Bacon Macleod
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B3 Chapter 397: Hunt, pt. 3
🕑 Added 2025-09-06 21:30:01 +0000 UTCThe slug rippled, sliding over an ancient and forgotten courtyard.
A gelatinous creature, it was half again as big as Porkchop, and left a smoking trail in its wake. Every drop of excretion sizzled as it touched the leaf litter scattered over old stones.
Kenva held her breath, holding a bow in a white-knuckle grip as she watched Ianmus dash to the side, a trail of light burning up behind him.
Her friend was just in time — a spray of acid landing right where he’d been standing.
The biome was an interesting one. Some type of garden city, or the ruins of one at least. She forced her heart to slow, watching the fight play out in the square in front of her from a perch atop a half-collapsed roof at its edge.
“Come. He’ll be fine,” Kaius said to her left, watching the fight play out with confidence. That said, her team leader still had his blade in hand — ready to lurch into motion at the slightest sign of things going awry.
“I know,” Kenva replied with a sigh. “It’s just hard to watch. Of all of us, he’s both the slowest and the most fragile.”
“And that’s why we followed this thing for the better part of a day — to be sure it was a good matchup for him,” Porkchop said from the base of the broken wall she stood on.
Lacking both her and Kaius’s agility, he was no less ready. His claws were half-dug into gaps between flagstones to give him the grip he would need to launch into motion in an eyeblink.
A lance of light cut across the courtyard, erupting from the keyseal that hovered at the tip of Ianmus’s staff. It bored deep into the body of the Champion, its wet flesh sizzling at the edges of the hole that punched through it length wise.
Flesh rippled and sealed itself shut a moment later.
“It’s tough and heals fast, sure,” Porkchop continued, acknowledging the sight, “but the thing moves slower than a walking pace, and, for all its Skills are deadly, it’s only got one that it can use at range. It’s a terrible shot, too.”
Kenva nodded. She knew that, but it was still hard to watch.
One slip-up and Ianmus could end up dead before any of them could react. It didn’t matter that the Champion was a good matchup for him. Plus, it was one of the few beasts that would give her frontline trouble. Its acidic area skills would be almost impossible to dodge up close, and just as difficult to block — let alone its regeneration, which would make it impossible to put down quickly.
Still, Ianmus was as skilled and dedicated as any of the rest of them. With his focused Mentis and Corporus aspects, he was far more capable of channeling on the move than most mages.
She just wished the fight wasn’t taking so godsdamned long. He’d been at it for the better part of half an hour, and was still in the thick of it. The other two Champions he’d soloed in the last week had been drawn-out fights, but this was something else. Thank the gods they still had plenty of mana potions.
Another beam of light cracked as it sizzled the air, and the slug champion undulated silently. Kenva forced herself to breathe. Ianmus burst away from a spat gob of acid, ducking behind a wall that smoked and dripped as the Champion’s skill ate through the stone.
She was focused, but her right hand idly spun an arrow. It would be worth it, she told herself.
Risking a glance at her status, she peered over the two new honours she herself had earned.
When Killers Meet:
Honour
You know, we work pretty well together. Never thought I'd say that about a brute with daggers for teeth, but hey, that’s the Nexus for you. One day you’re a bright eyed idealist, and then the next thing you know you’ve got a shulka pipe hanging out your mouth while you’re elbow deep in some asshole's neck. Place changes you, eh?
Awarded to those in a group of four or less who slay nine Champions that are at least 75 levels higher during the first tier. Provides a Minute increase to Depths rewards. +5 all stats, +3% all stats.
….
The Mighty Stand Alone:
Honour
Friends? What are those? Can you eat friends?
Awarded to those who slay three Champions unaided that are at least 75 levels higher during the first tier. Provides an Infinitesimal increase to skill levelling speed. +5 all stats, +3% all stats.
Both of them had come as a surprise.
Sure, they’d theorised that they could exist based on the Honours that Kaius and Porkchop had achieved as unclassed, but they’d had no sense of the scaling. They’d hoped that it would have been an Honour contained to the first tier, but it wasn’t guaranteed.
What was doubly surprising was the names. Despite clearly being a part of the same chain as the ones her frontline had already earned, they carried a different title. In a sense, it did help to explain how unclassed honours had gone undiscovered for so long, even when the first generation of Observed had existed. There had been no hints, even if these honours had been achieved before.
At least, that’s what he assumed had happened due to all the ‘first’ bonuses he and Porkchop had gotten.
They stumbled upon the team-based one first, purely by coincidence. While they had planned to test it, it was supposed to come towards the end of their delve. They’d assumed the level differential would need to be greater.
While they hadn’t been actively pursuing it, they weren’t just pursuing Honours — they were also after loot. Second tier gear was expensive. Even if they didn’t find things suitable to them, what they found could still be sold or traded so that they could get artefacts that were.
Kenva smiled in satisfaction at her new boots — a purple leather so deep it was almost black. They were made of a fine scaled hide almost identical to the snake Champion that guarded them.
Regardless, once they’d discovered When Killers Meet, their priority immediately pivoted to finding opportunities to solo.
Kenva shook her head in jealousy, remembering how easily Kaius and Porkchop had gotten theirs.
The fact that their bond let them partially ignore the solo requirement was, frankly, utter bullshit — it removed most of the difficulty. Throw in the fact that both of them were more durable than a dwarf wrapped in heavy plate? It hadn’t taken them long at all.
Leaning on Kaius and Porkchop’s sense of Champions, they’d blitzed across biomes as fast as they could — scouting each one for suitability. Finding ones she could safely face had taken a week. With her manoeuvrability, range, and the speed she could draw, she had a fair bit of leeway. She’d taken a few scrapes and bumps, broken an arm or three, but she’d done it.
Ianmus though? He had it rough. Poor bastard.
They had scouted Champion after Champion, looking for battles that would be appropriate for their mage. Every single one had eaten into their delve, and forced them to move as swiftly as they could.
The one benefit was the Champions they had found, usually were at such an extreme affinity disadvantage that he had been able to manage them handedly.
His first — a darkness-aspected ambusher — had been utterly neutered by Ianmus’s ability to banish the shadows. Its warping and incorporeal flesh had boiled in the face of his beams.
That biome had been fruitful — his second Champion coming from the same place. A slow brute, and durable. Still, the end result was the same — his solar light sapped them of energy, and left them weak and fragile.
Those fights had been two biomes ago, though, and this was the best thing they’d found since.
Kenva’s eyes sharpened. She caught sight of a disk of light peeking out from behind a wall of crumbling masonry. Ianmus, hidden in cover.
A sheet of solar energy, three long strides tall and as thin as paper, burst into existence.
It ripped across the courtyard — just slow enough to track, a telltale sign of the mage’s Lightweaving. It wove around rubble, avoiding anything that would expend its power — the attack circling around the slug Champion.
It crackled with potency, Ianmus’s investment of energy plainly visible.
The slug spat a stream of acid towards the racing guillotine. It simply swerved around the counterattack.
Kenva felt her stomach clench as the spell punched straight through the midsection the Champion. Ichor steamed as it met solar light. The spell tore free — light curving as it slammed back in again. Split in three, the Champion slopped into a pile of viscera.
A great deluge of boiling innards ate its way into mossy stone.
Kenva felt her tension unknot. Surely the fight was done — even for a second tier beast, surviving being thirded was a bit much.
She cursed, clenching her bow as the wound on its head-segment boiled — nerves and flesh extruding in wispy tendrils. Disgusting — and dangerous. Ianmus wasn’t out of the fight yet, and his spell must have drained him heavily.
Perhaps this wasn’t the one. She clenched.
“See? I told you it’d be fun. It’s a good matchup.”
“Something could still go wrong,” she replied, cutting off her approach to watch the slug inch its way across the gardened courtyard once again.
“It could… but I doubt it will. And if it does, we’re here to help.” Kaius shot her a smile.
Kenva nodded, though the reassurance did little to fully suppress her worry.
How quickly this gaggle of battle-mad miscreants had wormed their way in. She’d been wary at first, the malice of her circumstances weighing on her.
That had changed as they’d entered the delve.
They worked too well together, and they obviously cared for and supported each other — and for her too.
After the stories of the southern lands, isolated in cruel ways, and her treatment at the hands of Old Yon, she’d struggled to believe it at first. Damn fools had ground her down. Kindred spirits who had dragged her up impossible heights and over the strangest horizons — the kind she’d always dreamed of.
Fate was a fickle thing, but it seemed sometimes even Ellyntir could find kindness in her godly heart.
She doubted she would ever thank Old Yon for those months of confinement — the hardship and pain she had faced — but she could admit it was hard to imagine never having met these three.
At the very least, she wouldn’t feel like she was on the verge of a bloody heart attack right now!
A long stream of silver hair burst across the courtyard as Ianmus sprinted out of cover. The wall he had sheltered behind dripped — melted almost halfway through.
The mage dived — skidding behind another low wall, mana already streaming into his staff. It coalesced in front of the keyseal adorning his staff, as Ianmus downed a mana potion with his other hand.
Kenva let out a low breath, rolling an arrow through her hand.
Comments
Pierre Tadrus
Would the pivot not make more sense when discovering the might stand alone to pivot to solo?
Joshua Little
Thanks for the chapter.
Aloofscarab
These have been fun, but man I can't wait for the class evos!
Robert Gardner
TFTC. Nice to see a Kenva chapter and her thoughts. Nice to know about the equivalent champion honours. Edits: At least, that’s what he assumed had happened due to all the ‘first’ bonuses he and Porkchop had gotten. ➡️ At least, that’s what she assumed had happened due to all the ‘first’ bonuses he and Porkchop had gotten. Should be she here as it is Kenva's thoughts
