The giant seemed at a loss. So Mason acted first.

He ran forward, feeling incredibly slow despite his obvious strength, increasing the length of his strides. He increased it more and more, until he was practically leaping forward in long bounds. And he didn't have far to go.

With a final push, he practically flew at the giant, panicking as he felt his own momentum hurling forward with incredible force. The giant finally started to raise its arms to fight, but Mason smashed shoulder first into its hip. The sound wasn't flesh hitting stone. It was more like a miner's pick.

Mason grabbed on before gravity took him down, digging his fingers into the giant's rocky body with ease. He climbed and dodged the first blow, trying to get somewhere the bastard couldn't hit him. The neck, he decided. Then he’d dig down to the heart like a Roman execution.

He almost lost his grip as the giant or maybe the earth started to shake. He saw the ground was opening with another fissure, and more elementals were crawling their way out. He ignored them and kept climbing, bashing his fists against the giant partly as a test. And partly because he enjoyed it.

It kept on trying to grab him, and he kept on avoiding its fists and hands, crawling over the rocky surface like a spider.

"Free me!" the druid cried from the ground. "I can help you!"

Mason sort of wished he'd thought of that a minute ago. But since he hadn't, he kept on bashing and moving, all the way to the giant's shoulder. Then he found himself a good hold, pulled back, and smashed a fist into the stone. Then again. And again.

Chunks of rock and earth broke and tumbled, far faster than before. The giant reached for him but the angle was awkward, his flexibility terrible. Mason just kept on bashing and ripping away pieces of the creature, throwing it far away when he could, hoping it would be harder to regenerate.

"Look out!" The druid yelled in an almost hysterical voice. Mason ducked and glanced around but wasn't sure what the hell the man was talking about until he saw the elementals were climbing up after him.

"Ah hell." He stomped on the first and knocked it flying, then went back to smashing his way into the giant's chest. Another tried to grab him from behind, and he took the time to stand and grab it back. They both pushed and struggled for a moment. Then Mason grinned, planted his feet, and threw the bastard like a shotput. He went back to bashing.

"Think you can ignore..." Mason ripped off a chunk, "me?"

He was deep enough now he could drop in the hole, which he did, then kicked the side until it cracked and crumbled. "Son of a bitch talking rock." He kept kicking until the wall broke, then he kept smashing downward. "God damn druids,” he was still muttering. “And Gaia. And giant...rockmen. Regenerate...this."

It seemed easier now—as if the hardest piece of the creature was the exterior, with something more like dirt and mud beneath. He supposed it made sense. The elementals were still coming, though apparently not great at climbing. Or balancing. The few that reached him he yanked off just by grabbing and pulling out their legs.

The giant was re-constructing itself, shifting and trying to bury Mason with dirt and stone as he dug.

"Go ahead," he shouted, digging now mostly like a dog. "I’ve been buried before. By a lot worse than you."

At some point he was pretty sure the giant tried flopping over. The whole world spun, then crashed, and Mason went face first into dirt so hard he tasted blood. Then he held himself up, and kept on pounding.

Soon he was so deep the outside sound disappeared, and all he could hear was his own heart, his violent hammering, and the humming of the gem he could still see with Ranger's Mark. He was getting close now. Finally a voice echoed in his ears.

"Stop. Or it will kill the druid."

Mason laughed. He could almost see the green and gold eyes of Cerebus sitting in his throne, asking if Mason had the strength to kill his own young, or a young rival. He probably didn't. Or maybe didn't want that kind of strength. But you didn't give a bully an inch. Not for anything.

He smashed and pulled and dug until he broke through to the last, muddy layer before the gem. As he did, it was like an animal playing possum. The giant stilled and stopped shaking, the ever-closing and crushing weight of the earth around him leaving Mason alone. He had to squint as the bright light of the gem broke through the dirt. He touched it with his hand.

"It will serve. For a thousand years," rumbled the giant's voice. "But must not harm the gem."

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Mason hesitated at that. This thing was incredibly powerful. Could he use it to simply walk up to the orc towers and smash his way inside? To combat whatever nonsense roboGod was about to throw at him?

Out of curiosity, he pulled up his profile and tried to activate some kind of contract with the thing, but saw no option.

He was about to ask the creature how he could trust it, then stopped. He thought of the druid outside being dragged around for eternity. Of how he had been dragged and would have certainly died if it wasn't for his powers.

No. Whatever this thing was, it was evil, or close enough. You didn't torture anything like that, even an enemy. You just ended it. Or else you were nothing but a tyrant who’d won.

He felt the length of the extremely warm gem in his strange, scaly hand, knowing it would have burnt his flesh to the touch before. If the giant had just killed him, as he it should have killed the druid, instead of its obsession with punishment, it would have survived. The justice of it felt right. Mason squeezed slightly, then ripped the gem from its bed of stone.

He heard the giant gasp like a mountain breeze. Then the world spun and shook as it collapsed.

* * *

[Killed Greater Elemental. Experience (major) gained.]

[You have received enough experience for level 17! Please select a new power, and upgrade a previous power to tier 2.]

[Title gained: Slayer of Rochmananoch. +2 Will.]

Mason held on as the giant fell. When he was sure it had stopped moving, he pocketed the gem and went back to digging through mud, this time in the other direction.

As he got closer he heard something digging from the other way, and smiled a little when he heard Streak's whines. He wasn't sure how long he'd been holding his breath, but certainly no longer than when he was stuck inside the Devourer. And with his ever increasing stats, it was getting easier.

Mostly he just focused and tore at the giant's stony corpse with his bare hands, trying not to think about how insane it was that he could do it, or how inhumanly long he could go without oxygen.

Then light struck his sensitive eyes, and he burst out with a spray of dirt and rock to gasp the air. Streak yipped and bit his Sleeve, trying to drag him out until he pat the wolf's head and waved him off.

"I'm alright," he said, extracting himself than giving the wolf a hug and a scratch. He had no idea what he looked like, but Streak didn't seem to care. Mason finally stood and sighed with relief when he found the elementals all lying like puppets without strings. Then he turned to the druid, who sat staring at the dead giant and the dull iron chain around his ankle with disbelief.

"You alright?" Mason called as he leapt down, giving the man a once over with Ranger's Mark. He looked like a meth addict about to expire, but that was how he looked before.

"Yes." The old man slowly shook his head, red eyes blinking repeatedly as he stood. "The chain...can you...I think it's not...but it's still..."

Mason seized the now dull colored iron, and slowly ripped it out from the giant's body with a grunt. "Kinda long." Mason frowned. "I can probably rip it apart like I did mine without tearing your arm off. But maybe if we brace it on a rock, or..."

"Why?" The old druid stared at him with glistening eyes. "Why did you save me?"

Mason looked at the broken man and didn't expect much of a reward was coming. Whatever powers he'd once had were clearly diminished, maybe even gone. But surely he had knowledge of the world that could be useful.

"Couldn't let it stand in my woods, could I?" He seized the chain and cracked his neck, preparing to pull the links apart. “We have a settlement. It’s safe enough, and comfortable. You can live there as long as you want.”

"Don't bother." The old druid dropped to his knees, and as Mason looked at him he saw he looked…increasingly worse. His skin seemed to be shrinking. His bones were sticking out even more than before.

"Shit." Mason ran to the man and caught him before he toppled over. "What's happening? How do I help you?"

The old druid weezed and laughed like a maniac, then calmed. "Already…helped me, young man." He looked up at the sky and smiled. "I go to the earth. At long last. I can't believe...I can't believe it's real."

Mason just held him and smiled, letting out a long breath, trying to remember what the nymphs had called him. "You made it. Sleep. God knows you've earned it."

The old druid met Mason's eyes and clutched his arm with failing strength. "A gift," he whispered. "Knowledge. All...I have left."

Mason didn't expect there was time for a 500 year dissertation. He just held the old druid up and patted his arm. Then green light shone from his eyes. His skeletal fingers clamped down with renewed grip.

"Witness...the past," he whispered, and Apex Predator squawked in Mason's vision about blocking out a foreign mental power, which he winced at but ignored.

Power struck him like cold water. He shivered and watched Wayfinder spring up in a grid before his eyes. He saw the druid and the giant walking through the grey of his map. Clearing it.

Time seemed so slow. Mason felt the breath in his lungs trickling in, out. He watched the old man walk the forests of the world alone, then as the giant’s prisoner, slowly at first, then like a video at three, four, five, a hundred times speed.

As they did, Mason saw all. The unexplored grey of the great forest gained color and shape. He saw rivers and mountains, valleys and hills. The forest expanded, burned, changed.

Beasts and tribes of humanoids moved in and out, birthed and died. In moments the entire length of the great forest was mapped in Mason's mind, the pathways of the giant as familiar as the street he'd grown up on.

[Received Blessing of Echtra. Passive power. Enhanced knowledge and insight in every forest in the world.]

He blinked when it was over, then saw a tear drip down Echtra's cheek as he slumped, lifeless, into Mason's lap.

Mason sat there for a time, breathing and listening to the forest, struck at the horror and beauty of this insane 'game' and perhaps just at being alive. Finally he rose and dug into the earth with his hands, just as he'd dug into the giant, until he'd made a pit at least six feet down.

He set Echtra’s body inside and buried him, tempted to leave the giant's gem in his grave. "You'd understand," he whispered, palming it instead. "I’ll use it to help the living."

Not being a man of words, and certain that the dead didn't need them anyway, Mason called to Streak and turned back towards Nassau. He only hoped he hadn't been gone too long.