Holy shit does an undead giant move quickly.

I suppose I should have guessed that given its impressive inseam, but for some unbelievable reason it never actually crossed my mind that a giant might move faster than a regular person. I mean, at least in the ttrpgs I’ve played, hill giants aren’t any faster than your average barbarian, and this one is undead on top of that. How was I supposed to know that something the same height as a full-grown T-Rex could hurtle forward with all the power of the dinosaur’s much faster movie variant?

I hurl myself out of the way, leaping for the stone yard as the ground trembles underneath me, threatening to disrupt even my elvish balance as the creature closes, its giant club held back like a baseball bat. The stones I need to hide among are about the size of those at Stone Henge, but are considerably thicker, clearly once part of a fallen-in building, and they’ve settled in such a way as to create a tight maze. I aim for one of the narrower gaps and the giant bellows again as I dart inside, a spray of dirt and gravel following close on my heels as it pulls itself up to a stop.

There’s a brief pause and the air around me trembles as the creature brings its club down hard. The gap between the stones is narrow enough to break the club’s path and keep it from bashing down on me, but it still impacts hard across them, the force causing several to crumble and crack at their tops. The burst of displaced air is powerful enough to throw me to the ground. It must be close to what a spider would feel as it’s getting whacked by a rolled-up newspaper.

Scrambling to my feet, I snake deeper through the haphazard pseudo-maze, pulling a mundane arrow and muttering the fire incantation as I nock it. Turning, I aim quickly up at the giant, whose attention has been pulled away from me, and I let the arrow fly.

Fire bursts over the back of its neck not far from the wound left by the explosion. Again, I can’t see how much damage was done—the damage counter really should be larger, that would be a nice thing for a ranged fighter—but I’ve certainly reminded it I'm here, even if I haven’t regained its full attention. The others must have engaged.

It’s turning back toward me when a blast erupts against it. The force magic cracks some of the stones closer to where I came in, but I’m far enough away that I’m not caught up in the shockwave. The creature seems to stumble, flailing awkwardly before dropping to its knees just as we planned, all but hidden by my protective enclosure.

I need to get in a good position to help, but exiting the way I came isn’t really an option—it would take me straight through the battlefield, and I don’t want to risk throwing off someone else’s attack or getting accidentally hit by one of Flynt’s area effects. Instead, it’s time to fully embrace my elfiness, and with a running start, I use a couple of smaller, broken-off pieces to dart up to the top of one of the larger standing stones that shape the maze. Carefully at first, but with more confidence at every leap, I skip between the tops of the various hunks toward the edge that borders the main thoroughfare where the melee rages. It leaves me the option of leaping back into the maze if I need a quick escape, but it also gives me a slightly elevated perspective.

Flynt is farther back on the other side of the road, spinning up another spell, while Meg and Tyrus are both in close. Tyrus darts around making small quick cuts; in our training conversations, we thought that against larger creatures it might be a good strategy for distracting and keeping the attention from Meg, who could do more damage with her massive magical sword. The theory seems to more or less be paying off, and Meg's sword hisses with each impact. The creature bellows unhappily as it tries to stand and regain the advantage of its size and strength. It pulls its club around, impacting one of the standing stones again and nearly crushing Tyrus in the process, which was probably the main intent—though the dwarf saw it coming and artfully dodged the attack.

“It’s getting up!” I call, the statement immediately redirecting Meg who strikes out at its knee as it begins to get its feet back under it.

“Step!” Meg shouts, and both she and Tyrus leap back, putting a little bit of space between them and the giant.

Almost instantaneously, Flynt releases another concussive spell that strikes right into its chest (38 says the damage counter, which, nice one Flynt, I didn’t know he could project it quite that strategically—though his [Essence] must be getting very low). The blow knocks it against several of the outer stones to my maze, and the creature falls onto its side, slipping in the loose gravel. Apparently, while it could charge quickly, the undead giant is not exactly agile, and Jonas was right—there doesn’t seem to be any kind of problem-solving thought (or even self-preservation instinct) working to get it out of the situation.

As Flynt fired off his spell, I jumped toward the far edge of the stone yard, far enough down the thoroughfare from the giant to give me some distance but close enough that I can now get a good angle.

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I pull another arrow, imbue it with the fire incantation, and release to further shake the creature before Meg and Tyrus then spring back in to re-engage. The [System] sends up double-digit counts regularly as they hack away at it. Even with the low level of my spells, my [Essence] has dipped pretty far, and I need to save some to mask our path up to the falls, so I pepper it with a few mundane arrows when the opportunity presents to at least marginally feel useful. They do some damage, particularly when they penetrate the neck or strike its head, but the actual amount of hit points carved away is only really notable from the perspective of every little bit helps when you’re fighting a not-so-mini mini-boss.

It’s getting pretty clear that without magicked arrows of some kind, I’m not hugely effective against a lot of the undead. Finding more pre-enchanted options will definitely be a priority if we’re going to be continuing this quest line in any shape or form. Which, I guess, is a little bit up for debate.

The giant is looking brutalized, but again seems to be getting its feet underneath it, and it pulls back to swing its club at the nearest target. Meg dodges the swing and all but slides in between its legs, hacking at the back of the giant’s heel hard with her sword (22) before spinning back up to her feet and leaping backward again.

“Hit it!” she shouts, and Flynt, who has repositioned, again releases a force blast. This one comes in from a different angle and knocks the giant forward into the road, causing it to stumble and slide a little ways in the gravel.

“I’m nearly out!” Flynt shouts. “Stop playing with it and finish it off!”

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” Meg shouts back, but I catch a slight grin as she dashes forward, Tyrus looping around to catch the giant’s visual attention.

“Keira!” Jonas’s voice carries over the sounds of the fight. I catch sight of him as he appears in the doorway of one of the dilapidated cottages on the other side of the way. “Incoming!”

I follow his gesture, then curse under my breath as I see the patrol approaching from the center of the ruins, just as we feared. The fight must have disrupted the patrol’s circuit, though I can't imagine how. We've been very subtle with our earth-shaking explosions.

“Got it!” I confirm as I take a quick beat to debate my options.

The patrol doesn’t look like much, certainly nothing more than what we’ve been fighting all the way here. In front, there’s a pair of the fleshy, fast-moving horror shows that we dubbed zoombies (I say we, but it was me, and I’m not sorry about it) that are followed by a half dozen skeletons. Five minutes ago, I wouldn’t have been all that concerned—a fog arrow to distract and confuse, then we’d send in Tyrus (it’s his turn) with his fast magic dagger, and the rest of us would be ready to do any clean-up detail. It’d be over in a minute.

But now we have the giant, and while it has to be on the last of its hit points, I don’t want to see what it can do if we stop harrying it for even a moment to deal with this. I like this whole having-the-upper-hand thing, and I'm not exactly eager to risk falling back into the position where one or more of us are unconscious.

I take a quick assessment of the giant fight—not over yet—and leap another stone closer. I hesitate, then groan and pull my last explosive arrow. I may regret this later, but at the moment, it feels like the best option. Crowd control has been the name of the game, and it’s worked for us so far. Better to use it now than to die with it in the quiver. And, given how clustered together they are, I should be able to all but take out the group if I can aim right.

Behind me, the giant bellows again; it’s airy and high-pitched. Not quite a death rattle, but getting very close to it. Probably another strike or two and it’ll be down.

Which, seriously, if the undead version has this many hit points, I don’t want to think about what fighting a living giant would be like. And hill giants are the smaller ones.

I could probably save the arrow.

But Meg and Tyrus are both going to be exhausted, and Flynt is almost spent.

And we have no idea what’s behind the waterfall.

“First instinct, best instinct,” I mutter, even though I’ve never really lived by the adage. I tap the arrow, nock it, and aim. I hesitate as a prick of something at the back of my neck prompts me to readjust my angle slightly.

For a fraction of a moment I’m afraid that I was wrong, that it’s not going to hit where I wanted it to, but it’s only half a heartbeat. As soon as I have the thought, the arrow bites through the air and all but whistles through the legs of one of the zoombies, hitting the ground and bursting into a massive explosion that hurtles bones and stone what has to be ten feet in the air.

When the dust clears, the first zoombie seems to be all but vaporized, the skeletons broken to pieces. The second zoombie is reduced down to a flopping torso on the ground, its lower half gone.

“I really have to get more of these arrows,” I grumble, shaking my head, just as Meg lets out a triumphant yell behind me.

I glance back toward the now unmoving giant, and Meg meets my gaze, grinning as she pats its boney knee. I chuckle slightly at the move, then gently leap down from my wall—realizing I was probably eight or nine feet off the ground—and we regroup around the now dead-dead giant.

Jonas bends and picks up something from the ground near its head. I assume it’s the creature’s reanimation coin, and he tucks it in his pocket with a grimace. Meg notices too from over her shoulder, but doesn’t comment before she looks around at each of us, continuing to grin like a mad woman.

“Well,” she says, still breathing heavily. She’s sheathed her sword and has a hand pressed against her ribs where she must have been struck in some way. She and Tyrus are both covered in dust, which is turning muddy in their sweat, and Meg wipes a fist across her forehead. “That was fun, yeah? Amazing what we can do when we’re prepared. It’s almost like we’re real adventurers.”