Traveling with his brothers was… less than ideal.

Char had brought his wolves, and Cheese was startled to see how the pack had grown over the years. Once a modest group, the family now numbered twelve—each wolf with a lean, feral look that told of a life lived on the edges of civilization. Char had tamed these beasts and, as Cheese noted the glowing tag above his brother’s head—[Leadership Uncommon 22]—he understood how. Char led with an almost magnetic presence, one that commanded respect from the wolves as they loped beside them through the swaying plains grass.

They often stopped as the three of them ran so that Char could sniff the air, or howl to his pack who were in a loose formation around the three. That was how they moved in relative safety, the pack acting as an alert and a barrier to anything trying to come at them. It also helped that they were running through the relatively barren plains and farmland that expanded northward to the mountains and then the coast of the island.

The brothers kept a steady trot as they cut a path northward. It left them time to talk.

"How is the life been treating you" Cheese asked the larger Waff. His brother had for some years been a feller, and life out in the mountains with nothing save an axe and yourself for company could drive a man to madness.

The fields around them were broad and golden, stretching out in endless waves under the early morning light, and Cheese directed his attention to them while he waited for the answer that he knew would be slow to come. Yet come it did.

"It is good. I have had success, and I enjoy the life. I will miss it."

Cheese let the conversation lapse as they ran through the wild grasses, dusted with dew which caught the light and shimmered faintly. Each step rustled wet stalks, filling the quiet with the soft, rhythmic sounds of travel. Every so often, they would catch sight of a lone tree or a distant stream, but for the most part, it was plains as far as the eye could see, with the coast a gray line on the horizon.

Cheese was happy, truly. He tried to talk to Char, but there was a melancholy there that he was beginning to place. His brother's god had likely fallen, whatever that meant. Cheese was unsure of what he could do, so he remained quiet on the topic. Thus, a day passed in relative calm. They ran for seven hours, then at noon stopped for water and food. The wolves hunted a few rabbits, and the men circled up and ate. Well Cheese and Waff did, Char hunted with the pack, and once they had caught their fill he ate with the wolves. It was weird to watch, but his bothers had gotten used to such things from the man over the years.

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Then they ran five more hours, and at night they slept on simple bedrolls made of a thick cloth that was rolled many times.

Not Char, he slept with the wolves. Cheese supposed that was likely more comfortable than their arrangements.

On the morning of the next day cheese was met with a start as he glanced at his System Menu. in the corner of the menu their quest displayed a helpful arrow pointing them forward, that was how they had been tracking the Giants. However, the numbers didn’t seem to add up with what had been shown the previous day. They had expected to close in on their target within an hour or so of waking, but the distance meter was far from what it had been the night before. Their new indicator was pointing directly to the east, and slightly south, not to the north as it had been the day before.

Char called a halt, his gaze shifting to Cheese with a raised brow. “We lost it. Whatever it was. Perhaps someone else found our quarry,” he said, sounding only slightly perturbed. “Guess we’re chasing something else now.”

Cheese nodded, looking to his other brother, Waff. Waff, the largest of the three, barely looked tired; his chest rose and fell evenly, and his powerful frame showed no sign of fatigue. They’d covered a grueling stretch the day before, yet both Char and Waff seemed as fresh as if they’d just begun. Cheese felt his own pulse, and it was steady. He realized he was equally unruffled after the previous day, his breath as even as theirs. Cheese packed his things and then stood.

With a simple nod, he motioned to set out, and their group began its brisk pace, moving ever eastward. The plains began to thin as they traveled, giving way to coastal bluffs and the deep scent of salt on the breeze. They were nearing the ocean, and along this coast ran peaks of ancient mountains. Cheese did some mental math and realized that their quarry was likely headed in that direction, north into the mountains. When he thought of that he knew what they would find.

The trees began to thicken, and in time they exited the plains fully. The brothers instead found themselves in a young forest. They picked through the brush for a half hour and then they saw it. It was as their father had warned, a Giant. It was one of the smaller creatures, yet it still stood some five meters tall. Above its head read [Hill Giant: Journeyman Tier]

Cheese frowned at this. They were still a half a kilometer out, yet the giant was readily apparent. The reason was that it was walking through a line of many trees that had simply been crushed underfoot. Not by him, but by something far larger.

Cheese looked to his left and his right and sent his brothers a signal, they spread out and as one began stalking their prey.