Up in the tree Rosha pulls a piercing arrow from her quiver and draws the bow back. Ready she waits for the right shot and Jason plans to give it to her. He approaches the mossram and punches over and over to keep the monster focused on him. This might not do much damage but the monster doesn’t like it either.
It catches Jason by surprise and smacks him away. The mossram had been on its back but that is apparently a meaningless distinction as the legs just bend down and picks it off the ground. However the missing back leg proves more of a weakness as its front is lifted first. This gives Rosha the shot she was waiting for and the arrow screams off. With a solid thunk the shot pierces deep into the upper back of the mossram.
Courtney yells out, “good shot, you dealt a lot of damage so you probably hit the core. We can use that arrow as a guide on where to target.” Another arrow thunks into the monster while Jason rolls around on the ground to avoid being stomped on. The arrow distracts the mossram enough to let him get up and back off. However when the mossram readies to charge the tree Rosha is in he doesn’t have time to catch his breath.
Back into melee he charges. With another leap Jason lands on the monster's back and he smashes his fist next to the two arrows in its back. The mossram screams and instead of rearing up it rolls to the side.
Ready this time Jason uses his movement skill run up the side of the mossram and over the top. Rosha meanwhile thunks two more piercing arrows deep into it next to the previous two. As the mossram rights itself once again she yells at Jason to, “get it back on the other side. Those arrows where a good marker on where to hit.”
Jason punches again and yells back, “sure let me just politely tell it how to fight us.” In response, an arrow sprouts out of the mossram right next to his foot. He laughs and slams another punch into the mossram’s back. This time though the monster doesn’t deign to roll over again. He laughs again, “I guess it doesn’t want to. Let me try something real quick and see if it works.”
With a couple steps he is back at where the leg stump. It still pours out water but only a fraction as the mossram has managed to tighten the wound. Jason however undoes all that work by grabbing the edges of the hole and ripping the wound open again. The mossram couldn’t help it at this point and started to roll over again.
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This time Jason is on the wrong side of it. Instead of just some tricky footwork he has to really work for it to stay on the mossrams back. Just before the mossram slams down on him he uses his hands to pull himself over onto its other side.
Now with the arrow side up Rosha uses her piercing shot skill and lands an exceptional shot on it. The mossram’s whole body shivers and instead of water a violet ooze seeps out from where the arrow hit. Jason takes this as a hint on where to hit and winds up a blast punch. With his other hand grabbing onto the mossram he puts his whole body into a straight punch right next to that arrow. The slow trickle of violet ooze becomes a steam as the monster drops to the ground, its legs unable to keep it up.
The mossram weakly tries to get up while Jason yells at Rosha to, “save your arrows. I should be able to finish this now.” Rosha has another piercing arrow drawn but she holds off. Jason soon proves out his claim as it only takes a couple more punches on that spot to kill the mossram.
As it dies all the previous wounds, they had done to the mossram burst open again. In fact, it seems the mossram had been actively holding the water back as the water now bursts out like a firehose. In moments multiple inches of water are on the ground. Jason and Courtney are forces to higher ground while Rosha works her way through the treetops away from the area.
A good thing too as moments later whatever was left holding the moss together gives up and it bursts. A giant wall of water pours out as the entire valley fills up. The group gathers back up with the scout as they watch this deluge of water. Jason raises an eyebrow, “I guess I don’t get to see how looting works until the next fight.”
Courtney shrugs, “you just take stuff off of them. A lot more free form but the materials and such actually have a quality depending on how you fought. Can’t expect to slash up a wolf and still get a perfect pelt after all. Plus money is both harder and easier to come by. Once again with the wolf you won’t be finding gold pieces in their stomach unless they had swallowed some. Money no longer appears out of nowhere.”
She turns to the scout, “so I think we took care of this problem. If what I read the worry about a mossram swarm wasn’t too far off. They don’t take on that much water unless they are going to mass spawn. I probably don’t need to say this but your tribe will need to be extra careful. Something must have been preying on them quite hard to force this.”
The scout makes a noncommittal noise, “eh, probably just one of the few surviving herbivores coming around. The only ones that can survive in the forest are massive tanks who have been alive since before the kingdom tried to clear the forest. Anyway, you beat the beast and so you guys can consider yourselves even with our tribe. Feel free to come back when you're stronger. We can always use help from those past the fourth bottleneck. We can handle most things but it is always nice to reduce the risk to our lives.”