//------------------------------//
// Boss Fight, I Guess? 
// Story: When Nature Calls 
// by SwiftEthan 
//------------------------------//

Catching up with the wolves hadn't been too much of a hassle, all things considered.  They had pretty much continued on in a straight line from when they left me in the dust, so to speak, so I found them after a few more minutes running just sort of lazing around, waiting for me.  

Funny thing about this new body of mine, I didn't feel the least bit fatigued after all that running.  It felt strange to have run all that distance and to not even feel the slightest bit out of breath, but then I guess I didn't have a circulatory system anymore.  I mean, I could look down at my chest and see partially through it.  Spriggans had a weird build...They don't look very sturdy at all, but then again they are made out of solid wood.  I don't know what type, exactly, but it was clearly pretty damn resilient.  

When the wolves spotted me as I pushed through the dense foliage, approaching their position just on the outskirts of a clearing, I swear I could hear them tutting at me.  Bloody things...They of all creatures should know that things with four legs are faster than things with only two.  Well, that was assuming there were any bipeds in this forest, anyway.  I began to wonder what other species there were living in this place.  I mean, so far all I knew was that I'd been dropped by a godlike being I thought only existed in a video game into a dense, expansive forest with the instruction to find some creature and kill it.  I didn't even know what this creature looked like.  

And now there were these wolves made out of trees that could communicate with me telepathically.  What next?  Maybe the other residents of this forest were all made out of trees, too.  What a weird ecosystem that would be...Although I guess I'd fit right in.

I shook my head clear of these sidetracking thoughts as the wolves began speaking to me again.  It would probably be best to pay attention.  After all, they had just led me to the thing I was supposed to be killing.  

...Oh yeah.  That.  

You're slow, they began.  Compared to them, yes I was.  Wasn't about to argue there.  I'd only just noticed there were now two of them.  The third was nowhere to be seen.  

The creature is through there.  We believe it is resting.  You can attack now and take it by surprise.

Hmm.  This all seemed a little too straightforward.  "Why don't you lot just do it?  Speaking of which, where's the other one?  There were three of you before," I pointed out, keeping my voice low.  Didn't want to disturb the thing while it was 'resting'.

He tried to attack it.  I nodded after a long pause.  ...He was crushed.  Over there, see?  The wolves turned and stared out into the clearing, specifically at a pile of crushed, splintered twigs and leaves.

I shut down for a moment.  That used to be the third wolf?  But...It was kindling now!  

I turned back to the wolves slowly, who were both staring at me now.  "I'm supposed to fight whatever did...That."

They nodded.

"...But I'm slower than you.  If he couldn't avoid...Whatever it was that did that, how can I?"

They seemed to shrug.  

I shook my head in frustration.  "I suppose you two aren't even going to come to help, either."

That is correct.  I detected a gleeful undertone to that message.  

"Fine," I grumbled, shifting around through the foliage to try and get a look at whatever this creature was.  "Didn't want your help anyway..."  

There were no further comments from the beasts after that.  Instead, they simply sat there and watched me while I tried to assess the situation.  Creepy things.  

After a good bit of moving around I got a better glimpse of what I had first thought to be a pile of rocks with vines and creepers growing all over it.  From this new angle, it actually strangely bore a slightly hunched over humanoid shape.  If that had been the only odd thing about it, I would probably have just ignored the structure and moved on.  But there was a faint glow emanating from what I would roughly have estimated was the torso area.  

From the angle I was at, it looked much like a human crouched down low on the ground, except that its head, hands and feet were large pieces of rock and the rest of its body was comprised of thick, intertwining vines that wrapped in and around the rock, binding the structure together as an actual recognisable shape.  

Well...It didn't look like it was causing any destruction, really.  The area around us was seemingly untouched, apart from the pile of mangled twigs off to one side.  It was just...Well, resting, as the wolves had said.  Maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all.

I crept up behind it slowly, careful not to make even the slightest sound that might alert it to any kind of threat.  Unfortunately, that isn't the easiest thing to do when your limbs actually creak with every movement, as I found myself internally wincing at every step I took.  Still, it wasn't like the creature even had ears.  

That said, neither did I, and I could hear things just fine.  It was fairly reasonable to assume that I was going to be detected pretty soon.  

I've been told I'm too pessimistic at times.

The creature was still just sitting there, though.  It hadn't made any reaction to my approach so far.  Things were looking good.  Maybe I could actually do this.

Of course, that brief hopeful thought was all it took for fate to decide things were too easy for me.  The creature stirred just as I came within arms reach of it, causing me to falter, thus giving it time to bring itself up to its full height.  

As it stood, the vines that made up its midriff coiled slightly tighter as it twisted its head around to look at me, revealing that it did, in fact, have an actual face as opposed to simply a large rock for features.  The creature's face reminded me a lot of some Aztec carvings I'd seen before, with the large, flat mouths containing tombstone teeth, big round holes for eyes that stared hollowly, the faint glow from its chest somehow managing to shine out of each orifice.  To top it all off, its nose was a large flat slab that barely extended out over its mouth, nothing more than an aesthetic feature.  

Nice and creepy then, in keeping with everything else I'd encountered so far.  

I backed away as it shuffled towards me, the hefty boulders that were its feet being dragged along the floor by its legs, which of course were vines, its arms trailing behind like wrecking balls as it drew closer.  Due to its size it was easily catching up with my increasingly panicked backtracking, and it was only gaining speed.  The right arm began to drop back even further than the left, causing the creature to twist its body round as though gearing up for an attack.

...It was gearing up for an attack.

The right arm vines suddenly, much faster than I would ever have imagined this creature could manage given its slow approach thus far, coiled tightly around each other, pulling the heavy boulder forwards quickly, then swinging it around to the side in a manner very similar to an actual wrecking ball.  The massive weight lurched through the air towards me, picking up speed as it drew closer.  

Unable to think of anything else to do, I leapt backwards in a desperate attempt to avoid being pummelled.  The haphazard nature of my leap caused me to land badly and trip, falling over onto my back, but thankfully the wrecking ball missed me by a matter of inches.  Even a glancing blow from that thing would probably have sent me flying back into the nearest tree.  The rush of air as it sailed past was felt even by my tough wooden skin somehow.  Maybe I was just imagining that.

I landed heavily on the ground, thankfully not winded due to my new body structure.  The arm that had swung at me was now wrapped around the creature's body, the momentum enough to have carried it all the way around.  I began to sit up when I realised it was unwrapping its arm again, clearly preparing another swing.  

I lay back flat on the ground just in time for the rock to pass just above my nose.  Or at least, the lump in the middle of my face that now passed as a nose.  From this position, I had a clear view of a dark cloudy sky through the gap in the canopy, fading from dusk to night.  As my gaze shifted down from the sky to look back at the creature, the sight of a large rock hurtling through the air in a tight arc caught my attention, shooting straight to the top of my list of things to deal with.  I'd forgotten about its other arm.

As I rolled to the left, a manoeuvre that was deceptively difficult given my build, mostly due to pieces of wood sticking out from my shoulders and back, I felt the earth shake when the boulder slammed into the spot I had been lying in just moments prior.  I scrambled to my feet as quickly as possible, trying to work out some kind of plan to take this thing down.  

As it turned out, I didn't have too long to do that.  Rapidly approaching from the right was the creature's other boulder, and given where I was standing, I was about to be crushed between both rocks.  Well, that would be a rubbish way to go, so I decided to do something about that.  Acting on instinct, I threw myself out of harm's way, the deafening sound of two massive boulders slamming together thundering throughout the clearing as I landed on the grass, now between the creature and its weapons.

A thought occurred to me as I pulled myself up using the tightly strung vines that were the creature's arm.  While it could stretch these vines to an extent, there was still a minimum range it needed to throw those huge rocks around, and if I could get inside that area it shouldn't be able to hit me.  Another thought that occurred to me as the vines that were clenched firmly in my hand tensed and then twisted was that I needed to stop pausing in one place to think about things while in the middle of a life-or-death situation.  

I didn't really get the chance to react or do anything as the creature pulled its right arm back towards itself, bringing the rock speeding along that same course.  I happened to be in the way of the rock at that time.  

It hurt.

Really, that should go without saying, given the situation.  The giant boulder slammed into my back, lifting me off the ground and carrying me towards the coiled mass of vines that concealed that strange light inside its torso.  In my dazed state, it did not occur to me that I really was going into the light after experiencing something that by all rights should have killed me.

However, while a hit like that might have broken a regular tree, I had the advantage of not being rooted into the ground.  My back still bent and curved around the rock, but miraculously stayed intact.  My head swimming, I looked around to come to the conclusion that I was no longer moving.  Instead, I was clinging to the writhing vines like a bug.

Wait, no I wasn't.  I was being held there.  It took a moment to realise this, but after an experimental wiggle of my fingers I realised that I must not have been holding on to anything, and yet I was still stuck on this thing.  After further examination, I found that leaning my head away from this thing was literally the only thing I could do, thanks to a series of vines that had snaked out from the creature's body and were now wrapped around my neck, waist, legs and arms, massively limiting my ability to move.

"What..."  I muttered, trying to wrench myself free.  At the very least, getting an arm out to pull off the other vines would be enough for me.  Unfortunately, nothing budged.  "...This is just inconvenient."

Apparently satisfied with ensnaring its prey, the creature sat down again, lowering its head slightly and going still.  I continued thrashing, becoming more and more annoyed with my inability to do anything useful while the damn thing just sat there.  Something about it seemed unbelievably smug.  

"Let...Go..."  I growled, still futilely trying to break free.  Needless to say, the creature did not react.  I couldn't even tell what it was trying to do, really.  It could be trying to strangle me, if the tightness of the vine around my neck was any indication, or it could just be keeping hold of me while it regained its strength, or something along those lines.  

Eventually, after several minutes of pointless struggling, I sighed and gave up on trying to pull myself free.  While it wasn't really tiring, it was pretty boring.  I wiggled my fingers a bit more to make sure I still could, and that I wasn't being strangled.  

...Right, I'm an idiot.

So I could still move my fingers.  My very sharp, claw-like fingers.  All I needed to do was start cutting away at the vines in general and hopefully the whole thing would fall apart.  Sure, it might not, but it was worth a try.  Also, it would stave off the boredom.

Finally, after a good few minutes of trying to position my fingers in such a way that I would be holding a vine between my two longer fingers, I managed to slice through a single vine with my thumb.  

I had thought this would have warranted a reaction from the creature, but apparently not.  It continued sitting there, all pleased with itself, apparently completely oblivious to the fact that I was slowly but surely cutting its body.

I groaned.  Apparently I really was going to have to do this the long way.  In its mind it had already won, so it clearly didn't see any reason to continue fighting.  It didn't even feel like going on a celebratory rampage, either.  What a boring creature.

As darkness fell, the only light source available for me to work with was the one shining out from the creature's body, which was becoming less and less stable as, one by one, I severed the vines holding it together.  A couple of times had started a chain reaction, so to speak, as long segments were weakened, resulting in the creature sagging slightly.  It had also occurred to me earlier on to use both hands for this, so that I was attacking it from two points.  

Finally, after a lot of tedious sawing and cutting, I managed to loosen the vines holding my right arm against its body.  Mostly by luck more than anything else.  I didn't have a wide range to cut the vines up until that point, so it was by pure chance that I happened to sever the ones binding that arm.  However, it did mean I could finally speed this up a lot.  

Raking my claws down the creature's body, I felt like grinning as the taut lengths of vine snapped and fell apart by the dozen.  Getting rid of so many at once had a sort of therapeutic effect after being tied up for so long.  As I fell to the floor, landing on my back but quickly sitting up, the torso of the creature now completely open, light shining brightly out onto the grass, the large stone head began to wobble, no longer sufficiently supported.  

My feeling of triumph quickly faded as the terrifying carved face began to tip towards me, the mouth of course happening to fall directly towards my head.  Well, I hadn't gone through all that escaping this damn thing only to end up being crushed by its head.  I rolled hastily to my left, just barely managing to avoid being crushed to splinters by a thing I'd just beaten.

As I picked myself up, that thought gave me pause.  I had really just beaten that thing.  Somehow, in one-on-one combat, I had taken down the bizarre monster created by a Daedric Prince thus earning the right to claim its power as my own!

...Hang on, that's a good point.  Can I claim something?  I wanna claim something.

The mass of vines that were still intact making up the creature's back shifted, and the ray of light that shone through caught my eye.  The light inside this thing was green.  Spriggans normally had a light in their own chests.  I, as it happened, did not.

Claimin' it.

The uplifting feeling of a recent victory returning to me, I stepped towards the creature with the intent to pull the light out with my bare hands.  It offered no resistance, being unable to support its own head at this point, and I wasn't even sure if it was still in the same mindset it had been when it chose to capture me instead of crushing me.  Either way, I wasn't complaining.  

Pulling at the few stubborn vines that still retained the basic structure they originally had, I managed to clear a space large enough for me to reach in and grab the floating light.  Pushing my hand through the gap, I felt like a champion.  Time to claim a power-up.