“Goliath huntsmen, often solitary ambush predators, are extremely territorial and aggressive, particularly when disturbed following a meal. Woe be to the adventurer who disturbs them, particularly near their nest...”— Annwyn Online Bestiary.

Beyond the Village of Firestone, the territories of Rielle. Day 01.

The nightstalker’s shrieking vocal assault sent Saiph down on one knee while the two guards closest to him fell to the ground with hands over their ears, their faces locked in grimaces of agony.

Nix was about to yell to the other guards to run for cover when Mikel’s bellowing voice became a beacon of command.

“Those with range, keep that thing off our fallen. Everyone else, fall back to the treeline!”

Though the guards were outleveled, they moved with the deliberate speed of men trained to handle such battles.

The nightstalker broke into a dash towards Saiph. It moved with a speed that would have made Nix call bullshit if he wasn’t seeing it with his own two eyes.

A streak of blue caught the nightstalker in one of its legs and the monster stumbled over itself. It face planted, rolled into the fall, and was quickly back on its feet. The attack had been more a minor annoyance than an actual threat, but it had done the trick.

“This way, damned beast!” The guard who had cast the lightning spell shouted as the nightstalker turned in his direction.

Another guard fired an arrow, directing the nightstalker towards her. More guards with ranged weapons joined in, each person pulling the monster’s attention in a deadly game of whack-a-mole.

Catching on to what they were doing, Nix pulled a longbow from his bag and threw his quiver of arrows over his shoulder, prepared to join in on the distraction rotation.

Nix drew back and fired an arrow. It released from his bow with a healthy thwip, but only bounced off the monster’s hard exoskeleton, only taking a few hundred hit points out of the monster’s tens of thousands.

Nix cursed, he was barely more effective with his bow than the guards were with their weapons. He’d need significantly more firepower if he were going to help Saiph deal some actual damage. Which meant he’d have to use his mana and summons more offensively.

He sent Skoll and Hati forward, the flame vargr's twin jaws latching onto one of the nightstalker’s legs. A horrifying popping and sizzling and the scent of burning flesh filled the air as the fires of the flame elemental’s body licked at the spider’s armored exoskeleton.

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The nightstalker managed to kick Nix’s flame elemental free of its body, sending the twin-headed wolf flying into a tree. Nix’s summon yelped on impact and the tree immediately ignited into a roiling fire.

Nix hurled a fireball at the distracted nightstalker. It turned and ran in Nix’s direction. Before the nightstalker made it even halfway to Nix, a massive golden chain with a barbed end slammed into the monster’s abdomen. The chain immediately went taut, dragging the nightstalker backwards into an arena of golden light. It skidded on its eight legs, attempting to stop the chain's pull to little effect.

“I’ll be holding its attention now,” Saiph said through their private party chat as he made a heavy-looking claymore appear in his hands. The Chains of Prometheus were a powerful crowd control spell within a Sentinel’s arsenal. They locked Saiph and the nightstalker within a magic barrier, forcing them to fight only each other for a duration with no escape by any means.

Nix used Saiph’s distraction to check in on the fallen guards. They were being tended to, but both men had lost almost half their health pools and an unseen debuff was still causing their health to drop at an alarming rate.

Warning be damned, I’m not letting those men die, Nix thought as he remembered Sylas' words about using magic to treat the men, Nix summoned a small white bird, Caladrius, as well as a life wisp. Caladrius landed on one man, taking his debuffs for itself in the form of damage to its own health pool before moving on to the other guard.

The life wisp sent out pulses of healing magic that stabilized the men. Though neither man regained lucidity, the shuddering in their chests turned to steady breathing as their health bars were fully replenished.

The sound of a metallic, bone-rattling thunk drew Nix’s attention back to Saiph. His friend was lying on the ground, helmet knocked free of his head and his skin the ashen grey of petrification. The nightstalker reared up to drive both of its spears through his friend’s chest.

Skoll and Hati leapt forward to distract the nightstalker as Nix sent Caladrius and the life wisp after Saiph. The petrification on Saiph used up the last of Caladrius’ health pool. The white bird dropped from the sky, its body turning to motes of golden light that disappeared before hitting the ground. But it had been enough, Saiph was back on his feet resuming his role as tank.

Nix summoned a second life wisp to back up his first one and began healing Saiph as he took damage.

Summoners had very low personal offensive and defensive capabilities, but they could make use of many of the same spells their summoned beings had access to. It was this high level of utility that had drawn Nix to the Summoner class.

Nix summoned a light wisp, which raced between the guards, bolstering the nearly nonexistent physical damage of their bows with light magic. Nix himself alternated between healing and fire magic, settling into his dual roles of support and damage.

Their party continued their dance with the nightstalker; Nix, his flame vargr, and whichever ranged guard happened to be closest, peeling away the red of the monster’s health bar while Saiph blocked the monster’s spears and returned hits of his own.

The spear of the second nightstalker that killed the guard closest to the water breached the surface too fast for her to react. One second she was drawing back her bow, sighting on the nightstalker busy with Saiph and in the next, everything above the base of her neck disappeared in the most violently horrific magic trick Nix had ever seen, replaced by the pointed tip of the second nightstalker’s chitinous front leg briefly before it pulled back into the water.

Two jets of arterial blood bloomed from either side of her neck as her heart continued to beat while her body fell to the ground, having not yet received the message that she was dead.