Fiona knew she would win against this chump, but she knew it wouldn’t be an easy win, either. The druid dude could swing with his staff like he was some masterclass monk, but he folded like a wet paper towel as soon as she bypassed his blocks, and sent him reeling through the rice-paper-thin office wall, into another office. She didn’t know how her weapon worked when she set it to ‘humiliate’, other than no matter how hard she swung, it didn’t obliterate foes. Even when they bounced around like a rubber band ball.
The same could not be said about anything not made out of solid steel. A stack of papers, a desk, and part of the wall were smashed in the skirmish, and the druid dude was not a good fighter. “My brethren, small creatures, slay this woman!”
“The only thing you’re slaying, is my enjoyment of this! I don’t get to do adventuring things much anymore, it’s more of a weekend thing, like hikes! Or jogging! Or, maybe that whole wine and paint thing everyone raves about, but I don’t see the appeal!” She brought her hammer down and snapped his staff like a twig, and he stumbled backward, smashing into another wall that needed to go as part of her impromptu demolition. They were in the processing portion of the fishery by now, and it smelled exactly as flavorful as her last trip to Pink Crustacean, a less popular derivative of that other chain.
She probably contributed to that place’s premature closure when she took advantage of the ‘all you could eat’ shrimp buffet. She wasn’t planning on doing the same here, because she was an elf now, and had to be at least somewhat environmentally conscious.
But the druid dude wasn’t out of tricks yet and snapped his hands in a quick motion of symbols, and vines erupted from the wooden floor and snaked through with thorny tendrils, trying to grab her. Neither she nor Tucker were going to be fooled by that, and Tucker zapped the noxious growth with his energy attack, causing them to writhe and retreat. The hammer smashed the stalks to a pulpy mess of plant matter that smelled like carrots.
She didn’t get that one, at all, and she didn’t have to, because she was done messing around. The plants might not be affected by the goldshine, but the druid was, and a quick burst of light startled him, forcing him to shield his eyes, swinging blindly with his control over the plants.
He’d put too much control of them into his own hands. And it showed because they thrashed around, smashing workstations, and ice blocks that had been generated by the ice elementals utilized for all the chilling needs of the raw seafood in the facility. She slid under a conveyor as a pair of vines erupted and smashed down on the conveyor belt--and disturbed a poor elemental somewhere by a pulley and gear system, likely putting that overtime in. The vines impacted a block of ice encased around a rainbow-colored trout set, and left the fish on the ground. She eyeballed this slight against seafood pescatarians as the most egregious offense of all time.
Now she had to beat this guy with all her effort, and she continued her slide, grabbing coins from her pouch and slicing them into the vines. “Coinuken! Coinuken!” She kept cackling as the projectiles sliced through the thinner vines, which twitched on the ground, while the bigger vines took two or three solid hits to cut through. When she tried to fling them at the druid, who was now playing a defensive game, the vines protected him by instinct, with tree-sized limbs blocking the shots. She narrowed her eyes, how should she deal with that?”
“Tucker, go fetch me some fish!” she commanded, and Tucker leaped away from a smashing vine, trying to take a bite out of one and zapping it with fury. He chirped enthusiastically as he grabbed a fish, and leaped at her while dodging vines.
She had an idea and stuffed a bunch of coins into the fish. If her recent discoveries about the power she had over gold, she could try something a little diabolical. She grinned even as she hopped back from a downward strike. She ignored the slimy texture of the fish, and lobbed it at the druid, who was confused about why she was flinging fish–until her power activated and that fish hit him like a fishy missile, catching him on the chin and sending him reeling backward, smashing into ice blocks on the conveyor.
“What in the gods name–ow mah jaw,” he groaned, possibly with a bruised, or even a broken jaw. He wasn’t out of the fight yet, and he made a twisting motion with his hands. More vines emerged from the ground and tried to pincer Fiona from two directions; she jumped to the side, smashing them out of her way when they got too close, with her hammer.
“I call that one my fish missile! It’s like a magic missile, but more humiliating!” she heckled, leaping and tumbling forward as the vines grew noxious barbs. His response was garbled possibly because of his injured jaw, or he just didn’t care. The thorns vibrated violently on the vines, and she saw what was about to happen.
“Tucker, dodge!” she barked out, and she grabbed ahold of the fur on his back, just as he blinked out of reality for a split second, and she reappeared with him a short distance away, while the thorns had rained down on their previous position like a shotgun blast of nails. By now, the druid was trying to make his way toward an exit door, using the vines to block their way, and throwing more of those nail-like thorns. One scraped by and bit into the tip of her ear, and she winced.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
If this guy gave her a courtesy piercing on her cute ears, he was going to be sleeping with the fishes. Pun intended. It was too bad she couldn’t fling gold, and then tether herself onto it, for her to launch like a Fiona-shaped battering ram of elven fury–
She snapped her hammer to hand, and flung it with all her fury at the druid, just as he was about to open the door. The weapon smashed the door and creased it, embedded into the metal framework and crimping the handle shut. He stared bewilderedly at it, and tried to unsuccessfully pull the embedded weapon away--it was completely stuck. "Good gods, you're gonna put a hole in a structural wall if you're not careful!" His jaw seemed to be less broken--stupid exploitative heal spells--she liked it better when they weren't monologuing or raging against her.
"Or you could, I dunno, surrender! Instead of dragging this out!"
He wants to drag this out, she thought with an internal sigh when he glared at her and commanded the vines to spit more of those thorny nail shots.
It took a little more acrobatics work to fully dodge this volley, and the druid was panting from the exertion. Tucker kept trying to flank, but took a glancing blow from the sweeping strike of one of the defensive vines. They were exceedingly reactive, and it took more gold coinukens to thin their numbers. All she needed to do was bean this guy in the head once, and his concentration would be broken long enough for her to end this. She recalled her hammer with a hand grab into the air, and it spun away from the impacted door, flying to her outstretched fingers. She caught it gracefully and spun with the weapon using momentum to fling it even faster at the druid. He'd decided it was time to get out of dodge and was attempting to make his way to another doorway, once more, her aim was true, and the weapon smashed into the door handle, crimping it against the frame.
“Stop bloody doing that!” he roared. “It’s just a little bit of theft, woman, why are you making this so hard for me?”
“Dude, did you just whine like a little baby? Pfffft-hahahaha,” she burst out into laughter, even as she closed the distance, and grabbed an icy block. The adjacent ice elemental was still trying to encase a box of fish within. The wispy elemental threw a hissy fist in a puff of frost, but she pointed it at the vines. “Hey hey, freeze those things, I’ll give ya a treat of hot cocoa!” she called out.
“Wssssh.” She roughly translated that to ‘Oh yes, please!’ based on the reaction of the little spirit. She directed the ice elemental to instantly freeze some of the vines as she recklessly charged forward, Tucker buying her a distraction to go for the bruiser still looking for an exit.
“Who are you–”
“I’m the gal who likes fish sticks, and you’re making a mess of my favorite snacks!” It was personal now, this place likely was a source for half her favorite foods, and he was messing up the works with a bunch of rats pilfering and not following health codes! She had to put a stop to that, at once!
For the city. And totally not for her own somewhat snacky reasons.
She got her opening and pounced on the guy once she froze up another vine, and with them immobilized, she smashed him into the wall, leaving him dazed. After a few more punches and smashing in a few teeth that probably shouldn’t be wiggling under her assault, the guy folded.
“Oww… no mah. No mah, uncle!” he pleaded, and she stood over his prone body like a safari prize, while Tucker stood over him and growled.
“Spill it, rat catcher!” she shouted menacingly, and pulled him up by the scruff of his neck, and he winced. “Why are you stealing gold from everyone? More importantly, where’s the aegis of the Tel’darn?!”
He nodded weakly to his wrist, and she pulled back his sleeve to reveal a bracer of gleaming silver and a few small gems that glowed with their inner light. She could make out the faint trace of the griffin, just like Regis had shown her earlier, and she held it up like a Legend of Zelda treasure. After posing with the item for a second, she used the liquid gold ability to make a pair of gold cuffs out of a few pieces of gold that seemed to hold quite well their nefarious fish smasher.
“Tucker, we did it! We bagged ourselves a rat pack leader! Fiona the adventurer is back in business, and looking snazzy while doing it!” She let out a triumphant roar, while the vines all receded into the ground–or shattered because of the ice, and the man before her groaned. She gave him a pat on the back.
“Please get your boot off my back. This is embarrassing.”
“So’s jail, but hey thief, thanks for giving back something more important than gold!” She put the bracer on for safekeeping and spotted Regis peering at the devastation, soon followed by the others.
Darla laughed out loud at the scene, and clamped her hand on a safety railing to steady herself. “Girl, there is no such thing as subtle or normal with you around, is there?!”
“Hey, we’ve been here since the beginning, demonic cactus,” Bonnie growled playfully. “This is about on par with your typical experience. Or even ‘light’ as some might call it.”
“I’ll talk to the town watch and insist that Fiona’s guild license is still active and that she pursued a suspected criminal ringleader and–yeah, this is going to be some paperwork,” Greg sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He frowned and glanced at Regis. “Hey, you’re looking a little shaky.”
“My unfinished business is almost done,” he replied solemnly, bony hands shaking. “Fiona, I don’t know how much time I have left. Can we make my way back to my family?”
“Yeah, let's. Greg, Bonnie, I’ve gotta go ahead, and make sure this gets to who it belongs to. Make sure to tell the town watch that we had a limited window of time,” Fiona declared as she pried open a door that she hadn’t smashed in yet. “Regis, let's go. We’ll get you home.”