Caravan, Pt 8

You duck and roll and dodge as one of the Crags takes a deadly swipe at you with a granite-encased leg. You then hop forward just as a second Crag lunges at you. The ground shakes as it lands heavily in the spot where you were moments ago.

It's strong enough that you're almost nearly toppled to the ground. But your Fortify holds firm and you're able to maintain your aggressive footing.

You do your best to ignore the two of them and leave them to Frank and Nance's teams to take care of. Considering that the Crags' attention is fully on you, they are able to fire their heavy rifles at them practically unhindered. 

The cracking of their rifles echoes all through the woods around you, even as you press the psionic Crag further.

Not only do you hit it with TK jabs, but you fling the occasional Surge at it as well. You top off your light attacks with swings of your katana, though you do your best not to actually make contact with it. Unless you slice through a joint, there's nothing your blade can do against granite.

Well, except become dull.

Regardless, your constant small attacks push and shove and unbalance and confound the Crag in quick succession. Though you're relatively successful in keeping it on the defensive, you haven't done anything in regards to actually doing any kind of damage to it.

Worse, it seems to recover rather quickly from your attacks, more than enough to maintain its balance and bearing all throughout.

You sense the energies flowing out of it are somewhat similar to yours, in that it's pushing many powers as far as they can go. And in doing so is able to remain apace of you to some degree.

Vying for an inroad through its defenses, you amass extra energies and pour them into a Telekinetic spear. Although you fling it squarely at the psionic Crag, it immediately counters with its own Telekinetic energies. You sense it gather up just in front of it, and at the very last moment form into a dense shield. 

The energies of your attack smash into the Crag's Telekinetic shield with incredible force, causing a thundering BOOM to reverberate across the forest floor. Both spear and shield are annihilated by the impact, causing the psionic aftershock to sweep through you and the psionic Crag alike.

Neither of you are daunted by it, and instead the Crag launches into a swift counterattack. It leaps to the side quickly in an attempt to flank you, then opens up its front to deliver some kind of sonic attack.

It emits a shrill piercing sound that immediately causes your headache to spike suddenly. Along with it comes a focused and concentrated Surge filled with fearsome confusion. Just sensing how potent it is causes your heart to shudder. 

Clearly the Crag wants to unbalance you as well, more than enough to allow its two remaining soldiers to stamp you into the dirt. A brief glance at your Foresight reveals that's certainly within the realm of possibility.

Instead of letting your defenses take the brunt of it, you channel your energies into an encompassing Devour. No sense in risking getting stomped, no matter how small the chances are. Your Devour soaks up the Crag's Surge with ease - though both powers are negated in the process. You feel your energies collide, but instead of sensing some great impact, they merely dissolve against each other equally. 

Only whispers of energy are left in the wake of their collision, which then dissipate into nothing over the course of seconds.

You take this moment to dash to the side as well, not just to escape attacks from the other Crags, but to get another angle to attack the psionic one. Or rather, to distract it from your real attack.

It certainly does its best to keep you in front of it by circling against your flank as fast as it can. Thanks to its crab-like legs, it is able to move as fast as you do. Perhaps even faster.

You fling another Surge at it, mostly as yet another distraction. While it focuses its energies with a counter-Surge, you Telekinetically swing your katana to its right flank. Then, after angling it at just the right spot, you fling it point-first into the Crag.

The blade pierces through the thin segment between its abdomen and thorax on its right side, and sinks in halfway through. 

The psionic Crag rears back in utter pain as it shrieks powerfully into the sky. The sound is so deafening and piercing that it causes your ears to instantly ring. Your sight fades and loses focus as your sense of balance is turned upside down.

You find yourself stumbling around, hardly able to keep yourself upright. 

As you flounder backwards, you sense a spike in Telekinetic energy somewhere in front of you. But before you can raise any kind of defenses, you feel something hit you. Hard. Very hard.

It's strong enough to knock all the wind out of your lungs and cause your already confused mind to become truly stunned. Worse, you're thrown off your feet and can feel yourself flying through the air… before hitting a tree behind you.

This is enough to almost completely knock you out, but you hold on thanks to your Fortify. You're almost knocked out again once you hit the ground at the foot of the tree, but you hang on desperately. Your consciousness wavers in and out as you try to shake your dizziness off you. 

Pain courses through your body as you push up off the ground with shaky arms, causing the very act of getting up to be deeply laborious. It seems like it takes all of your energy to pick yourself up, at least physically. You taste copper in your mouth as you do so, then watch as drops of blood fall from your mouth down to the grass underneath you.

You finally push yourself up onto your behind just in time to feel the Crag charging directly towards you. The ground shakes as it runs up towards you, increasing with intensity as it gets closer and closer. You do a backwards crawl as fast as you can in an attempt to get away, but you're immediately stopped by the tree you had crashed into.

Both its front legs rear up and out as the Crag closes the gap, ready to swing down and flatten you with their weight. And on top of that, you can sense its own Telekinetic energies envelop you to hold you in place - clearly it's attempting to finish you off as best it can.

You recover your senses and your wits just fast enough to gather up your own energies defensively, and create a kind of Telekinetic bubble surrounding you. And by pouring your energies into the bubble, you're able to just about lift the Crag's TK bindings holding you down. Just as you break the bindings, the Crag's legs come slamming down from above. They smash down on your defenses squarely, causing it to warp slightly on impact.

You sense the Crag's Telekinetic energies shift quickly, somehow imparting even more downward pressure on you. It seems to flow all around you oppressively, almost promising to crush you in due time.

But your Telekinetic bubble holds regardless. Though it takes everything you've got to hold it at bay, including energies you've borrowed from the Network to do so. Your mind and body strain against the Crag's power, making you realize that this is a losing battle.

The two of you have been relatively equal throughout the whole fight, which has now devolved into a battle of attrition. Whoever runs out of energy first, loses.

Sure, you've got the Network to back you up and provide you extra support. But you can't rely on them forever - they have their own Crags to worry about. Exhausting them will only make their fight that much harder.

As you struggle, you spot your katana still sticking halfway out of the Crag. So you reach out with your Telekinesis in an attempt to draw it out to make another cut. But when you take hold of it, you find that you can't pull it out any further. You shake and twist it a little bit, which causes the Crag to shriek and scream, but it's no use - the blade is jammed somehow. You can only guess that it's bent up inside, owing to however the Crag itself moves. 

But you can't let that stop you - you need to end the Crag, fast. It seems to be channeling its pain directly into its psionic powers. Somehow it's boosting and buffing them, almost like an internalized Surge.

At the same time, it seems to be hyper focused on crushing you, and is pouring almost every ounce of energy into its attack. Out of sheer frustration, it begins to drum against your Telekinetic bubble with its legs. It also empowers each of its strikes with pure Telekinetic energy, causing the very earth you're sitting on to shake with each hit.

Your whole body vibrates wildly as your mind shakes - more than enough to rattle your powers. You can feel your energies slip with each hit, causing your defenses to weaken further and further.

As a last ditch effort, you pull your Old Coin from your pocket. You then charge up your energies as high as you dare, then fling the coin as fast and as hard as you can into the Crag. It smashes through its thin stone underside, right where all its legs meet under its thorax.

It leaves a slot-like crack where it impacts, but otherwise sinks into the Crag's innards with ease. Though it's painful, it barely does any real damage to the thing itself.

But you're not done, not even close. 

With your Telekinesis, you whip the coin around inside the Crag, as fast as you possibly can. You stir it, shake it, rattle it from the inside, practically liquefying its organs as a result.

The Crag itself shakes and flails uncontrollably, as its guts and blood and nerves and muscles are ripped apart and blended into one unifying goop. It tries to scream, but only chatters and clatters as a result. All its powers fade further the longer you blend its innards on top of it all, allowing you to lift your defenses and restore them to normal. And at the same time, you pour even more energy into the coin, if only to shred everything even faster.

It only takes a few seconds before the Crag itself falls over with a long and drawn-out whine. As its other dead compatriot, its legs curl up and close in as it dies. Its psyche winks out alongside, and never returns again.

You give yourself a moment to collect yourself, and to allow your energies to even back out. 

Some cheering off to the side cuts your moment short, and when you glance over you see Frank and Nance's teams celebrating from their positions. Close to you are the two remaining Crags who have also fallen over and curled up tightly. 

Their bodies are riddled with numerous holes, at least where their weak points lie. Their black blood leaks out of their wounds and flows out to the ground beneath them. The smell of sulfur rises up and surrounds you at the same time.

You glance back at the psionic Crag, partially to reconfirm that it's dead. Mostly because you consider getting your coin back from inside it. It's practically a souvenir now, having helped kill a Stone Crag. But you realize that it has been soaking in bug guts, and that sulfuric smell has likely permeated into the metal. 

Whether that's true or not, you decide to leave it.

"Coin's yours now," you tell the dead Crag. "Spend it wisely."

Well, you try to tell it, anyway. Most of what you say comes out in pained groans. Since the fighting's just about over, you drop most of the psionic energies you've been holding, allowing your powers to shut down or minimize completely.

Doing so allows you to catch your breath a little bit easier, and for your psyche to recover faster. But as your Fortify recedes, pain rises in its stead

"Doc, need you over here!" you hear Frank yell aloud.

Both he and Nance run over to where you are, with what seems to be the town doctor in tow. He appears to be carrying what looks like a large medical kit in his hands, and it looks very well used. All three of them stop and kneel at your side and look you over with concern.

They barrage you with questions on how you're doing, and where you are bleeding, and how much pain you feel. Well, two of them do, anyway. The town doc tells them to quiet down with a gesture and a look, before he turns his attention back to you.

"Lie on your back," he says, which you comply with as best you can.

You shift yourself over a bit and lie down on your back, though numerous pains shoot up and down your body. None more sharply than on the right side of your rib cage.

"Think I mighta broken a rib," you say.

"Was a nasty hit you took," Frank says. "Mighta broken more than just one."

"I'll be the judge of that," the doc counters.

He asks you specifically where you feel pain, which you reply with the exact locations, at least as best you can. You first point to your actual right side below the chest, and even open up your clothing to reveal what's underneath.

"Heavy bruising," says the doctor at the very sight. "Internal bleeding. Definitely a snapped rib or two. I'm going to have to feel around a bit - probably going to hurt."

He then fishes around him for a stick which he snaps into a small section, which he gives to you.

"Bite down on that."

You bite down as instructed, already dreading whatever you're about to experience. It's seconds later when the doc's hands feel his way around your broken rib, as though he's trying to figure out exactly how it's positioned.

Spikes of pain shoot through you as he massages and squeezes and prods around your wound, which causes you to bite further down into the stick. The earthy and bitter taste of mossy bark sprinkles onto your tongue, though you hardly notice.

"Seems like a clean fracture," says the doc. "I need to set it back in place so you can heal properly… Not gonna sugarcoat it, its gonna suck when I do it."

You nod at him furtively, unable to think of anything more useful to say. You'd rather get this over with now, rather than deal with a busted rib for the rest of your life.

The doc counts down from three to give you a few seconds to prepare yourself. Then he grips hard on your side and slides the broken rib back into place. The pain is truly unbearable as he does so, and your whole body cries out in protest. 

Not only do your teeth dig further into the wood, but you can practically feel as your bone rubs up against more bone, along the wound. The vibration of it travels through you, causing your hairs to stand on end.

But once it's in place and the doc lets go of you, relief immediately fills in. You exhale deeply as your body slumps. Though there's still pain at your side, it ebbs as the moments pass.

You do a deep Scan on yourself, specifically at the broken rib and surrounding tissue around it. In doing so, you get a feel for your own body, at least localized near the wound. And you can definitely sense where the bone has split, and what muscles and veins and whatnot it had cut into.

The doc has certainly placed the bone back together, at least as far as you can tell.

"Do I gotta bandage up daily or something?" you ask with pained groans.

But the doc shakes his head.

"A compress would only make it worse," he says. "Just take it easy and it'll heal on its own."

You grimace at his advice. Taking it easy isn't doable. You're all on the road for the foreseeable future - there's nothing easy about that. Every step you take will shift the bone around where it's broken.

Instead you weave a sliver of your Telekinetic powers and wrap it around the broken part of the rib itself. This keeps both halves joined to each other, reinforcing where they join together and hopefully causing the rib to heal faster.

"No can do, doc," you say. "We need to get outta here fast, before the hive decides to investigate their missing hunting party. If we don't, we're in for worse than just a busted rib…"