Ch 4 - Slithering Furies (Patreon)

Since arriving at Grant's Crossing, I'd been struck dumb on several occasions by hidden gems - marvelous locations that invited one to gawk in wonder at the sights. The brilliant underground grotto in the Bronze Bells Mine. Greck's wondrous training ground. Hell, just the forest itself was a brilliant sight, when the sun hit just right.

The abandoned Quarry was not such a place. In fact, the vibe it gave me was more horror movie than anything. The heavy fog that slithered along the ground, reducing visibility to an absolute minimum, didn't help at all. When I read the quest description, explaining that the quest was set in a quarry, I'd at least imagined a modicum of order - a place where rock and other materials were excavated, transported and shaped in an orderly manner. The truth was less impressive, as the quarry in question had apparently only been used by a couple of people, who'd continually chosen the most accessible sites to dig or mine. The end result was a large area of broken ground with alternating piles of leftover rocks and rubble, holes in the ground and a medium-sized depression where water had accumulated to form a murky lake. The entire disheartening setting was placed in a wide gorge, rising to either side of the quarry and ensuring that little light entered to illuminate the sight.

Lyle and I were standing above the incline leading down to the quarry and more than anything else, I felt like leaving the place to try another day. I really didn't feel like walking an hour and a half back to the village empty-handed though. I turned to Lyle with a sigh."You did say that the vipers weren't poisonous, right?"

Lyle nodded. "Yeah. Naevys specifically mentioned that - they're supposed to be pretty large though."

I scratched my head. "All right. Large, we can handle - we do this the same way we handled the Dire Rat, ok? And if they swarm us or something, we run."

When I first read the quest description, asking us to hunt down ten razortailed vipers, I'd pictured a pack of small snakes, likely poisonous, recognizable from their thin tails. Maybe even vipers hunting in packs that would be able to overwhelm us if they got the jump on us. Therefore, when Lyle informed me that there was no need for anti-venom, I''d reckoned today's hunt would be a walk in the park. Yeah. Right.

In this old series, there's a guy who would jump out of nowhere to sing the word "Mistaaaaaaake" at the top of his lungs if the protagonist did something stupid - my subconscious kept intruding, expecting his arrival at any moment. Instead, a grating sound from straight ahead announced the arrival of one of the vipers.

A three meter long snake with almost the size and mass of an alligator shouldn't be too hard to spot, but somehow the scaled monstrosity that came slithering up had managed to remain unseen in the midst of a pile of rubble. I didn't manage to spot too much before Lyle placed himself in front of me, lowering his shield and hunkering down for the charge. I wasn’t surprised when I saw him take a hit and stand his ground, defiant.The sight of the huge snake’s body coiling up and re-arranging itself rapidly all around Lyle’s feet, followed by Lyle stumbling back did take me by surprise however. I hadn’t even seen him get hit, but he had two bleeding lines on his legs. My gut reaction was solid though, and a Stun Blast exploded outwards, causing the large beast to lay still but for the twitching along its entire length. We both took full advantage of the monster being incapacitated. I let forth a Sonic Wave, immediately followed by a Sonic Missile while Lyle stumbled forward, wreaking havoc on the animal with his mace. Its health was dropping rapidly, but as my damage spells were on cooldown, I was momentarily useless, and decided to get a good look at the monster instead. 

A brief glance was enough to learn both where its name came from and how Lyle had been damaged even without any obvious attacks. Overall, the Razortailed Viper looked very much like a boa constrictor, only larger. The scales themselves were dull and lifeless in appearance, but the animal still looked tough enough that it’d be able to take quite a beating. What stood out was the hindmost third of the tail where I could see a number of raised ridges along the side and top of the viper. I couldn’t tell what they were made from, but they were about a handspan tall, a meter long and looked razor sharp. Of course, if they were sharp enough to cut through Lyle’s leather leggings, I really didn’t feel a need to collect further proof of just how sharp they were. My subconscious, however, was kind enough to provide me with an image of just what would happen, if the snake were to wrap the tail around either of us and - tighten. Urgh. A vivid imagination isn’t always a good thing.

While I gawked, Lyle was handing out the hurt. His hammer rose and fell in devastating overhead strikes on the viper’s cranium and I could see the health bar dropping quickly. A few hits later, the viper stirred back into action, and coiled up its tail behind it - likely in preparation for a spring attack. Lyle left no openings, however. Seamlessly, he drew back his mace and in a fluid motion took two quick steps forward, forcefully bashing his shield straight into the snake's head. It dropped to the floor again in a senseless mess, and Lyle went back to caving in its skull. I fought to keep from laughing in amazement and joined in to fire off a new round of damage spells, and the beast finally lay still.

We were both standing before the dead body of the snake, Lyle breathing heavily with his hands on his knees, and me scanning the quarry constantly, nervously awaiting the charge of another viper. Lyle admitted in a shaky voice, "That was...a little bigger than what I'd expected."

My own laughter admittedly sounded a little high-pitched to my own ears. That was one damn scary animal. "Not disagreeing with you there, Lyle. You were damned impressive though. If you keep this up, we'll have to find you a suitably dangerous nickname - Basher or Skullcrusher or something along those lines. How's the leg doing?"

He knelt to inspect the damage to his legs, but couldn't quite hide the extensive blush that blossomed all over his face. "It doesn't look too horrible. It didn't hit a muscle or cut too deep or anything.  It's just - damn. It didn't hurt at first, but it's starting to really smart, and I can't really get the bleeding to stop."

I tossed the second-to-last roll of bandages to him, and crouched to examine the viper's corpse. The body must've weighed almost as much as my own, and I was once again impressed by Lyle's sturdiness in combat. Scrutinizing it up close, I could tell that the ridges were actually part of the monster's body, apparently formed from the monster's own bone and unnaturally sharp to boot. I looted the corpse, and once again appreciated the fact that Exogenics had decided not to make the looting experience one hundred per cent realistic - sawing through the sections of the viper in order to extract different body parts wasn't exactly my idea of a fun afternoon. The items I looted were interesting though.

Viper Scales were not exactly an unexpected drop, as were the matched set of Viper Fangs I looted. The single, large eye, stalk and all was a bit more morbid, but still, made sense to me. I had not expected the three piles of Viper Meat that dropped - fine cuisine seemed to mean something different in the middle of the forest. All of the items were of uncommon quality, except for the meat, which were common. Pretty nice rewards, really, compared to some of our previous encounters - but then again, compared to taking on some small rats, this was another realm entirely. And this was only the beginning - we needed to take out at least ten of the creatures, boding well for the size of the loot pile. I couldn't wait to get home so I could tinker around with the crafting possibilities.

I chortled at my own impatience - better keep my mind on the task at hand, or I'd wind up being slowly digested in a snake's stomach. Meanwhile, Lyle got up and tested his leg, jumping up and down on the spot. The slight bleeding status he'd suffered had disappeared, and his health was slowly increasing again. Five minutes later, his health was back to full, and we got back to work.

Over the next half hour we managed to work out an almost foolproof method of dealing with the vipers, and killed off an additional four beasts. I'd blaze off a salvo of Sonic Missile and Sonic Blast, then move back and allow Lyle to Shield Bash the snake into unconsciousness and start pounding the life out of it. Then I'd shoot another salvo, and if the animal started to stir before expiring, I'd fire off a Stun Blast. Oblivion usually came right around that point for the poor animals.

Seeing as how the quarry was several hundreds meters across, narrowing slightly as one approached the furthest end of the area and, supposedly, the entrance to the Moonsong Cave, we'd decided to approach the hunt in an indirect manner. Instead of moving directly towards the cave and risk alerting several vipers at a time, we'd moved from side to side, only advancing slightly for each pass. While it was undoubtedly slower, it was also safer, and I started harboring hopes that we'd be able to clear the quarry without any challenges. Needless to say, the moment the unbidden thought appeared in my mind, things went wrong. We'd just pulled another viper from straight ahead, when a rasping sound from my left side announced the uncalled-for arrival of another hissing partygoer that'd been hiding unseen in a large depression. This one was slightly smaller and had a darker color scheme - and that’s about as much as I managed to see before springing into action.

I yelled, "Lyle. Company!" and hit the newcomer with a Stun Blast. I sprinted towards Lyle, only pausing to hit his opponent with my damage spells. "Take down this one fast. Can't handle two." He responded by sprinting forward and meeting the first viper with a horizontal mace blow, following it up with a vicious Shield Bash. I maneuvered around, placing Lyle between me and both vipers, impatiently waiting for my cooldowns to disappear. The viper was the first one to get back into business though. Its massive body went from a prone state into flinging all of its mass straight at Lyle in no time. Out of sheer desperation, I cast a Sonic Push, trying to alter its trajectory enough that it didn't hit Lyle. The blast was only partially efficient, however. While I managed to push the head slightly out of the way, the remainder of the body still hit him across the body, and bowled him over, sending him tumbling over the ground. At least the animal seemed momentarily disoriented, and with my cooldowns over, I unleashed both my damage spells, watching its health drop to about a third, and its massive head turn to fixate on me.

Right at this point, I heard a loud hiss from nearby. A brief glance confirmed the second snake bearing down on me, as unstoppable as a freight train. I barely had the time to perform a clumsy dodge maneuver before I was struck by the beast’s massive body, sending me spinning through the air like a bowling pin.

I've had the questionable pleasure of doing a whole lot of dodging and avoiding close combat attacks lately, and it’s really friggin’ hard. As in, surprisingly so. Even if your opponent is kind enough to not alter his angle of attack to follow your dodge, the mere act of decoding the situation right, deciding an intelligible course of action and then having your body react appropriately within split seconds is freakishly tough. Add to that the level of realism and the stress of combat, and it’s no wonder that most players just deck on a bunch of armor and try to tough it out.

Oh, and even if you do get it all right in the first attempt, landing correctly is another discussion entirely. Especially, if one were to take my bumbling considerations and apply them to the present situation: being hit hit mid-jump. I landed badly, tumbling arse-over-elbows across the rock-filled ground, and a few debuffs appeared in my vision, which I had neither the time nor inclination to be scrutinizing right now. I was fortunate enough to land on my stomach though. Even though I was both disoriented and hurting, I knew that lying still was asking for a quick respawn, and even before I lay still, I scrambled to get up and sprint away in whichever direction forward was. As chance would have it, that direction was straight back towards Lyle, who still struggled with the oversized snake and sported bleeding cuts in several places. I could hear a rasping sound from straight behind me – there was no way I’d be able to help Lyle take down his opponent, and still keep the monster off my own back, especially when that one hit had taken me down to 60 per cent health. With a frustrated growl building in the back of my throat, I turned 180 degrees and started playing.

Sometimes I regret not having chosen my old rogue. That one was simple. Target at a distance? Shoot it with the shortbow. Target close up? Bash it with the shortsword. That’s it. Sure, there’s more to it – parries, ripostes, overextending, proper footwork and posture and tons of other details. But it all pales in comparison to staring straight at a charging giant viper that’s going full tilt for you, and still having to concentrate enough on your playing to force out a jolly little ditty in order to not miscast your spell. I closed my eyes to be able to focus better and immediately regretted it. If only I hadn’t wasted my High Tide skill on a damn social quest yesterday evening. I zeroed my entire focus in on the one task – playing the song and releasing the Entrance Animals spell right – and in my singlemindedness, I probably wasted a couple of seconds playing before I realized that the hissing wasn’t coming any closer. Hesitantly, I opened my eyes, and had the doubtful pleasure of seeing a huge snake head within spitting distance, huge head undulating back and forth with the eyes glazed over.

No victory celebration yet, though. I turned slowly, very carefully keeping up with my playing, to see if I still had a chance at saving Lyle. When I finally saw him, I couldn’t help but let a nervous titter escape. He was down on one knee, battered and bleeding, but victorious, dealing out a final barrage of blows to the head of the downed and beaten viper. With a final, massive strike, he sank down on both knees and let out a shuddering breath. Seconds later, my constant playing brought him back to the present. His head snapped around, eyes open wide, while he took in the sight of me serenading the viper, its head swaying back and forth peacefully right next to me. Initially, when he spoke, only a slight squeaking noise came out and, try as I might, I couldn’t keep from laughing.

Moments later, his voice returned, and he asked, "Is that thing under control?"

I was happy that I’d chosen "The Pied Piper" for this spell – it really wasn’t that hard a melody to keep going, and talking while playing wasn’t really my forte. "More like kept in check for a bit. Can’t keep it up forever though." That was a bit of an understatement. With the other spells I’d cast, I was down to just over half of my mana - thank God for the Mana Well effect of my violin. "I think I can keep it up for a minute or so, and then we’ll have to take down the bastard. You up for it, or do we call it quits for today?" I could see a minor agility debuff over him, but nothing major, and his health was still above the halfway mark.

Lyle rolled his shoulders with a slight wince. "I’m good, I think. A little battered, but I managed to avoid the worst of those razors. Just give me a short breather, and I’m ready to pound this thing into pulp."

When I let the enchantment drop a minute later, Lyle went to town on the poor animal. His initial overhead strike howled through the air, batting about the viper with enough force that it stood no chance of regaining its composure, let alone strike back. He got in two fast blows before following it up with a massive shield bash, leaving the snake lying at full length on the ground. He put his entire body into the overhand strike that followed, and actually managed to rock the heavy body back half a meter from the impact.

Sure, I did my part, rolling out my damage spells. Also, when the animal stirred, I shot off a Stun Blast, grinning as, moments later, the viper went down for good. But above all, the damage Lyle was dealing out left me amazed – he’d improved to an impressive degree over the time I’d teamed up with him. I brought up his skill list and whistled in amazement.

Skill Name                 Level                      Rank                          Stat

Armorsmithing           14                           Apprentice               Str. 

Barter                           4                           Novice                       Cha. 

Blunt Weapons:           4                           Novice                      Str. 

-1-h and Shield            5                           Novice                      Str.

       - Shield Bash        5                           Novice                      Str.

       - Shield Kick         2                           Novice                      Str.

       - Crushing Strike  1                            Novice                     Str.

  -2-h  weapon              1                            Novice                     Str.

 Heavy Armor               9                            Novice                    End.

 Lore                              6                            Novice                    Int. 

   -Crafting Lore            8                           Novice                    Int. 

   -Geography               10                          Apprentice             Int. 

    -Groupings                3                           Novice                    Int.

     -History                    4                           Novice                    Int. 

     -Local Lore:   

Dawnlight Forest         11                           Apprentice             Int.

     -Magic Lore              3                          Novice                     Int. 

     -Nature                     7                           Novice                    Int. 

      -Religion                 3                           Novice                     Int.

Mining                           4                           Novice                    Str. 

Spot                               3                           Novice                    Per.

Incredible. He had seen some rapid over-all improvement across the board and was moments from gaining the Apprentice rank in Heavy Armor, but the best part was that he’d received an additional combat skill – Crushing Strike. Looked like a good choice for when he needed to dish out the hurt.

Crushing Strike

You unleash a monstrous strike upon your enemy which causes increased damage and has a chance to further daze and disorient whomever is struck. There is no cooldown, but the strike is very fatiguing to use.

Causes regular weapon damage + 80%

Chance to daze enemy

Cost: 40 stamina

After that close call, we decided that we deserved a good, long break. Neither of us mentioned going back, though – after the stress of the encounters we’d survived, we weren’t going back empty-handed. I did check over Lyle’s status to ensure he wasn’t just toughing it out, but the momentary debuffs had disappeared when his health returned to maximum.

Over the next hour, we – cautiously - approached the far end of the quarry in ever-tightening circles. We’d grown quite adept in catching the attention of single vipers and luring them back were we’d be reasonably certain no other monsters would aggro us. All told, we finished off twelve of the imposing, tough sum’bitches before reaching the end of the quarry where we stood, staring uncertainly at what was clearly the Moonsong Cave. It wasn’t due to the cave entrance being imposing or anything. It was actually quite wide and spacious, as these things go. Only…instead of entering, we were shuffling our feet and studiously not looking at each other.

Lyle was the first one to raise his voice. “Y’know, technically, we’ve done what Naevys asked us to do – we could just call it a day?”

I grunted. “Yeah. With how dangerous those vipers were, there’s no way anybody could expect more of us.”

Silence fell over us again, before Lyle continued, “Except we’re not going to do it, are we?”

“Yeah, no. I mean, if you want to? It’s just – If we don’t clear out those eggs, the snakes are likely to return in large numbers shortly. Also, I really, really want to find out what’s down there.” I definitely wanted to complete the entirety of the quest. The difference between completing the basic part of a quest and completing all of it could mean a dramatic change in rewards.

He nodded, frowning. “Me too. Me too. Of course, there’s bound to be something even larger and uglier down there, right?”

“Almost certainly. With our luck, it’ll be a large pile of vipers. Or a room filled with tunnels, snakes bursting from every possible - .”

Lyle punched my shoulder and barked a weak laugh. “Stop! Seriously. My imagination is running wild as it is. Let’s just get this over with”