Chapter 14

Now that I was looking for it, I could see the way it kept itself between me and the two corpses in the corner, as if protecting them. I feinted one direction, as if I intended to move toward the bodies, and it immediately moved to interpose itself, its’ remaining vines coiling defensively. Reduced to four of its’ eight assistants, it was more wary about using the vines to attack, instead using them as distractions. The woman danced around the attacks, baiting the vines into coming after her, only to cut short lengths off the ends, using her sword like hedge clippers to tame an unruly bush. I moved the opposite direction, which forced the boss to retreat toward the corpses to better shelter them with its’ body. When I began hurling firebolts toward them, he was forced to intercept them with his own body. Several small, crackling wounds marked previous impacts, and the tree-man seemed to grow angrier by the moment. While it was a useful time, allowing us to land several impacts against him, unfortunately it bought him enough time that one of the bodies began to rise jerkily, as if learning anew how the body actually moved.

Watching the corpse drag itself standing, supported by the vines along the wall, I was just distracted enough for the boss to do something unexpected: it charged. I had been advancing toward it, intending to distract the boss long enough for the woman to move around it and attack the newly risen corpse, but I’d gotten too accustomed to having it on the defensive; when it suddenly stormed forward, I was entirely unprepared. I tried to throw myself out of the way, but it had me off-balance, and one immense fist clipped my hip, bodily throwing me across the room.

I had enough time, lying on the ground in front of the wall, to recognize that only my superhuman constitution had kept me alive. It had felt like getting hit by a car and launched in front of a train. I was sure there were bones broken, my left leg refusing to cooperate, and possibly some ribs judging by my struggle to breathe. The rogue was on her own, dancing around the clumsy strikes of the tree-man, while the first Writhing Puppet struggled to walk, though its’ stride firmed up within a few steps. It reached out, and its’ bow was lifted from the floor by tendrils, pulling it firmly into its limp left hand. When it reached back with its’ right to draw an arrow from a nonexistent quiver, one of the vines reached out from the wall, arrow-straight, and snapped off as he pulled it, leaves having shaped themselves into crude fletching. It ignored the evasive rogue, and instead turned its sights on an unmoving target.

I frantically summoned a shield of flames in front of me as the living arrow flew toward me, disintegrating as it struck the shield. A second arrow followed shortly thereafter, and a third right behind it, as the animating vines seemed to get the hang of shooting far faster than a human could’ve. I couldn’t stand, couldn’t even lift myself standing against the wall; my whole left side hurt like hell from even slight movements, and keeping my left hand elevated defensively was about the extent of its’ use. My right hand, however, was freer to act, and I pointed my palm at the archer on the opposite end of the room, launching firebolts at it with desperate speed. A few missed, hammering into the walls around it, but the rest struck its’ body, burning into the flesh and leather armor… and doing nothing.

It wasn’t even trying to dodge, only shifting its’ arms and the bow to make sure neither became damaged. The torso became riddled with crackling holes, my panic increasing as the bow’s steady attacks failed to slow in the slightest. I felt my shield weakening with every impact, until finally one managed to penetrate, cutting through my stomach and sticking into the wall behind me. As if that piercing agony wasn’t enough, I felt it began to move, shifting inside of me. When I turned to look behind myself, I could see the tip had rooted into the stones, small creepers reaching out to the vines that acted like mortar in the walls, connecting to them, then drawing them back in around itself. Realizing what was happening, I grabbed the end of the arrow where the crude leaf fletching still stuck out of me, and channeled just a small touch of flame into it.

The vines hissed as they burned, the leaves cutting into my hand with edges hard as thorns, and I felt the fire burn through me, stopping only when it reached the wall. I gasped in agony at the rippling sensation of heat inside of me, and gritted my teeth against the surge of bile that nearly followed it. The archer had switched to targeting the rogue, who appeared to be managing pretty well against the monstrous tree-man. It bled sap from several wounds, its’ movements sluggish, bellowing with pain as it pursued her. The archer’s attacks, however, looked to be turning back the tide; the rogue struggled to keep ahead of two separate sets of attacks, the boss and its’ puppet acting in creepy unison to try and pin her into a corner.

Now that the archer wasn’t facing straight toward me, I saw another part of why it had remained in place against the wall; several vines reached out from the wall and seemed to be piercing into its’ body like puppet strings; this one pulled and that one pushed, and he was reaching for another arrow. The two reversed the action and the arrow was dropped to the string. Another one shifted and the bow was being drawn. There, I thought to myself, focusing on the section of wall behind the archer. Even now, I could see the other body beginning to twitch and writhe on the floor, its’ own strings invading the body to reanimate it.

Firebolts were powerful if they struck, but the difficulty was getting them to strike; there were too many small targets for me to hit any number of them from here. Instead, I dropped my shield and pushed my hands together, trapping a pair of firebolts between them. This time, instead of releasing it as it was, I focused on the feeling of it. I felt the focused, laser-like damage of the attack, the charge prepared to strike like an armor piercing warhead and incinerate everything in its’ path. I grabbed onto that, changing it, pulling with my will until it seemed angry, unrestrained, trying to lash out in every direction at once. I felt flames lash against my fingertips like small flaming razors, and the pain was strong enough that my concentration faltered for a moment. Not long enough to matter, though.

I pointed my will at the vine-wreathed stretch of wall behind the two Puppets and opened my hands.

The fireball launched forward like an enraged boar, the energy barely containing itself even as it shot past the boss, and narrowly missed the archer, who seemed to be trying to interpose himself between the fireball and the wall. The plants, however, had recognized the threat too slowly. The eruption of fire released when it struck immolated the wall, igniting the vines and burning them to ashes just as quickly as it struck, blackening and cracking stone under the force of impact. The Puppets fell, their strings cut and burning, and the boss turned to face me, enraged. While we had slain its’ support, the monster itself was still formidable. It stalked toward me, where I lay against the wall, and I frantically tried to crawl away, dragging myself only a few feet further. I couldn’t move anywhere near fast enough to escape it, and I knew my shield, weakened as it was, wouldn’t be enough to stop the hit that was coming.

Then its’ leg collapsed beneath it, and it slammed onto its’ chest, the momentum of its’ charge turning into a slide that stopped just a few feet out of his reach, one extended arm coming so close I could see the spots where the sap still smoldered from my earlier attacks. The woman hacked at its’ knee, a large chunk already missing, the bark seeming to be rotted as if poisoned, bark falling away in blackened, spongy chunks. It reached for me, leveraging its’ body for the extra distance, and as the hand approached, I wrapped my right hand in fire, holding up my left as bait. When it grabbed onto my left arm – its’ grip snapping shut, the bones in my forearm collapsing under the strength of it – I yanked myself toward the fallen monster, and slammed my fist into the center of its’ broad, mask-like face, glowing yellow eyes shining out from endless pits of darkness. The mask cracked from the strike, so I struck again. And again. Every impact seemed to ripple through its’ whole body, muscles spasming in sympathy. My left arm felt like it had become powder, wrapped in the spasming clutch of the monster’s right arm. I screamed as I punched again, the wood splintering and burning from the repeated impacts. The rogue kept cutting away at its’ back, her blade sinking into the rotten-looking wood deeper with every strike, a greenish sheen of oil coating the blade.

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Reluctantly, belatedly, the tree-man sank to the floor, the yellow light in its’ eyes dimming until it died completely. I panted with exertion, my vision swimming as the pain transformed into a mental state, so much pain that I stopped feeling it, instead drowning in the knowledge of how much agony was wracking my body. Its’ enormous fist had released my left arm, which hung loosely, bonelessly, unresponsive to my attempts to move it. I reached to the belt that crossed my chest with my right hand, realizing that my knuckles were split and bleeding, looking more wound than flesh. I uncorked the health potion, pouring it into my mouth. The last thing that I felt was the touch of rich, loamy soil on my tongue, then the world flickered out.

It didn’t feel like I’d been out for very long, but my body was in a much better state. While everything still hurt, I was at least able to tentatively move, muscles and bones creaking with the effort. I finally checked my notifications for the first time since the first Puppet, and I was shocked to see two level-up notifications.

I had a lot of time to lie here and consider things, but the most pressing issue on my mind was my endurance. I healed much faster than any normal human ever could, but it wasn’t enough. Except for the rogue-girl taking out its’ knee, my fight would’ve been over. I would’ve been crushed into the wall as a fine paste. I dumped all twenty of my free points into Vitality, hoping that it would speed my recovery time. I took a few moments, lying there on the floor in a daze, to look over my sheet in its’ entirety.

Name: David Miller

Path: Arcane Power

Race: Human (F)

Class: Flameheart Sorcerer (5 Will, 5 Wis, 5 Free)

Level: 14 ( )

STRENGTH : 30

DEXTERITY : 39

FORTITUDE : 40

VITALITY : 57

CUNNING : 27

PRESENCE : 25

WISDOM : 76+5

INTELLIGENCE : 33+5

WILLPOWER : 89+5

Points to Distribute: 0

TITLES:

[Grand Fated] [First Blood] [Dungeon Delver]

SKILLS:

Fire Manipulation (Adept), Unarmored Defense (Basic), Heat Adaptation (Initiate), Heart of Flame (Initiate), Flameheart’s Hunger (Basic)

My attributes had grown massively, even the ones I hadn’t really put points into often. The +17 from my titles helped round me out quite a bit, but my wisdom and willpower were through the roof. I certainly felt like they’d improved, my comfort and control over my magic stronger than it had ever been. I could practically see the way the magic moved, now, feel the way it formed and shifted in response to my thoughts and intentions.

I was so caught up in my half-aware musings that I only belatedly realized one potential issue: The woman was gone.