Chapter 12

  Several monsters are alarmed, by the scream made by the crazy running Greese

  The first monster to reach him is a tall, thin evolved troglodyte built for speed. Greese could tell the monster's class was Slasher as soon as he saw its hunched running stance with, claws held in front of it like an unspinning drill.

  Greese stops entirely. His body drenched in sweat from all the running. He struggles to catch his breath.

  “Ellaaa” The troglodyte roars. Filled with unbridled joy. Even with it nearly non existent intelligence this fabricated beast of sheer carnivoroustic intent can tell: before it is an exhausted meal. A creature to weak to fight back, but with the size to more than fill it.

  Seemingly exhausted Greese’s arms drop to his sides, then with practiced ease and uncharacteristic panache he raises his both arms. Unperturbed the monsters charge continues its acceleration stopped having reached its peak speed.

  Saliva drips from the troglodyte's mouth, it’s moments away from disemboweling its catch. Greese’s left arm is stagnant guarding his midsection. While heavily panting he rears back his right fist. Greese activates all, but one of his skills at once. His lower body pivots and with the entire weight of his body his arm moves. At imperceptible speed his fist flies forward.

  The moment before impact, he screams “HEAVY BLOW” and activates his last skill.

  Before the beast can react to the sudden pivot its head flies backward,so quickly its body is forced to follow after it. Its lower jaw shatters and the remaining teeth of its upper jaw hang out.

  The sudden concussive force and the prompt fall landing on his head have left its head a scrambled mess. Slowly with blood and cranial flood leaking from most parts of it’s now shattered skull it seizes and dies.

  *You have defeated a level 5 Assault Troglodyte Slasher. You have gained XP*

  Immediately Greese leaned over and started to vomit. His body overheated. “Ahhh! Why do we always end up fucking RUNNING!” he spits “I hate it! I just want to fucking fight!”

  Before he can fully catch his breath he hears another monster, a froghemoth with legs the size of his torso. It's clearly evolved with some specialty in jumping. It also doesn’t have the characteristic slime

  He clears his throat and re-centers himself. He takes on the stance of a martial artist. With a confident smile and full of pride he says "OH now this one might be a bit fun”

  In much the same way as before he lets his opponent charge at building to full speed. However this time once the sleek slime free frog is within 5ft of him it’s legs seem to collapse like a spring collecting all the energy from the sudden stop.

  Instantly the frog lunges forth revealing that the top of its head is a darker green and warted almost like a cartoon toad's skin. This is another unique feature of its evolution that Greese wasn’t expecting.

  Two of his skills are passive and have and give him a short buff. They have short cooldowns and give mild effects to his fighting ability. The other two are active and have different long cooldowns. When Greese swivels his hips they aren’t quite as fast, his punch doesn’t seem to have the same supernatural strength, or speed.

  Still a trained combatant he makes the spur decision that the part of its body it’s ramming with is likely hard and not a weak point. He adroitly aims his fist for the very top of its head hoping to redirect its momentum into the ground.

  When he hits he feels a spongy sensation. The froghemoth fatty body contorts absorbing a good bit of the blow. His follow through strong, with a loud crack his fist reaches the beast's skull. His knuckles nearly shatter and the monster's skull is left with numerous cracks, but is still mostly intact. Greases plan worked, but not perfectly as expected. The monster slams into the ground skidding forward a few more inches to smash into Greese’s iron leg guards. This sends him flying over the froghemoth.

  Frog sections of this frog creature's skin is sheared off from where it scraped the hard rock floor. It takes a moment to fight back the pain. As it raises its chin large drops of blood fall down. It shakes it’s head and starts to rise.

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  Greese tumbles, rolling to extend the impact and absorb the force. He eventually skitters to a stop a few feet away with his back turned. As quickly as the lumbering brute can manage he shifts around, still on the floor to face the shiny rear of his attacker.

  “Damn why’d I have to go and blow off my load that quick. Shoulda saved them skills for a time like this.”

  Stirred by the sounds of a clumbering mass of meat and armor struggling to rise, the froghemoth takes action. Its leg muscles coil and shoot numerous yards in front of it. The maneuver seems to have exhausted it as it slowly stands and turns around.

  “You shit breathed dick head. How fucking dare you” Unable to contain his rage he screams “Not more fucking running”

  Greese walks casually toward the monster fully unwilling to run again. For once his hatred for running is actually helpful as it gives him time to catch his breath. It also gave him enough time for Quick Pivot, his weaker active skill to recharge.

  “Oh fuck” Greese shouts. The beast lashed out with its tongue as soon as he got within its range. Greese leaned back using the minimal amount of movement extending just out of its reach.

  “Okay, I guess I gotta run after all.” He begins to sprint. The froghemoth’s tongue isn’t as fast as it’s jumping, but it’s quick enough that even when closing the short few feet between them it has time to strike twice with its tongue.

  The beast's tongue rises from the ground where it landed after the initial dodged attack. The first blow is aimed at Greese’s head. Greese smacks it with an open palm using his left hand. to avoid the tip that’s coiled into a ball shape like a parrots, he let’s the attack get fairly close to him so he can hit it halfway down.

  He successfully avoids the dangerous hardened part the tongue is smacked slightly off course, but the caveat is that it allows the froghemoth to throw a second blow. Since there was less leverage where he hit.

  The second one was aimed at his neck, this time the tongue slightly curved like a person throwing a hook. The sudden shift in tactic from the more simplistic attacks threw him off. He recovers slightly too late and is only able to partially absorb the blow.

  He raises his arms and braces, jumping at the last moment allowing himself to be thrown into the wall. His heavy armor slows him down significantly and he barely taps into the wall. His arms are stinging and the rusted armguards have new dents, but he’s unharmed.

  The froghemoth’s tongue isn’t long enough to reach him, so it has to turn it’s body. Their massive size and brawny knees make turning very slow for them. This gives Greese time to charge in again.

  He takes advantage of his position and rather than running right at the monster he runs along until he is next to the beast. It reacts to this slowly now having to turn a full 90 degrees to even catch up to see him.

  About halfway through its turning motion it feels a heavy force smack into the side of its skull. The cracks present widen and burst in an instant. Its skull shatters small bits of bone stabbed into its own brain. The beast instantly dies the moment Greese’s first makes contact directly with its brain.

  *You have defeated a level 6 Bounding Troglodyte Charger. You have gained XP*

  “Hmm, that's a new evolution I haven’t heard of. It was like a stronger leaping. Weird though I have no fuckin’ clue what a bound has to do with jumping I always thought it meant distance”

  Greese checks the loot and finds nothing, but the silver coin that is common for evolved creatures to drop. He places them into an empty leather sack and starts walking down the path. He doesn’t take a break to rest, but the pace he’s going will let him recover a bit.

  He spends the next 2 hours wandering down the tunnel and hunting mobs. He doesn’t run into anything of too much trouble like he first did. After numerous encounters he ends with only a small cut on his cheek and a few bruises under his armor. His stamina is completely drained and both his active skills are on cooldown.

  He was supposed to meet back with Harkell in a couple more hours, but since he refuses to do anything faster than a walk he decides now is the best time to turn back.

  “May as well check my stats first.”

  “Yeah as expected, no change. Tonight will be different.”