S_Winter
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Chapter 17: Resources
🕑 Added 2023-10-20 19:00:03 +0000 UTCThe trodil growled back at Dominic, meeting his challenge with its own baring of teeth. He was glad to see, however, that it hadn’t engaged Rage – apparently the incapacitation of its minions was not the same thing as killing them. He was glad of that – he’d been worried that, despite his best efforts, he’d gone too far with the two remaining guards.
Padding over, Dominic decided not to charge this time: the trodil was aware and ready. An attack which missed would put him in more danger than just taking things steadily would. No, for all his impatience to get this fight over, he still needed to be careful.
The trodil seemed to be of the same opinion and their first few blows were exchanged without either taking damage. Dominic swung a paw at the trodil’s face.
It dodged, then retaliated by striking at his shoulder; he reared back to get out of its range and then fell back, trying to strike at the trodil in return. It just dodged backwards.
The two opponents eyed each other, both essentially back in the same places where they’d started.
Do I actually need to kill this trodil? Dominic wondered as the stand-off continued. I just need the key piece to get into the building, after all….
Dodging back to avoid a strike from the trodil, he attempted to bite at it with his own Quick Strike enhancing the attack. He managed to grab a bit of its flesh, ripping a gash in its shoulder.
The trodil reacted quickly, though, and the crushing bite was instead turned into a glancing one. Barely a sliver was shaved off the trodil’s bar.
No, I want to kill it,he decided. Whether or not it was necessary for the dungeon was immaterial: Dominic himself wanted the PP; he wanted the Beast Core and its chance of gaining more progress towards Rage.
And more than that, there was a desire to prove himself the stronger. Whether that was the competitive spirit of Dominic or Leo, he didn’t know; all he knew was that Leo was just as determined to defeat this opponent as Dominic was.
However, the trodil didn’t know that. Maybe I can use that.
Taking a few careful steps backwards, Dominic kept an eye on what the trodil did. It followed him for the first couple of steps, but stopped once it got a certain distance away from the key piece. Excellent.
Backing up a couple more steps, Dominic then stopped. His hindquarters wiggling automatically, he exploded into a charge. The trodil bared its teeth, clearly bracing itself for him to leap at it once more.
He did leap...but not at the trodil itself. Instead, he bounded over it. His powerful hind-legs propelling him both vertically and horizontally, he easily cleared the trodil’s jaws and landed lightly on the other side of it. More importantly, he landed just over the key piece.
Both of them whirling around to face each other, the trodil was suddenly enraged to see that its opponent had successfully reached its most prized possession. Enraged wasn’t just a description of its mood, Dominic realised as it started to swell and enlarge. I may have made a mistake….
Alarmed, Dominic rushed in to strike at it before the process completed, cursing himself all the while. If he’d known that this would trigger Rage, he’d have just worked on taking it down bit by bit.
The trodil seemed to be unable to attack for the couple of seconds it took for the ability to fully activate. Dominic took full advantage of the time, slashing and biting at his opponent.
Although not attacking, the trodil still seemed to be able to move and Dominic’s attacks weren’t quite as effective as he would have liked. By the time Rage had fully taken hold, he’d knocked the trodil’s health down to just under half, but no further.
And then the trodil started counter-attacking. Now facing an opponent bigger, stronger, and faster than him, the lion found himself hard-pressed. Avoiding significant injury was hard enough; getting a blow in himself seemed impossible.
Dominic gave ground bit by bit, blood dripping down his fur, the pain lancing through him increasing with every chunk of flesh that was ripped away from him.
His health bar wasn’t dropping– he was managing to avoid the blows enough for them to only be worth a few HP each time – but it certainly wasn’t looking healthy. His stamina was no better, heading towards empty with every frantic dodge .
What can I do? His mental voice was desperate, even to himself. His first hope – that the trodil would stop when it drove him a certain distance from the key piece – was dashed when it followed him further than it had at the start. Clearly an enraged key-keeper was less concerned about its charge than a non-enraged one.
Casting glances around himself, Dominic had only one idea. Turning tail, he ran away from the trodil. It followed, but at an even pace, not running for some reason. Perhaps it thought he was fleeing.
He wasn’t. His target was instead the two minions which he’d left crippled but alive. He quickly remedied that situation: if the boss was already enraged, there was no point in keeping them alive – the boss couldn’t activate its rage twice...could it? Well, if it could, Dominic would just have to genuinely flee and hope it wouldn’t chase him into the grass.
He barely managed to activate the consumption of the second body before the boss trodil was on him again, but the two corpses had given him enough to refresh his resources a bit.
Key to that was that his stamina had jumped back up to a bit over half because Dominic only had one idea left: waiting out the effects of Rage. He had no basis for his hope except that logically an empowering state like Rage couldn’t last forever.
He’d killed the other two mini-boss trodils while Rage was still active so he didn’t know how long it would last, but it surely couldn’t be that long. Could it? And then, if I’m lucky, there will be a period of weakness afterwards. I just need to last that long.
Lasting out was easier said than done. Not trying to actually land any blows made avoiding the trodil’s easier, though Dominic didn’t go far out of its reach. Not knowing how aggression worked in this new world, he didn’t want to risk what often happened in games: losing the mob’s aggression often led to it regaining its health quickly.
He hadn’t had any indication that that might happen here – none of the trodils had shown any indication of quick healing regardless of whether they were active in the attack – but he couldn’t risk it.
Besides, the trodil had to also be burning through its stamina. If Rage relied on how much stamina the beast had, it might wear off sooner if the trodil was forced to exert itself. Or the period of ensuing weakness might be worse.
It was all conjecture, of course, and Dominic second-guessed himself many times, especially as his own stamina started flashing, indicating that it was getting far too low. If I leave it longer than this, I won’t be able to flee, he realised grimly.
About to cut his losses and just run, Dominic suddenly saw something. Is it real or just wishful thinking?he wondered. Then there was another shift of movement and he gained confidence in his observation.
The trodil was shrinking, its movements reducing in speed. From being bigger than Dominic, his opponent quickly returned to its normal size – the same as the lion himself. Elation filled Dominic as he realised that not only had the trodil’s movements reduced in speed, but they’d actually become sluggish.
Not one to miss an opportunity, Dominic surged forwards to take the offense once more.
The trodils wouldn’t give up without a fight, but now Dominic had the upper hand. Without the intelligence to come up with the same idea as Dominic had of strategic endurance, the trodil soon sustained significant wounds, its health bar finally dropping down below a quarter.
It rallied, offering a defence that Dominic might have found admirable if he hadn’t been all-too-keen to see the end of this fight.
When the end came, it was almost anti-climatic. There was no single deciding blow, no decisive throat-grab or disembowelment – though Dominic was glad of the latter considering how much it smelled. Instead, the trodil’s health bled away through its increasing number of wounds.
It weakened bit by bit, falling first to a crouch, and then onto the ground. Dominic would have given it the final coup de grace at that point, but he was distracted by something else.
Oh no, you don’t! the lion growled mentally. Leaping away from the fallen boss, Dominic struck at the cheeky trodil which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and was trying to make off with one of his keys.
He might have been close to the end of his endurance, but he was damned if he would let a bloody level 3 trodil steal one of his hard-won key pieces.Especially now he’d actually got them all.
Fortunately, the level 3 was unable to avoid his initial pounce and the battle was over almost before it could begin. It took the last of his stamina, though, and he felt the effects of bottoming out that resource for the first time.
<You have killed Trodil (Basic Beast level 3)>
<You have earned 27 PP>
Unable to do anything but pant, he layhis head down on his paws, fighting to keep his eyes open. If he couldn’t see, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself against the next attack, if there was one.
Lethargy dragged at his limbs and time seemed to stretch strangely. He was distracted briefly by a notification flashing up.
<You have killed Trodil (Half-step Evolved Beast level 7)>
<You have earned 41 PP>
Nice,he commented to himself tiredly, still putting all his effort into fighting to stay awake.
It took a little bit of time, but as his stamina returned, he started feeling a bit better. By the time he’d gained four points back, he felt able to push himself to his feet and start moving around slowly.
Now he could focus on more than just how tired he felt, he realised that he could have just absorbed the body he was lying on – it might only be a level 3, but that would still give him a few points back.
Feeling a bit embarrassed about his oversight, he quickly rectified it. His stamina jumping noticeably, he felt pretty much back to normal. Moving around the space, he found the Beast Cores he’d missed when quickly absorbing the bodies for their resources. He also absorbed the boss’ body, seeing a much large uptick in his resource pools than when he grabbed the level 3’s body.
Then, after gathering all five key pieces into the middle of the area where the key-holder used to be, he checked his status screen to see his gains.
*****
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