As the overgrown squid looms above you, ideas begin flashing through your mind. By the time the creature moves to strike at you once more, you've settled on a course of action.
Avoiding another tentacle-slam, you conjure a metal spike about the length of your arm. As you've not yet gotten the hang of conjuring alloys, it's pure iron, and thus rather soft as far as metals go - it'd likely bend if you struck one of the nearby rocks. For what you have in mind, though, it should suffice. Ducking one sweeping rubbery limb, you call up elemental lightning, binding a charge to your javelin so that it will "arm" one it has left your hand, then discharge on impact. Then you call up lightning a second time, generating a bright flash right in the monster's face.
Arrogante squeals and breaks off its attack, the glow of its eyes disappearing as its lids close and its arms curl up protectively before what passes for its face.
With the beast momentarily dazed, you cast a spell of divination, seeking its vulnerabilities. In response, strange triangular brackets of red light appear around one of the beast's bulbous eyes, rotating clockwise. Curious, you let your gaze briefly roam your enemy's form, and the brackets follow accordingly. Both eyes register as "red," as does the clacking beak, while each of the tentacles is a separate "orange." If you got the spell right, those should be weak points - the red ones critical, orange merely "inconvenient" for your enemy. The eyes you understand, and severing the tentacles would surely be a problem for this creature, but why is the beak-? Well, no matter. You have your plan, and you're sticking to it.
As you wait for Arrogante to recover - and uncover its eyes - you concentrate on focusing your ki. Warmth begins to build within your body, as does the sense of strength.
It's almost for naught when Arrogante howls and unfurls its tentacles all at once, catching you in mid-trance and knocking you back on your ass. You're lucky the beast was striking blindly, and didn't attempt to grab you, or that likely would have been the end of it; you're twice lucky that you didn't lose any of your preparations in the sudden shock. Dragging yourself back to your feet, you glare at the squid and assume a stance that mimics the ones you've seen javelin-throwers use on TV. For a moment, you pause to aim, and then you let fly.
Arrogante shrieks as your spear punctures its left eye and discharges. A wave of crackling blue-white energy dances across the beast's flesh, but it's met by a pulse of similar energy from the squid's vivid markings. They're not just for show, it seems. On the whole, the modest amount of lightning you were able to pack into the spear doesn't seem to have had nearly as much impact as the weapon itself - Arrogante is once again in its defensive curl, this time shifting its wounded side away from you and backing off.
And then, there is a fairy.
"What are you doing Alex holy goddesses stop fighting and run!"
Well, Briar's safe and off the little rock.
In the heat of battle, Briar's words make no sense to you. Run? When you have it on the ropes? Leave a live enemy behind you, to recover its strength and perhaps plot a future revenge? Allow a monster that attacked you and menaced your friend to get away with it?
No.
Keeping a close eye on Arrogante's tentacles, you conjure another iron spear, which - since the electrical attack didn't work out very well - you charge with a freezing burst. As you cast your spells, you notice that the squid is groping at its burst eye with one tentacle, trying to grip your weapon. Considering that the monster's limbs are almost as thick as your torso, it's not having an easy time of things, and that fact buys you the added seconds you need to muster your ki once again. When Arrogante finally gets a grip and yanks the spear free - with a spray of dark blue blood, a more intense and angry howl, and another tentacle-sweep that you make sure to dodge - you're ready to strike.
The mouth. Eat this!
That mouth. That armored, gnashing beak, now opened wide in a piercing cry of pain and wrath. It calls to you. Ringed with spinning target sites, it all but dares you to strike.
The mouth. Eat this!
That mouth. That armored, gnashing beak, now opened wide in a piercing cry of pain and wrath. It calls to you. Ringed with spinning target sites, it all but dares you to strike.
"Are you hungry, ugly?" you taunt, grinning. "Eat this!"
And you let fly with the short spear.
Your aim is good, your throw strong; the iron spike soars in a brief arc and strikes true, piercing and pinning Arrogante's thick tongue to the inner wall of its beak, even as it discharges its enchantment, causing blue light to flare within the monster's maw and a frost-white plume of mist to erupt back into the air. The squid howls anew, flailing its arms in all directions. Again, you get the distinct impression that your magic was less damaging to the monster than a simple, well-aimed piece of pointy metal.
Then, to your surprise, Arrogante shoots below the surface of the tide-pool, leaving a great cloud of impenetrable ink in its wake. You stare at it in consternation; after all that, did the squid decide to deny you a total victory by retreating?
No. No, your divination spell can see detect the beast. It's lurking at the bottom of the cove, near the sea-wall, where the water reaches a depth of about ten feet. You can't quite tell what it's doing, except that from the "target lock" you have on its mouth, the body has turned around around.
When your instincts yell at you to take cover, you heed them, sprinting towards a cluster of rocks at the water's edge.
It's a move made just in time, as - with a great explosion of sound and sea-spray - Arrogante's entire body comes flying up out of the pool mantle-first, a pressurized stream of water trailing after it like the exhaust plume of a rocket. Had you not moved out of the way when you did, the beast's jet-propelled bulk would have smashed into you head-on; as it is, the force of the overgrown squid's impact against your rocky shield is enough to knock you off your feet. You scramble back up as fast as you can, and find Arrogante lying in a clear daze against the rock, its upper body bruised and bloody where it impacted.
You sense weakness.
Seeing your enemy down and vulnerable, you move to finish it off, summoning another iron spear - this one twice as long as the previous two, and broader in proportion. Taking the weapon in both hands, you lean forward with your leading leg half-bent and then spring, bringing the spear around with all the force your arms and your short leap can muster. Arrogante shrieks as the weapon sinks in-
FLASH!
-and you suddenly find yourself lying on your back, hands empty, and every part of your body aching. What... just happened?
You try to sit up, and find it unexpectedly difficult. Your muscles don't quite seem to want to work properly, twitching and- is that static crackling over your shirt? Is there a live electrical wire around here that you didn't not-
"You IDIOT!" Briar yells, appearing in your face without warning. "You saw the squid generate electricity to counter your first attack, Alex! Why did you stab it with a piece of iron?!"
"Shlipped my mind," you slur, trembling from the lingering shock as you clamber back to your feet. Arrogante appears to be in roughly the same condition; it's wrenched your third spear out of its body and flung it aside somewhere, leaving a trail of cyanotic blood as it withdraws into the pool. You've definitely hurt the beast, but it's still got some fight left in it, as it demonstrates by taking a swing at you. You manage to sidestep the attack and dodge its follow-up swing, using an internally-focused surge of magic and ki to stabilize your nerves, and you spend the next few seconds focusing on defense as you take stock of your situation.
Your physical condition is less than perfect, perhaps down to sixty percent of optimum, but like Arrogante, you're not out of the fight yet. All the spells you've cast in the last couple of minutes have taken their toll on your magical reserves, depleting them to just under half, but your ki reserves are better off, closer to three-quarters full.
Impatient for this battle to be over with, you summon two more throwing spears as you dodge the squid's blows. Rather than attempt to imbue these weapons with elemental discharges, you place an enchantment that will call on the wind to accelerate them in flight, increasing their penetrating power and hopefully dealing enough damage to put Arrogante out of your misery. Then you bring up your aura, and strike.
One spear to the good eye, and Arrogante enters its defensive pose, groping towards the weapon. It takes longer this time - the wind-boosted spear has gone in deeper, though it still didn't do enough damage to kill the beast - but that just gives you the time you need to gather your aura again. When the squid finally pulls the impaling weapon free, shrieking and lashing out in all directions, you are fully prepared, dodging the wild blows, taking aim at the howling maw, and flinging your spear all in one smooth sequence.
That still doesn't end the monster's life, and you're starting to wonder just how much punishment it can take. While considering your now dangerously-low magic reserves, you watch as Arrogante descends into the pool for a second time. You run for the rocks again, and once more, there is a violent impact that leaves the oversized octopoid lying in a daze. Backing off to get some room, you conjure and charge what you hope will be your final spear - a particularly large, barbed example of its kind - and take careful aim at the nearest eye. A through-and-through ought to do.
Arrogante wails and goes into a tentacle-lashing frenzy. As far away as you are, you have to scurry back even more to avoid the rubbery limbs as they whip through the air. With a final shriek and a huge spray of blood and foam, the squid falls over backwards into the water.
All goes still.
You half-turn so that you are standing with the water to your left and the wall of the cove to your right, head slightly bowed and hands clenched at your side. You gather mana and ki to rejuvenate your weary body, incidentally causing a breeze to pick up and blow about you, making your hair and clothes dance lightly.
Arrogante surges from the surf, shrieking, arms wildly waving, bleeding horridly from its burst eyes and mouth - but you, who possesses many of the memories of a treacherous villain, are already leaping backwards out of the squid's path of blind fury. Whatever non-visual sense the mutilated monster was using to track you for this last-gasp ambush isn't quite fast enough to compensate for your dodge, and as the beast turns, tracking you, trying to bring all of its limbs to bear, it finds you nearing the peak of your jump, obeying an unfamiliar impulse to raise one hand above your head and release your energy. Glowing a golden-white color you have never seen before, yet which instantly feels familiar, motes of mana-charged ki amass into an orb of crackling power larger, brighter, and more energetic than any of the elemental attacks you've managed to summon before. It seethes with your frustration and anger at this squid from beyond the deep that just refuses to go down, and feels eager to strike.
Feeling oddly calm, you eye the monster disdainfully and utter a single word: "Catch."
Then you bring your arm down, launching the orb directly at the shrieking Arrogante, whose tentacles grope at the air, desperately seeking the projectile that even this sightless squid can sense coming.
They miss. The orb strikes home and erupts, spreading across Arrogante's body in a flash and clinging to it, glowing brighter, spitting sparks and tongues of something that looks like lightning, but which you know is not. The beast shrieks and and shudders violently, as if trying to thrash against incredibly powerful restraints, while the glow begins to seep into its flesh, spreading everywhere. Landing from your jump, you continue to watch with that strange sense of detachment.
Abruptly, Arrogante goes still.
In the following instant, it explodes, scattering motes of energy across the cove that glimmer like a billion tiny fireflies.
Learned special technique, Power Ball
In the sudden abundance of light, you hold up your hands and stare at them, flexing your fingers as you slowly turn them from palms-up to palms-down.
Then a frantic fairy collides with the side of your face, and that odd lassitude goes away, leaving behind confusion, fatigue, no small amount of pain, and of course, Briar, who is babbling so badly you can't make out a single word - and very, very faintly, perhaps due to the increased awareness that comes with combat, you feel tiny spots of dampness appear on your cheek.
A moment later, the lingering lights that mark Arrogante's passing surge back together, forming an unfamiliar object that drifts slowly towards the sands.