“Look out!”

It’s a good thing that I was as nervous as I was, because I shouted early enough for everyone to react in time, if only barely. Cadoc, showing an uncharacteristic bit of situational awareness, quickly summoned a large square board just to our side, between us and the source of the sound.

The board was quite thin, and almost immediately there were holes in it. Something had been launched at us, some liquid that dissolved the wood like acid, leaving a yellowish smoke behind and making a great hissing noise. And a moment later, a stream of the stuff was spilling through the holes.

But by then, we were gone. We had booked it, Cadoc and Amaia going one direction, Naomi and I going another as I made sure to follow her, even then.

So, from where we stood a little further up the road, we saw what had attacked us from the sparse woods to the west.

Two black eyes like giant marbles rotated in a head unmoving, a head only slightly larger than a man’s but with inhuman mandibles constantly snapping open and shut, and rather than ears, two antennae fidgeting wildly in the air but obscured by a fine mist that hung around it. Its skin - or rather, its exoskeleton - was the color of the clay soil, broken only by blackened splotches the same shade as Amaia’s poisoned arm.

Six spindly legs held its body in the air - its fat, bloated body which ended in a point, and that point was currently up and over its head in a back-breaking position, its abdomen bent over itself, and from the point a jet of liquid was rocketing out, steam billowing from it as it exited its hell-like bowels. The monster was about a man’s height in length, and point of its weapon was in line with my eyes.

Finally it realized that we had moved, and the stream of acid stopped. The antennae twitched and shifted, and it seemed like the insectoid monster was stuck, for a moment, in indecision. That strange clicking began again, though quieter than during the initial attack.

“Fuck,” I said, seeing the melted remains of the wooden board and realizing how close I’d come to having a hole burnt through my side. Naomi said some similar expletive beside me at the same time, but I didn’t catch it.

“You know what this is?” I asked, fumbling for my slingshot.

“No!” she yelled at me. “How the hell would I know that? I’ve like, never been here, remember?”

I took my slingshot from my belt, then grabbed for my ammo. That was when I remembered I didn’t have any ammo left.

“Shit.” The last thing I want to do it fight that thing up close. Why couldn’t I have gotten a power that shoots from a distance?

My new power was a vast improvement, but it was usable at medium range, at best. I was suddenly jealous of the bug. It was able to shoot streams of burning acid at distant targets, and I was stuck with the magical equivalent of a flammable hot-glue gun.

We were at something of a standoff, the monster seemingly waiting for our next move. I considered what it should be.

The monster was covered in a thick shell, and I wasn’t sure if anything I did with my magic would get through. If I was able to completely cover it, maybe I would be able to cook its insides, but that would involve getting close enough to be melted alive myself.

I drew my drows, but wasn’t sure it would fare any better. Maybe the force of its blunt edge could crack open the carapace, but maybe not. And again, I’d be in close range.

Naomi, staff in hand beside me, was worthless. As always, I thought. Her golden dress waved in the wind behind her like it was daring the monster to attack. The dress which, I remembered, she had insisted on repairing rather than replacing, fitting a suit of that strange thin leather beneath it. She had chosen - while I was momentarily distracted - leather that was nearly the same shade as her deeply-tanned skin, such that, from a distance, she didn’t look much more chaste than she had before - though there were less holes in the dress, and she had at least agreed to wear a cloak over it, an ostentatious white piece, more like a robe, that did make her look more like a mage in conjunction with the staff, but which had a bad habit of falling down to her shoulders in a way that didn’t help our image at all. She’s doing it on purpose, I had thought.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

She’d also fished out a black and gold piece of jewelry from one of our bags. I didn’t know jewelry well enough to know the correct term, but it was similar to the collar I’d already put on her, reaching from high on her neck down to a few inches below the pit of her throat. Wearing it, you almost couldn’t see the band of nail around her throat. I didn’t mind. It would still burn her neck if it needed to.

I shook my head, clearing away these thoughts. Worthless, I concluded.

Cadoc could at least block the acid, it seemed, but only momentarily. As for actually doing damage to the thing, he was worse off than I was. I hadn’t thought about it too much recently, but Cadoc’s power was now significantly worse than mine, and seemed near useless - though it had just saved our lives, I supposed.

Amaia was no more useful here. I glanced at her, afraid to take my eyes off of the monster for more than a second.

She had her gilded sword grasped firmly in both hands. Her new outfit looked pristine, dark green clothes with a matching cloak thrown over her shoulders. Her pants were a grayish-white, and she wore long boots that came up nearly to her knees. The bottom of her shirt - or whatever you would call it - trailed a little behind her starting from her waist, which made it look like a dress. It was a surprisingly feminine choice, I had thought when she bought it, but somehow now it didn’t give that impression at all. Above the waist the green fabric was tight around her chest and arms, revealing her less-than-feminine form, made less feminine still by the metal plates she wore underneath, strapped to her arms and legs. She wore white gloves as well that matched the pants, so there was no evidence of her black poisoning.

She would be no more useful here than Cadoc - less useful, in fact, because while Cadoc could block with his wood, Amaia’s control of metal would do nothing to the insect.

I considered running. How fast could the monster move on six legs? That was option A.

Option B, we try to get a sword into a weak spot - not that I saw any. The eyes, maybe? If Amaia was holding Naomi’s staff, maybe she could swing a sword at it without getting too close. Like what she did in the dungeon. I don’t know if her range is that long, though. Damn it. We really need to get something for distance fighting.

An idea struck me. One of those obvious ideas that I always associated with Tom’s superiority, but which now only made me angry at Naomi, and not myself.

“Naomi,” I said. “Cut the fucker in half.”

She looked at me suspiciously. “You serious?”

“Just do it. We can carry you to Coernet. We’re nearly there, anyway. Make yourself useful for once.”

She stared at me for a second, and though I couldn’t say for sure, I could have sworn she was chewing on the inside of her cheek. “No,” she said.

“What?”

“No, I… no. I won’t. I don’t trust you.”

My hands balled into fists, the one shaking the drows in the air in fury. “Well you’re going to have to get over it, because if you don’t, then I have no use for you. You understand? Woosh. Up in flames. You’ll distract the bug, at least.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“You wanna bet?”

I held my free hand out in front of me, but she only stared back.

Before either of us killed the other, however, a shout rang out. I had looked away, and someone had gotten hurt - that’s what I thought. I turned back quickly, and saw what I should have expected all along.

Cadoc. Charging. Yelling.

The bug reacted quickly, shooting its acid spray once again through newly billowing steam, but Cadoc summoned a board in front of him before it reached him.

The board was disintegrated almost immediately, but Cadoc had thought ahead - or thought back, rather, to the worm-drakes in the dungeon. He used a similar trick - while summoning a board in front of him to block, he summoned another just before the creature’s eyes.

It bought him only a second, but a second was all he needed, as the spray stopped. He wasn’t within striking range yet, but he was getting closer.

The reason it had only bought him a second was because the monster was more adaptable that we could have assumed. It didn’t even bother melting the board in front of it. Instead, its eyes suddenly shot up off of its beetle-like body with a noise like breaking bones and torn skin, and then its eyes were on newly born stalks, peering over the board.

One eye turned to Cadoc, but the other noticed Amaia flanking from the other side. It decided to shoot acid at Cadoc, maybe thinking that he was the greater threat. The wrong choice.

Amaia was now nearly upon the monster. Unlike Cadoc’s wild yells, Amaia ran silently, but with purpose, sword held at her side.

Just before she reached the monster, however, another change occurred.

Next to the point from which the acid was rocketing towards Cadoc - who had stopped making any progress, instead having to focus on summoning boards and dodging sideways to avoid the acid - next to the acid point, the exoskeleton cracked and broke away and a new point formed, this one like the tip of a spear.

I tried to yell some sort of warning, but I couldn’t tell if I had or not. I couldn’t hear anything. I felt that I should run towards Amaia, but I’d never get there in time. It was the same as when Naomi’s companions had died, and I could do nothing but watch - and those were only strangers. This was my friend.

The spear point launched itself from the monster’s body. Amaia was mid-swing, her blade about to come down on the stalks of the eyes. She didn’t see it, I thought in horror. She didn’t see it. And it’s too late now.

But she had, and it wasn’t. At the last minute before the projectile impaled her, her arm flew up in a flash, quicker than anyone’s arm should be able to move, and the fired stinger ricocheted impotently off of the metal plate on her forearm. And she hadn’t even stopped her swing, only let go with one hand. With her other hand she completed the arc, lobbing off both eyes at once.

The monster made a noise like a scream opening its mouth wide, mandibles shutting and opening wildly, but it got no chance for a counterattack. Cadoc was there, and with a final yell he stabbed his new blade into the open maw of the monster. He must have struck something important, because within moments, it was dead.

Somewhere along the way I had started running towards them - I could hardly remember when - and it seemed Naomi had come, too. So shortly after the monster’s hard carapace hit the ground with a thud, we were there.

Amaia glanced at us as we approached. “You two could have helped, you know.”

I smiled. And before Naomi could stammer out a response, Cadoc interrupted.

“No need,” he said, drawing his sword out from the monster’s corpse. “I could have done it myself, if I needed to.”

“That isn’t true,” Amaia said.

“Now is not the time to argue, friends,” Cadoc said. He was beaming. “Now is the time to test out my new magic.”