Chapter 6 - A Mossy Awakening VI

Claire was luckier this time. Noticing the caveveabers before entering their detection range allowed her to better prepare herself for the impending bout. Though she was anything but a monster hunter, she was still well aware that tackling a higher level monster head-on was equivalent to suicide. She was fortunate to have survived her previous encounter, it took a highly experienced party to consider such an approach without risking death. And Claire was neither experienced, nor a party. Or even the life of any she attended.

Cautiously, the halfbreed inched towards the oversized rodents. She moved along the wall as she snuck up on them, frequently entrusting it with most of her weight to minimize the volume of her footsteps. As she got closer, she realized that they were gnawing through the corridor’s sides, chittering and chattering to each other as they slowly but surely grew the hole with every bite. For the most part, they kept their heads within the walls, only exposing their muzzles on occasion to retrieve the odd fallen stone.

She was pleasantly surprised to find that they didn’t have the best sense of smell. Her tongue was able to pick up on their scents far before their noses could detect hers, even in spite of the fact that she was covered in blood. Closing the distance proved their olfactory senses outright dysfunctional. They failed to sniff her out, no matter how close she got. Likewise, they also remained unable to hear her, even though her footsteps were only relatively muted. Evidently, the veabers were much more reliant on sight than any of their other senses. And as they were too preoccupied with their meal to scan their surroundings, they had effectively become blind to the predator’s presence.

Leveraging their poor senses, the hunter was able to sneak right up to them and position herself with one leg on either side of their burrow’s entrance. All without being discovered.

Log Entry 497

Sneaking has reached level 3.

She placed her spear’s shaft in her mouth, biting down to grip it as she raised her fanged daggers. She wound up holding the position for about a minute, striking only when one of the beavers stuck out its head to reach for a fallen rock. Both Double Stab-laced strikes were true. They dug straight into the rodent’s eyes, thoroughly destroying its only dependable sensory organs before it could so much as spot her shadow.

Shrieking like a banshee, the stone eater began thrashing about, pulling back into its cave as it flailed about in a manner reminiscent of a headless chicken. Claire tried to pull her daggers out of its eye sockets, but to no avail. They were stuck too deep. The caveveaber’s frantic retreat led it to inadvertently wrench both from her hands with its superior strength.

Its partner began investigating the threat in its place, but Claire was as ready for it as she was its mate. The moment it stuck its head out through the hole was the moment she plunged her spear straight into its skull. A third application of her only combat-worthy active skill amplified the damage even further.

She had yet to read through Spear Mastery and learn its precise effects, but she could feel it kicking in nonetheless. Her body understood, without the need for instruction or practice, that swinging her weapon in an arc would provide more force than bringing it straight down, that putting her back into the blow would strengthen it, and that twisting it upon penetrating her target would warp and tear its flesh.

But just as she was ready for it, it too was ready for her. It began barking as soon as it noticed it was under attack, signalling her location to its blinded companion. A moment later, her lower back was nearly crushed by a sudden heavy blow. Her spine only survived it because the now crumbled wall she had been leaning against aided in dampening the impact.

She pushed down on her spear to stop herself from lurching forward, but the flimsy makeshift weapon was unable to hold her weight. It snapped like the twig it was, leaving half its length in the caveveaber’s skull and her a victim to the momentum it failed to absorb.

The would-be assassin gasped for air as she hit the ground, most of it expunged from her lungs by the force of the impact. Gritting her teeth to bear with the pain in her hips, she scrambled to her feet and turned to face the music. Only to find that all her concerns were for naught.

Neither of the two caveveabers were upon her. One was scratching at its own face in a fit of desperation, trying to reach the weapon stuck in its head with its all-too-short forelimbs, while the other more blind specimen frantically sniffed around for her with its dysfunctional nose.

The perfect opportunity.

She ignored any meaning their constant chittering might have had and hobbled to the one whose eyes remained serviceable. It called for its partner as soon as it spotted her approach, but to little avail. The other rodent’s blindness threw off its aim. Cannonballing in her general direction sent it over her head and into a wall.

Overwhelmed by pain, the speared veaber began screeching even louder. It knew it couldn’t escape, even with her back injured and her gait slowed to a limp. The wound to her prey’s brain was too damning. It couldn’t move its left hind leg. It tried to crawl away even without it, but it lacked the speed to outpace her. Once she reached it, Claire began hammering at the broken end of her spear with its other half. The combination of her dexterity and her mastery over makeshift weapons aided her in remaining on target. Each strike either landed head-on and drove the pole weapon’s tip deeper into the creature’s skull, or slipped the slightest bit and jostled it around instead. Whatever the case, the end result was the destruction of her target’s grey matter. By the third strike, the caveveaber’s whole body had started to spasm. By the fifth, its death throes were reduced to mere twitches. And by the seventh, it fell still.

Log Entry 498

You have slain a level 14 caveveaber.

This feat has earned you 1 extra point of wisdom.

Log Entry 499

You have leveled up. Your health and mana have been restored and all harmful status effects have been cleansed.

Your racial class, Halfbreed, has reached level 11.

Your primary class, Rogue, has reached level 6.

Your agility and dexterity have been increased by 5.

You have gained 8 ability points.

An awkward but relieving sensation pulsed through Claire’s lower back as her dislocated hip snapped itself back into its socket. And just in time. Her now functional legs and newfound lack of pain allowed her to leap over the critter charging at her.

Overestimating the rodent’s speed led to an early but still somewhat successful dodge. Rather than landing behind the rodent once it passed, she found herself with her butt on its back. She wasn’t heavy enough for the accidental bodyslam to inflict any damage, but she was fragile enough to take it. The force of the impact had actually slightly reduced her health, and her rump hadn’t enjoyed the experience of discovering that the creature was a lot bonier than its furry exterior would have otherwise suggested.

Distracted by a mix of observation and discomfort, it took Claire a moment to realize that the veaber’s tail was swinging towards her face. She immediately raised both arms and braced herself while cursing her own stupidity. Or at least she did until she discovered that the impact had been nothing but underwhelming. It felt more like a light boop than a heavy swing. Looking down at the rodent provided an explanation as to why. The hard, stone-like armour covering the top of the rodent’s mace was inflexible. The beaver was unable to swing its tail at its own back with any significant force, nor was it capable of turning its torso enough to nip at her heels. Worse yet, no amount of thrashing was able to get her off. Its limbs were too short to allow for motions grand enough to disrupt her balance.

Its back was its blind spot, a major weakness just waiting to be exploited.

Spinning around, Claire grabbed the fangs she had left in the caveveaber’s eyes and began to strike at its head with Double Stab, ripping and tearing until it was done.

Log Entry 500

Double Stab has reached level 3.

Log Entry 501

Dagger Mastery has reached level 2.

Log Entry 502

You have slain a level 21 caveveaber.

Log Entry 503

You have leveled up. Your health and mana have been restored and all harmful status effects have been cleansed.

Your primary class, Rogue, has reached level 7.

You have gained 1 ability point.

Claire breathed a sigh of relief as she collapsed atop the now dead rodent. For a moment, she allowed herself to lie still, but soon snapped back to attention. Because she came to realize that the chittering had yet to stop.

A shiver ran up her spine as she slowly scanned the walls.

There were holes everywhere.

Eyes everywhere.

Veabers.

Everywhere.

Before another moment passed, she turned tail and started running at top speed. A wave of pursuers followed. It was small at first, and the veabers’ short stubby legs prevented them from gaining on her, but the horde’s volume continued to grow with every passing moment. It was like there were an endless number of them within the rocky spiral’s walls.

Outrunning just one of them was a simple task, but she lacked the tools required to escape them all. Or at least that was what she thought. The situation took a turn for the better the moment she reached the illuminated cavern. For reasons entirely beyond her comprehension, the veabers didn’t follow her out of the spiralling corridor. Instead, they chittered angrily, stared at her for a bit, then turned around and returned to their caves.

She slowed down and collapsed once she realized that she was safe, panting and wheezing while her heart pounded at a mile a minute.

“What just happened?”

Claire asked herself the question between tired gasps. The sudden wave of exhaustion that hit her was brought on by more than just a sudden sprint. The day’s many near death experiences had finally started catching up with her. She was hungry, thirsty, tired, and frankly, sick of the dungeon.

“I want to go home,” she mumbled.

A few moment’s worth of processing later, she realized that the statement was false. What Claire really wanted was not to go home, but to go back to the home that she had a week ago, the warmth, gentle manor where most treated her with affection. Not the place of death it had become. She wasn’t welcome there. Not anymore. The warm, fluffy bed that she so dearly missed would from now on belong to Alice and Alice alone. I hope she’s doing okay.

“I should really eat something…”

Having finally caught her breath, she propped herself up against a rock and picked up a handful of moss. She nearly brought it to her mouth, stopping only as an uncomfortable sensation shot through her stomach. And not because it was empty.

A few moments of confusion later, her face paled. She pulled up Llystletein Authority's skill entry and confirmed a certain minor detail that she had noted about an hour ago.

The moss she had nearly eaten again, the moss currently making its way through her bowels, was the sort of substance that only a cow could digest. And much to Claire’s dismay, she soon discovered that desperate mooing did not a cow make.