Jason cried out with pain, but he still held a death-grip on his dagger. He slid the blade across the monster’s leg, skittering over the hard shell until it found a vulnerable joint. The knife slotted right in between the plates of shell and he sliced the edge across the cartilage.

As the dagger cut into flesh, he used one of his abilities. He felt power surge out from deep inside his body, electric and exhilarating. It passed through his arm and into the dagger, filling the weapon with magic.

Ability: [Leech Bite] (Blood)

Special attack (melee, drain, wounding, blood)

Cost: Low stamina.

Cooldown: None.

Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)

Effect (iron): Inflicts or refreshes the [Bleeding] condition. Drains a small amount of health and stamina when refreshing the [Bleeding] condition.

[Bleeding] (affliction, wounding, blood): Deals ongoing damage by causing or increasing blood loss. As a wounding effect, this condition absorbs and negates an amount of incoming healing, after which this affliction immediately ends.

As Jason yanked the knife free, blood sprayed out of the joint. The monster raised its leg sharply, pulling it free of Jason while releasing a high-pitched, alien shriek. Along with Jason’s power, the magic of his snake-tooth dagger did its own work.

Weapon [Night Fang] has inflicted [Umbral Snake Venom] on [Shab]

Jason scrambled to escape its legs as one of them rose up, poised to stab him again. He found himself directly underneath the creature, lying on his back. In front of him was the creature’s underbelly, which turned out to be fleshy and unprotected by shell. Jason called up the power within him again, raking the vulnerable underside of the monster with his dagger.

Ability: [Punish] (Sin)

Special attack (melee, curse)

Cost: Low mana.

Cooldown: None.

Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)

Effect (iron): Inflicts necrotic damage and the [Sin] affliction.

[Sin] (affliction, curse, stacking): All necrotic damage taken is increased. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.

Blood and other fluids splashed over Jason from the long wound, leaving him spluttering salty fluid as he shimmied on his back to behind the creature. The monster itself went wild at the wound to its underside, breaking its pincers out of Hiram’s grip and flailing about with more high-pitched shrieking.

One of the monster’s legs impaled Jason’s leg by accident as the creature thrashed about. It didn’t seem to notice, yanking its leg back out again. Jason turned himself over and crawled painfully away, still spitting out monster juice.

After getting free of the maddened monster, Jason looked back to see Hiram doing his best to hold the creature’s attention, both arms wrapped around one of the pincers. Without getting up Jason held out a hand towards the creature and chanted out a spell.

“Your fate is to suffer.”

There was no visible effect, but Jason felt the power surge out of him to enact itself upon the creature.

Ability: [Inexorable Doom] (Doom)

Spell (curse)

Cost: Moderate mana.

Cooldown: None.