Name: Natasha

Race: Mandrill matriarch lvl 11

XP: 1365

Size: 75

Type: Beast

Faction: Unaligned

Armor: 0

HP: 110/110

Strength: 8/Speed: 12/Endurance: 8/Magic: 8/Plasticity: 5/Luck 10

Senses: Vision 4, hearing 4, smell 4, taste 1, touch 2

Abilities: Balance 2, omnivorous 5, aposematism 3, specialized innate magic 6, Voice 1, coordination 2

Skills: Piercing bite 6, Jab 8, grapple and strike 7, precise throw 7, agile climb 7, nimble sneak 6, hide 1, rapid dash 6, dodge 3, block 1, discern weakness and strength 6, mysticism 1, quickstep 1, tumbling 1, leadership 4, mystic channeling 1, adaptability 1, infliction 1, sp[ell focus 1

Spells: Wind drake breath 6, dual windfury 6, jetstream 1, cloud step 1, thunder missile 1, misty path 1

Boss ability: mob boss

Lao Tzu

Mandrill lvl 8

HP:40/40

Tony Luciano

Mandrill lvl 8

HP: 40/40

-8 hp

The sudden shock of my back slammed against the tree made me loose my grip, one hand falling away as I clung tightly with the other. It wasn’t difficult to recover, but I could feel the body shift under me, getting ready to try and do it again. I was not about to sit back and just endure that either, because if I fall from here, I’m right in the path of those hooves, and I have no doubt that those will do way more damage.

In an effort to keep from falling, I opened up my mouth, and chomped down into the deer’s shoulder. It felt like I was biting into a monster truck tire. I could hardly even get through, even with my upgraded bite, but was able to hold oblong enough to regain my grip, scampering my way back onto the aft of its neck just in time to avoid the heavy thump of the shoulder hitting the tree.

I could hear the bark quaking as every branch and limb shook above, but I could hold on. One of the benefits of having thumbs on your feet, four points of contact. So I held on tight, even as it jumped in the air, squishing me back down onto its back, and then falling which tried to pull me away. Just sitting here accepting my fate as a monkey yo-yo wasn’t going to help, so I needed to actually go on the offensive.

I let one hand free as we were descending, and reached into my belt grabbing a stone dagger, plunging it downwards as we fell, and the impact of the ground impaled the stone into his neck. The blade stayed wedged into the muscle but it didn’t seem to have much of an effect. More like a bug bite than a stab wound. The next time it jumped I repeated the attack, with the second dagger, stabbing it into the creature’s neck.

I had not anticipated that the creature’s hide would be so thick that it wouldn’t even take damage. That wasn’t something that’s happened before. The bugs had chitin, but this wasn’t a carapace, it was just thick skin. I grit my teeth a bit at the impact. Every landing grew a soreness that crept around my body. I’m not taking damage, but if this keeps up, something’s gonna give.

The mass of the creature slammed into me again, and I let out a barking breath, wind swirling around both of my knives this time. Dual windfury being tested here for the first time isn’t ideal. I probably should have set aside a few seconds to do that before getting myself into this mess, but I will be grateful that I do have it after all. Withdrawing one blade to go for a stab again, this one aided by the momentum of the wind.

The blade impacted and pierced the flesh, and kept going, my own hand slipping past the gnarled flesh and into the wound with it. If I had the time to be grossed out, I would, but my attack was followed by an equally violent outburst as the deer reared up, bucking the tree behind it with a thunderous crack, the sound of splintering wood ringing out through the jungle. I held on almost involuntarily now, as my knife hand was wedged inside the deer’s flesh.

The deer jumped forward, a raucous crash of water kicked up by the deer as it leapt into the river. My second blade came down with equal force to the first, and the other hand was wedged between muscle fibers and thick hide just the same. Now both my arms were stuck, but that was fine by me. I’d much rather be stuck here than fall off and either drown or be flattened. Though this did give me another idea.

I did not get the time to enact that idea however, as the deer’s head rocked around, throwing my back half in the air from the sudden turn. I luckily did not go flying off, but I felt my shoulders pull nearly out of socket from the sudden kick. I regained my balance as the deer landed again, my feet gripping onto the fur with a death grip.

As soon as I’d landed, and had a decent grip, I swiveled my hips suddenly, turning both knives inward to try and slice out a chunk of flesh. The wind aiding my cut, and trying to force the sharpened stone through the muscle. I knew I’d actually done damage with that one, especially since a geyser of blood sprayed out from around my elbow. However, I didn’t get a chance to celebrate.

Just as soon as I’d done the damage, my weight was gone, and I could feel the deer falling. I knew I hadn’t done enough damage to kill the thing, but I’d assumed it was just jumping again. I assumed wrong, as evidenced by the fact that it fell sideways. It threw itself down into the river, and I was submerged entirely.

My eyes closed as soon as I hit the water, jerked by the sudden forceful momentum, though with my arms still lodged inside, I was trapped under the water. Worse, I couldn’t pull the blades out either. I would need to finish sawing my way free if I were to get out at all. So I tried, pushing the blades down, but there was no way I was sawing through that in the water.

I didn’t panic, but I was worried. That changed when I felt myself being pulled again, rolling down towards the riverbed. My eyes widened as I quickly worked out what had happened. The deer was rolling over to try and get me off his neck. I was not familiar with how much the two story deer weighed, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good.

I tried to wrench myself free, and managed to pull one arm out of the wound. The other was still wedged in, and the wind had since faded, so I wasn’t going to be able to get any extra cutting power. I placed both feet on either side of my hand and threw my weight backwards. The arm yanked free but the water was washed red, and I couldn’t see in front of me. So I scrambled backwards, away from the deer as it rolled, just managing to slip the daggers back into my sash.

Though as I paddled away, the surface of the water broke again. Above me, the shadow of two tree trunk sized legs roared through the water, pushing me down with them. It all came down at once, feeling the water displaced nearly got me out of the way, but it landed on top of my stomach. It wasn’t even like pain at that point, just an overwhelming pressure. It forced all the air out of my lungs, and I fought the instinctual urge to gasp for breath.

-24 hp

The number being so high surprised me at first, but then the pain came in a wave. Something had been damaged, but I couldn’t even really tell what, it was too widespread. Though luckily the leg didn’t stay on top of me long. It lifted up to try and stand, revealing the damage done. My entire abdomen was visibly bruised even through the fur. Which is saying quite a bit. When you can see purple flesh through black fur, you know everything is hurt.

-1hp

I tried to swim, but every flex of my legs hurt my stomach even more. So I grit my teeth and just frantically dragged myself along the riverbed. My empty lungs burned with each second, clawing at my throat for air, but I kept my throat shut. Pulling myself with just my arms and resolving the rest of my body to simply float behind. It felt like an eternity to drag myself to shore, but it must have been only thirty seconds before my head broke the water, taking in desperate stuttered breaths.

-1 hp

I looked back over my shoulder at the deer, who was still struggling to his feet, and sneered slightly. Part of me said I should just cut my losses and move on, but another part of my mind was just growing more stubborn, wanting nothing more than to finish what I started. Still, either way, I dragged myself out of the water, and laid out on my back.

-1 hp

I reached down to my bag and pulled it open, water spilling out as the stiff leather had been partially bent. Luckily the persimmons didn’t seem to be mashed to pulp. So I pulled one out and ate it as fast as I could, panting quietly as I felt my stomach almost bloating out compared to where it had just been. Had I really just not realized I’d been flattened?

+10 hp

I didn’t want to waste any more of the persimmons if I didn’t have to, especially since they can stop bleeding, but being a quarter of my hp down in one hit seems significant enough to warrant it. So I went for another one, but this time raising back up into a sitting position and scarfing the second one down.

+10 hp

The deer had stood back up and started to shake itself dry. It shook like a dog, but the size of it sent the water into almost a cloud of mist around it. And then its head turned towards me, those massive brown eyes pointed right at me, and I froze. At first I thought, there shouldn’t be any chance that it knows I was attacking it, but that illusion was dispelled when the titanic cervine started bounding towards me.

My heart sunk, I scrambled to my feet, but each stride the deer made covered the length of a city bus. I barely managed to make my way over to a tree, circling around behind it to escape the stomping hooves that came down with a rounding CRACK, and shook the earth beneath me. I naturally started scrambling up the tree, trying to get out of range of its hooves.

I couldn’t climb quite as quick, as it could circle around the tree, so I gave a quick huff of breath, and with it my body became lighter, letting me practically catapult myself up the trunk off the tree with each bound. I made it out of the reach of the hooves, and I thought that would be the main threat finished, but as soon as it could no longer kick, the head dipped down, and a garden of skewers erupted forwards as it scraped its antlers along the tree.

I had to leap away from the tree, not only because of the antlers coming from below, but the clouds of splinters that I could already feel sticking through my fur. That said, I’d leapt away hoping to grab onto a vine, but instead, landed on one of the outermost antler points. I wrapped my arms around it, holding on tightly but as it whipped its head around, there was no way I could hold on. The rotational velocity sending me flying behind it and into the jungle

I tumbled end over end, but luckily since I weighed practically nothing, I didn’t really fall much. The first thing that I hit was a vine, which I latched onto, but my head was still spinning wildly. The dizziness was sickening, and I very nearly threw up the persimmon that I’d just eaten. It took me way longer than I’d like for the dizziness to wear off.

When I came around and saw the deer was still scraping at the tree. It must not have realized where I’d gone. Which was good for me. For two reasons. Firstly it cannot attack me if it doesn’t know where I am, and secondly, I can attack it again. Though I’ll need to rethink my plan of attack.

I previously thought that plunging in and stabbing it in its most vulnerable spot was going to be a simple solution, but knowing about that thick hide makes this a bit more troublesome. Hitting it on the neck with my knives isn’t going to work, could thunder missile? No, even if I hit it as hard as I could, it’d be like a bee sting to this thing. Ranged is basically useless. I could try the ax again, but I would definitely need to use windfury to make it even possible.

Then the thought hit me, what if instead of trying to brute force stab it until it stops moving, I could test a hypothetical. Ever since I had that hallucination, or even before that, I’d had an inkling about how things worked, but I need to confirm something. With that giant lizard, it clearly would need to have a ton of health, but I don’t remember hitting it all that many times. I did however cave in the front of its skull. So the question stands, what happens when you gravely wound something but it still has hp? Can you die before the hp reaches zero? Or does the damage you inflict mirror the amount of hp lost. Like a chicken or egg question.

In other words, I don’t have to cut through tons of hp with little dinky cuts until it eventually dies. If I can find a way to do serious damage that damage is going to either take chunks off its health, or kill it before it even drops to zero. The question still remains as to how you can get off the sort of critical hit. Especially since there’s no way I can get through to its heart or something like that. Though…

I paused for a moment, looking at the bloodstained patch on its neck and scratched my chin. Time for more experimentation. So while the giant stag continued ramming his head against the tree, I climbed down first to grab a single stone off the ground, and popped it into my mouth to carry it between my teeth, and climbed back up.

Making my way back around to where the deer was, was nerve wracking. Especially since I was apparently moving back into the rance where those horns could get me again. Still if I’m careful I should be fine. As long as I wait until after he moves to drop down on top of him then I would land right between the antlers and right on his back, as opposed to dropping down while he’s swinging his head, which would be like jumping into a blender.

I paused waiting for the right moment to jump down, and as soon as I saw an opportunity, I dropped, letting out a slow breath, as the air cushioned my form, making sure I didn’t break both my legs on impact. My fall was slowed slightly, and I slipped between the horns, my heart jumping to my throat watching them rattle around me. I landed on the deer’s back, between the shoulders, and immediately leapt to the still bleeding wound.

The deer reacted as soon as I made my break for his neck. It bucked, throwing the entire back end up, and I nearly fell on my face, but luckily I have a lot of practice running on all fours now, so I managed to catch myself. Though as soon as I’d landed next to the wound, one arm was reaching forward, holding on for dear life. The other was held out for me to spit the stone into, and I reared back.

The time it took for my pseudo-lung to refill felt way longer than the ten seconds I was familiar with, but my judgment was very clearly biased by the fact that I was trying to keep from being thrown off the entire time I am holding on. Three points of contact was decent, but as it leapt, the centrifugal force… or is it centripetal? I don’t remember the difference between them. Regardless, it jumped too quickly, and nearly threw me off again.

I forced my head down, sinking my teeth into the thick hide in order to anchor myself in place for a few seconds, long enough to get a solid grip. As soon as I felt my pseudo-lung fill once more, I immediately gave a sharp breath, thrusting my hand forward and into the wound. Even though the sound was dulled, I could still hear the harsh CRACK, through the thick flesh and the stone leaving my hand.

I had expected there would be some mitigating factor that prevented me from using thunder missile point blank, but there was no such protection. The stone punctured through the flesh but I never got a chance to judge how effective it was, because I was already being thrown around again. I may have done decent damage but I have no idea how much.

I tried to refocus my head, and line up for more stabbing, but apparently he was really holding back before, because now I wasn’t even really holding on any more. I had my teeth dug in, and my free hand buried into one open wound, wedged between the vertebrae and the tendons. He bounded up, and he must have launched us both thirty feet in the air before crashing back down on his hooves. The impact slammed me into the dense muscle and I felt a tooth crack.

-6 hp

Taking damage, not from being hit, but from landing after a jump, that did not bode well to start with, but it was especially bad when you consider the fact that I now am stuck on its back. The only way off is to be flung off in a random direction or try and jump which both options would likely lead to being stepped on.

I could feel the weight shifting again, knowing it was about to jump but I couldn’t really think of anything clever to miraculously one shot the giant deer monster. So instead, I said forget it, we’ll do it the hard way. As soon as it jumped again, I repositioned myself to get ready to stand. We were launched into the air, and I let go, weightless just above the deer’s back.

I took the opportunity to pull the ax out of its sheath and raise it up in both hands. I took a sharp breath, and windfury surrounded the ax head, though given it was dual windfury, the other one was wasted, so I just put it on my hand as well. No clue if it would help but it couldn’t hurt. Falling through the air I raised the ax up and brought it down at the moment of impact with the ground.

-12 hp

I felt my wrists vibrating from the impact as the blade sank into flesh with surprising force, not just cleaving through the hide, but carving a channel through the neck, muscle ripping like frayed rope as it met the open air. I had seen blood before, but never had I seen it flowing like a busted water pipe. A frankly alarming amount of red vitae spraying across my face and chest, staining the goblins brown leather I wore a deep red.

I lost my footing but my hands stayed gripping the handle of the ax, which was still lodged inside the neck. The deer I could tell had tried to jump again, but the weight shifted to the side, and I felt the deer starting to fall. I took the moment as an opportunity, grabbing my feet into the fur and pushing off of it as I tried to rip the ax out of his neck.

One swift yank back did not do it, and neither did the second, the third however I was nearly vertical again and I had wrenched it free, though the red began flowing even faster once it was no longer under pressure from the ax. Just before we impacted the ground again, but this time I was barely holding on at all, sending me tumbling over my shoulder and into the dirt.

I had expected the deer to stand back up and try to smash me, but as I scrambled to my feet, I looked up at the giant beast, and it was simply laying on its side. Its massive chest rose and fell quickly, in short panicky breaths. I didn’t think that would be enough to take it down, but it seems at least, that it had lost the will to fight.

I stumbled forwards, looking up at his head and saw his giant eyes staring out into the distance, looking at nothing in particular, and strength slowly fading. I suppose with that big of a wound that it was the blood loss that had got to him. A bit ironic that bleeding was my primary problem the entire time up to this point, and yet this was my first kill that I could actually contribute to bleed damage.

I flopped back onto my butt panting to catch my breath as I watched the eyes of the deer grow dim and eventually the titanic muscles fall limp. This was a decent victory for me, but looking forward, I probably won’t be doing this again, just based on the fact that I doubt I could easily replicate what I just did. Getting thrown into the water was especially bad. If I had been in the wrong place, drowning is not a fun way to go.

+400 XP

Wait, only 400 xp after all that work? Really? I opened my status to check the screen but it was in fact only 400. I blinked, looking up at the massive creature then back at my screen again, utterly confused, though the reality of the situation came back to me a moment later as I heard the loud hooting and hollering from above.

I saw Tony and Lao, climbing down to come meet me again, and remembered my xp is split three ways between me and them. So this thing would have been 1200 if I’d faced it alone. I felt a bitter disappointment in looking at the goal I’d accomplished, taking out this giant. Concluding as I originally had, that hunting many weaker monsters is much more efficient than taking out one big one.

Still, now that I’ve got that done, I can heal up, and move on to my next plan. Or plans rather. I still need to level up some more, but I have the ant trap to work on, and I’ve got a couple more threads to follow. Most notably, that cave the humans are guarding, and… now that I think of it actually. Those humans can’t just live there in that cave right? They would reasonably need to leave to get some kind of supplies, or get shipments up to them.

That poked my brain a little as I considered. I did not see a way to get up the cliff to get here, and there wasn’t a road to get there either. So I doubt anyone comes from the town to get here. So either there’s another town in the complete opposite direction, or the people in there are reasonably self-sustaining? I could…

My mind wandered a bit as I considered an option. I could just stake out that camp and see if there was any way to sneak in there, but at the same time, that seems about just as dangerous as going back into the town, considering the people who live in this neck of the woods must certainly be head and shoulders above everything else that lives here.

It wasn’t worth it to even try, at least not until I got either much stronger or much sneakier, preferably both. That said, for now, I want to head back home. I have been running around nonstop all day doing one thing after another. The sun might not be going down just yet, but I could use a few hours of rest and relaxation. I can get back to setting up my ant trap tomorrow.

Right now, all I want to do is get back to my monkey family, go right to my hotsprings and soak in a bath before taking a twelve hour power nap. I sighed, turning around and looking up at the giant deer corpse, and then realizing that the entire time that I’d just been ruminating on my plans, Lao and Tony were eating chunks of the deer.

You know… maybe I should actually try and cook some meat?