Duskbound

And that's eight… nine… and ten. How many more of these damn things are there?

The scorplings weren't so bad one at a time, but the last batch had been three of them, and they'd come at him from both sides. Only his enhanced agility had kept him safe from being caught in those pincers and stung to death. To be fair, he hadn't actually been hit yet, but he wasn't willing to bet on the durability of his skin to resist monsters in the mid-thirties level range.

The worst part was that the scratching sound they made when they walked wasn't getting any quieter. If anything, more and more of the monsters were showing up. No, the worst thing is that those stingers are definitely poisoned. It turned out that the flesh walls really were flesh in all the ways that counted, and more than once one of the scorplings' stingers had scratched the wall or floor.

The flesh had immediately started to putrefy, and even though the effect hadn't spread that far from the injection site, that was relative to the size of the wall. A few feet in every direction might as well be Velik's whole body, and he had a human's circulatory system. The wall was full of thick monster blood that barely even oozed out of any wounds it took.

He'd already looked up the price of an all-purpose antidote in the system store and wasn't in a hurry to drop fifteen hundred decarmas on it if he didn't need to, so avoiding the stingers was a high priority. His early strategy of severing the muscles at the base of the tail was still working, but that was a lot harder to pull off when there were three of them all coming at him in a tight tunnel.

He was seriously considering retreating back to the cavern he'd discovered and risking dealing with a champion just so he'd have room to move when the next batch of scorplings found him. There was a solid chance of that plan backfiring on him and making things worse, but if he did nothing, he'd eventually make a mistake. Maybe that would be because he was tired. Maybe it would be because the next group would have four or even five scorplings. Or maybe he'd simply run out of time and his [Duskbound] bonuses would expire with a rising sun he couldn't see.

There could be hundreds of even thousands of these things down here. If he wanted to move forward, he needed to take the risk. Otherwise, the best thing for him to do was fight his way back to the surface and abandon the whole plan. No way.

Another scorpling found him while he was backtracking to the cavern, leaving him to once again wonder what weird senses they had that allowed them to track him down. [Apex Hunter] was usually good about figuring that stuff out, but these monsters were too foreign for him to piece it together. Maybe it's some sort of scent tracking? But then how do they fight once they actually catch up?

Even without eyes, they seemed to have some sort of sight analogue. They weren't graceful by any means, else one of them would have tagged him long ago, but they at least attempted to block his spear when he stabbed at them. If they couldn't 'see' him, he couldn't think of another way they'd be able to tell where the spear was when he was swinging it around.

He was hustling toward an intersection with five possible exits when the next scorpling appeared in front of him. At the same time, two poured out of the tunnel he'd just passed. "Great," he muttered.

Two more joined the one in front of him, flanking it on either side. Five?!

With no time to waste, Velik turned on his heel and rushed back to where there were only two. He needed to either kill both of them or at least find a way past them so all his enemies were on one side in the next few seconds. The first scorpling snapped at him as he approached, but he kicked off the wall, smacked its tail aside with his spear, and landed behind it.

Immediately, its partner jabbed at him with its tail. Velik hopped back a step to dodge it, but before he could start moving again, the first scorpling smacked into him. Thankfully, it was more of a body check than anything. Its pincers and stinger were far enough away that all he felt was the mass of its central body and two of its legs kicking against his foot. That was enough to force him to stumble a single step, which was all the second scorpling needed to get a pincer around his leg.

Velik flexed his thigh muscles hard to prevent the pincer from tearing into him, but that wasn't the real problem. The issue was that, now that he was stuck in place, he was an easy target. All of his spear work went to batting aside the pincer that danced about, trying to drive itself into his chest. He blocked three strikes in less than a second, and by that time, the other scorpling had reoriented itself and joined the fight.

No choice. Going to have to use it.

[Phalanx] activated, and four softly glowing spears appeared around Velik. They cast a faint light, barely enough to highlight the lengths of their hafts in the dark, but to Velik's eyes, everything was suddenly bright enough for his native dark vision to kick in. Sketchy details became clear and colors returned, not that he had time to appreciate them.

His control with [Phalanx] was better now, but still not great. He didn't want to trust his life to it, but until he got free from the pincer holding him, he needed a way to block multiple attacks at once. This was precisely the type of situation the skill was designed to handle, so he hoped it was up to the task. The scorplings' exoskeletons were tough enough that he didn't see the phantasmal spears putting any holes in them unless he imbued them with [Kinetic Charge].

A tail flashed down on his left, and he willed a spear to smack it to the side. The scorpling's attack was knocked off course, but it recovered quickly and tried again. Velik defended himself while the other three spears tied up the scorpling that had gotten ahold of him. His real weapon, the Harbinger of Dusk, shortened to four feet in length, and he drove it into the pincer holding him with all his might.

Pain radiated from his leg where it dug deeper, but his attack had done its work. One side of the pincer was sheared off, leaving Velik free to move. He danced back out of range, leaving [Phalanx] to delay both monsters.

Huh. That's actually working pretty well. These things aren't coordinated, just fast. I should have tried this earlier.

The other three scorplings reached the fight then, but with a tunnel too narrow for all of them to get through, that ended up helping Velik. Unlike other pack monsters he'd fought in the past, these ones didn't work together at all. They didn't outright attack each other, but the ones in the back didn't hesitate to climb on top of their brethren trying to reach Velik. That didn't do much for the front line's capabilities, but it did give him plenty of openings.

Things were going well. He killed one, then another of the scorplings. The remaining three all had injuries on them slowing them down and, more importantly, preventing them from using their tails freely. [Phalanx] was working well, despite the soft light coming from the spears messing with his [Night Vision] enchantment. It couldn't seem to decide if it needed to be active or not, and as a result his vision kept flickering between the strange white outlines of things and his normal sight.

That might have been the reason he missed a sixth scorpling coming up from behind. It certainly didn't help, either way. Whether it was that or the distraction of fending off a trio of monsters while directing four phantasmal spears at the same time, the end result was the same.

He heard the soft swish of a descending stinger, had a moment to register that none of the ones in front of him were responsible for the sound, and felt a burning pain in his shoulder as one of the monsters finally got a hit on him. Velik jerked away, but it was too late. Even as the stinger slipped out of him, the pain intensified and the burn started to spread.

"Argh!" he cried out, unable to help himself. His arm dropped uselessly, still on fire but no longer listening to his body.

[Phalanx] worked overtime for the next few seconds while he got his spear into his other hand and his back to a wall. The new scorpling clacked its pincers as it chased him down, and the three from the start of the fight worked in concert—probably accidentally, considering what he'd seen of their pack tactics—to pen him in.

Velik slashed the air in front of him, trying to drive them back. The blade of his spear skipped off one of the scorplings, its tough skin preventing it from drawing blood. At the same time, the poison spread down from his shoulder into his chest and his heart started slamming into his ribs.

Well, shit. That's probably not good. Should have bought that antidote before I needed it.