A(n Un)Familiar Problem

Well, there goes the pacifist run. Try again next loop?

Right, I'mma call the vote here at 11-5 in favour of attacking, with the majority supporting doing so by climbing and subsequently jumping off a building.

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Right, since this is now going to be an actual combat encounter, I'm going to lay out the basics of how this will go down:

1. Nobody dies in one round.
If a fight is so one-sided that it would only take one round for either side to win, I'm not going to bother listing it as an encounter: I will only move to an encounter if you are able to win. If your chances of winning are in the same region as odds of Kyouko going on a diet (and to explain the joke, that will *NEVER* happen: It's a portent of the apocalypse I hear.) you'll find yourself back in the caves and that'll be that.

2. Losing isn't the end.
If/when you die, and it's pretty much inevitable, I'll give you a choice between a new loop or reverting to the start of the fight. Narrative deaths on the other hand will stick: you blunder into an uppity magi you can't beat and it's the muddy caves of Michelle's barrier for you.

3. You can ask questions.
Seriously: if you have a question about what's going on, what you can see, if you can do something, stuff like that: just ask, I'll reply when I'm around.

4. No fighting dirty!
You are a familiar: most of your enemies are substantially stronger than you, can do things you have no answer for, and probably aren't going to stop if you tap out. You shouldn't fight dirty.

Your fighting should be utterly FILTHY. the only fair fight is the one you lose, so make sure it's as unfair a fight as you can arrange. Preferably in your favour mind, but hey: whatever floats your boat.

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Two more minor points: Rounds in an encounter are likely going to be shorter than general chapters. not (just) because I'm lazy, but to make sure you can adapt to the fight as it develops and aren't stuck reading a few hundred words that could be best surmised as 'you died'. Lastly, I'll likely compile all the rounds of an encounter into one chapter once the encounter comes to its end. Probably round 1.

Right, without further adieu:

Maybe it's just how hungry you're feeling that's doing the talking here, but whatever this thing is it looks at least vaguely edible. Maybe. You're not too sure about the body but the eye looks like something you could probably sink your teeth into… despite how disgusting that sounded.

Whatever. The long and the short of it is that that thing looks chow-able and you're hungry enough not to care too much so long as that is true. So now comes the hard bit, how to make the flying thing your dinner before it simply flies away?

inspiration strikes you like a bolt of lightning: Flying away won't work if you're striking from above! Then all flying will achieve is moving it into your attack! Genius!

Your brief impromptu staring/glaring (you're still not sure which) contest draws to an end as suddenly as it seemed to have begun as you dart towards the nearest building, quickly transitioning to the wall and climbing it as fast as your spidery legs could carry you.

Er… why isn't that whining noise getting any quieter? Usually, things get more quiet when you get further away from them. Something about sound and waves dissipating over distance…

A quick glance back to the ground neatly illuminates the problem.

Or maybe it was just a quick glance back considering the thing was A. a short distance behind you, B. matching height with you while making it look effortless, and C. still glaring at you.

…

Okay, perhaps this strategy needed a pinch more work. On the bright side though, you're now pretty sure that you're reading this things' emotions properly judging by the entirely unimpressed look it seems to be shooting you right now. Also: it seems to be able to see you, and is clearly aware you're here judging by how it's both watching and following you.

So… Uh, time to improvise?


Okay, so plan climb-up-a-building-and-jump clearly had a few fundamental flaws, such as your target deciding not to be cooperative and wait on the ground while you scaled the building, and being able to fly faster than you can climb.

Minor flaws, clearly. And now that you're aware of them you can surely plan around such issues for next time. Anyhow, time for plan B.

You began to climb back down the building. slowly, for whatever reason. While certainly not the most aggressive plan, hiding in the shadows until the… uh, eye-tube? Yeah, that'll do. Until the eye-tube decides you've left should hopefully let you re-open the fight in a slightly more effective fashion…

A few seconds of watching you slowly climb down the building later, the eye-tube seems to come to the conclusion that it's time for action. Or maybe it got bored of watching you climb things? Who knows? Giant eyeball psychology isn't exactly your area of expertise. Whatever its reasons, the eye-tube suddenly leaned back, the tube seemingly pivoting around the eye, and sprayed a gout of fire across the building you were climbing, launching itself away in the process.

You are quick to react, hoping backwards away from the small streak of fire that had narrowly missed you. Normally, that's a wise response to fire suddenly appearing all around your face, but perhaps a bit less so when you're about halfway up a building and rather pointedly unable to fly.

~Weeeeeeeeee- Oof!

…

Ow.

Fortunately, you're tough enough to absorb a landing like that and, aside from some slightly smouldering hair, seem to have emerged from the flames more or less unscathed. The fire clearly wasn't quite hot enough to do much to you with a single spray, though your mouth is now uncomfortably dry.

You quickly pick yourself up and shuffle towards the shadows, hopefully while the eye-tube is too busy righting itself to spot you, and… uh, why are you leaving a trail of burning footprints?

…

Oh, the tips of your forelegs, particularly around the splotches of rumbler-goo staining them, are a little bit on fire.

That… is probably not going to be conductive to hiding.


Alright, so Plan B also had some unforeseen flaws, but hey: how were you supposed to know your legs would catch fire? They've never done that before… Stupid Rumblers and their stupid-but-evidently-flammable-and-non-evaporating blood.

Well, whatever. Time for Plan C!

Step one: evade the Eye-tube.

That one looks like it'll be pretty easy. The thing has only just righted itself from its sudden journey backwards and seems pretty focused on where you were a moment ago, or that's the direction it's both looking and flying at least. That'll probably buy you a minute or two to disappear back into the alleyway.

You're still leaving a trail of burning footprints behind you, but there isn't really much you can do about that. Not without magically learning to fly in the next few seconds anyways, and the odds of that happening seem rather slim.

You shoot a brief backwards glance just as you round the corner: The eye-tube seems to have accepted you're not on the wall anymore and looks to be sinking back down towards the floor, slowly sweeping its gaze around. Not that it'll be able to spot you now you're both camouflaged and not there to be seen.

The small flaming pools you've left behind with each step on the other hand might well be another story. Probably best to try and take care of that before it can become any more of an issue.

The flames on your forelimbs aren't all that tall, about a finger's height at most. They'd probably still hurt quite a bit anyway if they were anywhere else, and indeed proved more than capable of burning a finger while you were measuring them. Ouch.

Of course, the only part of you on fire was basically just a solid slab of armour, so you had that going for you at least.

So… How to put your legs out?

Stop drop and roll probably isn't going to cut it here, what with the awkward spot that you're trying to extinguish, and there's no way you're trying to wipe that stuff off with your hands: You prefer those a bit less toasty-warm and on fire than they'd end up if you tried it. Your joints didn't quite bend the right way for you to scrape the burning-gunk off with the ground either, too much twisting required.

As flexible as your forelimbs are, rotating them a full one-eighty isn't an ability you're naturally gifted with.

Hang on, no. You're going about this the wrong way: They might not twist that well, but the joints can bend quite far, enough to raise the massive limbs over your head. So all you need to do is the opposite, right?

The weird whining-sound gives you pause before you can put that idea to the test, mostly because the sound is getting louder. Again.

That probably means the eye-tube is following your tracks. And since those tracks lead around a convenient, for you, blind corner…


While you can't say for certain that the Eye-tube is headed this way, it sure sounds like that's the case. You could peep around the corner to find out for sure but that could just as easily give you away, What with still being on fire and not being one-hundred percent sure that it can't see through your camo.

It does have a giant eye after all: if anything would be able to see you regardless of whether you were functionally invisible or not, it'd probably be something with an eye almost the size of your head.

All right, so time to plan a good ambush then. Sure, you could just wait around the corner and jump it the second it comes around, but if it isn't dead almost immediately it could just fly upwards again and leave you back at square one. Presumably followed by a spider-barbeque. And as the spider in question, you're rather against that.

Plus just lurking around a corner to jump some gullible schmuck is for chumps. No, if you're gonna jump this thing, you're gonna JUMP this thing properly. And rather literally too, come to think of it.


The whining sound continued to grow in volume as the ambush-ee drew closer.

At last, the eye-tube rounded the corner: gaze locked squarely on the trail of burning footprints, now down to mere wisps. It hovered slowly along the trail you'd left behind you, right into a wall. The wall you'd just climbed, to be specific.

Hehehhe, any moment now it will look up, and then it'll be the perfect moment to pounce… any mome- Uh, no wait. This isn't how it's meant to go: The eye-tube meant to look up, not just fly upwards without looking away from the trail of flaming footprints you'd left on the side of the building!

Can't anything go right today? Seriously, you had this set up perfectly…

Ugh, whatever.

With a slight hop, rather than a full pounce, you detach yourself from the wall and into the grasp of gravity, content to let the invisible force drag you directly towards your prey. Your judgment is correct, your aim true, and scarcely a second later you slam into the eye-tube, which still hadn't looked up, and despite the best efforts of your target to slow your combined decent it takes but another second reach the ground, landing with something just short of a boom, shaking the ground, and driving the tube-thing into the ground with all the force you had behind you.

It's not enough to kill it outright. not that it'll make much of a difference now.

Your claws tear deep rends into the tube as your jaws come down on the, surprisingly tough, eyeball. It doesn't quite give up, still doing it's best to fly away despite being more than halfway to totally shredded already, but without any viable means of actually fighting beyond that pillar of fire thing that it can't quite bring to bear while you have it pinned the fight might as well have already been over.

And with one final clench of your jaw, might as well became reality: the eye shattered, and instantly the struggling stopped. And then… you began spitting out glass-like shards of eye.

Seriously! Was there nothing in this world you could eat?!? Puh! Pleh! Sharp! Grumbling aside though, at least it didn't taste of boot like pretty much everything else evidently did. Not that tasting of glass and pain (heh, pane) was all that much better.

You sent a disapproving glare down at the half-dissolved remains of the eye-tube, before beginning to move on. Not before giving it a final parting kick though- Pressure. You could feel the pressure around you increasing. It was a familiar pressure too, if a bit weaker…

The world began to twist, warping wildly as black mist began to flow from every direction, swirling and surrounding you in a whirlwind of black… Just like the end of every day before you met, and subsequently started getting murdered by, Drills. Before you could even consider the possibility of having somehow died again, the black tide changes flow again: collapsing inwards and washing over you.

And just as fast as the tide had appeared, it was gone.

More importantly: you were still in the alleyway, rather than back in the muddy caves as you were honestly expecting. Though said alley was now a bit more vibrant than it had been, and strangely free from signs of the fight that had just taken place.

Even more important though, was what you didn't feel anymore: Hungry.

…

Neat.

So: what now?

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