The Land_Alliances

by Aleron Kong

  Richter rolled over and got to his feet at the same time that he heard a sucking noise. The rock giant had liberated its weapon and was now reaching towards him with its free hand. Not knowing what else to do, Richter cast Cloying Darkness. The cone of thickened darkness enveloped the giant’s hand and reached it body. The monster roared in surprise at having its vision obscured.

  Richter hopped backwards while pulling out his shadow high steel dagger with his left hand. He plunged the blade down into the giant’s questing hand. The special property of the weapon allowed him to ignore 10% of the monster’s armor. Where his imbued arrow had failed, the dagger penetrated the grey rocky skin ever so shallowly. The giant pulled back its hand quickly as the creature grunted in surprise. Richter knew that he couldn’t have done more than a few points of damage, but judging by the giant’s expression it was just confused by what had happened. It most likely had not suffered damage in some time.

  Richter stared at the rock giant while it stared at its hand. He slowly backed away trying to put space between the two of them. Alma flew overhead and Futen floated somewhere somewhere in the night, invisible. The giant held its fist above its face staring, until a large oil colored droplet fell onto its lips. Its smoke colored tongue tasted the blood and it finally realized what this strange sensation was. The little man had hurt it! It roared louder than ever and then fixed Richter with a vengeful gaze. All Richter had time to do was think, ‘oh shit!’

  It ran at him. Even though it was now slowed by his Dark spell, its large size still let it close with him quickly. Richter cast his hand forward and cast Charm, but the high mineral composition of the rock giant’s mind and body gave it a high natural resistance to the spell. The monster easily shrugged off the enchantment spell that was designed to target flesh and blood humanoids. He didn’t have time to waste being disappointed.

  The giant threw a fist at him and followed it by what would have been a hilt strike if the tree it held were a sword. Richter dodged right and then left, bobbing and weaving like he was fighting Deebo. He avoided both of the monster’s strikes, but didn’t see the rock foot that came at him afterwards. The giant had followed its first two attacks with a front kick. Richter was struck head on by a rocky foot almost the size of his body and flew backwards more than twenty yards before slamming into the trunk of a large elm.

  Richter struck hard against the tree, his body a good five feet off the ground. He fell to the earth, unconscious. The giant wasn’t done and started charging towards him with its tree raised. It resolved that its next strike would devastate the creature that had the audacity to draw its blood!

  Once again, Alma saved her master’s life. Buzzing in from behind the giant, she struck with Psi Blast. The monster roared in pain from the attack, but was barely staggered. The attack was enough to arrest its forward movement, though. She had only intended to halt the giant’s progress. Her movements had purpose and her actions were governed by strategy. This level of thinking would not have been possible before her master had increased his Psi Bond with her. She wouldn’t let this monster hurt her Richter!

  Capitalizing on the scant second she had before the giant recovered, her spell hastened body flew to her master. Blood leaked from his nose and his shoulder protruded forward in a way that didn’t look right to her. She cast Slow Heal. His nose stopped bleeding and some of the cuts on his face healed, but he still hadn’t awoken. Alma heard the first thud of the rock giant’s tread as it started back towards them. She didn’t know what else to do she laid her snout on his forehead and invoked Psi Blast!

  Richter’s consciousness had been nestling in a comfortable blackness to protect itself from the real world trauma his body had just experienced. Her attack shredded that comforting cocoon and injected jagged pain into his brain. Though Richter would never remember this facet of the experience, his subconscious likened Alma’s attack to a bloodthirsty koala kicking in his mind’s door and then crapping a rainbow made of acid onto his most precious memories. Incidentally, this was also the moment that Richter began to have an irrational hatred of eucalyptus.

  He sat up with a scream, one of his fists slamming into his head in a vain effort to attack his own brain because it was hurting him so much! His other arm didn’t seem to be working for some reason. He actually almost stabbed himself with his shadow dagger which was inexplicably still clasped in his hand somehow. The pain was not at all helped by Alma projecting the equivalent of a mental scream into his head.

  *Get up! It’s coming! You have to move!*

  Richter looked forward, conscious but still dazed, and saw a dark grey nightmare lumbering towards him with a roar issuing from its mouth. Barely able to comprehend what he was seeing he reacted on instinct to his favorite spell, Grease. His hand shot forward surrounded by a green glow. With an uttered word of power, his will manifested in the physical world. A circle of liquid the color and consistency of thanksgiving gravy appeared on the ground in front of the giant. His aim was off though! The rock monster was only caught in the edge of the spells AoE!

  One of its legs did crumple and it fell to a knee, but the rock giant maintained the rest of its balance by putting its weight on the leg that was not within the bounds of Richter’s spell. It was going to keep coming, he realized with horror! His fear triggered a surge of adrenalin that jumpstarted his addled mind and he remembered his new ring!

  Pointing his fist, he unleashed his stored spell!!!

  Nothing happened.

  Still staring at the monster that was almost back on its feet, he held his hand up in front of his face, shaking it in frustration. Why hadn’t the bloody ring worked? His mind clearing more by the second, he actually looked at his fingers and, with a flash, realized he had held the wrong hand forward. MotherFUCKER, he thought.

  Quickly correcting his mistake, he used his good hand to grab and raise his injured arm. The movement drove lances of pain through his shoulder, up his neck and into his brain. Bile rose in the back of his throat and tears leaked from his eyes. When he heard his bones grinding together, he had to fight the sudden urge to vomit all over himself. He was able to raise his arm enough though and invoked the spell held in his new Ring of Spell Storage. A second ring of brown grease appeared and this time, both of the giant’s feet were firmly in the bullseye. As it was already off balance, its other leg slipped and then, with a loud crash, it fell to the forest floor. Its body was too large to be held completely with the spells 10 foot AoE though and its arms were well clear. Richter knew he had only seconds. He had to run!

  Richter got to his feet, trying not to jostle his wounded shoulder. He was only partially successful and more tears sprung from his eyes unbidden and leaked down his dirty face. He was preparing to run in the opposite direction to the rock giant when he saw something illuminated by the balls of Far Light he had cast before starting the battle. His bow!

  The only problem was that the rock giant was directly in line with his weapon. Not letting himself contemplate the stupidity of his next action, he started rushing towards the thrashing monster. His high Agility let him cross the distance to the giant before it could react. He didn’t have time to run around the grease that had a cumulative AoE of almost twenty yards so he took the only avenue open to him. With Alma’s disbelieving scream piercing his mind, he jumped onto the back of the rock giant, using it as a bridge over the slippery film.

  The giant roared in disbelief. As he jumped from the giant’s back, Richter thought, I’ll give you something to yell about asshole. Not looking back, he uttered a word of power and threw his hand backwards. A red glow enveloped his fingers for the briefest of moments before a gout of flame shot forth. The jet of fire ignited the grease that the monster was lying in and for the first time, Richter heard it scream in pain. It was music to his ears

  He didn’t waste time looking back, but just collected his bow from where he had dropped it. He quickly shoved it into his Bag of Holding, the space folding magic of the Bag allowing the large weapon
to disappear into a much smaller space. Then he ran off into the night. Every step shot pain through his broken arm, but he dared not slow for he could already hear the thuds of the giant as it set off after him.

  Alma flew above, mentally shouting invectives at him. He felt like he deserved it when she called him ‘stupid’ and ‘dummy.’ When she called him ‘pig fucking gyoti’ though, he started wondering if increasing ANY female’s ability to criticize him had really been a good life decision after all.

  CHAPTER 15

  Richter ran through the forest his heart pounding. His shoulder was definitely dislocated, but thankfully nothing white and jagged was poking out of his skin. That did not mean that his arm didn’t feel like a tic tac box with shards of glass in it. Because it did!

  His Night Vision spell kept him from running blindly into trees, but he was running fast enough that he still fell multiple times. The pain in his arm flared with every misstep, almost making him pass out a time or two. The sound of the rock giant crashing through trees behind him though, always brought him back to his feet.

  He knew he wasn’t running as fast as he could have because of his shoulder, so when he got a fair lead, he decided to do something about it. Running up to the trunk of a stout tree, he screwed up his courage. Giving himself a few test swings, he practiced slamming his shoulder into the tree Lethal Weapon style. He counted off, “One, Twooo,” a faint whimper escaped his mouth with the word ‘two.’ He didn’t stop his rhythm though, and with a mighty surge he slammed his shoulder into the tree and said, “THRREEEE!”

  The pain that had felt like a constant horrible burn exploded like a supernova. Waves of impossibly hot plasma like pain assaulted his consciousness and stars colored his vision. He dropped to the ground as an undignified and somewhat ladylike scream ripped itself from his throat. Looking over at his shoulder which still protruded forward awkwardly, he wailed to the heavens, “Well that didn’t work at ALL!” Another whimper escaped his lips, but the sound of breaking branches and a heavy tread reached him, and he knew it was time to run again.

  Despite his injury, Richter’s magic enhanced speed exceeded the rock giant’s despite their disparity in size so keeping ahead was not a problem. Unfortunately, this was a marathon, not a sprint. His endurance just couldn’t keep up with the rock giant’s relentless pace. Struggling to do so precipitated several near death experiences during Richter’s bleak flight through the dark forest.

  Once, he made the mistake of looking backwards to see how close the giant was. When he looked forward again, he slammed his face smack dab into a tree branch and fell to the ground, dazed. The monster’s thuds grew ever closer and by the time Richter was back on his feet, it was barely ten yards away. As he started running he had to dive forward because it threw its tree at him. The monstrous club flew wide thankfully and crashed into a stand of evergreens. The brush with death was close enough that it felt like his heart was trying to leap free of his chest and put just a bit more space between it and the giant. The pain in his shoulder had flared again when he hit the ground, but his adrenaline let him keep going. Richter got back up and kept running with the disappointed howls of his pursuer driving him to greater speeds.

  A second time, the rock giant put on an unexpected burst of speed, and made a swipe that caused Richter’s cape to furl from the near miss. He only saved himself by blindly throwing himself down an embankment. He rolled faster and faster until he landed with a bone jarring, breath stealing thud. As he fell, he heard the rock giant tumbling down the slope after him, no more in control of its descent than he had been.

  His breath had exploded from his lungs upon his landing and try as he might he couldn’t get back up immediately. As he worked to inflate his chest, he expected to be crushed at any moment by a giant rocky hand, but it didn’t happen. When he could finally breathe again, he looked over and saw the giant flailing about. Its incredible weight had driven its legs into the ground up to its waist. It struggled and strained to free itself from the mud. Still laying on his back, Richter began to laugh, no more than a few yards from the giant. No more than a few yards from what he had come to think of as death incarnate. It wasn’t just the absurdity of the situation that brought on his temporary insanity, it was also that his shoulder had struck a large rock while he was bouncing down the hill. Amazingly, the collision had driven the bone most of the way back into the socket! Even partial relief from the constant excruciating pain was enough for him to want to celebrate!

  He laughed in weak sputters, as the air in his lungs still wasn’t up to the task of a full chuckle. Getting back to his feet, he gave the giant the finger. There was no way the monster could have understood exactly what the gesture meant, but it obviously still took it as an insult. With a mighty roar, it put both hands on the ground and pushed. One leg came partially free.

  “Gaaaahh!” Richter exclaimed. He extended his hand and cast Charm again and he tried Troubled Sleep, but the enchantment spells had no more effect this time than the last. The giant had one knee up on the ground now and was straining to free its last leg. Richter screwed up his face and gave it the finger again before taking off once more.

  He ran as far and as fast as he could. Initially, he tried to head east, but fallen trees and irregular terrain made that impossible. At one point he had to turn north and then west as a sheer rock wall loomed in front of him. He would stop when his stamina began to deplete and move forward at a fast walk. During these times he tried to consult his map and come up with a game plan, but the giant was never far behind. How it tracked him, Richter had no idea, but even though he continually gained a small lead it followed him unerringly. When he could hear the snapping of branches he knew it was time to sprint again. While he sped through the night, all he could think about was surviving and not falling. In depth examination of the map was impossible with his breath coming out in wheezes and lava circulating in his legs. He just kept running.

  Richter burned through the stamina potions he had taken from Orvin over the course of the night. He tried to space them out and just let his stamina recover naturally, but the rock giant’s pursuit was as sure as taxes. The lead he obtained with his greater speed was never enough to replenish his stores when he rested. He was forced to drink the green stamina potions with greater and greater regularity.

  Only two stamina potions were left when he noticed something out of the ordinary. His new tracking ability had shown him the passage of many creatures during his flight. He was down to his last two green potions when he saw a track that caught his attention. The tracks of the animals glowed ever so faintly. It would never be enough to see by, but it made it much easier to see and follow specific tracks. These tracks glowed as well, but a touch brighter than the others he had seen. There was also something familiar about them, though he didn’t know where he had seen them before. With no other option presenting itself, he decided to follow the trail.

  Richter only paused for one moment to determine which direction the tracks led. The creature’s prints had claw marks on one end so he followed that direction. It led him north and east which was generally where he wanted to go anyway so he took it as a good sign. The giant caught sight of him and roared. Its footfalls came faster. A quick analysis showed that it had more than half of its stamina left. Cursing, he took off again.

  “Futen,” he panted.

  A disembodied voice answered, “Yes, my Lord.”

  The fact that the remnant was able to keep pace without feeling the agony Richter was living through made him hate Futen just a bit. He pushed that down though. “Look ahead and see if there is a place for me to hide. Come back quickly!”

  Richter heard another ‘Yes, my Lord.’ After that nothing, so he assumed that the grey orb had moved off silently to do as he was bid. Alma continued to fly above him through the trees. At first, she had dive bombed the rock giant unleashing Psi Blast, but it had barely slowed the giant. After one close call where she had narrowly avoided being caught in its huge hands,
Richter commanded her to just fly above him. It wasn’t worth the risk.

  Richter continued to follow the tracks. Over the next half hour, he used almost all of his stamina potions. Futen came back several times to report he had found nothing and each time Richter sent him forwards again. He was looking around for a place to make his last stand when Futen spoke.

  “I have found a cave, my Lord.”

  Richter didn’t have much left inside him so he simply gasped, “Show me.”

  The grey orb appeared. Richter cursed as the soft light burned in his Night Vision enhanced sight. Luckily, Futen’s inner glow wasn’t bright enough to blind him. He dismissed his spell and continued to run. After another few minutes, he was greeted by an amazing sight. A black hole was set into the side of a rocky hill. The cave opening would be way too small for the rock giant, he thought with the glimmer of kindling hope.

  The thuds grew louder behind him. His stamina was nearing depletion. He had found that he couldn’t actually run himself unconscious, but his low stamina made him feel like it was a constant and imminent threat. He had been running on ‘E’ for the past minute or so and the rock giant was closing in for the kill. Richter didn’t hesitate. He ran up to the hill and dove through the black opening, hoping it was empty.

  Alma flew in after him and Futen floated in as well. The remnants light showed Richter that his first assumption was wrong. He wasn’t in a simple cave. He had entered the mouth of a tunnel. Even if the sun had been out, it would have been an easy mistake to make because directly in front of him was a blank wall. The tunnel continued through a large crevice in the floor. A black chasm, two feet across, was located at the back of the cave. Richter couldn’t see anything, but he could hear wind whistling as it traveled ever farther down the tunnel. It registered to Richter that if he could see the inside of the cave, then anyone or anything could, which meant…