Warrior of the Void Book 1, Chapter 42

‘Badly drawn chocobo’, as the cat woman had put it, was something of an understatement. The things were almost revolting to look at! First, while it was true that they had scales, what she hadn’t said was that these scales were coloured a poisonous violet and molted with large blobs of white– It kind of reminded Muur of her current hair troubles now that she looked at them.

Second, they actually had feathers! Too bad it just made them look worse. Now, in theory, the bright crimson feathers would have looked beautiful. But in practice, they absolutely didn’t. A tuft of them grew in an uneven patch at the back of their skull, while two others sprouted out of their thighs– actually sprouted, since she could see how the scales had been pushed aside by the mass of grody feathers.

Shockingly, the tall feathers lining their spines and side of their tails didn’t look like a mass of tumours bursting out of the ‘bird’s’ body… Unfortunately, Hammerbeaks also had less than wholesome-looking flaps of flesh dangling from the side of their neck– Muur genuinely couldn’t tell whether the red stuff along their edge were more feathers, or spines of some kind.

Frankly, it was somewhat baffling why the Eorzean had chosen to name these Hammerbeaks. Sure, the six currently engaged in a fight for dominance had large beaks shaped like a hammer – and razor sharp teeth for some reason – but that name was way too flattering for diseased things like this.

Thankfully, she didn’t need to look at them for long, a slightly pedantic check giving her the go-ahead to start blasting… But only after the Arcanist spent half a minute scribbling in a book to summon her carbuncle. A barrage of Lightning aether sprayed from her staff in short order after that, Ice already gathering in her crystalline focus to shore up the disruptive energies with her next spell.

Her spell took the shape of streaks of purple light, carried through the air upon the invisible current of her intent to harm the beasts before her. Each of the six bolts flew true, with none of the Hammerbeaks avoiding her bombardment. Though, some fared better than others.

Two in particular came out of the experience almost unharmed by virtue of glancing her way just as she unleashed her aetheric might, thus having just barely enough time to partially twist out of the way of the attack. Of the other four, two were gravely wounded, lightning burrowed into their flesh without a single care for their scaly hide. There, the thunder that Muur had called upon coiled and twisted in on itself and expended its strength in the form of powerful, paralyzing pulses whenever two tendrils crossed paths.

As for the last two… Well, they fried all the same. Electric sparks flashed along the length of her new staff as she fashioned her aether into an executioner’s blade– or maybe a grenade? Regardless, the spell struck hard, killing them on the spot.

Not that Muur paid much attention to that. Hers was on her staff and how it felt in her hands. It was… difficult to quantify. It was better than her old staff in every way that mattered. Her spells had flowed through it as a unified, ordered stream of aether. She didn’t have to battle her own powers to get what she wanted, nor did she waste aether to shoddy construction, poor maintenance, or wrangling her spell back into shape– at least that's how it all felt compared to her old staff.

But at the same time… It felt like something was missing. It took her a moment to figure it out, but– it was too smooth. There were none of the little quirks and idiosyncrasies that she’d (quite literally) burned into the skin, flesh and soul of her old staff.

It wasn’t a bad feeling, per se. Merely… different

Still, while the ex-spaniard both relished the unlimited power in her grasp and pondered these revelations brought about by her new staff, her party members weren’t idle. The first to act was, as agreed, Kofle. Effective as it may have been, the lizard wizard’s spell had firmly earned her the ire of the creatures and as frontliner, it fell to her girlfriend to make sure they could not act upon it.

While she ran out to meet the Hammerbeaks, blade at the ready, the lancer made his move as well. Though, rather than jumping out from behind the rock that had kept the adventurers out of sight, the man took five steps back. Taking a breath, he dashed forwards, as if the rock was not there. Which it may as well not have been, as he jumped on top of it with a single bound. From there, he leaped into the fray, spear in hand.

“Carbuncle, leeches at the ready.” For her part, the Arcanist did little. Giving a quick command to her summon, she drew patterns in the air with a finger in order to prime a spell. But it was nowhere near complete by the time both groups’ vanguards met each other.

With two potential targets dead, Kofle indulged in a spot of footwork to direct her charge at the easiest targets there was: One of the two gravely wounded Hammerbeaks, whose erratic twitching was as violent as it was convenient to the cat.

Sidestepping a vicious headbutt, the gladiator slashed at its thigh with a blow that tore scales, flesh and malformed feathers in a spray of red and violet. Unsurprisingly, her foe reared up with a pained cry– one promptly silenced as the lancer fell upon it with his weapon, impaling its head with a single gravity-aided thrust.

At the same time, Kofle had already crossed the distance separating her from the last of the wounded, who reared its head in order to breathe its toxin. Narrowing her eyes, the swordswoman raised her shield to try and avoid some of the gas, but she needn’t have bothered. Muur slammed the butt of her staff into the ground and the earth underneath the birds burst into jagged frost like the choking, crushing fingers of a giant.

All the Hammerbeak produced was a strangled sound as its neck was wrung under heavy ice, the violet lightning dancing underneath it pinballing all the faster and harder.

“BIO!” Thrusting her hand out, the arcanist sent her spell flying at the bird-thing. Muur wasn’t surprised to see that it wasn’t a fireball, or a spear of ice. Her studies and memories told her that those were quite firmly part of her Guild’s repertoire and not of any other spellcaster present in Eorzea. 

Instead, it was a thin arrow of green that slammed into the Hammerbeak’s face. Though, ‘splashed’ might have been more accurate seeing as it exploded into a sickly looking neon green miasma. The cloud didn’t last long – bubbling away in less than a second – but its effects were immediate.

The Hammerbeak started to hack and cough violently as it struggled to stand on its own two feet. Something that was clearly enough for Kofle to consider its threat neutralised, as she jumped away from it and into the path of one of the nearly hale beasts.

Or at least she tried to. Perhaps because she was unused to the weight of her suit of armour, perhaps because of a loose stone, or perhaps because she simply wasn’t quite skilled enough to smoothly redirect her own momentum on a dime. Point was, the swordswoman found herself stumbling into the path of the angry bird-creature instead.

Enraged by the pain it was currently experiencing, the Hammerbeak didn’t even try to breathe at her. Preferring instead to slam its beak into her with as much force as it could. True to the beast’s name, its blow hammered into the gladiator’s hastily raised shield… and won.

The sound of wood splintering filled the air as Kofle’s banded shield failed to endure the attack. But, for the crime of breaking her stuff, the Miqo’te sentenced the Hammerbeak to death by impaling it through the neck and ripping her blade out in a single stroke.

That was that… more or less. Having seen the rest of its herd be slaughtered so easily, the last Hammerbeak did the smart thing and tried to run away as fast as it could… Which only meant it died a bit more tired when a thrown spear tore through one of its legs.

“Good work, everyone. Kofle, bring over your shield, let’s see if I can patch it with some glacial ice.” Muur called once she could neither see nor hear any signs of hostile life.