Chapter 29: 028 Dire Situation 002
"This is crazy! Now we have to deal with both Water and Thorn Vines at the same time?!" Mercury complained.
James was also frowning, "We have no choice. Lets move to the Thorn Vine that is furthest from the lake. We can avoid the Water Vine's attacks easier that way."
The two rushed towards the designated Vine and started killing it. James tried to position himself so that his Aura would hit as many Vines as possible to inflict some passive damage. It took the two of them 20 seconds to kill one Thorn Vine at a time.
As hard as James tried it was only ever able to get one extra Thorn Vine inside his Aura. The upside was that once they moved on from the first one the new target was just about half health.
The down side was that the time to kill each Vine after that varied due to each proceeding Vine having different amounts of health left. The second Vine only took 10 seconds to kill so the next one only took 300 damage instead of 600. So on and so forth.
It took them roughly three minutes to kill all the Thorn Vines. Some of Vine's positions made it so it was easier to attack the duo from several direction so they had to slow down their attacks so they could dodge around.
Once they got to the Water Vines James focused on defense and Mercury was once again on the offensive. The kills did take longer but it was a walk in the park now that they were used to the rhythm.
They were able to take a quick breather after the last Vine died off. While they were waiting to see what the Ivy would do next they looked at it's status panel.
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Living Devil's Ivy (Event)
Grade: Bronze Boss
Level: 40
Hp: 54,430/85,000
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Mercury cheered a little, "We got it almost to half health!".
James's face showed a trace of worry, "Yeah. However, don't you think this is a little too easy? It is a level 40 Boss monster after all."
Mercury ceased her cheering, "I guess you are right. It attacked with three waves of Vines so there could be more coming, right?"
"I'd be willing to bet on it." James agreed.
It was as if the Boss also agreed with the duo. The ground started to shake and 15 Vines shot up and out of the ground!
"WHAT?! This is ridiculous! Are they all going to shoot at us at once?!" yelled Mercury.
James quickly examined them.
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Living Whipping Vine
Level: 40
Hp: 2,000/2,000
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"Whipping Vines with 2,000 HP!" announced James.
"What are we going to do? They are longer than the rest and more spread out; we won't be able to abuse your Aura like the last wave!" Mercury was worried.
James made a split second decision, "I have no choice but to level up my Aura skill. Hopefully it will gain enough range to damage other vines."
* Ding, confirm that the Player wants to add two skill points two Aura of Pure Fire? *
James confirmed the prompt then looked at the skill information.
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Name: Aura of Pure Fire
Level: 4
...
Skill Information:
[Passive]: Increases fire damage of user and allies by 20% and decreases incoming water damage by 20%.
[Active - Toggle]: Summons aspects of fire around the caster that damage anything that enters.
Damage: 40 damage per second with a radius of 12 meters
Costs: Active - drains 10 mana per second
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"Are you sure that was the right choice? Now you can't level up any other skills until you hit level 20." Mercury was concerned for James's future.
"It was worth it, the increase to fire damage doubled, the resistance from water damage doubled, the damage went up by 10 and the radius increased tripled as well. The only downside is that it costs twice as much mana per second to maintain." James assured Mercury
Mercury was surprised at the skills statistics, "That is actually impressive, 12 meters should be enough to catch one or two vines within the Aura."
They saw movement out of the corner of their eyes. The Whipping Vines started flailing around. The closest vines lashed out towards the duo while the other Vines attacked in random directions. It looked like they wanted to make it hard for them to move around the battlefield.
James had to tuck-and-roll to avoid the incoming Vine while Mercury dashed to the left. James used the momentum of his roll to not only get back up on his feet but was able to start running towards an relatively isolated Vine.
Mercury saw that he was going to target a specific Vine so she followed suit. She sprinted in front of James to take the point. The Vine they were targeting lashed out and Mercury parried it with her axe.
The neighboring Vine went to attack her flank but was stopped by two fireballs. The first hit the base of the Vine while the second hit the end of the Vine.
Mercury lightly jumped into the air and used the shockwave of the explosion to fly towards the base of the first Vine. She wanted to insta-kill the Vine so she powered up.
[Crushing Assault]
As she was swinging her axe downward towards the base of the Vine it hid underground. All that was left was the hole it made when it appeared.
The attack missed its target but left a large crater in the ground. Mercury retreated towards James and they both stood there motionless waiting to see what they missing Vine would do.
Mercury caught on first, she shoved James to the side and got into a defensive stance. James recovered from the slight shock and fired a fireball at the ground where cracks started to form.
Mercury paused long enough to give the fireball enough time to hit and explode before she attacked.
The giant Vine came out of the ground and was met with a direct attack. Which resulted in a quick death.
Just when they thought they could move on the Vine split into two and the half that hit the ground embedded itself into the ground. Once it was in the ground the two half-sized Vines started to thrash around. The two had to scrabble around to avoid the attacks.
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Budding Whipping Vine
Level: 40
Hp: 1,000/1,000
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James was blunt, "I hate these Vines…"
"The developers are evil for sure. Not only did the Vines move around but they split in two on their first death?" Mercury was very annoyed.
Somewhere in the HQ of the game company the lead developer sneezed. "Someone must be talking about me behind my back again…"
James thought of a plan, "Just hit both of them twice. I will stay behind and let my Aura finish them off while I focus on defending you from stray attacks."
"Sounds good to me!" Mercury started skipping to the next Vine.
[Geez, we are in the middle of a boss fight but she can still find time to tease me…]
Mercury was on the move, she wanted to speed up the kill but she was interrupted before she got to the next Vine.
Every one of the remaining Vines, except the Budding Vines returned to the ground at the same time.
The ground started shaking directly under the Devil's Ivy's main body. James turned around and finished off the Budding Vines and caught up to Mercury.
"What do you think is going on?" she wondered.
Three thick roots appeared from the ground next to the Ivy. The two wondered what was going on but then they started to freak out.
"It's healing! Kill the roots!" James said panicky.
The ground under Mercury's feet shattered and she quickly appeared beside the closest root.
[Crushing Assault]
While she was approaching the Roots, James fire off his own attacks. A fireball struck each of the remaining roots.
The root Mercury attack severed and withered away instantly. She instantly moved to the next root and started to frantically slash at the root. James was launching fireballs like a madman. The remaining roots died and the ground started to shake once again.
James's mood was sour, "Damn! It nearly healed a total of 300 HP!"
Before Mercury could say anything all 14 of the remaining Vines grew back out from their holes. James was standing nearby one of them and was whipped in the back. He took a moderate amount of damage.
Mercury quickly retreated when she saw him get struck. She grabbed and pulled him to a safe distance.
"Are you okay?" She was worried.
James took out a health potion and drank it down, "I'm fine."
Seeing that he was going to be alright Mercury was relieved. She stood up and rushed over to a nearby Vine and started to chip away at its health points. James supported her from the backlines.
Once again, the Vine broke into two and the other Vines retreated into the ground. Mercury smacked the two Budding Vines and James let his Aura finish them off.
While the Vines were being finished off by James Mercury rushed back over to where the vines should appear and prepared to finish one off instantly again. They repeated their last strategy. This time, they both retreated to safe distance before James killed the final healing root.
Mercury was getting frustrated. "Are we going to have to deal with this every time we kill a root? Even though we have been quick it basically heals 300 HP every time we do this. By the time we kill off all of these Vine it would have at least healed 4,500 HP."
Since they were a safe distance away James took a second to think. "How many Vines do you think you can attack within a few seconds?" she asked Mercury.
"Huh? Three, maybe four if I am lucky, why?" she asked.
"I wonder if it always spawns three healing roots at once? Or can it have several pairs out at once… If it can only have three, we could kill several of them at once to minimize it's healing." explained James.
Mercury paused for a second, "Why not just kill all of them at once?".
"That would put a lot of pressure on us. We would have to get all 13 Vines down to a one-shot range and then kill them as fast as possible. If we are too slow they will retreat underground before we can finish them all off. It would be safer to do a smaller number at a time." James slowly explained.
Mercury started to stretch in preparation for their new plan, "Alright, we will go through with your plan. How do you plan on dealing with 6 to 8 Budding Vines at once? Can you handle them and attack the last root?"
James gave an answer that Mercury was not expecting. "I will only deal with one set of those Vines per round. The healing roots come out when the main Vine dies, not when the Budding ones do. I will kill one set that will allow a clean escape. I want to focus on the healing roots. My Aura has enough range that I can kill them without being within their attacking range."
James paused to let Mercury catch up, "As we are weakening the big Vines I will move group to group and deal with them then. There is no need to put all of our focus on them."
"Looks like I'll have to trust you on this one. If we manage, we manage. If not I will keep you responsible; you know my price." Mercury gave him a flirtatious wink then went off to start their plan.
"Careful! I might purposely mess up to take you up on that threat!" James teased her right back.
Mercury puffed her cheeks in response, "You dare bully me back, just wait until we are done here!"
James just laughed in response and helped her lower the Vine's HP. He did not have his Aura activated all the time with this plan. While it would slow down the time it takes to prepare the Vines, it would also let them safely follow their plan. One small mistake would kill a Vine too early.
Mercury was excited to try their plan out, "Alright! The Vines are all ready, are you""
"Yup, let's go!" James was also excited.
Mercury attacked the closest Vine while James attacked the Vines furthest from Mercury. They then each took out one of the remaining Vine each. Four Vines split into eight and Mercury closed into the Devil's Ivy in preparation for the healing roots.
While she was preparing James moved to one of the groups of Budding Vines and let his Aura go to work. He shot out two fireballs where the second and third root should appear.
He timed it nearly perfectly; a second after the roots appeared the fireballs made contact. He then switched to focus on just the root since Mercury moved to the final root.
One they retreated Mercury was so happy she jumped up and hugged James around the neck. "Your plan worked!" Due to the force of her jump the too ended up spinning around in a full circle.
James grabbed her by her waist and peeled her off from his neck. "Now isn't the time to celebrate. There are 9 Vines left and they are the closest together. This will be more difficult than the last group, especially for you since you have to be within melee range."
Mercury pouted since James forced her off of himself.
"Humph, don't think that I was not aware! You have to lighten up some." She was upset at James's response. She decided to take her frustration out on the poor Vines.
She transformed her axe into the polearm form and pole vaulted to the next vine. James could visibly see her anger as she smacked around the vine.
[Ah oh, I might have been too hard. I hope she gets all her anger out on the Vines… The polearm form is not nearly as effective as the axe. She is purposely allowing herself to vent. I'll have to find something to make it up to her later.]
"Hey slacker! You better be ready; since they are closer I can manage to kill 5 roots within the time limit all by myself. You better manage the last 4 or I will kill you myself!"
James shuttered, not only the thought of potentially messing up the plan but the anger he felt in her voice. "No! We shouldn't do all nine!"
She cut him off before he could finish talking, "Tough! Based on our speed we can manage the remaining Vines ! Man up!"
James could only sigh and cooperate. [Note to self, don't piss off a woman again.] He thought to himself.
In the end they followed Mercury's crazy plan, the remaining 9 Vines were primed and ready.
"I will kill mine as soon as your fireballs are close enough to your Vines. Better not miss!" She had a stern voice with a hint of teasing mixed in.
[Does that mean she vented enough?] he wondered.
The Ivy gave out an ear piercing screen as all nine roots died at nearly the same time. The roots did not split into Budding Vines this time. Something did change though, instead of three healing roots a total of six spawned!
"Crap, hurry up! Don't let it heal too much!" Mercury felt bad, she should have listened to James.
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Living Devil's Ivy (Event)
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Hp: 35,880/85,000
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The two backed to the end of the cliff that was the furthest from the Devil's Ivy.
Mercury had a mosquito-like voice, "I'm sorry; I got too heated and ruined your plan."
James flicked her in the forehead to snap her out of mental state. "Don't worry, it only healed up 5,000 HP that is still manageable. We are almost through this. As far as I can tell we have gotten through two phases of this fight."
"Phases? What do you mean?" asked Mercury.
"Well, the Ivy spawned different sets of Vines for every 30,000 HP it lost. Since it should have dropped to the final 30,000 HP we should be in the final phase of the fight." explained James.
She didn't fully understand, "It spawned three types of Vines in total. Shouldn't that mean we just finished phase 3?"
He shook his head, "It summoned Water Vines, then Thorn Vines, and finally both Water and Thorn. Since they appeared at the same time that should mean they were during the same phase. The Whipping Vine phase had several mechanics going on at once so it should have been its own phase."
It seemed like she understood since he lost the look of confusion that was once on her face. "What do you think the last phase will be?"
"Hmm, it might just be all three Vines and the roots at once. If that is the case we should focus on the ranged Vines first since they will be the hardest to avoid. If it is anything like the Whipping Vine phase it should only spawn the roots when the melee Vines are killed."
She gave a nod to James.
* Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeccccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhh *
The Ivy gave the loudest screech yet. They both had to cover their ears from it's intensity. The, it felt like there was an earthquake, parts of the canyon walls broke and fell off with the strength of the earthquake.
They looked up and were horrified. They counted 6 Water Vines, 12 Thorn Vines, and 30 Whipping Vines.
The earth started to shake again, this time it was coming from the would-be exit. When they looked back they saw that the vine wall was moving in! It was making the battlefield smaller!
They held their breath praying that it would stop soon. The wall slowly came to a stop, it shrunk the battlefield by one-third of its original size.
"This is a joke right?" as strong minded as Mercury was she was starting to lose hope.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Envision
Envision The original 'Dire Situation' chapter length was nearly 9,000 words long; I decided it best to break it into three parts.
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