[.} apples {.][> macromantuar <]

"Oh, holy-"

There was no time for profanity or blasphemy, even if she had retained enough mental power to come up with either. Throwing herself to the left took all the time she had, and even using every split second, she barely made it. Only by throwing her backpack up at the last second did she deflect the massive limb falling at her from the sky. With a sharp crunch—the journal snapping? hopefully not her water bottle cracking—the backpack sailed past Gnawer and crashed into the ground several feet away from him. Yaron stared after it for a heartbeat, stunned by the force of its fall.

Then the leg shifted, and she kicked into gear. She had instinctively grabbed her weapon and rolled with it, giving herself a cut cheek but ensuring that she wasn't defenseless. Now she turned it and jabbed upward, only to miss completely as the weight of the weapon pushed her hands back down. Cursing fluidly, she forced herself up and leaned against the tree to try again. This time, her blade went in the direction she meant it to: up.

[[attacks Macromantula, halberd]]
[dice=200+13000]
[[severed left ear; 8.0]]

A chunk of something fell directly past her, but Yaron didn't see what it was. All her attention was zoomed in on the giant fucking spider standing over her.

She couldn't even come up with anything to say about it. Hell, what did she even think about that? Yaron had never had a problem with spiders—or cockroaches, or reptiles, or really anything generally regarded as creepy. There was no point in shrieking over something she could step on. But a spider twice her size? Yeah, that was a problem. That was... that was...

That was probably about to attack her again. Yaron yelped and gripped her halberd tighter, peering into the branches at the few bits of flesh (and eye) she could see. In the absence of any idea about where the next attack would come from, she couldn't rip her eyes away from the body of the spider. How much did that thing weigh? At least she wasn't likely to miss it very often...

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She wasn't fast enough.

It was funny, in a way. Never mind the screaming pain and the shock of a gargantuan arachnid and the rush of foliage around her as she fell, that one sentence was all she could think. I wasn't fast enough. She didn't feel the pain, although some part of her must because she was screaming, and she couldn't bring herself to be angry because she couldn't fully register what she would be angry about. Although the thud of flesh hitting dirt assured her that her surroundings had never been more solid, everything had gone blurry and soft, impossible to focus on and harder still to grab hold of.

Still, she tried. What else was she to do? Certainly not lie here and let the spider's leg crush her head, easy as it would be. Certainly not run away, unless one of her family's supposed miracles fixed one of her legs. She tried, automatically searching for higher ground as instinct kicked in and dread certainty filled her. Ground meant lack of leverage and lack of leverage meant death. But a broken leg and a shattered foot (was that really a part of her body, that mangled red thing at the end of her leg?) together destroyed any chance she had of throwing herself into battle or even of standing. All she could do was lash out with her two remaining fully functional limbs and the weapon still clutched in their locked fingers.

[[attacks Macromantula, halberd]]
[dice=200+13000]
[[shallow cut on left shoulder; 3.5]]

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What felt like miles over Yaron's head, a line of silk arced and fell with its end vanishing into some tree. Yaron grit her teeth against pain and terror, determined not to give it time to finish that web but barely able to hold herself together with the way the shaking ground radiated through her cracked leg and crushed foot. And then she couldn't at all, as a massive leg glanced against her left knee just about the fracture and she fell, screaming.

The spider reared back again as Yaron's shoulder crashed against a tree trunk. That sent another screaming shock through her collarbone, but at least kept her off the ground. With what felt like the last of her wits she braced her left leg against a gnarled root and tracked the thing's movement through needles with the end of her weapon, waiting for it to lower a foot—or better yet, its head—back into reach.

[attacks Macromantula]
[dice=200+13000]
[shallow cut on back of head; 4.5]

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The blade caught the spider's huge head, sending a splash of bluish liquid down over Yaron. In any other circumstance she might be both fascinated and repulsed, but her world was only pain and determination right now. All she did was run one hand over her eyes to clear them of sweat and spider gunk, muttering, "What the shit."

Some of her attacks must finally have started to sink in. The spider made no noise except the crashing of its huge legs, but those legs seemed chaotic now and the whirling spinnerets released no new silk for its web. Huge as it was, seeing the way it flailed around made Yaron feel like she had a chance again, and that gave her the burst of energy she needed to fling her aching limbs out of the way of the next blow.

That did land her on the floor, gasping in pain again at the impact, but the triumph of escape made her grin through it. "Fuck yeah!" she yelled, even as hauling herself back upward made her broken foot feel ready to fall off entirely. "Come at me, you bitchass pile of legs!"


[dice=200+13000]
[attack; damage]
[deep gash on right calf; 8.0]

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Come at her the bitchass pile of legs did, but its swing went wide without her even having to do anything this time. Small fucking mercies. Still panting, Yaron tried to scoot away from the spot where the spider's newest attack had fallen, but her limbs screamed in protest. Pain was breaking back through adrenaline, and despite her impassioned shouting Yaron wanted nothing more than to curl up and cry. She would be trapped here until only one species breathed, though, so she propped herself against the closest sturdy branch and all but threw the weapon upward, desperate to make contact with that leg before it rose out of reach.

[dice=200+13000]
[stabbed in bicep; 8.5]

It was enough. Still gushing weird blue blood, the spider staggered to one side, failed to correct itself, and crashed down with a thud that knocked Yaron down from her branch. Pain blacked out her vision for a second and when she could see again the spider was having some kind of convulsion, with its legs curling inward. She waited even after it went still, eyes locked on the mass of brown behind branches and muscles tensed to roll out of the way of another leg or pincer, but nothing happened.

"Yeah, that's what you get," she whispered, then slumped into the roots underneath her, threw an elbow over her face, and cried.

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