Return to Jorgaldur Volume II: the druid archer

Dangers

It was a forest, or rather a jungle, for there was dense vegetation and high humidity, and the sky could hardly be seen between the tops of the trees.

The elf's first action when appearing there was to cast Life Detection. She did it out of reflex, since it was an action that had been imprinted on her subconscious. In the game, she did it almost without thinking every time she reached a different area, something that had caused Gjaki and Eldi's laughter more than once, especially when she did it after arriving to a safe zone like a city.

That memory made her blush slightly, but she completely forgot it when she detected a life form whose level far exceeded hers, and which was a few meters away. She cast Light Feet and began to run away from what could be a dangerous enemy.

She felt somehow strange. On the one hand, she had practically panicked after detecting an unknown enemy, at a danger that someone who has lived her entire life in the safety of a city would be unable to face with a clear head. On the other hand, she was calm, as if that situation was totally natural to her.

She cast Life Detection again and frowned. She had moved away from that enemy, but there were many others in all directions, as if they were surrounding her. She cast Hover to perch himself on a tree branch, and stood there, motionless, vigilant.

Hawkeye was useless in that situation, because the jungle was too thick to see anything in the distance, so she had no choice but to wait until a black snake about two meters long, black skin and triangular head appeared. She knew that the shape of the head hinted that it was poisonous, or so Eldi had assured long ago. Although she couldn't know if it was like that in this world too.

Soon, more and more snakes began to arrive, surrounding the first one. The archer watched intently, surprised to be so calm, for she had always been afraid of snakes, almost terrified. Most importantly, it didn't seem like she was their target, but instead they turned against each other, lifting their bodies, challenging each other through strange whistles.

Soon, they began to fight, to bite each other, to try to strangle the others with their bodies. Under Goldmi's gaze, some died and others fled. Those that remained, began to fight among them again, until there were only two. There was the first to arrive, the only one which had remained motionless during the fights, without meddling in them, and the one which could be considered the winner, which was slightly larger, and brighter black.

They soon approached and started a kind of dance, in which the aggressiveness previously showed couldn't be perceived. Little by little, they brought their bodies closer, until they curled into each other.

"Are... Are they mating?" she muttered to herself, totally dumbfounded.

She believed to be in danger, but instead she had witnessed the fight for the right to engage in the mating ritual, something she certainly could have never imagined. She waited for a couple of hours in the tree, still, until they both separated, and each went in a different direction.

"Are they dangerous? Would they try to attack me if they saw me?" she wondered.

But she had no more time to ponder about it, as a silhouette lunged at her. She quickly took the sword out of inventory and wielded the dagger from her belt, using Blazing Dagger to block and counter-attack.

The impact made her take a step backward, and it was about to knock her off the branch she was on, but she had finally managed to block the attack of a wasp-like flying insect, half a meter long and black, and which now had a wound in the abdomen.

It was level 4, a level above hers, but the worst was that it wasn't the only one of its kind there. Other silhouettes were approaching her position, menacingly, their dangerous stingers aimed at her.

She sheathed the dagger and sword in order to draw the bow and wield it, immediately firing an arrow at the nearest wasp, the one that had been struck with the dagger and had moved a few meters away. Then another. And another. The last two, with Piercing Arrow, caused deeper wounds.

The insect lost control and began to descend, hitting a lower branch and falling to the ground. She had finished one off, but the problem was that they were getting closer, at least ten. And with three arrows for each of them, not only would she not have time to deal with all of them, but she would lack energy to use enough Piercing Arrows.

Luckily, at least she wouldn't be short of arrows. Long ago, she had bought thousands of level 1 arrows to use when they only wanted to attract enemies, and not kill them from the distance. The lower level ones were very cheap.

She decided to try attacking the wasps' wings, something that might seem quite difficult. Not only did the insects move, but the wings still did it faster. But, for some reason, Goldmi was convinced to be capable.

She shot an arrow at one of the wasps and, before it arrived, she had already shot another at the next. She didn't hit the first one, but she did hit the second one, ripping one of the wings, and making it lose control of the flight.

She kept shooting, hitting them about half the time, but that was more efficient than shooting at their bodies, because each time she hit an insect's wing, it fell out of control. Five of them had been hit, but three others had gotten too close, and there were still others a little further away.

The archer fired one last arrow, impossible to miss from that distance. However, not only was her target too close for it to change direction, despite losing control, but there were two others just a couple of meters away from her.

Their stingers were pointed at her, like spearheads covered in dangerous venom, and it was impossible to block all three with just a sword and a dagger.