Before Yunya even made it into the forest, he was suddenly attacked. From near the edge of the dragmarks, a vine had sprouted from the ground and shot towards him. He barely had the time to turn around before one of his feet got grabbed, trying to yank him away. Despite being caught off guard, Yunya still reacted quickly. Turning around, he took out one of Desmond’s fancy arrows, but couldn’t see the actual culprit. Despite that, Yunya grunted as he used the arrow to stab the vine with. He had intended to sever the vine to free himself, but the moment he stabbed it, he was free.
"Huh?" Confused, Yunya watched as the vine slithered back.
"How is it retreating after a single attack? Wait, is that vine alive? Don't tell me I'm fighting a plant," Yunya chuckled as the vine disappeared near a willow tree.
"Hold on, plant? Trees are a kind of plant. Especially that one willow. The vines disappeared next to it and it's right near the end of the dragmarks, close enough to have covered the last bits of its tracks using its vines."
Quest Archer Avenged Description
Somewhere near Violet Valley, an old archer had been attacked near a lake. His dead body had been found, but the culprit remains. You have found the culprit to be a treant, now kill it and bring back proof of its death.
Reward The boots of the fallen archer
"Fantastic, I get to fight a piece of wood," Yunya muttered.
"WHOOSH!"
Said piece of wood however did not seem to like that description, an immediate attack aimed at Yunya's head in response. The treant had shown it was capable of using vines to attack with, but apparently, it could also use those vines to grab stones and throw them. With remarkable accuracy even. Jumping back, Yunya dodged most of the attack, but was still hit by a few pieces of loose debris. Once he was far enough away, he stopped and thought for a bit.
"How do I even hurt a tree? Don't those things usually have a ton of health? At least, it's not too capable of movement, going by the nature of dragmarks. Don't think I need to worry too much about that."
Yunya sighed, "I need to find out if there's an Inspect skill or something like that. How helpful wouldn't that be, actually knowing how much health your opponent has. Even if it's just a health bar."
While he was musing to himself, the treant slowly, very slowly, started making its way over to Yunya, who easily stepped back to remain out of range.
"I'm gonna need help aren't I? I don't think I can take this thing down on my own. Not without magic arrows, which I don't have access to just yet. Fire arrows would make this so much easier it’s not even funny. Damn it."
Even as he said that, Yunya still kept up his offense, being too stubborn to just ask for help without even trying first. Soon enough, he discovered that beneath all the foliage, the treant had a face, with eyes that kept following his every move.
“So not only am I fighting a piece of wood, it also has a face? Amazing,” he grunted before he suddenly stopped in his tracks.
“Did it just glare at me? Hey tree, can you understand me!?”
Dodging a vine, it seemed like the tree could somewhat understand Yunya, but was not capable of talking. If anything, Yunya was actually glad it couldn’t. Would’ve been a little too unsettling otherwise.
A few minutes later, Yunya took a few big jumps backwards. Looking at his quiver, he realized he couldn’t finish this fight on his own. So, he gave in and contacted Eclipse and Breeze, hoping at least one of them was still around.
“I’m already back at Red Reef, sorry!”
“A fight? Alright, give me ten minutes, I’ll be there soon. Perfect opportunity to try out my new halberd.”
Breeze couldn’t, but Eclipse seemed very eager to come and help. Yunya even convinced him to buy some more arrows for him, since his quiver was getting rather empty.
“A treant? Alright, can’t say I’ve fought one of those before. Sure is a nice change from all wolves and boars.”
“Glad to bring you a fresh challenge, Eclipse,” Yunya laughed. Not only had the orc arrived within five minutes, he even had more arrows for Yunya than his quiver could store. The rest had to stay in his inventory, but they’d have to leave combat again to give those to Yunya. Which hopefully wouldn’t happen, because if both of them left combat, there would be no one left to keep the boss in combat, thus it would reset and they’d have to start all over again.
“Any tips to fight the tree?”
“Yes.”
In the time it took Eclipse to get over to him, Yunya had not wasted his time.
“Its form of attack are those numerous vines,” Yunya said as he gestured at the willow. “I think he can control every single vine you can see, but not too many at the same time. I’ve seen seven being controlled at once, but that’s probably not the limit. It mostly attacks twofold, split control-offense. Some vines will try to restrict you or even straight up grab you, others will shoot forward like a spear trying to impale you. However, it is capable of ranged attacks, just grabbing rocks and throwing them. And it’s surprisingly accurate at that.”
“It also has a face underneath somewhere on its trunk, but you can only see it when in combat. And that face is the only weak spot I’ve found so far.”
Yunya grinned, “It sure didn’t like it when I shot an arrow into one of its eyes.”
“Lastly, it’s a tree. It’s incredibly slow. See those dragmarks? That’s how it moves, meaning it’s about as fast a snail. Then again, not like it really needs to move, not when it has so much health.”
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Eclipse asked some more questions, most of which Yunya answered easily. Except the last one.
“Why it’s out here? I’ve wondered about that myself as well. The quest said that an npc archer was attacked by a monster and that I need to avenge him, but it sure didn’t mention why a monster like a treant would be out of the forest. Maybe for its fruit? There’s a single one in between its leaves somewhere, but I’ve gotten a glimpse of it once. No clue.”
“Alright, let’s just beat up the tree and see if it’s willing to answer,” Eclipse grinned.
And beat up the treant they did. With Burning Eclipse and his new shiny halberd up front taking away all the attention, Yunya was free to snipe from afar, targeting the face only. He hit the eyes a few times, but soon enough, the treant had learned and started protecting his face with some of its vines.
“Holding back against me, are ya!?”
No longer facing an insurmountable wall of vines, Eclipse suddenly ducked under a vine to get real close to the treant and delivered a massive attack to its face. With all the arrows Yunya had put in its left eye, one Chop with the halberd was enough to deal an equal amount of damage to its right eye.
Now blind, the treant couldn’t use its vines any longer to impale them, so it switched tactics. Besides just swinging the vines like a whip, it also started picking up even more stones and branches, to just throw them in the general direction of its aggressors. It didn’t need perfect accuracy with wide attacks like that. But that gave Yunya even more time to simply hang back and use Precision Shots to pelter its eyes. Eclipse had a harder time, having caught an attack right in the face.
“Ashen, how long do you need to kill it like this?”
“With uninterrupted shots? Like 5 minutes. But that will require you to keep distracting it. Otherwise, he’ll just protect his eyes or even run away.”
“Oh, don’t worry. Nothing can run away when I’m facing it.”
Lifting an eyebrow, Yunya ignored the boisterous remark and started attacking once again. Soon, the face of the treant started resembling a porcupine. Countless arrows had been shot at it, whittling it down ever so slowly. And with an enthusiastic orc distracting it, it was a fairly easy target for Yunya. So much so that he could even afford to take his time for Precision Shots one after the other. Then, at the brink of death, the treant got desperate and tore off the single fruit it had.
And proceed to throw it at the one that had kept shooting it. Not taking any risks, Yunya quickly backed away, in case the fruit was capable of exploding. Unfortunately, not far enough. The fruit did in fact explode, but it also flung out its broken shell as shrapnell. Yunya was far enough away for the majority of the attack to miss him, but not everything.
“Ashen, you okay?” Eclipse, who’d dealt the final blow while the treant was occupied with throwing the fruit, looked back at his companion.
Reached level 7, 1 free attribute point has been awarded.
“Nothing too bad,” Yunya said as he took a second after standing up. “I’m not sure if I’d be able to continue fighting, but it looks like that’s not needed anymore.”
Eclipse grinned and bowed a little. “May I present to you, one dead treant.”
“For such a big health pool, it was a surprisingly easy fight.”
“‘Cause you didn’t do it alone. Didn’t you say this was an archer specific quest? Doubt any archer could do this by themself.”
Yunya shrugged, conceding the point. “Any shoes in that tree? That’s what this whole quest was about in the first place.”
After searching the vines, they soon found a pair of boots, strangled in the vines. Using his halberd as a makeshift saw, Eclipse managed to free them easily. Catching them, Yunya had two pop-ups on his interface.
Quest Archer Avenged Description Somewhere near Violet Valley, an old archer had been attacked near a lake. His dead body had been found and now, you have slain the treant that was responsible. Bring back proof and you will be allowed to keep the boots it had stolen from the corpse of the archer. Reward The boots of the fallen archer
Item Swift Boots Prerequisite 10 or more dexterity Description Being swift on your feet is the first step in staying alive Effect +5% movement speed
Having put the free attribute point of his last level in dexterity as well, Yunya now had 11 dexterity in total, being able to equip the boots. And for someone like him with low defense, extra movement speed was a welcome bonus.
“Damn it,” Yunya frowned, eliciting a raised eyebrow from Eclipse in response.
“These boots are really nice and I meet the prerequisites to equip them, but they’re.. locked? I think I need to hand in the quest before I can actually equip them.”
So, Yunya collected some of the fruit’s shrapnell and some vines, hoping that, combined with the boots, it’d be sufficient evidence to complete the quest.
But first, he wanted to go and visit the other two villages on that map he bought and kill monsters along the way. It took a few hours and he’d gotten lost in a misty valley, but eventually, Yunya made his way back to Red Reef. The bad news was that he’d had to sell all his spoils of killing monsters along the way to keep his quiver filled, barely earning a single copper. The good news? He’d gotten to level 8, putting yet another point in dexterity. The even better news? Just the shards of the fruit alone were enough to complete the quest, enabling him to equip his new boots. And the cherry on top was that it was a new day in Infinite Odyssey. Which meant it was time to go visit Eldwin and complete that quest as well.
“Welcome back my friends. I had a rather unexpected visitor yesterday, but I do not think I need to tell you why Almina decided to pay me a visit,” Elwin said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Thank you for allowing her to tell me about Soren herself.”
With those words, the npc stood up and bowed. “Soren’s late wife was like a sister to me. Thank you for finally letting her rest in peace.”
Yunya looked around him, but the others had no clue how to react either.
Getting over their surprise after a few seconds, Yunya and Breeze stepped forward at the same time to help Elwin stand up straight again, saying they just did what anyone would’ve done.
“Is there anything you still want us to do?”
“No, you all have helped me more than I could have ever imagined. Now, I think I promised a personal favor if you managed to solve the origin of the pregnant boars, did I not? Is there anything in particular you want?”
The conversation that followed took more than an hour before most of them had traded in their favor. Zephyr had explained how he wanted to become a trapmaster that was capable of commanding troops behind the scenes and simply asked if Elwin himself had any idea who to seek out or what quests to complete, beyond just the standard back at the rogue guild. Path’s request was simple and straightforward. She’d heard from Yunya about Burning Eclipse, the orc warrior that had gone to another town to acquire a halberd. She too wanted a more suitable weapon type and thus wanted to know where she could acquire a rapier. Breeze on the other hand simply wanted magical knowledge, the more the merrier. So she asked if Elwin could introduce her to as many (recluse) magic related npc’s. And while she was at it, she even forced Yunya into making a promise to introduce her to Desmond, the arcane archer npc.
“And you, Ashen Fall? If anything, you are the one that made me promise everyone a favor, so I can not deny my curiosity at your request,” Elwin smiled at Yunya.
Smiling awkwardly, Yunya cleared his throat.