027 Dire Situation 001
James slumped over on a nearby rock while Mercury watched him with an intense gaze. He knew that she was serious.
[Hmm. What to do, what to do.] He paused to think about his attribute points situation.
He mulled around able his conundrum while scratching his head.He took a second to look at his character sheet.
.
-------------------------------
Player: Blaise
Class: Spell Weaver
Professions: Rune Master
Titles: Master of Knowledge, Junior and Senior Librarian, Junior and Senior Scholar, Persistent
Level: 17
Unused Attribute Points: 32
Unused Skill Points: 3
HP: 250 --- [(10 * 25) + 0 + 0 + 0]
Mana: 850/850 --- [200 + 0 + ( 650) + 0]
Int: 85 --- [20 + (65)]
Endurance: 10
Str: 10
Dex: 16
Agility: 8
Attack Points: 30
Defense: 20
Mana Regeneration: 23 --- [20 + 5%]
.
Abilities:
....
Actives
Leech Strength (Lv 1)
Leech Defense (Lv 1)
Leech Agility (Lv 1)
Improved Fireball (Lv 1)
Open Spell Slot
Aura of Pure Fire [Locked] (Lv 1)
...
-------------------------------
.
[Well, based on my default attribute points, intellect and dexterity are the most important since they are higher than the other skills. I wish my agility was higher as well.I should follow what my class hints at when dealing with attributes.]
He did some mental math and made several considerations until he found an attribute distribution he liked.
* Ding, add 20 attribute points into Intellect, 6 into Endurance, 4 into Dexterity, and 2 into Agility? *
He took another look at his character sheet again.
.
-------------------------------
Player: Blaise
Class: Spell Weaver
...
Level: 17
Unused Attribute Points: 0
Unused Skill Points: 3
HP: 400 --- [(250) + (150) + 0 + 0]
Mana: 1050/1050 --- [200 + (200) + ( 650) + 0]
Int: 105 --- [20 + 20 + (65)]
Endurance: 16 --- [10 + 6]
Str: 10
Dex: 20 --- [16 + 4]
Agility: 10 --- [8 + 2]
...
-------------------------------
.
"Looks like you finished. I can tell you increased your HP and Intellect but what else did you do?" asked Mercury.
"Well I rounded my Dexterity and Agility to the closest figure of 10 first. Then I wanted to increase my HP for survivability, then added the rest to mana." James answered.
"Why Dex?" wondered Mercury.
"My class started with 16 Dexterity so I am assuming it will help increase how fast I can draw runes when creating spell matrices. The longer they take the more mana they use up. I'm guessing I can reduce my mana usage that way." explained James.
"Do you plan on following the same distribution as you continue to level up?"
James took a second to think about an answer, "I have a feeling I will be leveling up using the semi-boss method for now on if possible. I will want more HP in case something happens. So, I think I'll push for 1,000 or 1,500 HP while increasing my Mana as well."
Mercury gave her input, "It will be an interesting build. The Mages on the Leaderboard and on the forums figured that 500 HP will be high enough for most of the current content. I know Tempest has stopped at 500 HP."
James turned his head to the side slightly in wonder, "I assume that Tempest and the other Mage classes plan on playing in groups. They will have Tanks to protect them and Healers to heal them when damage is unavoidable. I don't plan on playing in large groups so I will need the higher HP pool. For now I will shoot for 1,000 HP and go from there."
"You make a good argument. Have you used your skill points? Since you are not level 20 yet I guess you have 3 free skill points; that is unless you got some from quests." questioned Mercury.
"I have not spent my skill points as of yet. Please don't try to force me to use them; I can make and modify my spells. I do not know what happens to the skill level of the spell if I were to modify it. I don't want to accidentally waste hard to comeby skill points." James begged.
Mercury strutted over to James; he got worried. She rested one hand on James's chest and looked him in the eye. "It is good to be cautious, but don't let it hold you back. At some point you will need to take the risk. However, I'll respect your decision since you are your own person."
She then spun around and started skipping away.
[I thought she was going to yell at me.] James wiped the sweat off his forehead. [I'm happy that she respects me enough to keep my own opinions].
James, with a smile, caught up to Mercury and they continued on their way deeper into the canyon.
They continued for half an hour; this time they were not avoiding monsters. The increase to James's strength was visible. He was able to cast more Fireballs, so the burden on Mercury was less than before. She was able to manage the fight easier with the increased support from James.
They ran into a dead end. The canyon came to a hard stop in zone 32. What they found at the end was a large lake with a waterfall.
"What do we do? Do we need to suicide just to respawn back in town?" Mercury was flustered.
"I don't know. This seems like a point of interest in the game. The developers would not create something pointless. If they wanted to create a farming area the monster packs would not have been so far apart. There is something more that meets the eye here." James comforted Mercury.
He started looking around the deadend. He started on the left around the cliff side to see if there was some sort of hidden passageway. He then proceeded to check the right side as well. He returned to Mercury and only shook his head.
"Must have something to do with the lake." James said as he started walking towards the lake.
"Jump!" yelled Mercury.
James instinctively jumped into the air since he trusted Mercury so much. He turned his neck around to look at Mercury. He wanted to see what was going on.
What he saw was that she was swinging her axe at his! He brought his arms and legs to his torso so that he was balled up. He figured it would minimize the damage.
"Hey! Just what are you pulling here! We agreed that we would respawn to escape!" James was disgruntled. He left like Mercury betrayed his trust.
* Smack *
She hit James with the side of her axe. It was a lighter impact than he thought he would experience.
He did watch what she was doing from start to finish. It all happened in an instant but felt like ages to James. She had swung her axe in an upward direction and had the axe come to a stop over head.
He took minor damage from her surprise attack but did not ready himself for retaliation. He wanted to try to talk it over first.
* Crack, Rumble, Shatter *
While he was still sailing through the air he heard noises coming from the location he was standing.
A large spider web of cracks started to appear at his last position. Then the earth shattered and a massive monster appeared.
Without skipping a beat both of them entered battle mode.
[Maddening Strength]
[Maggending Speed]
[Leech Strength]
[Leech Defense]
Mercury had waited for a split second so that James would cast his leaching spells. She was just outside of where the monster sprouted from the ground and already had her axe in the air; she was primed for attack.
James shot 3 fireballs while Mercury started her own attack.
[Crushing Assault]
The first fireball struck the side further from Mercury causing the monster to shift closer to Mercury so that her attack would land.
Mercury's attack landed a direct hit on the massive creature. She then retreated towards James while the final two fireballs landed directly in front of the monster preventing it from attacking the retreating Mercury.
Now that they were at a relatively safe distance the dup examined the monster and their faces turned white.
.
-------------------------------
Living Devil's Ivy (Event)
Grade: Bronze Boss
Level: 40
Hp: 84,430/85,000
-------------------------------
.
They looked at each other and had the same thought, RUN! At the same time they turned to run back the way they came.
As they were running the ground several meters in front of them started shaking and cracking. Then hundreds of vines appeared out of the ground. They wove together and formed a massive wall.
James tried firing some fireballs but when they hit the wall there was no visible damage. All he got was some pathetic damage numbers. Mercury tried the same; she cleaved at the wall but did nothing but minor damage. Since he was in close proximity to the wall some of the vines lashed out to attack her. She had to roll backwards to avoid their attacks.
The duo feared the worst. Their escape was blocked so they could only turn back to the Ivy monster. Luckily it had not moved from the spot it surfaced.
"At least it acts like a normal plant and can't follow us around." James commented.
"Yeah but we are not getting out of here anytime soon if we choose to fight it. I would rather not die if we can help it. We could potentially lose some of the loot and a lot of experience points if we die." Mercury felt wronged.
Let's get away from the vine wall for now. If we keep our distance from the main plant we also might be safe.
The duo retreated away from the Devil's Ivy to try to figure out what they should do. The plant however had a different opinion.
Right on the coast line of the lake three vines grew out of the ground. On the vines there were blue and purple flowers that appeared to be looking directly at them.
"Ah, I don't like the look of that." James was worried.
Before Mercury could respond the flowers on the vines started to shoot water balls at them! James examined the vines as they were dodging their attacks.
.
-------------------------------
Living Water Vine
Level: 40
Hp: 2,500/2,500
-------------------------------
.
"They have a health bar! If we kill them they will probably go away!" James yelled.
Mercury looked at the vines this time then looked at James weirdly. "I don't know what you are talking about. I do not see any health bars."
James was stunned. "You can't see anything?"
"No, my identity skill does not show anything about them." frowned Mercury.
James snapped his fingers, "My identity skill is maxed out thanks to a quest! Trust me on this!"
Mercury only knotted her head and started moving towards the leftmost Water Vine. While he was moving in, James was not idle. He started shooting fireballs at the center Water Vine.
Mercury swung at the base of the Water Vine and saw a damage number appear. "It works! Sorry I questioned you!"
"No problem. Let's take these down so we can be safe again!" assured Mercury while continuing his attack on the second Vine.
The Water Vine that Mercury was attacking changed it's attack pattern some. Since it caught her off guard she took some damage.
- 230 (Water)
"Careful!" James got worried about her.
Both of their Vines were barely half health but they chose to retreat for a few minutes.
Mercury took out a healing salve and started to recover, salves were not as good as health potions but were much cheaper.
James's mind went into overdrive in an attempt to find a way to ease their current predicament.
"Wait! I have an idea." James hurried and pulled up his skill list.
"Perfect!"James was excited.
Mercury looked at James and waited for an explanation. But, she got impatient. "What's perfect?"
James linked her the skill details for the Aura of Pure Fire. He had hit level 10 but had not unlocked it yet.
"Why is it locked?" asked Mercury.
"I used to be a Fire Mage before my class changed. Since both classes are magic based classes the skills that were compatible were locked." James finally used a skill point to unlock the skill.
* Ding, you have used a skill point to unlock Aura of Pure Fire. It has had it's level increased by 1. *
.
-------------------------------
Name: Aura of Pure Fire
Level: 2
...
Skill Information:
[Passive]: Increases fire damage of user and allies by 10% and decreases incoming water damage by 10%.
[Active - Toggle]: Summons aspects of fire around the caster that damage anything that enters.
Damage: 30 damage per second with a radius of 4 meters
Costs: Active - drains 5 mana per second
-------------------------------
.
"I unlocked the skill! Not only can I use it once again but it also had it's skill level increased at the same time." James relinked the ability to Mercury.
Mercury's mood improved greatly, "This changes everything. Can you manage the resource upkeep and the cost of your fireballs?"
James shook his head, "I have plenty of mana potions left. We might pull this off!"
The both went back to attacking their respective Water Vines. The two vines that they were currently attacking were 3.5 meters away so Mercury got the resistance against water damage. While it was not much, every little bit helps. She focused on defense and only went in for an attack when it was safe.
The Vines did not focus on a single target but instead attacked at random. One second a single Vine was attacking one of them, then the next all three vines were attacking the same player. They had to keep on their toes; but in the end they both killed their Vines.
* Screech! *
After each Vine was killed the Devil's Ivy cried out in pain.
They both looked at the vine and were ecstatic! Each Water Vine had 2,500 health in total and once they killed the vines the Ivy lost 5,000 health points!
"The Ivy's main body and the vine wall have too much defense but it's Water Vines don't! That must be the trick to killing this thing." exclaimed James.
Both of them turned to the last Water Vine and started killing it. Since there was only one vine shooting water at them it was much easier to attack. Since James had his fire aura dealing damage he focused on defense. Everytime the plant would shoot a waterball he would target it with a fireball and they would cancel each other out. The final Vine went down without a problem.
"What now? That was the last Water Vine." Mercury questioned the situation.
Her question was answered shortly after. The ground between them and the Devil's Ivy's main body started to shake like it did with the vine wall.
This time, 6 vines exploded from the ground. These vines were different from the Water Vines. Instead of a flower they had large thorns all over.
.
-------------------------------
Living Thorn Vine
Level: 40
Hp: 1,250/ 1,250
-------------------------------
.
Since Mercury could not see the Vine's stats James had to explain their stats. "They are Thorn Vines and have half as much hp as the Water Vines. But there are twice as many to make up for it."
Mercury wanted to find out the plan of attack. "Do we divide and conquer or focus one at a time?"
The Vines started shooting thorns at them just like the Water Vines. Just like last time they picked a random target.
James had to solely focus on defense. There were far too many thorns being fired at once; Mercury had enough agility to avoid most of the thorns, he did not.
His only choice was to let the fire aura do its job while he shot fireballs at incoming thorns. He had to increase his mana potions consumption rate. [I hope I have enough for his fight…]
In the end the both were attacking one Vine at a time. The Vines now had a single direction to shoot in. Both James and Mercury could not defend against incoming thorns better.
Eventually all of the Thorn Vines were killed and the boss had taken more damage for each death.
-------------------------------
Living Devil's Ivy (Event)
Grade: Bronze Boss
Level: 40
Hp: 69,430/85,000
-------------------------------
The ground once again rumbled and shook; this time both Water Vines and Thorn Vines spawned. There were now 9 total Vines and 14,000 potential damage to the boss on the field.
Author's Note: Devil's Ivy is a vine plant that lives in water.