“Fireball!” Heather shouted and a small ball of flames flew past Kylie and slammed into the vine she was fighting. With a shimmer, it disappeared and another of the green leafs appeared in its place, startling Kylie so badly she fell back onto the ground, bruising her ass.
“What the hell!” Kylie yelped in surprise, as Heather rushed up and hugged her out of the blue.
“Are you OK? Where were you today? You weren’t in school all day, and neither was that pervert Kyle! He didn’t do anything to you, did he?” Heather was excited and all out of breath. “I was worried about you, you know!”
“Sorry,” Kylie replied sheepishly, while once again feeling guilty about deceiving Heather about who she really was. “Kyle didn’t do anything to me. I simply overslept, and by the time I woke up it was already past ten and I just played hooky. Honestly, I’m not going to be able to stay in game much longer. I’m probably nearing the time limit before it makes me take a mandatory break for a bit.”
“Well, as long as you’re OK.” Heather said, finally letting go of her hug. “What the heck were you doing anyway? I can take care of these creatures easily enough for you!”
“Well, I need to fight a few from time to time to train my skills up too, you know!” Kylie replied. “And besides,” she let her words trail off for a moment and pointed to the large purple flower nearby, “I’ve almost cleared all the spawns from the circle here so the named creature will go active and you can help me kill it. I’m afraid it’s much too tough for me to take alone, so I was just clearing out the vines in the circle around it, hoping that’ll make it go active. There’s only a few left to deal with.”
“Then let me finish them off, and we’ll burn this purple thing to a crisp!” Heather exclaimed, enthusiastically. “It only takes a few blasts for each of these vines, and I’ll have these last two gone in no time.”
“Don’t you dare!” Kylie leaned up and grabbed her hands before Heather could begin any incantations. “That big one is a whole lot more dangerous than these little things. We might need every drop of magic you have to take it down, so you don’t need to be wasting any energy on the trash mobs around it!”
Tugging Heather back away from the almost cleared ring, Kylie finally sat down near the edge of the creek and dug into the pocket in her cloak, before pulling out the loose leaves and elven trail bread. “Here, have a meal of this,” she said while breaking off a piece of the bread and holding it out to Heather. “It helps speed up your recovery times, so it might be necessary for the boss battle.”
“Fine.” Heather reached over and took the small chunk of bread and slowly chewed on a corner of it. “You don’t have to worry about me so much, you know. I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah. Well tough.” Kylie told her. “Friends watch out for friends, and they worry about each other. That’s just the way it is. Unless, of course, you don’t want to be friends, or something.”
Heather just laughed lightly. “No. No. No. It’s fine. We’re friends. We’re friends.” She held up both hands in defeat, and Kylie blushed at the perfect view she was being given. Damned if Heather wasn’t one nice looking elf! And a naked one at that!
Coughing slightly to cover any embarrassment she might be feeling, Kylie turned and started walking back towards the last two vines that remained. “You rest and get your magic to full. Be prepared for when that last vine falls. I don’t know how long it’ll take that purple named in the center to become active, but we need to be prepared.”
“You can count on me,” Heather replied, seriously. “The moment that purple thing twitches, I’ll unleash everything I have on it. I’ll burn it down before it even knows what hit it!”
“It’s weak to fire,” Kylie informed her. “I learned that by identifying the thing. Maybe you should try and identify it as well. It seems like you can often get better experience or achievements for identifying your opponents.”
“Sure. I’ll give it a shot,” Heather said. “Identify!”
Sadly, she shook her head. “My skill’s not high enough to get any information on it, and it uses a bit of energy to try. If I’m going to save magic for the fight, I probably don’t want to use it just for identifying the creature.”
“It does?” Kylie asked. “I use identify constantly, and I’ve never noticed it costing me any mana.”
“A single point of mana,” Heather replied. “It’s not a ton, but it does use some energy. I’ll practice on trying to get the skill up some later, when I have extra energy to spare.”
“That’s just odd. I’m certain it doesn’t cost me any.” Kylie said. Watching the mana gauge carefully she gave the command, “Identify,” before shaking her head slightly from side to side. “Nope. Didn’t cost me a bit of magic.”
“Maybe different skills have different cost levels according to class?” Heather suggested.
“Maybe.” Kylie shrugged. “Looks like I’m just going to have to take advantage of the mana free skill use for the ability now, before I get a class later. Take the skill up as high as I can while it’s not going to have any effect on my mana levels.” Shrugging once more, she shook her head from side to side. “I’ll worry about that later! For now, it’s time to CHARGE!!”
Rushing forward, Kylie charged the vine on the left and smacked it soundly with her staff. Without even bothering to retreat, she quickly struck again and again, before the vine had a chance to react. Slowly, her skills with the staff had improved, and this time she was able to destroy the first vine before it could respond to her sudden vicious assault.
As the last remaining vine lashed out at her, Kylie jumped to the right and then ran as quickly as she could towards the tangleroot creeper. With a thump, she slammed her staff into the main body of the plant, and then kept on running past if before the vine could catch up to her. Dashing past the reach of the pursuing vine, she finally stopped and took a moment to catch her breath.
“You almost ready?” She asked Heather with a grin while slowly circling back around to the far side of the plant and away from where its vines currently were.
“I’m ready,” Heather confirmed, as she got up and slowly moved up to barely be in range to target the purple vine. “But first, you need to join me in a group. Invite Kylie!”
“Oh! Sorry.” Kylie apologized. “I forgot we hadn’t joined up yet! I accept!” Waiting a moment for the party window to form, she finally nodded and asked once more, “Ready now?”
“We sure are!” Heather nodded.
“Here goes nothing then!” Kylie yelled as she charged the last tangleroot creeper and quickly smashed her staff into the main body one, two, three times in rapid succession. With a shimmer, the last vine disappeared and a rare red leaf appeared where it was.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
With a loud rumble, the ground shook and trembled all around and large vines began to pull themselves up from the earth and lash out randomly at anything that was within the circle. Kylie yelped once as a vine grazed her side in a vicious slash, and the smell of smoldering flesh instantly wafted into the air, and almost half her health disappeared in the blink of an eye.
A ball of fire engulfed the center of the plant, and it released a strange echoing roar of pain and anger. “ARWOOOO!!!” The ground shook and quivered, and Kylie desperately tried to maintain her footing and run out of the center of what seemed like Hell to her! “Heal!”, she screamed as she dropped to her stomach and rolled, trying to keep away from another wildly flailing root.
Another ball of fire zoomed in and blasted into the center of the creature, and with another roar of its agony, Kylie managed to crawl on hands and feet away from the creature. Glancing back over her shoulder, Kylie saw The Tangler raising several roots up together at the same time. In the blink of an eye, they came down together and some thick green fluid was hurled across the field, where it smashed directly into Heather.
A scream of agony burst forth from Heather’s tiny elven lungs that made Kylie shake. “Oh shit!” Screaming herself, Kylie rushed towards where she had crumpled and yelled “Heal! Heal! Heal!” repeatedly, trying to place her body between Heather and The Tangler. Burning pain shot down Kylie’s back as something with and slimy slammed into her, and her health bar would’ve disappeared completely if she wouldn’t have had the benefit of a heal glowing around her at the same moment of impact – but even then the agony was intense and the smell of burnt and melting flesh was thick in the air.
“Heal!” Kylie leaped the remaining distance to pounce on top of Heather, and was relieved when another glob of green sap missed and flew past where she was running just a moment before. Wrapping Heather up tightly in both arms, she screamed “HEAL!” once more, and then rolled to the side, flipping Heather with her. Another blob of acidic sap splashed and sizzled into the ground just feet away from them.
“Let go!” Heather yelled, and shoved Kylie off to the side. Glancing over, Kylie saw The Tangler’s vines once again coming down in a vicious arc to toss sap their way once again. With tears in her eye, she screamed “Heal! Heal! Heal!”, and firmly rose to plant herself between the projectile and Heather. Pain once again rolled over the front of her body, and her flesh melted even as it was being healed under her constant spam of magic.
Another ball of fire flew past and slammed into The Tangler; this time causing several of the vines to wither and disappear. A glob of sap returned and once again scorched and sizzled as Kylie stubbornly refused to move from where she now stood between the beast and Heather. The pain was still just as intense as before, but her health bar didn’t seem to fall quite as fast or as far this time before the healing magic took effect.
A fifth ball of flame rocketed past Kylie’s side and slammed into The Tangler. With another roar of agony, it began to shimmer as it had finally reached its limit. In a desperate last ditch effort to take its killers down with it, the purple head on the flower exploded and sap and purple flower petals flew everywhere. Those that hit and splashed Kylie stuck and burned the skin, and her health once again began to rapidly fall.
“Heal! Shit! Oh Shit! Heal!” Kylie screamed one last time, and then simply flopped to the ground as her magic restored her and the pain subsided. Glancing at her status bars, she had used well over half her magic in that fight – and she had an insane mana pool and recovery rate to pull from!
“Just what the hell is up with that damn thing?” She muttered, half to herself. “How the hell are people supposed to normally fight something like that?”
“I don’t have a clue,” Heather admitted. “That was insane! Are you OK? I’ve never felt anything like that before in the life! Not ever!”
“I will be, once I get some magic back and catch my breath,” Kylie assured her. “But, I don’t want to try that again unless we have a better plan! Next time, we’ll build a wall or something to hide behind first!”
“Next time?” Heather asked. “Are you so certain that we’re even finished this time? I didn’t get a notification that the thing died, and I haven’t gotten any experience yet either.”
“Oh… Shit!” Stumbling up, Kylie slowly took a deep breath. “If it’s not dead, then what do we do next? I swear, I saw it shimmer and disappear!”
“I did too,” Heather confirmed.
“Shit! Is it a glitch in the game?” Kylie asked, as she slowly approached the center of the circle, where The Tangler had been. Inside, lying on the ground, was a large fist-sized seed which gave off a slightly greenish light.
“What’s that?” Heather asked, seeing Kylie stare at it.
“No idea.” Kylie shrugged, before commanding, “Identify!” Two status windows popped up.
Creature Identification: The Tangler
Level: 7
HP: 0 / 200
Weak to fire, cold, disease.
Immune to poison, electricity.
Leech from water, poison, life.
** Other information unavailable due to insufficient skill in Identify.
Congratulations! You have discovered The Tangler’s Seed!
The Tangler was once a peaceful guardian of The Everlost Forest, before it was corrupted by an ancient evil. Destroying the seed will result in the permanent destruction of this once great guardian, and legend states that doing so will reward those that accomplish such a feat of great power.
Of course, it may also be possible to cleanse the seed and restore the creature to its natural state – but who knows if such an action would have any reward at all to doing so!
Do you wish to accept the task to restore The Tangler to its former glory?
Yes (Will be given the quest “Tangler: Restoration”)
No (Immediate experience and item award)
“Oh hell!” Kylie exclaimed. “Looks like we have a choice. Destroy the seed and collect the rewards, or keep it and get a quest to cleanse it. Somewhere. Somehow. And which might not have any reward at all to it!” Smiling, she shrugged slightly and turned towards Heather. “You killed it. What do you want to do with it?”