After watching Heather kill and blast the nearby squirrels, Kylie finally finishing stringing all the various claws together with several long strands of her hair, which she’d cut and braided together. Much to her surprise, she was rewarded with a ding and a couple of message boxes that popped up, informing her that she now had a Jewelcrafting skill of one, and that she’d made a ‘Squirrel Claw Necklace’. The necklace had a common enough description to it; “A weak necklace assembled with various crude claws from Harvester Squirrels, that still seems to give off a slight essence of the beasts.”, and gave a slight bonus to evasion and escape style skills.
“Oohh! OH!” Kylie half bounced, she was so excited. “Heather! Heather! Come take a look at this!”
“What?” Heather turned to look back at Kylie and was promptly pelted by several nuts from the two squirrels she was trying to fight. “Yeouch! You bastards!” Turning back around, she blasted a fireball into the top of the tree, instead of the smaller flame darts which she had been using. One squirrel shimmered and disappeared instantly, while the other one screeched, caught on fire, and feel from the branch it was on. Between blasting it once more as it fell, and the impact with the ground, that squirrel also disappeared in a shimmer of lights.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Heather yelled as she stomped over towards Kylie. “Are you trying to get me killed or something?!”
“No, not at all,” Kylie said sheepishly, before muttering, “Heal.” Heather’s bruises faded instantly away, but the scowl across her face didn’t.
“Sorry,” Kylie apologized. “I was just excited and wanted you to come over so I could give you this.” Holding up the necklace like an offering, Kylie tried not to look Heather directly in the eyes.
“And what would I want something like that for?” Heather snorted, wrinkling her nose.
“Well, it is magical,” Kylie offered. “Identifying it, it has a property which enhances the wearer’s evasion and escape rates. Since you’re the one up there getting nuts tossed at you, I thought it might be nice for you to have to help you dodge them a little better. Dodge the acid from something like that named spitter plant too, if we ever run into something like that again.”
Heather blinked a few times and then slowly reached out and took the necklace. “You’re making magical necklaces now, too?” She sounded shocked as she slowly draped it over her head to let the claws dangle between her breasts.
“Why of course.” Kylie bragged and flexed her arm to show off the muscles she didn’t have. “It’s a snap for someone as great and powerful as me. Clothes, armor, jewelry, weapons – I can do it all! There’s nothing that someone as great as me can’t accomplish, once I set my mind on it!”
“Oh grow up!” Snorting, Heather turned and flicked her hair back over her shoulder again. “Next time, wait until I finish the fight I’m in before you disturb me. I might just accidentally mistake you for one of those rodents, you know,” she warned as she walked back over to collect the items dropped by the last squirrels slain.
“No worries,” Kylie assured her. “I’m out of materials from what we hunted yesterday. You’re just too slow to keep me in business with the leathers and claws. I’ll have to join in and help for a while.”
“And what can you do to help?” Heather snorted. “I’m the Master Blaster, you know!”
Kylie stopped, blinked a few times, and then burst out in wild laughter. “That just sounds like a personal problem, if you ask me! Have you been eating a lot of beans lately?”
“What?!” Heather tucked the grey pelt in the sack she was carrying and glared icily at Kylie. “You’re just jealous because you couldn’t be a master of anything, compared to me,” Heather snarled. “I bet you even have trouble putting bait on the hook when you go fishing. You can’t even be called a Master Baiter!”
“And you can?” Kylie asked all innocently. “I’m sorry,” she bowed low and pretended to curtsy. “I beg forgiveness, Milady Heather. I didn’t realize I was in the presence of a great and skilled Master Baiter.”
“Well you are… Wait a minute!” Heather blinked and then turned bright red. “That didn’t come out right at all, you’re supposed to be the Master Baiter, not me!”
“Oh no. No no no!” Kyle giggled and repeated her curtsy. “I accept the judgement of a true master such as yourself. I shall never be able to become half the Master Blaster, nor a tenth the Master Baiter that you are.”
Heather was bright crimson as she turned her back and began to stomp upstream. “Just shut it dweeb! Get that loot off that limb up there and catch up, or I’m going to leave you behind.”
“Certainly, Lady Heather. Whatever you say.” Kylie rushed to climb and get the claw and leather from the tree and then scurried to catch up. Smiling, she couldn’t help but think that it was nice that Heather was beginning to try to loosen up and joke around; even if she did get her jokes backwards somewhat.
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The rest of that evening, the two of them wandered upstream, killing and blasting as they went. Slowly, over time, the squirrels got slightly larger and more numerous. Groups of two or three showing up at once wasn’t that uncommon, and Kylie had to help in the fights by healing Heather more and more often. At some point, and Kylie wasn’t certain exactly when as she hadn’t been identifying every target all the time, the names of the creatures started to change. Harvester Squirrels were still the most common, but Guardian Squirrels, Avenger Squirrels, and even a Myrmidon Squirrel showed up a few times.
The creatures were starting to hit harder, and it was taking Heather several zaps of her flame dart to take one down now, but the loot was also getting slightly better over time. The red leather was dropping more often now, about one time in three, and the claws were getting longer and stronger. The Avenger and Myrmidon Squirrels dropped larger, wider pieces of leather, which Kylie thought could be used to make a longer, less revealing set of skirts, or a nice cloak eventually. The few times she’d been stuck in the rain in game were miserable; her silken cloak, that she’d had from the very beginning, did nothing to really help keep away the rain, and Heather didn’t even have something as flimsy as that for herself.
The forest itself was getting darker as the trees were growing taller and the vegetation thicker. Heather, being a natural elf, had no issues seeing in the gloom or twilight, but Kylie was an alter-elf. She didn’t have that same natural elvish vision which helped see at night, so Kylie was having to squint and move much slower and carefully than before. All in all, she really didn’t like the deep forest, even if the loot was better.
As the evening passed, first William and then Darryl and Jason all contacted Kylie and fused at her. It took a lot of apologizing, and a promise not to put them on ignore again, before they finally relented and said they’d forgive her.
Asking William about how he was enjoying being trapped in a prison, his initial response was, “Huh? What prison? I’m in prison?” When Kylie mentioned that Sera had talked about him being trapped in a cell by an alchemist somewhere, William immediately changed his tune. “Yep. It’s cold and dark and gloomy and I’m not doing nothing. Not doing nothing at all! And you can’t prove I did!”
Kylie half shivered as the hair on the back of her neck stood straight up. “Not doing nothing” was a double negative, which meant William was doing something – and she knew him well enough to know she didn’t want to know to know anything more about whatever “nothing” was that William was “not doing”.
Drun Kindwarf, Jason’s character, was still loafing around the dwarven city, doing quests and working for the smiths and steadily improving his smithing and drinking abilities; and Johnb Jovi, Darryl’s alter-ego, had moved on from the graveyard where Seran was last in game at, and was now roaming around the mountains killing sheep and protecting wolves. Normally, most would protect the sheep and kill the wolves, but apparently the rock giants kept the wolves as pets and they had to go out and hunt wild mountain sheep and rams to help feed the pups.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Just as Kylie and the boys had gotten around to discussing plans for the weekend, disaster stuck. From out of nowhere, several large, red, and thorn-covered vines began lashing out and striking at Heather and Kylie, while at the same time half a dozen various squirrels appeared in the treetops and began launching a hail of nuts down upon them. Heather was struck and slashed several times before they even knew what was happening, and then a barrage of nuts rained down and her health fell into the critical levels almost instantly.
“Shit! Heal!” Kylie yelled, as she struggled to push forward and past Heather to try and bash at the vines. “Identify!” She screamed, and a message box indicating they were “Bloodthorn Lashers” popped up. Heather staggered back and screamed “Fireball!”, as she pointed up at the bunch of squirrels in the closest tree. Several rodents screeched in anger and scattered, but didn’t run away.
Several vines ripped out at Kylie and she tried desperately to dodge or block as many as possible with her staff, but still she was struck several times. A scattered barrage of nuts rained down indiscriminately between Kylie and Heather, and both were struck several times. “What the Heal!” Kylie screamed as she healed herself and desperately tried to lash out at the nearest vine. She hit, but was much too occupied to try and look for the plant’s core to see how much damage she may have did.
“Fireball!” Heather again launched another blast of flame up into the tops of the trees, where several more screeching shrieks of pain and anger echoed back. “Damn this! They’re everywhere,” she screamed as her spell was recovering for another use.
The vines lashed out again, and Kylie screamed in pain as her health bar changed from red tinted to green. Poisoned! “Oh Heal Shit!” She screamed as she tried to swing the staff overhead to help block any nuts she could from flying back towards Heather, as they rained down relentlessly once more. The Tangler hadn’t been as difficult an opponent to try and heal and keep everyone alive with, compared to the pure mayhem that was cascading down all around them now.
Another blast of fire shot up into the trees and several squirrels finally shimmered and disappeared, raining pelts and claws all around. “Heal!” Kylie screamed, as she turned to focus her energy on Heather. Looking at her, Heather was bleeding and bruised in several places before the warm glow of blue-white healing magic washed over her and healed her. Nodding her head in thanks, Kylie couldn’t help but try to smile back in encouragement.
Pain ripped through Kylie’s back as the red thorned vines lashed out while she was looking back and healing Heather, and the smile instantly faded to become a scream of agony. Her health dropped down into critical levels, and Kylie was certain she was going to die to the barrage of nuts from above. Instead, a large ball of flame shot out from behind, incinerating the nuts and blasting up into the treetops!
“HA!” Heather screamed in triumph as her spell had been triggered at exactly the perfect time. “I’m a genius,” she yelled, praising herself.
“Heal!” Kylie was too busy simply try to spam her healing spell as quickly as possible; she couldn’t praise Heather, insult the squirrels, cuss the vines, or do anything else. The pressure to try and keep both of them healthy and up was simply too much to allow her to do much of anything else.
Another lashing from the vines was followed once again by a well-timed fireball which vaporized the nuts and caused even more of the squirrels to shimmer and fade. “We’ve got this!” Kylie yelled, as the pressure on healing was being reduced thanks to Heather’s careful timing.
“If my mana holds up,” Heather panted.
Gritting her teeth, Kylie decided to trust in Heather being able to blast the nuts once again, and she stood her ground without attempting to dodge the vines; opting to bash out at them instead. Several deep lashes and gashes gushed blood after they struck her relentlessly, but much to her satisfaction, one of the vines shimmered and disappeared as she struck back while yelling, “Heal!”
Heather’s timing was off with the next wave of nuts, but there were significantly fewer squirrels raining down nuts upon them. Doing a quick gauge of their heath, Kylie once again chose to accept the incoming barrage of vine attacks so she could retaliate and destroy another vine.
The next wave of nuts Heather intercepted and the last of the squirrels shimmered and disappeared. “That’s it. My mana’s gone.” Heather gasped, trying to catch her breath. “Come on, let’s run,” she suggested as she tried to pull Kylie away.
“Not yet! Heal!” Stubbornly, Kylie forced another heal on herself and bashed out at another vine. “Grab a stick or anything and help me up here! We’ve got this! We don’t want to lose all this loot!”
“Fine.” Desperately, Heather looked around for something suitable to bash with, while the sound of frantic fighting and healing continued behind her. Not seeing anything immediately available, she hopped down into the creek and began grabbing up stones and tossing them into the forest where the vines seemed to be coming from. Even if she didn’t hit anything, she was hoping she could distract them or something!
For several long additional minutes, Kylie slowly battered down the vines as her mana dropped little by little. Just as she was beginning to think that even she might be pushed to her magical limit, the last vine shimmered and faded. Almost in disbelief that the battle was over, Heather and Kylie both glanced around nervously, jumping at the slightest movement of shadows or sound.
“Did we get them?” Heather asked finally.
“I think so,” Kylie replied. “Quick, grab up all the loot you can and hold onto it! If something were to pop up now, we’d end up dead and would lose it all! Sera said death only makes you lose a single item that you’re carrying, so losing one thing would be a whole hell of a lot better than losing all this!”
“I’m on it!” Heather confirmed, as she crawled out of the creek and began frantically gathering anything that even resembled loot. After a few moments, she stopped and pointed. “Kylie, there’s a hole in the hillside there!”
Looking up from where she was stuffing her own bags, Kylie strained her eyes but couldn’t make anything out in the dense darkness of the forest foliage. “We’ll check it in a moment! Do you see anything else to grab?”
“I think that’s it,” Heather replied as she scanned the forest all about.
Nodding, Kylie slowly approached where Heather had pointed. As she got closer, she noticed It as well – a vine covered entrance of some sort, with a dark tunnel leading down into the earth. Swallowing back her fear, Kylie slowly started forward and peered into the darkness as far as she could. “It looks like a tunnel of some sort,” she finally said. Starting a few feet into the darkness, a window popped up, scaring her half to death.
Congratulations! You have discovered a forgotten dungeon!
Item drops will increase for the next 72 hours for this zone.
Experience will increase by 100% for the next 72 hours in this zone.
No one outside your party will be allowed entry into this zone for the next 72 hours.
As the discover of this dungeon, you have the right to name it. What would you like to call this dungeon?
Blinking, Kylie just stared back out at Heather, uncertain what to do next.