The lights flickered and somewhere something went bang as Erika felt hot then cold then hot again rushing in waves all up her arm.
It was working! She would be a legend! She w… why was she upside down?
Erika blinked blearily up at the inverted world, her ribs ached and her hand stung… what had just… had that monster just slapped her?!?! HOW DARE IT! Although she technically should be to angry since it might have saved her, she recognised the feeling inside her, she’d nearly drowned her well again… and this time it might have been permanent.
Not ready to circle up, not a legend at all Erika thought to herself morosely as she flicked her hand the other way, her well pulsed in her chest but she wrestled it down, it wasn’t drowned yet and neither was she… even if she couldn’t be one she would act like a proper journeywoman.
[Skeletal Spike] activated, the saga in her blood completed, she forced herself through the visualisation the creation the emotion and the final execution and cast her first 2nd circle pure combat galdr.
A lance of bone, looking like a sharpened spine, materialised in the air with a flash of golden odium. A moment passed and the galdr caught in the weft of reality, the bone flung forwards with a cracking tearing sound, moving so fast it rent the air just like a slug from a thunderarm. The pointed iron hard bone, easily as long as Erika’s whole arm, slammed into the malformed giants gut plunging deep into its organs and tearing them apart before exploding out of the creatures back and bouncing off the opposite wall.
“See that! That is the power of the… oh crap it’s still alive!”
Erika threw herself over, smashing her arm and shoulder painfully into the stone floor, narrowly avoiding the long straight punch of the twisted monster. Once again it showed actual experience, training? Who trained a giant monster?! It had applied pressure to its wound using some sort of clamp from its rope belt and now it fought defensively, ducking and dodging with light feet, using her allies as shields.
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Erika thought for a moment then let her intuition guide her, gathering power inside her she hurled another skeletal spike but this one with a deliberate curve, the sharpened spine shattered on the stone with a sickening screech far away from the giant and her teammates, but she had been right, the monster moved away from the galdr and kept its eyes fixed on her… which didn’t help it when three pikes and a dagger rammed into its back up to the hilts, howling in rage it turned on the half-forgotten delvers around it, fists flashing and twisted mouth roaring it stumbled back and forth as more blades flashed, the veteran delvers adapting quickly began to hack away at its joints brining it down to the floor, it waved its arms back and forth, all training forgotten in its pain.
As it lay there, its clawed nails scouring the floor as it sought to catch any delver it could find, Bjorn ran up and, with a mighty leap, he landed upon its back. Running long the slanted spine of the monster he slammed a heavy boot into its shoulder blade and raised his axe over his head which he slammed home with a thunderous blow.
where Bjorn struck it in the neck with his axe. Bjorn was built nearly entirely from muscle as far as Erika could see but even his great bulging arms couldn’t behead the creature cleanly, it whined and writhed and screamed almost like a person as one blow became two then three then ten then, finally, the keening stopped as its spine gave under the sharpened steel and its head rolled away across the floor.
“… is it dead?” Asked Olaf Olafson, his shield still raised.
Ari scoffed. “Of course, it is! How many things can live without a head?”
As the tension drained and weapons lowered Erika felt compelled to grant her knowledge to the people, either that or she was feeling a concussion. “Well… quite a few actually, several forms of Lokispawn have been known to possess decentralised brains and trolls of course are able to reattach their own heads after battle if necessary, their symbiont keeping them fighting till then. There are some unconfirmed claims that the…”
“OK!” Bjorn yelped, cutting Erika off for some reason, as the delvers descended on the giant’s body, like a swarm of hungry ants they tore it apart, carving through its joints with axes and splintering its bones with hammers until nothing solid remained just piles of awful offal and gore.
“…that should do it!” Bjorn said with a wide smile, blood spattering his face. “Now… we need to move.”