We headed south along the near shore of the languid azure river. Just standing next to it made me feel peaceful. The grass and brush were back up to the traditional knee height, which isn’t as nice as you’d think when you are wearing speedos. If this planet has chiggers, I’m doomed. As we walked along, the terrain was changing from just grass to broken up clearings of tall dry grass and woods mixed together. Outside the grove, it looks like fall, whereas inside it was locked in eternal late summer. Yamina buzzed about above me in overwatch, and I was moving slowly, trying to get a skill like stealth, or move silently or something. Head on a swivel looking for troubles.

Yamina spoke up “Bill, I see something up ahead on the right in the open area. It looks like it’s eating something else lying in the grass.”

“Is whatever it is tall enough to see over the grass, or will we be blind up until we are on it?”

“If it’s crouching, you might miss it till it’s close”

I looked at the sun and measured how high it was from the horizon using the four fingers of my hand help out far as I could. Each finger weas 15 min, each hand was an hour. Looked like we had just over 4 hours to sunset.

I shift to party chat, for silent communication, it worked much like a discord channel running in our heads.

[See if you can circle around and get close enough to ID it, try to stay near cover, but out of “something might jump out and bite” range. Then report back on party chat.]

[Got it]

Yamina buzzed off along the border of trees tracing the edge of the clearing and then reported back

[It identifies as an Angry Badgerbear Level 6, very aggressive, I’ve never seen very aggressive before. That’s not good, is it?]

[Doesn’t sound like it, but do you know if Badgerbears have ranged attacks?]

[No idea.]

[Then perhaps I’d better pull, and let’s try to exploit the hell out of this fight, I’m going to move closer and climb the biggest tree I can, and pull with dart. I’m going to pick a spot where I can safely jump out of the tree, just in case. Between exploiting from the tree, and us both going up a level we should be able to handle a lvl 6 together. Just in case, save 75% of your mana for healing] I said.

I stalked bent over at the waist, trying to move as quietly as I could up to a tree about 60 feet from the feeding Badgerbear. I could hear the rustling and grunting from up ahead, the smell the iron tang of fresh blood, mixed with the outhouse smell of spilled and split open gut. Mixed in with all this isa strong musky odor. As unpleasant as all this sounds, it was actually a good thing, it meant the wind, and thus the smells were moving towards me. If I can smell lit, it shouldn’t’ be able to smell me. This is one of the few hunting basics I’d picked up reading science fiction while my father explained to my older brother. Don’t’ be seen, don’t be heard, don’t be smelled. Or was the advice about middle school? I get the two confused.

I checked that Yamina was ready, put everything in my inventory and climbed about 20 feet up in the biggest tree I could find. Then I pinched a dart out of an iron ingot from my inventory, I’ve really got to learn to think about this kind of thing ahead of time...

I took my time and carefully aimed at the Badgerbear, then aimed at the very top of its back. I aimed there, because I wasn’t sure how much the dart was going to drop as it flew. I hadn’t practiced enough at extreme range. That needs to go on the list for later too. I shot the dart at the Badgerbear, and checked the combat log

There it was, that cold shiver of dread, as my adrenal gland spackled the side of my liver with adrenaline… If alpha means elite, we’re fucked, if it’s just a superior monster, we might be fucked. Either way, a reasonably safe fight, just became a possibly lethal one. I hope for the Badgerbear and not us.

The Alpha Badgerbear roared and took off full tilt, directly for us through the grass. the hiss of the grass parting aside for it was clear even from here. The rapid thumping of its feet like a drum on the hard earth.

[“Wait till I have 3 or 4 hits on it, and then start wounding, focus on crippling blows, eyes, toes, tendons in the leg, that kind of thing. ”]

I pinched off another iron dart, and shot it, I’m going save 2 at a time for when its within 30’, so I get max damage on the doubles. I should have made a ton of iron darts, and saved the stone ones for emergencies.

My heart pounded in my chest, this thing was fast, faster than I expected, my stomach roiled and the underside of my tongue swelled up in nausea. God, I hope it can’t climb. I started shooting stone darts at it in pairs as it roared much louder and hurtled towards me like a runaway train. The sound of it bowling over bushes crackling loud, as in its anger it refused to be turned aside at all. The smell was stronger now, bitter and stinging in my nose.

The Badgerbears fur rippled for a second like the ocean, and the beast stood up on its squat hind legs.

I hit the Badgerbear for 3, 2, 4, 1, numbers flying off it like sparks, I checked the health bar 75%.

10 seconds may not sound like much, but in combat, where giving a blow or taking one can be decided in a fraction of a second, it was an eternity.

Yamina was hitting it too, and not much harder than I, a torrent of small single digit numbers as she channeled Cause Would into the creature. 2, 3, 1, small, small numbers, but a steady flow of them.

The Badgerbear r slammed into the base of the tree, like instead of climbing it wanted to knock it over and eat it’s Speedo clad fruit. With a sickening lurch, the tree actually tilted. It was a foot round where I was 20 foot up, and it swayed more than 30 degrees, I had to desperately grab for the tree trunk to avoid a new job as an aperitif. Stopped, then fell some more as the Badgerbear redoubled it attack, and started to climb.

The roaring became continuous punctuated by loud noises, as the monster snapped and clawed its way through the branches between us. The monster bit through a branch maybe 6 inches around and just spit it out off the side of the tree, like it was nothing, I had to do something, my mind was racing. Alphas have special abilities; how can I counter that? My eyes were burning from the flop sweat running into them. my heart pounding out of my chest and into my throat. I cast Shape, with my thinnest curved section that I had in my power to make, and separated the bark from the tree, in a large patch beneath the beast times, and watched the Badgerbear tumble to the ground, The deep thud of its landing appeared to stun it for a handful of seconds, and the Fury skill wore off. I took the moment to cripple one of its rear legs using a thin wedge of shape to cut the tendon where it now showed clear through the fur at the back of the foot. At the same time, I saw it’s left eye burst into an open wound. Go team Devas!

Then the Badgerbear roared, and not like any roar, not like the half dozen horrifying roars it had made so far, this one shook the trees, and went straight to your hind brain and deep into your amygdala. It said, Danger, Death, Fear. Goosepimples ran all over my skin like cold waves, each one setting other off again in turn, my poor inside out adrenal gland was spurting its heart out into my blood stream in waves of heat to follow the cold. And I felt myself freeze, I bit my tongue, and grit my teeth, I was still frozen in place I glanced at the message

I heard Yamina’s shrill scream, the flow of small numbers off the beast stopped cold.

5 seconds of doing nothing, I was dead. If Yamina froze and landed in the ground she was dead too. As I stared that in the face, I got angry. Then I got angrier. Instead of Holding my rage back, striving to fight with a clear mind, I l, stoking it with my rage. The heat replaced the normal cold clinical thinking I had in combat. My fury broke free, that part of myself I’ve always struggled to keep in check, to never let loose. The part of myself I feared. It was off the leash.

I quit fighting for 5 years, when I couldn’t walk on the field without getting angry, because I’m so afraid of it… That darkness within, I let it off the leash, it was all I could think of to break the stalemate. My vison started to get all tunnel like.

I became a passenger in my own body, because it was that or stay frozen. I looked down at the Badgerbear below me, felt my lips pull back in an insane grin, and just before everything was lost in a wave of blackness, before my memory shut off and some deeper more primitive part of me took over. I watched myself jump off the tree directly at the Badgerbear, and summon my spear. My mouth open and my throat already feeling like it was bleeding and raw. That image was all I took with me into the blackness.

Yamina:

When the giant furry beast fell from the tree and thudded into the ground, I cast wound in its eye, and I cried in glory. Before I’d even finished making the howl, it was back on its feet, one leg limp, one eye blind. Staggering up, It’s health bar below half, but nowhere near empty. Then it roared, no it ROARED, the air shook, and my wings stopped, I froze and fell out of the sky almost to the ground, then my fear took over, and I flew, I flew low and fast, dodging trees and bushes and hearing the roars redouble, shaking my heart nearly out of my chest… my eyes full of tears,

I flew, terror possessing my soul. My body quaking, and my eyes running so I could barely see. I wiped my face, out of the corner of my eye, I could see Bill roaring back at the beast and leaping at it from the tree. His form was like he was diving into a lake, his spear held below him in both hands, it’s blunt end tucked in close to his torso. My body turned away of its own accord. My fear seeking a path before me through the whipping grass, to flee again and again. As I fled, the combat window continued to update, my body not under my own control.

All of Bills status bars in the GUI went black, not empty, not greyed out, solid black deepest night.