Hoping he wasn"t dooming himself to an early death, Jack muttered a familiar spellword under his breath, and felt the muscles of his body surge with power as he emptied the last of his Spirit reserves into his Prowess. With a flourish, he spun his axe around in a blinding arc, before a.s.suming a new stance and glaring at the gnoll across from him as his power coursed in pulses through his body.The dogman"s amused expression faded, and hardened. It seemed to have some sense of what he"d just done, and what that meant. It nodded to him, seemingly in a sign of respect and acknowledgement, and without a word flew into a flurry of ferocious strikes at every angle aginst Jack"s defenses.
With his abilities enhanced as they were, Jack found himself in the position of being one tempo beat ahead in the fight for the first time since it"d begun. The gnoll couldn"t land another strike, despite the fact that it was clearly no longer taking this fight lightly. At first opportunity, Jack managed to catch the dogman"s blade in between his axe head and haft, moving fast enough that he finally got past the creature"s guard before it could rally a defense. With a resounding meaty crack, he smashed the haft of his axe against the side of the gnoll"s head hard enough to knock the creature staggering backwards. Following through with the momentum from the strike, he drove his boot square into the gnoll"s exposed stomach, burying it halfway to the creature"s spine before the beast flew a couple feet backwards and tumbled across the open ground.
With a snarl, the creature corrected its roll and sprang back to its feet, before spitting a mouthful of blood and saliva out of his mouth. It rubbed its jaw, before shifting its stance again into one Jack didn"t recognize.
Jack could already sense the end of the spell coming. He had maybe 30 seconds left. After it ended, it was quite likely he wouldn"t be able to move, a.s.suming he didn"t lose consciousness entirely. He has to end this right now, or he was probably a dead man.
He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, letting the magic course through his body as he centered his mind. Some part of the back of his mind was screaming at him that he was crazy for closing his eyes and dropping his guard like this, but it instinctively felt right, and it took the edge off his nerves. If the gnoll moved and threw an attack, he"d be able to stop it in time, right?
After a few moments of meditating, Jack opened one eye to see that that gnoll was watching him with an expression that Jack couldn"t seem to read. As soon as Jack opened his eyes and moved back into a combat stance, the creature nodded at him.
Had it been waiting for him to be ready? Was it giving him respect or something?
That made no sense to him. But if that was what was happening, it didn"t change anything. It was the creature or him, and he had a dream girl to save. He"d kick Frumpkin in the teeth if that"s what it took. Killing a dogman, no matter how n.o.ble it was behaving, was a choice that required absolutely no effort to make.
He would exterminate their entire species, and strangle their children in their beds with his bare hands if that is what it took to get Eleanor back.
With his focus in place, and the clock on his spell running out, Jack muttered another spellword.
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This was it. He won here, or he died.