The Nature of Predators - Krev DND (2/3) (Patreon)

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There was a musty smell in the air, with the dust that had gathered on old braziers kicked up when Mavai illuminated the chamber. Lighting was a necessary evil, since a wrong step down the spiral staircase could send them tumbling in fatal fashion. Toddel burrowing underground was the only one who didn’t needed to worry about being perceptive; Juvrelor barely noticed the crumbling pebbles at the edge of a step in time to alert the group. That meant each of them had to test their athletics to hop over it. A simple ability demonstration, not a real one…

Oh. Lenelda was so lost in her torporwalk that she failed to maintain her pathing in the real world. Her tail fronds caught on Juvrelor’s shoelace—

“Would medieval humans even have shoelaces?” Blessa asked.

Juvrelor knelt to tie his shoe, worrying about that before the teetering Jaslip. “You wouldn’t know the ways of us skyfallers, since you’re not a human, Blessa. This is the land of Evrel, not any other mythical lands like…ahem, Faerûn or things I’ve heard in my myths! We are millennia ahead in footwear.”

“Bet. Can we do a side quest to get some of that for me and buff my armor? With that and my natural scales stats, I’ll be a tank!”

“Enough! Can someone pay attention to me falling? Maybe, I don’t know, help?” the Jaslip mage objected.

“Give us a second, you can slow down time—”

In fact, she could not maintain her arcane projection under duress. Lenelda howled, her magical concentration broken, as she failed in critical fashion to catch her footing. Instead, the Jaslip stepped on another tail frond, and jumped sideways toward the abyss: the complete wrong direction from the small gap. The force she applied caused the edge to crumble, and she dangled from the ledge by a forepaw.

“Always so dramatic,” Blessa grumbled. “What do I get if I save you?”

Lenelda howled maniacally. “You asshole! How about you ‘get’ that I don’t pull you down with me?!”

“You can’t reach me. Wrong answer. Good luck.”

Toddel poked their head out of the ground, rather bored by the uneventful passage through burrow travel…waiting on their aboveground teammates. “How’s it going up there?”

“You have eyes!” the Jaslip snarled.

Juvrelor raised a hand, pulling the shoelace out of his sneaker. “It’s okay! I’ll save you. I’m going to throw you this rope—”  

“Okay, c’mon,” Blessa protested. “It’s a shoelace, not a lasso; it’s not strong enough to pull up a grown Jaslip.”

“Skyfallers’ footwear is built different. We’ve covered this subject thoroughly already. I, as a human, can throw this to her very easily since that’s our species’ ability; imagine being able to do something so amazing! That should impress Mavai.”

“It will, if you can make the throw,” the Resket soldier commented. 

“And I will, of course. My cute hands will throw a pretty foot rope. Lenelda, catch!”

Juvrelor nailed the throw with his race’s ability, and Mavai steadied him as he held his end. Blessa petted the human, with claw swipes down his scalp that were like raking up leaves; this, of course, was to offer support. All primates loved being petted, since it reminded them of their natural grooming, so this did firm up the Mythmaker’s grip! +1 to the strength check: damn the fourth wall! The adorable bracing stance worked, and the human was steady to pull the Jaslip back up before her grip faltered.

The nightmare of Lenelda’s stair traveling should be over here. The Jaslip reached up to catch the super long, sturdy cord made from the skyfallers’ realm, which should’ve been easy to clamp into her mouth. She parted her jaw in anticipation of the throw, to ensure the timing couldn’t be butchered. Now, it was a simple measure of dexterity which a kit could handle, to bite into like a juicy bone…

“What is this luck? That’s three critical failures in a row! What the fuck? These are loaded dice! These are speciesist dice!” the Jaslip screamed, frothing at the mouth.

The rope struck Lenelda’s throat in just the right way that it triggered her gag reflex, and she spit it back out before she could process what happened. Her paws slipped as she missed yet another opportunity to save herself, and the retching motion had caused her body to be racked by a gasp. She lost her precarious grip on the staircase, falling into the darkness below. It would not be only Toddel on the ground floor looking up soon.

Toddel emerged fully from the ground, cracking through the stone. “I’ve got you, girl. I’d like to cushion her fall. I’ll position myself below, and use stone skin to negate damage. It works to absorb one hit per attacking force, right?”

Mavai balked, questioning this methodology. “Is Lenelda an attacking force?”

“Inadvertently, yes. Good job, Toddel!” Blessa cheered. “You’re learning how to outsmart his bullshit.”

“Lenelda deserves a break here, that’s all,” the Smigli countered. “It’s not like it’s more bullshit than the shoelace. Any source of incoming damage is an attack, even if it’s not an intentional hostile act.”

Toddel moved into position with haste, acting like a mattress for Lenelda to land on as she plummeted.  They activated stone skin to transfer the damage into the earth, a momentary boon. By a miracle, the squishy Smigli’s skin did prove gelatinous enough to allow Lenelda to survive from a great height; to explain a phenomenon that really shouldn’t work, which any narrator would know, it could be argued that stone skin canceled out the incoming force…thus saving the Jaslip too. Right. That. It was a lucky bounce after some grand misfortune…

“Stone skin cancels out falls?” Blessa exclaimed. “Right, let’s hop on down. No need to spend half an hour on some crumbling staircase. Lenelda made it, so Toddel can just catch us too!”

Mavai startled, not liking the idea of purposefully throwing himself off the stairs to…land on another party member. “What’s the intention of that ability? What was the context of its usage earlier? I’m sure the universe allowed her to survive out of pity.”

“Yeah, but the universe allowed her to survive. Fair is fair. It can’t just change the rules out of spite. You gotta take care with your explanations, if you’re gonna have a heart.”

“I…it was a guess, as the leader of this posse. We’re supposed to pass the tests to prove our worthiness.”

The Jaslip’s ears raised with pride, as she tried to save her dignity. “I carved out a better path! This will save a lot of time, and that staircase was boring anyway.”

Blessa raised her claws in the dumb way that Krev did. “Work smarter, not harder. You’re just mad we’re bypassing all of your little schemes and contrivances. Step aside, Mavai. You already decided I’m worthy, so I don’t got to listen to yo. I’m jumping down.”

“I’m ready for you, Blessa,” Toddel encouraged, replicating their exact position from when Lenelda hopped down. “You can’t be heavier than her. She needs some portion control next time we’re at camp, clearly.”

“Grrr. Yeah, hop on down here, Blessa.” Lenelda’s eyes glimmered with murderous intent. “I want to tear your tail glands off for not fucking pulling me up!”

“I gave moral support to Juvrelor,” the Krev retorted. “It made him stronger, so I did help.”

Toddel cleared their throat with impatience. “Just jump already, unless you’re gonna chicken out. I’m doing my part—I saved Lenelda, because my burrowing ability makes me the unsung hero. Once you’re all here, I’ll burrow back down and be untouchable. Nothing will even know I’m here. Give me some credit for style points.”

“Yeah, you’re doing a bang-up job. I’m coming, I’m coming. Watch me cannonball! Man, I could ground pound enemies, couldn’t I? Juvrelor, let’s practice you using me as a projectile! This might be useful later. Do some bowling to send me down.”

It didn’t seem that there was any deterring the scaly mammal from taking the plunge, especially with Toddel egging her on. The Krev rolled into a ball, encouraging a hesitant Juvrelor to toss her underhanded over the spot Lenelda had fallen; a word called “bowling” was thrown out that the human was unfamiliar with. There were many myths about the skyfallers’ culture, but it was strange how Blessa assumed she knew more than him. He should have the final authority on his own people!

The primate applied the force to send the Nutripetrologist careening into the abyss. He locked his binocular eyes, with their awesome directional focus, on the falling Krev. Blessa used the exploit to bounce off the Smigli, like landing on a cloud; just like that, three of the party members had skipped the entire stair section. Juvrelor had no choice but to join them in their unintended pathing. Toddel waited impatiently for Mavai and Juvrelor, the two holdouts.

“Well,” Juvrelor sighed. “It’s not like there was any content or encounters…any traps, with potential unexpected detours, to dodge…any crusty old skeletons or NPCs down the Unending Staircase. Let’s just skip all of that planning. It didn’t matter.”

The human hopped down onto Toddel’s back, and Mavai followed close behind to complete the transfer. The Slayers’ traps had completely failed to stop the party from getting the bottom of the dungeon. Honestly, the staircase could’ve been packed with traps, and it was the only way down; one look up showed the sun as a tiny pinwheel overhead, a long way back up the tower. Even if they got to the sunsteel, the group might need to find another way out, with the lobby having totally collapsed behind them. No, Toddel could not dig everyone out—only themselves.

Ominous creaking groaned ahead, and Mavai encouraged the party to take a stealthy entrance into the embossed brass hallway ahead. The sound of metallic joints and stomping footsteps could only belong to the Trombil’s metal guardians, using magic to bring life to mechanical suits of armor; the Slayers had tapped into all fields of knowledge in Evrel to protect their sunsteel harvesting. The real challenges lie ahead, and Blessa couldn’t plunge to her death to avoid them. The group needed to find a way to take these hardy, hostile foes down.

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A/N - More DND! Gress’ staircase of doom is derailed after Quana hits multiple critical fails and falls to her death, and he gives a BS reason why Cherise cushioning her fall worked out of pity. However, Taylor bandwagons onto it to decide the entire party is jumping down without fall damage to skip the level, like every good speedrunner. What do you think about Gress’ hard work going out the window, and how each party member is using their abilities? Will Quana’s terrible dice luck continue to plague her? How will the party tackle the Trombil golems?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting!