The wrath of the glade.

As usual there was little time to analyse loot in a combat situation, so John took what fell to the ground and turned to face the next opponents.

Just like with the Zombie situation, he was surrounded by at least a dozen enemies, but at least this time, he had the proper weapons to fight them.

Three of them had surrounded him during his short and one sided first fight, clearly all three had the smashing branches, strangling vines combo and were going to keep him busy while the others got closer or continued to try turning him into a pincushion. (For very limited effects, he only lost 7hp from dozens of hits. He hoped the repairs on his armour wouldn't be too much.)

He decided to use Charged Strike twice on a target, both times with his saber but once with magic damage and once with lightning damage. Both should add 12 dmg to his attack, but he wanted to see if one was more or less effective on these creatures.

32 dmg
30 dmg

He could not finish it right away because he had to cut off vines from the other two that were trying to coil themselves around his body. He managed to dodge or parry most direct attacks, but one landed on his shoulder causing him 5 dmg. It was much more than from the thorns and this spot was reinforced, so he had to be careful to avoid attacks on his lesser armoured legs.

The difference between the two test attacks was in the variation range of his saber strikes, so they weren't either ultra resistant or ultra weak towards magic or electricity.

The advantage of fighting something that was using its body as a weapon was that any successful parry was already a counter-attack, and by staying in a defensive stance, he was already chopping them, slowly emptying their health bars.

John knew that he might often find himself out of mana and **** to fight in melee, so he thought it important to practice it. He had no idea how much, but he figured that if he hadn't had armour on the thorns would have killed him already by sheer numbers.

The machete was only dealing between 7 and 12 dmg, but part of it might be a bonus from the fact it was the perfect weapon to fight those.

His Observe skill was saying that the green vines were a weak spot, but aside from cutting those that were going for him, he didn't have the luxury to try to aim at them, with the precise strikes being slower and easier to avoid.

A few more strikes and the three Angry Saplings died, giving him time to notice that the remaining ones were gathered in a large group of at least 7.

45xp

The loot recovered, John retreated a few meters away from them and took cover behind a tree.

"That's some exercise, and it beats working out. This machete is a marvellous thing, thanks, Donna. Let's see, no getting out obviously, not while in a fight. A bunch of them here but none farther in the woods as far I can see. No, wait! That's wrong; the tool tip said the spirit of the place gave life to them. Any bush could become one. I just hope that I won't face any ents; it would take ages to kill one with an axe. I won't be able do it cheaply, so I will have to go out spells blazing and get dirty with them. Hey! Would that work?" he planned out loud, no one was there to here him talk and it helped him think.

He got the slingshot from his chest and fired some of his special ammunition on the group of enemies. The water balloons were exploding on impact, spraying multiple enemies with slime-water. The substance wasn't hurting them but started eating their bark, leaving only the light green surface of the stems underneath.

Five shots later, he switched to regular ammunition. The heavy metal pellets were packing some punch but were not that effective against the creatures. This was too slow and the barrage of flying thorns was messing with his aim.

He gave them a few Magic projectiles but had to stop at four to conserve some mana. Invocation was not an option, he would probably get a mini rodent with bangs and a flat tail called Just a Beaver.

As he was trying to decide what to do next, he noticed that he was tired. It was strange, because it shouldn't be happening to him due to Gamer's Body. A check of his character sheet told him that he had a modifier called Dizzy. It was either an effect of the few thorns that hit him (they could be poisonous) or of the strange pollen that was getting out of the flowers around him.

The strange thing was how all the saplings had gathered in the same spot, the one blocking him access to a very large tree. There was something there they wanted to protect from him, so there was something there that he now wanted to get.

In a wild charge, he got in the fray with the many enemies. Using Charged Strike he finished the four most wounded enemies. It was not free though; he got hit more than a few times doing it and had trouble to free himself from the vines when he decided to retreat in a hit and run fashion.

60 xp

"Wait, the four from the start and those seven, that's far from all. There were at least 15 that I could see at the beginning."

He saw five of them having taken root around the large tree and now growing, covered in flowers and connected to the trunks by their vines.

John wasted no time; he threw a Magic projectile on each of the remaining saplings from the group, using the lightning modifier in hope of getting a stun result and started running. While passing them he finished the three in a few strikes and went directly to the clearing to stop what was happening.

The large tree was glowing with a green and golden light that was spreading to the creatures linked with it.

Suddenly, the bark of the tree began cracking and a gap opened.

A voluptuous, naked woman with pale greenish skin and green hair got out. She had golden eyes with vertical pupils. There were vines, leaves and flowers coiled around her body and in her hair, forming a crown on her head.

"Trespasser. Murderer. You will regret having troubled the tranquillity of the Verdant Glade," screamed the Dryad, for what else could she be? She looked like some Poison Ivy cosplayer, and a very sexy one. Her breasts were in full view and only a flower was hiding her pussy.

Vengeful Dryad lvl 9 creature.
Awakened from her slumber in the heart of the Spirit Tree, this daughter of the glade comes to avenge her brethren.
She can command plants and has affinity for life and natural magic.
Her pollen can afflict those that breathe it with various effects, from sleep, to pain, to arousal.
500/500 hp

The other saplings had grown to human size now, with members in proportion. They now looked like miniature ents. John put away his machete and got the hatchet out in anticipation.

Glade Warden lvl 7 creature.
These saplings answered the call of the Spirit Tree and got some of his power.
They have reinforced bark with heavy armour properties.
They can use the three types of attacks that Saplings possess.
Like all trees, they are pretty slow but not as much as others.
250/250 hp

John obviously did the only sensible thing to do in such a situation.