As I run through the forest regretting my life decisions, I hear the sound of an apocalypse made manifest destroying the world behind me, and it’s right on my ass. Holy shit, I should have just left town this morning! Screw that I should've gotten the hint and never showed up! A particularly large chunk of tree goes flying past me, bouncing off the ground and forcing me to jump over it. Behind me the lizard man lets out what I can only describe as a roar but filled with words.
“I’ll fucking kill you!”
Oh man I pissed him off good, as if the destruction blasting through the forest wasn’t enough of an indication. All I can do is keep running, if he catches up, which he slowly is, I will be turned into a green sappy paste covering the entirety of the forest. I take a quick peek over my shoulder to get a gauge on where the lizard man is in relation to me, and what I see horrifies me. Lizard man is now glowing red and has definitely gotten bigger. What kind of fucked up skill or spell is he using! The only thing saving my ass is the fact he is now too big to fit between most of the trees and has opted to swing and smash his way through instead of just charging straight for me. If he charges straight for me he will catch me.
I look over my shoulder just a little too long. I look back to my front just in time to see the tree as I hit it full speed and bounce off, as much as a squishy sack of flesh can bounce, and tumble to the ground. I’m so fucked. Apparently my blunder caught the lizard man off guard as well. In his rage he lunged for me the moment I hit the tree and overshot, somehow. I watched in horror as the blade of an ax passed so close it cut the bridge of my nose while the lizard with anger issues flew over me. I look into his eyes, if only for a second, and see unbridled rage and blood lust. If I was still human I’m pretty sure I’d be pissing myself right now.
He flies over my head, crashing a bit of ways away through the trees and I spring back to my feet and run in a different direction. Moments later the sound of destruction resumes behind me. All I can do is run, and this time I’m not making the stupid mistake of not watching where I’m going. But I won’t be able to run for much longer either, I’m starting to feel tired, no doubt the effects of my stamina depleting.
Stamina: 393/663
Yea, just above half. I need to lose this prick, at least long enough to get my stamina back. But what could I even do to ….?
My thought is interrupted by a sudden break in the trees, followed by a lack of ground under my feet for a few seconds, then a splash. Shit, I just fell into a river, I’m so fucked. A heavy current swirls around me as I kick and flail trying to get my head above water. Finally I orient myself and break the surface, taking a huge breath and looking around frantically trying to regain my bearings. Looking around I see it’s a moderate size river, maybe twenty feet across average, I can’t tell how deep but I’m half way from the bank to the center of the river and my feet can’t touch the bottom. It’s flowing at a decent rate, but I don’t see any rapids. I’m examining upstream when I hear a crash on the bank to my right. I look over and see lizard man come smashing through the trees, only to come to a screeching halt upon seeing the river, feet out in front, flailing arms and all that. It would have been comical if he wasn’t trying to turn me into green paste. I freak out for a second thinking I’m about to get dive bombed but feel relieved when he instead starts to pensively start at me floating in the river. You gotta be kidding me, he’s afraid of freaking water! I don’t know if it’s because he’s cold blooded, can’t swim, or hydrophobic but quite frankly I don’t care. I’ve got a moment to think and breathe, and I plan to use it well.
“Ezara! This thing can swim!” Drazin yells.
Of course I can swim, who doesn’t know how to swim? Wait, right, medieval magical fantasy culture, most of them probably don’t even know what the term bathing even means. Much less getting into water you can’t stand in.
“Of course, because we needed more complications. Back off, I’ll handle this.” A womans voice from above says.
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I look up to see a strange looking woman standing on a disk of water that's floating in the air. She has deep blue skin, with webbed hands and a thick webbed tail that goes down to about two thirds the length of her legs. Her white hair and colorful robes are in contrast to the rest of her body. Suddenly the disk disappears, and she drops into the river ahead of me. It takes me a moment but I put two and two together and decide that the water is now a bad place to be and scramble to get to the far shoreline away from the fish lady and lizard man.
“Forget that, I just remembered why I wanted those return runes on my axes!” Drazin yelled with glee.
I look over to see him readying an ax to toss at me in an attempt to cave my skull in from afar. Oh god no, not the axes again! I panic, take a huge breath and dive back under the water, only to come face to face with fish lady under the water.
Ezara (Nemoyu, Level 152 Hydroblaster)
Oh for fucks sake, of course, I find a river to keep lizard man at bay so a fucking fish person that specializes in water magic shows up. Ezara puts her hands out and starts casting some kind of spell. Water starts to collect and shape into a spear before freezing in front of her. I start frantically trying to swim back up to the surface, but it feels like the water is trying to hold me in place now. Right as the spear finishes forming and starts to spin a huge crash rocks the entirety of the river as something goes tearing through the water. Both me and her are sent spinning by the force of the blast. After a bit of flailing I manage to regain my orientation and break the surface, gasping and sputtering I manage to crawl up one of the banks. A quick look around and thankfully it’s the opposite bank from lizard man, who is now being berated by the fish lady from the water.
“Damn it Drazin you almost hit me!”
“Sorry snookums, I was aiming for the monster.”
Snookums?! Are they? Never mind I don’t want to know. I get my feet under me and take off into the woods once again.
“Oh for the love of Balsa it took off again, Drazin get after it!”
Thank god these people are incompetent, otherwise I’d be dead, how many times over now? Either way I’m not sticking around to add another tally to the counter. A few seconds later I hear a splash followed by the crashing of trees, then some cursing. I’m going to assume lizard dude made it across the river and that fish lady is probably trying to fly to get back to flying above. It’s funny I keep calling her fish lady only because she can swim, not because she looks like a fish, maybe I should call her bird lady instead since she can fly? Nah, I’ll just focus on running for now. Speaking of running, I don’t hear the sound of shit being destroyed behind me, which concerns me. I don’t know where the fuck those two are and if they are about end my existence. I turn hard left at about a seventy five degree angle and keep running, hopefully that will throw them off for a bit. I need to rest, I was already getting tired before, and that fiasco in the river certainly didn’t help.
Stamina: 259/663
I’m starting to slow down, I can’t run as fast, breathing is getting heavy, and my legs are sore as all hell. Getting distance is my top priority right now, I can reflect on how much of a shit show this is later. I keep running, slowly I start to lose speed, going from a full sprint, to a run, then a jog, until I can barely even walk.
Stamina: 0/663
My lungs and legs feel like they are on fire, I’m light headed and can barely see straight. But all I hear around me for now is silence. Oh god is it finally over? I lean up against a tree, but my legs finally give in to fatigue and I slide to the ground. I’m so tired I almost fall asleep, but I can’t sleep here, it’s too dangerous. I fight to keep myself awake, even resorting to forcibly holding my eyes open with my fingers. I give my stats a look over, my stamina is slowly recharging, but I notice something else. I have a new effect on me called exhaustion. I guess there is a penalty for completely draining your stamina.
Exhaustion: 60:15
No description, as usual. Well at least I know what is affecting me. Finally after about twenty minutes I’ve got enough energy to stand myself back up. I don’t know how I managed to lose those batshit crazy people, but somewhere along the line they went a way I didn’t and lost track of me, thank god. I can’t handle this crap, I’d have a mental breakdown if I didn’t have to keep moving.
I push myself off the tree and start trying to walk towards some mountains I can see between the trees, but all I can manage is a slow hobble. It’s probably not a good place to go, but I imagine that would make it the last place those assholes would think to look for me, which gives me time for ….. I don't know, something I guess.