Aftermath(2)

"I'm gonna be stuck like this for three days?" Loran asked.

"Looks like it," Soze said, closing his menu. "Your Shredded Flesh is gone. Hold still kiddo, let me help you with that arm."

"This is gonna suck isn't it?"

"Yes, now hold still." Soze maneuvered Loran's arm so that it was pointing away from his torso. "Yang, can you hold his body while I pull on his arm?"

"Got it." Yang put her hands on Loran's chest and began pressing him to the ground. Her strength and weight knocked the wind out of him.

"Holy- ease up a little Yang!"

"You'll have a lot more to yell about in a second kiddo." Grasping Loran's arm firmly, Soze began to pull, lightly at first but slowly increasing the pressure.

"FuuuuuuuuUUUK!" It didn't take long for Soze to reset Loran's shoulder, but that didn't make the pain any more bearable. Once his arm popped back into its socket the pain was greatly reduced, but his shoulder was still incredibly sore. "God damn, remind me to never let that happen again."

"Noted," said Soze, "can you stand?"

"Hold on," Loran slowly began moving his arm through some stretches. After confirming that it could move freely, he pulled himself to his feet. Standing up, he was clearly still wobbly, but after taking a few steps it didn't seem like he needed help. "I should be okay, but there's no way I can fight like this."

"Then it seems two of us are out of commission," Yin said as she approached.

Behind Yin, Alexx was supporting Zed as they walked.

"I'll….I'll be fine," Zed was still breathing heavily and his eyes were unfocused.

Soze's eyes narrowed, "what's wrong with him?"

"He's been afflicted with a debuff called Heavy Exhaustion," Yin explained. "It will last for approximately twenty-four hours, prevents him from using Active Skills, and all of his stats have been reduced by 50%. Also, any physical activity will cause the timer to stop."

"What!?" Yang shouted, "what the hell is with these bullshit debuffs?!"

"I don't know," said Loran, holding his head but seemingly stable, "but right now Zed and I are out of commission. Is everyone else okay?"

"Well, my leg is still hurt, and Alexx looks pretty roughed up."

"I just have the Shredded Flesh debuff," Alexx said dismissively, as he and Zed sat down closer to the others. "Let me grab some moss and I'll be fine."

"The Moss Wolves destroyed a few of my arrows, but I am unharmed," Yin said. "Soze, you seemed to disappear near the start of the battle, what happened."

"I used Sneak to get past them."

"Wait, how the hell did you manage to sneak past a wall of wolves?" Loran asked.

"I told you Sneak was good," Soze grinned, "but anyway. I was going to try picking them off from the outside, but when I heard that howling I was able to track down the source."

"Uh, I'm guessing you're not talking about the wolves, but what other howling was there?" Alexx asked, and Zed nodded beside him. The two of them had been completely surrounded from the very beginning of the battle, and since they aren't as tanky as Yang, they couldn't to take as many hits. While they had noticed the wolves change their tactics partway through the fight, they didn't notice that it was synchronized with a command.

"You guys must've missed it, but there was this piercing howl in the distance every so often," Yang explained. "It was basically giving orders to all the wolves. It knew to separate Loran from me when we were fighting together, it told them to pile onto me and slow me down, it even learned to destroy Sis' arrows before I could throw them back to her."

"You could understand it?"

"No, but they were pretty obvious when they changed their tactics."

"Yeah," Loran said, "I'm guessing there's some new monster that can control the wolves, and they ran because you attacked it?"

"Not exactly. I did attack it, but it wasn't a new monster. It was a named monster."

"Wait really?" asked Loran.

"Oh shit," Yang said, eyes widening, "what was it like?"

"Well, it was an Alpha Wolf named The Wise One. It was smaller than normal and had a unique Skill called Communicator."

"Alpha Wolves do seem to be the leaders of their packs," Yin said, "so then this one having a name caused those abilities to become even more enhanced to the detriment of its physical bulk."

"Yeah, also it had the Observant and Agile Skills, so it was able to track us from farther away than we could sense it and is way too fast for us to hunt down efficiently."

"If it's that fast did it really need to give up on the fight?" Alexx asked, "Couldn't it just run around and avoid you?"

"It probably could, but there was no point to keeping the fight going, after all," Soze looked around, "just how many of these things did you guys kill?"

"I took down seven," said Alexx.

"Eight for me," said Loran.

"What!" Zed said in shock, looking at Loran.

A small grin began to form on Loran's face. "How many did you get."

"....Seven," he admitted.

"Ha!" Loran pumped his fist in victory, almost knocking himself over thanks to his lightheadedness.

"Guys, can you not?" asked Yang before turning back to Soze, "I got four."

"I defeated nine while defending Yang," Yin said, "I also caused three to drown in the river."

"So wait," Alexx said, eyes widening, "were we winning? Against that many wolves?"

"I'm pretty sure me and Zed were going to die if the fight kept going," Loran said flatly.

"Yeah," Zed said, finally having gotten his breathing under control. "We probably could've killed them all, but not without casualties."

"Honestly, the only reason I didn't die already was because I could take advantage of the river," Yang admitted.

"Wait, what about the river," Soze asked.

"Apparently, Moss Wolves can't swim," she explained, "I think it might have something to do with protecting their moss."

"Seriously?" Loran said, astonished, "I don't- I don't remember seeing anything like that in the description."

"Yeah, but you can't exactly think straight right now," Yang said, "Soze, do you have anything about this?"

"Let me check," Soze used [ANALYSE] on one of the nearby Moss Wolf bodies.

"Hey, Loran," Yang said, "another thing for the list of this game's shitty design choices, no data log for the stuff you Analyse."

"You guys are still making that list?" Zed sighed. "The game isn't that bad."

"I don't know what to tell you man, but this game kind of sucks," Loran said, before turning back to Yang. "Yeah, I noticed that one awhile ago. I wish we had some way to write this stuff down."

"Hold on, you guys are actually making a list of this stuff?" Alexx asked, amused. "What else is on it?"

"I found it," Soze said, getting the conversation back to its original topic, "it's all the way at the bottom so it may have been added by Yang discovering it."

"So it adjusts itself based on what the players know?" Yin asked. "That seems useful."

"But how does that even work?!" Loran said incredulously. "The first time we Analysed the moss it said it originated from something the wolves did generations ago, why would it tell us that but not that the moss can be washed off?!"

Soze shrugged. "How am I supposed to know, I'm just telling you what it says now."

"....Should we add stupid descriptions to the shitty feature list?" Yang asked.

"I'm going to say yes," said Alexx.

"Moving on to more immediate concerns," said Yin, "what are we going to do now? Our party is now significantly weaker."

"You are not about to suggest that we camp out here?" asked Zed. "We came all this way, I'm not about to just sit here."

"As if you were going to do any fighting with your stats cut in half," said Loran, "but I do think we should keep going. We're already most of the way there."

"I don't know," said Soze, "still seems risky."

"Honestly, after everything that has happened over the last few days I say we get out of here," said Yang. "First it was the Iron Ant yesterday, then today we got a named monster and like a hundred wolves. I don't want to know what will happen if we stay here any longer."

"Setting up camp might be safer, but Yang is right," said Yin, "this section of the woods is far too unpredictable. We shouldn't be here unless we're in peak condition."

"Haa," Soze sighed, "alright then, let's get out of here."