Hidden Vampire Style

Vampstia would head out of her Den at night while being trailed by Zardzeke who was wearing some equipment that he had obtained from the equipment pile in order to be useful to her. "Follow me." she said before heading South though when she saw a tree she would stop in order to try and teach him how to climb as she knew it would be useful in case they ran into something he couldn't fight. "Should be pretty easy for you with those claws of yours, we won't leave until you succeed, I'll scout from above while you remain below if you encounter anything to dangerous then you can climb up a tree. But while we figure that out, tell me what part of the forest do you come from?" she said slowly climbing the tree so that he could pick it up.

Equipment:

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Zeke did as he was instructed, what choice did he have? He had seen the power of this creature, there was no point in fighting back or resisting anymore. He sighed, following her, head down and not offering anything in the form of conversation. Stopping by the tree, he stared up the trunk of it. It wasn't terribly tall, but a fall from that height could still hurt. Zeke never wondered if he was afraid of heights, he had never been bothered trying. Extending his claws, he began to test the bark as Tia asked him about where he came from. That resulted in a sudden response, his scaly head flipping around to look at her, eyes slightly wide. It wasn't that he felt a particularly strong connection to his kin, but he knew he didn't want anyone else suffering the way he was.

With a resigned sigh, Zeke looked up at the stars and the moon, trying to get a bearing on where he was and which direction was which. Finally, he pointed northward. Then however, he scratched his head in slight confusion and pointed eastward. He shook his head and threw up his hands in a confused shrug towards Tia. In truth he wasn't exactly the best navigator and he was telling as much of the truth as he could. He came from somewhere in one of those two directions...probably.

Turning back to the tree, he would begin carving foot holds into the tree, hewing the bark away and cutting into the wood itself. Testing his weight on these new footholds, Zeke would begin to climb, slowly at first and hesitantly, but gaining speed as he gained confidence until finally, the small Zard disappeared into the canopy of the tree. The only indication anything was up there being the ruffling of leaves in the dark night. For though he had learned to climb, he still wasn't all that stealthy yet. Tia should be proud, her little underling had-

Wait, why was he coming down? Rapidly...nearly falling out of the tree itself. A panicked look came over him as he scampered back to beside Tia, staring up at the tree. The tree began to rustle again, this time though Zeke was safely on the ground. He pointed a shaking, scaly finger up towards the tree top as a Silver Argiope descended from the branches. Spun spider silk connected the huge arachnid to the tree, allowing it to dangle freely as it gazed upon Tia and Zeke. It did not attack, not yet, seemingly curious as to what these creatures were doing so close to its traps.

Vampstia would process what he had said, north then east perhaps she would be better off taking into account both directions in order to head North-East it made sense in her head but there was no point scouting a new location without back-up so she would have to keep that in mind when she decided to deal with that. "It seems you got the hang of that pretty qui- Ah." Tia would smirk proudly at what he could accomplish only to have her praise interrupted as a large spider came down from above. "Zeke while I distract it, set the tree on fire." she said pointing at the spider before releasing a Blood Mana: Blood Dart aiming for one of it's bigger eyes. Seeing as she was still in the tree she was closer to it than Zeke was and thus by attacking it first would hopefully cause it to focus on her rather than him. Then again her next action would really attract it's attention as she would leap off the tree and Drift towards it before lashing out with her Organic Sais. Her objective was to not only Vivisect it's mandibles but also use her organic fangs in order to bite one of it's eyes.

Hopefully Zardzeke was successful in starting the fire after all if he was able to do so then it would be forced to come down to the ground rather than stay in the trees, not to mention it's webs would probably end up getting set on fire as well. It did say a lot about Vampstia that she would immediately choose to attack the spider rather than attempt to do anything else, then again it was a spider which was definitely not cute enough for her to even bother trying to be friendly towards it. Too many legs and eyes made things more creepy than anything else really.

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Zardzeke:

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Zeke would look at his new mistress as if she had four heads. Sure he was afraid of her on a regular basis, but this spider was far more of an immediate and intense fear. He cowered a bit, more interested in keeping himself out of bodily harm than actively engaging with the large, hissing predator that hung above them. Not to mention the fact the thing was between him and the spider. That was a whole lotta nope for our Zard friend.

The argiope would hiss more in annoyance than pain. After all, losing an eye for a spider wasn't exactly the worst thing in the world. It would skitter back, off of its web thread and into the branches as Tia crashed into it, tearing and slicing at its hissing mandibles. The creature would pull away, one mandible breaking off entirely, and the other hanging limp and useless. Now that, that hurt. It would turn, spraying a thick rope of silver webbing at Tia before skittering through the trees, trying to distance itself from the angry female. At this range, Tia would be hard pressed to avoid such a strange attack.

Down below, feeling emboldened by Tia's engagement with the monster, Zeke decided to take this opportunity to try and start the fire as she had commanded. He sparked rocks, over and over again at the base of the tree. Perhaps it was his shaking hands, fueled with fear as he looked from the tree to his hands repeatedly, or perhaps it was the wind, but try as he might he couldn't get a fire going.

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Vampstia didn't have a prayer of avoiding the webbing by drift alone and as such she would be forced to use some more MP in order to fire a Blood Dart at the webbing to hopefully redirect it off course or at least slow it down a bit so that she could dodge it. "Zardzeke, calm down. I won't let anything happen to you, so just focus on lighting the tree it lands upon on fire okay. Ah it's getting away, quickly follow me." she said using the sweet voice that she typically reserved for when she was seducing him in order to try and make him relax. She would drift after the Silver Argiope easily able to keep track of it due to her Discern skill though she would stop a tree away from it before turning around and watching Zardzeke instead of it. "I wonder where that stupid spider went. You should try setting the tree behind me on fire." she said specifically in Kobonish rather loudly as not only did she know Zeke would still understand her, but hopefully the S. Argiope would think she had lost track of it and the audacity of her facing away from it would be enough of a taunt that it would attempt to attack her.

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The blood dart impacted a corner of the wide web net, causing it to flutter back and fold in on itself slightly. A slower creature would have still been caught, but Tia managed to contort just enough for the web to fly past her, splattering across the trunk of the tree behind her and the branch she had previously stood on. Meanwhile, Zeke would look up at Tia and swallow hard. He wasn't sure where the Argiope had gone, he just knew it wasn't in the tree he had been attempting to set on fire and that made him rather happy. It meant he could continue doing as Tia had commanded, keeping her happy, but for the most part probably avoid the dangers of the spider. However, moving to a new tree presented a whole host of issues with that plan. Zeke hesitantly made his way to the tree Tia had indicated, trying his best to stifle any nerves that creeped up. His body shook once or twice while he dropped the pile of kindling at the base of the tree. Though Tia could locate the mass of spider body in the tree, the creature was currently Prowling in the branches above Zeke and out of the tiny Zard's sight.

Zeke took one last look up into the canopy of the tree before turning his attention back to the fire. With each echoing crack of the rocks, he winced in timid anticipation. The pile of leaves and sticks began to smoke, but quickly went out. Zeke sighed, going for a second attempt and simply wanting to get out of here as quickly as po-

The Argiope descended, like a massive silver shadow. It spit some sort of green glob that hissed and sizzled in the air towards Tia, but its main target was the small, delicious Lizard at the base of the tree. It would attempt to land on Zeke, skewering him with its spindly legs that were surprisingly sharper and more powerful than their slender form initially appeared. If successful, the Argiope could then begin making a glorious silk cocoon for Zeke to sleep and...marinate in.

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Though Vampstia wasn't looking at the Argiope it didn't mean she didn't know where it was, or what it was doing as her hearing was quite refined as such she would immediately jump into the air in order to not only dodge the projectile that was launched at her but likewise position herself so she could Drift. "Dodge!" she Howled out channeling mana into her vocal chords in an attempt to stun it in place. Hopefully Zardzeke would listen to her command though she knew Zards were more resilient than Kobolds their opponent was quite dangerous.

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