The thunderstorm had hammered the forest hard, but Gloe still sent his thanks in its wake. It almost certainly had saved his life. At least for now.

For over a week he had played cat and mouse with wolfman. The aftermath of the battle with the ripperphant must have left wolfman severely injured because it had taken him nearly two days to catch up again. After that Gloe had continually gamed the system to try to stay ahead.

In the daytime he looked for dangerous predators to follow. Once he was on their trail he practiced tactical eating. Specifically, he ate as much of wolfman’s anger as possible while leaving fear and anxiety intact. It was a new application of his ability, one he’d had to focus intensely to utilize. Fortunately he’d been focusing like his life depended on it, because it did.

As caution won out wolfman’s pace would slow, allowing Gloe to stay ahead. Then, as the long day of chasing drew to a close Gloe would begin to full draw from wolfman, giving himself the energy he needed to put on a prolonged burst of speed. He ate on the move and used siphoned energy to alleviate weariness and lack of sleep. Eventually wolfman would stop to hunt and rest.

Gloe would keep going until he had a healthy lead, then rest for a few hours. When wolfman drew close again Gloe would draw enough energy to perk himself up and begin the whole process again. It had been an extremely difficult set of tactics, requiring continual reassessments and ongoing vigilance. The penalty for an error of judgment was probably death.

So obviously it wasn’t sustainable long-term. The rain had been an incredibly welcome blessing. When it started pouring down Gloe had waited just long enough to be relatively certain it had essentially obliterated his tracks and scent. Then he had cut hard north, and run like the dickens. He hadn’t stopped for anything except to collect water. He’d eaten on the move, and pissed himself while he ran. After the first hour he’d forsaken the trees after too many close call slips, but he’d never stopped.

So he’d gained quite a lead, and he hoped wolfman would never find him again. It was in pursuit of this future that he’d chosen to go north. A few hours ago he’d left the outer layer and penetrated further into the woods. He was now in the beginning of the true deep wyld, leaving the periphery. Hopefully he’d live to regret this.

...

The true deep wyld was seriously dangerous. Really, Gloe struggled to find the adverbs to sufficiently underline that fact. It was a whole new biome, seemingly populated solely by kill-happy monsters. Even the herbivores were incredibly aggressive.

Not only was he having problems acquiring food or safe shelter, it was difficult to even secure a moment of peace. The sky was full of lancebats at night and buzzhawks by day. Spider leopards and scorpion mantises lurked in the trees. And the ground…well, the ground was a full-on battlefield. Even the scavengers here were so deadly they likely would have a decent chance in a fight with a hydra tiger.

As for the animals higher up the chain…well. Gloe had once gotten too close to a fight between an acidemoth and an impalerpus. Too close turned out to mean ‘within earshot.’ He’d barely escaped with his life, and they’d never even known he was there. That’s how bad the collateral damage had been.

The good news was that wolfman was extremely unlikely to look for him here. He’d figure there was no way Gloe could survive long-term. The bad news was that he might be right.

As it was Gloe couldn’t snatch more than a few minutes sleep at a time. Before long he was going to just pass out, and that would be the end. He was rapidly approaching the point where he’d be too tired to wake up when something drew near, even if it was loud. He needed to get some actually sleep.

Which is why he was painstakingly tying a knot one-handed. He didn’t have much, but he had rope. He hadn’t seen a monster yet in here with opposable thumbs, so he was going to take a chance. He’d found a thick, very long branch that protruded over a partial clearing at a considerable height. He’d laced his rope through the net from his backpack, and dangled it from the branch. Now that he’d secured it he carefully slid down the rope.

Gingerly settling himself in the net, he took one last look around. He was about seven feet down from the branch, and none of the creatures he’d seen so far would be able to navigate down the rope. He was about fifteen feet from the nearest branch, and thirty feet from the ground. Ground and arboreal creatures would know he was there, but except for the very biggest they would have difficulty reaching him. The canopy above would shield him from aerial monsters. Climbing back up one-handed would be a bitch, but he should be reasonably safe here, short-term. Hopefully.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Well, nothing for it. This would either work, or it would be the last sleep he ever took. He carefully settled himself down, made sure all of his remaining possessions were secure, and closed his eyes. His last thought before losing consciousness was that the net was surprisingly comfortable.

...

The screech jolted him awake. What? The sun was rising? It had been just after dawn when he’d gone to sleep. What time was it? What day?

Another high-pitched roar helped drive the cobwebs from his mind. He looked around, just in time to see a spider leopard take a running start, then make a mighty leap in his direction. Oh.

It was going to clear the distance easily. Well that was fantastic. He didn’t even think he could wiggle out of this net one-handed in the time he had left. Well, time to die.

Resigned, he leaned back. Right on the head from his shattered axe. Well, it was worth a shot. More out of idle curiosity than real hope he grasped the axe in his remaining hand and raised it high. He timed it, then lashed out as best he could while still lying back in the net. The axe head connected.

It didn’t do much damage, if any, but it had a little bit of oomph left. Just enough to alter the spider leopard’s trajectory and make it glance off. The net was left spinning in its wake, but Gloe was still alive.

He struggled to his feet, trying to catch sight of his attacker each rotation. There it was. It had safely caught itself on a branch on the opposite side. Wow that had been a powerful leap.

It seemed confused. And angry. Gloe blinked in relief, then a thought galvanized him into action. Most of these monsters were a bit more intelligent than the predators from his former life. If the spider leopard got above him before he shimmied up the rope he’d be stuck. He couldn’t fight it off well climbing (if at all,) and in his current state (and location) his chances of surviving the drop to the ground were virtually nil.

Granted, his chances of beating this monster were probably almost non-existent too, but what could you do? Climbing one-handed was just as difficult as he’d foreseen, but at least sleeping seemed to have done him some good. Glancing at the spider leopard he saw that it was still recovering. It was a lot lower than him. Perhaps it had tumbled for a bit before finally catching itself, and now it was discombobulated. That was fortuitous, because he was pretty slow at this.

Continual strain and lack of sleep were catching up to him. His muscles burned and trembled. He was eating his panic, but it wasn’t as if his response was wrong. He was probably dead. He barely had the strength to dodge, and his limbs could start giving out at any moment. Even at full health and with both hands he probably couldn’t beat the spider leopard, but at least he would have a chance to run or hide from it. Now that was out of the question.

Right as he reached the branch and stood up it came for him. Gloe cast about, looking for favorable terrain. There. He backed up and tensed himself to jump. As the spider leopard pounced he dodged left, perpendicular to the angle of advance. Even still the predator swiped out him, scoring his torso and nearly ripping a chunk out.

Unfortunately his assessment seemed to be correct. The spider leopard was incredibly dangerous from the front, but he didn’t have the energy to try to approach from any other angle. If he had a spear maybe…but he didn’t.

He continued to dodge, hoping inspiration would strike. Each time he would narrowly escape disaster. Worse, the spider leopard wasn’t dumb. It was beginning to recognize the pattern of his dodges, and swiping out before he leapt. Refusing to give up, he feinted a sideways dodge and dropped down instead. The monster completely fell for it.

Huh. He hadn’t actually expected such a transparent tactic to work, especially since he’d prepositioned himself above another branch, obviously checking it several times. That’s right. Just because these monsters weren’t dumb didn’t mean they were smart. The spider leopard could recognize patterns, but that didn’t mean it could understand the thought process that produced them. Its behaviors were essentially instinctual and experiential. It had a very minimal ability to anticipate.

He tried the old interposition trick, placing a tree trunk between him and the hunter. Every time it moved around he went the opposite direction. It didn’t work perfectly because the thing was so much faster than him, but it never caught on. He was able to waste quite a bit of time using the tactic over and over.

If that worked, then…he cast about again, looking for something to work with. No, no, no. Everything he saw required tools, or energy, or two hands. Being one-handed sucked. There. Risky, but possibly doable.

He led the spider leopard back and forth across the tree branches, using his precious remaining energy to dodge until he got it to stalk him on a workable vector. He himself was perched on a lone tree branch without much around it to dodge to. As the spider leopard sprang Gloe wrapped a vine around his arm and kicked off as hard as he could, swinging to the left and up in a shallow clockwise motion.

Monsters didn’t use tools. It was completely baffled by Gloe’s movement. He came flying in from its right side. He’d mistimed it, and he caught a nasty claw swipe to the leg. At the same time though he kicked out, making strong contact. The combined motions sent the spider leopard spinning down, while Gloe whirled over to the side. In mid-air neither could do much to recover. Gloe spun crazily, sliding slightly down the vine and slamming hard back into the branch he’d started from.

Grunting with effort he got one leg up, releasing his death-grip on the vine and wrapping his whole body around the branch, panting with effort. He could eat the panic and fear, but without an external source of energy he was completely tapped. He’d pushed himself right to the limit. Couldn’t even muster the strength to look for the spider leopard’s approach.

So he didn’t. He wrapped the vine around his body and the branch a few times. No sense in falling now. Then he passed out.