The Warped Forest Read online

  A quick check of her stats wasn't any better. Her health was down to the bottom third, her fatigue was near max, and she was about out of faez.

  When a third birthing trunk extended from the Warped Mother, Alex knew she needed to come up with something drastic or the fight was going to be over quick.

  Alex managed to kill two more warped animals, and a third died from falling debris, but when she saw what had emerged from the Warped Mother, her gut twisted.

  The Warped Triplets, Warped Animal, Level 15

  A trio of creatures with four legs and three separate heads emerged. They approached from three different angles, giving Alex no opportunity to escape, or to use their abilities against each other.

  The Warped Triplet coming from the center had the heads of a lion, goat, and dragon. In the mouth of the dragon, a faint reddish glow emanated along with a wavering air of heat, suggesting that it would breath fire.

  Alex shifted left towards the triplet with heads of a snake, wolf, and horse, and she was hit by a ranged attack.

  You have been hit by a Warped Triplet for 29 damage!

  She sensed she was about to die, but cracked her whip at the leftmost triplet as she ran past, ignoring that her fatigue bar was nearly maxed. Unexpectedly, the triplet leapt right at her, giving Alex no opportunity to dodge.

  Alex raised her whip above her head to block the blow, but there was no way it wasn't going to be fatal.

  Before the wolf head could bite her, a furry brown shape came flying through a hole in the spire.

  Critical hit! The Warped Triplet has hit Inky for 98 damage!

  Inky has been slain!

  "No!"

  Her little brown minion crashed to the ground, sliding across the stone, her body covered in white dust. The interruption gave Alex a chance to escape the triplets to the far side of the spire, hoping to regain a little fatigue and faez.

  When the dragon-headed triplet loped towards her, it reared back its head to breathe fire. Alex spied the Gritty Foxilate, which had won its side battle, approaching from the side, and misdirected the flame attack into it.

  The Gritty Foxilate had been hit by fire breath for 110 damage!

  The Gritty Foxilate was slain!

  You have gained experience: 1,500 XP

  You have reached level 17!

  Luck of the Bold triggers! All health, faez, and abilities for you and your minions reset!

  The last part about her minions hurt, but Alex had no time for pain as the triplets made their rapid approach. Despite the odds, Alex felt a kernel of hope that she'd lasted this long.

  She squared off against the warped triplets, giving them her best come-at-me wave.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Out of the corner of her eye, Alex spied a section of the spire about to fall, so she ran towards it, leading the triplets in her wake.

  The ground rumbled again and the stone shifted, tipping into the center of the spire. Alex slid beneath it right as the dragon-head triplet lunged after her. The stone squashed it flat.

  You have gained experience: 2,500 XP

  Before the other triplets could circle the big stone, Alex scrambled to the top. From her superior position, she misdirected the attacks of the remaining triplets into each other, finishing them off without taking another point of damage.

  You have gained a unique skill point: +1 Cunning Strategist

  While she'd been fighting the triplets, she'd ignored the Warped Mother, mostly out of self-preservation, but now that they were defeated, Alex gave the final boss her full attention.

  The Warped Mother hadn't moved from her position, nor had she birthed new creatures. Alex expected another pseudopod attack, but that didn't come either.

  The Spire of Creation continued to crumble around them. The larger sections high above seemed to explode into dust as they fell, making it feel like she was in a snowstorm. As the prismatic forest surrounding the spire was revealed through the holes, Alex was stunned by its beauty.

  The pale chips rained down, catching the sunlight. If she weren't in the middle of a boss battle, she would have liked to stand on that stone and watch the whole thing collapse, but as larger chunks began to fall, Alex had to keep her head craned in all directions to avoid them.

  For the next minute, Alex dodged the final ruin of the Spire of Creation while the Warped Mother waited at the center. Alex had a tiny bit of hope that a section might impale itself on her, finishing the battle, but Alex knew that was unlikely. There would be no deus ex machina to save her.

  When the collapse was finished, Alex stood on the mountainside of the plain, hands on knees, heaving from avoiding the stones. Her fatigue was near half, but she had full hit points and faez.

  The plain lay shattered before her, hunks of pale stone scattered like children's toys, while drifts of dust swirled between them. At the center stood the Warped Mother, a pillar of black goo, its birthing trunks retracted.

  Alex prepared to approach the final boss, but a new rumble in the ground confused her. It wasn't until she saw a little dot shoot out from the kaleidoscopic forest that she realized what was happening.

  A mental signature from the returning Pinky told the tale. Her minion could no longer kite the horde of warped animals, and they were returning en mass. Alex wasn't even sure she could deal a tenth of the damage necessary to the Warped Mother before the stampeding animals reached her.

  As the forest shook with the approach of the horde, Alex looked for the tallest stone, racing to it and climbing up the rough side. By the time she reached its peak, the first animals reached the center.

  Alex was about thirty feet in the air, which gave her a considerable perch, and the creatures seemed content to race around the plain where the Spire of Creation once stood. Alex felt like she was the last girl alive after an apocalypse.

  The mass of warped animals kept their pace, circling the Warped Mother as if it were a religious ritual. As Alex watched, trying to figure out how she might reach the final boss again, the pillar of black goo reached out and plucked a squealing animal from the circuit.

  To Alex's horror, the Warped Mother absorbed the creature, growing slightly larger in the process.

  "Oh no," whispered Alex.

  While she watched, the Warped Mother continued to eat, gobbling up warped animals, one after another. Before long, she was as tall as the stone where Alex was perched, her shape becoming more defined, humanistic with arms and legs and a womanly head.

  Alex didn't know what to make of this new phase of the fight. She'd barely been able to damage the Warped Mother when she was only a pillar of goo; once she became a gargantuan boss, there was no way Alex could survive.

  Alex brought up her character sheet, looking through her spells and skills for ideas on how she might defeat the boss. But nothing suggested a workable strategy. Pinky was still flying around, which would give her a chance at brief invulnerability, but that would only stop the Warped Mother for ten seconds.

  When Alex looked into her Handysack, her gaze immediately fell to the chimeric stones that she'd collected along the way. Alex had twenty-eight of the large and sixty-five of the small ones.

  "These have got to be the key," she said.

  As the Warped Mother absorbed another animal, Alex had a revelation. The chimeric stones were like the cancer that she'd taken from her mother. Alex suspected they came from the Warped Mother, part of the process of changing the creatures into something new and awful. Cancer was like those stones. Was it enough to eat them?

  Alex took a small one and slipped it past her lips, swallowing it like a pill. Within moments, she doubled over with a gut ache, but what followed was a warmth of energy surging. Holding up her hand, Alex watched as her palm stretched, making it the size of a basketball player's.

  Quest Completed: Figure out what the chimeric stones are for.

  You have gained experience: 5,000 XP

  A quiver of dread passed through Alex as she realized the challenge before her. Th
at one small stone had been the equivalent of her worst cramps, and she had to eat another ninety-two of them, including the twenty-eight that were larger?

  But the Warped Mother had grown to a height of fifty feet. She was grabbing circling animals two at a time, gobbling them up like a greedy child after Halloween.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, Alex slipped the next stone past her lips, swallowing before she had second thoughts. She threw the next one down before the first could take hold. She'd watched a few eating contests in her time, and the contestants always had a faraway focused expression. She tried to embody that intensity as she swallowed the chimeric stones one after another, wishing she had a drink to wash them down.

  When the first surge of transformation hit Alex, it felt like her bones were breaking inside her skin. Ligaments stretched and popped, and muscles plumped, growing impossibly large. Not for the first time in the game did she wish that it wasn't so realistic, but the way the chimeric stones were changing her was worse than anything she'd experienced in the past.

  She'd spent a lifetime playing avatars in online games, and while those foreign bodies weren't her, they created a sense of proportion that Alex could relate to. As her body shifted and bulged, stretched and expanded, Alex could no longer relate to the flesh where her mind was contained.

  After many long, unknowable minutes, Alex finished her transformation. She looked down at the colorful forest, which looked like paint-spilled grass.

  Across the plain was the Warped Mother, looking like a hooded nun covered in oily waste. Her scowl was a slash across her face as she approached.

  Alex had the urge to check her character sheet, but the Warped Mother gave her no time, lashing out with a fist.

  The Warped Mother hits you for 235 damage!

  Alex's heart dropped into her feet until she realized that her hit point bar had barely moved. She'd become a titan in both size and stats.

  Without her whip, Alex struck using her fist, connecting cleanly across the Warped Mother's jaw.

  You hit the Warped Mother for 18 damage!

  You have gained a skill point: +1 Unarmed Combat

  Despite the satisfying impact, her blow had barely done any damage. Alex quickly realized she wasn't going to be able to trade fisticuffs as if they were two heavyweight prize fighters.

  The Warped Mother hits you for 136 damage!

  The Warped Mother hits you for 191 damage!

  Two more hits made the damage visible on her hit point bar. Alex risked a glance into her character sheet to find a new ability.

  Ability: Devour Flesh

  Effect: Temporarily gain the abilities of devoured animal

  Duration: 2 minutes

  Five-second rule doesn't apply

  While she was reading the new information, the Warped Mother kept striking her. The rapid blows were adding up, taking Alex down to 70% of her health.

  The only problem was that the Warped Mother had already eaten the mass of creatures, which meant there was no flesh remaining to devour. Had she figured this out earlier, she could have beaten the Warped Mother in an eating contest, overwhelming her with sheer power, but that path was closed. The only creatures left in the shattered plain was the pair of them and Pinky, who was flying around at a distance, keeping in contact in case Alex needed to turn invulnerable.

  But being hit wasn't the problem. With her low unarmed combat skill and few other useful skills, she couldn't deal the Warped Mother enough damage, which meant that eventually, Alex was going to lose.

  As her health trended towards zero, the blows coming without remorse, Alex searched for an answer. If she didn't come up with one quickly, she would lose the final battle so close to the end.

  Glancing back to the fluttering spot in the sky, an answer suggested itself, but Alex hesitated because her minions had been critical to her success thus far, and because she'd grown affectionate of the furry brown bats, of which, Pinky was the last. The last few months with her minions had taught her they had more life to them than just an NPC in a game, or at least they'd been skillfully created in a way to fool her. Either way, she felt great remorse at what she was considering.

  When her health crossed into the final quarter, Alex knew she had to make a choice. As much as she loved her little minion, she couldn't give up her life outside for a game creature.

  "I'm sorry, Pinky," she said, summoning her minion through her mental link.

  When the fluttering brown bat came into view, Alex activated her new ability Devour Flesh.

  The brown bat disappeared past her lips, barely a tickle in the back of her throat, but then a pop-up appeared.

  Steal Ability

  Ability: Reactionary Armor

  Ability: Syphon Life

  Her heart soared when she saw the second listing. She hadn't known if her minion's ability to steal life would be revealed by Devour Flesh, but she had to try.

  Alex swiped the second ability, immediately triggering it. A ghostly trunk reached out to the Warped Mother, suctioning onto it.

  You hit the Warped Mother with syphon life for 54 damage!

  You gain 54 life!

  You hit the Warped Mother with syphon life for 61 damage!

  You gain 61 life!

  Sensing a change in the battle, the Warped Mother increased her attacks, swinging her piston-like fists into Alex. The syphon life spell rapidly drained the boss, but it wasn't keeping up with the damage coming her way.

  As the damage raced towards zero, Alex realized she wasn't going to make it. She flipped through her character screen, looking for a spell to make the final push, when she realized that Devour Flesh was active again.

  The Warped Mother's health was below a quarter, while Alex's was in the last percentages. She triggered Devour Flesh, reaching out to the Warped Mother, who held her glistening arms up in defense.

  With sickening horror, Alex watched as the Warped Mother disintegrated into oily mist, flying into her mouth as if it were a whirling maelstrom. It felt like Alex was going to burst, the chimeric magics ripping through her body.

  You have slain the Warped Mother!

  You have gained experience: 170,000 XP

  Special Achievement Reached: You have killed a boss!

  You have gained bonus experience: 250,000 XP

  You have gained a unique skill point: +1 Cunning Strategist

  Quest Completed: Defeat the Warped Mother

  You have gained experience: 150,000 XP

  You have gained level 18!

  You have gained level 19!

  You have gained level 20!

  Congratulations! You have reached level 20!

  First year completed!

  Second year unlocked!

  Chapter Forty-Three

  In the seconds after her victory, as the information scrolled past her vision, a profound sense of relief passed through her like a wave of relaxation. This peaceful exhalation lasted until the first rumbles formed in her belly.

  "Not good," said Alex, holding an enormous hand to her midsection.

  The first belch came like a sonic blast. Alex had turned her head, which blew over a section of trees in its wake.

  She bent over as the forces in her guts pushed outward as if they were trying to escape. Alex felt like she'd spent the day at Golden Corral eating until she was a plump summer tick.

  Alex reared back, a sickly warmth passing from her midsection, up her throat and out her mouth as a jet of black dust. It wasn't quite vomiting, but it was close. A forceful ejection of chimeric magic blasted from her lips into the air above the Warped Forest.

  As the material left her body, she shrank like a balloon that'd been untied. The wounds and injuries from the fight knitted themselves until after a minute of shouting at the sky, she was back to her original size.

  Alex followed up her reverse transformation with a last burp from behind her closed fist as the cloud of chimeric dust floated away on a breeze into the sky.

  "Wow. That was unpleasant," s
aid Alex, rubbing her stomach. "At least it didn't exit the back end."

  She stood at the center of the destruction, trying to make sense of what had happened. Even though she'd been in the middle of it, the fight had been so chaotic that she felt numb.

  When a black shape flew in from her left, Alex fell into a defensive stance, readying a Wind Gust, but she let her hands drop when she saw who it was.

  A huge black bird landed on a nearby crumbled stone.

  "Hey, Ethel," said Alex.

  "Greetings, Alex, and congratulations on your victory," said Ethel as she preened her wings in the sunlight.

  "Thank you. Did you watch the final battle or is this a coincidental visit?" asked Alex.

  "A Great Raven does not normally reveal its secrets," said Ethel, cocking her head. "But in this case, yes, I was watching from afar."

  "You knew I was about to fight the Warped Mother, didn't you? You're keeping tabs on me."

  The Great Raven shuffled her feet and glanced askew. "Ahem. The confrontation was inevitable. I was merely an interested observer."

  Alex squinted at Ethel, who was clearly hiding information about the nature of her position in Gamemakers Online. But given she was only of a friendly reputation, she was unlikely to gain a deeper understanding.

  The Great Raven stared at Alex as if she was expecting something in particular. Alex checked her bag for worthless baubles, but she found no more, since her recent kills had gone over the cliff's edge.