I was startled by how close the hyenas had managed to get without me noticing them, but such were the hazards of going out alone at night. They were still slowly circling me, not making any kind of direct pursuit.

I had hoped that they would have learned their lesson last time. Clearly, they knew that I had [noxious breath], and even if they didn’t understand the mechanism, they knew that it wasn’t pleasant to enter that poisonous gas cloud. Was their intention to simply wait me out? As I scanned around me, their ranks somehow seemed even more numerous than they had during the day. I counted more than a dozen in front of me -- and at least that many behind me. Cripes. Time to make my exit.

I started moving in the direction of the plateau as the hyenas continued strafing around me in a slowly tightening circle. I wondered why they didn’t just pounce on me immediately: they certainly had the advantage of numbers. Maybe they were sure that they already had me dead to rights and what appeared to be unnecessary caution from them was just a matter of them trying to minimize the risk of any casualties on my side. For me, this fight was a binary matter of survival: either I walked away alive, or I didn’t. But for the pack of hyenas, victory was a matter of degree: how many individual members of the pack would risk their lives in the effort to kill me? From their point of view, if they had the choice, it was probably best for them to avoid any unnecessary risks, continuing to press their advantage, gradually tightening the circle around me like a boa constrictor slowly crushing its prey to death. Eventually, the hyenas would be close enough that any defensive move on my part could be met with an immediate pounce and bite from half a dozen of them, and that would presumably be the safest time to strike.

That seemed to be the hunting strategy that these hyenas were adapted for, and it probably served them well, if their numbers were anything to judge by: you didn’t grow a pack this large without mastering the art of survival, which included getting enough food. But there was a chance that their “constrictor” approach was, much like the turtle’s shell, a tool that was adapted to thrive in a world without dragons capable of spewing [noxious breath]. I was their first introduction to a new species, and they’d spent only a few days sharing the valley with me and learning my ways. Even if these hyenas were capable of learning from the events of yesterday, they were probably still faithful to their old pack instincts, which might be more the product of generations of evolutionary selection effects than any deliberate decision-making. Or, well, maybe they were just designed that way from the start. Whatever the case, it would probably be wrong to assume that these hyenas were acting completely rationally. Even the most intelligent of creatures could still be slaves to instinct and habit, fully capable of repeating a losing strategy. So, maybe the [noxious breath] wasn’t a trick that would only work once. I might be able to replicate my escape from the previous day.

Of course, the fact that it might work didn’t mean that it would be easy or even guaranteed to work, especially considering that the hyenas were more numerous today, and I had quite a bit of distance to cover between here and the base of the plateau. I had [3 SP] remaining: I could use my [noxious breath] attack to break their ranks, sprint to reach the plateau ahead of them, and still have one point of stamina left to use [noxious breath] again to cover my upward retreat.

Here goes nothing, I thought as I opened my mouth and let the fumes billow forth.

The hyenas closest to me were the first to begin choking, and with that, the noose that had been tightening around me was suddenly a lot lighter. However, through the hazy green cloud, I could see that I still didn’t have a clear path to the plateau: the hyenas’ ranks were so thick that there were still a couple of them who were beyond the reach of my [noxious breath] and ready to intercept me. Time to do this the old fashioned way, I thought, recalling my first encounter with the hyenas, back when I had been just a level 1 baby dragon with no breath attacks to speak of. I began sprinting and, rather than swerving to avoid the hyenas, I ran directly into one of them, striking with my body at an angle that sent it flying to the side, colliding with another hyena. I heard the two hyenas cry -- one of them yelping in pain, while the other cry seemed more like one of surprise, as my momentum continued to propel me forward, away from the pack and toward the plateau.

My stamina reserves were too limited for me to sprint the entire distance there, but luckily by the time I stopped sprinting and resumed moving at a slower (but still urgent) pace, I had put enough distance between me and the hyenas that none of them were able to catch up to me before I reached the base of the plateau, though I arrived only seconds ahead of them. By the time the fastest runners had reached me, however, I had already used the last of my stamina to emit one last burst of [noxious breath], enveloping me in a protective cloud. I began climbing.

Most of the hyenas began backing away, but one particularly aggressive one ran into the cloud. I heard its labored rasping breath as its teeth sunk into my tail, and I saw my HP bar flash. I grimaced in pain as the hyena’s jaws tightened their grip on my tail, each individual tooth putting more pressure which grew more and more intense, until several moments later when suddenly the pressure on my tail disappeared.

[Ravenous Hyena defeated! 55% experience toward next level]

My sighed in relief. I hadn’t counted on one of the hyenas being reckless enough to try and “power through the pain” of my [noxious breath] attack. It was lucky that the hyena’s hit points had run out before mine had -- its continuous bite had been enough to bring me down to 5 HP. Luckily, its death seemed more than enough to deter any of its packmates from attempting the same thing, and moments later, I had climbed safely out of reach.

As I continued my climb, I could hear the discontented growls of the hyenas below. It had been hard for me to get an exact headcount earlier, with the range of my vision somewhat limited with only moonlight to see by, but I had been fairly certain that the hyenas at night were even more numerous than they were during the day, and the volume of the growling and snarling below seemed to confirm it. Apparently, my intuitions about mammals being more active at night than during the day were correct. There were dozens of them out there. I wondered if any of the hyenas that had chased me at night were any of the same hyenas who I had encountered during the day. Did they sleep in shifts? Probably.

Regardless, it seemed that night was not an ideal time for a baby dragon to be out and about. I crawled back to the center of the plateau. While the sharp, pinching pain of the hyena’s bite had subsided the moment that it released its grip on my tail, there was still a dull, throbbing pain in my tail. I tried looking over my shoulder to see if I was bleeding, and for a moment, my mind considered the morbid possibility of what bleeding might mean for my caloric situation. Clearly, losing blood depleted the body of resources; could I recover some calories I had lost by lapping up my own blood? The thought was there, but I didn’t have the willpower to physically do anything except collapse on the plateau, exhausted. My stamina was completely depleted, my health was down to a painfully low [5/22 HP], I was an infant who had stayed up past bedtime, and as I shut my eyes, sleep overtook me.

Class: Baby Dragon Level: 3 Progress toward next level: 89% HP: 5/23 SP: 0/11 Satiety: 25% Claws: level 1 Scales: level 1 Mouth: level 4 Wings: level 0 Traits: Carnivore, Kin sensitive Abilities: Sprinting, Noxious Breath