The bright conflagration faded, Sandra staring at the center of it still, a rictus frozen on her face in false confidence. The shrub monster lay on the floor, the force of the fireball having not just scorched but cracked it’s torso, with burnt leaves fluttering about. Spike and Smolder both lay on the ground a few feet away.

Spike, planted on his face, pushed himself up. “Uggh, did you see the cart that hit me…”

Smolder groaned too, laying on her back. “I dunno, but it hit me too.” She pulled herself up, hissing. A part of her upper leg had scales were torn, the skin underneath red and seared. She gingerly touched it. “Ow ow ow.”

Garble glared down at Sandra beside him. “Now, what did I tell you,” he growled out.

But Sandra was calmed, instead. “Calm down,” Sandra said, waving her staff around unthreateningly. “It’s not much of an injury at all. We just need a little healing.”

Spike pulled himself up. “Maybe I need a little too, I am sore… Can you cast any?”

“Does it look like I’m a healing class?” Sandra said, her eyebrow raised. “No,” She put her hand to her chest in a haughty gesture. “I am an attack magician, thank you very much. I’m sure most of those potions that were dropped by the Lagoslimes are healing potions. We just need to give her one or two.”

"So, about that learning magic thing." Spike had a raised claw, even if smoke lazily trailed up from his singed form. "By the way, nice blast. Maybe next time don't include us in it.”

"I second that," moaned out Smolder. "Gar gar, hook a sister up with a potion." She waved a hand from her prone position, not in the mood to move yet.

"It was fire! You said that would be alright." Sandra put her free hand at her hips. "You don't know your own resistances?"

Garble was already fishing out his loot from his slime murder frenzy. "Shut up and show me which of these to give her. Or we can test your resistances."

"Calm down, sheesh." Sandra snagged a small red vial. "Here, drink up."

Garble grabbed it back and hurried to Smolder. His sister closed her fingers around the vial he knew better than to try nursing to her directly. She popped the cork and guzzled the contents almost instantly. "Cherry, nice. When do--" her words were cut off as her entire form glowed, the injuries fading away. "Okay, that was awesome."

Garble raised his eyebrow. “Alright, fine. You lucked out.”

Sandra smirked. “Luck had nothing to do with it. I knew we had it. And now--” She gestured down to the pile of gold and potions and other items. “--I have a big ole pile of loot.”

“You mean my horde, right?” Garble shot back. “I gathered it, after all.”

Sandra shot him a sidelong glance. “Just get some more--” She wiggled her fingers and smiled a toothy smile “--While I sort through this pile and put it in my inventory.”

Garble snorted, but still turned around, muttering under his breath.

Smolder headed out after him, and Spike seized the opportunity to ask the question again, “So, Sandra… what can I do about learning spells like that?” He rocked back and forth on his heels.

Sandra, picking up what looked like a bit of crystallized slime goo, gave him a look. “I mean… You can’t?” she stated with a questioning look. “You’re just… a summon. The powers you have now are the powers you will always have. So, like, you have the magic fire breath and that’s it.”

Garble, having ambled back to the Lagoslimes, popped another one by stomping on it. He sighed to himself. “It’s just not the same if I don’t get to keep the horde…” The magic from the slime, instead of forming into gold, though, drifted upward, drawing Garble’s vision...

Spike frowned. “Are you sure? We have an XP bar. We’re definitely not ‘normal’--” He put air quotes. “--summons.” He waggled a finger as he turned towards the defeated bush. "Putting that aside a moment, why hasn't this thing fallen apart into stuff for us to have already?"

Smolder stopped, going rigid as she peeked over her shoulder. "Uh…"

The remnants of the creature exploded outwards in a haze of wood and ashes, spreading over the area in a flurry of sharp fragments, forming together into a strange human-shape of particles that raised its newfound fist as it stepped towards Sandra, looking quite ready to pulverize her.

Spike didn't even try to burn it, the thing already looking charred. Clawing or biting it felt equally as bad of an idea, being made of little bits instead of one solid piece to smash. He opted instead to throw himself at Sandra, grabbing her around the middle and pumping his wings, carrying her up and away just in time for the whoosh of air to caress them from the near hit, the ground where they were exploding violently from the impact of the creature.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Shut up!" suddenly roared Garble, slamming his hands together as he stormed towards the thing. "We beat you up fair and square. Go on and finish dying already!"

"Uh, not sure it works like that, Gar Gar." Smolder backed away, her wings carrying her up a little further away from the things incessed reach. "Maybe we should let it--"

"--Nuh uh, it has our stuff." He swung his own fist, meeting its in a great clash. Small cuts and nicks exploded over his fist and arm, slivers of the singed wood embedding themselves into his scaled hide as he howled in pain.

The bipedal creature stood up, the vague shape becoming a more defined ethereal outline. Bluish motes of magic spiraled around it and coalesced in it, and where the ethereal outline and the motes met, slime filled in the gaps.

Soon, it had grown even larger, and was now a large bulky slime creature with spiky claws of wood and patches on the surface of the slime serving as armor. The face was notably bunny like and bunny ears sprang up from the top of it.

Sandra, from her place in Spike’s straining arms, shouted, “It’s a mana merged creature! That’s amazing! I’ve never seen one before!”

"Oh, yeah, one of…" Garble never finished his statement, grabbing what he could while the monster before him was forming itself. "Tell me it doesn't like fire." He stuffed his pockets with random potions and coins in a flurry of hoarding to do any dragon proud.

"Get out of there!" hollered Smolder from above, swooping in to belch out a blast of fire across the thing on the way past. "I'll distract it!" Her plan was short-lived, its eyes glowing fiercely as it reached for her. Its hand didn't reach her, the glow becoming an actual beam that lanced out, painfully scorching a line across her that wasn't of fire but of some other exotic element she couldn't identify in that painful instant. "Agh! Shoot, that didn't work!"

Spike came down, forced to with his extra burden. He set Sandra down with a huff of relief. "I think we need to get out of here."

She peered at her hesitant summon. "We need to rally together and use some sound strategy!" Sandra clapped her free hand against the one still holding her staff. "First, let's take a peek." She swirled the end of the staff towards the strange rabbit-wood monster, the end glowing with purple light. "I thought I'd never have a chance to use this one."

"Great for you." Garble jumped to the left as a great gooey psuedopod crashed into the ground where he had been standing, sending splinters and wood flying in all direction. "Fantastic." He exhaled a great plume of fire across the thing, but it hardly seemed to register his presence, as if the charred wood had negated the slimes' weakness to the flames.

Smolder looped around and came for Spike and Sandra. "Yeah, I don't think we're, you know, ready for quite… this much, as much as I want to punch it right in its face, I saw what that does! What a rip off, we didn't get whatever you get for beating up that tree."

"Scan!" announced Sandra in a loud and clear command of the universe, strange white lines appearing all over the amalgam monster as facts about it began to pop up into clear view.

> Weakness: Acid, Lightning -- Restored by: Fire

> Level: 15 -- Full Party Encounter

> Consideration Level: Deep Purple

"Great." Garble scrambled away, aborting his thought to even try breathing at it again. "Great! Did I mention great yet? We rip this thing apart, or we get out, one or the other."

Sandra took an uncertain step back. "D-deep purple?! Things aren't supposed to be… level 15 on the grassy fields, or full party encounters… or restored by anything…"

Spike grabbed for her, tugging at her midsection. "Time to go."

Sandra didn’t budge. “But… the loot!” She reached out for the pile of coins, currently basically underneath the monster’s “feet.” “We’ll leave empty handed!” She stepped forward, fiddling with her menu. She fiddled with her menu and produced another staff, a bit better carved instead of gnarled. She began to cast something, a purple glyph appearing on it. She squinted her eyes, and pointed it. The magical bolt soared through the air, straight and true, slamming into the monster ahead.

But it appeared to have no effect.

The monster roared, a slimy maw appearing on its face, and it raised up a pseudopod, and the wood on the pseudopod grew. He swung it in a broad arc, apparently not trying to hit, and spikes of charred wood were flung at Sandra and Spike, colliding with both of them.

Spike was pelted with sharp shard, which knocked him over and somehow pierced even dragon scale, a very large spike now partway into his gut, but not all that deep. He pulled himself up, gritting his teeth. It hurt. And then he caught a glimpse of Sandra.

She laid on the ground now, a huge shard, more like a spike, embedded in her shoulder, as blood oozed and stained her robe. She didn’t stir, or moan, but just laid there, as her lifeblood leaked out.

Garble reached Spike and Sandra and didn't debate the point. He didn't have elegant arguments to throw down. He just plucked the mage right off the ground and began running with her. "Move it or lose it, Spike."

"Don't have to tell me twice!" With Sandra spirited away, he took to the air, flapping wildly to put some distance between himself and the dread beast that had put such an abrupt halt to their grinding exploits. Without even thinking, he wrenched the spike free, though that made his flying falter in an awkward stumble as the pain proved far greater than he had been expecting, but he could flee freely without it jutting from his form.

Smolder flipped upside down to wave at the beast with both hands as if parting farewell to a dear friend instead of the thing that had so recently hurt her. "See ya later, maybe never!"

"Hey, if you have time to do that, dig around and find one of those damn red potions," grunted Garble as he jumped over what few obstacles stood in his way, weaving across the plains towards the city they had emerged from. "We have two weaklings that could use one, Miss Loudmouth first."

"Er, yeah…" Spike peered down at Sandra's limp form. She wasn't being loud. "I'll live…" But would she? He couldn't feel absolutely certain about that. Though they had just met fairly recently and in awkward circumstances, he felt sure he didn't want her to meet that end.

The guards at the gate held up a hand each, but after consulting with a glance at a device much like the brooch that Sandra wore, they were allowed in. "Didn't realize you were adventurers."