Robin fell back, slashing his arm-blade in front of himself.

“Shining Trail!”, he screamed, the silver lines beginning to follow the tip of his blade immediately.

The Tweaker Mage leapt over the first line, hurdling it with a limberness that would leave Olympians jealous.

The second line cut into its stomach, giving Robin a brief surge of hope, but it slid on its knees under the next line, letting the previous strand in the chain of glowing lines slice through the top of its belly like a potato peeler.

Even as a strand of oily brown intestine began to peek through the hole in its torso, the Tweaker Mage swung upward at Robin, clapping him on the bottom of the elbow.

Even a glancing blow swung Robin partially around, and his arm was not lifting when he told it to, just... dangling. The pain was a strangely distant sensation; Robin suspected his Resist Pain skill was leveling nicely from this.

Robin yanked his blade downwards and to his side, the silver line still tracing through the air, effectively blocking the creature off. It began shimmying backwards, screeching in frustration.

“Fuuuuukkkkuuuuuuuuuuubasssstard!”

Robin was surprised how eloquent the thing was compared to the ones he had met before; he could actually understand what it was saying.

Crap, is it smarter than the rest? I definitely did not want to fight a boss enemy right off the bat!

Robin hesitated for a moment, and then drew out the Δ-Revenant, aiming it at the once-human thing still squirming away from the rapidly-fading silver lines hangiung suspended above it.

He lined up the barrel with the head of the creature and pulled the trigger. The kickback was easier to handle than it had been before, and Robin barely noticed it.

The bright blue MANA bullet struck the creature in the center of the oversized forehead, snapping the Tweaker Mage’s head to the dirt.

Robin kept his pistol on the inert form, just in case, while he slowly walked forward, his other arm holding out the blade attached to it wardingly.

As he suspected, it was not actually dead, and lunged at him in a burst of superhuman speed, arms swinging in like a person trying to clap a mosquito.

Unfortunately for it, and fortunately for Robin, the creature was still not faster than a MANA bullet, and it was shot again, and again. Robin had to use five bullets to ensure the thing was dead, and even then, he half-suspected it might get back up.

Make me some web, please, he silently thought at the Clockwork Horror. He felt the mechanical confirmatory sensation it gave him sometimes, and opened the Pack to let it out.

The Clockwork Horror of the Blue Entomage crawled onto the palm of its namesake, still spooling web. Robin nodded a silent thanks to it and began throwing it over the creature, taking the time to give it a full covering, almost like a real spider would do to prey.

Robin focused on the webs, and willed them to change into a more cocoon-like shape around the creature. The webs snapped into shape like a suspension bridge breaking in reverse, the cables wiggling into place, guided by an unseen force. He moved up and inspected it, finding it reasonably secure.

While he was squatting in front of the cocooned form, Robin noticed that the gem on the hammer of the Δ-Revenant was glowing. He studied it a bit more closely, curious, and saw that was a very faint green, almost white.

I wonder if this is a high-MANA area. I should stay here and let the Δ-Revenant recharge, as well as my own MANA. Maybe up in a tree?, he thought, looking up at the trees around him.

In that line of thought, where is Opal?

Robin reached for the bundle of energy linking him to Opal in his mind, probing it for sensations.

She felt focused, and determined, and… Robin paled.

She felt afraid.

* * * * *

The thing in front of her whipped its long head back, sticking the tongue out, split at the end, darting. She watched it, knowing it would strike soon; she would, after all.

It proved her right almost immediately, darting its head forward, gaping mouth wide open for the glistening fangs to penetrate her body and slow her, weaken her for the kill that would surely follow. It would be better to not be here.

So she wasn’t.

Instead, she was in a patch of filtered moonlight near the rear side of the armored coils that had suddenly erupted from the still-standing hollow tree. She thought this was better, striking at the endless scale-rope winding around to bite at her again.

Her claws could not penetrate the false-hide of the thing, rebounding uselessly. She struck again, and again, her claws skittered harmlessly over the edges of the titan-rope.

The thing loomed over her, and she felt her doom in its movements, undulating death preparing to swallow her into poison darkness. She wanted to be somewhere else, but she was here, and anywhere else she could be she would have to go.

And here it was.

The tree-worm became her horizon, the fangs the pillars of her creation. She waited for the end, unable to dodge.

Her legs body swelled with energy, flavored with the unmistakable taste of her human, and she felt… more than she had been.

The darkness above her had paused, a pink glow lighting across the rippling scales and flicking tongue that replaced it, and she decided she would not be there any more, but would be on the branch behind the foolish worm.

She was, and she struck it again, clamping one claw over the jaw near the tip of the maw, and one just behind the head, clamping on the neck of the thrashing beast.

It could thrash, wiggle, and squirm, but she was unconcerned.

She was eating, after all.

* * * * *

Robin felt her presence grow more calm, and even a bit… sated. Robin grimaced. He knew what that meant. Not that he was not happy for her, of course, but… he was glad she was in the trees and not right in front of him. He checked his skills as a distraction, nodding and dismissing the menu quickly.

Aside from the two Reinforce Bug skill levels, I wonder if I got anything for that? More motes would be nice about now, he thought, staring into the dark of the woods.

Robin checked his menu, looking at his SP, and was pleased to note that it had increased to five. He dismissed the menu and pulled up his Motes Menu.

Motes

Venom

x1

Perception

x1

Not bad! I can use these immediately, I think.

Robin immediately willed his new Motes to combine into his armor, nervousness and excitement fusing to become absolute jitteriness as he read the notification that appeared.

Six Sense Sleep Venom The sharp edges of the stinger-blades granted by Aspect of the Wasp have become coated with a venom that steadily dampens the perceptions of those it afflicts. The Six Sense Sleep Venom reduces the Perception skill of the victim, eventually cutting their senses off entirely, rendering them a mind floating in nothingness, void of any sensation. The Six Sense Sleep Venom may not be removed from the blades or applied to other weapons, save for the use of specialized abilities or skills.

I like this one. It’s not lethal, and it means fights should theoretically get easier the longer that they drag out, provided I can get in some hits along the way. Small nicks should be easier than full-on stabbing, anyway…

Robin took a look at the triangular blades on his arms, and sure enough, they had a translucent liquid just along the sharp edges, recessed into tiny grooves along the length of the blade.

A loud ripping sound echoed through the trees, somewhere nearby. A loud bellow followed by the sound of tree branches breaking made Robin look up sharply just in time to see the uprooted stump someone (or something, more likely) had thrown through the tree branches at him.

Robin tried to use Delay Reaction on the stump, but he wasn’t able to activate the skill until a moment after the mass of wood and dirt slammed into him. The clump of tangled roots were thankfully only partially angled in his direction, but several still pierced his armor with a sickening crunch, cutting into his legs.

Robin felt his Delay Reaction take effect, fractions of a second after the earthen missile had impacted him, and he flew off of the stump that was now suspended in the air, landing about five meters away from it and limply rolling through the plants and scrub brush on the ground.

Resist Pain is not working as well as it was…!

Robin briefly checked his BODY, rationalizing that the number might be easier to address than the actual damage to his physical body.

BODY 2/25

I guess it might be working okay after all. Robin tried to shake the mental fog the sheer kinetic impact from the stump had given him, quickly regretting the choice to actually shake his head. Focus... That sneak attack nearly killed you, and you might still die.

This... is not good, he thought lamely, rolling over to press himself up.

His attempt turned into more of an agonized flop, reminding him that his arm was currently a fleshy pain-radiating noodle.

Worse, the attempt had done another point of BODY, leaving him with only a single point remaining.

Get it together or you are going to die.

Robin choked on his breath in his sudden determination to get control of his situation, and forced himself to cough slowly.

After a moment of coughing, Robin managed to maneuver his good arm into the top of the Aliquam Pack, searching for anything that might help him, struggling to remember what he had with him.

Without warning, the huge chunk of decomposing wood, dirt, stone, and uprooted plants that comprised the hurled stump accelerated, slamming into the trees another ten meters behind Robin. It came to rest after knocking over a tree and partially uprooting another, sending the disturbing, haunted sounds of large timbers brought to the point of absolute strain groaning through the forest.

The sound of snapping twigs became sharply audible through all of it, one crunch after another.

It was something heavy, from the sounds of the steps, and there was a faint noise that almost sounded like a baby just learning to make noise, a gibbering that accompanied the footsteps.

As he was rummaging, Robin remembered that he only had four unidentified potions, or at least, he was pretty sure he only had four. Without having a high enough level Identify skill, he still could not put a name to many of the bottles he carried, and most of those weren’t labeled at all. Most were potent alchemical or chemical supplies.

Robin made his decision and pulled out the potion, as well as the remaining Linens of the Mad Scientist, just in case.