Periapt [Survival in the world of a Cursed CRPG, Progression, Crafting, LitRPG]

The creature, which could not be identified on the indicator, screamed into the sky when it saw the four men.

By shape, it was a moose or large elk, but beyond that, there was little that Hollis could compare it to. Its fur was like cedar bark, a solid foundation of wood armor with feathery strings and strands that fell downward, some long enough to reach the ground. Its eyes were like lumps of coal that blinked. Two of them were on its shoulders, two on its neck, two on its hips, and two in the regular place.

Its antlers were far larger than the beast itself in terms of length, and they did not grow out of the creature’s head in the ordinary way. They looked like large bony fern leaves, a single column of bone with many bony fingers growing symmetrically from the sides. The antlers spread out and slowly curled and uncurled, almost like they were breathing.

Royle was back up on Jaq in a flash, and the clawed horse kept him far from danger even though the man kept telling it not to run away.

Hollis had his rifle out and was prepared to take a shot, but had hoped he could get information on the creature before he did. It was not only massive, but the wooden armor could very easily deflect a bullet, and even aiming for one of the creature’s eyes might be less desirable than running, if that was still an option. If he shot at it, it no longer would be.

Otis had his dogs at attention, quickly commanded by a series of hand motions and whistles. The dogs pointed their bodies at the moose, waiting for their master’s command.

The large wooden moose did not charge at first, but it screamed again into the sky, sounding like a roar from Jurassic Park.

Hollis and Otis had the same strategy: to move slowly and calmly to show the giant creature that they were not a threat.

[Diplomacy lvl. 1] You avert your eyes and stay still, hoping the monster will lose interest.

…

Your efforts fail.

The creature’s bony fern-like antlers began to roll up until they were a shape that reminded Hollis of a fist. It lowered its head and picked Otis’s dogs as its first target. It moved clumsily because it was not the type of thing that had to be graceful, and charged at the dogs.

“Get him,” Otis growled.

The bluffing hounds began to bark, and the sounds crunched into the wooden exterior of the moose with ferocity, peeling off chunks of the feathery cedar exterior but not fazing the creature whatsoever.

Just when the dogs’ effort seemed in vain, the pack leader let loose a bark, except unlike all those that had come before, the sound did not leave its mouth. In fact, the sound seemed to come from behind the moose, connecting with its back leg, sending a flurry of strands to the ground and surprising the moose enough that it stopped in its tracks and turned around, trying to figure out what had just attacked it.

Hollis had never known a bluffing hound to be able to throw its voice like that in the game, and the other two dogs didn’t seem to be able to do it, only the pack leader. It was throwing its voice like the buckoo birds had.

The moose did not stay distracted for long. Its antlers unfurled themselves, moving around, gathering information almost like antennas, but then they folded back into giant bony fists, and the moose again charged, but this time it chose Hollis as its target.

He was quick to dodge behind a tree, but before he could even do that, a bright light shot into the face of the moose, pestering it and dividing its attention. While it seemed able to gain sensory information with its antlers, it clearly also used sight, because Willo’s will o’ the wisp distraction worked wonders even at a low level.

The moose instead slammed its antlers into the tree that Hollis had moved behind, shearing off a chunk of wood in the process. It didn’t even seem to notice it had done it; it was so large and powerful.

Instead, it found the dogs again, which were still sending barks that gnawed at its armor.

Willo, though, continued to distract the creature, sending not only glittering copies of itself but also employing its warning beacon to create big phantasmal explosions of light.

“Do I have a clear shot?” Royle called from a distance.

“No!” Hollis screamed.

And he was not going to get one anytime soon. The moose, for as easily distracted as it seemed to be, was very quick, and when it unfurled its antlers it seemed to have a supernatural ability to know where Otis, the dogs, or Hollis were.

Dakota, however, had fled almost immediately, Hollis noticed, and was hiding behind a tree, drinking a small vial of liquid.

“You ready?” Otis called out to him.

“Just a minute, the infusion ain’t done,” Dakota called back.

Hollis got some distance and decided to use his rifle. He aimed for the creature’s face, hoping he could get it directly in the eye. He needed to hurry. The creature’s antlers were sensing around for another target.

When he pulled the trigger, it wasn’t clear where he made contact, but many strands of cedar-like bark puffed up in the air when the bullet bounced off the creature’s face. He could have sworn that was a bullseye, but if it was, it did not matter. [Marksmanship lvl. 6]

Willo had taken to the sky to get a better vantage and to stay out of danger while it shot its little balls of light at the moose, keeping the creature dancing.

Otis took an opportunity to jab at the creature with his spear, but the sound was like a knife going into a cutting board, a distinct thud but no real penetration. After that failure, Otis dropped his spear, as he was unable to pull it out of the creature’s side. He jumped behind his dogs, pulled out one of those wands of dried leaves and herbs, and began giving it breath, triggering a latent ability within one of the ingredients bound in the bundle and causing smoke to rise as the wand slowly caught fire.

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“Where are you, boy?” Otis cried out.

“It’ll take a second,” Dakota answered.

Royle asked if he had a clear shot again, and since the moose was weaving itself between Otis, Hollis, and the dogs, he did not.

“Well, move away from it!” Royle cried out.

“They’re trying!” Dakota screamed.

Hollis took another shot with his rifle, this time aiming at the creature’s ear canal, optimistically hoping that might be its weak point, but then he observed something incredible happen. The moment he pulled the trigger, the wood on the moose’s head swelled right where his bullet was aimed, causing the shot to bounce off the wooden armor, taking a chunk but not enough.

The antler on that same side of the creature’s head had turned in Hollis’s direction.

An experiment was necessary.

“Let it come to me,” Hollis screamed at Willo, who had been keeping up his job of pestering the moose, causing it to swing its head left and right.

He had a theory he needed to test.

Willo ceased sending will o’ the wisps down to protect the others.

The creature furled its antlers down into the shape of a giant bony fist once more and began charging at Hollis. He was its nearest target.

Before jumping out of the way, Hollis quickly took a shot with his rifle, aiming right between the eyes of the creature. The shot hit true, blasting a huge chunk of wooden armor off the animal.

The creature had a defensive ability to augment its armor in places it was about to take damage, but for that ability to work, it needed the sensory input of its antlers. Hollis realized that whenever they were furled into an offensive weapon, their extrasensory perception did not function well enough.

“You have to attack it whenever its antlers are curled up,” Hollis screamed as he glared at the large hole in the moose’s facial armor. If he could only get another shot in that exact spot, he might be able to kill the creature.

The moose had veered off after being shot in the face and was now chasing after Otis, who held his flaming bundle of herbs defensively, breathing into them and creating a thick cloud of smoke, which the moose breathed in.

The creature began to slow down, just as the large snakehead had when it was met with the same attack.

The moose’s eyes began to close, but before it fell to the ground or otherwise became vulnerable, its antlers unfurled and started sensing around the area. The creature soon turned tail and ran, but not for long. Only long enough for the smoke to wear off, then it turned back around, screamed to the sky, and charged again.

This time, however, it was not aiming for Otis or the dogs or even Hollis.

It was aiming for Dakota, who had jumped back into the fray, holding up his large muskrat pelt cloak in front of him like some sort of matador.

As the creature closed in on him, its antlers furled up. It struck Dakota straight on, but surprisingly did not manage to send him flying as Hollis expected.

Somehow, the muskrat cloak held firm, as if it were made of stone, as if it were some sort of shield that Dakota could hide behind. Then Dakota reached up his spear, pressed it against the moose’s neck, and began to push. While at first he had about the same luck as Otis, then something strange happened.

The spear began to get sharper. It began to pierce the wooden armor more and more, and as it did so, little flecks of steel were falling from the spear tip as the blade seemed to be sharpening itself, until it was so fine and thin that it could cut through the cedar armor of the moose.

The moose was not going to let him get away with that. While the first attack had only managed to drive Dakota back a few feet because of how impossibly sturdy the muskrat cloak had become, the creature still attacked him with its big bony antlers, reaching over his cloak shield and smacking him on the head as best it could. His bowler hat went flying after the first blow.

Hollis took another shot, aiming for that same chunk he had taken out of the creature’s face armor and managing to hit near it, blasting away another piece.

Meanwhile, Dakota was struck in the head over and over again, and while he took it remarkably well, he eventually stumbled back and dropped his cloak, which immediately fell to the ground, losing its apparent sturdiness and becoming fabric once more.

The moose then charged at Dakota again, who reached up and blocked its attack, with the moose’s antler hitting the fabric of his shirt and making a sound like a club striking a shield. Dakota’s clothes, like his cloak, were solid, hard, so hard that the creature couldn’t break through them when it pawed at him on the ground.

But it also meant that Dakota couldn’t move.

The dogs had been barking the entire time, and while they had been successful at pestering the creature, its armor was far too effective for any of their sound bites to make it through. That is, until the little pack leader started biting at the creature’s face around where Hollis had shot. Otis had just ordered it to.

It managed to peel off a large chunk of wood, exposing the creature beneath.

Hollis didn’t wait to find out if Otis wanted to kill all the moose, so he ran up with his rifle, aimed, and fired through the broken armor. This time no wood grew to block the bullet, and while the creature did not go down immediately, it lost all interest in pummeling Dakota against the ground.

Dakota, whose clothes had lost their hardness, was reaching into his bowler hat and trying to draw out another spear.

Hollis realized that the hat must have been made from packrat hide. That would at least explain why anyone from Earth would try to wear it. A hat made from packrat hide could hide all sorts of weapons or other useful items. It really was a prized object.

Unfortunately, Dakota passed out before he could draw the spear all the way out of the hat. He had taken too much damage.

“We’re clear,” Hollis called to Royle, who then threw up a handful of rocks to where the moose had wandered off to and brought them down hard with a gesture of his hands, pummeling the creature from all over.

The moose stumbled to the ground.

Otis ran up with his blunderbuss aimed at the gap in the moose’s facial armor and watched for the creature to move, but it never did again. It was bleeding from the gunshot and from the neck wound that Dakota had managed to inflict.

Willo hovered overhead, ready to help distract the creature if need be, but there was no need.

It had died.

Hollis, Royle, and Otis gathered around the creature. Dakota was still lying on the ground, recovering.

“What is this thing?” Hollis asked. “I can’t even tell what I’m looking at.”

“Me neither,” Royle said with a laugh. “It would be nice if you guys could describe monsters when they attack.”

“Some sort of moose or elk,” Hollis said.

Royle laughed again. “I thought it was a dragon from the noise it was making.”

Otis stared at the creature with a mix of intense interest and fear.

“Eidolons been making barters,” he said.

Hollis looked down at the creature and understood what he was saying. The eidolons didn’t just make deals with humans; they made deals with each other, and whatever this thing was, it had been the product of a lot of bargaining, which is why his Naturalism skill could not identify it. After all, the knowledge his skills provided him was limited to what someone from the outer islands would have known.

But Hollis didn’t need to take Otis’ word for it, or even use his own logic and understanding.

“Behind you!” Dakota screamed as he tried to sit up, a small bead of blood falling from his nose.

The others turned to see a human shape hidden in a blanket of woven leaves. All the leaves billowed around it. There was no body underneath them, or at least none visible to their eyes.

It was an eidolon.

“I am sorry,” the being said in a man’s voice. “He was so full of anger. I didn’t intend for that. How do you raise your children for war and still hope for them to tolerate peace?”

His voice sounded genuinely contrite. His apology was sincere.

But he didn’t stay long, and he didn't make any bargains. He disappeared, and his cloak of leaves turned into ordinary leaves, which fell to the ground.

Your quick experiment allowed you to understand the cedar elk’s principal weakness, that it cannot use its offensive attack and advanced sensory perception at the same time. This allowed you to use a deadly combo of distraction and destructive firepower. Having discovered its weakness, your curiosity is satisfied!

[Storytelling lvl. 1] -> [Storytelling lvl. 2]

[Signaling lvl. 2] -> [Signaling lvl. 3]