Jace needed to be fast, but he didn’t want to hurry. What he had in mind would take at least four rounds. That would only be two rounds for Esther, giving her one to live once the ice block disappeared. Jace pulled off his damage reduction ring and tossed it to Snowy, who kept her distance from the deadly giant but wouldn’t leave her master or Esther alone. The wolf caught the ring in her mouth on one bounce, and Jace hoped she would understand the complex instructions he sent her.
The shaman then recalled both his totems from the room, gaining back partial mana for the Damage Sink totem since it was slightly used. “What’s his attack and damage?” he asked as he walked toward the giant. With as cruel as Gandhi had been to him in this module, he hoped she would be generous with her timing here. It should only take one round to close the distance between them, but he needed time to do the math and hoped he wouldn’t be penalized an extra round.
{Attack for him is +20, but he gets -5 for aiming at a smaller foe. Damage is 75.}
Jace needed the giant to get double damage on him, but he needed to survive, which meant he could only take 112, just under half his total health. His damage reduction was 12, so he could survive a hit of 124. A double damage strike would be 150, so he needed his Damage totem to absorb 26 damage, and right now, each level of his totem was 25. It was almost as if Gandhi had purposefully made this hard for him. He needed two levels of his totem and hoped the game would let him perform the spell again since it had been less than ten rounds since he had cast it originally. He had dismissed it before it was used up, so he thought it should be allowed.
The frost giant watched the orc walk toward him, unaware of the numbers flying through his head. He only wanted to crush the intruder. Jace gave him the chance as he picked a spot for his Damage totem on the ceiling along the largest crack in the stone he could find and then stood his ground.
{No!} Gracie screamed. {That can’t work. You will get zero bonus defense against the Traditional giant.}
“I know,” he whispered, trying not to flinch as the club came crashing into him. “Please,” he prayed, “get at least a 13.”
The club hit him so hard that he was sure his body jumped in the dentist chair back in the basement. He flew across the room and bounced so hard against the stone wall that he almost rebounded to the same spot. He knew the giant would waste a critical in sending him flying, so it needed to be two criticals to have one left to double the damage. Up on the ceiling, the 50-HP totem tried to absorb three times that much damage and exploded with the force of a 100-damage bomb. It lay on a stone crack and ripped a tremor along the split, shattering the ice like a bullet through glass. The whole room shook, and an avalanche of stone, ice, and snow poured down upon the giant, finally knocking him to the ground on his icy patch.
{What did that achieve?} Gracie asked as Jace scrambled to his feet, trying to shake the cobwebs from his head. {That did almost no damage to him, and he is only grappled because of the stone on top of him. He isn’t secure, and he definitely isn’t pinned.}
“But he can’t raise his shield when he’s grappled,” Jace muttered as he leaped at his enemy, knowing his foe would only struggle with the rocks for one round maximum. Jace saw the weak point on the giant’s neck as clearly as if his amulet was still working, and he flashed his halberd down with all his might.
[Triple Crit. One canceled. 3x damage? Stun, 1x Damage?]
Jace could care less about the damage and picked the Stun while dumping 100 mana into the weapon to raise the difficulty by 20, spending both crits on the giant and knowing it would last at most one round again.
[Save vs. Stun failed.]
{You did it!} Gracie screamed as the Giant stopped removing the ruble from his prone body for a brief moment.
[Stunned. Prone. Helpless.]
“Any idea what his death saving throw his?” Jace asked but didn’t wait for a response as he executed a Coup De Grace.
[Quadruple Crit. One Canceled.]
The game didn’t give him the Stun option since you couldn’t stun someone twice, and it gave him 4x damage, which was 180. Even if the giant’s damage reduction were 40 and his saving throw was 70, he would have to roll a 21 not to die. Jace’s blade cut deep into the ice beneath the creature’s neck.
The orc spun around and saw Esther drop to the snow, the block of ice gone now that the giant was dead. Like a good girl, Snowy was next to her with the ring in her teeth, trying to coax it onto one of the woman’s frozen fingers. Esther was still dazed from the giant’s attack, so she didn’t fight the wolf’s efforts, and the game allowed the ring to go on.
Jace ran toward the pair as Gracie screamed into his mind. {She has three seconds left. You can’t heal her. That was amazing with the giant, but what are you doing now?}
“I can cast a spell through this halberd, right?”
{Yes, but that will only kill her faster.}
“Let’s hope you’re wrong,” Jace said as he leaped over a pile of stone that had fallen from the ceiling and watched as Esther’s health hovered at 3. He raised his weapon for another strike, knowing he had to make a legitimate attack on the woman for this to work. He was used to picking out 20s but now tried to aim for her foot and hoped it would be less than a seven.
Jace tried to ignore the concerned look on Ester’s face as he brought his attack down on the dying woman and instead funneled all the mana he had left through his healing ring and out through the weapon. The spell was Ordered by design, but traveling through the wicked halberd turned it Chaotic, meaning it was no longer at odds with the woman’s nature. The blade hit her foot, and Gracie told him he rolled a five, which was still a critical hit, and Jace let the ring Snowy had put on her finger absorb the 90 points of slashing damage. He was more concerned with the 20 Hit Points that flooded into her as his healing spell worked a second before her health would have dropped below zero.
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Jace collapsed beside the woman, gasping for breath from the exertion and stress. Snowy came by and licked his face, somehow understanding what her master had just done. Gracie was going insane. {I’ve never seen anyone heal someone using a level ten weapon with a critical hit! I do not believe what I just saw. That was amazing!}
“Thanks,” Jace wheezed. “I just thought of it. I hope I never have to do it again. Didn’t know if it was going to work. We need to find a way to heal this woman more conventionally in the future.” Jace sat up and propped himself against the edge of the room, noticing how wet it was suddenly getting on the floor. The snow and ice were melting as the magic of the dead frost giant dissipated. Soon he guessed this whole room would cave in.
“Jace,” Ester moaned. “What just happened?” Coming out of the ice block was like waking from a comma.
“Everything is fine now,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder and coaxing her to lie back in the snow. “Just relax.”
“Snowy,” he called to his familiar. She was all ears. “Esther is hungry. Please find a goblin or another kobold or something small and relatively harmless. And I need it to be mostly alive with at least 100 Hit Points. Can you find that and bring it back to us? I will carry her out of here before this place collapses.” The wolf nodded and ran off into the night.
“I can walk,” Ester insisted, but her hands slipped in the snow as she tried to prop herself up.
“Take it easy,” Jace insisted.
{First, you were disgusted by her habit of eating things,} Gracie pointed out. {Now you’re ordering her take-out.}
Jace got up and gently lifted Esther off the ground after storing his weapon in his inventory. “Just shut up, will you.”
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Snowy returned with a goblin mage after Jace had carried Esther across the open terrain and had just gotten back to the stone giant’s cavern. Esther took minor fire damage from the terrified goblin but grappled him into submission and restored herself. Jace showed her the slashing protection ring he had given her, and she filled it back up. He thought it best that she keep it. It wouldn’t have saved her from the blunt attacks of any of the giants, but he had his own damage protection methods. Plus, it gave standard protection against piercing, and the idea of an archer sniping them from a distance terrified him.
They made it back to the town shortly after midnight, and while Jace figured the game would allow them to meet with the duke whenever, Snowy and Esther were tired, and he found an inn to let them rest. Since this was a MIM, he could rest until dawn without wasting time. They were back in the barracks early the following day in a celebratory mood.
“I can’t thank you enough,” the duke started, broadly smiling. “Already, our people are herding the animals back to their pens. It looks like we should be able to make it through the winter now. We are forever in your debt.” He motioned to a massively muscled man sitting at the table. “Darius, a monk who works with our guards, says he will be able to give you a permanent blessing to aid you in your future quests.”
“Both of us?” Jace asked, looking over at Esther, who sat calmly at the table. She wore her dress today instead of armor, with her cloak over the top to protect her from the morning chill. She no longer looked like much of a warrior. “My companion was responsible for the deaths of several giants, and I couldn’t have done it without her. She also nearly died. Surely, she should receive this boon as well.”
“Well,” the duke started. “Perhaps we can give you a gift to help her instead. We have three items that should be . . .” he trailed off as one of his men whispered into his ear. “What I mean . . .” he stuttered, having just been told that the giant caverns had been searched and no magical items had been found, “is that perhaps some gold will help you . . .”
“Is that what our lives are worth to you?” Jace said, putting as much venom as he could into his voice. “We risk our lives for you, and you think you can pay us off like common mercenaries?”
“Perhaps a few diamonds would be-,” Esther started, but Jace cut her off. He had given her an idea of how these negotiations would go and didn’t want her greedy tendencies to get in the way. Instead, he looked over at another table in the large room. A quiet man wearing the robes of a priest sat by himself. This would be the Dexmachi representative Jace had asked for.
“It is not something we normally do . . .” the duke was struggling. Jace didn’t look at him but kept his eyes on the priest. The older man recognized his entry point into the negotiations.
“I believe we can accommodate that request,” the man said, rising from his table and walking to the main gathering.
“Uh, yes,” the duke muttered. “Good, then, we are all set here?”
Jace wouldn’t let him off so easily. “When we took this job, you said we would be rewarded substantially. Now I find myself having to negotiate with you for something that costs you nothing. What of these gifts you just mentioned? We saved your village; surely your hospitable reputation demands you provide us more than a minor boon?”
“Yes, well, we would normally . . . but the festival is coming soon, and we are preparing for an attack . . . and . . .”
Jace rose from the table and pulled out the sword they had given him yesterday. It had initially been too long to fit on his hip in human form, but with a bit of help from Esther, if he wore it as an orc and then cast his illusion, the sword shrank with his body without losing any of its potency.
At first, the duke thought he was being threatened, and the other guards in the room put their hands on their blades, but Jace kept the tip of the weapon pointed to the floor and laid it on the table. “You allowed me to borrow this sword for our mission, and truly it is remarkable, but I could not use it in defense as well as I had liked.” Jace caught the eye of the Dexmachi priest and knew he would have to sell this well to get what he wanted.
“I am highly skilled and more athletic than nearly all my opponents, but this sword acted only as a simple shield in combat, not allowing me to wield it dynamically in defense. If you have no equipment to aid us in our continued struggle against the evils of this land, then give us the skill to defend ourselves more adequately.”
{What in the $%&@ are you talking about?} Gracie asked. {What do they think they are going to give you?}
Jace ignored her for now and looked only at the Dexmachi priest. “You know what I am saying, and I know it is within your power to grant me my request.”
The duke was as confused as Gracie, but after a short moment of contemplation, the priest nodded. “It can be done,” he said. “An exception can be made for you alone.”
“And my companion?”
The priest frowned. “For you alone,” he repeated.
Jace nodded, knowing that he was pushing the limits as it was. He bowed his head slightly toward the priest. “Dexmachi be praised.”
The duke watched the exchange in confusion, still unsure of what was happening. When the two men were finished, he looked again at Jace. The strange man was smiling now. “Are you satisfied, adventurer? Have we been able to compensate you for your heroics adequately?”
“Yes,” Jace replied. He picked up the sword and returned it to his sheath.
“Perhaps you would like to stay for the festival,” he offered. “We have games and contests that should align with your skill set. Even the young woman might compete.”
Esther frowned and was about to correct him on his age assumption, but Jace spoke up first. “Another time. I think we will be returning, but we have pressing business in the south and must be going now.”
“As you wish,” the duke replied. He rose to shake their hands and then had a guard escort them out of the castle walls.