Even through my closed eyes, I still saw the bright pink flash

A puff of hot air brushed against my fur. Notably, I felt no recoil. But something had definitely happened. I kept holding the trigger, strafing the direction where I thought the hundeor were. One of them yelped, almost screamed. The light flickered, then stopped.

After the blinding light, all that was left was near impenetrable darkness. Even after I opened my eyes.

“W–w–there?” the female stuttered. I was unsure what she was attempting to say.

I finally released the trigger and began blinking my eyes. Spots flew across my vision. I could barely see.

When no response came from the male hundeor, the female let out a keening wail. I had to steel myself against sympathy–they had pursued me, I kept reminding myself.

One boon from the female’s distraught wail: I had no problem locating her. She was to my right, lower than me. I had been shooting more towards the left, where the male had been, but I thought I might have hit her too.

My vision began to clear.

Body: 52 (+1)

I blinked away the last of the spots. Where the male had stood, he no longer stood. In fact, I saw no evidence of him at all. Even the rock had recessed in a broad circle behind where he had stood, where the rock took on a waxy-melted-sagging texture.

That explained how the hundeor had created their tunnels.

But this was a poor time for recollections.

The female screeched as she smoked. A portion of the blast must have hit her. But obviously, she yet lived. Besides a few scorch marks, she seemed unharmed.

I pointed at her and once more depressed the trigger.

Nothing.

The trigger lacked the tension I had been expecting.

From the first time, the melted stone had partially evaporated, and the toxic smoke burned my nostrils and left me dizzy. My feet burned where exposed. Sparks must have flown off from the first shot. My pants had several new smoldering holes.

More wounds. In the recesses of my mind, a repressed thought uttered a manic laugh, saying the more the merrier, that if I were to suffer, I might as well suffer. Of course, I pushed that insanity away. I had survived worse. And I had things to do.

The gun was dangerous.

But it failed to fire a second time.

Perhaps it needs a fresh Charger, I thought.

I began digging through my pouch for a new one, while the female collected her wits. I expected her to be somewhat disabled, either from the blinding flash, or the smoke, or general shock. I ought to have had enough time to reload.

An incorrect assumption on my part.

“You–you!” the female shouted.

She leapt at me suddenly and without warning, springing up from where she had been crouching, and crossing the distance in a single fluid bound, skirting around the corner that had partially sheltered her.

Upon me she landed, claws digging into my flanks. Her weight hitting my injured left side.

Unable to help it, I screamed in pain and fell back, screaming again as I hit the irregular and sharp rocks. My hands spasmed. The gun dropped to the ground and clattered away. I lost track of it.

The hundeor drove down upon me, her hands raking my sides again and again.

Body: 53 (+1)

Talent Unlocked: 9/9 (+1)

To make matters worse, not only was I savaged, not only was the hundeor slavering and angling her jaws towards my throat, but my right arm burned and burned and felt as though I had doused it in gasoline and lit a match; and that fire did not restrict itself to that arm, but spread, swelling out from my pores outward, digging in through my muscles, tracing their fibers, scalding ligaments, and crushing bones.

Once more, a scream escaped me.

Talent Unlocked: Eschiver: Evasion (1/9)

A string of drool fell on me from the hundeor. She could have killed me, but seemed to change her mind at the last moment, and rather than tear my throat out, she chose to maul my face. Or attempt too.

As her jaws came down, an instinct left me tilting my head to the left. Her jaws tore shallow grooves through my cheek, with my fur helping to blunt the damage.

With her head beside mine, I torqued my body, with my remaining strength, I headbutted her, sending her off balance to the side. I followed the momentum, twisting my body up and over her, like some sort of acrobat. The movements came easier than they should have, the sting of pain from my wounds felt less than they should have, and I had a second of respite to think of solutions. I had so many. A tangible Illusion could stop her.

She brought her legs up and curled them, so that the claws on the edge of her toes-claws, her talons, her filthy and crude and crusty yet still sharp cutting implements, they began digging in, cutting into my jacket. But before they could hook in, instinct drove me rolling over her, using her to soften my own impact with the ground.

Again, my flanks ought to have been disabling. The lines of fire stretching down my ribs had felt much worse earlier. Granted, it was impossible for me to notice that my third Talent unlocked, though I still had yet to check. I thought it might have been pain resistance, or something to grant an acrobats mind and body.

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While I mused, the hundeor did not remain idle. She scrambled to all fours and crouched in a spring, ready to shoot towards me.

“Illusion. Touch.”

It was not difficult. With the amount of time I had seen in the wastes, the envisioning came quickly and easily, and an illusory rock wall, no thicker than a finger, formed between us just as she committed to her leap.

She crashed into the wall.

Pain split my head. A pounding roaring headache. The Illusion shattered and I fell backwards, clutching my head.

Illusion I (2/9) (+1): Touch (2/9) (+1)

The hundeor snarled and crashed into a real rock, her attack destabilized and her momentum uncontrolled. It would not limit her for long.

That had been the first time one of my Illusions had broken.

I was unaware that they could break.

I would need to be careful of that in the future.

I would need to test it.

But for now, I needed to deal with this animal, and with the searing near-blinding pain behind my eyes, I doubted I could use another Illusion so soon.

I needed options. Time seemed to slow. The hundeor had recovered and began springing towards me again.

By instinct, I reached towards my pocket while sidestepping her angle of attack. My hand landed on the hilt of the dagger.

The dagger. I remembered the dagger. Or did my new Talent remember it for me? Regardless, in a jerky motion, I unsheathed it as sidestepping, and angled it towards her.

She crashed into it, it drove into her, by her own momentum, into the space between clavicle and neck. She shrieked. Her momentum hit my arm, and sent me spinning and crashing into the ground.

The pain avoidance could not cover the agony from landing on my left side, on my wounds. I was going to die. Motherswear it, but I was dying. I was certain of it.

Body: 54 (+1)

A minute passed.

I heard a gurgle, a wheeze.

Another minute.

The wheeze turned to a wet almost-laugh.

Still, I had yet to expire.

I groaned and rolled over, inspecting myself quickly.

My jacket had taken the brunt of the damage. Her claws had shredded the material in long gashes, and the briery edges were only slightly damp with blood. My previous wounds, however… I patted down my left side, gently, and the slightest pressure left me gasping.

Another wet chuckle, or what I realized were a series of abortive yips.

The female hundeor, still alive.

She was crawling towards me, eyes burning with hate and fury. My dagger still embedded near her neck, halfway to the hilt. Should it be removed, she likely would have been in far more dire straits. But as it was, she had nearly reached me while I had been lost in my own suffering.

Foolish. I castigated myself. What if she had reached me, I wondered. No, not wonder, for I knew what would have happened.

I needed to act.

But did I?

I fell backwards, my back pressing against the slope of the scramble. I scooted upwards and away in an undignified fashion. Still, as slow as my escape was, it was still faster than the hundeor.

I could just out run her. She would seek medical attention or die. Either way, I would not be caught by her again.

I saw the moment she realized this, her eyes narrowed and she growled. The fur on my arms stood on end.

She and I both saw the glint of silver on the ground near where I had originally been, where I had ambushed them from.

The gun.

She was far closer than me.

But it was empty, out of ammunition. Possibly. So I hoped. But maybe not. Either way, I could not risk letting her have it. For two reasons: I needed it; she might get it working and use it against me.

I lunged for it just as her arm stretched out and her filthy paws latched around it. She brought it up, or started to.

This was a risk I refused to take. I landed on her and wrestled for the gun. She bit my arm. Her claws jabbed into me. I realized I had made a mistake. I should not have closed into melee. I had thought her weaker than she was. It might have been a ploy.

Foolish!

Not the time for castigation. Always the time, whispered the manic giggling voice.

I needed to either break away or finish this. Breaking away would lose me my gun, possibly my supplies. Finishing this would–

No. I refused to think. Only act.

The dagger, half sticking out from the top of her chest, it was right there, within reach, so, I reached. My fingers closed around the hilt.

“No!” she barked.

I shoved the dagger in with all the might my wounded state could match. Fortunately the dagger was sharp. It slid in with little resistance. She gurgled. I pulled the blade out and stabbed once more, this time messily, into her neck.

She fell back, grabbing at the wound.

I sat there numbly, watching, holding the dagger, pretending that I remained ready to act.

She gave up pressing the wounds shut, and began crawling once more. At first, when she moved, I thought she would make one last attempt at vengeance. But no, she was headed away. Did she attempt to flee then? It was a little late for that, if so. But no, not that either. She collapsed near the burned and melted stone, still hot and sizzling. She sobbed, and must have found the last of her well of strength, for with on last lunge, she threw herself forward, onto the hot stone. She wailed and called out what might have been a name, might have been her mate’s name.

And then… then she was silent.

I began shaking. Then I began crying.

But a thought occurred to me: this confrontation had been by no means quiet, and there were other hundeor in this tribe of animals that had hunted me. Earlier I had theorized that the two dogs had been flushing me out for an ambush. And earlier I had thought I had seen shadows moving in the above. All of this painted a grim picture, with one certainty above all other.

I needed to leave.

Crying over my atrocious actions and decision making could come later, I could learn from my lessons later, but if I were to survive, I absolutely needed to vacate the locale, to gain distance, and much of it.

I owed my sister that and much much more.

I grabbed my things and fled down the canyon, this time heading the way I had come from, figuring it the safest if the hundeor thought this end was already covered.

But all the while, I could not shake the feeling I was being watched.

Blessings: Rank (1/9)

* Body: 54 (+3)

* Mind: 58

* Spirit: 44

Talents:

* Athleticism (3/9):

* Climbing (8/9)

* Stealth (8/9)

* Trackless Tracks (4/9)

* Eschiver (1/9)

* Evasion (1/9)

Spells:

* Illusion I (2/9) (+1)

* Touch (3/9) (+1)

* Closed

* Closed

Gifts:

* Obsession (2/9)

* Closed (0/9)

* Closed (0/9)