It was easily twenty feet tall, with massive wings forty feet across sending powerful waves of displaced air over the pass. A sickly sweet, floral scent filled my nose, sending me into a coughing fit.

  “Is that a fucking giant moth?” Katarina shouted against the rushing waves of wind.

  Two multi-faceted eyes the size of wagon wheels reflected our visages a hundred times over in the afternoon sunlight. Three pairs of legs dangled beneath the behemoth. Two of the sets ended in razer sharp claws the size of my forearms. The third set, highest on the bulbous gray thorax, ended in what looked alarmingly like hands, the fingers tipped with sharp nails.

  It hovered in the air for a second. Powerful gales of wind buffeted us, kicking up a cloud of dust and grit. Copernicus and Galileo both screamed, pulling at the harnesses. Fortunately, Abernathy’s breaking mechanism held the cart, though the harnesses that kept the beasts in place groaned. Encore leapt from my shoulder and flew to the donkeys.

  Encore: I shall try calming them.

  “That looks dangerous,” Abernathy squealed, raising a hand to protect his eyes from the cloud of debris the moth’s flight kicked up. I could barely hear him over the whumph, whumph of it’s flight.

  A nameplate appeared over the moth just as it advanced, a long proboscis uncurling from beneath its massive head. The long tube, which looked thin on the moth, was thicker than my arm and tipped with a needle-sharp end.

  Sanguine Moth.

  The beast moved faster than its size belied, crossing the twenty feet between us and the edge of the cliff in a second. It flew for Abernathy, four sharp legs held out like spears.

  Katarina launched herself into the moth’s midsection, connecting a flying kick that shifted the moth’s aim. Abernathy gasped as two of the legs sank into his torso.

  I released the stored Radiant Winds as Katarina kicked off the side of the mountain, angling herself back toward the moth, which had begun backing up into the sky. It lifted Abernathy, who was skewered to the ends of two of its legs, bringing him with it. The proboscis and two other legs sank into my friend, who gasped once more, as if he had been submerged in icy water. His health, which had taken a hit from the initial impact, plummeted.

  I sent every radiant orb I had summoned into Abernathy as Katarina soared above the moth, delivering a drop-kick that was strengthened by a downward blast of wind. Her foot sank into its head several inches and sent spurts of dark purple goo out of the edges of the moth’s eyes.

  It quivered and fell to the road. Abernathy’s health launched back up but began dropping again. I hurried to his side and pulled him free from the limbs and sucker, which separated with a wet pop. He looked up at me, his eyes wild, small white foam building at the corners of his mouth. He began convulsing as the giant moth shifted and stood. Its clawed legs dug deep divots in the hard stone road as it shifted around, reaching for Katarina.

  I looked over at the party status screen and saw Poisoned flashing beneath Abernathy’s name. I panicked for a half second, then it flashed away. He exhaled and the convulsions subsided.

  “Fuuuuck youuu!” I heard Katarina scream. I looked around and couldn’t see her, but I saw a length of rope she had cinched around the moth’s neck. It didn’t really have a neck, but that is the closest thing I could think of, the area between the head and main body where the wings met.

  The moth lifted itself into the sky and I caught sight of Katarina, holding both ends of the rope. She was pulling, both feet firmly planted on the back of the behemoth. It caused the moth to flip over backwards. I started playing Radiant Winds, seeing the moth falling backwards against the road with Katarina still holding herself in place on its back.

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  She kicked off the back of the moth at the last second, rolling as she hit the ground. The moth crashed against the floor once more, its massive wings flapping. The wings fell down upon Abernathy and me. They were coated in a dust, vibrating as they struck us and sending great gouts of the dust into the air.

  It burned my throat, my eyes, and my nose, like I had submerged my head in a bowl of wasabi. Poisoned flickered across my field of vision, barely visible through the pain and tears. I began coughing, taking a minor antidote potion from my inventory.

  The pain vanished immediately, as did the status. The wing beat down on us several more times as the moth tried taking to the air again. The moth’s dust poisoned me again, bringing a fresh wave of pain. It lurched as something hit it.

  I pulled out the small knife I kept tied around my ankle and drove it into the wing. The blade parted the material easily. The moth screamed, a horribly chitinous sound, as it shifted. It lurched again from another impact but continued turning. I kept my knife up, slicing through a long portion of the wing, until it had turned around to face the cliff.

  I took another minor antidote potion from my quickslot and sheathed my knife, pulling out my lute again to perform Kinetic Overload.

  The Sanguine Moth’s health was down to half. It flapped its wings a few times, but could no longer produce enough lift for flight with the damage I had caused. I looked around, wondering where Katarina had gone.

  I saw her laying near the edge of the cliff about thirty feet away. Something sharp and blue protruded from her right shoulder. I glanced to the party screen and saw Unconscious flashing below her health. I finished performing Kinetic Overload and tried something new. We had talked about it, and I had not really planned on trying it so soon, but with Katarina knocked out my options were limited. There weren’t any debris nearby I could see, the moth’s flight had blown away any small stones. I sent the enchantment into myself, sent the lute to my inventory, and ran forward, throwing a punch at the back of the moth.

  Katarina had been giving me lessons on how to throw a punch properly. I thought myself an apt pupil, catching on quickly. Katarina laughed it off, saying it was a simple feat to throw a punch correctly.

  My fist connected with the tough hide of the moth and I detonated two instances of explosive energy. A melon-sized chunk of hide and goo blew off the backside of the moth, which pivoted around in an instant, buzzing and clicking. A jolt of excruciating pain shot through my wrist and my hand felt numb. It hung at an odd angle.

  I consumed a minor health potion from my quick slot, grabbing my broken wrist and moving it in place as the bones slowly re-knit and blessed warmth washed away the pain. The moth faced me, raising its body and beginning to extend it’s hands in my direction.

  A white blur slammed into the moth’s left eye, a furious flurry of fangs and fur. Encore tore and bit at the moth’s eye, causing it to lurch backwards and emit a loud series of chittering clacking sounds. It brought its head down to its hands, but Encore disengaged and took flight. Its eye was a mangled mess of dripping juices and deep rends.

  The moth swivelled its head around as it made that angry buzzing, chittering sound with its mouth. It looked back at me and shifted. Small sections of its thorax near the wings separated, revealing twin rows of purple barbs. The same barb that I had seen in Katarina. I jumped, activating a charge of Kinetic Overload and launching myself up just as one of the purple barbs fired from the moth. It fractured into tiny fragments against the mountainside as I launched myself twenty feet in the air.

  I glanced over and saw Abernathy pulling Katarina away from the edge of the cliff. The moth turned its head up, tracking my launch with its remaining eyes. My stomach lurched as I began falling.

  The beast flapped its wings, standing on two legs and reaching towards me with the other four. Two hands and two spear-like appendages waited to catch me as I fell.

  I pulled the pouch of glitter I had gotten from the party reward chest days ago, flinging a fistful at the moth’s face. It lurched back, trying to get away from the rain of dazzling colors that caught the sunlight in a prismatic array. It pumped its wings, lost balance, and fell backwards.

  My back began scraping along the mountainside as I descended. I pushed off and jumped towards the downed moth. It righted itself as I drop kicked it with both feet in nearly the same place I had hit it the first time, detonating the final charge of Kinetic Overload.

  I launched back, hitting the steep mountainside and sliding down amidst a spray of goo and guts. The impact had blown away a four-foot wide section of flesh from the back of the moth’s thorax, which now leaked great bouts purple blood.

  The moth swivelled around, buzzing furiously as I landed in a pile of goo and gore with a squelch. The motion sent another surge of offal pumping out of the wound, its health plummeting as it leaned in close and fired its needle-tipped proboscis at me.

  I shifted, but knew I wouldn't be able to avoid the attack. I saw death in the hollow, spear-like appendage and fear washed over me in a cold wave.

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