ALL NOVEL Chapter 58: Where’s Arnie When You Need Him
Hell! Dominic spat mentally as he counted nine more wolves surrounding him. Worse, they were actually bigger than the one he had been facing. Perhaps a level or two above the one he’d been fighting. If any of them had broken through into Tier 2, Dominic was in trouble. Heck, he was in trouble even if they hadn’t – he’d been having difficulty with one; how was he supposed to win against ten.
‘We should run,’ Leo told him firmly. Dominic’s eyes flickered to the health bar above his previous opponent’s head. It was down lower than half, but only just. If he’d thought that he’d be able to open a wound in it which would drain that bar to nothing in moments, then he would have taken it. Unfortunately, it was waiting, its jaws slightly open.
‘Damn,’ Dominic cursed again. Leo was right. If he’d had a decent area of effect attack or could control the numbers in any way it would be different, but as matters stood? He was in the worst position possible considering their relative strengths and weaknesses. This wasn’t a fight he could win, and he would be stupid to attempt it. Now, how to get out of this?
Breaking away suddenly, Dominic ran directly towards one of the wolves surrounding him. As it bared its teeth and braced for impact, the other wolves nearby also tensing in preparation, Dominic jumped over its head.
He would never get tired of the surprise he saw when he pulled this move. Perhaps it was just too human for any of these creatures to consider it: attackers charged; escapees ran away. Still, he didn’t allow himself to gloat – the wolves were on his heels as he ran.
Not entirely sure what direction he was running in, all Dominic knew was that he was running away from the creatures chasing him.
Time wore on. The lion was faster than the wolves even when he didn’t run at full speed, but it ate steadily at his stamina bar. As the yellow bar started entering the last ten percent, Dominic felt worry chew at his stomach.
He chanced a look behind him: the wolves were still on his tail, looking unbothered. They didn’t look tired; they weren’t starting to fall behind. What if they’re pursuit hunters like Earth wolves are? Dominic wondered with concern. Their stamina may easily be better than mine. All indications so far indicated that that was probably true. And if it was, what could Dominic do? He had no desire to run himself into the ground and then be torn apart by the pack.
‘You could use Second Wind,’ Leo suggested, sounding just as worried.
‘I don’t want to lose half my health points when the timer runs out,’ Dominic argued back. ‘Besides, my health is above half; I can’t trigger it.’
‘The description spoke about health or stamina being below 50% and being able to refill health or stamina points. Not necessarily both.’
It was a thought. But was it a good one? Even if Leo was right and he could fill only his stamina points, it could put him in more danger after the timer was expended.
As matters stood, unless he lost this pack in the next five minutes, he wouldn’t have a chance to level up and replenish his resources completely. If that didn’t happen, then he would be going into negative points with his stamina when the timer expired. While he suspected that that wouldn’t necessarily kill him the way that going below 0 in health points would, he expected that he would become unable to move until his stamina recovered itself at least to above zero.
If he hadn’t lost the pack by that point, then it would be as much a death sentence as running himself dry now. No, there had to be a different way.
Dominic looked around frantically. If only there was some sort of cave or tunnel: he’d be able to hold them off like he had the hyenas soon after the System arrival. But the forest wasn’t that obliging. Trees and bushes covered any spot which might have slipped to reveal an underground opening.
The trees themselves were no good: using their trunks to hide behind might have worked if he were facing the warthog Guardian again, but that wasn’t the case. Not to mention that there were more dangers in the forest than just these wolves. All I need is those kesh to appear again and start pelting me from above, Dominic thought as he eyed the branches above.
Wait…what if I…? It was a thought. And one with better potential consequences to it than running out the timer on Second Wind before he managed to escape the wolves. Before he could second-guess himself, Dominic slowed to a stop, bunched his muscles and leaped into the air.
The wolves caught up just as he leaped, but all they could do was snap at the tuft of his tail as he flew into the air.
Reaching out with his claws, Dominic grabbed onto the branch he was aiming for. Struggling to get onto it, he hoped desperately that his stamina wouldn’t give up before he succeeded. If it looked like he might, he would trigger Second Wind. He wasn’t keen on that idea, though, fearing that the exhaustion once it lapsed might prevent him from staying in the tree and send him plummeting to the ground.
Fortunately, he still had a sliver of stamina left even once he’d managed to pull himself to stand on the broad bough. Looking down at the wolves milling below his feet, he stayed tense as he waited for them to make the next move.
His reason for making this decision was that he suspected that he could jump higher than these creatures could. Certainly a lion was capable of a greater jump distance than a wolf even in Earth’s pre-System terms, but that didn’t necessarily mean squat when talking about both non-Earth creatures and post-System enhancements.
Still, it didn’t look like the wolves were particularly comfortable in the trees given the fact that they were still milling around below him rather than scaling the trees to take the battle to the canopy.
One tried to jump after the lion, but didn’t make it even halfway to his branch before it fell back to earth. None of the others made the attempt.
Next, Dominic saw their antennae starting to vibrate, a hum beginning in the air. As if their ridiculous attack needed to be any more capable, it seemed like they were able to enhance each other, making the pack’s attack far more powerful together than they would be individually.
Even more than twenty feet in the air, the vibrations were rattling his teeth. Digging his claws into the branch below, Dominic relaxed his jaw muscles in hope that he wouldn’t lose any more of his teeth. Or be knocked out of the tree.
The humming increased in intensity and once more started hurting him. The tree itself was vibrating, and Dominic hoped that that didn’t mean it was about to fall. He thought through what he’d do in that case: probably jump to the next tree along. And then the next until he lost the wolves.
Fortunately, it seemed like the distance between the wolves and him was a significant factor in his ability to withstand the attack with minimal damage. Even when the vibration stopped increasing, it was still only sending shivers of pain through him, health points dropping from his bar one at a time and not too quickly. He didn’t want to think about what it would have been like if he’d been on ground level with them, though. It was a good decision to run, he concluded.
After a time, the wolves trailed off, the hum reducing in volume and intensity until it was gone. The next thing the pack tried was that eerie moaning noise which the first wolf had used to summon the rest of the pack. Once more, Dominic felt like he was frozen in place, unable to move.
Worse, this time he was actually taking damage. Like the humming, it seemed like this pack of wolf-like creatures were able to harmonise their moans to amplify the effect. Consequently, Dominic found himself unable to even take a breath, and he was pretty sure his heart had stopped beating.
Panic consumed his mind as his health points started dropping faster and faster. If his heart had been working, it would have been beating furiously, but as it was, he could only mentally panic as he suffocated.
His vision started fading, black encroaching on the forest around him.
And then he was gasping, his heart beating fit to burst. It took him a moment to process what had happened. The silence from the wolves below was his first clue: maybe they could only keep that particular attack going for a certain amount of time.
When Dominic looked at his health bar, the bottom dropped out of his stomach. He’d lost over two hundred health in that single attack. Had it gone on a few seconds longer, the blackness would have been permanent. I need to get out of here before they’re able to do that again, he thought to himself, fear focussing his mind.
To be able to do that, he needed stamina. To get stamina, he needed to level up. Without thinking any more, he acted, choosing the two enhancements he and Leo had discussed.
The warm blast of energy that washed through him was as pleasurable as always, but it wasn’t warm enough or strong enough to wash away the cold kernel of fear within him. He’d been closer to death, but never having done so little damage in return. He didn’t even know these creatures’ species since he hadn’t even got close to killing one. Without even checking out his new upgrades, Dominic took advantage of his renewed resources to get moving.
Not daring to drop down to ground-level and risk being trapped by one of those attacks again, he leapt carefully from the branch he was onto one not far away. He was much more attentive to his movements than he’d been when he last tried this with the kesh: first of all he didn’t have not-monkeys trying to hit him with rocks and nuts; second of all, he had a pack of slathering wolves ready to tear him to shreds if he made a single wrong move. Well, not slathering, but certainly waiting.
With Leo’s help, he actually managed to judge the distance pretty well, only slightly over-shooting it. Gyrating his tail, he regained his balance and looked for his next destination.
Leap by leap, branch by branch, he made his way through the forest. Each time he jumped, he got a little better at it, a little less likely to misjudge the distance one way or another.
He had to pause twice when the wolves following him activated their vibration attack, but fortunately they didn’t use the moaning howl again.
Finally, they seemed to give up. First one left, then another, and then the next time he looked down, there were no wolves around the tree in which he was sitting.
Mistrusting their absence for some time, Dominic continued leaping in the trees until he was certain that they weren’t still following him. By this time, the trees were shorter and the branches were becoming thinner, so he dropped to the ground gladly. It was only a few minutes later when he exited the patch of forest surrounding the Place of Power.
I’ll be back, he mentally told the wolves darkly. Given what he’d learned about Places of Power, he certainly wasn’t giving up on it. But he needed to bring more firepower. Where’s Arnie when you need him? he mourned.
The sun was rising again, the whole night having been passed in the forest. Dominic needed to rest; he felt his desire to sleep dragging at him. But that required finding a reasonably safe or at least defensible spot.
Lifting his head, he scented the wind, marvelling at just how much more he could smell since his level up. Then he caught the hint of something familiar.
‘Water,’ Leo told him just as he arrived at that conclusion himself. The lion sounded just as excited as Dominic felt. That chase had made him thirsty. Besides, there were other advantages. ‘Where there’s water, there’s prey.’
‘And where there’s prey, continued Dominic, there are predators.’
