Come close, fellow Maplers and I shall tell you a tale, one full of adventure and excitement, one that involves hunting the “Evil Witch of the East” as I’d like to call her. Here is my tale:

One day, while at Lith Harbor, I stumbled upon Jane, the kind woman in a bunny outfit who I had met many seasons ago, greeted me with a smile. She proclaimed that since she wasn’t able to leave the watch of her father, she was going to become an alchemist. Naturally, I inquired of her on what that was. She explained that alchemists were able to take something simple and make it into something wondrous. She said that if I got her Medicine with Weird Vibes, the frog of Malady and a Pure Water, she’d give me the end result.

I had the water with no problem; being a Cleric, dehydration was a common problem that had to be dealt with or you were useless until your body got some rest. So, a fellow Cleric friend of mine who went to sleep once told me about finding Medicine with Weird Vibes as well as the frogs. As much as I hated travelling, this one would take some cab money. Suddenly, I got a message from my Maple Phone saying that one of my friends, an assassin named Hazo had just woken up. I gave him a small mental message, asking if he was busy with anything. He responded with “not really” and went off to kill Golems with some of his friends.

As a Cleric, I realized that getting the Medicine wouldn’t be too hard; some purifying blasts of Healing would be sure to purge the undead life out of those ghosts that invaded the subways of Kerning City. The real challenge lay in killing Malady. Two seasons ago, with the recklessness of youth, I had ventured out after being lost in the forests of my home town, Ellinia. After going past ‘monkeys with halos’ (which I later found out that they were Zombie Lupins), I had ended up in an area only known as the ‘Forest of Evil’. Despite its ominous name, it was quite the bright place, with platforms built long ago, when the world was peaceful.

Fearing nothing at the time, I moved from platform to platform, noting how sturdy they were even after all of this time. “Stump’s Firewood must be quite sturdy…”, I thought, when I heard a flapping of robes. Could it be another player? I turned around and saw no one. Shrugging it off, I continued to move slowly, ignoring the flapping of robes that I heard. Then after a few more steps, I heard it again, this time, a bit closer. I turned around, but the presence was gone. As I turned back around, there it was…floating on a broom with black robes and a horrid, gnarled face, covered in warts…the dreaded evil in the Forest!

Words could not describe this dreaded evil that hovered before me, however, a look of widened eyes that stared blankly at the menace before me. Surely, my reckless indignation with a mastered Magic Claw would cost me dearly this day. I began to back away, moving as fast as I can. Before I could get to the exit, another had appeared in front of me. My eyes had barely returned to their serene green before they were blank once more.

I had to get out of there, I thought. Quickly checking my pouch for a scroll…any scroll would have done. There were none, no getting out of this one. Realizing that the end was near, I concentrated and formed a barrier around myself to reduce damage as a small fairy sprinkled it all over my body. I focused myself and casted Magic Claw as some hit, but most missed. One had hit me and I saw my vision fading, slowly dropping to the floor as they circled. My eyes were still open as I saw them circle around like vultures, screeching in victory. There was darkness, and then, I could see no more.

Somehow, I had found myself in Ellinia again. I gently got up and shook my head groggily, drinking an Orange Potion to make the headache of recovering from the fall a bit easier. From that day forward, I did my best to exercise caution no matter what happened. I swore to get those monsters back someday, no matter what means I had to achieve to reach that goal.

But now, things were different. I wasn’t a lowly mage no longer, but a Cleric determined to make the undead suffer beneath my feet and the dark monsters to hide in fear. Aside from a Maxed Heal, I really didn’t have much to tackle the Maladies with. I gave Hazo a call and asked for his help. After a moment of silence, he responded that he would be there in a moment. No sooner than I had closed the phone, there he was behind me. We shook hands and smiled, heading along the way. I hadn’t seen him for a while, since was always in the frigid, yet heavenly land of Ossyria, a place that I seldom went to.

He asked me how was life being a Cleric and all. I responded that it was decent and that money was alright. He smiled and responded that things would get better. We passed the first two areas before returning here. It was still the same with the occasional Malady flying below. “I’ll back you up with heal and provide support with Magic Claw” I said to Hazo as a calm wind flowed around us. For some reason, I felt lighter and it was almost as if I had wheels on my feet. I jumped slightly in the air, seeing Hazo below me briefly before coming back down lightly. “As long as we can move fast, these witches should be no problem.” Hazo said before jumping down, launching a flurry of Icicles at a Malady. I jumped down and watched as it fell to the floor, a frog in a bottle escaping from its robe.

I carefully went over and picked it up, quickly pocketing it as a few more Maladies showed up. We quickly got to work on eliminating them. Unlike the past, I wasn’t missing as much, but my Magic Claw wasn’t as good as the sheer power of the thrown Icicle. Suddenly, Hazo was hit and fell down below. I jumped after him, landing at the bottom to focus my energy and healed him before crawling through the hollow tree trunks to fight the Maladies that had pushed him off of the platform. There were many of them and all hope seemed lost. Suddenly, even more piled on, making the situation seem uncertain…

About 20 minutes later, we had calmly walked out of there with the experimental frogs, a piece of Gold in hand and a Kismet, which I found out was an archer robe. He then went off to sell the robe, saying that I could keep the piece of Gold. With that done, I found a place to rest up and closed my eyes for sleep.