The horned beast charged through the thick webs, stretching and tearing them free from their anchors to the trunks and roots. Strands clung the beast's body and draped from its horn, flowing behind it as it ran. The beast's hooves splashed through puddles of storm water as thunder cracked somewhere above. Following closely were the Hammer Guy, Iris, a green-robed mage, and two heavily armored fighters wielding shields and swords. The others that retreated with them had either splintered off or succumbed to the spiders, and the sounds of battle and flickering flashes of flame grew distant behind them.
The horned beast stumbled, tumbling forward into a heavy, awkward roll. It transformed into a bloodied Whirl, still wrapped in webs, who bounced off the roots before rolling to a clumsy stop. The Hammer Guy swooped down and picked her up with a single arm, not pausing his stride. In his other hand he swung his hammer, cutting down webs in his way. The strands wrapped around his hammer and arm, some breaking free from their anchors while others stretched but held firm. His swings slowed as he fought a losing battle of strength against the webs.
Iris blipped beside him, swinging her sword to cut through some of the webs that held back his hammer. She was short of breath, drenched to the bone and had panicked eyes. She glanced back at the pair of fighters at the rear of their group as they slayed the last of the spiders chasing them.
"I think we're free," she said quickly between breaths.
The Hammer Guy nodded, "find us shelter."
Iris blipped away, skipping past walls of web to whatever small gaps she could see between them. Up ahead and to the right, she spotted a formation of roots that reached up and out of the ground, winding around each other in the air to form a low arch. Beneath them were the rotted remnants of an old fallen redwood, now rotted away and reduced to a thin layer of soft debris. She blipped back to the group and directed the Hammer Guy towards the natural shelter, joined by the two fighters who helped to hack through the webs like vines in a jungle.
The Hammer Guy stumbled forward as he swung through the final webs in their way. He ducked through the opening and used the last of his energy to lay Whirl down beneath the arching roots as gently as he could before collapsing beside her. Iris appeared beneath the roots and crouched to check on him.
"Ignore me," he said, "check on her."
Iris turned her attention to the limp and unconscious Whirl. She pulled the webs away to uncover her face to ensure she could breathe, then tore them away from her body to reveal her injuries. She had two large punctures, one on her left shoulder and another just above her left hip. Several smaller marks covered her body, resembling spider bites.
"She's losing a lot of blood," Iris said, struggling to keep calm, "and she's been bitten."
The mage and two fighters accompanying them ducked into the shelter behind her, all eying Whirl in concern.
"She's resistant to the venom," the Hammer Guy said through labored breaths as he propped himself up against the roots, "she should have a Moonrose potion on her somewhere, pour it in her wounds."
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Iris quickly searched through Whirl's pockets, but found nothing.
"Check her left leg, just above and behind the knee," the Hammer Guy grunted.
Iris patted around until she felt something beneath the fabric of Whirl's pants, after a little more searching she found a hidden pocket, and pulled out a corked vial of red liquid like one the Cameron Cole had given her. She carefully uncorked the vial with shaking hands, and poured almost half into either of the two large wounds. She saved a small amount in the vial, and waited nervously. The wounds began to heal before her eyes, the flesh stretching and reaching across the openings to crudely fuse itself back together. Whirl's eyes cracked open, and she groaned.
"Drink this," Iris said, pressing the vial to Whirl's lips and tipping it up.
Whirl drank the last of the Moonrose Tonic, then spoke in a ragged voice, "did we make it?"
"We're safe for now," Iris assured her, though she did not know for how long.
She inspected the arching roots overhead. Though there were gaps that let in streams of water that soaked through the rotting mulch beneath them, the roots at least provided some shelter from the downpour. The far end of the arch curved down towards the ground, leaving a gap only large enough to crawl through and creating a kind of wooden cave. Back the way they came, a sheet of water poured down over the opening, beyond which thick webs crisscrossed the woods outside.
She sighed, backing up to drop herself against the wall of the arch across from Whirl. She tried to release the tension in her muscles, but her body refused to relax. Her chest rose and fell quickly, and her pulse throbbed throughout her body. She was cold -- she hadn't noticed that until now. Loose strands of hair clung to her skin, and the brim of her hat drooped limply and dripped water past her face. She tried not to think of her friends, or what fate they might have faced.
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The Wyvern's flesh was riddled with arrows and javelins. Large gashes streaked down its belly, and countless smaller wounds pockmarked the scales across its body. Still, it roared and stomped, snapping out with its razor-toothed maw and swiping away adventurers with its powerful tail. The rain beat down like bullets and the wind crashed like ocean waves, yet still the wyvern took flight to flee.
"Let it fly!" Commander Bridge boomed his voice across the Craggs, raindrops reverberating from the pressure of the soundwaves.
For all their hours of battle, and all the wounds on its body, the Wyvern seemed barely scathed. That was the nature of beasts this powerful, it would take dismemberment to slow it down, and nothing short of destroying its heart or brain to kill it. Commander Bridge watched as the Wyvern's silhouette faded into the rains, confident that the poisons and curses the affliction specialists had applied would be doing exactly that.
"Regroup!" he boomed to his expedition, "we follow her to the nest, and then we finish this."
As his subordinates scurried and stomped around him in the rain, gathering dropped weapons and helping comrades to their feet, he frowned at the sky. Their expectations had been that the Wyvern's nest would be in the higher elevations of the Craggs, to the northeast. Instead, the beast flew southwest, towards the Spine -- a ridge of vertebra-like rock formations that separated the Great Forest from the Craggs. The intel never ruled out the Spine as a nesting location, but it was far down on the list of probability.
His expedition had prepared for canyoneering and rock climbing in clear weather, instead they were faced with a long hike across the craggy plateau amidst a supernatural storm unlike any he'd ever seen in the region. They would make it, of course, everyone here was a mid-level Champion or higher, but the grueling trek would take its toll on stamina and morale. He hoped they would find a withered and decrepit Wyvern, huddled in its nest as it succumbed to its afflictions, rather than a repeat of the battle they had just fought.
Long streaks of lightning cut through the storm clouds overhead. In them, he felt the reverberating aura of the ancient, buried beacons which now silently boomed all across the central Giantrock region.