IWUAaDNW: Party 5.5

“I don’t think she can use that trick here,” Ulfric grunted, poking one of the roots that stuck out of the dirt that surrounded the room’s walkable area. “It’s pretty obvious when there’s a missing tree somewhere. Speaking of, there’s something you can do with open floors like this…”

He grabbed the edge of the dirt and pulled himself up, then climbed up the trees until his head reached the silver-white canopy…

…at which point three webweavers leapt at his head with their stickiest webs in tow, and proceeded to start trying to wrap him up head first. He reacted immediately, a waving fist pulverizing one of my webweavers, and started tearing at the webs on his face. One of my regular spiders leapt onto his back and poked him with its fangs, and––

“HAAH!”

His entire body flashed with mana. The webs on his face burst into ephemeral flames and my poor jumping spider basically evaporated. One of my webweavers made it out with just two missing limbs, the other escaping unharmed, until Karjn’s boomerang materialized between its thorax and abdomen and severed them.

Ulfric fell to the ground with a grunt, wiping leftover stickiness from his face.

“Are you okay, sir?”

“Yeah,” Ulfric grunted. The corner of his lips was twisted up slightly. “Looks like she thought about it.”

“Forcing you to Burst, I’d say she did,” Karjn chuckled.

Gwen bit her lip. Maryll tilted her head. “Burst?”

“It’s a panic move,” Karjn said. “You know how to strengthen your skin?” she addressed Gwen, who nodded.

“I’m not that good at it, but yes,” she replied.

“Well, first, practice that. Second, it’s a bit like that, only you take it a step further and let it all out in one blow. Pulling off one that strong isn’t easy, though.” She raised an appreciative eyebrow at Ulfric. He shrugged and grunted. She turned back to Gwen and Maryll. “It’s not something you can do too often, because it’s tiring as fuck, but in an emergency when you’re surrounded or trapped in webs or roots, it can save your life.”