Fight the Earth Elemental

Carefully, you accept the enchanted {if@ sword = true}sword{elseif mace = true}mace{elseif spear = true}spear{endif} and quickly get a feel for it. It’s a remarkably well-balanced weapon. “I’ll kick the shit out of it,” says Jas, “then you go in with that and hit whatever it’s got underneath. Something like that’s bound to have something soft on the inside.”

Hard shell, soft underbelly, huh? you think. You give Jas a side eye. Takes one to know one, I guess.

The bunnykin tugs at one of her armor straps, then leans into a runner’s stance. The next second, she’s rocketing back up the hill towards the Elemental. Inspired by her sudden desire to help you fight, you follow quickly after her. You join Blythe and Lia in their wolf-like strategy of jumping in for quick strikes before leaping back out of the rock giant’s range, and Jas uses every opportunity she can find to land super powerful kicks to the main body of the thing. After what seems to you like hours of fighting, but is in reality only about twenty minutes, Jas manages to get a small section of the torso boulder to crumble.

Suddenly, the Elemental bursts apart, shooting every stone that makes up its body outward like bullets. The explosion sends you flying backwards, tumbling down the hill until you land flat on your face in the dirt. Then the pain kicks in. Your chest feels numb, your arms are on fire, and your head is aching so badly that you can barely think. You roll yourself onto your back, then fight through the pain to push yourself into a sitting position. Your armored doublet is torn in several places, where rocks either grazed you or shot straight through your flesh and out the other side. “Burst forth, spirit, and mend your broken bonds,” you say, placing your hand over one of the more noticeable wounds. “Heal.” Mana flows through your arm from your chest, down to your hand and out of your palm. It then reenters your body at the wound, spreading a warm, tingling sensation through the area as the magic works to stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, fixing one hole just calls more of your attention to all the others. As you work your way through patching yourself back up, you get to a point where your mind is able to think about things other than the pain, and you start looking around.

Blythe is about twenty meters off to your left, patching herself up with magic just like you are. I’m really glad I got them both to learn that spell, you think. She doesn’t seem to have taken quite as much damage as you did, probably thanks to her better reflexes and combat training. The two of you lock eyes for a moment, finding some small comfort in knowing you’re both still alive, though neither of you are in a position to be able to go and help the other yet. You can’t see Lia from where you are, but you do spot Jas walking over to you from your right. She looks a little roughed up, but nothing near to how you saw her after her run-in with the bandits; either she dodged almost everything, or she’s the kind of woman who could walk away from getting hit by a semi-truck, and you have a strong suspicion it’s the latter. Jas hands you a bottle that looks exactly like the one you saw her handling in the Guild.

“Keep healing up,” she says. “Drink that if you’re about to pass out. This isn’t over yet.” After she says that, you see the rocks that were sent shooting in all directions start rolling back towards the top of the hill. “We definitely made it angry, though. That’s a good sign.”

“Lia,” you say. “The catkin girl. Have you seen her?” You’re on your fourth heal and are starting to feel faint. Popping the cork on the potion bottle, you down the mana-recharging liquid without a second thought. The lukewarm potion lights a fire in your stomach that spreads throughout your body, allowing you to carry on healing yourself without having to worry about mana loss.

“She’s alright, I was just with her,” says Jas. “She only had one or two bad hits. Tried healing herself with that crazy spell of yours, though, and totally wiped herself out. I had to give her two of my mana potions. I don’t know how you can cast that thing if it eats through that much mana.”

“I’m kind of an anomaly where mana is concerned,” you say. “Do you have another potion? Blythe is going to need one, too.”

“You got my last one,” she says, looking over to the elf in question. “She looks like she knows what she’s doing, though.”

You look over to see Blythe tying a wrap around one of her arms. Once it’s tight, she reaches into her rucksack and slips something green into her mouth, which you assume is some kind of herb with energizing properties. After a few moments, she pushes herself to her feet and looks over towards you again. You give her a thumbs up and a smile before trying to stand as well. Everything still hurts like a bitch, but you’ve sealed all the open wounds and soothed as many impact points as you could before Jas’s mana potion started to lose its edge. You’re as good as you’re going to get going into Stage Two of this fight.

And not a moment too soon.

The rocks have finished returning to the top of the hill, where there now stands, once again, a giant rock golem. It looks mostly the same as before, except that it had to make due with a bunch of smaller rocks around the torso region instead of the large boulder that Jas managed to pulverize. Hello, obvious weak spot, you think.

“Alright, Jas,” you say. “One more attack. Let’s finish this.” The armored innkeeper nods. Both of you make your way back up the hill, slowly at first but picking up speed as you go. When you’re almost to the top, the Earth Elemental leans back, preparing to lunge at you with one of its massive arms. Jas leaps through the air with the **** that only a bunnykin like her could muster and lands a sweeping roundhouse kick across the golem’s chest area. The kick sends most of the small rocks flying, and the Elemental ends up falling onto its back from the shock. Jas leaps clear as you launch yourself on top of the stunned monster. There, you see exactly what you were hoping for.

Hidden beneath the stone armor of the Earth Elemental is a glowing mass of color. The gems must have fused together to make this thing’s core, you think. That very core is now exposed to you. You follow your gamer instincts and {if@ sword = true}stab the core with Jas’s sword{elseif mace = true}bash the core with Jas’s mace{elseif spear = true}stab the core with Jas’s spear{endif}. The mass of glowing gemstones cracks, then shatters, and every rock and boulder making up the Elemental immediately falls, lifeless, to the ground. You look around, spotting first Lia, then Blythe both making their way up to you. Finally, you also see Jas walking up the hill again.

You barely have time to think, We did it, before your vision is obscured by white flames.