As Jeff stood waiting in the center of the village, the entire Mooblon community gathered around. The king cleared his throat, and, his booming voice echoing off the acorn-huts, addressed the crowd.
Today," the king began, "we have witnessed a feat of great skill and determination. This alien," he gestured towards Jeff with his horn, "has honored the Reckoning of Asanso,”
A murmur of agreement rippled through the crowd.
“For sustenance on the remainder of his journey, we gift him this sacred fruit. May it sustain him and give him the strength needed to face the mighty Vasuka.”
The chieftain reached behind his back and presented Jeff with an Ahud nut.
A sudden strong wind picked up, blowing leaves around the village and causing the branches overhead to creak and groan.
“An ill omen for your journey, young alien.” The King pronounced solemnly. “When the Lodoz blows, Vasuka is at full strength. You are almost certainly doomed.”
Jeff ignored the gloomy warning, and thanked the king for the nut. Nodding at the assembled villagers, he proceeded on, up the vine. The wind continued to buffet him, almost throwing him from the path on a couple of occasions.
Eventually, Jeff breached the canopy. The whole forest stretched below him—an ocean of green and endless sky, as far as the eye could see. A single colossal leaf—easily the size of Times Square—stood before him, and the glowing yellow System-generated path led him right onto it.
Barely had he set foot on the giant leaf before a rattling sound, together with a sibilant, almost hypnotic hiss reached his ears. With a sinking feeling, Jeff stared at the approaching shape, undulating and writhing across the surface of the leaf towards him
Boss Battle
Defeat Mistress Vasuka to Complete Your Training
NAME: Mistress Vasuka, Preferred Pronouns: ze/hir
RACE: Ningish Serpent, Grade J
HIT POINTS (HP): 40/40
MANA POINTS (MP): 30/30
REWARD: 30 Coins
“Snakes. That’s just great…” He muttered to himself. A corny, electronic version of the 'Snake Charmer Song’ began to play through invisible speakers, echoing across the huge leaf, much to Jeff’s annoyance.
Jeff had felt an aversion to snakes from an early age. Once, while attending kindergarten at the age of four during a particularly hot summer in the city, he had been bitten by an escaped rattlesnake. The owner of the creche had her living quarters above the children’s play area, and her stoner boyfriend, a reptile enthusiast, had forgotten to close one of the cage doors in his vivarium.
Luckily, the paramedics had administered anti-venom in time, so the symptoms of the snakebite were mild, but Jeff remembered spending the next few days tossing and turning in his bed, drenched in sweat and unable to sleep. Every time he shut his eyes, he had again felt the sharp pinch of the snake's fangs piercing his skin. His father had beaten the living crap out of the boyfriend, resulting in some legal repercussions that hastened their relocation to the remote wilderness of the North Carolina mountains.
The creature undulating rapidly across the leaf towards him was unlike any Earthborn snake Jeff had heard of. At least 25 foot long and thick as a telegraph pole, with alternating bands of purple and green along hir length, hir massive head was hooded, like a cobra, and from hir sinister mouth a forked tongue at least a foot long zipped in and out, hissing and tasting the air as ze slithered towards him. A striking feature was the two pronounced fangs protruding from hir mouth, gleaming white against the purple tone of hir head. Finally, the serpent was equipped with a massive rattle at the end of hir tail from which emanated the disturbing noise Jeff had noticed initially.
Mistress Vasuka paused around 30 feet in front of Jeff, coiling hir body sinuously round and round until ze had created a pile of hir own body from which hir head emerged. Peering straight at him with hir inscrutable sapphire colored eyes, ze opened a black lipped mouth and spoke in a flute-like, hypnotic voice.
“Greetingzzz Jeff. We can do thisss the hard way, or the eazzy way. Your choice.”
Sighing and peering up in the air, Jeff called out in a voice laden with scorn, “Come on, is that the best you’ve got - a crappy Jungle Book rip off?”
Vasuka abruptly reared up and opened hir mouth wide to reveal a cavernous mouth equipped on either side with two wicked looking fangs. Rocking hir head back then abruptly forward, ze spat an arc of fluorescent blue fluid across the space between them, aimed directly at his face.
Taken by surprise, Jeff was unable to dodge the viscous stream in time, some of it hitting him on the cheek and dripping down his neck.
A notification flashed up on his interface.
You’ve been poisoned
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Ningish Serpent Neurotoxin Venom. -10 HP, 30% reduction in Strength, 50% reduction in Cognition
Jeff stumbled backwards, frantically wiping at the blue slime on the side of his face. Luckily for him, the poisonous jet had missed his eyes, but the pain of the acidic liquid was bad enough. Large, fluid filled blisters erupted across his cheek and neck in response to the toxin.
Congratulations!
You have learnt the Skill Poison Resistance (Level 1)
What’s worse, Jeff felt a strange trancelike mood slip over him, reducing his ability to think straight. The venom's insidious effects seemed to amplify the ambient noises, making the steady rhythm of his heart thud louder and louder in his ears. His vision became tinged with blue and purple spots, and he struggled to maintain focus on his target.
Shaking his head, he ran at the serpent, shouting an incoherent battle cry.
Vasuka uncoiled hirself and darted forward to meet his charge. As Jeff approached, he raised his gladius over his head, simultaneously triggering [Cutting Edge], bringing the sword crashing down towards the reptile’s snout. But Vasuka at the last moment swerved to the side with blinding speed, avoiding being struck directly, the blow skittering off the armor-like ridges around hir eyes to slice through the scales on hir right side, creating a long shallow wound from which oozed dark green blood.
You have struck Vasuka a glancing blow with Cutting Edge, dealing 5% damage
Your Offense attribute has risen by 1
In response, Vasuka began to glow, scales lighting up along the length of hir body as ze triggered some type of skill. Hir mouth yawned open, wider than seemed physically possible as hir jaw unhinged, revealing the cavernous interior of hir gullet. The serpent reared up above him. Still disoriented by the neurotoxin, Jeff had no time to react as Vasuka dropped down on him in an impossibly fast blur, hir gaping mouth open so wide he caught a glimpse of hir razor sharp teeth passing by on either side as he was swallowed whole.
Engulfed in the dark wet space, Jeff’s head and upper body were now being squeezed violently by the muscles lining Vasuka’s gut. He could feel his feet still sticking out of hir mouth but the rest of him was being constricted brutally, and Jeff felt himself starting to pass out from the pressure. The meagre air was foul, tainted with the stench of rotting meat and the acrid sting of the snake’s toxic saliva.
You have been incapacitated by Vasuka
He had dropped his sword on the surface of the leaf as he was being swallowed, not that it would have done him much good as his arms were pinned against his sides by the peristaltic movement of the snake’s digestive system.
Trying not to panic in the dark humid environment of Vasuka’s intestinal tract, Jeff thought of the goblin dagger and pulled it from his storage ring, directly into his right hand. Using the last of his strength he stabbed outwards, attempting to pierce a hole to the outside. His efforts were rewarded when he finally saw a small chink of light.
However, try as he might, he was unable to make the hole any larger with the bone blade. Unconsciousness beginning to set in, he finally remembered to deploy the [Cutting Edge] Skill, managing to use the knife to slice a hole wide enough to escape out of, kind of like unzipping a sleeping bag from the inside.
You have freed yourself from Vasuka’s crushing embrace
Your Endurance attribute has risen by 1
Jeff rolled out of the gash he had created, covered in Vasuka’s slimy internal juices. The giant snake thrashed spasmodically, clearly wounded but still an active threat. By chance, his short-sword was lying on the surface of the leaf, close to hand, so Jeff was able to grab the weapon and swing at Vasuka’s head as ze lunged down towards him. His strike was a clean one, and Vasuka was completely decapitated, hir head flying across the leaf, tongue still protruding and issuing an angry hissing sound, whilst the rest of hir body slumped to the leafy ground, unmoving.
You have injured a Grade J Ningish Serpent
Sighing in relief, Jeff brushed himself down and examined his most recent wound. The angry blistered welts on his face had spread further down his neck, aggravated no doubt by the snake’s digestive juices. Gingerly dabbing at the blisters with his shirt sleeve, Jeff managed to clean them up somewhat, and the pain began to subside. However, he felt that another Potion of Healing was required from the Store.
Calling up his stats, he was surprised to see that the stock of coins in his inventory had not increased after defeating Vasuka, and the button to summon a Store portal was still dimmed, inaccessible.
“Misty, what happened to…” he started saying, only to be interrupted by a sharp pain in his leg.
Glancing down in shock, he saw that Vasuka had somehow come back to life and was biting into the flesh of his lower left leg.
A Grade J Ningish Serpent has injured you
Pushing himself backwards with his hands and his free foot, and kicking out repeatedly with his other foot, he finally succeeded in dislodging the snake’s teeth from his leg, the calf muscle seriously lacerated and bleeding freely. Seriously pissed now, Jeff got to his feet and limped back towards the serpent, and struck down again and again with his sword, succeeding in hacking off the its head once more.
Panting, Jeff kicked the head off to one side and then stepped back warily to observe the outcome. As he watched, a green glow appeared around the bleeding stump at the end of Vasuka’s now shortened length, and in front of his eyes, a new head started to grow. Within a minute, a ripple ran down the length of the body and the newly grown head was complete. Vasuka opened hir eyes and almost seemed to grin at him.
“You can’t defeat me that easily, Jeff.” ze hissed, opening her mouth wide and spitting another stream of blue neurotoxin at him.
This time, Jeff managed to dodged the flow of poison by throwing himself to one side.
You have evaded a Ningish Serpent’s attack
Your Speed Attribute has risen by 1
He rolled to his feet and once again sliced through the creature’s neck.
This carried on for some time, and the serpent was slowly reduced in length each time Jeff chopped off hir head.
Finally, patience wearing thin, Jeff decided to employ a different method. Grasping hir head in one hand, he used his other hand to stuff hir tail into hir wide open mouth. The tail went in easily and despite Vasuka’s struggles, Jeff was able to continue to feed the bulk of hir body into hir mouth; the more he fed in the smaller ze got.
Ze went from something the size of a space hopper… then a basketball… then down to a baseball in size. Finally ze was no bigger than a golfball. Jeff continued squeezing and rolling, until with a pop, Vasuka was no more than a greasy stain covering the palms of his hands.
You have killed a Grade J Ningish Serpent
Reward: Ten Omega Energy Points
Level up!
Congratulations. You have reached Level 22
Panting, Jeff wiped his oily hands on his pants and angrily glared upwards into the blue sky above him, at a spot where he imagined a camera would be, if the Vogels had actually required cameras.
Are you not entertained?