Replay

Nina and Manco were heading east on her wagon. It was a large box wagon made of wood reinforced with metal sheets, very heavy and sturdy. Drawn by four tall, powerful horses, the vehicle lumbered steadily forward, its six large wheels creaked as they left deep tracks on the damp ground.

In the driver's seat in front, Nina sat with the driver, a thin old man dressed in dirty rags.

Protecting the wagon were six well-armed NPC mercenaries riding on horses. Two were in front, one on each side and two covered the rear.

Manco sat in the back of the wagon between the casks of ale. He was in the incidentally appropriate disguise of Henry the random drunk.

Poking his head up from between the barrels, he saw they were approaching a bend in the road, where stood an abandoned windmill and several old houses.

"Be careful. It looks like someone's over there!" Nina shouted a warning and the wagon slowed down, as did the escort.

Manco's vision went black. People shouted, horses whinnied, arrows and spells flew. Some found their marks, eliciting painful screams, other missed, producing waves of heat, shards of ice or sprays of corrosive substances.

Something exploded out of the ground, flinging the heavy wagon up. For a split second, Manco was weightless in the air. Then the wagon fell back to the ground sideways, throwing him off of it. He felt a fragrant liquid sloshing over his face and body and realized some ale barrels had shattered around him.

"Ouch!" As he wiped his face, he realized his voice was back. Half a second later, his vision returned, the Blindness status lifted. Quickly, he glanced around to take stock of the situation.

'Pause!'

At Mahn Li's command, everything froze.

Standing up, he stepped into the 3-dimensional replay footage, which contained everything in Manco's field of vision.

The heavy wagon was on its side, four of its wheel had fallen off, the remaining two were twisted beyond use. Five or six barrels of ale had been shattered, the amber colored ale was spilling onto the ground. Poking out from under the wreckage was a thin arm, which was probably Vern's. He didn't see Nina from the current angle.

Two of the mercenaries were on the ground, each with a giant brown snake curled around them. The third mercenary was frantically trying to free her comrades. Their mouths opened in a soundless scream, confusion was evident on their faces.

"What?"

Looking closer at the 'snakes,' Mahn Li realized they were vine arms. Following the vine, Mahn Li saw a massive Strangler Vine lurking on the other side of the wagon. This plant was probably what had exploded from the ground and overturned the vehicle just a moment ago.

"An evolved Strangler Vine? How?" He asked in disbelief. The dry road clearly wasn't the natural habitat for the vine, which favored damp and musty areas. It had to be a regular vine that had multiple growth-type spells such as [Rapid Growth] and [Forced Evolution] applied to it.

"This is way, way beyond the capacity of a level 25 spellcaster!" He scratched his head. These spells were at least tier 4. That was without mentioning some spells for displacing the dirt, pacifying and hiding the large vine in such a short amount of time.

"And where are they?" He looked around the scene and only caught a glimpse of the cleric and the ranger. One was hiding behind a large boulder and the other next to a ruined wall of the old windmill. He couldn't see anyone else.

'Resume!' Having gleaned as much as he could from the frozen footage, he continued the replay.

Manco scrambled to the wagon, using it to hide from the strangler vine's view and make himself more difficult to hit. As the Strangler Vine attacked the mercenaries, he readied two vials of Alchemical Fire and began circling around the wagon for a clear shot.

Before he could use the vials, he was thrown off the ground by the barbarian's charge.

"Let's see where you can run now!" Roaring gleefully, the big guy dashed forward with his favored follow-up, Earth Stomp.

Leaping up just in time to avoid the shockwave, Manco was swatted aside and crashed into the wagon.

"Shit!" Manco cursed as he saw Saarkas approaching, her body wrapped in a magical construct in imitation of a Dire Bear. She pulled back a clawed arm, readying another attack. Simultaneously, BoneCrusha's sword slashed at Manco.

He dodged under the giant sword and closed in on the barbarian, using his large body to avoid the shaman's attacks.

Mahn Li watched as his avatar danced and weaved between the two melee fighters. Each of their blows could easily carve out a significant chunk of his HP bar, but only when they hit. And for the most part, they couldn't touch him. Their attacks, while fast and dangerous, were clumsy and predictable to him. In addition, their large sizes made them get in each other's way, and they accidentally hit each other more often than they hit him.

While Manco was tangled with BoneCrusha and Saarkas, OneShot also joined in and took shots at him from a distance.

*Thwack!*

"Fuck! Why did you hit me!" the barbarian roared as an arrow struck his shoulder.

"Sorry!" the ranger stammered a reply as he nocked another arrow.

*Thwack!*

"Stop helping or I'll tear your neck off!" the big guy shouted again as another arrow embedded itself in his leg.

Mahn Li saw Manco looking around while dodging attacks, presumably trying to find a way out. He was completely outnumbered, staying and fighting would be suicidal.

On the other side of the wagon, the giant Strangler Vine let out a loud shriek. One of its limbs fell on the ground next to him, burned to a crisp.

'So Nina's still alive!' Mahn Li muttered. His vision was still limited to what Manco could see so he couldn't see what she was up to. On this side, he could see the two vine arms had been severed and burned. However, two mercenaries were dead and the third was heavily wounded.

Manco ran back to the wagon and positioned himself next to the intact barrels. As BoneCrusha charged at him, he dodged to the side, causing the barbarian to crash into the barrels, shattering them. The ale spurt out drenching the big guy from head to toe.

Manco threw a Fireball at the barbarian. At the same time, he threw a vial of alchemical fire at Saarkas.

The spell hit BoneCrusha on his side, the flame igniting the alcoholic beverage.

"Haha!" Mahn Li chuckled and shook his head at the sight of the ale with 6% alcohol content burning like gasoline. "It's fantasy ale, what do you expect?"

At the same time, the vial hit the shaman's head and burst open, covering her in roaring green-orange flame.

As both of them shouted and rolled on the ground to try and put out the fire, he pulled out the skull wand.

[Mashland]

The ground turned to mush and the duo sunk into it. Manco stopped the spell and the ground hardened, trapping them underneath.

'This is going to last about a minute' Mahn Li thought as he watched Manco circling around the wagon and scanned the area. Nina was healing herself next to the remains of the Strangler Vine.

"You okay there?" He asked.

"I'll live," she spat. "Who are these twats?"

"Uh. Some guys with beef with me!"

"Alright," she glanced at the wrecked wagon and gritted her teeth, "Dammit. My ale! These bastards are gonna pay!"

"Just calm down! We'll get another batch later," he dissuaded her. No matter how powerful she is, he didn't want to risk her getting killed. "Can you get back to town?"

"Sure. What about you?"

"I can handle myself," he said confidently.

"Alright!" Nodding, she activated a teleportation spell and disappeared.

'Hmm, where is Morana?' Mahn Li muttered as he paused the footage and looked around.

He didn't see her anywhere. She hadn't done anything since the opening attack with the Strangler Vine. What could she be doing?

'This would be a good time to look for an exit.'

Heading west back to town was the most obvious choice. Going either north or south would take him to forest areas.

Mahn Li believed Morana's group only had about a few minutes to set up the ambush. After they learned of Nina's unusual movement, it would take them a few moments to figure out he was involved. They would then trail the wagon. After that, they would split into at least two groups. Most of the team would overtake the wagon, scout the path ahead and select an ambush point. The remaining members would keep following the wagon.

'Morana had to be in this forward group to plant the Strangler Vine.' Mahn Li thought. 'Also, I've seen BoneCrusha, Saarkas and that ranger. This means the rogue, the cleric, or both were approaching from the rear.'

'The safest way was to either the North or the South. It's a fifty-fifty chance where I would run into Morana.' He said, tapping his feet, then resumed the replay.

After a few moments of consideration, Manco dashed off the road toward the north. There were a grunt and a light tremor behind him, letting him know the two melee attackers had freed themselves.

Without looking back, he ran to the north in a zig-zag pattern. Several arrows hit him in the back, but they didn't inflict any status effects, so he ignored them.