Hedge patrols were something best done with caution and numbers. If those failed? Superior firepower won.


Circe had a Kalashnakov, her Colt, dynamite, a machete, knives, her armors, and ammo. She was armed for bear or briarwolf to die against her.


And she'd decided to check the Hedge side of the Sacramento River nearest Funderland. The better to see if any gates were active in the tunnels instead of stumbling upon it underground. More attack angle options.


This was true as she'd run into something unpleasant. Well, she ran into a pier, with the thighs, yet below the pier was the problem. She didn't know if the smell was from what it had been or rot, but it was most certainly a very dead person.


Hobgoblin, human, or Lost she couldn't tell. The source of death however was a little more obvious. You didn't need to be a detective to figure it out. Looking down Circe could see the evidence plain as day. The corpse was missing a hand. The severed hand was visible, clutching a large metal shiv.


Said shiv was inbedded in a oversized crab, lobster, copapod? Crustacean thinkg. Yeah, it was big and unpleasant so more problems. And at least as big a great dane too.


The Summer Queen tried to get a better angle to view but the pier? Yeah, it was shit, her foot went right through. And the things 5 eyestalks looked up at her.


Its mouth? Didn't look right for a crab.


Another would wander if they could get their leg free before the Hedge beast ate their foot. Not Circe. Not because she was a Summer. But because she'd had a shoulder strap.


AKM gets aimed. AKM gets used on giant enemy crab before it is out of sight.


Ra-tat-tat-tat.


It stopped moving. But the Summer wasn't incautious, so she put another bullet into it.


BANG.


A chunk of its rear chitin goes flying off, a lot of its internal are now externals. The elfin Larcenist concludes bullets do massive damage to enemy crabs. Her foot is retrieved from the pier. But she doesn't go down to get the crab bits. First, she throws a piece of rotten wood onto the muck.


It doesn't sink. So, crabby bits? Crabby bits. Maybe dynamite fishing in the future.