off. “It was destined to happen one day, sir berry. We can only flee from fate, yet we may never win the race. The road of destiny is one that veers for no mere traveler. For many a moon I had worked and fought to gain a new path, to find a path that truly was remarkable. You see, sir berry, each of the throne’s descendants may reveal a path unique to only them, and I had stumbled on my own some time ago. I may not be a [Gladiator Moth] like dear Foghurdt, or an [Eldritch Horror Moth] as Fogdahn has become.
“A what? Horror moth? Why is that even a thing?” I asked. “Who the fuck thought that was a good idea?”
I was completely ignored.
“But, perhaps my calling is not that of the moth I had so desperately chased all of these years. Perhaps I am destined to be the Flightless Guard for all of the days that remain. Yet, I stand here now embracing a new path; one parallel to my dearest Companion. I, Fogwarth, the Flightless Guard, have embraced my true evolution.”
I quickly brought up his status in my Companion menu and looked it over just long enough to bring up his new race.
[Warforged Spanworm]
“I am pleased you have found your calling, brother,” Fogdahn said again. “I wish you success on your second path.”
“Yeah, sure,” Foghurdt said with a grunt. “Let us be on the move, Fogdahn. We have lost enough ground with this idle prattling as it is. We have battle to attend.”
“Yes, of course,” Fogwarth said as both of his brothers left the forge and hastily headed for the northern gate. “I suppose we must be off as well. H’Acur has but one last item for me, and then we are off to the southern border, sir berry. And, while I hope we do not cross paths with creatures of ill intentions, I certainly hope we can put you to good use.”
I grinned, still basically staring up at the boards on the ceiling. “Yeah. Let’s smash some shit.”
The southern path was stunning. We circled around the enormous, dark castle as we followed a flattened trail through endless fields of produce. The golden swaying acres of wheat seemed endless as we passed, and from my new height I could just begin to see over the top and out over the soft wheat stalks. They seemed to glimmer and move as the sun rose higher like shifting sand dunes. Every now and then Fogwarth moved me to a different shoulder, not seeming to have too much of an issue with the apparent weight of the weapon, and I would get a different view as he did so.
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He had new armor made along with my weird spiky ball contraption. His new armor was round and upside-down onion shaped with a classic knight helmet and visor that were also shaped in a way that resembled a chode of an onion, only upright this time. The torso armor was rounded, in contrast to much of the sleeker flat armor I had seen within the main town and castle. It resembled a round carapace, with the material being a dark gray like wrought iron which failed to reflect the sunlight. It didn’t shine even a little bit, and I could tell at a glance that this was heavy, thick armor meant to embrace damage rather than dodge it. Perhaps a perk of the evolution was that Fogwarth was more than strong enough to wear the armor and wield me like a colossal mace.
Shortly into the walk Fogwarth decided to resume his humming. For a while I just let it be, just happy to see him be excited again as he shook the ground with every thundering step. His humming spanned minutes at first, then to an hour, and before I knew it I had hummed along to whatever tune he must have cycled through a three dozen times at that point. Yet it kept going and I kept liking it. I think I missed it when he had stopped before. Hard to believe I had barely been in this world a day and already there were things I missed like his humming, the feeling of the sun on my berry skin, the growling of [Brush Tigers].
Oh fuck. Come on.
“Fogwarth!” I whisper-screamed. “Fogwarth! There-
“I know,” he broke from his humming and answered quickly. “Two of them. Both are quite a bit larger than the pack we faced merely a day prior, sir berry. Be on your guard.”
“Be on my guard?!” I said a bit louder, more like a whisper-roar. “You people just let these things come this close to the castle? To the town?!”
Fogwarth let out a belly chuckle. “No, of course we do not! That would be foolish! Barbaric! Preposterous!” He was now at his full volume, speaking as if a megaphone was lodged in his throat. I nervously looked around, barely hearing the growls still from under his voice. “You do love a good joke, sir berry! No, this just means the southern wall has been breached and our patrol units of the area must have perished.”
Fogwarth looked down, shaking his head and placing the hand that wasn’t holding me to his forehead. He squeezed his brow and sighed. “I shall mourn them, sir berry. I shall spend many a night wishing it were me that had been taken. Oh, the Gods are the truest of incarnated cruelty! Why? Why must you punish us so?”
“Shh!” I hushed him from under my breath. “Keep your fucking voice down! There are Goddamn tigers here, Fogwarth!”
He looked up, both hands grabbing the shaft of his weapon, which was me, and turning around in a complete 180.
“Ah, more than two then,” Fogwarth said, looking off into the underbrush somewhere that I couldn’t follow. “Yes, many more.”
“God. Damn. It. Fogwarth!” I shouted at full volume as I began to see the shifting and swaying orange come through the shade of the underbrush. They were like ants, funneling from their dark hiding place one after another. There must have been ten of them in total, but the near-hypnotic sway of their tails and the deeply set rage in their eyes caused me to not keep a proper count. Fogwarth shifted me before him, holding me in a ready stance where I could see a full view of the clearing that would be our gravesite.
“Oh! That is terrific!” Fogwarth exclaimed, bending his knees and raising me just a bit more in preparation to swing. “May that be our phrase for battle? Perhaps something you can say repeatedly that others may also say when they see us?”
“No,” I answered bluntly. “That’s already someone else’s catchphrase, unfortunately.”
“Ah, a pity then,” he said just as the first tiger moved forward.
With a snarl and the scrapping of claws the first approached us. Its speed was incredible, even faster than I had remembered. Each step accompanied a roar, and each roar brought a chorus out from the others. They encircled us more as the center beast drew closer, boxing us in as our first foe leaped for a vicious swipe. Its claws extended as it reached a height that could have been over a dozen feet easily, then fell on us like a shooting star. I screamed as the claws approached with all of the force of a collapsing sky.
Fogwarth braced again, retrained his grip, and then spun around like I was his fucking prom date.
I swung through the air, feeling myself be tugged against gravity like a carnival ride but never departing from the metal shaft that Fogwarth held. Before I realized what was happening, Fogwarth had spun in a full circle, bringing me around with incredible momentum and colliding my spike steel armor against the [Brush Tiger Alpha] with a sickening crunch, rib bones pounded into fine dust by our combined force. I felt the warm splash of blood trickle through my armor’s facial opening immediately.
The tiger roared with a high-pitched pain as it was sent sprawling back down to the earth. Dirt and debris kicked up as it scrambled to its feet, barely able to stand and heavily favoring one side. The beast whimpered but flashed its teeth while the others continued to close on, albeit at a much more cautious rate.
“Well, my berry Companion, shall we see you off to your second level?” Fogwarth said, and I could tell he had on his signature cheeky smile even with his helm on.
“Yeah,” I answered, warm blood dripping down my berry face. “Let’s give them a berry good smashing, Foggy.”
“A superb answer. I must say, I have been waiting with very little patience to test the prowess and power of my upgraded class!” He held me high and took a step toward the [Brush Tiger] pack, radiating confidence as he shouted toward them. “Prepare yourselves, foul felines! You now face a [Warforged Weaponeer]!”
I shrieked like a small child as Fogwarth ripped me down toward the earth, shifting my blueberry guts from the rapid speed. Within the blink of an eye I collided with the ground, shards of splintered stone and waves of milled dirt roaring out around me. I gave an “oof” sound on impact but luckily the now rumbling ground was loud enough to cover it.
Somehow the impact caused a shift with the ground, and within moments large spike pyramids of stone and earth were rippling outward like sound waves in a fanned arc. They raced away from the crater the blow had left and impaled tigers as they met their ranks.
He pulled me up just in time to see the tigers leap and dodge, trying to escape the oncoming death spikes. The larger, clearly older, ones evaded the ability, expertly pouncing between the ripples and staying shy of the points. The younger ones had taken damage, spikes ripping into soft underbellies and piercing poorly placed paws. The large tiger that had pounced first tried to move but was easily turned to Swiss cheese after failing to dodge due to its injuries.
The waves of spikes dissipated within seconds leaving only churned earth and blood in its wake, but the pack had been severely damaged. From my vantage over half were nearly immobile, barely able to stand up and bleeding out fast. The alpha we had faced off with first was very much dead.
“Holy shit. Holy shit!” I exclaimed. “Fogwarth! Holy fucking shit!”
“Haha!” Fogwarth exclaimed right back. “I do not know of this holy shit you speak of, but it sounds as if you are impressed my friend! Allow me to introduce you to the lovely world of Class Abilities! Perhaps soon you shall receive some of your own, but for now we have quite a battle still ahead of us.”
“I…I…” I looked at the devastation around us and panted, not knowing quite what to say. “I really want to fucking do that.”
Fogwarth held me up high, and with a screaming battle charge we were no longer playing defense.