A Mass of Flesh

"Weaknesses?" Lariss yelled as she let loose a flaming arrow.

"Mostly its eyes but everything grows back eventually." Aspasia said.

"Strengths?" I called out as I charged. I let loose a Moonlight Lighting Slash.

"Its blood is weird and its flesh doesn't always cut." She replied to me.

The Slash had cut into one of its wings. Blue blood flew and turned into floating orbs. When my physical sword made contact with its body, it only cut a few inches before its flesh absorbed the impact and tried to wrap around the blade. I was able to pull it back with effort. The green blood that fell from this wound sizzled on the ground like acid.

Its wings split into a number of tendrils that wiped out at me. My Osgar aura burned bright red as I deflected them with my buckler and sword. I had to put some distance between us as it's tendrils wiped around me. My air motes were rotating around my mana core to give me extra speed.

Lariss tried to take out its main eyes but the stalks they were on were flailing wildly. She kept switching between different elements with her arrows; fire, acid, wind, ice, and lightning. The acid had no effect while the fire and wind had a smaller effect than was expected. The ice and the lighting did the most damage. They also had the added effect of slowing it down with paralysis.

Bolts of Holy Light hit the creature's body from Aspasia. Where they hit the flesh burned with only a minimal amount of blood. The blood that did come out was either yellow or red and turned to gaseous clouds that floated around the creature. Seeing the predicament I was in, she cast a Prayer of Warding on me. Spectral shields floated around me intercepting the tendrils.

With the extra protection, I moved back in. It had been moving forward towards the other two and I needed to keep it in one spot to allow them to attack from range. Their spells seemed to have a better effect than my sword, even with the Moonlight Lightning aura on my blade. One of the blue orbs came close to me and I took it out with a swing. Unfortunately another one touched me on my blind side.

The blue orb started to glow and expanded into a misty visage of me half my size. It tried to run towards Aspasia but my sword slash through it and it dissipated. The distraction allowed one of the tendrils to wrap around one of my legs. Cutting it off caused a spout of green acidic blood to spray around me. I had to push my aura to its limit to reduce the burning. The tendril continued to squeeze my leg and having seen Lariss' Lighting arrows, I used my Lighting Rebuke. It fell off me and turned into a fleshy puddle that slowly sloshed towards the main body.

"Lariss, take out the blue orbs first." I yelled.

"Gottcha." She replied. Her arrows began to destroy the blue orbs that were floating towards me.

As the yellow and red clouds began to build up they became impossible to avoid. When I moved through the yellow parts, my motes didn't rotate in the way I wanted, messing up my Speed spell. Then when I moved through the red parts the areas on my body where my Osgar aura was, started to burn. As I saw their spells lose power in the yellow clouds, I knew that the colors of its blood were connected to the types of fogs that Lariss had told me about.

"I'm going to try to get it to chase me. We need to get it out of those clouds." I said.

The two continued their attacks while moving away. The Prayer of Warding around me was renewed as I backed away from the creature. When I started to get to the limit of the creature's reach it began to slide towards me in an unnatural way. As our attacks lessened for a moment, I looked it over. Most of the wounds we had caused had already healed. The parts that I had hacked off were slithering back into the main body.

"How the hell did you wound it last time?" I yelled.

"I'm beginning to think we didn't. It had just eaten Otho, it might have left because it was full." Aspasia said.

"Do you really think something like that gets full?" Lariss said.

Without much idea of how to finish it off, we continued the attack patterns we had established. When the clouds around it began to build up, we moved it away. The Prayer of Warding from Aspasia began to lessen as her energy started to run out again. Lariss had to be running low on arrows and my auras were beginning to hit their limits.

As for the creature, it also seemed to be reaching a limit of sorts. Its wounds weren't healing as quickly and the chunks of flesh I sliced off started to turn into unmoving flesh puddles and only were absorbed when it moved over the puddles. The different types of blood continued to be a problem.

We can't keep this up. Dawn wasn't too far off but that wasn't guaranteed to affect the monster. I desperately thought, 'Something needs to change soon.' I started to feel a chill in my bones as the sound of wolves howling came towards us.

The creature stopped its attacks and I pulled back. As it started to turn towards the howling, we stopped our attacks. Its large body turned from us and slithered in the direction that the wolves were.

"Well that was fortunate." Lariss said.

"The Light has preserved us." Aspasia said.

I kept my mouth shut, knowing it was one of my blessings from the Court of Masks. Lariss began to collect what arrows she could, as Aspasia fell to her knees in prayer. My breath fell into a steady rhythm to help recover my aura as I kept my eyes out for any other threat that might come. I couldn't shake the feeling that wasn't the last we'd see of that creature.

"I think that might have been a desecration beast." I said. Both of them just nodded in agreement.

Apocalypse beasts like Dera duen spread corruption that created monsters. When they appeared the world would take notice. Desecration beasts feed on areas with high natural corruption. That's why it was so hard to kill. It was feeding on the corruption in the air to heal. We'd either need to over power its recovery rate or cut it off from the corruption in the area. Thankfully there tended to only be one in an area and adventurers only encountered them in dangerous areas.

The sun was soon beginning to break through the forest canopy but we didn't move from our camp around the dead tree. The fact that Aspasia had been moving through the forest by herself and was still alive, impressed me after last night's events.

"So what guild are you guys a part of? You're very well trained." Aspasia asked.

"We're both freelancers." Lariss replied.

"Really. Well the Ancient Anvils would be happy to have you when we make it back." Aspasia said.

"I'm not really sure what my plans are when we get back." Lariss said.

"I don't have plans to join a guild. But I wouldn't mind being hired on for quests from time to time." I said.

"I'll bring it up to the guild leader then." Aspasia said.

Around noon we took some more nourishment and energy pills and began to decide what to do next. Lariss and I had felt ready to go after sunrise but Aspasia was still tired.

"Dagfinnr needs to be our priority. He will be in the most danger." Aspasia said.

"That would also put us in the most danger. If your other friend Wigand is still alive, having his aid would improve our chances against the spiders." Lariss argued.

"Yes, but Dagfinnr might not live long enough." Aspasia said.

"Do you know who is closer?" I asked.

"I won't be able to tell their exact distance and I'd have to cast the spell twice, draining more of my energy." Aspasia said.

"I have to agree with Lariss. Wigand is the most likely to be alive and four adventurers heading into a spider lair would be better." I said.

"Fine." She replied.

We gathered up our belongings as Aspasia began to pray. She held out a feather and as she finished the prayer, it began to glow and turn in her hand. With it pointing the way, we set out. It was close to night again when I began to see white strands among the trees. Aspasia was the only one that knew who the spell was cast to find.

"We'll need to wait until morning to cross the area." Lariss glared at Aspasia.

"He might not have that long." She replied.

"Then feel free to go on alone." I said.

"We should back away from here. The spiders seem to be more active at night." Lariss said.

Aspasia looked like she wanted to argue but in the end she followed us away from the edge of the spider's lair. We set up our wards that would warn us if anything approached and Aspasia had enough energy to set up her own protections as well. Hers would deter creatures from coming near us. Most monstrous spiders could track prey by heat, so we didn't set up a fire. Lariss also cast some cold spells on the trees around us, hoping to blind the spiders on that front.

All of it was in vain. Our wards started to go off a few hours after the sun went down and the voices started again.