S21, Reptids Hunt (Part 1)

Not long after finding the palemoss, we began seeing more and more adventurer’s marks with reptids symbols, among them some had three crooked lines in front of them. Those signaled the presence of shrill reptids nearby.

Finally, while crossing a wide cave we encountered a couple of reptids. They were green scaly monsters that walked on two feet and had a long tail to help them keep their balance. Their size wasn’t anything impressive and it was only thanks to their slender necks that they could more or less reach our hips. On top of them, they had an elongated head with a mouth full of tiny sharp teeth. I knew how fast they could move when they wanted to bite and how painful their teeth were because I had been bitten twice by them in the past. A single moment of carefulness could lead to a nasty wound. Another thing one had to be careful about was the big claws on their feet, on one occasion one had graced my boot and had left a big cut in it. Thankfully, the creature’s arms were tiny and were barely a threat with their short reach.

“Oh, we have never fought one of these,” Stroud said with an enthusiastic smile.

“Neither have we. If you get too close they flee, so we haven’t bothered with them yet,” Terence told him while looking at the scaly monsters.

“Then, you don’t know how to fight them either?” Stroud asked in a concerned tone. “I thought you had agreed to come here because you were prepared.

“Simon should know how to handle them,” Terence replied.

I also had my eyes fixed on the two creatures as I pondered the best way to deal with them. “I haven’t fought the monsters in the dungeon, but I have hunted many of the wild ones in the mountains. We should lure them with some bait, they are pretty fast on their legs.”

Monsters in the dungeon didn’t have the same instincts as wild animals, a normal reptid would have fled long ago.

“Ah, I see. Do you have a trick to deal with them? Like the lizard’s weak spot?” Stroud asked.

“Well, they also have big veins on their necks, but it’s difficult to hit them. I normally aim at the body first, if you knock them down with a decisive strike they will have problems getting up. Then you can easily finish them.”

After hearing my explanation Stroud nodded. “Good, something else?”

“Just be careful with their teeth and keep an eye on their feet, they are faster than you think,” I told him. Around me, everyone seemed to be prepared to face the creatures. “Are you ready?” I asked them just in case.

“We are,” said Stroud and everyone else assented.

“Alright, Falnid?”

“I’m on it,” Falnid said as he took a ball of bait and launched it twenty feet ahead of us.

“Once they get closer to the bait we have to surround them,” I instructed gripping my spear.

The two reptids smelled the bait, and despite being bothered by our presence they approached it without much hesitation. As soon as the monsters began to eat everyone spread and circled them.

“Now!” I shouted as soon as the encirclement was done.

We advanced towards the reptids, half of us acting as a vanguard and the other half as support. The monsters finally reacted and did their best to avoid the first round of spears. With nimble moves, one of the scaly creatures avoided the first thrust, got graced by another, and failed to evade the third.

“I will keep him on the ground!” Shouted Bolton as his spear pierced the reptid’s flank.

The other monster had survived the two thrusts that were aimed at it with only some shallow cuts, it was about to bite Bolton’s leg when the support group launched the second round of attacks. One spear sunk deep into its leg and another opened its belly from the other side.

“I did it!” Exclaimed Falnid.

“Yay!” Celebrated Bert.

The others helped pin the struggling reptids down with their spears and I took the chance to finish them with two precise strikes to the base of their necks, letting the monsters bleed to death.

“That ended even faster than I thought,” Stroud commented with a winning smile on his face. “What are we going to do with them?”

“I’m not sure, I guess we should butcher them,” pondered Terence. “But our objective is the shrill reptids, I don’t think we should be carrying baggage around. What do you think, Simon?”

While they were talking I had already started to take some trophies from the monsters' bodies. “We will only take their claws and teeth, the teeth aren’t worth much, but they are easy to carry. The hides are also valuable, but these have too many holes in them. They aren’t worth the effort.”

‘If I was hunting in the mountains I would have used a net. That wouldn’t have wasted the hides.’

I declawed the monsters and uses one of the tools I had brought in Algus to extract their teeth. There was no need to take anything else, reptids’ meat was edible but it wasn’t very appreciated. It was hard and had a strong taste even if one were to bleed the creatures immediately.

“I’m done,” I told everyone as I got up.

“Good, do you need some rest?” Terence asked.

“Nah, we can continue.” The fight had been short and everyone had time to rest while I was working.

“Alright, then, let’s go.”

I nodded casually and took out Terence’s map from my pocket. “We should be more careful from here on,” I told everyone after a brief glance.

We kept carefully exploring the dungeon until we reached a big cavern. In front of us there was a steep incline going down to the wide space, so much that it could almost be considered a scarp. From our vantage point at the exit of a smaller cave, we watched a group of about twenty reptids that looked back at us.

Everyone stood still at the sight of the monsters that were observing us with an unnatural quietness, barely blinking. All of them were eerily similar to one another. They had all the same size and build, and even the coloration of their scales was practically identical.

Hesitating to take action I looked at Terence. He was nervously eyeing the reptids. “I think we should go back,” he said in a low voice after looking back at me. “I don’t want to be here when they decide we are prey.”

I was of the same opinion, although these monsters weren’t very strong individually we were outnumbered. We could take them on in a narrow cave, but it wasn’t worth the risk. There wasn’t even a shrill reptid among them. The rest nodded silently and we quietly retreated while keeping an eye on the creatures.

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“We should be far enough now,” announced Terence and everyone took a rest to calm themselves.

“Phew. I admit that was a bit scary,” Falnid sighted.

“I think we would have easily won if we had defended that position,” Bert said while tinkering with the shaft of his lamp.

“Ha! Then why didn’t you say anything back there?” Rupert teased him.

“Everyone looked like they wanted to leave, so I agreed,” Bert replied with a casual shrug.

“Sure,” Rupert nodded at him with an exaggeratedly unconvinced expression. “I saw your face and it was as white as the walls.”

“What? No way! You were in front of me, if something you were the one trembling.” Bert pointed with an accusing finger and jumped to his feet.

“Stop it!” Stroud shouted, shutting up the pair. “Whatever the case there wasn’t any reason to fight them. There were no shrill reptids in their midst. We should keep searching instead of wasting our strength.”

“He’s right, let’s continue,” Terence agreed as he stood up.

Once again we walked through the dark caves in search of our prey. It didn’t take much time for us to stumble unto another group of reptids. This time it was a pack or five, and among them, there were two of the uncommon monsters we were looking for.

“Oh, are those shrill reptids? That neck looks quite disgusting,” Falnid commented with a grimace.

On the wide base of their necks, the reptiles had a sack of flaccid skin full of creases, like an empty bag, or something even less appealing.

“Yes, they are,” I replied. Their necks looked just like the ones I had seen in the alchemist’s house.

I took a quick glance behind me at the cave we had just come from. ‘This should be far enough from that other group.’

“Be careful, shrill reptids’ shrieks are very unnerving,” I advised everyone. “They can attract other reptids from their surroundings, so we will have to watch out for them. Other than that we will use the same tactic from before.”

There were five of them this time but I was confident we could make quick work of them. Everything would work fine if we could incapacitate two or three before they retaliated.

This time Linwood was the one throwing the bait. While the monsters were distracted by the alluring crumbles of the ball everyone surrounded them and got into position.

“Now!” I shouted.

We rushed towards the encircled monsters. Things were going as planned until the shrill reptids noticed our approach and suddenly inflated their necks. The piercing shrieks they emitted hurt our ears and permeated our bodies. The grating sound reverberated through the cavern and made us stagger just a few steps away from them.

To make things worse the other reptids didn’t stand still, they came at us with their mouths wide open and their necks stretched forward at an incredible speed. We retaliated but had little success because the ongoing noise from the shrill reptids made it difficult to concentrate.

“Shut those fuckers!” I barely heard someone shout in an angry voice.

I took on a reptids who was trying to bite me. My thrust grasped the monster’s leg as it slipped close to me. I hurriedly kicked the creature but couldn’t avoid its jaws. Everything was so fast that I didn’t feel the pain until the reptid had retreated a couple of steps back. It hurt like hell, but thankfully my armor had stopped its small teeth from sinking too deep, it was probably a shallow wound.

“Damn little shits!” Rupert swore. He had also been bitten by one of the monsters.

The rest weren’t doing much better. I saw one of the beasts had a deep wound and we had somehow been able to interrupt the shrieks from the shrill reptids, but the situation was far from being under control, the encirclement had been broken and we were disorganized.

“Get together!” Stroud shouted before I could do so myself. “We are spread too thin.”

I had no more time to pay attention to the others, the reptid in front of me had come for more and I had to defend myself. I thrust my spear forward, drawing quite a bit of blood from the monster’s neck, but I failed to stop its charge. Once again I resorted to a kick to deal with it while regretting the fact that my shield was useless against this kind of small opponent.

With some space between the monster and me, I moved to Bolton’s side as everyone gathered around the vanguards.

Meanwhile, one of the reptids was badly wounded and three others were bleeding quite a bit.

“Ugh, they got us good,” Bert commented with a snicker. He had a couple of stains on his pants, but the fork at the base of his lamp was also dripping blood.

“Don’t let your guard down, this hasn’t finished yet,” Stroud warned.

The reptids were acting strange, instead of attacking immediately they were keeping their distance.

“Something isn’t right,” Terence said with a serious expression.

“Uh? You heard that?” Falnid suddenly asked.

“Hear what? My ears are still ringing,” replied Stroud while picking one with his finger.

“Something is coming,” Falnid said as he turned towards a small cave.

It was then that I heard the noises. Monsters were coming from several directions.

“Shit! We have to get out of here!” Terence shouted violently waving his spear to drive the reptids back.

“Follow me!” I urged everyone, waving my arm. I had taken a look at the map before the battle and had kept in mind an escape route. “Falnid, throw repellent behind us,” I said as I guided everyone toward one of the caves.

Some of us were wounded but we ran in formation as well as we could. In our path, we encountered some lone reptids and did our best to get them out of the way without slowing down.

“We should spread some bait in the other caves to distract them,” Bert commented from behind.

“Good idea,” I confirmed without taking my eyes off the path ahead, if I missed a turn we would end up losing our way or in a dead-end.

We kept running and spreading repellent and bait behind us, yet we could still hear the sounds of the approaching monsters.

“They are getting closer!” Stroud shouted in a nervous tone.

“We can’t keep running blindly,” Terence spoke in a serious voice. “Let’s mount a resistance there,” he said, pointing at a relatively flat narrow cave.

Everyone took the positions we had practiced several times during our training. Bolton and Rupert stood in the front as our vanguards, a step behind was Stroud, Terence, and me. Then Falnid, Bert, Litton, and the last member of Stroud’s group were ready to support us and take our place if it was needed. Further behind Terence’s lamp was laying against the wall of the cave, he had taken it off so it wouldn’t hinder his movements.

Falnid threw repellent in front of us one more time before grabbing a couple of rocks from the ground. “I’m all ready,” he braced himself.

The monsters were already visible down the cave, the sound of their steps shook the ground and their loud shrieks made us clench our teeth. I gripped my spear tighter, there were a lot of reptids coming. Things were looking quite grim, but at least we were lucky no other monsters had joined them.

Falnid threw rocks at the tide of reptids and the next moment we clashed.