Andy in the Apocalypse [LitRPG System Apocalypse] 3.32 Wyvern

32 – Wyvern

Lucy crouched in the thick creosote brush, trusting its pungent, tangy odor to help mask her scent as she looked up the steep, rocky slope toward her goal—a narrow, rock-lined cave entrance, maybe five feet wide by seven high. She hadn’t seen her quarry, but she could see the claw marks on the stones near the cave mouth, and she’d found the remains of a kill further down the mountain. More than that, Rachel had given her directions to the wyvern’s lair before hurrying off with her little boy, Albert.

A small smile tugged at the corners of Lucy’s mouth as she rembered Albert’s big eyes and the way his small, pudgy hand had felt in hers. She’d always liked kids, and had figured that soday she’d have so. The thought chased the smile from her face, and she narrowed her eyes, refocusing on the task at hand; her priorities had certainly changed since the apocalypse had co to Earth.

At that mont, the System saw fit to surprise her:

***Well-done, Lucy! You’ve been honing your ability to hide from your foes, and your clever use of the plant-life nearby has made new connections in your mind. Notable innate skill granted: Stealth.***

Lucy’s eyes widened, and she wanted to stand up and whoop, but she held herself back—for obvious reasons. Still, she was ecstatic; hadn’t she chosen a more stealth-oriented path for her Monster Hunter class? Hadn’t she been waiting for it to pay off? Here it was! She rubbed the edge of the cloak Andy had given her between her fingers. She’d never given voice to the concern, but she’d wondered if maybe the magical garnt had been slowing her growth in that area; if it was doing the hiding for her, then maybe the System wasn’t recognizing her efforts.

The new ssage put that fear to rest. She was on her way. After another glance at the cave, ensuring nothing had changed, she read the description for her new skill:

Stealth – Innate: You instinctively leverage your surroundings to remain hidden. Light, cover, scent, and sound work in your favor, concealing you from those you stalk—and those who stalk you.

Lucy smiled, glancing at her status sheet. Sure enough, the skill was there: Stealth: 1. Looking up the list to her available five Improvent Points, she wondered if it would be a good ti to improve the ability. She certainly wanted to get the jump on her prey; she didn’t know a lot about wyverns, but from the fantasy books she’d consud, she was pretty sure they were at least related to dragons. At the thought, an earlier concern ca to mind: would her Fire Bow be ineffective?

She’d already decided to start with physical arrows—her best ones, enchanted by Andy. Setting aside that concern, she refocused on the skill list. Nodding to herself, she put another point into Stealth, then paused, examining her new knowledge.

Her smile returned as she realized the skill did more than give her tips on hunkering down in the shadows. At the second rank, so new understanding was there in her mind—a way to channel mana into the surrounding air, bending the light and making her blur into her surroundings. It wouldn’t hide her from magical sight, but creatures with normal vision would struggle to see her. Better still, it hardly cost anything, just a trickle of mana that her regeneration could maintain. It wasn’t invisibility—she’d have to move slowly and concentrate to maintain the effect—but it was far better than just hiding.

Encouraged, Lucy put another point into the skill. This ti, her new knowledge wasn’t so easy to isolate; it seed her understanding of hiding had improved. She knew how to move, how to posture herself, even how to design clothing and armor to improve her chances. Her ability to channel mana to help her efforts seed the sa, but maybe she’d be a little better at it, able to move a bit more quickly and concentrate more easily.

Satisfied, and not wanting to spend all her points, Lucy began to actively hide as she crept up the rocky slope toward the cave mouth. She was ready for the hunt to be over, and that wyvern wasn’t going to hunt itself.

Her movents were sure and precise; she grabbed only sturdy rocks, tugging herself into steady positions where she could brace one foot or the other as she sought more handholds. The slope wasn’t vertical, but it was steep, and she was basically crawling upward on her belly. The cave was maybe fifty yards away when she started out, and before she knew it, she was halfway there, clinging to rocks, chest on the hot dusty scree.

A prickly pear clung to the slope beside her, and she could see the top section of pads was torn in wide, ragged grooves. Had the wyvern done that? Why? For fun? To itch its clawed feet? Lucy snorted and pulled herself along, moving ever closer to the cave. Her mind drifted as she worked, and her thoughts turned toward the sa and the people who’d claid her as a friend.

Andy featured prominently in her thoughts, and she wondered how he was. Was he still gaining levels at a breakneck pace? She was still stuck at twenty-five, but she had enough experience for five more levels. Would it be enough? She did not intend to be left behind. The thought brought to mind their various reasons for wanting to advance so quickly, she and Andy. Most prominent among them was the System’s promise to open Earth for “settlent.” How much ti did they have? She wasn’t sure, but it felt like it had to be down to about a week or so.

Licking her lips, stretching her arm toward another sturdy-looking rock, Lucy hoped she’d be back to the sa before then. She’d hate to get caught out with an alien invasion between herself and the settlent.

As she approached the bottom edge of the cave, the sharp tang of sulfur and ammonia had her breathing shallowly. Her hunter’s instincts told her what it was: the creature’s waste. Just below the opening, she froze, crouching on a large, warm rock. She barely breathed, letting her ears chase the various sounds around her—the wind, birds chirping distantly, tiny creatures scurrying through gravel-strewn dirt—and then the soft, leathery scrape of sothing heavy shifting its scaly bulk.

Lucy stopped breathing altogether when she heard the sound. It was closer than she’d expected. Maybe the cave wasn’t deep, or maybe the wyvern was too large to venture far from the surface. Still, she wanted to get her eyes on the creature; she needed to understand the sightlines—to see a target she could properly visualize and shoot at.

Steeling herself, she reached one hand up to the stony mouth, the tips slipping into a groove cut by knife-like claws, and then, ever so slowly, channeling her mana into the surrounding air, hoping her Stealth skill would fool the wyvern if it glanced her way, she pulled herself up, just high enough to peek over the ledge.

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She forced herself to breathe despite what she saw. She exhaled in a thin, delicate tendril, and then she slowly inhaled, watching the huge, brownish-green, reptilian monster as it slumbered not ten yards from her face. The wyvern reminded her of every fantasy book she’d ever seen that featured a dragon or drake or similar-type monster on its cover. Its scales were apparent, each one about the size of a quarter, but not round; like tiny shields, they coated the wyvern’s hide.

It didn’t move, other than to breathe, its chest expanding and contracting slowly, but still, its eyes stared, seemingly right at her. Did wyverns have eyelids? Could it see if it was asleep? Lucy hoped her stealth was working, and so far, it seed it was, because it hadn’t reacted to her presence. She studied the creature, taking in its leathery wings, its long, barbed tail, its knife-like claws, and the eight-inch, gleaming white fangs that stood out from its closed mouth.

Lucy’s blood went cold at the sight of the fangs. They reminded her of a snake’s. Was a wyvern venomous? Licking her lips, she willed her thudding heart to calm, afraid it was making a racket loud enough to wake the creature. To distract herself from her fear, she focused on thinking of the wyvern as prey; how could she kill it? The scales covered the thing’s flesh, but the ones on its back were darker than those on the bits of its underside she could make out. Were its belly and throat softer?

Even if not, there was always the eye; she could make that shot if it held still long enough for her to draw her bow. If it opened its mouth to hiss at her, she could try to put an arrow into it. Her trick worked; her fear subsided, and she thought of ways she might get a shot off before it could react. If she stood up straight, using the rock she currently perched upon, just her shoulders and head would be over the ledge. She could shoot from there—just nock the arrow before she stood, drew, and released.

Lucy dipped back down and delicately shifted her quiver so she could look within. She’d left her pack down below on the trail, hidden in the brush, but she had her bow and arrows. She had her knife. Was it enough? That wyvern was bigger than a horse, and she’d seen the remains of its many kills. Was she crazy? Just because the System sent her on a quest to kill sothing didn’t an she could!

“Quit looking for an excuse to chicken out,” Steve whispered, his ghost suddenly there, like a chill down her spine.

Lucy squeezed her eyes shut. She forced herself to breathe—to relax. The part of her mind that conjured Steve’s voice in her head was cruel, maybe, but it wasn’t wrong. She was here for a reason! She was stuck, and that damn wyvern stood between her and where she needed to be. Grimacing, she ran her fingers over the arrows, touching the fletching, looking for the one she wanted.

There it was, glossy and black. She drew it forth, smiling at the way the shaft shimred with purple and green iridescence—evidence that Andy’s enchantnts were still active. She didn’t rember the exact nas of the effects—he’d told her, but it had been weeks since then. All she knew was that he’d gotten two damaging enchantnts to take hold—electrical and poison damage.

The stone she crouched on was mostly buried deep in the hillside, and she carefully shifted her feet, putting them where she wanted so that when she stood, she’d have a solid foundation. She wanted her shot to be smooth. When she was satisfied, she unslung her Fire Bow and nocked the arrow. Then, she took two slow, steady breaths, stood, and drew.

Almost imdiately, the wyvern’s big round eyes—yellow with vertical black slits—clarified as so partially transparent lens slid to the side. Lucy knew it had seen her, or so part of its brain that stayed alert while it slept had. It didn’t matter, though; she could have hit that saucer-sized eye from three tis the distance. Without hesitation, she lined up her arrow and released.

Thrum… the arrow streaked through the air, slamd into the wyvern’s eye and erupted with sizzling sparks and hissing green gas. The great reptile shrieked, exploding into motion. It launched itself up, thrashing its wings as its back slamd into the top of the cave. Lucy drew her bowstring back, materializing a fire arrow, and let it loose, firing three tis before the enormous, winged reptile finally got itself moving forward.

The fire arrows hit ho, and she saw them punch into the wyvern’s scaley hide, but then it was on her, and three knife-like claws ripped her leather coat, digging into her chest. Lucy scread, falling back as the wyvern dragged its claws down. Luckily, her backward montum got her free of the claws before she could be eviscerated, but the cuts scread for her attention—worse than any wound she’d ever had.

That was when she hit the mountain slope and tumbled down, crashing and sliding over the rough, rocky ground. Lucy tried to tuck her chin, tried to grab hold of the rocks, cacti, and scrub brush she fell past. Maybe she slowed her fall, but she also tore up her hands and ripped more than a few nails from their beds.

When she was sure she was going to die from the fall, it stopped; she’d slamd into the creosote stand, and the dense, springy branches caught her. Her eyes ran with tears, more from startled pain than from anything else, but then the wyvern screeched terribly again, and she heard it crashing down the slope. Lucy didn’t know where her bow was.

“Move, idiot! Are you going to lay there? Get my knife out!”

With a scream of breathless agony, Lucy rolled onto her hands and knees and reached behind her, wrapping one bloody hand around Steve’s hunting knife. As she ripped it free, the wyvern was there, sliding over the loose scree as its tail struck out, the needle-like barb dripping with sothing green.

It lanced out, and she lurched to the side, but she needn’t have; the thing slamd into the shale almost a yard to her left. That was when she saw that the wyvern was listing to the side, tilting its head left and right as her arrow continued to hiss and spark, buried three-fourths of the way to the fletching in its left eye socket.

“Co on, then!” she scread, leaping forward, angling to her right—its blind-side—despite a swollen, throbbing knee. The wyvern snapped its jaws toward her, or rather, toward where she’d been, and once again missed by a wide margin. Lucy saw a bloody scorch-mark on its upper chest, near its neck where one of her fire arrows had struck ho. She lunged for it, driving Steve’s knife at the spot, even as the wyvern wound up its tail for another strike.

Maybe Steve’s ghost was guiding her hand, or maybe she was just lucky, but she hit the spot perfectly, driving the eight-inch blade to the hilt. When she yanked it out, ready to roll to the side to dodge the tail-strike, she knew she’d hit sothing critical—a fountain of hot, crimson blood gushed forth, spraying her full in the face.

Lucy stumbled forward, and the tail struck. The barb hit the ground behind her, but the thick, muscular length of scaly flesh smashed into her shoulder, flattening her to the ground. Stars danced through her vision, and she almost lost her grip on the knife, but she held on.

“Get up!” Steve commanded.

Lucy tried. She pushed herself to her knees again, but then sothing impossibly heavy fell on her, driving her face down into the mountainside again. Gasping for breath, she wriggled her way to the side, and then a System ssage flashed into her vision:

***Congratulations, Lucy! You’ve completed your hunt! You’ve killed a juvenile Barb-tailed Wyvern.***

There were more ssages—many more—but Lucy fell onto her stomach, still partially pinned by the crushing weight of the dead wyvern. Tears of relief sprang into her eyes as she fought for breath, gathering her strength. She would read the System’s notes, but not before she managed to get out from under the darned thing and recover her bow.

A painful smile spread on her bloody, swollen lips as she imagined Steve’s voice again, “Good job, runt. Glad you didn’t quit on .”