During the trip across the open plains and to his next destination, he took out some more animals. The creatures provided him with some much needed furs to help him level his Leatherworking some more.
You gained 1,950 experience.
Success! You’ve reached level 17.
You found the following items:
Cheetah Hide x 8
Gazelle Hide x 14
Antelope Hide x 4
The level up notification was a welcome sight but brought up more problems. So far, he’d focused primarily on his forms and physical damage. He’d dropped most of his points into attributes that helped his spell casting. It was almost inevitable he’d end up as a healer by the time end game came around.
His saving grace was how his forms worked. Luckily, they redistributed his stats for him when he shifted to better support that particular form. Although he was good with his staff in melee combat, he couldn’t try to make that his default style. With resignation, he put one point into Intellect, bringing it up to 18 and the other into Spirit making it 8. This gave him an effective mana pool of 200 counting the stat boosts on his items.
When he neared the outlined quest area on his map for the other items, he slowed and shifted to cat form again. The heightened senses of the form allowed him to better stalk the landscape. This time he found himself back in a forest. He expected no less considering he was hunting what were essentially sentient trees.
He stalked through a set of trees and entered a small clearing. A rustle near him caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. Out of instinct, he leaped forward and spun. The ground shook slightly as the roots of the tree he was near smashed into the dirt where he previously stood.
Atlas looked at the tree in question and made out the faint outline of a face in the bark. The old gnarled branches hung at odd angles before they slowly creaked and moved. Dirt flew up in large clumps as the creature ripped its remaining roots out of the ground and focused all of its attention on him. Elder Ent - Level 19.
A cluster of branches blurred toward Atlas, and he jumped out of the way. The bundle smashed into the ground, creaking and cracking as they hit, dust flying into the air. Atlas activated Counter and dashed forward. His claws dug a furrow through its back and he followed the attack with Furious Claws. His two-hit combo raked across the Ent as the monster grumbled in pain.
You dealt 7 damage to Elder Ent with Counter.
You dealt 15 damage to Elder Ent with Furious Claws.
A root swung around and Atlas jumped to dodge it. The end of it clipped him as he moved and knocked him off balance, causing him to land in an awkward heap on the ground.
Elder Ent dealt 22 damage to you with Root Slap. (Glancing)
Holy crap! That’s a lot of damage for a glancing blow.
The creature dealt heavy amounts of damage. Atlas considered changing to his bear form, but decided against it. The bear was too slow and had trouble dodging attacks. While able to take more damage, the trick here was to avoid it. His Wood Elf form wasn’t as nimble as the nightstalker, so he needed to whittle down its health using the few attacks he had available as a cat. All while avoiding getting hit, of course.
Getting back to his feet, he rushed at the creature and used Furious Claws. The monster had no chance to block with how slow it was. His claws easily dug into bark and tiny rivulets of dark yellow liquid oozed out like syrup. Must be sap.
You dealt 15 damage to Elder Ent with Furious Claws.
A large section of branches crashed toward him again, but he deftly jumped out of the way. Using Counter, he rushed back in, claws extended. More sap oozed from the claw marks as he passed, so he activated Furious Claws. Leaping onto the back of the creature, he used both swipes to dig long grooves down its back. Lines of the sticky yellow fluid quickly filled the claw marks.
You dealt 7 damage to Elder Ent with Counter.
You dealt 15 damage to Elder Ent with Furious Claws.
“This is going to take forever with only two abilities,” Atlas huffed.
His eyes focused on the sap leaking from the tree, and an idea struck him. I know pine sap is extremely flammable and the sap from this tree looks very similar to it.I wonder if it’s flammable as well?
His mind shot back to his recent spell he learned for Basic Firestarter. If he could cut a few more long grooves down the body, he should be able to light the entire tree on fire and kill it much quicker.
With this new plan, he leaped for the tree and bounced off of its roots. When he neared the top of the canopy, he activated Furious Claws again and ripped large furrows down the side. With a toothy grin, he tried to use Basic Firestarter.
Unable to use that ability in shapeshift form.
Crap. This would be difficult if he needed to light the fire in his Wood Elf form.
A look around the tree showed a relatively flat spot near the base of the trunk. A section of the roots there flattened out and looked sturdy. It also didn’t seem to move as the monster did. He leaped down and landed on the spot before quickly shapeshifting back to his Wood Elf form. The transformation only took a couple seconds, and he quickly activated Basic Firestarter.
Flames burst from his hand in a small stream and he directed it toward a groove on the trunk that was full of the sap. As soon as the fire touched the amber liquid, it ignited and flames crawled up the tree at an incredible pace. Atlas stumbled as he backed away from the intense heat. His foot caught
