Legend of Ransera

The creatures were fast, faster than any man he'd had the misfortune of facing, and in a moment two of the three beasts he was facing leaped past him to his sides moving the harry the soldiers he'd sworn to protect. He was in the front and surrounded by threats, the question for Myles quickly became a matter of prioritizing the threats around him and eradicating them as quickly as he could. Letting a snarl tear from his lips Myles lunged at the fungelion nearest him, the one defending the downed beast that had initiated this mess. As he dove forward the threatening foe instinctual dodged away from him but in doing so left the staggering ambusher undefended. Flicking the sword in his hand around he extended his strike into a downward thrust and drove the point of his blade into the neck of the first fungelion sinking his blade halfway into the beast as it loosed a choked and bloody rattle.

No good dead goes unpunished however, Myles heard Jonah start to yell his name only to be drowned out by the sound of the roaring Fungelion that tackled him. If not for his armor the beasts claws would had rent his back wide open that they tumbled across the ground.

Now on his back with the beast on top of him Myles threw his arm up just in time to meet the maw of the beast that clamped down on his sword arm with and iron like vice. The beast locked its jaws and whipped its head back and forth try to wrench his armored hand from his body. Even through his gauntlet he could feel the pressure of the beasts jaws warping his armor. All was not lost however, With his free shield arm Myles began to pummel the creature his gauntleted arm drawing rivulets of blood from the beast with each desperate strike. Jonah for his part was perforating the hide of the single minded beast with his spear to little effect on the Fungelion hellbent of removing Myles's throat.

The sound of cracking iron peeled from Myle's gauntlet as he winced and began to truly wonder if this creature might truly rip his limb off. Desperation mixed with adrenaline further fueling his wailing on the beasts giant head. Then their was a roar, not the fungelion, but Jonah who'd retreated some yards away Myles noted in that brief moment. Jonah who was now running back into the fray spear gripped like a lance as drove it straight into the core of the beast that finally loosed its grip on Myles as it collapsed atop him.

The quiet seemed to follow as quickly as it had been disrupted, the threats like the many that had come before dissipating back into the warrens as if they'd again completed some test. Assuming the threat was gone Myles looked back to the rest of the group sheepishly from beneath the fungelion corpse sprawled atop him.

Brenner's focus was on the ghostblooms at his feet- a sure sign that they were on the right track- when he was suddenly vaulted off his feet by a flash of motion that didn't register in his periphery until it was upon him. He tightened his grip on the blade in his hand as he lost his footing and stumbled to the side. When he regained a semblance of stability, he whipped round to find that it had been Stefan who had intercepted an attempt to blindside him, and was engaged with the snarling culprit.

He lifted his sword in an attempt to aid Stefan, but he couldn't level a swing without the risk of slicing into friendly flesh rather than fungal, so he stayed his sword arm and let Stefan handily tend to his own affairs. At a cry from Lightborn, he turned to engage with another, larger member of the pack and after a matter of seconds that felt like hours, the battle seemed to have drawn to a close.

Brenner and several of the others were still poised for combat, scanning all vantages for concealed threats that might bear down on them to finish what the vanguard had started. But after a minute, Piers signaled an 'all clear' and, panting, Brenner wiped his blade clean of the noxious-smelling fluid that seemed to pass for blood amongst the odd hybrid of feline and fungus that had flanked them moments earlier.

Sheathing his sword and crouching to collect the discarded rifle, he turned to address the troops.

"Well done, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for keeping your wits about you and being efficient dispatching these... things. The good news is, we still seem to be on the right track..." He gestured to the ground, "The ghost blossoms seem to be leading us further East. I suspect it will be a few days in these environs, so we'll need to be extra cautious in a part of the depths that offers so much cover to predators. Unless anyone is in need of medical attention, we should trek another couple of hours today before Piers finds us a camp site that we can fortify. Soon enough, Kameraden, we'll be on the final stretch of our sojourn, so make sure you rest up when you're able. We have enough threats to be mindful of without people hallucinating new ones due to lack of sleep." He strapped his rifle to his back, and gathered his pack.

"All right, then, let us deeper into the abyss."