“What in the actual fuck,” I said to Saphira as we poked our head through the brush. 100 feet away stood the Rat Queen, walking around just outside a cave as if to protect her home from intruders. She was around eight feet tall, six feet wide, and as long as a limo. Her appearance was similar to the previous rats, but just on a more magnified scale. Green blood oozed from the open decaying wounds, leaving a small trail behind her as she walked.

Analyze

Rat Queen

Level 6 - Veteran Monster

Disposition - Searching

“Veteran?” I questioned to Saphjira.

“It is a type of classification of monsters. If you analyze and see nothing, we assume they are a normal spawn.” She jerked her head in the direction of the rat queen. “This is one step above that, a veteran monster. They signify a stronger opponent and rarer in their specific species. After veteran comes Epic, Ancient, and finally, Legendary.”

“So, avoid Legendary bosses, got it.” I said back to her. She gave me a mental shake of her head.

“Not necessarily. A legendary rat, for example, would probably pose no threat to the likes of Murdock. A veteran dragon on the other hand, would take a handful of very powerful wizards.”

What she said made sense. In MMORPGs there were plenty of epic-level monsters to fight at the beginning when you were lower-leveled, but those same epic monsters when you were 10-15 levels higher would be pretty easy.

“Same strategy as before Saphira, make your way around her, dish out some lightning, and I’ll follow up with some daggers.”

She snuck her way around the forest, carefully trying to not draw attention or create much noise. Every slight crunch beneath her paws would cause the queen to sniff up in the air, looking for any sign of intruders. As she counted down to zero in her mind, Saphira left from her hiding spot and launched Lightning Bolt at the rat.

Saphira deals 25 lightning damage!

A horrible sound echoed through the forest as the queen yelled in pain and surprise at the sudden current of electricity that coursed through her body. She had little time to get used to the feeling of electricity before I gave her the chance to adapt to some fire.

You deal 8 damage!

You deal 8 damage!

You deal 8 damage!

The Rat Queen is burning!

Due to her size, being able to land all three daggers was a much easier task than the earlier rats. Her body lit on fire in certain spots, rather than being completely enveloped in flame. This was likely due to her health pool being much higher, so the visuals I saw would show the relationship between the burn damage and her current health. Seeing that the flames were very muted and minimal caused me to worry at just how much health this boss actually had.

“Saphira, be careful, this fucker has a lot of health!”

Saphira growled loudly at the monster, doing her best to keep the attention on herself. She darted between trees as the rat smashed into the thick tree trunks, causing it to shake violently. The terrain was helping us tremendously, as the size of the queen reduced her agility. She was fast, but not very nimble. I was following behind the two, waiting for my daggers to finish their cool-down.

After ten seconds and another cast, the sweet sight of 8 damage appeared three times, followed by the flaming debuff. When the fire arose, it seemed like this time there were a few more patches of fur that had been lit by my spell.

We are doing it! I thought to myself, before seeing the beast slide to a stop and glance back at me through the trees. I really should have learned by now…

The rat shook its fur side to side, like a wet dog trying to dry itself off. Several ‘things’ flew off the beast and landed in front of me, at least a dozen or so. They balanced on six antenna-like legs, with tiny rows of sharp teeth exposed as they let out an unrecognizable growl toward me.

Rat Queen’s Fleas

Level - 2

Disposition - Itchy

Really. Fucking fleas!?

“Saphira! You are on your own for a bit, I think!” I sent her a mental image of the scene in front of me.

“Stay alive, master! I’ll lose the rat and make my way back to you!”

My companion growled at the rat, regaining its attention with a few false-swipes near the rodent, as the rat left it's fleas to take care of me.

They began to circle around me, pack tactics at work. They were no bigger than a medium-sized dog, and I was sure fighting a few wouldn’t be too big of a deal. A dozen though, I would have to make sure none of them ganged up on me at once. Good thing I have an ability for just the occasion…

Enhance. I thought to myself, getting the small rush of power. “Come on!” I yelled, trying to coax them into the fight. That’s all it really took.

They lunged for me at once, and I waited. Pulse was a great spell to propel my opponents through the air, but it caused no damage. Good thing I had some ground and trees to work with…

As the fleas jumped for me at different angles, I fell down onto the ground and made myself as flat as possible. I hit the ground hard and channeled 40 mana into the spell. I knew this amount of mana would throw a regular-sized human approximately 10 to 15 feet, and admittedly, was the result I was expecting. Hopefully, some would hit some trees and others taking fall damage if they couldn’t land on their feet well.

What the actual result was, however, was the fleas being flung like someone had yanked an invisible cord on them. They flew upward and back, thanks to the angle of my body in comparison to theirs, as many of them clipped trees and branches before falling back down to earth twenty to thirty feet away from me. A myriad of damage flooded my feed, as well as the notification that Pulse had made it to tier three, which improved the effectiveness to armored targets, according to the description.

I reacted quickly, approaching the first downed flea I saw. I fell on it with all my weight, using my best WWE elbow drop I could muster. After the damage it had just received, I got my first notification of a dead flea.

1 down, 11 to go.

I jumped to the next, which was a group of two. They had already got their barrings again and jumped at me. I punched one of them away, while the other latched to my leg.

You take three damage!

I shook my leg hard, trying to get the thing to let go, but it held fast. I reached down and yanked him off, causing an additional two points of damage as it ripped free from my skin. I put the thing in a chokehold - or what I thought would be a chokehold because the thing really didn’t visible neck. I squeezed as hard as I could until I ruptured it’s head from the body, causing purple blood to shoot in all directions.

Vile began to arise before I mentally told it to push back down - the time to be disgusted would come later. As I looked for the next opponent, I heard it before I felt anything. Little feet along the loose forest floor as I was taken to the ground by the weight of two fleas as they began to bite my back.

You take three damage!

You take three damage!

A curse escaped my lips as I climbed up from the ground, doing my best to shake them as I saw damage numbers appear in my vision. I found the closest tree and remembered briefly a scene from one of my favorite movies - princess bride.

I back peddled quickly and used the tree as a battering ram. I smashed my back against it, pinning the two beasts between me and the tough bark, slamming into it several times before hearing the squelching of smushed bodies and the notification of two new dead fleas. Unfortunately, between the pain and tree smashing, I lost concentration on Enhance.

A few dozen feet in front of me the other 8 bugs remained, some missing an antenna or leg here and there, indicating their damage.

A quick look at my health showed I had 116 HP remaining, so I was still looking pretty good. Off in the distance, I heard the squeal of Saphira yelping in pain that echoed from a distance in the forest, and my heart raced.

“SAPHIRA!” I yelled at her, with no response. A sinking feeling in my gut started to form as the eight creatures began their more calculated approach.

A yell that I didn’t even recognize escaped my lips as I fired flaming daggers at a pack of three. Two landed on a single target, causing the final knife to drive into its head, showing the “death” physics as I had dealt enough damage to end it’s life.

Flaming daggers was on a 10-second cooldown now, and pulse still had 30 seconds left. Anger began to fill me as my minimal spell selection was causing this to be much more difficult than it should have been. My slowing spell would prove pretty useless, only affecting one target. Plus, it had a minute cooldown and I wanted to be sure to save it for the queen.

As I stared at the countdown of flaming daggers, waiting for the bugs to begin to use me as their human meal, I got the strangest feeling in my head. Something was telling me I had the power to do something but lacked the knowledge. Every time I would look at the cooldown timer, my mana would stir, like it was excited, looking for an excuse to be used. The mana swirled, moving to seemingly random parts of my body and mind, begging me to release it.

“VINCE! HELP!” Saphira’s voice finally came, as I saw my bloodied friend emerge from the distance, with the familiar rumbling of the clumsy rat.

Fine. Fuck it. And I released.

Cooldown of all spells reduced to 0!

50 mana was used!

Wild Magic was activated!

You have unlocked your subclass!