153. Monster Thief: Tabitha.

I very nearly killed Daegal despite Wiremu letting him off. I still may need to. Nyx loves this highly Spiritual area. Her energy levels are way higher than I have seen them before. She alone held the Binding Shadows on Daegal, and someone that strong would normally be a struggle for her.

Modrica loved the boar fight. She was punching, kicking and bashing with joy, finally able to let loose. At one point, she picked one up and threw it at another. I think I am the only one who saw that. I had seen her Armoured Skin Skill turn blades before, but resisting being gored by a massive boar is impressive. She hasn’t been able to go all out for a long time. The closest I have seen her was sparring with Ruku. You have to have a strong physical build to go against her in a fight. Wiremu is the closest, but his Attributes are too spread out to last long against Modrica.

Then Ört had to upset the monster. Ört had his harvesting knife out and was collecting samples of plants. He knelt down, cut a large area of moss from a rock, and then jumped backwards. A lot of that moss was around, and it withdrew from his cut, and the whole area started to move and gather itself together.

The moss in the whole area gathered itself into a ball. An arrow flew into it from Wiremu, and then a Triple Shot. The moss browned slightly where the poison arrows entered but soon turned green again.

Daegal yelled, “It is a Plant Elemental. I’ve got nothing to hurt it, but we can outrun it. Follow me.” and he took off into the steam.

I glanced at Wiremu and Skavt. If we can outrun it, we can try a few things first. They seemed to agree.

“Monster formation 1,” Skavt ordered. That was the formation to take on a single large monster. The twins, Najprej and Drugič, moved forward with their shields and moved forward to get its attention. The rest of us spread out to flank it.

The twins started hacking at the mass of Moss that was now higher than they were and still growing. The problem was it did not have a front. It was a round green ball.

“I can get my Hunters Marks attached, but when I try to slow it with them, they just pull free,” Wiremu said.

That started various people calling out various skills that partially worked. Cutting off pieces didn’t work very well as they regrew, but only at a moderate speed. It will take a lot of hacking, and if the piece were on the ground, it would merge back with it. The separated piece wasn’t killed.

I tried the Binding Shadows, but it just rolled out of them. It was rolling toward the twins, and they were backing up while shield bashing it back to slow it down.

“It is too wet for fire to catch and burn,” that was Ört, and I wasn’t surprised with all the steam and pools around.

“Poison had limited effect,” that was Wiremu, but I had seen that already.

“Watch out, it is doing something,” shouted Ört.

The Plant Elemental had drunk briefly and then suddenly expanded, throwing out water everywhere. “Shit, that's not water!” I yelled as it burned through the leather of my armour and into my skin. A small drop had hit my face and was burning a hole in my skin.

“It’s acid from the sulfur around us.” Ört supplied.

Modrica had her Armoured Skin and Wiremu and Taoke had Snakeskin. The twins hid behind their shields so Skavt, Kryddor, Ört and I were the worst burned, and Ört had an ointment to neutralise it. He worked his way around us. Skavt had Regeneration, so she was fine.

“It’s doing it again,” Najprej noticed the contractions happening, so the vulnerable of us could take shelter. The frequency of the attack was a problem, and if the plant monster engulfed you, the acid would go to work.

I worked together with Nyx to combine our Syphon Energy. This was possible now the Elemental Bond was in the Journeyman Level. We spread our shadows, and we both Syphoned. This had a greater effect than I expected. The Moss on the outer edges started to brown. I shouldn’t have been so surprised as it was a Plant Elemental, and all Elementals used Spiritual energy as their prime source. Our flesh and blood had our Prime source as Physical Constitution, but elementals use the Spiritual. We had to focus our Syphon very closely on the Plant Elemental, or we would end up syphoning the Spiritual energy in the atmosphere.

“We are Syphoning energy, so cut the dead, brown moss,” I informed everyone.

“We are giving the thing a haircut,” quipped Wiremu. I noticed he had put away his spear and was using his knives. “The gap between the acid pulses has also lengthened,” he observed. “Let me try a new Skill.”

I saw him lift his arm, and a small thin blast of Granite Sand cut into the Moss. He worked it so that it sliced a large chunk from the monster, and when it separated, it browned and died faster.

“That was good,” Skavt said.

“Yes, but it is low level, so I can’t keep it up very long. Look at that. It just hit Apprentice level,” he said.

Meanwhile, the elemental had pushed us back into the scrub, which was making it difficult for the twins, and it was benefitting from the extra vegetation.

“See if we can turn it back into an open area,” Skavt instructed the twins.

We were whittling it down. Ört’s big two-handed axe was the best at giving the monster a haircut, second by the twin's swords. Modrica didn’t have anything to hurt the elemental with. It was our Syphon and haircutting versus its energy and growth. The acid was starting to have a longer-term effect on our equipment. This was most obvious in the corroding shields of Najprej and Drugič. The steel weapons were also getting pitted. My Blacksteel knife and Wiremu’s Granite were fine so far. The advantage of Spiritually enhanced weapons.

The twins had manoeuvred around, so we were heading back to the open rock areas. We were wearing it down, and back on the rock, it would go faster. Najprej’s shield was worn right through, so Wiremu moved behind her and handed her a Granite Shield, and then he did the same for Drugič. They re-engaged with vigour.

We had been fighting for almost two hours, regularly getting blasted with acid.

“It’s contracting again.” the warning came, then, “Something is different.”

It contracted further than before and then threw itself into the air, coming down on Najprej and Drugič. They were totally submerged in acid-dripping moss. We couldn’t see them at all, and the plant monster stopped moving and planted itself.

Wiremu threw a Granite shield at Skavt and created another for himself, and together they attacked the plant, trying to get it to move. It refused to budge. Ört was trying to cut a channel in, but his axe was well-blunted by now and a lot less effective.

Then Modrica was there. She had no weapons. She had discarded her mace. She tore into that Moss bare-handed, ripping it apart. Her armour was being burned from her body as she disappeared from sight. Ört moved around to the hole she had made and tried to enlarge it. Nyx and I also focused the Syphon into this area, causing more of it to brown and die. The plant heaved a couple of times and then settled down again. I assume that was the internal fight going on. We kept at it again, and I intensified my knife work, pushing with Shadow Manipulation.

The Moss bulged again, and Modrica broke through. Her eyes were closed, and all the clothing and hair had been burned off her body. The only thing keeping her going was her Armoured Skin, and that was showing areas the acid had worked through. She kept coming. She had a granite shield in one hand and a leg in the other as she dragged Najprej and Drugič out from the Moss Monster. Wiremu let loose with another cutting sand strike, carving the moss away from them and it turning brown under our Syphon.

Modrica kept coming. There was nothing stopping her now. This was her Unyielding Specialisation at work. The one that gave her the Armoured Skin Skill because she just doesn’t know when to quit.

Najprej and Drugič had the sense to curl up under the Granite shields to protect themselves from a lot of the acid. Najprej had severe acid burns on her back and arms, and Drugič’s leg that Modrica was dragging her by was burned to the bone.

Modrica didn’t stop when she cleared the monster but kept dragging them to the nearest bubbling pond and waded them all in to wash the acid off. Ört followed them with his medical supplies, and I could feel the pain ease as his Aura increased all our Pain Resistance.

I went up beside Wiremu and Skavt in the opening that Modrica had made. Wiremu handed me another Granite Shield and the three of us wedged our way in. Wiremu was looking for the Monster Core, which could be the key to stopping this. Our Spiritual Senses were guiding us. I could feel the soles of my boots being eaten by acid, and my armour was increasingly ragged. Our senses told us we were there, but all we could see was moss. We enlarged the area, but the monster was moving away from us now. It was trying to drown us in acid.

I finally wised up and leapt onto Wiremu’s shoulders and cleared above our heads, finally finding a large, solid object, and I cut it loose from the moss. It was about the size of a large mango. Once it was loose from the moss, I slipped it into my Spatial Pocket. All the fight went out of the plant monster. The moss slumped, and the acid stopped flowing. We quickly moved out of the area and watched as it became a clump of vegetation on the ground. I had a notification of my first Monster kill, but we had more important things to worry about.

We all moved to the pond and used the hot water to wash off acid, and then Skavt and Wiremu moved to help Ört minister to the twins. I went to Modrica, who was still immersed up to the neck in the boiling water. She looked like she was lounging in a bathtub. She looked strange, with no hair or eyebrows. She grunted at me when I asked how she was. She was OK enough and was recovering. The water was too hot for me, so I moved to help the others.

Skavt was applying ointment to Najprej’s burns while Ört and Wiremu were binding what was left of Drugič’s leg. There didn’t seem to be much more than bone there. Drugič was unconscious.

We all took some space to rest. Ört checked us all over and patched us up as best he could. He ran out of the ointment but pulled a fruit from his pack. I recognised it as a lime, and he mixed it with some water to make it go further and applied that to my burns. He had Wiremu produce some sand on a rock and spread that over the wounds removing the liquid. Wiremu always claimed he was the smartest person in this group.

Wiremu and Tāoke were in the best condition. Tāoke had been reduced to spitting venom when his Granite Spikes had no effect. We all had Acid Resistance at various levels, and I think Najprej and Drugič will have us all out levelled there. All our armour was in tatters, and the normal weapons were unusable. Probably half the money from this Monster Core will go to re-equipping us with Spiritually enhanced weapons.

Modrica had lost everything. She was butt naked without a hair on her body. Wiremu retrieved our packs from where we had dropped them and then went to cut some poles to make a stretcher for Drugič. Skavt went through the packs looking for something for Modrica to wear, but she was just too big for anything they had. You don’t pack many spare clothes for a day trip. When Wiremu came back, he got several boar hides and scraped them cleaner, and made a simple vest and skirt for her. He then made a cover for the stretcher. That man is awesome. I am not sure where I will find an equally awesome partner for him, but I am going to try.

In addition to Acid Resistance, I levelled Shadow Predator, and I have a new specialisation from the Monster Kill. I don’t have a base class that will give me Monster Hunter. My Specialization comes from my Thief Class. It is called Life Thief. It gives four Attribute points, and three are assigned, one each to Physical Agility, Spiritual Strength and Spiritual Agility. It comes with a new Skill called Syphon Constitution which must be from the main way I fought. Instead of only my Syphon Energy Skill, which levelled twice, I can now Syphon from any of the Constitutions or multiple constitutions as it levels. Like my other Syphon skill, I can use it to heal myself. It looks like a very useful skill, although it is of no use to Nyx, who only lives on Spiritual Energy. My Syphon can be detected with Spiritual Perception and fought against with Spiritual Strength.

Skavt and Wiremu discussed a route to return to the city and decided a more direct route was in order rather than backtrack. Wiremu and Kryddor scouted, and Skavt and Ört carried the stretcher. Tāoke and Najprej flanked them. Tāoke in his large form. Modrica and I were rear guard.

We only had trouble once on the way back, where a flock of enhanced Pukekos swarmed us. Their feet had nasty claws, and they pecked with their beak, but they were easy enough to kill. Wiremu was sometimes taking out three with one Triple Shot. Kryddor and Taoke were grabbing them out of the air, and the rest of us were playing defence. I tried my new skill, and it was a little underwhelming at the low levels, but it would improve. We paused to collect beaks, claws and feathers, stuffing out packs full. Wiremu collected a few complete carcasses, and we loaded Drugič’s stretcher with them, packing them around her.

We made a sorry sight approaching the city gate. Armour hanging off us with both walking and non-walking wounded.

The orc gate guard summoned the on-call Healer, who had a fresh supply of potions and better stabilised Drugič.

“You’re the Canine Queens?” the head guard queried us. At our affirmative, he said, “You were reported lost in the Steam Lands by the Guild Guide.”

Scavt said, “You can report us un-lost. What else did Daegal say?”

“He said you disobeyed instructions and therefore nullified the Guild Contract,” he replied.

I suppose he did instruct us to run. Skavt just gave one of those low Orc rumbles that only orcs could do. The guard replied with a low orc grunt.

Tabitha Carter

Class

Thief

Merch

SPred

Rider

Rack

Enter

Brglr

Lthief

Total

Type

Attribute

Level

13

11

11

7

4

6

2

1

Constitution

Physical

Strength (PS)

9

2

3

2

7

2

5

30

126.0

Agility (PA)

12

3

13

11

7

2

1

49

Perception (PP)

11

5

13

11 7 47

Mental

Strength (MS)

8

3

4

6

1

4

6

32

117.0

Agility (MA)

12

2

1

11

2

1

5

6 40

Perception (MP)

10

1

13

11

4

6 45

Spiritual

Strength (SS)

9

1

6

3

11

6

2

2

1

41

124.0

Agility (SA)

10

1

5

3

11 10

1

41

Perception (SP)

10

4

7

8

9 4 42 Totals

91

22

65

55

51

24

20

28

8

3

367 Free Points

0

0

4

4

0

2

0

1

Resistances: Cold +20, Poison +3, Pain +4, Disease 1, Acid 2

Skills

Novice:

Sewing 4, Spiritual Traps 1,

Elemental Senses 4, Syphon Consitution 1

Apprentice:

Pickpocket 7, Trapping 5, Shadow Puppet 7,

Blunt Weapon 9, Knockout Strike 9, Parry 7,

Cooking 9, Animal Care 9, Hearing Aid 5

Sleight of Hand 9, Dual Wield 7, Rampage 7,

Sapient Lore 7, Orcish 8, Performance 7, Adjuster 6

Binding Shadows 5, Spatial Pocket 7, Body Image 6

Syphon Energy 6

Journeyman:

Riding 11, Bargain 11, Appraise 10,

Lock Pick 10, Detect Traps 10,

Detect Spiritual Traps 10, Disarm Spiritual Traps 10,

Sense Spiritual 10, Confuse Status 10,

Identify 11, Distract 13, Disarm Traps 10,

Dwarvish 12, Lute 10, Coax 10, Mimic 10,

Elemental Bond 10,

Engulfing Shadows 13, Shadows Embrace 14,

Intimidating Aura 11, Spatial Awareness 11,

Small Blades 13, Unarmed Combat 10, Swords 10,

Master:

Stealth 16, Darksight 15, Shadow Manipulation 15,

Affinity: Shadow

Monster Kills: 1

Bond: Nyx, Shadow Elemental

Skills: Syphon Energy, Binding Shadows, Shadow Manipulation,

Mimicry, Coax, Engulfing Shadows, Sense Spiritual, Body Image,