Vol. 2, Ch. 85: Roc On!
If there was one thing more dangerous than giant birds, it was apex predator bird mothers who had just found out that their mate was dead, their eggs were being stolen for arcanistry science, and their lair had been violated.
So, odds were good this fight was about to get messy, and Neska had infuriated a natural-born predator of snakes.
Kalloway put up a massive [Ward Barrier] over the entryway just as the Roc matriarch landed in a screech and a scrape of rocks being cleaved by its massive talons. It jabbed its hooked beak at the barrier, which flickered but held. “Okay, New plan. You four fall back and see if you can find another way out through the tunnels!”
“Professor, that leaves you holding off one pissed-off bird!” Brent interjected. “You’re not holding that thing off for long!”
The bird kept pecking at the barrier, then used the claws on the knuckles of its wings to conjure more golden energy, firing a stream that buckled the barrier inward. Kalloway reinforced the barrier with a steady flow of mana, but Neska knew this was a losing battle.
“We can pick when we engage," she said sharply.
“What?!”
“Professor, you are already fatigued and mana-depleted, given that our last exertion was only fifteen minutes ago. The more time we talk, the less mana you have to work with. We need to attack it in close quarters, or it’ll fry us like bacon over a griddle,” she insisted. “Syra, you’re with Brent and me. Professor, go with Juni and retreat up the tunnel, guard that egg!”
Kalloway glanced her way, then back toward the Matriarch, bashing away at his barrier with intermittent energy blasts. The barrier was turning an unhealthy yellow from the repeated blows.
“Cassia, your call!”
Juni motioned for the backpack, which Brent hastily took off and handed to her. “I can do this, I’ll keep it safe. You focus on keeping that thing off my back, I’ll go get the garrison! I’m probably the fastest of us besides Brent, but he’s needed here!”
“Miss Semou, I’ll be right behind you.” Kalloway thrust his staff butt down, and in a flash of light, it had transformed into what Neska would have called a rather ragged, beaten-up-looking broom with thatch threads in a tightly wound bundle on one end. He held the barrier steady against the onslaught, and Neska drew her bow, drawing one last incendiary arrow.
It was a gamble. Roc Matriarchs were more resilient and, unlike their lesser brethren, possibly fire resistant. The guide had expressed some debate on that last resistance. “On three!”
Syra charged up water within her, her arms looking like boiling water as she assumed her hydro form, and an unnatural breeze ruffled Brent’s fur, running his hand over the blade and rapping it again with its claws to make that uncanny vibratory sound.
“One…two…”
The roc bashed at the barrier, the protection almost depleted, and Kalloway sweating and shaking. Juni was already headed down the tunnel back to the entryway, with what Neska suspected was about to be a flying pick-up.
“Three!”
The barrier burst into bouncing red sparks that spread in every direction as the creature tried bashing again. Instead, it overcorrected and smashed its beak into the ground from the force, landing on its wing claws, giving Neska and the others their opening, firing in tandem.
Kalloway took off on the broom by wrapping his legs around it and kicking off, rocketing down the corridor, trailing small particles of light.
Okay, not going to lie, having a broom would have been cool if familiars weren’t even better, and those brooms came sized for lamias. She snapped her attention to the danger in front of her.
Right. Battle first, contemplation later.
She loosed the incendiary arrow, which detonated on the Roc’s chest. The flames smoldered on its feathers, failing to ignite. It was less effective than she liked, even with her new boon with Alchemical effects. Maybe it carried some fire resistance?
Syra’s hydro cutter failed to pierce, and the Roc shielded its body with one wing stretched forward, advancing steadily and using the feathers like a barrier shield.
The wolfling charged and rolled under the exposed wing as the creature snapped and missed. Brent's blade sliced and sang, along with a follow-up uppercut from his claws that struck the creature, dealing superficial blows and drawing blood on one of its legs. It screeched and flapped its wings, bashing him against the side of the cavern when he was too slow to fully evade the blows.
Neska didn’t let up, firing off another arrow filled with one of Brienne’s seeds. With stunning speed, the Roc swerved its head, intercepting the projectile with its hardened beak. The arrow shattered and clattered to the side, ineffective. She followed up with several [Venom Bolts] to try and dissuade it in a rapid-fire assault.
But the Roc was easily keeping them all dodging as it shot out more beams of energy from its wing claws, if somewhat diminished in intensity. Neska coiled over it and used a [Coiled Strike] to temporarily harden her scales and land a sweeping blow with her tail, then used her [Spring Scales] to bounce off, buying distance and sending the bird skidding backward, away from Brent, who was slow to move.
Syra surged in and grabbed the wolfling, soaking him as she dragged him from piercing talons trying to claw him into pieces. The Roc was quite proficient in hovering, even in the cavern's confines, taking turns attacking each of them. It was always trying to position itself so no one could flank it.
Neska tried again to deliver more venom with her arrows, scoring several hits, but it wasn't enough. She suspected that, given its size, the venom dosage was slower to reach potency. Several times, she had to dodge, narrowly avoiding the serrated beak and scrabbling talons.
“Brent’s hurt!” Syra called out. “Bleeding out, bad!”
Neska reacted, switching her [Venom Imbuement] to the [Love Bites], feeling a tingling sensation as the venom composition changed in real time. She quickly spat a stream on the rather large gash on his leg. He shouted in surprise, but upon contact, the venom hardened like resin, slowing the profuse blood loss from earlier.
Meanwhile, Syra battled the creature, cutting at feathers with her hydro cutter, and dodging with fluid agility as it failed repeatedly to hit her.
Neska dashed over to Brent while the creature was distracted, dodging Syra's attacks. Brent looked at her, bewildered. “You spat venom on my wound and it…healed?” he gasped, wincing as he tried to put weight onto the leg, slowly. "Cool, and also, gross."
“It’s called [Love Bites]! Though I found a sort of workaround to the biting part,” she said as calmly as the situation allowed for, which was to say, not very.
“Syra! Stay with him, he’s not fully healed! I’ll take care of the Roc!" Neska screamed. She wondered if it might be quicker to ascend the cliff. A scrape of talons echoed behind them, and the flutter of feathers as the creature gained, darting out of the cavern and taking flight.
She did the only thing she could do: lure it outside, away from them. They still had an escape route, and repeated [Venom Bolts] with her [Blinding Venom] left the creature shielding its eyes with its wings, slowing its forward speed.
Interesting. It did appear somewhat dazzled by the bolts. Maybe she didn't need to hit it in the eyes for the effect to take hold.
She scuttled to the edge, looking for a way down. No, there was no easy way down–the only direction was up! She needed to get some height and keep hammering the creature with venom attacks. It was slowly accumulating a stacking damage over time due. She needed to keep wearing it down.
She coiled her body and used [Spring Scales] to grab onto the rope, swaying it back and forth while she coiled her tail around it. The bird scrabbled to the ledge, peering around before Neska opened up with another mana bolt shot from her free hand, getting it right in the face this time.
It screeched as the blinding effect took hold. She’d wondered how the ability worked if it didn’t hit the eyes. She’d noticed it had been flailing more and more wildly, as if the effect were cumulative, even if it didn’t impact the eyes. It was a nice little fact that might be useful later if she didn’t get turned into a meal.
The bird screeched and shook away the effect, hopping up and scrabbling along the ledges where Neska was trying to climb precariously. This giant murder bird also used its wings to make jumps that would have been difficult for her, and it snapped its beak down, narrowly missing her tail.
She swung her tail around with a [Coiled Strike], hitting it full in the face and staggering it. It broke apart the rocks it gripped, tumbling for a second before fully spreading its wings.
It banked around for a strafing run, diving and gaining speed before flapping around in a wide arc.
Neska saw energy building on the edge of its wing claws. She wasted no time springing to another wide ledge on the cliff, just as twin beams scorched the cliff in a horizontal line, scorching the rope.
She landed roughly on a rocky outcropping, wincing. This damn bird was persistent, and they’d saved two eggs for it! They’d been more than generous in taking out a deadly predator that had killed its mate.
And it still was going to try to kill her. Foo. Well, I’ve finally done it, I've stolen an egg from a bird that can easily tear me in half! This one might actually succeed this time. No more egg theft after this!
The creature came in for another raking strike, strafing the cliff with its energy beams. Neska’s [Runic Barrier] held up well, flaring with golden light where the brief pulse of energy impacted.
Below, Neska heard Brent roar, popping his head out of the entryway, and pointing to her. “Keep it busy, I have an idea!”
Said idea involved Brent grabbing a bundle of rope with a wicked, clawed hook on one end, and slinging the rope bundle over his neck. He bounded up the cliff on the narrow ledges, taking far more risks than she would have liked as she shot mana bolts at the creature.
Damn. She couldn’t perform a full draw of a bow from this angle, not with the cliff against her back! That was one disadvantage of such a weapon.
Brent kicked off with his powerful legs, gripping a swaying rope and catapulting further up, a short distance from where she was on the cliff. Neska waited for the creature to commit and grabbed one of her last prototype arrows, gripping the shaft tight, the arrowhead pointing down for a stab.
She had another really bad idea coming up as the creature lined up for another strafing pass, though the wing claws let out sparks but failed to fire–its internal mana must be severely depleted. Instead, it raked its talons forward toward her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Brent spinning the hook in a tight circle, eyes locked with the bird as if he had the same idea as her.
The creature banked around, aiming a line drive for Neska. She coiled her body, waiting for the right moment.
Now.
She fired off one last venom bolt, in an attempt to divert its flight ever so slightly down before swooping back up, talons raking forward. Except, she sprang upwards to intercept the bird and coiling around its body, making it shudder in mid-air from the extra weight. It tried to scrabble at her, but her [Constricting Coil] deflected the claws with her hardened scales.
That really was a useful trick; even if her Vitality wasn't the highest, extra defenses helped.
She heard a ring of metal through the air, and the clawed hook Brent had been whirling looped and latched around one outstretched ankle, with Brent holding on and bracing against a tree. The creature bucked in mid-air, screeching in protest, and flapped its wings as best it could with Neska coiling down.
“I can’t hold it, Cassia! It’s way too–”
The tree cracked, and Neska saw Brent’s horrified look as he realized what was happening, and all the slack in the rope disappeared. “Oh shit.”
The creature surged through the night sky, now laden with one screaming wolfling holding on to the rope for dear life, swaying side to side as the creature banked left and right to try and shake him and Neska off.
“Nah-ah, I’m directing this flight, annoying bird!’ Neska shouted out, grabbing onto the scruffy feathers and digging her claws in before sinking fangs in for another dose of venom. The creature tried to grab her with one of its wing claws, scraping her scales and drawing blood. The lack of flapping resulted in them plummeting several dozen feet, with Brent still screaming.
He clearly didn’t appreciate the advantage of wings and seeing the world from above. “Cassiiaaa, we need a plan!”
"Climb up and start stabbing! I’ll try to steer this thing back toward the cliff!”
Easier said than done, as she shifted her body weight and tried to twist the bird's neck, misaligning its wings to bank. It screeched and tried to reach back and bite her with its beak, but she stabbed down with the arrowhead into the side of its feathery face and delivered the genesis seed into its body.
She didn’t hesitate and activated her [Verdant Weave] to trigger the rapid growth of the root, with odd vines popping up, but with red-tinged leaves. The creature’s eyes were alight with fear as it banked back toward the academy and the cliff wall, with Syra fuming on the ground, trying to fire her hydro blast to guide the bird.
Neska wrapped the growing vines around the wings, now crudely puppeting the creature and locking the limbs at full extension. She couldn’t do much about the tail as the Roc tried to tear at the vines that slowly crept around it. She wound a set of vines around its beak, with it making a strangled screech, vigorously shaking its head.
Brent had, in the meantime, managed to grab the massive taloned feet and was holding on for dear life, hacking and stabbing past the resistant feathers. “Could you not stab our ride till we’re on the ground?!” she screamed.
“You told me to stab it!”
“That was before I turned this thing into my own personal flight craft–whoooa!”
The bird decided it had had enough and used an energy burst to shred the vines around its wings, and it flipped upside down, with Brent dangling by the rope again, holding with one hand. Neska coiled around for dear life, and the creature veered toward the ground in a dive.
This bird was trying to smash them into the cliff! “Brent, grab my tail!” she screamed out, uncoiling just enough for him to grab hold. Her [Prehensile Tail] easily gripped his outstretched hand and managed the weight, as the ground rose up to meet them. “Don’t let go!”
“Is that an option? Oh my divines, Syra was right! You’re crazy with a side order of tubers!”
She was going to have to talk to Syra about that candid assessment if they lived through this. The creature realized it was coming in too steep and, with the sustained wounds, too slow to pull out of the dive. Neska sprang off the creature’s back using a final burst of [Spring Scales] and chained it with [Coiled Strike] to get just a bit more lateral speed.
They impacted at the edge of the cliff, with Neska scrabbling onto the cliff, and Brent still in tow. The massive Roc, however, crashed headfirst into the ground, just past the bluff edge, onto level ground.
An audible snap and crunch of bones rang through the air. The creature cartwheeled across the ground, with Syra jetting to the side to avoid being crushed by the creature's dead weight
Neska scrabbled for dear life, Brent’s fairly heavy body dragging her down as he dangled. He managed to grab onto exposed roots that Neska quickly animated and wrapped around both of them, then slowly brought them up and over the cliff edge.
Neska laughed. She had cuts across her body, her tail was likely sprained, and at a couple of her serpentine ribs were bruised or possibly broken, but she laughed, gasping for breath at the same time. Her mana depletion on top of that was trivial by comparison.
Brent groaned and dug his claws into the ground, kneading it like he never wanted to let go of the dirt again. “Cassia, if I’m being honest? If snakes ever fly, the Varadur are doomed.” He let out a wheezing laugh, rolling on his back and gripping her outstretched hand tightly. “Hell of a night, huh?”
“It hurts to laugh, ow,” she said before wincing in pain, while Syra knelt and practically jammed a health potion in her mouth. “Oh, easy there.”
“You crazy snake! What was that?!” Syra screamed out. "That was outrageous! You really do love danger, don't you?”
“I never said I didn't,” she answered with a fanged smile. Meanwhile, Brent got to his feet and helped lift Neska.
As she did so, she received a notification from Vivi.
You know, I’ve heard the phrase, ‘when pigs fly’ but when snakes fly, I swear, you’re going to be the harbinger of doom, Neska.
It was inspiring.
It was insane. But apparently, insanity is rewarded.
Level Increase
Witch 12 → Witch 13
1 Essence Point Gained (2 total)
3 Attribute Points Gained
Ability Proficiency Increase
Spring Scales 10 → 11
Venom/Mana Bolt 11 → 12
Venomous Bite 10 → 11
Constricting Coil 3 → 4
Prehensile Tail 3 → 4
Title Gained: Snakes on a Mobile Airfoil - We get it, you hate birds, as much as they hate you. All Ability potency increased by 10% against any target with wings.
Neska pondered over that. Did that mean offensively…as well as defensively? She had to test that out later.
She was startled out of her focus when the elementa smacked Brent across the shoulder as soon as he got a steady footing. She was quivering and screamed in his face. “Don't you ever take stupid risks like that again, both of you! That was so dangerous!”
Kalloway emerged from Juni's hastily dug tunnel, letting out a growl as he tried to crawl out, with dirt and rocks matting his hair. Neska heard the labored shouts as Juni struggled to push him up from below. “You told me you could thread the needle!” she screamed. She looked up from the struggling professor, waving at Neska as she popped out of the hole, dirtied and still carrying the backpack.
“I wasn’t threading a needle, I was threading an accordion!” Kalloway rebuffed. He slung the broom up and over the tunnel, using it to hoist himself to his feet and shaking the dirt off. “Is everyone okay?”
Neska gave her a thumbs-up. “We’re good. Told you we had it handled.”
Juni squinted at her, then followed Neska’s gaze to the crashed bird, eyes widened. “You’re a terror, you know that?”
“Just to my natural predators,” she said with a confident smile. “I really wish I could have ended that better, though. That monster was not seeing reason.”
Kalloway stared at the giant raptor with its neck nearly twisted at an unnatural angle. He clenched his fist before offering bandages to the three of them. Though Syra’s blood was more like ooze than mammalian, blood, with a very watery appearance.
“Is that normal?” Neska asked, pointing to a cut on the elementa’s sleeve.
“We’re a weird biology. It’s normal, and I should be fine. I solidified my hydro cells for recovery. Juni, tell me that egg didn’t get scrambled in the chaos?”
The rodent smiled proudly and displayed the backpack, showing the egg still secured and undamaged. “Nope! Let’s get this back to Kalloway’s office, I felt it shaking a bit on my back. I’m sure Gurigea and Harvine will be throwing a fit over whether to commend us or expel us. Again.”
“Not if I get the last word in, this time,” Kalloway growled. "And I will get the last word in, because what you all pulled off was extraordinary."