The spider-snake woman charged him heedlessly. Kaldalis thought she might slow down as before, with the tip of his spear holding her at bay.

But not this time.

One of her red claws swept in at him, trying to swat the weapon out of his hands. He found himself backing up, despite the complaints of his limbs. Her paralytic venom had left him sore, but he was desperate to keep his weapon between her claws and his flesh.

It didn’t feel like nearly enough protection between her teeth and his kidneys, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to erect an two foot thick concrete wall between them, so this would have to do.

Kaldalis’s body was starting to return to normal. He wondered why he’d shaken off the paralysis so fast - was it the adrenaline rush as he suspected, or was it Ara’s accusation that it was his vitality? Either one made mechanical sense. Crowd control effects often included clauses that extended the duration out of combat, but it was also sensible that tank stats might make him more resilient. But without a tooltip to check, or a wiki to look it up on, he was in the dark.

In the back of his mind, he knew he could get the answer if he killed her and took a sheaf of notes back to Bangen. The front of his mind was concerned with survival, though, and that seemed a much more important goal.

Ara didn’t let up, surging towards him aggressively. Kaldalis wanted to give himself another moment to recover before going on the offensive himself, but she was forcing his hand. He planted his feet and his calves lit up like they were on fire. He pushed the distraction down and lashed out with his spear, thrusting it at Ara’s stomach. The snake-spider-lady slipped to the left, but Kaldalis shifted his grip quickly, slamming his weapon into the side of her, the edge of his spearhead cutting into her.

Despite his earlier damage output, the attack only did thirteen physical damage, and two wind damage.

He felt his stomach drop.

Feeding hadn’t just changed her appearance. Her stats had changed, too.

She was now a boss-level threat.

Ass.

Ara laughed, and he knew that the despair was plain on his face.

“What’s the matter?” Ara laughed. She pouted her lips as best she could around her enormous fangs. “Did someone bite off more than they could chew? Don’t worry, lover. It will be much more enjoyable when I’m the one biting you.”

Kaldalis felt his gorge rise in his throat again. He wasn’t winning this fight. No way in hell.

His only option was to be as much trouble for her as possible. If Ara was afraid of the annoyance he could cause her if he broke free of her venom again, she might just kill him outright and this whole mess could be over already. All he had to do was frustrate her enough that the joy of her threatened torture wouldn’t be worth the risk of having to deal with him if he shook it off again.

She surged in and lashed out at him with her claws. They raked across his chest, and the shock of pain cut through to his core. The hit hammered into him for one hundred and sixty three physical damage, and instead of a poison debuff, inflicted thirty-eight dark damage.

He staggered back from the blow, flailing his spear protectively in front of himself, warding her away.

She laughed at him again, backing off. Ara circled slowly around to his right.

Right. She was toying with him.

Ara could probably tank through everything he had and just beat him down. But she wanted to tire him out. Run down his resources. Make him regret resisting in the first place.

It was an abuser tactic.

That thought crossed his mind and he felt a moment of sudden clarity. The fear didn’t pass, but it mingled with a new emotion.

Anger.

She was going to make him regret not allowing himself to be taken advantage of? No. He was going to make her regret attacking him in the first place. He couldn’t kill her. But he felt renewed desire to make this whole affair as inconvenient for her as possible.

If she wanted to run down his resources, then he’d give her resources to run down.

He mentally reached for his inventory, snatched another ire potion and chugged it as fast as he could get the liquid out of the bottle. She had backed off to laugh and gloat, giving him more than enough time to finish the drink.

As the saying goes: don’t look a gift tactical advantage in the mouth.

Ara surged forward, her coils undulating behind her as she rushed him. Red claws reached for him, but she’d been too focused on her gloating to punish him. Kaldalis was able to toss the empty bottle aside and bring his spear to bear before she closed the distance, and when he drove the tip of his weapon into her shoulder, it dealt fifty-four physical damage, and eight wind damage, instead of the paltry sixteen total damage he did before.

“I don’t know who else is sending me ire potions,” Kaldalis said, not to Ara but to his omnipresent stream, “but I love you. And I will do whatever it takes to keep receiving them. This shit is broken.”

The spear in Ara’s shoulder stopped her charge for the most part. Her claws churned the air in front of his face. But the pressure of her body weight against the spear shoved him back, sending him stumbling. Ara grasped the haft of his weapon to yank it out of her way, and Kaldalis tore the weapon straight back before she could close her grip, and the sharpened edges of the spearhead slashed through her palm, dealing another sixty-two total damage.

While he was focusing on her left side, one of her right claws slammed into his other side. He pain ripped through his chest as clawed fingers scraped against the bone of his ribs. Despite the depth of the attack, it did the same two hundred and one total damage as before.

Ara tried to use the claws hooked into his flesh to pull him close. Her fangs were bared. Looming.

But he twisted free of her grip.

He couldn’t let her bite him again. Kaldalis would literally rather die than suffer that paralysis again. At least if he was dead he would be a ghost and could walk away from whatever she was going to do to his body.

It was too late to spare Dalgaard the fate of being ripped open and eaten alive, but it wasn’t too late to save himself from that, at least.

“Why resist?” Ara asked as her claws reached for him again. “This doesn’t have to hurt this much.”

“Yes it does!” Kaldalis screamed back at her. “You’re going to literally tear out my organs and eat them while I’m still alive! In what fucking world does that not hurt?”

“It won’t hurt me,” Ara said. She grinned at him, baring her enlarged fangs. A drip of yellow fluid formed at the end of one of the larger ones. “And it will only hurt until you lose consciousness. Your friend passed out halfway through the second kidney. Though I suspect you’re a bit hardier than he was.”

“Not he,” Kaldalis snarled. “They!”

He smashed his spear straight down on Ara’s shoulder, the blade of the weapon carving though her uppermost arm. He felt the scrape of bone under the metal head of the weapon.

Ara shrieked in mingled pain and rage at the strike. It still only did sixty-two damage, but he felt like he’d done something right at least. Maybe the hit to her shoulder might slow down her attacks with that arm. Her paralysis didn’t follow any of the rules of the other debuffs in this game, so maybe things were much more open-ended than he thought they were.

Then again, he wasn’t bleeding out through his side after she literally tickled his ribcage a moment ago, so maybe he should be happy living with the hit point system.

Ara’s claws reached out, and he activated his Jump cooldown to kick off the ground and get away from the attack. He only hopped back about ten feet, and as soon as he landed he jumped forward again. The maneuver had put her off-balance for a moment, but the snake-spider-lady recovered quickly, and her body circled around to the right, dodging the counterattack.

Her agility would have been a problem against a real boss enemy. Just losing attacks was a huge inconvenience that he wasn’t used to. His ire potion duration was ticking away, and every miss cost him considerable damage.

It didn’t matter now, though, since he wasn’t going to be able to kill her, even if he landed all his shots.

It was actually kind of comforting, even as her claws raked up his back for another two hundred and one damage. He wasn’t under pressure to kill her. That goal was impossible. All he had to do was die annoyingly. It didn’t matter if she dodged another attack or two.

He checked his character page, flashing it up and closing it as soon as he managed to read his HP total. He was just over a thousand left. Five more hits from her. Maybe six. And then he’d be out of this body and his ghost could book it as far from her as he could get to wait out whatever gross atrocities she was going to commit. Or wouldn’t, since he’d be dead and no longer a treat.

Kaldalis whirled and lashed out at her desperately. He barely managed to catch her with the edge of his spearhead. It was nice to feel the sixty-two damage land, even if it was useless.

“You’re going to die like this,” Ara laughed, taunting him, “and for what? Because you’re upset I killed your friend?”

Kaldalis couldn’t very well tell her that the dying was the point, so he just yelled wordlessly as he thrust his weapon out at her again. She slipped aside from the attack, rushing back in with her claws. He considered standing his ground and eating the hit, but her attack was ponderously slow. If he leaned into it the move would be as obvious as Russian dashcam footage of an insurance fraud scam. He gave a little hop backwards, the power of his Jump cooldown turning the little jump into an efficient dodge, and he thrust his spear forward, jabbing it into her serpent body for another sixty-two damage.

“Scream all you want,” Ara hissed, shouting over his battle cry. “What good do you think it will do?”

He wasn’t sure why she seemed so intent on keeping him talking, but she wasn’t wrong. He was out here miles away from the nearest living soul. Dalgaard had barely gotten lucky screaming for help barely more than an hour’s walk away from the camp. Kaldalis was at least three times farther out, and it was well after dark.

The screaming was only to make him feel better at first, but now he knew it was irritating her. So he took a deep breath and yelled even louder.

He’d scream until she made him stop.

And the only way he was going to stop was if she killed him.

The screaming hid the background noises from both of them, though. It meant neither Kaldalis nor Ara realized they weren’t alone until she let loose her battlecry.

“Now for wrath! Now for Ruin!” Myrin shrieked as she sprinted up behind Ara, greatsword raised in an arc that would end deep in the serpentine body that trailed out behind her. “And the red dawn! Forth Eorlingas!”