Redmane and Fedor ripped into each other, and blood, flesh and fur sprayed all over the inside of the shed.
He couldn’t see it well, but he could tell by the stench that the entire interior of this room was painted with blood.
Redmane felt his heart thundering faster and faster against his ribcage, his muscles hot and his skin slicked with blood as his claws became a blur of slashing death. He felt Fedor’s claws ripping his own body apart at the same time. A race to the grave at maximum speed. Even in the dark he could see the gleam of bloodthirst in Fedor’s beady eyes, and he understood it all too well. Unfortunately for the Mongrel, Redmane’s Bloodlust was on another level.
A claw across the face spun Fedor around and he fell to the dirt floor. But before Redmane could pursue, the Mongrel began to meld into the darkness.
Abyss Walk
Not this time…
Redmane snarled and leapt onto him, even as the Mongrel faded through his own shadow and into the Abyss. They tumbled in the dark, grappling, clawing and biting at each other, falling into one shadow and out of another, this one cast from the wall of a nearby shop. It deposited them onto the ground in the midst of a savage grapple, several buildings away from where they started, but neither paid attention. They were too busy trying to rip each other’s guts out.
Corpus notifications flew by in Redmane’s mind, and he paid no attention to them.
Why hadn’t he reduced this thing to a red paste yet?
Why wasn’t Bloodlust making him faster?
Redmane realized something.
Fedor was flesh and blood, or so it seemed. But he had no Bleeding stacks on him, despite how many claws he’d simply taken with no thought to defense. Actually, now that he was paying closer attention, Redmane felt the effect of Bloodlust flickering on and off every few moments.
Fedor’s possum-like face was twisted in a feral snarl, as he ravaged Redmane with a non stop flurry of claws. He didn’t look like he was consciously activating a Skill. Whatever it was, it was passive.
Redmane shoved him back, blasted him with Fire Breath, and when Fedor shrieked and covered his face with his arms, instinctively falling back into his own shadow for another Abyss Walk, Redmane lunged and grabbed hold of him around the middle.
And again, they whirled through the Abyss and appeared somewhere else.
They were on a balcony now. Overlooking the town’s keep and the stone bridge across the gorge. The house of a nobleman, it might have been. Rollo’s Pass stood at the edge of a canyon so deep it was difficult to see the bottom. Redmane got a better view than he’d have asked for, since Fedor pushed him out of the shadow and pinned him against the balcony’s stone railing, making them both nearly tilt over it to tumble down the canyonside.
But there was no time to admire the scenery.
Redmane headbutted Fedor’s snout, sending him backpedaling, disentangling them for but a moment. In a moment Fedor shook it off, growled and charged back at Redmane with no hesitation or thought to defense.
Fedor the Footpad was no slouch.
He was tougher than Barba, Redmane thought, even if he was a third the size.
Redmane caught Fedor mid-charge and threw him at an adjacent wall, held him against it for a moment to check his Corpus.
Corpus: 4565
He instantly wished he hadn’t
Fedor swatted Redmane’s hand away, shoved him back and they met in yet another bloody grapple, punctuated by growling and the sounds of claws tearing flesh. He didn’t know how much fight the Mongrel had left in him, but Redmane saw no signs that he was slowing. Whereas he’d lost about two thirds of the Corpus he’d started with.
His foe was fast, strong, determined and savage. He’d have to be faster, stronger, fiercer still.
And if Bloodlust wouldn’t work properly, he’d have to gain the edge some other way.
Might of Umber
Gnosis: 149
Power surged into his body. It sharpened his senses, toughened his hide, flooded his muscles with ice cold lightning.
He pinned Fedor to the wall and closed in for a killing bite, but the Mongrel used Abyss Walk yet again. Redmane kept hold of him as they spun through the endless dark, came sprawling out onto what appeared to be the bell tower of a small chapel.
Redmane shoved Fedor off and rolled to his feet on the narrow walkway. The Mongrel rushed in and clinched with him, and when he did so Redmane grabbed his head and banged it against the side of the huge iron bell, making an echoing BONG which startled a pack of crows from their nearby perches.
Fedor reeled, slipped off the walkway and fell down the shaft of the belltower, and Redmane leapt after him.
Instead of striking the floor, Abyss Walk took them back into the depths of oblivion as if they’d dove into a pool of water.
They surfaced on the middle of a street below the chapel belltower. A street full of Mongrels feasting on a pile of dead bodies.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Half a dozen bestial heads looked up from their meal, snarled and turned to encircle Redmane. There were more, but it took them a moment or two longer to notice the disturbance and join them. Redmane growled and crouched, ready to spring at the first Mongrel who dared come at him.
Redmane glanced for Fedor, but he was gone.
The bastard had a few tricks up his sleeve, it seemed.
No matter. There were foes in front of him to worry about.
The first Mongrel leapt and Redmane met it with downward claw that smacked its head to the cobblestones. Then came the next, and the next, and he struck, ducked and weaved around the bodies sailing through the air at him, one after the other. Might of Umber made this easier. He could take a glancing blow, let it scrape harmlessly against his stony skin, focus on evading things that might actually hurt or pin him down.
Redmane smote Mongrels one at a time, picking them off, evading their lunges and tackles. He had to keep them from dogpiling him, taking away his mobility.
All while keeping his senses keen for the re-emergence of his real enemy.
And just as he expected, the presence of Fedor winked back into existence. Behind him.
Would the same trick work again?
Flicker
Gnosis: 99
Fedor snarled and charged, claws raking furiously ahead…
And they hit empty air.
Yes, it would.
Redmane appeared behind the Mongrel, grabbed him by the shoulders, opened wide and bit down on the intersection of Fedor’s neck and shoulder.
And at last, he felt some of the fight go out of him.
Fedor’s body went limp in his jaws. He croaked out and tried to swipe at him haphazardly, but he couldn’t turn around with Redmane’s jaws securely clamped down on his neck. He growled and bit down deeper, jaws shearing through muscle, tendon and bone.
Fedor coughed, and black blood spurted out of his mouth, staining his fur. Redmane jerked his neck back and forth in his jaws. He felt a wet snap, and the Mongrel’s limbs began to twitch as he threw him to the ground.
There were only a few more cowering Mongrels left to strike down, and it was done.
Fedor the Footpad Slain
Tasks Completed: 2/3
Level Up
Level 74 —> 75
Level 75 —> 76
Level 76 —> 77
Quality Points awaiting allocation: 6
Redmane closed his eyes, took a deep breath, let it out and flopped down into a seat against the wall of a building.
That fight was… Different.
He glanced at the System message. The number of Quality Points puzzled Redmane at first, but then he remembered that he had three from Fedor and three he hadn’t yet spent, from Barba.
He decided to make Grace even with Might and get Fortitude as close as he could.
Grace 47 —> 50
Fortitude 46 —> 49
With that matter sorted, he took his time with dinner.
There were the paltry remains of Fedor, and the not so paltry corpse of Barba back at the corral. It wasn’t a great distance away. The town of Rollo’s Pass was quite compact, actually. Now that he had a moment to appreciate its construction, he noticed how densely packed its buildings were, inside its tall gray walls.
Corpus: 9878
—
Monster Skill Learned
Submerge
Abyssal Skill
Rank 1 - Evolution Possible
Active - 50 Gnosis
The Monster calls forth the Abyss itself, banishing its foes to the depths.
This Skill creates a small area of Abyss energy around the Monster. Should a creature be within the Skill’s area of effect upon activation, it is instantly transported to Depth Zero of the Abyss.
If the creature lacks the means with which to navigate the Abyss on its own, or it does not possess an item or access to a site which anchors the Abyss to the material plane, the creature is lost for eternity. It is possible to rescue such a creature, if the rescuer knows the creature and possesses its own means of Abyssal navigation.
If the Monster has access to an Abyssal Well, it may use this Skill to travel directly to it, regardless of distance. It may bring other creatures along with it, provided they are standing within the Skill’s area of effect.
Abyss Walk
Abyssal Skill
Rank 1 - Evolution Possible
Active - 15 Gnosis
The Monster fills its own shadow with the substance of the Abyss and steps into it, emerging out of another shadow nearby.
Rank increases the distance away from each other the two shadows may be. For a moment after stepping into its own shadow, the Monster will be able to see all of its available exits. The Monster cannot linger in the Abyss using this Skill, however. They must remain in motion.
The Monster may pull another into the Abyss with it, willingly or otherwise, and if the creature should let go of the Monster in transit, they will be lost in the Abyss unless the Monster can retrieve them.
Abyssal Resilience
Abyssal Skill
Rank 1 - Evolution Possible
Passive
The Monster’s form is suffused with the substance of the Abyss, insulating it against the frailties of the flesh.
Whenever the Monster is affected by a Condition which would damage or weaken its body, such as Burning, Bleeding, Venom, or others, Abyssal Resilience provides a brief window of immunity to that Condition. If the Monster should be struck again with the same Condition, this extends the window of immunity.
This Skill does not prevent the Monster from sustaining the Corpus damage of attacks, merely their secondary effects.
—
Redmane read over these new Skills. His eyebrows rose at the description of Abyss Walk, realizing how fortunate he’d been that Fedor hadn’t shoved him off into nothingness during of one of their rounds of Abyssal wrestling.
He then read Abyssal Resilience especially carefully.
So, that’s how Fedor had survived so long. Or part of the reason, at least. Redmane kept hitting him with his claws, making him repeatedly immune to Bleeding. Fedor must have had some other kind of passive damage resistance, but if it was a Skill, it wasn’t as highly ranked as these others.
Regardless, he was dead, and at least a part of that resilience was his now.
Redmane leapt onto a nearby rooftop to survey the town, discern where his next foe might be found. Rollo’s Pass had a large central street which ran from north to south, and ended on the northron side with the gatehouse and great stone bridge across the canyon. On the opposite side of the bridge there was another gatehouse, and a keep.
If Captain Solveig hadn’t come out at any time during the chaos here today, there was a good chance he would be found on the other side of that bridge.
Flush with Corpus and new Skills, Redmane decided not to waste any time.
He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, and then down onto the street when he reached the gatehouse and bridge. As soon as he cleared the gatehouse a powerful gust of wind hit him from the side, sweeping up from the bottom of the canyon below. Fortunately the bridge had high stone ramparts to protect people from being blown off.
Redmane could simply grow wings, but still, the strength of the wind was startling.
He was halfway across the bridge when he sensed Mongrels on the opposite side, moving.
One of them leapt straight over the gatehouse on the opposite end of the bridge, landed in front of Redmane with unnatural grace for his size. He was huge, nearly as large as Barba but it was immediately clear that this one was much more agile. Bits of shining armor hung from his furry hide in places, far too small for him now. He had a snout like a horse, and long branching antlers, and when he opened his mouth Redmane saw naught but jagged teeth.
And, like his comrades, he was white from head to toe.
Captain Solveig
Monster Type: Corrupted (Abyss Touched)
Level 95
Captain Solveig raised a gnarled, apelike arm, and pitch black Abyss power swirled around his hand, lengthening his claws.
Redmane flexed his own claws, cracked his neck, and marched forward.