I discovered the group of party-goers a little way in the building by some of the frozen guards with wriggling masses of worms under their skin. I could smell fear wafting off of some while others were still emotionally steady. While steadily walking up behind them I resumed my disguise. The man in the porcelain mask showed no emotions at all and looked on with little interest. The only one that noticed my arrival was twiggy. He looked over his shoulder at me with a maniacal glare and I returned the favor. While backing away I lifted a hand from my cloak and beckoned him with a clawed finger. Though the candle eased my tension I was still ready to rip something to shreds. Twiggy seemed ready to tear something up as well and followed me with the quiet steps of an apex predator.

As soon as I rounded a corner jumped back as a scrawny pail hand slammed into my previous position. The creature’s sloppily maintained disguise flaked off as it charged at me with the full force of a boulder. But no matter how twiggy tried he was always a finger lengths away from clawing me. Seeing it was going nowhere it abruptly crouched down and launched itself with long spindly legs. I ducked down narrowly avoiding its long jagged teeth. Despite its seemingly clumsy movement, its attacks had some grace and precision to them. The creature hooked a claw into the wall stopping itself and provided a place it can push off. But as it narrowly sailed by me I grabbed one of its bony legs and slung it down the hall. Like the well-seasoned humanoid jumping spider it was, it landed in a crawling position and began rapidly jumping off of every wall. It was an attempt to gather momentum and is usually an effective way to throw prey off guard but pretty useless against me.

I stayed still as its ugly mug came closer and closer until finally, its claws were close enough to barely touch my cloak. With the explosive abrupt movement my kind oh so favors I slapped the skinny bastard clear through a wall. Man, that felt good. An enraged shrill shriek erupted from the newly made entrance and a shadow launched out only to hit the wall hard. With a shake, twiggy looked around for me, unbeknownst to twiggy I was right behind it. I slammed my knuckles squarely into where the neck connected to the spine causing the creature to slam into the ground with enough force to crack the once smooth floor. Enraged that a predator such as itself was ambushed it tried to backhanded slap me only to hit the wall. It turned to attack but once again found nothing. Young predators such as twiggy here tend to momentarily forget to check behind them. I had followed its head movement to stay perfectly out of its vision. I slammed a knuckle into the same place with more force causing a small cracking sound that only I could hear.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Twiggy's are known for their remarkably hard bones and frantic acrobatics, though their strength is considered average for a creature plagued by hunger it is nothing to scoff at. With it briefly stunned I kicked it hard in the jaw, sending its head into the wall. I backed off right before the sickle-like claws on its foot could tear my cloak. It yanked its head from the wall and turned its head like an owl to look at me with sunken eyes and a now dislocated jaw. This little scuffle was drawing on a bit too long for my taste so when it did another signature leap I slammed a knuckle into its collar bone, breaking it. The creature was sent to the ground by the sheer force required to break that bone. As it rolled I pounced and sunk my claws into its wire-thin chest and began applying pressure. It took some effort but twiggy’s ribs broke like its namesake. It screeched and went to swipe at me but I grabbed and twisted its arm before it realized what happened.

With a quick movement, I wrenched out twiggy’s heart and slammed it into its head. It landed with a dull thud, knocking the creature into a daze. With one smooth motion, I withdrew my dagger and plunged it deep into the slowly beating organ. The heart shuddered and the creature writhed in silent agony. Whisps of black smoke and lines of curses began to rapidly be absorbed by the bone-white dagger. After a second the wave stopped and the heart fell away to ash. What was left of twiggy was nothing but a dried-up husk… so nothing really changed. Its bones were incredibly brittle now though. It was a long and wiry creature, almost reaching my normal height of ten feet. But it lacked almost all of my mass, being thin enough to be mistaken as a tree. Its head was human enough as well as its body except for how abnormally thin it was. I waved a hand summoning a strong gust that blew its body away.

I turned on my heel, sheathed my dagger on my belt, and walked back. The group hadn’t of gone far, only a few extra feet. They had come across a pile of flesh that was definitely not there on my first walkthrough. Some of them being the idiots that they are, reached out to touch it unaware that the action was the equivalent of halving the time they had left. One human yanked his hand back suddenly as a mass of mini spiders jumped out and began to burrow into his skin. The rest of the idiots yanked back their hands but it was pretty much too late, and hundreds of thousands of tiny spiders rushed out to burrow into every living thing. The group collectively backed off leaving the three poor souls to get devoured. Side note: that is not to supposed to happen yet. The man in the porcelain mask withdrew a flask and threw it, causing the contained liquids to scatter. A second later a wall of flames erupted, dividing the group from creepy crawly death.