Following the scream of pain, Axel moved as fast as his body could handle, likely faster than he should, but he was moving to an emergency. As he navigated through the underbrush, he prepared for the battle ahead. First, he brought up his journal’s basic beast index then he blinked in a pattern that activated his journal’s combat mode, displaying basic information on the side of his vision. This could not be undone without closing his eyes for a full 30 seconds to reset the lock. Something he should have done before his fight with Cade, another regret added to his list, and a lesson learned in blood.
As the index opened on the opposite side of his vision of the health information, a memory of learning from Icthia with his friends Cade and Lyra ran through his head.
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Sitting in a bright courtyard under the morning sun, Icthia in her ink-stained robes began the morning’s lecture. At a stone table were Axel, Lyra, Cade, and several other village children. Most of them were jittery, wanting to get this over with so they could go out and play. As Icthia began talking, everyone seemed to calm down and start paying rapt attention.
“As a person grows, so does their journal with them. The Goddess made it so that their gift would help them throughout their life. Take Axel’s journal, since he was a hunter now, his journal will grow to hold information on the beasts he had hunted or studied to hunt. It will grow with him to try and help him. Your journals will only have some basic abilities as even the Goddess does not know what you will try in your life. Her writ is about the journey of life and growing stronger through its challenges.
Lyra, you are also another great example, as your journal should already be changing to help you with your Goddess-granted healing gifts. Am I right?” Lyra nodded to Icthia, who continued the lesson. “Take my own, send me out into the forest with the hunters I could do alright with my training but I would bring back little game compared to the hunters put me in the Library here and I could help you find the Journal of a promising blacksmith from 100 years ago, it’s in Section H Row 12 Shelf 4 generally 4 books in from the walkway unless someone removed a book prior.”
“This was not to say a journal can grow forever, it has its limits as with all things in life. Learning these limits will let you better plan your life and not be surprised. There is only so much it can grow at any given Tier and it will gain or lose functions in your life as your priorities shift. The Journal will also grow with you as you complete your Trials to better help you with your path. So, remember to always make entries in it every night if you can so that the Goddess can watch over your growth and guide you along your journey.”
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This memory only took a moment to flash through Axel’s mind and, as his teacher had said, everything had its limitations. The memory trick he had learned growing up came with the issue for him that memories would sometimes pop up when working through things. Thankfully, in stressful situations, the mind tended to suppress this drawback but if the user was in a less than stellar mental state, like running through a forest on a quest given by the Goddess with injuries and dealing with what has had to have been the worst 30-something hours in their life, these drawbacks liked to rear their head.
As Axel moved through the dense underbrush, the sounds of the jungle enveloped him. The chirping of insects, the distant calls of unknown creatures, and the rustling of leaves created a symphony of life. The air was thick with humidity, making each breath feel heavy and harder with his damaged ribs. The smell of damp earth and decaying vegetation filled his nose, and the distant calls of jungle creatures could be heard. This was a constant reminder of the jungle’s untamed nature.
Clearing a very impressive specimen of a Guen tree known for its rubber sap, Axel arrived in a more open area. While it would not be classified as a clearing, the trees were less dense and the foliage was very light. Standing with her back to a Guen tree was an Aurelian woman, her left wing damaged with what looked like a large gash. She seemed to be a young one of her species as her feathers did not have much of a metallic sheen to them, that the older more mature ones would.
Axel’s eyes were immediately drawn to her wings, which, despite the injury on one, were a stunning display of her kinds iridescent feathers. The metallic sheen was faint, indicating her youth, but the intricate varying patterns between metal and natural feathers were mesmerizing. Her light scouting gear was practical yet elegant, designed to allow for maximum mobility while providing protection. The daggers she held were crafted from the claws of a beast Axel had not seen before, their edges sharp and deadly with a light coating of blood on them.
The woman turned her head ever so slightly, revealing a face that was both fierce and delicate. Her eyes, a striking shade of silver, grazed onto Axel with a mix of caution, curiosity, and repressed pain but not letting the beast who attacked her leave her vision. Her silvery blond hair fell in a silken wave to her shoulders, catching the dying light and late evening breeze, giving her an almost ethereal look. Despite her injury, she stood tall and defiant, ready to defend herself if necessary. She was about 5’7" if Axel had to guess with her wings giving her a perceived height as tall as him.
Time slowed down as Axel saw what was across from the woman. It was a Twilight Stalker, a lizard-like beast with six legs, and two scythe-like talons at the front shoulders attached with strong twin-jointed limbs. Axel’s index brought up his knowledge of the beast with data and rough estimates, the stats automatically on the side where he had activated his index beginning to fill out.
Index basic mode
Twilight Stalker
Known Dangers:
* Poison Scything Talons and claws
* Limited camouflaging ability
* Natural toxins in the mouth from decaying corpses they eat
Estimated Age: Between Youth and Juvenile stage due to the size and length of Scything Talons
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Beast Potency Level: Novice Low
Current Danger to the user: Very High due to the user’s current health data and the creature’s known fighting abilities.
The Twilight Stalker was not a particularly resilient species, preferring stealthy ambush and poisoning its prey to later find the corpse to eat at its pleasure. This must be a young one to be out in the open like this and desperate for food to boot, making the situation even more dangerous as it would be unlikely to be scared away.
Axel was also cursing himself out a bit as his mind was going through combat options. He had perfectly good throwing knives in his pack right now, a great tool with his strength but didn’t want to look too armed when he was trying to leave the village, and honestly with his body’s shape did not want to deal with the pain and discomfort of them on his body. He also did not have his discharge chain attached to this new halberd. It was a useful tool when dealing with beasts that hunted with electrical discharges and for situations where you needed a bit more range than his halberd would give in a fight.
As his old one was still attached to the halberd he had used in the duel. Shying from those thoughts, his combat options were limited. He had his halberd and hunting knife as his only easily available tools right now and a beast was about to strike at the young woman again. Axel decided to free his hand and tossed his pack to the side.
With that hand free he quickly drew the hunting knife and with a practiced controlled strength threw the knife at the beast’s head. Either by a combination of his injuries, using a knife not made for throwing, and/or lack of recent practice, he missed his mark. The knife grazed the beast’s neck causing it to leap back spoiling its strike on the woman though, so small wins?
The beast leaped back and disappeared into the brush to likely reassess the danger to itself. Using the time gained, Axel finished his sprint to the woman’s side. As he arrived, he could better see her condition, which was bad but not critical. He could see the pooling blood from the wing and several wounds likely poisoned slowing her Goddess Gifts healing the wounds. If not treated soon she would likely faint from blood loss before her body purged the poison.
“You look like you need a little assistance,” was the first thing out of Axel’s mouth much to his embarrassment.
“Yes, assistance would be greatly appreciated,” a happy and bubbly with a hint of repressed pain replied. Her voice was light and melodic and very pleasing to the ear. Then Axel remembered that he was talking to an Aurelian and that they had a lack of many social cues, finding such things stupid and not useful to life. Then she tilted her head saying in a concerned tone, “Are you sure it is not you that needs assistance? You look very beat up to Aria’s eyes.”
Ignoring her question Axel surveyed the forested area in the dying light and knowing this was the worst place and time to fight this beast, Axel turned his back to her surveying the area while saying, “This is an ambush predator that is known for camouflage and poisoned attacks. We don’t have much time before it realizes that I am not the threat it thought I was at first. I have some bandages in the belt pouch near the small of my back with some basic blood clotting cream. Use it quick to stop your bleeding while we have this moment.”
A moment later he felt a tug on his belt. Hoping that she could save herself right now Axel continued to scan the trees wishing for the special power of heat sight. That would make this so much easier. “It is moving to the right just off the ground near the tree with red leaves. Aria can smell its blood, and it is not the most practiced stealth predator as Aria is hearing its claws scrape against the trunk.” came a voice behind Axel followed by a sharp hiss of pain. She must be putting on the clotting cream as that shit stings like the Crimson.
Axel knew better than to shift in a way that gave away he was aware of its location. “Alright, can you still fight?” Hearing an affirmative sound, he continued, “I will take its attack and hold it off. This beast has a weak point of a nerve cluster at the shoulder joint for its scythes. This should cause it to lock up allowing us to quickly finish it. Think you can hit that?”
“Yep Aria can hit that easy peasy yandon squeezy!” said the sing-songy reply, “also Aria thinks it’s getting ready for something as …” as she was warning him out of the brush came a large mass of shifting colors.
Knowing this was coming, Axel turned and braced himself to take this leaping attack. He used the heaft of his halberd to block both of the scything talons that slammed down on him. This still left the claws and teeth to try and remove parts of him that he would like to keep. So, with a yell of effort Axel locked one joint between the shaft and axe blade, and using the remaining momentum of its charging leap, Axel let his left leg give, and with the leverage that his halberd was giving him locking a limb, swung it into the Guen tree in a full 720-degree arc, twisting his body with the motion. He could even feel a large burst of air hitting him as he swung the beast.
The impact sent a shower of leaves and debris raining down around him. Axel was also lightly splashed with the beast's blood as the scythe limb broke from the strain on it, losing his grip on his halberd along the way. He was hoping that he did not miscalculate the woman’s position from her voice just a moment ago.
Even with the adrenaline pouring throughout his body, good Goddess, everything hurt so badly now, and he was sure he would be useless for the rest of this based on the basic health information he was seeing. Both arms broken, fractures added to the hip, and added damage to his right knee. He had to hope the woman could do her part as he did not like his odds unarmed and with how badly the injuries all over his body appearing again and getting worst from that one exchange. Also, his proto core showed less than two percent power remaining having drained quickly from the effort to swing the beast.
It was at this moment that he heard the thump and groan of the beast sliding off the tree and getting back to its feet. Axel struggled to stand and turning to the beast so that if she failed, he could try anything, by anything at least look the beast in the eye as it killed him and maybe spitting in one of its eyes if he was lucky. As he was now sure he rebroke his arms again, along with damaging his back, hips, and knees almost as badly as his now re-broken arms.
What he saw instead of his death was the woman falling from what he guessed was a one-wing assisted leap, landing on its back, hitting both nerve clusters along the joints, stunning the beast in pain, allowing her to leap off its bucking form again with, yep, and another wing-assisted leap with a gust of strong gust of wind to land again. She followed that up by driving a dagger deep into its skull through the eye, likely killing it there. She did not stop with that strike though, not seeming to want to take the risk, and sent her second dagger into the base of its neck.
The beast slumped over at this point and silence returned to the area. With the danger over, Axel’s body seemed to have had enough of his shit at this point and shut him down. As things were going grey, he got a nice look at the woman as she was turning to him with her chest puffed out and a look of pride only to change to what Axel’s mom would have called an “Oh shit” face.