Getting out of the Sacred Lands was just the first part of our journey. After passing the final gate (which entailed both defeating another group of corrupted and explaining to the guards Aloy's new status as Seeker), we'd spent many days riding on horseback/k-drive/Aptonoth/oh you get the point, don't you? It was a long journey, especially since we lacked the conveniences of many modern forms of transportation - like air conditioning. Still, we'd seen a lot on our travels.
First off, that Great Jaggi had not been the last monster to arrive from the Monster Hunter World. I'd seen many more on our way to Meridian. Most common were kestodon, which often harassed us for getting to close. A Plesioth had dismantled a snapmaw hiding in the pool it had decided to call home, whilst an Uragaan had demolished a behemoth to feast upon its metallic hide. For the most part, the arrival of the Monsters was have a mixed effect on the tribes - some had been devastated, but others now had shiny stuff to trade with their neighbors. The landscape had yet to change, but if some of the plants from the monster hunter world arrived here, I think the scenery would certainly look a little different.
I shuddered to wonder what would happen if an Elder Dragon got here...actually, scratch that - if one of the Fatalis Trio showed up here and brought the blight with them, I was going to side with Hades. A world infested with blighted monsters most definitely counts as 'uninhabitable for humans'. The black blight was more or less a fantastic bioweapon, after all.
We mostly traveled by day, and used the night to rest, each of us taking turns for guard duty. The nights where I had selpt brought strange dreams with them - some of Celm messing around with people's dreams, others of the past of the various warframes I had mastered. Strangest of all, though, was a dream of several dax soldiers (at least, I assumed them to be Dax) riding across strange plains atop machines that resembled horses, or more accurately the skeletons of horses. In the skies above, serpentine machines flew, whilst a great ship lingered on the horizon. I would only get to see the most cursory of details, though, before I awakened.
Somehow, I knew this would be important. Why eluded me however.
Despite my desire to understand what these strange dreams meant, our journey reached its terminus, and it was not too long before we arrived at the Sundom - the lands that the Carja claimed as their own. Here, the arrivals from the Old and New World were of a different cloth than those we had met before. Apceros and Rhenoplos now grazed on desert plants, whilst Genprey searched for openings to steal their young and Kulu-Ya-Ku feasted upon undefended nests. We once caught sight of a Carja Hunting Party dragging the remains of a Cephadrome back to a town, no doubt eager to see how this new meat tasted.
Part of me worried about what would happen when they finally met one of the meaner monsters that lived in the desert - it could be anything from a Diablos to a Teostra, but when those showed up, heads would roll, no if, buts or ors.
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At last we arrived at the fort of Daytower, having finally cleared out the Corrupted plaguing the city. I expect that we might see a monster of two harassing the town - after all, weirder things had happened.
What I did not expect, though, was to see the Fort under attack by what looked like a blighted Volvidon.
Oh, and it looked like it was getting pretty far into the defenses of the fort - those walls iddn't look like they could hold for much longer.
"What the-"
"It's called a Volvidon," I intoned, cutting off Aloy. "NOrmally, they are found in deserts or moutains that spew burning rock called volcanoes, and they like to eat insects the size of goats."
"Well, I don't suppose you know how to kill them, then, don't you?" questioned Geralt.
"It's most vulnerable to watery attacks, especially at the underbelly," offered Zoe. "It can roll into a ball to try and run you over, but it you can get in a solid hit whilst its rolling, it'll fall over and be helpless for a few moments. Oh, and watch out for its tongue and gas clouds - it can paralyze you with tongue strikes."
"And the gas clouds?" implored Geralt.
"They stink really badly, okay?"
Geralt practically rolled his eyes at this, as did Aloy, before sighing and drawing his steel sword. Aloy, meanwhile, readied up an arrow.
Theseus, however, was the first to attack, hurling a stone at the Volvidon's eye, followed by a puddle-pod. Whilst the stone only annoyed the fanged beast, the pod managed to hurt it, and squarely focused the monster's attention on us. A moment later, it recoiled in surprise as Aloy's arrows hit it, leading to small starbursts of ice forming around the impact sites. Aloy had decided to substitute freeze attacks for her lack of water ones, which worked well enough with this foe. Of course, how long that would be the case for was up in the air.
Geralt soon joined her, though he used crossbow bolts instead of arrows - witchers weren't archers, but that didn't mean they were helpless at range.
As the beast closed in, though, it became time to switch from range to melee, and that was something that Vivian, Theseus, and myself excelled at.
Vivian struck first with an Aqua Hammer, made from the hide of a Jyuratodus. I followed it up with a blow from my Mudslide Blade, also forged from the hide of the piscine wyvern. Theseus, meanwhile, settled for using a more simplistic weapon and fought on with Holy Sabers - ore weapons that needed no fancy monster parts to maintain their lethality.
Enraged, the Volvidon curled up and charged us. Aloy retaliated with a freeze arrow, though, causing the beast to topple. Taking advantage of its helplessness, we hacked into its underbelly, causing it to howl in rage and pain. Gerald even threw a bomb at it, whilst Zoe and our Lynian friends threw bombs at the beast whenever an opening showed itself.
Eventually, the Fanged Beast righted itself, but it was clearly reeling from the damage we'd inflicted. Still, it had no intention of giving up just yet, and with a mighty roar, charged backed into the fray, though this time it went for a belly flop. We leapt out of the way, with Theseus taking the opportunity to throw a bomb pod at the overgrown armadillo bear before landing. That certainly had to hurt.
Of course, the explosion made the volvidon angrier than ever, so it responded by relaesing a very foul looking cloud. Without hesitation, I threw a special airburst grenade that functioned as a deodorant in order to nullify the clouds' effects and push it away. Seriously, that stuff stinks.
On the plus side, it is also very flammable, and one torch pod later, the volvidon took an explosion to the flanks.
That finally seemed to take it down. 'Seemed' being the important word here.
Just as I was about to assume the beast was finally out for the count, it got up, roared, and then released a huge blast of what looked like blight at us. Hastily, we retreated, only for a loud roar to echo through the air. Turning, we found a sawtooth staring down at Zoe and our Lynian, who quickly sought shelter. The sawtooth, meanwhile, decided to attack us, until the volvidon grabbed the machine with its tongue and threw it aside. Reprioritizing its threats, the machine howled, then pounced upon the fanged beast. The machine attacked like a flesh and blood big cat, trying to reach and tear open the larger animal's throat. For a moment, it almost seemed like the sawtooth would succeed. But then the overgrown armadillo managed to throw off its attacker, and with a roar, sent a cloud of blight at the machine, apparently making it go inert...
Then the machine rose again. Only this time, it looked blighted.
What the hell?
With a ferocious bellow, the blighted machine leapt at Aloy, only to be knocked off course by Quen, courtesy of Geralt. As the Witcher and the Seeker sized up the machine, I joined Vivian and Theseus in trying to overcome the Volvidon. The Fanged Beast was exhausted, but it wasn't out of the fight yet. Now that it was nearing death, it started adding in some new attacks to the mix, like throwing out blight blasts interspaced with its paralyzing fluid and the occasional body slam. It also got far more creative, at one point using its tongue to grab into a tree to turn mid-roll. One time, it even managed to pound the three of us into the ground by transitioning from a roll straight into a body slam.
Still, we fought on, and eventually, the volvidon made the mistake of trying to swallow Viv whole. One hammer blow later, and it was pushing up daisies.
At the same time, Geralt and Aloy struck the sawtooth's blaze cannister with Igni and a blaze arrow, respectively, causing an explosion that ravaged the machine's underbelly, at last knocking it offline.
Despite our victory, I felt a snese of unease - this was just one battle, and alreadying we were facing things I hadn't expected even after meeting the Blighted Corruptor.
Just what else could we expect to see on this journey?
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AN: I'M BACK!
So, Read and Review! This is FLameal15k, signing off!