Episode 26 - Nerius The Evil Treant
Twentieth Day in the Month of Holly (December 20) in the Year of the Hawk
Third Floor — Dessel — Evening
Per the rules the boys had agreed upon, Lind was leading the third floor boss strategy meeting and would lead the raid. The Dragon Knights Brigade had found the Boss Chamber, so Lind was the leader. Bladescape wasn’t going to contest their stupidity unless she had to. She had to pick her battles and be careful because the two guilds were in a very fragile balance of power. That balance was keeping them going. The Wondercolts had to stay a neutral pillar in the conquest of Aincrad. How long the two guilds could keep at it before one gained the upper hand was an important question with no answer. When one did, they would lose a lot of raiders who just quit because of politics.
Kirito’s Elf War quest hadn’t yielded anything particularly useful for information against the boss, Nerius the Evil Treant. It was a bigger and badder version of the field boss, and not lazy. The Dragon Knights Brigade, DKB, and the Aincrad Liberation Squad, ALS, had the first six parties. A, B, and C, were DKB members, while D, E, and F, were ALS members, just like the second floor boss fight. The Legends Braves were not present and hadn’t been around at all. Group G was given to the Wondercolts, as promised.
"And Agil will fill out Group H," Lind dictated.
“I want the two Wondercolts not in their group,” Agil said, making sure everyone heard him. “Along with Kirito and Asuna.”
When he wasn’t selling items off his vendor carpet, Agil was usually fighting with a few other men, but they were not in a formal guild. The others were present at the meeting. His choice to go with Asuna and Kirito made sense, but to go with the other Wondercolts was an interesting choice. None of his cohort would be a bad choice. They all had sufficient levels.
“Natora will go with you, Agil,” Bladescape dictated. Splitting the combat leaders of the Wondercolts was the wisest choice. They would need a shield though. “Natora, who do you want, Diemond or Reisenki?”
“That’s a tough call,” Natora replied. “Both are great, solid tanks. I’ll take Reisenki because he uses an axe. Sorry Diemond.”
“Oh don’t worry about it, Darling,” Diemond replied. “Against a giant tree, my mace won’t be too useful. I suppose I’ll have to make due with playing second shield with Malus. I’ll have to focus on shielding everyone with her so they can attack for us. It shall be dreadfully dull. No no, Darling. You need him since as a partner, Reisenki can be more than a shield.”
Bladescape rolled her eyes at her friend’s dramatics before the meeting continued. A few more points of strategy were discussed and then everyone was let out for the evening. They would leave at 10 am, with the goal of making it to the boss chamber by 2 pm. They didn’t want to tax any raiders on the way and groups would rotate who was on point.
Bladescape caught up with Agil after the meeting. “Hey, wait up!”
“Hey, Blade, need supplies?” Agil asked with a grin.
It was a joke since Bladescape had sold him a bunch of useful materials the hour before the meeting started.
“No need,” Bladescape said back, keeping the joke going. “Just got my sword complete. All eight enhancements took.”
“You’re going to need a new one soon, aren’t you?” Agil asked, getting serious.
Bladescape let out a sigh. “Yeah,” she shrugged. “I will. I’m hoping the boss gets me something good. If not, I’ll have to hunt down a smith, but I hate leaving the fight to do upgrades. Anyway, I wanted to ask what is up? Your cohort isn’t weak. Why go with the Wondercolts?”
“Call it a hunch,” Agil said with a shrug. “I just have a feeling that you are the better bet for the upcoming fight. I’ll be taking Wolfgang. He has a strong shield and a good sword. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wish you gave the leadership of Group G to your second, Natora, so that I could fight by your side again.”
“We will have our fights,” Bladescape said with a sly grin. “Maybe when the children stop bickering, we will organize our strategy by boss type and role, not by guild. Sure, the Wondercolts can field just about any party strategy, but the same can’t be said of the others. You will enjoy having Natora and Reisenki with you. Natora is easily underestimated, particularly in her ability to block an attack.”
“I’m not complaining,” Agil said, grinning at something new. “It just will be interesting to see how the two beaters handle the boss.”
“That it will be,” Bladescape replied, grinning back at the idea Agil had put in her head. “I have no idea what will happen, but Kirito and Natora could be a powerful duo. I need to make sure my team is ready. Standing in the meeting means nothing. Plus, I am sure Knightstar has something new for us.”
“You are lucky to have her,” Agil said.
“Well, it’s not even two months in,” Bladescape said with a shrug. “But I hope that soon she can start rolling out some of the info she has gathered or deduced, especially to our friends, to help players. Well, to sell for a reasonable price, plus sales tax. Tax free for anyone not in the ALS or DKB.”
Agil started laughing, which set off Bladescape. It was good to laugh.
The chamber door to the boss room was intricately carved wood. It would be impressive if death didn’t await them behind the door. The iconography on the door was also scary. The fear Bladescape could normally push aside always came back for the boss fight. It would be stupid to not recognize and respect the danger that lurked behind it.
The doors were pushed open by Lind to reveal a massive tree in the center of a circular room. It had a dozen branches of various heights. A thick ball of roots snaked out from its massive trunk. Attacking it from any angle would not provide an advantage.
Bladescape stepped over to Natora. “Pull what info you can from Kirito.”
“No need,” Natora said. “It’s three-sixty. It is as bad as it looks for our disorganized group.”
Bladescape stepped over to Agil. “New plan. When they get curb stomped, we are going to take advantage and flank when they can’t move.”
“We’ll go left, you go right,” Agil said, putting his fist up to bump. Bladescape bumped it and they moved into the room.
Bladescape relayed the new strategy to Group G and they followed her, starting to run. As predicted, the flanking teams were stopped as the branches came crashing down on them or the roots came up to punch them. They were brutally stomped on.
While they were scrambling back on their feet, Group G dashed, jumped, vaulted, and slid past the obstacles, getting past them and flanking to the other side of the room. There was no easy way to get to the doors if they needed to retreat. The easiest way out for them was to beat the boss.
Their flanking tactic didn’t go unnoticed. The evil treant dropped a heavy branch right on them. Malus and Diemond threw their shields above their heads, stopping it. Malus held, but Diemond buckled. Bladescape helped Diemond up as the roots came after them. Konpeito stepped forward, swinging her axe up and cleaving the foot wide root in half in a shower of polygons.
“You’ve just been pruned!” Konpeito roared before giggling. “Bad things get punished, so I guess I’ll have to cut you down to size!” Her battle puns were bad, but several people laughed, including Bladescape.
Group H landed their hits and fell back. Their strikes were at the roots because the trunk was too high up.
Bladescape led the follow-up attack. The Red Sun Sword bit into the roots. The others scored hits and fell back.
Diemond held firm as she blocked the roots trying to hit Kiefer. Malus smashed one back and then spun as she stepped to the next. The spin put force into her shield which she used to bat away the roots before they hit Bladescape.
A branch came down on them scattering everyone since Malus wasn’t able to get into position to block. Group H used the opportunity to launch more attacks.
Four health bars and thick bark was working against them. They kept cutting and hacking away, trying to shave off HP whenever possible. The roots and branches hit them with more than brute force attacks. Whips, slashes, and even cuts if it was shaped correctly were thrown at all of its attackers. The trunk could twist and turn, allowing it to make big sweeping attacks with its branches, causing the treant to groan under the strain.
Bladescape began to rotate her party so that they could down a potion to refill their dwindling HP. Agil was doing the same. The clock was against them. They could only withstand the pounding for so long.
“Blade,” Thunderborne said. “I have an idea. It might be reckless, but what isn’t at this point?”
“I’m listening,” Bladescape said. Thunderborne was at full HP. Now was the moment to do anything risky.
“We lure it into a smash attack and I grab on, letting it pull me into the upper branches where it may have some weaknesses. We can’t get up there any other way.”
“You won’t have any backup, cover, or a shield,” Bladescape reminded her.
“I know, but my rapier is pretty useless against the hard roots. I think I have softer targets up there.”
Bladescape turned to Malus. “Malus, bait it into smashing down on you!”
“Okay,” Malus replied with a shrug.
Malus charged forward and smacked the roots, hopping back and preparing for the attack. It obliged, driving the nearest branch down on her. She held firm.
Thunderborne sprinted forward and jumped, getting onto the branch before it pulled it back. She used the returning movement to vault into another leap, doing a quick flip to land in the highest branches.
She drew a spare rapier, a simple iron one she carried in case her Ancient Wind Fleuret was running low on durability, and began to cut at the upper branches. It didn’t do a lot of damage, but it did turn the focus on her. The treant shook, spinning and twisting to try and eject Thunderborne. She stayed with it, riding out the jostling. Right before she needed to bail, she rammed her rapier down, into the top of the tree. It sank all the way to the hilt. Thunderborne leaped out of the tree, flipping for fun before landing in a roll. Thunderborne used the quick change method to swap her rapiers and retrieve the one in the tree.
"That stab worked well," Thunderborne said.
"It was noticeable in the HP you depleted," Bladescape said. "You handled it very well, but you nearly got tossed out a few times. We need a safer method to go for the trunk."
"Wait, we are going for the trunk?" Konpeito asked. "I thought we were uprooting it."
"We are trying to hit the trunk," Bladescape clarified, trying to not lose her patience. "Some of us can't jump that high. Konpeito, can you-"
Konpeito was gone, charging forward. She skipped to the side, avoiding attacking roots and then kicked off them, easily getting up onto the roots before burying her axe in the trunk. The dent to the HP was noticeable. She pulled it out and retreated successfully.
Bladescape moved over to Agil. "New plan. Kirito, Asuna, Konpeito, and Thunderborne will get up to attack the trunk. We will use our attacks to distract or cover their retreat."
"Sounds like a plan," Agil said. "I think we should stick to two choppers at a time, alternating back and forth to keep our HP up. Plus, there isn't a lot of room up there."
"You go first," Bladescape said.
They bumped fists and Agil reorganized Group H. He led the first distraction team, with Kirito as their "chopper."
As they were beginning to fall back, Malus led a team forward with Kiefer and Thunderborne. Thunderborne got up to the trunk and made a quick X cut on the trunk before bugging out.
After several successful rounds, they had taken a full HP bar off of him. Agil came over to Bladescape. "None of the other groups have members who are agile enough to get up to the trunk," he said. "They are strength builds for a head-to-head fight."
"So we do this ourselves," Bladescape said. "We've got this."
The strategy was slow, but worked amazingly until they got him into the red. The treant shook violently, sending all of its leaves flying like razor sharp blades. Armor blocked it pretty well, but exposed skin was very vulnerable. Bladescape’s face was red with a dozen or more cuts. Then the enraged tree pushed its roots out, forcing everyone back and creating a chest high wall. Its branches were lowered in an effort to shield it.
Group G and H attacked the wall with all of their strength, intent on breaking it down. It did to a certain degree, but their choppers chose to go over and strike the trunk.
Kirito struck the trunk before a branch snapped up, sending him flying. The same thing happened for Asuna and Thunderborne. The roots shifted from a wall to an aggressive attack while the branches blocked.
Bladescape blocked one root but was struck by another, putting her on the ground. Over the racket, she heard a giggle and then Konpeito yelled "TIMBEEEEEEEERRRRR!" A few seconds later it all stopped as the room was filled with colorful polygons.
"Aw," Konpeito whined. "I wanted it to fall over first."
Bladescape rolled her eyes. Of course Konpeito was expecting it to fall. As she sat up to look at her drop list, she realized that only one person was in a place to score the LAB: Konpeito. She probably didn't even know about it and wasn't trying for it. Still, as jealous as Bladescape was, unintentionally, she was glad it didn't go to Kibaou or Lind. Especially Kibaou. She could trust that Konpeito would use whatever it was to responsibly clear the game.
She looked at Konpeito, who was standing alone in the center of the room. Her Dane axe disappeared from her hand and was replaced by another axe on her back. It looked like someone had grown a metal tree, including the growth rings, and then sliced a section of the round trunk off to use. After the slice was sharpened, a groove for the handle had been cut, stopping at the heart of the disk. The handle was twisted wood.
Bladescape had leveled up from the XP, putting her at Level 20 and unlocking a new skill slot. She went back to examining her drop list. One item had caught her eye, the "Treant Broadsword." For now, she didn't equip it. She would look at it later.
Konpeito joined Group G and H. The tossed players had joined them.
"Good job, Konpeito," Natora said. "No offense to either of our amazing rapier users, but your swords just didn't have the power needed. My spear was quite disappointing when it came to personal damage done. Watching Agil, Reisenki, and Konpeito, well this was a boss where the axe was supreme."
"Yeah!" Konpeito exclaimed. "Plus I got a thing called a Last Attack Bonus, which is my new axe. It's called Thicket's Bane!"
Bladescape sighed and Kirito tensed up. Saying it out loud acknowledged it. That meant other players who previously didn’t know about it would be trying for the Last Attack Bonus.
"Well, done, Konpeito," Agil said. "And to you too, Thunder, for exposing the weakness. That was a big risk, but fun to watch. Malus, I can't believe you blocked those branches."
"Thanks," Malus replied. "I think the MVP was Thunderborne."
"I have to agree," Asuna said. "Rapier or not, we did good damage so long as we hit the trunk. She got us there."
"Mo Ghile Mear!" Konpeito exclaimed.
"Mo Ghile Mear!" Bladescape echoed as she choked down her jealousy.
"I'm still learning how to say it," Diemond said. "But yes, hail the hero, Thunderborne, and the nominees, Asuna, Kirito, and Konpeito."
“Mo ghile mear means ‘my gallant hero’ or ‘hail the hero’,” Bladescape explained to the others in Group H who didn’t know. “It’s the Wondercolts’ motto, but it can also be a lament for the fallen. Thankfully, it looks like we have no fallen in this battle.”
"I like it," Asuna said. "About the Wondercolts, are you thinking of expanding your guild?"
"Not really," Bladescape said. "We might accept new members if they are a good fit, but we are not actively recruiting anyone. Why? Do you have someone who you think might be a good fit?"
Bladescape was playing it easy. If Asuna was inquiring about herself, she didn't want to turn her off, but Bladescape also couldn't afford to assume she was asking about herself. Natora and Knightstar had agreed with Bladescape during a private meeting that if Asuna needed it, the Wondercolts would provide a home for her, but they all wanted to see her succeed with Kirito. The two of them were often side by side, carving up each floor. Asuna would be slowed down if she joined the Wondercolts.
"No, I don't have anyone in mind," Asuna replied. "I like what I am doing but I admire your stance and skill. I asked mostly because I don't like the dynamic between the two so-called top clearing guilds. You have grace and beauty, a kind heart, and are much better at this game than they are. They just want power and fame. It is good to have a third contender. I think that you should keep your eye out, but not actively recruiting is probably the best strategy. You are after quality, not quantity."
"I value your perspective," Bladescape said. "Your insight reinforces the guild's official stance on the matter. I hope we can continue to work together, allies in a mutually beneficial group. It is nice to have other women fighting for our freedom. Outside of the Wondercolts, it's just you Asuna."
"It is," Asuna said. "Also, congratulations on leveling up. I saw the notice above you, despite all of the other stuff happening."
"Thanks," Bladescape replied. "But let's move out and get out of here before I have another argument with Kibaou in a boss chamber. Or Natora. We don’t need to go three for three right after beating a boss."
Everyone silently agreed and they headed to the stairs that had been exposed. They were the closest to them.
“The fourth floor is a desert with canyons connecting the cities and settlements,” Kirito explained in the stairwell “You can’t easily cross the sand and the canyons can make getting lost easy.”
The information was an amazing olive branch that he had extended them all. They were silent for the rest of the ascent.
“This is an amazing, canyon land desert,” Bladescape sarcastically said when they exited it.
The canyons were now filled with water and the hill was an island. The floor was going to require them to use the water to travel. The land was now lush and green to reflect the change.
“I ain’t gotta swim skill,” Malus said. “I’m gonna sink real fast if I try.”
“Let’s take these!” Konpeito said from behind them.
She was standing by a large tree, the only one on the island. It had uninflated swimming rings growing off its branches. She plucked one out of the tree and began to blow one up.
“Looks like we float,” Kirito said as he went to the tree. “The closest town is to the southeast of here. So that is where you should head.”
“Thanks,” Bladescape said. “We don’t want to tie you down. I know you have things you need to get done. I don’t care so long as you are ready to rock and roll in the next boss battle.”
“We’ll see you around,” Asuna said, before she began to use her lungs to inflate her inner tube.
The two of them were finished blowing up their tubes and gone before anyone else was. The Wondercolts, Agil, and Wolfgang began swimming as soon as they were all ready. The water didn’t have much, if any, flow, so they were not fighting a river. They took a left to head east. It was a lot of work. The tubes kept them afloat, but they were not strong for fluid dynamics. They finally came to an offshoot, allowing them to go south and into the city.
Its name was Rovia. It sort of reminded Bladescape of Venice. A more rudimentary, wooden based version of a city with canals for streets.
They got out of the water and Bladescape threw her tube over her shoulder. After how long it had taken to inflate, she wasn’t going to get rid of it yet, even though there were gondolas around that the NPCs were using. Where the teleport plaza was Bladescape couldn’t tell. They would also need to find out how to get gondolas or other boats. The rings were too slow to be practical.
For the moment, they rested from their swim. Bladescape used the break to open her menu and pull out the Treant Broadsword. It materialized in front of her and she caught it. It was a two-handed sword with a wooden crossguard, handle, and pommel that was all one piece. The crossguard was two branches and the handle was the twisted wood trunk that ended in a bulb that was the start of the roots, but sanded down smooth. The twist in the wood gave the handle a good grip. It felt good and solid in Bladescape’s hands.
“That’s a nice sword,” Agil said.
“It’s better than my other one,” Bladescape said as she checked the stats.
“It looks like all of us got new weapons,” Agil said, materializing his. “I got this.”
His axe’s handle looked like it was a branch. Bladescape looked at the others. Kiefer was sporting a new katana, which looked like it had a solid wooden handle and no traditional ito wrap. Natora had a new spear that looked like a branch. Diemond had a new mace, with the head being roots filled in with iron to make a solid head. Malus had a new, wooden shield that was larger than anything on the market.
“New weapons are a welcomed relief,” Bladescape said. “Albeit a bit sad that we must part ways with well-loved equipment. We were pushing our luck with our old weapons.”
“I think you will be good for a little while,” Agil said with a grin.
BLADESCAPE: Level 20 — Two-Handed Sword — Searching — Weapon Defense — Leather Armor — Open
NATORA: Level 20 — Two-Handed Spear — Purchase Negotiations — Sales Negotiation — Weapon Defense — Open
KNIGHTSTAR: Level 19 — One-Handed Sword — Shield — Light Metal Armor — Equipment Appraisal
MALUS: Level 20 — One-Handed War Hammer — Shield — Light Metal Armor — First Aid — Open
THUNDERBORNE: Level 20 — Rapier — Sprint — Acrobatics — Weapon Defense — Open
KONPEITO: Level 20 — Two-Handed Axe — Cooking — Weapon Defense — Light Metal Armor — Martial Arts — Open
DIEMOND: Level 20 — Mace — Shield — Sewing — Light Metal Armor — Open
DOOMBUNNY: Level 19 — One-Handed Dagger — Hide — Fighting Spirit — Blade Throwing
KIEFER: Level 15 — One-Handed Curved Sword — Slash Weapon Forging — Light Metal Armor — Weapon Defense
SORYUTO: Level 14 — One-Handed Sword — Shield — Light Metal Armor — Music
REISENKI: Level 15 — One-Handed Axe — Shield — Light Metal Armor — Equipment Repair