Crossbow bolts whizzed by Redmane’s head as he sprinted for the watchtower.

The Stitchwork Spider climbed down the side of that tower to interpose itself between him and the guards posted behind and above. Unless Redmane found a way by, he’d have to contend with them all at the same time.

Which wouldn’t do.

There did seem to be one way through, but the chance of success was slim.

He’d dive under the thing’s legs and run through the watchtower door, which was too small for the Monster to follow unless it could tuck all of its limbs in tight and squeeze through the gap. Which was possible. But he didn’t see any alternatives at the moment.

Redmane grew close. The Spider reared up with a shrill cry, its weapons poised to strike.

Then he tucked and rolled underneath it.

This might have worked if it were truly a spider. But its legs ended in human hands. No sooner did Redmane begin his roll did one of them snag him out from underneath and lift him up off his feet, several feet up, so that the faces of the Stitched Spider could get a close look at him.

There was a wet, twisting sound as its head rotated to show Redmane its snarl face.

It shrieked again, loud enough to make his eardrums threaten to burst, then it pounded him down on the stone floor a few times and tossed him up into the air.

His stomach lurched the moment he was airborne. Already dizzied by the blows he’d taken, he nearly missed what the Spider intended to do next; impale him on the way down. He realized this as gravity took hold of him and he began to fall. The Monster already had its spike at the ready, its smiling face aimed up in his direction.

If only he could suddenly change direction mid fall.

What he could do was change the angle of said fall. He tilted like a diver, making his body straight up and down instead of flat against the wind, to avoid impalement.

Barely.

But it came so close he had to thrust his chin skyward at the last second to avoid taking the point of that spike through his head.

Three more weapons were already descending upon him the moment his feet touched the ground.

He ducked the swipe of an axe, twisted away from the thrust of a trident. The scythe sheared off some of his hair and cloak.

And yet no opening to attack presented itself.

Worse, another salvo of crossbow bolts whistled his way.

Redmane leapt backward, as there was no other direction to go. To the left and right were long falls, either down into the town or down onto the lawn on the other side.

He blocked the swipe of the scythe, slipped to the side of the spike and attempted a counterattack, but the trident and axe were already on him. Again he had deflect, dodge, give ground.

It became clear that he wasn’t going to come out of this unscathed, no matter how he played it. It would be a trade, blood for blood. He simply had to make certain their price was higher.

The Spider struck with all four of its arms at a speed Redmane barely kept pace with. The Monster had strength, agility and a freakish amount of reach. Redmane backpedaled, ducking and weaving, searching for a time to strike back. Fortunately the Monster’s large body provided some cover from the crossbow fire, especially as he walked the Stitched Spider farther and farther away from them along the wall.

Perhaps the problem was the number of weapons in play.

He could try removing one.

It would cost him, but he wasn’t getting far with his present strategy anyway.

Redmane spotted the trident coming in to skewer him through the middle.

So he dropped his axe and let it.

Corpus: 5962

The impact took his breath away. He coughed out a spray of blood, gritted his teeth and grabbed hold of the Spider’s spindly arm with both hands. Three more weapons were on their way, they would be there to chop him apart in the blink of an eye.

Before they could, he hunched over and bit hard into the Spider’s arm.

It shrieked and flailed, trying to flick him off. His claws held firm even as the Monster jostled him around, teeth grinding down on dessicated flesh and bone. It cracked and splintered, and the stitching gave way. The scythe bit into his shoulder on the right side, the axe cleaved into his left hip, but he kept on chewing.

Corpus: 4800

Redmane growled, twisted and pulled hard with the muscles of his neck, and the limb slowly tore free with a series of crunching, popping, snapping sounds.

He spat it onto the ground and roared at the Spider, who had staggered backward in a moment of shock. So, it wasn’t a mindless thing. It understood its injury. Redmane glanced for his axe on the ground, decided he didn’t need it, and lunged.

The Spider stabbed out with its spike. Redmane caught it and held tight, even though it speared through the back of his hand.

The scythe came down on him from the opposite side, and he caught that with his other hand.

Then came the axe, descending on Redmane’s face like a guillotine.

He angled his head and bit it. Stopped it dead in his jaws.

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The Spider pulled and tugged its limbs, trying to wrest at least one from Redmane’s control. None budged. His jaws closed on the axe head slowly, and as surely as he’d snapped off its bony arm, the metal split and broke apart under the implacable force of his bite.

It didn’t cause much of an injury. But it did create a stump where once there was the business end of an axe.

While the Spider was busy looking at said stump in dismay, Redmane bit down on its scythe arm. It let out another shrill cry and tried to pull it free, in vain. It tried pulling its spike arm free from Redmane’s other hand as well. In vain.

Another wet crunch, another fallen limb.

Three well aimed crossbow bolts thumped into Redmane’s chest and right shoulder.

Corpus: 4121

Redmane leapt onto the Stitchwork Spider to gnaw off the last one, using all four limbs and his jaws to keep the offending appendage still despite the Monster’s keening and wild thrashing. As a last ditch effort it reared up onto four of its hind hands, trying desperately to grab at him with the rest.

Too late. His jaws crunched down with vicious finality.

The Stitchwork Spider had been disarmed, literally.

Four more crossbow bolts slammed into Redmane’s back as he climbed up the Monster’s torso to bite down on the Spider’s neck, in an attempt to end its misery. Another bolt whooshed right by his face as the thing flailed around, screaming, threatening to pitch the both of them over the side of the wall. Two more bites and the thing’s neck snapped, separating head from shoulders, but even as it rolled to a stop on the stone floor to gaze at itself, the rest of its body remained quite energetic.

Two crossbow bolts stuck into Redmane’s right hip. Another bit into the nape of his neck. He began to resemble a pin cushion.

Corpus: 2536

Time to go deal with that problem.

The remains of this thing could flail around blindly until he came back.

Redmane bolted for the watchtower, running on all fours for a moment like a man-sized Warg. Then he leapt, claws dug into the stone and climbed up to the top where all the crossbowmen awaited him.

Some shot him point blank. Others dropped their crossbows to draw steel. None lasted more than a second or two. Redmane tore them apart with teeth and claws and feasted on their remains.

Corpus: 3205

With that annoyance done away with, he could return to the still thrashing remnants of the Stitchwork Spider and take it apart at his leisure. Each and every segment of it seemed to have a life force of its own. The hands it walked on, of which there were an asymmetrical number on either side, had to be individually broken and severed from its torso before they stopped moving.

He breathed out a sigh of relief when the loathsome thing was fully dispatched.

Level Up

Level 35 —> Level 36

Quality Points awaiting allocation: 1

He bought Might last time, this time he decided to do the same.

Might 24 —> 25

Skill Rank Up

—

Omnivore

Bloodline Skill (Monstrous)

Rank 4 - Evolution Possible

Passive

(Rank 0) The Monster derives sustenance from anything, and its digestion produces no waste. Its teeth and jaws can chew through most substances with sustained effort.

(Rank 1) The Monster's consumption of flesh restores its Corpus, and consumption of magic restores its Gnosis. All caps for Corpus and Gnosis, regardless of source, are removed.

(Rank 2) The consumption of refined metals will permanently increase the Monster's Armor and the damage of its physical natural weapons, such as claws, bite, horns, talons or spines. Damage and Armor gains are proportionate to the quantity and purity of metals consumed.

(Rank 3) When the Monster consumes the flesh of a creature possessing a Skill, it will adopt that Skill as its own at Rank 1. If the creature possesses multiple Skills, the Monster will acquire that creature's highest Ranked Skill. If the creature possesses more than one Skill tied for highest Rank, the Monster acquires them all.

Skills obtained in this way increase in Rank by whatever process the Monster gains in power, if any.

(Rank 4) When the Monster consumes weapons and armor with special qualities, it may allocate those qualities to its physical natural weapons, such as claws, bite, horns, talons or spines, if it possesses any. Armor qualities may be allocated as long as the Monster possesses a natural Armor bonus. If the Damage and Armor Penetration values of a consumed weapon are higher than that of the Monster’s natural weapons, the natural weapons will gain the difference between the two as a permanent bonus.

The Monster may also consume Talismans and Vestments, thereby inheriting whatever bonuses or special qualities they conferred while worn.

—

Oh…

He’d been waiting for that!

He turned and fetched Morholt’s axe from the ground, took a look at its System icon to check its qualities.

—

Bear Hunter's Greataxe

Greataxe (Heavy Melee Weapon)

Weapon Profile:

Damage +12

Armor Penetration 6

Evasion Negation 6 (Fast 3)

Armor +4 while blocking (Defensive 2)

Attacks damage up to 4 close foes (Cleaving 3)

Ancestral weapon of the Morholt family. Despite its great size, it is well balanced and easy to handle, the work of a master weapon smith.

It is said the forefather of the Morholts won his domain by slaying a great bear who dwelt there since the days of antiquity.

—

Then he took a look at the profiles of his own natural weapons, for a refresher.

—

Weapon Profile:

Claws

Damage +8

Armor Penetration 4

Corpus damage over time on hit (Rending 1)

Bite

Damage +8

Armor Penetration 4

Evasion Negation 2 (Fast 1)

—

If he was reading the Skill description correctly, he could consume this weapon and it would enhance the Damage and Armor Penetration of both his bite and his claws. And then he supposed he could divvy up its Qualities between the two as he saw fit.

There was only one way to find out if his reading was correct.

Redmane opened up and chomped into the ancestral weapon of House Morholt, chewed, swallowed. Two more bites and it was done.

He could feel it inside his stomach. The powers of the weapon, floating in his small pool of Gnosis as hardened motes of energy. There were three of them, and he could feel their character. The Fast quality was hot and airy, it moved around more than the others. Defensive was the opposite, cool and solid, it sat still at the bottom of his stomach. And then Cleaving felt… Spicy. And it took up a lot of space.

He gave it some thought, and then he sent Cleaving and Defensive to his claws. His bite had one dose of Fast already, so he added more to it.

Power trickled from his gut into his hands, up into his jaws and teeth. There was a moment of painful stiffness as the magic calcified into his teeth, jaws and claws.

—

Weapon Profile:

Claws

Damage +12

Armor Penetration 6

Corpus damage over time on hit (Rending 1)

Armor +4 while blocking (Defensive 2)

Attacks damage up to 4 foes (Cleaving 3)

Bite

Damage +12

Armor Penetration 6

Evasion Negation 8 (Fast 4)

—

It was done.

Redmane looked down at his claw. He felt the power in it. It called to him, made him want to run to the next fight as fast as he could. To taste his gain in strength.

But there was one more item in his possession, a Talisman he’d acquired down in the gaol under Häerz Castle.

—

Charm of St. Alexia

Talisman (Neck)

Passive

Enhances Evasion by +2

Aged bronze medallion depicting St. Alexia, one of the first Imbued.

Alexia was a dancer before her land was Blighted. She took up the sword and received Astral Communion, and her natural Grace was the last thing many a Monster would behold.

—

Redmane took it off and tossed it in his mouth like a piece of candy.

Evasion +2

Remarkable.

But before he left this place, there was a Stitchwork Spider to eat.

Redmane crouched over its remains and devoured them as fast as he could, eager to get back into the fray.

As meals went, it was unsatisfying.

Corpus: 3767

For a Monster that size it provided much less Corpus than he expected. Perhaps Undead type Monsters wouldn’t provide much nourishment.

If that were the case, he would have to be careful around them.

Redmane wiped his mouth, stood and surveyed Barograd from his perch on the wall. It was a big place. A lot of ground for one set of feet to cover. Exploring it would take him a long time.

Unless he could scout through the town with more than one pair of eyes…

No sooner did the thought cross his mind, did he remember he could do just that.