The spider sailed through the air faster than she believed could be possible despite the earlier display of speed it had shown against that other monster. Scampering back and trying to not panic, Alice took a step to the side, putting the trunk of a thick tree between the Monster and her
Name
Irongrip Tarantula
Tier
[2]
Level
[5]
Affinity: Momentum.
“Wait, Momentum and Tier two? Shit—”
Remembering what it had done to snap that nightmarish’s deer neck, Alice jumped backwards and away from the tree, just in the nick of time as the giant tarantula came swinging around the tree, its forelimbs wrapped around it and seamlessly converting all its previous linear velocity in centrifugal force.
The spider wasn’t precisely small — more like the size of a very large dog, but thankfully that jump backwards had saved Alice from having her head crushed like a grape under its eerily hand-like appendages, their digits effortlessly digging into the tree’s bark and leaving a series of deep furrows that she couldn’t help but picture as her own ribcage being pried open and stripped away of its succulent, still warm flesh.
The level-ups earlier had given her a significant boost in Ether, and thankfully that boost came with said expanded reserves already filled. Even then Alice felt easily almost a fifth of her total reserves vanish instantaneously as she cast [Oppress] immediately followed by [Ruin], her almost already signature black chains bursting forth from the palm of her hand and whipping forward in a frenzy, trying to wrap themselves around the monster not ten feet away from her.
But then, it did something nothing she had confronted had done yet.
It dodged.
Alice didn’t have time to scream before the spider reached her, and against all common conventions, it didn’t bite her — it reared back one of its forelimbs after stopping in the blink of an eye in front of her and punched her thigh.
Alice went down to a knee as she felt the bone under her right leg snap, a scream of agony mixed with bile crawled along the back of her throat, begging for release. When the spider reared back once again, this time at her eye level, she knew that her chains wouldn’t get to it fast enough before it blew her head like a rotten fruit, splattering bits of her thoughts all over the forest floor.
Looking into its beady eyes, she activated [Torment] and [Mindsnap] as fast as the encroaching fog of agony seeping into her brain permitted her. When she felt her aura connect to the beast and the connection form, she tugged on it with savage abandon just before she delved into its mind.
The process of slithering her consciousness inside its insultingly tiny brain was harder and easier at the same time than it had been with the Gloomstalker. Harder, because it was a tier above without being debilitated beforehand like that disgusting slug had been, but easier, because it didn’t specialize in mind attacks like that leech had.
Pummeling at the main doors with a tendril of consciousness, she spread over its mind like a hemoplague, searching for the tiniest cracks. Once she found one, she slipped inside and was greeted with the same scenario that had opened up before her when she had done the same thing with the Gloomstalker. A tapestry of ropes, lines and threats of shining light presented itself before her, and without thinking twice about it she started ripping off chunks and connections without even looking at what they did or where they led to.
Feeling her Ether vanish at an astounding rate, she stayed inside just long enough to guess that her chains had reached the creature, and then another extra couple of seconds just to be sure of it.
Exiting the monster’s mindscape, she stared at its violently twitching limbs and erratically clicking mandibles. The monster gathered its bearings enough to notice the rapidly descending chains upon itself, but it was too late already.
With a viciousness she hadn’t seen before they wrapped along and around each of its normal spider legs and then twisted with barbaric brutality, breaking each one in half with a sickening crack of snapping chitin.
It screeched as it tried to trash around, its legs dangling to the sides as her chains picked it up and started to wrap around its thorax, the strength of her otherworldly steel making the chitin creak ominously.
Out of pure spite, Alice tugged at the thread inside of her core that connected the spider to her and thus eliciting a bloodcurdling, alien scream of pure agony. Alice almost followed suit, the torment of her own leg and the pain flowing towards her from the tether almost too much to bear, sweat crawling down her forehead and back.
Tugging again and again, she distracted herself off her own broken leg by tormenting the spider hard enough for it to gain a faint haze to its beady eyes, drool falling off its maw as it almost stopped moving altogether, only small twitches racking its frame. Feeling how her Ether was on its last legs, she moved her chains around its head and thought about breaking its neck, but a bout of nausea assaulted her at the thought.
Focusing, she moved her chains as fast as she could and pierced its many eyes, searching for the fastest path towards the brain. Once her chain hit something hard, she gave as concentrated a push as she could and was rewarded for her efforts with a dull crack and the spider going completely limp, with even the minute twitches of before now completely absent.
Victory!
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
You have killed [Irongrip Tarantula].
You were out-tiered and alone. Bonus granted.
Skill-up.
[1.3 Opress/Ruin] up to [1.4].
[1.3 Let Them Scream] up to [1.4].
[1.1 Mindsnap] up to [1.2].
[1.5 Mindtap] up to [1.6].
Flinging its fibrous body towards the side, Alice retracted her chains and crawled along the forest floor, dagger in hand and determined to at least get a cut of the freakish deer before more spiders came sniffing around. With her luck so far, she’d get found out by something even worse and squished in a second.
Alice shuddered. Had it not been for [Mindsnap] rooting it to the spot for a couple of seconds she’d be dead, and she had the sneaking suspicion that there would be no void with nice music and a being she couldn’t even perceive if she fucked up a second time.
“I hate this place…” She muttered venomously, the words feeling true as they left her lips.
Reaching the monstrosity, she identified it, if only to get its name and to stop calling it nightmare or monster, even if it fit the description to a T.
Name
Khelk
Tier
[2]
Level
[2]
Affinity: Flesh.
What a weird name, and what an unsettling affinity. Regardless, she stabbed her dagger into one of the Khelk’s legs and pulled down, the meat easily parting before her blade. She had hoped that she wouldn’t have to saw and cleave for half an hour just to get a morsel of meat out of the corpse and her prayers had apparently been answered.
The leg was more muscle and tendon than bones as they were surprisingly thin for such meaty calves. Alice didn’t mind the blood, but she worried that it may attract more predators in search of a good meal.
Tying the bleeding leg to her back, Alice stood up on her left leg only, the right one almost limp. Each time she moved she could feel something grinding inside her leg, but if she was honest, that pain had nothing on how the bone had felt when actually breaking, or when she used her tether to share or amplify suffering.
As she hopped around the forest with one leg, exhaustingly hyperaware of every little noise she was making and of every snap of a distant branch and crack of shifting trees and foliage, she made it once more near the cave entrance. Luckily, nothing had attacked her yet, and she didn’t know how to feel about that.
Alice chose to make camp near the gaping maw that led inside the bowels of the tunnel system. She didn’t want to stay at such a place as vulnerable as she was.
Sliding down with her back to the cavern wall, Alice slung around both her backpack and what she hoped would be her next meal, the severed leg still bleeding.
Quickly, she grabbed the basic survival kit she had been given along with the backpack. Alice took a swig of the enchanted canteen, refreshing water whetting her suddenly parched throat and rousing her appetite even more.
Cursing, she took out the fire-starting kit and noticed she hadn’t gathered any tinder on her way to the entrance. Looking at one of the nearby trees, she judged her Ether levels enough for a very quick and creative application of [Oppress]. The chains emerged once more, whipping themselves towards the driest bundle of fallen twigs and small branches that littered the floor, along with some pebbles.
Feeling her Ether run dangerously close to completely empty Alice dismissed her chains, dreading the Ether starvation and the horrible nothingness that would accompany it.
Cutting a big chunk of meat, she sliced it with her dagger into really thin cutlets and then proceeded to skewer them one on top of the other along a sharpened stick she took a couple of minutes cleaning and carving. Now she just needed to light the fire and let it cook slowly.
Those barbecue lessons her uncle had given her were now coming in handy. Pity that he couldn’t teach her more before crashing his car through a storefront and getting thrown into prison. She had rather enjoyed how he made ribs too, and the bastard hadn’t left a recipe she could memorise.
Alice sighed as made some cuts along one of the sticks, leaving thin stripes of wood curling on themselves still attached to said stick, forming a kind of tiny wooden bush.
After piling up the wood and checking none of it was wet, she took out the small flintstone and her dagger. Running the edge along the stone produced some sparks, and nodding to herself, she leaned forward and lit the fire, the sparks almost leaping out of their own volition and igniting a small fire. Gently, Alice blew a bit of air towards it as softly as she could and almost cheered when the flame rose.
Quickly feeding the fire a bit more air and firewood, she watched it climb from an insignificant thing to a modest campfire. Satisfied with herself, Alice put her improvised rotisserie above the flames after stabbing the butt of the long branch into the soft earth and waited.
In the meanwhile, she checked her resources.
Resources & Regeneration
Health
302/460
298/d
Stamina
378/425
350/h
Ether
82/585
367,5/h
Her Ether had climbed up a bit from her previous pitiful state, but she was still in danger of running out.
Alice looked at her broken leg, the dull throb having faded into nothingness. She knew it’d hurt if she moved it, but the pain was strangely… dull. Tasteless, she would even say — more of an annoyance than something truly debilitating.
Strangeness aside, she still had a broken leg, and she preferred to be fed and content than hungry and miserable if something came strutting along in search of dinner.
Staring at her leg as she idly rotated the meat, she thought. Maybe she could wrap her leg in chains and control it that way?
No, that was way too overcomplicated. The obvious solution would be to come up with something specific that could deal with her injury as she healed it for the next half a day or so, but she couldn’t come up with anything that would fit her Ether and still let her walk around unimpeded without costing both of her kidneys in terms of stored energy.
Balefully glaring at the canopy before her, she could only wait until her resources topped themselves off, and the meat finished cooking itself.
To the sound of distant animals, the crackling and popping of fire and the sizzling of burning fat, Alice felt a tranquillity that she hadn’t experienced in years. The fog of exhaustion started to creep into her mind, and after polishing off the stick she had used to hold her food, Alice’s eyelids apparently gained enough weight to almost close by themselves.
Bit by bit, Alice fell asleep, more peacefully than she ever had.