Stepping on dead branches riddled about the forest floor, Wardi quickly began to hear the buzzing of the proud flies above. 'Shadow step', he muttered, ready for a sneak attack.

The trio had never seen the proud flies before and were surprised at the size and the intelligence of the critters. The flies were as tall and wide as Lucy, using their agility to their advantage by bobbing and weaving.

Rhua made an attack, raising her sword and slashing at it, but all she met was air. Bloody thing, stand still so I can hit you. It was only just the beginning, and she was already in a state of mind that this fight was going to take a while. Lucy attempted to use AoE debuff skills, Air Mine and Concussive Blast, in the hopes of catching the odd one or two off guard during the fight.

She soon regretted her choices as dung slugs began to burst out from the ground. The trio had a fight on their hands now.

"Watch out for the dung slug's trail on the floor; it's highly corrosive!" Lucy yelled after she observed the ground melt away as the slugs moved in random directions. "Good spot, Lucy. You should stay focused on support, Lucy; we're in a bit of a difficult matchup. This will take a while!" Wardi shouted as he managed to backstab straight through the carapace of a proud fly he stalked. Its thick, heavy shell thudded as it hit the floor; its flesh squelched as the rapier dug deep. It's taken the blow well; it's still flying strong here.

The proud flies worked together well, unlike the slurpers that attacked individually. A fly dove at Wardi, knocking him away as it collided headfirst with the hilt of his rapier. Dirt and dry, crunchy leaves flew up in the air as he skidded across the woodland floor. "They hit pretty hard when they dive; take note, you two."

Rhua had already found that out, but unlike the others, her shields were a strong counter and mitigation against the diving attacks. Two flies darted around Rhua, calculating precise moments to evade her defensive moves.

She should not have focused exclusively on them. Three dung slugs managed to catch her off guard; the corrosive slime they produced wasn't going to tear through her shield, but it certainly put the barrier she produced last minute into full action. The slugs trailed up and around the barrier, somehow supporting the weight of the large purple slugs that were bigger than she was.

"Ugh, these slugs have mouths on their undersides too." "That's so frigging gross I'm going to vomit." Rhua began to heave and hack at the sight of the pulsating, teethy maws spewing out what she assumed was bile along her barrier. The proud flies couldn't care less; however, they picked up on the protective layer and shifted their attention to Lucy, diving at her from different directions.

The air screeched as the two flew downwards; the bigger fly charged at her headfirst, the speed too huge a difference for her eyes to follow, and despite her protections around her, the impact as it connected smashed straight through her barrier, Art 'Turtle's Ward'. It slowed down from the impact, but it was still enough to deal some damage to her; as it hit her chest, she coughed up blood from the force of it and yelled out in pain, "ACK, that hurt so much. Sniff, these things are quite tough." Her voice was wheezy as she tried to manage a throbbing dent in her chest. "Aqua Gift," she muttered as symbols rose around her and began to coat and heal her. The second fly collided with the rapier as Wardi burst forth, impaling itself straight through the weapon and into its brain, dying on the spot.

Lucy gasped at the noise of the fly thudding to the floor and stepped back in fright. "Lucy, you let your guard down; it would have got you had I not been there to manage the attack. Keep your eyes on the fight!" Wardi's firm words rang through her mind, and Lucy put her thinking hat back on. "Thanks, Wardi. They've managed to catch us all off guard."

I don't need a reminder, Lucy!

Lucy looked over to Rhua, still powering the barrier against the continuous slug vomit. 'Hmm, I wonder if they are vulnerable to Gorthen.' She attempted to cast Ground Spear at them; brown symbols rose up around her, and the pale brown spears began to form and take shape from the symbols, whizzing through the air. Stirring into action, they reacted to the luth in the air and manoeuvred out of the way.

"Blast it, they picked up on my attacks. Can you two try and hold them down in some way? I think I can take them out quickly if a single blow hits them." Lucy began to channel the Art again, earning a sarcastic response from Rhua. "You don't ask for much, do you? I'm trying hard enough not to just get slapped here, missy."

"Trust me, it'll work, Rhua."

"Oh no, Petritrams!" A swipe came at Lucy, and she was sent tumbling towards Wardi. Dammit, how did we miss those! Lucy was seeing stars on the floor and staring up into the sky. Still unable to land a single blow, Rhua summoned her clone to engage with the Petritrams. Strong sweeping blows began to hit against the conjured shield: "Thwang, bong." The clone was able to return attacks against them, severing a few branches off the matte Petritram.

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Wardi lurked in the shadows, shifting his focus over to attacking the Petritrams; he darted across, leaving Lucy to recuperate, and landed a mighty back attack.

It screeched aloud, "Guhrohhhh," and attacked wildly in a blind rage. It managed to catch a proud fly trying to dart around it and disorientate it enough for Rhua to catch and clip its wings with a precise strike, chopping the fine glistening strings as she did so.

"Got you, you little shit. That's one down at least." Rhua relished in the triumph over the evasive critter.

Nice job, lass. Wardi was impressed at Rhua's reaction speed to the opportunity and quickly took advantage of the raging petritram by attacking it again; it cleared several trees as it rage-swept the area. Lucy, having regained some senses, was able to cast 'Rolling Rock', a Gorthen Art, on the downed proud fly; it crushed its tail end but continued to crawl and writhe around in pain. Its mate, seeing a free meal, darted across the air, pinning it down. Its pincers cracked off a chunk of carapace, and a long fleshy barbed tongue began to drain it, still alive as it did so. Wardi threw his rapier into the distracted fly, cleaving its head in half.

"That's disgusting! I'm not watching that happen," he shouted, disengaging from shadow step to gather his thrown weapon. As he passed over to the ground, he stamped on the head of the proud fly still clinging to life with its insides leaking out from its mate's dinner. Nature always ends up being scary and messy. He thought, grabbing at the rapier, wiping the yellow gooey remains from it.

For fuck's sake. Wardi began to rush towards a dung slug that was rolling around the falling Petritram, and Rhua barked at him in annoyance, "Whose bloody idea was it again?" Oh yeah, YOURS, THANKS, BUD." Not wanting to feel awkward, Lucy interjected, trying to get them to be quiet. She gave them a loud "shush" with her fingers. "Do you want to attract more of them, you fools? ...Keep the noise down."

Wardi's shadow step on cooldown meant he was unable to get a worthwhile attack for a while; he stuck close to Lucy, trying to act as her guardian.

"We need to try and deal with many of these at once. It's going to take too long otherwise." Wardi said, swiping at the antennae of a dung slug, cutting it off.

"Using Igni Arts would be effective here; I could eliminate all of them in one swoop. But there's still too much debris on the floor; it may cause a forest fire." A fly bounced into her barrier, dropping to the floor, narrowly avoiding a swipe from Wardi.

"I'll try something; hopefully it won't backfire on us," Lucy said as she began to channel aqua symbols around her, which then poured out and doused the trees and ground surrounding the trio.

"What are you up to over there?" Rhua shouted, growing annoyed that she was getting splashed by the aqua Art.

"I'm going to try an Igni Art; hopefully the water will stop a big fire from breaking out!" Lucy yelled in response, channelling red symbols around her. 'Igni Glyph', she muttered, setting several floating orbs in the air close to her body level. "I've tried to make them stay low and lure the proud flies into them; they're the ones slowing us down here."

"Alright, hopefully I won't blow myself up in the process~." BOOM! A flash followed by a bang and a roaring flame coated the area where Rhua stood. Flames danced around her shoulders; bits of hair burnt away, though she at least managed to take out a Petritram and a dung slug.

"Well, that will teach me to not look where I'm going before rushing. At least I took a couple of the things out in the process." Ouch, that stung a little.

The Petritram died instantly, though the slug took a few seconds to burn away. The Petritram curled up into a ball and hissed as its fatty tissues bubbled.

"There are still a few more of these things to deal with, but that will have helped a tonne. The slugs are too difficult for me to take out; they're strong against physical attacks." Wardi's cooldown ended, and he activated his ability once more, lunging at the proud fly and annoying Rhua's clone.

With a dash between the trees, he was able to just about strike at its wing before it reactivated, hitting him away with its barbed tail sparking against the rapier.

"These things are a bloody nuisance. We aren't doing any more training without the other three next time." Wardi was visibly and verbally frustrated, but he had a point; Lucy was always the star player of the group, and she had to focus on her supportive roles in circumstances like these.

Noise was a magnet for trouble. The problem became apparent when the named monster decided it wanted to play a major role, earning the ire of the trio.

Baa~ Baa~

"Well, we're going to have a new friend with us soon. Better take out as many as we can before it shows itself." Rhua said, batting away a dung slug with her shield.

"Yeah, you and me both, lass," Wardi replied, pulling his rapier from the trunk of a Petritram. It looked at him unfazed before falling over from a blast of fire that carved its way through.

Embarrassed and humbled by the recent rumblings, Rhua took it upon herself to prematurely start charging towards the random 'baa' sounds only to be called back in before she went one step too far.

"Where the frigging hell are you going? Stay and finish these off with us!" Wardi yelled while pulling his rapier from the thick, oozing body of the dung slug.

"I've got no patience today; we'd already be well on our way back to" slash "Eccles Ville, if you hadn't been in, oh, let's-go-train mode... you twat!" A proud fly had decided to target Rhua after she made her way forward. 'Wow, they're smarter than they look,' Lucy thought, observing in a moment of the chaos around them.

Rhua caught Lucy standing around in observations, yelling out to her, "Lucy, stop standing around and bloody attack them." Snapping back to Maliterr, she apologised before returning to help with arts.

"Sorry. I'll help you now!"

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