Sam stepped past the cyclops corpse, and started walking into the cyclops town. This was the first part of their plan. Sam, as the fastest and most durable of them, would be the one who drew the attention of the strongest cyclops while the others plundered whatever treasure was being mentioned in the poem.
As he walked, the others slunk into the shadows behind a building, and were soon out of sight. Sam raised his mace, and brought it crashing down into the wood supporting a building, causing the entire structure to break off from the side of its platform. There was a roar of rage, and three massive cyclops sprinted down the bridge towards him. The bridges must have been made of some very sturdy material, because they only shook a little as the multi hundred foot tall beasts lumbered down them. These ones were too powerful for Sam to face one on three, but it would be exceedingly hard for them to hit him, if he moved around between their legs.
Instead of retreating, he ran towards the creatures, leaping over a sudden line of stone spikes that surged up from the ground beneath him before vanishing. One of the monsters was a spellcaster, which would be very annoying.
Another line of spikes came, and Sam batted one of them towards its caster, but it dispelled it as soon as it came near, grinning at Sam mindlessly. These creatures were sapient, after all they had made this little city, but only barely so. If they had any points invested in Intelligence, they had not gone towards improving them in the same way happened to most races.
Sam had reached them by then, and the caster was unable to attack without injuring its fellow. A moment later, Sam was reminded yet again of just how stupid these creatures were. It cast the spell at Sam, and it ripped through the foot of one of the other monsters. However, he had not been expecting it, and it caught him with a glancing blow, shooting him backwards into a building. He coughed up blood, wincing at a broken rib. That had been an extremely powerful attack. If it had hit him head on, he would either have died instantly or been mortally wounded.
Sam got to his feet, ignoring the pain, and started running back towards the cyclops. Judging by the reaction that the one who had been hit by the spikes had, the caster wouldn't be attempting that anytime soon. Sam dashed between their massive legs, and ran up one of them, using their forest of hairs to climb. He got to his knee a few moments later, and by the looks of things, the others had lost track of him. Sam was about to make sure that they did not forget him so easily.
He swung out with his mace held behind him, and he brought it around in an arc of power towards the cyclops’ knee. When it hit it, the joint bent unnaturally, and the creature roared in pain, swatting at the offending ache. Sam had already clambered up further however, and what he was about to do would scar this cyclops forever, if it even survived. It was not a very honorable task that Sam was about to complete, but it was his best chance of keeping the cyclops distracted.
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He kept climbing up the cyclops, glad that it was too dark amid the hairs to see anything. When he reached about what he believed to be the top of the leg, he started swinging around blindly. There was a sickening noise like a rotten fruit exploding, and the cyclops let out a high pitched scream that made Sam’s ears bleed. He heard the other cyclops laughing raucously at this, and he slid back down its leg to the ground. It was time to make sure that the others were in the same situation.
He scampered along the massive rope bridge, and made his way towards the foot of the caster cyclops. It narrowed its eyes and then started stomping its feet wildly. It knew what he had done to the other cyclops, and it did not want the same thing happening to it. Sam jumped up towards its leg, trying to do so safely, but he was nailed by a large spear of stone,right to the chest. He got his mace up just in time, but the impact still drove him into the ground with bone crushing force.
Sam spat up blood, for the second time within a few minutes, and rushed the cyclops, his bones aching painfully as he ran. However, they were barely noticeable anymore with his new power, and it was more like running with a stitch in your side than with multiple broken bones. He heard a roar of rage coming from further into the city, and he smiled. It seemed that the others had found what they were looking for. Sam ran past the remaining two cyclops, and they both grabbed for him ineffectively. If one had ever tried to catch a fleeing insect then they would know the difficulty of such an endeavor. Even if the people grabbing for it were many times faster than any normal human, it was still a challenge.
Sam was away within a few seconds, out of their reach. He dashed down the gargantuan bridge, marveling at its size, and reached the center of the city a few minutes later, his two pursuers, distantly followed by the third, who was limping profusely, running after him. He heard the sounds of fighting becoming louder and louder as he reached the center, and he saw his captains and Rax running towards the other side of the canyon, each holding various objects in their hands that Sam could not make out clearly.
He drew closer to them, his speed propelling him forwards faster than them, and he drew next to them a moment later. They were all too flustered to speak, but Sam grabbed the package that Lao was holding, and the old man gave him a look of gratitude. With his unwieldy burden now gone, the man jumped up on Pyotr’s back, and the party moved much faster than before without him slowing them down. Jeffrey shot some covering fire out behind him, but the cyclops quickly learned that it was almost harmless, and they ignored it after the first few shots. By then the rest of the town was slowly coming out of their huts, and when they saw the intruders running, they joined in the chase.
Sam and the others sped up as much as they could, but even though their feet were moving far faster than that of their pursuers, the monsters were far larger than them. By all rights, the cyclops should have collapsed underneath their own body weight, but their own power, and perhaps the System, kept them alive. It seemed that this entire encounter was manufactured by the System, seeing as the treasures were human sized, and not made for the size of their keepers.
A few minutes later, with quite a few close calls, they had reached the staircase going up the other side. This was going to be the most dangerous stretch of the journey.