Being underwater would be distressing, if not for the fact that my L’Gara charm always carried with it the ability to immediately breathe in the water itself. I had to sacrifice my extra strength for the time being, but that was okay. These L’Gara were big enough to classify as Giants, both of them over 10 feet tall. But even in spite of my Iron Meets Steel strength bonuses, I could not really fight against two of these brutes at the same time. The only thing that kept them from tearing me apart was my armor, dutifully resisting all attempts to separate.
Though I feared my armor was beginning to show signs of breaking, for the mail clinging tightly to my leg began to stretch out, further and further, causing the socket in my hip to pop. More pain surged through me.
Sooner is better than later, my bow warned as I struggled to figure out a plan. Josiah’s Storm was right. I needed to figure out some way to get free, but what? Being caught between these immense beasts was a deathtrap. I had no tools at my disposal…maybe a crossbow?
I grabbed my hand crossbow at my side and fired a shot at the beast holding my leg, but the arrow did little to bother it. More tearing in my leg. More pain shooting down my hip and at the joint of my knee where the arrow rested. Pulling back only caused more pain, giving me the sensation of the leg tearing off…tearing off! Damn it, why didn’t I think of this before? I could regrow my limb instead of waiting to surgically fix the arrow stuck in there!
I focused on my armor, giving it the command to retract from my bad leg. Instantly, the chainmail wrapped around my skin rolled upwards from my ankle all the way up to my thigh, just like a pantleg made out of cloth. My armor relaxed considerably, now that it no longer had to account for the extra force.
Gritting my teeth and praying that this would work, I began to pull my leg back as hard as I could. This caused the L’Gara holding me to yank even more. My little limbs were nothing in comparison to that creature once I relaxed, no longer actively resisting the attack. I felt a tear, a pop and then a sudden shock go through my entire system. A shock strong enough to kill a lesser person. My health immediately dropped to 50%, but I merely took a deep breath and shrugged the pain off. I only had precious few seconds to act now that I was free.
With my leg torn off at the knee, the L’Gara retracted its tentacle, pleased to bring a morsel of food to its mouth. It would only have a few bites at the most before it would want more, so I sprang into action. I forced my free hand into the space where the pale L’Gara was holding my wrist, inhaling deeply and switching my L’Gara charm from the underwater breathing aspect to the +6 Strength when underwater aspect.
Immediately, power surged through my arms and I was able to pry myself free, pushing outwards as hard as I could. The tentacle wrapped around both hands became like nothing more than a mere clump of moss, doing nothing to stop me from spreading my arms. But the beast tried to resist, doubling down on its squeezing effort. I felt resistance only for a mere moment, followed by a burst of warmth as my hands actually broke the skin of the beast’s tentacle on both sides.
The L’Gara whipped its tentacle back and let out an agonized shriek, blood spraying everywhere in the water. And then, something interesting hit me. I could see underwater. Despite the fact that I had no light source with me, because my torches had gone out immediately, this lake was illuminated as if the day were burning upon it. The Shadow Titan couldn’t touch the water? But natural light could still pass through it? Interesting. Perhaps…perhaps we could use this for something.
Those stray observations ran through my mind as I summoned Josiah’s Storm while simultaneously switching back to my underwater breathing ability. Changing aspects only took a mere second and nothing more. I could freely switch between the extra strength and the water breathing at will.
But would my bow work underwater? I could not afford to leap out of the water and snap off a shot, for the darkness would consume me instantly. I guess I would have to try. I placed my arrow in the bow and aimed at the L’Gara across from me, its yellow eyes glowing defiantly as it recoiled in pain. It seemed to know better than to try and grab me now. Behind me, I could hear as the other beast was munching and crunching on my leg. Somehow…that sound didn’t make me sick at all. If anything, I looked at the noise as a positive sign. Maybe my leg’s toughness made it harder for the beast to chew, giving me more precious time.
I fired the first arrow, hoping against hope that it would work. Sure enough, the arrow struck true, flying at full speed.
Your Unmoving Arrows ability works against water as well as wind, Josiah’s Storm remarked. It seemed just as surprised as I was. The arrow nailed the L’Gara right in the eye, causing the beast to shriek out in pain once more, blood streaming from its big eye. Tentacles came whipping at me, blindly attempting to grab ahold, but I fired shot after shot, forcing the attacks to retreat.
I chuckled as I fired another shot into the creature’s other eye, blinding it for good. The wound to its larger tentacle, mixed with the wounds to its eyes were clearly lethal. And this beast lacked the regeneration abilities of its predecessor. My snickering was cut short, however, as suddenly the world began to spin around me. I coughed and tried to catch myself, forgetting that I was underwater. My health dropped another 10 points. Glancing down at my leg, I could see that it was bleeding profusely. My regeneration had not kicked in yet. Normally, it would start sealing up the wound almost immediately. Had…had I somehow lost the ability to regenerate?
There wasn’t a lot of time for me to answer that question. The blinded beast was down, but certainly not out. It had taken to lunging forward, propelling itself with its large limbs scraping across the bottom of the lake. Its mouth was wide open, hoping to seize hold of me. I swam down as hard as I could, narrowly avoiding the attack as the enormous body sailed over me. Kicking with my legs was more or less useless, but I was able to make up the difference with my arms alone.
As the great beast crashed over me, unable to grab me with its enormous mouth, I fired shot after shot at its crescent-shaped bottom. These shots went in quite easily, revealing another weakness of the creature. Its undercarriage was quite soft compared to the rest of its skin. My arrows punctured its flesh easily enough, killing it within a matter of seconds.
I floated beneath the massive creature, watching as it ceased moving and simply began to drift upwards, towards the top of the water. Immediately, another set of tentacles lunged forward and snatched the deceased L’Gara, pulling it towards its open mouth. Apparently these L’Gara had no bones about cannibalism.
I could have used this distraction as a means of escape, I suppose. But I had just lost a leg (hopefully not permanently) in pursuit of these precious aspect points. I wasn’t about to just give up now.
Sinking down to the bottom of the water, I pulled my scarf off my neck and quickly made a tourniquet, stopping the bleeding on my stump. Thankfully, I had quite a history of handling sudden amputations and was able to get the blood flow under control.
Once my health was sitting at a stable-ish 35%, I grabbed hold of the rocks at the bottom. It would be easier to climb across the lake than to try and swim without exerting my legs. I was afraid that more movement would cause the wound to begin bleeding even harder. And while hitting 25% of my health would trigger the Blood Rage ability, it still meant I’d be pretty banged up. The last thing I needed was an extended recovery time when this was all over.
The remaining L’Gara crunched away happily on the body of its former ally, almost completely forgetting about me. All it could do was compulsively chew, almost as if it had no other choice than to eat. In a way, I pitied such a stupid creature for making such a poor decision. But then again, I had happily walked into an ambush in the hopes of gaining some easy aspect points.
I took aim at the creature, but Josiah’s Storm was quick to warn me. That beast seems bigger. Are you healthy enough for this? It asked. I held my fire for a moment and looked at this L’Gara. Indeed, it was a shade darker than the ot
her one I had just killed, bigger and nastier-looking too. Was it a good idea to pick a fight with such low health? Or should I just harvest and run? Doing so would give up a lot of useful crafting material for our fight against the Shadow Titan later…but getting myself killed would certainly doom the village back home. Trig was a fine fighter, but he didn’t have my level of Bloodpoints. He couldn’t take down the Shadow Titan alone.
Cursing the wisdom of my bow, I decided to make the sensible decision, in spite of my desire to get as many aspect points as I could. I carefully swam up to one of the long, pale appendages of the deceased L’Gara and cut into the bone, carefully performing the harvest ritual as the other L’Gara feasted away. 6,000 Bloodpoints gained! The beast either didn’t notice me or simply didn’t care, opting instead to enjoy the largest meal it had probably ever eaten. Or maybe it realized it didn’t quite like the taste of Avery as much as it thought it would. After all, it had an entire leg to decide whether I was worth the trouble or not.
Right before I could kick up to reach the surface, my instincts screamed of danger. That’s right, I was underwater where the Shadow couldn’t touch me. But as soon as I poked my head up in the darkness, the Shadow Titan would probably grab me and pop my head off like a cork.
Instead of swimming straight up, I moved around the lake a bit, to the shoreline where I could lie on my back and push my torch out of the water. Hopefully my Spellburst could work underwater. I mean it should, right?
I made the arcane signs for fire and watched as the stick immediately burst into flames. “Yes!” I blurbed out underwater, watching as the flames danced on the torch. I slowly emerged from the lake, careful not to allow the liquid to touch the precious giver of light.
“Urggg,” I moaned as I immediately realized my bone crutch was way on the other side of the lake. I’d have to literally crawl to get there. Or hop. But much to my surprise (and elation!) I discovered that the small L’Gara that had acted as the bait for the Shadow Titan’s trap had, in fact, expired before reaching the shore. Without the regeneration ability, the beast must have suffocated before it could get into the water. A small price to pay for a Titan that could theoretically create thousands more. But…hey, a monster corpse was a corpse, right? And that meant I’d be getting one more aspect point out of the deal! Enough to make my strength permanent!
Chapter 36
The Shadow Titan had stopped attempting to kill me after that last effort. If two L’Gara in the water couldn’t take me down, I suppose it figured that there was little reasoning to try with anything else. Perhaps it understood that I grew stronger with each beast I killed. Regardless, I found no difficulty on my way back to the village, relying on the arrow I had left there to guide me.
With the harvesting of those two L’Gara, I had gained two aspect points, granting me a total of three. Enough to turn my extra strength permanent. With mere focus, my bonus went from being dependent on wearing a charm to innate. The little indicator on my Hunter’s Profile that noted my strength was temporary faded, replaced instead with a 4. A beautiful default strength of 4.
Best of all, that charm slot was now freed up. After all, the other two were highly situational, based on the presence of water. So which new charm should I choose as my go-to? I had taken to wearing the Glurp charm because of the amorphous trait, so that was certainly going to stay…
After a moment of scanning through my charms, all the while hobbling through the forest, I settled on the Lurbia charm. That large shelled beast had a few abilities that were just all around useful.
Aspect of the Lurbia:
Tremorsense (0/3): You can pinpoint the position of objects or individuals in motion up to 100 feet away without seeing them.
Reinforced (0/5): Reduces all health damage by 10% to a minimum of 1%.
Frostlung (0/3): Your lungs become frigid and cold, capable of releasing bursts of freezing air that slow targets. Vulnerable targets become frozen in place for 1 minute. Each use lowers your internal body temperature by 2 degrees. Be cautious of inducing hypothermia.
Reinforced would be my go-to for now. With Amorphous reducing my weak points to nothingness, my armor and Giantslayer abilities reducing enemy damage, Reinforced would more or less turn me into a tank of a human being. I’d be like a mighty gate, unmoving and unbending, soaking up blow after blow as if it were nothing.
In a pinch, I could switch to Tremorsense when vision failed me. And I could use Charm Trick to activate Frostlung, granting me the power to freeze my enemies (as well as cool down soups when they were a bit too hot for me!) Overall, a higher amount of utility past simply enhancing my strength stat.
“About time you got here,” Trig said as I approached the camp. I was surprised to see that he was outside of the caverns, a wide mischievous grin upon his face.
“All is well, I take it?” I asked, limping towards him. He was quick to take hold of me and lead me into the village to take a seat on a nearby bench.
My eyes widened as I limped into the village. There were at least six of those crab-monster bodies lying about, completely decimated. Their hardened black carapaces were missing large chunks of chitin and their heads were caved in almost completely.
“Don’t panic, no one died,” he said as he helped me sit down, then knelt to examine my stump.
“What happened?”
“Well, in short, turns out Mr. Blue has these crazy mental powers. I know, hardly a surprise, but after a little bit of time, we realized that these monsters couldn’t tell the difference between his voice and the Shadow Titan. So they took orders from the Vessel easily enough. And for some reason, the Titan didn’t bother trying to take control of them again. So we just ordered them to stroll out in the open, one by one, and I cut them down with my mana bombs and melee stuff. Tons of meat for the people here, plenty of ingredients and check this out!”
Trig pulled down his shirt collar a little to reveal a smooth, red carapace, made out of the same chitin as the crabs. “I can armor myself at will now! I er…hope you don’t mind I took all the Bloodpoints. And the charm stuff.”
I shrugged. “Your kill, your keep. Besides, I’ve got some new abilities of my own as well. So nicely done.”
“How’d the scouting go?”
I was quick to tell him the story, while a few villagers came to bring me water and food. They looked well for now, but I worried about the meat they had gained access to. There was no way the people here weren’t suffering from malnutrition and starvation. Eating a lot of food might seem like a godsend but…their bodies might not handle the nutrients coming in. Refeeding syndrome was a serious issue. They might seem fine today, but tomorrow? Or the day after that? There might be casualties piling up soon enough. A cruel fate for any who had been starving just days ago.
“So the Titan has a core…” Trig said, rubbing his chin as Little Hig imitated him. The monkey was sitting in his hair, as usual, mimicking just about every action his master took. “So, it’s your call here, Aves. The people can wait it out down in the depths, with Mr. Blue using his power to keep monsters at bay. That’ll give you and I time to kill the Titan once and for all. Or…we could take the risk and make a run for it. I think Big Blue can keep the monsters at bay.”
“But one little mistake could cost the entire village their lives,” I said, reaching out to pick up Little Hig. He happily accepted my grasp and began to immaterially pull at my nose and hair, curiously inspecting me as I petted him. “I’m thinking that the time the Overseer was able to extend its influence over the enemy must have coincided with my first encounter with the Titan. If the beast is focusing on us, it’s possible it could fight back. We don’t know how strong it is, or just how much of the Overseer’s power it is using.”
Trig nodded. “True…it could be that the Titan can naturally control these things. Hence why it was in charge of the Nursery.”
“I want to err on the side of caution, still,” I said with a sigh. I felt a twinge in
my leg and glanced down to see that the stump was beginning to grow, slowly but surely. I let out a sigh of relief as the flesh grotesquely grew itself, taking its time to begin developing an entirely new leg. I sort of wished that I had thought of this sooner. Removing the leg would fix the injury once and for all. But…then again, that was so unbelievably gruesome. Could I have really gone through with it without an emergency? “So we’re going to bunker down here, figure out how to kill the Shadow Titan and then make a move on it, fast as possible.”
“You got it,” Trig said, trying to conceal his own disappointment. I could see that he had grown weary of this dark world and wanted nothing more than to leave. In truth, I felt the same way. The idea of getting the hell out of here was greatly appealing. But, we had come this far, had we not? We just had to push a little further.
I retired for the evening, getting some much needed sleep for a few hours. It was hard to stay fully unconscious, however, because of my leg’s constant growth. It ached a bit as it grew back and by the time I was unable to sleep any longer, it had fully returned, glistening, wet and perfectly ready to be used once more. A bit of practice running and jumping revealed that I hadn’t really lost any muscle memory. The leg didn’t need to be broken in and worked perfectly fine, almost like I had never lost it. The only thing it was missing were a few scars from the times I had taken a pair of jaws or claws to the thigh. Otherwise, I was in perfect working condition. I suppose I was ready enough to begin planning the most difficult hunt of my life. No reason to keep lingering in bed.
Chapter 37
Planning the hunt at the great table was a time-honored tradition that allowed all leaders of the Titan hunt to speak their minds and formulate a plan. But we were far from that table, far from the warmth and safety of Hunter’s Hope. We had no map, so really no need for a table. But still, Trig and I sat opposite of each other across a large, round stone workbench that was used mostly for crafting iron bars and chains.
Monster Hunting 401: A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure Page 20