Timber

John ran down the path, his steps skidding from his haste as he headed in the direction of the scream. As he ran, his internal monologue was doing its best to get his attention, to ask why exactly he was running towards a scream in a monster-infested barrier. Any fear at the recklessness of his action, however, was overridden by the simple fact that he’d heard someone screaming, and it had sounded like a female someone.

A second scream, this time clearly discernible as a woman calling for help rather than the panicked shock of the previous noise, had John adjust his course, veering off the road and into the thick underbrush. Ducking under whipping branches and scrambling over fallen trees he pushed his Agility to its limit before bursting from the tree-line and into a clearing where he found the source of the cries.

Three people - well, people like wooden shapes at any rate - made of wood had cornered a short woman, her back pressed hard against a tall oak in the middle of the clearing. As John took everything in, one of the creatures tried to lunge at her; she pulled a vial from a bandoleer across her rather impressive chest and threw it at the thing, the splash of liquid causing the wood monster to pull back, hissing.

“Fuck, that’s my last vial…” the woman groaned, eyes flickering about wildly until she spotted John. “Oh thank the gods! Mind helping a girl out, human?” At her words, two of the wood figures turned creakily to stare at John, pale blue-green flames flickering where their eyes should be. Needing to know what exactly he was about to be fighting, John risked an Observe as he took a firm grip on his staff - he wasn’t sure hitting wood with a stick was going to go well.

John skimmed the information and winced. This was looking like it was going to be one of those ‘hit the weak spot’ fights, and he was still only vaguely waving his walking stick around, more like a child with a toy weapon than an actual fighter. His only bit of good fortune was that the wooden drones seemed slow moving, at least in comparison to the other monsters he’d taken on. Glancing quickly behind him to ensure there weren’t any more of the things emerging from the tree-line, John jabbed out at the nearest one with his staff as it approached. To his dismay, his guess about his weapon’s effectiveness proved right when his stick hit the wood with a dull thunk that seemed to do little to the creature.

Shifting backwards to dodge a blow, John winced as the creature’s momentum carried it forward so that its elongated arm struck the ground instead of him. Great chunks of soil were flung sideways by the **** of the impact, spraying dirt through the air as the other monster approached. Behind them, John could vaguely make out the woman doing her best to avoid the attacks of the third monster.

Another blow narrowly dodged, and John managed to backpedal enough to get the space to think about casting spells. He’d not practiced them at all, and focusing his Mana while also trying to keep his distance from the two thoroughly pissed off wooden automata was a challenge, but he just about managed to get it to click. “Malal, give me your… um…” he panted, wishing he’d had another of his cookies to top up the clock on his Endurance Buff as he tried to find the right words for a prayer. “Bless this staff so that I can try not to die, please?” John gasped, ducking under another whipping, branch-like arm that was trying to take his head off.

A rather sarcastic but thankfully familiar voice echoed in his ears, “Shitty prayer, kid. Ya owe me one, and probably a proper offering too, capiche? Here ya go.” As the voice faded, the far end of John’s staff began to glow faintly. Giving an experimental jab forward, John was pleased to see sparks as splintering chunks of wood were chipped from his assailant. It wasn’t much of an improvement against their armour, but it had taken his weapon’s strikes from basically harmless into very much harm-causing territory.

His very next jab got lucky; the creature’s arm blocked his blow mid-stab, deflecting it downward to impact the dryadrone’s knee rather than where he’d been aiming on its chest - with a loud crack, the knee splintered almost in half. The creature let out a sound like chalk on a blackboard as it stumbled forward, its speed drastically reduced by the damage to its limb.

“Alright… go for the legs, treat them like zombies,” John put together a rough plan on the fly as he jerked his staff around frantically to try and hold the more intact of his two opponents at bay. Behind the creature, he could make out the shortstack’s form ducking and rolling as the final dryadrone did its best to turn her into a pancake. Worrying about the damsel in distress was secondary to not getting pancaked himself, however; especially as a mistimed dodge brought him within striking distance of the injured drone.

*-18 hp*

The world spun around for John as the creature’s arm caught him in the ribcage, the **** of the blow sending him flying.

*-7 hp*

With a heavy thud he slammed into a tree, his head cracking against the bark as the air was **** from his lungs. Everything hurt; his ears were ringing and his vision swam from the pain as he struggled to get back upright. He’d been knocked the entire way across the clearing - which bought him time at least, as he shook his head to clear it. Once more, he focused on his Mana, doing his best to keep his thoughts clear despite the waves of nausea radiating from the pain of having over half his health wiped out in a single attack.

A ball of flickering light appeared in front of John’s eyes as he poured Mana into the Guiding Bolt spell, before it darted across the clearing to strike the freely moving dryadrone. For a moment, it looked like he’d missed, and what little of John’s mind wasn’t focused on not dying made a mental note to practice aiming (and combat generally) before he returned to Barrier delving. In the meantime, he lunged forward unsteadily with his staff, aiming for the knee of this drone in the hopes of repeating the same crippling move he’d managed on the first.

With a satisfying crunch his blow struck true; whether due to the increased **** he’d put behind it or the accuracy he gained by being buffed by the Guiding Bolt didn’t matter; the knee shattered entirely, toppling the beast over. John skipped back, almost tripping over a root in his haste to get out of the way of rapidly grasping arms as the beast lunged for him, but managed to catch himself before he too tumbled to the ground.

His next bolt struck the final dryadrone in the back a moment later, drawing its attention away from the woman who had circled around the clearing and gotten closer to John in the interim. As she caught her breath, he followed the spell up with a swinging strike to the wooden legs of the beast, John using his staff more like a baseball bat than a precision implement. It mattered little, the wooden joint cracking under the **** of his swing. Both John and the woman retreated to the middle of the clearing, breathing heavily as they considered their new situation. Three heavily damaged dryadrones, each slowly dragging itself on what limbs John’s attacks had left functional towards them.

“We could… out-pace them now? Get somewhere safe and leave the Barrier?” John asked, panting from his exertion.

The woman beside him shook her head as she replied, “Bad… bad idea. They’ll just heal up and then keep an eye out for us if we return. I’m really glad you showed up when you did, human, but I’d like to be able to harvest things in this Barrier in the future without some pissed off trees jumping at me.”

With leaving apparently not an option as he too wanted to use the Barrier for resource gathering, John rolled his shoulders and considered the situation. He had about enough Mana left for three casts of his ranged spell, or one per drone. If their joints were weak, that might be enough… maybe. Assuming he didn’t miss. “Keep the one that’s not crawling busy,” he ordered, leaning on his staff as he tried to focus on his plan. Behind him, he was dimly aware of the woman making noise and throwing what sounded like empty glass bottles against the still-upright drone, but that was secondary to the buzz of Mana in his head as he formed a guiding bolt and aimed it at the nearest of the two crawlers.

The bolt struck true, not exactly a major accomplishment when it was against a prone target, and John ran forward. This was stupid, but… as he got close, the creature swung for his ankles and John jumped, praying to any god that would listen that this would work. Swinging his staff down between his legs, he dropped onto the drone - which exploded in a burst of sparkling light as his weapon slammed into its bulbous neck joint, severing the monster’s head.

Dispatching the second dryadrone was conducted in a similar manner, although in its case John was able to circle around behind and then run up the creature’s back before stabbing down with his staff to cave in the spinal joint. Panting hard and swaying to keep his balance as his footing disappeared from under him in another cloud of flickering particles, he turned to see with horror that the last creature had somehow managed to back the woman up against the tree again, trapping her between two massive roots.

John was tired, but moved on pure instinct alone; as the creature drew its arm back to crush his new acquaintance, he ran forward, Guiding Bolt forming mid-run before splashing onto the drone’s back as he threw everything he had into one final **** lunge. The beast’s arm was already mid-swing as his blow connected, and for a horrible moment he thought he’d not done enough to prevent the strike - then the last of their foes exploded, glittering dust splashing across the woman’s wide-eyed face before fading into nothingness as a chiming sound echoed in John’s head.