Blood flowed down from my arm. It spilled from the bite and claw marks and covered it, dripping to the ground. I dropped my sword, feeling too weak to hold it any longer as my whole body started to go numb at the sight of it. Blood was fine and easy to deal with, but it was my blood. My chest tightened, only making it even harder to breathe as my whole body felt like it caught fire. I took a deep breath in but as I held it to try and calm my nerves it only brought my attention to just how fast my heart was pounding. My chest tightened even more as my vision began to blur. ‘Of all the times… Can’t breathe… I…’
I loosened the buckles on my leather chest piece, nearly ripping it off to try and ease the pressure, but it didn’t affect it at all. Falling to my hands and knees my breath started to wheeze and hurt my throat.. ‘No no no no no not now.’
It was bad enough to have my body act up while on a hunt, but to have it happen halfway through, while I was still surrounded by monsters… That was way worse. I curled up, holding my breath and tensing every muscle in my body until I blacked out. Moments later I regained consciousness. It was the quickest way to get out of the situation and force myself to just rest. I made myself stand, almost falling over again, and picked up my sword.
I repeated the phrase ‘it's over, everything fine.’ over and over in my head as I regained control of my breathing. ‘It seems like nothing happened while I was out, so that’s good. I’m getting faster at waking up after I make myself black out, so that's good too.
My chest and throat still burned, and my heart hurt from all the stress, but as I started to focus on something else I started to take my mind off it. Once I realized the wargs I was tracking weren't anywhere near me I was put at ease so I went over to the spiders and collected my knives and ax, gathering the webbing and glans before finally deciding to sit down against a tree to try and gather my thoughts.
From experience, I knew the best thing to do in that situation was to focus on one thing and let that thing wholly occupy my mind. ‘2 down, 4 to go.’ Worrying wouldn’t do anything. I wanted to go back, but I knew that if I did if I gave into that worry in the back of my mind even once, I would never be able to fight it again. So I convinced myself to rid my mind of any unnecessary thoughts. The only thing that mattered was the plan.
‘First things first,’ With a clear mind I was finally able to look at my arm without getting another anxiety attack. ‘I’ve got to take care of this.’ Gathering up some webbing from around the forest floor I packed it into the gashes in my arm. My hand ached, but as far as I could tell I still had fairly good functionality in my fingers. Still, at the very least I needed to stop the bleeding.
Ironically, the venom from the webbing was a numbing agent and had a regenerative effect. Too much of the toxin would kill you on its own, and it had some nasty side effects, but it was a good first aid tool all things considered… At least for the first six to eight hours or so.
‘Ok, I’m on a timer now, but I can use my left hand again, and the bleeding stopped. So I can hold onto my healing spell in case something even worse happens.’
After a moment of rest, I stood back up and cleaned the Wargs, storing everything with my magic, collecting my spear, and double-checking I had everything before I climbed back into the canopy.
I had made a lot of progress, but I wasn't done. I still had to take out four more wargs. The spiders were a nice bonus, but they weren't actually a part of the quest itself, they were just that, a bonus.
Activating my tracking spell from earlier, I followed a golden trail of light that was linked to my eyes, quickly finding the final 3 Wargs from the pack. ‘Let's see here…’ I sat down, watching them tire themselves out as they tried to break through the webbing that blocked every path in one way or another.
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‘If they’re weak, then this should be easy… er…’ I crossed my fingers and looked up to the sky. ‘Please no surprises this time.’
Standing up, I focused on the three wargs below me, going through in my head how I should deal with each one before finally taking action. The basic strategy was the same as before, pick them off one at a time if possible. The only difference was that now I had lost some strength in my left hand. Of course, the wargs were worn out as well, and I’m sure even they would be getting affected by the spiderwebs at least a little at that point with how tangled up they were getting.
‘How about… You. You’re first.’ I spun my spear around, lifting it up into the air and drawing it back, using my thumb to aim. ‘Right through the heart.’ The spear flew threw the air like a diving falcon with the help of a small boost from my wind magic.
Unfortunately… I was a bit rusty, striking it through the stomach from the side. “come on…” I groaned. ‘As soon as I get some food, I’m practicing till my arms fall off.’ As disappointed as I was, the blow was still fatal, and quite gruesome. It would bleed out eventually. The bigger issue at that point was the other two.
My heart rate accelerated, pounding out of my chest as I raised my hunting knife. ‘Come on… Just a bit closer.’ Every inch they moved towards me my heart pounded that much harder until it started to burn. ‘Not again, not now…’ No matter how anxious I got I refused to throw the knife right away, proving to myself I was still in control of the situation.
I was second-guessing my actions, calling myself stupid for throwing away my spear, but the more I did that the more my chest tightened. Before I realized it I could taste blood from having bit my lip. The two uninjured wargs began climbing and clawing at the tree, working their way up. ‘I’ve done this before, I know how to handle this… So why am I so ancy…’
I began tapping my foot impatiently. ‘Not yet…’ My nerves couldn't take it anymore and I launched my knife through the air, sticking one in the back. I heard it whimper, but the other was getting uncomfortably close. I threw my other knife, making sure to at least hurt the other enough that it couldn't keep climbing. ‘Come on, a bit closer.’
It snarled and launched up at me. ‘TO CLOSE!’ Using my plant magc I twisted the smaller branches and vines to block, but I had to throw away my advantage. Now we were on even footing.
With a loud scream, I bent the branches back and pulled my ax from storage with a brutal swing. The warg tried to block but its teeth cracked and its jaw began to tremble. ‘Frick, there goes 20 talons…’
Despite its teeth being broken it recovered its stance first and grabbed the ax’s head, ripping it from my hand. Once again I was left with nothing but my sword.
Switching to a different branch I ran as far along it as I could creating as much space as possible between us as it tried to recover.
I still couldn't get my grip on my sword right as blood from the earlier fight had dried on the leather handle, making it sticky. “Come on…” I groaned, nervously adjusting my stance over and over again, moving my feet to different widths as it shook out its head, jumping across and slowly prowling after me like it was marching to its own theme music.
“Come on…” I muttered. It slowly crept forward, refusing to charge in recklessly, instead slowly crouching down into a prowl. It wouldn’t have been so nerve-racking if we were on the ground. But I couldn't just take its charge head on… If I misstepped even a little and fell from that height I’d probably be seeing angels.
In the end, my nerves got the best of me and I dashed towards it instead. Each step was carefully placed on solid footing along the giant tree branch that was suspended over 20 feet in the air.
It bared what was left of its fangs and snapped at me, catching my blade in between its jaws and trying to yank it out of my hands.
I stumbled to the edge of the branch, nearly losing my footing but managing to stay steady. Regripping my crossguard I threw myself forward grabbing onto the warg's scruff pulling it off the branch and letting it fall to the ground with my sword, catching myself in a twisted mess of vines I managed to bend around me at the last second.
I heard a whimpering followed by a heavy impact, followed by dead silence. When all was said and done, I let out a breath of air, not realizing that I had been holding it the entire time. Still, it was a relief. ‘That's better. Smooth and seamless… Well… No, that was smooth, right? I didn’t even take any damage? Yea, that was smooth…’
Although the threat of death was just as real, I wasn't caught off guard by any surprises, so I was able to keep my body under control… At least in the sense that I could still breathe all right. In the end, I fell completely relaxed, almost wanting to just fall asleep tangled up in the vines, despite how… Awkward… it was. I would have brought myself out of it right away but in my panic, I used up the last of my mana. ‘Sometimes I’m glad I don’t have a party, no one’s here to see me do things like this. Completely immobilizing myself… Well, I guess I still won.’