The stench of stagnant water and decaying reeds clawed at Kiko’s throat, a familiar perfume of the Sanctuary of Whispering Reeds. Mud squelched beneath his worn boots with every desperate step backward. Ahead, the wavering, indistinct form of an amphibious stalker pulsed with an ethereal, purple fog, its multi-jointed limbs dissolving and reforming in the humid air like smoke. Behind him, the cliff face, slick with bioluminescent algae, offered no escape.
“Kiko, you useless scrap-weaver! Do something!” the crossbowwoman shrieked, her voice thin with terror. She clutched her gleaming arbalest, but her hands trembled too violently to aim. “Your ‘insight’ skill, what good is it if it can’t tell us how to kill this thing?”
Kiko’s eyes, usually bright with an unyielding optimism, flickered to the System window hovering before him.
[Skill: Lesser Appraisal (Rank E)]
[Effect: Identify properties of non-sentient objects and low-tier flora/fauna. Does not penetrate advanced System-generated protections.]
“It’s invulnerable to all our attacks, Vanna,” Kiko replied, his voice softer than hers, but holding a current of frantic thought. “I could scan it, sure, but what would that tell us beyond what we already know? That smog makes it… un-touchable.” He thought of Tala, her fragile smile, her dwindling time. He needed medicine, not a gruesome end in a flooded grotto.
Beside Vanna, the party leader grunted. His massive shield, normally a bulwark, was dented and scored, its protective runes flickering like dying embers. “He’s right. This isn’t a run-of-the-mill Phantasm. Our blades pass right through its core. It’s like hitting fog.” Torvin shoved Kiko roughly. “Just stand there and look useless then, Kiko. Maybe it’ll bypass you.”
The stalker, however, was not interested in ignoring anyone. It let out a low, guttural chitter that resonated deep in their bones. One of its shadowy limbs, thick as a man’s torso and tipped with wicked, hooked claws, solidified for a horrifying instant. The haze around it intensified, a visible murk of corrupting energy.
“Move!” the swordsman roared, but it was too late. The limb lashed out with impossible speed. It tore through the air, carrying the reek of ozone and rot, and punched straight through the metal shield, then his chest. The toxic pall, concentrated at the point of impact, seemed to devour his very being. His scream was abruptly cut short, gurgling into a wet, rattling gasp. The light in his eyes faded before he even hit the water, his body dissolving into grey motes of dust that drifted away on the current.
Vanna shrieked, stumbling back, dropping her arbalest into the mud. A leaden numbness gripped Kiko. Their vanguard was gone. Just like that. The beast tilted its indistinct head, its chittering growing louder, triumphant. It extended another fog-shrouded claw, aiming for Vanna.
Panic seized Kiko, but beneath it, a desperate spark ignited. Tala. He couldn’t die here. Not like this. He couldn’t leave her. The predator was invulnerable, its vapor a shield against all conventional damage. But what if… what if [Lesser Appraisal] wasn’t about *damage*? It was about *information*. And information, sometimes, required contact.
He threw himself forward, a reckless, suicidal impulse, just as the claw arced towards Vanna. Kiko didn’t aim for the core, which was still a swirling vortex of shadow. He aimed for the solidifying limb, the one that had just taken their leader's life, its surface still glinting with purple haze. He reached out, not with a weapon, but with his bare hand, his fingers outstretched.
His fingertips brushed the creature’s limb. It felt cold, like damp stone, yet pulsed with an awful energy. For a split second, Kiko expected to dissolve, to become another cloud of grey dust. Instead, the blight around his hand, around the part of the stalker's limb he touched, wavered. It didn't just waver; it *receded*. It peeled away like old paint, revealing the limb beneath. It was no longer hazy, no longer indistinct. It was solid, composed of twisted, waterlogged reeds woven with something like petrified bone, and streaked with a dark, oily rust. The haze vanished from that section, dissipating into the humid air, leaving only the dull, tangible reality of the actual claw.
[Skill: Lesser Appraisal (Rank E) – Activated]
[Target: Reed Lurker (Miasma-Corrupted)]
[Analysis Complete: Miasma Cleansed (Limb, right foreclaw). Physical vulnerability established.]
Kiko stared, his mind reeling. *Cleansed*? Not just appraised, but… cleansed? The stalker itself let out a guttural shriek, a sound of confusion and unexpected pain, as if that small section of its being had suddenly been stripped bare, made real. Its other limbs thrashed, no longer targeting Vanna, but retracting, defensive.
Vanna, frozen moments before, finally moved. Her stare fixed not on the retreating threat, but on Kiko’s hand, on the now solid, vulnerable claw of the beast. Her gaze hardened, a new, calculating glint replacing the terror.
“Kiko… what did you just do?” Vanna breathed, her voice low, dangerous.
From a vantage point on a mossy, higher-up outcrop, several dozen yards away, Datu of the Obsidian Aegis Guild had been observing the struggle. His initial assessment: another rookie party wiped. Standard. The Sanctuary of Whispering Reeds was a meat grinder. His focus was on the residual corruption readings, not the squirming prey. But then, he saw it. The boy, the one with the bright, almost foolishly optimistic eyes, reach out. The impossible happened. The blight, which had defied every Awakened’s cleansing ritual, every high-tier skill, simply *dissipated* from the creature’s limb at a mere touch. Datu’s hand instinctively went to the hilt of his blade, the polished hilt cold against his palm.
Vanna took a step towards Kiko, her expression predatory. “That’s it, isn’t it? Your useless skill… it makes them vulnerable! You knew this, didn’t you, you little sneak? You were holding out!” Her voice rose, betraying a frantic greed. “Imagine what we could clear with this! No more dying in these rotting swamps!”
Another party member, Renzo, a scrawny skirmisher who had been hiding behind a cluster of glowing fungi, emerged, his eyes wide with the same avarice. “He didn’t tell us! He let the boss die!”
Kiko stumbled back, aghast. “No! I didn’t know! It just… it just happened!”
Vanna lunged, not for the stalker, but for Kiko, her hands outstretched, not to help, but to seize. Her fingers, gnarled from years of combat, snatched at his shoulder, her nails digging in. “This changes everything, you fool! You belong to us now!”
[Warning: Hostile Intent Detected]
Just as Vanna’s grip tightened, a new presence materialized in the grotto, cutting through the reek of mud and blight with a clean, metallic tang. A figure landed lightly between Kiko and Vanna, a dark silhouette against the glinting, distant exit portal. He was tall, his movements economical, his battle-worn coat blending into the shadows. A sheathed blade gleamed at his hip, but his hand was already on the hilt, the metal glinting in the faint bioluminescent light. His eyes, sharp and cold, fixed on Kiko.
“What did you just do?”