After filling the waterskins that they had been equipped with, the group followed the stream for nearly an hour. They stopped when they came across the leg of an animal, probably a deer, as well as a large amount of blood—fairly fresh by the looks of it. Taloc noticed several tracks. His tracking skill was unable to help him discern what sort of creatures had made them, but he could make out six different sets of tracks heading away from the water. The tracks were clearly animal and not humanoid. If he focused on one track, his skill illuminated it as well as the other tracks that belonged to the same creature.
“What do you think did this?” Ewtain asked no one in particular.
Isla was the first to respond. “I don’t know, but it looks like the carcass was dragged that way.” She pointed to bloody drag marks between groups of bushes.
“They aren’t humanoid, but I don’t know what they are.” Taloc said. “I’m going to follow the trail for a bit to see if any are still close.”
“And if you find them and they attack you?” Vultressant asked.
“I’ll run back here.”
“My guess is that whatever creature owned that leg was probably faster than you are. It might have been surrounded, injured, or dead, so I don’t think that you should go alone.”
Taloc thought that his friend was being overly cautious, but he nodded and said, “Isla and Ewtain can flank me, and Maroftis can protect you two while we’re gone.”
“Do you really want to split up the party?” Vanya asked.
“I’m only going to scout for a few minutes. We won’t go far.”
Taloc followed the path of blood that led away from the small stream. The other two were each about ten feet away from him on either side. After a few minutes, the underbrush and fallen trees forced them to funnel closer together, and the bushes on both sides of the path looked odd to Taloc. There appeared to be an outline of something inside each bush that he could discern, as if he were looking through the plant material.
Ewtain dove at him, nearly knocking him over. He jumped out of the way, and Ewtain rolled to his feet, somehow drawing weapons during the roll. He looked to see what had startled Ewtain. A scorpion as large as a doberman erupted from a bush; its stinger struck the area that Ewtain had just vacated. The thing was mostly yellowish-tan in color except for its maw, stinger, and pincers, which were an angry red.
Before Taloc had time to nock an arrow to his bow, he heard Isla cry out in pain as another scorpion appeared next to her and deployed its stinger. She had her sword and shield ready, but she had turned to confront the threat to Ewtain and had been struck from behind. She whirled around in time to block a pincer attack with her shield, and Taloc decided to shoot at the other one. His arrow bounced off the chitinous back of the scorpion. It was not a good shot and only a glancing blow, but he hoped a direct hit might be able to penetrate the chitin. He saw Ewtain trying to position himself to the side of the creature to keep himself out of the way of arrow strikes. He had a short sword and a dagger drawn, but he was mostly trying to keep out of attack range.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Before Taloc could make another shot, he heard Isla say, “Guys, I’m losing HP. That thing got me on the ass. I also have a poison debuff that’s slowing me.”
He could see her health bar slowly decreasing, and there was also a skull-and-crossbones icon next to her name and status bars on his interface, representing the poison debuff. “Back up and break away,” he called to her. “Go run to the others.” He had no shot at the scorpion attacking her, so he instead took aim at the other one. He focused his aim this time, as opposed to his previous panicked reaction. This time, the target reticle erupted in his vision, and he was able to center it on the creature. He chose a softer-looking spot and let the arrow go. He embedded his arrow into the creature’s side, and the scorpion closed into a tight ball and backed into the bush that it had emerged from. He could see disturbances in the bush that indicated that the scorpion was moving away from them, so hopefully they were just down to one combatant.
Ewtain took the opportunity to assist Isla. Once he was able to distract the one on her, he yelled. “Run back! We’ll follow soon.” She did as he instructed, and Taloc tried to move towards the shrubbery to get a better shot at the last creature. Ewtain jumped straight up, and a claw snapped at where his leg had just been. Before landing, he threw a dagger down and aimed at the center of the abdomen. It struck home, but did not sink deeply enough to really hurt the creature. Ewtain continued to dodge claw strikes. Taloc was only able to get one shot at the thing during all of this, and he had to adjust the aim at the last second to avoid hitting his friend, causing the arrow to fly over both combatants.
This went on for what felt like forever. When Ewtain dodged a claw strike before it was even launched at him, he ended up in the path of a strike from the other claw. It took him on the side of the leg above his knee, and while the leather armor that he was wearing under his cloak negated the worst of the damage, Ewtain did cry out and began to favor the injured leg. “Fall back!” Taloc cried.
“Screw that!” Ewtain called back while dodging another claw.
Taloc cursed. Stubborn idiot. He continued to look for an opening. He activated his rapid shot skill and fired two arrows in quick succession at the only safe target that he had, the legs on its left side. He did not take the time to focus his aim, and the target reticle did not appear, so the first arrow missed badly, but the second shot struck the backmost leg in the upper joint, and the leg jerked back reflexively. The scorpion still moved well even without the use of the leg. Taloc edged to his right to try to get a better shot on other legs on the wounded side of the animal. He was about to fire another volley when a warning appeared on his HUD. The names of all six party members were displayed along with a bar that indicated the current health of the member. The health bar underneath Isla’s name was barely filled. She still had the poison debuff active on her.