[center][h2]Geralt of Rivia [/h2]
Frozen Highlands
Lvl 15 Geralt (198/140) -> (201/140) 200% OL Charged (Lvl 1)
Word count: 1,568 words [/center]



Sandalphon, unfortunately, was not immediately able to ascertain the nature of the curative dart that Geralt had found. It was natural enough that, in a completely foreign world, such a simple answer would be hard to come by without either explicit knowledge or one of that world’s denizens. He hadn’t bothered to ask the other man about it, given that he had taken what amounted to poison in the false hope of curing himself and likely was not a physician based on that.

Carefully stowing it away, Geralt took note of Sandalphon’s comment that it looked to be used with a firearm and resolved to keep an eye out. As the stagecoach continued on the path, it passed by the remains of many strange and exotic creatures, though one gargantuan animal stood out from the others in that it was alive and, seemingly, in perfect health. Geralt was a mix of suspicious and surprised. Whatever had slain the others might have ignored the giraffe or, if it was a disease, it simply might not have been able to infect the massive beast. He’d seen and read about diseases that could only infect certain species, no matter how close a host got to, say, a human. 

He started away from the stagecoach in the direction of the enclosure, calling out to the others that he was going to check it out. The enclosure holding the giraffe was larger than the others, for obvious reasons. Finding no immediate method of entering the enclosure, Geralt instead grabbed the bars and began climbing them, using his boots to anchor himself in place as he pulled himself upwards. Once at the top, he swung over and jumped down, rolling as he landed and springing to his feet. 

The giraffe watched him warily, sniffing in his direction as he slowly approached, one hand out towards it. “Easy. Easy, not gonna hurt you.” As he approached, the giraffe sniffed deeply again, lowering its head towards him slowly. He stayed put, letting it get close and sniff him from point-blank range, at which point its neck rose, taking its head with it. Geralt approached a little closer, earning a wary huff from the giraffe, but it made no move to back away. 

Just before he could make contact with its body, he noticed something…wrong…with its legs. Namely, that there were more of them, thin and spindly. Before he could react, his vision went black as the parasitized giraffe’s horrific, fang-laden mouth closed around him from above. “Fuck!” He cursed, thrashing and wriggling to try and free one of his hands even as he was lifted upwards, the monster giraffe crushing him in its mouth. He planted his feet in between a pair of massive fangs, using one arm to hold its upper jaw away from him as the other fished for his hunting knife. 

Freeing the blade from its sheath, Geralt plunged it into the parasite’s oversized tongue, dragging it out through the side and causing a roar of pain as the monster let him go. He slammed to the ground like an anvil, having fallen from about twelve feet up as the giraffe’s puppetted corpse lifted him from the ground. Staggering to his feet, he sheathed his knife and drew his steel sword, sighing as he cast Quen. 

With far too many legs and an incoherent rage, the mutated beast charged Geralt, aiming to trample and consume him. He rolled out of the way, pulling his hand crossbow and loosing a bolt into its neck. The monster roared again, this one more angry than pained, and ran further into its enclosure and around a series of large boulders that managed to hide its bulk. 

Sighing and shaking his head, Geralt rolled his eyes. This thing was an ambush predator, of that there was no doubt. With its spider-like form wearing the giraffe’s corpse as a flesh puppet, he couldn’t assume much about its mobility, except that it was faster and more agile than it looked at first glance.”Nothing to it but to spring the trap.” He grumbled, summoning Tartaglia’s hydro twinblade. 

“Monsoon, flush it out.” Geralt ordered as the assassin appeared before him, nodding gravely as it rushed after the giraffe, disappearing behind the boulders. He followed behind at a decent distance, giving the monster plenty of time to break its ambush to attack Monsoon. It came into vision a moment before Monsoon vanished, stopping in confusion before spotting Geralt. He was already closing the distance, lashing out at its legs with the twinblade, spinning to avoid a vicious kick from one of the giraffe’s muscular legs. 

He raised a hand to draw Igni, causing a Vaporize reaction and momentarily stunning the monster. Geralt took advantage of the temporary opening and dismissed the Hydro construct, drawing his steel sword and violently hacking off one of the thinner, spindly limbs of the parasite’s true body. It screamed in pain, lashing out with its legs before attempting to retreat again. 

“Oh no you don’t!” Geralt called after it, sheathing his sword and chasing after it. To the monster’s shock, he was managing to keep up, so it climbed the massive rock to get some vertical distance. Geralt skid to a stop, looking up at the mutated beast, frowning. He knew what was about to happen. As the thing launched itself from the boulder at him, Geralt dove forward, trying to get as far towards its rear as possible. 

Flipping onto his back as the monster above him readjusted, Geralt thrust his steel sword up into its bottom. Standing and pulling the blade out to leave a long gash in its body. The parasite shuddered and roared again, thrashing its limbs wildly and slapping him with one of its thinner limbs. Braced for the attack, Geralt only had to take a small step back to keep from stumbling. He slashed out with its sword to counter its desperate flailing, the beast having seemingly abandoned all strategy. Its trampling charge had failed, its ambush had been triggered by another person who simply disappeared, and its leaping ambush attack had been foiled. 

It turned to him, lowering its body and splaying its spider-like limbs out in an aggressive display. Geralt matched its eyes and stepped forwards, prompting a vicious slash of a blade-like limb. With a flash of steel, the limb was severed, and the giraffe roared in fury again, charging Geralt. Rather than trying to trample him, it simply launched a mass of attacks with its spindly limbs, slashing and kicking at the Witcher, who sidestepped and parried blows with ease. Against a semi-intelligent monster like this, he was more than fine. With its ambushes defeated, blood slowly leaking from its wounds, and unable to escape due to Galeem’s curse, at best it could attempt another doomed trap. 

It did not, and instead continued its desperate flailing. Geralt retaliated by systematically carving its limbs off, leaving it too wounded to even attempt another ambush. It brought its oversized neck around for a last-ditch attempt to bring him down with it. Finally, the moment he was waiting for. Geralt let the blow hit him, Quen shattering and releasing a bolt of lightning that stunned the parasite. He held tightly onto the giraffe’s neck, stabbing his sword into it and slicing down, tearing apart the heavily-muscled throat and spilling torrents of blood to the ground of the enclosure. 

As a gurgling roar attempted to escape the monster, Geralt gently touched the back of its neck, stroking it gently. “Shhh. It's over now.” He didn’t know how much of the original animal remained, but he hoped that its death would grant it some kind of peace. As the giraffe began to dissolve to ash, Geralt frowned when he saw movement. A tiny thing, maybe a foot in length, was wriggling in the ash. It had many spindly limbs, like the giraffe had, and turned to Geralt with a shrill screech, jumping at his leg. 

Purely by reflex, he kicked out and launched the thing across the ground, where it rolled to a stop with about a third of its limbs broken in some manner. It limply lifted itself and tried to shuffle towards him. Geralt frowned, stepping back and lifting his hand to his ear. “Sandalphon, this is Geralt. Let everybody know that I’ve found a parasite in what looked like a perfectly normal animal. It waited until I got close to attack. The animal is dead, but the parasite is still alive. It’s a pathetic little thing, barely a foot in length. I could try to capture it if we have something to store it in, though I’m not sure we have the facilities to study it now.” 

Sandalphon responded immediately, and pragmatically. "Kill it." Geralt wasted no time in doing so, a bolt piercing the parasite’s body and destroying it with a second of the message ending. 

“Geralt again. It’s dead. Figure we ought to be wary of anything else that looks mostly normal now. It didn’t put up much of a fight, but if it hadn’t tried to swallow me whole as its ambush, that could have gone much worse.” Grabbing the Spirits left behind by the things, he returned to the stagecoach, climbing inside for a few minutes to rest, but not before casting a quick First Aid on himself to soothe his minor wounds from the fight.