There are several kinds of giants, the smallest and weakest are known as Hill Giants. This variety is roughly twice the size of a human and are often confused with Ogres. Though their inteligence and physical ability are similar. - Common Mosters
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Adrian
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The orc shaman before us laughs in its guttural tongue, before he points at our group. Once he does so, the undead beside him emit a ghastly blue flame as they begin to charge us. This is bad, we need to do something.
The undead are all simple zombies, though they are now moving closer to the speed they had in life. The shaman slams his staff down on the street, the road splits and some sort of dark violet vapor is wafting out of it to cover the staff.
Bryan and K are in melee against the undead, the ghastly fire washing over the two. Bryan seems unaffected but K is weakening as the encounter continues. I move to the edge of the group, and strike at one of the zombies.
My blade shatters, I guess it was not enchanted then. Now I am weaponless, what am I going to do? These undead hold no weapons and the items from the slain goblins will not hold up either. I dodge a punch from one of the undead, I make sure to leave a margin so these odd flames do not touch me.
I am too dependent on my magic, but it’s also the best tool I have. There are no more weapons back within the bank. The only thing I have going for me is that I am quicker than these corpses. I dodge a lunge and kick the creature into another of the undead. I feel my leg go cold as it passes through the flame. Cold but not frost fire, harms the living but not the dead. I move past those two, I should try to get to the shaman.
I keep some of the undead between us as I approach him. While the undead are attacking me, they are slow and when I leave the field of view move to attack the others who they can see. They are mindless, and weren’t given very good instructions.
By the time I’ve passed all the undead, I had to pass through their odd fire a few times. I feel cold but the orc did not notice and the undead have moved on. Why was I able to pull that off?
My question is answered once I approach the shaman, the answer being that the shaman had noticed me. I attempt to tackle the shaman, not a great plan but there wasn’t much else I could do. Instead the shaman turns and waves his staff before me, and I fall straight into the darkness.
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Kythia
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I don’t know what Adrian is doing, after his sword broke he started to move through the dozens of undead. He said that he needed to rest before using his magic, but surely he can use some here.
I slash at one of the zombies, it falls inert at my feet. I am starting to get lightheaded but can hold the blood flame for some time still. It’s been active for a few minutes, these weak undead cannot hold against it. The only problem is that I can’t feed the blood fire on those that are already dead.
I keep an eye on Adrain as he moves through the undead, how is he turning their attention to his friend and me? I slay two more as he begins to move at the green skin deathspeaker.
Half of the undead have returned to rest by the time Adrian begins to charge the deathspeaker. As he charges the deathspeaker it did something, a hole open between them and Adrian just fell in. My vision narrows, I need to get there before the hole closes.
I charge, ignoring the strikes of those around me. The deathspeaker turns to me as the hole closes, his staff pulling it into itself. He chants and some spheres of blackness flies out at me, Dark Missile.
I cast my own copy of the spell, and the two negate each other in midair. I am now a few feet from the deathspeaker, I lunge and am blocked by a field of energy. I don’t know what spell is being used to block me. The hole Adrian fell into finishes closing and my vision goes red.
I attack with wild abandon, not caring if the deathspeaker’s attacks hit me or not. Soon my blade shatters the energy field around him, though several bolts of darkness have struck me. My next strike is blocked by the deathspeaker’s staff, and shatters it my blade.
The unnatural glow of the staff dims slightly, the deathspeaker is grinning. His grin does not last long after I take a quick few steps closer and bite at his neck. I can feel the warmth of his blood but the taste is vile, I spit the blood out only to look in horror as his flesh regrows. The staff’s glow dimming.
The deathspeaker is now afraid, his protections are gone. I grab his arm and bite the hand to make him drop the staff. He lets out a scream in the middle of a chant for a spell. I hear the staff hit the ground. Various other noises of things hitting the ground follow, while I scratch and bite at the deathspeaker.
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Soon a blade passes by me, granting the mercy of death to my foe. A hand touches my shoulder, I turn to attack. The one who touched me was Adrian’s friend, I stop and growl. He backs up and does not block me as I move to the staff, my vision returning to normal.
I’ve seen staves like this before, you capture the living inside of them and the space inside kills them and stores their souls to be used as fuel for your magic. I once saw one destroyed, a ritual that takes hours, to release the souls and corpses stuck within it.
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Adrian
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I am in a lightless space, there is no warmth here either. I cannot feel the air even when I move. I take a breath and feel no wind over my tongue, there is no air here. I hold my breath. Where am I? I was fighting a shaman and then just blackness.
I begin to move, I need to find a way out before I suffocate. Soon I find myself touching something, it feels like mush with something hard within. My lungs soon begin to ache from holding my breath as I search for something to get me out of wherever this is.
My lungs ache and I involuntarily release my breath, the ache begins to dim. Will I suffocate here? I don’t want to die like this.
[You won’t.]
The voice of the small dragon comes into my mind. I thought it was asleep.
[I was.]
Great just like me-but-not-me, it can hear all my thoughts.
[What do you mean I won’t]
[We are in a void; a void will not kill us by just being here.]
We are in a void, then Void Body and Sustenance is going to keep me alive. We are just in an extradimensional space, all I have to do is wait until that shaman opens it again. That won’t take long right?
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I’m not sure how much time has passed but I’ve taken a several naps. If I had to guess days have gone by. How much longer will I have to wait?
Regardless of the lack of air I am actually becoming comfortable in this dark and lightless space. The small dragon seems to be the embodiment of me as a dragon. He has been interesting to talk with though his opinions are almost identical to my own.
Games were no fun since we could tell everything the other was going to do. It didn’t help that there wasn’t much to play with. Am I crazy for trying to play games with a voice in my head? Is this voice like me-but-not-me? I am not sure. At least I am not hurting as much from the injuries in the astral anymore. I should see if I have recovered enough
I will a light into being. It worked, I felt strained to make the light but it worked. I however wish that it failed. This dark void is filled with rotting corpses, I dry heave for a bit, and the light dissipates as I fail to throw up. Good thing I haven’t eaten in a while.
When I move away from the piles of rotten flesh the void begins to shake. I think, it feels unstable now. Like it is going to break. A dim glow begins to appear in the direction I’ve been thinking of as down. I can see the piles of flesh drift towards it.
Is it a way out? I do not want to be in that flesh again, but it’s different. Some of the rotten meat passes through the dim light and is gone. I am going to hate this but I rush towards the light.
Sunlight and air, are back once I pass through that dim light. There is also a sense of falling for a moment before I land on almost smooth black stone. Asphalt, I take a breath and smell the rot of the meat I followed out of the void. I feel bile rise in my throat, but force it to stay within me.
I look around, there are many dead goblinoids, and rotten meat around the street. I don’t seem to be near the bank but am still in the Althaen camp. K is sitting in the middle of a circle of white runes where bits of rotten flesh are appearing and falling to the ground. A broken stick with a skull attached to one end.
After she throws up from the stench she brought down; she begins to look around. I sit up and she sees me. It is the early morning, I don’t hear any more sounds from the battle. The others are not nearby.
K rushes over to me but stops to look at my eyes.
“I’m alive and don’t want to clean this up.”
She helps me to my feet before hugging me, then she threw up again. I’m covered in the rotting meat. I hear something approach and pull her away from the circle now filled with rotting meat. She doesn’t let go of me.
Several soldiers run over, one in a chainmail shouts orders to the others.
“Fan out, secure the area and find who did this!”
That’s my cue to get out of here. I pull us behind a building and burn the rot and stench off us, accidently setting the building on fire before we run. I didn’t burn the clothes though. I don’t know what the Althaen would do to someone who did whatever K did, but the soldiers did not seem happy.
We smell of smoke and burnt meat when we get to the bank, but that is far better than what we left behind. The elven twins run over and help us get inside. They were surprised to see me, Lysan hugged me and Talia moved to but stopped herself.
“You’re alive” says Lysan as she squeezes herself against me.
“Yes, is there any water?”
She nods, and leads K and me into the bank. There are a few buckets of water in the bathroom.
“You go first.”
K nods and then enters the bathroom alone. Bryan walks out of his room near the back, “welcome back. Everyone is still alive.”
I nod at him, that is good news.
“How long was I away?”
“A few hours.”
That doesn’t make sense, I am sure that I spent days or maybe weeks in that void. Time dilation? I suppose it doesn’t actually matter, just means there is less that could have happened while I was gone.
“How did you survive in a deathspeaker’s staff” asks Lysan interupting my thoughts. There is some worry on her face.
Deathspeaker? She must mean that orc shaman, is that the proper name for what he was?
“I’m a dragon.”
And she gives me a look of disbelief. “Dragons can’t live in a vacuum, and you're human.”
“That’s my explanation, believe what you will” I tell her with a smirk.
“The nobles are having a feast over their victories. We are expected to show up” says Talia after approaching. I think I see some shadows from people leaving the front door.
I sigh, I do not like interacting with the Althaen. “Then we will have to go.”