They spent the morning shopping for winter gear for the trip. They were all downstairs when their guide, Jallik, entered the inn. He was wearing leather armor, and there was an axe strapped to each of his hips. His beard was braided into two thick cords that dangled on either side of his chin. “Ho there!” he called to them. “The name is Jallik, and I be your guide.” He also worked at the foundry, so Vultressant and Taloc had met him before. The others introduced themselves, and he led them outside.
They were greeted by an ox that was larger than any of them had thought possible. “That ox should be blue,” Maroftis said, eliciting a laugh from Taloc. Vultressant had been thinking nearly the same thing, and he nodded in response. The others, including of course Jallik, clearly did not understand. “You guys never been to the Dells?”
“Where is that?” Isla asked.
“It’s in Wisconsin,” Taloc said.
Isla shook her head. “I’m from the east coast, and I never really visited the flyby states.”
“Well, Paul Bunyan was a huge lumberjack, and he had an equally huge ox that was blue and named Babe,” Taloc said. “I don’t know if he lived in Wisconsin or not, but they seem to celebrate him, and there’s a restaurant where you can get all-you-can-eat pancakes. It’s pretty amazing.”
Vultressant heard a loud rumble, and Maroftis’ rubbed his belly.
Isla rolled her eyes. “We just ate, lizardman. Can you get your mind off of food for just ten minutes?”
Maroftis shrugged, and Ewtain interjected, “I’ve heard of Paul Bunyan. He was a myth among the loggers, and I believe that he’s credited for digging the Grand Canyon.”
“I haven’t heard about that,” Taloc said, “but the logging thing checks out.”
“Where be your packs?” Jallik said, looking as if he had absolutely no interest in the present conversation.
“We each have a portable storage container,” Taloc said quickly.
Jallik nodded. “Right, then let’s be off.”
Vultressant was amazed that one ox would be enough to pull the cart. Sure, it was huge, but the cart looked like it might weigh a ton. It was heavily laden with boxes and sacks, all of which looked very heavy. When Jallik led the ox to pull the cart, the wheels made a screeching sound in protest until they moved along at a steady pace, then subsided to a more muted squeaking.
Vultressant had wanted to try to learn the Dwarvish language, but Jallik proved to not be very chatty, and he had no interest in teaching his language to anyone. Vanya was usually away from the cart looking for herbs, so his only option was to try to finish off learning the Koraken language. That was probably for the best, because he had that language to rank eight, while his Elvish was stuck at five.
By the middle of the second day, he had achieved rank ten mastery in the Koraken language. Just as he had when he had mastered Anuran, he received another six points to his Intellect, which corresponded to another 60 mana points—his totals were now 44 and 440, respectively. He had also been able to help Maroftis increase his skill in Common, so it turned out to be very productive.
When they made camp each night, he summoned Elida briefly in order to practice the spell and continue his attempts to bond with the Fire Sprite. As an added bonus, she was willing to speak to him in Fae, so he was able to practice her language as well. He spoke Common back to her because she preferred it that way, so the language part was slow going, but he hoped that when he was able to speak the language more fluently, she would allow him to address her in Fae. He thought about just ignoring her wishes, but he didn’t want to risk her loyalty for a few Intellect points, and it just seemed rude to defy her request.
By the end of the fourth day, they had made it into the mountains, and Jallik cautioned that they should cover their fire to prevent monsters in the area from easily locating them. Vultressant summoned Elida behind a rock because she too gave off light, and he received a notification that his fire magic skill had risen to level seven. He was a little surprised by this, because he had come to the conclusion that the non-language skills could not increase easily without being used in a conflict situation. Vanya, Taloc, Isla, and Vultressant had all been practicing with the bow since arriving on Faltoral, but none of them had received any increases to the skill. Also, he had spent a day casting his bolt of fire spell whenever his spell power reached its maximum, and he was unable to receive a single increase to his fire magic skill. The only difference that he could think of was that the Sprite might decide to attack him or the others, so the added danger of summoning her might be the difference. The Anurans had said that practice could have minimal benefits. He would have to ask Oeister for clarification when they returned to Ildul.
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The following day, they made it to a wide mountain pass, where they could see for several miles to the east. There were clusters of people all across the hills below, and Jallik said, “I have never seen so many Orcs.”
Vultressant looked down but was unable to make out any individuals at this distance, but there were tent-like structures in each of the clusters. “How can you see that far?” he asked the Dwarf.
Jallik spat on the ground. “I no need to see them; they control that territory, and there are dozens of camps down there. Many more than there usually are.”
“They are too far away for me to see in any detail,” Vanya said. She had the best eyesight in their party, and it was likely better than Jallik’s as well. “I don’t see a way that they can get up to us; are we safe up here?”
“Safe from the Orcs? Aye,” Jallik replied. “Safe? No, but if we stick to the mountain wall, anything flying about will have a harder time seeing us.”
“Are there a lot of flying monsters around here?” Isla asked, as she nervously scanned the sky for danger.
“There are many dangers in the mountains,” Jallik said, “and many creatures can fly. Most of the aerial hunters would avoid a party this large, which is one of the reasons that the council has paid you to escort me. There are some, however, that would not hesitate to attack or try to grab one of us and fly away.”
With thoughts of griffons, chimeras, manticores, and dragons at the forefront of their minds, they decided to keep to the mountainside edge of the pass. While they saw nothing in the skies above, just after the first sun had set for the night, an enormous creature appeared in front of them, where the path curved left around the mountain. The creature roared and charged at the group.
They had some time to prepare because the giant was still a long way away from them, but it was moving faster than they could run and certainly faster than the ox could pull that heavy cart. Underneath the tattered wraps of what might once have been clothing, even at a distance, Vultressant could see that the giant was hideously deformed, with oozing sores mottling its gray skin. There was a large lump at the back of its head that looked like the beginnings of a second head. The creature was muscular, too, and some of the muscles were freakishly large.
Taloc, who had been traveling ahead of the rest of the group, had already shot an arrow at the charging hulk, but the shot came up short. The rest of them moved quickly to back up Taloc, but Jallik stopped the ox and took his axes off of his belt. He moved a few feet away from the ox, but he clearly intended to be the last line of defense for the cart. Isla made it up to Taloc’s position, and she loosed an arrow just as he sent out another one himself. The creature held up a deformed and oversized forearm that it used as a shield, and both arrows lodged into that. The monster—not bothered by the arrows at all—didn’t slow.
Vultressant ran to Taloc and cast enhanced speed on the Ranger, giving him an edge in the battle. Next, he decided to prepare a bolt of fire and use it unless it got close enough to him that he could use either the wind wave spell or the frost spray spell. He saw Vanya drink a potion before she drew her bow and aimed at the giant. Maroftis and Ewtain passed Taloc as they ran towards the giant. Those two could hopefully distract the creature while the rest of them sent arrows or spells at it. While the first two arrow hits had done little, they might be able to wear it down, especially if they could hit anything vital. Taloc seemed to have had the same thought, as he continued to shoot at the charging giant.
Vultressant looked for any area that might offer cover or other protection in the event that the giant tried to throw anything at him. It had made no move to throw anything, but Vultressant was very aware of the capacity of giants to hurl boulders, so he wanted to be prepared. He found a gap in the mountain face and took a position there. He began casting his bolt of fire spell, and he added extra power to it for about ten seconds as he waited for the giant to get closer. He thought that he should be able to hit the creature at the present distance—it was at least 30 feet tall and extremely wide—but he could not afford to waste mana with a missed shot. Vultressant aimed for the center of its chest, but the bolt ended up hitting its left arm, igniting the tattered cloth that covered the area. It exploded upon impact, and the creature gave a start with both surprise and pain. It had to slow down as it tried to smother the flames.
Another arrow hit the creature’s thigh, but it again ignored the hit. The party had done minimal damage to it thus far, and its life bar had barely dropped. Vultressant was afraid that they would not even be able to slow the creature as he looked for any sign of weakness.
When Maroftis and Ewtain engaged with the giant, they did their best to just keep it occupied while the rest of them could shoot at it. Each man waited for the volleys to distract the giant enough that an opening would present itself. Both of them wielded a sword, but neither made any real attempt to attack the monster initially, as they wanted to get an idea of its capabilities in battle. The giant wielded a fist like a club and smashed it down on the rocky path where Ewtain had been a moment before. The strike was slow, and Ewtain was very fast, so he appeared to be in no danger from an attack like that. Maroftis, who was far less nimble, barely dodged away from a similar strike.
Taloc, Isla, and Vanya were able to rain arrows at the upper torso while the two melee combatants kept the giant occupied. It blocked some of the arrows with its forearm, but some made it past to strike its stomach. This was at least doing some damage, and its HP bar slowly drained. Vultressant landed two charged bolt attacks. The creature either realized that it would end up looking like a pin cushion or it was just tired of attacking the dodging figures at its feet because it stopped its attempts to strike or grab Ewtain and Maroftis. It grunted and moved towards the four, who were using ranged attacks against it.
Maroftis took the opportunity to strike the monster in the leg. His sword cut deep, but the giant appeared to almost reflexively swat the Berserker away. The strike sent Maroftis flying away, and he was airborne for roughly ten feet before hitting the ground and sliding for at least that same distance. He came to a stop just a few feet from the edge of the path, a fall that would likely have won the battle against his regeneration ability.