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PW Chapter 45: The Irregular
🕑 Added 2025-06-20 21:01:43 +0000 UTCThe hunched creature resembled a gnoll, at least, in form. Same hunched, muscled neck, long arms with stubby fingers, canine face and jaw, everything. Instead of being furry, though, it was scaled, thick green segments of natural armor covering its body. Along its back, where gnolls had a ruff of fur, the ruff had been replaced by a webbed frill from the base of its skull to the center of its back. Finally, instead of the short, almost forgettable tail of regular gnolls, this had a long, thick one that seemed to be unable to move. While they looked in stunned silence, the lizard gnoll thing stood up and sniffed deeply of the air. It seemed to catch the scent of something, but after considering going somewhere, it instead settled back down on the ground.
“That’s an irregular.” Skandr whispered. “The Dungeon proper has lesser drakes where it joins with this offshoot, so this makes sense in concept. More drakelike gnolls are the most common irregulars found here, but only on the fourth floor.”
“It’s killed a couple gnolls.” Astrid said, gesturing with her head at a couple bloody smears on the ground, tufts of fur and flesh sticking together.
“Something… is strange about this. Why has it not moved? How is it here?” Muti asked.
“Good question.” Astrid said.
“There’s magic that’s happened here.” Skandr said straight away pointing furtively. “Look at the scorch marks. It can’t breathe fire, and if it was a Shaman it’d have some sort of a casting focus instead of the hand wraps. It’s a brawler, so what burned the field? The burns are in a nearly perfect circle, so I think something’s keeping it here, at least for now. But what?”
“That’s an even better question.” Astrid answered. “I… should we leave? Go somewhere else? Or do we want to test ourselves here? I’ll leave it to a vote. I’m maybe half split either way.”
“We kill it.” Muti said with a wide grin. “It will be great experience.”
“I think we should hunt it too.” Skandr said, surprising Astrid. When she looked at him, surprised, he shrugged. “It’s really valuable. We’d finish our delve with this fight because we’ll need to take the body back, but it’ll pay us at least a couple silver apiece. Then there’s the experience.”
“Do you know how much experience it’ll give?” Astrid asked, curious.
“Well, not as much as we’ve gotten the rest of the day. But more than a regular pack would.” Skandr said.
“That is not something worth mentioning.” Muti waved him off. “But we should hunt it. Learn to fight that which is new.”
“Well, if that’s the case, my opinion doesn’t really matter.” Astrid nodded. “But for what it’s worth, I like this turn of events.”
“Then let us retreat and plan, since it is stuck here.” Muti said. “We should do what we can to ensure we are victorious.”
***
Some fifteen minutes later, they were ready and made their way back towards the drake gnoll. It had settled down like its fellows usually did, but instead of laying down and seemingly trying to sleep, it merely settled onto the ground in a sitting position, its hands settled on its thighs. Then, as it sat in that same position, it continued breathing deeply. Its head was bowed, but there was no mistaking that it wasn’t going to be surprised. Disappointing, but not at all surprising.
Skandr’s buff, which he’d finally named as Lightning Reflexes, pushed into Astrid and Muti. Skandr himself would stay back and focus on harrying the beast as well as he could from a safe position with the rest of his mana. To Astrid fell this opening attack. She felt her anxiety spike, but she pushed the fear down and instead forced a smile onto her face. After all, if she was going to do this, she needed to be totally ready. Quick Recovery was off cooldown, and she was all ready to fight the beast in front of her.
She rushed forward, as quietly as she could manage, but the gnoll surged to its feet in readiness before she could arrive. With a roar of challenge, it threw its head back, and she arrived just before it was fully in its stance. Her hammer swung forward, aiming for its shoulder. To her surprise, though, it stepped forward, past the head of the hammer. Instead of smashing into it or forcing the monster to give her space, it made it past her outer guard nearly immediately.
Astrid’s shield swung into its opposite shoulder, and though it made solid contact, the gnoll stayed close. She kept the massive tower shield between them, but it grabbed the edge of the shield with its right hand and pulled, trying to wrench open her guard.
The irregular was stronger than her, and the shield moved. She stepped back, resetting her stance and her hammer’s positioning, but the damned monster was quick. It darted forward and its left fist struck her upper arm. Through the mail and gambeson, the bone-studded knuckles tore her skin and Astrid felt hot blood running down into her bracer. She couldn’t push the irregular back, though, and she felt the panic set in. After all, the plan needed her to hold strong for a little longer—
Muti’s silhouette barely flashed in the corner of Astrid’s eye before the Rogue was there, both hands on the hilt of a single sword. It plunged deep into the monster’s right side, though the monster’s scales screeched against the metal as Muti twisted and pulled her sword free. With a roar, the monster released Astrid’s shield and swung backwards wildly at Muti. Its fists whistled through the air as it sent a blistering combo at the Rogue’s face, body, and weapon.
Blessedly, the Barbarian managed to keep the worst of the blows from landing, though when she sent a slash back at her attacker, her sword was knocked clean out of her hands with a crack of bone and a clatter of metal. It flew off to the side of the small clearing in the field and Muti hissed in pain, her left hand’s fingers obviously broken. She didn’t care and drew her other sword from her hip as she roared back in challenge. The gnoll looked at Astrid, but to its surprise, she was stepping back. The same second that it turned its attention back to Muti, two small bolts of lightning shot out and hit it squarely in the back.
It whipped back around, now finding it had enemies in every direction, seemingly, though Skandr didn’t reveal himself. The lightning did its job, though not nearly as notably as it did against the regular gnolls. Instead, it merely jittered a couple of times as it struck out at Muti. That was its mistake. With the irregular’s wound presented wide open to Astrid, she seized on it. She roared in effort as she executed a textbook shieldbreaker swing right into the heavily bleeding gouge in its side. The head of the hammer smushed into the incision and pulped flesh. Though it tried to ignore it, the irregular was weakened by the hit, and with someone assailing it on both sides while its speed was heavily hampered, it took hit after hit.
The only additional wound they sustained in taking the beast down was when Astrid shoved it to the ground with her shield. As she did so, its left arm curled around and smashed into her right breast. Thankfully, her pauldron and chainmail slowed the hit enough to keep the bones from piercing through, but Astrid had the wind knocked out of her with that hit. Muti took the opportunity to stab through the fallen gnoll’s upper body, and the majority of its strength left it with that second grievous wound.
In her own rage, Astrid raised her hammer high and screamed as she smashed it down into the downed monster’s skull. Surprisingly, the skin and scales held together, though Astrid saw the skull pulverize as the kill notification appeared.
Scaled Gnoll Irregular slain. 63 Experience gained, split among party.
“Irregulars give triple experience, right?” Astrid asked, her adrenaline still high enough that the blood soaking her right arm and the aching in her breast didn’t dilute the exhilaration too much.
“Yes.” Skandr said as he poked his head into the clearing. “So that was a level 9, huh?”
“Level 9.” Muti grinned. “A good experience! Much stronger than the others like it!”
“That’s why it’s an irregular.” Astrid said, the aches slowly coming in more and more. She activated Quick Recovery and sighed in relief as the pain faded to a mere discomfort. Looking down at her arm, the blood wasn’t flowing nearly as continuously now, and she nodded in self-satisfaction. “How’re your fingers, Muti?”
“They will hurt until they do not.” She answered simply. “There will be no problems, since today we will return.”
“Fine.” Astrid almost left it at that as she gathered up the irregular’s body, but a thought occurred to her, so she said, “I’ll carry the corpse for now so you can keep an eye out and make sure we don’t stumble across any more gnolls. Or idiots who get any ideas. Skandr, stay beside me to keep an eye on our ‘treasure’ in case anything happens to it if I’m forced to fight.”
The Rogue nodded in confirmation, her head immediately on a swivel as she looked for any disturbance. Astrid, however, pulled her knife out and cut a couple of long, thin slices into several places along the monster’s neck, ribs, and stomach. Then, satisfied that that would bleed the majority of the creature as they walked out for now, Astrid grabbed it by an ankle in her right hand and started walking.
Skandr followed quietly beside her, looking at the blood soaking her shoulder and then down at the monster she held in that same arm. She knew what was coming next, and slowly decided what she was going to say. Just before the question came, Astrid settled on the truth.
“How’s your arm feeling?” Skandr asked quietly.
“It’s fine. Gonna need to take some time to let it rest, but I’m doing pretty good, to be honest.”
“And… how?” Skandr insisted. “You were bleeding everywhere. You should have a pretty serious wound, and you’re just… fine?”
Astrid nodded slowly, then called out to Muti, “Is there anyone nearby?”
“No.” She replied, having been obviously eavesdropping on the conversation. Her attention was on Astrid as she decided to speak.
“I have four Skills, just like you. Weapon and Shield Skills, one that helps keep me from being too overloaded when I’m wearing heavy armor… and one called Quick Recovery.”
Muti hissed. “If that is what I think it is, then that… is a good Skill. One that all Hordemasters desire.”
“I suspect that it is.” Astrid said, thinking of her father’s owner when he was still a slave. “The passive of it is that I recover more quickly. The active allows me to recover a tenth of my health, mana, and stamina once per hour.”
“So you used it to recover after this fight?” Skandr clarified. When she nodded, he whistled under his breath while Muti’s face shifted to darker and darker shades. Eventually she nodded once, tersely, then stalked forward while staying within seeing distance. Astrid figured she knew what was causing that reaction, and she didn’t know what, if anything at all, she should say. In the end, she just shrugged.
“Yeah. So, I can recover after fights, especially if we have a good amount of downtime. Still get tired and so on, but that’s my best Skill.”
“So…” Skandr said, looking at Muti but still unable to hold himself back, “will you need to sleep when the Skill evolves? Like, will you just be an unsleeping, unkillable machine?”
“I don’t know.” Astrid said honestly. “I just have the Skill, I don’t know anyone else who does, so—”
“You will need to sleep.” Muti said. “There are some who have experimented with it. At a certain point, the body refuses to continue being awake. I believe it was after seven days? Maybe nine. The base thought is that it will allow you to stay up for one extra day, though as your Fortitude climbs, your body acts less and less like a regular person’s.”
“Thank you, Muti.” Astrid said as they continued striding forward. The Barbarian nodded in response but said nothing else as they walked. Skandr too gave in to the awkward atmosphere, and they walked in silence for several minutes. A kilometer, two kilometers, at least three kilometers passed with little to nothing said, but then, Muti broke the silence with a curse in her mother tongue.
“There is a pack. They are awake, and they are coming.”
“Duchess bless us.” Astrid wasn’t sure if what she was saying was a curse or a prayer, but she dropped the irregular’s corpse as she pulled out her hammer. “Skandr, buff us, stay with the body. Muti, how many?”
“There are three.” She grunted as she hunched low in the field. “They follow the scent of blood. Maybe they spawned in our wake? I do not know.”
“And they’re following the blood trail?” Astrid asked, a little hopeful.
“Yes.”
“Then can we ambush them? Go to the sides, a little ways away from the body? Leave it as bait or something?”
“You’re leaving me as bait?” Skandr demanded, not quite angry but definitely unhappy.
“If you want to leave the body to possibly be savaged by the gnolls, I get it.” Astrid answered with a shrug. Skandr scowled but nodded as he set himself up between where the gnolls were coming from and the corpse.
“Come on Muti. You take out the ranger?”
“Yes.”
With little else more to say, Astrid and Muti jogged up, Muti giving Astrid instructions on where to hide and how, Astrid following the directions to the best of her ability. Then Muti ducked low under the cover of the fields and slipped away, her stealth Skill hiding her from Astrid’s view.
Then, there was waiting. Astrid wanted to ask how long they’d have to wait, when they would be here, but she needed to keep her mouth shut and her ears open. She forced herself to hold still and to say nothing, and before too long, the gnolls came close. Astrid struck out with her hammer at the first one that came by, its knee splintering under the steel hammerhead. It fell, momentum carrying it to the ground.
Astrid lunged forward with her hammer and shield held high, ready to take on the next brawler. It threw its punches, each one thudding heavily into her shield as she hunkered down behind it. When it tried to grab the edge and pull it away, Astrid laughed aloud at how much weaker it was than the irregular. She smashed her shield fully into its chest and knocked it back, though she stayed behind her shield. It was just in time, as well, as an arrow thudded into the wood of her shield and stuck there.
Peeking over the edge of her shield, Astrid saw as Muti dashed out of the cover of the tall grass and slashed the ranger’s throat wide open. Taking that as her queue, Astrid pushed into her shield again as she stepped back and then, with an attack that was becoming more and more second nature to her, crippled the second brawler. As the death notification for the ranger appeared, Astrid struck the closest brawler in the head with the hammer, then the next.
Now with another 15 experience, she called out to Muti, “You want to harvest it or just keep moving to make sure we can keep away from the next wave that might come?”
In answer, Muti pulled the gnoll’s head back and, with two hacks of her sword, decapitated it. She held it away from her body by the fur as she worked on the fangs, and Astrid grunted. For someone unconcerned with money, why was she so happy to work extra for it was a mystery. Astrid didn’t concern herself with it, instead chuckling as Skandr set about ripping fangs and ears free from the two dead gnolls by her as fast as he could. Before long, they were back on track, dragging the irregular’s corpse onward.
There were no more ambushes, and as they entered the stairway going up, Astrid sighed. She’d need to hold the corpse on her back from now on, and she wasn’t looking forward to it. There was nothing for it but to do it, though, so she grunted, put the heavy, bloody corpse on her back, and heaved it up the stairs. Muti and Skandr went ahead of her, and as her legs complained about the weight, Astrid pushed the complaint down. After all, she was carrying something that was worth a fortune. Maybe. Hopefully.
She stepped out into the field, and wondered what the Guild would have to say about this. Hopefully, the reaction would be good enough to keep the heat off their backs for threatening those three idiots. Only time would tell. Astrid continued walking.
