"Not a frog! Not a frog!"

Olivia Albright shrieked and thrust out her new fireball staff, burning a coin and sending a bolt of lightning smashing into the forest of limbs and teeth that was the Zone Keeper even as her older sister aborted her charge and had to dodge hard to avoid a half-dozen spike-covered arms that suddenly reached out towards her.

They had made a mistake. They all had assumed that just because the thing's outline was big and bulky that it would be, y'know, big and bulky. Olivia had said it looked like a giant frog, crouched on a log, waiting for some tasty insects to amble by so it could snap them out of the sky with its long tentacle tongues.

But the Keeper had dropped its camouflage or invisibility or whatever it was as soon as Bel had gotten within striking range, and that was when everything had kinda gone to heck.

The actual body of the Keeper was long and sinuous, like a snake with the body diameter of one of those giant whiskey casks from back in the Before. Its head was like a snake crossed with a lion, with a wide mouth and slit eyes and a mane of black-and-red feathery fur circling its head and going back down its back.

The reason it had looked so bulky, however, was because it had apparently like a million limbs. They grew out from its cylindrical torso like weeds, with no pattern or rhythm that Olivia could see. Sometimes there were three limbs on the same join, sometimes only a single one. One had freaking five. The limbs were like twenty feet long, spindly, multiple-jointed and spiny with foot long spurs like thorns on a rosebush. Each limb ended either in a stubby paw-like appendage, or in freakishly long-fingered hands that had three fingers and an opposable thumb, all of which were apparently double or triple jointed.

And it was fast.

"Woah!" Bel yelped and whirled away from a half-dozen limbs that lashed out at her, the bone spurs on the creature slashing at Liv's sister like they were looking to dice her up for dinner. "Hey! Little help guys!"

"Dinah, go for its eyes," Mom said, her voice in that cold and calm Soldier space that it got into when the stress was really on. "Bel! Fire incoming to your left!"

Mom opened up again with her rifle, the heavy reports sounding less like gunshots and more like God himself slamming a hammer down on a landmine. The system-modified rifle spat out a stream of red-colored energy projectiles, looking less like a modern firearm and more like something out of Star Wars. Where the bullets hit, they sizzled against the Keeper's flesh.

The Keeper's wide mouth opened up and a hissing scream issued forth, like a cross between a three-car pileup on the interstate and a steam whistle. A dozen of its arms came together to form a shield of bony flesh between itself and Mom's gun, the red bullets spattering and sizzling but doing no noticeable damage.

"Guys! Help!" Bel was retreating rapidly as more of those freakishly long limbs lashed out at her. They were fast, bendy, and Bel was losing ground fast.

"Bel! Go left! Jump!" Olivia reached into her coin pool–her Quaestor status telling her she had twelve left to power her abilities today–and burned one on an Art.

[Stage Manager Arts: Set The Stage]

Bel leaped over bare ground, which as soon as she cleared it erupted upwards, forming a wall of stone between her and the grabbing hands. The fingers slammed into the wall, and even from here Liv could hear the crack of bone breaking as the Keeper rammed its hand into unmoveable magicked rock.

"Hah! Suck on tha–Woah!"

Liv had to duck, then, as the little child-thing–which up until now she had imagined was just a lure to bring predators in close enough for the keeper to munch on–leaped into the air and spat a flurry of spines out of its flesh at her. The needle-like projectiles slahed through the bushes and dotted into the earth where she had been standing.

"It's got ranged abilities!" she called. "Mom, We gotta take it down quick!"

[Deadeye Arts: Arrow To The Knee!]

A loud flat crack echoed from somewhere to Olivia's right, and she glanced that way to see Dinah braced up against a tree, her rifle against her shoulder, looking cool as a cucumber as she jacked another round into the breech. Her first shot blasted out in a beam of golden light and slapped into the boss monster's head, making the wide noggin jerk to the side and the child-thing on the end of its tendril bounce and sway like a fishing lure. But other than that, it didn't seem to have any affect.

"Hoo!" Hoolio, good owl, was still on her shoulder and was now holding a scroll out to her. She grabbed it and speed-read the message even as her feet rushed her through the jungle underbrush, looking for more cover to hole up in.

Bargathulas are immune to status effects while they are enthralled.

"Don't waste time on status-effect stuff," Liv hollered as she skidded to a stop behind a boulder. "It's not gonna work! Just hammer it!"

"Roger," Mom said, stepping out from behind her tree and hefting her rifle. "Let's try this then."

[Harbinger Arts: MAKE A HOLE]

It was a power she'd used before. Her gun glowed white and shifted its aspect, changing from one heartbeat to the next from a rifle into a tri-barrled bazooka. She hefted it, pointed, and let fly with a devastating energy blast that roared into the clearing and obliterated everything in front of it–

Except the Keeper was no longer in front of it.

Somehow, in the blink of an eye, it had launched itself skyward, its serpentine body and tangle of limbs supported on just three of its spindly limbs which must have been a lot stronger than they looked to lift that much mass. Mom's energy blast vaporized the three limbs, and the Keeper came crashing back to earth, but instead of being dealt a grievous wound it looked like it had been maybe mildly inconvenienced at best.

Mom had been knocked back a step from the recoil, and it made her slow on the reflexes. So when the Keeper's head turned towards her and its huge mouth split open and the tentacles lashed out, she was only able to dodge one of them. The other two snapped around her wrist and her waist and tugged her off her feet, dragging her towards the thing's mouth and the sword-like teeth therein with inhuman strength.

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"Mom!" Liv shrieked and let fly with another blast from her staff, burning two of her coins this time to launch a massive fireball right into the Keeper's open mouth. The keeper screamed in pain as searing heat blasted out of its mouth making it look like a firebreathing dragon for a second.

But the tentacles didn't let go, and they kept dragging Mom towards the open mouth.

"Little help, mijas!" Mom yelled, slashing at the tentacles with the knife she'd pulled from her belt.

[Berserker Arts: BREAK]

Bel came in from the left, a black-haired streak pounding across the clearing, her twin 'swords' glowing gold and dripping sparks. She cut across the tentacles just before Mom got dragged into the Keeper's mouth, and her swords lashed out four times, two per tentacle. The serrated swords, enhanced by Berserker arts, ripped through the tentacles and severed them completely. The Keeper let out a keening wail and staggered back, its mouth still belching smoke and heat. Bel didn't stop, instead grabbed Mom by her free arm and dragged her back towards the jungle.

"This is not going well," Dinah called out, firing another unenhanced shot at the Keeper's head. The bullet sparked off a bone spur that the Keeper brought up to protect its face. "Liv, we need a weak spot or something!"

"Right! Cover me!" Liv dropped her staff and stared hard at the Keeper. She didn't know what it was called, but that never seemed to matter when she used her Consul ability to pull up informational scrolls. As long as she could see it, she could learn about it. She stared for a beat longer, then reached for the scroll that Hoolio was already handing her like the exceptional assistant that he was. At least this didn't burn up coins. She was already down five of her twelve stockpile. Hopefully when they killed this thing, that'd restock her supply.

Okay big guy, she thought as she unrolled the scroll. Let's see what you are.

Name: Bargathula

Type: Herbivorous Guardian

Description: Often mistaken for its closest cousin, the much more impressive and deadly Hecaitoras, the Bargathula is a relatively docile example of the 'Many-Handed Ones' creature subtype. It is often seen guarding sacred places in nature, or acting as a natural protector of the wild places of the world. It is herbivorous and generally will only become if hostile or if its warnings against entering into its protected places go unheeded.

Offense: Up to 50 clawed and spurred limbs which it uses to rip apart its foes. Capable of breathing fire upon command up to 4 times per day.

Defense: Rock-hard skin, nimbleness of frame

Weaknesses: Detachable Limbs - Striking the root of a limb with sufficient force will sever the entire limb from the body, after which it will take up to 2 days to fully regrow.

Special: True Partner - A Bargathula is immune to all status effects while enthralled.

"Hit it where the limbs come from the body!" Liv shouted, handing the scroll back to Hoolio. "It loses limbs if you hit it hard enough at the root!"

"On it!" Dinah's acknowledgement came with another flat crack from her rifle, and this time one of the limbs reaching for Bel suddenly jerked and fell lifeless to the ground, severed right where it joined to the Bargathula's body.

"Hoo," Hoolio said, nudging her with a wing.

"Not now Hoots," she said, grabbing her staff and going through its powers again real fast. She hadn't had nearly enough time to familiarize herself with its functions, so far only gotten as far as 'it can shoot lightning' and 'it can shoot fireballs'. Which, let's be honest, were really all she was looking for in a staff. But it was called Staff Of The ArchMagi, which meant it should have all kinds of cool stuff to–

"Hoo!" Hoolio nudged her again, more insistently this time.

"What? What is it? We're kinda busy here!" Olivia looked away from the battle, where Bel was dancing in and out of the Keeper's limbs, striking and blocking and completely failing to get close enough to hack one off but on the other hand keeping at least half of its limbs busy trying to get at her. Mom had regained her feet and was dumping round after round into the Keeper's barrel body, blowing chunks out of its snake-like hide and spattering the ground with green blood from its wounds. And through it all, the thing barely seemed to slow, instead almost growing faster somehow.

"Hoo." Hoolio handed her a scroll–No, Hoolio handed her the same scroll, the one she had just looked at.

"Yeah, I got it, thanks," Liv said, turning her eyes back to the battle. Maybe if I–

"Hoo!"

"What?" Liv snapped and glared at the owl. "I've read it! What do you want me to–"

Hoolio unrolled the scroll himself and thrust it back at her with an insistent hoot, his round eyes now narrowed and glaring at her.

"Look I get it! It's a big-ass cow with a narc-on! We probably screwed up when we attacked it, but–"

She stuttered to a stop as her brain caught up with what she'd just said. Big-ass cow. Cow. Herbivore.

Liv whipped her head back around, eyes wide, staring at the Keeper. Okay, the bone-claws she could see. Plenty of herbivores had stuff like that for defense. Antlers on a deer. Horns on a rhino or a bull. That kind of thing.

She zeroed in on its mouth as it roared, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth and a wriggling mass of tentacles further back down its throat.

"Like hell are those herbivore teeth," she breathed. And the scroll hadn't said anything about tentacles.

Bargathulas are immune to status effects while enthralled.

She had taken that to mean that the thing had been enthralled by whatever it was guarding, like it was really hooked on it or something. But from the back of her mind came bubbling an alternate definition of the word. It had originally come from the word 'thrall'.

Or, to put it in modern english: 'Slave.'

Liv's wide eyes went from the Keeper's head and wide-open mouth to the long black tendril growing from the back of its head, up into the air, and stopping where the little pudgy white child-thing was dangling high above the combat like bait on a string.

The scroll hadn't said anything about an anglerfish lure, either.

"It's the lure!" She heard herself yell. "Guys, it's a zombie caterpillar! It's not in control of itself! The Keeper is the white thing!"

The action in the clearing seemed to stutter-stop as her words rang out in a panicked burst. Mom and Bel looked at her in confusion for a split second before dawning realization broke and their eyes went to the little child-thing dangling in the air.

Dinah just shot it.

Crack. The heavy bullet from the hunting rifle smacked right into the child-thing's center mass, sending it swaying and bouncing wildly on the end of the black tendril–that now that Liv looked closer, bore more than a passing resemblance to the tentacles the Bargathula had been using.

The child-thing dangled limp for another long second.

Then a big eye almost as wide as its entire head opened up, and its torso split into a fanged maw that looked like it was grinning at them.

The eye focused on Dinah.

And then the true Zone Keeper made itself known as a score of blade-tipped tentacles burst out of the child-thing's back and ripped through the air right towards Olivia's friend.

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