Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 189
The giants look at the downed Enormous Tundra Eye, aghast.
“Morningstar!” says Ernie. “You okay? Is your brain all there?”
“I think so,” says Morningstar. She blinks in the sleet, still unsure of herself. It was in her mind! It burns her inside to have had the tables turned like that.
And speaking of muddled minds, Kibi sees that six of the giants below him are clumped nicely together. He follows up his lightning bolt with a confusion. The giants look about stupidly.
“So, should we press the attack?” asks Snokas, looking askance at Morningstar, and still not sure what’s going on.
“Get down there and get ready to guard Flicker from any giants once we’re all solid,” she tells her cohort. Snokas looks at her. He looks at the beholder. He looks back at Morningstar.
“I’m sorry,” she says. And with a smile and shrug, adds “It winked its cute little eye at me!”
“Hey now!” thinks Dranko over the mind-link.
The wind-walkers all get to ground level (staying near the tower) and prepare for Morningstar to drop the spell.
Aravis, still feeling magic energy crackling on his fingertips, lands and readies a fireball for the crowd of giants if any of them advance on the group. He doesn’t have to wait long. One of them ambles a few steps closer and Aravis doesn’t wait to see if it’s aggressive or merely wandering in its confusion. A sonic fireball explodes around the giants. They wince in pain.
Four more giants, fresh and unconfused, arrive through the northern archway into the courtyard. The only visible enemy they can see is Aravis standing about forty feet away.
“Boss?” says Pewter, nervously. “You …er… see ‘em, right?”
“What do what me to do about them?” snaps Aravis.
The architecture of the archway allows Dranko to land on a wide ledge, just above giantish head-height. He looks down at the backs of the four newly-arrived giants, his fingers twitching with anticipation as he waits for the wind walk to drop.
From her flying position Kay fires arrows at one of the new giants. Three of them slam into its body. It looks annoyed.
Kibi spares Aravis a terrible pummeling by laying down a long wall of force, separating three of the newly-arrived giants from the rest of the battle. Being hasted, he then flies down to Flicker and makes the halfling invisible.
“There’s a wall of force up blocking off most of the newcomers!” he shouts in Charagan common.
Morningstar flies down to join the others on the ground and drops the wind-walk. She readies a flame strike if any of the hedged-out giants make a move to scale the wall of force.
Finally solid, Flicker fishes out the iron key from Eigomic’s basement. While he starts to feel around for the keyhole, Grey Wolf draws Bostock and charges the nearest giant. It takes a swipe at him as he closes but the huge club clangs off his shield. Bostock flashes with a flicker of blue light, and the sword speaks into Grey Wolf’s mind.
“It has been too long,” it hisses.
Aravis doesn’t wait for the giants to move again. A number of the confused ones are starting to fix their sights on him, and he knows that if they decide to attack en masse, he’s paste. He casts a cone of cold, catching all six in the frozen blast.
None of them drop. Aravis’ face twitches with apprehension. At this very moment there is nothing between him and a world of hurt. Most of them take a step in his direction…
“Aaaaaaaarrrrrggghhh!” With a wild cry, Step charges the giant closest to Aravis. He chops off one of its legs with a clean high sweep of his sword. Down goes the giant, its blood staining the icy ground.
Ernie charges too but it goes less well for him. He slips on the sleet-slick grass and slides into the feet of his chosen giant. A wild sword swing as he struggles to his feet goes wide, but he has at least gotten the giant’s attention. It looks away from Aravis and down at his tiny attacker.
Snokas distracts another giant by swinging his picks at its knees; again, though he fails to penetrate its armor and hide, he steals the giant’s focus away from Aravis.
The three giants on the other side of Kibi’s wall of force see Aravis only a short distance away and charge! Bonk! Bonk, bonk! Three giantish noses are crunched against the invisible barrier. But despite the comedy, these giants are no fools. Realizing that the barrier only comes up to their chests, two of them form cups with their hands and hoist the third over the wall. The thrown giant lands on the slippery grass, his feet go flying out from under him, and he falls on his rear.
At the same time, Eigomic arrives through the arch. Broad and strong and sporting his blood fox pelt, he surveys the combat and barks questions at his fellows. The closest giants clue him in to the existence of the wall of force. From Morningstar’s point of view his arrival is fortuitous, since he can be included in the flame strike. FOOM! Giants are singed, though Eigomic doesn’t seem much fazed.
Finally the giants attack. One of them strikes Grey Wolf with two crushing blows from its club. Another charges Morningstar, and although he glances off the wall of force and nearly loses his balance, he manages to keep his feet and bludgeon her. The giant looking down at Ernie brings his club down on the halfling’s helm, and follows it up with a golf-like swing that sends Ernie skidding back ten feet, knocked onto his back.
The fourth giant swats at Snokas, his closest target. Two almost contemptuous swings of the club send the half-orc reeling backward.
The fifth and sixth giants go for Aravis. Down come two huge clubs.
“Boooooossssss!” cries Pewter.
Wham! Wham! Aravis is pummeled, his bones jarred and his teeth rattling. He’s still standing after the assault, albeit badly wounded.
Dranko activates his sash of improved invisibility. Eigomic hears him speak the trigger word, but when he turns to look back over his head he sees… is that a faint humanoid outline in the sleet?
Snap! Eigomic catches the tip of Dranko’s whip right in the face, and he flinches away in pain.
Kay pulls back her bow and fires at one of the giants menacing Aravis. It’s a flawless shot, burying itself in the target’s forehead. The giant crumples. She shoots a second arrow into the side of the other of Aravis’ attackers. The second giant turns slowly and looks at her, forgetting about Aravis in its confusion.
“Got it!” shouts Flicker. He finds the keyhole and slips the key in. Perfect fit. Snick! A faint glow shines out from the invisible “door.” He puts his hand to the glow and pushes. The first thing he notices is that the texture is no longer stone. It’s cold and glassy, like pearl, or ceramic.
The second thing he notices is that it doesn’t yield. Nope. Not a bit. He pushes with all his might but it might as well still be stone for all the good it does. Using the key itself for as much leverage as possible he pulls at the door instead. Still nothing. Argh!
Grey Wolf sees that most of the remaining giants are bunched around the northern entrance to the courtyard. He signals to Aravis and Kibi that the time has come to inflict a spell combination that they’ve been cackling over for days. Then he activates his own vest of improved invisibility and shouts for Morningstar to get out of the way. Dranko is also in the likely area of effect, but his rogue-ish reflexes should keep him out of harm’s way.
“Don’t worry about me,” he calls. “If you have to get me inside, I can dodge.”
One Certain Step steps over the body of the giant he has just slain and moves on to the next one. His bastard sword flashes, and the giant is cut to ribbons. Ernie does the same to the giant that just clobbered him, carving up its shins and ankles until it falls over. Snokas swings his picks, but grumbles jealously when his giant fails to die.
Morningstar vacates the area near the giants; this draws an attack from one of them, but its back-swing hits the wall of force causing it to lose its balance and fall to the ground. When she reaches Grey Wolf’s side she uses a charge from her wand of cure serious wounds, which he desperately needs after his recent pounding.
Then the storm comes. Grey Wolf casts iron storm, centered in the midst of the giants a few feet above the wall of force. The area fills with whirling iron filings. The giants swat at them, taking minimal damage, while Dranko easily dodges them. Eigomic chuckles as tiny iron bits bounce off of him.
Kibi flies up and casts lightning bolt toward the area of the iron storm; no sooner has the energy left the dwarf’s fingertips when it is sucked into the cloud of iron filings, filling its area with crackling electricity. All of the giants roar with pain. One of them explodes into gibbets. Aravis follows up immediately with a chain lightning, its massive main blast sucked into the iron storm. The secondary bolts get caught up as well, intensifying the effect. Another giant explodes. The ones that remain look horribly damaged. Only Eigomic doesn’t look near death, but he’s obviously had better days than this one. The iron filings aren't quite so funny anymore.
Unfortuately Dranko is a mess. He has never had to dodge the effect of a charged iron storm before, and he fails on both of his first two attempts.
“Can you take another one?” shouts Aravis over the sleet.
Dranko looks at Eigomic. “I think I’ve got the measure of it now,” he gasps. “You can get Eigomic with one more! Do it!”
“You’re the one who wanted to be up there,” thinks Morningstar over the telepathic bond.
“I can’t help it,” thinks Dranko mischievously. “I like it on top.”
Aravis, hasted, fires off a second chain lightning into the iron filings. KABOOM! More giants are torn apart, limbs and chunks flying everywhere. Eigomic screams in agony and drops to one knee. Dranko topples from his perch and hits the ground, unconscious. His mind drops from the link.
“Congratulations, mages,” says Morningstar angrily. “You made a real big boom. Dranko’s down.”
Eigomic drops his club and raises his hands.
“Oom gah gah! Oom gah gah!” he yells. Three of the four giants still alive hear the instructions and surrender on the spot. Their expressions are of profound relief at not having to fight to the death.
The fourth giant doesn’t hear his leader over the pounding sleet. He swings his club and slams it into Snokas, springing several ribs and knocking the half-orc flat. Step, the closest to Snokas, sees what is happening. He already has serious misgivings about this battle and the death he has caused. This final giant’s life would be spared if only he could see or hear his leader’s order to surrender. Step lowers his sword, points at Eigomic, then kneels to Snokas and grants him the healing touch of his Goddess Kemma.
He is rewarded with a thundering blow to his shoulder.
Meanwhile Kay has flown over to where Dranko should be, retrieving a healing potion as she goes. Dranko’s invisible body is hard to spot, but the sleet makes it possible. She finds Dranko’s throat by feel and detects a fluttering pulse.
Flicker has given the glassy door of the tower a swift kick. “There must be a password!” he says. “Black Circle! Eye of Moirel! Seven Dark Words!…” he rattles off every plot-relevant proper noun he can think of, to no avail.
Ernie, his giant having surrendered, sheathes his sword and casts a healing spell on himself before going to help Flicker. With his greater strength he pushes on the door but still it doesn’t budge.
Snokas, healed by Step, springs to his feet. Step cannot stop him from plunging his picks into the giant’s legs. The final giant falls backward into a puddle of rainwater and blood. Step casts his eyes to the ground and prays for forgiveness.
…to be continued…
