The face of a white eagle greeted Darius, standing tall above him. It stared at him with its cold red eyes and pounced at him with sharp talons on its front two feet.
“What in the!” The creature lunged at Darius missing by inches as its talons struck where his face was moments ago. “Whoa big bird, I’m sorry if I intruded into your home, I’ll just take my leave and… what are you?”
Most would have thought being attacked by a giant bird would be enough to horrify somebody, yet whatever uncaring power that created this beast had other plans. Feathers met fur as it sported a massive body that looks like that of a lion, along with a tail that looked thick, hard, and bumpy, more akin to a reptile’s than the eagle or the lion parts.
“Monster!”
The bird-cat continued its onslaught against Darius with its beak and talons.
“Help! Anyone out there, a giant bird-cat is going to eat me!” Darius called. “Who am I kidding, I’m out in the forest in the middle of nowhere, let alone the fact that the people here may not even speak my language. I was expecting to see some unusual things when I came here, but a giant bird-cat on the first day seems overkill.”
Darius needed to get away and fast; the bird-cat was agile, but its large body forced it to make wide movements that he could take advantage of, “Not too far back, there was an empty cave that I can probably hide in for a bit. Depending on how good its sense of smell is, or rather maybe I can just…”
“Hey big and ugly!” Darius reached inside his gadget pack, pulling out a firecracker and a paint bomb, before throwing the firecracker onto a patch of dry grass. It lit into a flame, the plume making the creature take a few steps back.
“Afraid of fire? Well, isn’t that useful, but how are you with paint?” Darius was well aware of the range of his paint bombs. The fire put enough distance between the two for it to only hit the beast.
“Gotcha this time!” The paint bomb exploded as black paint that landed on the beast’s face, disorientating it. Darius took his opportunity to run. Unfortunately, the paint missed one of the beast’s eyes, as it quickly turned to face its retreating prey.
“Well, isn’t that just swell.” Darius turned back, ready to try and avoid the beast’s next attack, already knowing that he couldn’t outrun it. He quickly sheathed his bow, ready to fire when a large metallic object flew from the air, impaling the beast.
This caused the creature to stumble for a moment before it turned to face whatever threat just attacked it. A figure quickly ran out from the forest sporting a large dirty and torn brown cloak, along with a staff similar to the one Darius had before. Just smaller and with a red crystal embedded into the top.
“Burn true!” The figure yelled as the crystal lit up with a faint yellow light before forming a flame that shot out towards the creature. The fire quickly weakened, and only grazed the beast once the flame reached it. “Really?! Why does that always happen, and the crystal fractured too.”
Just like she said, the crystal on the staff was severely cracked, a light tap would be more than enough to shatter it, yet that didn’t stop her from throwing the staff at the beast before pulling out a short sword and a crossbow.
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“A woman and she speaks Jourin? She has an accent, but that was definitely Jourin!”
“Honestly, I don’t even know why I tried to use one of these. It’s far more fun this way.”
She dropped her rucksack and circled with the beast, both waiting to see what their opponent would do next. Brown stopped when she was in front of Darius, short sword in one hand and crossbow pointed at the beast in the other. Darius, however, chose to slowly back away from the two, fully realizing that he was way out of his element here.
“You should probably stop backing away. The only reason it isn’t attacking you, is because you’re still close enough to me. If you go any farther, it might try to run past me to get to you.” Brown never turned away from the creature, so Darius didn’t know how she knew he was backing up.
“Noted. Need anything from me?”
The bird-cat started to tense up, ready to take the first strike. “I need you to know how to use that bow.”
The beast struck first, pouncing on them, but they both dodged. Brown to the left and Darius to the right, “Got it, just buy me some distance.”
Darius took aim towards the creature. He saw that the javelin Brown threw had barely pierced the creature, and that thing looked heavy. Darius quickly reasoned that his puny arrows would have little effect if shot wildly.
“I need to look for any weak spots. One of its eyes was still plastered with paint, so its visibility is crippled, I should probably stay towards that side,” Darius thought. “Brown! That’s paint in the bird-cat’s left eye, it probably can’t see out-” Darius didn’t even have to finish his thought before she acted upon it.
When the bird-cat saw its prey suddenly disappear it reared up, so Darius took his chance to fire two arrows into where its heart should be. At least where he thought it should be. The beast barely reacted; the arrows probably only made it far enough to barely pierce its skin.
Brown, seemingly the type to take advantage of any opportunity, took this one to shoot a bolt where Darius had hit his arrows. This caused the creature to howl in pain.
“Good shot Green! That’ll hurt it but it’s not enough to scare it off. Watch out, the griffin will probably fly into a rage, close your ears.”
Right on queue the beast puffed its chest out wide, and it howled. Prepared, Darius managed to save his one good ear. Once it stopped, Brown was the first to react, this time pulling out her short sword ready to continue fighting with the beast.
She was extremely dexterous and well trained in the way of the blade. Stabbing, slashing, thrusting, and dodging the beast’s attacks. Taking only minor damage, their fight looked more like a dance than a duel to the death. Darius continued to provide support, using his bow to keep the monster from being too aggressive. Forced to protect its limbs and eyes from Darius’s attacks, the beast was spread too thin and couldn’t gain any ground.
“The tail!” Darius exclaimed.
He didn’t quite understand what was happening, but the beast’s tail strangely moved, as if it had a separate mind moving it. Striking as quickly as a whip, it snapped at Brown, cutting into her skin.
“Just my luck, you’d be a venomous type, and I left my bag across the stream.” Brown sounded more annoyed then frightened, but Darius could sense a hint of unease in her voice. “No matter, this just means I have five minutes to beat you.”
Brown may have thought that, but her body was beginning to sway, “Brown, are you okay?”
She turned towards Darius and laughed for a moment before falling face first into the ground. Brown barely managed to turn her head around and say, “I think it may have grazed me already when we were fighting before. That second touch must have speed up the venom. You need to run while it’s distracted on me. Better for one of us to get away rather than it killing the both of us.”
“Honestly, she’s speaking truth, I have a job to do here, I can’t just die… of course I can’t just leave her to die here either,” Darius thought, but he his little dagger wasn’t going to do much here, so he needed a different plan. Looking around, the cliffside grabbed his attention. “Why do I hate myself so much?”