A lone bird spots you and glides in to attack. As you get close to it, you notice that while it's the size and rough shape of an eagle, it's not at all natural: its beak is made of bronze and its feathers are metallic and razor sharp. It attacks by launching feathers at you, or flinging its poisonous dung.
Hit points: 25 Damage: 5 each time attacked
If you successfully kill this bird, each party involved in the battle gets 10XP and rolls 1d100 to collect loot according to the following:
1-80: You gain nothing but the victory of having beaten this opponent. 81-90: Poisonous Dung: You manage to collect a vial of the vile stuff. It can thrown at an opponent once to poison them, dealing 1 damage for 3 turns. After this it is consumed and leaves your inventory forever. 91-99: Heart's Blood: You manage to collect a vial of the creature's blood. It can be used once to replenish 3 HP, at which point it is consumed and leaves your inventory forever. 100: Metal Feather: Once per battle, you can backstab with this small dagger. Add 2 to your final damage. This item is reusable, and remains in your inventory.
Sticking with the plan of thinning out the birds, Mal picked a different door from the first ones he'd used,d and stepped out again. It was just about perfect; a single bird spotted him and swooped down. Maybe it was hoping to take him by surprise? Mal didn't know, but this time (at least) he remembered to keep his glasses tucked into an inside pocket of his suit under his coat.
His sad and increasingly tattered coat. He wondered if he was going to be stuck with this coat for the duration of his time at Prytaneum, and if he was, was he going to have to repair it himself? He might be able to-- he hadn't tried doing more than fixing a lost button in years, was the problem, and where did they get the fur?
He imagined that Artemis got pretty upset about any kind of unauthorized hunting on the island. For that matter, he couldn't imagine that Artemis would be too happy about this sort of thing either. Even if they were big, annoying, stinking metal birds.
And of course, when he swung, he didn't hit the damn, big, annoying, stinky metal bird straight on. No, that would be too easy. Of course.
Big, ugly, stinky, nasty metal birds. And then, because this had been maybe too concentrated an attack what or who was behind it? Maybe? Mal didn't have any scale to judge by except by his old police work, and if he substituted nasty, stinking birds for his usual culprits, he'd call this a pretty serious incursion.
He swung at the bird again, as it caught the hem of his coat. He was going to really need a new coat by the time this was over. He only hoped that they went somewhere warmer after this.
This time he managed to catch the bird with the edge of the blade and drive it down. He had to dance back out of the way of the blood splatter so it didn't catch him --and luckily managed to avoid any splatter of the noxious poop that went along with the damn things.
Yanking the sword out of the evil, nasty bird, he didn't do too badly. It surprised him when the outward yank folded into another thrust at the bird. It hit squarely, better than squarely, and Mal noted to himself that he needed to be less surprised. If he was less surprised, maybe it would help him actually do better at this.
Trust the god, and all that crap, right? Except thinking about Zeus made his skin creep. How had he gotten a dead man's lungs to sound so resonant? Physics didn't work like that, and he supposed that the gods could do what they wanted, when they wanted. Or else why were they gods, right?
Right.
And even that still couldn't keep him from getting a claw to the coat. Ugh. Maybe he just needed a better coat.
Being less surprised helped, thankfully; he hit the bird square on again, and gave himself to the rhythm of what he was doing. It was easier, better, to not think too hard about the way the sword sunk into the bird and grated a little on the metal feathers when he pulled it out again.
He still tried to avoid the bird's beak as it tried to rip at him-- and still didn't manage it completely, of course. He thought he would never manage to avoid the retaliatory sweep of claws or beak, but he wasn't going to give up on trying to avoid them.
Ugh. Double ugh, honestly, even if he still managed the square hit. They still weren't throwing poop, and he was glad that there was no poop. No poop days were always good days.
It would be a better day if he could manage to kill one of these things before it shredded his coat further, actually. Even better than a day without poop. He let out a breath when the sword hit and bounced away a little. Glancing hit again, and not a solid one. He really needed that solid hit to get rid of this thing. He really needed more solid hits in general; if he could get rid of them earlier than this, he'd take less damage.
And he'd be way happier, over all. There was that, too, as he skittered back from the twitching, frothing, pooping mass of metal feathers on the snow.
He really, really needed to learn how to manage the sword better. More practice, when he got back to Prytaneum. He resolved that and swung at the twitching bird again.
Or maybe he'd just practice more on these damn birds, and --
Oh good. It was dead. Excellent. Mal stepped away from the bird and took out his glasses to settle them back on his nose. He blinked at the dead bird, and used snow to clean the blade of his sword off again. Ugh.
He set his sword aside (Mal didn't know when he'd get used to that thought, his sword) and poked at the dead corpse of the bird. He did it a little tentatively; the creepiness of dead things still hadn't worn off after the god's message. Mal didn't know when dead things would become less creepy, but it might take a while.
A long while.
He straightened up from poking at the bird with a sigh. Nothing, again. Maybe the next time?
