He silently moved away from it, trying to get behind it.

Unfortunately, that catches the strix's attention. With a frighteningly quick motion, it grabs Caleb by the neck.

At the same amount of speed, he lunged the knife towards the monster, aiming for its arm.

The strix swiftly reaches down with its long neck, clamping its jaws down on his knife-holding wrist.

He let out a scream of pain, before flicking his hand to toss the knife, grabbing it with his other hand, and plunging it into the creatures arm.

The creature screeches and lets go of him. But, his bitten wrist is already starting to go numb.

He looked at it, worried. *lemme guess. Im gonna turn soon.*

Venna pokes her head out and shakes her head. "All you'll need to do is poke yourself with the dagger. A tiny prick will be more than enough to prevent it."

He nodded and poked himself with the dagger, drawing blood. *thats it?*

She nods. "Yes. But, your arm will still go numb for a little bit- all the poke does is destroy the magic, not the venom itself."