Love Potion

Viperous

It could be nothing but my fight or flight reflexes that brought me to lose my brain and promptly, stupidly scramble up the nearest tree. To my fairness, it was an incredible climb, but in equal fairness, it was the most idiotic thing I could have done.

I was hot with sweat and cold with fear and the sluxfang snarled dangerously beneath me. Strings of saliva slathered from yellow fang to yellow fang - I hadn't gotten a proper look at it before, but it was just like a wolf, but slinkier, scaled, and coated in a layer of slime. It's snout was much longer, ending in flaring reptile's nostrils, and its teeth were like curling needles.

And it groped at the tree, digging its claws into the bark and drawing deep, crudded lines. For the month and a half I've been here I've had a good few of near-death experiences, but I think this one is most legitimate. I've ran into a dangerous creature, and the first thing I did was the one thing we've been instructed not to do when running into such dangerous creature.

And the sluxfang was now slithering with sinuous limbs up the tree with frightful speed, and I had my shivering stick at the ready as well as my wand to send the warning signal in a final hope, when the most unexpected thing came to pass.

"Alright, that's it!" a thick, groaty voice boomed from the tree itself. "I was just having an afternoon nap and not only does a frinxing sluxfang grabble up my face but some idiotic child too! Is a little peace and quiet in this frinxing forest so much to ask? I've been sleeping since 1982!"

I was wondering whether or how on earth the tree was talking, when it suddenly whipped its branches this way and that, as if shaking out its leafy hair, and the sluxfang ripped away from it to crump to the floor with an injured whine. I was thrown out too, and for all good grace landed on a heap of moss. Pulsating pain still gorged from the shoulder I had landed on. I sucked my teeth and squinched at the tree, to see that its trunk actually had a huge, oaky face, made from shafts of jutting bark, and its great rut of a mouth creaked and swelled to exhale hot, fruity breath that ruffled my hair. Its eyes were rugged pocks, and its nose a swelling in the wood, with two flaring holes for nostrils. The bark furrowed between its eyes to give it an angry look. I gaped.

"Don't just stare at me all day!" the tree reverberated. "Don't you have things to do? There are more interesting things in the world than a talking tree! Now, bog off, I'm trying to sleep!"

I did as it said, scrambling to my legs, not forgetting my stick. I suppose I had seen more interesting things. I held my groaning shoulder as I hobbled from the tree. I would have much preferred to sit on that mossy patch for the rest of the lesson, but for the worry of being rid of the sluxfang I made my way.

If I thought after that I'd get a little peace, I was wrong. There is never peace in a game of capture the flag. I learnt that in primary school.

I had only reached the mouth of another clearing when I was welcomed with a rushing stream of glossed blue water, crashing and burbling over rugged rocks, and a fat waterfall in the distance. This meant I was definitely in the Creepseek area of the playing field. And there was something strange about that waterfall: it was half-enclosed with a great, translucent yellow orb... that could be nothing else but a forcefield, and where else would a forcefield be but around the Creepseek flag?! One of them must have had a speciality of forcefields...

My heart thumped drolly. It was ninety percent possible I had just found their flag.

I wasn't sure whether this was a good or a bad thing. I could race for it now, but scared that some Creepseek would leap out of the boulders and hit me with a stick as soon as I did. I hid behind a tree for a moment, gnawing my nails. Me getting here was a complete fluke. Had any other Snellicary made it this far? Had a Creepseek yet spotted me, waiting for my approach to battle me? Should I race down the stream for the flag in a mad attempt to win the match, despite having no specialty or practise of fighting? Should I wait for someone more competent to help? Or was it now or never?