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🕑 Added 2025-01-20 18:49:28 +0000 UTCMoving Soulbound to three times a week for the foreseeable future to catch up to Blood Shaper just a little bit
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The bents trees and the smashed and splintered remains of the ones that couldn't bend beneath the weight of the ruin crab littered the area and were the first clue that the group was in the right spot. The general area they'd been given was originally based on where the reliquary had been combined with sparse sightings and some guessing, leaving them a wide area to scout. The temporary party had agreed to start at the closest point and work their way inward, leading to hours of searching through forested hills.
"Well," John said wearily, "At least we would have taken just as long finding this place no matter how we decided to search. Why did this dumb crab come to the middle of absolute nowhere like this?"
They truly had ended up in the middle of nowhere of the middle of nowhere. The unexplored wilderness of the region was vast, but some generalities had already been noticed. One of those was that other than dust and small but hardy trees the southern hills were empty. Few animals lived there, water was hard to come by, and no one had discovered any resources that would make being there worth it.
"It's a crab monster," Venna pointed out, "They're not known to be that intelligent. And who knows what a ruin crab is interested in besides ruins?"
Tobias looked interested. "Do you think there's a ruin out here it's after? I've heard those can be good money."
"Again, who knows? Let's find the crab and get the job done before we speculate on any hypothetical paydays." She gestured down the path of arboreal carnage, "Who's up for scouting ahead?"
Tobias stepped back with his hands out in front of himself protectively. "Not me." He shook his head vigorously, "I'm an Archer not a Scout or a Ranger, I don't have anything that makes me better at tracking or being sneaky."
"I can go." Sindri volunteered. "I'll find it and send directions back on which way to go."
"Good idea. Before you go though..." Dryth looked around for Xinath, who had vanished again. "Where'd your friend go?" He asked John.
"I'm right here."
Dryth jerked away from the soft voice in his ear. "Can you not!?"
"Sorry." The hooded figure took a step back. They peered at Dryth from the depths of their hood. "What do you need?"
"I was going to ask if you were planning on going out to scout." He asked testily, "My partner here can go out to look and I didn't want to overlap areas."
"I will be going to scout." They tilted their head and slowly gestured at the left half of the destruction. "I'll go that way. Your snake friend can take the other half."
"Great." Dryth held his arm out as a bridge for Sindri to slither down to the ground. The coatl stayed on the ground until he was out of sight before using his wings for short gliding hops from tree top to treetop, keeping the devastation in sight but not going into it directly.
"Be careful." Dryth sent to him. "You don't exactly blend in here."
"I don't need to blend in! I'm the stealthiest around!"
"Um..." Dryth looked at where Xinath had been a few seconds ago. As far as he could tell they'd literally vanished before his very eyes.
"Fine. Stealthiest coatl around."
Dryth didn't tell Sindri how low that bar was and instead started practicing some pure casting while they waited. Learning to pure cast the three support spells he'd learned under Ewan's tutelage had sparked some idea in his mind and he was trying to figure out how to cast a new spell. In learning the non-elemental spells he'd figured out how the connection between the Produce Light and Sparkle Dart spells that was their shared element felt. He was experimenting with expanding the feeling of familiarity he'd discovered to let him figure out and learn other light element spells more easily.
"What's that?" John asked as he watching Dryth's fingers sparkle and pulse with tiny lights for a few seconds.
"I'm practicing my pure casting, trying to figure out a new spell." Dryth answered without any artifice. There was a general cultural trend to not give details about your Class or cards to people you didn't trust, but explaining that he was trying to improve didn't give anything away.
"Damn, you must have had a good mentor. I knew about the concept of pure casting from school, but my mentor only gave me one lesson on it before pushing me to test and get my license. I've barely got a handle on the one spell I learned from that lesson."
"I didn't have a mentor, not the normal kind at least." Dryth gave up on the experimenting for the moment, talking to someone while trying to pick apart the feel of mana becoming a spell was next to impossible for him. "I teachnically had one for like an hour, but he decided he wanted to teach me directly instead of sticking with the normal mentoring process. I'm a mage-apprentice right now."
"Really?" John scrunched up his brow into a confused frown. "I thought they didn't do those anymore."
Dryth shook his head. "I think the Association likes their mentoring program better so they discourage apprenticeships, but they aren't illegal or anything. You just have to find someone willing to take you on."
"Yeah, that's not happening after I already got tested and licensed." He replied gloomily.
He didn't seem up to continuing the conversation and after a minute he wandered off, so Dryth went back to practicing. Some time later, with no useable results yet, he looked up at the rest of the group. "Found it."
The other three gathered around. "You did?" Venna questioned him.
"Yup, Sindri can see it right now." As part of disguising their bond and the nature of it Dryth closed his eyes and tried to pretend that he was looking out through Sindri's. In actuality, he was just repeating what Sindri was telling him, with a few redactions.
"Why are they questioning me? It's a big thing with lots of legs and pieces of buildings on it's back, how am I supposed to miss that?"
"It's around the size the papers said it would be and he can make out the different buildings on it's shell."
"Can he see the reliquary? The documents said that it should be out in the open since the crab only took one corner and the floor of the room it was in.
"Can you see it?"
"I'm looking, I'm looking... Oh, there it is. It's near the back of the shell. At least I think it's the back, the things laying pretty flat against the ground with it's legs tucked up against it's body."
"He sees it."
"Great! Which way is it?" Venna started walking toward the path of splinters and sap before Dryth could even answer.
"We should wait for Xinath." John pointed out.
Tobias was on Venna's heels, looking nervous but determined at this point. "Who knows how long it will take until she get's back? We should press on and take out the crab already."
Venna made a face. "I want to do that too, but going into a fight without them is a pretty big handicap right at the beginning. They're good at hitting fast and we'll need that for this fight."
"It doesn't look like its going anywhere," Sindri reported after Dryth told him of the indecision, "You can probably... wait, I think the sneaky person might be here. They're really stealthy, but they're not totally hidden from my heat sense. If you start coming this way you'll probably run into them."
"Sindri says that Xinath is near the crab. If we start walking there's a good chance they'll run into us."
John turned to look at Dryth with an expression of complete surprise. "Your snake can see them?"
Dryth shrugged and didn't respond. Instead he started walking along the edge of the destruction, avoiding the trees that were still upright that looked too unstable. He'd liked John so far, but there wasn't a point in sharing information that might benefit Dryth and Sindri later. Other people not knowing about snakes ability to see heat or just not thinking about it wasn't his problem.
Xinath did appear out of thin air as they were getting close to where the crab was lurking. They peered curiously at everyone as they got closer. "How... No, the snake must have also found the crab." They nodded and then swung their head to look at Dryth. "Your partner must also be good at hiding if I didn't spot them." They turned and gestured over their shoulder, "Come, our prey’s lair’s not far from here."
Dryth glanced back at John, who just kept walking with no real expression.
The ruin crab looked like a stone sea urchin with broken and jagged points buried in the dirt. The legs tucked against the side of the monster's body gave it the rounded shape and the bits and pieces of buildings that had been torn from ruins and attached to the crab's shell formed the spiky outer carapace. Two massive boulders sat next to it, like it had tried to camouflage itself against nearby rocks.
"Damn, it must be stupid." Tobias muttered as they all watched the crab from a nearby hill, "It actually thinks it blends in against those rocks."
"...I don't think those are rocks," John said slowly, "I think those are it's claws."
They all peered down at the two mounds of stone next to the shell. A closer look revealed the hinged sections of what were humongous claws. Each one was half again as high as a person and they were each two feet thick.
"Right, definitely don't get hit." Venna sounded more nervous than before, but she didn't let that slow her down. "Alright everyone, you know you're own strengths and weaknesses better than the rest of us. We made a general plan on the way here, but how can we make it better now that we know the lay of the land more?"
They discussed it quietly, but there wasn't much to add to the plan. Specific spots distant from each other were chosen for Dryth and Tobias to fire from in order to keep the crab moving, and they talked about where to aim on the crab to best kill it, but without more knowledge there wasn't a ton of planning they could do.
"Alright," John confirmed, "I'll try to weaken the armor near at the lower leg joint on the closest leg once Dryth and his snake launch their attack, then Venna and Xinath will try and hit it there. After that we just attack it over and over till it drops."
"Good." Venna nodded then glanced around at the others. Everyone must have looked ready because she nodded to herself and again and started moving slowly down the slope toward the crab. "Let's all get in position. Dryth, once we're all set you'll start us off."
They spread out as best they could, with Xinath arcing around toward the back of the crab while Venna headed toward the front. Dryth, Tobias, and John spread out in a loose line along the slight ridge that overlooked the crab, while Sindri waited near Dryth's side.
"I'll stay back and shoot at it too, at least until we need me to get in close." He told Dryth.
"Good idea." He glanced toward everyone, noting that they were in position or close enough for him to kick things off. He raised a hand to get John and Tobias' attention before drawing Sparkle Dart, making sure to keep it face down as it appeared over his palm. The glittering dart of magic appeared, a bit larger than in the past thanks to his frequent practice with pure casting the spell, and it shot forward toward the joint connecting the claw closest to Dryth to the rest of the arm.
The dart smacked into the joint and unleashed it's firework-esque display against the stone plating covering the crab's flesh. When the light show faded there was a small crack in the stone two inches long with the shell around it faintly scorched. An instant later a thick arrow with a bulky, rounded head slammed into the crack causing it to widen significantly and bits of stone to flake off it in small chunks. The stony hill of a crab began shifting in place, it shifted from side to side as it stretched out its legs and began to stand and the twin claws came up in a defensive position in front of a pair of round eyes that flipped open on the front side of the crab.
The eyes of the crab were sunken into cups of stone set into the rest of the shell that formed a defensive cladding around the sensitive organs. They spun in pace, shifting freely and independently in all directions as the crab searched for who was attacking it. It noticed Venna first, who was charging in at if from the front and it raised its claws up like twin hammers to smash down on her. Dryth, Sindri, and Tobias all fired at the crack in the shell they'd made which shattered more of the stone covering. One of the eyes spun around to look at them while the other stayed focused on Venna.
The size and sheer amount of stone covering the crab made it seem like a slow creature, and it was slow in almost every aspect. When it came to bringing it's claws smashing down on anything that attacked it or tried to steal from it's shell however, the weight of rock covering it's claws was a benefit. Gravity helped drag the limbs down like tiny meteors and the shockwave that was unleashed when they landed made a crater in the ground and sent debris flying in all directions.
Venna appeared out of the cloud of dust with her two swords in her hands. She leapt onto one of the claws, in a surprisingly nimble display with her armor, and slashed twice. One of her blades cut into the hole in the shell left by the multiple ranged attacks while the other slid along the shell, drawing sparks and leaving a thin line on the stone. She jumped back as the crab started lifting it's claws again and shouted to the group, "It's not completely immune to non-magical attacks, but it's hard as shit and I don't have a hammer! Keep hitting it!"
A Sparkle Dart from Sindri went off over one of the crab's eyes and it flinched back from the bright flash, giving Venna time to pull back fully from the attack before diving back in. Dryth launched more Sparkle Darts of his own, focusing on joints and the already damaged area on the claw while he let Sindri try and get a lucky hit on one of the recessed eyes. In between shots he glanced over to see what John was doing. The other mage was staring at a fluidly glowing orb that floated between his two hands as it changed colors and consistencies through a range of options, from a bright green sickly color to a muddled mixture of dozens of colors. As Dryth watched the orb seemed to stabilize in form while still switching colors and John pushed his hands outward. The orb moved forward at a walking pace, drifting through the air in a perfectly straight line.
Dryth had time to launch two more spells at the crab while the orb traveled through the air. It was angled downward at the ground underneath the crab, and Dryth assumed that it was going to mess up the crab's footing somehow. Right before the orb hit, the crab shifted one of it's legs into it's path. It wasn't a conscious defensive choice, the crab was shifting as it tried to keep Venna from stabbing it in the claw again and one of the legs happened to move in that direction. The orb hit the leg and sunk into the stone covering. The shifting colors starting changing riotously, before suddenly stopping on a mostly white color with a single blue stripe across it. The splotch of color unfolded across the leg, changing the entire stone shell into that color from the bottom to most of the way up the limb.
The crab made a strange burbling noise, the first it had in the fight, and started shifting in place, it's eyes spinning angrily. As it did the affected leg came up in the air and back down and the covering across it began to crack as the crab put weight on it. The entire area that had been changed started to buckled and fall off in sheets that let off an unexpected smell of sweetness.
"Is that... candy?" Dryth muttered in shock as he stared at the damage.
Xinath appeared out of nowhere, running at the unprotected leg. They jumped up and grabbed onto a jagged spike of stone where the transformation hadn't extended to and hung there while they drove a dagger into one of the exposed joints of the leg. The leg buckled and the crab made that same strange noise again as it ponderously turned in that direction. Xinath jumped away and sprinted for cover, vanishing a few seconds later.
"That was excellent!" Venna shouted as she ran around the crab, aiming for that same leg. "Do that again!"
"I can't guarantee what it'll turn into!" John shouted back.
The shouting drew the attention of the crab and it fully noticed the people shooting at it for the first time. It seemed unwilling to climb the incline after then while Venna and Xinath were hounding it up close so the ranged attacks continued with impunity. That was until a glow began to appear along the edges of the crab's shell.
"It's doing something!" John shouted as the red glowing light began to pool in crevices in the shell. "Watch out for something new!"
The glow grew brighter and brighter until it reached a tipping point and each of the separate pockets of light started running like water upward along the shell. It pooled into one larger mass near the top of one of the broken bits of ruin that the ruin crab had collected, a thin tower-like shape that could have come from the top of a building. It ran up the tower and formed a large oval at the top. The oval spread open, revealing it as a red eye traced in the air that turned to look at the party on the hill.
The glow in the center of the eye brightened and Dryth had only a second to shout, "Get down!" before he threw himself to the ground.
A beam two fingers thick shot from the pupil and was dragged across by the eye pivoting in place. The beam of energy radiated heat as it cut over Dryth's prone form and he could hear rocks shattering and trees falling at the attack sliced through everything in its path. It cut off a moment later and Dryth had to drag his face up to look around. Tobias and John had managed to dive out of the attacks path as well and they were also struggling to get up with fear and surprise evident on their faces.
Dryth swung his gaze back to the ruin crab, where tiny droplets of red light were gathering on the shell again.
"What do we do!?" Tobias screamed out.
"The same thing as before!" Dryth shouted back. He was sure his voice was also higher pitched than normal, because he was terrified too. "We kill it before it kills us! Hit that tower with everything you've got!"
