167. SUPER HOT: WIREMU.

I was being as annoying as possible with my arrows. Otto had a high Regeneration Skill and was willing to take damage to deal damage. Venom was stacking in him, reducing his Regeneration. He was very clever with the Regen and would target key wounds, especially those that limited his movement. I targeted his legs.

He was wearing the griffon down and was still confident he could take us both. Otherwise, he would have run. He was very active and still going after twenty minutes. All I was doing was rolling around the ex-tent, firing my bow. He would target me before a major strike at the griffon. One of them had cracked one of the tent frames. That wasn’t good, as they were part of the trap, and I had Petrified them so they would stay standing but still look like wood.

I only had small injuries that my Regeneration had taken care of. The worst was the first cut on the arm. He saw the griffon as a bigger threat, and I would guess he had hunted griffon before. Time I upped the pressure. I switched back to Triple Shot and combined it with Power Strike. Again Power Strike was like Quick Strike and not really for the bow, but my Attributes were such that I could bend it to work. Triple Shot was a lot harder for him to evade, and I started heating the central arrow now his Windshield had dropped all its water.

Otto was starting to get desperate. Either wind was light to through around, or he had maxed out his Spiritual Attributes or both. The more energy he uses now, the better, but I don’t want him to run. Otto suddenly turned to me and let loose a wide arc wind blade of some sort, and I couldn’t get out of its way. I protected my head and swung my back to it so it sliced my armour and back open. Once again, I was relying on my Granite Bones to stop the blade. The wind blade dug into the rib bones on my back. It was that strong. Granite Bones levelled.

I tore off the now useless chest armour and saw that Otto had used my distraction to go all out on the griffon. One wing hung limp, and a foreleg was hanging uselessly. As I watched, he sliced the griffon's face blinding one eye, before cutting the tendons on the other front leg with a wind blade. The griffon was finished, and he could kill it easily, but he turned his back on it and focused on me.

I was suddenly gripped by strong winds and couldn’t move. I was lifted off the ground, and the winds holding me ripped out the central pole of the tent, and the apex framing sagged and then broke. The end framing was still standing, and the apex frame angled from the top to the ground at each end. This was going to limit the integrity of the trap. What would limit it more was that I was not touching the ground, so I could not trigger my part.

I couldn’t breathe. I was wearing the enchanted cloth Mayakku had made, which stored a couple of breaths, so I took one and held it. Otto tried to squeeze the breath from my lungs, but I locked my rib Granite Bones, and they were not moving. The winds moved my arms apart, and I dropped my bow.

Otto was furious, “You did something to my bond. You will tell me what you did.”

He knew I couldn’t talk. He was keeping the pressure on until I was desperate, or maybe till I passed out.

“Something is wrong with the tent area. You’ve done something to it,” he continued stopping in front of the tent.

I estimated he was a Master Level at Manipulating Wind and at least Journeyman Level with his Sense Spiritual. This was the difference between hunting beasts and intelligent people. This is the different mentality I need to get my head around in order o get the Warrior Class. Appā has been driving this into me, and it was on full display here. People are not dumb beasts. Well, most are not. I definitely need to up my Mental Perception to help understand them more.

The winds pulled at my arms. I think he was trying to tear them off. I locked my arm and shoulder bones as well. I saw him pursing his lips, puzzling why I wasn’t coming apart. He had obviously done this before.

“You are not what you seem,” he said.

Then Tāoke struck from behind. It was a Power Strike with a Granite Shield, and I think he combined it with Sudden Strike. Otto’s windshield cushioned the strike, but the momentum pushed him forward into the tent area. I launched a Granite Spike from the bottom of my foot into the ground and triggered my part of the trap, and Tāoke and Puia triggered theirs.

Granite Spikes sprung out from all the tent framing, forming a cage. Because of the collapsed apex frame, it was noticeably weak to the top, but the collapsed frame also sprouted Granite Spikes, two of them piercing Otto. That was Tāoke and my part of the trap. Puia turned the floor into lava as his part.

The Wind holding me up dropped away as Otto was speared with Granite Spikes. He smashed one with his sword hilt. I dropped to the floor, making myself a granite shelf to stand on. I noticed Otto was not standing on the floor but holding himself up with his wind. The temperature in the area shot upward, and I could see Otto starting to sweat profusely. Then his sweat just started evaporating, and he was turning red, and his skin was blistering. I speared him with another Granite Spike from a tent frame and then added to his heat by blasting his shield with super-heated sand. The sand was caught in the windshield like his water was and swirled around him, cooking him. He couldn’t drop his shield as I was throwing lava darts at him.

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He swung his sword at the Granite cage and chipped both his sword and the spike. He could have broken out much easier if he had had a sledgehammer or a Warhammer, but a sword would not do it. I created a Granite Shield and knife and moved toward him. His regeneration was losing the battle against the heat and spikes, even as his resistance rose. He tried to make a break for the weak area of the cage and poured his wind into launching toward it. The Spikes in him gouged deep furrows in his flesh as he crashed against the weaker roof spikes. With a shield bash, I launched myself at him and smashed him into the lava.

His Windshield kept most of his body out of the lava, but his legs dipped in. His boots melted, and he had steel in there as well that also melted. He screamed, and It was his pain and anger all worked into a sonic attack as I landed shield first on top of him. Even blunted by my Hearing Aid, my eardrums burst as his leather leggings caught fire and his steal chainmail turned read and melted into his flesh. I stabbed with my knife, but it was redundant as Puia finished him.

I manipulated a hole in the cage and rolled out onto the nearby dirt. All the grass was gone in a wide area around my trap. My muscles ached at where he had tried to tear me apart, but I had my Regeneration concentrate on my eardrums. I was so used to my Hearing Aid Skill I was very disorientated without it.

That was when an arrow struck me in the gut, and another one clipped my Granite skull. The ranch hands were back. The griffon screeched as some of them attacked it, and then the screech was cut off as someone gained a Monster Kill. I had left my shield in the lava, which was now hardening. I created another and deflected another arrow with it as I ripped out the arrow in my gut and staggered to my feet. I was low on energy but not critical as Tāoke had created half the spikes and Puia all the lava.

The hearing came back in one ear, which would have to do as I focused Regeneration on my gut wound. Three swords and two spears were coming at me fast. The three front runners went down on a row of Granite Spikes. They weren’t dead, just wounded. The remaining sword and spear clashed with my shield. I flicked a dart at the spearman, who was the greater danger due to his reach. It lodged in the flesh at the base of his neck, so the venom would start working at least.

Fighting with a gut wound wasn’t good. It sapped my core strength and pained me at every move. I created a stone girdle to support my waist. It limited my movement, but this was a hack-and-slash fight rather than anything fancy. I was naked from the waist up anyway, and my Snakeskin was my only protection.

I bashed my shield at the swordswoman, but she twisted out of the way, and I was sliced on the arm for my trouble. These were ranch hands. Riding horses and herding animals, their agility was going to be high. A spear scraped across my ribs from the other side. I sprayed sand in the spearman's face, and he backed off with sand in his eyes.

I created a stone short-sword, or maybe it was a long spear point with a handle or a long knife. I don’t know, and I don’t care. While the spearman was distracted, I was pressuring the swordswoman, and I backed her up onto Granite spikes behind her. She tried to slip between them, but her leg got caught, and I stabbed her in the heart.

I didn’t have time to check she was dead as the spearman and two of the original three were up. The spearman tried to get my attention while the other two tried to flank me. There was fighting and yelling further back by the griffon as Tāoke kept them occupied. I could tell he had taken some light wounds and an arrow but kept them back with Venom Spit and Granite Spikes. There were spearmen there, too that were hassling him. Then he changed it up and spat lava. I also have lava. I keep forgetting that it is not just Puia now. I do need to be careful of my energy levels.

Tāoke and I need to join forces. I sent that to him through the bond and started pushing my way to him. I couldn’t roll or leap because of my stone girdle. Instead, I created spikes on my shield and bashed the spear before me. Once his spear was out of position, I threw my sword that he only partially dodged and created a lava dart for one of the ones trying to flank me. Venom might be more effective long-term, but a lava dart burning into your shoulder is immediate pain. I did the same to the spearmen with my sword lodged in his leg. The other one trying to flank me was backing off, so I left him and headed toward Tāoke.

He was always on the move, but five ranchers had basically surrounded him and tried to keep him in their circle, whittling his health down. There were three dead bodies already, so he was holding his own. The problem was the two archers trying to pin him to the ground. To get some height, they stood on the dead griffon to shoot over their comrades.

Two long throws with lava darts gave the archers something else to think about. Unfortunately, they warned the others I was coming, and the group decided to back off. They backed away as Tāoke and I joined up and advanced. Their horses were nowhere to be seen. They all had injuries, some venom and some smoking from lava. They grouped together as they backed away. One tried to talk me into letting them go.

I didn’t bother talking. When you attack me or my bonds, you should not expect mercy. I checked my energy levels, and they were too low for comfort, but I had Puia. I created the sand, Puia superheated it for me, and we sprayed all of them. The two at the back tried to run, but a quick Granite Quake and they fell. I got darts into them while Tāoke worked his way through the rest.

We limped back, killing the wounded as we went. I didn’t bother trying to get information from them. They would have killed me, and I have no use for prisoners. Only one escaped, as far as I could tell, the injured one who had been trying to flank me, then backed off as I went to help Tāoke.