75. Fighting: Wiremu

After the morning routine, we decided to explore further and perhaps see if there was anything easy to hunt. I loaded Rocky with the possibility of not returning, as we might find a better place to fish. I was riding Rocky on a slow walk with Ilaiya practising his Stealth and Tāoke riding on my shoulder. With all my senses active, I was alert for danger as Goblins were a problem. After the first two hours, I felt something wasn’t right. I had my three spears on my back, but I got my bow from its holder on Rocky and kept it in my hand. I gave Ilaiya the beware signal, and Tāoke became more active.

Half an hour later Hearing Aid heard something strange, and I didn’t mess around, giving Ilaiya the emergency “Get to Jern ASAP” signal, and I went to kick Rocky into a gallop when several things happened. First, a loud Screech sounded above and behind me, stunning me for a second. A large bird landed on Tāoke, grabbing him with its claws and beak, and took off again. As it left, I could see it was a hawk. It had Tāoke’s body in its claws, and its beak had clamped just behind his head so he couldn’t move as it rose back up into the sky. Hearing Aid had been overloaded momentarily by the Screech, but I could hear heavy thudding footsteps coming in fast from the right, so I dove off Rocky to the left, which meant the arrow coming for my back only pierced my shoulder. It must have been some sort of power shot as it went straight through the Troll hide armour and lodged against my shoulder bone. If I didn’t have Granite Bones, it would have made a mess of the bone and carried right on going. I think it probably chipped the Granite Bones.

I fell and rolled, snapping the shaft of the arrow off, but it left the head still lodged against my bone. Suddenly molten rock was spraying everywhere. Rocky protected me from the worst of it, but there was no way he survived. Lava was still going everywhere and burning holes in my armour and skin. The string on the bow was melted, and while I wanted to return fire to the Archer, the arrow in my shoulder and broken string made that impossible, so I dropped the bow and grabbed a spear. I kept rolling all the while to make it difficult for both attackers.

The thumping footsteps were a Humanoid-shaped form of molten lava. This attack was the surviving members of the empire's bounty hunting team that had clashed with the Mothers Tusks in Hrothgar. I assume the Hawk had found us, but this was no time to ponder. The Lava mountain had a huge rock club he tried to smash me with. I rolled out of the way, but when it hit the ground, it splashed lava everywhere, and more of my armour was burned and shredded. I engaged Snakeskin to stop my flesh from burning. This was a temporary measure as Snakeskin was weak to heat. I launched my spear at him in a throw with Power Strike, and it pierced the lava armour, and he roared at me.

He aimed a hand at me as I created a large Granite Shield, and lava spewed out at me. I caught most of it on the shield, but it was melting the Granite. I was still moving out of the main flow when I heard the hawk screech again, and Farsight caught Tāoke falling or being dropped from a height. I was rolling again and narrowly escaped two of the three arrows from a Triple Shot from the Archer. The arrow that caught me in the thigh was a Spiritual Arrow, but there didn’t seem to be anything added like my Venom Arrow, fortunately. It still limited my movement.

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This lava dude was expending huge amounts of energy. He seemed to be the type to charge in with overwhelming force. I wasn’t sure I could last till he ran out of energy. My armour was in tatters, and I had multiple burns and two arrows in me. I created a smaller Granite Shield and grabbed another spear. I heard the Hawk cry again and saw in my peripheral vision that it was diving in an attack. My Bond with Tāoke indicated he had multiple broken bones, but he was still in the fight.

If I could get Venom past the lava armour, that would help, but the armour was very thick, and my darts wouldn’t do it, and even with my spear and knives, I thought the lava would burn away the venom before it got through. I tried to spike the giant, but the Lava dude must have had some sort of rock-sensing ability as he moved away from the spikes, and I had the sudden urge to roll, and where I was standing was turned into a pool of lava. I caught sight of the Archer repositioning as she jumped from tree to tree to get in a good position. She had some sort of feather covering and a glide ability, based on what I saw. She was obviously bonded to the hawk. Now that I had seen her, I needed to try to keep track of her. She was hopefully vulnerable to the darts if I could get them past the feathers.

The lava man was coming at me again with his club. I moved to put Lava man between the Archer and me and brought my shield up to deflect the club. It was a powered strike, so I was happy I just deflected, but it seemed to spray more lava than normal, and I had to suffer the lava hitting me while I retaliated with three Quick Strikes with my spear. They didn’t get through the thick lava armour, but Lavaman moved away from the strikes giving me a chance to dive into the woods nearby and run deeper. This would complicate things for both the Archer and Lavaman, I hoped. Lavaman was angrily pounding after me. If I didn’t have the arrow wound in my leg, I could have easily outrun Lavaman. I doubted that was true for the Archer.

I ducked behind a tree, and two of the three arrows of a Triple Shot thudded into the tree, and the third passed behind me. I had lost track of the Archer, so now Hearing Aid picked her up again. Lavaman was coming as fast as he could, obviously not worried about burning the forest down. Archer was circling behind me, and I was running out of options. Tāoke was still locked in a fight with the Hawk and had several claw wounds as the Hawk kept dive-bombing him while he tried to catch it. The Hawk’s feathers weren’t immune to Tāoke’s Venom Spit. It was becoming more erratic in its flight. I needed to get the Archer on the ground because when Tāoke turned the tables on the Hawk, I needed to be able to stop the Archer from going to help.

I threw three darts in quick succession toward the Archer's position. None of them hit, but it made the Archer more careful, especially about long jumps. I kept moving to stay out of Lavaman's reach, and I could tell Lavaman was getting more frustrated. He must be using a lot of energy to keep that armour up. I kept peppering the Archer with darts. I was pretty sure one even hit them. The Archer was returning fire, but generally not with Skills, obviously conserving energy. I fought a moving fight while I waited for Tāoke to down the Hawk. Then it happened. Tāoke got his fangs into the Hawk, and his body wrapped around it, and he triggered Grow, bringing the Hawk to the ground. The Archer suddenly stopped, obviously getting feedback through her bond, and I stepped out from behind the tree and threw the spear with everything I had. Even then, the Archer moved, but the spear pinned her leg to the tree crushing bones and holding her in place. Unfortunately, this exposed me to Lavaman, and lava hit me from the side, burning everything. When I moved out of the flow, the lava club caught me on the side of the head, and I went flying, and everything went black.