Sand. I’d never been a particular fan of the stuff, and that was when I’d visited pleasant, summertime beaches. When it came to monster-infested deserts, my dislike of the gritty substance was only intensified.
Of all the four surrounding biomes, the desert was the one I’d least expected to visit. After Verin’s new level had warmed her up to the idea of having me help her and Cal fight, though, it was the only real option.
The mountains were a no-go. I had no trouble fighting the gryphons, but the others could barely scratch them, nor was I certain I could keep them safe if enough of the creatures dive-bombed us.
The forest was obviously out. Even ignoring their stealth attacks, the panthers were speedy enough to finish off someone like Verin before I had any chance to help.
The water was… water. None of us could fight well while submerged, and we weren’t about to build a giant boat and fight atop it. It was possible that Verin’s ice magic could be useful there, but considering that drowning was one of the only easy ways to kill me right now, there wasn’t any reason to risk it.
And so. The desert. Because apparently compared to fish, cats, and glorified birds, the giant scorpions were the safest option.
The only thing that had delayed our journey was, of all things, me. I’d been doing far better when it came to regulating my energy and taking breaks, but out of an abundance of caution, I’d locked myself away for another three-day nap before we’d headed out. Coupled with one more level of Mental Resistance, as long as I had my armor and hammer out, I was feeling more level-headed than I had in some time.
Despite the fact that we were actively looking to fight, the three of us proceeded cautiously over the sand. Even with the rolling dunes partially obstructing our view, we were still able to see much farther than we would in a forest, and with Cal acting as a forward scout, we weren’t too worried about being caught unawares.
At least, that was true for things above the ground. I kept Tremor Sight active continuously, the feedback somewhat jumbled from the sand, but ultimately good enough. As an extra layer of precaution, Verin froze our surroundings as we walked, transforming the easily parted substance into unburrowable ice.
Normally, that would have sent us slipping and sliding, but Friction Feet came to my rescue here. Verin naturally had skills to allow her to traverse her own ice, and thankfully, Cal had some sort of traction skill as well.
We’d already walked for a while — mostly parallel to the border to keep us from going too far in — and I was beginning to worry that our trip would be a bust when at last we spotted our quarry in the distance.
After confirming that we were all ready, it fell on me to do the honors. Cal lazily waved me off even as Verin summoned a thick set of regal ice armor.
Not feeling the urge to run, I slowly advanced until I was in range of what would hopefully be our first victim. In a strange evolutionary move given our tan surroundings, the creature was a dull black, with a thick segmented carapace covering its body and eight legs. From the looks of it, the monster must have weighed more than all three of our combined weights. A quick scan let me see what we would be fighting.
Sand-encrusted Scorpion, Level 22, 1600/1600hp
Not seeing anything too far out of expectations, I nocked a wind arrow and fired. The attack met its mark, not doing anything in the way of real damage, but when the creature finally spotted me, it charged with a hiss.
And with that, the fight was on.
While the enraged arthropod was clearly on a different level than a standard animal, that didn’t mean it was that much smarter. With a single-minded fury, it raced towards me, making it trivial to lead it back to the swath of frozen earth that Verin had created. Fast though it was, I had no issue staying ahead of it. In fact, I slowed down so that we arrived at the ice patch almost at the same time, the first of its massive legs at last making contact with the slippery surface.
Tragically, the ice wasn’t quite the trump card we’d been hoping for: As the scorpion's legs slammed into the frosty sand, they went straight down, cracking through the ice far more efficiently than any ice boots ever could. There was some level of floundering at the unexpected change in friction, but not nearly to the extent to take the scorpion out of the fight.
But then again, we’d planned for that.
Something told me that the old Tess wouldn’t have suggested what followed next. It was a move I was calling “The Alara.”
With the charging, hissing scorpion only moments away from mowing me over, I spun about, maximizing my friction on Friction Feet and activating Heavy Step for good measure. Already decked out in my plate armor and with Force Dispersal hopefully protecting me from the worst of what was about to come, I summoned my hammer.
With every fiber of Strength I had, I slammed the oversized weapon forward, meeting the scorpion’s charge.
Dual crunches rang out from the impact.
You have suffered 180 blunt force damage.
You have sustained multiple fractures!
Hammers has reached level 5!
Heavy Armor has reached level 9!
A series of battle notifications mirrored the myriad of bruises and pains that erupted all over my body, as if to gently suggest I figure out a new battle plan next time around. Any thoughts of the future, however, were cut off as a harsh, alien cry filled the desert, the scorpion’s breath whipping against me as it shouted out in pain.
Even a cursory glance revealed which of us had won our trade.
Half of the creature’s already-disconcerting visage was smashed in, blue blood freely flowing over its swollen and mauled pink flesh. The damage hardly ended there, either, with wide fissures running down the chitin on its thorax and even further.
Though hardly dead yet, it seemed like it would only be a matter of time with it in such a state. In a blind rage, the beast swiped at me, its pincers alternating between trying to bludgeon me and cut me in half. Still doing my best impression of Alara and her Immovable Object skill, I batted away each attack as it came. When the blows did connect, I was happy to note that, without the additional momentum of the original attack, the scorpion lacked the power to get through my defenses.
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As I occupied our foe, the others weren’t idle. Frost crept up the scorpion's legs, and while it proved able to rip itself free, it was slow to do so. Icicles flew with pinpoint precision at the exposed portions of the creature, even as Cal flitted in and out of view, her daggers a blur. In between her impressively dexterous blows, Cal also found some time to cast a few spells, healing light undoing some of the initial damage I’d taken.
Fractures aside, it almost seemed too easy considering how high-leveled our enemy was.
Of course, that was precisely when the creature revealed its own skills.
Before Cal and Verin’s attacks could do much serious damage, sand began to stream into the air, leading me to fear the worst.
If it can control and attack with sand, there’s absolutely no way I can keep it from targeting Cal and Verin. I prepared myself to jump away and protect the others at the smallest sign that it was attacking.
As it turned out, though, I needn’t have worried.
Rather than forming an attack with it, the scorpion summoned all the sand to its body. Rapidly, the sand began to flock to the cracks in its chitin, and as I watched, its vulnerabilities began to fill in. At last, I started to understand why God’s Eye had labeled it a Sand-encrusted Scorpion. What had looked like a short and simple battle was now shaping up to drag on much longer.
Or, at least, that was what I initially thought.
The more I watched, the more I realized that not much sand was making its way to the creature’s wounds. Belatedly, I traced the streams of sand back to their source, noting that all of it was coming from between the cracks in the ice below us. Unable to manipulate the ice-encrusted sand, the scorpion was left with only a trickle for itself.
More than that, when the sand did touch its flesh, it seemed to shriek even louder than when we hit it. I couldn’t figure out why until, with a spark of inspiration, I rotated through my vision skills, with Frost Sight providing the answer.
Perhaps to be expected, the sand was cold. Even the bits that weren’t frozen solid were much frostier than they should have been, courtesy of Verin’s magic. I watched as that low temperature spread from the sand and into the scorpion’s flesh, its entire body slowly growing colder and colder under the gaze of my class skill.
It’s cold-blooded, isn’t it? I was at least fairly certain that’s how scorpions worked.
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop -- for the creature to activate some hellish acid attack, or for its tail to suddenly lengthen and skewer us -- but no. Outside of its natural size, strength, and armor, it seemed that our foe was a one-trick pony. It grew weaker and weaker as the fight bore on, until it was no longer able to free its legs from Verin’s frost.
Not wanting to steal any further experience from the others, I backed off at that point. In less than a minute, the creature turned into a pincushion of icicles mixed with countless dagger holes. While its health pool was truly massive, it was only shortly later that the expected notification arrived.
You have slain a Sand-encrusted Scorpion!
Despite being liberally coated in sand and blue blood, Cal cheered enough for the three of us.
For my part, I was feeling exhausted after forcing myself to be so mentally present for the entire time. Still, there was one thought that helped to lessen some of the drain.
No longer burdened by all of the gryphons in the freezer, I reached out to Arcane Storage and targeted the scorpion. With little fanfare, it vanished.
I wonder if the others will like scorpion meat.
As we began the long trip back to the cabin, I voiced that exact thought.
Somehow, despite the overwhelming success of her plan, Verin didn’t seem overly thrilled on the entire way back.
----------------------------------------
With our first team kill under our belts, there was no choice but to celebrate. That night, we made a heavy dent in our moonshine reserves, and I went all out for our food, preparing rabbit, gryphon, and scorpion alike. Our gnome caps made an appearance as well, though I notably did not grace the others with its lookalike.
To say it was a true gourmet meal would have been a lie. I needed salt. And oil. More than that, I had to figure out how proper butchering was supposed to work. I knew just enough to know the cuts of meat we were eating weren’t quite right, but not enough to fix it.
Still, I could honestly say it was the best meal we’d had since arriving. Mushroom and three-meat shish kebabs were the hit of the night, but we quickly discovered that scorpion added a warm and familiar flavor to any broth. It was crab-like, in a way, and it made me reconsider my aversion to visiting the water biome. Some real seafood would really broaden our culinary horizons.
Ultimately, though, the celebration did what the fight couldn’t do on its own, sapping me of the last of my energy. By the end of the night (or at least when we called it quits, given the lack of any sun or moon), I felt much like the scorpion must have, as though cracks were forming all over my body.
Though it messed up my schedule, I took the following day off, spending it alone in the mountains. In a way, that worked out well, as my schedule needed to change in any case.
With proof of concept for our hunting trip, we decided to make it a regular occurrence, eventually agreeing to go back to the desert once every six days. I shifted my other activities by one day, lengthening my “week,” so to speak, but I knew it was necessary. The others needed to level.
And over time, we did level. With Verin still a long way off given her recent level up, it ended up being me who leveled next. I’d had to take a two weeks’ break off from fighting just to be 100% sure that my heightened Constitution had fully healed my fractures, but even so, it was unsurprising. Given how much I fought compared to the others, I was raking in far more experience.
Compared to how it often went, I found the entire experience refreshingly anticlimactic. For the umpteenth time, I hammered down one of the gryphons, and just like that, the experience pushed me over the hurdle.
Congratulations! You have reached level 15!
+3 Constitution
+1 Strength
+1 Intelligence
+3 Wisdom
+1 Endurance
+1 Luck
God’s Mind Activated
+1 Wisdom
+1 Intelligence
Divine Synergy Activated
+1 Dexterity
I was past the point where I needed to care about thresholds, so in some sense, I didn’t care as much what I got anymore. Nonetheless, I was initially disappointed by how many points were “wasted” on Wisdom until I recalled that my storage space scaled with the stat. From its humble beginnings, my storage had ballooned from a standard reach-in closet to a mildly swankier walk-in closet.
It was also the first time I’d seen my new achievement’s effects, granting me an extra point in my lowest stat, Dexterity. With God’s Mind also hitting me with its once-per-three-level bonus, it was undoubtedly the most stats I’d ever gained in a single level.
That aside, I was surprised to find that I felt noticeably better mentally. Whether that was from the level, all of my stats combined, or just my Wisdom, I wasn’t sure, but I would take it. It was much needed, too, as I’d noticed myself struggling to hold myself together now that my breaks were more spread apart.
When Cal finally leveled a month later, though, I knew our days of easy gains were over for a while. Even with how much higher-leveled the scorpions were, it would take the others the better part of a year to level again at the pace we were going.
Perhaps it was no wonder, then, when Verin once again approached me with a new question.
“Lady Tess. I believe we have proven conclusively that we are well-equipped to handle the dangers that can be found in the desert. Though it may feel a bit rash, I believe we are as ready as we will be. What do you say we clear the desert and discover what lies on the other side?”