The Cursed RPG Book 1: The Curse
Chapter 3

I woke up with the vines of the bed curled around me. They let go of me as I sat up. I finally took in my surrondings. Not much different than the rest of the Shack. There were vines everywhere with small white flowers. A vine wrapped around my wrist like a cuff an snapped off the rest of the vine. It grew a bloom that turned into a bright rainbow-colored flower.

+1 Rainbow Vine

Level 1 Legendary Bracer

Stats

120 armor

+ 50 life

+ 10 damage

+ 1 speed

+ 50 mana

Nature wizard only

"Hey, cool," Jac said. "You found a legendary bracer. It only shows itself to nature wizards."

"Already?" I turned my wrist, looking down at the vine.

I checked my stats.

Character Stats

Name: Zelia

Level: 2

Experience: 20/200

Health: 100

Damage: 1-10

Speed: 2

Mana: 100/100

Kingdom: Gateway

Class: Nature Wizard

"Pretty good for a level 2 bracer." I smile down at it.

Jac nodded. "Legendaries are pretty good."

"I wonder why," I say sarcastically.

"Ok, no reason to be sarcastic," Jac said, holding up his hands.

I roll my eyes.

I'm thirteen, I mean, what do you expect from me?

Jac woke up Derec and Evra before we went downstairs. We grabbed Serina - not literally - and walked out of the Shack.

We walked torwards the entrance but a tree stopped me.

That one was literally.

The branches weaved around me, encasing me in a wooden forcefield that kept everything out. The leaves hid me from sight, so much to where the others were calling for me.

I willed the branches to let me go and they did.

Are wizards slightly over-powered?

Nah. They're a lot over-powered.

Oh well.

I ran up to the them and we walked out of Gateway. When we walked out, there was a ravine lining the kingdom with a bridge across it. There were trees everywhere and vines hung down from them. We were standing on a dirt path that lead further into the trees.

We began walking down the path before a few skeltons showed up. Not that it really mattered Jac and Serina being higher level. We barely even fought. Evra just kinda rolled her eyes as Jac did mist of the fighting. I cast, what, one spell?

The next time we had to fight anyone it was a player from Flared. Horrible kingdom name, but whatever. I checked her stats.

Character Stats

Name: Vennia

Level: 30

Experience: 2000/3000

Health: 350

Damage: 10-25

Speed: 9

Mana: N/A

Kingdom: Flared

Class: Archer

Eh, not bad, but slightly worse than Jac's.

She shot a multishot skill almost immediately, only hitting me, Derec, and Evra.

Oh, yeah, sure. Hit the lowbies, why not?

-25 HP

75 HP remaining

Oh sh-

Sure, do the highest damage skill, too. Wonderful.

Oh, I'm sarcastic.

In case no one noticed.

She didn't shoot it again, probably had a cooldown or something. Ohhh, totally forhot to show my skills.

I opened my stats and went to the skills tab.

Character Skills

1. Vine throw

Shoots a vine at the enemy, dealing damage for as long as cast. No mana cost, regenerates 1 mana per second.

2. Leaf Tornado

Summon a uncontrollable tornado that damages enemies and throws debris at neatby enemies for minimum damage. 10 mana cost per tornado cast, up to 3 tornados can be cast.

3. Locked

4. Locked

5. Locked

Passive:

1. Locked

2. Locked

3. Locked

4. Locked

5. Locked

Anyways, I cast a Leaf Tornado, hoping it would hit Vennia. The archer easily dodged the slowly moving tornado, sjooting an arrow up into the sky as she did. It went straight through a cloud, raining multiple smaller artows on us.

-10 HP

65 HP remaining

Sadly, DPS skill sooo....

-2 HP

63 HP remaining

-2 HP

61 HP remaining

Yeah. I darted out of it after that. Vennia, who was standing directly under it by the way, was unfazed.

Jac tried fighting her. But without ranged skills, he couldn't get a hit on the quick archer. God, she was fast.

Like really fast.

Like almost-max-speed fast.

Anyways I cast Vine Throw directly at her but when I cast it she was already gone.

Wow, ok.

She still had full life.

Serina cast a spell which obviously healed us because Derec was low and I got the message:

+50 HP

Cool, that actually works really well for the low level characters... Nah, I like lowbies better.

Can't say I didn't try it.

Derec swung his sword at Vennia but she dodged it easily. Evra cast a Fireball that barely hit Vennia's cloak, doing 1 HP of damage.

Wow. Good job, Evra. 1 HP, yay...

See? I'm not sarcastic.

Anyways...

The Fireball distracted Vennia enough while Jac managed to hit her with obviously his best skill - it made his sword catch fire as he jumped up into the air and crashed down on Vennia, would not want to be his enemy, just sayin'- doing 25 HP of damage and 2 HP over time. After a few seconds, she had only 318 HP left... Only.

Better than before, though, so I'll take it.

Derec slashed her with his sword and I fought while counting down her HP at the same time. 317, 310, 300...

We fought until she was at 50 HP. "Wait!" She said breathlessly.

I gave Derec and Jac a look of surprise as they hesitated, casting uneasy glaces at each other. I mean really. What the fu-? JUST KILL HER I HAVE 1 HP LEFT! I thought.

Derec apparently hadn't unlocked a healing spell and Serina's had a long cooldown. I tapped my foot impatiently until Evra cast me an angry glance like, Control yourself! I know she's bad but come on! Think of what would gappen to her if she died!

Which, once I thought about it, I guessed she was right. If she died, she would apparently be stuck here forever. And as a named? Not fun to be killed all the time, I bet. But I don't deserve that either so shut the FUCK up Evra's weird angry glance!

I sighed and stopped tapping my foot. Vennia was holding her arm as if it was bleeding or something but it wasn't. This is rated everyone for a reason!

I bit my lip, trying to hold back a really not-good thing to say. Jac looked at Derec but Derec just gave him a shocked look back and shrugged, as if Jac had been asking him what to do. But at the same time, he seemed like he knew what be wanted to do.

Hopefully kill her.

They weren't going to kill her were they.

Red flags everywhere, just kill her!

Yeah, they didn't kill her. Derec half-reluctantly reached out his hand and she hesitated before taking it as she helped her up. I shook my head before tapping my foot again.

"What?" Derec said impatiently. I knew he didn't actually mean it though, which aggravated me more. I rolled my eyes and looked away, still listening to the conversation.

Vennia was breathing heavily. She was overreacting so bad. I wasn't out of breath, or in pain, or anything. Yeah... Totally...

Ahem. Anyways.

Vennia was quiet for a while before saying. "Don't kill me."

"Why shouldn't we?" I snapped. "You almost killed Derec, almost killed me, almost killed Evra, attacked us first, and nit only that but you're from the kingdom that keeps attacking Gateway."

"Zelia..." Evra warned.

"I thought you were going to kill me!" Vennia said in a shocked tone.

I rolled my eyes, turning back to look at her. "Yeah, right. If that were true, you would've been defensive not offensive. Or you would've run away or something because you very well could've done that."

"Fine, I did think you were going to attack me, though. I figured if I acted first I could still have the element of surprise."

"Yeah, sure."

"Zelia, stop," Evra commanded. Jac turned to me and nodded in agreement with Evra.

I growled in frustration, not literally. "She just attacked us and you're on her side?"

Derec shrugged and Serina stayed out of it. Jac and Evra just stared at each other.

"Well we aren't on yours," Evra finally said. "So, obviously yes."

I felt so embarrassed in that moment. Like there were millions of people all staring at me. But I couldn't speak. I couldn't say a songle retort or arguement. I couldn't even say something good. Like "sorry" or "you win". I was just frozen there. In both embarrassment and fear. Embarrassed that I seemed to be the mean one, the one no one liked, who did everything wrong. And afraid that Vennia would attack, 50 HP or not, afraid that I would die, or worse, one of my siblings, Evra or Derec. Or one of my friends, Serina or Jac. Not that they were low of health. But I worry. I'm sarcastic and I'm brave and I'm one to state my opinion on the outside. But inside I worry. I'm afraid. I torture myself with anxiety and my extremely loyalty to even my fake friend, who's bullied me my whole life. That need to protect everyone I care about.

And that's why I'm afraid.

I'm afraid that everything I do, everything I say... I'm afraid I'm nothing.

And I don't want to be.

I started to cry. I turned away and raced off into the forest, away from my family, friends and Vennia.

I was unaware of the extreme dangers I would face.