I gaze at my next opponent. Shrieks-loudly is even more of a mountain of a samuran than any of my previous opponents, but I’ve seen that he’s not just some brute with no brain from how he handled last night’s events. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to see how he actually fights – whether through chance or design, he’s always been fighting at the same time as I have.

Now that our own battle is imminent, I hesitate over which of my Companions to bring in.

Catch has done well, even if I’ve only brought him in on two battles out of seven. In one of those battles, he proved to be essential to my success. However, with his once-a-day ability now used, he will be unable to use any further magic today. Beyond his Stealth ability, that is. It’s tempting to bring him in for that – being able to creep up on an opponent is certainly an advantage. For this battle, though, I’m not sure it’s enough of an advantage to outweigh his disadvantages.

The fact is that Shrieks-loudly is half again Catch’s height, towering more than a head over me. He’s broad and thickly muscled, looking like he’s been living in the gym and tossing back protein shakes for the last year. That would suggest that he’s slow, but from what I picked up from him earlier with my non-invasive Inspect, it’s not at all the case. That means that Catch is out-matched in pretty much all ways.

Bastet is just as outmatched when it comes to size and weight – more so even since she’s smaller and lighter than Catch. However, she’s faster, perhaps fast enough to keep up with the bulky samuran. In addition, although she doesn’t have a dedicated stealth ability, she has something that makes her harder to spot when she doesn’t want to be, and she has both her once-a-day ability and her own magic.

Her disadvantage is that there would be no way that she could go toe-to-toe with the Warrior. Catch might be able to do that if he hunkered down behind a shield, even if it wouldn’t be for long; Bastet would just have to keep out of his reach.

With so much on the line, I decide to use a proper Inspect. At this point, it doesn’t matter if he feels it – we’re about to fight anyway. Making him angrier is unlikely to work against me right now.

Samuran: Shrieks-loudly

Tier 2 Beast (Evolved)

Special abilities: Enhanced Speed, Enhanced Blow

Health: 1990u

Mana: 10u

Minimum Willpower recommended to Dominate without other impacting factors: 65 (65)

Open to a Bond: No

Impacting factor: Protection of the Village

Member of a samuran community; the current leader of its protectors. Fights with multiple weapons, overwhelming opponents with his raw strength and speed. Social Beast with strong capacity to form bonds.

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His health is the highest I’ve seen yet from any samuran, unsurprising considering his size. Still, it’s a little daunting – it’s almost six times my health. Having it that high clearly has had an impact on his mana, though – that is the lowest I’ve ever seen, and not just among the lizard-folk. I note that if I do go for the poison route, I’d better not choose one which requires me to whittle his health down significantly before it will work properly.

I suspect his stamina will be his weak point, though. Enhanced Speed has got to consume stamina considering how low his mana is, and so must Enhanced Blow. This is the first Warrior I’ve encountered who has two abilities. No wonder he’s top dog – or rather, top lizard.

It would have been nice if the description had told me more about the weapons he uses, but unfortunately he doesn’t apparently use one or two weapons so much that my current level of Inspect will inform me about them.

In the end, I make my choice of which Bound to bring in and step forwards into the ring. On the other side of the fighting area, Shrieks-loudly does the same.

Catch tenses at my side, his eyes fixed on the other samuran. It’s a bit of a risk to bring him with me, but having seen what Shrieks-loudly’s stats are, I decided that Bastet’s abilities wouldn’t be suited to this battle. With his health as high as it is, her claws and teeth wouldn’t make much difference, and her speed might not match his enhanced movement ability. With his speed and strength, she wouldn’t offer him much deterrent even if she stood in his way, either, and would be more likely to be hurt.

It remains to be seen whether Catch, with his ability to hold a shield, is a better option, though. Either way, as the refereeing Pathwalkers – Grower and Wood-shaper – click their teeth in unison, we all explode into movement.

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Expecting Shrieks-loudly to run directly towards me, I’m taken a little off-guard when that isn’t what he does at all. Instead, he reaches behind himself and withdraws something. His next movement is faster than I can track. The next thing I know is that I’m reeling backwards, pain exploding in my shoulder.

I’m only barely aware of Catch moving in to cover us both with his shield as something strikes me again in the same shoulder. The first blow cracked the carapace which protects it. The second presses those shards into the armour and transfers its force into my joint. The third, which follows quickly on the heels of the first two, causes an ominous crack and horrible pain to radiate through my shoulder.

Then Catch has the shield between us and the other samuran. Several quick-fired dull thuds prove that Shrieks-loudly isn’t playing around. The wood is better for absorbing impacts and dents rather than cracks, but it won’t be able to stand up to this kind of abuse for long.

Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like the shield will need to do so as the thuds stop quickly enough. My brain scrambles to catch up with just what has happened even as I send healing magic to my shoulder. Part of my mind focuses on filling in the cracks and rips which have been caused by the three blows unerringly hitting the same spot.

It’s a surprise that the bulky samuran has chosen to attack with projectile weaponry, but perhaps that’s exactly why he did it – he wanted to push us off-balance, and that’s exactly what he’s done.

I drop into Medium Meditation, wanting to use the increased speed of thought to work out how to move next. Aware of time not being on my side, even in this space, I quickly run through what happened.

Enhanced Speed, Enhanced Blow…. Clearly they don’t only apply to moving from A to B, but also made him able to throw his weapons fast enough that Catch’s and my actions felt like moving in slow-motion in comparison. That’s not good since it means that we can’t risk getting into a hand-to-hand battle – neither of us would be able to react fast enough to avoid being stabbed.

On the other hand, I suppose that that would explain why the blows stopped fairly rapidly once they started hitting a shield – if both abilities use stamina, Shrieks-loudly isn’t going to want to waste too much of it.

I play around briefly with the idea of taking this battle immediately to the soul-space, but decide against it. Just like with Lee at the start, the samurans need to be convinced that I can win the battle according to their terms. But I don’t dismiss the possibility – ultimately, I need to win. It’ll be easier to convince them if I’ve won the battle, regardless of how I’ve actually won it.

But for now, the only weak point I can determine is most likely present is his stamina. At that thought, an idea occurs. After a few more short moments of deliberation, I pull myself out of Medium Meditation.

Little time has passed since I entered it, but my ears pick up the sound of feet pounding towards us. We have seconds before he is on us.

Stealth, I order Catch shortly, throwing up a curtain of fire around us. Briefly obscured from view, it’s easy enough for him to enter Stealth and me to engage Fade.

Catch’s Stealth is different from mine. Perhaps it’s because it’s a higher level or something like that. Where mine just helps me move more quietly, his makes him generally more unnoticeable. It’s more similar to my Fade but is still a bit different. Even though I have resistance to it because he’s my Bound, I still feel that my eyes wish to slide away from where he is.

The feet on the other side of the flame pause, but, a moment later, there’s the sound of a roar and a large, dark shape leaps through the flames to land where we both were a moment ago.

Of course, we’re not there now. Instead, we’ve split up, each on opposite sides of the ring of fire. Now the fire is hindering more than helping us, I drop the curtains of flame.

For a moment, all three of us are frozen in position. Catch and I both feel like we’re in the sights of a predator as Shrieks-loudly turns his head slowly to either side, his gaze searching.

My heart is in my mouth as his light bronze-coloured eyes slide over where I’m standing, frozen. It stays there even when he turns away because that means he’s now looking in the direction of where Catch is. The younger samuran stays just as still as I did when that gaze passed over me.

With him turned away, though, I take the chance to ease backwards, putting some distance between us. I freeze as soon as he turns his head towards me with a jerk. Behind him, I see Catch beginning to shift like me, only he intentionally makes a bit of noise. He’s recognised that he’s the distraction without me needing to spell it out.

Shrieks-loudly’s head snaps back in his direction immediately and he starts prowling forwards. He’d brought a long spear into the fight with him, the weapon I thought he’d be using. Now, he does use it, waving it back and forth to find a lump where there shouldn’t be a lump – a decent tactic for finding someone in stealth.

Catch retreats backwards, the space between us widening without me having to move. Just as well – Fade does work with me moving slowly, but that’s when I’m most likely to be discovered. With what I have in mind, the longer my effective invisibility can continue, the better.

Pulling my bow out of my Inventory, I take a moment to string it, moving slowly. I probably don’t need to unstring it, considering my Inventory holds things in stasis, and it would certainly have sped things up now if I had left it strung.

The next object I remove is one of my bone arrows, but I make a bit of a change to it on the fly.

While I work, I keep an eye on the other participants of the fight. Shrieks-loudly is getting ever closer to where Catch is pressed to the ground, his shield slung on his back and somehow covered by the same effect. The smaller samuran shifts slowly whenever the Warrior isn’t looking directly at him, but his movements are, by necessity, much smaller than Shrieks-loudly’s.

Nocking my modified arrow to the bow, I pull it back and shoot it towards the large samuran’s back. The Warrior reacts faster than I had expected, but isn't quite fast enough to avoid the arrow. It sinks into the meat of his bicep as he whirls around.

I’ve frozen physically as his gaze scans where the arrow came from, but my magic is active. Shrieks-loudly hisses and snatches at the arrow as it expands into his arm. Too late: even as he tears out a chunk of his flesh, the payload of the arrow has already been delivered into his blood-stream.

Perhaps realising that he’s now on a timer, Shrieks-loudly moves swiftly in my general direction. He clearly can’t see me; he just as clearly knows approximately where the arrow came from. With his spear stabbing unpredictably at all angles, I stay absolutely still, focussing all my mana on multiplying the venom I’ve just fed into him.

I see Catch starting to move, creeping up behind the Warrior. His footfall is light enough that the bulky samuran doesn’t know he’s there until his cudgel comes heavily down on the side of Shrieks-loudly’s knee.