Raze ~ 19!

~ Nineteen ~

Joe hummed happily as he walked down the path. One hundred and thirty new converts to his faction. That was how he was thinking of his deity affiliation: a faction. His small team had gone back to Ardania and slept at an inn, getting a good rest and a good if very small portioned and expensive meal. It appeared that rationing had taken effect, and if that wasn't enough to kick this quest into high gear, Joe didn't know what else to do.

“A couple more days of travel, and we should be able to find whatever village there was in the forest!” Joe told the others as he looked over the quest information one more time.

“That forest?” Jaxon pointed into the distance.

Joe looked up and saw trees ahead, but frowned and looked at his crude map. “That can’t be right. The forest shouldn’t start for at least another sixty miles.”

“To be fair, whatever map you have is a couple hundred years out of date, isn't it?” Poppy offered a plausible explanation.

“Not sixty miles of forest out of date!” Joe countered with pure disbelief.

“This is a different world, Joe.” Alexis pointed out. “You gotta assume that there are a lot of things going on that wouldn't be happening in our world. If this is a magical forest, I am pretty sure sixty years is plenty of time to take over a huge amount of land.”

“Ugh.” Joe shook his head. “You guys are right. So, yeah, we should get ready to fight at all times now. From what I read, this place is going to be really hard to navigate. If it extends this much further than it used to, especially so.”

The group continued walking, reaching the edge of the forest after another half hour. Alexis made odd motions with her hands, then pointed at the trees. “Look at this. The treeline is an actual line. Like… perfectly straight.”

“I noticed that we had a strange biome shift when we came south of the city.” Joe took a look and nodded. “Yup. Odd, do you think that the forest just took over the ‘allotted area’ and can't extend any more? If so, there is a lot more to this world that we really need to figure out the rules for.”

They took a step into the forest, simultaneously getting a notification. More like a warning, to be honest.

Caution! Your level is below the recommendation for the Forest of Chlorophyll Chaos. You may want to consider leaving and returning at a later date, when you are much stronger. Level recommendation: 20.

“Holy wombats.” Poppy muttered as he read. “Level twenty? That could take… months.”

“No joke!” Jaxon shook his head and looked at his status screen. “From level fifteen to level twenty requires ninety thousand experience. I don’t think there are that many wars we can win for huge chunks of points like last time. I mean, do you guys know of another race we could shatter? Are there Elves? Do you guys like Elves? If not-”

“I think that we should get as much distance as we could from the edge of the forest.” Alexis cut in before Jaxon could solidify his plans of warmongering. “Anything that would be out this far might be weak for the area, but that also means that it would still be stronger than us as well as hungry. Joe, do you have a Predator’s Territory ready for when we go camping tonight?”

“I do, but…” Joe hesitated. “Looking at the level recommendation for the area, there is a possibility that there will be creatures here that are near the level thirty threshold of the ritual. If we draw them in, we would only know because of waking up at respawn.”

“It’s a risk I think is worth taking.” Alexis told him after a moment of thought. “It’ll keep us safe from anything below that, and there will also be a much greater chance of running into something at the lower levels than the higher ones, at least this far from the center of the forest.”

“She makes a good point.” Bard chimed in, looking up from a small book of chants he was reading out of. Then he went right back to ignoring the outside world. Joe was somewhat jealous of the man’s ability to tune out the outside world, but perhaps that was a benefit of his class. ‘Tuning’ out. Heh. Bard certainly sang out of tune. Was that the way to say it? No. Drat. Can’t carry a tune in a bucket? Yes!

Joe opened his mouth to say his joke, then realized that the group had left him behind. He hurried to catch up, and rejoined them just as they found the first enemy in the forest. His joke died on his lips as the team went totally silent. Joe tried to use his perception to inspect the creature, but received an unsatisfying response. 

Perception check + knowledge check failed!

“Any idea wa’ tha is?” Bard quietly questioned.

“What what is? Why are we all being so quiet?” Jaxon was just a hair too loud, and the small creature turned their way. It was flying, mottled green and brown, and screeched as it saw them.

“It’s a Forest Imp.” Poppy told them, his perception far higher than any but Alexis’s. “Level twenty.”

“Imp? Like a demon?” Jaxon was perplexed, “Why is there a demon in a forest?”

“Dodge!” Bard bellowed, taking his own advice and diving to the side. A streak of green light left the Imp and traveled the distance between them in an instant. The light missed, thanks to Bard’s warning and their own battle senses, but as it hit the ground a series of roots popped out of the ground and whipped around. Not finding a target, the roots dropped below the ground once more. It didn't escape Joe’s attention that the roots were bladed.

“That would have messed us up.” He swallowed hard, and turned his attention more fully to the fight that they were in. Bard, Jaxon, and Poppy were rushing at the creature, and Alexis had already sent a bolt that was dodged by the small but speedy creature. “Plenty of shadows to use here!”

He took a long moment and shaped a double spike out of shadows, solidifying the spell just as the melee fighters got into range. The spell impacted, cutting off retreat as the Imp attempted to dodge the weapons coming at it. Poppy’s rapier slid through the small body, Jaxon’s fist landed, and Bard’s axe chopped in. Joe nodded sharply, expecting to see the Imp dropping from the well-practiced combo. 

It didn’t. In fact, it seemed enraged more than anything. Joe let the information to his combat log seep in, frowning at what little he could see. 

Double Shadow Spike hits for 180 shadow damage. (270*2, 360 shadow damage resisted!)

Yikes. His most practiced spell only dealt a third of the damage that it should have. This type of creature must have a massive protection against darkness, being a ‘devil’ type creature. Would fire be effective? He needed to expand his spell list. A lot.

Another green bolt left the Imp, and the extreme close range ensured that Bard couldn't dodge. His entire body glowed green for an instant before roots shot out of the ground and wrapped around him, the bladed edges tearing into him and watering the ground with his blood. Alexis called out, “Seven seconds between casts!”

The Imp didn't seem to appreciate her efforts to help, and responded to the words, by slapping at Jaxon with its clawed hand. Jaxon wiggled out of the way in time, retaliating with a nasty jab of his own. “Adjust!”

The tiny arm twisted, and the Imp hissed at the Monk, but the new angle of its arm didn't seem to impact the combat ability of the creature in the slightest. Poppy, thinking that the Imp was distracted, was hit by the root-like prehensile tail of the Imp and sent rolling. The creature obviously was able to use more power than its small form implied. Joe spun up a new strand of darkness, wrapping shadows around the Imp’s wings and solidifying the binding after pumping mana into it for three seconds. Two hundred mana vanished in an instant, and Joe gasped for air as the void in his body appeared.

A cocoon of darkness pulled the flapping wings back, and the Imp toppled from the air. The others started attacking as fast as possible, especially a still-bleeding Bard, Whose axes seemed to be the perfect weapon against the Imp. Joe sent a healing spell into the Skald, and the filthy wounds closed up. He would need remember to Cleanse the man after this battle.

The Imp wasn't done. In fact, once on the ground it zipped awound in a small area. It wasn't a fast runner over long distances, but the small zone that it claimed for itself allowed the Imp to dodge nearly as well as Jaxon. The darkness it was encased in started to tear apart, and the others redoubled their attacks. It burst away from them, hopping in the air and flapping furiously at Alexis with a screech. Joe caught the Imp in a spray of acid, the corrosive liquid dealing reduced damage, but still enough to finish it off. 

Exp gained: 120 (120 * Forest Imp x1)

“This… might be a more difficult area than we planned for.” Joe looked around for confirmation, and the others nodded at his words.

“My rapier hurt it, but it is like the whole body was made of roots.” Poppy explained. “I could put holes in that sucker, but it didn't seem to have any critical points.”

“Couldn’t find any bones.” Jaxon spat to the side and kicked the fallen Imp.

Joe sighed and offered his own complaint. “Yeah… it was able to resist two-thirds of the shadow damage I could deal. And… looks like it only took half damage from acid.”

“Well dang.” Bard shook his head. “Let’s hope we don't run into any groups of those.”

“We also know how the forest spread so far in the last few hundred years.” Alexis pointed at the spot where the green energy had hit the ground, and the others looked over to see a small sapling that hadn't been there before.

Jaxon looked around at the massive forest. “So you’re saying there are probably a lot more of those, then? Yikes.”