NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ltclnlbrain" data-source="post: 2326736" data-attributes="member: 12882">Chapter 32"You travel upon our road, short ones. We demand you pay us a toll for using it."Jelani rolled his eyes. The five frost giants who stood alongside the road ahead were illuminated by the fading rays of the setting sun. Behind the mystic theurge, his other companions and Taigiel watched the giants warily, hands hovering near their weapons. Right, like we carry around a thousand gold pieces on each of our persons all the time, Jelani thought to himself.  He sighed and stepped forward before beginning to speak in the rumbling tongue of the Giant language."Don’t be foolish, we could crush the lot of you in less than a minute if we really had the desire. Luckily for you, we both have the same enemy. Take us to your leader and we’ll speak of an alliance to destroy the dragon Acessiwal. That is unless you’d prefer to be crushed under the might of the dragon’s armies?"One giant stepped forward as well, laughing heartily. The other four shared the chuckle. "Tiny fool! Do you really think we would want to fight the white wyrm? He has crushed us many times in the past, scattered our once mighty kingdom into dozens of pitiful tribes! Our leaders are dead, and all we care about now is survival. Give us your money or we will take it from your dead corpses."Though Rumar did not understand the language, there was one word that was unmistakable: Acessiwal. Alarmed, the paladin strode up beside Jelani.""What have you told them of the dragon?" he asked Jelani, spreading his wings and slowly propelling himself up to look into the speaking giant's eyes. "Whatever you said, it seems clear their response was negative."The giant stared at the paladin, snorting, as he reached into a bag at his waist and retrieved a boulder. He sneered at Rumar and casually tossed the rock up and down, a silent threat. Rumar nodded slightly. "If you have told them of our quest and they still refuse to remove themselves from our path, then they are clearly no more than spineless cowards," he continued, raising his voice loudly as he glared at the frost giants. Well, Rumar may not have been able to understand the giants, but the giants were certainly able to understand him, especially his words of challenge. They reared back and hurled enormous rocks at the paladin. A few clattered off his shield and armor, and two missed him completely, sending up plumes of snow as they hit the ground.Roaring in challenge, the giants started forward, drawing enormous greataxes as they approached. "Your life ends here!"Jelani snarled as he too began floating in the air, the winds of Akadi buoying up above the tundra. "Your choice is that your families have perished in vain, your bloodlines will end here and now; and there will be no vengeance. You truly honor the fallen by your cowardice...if you reconsider be clear about your surrender." He gestured and whispered a prayer, and a roaring column of divine flame engulfed the lead giant. The giant howled in pain as the fire seared his flesh."Jeez, so much for diplomacy," said Grundar, drawing his rapier and activating his blinking ring."Where diplomacy fails, might prevails, my friend," said Rhys. "Let Torm's holy flame show them the error of their ways!" In a mimic of Jelani's spell, the priest summoned another column of divine fire down on the lead giant. He staggered to a knee, barely able to keep standing.Rumar grunted with some satisfaction as the boulders go tumbling about, signaling the beginning of the fight. Petty as it was, he was glad this had happened - nothing quite like a good ol' straight-forward battle with giants to help bolster the confidence.Besides, perhaps if they proved they could handle themselves the giants would be willing to back down. Healing spells could always be administered after."Nostramos!" he bellowed, twin blasts of energy bursting forth from his eyes to hungrily seek his opponent's flesh. The searing lights burned into the lead giant, and with a groan he collapsed forward onto his face.Terenon laughed to himself as he worked a powerful spell. "Frost giants are notoriously weak-minded. Time to hold them all." And with that he unleashed a chained hold monster spell, tendrils of magic extending from his hands and seeping into their minds.Terenon's triumphant smile quickly faded, though, as all four giants were utterly unaffected by the spell.Releasing ululating battle cries, the giants charged forward, crashing into the front ranks and delivering devastating cuts with their massive axes. Grundar, Rumar, and Taigiel each took a hit, their blood staining the snow red."You spread your energies too thinly, Terenon," Allanon commented, grinning. He worked a spell similar to Terenon's though he focused solely on the giant engaging Taigiel. As the giant froze in place, the wild mage shot the evoker an imperious look.In the thick of the melee, Taigiel snarled at the helpless giant. "I have killed many of your kind in the past, giant. You will not stop me from reaching Coldheart now!" Baring his vicious fangs, the half-dragon reared back and plunged his longsword deep into the giant's belly in a coup de grace. Taigiel tore the blade back out as the giant toppled backward, spilling entrails as it hit the ground with a resounding thud."Still fighting?" asked Jelani. "How about this?" He sent a coruscating ray of energy into the giant fighting Grundar, and the giant sagged noticeably as his strength was sapped from him. Seizing the opportunity, Grundar jabbed his rapier into the weakened giant, scoring two telling hits.The other giant raised its axe to bring it down upon Rumar again, but before it could complete its attack, Rhys completed another spell and the axe shattered into numerous fragments. The giant cried out in surprise and shielded his eyes as the fragments flew past his face."Ha!" Rumar barked as he flitted about, slashing at the unarmed giant with Pergium. "We have you outnumbered now and outmanuvered! Surrender now while you still have the breath to do so, lest I run you through!"The fourth giant, who had hung back thus far, called out a command and the two up front stopped fighting. As Grundar and Rumar lowered their weapons, the two wounded giants scurried back to a position of relative safety."We surrender," called the unwounded giant. "We did not expect you to be so powerful."----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Taigiel stared at the giants menacingly, growling low in the back of his throat. "We should not let them leave this place," he said. "They are evil to the core, and will bully and hurt more travelers if we do not deal with them." Terenon gave the halfbreed a stern look. "They have more use than food for vultures. To succeed against Acessiwal, we will need to use cunning, make alliances, and choose our battles."The half-dragon snarled louder as he loomed over the smaller wizard, but before it could come to blows, Rhys stepped between them. "Terenon don't criticize Taigiel for what he thinks," the priest told the mage. "I too don't trust the giants, but I do see the potential benifits that could come from an alliance with them against Acessiwal." Then he turned to Taigiel. "Taigiel, for one who'd been mistrusted all his life and considering the oath you swore, should not any aid, even form these evil giants, be considered valuable?" Both wizard and dragonspawn were silent for a few moments, then Taigiel spat on the snow and strode away a fair distance.Terenon nodded, then moved forward a bit and called out to the giants. "We wanted to speak with you, not fight. Choose to be our allies and we will crush Acessiwal together. Your kind will triumph over the dragons and his minions with our aid." The giant spokesman regarded his two fallen brethren, then turned to glare at Terenon. "The fallen have met a valiant end and our with our lord Thrym now. Bring them back if you wish, but we will not fight the white wyrm. Too many of our number have already fallen to his minions: we are on the verge of extinction, having to extort and raid travelers just to maintain our existence. We cannot risk it further." Terenon's eyes flashed with anger. "A valiant end?!? They died for nothing. Look at you, you cower like kobolds before us. 'Please don't kill us little ones.' You are not worthy of an alliance. The wyrm has stripped you of courage. You are not worthy to speak the name of Lord Thrym. You are not worthy of your heritage. If you don't have the heart for revenge or to see your clans powerful once more, then run like cockroaches before torch light.""If you seek their deaths, there is no better way than to belittle their pride and goad them into attacking," Rumar remarked as he strode to stand between Terenon and the giants. He favored the mage with a disapproving glare. "I had not thought you such a bloodthirsty person, Terenon. Do their lives mean so little to you? Are you that much better than them?"Clearing his throat, Rumar nodded at the giants. "If you will not help us, than you may take your dead and leave. Know that I will brook no more of these occurances though - hear I of continued robbery and murder and I will be more than willing to consider thee and thy clan a lost cause. My fury will be no less intense than if you were to attempt retribution upon as directly."The three giants stared daggers at Terenon, fists clenched. At Rumar's words, the spokesman nodded curtly. "We will not bother you further. You will have safe passage through our lands, at least from us. We will be on our way."The other two giants picked up the fallen ones, hefting them bodily over their shoulders. They then turned west and walk off into the icy plains.  Terenon shot a look at Rumar as the giants departed. The paladin seemed to be bound and determined to get under his skin. "I belittle nothing. They have no pride, Rumar. They have nothing to be proud of." The mage let his anger subside. The emotion was more about the waste of strong swordarms connected to the hearts of cowards, than anything else. "Yes, I am better than them. They serve no useful purpose. They provide no benefit to the world around them or to us.""Does my sister know of how little you value the lives of others?" Rumar replied. "How you would have slaughtered those for no reason other than you see no reason for them to exist and because they were unwilling to throw their lives away for our cause? How would she look on you now, twisted with anger and so certain of your own worth?"Rumar gestured in the direction the giant's have fled as he continued. "They are evil creatures, yet their lands have been shattered, their people slain; they are merely trying to survive. How they chose to deal with their situation was wrong, yet it does not merit them execution merely because you believe they do not serve enough purpose in the grand scheme of things. I would say that it is dubious at the end of the day whether or not you, nonetheless any of us, serve a benefit to the world around us. This is why I do not trust of you. This is why I will never approve of you, mage, or any relationship you may have with my sister. I fight to make it so ones such as they may perhaps live a better life one day, lifted from their squalor. Your reasons for battling often seem much less defined and prone to fits of emotion."And then, after all that, Rumar concluded things with merely a shrug, apparently having decided that is the end of that. "Let us continue. I have no desire to fall prey to those golems that only may still remain trapped within the snow and ice." As the paladin walked away, Terenon couldn't help but feel amused. Rumar obviously had some very strong feelings about him dating his sister. He wondered if the paladin would explode when he found out that he wanted to marry her. He let Rumar have the last word. It was the least he could do for his future brother-in-law. Maybe he would ask him to be the best man. "Looks like its going to get dark soon," Grundar commented, still unsettled by the confrontation between Rumar and Terenon. "We'd better find a place to camp for tonight."</blockquote>

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