Hell's Glitch (initial draft)

6 An Unreal Fight

Back in the game world...

Sam shivered. He was now face to face with the strange plant creature, Hardass and could see that it didn't have a real face, only hollowed out cavities for its fake eyes and mouth, like a puppet. Normally Sam found stuff like that sickeningly cool. Now though, his body was wracked with pain and his health bar was steadily draining. Now, he was under twenty percent, dangerous territory since each of Hardass' previous attacks had taken more than a third of his health. Hardass stood in place and started shaking spastically, so Sam ran. He put as much distance as he could between himself and the plant creature. Unfortunately Hardass was quick despite looking like he was made out of wood. It remained only a few paces behind him. Sam ran for a while, but saw that not only was his green stamina bar nearly depleted, but so was his health bar. He had no choice, but to stop and grab the Soulfire Flask from his hip and take a swig from it. His health shot up nearly to maximum along with his stamina. The only problem was his health bar remained yellow with the red POISONED message above it, and of course his health was still draining. Hardass launched another attack from behind and Sam just barely dodged it with a side roll.

"Crap, I'm really starting to feel sick."

He didn't know if it was because of the poison or the rolling. He didn't like how realistic this game felt. Why would anyone want to feel pain like this, he wondered. He approached Hardass again to attack, but noticed that it was already moving towards him. It had good recovery (freedom to move) after most of its attacks. The only one that left any sort of opening was the spinning attack, but Sam's weapon has too short to take advantage of it.

Maybe that long range piercing thing it did on me has a long recovery too. And with it being a straightforward linear attack, I should be able to avoid it and counterattack easily enough.

That was easier said than done and Sam was still sure that he wouldn't have enough time to Backstab the creature again. He blamed his lack of offensive options on his starting weapon. The Dagger had no reach at all and now Sam saw that it did no real damage with normal slices and stabs. All its power seemed to come from critical strikes. That last Backstab had netted him about ten times normal damage since Hardass was currently near half health. His other two strikes hadn't even done a decent fraction of damage to the creature.

"There's only one way. I have to do it!"

He ran straight at Hardass and dodged to the side. His roll took him much further than he expected, but Hardass was already protecting its back by moving away from Sam. It was quick and smart enough to know not to expose its weakness a second time. Sam slashed at its side for a small pittance. It attacked and Sam rolled again to the same side and struck it again. Hardass' back was again close, but just out of range. Sensing danger, Hardass prepared its spinning attack again and Sam was forced to roll twice to the left to get out of its range. The attack did take as much recovery time as Sam had predicted and he was also right about not being able to close the gap between himself and its back. He couldn't even get a good slash in before it was ready to attack again. All that and Sam's health was already down to seventy-five percent again thanks to the poisoning.

He then stood at mid-range and waited for the creature to attack again. It went with the long piercing attack. Mid-range was definitely too far so Sam closed in the gap and instead of attacking, he stopped and waited for Hardass to attack. Hardass lifted its right hand and struck down at Sam with its most straightforward attack so far. Sam used his Deflector and pushed its whip-like arms and razor claws towards the sky. Hardass staggered backwards a little and left its pulsating heart exposed. Sam took one step forward and thrust his blade into the dark blue heart. An echoed drum beat could be heard in his ear along with the sound of a knife slicing through flesh, sounds of a successful Parry and Opening Blow. Hardass wilted down and its wood splintered and cracked as Sam kicked it from his knife. Some strange glow from its body had enveloped Sam in a ghostly white mist. Sam's soul count popped up in the lower right corner and he saw it increase from zero to four hundred.