Maybe it was these distractions percolating through his mind that caused him to miss his footing and step on a dried bit of branch, but his ears laid flat to his skull at the sound. His pack leader would beat him for sure if he knew that Kerr’yk had made the mistake of an untrained cub. He flinched inside when he heard someone speaking, but the voice was not of one from the clan, so he looked over curiously to see if he would find predator or prey. At first he thought it might be a human, which could be good or bad. Some humans were soft and tasty, and others wore armor and were stabby. But they were not green. His ears flicked in anticipation and he growled “Analyze” low and quiet.
“Dryad, Level 1. Threat level: Very Low”
Kerr’yk started grinning from ear to ear as he began stalking towards his new prey. Dryads were rare, but his sire had caught one many years ago. They weren’t as tasty as humans or elves, having a more earthy taste. If his kind ate salad, that's what would have come to mind, but instead he just knew that they were edible, that he was hungry, and that she was very weak compared to his own 11 levels. This one appeared to have quite a bit of meat on her bones too, so maybe she would be more savory than the last. The important part was that she wasn’t a deer, and his pack leader hadn’t said anything about not hunting a dryad. It turned out that this was a good day after all. Kerr’yk’s wheezing cackle sounded through the woods as he eagerly anticipated the feast to come.
—---------------------------------------
One look at the approaching creature was enough to convince Xander that fleeing wasn’t an option. Even hunched over and stalking, the large beast man moved with quick and fluid motions. His instincts screamed at him to run anyway, to just bolt as fast as he could and hope for Lady Luck to intervene in any form she cared to. But he knew better than to try. Watching the Discovery channel and watching any number of horror flicks had convinced him long ago that running was just a way to get yourself killed on a slightly longer timeframe. “I already fucking died once today, and I don’t intend on doing it again,” he tried to growl angrily, but it came out in a light tone with an undercurrent of fear.
His eyes darted around looking for anything he could use as a weapon, but there were only scattered leaves, twigs, and a few stones on the forest floor. He started slowly backpedaling to buy himself more time, not willing to show his back or move at high speeds which would likely incite an immediate pursuit and attack. Mind racing, Xander tried to think of anything he had at his disposal that could make a difference. The answer, of course, was magic. He hadn’t even had a chance to try using it yet, but somehow his little moment of zen discovery had connected him with his magic in a way he didn’t fully understand. All he knew was that if he called on the power, it would come to him, and since he was out of other options, that was exactly what he would do.
The hyena-like humanoid was still a couple dozen yards away, so Xander stopped moving and closed his eyes. It was probably incredibly dangerous to do so, but there was simply no way that he was going to be able to intuit how to work his spells with the distractions at hand. Taking a deep breath he focused on bringing back the mental image of his core. It came to him easily, and seemed almost eager, swirling with more agitated energy as if it knew it was going to be used and it wanted nothing else. The faint green lines of possible connections called to him, and he reached out a mental hand to tug on the closest one. Green energy arced out from his core and suffused into the connection, causing it to pulse and glow even more vibrantly than his connection back to the oak, and informative sensations flooded him about the vines he had just linked to. The feeling was glorious and shocking, the magic circulating through the hanging plant starting to animate it.
Unfortunately for him though, that was when his time ran out. The jarring impact to his torso should have caused him to go stumbling backwards, but he seemed stuck in place. Opening his eyes he almost distantly observed the shaft of a short spear impaling him through the chest, right between his breasts. Amber blood oozed thickly around the weapon, and the monster cackled in that wheezing way again, tongue lolling out of its muzzle to one side and dripping drool. Xander felt pain from what should be a mortal wound, but to his surprise it wasn’t quite as intense as he thought it should be. The wound was still certainly bad, and he groaned in agony as if to punctuate just how much it did hurt, but his mind remained surprisingly clear and his spell finally finished activating. He could feel the vine like it was a new appendage which he could move freely, and reflexively curled and uncurled it before starting to move it closer.
“Fuck… you…” he ground out into the laughing monster’s face, his expression full of anger and determination. “I refuse… to die… here…” The beast seemed confused by the tone of his voice and his expression, pausing briefly to try to pull the spear out, but Xander found his own hands gripping the shaft. If he let this asshole retrieve its weapon, then it could just attack him with it again. They both struggled to gain control of the spear, neither willing to give up their grip. The impromptu tug-of-war caused the wood sticking out of his chest to aggravate the wound, and he screamed in agony. But by then his vine had finally gotten into position, and Xander reached out with it, wrapping it around the hyena monster’s throat. The thing’s eyes nearly bugged out of its head, and it quickly let go of the spear in favor of scrabbling at the vine around its neck.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Xander fell to one knee weakly, trying to figure out what to do from here since he hadn’t really had time to plan anything. It had been a severely boneheaded move to stand still and close his eyes while being chased, even if it had let him cast his very first spell. Certainly if he had been human, he would have been dead already, but he wasn’t human anymore, he was a dryad and his body was completely different from what it had been. For example, he still couldn’t feel his heart beating even though he was still breathing and talking regardless of the weapon sticking out of his chest. That wasn’t to say that he was in great shape by any stretch of the imagination, but he was still alive for now.
Another odd sensation of damage flickered through his consciousness, but this time it wasn’t personal pain, but rather that of the vine. He could feel that it had been severely damaged, and looking over he saw that the monster had a crude looking dagger in its hand and was sawing on the plant that was choking it. While the short blade may have looked hand made and rough, it was certainly still effective. The sharpened edge sliced through the vine much more quickly than Xander would have preferred, a combination of the sharpness of the blade and the desperate strength of his enemy. In two more quick chops, the monster had cut through the vines completely, breaking his spell on them. The now dead plants fell to the ground, and Xander’s heart sank. He had really been hoping that he could just choke the thing to death and be done with this situation.
“Fuck, this is really going to suck…” Xander groaned. The monster had been kind enough to provide him with a weapon, even if retrieving it was going to be massively unpleasant. He extended his new magical power to a nearby sapling, spending more mana and causing the roots to come up and trip the murderous creature. They responded more sluggishly than the vine had, but he just needed to buy enough time to pull the spear out of his chest. He could feel it sticking out of his back, and had seen enough shows to know that pulling it out the way it had come in was a bad idea. Gripping it by the butt, he started shoving all three feet of it through his body instead. More amber blood oozed thickly as he whimpered through clenched teeth. It was an excruciating process, but its necessity was only reinforced by his spell being cut off once again as the hyena thing slashed through the sapling’s roots with concerning ease.
Xander poured all of his will into his task, and screamed in pain with the final effort of pulling the spear free, tears streaming down his face. It came out with a hideous sucking sound, more thick dryad blood flying, and a window popped up to one side of his vision.
“Warning: You have fallen below 10% HP”
“Ohhh… what an…. asshole…” Xander choked out around sobs of pain. “Really… not helpful… system…” he complained, and the window immediately vanished. Gripping the sticky spear in one hand and wobbling on his feet he was at least still capable of standing. The monster was back on its feet too though, and it howled as it once more began to run at him, its dagger gripped in one hand and murder in its eyes. Sending more tendrils of magic out along the closest two connections, he found himself linked with a colony of fungus and a berry filled bush. The mushrooms were totally useless, but he made the bush fling its berries at the charging hyena-thing, which at least distracted it somewhat. Desperately hunting around, he finally found a connection to another vine, though this time when he pushed his mana into it he was struck by a wave of exhaustion.
“Warning: You have fallen below 10% MP”
The system scolded him through yet another new window. Xander was running on fumes both physically and magically, and he was a weak caster with no offensive spells and strength as his lowest stat, while the monster was heavily muscled and clearly a bloodthirsty hunter. Yet somehow he didn’t despair, didn’t let the fear control him. The desperate gambit he was concocting was probably his last chance to survive, but he would make it work. Xander waved the system window off and forced his tired and wounded body to circle towards where his newest plant appendage waited. The beast-man had returned its attention to him and cackled again as it approached, even tossing its dagger tauntingly from hand to hand.
Xander let his expression show fear as he took a few weak jabs at the monster with his stolen spear, but was forced to shuffle back when it lunged at him trying to get inside his superior range. It wasn’t very hard to seem intimidated and desperate with the monster looming close to two feet taller than he was, but thankfully it seemed nearly as stupid as it was intimidating. It hadn’t learned to watch its surroundings even after being repeatedly ambushed by plants, and its attacks were entirely straightforward and predictable. Maybe it was earned hubris since the plants weren’t able to accomplish much, but Xander didn’t care.
The next time that the monster lunged, the vines hidden under fallen leaves reared up and wrapped around its ankles, causing the beast to trip. At the same time, Xander knelt quickly and planted the butt of the short spear into the hard ground with a foot behind it for reinforcement, the head angled forward towards the falling beast man. “GET WRECKED, BITCH!!” Xander screamed in its face, and physics did the rest. The hyena man might have been able to react or dodge with its superior reflexes if its feet hadn’t been bound or if its surprise hadn’t been total, but it wasn’t that lucky. The tip of the spear punched through the soft skin under its jaw, its own weight and momentum driving the poorly made weapon up into its skull, through its underutilized brain, and out the top of its head.