Mason heard the giant before he saw it. Dull, thunderous booms echoed through the trees like a deep bass drum with perfect rhythm. Mason had reached what seemed the Southern edge of the great forest, beyond it more mountains and arid ground that looked almost like desert.

It was a stark and vaguely unnatural contrast, at least on earth, but apparently not in roboGod's new world.

As he emerged from the denser trees he found the giant's head sticking up from a nearby patch of young spruce. It looked exactly as it had in his dreams, and for a moment he stopped and stared with a strange feeling of dejavu. He ran a hand over his goblin bow and winced, wondering exactly what the hell he was going to do if it came to a fight.

The giant must have been thirty feet tall and almost solid rock. Even with magic swords, could Mason really expect to hack apart a walking hill? Not that arrows would do much better, he supposed. Though with his new arrow types maybe he could slowly blow chunks off the thing.

Take out a leg, he told himself and sighed, then began the chase.

When he finally caught the thing it was crushing through a fallen tree like it was kicking away a child's toy. It didn't slow or even seem to consider going around, massive leg just moving with a kind of inevitable force that broke the trunk and launched it away.

And there, just below its ankle, was an ancient man who might have been a corpse, running with what looked like pure misery at its side. A silver chain was wrapped around his chest and waist, the other end emerging from the giant’s rock.

The sight of that helped harden Mason's heart. Even if this were some evil man or criminal, no punishment deserved such an endless torture. And if he were a good man or just an enemy of the giant, such cruelty demanded an answer. Mason activated Ranger's Mark on the giant, already missing Nature's Wrath.

As usual a kind of x-ray image formed of the creature's body. It didn't help much. The thing had no organs whatsoever. It seemed to be exactly what it looked like—a giant pile of rock and clay, impossibly animated in a mockery of physics, carved with vaguely humanoid features. The only exception was an obviously magical rock of some kind in the very center, looking like what might have passed for a heart.

No problem, Mason thought. Just dig through 10 feet of solid rock, and break the gem.

He expected lightning magic to do exactly nothing. Option two was try and break a joint or two and leave the giant sprawled on the ground. Otherwise, he could just smash the chains on the old man, and run him the hell away. Option 3 seemed the sanest choice.

"Help me!"

The old druid had apparently spotted Mason. Red veined, desperate eyes looked out from a face mostly hidden by white, scraggly beard. For a moment the old man stopped to face Mason, then gasped as his delay yanked the chain and pulled him off his feet. He screamed in pain as his emaciated body was dragged along, the giant seemingly without the slightest interest.

Mason grit his teeth, pulled his goblin bow, and braced himself mentally for insanity.

"Get nowhere near it," he called to Streak. "If I want you to do something, I'll call. But don't get stupid."

Streak made a sound like a sneeze, but he’d obey. Mason circled to the thing's flank, then without much in the way of a plan, selected a fire arrow and launched a Power Shot directly at the giant's hip.

It struck, and exploded, blasting off a chunk of rock. "Ha!" Mason shouted, a bit surprised it actually worked.

The giant stopped walking. It turned, lifeless grey eyes pointed in Mason's direction before it looked down as if to check on the old man. A voice boomed from its head, though it made no indication of speaking.

"It warned your kind. Not to interfere. Daughters of Gaia. Sons of Cerebus." The voice rose steadily as if enraged. "A thousand years. Promise made, promise kept. For his arrogance: six hundred and three walked. Three hundred ninety seven left. Run away, whelp. Run away or it makes a new promise. Broken and bound beside him: you too will walk a thousand years."

A chill shivered down Mason's spine. First of all, he hadn't expected such an eloquent walking pile of rocks. He thought of the nymph's warning not to underestimate the giant and face him alone. Now that he'd found him and listened to him speak, he was feeling entirely less sure he wanted to ignore that advice.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

On the other hand, his arrow had harmed the thing. It might take considerable time more or less waiting for Power Shots and explosive arrows, but Mason saw no real way for the giant to actually hurt him. It was far too big and slow.

Of course he knew it might have tricks. Maybe magic. Maybe some kind of hidden allies. Mason's gut told him to be extremely wary. But he was also very fast, healed endlessly, and was in the open in his woods with plenty of room to run.

It was also getting clear to Mason this giant was exactly the thing he hated—some powerful thing that used its strength to crush anything it considered weak. It may have been a walking, magic mountain, but really, it was a bully.

Mason looked at the poor man who'd apparently been tortured for six hundred years, and ground his teeth. Still. Maybe they could be reasonable.

"He's had enough," Mason called. "Release the druid, and I'll go on my way. What you do is your business, but not when it tortures a man for so long, even an enemy. Let him go, or I'll put an end to it."

The dull light behind the giant's eyes hummed like electricity. "Arrogance. No different than the other. Earth gods do not bargain. Tremble before its might."

The ground shook as the giant held up its arms, gently for a moment, then worse than the small quake Mason had felt when he lived in Houston, until it was so terrible he could hardly stand.

Fissures opened up in the earth, splitting like cracks and opening wider and wider as they coursed along the ground. Mason saw one heading straight for him, and tasted bile as he tried to rise.

"Ah hell."

* * *

Mason gave up trying to stand, activating Aspect of the Cheetah and literally run-crawling on all fours as he threw himself away from the growing fissure. Trees collapsed everywhere the earth broke, vanishing into the darkness Mason decided he should definitely avoid.

Then the tremors finally ceased, and Mason stood and launched another exploding Power Shot into the giant's exact same hip, watching more rubble fall to the ground.

"Last chance," Mason called. "Let him go. Or I break you apart piece by piece."

The old druid's mouth hung open, and he cringed slightly as he looked up at his jailer. The giant stomped his foot and screamed.

Mason winced and almost covered his ears before it was over. "Well that's a little childish," he muttered, waiting for whatever lovely bit of magic was about to come his way before hearing something like...scratching?

He looked back at the chasm and soon realized it was coming from that direction. He wasn't sure, exactly, but if he had to guess, he expected something, or some things, were climbing up.

"Great,” he muttered. “The mountain has friends."

Mason started tossing exploding traps at the edge of the chasm for whatever came out, then went down his list of cool-down arrows and tried everything at the giant.

Frost did shit all. Electric same. Acid did a little better, and at least knocked off some dust. Out of thoroughness he used Crippling Strike but it had exactly as much effect as anticipated.

Then his traps were exploding and Mason looked back to see smaller versions of the giant getting blown back into the chasm. He grinned, then felt it drop when he saw about thirty more.

‘Smaller’, in this case, was an importantly relative term. The 'little giants' were about ten feet of solid rock, and when they reached the surface they began charging at about the speed of athletic sprinters. Mason decided it was going to be a very long day.

A brutal, rather chaotic, and deadly game of bow tag began.

Mason used Hunter's Mark but mostly just learned they were 'elementals' and not giants, with about as much vulnerability as their massive sire. Everything worked on them, though, except electricity. He could cripple them, explode them, freeze them, blow them up with traps, or just draw his Claws and hack at them.

They were much slower when it came to actually hitting him with their fists, and Mason soon gave up his bow and just hacked and slashed the shit out of them while doing his best to avoid getting sucker punched.

After enough whining from Streak he let the wolf join in. It couldn't actually bite them, but soon learned a game much like cow tipping, involving running at the creatures and throwing itself into their backs or sides to knock them over.

Before they rose, it usually managed to leap and paw at a joint enough to damage it, or at least give Mason time to take a few cuts. It was all going rather well, really, until Mason realized he wasn't make an inch of progress on the giant itself.

Then as he was running from a small pack of the elementals, he happened to look at some he'd broken and saw them...re-assembling themselves.

"Oh this is some horseshit." He stopped and flexed a wrist. It wasn't that much fun smashing your sword into rock over and over, but at least he’d seen his Transformation power ticking away.

Apparently killing the elementals was useless, unless it drained the thing’s mana. It probably did, but he had a feeling it would take about a decade to drain it all. He needed to just outrun the bastards while he kept shooting the giant.

"Streak, just distract them," he called. "No more tipping, there's no bloody point."

His new strategy was making passes at his giant friend, emptying his cool downs, and running away again. The first couple shots, at least, were fairly satisfying.

As more of the giant rained down and thunked on the ground, the giant looked down and back at Mason, who gave him a winning smile before vanishing back into the trees.

It was four or five rounds of that before the now sedentary giant finally reached down to the fallen bits of itself and pulled them back into its body like in that fucking terminator movie.

Mason stopped and gaped, breathing slightly harder from his exertions. The giant just stared impassively, uncaring as the sea.