Chapter 94: Opening Move

  RAVHEN

  The tumbling, heavy branch passed just overhead of Ravhen’s head, crashing into the rough ground and splintering as it skid across the textured surface. It left a smear of sap and brown along the path, right to the far edge where it impacted with the trunk of another tree.

  His body ached. His blue skin was darkened purple in numerous places where he’d dodged and rolled on the unforgiving surface outside the tower. Patches of the formerly clean and pale surface showed small smears of blood… and sometimes large smears. His own numerous scratches and abrasions from rolling against the rough surface had contributed to more than a few of the smaller marks on the ground.

  As Ravhen rolled to his feet, he felt the searing pain of several new gashes along his left arm. The tree branch had been large, and some of the smaller branches had whipped across his skin fast enough to lacerate it. More minor wounds, but so far nothing serious.

  Unfortunately, it was mostly the same for the ‘brute’ that they’d attacked. Ravhen’s spear was still lodged in the monster’s left eye, the most severe injury that the group had given it. Dozens of smaller cuts and nicks covered the sides and legs of the heavy beast, but the leathery hide plates that protected the bulk of the body kept any serious attack from hitting the vitals.

  Even the comparatively unprotected legs had a thick skin, absorbing most of Achen’s slashes. The huntress had been using harrying tactics, darting in a the creature’s blind spot from the eye injury and raining down slashes with her twin knives. The crystal-edged knives bit hard, holding an enchantment to slice more easily, but the brute’s resistance fought with them. The attacks just couldn’t cut very deep.

  Ravhen saw Achen retreat backward again, vanishing into the cover of the forest. As always, the brute ignored her and continued to stomp toward Ravhen. This was the only reason that they’d managed to stay alive after the disaster of their attempted ambush.

  The beast was, in a word, stupid.

  The ‘berserker’ in the name made sense. It had some way of ignoring pain and trudging onward despite its injuries. This allowed it to focus on one person and keep going, without distractions. If it had been less tough and armored, that would have been a detriment, but the way it soaked up damage made it a deadly advantage.

  Except this meant it couldn’t handle pain well when it did feel it. Ravhen took a few ragged breaths, but stared down the charge without fear. They’d done this a few times now, him and Achen. He could only do it once or twice more, but he wasn’t finished yet. His hands rose as he concentrated and activated his Penetrating Light ability.

  Ravhen’s Diviner class was pretty low compared to the others – still at a respectable Level 12, but that was low for someone out in the wilderness. It was his third Primary Class, and he hadn’t built it up much. He’d picked it to complement his exploration classes, and to leverage his relatively high Affinities. A caster class was good for that, and gave the group flexibility. Diviner even had some healing abilities.

  The Penetrating Light ability wasn’t a spell, which made it faster to use. All it did was shoot a globe of light forward to a predetermined point, where it would shed Lumin for a brief period. It could penetrate both physical and magical defenses, even illuminating areas covered with Umbral mana.

  Ravhen was very good with Lumin and Umbral detection. He’d felt the Umbral coursing through the monster, and had wondered why it was using that. It certainly wasn’t hiding! He’s figured it out early on in the battle, but he was still amazed every time his trick worked, the Lumin from his power erupting within the beast’s body and causing it to bellow in rage and pain.

  That Umbral mana was being used to hide its own pain. The ‘Brute Berserker’ ignored pain by using a cloak on its own pain.

  It was an interesting trick, but the shower of Lumin on the inside caused the injuries to flare up every time. And just like each time before, the brute stomped to the side, lashing out and seeking the source of the pain… Achen.

  Who was long gone.

  The delayed effect was what the two had been exploiting in a holding action, keeping it busy while Fisska healed Veysen. The ambush had gone badly from the start, with Ravhen’s spear to the eye being the only thing that worked. Even then, the angle had been too shallow to hit the brain, blinding the eye but not a lethal blow.

  Veysen had gotten the worst of it. The beast’s tail had looked far less flexible than it was, and that knobbed end had come close to crushing the warrior’s chest. Plume had rushed across the brute’s field of vision to catch its attention before vanishing into the trees, and the rooken hadn’t been seen since. The distraction had saved Veysen’s life, so Ravhen was okay with the injured bird-person hiding away afterward.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Finding no source for its agony, the roaring brute pivoted back toward Ravhen, who had already rushed to hide behind the corner of the tower’s wall. The frustrated beast stomped forward, moving in a slow but unstoppable charge, furious at this game that Achen and Ravhen had been playing with it. He knew that if it caught either of them, they would be dead in an instant… and he was nearly tapped out of mana.

  His body ached not only from the bruises and scrapes he’d accumulated, but from the dull throbbing pulse of mana exhaustion. Plenty of mana was to be had in the ambient air, but his body could only handle so much. He’d forced more and more through his conduits, and now they were screaming at him. He couldn’t keep this up.

  “Back!”

  Veysen’s booming voice called that out just as he slid into view. Literally slid, the warrior having hurled himself low to the ground and actually done a slide beneath the beast. He must have used some combination of abilities, because the smooth-looking false stone was too rough in actual texture to let someone glide across it like ice.

  The warrior rolled to his feet and came up with teeth bared, shoulders lowered into a fighting stance. It was a brave-looking stance intended to look intimidating, to draw the eye that he was the threat. Maybe he was using another ability, because the brute started to turn toward him. Maybe it was still feeling pain from Ravhen’s spell, because Veysen’s spear was coated in gore, and blood poured from beneath the beast, welling up from the slash in the underbelly.

  It was also a bluff. Nobody could recover from a hit like that completely with just Fisska’s healing. Ravhen could see the labored breathing, the twitch of his friend’s tail. He’d probably re-broken a few ribs doing that trick in his desperation. He might have doomed them all by overextending himself… but Ravhen suspected there was a plan to it.

  The bolt of mana from Fisska revealed the healer’s position next… at least to Ravhen and the others. He was panting heavily, and Ravhen knew that the caster’s own mana conduits must be burning after all the magic he’d been using. But that bolt was all he needed, an Umbral attack directly at the good eye, magically blinding the beast.

  Roaring, the brute swung around again, but now it could only rely on hearing. It roughly knew where the bolt had come from, but Fisska had fired it from the edge of the dungeon’s surface, right at the tree line. The monster was now rampaging toward someone who would be long gone by the time they got there.

  Unfortunately this didn’t help with killing it. Ravhen was exhausted, Fisska was spent. Veysen had several broken ribs and likely wouldn’t be able to make another attack that could pierce the armored hide. Achen was also fatigued, but at least in fighting shape.

  This had been a mistake.

  Ravhen’s ears twitched as a loud warbling and screeching split the air nearby. Then again, at a different place. A third noise echoed behind the brute. Nothing was there, but the blinded monster only heard noises that were coming from all over, as if from a group or a single fast-moving target. Unable to see its foes, the beast stomped and turned about, confused. Blood and gore smeared over the false rock, but the berserker kept going despite the near-disembowelment.

  Plume. The calls sounded like Plume. Ravhen looked toward the forest in surprise, realization dawning that the rooken hadn’t run off at all. Injured as the bird was, he’d just waited for a time when he could use some kind of talent to help.

  The blinded monster was too disoriented to decide on a course of action. It stopped, stomping a foot in irritation, but that would be the final mistake. Stopping meant that it wasn’t thrashing about as usual, and Achen had spotted an opening.

  Ravhen’s team moved with eerie grace. Achen was already on the move when Veysen saw her plan and tossed her his spear. The huntress snatched it from midair, jabbed the butt into the ground, and vaulted over the row of spines on the side, onto the monster’s back and right between two rows of spikes. Her toe claws clamped onto the leathery plates, unable to penetrate… but anchoring her perfectly.

  One swift thrust with the glimmering crystal tip of the spear struck down, behind the head and bypassing the armored plate. The spear tip punched into the base of the neck, the leverage from above forcing it deep in one powerful strike.

  The brute was huge, but it was still an animal. Achen knew how to kill animals.

  Achen landed near Veysen, handing him the glistening spear with a quiet ear twitch of thanks. The brute didn’t topple over or scream. It simply… slumped down, the light fading from its one good eye.

  Every part of his body ached, but Ravhen still felt the thrill of victory. Their battle had given them a few moments of respite, long enough to catch their breath and plan the next move. He grasped his spear and twisted, then yanked it free of the brute’s eye socket, before setting it aside.

  Plume hesitantly hopped back into sight while Achen and Veysen watched. The injured warrior leaned on his spear with a groan. “If that is the type of monster in this place, we shouldn’t try it alone.”

  “I have no intention of staying here any longer.” Ravhen drew his knife and started cutting into the base of the neck, wrinkling his nose in disgust. This thing reeked, and he knew he’d need a bath soon after. They all would. “My Quest wants the core for some reason. After that, we’ll take Plume home, maybe rest at his nest or whatever it is, and then go back to tell what we’ve found.”

  The rooken perked up at hearing his name, and chirped, “Plume help!”

  Achen chuckled and gave the smaller creature a light pat. “Yes. Yes you did. Thank you.”

  Ravhen twitched. The simple sentence sounded childish, but there it was again. Less than a day, and it had been a sentence. Plume might sound simple-minded, but the bird was learning incredibly fast, while none of them could make any sense of his squawking language. Something about that still made him uneasy.

  He looked up at the sky and sighed. The light was dimming now, with the sky a rippling canvas of orange that was deepening to red even as he watched. It gave the pale coloration of the bloodstained false rock a sickly burnt look, marred with blood and scrapes from the battle.

  “We need to hurry up and move.” The others looked up as Ravhen said that, just as he grunted and his knife popped the fingertip-sized sphere of flesh from its socket. “I know we’re all tired – I definitely am – but we want to be far away from here when night falls. If another of these things appears, we won’t be so lucky.”

  That was a thought noone wanted to consider. He received no argument.

  Revise and Invent