The forest blurred slightly around Aveliene as she stepped off the rock, and she felt the glade shift slightly, the trees becoming sparser, the grass thicker, and the smell of a stream nearby. She'd made it out of the High Roads without too many problems. Speed, planning, and agility serving her better than an attempt of brute force would have. Knowing how to move around, or adapt to, threats was preferable to fighting her way through them, as far as Aveliene was concerned. Let Fraker the Axe hack his way through mountains if they got in his way, Aveliene preferred to move around them.

Aveliene smiled at the memory of the nymph lying sated on her rock with sleepy eyes. She shook herself, concentrated, and felt her armor and weapons appear from the strange not-place they went to when she hid them. She paused for a moment to adjust the armor properly where it was too tight in some places and too loose in others.

A rustling noise in the grass made her pause as she buckled the leather tube around her long red braid, and she looked around slowly.

Butterflies danced over the flowers, dragonflies flitted about in the sunlight, and the glade looked like something out of a painting with berry bushes laden with ripe fruit hedging the glade.

Her stomach plummeted as she stared at her surroundings.

A noise made her look down, where she saw a small reptillian head the size of an apricot pit looking up at her, its bronze scales glimmering in the sunlight and its tiny black eyes staring at her. In the little lizard's claws was held a small stick, the pointed end discolored by a thick sap-like substance.

"Yum yum." The Peeper said, looking up at her.

Aveliene whipped her gaze up to the branches above her and saw dozens, scores of little black eyes staring at her. The mottled pattern of the Peeper's lizard skins made them almost invisible, but their bright eyes, gleaming little sharp teeth, and tightly held little spears were easy to spot. Many of them were licking their chops, and what was normally a loving, trusting look in their eyes was replaced by a predatory hunger.

Without pausing Aveliene took off running, high stepping through the grass.

"Mustn't step. Mustn't step." Aveliene kept repeating, dancing from spot to spot as she rushed across the clearing.

Little holes, roughly the size of a person's foot, were scattered through the clearing, many of them with sharpened rib bones from small animals or sharpened sticks on the sides or bottom. Several times Peepers pulled vines in front of her feet, intending on having the vines catch on her ankles so she might step on one and fall. Peepers popped out of the ferns and grass of the clearing to throw their little spears which bounced off of Aveliene's leather armor.

In the branches the other Peepers rushed across the branches, over one another, those who caught up with Aveliene leaping at her. One bit her ear as it stabbed at her neck with the point of its spear, and Aveliene could feel the burning of the venom. Another landed on the top of her head, holding onto one of the small braids, and began jabbing at her scalp. Still another landed on her shoulder, bit deeply into her earlobe, and began digging inside of her ear with the spear, jabbing painfully into her eardrum.

Aveliene snatched them off as quickly as she could, dancing around the clearing, until she neared the ring of berry bushes. Two steps gave her the momentum to clear the bushes, rolling tightly in midair to shed the handful of Peeper that were holding onto her before landing in the ferns on the other side. She felt a few stakes crackle under her boot and gave thanks for the thin steel plates layered into the sole.

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"Yum yum!" sounded out from around and behind her, and Aveliene kept hopping, stepping high enough to avoid any sudden yanked vines, and watching her feet to make sure she didn't step in any more holes. Behind her the Peeper rushed after her and let out warbling hunting cries.

Hunting cries that were echoed ahead of her.

"You have to be kidding me." Aveliene mumbled, putting on the speed.

"Come back, you're made of yum yum!" A high peeping voice called out from behind her.

"Yum yum!" all the others called out.

"I'm telling my Mother on you!" Aveliene yelled over her shoulder.

Behind her the brightly bronze colored one and a small lean silver one both paused for a second, cocked their apricot heads, then continued with their charge after the Wraithkiller, voicing their warbling hunting cries.

Aveliene cleared the woods and into a grassy feel, repeating her mantra of "mustn't step mustn't step" as she kept high stepping through the grass, dodging foot traps, vines pulled up to snag either ankles, and spears jabbing at her ankles. More Peepers dropped on her as she left the cover of the woods and held on tenaciously, jabbing at her with the sharply pointed tiny spears. The venom they used made her skin burn and itch, but other than that it had no immediate effect on her inhuman physiology.

The Peepers from the woods fell back, merely hopping along behind her, while the grassland pack took up the chase, warbling and stabbing at her ankles and the top of her boots with their spears. One brave little Peeper leaped up, grabbed ahold of her belt, and began gnawing through the thick leather, while two others used him as a ladder to climb up her back. Both of them reached her shoulders as she dodged a whole bunch of the small lizard that were holding up sharpened chunks of metal debris. Her hands darted to her back, grabbing at the Peeper who was industriously half way through the thick leather, and the two holding onto her hair at her shoulders reared their heads back and opened their mouths, small needlelike fangs unfolding from the roofs of their mouths. She managed to grab the one at her back and toss it away, but the two on her shoulders bit deeply into the side of her neck, their jaws flexing as they pumped venom into her.

Aveliene screamed as the Peeper venom flooded into her system, stumbling for a moment. Her vision went gray and her heart began to hammer. She snatched the two of them away, leaving bloody holes in her throat that pumped blood with the steadiness of ruptured veins and the pulsing flow of a nicked artery. Once the Peeper left her hand, flying backwards through the air with droplets of venom and blood glittering on the translucent fangs, she clapped her hand to her neck, squeezing tight.

"Yum yum! Yum yum!" sounded out around her, behind her, and she kept stumbling on, driven by instinct, willpower, and centuries of training and experience. She could feel the blood running from her nose, and there were sparks across her graying vision.

She stumbled out of the grass, the Peepers holding onto her ankles and chewing on her leather armor dropping free and quickly hopping back into the grass. Blackened dirt, more ash than soil, puffed up around her boots she kept stumbling forward. She kept moving forward, glancing behind her.

The Peepers were gathered at the knife-edged division of the blackened soil and the grassy field, jumping up and down and waving their spears, peeping in their high pitched voices for the "Yum yum come back."

Not willing to take any chances, Aveliene kept stumbling forward, her eyes fixed on a patch of tumbled rock, on a small ruin. She could feel the venom coursing through her body, but at least the holes in her neck had closed. Slowly for her, but still they had closed all the same, meaning she wasn't losing any more blood.

She rounded the corner of the pile of rubble, her bladder letting go between one step and the next, filling her underclothes with a thick oily liquid. She took a couple more steps and went down on one knee, her stomach heaving twice and then boiling up her throat in a rush. Noxious green bile spattered on the black dirt, her body trying to purge out the Peeper venom before it stopped both of her hearts. Already her primary heart was stuttering, making it feel like her chest was being crushed and shooting pains merged with muscle cramps in her shoulders and down her left arm. She heaved twice more, the last of the contents of her stomach splashing between her hands.

With a moan of pain she pushed herself over, onto her side, away from the puddle, curling up on the dirt and hugging her knees close to her chest and moaning as fire coursed through her veins.

Stupid Peepers...