“A fine battle, goodest of friends.”
“Goodest? Goodest isn’t a word, Foggy,” I said, waiting for the usual introductions to be made before I dove into my magic spell choices.
“Why, certainly it is, sir berry,” he answered as we approached the twin golems. “It is merely the contraction of most good. For instance, you and I are the greatest of friends and allies in all of the orchard.”
I stared at him blankly as we continued forward. We met yesterday. How lonely is this guy?
“Therefore we are the most great of friends and allies. However, myself and the Lok twin golems hold merely the most normal of friendships there can be, and hence they are the most goodest of friends.” He pat his chubby gauntleted hand on my carapace like I was some kind of kitten, and I harrumphed, literally harrumphed, at the gesture. “It is fine, sir berry. There are many things to learn of this world, and proper speech etiquette is but one of our treasures to uncover!”
I bit my berry tongue. I wanted to argue, knowing that it wasn’t a word and he was full of inch worm shit about it, but at the same time I wasn’t exactly the smartest guy back in the real world. I still hadn’t exactly considered this place to be a real world at all, but I had to admit it was startling me a bit that things were so… well, real.
The warmth of the spattered tiger blood, the smell of their sour breath and of Fogwarth’s horrible body odor post-battle. The wind brushed my berry and was cool, the sun encased my armor and was warm. Then there was time itself. It had felt like a long time. I had literally slept here and woken back up. If I was in a hospital bed then the drugs they gave me should be sold on street corners.
But if this was the afterlife… fuck. Looks like every religion got it very wrong then.
“Fogwarth,” one golem groaned.
“Heir 7th,” another said at nearly the exact same time.
Both of their voices were standard golem-ish from what I know. Gritty, like two cement slabs being rubbed against one another. Both things were eerily similar in looks which made their mirror of one another’s voices even more difficult to tell them apart.
They were both thin and tall, standing perhaps a foot over Fogwarth himself but about half of the width. Their bodies were a gray, slate stone that was smooth in some places yet jagged at the joints such as the shoulders, knees, and elbows. They had smooth faces with a motionless expression of a sleeping woman seemingly carved into them which did not move as they spoke. Each had a crown on their heads that blended into the stone of their bodies yet was just a bit rougher, with either ruby or aquamarine gems scattered throughout like fossilized seashells.
But it was their weapons that really threw me off.
Matching wooden bows with silver inlays that glinted in the sun were slung over their backs, and they were nearly the length of their entire bodies. Each had a quiver on their back that appeared full of the comically large arrows I had seen them fire before.
They moved fluidly despite not having feet, instead their legs just ending in flat stumps that fanned outward like 1970’s bell bottom jeans.
Sadly, I spotted not a single boot with the fur in sight.
“I must offer an apology if we kept you both waiting. One could say we had a bit of a kitten infestation to deal with!” Fogwarth let out a belly laugh at his own joke; the twin golems with the depressed faces said absolutely nothing.
“I’m Barry,” I said after an awkward stretch of time. “Nice to meet you guys.”
“You are a berry,” the red gemmed one said, while the blue gem answered at nearly the same time with, “Nice to meet you too.”
That was going to get annoying quick. Plus their slow, grating form of speech was also going to be a bit of a barrier in communication. For the time being I decided that differentiating them was probably going to be for the best and might help me get a handle on them. While I could not see nearly as much information as I could when I looked at my Companion information, I could bring up my interface’s party menu and get a basic description of these two. Hopefully it would be enough to identify them individually.
[Name: Ak-Lok
Title: Not Available
Race: Golem Familiar, Evolved: Unbound Golem
Level: 14
Class: Pyrokenetic Bowman
Rarity: Not Available
Equipment Level: Not Available]
[Name: Ix-Lok
Title: Not Available
Race: Golem Familiar, Evolved: Unbound Golem
Level: 14
Class: Cryokenetic Bowman
Rarity: Not Available
Equipment Level: Not Available]
Interesting indeed. If I was basing their gems off of their classes, and I was, then Ak-Lok would be the ruby crowned rock person, and Ix-Lok the aquamarine. Apparently things like Title, Rarity, and Equipment Level were not things I could know just based on us partying up together, but that information wasn’t super important right now anyway, and I didn’t understand most of it regardless. Still, it was nice to see that both were super capable in a fight and were what I considered a high level right now. If I needed to evolve and survive this shit hole world then I’d need all of the help I could get.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“I am a berry, and my name is Barry. With an A. It’s a whole thing that we don’t need to get into right now,” I said.
“Barry the berry,” Ak-Lok answered.
“Berry is Barry,” Ix-Lok also said. At the near goddamn mother fucking same time.
“Alright then…” I sighed and wished I could squeeze my temples in frustration like in those Law & Order shows when the defense starts stressing out the prosecutor. “So, Fogwarth,” I said, turning my attention away from thing one and thing two. “I think we are getting somewhere here. I think our whole plan is working! Guess who hit Level 3 over here?”
“Must I guess, sir berry?” He asked. “I received the notification that it was yourself, and though I do love a good game, being Fogwarth, The Gamemaster and all, I really believe we have some ground to cover!”
Well, I think they call that “edging” back where I’m from. Celebration denied.
“Okay… Well it looks like I have an ability point now and maybe a chance at gaining some kind of powers of my own. Mind if I look over the options and run it by you? Get your thoughts on what to pick?”
Fogwarth absolutely beamed. “Oh dear. Oh my. I have absolutely rarely ever been this excited in all of my days amongst the living,” he answered in possibly the strangest way possible. He clapped his hands together three times in rapid succession then calmed himself. “I do love a good Ability choice. Go on then, sir berry. Let us three hear what it means to be this strange [Angiomancer] class.”
I regained my previously lost glee, pulled up my Class skill tree tab, and began reading off my epic, powerful, destructive new power choices.
[Angiomancer. Rank 1. Available Ability Points: 1]
[Natural Overgrowth - Passive. Type: Nature. Cost: N/A. Cooldown: N/A. Effect: Increase size by 1.2 multiplied by current level. Increase in size correlates to an increase in durability and strength in proportion to level multiplier. Growth maximum: Level 35]
[Entangling Rose-Hip - Active. Type: Nature. Cost: 26 Mana. Cooldown: 30 Seconds. Effect: Summons a Rose-Hip bush in a 4ft by 4ft area. Foes within the summon area are rendered immobile for 6 seconds. Thorns cause 2 damage per second]
[Concord Barrier - Active. Type: Nature. Cost: 35 Mana. Cooldown: 120 Seconds. Effect: Summons a barrier of 13 Concord grapes that surround and orbit the caster until unsummoned or barrier limits are met. Each Concord grape explodes on contact, rendering a foe immobile for 3 seconds. Immobile effect of Concord grapes may stack up to 5 times]
Epic, powerful, destructive new power. Edged once again.
I noticed a pattern with my abilities, which was that they were fruit or flower based. That had to mean something but, as with everything lately, I tucked it away to question later. I could probably bring this information to Aspenoc and maybe get some useful information about my Class. As for the choices, they were subpar at best, but then again what could I really expect for my first round of skills? Just like the description of the Class said, most of these clearly for disabling and immobilizing opponents rather than blowing them the fuck up like I had originally intended.
The passive had some usefulness for sure, but it was definitely the wrong time for it. Right now I relied on Fogwarth to use me as a gigantic mace to smash things with, and adding additional size may not only affect my new armor but also add unnecessary weight for him to have to lug around. I wasn’t sure if I could grab any of these later on, and if I could I knew I would pick it for the durability gain alone, but for right now it wasn’t a real option.
On the other hand, both of the next options were at least feasible for this moment. The [Entangling Rose-Hip] would be ideal for me to actually inflict some damage of my own, and it would help me achieve the [Berry Rootling] path since I needed to do a bit of spell damage. However, the stupid grape move had some practical effects that synced up well with Fogwarth bashing shit over the head with my body. If the exploding grapes orbited around me and hit enemies I came in contact with, then I could potentially cast it right before a big swing, immobilizing them just long enough for a follow up hit for the killing blow.
Neither were the earth shattering destruction I had seen Fogwarth do, or the fire and ice arrow thing from the golems, but screw it. These were my fruit and flower powers and I would make them work. At the bar the old timers used to say you had to play the hand you were dealt.
Then again that was always right before they cheated in a game of rummy and made me buy them another round.
“Hmmm…” Fogwarth pondered. “How interesting. How fascinating!”
“Fascinating,” Ak-Lok said.
“Interesting,” Ix-Lok also said.
“Very useful abilities, sir berry,” Fogwarth said after another long moment. “There are no bad choices among them! I say you choose what is in your juicy, sweet, delicious heart.”
“Thanks,” I answered with a roll of my berry eyes. “But I wanted you to help decide. You’re doing all the work for me, Foggy. At least for now. Which would help you the most? Which would make this whole process easier on you?”
“Me?” Fogwarth said with a lilt to his tone. “Are you… Are you sure, sir berry? This is a huge decision… It is a kindness that I do not take lightly my friend. I shall think but a moment and find the best option that suits us both! I promise you, my Companion.”
“Pick the growth one.”
“Pick the grape one.”
“Gah!” I exclaimed, fed up with the golems already. “Please stop doing that!”
Fogwarth waved his hand, signaling for the two golems to follow, then the four of us continued to the wall to the southern border wall. After only a few moments we had left the clearing that was our temporary battlefield behind, finding our way back to a narrow dirt road that carved right through the underbrush. Fogwarth pulled a canteen out of somewhere and poured a bit of water into my mouth, proactively avoiding the [Thirsty] debuff.
“The rose-hip ability,” Fogwarth said as we turned down a bend in the road, leaving the carnage well behind us and now completely out of sight. It was like a tiger blood and corpse weight had been lifted off of me. “That is the one I have decided on for our little duo, sir berry. It suits us well in the present, yet I made my choice for the future; for what it will someday become should your path take you in such a direction. When an evolutionary path syncs with your Class it can change it, altering your abilities with it. For now it may be just a rose bush, sir berry. Tomorrow it may be death incarnate!”
“Yeah? That’s the one, Foggy?” I asked. “I trust your judgement here, rose-hip power it is.”
I mentally brought up my interface again, got back to the class skill tree, and selected the ability. I focused on it, imagining it being highlighted and thinking of my choice to use the ability point. After a second it worked, graying out the other two options and rewarding me with my ability.
I opened my mouth to question how I use it but I paused, letting the words catch in my throat. I knew how to use it. There was this new birth of knowledge in my mind that bloomed like a wild orchid, and suddenly I just understood how the ability worked down to the smallest detail. Conjuring the seedlings below the earth, infusing them with threads of my Mana stuff to empower their growth, motivating them with my own control to wrap around and ensnare a targeted foe. It all just came to me.
“Nice…” I said aloud as my interface went away.
“Nice.”
“Nice.”
“Gah!” I exclaimed again. “Damn it! Knock it off!”
I could have swore I heard the golems cackling, literally cackling, as we continued forth with Fogwarth’s hums filling the air.