Duskbound

Velik didn't rush straight for the compass. That would just be walking directly into the spider's trap, and he didn't see any good reason to make things easy for the monster. It was already moving to cut off his escape routes, but he knew as soon as he approached the middle of the grove, it would hit him from behind.

[Apex Hunter] urged patience. The spider was wounded, perhaps fatally so. It was only a matter of time before it succumbed to the injuries he'd already dealt it. All he had to do was to protect himself until the spider pumped out the last bit of ichor through its leg stump.

That was all well and good, but letting it work uninterrupted while it sealed him inside a cocoon of lethal webbing didn't strike Velik as a good idea. He needed to be proactive, and that meant pitting his perceptiveness and reaction time against the spider's stealth and speed.

He approached the compass slowly, spear at the ready and his mind already calculating the angle he was most likely to be attacked from. It would come from a blind spot, which meant behind or above him. The webs were thickest off to the left, so he expected it to attack from the right, probably with the intent of either driving him into the spider silk or to give him some sort of debilitating injury as it rushed past him.

This whole fight would have been a lot easier if I still had that haste potion. Shame they're so expensive, but I guess they're worth it.

Velik brushed that errant thought away and took another step in. His eyes scoured the branches overhead, looking for that small, many-limbed body. He didn't find it, but he did see patches of black ichor that helped him create a trail. It was enough to make a reasonable guess as to exactly how far the monster had circled around him.

He reached the compass and had just an instant to see the arrow spinning crazily. It doubled back! he thought. Without even stopping to consider, he snapped his spear straight up, unleashing the stored-up energy in [Kinetic Charge] at the same time.

There was a satisfying crunch, then something wet and heavy splattered onto his hair. Velik whipped the spear to the side, sending the body pinioned on the top sliding off to smack into a nearby tree. The spider, somehow, amazingly, still wasn't dead.

But it was reeling. It got back upright, its movements jerky and unsteady, more black ichor dripping out of a fresh hole. Velik didn't wait for it to make the next move, not when he saw a chance to end the battle. Before it could recover, he was on it, slashing and stabbing with his spear.

Despite it all, the monster was a champion elite, and it was far more durable than its appearance indicated. The two danced around each other for several seconds, it trying to leap at him while shedding dozens of feet of razor-sharp silken web lines that whipped wildly between the trees. He kept it back with his spear, the superior reach giving him some measure of battlefield control even as the open area shrunk around them.

Then the spider got through. It took a long, shallow gash across its back in the process of ducking under his spear, but an instant later, its fangs sank into the side of his leg. Velik's leather boots were no match for the champion's bite, and searing pain radiated out from the bites. Poisoned.

The spear spun in Velik's hands like it was a living thing and the butt end of it slammed down directly on the crown of the spider's head. It collapsed to the ground, only to twitch and try to rise again. A second strike put a crack in its outer shell, and a third snapped a chunk off.

[You have slain Ultgith the Shadow (champion elite, level 33.]

[You have taken a champion seed from its former owner, Chalin.]

[Champion seed's current reserves: 0/140.]

Chalin again. I knew it. What were you doing out here?

With the immediate threat finally ended, the pain from his back injury came surging forward in full. Combined with the bite he'd suffered right at the end—Velik was almost certain the spider had realized it was going to die and had deliberately taken the blows just to guarantee it could inject a massive dose of venom into his leg—and he wasn't sure he was going to be hobbling back out of the grove even with a healing potion.

He drank one anyway, then groaned as partial relief swept through him. The burn in his leg didn't abate, but his back started to stitch itself together. While it worked its way through him, he limped over to reclaim his compass. It wasn't until he picked it up that he realized the truth. "Son of a…" he muttered.

It was cracked down the center and the arrow flopped around uselessly. I just got this thing! It was so expensive!

The worst part of it was he wasn't even sure if it was him or the spider that had actually broken it. It had been working when they'd started the last exchange, but one of them had hit it hard enough to snap something inside the delicate device. Considering he barely knew how to use it in the first place, Velik doubted he had a chance of repairing it.

Which means I'm stuck. Again. I need to replenish my potion supply. This champion fight proved that. Buying another compass on top of that means a month of hard work unless I can get this repaired. I doubt any of the locals can do it… Those two hunters probably don't have the expertise either, but maybe Torwin can point me towards someone who can, or would be willing to buy it off me despite it being broken. Even a few thousand decarmas for it would be better than nothing.

While he waited for the healing potion to finish its work and the burning sting of the poison the champion had pumped into his leg to run its course, he went over his gains from the fight. The champion seed had the exact same format as the first one he'd obtained, only substituting Ultgith the Shadow where the other listed Balzarith the Living Inferno, and Velik had just as little idea what to do with this one.

Of far more interest to him was [Apex Hunter]. When one skill got folded into another, it didn't always carry its full potential over with it. [Stealth] had imparted a strong understanding of how to balance his weight to move silently, where to put his feet to avoid brushing up against things, a sort of advanced proprioception of his whole body in relation to the world around him, and an understanding of sight lines, both in and out of the dark.

[Apex Hunter] had some of that, but the proprioception tilted more towards combat now, and he was far, far more aware of not just what his prey could potentially see, but where they were likely to look. In exchange for the skill slot he'd freed up by folding [Stealth] into [Predator's Visage], he'd lost a lot of the parts that concerned actually moving silently. It wasn't all gone, but it wasn't as strong as it had been before.

Velik wasn't concerned about that. His old skill had included [Ambush Tactics] as part of its makeup, which overlapped with what he needed [Stealth] for anyway. Besides, his physical stat was so high that even someone like Torwin had a hard time keeping track of him at night.

As for his newly opened skill slot, Velik returned once again to his old weak points: range and area damage. [The Black Fang] as a class didn't seem to want to do range, and none of the class skills provided a good solution. There were general skills, of course, things like [Bow Mastery] or [Throwing Mastery], but as a rule, Velik only took general skills when he had a plan to merge them into a class skill he already had. Weapon mastery skills for gear he didn't have or use did not make the cut.

Area damage was also something of a dead end, with the closest he could find being active skills that greatly increased his speed for brief windows. Those actually appealed to Velik quite a bit. Having what was essentially a free, reusable haste potion, even if the effect wasn't nearly as potent, could make future fights against opponents like the champion spider much easier.

The problem was that if he locked that skill slot down with something like that, he wouldn't be able to gain new skills until he reached level 40, not unless he found a way to merge two of his existing skills together. It bore more consideration, but he had plenty of time to think about it while he traveled.

His leg, meanwhile, wasn't getting any better. I shouldn't be surprised. It was a venomous spider bite from a champion elite. Even with my high physical, that's going to be a challenge. I could… probably afford some sort of antivenom from the system store, but if it's just a matter of riding out the pain, I'd rather save the money.

He decided to give it another hour. If things didn't start feeling better by then, he'd have to spend another thousand or more decarmas on a powerful antivenom. For the moment, all he could do was grit his teeth against the pain, pocket the broken compass, and start limping his way south toward home.

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