"Vic," Eli's voice wavered, "perimeter check."
Victoria's eyes slicked over with mucus and veins bulged around them. Her perspective zoomed out of her head, rising into the air to look down on the ravine from above with colorless spectral sight. The colored auras of her companions at the base of the ravine stood out against the grey environment, and on the ledge above she saw the aura of Glimmer. The griffin pounced towards something with no aura to be seen, it blended seamlessly into the foliage as it dodged and dashed towards the ravine.
"They're here!" Victoria shouted, returning to her normal vision and glancing upwards.
Three hulking figures dropped from above and landed in the muddy ravine with heavy, squelching thumps. They walked upright and stood eight feet tall, thick with muscle and covered head to toe in long, dense hair that draped from their frame. Their faces were vaguely human, but with black eyes and large, sharp teeth. Two were dark brown in color, while the third was a dark shade of grey and a head taller than the others.
The first beast landed behind Victoria and swiped its arm, catching her on the shoulder with a bone crunching impact that sent her flying across the narrow river and onto the muddy shore across it where she rolled to a limp stop. The next two, including the larger grey one, landed in front of Eli, Titus and Iris, boxing them in against the wall of the ravine.
Autumn was positioned between her companions and the river and face to face with the beast that had attacked Victoria. She crouched and reached deep into the mud at her feet until her hands found stones, which she gripped tightly and heaved out of the thick mud as the beast that stood almost twice her height charged at her. It swung an arm, she dived forward and rolled under the strike, rising to her feet behind it as the stones in her hands were molded to encase her hands and form a short, wide spike on other hand.
Titus glared between the beasts and eyed Victoria's limp frame across the ravine. With no clear shot to send a healing bolt, he charged forward and met the smaller of the two beasts with a gauntleted fist to its jaw. Its head rolled with the blow but it stood firm in its place, responding with a huge hand that clenched around Titus's shoulder and held him in place while it struck with a punch towards Titus's chest from its other hand. The impact crunched his armor with enough force to kill a normal person outright. Titus snarled and gripped the beast around the waist, heaving and groaning as he planted his feet and used leverage to twist the beast off its feet and barely manage to slam it into the mud, tumbling with it to the ground.
Iris stared up frozen in horror at the grey-haired beast as it snarled and lumbered towards her. As its shadow eclipsed her frame, she saw red light from behind her illuminating its body. She blipped away, and Eli released a fully charged blast of red magic into its chest. In the confined space, the explosive blast splattered mud in all directions and knocked pebbles loose from the wall of the ravine that stretched out above them. The beast took a stumbled step backwards, smoke wafting from the now singed-black hair on its chest.
In a messy struggle, Titus climbed atop the beast he fought and sat on its chest, raining blows down on it as he leaned and dodged to avoid the outstretched arms that grabbed at him. He pounded the beast's skull into the mud until it got its arms free enough to wrap around Titus in a bear hug and pull him tight. The beast squeezed and rolled, trapping Titus beneath its astounding weight as it gained the advantage. Titus summoned four spears of light in the air just above them and immediately called them down. They pierced through the beast without breaking skin, burning away at its organs from the inside.
Though its arms were long, Autumn's opponent stood nearly twice her height, making it relatively easy to duck and dodge its lumbering swings as she circled around it. It stepped awkwardly in the mud as it twisted and turned to keep track of her, like it was trying to squash a rat running between its feet.
She rushed in towards it, stabbing at its thigh. The hand-spike caught in the beast's thick, matted hair, but she torqued her shoulder with all her strength to drive it through and into the soft flesh beneath. The beast howled like an injured dog as she continued pushing, forcing the spike deep into muscle and then into bone. She broke off the stone, freeing her hand and leaving the stone embedded. The beast reached down and gripped the back of her neck, hoisting her off the ground and tossing her away as it stumbled.
Iris watched from a perch on a bridge-like root just above the battle. She saw Victoria, still unmoving across the ravine, and Titus, pinned to the ground beneath a beast with the tips of light spears poking out of its back. The grey-haired beast had Eli backed against the ravine wall, he was standing atop the destroyed carriage -- which brought him eye to eye with the monster as he barely dodged a fist that slammed into the dirt behind him.
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"Eli!" Iris shouted, "get Titus to Vic!"
She leapt off the root and blipped, appearing beside the grey-haired beast's head and landing an awkward kick to its face. She blipped again and landed crouched in the mud behind the beast as it shook its head, more in confusion than pain. It looked over its shoulder to see her smirking up at it, and growled. She grabbed a fistful of mud and slung it towards the beast, it held out a thick arm to block but the clump of mud blipped and reappeared behind the arm, slapping into the creature's face. It spread its arms wide and released a deafening roar of fury that sent spit flying towards Iris.
"That's it," she smiled, rising to her feet and slowly stepping back.
"Iris, don't!" Eli shouted from behind the beast.
Iris turned as if to run, but then blipped and once-more appeared in the air in front of the beast. She kicked off its face and blipped away again as it tried to swat her away. It roared again and stomped its foot before charging towards Iris as she reappeared a dozen feet away. She blipped again, and again, deftly traversing the muddy, uneven terrain of the ravine as the grey-haired charged after her, swiping away and snapping or uprooting small, spindly trees that stood in its way.
"Fuck," Eli hissed, watching the beast chase Iris away before turning and leveling his staff and charging a shot at the beast that Titus still wrestled. In his periphery, he saw Autumn leaping through the air with a sharply pointed broken branch aimed for a beast's chest.
Glimmer spotted the grey-haired beast sprinting through the ravine from above. She leapt from root-bridge to root-bridge as she joined the chase. Iris sprinted and blipped, pushing her pace as fast she could manage as the beast took long strides behind her. She stumbled and twisted as she moved, each time she would have fallen she blipped forward instead. Explosions and yells rung out from the battle behind her and echoed down the length of the ravine.
Her mana was running low, and her breath was burning in her throat. There was a clearing up ahead, where the narrow river briefly pooled in a small pond interspersed with arching roots and patches of mud that rose just above the water. Twisting deadwood trees surrounded the pond, some fallen over into it with branches reaching out of the water like drowning spikes.
She crossed the pond with two blips and came to a rest on a thick, angled trunk of a fallen tree. She gasped for breath as she turned to face her pursuer, now wading waist-deep through the water and almost half-way across the pond. She wouldn't have enough time for her mana to recharge.
Glimmer leapt from a root-bridge above, briefly unfurling her wings to guide her descent. She tucked the wings in tight as she landed on the beast's back, digging talons into its shoulders and raking cat-like claws across its lower back. The beast fell forward under the sudden weight and awkwardly splashed into the water.
"Hell yeah!" Iris cheered.
Glimmer screeched and pecked at the creature with her sharp beak as it flailed in the water beneath her. Soon it broke free from her grip, twisting and grabbing her by the paws, pulling her deeper into the water. The beast was now completely submerged, with Glimmer thrashing about and flapping her wings to escape as a long arm reached up out of the water, wrapped around the back of her neck and pulled her head towards the water.
Iris felt her mana reach its cap, and leapt from the tree. She blipped to a root in the water, pulled the rusty dagger from her bottomless bag in stride, then leapt and hoped her next idea would work. She took a deep breath and blipped into the water.
The sensation was different than blipping in air, and the pressure of the water around her was briefly crushing before returning to normal. She could barely see in the cloudy pond, instead grasping out desperately until her hand clasped onto thick hair. She pulled herself towards it, finding the beast's abdomen with her feet to wrap around it. She brought the dagger to the beast's lower back and braced the pommel against her waist, with her feet hook around the beast's abdomen she was able to pull herself tight against the beast, using her legs to press the dagger through the thick hair and into the beast's flesh. The pommel dug hard into her hip bone, and the pain shouted for her to stop, but she squeezed tighter until the dagger slipped into flesh.
The beast let out a muffled roar, releasing a torrent of bumbles into the water. The water grew brighter as Glimmer broke free and rose into the air away from them, her shadow receding. Iris let go of the beast as it flailed, bringing her feet to its lower back and clenching the dagger with both hands. She pushed off with her feet and yanked the dagger free, then tried to blip away.
Her mana drained but the ability failed as a large, hairy hand grabbed her foot. She was running out of air, her lungs begged to breathe and a pressure was building in her head. She frantically tried to shake her leg free, but it was hopeless. The other hand found her neck and pulled her towards the creature until she saw its furious face just inches from hers in the murky water.
The air escaped her lungs and bumbles filled the small gap between their faces. She tried to stab the dagger into the beast's neck, but didn't have the strength to pierce the soaked and matted hair. Water filled her lungs and her visions began to blacken, the beast smiled at her with gnarly teeth.
Dagger still pressed to the beast's chin, she blipped it an inch further. The creature's eyes went wide as the hair got pushed aside by the reappearing dagger and the tip touched its skin. With her last motion she rammed her hand against the pommel to shove the dagger deep.