Chapter 41: A poor showing
The young man wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve for the billionth time. Luckily, it trickled down the enchanted fabric without being absorbed, else he would be soaking by now.
‘At least the robes came with self-cleaning runes.’
Percy was trudging down the final bridge linking the first and second levels, his eyes half-closed and his breath rugged. The wind caused the flimsy structure to sway every so often, but he’d grown used to it by now, having walked several miles on the bridges already. That said, the exhaustion made keeping his balance more challenging. He briefly considered using his Quarterstaff as a walking cane, but that would only take more effort.
‘Let’s just treat it as another obstacle to overcome.’ he shrugged.
Today's hunt had been gruelling, and the results abysmal. He and Micky had only managed to kill fourteen wasps in total, averaging less than one per hour. Evidently, the Starry Workers were on a whole different level than the drones – both literally and metaphorically.
Finding them wasn’t that hard. If anything, their larger size made them spottable from further away, but they were slightly less abundant than their weaker relatives, so it worked out about the same.
Killing them was a different story, however. The best strategy they had come up with involved Micky distracting the wasps while Percy fired Parting Gifts, praying they landed. Despite reducing the size and increasing the quantity of the projectiles – launching three smaller daggers with each shot – hitting the beasts came down to sheer luck. He also had to take extra care not to hit his own familiar with the deadly spell, complicating things further.
Another issue was that he couldn’t keep Circulation active all day. Everything had progressed relatively smoothly during the morning, but it all went downhill once he grew too tired to use the technique in the afternoon.
The final nail in the coffin was that he had only harvested 12 of the 14 glands, as they had accidentally ruined a couple while fighting the creatures.