The cave met Richard’s standards of what he thought a dangerous mountain would be.
In other words, he got barreled over by a giant snake.
The serpent immediately started coiling around Richard. As it did so, Richard started activating charge and building up the electric mana in his body, all the while using mental command to tell Krackle start activating the ink blast and flash in tandem, as he had an idea of what to do with it.
All the while the snake wrapped itself harder around him, ever the tighter, but Richard remained calm. His higher defense meant that while it certainly hurt, it wasn’t as bad as it could be. Once he felt that the charge up was enough, he activated static, lightning pulse, and finally activated berserk rage in order to break out.
Static had caused a mild distraction in the snake’s mind, and lightning pulse, being an area type electric attack caused the beast to suffer a mild sense of paralysis. By utilizing this, and a nice boost of berserk rage he managed to slash his way out of the lethargic beasts grasp. Not one to let go of the opportunity, he chose this moment to command Krackle to ink blast in the snake’s face.
The creature had been mildly struggling in response to shock earlier, but with a nice chunk of gunk splattered over its eyes, it lashed out and flailed, as if to thrash around lash out against the opponent it perceived. Richard backed off a little, waiting for the creature to start opening its eyes, and then, NOW!
Krackle activated flash and the snake recoiled in intense pain. The gunk had gotten in its eyes, leaving it agitated. A surprise flash in its eyes in the middle of a dark cave? That was just pure torture for cave dwellers. The snake screeched and flailed, and while it did so, Richard used appraisal to analyze the creature and found:
Species: Boa concrusher
Level: 20/40
Health: 1000/1225
‘That will definitely be troublesome’ thought Richard, ‘but perfectly reasonable’. The rat had 400 health, while the snake had 1200 health. Sure, he could be troublesome, but Richards wasn’t working alone.
“Panda” called Richard.
“Fuck you” muttered Pandemonium as he charged at the concrusher, which had already turned towards Richard and started gliding towards him across the floor. It quickly changed direction however, when a certain squirrel started chittering. Richard couldn’t understand it, but the boa certainly could.
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Its attention was pulled towards wherever the sound was coming from, as the little troublemaker had long camouflaged into the environment leaving the crusher with an annoying ringing sound pestering it, which it turned its attention to, in spite of the thunder monitor in front of it. A poor choice for sure, as Richard blatantly charged at it
The boa concrusher screeched as it turned its eyes to the other target, it’s initial target. It lashed its tail against the giant lizard, eliciting a pained grunt from it, but before it could react anymore, another flash of pain caused it to turn and stare at the other annoyance. A giant furry rat was gnawing at its body, but quickly jumped off, hissing and mocking it from a stalactite. How annoying. So was that searing pain…
Wait. The spot where the creature had been gnawing at its body was now sizzling and melting. The creature wasn’t extremely intelligent, but it was smart enough to recognize the acidic effect on the body. It had to escape and regroup. Before it could go anywhere though, a firm grip was keeping it in its place, unable to escape. The giant lizard from earlier. Feeling frustrated, it started lashing out.
Richard was having a hard time pinning the concrusher down, though it was still within reasonable effort. The beast was writhing and struggling, but Richard was holding firm. While he was doing so, Krackle was slowly crawling onto the neck of the beast
Richard was met with a rather unpleasant surprise as the beast’s fangs glowed red before it started at him. Krackle reacted immediately, grappling the beast’s neck and mouth in a treacherous cradle, locking it in, choking the life out of it. And with a simple crack Krackle snapped the beast’s neck. It struggled a little more before going limp.
[ Boa Concrusher(lvl 20) slayed! Lightning Dragon Hatchling has leveled up to level 4. Blood tick has leveled up to level 4. Octopulse has leveled up to level 2. ]
Richard was both happy and mildly disappointed. On one hand, they had managed to take down that Boa Concrusher on their own, and not only had he gotten 2 more levels, Atlas and Krackle had both gotten levels. The disappointment was with poor panda, who hadn’t gotten a level immediately.
As if sensing his pity, Pandemonium harrumphed. He sent the thought ‘Don’t worry about me you overgrown lizard, unlike the rest of you, I’m something special. I only take longer cause I’m better than all of you!” Whatever.
Krackle on the other hand was happy with its level and happily waving its tentacles, and Atlas was stoic, yet couldn’t hide the glimmer of pride going through him. Richard gave the each of them a head rub, and gave one to Panda, who rolled his eyes, but accepted the head rub nonetheless.
Richard walked up to the corpse of the snake, dug through it and finally pulled out the core, which was bigger than the slimes or the saber tooth rats, the size more like an apple compared to the past. Cracking the core into fragments, Richard handed out a piece to each member, and then ate his. It was rather tasty, resembling sugar for sure, but with more of a honey flavor.
For the concrusher itself, they settled in to eat, each taking a bit out of the beast with no hesitation. Richard could say, with some assurance, that it tasted like fish and chicken. Unsurprising, given that’s what he heard all adventurers say, but to hear and to taste are two different things. Hopefully not everything tastes like fish or chicken.
'So, this will be home huh.' Richard looked around the dark cave and sat down. This was going to be their home for a while and Richard planned to explore it at some point, but for now, rest was fine.