On the way to the spinewolf den, Brin couldn’t stop his brain from thinking. Was doing all this playing right into the [Weavers] hands? If it was, so what? If Tawna wanted him to do something that he also wanted to do, would it make sense to not do it just to spite her? That would be giving her too much power. The best decision would be to live his life as if she didn’t exist, not to rearrange his life based on every little thing she did.

She’d given him a choice, and he’d chosen to do what he wanted. What she wanted was irrelevant. Although, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d screwed himself by going after the weaker monsters first. What if trying to do both meant he wouldn’t get the information she’d promised? Well, if that was the case, so be it. This was already an extremely lucrative day.

The clouds continued to darken as he walked, and a chill wind began to blow, but for now the rain stayed constrained to a few drops here and there.

Around noon, he knew that if he went any further then he would be near where he thought the den should be. Before that, he should take a break. The fight with the spiderlings had taken a lot out of him. He needed to approach whatever this was at his absolute best.

He found a patch of soft grass, asked Marksi to keep watch, and then lay down and closed his eyes. Back in his old life, he’d been the king of the fifteen minute nap. He wasn’t sure if that talent had transferred. With all the preteen manic energy he’d been living with, he’d never needed it. But it was worth a try now.

He lay on the ground, but couldn’t sleep. His neck and hand hurt too much. Well, even if he couldn’t sleep, a rest would still help.

He woke up and it was dark. Panicking, he thought he’d slept through the night, but it wasn’t actually that dark. The clouds had gotten a little bit darker and the wind was blowing harder, but he doubted he’d been asleep for more than an hour.

The pain in his neck and hand had diminished to a dull ache, but for some reason all his other muscles had started to ache more. Oh well, this was as good as he was going to feel. Best to get started.

He continued north towards the spinewolf den. The trees thinned out, but the water became more and more muddy, until pools of stagnant water started to cut off his path and he had to wander through them like a maze.

He copied Lurilan’s trick of cutting a tree branch to use to test that the ground in front of him was solid. He didn’t fear illusions, but sometimes grass that looked normal was actually floating on top of the water.

Slowly, he made his way through the swampy forest. He might have gotten lost, but Marksi had no problem swimming over the top of the water, so Brin could send him ahead and use him as a goal post.

Finally, Brin saw a trail. A game trail, probably. Whatever animals lived in this forest would know the best way to get through on solid ground.

He followed the trail, astonished at how easy walking was when you didn’t have to fear every step.

Soon he found a small hill rising out of the swampy surroundings. There was an old dead tree he recognized; it had been drawn on the map. Underneath it on the other side, there would be the mouth of a cave. The perfect home for whatever evil thing happened to be passing through the area.

The area around the hill was wet and treacherous. Without his stick to test the ground, he would have sunken into the mud a dozen times over.

He approached cautiously, straining his ears to pick up any sounds. Yeah, something was definitely in there. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was that made him think so, just a strong sense of danger and… wrongness from that direction. This had to be what [Monster Sense] felt like. He’d need to remember this feeling.

He backed away, and thought about his plan of attack.

Without knowing what it was, he couldn’t really think up a strategy, but the fact that it sought out this hill as a place to hang out meant that it probably couldn’t live in water. Maybe he could use the swampy terrain to his advantage?

He also couldn’t swim very effectively while wearing full leather armor and carrying a backpack and weapons, but that didn’t mean there was nothing he could do. He saw a tree covered in vines, some of them hanging down all the way to the water, and that gave him an idea.

He pulled out the rope with a grappling hook, and had Marksi carry it up to a high branch on a tree overlooking a pond. By getting a running start, he should be able to jump, catch the rope in midair, and swing around to dry ground. Anything following him would either plunge into the water, or have to stop and go around. His biggest saving grace in the fight against the spiderlings had been the fact that he was faster than them. That meant that he had been able to disengage and then fight them on his own terms.

He tested it, running along the ground and leaping into the air to grab the rope. He was gratified to feel the strength in his arm as he easily held his body’s weight with one arm. The first swing didn’t go quite as he planned, and he had to swing back and forth a couple times to get to dry ground again. The second attempt went perfectly. He swung on the rope, around the tree, to land on solid ground on the other side.

He only found that tree and one other that would work for this, but that also meant he only had to cut his rope once.

After that, he spent some time going over every inch of ground in the surrounding area, figuring out what was dry and what was wet. If he was going to be running around here, it would help to know what was safe to stand on. It would be just his luck to die because he stepped on the wrong spot and plunged down to his neck in mud, presenting his head nice and convenient for some monster to come and bite it off.

The entire time he jumped and flinched at every sound, thinking that it was the monster coming out of its den, but the monster stayed put while he got the lay of the land.

Finally, he decided it was time. He was as ready as he’d ever be. He did one last mental inventory. He had the smoke bomb that would shoot sparks and heat–good for fooling undead. He had one wand with a potent flame spell, and two fakes, and a lighter. All that, he kept in the various pockets on the armor, where he could get to them quickly if he needed it.

He had the potions of turn undead, which he left in a backpack a little distance away. He also had his two swords. The sword of speed was still a bit slippery from the pool of spider goo he’d found it in. And the other sword.

He pulled out his sword of strength. Perris hadn’t really given it a name, but Brin was calling it the glass cannon sword, because it would break after one or two uses, and because of the enchanted glass core that gave it its power.

In video games, he’d always been the person to die with all his best items unused and a backpack full of health potions. In real life, though, he was going to jump straight into his strongest attack and hopefully end things before they even started.

If that didn’t work, he’d use the fire wand, and if that failed, he’d use his sword of speed to run away. He already had the Monster Hunter achievement; this was just the victory lap. If things got too hairy, he’d leave.

He approached the hill, using every bit of stealth to walk as silently as he could. Sure, the monster probably knew he was out here, but he’d rather not let it know he was approaching it now. It was probably too much to hope that he’d be able to sneak up and stab it while it was sleeping, but that would obviously be preferable to a straight out fight.

He saw motion, and froze. Something rose behind the hill, a line of red and yellow spikes. They were on the back of a large green head; a giant lizard. It had the protruding eyes of a chameleon, but spines along its back like an iguana.

Monsters roar in movies. The first time you see a monster in any movie, tv show, or video game, it always roars. The giant lizard didn’t roar. It barely even looked interested. It simply climbed over the crest of the hill, approaching in no great hurry.

It was bigger than any lizards they had on earth. Bigger than komodo dragons, it was more like some dinosaur he didn’t have a name for, especially with the way that its tail curled up and around, with a dagger-length stinger on the end. Its legs were much longer than he’d expected, keeping it high off the ground. Maybe the size of a horse, if a horse was a lizard with the tail of a scorpion.

It walked casually, moving faster than it looked because of its size. What would it look like if it actually wanted to move fast?

It stopped only ten feet away and stared at him for a long moment. He started backing up, towards the tree with the rope.

All at once, the giant lizard charged, jaws open, scrabbling towards him across the mud. It moved unnaturally fast, and was upon him before his brain even registered what was happening. He dodged the stabbing stinger tail on instinct and swung his glass cannon sword towards its head but felt only air. He dodged its bite, but then it spun and the side of the tail clubbed him across the chest.

He flew backwards, further than he expected because he skipped across the water once before splashing in. He flailed against the water to stay on the surface, and realized that he was right below his rope, so he grabbed it. His wet fingers slipped in his panic, but he tried again, got a hold and started climbing up. It was difficult with his sword still in his hand; somehow he hadn’t dropped it, so he put the hilt in his teeth and climbed with both hands.

All his strength went into getting a strong enough grip on the wet rope to hold his body weight. Actually moving up was taking forever.

He couldn’t breathe. The armor had miraculously stopped the stinger from running him through, but he still felt like he’d been kicked in the chest by a bull.

The giant lizard was hesitating at the side of the shore. Could it not swim, or was it afraid of the water? Was there something in here that was even worse? The panic that thought brought him nearly made him lose his hold. He took a deep breath and kept climbing.

He noticed the giant lizard had a heavy wound in its side; he’d thought he’d missed with the sword, but apparently it had cut through the monster's flesh so easily he hadn’t even felt resistance.

The glass cannon sword had cut and it hadn’t shattered. Lucky. Perris said it would work for one or two blows, and apparently he was getting two. He needed to make the next one count.

He tried to focus on climbing, but he was still holding his breath, and his vision was starting to go dark. He forced his lungs to move and he managed to suck in air, but his chest screamed in pain.

He slipped, falling two feet down the rope before barely managing to catch it again.

The giant lizard liked what it saw. It slid into the water and swam towards him. He was only a few feet above the water; the stinger would hit him easily.

Unless something changed, his only chance would be to jump from the rope and stab the monster on the way down. The monster would be ready, of course. He didn’t like his chances.

How dumb had he been when he had gone over the terrain, picturing a long, drawn out battle where he’d have lots of time to maneuver? One way or another, this would be over in seconds.

Marksi appeared on the surface of the water, a flash of camouflaged motion that he only barely noticed. The snake must not have watched enough movies either, because he didn’t roar or screech either. He slipped up to the giant lizard, wiggled around an arm that tried to swat him away, and bit the lizard’s protruding eye.

The monster let out a high-pitched screech, and the water erupted into splashing chaos. Brin couldn’t tell if the lizard had caught Marksi, but he knew that it was angry, in pain, and most important of all: it wasn’t thinking about him.

He took the sword from out of his mouth, and let go of the rope.

He brought the sword down in a solid overhand slash, and this time he was watching so he saw the full effect of the glass cannon sword.

It parted the water like Moses. It split the flesh of the monster like a knife through butter. No, like a knife through fog. He cut the neck just above the shoulder, and if he’d aimed better he was certain he’d taken the head clean off. He wouldn’t get another chance; the sword shattered as it exited the wound, the pieces falling into the water.

It was definitely a mortal blow. Which is why he was surprised when the monster’s mouth clamped down on his leg and started twisting him around in the water.

His throat filled with water, and he forced himself not to cough as his body churned in circles through the whitewater. And then, slowly, it stopped.

Alert!

You have defeated:

Facaldagart [12]

Due to level disparity extra experience will be rewarded.