What do you mean evolution available? Wait I can evolve, that’s cool as hell. Wait no that’s not cool, what if it changes who I am as a person? My thoughts on the matter are interrupted as Alex decides to throw another fireball at my pod. It just bounces off, literally bounces off and fizzles out in the air. Haven’t we already done this last stand thing buddy? As the sap finishes draining Alex has managed to hobble his way to the edge of the glade. Probably the worst place for him to be honestly. He soon realizes that as the branches from the trees descend around him, forming a cage that he won’t be able to escape. Granted he tries to escape, once he realizes that he is trapped he backs up and throws a fireball. It breaks a couple of the sticks, but they are quickly replaced by more.
I open my pod and hop down, not even bothering to let the sap finish dripping off. Alex is banging on the bars of his new prison and screaming his head off at me.
“You damn %$^#$, you won’t get away with $#%$!” he yells
Hold on I can fix the can’t understand everything problem now.
Skill Up Available!
General skills:
1. Universal Understanding – Level:10 (++)
Well then, more things to deal with. I’ll deal with it after I handle Alex the backstabber. I finish my walk over to Alex, who is completely unaware that I’m in his face right now. Guess that’s what happens when you can’t see and are to busy yelling to hear. Now what do I do with this asshole? I don’t want to kill him, not really my style. But I can’t exactly let trying to kill me go unpunished. Well, since he’s such an ass I’ll just make sure he never has children.
I open the branches facing me and reach in to grab Alex, who is still clueless.
“Fight me beast, I’ll put you down here and now!” he yells in the opposite direction of where I’m standing.
Real intimidating there mate. I reach in and slap him on the back, he spins around and immediately conjures a fireball. All it does is illuminate the pain and suffering he is about to endure as he realizes I am right up on him. I grab his armor and in one swift motion pull myself up while jumping, delivering a powerful knee right into his crotch. The heavy thwap makes me cringe for a moment, but I get over myself. The effect I was looking for is instant, Alex drops like a rock with both his hands between his legs.
“Ugh, fucking bitch!” he whimpers.
Welp, time to tie him up. I bend and flex the branches, wrapping them around his hands, arms, legs and ankles. Then I gag him just for good measure. I make double sure his palms are pressed together and bound tight, don’t need him conjuring a fireball and escaping. Once he is fully tied up, I drag him back over to my pod and stuff him up under one of the outer petals. He’s still down and out from the hit and will be for a while. Now that I’ve dealt with the spazzy little twat let's investigate those evolution and classes. I hop up on my pod and pull up my status.
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Name: Petal
Race: Willow Dryad: Level 10 (Rare) (++)
Class: (++)
EXP: 24
Nutrition: 98/100
Race Traits:
1. Child of Nature
2. Flora Control
3. Blessed life
4. Magical conduit
5. Flora Network
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Age: 0
Skill points: 3
Elements: Light, Life, Spatial.
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Health:185/205
Mana: 1558/1558
Stamina: 430/430
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Strength: 51 (+)
Agility: 21 (+)
Endurance: 41 (+)
Magic: 76 (+)
Fortitude: 31 (+)
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General skills:
1. Universal Understanding – Level:10 (++)
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Titles: World Walker, Perfect Child
OK so the double plus means it can be upgraded, good to know. I wonder how I look at the evolution and class things. Do I just focus on them, or do I need to think a special word like my status? I try focusing on the class icon first and to my appeasement I get a whole new set of information accompanied by a headache.
Available Classes:
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Archer (Common): Acolytes starting off in the ranged arts. Archers use basic ranged weapons like short bows, long bows, and cross bows to strike at enemies from afar. Archers also use other skills such as tracking, fletching, and acrobatics. Archers prefer to attack from a distance, often using their skills to maintain a gap and avoid close quarters combat, which they are notoriously bad at.
+15 Strength
+10 Agility
+5 Endurance
+5 Fortitude
+5 Skill points
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Oh, you can get skill points from getting a new class. Well, that’s useful, looks like it also improves your stats. Looks like stats increases reflect what the class will to be doing to. I got a couple more here to look over.
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Spearman (Common): Acolytes starting off in the melee arts. Spearmen use long melee weapons like spears and pole arms to attack enemies from a short distance away while keeping themselves safe. Spearmen also use skills such as blocking, charging, and throwing. Some spearmen may double as ranged attackers with throwing spears and more experienced users may act as backup front line men.
+20 Strength
+10 Agility
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
+5 Endurance
+5 Skill points
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Swordsman (Common) Acolytes starting off in the melee arts. Swords men use close quarters melee weapons such as short swords, long swords, mauls, maces, and shields to attack enemies up close and personal. Swordsman also use skills such as taunting, blocking, and grappling. Some swordsmen trade away a second or two-handed weapon for a more defensive approach by using a shield in their offhand.
+20 Strength
+10 Agility
+5 Endurance
+5 Skill points
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Light Mage (Common): Acolytes starting off in the magic arts. Light mages use the light element to enhance allies, remove harmful effects, and shield against enemies in battle. Light mages support allies from afar and prefer to stay out of direct combat, as they have very few if any direct attack spells.
+5 Agility
+5 Endurance
+20 Magic
+5 Fortitude
+5 Skill Points
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Life Mage (Common): Acolytes starting off in the magic arts. Life mages use life magic to heal allies, remove harmful effects, and manipulate living organisms. Life mages support allies from afar and prefer to stay out of direct combat, as they have very few if any means of defending themselves.
+5 Agility
+5 Endurance
+20 Magic
+5 Fortitude
+5 Skill Points
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Spatial Mage (Common): Acolytes starting off in the magic arts. Spatial mages use magic to manipulate the three dimensions. Spatial mages use skills such as, teleporting, shifting incoming attacks, and spatial shifting to change the battlefield. Spatial mages have a variety of spells and skills to defend themselves and go on the offensive, but usually prefer to stay back while casting.
+5 Agility
+5 Endurance
+20 Magic
+5 Fortitude
+5 Skill Points
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Novice Paladin (Rare): Acolytes of both magic and melee arts. Paladins use life/light/death/dark magic to its fullest extent while practicing in the melee arts for additional combat capabilities. Paladins are paragons of their path, forging ahead so that those they find worthy may follow. Whether it be defending the weak, saving the dying, or destroying their enemies a paladin will be seen as a rallying point to stand behind.
+10 Strength
+5 Endurance
+20 Magic
+5 Fortitude
+10 Skill points
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Apprentice Negotiator (Common): Acolyte of the arts. Negotiators prefer to use words to find a solution as opposed to fighting to the death. Experts in compromise, they seek to reach mutual ground by growing together instead of standing on top of each other’s corpses. Negotiators have no combat capabilities and are forced to rely on escorts and guards for protection against those who wish to speak with weapons instead of words.
+5 Strength
+5 Agility
+5 Endurance
+5 Magic
+15 Fortitude
+5 Skill Points
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Apprentice Crafter (Common): Acolyte of the arts. Crafters have experience in making a large variety of objects and items but fail to specialize in any one particular area. Crafters, specialized or not, produce most objects and items used in daily life. Whether it be weapons for warriors or dresses for dancers, it was most likely made by an artisan of crafting.
+10 Strength
+5 Agility
+10 Endurance
+5 Magic
+5 Fortitude
+5 Skill Points
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Wow those are some interesting options. Looking it over I don’t really have any interest in the physical classes, so archer, swordsman, and spear man are out the window. The mage classes look cool, especially the spatial, but overly specialized in their given elements. And I don’t want to do them anyway because I am stuck alone out here and not being able to defend myself would be bad. Negotiator is off the table for the same reason, that and I don’t want to spend my life just yammering on with people. Sometimes you need to apply some hard love to people who cross the line. Like our lovely dumb-ass under the flower here. Alex is still curled into a ball with his hands on his crotch, crying himself to sleep no doubt.
So I’m mainly looking at the paladin class, seems too good to be true honestly. Good at magic and melee as a fall back, what is the catch. Maybe can’t super specialize in both? No, it says they use it to its fullest extent. Well, it looks like an upgraded class. The rest are common but that one is rare, also gives more points overall than the rest. But what the hell did I do to get this option? And don’t paladins have to serve a god or something? I might be overthinking it. Well, I’ll think about it in a bit, time to check the evolution side of my leveling up.
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Blood Drip Willow Dryad (Rare): Dryads are known for their vicious nature. You exemplify this by drawing out enemies fighting and suffering before finishing them off. Brutal killing is a second nature to you, succeeded only by the consuming of your fallen foes flesh. You revel in tearing your enemies apart, giving them bloody and extravagant deaths.
+20 Strength
+10 Agility
+10 Endurance
+5 Magic
+5 Fortitude
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Jesus that’s horrifying, loves ripping things apart. That sounds like a 'blood for the blood god' kind of deal. And who knows if selecting that will turn me into a murder happy plant monster. That one is off the table; I need to be able to fight but fighting just for the sake of fighting is bad. And that evolution looks like nothing but trouble.
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Entanglement Willow Dryad (Rare): You prefer to sit back and let your plants do the work. You enjoy your enemy’s demise from afar, letting your constructs and flora do the killing. Whether it be combat, crafting, or general antics you use your control and knowledge to get your network and minions to effectively do the brunt work.
+10 Strength
+10 Agility
+10 Endurance
+10 Magic
+10 Fortitude
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Sounds like a minion master kind of evolution, at least the start of one. Definitely a safe bet to get others to do the work. Less chance of me getting the pointy end of a pokey stick. Still a bit boring and tedious to just sit around doing nothing but commanding all day. I’ll keep this one in mind as a good backup.
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Caretaker Willow Dryad (Rare): Whether it be yourself, your minions, or your captured enemies, you care for all under your protection. You will heal, nourish, and defend all those you hold dear. Lashing out is not your specialty but creating allies through trade and compassion is.
+5 Strength
+5 Agility
+10 Endurance
+20 Magic
+10 Fortitude
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Sounds like a healer dryad, maybe also a bit more defense oriented. I don’t like the unable to lash out part, sounds like I’ll have less offense. And I need some form of offense given that I’m alone. I was hoping to make friend with Alex but he seems too focused on finding ways to kill me to care. I don’t think I’ll do this one, too much reliance on others.
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Blood Lash Willow Dryad (Rare): You exemplify the cruelest of traits of dryads. Whether it be through slow painful death, defilement of their bodies, or torture of the mind, you revel in the suffering of your foes. It matters not to you how they perish, as long as it is painful and drawn out for your amusement.
+10 Strength
+10 Agility
+15 Endurance
+10 Magic
+5 Fortitude
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Jesus Christ that one sounds horrifying. If the blood drip was a savage killer this one is a sadistic killer. Hard pass on that, I don’t want to become some self-made demon. I may be a monster now but like hell am I going to act like one.
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Masquerade Willow Dryad (Rare): You prefer to use a different face to perform your activities. Whether it be blending into the environment or a crowd of ‘civilized’ races you can do both effectively. Capable of interacting with others in such a manner as to not draw suspicion, you are the beginnings of a perfect infiltrator the ‘civilized’ people won’t know is among them until you want them to know.
+5 Strength
+5 Agility
+5 Endurance
+20 Magic
+15 Fortitude
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Hold up, infiltration, putting on a new face? That sounds like masquerading as a human, or other races. That will help a lot when it comes to keeping out of trouble. Holy crap this is great, if I can at least look like a human or what ever other races there are I won’t have to worry about getting attacked. I’m definitely picking this one, I need this if I want to return home.
As for the class, I’m thinking paladin. Being able to heal means I can keep myself going, unless for some stupid reason I can’t heal myself only others. And being melee competent is a nice bonus. So how do I do this? Do I just wish the selection I want? Let me try…
Confirm Selection: Novice Paladin (Rare)
Y/N
Confirm Selection: Masquerade Willow Dryad (Rare)
Y/N
Yes and yes. Now what? Then a wave of exhaustion and drowsiness hit me like a truck plowing through a wall. Instantly I was down on my pod closing my eyes despite desperately trying to stay awake. The pod closed around me, and my senses all went mellow. Sap started to flow in at the bottom and I was off to the land of dreams.