The Vitapygmy's eyes scan over my monsters then settles on my Core with a glare. It takes one step forward then stops both sides waiting for the other to blink, to make some mistake they can capitalize on. Then the diminutive warrior raises the hammer far behind its head a shimmering of verdant energies as they begin to pivot at the hips.
"My god he's going to throw the hammer come on guys st-" My shout of alarm was cut short as my middle Dire Hare Dashed.
The amount of force that can be suddenly released in an instant from a massive hare's powerful hind legs is amazing. One moment it was at the inner edge of my cloud bank and the next it had closed the gap with what could only be described as its prey. A near solid streak of mist was left in its wake as it shed a bow wave through my cloud cover. Its tusks goring its enemies hip killing its momentum but not its will to fight.
The hammer flashes in a downward arc, having been turned away from its desired target, settling for a punitive strike into the shoulder of the hare in front of it eliciting an earsplitting shriek from the wounded creature. At the same time it swung out with its other hand fouling a second hares attempt at a bite to its shoulder. The vitapygmy was clearly a capable combatant despite its looks but it had only two arms with which to fight while I had three Mist-walker dire hare.
The third hare emerged from behind shrouded in mist latching hard to the arm holding the hammer and shaking the vitapygmy violently. The second delivered a few swift kick while repositioning itself then coming back in for another bite. Back and forth they didn't leave their target a moment to center itself or to know where exactly the other would strike from next.
While the contest was clearly heavily in my favor I could tell the vitapygmy was built for turning fights into drawn out battles of attrition as it was already surer on its feet as the wound it had received at the start of the fight had already healed. The vitapygmy had lost its hammer at some point and was fending off the attacks only partially with now heavily chewed spent torch. It was clearly on the back foot until my third hare seemed to make a costly mistake. They over extended and snapped their jaws closed on empty air getting several rapped blows to the nose for their trouble and the vitapygmy pushed its advantage.
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I needed to do something to try and tip the balance back in my favor but I couldn't think of how to use my Domain to directly effect the fight. I dove into myself trying to figure out how I could turn the fight from a close one to a sure win. I need to fight I needed...
My inner cloudscape shifted forming low crenelated battlements in its center. A window appeared not in front of my face or on the wall but near the center of the cloud fort. I quickly set up at the designated location and the change was immediate instead of looking around at my cloudy in space I was watching over the battle as if it were happening in front of a castles walls. My castle walls. I turned to the window and was mildly intrigued.
Combat become! Available Spells tier 1
-Spell- -Cost- Fog of War 1 Cloud Mana Pearl Mist Cloak 1 Cloud Mana Pearl
Again very little in the way of explanation as to what the feature did. With a little tinkering I could tell that Fog of War would do something to the entire battle field. Judging by the name it would probably add more chaos to the battle which would make my one advantage, the coordination between my monsters, harder to utilize.
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Mist cloak on the other hand seemed to want to tie itself to one of the creatures in the fight. it read like some sort of buff spell but the vitapygmy was also apparently a valid target so I couldn't be sure. It could just as well cause the target to get lost in the mist fairy tale style as provide any sort of advantageous reaction.
On top of that the cost seemed rather high but that might be my perspective as a new Core poisoning my perception. That didn't change that it felt like a high cost for what would ultimately be a minor advantage.
Once I was certain I was just back at square one a surge of elation reached me through my Domain.
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My third hare had been faking being pressured by the vitapygmy. This had the undesired effect of the vitapygmy having mostly healed from its wounds as any blow the two would land was a minor one at best. My harried hare turned its retreat into a lunging bite toward the vitapygmys legs with the same wide movements that had earned it the turning of its fortunes before. The bite was easily dodged with a simple backward hop and the second hare wasn't in position to take advantage of any minor openings the maneuver would provide.
The sound of stone grinding against stone sounded through the chamber and the vitapygmy lost its footing as it landed awkwardly on one of the many hidden piles of shattered gravel sliding into one of the shallower uneven pits. The hare each Dashed in getting a firm grip of each arm slamming it forcefully into the ground then dragging it flat. My first hare emerged from a nearby pit rising from the mist slightly favoring its right foreleg and wasted no time. It reared up on its hind legs and delivered one of those crushing blows it had been using to carve out the many pits that adorned my Core Chamber out of solid stone. Then all was quiet.
Too quiet. My inner space was still in combat mode and there wasn't any fanfare or window popping up telling me either to become are that I became or whatever. Then the vitapigmy twitched, I yelped, one of my hare kicked it, and it lay still again.
This happened three more times before I really got down to trying to think of a way to deal with it. I didn't have fire or acid which were the most likely way of dealing with magical regeneration. Maybe I could drown it? Ugh, that seemed like an awful solution especially if it didn't work. The only water source deep enough was my mana well right below my Core and that seemed like an ill advised action to take.
I settled on a still horrible but it felt a more naturalistic option. My dire hare were omnivorous, they had eyeteeth, and it wasn't like I had stocks of food around here and it had already been a couple of days for my first and now most wounded monster. So they ate it. It surprisingly didn't take that long.
Congratulations Achievement become
Let Battle Be Joined [https://i.imgur.com/75CTvxY.png]
Let Battle Be Joined
Along with the Achievement another window popped up that consisted with a long and overly specific battle log. It was full of odd combat notes like 'Mist-walker Dire Hare 03 was struck in the third right foretoe by Vitapygmy "Harpahp" the toe is bruised.' At the end of the log was an announcement that Mist-walker Dire Hare 01 was now level 2.
"Congratulations buddy you leveled up. It doesn't tell me what that actually means though. Do you feel any different?"
In response the dire hare just wiggled its nose and then licked its chops before going back to sprawling out on damp ground. Words didn't seem to be the monsters strong suit and I felt that asking it to try charades was an equally dubious endeavor. I would just have to test it out in the field.
I took a moment to try and take stock of everything that had just happened. My inner space was back to normal and I could pull up the combat mode window at will without actually going into combat mode. Which suggested that combat mode did more then just provide the combat spell window. I just couldn't for the life of me, hopefully not literally, figure out what that was.
I made a pass over the battlefield and had one of my hare recover the hammer from one of the pits it had landed in. I wasn't sure what I could do with it since my monsters didn't have opposable thumbs and I felt a light thrum of energy gently reverberating against the edge of my Domain. It made me think about the message I received on the previous day. I was traceable now. I think this is what that message meant whoever this was had sent out its monster and brought its domain with it.
I had been attacked and I knew from where. I had some planing to do.