“Dehada, Lady of the Darkgrowth, alchemy master level 42”

Lucas frowned while reading the details his skill provided. They were massively under leveled, and looking at the environment, she probably had the home turf advantage. They were standing at the entrance to a massive laboratory. Far wall was littered with pots holding something Lucas could only hope would stay dormant and on their right, cages filled with sleeping creatures could be seen.

“Why are you silent, pets? Bow down to your new master and you will have all the luxury my favorites would have” Dehada insisted.

They remained silent, although Lucas suspected they couldn’t do it for long. Looking at other of his team members, he could see same conclusion dawned on them to. Michael took the initiative, stepping to the alchemist and started speaking?

“My lady, there seems to be a misunderstanding here. We are on our way to the city, carrying urgent messages for the king. The reason we even got out of the Darkgrowth was that we were given instruction how to do it. In our carelessness, we activated a trap and ended in your laboratory” he narrated.

“Is that so? All a big mistake?” Dehada asked, predatory smile on her face telling she enjoyed this game even though she wasn’t buying a word of what was spoken. Lucas took precaution, activating his buff skills, not eager to be caught unprepared again.

“I’m afraid so. Now, if you ladyship don’t mind, we will continue on our way” Michael said.

“Unfortunately, I do mind” Dehada answered and with a lighting quick movement took one of the bottles standing on the shelves above her. She instantly threw at Michael, but before the bottle could connect, a transparent barrier appeared in front of him. With a loud boom, bottle shattered and liquid contained with it started hissing. Lucas didn’t wait much longer, jumping over the barrier. Lady of the Darkgrowth spotted him, and in an instant two bottles went flying to him. “Dodge” he muttered, and listening to his instinct went flying backwards. White flame erupted on his previous position, blocking that direction from attacking.

As Lucas circled back, he saw that the commotion woken up caged creatures. They raged in their cages, running left and right or clawing at their cages, wanting to get out. As for the battle, Maraya had started intercepting every bottle alchemist threw at them, but some weird smoke obscured their opponent, making her very hard to hit. Michael lobbed grenade after grenade into the smoke, hoping for a blind hit, not finding much success. Lucas sighed, and ran full sprint into the smoke. As he passed the threshold, he saw why they had trouble. Smoke had a spatial dimension and Dehada stood there, creating her new weapons, not perturbed by attacks coming from Lucas’s party, which were landing a comfortable distance from her .

“Nice trick” Lucas shouted at her and the shouted to his party “Into the smoke, spatial dimension” Hoping they heard him, he ran at the alchemist. She smiled at him, chugging three bottles in quick succession. Momentarily, she started glowing in orange light and split herself into three copies. All three dryads simultaneously throw potions at Lucas, and he was forced to dodge, avoiding being hit by lighting which boomed as soon as bottle storing it shattered.

Rest of the party entered and John, his face extruding frustration, took a quick aim and fired his double – barreled sniper. It hit one of the clones, leaving a gaping hole in her chest. Not deterred to much by the shot, one of the Dehadas responded with a thrown bottle that landed in front of the party, exploding in white light and blinding them. Taking advantage of the distraction, one of the clones started running toward the exit.

Sensing the danger in it, Lucas repositioned and muttered “Infused piledriver”. His attack caught the clone just before the exit, crashing straight through it head. Clone immediately dissolved, catching Lucas in surprise and he flew out of the smoke before he could anchor himself. Finding himself back at the laboratory, he took a look at his surroundings, finding it the same as it left it. The only difference was the desk, which was now empty. Making a quick decision to trust his party, he searched the desk. In one of drawers he found a box with ornate carvings showing dryads taming the nature around them.

“Eye for details” Lucas muttered.

Box of Nature (Epic quality item)

This box contains a spatial dimension with a sample lifeforms from every world Viridi dryad visited. It morphed into a distorted hellscape, but a skilled alchemist could find every ingredient put there. Due to unstable environment, any new ingredient will destroy the box and the dimension that reside in it, resulting in a loss of countless natural treasures.

“Wouldn’t that be ironic way to go?” Lucas thought, idea forming in his head. He sprinted back into the smoke, once again finding himself at once tranquil plain where his party was currently taking a beating from coordinated effort of the two clones. Hannah was worst off, laying in pool of blood, showing that dryad had enough sense to decommission the healer first.

“Lucas, where have you been? We need some help” Michael shouted at him.

“Just buy me some time” he yelled back. “And focus fire on one of them”

Lucas arrived in the middle of his party, just in time to see the already damaged clone go down with combined effort of his three remaining party members. It dissolved, leaving just the original Dehada, who used the chance to hurl a green liquid bottle at Maraya. She raised her shield and intercepted the bottle, but a green gas that was released on impact surrounded her, and she fell down, coughing and gurgling. Seeing their time running out, Lucas activated “Infused piledriver” but stopped him as soon as he closed the distance. Dehada, who was already in the middle of throwing a bottle at him, yelped in surprise, and he calmly sidestepped her throw. “Stinging Cut”, Lucas thought and his rapier glowed red as he connected with the dryad. She howled in pain, and he took the chance to set the box down.

“On my mark, open the lid” he shouted back at his party and focused once again on the dryad. “Battle dance” he murmured and in an instant he could he where he could stab for more damage. Ignoring that, he activated “Stinging cut” once again, making another gash just as Dehada started to recover. She thrashed for a bit, and then with a white glow she was back on her feet, first time during the entire battle anger flashing on her face.

“You insolent cur, you dare to hurt your master. I will use your soul to fuel countless of gestalt” she yelled at Lucas.

“I don’t even know what that is, and yet, I know you are not making sense” Lucas taunted. “C’mon, take the bait” he added mentally. And she took it, hook, line and sinker. Full five bottles flew at him, allowing him to use “Dodge” to somersault over her.

“NOW!” he yelled while activating “Death by the thousand cuts” as soon as he landed, making Dehada bleed once again. Michael opened the lid, and then laid suppressing fire, the staccato of his rifle mixing from blood - chilling echoes that came from inside the box. John wasn’t to be outdone, and his rifle fired, shattering the knee of alchemist. Lucas activated “Stinging cut” yet again, making a painful gash on the cheek of the Lady of the Darkgrowth, but the real attack was a kick in which went Lucas full Strength. If Dehada wasn’t out of the balance, the kick wouldn’t do much, but seeing that she was, it sent her backwards just a few steps. Those few steps were enough, however, to make her trip and fall down into the box.

“Close it” Lucas said, and Michael did it. The box started glowing and thrashing around, trying to integrate a number of ingredients alchemist carried with her, and just for good measure, dryad blood was one of them, courtesy of Lucas and his teammates. In an intense flash, box vanished and soon enough the prompts appeared.

“You have assisted in slaying Dehada, Lady of the Darkgrowth, alchemy master level 42”

“Congratulations! You are level 27 Duelist”

“Congratulations! You are level 28 Duelist”

“Stat allocation in progress…”

“+3 Agility, +1 Perception, +1 Strength. One free point”

“+3 Agility, +1 Perception, +1 Strength. One free point”

“Stat allocation completed”

In a cruel twist of fate, Lady of the Darkgrowth was killed by one of her own contraptions, stuffed into a box to forever vanish as threat. Walls of Verdan lays open to you, brave adventurers, but beware, Viridi dryads have had many millennia to reinforce the defenses of their great wall.

“I’m an idiot” Lucas slapped himself after reading the prompts, completely forgetting to allocate his free points after the Big Kong fight. Intent of correcting his mistake his summoned his status and immediately went into attributes submenu.

Attributes:

Strength: 29

Agility: 43

Constitution: 21

Intelligence: 26

Willpower: 23

Perception: 37

Charisma: 29

Luck: 30

Free points: 5

“I definitely need some more mana, and I should probably push Strength a little” Lucas quickly concluded and, in the same breath, he put one point in Strength and four in Intelligence, rounding them both to 30.

Satisfied, he turned to the rest of the party. Hannah got a health potion from Michael, and was now working on healing Maraya. The rest of them came relatively unscathed, but they didn’t delude themselves. They were outclassed and just a lucky break with the box saved them from losing battle of endurance.

After a quick debate, they decided to make a camp here to recover from the fight, and after Michael took the guard duty, they went to sleep.