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Initiate Daphne - Level UP!

Diet

Detritivore, Herbivore, Omnivore, Carnivore

Trophic Level

3

Strength

2.0 Stamina 2.5 Agility 2.2 Vitality 2.8 Intelligence 0.1

Charisma

0.2

Spiritual Energy

4.1

Skills

Piercing Intent LEVEL 4 has modified to Piercing Barrage Level 1

Speed Boost LEVEL 2

Iron Chitin Level 1 NEW!

Piercing Barrage - This skill allows Initiate Daphne to fire a simultaneous burst of Piercing Intent projectiles at the expense of increased Spiritual Energy cost. Single shot Piercing Intent or Barrage can be used by Skill User. Active. Upgradeable

Iron Chitin- This skill increases initiate Daphne’s innate defense. Carapace chitin has increased strength, durability, and toughness. 100X increase in defense against blunt force and crushing attacks. 10 X increase in defense vs piercing or cutting attacks. Passive. Upgradeable

Daphne felt a wave of relief as the swirling energy of her level-up surrounded her. She had been fighting through the pain of her injuries and blood loss. As the level up filled her tissues with energy, her carapace split open once again. Her body lifted away from the molted carapace, still impaling the body of the crayfish.

She expanded in size, her tail spine regenerating, longer and stronger than before, she had defeated an enemy vastly outclassing her in size and power and the influx of spiritual energy reflected that in gains. She reveled in the strength of her body, and her newly toughened carapace. She felt armed and armored enough to take on the world! She was mighty!

At the same time, her increased intelligence allowed her to reflect on herself and her mistakes. She had been complacent, her prowess as a hunter had blinded her to the danger of other hunters. The scent trail she created by her method of feeding was significant. Scavengers and predators that hunted by scent would find her quickly at one of her kills, as the cloud of pulverized tissues spread in the water. She must be more vigilant. Never again could she allow an attacker to approach her rear unopposed as the crayfish had.

Still, hunting for food was the best strategy for leveling going forward. She must find new and stronger prey to feed on, and gain strength.

The strenuous process of her leveling and the dangerous battle beforehand had left her ravenous. She swam downward once again towards the corpse of the crayfish. She had already significantly liquefied its body, but the flesh and fluids were locked inside its sturdy carapace. The resilience of the crayfish’s armor had been turned against it, once she had penetrated the chitin, her needles of Piercing Intent had acted like a blender inside its cephalothorax.

All she needed to do now was crack the shell. She eagerly aimed a shot of Piercing Intent at the shell just above her own shed carapace. The bolt of force shot out from her necktooth with a very satisfying increase in power, easily penetrating the tough chitin. It didn’t do much to crack the shell however, a small hole perforating the shell was the only result.

She then reached deeper for the new modified Piercing Barrage and fired at the same spot. A burst of force needles flung out from her necktooth, a tightly packed squadron of energy flechettes that tore a massive gaping hole through the carapace! The drain on her spiritual power reserve was much higher than Piercing Intent. The individual power of each flechette was also much lower than a bolt of Intent but the impact of the tight group was devastating, especially at such close range.

A surge of liquefied crayfish flesh poured from the shattered hole in the carapace. Daphne drifted close to the stream and began absorbing the exquisite food. The flavor of the crayfish was fantastic, clearly the higher the level of the prey, the more delicious its flesh tasted to her senses.

Daphne remembered to be cautious as she was feeding, slowly spinning around above the crayfish corpse by manipulating the direction of the water flowing from her phyllopods, like a hovercraft or helicopter spinning in place. When the flow of nutrition began to slow, she moved on, eager to explore more of the weedy zone of plant life and find new things to hunt.

She moved up the slope and into areas of dense vegetation. The fragile water plants thin stems stretched upwards from firm roots in the mud. The closer the plants were to the surface the denser and more tangled the branching stems became. Daphne began to see schools of tiny fish darting there in the thick tangle of leaves and stem.

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She saw another school of tiny Carrasius hatchlings and began her stalk. She was larger now, so a more obvious threat, but she also had a much longer range, with a wider attack pattern. She slowly worked her way closer to the region the school was moving in, stopping for long periods while they were in view and then working forwards while they were out of sight through the tangle of stems. The fish seemed to be swimming in a back-and-forth pattern between the cover of some stems, and an area where they were feeding.

In time, she had worked herself into range of their protected cover, and she waited until a large enough crowd of fish were clustered before firing a shot of Piercing Barrage. The single shot was devastatingly effective on the tiny fish, instantly killing twenty-five of them at once, many of them torn in half. The rest of the school fled in terror. Daphne ignored them as she moved to feed on the pile of slaughtered fish. She noted that she had not received a notification for the kills. Apparently, these larval fish were no longer of value for gaining levels. She would need to hunt stronger prey.

They still tasted delicious.

After finishing her meal, she continued cruising through the plants, staying in the shadows, moving slowly. Deliberately trying to avoid startling available prey or alerting possible predators to her presence. She saw more schools of tiny fish, and several snails and freshwater mussels. She thought it likely that she could kill either type of mollusk now with her upgraded firepower. It seemed very unlikely to her that a clam or a snail would offer much value for leveling. They were sedentary filterers, slow feeders on detritus. She needed to battle with opponents that were stronger, more worthy. She passed them by.

She continued her slow amble through the weeds, sometimes she would see flashes of creatures flitting through the labyrinth of leaves, but never close enough to see what they were. Eventually, the light began to brighten, the sun was rising. She would need to seek shelter in the depths…

Wait, did she? She was no longer a tiny herbivore. She had armor and weapons, shouldn’t she stay in the light and continue to hunt? Had she not resolved never to run again? The light grew brighter, and she found a thick shadow in a clump of weed. She could conceal herself here and watch, to see what life was like here in the weeds in the daytime.

The light grew brighter and brighter around her. The world filled with color, and everything was lit by the shifting rippling light of the sun passing through the breeze-built waves on the surface. Life also began to stir.

Schools of minnows much larger than the tiny hatchlings she had met before appeared streaming through the gaps in the weeds and disappearing in a shift and a flash.

The surface crawled with water striders, skating to and fro erratically.

Then she saw it. A slow shape emerged from the weeds across from her. Four small legs arched out from a round, cigar shaped body. A long tail with a thin membranous fin running along its top and bottom edges trailed behind it. It moved with slow waves of its tail, popping up at the surface to look above the water.

Its skin was thin and unarmored, its body soft and fleshy. It was much longer than the crayfish. Daphne was perplexed at how such a soft looking creature could survive here?

Daphne slowly emerged from the weeds, using only her phyllopod induced current she drifted up towards the newt, attempting to attack it from below and behind as it observed the surface.

She came close enough to reach it with a bolt of Intent, but she continued closer, moving until she had placed her necktooth at nearly point-blank range to the newt’s abdomen. Then she fired a sudden burst of Piercing Barrage.

The newt lurched as the impossibly sharp needles of energy blasted through its body. The sudden attack nearly instantly ripped the amphibian in half. The body convulsed several times before going still. Bubbles drifted upwards from the torn body cavity as the newt’s slender corpse sank to the bottom.

Initiate Daphne defeated a Hynobius Newt Level 2

Daphne followed after it, elated at the effectiveness of her ambush. She settled over the top of the newt's body and pulsed it with Piercing Barrage several more times to begin pulverizing it for a meal. The flavor of the newt was, unimpressive to say the least. The flesh had an odd chemical taste that was off putting. This would not be a prey she would hunt again.

She continued circling as she harvested the newt’s flesh from the water, but she was still unprepared for the rushing attack that came down upon her from above. A loud scratching thunk filled her mind as something clamped onto her carapace just above her tail spine.

Daphne flailed her antennae to attempt to free herself from the grip of her attacker as she fired shots of Piercing Intent from her tail spine. The improved strength and toughness of Iron Chitin proved themselves as her carapace resisted the attack without damage. She was pulled over in a rolling tumble as her attacker attempted to gain purchase on her hard shell. It let go of her.

Daphne spun with her swimming antennae and pulsed her jet stream to reorient herself and face the gray blur that had assaulted her. The creature was FAST. Even as she tried to point her necktooth and get a shot off, it had closed in on her again and grabbed at her carapace with a whiskered mouthful of needle-like teeth. Clawed paws grabbed at the inner edges of her carapace halves as the mouth bit down on her back just behind her neckteeth. It was attempting a killing blow as if she were a fish.

Once again, the bites were ineffectual against the strength of her Iron Chitin. The animal released her again, trying to gain purchase with its teeth, but her armor was far stronger than it could handle. It was an incredibly frustrating battle for both of them, Daphne couldn’t get clear for a shot, and the water shrew couldn’t break through her armor.

The shrew released her again, and she turned into it as rapidly as she could, activating Speed Boost and rushing past the startled shrew, the incredible speed the skill gave her allowed her to gain enough distance to turn and attempt to get a shot of Intent. As she turned, she saw the shrew turn downwards and grasp the corpse of the newt in its mouth. Its long naked tail trailed behind it as it disappeared into the weeds.

It was stealing her kill! Daphne was incensed at the theft, she surged after the shrew with all the speed that Speed Boost could give her. She nearly instantly reached the area where the shrew had disappeared, it was nowhere to be seen. She began slowly tracking the scent trail of the dead newt through the water. This was almost certainly how the crayfish had found and attacked her. Now she used the tactic on the shrew.

Weaving through the weeds endlessly, finally Daphne came to an abrupt wall of soil and mud, her the slope suddenly steepened to a vertical, reaching to the surface. It was the bank of the pond.

The scent trail led into a dark hole in the bank, the entrance to the shrew’s den. Somewhere the tunnel led to a chamber above water where the thief was no doubt eating its stolen prey. Daphne considered chasing the shrew down the hole, but hesitated. She was far less agile at rapid turns than the shrew, if it had alternate entrances to the pond, it might come from behind her faster than she could turn. It had ambushed her from the rear already, and she had been watching for such things.

She decided to lurk at the entrance. No enemy could attack her without consequences, no enemy could steal from her without consequences.