{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/chimhop/18",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/chimhop/18",
  "publishedAt": "2022-05-21T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: subchapter\nOne moment, a black and white form rises in the ants' shelter, shaking,\nsomething falling away as it turns.\n\nThe next moment, it is close enough to see the veins in its eyes, the\nflaring of its nostrils. Black and white fur colors it in sharp\ncontrast. The knuckles of its forelegs pound into the ground with each\nstep, and the legs are as tall as the nymphs are.\n\nA massive direbeast, and they don't have their two strongest techniques.\nThe anteater is fast --- if Makuja runs, she could at least escape. She\ncan cover enough distance, climb into a tree perhaps.\n\nShe guides enervate into her midlegs.\n\nAwelah had moved to the front to cast her projection. Now her raptorials\nfold around her spear --- it has the greatest reach any of them could\nbring to bear.\n\nBreathing in, timing it, the Asetari thrusts up at the incoming beast.\nIt dodges to the side. Makuja is on the left, and Ooliri on the right.\nAwelah is right-dominant, spear-end held on that side. It means dodging\nto her right has put the anteater clear of the attack. It means it puts\nthe thing right in front of Ooliri.\n\nTo his credit, he has already fallen into a proper stance, holding his\nbaton tight and untrembling. With but a moment of hesitation, he swings.\n\nThe anteater's tongue appears, flashing out of two lips like an arrow.\nOoliri flinches back, and the tongue catches on the baton. He pulls, and\nthe anteater pulls harder. Ooliri is disarmed. Then the anteater is\nshifting weight to its hindlegs.\n\nMakuja, throughout, is backing up. She could escape. But she had sworn\nloyalty, hadn't she? So the red nymph leaps, knife in hand. The sudden\nflash of motion draws the beast's eye.\n\nOn its hindlegs, it raises a clawed paw. Makuja stabs forward, pierces\nthe flesh. With a raised leg, it bats Makuja aside like a ball. She hits\nthe mud and rolls.\n\nShe can smell the blood before she gets up.\n\nAwelah thrusts her spear again as the anteater starts after a\nbackpedaling Ooliri. Her weapon goes deeper, wounds wider, and spills\nblood for one instant before the red mass is coagulating, sucking,\nclosing itself over several seconds.\n\nThe Asetari takes a step back. \"What can we do, if it can close wounds\nthat fast?\"\n\n\"It'll --- it'll run out of energy. Or mass.\" Ooliri's voice is unsteady\nas he dodges a swipe. Tries to dodge, rather --- it hits his leg and\ncuts deep.\n\n\"Not before we do.\"\n\nThe tongue flicks out again, all of its tiny hooks scraping against\nOoliri's chitin. Another swipe, and Awelah, standing close by, tracks\nthe creature's eyes, and catches that it's not looking at Ooliri ---\nit's looking at the bag.\n\n\"Drop it! Drop your bag,\" she says.\n\nOoliri frantically pulls at the straps, sloughing off the bag to clack\nagainst the ground. The anteater pauses in its advance, tearing at the\nbag as though it were another combatant. They see it nose through the\nbag, and what it stops at: the glass containing samples of Unodha.\n\nThis buys them a few seconds to catch their breath, minds wheeling for\nplans. Ooliri is backing up diagonally.\n\nThe pause ends when an umbra-coated stone cracks against the anteater's\nskull, splitting it open. Makuja is palming another stone. The impact\nangers it, but at least it didn't laugh.\n\nThe red nymph is the target now. The anteater starts a charge that lasts\nuntil Awelah punishes the distraction. Her spear buries itself between\ntwo ribs. Of them all, the Asetari has the best they can offer. She puts\nout enough force to stagger a beast three times her size.\n\nWill she be enough to save them, this time? There can be no reprise of\nthat sapiovore tactic --- the mammal stands taller, on unsprawled legs.\nUnless...\n\n\"Get me some time. I\" --- but she didn't have a plan --- \"will act.\"\n\nAll Awelah can do is wrench the spear free before the beast's torque\nsends her flying. The effort breaks her stance; so she's in no position\nfor a followup. Not before the anteater can use those claws, those legs\nas thick around as they are. Unlike Makuja, the pale nymph wouldn't be\nsent flying by the force of the blow. With ground beneath her, it would\nbe felt.\n\nSo Awelah can't stall for Makuja to set up her technique. Without time,\nwith Awelah soon to be crushed, Makuja should abort her plan, charge in.\n\nUnless --- until --- Ooliri tackles Awelah. Off-balance, pale legs\ntumble and she's rolling to recover. The gray nymph is in her place.\nStanding shorter, when he dodges, the anteater's claw-swipe goes higher\nthan center mass. Instead of being brained, Ooliri's bandaged arm goes\nup. The blow is deflected.\n\nMakuja wastes not a heartbeat more. Coldness flows into her legs under\nguidance.\n\nThe tongue flicks, catches on Ooliri's arm again, and pulls --- pulls\nthe bandages. Alien muscle is revealed and letting the bandages rip\nfree, Ooliri claps. He makes the louse seal, and then a half a ⸢Bane\nblast⸥ explodes against the chest. One arm comes back, and the other is\nstriking with boney claw tips, blood coursing down the limb in exposed\nveins. The inflicted wound mends a bit slower, the brightness of his\nichor contrasting against festering dark direblood.\n\nOoliri lets himself be pushed back by recoil, falling away to gain a\nprecious stride's distance from death. \"Awelah, are you okay?\"\n\n\"Back, both of you. Get away from it,\" Makuja calls.\n\nSurrounded on both sides by overgrowth, getting away meant, if they\ndidn't want to be slowed, they'd draw closer to the red nymph. That's\nfine.\n\nWith nothing in melee range, the anteater falls back on all fours. Good.\n\nThe tongue flicks out at an escaping Awelah --- and she had gotten\ndistance! At this range... that tongue is longer than its head, and it\ndoes not have a short snout.\n\nThe saliva is sticky, but even with barbs, the tongue touches her cloak\nand can't keep hold of the strange material. Awelah is jerked back for a\nsingle step.\n\nStill, Makuja only needed the beast in a shorter stance. She splays her\nfeet and sends herself flying at the direanteater. Mid-air, she\nunsheathes two knives. The anteater tries to back up, stand up, but\nMakuja moves with explosive force.\n\nBlack feet are curling into balls with fur in her grip, and then Makuja\nfully secures purchase on the creature's back with one knife stabbing in\neach side, angled between ribs. This close, the earthy, sulphuric stench\nof the animal is intolerable.\n\nHer imitation of the Asetari would be complete as soon as she spares the\nmoment needed to make the signs for a bane blast. Would it be enough to\ntake it down?\n\nOoliri has other ideas. \"Makuja! You made the hound flee --- you said\nyou had your, Unodha's blood.\" He's putting pieces together fast. \"Can\nyou ---- does the control of direbeast extend to...\"\n\nThe anteater's still trying to shake her off, and by now its rampage has\ngone further up the path. Ooliri was cut off by a need to dodge. Makuja\ncan finish the thought from there, anyway.\n\nIt's a long shot --- but were the odds better than counting on one bane\nblast to be enough? She weighs it, and then she feels her heartbeat,\nimagines the pain and power of bloodletting. Did she have a choice?\n\nMakuja imagines once again that sensation of her master's technique. She\nslits a finger of each hand on the knife they hold.\n\nKnowing her time is limited, she pulls back her hands with the speed of\none flinching from a fire. The sign of focus. The whale sign. That\nburning sensation, hands trembling as they maintain the contortion. (Had\nshe flinched from a fire, or toward one?)\n\nFaster, faster.\n\nEach hand is now slick with blood.\n\nWhen she releases the whale sign, when she strikes forward, it feels\nlike she's losing something.\n\n⸢Blood Wolf Bite!⸥\n\nWhen the anteater shakes this time, screeching its pain, she hasn't the\nsecurity to resist, only to grab hold of her knives, pull them free as\nblood pours out. Tumbling off its back, her eyes glimpse the blood\nshe's used in the technique, that had flowed through her palm. On the\ncreature, it congeals into linear forms like a brood of parasitic worms.\nThey burrow into the flesh. This comes naturally to ichor, seeping into\nlife like a transmissible cancer. She supposes she just gave it an\nenergetic push.\n\nMakuja hits the rocky road. Ooliri is there helping her up. Awelah\nstands before the beast, giving a trio of shallow stabs before leaping\nback.\n\nThe two of them, Ooliri and Makuja, are at its side. Before it can go\nafter Awelah, Makuja strikes with her raptorial, vise grip briefly\nholding a leg, pulling.\n\nThen she releases it fast. She feels weak. Had the spell taken so much\nfrom her? Didn't she have arete?\n\nThe wounds are piling up. The anteater is limping. But what other tricks\ndid they have? Maybe the blood she injected could have taken the thing\ndown from within --- but how soon? One hit from those legs would kill or\ncripple. They can't keep getting lucky, not forever. Something had to\nchange.\n\n\"Awelah. I know it hurts, but\" --- Ooliri pauses, fractionally --- \"can\nyou try it again? We...\" And then he is deflecting another swipe with\nhis muscle-leg before he could find the words.\n\nThe Asetari is weaving signs. Ahead, Ooliri and Makuja are holding the\nline.\n\nBehind them, smoky aura-nerve curls off Awelah's chitin as she maintains\none sign longer than usual. Makuja even feels the pull of her enervate\nwithin her coils.\n\nAwelah finishes the signs.\n\nNothing happens.\n\nA pale form screaming and stumbling, and gray running over the help. In\nthat moment, Awelah can only stand with the help of her spear.\n\nMakuja stands alone, wielding two knives against the bleeding beast.\n\nFaster, faster.\n\nThe anteater towers over her. That mouth could swallow her. It evolved\nto swallow bugs.\n\nOoliri laughs, a sad sound. \"We --- we did well for three nymphs on our\nown, didn't we?\"\n\n\"No,\" Makuja scrapes. Dire beast and shadowed bug had all cowered and\nfallen before them. How is this any different?\n\n\"We can't die here,\" Awelah asserts, the words a whispered rubbing.\n\nMakuja can't die here. Doesn't she have a purpose --- a use?\n\nShe's the only thing between",
  "title": "Death in the East"
}