Merlin eventually made his way towards the rangers guild. Although he found that this time there weren't many people outdoors, most likely because it had been raining until a few minutes ago, but also because it was roughly around midnight at this point.
He walked into the rangers guild building, where he was met with the sight of an unfamiliar ranger sleeping peacefully at the front desk.
"Slow day, huh?" Merlin muttered as he walked past, making sure he didn't wake the ranger.
He walked through the building, dropping by the medical room in hopes that he'd find Tuli, but she wasn't there either.
Figuring she must have been asleep or eating, he ran around checking a few more common rooms and the mess hall, but there wasn't any sight of her or Callisto for that matter.
"I guess they must be sleeping, I'll come back in the morning." Merlin mumbled out loud before making his way to the door.
The ranger manning the desk didn't wake up as he left either.
Not knowing what to do, Merlin made his way towards the wall. And after a brief greeting to the very tired looking guards, he stepped out into the wilderness to entertain himself and his viewers.
As he promised Holly earlier, his goal was to show off how he could utilise the vines in combat, and he spent several in-game hours traversing the forest and killing anything he could find, which for the most part were just the occasional kobold or goblin and various wildlife.
As the sky started brightening up, Merlin thought to start heading back to town. But then he received another donation notification.
「"Frank_Trampedach" has gifted 2000 tokens with the message: "Can you use the vines as legs? What about swinging around the forest?"」
"That is a very good question." Merlin muttered to his stream. "I guess we can find out together."
Suddenly three vines sprouted out of Merlin's back and started digging into the floor underneath him. After a few seconds his body started to rise off of the ground, and he felt excitement build up within him, until he lost his concentration and one of the vines gave out, causing him to fall into the soft damp forest soil.
"That's a lot harder than it looks." He complained to his chat, who were now spamming various laughing emotes.
He tried once more, and found that while he was a little unstable at first, as he didn't quite know how to visualise it in his mind properly, his body slowly balanced itself.
He was holding the image of a tripod in his mind, the most stable three-legged option he could think of.
"If I had one more vine I think I could walk pretty easily." He muttered to himself. "The vines got stronger, but they're nowhere close to the rose wight."
"Sorry, I don't think walking is going to be possible just yet." Merlin apologised to the donator, "But thank you for the gift."
Then came the next part of his testing. Would he be able to swing himself around using the vines?
The vines flung out and wrapped themselves around the most stable looking tree branches they could reach. And Merlin's body was lifted off the ground with ease.
It was much easier to stabilise himself this way, but then came the next struggle, how was he supposed to move?
'What if I just slingshot myself in the direction I wanted to go.' He wondered to himself. 'Besides a few hundred broken bones if I hit something at such a fast speed...'
He decided it was worth a try, but he wanted to start it off slow. So he gently threw himself towards the direction of the city, and as his body picked up momentum, he let go of the tree branches that were suspending him in midair.
Before his body could hit the ground he saw the next branch and shot his vine out towards it. His body swung past it, picking up a scary amount of speed, but as he hit the apex of his swing, he released the branch once more.
This pace continued until he was flying through the forest at an insane speed, his body had picked up enough forward momentum that he barely had enough time to find the next branch to grab on to before it was already time to look once more.
He was trying to keep focused, but he saw several flashes of light in the distance flying towards him. They all flew past him, but one nearly grazed his face. It was at this point that he realised they were arrows.
"Who the hell can shoot something moving this fast?" Merlin exclaimed in surprise as he wrapped his vine around another branch.
He saw yet another arrow, this time flying in the direction he would end up if he let go of the branch at that moment, so he instinctively held on for a few more seconds before letting go, and his body was thrown several meters into the sky.
Merlin quickly scanned the ground beneath him, although it was mostly trees, he saw a single individual standing on the road looking up at him. It appeared to be a woman with a bow and arrow, although he was a little far to catch any details, he saw that she was a brunette and her silhouette seemed rather familiar.
"Good with a bow, brunette..." He muttered to himself, but his thought process was cut short as another arrow flew towards him as he began plummeting to the ground.
He threw a vine in the arrow's path, as he couldn't do much else to avoid it. The arrow pierced the vine, and without being slowed down pierced right through Merlin's shoulder.
Merlin's eyes widened as he saw that a single hit of the bow had dealt a whopping forty-six damage to him, and it wasn't even a critical hit.
"Crap, yeah that's her alright." He groaned as he sent his two remaining vines out to catch any branches they could on his way towards the ground. Taking fall damage from that height would be a death sentence for him now.
Fortunately his vines did manage to wrap around a pair of stable branches, and that allowed him to break his fall, but it seemed as though the huntress hadn't realised who she was shooting at just yet, as yet another arrow flew past his head.
Merlin began making his way towards the road where she was standing. He figured that he looked like nothing but a silhouette moving at speeds impossible for humans in her eyes, so if she just realised who he was, she would stop shooting.
The only issue is that he could maybe survive one more shot if she hit him in another non-lethal area. But even another arrow to the shoulder would kill him who only had eighty max health.
He swung himself towards the road as fast as he could, avoiding all the arrows that were being shot his way.
"How are you still so accurate under these conditions." Merlin screamed, "I know you worship Artemis, but come on."
While swinging around with desperation, one of the branches he figured was safe had immediately snapped as he reached half of his swing, causing his body to plummet towards the earth.
Before he hit the ground he wrapped his body in vines as best as he could, hoping that they would soften the blow at all, and maybe dig into the dirt to slow him down.
He wasn't sure if his actions were pointless or not, but he rolled along the forest floor for what felt like a few seconds before his body began slowing down.
He unwrapped his body and flung himself upright just in time to see Callisto in front of him with a surprised expression as she let another arrow fly.
It seemed she had realised too late who she was firing at, and the arrow was now on a direct path towards Merlin's heart.
'My first death isn't going to be getting murdered by a guild leader.' Merlin screamed in his mind as he tried pushing himself out of the way with his vines, he seemed to move a fair distance before the arrow made contact with his flesh.
The arrow flew past Merlin's side, it barely grazed him, yet it left him on only two health.
'Damn, I can't just devour raw meat or corpses on stream, can I?' He thought to himself as his body slumped to the ground. 'I need to make potions at some point.'
"Merlin!" Callisto screamed in panic as she ran over to his body.
She reached into her pouch and pulled out a small vial of pink liquid, and after uncorking the bottle, practically forced it down Merlin's throat. "Drink it, now!"
Merlin consumed the potion, and he could see his health now rapidly rising, which allowed him to calm down somewhat, as he now wouldn't die if someone so much as sneezed in his general direction.
"Hey Callisto..." Merlin groaned, "So, remember that vine ability I was going to explain to you at some point."
"I'm so sorry." She apologised several times before spamming him with excuses like: "It was so dark. I thought you were a monster. I didn't expect someone could move that fast."
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[MOD] Atlas: Wait, Callisto?
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It seemed Holly was still watching, and had found interest in the woman's name.
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[MOD] Atlas: If this place is based in Greek mythology then...
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"Atlas, no spoilers." Merlin groaned, which confused Callisto, but he told her not to worry about it. "It's sort of like talking to other travellers, but through your mind... It's hard to explain."
She seemed to have dropped it, as she was more concerned over Merlin's health. But he stood up moments later, and while Callisto tried to protest, she stopped once he showed her that his wounds had completely healed.
