Thu’lain stood over a large, somewhat flat boulder and kept a comfortable distance from Il’tan, though she didn’t make it easy.

“Why don’t you just kill it?” Il’tan stood behind Thu’lain, keeping a healthy distance from the gob’maw squirming on the boulder, but not quite giving the same consideration for Thu’lain.

“It works better.”

“What works better? If you are gonna eat it anyways, just put it out of its misery.” Il’tan petitioned as Thu’lain continued his grisly task.

He gouged his dagger deeper into the gob’maw as its muffled screams filled the air. Blood poured from the wound and dozens of others into a puddle that never seemed to grow larger - instead, it formed into a light mist that flowed into the cloaks stacked nearby. Thu’lain pointed a bloody finger at the cloaks and enjoyed the intense curiosity that Il’tan watched the process with.

“Blood, to replace the essence that the cloaks use.”

He focused on his task while allowing Il’tan to remain to spectate; he had no problems working with others around him. She stayed interested for only a few more minutes as the task lost its lustre in her eyes, and Thu’lain noticed that her gaze lingered less on what he was doing and more on him.

She must be intimidated from earlier. I should work on first impressions, and I’m covered in blood.

Oblivious to Il’tan’s actual interests in his less-than-fully-clothed-body, he struggled to come up with small talk, eventually settling for uncomfortable silence. For him, at least.

“Hey Il’tan, come get some food!” Raj’ken shouted while waving a roasted and skewered fish fillet through the air. Il’tan immediately rose and shuffled off toward the promise of food, though she glanced back at Thu’lain once on the way there.

Thu’lain let out a breath of relief and went about his business, cutting deeper into another gob’maw.

I’m not that scary, am I?

The remaining seven gob’maws of varying sizes squirmed in their nets, with their jaws bound tightly. He worked toward finishing the harvest so he could relax by the lake with the others.

About an hour later, Thu’lain washed the blood off of his body in the lake and walked up toward the small cooking fire that Hal and Hret had set up. They had quite the food pile around and, with the contribution of Tu’lar’s spices, the smell in the air was delightful. Thu’lain found himself looking forward to taking a break and getting some for himself.

“Harvest is done.” Thu’lain hefted a few slabs of meat near the fire for whoever was responsible for cooking to handle - courtesy of the lake monsters - and grabbed two fish to enjoy.

“Thanks, Thu. I’ll have a few of these cooked up and I’ll get you the first one.” Tu’lar smiled as he grabbed up the meat and tossed it into a well-used pan.

“Who’s on watch?”

“Il’tan went with your Raj’ken and Anar’dea. They seem to have taken a liking to each other.” Hret chewed fish on one side of his mouth while he answered.

Thu’lain nodded, appeased that, even though they were relaxing, the others didn’t think that somehow they would be safe.

But there’s something unusual.

“Hret, when was the last time you had an apex in these parts?”

“The one that started chasing El’tan. A day or so ago.” Hret’s jovial mood instantly went a few degrees colder as his worry was brought back to the surface.

“No, before that.”

“Hrmm, a few weeks. We get lucky enough to avoid them. Keep El’tan’s cloak fully charged. Why?” Hret met Thu’lain’s eyes, aware there was more to Thu’lain’s questions than mere curiosity.

“It bothers me that we haven’t seen any.”

“Thu, really? I went months without seeing one and we just had multiple run-ins in days. I’m good with some peace!” Tin’lo exclaimed while selecting a fish from around the fire.

“I don’t understand. You want them?” Hret asked cautiously.

“No, but as Tin’lo said, we’ve had quite the encounters. It doesn’t make sense why they suddenly stopped.”

“Well, we saw a couple of other elves pass through the area before we all decided to go. Maybe they followed them instead?” Hal added himself to the conversation.

“Perhaps. Did El’tan tell you what to do if you were separated?”

“She said to find others of her kind and ask politely if they could guide us to Anosora. She’d be there, or find us along the way.” Hret responded, and had to roll the tension out of his shoulders. “I trust her to be there.”

It’s good to be able to hope.

Thu’lain nodded and took a bite of the fish, his eyes lighting up the moment he sank his teeth into it.

“This is amazing. Who made it?”

Tu’lar’s jaw dropped as Hret raised a furry hand.

“He never said my cooking was amazing,” Tu’lar whined good-naturedly.

“That’s cause it’s good, not amazing Tu,” Tin’lo jabbed and snickered as he ate.

The relaxed and casual tone came back around the campfire and eventually it was time to switch out groups of who was on watch: Anar’dea, Raj’ken, and Il’tan tagged out with Tu’lar, Tin’lo, and Trat’catha.

The evening was falling into night and Tin’lo irritably clawed at his bandages as the trio walked around their camp outskirts.

“How’s your arm healing Tin’lo? It seems to be bothering you,” Trat’catha asked out of concern.

“It’s just annoying. I have to adjust the bandages way too often now,” He grumbled as he replaced the wrap around the tip of his forearm.

“When the hand starts coming back, I’m not even gonna bother,” he complained.

“You know you’re gonna hate how everything feels to the fresh skin, though. Just wear a glove and strap it on, Tin,” Tu’lar fussed and started rewrapping the arm.

“Stop that, I got it,” Tin’lo grouched. “You ever lose a limb Trat?”

“Yes. Even experienced smiths have accidents, you know. I once lost both arms at once due to an apprentice accident. It took me days to get back to work.” He smiled at the memory. “I made the apprentice do everything for me for months after as compensation. Good times.”

The cracking of a tree limb a few dozen feet off into the dimly lit forest set all three of them on edge and each had a weapon drawn in a flash and were already backing away from the source of the sound.

Tin’lo searched the forest floor and, upon failing to notice anything at a glance, sought out movement in the sparse treetops. With the lack of light, he nearly missed the anomaly amongst the branches: a strange multi-legged creature whose legs looked almost identical to the wood and trunks surrounding it. The central part of its body was partially obscured by the leaves of a nearby tree, but he could almost make out the reflection of amber light from small beady eyes and he couldn’t be certain of where the creature ended and the trees around it began, only that it was frozen still. He made no sudden movements and kept his voice low.

“Treetop. Looks like wood. Apex, insect-like. Directly ahead of us. Back away,” Tin’lo ordered, and both Tu’lar and Trat’catha searched for the creature while they backed up further.

After a few steps, the creature burst into sudden movement - it stood high up into the canopy at least twenty feet and snapped branches with its ten powerful legs - and they could see its torso and head were nearly ten feet in diameter, mostly mouth and tearing mandibles.

“Spread out!” Tin’lo yelled as he darted backward, dodging out of the way of a cleaving leg.

As soon as Tu’lar dodged, he swung a black and red axe and twisted into the blow, cleaving through the leg that came down before it could be retracted. The apex chittered furiously and Tin’lo kicked Tu’lar out of the path of another piercing limb; this one retracted just as soon as the blow missed and a sweeping strike followed from another leg that Tin’lo dodged only by ducking below it.

The apex turned towards the duo and raised three of its nine uninjured legs to strike them, but as it brought down its sharp limbs, Trat’catha hacked apart another leg with his halberd and knocked it off-balance enough to miss its blows. In the next moment, he reversed the edge of the blade and cleaved once more. The halberd rang with the speed and friction against the air and hardly slowed as it sliced through another leg.

Now having only seven functioning limbs, the apex teetered to its unsupported side and scrambled to get its legs underneath it. With that brief opportunity, Tu’lar and Tin’lo rose to their feet and rushed at different legs while Trat’catha mirrored them on the other side. They then struck apart, hacked, or pierced through three more legs.

No longer able to adjust its footing, the apex toppled to the ground much like a tree with its base cut, though it was by no means helpless. Its mandibles that surrounded its mouth also allowed it to scuttle along the ground and it raised its remaining legs up above it in order to keep them out of reach, yet retain its ability to strike with them.

Trat’catha circled around the apex with Tu’lar and Tin’lo doing the same and, despite having it totally surrounded, it was able to track all of them.

The apex made the first move and stabbed with its legs as it rushed forward at Tin’lo, seeking to kill the only injured elf first.

Tin’lo hurriedly dodged the piercing limbs as they honed in on him and leapt backwards as quickly as he could. The first two strikes he evaded simply by movement, but the third he had to deflect with the sword he carried. The blow impacted the sword and sent Tin’lo skidding across the ground. Tin’lo tried to break his fall with his other hand only to realize belatedly that the stump of his arm prevented him from doing anything more than curling it in front of him to block his head.

He hit the ground with a thump and began to tumble. A moment later, he began to roll to spring back up and try to draw out the apex so Tu’lar and Trat’catha could kill it - a hot eruption of pain ripped through his lower back and abdomen and another impact rag-dolled him into a nearby tree.

He idly noticed the sensation of being dragged, but the pain in his abdomen and the dizzying blow against the tree had him reeling. He looked down to see what looked almost like a harpoon sticking out of him and risked a glance behind him.

“Tu! Help!” Tin’lo cried out in pain and panic as the open and energetically twitching maw of the apex tugged back in its hooked tongue. Tin’lo grabbed a knife from his side, having lost his sword somewhere, and immediately started to stab and slice the harpooned tip of the apex tongue.

“Got it!” Tu’lar hollered as he pounced to strike the tongue as it reeled in, but he was forced back by the legs and mandibles of the apex. He roared as he smashed his axe against every limb that dared to block him and Tin’lo could clearly see the bloodshot rage in Tu’lar’s eyes. Trat’catha rushed from the behind the apex, a bladed windmill likewise devastating the limbs blocking his path.

They can’t get it fast enough.

Tin’lo stabbed faster and harder, not being careful if he slipped and cut himself. The mouth was right there and the stench of blood and carrion filled his nostrils. The harpooned tongue refused to release even as he cut through the halfway point.

“Tu!” Tin’lo screamed as he felt the breeze of a sharp mandible scything through the air despairingly close.

He heard a rageful scream and distantly noticed Tu’lar plowing through the mass of bladed mandibles and striking with insane speed, cracking, splitting, and splattering black blood over everything. Tu’lar took glancing slashes and even the barest stab from a limb, but refused to stop. He slammed down his axe with enough furious strength that it tore through a leg, several chitinous mandibles, and the harpoon tongue before crashing into the earth.

Shrieking chitters vibrated through Tin’lo’s body and Tu’lar immediately was struck multiple times with razor mandibles, casting deep wounds across his arms and legs when, all at once, the onslaught stopped.

Tu’lar and Tin’lo flailed, striking the twitching limbs and bleeding everywhere until they realized the battle was won. They looked on top of the apex to see Trat’catha with his halberd over halfway embedded straight into the apex’s central body and, likely, its brain. He twisted the halberd hard and ripped it roughly out of the creature, eliciting another twitch.

“That sucked,” Tin’lo groaned as he pulled at the harpoon stil in his body. His groaning soon evolved into yelling and shouting the harder he had to pull until, finally, Tu’lar held him down with a foot and pulled until it came free with a sickening sucking sound.

After, they dropped to the ground and checked each other’s wounds while Trat’catha stabbed the apex every few seconds to make sure it was dead.

After making sure they were relatively whole, Tu’lar started chuckling, then erupting into full-blown laughter, causing Tin’lo to be concerned until Tu’lar could breathe enough to start talking.

“How does this keep happening to you?! Haha!” He roared in laughter, his face completely red from the blood rage and from laughing too hard.

“Oh, so it’s funny now?!” Tin’lo yelled back, and grabbed a dismembered piece of the tongue, smacking Tu’lar in the face with it ineffectually, which only served to make him laugh harder. Tin’lo grumbled at first, but started to laugh gently - regular laughter hurt too much.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Tu’lar still laughed, but the tears that rolled down his face were definitely not just from laughing too hard.

Trat’catha quietly sat on top of the apex, giving it half-hearted stabs, just to be safe.