Herald of Shalia 5

by Tamryn Tamer

  “Will they?” Frost asked with a smug grin.

  “Of course,” Shael said, her voice breaking slightly as she turned to face the group. “Just like we practiced! If anybody has any concerns let me know before we get started!”

  “I’m ready!” Gran bellowed while smacking his steel hammer against his massive tower shield. The iron-clad Durra definitely had the appearance of a sturdy tank.

  Frost nodded approvingly as he stared at the tanks getting in position. Plate armor was absurdly expensive but thanks to the blacksmiths in Pluma he was able to ensure that knights would be able to afford it.

  “We ready?” Penelope asked confidently while looking back at her group. The golden-haired Durra was only level twenty-six but with her equipment and some help from barriers she’d be able to take a hit or two from the enormous monster. The demihumans in her unit nodded as they drew their weapons and Penelope smiled excitedly. “We’re ready!”

  “What are we waiting for?” Smoke yelled, the muscular werewolf was the least armored of the group and carried a sword as well as a moderately sized kite shield. Instead of a full set of plate armor he wore chainmail and even convincing him to wear that was a struggle. He was probably more suited to be an assassin or a hunter but since most werewolves preferred to form their own groups for hunting, he became a knight. Despite his aggressive demeanor he was a surprisingly responsible leader.

  “Ready!” Julia shouted. The young violet-haired elf looked the least put together of the tanks. Her plate armor looked slightly oversized on her small frame and she was constantly fumbling with her equipment. But she did have an upbeat personality and an overabundance of confidence. “Let’s go! Let’s go! We can do it! Let’s go!”

  “You heard them,” Frost smiled while giving Shael a playful slap on the ass. “Don’t worry so much. You got this. You’ve been practicing for weeks and everybody trusts you.”

  “If you say so,” Shael said as she smiled at him. She raised her sword and pointed it toward the giant. “Slow and steady like we practiced. Now march!”

  Frost watched as the five groups began marching forward in unison while slowly spreading apart. The goal was to draw its attention toward one group while the others circled around it. After which they would rotate until it was dead.

  It didn’t take long for the ettin to notice them encroaching on his territory. It finished devouring a goat and turned its attention toward Shael’s group in the center. The heads simultaneously released a pair of mighty roars that echoed off the mountains and began sprinting toward the invaders.

  As soon as the ettin rushed toward Shael her group stopped moving. The other four groups sprinted toward the sides of the clearing to avoid its rush.

  “Come on!” Shael screamed as she activated her level six roar ability. It was a core ability of the knight class and functioned as both a mild taunt and a temporary buff, boosting her adrenaline while drawing the opponent toward her. The armored elf lifted her kite shield and braced herself against the ground. “Is that as fast as you can move you big stupid beast?”

  Insults were highly effective at drawing a monster’s attention when enhanced with a knight’s taunt ability. The taunt ability was only moderately effective against intelligent opponents but for monsters it worked phenomenally. The taunt ability triggered something in monsters that made them forget their surroundings and focus entirely on the one using the ability.

  Frost prepared to cast paralyze as the giant got closer to the group. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Shael to stop the attack but if things looked like they were going to go south he wanted to be ready to prevent any serious injuries.

  He knew from his battle with Herald Law that the right equipment could massively enhance a person’s power but from the same battle he also knew that the right equipment wasn’t enough to win. Which was why he insisted on chaperoning in the first place.

  “Now!” Shael yelled as the ettin reached back to swipe her. The elf knight twisted her body, directing her shield at the giant’s incoming arm as several small barriers formed in front of her. The arm smashed through the barriers as if they were nothing and landed against Shael’s shield, sending her flying a good thirty feet. “Go! Go! Go!” Shael shouted as she recovered and rushed back toward it, lifting her shield to take another hit.

  The other melee fighters were the first to attack, charging in and slicing at the ettin’s Achilles tendons. The ranged damage dealers quickly followed, releasing volleys of arrows and raining down spears of ice. The other four groups quickly followed, rushing in to attack the enormous monster while Shael had its attention.

  They didn’t get to attack long as the monster’s second head turned its attention on the melee fighters and began swatting at them.

  “Back off!” Shael commanded and the group quickly dispersed. The elf knight panted as a priest attempted to replenish her energy. “Ena! You’re up!”

  “On it!” Ena shouted as she activated her taunt ability. “Hey you with the two heads, one brain, and no balls! Over here!”

  The ettin roared and turned toward Ena as the holy knight cast her smite ability. The blast of golden holy energy smashing down onto the ettin’s shoulder barely seemed to register to the enormous monstrosity but it was enough for Ena to get its attention.

  “Go! Now!” Ena shouted as the monster rushed toward her. Ena cast several barriers over her shield while bracing for a powerful swipe. “Come on you brainless beast!”

  Erissa and the other supports quickly added several more barriers in front of Ena as the ettin came barreling in. This time the creature twisted its body, aiming to kick Ena as he smashed through the barriers. The elf braced herself and tilted her shield upward to deflect most of the blow. She went rolling backward several yards and quickly recovered. She kept hurling insults as the combatants attacked until the beast caught her with another attack.

  “Gran!” Ena shouted as she ran out of energy. “It’s on you!”

  “You got it!” Gran roared as he activated his taunt ability. The enormous Durra smashed his hammer against his shield and screamed at the ettin. “How about try that with me you big ugly bastard!”

  The taunt succeeded, drawing the ettin’s attention toward him. It quickly pivoted its body, exposing itself to the other groups as it rushed Gran. Despite his size, Gran was tossed even further than Shael or Ena when the enormous monster swatted him but he did his job as the rest of the raid group unleashed their spells on him.

  Frost watched as the groups rotated and recovered, each drawing its attention while the others recovered. Frost was impressed with how fluid their rotations were as the different groups each took their turns drawing the giant in. The strategy was working.

  They considered other strategies as well. They considered blinding the ettin but then it was likely the monster would lash out randomly making it harder to predict and increasing the chance that somebody got hurt. For similar reasons they decided not to utilize fog to hide the melee fighters. The last thing they needed was a fighter not seeing an incoming strike from the ettin because the fog blinded them as well.

  Other strategies wouldn’t work because of their levels. It would resist paralyze and ice magic so locking it into place wasn’t possible and even attempting to use ropes to trip it up would have more than likely resulted with those holding the ropes being flung into a nearby mountain.

  The best strategy they had given their level was to rotate while the group damaged the monster. Frost even tested the tanks to make sure they could each take powerful hits by charging his own attacks to around a level fifty’s and attacking them.

  He scanned the giant as he watched them continue their assault and its physical energy was dropping rapidly. While the raiders were also losing energy, the supports were helping them recover so they could get back in the fight.

  “Are you okay Julia?” Shael yelled in a concerned tone as the violet-haired knight went tumbling a good forty feet. “Do you need to swap?”

 
; “I’m fine!” the knight shouted back in a perky tone as she climbed to her feet. “Herald Frost hit us a lot harder than this!”

  “Okay,” Shael nodded. “One more hit then it’s back to me!”

  “Right!” Julia shouted as she prepared to take another of the giant’s strikes.

  The giant started to slow as the group continued to progress. The fighters on the ground were on the verge of severing its Achilles and he imagined the poisoned arrows were starting to take effect. The mages were also doing a good job keeping it from adapting by constantly rotating their spells and attack patterns.

  “My turn again,” Shael said as she rose to her feet and prepared for another bout with the monster but before she could the ettin let out a loud roar and fell to the ground as the melee group severed its tendon. The enormous monster tried to lift itself back up but in that position its heads and throats were completely exposed. A hail of arrows and ice magic rained down on one of its necks, instantly killing the head and half of its body. “Or not…”

  “Somebody stop that little bitch!” Ena roared while pointing at Renna.

  “Now!” Renna shouted as a pair of elementalists worked together to summon an earth platform, launching the green-haired elf into the air.

  “Like hell if I’m letting her get the killing blow,” Fayeth shouted as she began firing arrows at the ettin’s remaining neck. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

  “This one’s mine!” Renna reached into the enchanted satchel on her waist and pulled out a copper spear with a dark iron blade that was about twice the length of her body.

  The spear’s black blade was much longer than a normal one and appeared to have an axle at its center along with some extra side guards. The shaft was copper and lined with several glowing blue orbs. While airborne, Renna pressed her hand against the magical orbs and charged them with electrical energy no differently than she’d done when leveling her magic resistances.

  The spear charged with electricity and Frost instantly realized that the black blade wasn’t actually attached to the shaft of the spear. The blade was a magnetized metal and fought to distance itself from the copper spear but the axle prevented it from leaving and instead it began rapidly spinning, the speed increasing as Renna charged the copper with magic. The first and second gems in the spear shattered as they became depleted of electrical energy. The blade’s speed continued to increase and as the third and final enchanted orb shattered, Renna placed a foot on one of the side guards of the spear and came crashing down toward the skull.

  “Don’t let her get the credit! We’ll never hear the end of it!” Fayeth shouted.

  “Afraid this one is mine ladies!” Gran shouted as he tossed his hammer on the ground and pulled out an enormous war axe. The muscular Durra charged the axe with everything he had and brought it down full force into the ettin’s neck, finishing it off before Renna.

  A second later Renna’s new invention landed in the head, shredding through it like a hedge trimmer through long grass, except it was flinging flesh and blood instead of grass. Everybody within twenty feet of the enormous monster was covered in blood as Renna’s buzz-saw-like spear created a hole halfway through the monster.

  “Goddess damn you!” Ena yelled as she pointed at her plate armor. “Why? Why would you do that?”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Renna said while gesturing angrily at Gran. “He stole my kill!”

  “Not my fault you were too slow,” Gran said. The large blood-covered Durra lifted his axe in the air triumphantly. “Killing blow!”

  “Rigged!” Renna shouted. “Rigged! It has two heads! Why does only the second head count?”

  “You’re only saying that because you bet on yourself and lost,” Fayeth said cheerfully as she approached the enormous dead ettin. She cringed as she stared at Ena and the other melee fighters covered in blood. “You all know we’re miles away from the nearest proper bath, right?”

  “Nice job everybody,” Frost said while staring at the gory scene. He shook his head at Renna. “We’ve talked about this. Inventions need my approval and that one certainly doesn’t have my approval.”

  “What’s wrong with Twirlypogo?” Renna asked while struggling to rip the spear from the ettin’s head.

  “Besides the name?” Ena asked rhetorically.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Frost said while turning to Shael. “In the meantime, do you want to do the honors of harvesting it, Shael?”

  “Oh,” Shael smiled as she reached into her pouch and pulled out some harvesting gems. “Of course.”

  Ettins were essentially a type of giant and primarily broke down into two valuable materials. The first was giant bones which were extremely valuable in both alchemy and blacksmithing. The second were giant’s hearts which were basically large gemstones.

  “Herald Frost,” Mesime asked while pointing at the massive pile of bones and the gemstone. “What do we do with these?”

  “They’re yours to split,” Frost answered. “Ask Shael how you should divide them up since she led the group.”

  The group gathered around Shael as she began dividing up the giant’s bones between them but most of them had their eyes on the gem. After a bit it was clear that everybody was confused about what to do with the giant heart and Frost decided to approach the group.

  “The person who dealt the finishing blow should get the gem,” Gran suggested.

  “I agree,” his Myrran bookie said.

  Several of the others started arguing about how getting the last attack shouldn’t matter that much since everybody worked hard.

  “Frost,” Shael pointed at the massive gemstone and shook her head. “I don’t really know what we should do with this. We can’t really divide it up and I don’t think it’d be fair for only one person to get it.”

  “Well you have a few options,” Frost said as glanced around at the raid group. “You can just draw lots for it and then the person that wins can’t win again until everybody else has won once. Maybe make it so if the raid membership rotates from week to week that people that are more frequently raiding get priority. Something like that is an option. Another option is to store it at the adventurer’s guild until you find something you can all agree to use it on. You could also just sell it and split the proceeds. There are lots of options.”

  “But what’s the right one?” Erissa asked. The blue-haired elf priestess looked exhausted and was guzzling a recovery potion. “I mean, what do you think we should do?”

  “Hm,” Frost stared at the gemstone. The problem was that it was too large to embed in a piece of equipment and cutting it properly took a skilled jeweler. “You can either pay somebody to cut it into forty smaller shards that you can then have embedded in weapons and armor or you can sell it. Personally, I sell all of the ones I find. I know a jeweler in Blackwater that’ll buy them for ten thousand rel.”

  “Ten thousand rel!” an elf shouted.

  “That’s a lot!” Sarassalala said while looking at the gem. “Especially since we can sell the bones too!”

  “It’s only two hundred and fifty each once it’s split forty ways,” Frost chuckled. “Still, I suppose that’s not too bad.”

  “I can buy a really nice new dress with that,” Sarassalala said excitedly. The blue-haired lamia seemed to primarily hunt monsters so she could afford dresses and other beauty supplies.

  “Smarter to spend it on equipment,” Gran said while picking up his hammer. “This hammer was only a hundred rel. I wonder what a two hundred and fifty rel one would feel like.”

  “Okay,” Shael said excitedly. “That settles it! We’ll sell the giant’s heart!”

  “I suppose if that’s the case I’ll just buy it from you,” Frost said while stepping toward the massive gemstone. He picked it up and shoved it an enchanted bag he used for stuff he intended to sell later. It was almost always half full of monster parts that he had no use for. “If you all want to line up I can give it to you now.”

  “What?” an
elf tilted her head. “How?”

  “A-are you carrying ten thousand rel?” Mesime asked as her snake hair hissed excitedly.

  “Sure,” Frost nodded. “Let’s say I’m carrying ten thousand.”

  “Wow!” an elf said excitedly while lining up in front of him.

  “Do I even want to ask how much you’re actually carrying?” Shael whispered while stifling a laugh.

  “Definitely not,” Frost answered quietly as he pulled out his coin pouch and began dispersing rel. “Let’s get this finished.”

  Frost always wondered exactly how enchanted pouches worked but he never really got an answer from anybody. He put his hand in the pouch, activated his scan ability, and a menu showing all the items within the pouch appeared. From there he could reorganize the items as easily as he leveled up his abilities. All he needed to do was focus with intent to move or reorganize the items and they would move in the menu. If he wanted to withdraw a certain item all he needed to do was focus on that item with the intent to withdraw it. So, withdrawing exactly two hundred and fifty rel from a pouch dedicated to rel was quick and easy.

  “And here’s yours,” Frost said, dropping the coins into Shael’s hand. The redhead smiled as she placed them in the pouch hanging from her belt. “So, let’s kill some of these goats…”

  “But I’m tired…” one of the elves said.

  “We just killed a giant,” a tired Myrran agreed. “And killing all of the goats will take a long time.”

  “Personally, I would like to find a bath,” Ena said while dumping canteens of water on herself to wash off the ettin blood. “Why isn’t it raining now? The entire trip it rains on and off but now it’s just dark and cloudy!”

  “It’s really not that bad,” Fayeth said while keeping her distance. The entire ranged and support group seemed pleasantly amused with the melee group’s misfortune.

  “Seriously?” Frost sighed as he looked at the mountains surrounding the clearing. There were easily over two hundred goats climbing around on the ledges and he absolutely hated letting all of the meat, leather, horns, and fur go to waste. Mostly the fur since it was basically cashmere. “You know what, fine. I’ll do it myself.”