Vina sat in one of the gardens of the Halos Family Home with her armor on. Her guards had wanted to be arrayed all around her, but she had requested they move slightly, so she could see the beauty of the garden in front of her. She had curled up in one of the chairs beside a nice pond filled with the strangest water creatures she had ever seen.
After what would hopefully be a quick meeting, she would be leaving the city. She was dreading that meeting however and tried desperately to distract herself with the book in her hand. Lost Creatures: The Kaliter was a short read, and Vina was trying to draw as much from it as she could before her meeting.
The Kaliter is a mostly insectoid creature that stands at 8 feet in height when standing on its legs. When traveling quickly, they are known to revert to running on all six of their limbs. Their long armored tails are used for balance as well as a weapon when they are irritated. The creature’s gender is ambiguous from external examination, but may be detected from their voice.
Kaliters are self aware and incredibly intelligent. They are capable of speaking multiple languages, are avid builders, and know advanced engineering techniques that exceed our own current knowledge. Although attempts to contact them have been met with hostility, it is known that they keep a historical record of their society in their cities.
Vina flipped through the book real fast to read the chapter examining the physical body of the Kaliter again.
The Kaliter scales are perhaps the most interesting part of the findings we have made to date. It seems they have the ability to adapt to virtually any negative experience we could think of to test. On a living Kaliter, this adaptability seems to be much faster which makes them so difficult to combat in real time. However, when living, their scales lose resistance to previous negative exposures after being exposed to new ones. When the scales are removed and formed into armor, the resistances are never lost and only accumulate, albeit at a much slower rate.
Vina shivered at those words. It felt very wrong to be wearing the scales of a sentient creature. She ran a hand down the scales of the armor, feeling the warmth it now had that came from her own body. She tried to reassure herself that her mother must have had a good reason to give her this armor.
She was about to switch to another page when Blood Sense alerted her to the start of her meeting. She placed her book down on the table and stood to greet her visitor. “Hello Nori. It’s good to see you.”
Norimor looked frazzled as if she had not gotten enough sleep. Nori looked at her with a discerning eye, “Asharaina.”
Vina made a clicking noise with her tongue, took a deep breath, and said, “Yes. It is quite a change. We’re all still adjusting. Please just call me Vina though.” She sat back down with an exaggerated flop.
Norimor took a deep breath and sat down across from her, “I should have known this would happen.”
Vina gave her a puzzled look, “How could any of us know what would happen?”
Norimor smirked, “You are a traveler and have a unique class. With that combination of course you would have the authority to claim an Asharaina title.” She gestured around with her hands, “Besides, it’s this place too. It changes people. Lord Hakim changes people. He changed me as well.”
Remembering Nori’s earlier words, Vina couldn’t help but ask, albeit gently, “What did happen the last time you were here?”
Nori looked at her for a moment and then up at the guards. She looked away and into the garden, “The Twelve sent me to kill Lord Halos and recover his aspect. I didn’t know it was a suicide mission, but maybe they didn’t know either. The City of Halos is protected by the Aspect of Retribution. Hurting someone here results in hurting yourself. When I killed him, his death killed me. Lord Hakim is bonded with The Aspect of Peace, and apparently it wouldn’t tolerate his death killing me. Somehow we were restored. Neither of us really knows how it happened.”
Nori rubbed her hands together, “Before I died, the Aspect of Retribution forced me to experience his and my own death at the same time over and over again. It was…”, she took a shaking breath, “... horrible, but The Aspect of Peace saved me.”
“I had no idea”, Vina whispered softly.
Nori swallowed back her emotions. “I work to save Trina now. Her aspect saved my life and I’ll do my best to save her. Are you going to give your art to The Twelve?”
Vina softly shook her head. “I will no longer be doing anything for The Twelve.”
Nori took a weary sigh. “Vina, they will come for you. You’ve set too many things in motion that they don’t understand. The last seven hundred years have been quiet compared to the time since you’ve arrived. Between the birth of the blood runes skill, a new masterpiece creation, the naming of a third asharaina, the death of one of the twelve, and the permanent disablement of portals… it’s just too much. They’ll want to assert control back over the situation. They’ll want to own you if not outright kill you.”
Vina tried to put on a reassuring smile, “I know. Lord Hakim has helped me understand and I’ll do my best to be prepared. I did not hear, though, that there were two other asharaina. Who are they?” Vina asked, suddenly curious.
Nori smirked, “I see Hakim has a lot more help to provide you still. The two asharaina are the Asharaina of the Eight Paths and the Asharaina of Command.”
Vina furrowed her eyebrows, “Do they have names?”
“Of course they do, but they were smart enough to not make a masterpiece and expose themselves to the entire world all at once. They’ve been gaining a following of dedicated followers in various cities around the world. I don’t know what their abilities are, but you are welcome to guess what the eight paths are or exactly how scary it is to be commanded”, Nori said. “Then again, your blood stuff is pretty terrifying too. I can only imagine what you can do now with that title.”
Vina couldn’t help but chuckle. She could tell Norimor was fishing for information. Instead, she took a breath to steady herself. She had actually prepared this meeting for a different topic and she tried now to switch to it. “The twelve will be coming for you too, Nori. I’d like you to be prepared. You once told me Ebba had received the Aspect of Truth, but not your Aspect of the Hidden. Is it possible she received your other Aspects?”
Nori cocked a suspicious eyebrow at her, “It’s very likely she received my fake aspects of might and life. Why?”
Vina reached into her backpack and retrieved the two aspects she had received when Haco looted Ebba’s body. She held them out in front of Nori and watched her face carefully.
Nori’s eyes opened wide in shock and they faded back to white once more, “They’re mine... but how…?”
Vina had prepared herself for this moment. She knew she would confess her success to Nori today. “I killed Ebba. Haco caught me and forced me into service to the twelve.”
Vina couldn’t tell where Nori looked with her eyes still white, but the shape of her eyelids showed her surprise and maybe a sadness she did not expect. “When I met you… that shouldn’t have been possible… your skills… and yet…”, Nori’s voice trailed off as her head angled down toward the Aspects still in Vina’s hand.
Vina smiled, “There was certainly quite a bit of luck involved. Someday the story will be common knowledge. The aspects are yours though, Nori. Do you want them?”
Nori reached out and took the Aspect of Might from Vina’s hand. It immediately slid across her hand and up her arm like a living thing. It vanished beneath her sleeve. Nori looked at the Aspect of Life, still in Vina’s hand, for a long time.
“You can have it if you want”, Vina prompted gently.
Nori closed her eyes and when she opened them, they had returned to their normal appearance once more, “No. I don’t want to live forever anymore. I’ve already survived my bonding sickness. If you destroy it, I’ll be freed from it entirely. I will be able to bond with a different aspect. Please, destroy it for me.”
Vina didn’t hesitate. She placed the stone under her boot and crushed it. Then surprisingly, her blood sense activated for a moment, but immediately faded. She looked down, but didn’t see anything.
Quest Updated: Destroy the Fakes. Progress 3/5
She looked back at Nori and took a moment for herself. Her scarlet eyes laid bare many of Norimor’s secrets, and she could see the dark hole in her chest had begun to close. The Aspect of the Hidden was still missing from Norimor, but the wound had started to heal. Vina smiled in satisfaction.
“Why would you help me?” Nori asked. “You said you don’t trust me.”
“That has not changed. I still don’t trust you with my safety. I also don’t want to work with you anymore. But maybe you can still do some good toward killing The Twelve on your own”, Vina said.
Norimor looked down and was quiet for a moment. She nodded her head slowly and looked back up. “The Aspect of Memory?” she asked after a moment of silence.
“No”, Vina said firmly.
“The Twelve did not believe our cover story about Valanire. I won’t be able to go back to them without the aspect or your masterpiece”, Nori said simply.
Vina could tell Nori said it plainly and without an attempt to convince her to change her mind. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. She felt no guilt over the dilemma Nori now found herself in. Nori was a victim of her own decisions, and Vina felt no responsibility to fix them for her. “What will you do?” Vina asked.
“Lord Hakim will allow me to stay if I want, but his attendants and staff have made it clear I am not welcome here. I’ll have to return to my other organization, but I hear the portal rings are not working. Something about red glowing runes. Can you get me out of the city?” Nori asked with a slight smile
Vina couldn’t help but smile back. “I think they’ll allow me to make an exception for you.”
~~~
“Ugh. I forgot it was going to be made of blood”, Nori groaned as she stood in front of the portal ring.
“Yeah. That’s easy to do. I do recommend you get used to it though. I think this might become a common thing before long”, Vina suggested.
Nori gave her a miserable look, “You’re going to convert all of the portal rings to blood runes aren’t you?”
Vina grinned and almost hissed her answer, “Yes.”
Nori shook her head and smirked, “Too much, too soon. The twelve are going to hate you for it. Take care of yourself, Asharaina. Even if you don’t feel the same, I really do hope to see you again.” She took a deep breath, held her head down, and ran into the portal. Vina heard a sigh of relief from one of her guards behind her and she couldn’t help but laugh. No doubt they were happy to have their lord safe from a possible assassin once more.
She called her blood back out from the portal after a moment, and began to dial in a new set of coordinates. The quest marker in her vision was showing where her father’s grave was, but it was some twelve hundred miles away. Eilin, from the library, had been kind enough to give her a book with every portal ring address known to The Halos Family. There were quite a few, but most cities had no more than two or three in their possession. The fact Halos had as many as it did was surprising. She may have been over promising when she said she would convert them all, but at least she could convert any that she personally visited.
After she had dialed in Ctomina, the portal activated. She turned to her guard retinue, “I’d just like to remind you all that Lord Halos declared that I am not a prisoner here. Also what I’m about to do, none of you could have stopped me even if you tried. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” She gave them a wink and stepped through.
On the other side she stumbled out into a dark and foggy morning in the middle of a thick blue moss covered forest. All around her were dilapidated houses that had long since been abandoned. She looked in interest at one tavern that had its entire front wall completely obliterated. She checked the portal ring behind her and saw it had fallen over slightly. She converted it to blood runes real fast and then propped it up before walking toward the quest marker.
As she walked she began to see the scope of damage to the town. Every building had been ripped apart as if an army had rampaged through it. Her experiences at Valanire were repeating in her mind, but somehow this was different. This town was not pristine; it was shredded. Not a single building was left untouched by whatever had destroyed this place. When she reached the outskirts of the town, she saw a large open grassland area. However, before she left town, she could see a sign had been erected at the entrance.
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Darkness has come. Die in the light.
Vina stared at the warning, recalling Haco's words from what felt like a long time ago. She tried to push it out of her mind and continued toward the quest marker outside of town. She was not far from it, and she could tell it was guiding her toward a graveyard. She idly recognized it had been the second she had visited in a matter of days. She whipped around when a man’s voice called out to her. “I can’t let you keep doing that, Vina.”
She saw a man of average height who appeared to be in his young 20s. His black hair was long, cut to the length of his chin just like her own. He wore a simple black tunic with a leather belt that held up his trousers. He was so far away, her blood sense could not have picked up on him. She could barely see his mouth move when he spoke again. “You can’t keep breaking MY portals”, his voice boomed across the field between them.
“How is he doing that…”, she wondered to herself softly. “They’re not your portals. They’re my mother’s and I’m reclaiming them for my family”, she yelled back. Her voice didn’t carry nearly as much as his. He began to walk toward her and she did the same.
Vina activated her Listen and Observe skills at the same time. She focused all of her attention on the man to limit the nauseating effects of moving with the skills active. She patiently waited to see if the man would respond.
“When I bonded with the Aspect of Travel, they came under my possession. You have no further claim”, he bellowed.
Vina felt her anger flare at the mention of her mother’s aspect, but at the same time her Listen skill and Observe skills caught what he was doing. “He’s using a skill”, she thought. She took a deep breath and she felt her Mastery attribute guide her actions.
“Did you kill my mother?” Her voice boomed across the field and the man stopped for a moment.
You have learned a skill on the first try. New Skill Learned: Commanding Voice. Commanding Voice is an active skill and does not gain levels. Commanding Voice’s effectiveness is dependent on your charisma. Quest Updated: Learn Skills 3 39/75
The man resumed walking without response and soon they stood before each other. Vina bubbled with rage, but the man appeared genuinely puzzled. “That was the Commanding Voice skill. Did you just learn that now from me? That should be impossible.”
“Did you kill my mother?” Vina repeated, nearly in a growl, but without Commanding Voice active. This close, she could tell how vibrant the man’s blood was, and she was not impressed. While certainly more vibrant than her own, it paled in comparison to Ebba and Haco. Then again, everyone paled in comparison to Haco.
The man furrowed his brow as he considered her, but he soon regained his composure. “The Shaper told me you were a beginner. An amateur adventurer needing to be cleaned up after breaking a few portal rings. They were clearly wrong. A few weeks ago you groveled at Haco’s feet for survival, and now… well now you are an Asharaina. Do they know how dangerous you are?”
“Ebba knows exactly how dangerous I actually am”, Vina said. Her scarlet eyes searched the man’s body for anything he wanted to keep hidden. She saw a mixture belt wrapped around his waist beneath his tunic and three aspects bonded to his person, just like Ebba. She could not tell which aspects they were, however. For now, she could only assume he had Priya’s Aspect of Travel. There was something else that kept flashing across his body, but it moved and her skill couldn’t track it.
The man looked at her with new appreciation, “It was actually you…”, his voice trailed off and he looked away before speaking again, “Haco lied then. You didn’t grovel at her feet either.”
“No. I was just biding my time until I could get away. Who are you?” Vina asked.
“At least they got that part right. You know so little of us. I am Faer, the eighth of the twelve.” He said in a tone of arrogance. His head snapped back as he looked at her, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to take you back to The Twelve.”
Vina looked unimpressed, “Yeah. I figured that part out already. How are you going to do that? Where are your weapons? You don’t even have armor on. What do you do for the twelve?”
Faer gave her a wounded look. “I… well… I manage the portal ring network. I move cargo and people around all over the world in the war against The Darkness. It’s an important job. But…” He paused for a moment as he pressed his hands together in a pleading manner. “.. you started breaking pieces off of the network I use to keep us all alive. I mean, up to this point you’ve broken…” He gained the look of someone checking a window for a moment, “.. eleven of them. I’ll never get those repaired.”
Vina nodded in understanding, “Every portal ring I saw was created by my mother. You don't know how to produce them any more, do you?”
Faer cleared his throat, “I’m still working on it.”
Vina had a thought suddenly. “If you have the Aspect of Travel, why couldn’t you just deny my portal activation? You should just keep me stranded somewhere. Shouldn’t a true aspect give some control over travel across the system?”
Faer looked away as if disinterested.
Vina laughed at his childish behavior, “Oh! You can’t. Can you?”
“Fine. No I can’t. Trina’s system does automatic travel approvals. I can’t control it. Regardless, you travel using blood to power the portal rings. I only knew you were here because I saw the portal ring was disabled. I can only track travel that uses divinity. Tracking travel via blood will be a huge problem if the entire network gets converted to blood runes.”
Vina shook her head in disbelief, “So you’re also trying to stop me so you can continue to force people to use divinity to travel. When anyone can activate a portal with their own blood, no one has to answer to you or The Watch. You have quite a control problem, Faer.”
Faer glared at her and began to walk around her like some kind of wolf, “I am not trying to stop you, Vina. I am going to stop you.”
“Today, I am unstoppable”, Vina said flatly. “Did you kill my mother?”
Faer shook his head, “No. I received The Aspect of Travel from my predecessor. I don’t know what happened to your mother.”
Vina sighed heavily, disappointed at still getting no answers about her mother. “Well, that’s good news for you Faer. I don’t have to kill you then. I want you to know that you can still leave here. I have my own purposes now and they are not specifically in conflict with The Twelve’s. I will continue to convert the portal rings as I see necessary, but in less than two weeks time my masterpiece will be unveiled. Activating portals with blood will soon become public knowledge. You could attend and learn for yourself how the travel network will change. I can even arrange your attendance. We don’t have to fight just because you are scared of losing control”, Vina said.
Faer finished his slow circle around her and frowned, “I’m sorry, Vina. I really am. I don’t think that is an option. Change introduces risk, and we cannot tolerate any risk at this point in the conflict with The Darkness. We’re already losing. You need to be stopped.”
In one quick motion, Faer pulled his shirt over his head and Vina saw what her eyes were trying to tell her earlier. His entire body was covered in thick black lines. As she looked, she saw them ripple and flow across his skin. Then they flared a bright blue.
“Oh my gosh…” Vina said as she realized what she saw. “You covered your body in runes?” She only had a moment to examine the rune words he had tattooed himself with before portals suddenly ripped open around Vina in a circle. Faer backed into the one behind him. Vina immediately dove between two of the portals as creatures flung themselves through. She got herself outside the portal cluster quickly.
The portals snapped shut and Vina’s Blood Sense picked up Faer’s location to her side. She looked and saw him running across the field. A portal was open behind him with another portal opened far in front of him. A string of additional portals opened on his heels. Even more creatures spewed forth from each portal, angry and confused. Vina threw blood blades out to intercept their charge until they died. Her Blood Sense activated a few more times as she felt Faer sprint across the field.
Creatures continued to pour out of the portals even after she had killed the first wave. She depended on her Blood Sense to alert her to targets that came running across the grass toward her. She trusted her ambidexterity skill to operate her offhand independently of her dominant hand as she processed the kills on either side of her body. It wasn’t perfect, however, and she had to follow up with some manual blood control when her offhand missed. The knives didn’t do a massive amount of damage however. She often had to throw multiple knives, call them back, and throw again before she could bring a creature down. Nonetheless, the creatures had no defense against her knives, and she was able to do consistent, reliable damage.
The next time Faer’s blood rang out to her, Vina launched a knife in his direction. She watched in anticipation. Just before the knife impacted him, a tattoo moved into position and covered the area. The knife impacted Faer’s tattooed runephrase, and it flashed a brilliant blue. The knife merely fell to the ground harmlessly. Faer ducked into one of his other portals faster this time though, and Vina cleaned up the rest of the creatures around her. There was a pause for a moment.
Vina activated Blood Dance and stepped onto the blood of one of the nearby creatures to recover her stamina. She knew from her experience at Valanire that aspect users needed to regenerate their divinity to continue attacks. “Is he out of divinity so quickly?” she thought. She tried to remember everything Priya had written about the Aspect of Travel.
“Uhm… it could make portals but only portals she could go through…” She looked around at all of the creature bodies. “How did he get creatures through them then?” she wondered aloud. It was only with the creation of the portal ring through the use of rune carving that others could begin to use them. She shook her head and tried to not get too bogged down on it. “It could also only make portals where Priya had physically been before.”
She couldn’t consider further though. She snapped to attention as Faer’s vibrance flew over her head. She looked up and saw a string of portals form above her, following his feet. “Can he fly?!” she gasped and looked around aggressively. But she saw that he had merely propelled himself from one portal to another through the use of momentum. He vanished into another portal before she could react. Something squeaked from the portals overhead. Then a cloud of ragged four winged creatures about the size of a small bird swarmed out of the openings. They had four bulbous eyes and a long tail that whipped around behind them. Vina thought she saw something like a proboscis attached to their heads, but she didn’t want to look too closely at their malformed bodies.
She glowered at the small targets. She had never had to fight a swarm of creatures this small. She looked down at the knife in her hand. “I need a lot of these… I need a lot of small knives.” She suddenly had a crazy idea. She pulled blood from her Blood Lake reserve and used her Asharaina title to form it into a ball. She held it overhead and activated Paint Burst. Time seemed to slow for a moment as she experienced something new.
She could feel the sphere of blood explode into countless tiny droplets, and her Blood Sense skill tried to track every single one. Before they had traveled any meaningful distance though, she activated blood blades and formed them into tiny sharp fragments. The force of the explosion was enough to numb her hand and she experienced numerous cuts on her palm. The little flying creatures had fared even worse. They fell from the sky together, their little bodies shredded by the shrapnel.
Faer had also been somewhat unlucky. He had stepped out of a portal some distance from the blast just as it went off, and his body had been peppered by the blood shrapnel. She felt a single fragment of her blood tear itself into his body where there was no tattoo. Once inside him, she immediately lost the ability to control it. She smiled, “So you’re not untouchable, Faer”, she yelled out.
“What the…” Faer yelled. He jumped back into his portal. “That was just a lucky shot…” Faer’s pained voice drifted out.
“Then send me more of your creatures. Let them do your dirty work”, Vina said. A plan was beginning to form in her mind. She was, however, putting on some bravado. Her hand was hurting her. “Okay… never hold one of those in my hand again”, Vina thought. She activated blood aid on her hand to stop the bleeding and calm the pain she was feeling. She desperately wanted to look down to see what it did, but she didn’t have time.
“Oh. I’ll send you more than that”, came Faer’s voice from one of the portals.
Four more portals opened up overhead and six more opened in a semi circle in front of her. Vina grinned, recognizing the pattern of portal placement. As the creatures emerged, she pulled more blood and lifted the orbs up and away from her body using her title ability. She activated two more blood bursts, scattering both their blood and her own across the field. She quickly used blood call on any shrapnel that headed her way and dissolved it back into her blood. She was finding the cost to be very expensive when she pulled it from her own body, but with this many creatures bleeding around her, she could create this attack basically for free.
All of the portals snapped shut, but one immediately reopened. Vina’s mobility skill activated suddenly, and it told her she needed to move or die. She pivoted on a foot to the side, and an arc of electricity shot out of one of the portals directly where she once stood. She blinked in shock. “Did I just…”, she said.
“Did you just dodge lightning?” Faer’s voice yelled out in disbelief.
“So that’s one of your other aspects”, Vina said. She glared out at the field and made a choice. She only had two more free activations of Mobility left today and she didn’t want to use them needlessly. She activated her newest skill: Blood Cloak. “If he’s anything like Ebba, his third aspect is a fake Aspect of Life”, Vina thought to herself. She thought she knew all of his aspects now, but she wouldn’t assume she was correct until it was safe to do so. “It’s time…”, she thought to herself.
Vina felt the drain of blood from her body that fueled the cloak. It unfurled around her like a wave of liquid splashing about, and it burned brightly to her Blood Sense skill. Once it had fully formed, she found she could control it easily. She wrapped it around herself and ran toward where the circle of portals had initially spawned. As expected, the portals appeared once again, but Vina did not stop. She ran past them to where she knew she had scattered her own blood and the blood of the creatures. On the other side, she activated her tracking skill and looked around.
The area was littered with the hundreds of footprints of creatures that she had already killed, but she wasn’t looking for theirs. She smiled in satisfaction when Faer's footprints were highlighted in her vision. Even more critically, she could see where he had not been.
Mobility activated once more, but she chose to not avoid the attack, so it didn’t take one of her charges. She brought the cloak up to shield the front of her body, and the lightning slammed into it. She felt a drain on the cloak’s blood charge, so she fed more into it. At this point her Blood Lake passive was starting to empty, and she would need to turn to the pendant soon if she wanted access to instantly available blood in her defense. “Use the blood around you, Vina”, she told herself.
Vina used the power given to her by her Asharaina title to move the blood of her multiple creature victims. She no longer moved blood slowly like her Blood Runes skill allowed. She swept it across the grass like a swift flowing river, but she kept it low and thin to be easy to miss. She moved several blood puddles into place and carefully monitored them with Blood Sense. Then she began to run away from the portals that could still reach her. “I can guess where you don’t have any tattoos”, Vina thought. She didn’t have to wait long until a portal opened to her side and Faer stepped out.
Just as his foot left the portal, she ordered the blood to form into a knife pointed upward. Faer seemed to see what was going to happen, but was powerless to arrest his movement. Despite controlling portals, he was still a victim of physics. His body continued forward as his own momentum thrust his foot through the knife. He screamed in pain as he fell forward, unable to recover his balance. The hand that he used to catch himself only managed to find another blood puddle that quickly formed into another knife.
New Skill Learned: Blood Trap. Quest Updated: Learn Skills 3 40/75
Vina threw two knives and immediately ran toward him at top speed, but Faer managed to create a portal beneath himself. The portal seemed to cut the blood knives from the ground, and he fell through, ungracefully. The whole clearing went silent with only a single blue portal remaining open. Vina hesitated for a moment. She knew Faer could easily escape if he wanted. “I need to keep him here…”, she thought.
She ripped her backpack off and pulled something out. “Faer! This book contains every portal ring address known to the Halos Family. If you leave now, I will visit every single one and convert them while you recover. Or, you can take it from me.”
Vina tossed the book out into the field into a puddle of blood. She tossed it exactly where she knew Faer had done the most walking. “He even flew through the damn space”, Vina thought. Like a trained hunter, she waited. The final portal died out a second later and still she did not move. Seconds turned to minutes, but finally another portal flared into light above the book. One hand reached through the portal and grabbed the book. Only then did she pounce on her prey.