Steve Carver, Mixed Melee Master, Unchallenged and Unrepentant Leader of The Order of the Ever-Consuming Glider, Goodest Boy
Boo bond. Not let me out to fight! At least I get to eat?
Steve was feeling mixed emotions at still being stuck in his backpack. Scary punchy mom-lady was working with him every day and he was getting better. And his plan to absorb more essence was going so well.
Bond not notice anything!
He should get to fight the scary monsters. Just not these ones. After seeing how huge they were, Steve was happy to stay in his small box, nibbling on treats.
When his bond said he'd get something yummy to eat, it sounded great. But as his head popped into the open, nothing smelled like food.
What's that?! Smell so good! But not to nose nose, to weird funny energy nose?
He couldn't quite figure out exactly how to process it but his weird energy body craved whatever soft pets and story time person had in their hands. The longing was worse than he'd ever felt when going without food for far too long.
Steve knew he had to eat it. His bond was pushing feelings of calm but every second it wasn't in his mouth was an eternity too long. Which was all the time.
His hand shot out to grab the leaf and he felt the satisfying crunch as he closed his fist around it.
Bond is sad. Must be he not get to eat. Maybe I save some for him?
That thought was quickly drowned away as he shoved everything into his mouth.
The world went still. The taste was bad and truly wonderful at the same time.
Maybe all leaves taste good/bad?
His weird energy places started to vibrate and Steve stared about in shock.
The burp was very sudden. He usually liked to wind up, get more noise. That always made people laugh then they'd give him more food so he could do it again.
Instead, he felt a different kind of weird energy, not like when monsters died, go everywhere in his body and then ripple out, like when he threw things in water.
At first, he thought it was just more power. And then he moved his hand.
Zoom!
It felt like his body could move so much faster. He felt lighter too.
Ah, forgot to save any for bond. Oh well, he have all the food already. He give me food?
Steve sent a feeling of both hungriness and happiness before darkness overtook him.
***
Panicking slightly at my bond passing out in my arms, Rahila laughed, far too loud for a normal rift but fine in our situation. "Good thing he took it. One of us blacks out and we'd have a tough time o' the rift."
I glared at her but Svetlana put a hand on my shoulder. "That means it was potent. At his sub-Tier, a natural treasure should only make one woozy unless it is near Tier 2. And yes, even with his small size, it matters not. He will be extremely fast when he wakes up. And hungry."
"He's always hungry," I groaned and Romie nodded. "But you're sure?"
Svetlana shrugged. "Nothing in this life is sure but I would make one of your famous bets on it. I could use a new pair of boots and you seem to lose quite often."
I pretended to be offended but really, all I cared about in that moment was Steve's safety. With Romie's help, I put him back in his enclosure, sprinkled some food in, and closed it back up.
Since Steve was out of commission, that meant all the essence was going to me, which I hadn't prepared my spirit for. Since my shield felt like it could take a significantly larger amount of essence, I decided to channel the energy from kills there.
We approached the rift boss but stopped far from the den, a large ovoid clearing that was littered with holes we could fall into. There were two common variations of the final fight, one featuring five smaller spiders that moved around the clearing through the holes to pop up and bite and a spider that was twice the size of the normal monsters in the rift. The large spider was slow so it was typically the easier fight.
The other variation, the one we were facing, felt far worse. There were only two of the large spiders but each could shoot webbing and the ground was also littered with acid and web traps. Covered with leaves and entirely mundane to prevent sensing them spiritually, the traps themselves weren't deadly but they could easily lead to one of the spiders closing on someone for a quick attack.
Trying to lure the spiders from their den wouldn't work either and would only alert them so they could trap the entire clearing that much more.
I wasn't used to being the shot caller but we had been trading it for each fight with one of the massive spiders. It was my turn.
I said, "I have a plan but I want your input too. I've seen a few clears of this rift boss iteration and think we can win safely if we concentrate on taking one down quickly. Let me know what you think."
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While I would have loved to just throw [Fireball]s and flaming arrows from range, the spiders were far more resilient to flames than I would have guessed. The hair across their bodies was nearly impossible to light and even their bodies were more resistant to damage from anything aflame.
But the clearing was littered with leaves that had dried out in the sun. Or at least that's how I explained why the rift had fallen leaves that were far drier in the clearing than under the normal trees.
If we set the entire clearing on fire, it would quickly reveal the traps and obscure visibility. I knew how quickly dried leaves burned, especially when it was only a thin ground covering, from my time living near a forest. We had masks to deal with the smoke at least and it would help prevent the monsters from seeing Romie's arrows or our approach.
The plan was to incapacitate the web shooting capability of one before my three teammates moved on to fighting the other. It would leave me on an island but I was confident I could at least hold it off until the other three finished off the second spider.
As the starting signal, Romie used a [Triple Shot] on three mundane arrows dipped in pitch, simultaneously shooting them high into the sky. Then they did that two more times, 27 burning arrows in total landing throughout the clearing, setting it all ablaze. The fire roared through the entire open space as each leaf lasted less than a second. Two arrows actually landed in a trap, setting a web and a pit of acid ablaze.
Both spiders started hissing and shooting web at the flames, doing absolutely nothing.
Glad for the masks that would fend off the smoke from the burning acid, I charged from my hiding spot. Romie was still on the far side of the clearing but the other three of us had snuck over to attack in the initial seconds of chaos.
I looked directly behind me while aligning my hips, checking my path once more, and used [Hasty Retreat] to place myself close to the terrified and agitated spider, pirouetting into a first strike. My swing at its web shooter, a large cannon-like appendage located along one side, failed as it moved before I could land a solid blow.
Its furious hissing maw accelerated towards me and I considered using [Hasty Retreat] again but knew Svetlana would have a better chance of disabling the web shooter if I could distract it for just a few seconds more.
Its face smashed into my shield and I could feel the acid from its chelicerae land on my newly-repaired protection. It gave me an idea as I used one of the shield's enchantments to open a small gap and hooked it onto the extended mouthparts before casting [Hasty Retreat].
I nearly lost my shield and was pretty sure I did separate my shoulder as I moved essentially nowhere, the shield locked onto the rift boss' face. But it did the job as it held the monster still enough for Svetlana to land a [Fist Blast] on the web shooter, exploding it and covering her in green goop.
She screamed, whether in triumph or disgust I didn't know, and charged off to fight the other boss that had been closing in.
As best as I could, I unhooked the shield from the boss' face and started circling. It slammed a leg at me and I braced, knowing the incoming blow would hurt.
It didn't quite put my shoulder back into the socket but the second fuzzy leg smashing against my shield did. While I screamed in agony, the boss continued its relentless assault. I circled it, keeping its head as far away as possible and careful to not step into a hole. I tried to make the spider step in one of the revealed holes but it seemed to be aware where each was without looking.
I chanced a glance over at the other fight and saw it was going fine, the spider down at least three legs already.
Then, Svetlana used both her [Damsel in Distress] to draw attention and [Unbreakable] to essentially root herself to a spot as Romie and Rahila both closed in to do more damage.
We considered having Svetlana hold off one monster alone instead of me. But if it lost interest after she cast her defensive skill, we'd have two spiders and only one front-line fighter, as the skill significantly slowed her movements for a period of time.
The spider I was fighting glanced over when she used her taunt skill and that gave me my first opening to smash two legs. I didn't fully sever them but it still made the monster a fraction slower.
I focused on my fight, trusting the others to win theirs.
My shoulder still ached but I used a shield bash to slightly disorient the spider as it went for another bite. I smashed at its face in an uppercut with my morningstar, using my heaviness enchantment to its fullest.
One of the poison-injecting pincers went flying off into the distance and a spray of poison hit me in the face, temporarily blinding me. I sensed more than felt the glob of acid fly out a half second later.
Tiesa had drilled me well to always remember exactly where things were on the battlefield so I used [Hasty Retreat] to back up a few feet, using the maximum 15 degree angle change to just avoid the hole directly behind me and cleared my face. Since the fires had all died down, I stored the smoke mask in my spatial storage sack to give me better visibility.
The angry spider's leg stomp crashed into the pit of acid, aided by a smart angle deflection of my shield and the repelling enchantment, taking down another of its four forelegs.
I heard Rahila's triumphant cry and got a message from Romie [Five], updating me with how many legs they had destroyed so far.
I'm at three and they've only done five? If this were a competition, I'd so be winning with being three legs per person versus five thirds.
My spider started to get frantic, more and more of its front-facing attacking options going by the wayside. Legs started blurring at me, taking damage from the clang-clang-clang impact against my shield.
Its sudden leap into the air surprised me but it was the opening I was hoping for.
I braced my morningstar against my shield which I held horizontally at head height. The strain on my shoulder made me scream but I still waited for the perfect moment.
As it was about to land, I spun and used [Hasty Retreat] again, scoring a long gash on its underside. It wasn't fatal but would slow the monster even more.
It hissed in agony as I smashed my weapon into three legs at its rear before it could reorient and attack.
The battering resumed but each of the remaining three usable legs near the front of the spider – it was able to strike forward with six legs at the start – was starting to slow down, the force of hitting the shield causing far more damage to my enemy than to me.
I was getting a bit worried as my mana reserves were below 25%. Still, I used a heaviness-empowered blow at its face to knock off its other chelicerae. It seemed to think better and turned to attack my other teammates.
The [Fist Blast] to its side from Svetlana as she charged over gave me an opening and instead of taking down legs, I went straight for a massive body blow. That temporary immobilization let an arrow and an [Ice Spike] pierce its brain, ending the fight.
My shield hungrily drank in the essence and I felt Steve stir slightly in his sleep.
Rahila clapped me on my uninjured shoulder with a smile. "Slowpoke. We killed ours way before you would have." She stuck her tongue out as she sauntered over to the rift reward.
Romie shouted, "Wait!" then pointed to me.
Confused, I pointed at myself and they shook their head, pointing behind me.
I laughed at the superstition but thought it would still be funny.
The last time we'd had a teammate that was essentially incapacitated, we'd passed Inara through the reward distortion and received four essence stones. While they'd caused massive trouble, it still meant a huge amount of wealth for the team.
Svetlana openly laughed at Rahila who was still grumpy even after the explanation. Apparently, the woman always dispelled the rift rewards for her group.
I took Steve out and passed him through the reward distortion as a large fishing hook fell into my other hand. Confused, I passed it off to Rahila to inspect as she had some kind of background in fishing before becoming a delver.
She stared in wonder as we dragged her out and back into the real world.
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