Jamie was running along the slope back up to the pond a couple hundred meters away from the saddle. They were hoping that the sunken deer would focus on Max who had killed one of its companions, was in its sight, and armed. Because the even texture and flora of the hills was doing nothing to hide Jamie from the enraged deer.

And they were hoping that their bet, the small edge in the ground, would stand up to their expectations.

As Jamie passed the height of the deer she was still being ignored. Just Max had hoped she would, she realized that and turned upwards and back after a moment. The action made sense from the deer’s perspective as well. Max was both the closer opponent, and the obvious threat.

Max meanwhile had one of his feet pressing the end of the pitchfork further into the small ridge right in the middle of the saddle point between the hills. They’d found it by accident earlier, a cutoff point between the stone under the moss and the swampy drenched flora of the hill. Only thanks to directly stepping on it.

Using some additional reinforcement might help Max successfully withstand the deer’s charge. Should it come that far.

He was counting heavily on his trait Equipment User. If it really kept up the promise of reinforcing his equipment, the pitchfork wouldn’t break – which, given that none of his working attire was damaged, might be a real possibility.

As it was only a hundred meters for the sunken deer a few things grew into focus. Almost the entire body of the aggressive animal was clad in a film of water, the sun that had barely moved across the sky occasion glinted in the glistening wetness. And that with each hop the deer undertook it glid a little over the ground too, as though skating on ice.

Note to self, try to kit it onto the dry moss. With that thought he readied himself to pull backwards as soon as he had braved the charge. Maybe I should dodge? He considered one last time. It was not what he had told Jamie he would do, but as it had been her idea, she wouldn’t be mad. Though it might give up the advantage of her position behind the deer.

But it would also almost guarantee that Max wouldn’t be injured in the initial charge.

Max still hadn’t made up his mind as the deer was just meters away from him. His mind had come up with a third option though, he didn’t choose it.

The deer lowered its head in the last moments before the impact. Antlers covered in water-impacted steel caked in excrement. Entangling in a way that only headphone cables usually could, they adhered to each other. Max pulled back with all his might, using the pivot at his feet and the impulse of the deer to exert the rotational torque required to swing the assailant over his head.

The wood creaked and bend. But before it could splinter it slipped past the hinge and his foot along the pivot. Depositing the slightly elevated deer on the ground and on its side from a two meter drop.

Without any delay the deer reorientated itself to Max, who was still trying to catch his bearing. His hands were stained by a brown soup of water and the residues of his pitchfork. His fingers felt tired and calloused.

Not completely ready for the creature to act again he was flung to the side as antlers hit him from the side. Somehow, he managed to hold on to the pitchfork in his hand as he tumbled over dry moss. He body though was at least abused if not worse.

He groaned as he got up, ribs and stomach no doubt bruised. He cast that worry to the side. This had been a mistake, one he couldn’t undo, but one he could potentially survive. If he kept his head cool and in the moment. He could worry about his body later. First, he had to survive.

The Cervidae was moving towards him huffing. Though now it seemed to be almost enjoying itself, enjoying the superiority it held in their encounter. Max shook himself. He had no time to anthropomorphize something that wanted to kill him. Regardless of how odd it looked clad in armor of water.

He glanced past the deer, trying to spot Jamie.

He paced backwards slowly as he did so. When he spotted her, he almost grinned. Maybe 15 seconds out. Roundabout there. That just meant he had to distract it for a bit.

I can do this, he chanted mentally repeatedly.

He swung his pitchfork about him threateningly. He felt silly in a way that only knowing you were using a tool incorrectly could feel, but it did the job for a few moments.

The stag became cautious looking expectantly at the metal tine, mesmerized or worried. Five seconds in it snorted and carefully stepped towards Max, lowering the antlers and swinging its head – matching the swings of the pitchfork. It seemingly had learned its lesson of charging at him and was not fond of being thrown around again.

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As he observed it, the monster seemed to slightly favor its right. Given that it had landed on its left that wasn’t entirely unexpected. The impact the bruised flank had on the monster’s combat capability was probably mild given by how it had thrown him about early.

Now only five steps away Max thrust his pitchfork. He missed. As intended and expected, the stag had taken a couple steps back.

It was then that Max really noticed the extent of the damage the previous fall had caused. The cervidae stood angled towards him, displaying its left side toward him, allowing him to strike at the liquid armor. There weren’t any visible marks besides how the stag had retreated, but that was enough for Max.

Blunt damage had worked for dealing damage, now he would have to figure out how piercing would work against the armor, and if it even was an armor in the first place and not something else entirely.

He thrust again, instead of retreating further the creature deflected the weapon with water clad antlers. By the nature of body parts involved Max was able to strike out faster as the deer was able to deflect with the cancellous bone crowning its head. Though Max suffered from the longer travel time of the pitchfork.

The strike missed. The deer took another half step, getting out of range of the weapon in Max’s arms. It would have still impacted but as the tine touched the water it was ever so slightly pushed away.

It didn’t matter, the deer hadn’t realized that Jamie was right behind it.

His friend crashed into the right hindleg of the cervidae and lodged her feet around its other leg. Seriously hindering its ability to move quickly it veered, trying to shake its passenger off. That was not what Max would have done.

For a moment it stopped paying any attention to Max. As it tried to thrust Jamie off, he used the moment to thrust as hard as he could into the left front flank – which the creature had kindly presented to him.

“Jamie, that was awesome!” he yelled at her encouragingly, as he kept poking the struggling deer. Now that he wasn’t landing glancing blows anymore the water’s defensive faculty had given up any resistance. The hits penetrated hands deep each time, slightly staining the water around the deer in a mix of red and brown. Not only with blood though, but with excrement that still adhered to the pitchfork’s tine.

The monster was out of options. It couldn’t flee with the way Jamie restricted the stride length of the hind legs. It couldn’t properly focus on Max, as he was able to move faster around it, that Jamie’s restriction allowed. Given that the water armor was seemingly ineffective against direct blows. Furthermore it was seriously injured on it’s entire left flank, potentially seconds away from death.

Max began to celebrate his victory when Jamie slid off the mammals backside.

He saw too late that he should have focused more on the head. What had been a measure to not accidentally dislodge his pitchfork in the thick bone on top of the deer’s head could very well be the end of his friend. He saw the deer raise its hind leg – remembering the force it had been able to muster with its head moments ago, he couldn’t let it hit Jamie – and hoped it would run away. It didn’t.

With all his might he thrust at its neck.

He was too late. He heard Jamie scream as his weapon struck its neck, piercing deeply.

The stag tumbled to the ground, and for good measure, he poked it twice more in the head. Making sure that it would not fall into his back when he checked on his friend.

The water encasing the now fallen creature began losing cohesion as he stepped over the downed monster towards here his friend lay.

“Shit, How are you doing? Jamie talk to me” he yelled. Her ashen face made her look like a dead person, and if she weren’t moving and groaning, he might very well think her to be one.

“It fucking hurts, shithead. What do you think?” she groaned out form in-between clenched teeth.

Max leaned down and slightly pulled up her overall. He lifted her hands off her flank and pulled the overall further up. A deep gash went along the entire depth of it, skin torn with blood flowing freely. Though not as much as he had feared.

He knew what to do, but he couldn’t with the dirty stuff he had on him. His overall had never been entirely clear, given how it had been used today. They would need get to the stream to clean the multitude of wounds. He couldn’t do that alone.

“I need to get you to the stream. Can you walk? I’d like to wash out your wound. It doesn’t look to bad but well, I think it would help.”

Jamie nodded. Max didn’t carry but only lifted her up. She was a bit too heavy for him to guarantee he wouldn’t drop her. Instead, he helped her closer to the stream where she sat down, face torn as she compressed the large soggy cut on her side. The bloodloss was starting to seriously worry Max, but going ahead and binding the wound only for her to succumb to infection was not the way to go.

Once there he tried dressing her wound as well as possible. What felt like hours later, he finished, and washed his overalls before binding the rough fabric around her stomach, and tightening them was much as he deemed reasonable. All while Jamie was borderline passing out and screaming.

“How do you feel?”

“Hate… it…” She pressed out through clenched teeth.

Max could see that. And he could see what they needed to do.

They would need to find someone that was able to inspect Jamie’s wounds for real. If anything, internal was damaged they had no way of knowing. And without a sewing kit or anything else he had no chance of patching her up. Even with one at hand her chances were low. They needed a doctor.

“Stop pacing Max,” she said after a while. “We need to talk about what we are going to do and what happened.”

Max wasn’t ready for that. He didn’t want to confront his failure. It had been his fault. He had been too cautious while his friend had risked her life. And they shouldn’t have come here either.

He yelled in frustration.

“Hey, it’s alright. Calm down. There is nothing to worry about. I’ll be fine in a few days, alright. But I need you to sit down and listen to me.”

“First, did you get any updates from… the system, I guess? I have, but I want you to tell me first.”