16. GNOME VS BOSS TOAD
The giant bane toad GLUP! slammed its head into Nanoc just as the gnome activated one of his few class skills.
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Retribution!
For one attack, half of the damage a foe does to you is reflected back onto them!
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It was a desperate move; he’d never even heard of the ability before, but the only other option he had was Rage!, and he was still too much of a clerk to solve his problems by getting angry. He held out his knife as GLUP! struck him. Nanoc’s blade bit deep into the toad’s skin, drawing blood, but the head still connected with Nanoc’s chest, sending the gnome flying high into a tree. He fell, hitting every branch on the way down before collapsing in a heap amongst the tree roots.
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Critically low health!
One more hit will kill you!
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The warning was unnecessary: all the hard bits of his body felt soft, all the soft bits felt hard, and lots of stuff that should have been inside was poking out. The sight was so shocking that it was a full second before he remembered to scream. He felt lightheaded as he went into shock, the pain becoming a distant, terrible dream. GLUP! hopped forward, green blood spurting down its chin. The beast looked annoyed rather than hurt and was clearly ready to finish Nanoc off. The boss toad was too close, too big, too fast, and entirely too angry. Nanoc was doomed.
There was only one way out.
“Save me, banana!” Nanoc pleaded.
A glowing yellow banana of fire appeared in front of Nanoc, hovering protectively over him. The banana was having too much fun to let its champion die. GLUP! paused its attack, surprised by the fruity apparition. Toad and fruit glared at each other. GLUP! blinked first.
“GLUP!” it conceded. “GLUP, GLUP. BANANA! GLUP!”
The massive toad turned its rampage away from him as the heroes continued to bombard it.
“Gnome, what was that spell?” Dren called out. “I have never seen it’s like! It both repulsed and confused the great beast! And… did GLUP! just say ‘Banana’, too? Gnome, did you know that your bleeding everywhere? That can’t be good.”
Nanoc groaned. “I—” he began.
“GLUP-slam!”
The giant toad launched itself into the air, body-slamming the formation of heroes like a sandal falling onto ants. The heroes scattered, but Prod the blocker was too slow and was squashed into the mud beneath the toad. Worse still was that the formation was broken. The heroes swore and dodged as GLUP! swiped at them, catching one of the blockers and sending him crashing into a tree.
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“Pull back! Retreat!” Nial Liv shouted.
The heroes fled, leaving Nanoc alone on the ground, his body broken. No, not alone. Dren was running towards him, a potion in his hand.
“I can heal you, gnome!” he shouted. “I have a healing potion!”
Dren wasn’t looking where he was going, or what danger he was in, he just ran. Unfortunately he ran right past GLUP!, who opened its enormous mouth and pounced on the elven scholar, swallowing him whole. The beast burped.
“No!” Nanoc shouted at it. “I liked that elf! He made me pants!”
GLUP! turned towards the gnome and opened his mouth, ready to eat again.
He was too injured to move, and the banana would not save him again. Death by toad seemed imminent. GLUP! was a legendary beast and Nanoc was only a gnome, after all, a low-level barbarian who had no idea what he was doing. Still, he wasn’t going to be eaten without a fight.
“You ate my friend!” he shouted. “That makes me… angry!”
He triggered his rage ability, which felt like fire erupting inside his body, fury replacing pain. Nanoc’s heart was pounding in his ears like a drumbeat, and his whole body expanded until he was very nearly as tall as a dwarf.
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Rage!
Why think when you can smash! Strength and agility are tripled! Knowledge and Focus are quartered!
Congratulations! By raging out on a far more powerful foe while you are almost dead, you have upgraded your rage! ability to berserk!
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There were more words, but they were far away and were spoken in a language Nanoc didn’t quite understand. What did it matter, anyway? A friend needed help, a monster stood in the way. There was only one thing to do: charge! Nanoc raised his fists and shouted the most hair-raising battle cry he could think of:
“Make seven copies of every form!”
Nanoc’s strange war cry did nothing to scare the boss toad, who simply opened his mouth and swallowed Nanoc whole. It burped confidently, hopped after the fleeing heroes, then stopped, surprised by a rising heat from within. Its eyes bulged, its face turning a peculiarly bright shade of red, then it opened its mouth and vomited out one unhappy elf and a still-enraged gnome. The pair hit the ground with a squelch in a pool of greenish stomach acid. They smelt like clogged drains and rotten meat. They looked even worse. Nanoc’s new pants were slowly dissolving on his legs. The gnome immediately jumped to his feet and waved his fist at the boss toad.
“There’s more where that came from!” the gnome roared at GLUP. “Eat me again, I dare you!”
The toad said “GLUP” a few times, as if considering it, then shook its massive head and hopped away into the forest, defeated. Nanoc’s Beserk faded suddenly, leaving him feeling weak and tired.
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Congratulations!
You have used a barbarian ability to defeat a powerful boss monster! That’s impressive, even if you did have help!
You are now a level 3 barbarian! New skills are available.
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The gnome and the elf stared at each other, both in shock.
“I did it… but I only went up one level,” Nanoc complained. “I should have got at least a dozen levels at least!”
“Do you know,” Dren said, “you can only earn one level at a time, regardless of what it’s for. Oh, and, ah, thanks. I never would have made it out of there alone.”
“Don’t mention it,” Nanoc said, quite seriously. “Ever, preferably.”
“Do you know, that was quite the worst experience of my whole life. I really must make a note of it. Did my pencil survive?”
He patted the pockets of his robe with an unpleasant squelching sound. Nanoc sat and simply watched, stunned into silence.
“Great!” Dren said happily, holding up a pencil. “Now, should we describe the stomach acid as bile green or poison, gnome? The shade may be important to later researchers. Gnome?”
Nanoc thought about this for a moment, then threw up into the bushes.
“I’ll just put ‘bile green’ for now,” Dren said.