Book 2, Chapter 9.19: Die, Insect! (1)
Severa moved before the Chasm Broodmother even attacked.
When the creature’s thorax trembled, she was already sliding sideways just enough to not get into the line of fire. The Broodmother spat a fan of green venom a heartbeat later, but it splashed across an empty stone where she’d been. Another poison spray erupted a moment later, yet it splattered on a line she’d vacated as if she’d been warned.
By the third, Fabrisse realized with a start: she wasn’t reacting at all. She couldn’t have reacted before the creature could even do a thing. She was predicting, possibly with the help of those twelve eyes.
Still . . . something was wrong.
Fire and Light were her strengths. If the Broodmother absorbed energy, those elements would be useless. The more elemental power you pumped at it, the more it multiplied its swarms.
So what was she planning?
Severa slowed, feet gliding over stone with the wind still cinched around her ankles. She waited for the precise angle where the Broodmother’s body twisted to track Tommaso’s fire sweeps.
Then she did something Fabrisse had never seen from her.
She raised her left hand and flung a line of light that immediately solidified into a crystal chain, similar to Kaldrin’s golden one, except this one was brownish and had a grapnel hook at one end.
The hook flew into the darkness like a harpoon, the Severa flung herself into the deep. Chittering sounds resounded, then nothing. Fabrisse had no idea what happened. It was too dark to see. Yet he knew the Broodmother wasn’t dead. The insect swarm was still diving themselves toward a fiery death, now with an even more frantic frenzy than before.
“Tom, she—”
“Worry about her later.” Tom bellowed. “Watch those coming!”
Tommaso’s fires were holding, yet the swarm only grew more frenzied, hurling themselves into the fire with a mindless desperation for inexplicable reasons. It was a matter of time before one of them stopped following the pattern and decided to veer sideways instead of straight into Tom’s flames.
Fabrisse reached into his satchel for a Stupenstone. It was still his best weapon, and a stone could really hurt with the right force applied.
| [QUEST RECEIVED: Die, Insect! (1)] Objective: Slay 3 Chasm Nymphs with Stupenstone Fling Reward: +1 Inventory Slot New Skill Received: Stupenstone Retrieval (Stone Thaumaturgy Skill, Rank I) Description: You can aetherically retrieve ONE Stupenstone from anywhere within a 20-meter radius at maximum speed. Your control over the stone’s velocity is determined by your RES: at Rank I, a RES of 20 grants 100% precision over speed.
|