NOVEL NEXT Chapter 105: Out of the Bag
After his attacks on the higher-level hyenas, the seven which remained turned on Dominic, seeing him as the greater threat. Which he was, but the lionesses weren’t to be discounted either.
While not moving too far from the little knot of lions, Dominic saw Sekhmet and Anuke leaping at the turned backs of the hyenas closest to them. From how their attacks made the attackers’ health bars drop significantly, he guessed that Pounce must have been adding a bonus due to attacking unexpectedly.
After that one attack, they leapt back into position: leaving it for any longer could have opened up the cubs and the backs of their sisters to the eager hyenas. Just in time: they regained their places just as a couple of level 5 hyenas came sniffing around, spotting the weakness.
Dominic himself was in a difficult position: he might be a good number of levels above his opponents, not to mention Tier 2 against Tier 1 enemies, but he was still surrounded by seven pairs of snapping teeth. And without the bonus of Pounce, he wasn’t managing to drop them in a single attack. The teamwork of the hyenas then meant that he wasn’t able to finish the job before another hyena interceded. It was frankly frustrating.
Dialling up his speed, both natural and enhanced by Quick Strike, he was able to inflict far worse wounds on his attackers than they managed to land on him, but he was still taking damage. Worse, his stamina was dropping fast.
I need a breather, he decided.
With a final two strikes at hyenas which had already been hurt – securing one kill and one almost-kill which would probably happen when it bled out a few seconds later – Dominic leapt over the heads of the hyenas once more.
This time, it turned out that they had learned from his strategy. The hyena he jumped over jumped in its turn and Dominic grunted loudly in pain as its teeth scraped at his vulnerable belly. Fortunately, it had misjudged its height, so just a chunk of flesh was torn away, mostly skin. But, landing safely in the circle of the lionesses, the experience left him shaken – a few more inches higher and it would have sunk its teeth into his guts, a grievous wound even for him.
Fortunately having managed not to land on any of the cubs huddled together in the centre of the defending lionesses, Dominic took a moment to recover and take stock of the situation.
It wasn’t looking good.
The lionesses were holding up against the seemingly-endless tide of snapping jaws, but their health bars were dropping even as he watched. He didn’t doubt that their stamina was doing the same.
Worse, Dominic noticed something else: were there more hyenas than he’d originally thought? Despite having killed twelve of the vicious things – including a couple that the lionesses had killed since he’d been in the circle – the mass seemed undented. And then he saw why.
The leader was standing off to the side and watching, whooping and grunting like her life depended on it. In response to the call, hyenas were streaming out of the bushes around, joining the group already attacking the lionesses.
Does she have some sort of spawn point there? Dominic cried in frustration. Taking a quick headcount, there were now more hyenas than there had been in the first attack. How many of the bloody scavengers are there?
‘We can’t win this,’ Leo said in resignation. ‘There are too many of them, and too few of us.’
‘It’s all because of that leader,’ Dominic spat. Then he had an idea. ‘The head of the snake….’ Leo immediately understood what he meant.
‘Do it.’
‘I will try,’ Dominic replied grimly. ‘But I need to replenish my stamina.’
‘But won’t that-’
‘
Probably.’‘Then-’
‘What choice do we have?’ Dominic demanded, recognising Leo’s objections, but not seeing any other options. If they continued as they were, then they would start losing lionesses. And once one was lost, the rest would start dropping like flies due to the increased burden and the reduced protection.
‘You’re right,’ the lion sounded uncharacteristically defeated. ‘I just hate potentially giving up such an important secret to enemies,’ he continued.
‘I know. Me too. But needs must. Can you tell the lionesses to go ahead with absorbing carcasses? But try to be discrete about it – maybe get them to do it with their back paws rather than their noses. That way, the hyenas won’t see what’s happening so clearly.’
‘I will try,’ Leo agreed. ‘But we don’t have many carcasses inside the circle.’
‘Yes we do,’ Dominic responded with a momentary flash of humour. His companion’s confusion cleared up as queerb carcasses started appearing at the tip of Dominic’s front paw. It was almost like he was 3D stamping reality: a carcass would appear, he’d move his paw; another carcass would appear, he’d move his paw. The cubs huddled within the circle quickly learned to avoid the area under his paw.
Leo must have been more successful in communicating that a nose wasn’t necessary to Consume a body, as the lionesses started stretching a paw backwards, or, in the case of Sekhmet, a tail.
‘That’s a good idea,’ Dominic murmured to Leo, doing the same himself. Even better, hyenas didn’t have much of a tail so if they were misled to believe that it was an intrinsic part of the process, all the better.
Leo seemed to agree and obviously communicated with the lionesses as more started to follow suit. The other benefit was that a tail was less important in this kind of fight than a paw, so the lionesses were able to continue fighting even as golden dust rose to seal their wounds and lift their stamina.
‘Maybe we could win this battle of attrition,’ Dominic wondered. ‘If we can keep our health up while whittling down that of the enemy, it doesn’t matter how many bodies they throw at us.’
Cutting the head off the snake might still be the best way out of it, though. Dominic made sure that the lionesses had a good supply of carcasses in the centre – the rest of the queerb corpses from his gorget. Then, he leapt out of the circle and back into the mess.
Beelining for the leader, he still took opportunities to inflict damage and quick kills where he could. When he got out of the mass of hyenas at the point where the leader had been standing, he was abruptly confused, looking every which way.
Where’s she gone? The hyena seemed to have vanished.
Then he spotted her – she’d shifted around the edge of the hyenas to a different spot, still whooping and grunting her clarion call. Leaning into his enhanced speed, Dominic rushed around the circle towards her, but she darted into the group of hyenas. Her two ‘bodyguards’ were left behind, facing Dominic with menacingly bared teeth.
Normally, he’d have eagerly taken up the challenge, but this time, he was more frustrated than anything else.
Darting away from the two hulking hyenas, he searched the morass with both his and Leo’s full attention.
‘There,’ Leo called, pulling Dominic’s attention to a figure on almost the opposite side of the battleground. Again, she’d gone as far from him as she could.
Once more running around the edge of the hyenas, he was unsurprised when she again vanished into the boiling mass of spotted fur.
‘
Fight me!’ he shouted mentally at the hyena in frustration. Suddenly a notification popped up in front of him. Since it wasn’t the usual notifications about hyena kills – of which there had been a few even since leaving the circle – he took a moment to look at it.[You have issued a challenge: Duel to the Death.
Note, no outside intervention is permitted during the challenge. Note also that for reasons of fairness, both participants will be returned to full health at the start of the challenge.
Waiting for opponent to accept or decline.]
Surprised but happily so, Dominic waited eagerly to see what the hyena decided. Maybe I didn’t need to replenish my health and stamina, then.
A moment later, a new message flashed up.
[Challenge has been declined.]
Dominic swore. Damn coward! He conveniently forgot that he had declined the hippo’s challenge for probably much the same reasons as the hyena was declining his.
‘Fight me!’ he cried out again mentally.
[System cannot issue another challenge: Duel to the Death. Reason: challenged has recently declined this challenge.]
There was a lot to unpack there, but Dominic didn’t have the time now. He made a mental note to check the message out in the logs later. If there was a later. That was looking increasingly uncertain, especially since he’d just noticed a load of golden dust abruptly surround a hyena.
Grimly hoping that the enemies didn’t have some sort of telepathy Skill like him, Dominic leapt straight for that one. Though it had just absorbed a carcass, its health was still below half, so it didn’t take too much effort to rip out its throat.
[You have killed Hyena (Half-step Evolved level 8)]
[You have earned 8 PP]
Level 8…. He’d thought it was level 5 from its size – perhaps the reason why it had figured out how to Consume a carcass was because it had enhanced its intelligence? Or maybe it had got an Ability like Keen Mind.
Hoping that killing the hyena would have nipped that problem in the bud, Dominic was dismayed when he saw golden dust surround another hyena. Killing that one took longer, but he did it, another notification flashing before him. Level 7. Unfortunately, he saw another cloud of gold, and then another. The cat was clearly out of the bag on that one.
The future of the pride looking increasingly precarious, Dominic tried to help out by dashing through the battleground, feeling worrisomely like a panic-stricken chicken. While he did deal wounds here and kills there, his main focus was in clearing it of the baboon and hyena carcasses. Now that his enemies had discovered what they meant, they were less of a distraction and more health potions lying around for the hyenas to benefit from.
Even as he ran, his mind raced. Even if he managed to collect all the carcasses currently littering the area – which wouldn’t be possible: his storage space wasn’t big enough – every time they killed a hyena, they’d have to either absorb it immediately or see it being used to bolster its erstwhile allies. Their great advantage of being able to increase their health mid-fight would be turned against them.
But whether they could win this battle of attrition was definitely uncertain; winning it without casualties seemed impossible. What else could they do, though? The leader was difficult to catch, and spending time chasing her around was time he could be using to greater effect elsewhere: he was the most powerful of the pride, but his recent actions had been of limited effect. And it seemed like he’d run out of stamina before the hyenas ran out of fighters.
Spotting the hyena leader, a new idea struck him. This time, he didn’t try to run towards her. Instead, he focussed as hard as he could, while still fending off the attacks aimed towards him. He was trying to connect with her through telepathy. Maybe they could come to some agreement?
