There aren’t many people who can say they’ve been attacked by an apple tree. On Earth, anyway. On Grimora, it’s a far less exclusive club.
James’s failed attack brought him far closer to the tree than he’d ever wanted to be. As soon as he’d seen those wild eyes and gaping mouth, he’d decided only to use magic against it. Magic was safe. Distant. Far away from the freaky wrongness of the creepy evil tree.
He’d completely forgotten to watch his mana bar. At this level, he only had enough mana for one Mana Bolt, and he’d used that up. As far as sword-fighting went, it would have been smart to attack in the same way that Inara did, running up fast and then dodging back to gain some distance.
If he’d thought of it in time, that’s what he would have done.
If he survived to his next turn, that’s what he would do.
The tree leaned forward. There wasn’t much distance between them, and James had been aiming for the creature’s face, which put his arm dangerously close.
That gaping mouth widened to reveal sharp, splintered spikes. It bent forward at an angle that would have been impossible for an earthly tree, and a mouthful of spikes closed around James’s bicep.
The tree shook the way a dog shakes a rabbit, and James screamed. His grip loosened immediately on the sword, and it went tumbling to the ground. Those spikes shredded his arm like tissue paper, and it was a cruel quirk of Grimora’s combat system that he was forced to endure it.
When the tree finally released him, James’s arm hung limply from distended threads of flesh. He felt as though a hundred thousand splinters had entered his bloodstream and were racing through his body, each one itching to be the first to his heart.
End Enemy turn!
The pain vanished as quickly as it had come. James almost didn’t look at his arm — almost couldn’t bear the possibility that it was gone, ripped away from him for a moment of carelessness — but he did, and it was there, and it was whole, and if he wasn’t still slowed by the thick, soupy atmosphere of “not his turn,” he would have burst into tears.
His health was down to 42/100, but he was alive. He still had his arm. He was going to be okay.
Inara repeated her scythe attack, but she was afraid of hitting James. She pulled her strike in order to angle it differently, and as a result didn’t deal as much damage as she had before.
She spared him a concerned look but didn’t have time for anything more before she darted away.
Your turn!
James picked his sword off the ground and lunged forward in one smooth motion, stabbing straight into the apple tree’s mouth.
Critical hit!
The timer ticked down. He should run back, the way Inara did. One more round would be enough to kill the tree for sure, and from a distance it wouldn’t be able to do as much damage.
Reason warred against panic. The pain of his arm was gone, but the horror of what might have been, remained.
James yanked his sword out of the creature’s mouth and stabbed again, this time burying the tip of his sword into the tree’s eye.
Critical hit!
He twisted the blade for a few extra points of damage. The enemy health bar shrank — but not enough. It was holding on by a sliver; by Earth logic it would be too weak to move, but on Grimora that sliver was enough for it to last one more turn.
One more turn, up close, would be the death of James.
The timer was running out. He only had a second left, not enough time to yank his sword back and try again.
James screamed. He kicked the trunk with all his might, and at the same time headbutted it right between the eyes.
Direct hit!
It was barely an attack. His head and foot stung, and he might have done as much damage to himself as the tree.
But he didn’t need much.
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Defeated level 8 Apple Tree!
EXP +3025
Level up!
Level up!
You have 3 skill points available! Visit your Character Sheet to learn more!
James fell to the ground. The pain in his head and foot vanished. The tree froze with its trunk bent unnaturally and its mouth still gaping in a silent scream.
The grass was soft beneath him. His fingers dug into the loamy soil and he took one deep breath after another.
It was over. He’d won. The only reason the tree even stood a chance was because he’d overlooked his mana.
Inara knelt beside him. “Are you okay?” she asked.
James couldn’t help it — he laughed. What a question. Are you okay? Sure, yeah, his arm wasn’t mangled beyond belief. Sure, they’d killed the stupid tree and gotten a couple levels out of it. Sure, the pain of the encounter was a quickly fading memory.
But also ohmygodwhatthefuck?
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m okay.”
“You did most of the damage,” she said, “so you have to get the loot.”
“Right.” James took a breath. “Right.” He sat up. The last thing he wanted to do was touch the tree again. It was frozen in place, but he felt like he was in a horror movie. Like as soon as he touched the tree, it was going to spring to life and take another bite of his arm.
He laid his hand flat against the bark. The tree shimmered and dissolved in a shower of green sparks, and then on the ground in its place were two perfect Honeycrisp apples and a wooden shield.
James added the apples to his inventory and picked up the shield. It was smooth on one side and ridged like bark on the other. Stamped in the center of the bark was the image of an apple.
Applewood Aegis
Has a small chance to deflect an attack and launch a rotten apple core at the attacker.
James chuckled and passed the shield to Inara. “Here,” he said. “So that leaf attack can’t get you next time.”
Her eyes widened the slightest bit, and she didn’t reach out to take it. “You want to give me the shield?”
“Yeah,” James shrugged. “I didn’t like seeing you get hit by those leaves.”
“You almost died!” she retorted. “If anyone needs protection, it’s you.”
“I—” James paused at that. His brush with death was too recent for him to be cavalier about it. She was right that he had come closer to death, but only because of a careless mistake which he would never make again.
“I insist,” he said.
She hesitated a moment longer, then accepted. “Thank you.”
“Now, I definitely should have asked you this yesterday, but how do I regenerate my mana? Sleep seems to work, but I only got two apples from that tree and I’m not trying to wait until tomorrow to try again.”
“It regenerates over time,” Inara said, “but that’s all I know. I am not a magic user, and those I’ve known have been…” She wrinkled her nose. “Secretive.”
James sighed. Damn. His mana was sitting at 30/100. He could attack with his sword and be smarter about it, but he would feel a lot better if he could attack from afar.
Well, it was only morning and there was no sense in wasting daylight.
Inara’s health was sitting at about three quarters full, and his own was under half. He took both health potions from his inventory and held one out to Inara.
She physically recoiled. “What are you doing?”
“Uh. Trying to heal you? It’s a health potion, it—”
“I know what a health potion is,” she snapped. “They’re incredibly valuable and would be wasted on someone as low level as we are.”
“I—” James was caught so off guard that she took pity on him.
“A health potion restores twenty-five percent of a person’s health, no matter what level they are. Right now it’ll only heal 25 points for you, so you should save it for when it’ll heal 250.”
James sucked in a breath. “So I probably shouldn’t use my mana potion, either?”
“No!” She looked at him like he’d just asked to chop off his leg and eat it.
“Okay, got it!” He held up his hands in surrender. “Very valuable, don’t touch.”
Inara squeezed the bridge of her nose. “Mana potions are rare enough that if you sold it, you could buy my entire farm and have some gold left over. Don’t even tell anyone you have one, or they might kill you for it.”
“Cool, cool.” James clicked his tongue. “So I definitely shouldn’t tell anyone I have three?”
“Three—?” Inara glared so hard she choked.
James laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t touch them, won’t talk about them. It’s nice to see that you care.”
When she caught her breath, she rolled her eyes. “Next you’ll tell me you’re sitting on skill points.”
“Oh!” James pulled up his character sheet, which cheerfully announced that he had three skill points available. “I’ve got three.”
She heaved a dramatic sigh but didn’t yell at him again. Instead, she waved a dismissive hand and sat down on the grass. “Take your time,” she said. “The skill list can be a lot.”
James followed the intuitive instructions which led him to the list of available skills.
Inara wasn’t kidding. There were several hundred for him to choose from, and of all things they were in alphabetical order. The list looked to based on things he’d done before, but that included almost everything he’d ever done that could be considered a skill. High on the list was Breathing!
Breathing
Breathe in, breathe out, repeat. Don’t stop or you’ll die!
Increase the skill to increase effectiveness of every breath.
James scrolled quickly through the list, doing his best to scan through and find something actually helpful. Text rolled past in a blur. He tried thinking of different ways to filter or sort, but nothing changed.
Finally, struck by inspiration, he scrolled all the way down to M.
Mana Bolt
Pure magic at the tip of your finger! Pew pew!
Increase the skill to increase the effectiveness of every bolt.
“Mom! I can’t believe you went without me!” Desiree’s high voice carried easily through the forest. She approached from the other side of the orchard. “Mr. Harding doesn’t even have apples!”
Inara jumped to her feet. “Desiree! Get back from there!”
Desiree ignored her mother’s command and stomped stubbornly past the sharp line of grass that delineated the orchard’s edge.
“Stay back!”
“Mommm, I’m not a kid anymo—” Desiree’s toe caught on a root. She stumbled and caught herself by slapping a hand against the trunk of the tree.
Your party has entered combat!
