The newly formed party quickly found themselves back in the forest.
Luna finally caved and threw the extra summon point into Physical Defense. She didn’t really feel like being taken out of the fight by a stray splinter. During a quick round of experimenting, Luna found that this skill didn’t even cost mana. Thank goodness, because the vines were super hungry, taking half her mana pool per cast.
Rabbit Lv. 1
Health: 1/1
Abilities: Bite — 1 piercing damage. Hop — jump 5 ft in any direction.
Physical Defense: Enbiggen — increase size category by one for one hour per day, gaining 5 HP and +1d4 for melee attacks.
Magic — Vines 2: cast thorny grasping vines to restrain a single target vs target’s Strength. The target takes 1d2 damage each attempt to physically free itself. Cost: 20 mana.
After a bit of wandering and tracking, both mostly done by Sidd, the trio had come across a lone target to engage with. Luna was full on mana with a rabbit digit hovering on the metaphysical “Cast Enbiggen” button as the other two prepared themselves.
The creature in front of them was sure to be a bit of a fight.
Wild Hog Lv. 6
Beme’s use of Identify flashed in Luna’s mind. It seemed that the information could be shared with allies. Pretty neat.
“It’ll probably take a few good shots,” Sidd said as he added the tenth iron coin to the bow’s coin slot. “A beefy monster like that should have at least 20 HP per level.”
Lvl 1 Bow
Damage: 1d4 Piercing
Mana: 0/40
Magics:
Coin Operated Tier 1 — insert mana coins to create a summoned arrow that does up to 1d10 extra damage. Cost: 1 iron per +1d1, max at 1d10.
Seeking Arrows Tier 1 — infuse mana into the bow to fire seeking arrows that can completely change direction 1 time. Cost: 1 mana per shot.
Hidden Potential** — the bowstring doubles potential energy at the apex of the draw, doubling base damage of all arrows fired. Cost: passive.
**Rare skill.
Bow: 1d4 + 1d10 → 2, 9 × 2 = 24 pierce. Solid opener.
Hog: 96/120 HP.
The damage information flashed in the bottom of Luna’s vision, the damage rolls and multipliers working together seamlessly. With the shared party, Luna was now also aware of the statuses of her party members. She made sure to keep an eye on their HP and mana levels.
Beme — Light Mage Lv. 6
Health: 60/60
Mana: 120/120
Regen: 1.2/s
Light Beam — fire off a beam or beams of light energy dealing 1d8 radiant damage per beam. Cost: 20 mana per beam.
Beme shot off a volley of light beams, the damage numbers flashing along with the strobe of five energy blasts.
2, 2, 8, 7, 7= 26 radiant damage.
The five beams of light burned into the hog’s side, scorching through hair, skin, and muscle. Those were some nasty business.
Mana: 20/120.
Beme then moved back to regen mana in case it was needed to heal. They had informed Luna of their standard tactics, so she was aware of the plan. Luna just hoped she could pull her weight through it all.
Hog: 70 HP.
Luna was up next, promptly casting a vine spell to attempt to restrain the hog.
Mana: 20/40.
The hog was covered in spiky vines. After the trio’s opener, the thing went crazy.
Luna saw some light scratches on the hog open up from her thorns, but really nothing to be wowed by. Vines- 2 pierce.
Hog: 68 HP.
The hog broke free almost immediately to trample toward its attackers. Sidd was still reloading his bow as he was fumbling with the small pouch of iron coins. Thinking about it, that wasn’t very combat efficient, having to feed ten coins into a bow. Who would’ve thought. They should go to the bank to trade up to copper soon.
The hog was about to reach the trio’s position when phase two of their attack plan came into play.
Luna reacted to the charge by getting BIG! And by big, she meant that her head now reached about hip height on the humans. Hey, that’s big for a bunny.
She intercepted the hog’s charge, taking a tusk to the stomach. Good thing she had that extra 5 HP from the skill, bringing her HP to…
Hog:
Tusk — 1d6 Piercing.
Physical Offense: Charge — deal 2× damage on first melee attack after running 20+ ft.
Roll: 6 × 2 = 12 pierce.
0 HP. Luna bunny despawned.
At least the hog was distracted after hitting hard against a disappearing enemy.
This gave Sidd a couple more seconds to finish loading a fifth coin into his bow before drawing on the hog.
Hidden Potential failed.
Sidd had panicked and loosed the arrow too soon, not getting the skill bonus.
4+3= 7 piercing for his second shot…
Hog: 61 HP.
Beme continued to regenerate mana in case the next phase of the battle got messy. Twelve mana per ten seconds seemed much slower in combat…
Mana: 32/120.
Luna, with her remaining 20 mana, resummoned her bunny to rejoin the fight. In doing so, she found a neat little exploit. Her once per day Enbiggen skill had reset… not reset really; just this rabbit hadn’t used it yet today. Oh, Luna just loved some good exploits.
Luna was no longer between the hog and Sidd, but to the side of it. It was now time to try out her big bunny bite.
1 + 1d4 (1) = 2 pierce.
Hog: 59 HP.
Hey, doubled my damage! Luna thought as her unpracticed big bite did the least damage it could physically do.
The hog didn’t even turn to address her, instead attempting to gore Sidd, who was back to fumbling with coins.
Tusk: 1d6 = 6 pierce.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Goddamnnnn.
Sidd got a tusk to the side of the knee, piercing straight into the joint, no doubt damaging all those sports ligaments they always talk about.
Sidd: 114/120 HP.
At least, being a warrior type, he was also pretty beefy and kept some kind of footing despite looking and sounding like he was in some pretty good pain. This may turn into a slugfest.
Sidd pretty much gave up on the bow at such a close range, let alone needing to mess with the coins and such.
Sidd let the bow fall to the ground and pulled a hunting knife from his hip.
Hunting Knife: 1d4 piercing damage.
The hunter went to town, getting off five good stabs into the wild hog’s back before his turn ended—I mean, before we could talk about what the others were doing next dealing 1, 2, 4, 1, 4 = 12 piercing damage.
Hog: 47 HP.
Beme focused real hard on her regeneration, so hard in fact…
Skill offered:
Combat Regen: sacrifice ? of your current HP to regain ? your mana pool. Must have at least 20% HP.
Beme immediately took and activated the skill.
HP: 30/60
Mana: 104/120
“Uuuggghhhhh,” Beme groaned as half her health was converted to mana within her body. She felt like shit but also reinvigorated magically. A cool new exploit! If she continuously used this ability then healed herself, she could quickly be out of mana and also almost dead. Neat! Though she couldn’t deny that it did help in the damage department.
Beme fired off another three beams of light, seeing as Sidd wouldn’t be dead to the hog’s attacks within the next few seconds.
Mana: 44/120.
Rolls: 2, 6, 3 = 11 radiant.
Hog: 36 HP.
Luna just kept gnawing on that pork butt, thankfully this time with a solid bite.
1 + 4 = 5 pierce.
Hog: 31 HP.
The wild hog tore its tusk out of Sidd’s right leg with a thrash of its head, gouging a good tear into his left leg in the same motion.
Tusk out: 2 bleed.
Tusk left leg: 6 pierce, another solid hit deep into Sidd’s leg.
Sidd: 106/120 HP.
Sidd wasn’t in a position where he would die outright in the next few seconds, but he was starting to be in trouble. His legs buckled under him as he fell to the forest floor, he managed to gain some leverage by grabbing the hog’s front leg with his left hand and stab the beast with his right.
4, 1 = 5 pierce.
Hog: 26 HP.
He couldn’t get as many hits in as the last round, but it was something.
Beme made the decision to use her new skill again to hopefully put this hog down.
HP: 15/60
Mana: 116/120
3, 2, 3 = 8 radiant damage from those three beams.
Mana: 56/120.
Hog: 18 HP.
The hog was looking badly burnt, stabbed, and rabbit bit, but it was definitely still a threat.
Luna, as a rabbit the size of a goat, tore her head back. She ripped a good chunk of hindquarters off of the hog in order to deal some serious bite damage.
1 + 4 = 5 pierce.
Hog: 13 HP.
The hog seemed to have some tunnel vision going on as it violently shook its head. It’s tusks slashed at Sidd’s face and neck as he was pretty much eye to eye with it from his position on the ground.
8*, 2, 12* slash.
Critical damage.
Sidd: 84/120 HP.
Sidd was having a rough time of it, his face sprouting gushing fleshy rents as the tusks gouged facial bones.The hog had him pinned down and bleeding profusely but the man didn’t seem like he was even close to giving up.
Sidd attempted to fight back with the knife while protecting himself with his off arm, but he could barely see through the blood.
2, 3 = 5 piercing.
Hog: 8 HP.
Beme couldn’t justify using any more health for mana in order to attack more, as she sat at a quarter HP and needed to keep mana in the tank to heal her party if needed. It was pretty much up to Luna and a flailing Sidd to finish the hog off.
Luna drew inspiration from the hog’s targeting of Sidd’s neck and face as she jumped right on top of the creature and bit down on its fleshy neck.
1 + 4* = 5.
The neck was thicker than she thought, but she felt the spray of neck blood all the same.
Hog: 3 HP.
The hog was running on fumes at this point and seemed to just want to take Sidd out with it. It opened its mouth wide to try and bite Sidd’s neck past his flailing arms but couldn’t get a good angle. Sidd’s arms redirected the attack.
1, 1, 1 — all ones for the d6 rolls. Lucky guy.
Sidd: 81/120 HP.
Not yet bloodied, but damn near swimming in blood, Sidd stabbed twice at the chomping head of the hog, resulting in a glancing blow followed by a solid stab that landed the hog at 0 HP.
1, 3 = 4 pierce.
“Not even closeeee,” Sidd sputtered out through blood and skin as he attempted to stand on his torn up knees.
“Speak for yourself,” Beme said, looking absolutely exhausted.
“What happened to you?” Sidd asked, wide eyed. “You didn’t even get hit!”
“New skill I picked up during combat,” half health for half mana deal.”
“I don’t like you using that,” Sidd said worriedly. “Too dangerous.”
“Well I don’t like you getting all torn up like that,” Beme countered, pointing out the obvious damage.
“Well, I guess we both should be more careful,” Sidd concluded as he tried to wipe away blood before giving up on standing on his damaged knees.
Beme joined him on the painted up forest floor to kick back and regen. It would take quite a few cycles of healing spells and naps to be back to full on everything.
Luna was more interested in the notifications she got.
You have slain a Wild Hog Lv. 6.
Level up. Summoner Lv. 5.
Hell yeah! More mana and regen. She hadn’t even tried to be a deer yet, and now she could be a deer with a sword! Not yet a wild hog, though. Always just out of reach. Mana costs were a tease.
The couple wouldn’t be any fun for the foreseeable future, as they were low on everything. The fight could have been much better… or much worse, especially for Beme, if she had taken a solid shot that low on HP. That could’ve been it.
Luna took the remainder of her Enbiggened hour to explore the area. She felt like a monster of a creature, being the biggest she had ever been in this new life of hers. It would probably feel weird once she finally got a human form; her perspective had shifted to rabbit height these last few… days? Time was hard.
Luna eventually came upon an opening in the trees that was absolutely sloppified. All vegetation had been torn up, presumably eaten, then definitely pooped out. To Luna’s rabbit nose, the shit pit was not something she wanted anything to do with. The number of animals that it would take to make these tracks was indiscernible. Probably between 1 and 50… pigs? Luna recognized the hoof print from earlier… aaaaaahhhhh shittt…..
…
Luna came upon the scene of the wild hogs trotting off, having eaten their fill of the previously killed wild hog as well as the young couple, who didn’t have much left of their worldly bodies.
Luna reflexively desummoned her rabbit body and shut off her senses, wanting to puke but not having an outlet in her Nothing form.
Luna had to take a few minutes in her unseeing, unhearing, unfeeling form before she built up the confidence to come back to reality.
Rabbit Luna slowly hopped over to the couple’s remains, putting together that there was nothing to be done. Even if she had a healing spell, there would be no point in wasting the mana. Luna didn’t have an answer to this. None of her resources mattered at the moment. Unsummoning the gifted bow would give a bit of mana, but to do what? She didn’t know of any way to share her miniscule amount of HP, especially to the remains of corpses. There had to be something though, right?
Activate Self-Sacrifice?
— Convert all levels into resources to gift to designated target(s), returning you to a Level 1 Nothing.
(Rerolls spawn location.)
How could she not?
The entity that was Luna, the Level 5 Summoner, ceased to be. In its place, a shimmer of energy swirled above the remains of the two humans before it began solidifying. Specks of energy were slowly reeled in from the environment to form two humanoid shapes.
Beme
Light Mage Lv. 2
Sidd
Hunter Lv. 2
The forms took time to recover their senses before blinking in realization that they were back… somehow.
“Hey… at least we’ll save on taxes next month,” the man choked out through tears as he smiled at his freshly resurrected girlfriend.
The woman embraced him tightly, her whole form shaking as she cried into his chest.
They searched for days afterward, clinging to the hope that their rabbit friend would return.
It didn’t.
Eventually, they had to give up, hearts heavy as they finally accepted the notification they’d received just after coming back from death:
Resurrect effect received.
Source: Self-sacrifice — Summoner Lvl 5.
