Brianna Runedane ran as branches scratched her face and thick brush pulled at her robes. She had been a fool. She knew that now. At the time it seemed like such a good idea. After all, mana beast meat sold for good money. So she convinced herself that a quick expedition into the mana forest would be easy money. Foolish. Now she was going to die for her hubris. It wouldn’t be long now. She didn’t dare look back, but the crashing behind her grew steadily louder.
RIP!
SHRED!
SCREETCH!
Tears flooded her eyes as it drew ever closer.
“LESSER HASTE!” Brianna shouted as she casted. It was the sixth time she had cast that spell. Her pool was dangerously low now. Reaching down into a hidden pocket she quickly fondled something inside. A moment later she withdrew a small ball. It was brown and stank like week old fish. She quickly put in her mouth and chewed. A fresh surge of mana flooded into her pool even as she resisted the urge to gag. Mana pellets were extremely valuable but she didn’t dare wait for the ambient mana to seep in naturally. There was no time left. The creature had closed the gap.
“EARTHEN WALL!”
A rough wall of compacted earth rose just behind her. It promptly shattered as whatever was chasing her crashed through it.
“HELP!” Brianna screamed. She knew it was no good. Almost no one dared to enter the forest.
Snot ran from her nose and tears blurred her vision as she continued to flee in no particular direction. Perhaps it was her blurry vision or her panic but either way she didn’t see the tree root. With a clumsy crash she fell sealing her fate. She turned over to watch the inevitable.
This was it.
This was the end.
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As if in agreement the chittering of the creature following her grew to an excited fever.
“BARRIER!”
A force dome surrounded her just a clawed pincer snapped on it. Instantly she felt the drain as a prodigious amount of mana surged out from her pool to maintain the spell. A scream caught in her throat as she finally got a good look at her pursuer. It was a giant yellowish scorpion bigger than an ox.
“FIREBOLT!”
The reddish bolt shot from her hand impacting the creature’s insectile face. It screeched in fury but was otherwise unharmed. She had never been a powerful mage. Her talents lay elsewhere which made this decision even the more foolish.
Two more strikes and her mana pool was barren. She reached for her last pellet when the tail barb shot forward. Her barrier shattered like flimsy glass. The stinger wasn’t evened slowed. Brianna watched helplessly in slow motion as the barb descended. Then halted when a blueish blur sudden appeared before her.
She blinked. Not understanding what had happened. The scorpion’s tail was held by a single slender hand. The creature tried to rear back but the tail didn’t even budge a single hairs width, nor did the figure holding it. It was like a statue manifested out of the earth itself denying the beast.
The figure resolved itself, as if her brain finally caught up to her eyes. It was a girl… no a girl kin? A half cat-kin? The cat-kin had blue hair with white tips on the end. Similar colored fur extended from her knees down where paws seemed rooted to the earth.
This couldn’t be. Perhaps she had gone insane at the moment of her death. There was no way a null could be in the mana forest. She would be dead of mana poisoning in minutes. There’s no way a kin could move that fast. And there was certain no way, a kin could stop a mana beast. Yet, that’s exactly what happened. Her disbelief seemed to be mirror by the oversize arthropod that somehow expressed its shock in its insectile face.
Before the scorpion could do anything the cat-kin swept her free hand forward through the hard carapace severing the tail. The creature barely had time to rear back before the half cat-kin was right in front of it. What happened next was too fast for Brianna to be sure what occurred. One second the scorpion was five feet away the next it was splattered in a conical pattern. Bits of chitin and greenish goo were plastered outward from the half cat-kin. No piece bigger than a loaf of bread was left. Only the extended fist of the girl told her what had happened. She had punched it. WHAT THE FUCK!? That was… that was… impossible. As wave of fatigue and shock began shutting down her mind she truly hoped that the world would make sense again when… if, she awoke. Those were the last thought Brianna had before collapsing.