[Ana]

Encounter

I pushed myself harder with each passing day. Traveling for ever increasing amounts of time under the blinding rage of the demon in the sky. I was so focused on my anger at Julian that I became blind to everything else around me. The trees, the flowers, even the river which had once enthralled me so, all faded beneath the intensity of my desire to get my hands around that cursed man's neck.

I had been traveling for two days when I encountered my first Overworld beast. It was during the earliest time of light, when the fire in the sky was only just beginning to kindle. As usual, I wasn't paying much attention to my surroundings when I suddenly broke into a small clearing, startling the creature. I had never seen anything so odd looking in my life. Its body was sleekly muscled and covered with a smooth, tawny pelt, and it stood on four shockingly spindly legs. I almost laughed at the animal's absurd appearance, until I saw its weapons. From its head sprouted two clusters of pointed horns, each cluster consisting of 4-5 branches of smaller horns. An arraignment surely designed to to ensure a messy death for anyone impaled upon such wicked instruments. Its deceptively weak looking legs ended, not in a set of claws or paws, but in what appeared to be a razor sharp, solid mass of bone, easily capable of splitting an opponent's skull in half.

My hand crept to the dagger at my side as the monster and I stared at each other across the clearing. I don't know how long our standoff lasted, it felt like hours, before I saw the muscles bunch beneath the beast's smooth pelt, preparing for a deadly leap. I gripped my dagger tightly and crouched, prepared to defend my life. In a smooth, graceful movement, the monster leapt.....and passed by harmlessly to my right. As the creature disappeared into the forest, I loosened the grip on my dagger, although I remained alert for several minutes, waiting for the beast to return, this time with lethal intent. When it became clear that the monster had considered me beneath the effort it would take to kill me, I finally let go of my dagger and continued my journey. I considered myself lucky to have survived my first encounter with a Surface monster, and resolved to pay closer attention to my surroundings from now on.