Time Since Reckless Self-Endangerment: 0 Days 9 Hours

Goal: Kill 'Baby Boots'

Nic followed them by slithering through the charred grass. He watched as the fledgling party picked their foe and launched an assault.

And what he saw was not pretty.

The enemy they’d chosen was a huge, skull-headed boar that was guarding the graves of its brothers and sisters. The beast’s head was made of shiny, pale bone with raw sinew connecting the jaws and a Shard in each eyesocket. As it snorted and pawed the earth to frighten them off frost vapor burst from the holes of its skeletal nostrils.

Wintertusk Boar. F-Class (Peak) // Sapient. Hailing from the land of Frostfathom, this boar is animated by the mix of wintery Essences and necromancy that infest the snow there. Filled with hatred for the living it survives by consuming the Essence of carrion, and its breath carries a terrible curse of frostbite. Hideously strong the beast is a foe only for experienced warriors.

They were not experienced.

They began the fight by herding the boy back, wanting to protect him but making him a clear target. Then Moira stepped forward, lifted her crossbow, and fired. As the bolt leapt through the air it split into two pale blue clones that shot out to either side; the bolt and one of its phantom brothers stabbed into the boar’s skull.

It roared and shot forward, kicking off with incredible speed. She fumbled to reload and fire again but only one of the triad shots struck home.

The boar’s charge gave her no time to fire again. Matteos jumped in front of the boar to block its path. He grasped the beast by the tusks as it slammed into him, and in the instant before it could throw him aside like a doll his feet turned to stone. His hands hardened too, becoming rock-like but retaining flexibility as he held on desperately, feet skidding as he slowed the beast’s charge to a crawl.

Behind him Jessie was preparing her assault. With a wand made of metal she conjured three whirlwinds in the air, three runes glowing at the tip of her wand and summoning a maelstrom of furiously churning wind as she worked. The boy-child was hidden behind her, and she was the last line of defense.

Moira slid to the side and fired again. With Matteos holding the boar back she could finally focus. She wrapped the shot in glowing white energy that caused it to take a bent arc through the air and stab into the mane of black fur around the boar’s neck.

Nic gawked. They all had Shards, and they were all powerful ones.

But Moira didn’t even have the ability to combine her triplicate shot with the guiding aura. Without those two in concert, most of the benefit of the tripling was lost as half her shots failed to connect.

Matteos drew back a hand and slammed a brutal right hook into the side of the boar’s face. Stone raced outwards across the boar’s skin, but before he could take another punch, it twisted its horns and flung him aside. With his legs turned to stone he could only stumble and crash to the earth.

It rushed towards Jessie. Every step was powerful enough to crack the scorched earth under its hooves.

She fired her bolts at the last moment. Each whirlwind shot forward into a spear of spinning, razor-sharp air, but lost power with each foot it traveled. The beast let out a cold snort and icy vapor burst from its mouth, swallowing her attacks.

She glanced at the kid behind her. Then back. Raising her fists, she held her ground steady.

Nic had seen enough. Rushing forward from his hiding place in a slither, he stabbed his spear forward. A stony spike rose from the earth and crashed into the boar’s leg as it stomped down, mangling the limb. It roared and slipped sideways.

Jessie was on it in a moment. Her blows rained fast and sharp, a wind surrounding her body as she flung lightning-quick jabs and strikes at its weak points. She struggled to truly hurt it. But she certainly managed to draw it away from the boy.

A bolt flittered through the air on a guided arc. This shot cleaved into the boar’s hindflank.

Rising from the earth as his legs turned back to flesh, Matteos flung himself at the boar and seized it in a close grapple. His arms slowly turned to stone as they locked around the boar’s neck and strangled the beast’s breath to nothing.

Jessie growled and slammed her wand into its crystalline eye, using her palm against the back of the long metal rod like a hammer driving a chisel deep. The Shard broke. The squirt of blood and breathless scream of rage was enough to make her grin viciously as the beast bucked and fought to get free of Matteos.

Only Nic saw the second threat coming.

An ember-orange dragonfly was dropping from the sky, razor-sharp limbs reaching out to skewer the child. Without hesitation Nic bounded forward and threw himself in the way, venting a burst of poison towards the creature and tackling the boy to the ground. The dragonfly’s bladed front legs slashed down his arm and back as his acidic poison hit its shell and drove it high into the air, struggling to fight off the venom.

The kid screamed in terror.

“Shane!”

Nobody had seen the dragonfly. Only Nic tackling the boy.

Meaning they’d just seen him trying to ‘eat’ their precious kid.

As fast as he could Nic left the kid on the ground and darted for the forest, slithering low. It didn’t help. He heard the song of the crossbow, and flung himself aside in time. The bolt ripped across his shoulder. It grazed a burningly painful line over his skin and nothing more.

He rolled onto his feet. Jessie was coming at him.

A windbolt sliced through the air towards him, but he parried it aside with his spear. Her fist flew towards his face and he used his small size to weave under, taking advantage of the awkwardness of their height difference, the way she had to angle each blow clumsily. Slipping between them he almost had a rhythm going until her knee swung up and caught him in the chest.

The difference in size swung two ways. The blow was massive, forcing the wind from his lungs with a wheeze. He was lifted off the ground and rolled as he dropped, slashing a wide arc with his spear to ward her back. She plunged forward with a straight right punch as the moment that bought him passed.

The spearpoint flashed.

A pillar of stone lifted from the earth directly in the way of her blow. As her hand hit the solid stone, he heard bones crack.

“Stop!” Shane croaked, breathless and hoarse. Nobody heard the child.

Moira fired again, her crossbow bolt swaying through the air like a snake to chase Nic down. He swung his backpack off his shoulder and used it like a shield to absorb the blow, the bones and other materials stuffed inside shattering the metal bolthead as it punched through the reinforced outer layers.

There was no choice. He lifted his spear, preparing to summon an earth spike underneath the archer. At best he could knock the bow from her hands. At worst he’d take the hand with.

“STOP!” Shane flung himself against Moira’s legs and Nic hesitated. “There was’a dragonfly! I swear! He pushed me outta th’way!” Sniveling and crying, the child clung on until she lowered the bow.

Jessie didn’t seem inclined to stop. Not even with a broken hand. The grin on her face was vicious.

“JESSIE! HELP!” The roar of Matteos made her snap her head around quickly. The giant was pinned against a tree, his body stone from the waist down. His hands clung on to the boar’s tusks, trying to keep it from goring him, but holding back an angry boar was damn hard work. Already his chest was torn open with long, deep gouges that bled until his entire lower body was turned a gory red color.

With an echoing snort, the beast opened its mouth and spat a terrible spray of frost. For a moment Nic thought the man was dead then and there - but as the steam cleared he saw Matteos had let go of its horns and turned himself fully to stone before the mist could kill him. Ice gleamed on the surface of his rocky skin.

Jessie ran forward, her good arm raised. A windbolt half-formed and shot forward, punching across the side of the boar’s face.

Moira fired another guided bolt that hit the boar between the front and back legs in the meat of its belly. The beast was losing blood from a dozen places now, but it was still fighting hard. Jessie slipped around it and threw a weak left jab towards its blinded side. The blow couldn’t do a damn thing except keep it distracted.

This time it didn’t take the bait.

Turning away from Jessie, the boar lowered its head to charge and aimed its tusks at Moira- and Shane. Its hooves pawed at the earth.

Nic was getting ready to slip away into the forest. He had gotten enough suspicion and bruises for trying to make friends with these people. But he saw the kid clinging to Moira’s legs, snot on his ugly face. It was a scene he’d known too many times at the orphanage. The face of total terror.

It was hard to watch a kid die and know you could’ve done something about it.

It got harder when you knew exactly what that would look like.

Nic scowled and shot forward, striking his spear through the air two times in quick success. Each time a stony spike erupted from below and jabbed into the boar’s sides. It wheeled about, bellowing in pain and unable to keep its balance to start the charge.

It saw him. Their eyes locked.

They charged each other across the field.

And at the last moment Nic slammed his spear forward. The beast spat out a cloud of deadly frost in response, ready for the spike to appear directly in its path. Braced to take the blow head on and crash through to kill Nic.

Nic wasn’t there. Neither was the spike. Instead, Nic conjured the spear underneath his own feet and used the rising earth to throw himself up high. As the boar smashed through the smokescreen its own attack had created, Nic dropped onto its back. Sticky aura spread across his hands and glued him to the beast as it bucked and fought, trying to throw him off.

It was over.

Breath after breath of poison mist poured across its skull. The beast’s flesh boiled and its lungs were dissolving with each breath it took. With a pained, exhausted grunt- the boar simply fell over.

“Jesus.” Moira said in a hollow tone of voice. “Sweet Mary Joseph and Jesus.”

Nic walked over wearily and took Shane by the arm. Moira seemed to grasp what he was doing and gently pushed the child forward, saying, “It’ll be okay.”

The boar’s belly was still rising and falling as it struggled to breath. Pink foam was built up around its skeletal muzzle. He pulled the child towards its neck and made Shane lift the knife.

“Shane…” Moira said carefully. “You don’t have to.”

“Yes he does.” Jessie spat. “He has to. Everyone has to. That’s the way it works now.”

Shane didn’t appear to hear either of them. He looked at Nic.

Nic nodded.

The knife fell.