The first gnoll came in swinging. Jerome dodged its blow then put out a hand and used Recoil Burst to knock it off balance.

Off balance was good. That meant it couldn’t run after Rayi, and for at least a couple seconds it couldn’t attack Jerome again. That gave him time to deal with the other three gnolls.

The gate itself worked to Jerome’s advantage. It was made so that one gnoll could block it against several attackers. His disadvantage was three-fold: he didn’t have a weapon, all of his forms were strictly weaker and worse at claw attacks than the gnolls he was defending against, and if any one of the gnolls got past he would have to abandon his fantastic fortified position.

He backed up, letting the gnolls take a second to feel out the situation.

“Why do you let the human escape?” one asked him. “Has the kingdom not cared for you well? Do you not want the same for it?”

“This one must have been raised outside,” said another. “I keep saying we should respawn new citizens, especially those who do battle.”

While the others argued one of them tried to climb up the walls, which Jerome had forgotten they could do. A quick Portal Hand and a Recoil Burst reset five seconds of climbing and the fall did some damage. Hopefully they wouldn’t try that again.

“Fighting now,” said the leader. “Talking later.”

Thus it began in earnest. Two attacked one after the other. Jerome dodged the first, but then was hit by the club of the second. He slammed against the wall, dizzy from the blow that had knocked out 16% of his health.

It was okay. He still had more forms he could use up. He just had to keep them from getting away.

One tried to scramble past him while he was dizzy, but Jerome was able to cast Hold on it to stop it in its tracks. His mana slowly drained away with the spell, but that was okay. He could get more mana.

When he did that, however, he let his back be turned to the other three, and the club once again struck him, this time square in the back. He lost 21% of his health and went sprawling face-forward onto the ground.

The good part of that was that it showed him which direction Rayi was going; not that he would have needed it, with the gnoll sense of smell being what it was. But it was good to see Rayi getting farther away.

The bad part of being on the ground was that his back was exposed to attacks from every single gnoll. Three blows struck in quick succession, one from a club, one from claws, and a third from a saber. Those last two caused bleeding.

He was now at 8% health, so he flipped over and transformed in one smooth motion.

From his back he was able to see the incoming blows easier. He dodged the next two and even managed to get a kick off into the stomach of an attacker. The third attacker he cast Hold on.

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The drain of mana resumed; he could keep the spell going for about half a minute with one of them, or eight seconds with all four.

Then he realized his mistake: when he’d switched forms the mana drain from his previous Hold had stopped. That meant his previous channeling of Hold had stopped, and the fourth gnoll was freely chasing Rayi.

Jerome scrambled backwards, trying to fend off the two free gnolls in front of him while getting a look at the gnoll that had escaped, but it didn’t work. He would have to turn his back to his attackers if he wanted to do anything to the gnoll that was getting away. He stepped forward and did his strongest Recoil Pulse in order to buy himself some time, absorbing a blow from the second, and then taking advantage of the attacking gnoll’s attack recovery to take it down with a Recoil Burst-enhanced kick to the shin.

Now he had the chance to cast Hold on the escaping gnoll.

There it was, almost caught up with Rayi.

He cast it and… the spell slowed it down, but didn’t stop it. It must be an issue of range.

Time to abandon his defensive position.

Jerome dashed as fast as he could towards his target. With the Hold slowing it down he was able to catch up quickly and take it down with a claw swipe to the back. It wasn’t dead, but it was definitely hurt.

He ran with Rayi.

If it had been just that gnoll things would have been great. But then Jerome’s MP ran out, his Holds were released, and he had four gnolls running after him. They’d all recovered from the various attacks he’d sent their way and he didn’t have the stone tunnel of the gate to use anymore.

Worse, Rayi was slowing down.

Apparently he’d run out of SP.

Jerome had a solution for that, however. He switched forms — he had many available now — and used Refill SP on Rayi. It didn’t take much to get him back running full speed.

The rest of that form’s MP Jerome used on applying Hold to the other gnolls. It only fully stuck on two of them and merely slowed down the rest. That lasted for eight seconds, during which time Rayi was able to get farther away and Jerome was able to get in some cheap blows against one of the completely stuck gnolls. That one wouldn’t be part of the chase anymore.

Then something magical happened.

The gnolls started to slow down.

A quick glance at their stats told Jerome why: they were each down to 10% of their SP or less.

He hadn’t had to worry about that much except while in ockdine form, since he kept on transforming so much, but for longer battles and for creatures stuck in one body SP was something to consider and conserve.

Jerome refilled Rayi’s SP again and sprinted after him.

He caught up quickly.

“We’re not safe yet,” he said, “but we’re a hell of a lot closer. We keep running until we completely lose them.”

Of course, there was another thing that might happen: if the gnoll’s low-SP-use speed was still as fast as Rayi’s jog then Jerome might run out of MP (and forms with which to replenish it) before the other gnolls completely ran out of SP.

They ran for another fifteen minutes, a game of attrition, stat counters slowly ticking away.

Then they reached the plains. The forest stopped abruptly, giving way to flat grassland.

Just as abruptly, the gnolls stopped giving chase.

“Keep going,” said Jerome. “They may have stopped for now, but we want distance between us and them.”

His words were cautious, but inwardly he was rejoicing.

He’d done the right thing.

Against all odds, he’d saved someone.

He’d mastered new techniques, learning far more rapidly than in his prior years of sloth.

And he’d also forgotten Krystyna’s warning to not run through the plains.

A warning he only recalled when he saw, flying towards them, a giant pterodactyl.