Against the Night

[Xavier Akafur]

Prey.

The singular thought wormed into the beast's mind like a parasite, pushing out all other thoughts. Crouched as it was behind the foliage, the dark coloring of its chitinous hide would make it all but impossible to see from this distance. It was crouched low, stalking, waiting. It was hungry. Always hungry... and there was so much flesh to maul and gnash... walking right towards it.


Food...

---


Xavier had taken his spot on the edge of the group, hanging closer to Camille as he channeled his unusual magic. The mage smiled as he imagined the fireworks that would go off when they found this thing. "Keep a tight formation if possible." He commented, his tone making it clear he was not attempting to give an order, more making a suggestion. His stance was relaxed, and he moved with casual ease as the group picked its way around giant paw prints and broken trees. The only hint of tension in the otter-wolf was that his eyes were sharply focused, and he never looked at one spot for more than a brief moment.



The sudden crack and whip of leaves and small branches was not a loud noise, but one that certainly could be heard by everyone. To the left of the party a dark shape exploded from the brush, moving so surprisingly quick that it was almost upon the closest of the group before Xavier had managed to fully turn towards it. A wolf-sized creature, maw agape with rows of razor teeth and a whip-like tongue, leapt at Nemael, the closest of the group. The unnatural, split lower jaw was slavering a black ooze, which all could tell was caustic just from the fleeting glance.


The hybrid, never the quickest of sorts, did not have time to react, and winced slightly at the impending impact. He did not have time to see what happened, however, as similar beasts came bounding from many directions. Several of the creatures snarled loudly, about a dozen of the things appearing in total. Most turned to circle the party at a short distance, moving quickly. A few went straight for the kill and lunged at Mort and Silas, no doubt eager to make quick work of them to feast upon the less-armored targets behind.


Better still, only moments after the battle engaged, a booming roar echoed from not so far into the trees.

(Sturm, could you do me a favor and post the description of the monsters I sent you into the OOC thread? Save me some redundant typing ^^)

[Khaki (on hiatus)]

Khaki took aim at the closest creature but it was too fast for him to actually hit it accurately, He let the others deal with that one and rolled to the left out of it's path. The crossbow was light and easy to draw onto a target in the jackal's hands, within moments he found another creature approaching the group. It was hideously ugly, almost completely absent of fur and seemed to drip acid from it's open jaw. Khaki had never seen anything so other-wordly and frightening and part of him felt like running away as almost a dozen identical monsters quickly surrounded them.

"Fight... Stand your ground... Do not die a coward" Khaki spoke aloud, summoning his strength as he pulled the heavy iron trigger and shot his first arrow.

The shot was dead on target and the closest creature's head snapped backwards as the arrow pierced it's jaw and lodged it's poisoned tip into the wolf-like monster's spine. There was little time for celebration as two more creatures emerged from the shadows and leaped towards him.

rather than reloading his crossbow and being caught off-guard, Khaki seized it by the stock and swung at the one of the creatures. The jackal had sharpened the steel edges of the bow for this exact purpose many years ago and he took immense satisfaction in swinging the crossbow down like an axe onto the closest creature's back. It was a killing blow that left the animal screeching and writhing in pain as it lay dying on the cold dirt.

The jackal quickly grabbed a hold of a low hanging branch and desperately pulled himself up into the tree. A few drops of acid from a creature's jaws had fallen onto his fur and he could feel it burn his skin with soft hiss. He cursed in pain as he struggled to load his crossbow from the temporary safety of the tree.

[Goblin Cat 😸]

 “Now it's a party,” Mort hissed, stepping back as the creature revealed itself. He'd have moved to intercept it, but it was upon Nemael before he could so much as make an effort. Not only that but the canine had his own problems as a pack of smaller creatures began to circle him. The bully snarled back at the creatures, showing his teeth back at them. He'd have taunted them had he had the time to before a couple lunged at him, content to try and make a meal out of him.

 
Mort swung his fist hard at the first creature, striking it in midair with a satisfying cracking sound and not stopping his swing until he hit the ground with the creature pinned below his fist, crushing its skull. The second was already clamoring on top of him, biting at the section of flesh between his shoulder and head, though thankfully with his blood based abilities, the thing wasn't making much progress. Like the brute he was, the canine reached over his shoulder and grabbed the creature by its upper jaw, flinging it downward off of himself. It struck the ground hard, but before it could get to its feet, his second hand was on its lower jaw pushing downward until finally, its jaw snapped. He wasn't done there, however, as he turned toward Nemael and threw the smaller creature at the hound that was upon his teammate in hopes that it would at least provide a diversion – or enough time for Nemael to get out of the way.

[Eden-H]

The sound of snapping tree limbs was all Nemael heard in time to see the massive beast charging from the corner of his eye, its inhuman jaws spread wide as it leapt directly for him. Immediately he knew how this had to play out, lest he lose all of his strength in the beginning of the fight and likely become the creatures latest meal. Wincing inwardly, he had no time to attempt to take a defensive posture or even adjust his footing, so he instead took the full brunt of the hounds charging force directly. An action he immediately regretted.

Skidding backwards with the talons of his armored boots digging into the dirt, his wings flared out of their own accord just as he started to lose his balance and begin to fall. Pushing its weight down onto his chest as they fell together, he brought his bracers up in time for the damnable beast to snap its jaws down onto the jagged edges seconds before they impacted with the forest floor. Electric pain lanced from his spine and into his wings as both man and beast rolled. The acid that had been slathered across his gauntlets from the glancing bite hissed. Nemael cursed under breath just as one of its minions came soaring through the air and slammed into the creatures side.

The weight on his body eased long enough for him to roll out from underneath. Scrambling up he dashed to the right, closer to his companions. Inhaling deeply, trying to regain the wind that had been knocked from him, he glanced down to his gauntlets to see that the damage was being continually inflicted. Snarling, he tore them off as quickly as he could and threw them at the beast, vaguely hoping it would be affected by its own spittle. Uttering a guttural shout, he tightened his hand around air and prepared to--...Shit!

Somewhere along the line he had lost hold of the ethereal blade he had conjured into existence. Glancing around the area, he saw that it had skittered several feet too far and that its energies were already returning to the Shift. Of course, it would have proven useless against the creature in the first place, given that it was indeed furless--but also covered in a chitinous armor that a leaf blade could never hope to cut through or even chip. Cursing, he took several steps back just as the hound regained its senses. With a booming snarl, it charged again as Nemael lifted his hands and began to draw on the energies of the Shift.

As it inevitably grew closer, he waited until the last second to open two rifts. The first was in front of him, which it had predictably dashed through. The second was closer to home and nearest someone he thought could handle it. "Rift and hound. On your right, Mort!"

[Drakeyboy]

Drake kept silent on the approach to the arena. Mentally planning ahead on what he was going to do. Once the his idea was shot down and he decided to go with the flow.

As the creatures jumped from the bushes Drake swiftly raised his hands to the sides of his head and flung his first two spells firing quick pure mana beams to the little beasts that tried to attack them on the opposite side of where all the action was coming from. The beams wouldn't do much damage but they definitely dazed the two creatures giving Drake time to cast his next spell. He swiftly placed his hands together a quickly after a gout of flame erupted from his hands but he didn't use it to directly attack the creatures. Instead he used it to make a wall of fire to block off the creatures so they would be forced to go around so the group didn't have to fight all the creatures at once. Once the wall was up he too took to a tree to give him a vantage point so he could fire beams at any of the creatures that tried to attack his allies.

[Ryan Naismith]

Silas heard the movement before he saw it; making a brief, economical sidestep as a creature lunged at him. He slid his hand upward, grasping his sword by the blade in a technique called "Half swording". He used the increased leverage and control gained by such a technique to drive his sword forward into a chink in the creature's armor, the steel plated razor slid gracefully between two scales into the creature's flank, and with a quick wrench of the blade, the creature shuddered and fell over, dead.
It would take Silas just another moment to pull his silver blade out of the creature, and he would do just that, if a creature hadn't approached him from behind. He called upon his training and reflexes to whirl around, sending a quick gush of fire out of his hand using the Igni sign.
A beast Is naturally afraid of fire, especially when the fire is on the monster itself. Silas took the opportunity as the beast writhed and turned in midair, using its momentum and some of his own to bring it smashing down onto the pommel of his blade.
That was one of the things they taught him in Vorsord school; Our natural instinct is to engage in a tug of war, pushing back against the force that opposes us. Silas was trained to utilize this, to 'Go with the flow' as it were, turning any sort of momentum or heavy attack into a throw, parry, or dodge. Never, under any circumstances, would Silas attack first, unless he had an extreme advantage in doing so.
Silas planted his boot on the creature that held his sword, pulling his sword out in a quick, economical movement. A third beast pounced at him, and with a brief stab straight into the creature's three-pronged maw, that too was dead.
With a brief huff, the armored monster hunter flipped his grim on the blade around,  swinging the guard of his grip straight into the side of a creature's skull, the momentum and force behind it being much like that of a war-hammer. He whirled his sword around, bringing it back down onto the creature's skull a second time. Deciding that by now it was either dead or too impaired to move. Silas quickly found a new target to attack, still swinging his sword around like it was a hammer. They were quite heavily armored, after all.

[tangletail]

Earlier that day...


If it wasn't for the successful job he had done for his mistriss earlier in the morning before the sun peaked out from the horizon side… Neshar would be fairly sure that this day would be classified as a “bad day”. He winced as he painstakingly trudged his way through the brush. There was a soft thud of a long bow he had been using as a crutch, pilfered from the corpse of a bandit. Finally he came to a stop, spinning about on his heels and flopping backwards into a bush. His body utterly sunk through and struck the dirt with his rear.

He took a glance down to source of his pain. A deep cut on his leg, that flared a painful sensation naggingly with a burning erie. The feline had stopped the bleeding… but not in a manner he’d find preferable. The wound is currently a grusome sight. It was filfthy, and had been packed with dirt as an impromtu method to stop the bleeding at another risk. Once again… a very unpreferable method. But better than bleeding out in a few seconds… and more importantly… leaving a trail. No… he had blown through his last bit of medical supplies some time ago. But he never thought it’d be a problem! As long as he didn’t run into trouble! Seemed easy at first! The job was stupidly impossible to botch, no knock outs, no alarms, no sightings! Done, easy peasy! The delivery to the bird went off without a hitch, which meant that no one found out! So what went wrong?! Highway men!


And did one of them land a lucky shot… before he was killed. Neshar sighed softly, and thunked his head back against the solid trunk of a tree. His eyes closed in thought as one paw sought out his canteen. Once he had it, he tugged it free from his belt and gave it a gentle shake near his ears. And in turn, the flickered softly at the heavy sound of sloshing.

Definitely will be enough… the feline thought to himself, popping the stopper and then dumping a generous amount of water on the wound washing it out….


More Currently…

Neshar had been dead asleep after fashioning a makeshift bandage out of a wad of cloth, the string of the bow, and a few large leaves. It wouldn’t hold for long… but he didn’t need it for long. His body was well hidden underneath the bush. His limbs carefully pulled back and spread in such a way that he kept himself hidden and used his fur as a natural camouflage. His head propped up at the base of the tree, with his ears unconsciously twirling to every odd sound.


But finally his ears locked onto one particular sound. The sound of rythmic drumming on earth. Uneven, unfamiliar. Foot steps. The feline’s eyes cracked open immediately, his eyes slowly swiveling to the direction of the sound. He unconciously slowed his breathing and pulled his out stretched limbs closer to himself.

The bandits? He thought hesitantly to himself. He didn’t dare to move to much more than slightly lifting his chin to peer through the leaves that surrounded him as a… cabal of some sort trecked their way past him. The big ugly bully just barely missed stepping on his tail, which laid outstreatched in the tall grass.


Then they stopped. One of them only a foot away from him.

“.....my luck…” The feline groaned softly in his head. His lips parting in a grimace as he slowly pulled his tail back. But that was when he heard a blood curling roar. A roar terrifying enough that it almost caused the started feline to suddenly leap out of his hiding place. But years of training had beatten that instinct down. And instead only caused him to quickly sieze his muscles up, and shut his eyes.


His ears… didn’t have that sort of luxury. He was greeted with the ensueing sounds of battle of men against beast!

“STORMS! What’s going on,” Neshar hissed softly to himself, daring to crack an eye open to peer out to the world outside of his horribly selected foxhole.


Someone shouted something… Neshar couldn’t quite make it out between the sounds of rustling leaves and snarling jaws. But a sudden and strange glow, followed by an unsual breeze did draw his attention. The male stared in shock as a portal opened directly next to him… and out came one of the snarling beasts.

The startled creature’s momentum carried it on, barreling itself into the thief, and knocking him out of the bushes with a startled cry. Neshar’s hands instinctively sped to action. The shot forward, seeping out a magic aura in the process, and grabbed at the creature’s head. He gave the hound’s jaws a sharp twist and tug towards himself. The hound now off balance, stumbled forward, giving Neshar a chance to pull his legs over himself, and kick it away and back into the bushes.

The feline quickly scrambled, his mind racing for some sort cover. His keen eyes racing between each of the members. None of them had the hardened criminal look of a background, and they all appeared to have a big damn hero look about them. Or so he thought anyways. But that was good enough! Luckily for the feline he was still in civilian clothes! Perhaps with a little lie, he could keep his cover?

“Oh thank the Storm Father! M-masters! Please help! I got injured some time back by a group of highway men. I tried to run home… but these… these things were on my tail!”

[Cyril]

As the frontline dispersed into the fight, Camille found himself being targeted by the beasts like the rest around him. His rocks formed two rough and floating shields and some armor around his boots. Immediately using the shields as a wall between the smaller beasts and himself, he managed to stubbornly kick the creature off of him. Looking down, the jackal moved the shield against the small beast and the ground. A hard snarl and whine following as the shield crushed it while Camille poured energy into doing so. His beads glowed vibrantly, as the connections with the fighters and opponents around him empowered him. Using his second shield to deflect the others, Camille finished crushing the first to hop and brought up his second shield.
His rough kicking showed that he wasn't the most skilled melee fighter, although his magic was able to keep the creatures off of him and Xavier for the most part. The jackal stood very still as he focused upon draining the life force of the dead creature before the large hound would come. His eyes met Xavier's for a moment, and he spoke fairly quietly.
"Watch my left."
He shifted his attention to Khaki; breaking one shield into two smaller parts. The large shield kept his right clear(only a yard away), as the smaller halves slammed the creatures on Khaki's tree against the tree. Although not nearly hard enough to kill like the first, it pinned them slightly. Just enough for the other jackal to get a few free shots. Camille practically frozen in stance as he maintained this; his eyes darted between his right and front as his right hand moved slightly; the large shield moving along with it to block whatever he could.

The jackal snarled he felt a gripping around his leg; a smaller creature's tongue crawling past his boot's protection and nearing his robes.

[Xavier Akafur]

Xavier kept a careful eye on the progress of the fighting for the first few seconds, in no position to safely engage the initial rush for fear of hitting his allies. The hybrid's offensive magic was volatile and chaotic, difficult to control. As hounds rushed in from all angles to try and rip at Camille, he moved to position himself between the mage and the beasts. He used his own shielding magic, a glimmering white light that trailed form his paws, to shield one direction. The silver-white magic only made very temporary shields, like a thick pane of glass. His foot caught the creature licking at Camille's leg, causing it to ball up before it was summarily executed with a blast of fiery magic stuffed down its maw.

He raised his arm slightly to ward off the sudden heat as a wall of fire suddenly flared to his left, stopping the advance of several of the creatures. They did not give up the attack, however, and quickly began circling around to the rear of the group, long strides quickly taking them around the wall of flames. Xavier smiled and let out a small chuckle as he moved to intercept the duo.

"Nemael, the flanks" He called, having already noticed that the crafty male had sent his current opponents to other parts of the battle via some sort of portal. No more would likely be coming from that direction to threaten the Shift-User.

Fire pooled into Xavier's palms, like water from a spring, dripping hungrily to the ground as it overflowed. The flames licked around his fingers and up his arms, covering his paws like an armor.

The sizzling crack of flames lancing from his paws sounded like cannons, the initial pair of blasts aimed just in front of the charging creatures. The explosive magic rocketed dirt and debris from the forest floor in a plume, blinding the creatures as they charged through. The experienced treasure hunter grinned to himself as the hounds came on relentlessly, plowing through the could of dirt. The only sing of their impairment was a slight veering of trajectory, no longer coming on in a straight line. Xavier held out his paws, tracking the beasts until they came within but a few long strides.


CRACK... CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

The booming retort of super-heated air sounded several times in quick succession, bolts of destruction lancing into the creatures at close range, leaving fiery trails back to the hybrid's paws. The beasts were surprisingly tough, and though the first gout of magic had sent them tumbling to the ground, they had started to rise again. The air sizzled and cracked as he unleashed devastation into the fiendish monsters. He strode forward as he did so, soon fearlessly standing over the pair as he pummeled them with rapid fire blasts. They struggled against it at first, but after a few seconds of bombardment they fell still, bludgeoned to death by the explosive force, sizzling and smoking from the heat.

Xavier lowered his paws, still burning with magical energy, as he surveyed the damage briefly. One of the creatures twitched, a pathetic attempt to stand. It was met with a final, and particularly potent, blast of flames that simply tore the weakened beast to pieces, chitin and gore splattering the miniature crater formed by it's earlier writhing. The hybrid just smiled cheerily at the corpses and turned to return to the group, having moved some several yards away. It was then that a third beast, a bit late to the party, came bounding out of the trees from behind them. Xavier turned to meet it, his ears picking out the uncomfortably close sound even amongst the noises of battle. Again his lack of dexterity and speed came into play, the creature bearing down on him before he could align an attack to slow it. He raised an arm to ward off the bite, the flames of his magic offering some protection, but not enough to cease the damage altogether as fangs tore into his sleeve and flesh. He held his ground, somehow, and with his free paw he slammed the creature's face repeatedly. His physical strength was clearly not on par with Mort's to anyone watching, but the magical fire augmenting his blows lent a force to each swing that dazed the creature after several hits. Xavier's arm was bleeding severely, the caustic spittle burning holes into his overcoat and through his fur that he pointedly ignored. Free from the vice-like jaws, the mage chose the simple rout of action and just kept bashing the creature with his left fist. Now with room to properly swing his blows, the creature was quickly bore down into the ground. Heavily armored opponents were rather irksome for Xavier, who had no adequate way of cutting through, he simply had to bludgeon the things to death. This particular monster fared somewhat better than its companions, stubbornly shrugging away from some of the hybrid's punches to bite and rip at him where it could. The beast's strength eventually failed to match up, slowly caving in to the assault. It did, however, keep Xavier occupied for some time as he furiously crushed it into a bloody mess.

When he finally looked back up, his arms were smeared with blood, though how much was his own was anybody's guess. He was still smiling, though now it was a gleeful grin. The berserker mage, some called him, a nickname he had conveniently declined to mention.

[Drakeyboy]

Drake continued using his vantage point to control and gauge the battle field. He noticed that the little creatures wouldn't stop coming and the large one looked mighty angry. Maybe if the large one was killed the little ones would stop coming. He was about to lay down a charge on the large creature when the noticed the civilian and his attacker. Cursing lightly under his breath he charged him and pulled him closer to the group just as the airborne creature was shot out of the air. "Don't stay out in the open by yourself idiot!" He yelled to him hoping that the chaos of the battle field didn't distract him. Being this close though he saw the slave collar around his neck. Drake didn't wait for a awnser though the big creature needed to fall or soo the company of adventures would be overwhelmed.

He ran at the beast using his telekinesis spell to push him along much faster than any being could run closing the gap in mere seconds. Once a few strides away a ethereal blade of a unknown material appeared in his hand. It was a simple long sword with serations on it's backside. Drake used his momentum and all his force to strike at the creature's face. It saw this and riled up to roar but Drake hit it cleanly chopping off one of it's lower jaw segments. Drake then slid underneath the creature going for a stab anywhere on it's body using his telekinesis again and his strength to stab the sword much faster and stronger than any normal mortal could possibly achieve causing the blade to penetrate it's armor but because Drake was going so fast he had to leave the blade behind. Drake left in there even though he was low in mana but he needed to pull this off if he were to possibly leave it open to get the creature killed. Drake spun around as he passed the creature to continue looked at it having his hands meet again another gout of flame erupted from his hands bathing the creature in fire. But more importantly his imbedded sword. The sword heated up from the fire sending that heat directly into it's insides causing it massive pain and the sheer amount of fire over it too cause the behemoth to panic. It wanted to run but the blade that was cooking it prevent it from doing so. Drake kept the fire on it till his mana reserve ran out but by that time anyone smart enough to see what he was doing would be quick enough to finish it off.

[Eden-H]

Nemael's ears twitched when he caught Xavier shouting about their flanks. Cocking his head and shifting position, he closed off the rift that had been opened nearest Mort and created another. This one was set at the point he deemed to be the most vulnerable to attack as well as carefully placed near the rising geysers of flame. Between the impenetrable walls of fire that one mage had created and the pools Xavier was creating, their arena was neatly closed in, now only allowing entry from several specific points that could be easily maintained. Exhaling slowly, he rolled his shoulders and wings to release the tension that had been building, then began to turn in order to aid whoever else needed it.

Scanning the field, his attention was caught by the sudden movement of the mage that had leapt into the tree dashing into the middle of the fray. Confusion flashed across his face until he saw that he was ferrying a civilian that had been hiding in the underbrush. Although he did not know their reasoning for residing in the midst of a field that was obviously within hostile territory, he did find himself mentally commending them for not having been killed... yet. Watching Drake drop the civilian in the middle of their enclosed group, he took several steps back; enough that he could be heard over the din of combat without shouting.

"Can you fight?" Just after he spoke, several explosions loudly rang over the field, the air briefly becoming intensely heated. Chancing a glance back towards Xavier and Camille, he saw the hybrid in the midst of gleefully tearing a hound apart as he slammed his fist into its hide repeatedly. Immediately he found that he was rather impressed, having written the man off as yet another mage who was not physically capable. It was reassuring to know that every mage in this group at least had some prowess when it came to grappling range and fisticuffs.

"If you can't, stay in the center. But if you can, there is supposed to be something far worse than these bastards roaming the fields." Mistaking the feline for a noncombatant in the wrong place at a terribly wrong time, he was treating him less gruffly than he did those around him. His experience with those who were not entirely combat ready was superior by comparison to the men and women who proclaimed themselves great hunters and heroes.

His muzzle wrinkled at the thought.

Turning away from Neshar, he caught sight of yet another houndling that had wound its way around the field and was being taken care of by Drake. This one that had been slightly larger than the others and was the final of the monstrosities that had charged out from the trees, marking the twelfth that had been drawn into a one-on-one fight, ignoring the one currently dazed against the tree where Khaki hid. Smirking from beneath his cowl, he dashed towards Drake to aid him in felling the beast, taking note of the blade that was currently entrenched in the creatures body. Eyes narrowing, he imbued the weapon with the magic of the Shift, acting similarly to the fire that Drake had been pouring into it mere seconds ago.

Dashing around to the side, he caught sight of what remained of his gauntlets and quickly retrieved them. Fitting the clawed tips over his fingers and part of the hand brace, he kicked away what little of the metal had not yet turned into a black sludge before returning his attention to the hound. Noting that it was dancing around, slamming its body into trees and whatever else it could to dislodge the ethereal sword stuck into its back, he came running up behind the panicking creature and did something he wished he could have done in the first place.

Though it was a tricky maneuver and incredibly draining, he opened a third rift. However, not only did this one solely go into the Shift, he opened it horizontally and straight through the lower-middle of the creature. Without the efforts of Drake to slow the beast and his current proximity to the dying animal, he would not have been capable of maintaining enough energy to perform such a feat. As it was, opening tears in wide spaces was easy enough; bringing them into existence  on an actively moving target was damn near impossible. Thus when it had chosen to throw itself into one tree for a prolonged period of time, it gave him just what he required and he took no time in making use of it.

"By the Gods," he murmured, exhaling loudly. He watched as its legs and stomach were torn from its body, viscera spilling to the ground. Closing the rift once the beast was dead, he shook his head slowly and sighed gratefully.

[Khaki (on hiatus)]

Khaki had quickly dispatched the creatures that Camile had pelted against his tree with a shout of gratitude and he now pulled back his crossbow string and reloaded his next arrow with an efficiency that he'd never thought he had before. He took aim at a creature running nearby, letting the notches that he'd carved into the wood as sights hover over it's head as he tracked it.

He carefully depressed the trigger and watched the arrow shot forwards with a high pitched buzz. but the arrow sailed over his target, missing it's shoulder by two feet.
"Son of a whore!" he cursed as he heaved the string back and loaded another arrow into the breech. the creature was heading towards Silas, carefully pacing around his back as the Alsatian fought off another wolf-sized monster. Realizing he was too far for an accurate shot, Khaki jumped down from the tree to get closer to the creature. The Jackal hit the ground harder than he anticipated and had to roll to the side to avoid injury, he quickly pulled himself up and ran towards the creature stalking Silas.

Once he was only dozen paces away, the jackal aimed at the wolf-like being's flank and shot an arrow that landed squarely behind it's neck. On an normal animal the impact alone from such a well-placed shot would have killed anything up to the size of a large cow in seconds, but Khaki was painfully reminded again that these were no ordinary animals, as rather than fall to the ground dead, the creature whipped around and ran towards him, bleeding heavily as it closed the gap between them. Khaki had little time to reload and he drew the large curved dagger on his belt and faced the charging beast.

Just as the creature's acid jaw opened up to attack him, the jackal sidestepped and grabbed a hold of the arrow that lodged in the beast's neck and let it tear free as the creature passed him. The steel barbs of the arrow tore through the softer flesh of the animal's neck and left a gaping wound as was roughly pulled out. The unfortunate animal staggered onwards and weakly tried to turn as the frenzied jackal kicked it to the ground and slashed his knife across the creature's throat twice, quickly ending it's miserable existence.

He kicked the creature's head aside with a growl and ran back to join the others.

[Goblin Cat 😸]

 Everything seemed to happen in a blur as each of the houndlings fell at the hands of the group. Before he could turn to grab the third hound that had been flung at his left, it was taken by one of the mages, which caused the bully to snarl every so slightly – he'd  been looking forward to pulling his weight, but rather than dwell on it, Mort put his hand to his shoulder, suddenly feeling the burn of the acid that had no doubt settled on his shoulder with a hiss. So far as he could tell, the others were fairing just fine, with the exception of a new addition which was being taken care of. For now, he attempted to play first aid as quickly as he could manage before something was upon them again.

 
“Damn assholes,” he grumbled, doing his best to purge the acid with his blood-bourne abilities, which probably looked about as strange as it was – black blood bubbled from the wound, and as quickly as it surfaced, the canine grabbed a handful of nearby leaves and swiped the clot off his shoulder into the dirt. Resisting the urge to step on it, he returned to a standing position, glancing around at the wreckage, but before he could make a snide comment, another one of those roars echoed from the bush, now even louder than before.

[Xavier Akafur]

Xavier came trudging back to the main group, the slow fade of adrenaline giving way to a searing, acid-induced pain in more places than he cared to admit. His right arm had taken the brunt of the damage, the deep gashes caused by the creatures teeth hissing and sizzling. The hybrid was supernaturally tough, but corrosives still worked with perfect efficiency against him. He had to force himself to let go of his battle frenzy, the craving for violence culled by the immediate danger that his arm might well dissolve clear through if he did not call upon his protective magic.


Xavier was more of a sorcerer than a true mage, and his magic relied on emotional state and willpower alone. While wildfire worked much more effectively if he was angry, the silver-white shielding magic was nigh impossible to summon in that state. As his clarity of thought returned, so too did the pain of the rather severe wound. He saw the others finishing the rest of the houndlings, but could offer no assistance at the moment as he wrapped his arm in magic, a soft white light slowing from the injuries he had sustained. The minor healing properties were not even strong enough to combat the acid's corrosion, but it would slow it down... perhaps enough. Xavier was familair with acid, and knew that it would quickly lose potency... hopefully BEFORE it reached the bone.

He took his good arm and rubbed a corner of his sleeve into the wound, pulling away as much of the caustic fluid as he could. He would have to be a lot more careful sustaining wounds from these creatures, as would everyone else. As he looked around, he noticed nobody else had taken any serious damage, and mentally scolded himself for being so careless.

It was at right about that point in his thought process that the treeline ahead of the party parted like tall grass, trees falling dangerously close to the group's front-runners.  From behind the collapsing trunks stepped a beast that made Xavier second guess his decision to venture out here in the first place. Standing as tall as the trees it had so casually pushed aside was the Hound of Lockwise forest. Dark beady eyes set in the armor-plated skull slowly surveyed the scene, betraying some moderate amount of intellect. This was no simple beast like its minions, and upon seeing the carnage on the field it opened its jaws slowly, threateningly. Vitriolic acid left trails between its horrible fangs, dollops of the stuff falling the hiss and burn through the trunk of one of the trees in mere seconds. Its paws were massive, and behind each was a twin pair of spines, wicked and curved. Whatever hell this creature had crawled out of would no doubt prefer it stayed gone.

[Drakeyboy]

Drake saw the creature he was burning fall before and whooped when it fell. He removed the sword from existence and the mana that was containing it was returned to him. He almost thought it was over when he heard the second roar. As soon as he heard it he pulled a mana potion from his satchel and quickly guzzled it down quickly. If he was going to fighting another monster he needed to replenish his mana. As soon as he finished the big bad boss finally showed itself. Drake smirked he enjoyed a good challenging fight and this beast seems like he would provide. But first things first he needed to distract it or it would quickly tear apart the team. He quickly closed the gap the same way as before and gave it a strong blast of pure mana trying to knock it over.