Marc was at most 20 feet from the trio and massive spider, and was already sure he didn’t want to get any closer.
The spider was big. Monster movie big. It was a pale brown color, with some patches of green. Camouflage, Marc realized, to hunt in this exact environment. To make it even worse, it had what looked like a long scorpion tail hanging underneath it. Tearing his eyes away from his new nightmare, he looked at the group.
The first was an honest-to-god Knight, wearing deep red armor. With a brutal axe in one hand, and a fourth person slung over their shoulder. The Knight was slow to rise, and the least equipped for the environment. Wet roots, mud, an extra adult of weight, and a steep incline all combined to make it so the Red Knight was going to be struggling to stand, let alone fight.
The unconscious person was wearing dark clothes, a dark mask, and some kind of goggles. Marc's eyes refused to focus on the body, only the surrounding space, making details hard to pick out.
Closest to Marc was a man dressed in what looked to be a single, massive burlap sack, sewn into some odd kind of trench coat. Each drop of rain dissolved into steam as it met his sack-cloak. He held a small knife in one hand, and something even smaller in the other. If the knight was unequipped to move, Sack Man was unequipped to fight.
The final member of the group was a hunter, plain and simple. Bow in hands, with a hooded cloak that left her arms free to shoot it. While Marc couldn’t see a quiver, the cloak covered most of the hunter's body. She looked around and saw him, but turned back to the monster.
The hunter was the first to recover, and pulled back the empty string. A glow of green and red covered the Hunter's hands as an arrow materialized from nowhere. Letting the string loose, the arrow flew faster than Marc could see, but with the Spider staggering back, it had hit. Marc was getting ready to run away as fast as he could.
“Catch!” The knight called out, twisting and hurling the body of the unconscious person through the air. It was with barely enough time to react that Marc realized he was the one being called. He caught the person, a man. He was surprised at how light he was, but stumbled a few steps before catching his balance. Even at this range, his eyes refused to see the man’s face.
“No head-meets-rock today buddy,” Marc muttered.
The spider pulled back its tail, aiming for the Knight, still off balance from the throw. The Sack Man had recovered by now, and put the knife and what appeared to be a small wrench together. As he pulled them apart, he said. . . Something. Like when looking at the cloaked man, his brain refused to acknowledge the sound beyond that it had words. The tail shot forward, but a burst of flame caught the spider in the back. Marc's eyes widened at the sight of a point blank firework going off.
Looking at the spider once again, Marc could see dozens of arrow wounds, cuts, and burns along the body of the spider. These people had been fighting it, and not doing too badly. He looked at the stranger he was carrying. “Well, mostly.”
“Lightning Strike, soon!” The hunter called out. Pulling back the string, another arrow manifested. The knight was struggling to stand up after being knocked over by the spell, more injured or tired than appearances suggested. Not helping was the mud underfoot, causing the armored hulk to slip while rising. Marc readjusted the body in his arms, and started moving away. There was no way he could help in this fight for a number of reasons. As he got past the nearest tree though, he was Dazzled once again by a bolt of lightning hitting it. Thankfully, that status effect didn’t stack.
“I TOLD YOU, LIGHTNING STRIKE!” The hunter shouted over the storm. At this point, Marc didn’t know what to do. Another stone tablet appeared as he was looking around in panic. He zeroed in on it, relieved for something to focus on in the chaos
INVENTORY:
Wanderer’s Armor (Cloth, Mundane)
Straight Sword (Iron, Mundane)
Outsider’s Locus (Container, Esoteric)
Potion of Past Steps (Healing, Consumable, Esoteric, E1/L1) x3
Attunement Lozenge (Consumable, Esoteric) x10
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Constellation Dagger (Iron, Esoteric, E1/L1)
Things made sense, up until the Locus. Given the only thing unaccounted for was the backpack it must be that. Oh, and container was listed, that checked out.
The potion had the healing tag, but what would it actually do? Wasting one of 3 potions seemed like a bad idea, but the person Marc was carrying was well and truly KO'd.
Behind him, the spider attacked the group of three. A cry from the knight, whether of rage or of pain, caught his attention. Turning around, he saw the Sack-Man on the ground, blood pooling on his clothes, slipping as he tried to stand, but the other two seemed fine. Tired, but fine.
He had to do something, either run with this guy in hand, leave all four to the spider, or join the fight. But if, seemingly, actual magic couldn’t do anything, what could someone with zero combat experience do?
“Lightning, again, right around here!” The Hunter called out. Only a few seconds later, another bolt struck down on another tree.
Marc’s eyes widened as he developed an idea. A stupid idea. He concentrated, trying to remember the boons, before another stone tablet appeared to show him. If he survived his stupid idea, knowing he could pull them back up would be useful.
SURVIVALIST - 6%
Reduces the effects of all natural damage.
Increases stability on non-magical terrain.
Able to loot [20%] of monster valuables.
He may not know combat, but he knew how to climb. He may not know spiders, but lightning was dangerous to everything.
He stared at his boon. Increased stability. “Lets hope this works on trees too.”
----------------------------------------
Helen was not having a great day. First, their technical boss, a Daughter of Fray, decided that entering the Tailed Gargantula's Lair was a good idea. Given she was paying them, and was the person getting hurt most, they followed despite Helen’s internal protests
Then, as it inevitably went wrong, Barry decides to start throwing out explosion after explosion, nearly bringing the place down on them. Nico was halfway through sapping a tunnel out of the pit when the thing came barreling down the halls. Barry had to blast them the rest of the way through the ground and they landed right in front of a random guy.
Now, Nico was down, Barry was poisoned, the Fray was on the worst possible terrain, and Helen herself was running out of Mana fast. The person she'd named Guy in her head, whoever he was, was not helping. She didn't hold it against him as he looked to be a beginner, but she wasn't happy about it either.
“I should have told them that this was a bad idea” she thought, dodging a bite towards her. As an archer, she tried to keep out of reach, but if it didn’t bite at her, it would be biting at the much less resilient Pyromancer.
As she kept evading, she caught a glimpse of the Guy climbing a tree (at a fairly good clip, truth be told). It took a lot of control to keep from shouting at him to get down. The lightning was going to be coming soon, and it was always attracted to higher places. “That guy better not get Nico killed with this”, she muttered to herself as she loosed another arrow into its back.
She put him out of her mind. The Daughter of Fray was good at fighting, her most redeeming quality in Helen's mind, besides her supply of gold. Then again, Helen would be just as good if she were a Blood Knight instead of a Ranger. The guy looked like a new adventurer. “He probably got his first Historia around here”, she thought.
Another shot. After a few more she'd be out of mana.
She felt a tingling to the south. Her Rangersight, courtesy of Nico's gift to her some months ago, allowed Helen to get a premonition of natural dangers, among other benefits. While she couldn't tell exactly where it would fall, she knew when. “SOON!”, she shouted, mostly towards the Guy. He was the only one in danger of getting hit.
With one last pull at the natural magic around her, Helen launched her last magical arrow. She had some real ones in her quiver, some of them magical. Unfortunately, her quiver was 50 feet away. It was blasted off of her as they left the cave.
She saw the Guy had reached the top of the tree. If Fray didn't keep its attention, the only thing between him and the spider's maw was height. He was waving his Sword wildly. “Is he going to jump onto it?”
“HEY!! EIGHT EYES”, no, he was doing something far, far dumber.
Monsters, despite their lack of speech and civilization, were not idiots. Well, Gargantulas weren't. It spun around. It saw a free meal. It began climbing. It shot up the tree in seconds.
With the time the Guy granted, Barry cast Phoenix Feather on himself and Fray, healing the both of them and curing his poison. Helen idly thought that, with that spell cast, he owed her more money.
At the top of the tree, the soon-to-be-dead Guy was still waving his sword, swinging it at the spider that was within range to pierce him with its tail. Eventually, he landed a hit on it, and the angry spider wrenched the sword from Guy's hand. She watched as he jumped from the tree. Helen's Rangersight went from a tingling to the feeling of pulled hair. The strike was imminent.
Guy was falling.
The spider lunged with its tail.
Lighting split the sky.
It struck the sword.
The tree caught fire as the spider popped.
Guy hit the ground.