Into the Pit: A LitRPG Adventure (Brad the Impaler Book 2), page 11
While waiting for her crop to take hold, Kira continued doing the little things that made a positive difference. Even those were becoming unsuccessful. When she went out to gather wood, she came back empty-handed. The Inventory slots of rock she’d found were no longer there when she stepped back into camp. She gave it three goes before deciding something was wrong and called on Sariel for advice.
To say her guide provided little in the way of answers was an understatement. Slash went with her once and swore they’d collected a, in his words, “humongous shitload.” But when they returned to the camp, only Slash carried any wood. Even when she tried a second time, she got the same results. After that, she even gave up on collecting raw materials.
A week’s worth of rain did little to improve her fortunes. Yet, when I asked her to let me take a stab at sowing seeds, the results couldn’t have contrasted hers more drastically. My crop soon stood knee height. After that, she relegated herself to hunting when she wasn’t grinding.
We sat under the expanded lean-to, watching the gray clouds hover. In the intervening time, she seemed less confident than any time I’d known her. Admittedly short, Kira seemed a shadow of the person she once was.
“I’m sick and tired of this rain,” Slash said as he lay in Kira’s lap, setting his small head between his front paws and sighing.
“Me too, wee man. Me too.”
Kira huffed. “Even with all this rain, if I’d planted that corn, it still wouldn’t have grown.”
With each subsequent failure in her eyes, Kira’s mood darkened. I got it. There were things I didn’t accomplish in my life that should have been no problem. When I failed, I became my own worst enemy. Plenty of people are like that. Kira definitely was. I tried to help her how I could. Time after time, she failed at seemingly simple tasks. Even ones that someone with a low skill level would accomplish.
I didn’t falter, wanting to help her through it. I just didn’t know how. With this latest failure, I was about to share some targeted but probably useless encouragement when Slash’s head popped up. Both of his tiny ears perked. A concerning rarity.
I was immediately on edge, sitting up straighter and already opening my Inventory. “What is it?”
Our camp had been quiet since the mama snake invasion. I’d been so focused on the house, almost to the point of addiction, my senses almost felt dulled. Thankfully, Slash’s Perception skills were as reliable as rain in the Pacific Northwest.
“Something’s wrong.” One of his peaked ears slowly flopped in half. “Something’s out there.”
Kira was up, her bow almost magically popping into her fist.
I held my new Venom Fang sword. It was light in my hand, feeling no heavier than an empty paper towel roll, even though it was a four-foot blade. “Any idea what it is?”
Slash’s entire body shivered as he stared ahead. His focus was trained diagonally across the two fields of crops. The bent ear unfolded, standing straight for about two seconds before collapsing on itself again. His head tipped to the side as he listened. “Brad, I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t feel like an animal.”
I could tell whatever he sensed disturbed him. After his comment, I understood it on a deeper level. “Well, if it won’t show itself, we can only assume it’s trying to sneak up on us.”
“Exactly,” Kira said, nocking an arrow.
Slash gulped audibly. “Are we going looking for them?”
“If they’re coming into our camp, they know we’re here,” I said, as I watched the rows of mature wheat and juvenile corn for signs. “If we go in there, we’re giving them the chance to surprise us. Best to wait until they come out in the open.”
“But then they can run at us.”
Kira’s face crinkled as she snarled. “Let them try.”
I flicked my chin at her, aiming my comment at my dog. “If we go into those fields, she loses the ability to see them and pluck them off before they get close. We need to play to our strengths, wee man.”
“You’re not in the military anymore, Brad.”
“Focus.”
Slash cocked his head again. I didn’t need a dog’s hearing to pick up the sounds of something moving through the fields. A whisking sound, as if someone was holding the leaves of two wheat stalks and flicking them against one another, came from just past the edge of vegetation.
Kira and I exchanged glances. She mouthed, “What the hell is that?”
I shook my head and returned my attention to whatever was working its way through our fields. In our time in Darkworld, we hadn’t had friendly visitors. We actually hadn’t had many visitors at all. The ones who came by didn’t come in the spirit of joviality or as kinsmen.
“Over there,” Slash said, standing taller and jutting his nose toward the far corner of the wheat field.
From my vantage point, I could see the heads of wheat swaying unnaturally. The wind wasn’t strong enough to make them sway like that. “Be ready.”
What came out of the fields was in greater numbers than I’d anticipated. A call back to something I never thought I’d see again.
Slash yipped. “Aren’t those…”
“Yeah. Fire roses,” I said, remembering the tutorial Fortune had walked us through at the start of the game. Our introduction to Darkworld.
Unlike the fire roses in our tutorial, these flowers stood over seven feet tall. Whereas those first petals had been as ostentatiously large as hand fans in Eastern flicks, these were twice that size. Even at their extended dimensions, they were still an angry red that reminded me of the river of blood in Crimson City. Thorns jutted off each arm, branch, and stem. Grotesquely, they wiggled much like the snakes we’d spent too much time fighting lately. The worst thing about this new batch of fire roses was that they weren’t rooted to the ground.
Twenty roses moved through our field, in our direction, and they didn’t look friendly.
“This isn’t a tutorial,” I said.
By the hollow sound of Kira’s voice, this was just as maddening to her. “They were in your tutorial as well?”
“Yep,” Slash said, almost too blithely for the situation.
The fire roses formed a flattened U-shaped formation. In one line, albeit a curved one, I could easily get through their defenses. The problem was, I couldn’t tell if any single one of them was in charge. Crazy, to think of flowers being so sentient that they might have a leader. A general of sorts. But as I scanned the fields behind them, I didn’t see anyone or anything commanding them. It was as if they were together in this, yet acting on their own.
This couldn’t be handled recklessly. That would open me to attacks of opportunity, and it might also disable any threat Slash and Kira could provide.
Speaking out of the corner of my mouth, I asked my dog, “Hey, what do you think about using Potty Mouth?”
Even from my periphery, I saw he’d turned to look at me. “You can’t be serious?”
“Exploring our options. Can you use it?”
“You still haven’t spent a lot of time digging around in my menus, have you?”
“I’ve been busy with everything else. Can you use it against them or not?”
“It a psychological attack. It’s only good against sentient creatures, Brad. What do you think?”
I risked a look away from the creature sliding forward. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. If you can’t use it, that’s fine. I’m trying to figure out how to handle twenty of them when there’re only three of us.”
“This isn’t the first time we’ve been vastly outnumbered,” Kira said.
I assumed my ready position. “True. So, we can’t use Potty Mouth. That means—”
“Don’t you dare say it,” Slash said, following with a high-pitched bark.
“You know you have to.”
His muzzle wrinkled as he formed it into a small circular shape and howled. “But I don’t want toooooooooooo.”
As the fire roses wiggled forward, their roots pulling them across the rich soil like fingers of a hand dragging the entire body, I noticed their thorns. Even at this distance, they were easy to make out.
A fire rose from the back of the shallow formation turned its body. Since I’d been inspecting the thorns, I noticed the oddity of its movement. The thorn wiggled, almost as if…
“Shit! Use it now, Slash!”
The thorn pulled loose just then. It didn’t tumble to the ground like my irrational mind hoped. Instead, it shot across the space, aimed for us. “And hit the ground!”
12
12 - All Kinds of Roses
Ibit dirt. Slash yelped. I rolled over to see him sprinting toward our lean-to. Kira was on the ground, rolling for cover.
“Do it!”
Hiding behind the lean-to wouldn’t prevent Slash from using his Cheerleader spell. He only had to activate it and it would target him, if he was alone, or his party, if the members were close enough. The lean-to wasn’t far enough away to keep us from enjoying the benefits of the spell.
I still hadn’t heard the angelic call that always accompanied the spell.
Goddammit. We didn’t have time for his petulance.
The first thorn shot by me. I rolled away. “Get to cover!”
Another zipped overhead. Dozens more followed. One punctured the dirt three feet away with a solid thunk, penetrating deep enough that the thorn stood on its end. It wiggled in the air as if trying to free itself to get a second shot at me. Like Kira, I didn’t wait around to find out if it could get loose. Keeping my sword tucked, I rolled away. Only when I was comfortable that I’d put enough space between me and the advancing fire roses did I risk getting up and scrambling for solid cover.
Angelic voices, singing, filled the air. “Ra! Ra! Sis boom bah!”
Slash had cast his Cheerleader spell. Somewhere behind the lean-to, my tiny Chihuahua was shivering in hiding, dressed like a small-town high school cheerleader. If the fire roses weren’t so dangerous, I’d be slightly peeved that they’d denied me the chance to see my pup decked out in the blue-and-white costume instead of his bad ’80s heavy metal studded leather jacket.
The sweater with a skirt that didn’t quite cover his tail was a hilarious costume, but the best part was the blonde wig. Complete with terribly square bangs and two obnoxious pigtails, he was a walking stereotype, just in dog form. He hadn’t had to use the spell often enough for me to tire of picking on him about his appearance. That he let me know it bothered him only made bringing it up funnier. Aside from the adorable get-up, the spell was effective in situations like this, so I was glad he didn’t fight me for long.
Hiding around the corner of the house, a steeliness that came every time he used the spell fell over me. With the spell cast, all three of us had just gained a 2 percent increase in Fortitude and a fifteen increase in Health. The Health boost was reflected in my bar, which now pulsed to signal I had more than a 100 percent to give because I hadn’t taken damage yet. The 2 percent Fortitude increase would come in handy when taking on so many beasts.
I don’t know how the Fortitude boost manifested itself in Slash or Kira, but I knew my reaction to it. The steeliness helped me focus. Facing so many fire roses, I needed every advantage I could get. The attack formation the beasts were using prevented me from being able to use my Rock n’ Roll attack effectively. This fight, from my perspective, was going down the old-fashioned way.
Looking beyond the campfire, I spotted Kira scramble up a tree on the edge of the camp. I didn’t know the specifics of the range of her bow attacks, but the fire roses still had to be well within that. Less than two hundred feet separated them from where she was climbing, and they were constantly moving closer. The only question left was whether or not her arrows could do any damage.
I looked down at the Venom Fang sword. As soon as I’d equipped the weapon, I’d felt stronger. Between it and the Fortitude boost from Slash’s spell, I could do serious damage. I rotated my hand, inspecting the dark gray metal blade that still held a menacing sheen. The leather grip creaked in my hand. On the pommel, a serpent’s head stared back through small emerald gems. Its mouth was open, and two fangs of jade silently threatened harm to my foes.
“Let’s see what you can do then,” I said to the unblinking serpent head.
As the fire roses crept forward, I moved back along the side of the house, refusing to break into a jog until I was around the back. Now that I had put up all four walls of the house, the move visually cut me off. I didn’t like the idea of being blind to their movements, but they didn’t seem to have much of a strategy. I convinced myself that outsmarting them was the key to defeating them. Making it around the far corner, I extended my neck just enough to get a glimpse of the field. In the time it took me to get around the house, the fire roses had barely moved.
I was close enough now to get a whiff of the sickly sweet aroma they put off. At first, I thought it was nothing more than the typical smell of flowers, just on a grander scale. But then I felt the pressure behind my eyeballs. It was almost as if I’d come down with a sudden case of a head cold. After another risky peek, I saw why. Each of the fire roses puffed out a small yellow cloud from their round stigmas.
Pollen clouds. They were causing the pressure in my head. My vision blurred as if my eyes were watering, even though they felt as clear as any allergy-free day.
I put my forearm across my nose to block the pollen and took a few steps back. As soon as I made it to the back corner of the house, my head began to clear. The pressure behind my eyes lessened. The air smelled cleaner. But the fire roses were still advancing toward Slash and Kira. Now that I understood what their presence could do, I had to figure out a way to put an end to them before they reached my little guy and new ally. And that had to be accomplished without throwing myself into an allergic reaction.
I unleashed the tie around the neck of my tunic and pulled it over my head. That was easier said than done. I’d earned the tunic after defeating the Vampire King, and since I didn’t have any other chest armor, it was my armor of choice by default. The boost to my Defense stat wasn’t great, but the plus-two was better than nothing. By removing it, I lost those boost points but gained something more important.
After I wrapped the tunic around my nose and mouth, tying it off behind my neck, I slowly stepped back toward the front corner of the house. The line of fire roses closed in on Slash’s hiding spot. They were still away from Kira, and she was firing her arrows regularly and rapidly. Soon enough, she would run out. That was a problem because it didn’t look like she was doing significant damage with each strike, not according to their Health bars. I wasn’t worried about Slash’s safety as the fire roses neared. He could easily outrun them. But I wondered about those thorns. The projectile that almost hit me was easily ten inches long. Even with his speed, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility one lucky strike could take him down.
Up in the tree, Kira leaned forward enough that I could see her position. I waved wildly, drawing her attention. She halted her assault. I pointed at the campfire. Shouting my plans would only draw the attention of the fire roses. I needed them to be ignorant of my whereabouts to pull this off without being shot full of thorns and walking away looking like a fantasy world version of a porcupine. The plan would put her at risk. She wasn’t averse to it. The problem was the distance between us and the fact that I couldn’t clearly communicate my plan without creating vulnerabilities.
Before this, we hadn’t sat around, developing a litany of responses to contingencies Darkworld could throw at us. We hadn’t even known each other long enough to claim clairvoyance. What we had in each other wasn’t even telepathic. I had to trust her to interpret my wild gesticulations. She had to trust that I wasn’t throwing her to the plant-like wolves.
I knew she got what I was going for when her bow disappeared. As soon as it was gone, Kira leaped from the tree, sprinting away nearly as soon as her feet touched down. I lost her behind the wall of fire roses and their spreading cloud of yellow pollen.
A short, unnerving period of silence followed. I continually scanned for Kira while keeping an eye on the lean-to, just in case Slash made a break for it.
My nerves were frayed. I was making a fist with a regular occurrence. The waiting was killing me. What the hell was going on?
I inched forward, almost exposing myself. All it would take was one of the fire roses to get smart enough to turn around and they’d catch me.
Something didn’t feel right. Kira was taking too long. Maybe my gesticulations hadn’t worked, obfuscating the plan. For all I knew, she might have thought I meant for her to race through the forest to find reinforcements. Not that Kira would abandon me, not even to recruit help.
Slash wouldn’t go anywhere either. He may not be much of a fighter, but he wasn’t a coward. That little guy had more courage in one of his toothpick-sized nails than most people had in their entire bodies. His little ass better have stayed behind the lean-to.
I received my answer a moment later.
Kira darted into the opening. She flashed across the face of the line of fire roses, coming from the direction of the lean-to. I hadn’t noticed her make her way to the structure, but if she escaped my notice, maybe she got by the fire roses’ as well. Their lack of reaction until she was halfway across the face of their line told me she’d been successful. Their petaled heads turned as one as they tracked her.
They were awkwardly lethargic, though. Kira was across the line before most recognized what she was doing. As they turned, Slash appeared from behind the lean-to, barking angrily in the adorably ferocious manner only small dog breeds can pull off. The fire roses didn’t seem to know which of the two to take on. Each of them decided on a different foe. As their heads rotated, they individually locked on either Kira or Slash. Size didn’t seem to matter. As many looked at him as looked at Kira.
