[color=ed1c24][center][h2]Akeno[/h2][/center][/color]

By the time Akeno had finished her stretches something was happening but not, as it happened, the thing she was expecting. The two Orcs who had gone inside the cave still hadn’t returned and instead, their ambush was interrupted by a couple of things occurring one after another.

On the ledges above them an abnormally large rat made its way across the rocks. Or at least is was until one of those rocks suddenly began to move, lunging at the passing rodent and snapping at it with pincers and revealing itself to be some kind of insect in disguise. It didn’t look like either creature was particularly interested in them, but there was a chance their fight would bring them in their direction so it was a good idea to keep an eye on them, even if they weren’t planning on getting involved. The Orc with the club was probably right that they couldn’t do anything to the rock-thing, assuming its shell was real stone, but they could maybe try to flip it over or something to disable it.

Before Akeno could ponder that much further however something else appeared, and this time it seemed [i]very[/i] interested in them. A ball of slime with glowing eyes and rock-like protrusions was rolling down the hill towards them and, either intentionally or accidentally, was on a collision course with their group. The club-wielding Orc stepped forward and took a big swing at the thing, sending it back the way it came but apparently not killing it or scaring it off. The slime slithered towards them with an angry expression and, after absorbing a few small stones into its body, fired one at the Orc who had hit it.

Akeno left Grunthor to deal with that himself, instead choosing to use its inattentiveness of her to dash around to the side and draw closer to it while it was occupied. The stone within its body had begun to glow before it was fired, which Akeno took to mean it had used some kind of skill rather than just spitting the rock out; hopefully that meant it couldn’t do that forever, or not that quickly. If nothing else, the glow might give her some warning of an incoming attack.

Running until she was maybe ten feet to the slime’s left, Akeno came to a stop and drew her arm back. Given how it had bounced back from being hit by a club like that, she assumed it wouldn’t be too affected by her punches and kicks. Instead, Akeno decided to try out her new skill, conjuring a ball of fire in the palm of her hand and throwing it overarm at the slime’s side.

[@Zeroth][@Kazemitsu][@Lucius Cypher]