The sun is heading towards the horizon by the time we’re ready, but we still have a good hour before dark. Hopefully that will be enough – I don’t really want to fight this creature in the dark, even if all of us have pretty good sight in low light conditions. But it's been worth spending a bit more time to make sure we're all going to be fighting in good conditions. Approaching a fight like this while tired, or half out of mana, or at all injured is stupid.
The steadily decreasing light level is one of the reasons that, after we’re all set up, my first move is to drop into Fade, then move towards the cave entrance. I have my bow in one hand and a bunch of arrows covered in one of River’s poisons in a hastily-made quiver on my back. The quiver, actually, is just a thin layer of skin that I’ve grown to make a long pouch diagonally across my back. It took a bit of trial and error, but now I can easily access my arrows.
That is only the most recent change I’ve made to my hide armour – in the run here as well as after we stopped, I made small edits to it in places where it was rubbing. My new boots needed particular attention to make sure that they don’t rub my feet raw. One of the many benefits of Flesh-Shaping – never having to deal with the ‘new shoe’ pain again.
Concentrate, I tell myself, rubbing my damp hands against my armour. I’m nervous, but confident in my companions. Most of them, anyway.
Nocking an arrow to the string of my bow, I use my improved night-vision to determine where the creature is in the dimly-lit cave.
Not wanting to risk accidentally piercing one of the web-covered caves for fear of hitting Fenrir, I aim for a dark patch which is glinting a little bit in the small amount of light still entering the cave. Loosing my arrow, I’m gratified when I hear the dull thud of an impact with flesh, followed by a high-pitched shriek of pain.
A moment later, the creature comes barrelling out from the dark cavern, its ten legs skittering quickly and easily despite its crouched position. I don’t move for a moment, taking the chance to shoot two more arrows to join the one currently hanging out one of the creature’s bulbous black eyes.
They both hit, though one bounces off the hard chitin, causing no damage. The other misses the eye I was aiming for, but sinks into the web-spinner’s toothy maw, causing another pain-filled shriek.
The creature starting to be too close for comfort, I drop Fade and leap on Hades’ back, the kiina quickly fleeing towards Bastet. As we run, I do something I wanted to do right at the beginning but decided not to for fear that it might lose us the element of surprise – cast Inspect Fauna.
Danaris
Tier 2 Beast (evolved)
Special abilities: Web-spinning, Unknown
Health: 8560u
Mana: 10u
Minimum Willpower recommended to Dominate without other impacting factors: 63
Known for the females’ tendency to take live prey to fill ‘larders’ for themselves and their offspring, this Beast is cunning, quick, and has formidable armour to protect itself. Their ability to spin different types of threads from protein is a weapon they can deploy to entangle even the strongest foe. Caution is advised when approaching this creature.
Close message? Y/N
My mind races as I consider the new information, sending it out to each of my Bound. Such high health – because of its size, or because it’s traded mana for health? Both, perhaps. Either way, it’s higher than I expected, and justifies why my whole hunting group was unable to make headway. Hopefully, our new composition will make a difference.
I can take Dominate off the table, though – my fifty-three points in Willpower are ten less than I would need to reasonably stand a chance. Even if we managed to whittle the creature’s health down or tie it up sufficiently to impact its willpower, it would still be unlikely to close the gap sufficiently. Clearly, this creature is significantly more powerful than my kiinas. Maybe it’s further in its evolution?
I do take special note of its web-spinning being mentioned as a weapon. I didn’t see that happening in the fight with my Bound before, but maybe it didn’t consider it necessary. Or maybe it wished to save its webbing for when it captured one of my Bound. Possible – being a ‘protein’, there is surely a limited amount of the material and replenishing its stocks must take time and probably food. Still, I have no desire for any of us to be ‘entangled’. And there’s also that ‘unknown’ to keep an eye on.
Such is the speed of my thoughts that we’re only just approaching Bastet as I finish my analysis. Dashing past her, Hades skids to a halt and turns around.
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The danaris barrels towards us, its eyes fixed on me with anger and killing intention. It pays little attention to the raptorcat in its path. A mistake.
Timed to the split-second, Hades claps his wings forwards sending an airblade towards the spider’s head. Simultaneously, Bastet breathes in deeply and then releases her firebreath.
The flames catch hold of the airblade and set it alight. The airblade, now a fireblade, crashes into the danaris’ head.
Apparently, whatever the material the spiky hairs covering the danaris are made out of is, it’s particularly vulnerable to fire. The creature shrieks once more, this time actually making several of us wince as the sound reaches painful decibels.
Its two front legs come up to scrub at the ball of flames which is what its head has become. I can’t help hoping that the fire might cook the thing’s brain and end the fight there. Unfortunately, I’m not that lucky.
Though the hairs seem to be particularly flammable, the rest of the chitin appears to be much more resistant. The fire dies down all too quickly.
I find myself wishing dearly that I could affect it from a distance: I can sense the fire with more than just my physical senses, but despite my best efforts, I am unable to do anything to it. If I could, I’d have given it mana to burn hotter and for longer, but there is no connection between me and it to feed mana down.
Still, it’s not that bad: these are our opening moves. If we’d managed to slay the creature with them, great, but we weren’t expecting to. Especially not now knowing just how big its health pool is.
While the creature is still distracted by the remnants of fire, Lathani leaps out from where she’d been hiding behind a rock. She is tasked with taking any possible opportunity to give it an injury, however small, as long as it won’t put her in danger.
That’s one reason we wanted to draw the creature out of its lair – being able to decide and control the battleground.
As was predictable, her attempt to dig into its body with her claws and teeth is a failure, the chitin resisting her natural weaponry perfectly. Still, she had to try it. We do learn something valuable, though – the hairs on the creature’s body are probably more comparable to spines which break and get stuck in the flesh.
That hadn’t come up much in the last fight either: the kiina had mostly used airblades and their teeth, Fenrir had used his teeth, and River had used his spear. None of them had tried to use claws, accidentally coming into contact with the short spines like Lathani.
Pain shoots down the Bond from her and I quickly focus on the mana I have floating around in her body. Mentally urging Hades to get closer, it only takes me a few moments to push the nasty spines out of Lathani’s paws along with the contaminants they introduced, closing up the holes as a stop-gap solution since I don't have time to heal her fully.
By the time I tune back into the fight, the danaris has been distracted by Persephone and Sirocco. The former is sending small airblades at the spider creature, one after another. With her mana pool of a hundred units and each small airblade only taking five or so units, she has a few in the tank, but not that many.
Sirocco, on the other hand, is doing what she does best – swooping for the weak points. WIth one eye already damaged by my arrow, she is trying to blind its five others. Its head now clear of the flames – and the spines – the creature is rather distracted by the two sets of attacks.
But that’s not likely to last too long.
My mind works over the situation busily. We’d made our plans for the opening moves without knowing too much about the creature’s strengths or weaknesses. Although we still don’t know too much about the latter, we have more knowledge about the former.
It’s quick, it’s strong, and it has a weapon which we haven’t seen in action as well as one we have – its sting. At the same time, it is covered by a defensive layer that will quickly exhaust my stores of mana in my Bound if I have to be pushing spikes out of them every time they make an attack which requires contact with the enemy.
A layer which is vulnerable to fire, even if the rest of it isn’t.
Can you do another fire attack now? I ask Bastet hurriedly, using our Bond to communicate across the distance between us.
I can, but I will be exhausted of both mana and stamina, she warns.
That’s fine, I tell her. River can carry you out of the fight if you can’t move yourself. I cast a look over to the lizard-man who has so far been watching the fight with a tight expression. I know he’s itching to get in, but it’s too dangerous for close fighting right now. From the ground, anyway.
He sends agreement down the Bond and I hurriedly turn my attention back to Bastet.
OK, on three, I tell her. Hades, Persephone, try to catch the fire with airblades too.
I am almost exhausted of mana, Persephone informs me, tiredness in her mental voice.
That’s fine, I reassure her. Keep enough back that you can move, but otherwise send a last big one along with Bastet’s fire, then pull back. I sense Hades’ uneasiness at how unprotected his mate will be, but his relief that she will be out of the fight for a bit. Join River and Bastet – you should be safer together, I continue to reassure both of them.
Hopefully, if my plan goes as I’m intending it, the danaris will be too busy dealing with the next attacks to try to get revenge.
One, two, three! I count, the attacks all launching simultaneously.
Two powerful airblades fly towards the danaris again, each touching the firebreath which emerges once more from Bastet’s maw.
The danaris tries to dodge the fireblades, clearly understanding that they caused pain and damage, but at the short range, doesn’t succeed.
One crashes into its abdomen, the other glances across several legs, setting small fires on each of them.
The fires won’t last long – already they greedily consume the flammable spines within easy reach. But hopefully they will last long enough for me to prepare our next attack.