Battling the Naylmo

JP with Alexis, Gonyaul and winteroak.

Gonyaul noticed the failed attempt before it even didn’t work. As the ape pulls on the rope, he gets lurched forward, but only just a little. He quickly just releases the slack of rope so the beast pulls only at the rope with no Gonyaul resistance.

Gonyaul takes Tar’s advice and sprints to another location, diving behind a crypt. He starts to get ready the other rope set. His was now on the floor and in the beasts hand. He just had the one he was carrying for Alexis left.

With the beast’s attention drawn away for a few precious moments, Alexis had a chance to duck behind a row of monuments herself.

She needed to keep moving. Listening to the Naylmo’s rampage she stays low, oriented into the general direction where she had seen the others flee.

While Alexis and Gonyaul recover, they hear a scream of imaginable pain and the sound of crunching bones. Of Tar there is no sign. The Naylmo jumps of top of a nearby crypt searching for you.

Gonyaul’s heart was pounding so strongly that he thought the beast could probably hear it. He had gotten up to his feet and peeked out to see the Naylmo perched on a nearby crypt. He scanned his immediate line of sight for Alexis; however, failed to identify where she was. If only the creature would turn its back to him. Gonyaul had already learned from his first throw that he would need to use a different type of trajectory when he released the end loop.

Alexis brought another set of tombstones between her and the ape’s line of sight.

She looked around her immediate area. Was there anything she could use to distract the beast? A way to create sound or movement away from her?

Gonyaul blended with the shadows created by the crypt, the structure was blocking some of the stronger sources of bioluminescent plants. The Naylmo ended up looking off in another direction which he assumed was where Alexis was probably; she should have tried to mask her scent more.

He stepped out just enough to make the shot. Whirling the loop part, with the hook, over head this time he let it fly once again towards the back of the Naylmo’s horns and head.

The hook and loop struck and wrapped several times around its intended target. Gonyaul was elated and pulled hard on the rope to tighten the knot.

The creature’s head barely snapped backwards as Gonyaul yanked back on it with all his might. It felt it though as an annoyance and quickly fixed itself around to face Gonyaul. The quick turn yanked the rest of the rope right out of Gonyaul’s hands and sent him face forward into the crypt before he had to let go.

The rope was securely fixed, but it was just dangling from the horns down the backside of the beast. It roared at the young man.

Gonyaul wiped the blood that was running down his nose from the collision with the crypt. He roared back in a wheezy voice. It looked and sounded pathetic.

The Naylmo leapt at Gonyaul’s position from its crypt top perch. Gonyaul did a chest dive, moving towards it a split second later. The ape flew just over top of Gonyaul’s slip and sliding as low as the could to the ground. It’s hand just missing him. If he had not put his hair up, it may have grabbed hold, it was that close a dodge.

Gonyaul scrabbled to his feet and began running towards the first rope set laying on the ground near the side tunnel Tar and he were about to go down. The beast crashed through the crypt Gonyaul was previously hiding behind and was quickly recovering in anger at missing its prey.

Well. No more distraction needed. At least not for her.
The beast roared its anger at his elusive prey to the darkened cavern halls as Alexis loosened the straps of her shield.

It would be a hindrance more than a help against this one.
She pulled her dagger from her belt instead.

As the ape began to make his way where it assumed his prey had fled to, Alexis began to stealthily trail behind its back, taking note of the dangling rope Gonyaul had managed to attach to its horns.

Gonyaul faded in and out of view, like a fish in a low visibility ocean due to his coloration. And his scent was masked which made it harder for the beast to track him, save line of sight. He dove and rolled towards the main bundle of the dropped rope set from earlier and as he rolled up to his feet had grasped it. He continued moving for the cover of a taller tomb while gathering the rope to him.

Alexis ducked from cover to cover as she followed the enraged beast, slowly gaining on him while it let the structures feel its anger.

Now if it would only halt still for just a moment…