As Sheldon’s rushed towards me I leapt to the side, rolling back up onto my feet in a crouching posture ready to dodge once more. If he was going to keep coming at me like that, this was going to get very dangerous, very fast.

The greyish green monster had just finished its charge, decimating a large part of the dense bush I had struggled through to enter the area around the hot springs. It turned to face me once more as steam emanated from his shell and skin. Either the mist was a lot more humid than I realised or Sheldon had washed his shell before having a wash himself. How it became wet and steaming was irrelevant now but it did mean that there would be no chance to grab that shell whilst it was wet because it was smooth already without the added slippery coating.

I prepared myself as Sheldon attempted another charge. When he was a couple of meters from colliding with me I pushed off the ground with my legs upwards and to the side sending me through the air just shy of his path. As he went by I noticed a green blur head rapidly towards me from behind him and managed to pull my mace up just in time to block.

The tail hit me like a log, blocking it with my mace had only managed to negate some of the damage I might have received. I flew diagonally over the hot springs from the impact and fortunately landed on the ground and tumbled a bit before forced myself to stand up and be ready for Sheldon when he came again. Realising he couldn’t reach me on a different side of the hot springs, I gave myself a chance to catch my breath.

That blow had winded me proper and if I hadn’t been sent careening like I did, that might have been the end for me. Sheldon was currently huffing and stamping his feet, obviously annoyed I hadn’t been smeared across his shell like some macabre decal. If I was a huge tortoise of death I probably would be annoyed I didn’t die too.

This wasn’t my first time fighting a beast I didn’t recognise and I had realised early on that my greatest advantage in this fight would be my agility. As long as Sheldon didn’t scream again, all I would have to do is dodge the charges until he got tired and then I could start working on taking the bastard down. I was lucky to have not fallen into the water as although I wouldn’t have a lot of cuts and grazes from my landing, I would have been slowed down by my wet clothes. Against the pretty bad odds of ‘dodge or die’ that its power presented me, I had considered running away. But the hot springs would be a really nice place to laze about and not do work once we had settled in; as long as its current resident was very dead.

But that blow had knocked some sense into my head, because a hot spring is useless to the dead. As I was about to try my chance at running into the forest and looping back round to the base the impossible happened.

Whilst I contemplated the situation, Sheldon had huffed and stomped his way steadily away from the water’s edge. Then when he reached quite a distance away he ran towards my direction, steadily building up speed but head straight towards the water. Just before he reached it he hopped into the air pulling in his head and limbs except his tail which struck the floor flipping then shell and swiping it to spin the shell at a ridiculous pace.

Then the shell hit the water.

And span across it.

Water sprayed into the air in arcs behind the spinning green shell as it rapidly approached me. There was one more thing I had determined whilst contemplating how to survive. I needed to keep moving so it couldn’t charge at me easily. But I hadn’t expected it could charge across water. Getting up once more, my mind raced for ideas of how I was going to survive this but only one came to mind.

Deciding this could be the end for me I strengthened my resolve and roared at the beast “Know my name beast! I am Yura Fuwuhl!” which was pretty impressive considering how quick this was happening.

As the shell hit the bank it tore through the bank before it sending the dirt flying yet it continued its path of destruction unyielding towards me, slowing down fractionally. And so I jumped. Up and up I went. Closer and closer, death came. As I reached the peak of my jump I was above the shell but it was almost upon me. Drawing all my strength to my arm I swung my mace over my shoulder and down towards what I hoped to be a softer underbelly.

Mace struck shell. Shell struck elf.

And Yura flew through the air once more. It seemed to have become a bad habit.

Then she crumpled into the tree.

I was a mere pebble in an ocean of pain. It coursed through my entire being and made its presence known. Hammering me with overlapping waves of agony. There was no gaps, no breaks, just pain.

I took thin raspy breathes of air through the side of my mouth that remajned. I had struck something with enough velocity that as my face collide with it there was no resistance. My skull had simply caved in and the little function I had remaining in my brain knew I was dying. Or dead already I thought in horror.

Is this all it would be, the rest of my existence spent staring at the grass with foggy eyes. Hearing a what sounded like distant shouting as what was left of my hearing slowly died down and my vision grew dark for a moment.

"Yura Fuwuhl" chuckled a voice which seemed distant but I could tell it was close.

Then I felt a pressure on my head and then my sight was bright beyond compare. My vision suddenly darken as a face popped into existence. It felt so familiar. Maybe this was one of those God's people spoke of.

"What a suitable name for an idiot like you. Yura Fuwuhl indeed"

Wait this voice is famili-

*splat*

Something wet just landed on my eye and it burnt. Pain was everywhere and I had already lost the feeling of everything below my waist but she knew this felt wrong.

Every instinct in her body screamed at her to get it off, this vile invader to her body. Regardless of how broken she was she needed to do this. She needed to see. She needed to blink.

And so she did.

"Wait you're still alive?" Said the face. The feeling in my forehead built in pressure.

'Yes!' I shouted mentally 'Yes I am! I'm not dead'

My vision started to clear up and I could see who the face belonged to at last. The face of the one who would save me.

"Better put you down myself then" said Cavendish.

Why was it him. His little face disappeared for a second and the weight on my forehead vanished before coming back full force as he stamped down. In his hand he held a rock of reasonable size. Usually this probably wouldn't phase me. But paralysed and on the end, I knew where my fate lead.

My body wouldn't move anymore and I could only simple stare at the gnome with a rock about to kill me. To watch as he smirked how the glee of what he was about to do shone in his eyes. To listen as he spoke the last words I would ever hear, unable to retaliate in the slightest.

"I want you to remember who you are as you die bitch. Yura Fuwuhl and you should never have thought you could steal the boss from me!" he said bringing the stone down.

This dipshit thought I w-