Reid felt strength and power coursing through his body as it glowed. The beast lord still looked disinterested, but had one eye open and trained on Reid.

He used the extra few seconds of peace to resummon his thrown projectile - and charged a shrapnel brock.

Above, the grey clouds continued their lazy swirl. Maybe they were a natural feature of the landscape - or maybe they were the environment's reaction to or impact from the beast. His musing only lasted a few seconds, but he felt something promising in that idea. Projectile ready, Reid did a proper wind-up, and threw.

Muscles strained and tore in his arm as he pushed his body past what he could realistically handle. He felt the warmth and pain of artificial recovery course through him before he had time to put Requiem back in his dominant hand. Nyx was taking this seriously, too.

Crinoptera, sufficiently bored and over their bout, saw the incoming projectile, and quickly decided it deserved the same response as the first. Its stubby legs shifted quickly and sent it moving over the shelf. It expected a simple wound, only a foot or two deep.

A thunderous noise like a snapping tension cable rang out over the landscape and bounced off the cliff walls. Bone shrapnel hurtled out from the point of impact and plunged deep into every surrounding surface. It split through three-foot-thick sections of ice, and buried itself deep into the blue-grey rock that made up this side of the mountain.

It shredded through white and grey scales and sunk deep into Crinoptera's hide. Deep enough to cause an actual bleed.

Reid smiled through his gritted teeth as his arm was knit back together. Large drops of the creature's blue blood pooled at the impact site, and dripped down to the ground.

Crinoptera let out an indignant roar that shook the stone under Reid's feet, and turned a set of narrowed, calculating eyes in Reid's direction. There was less derision there now.

There was anger.

Reid's smile bloomed into a full-faced grin. Fire churned in his gut.

"Come on!"

Crinoptera lashed out with its tail in response to Reid's provocation. He tried jumping over the strike, but tail connected with shield, and he was thrown hard into the rock wall. Gears turned in his mind as he extricated himself from the stone. Different muscles twitched and tensed that time. That was about fifteen feet off the ground. His feet connected with the ground again, and Reid pushed power into his legs to kick forward and launch another assault aimed at the beast.

Bone spikes skittered against the rock as Reid shifted his momentum sideways to avoid an ice breath attack. He rolled and sprung forward again. Crinoptera flashed with mana, and Reid kicked and spun himself off the ground so his shield was pointed straight down - and curled behind it. Ice popped like fireworks below him and slammed hard into his shield. The inconsistent force on his shield sent him into a tumble, and he landed on his back against the stone. He rotated his shield and used it as a handle to get back to his knees before he stopped skidding - and was back on his feet.

The beast was sufficiently surprised by Reid's speed, and he swung. Requiem arced high over Reid's head, then his ivory-crafted flanges smashed into the creature. Scales cracked and flew away, and Reid willed his attack to hurt the damn creature as he continued pushing a massive amount of power into his arm. Requiem plunged deep - and Reid was rewarded with a veritable geyser of blood spraying out from the creature's side.

He could do without being drenched in the stuff, though.

Dripping wet, Reid followed his first strike with another lateral swing - a tried and true method that had helped him bring down many a beast. His mace slammed down into the creature again and ripped through its flesh, deepening the original wound and causing even more blood to spill forth from the wound. There was enough of the stuff that Reid had to move himself sideways to avoid the stream, just so he could see again.

Ignoring the deep and real urge to summon a water and rinse blood out of his mouth, Reid squared himself again at the side of the creature - then dodged out of the way as the room-sized head of the beast flew in from the side. Its teeth, though stubby, were each as long as his legs, and they clacked together with a vicious noise that promised serious injury if Reid got caught in the blow.

One snap of its jaws was quickly followed by another, and Reid was put on the back foot as he had to dodge and evade Crinoptera's maw. The thing was large, but flexible and agile. Reid barely made it to a balanced footing before he'd have to jump out of the way again. Two seconds in, he started resummoning brock. Once the bone ball appeared in his hands, Crinoptera's eyes flashed in recognition, and it stopped trying to eat Reid in favor of just freezing him to death. The cone of ice blasted forth from its massive maw - and Reid had nowhere to run or cover. He huddled down low behind his shield as chunks of ice slammed into his bulwark. He started to skid back, and slammed a boot down had enough to punch holes into the rock with his spikes. Reid roared and pushed his shield forward, then slammed down his other foot.

His legs burned as he flooded them with power. His arms shook against the impacts as ice tried to break through his shield. Reid pushed his shield forward again, lifted his back foot, and slammed it down forward. Ice and snow flowed around him, and frozen bits of moisture clung to his eyelashes. He powered a shrapnel brock, and kept pushing.

When the beast's attack finally subsided, both it and Reid were surprised at just how close he'd managed to get to the creature.

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Reid recovered first.

He whipped his bone projectile forward - and it covered the twenty feet between Reid and Crinoptera's head almost instantaneously. The beast flinched back just enough to change the point of impact from its eye to the tip of its snout. Bone shattered - and shredded.

Reid huddled behind his shield as shards slammed themselves into the ground and space all around him. Thankfully, he made it through without taking damage from his own weapon.

Crinoptera's eyes blazed with fury. Blood flowed freely from a series of deep gouges on its nose, and some of the holes there had punched all the way through to the roof of the thing's mouth. Its impossibly blue tongue flicked forward, spraying Reid and the surroundings with blood. Its body tensed and muscles twitched - and Reid ducked low under his shield.

The tail whip sailed over Reid's head, an ineffective miss. He smiled at his fortune and rolled sideways to avoid a pair of snapping jaws, then lashed out with Requiem. The tip of his mace slid across white scales, tearing a few off the beast.

Crinoptera pulsed with mana, and Reid jumped into the air to avoid the shattering. When the ice around him didn't explode, he knew something was wrong. He peered over his shield for a moment, then shrunk back as a cone of ice erupted from the beast's mouth. The feint caught him properly off-guard, and Reid was at the mercy of the attack as it slammed his shield and pushed him higher into the air.

He braced, and waited. When the attack started to slow, Reid pushed himself around to see. A few hits were worth it for information on what would come next.

Reid was high - nearly at the mountain's summit - and he had been pushed away from the mountain itself. If he fell straight down - well, he would be falling to the actual ground, not back onto the shelf with the beast. It was alright. He had options. Things he'd learned from prior fights. Reid started by putting his shield above his head to catch a bit more air, and was happy to see it did let him redirect his downward momentum a bit. He fell just a bit closer towards the mountain - and his foe.

Crinoptera pulsed with energy, and the ice still clinging to the outside of Reid's shield exploded. His arm, pulling against the air resistance, folded as his bulwark slammed down atop his head. The blow dazed him, and Reid nearly let his shield go. Blinking away the initial disorientation of what may have been a mild concussion, Reid looked down in time to see Crinoptera launching another attack towards him. He shifted the shield back underneath himself, only to get thrown around like shoes in the dryer as heavy clumps of ice - denser and more powerful than the breath attack - slammed into bonewall.

His tumble exposed Reid to more of the attack, and he winced as shards of ice impacted his armor. Marrow - to its credit - held up damn well against an E-grade beast's magic. But it wasn't impervious to the damage. A hot, chilling sensation erupted in two places on Reid's leg as parts of the attack found their mark. Dozens more of the projectiles either sailed past Reid, or slammed themselves into the inside of his shield. He hurriedly smashed each one that impacted him or his gear, keen to avoid a repeat of his error against the smaller skinks. Nothing was going to explode close to him if he could help it. The tumble - and Crinoptera's attack - continued.

He took another real wound near his shoulder, and lost a bit of flesh around the outside of his palm. Bonewall shed another 12 layers, and Reid nearly lost hold of his mace in the chaos. The only silver lining, if it could be considered one, was that the most recent attack had been aimed nearly straight up. Reid hadn't moved further away from the mountain, and that meant he was within range to get himself back to the shelf and his target.

Crinoptera's back flexed and its muscles twitched as its tail whipped out. Reid's eyes went wide, and he started to raise his shield for a moment before realization hit him.

If he took this hit, he was going to get catapulted away from the mountain. He could run, sure. It would be a good opportunity to disengage and heal - if that was what he wanted to accomplish.

But Reid was in this fight.

He grit his teeth, and braced a foot and his arm against two points on his shield. Crinoptera's ice blue tail sailed through the open air - and Reid shoved himself off of bonewall. Scales whipped past, inches away from his face. The tail hit his shield hard, and sent it hurtling into the distance. Reid roared and slammed his mace down into the still-whipping tail. Scales buckled against the impact and Requiem sunk halfway through the appendage. Just as it had last time he dealt damage to the tail, Crinoptera coiled the appendage back in on itself - and Reid hitched a ride back to the shelf.

Requiem pulled loose of the tail just in time to let Reid fly past the breath attack Crinoptera was sending against itself, and he used a free hand to steady himself as he slid on one foot and one knee across the stone shelf. As soon as he slowed enough, he used the free hand and started summoning brock. Reid wasn't practiced enough with recalling Bonewall to do it mid-battle, so he would just need to trade extra defense for a bit of tactical opportunity.

Crinoptera didn't stop its breath attack.

Instead, the creature continued to pulse at regular intervals, and shifted its aim from its tail down towards the edge of the shelf. Reid half expected it to sweep the attack over the area, but it held pointed towards where the shelf ended in a sheer drop. Did it not understand where he was, or-?

A bang as loud as a shotgun stopped Reid's train of thought cold. Ice exploded where it had slammed hard into the ground fifty feet in front of Reid. Another smashed into the shelf a second later, closer this time. Pieces of the projectile skidded over the ground and bounced off his boots.

The cone attack to the side wasn't to hit Reid - it was to stop him from running.

Crinoptera's earlier attack, sent nearly straight into the air, wasn't just meant to deal him damage in the air. The same mass of projectiles - which he could now more clearly see as long, thick lances made of ice - had reached their zenith and were hurtling back towards the ground like rain - back to the shelf.

Reid spared a second to glance around himself - the space was as empty as it was before. The only thing that might possibly offer cover was the 'food stash' frozen over near the beast, and Reid didn't have time to reach that or the beast itself before the mass of ice started to really rain down. There were no caves or gaps in the rock wall that would give him sufficient cover- but it would at least let him put one side of his body away from the incoming attacks.

He fumbled internally as he ran, trying to recall his shield. He failed the first time after three seconds. Sprinting while recalling brock was easy, because Reid had practiced heavily. He didn't have the same repetition with bonewall - and he wasn't concentrating on the task - and his heart was pounding in his chest - and he could still feel the points in his hand, his leg, and his shoulder where ice had stabbed into him before. Whatever damage he'd taken to the abdomen earlier was still grating against him. His legs burned with the sprain of a full-tilt sprint towards cover.

Reid's second attempt at recalling his shield failed six seconds in - and thirty feet from the rock wall - as an unavoidable mass of ice lances rained down.

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