Health: 7/14

Stamina: 2/51

Mana: 7/25

‘Just a little bit longer. Three minutes.’ I observed as Goldie inched side to side, testing her approach. My illusory spider would twitch or hiss at her attempts. ‘That might be the problem. Right? The spider is acting like it’s protecting something, instead of trying to take down its prey. Goldie wants my leaves. Her determination tells me she liked the one she took already. So, let’s give her something else to focus on.’

The spider reared back once more, as it did so wiggle its abdomen between its legs to point forward. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have given it such a fat butt. That… that looks weird.’ With its spinnerets pointed at Goldie, it fired. Instead of a fine stream of silky threads, a thick glob of white goo shot forward. Goldie scuttled backwards, barely dodging the goop. ‘And that is not helping.’ My focus zoomed in towards the gloopy lump. ‘It looks like a melted marshmallow, not a lump of webbing. Guess the simple illusions bit is kicking in again.’

Two more globs of mallow-webbing fired at Goldie. Each time they sent her scuttling backwards to avoid them, usually at the last moment. ‘She must be sensing them only once they get close. Let’s press the offensive, Marshmallow!’ The now named Marshmallow dropped back to his feet and charged forward, his legs moving in a very unrealistic synchronization. More like a dog bounding after a ball than a spider running.

Goldie flipped her own weaponized rear forward once more. Her green/gold acid fired in a dramatic arc towards Marshmallow. Unphased in his stride, Marshmallow simply slid to the side of the shot. He kept up the pace as he moved past the burning patch of dirt. ‘Lag! Wait, no. That helped me. We’re good!’ Goldie seemed to panic as she ran about in a circle. ‘Good! See how you like it!’

Marshmallow had forced her back to the brick. With the ‘wall’ behind her, she wasn’t able to pull any fancy moves to try and juke past my defender. Forced back, Goldie kept trying to get past Marshmallow. She would faint her attacks, trying to nip at him with her powerful jaws. He kept ‘stepping’ to the side, dodging and returning her attacks with attempted stomps of his powerful legs. The battle forced Goldie to clamber up the brick behind her. ‘Oh, wait. Uh oh.’

Marshmallow froze as Goldie slipped out of the range of my perception. The tickle of her movements fading from my senses. Slowly, cautiously, Marshmallow crawled a few inches backwards. His flat eyes focused dead ahead at the spot where Goldie had disappeared.

Stamina: 3/51

Mana: 8/25

‘Come on! Fill up faster! I’ll gladly watch a video Tuesday for some Stamina today!’ I desperately called out to the Admins, not expecting a response. Just so, none came. I pulled Marshmallow back to the halfway point between the brick and myself. Seconds ticked by. Long, tense seconds. As the moments stretched out, both Stamina and Mana ticked up by another one. ‘One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi…’

Rigid leaves buffeted in the breeze. The ground stopped singing from the acid. Marshmallow’s mandibles clicked steadily in time with my counting. I released my focus to keep my general perception of my area, just in case Goldie decided to come from another direction. ‘Forty Mississippi. Fif-Jeebus Christy!’ Marshmallow jumped with surprise at my outcry and spun about. ‘How did you get so close?!’

Goldie had crept in from the side, her golden hue helping to blend her in with the dirt. She had nearly pressed herself flat against it and was already past the halfway mark towards me. Marshmallow tensed back, building up his power before leaping towards her. He landed with a solid thump, having cleared much of the distance towards her. Unfortunately, his landing alerted Goldie to the fact she had been spotted. Near instantly she was on her feet and dashing for my stem!

Marshmallow was sliding about more than running now as he moved in to chase her down. She managed to stay just ahead of him as she reached the base of my stem. Her legs brushed against me as she moved to start climbing. At that moment, my Stamina clicked over that last point I needed. ‘STFA!’

I couldn’t help being a little dramatic. I used my back to ten Mana as well to shape the Pheromone release with an illusory explosion. Marshmallow was buffeted backwards by the shockwave, and sent tumbling. Goldie freaked. She fell off my stem and onto her back, her legs waving wildly in the air before she righted herself. In a mad dash, she rushed away from me towards the safety of the brick ring.

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The stiff tension in my leaves dropped, and I felt like I sagged with relief. ‘Thank goodness. Oh, thank goodness. Oh, god. Haha! I’m alive! I’m alive…’ A cloud of STFA floated around me protectively. There had yet to be an instance where something crossed my threshold with STFA present, unless they were traveling inside a stream of Nymph’s Call. ‘That was intense!’

The sun’s warmth sent tingling pleasure through me as I let Photosynthesis just run. Steadily refilling both my Stamina and Mana as I relaxed in my safe little bubble. ‘How did she manage to sneak up on me? That was crazy! I haven’t missed anything that’s crossed into my domain… have I?’ A shiver ran up my stem and I cast a worried search through out everything I could perceive.

‘Nothing seems out of place.’ The fact Goldie had gotten so close without me noticing had been worrying. ‘Could she have a Skill for it? Could she be like me?’ The fight replayed itself in my mind. ‘No, I don’t think she is. She didn’t seem to recognize the spider for anything more than a predator. She didn’t notice that it wasn’t moving properly, or any of the other giveaways. She was just really good. But does she have Skills?’

Another thought came to mind, and I recalled the eldritch ants. ‘That way that they were speaking to me, that was a Skill, no doubt. They also seemed far more intelligent. I mean, Goldie was smart, perhaps smarter than an average ant, but I could see any number of predators behaving that way.’

A rough gust of wind buffeted me, and I lost thought for a moment. ‘That was out of place, maybe the seasons are changing?’ I watched what I could see of the sky as I shifted my thoughts back to the eldritch ant. Something it had ‘said’ was nagging at me. ‘‘Thank, not, eat, me.’ It had said ‘me’, not us or any ant identifier. It knew about gardening. That one I can see being like me. I guess we will have to find out.’

By the time the sun started to slip out of sight, I had already topped up my Stamina and Mana. My Health, unfortunately, was going to have to wait until I caught some ants. ‘Which maybe I should hold off on just yet? After Eldritch thanked me for not eating it, it would kinda suck if I nabbed one.’

Health: 10/14

Experience 6.5/100

Stamina: 51/51

Mana: 25/25

‘I really got to figure out where my xp is coming from. When the fight was over, I was still at six point one out of a hundred. So, I did not get it from fighting Goldie.’ A mental grunt of frustration spent five of my Stamina, releasing a low laying cloud of frustration around me. ‘I got to get that under control, but still. All I’ve done since the fight is just sit back and chill. Taking in some sun… like a good… little… plant.’

If I wasn’t mentally frozen in epiphanic shock, I would have spent a few Mana to create a cloud of neurons firing off and connecting all about me. My sheet hovered in the air before me in clear focus.

Species: Wisteria, Seedling

Experience: 6.5/100

Class: N/A

Profession: N/A

‘I. Am. A. Plant. A PLANT! Not a fighter or mage or cleric, but a fucked by a truckin’ plant! I don’t even have a class! Why would I get xp for doing class things?’ My leaves bristled with annoyance. How could I have not realized this sooner? ‘I have to be getting the xp for doing plant things. There has to be a bit more to it then that, because what I get seems to vary. But that has to be it!’

My rant was cut short by an itching on my stem. I reoriented and saw the eldritch ant standing there, its antennae tickling the base of my stem to get my attention. ‘GAH! How does this keep happening?!’

I let my sapbeat slow down before I looked around. There weren’t any other eldritch ants about, and for some reason this one looked uncomfortable. Well, as uncomfortable as an ant can look.

Due to my little outburst, I was already down some Stamina. As Eldritch released a plume, I activated the passive.

“Question: Angry.”

I winced inwardly as I looked at the small layer of frustration floating around. “Embarrassed: Mistake. Stupid.”

“Solemn: Learn.”

Mentally, I grumbled at its response, I decided to move on. Not like it would help explaining that I didn’t realize I was a plant and that I should be doing plant things.

“Question: Colony.” Speaking like this was getting easier, but it was still weird to be talking in concepts and feelings, rather than words.

“Acceptance: Waiting.” As soon as it finished speaking, there was a mass movement at the edge of my bricks. Turning my attention towards it, I regarded the large group of ants that came pouring over.

“Question: Where.” The question threw me off guard. Right. They were going to need a place to live and build. I let my perception diffuse out.

“Worry: Roots.”

Eldritch seemed to consider for a moment. While we conversed, the rest of the colony seemed to spread itself out around the edges of the dirt pack. My guess was that there were hundreds of them at the very least. After a pause, a bunch of ants started walking about. They seemed to be testing the ground. I watched their progress, though my Stamina was beginning to drop.

“Question: Here.” The ants that had started moving about converged on a spot. It was on the far side of me from the honey pot, and about a half foot away from the brick. It was also outside the current extent of my roots by a good foot or so. I could work with that.

“Pleased. Yes.”