Return to Jorgaldur Volume III: blood warrior

Tangled rabbits (I)

Brurol refused to return to the village. His people had night vision, so they could be active day and night. In any case, no one would miss him much. He was an orphan, one of many, and there weren't enough resources to feed them all.

Therefore, he had gone out to find his own food, or something to trade for food. The old cloak was the only inheritance he had left from his parents, and thanks to it, he had been able to survive until then.

Gjaki set him down on a slightly elevated spot where he could see the entire area, inside a Shadow Protection. Anyway, she made him promise several times that he would not leave there, in spite of which she left a Bat besides.

She went down to the abandoned farm fields, and summoned two Blood Hounds. After that, they were ordered to attack the first two horned rabbits that she saw.

It was as the boy had explained. As soon as one of their kin was attacked, everyone around them turned furious on the attacker.

She sent the hounds running, and they made a huge detour to reach her position. Her intention was to get as many enemies as possible to chase them.

When they reached her, her summons were badly wounded. They were being chased by more than fifty rabbits, which seemed possessed by a murderous fury. Nonetheless, they could still walk, and they were mana beings which felt no pain.

A couple of Tentacle traps fired, thus buying time for all the rabbits to arrive. Just then, the vampiress suddenly appeared. She had already encircled the place with a web of tough threads. At first, she had left them on the ground, and with the help of Live Thread, a prison had been set.

Those threads weren't as good as the ones Eldi had made at level 100, but they were enough to keep the rabbits from escaping. She used as anchors the trees to which her prey had been lured. The threads not only surrounded them, but divided the area into sectors, thus separating them into groups.

While she could have annihilated them with Darkness Pillars more simply and quickly, that approach had two problems. The first was mana spending, which meant that she would have to rest to recover it. The second was that it would leave nothing, and the vampiress had a purpose for the meat.

So, while the rabbits were entertained by the two hounds, she began to attack them. With arrows, it would have been safer, but it was faster to simply jump between them.

As a precaution, she jumped first to a section where there were only five rabbits. Two of them were entangled in the threads, which were the first to be eliminated. She had come out of Darkness, and they were immobilized, so they had no chance despite being one and two levels higher.

The other three charged at her, and found themselves attacking the illusion created with Decoy. She bit one by surprise, and momentarily paralyzed it with Disrupt. At the same time, she kicked another one that was leaping. It was sent against the threads, in which it too became entangled.

The third one landed on the ground and jumped back at her, with its horn pointing at the neck of its victim. By then, she had already eliminated the bitten one, as well as absorbed its mana and energy. In that way, she had recovered some of her spent energy.

Although it was fast, once it had jumped, its trajectory couldn't been changed, at least not until level 90. Therefore, it found a whip that hit its snout. To that whip, Scrub and Dark Touch had been added, and the rabbit was immediately Grabbed by it.

The vampiress threw it straight to the ground with a swing of the weapon. From there, she kicked it with her foot, and stabbed the dagger that had been placed in her boot thanks to Surprise Dagger. At the same time, she used Double Edge against those which were entangled, especially one that was about to cross.

Rabbits from adjoining sections had lunged at her. Some had tangled in the threads. Others had just been repelled. There were many meters of threads forming a solid network, which could hardly be broken in a short time with only brute force.

The threads were a fairly strong combination of metal and rope, although not as strong as the level 100 ones. Those threads had been a special request that Eldi had been unable to refuse, and they included orichalcum, and a silk obtained from a dangerous arachne. She would have wanted to rely on them, but her level wasn't enough to control them.

Within minutes, she had finished off not just all five, but a couple of dozen more which had wanted to attack her from those adjoining sections.

That gave her an idea, Therefore, she simply opened the threads and crossed over to the next section. She had a rabbit in her hand, that was held by its horn, and which she simply dropped to the ground. As she had expected, this caused the anger of the others, which pounced against the walls of threads that separated them from her.

With that tactic, she pretty much only had to finish off the ones that got entangled. In addition, she could bite them comfortably, and recover the energy and mana spent, thanks to Yum, Energy and Yum, Mana.

While all this was happening, a little Gjaki was taking the skin off them, separating the meat, horn, teeth and bones, and storing them in the inventory.

At the same time, in the distance, a boy watched from the safety of the shadows. He didn't quite understand exactly what was happening, as he could not see the threads. However, it was clear that, somehow, the rabbits were being eliminated one by one with unprecedented ease.

His eyes sparkled with adoration, as he wondered if she would share one of those rabbits with him. He hadn't eaten meat in a long time, and the last time it hadn't been in a very good condition.

"Not bad. A quarter of the experience. Another three like this, and I'll level up. Eight or ten more, and I'll get another. I won't make it to the next, but I can still advance a little," Gjaki smiled after finishing.