“When will it end?,” Ed Turner asked, leaning back in his chair at the head of the table. “First the gaunts and then almost right after the elves,” he glanced a Sinat, the new elf representative to the Council. “No offense.” Sinat nodded. “And now the giants. What’s next?”
Everyone in the very cramped room knew it was a rhetorical question. Looking around at all the faces, most old and a couple new, Loch saw that they all agreed with Ed. Loch did too. It felt like the assaults on the fledging Clan were non-stop.
Cerie had said it would be like that. It was something he was keeping from most of the others. It was the way the Connection hardened new Clans. The Connected System put them through the gauntlet, a baptism of fire, forcing them to grow stronger to survive. Not just as individual Adapted but as a Clan. The Connection wouldn’t allow them to grow complacent.
Not at the beginning.
Not ever.
The assaults would seem to slow down, but that would only be because the Clan grew large enough that the attacks wouldn’t be noticed. The amount of Clanmembers in the surrounding area, working in what would become to be known as Starter Zones, would thin out anything capable of mounting an assault. New settlements would go through the gauntlet until they grew large enough.
Loch did wonder what was next.
The giants weren’t assaulting the Clanhold. Not yet, but they would come. The Clan’s defenses would stop normal sized humans like the gaunts, but not the giants. Drew, who was in the Council meeting, had seen the giants. The only one there besides Loch and the girls. His first camp had been destroyed by them. He’d only managed to escape with a couple dozen people, making their way to Northwood and the Clanhold.
With his and Loch’s descriptions, that had been enough to worry everyone else.
“We used to hike Bluejob all the time,” Darren said quietly.
There were a couple of nods from the others that had lived in the area. Bluejob had been one of Loch’s favorite local hikes. Maybe in the Spring, if things settled down, he and the girls could go out to Stonehouse Pond and see what, if anything, had changed there.
“So the question is what do we do about the giants?,” Loch said, wanting to bring everyone back on topic.
He’d given everyone time to process what was happening about a week to the North and what it might mean to the Clan. Little River Stone had appeared back, after being gone for a long time, worse for wear. He looked like he’d been in a fight, and he had.
The Sasquatch had followed the giants and the Si-Te-Cah, wanting to find out why they had aligned and what the powerful Si-Te-Cah was searching for. He’d discovered that after watching them for a couple days at Bluejob Mountain. Then he’d been discovered and had to fight his way out of the giant’s camp. The large Sasquatch had barely made it.
He said he’d taken the long way back to the school, wanting to make sure the giants were not following him. They most likely knew of Loch’s existence, thanks to the Si-Te-Cah, but had not yet made a move on the school. Little River Stone thought it was only a matter of time. Once they found what the Si-Te-Cah wanted, they would come for the school.
Little River Stone was not in the meeting, he was too big for the doors and the room, but had told Loch and some of the others everything he knew. Cerie had filled in more, backed up by Elora and Sinat, from the Silver Bark’s encounters with the pale skinned, red haired, natives of Earth.
Some of the Council were still having a hard time getting over the fact that Sasquatch were real, and had been one of the original races on Earth, before leaving for the greater Connected System. They were willing to accept giants existing, they were now living with elves, but had a hard time accepting that bigfoot was real.
Loch looked around at the Clan Brady leadership. Three new Councilors had been added. Sinat was representing the elven interests within the Clan with Tim DeWolfe overseeing all construction aspects and Zachary Cross as the Clan’s Quartermaster. Drew and Elora were in the meeting, standing against the back wall, as they had run out of chairs and space at the table.
“These giants,” Thomas Mooney said, leaning forward at the table. “Just how tough are they?”
Everyone looked at Loch, they’d heard the story of his encounter with one.
“I got lucky and managed to cut it’s achilles,” he said. “The thing then fell down a crack in the ground. I didn’t fight one.”
He looked to Elora and Cerie, who sat in the middle of the table. Piper was outside the door, sketching in the hallway. The fairy’s eyes started glowing.
“I have never fought one,” Elora said. “Or encountered any.”
“I have some records but they are old,” Cerie added. “The Silver Bark and the giants fought long ago, but reached a stalemate and each stayed on their own side of Tirna. Because of their size, there is a large discrepancy between Levels. A Level 10 Giant is equivalent of a Level 15 or higher in another race. Big and strong, that is what a Giant is. They are not the smartest and their Shamans are mostly Elementalists with strong earth magics. There are said to be different types of Giants, but all the Silver Bark have encountered are the ones like the Hillgrowl Clan.”
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The Councilors started to digest the information. For Loch it was similar to what he’d encountered and what he’d expected. The Hillgrowl Giants sounded very familiar to Giants he’d encountered in games.
“If I may?,” Sinat said, drawing all eyes.
Loch had been surprised to learn that Sinat was Classed as a Deepwoods Ranger, the same as Elora. He hadn’t been used as a scout by the Silver Bark, but as a butcher in the camp. The Silver Bark Hunters would bring him the animals and he would skin and butcher them, preparing the meat. Not the best use of his Class, but as a half-elf, that is all the Silver Bark felt he was good for. Sinat had told Loch some of his story on the walk back to the Clanhold from the Silver Bark’s camp. He’d been born to a human mother. She had been a spoil of war by raiding elves. Even to this day, he didn’t know which Silver Bark was his father. As a bastard half-elf, he was the lowest of the low. But he’d developed a natural talent as a Ranger, earning the Class when he turned Sixteen. The village he’d grown up in, small and on the fringes of Silver Bark territory, had used him as a Ranger. They’d benefitted from his Abilities, but still treated him as the lowest of the low. When the Silver Bark came needing fodder for their expansions, the village gave them Sinat.
Surprisingly, Sinat had been a decent high Level from his years as the village Ranger. He’d fought monsters that harassed the village, hunted meat for the village. He’d done everything for the village and been tossed out as garbage at the end. When he broke his Oath to the Silver Bark, his Level penalty hadn’t been as harsh as Eloras had been. Cerie had explained that the two Oaths had been different. Sinat’s Oath had been as a servant and as he’d been Classed before taking that Oath, the System had wanted him to free himself of the Silver Bark and start Advancing as his Class again.
Loch was glad the half-elf was free of the Silver Bark, able to use his Class and Abilities the way he wanted to.
“Of course,” Loch said. “Feel free to speak.”
Sinat nodded his head.
“I have fought a Giant,” he started. “It was many years ago.” A small smile crept onto his face. “Many years ago. I am older than I look.” He chuckled, but continued. “They are strong opponents but their size is also a weakness. Smaller and quicker opponents can take advantage of the size difference. They are not opponents to meet sword to sword.” He turned toward Loch. “I saw your daughter fight. Her style of dance is perfectly suited to combat the Giants.” He pointed to Elora and himself. “As Deep Rangers, Elora Seedspear and myself are good opponents.” He pointed to Loch. “You would also be well suited to fight the giants but from what I have seen, and been told, most of the Clan is not.”
Sinat had been leaning against the wall, but now leaned forward, raising his arms, moving his hands to illustrate his points.
“Fighting a giant is not about going at it with melee. You need to either dart in and out, be fast, or you need to hit it from a distance. Or,” he looked at Loch again. “You need to have overwhelming brute force.”
“Most of our fighters are Strikers,” Alison Crawford said, looking through her notebooks with the records and relatively current stats of all of Clan Brady’s adventurers. “Pure swordsmen. Even the Guardsman and Watchman Classes are close-in combatants.”
She looked to Darren for confirmation. The Guard Captain nodded.
“Hard to believe,” Alison continued, shaking her head. “It’s only been a couple of months and I’m already used to talking about combat capabilities. Anyways, we have a handful of archers in both the adventuring teams and guard rotations. Not as many casters as we’d like. Most of the people that would fight the giants are frontliners,” she finished.
“A Striker is like a Midwarden,” Sinat asked, looking to Elora.
“Yes.”
“That is not good for this kind of fight.”
Loch leaned forward, elbows on the table.
“We have what we have, so we’ll need to plan around that,” he said, not sounding as sure as he wanted to. He’d fought plenty of giants in games and in those the size difference was rarely an issue. As much as The Connected System reminded him of those video games, it really wasn’t. “The main concern is the Si-Te-Cah. The giants are bad enough but with that one added to the mix…,” he trailed off, looking around the table. “I know Sinat said my Class and Abilities would be good against the giants but I think I’ll need to concentrate on the Si-Te-Cah. Everyone else will need to fight the giants. Drew, you’ll be in charge of the adventurer groups.”
“Me?,” Drew asked, shocked. He raised his hands in protest. “I can’t…”
“You’ll coordinate with Darren,” Loch continued, ignoring Drew’s protests. “Darren will be in charge of the guards and rest of the teams.”
“Yes sir.”
“Obviously we need to leave some strength back here so work out who and how many will come with us.”
“What’s the lowest Level we want to bring,” Darren asked.
“Ten,” Loch replied.
“That really limits us.”
“I know, but make it work.”
Loch stood up, signaling the meeting was at an end.
“Talk to the crafters, Patrick and Lewis. See if they can come up with anything. Kristin, send someone to the chicken farm and have Steve come back here. Let’s see if his Siege Engineer Class can come up with something to help.”
Loch looked around the table again, meeting eyes with everyone.
“In the meantime, everyone needs to Advance as much as they can. When we go hunt giants, we need to be as strong as possible.”