Things have started to settle down. People were still terrified but no one was dying anymore.
A group of people were hiding out in the classes.
Some had gathered close enough but out of range by the river. The tentacles thing had retreated back into the river. But no one was deceived for a moment that it wasn't still there waiting.
Kris and Nathan were one of those by the river.
Nathan had motivated them to come together to take out the river beast.
Most people said he was out of his mind and left him but a large number of people remained.
Nathan was thinking.
' I couldn't determine where it's core was but I'm sure it's a core beast. It fits the profile. I'm guessing this whole thing is a sort of test. We are expected to deal with these beasts and the instructors aren't going to help us in any way. Sigh'
Nathan looked to the elf beside him. He and she had organised this party of people. They had decided to share the task of coordinating and coming up with ideas between each other.
She was rather competent in his eyes. At least way more than the other elves.
The elves had realised what was happening before most yet they were still the ones with the highest body count.
'she could at least get out of the way'
Currently Kris was occupied with figuring out how to damage the thing.
Nathan was getting tired of waiting.
" Any luck yet?"
Kris looked at him and straightened herself as if she was being photographed.
" If you are referring to how to damage it, yes. It's rather simple. Anything can"
" How?"
" That's obviously a core beast so it's form is made of things we can interact with. We were thought that in class"
Thinking about it now, Nathan could recall that exact same thing.
" Okay so how do we kill it. And I know it's by destroying the core but how do we get to it?"
" If you had something really precious and you wanted to prevent anyone from getting it, you won't showcase it. Unless you are really vain"
" I guessed it's hidden, but where? And how do we get it?"
" The core of a beast can't be to far from the main body. And the thing has refused to leave this region. So my guess is it's somewhere central but close enough to the bank."
" No definitive info?"
He was starting to rethink her competence.
Kris looked at the river and sighed.
" Yes. Someone is going to have to go under"
Cly was sitting cross legged on the ground just a few feet away from the trees.
It was already midday now and he was getting Hungry.
He had been experimenting before now. To see the parameters of the beasts ability.
It hadn't attacked him while he stood still, instead it's top half started shifting about.
Cly had guessed that it had some means of detection since it lacked eyes yet could determine when he tried to move.
He had spat out a large volume of spit to test something.
It couldn't detect non living things. Not only that but as long as he wasn't moving it couldn't detect him either.
But cly had realised soon that he couldn't just out waiting it and get a perfect moment.
The creature seemed to know that he was still around and was waiting for him to slip up.
It hadn't moved from the branch so his guess was that it was afraid of something.
Jester had left since so it wasn't that.
He could only surmise that it had some sort of barrier or range of capacity.
He had plopped down on the ground not just because he didn't want to stay standing while thinking, he was already good at that from the freeze games they played.
No, he wanted to do something.
Jester had said that they had to figure out how to deal damage to these things ourselves.
Considering this was an essence beast he couldn't touch it even if he could somehow close the distance.
However he knew from class that all beasts maintained a constant pressure on themselves to enable them move on the surface and interact with inanimate properties.
Currently cly was using his hands behind his back to gather stones. He made sure to move only when the upper half of the thing seemed to be looking away from him.
His right hand was already filled now.
It was time to act.
He got up slowly and waited for it to look away from him.
It had detected the subtle movement, but from the first time he had sat down he had realised it had a really short memory and attention span. It couldn't remember where the movement was from.
He stretched his hand back.
Then brought it forward with as much power and speed as he could muster.
The creature turned to him, but unlike what cly had expected it moved. Really quickly it dodged the well aimed stone and reduced the space between it and cly.
Cly held his hand in place so as not to draw attention to himself.
' damnit. But it had frozen when I tested something similar earlier'
He had earlier tried to escape by moving out of its range.
As expected it detected him and used it's magnetic force to hold him back. But escape wasn't really the plan.
He flung a stick he'd picked up earlier at it. The creature couldn't dodge it for some reason. And for another reason his hand moved faster when moving in it's direction.
' huh, I guess I have to... Wait I think I've got it. It's force feels magnetic to me and it can detect me. It seems to also detect objects unlike I thought but it doesn't have the ability to magnetise them regardless. What if it only stood still because of the strain to pull me back?'
' it doesn't hurt to try '
Looking at the few feet between him and it
' it actually might hurt to fail though. Such waste of space'