Well, it's me again! And I come with the next installment of this story in my hand!
Like I promised, I said I would update often. And I meant it, too! Enjoy, People!
Camera crew, lights please! and get the stupid stuffed monster out so the actors can beat it up!
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Chapter eight: The Great Marlboro of Mushroom Forest
A great bigheaded thing reared back and let loose a roar that blew the caravaners backwards and deafened them instantly.
The beast, known as a Marlboro, was a cousin of the Demon plant. Its body was completely spherical in shape, with a myriad of tentacles squirming underneath it. It had a huge lipless gaping mouth that rivaled the demon plant's maw, and it had dagger teeth that were the size of a fist. Its eyes were all on long stalks that protruded from its back, so it also had a striking resemblance to Medusa.
It roared again, and the group hastily covered their ears to protect themselves from the sonic assault. Then the Marlboro stuck six of its root tentacles into the ground in front of it, and the tips disappeared completely. The ground rippled for a moment, and the group quickly split up at a motion from Bishop. They ran apart, and then the roots suddenly sprang from the ground and started thrashing about like whips. Sella burnt one of the roots while Portia, Anna and Zach hacked away like crazy. Bishop charged some magic energy, and stored it in his staff for later. He had a surprise for the Marlboro when it was least expecting it. The monster quickly retracted its roots, and then its body bristled with energy.
"RUN! IT'S USING A SPELL!" Bishop shouted to his friends.
A weird rune shaped like a series of circles and roman numerals appeared in the air, and then suddenly an aurora-like purple curtain descended and exploded with weird numbers flying everywhere. Zach and Portia were hit by the spell, and they were magically slowed down. Then the monster began to inhale very deeply again, except this whirlwind was stronger than the first. Everybody had a hard time standing their ground, but Zach and Portia were getting sucked in! Sella and Bishop fused their fire and life magic, and created a burning ball of light that cannonballed straight at the monster's mouth. The sphere collided with the monster's teeth, and the surrounding gum was instantly burned away with a huge explosion. Zach and Portia were blown back, but they were unharmed. The spell also wore off, so they were back to normal too. Bishop quickly healed everybody, and then he ran behind the monster and headed straight for the myrrh tree.
Trusting Bishop well enough to know that he had a plan, the rest of them knew they merely had to keep the monster distracted a little longer, and harm it a little more.
The monster in question was, by now, infuriated with the resilient little pests, and was getting very frustrated. It stored up energy again, except something was wrong this time. The energy levels in its body started to fluctuate out of control, and the surrounding air began to grow frighteningly cold. Then the sky went dark and a ball of cold purple light appeared in front of the Marlboro. The ball began to grow in size, and being smart enough to know that was bad, the group ran from it as fast as they could. The ball exploded, and giant spears of ice spontaneously erupted from it, lancing everything within range with hard, pure ice. The team visibly shook, because of the ferocity of the spell, and also because of the fact that it now felt and looked like winter. One hit from that, and they would freeze to death, or be speared like a boar. The monster had exhausted all of its tricks, so it was now way too predictable. It made up for its predictable nature by increasing its ferocity tenfold. Actually, it had ONE trump card none of the caravaners expected. It inhaled again, but big veins along its mouth pulsated sickly, and then it closed its mouth for a moment while the veins completely bloated out. It then spewed a huge cloud of murky wastes that threatened to choke the team to death. They could already feel themselves weaken with the fast acting poison and the terrible stench of decayed……..something…
Then a pure cloud of light appeared and dispersed the gas and healed the team, also curing them of poison. The Marlboro quickly spewed another cloud of gas, but it bounced off an invisible barrier. The team ran up and began another assault on the dumbfounded beast, quietly thanking Bishop for his quick thinking. Zach jumped on top of the monster's head, with a little help from Portia. He ran across the monster's back, and sliced all of the eye stalks off, then he jumped off while the Marlboro roared in its freshly inflicted blindness. Sella had been charging her energy for a while, and now she couldn't hold any more energy. Bishop had been doing the same thing, and motioned for Sella to cast a powered up fire spell. He himself cast life again, and his Full-life spell fused with Sella's Firaga spell. The resultant light explosion shamed the sun for eternity, but the Marlboro couldn't tell that. The light tore at its body, and now it oozed slime everywhere.
Far from finished, it prepared to do another draining attack, when it sensed an odd, threatening presence behind it. Bishop snared it senses with some powerful magic of his own, and managed to convince it he was another rival monster. He was standing right under the myrrh tree. The Marlboro, not realizing its mistake, inhaled and drained energy from Bishop's direction. It pulled a bubble of Myrrh energy towards itself, and when it absorbed the energy, resultantly purified itself. Now with no resistance to the miasma, it began to burn all over its body. Its tissue inflamed and instantly decayed, and its veins burst all over its body, showering the nearby area in foul body fluids. The monster quickly reduced to a pile of rotten vegetation, and soon evaporated, never to be seen again.
Everybody heaved a sigh of relief, and then Bishop pulled Ichiro's amulet from out of his robes, and walked over to the Myrrh tree with everybody following. He held the amulet up right under the tip of the myrrh tree, and then the tree glowed, and all of its energy focused to the one point above Bishop. A drop of Myrrh formed, and then after twinkling like a star, it dropped and absorbed into the crystal in Bishop's outstretched hand.
"Kupo!"
Everybody almost jumped out of their socks, and then they saw the mailmoogle waddling over to them with a few letters in his mouth. Everybody sighed and sat down while waiting for the moogle to deliver the letters. They all read their letters, and hastily scribbled down responses and handed them back.
"By the way, are you Archie?" Bishop inquired suspiciously.
"Uh…..Why, kupo?" It asked nervously
"Nothing specific." He replied.
The moogle continued collecting letters, and then he beat a hasty retreat while saying,
"So long, Kupo!"
"So long, Archie!" Everybody but Bishop yelled back.
Bishop sat with his chin resting on his fist. For once that day, he was lost in the infinite expanse of his thoughts.
"Hey, something wrong, Bird-man?" Zach asked worriedly
Bishop failed to reply, but got up and signaled for them to return to the wagon. He trailed behind while pondering something. He couldn't shake the feeling, but he felt that something was up. He finally just sighed and brushed the thought from his mind.
He would just bring it up with Ichiro and worry about it then.
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"Hey….." Ichiro grunted in pain. "How did it go?'
"Quite well." Bishop replied. "Before I forget, I have something I wish to discuss with you, considering the fact that you are the undisputed leader of the caravan.
"Uh……Right… Yeah, sure I'll talk about it, whatever it is…"
"Ok, I need you other people to go somewhere else. I need to talk with Ichiro."
Everybody just shrugged and left to go do something else.
"Ok……now, about what I wanted to say…"
"Yes?"
"To put it simply, I think we are being watched."
"And why is that?"
"For a real mailmoogle to do his job, he would take much longer to do his job, so he would have to switch with other moogles to get the mail to the recipients on time.
But he was there last time you got mail, so I'm thinking somebody is having him follow us. He may well be part of their group, so, I suggest that we keep our eyes peeled for trouble."
"But what's happening to our mail!?!?" Ichiro panicked.
"They probably left it at some post office for another moogle to send. Some moogles do that occasionally, so they won't be suspicious. That gives them an opportunity to keep an eye on us. But then they probably read the mail, so we need to be careful."
"Great, another thing to worry about. I'll keep my eyes open."
"Good. I shall also. We should jump up our security just to be sure."
"Right, I'll let the others know without letting on too much."
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Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd……..CUT!
That's all for today! Sorry if my chapters are too short. If they are, review and let me know! Thank you for reading, my faithful audience!
I will continue to update often, so keep reading! Over and out! "Trips over while walking off stage"
Blast it! Get the crew over here and straighten that rug! I'll see you people later
TTFN!
