Rapid Fire

“Woah, woah!” John said aloud, holding back the punch of yet another Spriggan. Surrounded by eight Shamblers, he was just glad there were no Blights near him.

Alright, let’s try this one more time. Concentrate a good amount of mana into the Mana Bolt and… Brilliant, continuous dual beams erupted from his guns. Sweeping them over the wooden masks and faces of each shambler, they soon began to fall. With two left, John pointed his guns at their faces, but the beams abruptly ended.

The Spriggan swept through its allies, killing them to try to reach John with its wooden hammer. A Fist to its extended limb shattered it, though the Gamer noticed that this seemed to do no damage to the creature itself, who regenerated the limb quickly. So they’re all probably going to be like that one was. A magic weak point somewhere. I can’t waste all my charges of True Sight though…

Channeling Magic Rope through Ebony resulted in a net firing over and trapping the Spriggan. As it fought its way through the net easily, tearing its restraints, John approached while channeling another cast of Mana Bolt through Ivory. Pressing the gun to the creature’s emerged head, he disintegrated its entire body from the head to the torso. Its legs stumbled around for a moment, as if unaware that it was dead, before falling. Meanwhile, David had what looked to be a writhing leaf in his beak. John used Advanced Spy on the creature, curious as it looked non-hostile.

Wooden Cipher… that has to be a counterpart to the Diamond Cipher I have! Still don’t know how to open it… but a wooden one would be easier to **** open than a diamond one, surely, John thought, mentally commanding David to release the creature. Taking the creature in his hands, John tried to crush it. Though it bent under the **** of his grip, its health didn’t go down. As he was contemplating what to do about this, Abigail’s fire reached the edges of the clearing he was in.

Leaping onto a tree that wasn’t on fire, John tossed the creature into a flaming tree. The result was a horrific, tiny scream and a rain of leaves that looked to be made of the same material as the creature, though bigger. John scooped them up and put them into his inventory. I’ll look at all my loot when I’m done.
A fiery Vine Blight staggered out of the blazing forest toward him, though it was uncoordinated, so John wasn’t afraid of it. A quick bullet wasted it, and John looked at the score. He learned by keeping track of his kills that Spriggans were twenty five points, Blights were fifteen, Shamblers ten, Pixies five, and the Bowtruckles turned out to be forty. That explained how Abigail’s score was nearly eight hundred, and his not much more than four hundred. There’s still the boss, at least I’m assuming that’s what the question marks are. Maybe I’ll be able to catch up to her.

With that in mind, he headed into the inferno, looking for more enemies. Instead, he saw Abigail smashing a Spriggan into a tree with repeated fiery kicks, destroying its body utterly. “Hiya John! These guys are so good for practicing on! They’re pretty durable, and being in an environment like this where I can really let loose with my fire is such a relief.”

“Wow, you’re, like, not even really trying that hard and you’re still eons ahead of me.” John commented, though the gap in their levels was severe enough for him to justify it to himself. “And you wanted to fight me?”

“I totally have you beat when it comes to setting things on fire,” Abigail responded, lobbing a giant hand shaped fireball (John realized this to actually be her hand) at a nearby Vine Blight. The flames returned to her in a helix stream, materializing back into her hand. “I could keep going like this forever!”

“Well, it’s a shame we’re nearly done here then,” John noticed, seeing as how all the Pixies and Blights were dead. All that was left were two Spriggans, five Shamblers, Four Bowtruckles, and the mystery enemy. “Not a shame for me though, I’m almost out of mana.”

“I could handle the rest if you’re not feeling up to it,” Abigail teased, bright eyes looking around the crumbling trees for more things to pummel.

“No way! I’m going to beat you, you know,” John replied, leaping into a nearby tree. “See ya on the other side!”

Abigail shot off in the other direction, though if she had seen what John had just run into she would have followed him. All the rest of the known enemies were in the same place, an untouched clearing within the forest that seemed to be consumed by flames. They almost immediately noticed him, and he channeled the rest of his mana into a Mana Bolt in his guns, sweeping them across the terrain below as he used True Sight to see the weak point of the two Spriggans. Apparently, their control over the terrain grew exponentially stronger when grouped, as thick roots broke through the earth to defend them from the arcane beams. At the same time, two of the remaining Bowtruckles latched onto the front of the Spriggans, blocking their weak points. “That’s not good,” John said to nobody in particular as the Shamblers wrapped themselves around the giant wooden limbs of the Spriggans.

The splintery sledgehammers burst out of the rooted shield with speed John hadn’t yet seen these creatures utilize, and he had to activate Reflex Mode to avoid them, ducking under one and using Fist charged with the small amount of mana he had regenerated in an attempt to smash the other. The Shamblers encasing the wood died, but the limb itself was unharmed. “That’s double not good,” John continued. “David! Get the Bowtruckles off their weak spots!”

David tore down from the skies, cleaving one of the Spriggans in half and removing the Bowtruckles in the process. Unfortunately, he failed to hit its weak point. Instead of regenerating as a separate creature however, it fused itself onto the remaining whole Spriggan. Wooden appendages swept over the battlefield destroying trees like toothpicks, and John was reminded of his battle with Axl. David, disengage! It’s too hot here!

Hot… right, well there goes the win, John thought, turning and sprinting back toward where he and Abigail had been as David flew up into the air. David, find Abigail and lead her this way, quick!

The fused monstrosity’s Agility score was on par with his own, and he felt it as one of its wooden limbs launched him straight through three trees. If not for his duster, he definitely would have lost all his health. Still, he continued his mad dash.

“Abigail! I’m bringing the party to you! Now might be a good time to get really, really fiery,” John called as the Spriggan behind him chased after him on four limbs instead of two.

“Well, now you’re going to know my secret, John,” the cursed brawler answered, rocketing toward him, “I’m always fiery.”

With an explosion she collided with the Spriggans behind him, the resulting shockwave sending him flying into the air. Though it was nice while it lasted, what goes up must come down. Suddenly, the ground was rushing to meet John as he tried to orient himself in a way that would allow him to change his momentum with his air jump.

Wait a minute, I have telekinesis, John thought, hitting the bottom of his mana reserve again as he used Move to orient and slow himself down, using his double jump to cancel the rest of his momentum. His knees and ankles screamed with pain in protest, but he landed mostly unharmed on the ground.

While he was busy patting himself on the back for sticking the landing, he was interrupted by a primal roar erupting from behind him. He turned and looked up to see Abigail standing on a mountain of ash that was the fused Spriggans. Above her stood a giant, angry face carved into a tree. With a start, John realized the giant, angry face was actually a part of the tree.

Killing the Guardians of the Forest has awoken the wrath of the Ancient Treant! Destroy it to escape!

As John read the pop-up, his quest window popped up and the three question marks changed to “Ancient Treant”.