It had been nearly two hours since the group had relocated to the tree where they'd first seen Symon, and there'd been no further signs of the razor stalker. Atabek had continued to slowly recover from his wounds but hadn't yet woken up. His breathing no longer sounded so wet and wheezing, and he wasn't leaking any blood, but he constantly murmured to himself as he slept. They all felt like he'd rest easier without the looming threat of such a dangerous predator.
Aslan approached the edge of their clearing around the tree, where the flat ground rose into a wall of grass. His shield was held lazily at his side, while he used his spear as a walking stick. He spared a glance back at his teammates — they were all sitting around the campfire with their weapons in hand despite their relaxed posture. Serik was even softly strumming something on the string of his bow, seemingly without a care in the world.
Focusing on his task, he let out a deep breath to calm himself. They'd been constantly on edge waiting for danger to strike, but he had to dig to new depths of courage now. Standing this close to the wall of grass meant the stalker could be right in front of him, and he wouldn't know it. It was still light out, though not for long, so he looked out over the grass. Nothing broke up the monotony except for the occasional tree and dead trails of grass marking where Symon had walked. These trails looped out in a wide arc before reconnecting with the clearing — he'd be able to follow them in a big circle and end up back where he started, not that he was suicidal enough to go out there alone.
He let out another deep breath. He'd been standing here on watch for barely a minute, and the stress was already making him jittery. It wasn't so much the fear — although that was there too — but the slowly building anticipation of something finally happening after hours of being stalked by an unseen threat.
It was one thing to be right next to your bonded battle brothers and sister, but being alone out here was getting on his nerves. They were watching him out of the corner of their eye from over by the campfire, but it wasn't nearly as reassuring as seeing them by his side, weapon in hand.
He stiffened as he spotted the barest flash of movement, something passing over the looping trail that Symon had made in the grass. It could only be one thing.
He forced himself to relax — he needed to be as fluid as possible for what was to come. Gently, he raised his weapon before tapping the butt of his spear against the ground twice. The conversation of the people behind him instantly quieted in response.
The air around him felt charged with danger, as if he'd been caught outside on top of a mesa back home right before a storm. The hairs on the back of his neck and arms stood straight out, though he'd lost all sign of the creature. Taking a half step backwards, he readied himself to dodge — without being able to spot it beforehand, he'd have to rely purely on his instincts and reaction time.
Thankfully he was no slouch when it came to his Acuity, meaning his mind and body were just barely fast enough to react in time after seeing a wicked pair of curved blades emerge from the grass.
"NOW!" he shouted as he fell backwards, the pointed tips of the razor stalker's arms skittering off his shield with a horrible metallic screech. Rolling backwards, he shot to his feet and levelled his spear at his opponent. The fight was on.
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Symon was up in the tree, the one he'd first spotted the adventurers from. He watched as Atabek strode up to the grass wall and looked out over it.
He gave the rope he was holding a gentle tug, feeling the resistance as it scraped against the rough bark. "I'll be fine," he replied, "its just like I'm rockclimbing and rapelling down a wall." He'd never been healthy enough as a child to do such a thing, and he'd been too focused on his studies as an adult, but the theory was there. How hard could it be? "You're not afraid of heights, are you?"
Before Symon could investigate this obvious lie, Atabek thumped his spear against the ground twice.
"Shit, it's happening already, get ready."
Right as Keelgrave said that, he heard Atabek's voice call out "Now!". Needing no further incentive, he gripped onto his rope even tighter before stepping off the tree branch.
He felt completely weightless for the barest moment before gravity began tugging him back down, his stomach pulling upwards into his chest as he fell. The rope he was holding was thick and heavy with plenty of friction, but he still fell like a bag of bricks. The branch he'd leapt from was only as tall as a single story house's roof, and the floor was a combination of sand and a thick layer of grass, so he wasn't too worried about hurting himself. He couldn't complain though, his job was still much safer than Aslan's.
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He landed a little roughly, but without hurting himself.
As soon as he impacted the ground, he glanced over at the fruits of his labour, of painstakingly subtly laying out their rope in a very particular pattern as they moved from their old camp back to the tree where Symon had initially spotted the adventurers from.
The trap had been successfully sprung, the razor stalker caught in a net that was suspended in the air. Symon had used his own body as a counterweight, pulling the net tight and hauling the monster into the air — but this was not a perfect solution. The monster was lithe and light for its intimidating height, but even still Symon was being pulled off his feet and back into the air by the weight of the monster.
If the monster released itself now, it would be free to run away or fight back as it pleased — but their whole point in trapping the monster was to give them every possible advantage and turn what would have been a dangerous fair fight into something favouring them. Gritting his teeth, he leaned back while hauling on the rope in the world's most dangerous game of tug-of-war. He wouldn't win this, but that was okay, he just needed to delay as long as he could and allow the team to deliver as much hurt as possible.
Thankfully, they didn't need any prompting as he could already see one of Serik's giant arrows protruding from the monster. As he watched, another shot into the creature. Being the bait, Aslan was already in position, thrusting upwards with his spear into the creature. The blows didn't seem very effective, scoring large marks in their wake as the metal spear tip glanced off the creature's carapace, but every little bit of damage counted.
Their ability to deal damage was limited, both due to the awkward angle and natural resilience of the creature, but also due to their limited timeframe. The creature wasn't content to get whaled on like a pinata, the wicked curved blades on its arms flashing out in a whirlwind, shredding through the net keeping it trapped. It was also letting out an awful high pitched hissing sound, hurting Symon's ears even despite him being the furthest from the creature.
Safiya would be instrumental in melee combat, but had little in the way of ranged attacks to use. She could have thrown her daggers, but would rather save them for the inevitable fight. Instead, she assisted Symon by hauling on the rope, preventing him from being the one pulled up into the air and keeping the monster safely suspended.
Safely relatively speaking, of course. Multiple of the javelin sized arrows were protruding from the creature, and it dripped red blood from the many shallow cuts delivered by the spear, but things had finally gone right for it. Whether through skill or pure chance, one of the bladed scythe arms cut out at the perfect time to cut straight through the wooden shaft. Aslan was at least quick to react, tossing away his ruined weapon as he drew a short sword from his side, but it signalled the shifting in the tides of battle, and not in their favour.
Moments after disarming its opponent the stalker managed to free itself, slashing through the last pieces of the net that kept it restrained. It landed gracefully, despite the arrow sticking out of its hip and stomach. It seemed to briefly consider fleeing, before its eyes snapped to the discarded spear and then to the man who had dropped it. With another hiss, it advanced.
Even with his shield and chainmail armour, Symon knew the man couldn't last long. Their archer would provide ranged support, but could do little to directly help Aslan survive. Recognising this, Symon followed after Safiya as she dropped the rope and zoomed off to the fight, circling around the monster as she went. She was almost comically faster than him as she shot across the ground, almost as fast as the razor stalker. Recognising he'd be the latest addition to the fight, he circled around in the opposite direction to Safiya, aiming to attack the creature from behind while it was distracted with the others.
As he ran forwards to join in, he watched the fight. Aslan's shield was made of thick, unadorned metal, and yet he managed to move it around with surprising speed, beyond even what Symon would expect for something with enhanced physical attributes. Getting the shield into position to intercept the stalker's massive blades was all well and good, but the shield was already struggling to stay in one piece. Jagged serrations were left through the metal every time the blades swiped across them with a metallic screech. Sparks were sent flying every time they impacted, the bone blades of the monster winning out against the metal of the shield. Just how strong were those arms to remain undamaged?
Without the reach of his spear Aslan was unable to effectively counterattack, but Safiya was already in position at the monster's side. The next time it struck forward, apparently too focused on breaking through Aslan's guard to notice the second threat, Safiya reacted. Her twin daggers flashed out, reminiscent of the stalker's attacks as they stabbed deeply into the monster's side. One dagger was ripped free, but the other had gotten stuck in the creature's thick skin — from his closer view, Symon wasn't sure if it was just dense hide or a carapace like shell that would fit with the monster's mantis-like appearance.
Reacting to this new threat quickly, the stalker twisted away from Safiya. Reacting even faster, she released her grip on the embedded dagger to avoid being pulled off balance, instead rolling with the movement as she avoided a vertical slash that sliced through the spot she was in just moments before. Taking this opportunity afforded by her distraction, Aslan leapt forward and delivered a quick slash to the top of the creature's arm, in-between the bicep and shoulder — or at least in the equivalent position considering monster anatomy was likely different from humans. Once again, the attacks weren't nearly as effective as they would have hoped, something about the monster's skin or perhaps just a high Constitution preventing a solid attack from landing.
Although, this seemed to only include the slashing attacks of the group, with Serik's arrows penetrating deeply into their target. By running to the right of Aslan, Symon had put the archer behind him, something he was made uncomfortably aware of as an arrow shot over his shoulder before slamming into the back of the monster. He could have sworn he felt the fletching of the arrow brush his ear, although he hoped it was just the air rushing past and it hadn't actually been so close to hitting him.
Symon finally reached the back of the monster, readying his club for an attack. He hoped it would be enough, because as it was it seemed like they'd mostly just managed to annoy the monster. They were locked in a stalemate, slowly whittling the monster down — but it would only take a single mistake for those razor-sharp bone scythes to reap one of their lives.