Nick stood sweating in a dwindling patch of sunlight, watching the storm roll in as blood dripped down the sleeve of his jacket and onto the torn earth beside his boots. He judged that it would take another half hour before the searstorm arrived overhead, and it was critical that he use the remaining minutes wisely.
He had to finish off any surviving crunchers before they could recover and regroup, then retreat into their lair to ride out the storm. He wished that he could rely on Mother Nature to finish the job for him, but Size Up had told Nick that the beasts would find a way to survive the boiling rain. His best and only chance was to ambush the bonecrunchers while they were still isolated and impaired by the pollen’s intoxication. Even armed with his flashbangs, sword, and wand, he judged his odds of overcoming more than one beast at a time to be effectively zero.
One of the crunchers lay lifeless at his feet. Two more had never left their den and were likely dead as well, judging from the state of the last creature to emerge. That still left three of the larger hyena-boars unaccounted for, along with the deadly Bonecruncher Alpha. Unfortunately, the beasts had only scored superficial wounds on one another before they caught wind of his bait and dispersed to follow it.
While Nick was hopeful that his traps had been sufficient to take out three more of his opponents, he doubted that his plans had worked out perfectly, and there was still a final cruncher to deal with regardless. There was a chance that the beast would follow the others to their doom, but he wasn’t counting on it.
He had no intention of blindly placing his life in fate’s hands. He needed to check his traps and see how much damage he had managed to inflict, then finish off as many of the crunchers as he could. Besides, he needed to acquire more experience so that he could keep on leveling, and he had a hunch that he would gain more if they died by his hand.
Filled with adrenaline and the buzzing thrill of danger, Nick began to run, racing the fierce and rising winds. He began by following the trail to the southwest, the path leading to the pit trap. It was the closest site to his location and only a short walk from the line of bait leading to the komo pride.
He was hoping that the alpha had chosen to follow the southern path. If the powerful beast had taken on the komo pride, it would drag some of the lizards with it into the grave, and each predator that fell made his prospects of living through the tutorial that much brighter.
Ten breathless minutes later, Nick arrived on scene. He let loose a panting sigh of relief because he could tell at a glance that one of the crunchers had fallen for his trap. The gaping hole where the covering had given way was not a subtle clue. Filled with apprehension that he would find only an empty pit, he crept up to the edge and peered over the precipice. A surge of satisfaction flooded through him when his gaze landed on the corpse of a bonecruncher that had been impaled by a trio of spikes. One down, three to go.
With no time to spare, Nick made his way south, crossing the forest faster than he ever had before. The light was fading by the footfall as the stormfront congealed in front of the sun, causing him to trip and fall on several occasions.
But the time for caution had long since passed. Nick merely gritted his teeth and pressed his body into another burst of speed. He slowed when his ears caught the screams of agitated lizards, which he took to be a promising sign. He crept closer until he could see the clearing that had been claimed by the komo pride.
A scene straight out of a war sim awaited his gaze. A half-dozen lizards lay dead in the dirt, with gaping holes torn into their scaly hides. In the middle of this panorama of carnage sat the corpse of the cruncher that had taken the bait. Unfortunately, it was not the Bonecruncher Alpha. Komo Alpha was in the middle of tearing the carcass to shreds. It seemed that the powerful beast had taken the intrusion into its domain personally.
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Nick quickly backed away, noticing that the other lizards were retreating into a series of burrows dug into the side of a ridge. Their strategy for surviving the storm.
All in all, this was still an excellent outcome. Only two crunchers left. The plan is working. You can do it. He felt a rising tide of optimism as he made his way north, praying that the Cruncher Alpha had met a similar fate at the hands—err… coils—of the creeper vine colony and their mushroom allies. If he was fortunate, the final cruncher had followed the alpha to its death. If Nick was unlucky, he would run into both beasts before long.
He was prepared to blow his entire stash of flashbangs and both charges in his wand the instant that he met his foe. He had already learned firsthand that he was no match for the hyena-boars without expending his limited stock of emergency tools. There was no point in trying to hoard them if doing so led to his demise.
Nick had nearly arrived at the boundary of the creepers’ domain when a violent crackling ensued from the brush behind him as something massive forced its way through the undergrowth. He turned and used Size Up reflexively, receiving a savage ping of danger the instant that he activated the skill.
Knowing that his gambit had reached its climax, he threw himself behind a tree while reaching for his wand. He blinked, and when his eyes opened once more, a massive form erupted from the brush, streaking straight for the spot where he had been standing only half a heartbeat before.
The emerging beast flew straight into the tree, kicked off the trunk, and landed lightly on the ground. The Bonecruncher Alpha stared straight into Nick’s eyes, unleashing a scream of rage so pure that it sent a jolt of terror streaking down his spine, like he had been struck by an errant bolt of lightning.
Despite Nick’s fervent hopes and prayers, the Bonecruncher Alpha had not succumbed to his ploy. The beast had shrugged off the pollen’s effects, then circled back to hunt him down. The instant Nick met the alpha’s gaze, he was certain that the beast knew he was responsible for the death of its brethren. Its wrath was evident in every crook of its posture as it stopped to savor his terror before tearing him to shreds. He had dared to challenge the alpha and the might of the pack. Now the furious beast would make him pay for the affront in kind.
While the alpha paused to consider Nick, his mind was hard at work. Racing furiously to evaluate his foe and come up with any strategy that might help him survive. He had already known that his odds of defeating an uninjured cruncher were poor, but the alpha’s dramatic arrival had shown him that matters were even worse than he had feared.
He had never seen anything move so fast, except maybe the lurk, and the Cruncher Alpha had flown at least thirty feet before rebounding off the tree. It must be using some kind of ability to enhance its leap, he realized, as a sick, sinking feeling rose heavy in his chest.
While he had considered the possibility of encountering beasts that could use abilities, Nick had not been able to incorporate them into his contingencies. He possessed no abilities of his own and thus had no way to anticipate the range of powers they might bestow.
While his brain went into overdrive, Nick’s hands never stopped moving. Without breaking eye contact with the alpha, he slid his pack off his shoulders and set it on the ground. He opened the flap and stuck it in his hands, glad that he was able to pull out his sword before the battle began. Knowing that this moment would only last another handful of heartbeats, Nick struggled to incorporate the blindingly fast leap into the profile of the Cruncher Alpha he had constructed.
If the alpha could jump so fast and so far, it made his chances of winning the fight that much more remote. He had no hope at all unless he was able to hit the beast with his wand or a flashbang before it closed the distance and tore him to pieces. To make a terrible situation worse, the alpha appeared to have broken free of the pollen’s spell without suffering any further injuries since he had seen it last. At least the final cruncher was nowhere in sight.
Although he desperately wanted to flee, Nick knew that his odds of escape were even worse than his chances of victory. He would never be able to outrun the agile beast. Even without the looming threat of the storm, which would break at any moment, a leap like that could easily snatch him out of the branches if he tried to climb. Which, he realized absently, meant that he had never been safe in the trees.
Nick had been extremely lucky that he had not been spotted while watching from the branches, because the alpha would have dragged him to the ground without any chance of defending himself.
But none of that mattered now. All that mattered was using the tools at his disposal to survive the alpha’s wrath.