Chapter 40: Protections
The man was a rogue, probably.
There were a lot of different builds, but they fell into a few general categories. Ranged fighters used bows or things they could throw. To beat them, Tulland knew, monsters would rush in faster than the ranged fighters could shoot them down. Heavily armored classes like Necia could take just about anything in a one-on-one close quarters fight, but could be out-paced, out-numbered, or out-ranged.
Rogues were the middle ground between the two. Some rogues replaced the loss of ranged attacks with stealth, and all of them had a heavy emphasis on speed. They survived by hitting hard and fast, ending things before their opponents could react and fighting in evasive, sneaky ways when that failed.
Tulland didn’t have to consciously think about all these things, since it was reflexive knowledge he possessed just by reading books and talking to people with a good grasp of the lore. That was a lucky thing because there simply wasn’t time to think at the moment.
He swayed back out of the range of the man’s daggers, activating all of his vines at once and letting them shoot forward. As leveled as the briars were, they probably wouldn’t provide much defense against the rogue’s glinting weapons. It seemed like a better option for Tulland to go on the offensive instead of waiting to see whether the rogue would penetrate through gaps in the armor or shred the briars entirely.
It worked in a sense. The rogue had been on a hard collision course for Tulland’s neck, but pulled back fast when he saw the briars move. Unfortunately, his dodging ability was far more than the briars could compensate for. The man landed a good foot away from the briars, which continued reaching for him until Tulland gave them the order to stop. It seemed better to have him not know what they could do and to maybe assume the briars couldn’t attack again.
Because without a ruse, there’s no way I’m hitting this guy. He’s just too fast.
“Nice trick, that.” The rogue regarded the vines with disdain. “I didn’t expect them to move on their own like that. If you had anything like a real class, that might have worked too.”
“Still might.” Tulland tried to bluff. “Plenty more where that came from.”