Chapter Thirty-Nine
A week later, Alex woke to a rough tongue persistently licking her hair above her temple. The roughness reminded her of a cat, which was odd because she didn't own a cat in Gamemakers Online.
One eye peered awake, finding a furry brown Inky perched on the tigersloth furs near her head, patiently giving her a bath. Alex opened the other eye to realize that Pinky had curled up in the crook of her arm, her head resting against her stomach, peering into her once-sleeping face with adoration.
"Thank you, Inky," said Alex, groaning as she struggled to a sitting position, disturbing the other minion, who stretched her mouth and wings wide.
"For the record, this absolutely does not count as cuddling," said Alex.
The two minions lifted into the air, slipping past the fur covers on the front of the cave.
It took Alex a few minutes to get going. Her neck and shoulders ached from hanging in the harness. She dug her fingers into the muscles around her neck and shoulder, massaging away the knots that had formed.
"Whatever zone I visit next, there is going to be a bed and an inn and people to talk to," said Alex.
After climbing the ladder to the camp by the cliff, Alex checked her character sheet again to make sure she hadn't imagined hitting level 16.
Character: Alexandria Duke
Level: 16
Strength: 1
Intelligence: 10
Cunning: 32
Agility: 2
Endurance: 5
Charisma: 1
Class: Arcane Mastermind
Subclass: Undecided
Health: 240/240
Faez: 233/233
Armor Class: 0
Fatigue: 2%
XP: 1,680,477 / 1,800,000
The rest of her skills had barely changed since she'd been using the cliff to farm for experience, but she didn't have time to max her skills with the end of the semester approaching. A fact that was made painfully clear as she noticed a system message counting down above her character sheet.
Gamemakers Online Lockout
Alexandria Duke – Levels 16/20
6 Days : 16 Hours : 57 Minutes : 33 Seconds
Alex had thought she had a few more weeks, but she'd been assuming that the end of the semester happened at the end of May, but clearly that wasn't the case.
"Four levels, or maybe three and a half. I can do this," said Alex. "Right, girls?"
The two minions, who were sitting in their nests licking their fur clean, looked up at her with wide adoring eyes. They'd leveled up to 7 during the cliff farming and looked mostly like bats. The proboscis had retracted, but Alex suspected they could still use them to feed.
"What would I have done without you?" said Alex.
After checking her gear, she began the hike to the western side of the zone where the Mother's Spire was located. Alex had cleared the mobs north and south of the spire. The only thing that remained was the area directly around the final boss and the Warped Mother.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
It was a good thing that she'd had the Acceleration Bar that first day to get her to level 7 before it wore off. The herds of warped animals had been thicker near the cliff, which had allowed her minions to chain pull for hours.
The downside of her tactic was that she didn't get to loot a single body. She imagined there was quite a pile at the base of the cliff, both in the northern and southern pull locations. They would disappear before she had a chance to climb down.
The hike across the zone took a few hours. The closer she got the heavier her feet grew. When the white spire poked above the psychedelic trees as she came down the hills into the hollow nestled against the sheer mountains, Alex blew out a cleansing breath in anticipation of the upcoming challenge. She had no doubt that it was going to be brutal, but realized her sense of scale at the difficulty was off exponentially when the area around the spire came into view.
A massive, milky-pale stone rose from the earth like a stalagmite, towering over the colorful tree line by a hundred feet. The area around the spire was barren of trees, a wide semicircular space filled instead with a menagerie of warped animals.
Alex didn't even know how to process what she was seeing at first. It looked like Noah's ark had spilled onto the plain, the impact mixing up the many creatures into their chimeric states. It was a kaleidoscopic zoo of dangerous proportions.
Quest Completed: Investigate the Heart of the Warped Forest
You have gained experience: 25,000 XP
Quest Offered: Enter the Spire of Creation and kill the Warped Mother (+250,000 XP) [Y/N]
Alex whistled at the size of the reward for killing the final boss. It was over a single level on its own, not including the experience for the Warped Mother herself.
But how to bypass the army of warped animals? And there seemed to be no obvious entrance for the Spire of Creation. For all she knew the chimeric stones were the key to entry, but that could be totally wrong too.
The mass of flesh around the spire was equivalent to the quantity of creatures she'd had to kill to get to her current level. There was no way she was going to be able to farm them all in six days and still have time to battle the Warped Mother.
After watching them mill around the white stone for an hour, Alex sent in Inky to see if she could pull away a group of animals or if the whole mass would come.
When Inky reached the outer ring of trees, a prompt appeared.
Trigger the Spire of Creation final encounter? [Y/N]
7 Day reset upon failure
Alex carefully swiped NO and told Inky to come back. There would be only one shot at winning, which made her difficult odds almost impossible. Had she more time, she could attempt the encounter, learn from her mistakes, and try again, honing her strategy until she won.
But only getting one attempt would mean that her tactics would have to be mostly improvised. Once she started, the encounter would play out until she won or lost. It wasn't that she couldn't improvise, she'd proven that she was more than capable, but her strengths lay in meticulous planning and execution.
Standing on the hillside with her hands clasped on top of her head, Alex considered her options. There was no way she could beat that many mobs at once. Even if she could reliably pull them one at a time, she'd max out on fatigue before the encounter ended. Maybe if she'd been an endurance build, she could manage it, but the Arcane Mastermind wasn't made for long fights.
The only way she was going to make it into the Spire of Creation was to have one of her minions train the group away. She quickly realized the task would have to fall to Pinky, who could survive the pull.
She had a good idea how she would use Inky anyway, unless she could find the entrance to the spire quickly. It felt like a sketchy strategy, using her minion to kite the menagerie while she ghosted in and fought the Warped Mother. But nothing else she thought of really came close.
"Sometimes the simplest plans are the best," she said, not quite convincing herself that it was true.
Alex pulled out a large chimeric stone and stared at the swirly surface.
"I still don't know what you're for. I feel like the low-experience reward means I was supposed to figure it out when I was a lower level," said Alex with a sigh.
Nothing she'd tried during the year had revealed their true purpose. She'd used the Transference spell on them, cooked them in her pot, and done dozens of other experiments, but the stones remained completely inert.
When she stared at the marble-sized stone, there was something about its appearance that bothered her, but the familiarity never revealed itself. Maybe the reason for their existence in the Warped Forest would be revealed inside the Spire of Creation.
When Alex finally decided to make the attempt, she approached the ring of trees that separated the Spire from the rest of the Warped Forest. Hordes of warped animals milled about mindlessly as if they were waiting for a command.
Brooding Giraffillas, Warped Animal, Level 13
Cantankerous Pearabbits, Warped Animal, Level 11
Angry Badgerhounds, Warped Animal, Level 14
The longer she watched, the more variety of warped animals she saw, which was of no surprise given her battles in the forest.
Alex considered whether or not she should take a few days to level up her skills, but realized delaying wasn't going to help. This fight wasn't going to be won with a few extra points of damage.
"This is the point of the raid the leader gives a pep talk to the team," said Alex, shaking her head lightly. "But it's just me, and I'm not playing for a world first, or even a monetary reward. If I don't win this fight, I'm going to die from this cancer in my head."
Alex checked with her minions, who sat on a nearby branch attentively, waiting for her commands.
For the first time in a long time, Alex wished her online friends were there to watch. Nothing she'd ever attempted came in even close. Even the Avatar of Destruction seemed like child's play compared to the challenge before her. The impossibility of it brought a secret smile to her lips.
Alex walked forward until she hit the threshold of the clearing.
Trigger the Spire of Creation final encounter? [Y/N]
7 Day reset upon failure
Alex hit YES.
Are you sure? [Y/N]
No mercy for the unprepared
Alex winked at her minions as she hit YES a second time.
"Let's do this."
