For a fleeting instant, as we locked eyes, I saw a profound sadness cross the Puma’s eyes before the emotion vanished, leaving the creature’s gaze blank for the briefest of moments. Then the anger arrived.
As I struggled to comprehend what I had just seen, the Puma let out a long hiss and began to move forward.
Grasping Razor tightly, I prepared myself for one last attack. I didn’t care if I survived anymore. Death was a small price to pay to make sure that I took the creature with me. Only then would I truly be safe again.
Only one chance at this. I told myself as the creature crept closer. Wait until it’s committed, then kill it, before it kills me.
I exhaled a ragged breath as I waited for the Puma to make its move, watching it intently.
Closer… Closer… Closer…
“Lyrian!” A voice shouted out behind me. I heard a dull twang echo a heartbeat after.
The Puma flinched as a black arrow whizzed past it, barely missing its head. It snarled as it looked past me, then quickly abandoned its approach. Whirling out of my reach, it turned and limped off into the forest at a slow trot.
“Noooo!” I shouted, voice suddenly hoarse, as I tried to force my tattered leg to stand, but promptly fell to the ground.
No! No! No! It’s going to escape! My expression was wild with pain as I dragged myself forward after the creature. I have to get it! I won’t be safe until its dead!
Fixing my eye on the departing creature, I triggered Blink-Step. I have to kill it!
The spell instantly came apart as I cast the spell, the mana bleeding into the air around me. No! Not like this!
I desperately tried to trigger the spell again, gripping Razor so tight that my hand began to cramp. I felt the world begin to blur, then pain blossomed through my body as the spell came apart, the mana rebounding into my body.
My vision blurred as I lost consciousness, leaving me with a single fleeting thought.
Damn…
***
“Lyrian! Lyrian!” My return from darkness was slow and disorienting. I felt something slapping at my face, aggravating the wounds across my head. “Shit! He’s bleeding out! Caius, see what you can do!”
“Oh man, this isn’t good!”
“Mrahh…staahp.” I struggled to ward off whatever was hitting me in the face. I felt a flash of pain as something touched my chest, then the pain instantly vanished.
“Lyrian, what the fuck?!” I heard Drace’s voice carve through the darkness, and I opened my eyes, quickly followed by Sierra’s voice asking, “What were you thinking?!”
My sight slowly began to clear and after a moment I saw Caius and Sierra kneeling close by with Drace looming over me. I pegged the other blurry shapes nearby that I couldn’t quite make out just yet as being Halcyon and Constantine.
“I had it…” I croaked as I tried to sit up. “Fuck. We need to find it…”
“Damn it, Lyrian! Why didn’t you wait for us?!” Sierra practically shouted at me.
It took a moment for the words to penetrate my head as my brain struggled to fully reboot. I stared at her blankly for a moment before I finally caught on. “It’s going to keep hunting me… I had to stop it…”
“And didn’t you think that by running away from us you did exactly what it wanted?” Sierra asked hotly.
“I didn’t think…”
“Fucking right you didn’t think!” Sierra yelled as she closed the verbal trap. “Goddamn it, Lyrian. We spent all that time practicing to work as a team because you said it was a good idea! Then you run off solo and nearly get yourself killed!”
“It killed me, Sierra,” I mumbled as I rubbed my eyes to help clear them. “It killed me and got stronger. What if it jumps me half way through a battle again? When I’m even more wounded?”
“Then you need to trust us to be there to help you,” Sierra said. “Just like you’d be there for us if one of us were in your shoes.”
“Don’t try to do everything all the time Lyr,” Drace added softly. “Let us help out where we can too. We have your back.”
I thought about bringing up Sierra’s earlier suicidal charge, but with a sigh I thought better of it, knowing in my heart that they were both right. “Thank you… and I’m sorry. I’m not used to being… hunted. I reacted badly.”
Sierra looked at me in the eye for a moment before nodding. “It’s okay.”
“Spiders taken care of?” I asked as I mentally checked my health in the corner of my vision.
HP: 234/594
Well, I guess that explains why I still feel like shit.
“Yeah… we killed them,” Drace replied. “Truthfully… your Nemesis helped us out. I don’t know how or why, but quite a few of the creatures peeled off to attack it. We’d have been in trouble otherwise.”
“Isn’t that… odd?” I asked, trying to recall pieces of the fight. “Monsters don’t usually do that.”
“I don’t…” Caius said with a wince, not yet having recovered from ‘healing’ me. “…think that I’m going to complain about that. We lived, spiders died. Works for me.”
“No loot on the spiders, though.” Constantine said with a grumble, finally coming into focus for me. “They just… poofed into dust.”
“Shit experience too.” I heard Halcyon’s voice add glumly. “Not even a hundred points each. I think the leveling speed is going to slow way the hell down if all level 10 creatures are like this.”
“That doesn’t matter right now,” Sierra said shaking her head, at the pair then looked back to me. “You okay to move?”
“I… don’t know,” I said as I tried moving the leg that the Puma had mangled. I quickly found out that it hurt, but no longer was immobilized.
I motioned for help to stand up, Sierra and Drace both grabbing an arm to pull me up. “Ugh. Yeah, I’ll be okay. I can feel it starting to heal.”
“Good!” Sierra broke into a smile. “Then we need to start moving. Fast.”
“Huh?” I looked at her confused. “Why?”
“Because your Puma friend happened to leave a nice blood trail going that way.” Sierra’s grin widened as she pointed North into the woods. “I figured you’d want to follow it before it gets too far away.”
Chapter 28
Given the need to track down my fleeing Nemesis before it could fully heal, we all agreed to put off fully investigating the expedition site for the time being. Sierra was confident that she could find her way back to the camp once we caught up with the beast, or gods forbid, lost the trail.
We had taken off on the Puma’s trail at a jog, keeping our pace steady as Caius and I recovered from our more serious wounds. Or aptly put my very serious wounds which Caius had graciously taken a portion of. I had even gone as far as assigning the one Leadership Skill Point that I had earned after the fight with the Webwood Predators into the increased Health Regeneration option in hopes of making it back to full health as soon as possible.
The forest was quiet as we jogged northwards with Sierra in the lead, her eyes focused on the ground as her Perception skill helpfully outlined the Puma’s blood trail as it fled. The webs covering the trees gradually thinned as we ran, despite nearly all the trees still being covered with wicked gashes and scars.
We must be leaving the original part of the Webwood. I looked at the web covered canopy as I ran. Doesn’t seem like this part of the forest has been part of the Webwood for long.
“So.” Constantine puffed with relief as the ground began to level out slightly. “Think those Predators drove the Spiderlings out of the Webwood?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Halcyon asked sarcastically. “Made me want to fucking run, and I only have a near-crippling fear of regular spiders. Let alone ones that have glowing greatswords for arms!”
“And yet you stood up and took a horde of charging spiders to the face, like a man!” Drace said proudly. “I’ll make a proper Tank out of you yet…”
“Fuck, I don’t get paid enough for this�
�” Halcyon muttered.
“Wait you get paid?” Caius grunted in mock outrage. “I’m the one bearing everyone’s wounds, do I get thanks? Noooo. Everyone’s all ‘Touch me and make me feel better Caius.’.”
“Are we still doing phrasing?” Sierra asked cautiously from the front of the group. “Because that didn’t sound right.”
“Uh, how does a bag of my good coffee sound?” I offered with a smirk. “For services rendered.”
“Do you have bad coffee, if you need to say good coffee?” Caius asked hesitantly.
“Don’t fuck around, Caius. Lyr knows his coffee,” Drace warned, half serious. “Take the offer and run.”
“Maybe I should keep running until I get a better offer.”
“Hold up!” Sierra called us to stop, a worried expression on her face.
“Aw,” Caius sighed as we came to a halt.
“Wait here.” Sierra’s held up her hand as she ran ahead of us and circled the area, her elven eyes easily piercing through the shadowy gloom of the Webwood. “We’re just about at the edge of the forest. I can see a ridge wall ahead of us, though, running southwest to northeast.”
“Did you lose the trail?” I asked hesitantly, hoping that chasing the Puma hasn’t been a colossal waste of our time.
“No… but… it’s getting harder to follow,” Sierra said while shaking her head. “That’s not why I stopped, though.”
“What’s up?”
“Look at these trees.” Sierra pointed at a nearby tree that had been clawed. “The majority of the claw marks are on the northeast facing side of the tree.”
“And then take a look at the ground and dirt around us.” Sierra continued to explain. “It’s all chewed up.”
“Well… the Spiderlings and Predators would have done that, right?” Drace asked as he glanced around at the nearby trees. “These scratches look the same as the ones we saw before, near the camp.”
“Yes, but actually look at the dirt.” Sierra said, “It took me a while to notice it while we ran… it’s all marred in the exact same way.”
“What does that mean, though?” Caius asked shaking his head.
“It means we’re about to stick our dicks into a spider den, as Halcyon would say,” I replied with a sigh, looking at the torn up dirt.
Thanks to Sierra’s explanation the pieces finally started to come together. The Predators had spawned somewhere to the northeast and had spread out from there. When they began to invade the Webwood they would have come this way en-masse, churning and carving up everything in their path.
“We’re getting close to the point where the Predators started to chase the Spiderlings. The trees are marred on one side because that’s the side they came from.”
“And the dirt tells us where they went,” Sierra finished with a nod.
“Then that also means we’re nearly on top of the Ley Line,” Halcyon stated. “That’s probably where the Spiderlings… mutated… into whatever they are now.”
We fell silent for a moment as we digested that bit of information.
“Okay.” I exhaled, mentally coming to a decision. “Let’s keep following the blood trail, but if we trip over the Ley Line first, we’ll drop the chase and deal with my Nemesis another day.”
“You sure, Lyr?” Sierra asked.
“Yeah… if we don’t do something about the spiders now, we may not get the chance before they hit Aldford again.”
“Alright.” Sierra nodded and motioned us to follow as we broke into a run again, following the Puma’s blood trail northeast.
“What if your Nemesis finds the Ley Line?” Constantine whispered to me as we ran.
“Shit, don’t joke about that!” I gasped, not having considered the possibility.
“Why else would it be going this way?”
“Hopefully because it knows all the spiders are hiding out to the east.” My imagination began to take off at the possibility of having to deal with a mutated Puma as my Nemesis.
“Hopefully…” Constantine replied optimistically.
I ran faster.
***
We moved with a newfound sense of urgency as we jogged through the Webwood, keeping the ridge to our left. Scree and loose rubble slowly began to replace the dirt as the trees thinned, causing our boots to crunch with every stride. Looking up at the ridge I had to guess that there’d been a landslide or something similar recently, or at least recent on a geological timeframe, as the soil had yet to reclaim fallen rocks.
Unfortunately the scree and harder surface made tracking the Puma more difficult, the blood trail had just about vanished and I had just about given up hope that we would be able to catch it. I was a handful of seconds away from calling a stop to our hunt when Sierra called out.
“There it is!” She broke into a sprint.
Following her line of sight, I spotted a prowling shadow in the distance that took off running at her shout.
“Yes!” My heart boomed in my chest as I drew Razor and charged forward, risking the extra burst of speed on the unstable ground.
You’re not getting away this time!
I saw the Puma come into focus as I gained speed. A number of the wounds had vanished from the creature and it no longer freely bled. Based on it not leaving us in the dust, however, I could only assume Sierra’s arrow was still slowing it down.
We crashed through the undergrowth of the forest, tearing through low-lying webs, foliage, and branches with ease. I saw Drace simply trample a sapling in his path, tearing it right from the ground as it struck his shoulder, rather than break his stride.
A loud feral yelp had my head snapping quickly forward, as I saw an explosion of webs and foliage burst in the distance.
“Shit! I think it just ran into a spider!” I practically shouted at Caius who was struggling to keep pace with me.
“Uh… good! Yea! We canna staph den!” Caius panted as he struggled to gasp for air.
The sounds of battle quickly greeted my ears as we approached where I had seen the Puma vanish. Without pausing to break my stride, I leaped through a scrap of foliage blocking my path and promptly came crashing down on top of my Nemesis.
“How do you like me now?!” I yelled, masking my surprise as I turned my leap into an awkward tackle, nearly taking off my nose as Razor whirled by my face. In the split second before I knocked the surprised Puma off its feet, I quickly counted six equally surprised Webwood Predators surrounding it.
Oh, fuck! I rode my Nemesis down on top of a slow moving Predator, flattening the critter to the ground with a crunch. I found myself sitting right on top of the Puma’s stomach as its paws flailed wildly in the air. I’m getting a strong déjà vu feeling right about now!
“Not so much fun when I tackle you out of nowhere is it?!” I shouted at the beast as I slammed Razor’s hilt into its face.
Ah! Shit! My leg is pinned! I realized as a sharp stab of pain shot through my knee when I tried to move.
At that moment Drace entered the battle with a shout, still running at full speed he unleashed a thunderous kick right into a Predator’s side, sending it sailing high through the air.
“Awwww yissss!” Drace exclaimed, taking half a second to admire the Predator’s flight, before chopping his Bladeclaw into a startled Predator. “It held up this time! I think I win for longest distance, Lyr!”
The Puma went momentarily limp under me as it lay stunned by my blow, leaving me with a moment to admire Drace’s epic spider punt. I even had enough time to mentally compose my reply to Drace, which was going to be along the lines of ‘Awesome kick, man! Care to help me out with this giant cat?’
But at that moment, the two other Predators that had evaded getting crushed under the Puma rejoined combat.
By leaping right at me.
So, unfortunately, my reply to Drace ended up coming out as: “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
One Predator landed right on top of my chest, gashing me in the face with its barbed pedipalp as it readied to sink
its blade-arms into my back. The other Predator landing on top of the Puma, slicing a wicked line across its chin and cheek as it spun to attack the fallen cat. I slammed a hand onto the smooth spider’s chitin and shoved it away from me, feeling the spider’s blade-arms scrape across my back as it fell away to the ground, but thankfully not piercing my armor.
Then the rest of the party arrived on the scene.
Two arrows slammed into the Predator that Drace had already wounded, quickly followed by two blue missiles. Drace followed up with a pair of brutal blows that had the spider disintegrating to dust.
Ascend Online Page 27